Meet Your Astrologer: constructing a practice around core values

composting to get back to, and regenerate from, the core of my relationship to astrology

Well hey there, long time no see…life has truly been lifin’, as they say, between finals and finishing up one semester then starting another just two weeks later, starting a six month horary intensive practitioner’s course, bartending shifts, and trying to maintain some semblance of chill all in between. All the while, an Aries pile-up was rocking the hell out of my first house. And as much as I am an Aries child through and through, I truly love the grounding transition into Taurus season as the flowers begin blooming and the greenery of spring takes shape. Here in New York City spring has felt uncertain as to whether or not it wants to be here as the cold fronts just keep coming. And while I’ve been a bit absent from here, there’s been a lot going on behind the scenes in my little corner. In preparation of re-opening my books soon, I’ve been giving you a little glimpse into my relationship to astrology as a means of granting you a better understanding of the practitioner you’re coming to. You can check out my first piece in this series on how I came into astrology here:

For those not in the know, I spent the last quarter of 2025 (interestingly enough, starting right around Scorpio season, just across the way in the zodiacal wheel from where we are now, because of course) scrutinizing every element of my public-facing astrology practice, with an inherent understanding that it was time to strip away some layers and re-examine what my practice has been built around. It eventually became increasingly clear that it was time to check a lot more of it than I thought into the compost without knowing what, if anything, would come from the frightening decay of everything I had poured blood, sweat, and tears into since 2021.

It was an incredibly scary thing to do, but I knew it needed to be done because where I was wasn’t sustainable. Driven by a love of astrology, the willpower of an Aries, and the refusal of failure, I was carrying things forward by taking shots in the dark and following the social media content creation template of building an astrology career that seemed to work for those who managed to build their practices about 3-5 years before me. Throughout most of 2025 I became increasingly aware of how much that way of doing things was not working for me, and never stood a chance of working for me, no matter how hard I tried to fit myself to the shape of that box. Hence, the season of compost.

It’s truly been an interesting, enlightening, and sometimes disheartening, sometimes inspiring experience to strip back everything I had been working to build and bury it deep in the soil, uncertain whether it would disintegrate, never to be seen again, or move through the alchemical process of transmuting into something fertile and ready to support new life. It has been a dirty, raw, emotional process, and not at all for the faint of heart. It required radical acceptance that I had to be completely OK with the possibility of walking away completely and ending up on a new path, while remaining tethered to the hope that I’d be able to reconstruct my practice in a renewed, more authentic, and sustainable way.

Eventually I reached the point where I knew I had it in me to reproach things, but would need to take a drastically different approach that centered slowing down and looking at all the steps I previously attempted to leap right over in pursuit of ‘success’ and vague, undefined goals. A major, major part of that process involved asking myself what the values at the core of my practice were and what it meant to me to show up in service to those values. Hours of ruminating on long walks, of setting intentions before my yoga practice, journaling accompanied with card pulls, shower thoughts, and more circled around the questions…

what, in my own relationship to astrology, is the beating heart that grants rhythm and circulates life force?

how does that translate to how I approach each client session?

what tools do I find the most valuable when it comes to being in service to the natal promise, both through personal experience, and when I work with others?

An incredibly important part of finding the right practitioner for you and the season of life you’re in is clarity of a practitioner’s relationship to the art of astrology through their values, which can subtly or blatantly act as the driving force in a session. Bearing that in mind, here’s a glimpse into the values behind my own relationship with astrology and how they show up in my practice…

Authenticity

I know this one’s a bit of a buzzword right now as we emerge from the Neptune in Pisces social media era of same-ness and aesthetics, but when I think about one of the most important things astrology has led me to over the last 13 years, it’s understanding the importance of authenticity and how to use my birth chart as a tool to connect with my own authenticity.

Authenticity is about understanding what is true to you and embodying it. It’s the key to shedding the layers we cloak ourselves in to please others, both consciously and subconsciously, through the way we dress, the way we speak, the choices we make, how we prioritize, and the rituals and habits we show up to on a daily, weekly, monthly, and even yearly basis. Without realizing it we often slip into what’s easy, what’s right in front of us, what’s expected of us, or what we feel pressured to fall in line with or told to fall in line with by others or by society. However, when we get in touch with our own authenticity, we’re empowered to examine ourselves, our lives, our choices, and our preferences and ask ourselves if they’re uplifting and invigorating our own vitality or draining it.

