TRANG: Hey guys! It's Trang from The Happy Healing Shop today. I have a really special guest with us, SunGoddess Ashley, a professional Vedic astrologer. Today we're going to talk about what is Vedic Astrology and the difference between Western and Vedic Astrology. Ashley, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into astrology?
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: I'm a professional psychic and Vedic astrologer. I got into astrology because I was interested in learning about personalities and psychology. It really mixes spirituality with the psychological aspect, so that was the original draw. I've been studying it for about 13 years.
TRANG: How would you describe astrology a nutshell to someone who is brand new to it and does not know and has never heard of it before?
SUN GODDESS ASHLEY: Yeah that's a great question. So astrology is basically the study of time and the movement of the stars and how the movement of the stars and the planets affect us. It talks a lot about our personality characteristics and the movement forward for our future and past. Basically everything is really written in this blueprint of the Stars. It's a beautiful tapestry of the night sky that we interpret for how it relates to us.
TRANG: So what are exactly the main differences in Vedic Astrology and Western Astrology? Do you have a preference between those?
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: I do have a preference. The main difference basically between Western astrology and Vedic astrology is tropical (Western) astrology is seasonal based and Vedic astrology is constellation or star-based. The basic terms are the tropical system versus the sidereal system. My preference is Vedic Astrology using the sidereal system of the stars because it is a more accurate calculation of measurements of the sky. Western astrology is solar-based, so where people would ask, “What is my sun sign? If I'm a Gemini or Leo or whatever based upon the Sun and its position in the tropical zodiac.” Vedic astrology is lunar-based so it adheres to a lunar calendar, and you do take into account the Sun and the Moon signs as well, but there are both.
TRANG: What examples would Vedic Astrology be better? Like for example, if people want to know more about predictions or their future, does that mean Western astrology can't really do that? Whereas Vedic Astrology is more of the right type for that?
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: Both systems actually do predictions based upon transits but since Vedic astrology is a little bit more accurate, you will have more accurate results, and there's a different rulership system as well, so we don't use the outer planets. For example, Uranus Neptune and Pluto are not typically planets that we use, but in tropical astrology, we do that.
TRANG: How does astrology work? When a client comes in, how do you go about structuring a reading?
SUN GODDESS ASHLEY: The first thing I'll take is their birth information, so birth date, location, city, state, and accurate time of day, and then I'll draw up a chart on my astrology software. The days are long gone where we have to do them by hand, so I'm so thankful for astrology software to be able to calculate that. I think there's just a lot of math involved that you have to have more additional training for, but it's really simple so if you have the appropriate software you can input the client’s information and then it yields the chart. I'm trained to learn how to interpret that.
TRANG: Do you have to know the birth time? Because I know a couple of friends are like “Oh I have everything, I know where I'm born. I just don't know what time I was born.”
SUN GODDESS ASHLEY: Right so that's actually really common—not everybody knows when their exact birth time is. Or they have an approximation or they're not able to ask their mother for whatever reason or it's just not on their birth certificate. Some hospitals don't have it printed, so in that case, you can still do an astrology chart. It’s called the Chandra lagna chart, so you put the moon on the ascendant and you read from the moon, so that as if the moon were the rising sign.
TRANG: So what are some misconceptions people have about astrology? For example, someone might say, “Oh I'm a Gemini, but I just don't identify with my other friends that are also Gemini’s.” Or for example: Mercury retrograde—you hear that about all the time and people are like “Shit is hitting the fan!” and that kind of stuff.
SUN GODDESS ASHLEY: So it is a little true and it's a little not true. So that's actually part of the beauty of life is, that going to any extremes where something's completely bad or completely wonderful isn't really the truth, so you always have to take transit, for example, mercury retrograde with a grain of salt. So there are good things that you should do during a Mercury retrograde. You can use that to your benefit. It doesn't mean that everything is falling apart but there are certain things that you don't want to do like sign contracts, or really begin anything new. It's kind of a time for going back to the past and undoing things. So it's good for one thing, and not really good for others. So, I feel like it's not that everything bad happens during this time, and also with the other thing that you mentioned with being your sun sign as a Gemini. For example with people if they're like, “I don't really resonate with that”, usually because the difference between these two systems, they are about one full sign-off, so if you're looking at things sideareally, you would be maybe a Taurus instead of a Gemini s you’d be more earthy. That's it's just based on your Sun Sign, and there's so much more to your astrological chart than just your Sun Sign. You actually have to take into account what is your rising sign, what is your moon sign because it'll show you the nature of the person by the ascendant. The personality characteristics are actually really more seen from the ascendant and in the moon. So that might be a reason as to why someone doesn't really vibe with their sign as much or what they think their sign might be. It might yield a completely different chart than what they're used to seeing.
