Fear of fated failure

I think the most valuable approach in working with astrology is to see every single planet, aspect, sign, every component of astrology, as consisting of a spectrum of potentials. 

At one end of the spectrum are the more skillful, conscious, destiny expressions, or the highest expression of each component, and the other end of the spectrum would be the path of least resistance, the pre-patterned, unconscious and karmic expression of that component. We have a choice across that spectrum in working with any component of our astrology. 

Often what I find is that people are afraid of their own [astrological]chart, because they are afraid they’re going to find something there that's really bad news with nothing to do about it. You're afraid you’re going to find out that you're actually really a lousy person or that you're fated for failure. So people will be a little shy of it because we are afraid and we're very socially conditioned to kind of live our lives as though it were a kind of evaluation of who we are, a test to pass, a decision of whether we're good or bad, success or failure.

Astrology actually offers us a completely different way to relate to ourselves and to life and to each other where we see that there is an established pattern that we started with, like an architect's plan for a building. At each step of the way and in each aspect of the project we have a spectrum of potentials over which to express what's in that plan. It's very freeing and it's very empowering. From my experience after working with people for a very long time, and in my own life, and in making long-term observations of things, it bears out as true. 

It’s said that a bullfrog or a deer would have the same astrological chart as you if they were born in the same place and at the same time. They’re not going to live out the same life. Even two human beings can have the same identical astrological chart and they’re not going to live the same life. It's the consciousness, the individual consciousness, that we bring to bear on that architect’s plan.