Bring Out Your Ghosts: A Guide to Past Life Astrology Readings
As a professional astrologer, past life readings are one of my specialties. I have done hundreds of past life readings for clients, and the written version of my past life readings (Meet Your Inner Ghosts) is one of my most popular offerings.
When it comes to past life astrology, my roots are in evolutionary astrology as taught by Steven Forrest. His book Yesterday’s Sky was one of my biggest influences, and I recommend it to everyone who asks. The type of past life astrology Steven teaches focuses on understanding the problems in this life that get you tripping over your shoelaces and the roots of those problems in the past. While a past life reading may tell you a story about who you were before, you’re encouraged to treat it as a myth that speaks the emotional truth, even if it isn’t literally true.
In recent years, my work with past lives has also been influenced by the traditional astrology revival and to a very small degree by Jyotish (aka. Indian or Vedic astrology), so my philosophy may be unusual to people who are used to purely modern evolutionary astrology. When it comes to the basics, though, my technique is still strongly influenced by the Steven Forrest school—and the basics are what I will be covering in this post.
In this article, I’ll guide you through my process for doing a past life reading. Since I used John Lennon’s birth chart to explain how to find your way around a birth chart in Listening to Star Song, let’s look at what his chart has to say about past lives.
The South Node: The Reason You Are Reading the Story
Most birth charts don’t show the south node. This is because the south node is always opposite the north node. Astrologers who work with the nodes are supposed to know this, so software only prints out the north node. When I do a past life reading, I start with the south node, but I have to look for the north node to find the south node.
I’m sure the chart app makers do this because it’s easier, but there is also something profound in the symbolism of having to look for the north node to find the south node.
One of the first lessons fiction writers learn when they start studying the craft seriously is the need for character motivation. Kurt Vonnegut famously described it this way: “Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.” The theory goes that if the character is motivated to go after something, the reader is (hopefully) going to be motivated to keep reading. But the thing that really makes us interested in a character isn’t the thing they want. There is a reason the MacGuffin trope exists. We want to know why they want the thing they want. What happened to them before the story started to make them want the nuclear space laser badly enough that they would hit their grandmother over the head with a pool noodle to get it?
In other words, we want to know their backstory.
The north node is the the thing a person desires. It’s the glass of water. The south node tells us why the person is thirsty.
Another way of seeing the south node is: When you see a bunch of people running down a city street screaming in a monster movie, you know that something big and exciting is chasing them, and it’s only a matter of time before we find out what it is.
The north node is the sanctuary they are running to. The south node is the invisible monster they’re running from. That monster is the reason you’re reading the story.
John Lennon’s Backstory
John Lennon’s Birth Chart (Placidus)
In John Lennon’s chart, the north node is in Libra and the 6th house. The north node is the symbol that looks like a hat with earflaps. In John Lennon’s chart it is next to the sun, which looks like a donut.
Libra is the sign of peace, which was something John Lennon really strongly desired. He worked hard (6th house) to get it. He talked about it. He sang about it. He staged a non-violent protest for peace, refusing (along with his wife Yoko Ono) to get out of bed for two weeks, which is the most beautiful, brilliant, libran protest I’ve ever heard of, especially since they covered their bed with flowers.
If peace is the sanctuary, what is the monster?
We find it by looking at the invisible south node, which is in 12th house Aries in John Lennon’s chart.
Aries is the sign of the warrior. John Lennon wanted peace because he was running from war.
Who Were You Before?: Planets Conjunct the South Node and Its Ruler
We know that John Lennon was running from war, but why? Why was War the monster in his life? Was he a civilian under attack? A soldier who didn’t want to be fighting anymore?
Planets conjunct the south node can begin to help us answer these questions. They can tell us something about who a person was in a past life.
Unfortunately, John Lennon’s chart doesn’t have any planets conjunct the south node in Aries, but if he had Venus conjunct the south node, you might guess that he was some kind of diplomat who failed in his mission. (War is always a failure of diplomacy.) And we might guess that he has the north node in Libra because he was trying to find some kind of redemption.
Fortunately, the south node always has a ruler, which means that we don’t have to just wonder. We can get some information by looking at the ruler of his Aries south node, which is Mars.
John Lennon’s Mars is in Libra in the 6th house, the exact same house and sign where his north node is. This is interesting because it means that when he was alive, he was, metaphorically, running back to the place he was running from.
I didn’t study the past life elements of John Lennon’s chart before I started writing this post, so I would present a clear picture of my process. I chose Venus as an example randomly. That said, maybe there is something to the theory that he was a diplomat. He certainly worked (Mars in the 6th house) for peace (Libra).
Or maybe he was like Princess Diana in a past life, going into war zones, highlighting dangers there, fleeing the battle (the 12th house can mean retreat) while the war was hot and then returning to work for peace when the battle was over.
Regardless of the reason, we know he failed because we see this cyclical pattern in his chart between Aries and Libra. Like a ghost, he found himself continually returning to the place of his undoing, trying and trying to get it right.
