Can we transcend our natal chart?

As many of us know, the place and moment of our birth calculated into a two-dimensional astrological map is called the natal or birth chart. This chart shows the placement of the planets in the sky at any given moment. We individually radiate and pulsate the various energies of our astrological chart based on the ways in which the various planets are not only in relationship to one another, known as aspects, but also by the zodiacal signs in which the planets are found. Aspects are the relationships between any astrological planet or point. These aspects tell us the types of relationships the planets have with one another and therefore the type of experiences we are likely to have. While some placements and aspects are more challenging than others, all have their respective student and graduate level expression. The birth chart is a road map informing us about not only the type of terrain we will experience in life, but also how we are likely to relate to it. The chart can neither show the level of consciousness of the individual, nor can it reveal the amount of work an individual has or hasn’t done. An astrological chart shows the structure of the subtle energetic body into which the soul has manifested in order to both learn certain lessons as well as express and manifest certain possibilities. As the soul exists outside the chart and individual life, the chart indicates what the soul is doing this incarnation.

The definition of transcend is: “to be or go beyond the range or limits of, or surpass.” What does it mean to transcend one’s astrological chart? I would define transcending the chart as no longer being controlled, influenced or affected by any aspect represented in the birth chart. In order to surpass something, we need to understand it. We can work the planets consciously or they will work us unconsciously. Transcendence is aided by increasing observation and awareness. Transcending the birth chart implies the personality is no longer at odds with everything else, a common human theme, but rather is co-creating WITH astrological energies. We can choose to react to the energetic reflection of the planets or we can take them in and harmonize them with our own planetary mixture, radiating the new combination.

Transcend is different than transform. The former is to go beyond or surpass, while the latter belongs to the realm of Pluto and Scorpio which takes what is present and transforms it into a purer form. To transform is to remain attached, whereas transcendence allows us to move on.

If we take the analogy of a road map, transcending the birth chart is like going off-road through unpaved territory. Just as it is important to make sure we have the equipment necessary to go all-terrain, the astrological map will show the preparatory work required to step beyond the limits the chart presents. We live in a time of quick fixes and even quicker answers. While the Aquarian science of astrology can provide us with the tools necessary to make Uranian-quick responses, they are often more fully realized when based upon Saturnian wisdom. Saturn in the chart will tell us how we are likely to deal with the harder themes in life, show where we get hooked by our story and how we face challenging aspects.  Saturn is the planet of limitation, authenticity, structure, foundation, punishment, authorship, doom and gloom. While transcendence is possible in a Uranian flash, it is more likely to occur using a more structured and practical Saturnian approach. In order to gain the Uranian freedom, we must learn the Saturnian structures. In order to be successful in music, for example, one needs to learn the notes, musical scales, finger and/or mouth movements. After integrating the basics, one can fluidly express -even improvise—in a way that only practice can provide.

The Moon represents our emotional attachments. Attachment creates limiting, focused energy often at the expense of other things in our lives. When attached to some -thing, -place, -one we have to ignore many other things to attain and keep it. Most moons do not like change, especially the fixed ones. Obsessive compulsive behavior can be an extreme example of attachment as well as hoarding. For better or for worse, emotional hooks often keep us stuck on one side of a polarity. As we learn astrology, we become aware of our specific view about life based upon the perspective our chart gives us. The chart can reveal where we will experience attachments, hardships and challenges to our individual perspective.  

Let’s begin with one understanding: there are no bad astrological charts.

Just as we have the people with whom we get along and those with whom we don’t, there are two types of astrological aspects. They are called challenging and supportive. The major challenging aspects include the conjunction, square and opposition. Each of these difficult relationships can be experienced on any number of levels with a wide range of potentially painful interactions given the planets and signs involved. Challenging aspects force us to pay attention. A conjunction is like a new birth, moon dark or the new moon phase, and requires us to blend two energies in a way they have never blended before. This can be anything from challenges around boundaries with others to maybe feeling like we are not whole when we are single. The first quarter waxing phase is known as crisis in action. This opening square gives the experience of taking one step forward and two steps back as we carefully decide whether a course of action is right. The first and third quarters, or squares, which often result in a pie-in-the-face experience and the question “How did that happen?” The full moon or opposition is probably one of the easier challenges to identify, as it is right across from us. This is the projection aspect, both good and bad, as in, “you be the good partner and I will be the bad one”, or projecting those parts of ourselves onto others so we don’t see our own parts. The third quarter phase is known as the crisis in consciousness and has to do with the Russian doll understanding of life: each time we come to the “end” of an idea, philosophy, understanding, or relationship, we find there is a greater, larger idea to take its place. There is an old astrological saying that if we work out the challenging aspects in our chart, we can transform them into supportive aspects for our next incarnation. This is a clue for transcending the chart, which some of us may enjoy before dying.

Since aspects are relationships, learning to be in a healthy relationship with our challenging and supportive aspects is an important first step to transcend the chart. Transforming challenging planetary aspects is similar to transcending those challenging personal relationships with family, friends and others. Just like in relationships, we have to find ways to relate. Some people are direct and up front, some passive, some passive aggressive, some detached, some controlling and all of the other possible combinations that make relationships so exciting. Astrology gives us the tools to understand how we are likely to approach relationships and improve upon them.

