For Beginners in Astrology

If you came to my blog and are in the dark about those astrological details, or have no idea how to find your planets in signs or house, or wish to understand more in depth about some astrological themes, I suggest strongly the following sites:

Astrodienst: One of the most reliable serious sites in the internet for astrology. They have great reports, and even a section of the site that is free. You need to register first though.

You can calculate your birth chart for free and get a free pdf report with a list containing your main planets positions in your chart, in which sign your Sun, Moon, etc. are in your birth chart.

I strongly recommend if you want to know about your planets in signs and houses as well as making your synastry chart and composite relationship chart.


Cafe astrology: Very interesting site, simpler than Astrodienst, but you can check easily, with the help of tables, in which sign Sun, Venus, Mars, North Node, etc. are placed in your Natal Chart. (for venus, for example: http://www.cafeastrology.com/venussignstables.html).

Is a site full of very well written content, pretty innovative! In regard of paid reports, I would still prefer Astrodienst, because cafe astrology`s reports are a little more generic and not as deep as the one from the site above.


Astrotheme: Great site where you can calculate and see where are your planets in your chart, and you don't need to register for that. Also is interesting because you can see what celebrities have similar chart to you, and they have a huge database of celebrities and known people, if you are interested in checking how compatible you are with Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie ;) .

They have very interesting and cute articles about the 12 ascendants, Venus in signs/houses, Mars in signs/houses.

I would recommend to take a look. Is a good second site for beginners in astrology, since the articles are short and fun.

For a start these are one of the best sites to take a look, if you are curious about astrology more than just knowing if you are Aries or Cancer, i.e., your Sun is in Aries or Cancer.

See you on next post,

Lina

Finding your perfect love match!

have tried many techniques related to relationships, even with my past ones and checking about a person character. When you get involved with someone, for me, the most important is their character strength, their maturity and so on.

So depending on what you seek in a partner, you might want to look for certain clues in your candidates to date/boyfriend/girlfriend's birth chart to understand better who she/he is under the masks we commonly use everyday to present ourselves to the world.

This post will try to show the link between the main aspects that you might wish in a partner to get involved in a relationship and what to avoid or look for in a birth chart to see a fruitful romance bloom, avoiding disappointment and big hurts. So lets see what to look for (or avoid) in the natal chart of your possible love interest!

So, If you are looking for a:

 

What to look for in his/her chart: 

*Moon in Aries, Leo, Scorpio, sometimes Moon in Cancer or in Sagittarius can give also predisposition for being a fiery lover;

*Mars in Aries, Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Sagittarius;
*Aspects between planets like: Venus conjunct Mars; Mars square/conjunct/opposite Pluto;  Moon conjunct Mars or Pluto; Jupiter conjunct Sun or Mars.

What to avoid:
*Sun in Pisces or Aquarius;
*Moon in Gemini, Virgo, Capricorn.
*Aspects between planets: Venus and Mars not in aspect to each other or another personal planet (Sun, Moon, Mercury), Saturn conjunct Moon, Saturn in bad aspect with Mars or Moon.

 If you desire a family man/woman in your life, that will bring    romance, an old-fashioned romantic kinda person, loyalty and seriousness to a relationship look for these hints:  

What to look for in his/her chart: 

*Moon in Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Capricorn,  sometimes Moon in Cancer or in Sagittarius can give also predisposition for being a fiery lover;

*Sun in Pisces (but watch out, only sun is not a good evaluation when we are talking about feelings!);
*Mars in Taurus, Libra, Capricorn.
*Venus in Taurus, Capricorn, Virgo, Cancer, Pisces.
*Aspects between planets: Venus conjunct Jupiter or Moon or good aspects between these planets; Saturn trine or sextile Moon;  in lesser degree, Sun well related to Venus. Neptune in good aspect with Moon or Venus can also indicate someone romantic in love, but not necessarily he will be trustful or loyal, family type of person.

What to avoid:
*Sun in Gemini, Aquarius (unless with other planets in signs and aspects that indicate romance, see paragraphs above);
*Moon in Gemini, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Aquarius.
* Venus or/and Mars in Gemini, Sagittarius, Aquarius
*Aspects between planets: Sun and Moon in bad aspect to each other or another personal planet (squares and oppositions), Uranus in hard aspects (including conjunction) to Moon and Venus and Mars, since indicates a person that usually has problems with old/traditional values, Neptune hard aspects to Moon, Venus or Mercury (this last one having less effect, but can indicate a liar or an elusive person).

