Astrology & Power: Time and Place as the Basis for Identity

Before anyone can accept astrology as a valuable way of knowing, they must first believe that there can exist power greater than yourself that affects you simply because of its size and position in relation to you.

Let's engage in a scenario together. If a small fish shifts in the current of the water because of a shark's passing, and it wishes to take the path of least resistance, would you say the shark controlled the movement of the fish? How would you describe the shark's affect? In fact, Indulge me in this insanity of a rephrase:

If a shark moves, and in its moving, affects the water that itself and the small fish are in, who has the power?

A. The Shark

B. The Fish

C. The Water

D. All of the Above

However you answered, try to consider what kind of power each of these things have, and what that power costs. This is how I see Astrology. The shark and the fish are the difference between planetary power and human power (willpower). Although I love to personify the planets, which you will soon learn, their power is not that of consciously deciding to control the lives and personalities of humans. They simply move, with their own resistance, with their own power, and with everything it costs. I believe, regardless of intention or lack there of, power difference can exist and have an effect without the dissolution of free will. Astrology, if understood this way, can become about noticing the water resistance where it occurs, checking for sharks, and waiting for them to pass until swimming wherever you want gets easier again. There is little morality involved in these power dynamics, which has proven to be as difficult to conceptualize and accept for humans as most natural laws are. But free will compels me to say all laws were made to be questioned, and eventually broken.

It is important for me to establish this before I begin to explore the Astrological laws, because their existence functions as a guide on when to apply or ignore them, and when the effort to go against the current is worth whatever it costs. Astrology, in it's best iteration, bolsters the power of free will, not squanders it. If you find yourself in a conversation about Astrology that applies moral judgements on the entirety of a sign/planetary energy, consider it as either a misunderstanding of the power that energy has in relation to everything, or an inability to take responsibility for your own free will. Everything is moving, you get to choose when to fight against the current, or let it take you.

To accept Astrology as a way of knowing, even if it is not your only way of knowing, is to understand that you exist inside some ocean that everything else also exists inside of, and because of this, we are connected. That only means as much as you choose it to mean. You can make it mean you are responsible for how you affect others and are affected by others, you can make it mean you are curious about the laws of the ocean you live inside, you could make it mean nothing, forget it entirely, and move intuitively. Most likely, you will do all 3. Most likely, you will combine all these practices depending on the circumstance. Astrology seeks to define when each of these decisions is most or least synched with the flow of the universe around it.

In its most practical iteration, Astrology becomes the practice of measuring how you feel to the movement of the planets. Whether you find patterns to help you move more efficiently depends entirely on where you want to go, and how you want to get there. There are times even I like to fight the current simply for fun. There are time I intentionally forget its patterns. Although I love Astrology, I don't always practice it. Sometimes, forgetting who I am and how I like to move, allows the flow of the ocean to take me somewhere I couldn't have planned if I consulted my path myself.

The Power of Form: Observed Identity

The shark and fish analogy is one of my favorites, because it reflects my belief that although we are different from the stars, all difference is a matter of power. Not all power is determined by size and impact potential though. Will power is a phenomenal example of that difference. Smaller things find it easier to change direction based on new information. This is the limitation of planetary power, their size affects their very rigid movement. My willpower, although small and nimble, is limited by time. I will not outlast any planetary body. The unpredictable nature of my movement is symptom of my time and place. Astrology is a practice that requires you to learn the language of give and take, what we sacrifice for all the kinds of power we wield.

All bodies have their own ways to communicate that we must translate in order to apply our power to the circumstance. For example: you can want to build muscle, but if you never apply your willpower to learning what your body needs in order to build muscle, and doing it, it is wasted wanting. Power requires knowledge of self and other, power requires a relationship to apply itself to. The relationship you have with your body is a great way to ground the Astrological practice. You are inside of a universal body, try to experiment with different ways of treating it and you will quickly learn its rules and laws. Like any body, it never impedes your free will, but there is always a cost. There are days I can afford to ignore my body's language because a want I have is bigger, but it might cost me something, and there is power in knowing what that cost is and charging it.

