Your Birth Chart

An unknown poet sings "An apocalypse everyday is easier to bear compared to the pain of a separated love". Sounds really selfish doesn't it? When you weigh sorrows on a scale, it seems so wrong. It is not right to place your pain against the great pains that you see in the world.

But the poet somehow is not ashamed to sing of her love. Perhaps because poets have a license. A license to bend the rules and to speak the truth. Their truth maybe, but the truth nonetheless.

Who gives them this license?

Do you know how the word 'God' came to be? It has its root in the Old Germanic word 'guda' (not to be confused with the cheese). 'Guda 'is 'the one who is invoked'. It is the most beautiful word to describe the Creator. Wodin/Odin the Norse God derives his name from the word 'God'. Odin is a god of wisdom, magic, death, divination, and poetry. He has only one eye. His description is very similar to Shukracharya, the planet Venus, in Vedic Astrology. He also has only one eye and is associated with magic and wisdom. Shukra is also known by the name 'Kavya', which means 'poetry' or in other translations it means 'the art or gift of the seer'.

The poet can see and somehow captures elusive truth between the lines of her poem. And when she says, the disaster of an apocalypse seems easier to bear than my broken heart, she is talking of a truth that lies deep within each of us. Psychology may say we are born with only two fears, the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises, but where does it take into account our biggest fear that is so deeply embedded that we can't even know where it came from or when.

It is our fear of impermanence. It shows up as a fear of loss, of rejection, of growing old, of saying goodbye and a fear of unhappiness. How can we understand this fear better and hold it lighter? What can we do to lessen the deep gnashes of its pain?

The Hero's Journey

Joseph Campbell laid out the structure of a story. He studied cultures across the world and found all of us telling stories in the same way. He also found recurring archetypes, myths and symbols shared by cultures in disparate parts of the world. He called the prototype of the story - The Hero's Journey, the story where an ordinary person, gets a call to an adventure, heeds the call, overcomes obstacles and wins the reward at the end.

The time has come now to take the wisdom of Joseph Campbell but to see the journey through a different lens.

The Tale of the Ordinary Person

The hero's journey is one of glitz and glamour. And we are not satisfied with mere heroes any longer, we want super heroes. And we want fantastic tales. And we have fanned the fire calling for more effort, more struggle and more discontent in our telling of the hero's tale. 

What a relief it will be to embrace the ordinary today. How will it feel to give up the strain of standing tall over the others? How will your ordinary life look? Will it feel boring? Will it feel real and raw? Where is the beauty hiding? How softly will the magic unfold? 

Your Jataka Tale

Astrology lays out the story of man by means of a chart. A natal chart or horoscope is called Jataka or Kundali in India. Jataka meaning a 'chart based on your birth'. And Kundali comes from the root word 'Kundala' that means circular or a coil.

All charts are derived from a mother chart called the "Kala purusha Kundali". Kala= Time, Purusha= Man. The seers have imagined Time as a man and drawn a chart for him.  All charts that are drawn for every individual or event is based on this Kalapurusha Kundali, the mother chart, the chart of Time itself.

Kala Purusha Kundali

Today we are going study this mother chart, in a rudimentary way, so that you can have a basic understanding of key concepts. Each of us has different planetary alignments and influences, but we all share the same basic chart.

The Kalapurusha Kundali/ Natal Chart has 12 twelve houses that are the bases of every individual chart. What do these houses mean? They are the general themes of life that we all share. They are blocks of time and space that play out in a life. Each house has a certain energy, symbol, meaning and message. Every life or event plays out as a reflection of these houses.

The 12 houses are arranged in a coil.And at the end of every fourth house, there is a 'knot' called the 'Gandantha' that each person has to endure/ sort/solve before the next house plays out. So we see 12 houses, 3 knots.

Let's look at a story unfold on this chart, and through that we can see what each house represents. The numbers on the left are the house numbers, what is described beside each number is the events of a story. What is underlined is the theme of each house; and the Gandantha points are in italics.

