Local Space

[Michael Erlewine]

Local Space

There are several types of locality astrology that are in popular use, and let’s mention them:

Relocated Angles to Big Rapids Michigan

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Relocated Angles
This is the oldest and most traditional technique, that of
relocating the chart angles and then looking to see how this changes the chart. This kind of relocation is as simple as casting the birth chart for the same moment in time, but in another town or location. We then look to see if any planets changed houses, and so on.

Astro*Carto*Graphy Example

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Astro*Carto*Graphy
Then, there is Astro*Carto*Graphy, made popular by Jim Lewis. Lewis did not originate this technique. Gary Duncan and others had done this same mapping years earlier and published the maps to prove it. What Lewis did was to popularize this technique and show the rest of us how to use and love it. Astro*Carto*Graphy (among other things) shows great circles on a map (which appear as lines) for where a given planet would be on the Ascendant (and thus significant) if you were born at any spot along the line. Lewis made this style of mapping available to the world in a meaningful way.

Local Space Concept

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Local Space
And last is Local Space, a technique I popularized. I was not the first astrologer to look at planets in Azimuth (longitude-equivalent on the local horizon), but I was the first to make it popular, to explain what it means and how to use it. Local Space is easy to understand. Just imagine your mom at your birth (with you in her arms) walking outside and looking at the sky. She might see the Sun in one direction along the horizon from where she stood, the Moon in another, and Venus as a morning star somewhere else. This is Local Space, the fact that each of these planets makes a line from where you stand that stretches around the Earth and passes through any number of cities. Thus Jupiter (for example) many be in the direction of Ann Arbor, Michigan as in my case and Ann Arbor was where I found my vocation as an astrologer. Jupiter = life path or vocation. You get the idea. Local Space is easy to grasp.

I am not expert in the other techniques, but am glad to discuss anything to do with Local Space and look forward to it. For those interested in this technique in more detail, I have a book 'Local Space: Relocation Astrology" available in paperback on Amazon.com.

[Frank_Piechoski]

One of the things I like about Local Space is the wonderfully practical ways it can be used.

Moving into a new house or apartment? Use your relocated Local Space map to help plan where things should go.

Doing a lost object horary? Use a Local Space map for supplemental information on where an object might be found.

Taking a trip? Look at your Local Space lines to help figure out what route you might take to various destinations and what you might be going to those places for.

House, apartment or business address hunting? Use a relocated Local Space map overlay on the map of the city or town you’re looking in for locations that could possibly be good for you.

I find Local Space to be a great, practical system for figuring out all sorts of things when it comes to interacting with one’s physical environment.

[Michael Erlewine]

I typically use three coordinate systems when I look at a chart:

(1) Geocentric – This gives me info on the circumstances and the personality of the individual – what appears on the outside.

(2) Heliocentric – This gives me information on the dharma or life path of the individual, what is on the inside behind the outside - the macroscope.

(3) Local Space – This give me information on the nitty-girtty, how things move around on the ground so to speak, where the rubber meets the road - the microscope.

- Michael Erlewine

[Gary_Caton]

I have also found local space to be useful in the ways Frank describes...as a sort of astrological Feng Shui. Since I am a fisherman, I just took to this approach naturally I guess. The first thing a fisherman does is decide where to throw out his line. Then based upon the feedback, he throws in different places. The best thing about this is that once you catch a fish under certain conditions you can sometimes repeat the feat...or ritual, as it were.

I have also found that the natal local space lines apply in long-distance travel. Before I knew astrology I set out to hitch-hike across the country. Wouldn't you know I traveled right along my natal local space Jupiter line! I now live on my natal local space Sun line and I have found it to be quite nice in terms of receiving professional recognition.

[Michael Erlewine]

Gary. Have you ever read the original papers on Local Space? If not, they would probably be worthwhile. They were written in the middle 1970s or earlier, if I remember right.

Like all astrological techniques, Local Space works if it works for you. No accounting for taste in techniques.

