If you do not have your birth time on a birth certificate or hospital record, look through personal records, baby books, family religious books or other important family documents, contact the hospital or vital records department from where you were born, or even order a copy (the Long Form Version if they have it) if your birth certificate from your state.

If all else fails, ask parents or relatives about the details of your birth in attempt to get an at least vague timing (which is very helpful) for instance:

“You were born sometime in the morning”

“…right after evening chores”

“…in the evening”

“…during the 1994 Winter Olympics opening ceremony”

We can still get plenty of useful information from your chart! We will lose some specificity, and some timing techniques will be out of reach. That being said, there is PLENTY to work with outside of the houses. Most people in the history of people have not known their birth time. We can do it!

Another option is a process of reverse engineering the birth time called Rectification. An experienced astrologer can compare the timing of important life events with your natal chart to validate the rising sign. I recommend both Catherine Urban, Patrick Watson, and Cameron Cassidy for this service.

Please click and follow these instructions if you are new to Zoom video conferencing. Do not hesitate to email me with questions at aligninglightastro@gmail.com. If worse comes to worse, we just use the phone!

I offer a sliding scale at the following rates:

• $90-$120 USD for 75 minutes

• $60 - $90 USD for 60 minutes

• $45-$60 USD for 45 minutes

Available for those who are struggling to meet basic financial needs or/and:

have experienced or face systematic or other oppression or violence due to gender, race, religion, place of origin, sexual orientation, are living with disability, immigrants or displaced people, victims of the the US prison-industrial system, victims of the US military-industrial complex, single parents, sex workers, those affected by care-giver burden, those in poverty or struggling with basic needs, or of any other marginalized identity not mentioned here.

• No questions asked, and no need to provide proof of income.

• I offer a sliding scale because I believe astrology is such a helpful tool that it should be accessible to everyone, and it is also my opportunity to give back using the skills I have, and support social equity.

• If you are a financially-stable (not struggling with basic needs) white person, or a white person with health care or education paid for by your government, please consider paying full price to allow me to offer this scale sustainably to those most in need, and to center those with fewer privileges.

• If you are considering using the sliding scale due to financial hardship and are unsure how much to pay, check out this model by Alexis Cunningfolk to help decide.

Email me at aligninglightastro@gmail.com requesting a sliding scale session, and I’ll create a unique discount code for you to book on this website.

We can record the session so you don’t have to memorize everything we say. However if you don’t want a recording, that’s ok, too. I delete all recordings after 1 month, so please download within that month, otherwise the recording will be lost.

I’m a rather informal person with very formal training. I take my work seriously, but I also like to be relaxed. I spent decades of my life being in serious, stiff, professional situations that lacked warmth and humanity in many instances (not of my choice). I embrace being soft and casual now, and I hope you will embrace being casual with me as well. It doesn’t mean our work isn’t serious or precise. If you can hold space for both sides of this coin, we’re going to have a great session! No expectations, only possibilities!

I use metaphor, myth, and good old conversation and question-asking in the course of my readings.

I stop a lot through out the session to ask for questions or concerns.

I can be a little high-energy, but do my best to meet people where they are that day. You will never walk out of a reading with me feeling like you did not get enough information.

I can predict the future in archetypal terms, not tell the future in specific terms. E.g. If I see conflict in the future, depending on other factors it could be a sporting match or a verbal fight, or a family playing a competitive board game. I need the client to share their context to sort out the most probable manifestations. We co-create meaning as a team.

I can give us an idea of general quality and probability of various events. For instance, I am not going to tell you that the love of your life “will surely arrive this month and year”. I am not that powerful of a seer. But I can tell you “this is a good year to put yourself out there for love because your chances are better”. This is where hearing about your life context can really help, to see which of the possibilities most likely in your life.

Also, I am not here to tell you who you are, but I can help cultivate acceptance for who you already know you are. I can provide another perspective on you from this ancient lens, but you still know you best.

I am not here to tell you what you should do. The information or insight gained in the session is meant to help validate or clarify the understanding of self, or guide future actions or decisions that are personal to you. I can see an outline of the future, but I can not cure the discomfort of uncertainty about the future. For that, I recommend mindfulness training.

I am a problem solver by trade given my last profession, and while I don’t seek to fix everything, I love problem solving mode if you need it. I love encouraging people to take the first step in meeting their challenges head on. Astrology is helpful because it points directly to where the challenges are, when they are, and points to areas of support to mitigate those challenges.

I am an educator and I find this a necessary part of the process, most sessions. Of course if you want, I can share my interpretations without any qualification or explanation. But I find that when I do this, most people ask follow up questions.

If I say “hey, the next month isn’t great for starting new business contracts with people” most people want to know why I’m saying that, and that’s totally welcome. Feel free to ask me questions at any point in the session if you’d like me to show my math. On the other hand, if this is overwhelming, I can just give you the headlines as I see them.

