Written in the Stars
Musings on fate and freewill as we head into eclipse season.
The rather large question hanging over fate and freewill has always fascinated me. It seems so obvious that much of our lived experience follows a timeline from our childhood circumstances, that one way or another limit our choices. We may like to think that we, here in our civilised society, have the freedom to do whatever we like. This is deemed a privileged point of view nowadays. A capitalist myth.
Astrology helped me come to terms with the deep, soul-sucking grief I felt growing up with inequality all around me. Why do some in our community suffer heartbreaking loss and misfortune, while others sail through life as if blessed? Life was unbearably harsh for some, while their neighbours lived like kings. It seemed so unnatural, and so unfair to me. I was supposed to accept that life is unfair.
The slaves of the Mesopotamian, Hellenistic, Egyptian and Roman civilisations, of which there were multitudes, looked to the stars and organised their philosophy and spirituality around what they could see in the night sky. Eclipses, comets, lunar cycles and so on, showed that celestial bodies are mysteriously connected to terrestrial events, and then later the evolution of a more complex mathematical astronomy introduced the idea that planetary cycles and even comets, had predetermined, regular and predictable behaviour. They were not free, they were tied to their fate. As above, so below.
To the ancient Greek people, life was either a terrible tragedy or a comedy, and their mythology and cosmology reflected that. Master and a slave alike.
No wonder they loved astrology so much, and the Stoic philosophy that shaped the concepts beneath it. Stoic still means accepting what is, with equanimity. Neither complaining or suffering unduly. Or bragging about our good fortune, feeling superior about it or becoming attached to the material advantages we enjoy but others don’t.
One of the fundamental principles of Stoicism is that every event that occurs in the world is predetermined as a result of a providential ordering of events in accordance with a divine plan. The Stoics defined fate (heimarmene) as the rational principle which orders and connects all events that take place in the universe, ensuring that everything happens for a reason.
Chris Brennan, Hellenistic Astrology, The Study of Fate and Fortune.
The universe is intelligent, we are born for a reason. While I like this idea, my heart doesn’t warm to it. If we are enlightened we are supposed to accept our fate, whatever it is. Trust the divine plan. We should not become depressed when tragedy strikes, we must not be overjoyed at sudden good luck. It’s just the way it is.
The Hellenistic schools established this philosophical paradigm as the purpose of Astrology. An idea that fitted with Stoicism as well as popularising astrology as a worthy trade. Why do we do Astrology? So we can know our fate and prepare for it. Everyone wants that, right?
Knowledge of the future means we will not be “burdened with vain hopes, will not expend grievous midnight toil, will not vainly love the impossible…” (Valens quoted from Chris Brennan again.) We are supposed to be soldiers of fate, mastering our ambitions and dreams, estranged from pleasure and praise.
Thereafter Astrology and fate seemed forever intertwined. It resided emphatically at the deterministic end of the fate and freewill paradigm. Fate is a fixed and immutable law, we cannot change it so we may as well accept it with grace.
Since then we have endured a long history of various standpoints on it. I studied the debates on determinism and freewill at university until I realised that the esteemed philosophers of the scientific rationalist schools didn’t have any definitive answers either. Historically, according to my ethics tutor, the deterministic philosophies merely sanctified slavery and propagated slavish attitudes.
Wether or not we can change or influence our fate continues to be one of the main concerns of Astrology. The Neoplatonist school for example lets us believe that yes we are subject to the laws of fate, but they are conditional. We have some tools that can help us interact with it and alter it, if we try hard enough. Fate is like concrete that hasn’t set yet. We can still shape it.
If you are interested in how much this has shaped astrology, go and read Chris Brennan’s book, mentioned above. He provides a very helpful overview of the various positions of the philosophical and theological debates through the ages, in respect of astrology.
Why do we do astrology?
So as a teenager I am looking at a copy of my birth chart and realising that it embodies my story, more or less, in a handful of strange squiggles and diagrams. It is a symbol of my fate, already decided, written in the stars. I was an abused and neglected child. Other things. I really had no idea then that even though I tried I could not change my past. I fought against my fate but it seemed to make no real difference. You can mock the Stoics all you like, but my lived experience says it would have been easier if I had accepted it, with equanimity.
However I am still not a Stoic. I am a practicing astrologer but I don’t know how to advise my clients in the face of tragedy, trauma, loss. Why me? Why now? I feel like we should be able to help more with these questions. I certainly would not tell someone that this is your fate. Find a way to deal with it.
Neither would I say “You didn’t try hard enough, you made bad choices.” That is privilege at its worst. Most people who have experienced terrible trauma had no real choices. Yet we still blame and judge.
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
(Julius Caesar, Shakespear).
As an astrologer in these times, I believe we need to be more compassionate, more Stoic, more accepting.
Yet this is so disempowering.
Character is fate. And fate is character. Nature and nurture. We make choices and decisions because we are who we are. Our choices and decisions tie us to the tangles and patterns of Karma, the sublunary realm of cause and effect.
My personal spiritual philosophy is a sort of mashup of these concepts. I need to feel like the universe is impartial, that it doesn’t dish out punishments or rewards. I still want my impossible loves, my vain hopes and aspirations. My universe is intelligent, but does not judge. It is ultimately kind, generous and loving.
I like the vortex of the law of attraction. Can we really learn how to dream up what we truly want? Is a birth chart a vortex of attraction? Is our birth chart a diagram of our home frequency? Could this be a new way of envisioning fate? More questions than answers it seems.
Karma does not mean reward and punishment, it is quantum and impartial. The wealthy and fortunate are not superior in some way, having planted the seeds of good karma in the garden of some previous life. If you are sick, poor or depressed it is not your fault. You did not intentionally invite a shitload of bad karma down on your head. (Well, maybe you did).
We are all connected by invisible threads, we co-create the reality we live in. Yet the world we are born into is the fate of our birth. There are no actual categorical answers. These are some things that seem true to me now. When I look at a chart I like to find strengths that can be fortified, benefics that can be better utilised and malefics that can be mitigated. The chart is a garden, we can learn to be better gardeners.
This is why I want everyone to learn astrology. Astrology is a gift that can teach us about our garden and the nature of our fate. Right now we need all the help we can get. I just published several books (on Amazon) for beginners. Four short books, the four systems of astrology, four easy steps. Here is the link.
I am listening to podcasts and reading the October forecasts of my favourite astrologers; Rick Levine, Adam Ellen-Baas, Pam Gregory, Chris Brennan, Adam Sommer (to name just a few).
I am so grateful for what they offer, freely, with a passion for what they do. It may sometimes sound like they speak a language of vague and ambiguous themes, archetypes and the mysterious forces they enact. But this is the material we all must work with, the stuff with which we weave our stories, the soil that we use to grow our garden.
Universally they are describing the forthcoming eclipse season as portentous, with radical change and disruption. This is nothing that we are not already seeing on the world stage you may think. But this work is not only about prediction and preparing to embrace our fate.
They show us how we can work with archetypes to improve our collective fate. We have other choices we may not have seen through the lens of our character. From the perspective of our Ascendent.
We are not pawns of the gods. We are the gods.
The archetypes are within us.
Fate is malleable.
I have my own forecast for the next full moon in the pipeline. I am not sure if I can offer more or better in terms of envisioning our collective fate, but I will do my best. In the mean time I want you to learn astrology, keep learning and support the astrologers you follow on social media. It all helps us co-create a better world.
