Astrology is the study of how the sky mirrors what happens on earth of your life, of your life's purpose, of your soul. What do you want to do with that? Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier and more healed.
Today's guest is Astrologer and author, Chani Nichols, whose book you were born for this has helped millions find a meaning in their charts and their lives. As we close the year and prepare for a new one, Chani invites us to reflect, release and step into what's next with clarity and intention. And if you're loving our conversation, I highly recommend you go and grab your copy of you are born for this astrology for radical self-acceptance by Chani Nichols. Chani, welcome to On Purpose.
Thank you so much for having me. It's so great to have you here because I feel astrology is only being talked about more people are more and more curious, they're more and more fascinated. They are. And at the same time, that leads to more and more information, misunderstanding and misconception and excitement and energy and language and vocabulary changing.
But with all of that, I wanted to start with a really simple question. And I'm asking this, funnily enough, as much for everyone else as I am for myself as well, for anyone who's heard of astrology, but doesn't really know what it is. What is astrology and how does it work? So astrology is the study of how the sky mirrors what happens on Earth.
Astrology in your astrology chart is a mirror of your life, of your life's purpose, of your soul. It's a mirror of the events that also happen on the Earth. And when you're born, somebody's astrology chart is literally like a map of their life. It's a map of your potential.
It's a map of your problems. It's a map of your growth edges. It's a map of all the ways in which you need to grow and work and change into yourself. And what it also signifies is that there's this kind of sense of you're an amulet of the exact time that you were born.
So every single moment of life has its own chart. So us meeting today has a chart for it. And it is a crystallization or the chart becomes a map of what we're crystallizing together. So you as a person, when you're born, we look at, we take a snapshot of the entire sky when you're born and the exact location and the exact time that you were born.
And we see where everything was in the sky. And that is the amulet of you. If you so choose to work with it and look at it. So you're looking at everything from the stars, the moon, the position of where you were born, the time of birth.
Yeah, we're looking at everything. So literally right now, if we were to take a snapshot of the sky, because we are in this place and because it's this time, there's a specific sign rising up over the horizon. The sun is in a specific place in the sky and everything else out there in relationship to the Earth is in a specific place and it's having a certain relationship. And so astrology, the study of those relationships, one of the longest-standing scientific documents is from ancient Babylon.
And it's a 700-year documentation of the planet's movements and of what happened on Earth during those movements. So it's literally our longest-standing scientific record. Humans forever have been fascinated with what happens in the sky. If you think about it, I was somewhere recently where there wasn't a lot of electricity and I could have this beautiful swath of sky and I was like, oh, wait, remember or think about what it was like before electricity.
The sky, if you could see it, if it was a cloud this night, it was just like teeming with light. You could see galaxies. I mean, you can see the Milky Way. You can see, and then you can see the planets moving.
And so we've always, until very recently, had a very specific relationship with nature with all of life around us. And the sky has always been a part of our relationship with life. And the study of the planets and the study of the moon, the study of the sun, the study of the cycles that we live within also taught us how to count, taught us how to understand rhythms. I mean, it taught us math.
So it was always an integral part of how we came to understand who we were. And so through the study of the planets for, again, hundreds and hundreds of years, people came up with the ancients, came up with an understanding of what the planets did and kind of what they meant. And so we have this lineage of thousands of years of documentation and thousands of years of scholarship and thousands of years of people examining what the sky was looking like and what it meant for people living that moment out. So you're a moment in time, and I'm a moment in time.
And that moment in time has specific essence. And then you, as a person with free will, as a soul, you get to live that out and express that however you want. But it is what it is, but you have free will within that. We're going to get to that.
When did humans start to develop astrology or start to interact with this mindset that what we see in the sky has relevance to who we are. Because when you say who we are, are you talking about personality, are you talking about what elements are you talking about? So the personality kind of test of astrology is fairly new in terms of astrology's long, long history. But humans have painted like some of the earliest paintings we have from the caves of Lasso and France.
They are the stars. They are the Pleiades. They're the stars that would rise up around the spring. And so it was like the rebirth.
And so again, we have to remember like as hunters and gatherers, as people, you know, just like figuring out how to live on the earth, we would know what time of year it was because of, yes, what the sun was, but also because of what constellations were rising. So we were literally like, it was part of our ability to find sustenance to understand what we were in time space. So in terms of understanding ourselves and our lives and how long that is, we can only go by what we have written down. So that's at least a couple of thousand years old.
And I can only assume that it was much older than that because, you know, whatever was written down might have been lost. And you know, the written word is a fairly kind of newer technology in human history. But it's at least a couple of thousand years old that we've been making meaning of what it meant when you were born that the sun was doing this or there was say, you know, this thing happening over here. And for large part, it was used to understand like rulerships and it was not used to understand the ways in which civilizations would kind of come about.
And like when it was good for the king to do this or the, you know, so and so that was in in power to do that. And then slowly over a longer period of time, it began to be much more about the person. And like it became more open to the greater public for anyone who's listening in their skeptical about astrology, their doubts, their cynical about it. What would you say to them?
Great. I love it. Like you should be cynical. And also, God forbid we all like the same thing.
Like I don't think that I don't really even want to live in a world where we all like believe in astrology, whatever that might mean. I think diversity is really important. I think that the main, my main agenda is that you understand what your life's purposes and you move towards that with the greatest efficacy possible. And that moves you towards serving the world in your own specific way.
