{"id":1206,"date":"2014-06-17T00:01:47","date_gmt":"2014-06-17T00:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/ohmystars\/?p=1206"},"modified":"2014-06-17T00:01:47","modified_gmt":"2014-06-17T00:01:47","slug":"ask-an-astrologer-how-can-i-use-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/ohmystars\/2014\/06\/ask-an-astrologer-how-can-i-use-you.html","title":{"rendered":"Ask An Astrologer: How Can I Use You?"},"content":{"rendered":"

(This is a part of the “Ask An Astrologer”<\/a> series)<\/em><\/p>\n

KG writes:<\/strong> “How can I use you?”<\/em><\/p>\n

This is an excellent question, KG, and since I know you have Moon in Aries on the Ascendant, I’ll give you the short answer, then you can peruse the details afterwards if you like.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You can use me to help you understand yourself<\/a>, others<\/a>, your relationships<\/a>, your career options, your finances your aspirations, your past, and to predict the future.<\/strong> I can help you decide when is best to start a new venture<\/a> or help you foresee when there will be problems with business<\/a> or your love life<\/a> or finances or your kids or… well, pretty much anything.<\/strong><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Now, the background: A lot of my time in college was spent learning psychology and counseling techniques, because I figured the best way to make the world a better place was one person at a time.<\/strong> I still believe that — more so than ever in fact — but as time went on I got really tired of how traditional counseling works. A counselor is (to a certain extent)\u00a0not supposed to point out the obvious<\/em>. He or she is supposed to help you figure it out for yourself. That’s fair, because I’m certainly no expert on how to run your life… but the traditional process can be frustratingly slow.<\/p>\n

This reminds me of an old joke:<\/strong><\/p>\n

A man goes to see the doctor and says “Doctor, every time I drink my coffee in the morning I get a terrible stabbing pain in my eye.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The doctor says: “Have you tried taking your spoon out of the cup first?”<\/em><\/p>\n

Whereas the traditional counseling session, in my experience, is more like:<\/strong><\/p>\n

A man goes to see the doctor and says “Doctor, every time I drink my coffee in the morning I get a terrible stabbing pain in my eye.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The doctor says: “And how does that make you feel?” \u00a0<\/em>Then, after an hour of discussion, the man leaves, makes an appointment for next week, and continues to get stabbed in the eye every morning.<\/em><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Astrological legend Nicholas Campion performed a survey of astrologers at two conferences, one in the US and one in Britain, asking them how they viewed astrology:<\/strong> as a science, a “divine science,” a form of counseling, a religion, as a healing art, as a means of predicting the future, and so on. Some of these views I ascribe to (it’s definitely a form of counseling and thus a “healing art”) and some I don’t (religion? Yeesh<\/em>, no thanks).<\/p>\n

What struck me most about these survey results is that less than half of the astrologers questioned saw astrology as “a means of predicting the future.”<\/strong>\u00a0A lot of astrologers shy away from making predictions. I admit that understanding \u00a0how astrology’s predictive techniques really work can be a challenging task… and it doesn’t take many mistakes before an astrologer gets discouraged and decides to completely go with the “psychological astrology” approach. A lot of astrologers get great results with that sort of thing. But to me, without the predictive element, astrology is just another branch of psychology, <\/strong>and really — aren’t there enough of those already?<\/p>\n

Besides: The Future is where they keep all the best stuff, after all.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When you get right down to it, astrology or not… The Future<\/em> is more a matter of what you do to get there than what’s there when you arrive… because when you get there, it’s just “The Present.”\u00a0<\/strong> You already know that people will still be people, prone as always to their moments of Divinity and Stupidity. I’ll have mine and you’ll have yours, but with luck we’ll have learned a little along the way. Facing that future with all the knowledge you can carry with you can’t help but be a good thing. Knowing where you’re headed can help you decided if the future you’re headed towards is the best one.<\/p>\n

And, for the record: Maybe I’m just an optimist, but I think that overall, the future sounds like a great place to be going. In fact, to me, it sounds a little like this:<\/p>\n