posted August 08, 2007 05:44 AM            

What got me thinking about it is recently I've become friends with a guy who is an ex-boyfriend's astro twin. They were born only 6 minutes (!) apart. (Edit: Turns out the new guy gave me the wrong time, but they do have very close birth times. Couple hours apart.) They're pretty different though and the chemistry I experience with this new guy is different from what I had with the ex. This doesn't surprise me, since I've never thought of a birth chart as dictating someone's personality. Different people will animate the same birth chart differently, so of course synastry will feel different.

What this has got me thinking about and questioning though is whether astrology can be used as a tool for identifying soul mates. Taking for granted the existence of an eternal soul that repeatedly comes into contact with the same soul(s), can astrology really indicate this connection exists between two people? Some synastry aspects are often viewed as the synastry structure of a soul mate relationship: Saturn contacts, Node connections, water house overlays, Venus-Pluto contacts, Karma aspects, and so on (there's a lot!). My bf and I share many "karmic" aspects.

But here's the problem. If these aspects alone are sufficient to illustrate that he's my "soul mate", then all of my astro twins are his soul mates too, and all his astro twins are mine. This strikes me as unlikely. I mean, yeah, eternity is a long time and lots of loving can occur, but for a person to have the same karmic connection with so many different souls? This has got me thinking that synastry alone isn't enough to reveal which people share a karmic connection. There must be something more. And in my view, that something more is the chemistry we feel with that person, our own subjective experience when interacting with them. Because when you think about it, there are going to be many identical natal charts in existence, but I don't think that creates identical souls with identical karmic histories.

So basically what I'm saying is that I think synastry can show karmic connections w/o their actually being that connection between two people. The main thing people should go by is their own feelings, not what a chart says.

posted August 08, 2007 06:21 AM            

I also think we have more than one soul mate. Maybe I'm thinking about it too linearly, but I think of it as your soul having one karmic history with this soul and a different karmic history with another, and so on. But if 200 people have identical charts, do I have an identical karmic history with all of them? Or any karmic history with them? And it complicates it further b/c I do believe there are multiple soul mates. Family, friends, lovers...so all of those people will share their charts with 200 people or so. Do I share the same karmic history with everyone born when my best friend was? When my mom was? But like I said, maybe I'm thinking of this wrong, and a soul doesn't stay whole and live one life at a time, maybe it breaks into pieces and can live concurrent lives? I dunno. My head hurts.

That's an interesting point you raise about transits affecting the way the relationship plays out. I guess what I'm thinking though is if I were to somehow gather up all of my bf's astro twins and invite them over for a pool party , I'd be experiencing the same transits with all of them...would I feel the same with them all? When I make eye contact with all of them will I feel that electrical rush I get with my bf? Will their kisses make me feel the same? Will I be able to lose myself in conversation with all of them? I think the subjective phenomenal experience will be different and that we should trust that intuition as revealing our soul mates. I know I'm just talking in circles, but I'm tired, forgive me.

posted August 08, 2007 06:40 AM              

Maybe, the ones you actually come into contact with are the ones you have karmic history with. Has each incarnated soul lived out exactly the same past lives in a linear fashion? Something tells me no. Because something in each person has the free will to choose what they do with the events and situations that play out in synchronicity with the transits. For example - I'm a Scorpio moon... I have the free will to choose how much I let the shadow side of that placement affect me in response to things that happen... every single other person has that choice, therefore leading to lessons learned either the hard or easy way, or perhaps not learned at all in one given lifetime - and so that soul may come back to repeat those lessons, whereas another soul may not have to go through those lessons again. So this is where things branch off and aren't linear, the past lives and the WAY they were lived being quite different. (I think that's what you were getting at?)

Now, say you're at the party with all of those astro twins. All of their lives have been affected by the same transits to the same planets to their natal chart... but maybe the way they dealt with those transits, due to their upbringing perhaps or the influence of some *other* person in their life (and the way that THAT synastry has played out), yielded different results and allowed them to become people that you might like and respond to in different ways. I think of it as each placement representing POSSIBILITIES, not one single definite actuality. So allowing for the range of possible events and relationships in a lifetime, this allows each person to develop quite individually. Possibly you might feel an attraction for all of them... but due to their own life experiences and how they've been shaped by those experiences might affect how you respond to them individually.

posted August 08, 2007 02:13 PM              

quote:

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I think of it as each placement representing POSSIBILITIES, not one single definite actuality.

---

posted August 08, 2007 02:56 PM            

I can say that for so many of my 'soulmates' (both men and women) I have felt a certain knowing when I met them. And that's where feelings come in. We should never disregard our feelings for any reason, whether that's astrology or something else.

The truth for me is that I spend more time using astrology to figure out why a relationship went wrong than I ever have to figure out why it was going right. If you're hanging in the love, who the hell cares?

posted August 08, 2007 07:47 PM              

im overwelmed by this - cause i exactly thought about that some times,since i met Jonnhy.

Know why?Cause i have a twin sister,who was born 15 minutes before me;so basically she shares with me pretty similar natal aspects.
So,i thougt, if John is my SM and that was seen by our charts,the natals and Dracos,then..my sister would also be his SM too?And would they have had also a karmic past life experiencies?
And what would they feell when they saw each other?
Well,i realised some things:

- when they met,there wanst any particular chemistry witg each oter, and neither a "like" torwards each other - none of the things that happened with me and Jonnhy in our 1stMeeting,were closely alike when they 2 met.
- My twin sister told my mother she doesnt particullarly like Jonhy ( its a long story)
- And Jonhy said he likes her personality but im much more of his kind of girl ( completely diferent from my twin,with whom i share pratically all same natal aspects)

posted August 08, 2007 11:47 PM            

I tried using astrology to find the answer, but my old roommate and a close friend of the family share the same birthdate (and year) as he does, and the connection just isn't as strong. (Not to say they aren't meaningful friendships, but it isn't the same.)

