Email me your questions at beginnerscorner@sheridansemple.com
We have two questions this month! Thanks to you two for submitting your questions!
#1 Could you please list in order the steps to look at a chart?
Yes! This is an excellent question!
In Shamanic Astrology, the birth chart is broken down into three acts. You could think of it like the three movements of a symphony. The first act is the lineage. The second act has to do with your tools and strategies. The third act concerns your current life purpose.
The steps to look at a chart follow this order: act one, act two, act three.
Now, I’ll clarify what that means. The first act, the lineage or past, is represented by the archetype that your Moon is in. Your Moon sign shows what you’ve come into this life already knowing, being good at, your area of expertise. You don’t enter your current life as a blank slate. You have knowledge and expertise already. Your Moon archetype represents this prowess. That is the first step taken when looking at a birth chart.
The second step involves a few sub-steps. You can look at the following in any order, but they are all a part of the second act. They represent your tools and strategies, or as I like to call them your lesson plans. These are your Venus, Mars, Mercury and Sun signs. Venus represents the Sacred Feminine aspect you are here to discover, for women. For men, Venus represents your inner beloved, the energy you need to discover within. Mars is the Sacred Masculine aspect, for men. For women, Mars is the archetype you need to cultivate within. Mercury is your brain or thinking style and the way you’re learning to communicate. The Sun is the light you shine over your entire chart. Looking at the archetypes of these planets (and Sun) are the second step to take when looking at your birth chart.
The final step, or the third act, are the angles of your chart: ascendant (rising sign), descendant, midheaven (MC) and home and roots (IC). The emphasis is on your ascendant sign, so start there. These angles represent your current life intent…why you are here this time. Your birth chart is the map to your soul’s evolutionary journey in this lifetime. The angles are the destination (sort of). They are the direction you are meant to be headed in, although you’ll never fully arrive. Life is a journey. You will be exploring these themes of your chart until your final breath, always learning, always growing, always becoming more of who you are.
I cited these references last month, but they are great resources to take a deeper dive into how these acts pertain to your unique chart, your unique soul’s journey. To get a free copy of your birth chart click here. To learn more about the archetypes and the three acts the Shamanic Astrology Handbook by Daniel Giamario with Cayelin Castell is a great place to start. This free article explains the different archetypes.
#2 How do you see my Venus square Neptune?
This is another great question, that takes the above question one step further!
In Shamanic Astrology, we look at the inner planets (the ones from act one and two above) as your personal planets. These are the Moon, Venus, Mars, Mercury and Sun. They are your lineage and are the tools you’re developing in this life. The planets beyond Mars: Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, Pluto, Chiron and Neptune we call outer planets. The outer planets act as guides for us on our charts. This is depicted by an outer planet being in a dynamic aspect to an inner planet (or angle). The dynamic aspects are conjunctions (close together), squares (90 degrees apart) and oppositions (180 degrees apart).
Neptune square Venus counts as a dynamic aspect between this outer planet and your inner planet.
This means that Neptune acts as a guide or teacher for you around your Venus. On a woman’s chart, Venus represents the aspect of the Sacred Feminine you are here to explore. Neptune will provide initiation cycles for you to step into your Venus archetype more fully. You could look at it like Neptune is helping you become your Venus sign. For a man, this might play out as looking outside yourself for that archetype. The partners you find might seem to be your dream mates, but really aren’t, forcing you to cultivate this sign’s power within yourself. Neptune’s goal, or gift, is for you to have deep clarity around your Venus expression. But, it often nudges you along through making things foggy first.
Imagine your Venus sign is deep in your heart. Neptune sweeps in and descends a thick fog around you. You literally cannot see your hands in front of your face. This can feel disconcerting and scary. You don’t know where you are in space. You must rely on your inner compass to figure out where you are. You go within, into your heart, deep into your Venus sign to really find your way with it.
Neptune teaches clarity through a lack of clarity. Neptune asks you to go into where you connect with Spirit, the Divine, Great Mystery itself to find yourself. In this case your Venus aspect of the Sacred Feminine. You might do this through meditation, dreams, ecstatic dance – any altered state of consciousness. You’ll come out of the other side more deeply connected to that Venus archetype. It may take you longer to get there, but you’ll know it like nothing else.
Send me your questions for next month! beginnerscorner@sheridansemple.com
Sheridan Semple