First steps in AstrologyHave you ever looked up at a clear night sky, felt the magic of so many twinkling bright stars, and wondered whether there is any special meaning in the patterns they make? People throughout history have looked up at the night sky and felt that it contained a fascinating mystery. Long before man invented telescopes, or understood what the stars really are, he thought they were important to him in some way. He felt the stars were magical and so beautiful that they must have some special message.
Man's curiosity about the stars was the beginning of the science of astrology. Archaeologists have found records of the study of astrology in the ruins of almost every ancient civilisation, from Greece to Babylon, from China to Rome. It is the oldest science in the world.
Astrologers observed that most stars seemed to move round the sky together. But they also noticed that a few bright stars in the sky moved quite independently of the rest. They called these moving stars "wanderers". Today we call them planets. Our own Earth is a planet, and each planet moves in a circle, called an orbit, round the Sun, which is a true star. The Sun and its family of planets make up our Solar System. The astrologers identified five "wanderers", and these planets are still known by their ancient names: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. These are the names of gods, which is what the ancient astrologers believed the planets to be. Three more planets have been discovered during the last two hundred years, to which modern astronomers have given the names of other ancient gods: Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Some astronomers believe there is another planet in the Solar System still to be discovered.
Apart from the stars and planets, astrologers also observed that the Moon moved across the sky. We have known for a long time now that this is because the Moon moves round the Earth in an orbit of its own. The Sun, too, seemed to move, rising in the east and setting in the west. In this case we know it is the Earth which really moves, making one complete turn in space, or revolution, every twenty-four hours. When a part of the Earth is facing the Sun it is day. When that same part is facing away from the Sun, it is night.
The astrologers wrote down all they knew about the movements of the Sun, Moon and planets. Today we continue this study with big telescopes, which is the science of astronomy. Astrology was the real mother of modern astronomy.
Today, we distinguish between astronomy and astrology. While astronomers are interested in finding out scientific facts about the Solar System, modern astrologers continue to study the connection between the movements of the planets and people's lives. The ancient astrologers thought that the planets were gods who ruled people's lives. Modern astrologers no longer believe this, but they do still believe that in some fascinating way there is a relationship between the Sun, the Moon, the planets and the lives of each one of us.



Have you ever looked up at a clear night sky, felt the magic of so many twinkling bright stars, and wondered whether there is any special meaning in the patterns they make? People throughout history have looked up at the night sky and felt that it contained a fascinating mystery. Long before man invented telescopes, or understood what the stars really are, he thought they were important to him in some way. He felt the stars were magical and so beautiful that they must have some special message.
Apart from the stars and planets, astrologers also observed that the Moon moved across the sky. We have known for a long time now that this is because the Moon moves round the Earth in an orbit of its own. The Sun, too, seemed to move, rising in the east and setting in the west. In this case we know it is the Earth which really moves, making one complete turn in space, or revolution, every twenty-four hours. When a part of the Earth is facing the Sun it is day. When that same part is facing away from the Sun, it is night.
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"Will I find happiness with this person?"is one of the questions most often asked of an astrologer. The inquiry may refer to marriage or to any other kind of personal relationship; but, in any case, the issue deals basically with the longing for happiness which every human being harbors in his or her heart. We know instinctively that this longing can be satisfied only by some kind of relationship. However, there can be many types of relationship, and the desire for relationship—and for happiness—can operate at several levels.
The contact between the Sun in one chart and the Moon in another usually reveals quite definitely a fundamental potentialityof relationship operating at the generic level of vital forces. The Sun and Moon represent, indeed, the two polarities of the universal life force; but at the psychological level, they do represent these polarities in terms of basic "images" of what will bring to a person what he or she lacks in order to be complete in power and vitality. In other words, the zodiacal position of the Moon in a man's chart pictures the type of "ideal woman" who will bring to him the inner kind of vital energy he lacks or possesses only in a latent undeveloped state. The Sun in a woman's chart represents her ideal of "the man," the ideal lover.
In a rather similar sense, every human being is basically "human" as a member of the species mankind; but each differs as an individual, according to the way he reacts to human experiences and to what special type of experiences he or she has had to meet, especially during the formative years. These personalized responses to life in time generate characteristic "emotional attitudes"; and it is to these that Mars and Venus refer most directly.
I began this article by pointing out how many and varied ways there are for astrologers to answer the familiar question, "Will I find happiness with this person?" It is well, therefore, to close with a reference to the Part of Fortune, which, in a very real sense, is one of the main indicators of a person's capacity for happiness and of the particular nature of the person's happiness or lack of happiness.
DANE RUDHYAR (1895-1985) was a leading figure in astrology the 20th Century, introducing reforms to the ancient practice many practitioners and writers today take for granted. A prolific writer, Rudhyar contributed more than 20 books and several hundred articles to modern astrology.
