Join Sara this week as she talks to Expedition Astrology co-teacher and integral member of Team TSE, Sarah Milne all about frequently asked Astrology questions!

Frequently Asked Questions and Misconceptions About Learning Astrology

In this week’s podcast, Sara chatted with Sarah, one of our longtime community members, astrology teachers and part of our student success and content team, about some of the questions our astrology students bring to us, some of the misconceptions people have and some of the things that might help you on your learning journey as you navigate the wild world of astrology. 

Why should I learn astrology?

Astrology is a wonderful tool for self-development and self-growth. 

Sarah has a background in science, health and psychology and for her astrology just makes so much sense as an ancient tool that was once used by physicians and underpinned a lot of the great psychologist, Carl Jung’s work developing his theories and in his therapeutic work.  Sarah now eats, sleeps and breathes astrology – using it in some way every day in her own life. 

Astrology also helps you to navigate and understand your relationships with other people and the situations you find yourself in through all areas of life. For Sara, it helps her to understand perspective and how other people believe, who they are, how they will react and that not everyone is out to attack her or ruin her day. Astrology helped her to learn not to take things personally and to understand the different perspectives other people have. 

We all hear a lot about retrogrades, Mercury has just finished its first backward spin of the year, but not many of us know what that means specifically for us. Learning astrology enables you to understand just what these retrogrades and other alignments and positions of the planets each day will mean in our own lives, how we can use the energy to get our very best experiences in life and for growth and transformation.

Astrology is a fantastic tool for shadow work too. We have all experienced hurt that impacts us through our lives. Astrology can show us where these come from, where relationships may have been challenging for us and what lessons we can learn to change our own stories. This enables us to heal and also to mend fractured relationships.

Astrology is so much more than your Sun Sign

Many of us know about our Sun Sign and, although it is the center of your personality, creativity and vitality, it is a small piece in the jigsaw and layers of astrology. Our Moon Sign, the unconscious undercurrent, plays a huge part in the way we react and interact on an intuitive and emotional level. Our Mercury Sign colors the way we communicate and how we perceive how others are communicating to us. This can greatly influence our interactions with others. Someone with a steady, practical Taurus Mercury may struggle and misunderstand a fiery, Mars Mercury, driven by passion, excitement and assertion.  

You don’t have to memorize everything!

Over the last two weeks of blogs and podcasts, we have shown how astrology is complex with 12 signs in their natural home, as well as your individual placements in 12 houses, 10 planets as well as asteroids and all the different aspects, the interactions between them all. Many people are put off from studying astrology because they think they need to learn and memorize all of this! That is definitely not the case. Astrology is best learned by doing, with practical exercises and learning to read and interpret charts step by step. You need to understand the energies and the layers, not learn by rote. You can refer to your notes and materials as much as you need to. It’s like learning a new language -the more you do, the more you will remember. The more you use that language, the more fluent you get until you get to a situation where you can just look at someone’s birth chart and read it without having to look things up. But that takes time, and it takes time of practice

Why learn astrology when there are so many websites and apps that will give you free readings?

We keep stressing how astrology is all about layers. Websites and apps will spew you out a ‘reading’ but it is a shopping list approach – it will tell you about your Sun Sign, your Ascendant, all your planets and houses and even the aspects but this will be a piecemeal list of characteristics for each one of them that is pulled out for absolutely everyone that has that jigsaw piece in their chart. These sites and apps cannot tell you how all of this energy interacts for you through the layers of your unique chart. 

Horoscopes are not personal to you. Most are based on just a Sun Sign, maybe a Moon Sign and for everyone with that sign. A personalized horoscope has to look at the current transits of the planets through their signs and their aspects with each other and how all this relates to the WHOLE of your birth chart – not just the Sun Sign. 

Studying astrology enables you to be able to do that for yourself. To be able to do these personalized transit horoscopes you can use to help plan your weeks, months and years and you can use for self-grow and development work as you go, as well as understanding your birth chart as a map and guide to your life as a whole. 

Astrology fits in with all beliefs and religions

Some people are put off from studying astrology because they believe that it does not fit with their religious background. You do not have to have any particular spirituality or particular religion to learn and understand astrology. It sits alongside everything because it does not undermine any beliefs or ideas. For example, we talk about the birth chart as the moment you were born. You can believe that this was the moment the Universe chose, or God, or a Goddess or any diety, or that it was science. That is all just fine. Your birth chart fits with that.

Your birth chart does not fix your destiny

At the Sisters Enchanted, we teach Western Astrology that includes the importance of freewill.  the path I have to follow. And that’s not true because certainly in Western astrology, we believe that you have free will.  Your birth chart shows you possibilities and shows you what your life can be if you take the opportunities that are shown to you and make the best choices but you are in control, you have freewill and can choose the path you take. The birth chart is full of different possibilities. We work with it as a guide, we are not predestined by it. 

Astrology is an intuitive art

While there are specific energies and characteristics associated with each of the signs, houses and planets, the best astrologers use their intuition in partnership with their knowledge. There are many possibilities in a birth chart and interpreting the story involves intuition. There is also such a lot in a chart, a reading would be very long and scattered if you shared it all. While you learn astrology, you need to work on your intuition and let that intuition flow as you’re reading the chart, on knowing what stories that you are going to focus on in a reading and the stories you’re going to tell people. This is something else that no app or website can do.

Learning astrology is life changing! It is the best way to learn about yourself and your self-development and to learn about other people. It can be complex for sure, but it is so much fun. So, why not join us and learn astrology with us. 

Get this episode’s transcript here