I think that for me, astrology is my quickest entry point into that, but there are a thousand and they're all legitimate and wonderful. I just want you to find yours. And so if you don't like astrology, great, I don't know of anybody and I'm sure there is people out there. I don't know of anybody that has spent a significant amount of time studying astrology, like really thoroughly studying it and then feeling like it had no merit whatsoever.
Young, the psychotherapist psychologist famously thought it was ridiculous and studied it and converted himself. And then he actually became somebody who impacted the field greatly. But I feel like most people that don't like it are thinking about sunshine horoscopes, which are like a gateway drug in astrology, like they're not the thing. Talk to me about the difference between what you're talking about, sunshine horoscopes.
So, sunshine horoscopes were developed around the time of the printing press so that people could have an easy access point, an easy entry point into understanding astrology. Because basically if you knew the day that you were born, give or take, you knew what sunshine you were. But before that, it was very, very focused on the rising sign and the rising sign is so specific because again, it's about where you're born in the exact time, because that's the exact piece of sky that's rising up over the eastern horizon. And that's your marker of life.
Like that's your yes, I'm here. I'm saying yes to this life. I am separate from the body that brought me here, all of that. So, your sunshine is like something you share with people that are born within a 30-day span as you.
It's very general. There's a lot to be gleaned from it, but it's not your chart. Only your rising sign can tell us your entry point, and then it sets up the entire chart. It sets up the meaning of everything else for you.
So, it's like looking at a sliver of a picture or even a pixel instead of looking at the whole thing. So, yeah, if you are like, I don't want to be boiled down to a couple of tropes about my sunshine, I agree with you. I don't either. That's why I don't even like talking about my chart in public because I don't like having people think that they understand who I am by something so surface level.
And your chart is so much more complex than that. I mean, there's like fractals of fractals that you can get into of meaning that people again, spent thousands of years developing and pouring their life into. And so, your sunshine is like, it's fun to share. It's very memeable.
It's very gameable. It's very shareable. And so, it's an entry point, but it has so little to do with the reality of what we're actually looking at when we look at your chart. Yeah, that's relieving.
That's good. Yeah, it's really helpful because I feel like you absolutely write that. It's shareable. It's interesting.
It's fun to talk about, but then when you look at how valuable it is or how accurate it is, naturally, it's never going to feel that way. It's the same as a broader personality test that divides you into four core personality types. It's like, of course, we're far more complex and layered than that. And we all believe that, especially as we get older.
Can you explain, you've been referencing birth chart in chart? Can you explain what that birth chart is? I imagine it's when you're born, as you were saying, where everything lands in the sky. But can you explain how someone can read that chart?
What does that mean to read someone's birth chart? Yeah, so to snapshot the moment that you were born from the exact location and time that you were born. And everything in it is in relationship to each other. So you're actually describing all of the relationships that make up your life.
And you can look at it through the lens of your personality, which is one thing, I think it can be quite reductive when we do that. But what ancient or traditional astrology is more about is looking at the quality of each area of your life. Where can someone expect to have success? Where can someone expect to have maybe some difficulty?
What are the things that are working for them? And what are the things that are going to be a challenge and, therefore, a growth edge and, therefore, an opportunity to develop themselves? And so you can glean somebody's nature from it, but it's really about someone struggling to find love in their life. And you look at their chart and you see, oh, yeah, I can understand why that's a struggle.
It doesn't mean that they're going to be in a struggle forever. It means that the chart is going to distinguish what the thing is. And therefore, once we know what the issue is, we can work more clearly or more definitively towards the solution for that thing. And so it can be a really great aid in terms of what is the pain that you're carrying?
What are the things that you're burdened with in this life? Your chart will reveal that. And that can also be a real solace because it can feel sometimes we have this thing that's against us in life. Why won't this thing work out for me?
Or why doesn't this ever kind of take shape for me? And when you can see it in the chart, you can be like, oh, okay, that's just a setup. But there's other ways to work with that thing. But I have to know what the issue is first.
And so I think that astrology helps us to identify if you have somebody adapt looking your chart, or if you have good education around what it actually is, then we can use the chart to really open up those doors for us. Because without knowing what the issue is, it's really hard to try to meet it. You can do that for therapy. You can do that through a lot of different avenues again, astrology is one of them.
How much of this is so important? You just said that the practitioner needs to be adept. And it almost feels like to me that the recipient needs to be adept as well. And what I mean by that is I've always looked at, so I never studied this, but as part of my teachings in the monastery, we had people who practiced Vedic astrology, which is thousands and thousands of years old people had incredible experiences of using these places in India's where they use leaves and there's writings on leaves, there's charts with literally strings attached.
I mean, it's spectacular, the culture and the history of it. But what I found was that, for example, if I know it's going to rain tomorrow, and there's an adept weather forecast, by the way, I don't know who does good weather forecast. But let's say it's going to rain tomorrow. As an adept person who's looking at that forecast, I know tomorrow I better take my umbrella, my boots that I'm able to get wet in the rain and the raincoat.
And so it requires me to adapt to the information, whereas often what I've found today is when people feel like they're going through a bad phase, or there's something I'm working for them. It's kind of like, well, I can't do anything right now because I'm going through a bad phase. And that's like me saying, well, I can't have fun tomorrow because it's going to rain. Talk to me about that.
And if I'm wrong, feel free to correct me. I'm just sharing it from what I've heard and seen. Yeah, it is the human problem. It is the human condition, I think, to try to reduce things down to something that's simple enough to either blame life on, or to try to figure out really quickly.
And we also try to, I think, have one answer for everything. So, you know, I get why it's so annoying because everyone will be like, oh, Mercury Retrograde. And you're like, no, that's not what it's about. I'm not doing that a bit.
