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Mean Astrologers - Grrrrrrrrrr!
Commenting on the comments
CD wrote on the Astrology and Disposition: How Many Mean Bones In Your Body blog:
I want to believe that you don’t have a mean bone in your body, Elsa, but then I don’t know what to make of this:
“I would love to see her chart!! I bet it’s a trainwreck.”
This is (a small part of) what you wrote in the post “Edgar Cayce, the Control Freak Book, Neptune and the Grateful Dead!”
Now, I haven’t read the book and I don’t know the author, and this isn’t really a dispute about facts (whether or not the author is crazy). It’s just… well, that sounded mean. It sounded mean when I first read it…”
I’ve been thinking about this and fact is people have their own perceptions and form opinions based on them. And in this case I’m perceived as mean for calling a person’s chart a “train wreck” which is a term my sister used to describe her own chart thirty years ago!
See my sister and I started learning astrology when we were kids. And if you think I’m blunt… well she has a Sadge Moon exactly conjunct Jupiter and she can blurt like you wouldn’t believe. She also has a mutable Grand Cross and she was looking at our charts one day and remarked… “How come your chart looks like this and I get a train wreck for a chart?” It was a pretty good question, don’t you think? We are in the same family.
So anyway she took a lot of comfort from her train wreck chart. It explained things. It justified and validated things so I never associated “train wreck” when it comes to a chart as being mean. It is more a statement of fact. And over the years… decades, I have called lots of people’s charts ‘a train wreck” and have thought for the most part people appreciated it. I mean if your life is hard, it’s nice when someone notices. It’s nice to be acknowledged…. nice which is the opposite of mean so you see the disconnect here.
But then I remembered something else. It was at my Saturn return I was moved to identify myself as an astrologer and also when I started to read charts for pay. I had a bad consultation. The person seemed disappointed somehow and I talked to my husband at the time for a reality check. I wanted to know what he thought people expected when they came to see an astrologer. See, I was steeped in astrology but the subject was new to the client. I wanted my husband to give me an idea what “normal” people thought astrology was.
He told me that everyone wanted to be special. And if no one had ever looked at their chart before… well they want to go to an astrologer and have their chart looked at and have the astrologer exclaim, “Oh my God! I have never seen anything like this! You are going to win the lottery next week!”
I laughed but I thought there was a lot of truth in what he said and you can see how someone like me would completely depress someone who showed up looking for this other experience. Because what I’m going to do is deal in reality. And in reality, some charts are absolutely ‘train wrecks” especially when compared to charts that are not. And these lives come with challenges and this is just a fact.
So anyway, I wanted to post this not to defend myself or make CD wrong because his/her perceptions and feelings are valid. I just thought it was interesting how far back that term “train wreck” goes when it comes to reading a chart. And I can see how that sentence might come across as cocky if you just landed on this page but I guess this is just the way it is with me.
I explained this in my response to CD on that blog. But in general, it seems people who encounter me either figure out I’ve spent my entire life in service, or they figure out something else. But if they figure out the former they eventually learn not to react to things like “train wreck”.
My whole family has Moon Jupiter (blunt) and Mars Mercury (violent communication) and this is just how we talk. It may not be for everyone but I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. God knows we amuse ourselves. 
14 Responses to “Mean Astrologers - Grrrrrrrrrr!”
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Well, I do believe in honesty and sincerity. And I think everyone deserves to be given the benefit of the doubt when expressing themselves - not surprising, given my Virgo ascendant and Capricorn moon.
However, I also know that people “hear” more clearly when one gives some thought to their individual sensitivities.
Which is to say, in my opinion, if one is in a service-oriented profession like astrology, one shouldn’t simply say what the client *wants* to hear, but should aim to tailor *how* what needs to be said is communicated - according to where the client is, mentally and emotionally.
