Chart-side Manner: the Crunch

Chart-side Manner: the Crunch

Or in my case, perhaps it should be written:  group-side manner: the
crunch.  Here I am, literally hours after one of the most significant
eclipses I have ever experienced, NOT doing the next lunation reading
because I am hopelessly zonked into James T. Braha's 1989 account of his
formation as an astrologer ( *Astro-Logos - Language of Life*, by James
T. Braha, Hermitician Press, Hollywood, FL: 1989)

It happens ( and happens, and happens, and, ... ,)  I was so TOTALLY
struck by Braha's first interpretive experience, after his intiation
into Jyotish in India, that I had to share it with you.  I will get
around to the lunation reading.  Promise:

_________
quote:
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(From the beginning of ch. III)

Having returned from India and my studies with Santhanam, astrology was
about all I could think of.  If the subject was fascinating to me, it
was even more so to everyone I came into contact with.  So although my
plan of action was to keep to myself and analyze and research as many
charts as possible, the people I was meeting had other ideas.  Everyone,
it seemed, wanted to know what his or her astrological birthchart
"said."  On the plane home from India I had to truly put up a fight in
order to escape astrologizing for one of the flight attendants.  though
I gave her the name of an astrologer in the town she lived in she
insisted, "I want *you* to do it."  I explained as best I could that I
was not yet ready to do that.  It must have seemed terribly strange to
her because in my excitement over the wonderful learning experience I
had just completed I was nearly bouncing off the walls to tell people
the merits of Hindu astrology.  She finally relented and I was off the
hook.  But the relief did not last long.  Shortly thereafter a landlord
I met while apartment hunting also insisted that I interpret his chart. 
Though I again protested that I felt unready to practice for the public
he refused to take no for an answer.  If I would not take his money for
the work, he said, then he would repay me thorugh his professional
activity of haircutting.  Having made the agreement we exchanged
services, and I was off to a running start. The man, to whom I am very
grateful, was thrilled with the reading and spread the word to all his
friends.  When my phone started ringing, I realized I was in business
whether I considered myself ready or not.  

My first professional session.  I painfully asked $45 and was petrified
of charging money for what I considered birthright information.  Though
I certainly had enough knowledge between the two astrological systems
there was no university degree proclaiming me a professional interpreter
of the language of the stars.  More than anything I was concerned that
people would be paying money for information about which a certain
amount would be accurate and a certain amount would not. My
astrologizing was not flawless, especially early on.  The strategy
therefore was to work as diligently as possible on each blueprint in
order to gain as much precision as I could.  I am ashamed to say how
long I labored over the two charts of my first paying customer.

Finally, after some days I felt as ready as I ever would be.  However
because of my fear of inadequacy and the resultant desire for accuracy I
was insenitive to the astrological counseling process.  Rather than
first gaining the client's trust and confidence by gradually providing
her with correct but relatively innocuous information and then
approaching intense issues, I went straight to the point.  "Well, your
life seems to center around love relationships which are quite difficult
because of what happened with your father."  "Well, was his life rough?"
 I asked.  "Did he die very young or leave you and your mother or
something?"  "No, everything was good.  We had a good relationship," she
replied.  "Wait a minute," I interjected, "Was there not something
strange or wierd going on?  *Were_you_not_missing_a_father_emotionally?*
 From analysis of the Hindu chart I knew there was a problem with the
father.  From Western astrology I could see she psychologically had no
father).  "No, everything was fine," she repeated.  "Well are you sure
you've given me the correct birth time," I asked.  "Yes, definitely,"
she said.  "The birth time is accurate.

Panic.  How can astrology work so well for me and my friends and so
poorly now that someone wants to pay me I wondered.  What was odd was
that this particular birthchart would not greatly change unless the
birth time was extremely off, meaning thirty or forty minutes.  Some
charts change drastically with a four- or five-minute discrepancy, but
this was not one of them.  To alter her Hindu chart, which clearly
indicated great suffering at the hands of the father, the time would
have to have been way off.  And she swore it was not!  Since I had no
astrological experience with the general public or as a professional, I
was quite at a loss as to what was happening.  So I simply told her that
the chart did not seem to work and I had no idea why.  She was not
nearly as bothered as I was and asked me to please continue.  There
seemed little point in that.  I had examined both her charts for plenty
of hours and all the data pointed to the same reality.  If the
information I had just presented was inaccurate then there was no reason
to feel confident in anything else that was delineated.  

But strangely she bade me go on so I did.  I continued with the reading
for another twenty or thirty minugtes speaking on different topics of
her life.  It then finally came time to address her home life as a child
in terms of her mother.  Since this was another disaster area about
which the blueprint was truly implicit, I was loathe to put my opinion
forth in fear of being wrong again.  But I wasn't going to lie.  I
meekly stated  "I may be off again, but from the chart it seems your
mother also had a very hard life.  Your relationship with her appears as
difficult as it does with your father." From her reply it became obvious
that interpreting the stars for myself was one thing;  Practicing it for
others was quite another.  "Well," she said, "my mother never had any
time for me.  You see she was always taking care of my father.  He was a
terrible alcoholic." 

Then and there I contemplated drawing a picture of myself strangling a
woman and then saying. "Now look closely.  What's wrong with this
picture?"  But the truth was it was an excellent lesson.  There was much
to be learned from it.  And I was fortunate to have been confronted so
early on.  For one thing, I learned that I would have to decide from the
very start which to trust, astrology and my own experience or the
client's word.  Also, I now realized that from my tongue to another's
ears there coud exist a mind-boggling gap.  Finally, I came to find that
although astrologizing is not therapy or counseling per se, it is
similar in nature.  Thus, to successfully practice the "art" of
astrology is to deeply understand the human experince, to possess the
greatest communicaiton skills, and to appreciate the nature of life
itself.

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end quote
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Braha is one of the pioneer generation of Western Jyotishi.  Like all of
them without exception, he is concerned with taking Jyotish beyond its
traditional Hindu limits.  Any Westerner with a service ethic and/or any
personal integrity about value delivered to a client will have an equal
concern.  

It is impossible to generalize about a subject as vast, and with as many
practitioners as Jyotish.  But for the record, and because of a majority
of mediocre and/or incompetent practitioners, I do it:  In general,
Hindu Jyotish is seriously decadent in terms of contemorary Hindu
culture, and without being revitalized by a new point of view
altogether, it has little of value to offer the West.

Om Tryambakam Yajamahe
Viveshwar