You Are What You Are

"In this universe, there is no such thing as a mistake. There is also no such thing as punishment. What this means, is that everything that happens to you is not an accident and everything that happens to you has come to benefit you in some way. The key is to deliberately look through ego’s illusion for that “benefit”. "
-Teal Scott

I sometimes wonder whether astrology really helps me, or just adds more stress to my life. You all know the saying, ignorance is bliss; well, to some extent, it really is. The true reality may not be so blissful from an objective point of view, but for the individual, from their perspective, it seems to work out just fine. I feel like this incarnation, for me, is really about learning the power of free will. Like how to actually use it, consciously. It's scary as hell. I don't know why, but it just is. Maybe it's my exact Mars/Neptune opposition, but making decisions--knowing that this specific choice is going to reverberate throughout my entire life, that it will have lasting effects and consequences--that's a lot of pressure. It's really intense. I think I originally learned astrology because I wanted to have something to make decisions for me. On this unconscious level, I think that's really what I was looking for, some system that could "predict" my future, and thus allow me to see ahead of time what would happen.

Thinking your life is predetermined sort of makes all this decision making business less of a hassle to deal with. Throughout my years of astrological studies, it's become quite apparent that this isn't at all how it works. Astrology doesn't really predict anything, ever. Just because such and such is transiting your 6th house Sun isn't going to guarantee a new job, or a healing breakthrough. No, there's this thing called free will, dammit, and it's sort of the edifice of change in anyone's life. Now, of course, there are those events we call the byproducts of "fate"--the unforeseen unfolding circumstances that hit us over the head like a phantom brick. Yet, whether such events are "good" or "bad", from a larger evolutionary point of view, they are still, in some sense, the very result of free will, of the choices we've made in life which then reverberate and find their way back to us.

What goes around comes around. Everything outside of us, is really, at the end of the day, merely a manifestation of our own mind, our own consciousness. Nothing is separate  Everything is interconnected. It's just one of those innate truths, and none of us escapes it. That's the scary part. That's the reality that, lately, has placed this unbearable weight of pressure on my consciousness. This heavyweight of responsibility, this sense of urgency in moments of decision; to make the "right" choice, to pick the higher path. I don't believe that anyone is truly a victim. That might be difficult to understand for some us, especially when looking at situations that seem so beyond an individuals control. Yet, life has demonstrated to me that there are no victims, that we are all, on some level, responsible for our fate.

It's our responsibility to do what thy will. I personally know that human souls reincarnate. I don't believe in reincarnation, just as I don't believe in astrology. Both realities have proven themselves to me, on more than one occasion. I know them to be true as far as they are valid perspectives on the nature of reality. I've been gifted with direct past life visions, while dreaming, where it was utterly undeniable what I was witnessing  I just knew it, that's it. The imprints from those experiences have left a permanent mark within my memory, and I'm scarred for life. Looking at the horoscope through the lens of reincarnation allows for this deeper understanding to occur. It allows us to see all those decisions we keep coming up against, over and over.

Those moments of intense stress and crisis, perhaps over something seemingly petty or insignificant; they run deep, they go back farther than we can possibly imagine. It's interesting how the ego convinces us of its importance. How significant we believe this single life to be. Yet, in the larger scheme of things, everything is much closer than we think; more compressed than we imagine. Anyway, my point is that even knowing this information, doesn't really change the process. We all have our own process, and it's unique and it's perfect the way that it is. I catch myself, often, beating myself up because I "did it again", I made the "wrong" choice or decision. I gave into fear, hesitancy, uncertainty. I fell back on the old patterns--those behaviors I've been playing out for so damn long. With astrology, I should know better right? I mean, here's this map, right in front of me, basically spelling it all out.

Like, here's your fate, here's your life's struggle on a piece of paper. And yet, in the moment, when the shit hits the fan, or the cards are on the table--intellect goes out the window. When that phantom brick comes out of of dodge, that's when the real test emerges, that's when we see just how far we've actually come. And whatever happens, whatever we choose to do with that moment, it is what it is. Because, at the end of the day, we are what we are. We're learning; we're in a process. We're imperfect beings in an imperfect world, and that's how it will always be. If it wasn't we wouldn't be here to begin with. We're not here to get it all right. We're here to grow, to learn, and to evolve. No one escapes that, and nobody truly outsmarts it. They just think they do, because, you know, ignorance is bliss.