Susan Miller: AstrologyZone 2016
I wanted to learn astrology because I had been born with a terrible birth defect that affected my ability to walk. I only wanted to know if I would ever walk again without braces and crutches. (More about that illness later.) My mother told me I would have to study 12 years to get a proper understanding of the discipline of astrology and she assumed that because I was 14 years old when I was begging her to teach me, that I wouldn’t have the staying power. It turned out I did—in spades.
Learning astrology would require lessons and practice on the mathematical side, but also needed much time for reflection and discussion. (All the while I was being home schooled during high school and later went to New York University, where I graduated with a BS degree in business.)
If you meet an astrologer who is obsessed with the subject—continually trying to guess your sign or someone’s sign in the room, or constantly talking about astrological aspects—to me, that means that person is using astrology as a crutch. I work on my astrological writings all day, every day, but I am not obsessed. I look at the planetary tables that NASA publishes and I know all their positions for the month. To me, knowing where the planets are located is very much like reading the New York Times, as I do each day. It keeps me current and informed. I never try to label people. My feeling is when I do a chart, I must do it several times, later, when I see how the aspects asserted themselves in their unique way. Your Tapestry is a rich one, and I cannot enter your life in a flash and know everything there is to know—it will take time and reflection.
When I hire someone, I never do their chart before asking to join my company. (I will do a chart if the person asks me to do it for them later, but it is not a prerequisite prior to hiring.) Rather, I listen to what talents the person tells me she or he will bring to the table. I get a sense of the individual, and I strongly rely on my intuition. When planning an important initiation, I always consult my chart, and because I write The Year Ahead 2016 calendar that I sell on AstrologyZone.com. I know by heart about all the newest planetary cycles, and when it would be best (not only regarding the day but in terms of the entire year) to launch a critical initiation. It takes a long time to learn astrology. Some students are in a rush to learn, and you can see which ones have tried to skip some steps, as they look adorable, like a child having eaten the entire Boston cream pie in one sitting—they get a little sick doing that. Those students who assume you can learn in two or three years eventually become completely confused, and they cannot discern good data from bad data, teachers who are learned and those who are not, and worse, they tend to pontificate about what they know. Once must never pontificate—a student (and I count myself as one) we must always be aware of what we do not yet know.
