Tag: natal chart

Learn Astrology

Crystals and Astrology

Lisa

Do you ever associate crystals with particular people in your life? When I do, it gives me a deeper personal connection with the crystal, and makes me curious to see if that crystal is reflected in their natal chart.

If my mom were a crystal she’d be a rose quartz. She was unconditional love. 💗Everyone that met her felt it and loved her.

In astrology, Venus is human love. Neptune is the higher octave of Venus and is unconditional love. Rose quartz is often associated with Venus, and Mom had Venus at a karmic degree conjunct her north node (life’s purpose) and both made a trine to Neptune. Mom was rose quartz.

rose quartz, smoky quartz, clear quartz

If my dad were a crystal he’d be a smoky quartz. 🖤 He had a horrific childhood, and it’s stunning to me that he was able to be the man he was given the life he had growing up. Though Dad had his inner demons and flaws, he embodied transmuting and moving on from pain and negativity.

In astrology, Pluto is our capacity for transformation. It’s our ability to perceive we have a choice, and to align ourselves with divine will. Dad had strong Pluto aspects and his sun was at a karmic degree in Scorpio. Dad was smoky quartz.

When you dig into every metaphysical tool, you find overlap between all of them. Funny how that oracle card you keep pulling lines up with an astrology transit touching your natal chart or a crystal you just had to have. It’s all connected, different languages saying the same thing.

My fluency happens to be in astrology. When clients ask me about what crystals they need, I talk with them about intention and what kinds of lessons and opportunities seem most important to them now and then send them to my favorite crystal sellers.

There are so many amazing options. Something like 2000 or so different minerals have been discovered, and then there’s raw, polished, carved, clusters, and we’re often drawn to particular ones during different times in our lives. So, I suggest they ask the seller for recommendations based on what we discussed. Even more importantly, when you’re looking at shop listings or you’re in a live sale, go with what gives you that ping! The ping knows.

Is there a crystal that you feel expresses either your essence or someone you know? Tell me about it.

Learn Astrology

Soul Families

Lisa

Sometimes we meet people and we know them. We already know them. We have a karmic connection to them that transcends this life. One of the ways this kind of connection can show up when looking at natal charts is by the degree of the midheaven. ⁣
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The midheaven shows your soul in your chart. If someone has the same degree you have, regardless of sign, they are part of your soul family.
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We all come from the same source and you can feel soulful connections without this indicator. This is just one way this connection is expressed. ⁣
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Take a look at your midheaven and keep that number in mind if you tend to collect charts of friends and families. Notice the degree of the midheaven next time you look at someone’s chart and see if it’s the same as yours.⁣
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Sometimes (often) these people are in our life for a very short time. It can be one conversation, one favor, one act of kindness … even brief, it’s usually deeply felt.⁣
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I’d love to know about one of your encounters with your soul family. ⁣
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Btw, if you like learning astrology my Stargazers community will reopen later this summer.
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planets

We all need grounding

Lisa

We all need grounding. We’re human. We all have the Sun and Saturn in our charts.⁣

Pictured: garnets in a septarian bowl, sitting on a slab of petrified wood ⁣


The sun is our human identity in this life and shows us what makes us feel sane, grounded into who we want to be this time.⁣
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Saturn is our humanity. It’s time and space, how we define ourselves here. It’s our societal structures, our ability to set boundaries, perceive limitations and experience our humanity. ⁣
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Living a spiritually driven path includes embracing our humanity.⁣
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I used to travel a lot. Just counting plane rides it’s several hundred trips, then there’s road trips, and I moved to Europe twice. I got the most out of my travels by going local, going to the places unique to the area versus the same chains I had at home. ⁣
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If you feel stuck, scared, or in a funk, try sinking into your humanity and see what insight your Sun and Saturn can give you. They help you understand who you aspire to be and what you need to do along the way. They also help ground you in a way that can help propel you to action. It can be easier to get moving when you feel the ground beneath you is solid, and not so easy to run when what’s beneath you is rocky and shaking.⁣
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You’re here, in a body, being human. Even if this year has dragged on for you I promise you, once you’ve lived a lot of years you’ll feel their speed and sometimes wish you could slow them down, just a little.⁣

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Learn Astrology, planets

Born on a cusp is not a thing

Lisa

If you were born on the day the sun changed signs, you aren’t some of both. It really doesn’t work that way.

