Do you know your soul goals?

The story is magical, as after selecting their lots, the new souls have their lives confirmed by the three fates, who select a time when the cosmos and planets are aligned just so for birth to ensure one’s horoscope supports the themes of the life selected. Once this is set, the newly chosen souls cross through the Plain of Forgetfulness and camp by and drink from the River of Unmindfulness, explaining why once here you have little or no memory of this ‘choosing your life’ experience.

As the Arabic parts reflect the soul, the language around interpreting them is sparse. How does one describe the etheric soul in human language? Their placement in the birth horoscope reflects primary themes and dominant archetypes in the story of your soul journey. By sign, house and ruling planet, the Arabic parts reveal the inside story of what’s really going on for you this lifetime. They indicate areas of life that carry more charge and potency from a soul perspective for you.

The Arabic parts are particularly effective in dynamic or predictive astrology. By observing where and when in your life the Arabic parts, and therefore the soul, bump into day-to-day living (aka the planets), important times of change — where your soul asserts itself over your self or lower mind — can be identified. Technically, this can occur when the Part of Fortune triggers birth planets or chart points by progression or when the parts, inserted around solar return or synastry charts, trigger birth themes.

Interpreting the Arabic Parts

Each primary Arabic part has a theme or quality. Work out what it is you want to know more about and then focus on the appropriate part. Most important when interpreting each part is the planet that rules it. That is to say, whatever Zodiac sign the part falls in, it is the ruling planet of that sign that signifies whatever that part represents in your chart and in your life — as if the ruling planet of the part is the guide or representative of the part in your day to day life.

As the Arabic parts come through from older branches of astrology, it is the traditional planetary rulers that matter here. They are:

Leo Sun

Cancer Moon

Gemini, Virgo Mercury

Taurus, Libra Venus

Aries, Scorpio Mars

Sagittarius, Pisces Jupiter

Capricorn, Aquarius Saturn

Calculating parts

Though the parts reflect the seven visible planets, each part’s formula is based on an arc — the distance between two specific points, which is then carried over to a third point and projected from there. It is the arc itself that has meaning.

These seven main parts are referred to as the Seven Pillars of Wisdom. They are noted by both al-Biruni and Paul of Alexandria, with only slight variations between the two (al-Biruni doesn’t include the placements of Mercury and Venus — the inferior planets — in his formulas, whereas Paul of Alexandria does).

The formulas listed below are from al-Biruni’s The Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology, written in 1029AD. He states, “In each case there are three things to be attended to, Place 1, the beginning, Place 2, the end and Place 3, the casting-off point.” Al-Biruni was an 11th-century Persian scientist, mathematician and anthropologist.

The parts represent the essence or ideas of things, so as you contemplate what each part means for you (by natal sign and house placement, or any planetary conjunction), consider its expression in your life as a highest principle, ideal or aspirational concept.