Mentorship, classes, et al.

I admit to being totally self-taught when it comes to astrology. I've read a billion damn books, and continue to look for more. And got more this weekend, ANTIQUE books, no less!

I found myself feeling a wee bit irritated reading ye olde astrology LJ the other week and reading this post. Well, gee golly, yes, it would be nice to find a mentor that was uh, nearby and I didn't have to pay out the ass for their personal one-on-one time. But odds are, I probably can't afford to work with a pro (or drop half a grand to study with a big wig for a weekend, oy vey). Sadly, the one person I know who isn't a pro but studied with a pro in my real life (she studied with E.W. Neville, hmm) isn't too into it these days. Once in a great while I can drag her into some astro-chat, but she's moved on, so what can you do. Everyone else I know apparently I've managed to outread or something? I'm working on looking, but so far it is a bit argh.

I ended up talking to someone yesterday who has been studying for 30 years (presumably via books? she didn't say, but books are her job and guess where I got my stash this weekend) and she mentioned that she was thinking of hanging out her shingle. I was so tempted to suddenly beg, "Will you mentor me?", but it seemed uh, rude and out of place to do so when I met her an hour ago. I have her phone number, but phone is not my favorite method of communication when I don't know what I am talking about or am nervous or something, so...yeah, I'm probably not gonna call. (Yes, it's ironic that I used to have a job where I made tons of calls a day, but it's different when you are calling with a purpose, I think.)

Oh, amusingy enough during the chart comparison portion of the conversation,she said something like, "Mars on the midheaven/9th is where your energy is, Mars rules pubishing, it's square Uranus which is astrology, Jupiter in the eighth is other people's money..." So, go write an astrology book? Call it "Saturn Can Bite Me?" Heh. Yeah, if I ever have enough steam to last for longer than a month on any novel. (And right now on the first week of NaNo, I am having second week slump big time. Gahhhhhhhhh. I would much rather be reading my ten new books than typing anything...and yet I am writing this. Hmmmm.) I have a family friend who was along this weekend and then the rest of the time he was in town he was all, "You are here to write things to inspire people, you should be DOING it." Yeah. Sigh. I just wish I had that stamina to last through the ADD crap.

I took one online class years ago. Irritatingly, I cannot remember what site I did it from for the life of me and Google-fu has failed me. I found it frustrating. I wanted to take the advanced class, but noooo, you had to take the very beginning class first (for uh, a lot of money), and I was incredibly bored. I was so bored I didn't even want to take the advanced class after that.

I tend to think that you can learn the beginner stuff from oh, ANY BOOK OUT THERE (the ones I like are here if you must), I certainly don't think I needed to pay that much to find out what a typical (insert sign here) does. I am very tired of "Virgos are neat and Tauruses like to eat" stuff. And I just plain do not want to start from square one on a program of study at this point. Unless I start doing horary anyway, because that is freaking hard :P Some areas I feel pretty good on (personality/karma study seem to be my speciality for like 2-3 years now, going on my purchasing record!), but prediction is defintely not my strong suit.

So I'm catching up on Elsa this weekend and she mentions pretty much learning it with her sister on her own. Now I don't feel quite so bad.

“When is it time to graduate from novice to authority?”

I’d say when you can hold a chart in your hand and have things to say about it that originate in you / that you did not read in a book.

Secondly, a comprehensive understanding of the energy of all the planets which I think takes personal experience. In other words, reading about a Neptune transit is not the same as living one."

Well, yeah. I like studying other people's charts, but I feel like I should probably exercise SOME (hah) discretion when I yak about other people on here. So most of the time I just yak about mine because I have a Sag moon and don't care who knows my issues :P That said, other than OMG SATURN, I am pretty low on major transits to my planets, since I have empty 3rd-5th houses and The Big Three have been going through the emptiest part of my chart and will be for a long time. I had a Pluto transit to my moon around 95-96, but I honesty can't say that those years were any more traumatic than anything that came before. Certainly not like Elsa's. My life started getting weird after Pluto moved off my moon (April 96), and the stuff with my dad came down in 97, but 95? Meh. And Pluto hadn't even hit my natal Neptune yet (the other Sag planet).

(Incidentally, someone asked me on Tuesday if there was some kind of jinx on years ending in 7. Despite my evidence and his, I'd say no. Or at least, 1987 wasn't memorable.)

Back to the Elsa stuff.... god, I'm all over the place writing today. ADD AHOY. This was another commenter:

"I big to differ a bit on the question “When’s it time to graduate from novice to authority?” I believe that there are mountains and mountains and mountains levels of intermediate in there, maybe like novice being 0 and ‘authority’ (if that every truly exists) like being 100. I feel like the last ten year of non stop obsessive examination and study at the most intense imaginable levels has brought me to mabye, about a 39."

Heh. I would give myself different rankings depending on the subject matter. Prediction is probably below a 20, other areas would be higher than that, or so I think.

"It’s best to sample everything you can to get the ideas and basic knowledge across and then, after a couple of years, pick something you’re really fascinated with and study it to death. Oh yeah, and keep a journal or set of records of everything you find. Keeping a non-judgmental, non-astrological journal has helped me a TON and has been far more valuable than any book I’ve read."

Heh. Doing that. Here's the journal, right here.

Now I'm getting to the entire freaking point of this post...Elsa wants to do a relationships class. *droooooooools* I dunno how "small group" that would be given how many people are interested, though.