Bodies have rules that change too, they have needs, wants, strengths, and weaknesses determined by both physical qualities, energetic qualities, and circumstance. We'll get to defining energy a little later for those of you already putting up red flags, but consider your own qualities for a moment. If you had to separate which traits of yours were determined by your physical body/environment vs which came from some metaphysical you that has desires beyond your form, how easy would those be to differentiate? Would any trait be firmly on either side? Is it not all relative to something? At what point is our physical existence and the metaphysical identity we make of it too connected to separate?

I ask this because a lot of the pushback to Astrology as a way of knowing, exists in the idea that Astrology claims to know you more than you know yourself. The reason we believe we know ourselves so well is because we have spent so much time being ourselves. It is through being for long periods of time that we become comfortable in our patterns and cycles of behavior until they calcify into personality traits. Surely the planets have spent even longer being themselves, surely even their physical behavior could calcify into a metaphysical identity if given enough time. And just like anybody, we can only hope to understand them as much as outside observers can ever understand anything without being it themselves, right? The magic of Astrology for me, is that understanding and relating is our way inside something else's being. It is through relation, that can we see our similarities and differences reflected in the planetary bodies. But to relate to someone, you must have some idea of self, of who you are.

Beyond understanding the planets, Astrology helps us know ourselves. Learning planetary behavior is useful to the conservation of our own power, but there is value in relation alone for what it teaches us about ourselves. Relating to the planetary bodies is an exercise in imagining each of your individual traits as being expressed outwardly to their highest degree, with infinite space and time to grow. There is a beautiful justification in that. It is through the consideration of similarities and differences that we know when to apply our power with full intention.

Who Are We If Not Our Names?: Linguistic Governance

Bodies also have languages we can sometimes misunderstand or misattribute meaning to, which is why I understand the reluctance to make planetary movement matter beyond it's physical affect. It's a language barrier. Most of us keep sun time because we've probably tried the sleep all day and work through the night method, and found its costs outweighed it benefits. We've felt the fight against the sun's current, and decided we're better off rising alongside it. And so, we adapt to the language of the sun. I would argue that the value in keeping the time of other planetary bodies comes only when you have observed how you feel when you do vs when you don't. Some people can handle the nocturnal life and see it's benefits, but we are only ever as powerful as our choice.

The more time we have to try to understand the language our body speaks to us, the easier it becomes to live inside it. Circumstance will always provide obstacles, but our best defense is understanding its flow. Having a similar relationship with the planetary bodies can be equally as beneficial. If you're curious about keeping another planet's time, try the moon. Write down how you feel every new moon and every full moon for a few months and see what you learn about the language of that planet.

If you already love language, certain astrological concepts might feel immediately resonant, but part of the joy of astrology is in the mystery element as well. There is always some quality of the planetary bodies that resists translation. Some communication will always be non verbal, but still perceivable through feeling. The planetary bodies have names, words, symbols, and signs to help you understand them like any language does, but these tools are only as valuable as your practice is. So rather than trying to learn the language by picking up a textbook, try the immersion method. Expose yourself to the language culturally. You can start with any planet you feel curious about and learn their timing, learn their physical traits, and the cultural identity they have in literature and mythology. Learn the etymology of their name; become a shark expert, and navigating the ocean gets a little more fun.

Ever heard someone described as "Mercurial"? What does this tell us about the planet's personality? Is it consistent with its physical behavior? Ever used the word "Lunatic"? What does this tell us about the moon and illusion/delusion? Ever mentioned the sun through root words like "sol"? When you say "the sole purpose", do you not mean "the center"? What does this tell us about the Sun? Even non astrological language contains remnants of a reverence for planetary identity and recognizes those qualities are in us too.

There is poetry in the language of the stars that you can find peppered through every language. English speakers may notice Sunday, Monday, and Saturday as days of the weeks named after the Sun, Moon, and Saturn, but Spanish speakers may notice "Martes" "Miercoles" and "Jueves" as Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter day. The planetary bodies leave their names in the parts of the sky, days of the week, and months of the year that they govern. How this governance is determined is a matter of time, place, and power.