  
If you are looking for an independent, more brainy type of loving person, that usually would like  unconventional relationships like open relationship, unusual love making, unpredictable or/and exciting, adventurous relationships this are the clues you should look in your future partner chart:

What to look for in his/her chart: 

* Moon in Gemini, Sagittarius, Aquarius, somewhat Pisces (depends of rest of chart);

* Venus or/and Mars in Aries, Gemini, Sagittarius, Aquarius, Pisces, Libra (somewhat);

 *Aspects between planets: Moon conjunct or in any close aspect with Uranus; Venus or Mars in contact with Uranus (also Neptune, in relationships where one is the savior and the other the underdog); Pluto with hard aspects (including conjunction) to Venus/Mars (unusual love making, taboos).  

What to avoid:
* Moon in the Earth signs; Moon in Leo (he/she needs a lot of devotion and attention to accept unusual sharing of your love with anybody else, including your dog (kinda joking));
* Venus in Earth signs; Venus/Mars in Scorpio (if in a committed relationship though, since when they enter a real partnership, you should be consumed by their deep waters of passion, if you look to the side or don't correspond their intensity, watch out for the wrath of revenge to come in your way; but if you don't desire a long term romantic involvement with them, is OK, they can be very unpredictable and exciting in love making!);
*Aspects between planets: Saturn conjunct (also trine and sextile somewhat) Sun/Moon (these people are serious and generally take love serious too!); Moon conjunct Pluto (people with deep intense emotions); Moon conjunct Venus/Jupiter (they need lots of affection and cuddling!).

In next post, I will write a little about synastry and how to relate our natal chart to our partner (or potential candidate)'s chart.

But watch out! Of course, this observations are based on astrological literature, my personal/practical experience with readings and intuition, but one has to keep in mind that the whole chart should be taken in consideration, not only one aspect or a planet in a sign alone. I just highlighted the most common points I found in charts and literature along the years. If you have a different experience or observation, chime in!

Willpower: is it finite? Why is so hard to be determined and have willpower?

Did you ever have that feeling when you have to resist a temptation and later you can't resist anything else? You wanna loose 10 kg this week, start a rigid diet, but then end up losing control over your house organization, your chores at work/university?

Interestingly, scientific researches are suggesting that our willpower is a limited resource, like food, money and so on.

Sure, there are critics to the matter, but an interesting article discuss about this new finding and how it relates even to the fact that poorer people don't choose to be poor: the more they have to resist temptation of buying things due to a restricted budget, the harder is to keep self-control to study long hours, have creativity, so on, and to develop yourself. The fact of being under big restrictions and having to exert strong self control in one are might take a huge toll in our psyches.

So, If you feel depleted on your willpower to achieve your goals, one line of research "has found reason to think that drained willpower can be restored in the short term—by taking a walk in nature or watching a humorous video, for instance"— studies on how to make your total willpower bigger in the long term are not yet clear. 

For improving studying or working, a small break to walk around some green area, having a tea or watching an youtube video on something funny might help you return to those important tasks that wait your diligence to build up for them to be finished. Some psychologists suggest for each hour of study, 10 minutes of break are recommended for the best results. 

So don't put too much on yourself or feel guilty if you take a small break. The important thing in life is living a fruitful happy existence. God loves you and all of us, and so we should love and care for our own well-being (and when we are well, we can also take better care of our loved ones). 

Reference: http://www.tnr.com/article/environment-energy/89377/poverty-escape-psychology-self-control?page=0,1

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45195530/ns/today-today_health/t/self-control-tips-pump-your-willpower/

North Node in Aries - Awakening the Inner Warrior

So, here we start with North Node in Aries, one of the most straightforward paths to follow (as are the people born with this Sun, direct and without frills):  be bold, be active, act fast.

As explained before, the North Node is always the hardest way  (in the beginning) to view life but the most fulfilling in the (not so) long run, and the South Node is the easiest way, but that`s an energy that you wouldn't find enjoyment/fun if you follow you since you "been there, done that".

