Astrocartography
Finding Your Best Place to Live with Astrology
by Joelle Steele
It’s a rare individual who hasn’t heard the often-quoted expression, “wherever you go, there you are.” It’s been attributed to numerous authors and philosophers, including Buddha and Confucius, and a country-western group, The Gosdin Brothers, sang a song called “No Matter Where You Go There You Are.” So, I guess it’s safe to assume that issues surrounding relocation have been around for quite a few centuries. And who doesn’t know someone who is constantly talking about or actually attempting to find that “geographic cure”?
Everyone wants to know where the best place is for them to live. That ideal place where your life will work perfectly. But there is no perfect or ideal place for anyone. And, what ultimately constitutes a “best” place for you will never be the same for everyone. And while astrology – astrocartography in particular – can help you find places that are good for you astrologically, that doesn’t mean you will like them if you visit or live there. For example, two places that are great for me astrologically include Easter Island and a place near the Arctic Circle called Cambridge Bay. Astrology or no, I’m not moving to either location.
Some astrologers believe that the farther away from your birthplace you go, the less likely you are to follow the path on which your spirit was set when first it came to this plane of existence. In some ways this makes sense, because wherever you move, you will have to make compromises. The types of compromises will generally show up in your relocated chart, and it will be up to you to decide if those are the kinds of compromises you are willing to make, or if you need to look further for a place in which the compromises do not have as great an impact on your life.
Many people love southern California. I wasn’t one of them. I lived there for many years and could not wait to get out of there. I spent a few months each year lecturing throughout the United States and other English-speaking countries. On various lecture circuits, I managed to visit all but four states (Alaska, Hawaii, and the Dakotas), some of which I visited on several different occasions, extending my business stays to investigate what life might be like in another place and its neighboring communities.
I must have relocated my chart at least 100 times as I tried to find my best place to live. In the end, after visiting many prospective cities and metropolitan areas, I discovered that there were only about fifteen that truly looked promising for me, and after visiting each of them several times, at different times of the year, I discovered that I really only liked about nine of them. Out of those nine, I decided to drop three because I felt I might not be able to physically deal with their extremes in weather. But I still had to narrow my choices down further. I studied the remaining six relocated charts and dropped four more cities because two meant compromises in creativity, one in housing, and one in relationships. And in reflecting more deeply on my visits to those cities, I thought of some potential problems that I didn’t even see in the relocated charts. That left me with two cities from which to choose: Monterey, California and Olympia, Washington.
My first choice was Olympia (or some city in that general part of the state, including Seattle). I knew my way around Washington pretty well, knew a lot of people there, had lots of cousins and a brother there, had spent many summers there as a child, and had visited often as an adult. But, at the time, Olympia was a little too far away and I just couldn’t afford the move. So, I decided instead to move to Monterey, just a little more than 300 miles up the coast from Venice. I knew a lot of people there and I grew up there. It had changed a lot but, all things considered, it turned out to be the perfect place for me to take care of all the unfinished business in my life — my college degree, my relationship with my father, eliminating some problematic friends, and a host of other things that had been left undone. And eight years later, when everything was all done, I was ready to move again, and I did, this time to Washington. But has Washington been perfect? Probably not, but if it isn’t, it is the closest I’ve come to perfection — for me — so far.
When you decide to relocate, you need to take a long hard look at your life and decide what you really want for your life. If you love to ski, and that is your passion, and you want to be a ski instructor, you should be thinking Colorado, not Louisiana. Love the beach, like swimming daily in the ocean, love the sun, try Florida, not Idaho. Need access to the big city for work, think Chicago, not some charming little town four hours away from civilization. Look at more than just your relocated chart. Astrocartography is great, but you still need to visit different places, check out the jobs, the weather, the housing, the schools, etc. And, if you have a spouse and family, you and your spouse will need to agree on a community that is good for the two of you and your family. It’s harder when there are two or more people making the move together, so be prepared for more compromises.
Use astrocartography as a tool to help you narrow your choices down. Then, take some time to really research the cities and make several visits to each prospective “best place.” When it’s time to move, you will make your decision based on facts and first-hand evaluation.
Once you relocate, don’t expect instant happiness and fulfillment. Experts agree that it takes at least five years to fully establish yourself in a new place. I loved Washington state from Day One, but my first two years there were extremely difficult, and it wasn’t until the fourth year that I really started to feel comfortable in my new environment. And if you’ve given a new place a few years and it just wasn’t what you expected or what you wanted, go to Plan B and select another city.
Spend plenty of time in any potential new location before you move there. Read the local papers and study them from cover to cover. Don’t just up and move without doing your homework. It is most often these sudden and poorly planned moves that don’t work out. If you need to move again because you made a mistake in relocating, do a lot more research before you move again, and when you finally settle on a place that you think sounds promising, visit there at different times of the year to see what it is like before you pack your bags.
Astrocartography is a great tool for assisting you in making a good relocation decision. It can help you decide when to move and where. But with astrology, there are always many options and many opportunities to explore them. This means that before you make a decision, you have to examine those options first-hand and see if there is a potential fit.
This article last updated: 01/21/2016.