TRANG: So you've probably read hundreds of charts by now. What are the
most common questions people would ask you in a reading?
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: Yeah, actually the most common questions are something that we all connect to in our life just as being a human. We want to know about our relationships and want to know about our career and then an offshoot of that would be money with the career, and then all different types of relationships. So not just romantic relationships but friendships, family, sometimes health. Actually, people want to know about that, but those are the most common topics that people want to know about and they always want to know when: “When am I gonna get the promotion?”, “When should I leave a job?”, When am I gonna start a new job?” and “When am I going to be in a relationship?”, “When will I get married?”. So astrology is a really good tool to look at the forecast of someone's timeline for those when-questions. So those are the most, I think, popular questions that people ask.
TRANG: At the Happy Healing Shop, we have all types of readings, like tarot readings mediumship readings and whatnot, so how can astrology help a person? How have you seen this in your clients?
SUN GODDESS ASHLEY: Oh well, astrology is really great for guidance and it shows people's strengths their weaknesses or things that they can improve on. It gives guidance for business, relationships, love, and everything like that, but it's really for people who want to further understand themselves on a deeper level. So when you really understand yourself that's when the healing really begins.
TRANG: Also another thing I just want to mention here, is that people don't realize in astrology you can also find the charts for the life or a progression of even a business product or just launches and stuff like that. So one thing that businesses don't know about is that you can use it to pinpoint what time of the day would be great for a product launch. You told me there was like—was it that iPhone they released it and the time where there was like a lot of malfunctioning and you know where the phone caught and fire or whatever because it was released on an eclipse.
SUN GODDESS ASHLEY: I think there was the Samsung phones that caught fire, but yeah but the iPhone was launched on an eclipse and generally that's not really an auspicious time when the luminaries the Sun in the sky goes dark. You don't really want that or the moon. For example, when the moon goes dark, you don't want that either. Natal charts aren't just specific for people—they also can be drawn up for events. Everything has a birth. There's a birth of a product, a birth of an idea, a birth of a certain action that you want to take in life, so everything has a natal chart. It's not just really confined to a person. So if you want to find a good date for the launch of your business or for doing something important, that's when you would draw up a chart to find the best possible time for things.
TRANG: With a lot of these people that come into readings that are new to astrology or never had an astrology reading, I'm sure you get a lot of people who are nervous because they don't know what to expect. How would you tell people how they should be mentally come, or any pieces of advice?
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: So I think this really falls under like part of the misconceptions that people have about astrology, especially in Vedic Astrology. I think traditionally it does kind of have a bad rap for being really negative, and also a little bit fatalistic. We do have free will, as well as destiny so there are certain times in our life where things are supposed to be lessons or whatever, that our souls signed up for, but how we respond to these lessons really indicates our level of free will so that's that part is really empowering to the person knowing that I have a choice on what I really can do or how I respond to whatever is happening in my life. I think the nervousness really just stems from fear of the unknown or like “What if you're gonna tell me something terrible that I can't handle?”. With any good reader, they're going to have a certain level of personal skills or counseling skills basically. You don't want to tell people something that is gonna scare them as it's not kind or helpful. So sharing information that's helpful to the person and done in a way that's very considerate and respectful. There's kind of a bad rap just in general for psychics, not just astrologers, that want to sell you things. So people will tell you that going but a curse and you've got to pay $300 to get rid of it. The same applies for astrologers: if they tell you that you need to buy expensive gemstones or things like that. There are certain remedies that you can do for things in your chart to strengthen the energy that doesn't require a ton of money.