Incidentally, I am neither a professional astrologer (merely an enthusiast), nor profess to be any kind of counseling expert. I *am*, however, a great fan of your blog, Elsa, and as a seventh house Pisces sun, I can appreciate that some wounds will always be easier to navigate around, than others. Particularly when it comes to other people’s pain, self-delusion, and so forth.
Whow, this comment sends my Mars-Mercury aglow .
Personally AND as a very appreciated counselor, I prefer “service oriented people” like myself to call a train wreck a train wreck - and then bring clarity into the mess. Especially in relation to those standing aside telling the “service oriented people” how to do their job. I´m extremely allergic to “should´s” in that matter.
Being straight does not mean being insensitive. It does not mean not caring or not taking the person as an individual. It means acknowledging and naming (and relating to) the problems that go with certain aspects and chart positions, and I know from both sides how relieving that can be and how it opens up ways to deal with what bothers the client. And that´s the job- helping people dealing with that, not tippytoeing through green pastures with them or putting pink paint on their sensitive toenails. If they want that, they can hire a makeup artist.
But then, I´m a huge fan of “train wreck” charts, and I know that train wreck chart people have handled a lot harder situations than their chart being called a train wreck (I love that term, can I adopt it please, Elsa?). It´s life that really doesn´t care about their sensitivities, not the mars mercury astrologer. So I figure they´re way better off with “us”.
Hey, before you blow a gasket, I didn’t say you were mean, I said that sounded mean and that you maybe had a mean bone the size of your pinky toe.
And I didn’t say there was anything wrong with the way you talk, I assumed that was just the way you write and said as much in my post.
Incidentally, I’ve met quite a few people who would rather have a spectacularly bad chart (I’m not an astrologer, I’m talking about other client-people) than an easy chart. That can be perceived as a kind of “special” also.
I kind of get this “I’m service oriented, you motherfuckers!” feel from this post. That’s really funny.
Well… the disappointed client was in the long ago past. Luckily I don’t run into this kind of thing anymore because I’ve written 1800 blogs on this site alone, never mind tens of thousands of pages of writing on my original blog so the clients I get now have a very good idea my style and are calling me because of it.
CD - I don’t know what you are reacting to. I am nowhere near blowing a gasket. I was just struck by your read on that statement because in no way shape or form was is mean-spirited… and seeing as “train wreck” comes with a story and I am a storyteller, I decided to tell it.
I don’t know who you are or how long you have been reading but there are a lot of people who read here who have tracked me for years and they are familiar with my sister. She is a recurring character so you see this is interesting to them how everything is rooted. It is also interesting to me with a Pluto Moon transit and all. Women, my past and my roots.
But anyway this whole blog (and the one that preceded it) is organic like that. It’s all a big puzzle and there is nothing I can do about it because this is just the way I am, sort of like having black hair.
Kundrie - you can take anything you want from this blog. That’s why I write it so rock on.
Elsa, thanks!
I´ll tell everybody where it comes from as well, I really like that spirit in it, yours and your sister´s , so I gladly deliver the credits with the term.
A train wreck is a train wreck, a cluster fuck is a cluster fuck, and calling a spade a shovel doesn’t change a single thing about it. That’s not mean, that’s honest! Although, in deference, I will admit that certain people object to certain phrases (like some one probably would over my use of “cluster fuck”) and that might be the issue here.
Personally, I like someone that calls it like it is and that’s one of the many reasons I’m drawn to this blog. No harm, no foul.
Hi Kundrie,
I think you misunderstood what I meant - I didn’t mean an astrologer counseling a client should shy away from acknowledging and bringing clarity, as you correctly say, to their situation, only that there are a myriad of ways of saying the same crucial thing, some less or more efficient in getting through to any individual client.
I’m sure you are a deeply appreciated counselor and astrologer, and I certainly meant no offense to those in the service-oriented industries. Far from it - I admire such people very much.
Also, I agree with you when you say aknowledging someone’s “trainwreck” chart brings healing. May I again, though, gently posit that there surely are many ways to offer such aknowledgement.
