. . . and to keep Kirk happy, ""Pray that there's intelligent life . . .

That makes me very happy.

I don't think I'll be parting company with astrology again . . .

That's even better.

Here I am dragging Deb around again. I got this from the horary forum.

If it is a regular trip for you, then the travel involved is a 3rd house matter. The 3rd house signifies regular journeys, and although this involves a flight, there is no sense of you journeying into the unknown. The same would apply even if you were travelling between Britain and Australia, if that journey was made on a regular basis.

The 9th house relates to the idea of journeying to places that are strange, remote, and unfamiliar. It signifies those places where you feel that sense of remoteness from home.

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4518

It was obviously written for a different matter completely, but I think you can see why it appealed to me in this context concerning astrology and the 9th house. If we routinely keep astrology close to home as merely a method to classify and explain our familiar terrain with our preferred techniques, then we miss the flight to the ?strange, remote, and unfamiliar?. The deepest purpose of astrology is to take us out and away from the usual and easily named.

In case it wasn't clear in previous posts: I'm not equating astrology with religion, but saying that they have a common force, urge and desire behind them. That urge to expand beyond the familiar is based in the 9th house and its dexter trine to the ASC.

For those of you who are Thomas Moore fans (Care of the Soul, and so much more) ? I agree that a flight to that which is beyond and above is only part of the human picture. We also need to sink and settle down into the known, the familiar and the everyday, which Moore says is so important for the soul. This model of the 9th house as an upward spiritual movement does seem to favor spiritual flight. Perhaps that is a bias which has been built in to Western astrology and which makes us prone to experiencing astrology only in our heads rather than in our heads and bones. Do we need to spend more time with the 3rd house Goddess/Moon tradition and place astrology firmly in the sublunar world under her watchful eye? A feminine, embodied astrology. The kind of astrology that makes you dance naked in the garden rather than sit in front of a computer ruining your eyes and filling your head with notions of this and that, notions that can be used to counter your opponent's 'that and this'.

The kind of astrology that makes you dance naked in the garden rather than sit in front of a computer ruining your eyes and filling your head with ...

So now we know why you've been quiet in the forum lately. The weather helps, of course. For what it's worth - I do agree with your points.

Deb

Well I am on a journey soon, going on holiday. If I can find somewhere secluded I may follow Kirk's first suggestion but I am planning on taking my laptop so might ignore the second

Matt

For me, the purpose of "astrology" is its practical use for macrocosmic analytical work. To aid in understanding the subtle influences of the dynamic environment upon a wide variety of subjects and issues, personal and mundane, and to be enabled to make well informed prognoses about various potential outcomes. My primary use of macrocosmic analysis ("astrology") is in the field of astrotherapeutics, where understanding the dynamic influences of time (quality of hours, days, etc), of space (signs, directions, degree's of space, etc) and of things in space (planets, stars) is of primary importance when the goals are healing and progress toward an optimal state of being.

I feel somewhat hesitant straying onto this part of the Forum. This thread appears closest to my query, so it seems more appropriate to continue this than start a new thread.

I have been asking myself what is astrology's purpose and what are its bounds?

The practical examples that come to mind are:

Sports astrology: Should astrology expect to predict the result when the red teams plays the blue team at a certain time? If it could and this information became commonplace would astrology create a circumstance that could affect whether the game was even played? We would all know the winner, so why bother playing the game?

Mundane: Should astrology expect to predict when and where a natural disaster will occur? Do we potentially change fate if we could have populations moving out of earthquake areas, etc?

Is it reasonable to question if the limits of astrology should not extend to changing fate? (as in the two examples above) I know this raises the question of what is fate, etc, etc and how it relates to individuals. However, I still ask myself what is astrology's purpose and what bounds should there be in making predictions?

Any clarification or opinion would be welcome

Depends if you think you are changing fate when you take medicine when sick.

Interesting to read different views on the purpose of astrology. As there are so many different views. I think it is a very personal question as well, for me the answer is very similar to dr. farr?s.

For me astrology is a tool in understanding the influences of the dynamic environment on a range of issues, events and transactions.