My first post on this blog was on January 1, 2021. A year later, here we are, at the 100th post. In this time, I have written on a wide range of topics in Western astrology, covering both natal and predictive aspects, at levels ranging from beginner to intermediate to advanced. I thank you all for reading, and hope to keep furthering your interest – there’s so much more to learn!
Feel free to write to me anytime, at sesh@astrologysesh.com
We generally think we know who we are, but we have a lot of blind spots that lead us down the rabbit hole of self delusion. We may be surprised to find that others perceive us very differently than how we perceive ourselves, and this can be detrimental to our well-being and growth, both personally and professionally.
Tasha Eurich is an organizational psychologist who has spent several years researching self-awareness, and why it matters. She is the author of the book, “Insight: The Surprising Truth About How Others See Us, How We See Ourselves, and Why the Answers Matter More Than We Think.” One of the best ways to find out the truth about ourselves, says Eurich, is to turn to a friend, acquaintance, or colleague whom we can trust to be honest with their opinion, and ask them specific questions that will reveal how we are perceived by others. For example, you may think you are adaptable to new situations, but you might find that others see you as generally resistant to change.
While asking a friend or acquaintance to help us see ourselves better might feel like a good idea, it is not so easy to actually do it. We might hesitate for various reasons. What questions to ask? Would it be an imposition on them? Do I really want to hear the truth about me from someone else? It is even worse in a work situation where mutual trust and acceptability may be in short supply.
This is where astrology comes to the rescue. The horoscope lays it all bare, revealing who you are in the kind of detail that is impossible for anyone else to know. Even our friends and family cannot know us as well as we can know ourselves by paying full attention to our horoscope.
In order to truly understand our horoscope, we need to know about not just the planet signs, and aspects, and house occupants that are present in our horoscope. We should broaden our perspective and understand all the signs, and all aspects, and various patterns of house occupancies, because that will tell us what we are not. Knowing what we are not is possibly an easier way to get to know ourselves, plus it helps us understand others better. For instance, you may have little or no Taurean qualities in your horoscope, but knowing about Taurus will help you understand why their needs are so different from yours.
Gaining self-awareness from the horoscope is a lifelong process, because certain qualities or energies that lie dormant only come to the surface at the right time, when a particular transit or solar arc becomes active. This is the deeper, more significant value of understanding the timing of events, not just predicting this or that is going to happen. More often, this or that is not going to just happen out of the blue. It happens for a reason, and the reason is your have attained a state of readiness for the next step in your life journey that then synchronizes with the outer circumstance. It makes you aware of yourself–what you were, what you are, and what you will become because of a significant development in your life circumstance.
You become a parent. And you change. What is the change? Not all parents are alike, so not all changes are the same. How you change will not necessarily be the same as others in your circle. There must be a transit or other timing measurement that clearly shows this event in your horoscope. By deeply delving into this exact measurement, you can get a very good sense of what it means for you to be a parent, and how it will affect you. This is self-awareness. At the time you become a parent, you might have transiting Jupiter conjunct your Sun. Another person might have solar arc Saturn aspecting the Moon. Two very different measurements for the same kind of event, but you will experience a very different “new” you emerging from the birth of your child. I have illustrated these “surprising” turns in a couple of previous posts, “Moving Out – Saturn Transit to Ascendant“, and “Child Birth – Pluto Transit to IC“.
So, knowing your horoscope inside out–how you resonate with your natal chart, and how you handle life’s ups and downs in synchrony with the transits and SAs that impress on the natal chart–is a tried-and-true path to knowing yourself. And as your self-awareness grows, you get better and better at being true to your real self.