Natal Chart: Your Energetic Blueprint

Many people view astrology as "woo woo" "hokey" or completely dismiss it as fake and pseudoscience. But what if I told you that astrology has been a key factor in health and wellness for millennia, and it's only in more modern times that we have taken this view. Astrology is far more than what pop astrology and newspaper horoscopes have made it out to be. From Alchemists to surgeons, astrology has been largely used in healthcare since humans have existed. This use is based on the Hermetic principle of "As above, so below," a phrase you may have heard before. This indicates that we are a microcosm of the macrocosm we know as the universe. What happens within the universe is reflected within us as well. From the time of birth, the soul is imprinted with the energetic frequencies of the stars, and this maps the energetics we carry within us. We can see these energetics within us, and we can see this through something known as a Natal Chart.

Have you ever looked into your natal chart? Most people never have, or if they have, it's been for fun as a personality evaluation. However, your natal chart is the energetic blueprint of your being. It offers insight into everything from your core constitution to predispositions.

It provides insight into your psychological makeup as well as what your soul is here to fulfill. A natal chart shows the alignment of the planets at the time of birth. When you are born, that energy at the first breath is stamped into you. These energetic celestial bodies map onto and correspond to parts of our own body. The fabric of our being becomes infused with these energies, and we carry them with us for the rest of our lives on this earth.

For millennia, astrology was used to assess the body and understand the energetics behind a person's symptoms. This practice dates back to Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt and was synthesized by figures such as Claudius Ptolemy during the Hellenistic era. You may be familiar with the phrase, "as above, so below." This phrase comes from Hermeticism, meaning that the microcosm of the individual reflects the macrocosm of the universe.

In the 1600's, English physician Nicolas Culpeper famously popularized what we now refer to as Astro-herbalism by writing about medicine in English rather than Latin, making it more accessible to laypeople. This was a rebellion against established practice at the time. His works, such as Culpeper's Complete Herbal, An Astrological Judgment of Diseases from the Decumbiture of the Sick, and Culpeper's Complete Astrology, are still widely referenced today. Culpeper helped show the world how to use the doctrine of signatures by pairing planetary correspondences, constitutional energetics, and traditional herbal medicine in a way that was accessible to all. Today, we use this understanding to pair herbs with the person's corresponding energetic patterns to restore balance.

Culpeper was not the first to use medical astrology. In fact, it was once required to learn in order to practice medicine. The use of astrological medicine dates back to ancient times. Hippocrates, who is celebrated as the Father of Medicine, is attributed with saying "A physician without a knowledge of astrology has no right to call himself a physician." Still further, we see evidence of the importance of understanding astrological timing dating back to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Even the Church acknowledged the importance of natural astrology, which was used for agriculture, medicine, and navigation. This type of astrology was taught as part of the curriculum at universities until the late 1700's. In 1586, Pope Sixtus V issued the papal bull Coeli et terrae, which officially condemned all forms of divination and predictive astrology, and this was later expanded to include any prognostications against the Church itself by Pope Urban VIII, yet teaching of natural astrology still continued within the Church, signifying its importance. It wasn't until the Scientific Revolution and the birth of astronomy that the language surrounding astrology began to fall out of practice, being viewed as for the uneducated, while the scientific language indicated higher status. The reality is, astronomy was birthed from astrology just as chemistry was birthed from alchemy. All we did was strip away the spiritual component leaving a dry and incomplete system. Fortunately, while these metaphysical concepts were largely abandoned in the West, save for a few dedicated pockets, Eastern practices still acknowledged the importance.

Today, we are beginning to see this scientific viewpoint shift back to the importance of the spiritual component and metaphysics through the emergence and development of things like quantum science. Many of the "discoveries" being made today are confirmations of things known in the past expressed in updated empirical language. The book The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra explores the parallels between modern scientific discoveries and existing Eastern practices and beliefs. From a medical perspective, we are starting to see just how important the role of our energetics actually is when it comes to health and wellness. Hospitals are starting to contract with Reiki practitioners and holistic specialists for patients needing long-term care and to address the energetic side of illness. We've begun to study how things like entrainment can impact cell regeneration and stress reduction within the body. The importance of what was once viewed as pseudoscience and "woo woo" is now coming into the picture.

