I've been thinking lately about how astrology works in my life.  I took up the study of it a few years ago when I read a particular book and got interested.  I tend to not talk about astrology very much around my friends, family, and associates, however.  My sense is that people are not open to it and have biases about it based on lack of information.  I've been at it since the winter of 2005 and there are still aspects of astrology that I haven't had time to run down.  For instance, I still don't "get" the progressed chart.  It's one of the things I plan to do this year.  At the same time, I'm getting into astrology from more of a historical vantage point.  I love the ancient world and astrology just runs along in harness with it. 

Here's my point: Sometimes I'll see my friends in the middle of a transit and I want to just say to them, "Hey, all right? Saturn is sitting right the hell on top of your pluto right now, dig? Chill and it'll all be over in a few weeks."

One friend of mine is a little under two weeks older, so she was going through some of the saturn/virgo harshness this past year.  I thought about saying something a couple of times when she was pretty uptight, but ultimately decided to zip the lip.  I figure that people have different ways of dealing with adversity and different ways of looking at the world.  It's not really up to me to say that it's this or that. 

Still, I wouldn't mind telling the aforementioned friend that mars is going to be in Leo pretty soon, lasting until the first week in June, or something.  It will be trining our natal mars placements and conjunct our jupiter placements and who knows? I want to say, "Hey, are you feeling pretty good lately? A bit more energetic and ready to tackle things?"

But what I'll probably do is mind my own business. 

i tell my friends about transits now, as i do my family. unless they are already "believers" it's pretty much the same reaction every time - they kind of act like i'm nuts, but they LISTEN raptly and, sometimes, eventually start asking me "is the sky weird right now?" and the like.

it took a while for me to officially "come out" but when i did, i was also surprised the number of people who are already interested in astrology and the like that i would never have guessed.

I always talk about it because thats just the way I think about things and I often regret it, not because people think I'm weird but because I get tired of people calling me up and asking bullshit questions about like what Goddess said "is the sky weird?" 

A lot of people are very interested in astrology.  The problem is they are complete newbs who have this misconception that it is some sort of prophetic future machine that I have in my pocket and can readily give to them.  I spent years reading books and searching for other astrologers to talk to and now all my friends want a five minute crash course in astrology whenever I bring it up. Do your due diligence people!  I am not a professional and if I was I would charge you money for the shit you are asking me about.  

I mean I love astrology, I love talking about it, I love it that people want to learn, but sometimes... sometimes the inane things people expect me to tell them just because I admit to loving astrology really drive me up the wall.

Yes. THIS. I'm so in the closet, I'm practically in the next building.

I will make vague statements, like, "why don't you wait till tomorrow," or "I bet things will be better in two weeks or so," or "NOW would be a good time to ask for that raise," but I don't say why I'm saying it.

goddess, your comments are spot-on and it's not just the "tough" transits that I wouldn't mind telling people about.  An example would be the jupiter return transit I went through a few years ago.  In retrospect, I was feeling very confident and energetic and creative.  Often in a normal cycle, I come home from my job at the office and I'm beat.  Not so during that period, however.  I'd come home from eight or nine hours at the office and just hit it for three or four more hours.  What was different about that period? Well, I know now that the jupiter return was part of it, at least.  But at the time I had no idea.  The point being that transits don't last forever so you don't want to waste them.  I mean enjoy the good ones while they're in play.  A friend of mine founded a literary journal a couple of years ago during his jupiter return.  I thought about telling him, "Yeah, it's not a surprise that you're doing this now.  You're having your jupiter return."  Instead, I merely observed the energized behavior. 

neva "I'm so in the closet, I'm practically in the next building."

hahahahaaaaaa! you're a hoot.

notatirem--

You highlighted the other reasons why I don't speak up.  I've studied astrology and I'm learning more all the time, but I'm not a professional and not confident enough that I know what I'm talking about to even bother going into it.  I mean, look at what I mentioned about my friend up top, with the upcoming mars transit.  It looks as if that transit will work pretty well for me because of how mars is placed in my chart and various other factors.  However, there is no guarantee at all that this transit will be a boon for my friend.  There are too many unknowns about her chart. 

