Easy for you to say, you are Jewish astrologer too! It can't be easy being both an atheist and an astrologer.
But I wonder, waybread, do you even believe there is even one astrological technique that is real/physical/scientific?
I was raised in a non-sectarian nominally Protestant home by parents who called themselves "free thinkers." I converted to Judaism in 1974, because it mattered to my Jewish ex-husband. I was involved in Judaism for 20 years, but let go of it when we separated and divorced. I have never renounced Judaism but have been non-practicing for a long time. I am not an atheist but I do not believe in the anthropomorphism of deities in most of the world's religion.
It is difficult to make a case for an objectively real/physical/scientific basis for astrology. For sure, we deal with empirical stuff: an ephemeris, Arabic part calculations, aspects, and so on. But what is this based on? The Mesopotamians believed that the planets were gods, or omens from the gods. Sure, they wrote down all kinds of planetary observations; but fundamentally Nergal (Mars) brought warfare and drought-- not as a prediction based upon those observations-- but because this was the god Nergal's nature. The personalities of the Mesopotamian gods preceded astrology.
This is what the Hellenists adopted, along with Egyptian solar deity beliefs.
Our fave Ptolemy had as his main project getting astrology on a "rational" Aristotelian proto-scientific basis. Valens had as his main project anthologizing a lot of disparate astrological materials in a way that could help the fledgling astrologer read actual horoscopes for actual people. But their efforts followed centuries of star-gazing as an essentially religious endeavor. So whatever else these two did, they had to incorporate much of this religiously-inspired Deposit of Faith.
If today we interpret the planet Mercury as ruling liars and thieves, it is because this was the nature of the young god, mythological Mercury. If the planet Venus rules sexual love, it is because this was her nature as a goddess. The religious mythology predated the introduction of astrology into ancient Greece.
Anciently some astrologers prayed to a god (notably Mercury) to help them with their chart reading. Lilly similarly prayed to the Christian God.
Are you familiar with Geoffrey Cornelius,
The Moment of Astrology? He discussed the problem of the wrong chart nevertheless yielding a correct answer. He sees astrology as a form of divination.
What about
Under One Sky, by Rafael Nasser? He asked 12 astrologers coming from different schools of astrology to read the same "blind" chart. The chart native, an American woman, contributed an autobiographical article, which none of the astrologers read ahead of time. Schmidt, the Hellenist, sort of scrubbed out by not actually reading the chart. The most accurate readings were by Demetra George-- using asteroids!!--and the Vedic astrologer.
A horoscope interpretation takes place in the subjective mind of the astrologer. We follow rules, but these are often not the same ones between astrologers of different schools.
If your preferred traditional methods worked so well, why on earth would a sensible astrologer who came later wish to change or improve upon them?