Why do people respond so differently to similar experiences? Why do certain conflicts repeat throughout life? Why are we drawn to particular people?
To me, the astrological birth chart is a symbolic map that can make questions like these visible. Psychology examines our biography or offers ways to change our behavior. Both are a blessing. Ultimately, however, they are also connected to the considerable task of accepting certain things and learning how to live with them. Working with our own resources is now central to most psychological treatment. In my view, a birth-chart analysis can provide invaluable help in getting to know ourselves, our resources and our dispositions. It describes personal tendencies, abilities and potential, but also tensions or possible conflicts that always contain the potential for resolution.
It does not describe the future. It does not determine anything. Yet it often describes tendencies, strengths and inner contradictions with astonishing precision.
The Moon describes how we relate to feelings. Mercury describes our thoughts; Venus, love; Mars, our power of assertion; Saturn, our duties; Uranus, our individuality; and Pluto, our capacity for transformation. Chiron, Lilith, the lunar nodes and the Midheaven complete the picture. Their positions in the houses and the aspects between the planets form a complex image that gives every person an individual signature. It is not quite as unique as a fingerprint or genetic code. It describes dispositions that are shaped in particular ways by family, upbringing, cultural surroundings and perhaps traumatic experiences—much like genes that may or may not be activated by external influences. Every aspect in a birth chart can therefore play a greater or lesser role during a particular period of life and may be experienced as an obstacle or a source of support. All these relationships together form the birth chart.
Psychotherapy depends heavily on the relationship between therapist and patient. At its best, birth-chart analysis combined with an AI dialogue that repeatedly refers back to it can strengthen our relationship with ourselves or help place it on a healthy foundation.
It is not an oracle, but a way to get to know ourselves better.
