A love letter to astrology

I sit here, after finishing a reading, and I glow. I beam. I am warm and content inside. It’s better than drugs (but drugs are still pretty cool). My brain is stimulated in a way that feels sparkly, and my body feels… tranquil. I bounce out of my chair and down the hall to my bedroom to excitedly report to my husband, once again, that I had a great time and I love my job and my clients are so cool and I can’t believe I get to do this for money.

Something about doing astrology lights me up inside and makes me feel like I have a purpose.

There’s nothing like the feeling when, at the end of a reading, my client is satisfied and awestruck and grateful and feels like they have something to take with them from the experience. I love knowing they got clarity on an issue that had been weighing on their mind. I love hearing that they learned something new, whether about themselves or astrology in general. I gobble up the feedback like a starving child. I am a slut for praise, it’s true, but it’s more than just being told that I did a good job. There’s a light of understanding on their face, a look of comprehension and wonder, and I know that I translated for them exactly what needed to be translated from the stars. Nothing more and nothing less.

I get a thrill inside when I’m prepping a chart for a reading and I begin to see the pieces fall together: the pattern I’ve been searching for. The puzzle piece. The story I’ve been aiming to find, the story that the planets (both natally and by transit or progression) are trying to tell. Sometimes I get so awestruck at these discoveries that I stop to do a little dance. I’m not kidding: it’s so exciting to me that I have to pause to release the physical excitement I’m feeling or else I can’t keep going. Sometimes, a technique reveals something that makes so much sense that I throw my hands in the air with a hearty and gleeful “what the fuck,” and I fall in love with astrology all over again. Because truly, what the fuck?

How can something be so beautiful, so perfect, so achingly accurate, so complex and yet so simple, so mysterious and revealing and so fun all at the same time? And it’s my fucking job? Pinch me.

The math of it all tickles my brain and actually improves my mental health, I’m pretty sure. Getting lost in numbers and equations and revelations was a pastime of mine as a high school calculus student. I haven’t felt a rush like that since I became a professional astrologer. Math was my drug of choice then, but astrology (and cannabis) is my drug of choice now.

Gold Nuggets is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

More than anything, though, what I love about astrology is humans. Humans make it magical.

The stars do not predict or dictate; they reflect. Humans are responsible for assigning meaning to and finding the patterns in the stars. The practice and the prevalence of astrology comes from the legacies of human beings built upon the legacies of other human beings. Astrology is astronomy and anthropology and  polytheism and geometry and philosophy and political science, all at once. Astrology is all the legacies of all the humans who have contributed to it by pointing out the synchronicities between celestial arrangements and earthly happenings.

When my mom was in school for her Associate’s degree, she took a psychology class and I remember her explaining to me the concept “correlation is not causation.” I did not anticipate that decades later, that concept would inform my astrological practice the way it does. Correlation is not causation, but it doesn’t mean correlation has no value or nothing to teach us. That's where astrology comes in. If celestial arrangements always correlate to certain earthly events, it doesn’t mean one is causing the other to happen. but there’s a relationship there that cannot be denied or overlooked. That correlation can indeed be used to predict future events, even though we know celestial arrangements aren’t the cause of these events.

Humans are meaning-making, pattern-seeking creatures. This is just what we do. And I get to do it amongst some of the most incredible humans I’ve ever met. Astrologers are my people. There’s so many perspectives, so many lived experiences, so many areas of expertise that my fellow astrologers bring to this field of study and make it into such a rich, breathing, living tapestry of time. Some of my closest friendships are with astrologers. We speak each other’s language. We sign up for each other’s workshops. We subscribe to each other’s newsletters. We engage each other in debate. Sometimes we don’t like each other, but the fact remains that I haven’t felt kinship like this since Community got canceled, and I need that in my life. Astrology gives me that and then some.

Pre-Saturn return, if you would have told me that I would forsake all traditional employment for doing astrology (and providing services to astrologers), I honestly… would’ve believed you. I mean, is it that much of a surprise? Look at me. This is exactly what I’m supposed to be doing with my life—that, and having babies. How rare and precious it is to be called to something that you can also support your life with. I will never take it for granted.