Beginner’s Corner with Sheridan
Send your questions to beginnerscorner@sheridansemple.com.
See Your Birth Chart In The Sky
At the Shamanic Astrology Mystery School we are all about the sky and communing with the planets and stars. That is part of what makes Shamanic Astrology shamanic, going directly to the sky for personal one on one teaching and learning.
It’s easy to get caught up in astrology charts and lose sight of this all-important bigger picture – the sky! Becoming myopic in our learning and understanding, we quickly reduce the vast three-dimensions (and beyond) of the cosmos down to a little two-dimensional piece of paper or an image on our computer or phone app.
Today’s Beginner’s Corner is a reminder to see the charts in the sky. Start with your own birth chart. All those glyphs and lines are simply a representation of the sky at the moment of your birth. The sky is truly what astrology is all about. Yes, your Sun is in Aquarius, but that’s because THE Sun was in the seasonal sign of Aquarius when you were born. Your Mars is in Libra because Mars, the planet in the sky, was in Libra. We want to always remember the real live planets in our astrological explorations, not just what Mars in Libra or Sun in Aquarius means for us. It is so much bigger than that. We are so much more than that!
Learn to see your chart in the sky
What did the sky look like when you were born? You can get a clue from your birth chart, but a way to get a better visual is through using a free astronomy software program, called Stellarium. You can get it here: http://stellarium.org/ for FREE. Looking at the time of your birth, in the sky, is a powerful tool that connects you much more deeply to your birth chart and opens endless doors of deeper exploration.
Looking at my birth chart below you can see I was born when both Venus and Mars were in the Underworld, hidden from view in the beams of the Sun. Looking at the Stellarium image you can’t even see Mars and Venus, right? That’s because they’re hidden behind the light of the Sun. That is a visual and visceral image that deepens my previously intellectual understanding of those planets being in the Underworld.
I was born just after the Summer Solstice and you can see the Sun has just moved beyond Orion’s hand, where the Summer Solstice occurs. Again, it’s something we can’t see with our eyes due to the Sun’s brightness, but I can feel the connection to that point in the sky when I see it in the astronomy software. Even more importantly, it leads me into earnest discovery of what that means for me.
Now, go check our your own chart in the sky!
Look into the stars in prominent places at your birth. Regulus, the heart of the Lion constellation is exactly on the eastern horizon at my birth, right at my Ascendant. There are some powerful teachings for me in that and you can’t see that on my birth chart. Jupiter is just under the horizon, ready to rise next, so that is obviously adding some Jupiter expansive juice to this heart of the Lion messages.
I encourage you to do your own explorations. It is incredibly moving to see your chart in the sky, which is exactly what your chart is all about. Go back and forth between your chart and the astronomy image. Dive deeper into those constellations and stars around the highlights of your chart. Research the stories around those. I promise you will gaining a more profound understanding of why you are here. I start all of my readings using Stellarium, so we can see the moment of my client’s births. It always brings an aha moment. The sky reflects your intent for being here, not just the glyphs on a piece of paper. Let’s all remember that.
Send me your questions by emailing me your questions to beginnerscorner@sheridansemple.com and I’ll answer them next month.
Sheridan Semple
https://sheridansemple.com/