However, it can be difficult to understand one’s self and soul without a map or frame of reference. Sunring astrology provides such a map, a tool for those who want to develop both personally and spiritually.

Meeting my mentor in the woods

I was not at all interested in astrology until the day I met my mentor, as I have come to call him, an elderly man I often encounter when I walk in the woods where I live. He is very social and talks to everyone, but perhaps not always on a deeper level.

My mentor was married for several years to a woman from a deeply religious, Christian family. Later on, he was involved with the Hare Krishna movement for a while before delving into Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism and theosophy. In his 40s (he is 80 today), he had his birth chart interpreted for him, and since then, astrology has also been something he has used, even though he is not an astrologer himself (he has, however, manually created around a hundred birth charts, back in the days when computers were not yet used for astrological calculations).

“I think you should learn a bit about astrology; I believe you will find it useful,” he said to me. It took perhaps a year before I finally started to read books on the subject, and I also got many books from my mentor.

After seeing my birth chart, my mentor also suggested that I should help people. That became the start of sunring astrology.

But why is that so? Why can astrology describe us humans? What is really behind all the astrological concepts? In modern spiritual movements, it is often said that “everything is energy,” but they do not go into detail about what this energy actually consists of, and which energy source is most important for shaping a human being. This is where sunring astrology wants to make a difference.

Astrology and logic

Perhaps because I resisted astrology before I realized I had a talent for it, I have always questioned many astrological methods.

I was born relatively close to the Arctic Circle and there, for example, the astrological houses become very strange. If a system is to be applicable, it must be applicable everywhere. However, the most common house systems cannot be used at all north of the Arctic Circle. I have former colleagues who live north of the Arctic Circle. In total, almost four million people live in the Arctic. I don't think it is reasonable to disregard this.

In astrology, people generally disagree about which house system applies. The consensus, if there is any, is that as an astrologer, you should use what “provides the best results” but that becomes incredibly unreliable.

My own sun as well as my ascendant can, depending on the house system, be located either in the first or in the twelfth house. For those who know a bit about the astrological houses, this means that the interpretation of my birth chart differs quite radically depending on which house system you choose.

Astrology and symmetry

Another problem is the placement of medium coeli. Sometimes I think my own birth chart is a cosmic joke. I was born near the spring equinox at dawn, which means that my birth chart more or less looks like the “standard chart,” that is, where 0 degrees Aries points directly to the east. This also means that my medium coeli points straight up to the south in the birth chart, almost exactly 90 degrees from the ascendant, when using traditional calculation methods. Everything looks symmetrical.

The first birth chart for another person that I looked at was my sister’s. There was no such symmetry at all. “Something is wrong with my medium coeli,” said my sister. “It tilts.” That is what it looks like for most people when using traditional calculation methods (either with a computer or manually), and the birth charts tend to become increasingly less symmetrical the further north one goes.

I am now convinced that it is actually the ascendant that determines what type of energy one is imprinted with at birth and that medium coeli, the descendant, and imum coeli are points in the same energy field in a perfectly symmetrical system.

Astrology and forecasting

Transits are another area that was problematic for me. I have had quite severe life crises, where I was very ill, but could not see any particularly interesting planetary transit at these times when I checked my ephemerides (tables describing the movements of the planets).

Another problem with transits is that ephemerides describe the longitudinal movement (degrees) of the planets, but they do not take celestial latitude into account, that is, the height of the planets above the horizon, which in astrology is called declination. The declination varies over time, depending on the planet. The question, therefore, is whether an aspect is truly formed during a transit when latitude is also taken into account.

When it comes to humanity at large, or large groups of people, transits are more useful because they will then affect enough people to nudge humanity in a certain direction.

Astrology has been built upon for thousands of years. More and more details and tools have been added without perhaps having fully considered whether it is correct or not to do so. Recently, it has become popular to talk about comets, asteroids, lunar nodes, and solar eclipses. Many books that I have received from my mentor are several decades old, and I can see that other things were trending back then.

Astrology and money

Another problem is the commercial aspect. In ancient Greece, various methods were used to make an “uninteresting” birth chart for a prominent person “more interesting.” In today’s astrology, the descriptions of both zodiac signs, planets, and aspects are becoming increasingly vague and blend into one another. Everyone becomes mystical, spiritual, extraordinary, and fascinating.

In my opinion, this flattery does not help us understand ourselves. Every birth chart is just as interesting as another; it is the description of a completely unique set of energies at a specific time and place on earth.

Astrology as a tool to find your true self

Astrology is a tool. To be able to use it, one also needs to add knowledge about personalities and characters, intuition and simply long periods of reflection. These are also tools that astrologers use, which means that even with sometimes questionable methods, they can arrive at good descriptions of people.

The one who knows you best is, however, yourself. With a useful tool for your reflections, a tool that you can use yourself without relying on an expert, it is easier to achieve deep self-knowledge.

“Once upon a time, astrology was surely something entirely different from what we use today,” my mentor has said. I believe so too. I think we are using fragments of an ancient science. We astrologers are all fumbling our way forward, trying to understand what it is all really about.