Coyote Howling at the Moon

Stroke Blog
Chart & Bio
About my Books
Sessions FAQ
Essays Archive
Email Me
 



The single service that I offered to clients was what I called “Sessions.”

Sessions were my version of what many astrologers and most of the public refer to
as “Readings.”

I prefered the term “Sessions”
for a couple of reasons. One was that “Readings.” are associated with psychics in
the public mind. While skilled professionals in every field develop their intuition (and I did that in my own work), I was not a “psychic” and didn't wish to bill myself as one.

In addition, the idea of a “Reading” implies a more passive experience for the client. My work required active participation on the part of my clients.

My sessions were co-creations: clients bought their real lives, and I brought the tools of astrology. Together, we unraveled the meanings.

My sessions were live interactions between clients and me, done by phone. In the early decades of my career, sessions were mostly in-person and face-to-face. For the last two decades, I worked exclusively by telephone. The conversations that comprise each session were recorded as mp3 files, which clients then downloaded from a private page on this site.

Individual sessions were the main work I did throughout the past six decades (1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and now the 2020s). Even in my 70s, I remained passionate about the work that I did to define and illuminate for clients the meaning and evolution
of their lives as revealed by astrology, with particular emphasis on their changing life-journeys during the difficult times now underway. As the 2020s unfold further, modern civilization finds itself at a very trying crossroads between the historical past and our uncertain future. The turbulence we‘re moving through — which is, I believe, inevitable — will no doubt increase in intensity
and perhaps even chaos
over the coming decades.

Given our collective problems, staying sane and grounded in reality are more challenging now for everyone. Providing
a means to focus on one‘s life-purpose seemed to me more relevant and urgent than ever before. In the right hands, astrology is a brilliant system
for revealing that for each individual. I wanted to contribute to our collective sanity and hope that I did.



My astrological textbook, Houses of the Horoscope,
was re-published in 2007
by Kevin Burk's publishing company, Serendipity Press (thanks, Kevin, for all your work in getting out the 2nd edition!).

This is the same revised and expanded 2nd Edition that I offer here in an e-book PDF version, but in a classic hard-copy version in large-format paperback. The book is priced at $24.95 and can be ordered online from Amazon or found at brick-and-mortar bookstores that carry serious astrology textbooks.

Here's a link to the book's page on Amazon:

Houses of the Horoscope at Amazon.com

Also available is my second book, The Oracle of Love, my reinterpretation of the Sabian Symbols as an oracular system (like the I Ching or Runes) for exploring personal love and intimate relatedness. That book is available in a PDF version that can be ordered from my web site.

To learn more about both my books, or to order the PDF versions available here on-site,
click here.


Announcement of my Retirement to Clients, Friends, and the Public
As of August of 2023, I have officially retired from my long career as a professional astrologer working with clients in private practice. I came to this decision with regret after consideration about my age and seriously worsening ill health. I am no longer available to do astrological sessions with clients. I guess 54 years and 13,000 sessions will have to be enough.

For now, I'm choosing to leave the content and many pages of this web site essentially unchanged, as an archive
of my life and work.

With regard to my writing Commentaries or other essays about astrology, life, culture, or civilization, I may continue
if the spirit moves me and I feel that I have something interesting, entertaining, or illuminating to say. I apologize
for the uncertainty and unpredicability of that. Links will continue to appear here on the home page as before.



2023 Commentaries
8 October 2023 — The Best Possible World
30 August 2023 — Initial UPDATE After Surgery
15 August 2023 — Suspension of Weekly Posting
8 August 2023 — Traditional Family Values
1 August 2023 — Karma and Politics
25 July 2023 — Understanding Chart Movement [Part 2]
18 July 2023 — Understanding Chart Movement [Part 1]
11 July 2023 — Untwisting the Zodiac
4 July 2023 — How I Regard Sessions
27 June 2023 — Astrology WTF? [Part 3]
20 June 2023 — The Neptune-Pluto Cycle
13 June 2023 — Astrology WTF? [Part 2]
6 June 2023 — Astrology WTF? [Part 1]


Commentaries, Newsletters, Essays, and Articles from earlier in 2022 and
all previous years (as far back as 1983) can be read online or downloaded
as PDF files for free from the Essays Archive page.





I'm a professional astrologer with 54 years' full-time experience. Over that time, I did more than 13,000 astrological sessions, mostly with individuals, but also with couples, families, and groups.

I didn't set out to be an astrologer (far from it), and, though people understandably came to regard me as an authority on the subject of modern western astrology, I was never truly obsessed with astrology itself. Yes, it's an extraordinary, elegant system in the right hands, and the information it provides is endless and often unavailable from any other source. Still, for me at least, astrology is only a means to an end, just a useful tool to explore something else, something much more important.

