How To Use Your Natal Birth Chart From the minds at Paintmetwisted.com As I scour the web for ideas and inspiration, I have come upon many questions. Places like Reddit and Quora are full of questions. Questions like: What are Horoscopes? What are Horoscope Water Signs? What are horoscope signs? Is astrology real? How to find myself Now as I look at that list, I see different questions entirely. I see, “Who am I? What is my purpose? Why am I here?” I see this group of alternative questions because I have searched for those answers all my life. You’re not the first and won’t be the last, I can promise you that. Let’s take a quick look at semantics. Three Words: Horoscope- from the Greek Hora “time or hour” and Skopos “watching or observer” This is roughly translated as “watches the hour of one’s birth. That’s a big leap for a definition. Astrology-from from the Greek Astron : ”Star” and Logia “study of.” That’s more of a word for astronomy. Zodiac- from the Greek Zodiakos kyklos “Cycle or circle of little animals.” All these words came from Babylonian Scholars. If you break each word down, they do not add up to the mystical Astrology as we know it. The only word that hints at it is Zodiac, which is the band around the earth, divided into twelve sections called houses, each house being one of the Zodiac titles. So, why, when science says Astrology has no effect on human life, do 95% of Americans know their sun sign? And 70% believe in Astrology? Society and Astrology From January 12th through the 14th, 2024, a survey was conducted in the US by The Harris Poll. They Sampled 2,069 adults. The groupings were: Gen Z (ages 18-26) 328 Millennials (ages 27-42) 784 Gen X (ages 43-58) 485 Boomers (ages 59+) 472 There were several questions in the survey, but to highlight. 53% use astrology for self-care, 49% for relationships, career advice 43% rising to 65% for millennials. There is so much more information in this report. You can find the Astrology Survey here. Who Am I To Answer These Questions? I’m nobody, really. I’m just a guy who grew up with an Astrologer for a mother. . helping her print out an Ephemeris. An ephemeris is a table of the positions of a celestial body at regular intervals. It’s a calculation of each planet’s movements through the zodiac every day. We printed this out with a dot matrix printer and a TRS 80 computer. Yes, folks, that is what we used. It took almost 12 hours to print out 6 months’ worth of planetary movement. And the sound of the dot matrix was like finger nails scraping a chalkboard. Mom put me in charge of figuring out natal charts. I had a work sheet, the printed-out Ephemeris and a book of Longitude and Latitude for the United States. I would do the math and place the planets and signs into the chart. It wasn’t long after that I was typing out interpretations. Even though I have long since stopped the time-consuming art, I still remember a lot of what I was taught. Predictive Astrology I am still on the fence with predictive astrology. I’ve seen cases where it is right on point. All the indicators were right on, and it was amazing. I’ve also seen it so far off the mark. The reason for this is the birth time. If you provide an astrologer with your birth time, with a guess, you’re going to get a wrong natal chart. Every minute your off, I believe, throws the chart off by 4 years. If I am incorrect, please let me know in the comments. C.J. Jung, one of the greatest psychiatrists, said, “Obviously astrology has much to offer psychology, but what the latter can offer its elder sister is less evident. As far as I judge, it would seem to me advantageous for astrology to take the existence of psychology into account, above all the psychology of the personality and of the unconscious." That leads us into the next section. How I think Astrology Is Useful I didn’t put sun sign definitions in this piece for a couple of reasons. I have short blurbs on my Zodiac Collection products, Like my acrylic plaques. As you can see from the image, a short little definition for Cancer. Another Reason, if you google the sun sign traits, you’ll get over one hundred websites that offer them, so it is redundant. But if that is what you are looking for, I can point you in the right direction. If found this site, (No, I am not getting paid to mention them or send you to their website. I just found it extremely useful) recently. You will need your city and state of birth and your birth time. You can find it on your birth certificate. You enter that information, and you will get a natal chart. The site is a little complicated. You will get a listing of all your planets, houses and signs listed. (fig 1) You’ll see the left column is planet/sign placement and the right column is the house/sign placement. You can click on the left column to get a definition of what that planet and sign combination means. Or you can scroll down and click the boxes below. If you scroll down even further, you will find the House/sign combination. Click that and get those definitions. After that, if you scroll down again you will find the planetary aspects. There is a button to click to get the actual circle chart if you like. ( figure 2) fig 1 fig 2 The site is: https://justastrologythings.com/pages/ I think they are the best horoscope website. They know what they are doing, and if you really want to know what makes you tick, then you can get some answers from this site. It is a free horoscope, and the psychological information is priceless. If you want to know who you really are. I believe astrology is more useful in a psychological sense. If you put in your correct time of birth and location, you will get a better understanding of your motivations and why you think the way you do. And when you embrace this, you come closer to finding inner peace. When you find balance in your life, you will find that things fall into place. C.G. Jung, mentioned earlier, came up with the idea of synchronicity. Simply put, when you live in accordance with your true will, everything you work toward will come to fruition. When you go against it, everything becomes a struggle. Focusing Your Inner Strength When you see an elite athlete getting ready to do their thing, watch them. They always have a focus, whether it is a warm-up routine, a mantra, or an object they hold onto, they have a “thing” that gives them a boost. Even in movies, the hero has something he needs to start kicking ass. Those things are focuses. That is why I have several Zodiac items in my store. A Ruling Planet Plaque or keychain, a Zodiac sun sign Plaque with a short mantra, or a Zodiac Sun sign pendant necklace. They all function as focuses. It could be a psychological placebo, or it could be supernatural. All I know, as a teen and young man, I had my Cancer necklace on me all the time. It allowed me to be me. It was my focus. These little trinkets can help you in your quest to find yourself. In Conclusion When it is all said and done, your belief is yours. It is special and unique. Only you know what it is and only you know how to use it. But, to use it effectively, you need the right tools. Hopefully, I have given you some of those tools. Years ago, I met a guy who was a teacher. Anyone can be a teacher; you just have to see them and realize who they are to gain what they have to teach. He was only in my life for 10 minutes, but he left a lasting impression. I was staring at a fountain, and he asked me what I was doing. I told him I was trying to find myself. He nodded and smiled at me and told me to close my eyes. I looked at him for a second, but I didn’t feel any danger. So, I closed my eyes. He instructed me to put both my arms out to my sides, forming a T, with my palms up. Easy enough. Then he asked me to bring my hands in and touch the sides of my head. I followed his instructions. “Open Your Eyes,” he told me. I opened them and he was in front of me. He asked me what I felt. I grinned and said with a half questioning tone, “My Head?” He nodded. “Yup, There You Are. Now you have found yourself. Keep your focus.” And he walked away. I probably looked crazy. I stood there in that little park with my hands on my head for about 10 minutes, staring in the direction he left in. Slowly, the realization came. I wasn’t lost. I just wasn’t living in accordance with my true self, I was sacrificing my core to other people who were just trying to recreate me for how they wanted me to be. That had to change. I did a deep dive into my Natal Chart and reminded myself who I was and what I was about. I found my focus and became happy once again. I hope you find this useful in your quest to finding yourself. It’s a good quest, a fun quest and will make your life easier in the long run. Good luck and Be Your Unique. Tim Owner Paintmetwisted.com
