Hudson Valley Astrologer

“Maman died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can’t be sure.”

The Stranger, Albert Camus

Money is an outsized driver in the pursuit of job fulfillment, whether that fulfillment is imagined, or otherwise, already a work in progress. Of the 160 million people shlepping and grinding their lives away only a small percentage are financially independent, which for me is defined as “working because I want to, not because I have to…”

So, if I were financially independent what would I do? Let me circle back to that question after a brief sidebar.

Money dominates the decision process regarding career and vocational options, whether it’s about how much money there is to potentially make or how secure the income is perceived to be, yet only 5% of the labor force earns in excess of $250,000. That figure moves to 7% if we use combined incomes of married persons. Bringing household income down into the $150,000 range only nudges the percentage up to 15% of households. 85% of Americans make less than this threshold which quickly becomes “living month to month” the further we get from the threshold.

To put your odds into perspective, statistically, if 100 people sat in a room to listen to a lecture on the Midheaven Extension Process, which is a brilliant approach to analyzing the Vocational Profile of a person using the Natal Chart in Astrology, only 7 of those in attendance, on average, would achieve $250,000 in income. 93 of those in attendance would not (they’d receive less).

My digression points to the obvious fact that for most people the very premise of a “dream job” falls into the fantasy bucket. For 93% of the workforce we live some version of the corporate dystopian life depicted by Adam Scott’s character, Mark, in the hit series Severance, the #1 show streaming on Apple.

Season 2 just launched but I haven’t gotten through Season 1 yet. My wife and I started watching when Severance originally launched but we couldn’t stay with it because “nothing happened.” The meaninglessness and alienation portrayed in the show perhaps sending the message that the absurdity of it all is, in some way, a little too real. Painful!

The math suggests that the odds are we will not find fulfillment in our dream jobs, nor the money that comes along with finding that job if it exists. But interestingly, even finding our path, AND the money, is no guarantee of finding fulfillment. This is why I think that a Vocational Analysis is likely the most essential and important astrological tool any astrologer can have in their toolbox.

I say this at the risk of sounding like an employee from the Macro Data Refinement department [Severance reference] working for the “algo,” sorting and “taming” the symbols I see on the screen into one of “four tempers,” or emotional buckets: melancholy, joy, fear, and anger. In the show individual emotional intuition is elevated as a skill, and praised as a talent in the job of sorting. But the thread is lost by the “good employee” who doesn’t connect their compartmentalized role within the company to the larger context of the company’s role in society (individual purpose has been exploited).

Astrologers are guilty of this sort of bias when they fall prey to a “this means that” analysis, relating life to the horoscope (sorting), instead of relating the horoscope to the life being lived. Lumon wants employees, and everybody else, to fit into predetermined categories, “The Four Tempers”, or personality types. As an astrologer, if I do that I am constraining a person based on what I know about astrology, and not counseling them based on what I know of life, giving a nod to the Indeterminate, respecting uncertainty. Lumon’s approach is more about absolute of control, coercion, and perhaps exploitation of employees than it is about growth. The quasi-religious figure Kier Eagan is revered, mythologized and deified as a nearly omniscient leader.

I started watching Severance again and was taken in this time. But I couldn’t help reflecting back to the time I read The Stranger by Albert Camus. Although Mark has this uncanny resemblance to Tom Cruise, which I saw on reddit is a thing, my doppelgänger comparison is to Meursault, the protagonist in Camus’ novel. They say misery loves company, but this phrase gets turned inside out by the existentialists who produced Severance. They might say innies love corporate, or better said innies love alienation. This is a heavy watch people. Dysfunctional SATURN power at its worst.

I hope that Severance does a season that parodies network marketing, which is even more absurdist than the cult of corporatism, held together not by money but the hope of money. It’s a cynical take! But facts are stubborn things.

So, circling back as promised, what would I do if the money were no object? First, let me say what I wouldn’t do: I wouldn’t fake engagement with colleagues just to win a waffle party!

I want to help people.

I am more of Social Worker than a salesman. There are a thousand pathways to help people. Selling something, solutions to problems people don’t really have, is not my idea of a dream job. In my experience sales is more aligned with the MDR. So, not for me. As I said, I’m a helper!

More than 90% of people report job satisfaction when they have access to mental health resources like counseling, so it would seem to me that social work is not only good work, but that it could be profitable for companies, simply by humanizing the work environment. Alienation within the workforce is ‘real’ but it’s also a privileged problem, relatively speaking, say as compared to victims of human trafficking or the prison inmate populations, two areas within society where social workers do god’s work, instead of playing god. Having a job that is dehumanizing might feel constraining but things could be a lot worse. But helping those feel more human despite their circumstances certainly seems more attractive than a stack of waffles.

I think my dream job would involve having discussions with anyone suffering from the dehumanizing effects of whatever institution has its hook in them, and to talk about another way, and the path to get there. I’m not so much interested in the “dream job” as a “fantasy bucket.” I am more interested in being of service, to realizing my aspirations as a counselor and guide, for a better life, yes for myself, because I am living with purpose, but also for my clients (helping), and the ones I love (providing). I ask myself all the time how can I contribute to my/our/your sense of worth and value? I don’t mean to suggest appropriating the community service mantra as a way of resume building, or increasing the corporate share price of the corporation with a positive ESG score. My intention is to suggest that there is value in being able to SEE beyond the dream and make it real.

I am an ASTROLOGER rooted in the reality of the world! Connecting the cosmos to the lived experience in a way that encourages self understanding is my mission. It is by the act of seeing that things change, like a search light that transforms itself through whatever it illuminates, we become who we are meant to be, realizing our potential, through our chosen direction, and by embracing our purpose. Helping clients clarify their personal vision, and assisting them in recognizing their authentic selves, is about as close to living the dream as it gets for me.

HVA

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