Hello dear readers. I have been so insanely busy over the past few weeks that I haven’t written a blog post in awhile, but I’m really happy to report that I’ve been working on a lot of things in service of Big Taurus Energy.

I’ve been using this Mercury Retrograde to learn more about different astrological techniques and schools of thought (it’s Mercury Retrograde, I know, but let’s hope it sticks!) I thought I’d been living and breathing this stuff before, but let’s just say it has recently reached a whole new level.

Here are some highlights of what I’ve learned over past few weeks and what it means for what’s to come!

I finished my 50-plus hour Foundations of Astrology course!

Every other Thursday since last summer, I’ve attended a Zoom astrology class led by two of my mentors, Carly Sensenbrenner and Pam Picard. I know Carly and Pam from my hometown, and when I heard they were offering their first ever Foundations of Astrology class, I jumped at the opportunity to sign up.

During the class, we went over each sign and house in great detail, and I learned the importance of looking for each house’s ruler for a deeper reading while interpreting someone’s birth chart. We also looked a little bit at transits and had collaborative class discussions on several different birth charts.

It was an amazing class. It definitely deepened my knowledge of the relationship signs, houses and planets have with each other. I was also lucky in the sense that I met so many amazing and smart women and I learned a lot from them. As a special gift for finishing the class, Pam sent me a beautiful print out of my birth chart that I’m planning to have framed. I will always treasure this amazing course, and I miss it already.

I’m taking a tarot certification class!

I’ve always been interested in the symbolism and divinatory powers of the tarot. I started getting into reading cards a few years ago after a session with a medium; I started with angel cards before eventually transitioning to the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck.

While I’ve been interested in tarot for years, I’ll admit that I’ve been waiting for it to *click* for me as a reader myself for awhile. I never had trouble understanding the symbolism of both the major and minor arcanas in the deck, it was more that I placed a lot of emphasis on memorizing each and every card rather than looking for ways they connected to one another.

But recently, that has changed.

I’m two weeks into a tarot certification class led by Ethony Dawn, a Toronto-based witch who I first learned about through an organization called the Awakened Soul Coven. Within the first 30 minutes of the first lecture of the tarot class, something started to click.

When Ethony explained the Fool’s Journey, and how it’s important to consider the card that comes before and after the one you pull in the deck, something started to make sense.

Our first week’s homework was to do one card per-day readings using solely our intuition to decipher the meaning. It might sound simple, but actually having to sit down and write the meaning of each card I pulled and how it applies to my life every day has been eye-opening. I’ve started to see patterns in my life reflected in the cards. I’ve noticed that they have warned me about or tipped me off to certain things that eventually happened.

All I can say is, wow. I’m more confident than ever in my reading abilities, including doing readings for other people. And this is only two weeks into class. Imagine where I’ll be six weeks from now.

I offered free chart readings and now I have my hands full!

I put out a call on my personal Instagram last week, telling people I had just finished my 50 hour course and that I would read their charts for free. I know I advertise rates on my website, but I figured it would be good for me to get some practice and put my name out there. Who knows, maybe my friends will tell people they liked their reading and I’ll get some business.

The first chart I did was my mom’s. I had always thought because her Sun and Rising sign are different than mine that our charts would be really different, but upon deeper review, there are a lot of similarities. We both have our Suns in the seventh house, Venus in the eighth and both of our Sun signs are square Saturn. Some of her aspects really gave me a deeper insight and explanations as to her being the way she is.

The same is true of other people whose charts I’ve read. I’ve seen a few now with Neptune and Uranus in the first house. I’m learning a lot about squares in the astrological chart, and how that tension can create creativity and growth. Having the opportunity to interpret others’ charts is totally invaluable and I am loving it. That’s the whole point of this anyway.

I joined the Association for Young Astrologers!

I bit the bullet and paid $20 for a yearly membership to the Association for Young Astrologers. I might not exactly be as “young” as some of the other newbies (I’m 29), but my professional career is just beginning, so I thought it would be a good idea to join.

I quickly became obsessed. I downloaded one of the many astrology lectures available to members and before I knew it, it was 2 a.m. and I was still listening. I was completely captivated. If you’re a young or new professional astrologer, I highly recommend it!

Piggybacking off of that, there are a few new-to-me astrological techniques that I have learned about more through my AYA membership that I think I will be bringing into my practice.

I’m going to be focusing a lot of study now on annual profections as a predictive tool, rather than relying mostly on transits, which is what I’ve been doing up until this point. I also want to start analyzing charts more through an objective, rather than subjective lens, which is the more traditional way to do it. These are two conclusions I have come to after listening to Ben Dykes’ lecture on traditional astrology through AYA’s website.

I am incredibly proud of all of the work I’ve put into Big Taurus Energy so far, but in many ways, this is just the beginning. I can feel that my ability to learn right now and expand my business is stronger than ever, and I couldn’t be more excited for what’s next! I am having a Jupiter profection year, after all — luck is the name of the game.