For all that I have been a self-identified occultist since the age of sixteen, I am woefully ignorant of matters astrological. Don’t get me wrong – I spent my time studying sun-signs, just like everyone else. But I never graduated into complete charts. I didn’t even really know that they existed until well after I’d grown bored with the subject. I fell for the pseudo-scientific debunking games of folks like the Amazing Randy. (Hey, don’t blame me: I went to public schools. Critical thinking was something I learned later, out in the real world.) Since those early days, I have since learned that astrology is a massive, complex area of study with multitudinous, conflicting schools of thought. But it is only within the last year that I have begun to study it in earnest.
My initial forays have been sporadic. I still have a half-dozen charts I’ve promised people I would complete for them as part of my studies. (And I really will generate them soon. Before I leave for Real College, even.) Realistically, I’m only beginning to learn the vocabulary. The underlying theses still elude me.
As you delightful readers may or may not know, I am a novelist. A great number of my stories revolve around occult themes. Having recently started a new project, I decided that an excellent way to work on character development for the protagonist, and as an excuse to work on something other than my homework, I would create a birth chart for her.
It’s been fascinating work so far.
My chief resources on this project – astrology in general, not just Dorothea Faigin – are Astrolog and Astrology: A Cosmic Science by Isabel M. Hickey. The former came recommended by Chirotus, the latter I am “borrowing” from Aradia’s library.
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