In 1976 I took a self-improvement course - a two weekend intensive seminar which taught improved self control, meditation and visualization techniques, and methods of making life more positive and tolerable. One of the facilitators was a woman who I found to be absolutely delightful. She made learning fun. When I learned that she was soon to begin teaching a six week course, I was eager to take it. I asked her what she would be teaching and she said it was a beginning astrology course. Obviously, I took it anyway!
Did I believe in astrology at the time? Well, I didn't not believe in it and I knew the information found on bar napkins, in newspapers and on matchbooks about Virgos was fairly relevant to many aspects of my behavior and personality (although I also knew that much of me was not that way at all). In fact, I had often referred to myself as "very Virgo." I also found that the horoscopes in the daily paper had proven useless to me.
Several years prior to meeting my first professional astrologer, I had begun to undergo a philosophical conversion. During these years I had been reading and studying many aspects of metaphysics, religious studies and working on personal disciplines. I knew that astrology to be an established discipline in the Asian cultures and that it had been esteemed two thousand years ago by the three magi, using astrological knowledge to locate the child who would so change the course of human events. I knew it was just possible (and highly likely) that I might learn something important so I brought a notebook and an open mind to my first astrology class.
One of the early lessons we learned was the complex mathematical formula for chart casting. In early 1976, the computer programs were not particularly prevalent nor were they all that accurate. Being "very Virgo" by nature meant that I took copious notes and was eager to be a good and serious student. In addition, I had a teacher who was an absolute delight. I promptly went home and put the formula to work. Three hours later I had calculated my own natal chart but I still knew too little to determine whether or not it was accurate. The few hours of class I had been in thus far were not adequate for me to interpret all the symbols and numbers. I called my teacher and Judy did what any astrologer would do: she began to interpret the chart from my data to see if it really described me as the person I was.
The interpretation left me almost speechless and the experience of listening to her changed the course of my life. This was the first time in my then thirty years I had heard any person explain my thought processes, my emotional responses and numerous other aspects of my reality and relationship with life. Not only was this information presented to me in a non-judgmental manner, but it was accompanied with suggestions and techniques I could use to make further improvements and adjustments. In addition, this knowledge would make life easier and allow me to become happier with the person I was becoming. It could guide me past barriers I perceived to exist between myself and success as a person. How could I go wrong?
When the beginning class reached its end I took the next, advanced course. Waiting until Judy was to teach another beginning class, there was nothing to do but begin "casting" and struggling to interpret charts. The first year I spent an average of two hours with the mathematics alone painfully struggling to become an astrologer. It is relatively easy to learn what all the separate parts of astrology are - each of the signs of the zodiac is distinct in personality, the planets are easy to distinguish from each other, but taking an accurate natal chart and presenting a stranger with a complete, holistic analysis of their behavior patterns proved to be immensely difficult.
After working with over more than two thousand different clients I have gained the ability to not only sit down with a complete stranger and discuss their natal chart in intimate detail but I also teach them a great deal about astrology. Indeed, clients of several years' standing easily develop a fair amount of astrological skill in "reading" their own charts easily learned from their annual interpretations and from listening to the tapes of those sessions. In 1990 I "tested" my approach, teaching a six hour workshop to a group of people, most of whom knew nothing about astrology, By the end of the day all but one were able to not only "read" their own charts but could also look at another's chart and make good sense out of it.
From the introduction to Painless Astrology, by Rev. Paul Beyerl