That's not, you can't do that. Like, you can't blame ever. I hear people say, well, you know, I'm a Scorpio. And I'm like, that has nothing to do with being a Scorpio.
Like, I get the desire to do that. But that's not, you're using a hammer to do everything. And you need a feather sometimes. And like, you need different tools.
So yeah, it's, it is a, it's an interesting thing because when we're going into a time period that looks really complex astrologically, you want to hold it with like, okay, this looks like it's going to challenge us. It looks like it's going to require a lot of mindfulness from us and it looks like it's going to require a lot of tenacity and it looks like it's going to require more from us in general times. Great. So now we know that.
So show up, how can I help people show up to that moment, not reducing it down to everything's going to be awful, or this is why this is happening. Because if we lived in a world where compassion and, you know, thoughtfulness and community and people's health and well-being were front and center, then bad astrology wouldn't be that bad. It's not the astrology that's making things bad. It's revealing or it's, it's giving you a kind of understanding of, of again, certain cycles and timings of things.
And so if we can see like, well, what happened the last time this cycle happened and what worked, then we can use it as something that's empowering. If astrology isn't empowering, I don't think you should use it. If you feel like astrology is reducing you to something or freaking you out or making your paranoid, I don't think it's working. I think you should put it down and not pick it up again until that passes or maybe for the rest of your life.
Like it should help you to feel like you're more located and you're better prepared. Like it's, I love the rain. So if it's going to rain tomorrow, great. Maybe I can like have a movie day where I drink tea and write in my journal.
That's like, can I have a child? I can't do that. I love that. I remember days like that.
I love that. What's the difference between your sun, your moon, and your rising? Because you hear people use this language or what's the difference? What does it mean?
Yeah. Well, your rising sign is the marker of your life. It is the marker of your yes to life. So it's the marker of your motivation.
It is what you're motivated to do here in the world. And it is your yes. It's like, okay, I'm here. I'm born.
Your sun is how you shine. It's like part of how you illuminate, how your soul illuminates things. It's like what lights you up. And your moon is your body.
Your moon is the physical world. If you think of the moon as a reflector of the sun's light, the moon in our chart reflects the light of our soul, the light of our sun. And we can only have this incarnation through the body. And so it's the holder, the keeper of memory.
It is about the physical world and the physical realm and how secret it is to have a body, to have incarnated into. And we get to do our life purpose through our body a little bit every day. Come the tiredness and the joy and all the things with the body keeps the score of all of that, so to speak. So when you're reading someone's birth chart, you're seeing all of these.
Could you give examples of what would fit into each one for anyone that you've read before? Randomly, obviously not. Yeah, yeah. Well, like when someone has a Leo rising, then they're motivated to show up and really shine in the world.
They're motivated to illuminate something, to be charming, to be adorable, like a recipient of people's adoration or attention. But what it also does, the rising sign gives you a key to the meaning of your life, because the planet that rules that sign is the planet that steers the ship of your life. And so if you feel lost, if you feel like you're not sure what your purpose is, one of the quickest ways to understand it astrologically is to understand where the planet that rules your rising sign is. And so if you're the ruler of your rising sign is in your 10th house of career, then it's going to be a major part.
If it's in your sixth house of service, then maybe your your volunteering is going to be, you know, it's like, where are the planets located and what job are they doing? The planet that rules your ascendant is literally at the helm of the ship of your life. And so quite often when I give people readings and over the years, I've given mostly strangers readings and, you know, back before Zoom, before the pandemic, when we were all on Skype, I wouldn't even see the people. I mean, I guess we could have cameras, but mostly it was like, I was almost like on the phone with people and like all over the world.
And so I didn't know them, I had never seen them. I don't know anything about you. I'm just going to read your chart. I'd start there.
And 99% of the time, people would be so relieved to hear that that's what that was, because quite often they hadn't been fully living into it. Or it was just so innate that that's always what they did. And they're like, Oh, that's that thing. That's what I've always been known for.
And so when you're not living in accordance with these, these kind of like signs to me in your chart, if you're not living in accordance with your purpose, then everything is going to feel wrong and everything's going to feel misaligned. Like for myself, I never thought I would write a book. It's not anything I would ever think of. But nothing in my life was working.
And I felt so stuck. And I felt so, I felt like such a failure. I felt like I couldn't figure out my place in the world. And I started writing and people started reading it and it started to take off.
And I was like, what is this? This is wild. And it wasn't until I started working with my teacher, the person who would like really teach me about the lineage that I practice in that I understood how important it was to follow that mark in my chart because the ruler of my son is in the third house of writing and speaking and teaching. But that's nothing I had put together before.
You can look at yourself in the mirror, you can read, you can look at yourself all the time and not get it. The beauty of having a therapist or a guide or a coach or an astrologer, somebody that's got some wisdom is that they hold that third space for you so that you can have that kind of self-reflection. So coming to know that natural inkling in me was there in my chart gave me the permission to just fully do it. And then everything started to work.
Like overnight, people started to pass my stuff around. I met my wife within six months. I mean, like, things just blew up. And it was because of that, I remember the moment where she was like, well, the ruler of your son is in the third house.
And I was like, oh, and it all just clicked. And I'd always wanted to write. But I never thought I was smart enough. I didn't think I was educated enough.
I didn't think I was able to do it. And it's literally one of the things that changed my entire life. And it's right there, clean as day in my chart. And I didn't see it for like 20 years.
