Charting My Stars at Astrology evening

last September, while running around eco-friendly Lake, I stumbled throughout an astrologer sitting on the grass offering beginning chart readings. 

I've never had my chart read, however i am someone who walks a little slower when I come throughout psychic stores, looking back over my shoulder after I move through them. I've had my palm study twice—as soon as by using a magician at my step dad's birthday celebration, once in a Hell's Kitchen house amidst half-folded stacks of laundry—and i love to hear myself defined. 

I sat down on Aubergine Bliss's blanket. She smoothed her cornflower blue gown and knelt beside me as she plugged in my birth date, area, and time into an app on her phone. (no longer CoStar as a result of, "We don't love CoStar," she referred to.) 

Bliss, an Aquarius, is a full-time astrologer in Seattle. while she generally works alone, she continuously interfaces with the bright astrologer group in the Seattle enviornment. 

Bliss advised me what became what in my existence as a Pisces sun, Sagittarius moon, and Capricorn rising, the place the sun is my essence, the moon is how my emotions function, and the rising is how I seem to the realm. as a result of Bliss and the reading she gave me all these months ago, I looked to the celebrities and to Seattle's astrologer neighborhood for my latest exploration into Seattle hobbies and subcultures.

however first, that reading. 

The analyzing

First, she informed me about how, at 27, I'm in the thick of my first Saturn Return, a period of boom and alter and fitting, when Saturn re-enters the place it held when i was born—an experience each person goes via roughly every 29 years. the primary one, at 29, signifies the proper entry aspect of adulthood. This might be when the entire things I've been working toward repay, she defined. ok, shit, no drive. 

"you've got the sort of loopy chart," Bliss mentioned, sitting move-legged on that blanket. Then, once more, in a whisper to herself, "you have got the sort of crazy chart." A beat. "You're the fucking grim reaper."

Excuse me, what? 

"You're a finisher," she talked about. 

i thought of all of the half-accomplished projects I'd yet to comprehensive, the ideas turning out to be stale and unacted upon in my intellect, and of my lifestyles made of unfulfilled "I wills" and "I shoulds." I wasn't so certain about that, I informed her. 

something that instinct is to "do," it's in me, but it surely's clouded, she referred to. What's stopping me from doing? 

worry, likely, I pointed out. 

"You care a lot," she mused. "You would be horrified if americans knew how a good deal you cared."

i thought of distant goals, things I'm afraid to place into phrases, to category. "I want to be a lot of issues." 

"So, you must do what you care about," Bliss noted. 

I told her about this column. Then, she invited me together with her to Redmond. She turned into leaving in 10 minutes to go to a month-to-month astrology meet-up hosted by probably the most most appropriate astrologers in the location at a coffeehouse. I hemmed and hawed. It became Labor Day weekend. Wouldn't there be site visitors? 

"if you need to beginning doing, now's the time," she mentioned. 

And so I went to SoulFood Coffeehouse to hear about the astrology outlook for September. That's the place I met Rick Levine, discovered Seattle's wealthy astrology history, and discovered just a little extra about myself. 

The Wizard's condo

Rick Levine, Aries, is in his 70s. He spoke for over two hours at SoulFood that September nighttime, donning an off-white button-up embellished with hand-painted stars, comets, and planets. individuals in the viewers watched, nodding their heads and scribbling notes as he said planets in retrograde. I left at the brief intermission, tired and sweaty and never feeling so chatty, my impulsivity fading.

To be trained greater about the local astrology scene, months later in January I walked across a doormat with a dwindled ram on it and into Levine's condo mere blocks far from SoulFood. 

inside, incense wafted. smooth piano song performed. Mobiles of stars dangled from the ceiling. Bookshelves full of books comparable to discover the stars, Cosmos and the Psyche, the finished Merlin series, song, mind, and mind, and too many astronomy books to count lined the partitions. A basket filled with flutes sat in a corner. Persian rugs of different colours and designs lined the already-carpeted flooring in a patchwork. table cloths of moons, stars, and planets cloaked most flat surfaces. 

Levine invited me to sit down on a recliner and advised me to pop open the chair's footrest to make myself comfy. I did. He lounged on the couch across from me. As we talked, his body sank lessen and lessen into the couch unless his shoulders consumed his neck. 

growing up, he discovered he liked bizarre, forbidden issues.

"anything else that didn't healthy into the paradigm, that's where i was," he observed. He read Freud as a fourth grader. "I at all times felt there turned into more going on than i was being advised, and i desired to know what it changed into."

He discovered hypnotism from a booklet as a junior in excessive college. 

"No party became comprehensive unless I hypnotized the soccer quarterback or the promenade queen and made them consume an onion making them suppose it became an apple," he pointed out. (He doesn't use that type of hypnotism anymore, he pointed out, calling it offensive.)

He boiled his 1960s period faculty event right down to "intercourse, medication, rock n' roll, and astrology." whereas studying psychology—in particular Carl Jung—he examine a ebook referred to as The Astrology of personality by Dane Rudhyar. 

