Is prediction knowing what will happen, and sharing it, or is it a guess, educated or not? And what determines whether something will indeed happen–is it already a foregone conclusion, or can we change the course of things? Does an event remain, Shroedinger’s Cat-style, in all possible states, until observation? Is there only one path to events, with both true and untrue visions parceled out like signs along a road (the ‘true’ ones) and decoys leading nowhere (the ‘false’)? I don’t know, but this evening I watched a movie, ‘Knowing,’ that poses a couple of questions: can the future be known ahead of time? The film asserts that yes, it can–and, to follow on this premise it poses the question, if you know what will occur (in this case, the end of life on Earth), what can or will you do about it?

I thought it interesting (synchronicitous?) that this was the film that arrived in the mail today, considering that this evening was the final eclipse of this set, and that my own chart for it made me think of nothing but earthquakes (for the curious, here’s a link to the latest quakes worldwide http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.html) Of course, when I made my own prediction, I was well aware that the message I was getting via planet placement was likely a symbolic one (though it pays to take into account the chance of the literal)–and for myself, I intend to watch the coming six months (through to the next eclipse set) for symbolic seismic activity across the House axis where the eclipse fell (for me, the 1st/ 7th)–and I think everyone else should do the same.

So, does astrology allow us to know ahead of time what will happen? I, for one, think the answer is both yes and no (hey, I’m a Libra, cut me some slack!) I believe in free will, absolutely, but I see, in every chart I study, that there are patterns of behavior that we so identify with (natal placements) and respond to (the energy of a planet in transit) that it’s almost as if these responses send a wave out before they even occur, a wave that can be discerned before the point in time where the action’s placed, when the two, the natal placement and the transiting energy, connect. As we examine the individual and his or her proclivities as shown by the precise point in space and time when they entered this world (the natal chart), we can see a range of possible expression–but we never remove the factor of choice–it’s just that individuals, acting within the spectrum of character, will choose in a way that can be anticipated via the construction of the natal chart–and even the choice no one was expecting can be seen if we are looking for it, often hooked to the influence of Uranus, or to any energy that can manifest as destabilized within the chart, for instance, in hard aspect to Pluto.

Annunciation by Beato Angelico

So, is prediction of the future possible? I still say, yes and no (okay, I confess, I have four planets in Libra!) I think we follow the path we are most inclined to follow, one that allows us to express most characteristically, and that that is the essence of Fate: it is the expression of what is most characteristic to our own uniqueness as it interacts with every other form of energy, including other Beings, on this planet. In the movie, an extraterrestrial element took the puzzle outside of the parameters we deal with everyday; it implied we label the other world Beings we see as angels, and their whisperings as clairaudience, and somehow this took the fun out of it for me, operating as it did like a form of deus ex machina (angelus ex machina?) with the number puzzle ultimately being the whispered code of observers, rather than our own intelligence translating the harmonics of the Universe, represented by numbers that stood for those waves I mentioned, but this time generated by the whole human race, rather than a single individual. By the end of the movie, I knew that the end of life on Earth wasn’t something I was interested in knowing about ahead of time, if that was even possible; because, if one can’t do anything with knowledge, what’s the point?

See my books here http://dogandsunflower.wordpress.com