Because I started looking at astrology and understanding my chart of like age 12. But I didn't really know what I was looking because I didn't have traditional astrology. So when you meet your teacher, also everything really starts to come into practice and into place. And so when I met my astrology teacher and she taught me this really ancient traditional way of doing astrology, it just landed everything.
And it was like this whole rubric that was so clear and so concise and so specific. And so not about my intuition or not about what I felt about the chart or anything like that. Not about like, oh, I knew this Scorpio once and they did this. It's like really like, no, if this is here, this means this, do this and see what happens.
So you're actually saying that astrology is guiding us when you say purpose, but really you're talking about activity task methodology. Like you said, writing, speaking, teaching, those are very occupational in that they are an activity that someone can take out. So you're saying that astrology, am I right in saying that you're saying astrology shares your purpose and it defines purpose as activity of greatness? Yes.
And it can get more complex on that. So say if the ruler of your sentence in your eighth house, the eighth house is a place of loss and grief and mental anguish. It's also a place of inheritance and other people's money and there's a lot of things connected to it. And so when you see somebody's, when you see a significant placement in a part of the chart that's really difficult, you have to wonder if they've got there yet.
But often when I see really significant placements in difficult houses in the chart, I'll ask like, are you a grief? Do you let are you, someone who does trauma informed counseling? Do you feel really receptive to other people's pain and suffering? And so it's not as clear sometimes like sometimes it is like you could go and study and be, you know, someone who does hospice work or something like that, if that called you.
But sometimes it's a little bit less specific, but it's very important still for that person to be able to move towards that area of life and know that the inklings that they have towards that area of life are very much embedded in their life's purpose. And I've just seen time and time again, once they once you take that action towards that, that things just start to open up and fall into place and then you find your way to do that signature in your chart. Can your astrology tell you whether you're going to be a millionaire or a billionaire? Well, there's a famous quote attributed to JP Morgan that says, millionaires don't use astrology, but billionaires do.
And it's not clear if he actually ever said that, but he worked with an astrologer of Angeline Adams for a very long time. And he was actually like a student of hers. He got readings from her and she taught him. And so he used astrology to do his banking.
So I think that there are definitely signatures that can tell you when somebody is really adept at working with a material world. And whether they engage with that or not is also their choice. I see a lot of people that have a lot of talents in their chart, in their life, and they don't necessarily engage with it. You also have to have the friction.
You also have to have the thing that spurs you into action to make use of the gifts that you've got. But your astrology doesn't tell you whether you have that part? Yeah, it does. So your astrology can literally say you have talent, but you have no spark.
Well, I wouldn't say that. I would say if someone has a really like easy setup, I would say the most important thing for you to do is to embrace the struggles in your life. It's to like really lean into what is going to challenge you and who is going to challenge you. And what's going to help you to struggle to find your own way and don't lean on the things that are necessarily so easy.
Fascinating, because I can think of so many people in my life. Yeah, and it's interesting that astrology also, I assume by what you just said right now, believes in growth being critical for humans to live a great life. I have a lot of friends who say to me, and they're not speaking astrologically, they're just speaking in self awareness. They're saying, Jay, this is just why I am.
They're like, Jay, you're ambitious, you're driven. I'm not. So this is just my life. And I'm like, well, I don't know if I was always ambitious or driven.
I feel like there were skills I learned and habits I developed and there were coaches and mentors in my life who taught me certain things and you can build confidence and you can build skill sets that allow you to live a better life. And I don't just mean materially, I'm a search me as well. And they'll be like, no, no, no, but you know, some of us are wired like you and some of us are not. So is that true?
Is that I mean, there's, I think there's some truth to that. But I think you can choose to not thrust there, right? Like it's what do you want from this life? It's really about that.
Like, are those people happy or are they suffering? Right. But are they interested in there suffering enough to do something to change it? And so what I'll look for is time periods that will come along and kind of put the pressure on and be like this, you're going to, if you haven't done your work, if you haven't individuated, if you haven't really tried to build something in yourself of your own efforts, then this period of time is going to really be rough.
But that's good for you. Like, you know, like Saturn will come along as a planet of boundaries and structure. And it will come along and hold you in place until you figure out how to either find another way to move or to like lift the weight that's on you enough times until you get strong enough to move it completely. And Saturn's a planet that you can also look at in terms of your life cycles.
So Saturn comes along every seven years and does something really important. So at age seven, it comes along and helps you to distinguish yourself a little bit from your parents, helps you to find like your own side. And then at age 14, age 14 is usually, it's called a Saturn opposition. And it's usually a time where something happens in our life and, you know, we're 14.
So it kind of makes sense psychologically speaking. But something happens, we're like, wait a minute, this is what I want. This is what you want. These are the expectations you have on me.
This is what and then at 21, we have another one and it's part of the adult cycle. And then from 28 to 30, Saturn closes the loop and we go through something called a Saturn return. And that's where we move through our first really big thresholds, where we move from whatever remnants of being a child or whatever remnants of being a young adult, kind of like have to trickle away. And we're asked to move and cross a threshold into our true adulthood and to take responsibility for our decisions and our actions.
And so if you miss that, if you're like, nah, it's gonna be harder and harder. And you'll have like in the next seven years, you'll have another moment of struggle. And so that like saying the seven year itch is interesting because it is like a Saturn cycle. And even in marriage, right?
Like most divorces happen at five to seven years. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, it's that friction point. Fascinating.
Okay. Well, you write in your book that our chart isn't our fate. It's an invitation. And I think this idea of fate and free will, and you mentioned it earlier, but what does astrology believe about fate and free will?
