Welcome to Llewellyn's astro e-newsletter. I've just returned from a microcosmic experience—the Northwest Astrological Conference (NORWAC)—an annual astrological conference that's held in Seattle. The conference truly was a miniature version of something bigger--astrology is huge. One truth about astrology is that there is no "right" way to do it. There are many. Within these various methods, astrologers talk about what is important to them—we verbalize our "ideals." And, we should have high ideals. Right? Of course, but perhaps what we need is perspective on our ideals—a reality check, in other words. What all this comes down to is "thinking," which is the foundation of an ideal, and "doing," which is interpretation.

Ideal is a very slippery word. If I say, "The weather is ideal: it's sunny, warm, and breezy," I'm telling you what my ideal day is like. And your ideal day is probably different. An ideal can also be what is "unattainable, impractical, and hypothetical." You may be thinking: So what? It's important because how we think about ourselves is closely connected to what we do in the world. Now, think about this: When you lock the front door and go about your daily activities, whose ideals are you living by?

It's been said that we live in a universe of infinite possibilities. I agree that the universe is infinite, but not all possibilities are available to every person. I can dream until I'm ninety about being the first woman president and it'll never happen. We tell our children to believe in themselves and they can be anything they want to be: If you can dream it, you can be it. But dreaming something (and wishing, and hoping it'll be true) doesn't make it so.

Barbie dolls were supposed to represent the ideal woman. If that was ever true (and I doubt it), I've never seen a real live ideal woman. But someone thought Barbie should be our ideal. That ideal gave many women a fantasy to struggle toward, it gave some men an impossible ideal for women to live up to, and it caused others to be depressed or to disown themselves because only surgical intervention offered them any hope of achieving the unattainable.

Likewise, when we realize that the person who we thought would be the ideal spouse is really an opinionated bore, or that the "dream job" didn't really come with a career ladder (even though someone said that it could or would or should), we're left feeling disappointed, depressed, or disillusioned about our choices. What went wrong? How do we sort through all the possibilities to find what we really need or what's best for us? I suggest that it's as simple as looking at your horoscope. Specifically, look to your Ascendant (the first door) to see your best potential for a good life. Having a fulfilling life may be easier than you think, and easier said than done. How's that for a challenge?

It's easier than you think because you already know yourself, although you may have put your real self in a dark corner for misbehaving (at least in the opinion of someone else, you were misbehaving). I suggest that seeing our real selves may be easier said than done because we tend to look to other people and things in the environment for the answers to who we are and what we need, when what we must do is look to ourselves and at our charts to really get to know—to be comfortable with—our own unique personality. The word "personality" means a combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual's unique character. The Ascendant sign, its ruler, and aspects indicate how we "take in" our environment and other people, and how we "send out" information about ourselves.

The "value" given to the Ascendant varies depending on which astrologer you talk to. Some astrologers say the Ascendant is really, really important, while others discount it as just another point in the chart, like the Nodes, Midpoints, or Part of Fortune. It seems logical, however, that if we put so much emphasis on the exact time of birth, which determines the exact Ascendant, we've already admitted that the Ascendant is extremely important.

I think we overlook the Ascendant to the extent that we discount our essential self. When we disown our own personality, including our talents and our warts, in favor of someone else's ideal, we put ourselves in a dark corner. When we don't appreciate who we truly are, we tend to look around outside of ourselves for what we are not.

The Ascendant is our doorway to the world and to the self, and both the world and the self (symbolized by the horoscope) are circular. What that implies is that we traverse the twelve houses and encounter all our planets in whatever sign and house they are in, but we do it in a contained environment—the circle of self. The Ascendant is the personality filter through which everything inside and everything outside of us must pass. We can only be ourselves in thought and action—not just some ideal version of self—when we stop trying to be whom or what we are not.