Biography 

My first love was the Stars.  The real ones above in the night sky.  Raised in the desert, in a small town, the milky way was bright as can be then.  Thanks to my father, I began to memorise constellations and star names at a young age. The sky always called me.  The natural world was where I found my connection to something Beyond.  I had no inkling towards any kind of hocus pocus or "occult" nonsense however.  Any talk of Horoscopes, Chakras, or chanting "OM" was hippie blather worthy of nothing but cynical derision.  

 

I did not believe in Astrology whatsoever until December 2011 when a complete stranger sitting next to me at a cafe handed me a card for a free reading from an astrologer friend whom he worked with. A lucid-dream-fueled spiritual awakening that had beset me the year before had brought me to reading "Cosmos and Psyche" by Richard Tarnas based on a recommendation that I previously would have ignored.  I was more or less making fun of myself for reading the book when the card was handed to me.  So I called the number and was sent my birth chart, followed by a complete stranger from Idaho reading me like an open book over the telephone.  What the actual heck?  I had to know more.  How did this work? 

 

That stranger was Jon Waldrup, and he became a friend.  I asked questions and was given a list of books to read.  And I've never stopped reading since.

 

It turns out this reading took place precisely one month before my Saturn return at age 29.  

 

Fast forward 7 years to age 36 and I'm casually reading the charts of most of my friends, and the word must have gotten out.  A person I didn't know asked how much for a reading.  $27 I said. Turns out that's cheap.  It occurred to me that I would not advertise or tell anyone I read charts, but if anyone asked me again, I'd raise the price by $9 each time until I reached $108, and that would be the way I'd let the Universe tell me that this was my vocation. I thought it might take years to get there. It took a few months.  Apparently I knew what I was doing.  So I got a business card.  I still wouldn't advertise and I never made a website.  If clients were meant to find me, the Universe was in charge.  I'd rely on reputation and word of mouth.  And it worked.

 

Truth be told, I didn't honestly know what I was doing.  Relying on intuition and a basic understanding of simple astrology, I said what was needed each time.  But my curiosity brought me deeper, and I began to vet every aspect of what I was doing.  I found a commonality between the Whole Sign Houses of Traditional Hellenistic astrology and the Tropical Vedic astrology Ernst Wilhem, Vic DiCara, and the Asheville School.  I used Evolutionary Astrology techniques with Whole Sign Houses and they worked much better.  I truly began to grasp the fundamentals of an Ancient language that had seemingly been fragmented over the millenia.  

 

As I approached my 40's I decided I wanted to be the best astrologer I possibly could be by 42.  I dedicated myself to an intensive study of Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, Tajik Neelakanti, and the Jaimini Sutras through classes available through the incomparable Ernst Wilhelm.  I also committed myself to 10 years of Sanskrit study on my 40th birthday. I'm sure there will be a pop quiz when I turn 50!

 

Also, time for a website. And you are reading it. So many things that have been brewing are now bubbling over and ready to be distilled. Definitely.  It's time.

 

Do join me for the ride, won't you?

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Casey Neelakant

Bend, Oregon

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