Table of Contents
Preface How to Use This Book xiii
Introduction Psychological Astrology: An Ancient Science for the Modern Age 1
Chapter 1 Welcome to the New Paradigm of Psychological Astrology 9
Chapter 2 The Sun 25
The taproot
The Sun in the chart relates to ego structure and sense of self. It represents the primary way you identify yourself and organize your many parts into a cohesive personality. The Zodiac sign of your Sun speaks to one of your greatest karmic challenges: will you rise to the most evolved version of yourself, or will you let self-doubt cast you into the shadows or incite self-sabotage?
Chapter 3 The Moon 47
The tides
The Moon represents emotional needs. As you come to understand yourself as an emotional being, you also come to understand the emotional lives of others and to become more empathic without losing your boundaries. This chapter guides you toward deep self-recognition of habits, longings, and needs that-left unrecognized- often hold you tightly in a primitive state of expression and interrelationship. As you realize what you habitually do and most deeply need, you develop the power to listen to and use emotions constructively and break patterns that no longer serve.
Chapter 4 Ascendant/Rising Sign 75
The window
Your ascendant sign is the sign that was rising over the horizon at the exact time of your birth. It represents the way you appear or occur to others in terms of your first impressions, as well as the role you played in your family of origin. It is the sign around which your entire birth chart is oriented. The original description of the ascendant as "mask" is replaced by a new image of the ascendant as "window": an entity that you are seen through and through which you see yourself.
Chapter 5 Mercury 91
The wind
Mercury is the planet of thought and communication. Understanding its planetary placement helps maximize intellect and expression and avoid communication problems. This chapter includes an explanation of the "Mercury in retrograde" phenomenon, touching on the overall gifts and threats of the Internet and other kinds of communication technology.
Chapter 6 Venus 111
The garden
Venus is the archetype of love and beauty. Its planetary placement influences your desires for romance, your social life, and your sense of being attracted to others and of being attractive. Understanding the sign of Venus in your chart helps lead you down the best path to sensual or aesthetic pleasure, artistic expression, and overall harmony in your life. It also helps you understand your drives in romantic and social relationships and build more harmony there.
Chapter 7 Mars 131
The bonfire
Mars represents the power of will and the force of action. Knowing where Mars falls in the birth chart helps you work with your gifts to achieve your goals and dreams and lets you know what pitfalls are most likely to disrupt your ability to act and do. The placement of Mars, sometimes nicknamed "the angry planet," affects your assertiveness, your expression of anger, your athletic drives, and the more yang (masculine) expressions of your sexuality.
Chapter 8 Jupiter 155
The high mountain lake
Jupiter represents expansion, growth, and success. It also represents generosity, honor, abundance, pride, and optimism. Its placement in the birth chart says a lot about how you express-or overexpress or struggle to express-these qualities in your life.
Chapter 9 Saturn 173
The mountain
Saturn represents structure, time, and tradition. It balances the expansive energy of Jupiter with necessary limitation and realism. The placement of Saturn in the signs speaks to not only how you make order from chaos but also how you are limited by boundaries. Saturn gets a bad rap-it's sometimes symbolized as a skeleton, turning your thoughts toward mortality and the inevitability of death. But without a skeleton, you'd be nothing but a pile of flesh and viscera. You need your skeleton to stand and walk and do all you do, just as you need the structure of Saturn to manifest, to stay grounded, to persist and work hard.
Chapter 10 Chiron 193
The gnarled tree
Chiron represents the archetype of the wounded healer. In the birth chart, the sign placement of Chiron suggests what parts of yourself you might experience as most wounded and in need of healing and how you might use your wounds to help and heal others.
Chapter 11 Uranus 213
The lightning bolt
Change, rebellion, and revolution are Uranian. This archetype is the bringer of surprises, "eureka" moments, and sudden, cataclysmic awakenings. It makes maintaining the status quo impossible and brings liberation from what oppresses. The sign placement of Uranus describes how you are most likely to realize surprises, changes, and "eureka" moments-or (as is often the case when you don't honor your birth chart's Uranus energy) how those moments are most likely to happen to you when you least expect them.
Chapter 12 Neptune 235
The wave
Neptune represents transcendence and the merging of consciousness, the imagination, the spirit world, the mystical-the space before birth, the space after death, the space between worlds. The sign associated with Neptune in your chart affects not only your dreams but also your depth of feeling and empathy. It can help you understand any tendencies you have to try to dissociate or check out of being awake and fully engaged in this world, as well as your capacity to embrace the mysteries of the universe.
Chapter 13 Pluto 255
The volcano
The Pluto archetype represents primordial energy and deep transformation. Its placement in your chart helps you understand your impulses to go as deep as a human being can go; to tell the truth, no matter what the consequences; to dive into the mysteries of sex, birth, and death. This understanding can help you manage impulses toward hatred, greed, jealousy, and lust-which everyone has because there is a Pluto placement in every chart-and channel those drives into creativity and into the kind of transformation that is beneficial in the long run (even if disruptive and difficult in the short term).
Epilogue Where Do We Go from Here? 273
Acknowledgments 275
Notes 277
About the Author 279