Do we have agency or is everything predetermined? You and I right now are in this city. We're not in a city. We're not in France.
We're here. And so there's certain conditions here. We can't do everything here, but we can do all the things in the city that we can do. And so it's the same with your chart.
It's like you're given a landscape. What do you want to do with that? How do you want to approach it? And how do you want to work with these really specific skills and this really specific setup?
Yeah, it's almost like I was born in London. You were born in Canada. And that created a certain environment. What was available.
I was aware of what was possible. Yeah. But somehow I've ended up in LA. You lived in LA and you live in New York now.
And if someone told me all the way up until the age of 28, which is when I moved to New York, if anyone told me if anyone told me up until the age that I would ever live in any other place, apart from North West London, I wouldn't have believed it. Wow. Oh, so you left London at 28? Yeah.
The first time I left was when I lived in India for a period of my time as a month. And then I left when I came in, lived in New York first and then LA. And so the reason I'm bringing that up is to say that there is more choice and free will and agency than we sometimes think when you're looking at astrology and you might consider everything's predetermined. Yeah, yeah.
Like I know, you know, I'll see like harrowing transits come up for me. And I have to be like, I'm not going to catastrophize this, but I have to work against it. You know, it is just a natural human thing. And then I'll live through it and I'll be like, oh, that was totally different than I thought, but it's so emblematic of what it was.
And I absolutely needed to go through that. It's always about like distancing yourself enough from the thing from your astrology chart, from the thing that you're going through, so that you can understand what life is trying to teach you. So when people come to me and they're like really in trouble or they're really in a lot of pain, sometimes it can help to be like, yeah, this started six months ago and it's going to last for like another eight months. You're in the middle of it.
You know what it is. This is it. Like, how do you want to hold this? How do you want to work with this?
What is this teaching you? Like, this might be some suffering, but what else is here to teach you? Or what is it here to teach you? What can you learn?
And if I am struggling and I look and see, I'm in a challenging aspect, then I can be like, oh, okay. Then it's not just out of it. It doesn't feel random, I think, for some people. And so that's the other side of like, Mercury's retrograde, something's going to work out.
We don't want to do that. But we do want to use it and be like, okay, it's just a time period. It's just a cycle that we're in that I'm in. Does your astrology tell you who you're going to fall in love with?
No. It tells you, though, what you need out of a relationship. Interesting. So it tells you the quality and the nature of the person that you need.
So for me, also, I didn't realize this until after I met my wife, but I really need somebody to like work with me. I need someone to be like, right, I need someone to partner with me in every single way possible. And when we met, she just did that instantly. And I was working with my teacher at that point.
And she pointed that signature in my chart out to me and I was like, oh my god, that's what she does. Me and my wife met. I didn't even know how to put a PayPal button on my website, like on my blog. And she put it on there in like two seconds.
And I was like, wow, you're a magician. And we just became business partners immediately. And so then we grew this business together and then we created an app and the rest is kind of history, but she was an immediate partner for me. And that is a very specifically accurate read of my chart.
So you can see what kind of qualities and kind of nature you need from somebody. Does it predict when you're going to fall in love? I mean, I'm sure those Vedic astrologers that the astrologers would say, yes. There's certainly definitely timing techniques.
There's like ancient timing techniques for everything. I think that they're correct. They don't necessarily, I don't know if they'll always say like how long it will last. Some astrologers are excellent at doing that.
But I think that what's more important is understanding yourself, understanding the qualities that you need in a partner, and finding that energetic match with somebody else before you really even touch the astrology. I don't know. I think I'm not as interested in finding out when something's going to happen in my life as I am and understanding who I am and what I've got to give this moment and what's possible here. What could I do with what I have?
Because I think that our agency is the greatest power that we have. And so again, I never want the astrology to get in the way of you understanding your agency. Yeah. So those predictions can be right, but I don't know if they're helpful to know.
I imagine that that's the kind of questions people ask you. Because when I talk to my friends who go to astrologers, it's constantly to figure out like, when am I going to meet the guy? Or when should I think about selling my company? Or when should I start my company?
Or those are the questions that I'm hearing that they're asking, and then they tell me what their astrologer said. And sometimes people will be as specific as you should marry somebody's name begins with R, and you'll probably meet them in the next six months. Or they'll get an answer that's like, well, you're not going to find someone for two years. And so what do you make?
You're saying that that could be accurate, but you're saying that's actually not the best use of astrology almost. Well, that's up to you. It's like, what do you want to use it for? I don't use it for that, because I don't think that's helpful for the people I work with.
I think that picking a time to lunch your business is great. If you give me a time frame, if you're like, I want to launch it in the next three months, I'll give you the best day and time within the next three months to launch. Talk to me about that. So how is that calculated and why is that important?
You just look for the best signature within the time frame you're given. You don't have like, forever. You just have the time frame. So people want to get married.
I'm like, well, what's the best day in August to get married? And then I have to look at a time that's reasonable to get married. Like, I'm not going to say four in the morning. I'm going to say, I'm going to look for like any evening period or afternoon period and then look to see, I want the conditions of the planets associated with the event to be good.
So a wedding, I want Venus to be good. And Venus is really not in a great situation in the month you want to get married. Then I'll look for something else. Like, I'll ask you, like, is it really do we have to do August?
Can we do July or is that totally out of the question? And if it's out of the question, then it is, you just have to live your life. And how does that impact the quality of a marriage or a business? Well, it is the imprint of it.
