Thanks for being here, readers. I wrote this essay/manifesto to be read aloud on AstroCast, but formatted it for text here. If you’d prefer to listen, look for Episode 2.
Re-bunking the Tropical Zodiac Structure
Every once in a while, a piece of media will make the rounds saying that you aren’t actually the sign that you’ve been told by astrology, because the constellations have shifted, and are always shifting in their position in the sky. So, say you’re born August 25, 1986, but actually you’re not a Virgo, you’re a Leo, according to this new information. And then you might think, you know what, maybe I am, and you find these ways that you’re like a Leo, based on what you have read or heard about Leo somewhere, and some of it resonates. So astrology must be based on the wrong stuff, right? And then you meet somebody who says they do astrology work and you bring this up, wondering if they might have some explanation.
So this has happened to me a few times recently. People are referencing some article. I haven’t seen it. The algorithm doesn’t feed me astrology content, because I don’t click it, don’t read it, don’t listen to it. I want to keep the signal clear between the planets and I.
But yeah. Something’s going around.
So here’s some explanation.
The zodiac as you know it, the tropical zodiac, is not actually based on the positions of the constellations. It’s based on the Earth-Sun relationship.
The tropical zodiac is like a pie cut precisely into twelve equal portions, those portions being the twelve signs. And our sky is nothing like that. The constellations vary in size. The signs are indeed named after constellations that are on the ecliptic, but the position of those signs in the zodiac is not based on pure astronomy so much. It’s based around the equinoxes and the solstices. So, that’s four points, equally separated. Spring, summer, fall, winter. Within each of those four seasons we have three evenly divided sections. Those are the twelve zodiac signs. So whatever engine is churning out these periodic clickbaits, the whole thing arises from an initial misconception.
Signs and Houses are a Surface Treatment
But then a person might say, well it makes sense, I actually have these traits that align with this other sign. And they’re right about that. And then I realize I’ve gone into this whole argument defending the zodiac, just to correct this misconception, when honestly I don’t even use the signs much as a system of meaning, because to me it’s unreliable and incomplete. If you’re looking primarily at the signs, you’re missing almost everything. It’s the crust of the bread.
So then I might get a question about the houses. Of course the zodiac isn’t everything because there’s the houses. But let me say, the houses are potentially even less valuable than the signs. Go to any meeting of astrologers and listen to them babble and bicker about which house system is correct. There’s never any resolution. There’s no house system that universally works. The whole thing is flawed, and I take reading charts pretty seriously. People are placing a lot of value in the astrologer’s interpretations. So why even speak from a position where there’s nothing close to unified knowledge? No consensus. If I throw out the houses, I lose very little. Sidenote though: I do retain and rely on the angles—the ascendant, descendant, the midheaven, and the IC or root as I call it.
The Horoscope with a Microscope
The good news is though, as far as signs and houses, we don’t have to lean on them so heavily these days. As much as I’m a person of antiquity, farming, homesteading, raising kids, I also like to embrace some of the perks of modernity. And computation and data crunching has skyrocketed our ability to conduct research and get extremely specific when it comes to meaning. Which is why we don’t need the vagueries of the signs and houses anymore. We can explain it all with more specificity and deeper layering just by looking at the planets, the asteroids, the astronomical points, and how they relate to one another. For example, we can define your strongest traits and behavior patterns, good or difficult, we can locate those traits to the degree, like the 25th degree of Cancer, and we can name the dates in the past and future when that pattern in your life is going to be triggered. Extremely useful stuff. It’s the horoscope, with a microscope.
Now it’s unfortunate, and frustrating to me, that this is not the norm. Don’t get me wrong, I love old, traditional tools and they have their uses. In the garden and around the house. In many ways I resist the onslaught of new technologies. But I don’t understand why we are using our phones and computers to practice the same techniques in astrology as people were practicing with papyrus and feather pens, as beautiful and romantic as those objects are.
