There was a time when all physicians were astrologers. Hippocrates was a Greek astrologer-physician. Nostradamus and Paracelsus were famous French astrologer-physicians in the 1500s. Imhotep was a celebrated astrologer-physician in ancient Egypt, and renowned Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung also considered astrology extremely influential in his work.
As a present-day astrologer and physician, I still see astrology charts as tools that point people toward their path and purpose. They can inform individuals exactly what they are here on earth to create—and heal.
Many astrologers, including myself, consider astrology charts to be the plan of the soul for each lifetime. The idea is that neither your life, nor your chart, is random. You were assigned—or chose—the family circumstances you incarnated into, and your chart was also planned in advance. Souls are here to learn, and there has to be some way to keep them roughly on track. Astrology is that way.
My belief is that the astrology chart functions as a sort of energetic hologram that gets synced onto the body and soul during the dimensional shift at the moment of birth. The chart then broadcasts its energetic signatures every moment for the rest of a person’s life. It creates a big part of someone’s “vibration.”
If you connect well with someone, I believe it’s because you have important things aligning in your astrology charts. You are literally “vibing” with them. Similarly, if you clash with someone, you have unfavorable angles forming between planets in your respective charts.
So, our little personal holograms are constantly interacting with one another, and the sky, too. This is how predictive astrology works. Our personal energy mandala interfaces with the geometry created by the current sky, and it attracts favorable events or challenges. It brings the preplanned karma from the chart into effect.
Applying this to healing.
A multiple lifetime theory of existence plays a role in astrology, with a person’s past accomplishments and actions likely creating the details in their chart. Talents are built over many lives, debts are created and paid, and personality quirks or challenges are refined.
A psychologically minded astrologer can quickly identify a person’s traumas, wounds, and struggles and help them realize their challenges were part of the soul’s plan all along. This is a transformational realization that can bring a person to a point of spiritual understanding, forgiveness, or awakening that might otherwise take years to achieve.
Additionally, astrology can help people understand how different everyone is (and how difficult it is for someone to be anything other than what is in their chart). This expanded perspective leads to compassion; people are not meant to reject the difficult parts of their charts or themselves.
Interestingly, the personality quirks that cause the greatest suffering are often tied up with the gifts people are on the planet to give. Strengths are also linked to weaknesses. This is a fascinating healing paradox astrology revealed to me many years ago. Every planet, and all the signs, have light and dark aspects, gifts and challenges.
Understanding astrology can help someone rise above the denser potential and lean toward the gifts of their chart placements. Attempting to ponder why they might have had the family they had, what it taught them, and how it shaped them into the person they were supposed to become, karmically, can help develop insight, fortitude, and forgiveness.
Lessons regarding boundaries, assertion, morality, self-nurturance, and many other topics are learned through contrast. Difficulties and traumas in life usually prepare a soul for future work it is slated to do. Literally, everything has its purpose, in astrology and life. That purpose is our growth.
Selected planetary bodies’ psychological impact.
Here is a quick introduction to how certain planetary placements in your chart might influence your path to healing.
Chiron is the “wounded healer” in mythology, and its placement by sign and location give clues about a prominent way we are wounded during our lives. Chiron’s lessons usually complete around the 50th birthday.
Until that time, people go through repeated “initiations” with the themes related to their Chiron placement. These little tests help them heal and transcend their unique point of pain.
Pluto is a planet associated with power, sex, and intensity. When Pluto is prominent in someone’s chart, their path is not easy. They will be a “shadow magnet,” attracting unhealed Plutonian energies from others, through which they can confront their own darkness.
Accepting the role of these themes in their karma allows someone with strong Pluto to slowly open into the rebirth aspect of this placement while being mindful of the tendency to dominate and control.
Mars is linked with anger and aggression. If it is prominent in a chart, a person will usually have healing challenges related to managing their reactions, tempering their emotions, and learning how to be considerate.
People with strong Mars can make conscious efforts to slowly improve their heated reactivity while still enjoying the benefits of their spirited personality as their lives evolve.
Neptune is connected with themes of fear, illusion, and escapism. When Neptune is strong, a chart there can be a pattern of escapism (substance abuse, for example), or a tendency to be fearful or paranoid.
Becoming aware of these tendencies can help Neptunian types remember to ground themselves, check in with others, and pull out of confusion into their spiritual and creative side.
Saturn represents restriction, seriousness, and structure. If it is prominent in a chart, a person may have a tendency toward sadness, guilt, and shame. From a healing standpoint, the soul is learning about establishing foundations, doing things well, and taking responsibility. Owning these objectives paves the way to peace.
Using your astrology chart for healing:
Choose to believe the chart may indeed be a sort of plan for the soul. Without this belief, the information in the chart carries less value.
Get an astrology reading from a trusted astrologer, or commit to doing quite a bit of self-learning and research to be able to slowly interpret your chart to some degree yourself. During this step, you will learn exactly what your chart indicates your learning objectives, gifts, struggles, and more are.
Be compassionate toward yourself regarding what you discover in your chart. Some of the info in our charts speaks to our beauty—and some speaks to our darkness. Part of healing involves awareness. Becoming more aware of our shadow is a prerequisite for learning how to accept and work with it. It is love, rather than rejection, that creates healing and growth.
Cultivate trust in your higher self. It is very likely your own higher self chose or co-created the details of this life. If you can trust your higher self, it makes accepting your life and its challenges much easier.
Greet your lessons with curiosity and an open heart. This is difficult to do when lessons appear to be taking from you or are triggering in uncomfortable ways. However, if you have learned that certain challenges are part of your destiny, based on your chart, it is easier to face them bravely and commit to handling each one better than the last.
Astrology is an ancient spiritual technology that exists to keep your soul on track, and understanding it means understanding a secret. That secret? You.
Knowing yourself creates a foundation for enlightenment. It opens the doorway to compassion and lays a path toward healing. Taking the journey into your own mystery reveals the seed of the sacred that lies within the self.
