What is birthright? We can view it as our spiritual cosmic inheritance as well as the physical Garden of Eden into which we are all born. The two are interdependent and interconnected. As spiritual beings who have manifested into the material world, we are the proud bearers of both a physical endowment as well as a cosmic inheritance.
Our physical endowment largely speaks to our genetics, our families of origin as well as our country of birth and citizenship. Our spiritual inheritance, however, is much greater and larger than our physical inheritance. Both of these together, represent the birthright with which we come into this world.
The concept of a birthright, in and of itself, is ancient. It is the vague idea of ‘things’ being due to a person upon or by the fact of their birth or due to the order of their birth. This may include citizenship rights as well as inheritance rights to property and other assets. This, however, is a very narrow definition of birthright and one that has never been universally agreed upon. This ancient concept of birthright is more akin to a very loosely defined social contract which has varied greatly depending on culture and context.
We are all born with certain rights vis-a-vis our family, the citizenships we hold as well as the planetary energies (gasp!) which were present when we were ushered into the world. This, however, is only the beginning of our journey. Through our sojourn on planet earth, the Wheel of Fortune turns–bringing us the ups and the downs which will set our lives, our relationships and our financial well-being into motion.
The Macroeconomic Factor
In economics, the factor endowment represents the resources a country has at its disposal which can be utilised for manufacturing purposes. This includes resources such as: labour, land, money and even the entrepreneurship abilities of its population. The theory proposes that countries with either large or diverse factor endowments are naturally more wealthy and thus able to produce more goods and services than countries with small factor endowments.
Factor endowments also affect the opportunity cost of specialising in producing certain goods and services relative to others. The opportunity cost of specialising in a particular industry means that those resources cannot be utilised in other industries. These decisions are usually made at a macro level by policymakers.
Take a deep breath and think about the country you were born into or the country where you currently reside. What are some of the resources you can draw upon or tap into to create wealth? Do you feel resource-rich or resource-poor? Does your environment naturally support your growth or do you feel blocked or obstructed in someway?
Doing this external inventory will allow you to understand the current resources that you have at your disposal to create the wealth you desire.
The Microeconomic Factor
On an individual level, one’s own personal endowment refers to the raw materials and talents which we are born with. Some of the talents we are born with are a natural result of what I like to call the genetic lucky draw. It is these talents and these resources that we can all draw upon to create more wealth for ourselves as well as our community.
Some of these talents may be known to you while others may still be dormant. Some of these talents may be unique to you while other talents may be shared by others in your family.
Now let’s apply this factor endowment theory to ourselves on our wealth creation journey. When thinking about wealth, we tend to focus on the tangible resources we have. I propose that we can and should holistically account for all the resources we have at our disposal through slightly more unconventional methods. If we were to rely on our tangible resources alone, we would not be tapping into the innate creativity that resides in every individual to tap into their inborn talents to create wealth.
In recent decades, with the proliferation of intellectual property such as: books, patents, music and so on, we need to think seriously about how we place a price on the intangible aspects of wealth. Economic theories–while they have their place–have always been limited in accounting for the intangible aspects of our resources.
On that note, let’s take a dive into the mystical and archetypal world of astrology and tarot to better understand how we can use these time-tested traditions to more holistically understand the relationship between our individual birthright and our collective cosmic inheritance.
The Cosmic Inheritance
What does the number 4 mean to you? Numbers have a strong spiritual significance which go beyond arithmetics. If you look carefully at the Wheel of Fortune tarot card, you will see the four corners flanked by four mythical animals who are each holding a book. The winged woman represents the constellation of Aquarius, the phoenix represents Scorpio, the lion represents Leo, and the bull represents Taurus.
Where these signs are placed in the natal chart points to our physical birthright. They are the gifts and the challenges that we come into this world with. This largely pertains to our birth parents as well as our country of birth. We may either be born resource-rich or resource-poor vis-a-vis these two unchangeable aspects of our lives. Even children who are adopted are subject to the forces of their genetic inheritance.
But as we all know, birth is only the beginning of our life’s journey. Much can happen and transpire in our brief sojourn between life and death. While we can’t change our parents and our country of origin, we can create our own families and immigrate to another city or to a foreign land.
In the context of your natal chart, check and see if you have any planets in the fixed signs of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio or Aquarius. That will allow you to understand the aspect of your birthright that was fixed at birth. You should also ascertain if the houses ruled by those signs have any planets which are showering you with their blessings or their challenges. The more planetary energy you have in these signs, the more difficult it will be for you to change–for both better and for worse.
A physical birthright isn’t all roses, you know. They do come with thorns–or in the case of Taurus, with horns.
Watch out!
