Time for another the Ask the Astrologer question! Once or twice a month, I answer a question in a way that aligns with what you might hear in an actual astrological consultation. This is not your usual advice column, and not your usual astrology column, either. The frequency of it may increase if I receive enough letters, so if you have a question, please ask! See the end of this post for how to submit.

I am 31, and have been mooching off my parents. It’s really time for me to build a career. However, due to my mental problems, strong doses of psychiatric medication, and general apathy towards the society--the rat race--I can’t be active. I have even been told by an astrologer (a friend who studies Vedic astrology) that I should not have a public profession (that is, a profession where I would be working in a group or in front of a group: for example, teaching in a school or directing films), only a small private one (a job where I would work alone or one-on-one, like script writing or private tutoring). My psychiatrist suggests the same thing. 

However, it’s not easy in a developing country (where I live) to live comfortably with the earnings of a small private profession. I really wish to take care of my parents, too. 

I have some talent for acting, writing, etc. My mom urges me to take courses to be a film director, or open a publishing company. None of that seems very realistic, and it would be very, very expensive. 

So, the question is, what I am meant to do? What’s my soul's mission?  - Jupiter12th

I wrote back and asked, “What kind of job qualifications do you have? What level of education, what kind of work experience if you've worked before?”

Jupiter12th’s response: My qualifications are not very prominent. I’ve only completed my graduation (equivalent, approximately, to a bachelors degree) whereas most people in my country do post graduate work. It’s in public administration, which is very good for government jobs, and I graduated from the most reputable university in the country. However, upon my psychiatrist’s advice, I have not taken the exams required for government jobs, and now I am over the age limit for that. I can’t qualify to be a government official anymore.

What I would qualify for is a corporate job, or starting a private business, or taking a course in something like screenwriting, pharmacy, etc. I could also do a post graduate degree in a completely different subject and prepare myself for something new. Teaching in schools is another option.

I see two different questions here, and their answers are not exactly the same. 

Your soul’s mission and your career are different things. Your career is one thing you do in your life. It takes enough of your time and energy that it should be something that makes sense for you to spend that time and energy on, but it’s not the same thing as your soul’s mission. 

Ever heard the saying “We are spiritual beings having a human experience”? Your soul’s mission is the whole of that human experience. Your birth chart suggests what kind of human experience you’re here to have. It also makes some suggestions, very roughly, of what to do for work and money, but don’t mistake the making a living part for the entirety of your human experience.

For career, the main places to look are the sixth and tenth houses of your chart. The sixth house shows, roughly, the kind of work you need. Not what field--the same sixth house could fit many fields--but what you need your working environment to be like, and what, in general, you would need to be doing on a daily basis. 

Tenth house is considered the house of career, but that’s the public side of it. More generally, the tenth house describes how you’re known, to people who know of you but don’t necessarily know you personally. Career fits in the tenth because it’s a way we’re known: people would say, he’s the director of that film, or he’s a teacher in that school. Regarding your working life, the tenth house is the public identity part of it, and the sixth is the duties and details of the job.

Since your sixth house is empty, all we have to look to is its sign and ruler. Libra sixth house suggests a need for balance, peace, harmony, making things beautiful. Libra is an alchemical sign: two people coming together to create something new, or new things created out of multiple materials, or the interrelationship that creates something new. Teacher and student, or therapist and client, or doctor and patient, would be a Libran relationship. Art, of every kind, is also Libran.

So, if you become a teacher or an actor or a film director or a script writer or a pharmacist, any of those things could fit the Libra message. And your job doesn’t necessarily have to fit Libra in that way. Libra could simply describe how you go about your work. If you get an office job, maybe you’ll be the one who keeps a plant or a pretty picture on your desk, who keeps your space looking harmonious. Maybe you’ll be the office peacemaker, the one who helps colleagues smooth over their relationships when they’re having trouble getting along.

Sixth house ruler Venus in the eleventh suggests group work, or collaborating to contribute to the greater whole.That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to work in a group day to day. Libra can work either with others or alone. Pisces, your Venus’s sign, sometimes prefers to be solitary and behind the scenes, although Pisces can also enjoy interpersonal interactions and the feeling of being part of something. As far as I can tell, your chart suits you equally well for working in a group or working alone or one-on-one. Which you should do really depends on which you prefer, and perhaps on which kind of job you can more easily get hired for.

Since Venus is also the ruler of your Taurus ascendant, making it your chart ruler, and your Moon shares the Pisces and eleventh house placement, this Pisces/eleventh house message is a very strong part of your life overall. It’s not just about your work, it’s not just about your daily routine, it’s also a big life theme for you, touching on this soul’s mission you’ve mentioned. 

Something about your soul’s mission is very Piscean: spiritual, yearning to be part of the greater whole, perhaps a desire to help others fit into the greater whole. And eleventh house: working toward a cause, or building community, or something long term. The combination of Pisces and eleventh house suggests dedication to an ideal that may not be fulfilled in your lifetime, may not even seem realistic, but you have your part to play in it. Even if your efforts seem to fail, the fact that you’re holding your ideals at all is fulfilling your mission.

