Both skeptics and masters in the field will agree: astrology is not an exact science. It is a fluid, subtle iconographic system with results as varied as those who practice it. Astrology is more an art than a science.

And there is an art to going to an astrologer. Especially to those new to the mystical healing circuit,it is valuable before setting up the appointment to have a sense of what an astrologer can and cannot do. You will know how to ask the kind of questions that will get more information for your time and money spent.

An astrologer can give you a nonjudgmental overview of whatever is happening to you at the time. S/he can translate to you what the chart says your soul is trying to learn right now. What a job change is really motivated by, for instance. You may assume it is financial; she may look at your chart and see an inevitable emotional shift which would be occurring no matter what you were doing and no matter how much money you were making.

An astrologer can help you see whether your needs look anything like your new boyfriend's needs. She doesn't need to hear your description of the boyfriend, though she may ask you certain key questions (it is not a guessing game, remember: you are here to get perspective, not to watch a magic show), your time would be better spent listening to her talk about him, in the archetypal terms of astrology; you will learn more if you just listen.

Of course, all you probably really want to know is whether the relationship will work. A common misconception is that modern astrology makes predictions. In fact, centuries ago astrologers did, and some schools of astrology still do, most pointedly in those societies such as India where the predominating worldview follows a more fatalistic bent. It is psychology, however, rather than divination, which underlies most contemporary astrology in the Western world.

Like good psychotherapists, good astrologers refrain from telling you what to do. They do not traffic in advice.  And they will not tell you what will happen. They cannot, because of the wild card in all this: free choice, which has been on the increase since the Age of Reason. The more we see ourselves as individuals and masters of our own fate, the harder it is to predict what will happen.

It is true that there may be some very precise and accurate images among your astrologer's comments over the course of a reading, since astrology is part geometry, part intuition. The best astrologers use the horoscope as a springboard from which to jump off into their psychic reception of the client. But the planets themselves do not say what you are going to do. They only say why you are going to do it.

The symbols themselves indicate trends in your chart, not specifics. The specifics are up to you. On that level, we create our own reality (now there's an idea which has been roundly resented, misused and half-understood. But astrology would not work if it were not so.)

Your birthchart is a coded map, not a list of literal events waiting to take place. The lessons you are to learn are pretty clear to your astrologer, but not in what form you will learn them.  If your Higher Self wanted you to change homes, would you move voluntarily, or get evicted? The same planetary transit could indicate either one.

A birthchart maps out the life purpose in extremely abstract symbols. These symbols are abstract for a reason: just as Egyptian heiroglyphics refer to
concepts far more complex than a single word could convey, planetary glyphs and signs are rich with layered meanings. And the geometrical angles between them also hold multi-leveled meanings. The mind boggles.

Some of those levels do seem to involve tangible things happening to you, and people in our lives; but only because of the phenomenon of projection: we attract what we are. A chart with a strong Mars is more likely to incline one towards a career in the marines than is a chart with a weak Mars. A woman with a strong Mars is likely to attract men with strong Martial qualities, because we project our Mars onto the candidates in our
environment.

But your chart does not really describe outer reality at all. It describes the state of your own psyche at any given moment.

Do not ask your astrologer to tell you whether you will meet your soulmate this summer. Your Aunt Phyllis might know; your astrologer does not.

There might be indicators of the potential for a love affair (such as planets crossing your 7th house of relationships), which would indicate merely that the issue was up. Similarly, your wife is not in your birthchart, but your attitude towards her is. An astrologer could see, for example, an urgent need afoot to be free from limitations in relationships. If that attitude shift led to an actual shift in your marriage, it wouldn't be surprising. But all the chart shows for sure is the inner event.

Your astrologer sees where in your world the hotspots currently are. If the cosmic klieg light is shining on the work arena, that is where your attention should be focused. If there is pressure to eliminate in the "house of valuables", it's time for a garage sale.

But you will have already known that. You will have already been feeling that. So why go to the astrologer?

Everything in life is a symbol, and astrologers speak the language of symbols. The sudden need for a garage sale, say, may be coming from a deep psychic movement towards elimination that will have many more manifestations than just the garage sale. The astrologer does not know whether you are downsizing your company or giving your old shoes away or weeding through your inner values; that is your business. Her job is to
show you where that urge fits into the cycles of your lifetime as a whole.

Nothing you don't already know. If you are paying attention.

Jessica’s telephone number is +1 415 626 7795 and her email address is jessica@MotherSky.com. 

Her Web Site is www.MotherSky.com.

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