The sun is a distinctive energy in the chart. The signs and degrees are as well. Having a planet at 0 degrees of any sign is very different than 29 degrees.

If you were born on a “cusp” day and you feel some connection to the two signs it’s most likely because you have some planets in both signs.

Mercury is so close to the sun (no farther than 28 degrees), it is always in either the same sign as the sun or a sign adjacent to it. For example, if you have the sun in Cancer, your Mercury is in Gemini, Cancer or Leo.

Venus is also really close (never farther than 48 degrees) so it can never be more than two signs away from the sun. If you have the sun in Leo, your Mercury is in Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra.

Lots of people have Mercury and Venus in a sign right next to their sun sign.

Then there’s all the other planets, plus the nodes, so having something in a sign adjacent to your sun sign is not unusual. As you learn about house placement and aspects, you start to get a feel for the depth and complexity of each piece in your chart.

If you feel a connection to a sign adjacent to your sun sign, there is a reason for it in your natal chart and it has nothing to do with cusps.

Most people know their sun sign by the day they were born. If you were born around a sun sign change, then it means you need to cast your natal chart to know your your sun sign. There are lots of free sites that do this for you online. Just search “cast natal chart” and you’ll get a long list. You’ll need to enter your date, time and location of birth and then the chart is cast your you.

If all you’ve ever known is your sun sign, cast your natal chart and start reading about your moon sign or some of the other planets.

Learn Astrology

It’s not easy being green

Lisa

In Karmic Astrology the chart is seen as a painting of past lives, the beliefs & experiences you bring into this life. Your natal chart doesn’t dictate what kind of person you are or life you’ll live. It does give you insight into yourself, and the kind of growth and lessons you are inviting into this life.

In some ways all of our lives have the same purpose: to grow spiritually, love and be loved. We just happen to each get there in our own way, exploring our talents and meeting our challenges. Astrology can be a huge help along the way as we journey towards self-acceptance and self-discovery.

astrology basics

The Art of Astrology

Lisa

When people discuss or study Astrology, they often talk about one piece and the sign of it. While this can give some useful information, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you really want to understand how that piece works in a chart, you can’t look at any one piece in isolation.

Have you ever looked at a painting by Monet or one of the other French Impressionists? Up close, it can look like a hot mess. It’s can be hard to see the water lily in the water, or figure out what is being reflected. When you take a step back, you see the wholeness of the painting and can notice details that are hard to see up close.

Le_Bassin_aux_nymphéas,_harmonie_rose_-_Claude_Monet
Reading a chart is like this. You have to keep looking at the whole. If you focus too much on the sign, the house, the degree, the minutes, the element, the planet’s energy, an aspect … if you try to assign meaning to something really specific you lose the specific meaning in the chart. Two people can have their sun in Gemini, but at different degrees, in different houses, with different aspects and then there’s the fact that everything else in the chart is different. The Gemini sun with the Cancer moon is not the same as the Gemini sun with the Aries moon.

So how do you learn astrology? Learning astrology is like learning a foreign language. First you learn basic vocabulary and grammar. As your mastery of the language builds, you can appreciate humor and poetry in the language, speaking and absorbing it without first translating it in your head.

So it is with Astrology. Yes, you do need to learn what the signs mean, the houses, the planets, aspects, degrees, etc. Once you start to get these basics down you have to start integrating them. When people ask me very general questions, like “I’m a Leo, should I date a Scorpio” it’s hard for me to answer. It’s never as simple as that. I make a few general comments, that may or may not resonate with the person, because I’d have to look at both of their charts to tell them anything meaningful.

