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[Image Source](https://www.flickr.com/photos/subpra/4533673930/)</center>
<center>**In the beginning**</center>
It seems to me people come to an astrologer for a number of reasons. Some obvious. Some ... well, more subtle. I'd start asking point blank, "Why are you here today and what do you want from this reading" ... if I thought I'd get an honest answer -- and really learn something about my clients and their expectations.
But the time or two I've tried that, I got a lot of squirming from the clients. A lot of looking down or looking nervously around ... looking anywhere except at me.
They either didn't have a clue what they wanted to gain ... or they didn't have a clear enough vision to be able to put it in words ... or whatever they were looking for, they didn't want to have to say it out loud. Interesting.
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[Image Source](https://www.flickr.com/photos/s_sawada/5450752428/)</center>
<center>**You have to start somewhere**</center>
In any kind of counseling or therapy, that's one of the first questions the professional will ask the client, to help focus their work together ... and be sure the time is spent as productively as possible in getting the client's needs met. From what I know, they usually get this same mental shuffling ... and vague, elusive, tentative response.
Sure, it's a start -- sometimes. But what gets labeled as the objective in therapy at the beginning is rarely the core of what the therapist and client will eventually explore together.
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[Image Source](https://www.flickr.com/photos/frted/4516518847/)</center>
<center>**Comfort levels and expectations**</center>
All therapists know many of the people who come to them arrive hoping -- or worse, believing -- that the therapist will "fix them" somehow, patch up in a few hours the broken places that hold debris and injuries from decades of history -- unaddressed and unhealed, and not likely to ever be, unless the client does something about this.
All therapists know there are many clients who, the moment they get too uncomfortable or too inconvenienced with what they will have to examine or change or work with differently, they lose interest in the process of therapy and return to the same painful, dysfunctional patterns that sent them seeking help in the first place.
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[Image Source](https://www.flickr.com/photos/lumen850/5440069803/)</center>
<center>**And engagement**</center>
Therapy doesn't work for them ... because they're not willing to work on themselves. It's human nature. Sadly.
So, why do people come to astrologers? They come wanting to hear about the future. Their future. For the most part, they want to hear something good. A great new job promotion just around the corner. Tons of money arriving soon -- through the generosity of the cosmos, an inheritance from a relative they never knew they had but who died willing to dump loads of treasure in their laps.
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*Fire*
[Image Source](https://www.flickr.com/photos/frted/4527395714/)</center>
<center>**It's human nature**</center>
The secret key to that winning lottery number ... something, anything that puts their life on an easy track and asks little of them in return. Prince Charming riding hard to meet them at this-and-such intersection so they can quit this incessant searching for each other ... and get down to the part of living happily ever after.
Of course, that's human nature, too. To want life to be easy. To want money to flow like water. To want love to surround us continually with its blessings and excitement. It happens that way in the movies. It rarely happens that way in real life.
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*Earth*
[Image Source](https://www.flickr.com/photos/yandle/5126029929/)</center>
<center>**It is what it is**</center>
Real life is not about living happily ever after. To believe otherwise is to set yourself up for just another bad disappointment. Real life is about being happy sometimes. And if you're lucky ... it's about being very happy sometimes, and maybe being happy right now.
Astrology, as many people see and want to use it -- as a fortune-telling device that reveals what's going to happen to them in the future, is not going to meet those expectations. I have to say, sometimes I wish it did. Other times, I'm extremely glad it doesn't.
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*Air*
[Image Source](https://www.flickr.com/photos/craigmoulding/5137408494/)</center>
<center>**Be sensible**</center>
Astrology is not a contrivance that takes away your free will. It won't tell you what choices you're going to make ... or what choices you should make. And it certainly won't tell you what choices other people are going to make!!
So asking an astrologer ... "Is he going to call? Is he going to ask me out?" is a complete waste of everybody's time.
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*Water*
[Image Source](https://www.flickr.com/photos/bortescristian/5144022138/)</center>
<center>**Work with it right**</center>
Astrology will tell you what kinds of opportunities you'll meet ... and when, and the kind of potential they hold. What you do with them -- including ignoring them right out of existence -- is completely up to you.
People do it all the time -- and wonder why they never get any "breaks" ... and why their lives often look and feel so desolate.
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[Image Source](https://www.flickr.com/photos/damnnice/25424632393/)</center>
<center>**Life takes work**</center>
For the most part, life for everyone takes work. Success belongs to the people willing to do the work, put themselves in the right place at the right time, and take advantage of their available opportunities more than those who sit around wishin' and hopin' and waiting for life to "happen" them.
This is part of what it means to create your own "breaks" ... and thus part of what it means to "create your own destiny."
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[Image Source](https://www.flickr.com/photos/taylorandayumi/4463435090/)</center>
<center>**Challenges and choices**</center>
Astrology will also tell you what kinds of challenges you'll meet. And when. And what they will look like ... what life is trying to arrange from the raw materials of your life with the crisis that's onstage.
