In any human issue category there is a huge number of service providers to choose from and astrology is no exception. Just put any category title into a search engine and you can get thousands or even millions of possibilities. On a moment of curiosity I just Googled my own name and got 4,120,000 entries. I had no idea I was that popular (me and every other name like mine). This staggering amount of information is so far beyond anyone's ability to research just one item meaningfully. Just how do you determine quality within such enormous quantity?
Since our subject is astrology and astrologers, does an astrologer have to be professional, accredited, famous, or just plain available? If you happen to be a budding astrologer you will have to make choices as to what kind of an astrologer you will become. Your choices will involve the services you offer to clients, your skill and credibility. plus personal motivations and goals. I am offering an overview of several considerations to help you make valid astrological choices for yourself and eventually for what you offer your clients. As you understand what underlies your own motivations and choices you should be able to apply the same reasoning to the choice of an astrologer to read you.
Motivation - Where are you coming from in your philosophic outlook? Do you see this as a service project, a way to make money, a profession, love of the study itself or some other basic personal drive? Are you more interested in self-help, fun, business, relationship, evolution, or other astrological technique? How does a study or work of this type fit into your personal belief systems? Personally you will need to resolve any inherent conflicts or face a lifetime of self-questioning. When choosing an astrologer to read for you, you need to be aware that they face the same questions in their own choices.
Personality - Are you clinical or a more personally sensitive person? Some readers are subjectively involved in their reading. Others readers prefer objectivity. Astrology provides a diagram, a personal map of an entity in wheel form that allows examination of their life. You can use the wheel in so many different ways. One of those is the choice between the subjective or objective approach. Do you prefer the personal approach or the arms-length approach? Do you want for yourself or do you want to provide others with a once a year reading done in a one-hour increment perhaps in writing or on a pre-recorded tape or even computer generated? Do you want for yourself or do you want to provide others personal access with the ability to call back with questions? Each of us is human and will choose the role most comfortable, the one that fits into our personal norms and provides us with good results. Look at your self first. How do you see yourself reading as an astrologer? Do you want to be the clinician or the sensitive when you read for others? Then take those questions a step further. What kind of astrologer would you choose to read for you? Do you want the clinician or the sensitive to read you?
Setting - Are you more comfortable in a business-like setting such as a formal office, for either seeing or becoming an astrologer? Are you more comfortable in a home-like atmosphere for being read by another or in doing a reading for another? Do you want strangers ((before the reading) inside your personal space because each person who enters our personal space whether they be astrologers or not bring their personal influence into our space. With the many years I have practiced astrology, I have read clients in both in a business and a personal setting and I have encountered myriad settings when someone reads me. We do what is available and what is comfortable to us. Perhaps your choices will involve the possibility of a setting, urban or rural, private or public, or availability of resource. Many students study in quiet because of religious or philosophical differences with their personal families and their extended or cultural families, Each of us have the choice of setting whether we are studying, or being read or we are reading for a client.
Learning Curve - When I started astrology I was self-taught, spending the first few years busting the books. I never realized there were teachers in my area so I did not have specific teachers. Later I started reading for others and eventually teaching others. If you can learn through this self-taught method, it is simply one specific way to learn. If you were fortunate enough to have a teacher or an established class it is just as valid and possibly much easier than my alone journey. One learning method is not better than another, it is just different. You should choose from what is available to you and feels the most comfortable to your own learning preferences. Students become astrologers by practicing their craft not just by reading or listening. Method and technique are just a means to an end. The proof will always be in the readings. This is true of your own information gathering and conclusions as well as the same learning curve in other readers.
Credibility - This should be a big issue astrologically. There are the usual issues of honesty, integrity, and respect for privacy. No one wants to encounter a scam artist, but they are out there in the same numbers as any other human activity. Just because someone presents themselves as spiritually motivated does not make it so. A spiritually motivated person acts spiritually, never dishonestly. Remember, I am describing both you and any outside counselor you choose to read you. You must be discerning...not judgmental, just observant and dispassionate in your choices. Trust your own instincts. If you feel uncomfortable with a reader, move on to find another. When you have a reading of any type, you allow another human being (potentially unknown game-changer) to walk around in your mind. You need to be comfortable in such choices. Having said all that about an outside reader, you need to face and develop those same credibility issues within yourself as you develop your skills and offer your services. It is important that you have honesty, integrity and respect for privacy. An individual's birth map in skilled hands has no secrets. Astrologers must be respectful of such trust. You have the right to expect that same respect when you put your birth map in the hands of another.
