What am I talking about, I hear you ask. Well, back in the 80's I was heavily into astrology. I don't mean reading the daily forecast in newspapers and magazines, I mean I was studying to become an astrologer. For years I'd bought books and studied alone. I taught myself to draw up birth charts manually (this was before computers!), calculating planetary movements to get an accurate alignment at the time of birth, I didn't stop there I wanted to compare charts (for relationship purposes) and predict the current chart for people using transits. The names of these specialties I used to know off the top of my head. Now I can't remember them. Words like cusp, cardinal and nodes were all common. The terminology would roll off my tongue like a second language. It's all gone!
In a drawer in the wardrobe I have all my books. I never could part with them, but finding these files with charts I drew for family and friends really made me stop. I thought it was all taking me somewhere at the time and I enrolled on a course to get a qualification. Finding all those hand written exercises I submitted, diagrams and notes astounded me. My lack of confidence showed in the the replies I received from my tutor - she was always bolstering me up yet my results were good. Why did I not see that then! What surprised me utterly was that I had completed the first year of the two year course and had just started the second year. Then I stopped. Why? Looking back I think it was that confidence thing. At the end of the course there would be an exam. I was terrified of that and had myself as failed before I even got there. Rather than fail I dropped out. It was a sad finding of these papers and I was disappointed in myself for giving up.
In my defence I was a totally different person then and it took me years to get back into study and that was a very tentative toe in the water job with the Open University. All those wasted years. My later studies around 2004-6 took me in other directions. Studying with the OU totally opened up my horizons and led me to the love of art and writing. I studied a humanities course covering a whole range of subjects and came out with a Certificate.
Looking through all my work in astrology I am proud I did that even if I didn't qualify. I wondered whether I could go back and do it now. I'm not sure. Do I want to? To start with I'd have to re-learn everything, though with the technological advances in computer programmes I wouldn't need to do manual calculations, I'd just have to input the data. There are programmes now that will do everything for you, probably even write the reports. I used to have to study which signs fell in which house and look at things called conjunctions to make an assessment. I wrote everything by hand.
I feel sad that I have lost the knowledge and maybe I will try to get to grips with it again. I don't know. It's from my past and I'm not that person who wanted to do this in a professional capacity. However, I cannot throw all this stuff away. It is to dear to me. I did ditch a lot of paper I no longer need, but in with the study things I found a set of zodiac cards which I love, and a file with articles I'd cut out of Prediction magazine - my astrological mainstay, still published monthly.
A lot has changed since I studied astrology. I mean, what happens now about Pluto? It's been downgraded - poor Pluto. New things are being discovered all the time and I wonder how it affects the world of astrology. Maybe I will never know.
This was certainly a trip down memory lane. I'm not sure I've made any room on that shelf - at least not enough to move the things from the floor. Still working on that one.
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