My first years of study of astrology may have been in utero, because while my mother was carrying me she was a student of the renowned astrologer Barbara Waters (“The Astrologer Looks at Murder”, and “What’s Wrong With Your Sun Sign?”) These two Scorpio ladies were discussing my chart in the maternity ward. Later Barbara Waters moved to Washington DC where she taught for many years.

My mother became my first teacher, though I certainly didn’t aspire then to become a professional astrologer. But she taught me well enough that I started doing my friends charts in 1963 when I was 21. Before long I was reading my friend’s mother’s charts. When my friends’ mothers’ friends started coming to my door I thought I’d better start charging them something. I needed a good math teacher in astrology, so once a month I went from Ogunquit Maine to Dorchester Mass so I could take lessons from Dorothea Lynde. She told me she didn’t approve of Sagittarian astrologers (of which I am one!), they took just a few lessons and then thought they knew it all, but she taught me anyway. She taught natal charts, secondary progressions, solar returns and electional charts. Once I had the math down, I quit and went out on my own. Like a Sag.

By 1966 I was teaching astrology to beginners at the YWCA in Portsmouth NH. One day that year, my sister was taking a walk down her country lane when she came upon a mailbox out of which had spilled a bunch of astrology magazines. The name on them read Marcia Moore. So the next day I drove down her long drive to her big shingle house at the edge of the cliffs and knocked on her door. There started a long friendship with Marcia. She and her husband, Mark Douglas, were busy publishing some marvelous volumes on astrology she’d written. I recommend her books to anyone. Through Marcia I met a friend of hers, Margaret Millard M.D., who learned her astrology in England before the War and had a practice in Pediatrics in Maine. She too became a great friend.

In 1969, Gregg Castellucci, Tony Joseph, and I opened a shop in Perkins Cove in Ogunquit for the summer. It was called “The Subtle Arts” because Maine had just rescinded a law outlawing the practice of astrology and any other of “the subtle arts.” Gregg and Tony were my students and very excited to have a way to stay in this great summer resort and support themselves by doing what was closest to their hearts -- astrology. Tony was very excited to meet the famous Marcia Moore and volunteered to index her big book for her -- Astrology; the Divine Science. He was even more excited to meet so many renowned astrologers at her home in Cape Neddick where I helped her to put on soirées. We all had great fun.

In 1972 some friends gave me a ticket they could not use to go to a Joseph Campbell workshop in Biddeford Maine. It was not until 1974 when I discovered Charles Ponce teaching in Maine that I knew what astrological use to make of the myths that Campbell spouted. I followed Campbell around for years, but Charles was even more fabulous and attainable. Dr. Charles Ponce is a neo-Jungian and archetypal psychologist who has published a number of salient books on neo-Jungian topics. He became my teacher and mentor and I took every class he taught for the next 10 years. That’s where I began to see that myths were in horoscopes.

While in his dream interpretation class, one of my classmates, whose chart I had just read, had a dream in which she picked up a hitch-hiker in a new van her father had just given her. When he showed her a golden button on the dash and told her she did not have to drive on the ground she then pushed it and flew off into the air!

Dr Ponce said “Ah ha! You have dreamt of a God! And it is apparent he will travel with you for a while!

“Who is he?” she asked.

“He is Hermes, the God of the open road,” he said.

I thought, “Of course she would pick up Hermes! She’s a Gemini! And Hermes is the Greek equivalent of Mercury, which is her ruling planet.”

Two weeks later this woman began stealing from department stores and giving the goods to poor people who could not afford to buy them. This was in 1974 and she suffered from what was then called “middle class guilt where those who’d been raised in privilege thought they owed a dept to the have-nots of the world. She stole winter coats for kids, mechanics tools for guys out of work, cooking pots for moms who couldn’t even afford Salvation Army stuff, and toys for kids at Christmas.

