What is the midheaven (MC) in astrology?

The midheaven is your reputation. It’s the way you look to people who don’t know you personally. From the social distance of the midheaven, people are reduced to archetypes and stereotypes. 

If you have a planet near the midheaven, this is what people who don’t know you see when they look at you:

Sun - Your joy (or lack of joy).

Moon - Your heart (or heartlessness).

Mercury - Your message (or lack of a message).

Venus - Your beauty (or ugly behavior).

Mars - Your struggle (or cowardice).

Jupiter - Your beliefs (or faithlessness).  

Saturn - Your discipline (or lack of discipline).

Uranus - The revolution (or the societal expectations that imprison them).

Neptune - The path to transcendence (or their projections).

Pluto - The path to empowerment (or their wounds). 

Sometimes you can influence the way people see you. (We’d all rather be seen as beautiful than be judged for our ugly behavior.) But sometimes what people see when they look at your midheaven is about where the person who is looking at you is in their life, not about you. They don’t see who you actually are but what they’re prepared to see. 

Sometimes you find yourself trapped with people who look at you and see a lie, but every interaction you have with strangers has the potential to be a lesson. 

Strangers can help you figure out who you want to be by showing you all the things you could be. 

Then it’s up to you to choose who you’re going to be when you are with people who see you clearly, when you have the freedom to choose.

This post was originally posted on The Witch at Land’s End on 11 September 2020.