Relocation and Astrocartography

 

July 22, 2005

 

http://cainer.com/ericfrancis/july22.html

 

Dear Eric,

 

I am a happy subscriber and check your front page every day. Thank you for sharing your astrological, political, social and spiritual insights (all beautifully written) with all of us. I am grateful to you.

 

With all the relocating you've done, I'm curious to know if you've ever used relocation astrology to see what places would work well for you. Or perhaps you're of the philosophy that you will always make the best of any situation?

 

Perhaps you can address this issue on your site or on Jonathan's if it's a question that interests you. I'm looking into it for myself. I'm a Pisces sun/Taurus rising with Saturn in Leo about to enter my 4th house -- and want so much to leave my hometown, but I have to wait until I finish grad school. Thanks for planting the seeds with the Taurus messages you've been writing.

 

I send you blessings in your new home of Paris and hope that you continue to find the city inspirational!

 

Warm wishes

 

Carmen

 

 

Hi Carmen

 

Living different places has taught me a lot about the relationship between location and astrology. For those unfamiliar with the process, it's possible to "localize" one's astrology chart to see how it works other places in the world. In a moment I'll get into the two techniques to use astrology for locational purposes, but first a few personal reflections.

 

The more places I live, the more I see how locational astrology works, and that it works. And I see its limits, and also the ways we influence the situation. My favorite personal example was my choice in 2000 to move to the West Coast of the United States. When I did that, my chart wound up with Taurus rising and I had Neptune close to the 7th house cusp.

 

So that's a lot of Neptune; it's not only angular, it's in the relationship house. I was concerned about this. I had read in locational books about the "strange sense of isolation" associated with relocated Neptune on the 7th (which seems to be true quite often for people born with this position as well). There were other issues, too, but I wanted to live out West and my Neptune line goes right down the coast. I had also heard that if you have a well-aspected Neptune, things go better.

 

It turned out that I aimed for Seattle, and wound up on a little island, called Vashon Island, in Puget Sound. I had never been to the Pacific Northwest and had no idea that it existed as a discrete cultural entity as apart from the West Coast. That was a big surprise, but it took a while to settle in. Vashon and indeed the whole Northwest has a seductive, unworldly beauty and that I am sure was enhanced by looking at the world through the filter of Neptune all the time.

 

It turned out that this little island had quite an isolated feeling; it was often nearly two hours from point A on the island to point B on the Mainland via ferry (not 15 minutes, as the legend had it), and there were not a lot of people passing through the island. And I felt it was difficult for me to relate to many of the people who had been there a long time, or who were born there. It wasn't that I did not like them; it was that we just did not seem to really connect -- with a few rare examples.

 

When I moved to the island, I started creating fish tanks. So I lived surrounded by water, on the water, in an apartment full of fish tanks, feeling really lonely. This was despite the fact that I had some really good friends -- but the isolation of the place itself, and my emotional reaction to the place, and being on the Neptune line, piled up. The fish tanks flooded often. There was too much water; I did not feel a connection to the Earth like I did in New York (where I hung out down in caves quite a bit) and there was not enough fire. In fact, it was rare that one could make an open fire, due to the forest fire danger, though eventually I got a Chimnea outdoor fireplace that was legally equivalent to a barbecue so I could use that. But the people did not feel so fiery, and people tend to collect in a place based on the vibration of the place.

 

Let's add to this situation the fact that in the Pacific Northwest, a great deal of high quality marijuana is grown and smoked. Have you ever been to a pot trimming party, where they break out the trees and the scissors? Go to the Pacific Northwest and you'll find one. Cannabis was impossible to avoid and was yet another watery influence on the emotions, and one that I had to watch very carefully -- particularly given how boring the place seemed to this Brooklyn kid.

 

Now, had I moved to San Francisco, I would have had a much different experience of my Neptune line. It would have been the same line, but a totally different trip. The thing was, as much as San Francisco is one of my spiritual homes, and as much as I love the city and my friends there and its excellent heritage, I keep not being drawn there as a place to live. But I would have, in all likelihood, had an easier time than I did on Vashon Island, because San Francisco is a lot closer to my personal vibe than Vashon or the Seattle area. But in that curious Neptune way, I have never chosen to settle there, having had many opportunities to do so.

 

So, based on this and other experiences, I have developed a proposed locational astrology theory: if you're going to move onto a line, the place you choose on the line has to work with that energy. It's possible to have too much of an element based on both the line and the feeling of the place, and I had quite a lot of water in my four-year experience in the Northwest (water I could not swim in -- the beaches were rocky and the water was always about 55 degrees). The quality of the place and the quality of the line need to have a sense of balance and complimentary quality that works for YOU. In other words, if you move to New York and you wind up with Mars in Leo rising, that's a lot of fire. But if you want to be a big star, that's a good place to go, and you'll have the energy to keep up with the pace of things. If you want to be a poet or musician, you might want to choose a mellower line, or a mellower place on that line.

 

However, I will add this about my Vashon Island experience. Neptune on the 7th is supposedly difficult for relationships, and it's true that I really struggled on the romantic level there. But something else happened, which is that I made some very, very solid friends there, people who feel as solid as another human being has ever felt in my life (the supposed antithesis of Neptune 7th). I founded my business there, and put together the team that still runs most of the project (not surprising -- I do a Neptunian business and Neptune rules my 10th house). And I did a lot of personal healing work that was facilitated by my sense of being alone. In this respect, you could say that there was a lot of water, but that I learned how to swim, or how to make an island and really live on it, or how to dive deeply.

 

Now as for charting techniques. There are two different types of charts that deal with this issue: relocation of the natal chart, and a mapping method called Astro*Carto*Graphy.

 

A relocation chart is basically your chart, but you change the location to your new place of residence, thereby obtaining a new ascendant and house arrangement. You must use the SAME time and time zone as that of your birth -- to preserve the Greenwich Mean Time of your birth -- but you change the coordinates. This creates a new ascendant. (If you switch both the coordinates and the time zone, you wind up with basically the same chart, or at least usually the same ascendant). The relocated chart is the chart for which you were "born at the same time in a different place."

 

It is a theoretical chart, and these have a bizarre way of working.

 

If you use an Astro*Carto*Graphy map, it's like looking at all the locations of the world at once. They offer the same information in different ways, and the map gives you more all at once. What I prefer to do is look at the map, then cast individual locational charts for each place the client is considering looking. However, the more I use the maps, the more I just get an intuitive sense of what is right and can give my feedback from that.

 

You can view an example of an Astro*Carto*Graphy map here, for Bill Clinton. It's not as complicated as it looks, or as complicated as he is.

 

In one sentence, Astro*Carto*Graphy is based on the angles. The lines on the map are the places where one's natal planets would show up in an angular house (1st, 4th, 7th, 10th) in any given part of the world.

 

As for your situation: Saturn going in to the 4th house, or over any angle (1st, 4th, 7th, 10th), can be a message that it's time to move, particularly from your home town when Saturn crosses the 4th. However, you say you have to wait -- "necessity" = Saturn. So I would say that a good image of Saturn in your 4th house is building a foundation.

 

But just make sure you set limits, get your work done, and move on if that's what you really want to do.

 

Also, watch transits to your Sun for more information, since the Sun rules your 4th.

 

Please note that in my reading several of the more popular books on locational astrology, I have noticed that they are unduly negative to the point of utter doom and gloom. Please check many sources. Use your common sense.