“Charles!” I said. “Sylvie has become Robin Hood. She’s been stealing from big stores and giving stuff they need to poor people! And I just did her chart. She was born with 4 degrees of Cancer rising. And by secondary progression, this year her progressed Sun has come to the degree of her ascendant! Her Sun is 10 degrees of Gemini at birth so she’s become the “Heroic Thief!” I’d just read a book on the “heroic Sun.” (Hermes is called “The Sacred Thief!”)

“No kidding!” he says.

“But that means myths are in horoscopes!” I said.

“Of course!” he said.

“But I want to know about this. Where can I learn about it?” I asked.

“I don’t think there have been any books written on it,” he said. “You’ll have to learn myth.”

“O.K.,” I said. “What myths?”

“All of them,” he said.

“O.K. But which mythologists?” I asked.

“All of them,” he said.

“But that will take 10 years,” I whined.

It did. And it included learning naked eye astronomy and learning which myths the ancient Greeks associated with which Signs. It soon became apparent that the constellations north and south of the Zodiac had been compressed at some point in time into the Zodiac itself. It wasn’t the Crab which loved to eat, it was the Bear above it. It wasn’t the Scales that were emblematic of Marriage but the Bridal Crown of Ariadne above them. It wasn’t the Ram that was the dangerous opponent but the Shark below it. It wasn’t the Centaur that contained the Sagittarian religious impulse, it was the Harp of Heaven above it. It now appeared that once there had been a whole mythic sky that enriched the indicators of destiny, and it appeared that the mythic elements of the non-Zodiacal constellations had been inserted into the meanings of the twelve Signs. But what if we could recover the older sky? And there by personalize the myths that Campbell said we were living?

I did learn all of the Greek sky and all of the Greek mythology. I finally knew the stars themselves as well. By 1985 I had a portfolio of Greek myths for every Sign. I knew at least 4 Virgo myths and a number of myths for the constellations above and below Virgo. And this was so for all of the other Signs as well. Unfortunately it then became apparent that not everyone lived a Greek myth. So I began to learn other skies -- many of which were much less accessible to those born outside of their cultures.

To date I have some knowledge of Lakota Skies and Myths as well as Wabanaki Skies and Myths. I am still learning Aztec Skies and Myths, as well as Chinese Skies and Mythology. African Skies are harder to come by and European Sky traditions are evident in some places but most were violently expunged during Christian conversions from pagan traditions. I pretty much leave Vedic skies to Vedic astrologers although from what we -- students and I -- have investigated, the Hindus, like so many other peoples, forsook their old chaotic sky stories for a schematized sky as did the Greek and Roman astrologers so long ago.

I have learned of the evidence that the ZODIAC was NOT invented in the Middle East around 4,000 years ago. Some of the constellations, including some of the Zodiac constellations have been discovered painted upon the walls and ceilings of cave is Spain and France 20,000 years ago! I have written a little about this in my book Sticks and Stones; Naked-Eye Astronomy and Paleolithic Astrology, 2002, self-published.

I know I can never learn all that there is to know of myth and the sky and astrology -- but I keep at it. Today I have students who are aching to know how to discover which of the gods or goddesses has us in his or her grip. Every Summer I hold a week long Summer School in Maine. The stars are big and bright in Maine, too, you know.

For my students I am writing a text on Myth, Astrology, Astronomy and You! I am also included in two anthologies now in print. One is Communicating the Horoscope, ed Noel Tyl, Llewellyn Books 1993, and the other is Under One Sky, ed Rafael Nasser, Seven Paws Press, 2004. In addition I continue to work on a book called Goddess in the Sky; Mythology in the Lives of Women. In this book I illustrate the mythic pattern in the lives of such women as Princess Diana, Maya Angelou, Audrey Hepburn, Gladys Aylward, Maria von Trapp, Marie Curie, Tori Amos and so forth.

I am asking each of my students to write about some famous individual and the divinity who has him or her in hand. We plan to submit these for publication within the year. I’ll be happy to let you know when the results of the work of over 40 years comes out. Meantime I can share bits with you like Ceres and Demeter on September 24 at the Belmont Library courtesy of the NCGR and the wonderful astrologer members who make it possible.

Thanks, Wendy