Neptune Eye Flutter and Saturn Ring Finger
Glimpses into Analysis The “Neptune eye-flutter”: whena person flutters the eyelids rapidly (for sometimes 3″ seconds!), withthe eyes just about closed, note that it occurs when a statement of opinionis called for, when the first person singular is used. This suggests atenacious, pervasive Neptune function in the horoscope. A man has Neptune conjunct Venus-retrogradein the…
Read articleConsultation Glimpses
Consultation Glimpses How does your client know that you’re intelligent, well-read, orderly, sensitive, empathic? –Think about that. When a client comes to an astrologer it is just like you or me going to a doctor or counsellor. We need to be sure of what we’re getting into! Barking dogs, full ashtrays, overflowing wastebaskets, uneaten food, chewing…
Read articleRemembrance of Things Past
Remembrance of Things Past Remember that trying time you experiencedrecently. Analyze why it jarred you, hurt you so. Let’s say, your self-imagewas threatened in the eyes of your spouse; you felt that, whatever thecircumstance was, you were made to appear less of a person than you aresupposed to be. -Astrologically, this suggests that your flow…
Read articleBody Shifts
Body Shifts It’s fascinating to ‘listen’ to language cues about emotions coming out of the body: “I’ve got to get this off my chest; I feel as if a weight has been lifted from my shoulder; I was weak in the knees; I could have died when I heard that; that was a real judo-chop;…
Read articleConsiderations about Orb
Considerations about Orb Orb is a convenience. It helps astrologers make order among many, many degree distances. Theoretically, holistically, everything in a horoscope is in aspect with everything else, to one degree or another (no pun intended). The entire behavioral and value-judgement system of the human being works within some homeostasis, some balance and routine molded throughout the…
Read articleBrush Strokes for the Portrait!
Brush Strokes for the Portrait! About ten years ago, I was thrilled to visit a special exhibition at the National Art Museum in Washington: the grand works of American Painter (1826-1900) Frederic Church. His canvases were the National Geographic of the day: Heart of the Andes, for example …paintings so large it was a rare wall or living…
Read articleNegation/Denial, Tension/Motivation
Negation/Denial, Tension/Motivation Negation/Denial No one likes to hear about difficult things, especially about oneâs self; of course! But to appreciate the clientâs individual development (to bring the horoscope to life), the astrologer must learn about the swirls of emotion and grooving of behaviors (all in relation to individualized needs and required defenses), that emerged out of the early…
Read articleCreativity and Aesthetics
Creativity and Aesthetics For many years now -testing my own measurement management technique and gathering research- I have made a decision during my horoscope preparation time about a client’s profession and jotted that profile down in abbreviated form on the horoscope paper. As an initial conversation start-up, I have usually asked the client what he…
Read articleAstrology and Aging
Astrology and Aging I am personally intrigued with the power of Neptune symbolism in Arc and Transit. We can say across the board, that any strong angular contact by Neptune Arc or Transit (conjunction or square) will signal a period of suppression, of ego wipeout. The time of life is lonely, bewildered, lost. Very rarely…
Read articleHoroscopes with Minimal Developmental Tension
Horoscopes with Minimal Developmental Tension There are fancy psychiatric names for conditions involving problems that individuals can not easily describe (polymorphous perverse, for example); problems that have no ‘handle’: generalized, often debilitating upset, malaise, depression. -It is much easier to therapeutically address a concern that has an edge to it, that can be easily and…
Read articleTherapeutic Images
Therapeutic Images When we hear an inaugural address, a presidential debate, the first words spoken on the Moon, any auspicious utterances, we’ve learned to listen for the telling phrase, the words that hang together in a special way, the phrases that are memorable, meaningful, and usually inspiring. These are called “soundbites” by the television and radio…
Read articleWhat to Expect from a Consultation
What to Expect from a Consultation How defeating it is to begin a consultation with a client who expects a fortune-telling extravaganza -to retell it to the guys at the office or the ladies at the luncheon. This frame of reference will not allow client involvement; the astrologer is expected to perform entertainingly, is set…
Read articleThoughts on Depression
Thoughts on Depression With transiting Saturn coming into Gemini this coming May for two years, astrologers will probably see more than the normal share of concerns involving depression. A symbolic link between Saturn and Mercury and reactant (Mutable) Signs will be strongly established. The point here in “Notebook” is to appreciate depression, its role within…
Read articleDevelopment Scenario
Development Scenario When we prepare a horoscope, we must get beyond measurement as soon as we can. We must begin to think in terms of a possible/probable scenario of life development. It is too easy to stare at a horoscope for a week, going over measurements time and time again; it is important to bring…
Read articleTracking the Sureness of Projections
Tracking the Sureness of Projections What makes us so sure of projections (predictions) into the future in certain particular horoscopes? –Isn’t it interesting that we don’t always feel that most-welcome sureness? What are the variables at work here that give us higher sureness one time and perhaps less sureness in another case? I think there are three…
Read articleOpening Up for Inspiration
Opening Up for Inspiration Making creative connections among an individual’s events/reactions/values throughout life development is the essence of meaningful astrological portrayal, counsel, and therapy. What has the client experienced in his or her reality? How does the horoscope reflect that and thereby fit that client-reality? What has the client brought forward in development from those circumstances…
Read articleSubtext Use for Image Impact
Subtext Use for Image Impact Recently in a magazine discussing the techniques of public speaking, a very interesting recommendation was presented. I use this technique, which I learned when I was beginning my opera singing career long ago. It’s an easy and effective self-talk technique for creating impact with others, from the stage or across…
Read articleRandom Insights
Random Insights I hope my students don’t mind my sharing a few insights, chosen at random, from several of the Lessons in my Master’s Degree Course (see Menu): When a horoscope has no opposition and perhaps only one square; i.e., if the aspect action is not immediately revealing (dynamic), seek out a lesser aspect, e.g., the semisquare…
Read articleTherapeutic Metaphor
Management of Measurement Constructs Therapeutic Metaphor So often in referring back to a discussion, the client will say –or a friend will say in reference to a past conversation, or you will say to a salesperson after a presentation, “One thing you said really hit home…” Now, that is not a criticism that ONLY ONE…
Read articleThe Values of Bombs Going Off
Management of Measurement ConstructsThe Values of Bombs Going Off Many years ago I said (preached) quite often that a bomb could off in the next room or out in the street and I wouldn’t drop a word or miss a beat. This was a confident assertion of expanded awareness: I tried always to assimilate more in my…
Read articleMundane Considerations
Management of Measurement ConstructsMundane Considerations When I first confronted an astrologer, before my learning began -probably in the Spring of 1966 (tr Saturn-Pluto opposition, squared by Uranus, conjoining my Saturn!)- I said what we all think or say when we don’t know astrology: “Do you mean to tell me that, when a plane goes down,…
Read articleMundane Overview: Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, U.S.
Management of Measurement ConstructsMundane Overview: Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, U.S., [This essay was posted on September 22, 2001 at 10:09 AM, on the Discussion Forum of this website. I am re-posting it here, with just a few text clarifications, because of the instructive techniques involved in the overall portrait of the 9-11 crisis and the positive…
Read articleNeptune and Suppression
Management of Measurement Constructs Neptune and Suppression Imagine a lid on a pressure cooker: as the pot bubbles, its energies are pushed down by the lid; watch how pasta cooked under a tight lid (you should leave a large crack for air to escape) overflows all over the stove. This is suppression and subsequent breakaway,…
Read articleMoon-Marriage Orientation
Management of Measurement ConstructsMoon-Marriage Orientation An excerpt from Tyl – “Intimacy, Sexuality & Relationship”, pages 96-100. … The answer is to learn about love wisely rather than passionately -and the sooner in life the better. Love must facilitate partnership. Respect of individualism between two people looking in the same direction will allow intimacy when the mutual respect…
Read articleVocational Orientation-Reminders
Management of Measurement ConstructsVocational Orientation-Reminders Vocational Astrology and Medical Astrology are the most difficult areas of astrological study. We >I>think they should be “naturals within the astrological process, i.e., a symbolic profile for this or that profession, this or that disease, as we read in old textbooks. While sometimes this does occur analytically, the practice…
Read articleAlan Leo’s Planet Profiles
Management of Measurement ConstructsAlan Leo Planet Profiles I am a great fan of Alan Leo, a masterful astrologer in England (most productive in the first decade of the 20th century). Leo was born 7 August 1860 at 5:49 AM in Westminster London. In 1912, six years before his death, Leo published his classic text, “The…
Read articleGetting it All together
Management of Measurement Constructs Getting it All together How long do you spend with a horoscope to get to the point that you feel you understand what it suggests? Three days? A day and a half? Four hours? –Why does it take so long? The answer to this question is really in the form of another…
Read articleThe Dispersion of Primary Freudian Concepts
Management of Measurement Constructs The Dispersion of Primary Freudian Concepts We know that Freud postulated three personality components: the Ego (Latin for “I”), that which emerges in development to handle transactions with the environment, locating situations to fulfill needs, specifically id-orientated needs (the Sun-Moon blend and the need structures of the planets as behavioral symbols);…
Read articleAppreciating AstroChords
Management of Measurement Constructs Appreciating AstroChords! This essay is partner to the current “Analytical Techniques” essay entitled How to Begin the Art. It deals with music theory for the most part, but don’t be frightened if you are not a musician … I will explain things carefully, and I think you will enjoy the experience! The…
Read articleMore on AstroChords – By popular demand!
Management of Measurement Constructs More on AstroChords – By popular demand! Last month’s essay –the introduction to synthesis illustrated by chord assembly in music (on the piano)—piqued much reaction! I’m delighted. Let’s take the principles a step further, from building tension, to extending that tension to resolution … much as a Grand Trine (which is a defense-mechanism…
Read articleArcing the Quindecile –New Research!!
Arcing the Quindecile! –Hot Stuff!! No research has been done to date on arcing the powerful quindecile aspect [see “Analytical Techniques”, Archives August 1, 1999 and August 31, 2001]. I’m starting to do that research, and I have some immediately confirming evidence for its validity: obsession in action, in high focus! Here is some of that evidence: Do…
Read articleDevelopment Scenario over Eventology
Management of Measurement Constructs Development Scenario over Eventology! Please re-read the Notebook essay archived below, posted on February 20, 2001. It’s about in the horoscope and in life —theway to go for rich analysis in astrology. There is a silent struggle going on as we learn astrology. The specter of fatalistic claims-to-fame from the past merge…
Read articleEmotional Responses Out of the Way
Management of Measurement ConstructsEmotional Responses Out of the Way In my carrier, I have done hundreds of “German” horoscopes. I have heard hundreds of WWII horror stories, Concentration Camp stories, etc. [No, the horoscope does not show concentration camp internment, just as all passengers on a downed airliner have nothing in common horoscopicly. The War itself was…
Read articlePhysical Appearance
Management of Measurement ConstructsPhysical Appearance To begin with, please let me present some thoughts from pages 47 and 48 in that wonderful(!-) ) book The Creative Astrologer [see “Books”]: “Pride is the antidote to the self-worth crisis. Remediation of self-worth anxiety deals in the main with objective reevaluation of the social profile [please see techniques in Tyl, Synthesis…
Read articleKnowledge is Separate from Talent
Management of Measurement ConstructsKnowledge is separate from Talent How many people do you know who read cookbooks all the time (for fun) but simply don’t do anything in the kitchen? Think of the music critics who know EVERYTHING about opera, for example, but can’t sing a note. Think of all the psychiatrists who have grievous relationship problems!…
Read articleHow’s Your Aura?
Management of Measurement ConstructsHow’s Your Aura? A student of mine, in all earnestness, asked me what she should do with people who request her to do their horoscope and expect “entertainment.” –This is an important question for all astrologers just starting out: they are accumulating powerful knowledge if they are well taught and well studied;…
Read articleMeasurements for the Modern Astrologer
Management of Measurement Constructs Measurements for the Modern Astrologer I’ve known astrology buffs who can ‘talk astrology’ faster than water can flow over the cliffs of Niagara! I’ve known astrologers who can talk astrology more intricately than they can they’re own native language! And I’ve known many, many hundreds and hundreds of people who have…
Read articlePutting the Horoscope into your Body
Most astrologers are familiar with creative dramatics in acting out one’s horoscope, usually in a seminar/public situation, with your best friend playing Saturn! –In Moscow, last year, I did this with Prince Charles’ horoscope and Diana’s horoscope and gave certain two-line statements to each “planet” to declaim. It was astounding how much emotion developed as…
Read articleThe Consultation Horoscope
Management of Measurement Constructs Notebook The Consultation Horoscope It’s uncanny how the horoscope set for the time of the consultation appointment so very, very, very often captures the essence of why the client has made the appointment for the consultation! So often, when a client appears to be late for the appointment or has called in about…
Read articleThe Value of Events
Management of Measurement Constructs The Value of Events One of my clients last week, in an update session, looked me straight in the eye and said grimly, “I lost $800,000 in the ENRON situation.” –Such a situation, unfortunately for us astrologers, is like a plane crash or prisoner-of-war experience: accidents in time occur and may…
Read articleResistance to Change
Management of Measurement Constructs Resistance to Change! It seems that everyone wants change, and, yet, it is amazing how many people fear change and resist it! People want change in their life as escape from routined underachievement, unhappiness, depression, prolonged crisis, but they are afraid of the transient insecurity during the change. They are afraid of losing…
Read articleCentury Retrospective
Management of Measurement Constructs Century Retrospective One hundred years ago –1903—the average life expectancy in the United States was forty-seven! Only 24 percent of the homes in the country had a bathtub and only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone! There were only 144 miles of paved roads in the United States, and…
Read articleKeeping Time in Memory
Management of Measurement Constructs Keeping Time in Memory Constantly, in learning and practicing our astrology, we look into our own lives through the symbols and their ever-changing patterns, the Arcs and Transits. We look back to November 1975 or April 1952 … and we simply can’t remember enough of the life situation to give detailed…
Read articleTherapy-Reading Study Recommendations
Management of Measurement Constructs Therapy-Reading Study Recommendations Astrology is an analytical art form; sharing understanding of the human condition and improving things comprise the area of communication skills. Accomplishing analytical synthesis with astrological measurements is one thing; knowing what to communicate about the constantly developing facts of life is yet another. How full and informed…
Read articleThe Importance of Context
Management of Measurement Constructs The Importance of Context Einstein said, “Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.” What an intriguing saying! It tumbles the mind, but it’s not simple to understand! What was the professor saying? I’ve come to the conclusion that the meaning of this observation is that reduction of observations to…
Read articleUsing the Essay Resources Creatively
Management of Measurement Constructs Using the Essay Resources Creatively To date, December 2003, this website has logged a 52-month history, with 330,000 visits to the site and Discussion Forum. In each of this site’s three Essay Departments –Analytical Techniques, Counseling Insights, and Notebook— there are 48 Essays … each near 1,000 words in length. –Allow me to suggest, that…
Read articleInviting Inspiration into Analysis
Management of Measurement Constructs Inviting Inspiration into Analysis Who hasn’t been told at one time or another during our development –or maybe a million times!— that we are closed minded!? This is a way of saying we’re not open to a new idea, a new opinion, new information. Indeed, it is a (defensive) condition that can…
Read articleBetter Orientation for Interpretation
Management of Measurement Constructs Better Orientation for Interpretation I think it is fair to suggest/to recall that astrology has evolved more in the last 50-60 years than in the preceding 50 years; and certainly the preceding 500 years. Of course, this is due to our maturing society: the 20th century was certainly keynoted as the…
Read articleThe Impediment of Jargon
Management of Measurement Constructs The Impediment of Jargon “The herringbone brickwork, ingenious as it was, would not alone have been enough to stop the dome collapsing inward. The real stroke of genius was in creating a kind of circular skeleton over which the external octagonal structure of the dome took shape. That is, the dome…
Read articleHow Organized is your Horoscope Preparation?