Whether or not you ever become an astrologer, studying astrology can be a fascinating hobby and over time give you great insight into yourself. The Astrologer I first studied with would tell me to keep digging into my chart, because it I had more knowledge about that person than anyone else.

Learning to see myself in the chart taught me so much about astrology. As I learned more astrology, I discovered more and more about myself.

astrology-astronomy-constellation-958363

houses, planets

Is your Moon in the Seventh House?

Lisa

How many of you remember the lyrics to Age of Aquarius?

When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius …

In Karmic Astrology, the houses are areas of life experience and show focus for this life. The house of the moon, shows the area of life that (coming in) you want to invest in emotionally. It is the area where you feel most at home in this life, where you feel most able to get your emotional needs met. It’s where you came in wanting to nurture and be nurtured, shows lessons around family and mothering and gives insight to all things related to the feminine energy within you.

Moon in the first house has an emotional investment in self and the body. Most women with this placement will become pregnant at least once in this lifetime. Massage therapists and body workers often have moon in the first. There is a strong emotional connection to the body.

Moon in the second has an emotional investment in stuff. Feeling that you have resources, managing your resources (food, clothing, shelter, money, etc) is very important with this placement. There is often a connection to growing your own food and feeling connected to land as a resource.

Moon in the third has a connection to communication. It’s important to express yourself and to feel heard. Sibling relationships are often very important, in part because of the early lessons in communicating. You feel at home with books, information, the Internet, social media and exchange of ideas.

Moon in the fourth is about home and family. It’s about family history, homestead, parenting and being connected to a place. You have a strong need to nurture people in your home and feel nurtured by your home. There is a need to parent, either your own children or to have some kind of responsibility similar to parenting in your life.

Moon in the fifth is about creativity, fun, romance and kids. Having creative outlets is important for your emotional health. Performing, working with kids or doing work that brings fun and joy to people’s lives is often very satisfying.

Moon in the sixth is about music, health and healing. Nurturing yourself and others is important to your emotional well being. Feeling that you are fulfilling your karmic debts and having a job that is emotionally rewarding is important to you.

Moon in the seventh is about relationships. You always want to have a partner or best friend in your life. Working with people one on one is important to you. Feeling that things are equal and balanced helps you to feel emotionally nurtured and satisfied.

Moon in the eight is about intimacy. You need deep emotional connections. People trust you with their secrets and confide in you. They also trust you with resources and seek your counsel. The eighth house is about mystery, transformation, and being willing to go into dark places.

Moon in the ninth is about travel and higher learning. Exploring, discovering, personal growth and learning are emotionally fulfilling. Your are at home teaching and deriving knowledge out of information.

Moon in the tenth is about career and your place in the world. You need to feel some level of recognition for the work you do. It’s important to you to feel like you emotionally experience and understand your contribution to the world.

Moon in the eleventh is about friendships, organizations and group activities. You need to be active in causes and feel like you have a connection to groups of others. Being involved and having a sense of community nurtures you and helps you feel at home.

Moon in the twelfth is about escape and privacy. It includes organizations and places where people are removed from mainstream society. It is the dreamy, mystical, part of our lives as well as the closet we stick things we want out of view. Whether you’re at home in a comfy chair for some quiet time, or taking a walk out in nature, you feel emotionally renewed by being able to escape the world.

There are lots of online calculators for your natal chart. You need your time, date and location of birth. Once you have that, look and see where the moon is then google that house. Each house rules an area of life experience, and the house of the natal chart will give you some insight into what nurtures you and feeds you emotionally.

Copyright © 2016,  Lisa Wagner

planets

Moon & Venus in Aspect

Lisa

Let’s talk about the moon and venus in aspect.

The moon represents our emotional energy. It’s our temperament. It’s how we relate to our environment, how we process feelings, what feels like home, what nurtures us and how we nurture others.  It shows us our beliefs about women coming into this life and gives us insight into our view of not only our own mothers, but also what mothers and mothering is all about.  The moon is our base of feminine energy, and also rules our memories and  how we attach feelings to anything.

