Stellar Astrology, Vol.1

When I picked up my first astrology book four decades ago, little did I know what effect it would have on my life. Almost immediately, after calculating my chart, I got a glimpse of my Self-realization – that I might become, not only the writer whose first tentative efforts were finding their way onto paper, but also an astrologer.

Since then, I’ve pursued that tandem track throughout the rest of my life, even during and despite two decades of corporate servitude in the interests of all that is mundane in most people’s lives – the need to provide income, housing, education and other necessities for both myself and my family.

Astrology opened doors in so many ways for which I am grateful. I visited places I might never have gone except in the pursuit of my studies. I made valued and lasting friendships among my fellow students. I studied with remarkable teachers whose words enlightened, inspired and guided me.

Truly, jyotish is the science of light – one that illuminates both what lies within and what lies without. I thank my teachers for having shown me the way, my fellow students for joining me on the journey, and my clients for having shared so much of their experiences and confirmed the insights of astrology.

Per ardua ad astra.

ESSAYS

Monday I had Friday on my mind

Most people never think about it, but every day of the week is associated with one of the seven visible planets. Our ancestors acknowledged their role in our lives, and named the days in their honor.

Sunday, named for the Sun, is associated with power. It’s the day to pursue ambitions, organize events, seek favor from authorities, extend reasonable loans, advance education, sign or register documents, and enter business partnerships related to administration or government. Planning a coup? Make it a Sunday, when the President is sleeping in.

Monday, for the Moon, supports nurturing. It’s a good day to socialize with women and youngsters, use intuition, pursue romance, make public speeches, travel by water, buy or sell food, household articles and ornaments, or start a business related to hotels or restaurants. Love your Mom? Buy her a new dishwasher on Monday.

Tuesday (French: mardi), deferring to Mars, often entails conflict and cruelty. So it’s the day to fix targets, take action, give orders, administer discipline, file lawsuits, declare war, purchase land, or start a business related to machinery, engineering, or heavy transport. Hate your siblings? On a Tuesday, file a lawsuit alleging mental cruelty.

Wednesday (French: mercredi), honoring Mercury, invokes communications and commerce. It’s the day to write letters, sign documents, memorize things, gather new ideas, engage in commerce, study, make speeches, purchase lottery tickets, stocks or bonds, or start a media-related business. Writing a bestseller? Whip it off on a Wednesday.

Thursday (French: jeudi), favoring Jupiter, is about luck and creativity. It’s the day to ask for favors, pursue legal matters, religion, philosophy, invest in your future, create a child, travel, enter contracts including marriage, or start a business related to travel, education or publishing. Starting a new religion? Publish your manifesto on a Thursday.

Friday (French: vendredi), in honor of Venus, favors arts and luxuries. It’s the day to entertain, pursue romance, use charm to further your ambitions, be artistic and creative, purchase jewelry and ornaments, decorate, buy a vehicle, or start a business in fashion, art, cosmetics, or entertainment. Declaring your love? On a Friday, buy your sweetie a jewel-encrusted luxury vehicle.

Saturday, on behalf of Saturn, brings aging, labor and the unpleasant realities of life. It’s the day to assume responsibilities, take your time, expect delays, make long-range plans, or start a business related to mines and metals, insurance, agriculture, antiques, funeral homes. Digging for gold? Break ground on a Saturday.

Seriously, how can you use such information in a practical way? A general rule is to take care of the dirty work on days of the malefic planets – Sunday, Tuesday and Saturday. But if you want to negotiate anything or ask for favors, choose a communication day of the benefic planets – Wednesday or Thursday. Or if you want to promote love or affection, choose a relational day of the benefic planets – Monday or Friday.

This especially applies to weddings. Marriage is about love and affection, and the traditional choice of Saturday is practically the worst day of the week, because Saturn is cold and distant, exactly the opposite of marriage’s objectives – closeness and warmth. So if you want marriage to last, try to schedule the wedding for a Friday, the day of Venus ruling affection, love and sexuality. And don’t forget the diamond-studded sports car.

Do you, Jennifer, take this juniper…?

Jyotish, the science of light, otherwise known as Vedic Astrology, gives foresight, insight and hindsight into all affairs of mankind.

It can also lead us into some alternative points of view, where problems and their solutions are seen in the light of a different model. It’s not that jyotish controls life, but it has a unique way of interpreting it.

An astrological birth chart is a map of your karma. It indicates inherent dispositions, what an ayurvedin (Vedic physician) would call prakruti, or essential nature – which for ayurveda’s purpose is mostly physical, although related to personality.

On quite another level, jyotish is often used to identify and assess the inherent disposition – and progression – of the psyche that animates the physical body. Jyotish is particularly interested in what life experiences the spirit or soul seeks in order to feel fulfilled, and what fruit it plucks from the tree of life.

We sometimes see in a birth chart that the 7th house of relationships is weak, meaning partnership and marriage will bring unhappiness. But just as there’s a place in the chart to find the first marriage, there’s another for the second or third marriage. And if that house is strong, it promises happiness.

Suppose my client Jennifer is single but has a weak 7th house, meaning her first marriage will be unhappy. But she has a strong second house, meaning her following marriage would be happy.

Hmm… If marriage were like a series of meals, she could rush through one to get to the other. But marriage is a contract with another person, and in the real world, that relationship ends only in death or divorce. But Jennifer doesn’t want to get divorced.

