I remember when I was learning astrology for the first time. First, you learn the signs. I already knew the planets because I learned about the planets in the solar system from grade school and Sailor Moon. The names of the twelve zodiac signs were more unfamiliar to me.

After I learned the signs, I started to try to learn about aspects and houses. This is where most people get stumped when learning astrology. I did too. There’s just so many different kinds of aspects. How does one keep them straight? There’s also all of these different theories around aspects. Some astrologers use modern aspects. Others don’t. Some people use orbs. How do you know if an aspect is applying if you don’t have an ephemeris?

Don’t even get me started on trying to learn the houses as a new astrologer. There’s just so many different house systems! Placidus and whole sign are easy to understand. Once you start to understand the meridian and horizon as lines and the difference between quadrant house systems and whole sign, houses start to make some sense. But then you have to interpret them.

After all that, you start to learn about timing techniques. The transits make the most common sense. Transits are just the current skies right now. But what’s this about secondary progressions, annual profections, and zodiacal releasing even? What are term rulers and circumbulations through the bounds? What is firdaria? Now I gotta worry about sect? This is when a lot of people enter a wormhole around astrology and ideology. There isn't just one astrology. There are several different schools of thought.

Don’t even get me started on the debates around asteroids, modern planets, and what zodiac to use.

Astrology can be a lot of information. In fact, astrology can feel like a complete overload of information.

In my practice, I like to simplify. Now, I understand that going from a huge amount of information down to a simple and understandable idea of what is going on isn’t easy. It’s still necessary. I feel that, for natal astrology, a spreadsheet of every single timing technique isn’t as useful as one single takeaway on how to explore life in a fuller and deeper way.

Here are my rules for simplifying astrology:
1. Change comes from the present moment which is revealed through transits. Transits should be communicated to a person effectively if those transits are relevant to a person’s life in the current moment.
2. What a person is empowered to enact is more relevant than anything a person feels overwhelmed by. How much power any given person has is relative but everyone has some degree of power.
3. If multiple testimonies exist, then all related astrological phenomenon should be communicated to a client regardless of tradition or ideological backing.
4. Any of the above rules can be broken if necessary in order to better serve a fellow human being.

Let me explain the first rule. Most obviously, this applies to technique. If your annual ruler is Venus, then I would assume that Venus’s transits are more impactful for you this year. Any ingresses or retrogrades Venus makes over the course of this year would be considered relatively important and my job as an astrologer would be to communicate those changes effectively to you. We would need to pay special attention to Venus in your solar return chart.

But I think relevancy can also be important in terms of life and not just in terms of technique. I’m talking about a person’s life changes. Let’s say someone has a kid who is going through puberty. I would understand Jupiter to be impactful at this time even if there wasn’t any technique that tells me of Jupiter’s importance. Let’s say that someone is going through a breakup or learning to date again after a long time away. Venus might be important even if it doesn’t show up in astrological techniques around timing.

People don’t live in a vacuum. People live in a context. Even if you are not especially impacted by Jupiter, a significant other or a kin could be. This is information that the astrologer might not have access to when looking at one chart but information that is relevant for a person’s life.

That said, not everything in a person’s chart is always the most important thing at any given moment. Our chart is revealed to us through change and through life. Focusing too much on less relevant transits can distract us from what is really going on.

Everything that happens transit wise should be related back to a person’s natal chart. There’s a huge amount of changes happening in the world all the time. A transit should be communicated to a client when it is relevant to their chart or their life.

Let’s discuss my second rule now. My second rule has to do with how I usually treat the modern planets. Let’s take Pluto as an example. Pluto is a very slow moving planet and requires more than 200 years to make a complete cycle. Pluto tends to talk through generational and collective changes.

Will focusing too much on Pluto help me support a client’s agency? I’m not sure. Sometimes, yes. Moving through collectives can be empowering. Sometimes, the answer is no. Being in a collective also means not being in control. Collective movement can be overwhelming.

Every planet has a different pace. The Moon moves really fast. When we work with the Moon, we are exploring routine, digestion, and sleep patterns. We are working at the pace of the mind which is very fast. When we work with the Sun, we work a little slower. The Sun is seasonal change. How much do you change in a year? That’s the Sun and Mercury and Venus follow it around. Mars has a two year cycle and tends to be about significant conflicts. Jupiter tends to be about coming of age journeys and Saturn tends to be about coming to terms with mortality. Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto tend to speak on global events.

When does a person need support on their sleep routine? When do they find speaking about global changes relevant and useful? What empowers a person to act on creating the change that they want to see?

The further a planet is, the less control we usually have. The further a planet is and the slower it moves, the more social that planet tends to be. Everyone has different degrees of power and most of us don’t know everything about our own power. One person can’t take on the whole world by themselves. We tend to gain power when we share power which is why collectives are more powerful than individuals. A transit that is outside of a client’s power will be overwhelming and working with that planet may not be useful to that person. It doesn’t matter if the astrologer thinks that this planet is really cool and inspiring. Changes matter to a person when they are willing to accept and use the change.

We work with people gently. Overwhelm is not effective. We strengthen what a person is already prepared for and go from there.

My third rule comes from working across different astrological traditions. I use traditional techniques. I also use a few modern ones. I also look up a client’s eight character chart and their purple star chart. Every type of astrology has different things that it pays attention to.

There have been times when multiple types of astrology all seem to say the same thing about what a person is going through. These are times when, regardless of one type of astrology and the ideology backing that tradition, multiple techniques all confirm one reading. If this happens, then whatever it is that multiple astrologies seem to be all describing should be communicated to the client. The ideology behind one type of astrology and an astrologer’s attachment to one school never matters more than how theory shows up in real life.

Let me give an example. I’ll use my own chart. This year, I am in a Mercury year. At the same time, I got a lot of water in my bazi chart due to three triple combinations. Water is Mercury in Chinese astrology. Even though I typically wouldn’t place life changing importance on Mercury just because of annual profections, I’m looking at Mercury more this year, thinking about it, thinking about how I write, and trying to see what story Mercury is trying to tell this year in my life. Mercury has been very significant for me so far this year. I’ve been writing a new book. What bazi and traditional horoscopic astrology tells me about Mercury, however, is different. One speaks through the eighth house and the other through my official spirit. The eighth house is about debts while the official spirit is about loyalty.

Sometimes, different types of astrologies all point to the same thing. Multiple testimonies across different systems can show you which transits are more impactful. Because every school is unique, each astrological phenomenon should be communicated to a client so that they get to use ideology to make their own sense. As an astrologer, we are not loyal to a tradition but to other people. We use our craft not to justify one school but to serve people in making their own choices.

My fourth rule is just that all my rules can be broken in order to better serve the person in front of me. I do a lot of prep work for people. I look at a lot of charts and I try to distill the huge amount of information I find into around five to ten bullet points. All of that can go out the window if someone comes in and they’ve recently made some big life change that they now want to talk about. The story that the techniques are telling me no longer matters at that point. The person in front of me does.

Again, people don’t exist in vacuums. They live in a context. As astrologers, we never know more about a person and their life than they do. Maybe we think that Mars doesn’t matter at all for some person we’re about to see because they’re just so Jupiterian. We might meet them only to find out that their partner is quite Mars heavy and they feel Mars through that person. Even though we don’t work with a partner’s chart, we might find that our assumptions about relevancy to be skewed because of lack of information. That’s when we have to stop researching and start listening.

These are my own rules for simplifying the astrology behind interpretation. Take from it what you will. You might have your own rules. My rules are mostly made for practicing natal astrology and might be less sensible for other practices. They might change for me at some future date. Just sharing my thoughts for now.