Today I’ll guide you through the mystical lands of Shamanic astrology for deeper insights on how to understand the story of your natal Sun, Moon and Ascendant’s path of life. As a spiritual astrologer, I use a blend of techniques from various astrology systems, and what I love about the Shamanic astrology is that it often offers unique perspective and wisdom of insights, making readings more holistic in their nature. Just as a vineyard, it values the interconnection of all – the marriage between soil, weather and human hands, between the stars and free will.
Similar to esoteric astrology, Shamanic astrology operates through an archetypal and mystical framework anchored in the universal truth “As Above, So Below.” It is based upon the core belief that everything is interrelated, interconnected and everything has its purpose when seen through a higher hawk eye’s view. Its insights are valuable because they provide us with a different perspective anchored in wisdom, allowing us to more deeply understand aspects and planetary positions rather than labeling them as good or bad. Essentially, all our natal chart shows is our inner relationships and aspects to ourselves.
Shamanic astrology is a connected approach to astrology with the intention of creating greater awareness to a person’s life purpose and their relationship to Great Mystery or God. Often times, it serves as an esoteric or self awareness tool to validate and confirm what the person already knows or to strengthen their own senses and intuitive abilities. This allows and helps people in trusting their own inner knowing and inner process through a greater understanding of the mysteries that they have come to explore, develop and evolve.
The main purpose of Shamanic astrology is to give us the understanding of our own intention, purpose and the cycles of initiation throughout our life. This approach provides a vision of the possibilities we are here to experience and empowers us to make more conscious choices – because ultimately astrology is only a tool and we are the ones responsible for our own experience of this life. Our natal charts show potentials, but whether or not we step into these and their higher expression and manifestation is only up to us.
Let’s begin. We’ll first go through some of the descriptions of the Moon, Sun and Ascendant, and I’ll then guide you through two examples of how you interpret the story that unfolds.
Please know that these are only general, and all depends on all else in the unique natal chart of the native. For personal readings with me, you are welcome to browse through my Offerings.
The twelve pathways of spirituality
There are twelve pathways of spirituality as seen through the twelve signs and energies they carry, and each of which essentially show entry ways. The twelve paths are divided into two pathways of the soul: evolution and involution.
In short, evolution begins with earth and water, embodied within form and matter and moving in an ascending direction towards air and fire; which is the masculine journey towards consciousness and spirit. Its purpose is to become more consciously aware and ascend.
On the other hand, involution begins with fire and air, in consciousness and spirit, and descends into incarnation, into form and into matter, and into water and earth – this is the archetypal feminine energy. Its purpose is to bring spirit into physical matter, or God essence into matter.
The involution pathways are the water and earth signs, i.e. feminine signs, such as Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, Capricorn and Pisces. The earths signs are the ways of earth and the sensation functions; and the water signs are the ways of water and the feeling functions.
The evolution pathways are the fire and air signs, i.e. masculine signs, such as Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius and Aquarius. The air signs are the ways of air and the thinking functions; and the fire signs are the ways of fire.
Each of the twelve signs and pathways carry their unique purpose, dharma and mystery school and teachings. They each have their dharma related to what they are meant to bring into this world for the betterment of humanity and moving the collective consciousness forward.
The Sun, Moon and Ascendant
Shamanic astrology views the Moon as our lineage of soul – what we came into this life with prior to our encounter with the current cultures and traditions; it is a foundation and a place of beginning from which all else may follow. Having a healthy relationship to our Moon, i.e. not overly identifying or attaching to it, allows us to more freely evolve and step into new territories for the purpose of our soul growth.
The natal Moon carries deep knowledge of the tribe or mystery school we came from; what we learned and what we may need to refine; our challenges or obstacles; our skills and talents; our deeper emotional world and behaviour patterns; our instincts and ways of absorbing all around us, and our ways of approaching ourselves, other people and life itself.
There are two things to keep in mind with the Moon: the signs and aspects to it. Women with masculine natal Moons may not have received validation for their ways of expression if they grew up in a culture or family who wasn’t accustomed to this. For example, a woman with a fire Moon may be very independent, initiative and strong willed, but these ways of expression may not have been understood or accepted, so she may have felt invalidated culturally. This invalidation will need to be healed within her, as she works through her inner relationship between the masculine and the feminine energies. Or supposed a man has a water Moon; he may not have received validation for his highly developed feeling function and sensitivity, and even if his Moon is well aspected with harmonious aspects, he may still need to settle into peace this early childhood experience.
The other thing are the aspects to the Moon, especially the hard aspects from outer planets, which show areas that need to be healed. If a person has strong Pluto aspects to the Moon, such as a conjunction, opposition, or square, they are in a category that experiences violation to the original heritage. If a person has strong hard Saturn to the Moon, like the ones already mentioned, then they are likely to experience invalidation of their best skills represented by the sign of the Moon; but these can also show feelings of impoverishment and need to work on their sense of self esteem and self worth. Neptune to the Moon shows a lot of blind spots when it comes to the native seeing themselves clearly, and there is a strong need for them to do shadow work and move through fogs of illusion and self deception.
