The good, the bad and the retrograde - how I came to astrology

As part of my World Dominion Plans and leisure time afforded by sweet, sweet maternity leave I hope to spent a lot more time blogging(because the ideas they are always there; I just didn't fare so well on the actual turning-on-computer-when-I-could-be-sleeping-angle).

My first experiences of astrology were uniformly terrible ones. Readings so bad, that if they were not in the so-horrifying-they-are-quite-amusing category I would have banished the entire thing from my memory.

They were extremely useful though, in some respects. Firstly, I'm quite thick skinned and filter opinion with a healthy handful of salt so I didn't feel personally damaged by the readings no matter how often my mind went 'I can't believe you're saying this. Or this. Or that.' Secondly, it was an excellent tutorial in What Not To Do As A Practitioner Unless You Have A Hankering To Lose Clients And Alienate People. Thirdly, it made me take up the study of astrology just to satisfy my inner intuition that the astrologers in question were talking out of their asses.

So, for the purposes of amusement and education here are some extracts from those astrology readings reproduced verbatim.

Astrologer 1:

[upon placing the birth data of the person I was seeing at the time in her ephemeris, cries out in disguist] A Taurus! With a Sagittarius Moon! This is the worst sign and the worst moon placement a person can have. I'll tell you something for free: stay away from Taureans. They are cold hearted psychopaths who would ply you with flowers until they get you into bed and then reject you. Their hearts are made of stone. And as for the Sagittarius Moon... that my dear is the very worst partner placement for you.

She did not mind you extrapolate on why a Saggi Moon was such a bad thing for me to have in a partner. Or contemplate whether there might be a way of actually making a relationship with a Taurus work. Or view as anything but hostile my response that plying people with flowers until they get them into bed might be more of a feature of the Y chromosome than a Taurus Sun. She did however go on to regale me with further gems.

Your will fall in love with an artistic man who lives in a different country from you, an artist or musician of some kind who is a little bit famous. He will be your greatest love. But you won't last and you'll never love anyone the same way again.

Leaving aside the question of what constructive thing comes from giving someone a prediction like that, and that indeed distant loves and pining are not unusual expressions of my Venus-Neptune, I'm still not sure what alchoholic binge she was getting her information from. Happily she was blatantly wrong on all counts, and while my marriage isn't founded on the hopeless romanticism that gave rise to my previous relationships it's certainly in no way diminished by that (in fact, the opposite).

Your natal Mercury is retrograde and your Mercury sextiles Saturn. Unless they are scientific, your writing endavours will all come to naught.

An interesting perspective, and one that would have afforded much mirth to my MSc Supervisor, considering how little he thought of the quality of my written scientific work. In fact as a Mercury in Cancer fiction always came fairly easily to me, as did communication.

Astrologer 2:

Started off consultation with:

I can see from your chart that you are opinionated. Too opinionated. And that you talk too much. In fact you should shut up.

Skimming over all the ironies inherent in that message, it was certainly a novel approach to establishing a connection with a client.

And you're promiscuous. It's all sex sex sex to you. You flirt too much, and choose your lovers badly. You'll never be able to stay faithful to one person. In fact, you kind of have a deceitful nature.

The promiscuity bit came from the fact that I have a Scorpio Moon which was mostly a demonstration of shoddy astrology and the dangers of imposing a personal value system on a zodiac sign. For Scorpios it's less about physical sex and more about intimacy and deep connection. I did find her vision of me as a raging nymphomaniac rather comforting though, considering that at the time of the reading I was single and hadn't had sex with anyone for over a year. And if we interpret 'ability to have perfectly satisfying sex with people without being in a loving, long-term relationship sanctioned by priests' then she was correct and I was a Jezebel. On the other hand if we interpret it as 'having sex without much thought' then she is wrong since Scorpios worth their salt are not only extremely adept at self-control but also choosy about where they invest their energy.

Although my Venus in Gemini was affronted by the idea that there was a thing as 'too much flirting' and aware of the ability to love more than one person at the same time (oh mental sluttery!) I still fortunately didn't feel the need to scrub my thoughts out with soap (no doubt a product of my deceitful nature). And although my single status at that point made my ability to stay faitful or not an interesting academic point, I would have still liked more input into why I choose partners badly and what could be done about it none was forthcoming.

I'm not sure where in my chart it said "Won't sue for libel" but it was pretty much the most accurate interpretation that came out of it.

Part II to follow. If anyone has particular experiences of readings (whether good or bad) which they'd like to share, don't be shy and drop off a comment.