What if the thing we fear isn’t the sky at all, but the words other people use to understand it?
I was thinking again. Dangerous hobby, I know. 😂
Some people will tell you astrology is evil, demonic, witchcraft, forbidden………ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE….
And then five minutes later they are checking the Moon phase before going fishing.
Sir/Ma’am……..Put down the fishing pole and explain yourself! 😂
Because the Moon did not suddenly become Christian because you brought a tackle box.
We check sunrise and sunset. We track Moon phases. We calculate tides. We plant by seasons. People consult almanacs. We predict eclipses. We watch meteor showers. We know when planets will be visible. We recognize equinoxes and solstices. Entire families will drive outside in the middle of the night to stare happily at something happening in the heavens…
Perfectly respectable…But let somebody say: “I also find personal or spiritual meaning in celestial cycles.”
WITCHCRAFT DETECTED! 😂
And that makes me curious. Not offended. Curious.
First, Astronomy and Astrology Are Not the Same Thing
I know somebody is already warming up their keyboard. Astronomy studies celestial objects and phenomena physically. Astrology is a symbolic tradition that looks for meaning and correspondence between celestial patterns and life on Earth…some claim it to be the first science known to man. I wonder what Hypatia hs to sy about that…? 🙂
Those are not the same discipline. Knowing that distinction does not ruin my argument. It creates my argument. Because humans have always done more than simply observe the sky. We have used it to navigate, plant, harvest, measure time, mark seasons, tell stories, create calendars, hold cermonies and holidays and build entire religions! AND ask questions about our place inside something vastly larger than ourselves.
Science asks, “What is happening up there?”
Astrology asks something different, “Does what is happening up there have meaning down here?”
You are perfectly free to answer, NO! And I am perfectly free to remain curious.
About Those “Lunatics”…
Here’s something I find particularly delicious. 😂 The word lunatic itself comes from an old connection with the Moon.
Its linguistic history runs through the Latin word luna, the Moon, because people historically believed changes in the Moon could affect certain mental or neurological conditions. So apparently humans have been arguing about this for quite a while. And modern researchers have actually bothered to ask the question.
– Does the lunar cycle affect human behavior?
– Does it affect sleep?
– Psychiatric emergencies?
– Aggression?
– Hospital admissions?
And the results aren’t nearly as simple as either camp likes to pretend…Some very large studies have found no meaningful increase in emergency-room or psychiatric visits during a full moon. While other studies have reported associations involving certain kinds of severe behavioral disturbance, restraint use, particular psychiatric presentations, or other outcomes.
So no, I cannot truthfully write, “Science proved everybody loses their mind during the full moon.” 😂 It hasn’t. But neither does that mean studying human biological rhythms in relation to the Moon is ridiculous.
Many of us observe the patterns and continue asking the questions…
Now Sleep Gets REALLY Interesting
This is where my curiosity meter starts twitching. Researchers have reported lunar related differences in human sleep in several studies. One controlled laboratory study found that around the full moon participants took longer to fall asleep, slept less, showed less deep-sleep activity, and reported poorer sleep. Another study following people in Indigenous rural communities and urban environments found that people tended to sleep later and for less time on nights preceding a full moonlolOther research has reported similar associations. And…because science is science…a large population study found no significant lunar effect on sleep. Perfect. LOL
That’s exactly why research is interesting. Evidence doesn’t always march immediately into one simple box.
You keep studying. You compare methods. You ask better questions. You observe. You investigate mechanisms. You don’t burn the telescope because one experiment disagreed with another.
So Why Would Astrology Be the One Subject We’re Not Allowed to Question?
This is where I lose patience with labels. If someone says, “I notice human sleep may change alongside a lunar cycle.” Interesting. If someone says, “I notice animal behavior changes with celestial or seasonal cycles.” Interesting. If someone studies biological rhythms…also interesting.
If a fisherman says, “I pay attention to the Moon.” Old wisdom.
If a gardener says, “I pay attention to lunar cycles.” Traditional practice.