I know particularly well about the Aries energy, since my Ascendant is in it. But most interestingly, I married a lovely Mr. whose North Node Aries is in exact conjunct to it.

Is funny, since people with South Node in Libra (i.e. North Node in Aries, since the North and South node are always in opposite signs, see my introduction post to the nodes to understand why) are always trying to solve things with diplomacy, adapting to others to avoid fights, giving up a little to get to an agreement, without breaking peace and I (ascendant aries) am always going for an argument in a straightforward open manner to solve things.

So you can imagine that in the start my husband was deeply annoyed and afraid of showing me openly who he was, what he wanted, when we had an argument and that made him quite frustrated sometimes. With time and incentive (and a little of astrology analysis of how to do it ;) ), he started to bloom and even began acting sometimes a little too bossy. And he feels good acting like that after awhile (just hope he doesn't become a dictator though *crossing fingers*) and I see how fulfilled he is.

But jokes aside, the person with North Node in Aries, most than everything, needs partners and friends who will understand that leading, bringing the action, and the apparently me first mentality is what their inner soul wants to develop it most, even when (and because) it seems so difficult to them.

They are like babies in being fearless leaders, impulsive (like a kid) and daring; those are part of a group of characteristics of a side of their personality that needs to be developed specially because they lacked that side so much (in past lives, if you believe so, or in growing up environment/genetics/education/culture/family ancestry).

One thing that helps me when I need to get inspiration for working with my North Node is looking for a role model figure/symbol and seeing if it has the main qualities of the sign of my node, and which ones I lack most, and that I would feel good developing. For me one easy role model is the sign associated own mythological figure: Aries - greek God of war - or Mars, the ruler of the sign, the roman version of Aries.

Both of them represented powerful action and strong leadership, but of course with negative repercussions if acting without consciousness and responsibility for the society and our loved ones well being. In antique Greece, he was not seen with good eyes for it's irrationality and fighting/brawling initiator, wars, but the Romans loved him for his heroic, brave spirit, he was seen as second in line after Jupiter (Zeus equivalent for the Romans).

In this case, Aries,

So here are some tips for people that came to their present life in Earth with the North Node in Aries challenge:

Tips:  - Take action
          -  Be decisive
          -  Practice leadership
          -  Be independent (don't depend on others for taking action and getting what you want)
              -  Exercise your Willpower
          -  Fight for what you want, don't ignore your wishes and hide personality just for the sake of keeping appearances or peace in relationships (fake peace is not peace at all, is more like cold war)
          -  Develop your strength, physical and psychological
          -  Enjoy some challenge (competitive sports and games, active hobbies, etc.), but don't forget     the sportsmanship
          -  Practice something that gives you the feeling of speed or that makes you take quick actions (playing a car race video game, doing adrenaline sports, like motorbike racing, kart, so on)
          -  Enjoy the strength, intensity and volatile spirit of fire

          -  Act as a boss, even if you think is an evil thing to do, take responsible leadership, but avoid being a controlling dictator or you would risk ending up as a loner, and depending on the rest of your chart (the North Node is not the only indicator of what can make you a happy person) that might make you "gain the world but lose your soul".

Symbols to inspire the spirit of North Node in Aries: 

Professions: Surgeon, warrior, soldier, military/armed forces (position in command), butcher, athlete,firefighter, pioneer, explorer, adventurer, racing driver, political leader, work with fire.

Objects: Swords, fireworks, metals, cars, tools, knives, sharp instruments

Foods: Spicy foods, big meals, red meat, prosciutto, coffee, high content of protein meals

Colors: Red, Gold, Orange, Metallic colors 

Gems: Agate of fire

 Jasper

  

Happy New Year!

A new year is coming, a symbolic time for us to remember what are our priorities in life. My favorite picture for today:

This makes me remember is ok to be who we are without being ashamed; is ok to be positive and happy. Guilty wont cure our wounds or make things right, we need to transform it in something positive for us and society!

Being naively who we are and not caring for what society expects us to be, as long as nobody is deeply hurt by our actions and we dont interfere on people rights or force them to do something against their will is one of the best things to make us self feel serene and happiness a state of being, not a short momentary instinctual satisfaction of a materialistic desire, like over consuming or overeating.

