by Kelley Rico
What is before and behind us are small matters compared to what is within us, said Thoreau and a few others. What lies within is the real birthright we seek and must claim to be fully alive. We are the mystery we seek to solve.
The fact of our presence here indicates a level of belonging here, and it is interesting that we nevertheless struggle so deeply with feelings of separation and doubt about all of it.
Photo by Kelley Rico
What we need to help solve our mystery and claim our birthright is a witness to our experience, not someone to judge it and assess our worth. Although far more common, the latter leaves us no wiser, and minus the mystery as well.
Fortunately, these many mysteries come equipped with blueprints and maps, as can be seen in our natal charts. The energies of the universe are essentially neutral and we move through them with greater or lesser ease depending on how we think about them. We can learn about that thinking, how to direct it, how to learn from it and how to claim our true and real selves by investigating the particular picture of time presented by a natal chart.
Your natal chart shows where the fault lines and powers are in you. It’s your cosmic blood and bones, so to speak. Pivotal to finding your inner voice and path wherever it may be or lead to, it also shows how to reach the healing that your birthright calls for.
That takes what it takes in terms of effort and perhaps more importantly, awareness of a different kind of time. Time is not a straight and unitary line, and part of the challenge of claiming your birthright is realizing how this works in your life. There is no doubt that your birthright and healing can be found and achieved using the wonderful tool of a natal chart, picturing as it does both you as an individual and you moving through all time.
The search for Home begins at the beginning, the 1st house in your chart. What’s there? It represents the basics of you. For example, the Sun gives focus and energy, Neptune gives an unending search for what is real, and a 1st house Moon can make an individual seem vulnerable. Aspects build on this foundation. Your hard contacts (such as squares) indicate emphasis on something and not punishment; trines show where things flow but might stagnate.
The picture of how you’re balanced in this iteration is worth investigation. If you know, with that first house Neptune, that things for you are not always clear or not always how they seem, then quite often you’ll lack clarity just because. It is something of a condition of your being, and thus you can use that state to propel you forward instead of staying stuck. It’s a message to take your time and dig deeper into any presenting issue, including physical ailments, which are often an energetic manifestation of our thinking.
Every position in a chart shows energy and how it will move in your life. The overall healing potential of this is huge, and a big part of what it means to claim a birthright. Our small wholeness is part of a bigger one in which each piece is and must be active.
One challenge of individuation is belonging to a larger whole and the truth is that you never lose yourself in the larger whole. You come to inform that Whole. Reaching this place doesn’t mean that pain stops. It means that, having claimed yourself, you know it all comes and goes and you are equal to the challenge.
Each sign correlates with parts of the body, each house shows how the individual fares in its realm, and the planets show potentials and manifestations. Whether it is your work, your health or your fortunes, the natal chart shows what the directions are. You yourself, by studying this, can teach yourself to move effectively through challenges, stay the course, and arrive where you belong.
Emotional and psychological healing goes with physical healing, of course. An unhappy spirit is at home in a troubled body, and both these things accompany not feeling truly at home. The discord can begin with the mental pain of not belonging and progress to the physical pain of illness. This is where the natal chart sheds powerful light on where the truth actually resides. This is how you claim your provisions for the journey.
We suffer in being separate from ourselves, which also separates us from others in a seemingly endless cycle. We have to accept and love our own pains and problems along with the skills and positives, knowing that the external assessing judge doesn’t tell the same story as the observing witness.
The external judge’s story can inform us but it won’t lead us to what we seek. This has to come from inside. Seeing the outline of this inner focus begins to create the form of your story and journey. It tells you where you are, what you are. Then you can go forth into the whole mystery knowing you are equipped and equal to the task. This, I think, is what claiming your birthright is about, and it is something we all can and must do.
Kelley Rico is a diviner and practitioner of botanical and energy medicines. She lives in Northern California.
