*photo by Keith Lobo, Pexels
Having your chart read requires a willingness to be seen at a deep level by another person. What makes us afraid of exposure? What if there is nothing to expose? Or what if your whole life is one long exposure? It is all there to be revealed if you are ready not just to be seen, but to see. In this, the subject becomes the object that is also a subject.
Exposure is a poem by Wilfred Owen. A war poem. A poem about living in ditches and waiting for anything to happen. Even death seems better than the endless waiting, the exposure of it. The vulnerability.
Exposure is also a form of therapy, a method for eliminating phobias. This suggests that the exposure is the cure.
The original meaning had to do with sun or weather, to be without shelter or protection. Or a public exhibition of some sort. To be forced to share something you wanted to keep private.
In this way, exposure can feel both vulnerable and shameful.
The photographic association came later, of course, as exposing to light. The original idea for naming was heliograph. Sunprint. If you want a lasting image, just place the object on photographic (cyanotype) paper. The exposure time is brief.
Exposure, like so many experiences, can be shaming or liberating, damaging or artful, revealing or concealing. Overexposure is its own kind of underexposure. Meaning, when everything is on display, there is nothing to hide, and when there is nothing to hide, there is no interiority, no mystery.
How do you know what the appropriate level of exposure is for you?
Would you look at the Sun/Leo placements? Would you look at the Moon/Cancer placements? Perhaps the progressed Moon phase? The phasal relationship between natal Sun/Moon? Pluto and Scorpio placements? How about Saturn? How about the 4th/8th/12th houses? The nodal axis? How about the Moon and Saturn? How about Virgo or Pisces or the 6th-12th house axis?
Are we always in a process of becoming more or less exposed? We never quite know what another sees in us, and we may think we are in control of what we are revealing. But, we can't see ourselves!
What about seeing others? What does it really mean to see another person? And, how do we know we are not projecting?
This is where astrology can provide some support. The astrological language is not only symbolic, it is reflective. The natal chart is a reflection of you. It is a sun print. It is your birth imprint. It is a way for you to see yourself.
*photo by Lisa Fotios, Pexels
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