Management of Measurement Constructs How Organized is your Horoscope Preparation? A telling question to ask astrologers is, “How long does it take you to prepare a horoscope for consultation?” –You would be amazed at the answers! I kid you not (say I with a twinkle in my eye), I hear these answers soooo often: “A…
Read articleWorking with Probabilities
Management of Measurement Constructs Notebook Working with ProbabilitiesI remember vividly some 30 years ago, in the early Summer, just getting my grip on the astounding reliability of the Jupiter reward cycle (twelve years to the month conjunct the same point, usually the natal Sun, once the cycle begins). I was seeing a client on a…
Read articleFinding the Statue Within
Management of Measurement Constructs Finding the Statue Within There is a famous quote attributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti: “The statue is already inside the block of marble –all that is necessary is to work it out by chipping off everything unnecessary.” In terms of our work in astrology, what about this thought comes to your mind…
Read articleAwareness of LEVEL and Fulfillment of Astrological Potentials
Management of Measurement Constructs Awareness of LEVEL and Fulfillment of Astrological Potentials The handyman who helps keep my house together has a definite aesthetic sense: he clearly enjoys setting things right, keeping things clean and in order, improving efficiency, aligning stones harmoniously in the garden, sculpting large desert bushes, laying tiles, building walls. While he…
Read articleLearning Beyond Descriptions
Management of Measurement Constructs Learning beyond Descriptions At the end of a very long, detailed book review in one of my favorite magazines, the reviewer shared a thought incisive for us. He had labored throughout the review to bring out the nuance and importance of the book (non astrological) about which he thought very highly,…
Read articleReading and Thinking
Management of Measurement Constructs NotebookReading and Thinking Social commentary throughout the Information Age, some 20-25 years old now, believe it or not, has seen the rise of the computer and the internet as a depression upon writing, books, thinking and discourse. Just as robotics in industry 40 years ago was heralded as a substitute for…
Read articleRulership over Tenancy
Management of Measurement Constructs Rulership over Tenancy A planet’s substantive significance in astrological analysis rests strongly in the main on the significances of the House it rules, so much more than the House in which it finds itself. A planet assessed predominantly for the House of its tenancy (where it is located in the natal horoscope)…
Read articleBelieving is Seeing?
Management of Measurement Constructs Believing is Seeing? The adage in our language “Seeing is Believing” is a reality statement. It’s a statement, a mind-set about evidence and proof. In astrology, it can be applied to knowing that a measurement complex defines a reality situation that can not be denied. We see it there in the horoscope, and…
Read articleHow’re You Doing, in Astrology?
Management of Measurement Constructs How’re you doing, in Astrology?”A Suggestion for the New Year I received a telephone call this morning from a participant on the Forum. I don’t know the person; she was diligently inquiring about the quality of her work on successive submissions in vocational profiling exercises. It was a pleasure to tell…
Read articleTake Away the Measurements, and What’s Left?
Management of Measurement Constructs Take Away the Measurements, and What’s Left? If you know a very good card trick, a well-developed scenario of magical transformation or prediction or an entertaining deception, and you have practiced it thoroughly and gained skill through practice, you are “performing” indeed. Something magical is happening under your attention; you are…
Read articleWhose Kingdom Comes?
Management of Measurement Constructs Whose Kingdom Comes? To set the scene of this “Notebook Study”, I am re-presenting some research and projections made by me in 1996, printed in 1997, Predictions for a New Millennium. “Prince Charles will not be King of England –There is an interesting set of astrological measurement variables that emerges from study of…
Read articleZZzzzp. There it is! Now What?
Management of Measurement Constructs ZZzzzp. There it is! Now what??? A dramatic astrological measurement guideline can be like a surgeon’s scalpel, opening the body to expose a problem. –ZZzzzp, “Well, there it is!” The problem focus is exposed, and now what do you do? So many astrologers cannot get past the measurement phase of our…
Read articleMelody and Message
Management of Measurement ConstructsMelody and Message Try humming or singing the first song-tune that comes to mind … just the beginning of it. Try it. The odds are high that you’ve instinctively picked a song that is really easy to remember, that just spills out of your mind. There is something about that song that…
Read articleShow your Grammar Grade
Management of Measurement Constructs Show Your Grammar Grade Listen to anyone in the English language speak three sentences, and ask yourself what you know about them! So telling is the word choice, the diction, and above all –please know this—the grammar. Our schools are dreadfully remiss in not teaching proper sentence structure and composition. The…
Read articleThe Anxiety of Separation, Disapproval, and Threat
Management of Measurement ConstructsThe Anxiety of Separation, Disapproval, and Threat We focus everything upon the light of the Sun; our contact with the Sun is our involvement with life. Separation from that light triggers anxiety: when the “light goes out” for one reason or another, we feel that we’ve lost the energy path of our life; we’re…
Read articleGet moving! Take Action!
Management of Measurement ConstructsGet Moving; Take Action I can remember so vividly, my mother telling me, “Idleness is the devil’s workshop.” –Of course, I didn’t have the faintest idea what that meant! So I would move around and do something. That seemed to assuage mother’s stern admonition. And notice how our language, in general parlance,…
Read articleThe Measure of Confidence
Management of Measurement Constructs The Measure of Confidence Three points can be very helpful in guiding us to do our best work most efficiently. Measurements Repeat Themselves Students in my Master’s Certification Course learn in the First Lesson that, as in real life, the first impression of the horoscope prevails thoroughly and protractedly in our assessment of an…
Read articleHow Are You Doing, in Astrology?
Management of Measurement Constructs How’re you doing, in Astrology?”A Suggestion for the New Year I received a telephone call this morning from a participant on the Forum. I don’t know the person; she was diligently inquiring about the quality of her work on successive submissions in vocational profiling exercises. It was a pleasure to tell…
Read articleLearn to count Projections in a Flash
Management of Measurement Constructs Learn to count Projections in a Flash If we stop and think of all the things we ask our mind to do in astrology, we can streamline processes, speed things up, and feel great about it! Projecting Solar Arcs Let’s use Marilyn Monroe’s horoscope, June 01, 1926 at 9:30 AM PST in…
Read articleArticulating Element Imbalance
Management of Measurement Constructs Articulating Element Imbalance The Noel Tyl essay here extends from the fine “Analytical Techniques” guest essay by England’s Richard Swatton –“Elements Emphasized and De-emphasized” published five years ago. For that essay, please see the Archives in the “Analytical Techniques” department, and click on April 30, 2001. In talking shop, astrologers often…
Read articleOur Frame of Mind
Management of Measurement Constructs Our Frame of Mind How often do we forget we’re human? How does frustration in our life –a momentary struggle with a project … or a chronic state of being—change how we relate to others, how we do our astrological work? How does personal bias arise –criticality, displacement, projection– to assert…
Read articleOur Vulnerability to the Negative
Management of Measurement Constructs Our Vulnerability to the Negative We want our work with every client to be maximally helpful; we want to see our clients fulfilling themselves and developing in league with their strategies, hopes, and dreams. We want to support, illuminate, and build on that process of positive development. We want to make…
Read article‘Didn’t Happen’ doesn’t mean ‘It won’t!’
Management of Measurement Constructs’Didn’t Happen’ doesn’t mean ‘It Won’t’! Astrology too easily feels “scheduled” to an extreme, to the end that, should measurements pass without manifestation in the client’s life, we think they won’t! We hear this from people all too often: “Well, you said my life would change, and it didn’t.” First of all, for…
Read articleThe Power of Simplification
Management of Measurement Constructs The Power of Simplification So many astrologers clutter and shade themselves with jargon, over-measurement, and technical detail; they lose sight of the target, the reality being experienced by their client. Some of the measurements are simply untenable, extraneous, archaic, inscrutable (like transits to Arced or Progressed positions!). All these measurements are supposed…
Read articleEnforcing Efficiency with Horoscope Preparation
Management of Measurement Constructs Enforcing Efficiency with Horoscope Preparation Within the Peter Principle pantheon of insights, there’s a phrase recognizing the obvious that applies importantly to our work preparing horoscopes: work fills the time that exists. –Not the time that is required, but all the time possible! The new astrologer will spend daaaaaays poring over horoscope drawings and sheets of measurement…
Read articleConnecting the Dots….
Management of Measurement Constructs Connecting the Dots…. 15 Indispensable Keys to Analysismay be a great DVD title [See MENU, BOOK LIST], but the list of “Keys” must pay off, must have something more going for it than mere description and explanation of measurement items. The Keys have to work together, every single time we analyze a…
Read articleHow we progressively do more than collect Data in Astrology
Management of Measurement Constructs How we progressively do more than collect Data in Astrology It seems there is a 30-year long generation period in Astrology. There are peaks and troughs of popularity, and book sales and –now– website visits tell the tale, mark the time. At present, we are in the trough period of the…
Read articlePre-Consultation Image-Making
Management of Measurement Constructs Pre-Consultation Image-Making–What can be accomplished– When someone calls an astrologer for an appointment, the person usually has special concerns about something in their experience, past, present, or future. They are not just “curious” any more; curiosity about astrology has faded, as circumspection and appreciation of astrology and what it “does” have…
Read articleNew Year’s Wishes for the Forum
Management of Measurement Constructs New Year’s Wishes for the Forum! Not surprisingly, the practice of making New Year’s resolutions can be traced back to Babylonian times. Today, as we know, we are most concerned with losing weight, stopping smoking, etc.; back then in Babylonia, the common concerns were paying off debts and returning borrowed farm…
Read articleHow do you tell a good Astrologer?
Management of Measurement Constructs ”How do you tell a Good Astrologer?” I’ve been asked this question so many, many times; we’ve all been asked this question! What do we say? My answer begins quite matter-of-factly: “You look into their eyes.” –I say this with a simple firmness, no poetical swoon. Instantly, it is clear that I’m…
Read articleSome Humanistic Measurements for the thinking Astrologer
Management of Measurement Constructs Some Humanistic Measurements for the Thinking Astrologer Astrology presents us with a great many measurements. With some people unsure of their ability to synthesize, to analyze, the more measurements to occupy the brain the better! They hope that somewhere, somehow some measurement will tell the story, so, without much thought, they measure the pants off…
Read articleAstrology: Good Guys and Bad guys?
Management of Measurement Constructs Astrology: Good Guys and Bad Guys? There’s a tendency in human nature to take personal credit for the good that happens to us and to blame someone else or something outside ourselves for the difficult, challenging, bad things that happen. We want exoneration. Psychoanalyst J. C. Fluegel, at the end of…
Read articleAstrologer Self-Assurance supports Client Confidence
Management of Measurement Constructs Astrologer Self-Assurance supports Client Confidence The astrologer, by definition, is a person of authority. The client comes for information and learning; the client pays for it. The astrologer better be good! 🙂 As the astrologer practices and learns about life and communicates more and more smoothly and didactically to clients, the…
Read articleMarriage-Divorce Bromides
Management of Measurement ConstructsMarriage-Divorce Bromides There’s a well-worn adage in astrology that says if there is a double-bodied Sign (Gemini, Libra, Pisces, or Sagittarius) on the cusp of the 7th or if the ruler of the 7th is in a double-bodied Sign, ‘there will be more than one marriage.’ The deductive logic behind the bromide…
Read articleMeasurements that just go by!
Management of Measurement Constructs (An echo of this month’s Counseling Insights essay)Measurements that just go by! Too many astrologers think that everything “works”!, that every transit is going to pull our life-strings and that we’ll feel every tug dramatically. –But astrology just doesn’t occur that way.First of all, planets do not make things happen. People do. –The symbols…
Read articleCorollary Thinking
Management of Measurement Constructs [Brought forward for re-emphasis from “Counseling Insightsâ€, August 31, 2004. I feel that this discussion about “Corollary thinking†should be in every astrologer’s ‘Notebook.’]Corollary Thinking Corollary thinking is exposing a thought that is companion to a thought already presented; the new thought follows naturally usually into a new, even opposite direction.…
Read articleAstrological Theory, Astrological Truth
Management of Measurement Constructs Astrological Theory, Astrological Truth In the title of this essay, there’s a strategic comma between the two concepts. This comma protects us from the split of an “either/or†perception, the cumbersome challenge of an “and†position, or a tangled “within†fusion. As it is, the title presents the concepts in parallel; they…
Read articleThe Simple and the Good
Management of Measurement Constructs The Simple and the Good What is simple isn’t always good, but what is good is almost always simple. For fifteen-hundred years, astrologer mathematicians worked to simplify Ptolemy’s technique of Primary Directions. The technique was impressive for so long because it was intelligent and complex. [Please see chapter one, Solar Arcs] It’s part of human…
Read articleThe Dignity of Sagittarius
Management of Measurement Constructs The Dignity of ‘Sagittarius’ When I hear the grand word “Sagittarius” abbreviated into colloquialism –‘Sadge”, “Saggie”—I stop cold in my tracks. The strength and dignity of the Sign is lost in order to suit something hip; is it that the astrologer can’t manage a word slightly longer than the average? I think the…
Read articleThe Energy of Needs
Management of Measurement Constructs Oh! The Energy of Needs So much of our life —so very very much— is linked to having to do something in order to make progress with life. We have to follow the instructions of our parents. We have to do what our teacher tells us. We have to model ourselves to societal expectations of behavior. We have to get a…
Read articleNew-Year HopesManaging the Spirit – moving from idealization to strengtNew-Year Hopes
Management of Measurement Constructs New-Year Hopes Every year since the beginning of this website, here in the Forum, I’ve made some hopes and wishes known for times of learning ahead. I do so again at this year’s end. –And let me promise you that these hopes are not idle whimsy or chatter; they are concrete blocks…
Read articleManaging the Existential
Management of Measurement Constructs Managing the Existential The intensity with which human beings work to confirm and justify their existence varies with every culture. Individual existence is decidedly more emphasized in the West than it is in the East. Especially in the United States, the individual is the focal point of everything; the world simply…
Read articleFacts about Fine Feelings
Management of Measurement Constructs Facts about fine Feelings A research study led by Norihiro Sadato, a professor at the Japanese National Institute for Physiological Sciences, has discovered fascinating correlations between receiving a compliment and the prospect of receiving money! –The study shows that the part of the brain called the striatum, the brain’s reward-perception system, is…
Read articleAccess notes for the Sexual Profile
Management of Measurement Constructs Access Notes for the Sexual Profile The reader is referred to the large discussion of sexuality inTyl- Synthesis & Counseling in Astrology (pages 553-625 especially) and toTyl- The Astrology of Intimacy, Sexuality, and Relationship. In December past, two-time academy award winner Jodie Foster acknowledged in a public speech her long-term 15-year gay…
Read articlePalming a Card for Confidence!
