Beyond Astrology: Living from the Center of the Wheel

Years ago, I had the opportunity as part of my Master’s Degree program to self-design a class. I could ask any professor to be my mentor. One of the professors at my university was a brilliant astrologer and therapist from the Jung Institute in Zurich. I wanted to learn astrology from her. When she accepted my proposal, I was absolutely thrilled.

Astrology was difficult for me because there was so much to memorize. So one day while taking a long bus trip, I devised a little story system. I visualized each sign or planet as characters. The houses represented different environments. Once those personalities came alive within me, I just allowed them to speak. I didn’t share this little game with my professor because I was certain that it was not the academic way to do astrology. I didn’t realize that I was tapping into the creative principal behind astrology.

Thousands of years ago, there were no lights, no televisions, and no Wi-Fi connections to keep people entertained. It was a bit dull after sunset. But without lights, the sky was perfectly clear. Since many of the ancient story writers lived in the mideastern desert, cloud cover was rare. The sky characters moved and interacted each night creating a never-ending story. Heroes (sky gods) and their evil opponents battled the forces of nature and each other. These were eternal beings; no one ever died.

Sometimes the storytellers thought the sky gods died because a constellation or planet moved out of view. But suddenly the hero god would rise again just like a Phoenix out of the ashes. What appeared to be chaos was actually a perfect cycle.

For me, astrology had the same pattern as the story of Jesus. Jesus sat in the center with his twelve disciples surrounding him. Each disciple represented an aspect of Jesus’ personality, his false self. The disciples were nothing compared to the master.

Everyone has an unchanging true Self and a personality or façade that surrounds it. We are all omnipotent masters when we behave from our true Self. But when we behave from our personality, we are limited.
Our personality was meant to be temporary. In ancient times, initiates were taught the art of crucifying the personality. And since they knew the personality was not real or permanent, the true Self remained. They did not die.

Most traditional astrologers don’t honor the true master in the center of the chart. They read the persona’s signs and planets as if they form an inflexible destiny. The horoscope is like a wheel; the further from the center you stand, the wilder the ride. If you think you are the person riding on the rim of the wheel, life is really challenging. But if you realize that the rim of the wheel represents your personality and let it go, you gradually move to the center where life is calm and safe. This internal letting go process was often called the hero’s journey or the initiate’s quest.

I enjoyed reading astrology charts because I could often glimpse the person’s internal story. I would sit at my computer with music playing through my headphones. I’d move my eyes around the perimeter of the horoscope wheel and type what I imagined the characters would say. As the story emerged, I would fall deeply in love with the person. It was not just a superficial love; it was real unconditional love. The unconditional love became my touchstone. It told me, not my intellect, if my reading was accurate.

My professor gave me a final assignment. I was to choose six people that I didn’t know very well and read their charts. Then I had to present the reading to the person and record their feedback. Five of my guinea pigs were employees. The last one was Peter, a man from Guyana who was in the process of buying my business. People said he was shrewd, impossible to get to know, and dishonest. What better way to find out if I should sell my business to him than to read his astrology chart?

Peter agreed. In fact, he thought it was a cool idea. With each person, I went into my strange astrology world armed with my headphones and laptop. Several hours later a complete astrological reading emerged. Each was unique and made sense to me based on what little I knew about the person. But the most astonishing thing was my own inner transformation. I went from liking the person to unconditionally loving them once I got all the notes in the symphony correct.

I met with each of my guinea pigs, saving Peter for last. In each case, the person agreed that I reflected his or her deepest thoughts and feelings. Finally, it was time to meet with Peter. His reading was powerful. I saw that his true Self desired to do great good for the world, but his false self delivered what people expected. Sadly people didn’t expect goodness from him. I guess you could call him a people un-pleaser. As I shared my insights with him, tears welled up in both of our eyes.

“That’s me! That is the man that I see in my mind. It is who I know
I am. But when I try to bring that being into the world, I’m always
thwarted by other people’s expectations. People presume I have a
bad agenda; and I seem to deliver what they expect. Then I feel
bad about myself, and I stay caught in their stupid spider’s web.”

Had Peter finally accepted the true man he saw inside as real? I did not know, but I decided to go forward with the sale of the company.

Six months later, I moved to the country to pursue my passion for esoteric research. Monthly checks come from Peter. While sitting on my balcony with my best friend sipping some coffee and enjoying a beautiful mountain view, the doorbell rang. It was the FedEx man with a legal document. Peter had taken all the cash out of the business and left the country. The letter said it was unlikely that I’d ever see another penny from him.

But, the story was not over. Once I connected with a person’s true Self, I could not reverse that connection. I could not stop unconditionally loving them. As strange as it seems, I still felt nothing but unconditional love for Peter. I knew this was just another chapter in his story. He wasn’t ready to be the man we both knew existed within. I also knew deep in the center of my being that I was going to be fine.

One week later, my husband came home from work with a giant grin on his face. He said, “You won’t believe this, but one of our old clients called me and just gave me a huge contract. I took the contract because we no longer have a noncompete agreement.” We sat down and added up the profits from the contract. It was almost exactly the same amount as Peter’s default.

Peter still had false-self baggage to unravel. Our interaction reminded him that his true Self existed. Hopefully, that reminder gave him reason to continue his own initiate’s journey to the center of his being. Since I reached a place of unconditional love with Peter, he could not harm me. The money I deserved was just rerouted.

I needed that experience. I needed to know that unconditional love did have real power. I needed to know that the world supported my true Self; and that if I lived from that center, everything would always work out.

We live in a time when many are dropping their personalities and moving to their center. We are doing this on a microcosmic level with our own lives, bodies, and minds. We are also doing it on a national, global, and even universal macrocosmic level.

The stories of the past were the dreams of our ancestors who transcribed the stars into tragedies and comedies. Our astrological persona is not our true identity. The stars don’t dictate our Self; they dictate our false persona. The sky characters existed only within our ancestors’ dreams. We believed their dreams; but they were illusions. Now is the time in the never-ending sky story to move to the center of the wheel, to allow the stars to just be stars, and to return our earth to paradise.