Rick DiClemente: Exploring the Exquisite Universe
Rick DiClemente is an Intuitive Astrologer with over thirty years of professional experience. He is a guest speaker on numerous radio shows, has held various classes and workshops, and the editor of the StarSelf Newsletter. Rick is the author of “The Exquisite Zodiac: Why the Signs are the Way they Are and What it Means for You” and is a Featured Author of OMTimes Magazine.
An Interview with Rick DiClemente: Exploring the Exquisite Universe
Misconceptions about Astrology
In the introduction to Rick DiClemente’s book, “The Exquisite Zodiac”, he talks about the misconceptions people have about astrology. One of the examples that Rick gives is that people just can’t see how astrology works and therefore, don’t see how they can apply it to their lives. I have to fess up, I was one of those people. I would look at daily horoscopes purely as a form of entertainment. I was a non-believer, but I felt justified and here is why. I shared my birthday with my brother and my uncle and despite being from the same sign and having the same birthday, our differences and personalities were miles and miles apart. To go even further, my girlfriend and best friend are also the same sign as me and although we are similar, our personalities are still about a football field apart. So reading a horoscope that fit all of us, well… it just didn’t make me a true follower of the zodiac.
There were some other little tidbits that I couldn’t wrap my brain around. For example, take the concept of Mercury Retrograde. A lot of people seem to go off the deep end in preparation for all these “bad” things that are going to happen when Mercury goes retrograde. Now, I do believe in the law of attraction or cosmic ordering (the concept that what you put out you get back). However, all these “bad” things that were supposed to happen or all the people acting a bit nuts when this occurred, it didn’t align with my belief system. I often wondered if people were attracting bad things to their life because of an astrological concept. You wouldn’t be too far off the mark in thinking that I actually wanted to avoid astrology for these reasons. So what happened? What turned a doubting Dawn into a person that is now embracing astrology as a tool to understanding my life, my purpose, and my challenges?
Rick DiClemente Happened
Starting in July of 2012, I read my first article by Rick and there was definitely something different about the way Rick wrote about astrology. He captured an overall consciousness, a zeitgeist of what happens during certain planetary alignments, how those alignments have played out in history, and how we see that consciousness happening in current times. This also gave me an insight on how this could possibly play out in the future, the same underlying emotions, with a positive upside and negative downside but applied to that current day consciousness. Hmmm…ok, this was pretty interesting stuff. (Read How “Quantum” Became The New Household Word from July 27, 2012, OMTimes) This was starting to pique my interest. The following month’s article by Rick was about Uranus in Aries, and again, here was astrology being presented in a way that I had never encountered before.
An excerpt from “Uranus in Aries”
“Uranus has been electrifying the sign of Aries for over 3 years now. This planet of new inventions, excitement, and radical changes has been extremely active but has been a bit eclipsed by all of the other major planetary action from Pluto in Capricorn and Neptune in Pisces, etc.
The job of Uranus is to renew. If it finds something old and stale, it either disrupts it and updates it or cracks it. In the latter case, the entity simply can’t keep up with the pressures of evolution.
A big mistake is often accompanied with the planet Uranus; people tend to see this as a force out there. Nothing could be further from the truth: Uranus is that core part of you that wants to be expressed and wants you to be yourself. It is commonly the culprit when you hear people say, “I’m coming out of my skin!” That’s true! In those cases, what has happened is that the inner you simply can’t stand being repressed anymore. And just like a dandelion, its yearning for the Sun will cause it to break through the asphalt.”
Read the full article on OMTimes
Well, I have certainly experienced these feelings in my life but I had never made the connection of my inner self with astrology. I thought astrology was an external force.
Pretty soon, I caught myself getting excited when I would read an article from Rick DiClemente, and over the following months I was not disappointed. Every article brought a greater understanding and intrigue into Rick’s explanation of what was going on in the world.
And I am not the only one… Rick’s articles are repeatedly some of the most-read stories on OM Times and just like me, I think there are a lot of doubters that are seeing astrology with an entirely new mindset.
I became so enamored with Rick’s work that I had to get him to read my chart for me. I had never had something like this done before and I was completely blown away by the experience. Because of the chart, I can now understand why I am so different from the people that shared my birthday and others that shared my sun sign. The chart discussed my relationships with family, companions, career, and aspirations. The further we went into the chart, the more I realized that I wasn’t being told something I didn’t know but rather, it was like receiving clarity on why I felt the way I did about certain things in my life; it revealed goals and aspirations I had had about myself when I was younger and had pushed aside. By the end of the reading, I felt like I knew myself better than I ever had. It was an amazing experience.
OMTimes had a chance to talk to Rick DiClemente and find out how he became interested in Astrology and what he’s learned on his 30-year journey.