Management of Measurement Constructs ”Palming a Card for Confidence! I like to play the piano. I’m not very good, really, but I can be effective, because I have taught myself harmony and counterpoint and I can create neat sounds … effects. I went to a world class piano recital recently, and the great artist (Garrick…
Read articleHow the Horoscope seems to weaken
Management of Measurement Constructs How the horoscope seems to weaken My oldest client (some 35 years together) now aged 65 has enjoyed a marvelous international career (in some 75 countries) as a high-level management consultant for governments (Plutonic Midheaven). His horoscope now suggests extremely dynamic change/growth (centered about SA Uranus=Pluto) … but his professional life…
Read articleA Cosmic Waste
Management of Measurement Constructs A Cosmic Waste For many years of utilization and many years into past research, the July 4, 1776 2:13 AM LMT chart for the United States (Philadelphia PA) has fared extremely well. Key have been the super-responsive 12-18 Aquarius Midheaven-Moon area and the Saturn rulership reference to the foreign-affairs 9th House…
Read articleSupporting and Inspiring our Young
Management of Measurement Constructs Supporting and Inspiring our Young Recently at a Seminar, I was asked a simple but far-reaching question: “How best can parents lead and inspire the young?” –This is a question perhaps best managed by a Family Therapist; but then again …..! This question emerged out of hours of illustration in the…
Read articleThe Danger of being caught by SWAT
Management of Measurement Constructs “The Dangers of being caught by SWAT” Is StopWatch Astrological Timing possible? Or we could ask, “Does God use a stopwatch”? Picture that! I don’t think so. –But maybe there is a stopwatch somewhere in Nature and we just don’t yet understand it through our astrology? (Maybe not knowing all keeps…
Read articleUse the Essay Resources Creatively
Management of Measurement Constructs Use the Essay Resources CreativelyTo date, December 2008, this website has logged a 112-month history –almost 10 years– with high numbers of visits to the site and the Discussion Forum. In each of this site’s three Essay Departments –Analytical Techniques, Counseling Insights, and Notebook— there are 100+ Essays … each near 1,000 words in…
Read articleToo Much Baggage?
Management of Measurement Constructs Too Much Baggage? In Seminar question periods, I often hear inquiries about things in astrologers’ dusty trunks. We all wonder what’s up with these wisps of teachings usually long gone in time but occasionally sneaking back under the door of modern learning. We seem to be carrying much extra baggage ……
Read articleHow’re you doing, in Astrology?
Management of Measurement Constructs How’re you doing, in Astrology?” I received a telephone call this morning from a participant on the Forum. I don’t know the person; she was diligently inquiring about the quality of her work on successive submissions in vocational profiling exercises. It was a pleasure to tell her how much her work…
Read articleWhat Can be; not what is!
Management of Measurement ConstructsWhat can be; not what is! Astrology is still trying to develop out from under the fatalism blanket put upon it for oh-so long. –“Tell me what is going to happen.” THAT’s all too often the expectation, the burden put upon Astrology. And then, attempts to work this out bog down very, very quickly into…
Read articleHearing the Melody
Management of Measurement Constructs Hearing the Melody Recall the Irving Berlin song, “The Song is Ended, but the melody lingers on.” Or from The Song is You, Oscar Hammerstein’s words, “I hear music when I look at you.” Or Lorenz Hart’s words for Richard Rodgers’ music, “With a song in my heart.” What eloquent statements of…
Read articleAstrology’s Adaptations
Management of Measurement Constructs Astrology’s Adaptations Our awareness of astrology emerges in clear –and threatening—fashion from the Middle Ages, even though it was given some shine by the polish of the Renaissance. Unavoidably, we learn the imposition of Fate; we alchemically search for knowledge with which to placate the gods to avoid their decrees. In…
Read articleDoubt giving way to Vision
Management of Measurement Constructs Doubt giving way to Vision We must know that the two considerations doubt and vision are symbolized by Neptune. These considerations are not necessarily opposites; rather, they are states of mind orientated to different directions, past and future. Respectively, they retreat from the Now; they go past the Now. When we doubt, there is usually…
Read articleGuidelines for Consultation Structure
Management of Measurement Constructs Guidelines for Consultation Structure Every symphony, sonata, novel, short story, joke must have form: there must be a beginning, a middle, and an end. The form, the structure of communication, gives it stature, adds to meaning, and helps it to endure in memory. The simplest example is the distress signal SOS: the letters mean nothing;…
Read articleIt’s just a Matter of Time
Management of Measurement Constructs It’s just a matter of time We hear it often: “It’s just a matter of time!” –We hear its cousin equally as often, “Everything in its own time.” I was commiserating with a man before his eye operation, and he sighed with resignation: “My daddy taught me, if you’re supposed to…
Read articlePluto as an Adverb
Management of Measurement Constructs Notebook Pluto as an Adverb “Babe Ruth hit a homerun.” “Babe Ruth, with a tremendous effort from his hugely muscled shoulders, hit the ball up and away, enormously far into the sky, dramatically out of the park!” The difference between these two statements is that the second one has adverbs in…
Read articleCentury Retrospective
Management of Measurement Constructs Century Retrospective One hundred years ago -1903- the average life expectancy in the United States was forty-seven! Only 24 percent of the homes in the country had a bathtub and only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone! There were only 144 miles of paved roads in the United States,…
Read articleThings to Teach Yourself
Management of Measurement Constructs Things to Teach Yourself So many astrologers -hobbyists, serious students, emergent practitioners, young professionals-need to discover how all that they know works together. Astrology is not a never-ending memorization challenge of bromides, rules, and technicalities. Rather -as a song is so much more than a series of notes-astrology integrates cosmic measurements with life…
Read articleSpecial Information and Sources
Management of Measurement Constructs. Special Information and Sources The Power of Suggestion The verb “suggest” is extremely powerful in our work. When we say “the horoscope suggests”, we keep our client free; we are not backing our client into a corner with rigidly conceived descriptions; we are keeping our client out of the “Yes-No” mindset, and…
Read articleHas the Future already Happened?
Management of Measurement Constructs Has the Future already Happened? Yesterday, planning a horoscope discussion, I projected the highest feasibility for a lady’s retirement; I saw it coming: second Saturn-return, very strong measurements involving the Midheaven, and Pluto=Ascendant. Approaching this with the client, I said, “The suggestion here in the horoscope is for retirement, for major change of…
Read articleAdvanced Notes: MHEP
Management of Measurement ConstructsAdvanced Notes: MHEPRefining Symbolisms In the Midheaven Extension Process, we work to focus the individual’s needs and behaviors suggested in the horoscope into a House-denoted sphere of activity. A decidedly stated (and usually conspicuously reiterated) focus on a House through rulership routings suggests where the client will bloom best, where the client…
Read articleWhere does time go?
Where does time Go? Einstein is quoted, “I don’t worry about the future. The future comes soon enough.” The sense of this is that “worrying” about the future hastens its arrival, so to speak; it brings to us anticipated effects from time ahead, usually drastic effects. –Is this harmful to developing reality? Does it complicate…
Read articleHearing the Melody
Hearing the Melody Recall the Irving Berlin song, The Song is Ended, but the melody lingers on. Or from The Song is You, Oscar Hammerstein’s words, “I hear music when I look at you.” Or Lorenz Hart’s words for Richard Rodgers’ music, “With a song in my heart.” What eloquent statements of being . being in music. There’s a…
Read articleFinding the Statue Within
Management of Measurement Constructs [Repeated from Notebook, June 30, 2004. See the Archives immediately following the present essay below; in all three departments, see over ¼ million words of teaching!]Finding the Statue Within There is a famous quote attributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti: “The statue is already inside the block of marble -all that is necessary…
Read articleThe Importance of Process
Management of Measurement Constructs The Importance of Process When someone helps you professionally to clean house, you tell them how you would like them to do it. You point out this and that and you share certain techniques that will do the job well. It’s your process and you know best; you’ve been using that cleaning process…
Read articleArt of Questioning
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsArt of Questioning In astrology, we work to relate the horoscope to the reality being lived by the client. We use questions to discover the substance of development on an infrastructure of time. That substance comes from the client’s life, not from an astrological textbook. We must find out the actuality and…
Read articleArt of Connections
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsThe Art of Connections Remember the jokes about “why did the chicken cross the road?” –“To get to the other side!”? The key word here to help this joke delight a youngster is the word “why.” I think that astrology is usually too smug to ask the question why; we presume that astrology…
Read articleConsultation Glimpses
Creative Connections & Client Communications Consultation Glimpses When a client calls you for an appointment, what is your discussionabout? Have you thought it through? What do you say and why? How do youdescribe what your client should expect from a consultation with you? Whatdo you hear in what your prospective client says? This is terribly important,…
Read articleThe Fear of Abandonment
Creative Connections & Client Communications The Fear of Abandonment So often, the pattern is revealed in consultation -just as it came forth again in one of my four clients this morning-that one is adopted when the unwed mother dies, that the grandmother who adopted her then herself dies some six years later, and then the…
Read articleHow Far Do Planets Go?
Creative Connections & Client Communications How Far Do Planets Go? Yesterday, one of my clients was a woman running and now owning her family business, an art-design company. Her Midheaven of 00 Pisces was clearly corroborated through aspects with Neptune and the reality focus of her professional life. The consultation went as smoothly as I…
Read articleMore Creative Insights
Creative Connections & Client Communications More Creative Connections Updated December 30, as promised Revealing Statements When a client tells you that, in childhood, the family moved every year or so! (probably because the father was in the military), what does this suggest to you about developmental considerations, difficulties? Where do you look in the horoscope for…
Read articleThe 12th House
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsThe 12th House Here are just a few insights drawn verbatim, but shortened, from The Creative Astrologer, pages 189-190, about the 12thHouse, the House that is so difficult for us in astrology: The 12th House has the sense of getting prepared, perhaps of making corrections, especially when observing the buildup of a major…
Read articleThe 12th House, continued
Creative Connections & Client Communications The 12th House Here are just a few insights drawn verbatim, but shortened, from The Creative Astrologer, pages 190-191, continuing from last month’s presentation, about the 12thHouse, the House that is so difficult for us in astrology: Creative Connections: The 12th House (part 2) With Neptune arcing down to the Ascendant from within…
Read articleEstablishing Objectives to Guide the Consultation
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsEstablishing Objectives to Guide the Consultation So few astrologers actually think through what they want to accomplish -what astrology should accomplish- during a consultation. Naturally, this affects the consultation itself: it can wander, it can lack authority, “handles” on which the client can get a grip. The consultation is up for…
Read articleEstablishing Objectives to Guide the Consultation
Creative Connections & Client Communications Establishing Objectives to Guide the Consultation So few astrologers actually think through what they want to accomplish -what astrology should accomplish- during a consultation. Naturally, this affects the consultation itself: it can wander, it can lack authority, “handles” on which the client can get a grip. The consultation is up…
Read articleCircumstantial Confinement
Creative Connections & Client Communications Circumstantial Confinement Every astrologer encounters horoscopes that hardly seem to breathe, hardly see to respond. There are reasons for this:many people are circumstantially confined societally, vocationally, religiously. Circumstances in life can dilute, divert, re-direct, or even erase astrological measurements. I remember doing horoscopes years ago in Germany for many clients…
Read articleHarrummmpf! You’ve hit a nerve!
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsHarrummmpf! You’ve hit a nerve! In a face-to-face consultation, every busy astrologer learns to spot the client’s telltale shifts of position in his/her chair when an especially telling point is reached in conversation. We see and understand this tension-repositioning –the wiggling foot, the strong swallowing, the averted gaze- on TV, for…
Read articleToo Much of a Good Thing
Creative Connections & Client Communications Too Much of a Good Thing Long ago, when I was teaching myself astrology, I had a conversation with New York astrologer Zoltan Mason in his bookstore. I had read about 9,000 astrology books(!) in the preceding 6 months, and I was already assembling a private notebook of my earliest…
Read articleCreative Connections & Client Communications
Creative Connections & Client Communications Creating Therapeutic Images Think of the aphorisms (concise statements of principle, from the Greek and French for “definition”) that creep into conversations all the time. They tell a truth concisely and memorably: ideas like “No one can make you feel inferior without your cooperation”; “Into every life some rain must…
Read articlePracticality, Reality Lead Measurements
Practicality, Reality Lead Measurements It happened again yesterday: from the chart for the consultation time through to the Arcs and Transits in her natal horoscope, everything for this 64-year old, asthmatic, slow afoot but sparkling of mind lady screamed a big new project, a new business Ö not the everyday occurrence in life at that age.…
Read articlePatience and Disclosure
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsPatience and Disclosure When someone asks you an astute question, especially if it has a personal probe within it, you’re especially alert, even uncomfortable. -This is why our social ways and language teach us to say something like, “May I ask you a personal question?” We set up a warning of…
Read articleTherapeutic Images
Creative Connections & Client Communications Therapeutic Images Everything we know in astrology eventually comes down to communication in the consultation. Without communication skill, our knowledge goes nowhere except into the static state of objective description. We must bring our knowledge into the client’s reality, illuminatingly, constructively, strategically, helpfully. If we pay attention to our speech -using proper…
Read articleGetting Close to the Client
Creative Connections & Client Communications Getting Close to the Client Relationship dynamics are at work in the astrological consultation: the client and astrologer must create a close bond quickly. This is accomplished through compliments (acceptance), disclosure, and the brevity of the relationship with the astrologer (compression of socialization dynamics). Let’s look at relationships in general first: The…
Read articleSubtext Use as Therapy
Creative Connections & Client Communications Subtext Use as Therapy Concurrently this month with this essay, under the department “Notebook”, there is the discussion about improving image through utilization of subtexts, using stimuli spoken to the mind to affect our behavior and presence. The same affect can be achieved for the clientthrough dramatization of a specific subtext.…
Read articleThe Fear of Counseling
Creative Connections & Client Communications The Fear of Counseling It is natural for astrology students to be afraid of “counseling.” They sense a lack of preparedness and confidence within themselves. –Let’s talk about this a bit. First of all, the word “counseling” came into being as we know it within the attendant psychological relationship between…
Read articleAvoiding Extremes for Common Sense
Creative Connections & Client Communications Avoiding Extremes for Common Sense In the “Notebook” essay posted this month, I refer to “Joan” with her update call about job dissatisfaction. Under the powerful Solar Arc measurement MC=Saturn, she exhibited great unrest, wanted to leave her marvelous job, relocate a considerable distance, and start afresh. Her horoscope did…
Read articleThe Last Five Minutes
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsThe Last Five Minutes I remember vividly playing the first consultation tape for one of Master’s Degree Seminar meetings and being startled that applause, cheering, erupted during the last few sentences of the presentation! I quickly realized that this enthusiasm wasn’t simply appreciative applause for the consultation process, rather, it was…
Read articleMore Discussion: Therapeutic Metaphors
Creative Connections & Client Communications More Discussion: Therapeutic Metaphors I’d like to add onto the important theme -see earlier posting under “Notebook, Archives: August 2001”-of therapeutic metaphors. In Hamburg, Germany just recently, I saw 22 clients in four days and I realized again how often such metaphors were used in the consultation. And then again…
Read articleIt Berras Consideration!