So it's the launch of it. So it's the mark of it. And so you don't want to play God with it. You know, there's like, there's problems with every moment in time.
There's problems with every chart. You just want to look for something that's relatively auspicious. It's like trying to find it sunny day. No one like you don't want to get married on a rainy day.
And so you're trying to find like, that's just a natural inkling. And so you're saying similarly on a planet city, sun level, you want to find a day that feels auspicious for a better one. You know, you're trying to find a day that has good energy. Yeah, it has like a good coming together of things.
It's got like a good a good picture to it. So you want to begin something. If it's within your control, you want to begin something with as much on your side as possible. Yeah.
But then the thing you have to learn is that's still up to you. Like that's yours to still learn. You can pick the best astrology chart in the world. But if the person you're getting married to, it's in the right person where you're like, it's not going to do that much.
Maybe the divorce will be better. But it's still like you still have to live your life. You still have to take the actions. You still have to do the hard stuff.
You still have to show up. What do you feel having helped so many people being deep into this work? How have you seen astrology really help people? Where has it truly changed people's lives?
I think it really truly changes people's lives when they need the confirmation that their soul's purpose is what they think it is. So like I remember when I met my wife, I refused to look at astrology chart. I didn't want to see it. I don't want to know.
So I sent her to my teacher. And she got a reading and my teacher didn't know anything about her. I looked at her chart and said, oh, your life's work is in the realm of gender-based violence. And she was like, yeah, but she was a banker at the time.
And she wasn't valuing that part of her work, even though it was something she had done since she was 16. And that reading gave her the kind of affirmation she needed to move fully towards it. And it's one simple thing. It's one thing that someone says to you.
And it's quite often at those junctures in our life. We just need that one thing, that one person to just hold that little bit of space for us to say, yeah, you are. There it is. It's plain as day.
And then you again have to go off and do all the work. Astrology is not going to do the work for you. Yeah. You have to act on that insight.
But that insight can be so reassuring and reaffirming totally because everyone else has been reminding you of the opposite ever since you were born. Right. We have a lot of obligations. We have a lot of responsibilities.
A lot of people want us to be a certain way, not because they're bad people, but just because of whatever conditions we're in. And astrology is one tool that can help you to distinguish yourself and really see yourself a lot more clearly. And so when you do, I think, if you're conscious, then you can take action. Until we have consciousness around something, we don't really have a lot of choice.
But once something comes into awareness and consciousness, we then have choice. What am I going to do with this information? How am I going to act? Is this mine to do something with?
And so if you need that, then a good astrology reading should be able to give you the shape of yourself in a really clear and specific way. And then you get to choose what you want to do with that information. Yeah, absolutely. Do you believe in divine timing?
Yeah. I mean, I work in timing. It's like my whole life. My whole life is timing.
And yeah, I really do. And I think that astrology is a part of it. It'll tell you about your life cycles that you're in. But you, again, have the agency to meet those moments with your work and your effort and your consciousness.
And then you can, I think, speed up everything. But that requires you to say yes to the things that are yours to say yes to. It requires you to say yes to your talents. It requires you to say yes to your agency and then to fully, fully own it.
And everything that comes along with it. And then move boldly in that direction. And then I think that time starts to kind of meet you in a way. As I'm talking to, I'm just thinking, we're asking all the wrong questions.
When I think about all my friends and every question, they asked them like, wow, we're asking questions because there's just so much more. And it's kind of like how, you know, there's that, I don't know who said this, but the whole idea of how if aliens came down to earth and so on, so we'll just staring at our phones and be like, why are you wasting life? Yeah. And it almost feels like that, that what we're going to astrologists for and what we want to use it for seems to be so rudimentary compared to what it truly can offer as I'm talking to you.
Yeah. I'm like, wow, it just feels so much bigger than that and so much deeper than that. Yeah. So much more meaningful.
Yeah. And we're using it to figure out like, you know, I'm going to meet my person in three months, but that's because that is our insecurity. Like that is what people are struggling with is really that question is actually the question may not be ideal, but it's coming from a deep root insecurity of am I lovable? Yeah.
And that's because through time, we have felt that we're not lovable based on people we've dated, family experiences. So to go back to that and expand my compassion, it's like, well, actually, the question we're asking is based on this deep feeling of just not being loved. Yeah. And therefore, we're not really asking, well, I find love in three months, we don't really care about that, but we'll just like ever find love is really the question I'm asking, I'd like to have it to happen tomorrow.
That'll make my life better. I think it will. How would you guide someone who is going through that experience that I just mentioned to you, when you're reading their charts, and of course, their chart is going to say what it's going to say, which we, you know, you can help me hypothetically, but what happens? What are you?
Because someone comes and they're really, they're just like, you look, I got broken up with three years ago. I am still getting over it. I'm dating this guy. I don't know if he's into me.
I can't even tell, but I just really want to settle down. I just want to fall in love and get married and have kids and have a great life. And I'm a good person. And I've got my career sword and that seems to be going well, but three straight women out there totally, totally.
And I have a lot of friends who are in that position. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will anchor myself in what I'm feeling from them. So I'll have the chart, but if what you're saying is you're not over him or you're not over the breakup yet, like what happened to you?
What are you still holding? And that's when I just want to human to human. Like, there's the chart, but like, can we just have a conversation about what you're holding right now? And like that is a legitimate feeling of frustration and despair and feeling like you're going to be left out of a life cycle.
Like, you know, you're not, you're not in it. It's missing you. It's like passing you by. And that's a real feeling.
