It was a while more before I could entertain with grace the idea that this same orientation or attitude was reflected as much upon the map of the earth as upon the map of the heavens. Another way of putting this (and this is, to me, the beauty of local space astrology), is that Heaven and Earth are interchangeable -- or are in the last analysis, one living entity -- a single whole. This is made ever so clear in the local space chart, where every object in the universe, celestial and mundane, has an equal and valid position. Not only the planets and the stars, but on an equal basis cities, countries, and even the local water tower or friends' houses can be represented. All that concerns us is the direction in space; the orientation, not the distance. In local space the Heavens and Earth, the celestial and mundane (or geographic) spheres, exist side by side and are interchangeable. A star is a city is a neighbor. We can walk towards, write letters to, or get up and travel into, for instance, our seventh house: and what is perhaps more important, we do!
More startling yet, we can travel into our natal planets since they also represent a direction on the globe in the chart of LS. Here, in a hopeless intermingling of the various planes of reference and of objects, a strange, and I must confess, somewhat magical view of our world begins to unfold and emerge: one in which every city and friend becomes a radiating center of influence.
In this sphere, the long tradition of witchcraft and magic begins to become understandable; here local dieties and preferred directions become the rule and the world seems a tangle of significance. The psychedelic character in local space charts is unmistakable and appears to be intrinsic to the system. The world appears as kind of a grand talisman or vast ritual ground; and the closest popular image of a similar nature in modern consciousness is the remarkable world of Don Juan as generated by the author Carlos Castaneda. Here is no "subtle plane", but a personal landscape painted in bold and clear strokes and tailor made to fit the psyche of each individual. A world where the modern man is learning to move across the face of this earth in an endless dance of adjustment and tuning of his radix -- of his self. Individuals driven in particular directions on a checkerboard world, unable to resist travelling toward a goal that is no particular place on earth so much as it is a direction imprinted within them; the direction of a force or planet; "There! where Power hovers", to use Don Juan's expression. In a word, here is perhaps the must vulgar astrological system, where the obvious is enthroned and the subtle unnecessary.
Let me go over some of the basics again. In simple terms the local space chart is a map of the 360 degrees of the horizon surrounding an event such as birth, with the various planets' positions plotted on it. The map represents the full circles or plane of the horizon, rather than only the two points at which it intersects the ecliptic (known to astrologers as the Ascendant & Descendant). The wheel of this chart then describes the horizon of a place, much as turning around on one spot we might look toward the East, South, West, and North.
In this coordinate system, the fundamental plane to which all else is referred is, then, the horizon of the observer; and the positions of the various planets as they appear from this location are projected onto the horizon using the coordinates, azimuth and altitude. Azimuth is this system's equivalent of the zodiac longitude and is measured, for our purposes, from the East direction, thru the North and on around in a counter-clockwise direction -- in the same way that we measure the traditional signs and houses. Altitude, analogous to ecliptic latitude, is measured above and below the horizon to the poles from 0 to 90 degrees.
More startling yet, we can travel into our natal planets since they also represent a direction on the globe in the chart of LS. Here, in a hopeless intermingling of the various planes of reference and of objects, a strange, and I must confess, somewhat magical view of our world begins to unfold and emerge: one in which every city and friend becomes a radiating center of influence.
In this sphere, the long tradition of witchcraft and magic begins to become understandable; here local dieties and preferred directions become the rule and the world seems a tangle of significance. The psychedelic character in local space charts is unmistakable and appears to be intrinsic to the system. The world appears as kind of a grand talisman or vast ritual ground; and the closest popular image of a similar nature in modern consciousness is the remarkable world of Don Juan as generated by the author Carlos Castaneda. Here is no "subtle plane", but a personal landscape painted in bold and clear strokes and tailor made to fit the psyche of each individual. A world where the modern man is learning to move across the face of this earth in an endless dance of adjustment and tuning of his radix -- of his self. Individuals driven in particular directions on a checkerboard world, unable to resist travelling toward a goal that is no particular place on earth so much as it is a direction imprinted within them; the direction of a force or planet; "There! where Power hovers", to use Don Juan's expression. In a word, here is perhaps the must vulgar astrological system, where the obvious is enthroned and the subtle unnecessary.
Let me go over some of the basics again. In simple terms the local space chart is a map of the 360 degrees of the horizon surrounding an event such as birth, with the various planets' positions plotted on it. The map represents the full circles or plane of the horizon, rather than only the two points at which it intersects the ecliptic (known to astrologers as the Ascendant & Descendant). The wheel of this chart then describes the horizon of a place, much as turning around on one spot we might look toward the East, South, West, and North.
In this coordinate system, the fundamental plane to which all else is referred is, then, the horizon of the observer; and the positions of the various planets as they appear from this location are projected onto the horizon using the coordinates, azimuth and altitude. Azimuth is this system's equivalent of the zodiac longitude and is measured, for our purposes, from the East direction, thru the North and on around in a counter-clockwise direction -- in the same way that we measure the traditional signs and houses. Altitude, analogous to ecliptic latitude, is measured above and below the horizon to the poles from 0 to 90 degrees.
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