The Fixed Signs
Fixed signs, as the name suggests, are persistent, stable and enduring during periods of upheaval and change. They are relentless and unstoppable. It can be a blessing as fixed signs do not and will not change trajectory, no matter what happens or what calamity hits.
Once they have made up their minds on someone or something, they will not give up or give in regardless of what happens. This inherent unwillingness to change can be a boon or a bane. They may well miss out on valuable opportunities in the pursuit of less valuable ones. They may instead get stuck in a rut that they really should be working on getting themselves out of.
Looking at it from the symbolism of the Wheel of Fortune, this is speaking to the unchangeable, untenable and sometimes even limiting factors that one encounters throughout the course of their lives.
There are many moments in one’s life where one enjoys and relishes the stability and constancy that these energies can provide. At other times, however, it can feel like you’re up against a brick wall and no matter what you do, nothing seems to change at all. It may well appear that things have temporarily changed, when in actuality, nothing has changed whatsoever.
We’ve all encountered a book or a TV series where we disliked the repetitive way that story arcs kept repeating themselves. At some point, many of us decided to just stop watching. Whether you’re a spectator or an actor, there comes a point when you just grow bored of the same annoying storyline. When I was young, there was this soap opera called Days of Our Lives. Even when I hadn’t seen it in years, it was like nothing had changed. Even when the actors had even been replaced or recast, it was still the same old story on repeat.
It’s kind of like that with the fixed signs and with the way they aspect themselves to the Wheel of Fortune. Our endowment, as far as these aspects go, is very much fixed. By fixed here, I mean that the patterning is already set and cannot be altered. It is not that change is impossible or that it does not happen. Rather, it is where we tend to resist it the most or where we find that for some reason or another, we just can’t change.
If you’ve ever outstayed your welcome in a job, in a relationship, in a friendship or even in a modality of thinking–these are the fixed aspects of the Wheel of Fortune at work. These are the areas where we don’t welcome even a small change in our routine and where we are the first to resist or discredit any new idea that is presented to us. We can even come across as intolerant, unyielding and somewhat cruel to the people who encounter this behaviour from us.
There is a lot of talk on so-called ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ energies as it pertains to spirituality. But at its very basic level–if we were to be neutral about the words ‘higher’ and ‘lower’–we would note that Aquarius and Scorpio are fixed in the way they think and feel; whereas Taurus and Leo are fixed in the way they live out their material existence. The two are very much interdependent as the way we think has a strong impact on the way we live and vice versa.
It will take a lot and I do mean a lot of time, effort and patience for this part of ourselves to change. In a way, you could even say that this should never be the aspects of ourselves that we should even be trying to change.
The loaded truth is, we really can’t do much to change what has already been written. We can immigrate somewhere, but we cannot change our country of birth. That is the first lesson of the Wheel of Fortune.
The fact that our four fixed mythical creatures are all holding books speaks to that which is already written and cannot be altered, regardless of one’s efforts.
To Trade or Not to Trade
Now coming back to the concept of birthright, we can think of this as the natural talents which we are born with. We did not have to do anything to inherit these traits or to be born with these resources. But we still need to learn how to harness and make use of them or they will remain dormant.
If we think of this in terms of the four signs–Aquarius, Scorpio, Leo and Taurus–we can utilise our technology, our emotional survival mechanisms, our solar-powered industries and our land endowments to create wealth. We do, we have, and we will continue to do so. On that same note, we can’t do it all on our own, which is why we need the birthright and cosmic inheritance of others to make our way through life.
As the fixed signs and the fixed aspects in one’s natal chart make up for a third of the entirety of all the energies, we can conclude that a third of what we come into this world with is already fixed at birth.
For instance, certain countries are rich in certain types of resources. If they have an abundance of a particular resource, they will most likely trade the surplus with a country which needs those resources. While they are resource-rich in certain aspects, they are most likely resource-poor in other respects. They can use their surplus to offset their scarcity in other areas. This is the basis of all trade and a fundamental principle of wealth creation.
To make the most our birthright and cosmic inheritance, we should strive to share our endowment with others in a way that is mutually beneficial.
Do an inner inventory. Which endowment do you have a surplus of? This will allow you to understand who you need to trade with and who your potential customers may be. This will also allow you to understand what you are deficient in and enable you to make better decisions regarding the suppliers and the partners with whom you can have a mutually beneficial relationship.
We, as the Children of the Cosmos, have all been created with our own unique cosmic inheritance and physical birthright. We owe it to the Creator not to squander our gifts, but to use them wisely in our own lives as well as the lives of all of God’s children.
The Mercantile 
You know, I first spoke to you about the concept of birthright in 2019 and you looked at me as though all I was talking about is something a son receives from a father… I like the ideas you discussed here. Thank you for this. I desperately needed to read this.
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