Evolutionary astrology is a unique branch of astrology that focuses on the soul’s journey, which stretches across lifetimes. It speaks to your larger soul’s purpose, your unique strengths while offering practical tools to nurture your most vital, happy, and authentic self. Evolutionary Astrology is a powerful tool for personal development and self-discovery that can guide you on your path and support you in concrete ways in your life. By looking at the karmic patterns that shape this lifetime, evolutionary astrology answers the question of why you have the chart you do. 

What is Evolutionary Astrology

Evolutionary Astrology proposes that you have the chart you do for a reason. That your chart is the perfect set-up for your growth and development in this incarnation. 

Unlike pop astrology or other typical branches of astrology, which primarily focus on personality traits and predictions, evolutionary astrology takes a holistic approach. It takes into consideration that you are here to grow and evolve, and the archetypal configuration you have in your chart is meaningful and speaks to a larger soul purpose – guiding you towards your strengths, clearing old karmic patterns and feedback loops, and learning how to best navigate challenges.

Steven Forrest (my teacher) and Jeffrey Wolf Green are the pioneers of the field. Both were colleagues and developed ideas together, while also finding their own approaches. Steven Forrest takes a spiritual and personal development approach, that’s guided by the practical application of the natal chart. JWG, brought a more philosophical and psychological perspective – focusing on past life dynamics shaping the life today. 

The Unique Perspective of Evolutionary Astrology

“The chart behind the chart” guides the birth chart. This is the past life experiences that you carry into this lifetime, echoing in your present circumstances. Your strengths and challenges are not isolated or random. Rather they are meaningful – they are interconnected with the soul’s evolutionary journey, reflecting where you’ve been and where you are invited to go next.

In this sense, every placement in the chart is karmic, representing a culmination of lessons, strengths, challenges, and potentials over the soul’s journey. As you explore these karmic imprints and the echos in the current life, you gain perspective and see your innate superpowers we’ve been developing for lifetimes, as well as what you need to be our most fulfilled in this time around. 

 The Lunar Nodes

When looking at the natal chart, we first explore the chart behind the chart – or the karmic past life story. This is guided by the placement of the South Node and North Node, as well as aspects they make to other plants and angles, as well as the placement of their rulers. The South Node speaks to your past influences and experiences – which echo in the current lifetime. You may get stuck or have unfinished business in these areas, or they may simply be outdated for you.

The North Node is the remedy. It points to a growth edge, a part of the human experience that’s uncharted territory, that would be serving and nourishing this time around. 

Understanding the karmic story offers guidance and perspective. You can break old patterns and feedback loops and consciously choose a path that’s more serving. When you do so, you feel more growth, fulfillment, and alignment with a greater sense of purpose. 

Embracing the Evolutionary Journey

What I love so much about Evolutionary Astrology is its emphasis on personal growth, self-discovery, and embracing our unique evolutionary journey. Each of us carries our own unique potential, soul purpose, past life experience and invitations into deeper growth and development. Steven Forrest’s approach takes the insights we gain from the birth chart and offers practical guidance. For example, we see the Sun as the key to our vitality, the Moon the key to our happiness, the ascendent the key to our self-actualization, etc. We can look at the sign, house, and aspect and understand the core needs of each and explore practical ways to meet these needs in our lives. 

Understanding our charts from an evolutionary perspective helps make the unconscious conscious. It puts language to the soul stirrings we’re already feeling. It helps us make more conscious choices. Ones that align to our highest growth, potential, and fulfillment as we walk through our lives. 

FAQ: Common Questions about Evolutionary Astrology

What makes Evolutionary Astrology different than other branches of astrology?

Often daily horoscopes, Instagram memes, and pop astrology focuses on personality traits and lowkey predictions. Evolutionary astrology focuses on your free will and that there are ranges of possibilities in how things can manifest.

It’s prescriptive vs predictive, looking at the specific seasons of life and offering wise guidance vs predicting how it will go. This approach is empowering and honors your personal agency. It invites us to engage with the lessons of our chart. In doing so we engage with our own growth and transformation.

How can evolutionary astrology help in personal development?

Having awareness of past karmic patterns, where we get stuck, the invitation of the current birth chart– along with our growth edges, and innate strengths–we find more meaning, a deeper understanding of ourselves, more self-acceptance and self-love, as well as compassion for our unique journeys. Evolutionary astrology empowers us to make more conscious choices aligned with deeper authenticity and soul purpose. We take the higher roads, we trust that’s unique for us. 

Can you make predictions with evolutionary astrology?

Evolutionary Astrology focuses on the soul’s journey. Versus using it to make predictions or define who we are or who we are to become.

We shape the future and who we become, through our intentions, actions, and our willingness to embrace our evolutionary journey.

By understanding the invitation of our birth charts, we can make conscious choices and ask better questions when at crossroads. We become active participants in our own growth. 

How can I apply evolutionary astrology in my own life?

Evolutionary Astrology is a powerful tool for self-reflection, personal growth, and understanding your unique soul’s purpose. We look at the chart as something we interact with and tend to. For example, as we tend our Sun, we tend our confidence, our sense of self, and our vitality. 

We can use the chart to explore our innate strengths and challenges. We find meaning in the process. 

Additionally, within relationships, we bring a greater sense of respect and compassion for each person’s unique evolutionary journey. 

We can use the chart to give insight into how to support our creativity, identify routines that would be supportive and nourishing, what we need to be our happiest, and how to take conscious, practical steps towards the invitation of our North Node. The birth chart helps us become more reflective, find understanding, and break free from where we get stuck in old karmic feedback loops. It enables us to embrace deeper authenticity and purpose in our lives.

Conclusion

Overall, evolutionary astrology acts as a wise guide on our soul’s growth and evolution. It honors your free will, the range of possibilities, and invites us to actively participate in our path of self-discovery. By seeing the soul as eternal, here to grow and evolve in consciousness, we see that our charts are not random but rather the perfect setup for you to step into your own evolution and growth.

In life, we naturally face challenges. We can use the wisdom of evolutionary astrology to help us find clarity and navigate life’s ups and downs – while holding a large perspective on what opportunities are available to us.

Although esoteric, spiritual, and psychological by nature, evolutionary astrology is practical and grounded. It uses your chart to give you real-life steps you can take to nurture your most expressed, creative, authentic self.