The Lot of Fortune and Spirit
Preface
A lot of my work is really reflecting on the meaning of certain concepts in Astrology and what that implies on how they viewed the world and conceptualized their existence. One big way I've been doing this is through the Lots. Discovering the Lot of Fortune and Lot of Spirit has been such a game-changer in my work. I've been working with them for almost over 2 years, in Zodiacal Releasing, and for the past few months, I've been thinking a lot about how lot calculations are important especially for understanding what Zodiacal Releasing is tracking for time lord periods. I'm here to kind of dump some of my thoughts about the Lots and what they can be used for but some things they've made me think of in terms of how we conceptualize Astrology as a practice.
The Lot of Fortune
Since using the Lots, it's been apparent that all authors will say that the Lot of Fortune is important for one reason or another. What I've gathered and synthesized is that Fortune is representative of your external environment and circumstances. It's everything outside of you or what you make happen. Circumstance and environment are never chosen. We never asked to be born, we happened to be born and alive and placed in circumstances. Out of all the places I could've been born, I just happened to be born in New York City, whereas I could've been born in Sweden, the Philippines, the Caribbean, but no. I was born in New York City, and that is not something I actively controlled or chose. This is Fortune. It is what befalls the individual just by circumstance and by chance. Fortune can be a misleading word to use because it tends to imply something positive, but Fortune is really used in a much more neutralized tone in this. This is proven in the way that certain authors will talk about the Lot of Fortune if it is placed in a challenging house, or if it is well aspected for example, they're very different tones.
The Whole Thing about Fortune is looking at its calculation because every part of the Formula Matters. The Calculation is The Distance from the Dominant Luminary to the Non-Dominant Luminary, and then projecting that onto the Ascendant. Let’s unpack the Formula like this
ASC + (Sect Light to Out of Sect Light)
If we take the distance between the Sect Light to the Out of Sect Light, what does this mean? Well, what do the Sect Lights MEAN in the first place? The Sun is representative of light and the Moon only appears in the darkness. Light and Dark is what we’re dealing with here, the Sun being the representative and ruler of light, and the Moon being the Ruler of Darkness. People tend to think Light and Dark is this dichotomy between good versus bad but that is not it at all. One thing I’ve been unpacking a lot with what Light and Dark mean is that it is all about self versus environment. The Sun, Fire, Light, are all dealing with self, and with the willpower of an individual, because the Sun is the ruler of light and the very principle of commanding the night to turn into day as it rises above the Horizon. Whereas the Moon is darkness, it is the principle of how we are receptive to our environment, the same way the Moon absorbs the light of the Sun, waxing and waning based on its relative position to the Sun. It is what our environment is. Environment based on locality is the Moon, and how different environments will bring out different things in us. Darkness is all about everything outside of the self. So when we start from a place of dominant light and move to a place of the lesser dominant light, this decrease in light helps to take our existence out of the equation and look at what circumstance we a brought into. When I think of Darkness, there is this theme of environment, which can be used to describe self versus other, other being the environment and everything outside of the self, which is the principle of what darkness is. If we look into the physics of light and darkness, an object is said to be dark when it absorbs photons, whereas light itself comes from a source (whether it be the Sun, candles, lamps, or LED Lights), and this is all about what light and dark about. Source and Reception, and how this duality is presented between the Sun and Moon, as being a source for light, and the Moon being the receiver of that light. The Lot of Fortune in many ways can be the way in which we are absorbed into our environment and into our circumstances and sometimes life has more control over us than we have over it, because we’re going from the dominant luminary to the less dominant luminary. We’re dealing with Lunar themes, we’re naturally creatures of habit, we rely on cycles, and life happens and moves fast. The growth and decay of life, the celestial heartbeat is what I call the Moon through the Lunar Phase cycles. We starting inhaling during the new Moon, and then exhale with the Full Moon, and we, as a world, are collectively breathing, and the Moon does have an effect on us. If there is anything that’s important about the Moon in Astrology, it’s that it has a direct effect on the Earth because helps stabilize our planet’s wobble and moderate our climate. Interesting implications for the Moon being exalted in Taurus, being a place of stability for the Moon. The Moon has a big influence on Earth, and it is something that helps life being able to continue to grow. With the Lot of Fortune, it is the very question of what is your external environment and how does it continue to develop, and what particularly enables that growth? The Lot of Fortune is such an important Lot because it is the very earth that you walk on. It is your neighborhood. It is the people in your life. It is your life itself. It is the experiences your memory has stored. It’s your bodega, deli, or store. What is your life outside of yourself, and how and WHY do your external circumstances look the way they do, and how do your external circumstances, in turn, affect you, by no volition of your own. The lack of personal volition and willpower is so important in the Lot of Fortune, which is why we go from the dominant sect light to the out-of sect light. None of what the Lot of Fortune is something that you’ve actively chosen, like you didn’t actively choose to be born. You just found yourself conscious one day.
