Just when I thought I was done with this series I came up with another piece of the astrological choices we consciously or unconsciously make or that others make for us in our ignorance. It is not difficult to know or understand how we make choices unconsciously. Most of us have experienced moments of knee-jerk reactions stemming from some old memory or trauma. We cannot say that they were conscious actions on our part because they stemmed from old conditioning stored in largely forgotten memories. Just how could others make choices for us, of which we are ignorant?
Humanity as it exists this moment includes you and I along with every other person alive on this globe. That count includes the astronauts on the space station and every person airborne. The last time I looked it up that was 6.8 billion. The current collective of humanity is a current rendition of an evolving species. Some of what is in us as a species is hard-wired such as physical survival, perpetuation of the species (sex), and other self-preservation mechanisms. This is often referred to as our reptilian brain functions of which we are largely unaware because they are automatic. We eat and drink. We seek shelter. We want to feel safe. We wear garments to replace the fur we lost or never had (helps with the sensation of vulnerability). We like company. We collect “things”. We are territorial. All these and more unconscious motivations are related to instinctual survival and are hard-wired into our physical and psychological make-up. Yes, these traits do get screwed up at moments or may motivate people to the exclusion of common sense, but they are natural to us all. We just do not think about them often.
Humanity is unconsciously conditioned by whatever our ancestors encountered or developed through its long evolution. What has been learned through the ages has become a part of our unconscious makeup. Most of this is inherent in our species but is not necessarily conscious knowledge in an individual human. By analogy, as astrologers we are completely conditioned by the body of information from all over the world that has been developed over the centuries. We take this whole body of information as it exists and study what we know to be old teachings. Initially this was orally transmitted and those records are non-existent. Some were eventually codified and preserved through written documents. Most was researched by untold thousands of practicing astrologers. In modern times, new theories and applications were developed and we absorb those as well, as much as our poor brains can encounter, retain and apply. We do that with both good stuff and bad stuff because we do not necessarily know that the information is one or the other. Unfortunately we do not always practice our powers of discernment.