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsIt Berras Consideration! Books have been written about Yogi Berra’s extraordinary mis-speaks. The Hall of Fame Yankee catcher is widely on record speaking strangely understandable wisdoms; almost all of them begin with a smile and end with a serious nod of the head (born May 12, 1925, Saturn quindecile Mercury). He…
Read articleStrategic Knowledge and Common Sense
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsStrategic Knowledge and Common Sense So often I profess, “Planets do nothing; people do things.” This is so important. The astrologer can not sit with her/his client and expect to find answers to life development in terms of planetary bromides. What the planets show for the future are guidelines in time, guidelines to further development from…
Read articleLifting Your Client UP!
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsLifting Your Client UP! The consultation is an emotional experience, not a recitation of axioms, bromides, and conundrums. So much intelligence, memory, understanding, feeling, regret, and hope are compressed into an hour or so. This is SST, single session therapy, at its most intense [see TheCreative Astrologer]. -This doesn’t mean everyone participating within an…
Read articlePatience with your Client’s Unconscious
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsPatience with your Client’s Unconscious The students in my Master’s Degree Course are armed with powerful insightful tools. Often these tools are formed by special word-combinations (images) that have much proven power in capturing developmental scenarios in the client’s life. Occasionally, one feels timid about using such powerful insightful images in…
Read articleConsiderations for the 8th House
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsConsiderations for the 8th House For any astrologer, the 8th House or the 12th House (or both) are most difficult. Old teaching stories abound: hidden enemies, incarceration, terminal illness for the 12th; death, depravity, inheritance for the 8th. We should take a fresh look at this situation and improve our comfort…
Read articleA Communication Therapy
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsA Communication Therapy Think of the people you know who have difficulty speaking with feelings, about feelings. They may speak with words and vocal sound lacking the feel of grace, humanity, and empathy, perhaps with minimal humor; nothing but dispassionate descriptions. Perhaps you can include yourself on the list! Not being able to…
Read articleHow do you Sound to your Clients?
Creative Connections & Client Communications How do you Sound to your Clients? As I train practicing astrologers practically every working minute of my life, I see so clearly the major hurdle that looms large in development and easily inhibits potentially fruitful, creative, intelligent astrologers from making the grade in client consultation. That hurdle is learning to “talk the horoscope” in people…
Read articleYour Client’s Awareness
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsYour Client’s Awareness In the “Counseling” Essays archived below, please recall the posting entitled “Patience with your Client’s Unconscious”, February 1, 2002. This installment here is related to that discussion, respecting the internal assimilation, understanding, and settling process that very much busies your client during the astrological consultation. Let us say…
Read articleManaging Anxiety
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsManaging Anxiety The Time Magazine cover story, June 10, 2002 is on “Understanding Anxiety,” and so are the powerful pages in Synthesis & Counseling in Astrology, 351-365, and 378. Several times in the excellent Time article, the point is studied, “Are some of us just born more nervous than others?” Is anxiety “hardwired in our brains?” The Time report…
Read articleAsking the Surprising Question
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsAsking the Surprising Question A key modality in the consultation process, bringing the horoscope to the client’s life, is to stimulate disclosure. That’s the only way the astrologer can learn and appreciate the reality being lived by the client. It’s like turning a kaleidoscope: we have all the patterns before our eyes, but…
Read articleRecognizing Limiting Boundaries
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsRecognizing Limiting Boundaries Author Julian L. Simon ( Good Mood –the New Psychology of Overcoming Depression) writes an entrancing phrase: “Childhood experiences are the colors with which the adult draws pictures of life.” This observation plays easily into the Zen thought that there are no boundaries between the past, present, and future.…
Read articleAssumptive Questioning
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsAssumptive Questioning This is a short excerpt from The Creative Astrologer—Effective Single-Session Counseling [see “Books” on this website], from the vitally important presentation of questioning techniques (pages 76-78). It is so very, very important, this skill. –I hope you will study this book and learn the techniques well. The fourth [among several key…
Read articleDifficult Reality Motivating New Choice
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsDifficult Reality Motivating the New Choice The recent TV docudrama about the legendary comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis focused upon its ending: the break-up of the fabulous duo after 10 years of astounding success! But was this an ending –and didn’t we all say, lamentably, “How could that…
Read articleThe Talent for Asking Questions
Creative Connections & Client Communications The Talent for Asking Questions Please see as well, pages 75-85 The Creative Astrologer and the Archives here below for July 15, 1999,”The Art of Questioning.” This is an exercise for your astrological talent, which you can do watching television! Television newspeople conducting interviews are trying to relate events, utterances, hearsay, rumor,…
Read articleAre you Really Listening?
Creative Connections & Client Communications Are you Really Listening? It’s magical learning when my students listen to and analyze taped consultations. Beyond the organization of measurement guideline structures into good conversation, presented by the astrologer without one word of technical jargon, there is the feedback from the client: the tone of voice, the word choice, the trust and…
Read articleThe Earliest Memory/Suppression
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsThe Earliest Memory/Suppression We tend to use the word “repression” when we actually mean “suppression”; it’s important to clarify the difference. [Please see Synthesis & Counseling in Astrology, beginning page 651.] Repression, a Freudian concept, is the putting remotely out of the way any idea or association of ideas that is painful, threatening, fearsome. The quantum…
Read articleWish Fulfillment / Power of Suggestion
Creative Connections & Client Communications Wish Fulfillment / Power of Suggestion Just now, I returned a telephone call left with me yesterday; clearly it was a room at a motel/hotel. The woman who answered the phone launched immediately and emotionally into quite a story. I tried to ignore all the emotional details and listen for…
Read articleTherapeutic Metaphors Revisited
Creative Connections & Client Communications Therapeutic Metaphors Revisited Please refresh your reading of “Therapeutic Metaphors” presented (see Archives below) July 30, 2001. Coming up with a metaphor that helps your client understand the consultation discussion theme is very important. A metaphor also allows the substance and significance of the consultation to be remembered easily after…
Read articleHow Many Defenses Do You Need?
Creative Connections & Client Communications How Many Defenses Do You Need? Defense mechanisms –behaviors organized to protect the self from just about anything—are essential, especially in the younger years. These defense mechanisms can range from a child leaving a tense (threatening) moment with a parent to hide out in his/her room, to creating a wall…
Read articleThe Magic of ‘What If?
Creative Connections & Client Communications The Magic of “What if?” So many tests in social psychology, trying to pinpoint the key benefits people feel about their therapy experience, clearly reveal that the dimension that makes good work possible, that allows success is empathy. The people feel understood by someone with knowledge and skill; the process together brings…
Read articlePolished Communications
Creative Connections & Client Communications Polished CommunicationsThere is no astrology without an astrologer. Cosmic conditions within time require interpretation and application. The astrologer is the agent who brings symbology and reality together within time, for learning and for understanding. A few years ago, I had a client who was President of an Advertising Agency. Everything…
Read articleThe Supportiveness of Credibility
Creative Connections & Client Communications The Supportiveness of CredibilityIn the Master’s Degree Course Program, I train my students from the very beginning to work with the verb “suggest”. Without giving away too many high-level trade secrets (;-) , I can share with you that this verb keeps the astrologer from describing, from making pronouncements, from painting…
Read articleA Positive Approach to Difficulty
Creative Connections & Client Communications A Positive Approach to Difficulty An enthusiastic, responsive, cheerful Piscean lady (48) bubbled as she chatted with me before the consultation. Through all the bright self-presentation however, what dominated was the “Neptune Eye Flutter” [see “Notebook” July 15, 1999] –and there was Neptune on her Ascendant! What was going on…
Read articleSaying Something Important
Creative Connections & Client Communications Saying Something Important Throughout several years now of my Master’s Certification Course [see MENU] the two major difficulties for even the finest developed astrologers have always been acknowledging the insight power of special measurements and in consultation, getting to the point of life development, of saying something important. Special Measurement Power The all-keen measurement…
Read articleDouble-Feature Reprieve
Creative Connections & Client Communications Double-Feature Reprieve”The Surprising Question” and “Managing Anxiety” –The Following two essays for “Counseling Insights” appear in the Archives of that Department for July 30 and June29, 2002. As I go over these essays regularly to continue learning, to recall helpful ideas, I keep coming back to these two special presentations.…
Read articleTell a Story to Convey a Point
Creative Connections & Client Communications Tell a Story to Convey a Point All teachers use stories, parables, and extended images to make their points. These devices allow vivification of the points being made; they support recall for a long, long time; they help enormously with persuasion. In a delightfully absurd fictional work I wrote some…
Read articleTherapeutic Shifts of Mind
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsTherapeutic Shifts of Mind Under stress, our clients think differently than their best; we all do! We describe a difficult situation over and over and over again: “This shouldn’t be happening,” we say. We repeat and repeat, “This is crazy; I’m really upset.” –Many people come to an astrologer to find…
Read articleDynamics of Disclosure
Creative Connections & Client Communications Dynamics of Disclosure The client’s reality is the target for astrological guidelines. The client’s reality is disclosed by the client, and the astrological deductions are fit to it, into it. This brings the astrology TO life. Please let me repeat here a short excerpt from The Creative Astrologer (a hell of a book, if I…
Read articleDouble-Attachment Empowerment
Creative Connections & Client Communications Double-Attachment Empowerment In The Creative Astrologer, I like to bring strong focus onto my favorite section: the powers of suggestion, studying the fabulous work of psychoanalyst/hypnotist Milton H. Erickson (1901-1980). [See pages 159-176.] Erickson went beyond studying causes of problematic situations and behaviors; he went directly into the remediation of those…
Read articleCreative Connections & Client Communications
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsWhat’s to Remember? So many times, I’ve heard back from clients, a week, a month, a year or two … even more… after a consultation, mentioning specific ideas and phrases we had shared: “I remember your saying ……; I’ve never forgotten that, and it made all the difference in the world!”…
Read articleQualifying Generalizations for Disclosure of Values
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsQualifying Generalizations for Disclosure of Values Three very strong maxims in the art of conversational, consultation dialogue are as follows: the first is except in special summary situations never to ask a question answerable by “Yes” or “No”, which can stop the conversation dead in its tracks. (See Counseling Insights: July…
Read article‘Faithing’ to Support Resilience
Creative Connections & Client Communications ”Faithing” to Support Resilience Somewhere in some dusty ancient text, some Chinese sage is recorded as saying, “If you want to be happy, Be Happy! This is wise existential therapy; the mind wills one’s state of being. In the post WWII generation, we had Norman Vincent Peale’s run-away doctrine of The power of…
Read articleMaking Decisions or Waiting for Things to Happen
Creative Connections & Client Communications Making Decisions or Waiting for Things to Happen So very often, astrologers are asked to make decisions for their clients or to make a pronouncement that makes the decision easier for them to make. –If I make this decision, if I accept this new job, is it going to be successful…
Read articleCorollary Thinking
Creative Connections & Client Communications Corollary Thinking Corollary thinking is exposing a thought that is companion to a thought already presented; the new thought follows naturally usually into a new, even opposite direction. –If we have the thought that the world is round, a corollary to that could be ”Well, that means we can never…
Read articleExtending Suggestions Creatively
Creative Connections & Client Communications Extending Suggestions Creatively Modern astrologers, almost by definition, are resourceful, creative people. We are not simply pronouncing fate and rules from cookbooks –that went out of style about 50 years ago. We are stimulating development in our clients’ life, and we should do this with panache! For example: I was…
Read articleHelping with 11th House Tensions
Creative Connections & Client Communications Helping with 11th House Tensions A recent client shows Uranus ruling the 11th, peregrine; Venus ruling the 2nd peregrine; Saturn ruling the MC, peregrine; Mercury ruling the 3rd was peregrine; and the Sun ruling the 5th was also peregrine! While we tend to expect a clearly focused accent of idiosyncratic…
Read articleRecommending a PsychoSemantic Diet
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsRecommending a PsychoSemantic Diet Astrologers must be creative listeners in consultations, and we have pursued this several times in our studies with techniques to make “creative connections.” [Please see “Counseling Insights”/Archives: December 2000; August 2001; September 2001;January 29, 2003] Very often, the client will repeat a sense –usually of suppression, demoralization,…
Read articleChanging Your Horoscope
Creative Connections & Client Communications Changing Your Horoscope! Long ago, I heard student stories about a teacher in the Chicago area ‘way back when’ who had an intriguing exercise for his students: he instructed them to draw a horoscope (by hand in those days, of course) with any distribution of signs and planets the students wished.…
Read articleTelling Stories
All teachers in any humanistic discipline know the value of “telling a story.” Parables crystallize points of view. The story puts “out there” what is inside the client; what’s “out there” is easier to manage, and the vivid nature of the narrative is memorable in and of itself. Very often, we encounter client attitudes that…
Read articleHearing the Answer within the Question
Creative Connections & Client Communications Hearing the Answer within the Question There are questions and there are questions. –Factual questions are answered with facts; judgment questions, opinion questions are more complex … they are asked with varying levels of emotional content, and the answer must be framed to appreciate that. The client helps us in…
Read articleTime, Tension, and Change
Creative Connections & Client Communications Time, Tension, and Change The astrologer must have a holistic awareness ever in mind. He or she must have the poise to know and acknowledge with the client that, if little has happened in life, little can be expected to occur. a visit to an astrologer does not change a life pattern except…
Read articleLove Received and Love Given
Creative Connections & Client Communications Love Received and Given Everybody wants to be loved by everybody. Receiving love is reward for being who we are; it is support to grow; it encourages the future and keeps each one of us alive. [When someone doesn’t understand this, doesn’t believe it, they have a problem.] –We know…
Read articleThe Accumulation of Stress
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsThe Accumulation of Stress Back in the 1970s, researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine published a stress index, analyzing the relative impact of certain events upon human reaction, in terms of units of stress. –I’ve held on to that index, and have found it very informative, for the…
Read articleFilling in the Gaps
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsFilling in the Gaps How few lines does Picasso need to draw to show us a reclining body? How do those few lines differentiate a fallen classical hero from a waiting classical courtesan? How can different colored shapes work together within the gestaltof a minimalist, geometric, hard-edged suggestion of a wizened…
Read articleGetting to the Skeletons in the Closet!
