For the past several years I have been quietly studying astrology.
My interest in the subject started back when I was a kid. I don’t remember exactly when I learned about astrology first, but it would have been in a book. I was an avid reader and went through a big pagan/Wiccan phase in my teens. (Don’t judge; it was the 90s.) Then I started playing around with online natal chart calculators and horoscopes in the early 2000s.
Astrology was always a background interest that I’d dabble in from time to time, but things started to intensify in 2016. By early 2020 my interest had reached critical mass. I attended my first NORWAC conference in May 2020 – online, thanks to the pandemic. I’ve been completely and utterly hooked since then. I’ve listened to hundreds of hours of The Astrology Podcast and read hundreds of online articles. I began formally studying with a few books, taking diligent notes along the way. I began compiling a collection of natal charts for my family and friends, annoying everyone by badgering them for their exact birth time and location. (And cursing the Alberta government for not making birth times mandatory on birth certificates.)
I began to research and plan a formal education in astrology – no easy feat, given that the field is so decentralized. I have come to see that decentralization as a strength, as much as it is also a challenge to newcomers, and I’m afraid that the coming days will see more pushes to consolidate, regulate and restrict the astrology profession. (Looking at you, Saturn in Aquarius.) But that is a much bigger topic for another day.
I connected with a local astrologer in Alberta, Donna Young, who gave me some excellent guidance and advice on education paths. She also gave me my first professional natal reading, which was wonderful. I highly recommend you seek out astrologers who live close to you, even though we’re all meeting online these days. It really does make a difference to speak to someone from a similar geographic context.
I successfully challenged the first course in Kepler College’s Fundamentals of Natal Astrology certificate program in early December, so I enrolled in the second course which starts in January 2021. That challenge test was a really great way to flex my newly developed/developing astro skills in a tangible way. Because of that experience, I am also now an expert on Robert Downey Jr’s natal chart.
My goal is to complete Kepler’s Fundamentals certificate in 2021, and hopefully start doing client consultations by the end of the year.
Most of my blog readers know me as a wine and theatre writer, so you might be blindsided by this development. As you will see if you visit the homepage of this blog, I’ve redesigned this site with a static home page so that you can target your particular area of interest. I am keenly aware that most people do not share my wide and confusing cross-section of interests, so hopefully this lets you see the content you want to see.
And if you’re really excited to read a bunch of astrology stuff – cool! I’m super excited to write about it. However, be aware that I am not ready to fully devote this blog to 100% astrology, if indeed I ever reach that point.
That said, I have an absolute beast of a post to kick things off: my 2021 astrology forecast. This is a general overview of the space weather from a global, mundane context. I focus on the major outer planet transits mostly, but I also intend to do a closer examination of all transits on a month-by-month basis.
The general overview is already long enough, however, so I’ll post each month’s forecast in separate posts.
Tons of astrologers do similar work every year – yearly and monthly overviews of the major upcoming astrological transits. I’d like to emphasize that I’m only a student of astrology, not a professional, so there will be things that I miss and/or don’t explain that well. I thought about not posting anything at all and just doing these overviews for my own self-study and future reflection. But hey – what’s the fun in writing thousands of words if you’re not going to share them on your personal blog?
So, new chapter! New path!! New year!!! I’m super excited to take this journey and I hope some of my longtime readers come along for the ride. At some point, you know I’m going to do some form of ridiculous wine and astrology pairing. As I’ve realized time and again, I started as a wine writer and while I might grow in all sorts of crazy directions, I always seems to return to my wine writing roots.