What is transpersonal astrology?

Kelly Smith Cassidy

August 11, 2020

"We're made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."

-Carl Sagan

It was recently during an astrology reading with a first-time client who had just turned 40 years old, that it dawned on me that what I was doing in my astrological counseling was more than describing the perfect career, relationship and living situation. I was instead conveying to her what her dharma was in order to reach her highest potential in this lifetime. And it's not like I ignored the more "mundane" everyday things that make this life rich and rewarding; I simply saw the best of what her gifts and challenges allowed for her. We still spoke of careers, but they were careers which would tap into her greatest potential. We spoke of relationships, but went beyond pop-astrology that might posit that she would meet someone on such and such day at such and such time. We talked instead of what kind of relationships she had been attracting and how this plays into her past life karma. And of future relationships which could further her karmic understanding.

I talked at length on her ability to read people straight away and instead of having an immediate emotional reaction, that she would be more apt to having an immediate itch of curiosity about the person and wanting to know everything about them and how they "tick." From analyzing her chart, I saw how she would be very well-suited to being a counselor. And with indicators of higher education shown in the chart, of perhaps becoming a psychiatrist. And that through this work, she could reach her greatest work: that of merging with the Universe no less!

Through the entire chart reading, as most of my first-time clients do, she stayed silent; her face a blank slate lest she convey some sort of message on the validity of my analysis rendering my interpretations as playing on her reactions. So there was no way of me knowing during the reading if I was "on" or not but to trust my experience, knowledge and gut. But the chart spoke for itself using me as a megaphone.

When the reading was done, she smiled and she revealed what I had suspected: that what I had said was a correct interpretation of her chart. But not in the way I had thought... Instead of psychiatry, she had chosen to be a bartender. And instead of reaching for higher education, she was dissuaded from it while dutifully taking care of an ill parent.

She said that she was drawn to bartending because it allowed her to be the common person's therapist. That she would often times listen for hours to her customers life stories being endlessly fascinated by them and giving advice to them. As for the parent she was taking care of, the amount of learning she gained in this endeavor over just a few months was worth years of formal education.

That's the moment when two things dawned on me:

1. Not everyone really needs to do what I had once deemed the so called, "highest potential" of the chart in order to fulfill their destiny. We have choices. Yet, it will 99% of the time still be in the same spectrum of potentiality, ie: becoming a bartender (everyday person's therapist) vs a psychiatrist. The choices made will still fulfil a soul's deeper yearning and union with their soul through the same mechanism (in this case, connection and understanding of others).

2. What I am actually doing in my readings is going beyond the here and now and into a realm of universal understanding or our connection to the totality as something to be fulfilled. But as stated in #1 above....they can choose along that spectrum. We have free will. The chart cannot say which choice along the spectrum a person may choose. But we can give a good stab at it using our intuition.

And so the question becomes, how can I help each client while realizing that they have a spectrum of potentiality?

This leads into questions that are on the minds of every astrologer at one point or another in their careers: is what I am doing skill? Intuition? Or both? And in what amounts?" I believe that it is different for each astrologer. But one fact is for sure: each astrologer will interpret from where they are in their practice, their lives and their level of understanding themselves and the world. Does this make the astrologer who reads from purely a methodical way or purely from an intuitive way "wrong"? Of course not. And the clients they attract will attest to this. There are as many types of astrologers as there are personalities!

I have attracted clients who seem to be spiritual seekers and wondering how they fit into the Universe. Quite often, they will have had spiritual experiences that they are trying to understand and integrate. Other astrologers might attract clients who need they kind of flavor of interpretation that they offer.