OMTimes: How did you first get interested in Astrology?
Rick DiClemente: At first, I had very little help, learning most of what I knew from a wonderful, basic book called “The Compleat Astrologer” by Derek and Julia Parker of Australia. I did most of the research myself. I had a basic background in Western astrology. By the early 80’s I got introduced to Stephen Arroyo’s books which dramatically changed everything. He was a “humanist”.
I was a basic by-the-book astrologer and in the 80’s I became a Humanistic astrologer and I remained so for a long time. That school believes that the planets are YOURS, are inside you, they’re not curses from the “outside”. I did that for a long time and got stuck; I reached a plateau, became frustrated, and couldn’t seem to get moving to new heights.
In 2003 I moved to Pittsburgh and got involved in studying psychic abilities and some mediumship. I had always repressed my psychic abilities because I never wanted to tell any client something, I didn’t “know.” Finally, I started to allow those impulses to come through, and BAM! My astrological and psychic abilities started to fuse and symbiotically enhance each other. The plateau was over.
I gradually moved into what I call myself now, an “Intuitive Astrologer”. Lately, I’ve done a lot of work simplifying everything. I stopped reading Astrology books largely around the mid 80’s and chose to learn by studying people’s actions, motivations, reactions and focused on the archetypal bases of each sign – thus, my first book, 2011 – “The Exquisite Zodiac” which specifically targets why each sign is as it is and how the whole zodiac is interconnected. I don’t feel that that has ever been done before adequately until now.
Gradually, I have gotten to where I have a very strong dialogue with my clients. I’ve gotten very far away from standard formula astrology and specialize in “what makes a person tick”. What is their personal storyline? I seem to have a gift in doing this. The one question I pursue with all clients is, “Are you blocked or is your energy flowing?” Once this is known, it becomes clear why they have little money, why they can’t get the job they want, the lover, the house, and we clearly see direct relationships with their health.
I try very intensely to draw out of each person their personal “peacock” so it can come out, express itself, and spread its wings across the sunny lawn. Perhaps this is because this is what I’m trying to do to myself. I am very direct and most clients don’t seem to mind at all because I’m really trying to dig into them and unearth any blockages. Usually, I’ve had the good fortune of being able to do so in one reading. I have no idea why, but almost always around the 40th minute of the 60-minute reading, I’VE GOT IT! I know where to go; I don’t even look at the chart much more. Its kind of like Spirit has guided me exactly where to look and I use up to 10 or more different types of charts on most people. I find that the birth chart is very limited and that most astrologers put way too much emphasis on the “progressed chart.” I make heavy usage of what is called harmonic charts – they allow me to zoom in to specific areas and I have had tremendous success with them. I look for themes that seem to appear here and there all over the place repetitiously. Then, I know I’VE GOT EM! One of my really intelligent Aquarian clients has dubbed me, “The Peacock-Whisperer”! Ha! That seems to be what my purpose is.
In studying all of my past life charts along with “destiny” charts, it seems very clear to me that I’ve been an astrologer many, many times. In this lifetime, astrology “hit me” in 1978 and I never turned back. I had had a reading by an “astrologer” in 1971 which left me wanting. I thought about her words heavily for 7 years and decided to objectively learn to read my own charts to find out the real truth. Of course, all calculations were done by hand and that art has sadly been lost to our new computer-bound generation. I can’t say enough about how much a background in hand-calculation benefits someone even if you go on to use computers, as I do now. You need both.
So, I don’t know where my answers come from. Ram Dass had a very heavy influence on me all of my life and I’ve therefore held my religious/spiritual viewpoints very lightly ever since I read the landmark, “Be Here Now”. It was the pivot of my life. Recently, I find that “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle rings true to me now and I am a strong proponent of David Hawkins and “A Course in Miracles”. Now, when I look at charts, I’m not only trying to draw out the “peacock” in others, but I really feel that the chart is a roadmap/calendar of your path back to God – which I feel, is the only thing that matters.
I don’t know what comes over me when I read: I just know what is not true and what is true. Certainly, I still have to struggle to get the proper archetypal translation for the moment, but each year, it gets simpler and simpler – as I simplify. I know what to listen for and today, people are way more ready to hear these types of viewpoints than they ever have. I truly believe that that is my mission: to clarify astrology, make it more useful, and have it find its rightful place in the Sun.
Excerpt From the Exquisite Zodiac, by Rick DiClemente:
It’s the most vivid experience I’ve ever had yet much of this same memory remains blurred to this day. I was in a bookstore in 1978 when The Compleat Astrologer by Derek and Julia Parker jumped off of the shelf and landed in my hands. Did it actually jump, or was I so mesmerized by this particular book that it only felt that way? (That’s the part that remains hazy.) Either way, this experience was accompanied by a message that came through my intuition with such clarity that it was shocking and stunning at the same time: “This is what you are supposed to do.”
