I recently got to do something I don’t normally do in my work.

I read the birth chart of someone who wasn’t sitting across from me.

Carolyn Wilman invited me to look at the chart of Helene Hadsell, who became known as the “Contest Queen” after winning thousands of contests throughout her life and later teaching about intention, visualization and the power of the mind.

Carolyn actually knew Helene personally.

And that was what made me say yes.

Because instead of looking at a chart and trying to decide who this woman was, I had someone sitting across from me who could say:

Yes, that’s me.

Or:

No, that wasn’t how I experienced it at all.

And as an astrologer, I found that fascinating.

It became less about “reading Helene” and much more about putting the astrology beside the life she actually lived and seeing where the two met.

And that is much closer to how I believe astrology should be used.

First, something important about how I approached this

I want to say this because it matters to me personally and professionally.

I don’t normally read someone’s birth chart without their permission.

A birth chart is incredibly personal.

Even when someone gives me their exact birth information, I don’t believe that gives me permission to make sweeping declarations about who they are.

Normally, the person is right there with me.

I can ask questions.

They can tell me when something resonates and when it doesn’t.

They can give me the context that a birth chart simply cannot give me on its own.

Obviously, I couldn’t do that with Helene.

So before I opened her chart, I approached it through my own spiritual practice.

I connected to what I call my inner light and asked Helene directly, in the way I know how, for permission to look at her chart and for guidance as I moved through it.

That was important to me.

And then I went into the chart with curiosity rather than trying to prove anything.

I didn’t want the astrology to tell me who Helene was

This might sound strange coming from an astrologer, but I don’t want a birth chart to tell me who someone is.

I want the person to tell me who they are.

Then we can use the chart to explore it together.

That’s a very different experience.

I can look at a placement and have ten different ideas about how it *could* show up.

But which one belongs to you?

That’s where your lived experience comes in.

So with Helene, I found myself doing the same thing I do with clients.

I would notice something in the chart and then turn to Carolyn.

Did she do this?

Was this important to her?

How did she respond when this happened?

Was this something you noticed about her?

And suddenly the chart wasn’t theoretical anymore.

There was a story attached to it.

That is the part of astrology I love.

The chart gave me questions. Carolyn gave me the stories.

One of the things I noticed very quickly was that I didn’t actually want to spend our conversation explaining placement after placement.

I wanted to understand how the astrology had been lived.

There is such a difference between saying:

“You have this planet here, therefore you are this kind of person.”

And saying:

“This is a pattern I’m noticing. Has this shown up in your life?”

The second one leaves room for the human being.

And her book was able to give me something I don’t normally have when I’m looking at the chart of a public figure: firsthand stories.

How she made decisions.

What she believed.

What happened when things didn’t go according to plan.

How she related to intuition.

How she responded to opportunities

And sometimes a story would make me look back at the chart and think:

There it is.

I could understand the symbolism differently.

That’s an important distinction for me.

A birth chart is not a biography

I think this conversation reminded me of something I wish more people understood about astrology:

Two people can have the same placement and live it very differently.

Your family matters.
Your environment matters.
Your relationships matter.
Your choices matter.
Your age matters.

The experiences you’ve had matter.

And you matter.

I’m much more interested in the conversation between the chart and the person.

Reading Helene’s chart made me think about my own clients because, even though the circumstances were unusual, the part I enjoyed most was exactly the same.

When you sit down with me for a reading, I’m not meeting your chart.

I’m meeting you.

Your chart is sitting there with us, but it isn’t the authority on your life.

You are.

Maybe I see something around work and you immediately tell me about the career you’ve been questioning for two years.

Maybe I notice a relationship pattern and suddenly something you’ve experienced repeatedly starts making more sense.

Maybe I see a period of change and you tell me, “That’s exactly where I am. I just don’t know what to do with it yet.”

That’s when astrology becomes useful.

Because sometimes having another language for what you’re already experiencing helps you see it differently.

And once you can see a pattern, you have more choice in how you work with it.

This came up naturally in my conversation with Carolyn too.
One of the ways I often explain astrology is as an energy weather report.

If I tell you it’s going to rain tomorrow, I’m not telling you what your day is going to look like.

You could stay home.
You could bring an umbrella.
You could go outside and get completely soaked.
You could love the rain.

The weather gives us context.
You still live the day.

If you’re moving through a significant period astrologically, I want us to understand what that period might be asking of you.

And looking at Helene’s life after the fact was such an interesting reminder of that.

We could see the life she chose to live.

Then we could look backward and ask where the symbolism in her chart seemed to echo parts of that story.

The biggest thing I took away from reading Helene’s chart.

I went into this conversation thinking I was going to learn something interesting about Helene Hadsell.

And I did. 

You can watch our full conversation below.

Thank you to Carolyn for inviting me into this conversation and, especially, for bringing the stories and memories of someone she actually knew into the room with me.

She also wrote about the experience from her perspective, which you can read in her article, Reading Helene Hadsell’s Astrology, on Words for Winning. https://wordsforwinning.com/reading-helene-hadsells-astrology/

And if this has you wondering what might happen if we put your birth chart beside the life you’ve actually living, that’s exactly the kind of conversation I love having in my 1:1 readings.

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