Note: If there are astrological terms that you do not understand consult my glossary.
Introduction
The help that can be expected by horary astrology is self-evident, it answers to a question that is relevant to us: will this course help me finding a job? Yes. Will the weather be good the day when I am programming to do a grill party with my friends? No, it will pour down.
It can be less clear what natal astrology can give us instead: ok, I have a picture of myself, of my personality, of my life and now what I do with it? Do I hang it on the wall?
Of course not, natal astrology, and the predictive one, can be useful in different ways.
Potentialities
Already seeing ourselves from outside, by astrology or other disciplines, can help in becoming conscious of some aspects of ourselves, this sometimes is already a substantial help to change our behaviour and improve we and our behaviour.
To become conscious, to understand, to come finally to see what was always in front of us but that we were too inattentive to notice is already an important step.
Obviously this is rarely enough, let us see some situations that benefits from a greater interaction with the astrologer.
Usually everybody expresses in a more or less spontaneous way the characteristics shown in the birth chart, for example who has Mars in the 5th house, that is tied to hobbies, fun and pastimes, according to the situation of this planet (and of the chart as a whole) will be predisposed to practising martial arts, playing strategy games, reading books on military history or indulging in other activities linked to this planet. But sometimes happens of being subjected so strongly to the influence of some elements of the birth chart that others, as much important they can be, stay neglected, still leaving the feeling that something is missing, that we are incomplete.
In this case discussing of the problem with an astrologer can be useful to gain a better focus on what is missing and how to integrate it within ourselves.
For example a person with a strong influence from Saturn and the 10th house could be overly serious, responsible and devoted to his job; he could have also a playful side tied for example to Venus or Mercury in Gemini, but maybe he hadn’t given a place in his life to this aspect. A consultation with an astrologer can facilitate the discovery of this element and its integration with his way of being, for example fostering an ironic, logical and well structured sense of humour.
We can have also the case of being well aware of a characteristic of our life or of our personality that we want to change, this is often the case when the influence represented by a planet expresses itself in an unproductive way, or when we try to suppress it, but this has to manifest itself in a way or another and the way it manages to act could indeed be unpleasant.
In this case astrologer and querent can look together for a context compatible with the life of the subject and that allows to the influences present in his birth chart to express in the best way.
For example a person in whose life are frequent unpleasant events linked to manipulation, could find a significant improvement cooperating with a consumers’ rights association active against frauds and deceitful advertising.
With predictive astrology it is possible to see how the influences will act on a person in the future and understand how to best harmonize with them, so that they can flow with as few attrition as possible and, if they are positive ones, with the best benefits.
For example I know of a person that in a particular year should have faced hard themes related to self-destructive behaviours, drug abuse etc… and in that year that person acted in a film, performing a part strongly linked to these themes, had been able to identify well in the character obtaining a fulfilling professional success; far from being a self-destructive year, it had been a successful year instead.
Limits
To have clear in mind what to expect from a natal or predictive astrology consultation one need to know also the limits of the art of astrology, in order to not have wrong expectations.
To begin it is necessary to make clear that is the customer that has to make an effort to obtain the desired changes, the astrologer helps to find the direction to follow, gives suggestions, but then it is up to the client to act in the pointed direction and succeed in his aim, similarly to what happens when we go to a psychologist.
There are also some elements of our life that are an inevitable destiny, for example a person could be destined to have a life without love relationships and it would be impossible to solve the problem; in this case the only thing that the astrologer can do is to work on how to modify the reaction to the problem and the way to manage it; this could also ease the assimilation of the lesson in this life, so avoiding the risk of a similar experience in the next.
Sadly it is not always easy to distinguish between problems that can be worked on from the immutable ones; anyway these are confined to the exterior life events, while on the defects of our personality it is always possible to intervene, as much difficult it may be at times.
As you will have already understood this limit is even more evident when we are using predictive astrology and, doing something to avoid predestined events, we obtain at maximum marginal changes in the way the event occurs, giving an only a sample of the ingenuity of the forces that makes the destiny happen. Also in this case the best thing to do is simply to work on the acceptation of the event itself and try to learn as much as possible by the imparted lesson.
- The Cat