Ground Well Counseling is a practice devoted to facilitating every person’s healing and agency. Though most sessions are focused at an individual level, social justice, healing and environmental wellbeing are essential components of the practice.
Astrology and Astronomy
The story of astrology, like many good stories, begins with once upon a time. Once upon a time, astrology and astronomy were one and the same. Now, one might define astronomy as the study of anything that is observable in the sky, whether that is planetary motion, the composition of distant galaxies, or trying to figure out what dark matter might be based on observable phenomena.
Astrology can be defined as the interpretation of celestial phenomena in a meaningful context, generally from a geocentric (Earth-based) perspective, since most of us are born and live on the Earth. As far as we know.
Astrology depends entirely on observational astronomy: it is pretty hard to interpret things you cannot observe. The primary celestial bodies astrologers typically want to know about are: the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. There are many asteroids, dwarf planets*, comets, etc., in the solar system that are worth mentioning and observing, but, I shall say, not by me, not right now. (*I shall however, note that it does not matter whether tiny little Pluto is called a planet or dwarf planet as much as it matters that it is actually there. Clearly, Neptune is the last of the gas giants, but clearly, Pluto is also round and not potato-shaped. If you want to know more, Google planetary differentiation.)
The Natal Chart
In this case, for the town of Bowdoinham, ME.
The Natal CharT, Birth Chart, Horoscope
Essentially, the birth chart is a two-dimensional snapshot of the sky at the moment you (or your dog, or your town) was born. We will take the chart of the town of Bowdoinham, ME, for example. The zodiac was originally determined by the constellations of stars that lay in the path of the ecliptic, that is, the path traveled by the Sun in the Earth’s sky over the course of a year*. For example, the Sun starts at 0 degrees of Aries at the spring equinox (in the Northern hemisphere), moves to 0 degrees Cancer at the summer solstice, 0 degrees Libra at the autumnal equinox, and 0 degrees Capricorn at the winter solstice. (As a tangent, the word solstice comes from the Latin for sun, sol, standing still, sistere [see solstice]).
www.astro.com is an excellent resource for getting your birth chart for free as well as for getting a variety of horoscopes and educational articles about astrology.
*The zodiac has become more complicated and controversial since its earliest recording in history. For more information, please refer to www.astro.com.
In the chart above, the zodiac symbols are the colored symbols in the outermost ring of the chart, which is divided into 12 equal sections.
The symbols for the zodiac signs vary, but you can see the typical representations for the 12 signs in the image to the left. The symbols appear to have come from the constellations originally associated with each sign (e.g., Aries was associated with the constellation Aries, the ram). Because of the Earth’s precession (see the astro.com link above), Western astrologers now pin the zodiac signs to the yearly cycle of daylight as the Earth revolves around the Sun.
The Angles
The darker lines in a birth chart represent the “angles” - that is, where planets rise, culminate, set, and reach nadir (lowest point below the Earth). For example, if we consider the Sun, the angles mark where sunrise, noon, sunset, and midnight occur for that particular day and place. Most astrologers consider planets with relationships to the angles as emphasized in a chart.
The dark horizontal line in the chart has two parts - the left side (to the East) and the right side (to the West). Remember the chart is a snapshot as if you were looking at the sky while standing on the Earth. The Eastern line is known as the Ascendant (or AC; where sunrise occurs), and it is essentially a line drawn from the place of birth out to the Eastern horizon, into the sky, where it intersects the zodiac at a particular degree. The Western line (where sunset occurs) is the Descendant (DC), and it is always opposite the Ascendant. Any chart with the Sun in the top half of the chart will be a daytime chart, and any chart with the Sun below the AC-DC axis will be a night chart (pretty much - it can get fuzzy because the Sun’s light doesn’t observe the horizon as a hard and fast barrier and dawn and dusk may occur while the Sun is technically below the horizon).
The dark vertical line on the top half of the chart points to the Midheaven degree (where the Sun is at noon; also known as medium coeli, which means midheaven in Latin - you will see it abbreviated MC). In the Northern hemisphere this points South, and vice versa in the Southern hemisphere. The dark vertical line on the bottom half of the chart is typcally known as the IC (from imum coeli, thanks Latin; this is where the Sun is at midnight).
The Planets
Okay, so many astrologers will use the shorthand “planets” to refer to any of the objects in the sky that they would like to place on the chart - these are not, in fact, always planets. The Sun and the Moon, for example. The nodes of the Moon - which are the points in the sky that define the line where the Sun, Earth, and Moon line up to form eclipses. Chiron, which orbits between Saturn and Uranus is currently classified as both a minor planet and a comet. Dwarf planet Ceres, which orbits between Mars and Jupiter, is another celestial object that astrologers like to keep track of, however, it is not (technically) a planet.
Many “planets” (yes, I will use the shorthand, too), have particular symbols that are used to represent them in the chart. Below you can see a list (courtesy of www.astro.com) showing the planetary symbols, the names of the planets/objects, and their coordinates along the zodiac.
Compare the symbols in the list to the right with those on the circular chart above - and you will see where the planets were as projected along the ecliptic. The blue numbers to the right represent the zodiacal coordinates by degree, arc minutes, and arc seconds. The small “r” next to some of the coordinates indicates that a planet or object is in retrograde - that is, apparent backward motion compared to the general movement of objects from East to West.
The coordinates of the AC (Ascendant) and MC (Midheaven) are given in green below the list of planets. Remember that the DC (Descendant) is always opposite the AC and the IC always opposite the MC. In this case the AC is at 8 degrees, 3 minutes, and 41 seconds of Sagittarius, so the DC would be at 8 degrees, 3 minutes, and 41 seconds of Gemini (being the sign opposite Sagittarius).
