The Path to Mastery

The Path To Mastery

There’s an old Haiku – “Master has gone to the mountain, cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown.” The astrological mountain is like that. No one can see the peak. Maybe it doesn’t even exist. Who can “master” astrology? Who, in other words, can “master” life? 
Mastery, as we use the term in the FCEA, is a relative term. But we do use it, and so it behooves us to define it as rigorously as we can. So here we go:

“Astrological mastery, as defined by the Forrest Center for Evolutionary Astrology, means getting to a level of competence, confidence, and experience in which you can sit down with a stranger and the stranger’s chart and speak meaningfully and helpfully to that person for an hour or two, even if that stranger has chosen to share nothing personal with you until you have actually earned that kind of trust from him or her.”

It would be naíve and disingenuous to announce that anyone can reach that level of proficiency. Getting there requires hard work, something on par with going to medical school or becoming an effective mental health professional. And, just as not everyone is wired to be a successful athlete or musician, not everyone is wired emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually to become a master astrologer. 

Still, if you are a caring person, blessed with intelligence and self-discipline, there is an excellent chance that the FCEA program  can take you from zero to this kind of proficiency. You don’t need superpowers to succeed. You just need that caring, intelligence and self-discipline. Bring that, and we will supply the superpowers – because evolutionary astrology is a superpower. 

Back to the mountain we need to climb. Some of you will be starting your ascent from the valley floor, knowing essentially nothing about astrology beyond your Sun Sign. No problem. Welcome to the FCEA. We will hold your hand and monitor your progress all along the way. But many of you are already halfway up the mountain. What about you? Do you need to start at the bottom like the rank beginners? Maybe you already know that there are twelve signs in the Zodiac. So prove it. There’s your answer. The earliest foundational stages of the FCEA program involve a series of automated multiple choice tests. Take those exams, pass them, and you have placed out of basic training. 

Never say that we are not into full disclosure: if you are indeed an advanced student of astrology, these exams will be annoying. On top of it, you will have to pay a small fee for the annoyance. Sorry – this just seems like the best solution we could find.

Going a little deeper, many times people “who have been practicing astrology for years” have come to Steven’s programs. He reports that these are often the most difficult students to teach. Their knowledge is valuable and hard-won, but their astrological mindset has often been shaped by more conventional approaches. “Transiting Saturn squared Venus when she got married, so of course the marriage was a mistake.” Breaking those kinds of habits can be difficult. People who have been immersed in other forms of astrology have much to learn, but also much to unlearn. Maybe that marriage failed because the woman in question failed to integrate more Saturnian maturity into her Venusian expectations of intimacy. Maybe an evolutionary astrologer could have helped her do that. 

That is what we mean by astrological mastery. 

If you have been studying, even practicing, other forms of astrology for decades, please consider starting right at the beginning. Because of the knowledge you already have earned, it will not take you long. To work in the context of evolutionary astrology, your vocabulary needs some rewiring.

As students become more advanced in the FCEA, we envision, above all, a commitment to ongoing education. Steven has much to teach, but we will also have much to teach each other. Some of you attaining FCEA mastery will choose to become teachers and tutors in the program, or outside the program. All of you are welcome to sit in a circle with your peers, exchanging notes, and enjoying the place you have earned in the counsel of wizards.

So You Want to be An Astrologer…

So You Want to be an Astrologer.

Good choice! It is a good life. But of course it is not the life for everyone. Just as it would be cruel to encourage a tone-deaf person to pursue a career as an opera singer, we need to recognize that certain inborn traits need to be present in anyone if he or she is going to find happiness, fulfillment, and prosperity as an evolutionary astrologer.

Let’s explore these qualities, in no particular order. If you’ve got these bases covered, welcome to the Forrest Center for Evolutionary Astrology. We can take you right to the finish line. If you lack any single one of them, making it as an astrological professional will be tough – but let’s underscore that anyone who is drawn to this work simply out of interest or for reasons purely of personal growth is very welcome to come along for the ride.

