Is Astrology Like Tarot?

I’m often asked this question during readings and classes. I’ve had a blanket response for almost 8 years. “No, they are completely different systems,” is the gist of what I would say to folks. I admit, I wasn’t really thinking this through fully…

8 years later, I'm changing my response and grateful to base that on my years of doing readings and pulling cards for myself as well. I’ve never been trained in tarot, so my musings on tarot here are solely based on my self taught, intuitive understandings of the cards. Therefore, I’m sure there are many commonalities and differences I’m ignorant of, but for me now, I want to muse on just one commonality in particular.

There’s a way that pulling cards is a way of meeting the energy of the moment as well as tapping into some greater flow of energetic destiny. Additionally, the cards represent universal archetypal energy that reflects an aspect of your life, or an aspect of the answer you seek. The cards can also reach back into the past and project into the future.

I could say the same things about astrology. While the natal chart never changes when you come in for a reading, the energy of the moment of the reading matters a lot. During each reading, we uncover one tiny layer of infinite layers of meaning and possibility. What is most relevant and important that day is the great question. When I make little chit chat before diving into the reading, I am tapping into an energetic field of that day and time, that I believe contains guidance for the client. And on my end, the conversations I’ve had that week, or any media content I’ve consumed recently seems to be relevant and important to the reading as well. When we seek council from these mysterious forces, I think there’s an alignment of many factors that come together to deliver the messages that are needed. The universe is constantly speaking to us, is what I’ve been taught by many elders and teachers who have dedicated their lives to spiritual cultivation. What I know may not be as important as how open I am to perceiving all these signs and alignments.

This is an important part of my particular style of reading and teaching. I sometimes don’t know the answer to “and what does that mean?!” We have to converse a bit, I have to get a sense of how you’re flowing in the world and then the chart sort of opens up like an unfurling blossom. Some astrologers even pull up the natal chart and also the chart of the reading, that is, the chart of the date and time of the reading, to see what energies are passing through and how they are informing what is needed in the moment.

So yes, astrology is like tarot. There is a crossroads of the mystery of the moment, and the mystery of the larger wave of destiny where we meet.