What about if you have your North Node conjunct your Moon – since the Moon relates often to the past and the North Node to the future?
This is somewhat similar to someone being born on a New Moon, in the sense that it shows the native is meant to move into a higher octave and expression of their Moon; they intended to bring the lineage into new territory, new direction, new expression. Here, the sign and aspects of the Moon will play an important role as well, because we’d like to see a Moon that has the ability to move with more fluidity and change, moving into new territories; in other words, we’d like to see someone with the ability not to over-attach nor over-identify with fixed patterns, but be willing to explore new territories.
People who have been stuck in fixed ways of doing things in the past usually come into this life with a lot of square aspects in their natal chart; and the reason for that is that they are meant to now free themselves of these borders, snap themselves out of the fixed and no longer working, so that they can grow and evolve. So the squares will constantly push them, creating tensions or even conflicts in their life, though as a square this is an inner aspect and about the native themselves not others. The square is meant to free them of their inner limits, so that they can move into the new territories and directions.
The way to understand this is imagine your most comfortable pillow! It’s so comfortable that you may not even want to get out of bed; so the only reason you’d get up and see the sun outside and swim in the ocean and play around is if that pillow began giving you discomfort, or if it became cold and you had to get up and turn the heater or, or, or. In the same way, people with natal squares will be constantly pushed and pulled beyond their comforts because they need to move and grow; and until they realize it isn’t the external or other people, but it is they themselves and the purpose of this square, they will continue to resist, and what we resist persists, etc.
Next we move to the Sun, and the Sun is seen and interpreted as the fuel or energy we use to navigate through life, which is why if you’ve had a reading with me you’d see me refer to your Sun as your fuel of life.
The angles of the natal chart give us additional clues on to determining the current life intent of the native. The Ascendant is the path of life and is known as the personal identity project, the Midheaven (MC) is the right livelihood project, the Descendant is the partnership projects, and the IC is the home and roots project.
Our Ascendant is our path of life and the soul’s main intent for birth. It gives us the biggest clue on our life’s purpose and the path we’d walk towards it, as well as what mystery school and training we’ve come here to learn and move into. So in other words, your natal Ascendant is the mystery school you signed up for and became really excited to start, as it is desire that gives us the push to be born. If the Moon is our past training and the foundational mystery school we came of, the Ascendant is the new one we’ll be learning in this current life.
The Ascendant is also seen as the unfulfilled desires of the soul that it desires to fulfill now, so that it grows and evolves further. The Ascendant is also the consciousness pathway through which we enter and becomes our “front door” towards soul evolution, in addition to also signifying the physical body in traditional astrology.
The path from our Ascendant to our Descendant is the path of body pulled by desire to move forward. And what is the desire most often manifested as? Partnerships. It is the otherness we always seek. This otherness is seen through our Descendant, which is the way of coming into our full inner self, which is why relationships carry the higher purpose to allow us to reach our desire by mirroring to us what we need to integrate and by also supporting us on our path towards it.
Each relationships axis has its higher purpose. For example, the axis of Taurus-Scorpio is about transforming through life force energy; the axis of Pisces-Virgo is about sharing sacred work; the axis of Leo-Aquarius is about empowering each other’s individualities; and the axis of Gemini-Sagittarius is about the adventurous quest for knowledge and truth.
Let’s go through an example putting together the story of the Sun, Moon and Ascendant.
Example:
Suppose we have a woman whose Sun and Moon are in Cancer, and her Ascendant is in Taurus; and then we’ll see how that changes if her Moon was in Capricorn.
The first thing we see is that she is born on a New Moon, so she is here to start a new evolutionary phase on her soul’s journey, and bring in new energy and new direction for her whole lineage – she is here to bring more light into it. Having all her big three – Sun, Moon and Ascendant – in involution signs shows that she holds a lot of wisdom and is here to bring spirit into matter; her purpose involves shaping and forming and materializing new ways of being, through her emotional and intuitive ways.
She has deep emotional and intuitive worlds, as the Moon rules Cancer and the intuitive realms, and through her emotional expression (her Moon and Sun in her third house of the priestess temple and mystery communication) she is here to move people’s hearts and spirits through the power of her emotional expression in whatever shape or form.
Having a natal Moon is Cancer shows that she comes from a lineage of caretakers having water dharma, i.e. her primary motivation in life is always coming through her feeling, including her empathy, compassion, being in service to others, and being highly attuned to the sensitivities and needs of others.
