An understanding of Astrology is truly essential in order to fully comprehend human life.
Without it we are stumbling around looking for factors that might cause or contribute to the differences between ourselves and other people.
We talk about the nature versus nurture argument, about the extent to which genetic or environmental factors influence the personality and likely life experience.
Nature/nurture is probably best seen as a spectrum rather than an either/or and everyone’s opinion about themselves and others is going to fall somewhere along it.
Astrology however offers an understanding that contains and transcends both.
Someone’s natal chart will give us a good grasp of the themes that they inherit from their parents AND their interaction with them and their environment whilst growing up.
In some cases these can be quite different.
If I’d been asked where I stood on the nature/nurture spectrum before the turn of the century, I would have probably believed that the latter had a stronger impact.
In 2001, I adopted a 1 year old and my experience since then has taught me that nature has a much greater say in things.
This could not be truly definitive however because when looking into the lives of people who were adopted you can’t easily subtract the impact of being given up or taken away from your birth parents at an early age.
One of my early research articles was to look at the astrological themes that occur in the charts of people who were adopted.
This article shows a powerful Saturnian presence – The Jupiter/Saturn Index
How can we look into the genetic factors in an astrology chart as separate from environmental or early family experience?
We can do this by looking at the astrology of sperm donors and their synastry with the children born as a result of this process.
The problem here is the difficulty in gaining accurate birth data for an anonymous donor father.
A few months ago I received a message from a client who had just discovered, at the age of 36 that the man that she assumed was her father, was not biologically so and she was conceived from a donor.
This would obviously be a shock for anyone, and it certainly was for her, but she is someone who has a naturally positive and extrovert nature, so she instantly set about trying to find out as much as she could about the donor, including his birth details.
She was excited that she had managed to establish a connection and a friendship with him, he was almost 50 years older than her and it transpired that he had been quite a prolific donor, and that she actually had as many as 200 biological half siblings.
I wrote a piece on this 3 months ago – How And Y Did I Get Here?
She contacted me again recently asking if there had been a past life connection with him. Having previously commissioned a series of Past Life Reviews mainly focusing on her relationship with her current life mother, it was intriguing to look into this one.
A number of questions come up naturally.
What kind of synastry would we expect between the chart of a child conceived in this way and her donor father?
Would there be any past life connection at all, and if so how interwoven would those previous lives be, particularly considering that he had played no role in her upbringing and she hadn’t even become aware of his existence until she was a grown up with a family of her own.
I approached this Past Life Review in the same way that I do any, from a position of scepticism and demanding that the astrology prove it to me. In this case I have to admit that I really didn’t expect there to be a connection at all, and I was stunned at what was revealed.
I believe this is such a fascinating case study, that I have chosen to reprint this review in full, with anonymity and permission. Here it is.
“Before starting this Past Life Review, it makes sense to see how this fits into the transits to your chart since you became aware that X is your donor father.
The simplest way to do this is to copy what I said in your synastry report.
“The two planets in your 4th house that have made your family themes complex are Saturn and Uranus.
It seems very appropriate that both of them are significantly involved with your current transits.
Transit Saturn has been opposite your Sun, which would fit with discovering that your Dad was not in fact your biological father.
Transit Uranus approaching square to your Moon and Ascendant could well be describing this new relationship forming that you have with X.
You also have transit Pluto opposing your Venus.
X has the Sun in Aquarius in the 7th house with Venus also there closely opposite Pluto rising.
He sounds like a friendly, idealistic person who wants to help people in the area of marriage.
The Sun’s square to Uranus would indicate an unconventional soul and its square to Saturn might suggest some problems with his own father that could have contributed to his desire to help around the whole principle of fatherhood.
His Moon in Capricorn in the 6th house in exact trine with Saturn would give him a powerful drive to contribute something practical in these areas.
X has very powerful and favourable synastry with you, perhaps more so than you share with your Dad.
His Sun is opposite your Moon and Ascendant.
His Moon in Capricorn trine Mars and Saturn forms a Grand Trine with your own Sun.
His Ascendant and Pluto are conjunct your Venus.
It also seems particularly poignant that all three of these synastry patterns have been dramatically picked up by the current transits.”
Of all of these, transit Pluto opposite your Venus seems to be the most important one because it corresponds so tightly to X’s own Venus/Pluto opposition right across the Ascendant/Descendant axis.
It is this piece of synastry that powers this Past Life Review.
As you know, the main indicator of past life events and connections comes from Secondary Regressions, particularly that of the Sun.
When looking to see when an important player from one’s soul group would make an appearance in the person’s life, we check the Progressed Sun conjunct Venus (or vice versa).
Consequently to see the last time there would have been a contact between them in a previous life, we would regress the Sun back to the point where it conjoined Venus (or vice versa).
If we do that to your chart the result is extraordinary.
At the very moment that X was born, your regressed Sun was at 2.12 Leo, a mere 4 minutes from your current Venus position.
The odds of this occurring by chance would be 2700/1 against.
This absolutely confirms X as a very important member of your soul group and there is an indication that this is something that is strongly carried over from your last life.
