Rae Orion - Astrology For Dummies

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Astrology can change your life. It did mine. Astrology illuminates the secret corners of the self, expands your insight into yourself and others, deepens your compassion, clarifies the past, and even offers a glimpse into the possible future. Beyond that, as with all great areas of accumulated knowledge, astrology has the power to alter perception. Once you know something about it, you never see the world in the same way again.

Blessed with a vocabulary that is simultaneously objective and poetic, astrology stimulates your intellect and fuels your curiosity. As you absorb its principles, everyone you know becomes a mystery waiting to be solved. Even public personalities and figures from the past — Frida Kahlo, say, or Vincent Van Gogh — glow more vividly when viewed through an astrological lens. Most of all, astrology offers an unrivaled method of learning about yourself, not just as a person born under one sign or another but as someone with a never-before-seen assortment of qualities and abilities, someone whose individual essence reflects the cosmos.

Many people think that astrology divides all human beings into 12 groups. How wrong they are! Astrology teaches that all human beings are subject to universal needs and desires — and that every individual is entirely and splendidly unique.

Astrology is an ancient and evolving system that has many dimensions and appears in many forms. Western astrology is not the same as Chinese astrology or Vedic astrology. This book is about Western astrology, but even within that, there are many subdivisions. Practitioners of mundane astrology calculate horoscopes for public events and consider the fate of nations. Electional astrologers specialize in choosing dates and times for occasions such as weddings, real estate purchases, or opening night at the theatre. Financial astrologers follow the market. Horary astrologers answer questions that address everything from concerns about relationships or health to the location of lost objects. In this book, I focus on natal astrology, the interpretation of a birth chart to gain insight into the personality, proclivities, talents, and tribulations of an individual.

I begin by introducing you to the major components of a birth chart and showing you how to get an accurate copy of your chart via the internet. After that, I tell you how to analyze your chart’s most essential features, how to compare your chart with someone else’s, and how to use astrology to improve your life. It may sound extravagant to claim that astrology helps you align yourself with the universe, but it’s the simple truth.

I consider astrology a tool — an objective tool — for understanding yourself and others, confronting adversity, embracing opportunity, analyzing relationships, and making basic decisions. In Astrology For Dummies, 3rd Edition, I show you how to use that tool for your advantage.

As you leaf through these pages, there are a few conventions to be aware of:

You will notice various symbols strewn across each birth chart like a handful of precious stones. Those magical-looking symbols represent the signs, planets, and other components of an astrological chart. I consider them a fundamental part of astrology’s charm, and I recommend that you learn them by heart. But you don’t have to because I have provided a handy Cheat Sheet that identifies every symbol and gives you a thumbnail description of each. See the “ Beyond the Book” section in this Introduction to find out more about the Cheat Sheet, including how to access it.Using the Cheat Sheet, you can translate those symbols into a language you actually speak. So if you’re mulling over a birth chart and you see something that looks like this:2805you’ll be able to figure out in a flash that Mercury () is in Aquarius () at 28 degrees 05 minutes. And, yes, it’s retrograde (). (For more on that loaded topic, see Chapter 18.)

In the text, whenever I refer to a planetary position, such as the one in the preceding example, I describe it as 28°05' Aquarius, spelling out the sign and using the international symbols for degree (°) and minute ('). In the actual charts — those round, mandala-like images scattered throughout this book — I omit those tiny indicators. Instead, the charts in this book announce their planetary positions with type: the degree number appears in a font that has been boldfaced, while the minutes are shown in a lighter, standard font. The symbol for the relevant sign of the zodiac is plunked down right in the middle, between the degree and the minutes, as follows: 2805.

Another feature of Astrology For Dummies , 3rd Edition, is that you can dive in anywhere. As an author, I like to think that you’ll begin in the beginning and read doggedly to the end. But I’m a realist. I know that when most people pick up astrology books, they head straight for their own Sun signs (or star signs, as many people like to call them). I have written this book with that in mind. You can start anywhere, secure in the knowledge that if there’s a fact from an earlier chapter that you absolutely must know, I will tell you. This book is filled with cross-references and reminders for just that purpose. You can jump in anywhere.