Fate vs. Free Will — What’s The Purpose of Astrology? (Plus, My Beliefs On Stoic Philosophy)

Do the cosmos signal and indicate things happening on Earth, or do they cause them? 

Do we have free will? Or are our lives completely fated and pre-determined by the cosmos? 

I’m going to answer this age-old question in this blog — but please remember, this is a very personal question that you’ll individually have to answer for your own life. Plus, it’s a lifelong question that’ll take years to fully grasp. 

We all have different perspectives and beliefs and to each their own!

Let’s dive in, shall we? 

I practice ancient Hellenistic astrology which has drastically changed my philosophical view on life and invited more magic into my life as a result. I’ve been inspired by Vettius Valens work and Chris Brennan’s work and I love to dissect topics like fate, determinism, stoic philosophy and zodiacal releasing. 

First, we must answer the question — what is astrology? 

Astrology is the correlation between celestial bodies and earthly events.

We notice patterns happening in the cosmos and we observe patterns happening here on Earth. So really, astrology is just pattern synthesis. The planets aren’t causing anything to happen. 

Nor do the planets “make” us feel a certain way.

Causal vs. Signal Beliefs 

For centuries humans have debated about astrology and whether or not the cosmos, or celestial bodies, cause things to happen, or signal them. 

Causal philosophy says the cosmos cause things to happen on Earth. Then we have the Signal philosophy which says the planets aren’t causing things to happen, they merely signal, indicate, or show you what’s already happening on Earth.

I personally follow the Mesopotamian scholars approach which is that the cosmos signal things. They believed the planets were acting as messengers, writing a language in the sky. I don’t know about you, but I find that to be waaaaay more magical way to view astrology, and it just really resonates in my Jupiter Ascendant heart. 

A great analogy for signal-based astrology is like a clock on the wall. The clock on the wall isn’t making it 3 PM today, it’s indicating or showing you that it’s already 3 PM. 

Fate in Hellenistic Astrology

Let’s take this a layer deeper and talk about partial determinism and complete determinism. 

An example of signal partial determinism is electional astrology — a specific niche in astrology that finds specific dates that are more prosperous or advantageous for you to start something. If you wanted to get married, move houses, or start a profitable business you could use electional astrology. 

An electional astrologer would say, “If you start this business or get married on this specific day, the outcome will be XYZ.” This can be very helpful in terms of finding a date that’s going to be more advantageous for you. 

So partial determinism gives you a choice in the matter. You feel like you’re more in control, and working in tandem with the cosmos. 

On the flip side, we have complete determinism —  the idea that everything is divinely and perfectly timed.  The hard stuff, the good stuff, the peak periods, the culmination points, the activation of your life’s work. Everything is divinely timed.

….it’s so magical if you think about it!

It’s magical because it proves there’s an elegance to us. We’re but a single drop in the ocean, but a purposeful drop at that. We are here with a purpose. We are here with intention. We chose this life, we chose this time, we chose this set of experiences for our soul. 

(Not our ego or our mind. Not the shell of “first name”, or whatever role you’re playing in this life. Your soul chose to come here, in divine timing, to experience specific events.)

A perfect example of complete determinism is zodiacal releasing. An ancient advanced timing technique that exactly maps out your life’s timing. 

You could even think of determinism with tarot cards. When you pull tarot or oracle cards that represent marriage, the tarot cards aren’t causing you to get married. They’re not causing a specific thing to happen to you, because whether or not you looked at the tarot cards, the thing will happen regardless. The cards are showing you the topic and the outcome, depending on the layout of the cards.

So like tarot cards, or zodiacal releasing, you can use astrology as a tool to prepare and plan for the good parts or difficult parts of your future. In my opinion, this belief allows us to surrender to life’s divine timing. 

I truly believe that what’s for you will not go past you. What’s meant for you in life will happen. 

Hellenistic astrology and zodiacal releasing created this DEEP belief and trust in life. 

What I hear time and time again is people saying, “If only I’d taken that opportunity, if I hadn’t “missed” that opportunity, my life would have changed for the better.”

And yeah…maybe your ego would have liked that. 

But was it truly meant for you? Probably not, no.

If it was meant for you, it would have happened.

Let me be crystal clear — I do believe in this, but also I believe we have a choice in how we view life. We choose to go to the gym today and eat a healthy veggie bowl. We can choose to complain or to notice the simple joys in our surroundings. We always have a choice.  

Internal Faith + External Faith = Harmony 

Now I want to bring in this idea that our intuition are always in alignment with the divine timing of our life. They’re always in alignment with our natal promise within our birth chart. 

Stoic philosophers believe that external faith and internal faith are working together in harmony. When you listen to yourself and follow your natural impulses, your internal fate meets your external fate, which is what’s meant to happen for you in this life. 

Let’s bring this idea home with an example of this stoic philosophy using the analogy of a cylinder on top of a hill. Basically, there’s a cylinder on top of the hill. Someone walks up the hill, sees the cylinder, and pushes it down the hill. When the cylinder’s pushed it starts to roll down the hill. 

Would you say that’s partial determinism or complete determinism? 

The Stoics believed that it was both. 

How did the cylinder get there? Why was it in the perfect shape that it allowed it to roll down the hill? See where I’m going with this? 

The external fate = the cylinder was on top of the hill. It just happened to be there. 

The internal fate = the person decided to go up the hill because they were listening to their intuition Then they had the impulse to push the cylinder down. 

(Philosophy professor Helena, at your service.)

Learn Zodiacal Releasing

After I learned zodiacal releasing, one of my favorite ancient astrological timing techniques in which you can read your life like a book, I’ve gone through my own philosophical crisis.

This is what I believe as an astrologer — that external fate meets internal fate and merges into alignment. 

I’ve always believed that life is working with us, and for us, not to us. My internal compass has always known this. But when I started learning about zodiacal releasing, I observed my own life, my husband’s, our family’s, our friends and my clients. and I looked at so many people’s zodiacal releasing. 

I teach zodiacal releasing and how to read your life’s timing here in my live course!

It’s always a stark reminder that the Universe is on our side, that our souls chose this before we came here, and that everything is unfolding in perfect, divine timing (good or bad). 

You’re probably thinking about the philosophical conundrum of, what about the bad things? What about our moral responsibilities…do we have a choice in that? 

A-B-S-O-L-U-T-L-E-Y we do! 

I 100% believe we have the full responsibility to make moral, ethical choices. But this really makes you rethink life and your whole worldview (especially for my modern astrologers reading this!)

Maybe you don’t want the “bad” things. You wouldn’t choose that for yourself. You didn’t ask for this — but your soul did. 

At the end of the day, I really believe that intuitively, we already know everything. We don’t need astrology. We don’t need an astrocartography map. We don’t need tarot. We don’t need any of it. But we can use it if we want to give our mind, the mental chatterbox, a practical tool for “proof” or evidence of our inner knowing. 

Cosmic Compass – tune into the podcast

My research and understanding of stoic philosophy and Hellenistic astrology have merged together to make me the person I am today.

The person who knows, without a doubt, that we’re working with the cosmos. And when you think about it from that perspective, I hope you see the beauty in it all. If you get a little scared about determinism or complete determinism, or seeing astrological “storms” on the horizon, just remember that everything is just freaking love energy and we’re all here for a reason ♡

Thoughts on Hellenistic astrology and the beauty of stoic philosophy