Astrology is a Symbolic Language
By Tom Jacobs
When it comes down to it, there are potentially as many astrological interpretations as there are interpreters. It’s an interpretive art…an interpretive art based in science. This goes against the way we’re conditioned to think, as our social control mechanism has or would have us require a subject be either art or science, and we can be lead to assume there can be no middle ground between the two. We’re also conditioning each other to be on the lookout for the smallest possible packet of information that can answer the broadest of questions, as though any shorter answer is necessarily better than longer ones.
I’m inspired to write on this because of my response to being asked frequently what [planet x] in [sign y or house z] means. Generally, someone who asks this question expects to hear a single sentence or maybe two in response, one that gives them a bit of footing to understand that bit about themselves. The answers I give I hope leave doors open for the querent to see that it’s an intersection of energies, the way one energy works when through the lens of/in cahoots with another.
There is no single meaning of [planet x] in [sign y or house z], no matter what you insert in there. There just isn’t. Of course we’d feel a little more at ease if there were simple, standardized answers to all such questions; if there were some objective statement about who we are. Each person, however, is enormously complex, and as long as we expect there to be simple, standardized answers to these sorts of astrological questions, which are questions about persons, we miss seeing part of the miracle of life that’s running around in the form of each person. Part of the value in astrology in my eyes is that as a language of life itself, it can be used to inspire people to come to think, or return to thinking, creatively, which is to say filled with the feeling of being alive.
The astrological literature that offers specific interpretations in this vein, what I’ve heard called “cookbooks” (books with chapters devoted to delineating each planet in each sign and house, etc. – everything is spelled out), may have the best intentions of offering more digestible information to as great an audience as possible, or perhaps other intentions involving maximizing sales (or some combination of the two), but the result is the spreading of the common misperceptions that standardized answers to astrological questions exist and can be found.
But wait a minute - if such answers could be found, would you want them? Would you want to hear that [planet x] in [sign y or house z] means [specific thing a]? Would you want to hear that you’re always going to have difficult experiences at work (a negative traditional view of natal Saturn in the 6th)? That you’re self-centered (Sun in Leo)? That you’re easily confusable (Mercury conjunct Neptune)? Would it actually help you to hear anything of these things? And don’t we hope that astrology will help us? Maybe there are some people who would want to hear these things, but I’d rather use an astrology that helps you understand yourself and invites you to feel alive as you are, and not one that boxes you into prepackaged descriptions. The other side of that, incidentally, is to investigate the opportunities and lessons inherent in any of those placements, based on the energies involved, but we have to get past the expectation that the cookbook interpretations will answer everything.
The real issue I’m trying to get at, I suppose, is that astrology will not bring you meaning. Astrology is a symbolic language, and that means that it’s a tool. As long as we’re looking for it to provide meaning (via stock interpretations that [planet x] in [sign y or house z] means [specific thing a]), we’re going to come up short. We’re going to encounter so many different specific interpretations that we won’t know what to believe. The-6th house Saturn example from above, for example, will also be represented in the traditional literature as difficult uncles, a prediction of arthritis, a career in nursing/nannying/caretaking - the list goes on and on. It should be noted that these things are possible manifestations of the intersection of Saturnian and 6th-house energies, but none of them will give you what you’re probably actually looking for, i.e., help concerning how to live on earth.
For myself, I had to decide what I believed in order to be able to use astrology for anything. When I began my study, the subject matter looked like a mess of contradictory predictions. I was gathering data and truly expecting to find some central thread of sense running through the literature, but there wasn’t. I realized that I knew it could be useful for something, I just knew it, so I had to figure out what that is. Time with that lead me to the understanding that astrology cannot provide meaning independent of a person’s provision of meaning. So, I decided to home in on what meaning I want it to have.
I realized that I believe that people have choice and can change their lives if they want to and are willing to work with available and present energies, and that we’re little slivers of spirit incarnated on earth and bouncing into each other (sometimes haphazardly), experiencing what it is to be spirit temporarily in the form of matter with all manner of ups and downs along the way. This is just where I’m coming from, and it could in fact be anywhere, as long as I have some idea. It’s that there needs to be a guiding principle, or it’s all just a mishmash of contradicting information. My guiding principle, then, is that people can be helped by increasing understanding, and that they can live richer, fuller, happier lives, however they define these terms, if they open to understanding the play of energies of life.
What is it that you want astrology to do? What really matters to you? What do you want astrology to tell you about life and the world?
The sort of astrology I practice is called evolutionary astrology, and in effect aims to assist and honor the journey of a person’s soul. This approach insists on treating a person as complex and dynamic as she is, and doesn’t offer room for pat answers. In my experience, unless there’s a terribly strong interest in maintaining the status quo, the ideas, vocabulary and flavors of evolutionary astrology speak to people unlike any other astrological approach. And, it turns out, people respond well to being treated like people.
If you’re tired of the [planet x]-in-[sign y or house z]-means-[specific thing a] trap, check out a dynamic approach like evolutionary astrology. It doesn’t have to be evolutionary astrology, but let it be one that doesn’t paint anyone into a corner, one that treats people like people.
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October 6, 2006 By Tom Jacobs