An Evolutionary Look at Locational Astrology

January 1, 2009

Introduction
At the end of the Piscean Age, the last roughly 2,100 years of life on Earth, is where we stand. It has been defined by a hierarchical structure through which information trickles from the top to the bottom. Tools for understanding ourselves, such as astrology, have been shaped to fit that model of learning. An expectation has developed that quick and easy answers to big questions are possible and, even, the best way to go. It should be becoming more and more obvious to you that this is not the case, especially as Pluto recently made its ingress to Capricorn, the sign of authority and qualification, as it turns our existing definitions of authority and respectability on their heads. In every area of life that has to do with Capricorn, including conventions and norms, we’re seeing in just what ways our existing systems don’t serve us.

Using astrology to influence and support the major decisions of your life is a wonderful choice. But, as in everything, you need to evaluate the source of your information. As important as the individual you choose for a reading is the mindset he or she has chosen and works within. Locational work through the Piscean-Age lens of quick and easy answers to big questions may seem to help you find a great place to move to and begin the next chapter of your life, and you’re welcome to find out if that works for you. I offer this article to support those who recognize the bigness of the bigger questions, and are looking to make locational astrology much more relevant, whether student or practicing astrologers or people looking to make major geographical moves.

All that said, what is it? Locational astrology overlays your birth chart on the surface of the globe to determine where certain energies are emphasized for you in different parts of the world. One goes to an astrologer doing locational work to find out the pluses and minuses offered by relocating to different places on the planet.

An Evolutionary Astrology View
When you view locational astrology from the perspective of evolutionary astrology (EA), saying a place is good for this (easier) or bad for that (harder), the traditional way of doing locational work, just doesn't fly. The EA approach observes the fact that labeling astrology stuff “good” and “bad” gets us not very far. People have free will, yet they also have karma, and it influences their choices. EA considers that each person is on a soul journey longer than any given life, and from the soul’s perspective, both positive and negative, happy and unhappy experiences assist us in getting where we’re going.

Evolutionary astrology helps us see karma in a chart. EA considers everything in terms of the signatures in the birth chart, whether transits, progressions, solar arcs, or relocation. The birth chart is your personal energetic signature for the duration of your life, no matter where you live. Those who say you can change your chart by moving to a new place (or even just traveling to it for a short time) misunderstand how we are imprinted at birth with our individual signatures, and the energetic impact on a person at play in any given places on the Earth based on that signature.

Different energies for you are emphasized in different places on the Earth. Yet it’s your beliefs about and reactions to those energies that will determine your choices, and as a result the quality of your experience in any given place. It all has to come back to the natal chart and what it has to say about your karma and beliefs, your tendencies and inclinations.

For example, say you go to a locational astrologer with the question about how to get recognition for your work, or advance your career. She may tell you that your Jupiter/MC line goes right through Denver, and therefore Denver would be good for your work to get notice and be seen as an authority in your field; that you’ll find luck and good fortune in Denver where it comes to career.

But if something wrapped up in your unprocessed or unhappy (overstuffed?) karmic baggage has to do with the Jupiter archetype (Jupiter/Sagittarius/9th house), Denver and other places through which this Jupiter/MC line goes will actually bring all that up. But here’s the thing: The unhappy baggage stuff will come up before or at the same time you get a glimpse of the kind of great benefit she expected you'd get by living there.

If you've got such stuff about an energy/archetype to work through/process/heal/release, moving to a place where it's emphasized by a power line (a planet/angle aspect in your relocated chart for an area) will make it more than apparent. In that place, you simply will not be able to continue avoiding it or shelving it for another time, as you may have been able to in the past. You’ll have new opportunities to see these issues and work with them, but if you’re already not into dealing with them, they might seem poised to overwhelm you. Your choices in how you respond to it will determine your experience of Denver. You’ll be faced with a challenge to grow, and no locational astrologer can know what choice you’ll make in response – you have free will and can choose whatever you want.

In this case, Jupiter in hard aspect to Pluto or aspecting the nodes or the South Node ruler would, among other things, fit the bill. On paper, saying Denver will work for your career because there’s a Jupiter/MC line there sounds good, but it may only be telling you something you’d rather hear than a bunch of stuff about how you would have to change and grow: That moving to place will give you a benefit - that you can just experience your life changed for the better by moving somewhere new. Yet from the perspective of how people actually experience the life-on-earth deal, which is what this EA stuff is all about, that's not enough.