By asking yourself: "When was this thing born, when does it grow easily vs with obstacle, or when does it thrive?" We can determine something's time. For each planetary body, there is a season during which the path of that body's movement is easeful and unobstructed. Which allows the planet to behave and express it's properties without major distortion. We call this their season. It belongs to them.

By asking yourself "Where was this thing born, where does it feel comfortable enough to express itself, or where does it do its work, healing, and processing?" We can determine something's place. For planetary bodies this coordinates with what area of the sky/constellation they govern. We call this their home or their sign.

As I mentioned in the previous post, understanding what something's time and place are in relation to on another, determines its power. Power is a relational force, and is thus, always able to shift. You might be in your prime, in your home, comfortable until someone arrives and now everything has changed because of a relationship. When we view power through this lens, it liberates us from asking permission from systems and institutions that have made no time or place for us. There will always be a circumstance past and upcoming where things are different. The circumstance can always change if the relationship doesn't, and the relationship can change if the circumstance doesn't. We always have access to some power. This is the liberation in observing systems that have named our time and place explicitly by way of our very birth, and suggest that our power is our will to move with or against the current. Astrology shows us that it is always the time and place for at least one of our traits to come into power, but is very specific about which ones will face the least resistance.

This concept of time and place belonging to us, and belonging to the larger universal body we exist within, is called "rulership" or "governance" in Astrology. But it is important to divorce the idea of rulership with human governance, which often neglects the idea of individual power and collective power being one and the same. Capitalist governance is synonymous with control. It is interested in the preserving of one kind of power at all times and in all places. It defines individual will power as the means to justify the hoarding of time and space, even if it belongs to others, as a personal right. If we accept that no time and no space belongs to the collective, or to the larger system of bodies and their relationships to one another, then we can take beyond our needs, spend beyond our means, and justify it all as empowering. It is no surprise to me, there is hesitance to accept the idea of planetary governance when this is our understanding of the word.

However, in linguistics, government refers to the relationship between a word and its dependents. This is a more accurate understanding of the relationship between planetary bodies and all nature. It is not a relationship of control, but of relation, of similarities and differences creating a sense of belonging.

You are your circumstance : My Time, My Place, My Power

There is always a time and place where certain qualities are the most useful. It is our ability to understand circumstance as a factor that empowers us beyond it. Astrology defines energy as our ability to create space for/hold, act upon/utilize, or process/connect to our circumstance. It is important to understand Astrological energy in these 3 distinct ways, because Astrology will use the terms "fixed", "cardinal", and "mutable" to describe these functions as well as when and where to utilize them.

Understanding the 3 Astrological energy modes, functions as liberation from the binary of "productivity or bust" that capitalism seeks to legitimize. Our power is not simply where and when we are most able to utilize our circumstance to our benefit, our power also lies in the energy of being and existing alongside each other.

This is where I'd encourage you to do some writing and thinking of your own. Ask yourself the following questions and write your responses down. Don't be afraid to get lost in the stream of consciousness. Name as many times and places as you can think of, get hyper specific:

WHEN

do I feel most useful? (my actions lead to results)

do I feel most comfortable? (i'm held and free to be)

do I feel most engaged? (in process or in conversation with myself and others)

WHERE

do I feel most useful? (my actions lead to results)

do I feel most comfortable? (i'm held and free to be)

do I feel most engaged? (in process or in conversation with myself and others)

I can't wait to dive into how the planetary bodies answer these questions with their identities, but self knowledge comes before relation. If you know your own responses, it will be so much easier to see where you do and do not reflect the planetary bodies. Understanding your idea of your own power is the best prerequisite to translating the language of astrology into practical magic.

In my next post, we will attribute all the seasons to their governing planets and begin to understand how the planetary identities might answer the questions above. Bring your answers ready to compare and contrast.

Thanks for much for reading and, as always, feel free to send me any questions or curiosities that arise through the Power Scaling discord server! Join the email list for blog updates! Love you

-nyfe