  • Intelligence. Learning to be a competent practitioner of evolutionary astrology is a serious commitment. It is analogous to attending medical school or becoming a trained mental health professional. Bring your brains – you will need them!
  • Self-discipline. Again, this study is a serious, long-term undertaking. Beyond that, a professional astrologer, like any other self-employed person, has to be a self-starter. If you need someone else to get you out of bed in the morning, this path is not for you.
  • Language skills. Some highly intelligent or very loving people are simply not very verbal. That’s a disaster if you are an astrologer – like trying to be a basketball player if you are notably short of stature. Astrology is a verbal art. That is how we build the bridge between the symbols and our clients. You’ve got to be a good talker – and a good listener too. 
  • Loving Kindness. People sense it, or its absence. They come to you for insight, but sometimes those insights are difficult to digest. Clients are in vulnerable positions. You’ve got to care about them. You’ve got to radiate interest, supportiveness, and faith in them. And you have got to do it day after day. Many truly good people simply cannot take the endless diet of pain,tragedy, and complaint that is the daily fare of any counselor.
  • A Thick Skin. This is becoming less and less relevant as astrology’s star rises, but an astrologer still oten encounters prejudice and judgment in the streets of the world. If you are desperate for universal approval, this is probably still the wrong field for you.
  • Wisdom. That one is hard to define and cannot be taught, only earned. Even though it is a slippery subject to pin down, the simple truth is that we all know it when we see it. The more wisdom you have, the better an astrologer you will be. Balancing all that is another reality: the wisest astrologer draws the wisest clients. The less-wise one draws less-wise clients. Astrologers and their clients seem to find each other. Call it synchronicity or call it magic, but there is an astrologer for everyone. You don’t have to be a saint to be successful in this field.
  • Sanity. If you were abused by a tyrannical father growing up, you are in danger of projecting the resultant anger onto any strong-willed or opinionated client. If you are sexually unsatisfied, sexually attractive clients are likely to be in some peril around you. 

“We are all a little crazy –  welcome to the planet Earth. But an ongoing commitment to working on yourself is mission-critical in any astrological practice.“

Those are the seven traits we would most like to see in anyone aspiring to become a professional astrologer. If you have them, even in some modicum, we hope that you will take the FCEA course right to their limit, and so become a spiritual lighthouse in your community.

Watch this 17-minute video Steven created emphasizing not only the joys, but also the practical viability, of pursuing astrology as a professional path.

FCEA 100 Series

The FCEA 100 Series.

The FCEA 100 series of classes lays the foundation for everything which follows. In it, beginning students start by learning the “words” of the astrological vocabulary – signs, planets, houses, aspects, and the lunar nodes.

Once they’ve learned the “words,” they move on to forming “phrases.” That means that they begin to figure out how being in Cancer makes Mars a different beast than its being in Aquarius. They learn how Mars in Gemini in the fourth house has an entirely different expression than that same Mars in Gemini when it is in the eleventh house.

Having learned how to form and interpret these astrological phrases, they move on to “speaking in sentences.” That means taking that eleventh house Aquarian Mars and putting it in the context of a square to Uranus, a sextile to Venus, and a quincunx to the Ascendant.

With all of that understood, the student moves on to looking at the birthchart as an integrated, interactive whole – he or she learns how to put it all together, in other words.

That’s a steep learning curve! Don’t worry – we will guide you and support you.

With all of that material – which is essentially the essence of Steven’s book, The Inner Sky – fully grasped, the learning curve gets even steeper. There is always “a chart behind the chart.” What that means is that you have the chart you have for a reason, and that reason had to exist before you were born. That brings us into the language of reincarnation – and the insight that, woven into your present chart, are clues about the unresolved issues which haunt you from previous lifetimes. There is nothing abstract or flaky about this material! We always see clear evidence of this unresolved karma in the difficulties of the present lifetime. Happily, we can also see their remedy. That is built into the chart too.

All of this is the subject of FCEA 102, based on Steven’s book, Yesterday’s Sky.

By the time we come to the end of FCEA 103, where we see all of these principles vividly in action in the lives of some well-known people, students are solidly grounded in the heart of the most precious and powerful system for the generation of self-knowledge that humanity has ever known: evolutionary astrology. 

They may be tired too! As we’ve indicated, the learning curve in the FCEA 100 series is indeed a steep one. As ever, confidence and comfort come with experience, not to mention the support of the FCEA community.