Venus is how we give and receive love.  It’s what we value and how we relate to what we value. It’s our self-esteem, it’s what we feel we have to offer the world.  It’s our appreciation of art and our ability to see something as beautiful.

We all have both of these energies and we all have ways in which they relate.  What aspects show us is how these energies are particularly impacted by each other.  Think of dominos.  If the dominos are far enough apart, touching one does nothing to the other. However, if they are close enough together, then touching one can make it fall, and knock over the other.  Aspects show how energies interact with each other within us and give us insight into how we relate to and process these energies.

For people that do not have moon and Venus in an aspect to each other, there really isn’t any specific interaction or confusion regarding them.  These folks will still have their strengths and struggles etc., and much can be learned by their placement in the chart.  It just means that these folks process these two energies without each other. So using the short descriptions above, it means that can distinguish more clearly between how they feel about something and how they value it, between their emotions and self-esteem, between what feeds them emotionally and what they choose to be paid to do etc. versus someone with them in aspect to one another.

People that have these two energies forming a major aspect have strong interaction between the energies.  This interaction is influenced by the sign, degree, house placement and rest of the chart, but part of learning astrology is about understanding individual pieces, so lets take a closer look at each major moon/venus aspect.

If they are conjunct, they see them as the same.  They don’t distinguish between the two.  They need their environment to look pleasing to feel at home, they need emotional fulfillment via work they are paid to do, they assign value to feelings.  This means they can elevate them as well as sometimes judging them harshly and devaluing them.  They value nurturing and take care of those they love.  The energies work in a unified way.

If they are square, they see them in competition.  They can struggle with believing they can get their emotional needs met by someone they love.  They may have a hard time living with someone they love.  They may struggle to process their feelings or believe that people won’t love them if they know who what their moods are really like.  The energies force awareness of how the person has developed a karmic history that includes lives wherein their emotional needs conflicted with their values or the cultural values.

If they are trine, they experience a flow between them.  Emotions easily bring an awareness of what matters to them.  Getting their priorities straight, helps them to see how they feel about something.  They are emotionally available to people they love. The two energies naturally support each other.  There can be a tendency to slide too easily into taking care of people, so they need to remember to take care of themselves too.

If they are quincunx, the two form a neutralizing aspect to one another.  This means that  the person has a hard time accessing both at the same time. One tends to shut down when the other is very activated.  This means people with this aspect can have a hard time knowing how they feel about people or situations that matter a great deal to them.  They may have a tendency to be in relationships with people where they don’t feel safe to express their feelings. They may struggle to feel good about where they live.  It can be difficult to believe their feelings are valued or that anything they do is worth being paid to do.  They may have felt that their mother did not love them.  It’s difficult to fully access and express their moon and Venus at the same time. One energy tends to shut down the other.

If they are in opposition, it’s hard to know how to get from one to the other.  It’s like when you are driving down the road and you can see where you need to go, but you can’t figure out what exit to take to get over there.  There is an awareness of both energies, they are both active, but it’s hard to know how to make them work together.  This can tend to feel very frustrating, as if so much in life just never works out or fits together.  It can be a struggle to know how to nurture what matters and manifest it so that it is a part of life.  It’s as if the person feels they often come up short of getting what they want.

So if you have one of these aspects, does that mean you are doomed?  Not at all. It just means you have some challenges. It means you need to get honest with yourself about the stories you tell yourself. Get honest about what you really believe and be willing to admit when perhaps your beliefs are worth reconsidering. It means you need to face your fears and start to walk through them.  Everyone is lovable. Everyone has feelings. Everyone has value.  Everyone can find a place where they can feel at home, people that can nurture them, environments where they can thrive.  These comments are not meant to justify love lost or an unsatisfying life.  They are a wake-up that you have some work to do to honor both of these energies and integrate them together in your life.  It’s one of your reasons for being here and doing so will be well worth it.

Note:  In a conjunction, the two objects are within 7 degrees of each other. Square is 90 degrees +/- 7 degrees.  Trine is 120 degrees, +/- 7, quincunx is 150 degrees +/- 3 and opposition is 180 degrees +/- 7 degrees.