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsGetting to the Skeletons in the Closet! Saturn related to Pluto is perhaps astrology’s most demanding, draining, debilitating symbolic construct. I’ve long carried an image with me that I think captures Saturn-Pluto analytically: skeletons in one’s closet. I have seen many, many hundreds of times, perhaps thousands, that Saturn conjunct, square, opposed,…
Read articleHelping the Client establish Significances
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsHelping the Client Establish Significances Quite a successful client of mine, in the international banking business, was working with me on strategy issues at one of the highest points of his career development. The gentleman had everything going for him in his senior years. In the conversation, he startled me by…
Read articleThe Help of Time
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsThe Help of Time There’s an adaptability about human beings that is designed by Nature to help us cope, to help us heal. Intrinsic mechanisms are built into our mood systems to help us accommodate difficulty. These coping mechanisms see to work against any of our contrived efforts to enhance our…
Read articleSub-texts to guide your Consultation
Creative Connections & Client Communications Sub-texts to guide your Consultation In our preparation of any horoscope for consultation, we certainly should have three or four “chunks” of surmise, routings that hold together, are well organized, and these chunks themselves should work together holistically throughout the consultation. Draw Marilyn Monroe’s horoscope: June 01, 1926 at 9:30…
Read articleWhy Astrology is ‘Our’ Effective Therapy
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsWhy Astrology is “our” Efficient Therapy! Therapist Donald L. Peters, a retired school counselor with 35 years experience, developed a list of considerations to guide discussion about life activities and their link with personal fulfillment. He labels his approach a fun-formula [See Favorite Counseling and Therapy Techniques, Howard G. Rosenthal, Editor]. It’s…
Read articleBeing Alert to Creative Connections
Creative Connections & Client Communications Being Alert to Creative Connections Remember the old joke?: Two psychoanalysts are walking past each other: one says, “Good morning!” The other says, “Wonder what he meant by that?” The focus here is the significance, the meaning, of something that was said; how deep does it go; how significant is…
Read articleThe 3R’s: Review, Reinforcement, Raising Spirits
Creative Connections & Client Communications The “3R’s”: Review, Reinforcement, and Raising Spirits The astrological consultation must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Its organization helps the message develop. When we come to the end, we must know that the client will take away predominantly the material focused into the last five minutes. It…
Read articleCreating a Mantra
Creative Connections & Client Communications Creating a Mantra The word mantra keys the mind: how to think about something specific, usually in a helpful, remedial way. Complementary ideas like “I think, therefore I am,” “You are what you think”, and “the mind leads the way” come immediately … to mind. Many of our essays in the Counseling…
Read articleWhat do You bring to the Consultation?
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsWhat do you bring to the Consultation? Aside from knowledge of astrology, there are three major, personal dimensions that the astrologer brings to the consultation experience: Communication Skill, Life Awareness, and Authority. Communication Skill How the astrologer communicates is crucially important. It is what people hear, feel, and remember. It says so very very much…
Read articleThrough the Glasser Brightly
Creative Connections & Client Communications Through the Glasser Brightly Prominent psychiatrist William Glasser, Director of the William Glasser Institute in Chatsworth CA, is the founder of what is well-known in the field as “Reality Therapy.” Issuing from the Therapy modality is his compelling “Choice Theory.” To a fault, Glasser’s work is practical and client-centered; there…
Read articleManagement of Responsibility –Pecking at Saturn-retrograde
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsManagement of Responsibility–Pecking at Saturn-retrograde– From the day my daughter was born in Manhattan NY, when I first saw her Saturn retrograde opposed her Leo Sun –with the benefit of understanding that, I knew her mother and I could foster an extraordinarily “responsible, accountable, self-composed, consciously well-measured” lady. –We weren’t depressed; we didn’t…
Read articleDevelopment of Individual Style
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsDevelopment of Individual Style For the last few decades, there has been an apparent separation between what is called the practice of event-centered astrology and what is called the practice of humanistic astrology. [The latter area was inspired (and named) by Dane Rudhyar and led quickly into what is now called Psychological…
Read articleWhat supports Resilience?
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsWhat supports Resilience? Readers are referred to the “Consultation Insights” essay of June 30, 2004. It was very popular: “Faithing to support Resilience,” a commentary on some points presented by psychologist Gina O’Connell Higgins in her book, Resilient Adults –Overcoming a Cruel Past.What follows is an extension of that initial overview. Given…
Read articleKey Catalytic Phrases
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsKey Catalytic Phrases During a consultation, we are not describing a status quo; how things are. We are working to understand development and spur it on. The consultation is a catalyst for growth. Let’s remind ourselves of some of the key phrases that we can use in the consultation, that ‘make things happen’…
Read articleThe Difficulty with talking about Death
Creative Connections & Client Communications The Difficulty with talking about Death Oh my! What a difficult topic death is. It is the deepest question a person can have about herself/himself; it is the question clients want to ask about and it’s the question astrologers don’t want to hear; it’s the most elusive and tension-packed point…
Read articleRepetitive Crises and Probable Patterning
Creative Connections & Client Communications Repetitive Crisis and Probable Patterning Astrologers realize none too soon that the study of a person’s life development can reveal much more often than not knots of life crisis around repetitive astrological measurement patterns. For example, there will be an outer planet contact involved with the 7th House cusp, its ruler, or…
Read articleA Psychotherapist’s way with Astrology
Creative Connections & Client Communications A Psychotherapist’s Way with AstrologyBy guest astrologer Teri Freeman Teri Freeman is a psychotherapist in private practice in Arlington Massachusetts, working with individuals, couples and groups, for the past 25 years. Since childhood, her passion for understanding the human experience has included exploration in the mystical, esoteric, transpersonal and astrological…
Read articleAllowing Inspiration
Creative Connections & Client Communications Allowing Inspiration When a fine “piano player” sits down at the piano and begins to improvise, things can happen, sometimes beautiful things; where do they come from? When a writer faces the keyboard, something happens; where do the words, the ideas come from; how do they come forward? When an…
Read articleLeading Developmental Questions
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsLeading Developmental Questions Certainly one of the key instructional essays in this eight-year collection (!) –86 essays to date in this “Counseling Insights” department alone (and also in each of the others)– is the very first one posted at the inception of this website. Please look into the Archives following this…
Read articleKeeping track of your Images
Creative Connections & Client Communications Keeping Track of your Images In a consultation, we must always be aware of what the client can easily remember. We have to help that process. –It’s one thing to understand and corroborate in conversation, and quite another to remember something abbreviated that reminds, recalls, and reviews the riches of…
Read articlePracticality and Reality must lead Measurements
Creative Connections & Client Communications (Excerpt from page 219, Noel Tyl’s Guide to Astrological Consultation)Practicality and Reality must lead Measurements There are two keys that lead projections best, that qualify the thrust of prediction most strongly: the reasonability, of what is projected and the involvement of the individual in making it happen. For a school-teacher client, for example, you see…
Read articleGreater Expectations
Creative Connections & Client Communications An Excerpt from Noel Tyl’s Guide to Astrological Consultation, Greater Expectations From the outset, the time of making the appointment, the client will be accumulating impressions of the astrologer that should accumulatively reflect a strong professionalism. Personal presentation upon first meeting will augment this image. And within the first few sentences…
Read articleElegance comes from Knowing
Creative Connections & Client Communications Elegance comes from Knowing So often in lectures and in print, I suggest that no one can be a consulting analytical astrologer if one is not able to speak well. Clarity of speech and speech with a flow to it that propels the development of meaning are essential. Otherwise, communication dies the…
Read articleOpen Sesame: with Multiple Quintiles
Creative Connections & Client Communications Open Sesame! With Multiple Quintiles! The quintile is a beguiling connection between planetary symbols of individual potentials. It is beguiling because the fifth harmonic (360/5=72) sings of creative thought and energy –and it really does not matter between what bodies or points the relationship occurs!! This is the first consideration: that they –the…
Read articleGetting out of Dodge!
Creative Connections & Client Communications Getting out of Dodge! ***Note for foreign readers: “Get out of Dodge” is a wild-West cowboy saying: when you are facing trouble, get out of trouble’s way. The reference to “Dodge” is to Dodge City Kansas, the heart of the West, a major cattle-shipment center, and a city famous for…
Read articleCounseling?
Creative Connections & Client Communications Counseling? I can not think of the word ?counselor? without hearing the resounding D-major sweeps from the chorus, ?For unto us a child is born? in Handel?s Messiah, among the words ?and government shall be upon His shoulder; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father,…
Read articleThematic Apperception Test
Creative Connections & Client Communications Thematic Apperception Test I like to dramatize how a core sense of horoscope analysis can be established naturally, simply, even if we were to use pebbles in the sand, let alone planets carefully positioned in celestial reality. If we draw a circle in the sand and drop ten stones on…
Read articleThe Feelings You Create
Creative Connections & Client Communications The Feelings You Create We can not ignore the fact that people easily and often forget what we have said, but they remember strongly how we made them feel. –We recall feelings more easily and accurately than we recall words. So many times every day, we are asked about our feelings. “How’re you…
Read articleThe Holistic View
Creative Connections & Client Communications The Holistic View Literally tens of thousands of measurements –developmental pressures, opportunities—accost us throughout our lives. Most are absorbed by our conditioning, our routinization of responses, our defenses, our social structuring. Just as our mind can wander to another world entirely while we are driving a car, while our motor…
Read articleRewards establish Meanings
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsRewards establish Meanings All our thoughts work to assign values to whatever occurs in our world and then to use that information to develop ourselves, to change things. “What does it all mean?” we ask so often. “Why is this as it is?” A client recently inquired most earnestly “Why do…
Read articleTell me something I don’t know!
Creative Connections & Client Communications Tell Me something I don’t Know!” “Tell me something I don’t know” is a closing section headline used by news commentator Chris Matthews on his NBC television show. –I’ve always been intrigued with how provocative that question is for commentator specialists, political pundits, historians of the current government scene appearing…
Read articleDiscussing Vocational Profiles with the Client
Creative Connections & Client Communications Discussing Vocational Profiles with the Client While vocational profiling is perhaps the single most essential service an astrologer can perform for a client, it is also the outlook that can be quite difficult to communicate. We take into consideration the dramatic, stark reality that most people –MOST—are in the wrong profession, in…
Read articleSeeing the Habit
Creative Connections & Client Communications Seeing the Habit So often in consultation, we hear detailed descriptions of a parent’s personality, sometimes explosively depicted. Those images are deeply etched into life memory; they endure within words, feelings, and actions of the present. So often I have then asked the client, “How do you think your mother…
Read articleThe Draconic Horoscope at work in Consultation
Creative Connections & Client Communications The Draconic Horoscope at work in ConsultationBy Lauren Delsack Lauren Delsack is a Highest Honors graduate of Noel Tyl’s Master’s Degree Certification Course. She is a consulting astrologer and self-published author of How Emotional Conflicts Trigger Disease – An Astrological View. Her website offers free instructive videos, downloadable lectures and workshops in…
Read articleNot Everything is Astrological
Creative Connections & Client Communications Counseling Insights, November 30, 2008Not Everything is Astrological!–Don’t be afraid of that!! Why do so many astrology students measure incessantly, look for magic measurements somewhere, try to hog-tie human development with the “sure things” of their measured descriptions? –Why don’t they put the miracle measurements they already have to work, to…
Read articleThe Sense of Being
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsThe Sense of Being It’s not unusual for a client to wonder –in one degree of specificity or another– why he or she is alive; to wonder about the reason behind it all. The quandary can take the form of general malaise, of discontent, or ultimately ending it all. It can undermine life…
Read articleVocational Insights for School Counselors
Creative Connections & Client Communications Vocational Insights for School Counselors The case can be made that vocational profiling is the single most important service astrology can offer a client. One’s vocation makes the individual’s world go ‘round; it establishes identity in so many, many ways. How many people do you know are in the so-called…
Read articleThe Rising Lens
Creative Connections & Client Communications The Rising Lens by Guest Astrologer Lauren Delsack Lauren Delsack is a Highest Honors graduate of Noel Tyl’s Master’s Degree Certification Course. She is a consulting astrologer and self-published author of How Emotional Conflicts Trigger Disease – An Astrological View. Her website offers free instructive videos, downloadable lectures and workshops in…
Read articleManaging Miracle Expectations
Creative Connections & Client Communications Managing Miracle Expectations All those great requests astrologers hear —When will I meet my true love?; When will my career take off?, When will my business be bought?—are ego-fulfillment thrusts that are not unreasonable, but they are so often presented for magical, unlikely fulfillment and are very difficult to handle.…
Read articleFraming and Imagination
Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsFraming and Imagination “Framing” is establishing context. With good framing, we set up perspective and values for information. It makes what we say interesting. Recently, I was captive audience to a lady highly enthused about a movie she had seen the night before on television. She proceeded to tell me every detail…
Read articleSmokescreens
Creative Connections & Client Communications Smokescreens The concept, the situational label, the accusation of DENIAL is harsh. It is very easy for us to call anything that disagrees with our perception about another person a statement of denial: “You’re in denial; You’re just not owning up to it!” There is reasonability in being antithetically assertive,…
Read articleMaking a Difference
Creative Connections & Client Communications Making a Difference It has been said that “making a difference” is the measure of life success; e.g., our presence with others, involvement with work that fulfills us, catalyzing change … all focusing upon making a difference in the world. This need not be historic in record or mega-proportioned in…
Read articleWords of Choice
Creative Connections & Client Communications Words of Choice! When we listen carefully, we hear a lot. A recent client was inquiring about a grown grandchild, with quite a dramatically configured Saturn-Rx complex; I had to discuss this phenomenology within the boy’s father-relationship … but I was talking with the grandfather, not the young man himself.…
Read articleCommon Sense to Center Stage
Creative Connections & Client Communications Common Sense to Center Stage Analysis of a client’s development over years past reveals a model, a routined, predictable model of activity that has been developed into the present and is now projected into the future. The clearly wrought Moon in Scorpio, for example –needing to control everything around him/her…
Read articlePluto Antidotal
Creative Connections & Client Communications Pluto Antidotal–What can we do with Plutonic pressures?– (Please see the current “Analytical Techniques” essay about natal Pluto in the Houses: it will help with appreciation of this essay.) When Pluto was first discovered, entering our astrological Lexicon (1930), it was given an archetypal reference for power, for empowerment. With…
Read articleIncisive Communication
Creative Connections & Client Communications Incisive Communication Astrologers must learn to speak well, with effect, and make a communication impression upon their client. If we can’t talk, it’s as dysfunctional as not having anything to say! In the essay department “Counseling Insights”, in the Archives (immediately following the current essay), there are some 120 essays about…
Read articleNo-Measurement Times
Creative Connections & Client Communications No-Measurement Times What do we do when there are no measurements of note for a client, for, say, the two years ahead? It’s natural for the astrologer to feel that there is “nothing” to hang one’s hat on. And with this thought comes the thought of disappointing the client. -After…
Read articleThe Two-Year Clue
Creative Connections & Client Communications .The Two-Year Clueby guest astrologer Lauren Delsack,Lauren Delsack is a Highest Honors graduate of Noel Tyl’s Master’s Degree Certification Course. She is a consulting astrologer and self-published author of How Emotional Conflicts Trigger Disease: An Astrological View. Her website offers free instructive videos, downloadable lectures and workshops in mp3, her eBook, and…
Read articleRemoving the Environment
Creative Connections & Client Communications Removing the Environment Almost all of us live within a social encasement of routine: how we have grown to behave becomes set; in the process of fulfilling our needs, we behave in ways that pay off or don’t, but these ways are very similar from situation to situation. Who we…
Read articleTake a Seat! Let’s talk!
