I've been a student of astrology for about 36 years now and the most amazing thing to me is all the untruths or half-truths that are constantly circulated about it. If your level of understanding of astrology has been what the newspapers put out ( on the comic pages, usually...), this article should be mind-boggling. If you've read a few magazine articles, you'll find a few things you may not have considered. But if you're a person who's read a number of books about astrology, this article may say nothing new to you OR it may seem like it's not actually about astrology--depends on the books you've been reading.

The first truth about astrology I want to share is that no one has only one Sign. Let's say you were born on April 15th. You'd be expected to say, "I'm an Aries." Well, that's true as far as it goes but it just doesn't go far enough. In fact, if you think that what's said about Aries in the books, magazines or newspapers is "exactly" what you are and only what you are, you really need to look a little deeper into yourself--you're missing a lot!

The fact that you're "an Aries" or "a Capricorn" or "Whatever" is saying that, when you were born, the Sun was in that Sign of the Zodiac. And, it is very important where your Sun was when you were born because the Sun in astrology refers to your Central Life Purpose--can't get much more important than that!

However...

How do you actually go about "doing" that central purpose? The first place to look for an answer to that question is where the Moon was when you were born. And, since there are twelve places (the Signs) the Moon could have been, there are twelve different ways someone with any particular Sun-Sign can Do their central purpose. So, if someone says to me, "I'm a ______{fill in the Sign}.", I want to say (but may not due to tact), "Which of the twelve kinds of ______ are you?"

So, the truth is you have a Sun-Sign, a Moon-Sign, and eight other important Signs because everyone has eight other planets in their full chart. Some of these planets may be in the same Sign (happens often) so most people end up with about four or five of the twelve Signs very prominent in their lives. It's like a chord of notes being sounded--like the truth of psychology that everyone has many sides to their whole self.

An even deeper truth about astrology is that we all have all twelve Signs in our personalities. It's just that certain ones are stronger depending on where the planets are. Still, if someone says to me, "I just can't stand ______{fill in the Sign}!", I really have to wonder why they've met so many screwed-up people with their Sun in _______ OR I have to wonder why they don't like the _______part of themselves. Since everyone has all twelve Signs and they all have a place in our lives, if someone can say they don't like one of the Signs, aren't they also saying they don't like a certain part of themselves? Think about it...

So, we all have all twelve of the energies represented by the Signs of astrology and most of us have four or five of them very prominent in our personalities. One thing this truth shoots down is the common practice of saying that certain Signs get along well or poorly with other Signs. Because most people think your "Sign" (and that we have only one) is all there is to astrology, they can be very surprised when a person with one of the "Signs" they're supposed to get along with turns out to be someone they wish they'd never met! That's why it's so important to know more than just a Sun-Sign if you're going to use astrology to help you with relationships.

And, that leads us to another important truth about astrology. This may be real hard for some folks to understand but here it is: Astrology does not, will not, and never has predicted events. What?! Yes. It's the absolute truth, no matter if some astrologer has "predicted" something for you. What astrology does "predict" or reveal is Meaning. And, if an astrologer tells you something is going to happen, don't you think that if it does there may just be a bit of self-fulfillment in that? O.K. What if an astrologer says some event happened in your past and that, in fact, it did happen? Believe it or not, what happened is that the astrologer saw a meaning in the chart and made a very good guess at the exact event. And, here's some proof of that:

Many years ago, I had the opportunity to talk to two men, born of different mothers but at the same time at the same hospital. Since they had the same chart you'd think they would have had the same events happening in their lives, right? Well, all it takes is one contrary occurrence of something to disprove a theory and here it is:

There was a strong indicator in their charts at a certain time and I asked the first man what happened. He said his father had died. I asked the other man with the same chart what happened and he said he'd been on his first nude beach...

Obviously, the same chart had shown two very different events! Then, I asked the first man (and, by the way, I interviewed these men separately), "What did it mean when your father died?" He said that he'd felt like he'd had shackles removed (his father had been rather authoritarian). I asked the other man, "What did it mean to be on your first nude beach?" He said that he had dropped his shackles... They used exactly the same, and not so common, word to describe what two very different events meant.

So, we all have all twelve Signs and astrology doesn't predict events. Whew!

There are other truths about astrology that most people have no knowledge about but those two should help open a few minds, eh?

It's been 36 years since I was like a lot of people--believing whatever I'd been told about astrology. Now, I know the truth. Fact is, I've finally written a book about what I've learned. It's called, "Astrological Repair Manual", because I want to help repair various perceptions about it that can be pretty harmful if folks think they're true. The book is featured on my web site-- http://www.lulu.com/amzolt

I'll end this article with this piece of advice:

Question most of what you've read or heard about astrology!