Learning Astrology

I've been studying hermeticism and related topics for the last three years, and it always bothered me that I didn't really understand astrology, so I decided to devote some time to its study. My background in astrology before this consisted of reading the daily horoscope in the newspaper as a teenager, and Sun Signs and Love Signs by Linda Goodman.

The first thing I noticed was that the descriptions of the planets corresponded nicely to the spheres of the tree of life to which they were assigned. In the course of re-reading The Mystical Qabalah I learned that the correspondence was by design. The aspects between the planets were easy to understand if I thought of them as the interactions between the spheres of the tree. The signs also had correspondences to some of the major arcana tarot cards. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the functions of the houses.

An interesting idea I found in my research (though I don't remember where I read it) is that you don't get the characteristics of your sun sign by default. This is because most of us are basically in automatic pilot mode, governed by our emotions (the moon). I remember the author saying something like "We all have free will, but most of us don't use it."

Another interesting concept from Astrology: A Cosmic Science by Isabel Hickey is that we do not have the characteristics we have because we were born at a certain date and time; it's exactly the other way around.

Anyway, I'll keep studying, and hopefully I'll be able to start doing readings some time soon. On a related note, I got a sign today that I'm probably ready to start doing tarot readings now. My wife and I were waiting in line at the espresso bar at a local Barnes & Noble. A young lady in front of us noticed that I had a copy of Learning the Tarot by Joan Bunning. She asked me what I thought of the book, then asked me about a tarot card she had found. It was the ten of wands, but the design was different from the normal Rider-Waite layout. At first, I just told her that the fact that she found the card meant that she should pay attention to it. After thinking about it for a while, I came to a realization. She had found the card, and knew what it meant, but the design wasn't what she expected. The meaning seemed obvious to me: she was already in that situation (being over-burdened), but saw something different on the card and was confused. I told her that she needed to look at the situation she was in differently. She was happy with the answer, and I was happy that I was able to figure it out.