Happy Loving New Year for all of us!

Nodes of the Moon - General Introduction

The Nodes of the moon are the main aspect of karmic and the general indicators (in particular, the North Node) of the mission you came to fulfill in life, if you believe in a God who connects us and that have a plan or a calling for us in this life experience. 

I tend to believe in this calling, as my inner self is always trying to grasp it, and when it can't or when I distance myself from its path, it makes me feel sad, down, anguished, or any of those types of bad emotions. If you are an agnostic, I would describe those nodes to you as a main theme for your life that, if you followed, would make you feel like the right thing is being done, bringing you peace of mind and enjoyment of your life experience.

Exactly what would be those nodes? They are not physical bodies, as planets, but 2 specific positions in space representing the intersection of the plane of the ecliptic of Earth (path the suns apparently does around the Earth during an year as seen in Figure below) and the plane of Moon revolution around our planet.

 

Figure 1 - Plane of the Ecliptic (1)

Figure 2 - Nodes of Moon

The North Node is when the intersection that the Moon passes when is coming from the South Celestial Pole of Earth in Direction to the North Celestial Pole. The South Node is the intersection that the Moon passes coming from the North Pole to the South Pole. That means the North Node and South Node, as you can see from Figure 2, will always be opposite from each other in your birth chart (that captures the positions of the planets in the Ecliptic Plane).

When we talk about North Node, as the own name implies, it means an orientation of the main direction you would feel fulfilled if you followed it along your life. The South Node are behaviors, paths, a basic view of life that won't work anymore in this present life (if you believe in reincarnation and past lives). It might work for others, but is something you should see as the modus operandi you should leave aside as a guiding line for your life. 

In the next posts, the meaning of each North Node in the 12 Zodiac Signs will be discussed and exemplified.

 If you don't know the position of your North Node, you can check easily it in the North Node Sign Table provided by Cafeastrology: http://www.cafeastrology.com/northnodetables.html.

References for the images:

(1)http://www.herongyang.com/astrology_horoscope/Astronomy_The_Ecliptic.html; http://www.wikipedia.com

(2) http://www.astrologyclub.org/articles/nodes/nodes.htm

Astrology: What's behind? Does it make sense to use it?

ow does astrology work? Is there a way to explain it? Have trusted research been conducted related to it?

That it works when you are using it to help friends, family or yourself is for me something that is showing true, as I used it and tested it through many time and cases. Sure, someone could say is my personal and therefore subjective, non valid, experience. But, even friends or acquaintances who are either atheists or scientific skeptics of it, joking before being shown its results, now even ask me for astrological advice or got impressed by its accuracy, even not knowing though how it works, but that in practice it works most of time, depending, of course, of the skill and inspiration of the interpret of the birth charts and symbols related to it.

You probably will see this a lot around astrologers practitioners: "I don’t believe in astrology. I practice it". That's the thing for most people, including me, that nobody knows exactly how astrology works and why, but most of times it does! (You can understand this view a lot better in this person journal: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/04/i-dont-believe-in-astrology-yet-im-an-astrologer/ ).

According to one of the most recognized astrologers out there, Stephen Arroyo, there are numerous paths to explain how astrology works, as published in his book "Astrology Psychology and the Four Elements", a very impressive work on astrology, in a serious, no nonsense approach.

One of the most interesting in terms of more realistic/non-metaphysical approach to astrology would be explaining it through the mechanism that makes it function, in other words, the causal approach. As seen in the diagram below presented in the book mentioned, a PhD in electromagnetic wave theory, named Glynn, published an article in 1972, through the AFA Bulletin, stating his belief that there is a fully scientific explanation for astrology and that probably is not far from being more clearly understood by us. As expressed in the diagram, the small changes in the gravitational field associated with the sun causing  geomagnetic storms (disturbances in our terrestrial magnetosphere) and small changes in the lunar gravitational field would provoke changes in the spectrum of electromagnetic frequencies that would influence our own brain states (is known that brain works through diverse ranges of frequencies that are connected/cause our mind states, for example, alpha waves is related to relaxation state and is in the range of frequency of 8-12 Hz, beta waves to alertness, so on).

