Management of Measurement Constructs

(An echo of this month’s Counseling Insights essay)Measurements that just go by!

Too many astrologers think that everything “works”!, that every transit is going to pull our life-strings and that we’ll feel every tug dramatically. –But astrology just doesn’t occur that way.
First of all, planets do not make things happen. People do. –The symbols of the planets guide us to understanding that process; the human situation comes before cosmic input.

Second, the messages we get from our astrology depend on our reality situation for meaning –which includes gender, age, energy orientation, sociology, Level— and on our mindset, how we think in our self-awareness, how we interpret where we’ve been and where we’re probably going. –Granted, those dimensions have astrological correlates –they are parts of the whole– but within experiential development they work together, the human disposition within its reality frame and the astrological profile focusing potential and probability.

Opportunity Every astrologer is overstuffed with synchronicity and coincidence discussions. These deal with cause and effect and with possibilities. –But there’s something more: there’s opportunity.
For example, if there is no one ill or infirm in our extended family, there is little opportunity for death to intrude. –Maybe the values in life are changing; family status through job change, etc.

If there is no sexual contact possible in our field of interest or reality placement, there is little opportunity for pregnancy to occur.

If there is no employment situation in one’s life, there is little opportunity for job dissatisfaction or job satisfaction, job change, or new-job projection to be felt, except if someone is dramatically returning to the marketplace.

But look how often we hear/read, “Such-and-such measurement is taking place in my horoscope, what experience have you had with it?” I.e., What’s it going to do to me? —Does this suggest that the supposed transit effect is inevitable?; that it’s axiomatic? That ‘what happened to you’ is going to ‘happen to me’?
People fear any mention of Eclipses within the same breath as their name –After we eliminate all the after-the-fact, make-it-fit in-order-to-be-right astrology that plagues us, I can barely recall cases in point where an Eclipse situation pulled the strings of life, where the symbolism had an opportunity to get in there and mix things up.

There are astrologers who blame a toilet not flushing properly on Mercury-retrograde in a Water Sign!

But indeed, there are measurements that do have high, high framing profiles synchronistically. These are big-planet symbolisms that, because of their positioning and slow speed, have the opportunity to interact with the ANGLES of our horoscope, which define our orientation within life —and/or with the Sun and Moon, for an extended period of time. Those symbols that correlate with energized existence in many different ways are ‘heavy’ symbols indeed. When we have the symbols of Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto defining a time in our life through such contact, we have learned to sit up and take notice. We inspect our reality situation for development, potential adjustment, change.

And this is where the miracle takes place: we are getting a message. Within our being, we learn somehow that the opportunity for change is nigh. With enough warning, we gain preparation. BUT, if the opportunity is not realistically framed, nothing will happen.

Countless times, under Uranus-Ascendant contacts, I have learned that no relocation took place –for years! “Lived in the same house, my parents did, for 52 years, and I was there for 23”. –Countless times, under heavy Midheaven transits, I have learned that no job-change or family-status changed occurred –for years! The opportunity was just not there for that to happen.

Relocation in New York City, for example, is a no-no; a house or an apartment is hard to get; you have it and you hold on to it.

Job mobility outside urban communities is stultified; especially just two generations ago.

When new diseases are given the spotlight and come into our reality pronouncedly, do we see more and more people with those diseases? Knowledge increases opportunity. If we haven’t thought of something before, the chances are high that we will never experience it. People think differently at different levels of society; in different areas of the country.

When you watch an old movie on television, or a movie depicting an older time perhaps two decades either side of WWII, observe how people live(d). What were the values? How much opportunity did the individual have? Life was truncated … and still is in many places. Being took courage back then … more than it does now. You needed an explosion under the horoscope Angles to change the routine.

Let us remember: A person’s reality adjusts the astrology we know and love.

In my practice, I find myself discarding measurements in a client’s developmental history since I’ve learned that more than likely only the “big ones” carry their message into the client’s reality experience, and then the message is filtered through sociology and mind-set. The opportunity for this or that to occur is framed differently.

And then, within the awareness of the message, there is the individual quotient yet again; i.e., how do we react?
Who hasn’t worried inordinately about an approaching dentist appointment ? An approaching operation? When it’s over, it is so quickly forgotten. But the benefits endure.

Isn’t it part of the human condition to anticipate the worst? –Where did that come from if not from fatalistic views of life used to explain sociologically egregious times and deterministic religion long ago. Is Nature really out to get us?

I think we need to see opportunity inviting change; to see potential inviting challenge.
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To the question, “what’s that measurement going to do to me?” I like to reply, “How would you like to respond at this time in your life? What opportunities are cooking in your life?”
Think about it. –Your consultations will be refreshed!