You remember that lovely song by Paul Simon, called, Tenderness?
I know you see through me,
but there’s no tenderness
beneath your honesty.
That comes to mind a lot lately, as I watch interactions in the community of astrologers I work in here.
Astrology is not a single monolithic discipline. As Donna Cunningham put it, there are hundreds of ways of doing astrology, and they all work.
And I am very uncomfortable whenever I am around astrologers who feel like they need to attack and cut down anyone who doesn’t agree with Their Way of doing it.
That happens far too often for me to like it.
With my being interested in traditional astrology – as it was practiced in the Renaissance and earlier – I’m kind of an oddball in the modern astrology community. I’ve had more than a few astrologers take my presence as an excuse to explain What Is Wrong About Traditional Astrology – it’s too deterministic, too predictive, it’s racist, it’s sexist,… on and on. None of which has anything to do with how I practice astrology.
Being attacked like that is not fun.
I have my own strong opinions about different ways of doing astrology. Some I find solid and convincing, some I find weak and vague, some I find downright loopy.
However, I have no right to legislate how anyone else chooses to practice astrology and make sense of their world.
So, one of my own disciplines now is to treat ALL ways of doing astrology with respect – and yes, with graciousness and tenderness – and refrain from cutting down other ways of doing it because they disagree with mine.
There are hundreds of ways of doing astrology – and they all work. Think of what must be true of the order of the Universe, for that to be true!