Invisible Allies: Planets Sextile or Trine the South Node
People never get into trouble in a vacuum. There is always a person or a situation that supports them getting into trouble.
These “supports” are represented by planets trine or sextile the south node.
In John Lennon’s chart, Pluto in 5th house Leo is sextile his south node. Pluto is an odd planet to have in a "supportive” position. Pluto is the planet of trauma and destruction. It can be a planet of empowerment, too, but Pluto’s empowerment comes with a heavy price. I once heard Steven Forrest describe Pluto as “if Darth Vader was a psychotherapist.”
In Yesterday’s Sky, Steven Forrest says Pluto in soft aspect to the south node represents “unresolved attachment…to the thrill of extremity and breaking taboo.” The can represent a person with whom we have shared “an extreme experience.”
For John Lennon, this person or experience has the qualities of Leo in the 5th house, extremity and taboo breaking through pleasure, performance, and play. His decision to celebrate his honeymoon with a nonviolent protest looks slightly different from that angle. While reflecting on her career, Yoko said that she and John Lennon really believed that they would be able to end the war by staying in bed for a week. A shocking, sudden change in a situation that has been going on for years is precisely the kind of change that Pluto brings.
John Lennon was a Beatle. He was used to having influence, and the assumption that he could snap his fingers (or lie in bed) and have peace lead to disappointment.
This assumption raises an interesting question about past lives. When exactly did this past life happen? Was John Lennon born with the assumption that he could blow up things that didn’t please him? He may have been. I don’t know enough about his biography to make an educated guess, but we do know that he was used to having influence in this life.
Evolutionary astrologers will generally acknowledge that past lives don’t end when we die. If they did, what would be the point in talking about them, really? The monsters we ran from then are very often monsters we’re running from now. It’s possible that the relationship between Pluto and the south node in his chart was talking about the bed ins in the late-60s, just as much as it was talking about things that happened in other literal lives.
The Impossible Reconsidered: Planets Opposite the South Node
Sometimes the thing you need is impossible to get. You’re in Texas, and it’s snowing, and the heat won’t come on. You’re a journalist, and the last survivor of the car crash has died, and there is no one left to tell the story of what happened.
Planets opposite the nodes represent an impossible problem like this. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t solve the problem, and the solution to the problem has come with you into this lifetime as your deepest longing.
In John Lennon’s chart, the sun is opposite his south node. (I have this placement in my chart, as well.) In a past life, he was denied the opportunity to shine. With the sun opposite the south node in Libra in the the 6th house, he may have consistently chosen to put service before self, the needs of his community before his own needs. He was never given the chance to look after himself or be benignly selfish.
In this life, he was born with the need to develop a healthy ego. This was a challenge he was simply unable to meet in the past, and it was a challenge the public was able to see in him struggle with over the course of his career. Having a healthy ego while being a Beatle would have been an extraordinary challenge for anybody, and John Lennon alternated between losing his selfhood in the Beatles and making self-aggrandizing statements like, “We’re bigger than Jesus.”
Skipped Steps: Planets Square the Nodes
What is the purpose of a past life reading? To me, the purpose is to figure out where things have gone wrong in the past and stop making the same mistakes.
For John Lennon, that would look like getting out of the loop between war and peace.
The key to resolving the dilemmas of past lives is the same as dealing with ghosts. In ghost stories, ghost stick around because they have unresolved business.
Our past life dilemmas stick to us because we have some kind of unresolved business, too. Jeff Green calls them “skipped steps.” In evolutionary astrology, these skipped steps are represented by planets and points square the nodes.
In John Lennon’s chart, the MC/IC axis in Capricorn/Cancer is square his nodes. With his nodes, there is a fundamental tension between self and the personal survival instinct (Aries in the 12th house retreating from war) and working (6th house) for peace in relationship with others (Libra). The MC/IC axis is about the tension between the inner world and the outer world, the deepest needs of the individual and the needs of the community.
To deal with his ghosts, John Lennon needed to learn to hold his public and private lives in balance. He needed to know when to retreat and care for himself and his family emotionally (Cancer) and when to step out with authority to get things done in the outer world (Capricorn).
Did he resolve this conflict and free his ghosts? Only he and (possibly) the people closest to him can say, but Yoko Ono admitted that the bed-in was a lesson to both of them that real change takes time.
A Simple Technique with Profound Implications
In ghost stories, when a ghost is freed from the things that have been keeping it bound to the earth, it is said that the ghost “goes into the light.” Understanding the dilemma represented by the nodes of the moon can feel seeing the light after years of living in darkness. Solving the dilemma isn’t as simple as flipping on a light switch, but simply being able to see the loops you’ve been living in like a ghost can be a profound relief.
If you are interested in past life astrology and would like me to help you understand your past life dilemmas, I offer written past life readings and past life readings on Zoom. I would be happy to help your inner ghosts find the light.
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