astrology learning recommendation?

My name is Emma.

I have gradually, over the past few years, been drawn to crystals, tarot astrology and other mystical subjects. I'm trying to connect more with my spirituality and connect with the universe.

My zodiac sign is Cancer and my Moon sign is Pisces.

I am struggling a bit to get my head around all of the aspects of astrology.
What asteroids I'm connected too. What other signs I'm connected too,
Natal charts, the 12 houses, ascendant. It's blowing my mind and I don't know where to start really....

Can anyone help? Recommend?

HELP


Sending good vibes.

Start with the majors before you move on to the minors. Get a clear grasp of planets, signs, houses, and major aspects before moving on to asteroids.

Two books that I recommend for beginners are Steven Forrest, The Inner Sky; and Robert Hand, Planets in Youth. The one gives a simple, dynamic approach to horoscope interpretation, and the other is more of a "cookbook," but a good one.

Learning astrology is comparable to getting an undergraduate university degree in a major subject, so be prepared to spend several years grasping the basics, if you are serious about it.

mortemma said:

My name is Emma.

I have gradually, over the past few years, been drawn to crystals, tarot astrology and other mystical subjects. I'm trying to connect more with my spirituality and connect with the universe.

My zodiac sign is Cancer and my Moon sign is Pisces.

I am struggling a bit to get my head around all of the aspects of astrology.
What asteroids I'm connected too. What other signs I'm connected too,
Natal charts, the 12 houses, ascendant. It's blowing my mind and I don't know where to start really....

Can anyone help? Recommend?

HELP


Sending good vibes.

Click to expand...

Hi mortemma aka Emma
THE ANTHOLOGY by Vettius Valens is a good read and all FREE on pdf
at http://www.csus.edu/indiv/r/rileymt/vettius%20valens%20entire.pdf

STUDY LIBRARY OF FREE ASTROLOGY TEXTS ON THE WEB
at http://www.skyscript.co.uk/texts.html

For REFERENCE BOOKS I suggest the following books (especially for beginning and intermediate students)

:ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ASTROLOGY DeVore
:ASTROLOGICAL KEYWORDS M.P. Hall
:LWELLYN'S A-Z HOROSCOPE MAKER & DELINEATOR: editions prior to 1990
:FIXED STARS & CONSTELLATIONS IN ASTROLOGY Robson
LANETS IN CONTAINMENT Sandbach & Ballard
:THE RULERSHIP BOOK Bills

For "how to" books, these vary and depend upon if one wants to make an initial study of Modernist or Traditional Western astrology; personally, though, for beginners I would suggest gaining mastery of Modern astrology (that's my opinion) before going on to specialty studies:therefore I would suggest a study of the books of Charles Carter, in the following order:

1st: PRINCIPLES OF ASTROLOGY, together with THE ASTROLOGICAL ASPECTS, together with WHOLE SIGN HOUSES by R.Hand
2nd: SOME PRINCIPLES OF HOROSCOPIC DELINEATION
3rd: ESSAYS ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF ASTROLOGY
4th: SYMBOLIC DIRECTIONS IN MODERN ASTROLOGY
5th: THE ZODIAC AND THE SOUL

Vettius Valens lived in the second century CE. I would suggest you learn astrology through basic textbooks before venturing into the history of astrology at that level.

mortemma said:

My name is Emma.

I have gradually, over the past few years, been drawn to crystals, tarot astrology and other mystical subjects. I'm trying to connect more with my spirituality and connect with the universe.

My zodiac sign is Cancer and my Moon sign is Pisces.

I am struggling a bit to get my head around all of the aspects of astrology.
What asteroids I'm connected too. What other signs I'm connected too,
Natal charts, the 12 houses, ascendant. It's blowing my mind and I don't know where to start really....

Can anyone help? Recommend?

HELP


Sending good vibes.

Click to expand...

I have started learning Astrology from end of January this year.

There seems huge amount of knowledge to learn in this field, and it will take a few years to be conversant in Astrological language at least.

