Tools: Astrology
Someone occasionally asks me (depending on the someone) either to “do their chart,” or to justify my use of a “pseudo-science” like astrology in my work. I actually won’t do either of these! But I will give you a brief overview of my personal take on astrology and how I have found it most useful to people.
I’ll split this into three parts – my personal story about astrology, what some others have had to say about it that may be a new perspective for you, and how I incorporate it as a counseling tool. If you’re only interested in one of those, feel free to skip around.
My Own Story
Here is how I first came to astrology. I grew up in a family that valued rational logical thought almost religiously. We were taught to dismiss and disparage astrology, because it made no sense that where the planets were when you were born would have squat to do with your personality or life experiences. I did have to admit that I was quite the Cancer (my Sun sign), but I also had to admit that all the horoscopes I read seemed like hooey. And certainly it didn’t seem likely that the same characteristics or advice would hold for the 11 million or so babies born on Earth in the same sign each year.
Now, when I moved to North Carolina in 1997, I did fall in love with Rob Brezsny’s Freewill Astrology column that at the time appeared in our local Independent Weekly paper. I didn’t know why it seemed to work, but that was okay with me -- I don’t know how my television works either, but that doesn’t keep me from watching movies on it. But that was the extent of my astrological experimentation.
In 2006, I ended up working with Jennifer Shelton, who I’d known tangentially as the spouse of a coworker several years before. She shared with me that she had recently discovered she was a naturally gifted intuitive astrologer. I thought that was interesting – she was one of the first people I knew who didn’t express an either/or philosophy about science and astrology. At that point I was willing to believe her perspective was valid . . . but I wasn’t quite ready to go there myself.
In 2013, when I finally quit denying that my marriage was likely ending, I was understandably devastated. I reached out for any tool or support mechanism I could think of to help me – got more involved in church, restarted therapy, renewed my study of the Enneagram . . . and, what the hell, asked Jennifer to do my chart.
She has a special interest in the North Nodes, and learning about my North Node proved the single most helpful thing to me in that period. When you’re holding on to a lifeline, it perhaps seems less wise to criticize its existence, and I found that while I definitely had questions as to why or how this could possibly work, I was much more interested in the fact that it did. I spent the next year deeply studying my own North Node journey and the North Nodes in general. Then I moved on to studying houses, then particular planets, and so on.
I’ll split this into three parts – my personal story about astrology, what some others have had to say about it that may be a new perspective for you, and how I incorporate it as a counseling tool. If you’re only interested in one of those, feel free to skip around.
My Own Story
Here is how I first came to astrology. I grew up in a family that valued rational logical thought almost religiously. We were taught to dismiss and disparage astrology, because it made no sense that where the planets were when you were born would have squat to do with your personality or life experiences. I did have to admit that I was quite the Cancer (my Sun sign), but I also had to admit that all the horoscopes I read seemed like hooey. And certainly it didn’t seem likely that the same characteristics or advice would hold for the 11 million or so babies born on Earth in the same sign each year.
Now, when I moved to North Carolina in 1997, I did fall in love with Rob Brezsny’s Freewill Astrology column that at the time appeared in our local Independent Weekly paper. I didn’t know why it seemed to work, but that was okay with me -- I don’t know how my television works either, but that doesn’t keep me from watching movies on it. But that was the extent of my astrological experimentation.
In 2006, I ended up working with Jennifer Shelton, who I’d known tangentially as the spouse of a coworker several years before. She shared with me that she had recently discovered she was a naturally gifted intuitive astrologer. I thought that was interesting – she was one of the first people I knew who didn’t express an either/or philosophy about science and astrology. At that point I was willing to believe her perspective was valid . . . but I wasn’t quite ready to go there myself.
In 2013, when I finally quit denying that my marriage was likely ending, I was understandably devastated. I reached out for any tool or support mechanism I could think of to help me – got more involved in church, restarted therapy, renewed my study of the Enneagram . . . and, what the hell, asked Jennifer to do my chart.
She has a special interest in the North Nodes, and learning about my North Node proved the single most helpful thing to me in that period. When you’re holding on to a lifeline, it perhaps seems less wise to criticize its existence, and I found that while I definitely had questions as to why or how this could possibly work, I was much more interested in the fact that it did. I spent the next year deeply studying my own North Node journey and the North Nodes in general. Then I moved on to studying houses, then particular planets, and so on.