What I find compelling — what really interests me — is not astrology, but human beings and the incredible, almost overwhelming experience of being human.

We wake up in these bodies one day, and we don't know where we came from, how we got here, or where we're going. But here we are, as long as we breathe and our hearts beat. And while we're here, we have to figure out how our machinery works, how to live in these awkward bodies and difficult personalities, and how to connect with other, equally complex human beings along the way. It is all a bit much, and often more than any of us can handle.

Despite being members of the same species and sharing much in common, we are very different as individuals. Just beneath the ordinary, commonplace experiences of everyday life, we live alone inside ourselves. Our inner realities are custom-tailored, profoundly unique, and often unseen, much less understood, by anyone else. Most of the time, through happiness, suffering, or just normal life, we remain hidden even to ourselves.

I use astrology to explore those differences that make us unique, to probe into the heart of the puzzle, to reveal what can be revealed, and to reach out across the void to make contact, to find a way for us (and for myself as well) to feel not quite so alone.

For those of you who might be curious, I've posted my own chart and provided a little background info about myself.




Being an astrologer does not require any specific spiritual beliefs, nor does it imply any particular social or political leanings. Some astrologers lean to the right, others to the left. Some focus exclusively on the lofty realms of metaphysics; others are more pragmatic, integrating real-life concerns into their work.

For me, all three levels are relevant, and I tend to have deep feelings and strong opinions about each, as anyone who reads the newsletters and essays archived on this site will no doubt see.

One specific point worth making is that astrology doesn't speak in the language of typical human experience. Many of the ego-concerns people feel most strongly are not addressed effectively by charts. Charts are brilliant at defining individual life-purpose and the timing of significant changes in our life-journeys, but many common questions people have are simply not part of the information astrology offers. As conspicuous examples, our individual experiences surrounding health or money, for instance, have general indications in our charts, but the information is neither as specific nor as comprehensive as many people assume or would like it to be. I try to make my work with clients as practical and useful as I can, but medicine and finances are specialties that require long professional training and insight that my knowledge of astrology doesn't cover.

So, what I usually tell my clients concerning those two particular topics is this: "If you want to discuss physical health or money, please consult a doctor or a financial advisor, not an astrologer (at least not me)."

I can't claim to have achieved transcendent wisdom or even personal serenity in reconciling the contradictions, paradoxes, and ironies of what are often conflicting arenas of experience in our personal and social lives. Spirituality, culture, and politics continue to be an ongoing challenge for me. Indeed, they comprise a significant part of the struggle in my life to understand and mature.

What I lack in certainty, however, I try to make up for in reverence, the feeling of awe and respect for the often unexpected and always profound mysteries of life.







Below are the MP3s from my 1994 Celtic Fusion CD, “Beyond the Emerald Isle.” The selections include Irish, English, and Scots tunes
in traditional and original jigs, reels, hornpipes, and slow airs, plus a lullaby, a lament, and an English madrigal. All the instruments were programmed on a Roland JV-35 Synthesizer, and the music was sequenced and mixed on a Mac using Studio Vision 16-track software. Both the synth and the software are now ancient relics, but back in the mid-1990s they were state-of-the-art. The whole project was my
own little one-man show.

Even today, almost 30 years later, this music holds up, and I marvel that I was able to do it. Playing electric bass live onstage with
my friends in our fearless Irish-Scots-English Isles music band “Swoop” back in the late 1970s was literally the most fun I ever had,
but I continue to be immensely pleased with “Beyond the Emerald Isle.”

Click on the title links to listen to the cuts, or download the MP3s for free.

1. Old Hag You Have Killed Me, Delaney's, Morrison's  … a medley of three Irish jigs
2. When the Winds Begin to Sing  … permutations of an Irish melody
3. Song of the Chanter  … an Irish slow air
4. Saucy Sailor  … an English seafaring song
5. The Weavers, Kail and Pudding, Loch Roag  … another medley of three Irish jigs
6. The Old Woman's Lullaby  … a slow air from Scotland
7. Drive the Cold Winter Away  … an Irish melody morphed into techno
8. Harvest Home, The Little Beggar Girl  … two English tunes, the latter by Richard Thompson
9. The April Green, Kasha in the Window  … an original hornpipe and reel, with an embedded jig
10. Taking Missionary Ridge  … two original call-and-response military marches
11. Oh the Cutters  … an English slow air
12. Love is Worth it All  … an original English madrigal
13. The Cruel Brother  … an aggressive rave-up of a Scots lament






Professional Astrology Web-Ring
Site Owner: Bill Herbst
Professional Astrology Web-Ring
[ Previous 5 |Random | Next 5 ]
[ Next |List Sites | Join ]