It was an undeniable knowing, and I was so appreciative to have been unexpectedly given such clear grace. From that moment on, there was no doubt about it. Wow. Imagine that: knowing what I’m supposed to do. Now all I had to do was learn how to do it. Fortunately, that part came easy for me. Inexplicably, I had a natural affinity for the topic.
Several decades and thousands of astrology charts later, I remain mind-blown by my adventure into the intricacies of astrology. The thing that is most incomprehensible to me is that this fascinating art and science remains such a mystery to most of mankind. It’s such a useful tool for explaining so much of our lives that it only makes common sense to use it. Astrology’s truth is there, just waiting to be revealed and scrutinized by trained eyes—and, by the way, you don’t have to be that trained to begin to see it (although it does take years before one is ready to read for other people).
OMTimes: When did you first realize that you had psychic/medium abilities?
Rick DiClemente: It was gradual. I never felt that I did at first, I just KNEW astrology was seldom ever used accurately. I felt and still do that most astrologers are too book-bound and formula-following. Therefore, I feel that there really are very few good astrologers out there. It’s a hard science to do. And, I do feel that lately, many young folks are starting to get it. And I think that is due to the tremendous effect C.G.Jung has had on our collective mindset. He was quite an astrologer himself. His work with shadow-types and archetypes has loosed the new flock of astrologers. I guess that’s what I’d call myself now, it keeps evolving: “An Archetypal Astrologer” at the very least but I’m feeling very pulled towards the “final frontier” (I feel) which is a “Quantum Astrologer”. Very soon, I feel, the word “astrologer” will be obsolete. It brings back too many medieval connotations of Nostradamus, curses, and fortune-telling. Astrology does not predict the future. It KNOWS what the next fluctuation in collective and personal archetypes will be – a VERY BIG DIFFERENCE.
So, I am drawn to quantum physics now, to merge their theories with astrological ones; they just have to merge. I’m heavily into holographics now too because of the physics. We’re all one, and I’m obsessed with that singularity of thought. The universe takes care of itself. Someone told me recently that we’re not a drop in the ocean, we’re the ocean in one drop, and I think that speaks volumes. So, “psychic abilities”, we all have this ability.
OMTimes: How did this influence in your life? (Did you try to ignore it or did you embrace it?)
Rick DiClemente: My astrological abilities have completely taken over my life, in every possible way. I don’t see people moving around; I see an endless intermixing of archetypes flowing or crashing into one another. At all times, that’s what I see. That’s precisely why I remember almost every chart of every person because I see them as nothing more than that expression PLUS a soul, which I have no idea whatsoever how that works. I leave that to the esoteric astrologers.
I don’t look at my own planets and transits much. When one is new at this, the young astrologer is scared to death each time Mars moves one degree, or an approaching eclipse, or heaven forbid, a SATURN RETURN. I’ve learned so much that I just don’t sweat the planets. They are us, we are them. It is called life and it flows in our favor at all times. I don’t believe that planets are out to get us, as most people fear.
OMTimes: When did you become attracted to astrology?
Rick DiClemente: Mildly in 1971, and as I mentioned above… in 1978. My chart is perfect for one becoming an astrologer. Most people who are really attracted to do Astrology go thru the years of being wrong until they gradually start becoming more right. Those who want to do Astrology for the long-haul have one of two things in their natal chart:
1) A very strong Aquarian flavor or Uranus (which I have) and/or
2) A strong influence from Chiron, which I do. It should be stated for the record that Chiron (The first astrologer in mythology) was discovered in November of 1977. I became interested in astrology just a few months later.
OMTimes: What school of astrology do you follow?
Rick DiClemente: None, I follow my own by watching people and events. As I said, early astrologers affected me, especially Stephen Arroyo and today’s Richard Tarnas. Other than that, I teach my students to read lots of stuff with lots of salt and then start reading charts. Reading more and more charts. Be wrong, wrong, wrong, eventually, you’ll start being right on!
Neil Young was asked years ago, what advice he’d give to a young wannabe band – this was during the Grunge period. He advised, “Get a bunch of very loud amps and instruments; start banging them and screaming. It will sound like hell! Next week, it’ll still sound like hell! But, sooner than later, it’ll start to sound not always like hell.” That’s progress. That the muse taking over. That’s why I can’t answer any of your questions really because it isn’t me doing all of this, it’s my muse, and he’s really cool.
To learn more about Rick DiClemente visit his website at https://www.starself.com/
