Chart Synthesis ✦ Dawn Bodrogi ✦ The Inner Wheel
I’m going to confess something here that I have never heard a professional astrologer confess before. I have intermittent crises of faith. Not in astrology itself — oh, no. Astrology tracks me down and shakes sense back into me whenever I have the audacity to turn away from her. I have had too many ah-ha moments where astrology has explained in a flash what would otherwise have been a spaghetti bowl of conjecture and misunderstanding.
Updated
More data isn’t better data. The temptation to accumulate minor aspects, asteroids, and secondary charts can produce a kind of analytical paralysis — a chart reading that explains everything and therefore clarifies nothing. The rule of three remains our most reliable filter. It asks us to look for what the chart keeps returning to, what it insists upon across multiple layers. That insistence is where the soul’s primary intention lives.
My crises with astrology have to do with the practice of it. Helping someone learn to use astrology as a tool is very rewarding. Why, then, is this so much different from giving a standard consultation for someone who is not at all versed in astrological symbolism? Our job is to make the pathway more clear. Do we do this well enough? We have all had clients we just couldn’t reach. Those sessions can haunt us for years. Why didn’t I get through? What did I miss?
The Rule of Three: Transcending the Noise
I propose going back to an idea that Tracy Marks once put forward: the rule of three. If something can be explained by three different occurrences in a chart, then that issue is an important one to the client.
If I have Mercury in the eighth house, Moon in Scorpio, and Pluto in the fourth — that natural secrecy is a core theme that will lead to specific life patterns. Three independent confirmations. That is what makes it load-bearing rather than incidental.
Likewise, if my Mars is in Pisces, my Sun is conjunct Jupiter in the 12th, and Neptune is squaring Venus — Neptune’s influence is widespread. Those issues will be the ones I need to grasp in order to make any sense of my life.
“Information that can be used as a tool is a powerful thing. Information for its own sake is not.”
— Dawn Bodrogi
The Triple Threat: Age, Experience, and Orientation
Another set of threes is Age, Experience, and Spiritual Orientation. It’s impossible to know from a chart how much life experience a client has had. Sometimes clients come to an astrologer because an old mode of expression is outgrown — they are ready to move on into new territory. It would be a mistake to focus on areas the client is already familiar with — focusing on the untried and unfamiliar would prove more fertile ground.
No consultation is guaranteed. But it’s up to us to keep a check on how we communicate what we know. Important knowledge, intelligently presented, can aid a client for a lifetime.
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The Foundations Book by Dawn Bodrogi
The rule of three is one of the core principles in Dawn’s approach to chart synthesis — the full methodology for moving from a list of placements to a coherent, useful reading is laid out in her Foundations Book.
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If the chart keeps returning to the same theme across three independent layers — that is where the soul’s primary intention lives.
HI, Dawn, I love this post. It’s important that professionals take an honest look at their practice, no matter how long they’ve been doing it. An intelligent dialogue on how we deal with clients in the consultation hour is very fruitful. Donna
Oh, and I’d love to have you as a guest blogger on my site Skywriter, reprinting this piece with your bio and links to this site. I post for readers of all levels, and so I do include articles meant for the professional. (And, I also have an article about the rule of three there.) Donna
Donna, I would be honoured to have this article reprinted. I’m glad you enjoyed it. I encourage everyone to visit Donna’s site at: skywriter.wordpress.com She has something of interest for everyone there.
When I read, “New astrologers often forget that it’s okay to ask questions. It’s the only way you can learn what matters right now.” I thought that’s what Donna Cunningham says as well.
Dawn, I just sent a link to your blog to Donna: I see now that was not necessary :)