TRANG: So you mentioned free will. I get this asked a lot, but how much does free will play into our lives and how much does destiny and fate play into our lives?
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: I've heard that there's a thing called Shiva's curse. Basically the curse on astrologers to not know everything and it's not really a curse. It's actually a blessing because who would really want to know everything? It's not our responsibility as humans to know God's job to do God's job right, so the fact if you can predict accurately 75%-80% percent of the time that's like an amazing reader because we do have free will and I feel like within that Shiva's curse that theory or that concept, there's about 70% percent fate and 30% percent free will, so whether that's proveable or not is up for discussion. I feel like at certain times people have a little bit more fated things that happen and sometimes they have a little bit more free will. It just depends on what is going on in their chart. It depends on their chart in general, so you can't really say that thing is just one way for everybody.
TRANG: And what type of people do you recommend to or actually not recommend astrology to?
SUNG GODDESS ASHLEY: Yeah I think exactly the closed-mindedness skeptics people; they just want to challenge you, or the know-it-alls as well. It's like when you're giving a reading you don't want someone to do the reading for themselves basically. So I've had those experiences: it's like well why are you asking me for my opinion, you know? but I think not everyone is like that. The vast majority of people are just really curious and they want to know what you have to say and they're looking for guidance in their lives so I think being open-minded to the information that comes out and usually a reading is not going to be too off of what you feel is really going on in your life. It's not gonna hit you out of left field. So again kind of going along that nervousness that people have with the reading, they're afraid that you're going to tell them the sky is falling when it's clearly not, so it's not going to be too much off from their current circumstances.
TRANG: Yeah, I've seen my friends and I go to readings with Ashley and she says things that definitely are particular with that person and resonates with them, and again it doesn't come out left field. It's just more of like people are usually stunned by what the chart shows and they're like “Yep that's me, that's me.”
SUN GODDESS ASHLEY: Yeah I think that a picture really speaks a thousand words. When you're looking at a chart, you get an image of where all the planets are located in the sky, but it's really up to the astrologer to explain a picture well. If you just say, “Oh it's red. Well, what shade of red is it? You know, does it have different hues? Does it have different tones?” So the art of interpretation is really just good communication skills. So in addition to being an astrologer, I'm also a psychic so a lot of the messages that I get are downloaded or I just have a very strong intuition about something so it is a blend of logic and intuition.
TRANG: So if our person is looking for an astrologer what advice or tips would you give them? (ie. these are red flags, this is a warning do not go to them as it is a scam)? Sometimes there are stories that are really heartbreaking, where people feel lost in life and they just want to see and get some guidance, and then they get swindled.
SUN GODDESS ASHLEY: Yeah I feel like when people are going for a reading, whether it's astrology reading, a tarot card reading, a palm reading, whatever that is they're being vulnerable. They're opening themselves up to somebody and a lot of times there are dishonest people that can prey on people's fears, so I think going back to what we said before: someone's trying to sell you things or it feels like a very salesperson, then that would be a red flag. If someone's just not kind or they don't sound like they know what they're talking about or if there's no proof or evidence if they can't explain basically like justify your reasoning, that's another red flag. I think just go with your gut everybody has intuition, so if someone doesn't feel right it probably isn't it.
TRANG: Okay, so for those who are looking to dive in and who wants to learn more about astrology, are there any like courses online or any books that you recommend?
SUN GODDESS ASHLEY: YouTube is a good place for starting out. I think there are a lot of resources. Again I am a Vedic astrologer so I would recommend any professional Vedic astrologer out there basically following them, buying their books. There's just a lot of resources online. I don't know if I would recommend anyone specifically because this is my field and I don't want to play favorites, but it can be a beautiful journey too if people want to discover for themselves what's out there, and you can find who they resonate with and the astrologers’ teaching style.
TRANG: Well, thanks so much for sharing all your wisdom today and teaching us all about Vedic astrology! You can find Sun Goddess Ashley through actually one of our services at The Happy Healing Shop. Where can people find you on social media?
SUN GODDESS ASHLEY: Thank you so much for having me. I love doing this for you guys. You can find me on Instagram at Sun Goddess Astrology or Sun Goddess Ashley and YouTube at Sun Goddess Ashley.
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