4,79 €
Mehr erfahren.
Charts are Like Passports: Some Offer More Freedom than Others is Volume 6 in a series of astrological essays from some of astrology's leading lights. In this essay, Branka Stamenkovic introduces a pivotal player in traditional astrology – the Lord of the Geniture – and shows us how to interpret this in our own horoscope.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
Ähnliche
Contents
CHARTS ARE LIKE PASSPORTS
Some Offer More Freedom than Others
Branka Stamenkovic
Freedom of movement across this globe of ours depends greatly on the quality of the passport we hold, which in most cases is linked to our country of birth. If the passport we hold is not of the greatest quality, we can try ‘willing’ ourselves into getting a better one, but it is not going to work. We are simply stuck with it; this is our ‘fate’.
If you happen to be a Serbian passport holder, chances are that you’ve experienced every conceivable limitation on the freedom of movement that you can think of. And the name of the limitation is: a visa requirement. For example, until recently a Serbian passport holder could not visit Denmark simply as a tourist. For quite some time the country of Denmark issued only family and business visas for Serbian passport holders. Want to be a tourist in Denmark? No can do. It simply did not exist as an option. If you are a UK passport holder, you don’t even need a visa of any kind. You just jump on the plane and voilà, there you are, admiring the statue of Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid the very same day.
The situation is pretty much the same with our natal charts. We are born into them and their quality greatly affects the amount of freedom of movement through our life. Some life experiences are simply not possible in certain charts. Want to marry Brad Pitt? No can do. It is an option in Jennifer Aniston’s chart and Angelina Jolie’s chart – it might or might not be an option in some other woman’s chart – but it is probably not an option in yours.
That said, there is really no need to feel depressed over this fact of life. Fate vs. free will should not turn into a gloom vs. happiness game. There is no such thing as limitless fate or limitless free will. Just as fate and free will co-exist, gloom and happiness co-exist too. Life is large enough for both. But it pays to know your limitations (fate) and to know the scope of your life options within them (free will), so that you don’t waste time and effort trying to attain the unattainable. In other words, if you live in a room with few doors it is better to focus on the doors that exist than to bang your head against the wall, looking for a nonexistent door. Give it a try and you will soon realize that even if you have just one door at your disposal, it will still provide you with enough opportunity to exercise your free will.
Birth charts are supposed to be the maps that help us navigate more easily through life. And if they were to show total and unlimited free will, they would have every planet in every sign and every house of the chart. As we very well know, that is not the case. We all get just one Saturn per chart, and if it is a Saturn in Aries, no amount of ‘free-willing’ will magically turn it into a Saturn in Libra. Saturn in Aries is our fate. A free will exercise would be choosing to work with this natal Saturn or some other, maybe better positioned planet in our chart. Maybe our chart also has Venus in Libra. In that case, our free will consists of choosing Saturn or Venus: whether to go through life (or various situations) as a grumpy or a jolly person. Both options are there.
Choosing the Best Option or Running on Autopilot?
If you want to make the most of your chart and use it the best possible way, you first need to identify its best part and then consciously focus on using it in life most of the time. The planet that is the chart’s best possible option is known as the ‘Lord of the Geniture’. However, Sometimes the Lord of the Geniture is easily accessible (because it’s also the ‘automatic pilot’, see below) but it usually is not. When it is easily accessed, very little effort is needed on the person’s part to use it – they use it naturally most of the time. When it is not, the person needs to focus on the Lord of the Geniture to express it more consciously and fight the urge to express the automatic pilot, which might represent a difficult part of themselves.
Given that the majority of charts have at least one good option for our free will to chew on, it is amazing how often we neglect to exercise that free will and make that good choice. So often – too often, I’d say – we simply switch to the ‘automatic pilot’ planet and let the fate take us where it will. The automatic pilot planet is often the most used option because it is easily accessible. Here, we allow ourselves to express the most prominent part of our chart rather than the best part, be that Saturn in Aries or Venus in Libra. The lucky ones will have Venus in Libra as their automatic pilot. But the others who have Saturn in Aries will need to put in an effort to bypass that most prominent placement, and instead push Venus in Libra (or another good option) to the forefront.
The Lord of the Geniture
To identify the Lord of the Geniture you first need to analyze the essential and accidental dignities and debilities of the seven traditional celestial bodies (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon). Personally, I do not use Uranus, Neptune and Pluto in my astrological work at all, but if you hold them dear to your heart, feel free to continue using them. However, when it comes to identifying the Lord of the Geniture, please keep them out of the picture. Once you analyze the essential and accidental dignities and debilities of the seven traditional planets, you will have a clear picture of the quality of the different parts of your chart. The planet that ends up having most of both essential and accidental dignity will be your Lord of the Geniture.
Essential Dignities and Debilities
The essential dignity or debility of a planet describes its strength and either its constructive or destructive inclination in exercising that strength. There are three possible major dignities of a planet (rulership, exaltation, triplicity), two possible minor ones (term and face) and two possible debilities (detriment and fall).
Major Essential Dignities (Rulership, Exaltation and Triplicity)
Most astrologers and astrology students are familiar with the dignities of rulership and exaltation. Saturn rules Capricorn, so it is very strong (essentially dignified) when it is positioned in Capricorn. The other major rulership dignity for Saturn is Aquarius. Jupiter is dignified by rulership when in Sagittarius and Pisces, Mars in Aries and Scorpio, Venus in Taurus and Libra, Mercury in Gemini and Virgo, the Sun in Leo and the Moon in Cancer.
While most planets have their rulership dignity in two signs (except for the lights, Sun and Moon), when it comes to the dignity of exaltation each can have such dignity in one sign only. Saturn is exalted in Libra, Jupiter in Cancer, Mars in Capricorn, Venus in Pisces, Mercury in Virgo, the Sun in Aries and the Moon in Taurus.
Rulership and exaltation are the strongest dignities of planets, with rulership being a bit stronger than exaltation. Therefore all the planets in your chart which are positioned in their signs of rulership and/or exaltation will be your candidates for the Lord of the Geniture.
Table 1: Rulerships and Exaltations
If you don’t happen to have any planet in its rulership or exaltation, all is not lost. The third major dignity that a planet can have is the dignity by triplicity. Unlike rulership and exaltation, triplicity is not that widely known among contemporary astrology students, as mainstream modern astrology does not pay much attention to it. Therefore triplicity needs to be explained in more detail.