If your natal Jupiter is square Pluto, for example, part of your wounding (Pluto) has to do with the energy of expansiveness. You might unconsciously believe there’s no point in hoping for things or feeding your imagination (Jupiter) because it’ll just get you hurt. If you’re carrying such a subconscious belief and your Jupiter/MC line goes right through Denver, living in Denver will stir things in you about expansion, belief, optimism and all the other Jupiter keywords. And that stirred-up stuff moving to your relocated 10th house will make all of it public. This could look like missing major career opportunities because you’re trying not to be “squared” by Jupiter, trying not to receive friction from Jupiterian sources that would encourage you to expand your horizons.

The remedy to this would be learning to recognize, process and release whatever it is about Jupiter energy that you believe will give you trouble. Because moving to a Jupiter/MC line will offer opportunities for expanding your career, but this other layer is critical to understanding the whole picture. And it’s true that the real luck associated with Jupiter is in our willingness to choose optimism and expand by seeing and taking advantage of the opportunities that come to us all the time.

It’s important to be aware of the challenges and opportunities a given place may offer, given what your birth charts says about your individual karma, beliefs and tendencies. A client might come to me asking specifically if he or she should move to Costa Rica or Chicago or Kathmandu, and he or she may be surprised by receiving information meant to empower their choice, and not cut-and-dried predictive answers. He or she might even be initially dissatisfied because they don’t receive expected answer (a firm yes! or no!), yet this is the only approach to it I’ve found that works, one that takes into account the realities that people are shaped by their experiences/karma and have free will in how to respond to challenges and opportunities that come to them.

If You’re Interested/Comfortable/Prepared to Get Into Your Own Chart
Here are some guidelines to get you started. It’s a quick tutorial to help you see the karmic story in a birth chart, useful for any work with EA. I recommend getting a writing implement and some paper and making a list of all the details in your chart about the following three sets of information. Don’t let it overwhelm you, it’s just a number of little pieces of info you’ll thread together later to make a story. This is essentially a mini-evolutionary astrology course to catch you up if you aren’t yet familiar with it, so that you can understand what I’m offering about how I recommend approaching locational astrology.

I. South Node by House, Sign and Aspect
The South Node (SN) of the Moon in your chart tells us about the environments of your past lives. This is about the kinds of places you’ve found yourself in again and again.

In a nutshell, you expect whatever world surrounds you to fit that symbolism and, because of the law of attraction, it does. It’s your habit, and your comfort zone.

In a nutshell, you expect whatever world surrounds you to fit that symbolism and, because of the law of attraction, it does. It’s your habit, and your comfort zone. The house tells us what kind of stuff was happening, what kind of environments you’re coming from. The sign tells us how that stuff was being done and experienced, what it felt like in those environments.

It’s likely that bodies and points in other signs & houses aspect it.
1. Bodies conjunct the South Node saturated that environment, filled it. You’re either happy to be an expert in it, sick and tired of it drenching your life forever, or both, or somewhere between.
2. Those conjunct the North Node were not available for some reason in the environment. You’re either convinced you don’t deserve to get to do it, determined to have it this life, or vacillating between the two.
3. Energies square the nodes indicate unresolved issues from the environment. There’s something about it you don’t get, and you’re challenged to learn to make new choices regarding these energies.
4. Sextiles to the South Node represents a stimulating influence in those environments, and trines to the South Node indicate supportive energy. They can be negative, but we don’t always recognize it, and sextiles and trines to the nodes don’t seem to drive many people to me for an consultation.

II. SN ruler by House, Sign and Aspect
The SN ruler by sign tells us about your role in those environments of your past lives. Whether you chose it, or it was handed to you, or circumstance seemed to require it, your role is how you fit into those environments.

In a nutshell, you now expect to be treated in ways that fit the symbolism of the configuration of the SN ruler and, because of the law of attraction, you are.

Bodies and energies aspecting the South Node ruler tell us more information about your role in those environments.
1. Bodies conjunct the South Node ruler defined you. They are part of your role in past lives, and part of who you now think you are.
2. Those opposing the South Node ruler were not available to you for some reason. You’re either convinced you don’t deserve to get to do it, determined to have it this life, or both, or vacillating between the two. You expect other people to embody this energy, thinking it has nothing to do with you. Oppositions can feel like confrontations, so you might not get along with people who embody these energies.
3. Bodies square the South Node ruler indicate friction to you in your role in the karmic past. Someone or something pushed you and required you to change, or caught you off guard and left you feeling in some way blindsided. You were imprinted with the feeling that this energy causes trouble, and you might avoid developing it in yourself.
4. Sextiles to the South Node ruler represents a stimulating influence, and trines to the South Node indicate supportive energy. They either triggered you/you in your role into action or supported what you were up to.