"It changed my lifestyles as a result of i noticed that astrology wasn't just some cool parlor online game so you might bet about individuals and determine stuff," Levine spoke of. "come what may, it turned into one of the most main underpinnings of Western Civilization. i was like, 'What the fuck?' They don't teach you that."

From that aspect forward, Levine became an astrologer. He's been practicing for round 50 years. He became the president of the Washington State Astrologer's affiliation for a spell, a founding trustee of local Kepler school, which used to present a bachelor of arts in astrology, and has contributed chapters to many astrology books. 

however, what is astrology?

paintings, Science, a Map, a tool within the Face of Alterable destiny

For Levine, astrology is song and math. It's each artwork and science. In an extended metaphor about the mind, astrology is the corpus callosum, the fleshy bridge between the mind's lobes, "as a result of what it does is connect time and area," Levine said. 

specially, astrology is a map, he observed. 

"The map doesn't inform you where you're going. The map tells you the lay of the land. It tells you the place you deserve to make choices to get to the place you're going," he stated. "I'm now not drawn to predicting your future, i will't inform you the place you're going to go, but i will inform you when the intersections are going to ensue. i can tell you the consequences of the choices you could make, but I cannot make these choices for you."

The Greeks believed in three degrees of fate, Levine explained in very Jungian phrases.

On the first level, or heimarmene, are the things that are inalterable; they're situations that no intervention will alternate, like living in a physique that will at some point die. The 2d level is agnoia, which capability "devoid of realizing." here is a fate which is not inevitable, like riding off a cliff since you didn't be aware of a cliff turned into there, Levine pointed out. The remaining degree is pronoia, which, Levine said, is "being capable for the appropriate moment and doing some thing with it." Pronoia is forethought, care, or provision. Jung referred to as it "an antidote to paranoia." Levine likens it to being organized, and astrology "is a tool to raise one's capacity to apply pronoia," he noted.

This framework isn't commonly understood. 

"individuals don't get it," Levine mentioned. "Astrology doubtless has a extra serious PR problem than Joe Biden—and that i'm now not suggesting anyone should vote for him. and that i'm suggesting somebody should vote for a bit of granite earlier than they vote for Trump."

(Levine doesn't consider any astrologer can predict what's going to happen in the presidential election this 12 months. although, he has a weird non-astrology-primarily based feeling that neither Biden nor Trump will win.)

With all of this facts, I attended the primary Astrology night of the 12 months on the first Friday of February. (Levine was on a six-week retreat in India during January).

The Northwest rite of Astrological Passage

Seattle is a big identify in the astrological world mostly on account of the Northwest Astrological convention, or NORWAC, which is held each year over Memorial Day weekend. Maggie Nalbandian, Aries, proprietor of Astrology Et Al, a one-time staple on "The Ave" next to the tuition of Washington, all started the convention forty years in the past. each the store and the convention became popular and put Seattle on the map for all issues astrology, spawning a group of astrologers, Levine noted. Astrology nighttime holds the same prominence.

"within the astrology world, SoulFood is a legendary place," he pointed out. 

Levine first all started doing Astrology nighttime with his pal Jeff Jawer, Taurus, when SoulFood coffeehouse first opened, round "2001 or 2002," Levine referred to.  Levine and Jawer hosted the experience on the first Friday of every month. 

"the two of us did it for 10 or 12 years before he checked out," Levine spoke of. About eight years in the past, Jawer died of lung cancer. "I've been doing it on my own ever seeing that."

people come from all over to Astrology evening. Levine noted he's had individuals from as far-off as Iceland and Australia who have made the pilgrimage to SoulFood. One household from Salt Lake metropolis, Utah flew to Seattle certainly to drive to Redmond and attend Astrology evening, he observed. 

"The goal is to spread the notice," he pointed out. "It's evangelism. It's to create group."

At Astrology evening

SoulFood brimmed with people closing Friday, every person there to hearken to Levin speak in regards to the astrological outlook for February and 2024.

based on Levine, the practice of astrology is growing to be. It's a "hyperbolic trajectory" that hasn't slowed down considering that the '60s, however within the closing 15 years, because of the cyber web, it's exploded. 

Nicholas Polimenakos, Gemini, all started training astrology nearly 30 years in the past. 

"I met some girl dwelling on Summit Avenue on Capitol Hill who received me into it," he noted in a voice harking back to Fred Armisen. 

by using 2009, he'd turn into a full-blown knowledgeable astrologer. He's viewed the native scene develop and change. 

"There became a duration of time the place generations of astrologers were wondering the place all of the young astrologers had been," he stated. Then, round 2019, "whatever changed with social media" and "every thing blew up." 

The pandemic magnified that explosion. 

"There's a big quantity of individuals that jumped into studying astrology as a result of they had nothing else to do [during the pandemic]," Polimenakos pointed out. 