I am thinking of taking it easy and slow. Bought a few good Astrology books for beginners, and keep reading them.

Visited Astrological forums, and read messages whenever I have time.
Also go to Youtube, and watch Astrological lectures and discussions.

I am sure I will need at least 3 years to know all the basics in the subject, and will take life time to study most of its topics.

Senecar said:

I have started learning Astrology from end of January this year.

There seems huge amount of knowledge to learn in this field, and it will take a few years to be conversant in Astrological language at least.

I am thinking of taking it easy and slow. Bought a few good Astrology books for beginners, and keep reading them.

Visited Astrological forums, and read messages whenever I have time.
Also go to Youtube, and watch Astrological lectures and discussions.

I am sure I will need at least 3 years to know all the basics in the subject, and will take life time to study most of its topics.

Click to expand...

Avoid astrological generalisation as it's fun, tempting
yet notoriously unreliable

Senecar said:

I have started learning Astrology from end of January this year.

There seems huge amount of knowledge to learn in this field, and it will take a few years to be conversant in Astrological language at least.

I am thinking of taking it easy and slow. Bought a few good Astrology books for beginners, and keep reading them.

Visited Astrological forums, and read messages whenever I have time.
Also go to Youtube, and watch Astrological lectures and discussions.

I am sure I will need at least 3 years to know all the basics in the subject, and will take life time to study most of its topics.

Click to expand...

A PLANET acts

A HOUSE shows the area of life
in which the planet acts

as well as
how strongly the planet can act

and furthermore
quality of a planet's expression
is influenced by the SIGN location of a PLANET


the analogy of a 'theatrical performance' is helpful

we have

12 basic 'backdrops' to the theatre or movie of a natal chart
Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces

and then

Each of those 12 'backdrops'
- dependent on time of birth -
is pinned as an individual 'background or cusp'
on each of the 12 basic 'scenes' aka 'houses'


each 'scene' aka 'house'
features planets as 'actors'
within any one of the 12 basic 'scenes' or 'houses'
'performing' before the 'backdrop' of the 12 'signs'

for example
Venus and Jupiter are thought of as the 'good guys'
Mars and Saturn are traditionally the 'villains'
Mercury can be 'dodgy', sometimes good sometimes not so good
dependent on the company Mercury keeps via conjunction, sign, aspect


Scenes may 'merge'
taking into account that planets in each others houses influence the 'script'

and then
we have "travelling players"
aka transiting planets
putting in temporary appearances
transiting MOON is "on the scene in a house" for approximately only 2.5 days
before travelling on to the next venue

MERCURY puts an appearance in at each house "for one week only"
then on to the next scene
after nineteen days VENUS goes to the next stage
SUN sticks around for a month
MARS fifty-seven days
JUPITER a year
SATURN two and a half years


adding layers to the drama
an analysis may be as complex or as basic as one prefers

JUPITERASC said:

Avoid astrological generalisation as it's fun, tempting
yet notoriously unreliable

Click to expand...

All generalisation is dangerous, including this one and the one above too

Delineation requires the Astrologer's knowledge as well as intuition to come out with accurate readings.

Apart from reading books and charts and learning about the rules and methods, you definitely need some meditation, cleansing or even Magickal Rituals as part of your Astrological learning process, I reckon.

In other words, it is a synthetic process, which aims at arriving at detailed knowledge and advice from muddy general circumstances and data.

In the beginning, my problem was that astrology talks about something dynamic using a language that is quite static. And I also had problems figuring out how to approach interpretation. Because after gathering, processing and organizing all that information, the natal chart still didn't come to life.

I had to figure out how to "feel" astrology, because that's how I function. The divinatory methods I have tried all have a personality: you get to know them the way you get to know a person. You feel them. At least I do. And even though I was helped, I still needed quite some time to get to that stage with astrology.

Looking back, what I would do differently is not wait with practicing until I gather "enough" information (it's never enough, there's always so much more to learn), but jump into it almost immediately. I would make countless mistakes, and they would help me explore astrology on a deeper, not merely intellectual level from the start.