So what exactly is medical astrology, and why is the birth chart so important?

Medical Astrology, also known as Health Astrology, is a specialized field of astrology that interprets each zodiac sign and planet in relation to different parts of the body and their associated energies. We can see this in the Zodiacal Man, a mapping of the zodiac onto its corresponding parts of the body. We start with Aries, who rules the head and adrenals, and end with Pisces, who rules the feet and lymphatic system. Certain planets correspond to aspects of health: Mars, the lesser malefic, presides over inflammation, and Saturn, the greater malefic, presides over constriction. Mars rules the blood, Saturn the minerals, Venus the veins, Jupiter the liver, Mercury the nervous system, the Moon the stomach, and the Sun the heart and vital force. Through the natal chart we are able to see the relationship between the planets and the signs as they present within the body.

Think of your natal chart as a stained-glass window. This window is divided into 12 equal parts arranged in a circle. Each slice represents one of the 12 zodiac signs and is tinted with a color unique to it. Aries cadmium red, Gemini cadmium yellow, Taurus emerald green, Cancer cerulean blue, and so on. Each planet is a emits a beam of light, much like the Sun, and each carries its own unique color corresponding to its energetic signature. The Sun is golden, the Moon is silver, Mars is red, Venus is green, and so on. Our stained-glass window is always comprised of all 12 pieces. When a planet is in that sign, it illuminates the part of our window. The tinge of color in that window slightly alters the way we perceive it. For instance, Mars in Aries would be a very bright, vibrant red, while Mars in Cancer creates a very different purple color. This shows us the different ways each planet expresses within us, and how our natal chart is an energetic signature unique to each individual. Though every person is comprised of all 12 signs, all 12 houses, and all celestial bodies, the way they present within the individual is never the same. I first heard this described in this way by Sajah Popham, who, I believe, said he heard it from one of his teachers. This description really stuck with me, and I feel that it beautifully articulates what the natal chart is and how it operates.

Medical astrology primarily uses the whole-sign housing system and Hellenic traditional rulership. Though there is some correspondence to the outer planets, we really don't know enough about them to fully understand their impact on the body. For instance, many modern astrologers associate Uranus with the body's electrical impulses, and some associate Neptune with the extracellular matrix. However, we are still discovering more about these planets, just as we are discovering more about the body itself.

In medical astrology, we use natal charts to assess our clients' energetics. This provides insights into the core constitution of the individual as well as any potential for energetic predisposition. For example, someone with Saturn in Libra may be predisposed to kidney stones, while someone with Mars in Virgo may be predisposed to inflammation in the intestines. In addition to using the natal chart, practitioners map celestial transits through a process called decumbiture, which provides insight into the onset of symptoms and reveals what was happening energetically when the illness began. By looking at what was occurring during the transit in relation to the existing energetics of the individual, we begin to see the whole picture of what was happening at the moment of manifestation of disease.

The image to the right is a decumbiture chart that I generated using my favorite astrology tool site, astro-seek.com. From this, we can see both the transit chart on the outside in orange and the natal chart on the inside in blue. The lines inside the center in red and blue indicate the positive and negative aspects of the transit planets in relation to the transit planets. For instance, we see transit Saturn in the 7th house Aries in opposition to the natal Moon in the first house Libra. Already we know with this transit we are looking at the kidneys (Libra), adrenals (Aries), tension and constriction (Saturn) and the fluids and of the body and emotions (the Moon). Perhaps this person is seeking support for problems with chronic fatigue. They are experiencing headaches and depression, and this has been going on since New Year's Day, which is the time that this transit occurred. From this chart, we are able to get insight into the energetics surrounding the onset of the issue as well as some potential ways to support their body with corresponding herbs and energetic practices.

Just like different parts of the body have their correspondences, so too do herbs. Each planet has energetic signatures within certain herbs. Nettles, for instance, is an herb that strongly corresponds to Mars, while Marshmallow strongly corresponds to the Moon. It is through understanding the energetics of both the ailment and the herbs that an herbalist can match herbs to symptoms and formulate effectively, while keeping the body's natural harmony in mind. Understanding these things allows an herbalist to select herbs that energetically support the body in returning to balance and homeostasis, working from the root cause rather than simply treating a symptom.