Something so ancient as astrology can also be quite stubborn. So you’ll download your app, and it fits with all the common knowledge of what astrology can tell you. But the designers of that app are just trying to make a buck. They aren’t even aware of what we’re capable of now. Very few people are. They are just fine with the surface, and not curious what’s going on beneath. They are constricted within the boundaries of a former time, but unaware of those limitations. I think this is why a lot of people find astrology easy to dismiss, and even confusing. Because they are only witnessing a blur. Minimal potency, but just enough to think there’s something there. It’s puzzling. And puzzles are alluring, especially magical puzzles for us mystical types. But that puzzle has no resolution.
Spacetime Coding for Subtle Truth
This whole point of view is to say, I feel a distance from the term astrology. It means something much different to me than what it means to others in and around the field. In the American Heritage Dictionary, here’s what they call it: “The study of the positions and motions of celestial bodies in the belief that they have an influence on the course of natural earthly occurrences and human affairs.” See, I can vibe with that, and that’s why I’m okay saying I do astrology work. Particularly vibrational astrology. But the more common point of launch is, what’s my sign and what’s that mean?
So maybe I need my own definition for the astrology I’m talking about. I guess this has all been moving in this direction. Okay, here it is. And I will expand on this, but the distilled definition I choose to spring from, is: spacetime coding for subtle truth.
Why "Spacetime"?
I want to start with a translated quote from Hermann Minkowski in 1908, just a few months before his sudden death at 44. Minkowski was a mathematician and geometry nerd, who was actually one of Einstein’s professors in Zurich. The two combined their intellects to form the definition of what we call spacetime today. He says in his lecture Raum und Zeit, in English Space and Time, that, quote “space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality.”
He proposed that spacetime was the four-dimensional fabric of the universe. Three dimensions of space, and a fourth dimension of time. Now, I love this respect for time. As a gardener—admittedly not as impressive as Minkowski or Einstein’s profession—I think of time as the fifth element after water, earth, air, and heat. Time is the orchestrator that allows the four to cooperate, and agrarian cultures have recognized this for eons, though perhaps not within those terms. Cultivators in every climate grow food with the lunar cycle, no matter their opinions on astrology, religion, science, whatever, because it works.
So, Einstein’s contribution to the definition of spacetime was that it curves around massive objects, like Earth or any planet or body possessing gravity. Now remember that gravity is still a theory. We still can’t explain what it is or that it’s even real, about 350 years after Isaac Newton made the idea mathematical. Now again, I’m a gardener and homesteader and dad and yes, astrologer, so I’m not trying to swing with these Titans. But I have my own theory, and zero math to back it up.
I don’t think spacetime bends around matter, like Earth or you or me. Certain waves seem to, like light. But I believe there are other metaphysical properties of spacetime that don’t curve around us. Rather, spacetime imbues us, even imprints us. I think we are carriers of spacetime. We act it out. We, living beings, are three dimensional, and time, the fourth dimension, gives us life, gives us meaning, gives us story. We are a union of space and time. And like Minkowski said, “only a union of the two will preserve an independent reality.” And each of us is an independent reality.
Now, esteemed mathematicians reading along, feel free to slap me upside the head. But that’s where I’m at right now, and I’d love to take you somewhere, as an astrologer slash Magic School Bus driver, if you’d like to hop aboard. And just like Ms. Frizzle’s ride, there are no seatbelts, and the laws of physics can be leaned on when we need them, but they’re not necessarily going to impede our journey.
Place (aka Space) and Time: The Two Integral Pieces
So, what are the two integral pieces of information to cast a birth chart? Place of birth, which is 3 dimensional space, and date and minute of birth: an Earth-bound standard of time. I’ve learned over years of AstroCartography work about the bond between person and place. You’re a human, so we know you’re born on Earth. But without your particular birthplace, there’s no chart. No map of the heavens. We need to know the coordinates, as without the place, the birth date and time are useless. And without the time, the place is useless. We need both! A union of the two. Or there’s no chart.
You know the ascendant? That’s a name for the position of the cusp of the eastern horizon at the time and place of your birth. It’s Earth based. Where on Earth, and when on Earth. We need that grounding, or we’re just floating, and the chart has no direction, no orientation.