Wayne Arthur, Aries, become one of the most pandemic-born astrologers. From Brooklyn, manhattan, Arthur is an opera singer. He's in town as part of the ensemble for the Seattle Opera's showing of X: The lifestyles and instances of Malcom X. When speakme with the Seattle Opera's manager, he outlined astrology. She became coming to Astrology night and invited him. He joined her. He blames the impulsivity on his Sagitarrius moon and Sagitarrius rising indications.

"here is our first time placing out," he talked about. He thought she might have some Scorpio in her chart.

For Arthur, learning about astrology—in particular the transits of the planets—is clarifying.

"It's a really useful tool for now not just figuring out yourself, however different individuals," he pointed out. 

Tucked into a table pushed up in opposition t the wall of the cafe sat Anastasia Anderson, Aries. She began practising astrology five years ago. She moved to Washington from the Midwest remaining summer time and unfolded her personal shop, Elaheh Divination & curative. She originally met Levine at NORWAC and started coming to Astrology nighttime as soon as she moved here. 

Anderson now uses astrology in her well-known life. as an instance, she'll consult a chart about the place to holiday—a branch of the discipline called astrocartography.

"I went to Florida as a result of I had a Jupiter line going via Florida," Anderson spoke of. A Jupiter line is an excellent component, I gathered. "I went with my mom, alas. She has a Uranus line going through there, so she really lost her wallet. but, we have been capable of use astrology to discover her pockets and she or he received it returned inside 24 hours."

There are over eighty branches of astrology. Horary astrology, Anderson explained, deals with burning questions. 

"You cast a chart for the moment you've got a question," she pointed out. "The moment we knew her wallet became lost, we forged a chart and it may inform me the course from the place we had been that her pockets become, how long it would be except she changed into able to find it, even if or no longer someone had stolen cash out of it, and all of that."

As Levine spoke to the room, Polimenakos looked up my chart. He'd guessed my beginning time after hearing of my Capricorn rising sign. marvelous. He held his cellphone with fingers poking out of colourful, fingerless knit gloves. 

He mused in whispers about my rising sign and the way, if my beginning certificate turned into two minutes off, I might have been a Sagittarius rising. The rising sign is a large, finicky deal as a result of, because the sign that become on the japanese horizon should you had been born, it alterations commonly. 

The astrological community has an entire ranking gadget for beginning instances, where "AA" signifies verification via beginning certificate and anything beneath it's regarded rumour, Polimenakos noted.

"a part of our industry is going to states and countries and trying to get delivery certificates of noted americans," Polimenakos spoke of. "every state and nation is different."

He definitely wants to get GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley's birth time. He also wants Taylor Swift and her new-beau Travis Kelce's instances to see if they're supposed to be.  

"Hillary Clinton we've been attempting to get for years," Polimenakos referred to. "There are americans accessible where that's their whole online game."

For Polimenakos, astrology is all about which means.

"It's all about discovering one's self and connection to self," he talked about. "You're getting external affirmation from the universe. it all comes all the way down to delusion and meaning, and that's how people run."

Singer-songwriter Ryell Carley, Capricorn, all started researching astrology around three years ago when she entered her Saturn return.

"It's given me permission to be myself," she spoke of. "We're all so interesting and different, and astrology is a language and a tool and a lens to peer our lives through."

That took me again to a moment in Levine's front room when he took a glance at my chart. He noticed loads of the equal things Bliss did. 

My Map

It seems I'm being pushed and pulled by using opposing forces because of the interaction of Mars and Saturn sandwiching my sun, Levine explained. stated.

"You're in the core with the gas pedal on one aspect and the brake on the other aspect," he talked about. "You move through existence trying to work that gas and brake." 

every now and then I hit the brake too difficult and don't go anyplace. occasionally I try to hit the gasoline, but hit the brake as a substitute. i do know the feeling.

"There's this dance of sure/no. Don't do it/do it. cease/accelerate. decelerate—whatever thing," he said. "but, I think it truly is the primary conflict in your chart."

yes, it is precisely it. a selected malaise of mine comes from desirous to act, then being so bogged down in particulars—in whats and ifs—that I stand nevertheless. He'd read me right. hearing it became pleasant in a way, like affirmation of a reality Bliss begun to tell me back in the fall. It became clarity and reinforcement. And also, it become miserable. would it always be like this? 

"The decent news is that spirituality—and when I say spirituality I imply some thing it is that you just consider when your song is enjoying—not actual song, however could be that—that's the piece that gets you out from under the thumb of Saturn," Levine mentioned. "in some way, there's part of you that's tuned in to a far better anything that I believe is important."

I didn't recognize what my song changed into. Writing, the component I evade although i do know I feel better as soon as I've accomplished it? maybe. studying? in all probability. looking at motion pictures that make me cry? it's a type of spirituality, undoubtedly. I pondered it whereas Levine pulled out a flute he acquired from India and performed a ditty. I suppose I'll keep pondering it all except the planets stop relocating their means through my chart.

Any concepts on which Seattle subculture I should still discover next? want me to tag together with you in your favorite interest or recreation? send me tips at playdate@thestranger.com.