Therese said:

Looking back, what I would do differently is not wait with practicing until I gather "enough" information (it's never enough, there's always so much more to learn), but jump into it almost immediately. I would make countless mistakes, and they would help me explore astrology on a deeper, not merely intellectual level from the start.

Click to expand...

Right! Learn by doing, not by speculating an theorizing!

I think you have to start by learning and memorizing the basics. But the horoscope is a living entity. I learned as much when I began reading charts for people on-line as I did from my 17 prior years of solo study.

Also a believer in the doing school of learning

Great points - I am trying to read charts as well as reading books too.

Although it feels daunting trying to make something out of the symbols in the charts, seems working out better for me in the study. I get bored just keep reading books for days. But when trying to read charts, and try to apply the knowledge and rules from the books into the readings, it can be fun.

I agree with lifelong learning, but not with memorizing. But we all function differently.

My problem with memorizing is not so much what is said, the keywords etc themselves, but what is implied: that astrological symbols are fixed in meaning. That they are like lego blocks.

This mindset makes interpretation more challenging, because we think of Sun as "set A" and Moon as "set B" and the trine as "set C". Or, we think of "Sun trine Moon" as "set D". But, let's say the Sun, at the same time, is also conjunct Venus, square Neptune, sextile Jupiter and opposing Uranus. So we will have a list for each scenario, "Sun conjunct Venus" is "set E", "Sun square Neptune" is "set F" and so on.

But "Sun square Neptune" in its "pure" form is a speculation, a mental abstraction because both Sun and Neptune (and the rest of the planets) are "modified" or "conditioned" in every actual chart.

That's why I think it is more efficient to engage with symbols on both planes at the same time: do your research on the theoretical background and engage with them on the practical and personal level. Meet them in action in specific natal charts, as soon as you can, as often as you can.

Therese, I didn't mean any of the negatives that you just wrote about memorizing. But yes, there is stuff to know in astrology. We don't get to just fabricate it as we go along.

Maybe another way to put this is learning the principles by which astrology operates.

I would reckon being able to memorise as much as possible from the books would be advantage. But it wouldn't be enough to be a good astrologer.

Intuition and psychic ability would perfect the craft.

It seems we all mean something else by memorizing We clearly didn't have the same German teacher in high school. It's him who pops up in my head each time I hear "memorize". We had to learn the whole book by heart, all the dialogues, all the lessons, all the corrected exercises. That was his whole language teaching method. By the second year, we could cite anything that was in the book but still could not put together a spontaneous sentence on our own. This approach seriously limits your ability to interact in the language: all you do is try and desperately find a ready-made sentence that can be used in the situation. And heaven forbid the other person asks something that was not in the book! That's the end of the conversation, lol, radio silence.

You don't need psychic ability to study astrology. But you do need to train your intuition.

Funny you should mention German class, Therese! I took German in high school and really liked my teacher, but German grammar with all of its cases and genders drove me to my knees. Fortunately my school's approach was to focus on conversational German. Which I used a bit in the course of 5 or so trips to Germany over the years, bad grammar notwithstanding.

But the point being, that if I hadn't memorized a basic vocabulary, I couldn't have spoken any German at all.

As in astrology. To me, one of the basics is simply learning the 4 elements and 3 modalities, planetary rulers of the signs, the meanings of the 12 houses, and the various aspect meanings. Then each of these has a lot of nuances and alternate interpretations, but they are not infinite.

As in learning a foreign language, after a while, I don't think of what I know as sheer memorization, because a language is so much more than that, as you know.

Another skill that I think is very valuable is the ability to grasp a complex system. Linear thinking is fine in certain fields like engineering, but in astrology, we need a more panoramic ability to see the forest as well as the trees. A comparable analogy might be theater arts, where the director has to understand principles of acting, staging, lighting, scenery, costumes, and props, and integrate them into a seamless performance.

In studying Astrology, no, you don't need Psychic abilities, but when reading charts for your clients, intuition and psychic abilities for seeing hidden truths (which could be trained) would help, I am sure.