Chicken or the Egg?

Sometimes I am still absolutely gobsmacked by the way the zodiac can distill a complex issue and show me where I’m misunderstanding the rules of engagement. I came to astrology for self-diagnosis. I was incredibly overworked, a new mom and while I’d always been a spiritual thinker, I didn’t have any rituals or routine engagement with spirit beyond an on-again off-again meditation practice.

The zodiacal wheel that is absolutely perplexing the first time you see it ultimately became a compass through which I could understand larger than life concepts. I came for the fractal self but left with a philosophical orientation to myself and others.

The lesson that has been top of mind lately has been on origins, and the classic koan: which came first, the chicken or the egg? Here’s what the zodiac would say:

Both.

Ha! Here’s what I mean. In the traditional wheel, were you to pull the chart for yourself, an event or a nationstate, the orientation that you’re bouncing everything off of is that Aries rules the first house, the one on the left center of the wheel, also known as the Ascendant or rising sign. So, when you pull a chart and their rising sign is Gemini, my interpretation is always reflecting off this prototype orientation, and how those energies lining up differently (i.e. Gemini and not Aries energy in the house of self, appearance and embarking) will completely change the psychology of the person/event/being.

But that’s not the only orientation of the wheel throughout astrological history. There is also the Thema Mundi (World Theme), a wheel that begins not with Aries, baby, first spark and warrior, but with Cancer, divine nurturer and mother. In this orientation, it is not the egg that begins all life, but the chicken. It also reorients our sense of “beginnings” from harsh and stark to soft and cradled.

But oh, there’s more. You see in the chart as we see it today – Aries ruling the first house – we STILL see the chicken (Cancer…Jesus gods I hope you all are following this analogy) in charge of our true origin story. How so? Because in the traditional wheel with Aries ruling the first, Cancer rules the fourth, the house that begins with our Imum Coeli (IC), and is essentially the foundation of your existence. Whatever energy you have as your IC tells you where you began before you existed. Your familial legacy, epigenetics and soul lineage. So yes, Aries is the soul emerging onto life’s 3D plane, but Cancer (mama, chicken, source point) is how you truly GOT here.

When I think of this, I am always reminded of the phrase, “We stand on the shoulders of giants” because however much you credit yourself with your life’s work, none of us have truly ever accomplished anything on our own. How could we? We are a thrashing, thriving network of life, literally inseparable from one another beyond the illusions of defined bodies.

So then, what on earth would the Thema Mundi chart say about our origins? What energy would a Cancer rising chart place on our IC, our origin-before-we-existed. Libra. This tickles me PINK ya’ll, because the notion that when you reorient the zodiac to put the Mother as the starting place of all life, you get the sign of SELF in relationship to OTHER as the origin before origins…I mean that’s juicy AF.

In that orientation, we emerge as cradled and nurtured beings (Cancer) with a foundation in RELATIONSHIPS (Libra). And this chart, Thema Mundi, is often related as the chart of our planet, Earth. An ancient zodiacal reference to the notion of Mother Earth.

What does this mean for us as individual beings, navigating an increasingly harsh landscape? It means leading with care will ground us in the true nature of reality, which is relational. I MEAN IN YOUR MIND FUCKING BLOWN? Mine is, but perhaps I’m biased.

So then, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Neither, and both. Was the big bang/universal consciousness/beginning of the Mystery School more like a fully formed being or more like the spark of what could be? I think science is revealing that again, both are really the answer. As quantum mechanics continues to express, while we only perceive a portion of reality, in truth, everything is here, just vibrating on frequencies we’ve not equipped ourselves to perceive. So perhaps we are all the egg, looking for the chicken, not realizing she is truly all around us.

And regardless of the answer, astrology fucking rules.



Big love <3