Excerpted from my book ASTROLOGY IS REAL
 

My career as a syndicated astrology columnist might never have happened if it weren’t for an astrologer named Robert Cole who disliked me.

Before I dreamed of writing horoscopes myself, he was creating a weekly horoscope column for the Good Times in Santa Cruz.

I read it on occasion. He wasn’t a skillful writer, but I appreciated how he playfully departed from the same old boring format of conventional horoscope writers. “A Sagittarius with a big nose and big feet will approach you with an invitation to drink coffee next to a redwood tree,” he once wrote for Aquarians.

As Robert Cole grew more confident of his value to the Santa Cruz community, he decided to ask Good Times publisher Jay Shore for a raise in pay. Shore refused, and Cole quit in a huff.

Shore immediately placed an ad in the classifieds section of his paper, advertising for a replacement. Luckily for me, as I mentioned before, my bicycle had been stolen. As I perused the “For Sale” section of the Good Times classified, I spied his solicitation for a new astrologer.

I dashed off my audition column, leading with my perfect spelling and grammar. Were there other applicants? I didn’t know and still don't. Two days later, Shore hired me. The following Thursday, he published my first offering in the Good Times without a single edit. My long career had begun.

But wait! There were complications. Robert Cole was incensed that I had dared to become his substitute. He wrote letters to the editors of three Santa Cruz newspapers, each of which published his complaint.

Cole ranted against Jay Shore and me. Shore was a “capitalist pig,” and I was a scab who had colluded with the greedy boss. Although Cole knew nothing of my astrological training, he called me a fraud with no skill in the ancient art.

That wasn’t sufficient revenge for him, though. Somehow, he found out where I lived and mailed me a series of five angry letters. Early on, he demanded that I resign from my new job and stand with him in solidarity against the capitalist pig. “No compromise!” he told me.

But I didn’t quit. He got so agitated that he condemned me to everlasting obscurity and insignificance. “You’re a flash-in-the-pan, Brezney,” he wrote in one of his personal letters to me, spelling my name wrong. “You’re a brief toxic blip on the scene. You’ll never last. You’ll fade into oblivion. You’ll lose your powers. I will still be here inspiring readers with my astrological advice long after you’re gone.”

This message felt like an old-fashioned curse. But it didn’t debilitate me. It didn’t fill me with fear and trembling. Rather, it energized me. I was motivated to make sure his maledictions would never come true. I resolved to prove him wrong.

Over the years, his curse turned out to be a wonderful influence in my life. It was by no means my sole or even primary stimulus to make myself into a great horoscope writer. But it helped. It played a role in galvanizing me to continually go deeper in my understanding of astrology and improve at the art of writing.

My self-appointed competitor got a job writing horoscopes for another weekly newspaper in Santa Cruz. He also published a book, The Book of Houses: An Astrological Guide to the Harvest Cycle in Human Life.

In 1992, at age 44, he died, failing to see his hex come to pass. I felt no joy in his demise. On the contrary, I was and have always been grateful to him for assisting me in fulfilling my soul’s code.

Amazingly, Robert Cole was an important catalyst in my life.




In the early days