“In the words of Albert Einstein, we have kept it as simple as possible – but no simpler. “

The Craftsperson has gone even further, mastering two more core astrological skills: astrological “prediction” and synastry, which is the astrology of human relationships. These are the topics covered in the FCEA 200 and 300 series. They build on the foundation of the 100-series – the language of the birthchart, in other words – and they constantly refer back to it. One who has graduated as an FCEA Craftsperson is ready to be a member of the ancient guild. He or she has all of the essential competencies of a working counseling astrologer. Add some practice and some experience, and nothing more would really be absolutely necessary in order for that person to be of real service to the community. But of course there is always more to learn . . .

A Master has internalized the astrological fundamentals and has now, with the support of the FCEA community, begun to polish them, mature them, and deepen them. Some more advanced or specialized topics are presented, so our technical training does not come to an end. Steven will teach advanced interpretive programs which are only available to students who have reached this Masters level of competency. Perhaps more importantly, masters will teach each other. Some words you may have seen elsewhere in our website bear repetition here:

Astrological mastery, as defined by the Forrest Center for Evolutionary Astrology, means getting to a level of competence, confidence, and experience in which you can sit down with a stranger and the stranger’s chart and speak meaningfully and helpfully to that person for an hour or two, even if that stranger has chosen to share nothing personal with you until you have actually earned that kind of trust from him or her.

For Participants in Previous AP Programs

For Participants in Previous Apprenticeship Programs

 Over the years, about two thousand people have attended Steven’s Astrological Apprenticeship programs. Each program ran four or five days. Those who attended three such programs were awarded a Level One certificate. Those who attended six such sessions achieved a Level Two certificate. Many continued to attend beyond six programs, extending their astrological educations and also enjoying being part of an extraordinary spiritual community.

Holders of either kind of certificate were able, if they chose, to be listed in a Directory on Steven’s popular website. Many built professional practices.

Still, unlike the FCEA, there was no testing or evaluation of the students. In all honesty, the certificates merely “certified” the presence of a warm body in a chair. The level of education actually attained was governed purely by the motivational level of the students themselves. Many were highly motivated. Some were there for other reasons. 

Additionally, Steven conducted several small masters’ classes in his home. There, many of his Level Two students actually demonstrated their ability to present astrological interpretations. They achieved a Master’s certificate.

For Steven, the transition from his Apprenticeship Programs to the FCEA presents some awkward situations.

“On one hand, we want to credit the hard work done by his apprentices. On the other hand, we do not want to compromise the integrity and future reputation of the FCEA by automatically “grandparenting” anyone with a Level One certificate into some kind of accreditation by the FCEA. “

Here is the solution.

The Apprentice has the earliest foundational stages of astrology. Former AP students can enroll in self-paced courses to more quickly move through the program. For the advanced student, these courses may feel exceedingly basic and kind of “bureaucratic”, however they will not take long to complete and the prerequisites for moving onto the next level of courses will be established. We understand that even experienced astrologers can benefit from having the foundational concepts reviewed and more firmly planted before moving onto more advanced concepts. Hopefully, any feeling of frustration will be balanced with the realization that in doing this kind of astrology, people place their souls in our hands. To learn that there might be dangerous gaps in our knowledge before we take on that kind of karma is a blessing in the long run.

The Craftsperson has gone even further, mastering two more core astrological skills: astrological “prediction” and synastry, which is the astrology of human relationships. These are the topics covered in the FCEA 200 and 300 series. They build on the foundation of the 100-series – the language of the birthchart, in other words – and they constantly refer back to it. One who has graduated as an FCEA Craftsperson is ready to be a member of the ancient guild. They will have all of the essential competencies of a working counseling astrologer. Add some practice and some experience, and nothing more would really be absolutely necessary in order for that person to be of real service to the community. But of course there is always more to learn…

A Master has internalized the astrological fundamentals and has now, with the support of the FCEA community, begun to polish them, mature them, and deepen them. Some more advanced or specialized topics are presented, so our technical training does not come to an end. Steven will teach advanced interpretive programs, which are only available to students who have reached this Master’s level of competency. Perhaps more importantly, masters will teach each other. Some words you may have seen elsewhere in our website bear repetition here:

Astrological mastery, as defined by the Forrest Center for Evolutionary Astrology, means getting to a level of competence, confidence, and experience in which you can sit down with a stranger and the stranger’s chart and speak meaningfully and helpfully to that person for an hour or two, even if that stranger has chosen to share nothing personal with you until you have actually earned that kind of trust from him or her.