Interested In Studying Astrology? Here’s My Guide On How to Get Started
So you’ve decided that you want to study astrology, that’s great! Astrology is definitely an interesting topic and I implore you to continue expanding your knowledge. You won’t regret it! Now let me begin the guide! *this guide is intended for people who want to learn western geocentric astrology*
Step 1: Memorize the Sun Signs
If you’re on my blog you probably already have base knowledge that there is a lot more to astrology than just you ‘star sign’(the proper term is “Sun Sign”). With that being said, you should already know that the sun sign is just a small part of the picture. However, It is the base knowledge you need to build off of in order to get a better understanding of everything else.
You should work to memorize the order of the signs, the houses they rule, what they represent, the planet they’re ruled by, their general archetype, their traits, and the part of life they represent.
It’s so important to know these things. For instance, you may come across a placement like neptune in the first house. You may forget what Neptune represents, however because you know it is associated with Pisces and you remember what Pisces represents, easily you’ll be able to make a connection between what this placement may represent by remembering this fact. I do this when I have brain farts or a need to refresh my memory, and it’s very helpful. However, it should not be used as a crutch because there are some meanings that the houses, planets, and signs hold that differ from one another. Even if they are directly associated with one another, they wouldn’t exist if there were no differences between them.
Knowing this information will also make interpretations much quicker. You won’t have to flip through your notes or your book and read a long passage in order to get just PART of the facts you need to interpret something. It’s time consuming and you burn out quicker.
In my opinion, a lot of astrology in general starts at knowing the basic knowledge surrounding the sun signs. I genuinely believe that without at least knowing the suns signs, you’ll be way more confused than someone who doesn’t know what a birth chart is.
There’s a lot you can learn from tumblr, that is fact. However, you won’t always be able to access the internet, and in general cloud storage isn’t as reliable as physical storage. You’re better off buying a few books to reference so you don’t have to search the interwebs everytime you need to refresh your memory.
There’s also a lot in books that you can’t find on tumblr or the internet. And the physical structure is usually cleaner and more pleasant to the eye.
However, be careful to make sure the book has the information you’re looking for in it. Some books focus solely on sun signs, some focus on health, some focus on Horary astrology, etc. Make sure it covers the topics you want to learn about.
Also, make sure you buy more than one book to either fact check or expand on a previous book. Some books don’t go far enough in depth on certain things, some books have different interpretations, and some books are written by people who know nothing about astrology except for the sun signs. It’s important to have more than one source.
Step 3: Memorize the planets and houses
It’s important to memorize the importance of certain planets and asteroids. Each planet differs in importance and meaning. Also, as mentioned in step 1, though the planets, signs, and houses have associations with each other, they still have differences.
I did this after memorizing the signs and I personally think it’s the next best thing to expand on because it gives you a base feel of what it will be like interpreting a birth chart. It’s kind of a lot, and it just gives you an idea of interpreting how different placements work together.
Plus, you wouldn’t be able to do this without understanding the signs first. There’s a lot of sources that will interpret this for you though so, you aren’t at the hardest part just yet
I’m throwing Houses in this too but, that doesn’t mean to study both at the same time. Learn them at a pace that is comfortable for YOU.
Learning how the houses and planets, and signs work together will be where it’s a little more difficult. It’s not that easy to find sources that interpret all three at the same time for free.
Step 4: Start Familiarizing yourself with birth charts
There are plenty of online calculators you can use to help you get familiar with birth charts. You can get used to looking at the signs, houses, and planet symbols without having words directly next to them. It also makes interpreting the full chart later much quicker.
It’s so important to get familiar with the structure and symbols because once you start interpreting aspects you’re not gonna want to have to keep checking every second. It’s already time consuming with just the houses, signs, and planets, but it gets even more time consuming with aspects!
Step 5: Start Memorizing the Aspects
Since at this point you should have some type of familiarity with birth charts, background info on the houses, the signs, and the plants. Now in order to really get a better idea of how your placements are expressed, it’s time to learn the aspects.
Make sure you memorize their symbols, degrees, and what they represent.
It’s important to memorize the degrees as well because. You may not always be able to use a calculator that calculates it for you, some calculations are excluded, and some calculators are wrong! So it’s important to know the degrees so that you can calculate I calculated aspects and so that you can correct wrong calculations.
Once you’ve memorized the aspects you should also try familiarizing yourself with the aspect patterns. Knowing your aspects will help you easily find patterns that will explain how the placements work together
Step 6: Keep expanding your knowledge base
At this point, you should have ample understanding of the chart and how to interpret it. However, the learning never stops. There’s so many more things to learn in astrology. There’s specific chart shapes that signify different personality types, how well the person can balance their energy, what struggles they’ll have etc.
There’s specific degrees on the chart that indicate how the energy of a certain placement will be expressed. There’s Decans in each sign that help interpret this. There’s different chart types, like Horary, Draconic, Sidreal, heliocentric, Topocentric, composite, etc.
There’s even different branches of astrology! Vedic, Chinese astrology, Mayan astrology, etc. there’s even astrologers who like to consider some of these different types into their own work! This field never stops, it only expands forever. It’ll probably take a lifetime to master all of it, if it’s even possible. That’s why you should never stop expanding your knowledge base.
If you’re seriously looking at astrology as a form of income, you should definitely continue expanding your knowledge. People love to get things from experienced and educated people. And in this field where there are no real certifications except for experience, it's incredibly important that you continue expanding your knowledge, especially because you have to prove that you’re knowledgeable. And just in general if you want to get a better understanding of your life, the people around you, etc. Also, don’t rush yourself. It takes time to reach a proficient amount of education. If you’re rushing because you want to set up a blog or something, you’re only going to set yourself up for failure.
I hope this guide helped and I’m glad that you read all the way through. Please let me know what you think and if my guide helped. Thank you!
