It is rather surprising that Liz Greene, a psychological astrologer, would write a book called The Astrology of Fate. Psychological astrologers use the birth chart to help clients explore their inner world and seek paths for resolving or healing complex issues rooted in childhood or in the client’s own psyche. Fate tends to be left out of the picture, or considered to be an old and outworn concept. Liz Greene, however, posits that while we do not live perfectly determined lives, fate does affect us all. Our DNA is fate, the family and culture we are born into are out of our hands, and events like an illness or accident from out of the blue can knock us off course. Or, we can be in the right place at the right time to receive a windfall or achieve unimagined success. We can manifest innate talents from an early age as musicians or mathematicians or gymnasts that no one can explain. We aren’t always, in other words, calling all the shots.
Fate can emerge in our lives as what Greene refers to by the ancient Greek term of “Moira,” something which is lodged in our bodies and our temporal life, and which must be endured as a kind of necessity. Trying to escape it or think we can beat it leads to the great sin of hubris, or excessive pride, which the Greeks considered to be the worse sin of all. Greene explores the placement of Pluto in the birth chart to identify the role of Moira in our lives, and tells us that Pluto in aspect to the Sun, Moon, or Ascendant can indicate one for whom fate plays a larger role.
Joe Biden stands as an example of one who has experienced more that a normal allotment of fated events. Just becoming President of the United States requires the fates to be with one, but the tragic loss of his wife and baby daughter in a car accident in 1972 (and the injury of his two young sons) was beyond heartbreaking. He has also experienced a near fatal brain aneurysm, and he lost his son Beau to brain cancer in 2015. If we look to Joe Biden’s chart, we can see that his Moon is applying to a square to Pluto, while at the same time opposing his 12th house Mars, the ruler of his house of children.
But Fate can also manifest in our lives as a sense of destiny, Greene writes. “Moira represents the ‘substance’ aspect of fate, while the destiny inherent in mythic themes is the ‘energy’ aspect.” We feel we were born to do something with our lives – or our lives can lack meaning because we cannot sense where or how we are manifesting our destiny. This kind of fate Greene identifies as the “Daimon,” Looking to the Sun in our charts, Greene tells us, can point us towards our daimon, where we must direct our lives to feel fulfilled.
In Joe Biden’s chart, we see a Scorpio Sun conjunct the planet of love, Venus. The Scorpio drive is to manage and control, and placed in Biden’s 12th house, it seeks expression in the realm of universal consciousness – and suffering. With the Venus gift for connection, Joe Biden’s Sun grants the destiny to best manage the world in order to alleviate suffering. He felt from the time his was a young man that he should run for president. He ran two times before running in 2020, and embarked on this campaign at an age when most of us are well into retirement. Today, at the age of 81, he is running for a second term, undeterred by those who say he is too old.
As fated as our lives may seem, between the things which happen to us and the inner sense of destiny we carry, there is a third thing, Greene believes. This is an intangible part of each of us – something which cannot be found in the birth chart – that expresses as our response to fate and the decisions we make to answer or refuse destiny’s call. We are given the materials to weave the tapestry of our lives – be we are the weaver, the creator. Greene refers to this as “a quality of free and individual response” to fate. “This kind of free will does not come cheap; it is not a ‘given.’ It has to be fought for, and the process of that fight is also the process of individuation.” It is the astrologer’s job, Greene believes, to guide the client through the shadows of fate towards the sunlight of his or her free response to destiny.
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