Carole Devine - Solar Arc Directions: How to Read Life’s Roadmap

Imagine an Anasazi Indian in Chaco Canyon, NM watching the sky year after year, first noticing a rhythm to solar cycles and then laboriously recording it with rocks, sweat and probab ly blood so accurately that today those rock carvings are still reliable. To these people, compa red to many things in life, the Sun was stable. Along with the Moon, it was the one thing they could count on to continue a cyclic pattern year after year no matter what else was unpredictable around them. As they came to depend on these annua l rhythms, a culture developed around them. Planting schedules, religious rites and surely many other observances were tied with this reliable pattern. It had to have given them a sense of stability, security and conne ction with the universe.

In our unde rstanding of Astrology toda y, the Sun is a major factor in a chart. In seconda ry progressions, it is the most powerful indicator of change, and with the eclipses added, the scaffolding of a lifetime can be built. As we grow in unde rstand ing of the laws of quantum mechan ics, chaos theory and fractal geome try, we learn that there is order in everything, and all of reality is interdependen t. Therefore, it is not hard to reason that the planets could be given a solar rhythm that is just as valid as their own.

The planets are reliable too, but from a geocentric point of view, their cycles are not as smooth as the Sun's steady, forward, predictable apparent motion. When we use the transits of the planets to trigger dormant and waiting progressed aspects, some points are triggered several times due to retrograde periods. This makes it very hard to time anything precisely. Furthermore, the outer planets remain in orb of contacting a point for many years due to their slow orbital motion. Granted, they are effective for as long as the orb is in range, but much is happening within that time frame that is impo rtant. Taken together, these methods of prediction are accurate enough when examined after a drama, but are hard to pin down before events unfold. The one body that seems more dramatically accurate than the others, when progressed, is the Sun. Since all seconda ry progressions are based on the premise that one day equals a year, it is not so far-fetched to move the planets the same motion as the Sun's daily incremen t for each year.

It is also hard to see life as a pattern using progressions and transits. We have the reliable Saturn cycle to build a lifetime structure, and along with it, other outer planetary cycles and the most reliable progressed Moon. But these are still cycles. They are repe titive for the same numbe r of years for everyone. There isn't a great deal that is persona lly unique about them except the order in which they contact the various componen ts of the chart and the houses being affected at a given time. No life unfolds in quite that orderly a manne r. Further, it is interesting that one contact from a planet at one time in the life may be far less impo rtant than an iden tical contact at another time. It is the combination of other factors occurring simultaneously that makes the difference.

Solar arc directions have been around for a long time and are common ly used by man y Astrologers. There are even books with lists of what various planetary combina t ions mean when they are activated by solar arc directions. However, as far as I know, there is no body of work that shows the pattern of a life, as shown by the unfolding of solar arc contacts, in quite the way this book does. In fact, Im not sure that anyone has even noticed that there is a pattern at all. There is one, however, that is quite unique for each person; in fact, there are pa tterns within patterns. The main theme of this book is to explain these patterns and show examples from the lives of ordinary peop le so that we can use solar arcs more effectively in guiding our clients through a seemingly endless maze of events that seem to have no common thread. The thread is there and not really so hard to discover!