It is definitely a SOUL thing. I think that our soul chooses our exact birth time to give us the tools/personalities/ circumstances that we need in this life. Maybe they don't indicate who we're connected to though, in terms of a soul mate.

Unless, of course, these things are to be discovered...maybe some of those asteroid connections that IQ is hopefully working on!

Or maybe the astrological connections would be different for each person based on what their soul needs in this life. Hmmmmm....

8th

posted August 09, 2007 10:03 AM              

Are you talking about the Twin Souls? If yes,than its true what youve said.

But if youre asking about the twin brothers/sisters - nop... - they are just 2 souls who chose to born twins cause they have karmic lessons to learn with each other.I think normally,they are also seen as being part of the same Soul Family - so my twin sister is kind of a SM to me.

posted August 10, 2007 01:01 AM            

First of all, this may not need to be said, but I realize now that I wasn't as precise as I could have been in my first post. When I was referring to a "karmic" connection, I specifically meant a past life connection between two people.

Like many, probably all, of you I view astrology as representing possibilities (well phrased, GeminiLover ). And that's why astrological indicators of past life connections didn't sit well with me because they supposedly show a definite past life link. But I now think of them like all other things in astrology as indicating a possibility--there's a possible past life link between two people whose synastry indicates such a link. The way to know if one does exist is by the recognition, intensity, and chemistry that the two will experience with one another. If it's not there, then the astrological past life indicators are likely "false positives". There are countless ways our charts could interact with other people's charts to show a past life connection, but that doesn't mean one is there. The way two charts interact is revealing, but the way two souls interact is even more revealing.

(To Love and everyone else - feel free to hijack any thread I start. I'm open to threads developing their own way. I'm even amused at how a thread can start on one topic and develop into something completely different, like that game telephone where the last person heard something completely different from what the first person said.)

posted August 10, 2007 04:35 PM            

The thing about karma, past lives, attraction, destiny, love and choice is that there is, in my opinion, a way that they operate within the context of our lives that is very difficult to accurately analyze or understand.

For instance Jane ~ is it destiny that you remain with your bf or is it choice? You would have to follow that further and then ask whether your choice to stay with him is because that desire is born from destiny. And would you even know or does it even matter if you love each other and are happy?

That's where it all gets complicated if you think about it too much. (At least in my brain).

I tend to think of the lines between destiny and choice as being purposely blurry sometimes. I don't think we're necessarily meant to (conclusively) know if every choice we make is destiny or choice. One of my theories is that we meet the people we're meant to meet and then it's up to us.

But then sometimes I wonder at how, when you look back at events and relationships, things seem so perfectly ordered. How retrospectively, things always make somuch more sense.

If my ex of 7 years had no ended things with me in 2002 then I would not have been single or moved away from the city to a new one and not met Guy #1. If Guy#1 had not...etc. etc. then I would not have met Guy#2. These relationships massively affected my soul growth/personal evolution.

So were they pre-ordained? It's hard for me to believe they were not. I wonder if my current ex's desire to end things when there were no concrete reasons for it is due to the fact that we just are NOT meant to be together this time around. In staying together, it would effectively f*** up the order of things. In theory.

I know this is a bit of a tangent, but these are things that I have been thinking about for years now. I keep observing the events of my life (and the lives of others) and it does seem to me, on a certain level of awareness, that there is some kind of design here which co-exists with choice.

But in the end, I really don't know. I can say that I know I was meant to meet Guy #1 and Guy #2 with such certainty. But after that, it's hard to know whether my choices are being consciously made as I go or if I am living out the choices I made before I got here to an extent. And then there is the matter of the choices of both Guy#1 and Guy #2.

Okay. Philosophizing over

I think at the end of the day that sticking with my long-standing belief that the purpose of it all is *love* is easiest and most truthful.

Maybe the rest of it is just a distraction from that.

posted August 10, 2007 06:07 PM            

Maybe our chart is just our "role". There are many similar roles and many similar stories.
You are the heroine in your own story...
and also the friend, or possibly even opposition, to the heroine or hero in someone else's story.
The story is made up of all of the roles creatively placed together (who you are scripted by astrology to meet due to your location cues throughout the play/movie)and the forces that act for or against you (passing transits or as I like to call it, the astrological weather). All of this creates the amazing, multi-layered work of art that is your life and your lesson. You and your beautiful soul friends created this interactive story/art and you each collaborated on the roles you would play that would make the story most entertaining and experience-ful. (New Word! )

posted August 13, 2007 11:47 AM            

personally, me and my bf have a synastry that seemed so-so, but actually, there are lotsa small signs that seems karmic.. for example, SN conjunct Sun (0 degrees), our Cupid opposed to each other (1 degree), his Valentine and Union conjunct my AC (4 and 0 degrees), his Amor conjunct my DC (3 degrees), our IC/MC conjunctions (0 degrees).. we also have a nice composite.. and in our progressed synastry, we have opposed ACs and opposed Mars/Venus (DW, by sign and by degrees), etc..
there are also the arabic parts (for example, his PoM trine my Mercury/Venus/Moon, and my PoM trine his Moon), the draconic charts (I can't remember them well thought) and also some few Saturn aspects.. but personally, I relate Saturn aspects as making the Saturn person more serious about the other person rather than karmic (for example, if person A's Saturn conjuncts person B's Moon, then person B's emotions triggers person A's serious side). but well, better stop listing.. ^_^;