3 Tips to Take Your Astrology Skills to the Next Level

Internet algorithms love lists I’m told, and, admittedly, I’ve been a bit blocked in the creativity department. I was turning a post on the Tarot knights over in my head, which didn’t want to translate into anything coherent, and a post on inferior and superior aspects just didn’t do it for me (though that’s an important technique to talk about — alas, I didn’t have a great angle. Heh. See what I did there?).

In the spirit of rapid-fire blogging “hacks,” I figured I’d offer up three tips that took me from astrological neophyte to experienced astrological neophyte. The more I study, the more I realize how much I don’t know about the tradition, so I’m never sure when I’ll finally call myself a confident practitioner. Every new text I read has me marveling at how astrologers over the span of hundreds and thousands of years tweaked the Ptolemaic model, introducing new interpretive approaches and symbolic techniques that deepen and enrich our synthesis. I wish I could learn by osmosis, slipping Dorotheus or Paulus under my pillow, because then I’d feel like I actually had some mastery over the Hellenistic techniques I’m poring over.

As it’s my birthday this month, I’ve dragged out Ben Dykes’ hefty translation of Abu Ma’shar’s On the Revolutions of the Year because I’m in the midst of making some significant changes in my life and…