Predictability
By Tom Jacobs
Will I meet that special someone? Will I get the promotion I’ve been promised? Will my [family member] get off my back/stop arguing with me/give me a break?
What can astrology answer? Astrology deals in energy, and when astrology is spoken in its most useful form, it’s a language of themes and choice. When Pluto, for example, comes around by transit, doom isn’t guaranteed, contrary to popular belief. What is indicated is irrevocable change. It usually looks like a lot of hurt, and behind that is the opportunity to look at something deep in you in a new way, or perhaps for the first time. The energy of Pluto isn’t by definition about hardship and loss, but things can get hard and our reactions to the prompt to look at things we don’t want to see can manifest situations that seem to say so.
What we choose is central to everything. How we experience life is based in the choices we make, both conscious, subconscious and unconscious. Regardless of why we do what we do, our reactions to what happens around and in us determine much. With a Pluto transit, for example, something major must change. I liken it to deep soil being tilled, overturned and, ultimately, being left on top. The process can be wrenching. But the opportunities to give hitherto-hidden parts of ourselves air, light and water are priceless – new growth cannot occur if the soil is never tilled. Pluto transits can be the most intense of any transits, but there is always an opportunity to leave something that doesn’t work behind and learn to plant new seeds.
I’ve had a couple of readings by a Jyotishi, a practicer of the ancient Indian astrology called Jyotish, and I’ve studied the system. I respect the predictions made by those working with that system if they honor a truth built into the system, just as ancient: We can choose to live in harmony with the universe by respecting the various planetary energies and how we’re affected by them. For every difficulty enumerated, there is a remedy to prescribe. These range from the wearing of gems to the chanting of mantras, offerings of foods of certain kinds, and wearing of certain colors.
Western astrologers offering prediction of specific events and experiences, on the other hand, seem to me sometimes suffering from a case of trying to give the people what they expect. Woven into contemporary cultural understanding of astrology is a good deal of detritus left over from a long time ago, when specifics of astrology were taken for generalties: Jupiter in the 1st house makes you tall or fat, Mercury in the 8th house makes a person untrustworthy, a liar or obsessed with sex and death, etc. Meaning that some people with Jupiter in the 1st were tall and/or fat, some people with that Mercury placement were liars, and the idea that the planets represent energy and not specific realities and eventualities was forgotten.
So, then, energies are happening. That’s what we’re talking about when we speak astrology. But what about something you might want to know: Will you meet that special someone this year? The way to look at this astrologically is to look at the relationship energies in your natal chart and the transits and progressions for the present and the coming year. In evolutionary astrology, we look at astrological influences without judging them as good or bad, as the system is rooted in the understanding that the very reason we’re incarnated on earth is to progress through levels of experience and understanding, to learn. A surge in relationship energy could be present or on the way, but whether or not you meet a special someone rests on the choices you make, based on the emphasis on relationship energy.
The experiences we have as lessons along our journeys don’t fit particular scripts. If a lesson is to learn for example the value of security, what the person uses to feel secure will be threatened or, at worst, erased, but what constitutes security will vary from person to person. For some, it’s stable employment, for others a solid home, or perhaps family life. For still others, it can be reputation or esteem. A challenge to the sense of security can take any number of forms, depending on the person and his or her unique individual journey.
I offer that what we can prediect using the tools of Tropical astrology is that energy is coming down the pike, on its way, around the bend; that things fitting with certain symbolism happen at different times in our lives, and that we can chart the landscape of them by looking to the stars. What the events fitting the symbolism look like we can never predict, and how we respond to them we also can never predict, as people possess and use this amazing thing we call free will – human choices are what advance humans along their human journeys.
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June 22, 2007 By Tom Jacobs