Your birth chart and your motivation

When I write about a chart I often mention its overall shaping which, in astrological psychology, relates directly to the underlying motivation of the person concerned, and can give important and valuable clues about what makes them tick, what drives them and what kind of behaviour you might observe in them.

I write in The Cosmic Egg Timer about the Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable qualities which pervade astrology ( and life) and are part of an essential underlying theme of "three-ness" in the Huber Method. Once this is understood it becomes easier to understand the Huber approach to chart interpretation. The overall shaping of the aspect structure can give us a lot of information about unconscious motivation. So the question to ask is "Does the overall structure have predominantly quadrangular shapes, triangular shapes, or are there just a lot of disconnected lines?"

The aspect structure in a chart is Fixed if it has figures of four or more sides. It looks solid and firm, and its overall quadrangular shaping suggests that the unconscious motivation of the person it belongs to will be towards security and stability. Their motivation is to know where they stand, to feel safe and secure and to enjoy the substance of life. Fixed energy has an established quality. It seeks to keep things pretty much the same, unchanging, firm and solid. To preserve what is already there is it’s main purpose.

The aspect structure is Mutable when it is composed of triangular figures which give a feeling of fluidity, suggesting that the person will be able to adapt and adjust quite readily to life circumstances. They will go with the flow, and will not be too upset by change. Mutable energy is moving energy. It adapts and moves on, seeking to keep this momentum of fluidity, shifting, changing but not stopping.

We have a Cardinal chart when there are no complete shapes, only disconnected lines which never quite manage to come together to form a three or four sided figure. The unconscious motivation of this person is to be restless, changing direction quickly, always seeking to start something new. They will continually want to be doing, to keep moving from one thing to the next, probably expending a lot of energy along the way. Cardinal energy is initiatory energy. It heralds new beginnings, a fresh start, a confident thrust forward and a moving out into the world.

Many charts have a mixture of shapes and motivation - sometimes a combination of Fixed and Mutable, or Mutable and Cardinal, or even Fixed and Cardinal. You can work out for yourself how it might be for the person concerned if they have a mixture of two of these motivations in their chart. I have a mixture of Mutable and Cardinal - see if you can find it in my chart here. I can adapt and go with the flow of life, but sometimes I get downright restless.

The selection of charts below have Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable shapings. They all have a mixture of two of these shapings and motivation, and they are all charts of real people.

Can you identify the different chart shapings? See all of my books for more information on chart shaping, what it means and how it relates to unconscious motivation.