A month or so after my son passed away, a trusted friend recommended I get an astrology reading.
“Astrology is not for me,” I told her. “I’ve never read an astrology forecast that has panned out.”
She said she wasn’t talking about that kind of astrology.
“I’m talking about the kind practiced by healers for thousands of years,” she explained. “It’s actually an art based on a complex system of mathematical and astronomical calculations.”
I just listened as she went on…
“Real” astrology readings, she told me, can teach us a lot about ourselves, our life path, and our relationships with others.
Given that modern science and medicine couldn’t explain why my older son Tommy went to sleep one night and didn’t wake up, I suddenly wondered if the planets and stars could.
So, a few days later I booked a reading with the astrologer she’d recommended. I told this astrologer that I wanted to compare my birth chart with that of my older son’s to see if they could explain our relationship in this lifetime, as well as his sudden departure. I gave her both our birth dates and times as printed on our birth certificates.
On the morning of my scheduled reading, I had no expectations. In fact, I felt so silly that I almost canceled. But once the reading began, the magic of this ancient practice took over and I never looked back.
“Hi Nikki!” the astrologer enthusiastically began. “I am so happy to speak with you, and I’m sorry about what happened to your son. I cleared my entire schedule this past week just so I could study your charts and give you the best possible reading that I can. I really want to be of service and help you.”
My heart soaked up every one of her positive vibrations and my mind slowly opened to what she had to say.
First, she described the position of my son’s moon and various other planets at the time of his birth, which enabled her to accurately describe him as “playful, gregarious, and a soul who came here to have fun. He was a soul who wanted to play in this lifetime. Really REALLY play.”
“Does this resonate with you, Nikki?” she stopped to ask me.
I said it did and was surprised she could describe the essence of my son in a couple short sentences much better than I could. In fact, my family was in the process of establishing a charitable foundation to help share my son’s spirit of play with others. Her choice of words was remarkable.
Then she described my son’s “nodes” — one south, one north.
Oh no, here we go, I thought, my eyes fully prepared to roll.
“The south node indicates what it is we’ve come into this world having already mastered,” she clarified. Then she accurately described my son’s strengths with such precision that I could only confirm he had indeed become what he was designed to be.
She went on to describe both of our “north nodes” before moving on to what a number of other planets and stars had to say about us. One by one, she unlocked new aspects of me and our relationship and I began assembling them like pieces of a puzzle.
Maybe she just got lucky, my mind whispered when our session ended.
Who cares if it resonates and makes you feel a little better? My heart countered.
Not up for a debate, I promptly scheduled another reading a few months later with a second astrologer. I figured if this ancient practice is based on the science of planets and stars at birth, then Astrologer #2’s interpretation of my charts should be similar, if not exactly the same as Astrologer #1’s.
Astrologer #2 proceeded to confirm everything Astrologer #1 had said, then took things up a notch.
“Your son came into this world to have an intense physical life and touch a lot of people and then transition quickly. This was predestined. There’s nothing you could have done about it. All his planets were aligned in the 8th house of transition. This was very fated. Usually no death is an accident, but especially his.”
My heart sighed and calmed my nerves. The guilt of losing a child, no matter what the circumstances, is hard to reconcile.
“The way his moon aligned with his native mercury meant his health would go quickly,” she continued. “Whatever he died from was congenital. Time was limited.”
This confirmed what my instincts had been trying to tell me.
As much as I appreciated the benefits of astrology after this second reading, my practical mind convinced me to get a third and make sure my research was sound. (After all, I was conducting an experiment to see if it’s possible to heal a mother’s broken heart, and my testing had to be thorough!).
Astrologer #3 echoed everything Astrologers #1 and #2 had said, then took a giant step further.
“In February of 2018, something happened to your family. Saturn moved into your house of home and family. Saturn is not easy and has to do with Karma. Ancestral karma, which is very difficult to break.In thislifetime you decided to break a family cycle without taking a hit yourself.”
His accuracy sent chills through my body.
“Your chart went into a roller coaster in March/April 2018,” he continued. “This only happens once every 84 years, that is why most people don’t experience this. It had to do with your family.”
I told him my son had passed away that very April, and that my great-great grandparents had lost a son Tommy’s age more than a hundred years earlier.
Astrologer #3 wasn’t surprised. To him, our natal charts read like fact. “Like I said, you have ancestral karma that you are trying to clean up. Nothing could have prevented this.”
To spice things up, he then compared my chart with my husband’s and younger son’s. He accurately described their personalities, interests, and strengths, before revealing how grief would impact them in different ways and what might help them move through it. His confidence was reassuring.
When I finally gathered the courage to tell my husband about all three astrology readings and what I’d learned, he responded with silence. He had just opened his mind to the possibility of psychic mediums. Astrology was pushing him too far.
“You have to be mindless to believe in astrology,” a friend of my husband’s said when he heard about my readings a few days later.
It was true that my mind was shut down by grief, and yet…I had never felt smarter in my life.
I wondered why this friend was so judgmental given his lifelong preference for drugs (prescribed or otherwise) that numbed his own emotional pain. But then I remembered that the design of each soul is unique, and my only responsibility was to listen to the fine print of my own.
Healing is an inside job. So is learning and growing and transforming.
If you are looking for answers that the physical world can’t provide and want to know if there is a meta-level roadmap available for guidance, consider splurging on an astrology reading with an expert.
Astrology can’t cure cancer. It doesn’t “heal” our traumas. And it won’t dictate or judge our choices.
But it is full of magic. It does spark curiosity and foster meaningful conversation. And for many, it is a powerful tool to help make sense of who we are and how we are designed.
Plus, one astrology reading costs less than a traditional therapy session. And your natal chart on which it’s based, is guaranteed to be one of a kind and last a lifetime. 🤗
P.S: If you would like to meet Astrologer #3 and learn more about this ancient healing practice, CLICK HERE to watch the LIVE session that I hosted with him last Friday!
