What a relief to finally read a piece that doesn’t contain cheerleading for Obama!

The numbers were based on the date (not time) of birth, the letters in my full name at birth, and the vowels in my full name at birth. The forth number was based on the sum of two of the other calculated numbers). I have calculated the numbers and made the same comparison with the astrological charts of my children, friends, etc. and the same correlation was always there.

Fascinating. It seems that the person who gave us our birth name somehow knew what we came to do/be in this incarnation, on a soul level. Anyone who has had a baby, or has had a close involvement in the birth of one, can tell you that the baby usually decides when he or she will arrive. They often force time adjustments in the increased number of scheduled births in America – causing life-threatening situations for themselves or their mothers that either speed up or delay their caesarean births.

BTW – The book is interactive and the chapters leading up to the one showing how to calculate your numbers has you write down stuff from your childhood through adulthood that makes you realize that your soul has always known what you are here for this time around.

The synchronicity of the universe is staggering.

The patterns of the planets and stars at the moment of our birth is the finger of God indicating the energies we chose to work with in this life. Our birth chart provides a blueprint for how the electrical wiring for the house of our spirit is laid out: how do the energies flow most easily, where are the connections and non-connections? One can choose whether to turn on the light in this room or that. It’s helpful to know which room has a gift in it. To use a different analogy, the natal chart is like a geological survey giving a detailed description of the land on which you live. Using the chart helps you build your life according to its strengths and weaknesses and, if you choose, to work to convert weakness into strength.

Paying attention to the transits is like listening to the weather report. You can plan your actions better if you know when it’s going to rain or shine. Cycles are a gift from God to help us grow in self-mastery – huh, missed it last time, here it comes again – thank you! Paramahansa Yogananda said when his stars were ill-aspected that did indeed make things difficult but that nothing is more powerful than the human will.

In the Bible, chapter 38 of Job, there are wonderful references to the stars telling that they have meaning in our lives: of the creation of heaven and earth, “when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy” [verse 7] Here are the questions: “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades…? [verse 31] … Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? [verse 33] Finally, to me, the verse: “Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart?” [verse 37] encourages us to use our reason and apply it to everything we can find in earth and heaven (certainly astrology) in order to seek out information helpful to living fully and well and with purpose. Astrology helps us trim the sails of our journey in life.

I am very lucky and can’t imagine my life without astrology. I grew up with it, as my Dutch grandmother, a psychiatrist in the early part of the twentieth century, studied with Carl Jung, and brought astrology into her practice in Holland. We all had our charts as children, and my folks talked about them in the same way that most people talk about their health, the weather and their feelings. As a child I always had the feeling that there was a bigger picture to which I intrinsically belonged, even though socially I felt so different from other children my age. (we travelled a lot, and I was always having to learn new languages and customs, a great education as well!).

I believe astrology gives us a sense of ourselves, it is a lucid analytical language like almost no other I know of which describes our psyche and the evolutionary processes it goes through in each life time. And it is entirely up to the individual to what depth one wants to take it, which means there is something in it for everyone. I’ve often thought how wonderful it would be if it could be part of school curriculums, I think it would help us understand ourselves and each other better, and make for more tolerance and Peace in the world.