The Essentials of Life: Hope and Motivation
If you have just won the lottery or are simply born rich, Prince Charming is pounding on the door every day showering you with gifts and attention, you are on cloud nine and happy as a lark, you may dismiss astrology as complete nonsense for people with too much time in their hands and nothing better to do with their life. However, life has its ups and downs. One minute you are holding an important position high up in a big organization being the commander of a team or project; all of sudden without a word of warning, you find yourself unemployed and a nobody – the phone stops ringing and the email in-box is empty – you are still the same person but the world has moved on without you. Your find yourself hurt, empty and lost. Where do you go from here?
Sudden change is hard on everyone, no matter how tough the person may have come across exteriorly to other people. Whether the change pertains to relationships, job, money, health, environment (including political instability from curfews to war) or social status, it breaks up our routine and throws our life into chaos.
After the occurrence of a sudden change, restoring our life to balance and order becomes an onerous undertaking and it takes time. There are in general 5 emotional stages of loss and grief, and they are: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
There is a saying that time heals all wounds, and the healing is substantially complete when the person can get to the acceptance stage and move forward. The biggest challenge is that a person has to get through the depression stage and there is no set time clock as to how long this stage will last. Emotional pain is real and in some ways it is no less tolerable than physical pain. Drugs (prescription, recreational or street) and/or alcohol just numb the senses; when their effect wears off, the pain is still there because the issues are unresolved. The human mind is command central and if the mind is damaged or broken, it needs to be fixed.
What gives a person the desire to get out of bed in the morning, face the world and fight battles, ultimately the will to live and carry on hinge on two things: hope and motivation.
According to Wikipedia, hope is an optimistic attitude of mind based on an expectation of positive outcomes related to events and circumstances in one's life or the world at large. Motivation is the driving force that causes the flux from desire to will in life, and it may be rooted in a basic impulse to optimize well-being, minimize physical pain and maximize pleasure. It can also originate from specific physical needs such as eating, sleeping or resting, and sex.
Why Astrology? [TOP]
Different people have different ways of trying to get control of their life in our world of uncertainty and constant changes. Years ago, I experienced a personal trauma that left me emotionally wounded. I kept asking why it happened to me, why God seemed to have forsaken me and left me to suffer alone, when would the pain end, and most of all, what did the future hold for me and was there a reason to carry on?
I had tried counselling but no offence to those trained in this field, my counsellor just sat there and listened while I told my story and cried. After a few sessions, I decided that I could do that at home and there was no need to pay money and cry in front of a stranger.
Chinese astrology is part of my heritage. It dated back thousands of years with testimonials of historians of the accuracy of skilled astrologers who had foretold the rise and fall of empires, births and deaths of influential leaders and other milestone events. There are books on the subject and it is far from hocus pocus: it is a specialized area of study and because it requires application of concepts to interpret the star distribution of charts, the skill and knowledge of the astrologer is critical to having an accurate reading and prediction of future events.
During my period of emotional devastation, I had consulted with 3 astrologers. One of them practiced “紫微斗數” and he gave me a Chart to keep as reference. One day I was at a Chinese Bookstore and came across books on the subject. That was how I got on the path of becoming the astrologer that I am today.
The most important things I got from the astrologers were that there were better days ahead for me, and I had lots of good reasons to continue living.
If you believe that you will find love again, you will have the motivation to dress up and look your personal best, stay fit and attractive, do things and go to places that will improve your chance of meeting that right person. If you want to work again, you will go see head-hunters, look for job openings on line, or even make cold-calls door to door dropping off resumes. If you want to improve your health, you will make it a priority by seeking medical help, changing your diet, doing more exercise and whatever it takes to help you get there.
Here are some of the ways I have used astrology to improve the quality of my life by making the most of opportunities that come my way and overcoming hurdles at difficult times:
- Identify a person’s strengths and weaknesses based on the star distribution of the twelve houses and the impact of the four “forces” (good fortune, power, fame and destruction);
- Provide an indication of compatibility in personality, core values, areas of interests, type of interaction and duration of relationship between two people;
- Foretell of future events, both good and bad (upcoming job promotion / obstacles in career ranging from discord at the workplace to job loss, prospects of windfall gains or strong earnings / shortfall in funds ranging from being in debt to financial disaster, physically and mentally healthy and sound / health issues that may be chronic or sudden and from relatively minor irritations to life threatening illnesses); and
- Make plans based on the foretelling of future events to optimize during high points and mitigate risks during low points in a person’s life.
Wheel of Fortune – 12 Animals, 12 Time Blocks and 12 Houses
The Chinese zodiac is built around 12 animals. Leading the pack is the Rat, which is somewhat unusual as it is considered a pest by farmers and chased after by exterminators in cities. People born in the Year of the Rat have the Sky Talent star entering their Life house so Rat people are smart and crafty. Each animal is also associated with a 2-hour time block which was the time measurement in ancient times. The Rat time block runs from 23:00 to 1:00 in the 24-hour time clock or 11:00 PM to 1:00 AM.
Coming dead last out of the 12 animals is not surprisingly the Pig. Pig people should not be viewed as lazy or dirty as one may associate with the farm animal in a pig sty. On the contrary, Pig people are shrewd, hardworking, and actually keep a very clean home. However, they are laid back and tend to have no sense of urgency to get anything done in a hurry. The Pig time blocks runs from 21:00 to 23:00 in the 24-hour time clock or 9:00 PM to 11:00 PM.
The order of the 12 animals and the associated 12 time blocks are as follows:
- Rat - 23:00 to 1:00
- Ox - 1:00 to 3:00
- Tiger - 3:00 to 5:00
- Rabbit - 5:00 to 7:00
- Dragon - 7:00 to 9:00
- Snake - 9:00 to 11:00
- Horse - 11:00 to 13:00
- Sheep - 13:00 to 15:00
- Monkey - 15:00 to 17:00
- Rooster – 17:00 to 19:00
- Dog – 19:00 to 21:00
- Pig – 21:00 to 23:00
Everyone, rich or poor, from royalty to commoner, have the same 12 houses in their Life Chart. Going clockwise commencing with the Life house, the other 11 houses are as follows:
- Life
- Parents
- Fortune (Mental State and Wealth Accumulation)
- Home (Real Estate Properties)
- Career
- Friends / Servants (concept in ancient times, Hired Help in current times)
- Mobility (Interpersonal Relationships and External Environment when a person is in travel mode away from home)
- Health (Physical)
- Money (in liquid form like cash and earning capacity)
- Children
- Marriage (Intimate Relationships)
- Siblings
What distinguishes one person’s fate and life experiences from another is the distribution of the stars, their relative degree of brightness, their elements (gold, wood, water, fire and earth), their inherent properties relative to the house they land in, and the impacts of the four forces (good fortune, fame, power and destruction) on the Life Chart, Decade Chart, Calendar Year, “Age”, Month, Day, Hour, Minute. There are over 100,000 star combinations which explain why every human life is unique and there will never be another you.
We all have one life to live, and it is up to us to make the most of it. [TOP]