I have a weird relationship with astrology. My obsessive learning habit has led to a unique practice and I feel I have helped a lot of clients and friends understand things about the world through symbolic language. I love getting to know people and I think I was initially drawn to astrology because I really wanted to understand people. Initially, I was just amazed that astrology was an entire birth chart interacting with an entire present chart in the sky. Two systems, moving pieces. I was amazed that it was actually more complicated than the column in the newspaper. And then I felt seen and understood by the language of astrology. The psychological astrology part of things gave me words to understand my feelings. But then, to understand others, to ask people questions, to find that the language I was developing and learning about certain placements and transits—-was at all accurate—-was life changing for me. A lot of people like astrology so it was easy for me to make friends with people and connect through astrology. I like people a lot. And I’m always seeking common language with a person—-do we both like food? Do we both like Game of Thrones? Do we both have brothers? Whatever it is, I am always just trying to seek that common ground. My favorite thing is when people tell me what they care about the most and I get to learn from them. Everyone has little pieces of information.
But, yeah, my relationship with astrology is weird because I go through times where I don’t look at my own chart at all. I have memorized the degree of all of my planetary placements so I generally know what’s going on. But sometimes I just want to live the astrology without labeling it and planning. I do, of course, try to do at least my monthly forecast for the podcast. And I’m super aware of the transits because I do client charts. I know what’s going on. But I don’t want to overthink about my own life. I’d definitely rather go to another astrologer for a different perspective. I think in the same way that a therapist can’t really do therapy on themself. It is impossible to to my own astrology! So I try to just let my chart exist in a hazy distance sometimes and focus on the clients and the world events.
It’s important to just LIVE the transits sometimes and let life come at you and then look at it through the astrology language after. I think that’s what’s produced the most internal consistency in my vocabulary toward clients. Some months I just don’t look at my chart at all—-and then I go back through my journal and see what happened along with certain transits. It helps me a lot more with my predictive work than being a prepper for a bad transit or hoping and relying on a good transit to “do something nice for me”. I also just watch the lives of friends in the same way. Big life event? I’ll have a look at their chart. I think this is the work of astrologers, this noticing. To be interested in history and the news, to be interested in psychology and the domestic life, to be interested in the ambitions and dreams of people—-this is the work of astrology.
Look—are there certain transits I’d avoid traveling under? For sure! Are there big events in life where, leading up, I’ll want to look at how it’s hitting my chart just to brace myself? Sure. And are there times where I choose to look at my chart and see only the stuff I fear. Absolutely. And I think it can get me all tied up. And I’ve seen other people get all tied up about it, all nervous or expectant—-and I think it sucks. I think the reason a lot of people don’t go to professional astrologers is because 1) a lot of us really are expensive (but I always have sliding scale pricing so email me anytime) and 2) they have apps and tons of information online. But peoples’ attitudes toward astrology are the main problem. Sorting that information and understanding how to prioritize it and how not to use it—-that’s important. I think a good astrologer will consider their delivery method and vocabulary based on how you need to communicate. I think going to a person who has internal consistency with their astrology is very important. I see so many people just doomscrolling and some of it is astrology tik toks or whatever—-but I think it’s so hard to digest that information. To ground it. To apply it. I think it takes a steady hand and experience and care to really know what to do with astrology.
/ book astrology with athena here (the podcast is there, too)