The Code and the Backdoor
So spacetime coding. Well, this relies on the idea that spacetime, organic reality, is encoded. Guided. That every moment in every place in space unfolds in accordance with some sort of ordained set of laws. Even what we call chance, or chaos, under this definition, is a part of the code. A code unfathomable due to its complexity and the limitations of our intelligence. It is my belief that the code is alive, flexible, and in a state of constant change, like an ecosystem. The next question is, who or what created the code? Well, that’s beyond my vision. But if you’re willing to take the leap, you will find pretty clearly that wherever the code comes from, it’s replete with backdoor entryways. We have these small windows, like astrology, tarot, cartomancy, the I Ching… these divination systems guide us to truths that are often unapparent without them. But only one of these systems requires explicit spacetime information to generate those truths—in this case, regarding the substance and fates of your being.
You could point to something new like the Human Design or Gene Key systems as similar in function. But only in regards to that one application of your birth data, your spacetime origin. And that application is something like: defining the constitution of your unique humanity. Really, it’s quite interesting that all these techniques seem to work quite dependably in that fashion. There are even multitudes of types of astrology—tropical, Vedic, Mayan, sidereal, modern, medieval, and so on. But the foundational information that carries them all through is the same: the positions of the major celestial bodies of the solar system, at specified times on Earth. Our back door to the code of the universe is wide open, begging us to step inside. It’s a birthright. It’s the DNA of your cosmic spirit.
Subtle Truths and Fixed Traits
So, in the seed of a sunflower, one could locate in genetic sequence the unalienable traits of the potential plant. These are clear characteristics. The petals are golden, the leaves green, the stalk brittle, the roots gripping, the life cycle somewhat predictable. These are not subtle truths, but rather fixed and easily observable. We’ll leave that sort of coding up to botanical geneticists to study. But, astrology, the coding of spacetime, is for subtle truths within the human experience on Earth.
So what are some subtle truths on the individual scale? Patterns in interpersonal dynamics. Aptitudes, ineptitudes, propensities and predilections. A need to indulge in fantasy or a serious, grounded, matter of fact nature.. Your co-worker always being late. A lack or abundance of humor and playfulness. I’m talking about the immeasurables, the unquantifiables: that’s what we find in the code.
The Arc of "Artificial"
Now to go back to botany, we understand that plant genetics are naturally in a constant state of change. We only get heirloom tomatoes and corn, watermelons and butternut squash from human aided development and preservation. If you trace back the word “artificial” to its original definition, it described anything that humans had a creative, transformational hand in, from an apron to pottery to a handle whittled from wood. From that point of view, you could say that all of these heirloom fruits and vegetables are artificial, too. Of course, things have changed and the definition has taken massive leaps from its inception. I’m not saying kale is synthetic. But the story of the word “artificial”, the arc from clay pot to RoboCop, might illustrate to you just how thoroughly engineered our reality has become in half a millennium.
Now humans have shown an incredible tolerance for the synthetic. We wear plastics on our bodies, we digest chemical compounds, some only exit the metaverse when sleep eventually wins out. It would seem that our fortitude is wearing thin, and that maybe we’re losing ourselves, our humanity, our earthling-ness more and more each day. Homo sapiens’ merger with machine quickens. Not many people actually like it, but it’s portrayed to us as inevitable.
There exists, however, an untouchable wilderness in each of us, distinct, unique, and enduring. Something that no geneticist can locate, no Neuralink can co-opt. The soul, the spirit, the heart of hearts. Its license to live is written within you—an occupant of 3 dimensional space—with the permanent ink of time. When all else is surrendered, the spirit is the final stronghold.
So, many of these systems of knowing thyself do a great job of describing the individual. Even the academy has weighed in with its addition of human psychology, which has been extremely influential not just on the know-thyself trades, but on the entire culture. It’s very modern, and very Western, to put so much emphasis on personal, individual identity as integral to a good life. But again, I think we’ve allowed ourselves to be atomized, under the guise that it’s to our individual and collective benefit, and it has come to a point where it’s just not anymore. All things in moderation, goes the saying, and I believe we should apply that to our fixation on individuated identity. We don’t need to overcorrect; that’s probably how we got here. We can slow the pendulum and find a balance.
