WePresent | Cosmically Speaking: An essay by Holly Murchison

To understand astrology’s appeal is to get comfortable with paradoxes. It feels simultaneously cosmic and personal; spiritual and logical; ineffable and concrete; real and unreal. It can be a relief, in a time of division, not to have to choose. It can be freeing, in a time that values black and white, ones and zeros, to look for answers in the gra... See more

I am convinced we are in the midst of a paradigm shift. That what used to hold us in community no longer works. That the spiritual offerings of yesteryear no longer help us thrive. And that, just like stargazers of the sixteenth century had to reimagine the cosmos by placing the sun at the center of the solar system, so we need to fundamentally ret... See more

Astrology expresses complex ideas about personality, life cycles, and relationship patterns through the shorthand of the planets and zodiac symbols. And that shorthand works well online, where symbols and shorthand are often baked into communication.

From the inside, via introspection, each of us feels that our beliefs are pretty damn sensible. Sure we might harbor a bit of doubt here and there. But for the most part, we imagine we have a firm grip on reality; we don't lie awake at night fearing that we're massively deluded...  But when we consider the beliefs of other people? It's an epis... See more

At best, astrology gives people a sense of control in a chaotic world and helps them relate to others by ascribing personality traits and life’s seeming randomness to star signs and the movements of planets. Users may also learn about themselves in the process, as they’re forced to pause and examine their own behavior and feelings.

But when we step into the new story of inter-being and understand we are not separate selves but that we are the mirrors, the reflections, the holographic image of everything and everyone; when we understand that anything that we do affects everything; that every act has cosmic significance; that anything that is happening to any being on this plan... See more

“We take astrology very seriously, but we also don't necessarily believe in it,” says Annabel Gat, the staff astrologer at Broadly, “because it’s a tool for self-reflection, it’s not a religion or a science. It’s just a way to look at the world and a way to think about things.”

It might be that Millennials are more comfortable living in the borderlands between skepticism and belief because they’ve spent so much of their lives online, in another space that is real and unreal at the same time. That so many people find astrology meaningful is a reminder that something doesn’t have to be real to feel true. Don’t we find truth... See more