I believe in my clients and their ability to learn new things, and it can deepen your understanding of yourself in the process. When I was in medicine, I tried my best to empower patients with knowledge so they understood WHY I would provide the guidance I would. This way, they could make informed decisions about how to take care of themselves. I employ a similar approach here.‍ ‍

It’s the difference between,

“You’d benefit from red yeast rice for your high cholesterol.”

vs.

“You’d benefit from red yeast rice for your high cholesterol. Only 30% of cholesterol in the body can be managed by diet. The liver (not diet) produces 70% of your cholesterol, and this medicine can help your liver manage that.”

I do this same thing with astrological information. I can tell you “hey, be careful and explicit about collaborations.” which on its face just sounds sort of scary and ominous. Or can tell you “Hey, for this specific period of time, your planet of collaborations is with a planet of confusion, and they show a potential for collaborations leading to suffering from confusion or missed details, so you’d probably benefit from being extra explicit and careful in collaborations and with sharing resources over the next year while this transit is happening.”

The second explanation gives a sense of severity of the challenge, how long it is expected to last, as well as guidance to help navigate said challenge. The first explanation is more parental and doesn’t include the client in the reading nearly as much.

I do not, and I apologize for the inconvenience! Unfortunately, the energy has been off too many times with these types of readings, and this doesn’t happen when people organically book with me. Too many people have no-showed, or sat through the reading when it was clear they were not interested in my services. Some people never booked the readings gifted in the first place, and it feels wrong to take money and not provide a service in the end.

Given all of this, and while I hugely appreciate people sharing my work through word of mouth, I have stopped doing gifted readings or gift certificates. Thank you for understanding!

Please email me before scheduling a reading with me for these purposes. I like to inquire about the reasons why we are discussing the child before agreeing to working together. You can read more about my thoughts on this topic here. I do see benefit in reading the charts of children, but I find that a few prerequisite things need to be in place to ensure this is done in a way that won’t negatively impact the child.

People frequently find out I’m a pharmacist and ask me medical questions. In the current “wellness” landscape, it’s important to explicitly state my competencies and limitations regarding what I am reasonably able to provide. I am committed to keeping a comprehensive referring provider list.

Though I have over a decade of experience in health counseling and medical triage, I am not a diagnostician. I am not a therapist or healer. I believe people heal themselves using the tools around them, medicine being one. Astrology being one. Medical Astrology being another. I do not practice medical astrology at this point in my journey. I use medicine and astrology as separate lenses through which to view the world, and the only two I claim an understanding adequate enough to serve the public with. In astrological consult, I use ancient timing techniques and chart analysis, relating that information back to the client. Any medical concerns will be considered through a material-world lens per my qualifications, and/or deferred to a personal physician or provider, or a medical astrologer as needed. More concisely, I will never contribute to delays in someone getting necessary medical attention.

See Terms of Service for more detail.

Your privacy is important to me and I respect the information provided to me. This respect is necessary in order for me to provide services well. What’s said in session stays in session and is confidential, and I am not a mandated reporter when acting as an astrologer. I also do not collaborate with government authority in this way, out of my own beliefs.

If a recording is created, it is deleted after approximately 30 days. I do this for privacy but also because I run out of space.

Please see my privacy policy for more information.

• No show: no refund.

• I am also very happy to reschedule last-minute, and I’ve never had a case where this wasn’t possible. I realize life happens, just email me!

• I reserve the right to refuse service to anyone at anytime, including mid-reading.

• I reserve the right to consider refunds on a case by case basis.

I am not here to lie to you and give a false sense of confidence, and I must balance this with how to provide info about difficult periods in a way that is empowering and not anxiety-inducing. A big part of this is presenting a spectrum of possibilities when difficult themes arise, and also to provide estimated start and end dates for that period of time.

Sharing info about challenging periods is meant to help the client validate past difficulties, and to plan ahead for future ones.

I provide good news and challenging news because life has both. Hearing about potential future difficult periods can be very unnerving for some people and create anticipation of the future - this is what I try to avoid. My intention is to look into the future for only so long as we need to plan. To be heedful of potential opportunities and avoidable threats.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to plan ahead using this layer of information. And also if you are not in a mental place where you can not stay grounded in the present, empowered in your options, and action-oriented, then a reading with me may not be the best option.

I try to read the room and current state of clients as much as possible, knowing when to back off of difficult potentials if the client is seeming nervous, and yet I can not take care of everyone completely. Part of that responsibility of self-awareness and self-care lies with the client.

If you are someone who, when presented with challenges in life, spirals or “crashes out”, astrology is not the tool I would choose to help guide or inform.

The people who created these techniques were stoics, meaning that they had emotions, were emotional, but weren’t overtaken by them. They used astrology to see the future as clearly as possible in order to accept their fate and prepare for it (most people use the word stoicism incorrectly to mean non emotional or non feeling, but this is a misunderstanding. Stoicism is really closer to something like equanimity).