For my own use of Local Space, I use it to look at the natal Local Space chart in the following ways. I will walk you through them. If any of these are active, then I consider the significance. Here is my Local Space chart:

Natal Local Space Chart

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(1) Are any of the bodies in the four cardinal directions of East, South, North, or West? Here you can see that my Sun is due West and that my Neptune/Lunar Node conjunction is due South.

Natal Local Space Altitudes

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(2) Are the altitudes of any of the bodies close to the horizon, that is less than ten degrees or so… Less is more. Here we can see that Jupiter is less than 3 degrees from the horizon in altitude. This is significant. Even the Uranus at 7 degrees is noteworthy. Jupiter/Uranus = Career/Technology.

LS Aspect Patters

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(3) You can also consider aspects and aspect patterns in Local Space, but I seldom use them. I am into the low-hanging fruit, and the patterns take too much energy for my taste. If I can get nuggets of gold, I won’t pan for the flakes. Lazy.

(4) Are any of the planets or the cardinal directions in the direction of cities of importance? If you extend the zero and 180-degrees of azimuth lines, what cities do they run through? I don’t have an image here, but you get the idea.

Local Space on the Map

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(5) Look for azimuth lines on the map running through cities. My Jupiter (blue line) runs right through Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is where I became an astrologer. Jupiter is the career or life path. The red line represents my triple conjunction of the Moon, Saturn, and Neptune. It runs just above Big Rapids, Michigan where I live.

Altitudes for Big Rapids, Michigan

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(6) Now if I relocate the Local Space chart, meaning if I cast a chart for a relocation city using the same birth data but the coordinates of the new place, how does this change the picture? For example:

I moved from Ann Arbor (after establishing a career as an astrologer) to Big Rapids, Michigan. In the above list you can see what it did to my triple conjunction of the Moon, Saturn, and Uranus, all at 152 degrees of azimuth – all conjunct to within 22 minutes of arc. It took that gnarly threesome and positioned Uranus right on the Horizon. It separated Uranus from the other two and positioned it as Key. That is where Matrix Software blossomed.

(7) We can also (by relocation) bring a planet on top of a natal planet. For example, a relocation might bring your Mercury to your natal Mars. What is this? This is a progression in space rather than time. If you can’t wait for a progression in time, you can achieve that by relocation at any time.

LS on a Michigan Map

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(8) And yes, you can lay a Local Space map on a geographic map and get ideas of what directions might be useful to you. You can do the twelve houses, if you like. As for cleaning my garage with Local Space, I don’t do that fine an adjustment.

I hope these examples are useful to you. It makes some sense for me to point this out as I founded the technique. If you have other questions, I will try to answer them.

- Michael Erlewine.

[Gary_Caton]

Thanks Michael! That is a wealth of information and I will probably need some time to digest it.

One thing does spring to mind when looking at relocated charts and comparing the relocated local space to the next place i landed.

My favorite place on my natal local space Jupiter line used to be Colorado. I was always drawn there and when i would go back home i could never get the itch to go back to go away. And anywhere else I would go just didnt seem quite as special to me. When I moved to Va Beach I liked it all right but my wife didnt like it. When we moved from there I took her out West, but it didnt take -she didnt have the bug.

On the way back, we happened to follow my relocated Jupiter line to North Carolina and since moving here my urge to go to Colorado has abated. It seems like there needs to be a connection via the relocated local space lines to the next stop on your journey for the move to take hold. Like I probably could not move to Michigan from here. I'd need to go somewhere else first that connected the dots so to speak.

[Michael Erlewine]

Gary, this is so true. We can’t always head straight for our destination. Perhaps it would be straight into our Pluto and that might be too much vulnerability for us at the time. But, as you point out, we can move to a third place and from that place perhaps move in a direction that we otherwise might not do well in. Here is a little image that I like a lot that communicates what we are talking about. Perhaps the most important concept is that Local Space represents a progression in space rather than time. You don't have to wait to progress, just make a move or a visit and check it out.