And it is also situated in a greater context where there's a lot of people in your similar situation that feel the same way. So you're also not alone. It's your personal life. And it's also there's a sense of like, there's another thing happening.
And then I'll go to the chart and see what I can talk about. I want to talk about the person that I see in the chart that will be your partner. And I want to talk about that and be really specific about it. And then I want you to meditate on that.
I want you to sit. And this is from Katherine Woodward Thomas calling in the one, one of the best meditations that she ever gave me. And I've given it to millions of people is to sit in meditation and just know thoughts about, no specifics about like who the person, what they look like or what they do for living none of that. What do they feel like?
What is their energy feel like? And what do you feel like sitting across from them? And what is that energetic match? And I just want you to go out into the world and feel that who has that energetic resonance for you and who doesn't.
So there's the things you can get into all the details in the chart. But then there's just the like, let's just be human and just acknowledge that what you're carrying right now, it's, it's really hard. And that loneliness is really real. And I don't want to diminish that at all.
And all I know that you have in terms of your agency is to, yes, work on yourself and develop yourself, but also just to like be with it. You know, like I was 38 when I met my wife. I had had a bajillion relationship. I was like, I'm just gonna be alone forever.
I had totally given up on it. And then it was like, I walked out of that life and into a totally different life. And that can feel like a set up to you to say to people because, you know, it's like, I feel like I got really lucky to meet her in this lifetime. And it's a really, I feel like a really rare, special relationship.
And I also did everything I could. I did every course I did everything under the sun. And then I did just kind of like, let it go. And when I met my teacher, and when I started to feel like I was meeting my life's calling and my purpose, I did everything I could to anchor myself to that.
And I do feel like there was some kind of synergy there. So you have, everyone has some kind of story like that. And each of ours are so specific. And I always say to people, what if you don't meet them for another 15 years?
Like, I don't know, maybe you'll meet them tomorrow. But what if you don't? How are we going to make sure you live a full and beautiful, loving life and like you've got tons of relationship and tons of intimacy and joy and bliss and fun? Like, what do you actually need to do to feel like you aren't holding yourself back from life because somebody else hasn't shown up yet.
We have no control over. I feel like the moment my wife was ready to meet me, she appeared like out of thin air. And like a day before, it just wasn't ready. And I'm older than her.
And so it was like, I was like, Oh my God, like, I'm, that's it. Like, I've, I've lost. I'm too old now or, you know, all the things that come with being out of sync in those kinds of ways. So we each have our own journey.
We don't know why it is. And yes, the chart will speak to it. But I first and foremost want to hold you as a human and acknowledge what you're struggling with. And then that's a real struggle.
And those are real fears. Can people miss the love of their life success that moment because they weren't prepared at the right time? Oh gosh, that's I think that for me, I have certainly done things to delay my own success and my own arrival. I have burned bridges.
I have done things in the past that I look back on and I'm like, Oh my God, but I was so full of insecurity. I felt so unlovable. I felt so all the things that I didn't know how else to act. I was coming with my best and it wasn't meeting the situation.
So in one way, it's like, well, I wasn't ready for it. And I have to learn and grow and, you know, really like kind of wrestle with life and learn. And so I wasn't quite ready for it. But I don't know if you can miss it.
I don't know. I think I feel like that's kind of fatalistic. I just feel like when you that you won't catch the other relationships, maybe, or the other job opportunities, like you will lose some stuff if you don't know how to show up for it. But it doesn't mean that it won't come back in different areas.
It doesn't mean it will never exist. I mean, it could be delayed. And then you got to wait for the next bus to come. And then you got to like figure out what you're doing with yourself.
You're going to read a book or you know, wait a time on TikTok. I don't know. Like, what are you going to do in the in between? Yeah.
There's a strategy believing the idea of the one that there's one perfect person for you or that there are many people who it could work with. I don't think it doesn't have that kind of judgment. It looks at the chart. Like, you can see when someone will have multiple significant partnerships, you can see when people have multiple children, you can see like there are ways of seeing those things.
And then there's, you know, it's really important for us to understand like how, how we work, right? So like, if I understand how I work, then every relationship I'm showing up to is going to have a greater potential for me to learn from. And so the one, I kind of like everyone that I'm in relationship with is so important to my life and my understanding, like every single friend, everyone in my company, everyone teaches me so much because I'm always learning about how I'm dealing with another human being given the conditions I'm dealing with them in. So I think everyone is the one that we're in a relationship and we're in contact like, that's it.
And then there are these people like, no one else in my life made me feel seen the way my wife did ever. No one got me. I don't trust anyone like I trust her. Like her talent, her instincts, her intuition, her knowledge or wisdom is for me just unparalleled.
So the synergy between us when we met was just undeniable. There was too many things that happened that were like, that was, how did you know that I was going to say that? Or how did you pull that book out? I was going to give it to you?
You know, there was just so many things that occurred that I was like, this is bigger than the two of us. This is something else. This is a third thing. And that is so unique and so special that you might call that the one.
And that's fine if that's the language. I just think it's really important to recognize when those things occur. There's some people that come into your life and they just change the entire trajectory of it. I've had teachers like that and I've had this relationship that has been like that.
And everybody else was really helpful. It was fine, but this is a distinct category in and of itself, I think. And that's my calling. That's my life story.
I know people that don't have that story, they have a different story. And so some people's one is their career or their art. They're calling. That's their one and that's beautiful.
And I want us to live in a village full of really distinct different humans that do life in all kinds of different ways so that we can share childcare in. I love that. Not everyone should have children, not everyone to get married. Some of us should live on the outskirts, some of us should live in the center, like some of us are cooking for everybody, some of us are teaching, some of us are telling you that's better for you.