The Ascendant as a Conception Point
When we look at the Ascendant in the Calculation of Lots, I think this is the most important part of Lot calculations in general, because not only does it reveal a lot about the Lots themselves, but about the function of the Ascendant in Astrology. The Ascendant is the horizon, but what is the horizon? The Horizon is the line on the surface of the Earth where the sky and earth appear to meet. Sky and Earth also go back to this idea of the Sun and the Moon, the Sun ruling the sky, and heavens, because it is representative of our spirit and the idea of consciousness and perception, whereas the Moon rules the Earth, not only because it is our satellite, but because it is our physical medium in which our bodies move through, it is the vessel for which our spirit will move inside. With the Horizon being the place where the Sky and Earth meet and them being ruled by the Sun and Moon as Spirit and Matter: the Ascendant represents how something is brought into existence. Of course, this can be labeled as birth, but that moreso just in relationship to Natal Astrology. The Ascendant is the medium in which how something materializes itself. The Ascendant is that concept of creation and conception itself. Isn’t it crazy that you start off in a 1st house year when you’re born? That whole concepts come from the fact that the Ascendant is in the 1st house (the only house it can be in) and when you are born, you enter a 1st house year and the main event is that you ARE conceived because the Ascendant was activated, and as a result, you were brought into existence. The Ascendant being a point of how something is brought into existence is all about what any Lot is about: how these specific things and scenarios get brought into existence. When we use the Lot of Fortune, this is how your external circumstance are brought into existence, and what does that actually look like? How is it conceived? How is it brought into existence? This is the Lot of Fortune, and it’s so important for understanding Astrology, because the Natal Chart is so much more than just describing your talent and abilities. It’s a tool to really understand your entire life, so much so that you can describe your external circumstances.
This is really incredible for Astrology, and it’s part of the reason why I see the Lots being such a vital part in the development of Astrology. But if we make Fortune THE Ascendant in a chart, going off of the philosophy of how something is brought into existence, and then looking at the planets in relationship to deriving the Ascendant to Fortune: we get to see the chart of the external circumstances of the individual born. On the Heavenly Spheres by Helena Avelar and Luis Ribiero shows that the derived houses from Fortune actually have significantly different meanings, which should totally be taken into consideration, but even using the natural house significations, you can really extract a lot from Look at Fortune. Planets conjoined to Fortune but also angular from Fortune are going to be important, because they’ll describe your circumstances in such a non-self-based perspective that’s absolutely profound.
The Lot of Spirit and General Relativity
But this is only the Lot of Fortune, but there are 6 other Hermetic Lots to use. Also frequently (a little less) mentioned as an important Lot, the Lot of Spirit. You see, Fortune and Spirit are very much intertwined. It is the duality of our existence, we all have spirits and we all have a body in which this Spirit moves through, which is Fortune. Fortune is not just limited to our external environment, and fate if you call it, but it is also our body. That’s the whole duality between the Sun and Moon: spirit and matter. What is spiritual and what is tangible. The tangible and intangible. This is why in the planetary joys scheme Saturn and Jupiter rejoice in the top hemisphere of the chart, of the Sun, where their houses are called “Good and Bad Spirit” whereas Venus and Mars rejoice in the bottom half of the chart, of the Moon, and were called “Good and Bad Fortune”. Speaking of Spirit, let’s talk about Spirit and what Spirit means as a lot. Now the Lot of Spirit is very much like the Lot of Fortune in terms of its calculation. It involves both luminaries, which is why both of these lots were seen as so significant, but for different reasons depending on the direction of calculation. Let’s take a look at the Diurnal and Nocturnal formulas for the Lot of Spirit:
ASC + (Distance from Out of Sect Light to Sect Light)
We saw in our previous calculation that the Lot of Fortune is the distance between the sect light to the out of sect light, and how this represented a decrease in light and moving towards darkness. However, when we examine the calculation of Spirit, this is moving from darkness into light. Which is a huge change. Remember what I talked about previously with dark versus light, its the concept of environment versus self. So when we talk about moving from darkness to light, we’re talking about the idea of how the environment changes because of the self, and this is where the interpretation of the Lot of Spirit comes into play. A lot of authors will also mention the following in addition to it being ingrained into the Lot calculation: the Lot of Spirit is how one, by their own volition, actions, and choices changes their environment. The Lot of Spirit is all about willpower and how one’s willpower can become so strong that it compels the person to act. It compels the person to change their environment. It compels them to make decisions, choices, and actions to change their environment instead of falling victim to circumstance and always having to adapt. It is the things that you do of your own volition. The same way the Sun changes the environment of the night into day by its sheer force and will is what Spirit is. There is a commanding presence to the Sun. We know that if the Sun did not exist, Earth would be wrapped in darkness. The natural state of the universe is darkness, and little things of light, stars, that float in them. But by the sheer energy and force of the stars, it is able to shine a light in this darkness, and from our perspective on Earth, this is the Sun banishing the darkness of night and bringing in the light of the day. The Lot of Spirit shows us how we change our external environment by our own actions. Sometimes we make choices and decisions that change the trajectory of where our life is going. I know we’ve all had that one moment where just ONE seemingly small decision we make turns out to kick off a whole domino effect of events: that is Spirit.