© 2016 Lisa Wagner. All Rights Reserved.

aspects

Moon Opposite Venus

Lisa

I recently wrote some comments on a message board to someone trying to figure out the significance of Moon opposite Venus in her natal chart. Here are essentially the comments I shared.

When two pieces oppose each other in your chart, then you struggle with how to experience both energies at the same time. It’s like when you are driving down the highway and you can see the place you need to go, but you can’t figure out how to get off the highway and get over there to it. When you are focused on one energy, it’s hard to know how to get to the other one.

The Moon represents our emotional energy and Venus is our value system and ability to give an receive love. With the Moon and Venus in opposition in your natal chart, you come into this life with some karmic history of not understanding how to experience both nurturing and love at the same time. You can struggle with knowing how to be connected to family and honor your own values, how to value yourself versus deriving your value from your role within a family or your environment, having to abandon what matters to you in order to care for someone else. This aspect can also show past lives of both abandoning those you love and being abandoned by those you love. Being disowned by family because of someone you loved, as well as being the one that did the disowning.

The Moon opposite Venus can bring difficult lessons like learning to nurture others while honoring what is important to you, loving people that do not nurture and support you, struggling with what commitment really means and experiencing the line between healthy commitment and unhealthy attempts to control, feeling that your environment is at odds with what matters most to you.

It’s likely that you have some core beliefs about love and nurturing that oppose each other and create limitations that impact your ability to create a life where these two are not at odds. Any work you can do to understand these core beliefs can be a big step in letting them go and building new beliefs.

astrology basics

Astrology Terminology 101

Lisa

Lets go over some basic Astrology terminology. Most of you probably already know that there are twelve signs, and you can review my previous entry to see how they are derived. In Karmic Astrology, the signs are styles of expression and provide insight into your karmic history.

The houses are areas of life experience and show focus for this lifetime. Karmic Astrology uses an equal house system, so once you know the ascendant, you can easily define the houses – each of them have exactly 30 degrees. If you were born with 20 degrees and 12 minutes of Pisces rising, then your first house begins there and each subsequent house is another 30 degrees. The second house would begin at 20 degrees and 12 minutes of Aries, the third at 20 degrees and 12 minutes of Taurus, etc.

The planets are energies and the aspects between them in a chart show show how they relate and integrate. An orb is how much that angle can vary and still be considered a viable aspect. Two pieces are conjunct if they are within 7 degrees of each other. They form a square when they are at a 90 degree angle, plus or minus 7 degrees. They form a trine when they are at a 120 degree angle, plus or minus 7 degrees, and they are in opposition when they are 180 degrees apart, plus or minus 7 degrees. The sextile and quincunx are 60 degree and 150 degree angles respectively, plus or minus 3 degrees. These two aspects have a tighter orb.

The midheaven is the soul energy and is the immutable core that is YOU lifetime after lifetime. It is the point that is directly overhead at your birth, and is the cusp of the tenth house in a placidus chart. In an equal house chart it is noted as a point in the chart and is usually in the ninth or tenth house, though it can fall outside of that for people born at extreme latitudes.

The lunar nodes are points where the moon crosses the ecliptic. The south node is a summation of all of your past lives and shows karmic patterns that particularly matter with respect to this life, and your north node shows the goal of this life. It is exactly opposite the south node, because new growth can only come from doing something completely different than what you have been doing over and over again.

The degrees and minutes more fully define everything. Sometimes people talk about being born “on the cusp.” All this means is that they were born on a day when the sun changed signs. It doesn’t mean that they are a hybrid of the two signs. Each piece in the chart is in one sign or another. Not only are the signs distinct and different, but having the sun at 0 degrees of one sign is very different than 29 degrees of the preceding sign. The numbers have meanings in and of themselves, and they help to paint a complete picture of the chart.

Do you have an Astrology topic of interest? You can write to me at Lisa@karmicastrology.com and let me know what topics you’d like to see covered in this blog.

Copyright © 2009, Lisa Wagner