Personal Evolution and Astrology: Steven Forrest's "Inner Sky"

I just finished reading The Inner Sky: How to Make Wiser Choices for a More Fulfilling Life by Steven Forrest. I have studied astrology on and off for the more than two decades – I even wrote horoscopes for Cosmopolitan Magazine for a while, and yet, I always felt like there was something I wasn’t grasping. No longer – The Inner Sky has rekindled my interest in astrology as well as helped me find some of the missing pieces to my understanding of astrology.

I understand magazine horoscopes aren’t real astrology. They are entertainment. What Forrest offers is something much more. He actually gives a step-by-step approach to reading a birth chart. Each sign, planet, and house represent specific archetypes, and the birth chart tells the reader which archetypes an individual might have a propensity toward. Basically the birth chart is the map to psychological terrain.

Forrest calls his approach evolutionary astrology. Though there are certain traits a person may have, each person has the choice to grow. We are all here to evolve. Rather than telling the future, an evolutionary astrologer may help the subject find the path that will lead toward growth.

Rather than astrology limiting our experience, it expands it. By being aware of our basic traits, challenges, and opportunities, we open up our choices.

A quote from the last pages of The Inner Sky:

Mind stuff. Sky stuff. The universe we observe and measure. The universe we dream. It is all the same. Wherever we look, we see mind. Wherever we imagine, we see cosmos.

And who are we? Who is doing the observing?

This is the deepest riddle of them all, and answering it is the endless, impossible task that makes us human.

Astrology cannot solve that riddle for us. But perhaps it can carry us a little closer, make us a little wiser. In astrology, we are the border dwellers. We are the ones who live on the shoreline, where waves of consciousness break on the rocks and dunes of the physical world. We exist in both, and both are reflected in us.

In astrology, we are the dreamers, and what we are dreaming is the universe. 

I imagine Steven Forrest is a sweet, kind, sincere person. I know he loves astrology, and I am convinced he loves people, too. His writing is clear and honest, concise and entertaining. I am very glad I picked up this book. He has removed the shroud of mystery and has made astrology practical. He offers his own palpable curiosity about what it means to be human, and he offers a clear framework in how to indulge that curiosity.

Who wants a reading? I'm ready!