I had the following debate several years ago with an old friend, an old-school astrologer : given that our birth chart describes our underlying potential, can we go “beyond” and surpass this potential ? To what degree do we need to fulfill it ? And can we, on the contrary, completely “bypass” it ?
This sort of debate has a huge number of philosophical, spiritual, metaphysical, and religious ramifications, and I will not explore them all in this article, but I will give you a few of ways to start thinking about it all ! 🙂
“At the end of the day, a map of the sky is nothing but a map of predetermined possibilities. People do not exhaust all of the possibilities written in their birth chart (each choice we make can limit the possibilities), but rather limit themselves to those that fit their personal tendencies.”
The french astrologer AndrĂ© Barbault, in his book “From psychoanalysis to astrology”
Can we “go beyond” our birth chart ?
In astrological teachings, the cycles of human life, both short and long, are interconnected. The most well-known (and those that we pay the most attention to) are generally the social cycles (Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn), but there are of course also the personal cycles (the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, and Venus) and the transpersonal cycles, which are more collective (Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto).
Through the lens of people’s birth charts, astrologers describe a number of underlying possibilities that may be explored and expressed.
Learning about our potential and successfully expressing various parts of that potential is in itself something that not everyone can do. Achieving this stage of realization, Individuation, is extremely complex and not easy for most people.
So then, can we “go beyond” and transcend our lot in life ?
Going beyond one’s birth chart is achieved in all cases by Searching for meaning, gaining understanding, and moving onto the path of transcendence, in particular through our Social relationships, and this requires us to call upon our catalytic energies that push us to take action in various ways. It’s as though there is some sort of “sound barrier” that we run into if we want to try to move beyond the circumstances that we were born into.
Moreover, even if going beyond our potential were possible, it’s not always desirable. This is the heart of the problem that we all individually need to think about and be wise enough to respond to.
Can we “bypass” our birth chart ?
Conversely, we can completely move right on past our birth chart… unfortunately.
A Birth chart is never anything but an assembly of seeds of potential : in other words, seeds that we can plant and help grow.
In the same way in which seeds that we keep in a “box” and never plant, will never yield anything, the parts of our potential that we do not discover, or more likely that we are repressing, will never yield anything either !
Often, some people have entire sections of their birth charts that remain forever “dormant”. Is this a good thing or a bad thing ? No one can really answer this question; that’s just the way it is.
From a fatalistic point of view, we could tell ourselves that if certain parts of a person’s potential have not been exploited, it means that they should not be. But I have a tendency to think that it’s fundamentally sad to “restrain” yourself in this way.
The potential of a birth chart is a seed, and the purpose of a seed is to sprout and continue the cycle of life. All that this potential needs is recognition, a bit of care, and some length of time for it to grow flowers and fruit.
- The flowers of one’s potential are called aptitude, strength, talent, intelligence, effort, determination, activity, sensitivity, and even creativity.
- Its fruit is called Individuation.
Remember, the game is not over as long as the referee has not blown the whistle, and life is a never-ending game that is played over a long period of time. It’s truly never too late to express something, but there is never any obligation to do so.
Good things come to those who wait ! Again, it’s better to understand what we are experiencing than to simply judge it.
As human beings, finding meaning in things and understanding them are vitally important parts of our lives.