How Astrology Helped Me When I Was Lost

My path to astrology was like walking down railroad tracks, following parallel lines that lead to a single destination. One track was intellectual, the other was practical.

I was a novelist…

I was 27 years old, and I had recently finished my first novel and earned an MFA in creative writing. I was trying to find material for my second novel, and I wasn't having an easy time of it. 

Second novels are the hardest to write. You put your whole life into your first novel. You pour all of your passion and inspiration into it. When you go to write your second, you find that the well has run dry.

Fortunately, I was warned about this. Most novelists aren’t warned, and they assume that the second book will be easier than the first. They make big promises for their second book (sometimes to publishers) and kill themselves to meet a cruel deadline with no inspiration.

Because I knew this hard time was coming, I was gentle with myself and focused on looking for inspiration for my next book.

That was how I met John Dee.

A true Renaissance man, John Dee was many things. He was an advisor to Elizabeth I and influential in England’s early explorations of North America, but he was also an occultist who talked to angels. He was an astronomer and astrologer, a navigation expert and treasure hunter. 

I’ve always had a soft spot for the early modern period, but I loved John Dee. I thought that he was an intellectual who desperately wanted to believe in magic… a bit like me. Thinking there was a novel in the tension between his intelligence and his love of astrology, I set out to learn astrology. I thought it would take me six months to learn. 

As I studied interpretations and charts, I discovered that there was more to astrology than I could have possibly imagined from newspaper horoscopes. Astrology is a symbolic language. It has a simple alphabet—12 letters in all—but it is a language. Reading charts reminded me of translating German in graduate school. I spent hours writing in astrological glyphs, hoping that mastering the alphabet would help me crack the symbolic code. 

As I studied, I slowly began to realize that there wasn’t tension between John Dee’s intelligence and his love of astrology. Astrology was a field in which he exercised his intelligence.

In the end, I lost track of the novel I was writing because I found what I was looking for in astrology: an intellectual field of inquiry as big as the sky... and a well of inspiration that never runs dry.

And I was lost.

I was 27 when I finished grad school and started working on my second novel. I’d been on my own for years, but, in many ways, finishing grad school was the beginning of adulthood. There is no conventional career path for a writer, and I suffered from the sudden lack of structure. I desperately wanted to get it together, but every time I tried to fix one area of my life, another area of my life would pop up demanding attention.

In retrospect, I recognize my troubles as classic Saturn return issues, but I didn’t know that at the time. I got nowhere until I discovered Emily Trinkaus and her blog Virgo Magic.

In Virgo Magic, Emily wrote monthly about the Full Moon. She talked about the personality of the moon's sign and tied in one or two bits of current astrological weather that altered the moon's default flavor. She ended every post with simple instructions for how to apply the things she'd written about to your own life by reading your natal chart.

Emily's writing wasn't technical instruction like the astrology I was learning from my John Dee-inspired research. It made astrology feel more like a weather report that pointed to things I was already experiencing, refining my ability to work with the energy of the moment consciously. 

This material could have been heady and woo, but it always came down to very simple concepts. Things like, “You’re not going to get anywhere with your career until you deal with your dysfunctional relationship with stress.” 

Through Virgo Magic, the Full Moon shined its light on a different corner of my life every month for a year. Slowly, methodically, Emily Trinkaus' interpretations helped me to tackle my problems. It gave me the structure I needed to figure things out, one small piece at a time.

Astrology helped me find my way.

It's been over ten years since I began walking the path between Emily Trinkaus and John Dee. Since then, I have become a professional astrologer. (And finally wrote and published my second book.) I teach the practical problem-solving skills I learned from Emily Trinkaus (and others), and I have a job that allows me to work at the edge of my intellectual capacity every day. Bringing these two things together has given me a job I love—a job that makes a difference in the lives of my clients.

I've come to believe that those two early teachers represent two sides of astrology that must stay in balance: The intellectual and the practical. 

When astrology becomes an intellectual exercise, the heart and soul are sucked out of it. We lose the ability to connect with people--including the humanity in ourselves. We might have the pride of being fluent in an alien language, but who will we speak to? What will we use that language to say? Why should that knowledge matter to anyone?

When astrology is only a Farmer’s Almanac of the emotional weather, we lose our connection to what Jung calls the Spirit of the Depths, the deep pool of human knowledge that transcends time and space. We become lost, tossed around by the zeitgeist and the feelings of the moment, unable to see our experiences in context.

Emily Trinkaus and John Dee were able to do their work successfully because they walked between the two train tracks themselves, even though their work leaned on one side or the other.

Dee didn't study the language of astrology to feel smart. He gave his knowledge practical application. He used his knowledge of the sky to help sailors navigate better.

Emily didn't just deliver a weather report. Her observations came from a deep, technical knowledge of the language of astrology. She was able to see the symbols playing out in the weather of the moment, understand their meaning in context, and translate that context into language ordinary people could understand.

I can help you find your way, too.

As an astrologer, I’ve followed the example of my teachers, building these two tracks into my practice.

On one side, I run a school of astrology. It appeals to the intellectual side of astrology. It teaches the symbolic language of the craft. Like any good language class, however, it isn't just about learning vocabulary. The language has a purpose: to communicate with others. Through journaling exercises and conversations with other astrologers, students learn to find their own voice in astrology's magical language.

On the other side, I run quarterly virtual retreats where we practice listening to the voice of the moon and intuitively feeling into the energy of the moment. Following Emily's example, though, my moon retreats aren't just about feeling our feelings. It's about giving our feelings names. Then we use these names to help us to recognize patterns in our lives and unravel the tangled threads that keep us stuck and unhappy.

I have learned that keeping the balance between these two sides of my practice is essential for feeling whole. When I tip too far into one side or the other, I feel like I've gotten disconnected from a side of myself.

So, I'd like to invite you to ponder: Which of these approaches to the world is more comfortable for you? Are you a person of the mind, or are you more interested in getting down to brass tacks? And when you fall out of balance, what does that look like? And how can you prevent it?

Are you feeling lost? Not sure how to find your balance again?

Why don’t you schedule a call with me? We can chat about it over tea.