Material Girl, Mystical World: The Now-Age Guide for Chic Seekers and Modern Mystics. Ruby Warrington

can add to this that her Gemini Moon is in her expressive Fifth house, while my Cancer Moon is in my secretive Eighth house! But guess what? Developing an awareness of this conflict through the lens of astrology has also helped me see the value in “her” way of doing things, and to therefore override my innate fear of sharing my emotions—a healing journey in itself.

      And yes, considering all the different ways each aspect in a chart can be interpreted, an argument can be made that it’s always possible to see what you want to. But I believe this is also the point: that you see (or choose to see) what you do in a chart for a reason. This is where the intuition part comes in. So long as you are fearless in following your gut to what feels like the truest reading for any particular aspect, no matter how inconvenient or ugly, you will be gifted with rough diamonds of self-awareness to polish and allow to inform your choices and actions going forward.

      By using this technique to better understand my needs and my mum’s, and the ways in which we move through the world as a result, our relationship has been transformed. For my part, developing the maturity to override my “crabby” Cancer Moon tendencies (Cancer is symbolized by a crab in its shell) and give her what she always needed from me—a real heart-to-heart—is what’s been instrumental in moving our relationship on. Not overnight, not without us airing some difficult truths about our shared history, and not without buckets of tears. But we’ve gotten to a place where I know we both feel like mother and daughter in a way we were never able to before. It’s this that’s helped me evolve and open up about my feelings in other areas of my life too.

      As the AstroTwins’ Ophira puts it: “Astrology is a tool for radical forgiveness,” and it’s not like either my mum or I changed who we are. Rather, I’ve been able to see our differences from a whole more accepting perspective. She is she, I am me, these are our differing needs, and that’s okay.

      So if astrology in my book (this book) is for self-reflection, with a view to deeper self-knowledge, a few more words on what I do not believe it’s for—and that’s planning every move you make, every single second, of every single day.

      You’re no doubt aware of how some people act like the world must come to a standstill every time Mercury goes into retrograde (i.e., slows its path in the sky so it looks like it’s moving backward). As the planet of communication, contracts, and technology, Mercury’s roughly thrice-yearly retro phase is supposedly a time when things go haywire/backwards in these areas—and as you may well have experienced, this can definitely be the case!

      But this is NOT a reason or an excuse to go hide under a rock until it resumes “forward” motion. Because guess what? All the planets are going retrograde and making all kinds of other “negative” aspects all the time, stirring trouble and rubbing one another the wrong way. If we put our lives on hold every time the cosmos was looking anything less than blue skies ahead, we’d never do anything. In fact, going back to my likening astrology to a kind of cosmic weather forecast, you don’t cancel your plans because it looks like rain out—but you do pack an umbrella.

      I also like the analogy used by Dr. Chee Ming Wong, an anesthetist I interviewed once who regularly cast his own astrological divinations: “If there’s a bumpy road ahead, then it would be wise to slow down. Conversely, there will be moments that are potentially advantageous.” According to wonderful Dr. Ming Wong (scientifically trained Dr. Ming Wong): “The scientific discipline is good at measuring observable phenomena. Yet, for all that remains a mystery, perhaps the way of the ancients, which includes astrology, provides a well-trodden pathway in exploring the science of the unknown.”

      Something to recite in the face of all those who will invariably treat you like a total Froot Loop for choosing to believe that the celestial bodies with which we share our place in space have any bearing on our earthly, human lives whatsoever. Along with this quote, a favorite of mine, from Parkers’ Astrology: “The Universe is not only stranger than we think, but stranger than we can think.” I rest my case, amen.

2.

       INTERPRETING THE TAROT THE NOW AGE WAY

      This is an impression of me reading the tarot for myself: Shuffle the deck while tuning in to the energy of the situation I’m asking about. Shuffle the deck some more, and pick a card. Study the card briefly, and look up the meaning. If the message is positive, give myself a high five and go about my day with a spring in my step. If the message is negative, repeat above steps until I get a good one.

      Thing is, more often than not the cards I pull in my admittedly amateur divinations suggest confusion, difficulties, and strife. They show misunderstandings up ahead or suggest that my own motives might be less than noble. None of which I really want to hear—and one of the reasons I’ve been slower to embrace the tarot when in search of insight, clarity, and self-knowledge.

      In fact, when I first began to connect with the cards in any kind of meaningful way a few years back, I put them down again almost immediately. The Pisces had bought me the Rider Waite tarot a few Christmases ago, until recently the most famous and popular deck, and both the imagery on the cards and the descriptions of their meanings were often downright scary. Take the Devil card for example—which shows the classic “horned beast” punishing a naked couple bound by chains with a scepter of fire. I remember giving a “practice” reading to my niece after our holiday feast, and the look of abject terror on her eleven-year-old face after I pulled this card for her.

      Not for me, I told myself, internally accusing the makers of the Rider Waite of scaremongering and manipulation. I would stick to astrology as my preferred method of cosmic weather forecasting, which felt so much more expansive and open to interpretation (i.e., easier to put a positive spin on things—after all, even a heavy Saturn transit is really about helping you build some rock-solid karmic muscle).

      Plus, if truly understanding astrology is a lifelong study, akin to learning a whole new language, then the tarot appeared to be equally dense with meaning and tradition. I was well aware that perhaps my less than expert readings were the reason I wasn’t able to glean anything but a face-value fear factor from the more “difficult” cards—but did I really have time to tackle a “minor” in tarot, when I’d already committed a large chunk of my study time to my “major,” astrology?

      Talk about lack mentality! What I’ve since discovered is that, in fact, astrology and tarot can be used to complement each other (more on this later), and that it’s totally possible to dip a toe into the tarot here and there and still get plenty from it. I just had to ignore the impatient, perfectionist part of me (another trait of Sun and Mercury in competitive Aries, go figure) that was putting pressure on myself to learn the tarot overnight. Plus, I found I couldn’t walk away from the cards that easily. If astrology had always been fascinating to me, the tarot held a similar allure. And, as I began to develop The Numinous, it also seemed to be gaining popularity in real time, with all sorts of beautiful new decks appearing on the scene.

      To bring it back to basics for a minute, a tarot deck is composed of seventy-eight cards, divided into the Major and the Minor Arcana. The twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana incorporate “characters” such as the Devil and the Star, but also “concepts” like the Tower and the World. The fifty-six cards of the Minor Arcana are divided into four “suits”—Cups, Swords, Pentacles, and Wands—numbered Ace through King (a bit like a pack of regular playing cards). In a reading, the cards are shuffled and those selected by the person getting the reading, laid out in what’s called a “spread.” The positions in the spread usually relate to different elements of the inquiry—for example, the past, present, and potential future outcome of a situation (this is a classic three-card spread).

      TAROT IS NOT FOR FORTUNE-TELLING BY LOUISE ANDROLIA

      I believe we’re most empowered and feeling our best when we’re fully in our mind, body, and spirit. To get here, we need to be really