Narrative Astrology: a manifesto (or manifestation)
Tell Me a Story
I cannot live your life. I can never see the world the way you do, but, if you tell me a story, I can look for a few moments out the windows of your eyes.
Story makes subjective experience real. It turns your perspective into an object I can hold in my hand, experience from different angles, repeat over and over again until I understand it.
You are always rewriting your story. Revising your view of things, reassessing, accepting and discarding, changing your mind.
You can rewrite your story as many times as it takes to get it right.
How many times have you looked at the sky and asked, “How do I feel when the moon is eaten to a crescent? How do I feel when the sun blazes high in the sky?”
Feelings and signs repeated become patterns. Patterns become stories. Stories become a point of view, crystalized.
Seeing is changing. As you tell stories about the future, your stories shape the future, limiting what is possible, shrinking a universe of possibilities into a shape you can see and understand.
Or, your stories expand the future into its full range of possibilities, revealing the weights in the dice, removing them, shifting them in your favor.
You live in a probabilistic universe, but you can only see one side of the die at a time.
The way it went isn’t the way it had to go.
Go back. Rewrite the story. Try again.
I Am a Narrative Astrologer: An Oath
I am a narrative astrologer. Every time I interpret an astrological symbol, I am telling a story.
I tell stories to give my subjective experience form. Subjectivity is inescapable, and that is a good thing.
I examine my stories to become aware of the ways my perspective shapes my experience of reality.
I try to become conscious of my perspective and purposeful in the stories I tell.
I am not an island. My environment and social system influences my perspective. My perspective influences my behavior. I can resist my influences, but resistance isn’t easy. Sometimes, it isn’t possible.
Stories that say all limits are illusions are lies.
I have agency. I am responsible for what I do with what I know.
I cannot predict what will happen to me, but I can use astrology to tell stories that help me understand the patterns in my life, to talk about who I am and the things that bring me joy and pain.
My goal is the end of suffering. I am not responsible for other people’s actions or the systemic failures that cause me suffering.
Any belief system that teaches me that I choose my suffering (in this life or another) is practicing a sophisticated form of victim blaming, and I do not accept it.
I believe experience over dogma.
I do not practice astrology that is ancient or modern, psychological or fortune-telling. My astrology is all of these things and none of them. I use whatever tools work to break me out of my assumptions and give me the perspectives I desire. The effectiveness of a tool or technique in my hands matters more than what school it belongs to or how old it is.
I believe astrological symbols and archetypes are not universally good or bad, but I have experiences of them that feel good and bad. Some symbols feel good or bad more often than others. I believe experience over dogma.
No story is final, not even a numbered list with confident, authoritative language. Everything is always being revised.
Are you an astrologer who would like to explore bringing narrative astrology into your practice? I would love to explore the possibilities with you. Book a Tea With an Astrologer session to start the conversation.
Or, if you aren’t ready to talk, Listening to Star Song is a free ebook for my newsletter subscribers that uses narrative astrology to reframe the birth chart. Take a look.
Learn Narrative Astrology
(Formerly, Dreaming an Enchanted World)
Most people come to astrology looking for the one true story. Narrative astrology teaches something different: stories aren't found, they're written. And you have the power to change them.
You'll learn the magic and neuroscience behind narrative astrology. You'll come away with the Four Questions: a framework you can use to rewrite any story, astrological or otherwise, for the rest of your life.
Course includes: 4 lessons, each with a video lecture, a guided meditation (MP3), and a printable workbook (PDF).
Immediate access, yours to keep
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