Story of X

1) X introduces herself to Y

2) X and Y go out on dates and explore sensual pleasures.

3) They meet each others' close family and friends.

4) They decide to make a home together.

Gandantha (Knot): X finds herself making several compromises.

5)X and Y have two lovely children.

6) They have an EMI to pay and there is frustration over work, chores, taking care of kids. The daily grind starts getting to them.

7) The partnership is now called to question like never before. The marriage is challenged. X decides to put in effort to see the point of view of Y. She is trying to learn empathy.

8) While then suddenly, out of the blue, Smack! She is hit right on the face. Hard. She gets to know a secret. Y had an affair.

Gandantha (Knot): X feels like she has died.

9)She turns towards religion. She thinks maybe if she learns the scriptures somehow things will make sense again. She finds a religious group on the internet.

10) She stabilizes herself, brings in a fresh focus to her career and manages to get a promotion.

11) She finds solace in the religious group headed by a guru who feels like an elder sibling. This network is of people similar to her, broken-hearted but trying their best to be above the normal grind of life. She is also now earning a good income from her job. Her efforts seem to be rewarded.

12)Slowly she finds herself being isolated from her family and old friends, a sense of disillusionment creeps in. The spiritual group with their detachment ideals seem more and more appealing than the sham of social structures,X thinks.

Gandantha (Knot): X pays a price. She is now willing to lose her old identity to become a different person.

That is a story spread over the 12 houses. But then the Kundali is a coiled serpent swallowing her tail. And so it continues...

Part 2

1) X looks at herself differently. She has a new image of who she is. She wants to try something new.

2)She volunteers to start a podcast with the spiritual guru. Her voice, she now thinks, is being used in a beneficial, productive way.

3)The social media account she handles for the guru goes viral. They are posting several short, effective videos, funneling the right kinds of people.

4)She is praised by the guru, whose tenderness seems like Mother's love. Her heart feels full. She is invited to join the super exclusive inner tribe of the guru.

Gandantha: X gives up her job to focus on the work of her guru.

5)Things are falling in place with seeming good luck. There is a feeling of romance almost in the work that she is doing.

6)Service is her topmost priority. If she can see to the needs of her guru, and take his message to crores of people; if she can bring in that money to make the guru even bigger in his impact and reach, then it seems like a humbling opportunity gifted to X. Even if it is difficult and the praise is not as forthcoming as earlier from the guru, she plods on.

7)But things don't seem so rosy any longer. They don't seem fair. There is a huge imbalance of power in the cult. There are a lot of people working hard to keep one man aloft. But now she is involved in the business of the guru, and it is the way she earns money as well. She carries on though feeling a sense of uneasiness. People around her tell her everything is alright.

8)And then Swoosh! The rug is pulled out from under her feet. Bang! She falls. The guru is implicated in a sex, murder and tax trial. And he is hellbent on dragging all of them under with him. The inner tribe is called by the Police for questioning.

Gandantha/Knot: Everything has crumbled down.

9)X somehow lifts herself up from darkness. She deals with the rage she feels against her guru. She has to put that aside and deal with the justice system.

10)It is a great test of patience. From her lofty position she is now humbled to walk amongst common folk again.

11)She has to find a new way to earn her income. She is facing the fear of probably being imprisoned. And no one reaches out.

12)But her pain though it disillusioned her, it brought her towards a more honest life. The trial made her gain more ease as an ordinary person. She now begins to see the beauty in the simple things of life.

Gandantha: X pays the price, she stoically rearranges her life, with more compassion, seeing to what the people in her ordinary life need from her.

And so...it goes on....and on....

Travel Light

The Kundali can help us in holding the fear of impermanence more lightly. The wisdom of Jyothisya giving you an understanding that, it is not you who goes through Time. But it is actually Time that goes through you. Houses play their part. You remain the witness.

Astrology can help you take a step back, be still and gain perspective. And when you do, then, how do you think the chart will play out for you?

As always, until next week, let's ask to stay still, in the center, inviting one drop of silence.