Creative Connections & Client Communications Take a Seat; Let’s talk! Very often, the client will understand much, but still remain in a quandary about what to do. Indecision understandably reigns with many large issues; the single-session procedural frame of mind in the astrological consultation needs a boost for impact, with such large decisions. Sometimes as…
Read articleComplimenting your Client
Creative Connections & Client Communications Complimenting your Client There are so many people who have difficulty giving and receiving compliments. These people almost invariably have stressed networks among the 2nd, 5th, 11th, and 8th Houses. In a nutshell, they feel that to pay someone else a compliment diminishes themselves somehow! [This is an enormous socialization…
Read articleReframing Client Questions
Creative Connections & Client Communications Reframing Client Questions “When will I meet someone?” –Oh my! How frequently the astrologer hears this question, usually at the end of the consultation, when it threatens to topsy-turvy [allow the verb] the consultation. We know that the question emerges from the difficulty of being alone, being without someone with…
Read articleTalking to the Moon!
Creative Connections & Client Communications Talking to the Moon! As the symbol of every individual’s reigning need, that which presses for fulfillment through all our plans, behaviors, and dreams, the Moon in the horoscope is our treasure chest of potentials. How these potentials, this all-pervasive motivational press operates determines who we are; it defines our process of becoming within developmental time.…
Read articleHelping Others Break Out From the Status Quo
Creative Connections & Client Communications Helping Others Break out from the Status Quoby guest astrologer James Kenneth Williams James Kenneth Williams has practiced Western astrology for over 20 years and Eastern astrology (Jyotish) for over 15 years. His education and experience includes credentials from the state of California as a school counselor and clinical hypnotherapist.…
Read articleHemisphere Emphasis
Hemisphere Emphasis Within analysis of astrology’s guiding measurements, the creative astrologer must include as much reference as possible to real life, the developmental process. All deductions must be directed to relating the horoscope to the reality being lived by the client. We are helped in this approach to real-life orientation during development, in a flash, by…
Read articleQuindecile Aspects
The Quindecile Aspect Some four years ago, I resurrected the quindecile aspect from a passing reference to it in early writings of Thomas Ring, a brilliant German astrologer-theoretician early in this century. The aspect’s drama and significance in life development are absolutely compelling. The passionate nature of the aspect led me to pronounce it, in…
Read articleSun-Moon Blends
There is so much talk about the Sun: wesay “What Sign are you? Where’s your Sun? There’s nothing new under theSun” and more. The answer to those first questions, a really good answer,would be “everywhere”; after all, the Sun shines throughout theplanetary system and, indeed, throughout our lives. It’s everywhere. It’sthe energy of being, isn’t it? We…
Read articleDerivative Houses
Recently, a client contacted me with the news that, out of the blue, he had received news that his mother had died. “Paul” and I are in regular contact, and we had done a comprehensive update of his horoscope recently. He is on the verge of a new business operation, and we had mapped out…
Read articlePeregrination
A recent inquiry into the discussion Forum of this website focused on peregrination. In my reply, I spoke how -after some 30 years of study and observation- I have started to push the envelope, so to speak, about peregrination, to give us an analytical tool and concomitant guidelines that make it easier and faster to…
Read articleMidPoint Pictures
The development of MidPoints as a dimension of sophisticated astrological analysis is a most creative effort to extend the innate symbolism of the astrological portrait. With MidPoints, we are compounding synthesis: one planet is related to the essence of two others. For example, the essence of the Sun and the Moon , related to each other, is “relationship”…
Read articleThe Essence of Synthesis
The Maze of Description As we learn astrology, it is a liability that we are taught in fragmentary style, in terms and terms and terms of description. As a result, we learn too many hypothetical details, we learn about the trees and overlook the forest. There is so much “this means that” in what we read…
Read articleAngularity and Development
Clients come to astrologers for insight and for news about change. Most clients are eager for the former and afraid of the latter: while insight usually resurrects insecurity as one works to improve a life situation, change can threaten the status quo with transient insecurity within the development process. As a result, what is already…
Read articleCusp Concepts, Interception Insights
Cusp Concepts, Interception Insights The two great axes (circles) with which we work so importantly in astrology are, of course, the MC-IC and the ASC-DSC. The former is determined by the time of our birth, and the latter is determined by the place of our birth. Together they define our mundane orientation in life, and they are vital -indispensable-…
Read articleCusp Concepts, Interception Insights
Cusp Concepts, Interception Insights The two great axes (circles) with which we work so importantly in astrology are, of course, the MC-IC and the ASC-DSC. The former is determined by the time of our birth, and the latter is determined by the place of our birth. Together they define our mundane orientation in life, and they are vital -indispensable-…
Read articleTertiary Progressions
Tertiary Progressions Tertiary Progressions have nothing to do with Solar Arcs in terms of calculation or theory, but they are part of the family of symbolic measurement of time. Where Primary Directions were based upon the movement of one degree at the Midheaven, i.e., four minutes of time after birth, as an equation for one…
Read articleTransit Considerations
Transit Considerations Transits are ‘real-time’ considerations, of course: they denote planetary positions in the Now. Make special note: reading transits from a printed Ephemeris Table, in relation to a horoscope under study, is infinitely faster and clearer than accessing a transit program on the computer and creating a double or triple-ring chart to show the positions…
Read articleSol-Lunar Aspects
For years, I have been teaching that a very helpful analytical view of the horoscope begins with the Sun as symbol of our life energy, beamed out through the entire solar system -and our personal system as well- with the planets reflecting its light to one degree or another. This is the principle upon which all…
Read articleManaging Midpoint Pictures
Managing Midpoint Pictures As my career has developed, I’ve learned greater and greater respect for Midpoint Pictures in horoscope analysis. At the same time, I’ve noted so often that astrologers tend to be scared away from these very helpful insight-portraits by the sheer multiplicity of Midpoint Pictures that are generated by their computers. Most astrologers don’t get…
Read articleThe Aries Point
I have invited Don McBroom, an excellent astrologer, a highest-honors graduate of my Master’s Degree Course, to present this following overview and illumination of the Aries Point, with which he is quite the specialist. Don has his astrology office in Tucson, AZ, (520) 298-3456.The Aries Point My initial exposure to Aries Point terminology was in…
Read articleThe Crucial Consideration of Level
The Crucial Consideration of Level Astrological measurements are not the same for all people. Just as Brahms does not suit everyone’s musical taste; just as red does not fit into everyone’s fashion; not all measurements find the same outlets in individual realities. Manifestations may be very similar, but they can be vastly different in terms of Level. -This…
Read articleMidpoint Interpretation
I have invited excellent Seattle astrologer Barbara Banfield to be guest author of the “Analytical Techniques” essay this month. Barbara is a highest honors graduate of the Noel Tyl Master’s Degree Course, has lectured at the ASTRO2000 convention and authored several articles in “The Mountain Astrologer.” She can be reached at (206)328-1228Midpoint InterpretationBy Barbara Banfield…
Read articleElements Emphasized and De-emphasized
Elements Emphasized and De-emphasizedBy Richard Swatton I have invited England’s Richard Swatton to present this month’s column. Richard holds the diploma from Liz Greene’s Centre for Psychological Astrology, and states that he “studied Tyl’s works for seven years before that.” He holds academic degrees in Music and Psychology, is a psychotherapist, symphonic composer, and jazz…
Read articleReflections Upon the Moon
It is always enriching to re-visit a major premise with which we have become very familiar and perhaps have taken for granted. For example, we have the Sun and its energy -we know that cold– and, gosh! that Moon over there is really important too; but look at this: over here, we have Saturn square Pluto ……
Read articleObjectives Define Techniques
Objectives Define Techniques The techniques of astrology -and indeed, the astrologer using them as well- grow, develop, and change in concert with the objectives served by the techniques, how those objectives grow and change. If the objective is to describe a person, to capture a person in a fatalistically pre-spun web of adjectives, our astrological techniques…
Read articleDiscovering How Solar Arcs Work for Countries Elizabeth Teissier
As promised: the grace of having Elizabeth Teissier, far and away the most popularized and known astrologer in Europe, as our guest for the Analytical Techniques essay this month! She presents an overview of Solar Arcs principles at work among nations, a theme of never-ending fascination. Most recently, in April -and this news has been…
Read articleMore on the Quindecile
For this month’s “Analytical Techniques Essay”, I have invited Ricki Reeves, an Honors graduate of my Master’s Degree Course (as well, certified by the Academy of Astrology in Michigan and ISAR) to share her skill with the Quindecile aspect. Ricki Reeves has a strong background in mental health services and addictions counseling. This specialized experience brings…
Read articleCHIRON, Discovery of the Outer Planets
CHIRON, Discovery of the Outer Planets, and the WTC Tragedyby Prudence Nuesink Prudence Nuesink first studied astrology with Katina Theodossiou in London 1983. Eric Morse and Helen Adams Garrett expanded the process after Katina died. Prudence lives in London and mans an astrology interpretation line. Her main study fascination is the Progressed Eclipse. She has…
Read articleCounterbalancing Measures
Often in our analytical work, in our preparation for the client consultation, we see apparentlyconflicting measurements about specific developmental concerns and areas of life experience. What will be the way of resolution of a strong Mars facing off with a strong Saturn [actions and controls]? Saturn in developmental tension with Uranus [the clash between “old, conservative,…
Read articleThe Proper Measurement of Fixed Points
Fixing Angles – The Proper Measurements of Fixed Pointsby guest expert, Philip Sedgwick Philip Sedgwick has been an astrologer since 1975, beginning his study in 1969. He has authored three books on astrology: “The Astrology of Transcendence,” “The Astrology of Deep Space,” and “The Sun at the Center.” He compiled a Deep Space add-on for…
Read articleEnron and a Fall from Grace
Enron and a Fall from Grace— Venus and Hubris —by Michael Munkasey Our guest astrologer this month is Michael Munkasey, a professional astrologer living in California. Michael has earned many astrological credentials, including the NCGR Level IV, has written three books, and has had many publications in several book anthologies and many magazines. His interests…
Read articleLet the First Impression Help You!
Let the First Impression Help You! You’re waiting eagerly to meet someone for the first time. The anticipation is built upon alerted perceptions: “What will he/she be like?” A beautifully portrait is shown to you before the actual meeting; you learn much about the person … a curriculum vitae for example. You stare at the…
Read articleCorroborating Family Crisis Potentials
In early Fall 1995, within the context of a study of the English Monarchy, I projected in print a “death in the family” for Spring-Summer 1997. Unfortunately, Princess Diana died in a car accident on August 31, 1997. After the fact, astrologers everywhere scrambled to explain Diana’s accident (which, by definition defies capture). Everyone seemed…
Read articleResolving Conflicting Symbolisms
Resolving Conflicting Symbolisms Without getting extremely technical here, let’s look at some principles that will help with the resolution of contradictions, just as a single faucet can accommodate hot water AND cold water together. These principles will help with classical aspects, natal and solar Arc midpoint pictures. Mars-Saturn This is hot and cold! Mars is the suggestion of…
Read articleNeptune-Pluto Contacts; an Occult Dimension
Neptune-Pluto Contacts; an Occult Dimension For years now, I have been observing the unique inter-relationship of Neptune and Pluto, Pluto and Neptune, coming into contact with each other by transit or Solar Arc, or synthesizing with other planets within a natal or arced Midpoint picture: there almost always seems to be an experiential reference to “other…
Read articleSynthesis: How to Begin the Art
Synthesis: How to Begin the Art One of the major difficulties keeping students from growing in astrology is the lack of know-how and experience in synthesizing measurements, bringing measurement ideas and occurrences together into a meaningful, reasonable group, as a guideline to the developmental behavior and history in the client’s life. [Please see, this month, the…
Read articleMartha’s Midpoint Garden
Martha’s Midpoint Garden Let’s revisit Midpoints! Theoretically, appreciating the synthesizing concept and process of midpoint organization, the entire horoscope could be analyzed extremely well from the Midpoint Sort alone. –What would be missing of course are Sign reference and House involvement. But the planetary/behavioral potentials are captured very, very well. Let’s look at the 90-degree…
Read articleNo Moonwalk for Michael Jackson
No ‘Moonwalk’ for Michael Jacksonby guest astrologer Basil FearringtonBasil Fearrington is certainly one of the fastest rising stars of the astrology world. His superb book The New Way to Learn Astrology presents a modern, psychologically sensitive approach to new students in the field most successfully. His lecture activities have gone coast to coast, been featured at the…
Read articleJupiter and Saturn Each Upside-Down!
