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The one thing about which we are all experts is ourselves,
but we tend not to trust our own opinions. No sooner do we
pose the question Who am I? than we go scurrying off to look
for answers somewhere else. Many people turn to psychiatry,
others pore over religious texts, but perhaps the most popular
of all is to look for the answers in the stars.
Over the June 15 weekend the National Council for Geocosmic
Research held its annual conference at Hunter College. It
was a gathering of astrologers from across the country. When
I arrived on Saturday morning a group of them were standing
together drinking coffee and talking shop. A handsome middle-aged
man described his approach to column-writing: "Light,
tight and bright!"
The more serious business of the conference kicked off in
the lecture hall with a broad overview of American history
as seen from the astrological perspective. The lecturer, Rob
Hand, slid an astrological chart onto an overhead projector
and pointed to the position of Pluto in 1702, noting, "The
Pluto return occurs right after World War II, when it is abundantly
clear that Russia and the United States are the only remaining
superpowers." Heads nodded.
Hand had the jokey, self-confident manner of a high school
science teacher. He closed his speech with an analysis of
current events, most particularly the 9/11 tragedy. "The
fundamental meaning of this period in time is how do we respond
to it. If we respond to it inappropriately, then 2030-2031
could be a major catastrophe on a world scale. It could even
be the collapse of the United States. Which, frankly, I don’t
see. But then, whoever does see these things coming on?"
Who indeed? At first I thought Hand was just hedging his bets,
but later I came to the conclusion that professional astrologers
are, on the whole, a remarkably unassuming bunch. They may
have knowledge of the heavens but it is not a special knowledge
and they have no desire to beat you over the head with it.
After the lecture I sat down with Shelley Ackerman, one of
the conference speakers, and asked her about the predictive
power of astrology.
"It’s not really about prediction," she said.
"Astrology, for me anyway, is ultimately about aligning
yourself with the will of the cosmos and understanding what
your role is and how does it correlate with the universe.
Some people just want to know when to get married and when
to buy a shirt, but it really evolved in terms of understanding
people."
Ackerman is a funny, lively woman with big blonde curls and
the ease of a natural storyteller. She is often told she looks
like Bette Midler, but she dislikes the comparison. "As
a matter of fact, the first time I met Bette Midler, on my
18th birthday, she wanted to know my sign and my chart. She
was a Sadge [Sagittarius], of course…"
I asked Ackerman how she became an astrologer. She said she
never expected to. The daughter of a rabbi, she grew up on
the Lower East Side and always wanted to be a performer.
"I went to the High School of Music and Art and it was
wonderful. Did you ever see the movie Fame? That was my life…
My earliest memory of astrology was, I think, age 13, when
I picked up a little pop book. I knew I was a Libra, but then
I read about my moon being in the sign Capricorn. I remember
reading: ‘You are ultimately guaranteed success, but
it will come later in life.’ Now, for an ambitious 13-year-old
bursting with talent, to read that success will come later
in life was about as big a blow as you can imagine."
After high school Ackerman worked at the Improv as a singing
waitress and began to develop a nightclub career. "So
anyway, during the 70s and 80s I was doing a lot of cabaret
work. I did tv, movies, but then there was a real crisis around
1990. All of a sudden, after all the work I did, nothing was
happening. People would ask me to do their charts all the
time, but I wouldn’t do it because I didn’t want
the responsibility. So then in the summer of 1992, a friend
of mine invited me to his condo in Montauk. After being on
the ocean for three days and detoxing from all the sound of
the sirens and traffic, I heard the ocean speak to me…"
I had told Ackerman I was a skeptic. She hesitated. "Now
I know you’re going to have a field day with this, but
I don’t care." She grabbed my tape recorder and
yelled a string of good-natured obscenities directly into
the microphone before continuing.
"Anyway, I heard the ocean tell me to go to Gurney’s,
which is a big spa in Montauk, and ask if they needed an astrologer.
It was kind of an undeniable voice that overcame me, but I
wanted to dismiss it. Then I went across the street and a
woman had a boutique there and I started asking her birthday
and we started chatting and she goes, ‘You know, you
should go to Gurney’s and see if they need an astrologer.’
And I said okay, that’s it. I put my hands up and I went
there and the rest, as they say, is history. Within weeks
I had a client base, and the very people I would have cut
my arms and legs off to audition for were lined up at my table
for readings. So it was humbling. The universe wanted me to
meet these people, not as a girl tap-dancing her way into
America’s heart, but as an adviser."
Ackerman paused to reflect. "For me, astrology gave me
the permission to be quirky. I have Sun square Uranus, and
that means that all those years of growing up and not fitting
in I wasted time feeling bad. If I’d understood at age
four that I was never going to fit in, it would have been
easier."
I returned to the conference on the following day to watch
Ackerman moderate a panel discussion on the Middle East. "Hey,
the politicians can’t solve it, why not give the astrologers
a shot?" Prior to the panel discussion she asked if I
was still a skeptic and I said I was. She said, "Well,
even though you came here to have a big laugh, I hope you
leave with a different sense of it."
Certainly I did. Two floors below the astrology conference,
in the same building, a large church group had gathered to
perform its children’s ministry. The beaming, empty faces
of the girls with their Bibles were much spookier than anything
Ackerman believes in. If people insist on seeking answers,
they could do worse than ask the stars.
Volume 15, Issue 27
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