Trafford Publishing: Astrology 101: Beginner's Guide to Reading Your Chart

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Astrology 101: Beginner's Guide to Reading Your Chart

by Gyan Surya

309 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-1841; ISBN 1-4120-1463-8; US$25.00, C$28.75, EUR19.49, £12.92

Astrology: A first look offering the basic tools of interpretation for those with little or no knowledge of Astrology.

Introductory offer: free birth chart with book purchase. For information please visit: www.starsongsastrology.com

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About the Book About the Author Excerpts and a great Review Catalogue Information

About the Book

This offering is designed for people with little or no knowledge of astrology, who would like to be able to understand and interpret their own birth charts, and perhaps those of their loved ones. It is a simple but complete guide to basic chart interpretation, including Sun, Moon, planets, Chiron and the four major asteroids. The approach is holistic, with an emphasis on harmonics.
The technical aspects of chart creation and analysis are avoided. If you decide to study the subject in depth, you will most likely want to learn chart calculation and other tools of astrological application which are not covered here. This is a beginning place, and if studied and applied will provide a good grasp of your chart and a foundation for deeper study.
For more information, please visit: www.wizzards.net/magyan

About the Author

Gyan has been a spiritual seeker and adventurer since early childhood, and an avid student and practitioner of astrology for over thirty years.
She lives on a country lane next to a creek in the beautiful Umpqua Forest in southwest Oregon, enjoying the simplicity of a slow paced life style in a small close knit rural community. Her home is shared with three cats and often with close friends and neighbors who gather to share music, drumming, art and life's many occasions for celebration.

