What It Takes to Be an Astrologer

A reader e-mailed this week asking my opinion on what it takes to become an astrological counselor. He’s been studying astrology for years and will attend the ISAR conference in Chicago this August. He didn’t specify what kind of astrology he’s interested in — though I have to assume that, since he contacted me, he must have some interest in the psychological.

Anyway, here’s an adapted and expanded version of what I told him — what I think are the essential qualities of the serious psychological astrologer:

1) A psychological outlook. You need to understand not just how astrology works but also how human beings work. The horoscope is a map of the psyche but it’s not the psyche. You have to be able to understand how someone’s horoscope plays out in everyday life — in relationships, in work, in ambition, in feelings and so forth — and, in turn, how their psychology and subsequent experiences get shaped around those things. The horoscope is a starting point for assessing problems and laying out one’s path. It’s not the final word.

2) An archetypal outlook. Astrology is an archetypal symbol system. How well we read the symbols depends, in my view, on our level of comfort with archetype. You can memorize key words for each planet and sign all you want, but to understand the psychology of a person deeply through an astrological lens, you need to be able get inside each archetype, get the feel of it, truly inhabit it. Otherwise you’re relying too much on key words and not enough on true knowing, which comes with experience. The Huber school, which I’ve studied with for years, describes it as a Mercurial (key word) approach versus a Jupiterian (sensory, experiential) approach.

3) A cyclical outlook. Astrology occurs in the vortex of time, which is not linear but rather cyclical. In fact, all psychology occurs this way; it is just that astrology sheds a brighter light on the cycles of time than does traditional psychology. You don’t need to sacrifice your daily sense of life’s linear nature — that is, in a sense, necessary to our sanity — but you do need to be able to overlay that sense with an acceptance that events and patterns frequently loop back on one another, augment new threads that weave in from the future and past, spool out in muscly but invisible waves toward other people, other moments. If you can live comfortable with this idea, astrology will make a lot more sense. And if you can articulate it to your clients through the lens of their charts, you will crack open their lives in ways both pragmatic and profound.

4) Counseling or therapy skills. This goes hand in hand with #1. It’s important to be able to assess fairly quickly where people are in terms of self-awareness and life situation when they come for a reading and then to use that information to gear the reading appropriately. If you’re so far ahead (or behind) of where someone’s consciousness is, the reading will be of little use to them. Also, there are a lot of tools and techniques therapists use that help clients heal and grow. These are extremely useful for an astrological counselor. In fact, I’d be reluctant to go to an astrologer that hadn’t been trained in counseling or therapy skills.

Here’s a final thought I didn’t include in my private response to the reader because it came up for me afterwards, in the context of another article I’m writing. I think one of the counseling/therapy skills that’s critically important for an astrologer is the clarity and capacity to bring a true “I-Thou” perspective to the consulting room — that is, to maintain no expectations about who the client is. It is an extraordinarily difficult task for the astrologer, since we have the client’s chart right in front of us — we are able to look at it and say, “Oh! Very earthy person coming today at 3:00.” or “Probably a big dreamer type who just called.” If we can prepare for the reading by assessing the chart, and then leave any expectations at the door so the client has the chance to tell his story, I think the client is better served. And the bonus is, the astrologer then has more opportunity to learn how the chart works in individual lives. Win-win.

What about you? What do you think it takes to be a good astrologer? If you’re an astrologer, what makes you successful? If you’ve been to an astrologer, what stands out about him or her?

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