When I first started learning astrology I did not think about how the stars were directing our lives, it was enough to know that they did.

Now I have painted myself into a corner, I am embracing ideas that contradict each other. I believe that we decide our destiny and not stars and planets or comets and I also believe that they do decide our destiny.

It is the same old question: which came first, the chicken or the egg?

I say it doesn't matter which came first, we have chickens and we have eggs and that is the way it is never mind how it came to be.

When I think of astrology I think of it as a general outline. You have problems in your life and in addition you have that pesky Saturn and that too rowdy Mars always messing things up. Never mind that Saturn and Mars are within you, well you don't think of the planets that way. It is true that we can't stop being ourselves and we can't stop our emotions and in a way the destiny of personality has been decided when we were born just like astrology says. I think that we have a lot of room to move within this framework. We have these energies and it is the way in which we handle them, with free will, that determines our future. That is a definition of reality that works for me, everyone can substitute thier own.

I was unhappy with my Saturn right at the ascendant and rising right before the Sun.

It means that this heavyweight planet is not only the strongest influence in my life it is also my scout planet. Saturn is about discipline, duty, responsibility. Saturn makes you have to work hard for everything that you get in life. Jupiter hands out freebies but not Saturn, not ever. Your scout planet shows the way you should approach life, the lessons you need to learn and the qualities that you need to have. Yeah, I know I need these things, these are the qualities I so do not have. At the same time I feel these things as the right thing to do and the right thing to be and I feel responsible for my friends and I feel I have to keep my word at all costs. So even while you are not enjoying the lesson you are learning it, Saturn casts his rays and we have no choice, Saturn also represents the things we cannot escape from, one of those things being Saturn itself.