Continuing the theme of how we came to astrology, stimulated by Frank Clifford’s brilliant guest post last week, here as promised are edited extracts from some of the varied and interesting stories my readers kindly shared. I’ve also included a couple of my own replies, the latter of which should leave you with no doubt regarding my misspent youth! I love the variety of these stories, and really appreciate readers’ having taken the trouble to share them. Space precludes me from sharing them all here – but you can find some more intriguing tales on my Astrology: Questions and Answers Facebook Page.
The post concludes with a five-minute interview I did a few weeks ago with Lush Radio’s Andrew Paine, confessing that I too was an ignorant astrology dismisser – until the day I encountered the real thing, a day which was to change my life, although I didn’t realise that at the time!
Talking astrology, mediaeval style!
Carole Bone, from Glasgow, Scotland, UK:
‘…It was great to read Frank’s story and so amazing that it is illustrated so beautifully in his chart. My path was first stimulated by that wonderfully ostentatious icon of popular “Sun Sign astrology”, UK’s Russell Grant. Having acquired a small book of his that described planets, signs, houses, rising signs, nodes etc I was intrigued to find that my Virgo Rising Sign and Cancer Moon sign was soooo accurate. I had never resonated with Sagittarius, my Sun sign, though that did irk me somewhat for some reason… it all makes perfect sense now I’ve “grown in to my Sun sign”… as you do…’
Brenda Lee Johnson:
‘…My early childhood was in northern Canada, in the province of Manitoba. My parents had what would almost be considered a trading post. I found it very difficult to be inside the house and spent much time outside looking at the sky, the magic of it, the darkness, the mystery. We had many animals around, domesticated and otherwise. A very elemental upbringing. Considered to be “unorganized territory” yet so rich in texture. Not “organized” or ” civilized”. In other words it had a “wildness”, a freedom. To find out later, in shamanic Astrology training that my moon was in Scorpio and that indicated a shamanic past, made so much sense. My orientation thus, was to be the explorer of the cosmos and live in the world using those early developed senses to try to understand how people and the world worked.
I first began with the Linda Goodman versions then proceeded to go deeply into Astro psychology with Liz Greene, Dane Rudyar, Reinhold Ebertin, etc. All filled a gap in thinking at different times. I studied shamanic Astrology near my Chiron return, realizing Chiron was conjunct my Moon but in Sagittarius rather than Scorpio. I am continuously in awe and wonder of this powerful symbolic system, much of which to me is unexplainable – although eg James Hillman, Stanislav Grof, Richard Tarnas certainly bridge understandings…’
Lunar Cycle
Lindel Barker-Revell:
‘…I was fascinated to read Frank’s astrological journey too. I admire his work and have attended a few of his lectures here in Oz. It’s strange how we are led to our path. I grew up in Tasmania where a dim view was taken of anything outside of a fairly rigid religious norm. However, the 60s did even reach Hobart and we had an influx of different thinking and beliefs. I met my first palm reader in 1969 and I began to learn what I could. I moved to Sydney in 1974 and after a few years I began to learn astrology at the first “school” in Paddington. What a journey!…’
Anne: Thanks so much for dropping by and leaving this interesting feedback, Lindel. I, too, grew up in a part of the world where there was a strong fundamentalist (protestant) ethos: but the wildness of the landscape and weather, and the clarity of the night skies and stars, invoked in me from early on a decidedly pagan sensibility which has never left me, leaving me open to all kinds of perspectives on interconnectedness. So I guess it was inevitable that astrology would eventually find me…
Rena Hdesign:
‘…Reading these, I feel I must share my story too! After spending the bulk of my life fighting my way through the challenges of the particular archetypal energies indicated by my birth chart, it is no big surprise that astrology finally claimed me heavily about 5 years ago. My 1st big step into the “occult”, (as it was known in the bookshop’s section back then) was to have an astrological reading. Although I don’t remember much – the astrologer’s reaction to my chart scared me a bit – I was fascinated and tried to begin studies. But it wasn’t time and there were too many fears dogging my mind to be able to maintain the type of objectivity necessary to do justice to the symbolism – so I went into massage and energy work.
Working with people at that level forced me out of the mental/intellectual and I spent many years learning to hold internal silence/space for others as witness to their processes as I gradually got through the personal challenges. Twenty five years later, being in a good place in life, there was obvious need for a further challenge – and that is where I finally found Dane Rudhyar, Liz Greene, Bil Tierny, Stephen Arroyo and many others through people like Anne Whitaker, Dawn Bodrogi and Frank Clifford’s guidance & stellar example…’
Questions, cosmic questions!
David A Jones:
‘…My parents had my chart done when I was born, but I never got much of an interpretation. When I was 16 I took my first pay check from my first “real” job and bought half a dozen astrology books; from there I taught myself, math and all…’
Anne:That’s impressive, David. What a good way of spending your first wages…much better than booze, clothes and cigs which I seem dimly to recall was mostly what I did with mine in my early days!
AND – here is my five minutes of fame on Lush Radio:
http://player.lush.com/radio/turning-point-anne-whitaker
Zodiac
1000 words copyright Anne Whitaker
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page of Writing from the Twelfth House
Astrology: Questions and Answers 
I love this post, Anne! I enjoyed the interview, too. I had read in some of your previous writings about your earliest encounter with astrology. Hearing you feel the story really illumined it in a beautiful way. You said what I have felt about astrology…it gave me a bigger context for my life, my experiences and what I am “up to” here! It found me a few times before I was encouraged to get into it a bit more deeply.