A Checkerboard World

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Also, my original description of the Local Space realm is still probably the best, written back in the early 1970s. I do have a paperback book on Amazon.com called “The Astrology of Local Space.” Here is the quote from that book:

“With the local space chart, this was made ever so clear, a chart where every object in the universe, celestial and mundane, has an equal and valid position. Not only the planets and the stars, but on an equal basis cities, countries, and even the local water tower or friends' houses can be represented. All that concerns us is the direction in space, the orientation, not the distance. In local space the heavens and earth, the celestial and mundane (or geographic) spheres, exist side by side and are interchangeable. A star is a city is a neighbor. We can walk towards, write letters to, or get up and travel into, for instance, our seventh house: and what is perhaps more important, we do all the time!

More startling yet, we can travel into our natal planets since they also represent a direction on the globe in the chart of local space. Here, in a hopeless intermingling of the various planes of reference and of objects, a strange, and I must confess, somewhat magical view of our world begins to unfold and emerge: one in which every city and friend becomes a radiating center of influence.

In this sphere, the long tradition of witchcraft and magic begins to become understandable; here local deities and preferred directions become the rule and the world seems a tangle of significance. The psychedelic character in local space charts is unmistakable and appears to be intrinsic to the system. The world appears as kind of a grand talisman or vast ritual ground, and the closest popular image of a similar nature in modern consciousness is the remarkable world of Don Juan as generated by the author Carlos Castaneda.

Here is no "subtle plane", but a personal landscape painted in bold and clear strokes and tailor made to fit the psyche of each individual. Here is a world where the modern man is learning to move across the face of this earth in an endless dance of adjustment and tuning of his radix -- of his self. Individuals driven in particular directions on a checkerboard world, unable to resist travelling toward a goal that is no particular place on earth so much as it is a direction imprinted within them, the direction of a force or planet, "There! where Power hovers", to use Don Juan's expression. In a word, here is perhaps the must vulgar astrological system, where the obvious is enthroned and the subtle unnecessary.

[Moses_Siregar]

Just dropping in to say hi to all! I'm speaking on locational astrology next weekend in Tucson, so hopefully Martin didn't spoil them too badly the last time he was there

[Gary_Caton]

Wow, that is quite beautiful! -both lyrically and visually. Now all we need to do is to figure out the same deal on the level of time and I can go hitch-hiking with you and Dylan!

[Martin_Davis]

Wow, what a Local Space feast this is!
Regarding Michael's point #3 (LS aspects and/or aspect patterns], I agree that investigating this can be overkill, but, then again, I have found it helpful for clients who make big, long-distance moves. The thing about relocated LS charts is that aspects - and therefore life qualities - change per location, something you don't see in other techniques. I lectured on this phenomena for a year or two but was met with some obstacles, the biggest being that at the time only software programmed by Michael or his associates had LS wheels that allowed one to see these aspects.

Here's an example from my chart: Natally I have VE trine SA [St Louis, MO]. In LS for my birth location the two planets are in square. With those planets in trine natally, I would have expected a more harmonious relationship at home with my parents than I actually had. Later in life, moving to New York and Philadelphia [Frank P's home town], the LS square remained (for VE and SA) such that the background feeling [Michael calls it the nitty-gritty] of life remained similar. Upon moving further away, to the UK and then Continental Europe, things changed. In LS, my SA and VE returned to an approximate trine (127 degrees) , better matching the promise of my natal chart for more harmony in my life and to places where I become a teacher, as well as began my metaphysical studies [starting with a Gurdjieff group in the UK].

In short, the promise indicated by a natal aspect didn't come to fruition until I had moved to a location where that aspect was regained in the corresponding LS chart. I have found the reverse to be true also: some squares don't have quite the challenge expected if the corresponding LS chart has the angular separation moving to trine or sextile. So much work is needed in this area that I hope some young astrologers - like Moses- can or will pick up on it one day.

I've written about this in detail in the later part of chapter 2 in my book, Astrolocality Astrology. Readers report it stopped them cold, as it wasn't comprehensible, so in a future edition I intend to take it out and place this material in an appendix.