My interest in Astrology

 

During my early childhood, it was my custom, being an independent Aries, to walk to and from school alone. One afternoon at the ripe old age of 7, I had a conversation with the voices in my mind that will always be indelibly ingrained in my memory.

As they pointed my mind to the sky and beyond, the voices told me that there was a system outside of ourselves which we cannot necessarily see with our own eyes, but one that can be measured. This system helps us understand who we are as human beings and can be used as a tool to guide people throughout their lives. The voices explained to me that I would study this system and would make this my profession. At age 7, who was I to question? I thought this was an interesting idea and went about my day.

It wasn't until several years after I first stumbled into astrology that I recalled this “conversation.” The more I thought about it, I realized that I knew back then what I was going to do with my life, I just didn't have a framework in which to place the concept. But lo and behold, what the voices told me fits astrology to a “T.” Astrology is a system that correlates the planetary motions (something we can’t altogether see but can measure through science) to human events. It is a tool that I and numerous astrologers around the globe use to help our clients make sense of their lives.

I now rewind to my freshman year in college at the University of Georgia in Athens. I decided to major in psychology, because all I knew was that somehow I wanted to work with people and psychology made the most sense. One evening as I was walking home, this time to my dormitory, a casual acquaintance happened to mention the psychology department at what was then called West Georgia College. I had met this acquaintance through some Gestalt “encounter groups” I had attended, something that was not so far fetched back in those days. So I figured this fellow had a similar mindset as my own and I proceeded to look into this school. Their humanistic psychology department just seemed to resonate with me in ways I couldn't quite put my finger on – I just felt like I would be more at home there than in Athens. I transferred to West Georgia to begin the winter quarter of my sophomore year.

Within a couple of weeks, I learned about and attended a voluntary meeting for psychology majors. As fate would have it, I stumbled into a guy who was in my world literature class during my senior year of high school in Atlanta. I bumped into him a few weeks later while grocery shopping and he invited me over for dinner with his friends and roommates.

At this dinner, I met a psychology graduate student who was going to be teaching a class on astrology through the Continuing Education Department. My high school friend and a roommate were going to take the class and asked me if I would like to join them. I said yes. My rationale at the time was not so much that I had a conscious interest in astrology – far from it. I never gave the horoscope signs in the newspapers even a passing glance. And for some reason my English class in high school missed mythology. I always wondered why I didn't get introduced to it, although others who studied it seemed to describe it as torture.

The moment I started studying astrology, it felt familiar and refreshing. It helped me understand myself and those around me, including my family, and it seemed to dovetail with psychology in a most interesting fashion. The feeling I had when I first started learning astrology was as though I was opening up a book I had read long ago. I felt like I was dusting off the cobwebs and relearning it. It came naturally to me. Even the math came naturally, which I found astounding. Having to calculate charts by hand back then, I was suddenly grateful for all those extra math problems my teachers used to heap on me to keep me from sheer boredom.

As I look back, so much of my life was preparing me in uncanny ways to explore this amazing art/science.I’m sure you all have your own interesting story of how you, too, “stumbled” into this fascinating field. And if you’re like me you probably don’t believe in accidents.“Accidents don’t just happen. They happen just.”

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Kathryn is honored to announce that she is now a member of the board of directors for the AFA.

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