This coming weekend I’m off to a little community, just outside of Atlanta Georgia, finally ticking off one of the 10 states in the US I have yet to visit. While I am there I will be staying with a dear friend from college who is been talking me up to her neighbors. One of them had a question as to how my work, a more psychological approach to astrology, differs from other approaches. I thought upon reflection and I would share what I wrote for them with all of you – as you too may find it helpful and interesting.
When most people hear the word astrology they tend to think of the kind of horoscope found in the back of Vogue or some version of a fortune teller. The reasons for this are long and complex to answer. These expressions of astrology aside, the cosmology, the worldview that is Western Astrology (the astrology most people in the US think of when they hear the word) is more complex and layered. Some astrologers do use astrology in a nearly exclusively predictive way. My work is different.
I see astrology as a symbolic language. My view of astrology is not all that, unlike the Greek philosopher Plotinus who said :
“The stars are like letters which inscribed themselves in every moment in the sky. … All events are coordinated. … All things depend on each other; as has been said, ‘everything breathes together’.”
This, “as above, so below”, view of astrology has me see astrology, not as something where the stars, the planets, are making something happen, but rather they reflect, symbolically, our personality and events in our lives. Within this is the understanding that astrology is not simply about fate, free will is a significant part of what is going on and how someone’s astrology is interpreted.
From a psychological astrology perspective, we are not doomed or blessed by our astrology. Rather the astrology reveals our tendencies. From this view astrology cannot be interpreted without allowing for free well and numerous other factors such as gender, race, and one’s social–cultural environment to be considered. The addition of these other factors allows for an astrology reading to be more personal and thus of greater assistance and support to an individual then the more fortune telling approach. In my work, I strive to provide clients with valuable insight and support. Working in an advisory capacity with individuals, couples and organizations. My aim is to help people access their potential, stop being unjustly hard on themselves and acknowledge, but not be defined by, their limitations.