In this life she comes in with this deep understanding again, and she still feels best when she is nurturing someone or something, but now her focus should be more on herself because her Ascendant is in Taurus. Taurus is a dharma connected to taking care of self, nurturing self and understanding the important of giving yourself the pleasure and joy you seek. She has spent a lot of time caring for others, perhaps quite enwrapped in their emotional worlds also, but she needs to now infuse new energy into this pathway, which starts from her own needs and desires – she needs to acknowledge and honour her desires and go after them.
This is why we see her Descendant in Scorpio, and her relationship axis is about experiencing herself through the life force energy, which is also creative energy and sexual energy. This means that being committed to someone is good for her, but not just anyone, she needs someone who really blends into her deepest worlds of all senses – she needs connection of deep physical, emotional and spiritual level. Through experiencing intense relationships in her life with partners and strong desires, whether mirrored in others and rising from within her, she learns to get in touch with her own desires and deeper feelings and needs, and honour them.
What fuels her in her life through her Cancerian Sun is her desire for family, love and romance, but now she will not be losing herself in only serving others, she will learn what her individual needs are, voice them, and be discerning about who she chooses to surround herself with in this life. She needs to be picky and selective, and know her value; and she needs to remember that she may be good for others, they may not be good for her, so she needs to shift the lens on her own needs and wants and not suffice for less than that.
The dharma of the Taurus pathway relates to being rather than doing. Spiritually, Taurus is meant to celebrate the fullness of spirit in the senses, and express the higher purpose of the senses – which they do through the pathway of intimacy as art. What this essentially means is to come into the interconnection of all of life. Intimacy dissolves the boundaries between us and all things i.e. as Taurus connects to nature, wildlife, beauty and people, they realize how all interconnects and interrelated, and this allows them to come into deeper intimacy with life itself – they being one with life and nature.
It is also about realizing the importance of the present moment and savouring the sweetness, and walking a patience of rhythm while treasuring each moment. The emergent task of the Taurus mystery school is to create the heaven on earth i.e. the new garden of Eden without the “fall”, which happens when we learn to move through compassion and walk the beauty way rather than struggling and resisting the natural flow of our energy.
What about if her Moon was in Capricorn?
While Capricorn is a feminine sign, it is Saturn ruled, so her emotional expression may not be as free; and regardless of aspects, this is called a Saturnian Moon. This also shows she is born on a full Moon, and what this shows is that she is closing up and refining an important cycle or phase in her soul evolution. In this life she attract through subtraction i.e. she creates more flow in her life when she is focused inward, and inner work and purification are supported for her.
Those born with Capricorn Moons were often the elders who held it all together. They carried burdens and responsibilities, and were perhaps very limited in rules and structures; so in this life early on they may have experienced this sense of carrying to much on their shoulders or always feeling like they had to grow up too soon or too fast.
They may often believe, whether with or without reason, that they are somehow responsible for the problems of the family
or community or even the world, and they must do an infinite amount of atonement to get rid of these problems. What they need to understand is that this is no longer their job. If it was your Ascendant in Capricorn then yes, you are here to learn how to create more security and build structures through your hard work, effort, discipline, responsibility and maturity.
The challenge for the Capricorn Moon is that they desire respect and also that they have an important and responsible function they can manage and control. However, every Capricorn Moon should know that even if they had such a role, it would be insufficient to their liberation. No additional reward comes from continuing to play the role of the Moon. What they need to focus on instead is to free themselves from limitations and become more emotionally expressive and playful.
Through the more emotionally expressive Sun in Cancer, the Capricorn Moon may look inward, do their inner work and free themselves into more love and intimacy with another. We can’t experience intimacy nor love without vulnerability; so the Capricorn Moon needs to take off their armour and show their true self. They don’t have to keep looking strong and unbreakable, and hold it all together always, that’s too much burdens and will only lead them to feeling down and feeling unloved and inadequate.
It’s good for them to have responsibility in life, as this comforts their inner worlds of Moon, but they shouldn’t identify with success and external accomplishments because this will not be fulfilling to them. Having a healthy relationship to our Moon means that we are not over-identifying and over-attaching to it, otherwise it becomes addiction, but we are instead honouring that part of ourselves and translating its talents while also keeping ourselves open and flexible to the new territories and new expressions we want to explore and experiences ourselves through.
As they walk the Taurus path, they may learn to savour the sweetness of the present moment and open themselves in new ways. This will also help them to understand their own inner selves better and more fully, and to understand what it is that they are actually seeking, desiring and needing in life, so that they don’t over-identify with external measures of success but rather learning what true abundance and fulfillment mean.
This is of course also seen through their natal Moon being in their ninth house, which is about expansion, travel, and dissolving the boundaries and limitations; trusting life itself and building a relationship to their higher self with open palms, open hearts and open minds. As the ninth house is the house of dharma itself, sitting high up on our horizon at birth, it is about their emotional world looking up and trusting the inner guidance and fires to guide them along their way; nurturing their faith and nourishing their emotional self are key to their dharma and spiritual growth.
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Cover photograph by me of our nearby vineyards.