The Reluctant Astrologer
I’ve often called myself “the reluctant astrologer” because I’ve had doubts. Not that astrology doesn’t work; it does. Not that I believe astrology doesn’t help people; I know it does. And it helps me. But there are a few peculiar things about astrology that few astrologers talk about…
It has to do with fear, reluctance and truth-telling. As a writer and the reluctant astrologer at North Node Astrology, let me try to explain. When I initially began my astrological studies I was a bit of a skeptic, and reluctance and truth telling issues swirled around my psyche. But I soon found out two things: the first is that astrology simply “works”—ask anyone who has had a reading for the first time. When an astrologer first reads your chart you can only wonder how they know so much. How did the astrologer know you love antiques and old homes? That you’re considering going into real estate? Or they see you have Mars squaring your Moon in your birth chart and they start talking about “irritation with the mother.” And yes, you can relate to that!
And when we begin studying astrology we soon learn that it’s not based on any woo-woo vibrations of the planets, but on a synchronistic language of the Soul that Carl Jung was one of the first to recognize. It takes a certain leap of faith to move from skepticism to accepting the concept of synchronicity as being the basis for astrological truth. But once synchronicity is experienced in any way, the leap is very logical.
Acceptance of this isn’t from theorizing, but from one’s experience. When an outer event in the world correlates with an intense inner event, such as a clock stopping at the exact moment of your father’s death, it’s called synchronicity. Or simply thinking about a long lost friend and having them call at that very moment, that’s a moment of synchronicity. And this “wink from the eye of God” turns reluctant skeptics into inquiring minds.
And then as you venture into learning more astrology, you see a correlation between one’s life and the transiting planets. You look at your chart and ponder what’s happening in your life and you see certain patterns: you see one kind of emotional “weather pattern” when transiting Saturn conjoins your Sun sign—perhaps constriction, focus or repetition, and you feel a very different “emotional weather pattern” when transiting Jupiter conjoins your Sun sign—perhaps expansiveness and a desire to have friends over for dinner—and to eat or drink too much. We may find that Jupiterian expansiveness can easily lead into “too muchness” of a good thing.
But the other “reluctance” I have has to do with fear. Let’s be clear: there are two expressions of every planet, sign and aspect in the chart. The higher expression and the lower expression. I like to call these “octaves” because we can play these octaves out from one extreme to the other, and everything in-between.
Astrologers look at their own charts and can see all the negative potential there. It’s hard to be objective with oneself, and yet so easy to talk to a client about their chart—you talk about the higher and lower octaves of the challenging “Saturn conjunct the Sun” aspect and balance it; but you don’t talk to them about the lowest octaves of possible depression, isolation or fear. That wouldn’t be good “coaching” for an astrology reading, unless you can balance it carefully with the full positive potential of the transiting climate. And we do that; mostly with others.
It’s not so easily done with ourselves, and not so readily done when we’re looking at a cultural phenomena such as the Covid-19. Yes, we all saw the transit of Pluto, Saturn and Jupiter coming, but most of us didn’t allow ourselves to envision the “pandemic of fear” that it created nor it’s potential for changing our culture in so many ways. We have yet to see the higher octave for change from this trio of planets that they have created with their retrograde motion, but I think it’s there. Retrogrades create an atmosphere for reflection and review, and we can now see new opportunities to change our educational and political systems. Our response still remains to be seen.
The most important thing I’m trying to say here is that I feel we constantly have the opportunity to look at life and situations through the lens of hope, love and learning, or through a contractive fearful lens. And if I, as an astrologer, take away my client’s positive mode or sense of free will in any given situation, I’ve done a disservice. I would be spreading more unhappiness; and that’s why I’m sometimes reluctant. I don’t think that coloring the future with any kind of definitive prediction is a good thing—we are only like weather forecasters!—and I know that spreading any fear is definitely not helpful. So I try to express the full potential of any situation and then encourage my client to express themselves through the higher octave—some would call that through the lens of love.
We are being asked to be Truth Tellers, but we’re learning that Truth needs to come out without too many spins on it. Just like fake news, astrology can paint the world either too rosy or too dark. I see some astrologers are acting like the news anchors on television; they’re milking the fear as far as they can. Whether in the public sphere or private, I believe we need to think more about the effect of our words. We create a future in how we tell our stories. And we have to be very good readers of the full potential of a client’s chart before we venture into prediction…and even more so with ourselves and with the world. Fear can be like a virus; we must contain it. Reluctance can be a good thing; I’m proceeding, but with caution.
~Elizabeth Spring