I was raised to think that astrology is a bunch of bullhockey. My mother looks at me as if I've suddenly grown five heads whenever I bring up something that has to do with astrology. It's funny to me, though, because I know that back in the day she was involved in a lot of metaphysical stuff. But she reformed her ways, became a Christian and burned her tarot cards. Now she thinks it's all of the devil. Ah well. I did get her to blame something on Merc in rx once! Albeit to poke fun at me... but she still said it! ha! 

My friends know I'm into astrology, and most are pretty open to it. My best friend has picked up a bit of it "by osmosis", to steal a phrase Elsa once used . So has my guy, but he still claims ignorance. He jokes about getting himself an Astrology for Dummies book so he'll know what the hell I'm talking about. Lol.

Tirzah - Are we secretly long lost sisters or something?  Cause your mom sounds an aweful lot like my mom.  She caught me looking at an astrology site once and hit the roof!  Now I still don't mention it to her, and am very selective about who I talk to about it, and what exactly I say.

My astro side and my regular life rarely meet. I won't even say "Well, Mercury will be out of retrograde soon, so your IT problems should calm down then". Even though people on the news say shit like that and they have no idea what it means.

I've kept the two separate since I started learning astrology, I don't honestly know if they'll ever meet. Maybe one day...

I have identified myself as a professional astrologer for 25 years now (been in it for 40) and while this has cost me big time I am sure this is my destiny and what I am meant to do so...

I am rather amazed that I run around with hippies and almost all of them don't care much about astrology beyond "I'm a Scorpio!"-stuff. Including my freaking mentor. I get a lot more nitpicky about it. Sometimes I really want to talk to people about more complicated stuff, but who is there? Hmm, nobody in person.

I wanted to teach a class on it in my town, but the hippies that run that particular institution never bothered to get back to me about it after they said they would. Sigh. 

I don't hide it, but I don't flaunt it. I let it come out naturally, when new people come into my life (private or at work). After that, I let them bring it up again if ~they~ are interested.

Astrology is a tool I use to navigate life. Others have their own tools. To each their own I say.

(I don't like it when people go overboard bending my ear with their tool of choice, so I try not to do it to others.)

Tizah - I can relate. My birth family believes that things like that allow an avenue for demons to invade your home. Seriously. So yes, there are some people I don't discuss it with. But overall, I don't worry.

My mom once saw a Linda Goodman book in my house - and worried I would become possessed because I was reading this kind of stuff and would end up murdering my then-infant daughter. Taking a knife and stabbing her to death or something. This is what she said.

You can't make this shit up.

I have to remember to stop mentioning it -- to people I don't know well because they usually are closed, or worse.

A few friends of mine are into it, a few aren't into it but not hostile, and then a few, sigh, think I'm crazy for my interest.

And I did it again today I think. I mentioned something (vaguely) from an astrological point of view to someone and well.... I didn't hear back. He could be having a busy day though--

Having kind of a shitty day actually--

hope the day perks up for you, moonpluto...

And I second what notatirem said. Same here!! My best friend will ask out of the blue, something like: is love going to come into my life soon?

Now, I just wanna say: uh, I don't know.

Doing any kind of astrological or tarot or intuitive stuff for anyone, for money or for free, takes a lot of energy

And I wish I had a dollar for every time a certain someone wanted me to give my synastry opinion about her latest guy. Ugh.

Boundaries...

Sometimes though, I can't help it!

My triple virgo friend is the worst, I loooove him to death but he calls me all the time with some random girl on speaker phone and you can tell they've been drinking and he tells her  "Hey I have an astrologer friend. Isn't that zany, lets call her." or something.  And they want me to "Do a chart, real quick."

The last time he called me, the girl had a retrograde Mercury square Saturn.  Every question I asked she came back with a "um, I guess." followed by silence.  I said, could you maybe ask me some questions, I mean what do you want to know.  she said "I dunno, just like, tell me stuff."  I said I had to go.  I called my friend the next day and bitched him out.  He laughed and in true triple virgo style listed all the things he couldn't stand about her and why she wasn't suitable to date any longer.  Hahaha. Good times.

Thanks G :)

I need a perspective adjustment. New thread maybe