But if somebody says, “I pay attention to lunar cycles because they help me understand patterns in my own emotional life…”
WHOA THERE, SATAN! 😂😂😂
Maybe we could calm down.
What Astrology Actually Does for Me
I don’t need astrology to be everybody else’s truth. It works as a language for me. And one of the most important ways it has helped me has nothing to do with predicting lottery numbers or telling me whom to marry. It taught me that this moment is temporary.
There have been periods of my life when my mind became very dark. When everything hurt. When I felt trapped inside an emotional state that seemed as though it would last forever. Learning transits gave me another way to look at those moments.
Instead of, “This is who I am now and this feeling will never end,” I could sometimes say…..hmmmmm Okay. Something intense is moving through. Let’s watch it. Let’s learn from it. And let’s remember that it moves…
T hat perspective has mattered enormously to me. Astrology did not remove my responsibility for my actions. It did not mean a planet “made” me do anything. It did not mean I surrendered common sense, medical care, or free will to Mars. 😂
It simply gave me another framework for remembering to not make a permanent decision inside a temporary storm.
That alone has made studying astrology valuable to me.
My Birth Chart Is Not a Prison Sentence
I don’t look at a birth chart and think, “Well, that’s it. You’re doomed!” Good grief. 😂
I think of it more like a syllabus. Welcome to Earth School. Here are some subjects you may encounter. Here are areas that may come easily. Here are areas that may challenge you. Here are patterns worth paying attention to. Here are recurring themes. Here are some potential gifts. Here are some things you may spend half your life trying to understand…
A syllabus doesn’t take the class for you. It doesn’t determine whether you study. It doesn’t determine whether you learn. It doesn’t determine what choices you make. It just gives you information about the course. That’s how I use astrology.
It’s not magic or a curse or condemnation….I never says, “This WILL happen to you.” It’s more like………“This might be an interesting place to pay attention.”
And Yes, Astrologers Look at World Events Too
There is an entire branch generally called mundane astrology that looks at nations, governments, wars, disasters, economies, weather, collective movements, and historical events. Some have even “predicted” the actual days of certain events, shootings, global happenings and more…..AND more power to them. That is not me. However, the truth remains that astrologers have long associated different signs, planets, elements, and houses with different themes….food, land, water, communication, conflict, power, technology, travel, resources, death, rebirth and more…….
I have noticed patterns myself that fascinate me, such as certain types of events appearing repeatedly around particular signs or transits…Wars and communication themes…Food and resource crises…Water-related events during water-heavy periods…Violence or confrontation around particular Mars or Scorpio symbolism…Technology, aviation, groups, and Aquarius symbolism…Do I call those observations scientifically proven laws? Not exactly………..as I don’t have the data to do that. However, there are some clear correlations and for me, I can’t just ignore them.
I also don’t believe curiosity requires permission. If I notice something repeatedly, I can write it down. I can watch it. I can test my own assumption. I can discover that I was right. I can also discover that I was completely full of crap. 😀 Either outcome teaches me something. That’s REAL science. That’s what curiosity is FOR.
What About People Born at the Same Time?
There are wonderful stories floating around astrology about “time twins” – unrelated people born at nearly identical times whose lives supposedly develop extraordinary parallels. Some of those stories are downright eerie…and I have no reason to doubt them. But when I went looking for rigorous evidence, I also found something astrology believers should be willing to acknowledge: A large published investigation looked at more than 2,000 people born very close together in time and found no strong similarities of the kind astrology would predict. Okay…..interesting….
That doesn’t destroy my spiritual relationship with astrology. It gives me another question….or a few…lol
Maybe astrology doesn’t work through the simple deterministic mechanism people sometimes claim. Maybe the individual chart isn’t enough. Maybe environment matters more than some astrolers would want to admit. Maybe interpretation matters. Maybe free will matters. Maybe astrology works primarily as symbolism rather than prediction. OR maybe something is happening that research hasn’t captured…yet.
I am allowed to ask all of those questions. And more….but that does not make me demonic. lol
Belief that cannot tolerate investigation isn’t particularly useful to me.