There’s something interesting mentioned with the Lot of Spirit that I’ve been thinking of exploring lately, and that’s the mind and consciousness. A lot of authors state this about the Sun as well, it is the mind of the person. What is the mind of a person though? To have a mind and to think, is to be conscious. Consciousness is the ability to have perception, no matter what definition you give to consciousness. Perception allows us to be able to understand ourselves relative to our environment; consciousness as a definition of relativity unlocks a few things like what the Sun’s function is, but also Einstein’s Theory of Relativity in relationship to significations of the Sun and the role it plays. If to have consciousness is to be able to understand ourselves relative to our environment, the way Astrologers could’ve realized this is through the Sun, and deriving its meanings, specifically during a Solar Eclipse. What’s very interesting about Solar Eclipses is that a lot of astronomers will actually study the Solar Eclipse to see the cornea, to understand Einstein’s theory of general relativity, being that gravity causes curving or warping of objects in space. The more massive an object, the more it warps the space around it. This is huge, because this was done through observing the Sun, representing the faculty of perception. Does this not sound like the Lot of Spirit, in the aforementioned paragraph? It is our ability to change our environment through our own choices and actions. As the Sun moves, it warps the sky around it; when we choose to act, we change the environment around us. The ancients, while not to any of our knowledge, we’re able to understand the theory of relativity, they did understand this concept, of our actions being influential of changing our environment, and they assigned this to the Sun. If the Sun is our mind, mind doesn’t necessarily mean our intelligence, but it is all about the faculty of perception. In very literal ways, the Sun activates our visual perception, because it shines a light that allows us to be able to see. The Sun is the organ of perception, because that is what consciousness is in. But the ability to perceive comes in many forms, not just with eyesight, it comes in the form of smelling, tasting, touching, and hearing. The act of having consciousness and perception is the Sun. I think a lot about how the Sun can be representative of the ways in which we perceive the world. Some people are better at using specific senses to understand certain things, because using that mode of perception enables them to better grasp and understand an idea. Understanding is the Sun, and the faculty of what it means to understand. The ancients conceptualized this as nous, which means the aforementioned: the faculty of consciousness and perception. I find it very interesting that nous is a Greek and French word.
In French, Nous means us, we.
In Greek, Nous is the faculty of consciousness.
The link between these words could be that consciousness is something that happens in togetherness, and that we understanding things because there is a consensus that it is real, and that others can see the same thing as we do and validate its existence, and as a result, we are validated. Sometimes when what people tell us what we aren’t seeing isn’t real, true, or existing, it can make us feel isolated, out of place, and not understood because we are living in a different reality and existence as everyone. The Sun and the Theory of Relativity demonstrates to us that our understanding of our existence is relative to where we are and the actions we chose, and this is why the Lot of Spirit was regarded with the importance it has. It has the ability to reveal this faculty of action, and the methods in which we change the world around us, because our existence has such gravity and such an effect. This is why going from Darkness to Light is important in the Lot calculation, because this is what the literal relationship between Night and Day is. The Sun being the light changes the static darkness into brightness and through the Sun’s rise and set, brings the light wherever it goes, the same way the theory of general relativity showcases that the gravity bends space. It shows the principle of how change is relative, and what relativity is as a construct. The Lot of Spirit is how we change our environment the impact we have on the world through the sheer force of making decisions and acting.
Conclusion
I hope y’all found this article as insightful as I’ve found the Lots. I have a ton of more ideas and thoughts surrounding both Fortune and Spirit, as I’ll go into the other Lots to talk about and what it means for understanding and conceptualizing the planets and other Lots themselves. These are some of my thoughts and observations from working with these two Lots for just about 2 years, and working into discovering more ways to use them, specifically for Zodiacal Releasing, to help develop this technique more and what it is capable of. If you’re interested in reading about the technique Zodiacal Releasing, check out my blog post for more information on it!