More on Credibility - Unfortunately as mentioned wherever there are humans there will be issues of misuse of information or skills. There are fakes and charletans in every category of humanity. Some people seem to be inherently dishonest and the field of reading is no exception. Again...you must be discerning. If you get burned, consider it an unfortunate life lesson and move on but do not repeat your poor choice or recommend others to that poor choice. Word of mouth advertising is both the best and the worst advertising possible. If you are damaged in any way (financial damage is the least of your concerns), go for remedy or healing as soon as possible. Don't let a problem fester from something minor into something major over time.
If you encounter one who is continually trying to pedal outside services such as lighting candles to prevent negative happenings, preying on your guilt or grief in personal tragedy, or other similar nonsense, it has nothing to do with astrology. An honest astrologer will not go down that negative path. I have run into people who have needed help with such unnecessary negativity in their lives and have helped them as part of my service as a human being. This help was not astrological in nature. To me it was necessary and healing in nature. Choose carefully those you allow into your mind and life. Choose carefully what kind of an astrologer you will become because you have the potential to profoundly influence another person's life and choices. ABC - Always Be Credible.
Information Flow - Astrologers should be able to tell you about yourself and your life without the information pump being primed. I do not believe a reading would be valid and honest if I were to ask you a bunch of questions first or allow you to load me down with information. If I am any good at what I do, I really should not need to do that. I might choose to question an either/or conundrum in the middle of a reading, such as "It could be this or that, how do you see this working in your life?" If you feed me information and I feed it back to you as a reading, it is simply not honest. I ask clients not to volunteer information about themselves and their lives and to allow me to generate the information from the wheel itself. That way I know I am getting the information from the patterns and not prior knowledge of the person. I can't stop people from talking and telling me personal information I would rather not know, but I do try, My solution? I ask my clients if they want to hear their voice or my voice on the tape recording of our session. That is a good illustration of my desire for the cleanest possible reading. Oh...the answer is yes, I do tape my readings. I speak very fast for probably an hour or more and that is difficult to take in with one run-through. As the reading progresses, more and more of the individual is revealed through the reading process and that is natural. Just don't initially prime the information pump whether you are being read or if you are giving a reading.
Credentials - What about credentials? It is possible to go through standardized astrological testing to establish credentials as to your skill. There are several organizations who can administer such tests should you choose and these tests are quite difficult. I know very good astrologers who never bothered to be tested and some equally as good astrologers who did go through the testing procedure. The choice to do or not to do is always individual. A problem would occur if one group decided their way was the only way. But then again astrologers are still considered to be of the human species so there is nothing unusual about the ego running away with the mouth, is there? If you choose an astrologer to read for you, know that passing such testing simply specifies that an astrologer has a grasp and comprehension of the basics of astrology which truly is a great basis for an astrologer. As I said before, proof of skill will always be in the readings themselves.
Psychic or Astrology - Are you psychic as well as an astrologer and want to blend those skills? Astrological skill is very different from psychic sensitivity. I practice and teach both so I do understand the distinction. Psychic stems from an emotional, instinctive or feeling basis and astrology stems from an intellectual, intuitive or reasoning basis. From my perspective, if you are psychic you can apply that skill to any level of your life and it should be a benefit to you and others (if you are reasonably accurate). Psychic has nothing to do with astrology per se, but can be as useful in that context as well. My personal astrologer was both psychic and a good astrologer and successfully blended those skills. Personally I keep those skills separate at least most of the time. My choice. Do you want a purist to read for you as a psychic or an astrologer or are you comfortable with a merged skill set?
These are a few of the issues that you will encounter as you choose an astrologer for yourself or choose to act as an astrologer for others.
Marilyn Muir, author, "Presidents of Hope and Change: Bringing Hope to our Future by Reaching into our Astrological Past." How astrology predicts our nation's future by reaching into our past.
Jefferson, Lincoln, Kennedy, Obama... The Lineage of Hope Using the influential and interwoven cycles of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto to predict issues and trends up to 2012 and even beyond to 2025, Ms Muir leaves us with the clear message of hope as she depicts the future of President Obama at the helm of the USA ship of state.
Read the first 36 pages (PDF) including the charts of all four Presidents - you'll get hooked! http://www.marilynmuir.com