And Then There’s the Bible…
Which is where the fishing pole comes back out. 😂
Because the Nativity story itself describes Magi (magicians) observing a celestial sign and interpreting it as meaningful enough to undertake a journey. They saw a star. They believed it signified something. And they followed it. The story doesn’t say, “Then everyone rebuked them for looking for meaning in the heavens.”
Whatever someone believes the Star of Bethlehem actually was historically or astronomically, the story itself assigns meaning to a celestial sign. So perhaps interpreting the heavens isn’t quite as foreign to religious tradition as people sometimes pretend. You don’t have to call that astrology. You don’t have to call it anything. But you cannot simultaneously tell me, “Celestial signs can carry sacred meaning in my tradition…” and then expect me not to notice when you declare every other person’s celestial symbolism automatically evil. That’s where the conversation becomes interesting.
I Don’t Need You to Believe What I Believe
This may be the most important part. I don’t care whether you believe in astrology. Seriously. I honestly don’t care what you believe about anything. I care about YOU, and how you treat others TODAY.
You don’t have to know your rising sign. You don’t have to know what house your Moon occupies. You don’t have to care where Mercury is…You can think my entire birth chart belongs in the compost pile. That’s fine. We can still have tea and treat each other like humans that have souls…
What I care about is the idea that difference does not automatically equal danger. Someone else’s spiritual language does not threaten mine. Someone else’s relationship with the heavens doesn’t erase yours. Someone finding meaning where you see coincidence doesn’t require a war. Maybe we could just ask, “What does that mean to you?”
That question has started considerably fewer wars than…..“YOU’RE EVIL!” 😂
Maybe We’re Not Afraid of the Stars
Maybe we’re afraid of labels. Maybe somebody taught us that this word belongs to good people, and that word belongs to bad people. This celestial practice is acceptable and that one isn’t. This person may follow a star. That person may not interpret a planet. This person may consult a fishing table or a Farmers Almanac based on celestial cycles. Of course, that person better not mention her Moon sign. 😂And then there’s menstruation…
The average human menstrual cycle is remarkably close in length to the lunar month, and researchers have actually studied whether menstrual timing sometimes synchronizes with lunar cycles. Some studies have found periods of temporary alignment in certain women, while other research has not found a universal lunar pattern.
So once again, the answer isn’t simply, “Yep, the Moon controls everybody.” The interesting part is that scientists considered the relationship plausible enough to study at all. Our bodies contain rhythms. The Earth contains rhythms. The Moon contains rhythms. Asking whether any of those rhythms interact is not insanity. It’s a perfectly valid question.
Apparently the Moon can influence oceans, animal behavior, light exposure, sleep research, reproductive timing in other species, and possibly some aspects of human biological rhythms… but asking whether humans participate in any of those cycles is where somebody suddenly fetches the holy water! LOL
And perhaps every once in a while we should examine the “rulebook.” Because “the heavens” do not belong to Christians. They don’t belong to witches. They don’t belong to astrologers. They don’t belong to scientists. They don’t belong to fishermen….or the Airforce, Governments, Bill Gates or Elon Musk…We’re all standing underneath the same sky!!!
We simply ask different questions when we look up. And sometimes the most valuable thing a person gets from looking at that sky isn’t a prediction. It’s perspective. A reminder that cycles move. Seasons change. Darkness passes. Nothing stays exactly where it is forever. And sometimes, when life feels impossible, that reminder alone can be medicine.
So by all means…PLEASE check the tide table. Plant by the Moon. Watch the eclipse. Follow the star. Study astronomy. Reject astrology. Study astrology. Question ALL of it!
Believe whatever makes sense after you’ve actually looked. But before calling somebody evil because they found meaning in the heavens…
please make sure you aren’t standing there holding a fishing pole while doing it! 😂
Because I hate to be the one to tell you…
the Moon did not become Christian because you brought a tackle box.
And if you still believe that following stars is forbidden, some of y’all are going to have to explain the Nativity story to me very slowly……………
<3