In every past life review I look at a horary cast for the time when someone asks for one.
This chart is for this review.
The connections with all of the above are extremely powerful.
There is a Mars/Pluto opposition falling in the same degree areas that include your Venus and X’s Venus/Pluto opposition.
So we can instantly see that the horary relates to the question.
There is a very strong 8th house in this chart. A close conjunction with the North Node, Saturn, Venus and Neptune indicates that the event we are looking at for this review would have been the death of at least one of you in a previous life.
As chart ruler, you would be signified by the Sun. In the 9th house, it’s likely that you would be abroad.
The Sun being the apex of a T square involving Mars and Pluto suggests some kind of military event.
It is difficult to know how to place X in this chart.
He would not be the 4th house ruler because that would have to be the father that you grew up with.
I feel that because it is a mere half degree away from his Ascendant, X must be signified by Mars in Leo in the 12th.
Mars in Leo indicates that he was male in that life, in the 12th suggests that he was not a direct relation to you.
Mars being opposite Pluto and the ruler of the sign intercepted in the 8th means we are definitely talking about his past life death.
The T square to the apex Sun means that you were involved in this event as well.
One very significant thing that we know from the previous life reviews is that your last one was as your grandmother’s fiancée who died at Pearl Harbour.
In fact we found out about this life because of the regression of your Sun to your Venus at the time.
Here is your regressed Solar Return for that year.
With Mars rising (and co-ruler of the 8th) it showed you dying in battle and its opposition with Venus in the 7th marked the separation from your fiancée.
X was born a mere couple of months after the battle, so there must be a connection with that.
His own Regressed Solar Return for the year before his birth, has a powerful link with all of this.
The Sun in any Solar Return would always be at the same degree but Venus being at 7 Aquarius, within 20 minutes of its position in his current life chart is astonishing.
Again it picks out the Venus/Pluto opposition but also involves the Ascendant as it does in his current chart.
Venus is the chart ruler and the Ascendant is the apex of a T Square formed by that opposition.
There is also an exact Jupiter/Saturn conjunction right on that Ascendant and also the apex of the T Square.
Jupiter is the ruler of the 8th house.
Saturn is the ruler of the 9th.
So we have a strong indication of death on a foreign field.
Mars in Sagittarius in the 8th in exact square to Neptune, repeats this theme, adding a military connection but also a naval one.
All of the above and the tight connections with your own last life suggest that X was also killed at Pearl Harbour.
This would obviously mean he would have to have been reborn very soon afterwards, but I feel this is also indicated by the exact Jupiter/Saturn/Ascendant conjunction at the apex of the T square.
My method of finding out when someone was born in a previous life involves a regression to the point where the Sun formed an aspect with the 4th house ruler or the Ascendant.
This regression not only takes the Sun back to oppose X’s Ascendant but the Moon is also in exact trine to it. The regressed Mars is also exactly square to his 4th house ruling Venus.
So clearly this was X’s date of birth in his last life, making him 16 years old at the time of the event, so one of the youngest military deaths at Pearl Harbour. This would give him this birthchart for that life.
I believe in his last life, X was born in Hawaii.
This chart has some seriously challenging aspects.
With the Sun, Moon and Ascendant in Pisces there is a powerful Water component and together with an exact Venus/Neptune opposition there is a strong suggestion of an innocent being sacrificed.
Mars opposite an 8th house Saturn again evokes the idea of a military death.
Transit Saturn formed a conjunction with Mars during 1941 which I assume was when X was called up, soon after his 16th birthday.
When Pearl Harbour occurred, transit Neptune was opposite his Moon and Ascendant.
In both this chart and his current life chart there is a sense that X has been brought to Earth to perform some kind of service to others.
My feeling is that these two lives are linked. I also believe that could well be the reason that he came back so soon.
I think X came back in order to provide a vehicle through which many other souls who died at Pearl Harbour could also come back again, which he has done this time round as a donor.”
I’m sure that readers would see that this X/Y story shows a fascinating insight into the real themes that contribute to our lives. If you would like to know more about your own see Understanding Your Past, Present And Future
Nature and nurture are all well and good, but astrology encompasses both and also contains texture structure, scripture and rapture.
Posted on May 14th 2025
YOU CAN BOOK YOUR OWN PERSONAL ASTROLOGY CONSULTATION HERE
HAVE YOU BEEN HERE BEFORE – ASTROLOGICAL REGRESSION AND PAST LIVES
KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY – A DETAILED LOOK AT YOUR SYNASTRY WITH THE RELATIVES
TREAT YOURSELF – REMEDIES INDIVIDUALLY TAILORED TO YOUR BIRTHCHART AND TRANSITS
PROGRESSED LIFE SUPPORT – WHEN WILL YOUR SOULMATE BE COMING ?
WHAT’S HAPPENING MAN ? USING HORARY TO ANSWER ALL YOUR QUESTIONS
HOW TO CHANGE YOUR FATE – USING ELECTIONS TO ENSURE THE BEST POSSIBLE OUTCOME FOR EVERY VENTURE