Again, what you do with it, how you respond, the choices you make ... is up to you.
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[Image Source](https://www.flickr.com/photos/76767740@N08/10729778065/)</center>
<center>**It's up to you**</center>
Someone else with this same issue will almost certainly make different choices. You yourself probably have a variety of options to consider in handling whatever matters call for your decisions during this time.
But it might help a great deal to know what's really going on and what life is asking of you as the issue arrives and develops.
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[Image Source](https://www.flickr.com/photos/isinoid/4393374309/)</center>
<center>**It always is**</center>
Astrology can hand you that information like nothing else I have ever seen ... and therein is one of its greatest practical values. Not as a fortune-telling device, but as a counselor, an analyst, an advisor, a consultant and guide. From there, it's up to you.
And it always serves your interests, even if you use Astrology as often and as thoroughly as I do, to have that fact ... that respect for your own free will and power ... constantly in mind.
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<center>***Thank you for stopping by!***</center>
If you've always known there was more to Astrology than Sun Sign material and the three line daily horoscope in the newspaper, climb aboard and follow this blog. You'll find a world of wisdom detailing how you were designed to work with life ... and why you are the way you are -- all in quick-to-read, easy-to-digest-and-remember, written-in-plain-English essays that offer plenty of food for thought.
Little by little, I'm doing a set of articles that talks about all the elements in your horoscope and what they have to say about you. If you "know something" about Astrology -- or know something about your chart placements, that will help you get more from this material.
If you don't ... well, this is one place you can learn. We all have to start somewhere ... because we aren't born knowing this stuff. Meanwhile, if you've never seen your horoscope ... and don't have a clue how to work with it, maybe it's time to find out. There are lots of "chart services" on the internet -- some of whom produce decent, readable charts "for free" and some are so awful and confusing that even I can't read them easily -- and I've worked with charts for decades.
One extremely user-friendly chart site is here: [AstroLabe](https://alabe.com). I recommend them if you want a simple, easy-to-read chart. I think they even give a reasonable little interpretive reading of your horoscope as part of the package. You'll need to know your birth information -- day, month, year, ***time*** and geographical place. Without all that your chart will have limited accuracy.
Or, if you want to get serious and really talk about this, ***upvote this post*** and start a conversation in the comments section sometime in the next six days from the time of publication. We'll go from there depending on what you want to know.
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*Questions about any of this?* -- **Upvote this post** and talk to me in comments. It's a terrific way to build value for yourself and the community ... and it will give me ideas of what to write about in future posts. Believe me there is lots to say about the way The Sun, The Moon -- and all the other elements in a horoscope, all the other components of Astrology -- work together to interpret you and your story -- and what it all means to the person you've become.
<center>[This is who I am.](https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@enchantedspirit/introducing-myself)</center>
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<center>**About the art in our visual essays ...**</center>
Although sometimes the background pictures in our visual essays support the topic and text, they don't always. Sometimes the connection is clear. Sometimes it's symbolic and subtle. Sometimes, there's no connection at all.
The scenes depict landscapes and natural features, buildings and wildlife. They were chosen because they show something lovely or interesting ... or simply because the photo appealed to me.
Our spectacular and remarkable planet is changing at astonishing speed. Rarely are these changes for the better. Few people seem to know ... or care ... or have the will and power to do anything about this. It may not be long before the world humans have known and lived in for centuries is forever lost. We certainly won't be able to make repairs as fast as we destroyed it.
So a few years ago I began collecting pictures of the way things were ... and still are for now, a record of the beauty we have while it is still ours to love and honor.
The photos here are part of that collection, with sincere thanks to the artists who saw these moments ... and with their cameras ... preserved them. All of us at Enchanted Spirit are profoundly grateful to them for their generosity and skill ... and for the added grace, depth and dimension their art brings to ours.
Original images used under this [Creative Commons license](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode) or this [Creative Commons license](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode) and modified by added text.
<center>[](https://steemit.com/@steemusa)</center>
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<center>[.gif)](https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@thesteemengine/introducing-the-steem-engine-initiative)</center>
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<center>[](https://discord.gg/TPh9dHM)</center>
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<center>[<img src="https://steemitimages.com/DQmarWRv4wXiqPZbmtDCDRTwE5jewDQrG1ATrXcFrTThxht/Gifbanner.gif">](https://steemit.com/qurator/@qurator/qurator-2-0-update-post-guidelines-or-registration-details-or-tier-changes)</center>
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<center>[**The 8 Pillars of TribeSteemUp**](https://steemit.com/tribesteemup/@kennyskitchen/the-8-pillars-of-tribesteemup-clarification-refinement-and-re-casting-the-spell)</center>
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<center>#thesteemengine #thealliance #steemusa #isleofwrite #qurator #tribesteemup</center>
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