Electro-magnetic Wave Theory as Causal Explanation of Astrology (Arroyo, 1975)

That said, this influence would be stronger on a personal level, according to him in the time of birth.

The explanation for this comes from another experiments made by a medical doctor in the past and by recent researches about time of gestation that suggests that at the time of birth, the "mom-baby system" is in its peak/maximum of metabolic cycle and "causes" the birth (see explanation here). Although, the doctor who proposed the bolder "Birth Quickening of Child" goes further and affirms, according to his experiments, that the baby metabolism is the main responsible for this forcing to being born and also that the this peak of his metabolism will always be repeated during his life when the sun-moon are in the same angle that happened when birth occurred.

This would explain why you use your zodiac sign and ascendent related to your time of birth when you read an horoscope.

What in reality all this means is that your birth chart would show the planetary alignments to which you are, personally, more sensitive to.  Hence, astrology would not imply that everybody born at same time would act the same way though and that everything would happen the same to those individuals. It merely says how you are personally affected by the Universe, by the alignments and forces of the planets and stars.
The detailed characteristics of enviroment you were born in, global events, relation to other people you met along your life and your own self will and response to how your feel are the other elements that writes your own path in life, not only astrological alignments of planets and planets positioned in signs and houses (actually, when you answers the typical question "What zodiac sign you are? I am Leo" you mean the Sun was positioned in the constellation of Leo, as seen from Earth, when you were born).

Personally, I think this scientific explanation, reviewed by Arroyo, deserves further research and seems promising in the future (provided there is still interest in devising why astrology works and the physical mechanisms that would make it viable to affect human experience). But, this theory is by no means definite or solid and will need to wait for more development in the fields of physics, genetics, obstetrician and understanding of human brain in a much deeper and less mechanicist method that science has been adopting (for the self-limiting materialistic paradigm of science, how it`s practiced nowadays, you can read articles from a very interesting philosopher, Neal Grossman, and his solid arguments here and here).

A very promising direction would be the kinda of research like the one did recently by  Vanderbilt University which unintentionally provides scientific support for the fundamental principle of astrology -- namely, that the position of the planets at your time of birth influences how the person you are experience things, in some way. They observed that birth month impact personality and behavior through whole life of mice and resulted in measurable functional changes in the brain (for learning more details of this new research: http://www.naturalnews.com/030698_astrology_scientific_basis.html#ixzz2GTf9Z9vF)

Other less scientific approaches and more symbolic, psychological ones can also be called to answer why would astrology work or make sense. One of the most appealing for me would be the symbolic approach (maybe cause my brain works primarily better with maths, symbols, pictures - like tarot and astrology - and so on than pure words). This Symbolic Approach considers that planets, stars and signs represents symbols of universal principles, human experience, natural events and processes. For example, is possible to correlate the yearly rhythm of the seasons and cycles with the signs of zodiac: Aries, a firey sign representing germination, beginnings of action, the real end of winter and the "waiting season", which in a psychological point of view can serve as symbol to indicate the will, the spirit of action and of initiating things.

Many psychologists recognize how astrology is a complete language of symbols in terms that can represent cosmical patterns that humans cant express with words alone in a rational objective way due to our own human communication tools, as Arroyo wrote: "Symbols are, after all, symbols for the very reason that they refer to living realities that are inexpressible (at least at the present time) in any other way. The question of what these astrological symbols refer to remains unanswered. Perhaps man can never express in words the transcendent realities of the cosmos. Still, we can make use of this symbolic language if we consider it to represent universal patterns, principles, and forces, however transcendent such factors may be."

In ancient times, the use of astrology had mostly this symbolic view as the widely held premise: the heavens are meaningful, in the literal sense of being full of meaning, "stars may or may not cause, but they surely do signify something" (Roger Beck, A Brief History of Ancient Astrology, 2007, p. 135).


Finally, there are another interpretations to what`s behind astrology, like holistic-metaphysical views (synchronicity), energetic approach, etc. But this post will stop here, leaving the holistic and energetic approaches for a future discussion, for it relates to many other philosophical questions that would make this post too long AND too confusing to be read in a sitting.

An amazing weekend full of love,

Lina