In Defense of Astrology as a Catalytic Tool for Understanding

I keep running into people (online or in daily life) who challenge me on my use of astrology. These people are sometimes straight-up skeptics or sometimes they are people who are curious about astrology but can't reconcile their interest in it with all they've been taught about how it's a bunch of wishy-washy garbage. 

People often want to engage me in debates about the validity of astrology. I always decline. 

I'm not interested in debating. It's a waste of my time and energy to talk in circles with people who are already convinced there is nothing of value in astrology. I'm not even interested in talking to the curious yet skeptical. I mean, it's really none of my concern whether they get into astrology. Astrology is the sort of thing that either speaks to you, or it doesn't. It makes sense to you, or it doesn't. And I'm fine with that. It's not my responsibility to try to convince skeptics that the thing I've devoted the last six years of my life to learning and developing has any inherent worth or meaning. 

Sometimes, I must admit, I consider whether I should drop the astrological analysis aspect of what I write. I realize by writing astrological analysis, especially combining it with political topics or current events, that I'm writing to a very small segment of the population - especially considering so many people seek out astrology that is strictly about their personalities and personal relationships. (There's much more to the process of self-understanding through astrology than just those two aspects of life and self.) 

But I keep coming back to the same answer on that one - no. I shouldn't drop it. 

I keep coming back to the value of astrology and the way it can provide such an in-depth, detailed understanding of ourselves and the world around us. For me, nothing else I've come across really compares. It's such a powerful tool for seeing beneath the surface, to energetic realities that would be missed otherwise. It connects us to something broader than our personal lives and gives us expanded context of our existences. It helps us understand ourselves and our lives within that context, again, in a way I have not found with other disciplines. 

So honestly, I'm irritated by the way I'm written off and often not taken seriously by people when I say I'm an astrologer. I'm especially pissed off when people group astrology in with New Age or refer to it as a belief system. 

As an astrologer I knew online, Antero Alli, says: "I don't believe in astrology. I use it because it works." 

I feel similarly. I'll continue to use astrology as a tool (and write about it) as long as it keeps giving me the perspective I need. The day it stops "working" will be the day I stop practising. 

But try explaining that concept to someone who has already made up his or her mind that astrology is a bunch of superstitious crap. A waste of time. Something no truly intelligent person would put any stock in. I had an online conversation about astrology recently. I wouldn't enter into a debate about it with a dude who was a skeptic. He referred to it as "pseudo-science." I told him I didn't consider astrology a science. To which he replied that science just means "knowledge." (ha!) But isn't it funny how the scientific community thinks it is the absolute judge of what is knowledge and what isn't? Generally, their version of knowledge is strictly the quantifiable, what can be proven by them. 

To me, that is nothing but arrogance and an example of the imbalance of masculine and feminine within the scientific community. 

I tried to explain to this guy that a lot of what I know, including the effectiveness and value of astrology, could not be proven to him. Nor could things like intuition or spiritual guidance, for example. 

And I realized that that dude and I were looking at each other across the divide between Piscean Age and Aquarian. The Aquarians are quick to write anything off that is unproveable by their scientific methods. 

But I still feel as if I know something they don't know.