“The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think and what you do is who you become.” 

-Heraclitus

When I hold and churn the idea of natal promise, I do not question that it exists but what my relationship to it is. 

When I speak of natal promise, I’m referring to the idea that we each have an inherent path or plotline we have intended to live out in our current life. I first learned of natal promise from astrologers Acyuta-bhava Dasa and Cat Rose Neligan and they have discussed this at times alongside James Hillman’s work and the acorn theory. 

Some may also refer to this as the daimon, our spirit/soul guide. Acyuta-bhava Dasa has explained it as, and I’m paraphrasing,

“Being held to what we have chosen yet we must decide to receive the lessons...in the same way as someone can guide us through a diet, but we must receive the lessons.”

Cat Rose Neligan refers to the daimon as, “A being which we can depend on to hold us to the life we chose...It remembers what we forget.”

And just to keep it all grounded in truth, she reminds us that, “The daimon’s job isn’t to necessarily make our lives easy.” 

Remember that once we know something doesn’t always mean we’re going to proceed in any one particular direction. Free will at it’s finest. 

Belief that I am alive to fulfill an individual purpose that I chose has been something I’ve held for many years. I’m not clear on how the idea of natal promise and choosing our path intertwine, or if they do for others, but for me I find the overlap to be ever-present. 

My spiritual beliefs, not affiliated or associated with any specific dogma or institution, hold that before I incarnated as this being, I chose, or signed up for a variety of lessons and relationships. My astrology education, experience and views on natal promise, which can be viewed as embedded in our personal birthcharts, hold that this custom path we intend to live out can be excavated. 

So being that I hold these as truth, the next question is that of how to proceed. 

Should we follow the current of natal promise? Why or why not?

This is something I often think about and can rarely answer. I will speak from personal experience to elaborate. 

Looking skillfully at a birthchart, we can interpret skills and weaknesses. An astrologer can translate potential tendencies alongside inherent conflicts and tensions. 

A combination of astrological translations paired with maturity, attempts at self-awareness and regular old life experience has started to reveal to me the path I’ve intended on. A huge sigh of relief may be expected, but tread lightly as this is where things get spicy.

So if one has finally, after decades of searching, begun to gather and collect insights and clues, the issue of actually proceeding remains. 

I found a crossroads and I started to realize I can do whatever I want.

Ha, how liberating!

I may proceed on a path that is completely out of alignment with these clues I’ve worked so hard to uncover. I may certainly walk the other way and pretend to unsee that which has been gazed upon. 

The issue there is that I’ve lived on strayed paths and they made me emotionally, physically and mentally unwell. I did not know the paths were out of alignment until after the fact but eventually I understood why the fit was so terrible. 

I find comfort in believing that doors close on us when we are going in the wrong direction. 

So once again at the intersection, I may choose to proceed in the direction of the path which I intended. The path which clues are suggesting is for me in a very individual way. We each have a custom path, tailored and unique in unimaginable ways. 

Choosing this path may fill us with fear and doubt, all the what-ifs of failure and all that stuff that we each face in our own singular ways. 

But wait! With the insights and clues in my pocket, I start to care a little bit less about the fear and doubt. The what-ifs fall away, one or two a day, because with this newfound insight comes hope and excitement. Yes, some relief at times. 

I wonder, perhaps if I choose this intended path, simply knowing, or believing, that I’m working towards something that the deepest piece of myself set out to do is the only asset I may need to proceed with joy and curiosity. 

No matter how magnificent or mundane this particular path may be is truly irrelevant because being on it is the only way to be. 

“It is in changing that we find purpose.”

-Heraclitus