Master’s Musings, April 2023

“Yes I’ve heard this word. I think sociopaths use it in an attempt to discredit the notion of empathy.”

– John Cleese on ‘Snowflakes’

One of our students wrote me an email praising my work and our school, but challenging me about some of the rougher language and metaphors I use – sexual imagery, street words, edgy  cliches, and so forth. I could tell it took a lot of courage for her to criticize me that way and I genuinely appreciated her openness. I responded to her privately, but I also realized that perhaps she’s not alone. The subject seemed appropriate for a newsletter, so here we go.

By the way, I’m not going to mention the student’s name. The area I’m about to explore is charged with strong emotions on both sides. While I suspect there are many who would agree with her, I also fear there would be those who might leap to my defense, which could potentially be hurtful to her if I named her. In the FCEA, we welcome diversity, but we also naturally value unity and mutual respect. That’s how we walk our talk.

Let me begin in a broad way. I teach astrological theory. That’s pretty obvious. But underlying my teaching is another set of theories – ones about teaching itself. As you’ll see, that’s really the heart of matter here.

Everyone is welcome in the school. People who are here for reasons of personal growth or even just interest are an important part of our community. But there’s a special place in my heart for the students who aim to become active evolutionary astrologers – that means counselors who support people in their communities as they try to thread their way through life’s emotional labyrinths. Being good at that work starts with knowing astrological techniques, but it’s about counseling work too – and deep astrology really pushes people’s emotional buttons. We have to be ready for that.

The astrological counseling room triggers a lot of very strong emotions, strongly expressed. For example, people who’ve been abandoned, used exploitatively, or victimized can understandably be extremely explosive as you create a space to explore those experiences authentically with them. They’ll sometimes say scary, extreme things. They’ll use language you wouldn’t want to explain to a child – you can fill in the blanks here, I’m sure. In a nutshell, in teaching my methods, I aim to desensitize my students to that kind of charged talk. For one example, in the heat of the moment, a client might use words like “bitch” or “bastard” to characterize someone who’s just broken their heart. Picture someone going through a Pluto transit to their Venus, for example – there’s perhaps an agonizing present-life event, but its tendrils reach down into prior life experiences too. They’ve been sitting on an emotional volcano, in other words, and it’s time for it to erupt. At that moment, if the astrologer’s body language conveys shock or judgment, it’s a catastrophe. As astrologers, we simply have to get used to that kind of situation.

If a socially-conservative person comes to you for a reading and uses a word like “girls” for women or characterizes a fight among females as a “catfight,” it’s the same situation – we may object to their language, but we can’t let that objection get in the way of our real aim, which is to help this soul make the best of whatever life has dished up for them in that moment. We should, in other words, never let our own personal values and opinions get in the way of maintaining that precious bridge of rapport with the client. It’s really hard sometimes! But as professional astrological counselors, we always have to be ready to truly embrace human diversity and the powerful emotions that go along with it – and to receive our clients into our hearts with unconditional positive regard no matter what they sound like.

That sounds good! I doubt there’s anyone in the school who would argue against it. But my point is that getting good at that kind of non judgmental emotional steadiness is not something we come out of our mothers knowing how to do. It’s one of the skills that counselors need to learn. And that’s why, in my teaching, my language and imagery can sometimes be edgy.

Referring to one of our question and answer Zoom sessions, the student who wrote to me felt uncomfortable when I spoke of a time, years ago, when a former Playboy centerfold model came to me for a reading. In that Q & A, I mentioned how I was nervous that I might find myself “staring at her breasts” instead of at her chart. That comment was apparently “triggering” for this student.

That session with the model actually went very well, and my fears about my own behavior fortunately proved to be unfounded. But I’m glad I knew myself well enough to be aware in advance of the legitimacy of those fears! Few of us are evolved enough to not be impacted by our own sexuality. We have to be mindful of that. Obviously, overt sexual expression has no place in the counseling room, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore those energies. I felt good about mentioning my own experience with that model. We have some younger heterosexual males in our program and I wanted to offer them some non-shaming support and guidance – and I hoped that with a modicum of imagination, our female and LGBTQ students could get some guidance there too.

Sexual energy in the counseling room is a big subject and one anecdote isn’t sufficient to address it – but I hope I made a start. I’ve been speaking of unconditional positive regard for our clients – let’s reserve some for ourselves too!

The subject of astrological counsel is a continent and in this newsletter we’ve barely put our feet on the shore. Going a little further up the beach, let me just say that some of the most intense moments of my life have been spent in the presence of people recovering from rape and war and other forms of violent intrusion. Talk about volcanic emotions! I’ve struggled personally with some extremely graphic revelations about unusual sexual conduct. Hearing about stomach-churning physical conditions is particularly hard for me, but it’s part of the work too.

Some of what I’ve explored here ranges beyond the issues that the student raised with me, but it’s all about the raw realities of astrological counseling. It’s about where our work inevitably overlaps with psychotherapy. And it all comes down to accepting people where they actually are.

In my mind, the FCEA is a fully professional school. To me, that means that I need to help my students be prepared for the world they’ll actually face as professionals. I feel it would be a terrible failure on my part if I didn’t do that. That means that I promise to sometimes “push your buttons” as my clients have pushed mine for the past fifty years.