Faced with such a dilemma, the jyotishi must devise a symbolic act. In the Vedic world, ritual is a living tradition. And although one half of the world might call this magic, the other half understands it is simply an attempt to influence something on another level.

An upaye is a ritualistic act intended to satisfy logic at a causal rather than a phenomenal level. If we accept the premise that every action is preceded by a thought, we admit that thoughts can change the world. So when thought is accompanied by action and strengthened by intention, we really are causing a ripple. And sometimes that’s all it takes.

Suppose the above is our client’s hypothetical birth chart. Note the 7th house hammered by malefics — occupied by Sun and Rahu, Mercury made malefic by association, and all aspected by both Mars and Saturn. For icing on the cake, the 7th and 8th lords are in exchange. Granted, it’s a mess, and so we expect the first marriage to result in unhappiness.

By contrast, note the 2nd house which, being 8th from the 7th, signifies the death of the first marriage and the birth of the second marriage. Jupiter is in its own sign, associated with a full moon, and aspected only by Venus. It’s a dream come true! And so we expect the second marriage to bring happiness.

Seeing this, the jyotishi would like to facilitate a symbolic first marriage, see the death of it, and then let his client get on with her happy prospects as shown in the second marriage.

Thus inspired, he sets aside Jennifer’s chart and goes to the nearest gardening centre. There he picks the runt from a litter of shrubs and at the next opportunity, introduces it to Jennifer. She pays for the shrub, and a brief courtship follows. On the next dark moon, the jyotishi performs a wedding.

(Kids, don’t try this at home. If you want a marriage to succeed, do it when the moon is relatively full, between first quarter and a day after the full moon. Remember, in Jennifer’s case only, the jyotishi intentionally engineers a bad start to a marriage by conducting it on a new moon.)

After the wedding, Jennifer takes the shrub home and places it in her bedroom. She waters it, she talks to it, she reveals her naked body to it, she kisses it good night.

She waters the shrub for eight months, and then she waters it no more. The shrub begins to die – its limbs droop, its leaves wither. She cries the day she knows it’s over. Jennifer is now a widow.

Jennifer cremates the remains of her first husband and enters a period of mourning. Then she starts dating again and, within a season, finds the love of her life – the second husband who was promised by the strong second house in her birth chart.

And just in case that one doesn’t stick, we can always look at Jennifer’s ninth house for her third marriage. (Subsequent marriages are always seen eight houses away from the house that signifies the preceding marriage.)

Now, in fact, I’ve described this in a light-hearted manner, all in the name of infotainment, but the practice is entirely real. In India, where modernity sleeps with the ancient without guilt, a number of Bollywood actresses over the past few years have had doomed first marriages arranged with peepul and banana trees, or clay urns, all of which were divorced or came to a sorry end, simply to make way for a better mate next time around.

But does this work every time? Absolutely. One of my clients has invested in a nursery, and another now lives in the woods.

The Moon also rises

Is there anything more cursed in the life of an astrologer than a client without a birth time?

Granted, it’s a splendid scapegoat that allows us to tell the client, Gosh, without knowing your ascendant, I can’t really tell if you’re ever going to get married, but for most of us who take our roles seriously, we’d actually prefer to offer some sort of prognosis and/or counsel.

Certainly, specific issues like Will I ever get married? beg for the application of horary astrology, but that’s not the topic du jour. Whether or not a horary chart will resolve the marital question, we’d still like to have something approximating the natal chart to get a reading on all the other spoken/unspoken themes in the life of that client.

In western astrological practice, the traditional alternative is to prepare a solar chart. Typically, this means calculating the birth chart for the time of local sunrise, which places the sun exactly on the ascendant. An alternate method is to calculate the birth chart for noon, ie, the half-way point of a calendar birthday that’s measured from midnight to midnight. Then we manually rotate the chart to place the Sun in the position of the ascendant.

The only real difference between these two options is that in the approximate six hours between sunrise and noon, the Moon will move about three degrees of arc. That could move the Moon in or out of orb in certain aspects, but the rest of the planets will be little affected, and you’ll have a reasonable proxy for an accurate birth chart.

Vedic (Hindu) astrologers apply a different strategy, and one that western astrologers could as easily adopt. In Vedic astrology, the Moon sign is far more important than the Sun sign. Not only does the Moon drive the system of planetary periods unique to Hindu astrology, but it is seen as more descriptive than the Sun of the client’s physicality, personality and psychology. The Moon represents our emotional mind, a sort of operating system that records and assesses all sensory input, and has a huge influence on our likes/dislikes, our day-to-day personality, and our relationship with the world around us. By contrast, the Sun has more to do with our ego, ideals and projections on the world.

Furthermore, the Moon is a more potent individuating factor than the Sun. The reason we want a birth time in the first place is so we can launch our interpretation from the most dynamic, ie, fastest-moving, factor in the chart. The ascendant changes every two hours. Knowing it helps us make distinctions between people born on the same day. In the absence of knowing the ascendant, the next fastest-moving element in the chart is the Moon. Launching our interpretation from the Moon-as-ascendant helps us make meaningful distinctions between a dozen Aries-born spread over the period March 21st to April 20th.

So how do we prepare a Moon-rising chart? If the client has some idea of birth-time, say sometime in the afternoon, then we can define afternoon as Noon to 6pm, split the difference and guesstimate the birth-time as 3pm. If the client doesn’t have a clue whether his/her birth was morning, noon or night, then we calculate the chart for noon. In either event, once you calculate the chart, rotate it