You might not carry out this mission in the same way that you make your living. For the sake of earning money, it’s okay to have a job that doesn’t provide you with a way to fulfill this Piscean mission in and of itself--as long as you leave plenty of room in your life for whatever you do, outside of work, that does fulfill the mission. It would still be necessary for there to be something Libran about your job, but that’s true of every line of work you’re considering. As long as you don’t mistake your job for your life’s purpose, you can have one that’s just a bread-and-butter job.

In fairness to your astrologer friend, I’m a Western astrologer, which means my astrological language is as different from Vedic as English is from German. I don’t know how a Vedic astrologer would see your chart, let alone why they would say you should not have a public professional role. Coming at it from a Western perspective, there are some factors involving your tenth house that might give an astrologer pause, if they’re the kind of astrologer who thinks you should do everything possible to avoid serious risks. My philosophy is that each individual should decide for themselves whether or not the risks are worth taking.

Ruler of your Capricorn MC (tenth house cusp), Saturn, is in the eighth house. That’s considered bad by some astrologers: the eighth house is associated with some horrific things, like death, violence, and (some think of this as horrific) taboos.*  An astrologer reading it for those meanings might conclude that being highly visible, especially in your career, would do you harm.

There is also plenty in your chart to suggest you would not like being in the spotlight, and would not be inclined to seek it out. Taurus rising doesn’t like being disturbed. Pisces doesn’t care for attention in particular, but would rather direct attention to whoever or whatever he himself is focused on. And Aquarius, your sun sign--which is the sign with the most say over how you become who you become, over the course of your life--is the truthsayer, the one who needs his ideas heard, but doesn’t need attention on himself for himself.

However, your Aquarius Sun is in the tenth house, quite close to the MC. That indicates the spotlight falling on you, repeatedly, throughout your life, whether you want it or not. You are someone who needs to speak his truth and have it heard. If you choose not to speak your truth, most likely others will see it in you anyway. You might feel exposed, again and again, for that reason. Your Mercury (speech, communication) sharing the Aquarius/tenth house placement reinforces that.

Because this is a tenth house placement, it can be read as a suggestion for a career in which you speak your truth, either literally or metaphorically. Perhaps as an artist, writer, or, as you’ve considered, a filmmaker. Teaching could also fit that parameter, and so could publishing, although Aquarian truthsaying sometimes makes the establishment uncomfortable. If you’re teaching in a school, quite possibly you’ll run into trouble with the administration. Maybe you have unorthodox ideas. Maybe there’s something about who you are or how you naturally present yourself that wouldn’t quite sit right with the status quo. 

If you are someone who is somehow not fitting the status quo--either because of who you are or because of what you have to say--then you could potentially get into trouble in any job, should you get yourself noticed. Being noticed is more likely the more public a role you have. I suppose that could be the danger your astrologer friend saw.

But if that is indeed the danger, avoiding public roles will not always keep you out of trouble. That might work as a short term strategy, but with your Sun at the MC and Mercury in the tenth, there’s no way to keep who you are and what you have to say from being noticed at all. Sooner or later, the spotlight will fall on you. Knowing that, do what you can to prepare for being noticed. Can you proactively speak your truth? If there’s any good reason to believe you would get in trouble for it, could you perhaps gain allies, ahead of when you really need them?

Since you asked about your soul’s mission, my answer would not be complete without mentioning your nodes. It’s beyond the scope of this post to go into great detail about them, but in a birth chart, the north node suggests where you’re going in your life--if there’s one placement that serves as a clear indicator of the soul’s mission, that’s it--and the south node, its opposite point (not always shown in charts, but it’s always directly opposite the north node), indicates where you’re coming from. 

Your north node being in Pisces and the eleventh, with your Moon and Venus, reinforces the Pisces/eleventh house quality of your soul’s mission. When the north node is in Pisces, the south node is in Virgo, and the Virgo/Pisces axis is (as I think of it) the apprentice/master line. Virgo is the apprentice, and Pisces is the master. This is a lifetime for you to achieve mastery.

It might not feel like you’re achieving mastery of anything. All your Pisces placements suggest dedication to a cause that might seem futile or unrealistic, and that you might not live to see realized. But it is the very act of doing that work and keeping the ideal that is the mastery. Coming from a Virgo base, your south node, you know how to persevere. You know how to keep working at something. The gift of Virgo is the ability to be in the process, always perfecting but never perfected.

The nodes don’t necessarily relate to your work in the sense of a career or making money. I’m talking about life’s work, soul’s mission, here. I hope I’ve made the difference clear.

*The eighth house is also associated with some perfectly benign things, like psychology and astrology and shared resources. Readers, don’t freak out if you’ve got something in your eighth house! Speaking as an eighth house native (Sun, Mercury, and Venus, and Venus rules my MC, too), I can tell you it’s quite livable.

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