Jupiter and Saturn, Each Upside Down! In their basic calligraphic structure, Jupiter is Saturn upside down; Saturn is Jupiter, upside down! What is this symbolic reciprocity telling us? Why and how do they ‘go together’? We can say generally, Jupiter-Saturn: “Law and Order”. We can say “expanding” and “condensing”. We can say “Opportunity and Reward”…
Read articleEstablishing Focus within the Future
Within the single-session, comprehensive appreciation and projection work we do in consultation, several concepts guide us: creating a portrait of the individual and his or her development through the early home environment; establishing the psychodynamic concomitants of behavior patterns carried into adult relationship, family development, and professional occupation; and projecting that development forward into the…
Read articleDeclination Waves for the Future
DECLINATION WAVES FOR THE FUTUREReviving a Predictive Tool – An OrientationBy Carolyn Egan Carolyn Egan of Cranston, RI, an expert astrologer of long standing, is well known worldwide for her work and teaching in the mundane field of long-range weather forecasting. As well, she has focused specialist attention on the study of Declination, more specifically, a prediction tool called The…
Read articleMulti-House Signification
Multi-House SignificationRulership Networks: the key to sophisticated horoscope analysis. [Please see page 225-270 in “Synthesis & Counseling in Astrology,” especially; and Archives (below), March 31, 2000, “Cusp Concepts, Interception Insights.”] A planet is a significator, a referrer to the House that it rules. It is dramatically so. A major theorem taught and practiced in the Master’s…
Read articleThe Indispensable Sun/Moon Midpoint
Please re-study as well the Essay archived below for December 30, 1999 Every astrologer must be familiar with the symbolism of the growth-fuel of life: the energy symbolized by the Sun and the focus of that energy into the reigning need of our existence. The 144 polarities possible for the Sun and Moon were covered…
Read articleNodal Axis Revisited
Nodal Axis Revisited Some 25 years ago, I formulated and researched a phenomenological insight about the Lunar Nodal axis: that it represented the mother archetype … and that any planet or point in the natal horoscope configured by conjunction, opposition, square, or (now) quindecile with the Nodal Axis (within, say, 2.5 degrees) would suggest an undeniable importance/influence of…
Read articleThe Vagaries of Precision
The Vagaries of Precision With the world crises over the past two years, there has been much interest and work focused within Mundane Astrology, an extremely demanding use of astrology, dealing with the horoscopes of nations and the bringing of cosmic phenomena down to earth. Every seasoned Mundane astrologer –and there are few—has a track…
Read articleFour Ways to See the Parents
Four Ways to See the Parents In rich psychologically sensitive analysis of life development, it is vitally important to study the formative years of life, the modeling impact of the parents upon the young person, the interaction with the parents. There must be varied degrees of developmental tension there; there mustbe; that’s why the Ascendant is…
Read articleWorking Knowledgeably with Eclipses
Working Knowledgeably with Eclipsesby Jill Amery Jill Amery is our guest essayist this month and next, dealing with the phenomena of eclipses. Jill is a highest honors graduate of the Noel Tyl Master’s Degree Certification Program. She is a professional astrologer in Magill, South Australia: Jilamery@senet.com.au Solar and lunar eclipses can appear as dynamic catalysts…
Read articleWorking Knowledgeably with Eclipses–Part II
Working Knowledgeably with Eclipses–Part IIby Jill Amery Jill Amery is our guest essayist this month and next, dealing with the phenomena of eclipses. Jill is a highest honors graduate of the Noel Tyl Master’s Degree Correspondence Course. She is a professional astrologer in Magill, South Australia: Jilamery@senet.com.au Robert Carl Jansky and Bernadette Brady, in their…
Read articleA Second President Clinton?
A Second President Clinton? It’s a pleasure once again to have Basil Fearrington as guest astrologer here in the Essays section of the website. Basil’s reputation as teacher and consultant shines throughout the nation. He is a leading astrologer indeed. Basil resides in Philadelphia and can be reached at BFearr@aol.com. Natal Overview Hillary Clinton was born…
Read articleIlluminating the 6th House
Illuminating the 6th House I find understanding and managing the 6th House in analysis more difficult than dealing with any other House reference. I sense that it has always been problematic to astrologers, judging from the feeble labels frequently put on the 6th House for teaching and analytical guidance, old and new. We see “Servants,…
Read article11th House Orientation
11th House Orientation The bulk of this essay is reprinted fromThe Creative Astrologer, a text that is oriented to the efficacy of single session therapeutic success. It contains over 700 creative connections to guide us through planetary and aspect symbolisms into deep analysis of the human condition. [See “BOOKS”] High developmental tension to the significator of the…
Read articleAnticipation Period for the Saturn Return
Anticipation Period for the Saturn Return Astrologer Grant Lewi’s important discovery and formulation of the cycle of transiting Saturn has enriched our astrology enormously [Lewi-Astrology for the Millions, Llewellyn Publications; link under “Books”]. As with any maxim, familiarity establishes its worth, it’s assumed, and we then take it for granted! –We know that by looking through…
Read articleWhy the Angles are so Important – and some insight about Suicide
Why the Angles are so Important –and some insight about Suicide We know the Angles are all-important. Any planet on an Angle or, say, within two degrees of an Angle, or squaring an Angle tightly is going to command a front-and-center position in analysis. Conjunct or square the Midheaven-IC axis: much will be said in…
Read articleAdvanced Synthesis: Angular Disorientation
Advanced Synthesis Study–Angular Disorientation– Prerequisite for this study, please see “Analytical Techniques”, November 30, 2003: “Why the Angles are so Important –and some insights about Suicide.” In this man’s horoscope –June 8, 1810 at 9:20 PM, LMT, in Zwickau, Germany [Asc 4 Capricorn 14]— we see extreme pressure on all four Angles: Uranus is tightly conjunct the…
Read articleThe Subtle Powers of Mutual Reception
The Subtle Powers of Mutual Reception “Mutual Reception” reminds me of time-share house-swaps: you have an apartment in New York City and want to summer in Florence; someone in Florence wants to come to New York at the same time. The deal is made, you live in each other’s domain, getting very close together without…
Read articleBringing Big Conjunctions down to Earth
Bringing Big Conjunctions down to Earth Before you read this essay, I suggest strongly that you draw the following chart: “Jupiter-Saturn conjunction,” January 01, 1981 at 00:19 AM, BGT at Mecca, Saudi Arabia (-03:00; Ascendant 9 Libra 19). This chart shows the extraordinarily symbolically powerful Grand Mutation conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn focused at the…
Read articleThe Black Moon
The Astrological Symbolism of the Apogee and empty Focus of the Lunar Orbit –The Black Moon by guest essayist Juan Antonio Revilla of Cosa Rica Juan Antonio Revilla is a professional astrologer from San José, Costa Rica. He started with Astrology in 1974, first inspired by Dane Rudhyar but later by Marc Edmund Jones, whom…
Read article“Why?” and “To What Extent?”
To get away from Abjecta Descriptionitis (the disease that plagues most learning astrologers), to avoid the resigned reliance this virus puts on cataloguing meanings in a horoscope, I prescribe two brain pills that will help bring analysis out of the doldrums and put it forward in consultations with on-the-job radiant good health. We shouldn’t look at a…
Read articleFinancial Astrological Techniques For Investing
Financial Astrological Techniques For Investingby Jeffrey SpringerJeffrey Springer of Norwood, New Jersey is a graduate of Noel Tyl’s “Master’s Degree Certification Program” (August, 2002). During his work in the Course, Jeffrey began studying in earnest financial astrology and the financial markets in general. Jeffrey passed the Series 65 exam in early 2003 to become a…
Read articleIs it too Much…or too Little?
Consideration of this quantitative choice, Too Much or Too Little, is an analytical technique because it is a mind-set within which the analyst frames “gulps” of synthesis. –Just as the presentation about “Why? and To What Extent?” was similarly a guide to analysis preparation [Analytical Techniques, April 28, 2004]. In the opera world, there’s a saying –a…
Read articleRetrogradation Review and Rx Patterning
Retrogradation Review and Rx Patterning As we devour our learning of astrology, our appetites tend to demand that everything we observe and measure must mean something, have analytical substance. In the sense that the whole is the some of its parts, and in the sense that the microcosm reflects the macrocosm, everything in the horoscope does mean…
Read articleOffsets of Difficult Measurements
We all know that contradictory measurements in astrology are not easy. There are no rules to guide us, but there is a state of mind that can help. Does night contradict day? Or is there a complementation between the two, one making the other clearer, more manageable? Does sound negate silence? Or is one making the…
Read articleSeeing Vocational Confusion
Seeing Vocational Confusion Please erect this chart: Hector Berlioz, December 11, 1803 at 5:00 PM LMT in La Cote Saint Andre, France. [This data is extremely reliably rated; 00 Cancer 29 Ascendant.] Berlioz was an opera and symphonic composer who affected music dramatically throughout the 19th century and certainly beyond. He was regarded as a…
Read articleToo Many Measurements Spoil the Astro-Broth
Too Many Measurements Spoil the Astro-Brothby Guest Astrologer, Basil Fearrington Basil Fearrington is a premiere astrologer in our world. His thoughts are presented strongly at BasilFearrington.com, in his several other “Analytical Techniques” essays and frequent Forum appearances on this website (see Archives), and at TheMetaArts.com site. He is the self-published author of the extremely helpfulMidpoint…
Read articleThe Sabian Symbols & Astrological Analysis
The Sabian Symbols & Astrological Analysis”Every word was once a poem”: Ralph Waldo EmersonBy guest astrologer, Blain Bovee Blain Bovee was prominent on the Discussion Forum of this website for some six months of daily analysis commentary of the Sabian Symbols in Astrology. His insights were crystal sharp, remarkable, and valuable. His sensitivity and skill…
Read articleBreaking Routing Blocks in MH Extension
Breaking Routing Blocks in MH Extension The routing of the Midheaven throughout the horoscope in the Midheaven Extension Process can run into apparent dead-ends. This will happen when, working with dispositor dynamics, we fall into a repetitive loop usually involved with a mutual reception, or when we encounter a planet in its own Sign, a…
Read articleSolar Return Interpretation Insights
Solar Return Interpretation InsightsBy guest astrologer Mary Fortier SheaMary Shea (PMAFA since 1980) has made a lifelong study of mysticism and metaphysics, which she integrates with psychological concepts in her astrology. She has her M.A. in Counseling Psychology. Her book Planets in Solar Returns is probably the most celebrated treatise on Solar Returns extant. She resides in…
Read articleMeasurements Pairing up for the Rescue
Often, as we organize analysis structures in the horoscope, we can feel certain specific components “getting together” in the client’s reality, in his or her persona. It is very real that different parts of personality make-up work together: Sun-Jupiter in Leo in the 7th will work very hard in relation to, say, Saturn-rx phenomenology in the horoscope;…
Read articleMake the Deduction Leap; Open Up Inspiration
Making the Deduction Leap; Opening up to Inspiration We astrologers are mediums. That doesn’t mean we commune with spirits and translate arcane messages from another dimension, but it does mean that we facilitate into being our personal creativity, our individual intuition: that goes through some conditioning and modification process inside us and is brought from…
Read articleEmpty Houses and those Planets in the 12th!
Empty Houses and Those Planets in the 12th! All beginning astrologers come up with these two questions: what about those Houses that are empty? And “Yikes, what about those planets in the 12th House I’ve heard such awful things about?” Untenanted (empty) Houses are assimilated in analysis through the planet ruling the cusp on the particular…
Read articleThe Vertex Axis: A Special Doorway
The Vertex Axis: A Special Doorwayby guest astrologer Alice McDermott Alice McDermott is an eminent Australian Astrologer who, as Alice Portman, has consulted and taught professionally for 35 years. In 1984, she received her Professional Member of the Federation of Australian Astrologers (PMFAA) qualification and became an Examiner for the FAA in 1986-1988. She first…
Read articleThe Sabian Symbol Analytical Weave
The Sabian Symbol Analytical Weave The Analytical Techniques essay for November 30, 2004 [see Archives following this essay] was written by guest astrologer-author Blain Bovee, whose splendid book, The Sabian Symbols & Astrological Analysis had just been published. –I would like to echo his Symbols interpretation essay with this one, six months later, focusing on the practical…
Read articlePivotal Understandings of the Mind-Set 3rd
Pivotal Understandings of the Mind-Set 3rd When we remove the planets from our view of the horoscope, we see the stark, dramatic inter-relationship among the Houses, the fields of experience through which we traffic in our growth and development. The 3rd House is pivotal to our understanding of life experience and our expression of it.…
Read articleHOUSE SALE: the Astro-Plan, the Prediction, the Success
House Sale: the AstroPlan, the Prediction, the Success To set the scene, we go back twelve years. In 1993, I was determined to move to the Phoenix, Arizona area. The weather there had attracted me for years and during many visits. I wanted my dream house to be there. My wife and I decided to…
Read articleWhy We Need to Study Hellenistic Astrology
Why We Need to Study Hellenistic Astrologyby guest astrologer, Robert H. Schmidt Robert was educated at St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD, the original “great books” school. For the past 15 years, he has dedicated his training in classical languages, the history of science, and the history of philosophy to the problem of astrology. Robert…
Read articleComputing the SP Moon Position/Age in your head
Computing the SP Moon Position/Age in your Head! With growing skills and confidence, we can look at the horoscope and, at a glance, focus on significant generalities ever so quickly! The students in my Master’s Certification Course eventually are able to summarize/organize the paths for horoscope delineation, with major timelines, within 45 seconds or less.…
Read articleStartling Hypothesis: Independent Arcs to the AP
Startling Hypothesis: Independent Arcs to the AP For almost two years now, I have been watching most carefully an hypothesis I formulated that a planet or Angle arcing to an untenanted Aries Point by conjunction will symbolize in the measured time the forward projection of the planet’s symbolism in life. In other words, the Arc to…
Read article“Declination Conversion” by guest astrologer Donnalyn Kirchner
DECLINATION-CONVERSION: NO “ACCIDENTAL” TECHNIQUE!by Donnalyn Kirchner Donnalyn Kirchner practices, teaches, and lectures on astrology in San Jose, California. She is a former President of the South Bay Astrological Society. You can find her and more of her Declination work on the Internet at www.AstrologyWithDonnalyn.com. Have you ever analyzed astrological measurements for a serious accident and found…
Read articleThe Difference the Moon makes
The Difference the Moon MakesVocational Profiling This presentation shows a principle in action in two cases, with the Moon becoming the clear and eloquent variable. One of the cases is mine. Please have my horoscope before you –Vocations, page 10; Synthesis & Counseling, page 310) or Noel Tyl, December 31, 1936 at 3:57 PM EST in West…
Read articleMeasurements Leading One to the Other
Measurements Leading One to the Other The concept of scenario is extremely helpful in translating measurement guidelines into behavior anticipation. To be most productive in preparing the horoscope data to guide consultation discussion, we order in time major Solar Arc activity (especially those arcs involving Angles, the rulers of Angles, the Sun and the Moon) and strong…
Read articleRoyal Watchers
Royal Watchers [To appreciate what we can learn here, it is essential to have all the horoscopes before you, the double-ringed SA horoscope drawn for now, July 2006.] Prince Charles (November 14, 1948 at 9:14 PM GMT in London) and his wife Camilla (July 17, 1947 at 7:10 AM GDW in London) have some very…
Read articleSolar Returns –Making Them Work!” by guest astrologers Kevin and Kathy Rowan-Drewitt
Solar Returns – Making Them Workby guest astrologers Kevin and Kathy Rowan-Drewitt D.M.S. Astro Kevin Rowan-Drewitt is Secretary of the Northern Lights Astrological Society based in Blackpool in North West England and is also editor of the society’s quarterly newsletter Icarus. He has lectured on astrology all over the British Isles and teaches Astrology and Earth…
Read articleThe How-To’s of Solar Ingresses –Mundane Magic” by guest astrologer, Dean Bensics
The How-To’s of Solar Ingresses – Mundane Magicby guest astrologer Dean Bensics Dean Bensics has studied astrology since 1994. He possesses the highest certification for astrologers in Canada from the CAAE (Canadian Association for Astrological Education) and has lectured and written on numerous technical topics within the discipline. Dean has a degree in Political Science…
Read articleThe Dimensions of Paranoia
The Dimensions of Paranoia So often we have heard the word “paranoid” used in conversation, in description of someone –of ourselves?—usually spoken in admonition or anger. While there are many levels of what is termed “paranoid”, we usually hear it to mean “suspicious, jealous, overly-wary of others in the world”. The popularity of the term…
Read articleChiron: Choosing the Bridge to Freedom,” by guest astrologer Roderick Benns
Chiron: Choosing the Bridge to FreedomBy Roderick Benns Roderick Benns is an accredited astrologer through the Canadian Association for Astrological Education and continues his studies under Noel Tyl. He is a regular contributor to Dell Horoscope Magazine and is the author of the self-published Chiron: Facilitator of Destinies. He has also lectured on Chiron at astrology seminars and…
Read articleThe Art within Analytical Techniques
The Art within Analytical Techniques To date, there are some 84 “Techniques” Essays archived here (following the present essay). That’s approximately 85,000 words of how-to insights in astrology, in terms of analytical techniques! –How much of this have you read, absorbed, put into practice? In order to be on the high side of utilization of this…
Read articleDefining YOUR Process
The vector of meaning for the word “process” captures the following: a step-by-step progress toward a desired, designated end result. We look at a horoscope to develop understanding of the symbols in order to progress toward serving someone else or an occurrence with knowledge and insight. We must have a process with which to do this. But…
Read article‘Coloring’ House Significance
‘Coloring’ House Significance New astrologers are so often entrapped with a mania for meaning: every position of every planet is supposed to tell us something specific, life-identifying, of primal significance. With time it becomes clear that this is not so; just as there are not lines of demarcation in the brain that reflect cusp lines within our…
Read articleAssessing the 12th House” By Guest Astrologer Don McBroom
Assessing the 12th HouseBy guest astrologer Don McBroom Don McBroom is a highest-honors graduate of the Noel Tyl Master’s Degree Certification Program, and he works as teaching assistant to Noel at the annual seminars for students of the Course. Don is the author of Midpoints—-Identify & Integrate Midpoints Into Horoscope Synthesis to be released by Llewellyn Publications…
Read articleOrganizing Blocks of Synthesis
Organizing Blocks of Synthesis It seems for the most part, that it takes astrologers the longest time to get past the magic of measurements. It’s very hard to see past the spell woven into the esoteric and occult trappings of astrology: it is knowledge for the special few, and they don purple robes when they…
Read articleAscendancy of the Precocious
It’s safe to say that society gets around to labeling as “genius” those who are highly developed individualistically and uniquely productive to world-impacting excess. Such a person’s portion of genius necessarily shows itself early in life –it becomes clear early. Precociousness (from the Latin praecox, “early ripening”) is mesmerizing for us to see, to experience, because…
Read articleThe ‘Denkpause’: Letting the Brain work!