Transits, Synastry, and the Dance of Time
This to me is where astrology, or spacetime coding, separates itself from the pack. It has perpetuated through all forms of the human experiment. Empires have come and gone, and the spacetime coding of the subtle wilderness has persisted unabated. So through all that time, our understanding of the code and its many applications has been deeply developed, and more and more layers continue to reveal themselves.
Perhaps the most useful and needed technique today is what we call transits, or what a common person would call timing. Yes, you are the embodiment, physical and spiritual, of your birth time and place. But time rolls on. And the ever-emergent, ever changing 4th dimension of time is in constant interaction with you and your time imprint. And everyone else, too. It’s the dance we call life, and there’s a lot more choreography to it than one might think.
I touched on the “horoscope with a microscope” earlier. We are in continual communion with the many cycles of time. For us on Earth, those are the cycles we can witness with the celestial bodies of our solar system, as well as beyond. And as a living system of cycles, it never repeats itself. Each moment of time is like a singular grain in a universe of sand. Time stretches forever, in all directions.
So not only are we in constant navigation of our own personal time with the present, emergent time, we are also mingling with the birth moments of every person, every 3D lifeform in our lives. The swirl of energies between us and our respective coding is called synastry, officially, or compatibility for the lay person. It’s not random, y’all. Whole cultures model their courting processes and family futures with it. And it’s a lot more complex than: a Pisces shouldn’t date a Leo. Which is sadly significantly more nuanced than swiping left or right.
I’m not trying to dismiss the magical potential of organic romance. We can even leave that like it is. But to live in peace and balance with the people around us, wouldn’t it be helpful if we actually knew one another for who we truly were? And if we were aware of difficulties or phases that others were going through? When I can know and recall these things in my relationships, it keeps me in a mentality of acceptance, understanding, and compassion. I’m not saying I do this all the time, or with more than a tiny fraction of people I know. But within my family, it’s a glue that keeps us bonded on the same side. Sometimes, a hard task gets a lot easier when you’re equipped with the right tool. That makes it an antidote to division.
Organic Reality vs. The Engineered World
I guess underneath all this sci-fi spacetime talk, what I continue to sense is foundational polarity between an engineered, top-down conditioned reality, and the organic reality we were born to live. To me, astrology illustrates just that: organic reality. Who you are inside, deeply, ancestrally. And the flowering of time at its purest.
You might look at difficult past or current events and say, how could these things be an organic flowering of time? And we could pinpoint those moments, and within their spacetime coding we could see the truth, the subtle, wild, pure energies that were in play. Organic reality. And then we could also see how those energies were polluted and transmuted to benefit only the few, with the burden left for the many to shoulder. Engineered, artificial reality. Whether or not the few at the top are intentionally wielding these codes while simultaneously lampooning astrology as hocus pocus, or even dangerous?… Your guess is as good as mine. But just read the ingredients on a generic bag of flour, and you’ll see how the status quo favors poison over purity, and layers stacks of synthetics overtop of the simple truth. The closer you get to living organically—physically, spiritually, mentally, ideologically, interpersonally—the more apparent the engineering becomes. And if the journey to the source sounds arduous, of course it is. But it’s equal parts empowering and blissful as well.
The Child's Mallet and the Master Key
You can see the work ahead of us. And now, perhaps you can grip the magical tool I’m introducing. The what’s-your-sign version of the tool is more like a child’s mallet. It’s cute, and it attracts a lot of attention, because it can make a lot of noise. But when there are real problems to be solved, the child’s mallet functions, at best, as a distraction. We possess the key to the back door of the coding of reality itself, and our mastery is increasing all the time. Now let’s open it up, and make ourselves comfortable. This space, and time, is actually our real home.
Thank you for reading!
I hope you are as interested in this as I am. If so, you should know, this is only the intro to spacetime coding. If you want to take the next steps, let me know!
All blessings,
Phil