III. Pluto by House, Sign and Aspect
Pluto tells us what you were most invested in doing, what you truly wanted to achieve and accomplish in those lives, at the same time it tells us what you felt went wrong at the end of those lives.

In a nutshell, you deeply desire to accomplish what is symbolized by your Pluto configuration, while you may deeply fear doing it. At this point in your present life, you’re somewhere along the continuum of exploring, manifesting opportunities related to or acting on those deepest desires. The chart can’t tell us where you are in this process, and perhaps the best summary statement about using Pluto in the context of locational astrology is that you need to have a good sense of where you are in that process before you can see what moving to a place affected by a Pluto line will offer you. Your sensitivity to the wounding symbolized by this little planet (I will always call it a planet!) might be severe, or you might have processed a lot of what it symbolizes and begun working to manifest what it is that you most deeply desire.

Bodies in aspect to Pluto in your chart tell us what energies are involved in your deepest wounding and deepest desires and intentions.
1. Bodies conjunct Pluto are part-and-parcel of your soul’s deepest desires and fears. They’re more reason you might not go for what you truly want, and yet they do inform your deepest desires.
2. Those bodies opposing Pluto indicate energies that opposed your desires in the karmic past and lead to you not being able to fulfill them. Your fear about meeting them again can keep you from doing anything about what you’re most passionate about.
3. Bodies square Pluto indicate friction that caught you off guard when going after your desires in the karmic past. They can help drive you in manifesting those desires now if you face the fears and respond in new ways to what seem like attempts to blindside you.
4. Sextiles to Pluto represent a stimulating influence affecting your soul desires and fears, and trines to it indicate supportive energy. They respectively trigger and support your deepest soul desires and fears.

An Example
I’ll use myself as an example. My data are November 8 1972, 4:16 AM, Dover OH USA Earth. This example is my chart relocated to Los Angeles.

I’ll focus on the major power line here. My Mercury-Moon conjunction in Sagittarius moves from straddling the 3rd house cusp (Placidus) natally to straddling the relocated IC. A good locational astrologer looking at this would tell me it’s a very important feature of how I’ll experience LA, but the fact that Moon is the South Node ruler is an important layer. I might have been told by someone with a traditional locational view that I will for example settle down here and begin a family, or perhaps do well with real estate. Yet adding in the past-life/karmic approach, that Moon is the South Node ruler, changes the picture.

Everything I know about Moon-Mercury energy comes into play here. And as Moon in my chart symbolizes on one level how I expect to be treated (as SN ruler, it reflects roles I’ve had in the karmic past/other lives), Moon is on one level who I think I am. What happens with a move to LA for me is that anything I’m carrying still unprocessed about lunar energy will come to the fore in my inner world (IC). This will include family history/heritage, relationships with parents, feeling nature, self-care/-nurturing, and what I do to make myself happy. When this conjunction shifts to the IC, it becomes very important for me to get to the bottom of who I really am, regardless of who I think I am. This place for me in other words is at least in part about true inner knowledge, as the IC is the beginning of the 4th house, the house of our personal foundations and deep self-knowledge.

Did I settle down and raise a family? No. Has LA been good for me for real estate? No. But going with another layer of Moon-Mercury/IC contacts, improved relationships with my family and heritage, inner knowledge and ability to better relate my feelings and understand my emotional nature have resulted from my time in this city. And to be clear, none of these things are better because I moved to Los Angeles. They’re better because I responded to the invitation LA has offered me to process old karmic junk.

If You’re Not Interested/Comfortable/Prepared to Get Into Your Own Chart
Contact me for a locational reading. Go to my services page, call or e-mail to book an appointment. Pick 3 or 4 places you’re considering as possible places to move to for us to work with. We’ll discuss the opportunities and challenges waiting for you in each, given your karma and how you tend to respond to opportunities to heal it.

If you’re interested in learning to work with locational astrology in this way, I also offer private tutoring for people at all levels. See my Services page for more information.