I use more than one house system depending on what I’m looking at. That being said, the foundational concepts of afro-asiatic astrology were crafted within a whole sign* framework. This is known thanks to translations of ancient astrological texts, unavailable to the mainstream until relatively recently. If I am to use Hellenistic-era timing methods like profections or zodiacal releasing, it makes the most sense to use the house system those techniques were designed/discovered within. I use whole sign houses to assign planetary rulers of various house topics.

However, I do also observe the sky through a quadrant house lens for various reasons. If planets are near an angle, I still assign house topics to that planet based on whole signs, however I will determine planetary dynamic strength by its proximity to the angle, as well as if it is angular or falling away from the angle (cadency). For instance, if your Sun is in the 1st whole sign house, but the 12th quadrant house, I’m going to use both of those pieces of info in my interpretation for various purposes.

*Whole sign houses are defined by the 1st house sharing the same 30 degrees as the entire zodiacal sign in which the ascendant degree is found. If you are a Scorpio rising, your entire first house will be Scorpio, and your ascendant degree will no longer be at the cusp of the house, but floating within the sign/house.  Each house spans 30 degrees, which is different from other systems where houses can cross more than one sign and be larger than 30 degrees. In this way, using the example above, the second house shares the degrees of Sagittarius in the whole sign system, the 3rd house holding Capricorn, and so on. You can learn more here from The Astrology Podcast on the many different systems of house division!

Do not panic. Read the above three paragraphs on whole sign houses where I explain further. House systems are like different languages. Even if they sound different, they each have a role to play in the narrative of your life.  Think of it like looking at an object from different angles - the object doesn’t change, we just get a different point of view that we can put together with other points of view to get a better overall picture. Just because something in your chart changes between house systems, that doesn't mean you were mistaken or read your chart incorrectly. Both lenses are valid to look through and can provide useful information. In fact, I find it really illuminating to compare charts in multiple systems/using multiple house calculations.

To give an example of how I handle this in session, if your Sun is in the 1st whole sign house, but the 12th quadrant house, I’m going to use both of those pieces of info in my interpretation.

You can learn more here from The Astrology Podcast on the many different systems of house division!

Synastry readings are when the charts of two people are compared and analyzed as a pair to see where strengths and challenges might show up in the course of relationship. The best synastry readings happen with both people present, so I require that both parties be present for the reading.

This service is for all relationships (romantic, family, business, platonic, etc), but please see the above FAQ regarding minors and parents wanting to read their child’s chart.

Choose a forecasting reading if:

• You want to talk about the future

  • we can explore smaller and larger frames of time; I have techniques for both

• You want to talk about the future in days, weeks, months, or years ahead

• You're looking to loosely strategize future timing of various life moves**

• You’re wondering when to do xyz or how to best navigate future circumstances you know will occur

• You want to orient yourself in Time, exploring where you are timing-wise in larger story arcs

• **If you’re looking for more precise timing to take a specific action, fine-tuned to your birth chart (electional astrology), I recommend ordering an Electional Astrology report instead of a forecasting session.

Choose a birth chart reading if:

• You're looking to do more of a "strengths, challenges, opportunities, threats" sort of assessment in general or for specific life topics

• You want to come back to, or remember yourself

• You want to get to know yourself

• You’re looking for affirmation and encouragement regarding both strengths and challenges

• You’re looking for my honest astrological opinion on how well certain things might work out, and if there are challenges, how to mitigate them or where we can find help from other areas of life

• You want to explore past events together and discuss the astrological meaning behind them

• If you want to get a general idea of how favorably or unfavorably certain life topics will unfold in the life. This helps validate and accept life circumstances.

If you want to ask astrology a sort of binary/yes-no/”will it or won’t it happen” type of question: this is for Horary Astrology, which I will be referring out to other astrologers (email me for referrals).

I will not be able to tell you the day, week, month, or year a certain thing will happen or if it will happen for sure. I can tell you when the probabilities of success or not for that thing to happen, and I can give you a life time outlook on the overall favorability or challenge with certain life topics. But again, I can’t say “you’re going to get married in a year and a half and you’ll have that perfect job definitely by next fall.”

*I do not discuss timing or outcome of medical procedures - READ BEFORE BOOKING:
Despite my time in the medical field, I am not the best person for these queries. And please be incredibly discerning about the astrologer you choose to do this kind of work. My biggest fear is sowing seeds of fear that are unwarranted, or providing a false sense of confidence that later leads to disappointment or confusion, which I have seen happen to folks too many times from other readers. It’s not that I think astrology isn’t helpful for this kind of question, I just can not provide good service in this regard at this time. Please see Abigail or Ryhan Butler for medical astrology.