A ‘Denkpause’ (daynk’pauseh; or ‘Gedankenpause’ gehdahn’kenpauseh) is a marvelous German word for suspending mental activity to allow the brain to work! If we stop thinking with the self-assuring speed we usually enjoy, some deeper part of our brain gets an opportunity to study, analyze, and evaluate. In the ‘thought pause’ moment, we get ourselves out of…
Read articleSelf-Analysis for Career Growth
Seeing the work of astrologers in great, great volume, I feel that there are short-comings to career growth shared by too many. These short-comings can be corrected; by isolating specific concerns; we can identify what’s getting in the way and fix it! –There are four considerations to address. They are easy to overlook since they…
Read articleHave you choreographed your Computer?
Have you Choreographed your Computer Prep? The waste of time in horoscope preparation for so many astrologers is extraordinary … I assure you. The waste comes from not knowing what we need to illuminate the horoscope portrait, from insecurity about the essential measurements that should be coming out of your computer, and from the nagging…
Read articleHow Peregrination becomes important
All of us should be able to give a clear definition of peregrination: any planet not making a Ptolemeic aspect in the horoscope. [Conjunction, sextile, square, trine, or opposition] Indeed, there are theoretical strictures that Astrology places upon this base definition that involve dignities, debilitations, final dispositorship, and more. In my opinion, trying to define the condition…
Read articleThe Idiosyncrasies of Venus
Idiosyncrasies of Venus Venus leads our way into relationship, at so many levels, in so many ways. It can be an ultra-sensitive consideration in our behaviors. We address our attitude to life through Venus; our feelings to another person, our idealized concepts involving the world. Through Venus, we seek reflection back to ourselves of who…
Read articleAssessing your own Technique
Stored in this “department,” Analytical Techniques, are 87 essays on horoscope analysis. That’s some 80-85,000 words of highly specific instruction!!! –And those essays work in creative tandem with the 1000-page Professional Manual Synthesis & Counseling in Astrology. And all that works beautifully with the new book, Noel Tyl’s Guide to Astrological Consultation. And all of THAT is…
Read articleIn Search of Muhammad
Oh! The swirls of sand protecting the birth date of Muhammad; yet, careful reading of the leading sources for the study of Islam does settle upon 570 as the birth year for this personage, founder of Islam, the world?s second largest and fastest growing religion. Out of those non-literate times and people, we do learn scraps of…
Read articleManaging the Spirit – moving from idealization to strength
Managing the Spirit – moving from idealization to strengthBy guest astrologer Hiroki Niizato Astrologer Hiroki Niizato lives in the Tampa Bay area of Florida. He is a highest-honors graduate of Noel Tyl’s Master’s Degree Certification Course in Astrology and is a long time practitioner of Eastern meditation. His writings and services can be seen on…
Read articleFraming Future Projections
All astrologers feel they are on thin ice when it comes to articulating future projections. We easily feel stranded. When we look at symbols formed for the future, something seems to stop the traffic of thought. We’re afraid. The reason we feel stranded, alone, insecure is that we forget what has already taken place. Normally, there is…
Read articleWho names the Asteroids Anyway??” by guest astrologer Jacob Schwartz
Who Names the Asteroids Anyway?orUnintentional Astronomer Channelers(But Don’t Tell Them!)By guest astrologer Jacob Schwartz, PhD, Asteroids are named only by astronomers and their designated colleagues. The honor, or the responsibility, to name an asteroid is usually given to the discoverer. The astronomer usually ascribes the name to colleagues, friends, and family, with a minority of…
Read articleRectification with Topocentric Primary DirectionsBy guest astrologer Isaac Starkman
Isaac Starkman has studied astrology since 1974. He was a long time collaborator and co-author with Alexander Marr. Isaac specializes in rectification and he is the creator of Polaris software. He lives in Tel Aviv, Israel: stark@netvision.net.il Rectification of a birth chart is always a difficult task, even if the approximate birth time is known…
Read articleRectification with Topocentric Primary DirectionsBy guest astrologer Isaac Starkman (part || )
This is about as technical as it gets, ladies and gentlemen; but the calculations are greatly abetted by Mr. Starkman’s “Polaris Software Program”. Please see prefatory note in the Part I essay, May 30 in the Archives.] Part II Having found the correct birth time and corroborated it with all the techniques as I demonstrated…
Read articleTapping the Horoscope’s Memory!
Yes, the horoscope itself has a memory! There are at least four channels into it, four key ways we see that memory! 1. Points and planets sensitized in the past for the future When a particular planet or point is engaged with a major Arc or transit … and perhaps again a year or two later, a response…
Read article“Soul Astrology Down to Earth” by guest astrologer Lauren Delsack
Lauren Delsack is a Highest Honors graduate of Noel Tyl’s Master’s Degree Certification Course. She is a consulting astrologer and self-published author of How Emotional Conflicts Trigger Disease – An Astrological View. Her website offers free instructive videos, downloadable lectures and workshops in mp3, her eBook, and astrological commentaries. She can be reached at www.laurendelsack.com. Email: lauren@laurendelsack.com…
Read articleInternal Consistencies
–How Parts reflect the Whole Who wasn’t intrigued when our high school math, algebra, geometry teacher taught, “The Whole is the sum of the Parts”? A simple theorem with deep implications; it sounds so wise. –Then, a more advanced look into that same direction, “The Part contains the Whole,” a Part of a Whole contains…
Read articleYour Brain’s Snapshot Reference Bank
In planning this essay, I kept returning over and over again to the most helpful concept I know in horoscope analysis: seeing social-psychological developmental patterns, by far the most productive way to achieve fine holistic work, as opposed to the fragmentary this-means-that approach. This becomes spotlight-clear as soon as we set eyes on a horoscope!…
Read articleSaturn/Pluto Redux
The archetypal symbolism of Saturn and Pluto together conjure up things Dante placed in the Inferno: gaunt, twisted life-eating gargoyles burying us in their smoky, rocky lair. While our imaginations see the worst with these symbols, we must deal with them practically for better or for worse. Halves of each comprise the Saturn/Pluto Midpoint, into which…
Read articleInterpreting Measurements for Prediction Specifics
The difficulty we have with this high challenge to our art, Prediction Specifics, is that we are not organized for it. We fly into a prediction frame in disorderly fashion; we lose individualization in reference to the client; we lose practicality. We may grasp the potentials of the measurements we are working with, but they are…
Read articleThe 3rd House Filter
When we meet someone, just think of how much is transmitted about personality from the first sounds of their voice, the flow of words, the vocabulary, the points of emphasis made in the initial conversation … The mind-set as it sees the world shows itself! And it’s amazing how we are culturally conditioned to respond to such…
Read articleVertex Intensityby guest astrologer Alice McDermott
Alice McDermott is an eminent Australian Astrologer who, as Alice Portman, has consulted and taught professionally for 35 years. In 1984, she received her Professional Member of the Federation of Australian Astrologers (PMFAA) qualification and became an Examiner for the FAA in 1986-1988. She first spoke on the Vertex at the FAA International Conference in…
Read articleSA Aries Point Positioning, Revisited
Please see, restudy –from the Archives immediately following this essay—“Startling Hypothesis: Independent Arcs to the AP”, February 28, 2006.I put forth observations that planets in Solar Arc development, arriving at the Aries Point (and not in aspect with any other AP-positioned planet or point) alert us to important experiential development. It is as if the symbolisms come strongly…
Read articlePredictive Accuracy and ‘Time-Orb’
When I theorized the concept of “time-orb” some nine years ago, I was trying to make astrology and astrologers more comfortable with prediction and the expectation of time-exactness, the exactness we would expect at partile of a projection measurement (an event equals a transit, for example). All too often there are conditions we know nothing…
Read articleMajor Rectification: Judge Sonia Sotomayor
By guest astrologer Lauren Delsack Lauren Delsack is a Highest Honors graduate of Noel Tyl’s Master’s Degree Certification Course. She is a consulting astrologer and self-published author of How Emotional Conflicts Trigger Disease – An Astrological View. Her website offers free instructive videos, downloadable lectures and workshops in mp3, her eBook, and astrological commentaries. She can be…
Read articleThe Rites of SpringThe United States, Iran, and Israel
It used to be, reported in histories long ago, that countries retreated from their wars during the winter and then, in the spring, resumed those wars. Naturally, the weather was the main consideration –food in the fields during campaigns, easier transportation, more light in the Northern hemisphere, etc. Now, with a warring triumvirate in the…
Read articleUnderstanding the Venus-Rx Signal
Venus in retrograde motion is comparatively rare: it is retrograde for 40-43 days every 18 months; that means Venus is retrograde about 7% of the time, in an unbroken period of time, every year-and-a-half. –We are surprised, startled to see Venus-Rx in a horoscope; we don’t know quite what to make of it. We are…
Read articlePluto by House
Let’s take –hopefully– a sophisticated look at Pluto by House, not to memorize any excitingly apt specific, but to appreciate the feel, the reasoning of the positions, supporting rich analytical awareness. [Much of this overview is drawn from Synthesis & Counseling in Astrologybeginning on page 191.] I have long presented the planetary archetype of Pluto as “perspective.” It symbolizes our…
Read articleWilliam’s New World
I have long presented publicly the astrological projection that Charles, Prince of Wales, would never be King of England. I announced the projection first in a Seminar for the Arizona Society of Astrologers in Mid-1993 in Phoenix, and then I published a reinforcement of it through my statistical research of British ascendancy to the throne…
Read articleMoon for Thought
The Moon symbolizes all of memory. Just as it collects the light of the Sun, it collects symbolically the experiences of our life, pointedly aligned around the reigning need of our life development process. -This is not just recalling a phone number or a movie from a few years back, but the experiential imprints of who and why…
Read articleThe Gypsy in Us
Some 30 years ago, a businessman client (who is still active with me) and I were conferring on the telephone. He was reporting/confirming that he had just received a major job offer that would require a relocation etc. We had explored this potential in an earlier consultation: [tr Uranus conjunct his Midheaven] I asked him if…
Read articleSaturn and Guilt” by guest astrologer Kathy Rose
Kathy Rose is a Highest Honors Graduate of Noel Tyl’s Master’s Degree Certification Program. She has enjoyed a thriving astrological practice for over 20 years, with clients around the world. Her articles have been published by The Mountain Astrologer magazine, and she produces a monthly New Moon Video available at www.roseastrology.com. Kathy can be reached at roseastrology@yahoo.com…
Read articleThe Technique of the first Impression
–The one YOU make!– Think of the first impression you had about each person you met/dealt with yesterday, this morning! Really; give it some detailed thought. –Be aware of the value judgments involved! The day before yesterday, I was involved with three other people in a difficult situation: a City Construction Inspector was answering a…
Read articleEast meets West –painlessly!
by guest astrologer James Kenneth Williams James Kenneth Williams has practiced Western astrology for over 20 years and Eastern astrology (Jyotish) for over 15 years. His education and experience include certification from the state of California as a school counselor and clinical hypnotherapist. He has also worked with hospice, and as a social worker within…
Read articleAn Easy Way with Duads
by guest astrologer Alice McDermott Alice McDermott is an eminent Australian astrologer who, as Alice Portman, has consulted and taught astrology professionally for 35 years. In 1984, she received her Professional Member of the Federation of Australian Astrologers (PMFAA) qualification and became Examiner of the FAA in 1986-88 Duads or Dwads are both correct ways…
Read articleThe transiting Pluto Backdrop
To begin Das Rheingold, the first opera of Wagner’s incomparable four-opera music drama, Der Ring des Niebelungen, the composer wrote 136 consecutive measures in unchanging presentation of an E-flat chordal arpeggio!Unrelenting, unceasing: the sound of E-flat. His purpose here is to bring us deep into the Rhein river . and the lush tonality repeated for so long…
Read articleMutual Reception Review
Mutual reception is the infrequent occurrence of two planets relating to each other by each being in the Sign the other rules. Venus in Pisces is in mutual reception with Neptune in Libra, for example. There is a Lunar bias within the location dynamics of mutual receptions by virtue of the Moon’s speed, i.e., it changes…
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