Astrology without Causation

Coincidence and coincide…

go ahead and say each one *out loud*

When we say coincidence, it sounds like it’s something that happened by accident. But when we say things coincide the magick of the synchronicity seems more obvious, even undeniable.

Then when we look at the etymology, we can see that the word was born of an expression of agreement. The root of coincidence speaks to multiple entities occupying the same space and affirming aligned messaging. Coincidence is feeling less and less like a fluke and more and more like a significant agreement between distinct entities.

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I feel a little embarrassed when people say that a particular planet is on their side, or that they are receiving something special from a certain celestial body. What does resonate for me, however, is the thought of praying to a particular deity. As someone with Sagittarius rising, I am ruled by Jupiter, and I offer my life and devotions to Zeus. I believe that I receive support through his magick, not because he is my ruler but because I offer my awareness and intention to him and his archetypal presence. Of course, I offer my attention to Jupiter/Zeus because he is my ruler but as someone who lives with high hopes and low expectations, I intentionally reject the practice of centering myself and humans in the cosmic web.

…but that’s a whole other can of worms…

Though I am discomforted by, even afraid of determinism, astrology demands we consider and contend with the possibility that all things are predetermined. I resist this; my bias urges me to seek more evidence so that we might yet have access to free will.

The option I prefer to explore suggests that all things happen within the parameters of the context, meaning the space-time must be correct for a particular thing to occur.

Psychological and behavioral observations and studies suggest that the context of our behavior is more predictive of outcomes than who we identify as. While I believe most of us would like to think we act as we do because of who we are, our behavior is far more likely to be defined by what is within our contextual capacity. We cannot fly a plane to Lagos if we do not have a plane, do not know how to fly one, and don’t know the coordinates to Lagos.

Simply put, we do what we do based on where and when we are more than who we are.

Another example, in a train station, we are able to board a train and travel, it is the setting, the space, the context, that predicts and defines our behavior. Without the train station and train, there is no access to travel, the behaviors we enact in a train station are specific to that space, that environment. We are not simply traveling because we identify as travelers but because we are in the space that permits and determines our capacity to travel.

Just as the space is more predictive of behavior than the person enacting the behavior, it seems that the position of the stars, the celestial bodies, and the ecliptic are determined by space. The planets also must contend with the parameters of space. They then, in turn, provide data points that speak to the context of human existence and experience. This brings us to the archetypal signification of the planets and how that information can be used to contextualize ourselves within our own cultural mythologies.

Let’s use a real astrological example:

It feels far less likely that Pluto’s ingress into Aquarius is causing a shift in the collective relationship to technology but instead that it is a symbol of the inevitable shift that occurs on a technological level when the collective has reached this particular context/space-time.

The technologies available at the particular era of the Pluto ingress into Aquarius are more data points that contextualize our behavior. The environment of the current era permits women to behave in ways they were not permitted to when Pluto was in Leo in the 1940s and 50s. Pluto, with its almost 250-year cycle, represents ancestral lineages and power, because those archetypal values take significant time to manifest this is the appropriate planet to symbolize heritage, power, and spiritual influence. Astrologers use Pluto to mark generations because it takes between 12 and 24 years for the planet to move through each sign. The last time Pluto made this ingress into Aquarius was April of 1777…chew on that for a moment… the context of Pluto speaks to the historical duration of empires.

It feels to me that the spinning and expanding of the galaxies, of the universe, was always going to end up with Pluto ingressing into Aquarius during 1532, 1777, and 2023 (just to name the 3 most recent times). This is promised and this is where things get particularly deterministic.

Let’s use another real astrological example:

The conjunction of Pluto on my partner’s 0° Aquarius sun was always going to happen, from the moment he was born, even before that I suppose. This transit is not a coincidence, it was always going to coincide with the end of his Saturn return, with his 30th year, with all the elements that exist at this moment in the space-time that is his context. The shape of the space-time that he acts within. Fortunately, he was not born when Pluto was in Leo, he has not been bound by the context of the late 1930s to late 1950s, forced to contend with the context of that era as a Black man. The context of the current space-time has completely different implications and determinations of what behaviors and technologies he now has access to.

To think that Pluto is offering him something special feels dangerously close to the spiritual bypassing of #luckygirl and individualistic manifestation. I have little patience for it. However, I do believe that my husband’s experience through this transit will be well described by the same vocabulary that is inspired by a Pluto conjunction with a natal Sun. It is likely to be transformative, powerful, intense, and may have much to do with his identity and ego.

I do not make predictions because I reject any opportunity to interrupt another person's self-actualization and self-determination.

The transits are always going to keep transiting and we now live in a context with the benefit of generations of archetypal language to describe feelings and experiences that coincide with these transits. To say that we are being hurt by a planet or healed seems indulgent and self-centered in a way I cannot abide. What I am curious about is how context impacts each of us collectively and as individuals. Our experience is coinciding with the planet's position and vice versa but this does not mean it must be a causal relationship. What does appear to be a causal relationship is the space-time and available behaviors. I cannot write these ideas on my computer except in this space-time where a personal computer exists, when I have the resources to access my computer, when I have the available time to ponder these ideas…

At birth, we are all initiated into our unique yet collectively felt contexts. Our contexts are predictive of our behaviors, more so than our sense of self despite our deepest desires to access free will.

The fact of the matter is, we cannot board a train when there is no station, nor train to board. We must live in a time of trains, enter the station with enough time to board the train and have the capacity to do so. Natal charts are a way to describe and explore the unique contexts that we act within. That our lives demonstrate archetypally synchronized patterns with the celestial bodies has more to do with the contextualization of our space-time than the causation.