Astrological Repair Manual

Introduction
My relationship with astrology began like many relationships do—just minding
my own business when she came along, knocked me out, and dragged me off to her lair.
I was studying graphic art at San Francisco City College and the instructor had the
audacity to show us some Japanese paintings, while extolling the way they showed so
much with just a few strokes of the brush.
I was impressed and went and bought a book called The Way of Chinese Painting,
figuring that Chinese painting couldn’t be all that different from Japanese. I quickly found
out that “The Way” in the title meant Tao, the closest they seemed to get to what I called
God. What I thought was only a book of technique turned out to also be a book about the
world-view that informed the technique.
Tao led me to a book called the I Ching—a world-view expressed through a
seemingly simplistic graphical representation of the world.
The I Ching led to Tarot cards which made me study astrology. Within about six
months, I’d gone from meaningful brush strokes on paper to meaningful glyphs in the
sky. It would take years—like many relationships—to discover the underlying reason I’d
gotten involved in the first place—to realize that oriental art, the I Ching, Tarot and
astrology all used symbols to help humans decipher meaning in their lives. None of them
were much good at portraying (or, predicting) actual events, no matter how much folks
thought they did.
Now, all these years and tears later, it's time for me to repair some perceptions
people have.
I’m focusing on astrology because its system of symbols is capable of revealing
more meaning than the others, with the possible exception of those brush strokes on
paper...
This is not a book about the technical, how-to aspects of astrology, although there
is a list of web sites at the end that will help you if you’re so inclined. Plus, you'll find a
method for determining the positions of your birth chart factors and a system that will
start you on the road to interpreting them for yourself! Books Two and Three (once
they're written) will take my method further but in this book you'll be directed to a Web
Forum that will help you deepen and extend your abilities in interpreting your life.
This book is what I wish I could have read before I got all caught up in the usual
approach to learning and using astrology. If I’d known then what I know now, I could
have saved myself years of misunderstanding and pain. My current understanding of
astrology is so much deeper and higher than it was even five years ago, let alone when I
began my studies. She's a much finer mate than I ever could have imagined in those
intoxicating early days.
I'll be showing you many things that won't be spelled out completely in these
pages. I will give good directions to places you can use to find those full explanations,
though. My goal is to give you the most important Perceptions—the underlying positive
assumptions that you'll need to thrive and prosper in the truly amazing Realm of
Astrology. What you can expect to gain from reading this book is my hard-won
knowledge of the truth about astrology—it cannot predict the future of events but it has
the potential to show you a rich world of beautiful Meaning; past, present and future!
Truth be told, someone could read The Instructions of this book and have the
largest part of the most "practical" information here. I do hope most of you will read the