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Thanks, Carrie! And it’s interesting to hear that astrology had to knock on your door more than once…
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I think it was always there…you know, that sun sign astrology, and then a gifted reading made me curious…for a few more years. 😊
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Ok you did ask! Astrology found me.I had my mind opened up a bit by a microscopic amount of something or other,but we don’t need to go into that here.A lady at work said ‘Are you an Aquarian?’ I said ‘Yes I am,but you don’t believe in that rubbish do you”? I think she just smiled.I went away and bought ‘Linda Goodmans sun signs’ and was hooked from that day on.
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Thanks for this pithy summary, David! Yes – I know many people who were first drawn into deeper astro-waters by the Goodman book.
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anne, that’s a great post, sharing the feedback, and also a fantastic interview, complete with a lovely image of you… to hear your voice is a gift – wow, musical and comforting! thank you so much for sharing this!
love, lisa
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Lisa, you are very kind. So glad you liked the vocals…maybe I should do some more of this kind of thing….loving all your new photos, btw!
Anne Xx
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Amazingly synchrony in every case… so satisfying astrologically. Love it Anne xXx
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Yes, thanks, Carole. I find it touching to see how willing people are to share their stories, and how interesting and heartfelt they all are..X
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29.9.17:
Jen Howell: I would say I found it, and it found me, too! I came across a Jonathan Cainer horoscope early in college that helped me make sense of a tough situation I was in. I loosely followed astrology until just a few years ago, after a head injury changed just enough of my perceptions to put me on a new course. That’s when astrology found me on a deeper level, and I couldn’t keep myself from diving into it deeply. I haven’t looked back since.
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Thanks, Jen, especially intrigued by the head injury story. I think Edgar Cayce, the ‘sleeping prophet’, began his famous outpourings after a head injury…
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29.9.17:
Jen Howell:
My Mercury is at 16 of Capricorn, opposite Moon and squaring Mars in Libra. So the Pluto-Uranus square was certainly doing its work (and still is)! I had been working on repertoire for a percussion performance masters audition, and was day-jobbing for accountants when a file cabinet door fell open and hit me in the side of the head. The grad school plans never went through, but the past four years have put me on a path that’s so much more authentically “me”. The astrology study was born, as was taking on the role of a healer/intuitive in session work, and now I’ve added cacao ceremony and Druid priestess path 🙂 As for music, I still feel that it’s a central part of my calling, but the concussion opened up channels for composition that were never there prior to it. I’ve been reframing my paradigms around music and am finally feeling like Jupiter in Scorpio is going to blast my resistance walls right down when it comes to playing again (but in a much different way). It’s been an intense, rich time!
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Thanks again, Jen. I’m sure other readers will be fascinated by this too…
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29.9.17:
Peggy Sharpe Yost: I attend a weekly Edgar Cayce study group and was an ARE member since the 1980’s, with many Cayce books now. I can’t recall him getting a head injury that started his readings, but maybe! . I know he lost his voice and asked in a trance how to get it back and his wife wrote down what came through. He was healed from that information, when the doctors could not help him. I am going to look in the books and see how and when he began channeling the healers and report back!
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I’d appreciate that, Peggy! I don’t recall any longer where I got the info about Cayce’s head injury, so if you could verify/confirm this did not in fact occur, I’d be grateful…I may be confusing it with other accounts I’ve read where, intriguingly, people developed psychic gifts after sustaining a head injury.
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29.9.17:
Morgana Dee;
Astrology found me too. Love that first chart done for you. A young artist walked into my office when I was 22 and she began telling me alot about myself after asking for my birthday. She did it off the top of her head and I was completely intrigued from that moment on over 45 years ago. Anyway your Leo stellium conjuncts my Pluto. Cool because I totally enjoy your books and articles and posts.
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Great story, Morgana! I’m not surprised we have Plutonian contact… So glad you like my writings 🙋⚡️
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29.9.17:
Fernanda Paiva:
That’s amazing Anne, your stellium in Leo falls right on my 10th house and your Jupiter near my Sun (ruler of my MC in Leo), and here I am in Cornwall really excited to see Liz Greene for the first time! 😀 thank you! (lovely chart drawing btw) xx
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Well, I suspected there would be strong links between our horoscopes… have a brilliant weekend! Do let me know how it goes … X
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29.9.17:
Louise Vergette-Lynn:
Hi Anne, I was always interested as a kid, read Linda Goodman’s Sun signs when I was at school – it was my mum’s book! (She was a bit of a hippie in the 60s and 70s.) And compared it to all my friends. I still have old school books with farewell messages and my friends sun sign symbols next to their names.
Also, I think my mum had my chart hand drawn early on by her friend, my Auntie Babs. (Am I right there?)
But it was the late 80s that I decided I needed to take it further and I came across the The Mayo School of Astrology in a magazine, and saw that the Principal was called Jackie Hudson, and thought that was an odd coincidence because a friend of my mums when we were little (my ‘Auntie’ Jackie) had that surname – anyway, long story short, it was, of course, the same person, and I was hooked from then on! So it all came from my Mum really! But pretty sure if was meant to find me 😀 xx
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Thanks, Louise and Auntie Babs! I would have liked some esoterically inclined relatives, too, when I was younger….X
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29.9.17:
Carla Sharp:
There is something so sweet about this chart and how it was drawn so long ago before computers. I better dig down and find some of mine from the 70’s. thanks for sharing it.
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Thanks, Carla! Hope you find them…
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