Does astrology pre-determine whether you're going to have kids or not? I've had a Vedic astrologer tell me that I wasn't going to have kids and I do. How do you reconcile that somebody who practices who believes in? I understand why he said that.
And yet, it's not true. So it's a certain condition in my chart and it's not great for having kids. And you could, I mean, I'm queer so the way we had a kid is different than how heterosexuals have kids. So if he was trying to look at my chart through a heterosexual lens, then yes, he's right.
But it's really about the astrologer and where they're coming from. I've had an astrologer look at my chart and be like, I don't know how you're ever going to find love. Basically you're doomed. How do you reconcile that?
I was like, that's a really awful thing to say to somebody. That's not helpful. Even if you think that's true and you think you're right, I don't know how that's ever going to help me. So as an astrologer or a coach or a therapist, even if my person in front of me takes it all with a grain of salt, I have a tremendous responsibility to be very encouraging of somebody's best to come forth.
I don't need to make them feel doomed. Everybody already does feel doomed. We already go there. So what can I do to help fortify that person, to help them find their power, their creativity, their special thing in this life and to move from that place?
I don't need to make you feel like you've got a lack of anything. I also don't need to predict everything correctly that you're ever going to do and say and be. I want that to be part of the mystery of who you are. I just think that you have like, I don't know, when I see somebody's chart, I'm so fascinated.
I'm like, oh my god, you have this thing and you do this thing and it's the exact replica of you're living it out. You don't even know it, but it's the exact signature. That's so beautiful to me. So my work is mostly incredibly awe inspiring because I don't have people coming to me with questions of like, what am I going to meet the one?
I really do have people coming to me with questions of like, okay, I've done this huge career and now I'm at this other place and I'm wondering what else there is or you know, yeah, or I'm in this really dark hard place. I feel like the world's turned against me and I'm like, I'm in that kind of crucible place and then I get to be like, yes, I see that and I'm with you and like, this is part of your journey and I know you've got what it takes to move through this and I just want to witness that with you. Like, I get to witness people's awareness and healing and their journey and their gifts and I get to remind them of how powerful they are. You know, people, like, I'm sure you have this too, but like, people with extraordinary like talent and success doubt themselves so much.
I'm like, you too? You struggle with this insecurity. You struggle with this self-doubt. Wow, it's just the human condition.
You know, it's incredible that we're so alike in that place. But there's so much to what you said about the adeptness of the practitioner, like the practitioners that you met that told you, hey, you're never going to find love or whatever it may be. Like, I was thinking about it because I think the often skepticism is, well, if everyone's telling you different things, then it's not an exact science and they can't be true to it then. And I was thinking about even medically, like, I remember this a long time ago now, but a doctor checked my throat because I had a sore throat, but it was really bad.
I was like, losing my voice. It was painful. And he said, yeah, you got a sore throat. Just take antibiotics or whatever.
And I took them four weeks later. It was really bad. And I went to the doctor. I went to an ENT surgeon.
He knows throat surgeon to be really clear. And he immediately said to me, he goes, you've had polyps growing in your throat for at least an extra amount of months. I can't remember. And I was like, wait a minute.
I literally just got a check four weeks ago. And he goes, no, these are pronounceulated polyps. They're big. Like, they couldn't have grown in four weeks.
And so I'm like, I met a doctor who wasn't an expert who was a doctor, but didn't have the right tools or whatever you want to call it. And then I met a surgeon who was very adept at his job and immediately saw what the problem was. And I was in surgery and had to get the polyps laser from my throat. But all of that to say, I think sometimes people look at astrology and it's got, well, if three people said three different things, then obviously there's no truth, the actual thing.
But that's not correct. Because like you're saying, there's so much left to interpretation, cultural understanding, you know, disposition of, does that make sense? Yeah. No, I think if astrology works, the three astrologers should come up with the same thing, the same thing.
And that's part of why we made an app because my theory is, if it works, you should be able to pull up your chart in my app and get some kind of guidance from it and get feel seen, feel witnessed, and feel like, Oh, I make sense to myself, just because the technology of the astrology is sound when it's used well. And I think that we're humans. And so you have to take that into account that when you're going to another human for advice or for their expertise, you're going to have your own relationship with them. You're going to walk into the room and they're going to have a reaction to you.
And it's up to them whether they deal with that in a productive way or not. Yeah. So many people talk about Saturn return. Yeah.
What is it actually? It's when Saturn comes back to the same place it was when you were born. And because Saturn is the planet that to the naked eye is the last planet in our little solar system, it was thought is such a big moment because every 28 years you go through this closing of a loop. So between the age of 27, 27, 28, 27 to 30, you go through this kind of closing of a door and a threshold experience into a new stage of life.
Saturn is the planet of responsibility and of adulthood. And it's also the planet that's of mortality. It's like, Hey, I'm the time lord, like you don't have all the time in the world. So at 30, you should be going through some kind of crisis.
I'm kind of like, Oh, I guess I'm going to get old too. And you should also be doing things that require everything from you. Saturn is a planet of discipline and hard work. And so this is the time to put your money remount is to like be in the game fully and to again, own your choice.
And I say, I chose to do this. And it's also a planet of separation. So in some way, shape or form, we usually separate from our family of origin. Maybe that psychologically, maybe it's physically, maybe we get married, maybe, you know, some kind of big life transition happens at that time that distinguishes us from our family of origin, not that we're not still part of it.