Sample Excerpts and a great Review

The purpose of this offering is to increase astrological awareness and comprehension, and give you the ability to apply this knowledge to your own life.
Astrology as it is learned today is both art and science. That is to say, it fully engages both hemispheres of the brain, the rational and the intuitive. It is a marriage of astronomy and mythology. To do good astrology it is imperative to cast accurate charts, which requires objective observation and accurate calculation. Interpretation rests upon a wealth of accumulated observation, wisdom and diligent study; knowledge of myths and symbolism, and the mysterious and elusive ability to find themes, synthesize and grasp the overall pattern, which is unique to each individual born into space and time.
The assumption behind our use of astrology is not that the planets or the heavens actively control, determine or direct our lives. It is rather the relativistic concept that the universe is an interactive energy continuum, or more accurately, a vast hologram. Each particle contains, reflects and interacts with the whole pattern; hence the ancient Hermetic Principle, "As above, so below". Whatever energy dance is being performed in the heavens resonates with and reflects the energies that move our lives. The purpose of studying and applying this knowledge in our lives is increased self-awareness, psychological integration [wholeness], and better timing: So that we may know the proper season to sow and to reap, and to rest. Or, to say it another way, so that we can dance our lives in rhythm and harmony with existence.
Astrology is essentially the study of harmonics. It is learning to read the music of the celestial dance. It is joyous to move in harmony with the cosmic symphony. It is futile to resist or deny its influence in our lives.
Harmonics is a basically simple, yet all-encompassing subject. Pythagoras believed and taught that everything is based on numbers. And the numbers are alive, they are frequencies and fluctuations. They flow and interact dynamically in every moment of existence. This play is harmonics, the music of the spheres. Astrology is its study, and music its expression.
Planets are huge, multi-dimensional foci of energy, each with its own persona; its values, needs, issues and agendas. Each has a unique frequency pattern to which we are attuned in some deep, mysterious level of our awareness. Planets constantly move and interact with each other, and we, consciously or otherwise, resonate with their dance and song. It is the ebb and flow of life.
Each of us (and everything in existence) has a unique frequency signature which is reflected in our astrological birth chart and also, I believe, encoded in our DNA if we could but read the knowledge stored there. Truth to tell, we can and shall. It is a part of who we shall become as we awaken into higher dimensions of being.
But back to Astrology. It is truly a vast subject and an ancient knowledge. Yet it is just as true to say it is in its infancy.
There are many methods extant on the planet in the twenty-first century. Classical Western Astrology is my training, but there are many others. Each method has its own validity and each 'works', perhaps some better than others. Vedic may be the most intact, not having suffered the ages of repression and book burnings of the Judaeo-Christian cultures. Modern Western Astrology is a re-creation and a rediscovery, with much new insight based on a greatly expanded cosmology and technology.
What we look at in the astrology of today is generally still only the major ten or fifteen bodies within our solar system (which under normal conditions are, in fact, 99+% of the gravitational influence on our planet). Some astrologers look at this within the context of the 'fixed stars', but the information on that level seems scanty at best, and the older astrology books I have found are quite grim in their depiction of the cosmic forces impacting us from the stars.
Our present knowledge is limited to our own backyard, cosmically speaking. What we know is tiny compared to what we don't know, and that must necessarily always be so. But as our knowledge grows, as we become more and more proficient at reading the music, so our life's song and dance become more elegant, immediate and ecstatic, and we become more open to the depth and truth of our oneness with All That Is.
Read the review by Joseph H. Pierre
See the review by Joseph H. Pierre on Amazon.com
Excellent book for the beginner in astrology January 14, 2004
One of the most thoughtful treatises of its kind in print. The author writes lyrically, sensitively, and intelligently about a subject that often draws sneers from intellectual snobs.
An example from the foreword:
"The purpose of this offering is to increase astrological awareness and comprehension, and give you the ability to apply this knowledge to your own life.
"Astrology as it is learned today is both art and science. That is to say, it fully engages both hemispheres of the brain, the rational and the intuitive. It is a marriage of astronomy and mythology. To do good astrology it is imperative to cast accurate charts, which requires objective observation and accurate calculation. Interpretation rests upon a wealth of accumulated observation, wisdom and diligent study; knowledge of myths and symbolism, and the mysterious and elusive ability to find themes, synthesize and grasp the overall pattern, which is unique to each individual born into space and time.
"The assumption behind our use of astrology is not that the planets or the heavens actively control, determine or direct our lives. It is rather the relativistic concept that the universe is an interactive energy continuum, or more accurately, a vast hologram. Each particle contains, reflects and interacts with the whole pattern; hence the ancient Hermetic Principle, "As above, so below". Whatever energy dance is being performed in the heavens resonates with and reflects the energies that move our lives. The purpose of studying and applying this knowledge in our lives is increased self-awareness, psychological integration [wholeness], and better timing: So that we may know the proper season to sow and to reap, and to rest. Or, to say it another way, so that we can dance our lives in rhythm and harmony with existence.
"Astrology is essentially the study of harmonics. It is learning to read the music of the celestial dance. It is joyous to move in harmony with the cosmic symphony. It is futile to resist or deny its influence in our lives.
"Harmonics is a basically simple, yet all-encompassing subject. Pythagoras believed and taught that everything is based on numbers. And the numbers are alive, they are frequencies and fluctuations. They flow and interact dynamically in every moment of existence. This play is harmonics, the music of the spheres. Astrology is its study, and music its expression.
"Planets are huge, multi-dimensional foci of energy, each with its own persona; its values, needs, issues and agendas. Each has a unique frequency pattern to which we are attuned in some deep, mysterious level of our awareness. Planets constantly move and interact with each other, and we, consciously or otherwise, resonate with their dance and song. It is the ebb and flow of life.
"Each of us (and everything in existence) has a unique frequency signature which is reflected in our astrological birth chart and also, I believe, encoded in our DNA if we could but read the knowledge stored there. Truth to tell, we can and shall. It is a part of who we shall become as we awaken into higher dimensions of being."

That has to be the most rational, lyrically expressed exposition on the subject that I have ever seen, and one with which any thinking person can identify.
The book includes an expose' of the chart, and what it means, the various houses, signs of the zodiac and the planets which rule each one (as well as the asteroids), and the impact upon our lives.
What the author does not mention, but a fact of which I am aware is that atrologers utilize the same ephemerus (or nautical almanac, which navigators use) that is used by astronomers to measure the aspects of heavenly bodies. I know of it because I am a sea-going celestial navigator.
I have always wondered at astrologers' insistence that our lives are influenced by the sun, moon, and planets--although I am fully aware that ships have less draft (they ride higher on their plimsoll lines) as the moon passes overhead, and certainly crime rates are affected by the moon's phase. But planets are so far distant, that their influence, it seems, must be insignificant. But Gyan Surya's explanation makes sense to me for, there is no doubt in my mind that the universe is a hologram and that we are all part of one harmonious moving stream against which we may struggle, or with which current we may float along in peace.
May I recommend this book to all who are open-minded on the subject, and curious to read more.
Joseph (Joe) Pierre, author of The Road to Damascus: Our Journey Through Eternity and other books

Catalogue Information