Hmm well sometimes the harsh or “mean” words might be necessary.. or even we’re just part of a transit.
I asked Elsa a while back about the relationship I was in and got a harsh response - was told I was a control freak and she seemed really pissed about it. Pluto is transiting her moon and opposite mine. This I think happened on the first pass of the transit opposite my moon - my home was falling apart and the truth was coming from more than one source..I had to let go. Elsa’s way was what i needed and would respect, or I wouldn’t have asked her. What if she had sugar coated it? With my scorpio mind i wouldn’t have listened and would have stayed in pain longer than necessary. I’d already stayed too long.
I think it’s if the intention is mean, not the language. I had a bad date with a man who in the most respectful tone articulated the most disrespectful and downright mean things to me that it took me a while to clue in just how mean he was being.
Hi, Ninth Immortal,
I think I got pretty much what you meant - fact is though that you never know from what´s written what (and how it) has been spoken. So you judge, from my view, (which I count as a natural habit for a virgo rising, but it bugs me nonetheless) about how an astrologer “should” do, say, whatever, thereby subtly indicating that “we”´re not aware or even capable of different ways of expression and/or needed to be reminded of those.
Fact is that you NEVER know from the outside in which way a message was or is delivered and if the client “got it”. If it was appropriate or efficient, as you put it, or if some other way could have been better. Thus for me there is no point in pointing out the different ways, which, from my view, makes your statement kind of an unjust judgement.
So, you don´t need to admire, as far as I´m concerned, it´s enough to trust that we´re well aware of “a myriad of ways to say a crucial thing”, and leave it up to the people on the job to choose theirs.
On the other hand, you are free to try astrological counseling yourself, free to choose your own ways and styles of expression and delivering and try it out in practice. Rest assured that I´d trust you in doing it just right - for your clients and for the person YOU are. You make the connection, you choose your means. Which is what it´s all about.
Ooh, Liz, good point. Passive aggressives! Now there is something to loathe. And on the bad language… there is always more.
Once my sister called a spade a spade as far as her chart was concerned we were able to develop theories around this. Why is one chart a train wreck the other not, but same family and similar experience for the most part. WHY?
We explored this for years which would not have been possible had we not been willing to look at the charts in front of us and state the obvious. There is such a thing as too much PC! Too much PC and you’re crippled from doing your job and there is just no way I would let that happen.
Anyway, this is another 30 year old story isn’t it? Blah blah. Blah, blah, blah and blah.
Finding the balance can be tricky. Good thing you have Libra, Elsa . . .
And it’s doesn’t take very long reading your blog to get that you are 100% interested in helping your fellow travelers as best you can.
Even though I have a lot of Libra in my chart, I have an Aries ASC and Sun/Mars conjunct in Leo. That’s pretty blunt. I, for one, would rather someone tell me the truth rather than sugarcoat things. (The Libra in me is recoiling in horror! ;))
Besides, I believe that people who have trainwrecks for charts benefit more from growth and change than people who lie back on their Grand Trines and easy aspects. (My chart is bundled–mainly stuffed into three houses with lots of conjunctions, so I can’t call it hard or easy–very intense, though.)
personally, i appreciate the directness. i’d rather hear a train wreck is a train wreck than have it softened or sugared-up. to me, that’s a relief. it’s like, “oh, ok. i’m not just being stupid. i have some BIG challenges here, so i need to know what to do with ‘em-how to recover from the train wreck.”
one of the things that initially attracted me to elsa’s writing was her honesty in situations that others pussyfoot around. she calls ‘em like she sees ‘em. being a total honest freak, i value that in the highest order.
Popped back in to relate a only very slightly relevant anecdote:
When my sister was in labor with her first child she acted very calm, keeping up with the normal conversation while we waited for her OB to get to the hospital. The nurse came in to check on her, looked at one of the monitors and said, “Ooh! That was a BIG contraction just now!” My sister responded, “Oh, good! I thought I was just being a weenie.”