Ten Tips for the Young Astrologer

This is is a guest post by astrology-blogger Ryoin Akiyama of the Starlight Knight astrology blog.

This is for those people under the age of 24 who are just starting to get serious in their study of astrology. You’ve got your first astrology book or been to your first astrology website, maybe you’ve been entertaining the idea for awhile, but whatever the reason or whatever the circumstances, you’ve taken up the opportunity to study further. While the common tips for beginning astrologers of all ages are applicable for this age group as well, there are special circumstances that are introduced to this particular age group. Never fear, though, a helpful list is near.

1.  Find Ways of Getting Around the Money Barrier

The biggest obstacle for this age group is money, mostly because they have little to none, and there’s this horrible thing that one must do to gain knowledge; read books.  Unfortunately, it takes money to buy books. Well, that’s not necessarily true. A trip to the library may result in some interesting finds, however, don’t expect it to free you of troubles as you may find the astrology section of your local library to be somewhat lacking.

That’s why there was another great invention, the internet. Luckily the internet puts the world of information out there for anyone to access.  Unfortunately the internet puts the world of information out there for anyone to access. So, do be cautious when you’re looking around for astrological information online, it generally helps if they have little things correct on their website. So, any site that has the glyph for any of the signs backwards is definitely one to avoid.

2.  Find Some Friends

Young people like encouragement and support, what better way to get that than to find some astrology friends. If you don’t have the luxury of having friends who are into astrology in your day-to-day life, then joining an online community is your best bet.

There are several astrological forums and groups out there on the web, so get searching! This gives you the opportunity to experience different forms of astrology you might not have encountered otherwise, as well as make connections with other people who have the same interest in astrology as you do.

Interacting with other people is very important as it opens the door to discussion with other, more experienced astrologers.

3.  Act Your Age, Not Your Shoe Size

Now that you’ve made friends, it would be a great idea to keep those friends.  Acting obnoxious or like a kid in a candy store is not the way to keep those friends. Keeping face, however, is, so act your age.

The impulse after making some astrological friends is sending them a barrage of questions. That’s likely to annoy them, and no one likes it when you see there’s a horary forum and you continue to post an assortment of frivolous questions in that forum, and then become upset when no one answers.

So, while you may be excited about the new found wellspring of knowledge, don’t lose your head in it all, as you may end up scoring very low on people’s lists. Older people are always impressed with younger people who show a certain amount of control and determination.

Make sure to work on that and you may be surprised how long relationships last and what you can get out of them.

4.  Be Kind to Old Astrologer Ladies

For some reason, the idea that older people don’t know what they’re talking about is generally a popular attitude to adopt for younger people. This becomes exceedingly more of a problem if you feel these older people are actually mistaken in what they’re saying.

You can disagree, but be nice about it. There’s no need to be rude to them, even if they assert that what they’re saying is correct and completely ignore the sources you present. They may be fat, old, and have more cats than there are planets, but lord knows, at least they’re trying, and for that you should give them your respect.

5.  Look to the sky

This is a tip I’d give anyone, but I think is especially important for the newer generation of astrologers. Having grown up the television and the internet, it’s been said we are a visual, electronic generation. So, learning observational astrology early on is something that could be quite useful.

Take a step back in time and learn something about earth-based observation of the sky. It’ll give you more of a sense of your interest, especially in its earliest incarnations.  Pick a planet and watch it move through the night sky. Pick a favorite star and find it in the sky, keep an eye on it.  Try to identify as many constellations as you can.

This is a part of astrology that is ignored a lot, even by the older generations of astrologers, so getting a handle on it early on (while using our generational niche of having so many visual-based learners) is definitely a boon.

6.  Beware of Leeches

As you get your head around astrology and find the branch you feel was made for you, you’ll find people who will want to take advantage of your age. They’ll approach you as they would a friend, and then act like they have a genuine question about a chart.  In reality, all they want is your opinion, that translates to a free reading.

Now, these free charts are great because they give you an opportunity to practice. The problem is that person will probably never really tell you what happened, so you’ll never know if you were right or wrong.  After one chart, they’ll come back for more and more while weaving the illusion that they are your “astrology buddy” and learning with you. They aren’t and you’re going to get tired of dealing with them. It won’t stop until you make it stop, so be sure to nip it in the bud.

This doesn’t mean, though, that you should refuse help to everyone, just that you should know when you’ve had enough and how to say “stop”. People will keep pushing until you refuse to budge.

7.  Forget Instant Gratification

The field of astrology wasn’t made by the people who brought you the internet, fast food, and instant mashed potatoes. There is no quick and easy “just add water” version of astrology – well, I should say, there is, but it’s not real astrology, not the astrology you’d want to carry throughout your life as a hobby or decide to turn it into something more.

Learning astrology will take time. So give it time, be patient with yourself, it’s not something that’s going to just click with you one day. It’s a gradual process of setting a foundation and building more and more on top of that foundation.

It’s difficult and time consuming, but the reward for your hard work is instant in the smile on someone’s face after helping them out with a tough situation by offering them your own unique insights that you’ve worked to have.

8.  Dive Deep

Understand something before you begin to utilize it in your astrological routine.  This applies to every possible thing in astrology.  If you like a certain house system, find out how it works and what it takes into consideration.  If you’re going to use Arabic Parts (or ‘Lots’), study up on them and figure out who thought them up and where they came from.

Understanding the beginning of things is important for two reasons. One, it makes you informed about what you’re doing, and there’s nothing worse than someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing. Two, it helps you figure out if something actually works or not. I can’t even begin to count the times I thought something looked legit and looked like it worked, but then when I started to study it I discovered it was completely contrived and didn’t hold up.  It’s important to get that out of the way before you devote yourself to it.

9.  Keep a Diary

This may sound a little childish, but it’s probably a good idea to keep a diary or a record of your astrological journey. Keep a collection of the charts you experimented with and first started learning on as well as your thoughts behind them. Go back through them and check them out every so often, you’ll be surprised as to how much you’ve learned in the meantime.

You’ll also be able to apply what you know now to the charts back then, and if something didn’t work out, you may just know why now. Having a way to monitor your growth and evidence to suggest that you are actually becoming more astrologically savvy is extremely important to the psyche.  You actually feel like you’re going somewhere with something to compare to.

 

10.  Don’t let people get to you.

The final tip on this list is the most important, and so I want it to be fresh in your mind after you’ve finished reading and walk away.

No matter where you go, there will be people who – when they disagree with you – will belittle you because of your age. If you’re like me, this will infuriate you to the point of no return, however, the best idea is to simply point out their ageism and continue on with the discussion. There’s no reason to let it disrupt things or upset you, simply point out their condescending attitude and step away from it.

For some reason, people think that pointing out your age will discredit your points or opinions and unfortunately, some people are not above doing it to try to persuade you that you are “out of your league” simply because of a number and regardless of how much effort you’ve undertaken to put out there that you are, in fact, competent.