Constitutional Dynamics

What is constitutional is innate but not ingrained. What we inherit is where we begin, but not who we ultimately become.

Birth is a karmic event that carries with it an incomprehensible momentum of energetic shapes. These patterns propel us in various directions, despite our relative consciousness or unconsciousness of them.

The natal astrological chart is the heavenly mirror of the earthly birth. When a child is born, we observe the physical qualities, the shape, the eyes, the skin, the weight, the height, the complexion. These are the earthly qualities. But what about the heavenly qualities which are also reflected in the child, albeit in a less materially observable form? The value of a natal astrological reading is to come into conscious contact with the natal forces that are at the root of our existence.

The term "constitution" is a somewhat misleading rendering of the Sanskrit term prakriti, which is best translated as "nature". The natal chart is a description of a person's nature at birth, which indicates innate qualities that are likely to remain evident throughout the lifetime of the person. However, it would be a tremendous error to reduce the individual to the birth chart. At most, the birth chart provides a blueprint, but who can say precisely what will be created? Ultimately, the birth chart is not the representation of a person, but of patterns. There is no identity, no person, no individual. Our greatest opportunity is to become aware of the patterned forces at play and to make conscious choices, to live in resonance with the universal life-force, and to allow it to direct us along the intelligent and harmonious course. Nature itself is always changing, so why should we presume that the prakriti of the so-called individual is a static, fixed, and unchanging reality?

We must begin to view the constitution as a dynamic and changing reality, an initial shape that continues to shape with the contours of time. Astrology readings are therefore always a present-time reading of the forces as play. A natal reading is not a reading of the past, but of the unique relevance of the past to the present and the future, in the precise moment of the reading itself. Thus, the reading is able to re-establish the resonance between the querent and the universal forces of life that have become obscured and thereby the cause of confusion.