Yes this is explicitly a “How to” post, which I hardly ever do. Self-assess if you’re up for advice writing before you begin hahahaha!

Recently I had a client guide me to not share any transit info with them. They only wanted to receive birth chart info. I thought that was amazing, in a way, because they understood the power of information, and how some can support you and some does not support you, even if it’s true or good information, depending on the context of your life.

You might not know about what the difference is between your birth chart and transit chart, and you don’t need to. But I keep coming back to the step before looking at a chart of any kind, engaging with divination in general. What expectations are we coming with? What desires? What are we looking to find in an astrology reading, or when we look at our own or someone else’s chart?

These are all questions which you don’t need to know the answer to, and I don’t imagine we could or would even want to have every impulse toward divination be described. The mystery of our desire is part of the magic. But we’ve all probably experienced that reductive line, “You’re such a Capricorn!” Which might be the worst astrology feeling - when it actually feels like the astro language is sucking the nuance and unknown (!) out of someone’s view of you, or more often your own view of yourself.

When that happens, I think we’re missing the point, and the potency of astrology. So here are a few ideas toward maximizing the potency of astrology:

1. Acceptance Without Resignation
   We can use astrological language to support our own acceptance of our own specificity. Each of us has our own exquisite fingerprint of a path on planet earth, our own inertia of habit patterns, our own emotional palette, our own subtle needs. Astrology gives names to our nuances and it can feel like such a healing to do that. Acceptance can be a huge relief. I experience it and witness it all the time. But if we’re not intentional, that can turn into resigning ourselves to our problematic or painful behaviors/situations because of our charts. It can make us give up on ourselves or others. In this way it’s key not to overly identify with our charts. A chart is to a person as a map is to land. Very useful, but by definition, vastly incomplete. If we forget this we can stop engaging a relationship with ourselves or another person in the here and now, which is usually more painful than engaging the present moment, however intense it might be.

2. A Spiritual Context
   Something that helps me with this balance of acceptance without resignation is looking from a spiritual context. Or a better way to say it is I wouldn’t be able to practice that at all without a spiritual context. (By spiritual context, for me specifically I mean, contact with something larger than myself, and practices which help me keep that contact regular.) We need to be asking, what is the spiritual framework, or ground, from which we come to astrology? Is the agency we’re imagining we have outsized here? Or are we not fully claiming our agency?
   
   Without this, astrology can be sophisticated gossip, with a flavor of cutting its subjects down, even if in a slight way. It can be so limiting and defeating. I have the Moon in ____, so I can’t ever find love. Or he has Venus in ____, so he’s an asshole. It can get in the way of our view of the present, of another person, and most often of ourselves. The buddhist idea that helps me here is sila. Ethics. An essential part of our path toward serenity, (our spiritual context), must be attempting to live ethically, as well as we can. If we come to astrology earnestly, with this intention to treat ourselves (!) and others ethically, we can trust astrology to support us. We must come to it while doing the (truly sacred, always alive) dance practice between releasing all we cannot control and fully inhabiting our own free will.
   
   I don’t mean anyone has to be buddhist, or even identify as “spiritual” to engage astrology, I just mean the potency of it greatly increases when we come to it with sincere and examined intentions, even if those intentions are as humble as “I need help!”

3. Is Astrology Right for Right Now?
   One way you can discern if astrology is the right modality for the context of your life right now is asking yourself, how does it feel when I think about astrology? Does it feel shitty? Does it feel expansive? Does it feel calming? It doesn’t always have to feel good, but it should feel like it’s opening your sense of options, your sense of creativity, or your sense of possibility. If not, find another zone for now!

I’ve inadvertently led myself to a great segue! You can find my astrology zone and lots of other zones here: Yall I am going to be in the sf county fair building 1199 9th ave sf ca all day long on Saturday. This Saturday, November 2. I am going to be doing astrology readings and I have made a nerdy piece of writing in the form of a brochure I cannot wait to give you. So please come say hi (on your way to the magnificent plants of the sf botanical gardens growing right next door to this building), and of course it would be so fun to do a reading with you in person. I am doing two different kinds of readings I never do in my regular biz - a venus/mars reading for love, and a jupiter/saturn reading for purpose. each 30 min long. It’s a fun experiment!

But even more exciting is that this building will also be full of so many other humans who tend to our collective hearth in so many beautifully diverse ways, who express the essential archetype of witch in all the ways we need in this really lit up season of our planet’s life. If you’re local, I encourage you to come through and catch the vibes so you remember you’re not alone in your weirdness, in your despair at how fucked things are, in your love for aliveness and life in spite of that. The marketplace where I will be, is free to come through. The workshops and speakers require tickets.

Last thing I have opened up my November astrology readings calendar, here it is!

Oh and one more fun thing, I have been editing my website a little bit and I have a new “references” page which is a place I can offer links to enlivening stuff. Finding new places to share the web of context I offer from, now that I’m regaining so much focus to track and trace it while not on instagram.

Either way / anyway, many blessings to you in this Scorpio magic time,

Sarah