Authenticity is all about connecting to our truth, our own personal radiance, and what inspires us to live fully. Placements like our big 3 (sun, moon, and rising), our chart ruler, fifth house or first house placements, as well as the ruler of those houses are all important players here, but above all, the interconnected web of our nativity in its entirety has something to say about what it means for us to show up authentically. Our birth charts, which encompass our entire essence, our entire story, everything within and without us, can act as an anchor, helping root us in our own authenticity as we navigate and orient through rough seas or calm.

Alignment

Being in touch with your own authenticity is the key entry point into building the confidence of actually showing up and taking action through it. Living in alignment is all about building the bridge between your inner and outer worlds to cultivate a life path that feels aligned with your deepest desires and your greater destiny.

At any given point in time our birth charts are activated through a myriad of timing techniques, often in layers upon layers. Keeping ourselves tethered to our own authenticity and the natal promise contained within the birth chart is the compass that helps us navigate these seasons of life, and helps us move in alignment from sturdy, enduring foundations. Astrology is a tool that helps us find alignment in life by directing our focus towards what is—and what isn’t—fulfilling, where we tend to get tripped up, where we want to be headed, and what our greatest resources are in getting us there. The nativity can tell us what kind of public roles and contributions will give us the greatest fulfillment, what kinds of habits and routines will support our health and overall vitality, including mental health, what kind of relationship patterns are keeping us from having a supportive and satisfying love life, and where we might seek the kinds of friendships and community that best support our overall dreams, visions, goals, and talents.

Each component of the birth chart contributes to an overall sense of alignment in its own way, pointing towards what areas of life might be the most cohesive and interconnected, and which are more disparate from the rest of our life, or need the most attention and care in order to find balance. From work to family life, friendships, romances, and community, to health, creativity, and wellness, our birth chart has something to say to us about cultivating a holistically aligned life path. Astrology is a tool that guides us towards alignment by orienting us along our own paths and inviting us to co-create along it.

Amor Fati

Finally, but certainly not the least of all, is amor fati, a latin phrase meaning ‘a love of one’s fate’. While this isn’t traditionally what someone would pin down as a singular word ‘value’, the concept of amor fati is the center of the spiral that astrology always comes back to. In other words, the biggest lesson astrology has to teach us. We can move through the internal work of connecting to our own authenticity, or the external work of creating a life aligned with it, but at the end of the day we are working within the parameters that fate has set before us.

Embracing amor fati is about recognizing that life, just like nature and the cosmos themselves, move in rhythm, in cycles, and through seasons. There is a time to dream, a time to plant seeds, a time to work, a time to harvest, and a time to rest. The more we fight where we are the harder that work becomes…and the more likely we are to confront a life built out of alignment and from a place that is not authentic.

For millennia astrology has been used to move through time and seasons, led by divine guidance, a trust in the rhythms of nature, but also, a certain component that we never quite know what fate will deal us or where we’ll end up. Astrology continues to work for us in this way, to this day (and, of course, forever into the future as long as the cosmos keep ticking).

No matter how much we stick to a certain playbook, follow a clearly defined pathway, or move in accordance with the rules that have been laid out for us, there will always be things that come up in life that are unexpected, results that aren’t what we thought they’d be, important lessons we have to grasp, or seasons of life where things just aren’t going the way we want them to. Astrology serves as a tool for finding where to direct our focus during these times, guiding us towards where we must relinquish to fate but can nudge us towards where we can find our own power or be proactive within our circumstances. Astrology reminds us that everything comes and goes in seasons, tells us when we might be headed towards the challenging times, how long they might last, how to weather them, and what skills, resources, and assets might best help us through. It can also grant us clarity around the lesson at hand when moving through the more difficult periods of life.

Amor Fati reminds us that we are simply a part of a greater tapestry of life, interconnected with the world around us and the cosmos above us.

Alexander Rathaug, The Three Fates, ca. 1910

Having been in relationship with the practice and art of astrology for over 10 years, I have danced and moved through its influences in so many seasons of life, through so much learning, and so much maturation. It has provided me with a depth of understanding of myself, the experience of life and my relationship to it, and the greater cosmos and humanity’s place within them in an irreplaceable way. The gratitude I have for this practice and its role in my life is immense and it is my life’s greatest privilege and responsibility to share that with you.

I’m inching closer and closer to being ready to re-open my books to clients and I cannot wait to meet you in that magical space where technique and knowledge meld with wisdom and intuition in the alchemical container contributed to by two people in pursuit of authenticity, alignment, and, of course…amor fati.

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in love and fate,