A Moon square Saturn relationship is a classic example of a challenging aspect. This placement often indicates an individual who had a challenging relationship with the nurturing parent and did not experience sustenance, but rather subsistence. This positioning likely indicates an individual who has been conditioned to believe that needs will not be met, let alone having needs in the first place! Without intervention from healthy individuals or astrological awareness of this situation, one could choose a destructive path in relationship to this placement, or at least see life as a series of emotionally frustrating experiences. This would reinforce one’s negative beliefs resulting in a life filled with loneliness, despair, alienation, abandonment and separation. Healthy astrological guidance and therapeutic support can help one understand the reason for the placement and how to use it without being victimized by it. Transits and progressions to the Moon and Saturn, as well as other aspects, will give opportunities to gain different perspectives and see a larger picture without limits. The Saturn square Moon is simply a lens of limitation through which one looks at life and often comes up short. Repeated experiences of lack will likely challenge one’s perceptions of being right and feeling miserable or being in the unknown and allow something greater. Stepping back to see the larger picture will always be a welcome balm to these individuals. 

And what of the supportive aspects? The major beneficial aspects include the conjunction, sextile and trine. The conjunction, on the supportive side, is a twinning of energies that increases the strength of each of the planets involved. The sextile is usually between planets in supportive elements: earth to water and air to fire. Each needs the other in order to thrive. The trines are usually of the same element. A further sophistication of elemental expertise occurs when there are planets in all three of an element’s sign and are equidistant from one another, called a grand trine. The supportive aspects are the easy relationships between planets. There is natural flow and ease, there are no rough edges. The challenges in these astrological relationships is when one doesn’t rise to one’s full potential due to laziness, dependency or excess. Frustration for these individuals often occur when things do not flow smoothly.  These aspects can trap one into accepting benefits with little effort. One may even find oneself in a gilded cage that isn’t so gilded. Consider a flowing river. As long as it is flowing, one rarely considers what could be done to make it flow better.

“Why fix what isn’t broke” was probably stated by a person with a grand trine in earth. While a grand trine is considered one of the “best” complex supportive aspects, it is a closed circuit and doesn’t need anything. An individual with a grand trine in fire, earth, air and/or water is an expert in that element. Creating a kite, or an opposition to any of the points on a grand trine, will give one the opportunity to move the elemental energies outward from the closed circuit.

While I haven’t gone into all of the possible combinations, my intention here is to illustrate the ways in which each of the aspects needs to be considered and integrated in order to take the steps to astrological transcendence.  

How do we transcend the natal chart?

1. Understand your chart: the good, the bad and the ugly. Your chart is a snapshot of you. Embrace all of the expressions on the spectrum of dualities. Don’t be an astrological victim. Face the challenging aspects in your chart as they are there to help you grow and evolve. You can abdicate and choose not to step up, but situations will likely reappear in ever more attention-getting ways until you do. Sweeping dust under the carpet will result in a mound big enough for you to trip over one day. Astrology is just one lens on life. Gain additional perspectives to deepen your relationship with yourself.
2. Accept yourself. Since each birth represents a divine moment of the universe, there are no mistakes. You are here to be our own individual archetype.  You are aided by both the challenging and supportive aspects in your birth chart. Taking responsibility for what is shown in your chart can give you the understanding of why you needed that indifferent father, emotionally invasive mother, or the death of one or both of your parents.
3. Use your gifts. Supportive aspects are inherent gifts, but you have to put them to work to realize their rewards. Apply yourself and use astrological resources to see dis-ease, depression and other undesirable experiences and relationships fall away.
4. Charge and Neutrality. When a situation upsets us, we have become charged. Neutrality happens when we can experience that situation and remain comfortable. Work to be neutral -not detached or unattached- but neutral. Building the inner observer is crucial. 
5. Identify how the archetypes are playing in your life. We will constellate, which means systematically arrange, with people and situations that activate various parts of our birth chart. Each person and experience brings awareness to those parts of us that may otherwise remain unconscious. People come into our lives for a reason. You can try an explorative astrological exercise by matching each of the planets in your chart with the people in your life. See how the archetypes play out between the different characters. See how they change through time. 
6. Transits and progressions help to activate places in our charts and in our lives that need adjustments. Follow these changes on your own or with the aid of a thoughtfully aware astrologer with whom you resonate. This will help you know what you need to have on hand to best meet what Life will ask of you.

The sooner we recognize the patterns operating in life, the sooner we can deal with them. Astrology can help us identify and understand the archetypes and therefore the specific situations and people likely to appear in life. Building the inner observer is a necessary step to welcome transcendence. Gaining this neutral overview gives Pluto something with which to transform our personal limitations into greater abilities to create and improvise in sync with the universal melody.

In the end, we live in a world that allows for the idea of free choice. We can spend as many lifetimes following countless adventures, ideas, experiences, themes, relationships, religions as we wish. Eventually there comes a time when an inner awareness grows that we are not the center of the universe and we begin making less selfish choices. There is no judgment, no time requirement in relationship to this unfolding in each individual; it is a unique process.  This current period in time provides many of us with unfathomable opportunities to grow intellectually, emotionally and consciously. We are asked to bring our awareness not just to our individual experience, home, families and friends, but to the entire planet as we begin to reckon with the effects of climate change and other challenging and complex issues that will take many minds to consider and resolve. Or maybe just one?

Who doesn’t want to transform the challenges and traps in life? We make it easier to work with one another when we address and resolve our own issues first. Think of the amazing magic we will create on the planet when we all work together for a common good. We are a microcosm of the macrocosm. Astrology gives us a great tool of understanding that. Let each of us be the change we seek.

Michael Bartlett