Here’s a thing I wanted to share about astrology.

It’s one of those things that astrologers don’t want you to know. In fact, it’s one of the things that quite a lot of astrologers themselves don’t know – because they’re not curious-experimental-skeptical types like me, but True Believers.

(And I’ll tell you something, I will never, never be a True Believer. It’s not in my genetic makeup, or something.)

So – ssssssshhhh! – it’s a secret.

Here’s the secret:

Astrology won’t tell you everything about yourself.

In fact, it won’t even come close. There’s lots of information, lots of stuff, that it will miss.

And that’s okay.

Why doesn’t it tell you everything

A couple of reasons.

The first one’s about timing.

The natal chart, which is what the kind of astrology I do is based on, is a snapshot. It’s a picture of the sky taken at the moment you were born.

All well and good, really. But can you imagine the number of things that have happened since you were born?

Yes, some of the patterns were there already. That’s why the chart is useful – it can tell you about the stuff that was waiting to be expressed when you were born. But it can’t tell you anything about events since. It doesn’t work like that.

So part of the reasons is some of your patterns were formed by life events. Not all of them. Sometimes, life events happen, and patterns that you already had get triggered. But some of them couldn’t be predicted by the chart because they hadn’t happened yet.

That’s the first reason.

The second reason is, to me, even more important.

It’s about you.

You see, it wouldn’t matter if we all had the same chart. It also wouldn’t matter if we had the same pre-packaged series of life events, playing out automatically with no variation. We’d still be nearly-seven-billion different people, even with that. Because it’s about more than what’s in your chart, and what’s in your genes, and what’s happened in your life.

You’re unique. You’re a human being. And that’s going to come through no matter what. Your own personal filter. Your soul, if you like (not sure I do – a bit loaded, that word. Not so sure I believe in souls. But I don’t have a better word).

And astrology isn’t about your unique you-ness. It can help, but it can’t quantify you. It can’t reduce you to a series of personality traits and patterns. It doesn’t work like that, either.

Does that make astrology useless?

Not to me.

Because it still tells you about patterns. And knowing about patterns – about my own patterns, and about patterns in general, too – changed my life. In no small way.

I seriously think it can make the same kind of difference for lots of people.

I’m an astrologer not because it’s the be-all and end-all of self-knowledge but because it’s a tool, or a map, or a mirror. It’s a thing you can look at and see bits of yourself – useful bits. Potentially life-changing bits. Patterns you might have suspected, but had never looked in the face.

I’ll never be a True Believer, but I call that handy.

It’s been a long time coming to this…

I’ve been thinking about quitting my job for a long, long time. A couple of weeks ago, I finally did it. I’d been off sick with depression for more than ten months, and it was time to move on. Time to find a way of supporting myself without making myself ill.

(There’s been a lot of time spent in the “something’s got to give” headspace, and a lot more time spent after something did give, and that something was my health. Now it’s rebuilding time.)

And there’s been so much thinking and planning. In the worst times, the times when I was sickest, it was impossible, but there have been ups and downs, and in the less-bad times, thinking and planning was all I could do.

Now some of those plans have finally come to fruition.

I have announcements to make!

I mentioned last week that I’d be launching three things. And launch day has finally come. It’s the first day of June and it’s a week before my 30th birthday. Time to start making a change or two.

Announcement the first.

I’m available to read your chart!

I’ve been an astrologer for about half my life, and I’ve spent a lot of that time figuring out what worked for me. Now that I’ve found a way of doing it that suits me down to the ground, I want to share it with you.

I love doing chart readings. I love talking to clients and I love seeing the patterns that show up. Come play with me.

Announcement the second.

My ebook is ready for pre-order!

I’ve been working on this for ages.

It’s called Your Chart: A Pattern Spotter’s Guide and it’s a guide to interpreting your own chart for astrology beginners.

The method I use is quite different from traditional astrology, and in my experience (I’ve done lots of traditional astrology), it’s much better at helping you identify your own patterns and figure out how to best interact with them. And to me, that’s what astrology’s all about.

The book will be out on July 1st, but I’m offering a discount and some extras for up to 30 people who buy it in the presale. Plus, there’s a super-sparkly edition for 5 people.

I hope you’ll check it out!

Announcement the third.

You can hire me as a proofreader!

Are you planning to self-publish an ebook, short story, blog post, or anything else? Then you might want to check out my proofreading services. It can be way handy to have a friendly person look over your work before you send it out into the big, bad world!

I’ve been a book person and a word person and a grammar nerd pretty much since I could read, and I’ve been reading others’ work for errors since I was a teenager.

If you’re looking for proofreading services, or you know someone who is, please check me out!

***

So that’s all the announcements.

It really has been a long time (and a lot of work) coming to this, and I can’t really believe I’m starting my own business. Or perhaps lots of businesses all rolled into one.

Whether you’re interested in my stuff or not, I hope you’ll celebrate with me that I finally got these things launched!

So, some things to know about me.

I’m a fan of Ben Goldacre. For those of you who don’t know, he’s a newspaper columnist who writes about the misrepresentation of science in the media. He would say that the real story of what is going on in the world, as described by science, is far cooler and more interesting than any woo-woo crap you can make up. I agree with him. And that suggests – doesn’t it? – that I have a pretty hard-line, science-only view of the world. Quite a lot of the time, I do.

But there’s another bit of me, too. The bit of me that thinks there’s something in this “spirituality” thing – as long as you can differentiate it from the pretty nonsense. (It’s hard, to do that, I point out.) The part that reckons there’s more in Heaven and Earth than is dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio. The part that’s pretty sure that while science is awesome, there’s also a hell of a lot it simply hasn’t figured out yet.

So there’s a division here. A division of me. I’m part astronomer, part astrologer. And I think it’s worth mentioning that, because pretty soon you’ll be able to hire me for the astrology bit. And given what I’ve just said about science, that probably sounds pretty weird.

Right? Right.

A few years back, I met this awesome guy called Don Lecouteur and his slightly-different conception of astrology. It’s called Client-Centered Astrology, and as the name suggests, it’s all about focusing on the owner of the chart, and not on the posturing of the astrologer. When done right, it’s surprisingly bullshit-free, and low on the “pretty nonsense” that I’m trying to cut through, as a human being as well as an astrologer.

It’s not about predicting the future, folks. It’s not about telling you what colour socks you’re going to wear next Thursday or what you had for breakfast this morning. Or even whether you’ll get that job or buy that house.

It’s about self-discovery.

It’s about talking to your patterns.

It’s short of jargon and it doesn’t invent connections that aren’t there.

I’ve been fascinated by astrology my whole life, and when I started studying with Don, I found a discipline of astrology that sits pretty easily with my need for scientific accuracy as well as spiritual connection. I’m not done searching, of course. But I graduated Don’s course, and as I work my way through this sometimes-paralyzing depression thing, I’m getting ready to start reaching out.

I should point out that I’m in California right now. And that has a lot to do with this post – not the state itself, but the fact that I came here to do a class with (guess who?) Havi and the class was totally inspiring. And there will probably be more blog posts on that experience, pretty soon.

For now, though: in a few days, I’m going to be launching this thing as an actual business venture. A makeshift, let’s-see-what-happens kind of business venture, but a business venture all the same. Don’t worry, gentle readers – I’ll keep you posted.

How could I not?