Blaze-Maximus
About me
My journey into astrology began with my mother who was very much into occult sciences, astrology, tarot, and other tools/systems of divination. I didn’t grow up part of any religion since my mother was not rasied religious, and my grandparents rejected Catholicism. The world of esoteric thought was something I grew up on and was very comfortable with. I had always been fascinated with the planets, outer-space, and non-earthly things. I had astronomy books of incredible photos from telescopes as a kid, and this all informed my love for astorlogy. I grew up knowing my zodiac sign from the time I was a child up until a life-changing (didn’t know it at the time) Venus Cazimi in June 2016. It was at this time I discoverd my birth chart because my mom told me she had saved mine on astro.com, and I later found out she printed out my chart at birth too. Like everyone who gets into astrology in the age of the internet, you google everything you possibly can. That’s what I did. At the time I found astrology, I was completing my freshman year of high school (14) and I was studying at theatre and the arts in New York City. Something inside me shifted because while I enjoyed theater and had a goal to be an actor, my joy dwindled as time went on and I found a new, growing, love for astrology and divination.
My journey of learning started out going to Barns & Noble in Union Square, New York City, to sit down and read through the entire esoteric section. There are many other bookstores in New York, so I went to a lot of different ones and searched the books. I had no money of my own to buy any at the time, so i just sat down, took pictures of pages with my phone, saved them for later, and went home to learn more about terms, practices, and history I was unfamiliar with. As time went on and I learned a lot of my basics in what some call Modern Astrology, I then went around my school talking about zodiac signs, people’s charts, and doing free readings for people. This persisted throughout all of high school. I practiced Tarot in High School as well, and it was really then that I found out this is something I could make into not just a career but pursue it as a life-long study. Seeing the look on my friends faces as I could describe their situations, feelings, and outcome of what would happen shocked me at how incredible divination is as a whole. At the time, I was struggling with the decision to go to college. I felt a lot of pressure from teachers, counselors, and staff to make that decision to go but in the end I didn’t. I felt college was a complete scam. Paying thousands of dollars you don’t even have to get a degree that was not even guarenteed to do things you don’t actually care about or have any meaning to your life felt like an instinctual bad idea. Turns out I made the right choice. However, I did not reject eduction or learning. After high school, not going to college, I worked a lot of retail and service jobs to keep myself afloat and fund my astrological studies. I began making accounts on Twitter and Instagram dedicated to my astrology studies, sharing information, graphics, and updates on the astro-weather. It was in these spaces I met a lot of friends (and foes) who helped point me in the right direction for my studies. It was in 2018-2019 that I found what is known as Traditional Astrology, which differed a lot from Modern Astrology. I had a lot of questions about the logic and reasoning behind how & why certain things are the way they are in astrology, and I felt dissapointment from the sources on modern astrology. I turned to contemporaries like Chris Brennan who introduced me to Hellenistic Astrology through his podcast and book. From there, I was able to branch out and connect with a bunch of other astrologers in the greater field/community that I would befriend and establish close relationships with. I was able to find access to scholarly texts, academic papers, and professors who studied the history and transmission of astrology. I turned my studies towards the past and began buying and reading translations of ancient astrological manuals.
It was at the beginning of the pandemic (March 2020) that I decided to launch my client practice after finding the confidence and developing the skill to delineate charts and explain it to clients. Having all the free time from lockdowns allowed me to spend my time forming my astrological practice. Eventually, I quit my job and built a consistent client based that allowed me to work as a full time astrologer at 19 years old. At 19, I made an unexpected move from New York City to Orlando which created a lot of upheaval my life in so many ways I would not be aware of at the time. I kept seeing clients throughout this move and opened my own business as an astrologer. For three years now, I’ve been studying, producing astrology content, and consulting with thousands of individuals who want to learn more about astrology.
Contemporary Practioners, Scholars, and Astrologer who have influenced my work
Demetra George, Kaitlin Coppock, Liana Saif, Chris Brennan, Austin Coppock, Ali A Olomi, Benjamin Dykes, Liana Saif, Bink Hallum, David Pingree, B. L. van der Waerden, Audrius Beinorius, Amina Insoles, Antonio Panaino, Keiji Yamamoto, Charles Burnett, Eshan Ghazini, Jenn Zarht,
Lineage of Pre-Modern Astrologers who’s works were my teachers:
Vettius Valens, Claudius Ptolemy, Antiochus of Athens, Firmicus Maternus, Rhetorius of Egypt, Paulus of Alexandria, Porphyry, Aḥmad al-Būnī al-Malki, Abū ʻAbd Allāh : Muḥammad ibn ʻArabī al-Ṭāʼī al-Ḥātimī, Ibn Sina, Abū Maʿshar Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Balkhī, Abu al-Saqr Abd al-Aziz ibn Uthman ibn Ali al-Qabisi, al-Khasib, Kusyar Ibn Labban, Abū Yūsuf Yaʻqūb ibn ʼIsḥāq aṣ-Ṣabbāḥ al-Kindī, Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni, Ali ibn al Rijal, Ibn Hibinta, Abu 'Ali Al Khayyat, Al-Isfahani, Al-Junawadi, Al-Andarghazar, Umar Al Tabari, Abraham Ibn Ezra, Sahl ibn Bishr, Masha’allah ibn Athari, Dorotheus of Sidon, Abu Sa’id Shadhan, Guido Bonatti, William Lilly, Nicholas Culpepper, William Ramsey, Julianus of Laodicea, Anonymous of 379, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b Mūsā an-Nawbakhtī, Nawbakht Ahvazi, Al-Fazari, Parasara, Abraham Bar Ḥiyya,
my practice
Astrology is a living tradition that has been passed down through different cultures and groups of people over the past 3,000 years, and part of understanding astrology is understanding the ways different cultures projected their worldview onto the sky. I currently focus on the traditions and writings developed by the Babylonian, Egyptian, Hellenistic, Medieval Islamic, and Renaissance astrologers. My education and training is primarily through self study and forming community with other astrologers who are reading and studying similar texts. I have plans to take certification exams in the future, but my learning and studies are endless when it comes to astrology.
My goal as an Astrologer to get people to conceptualize time in harmony with the natural cycles and movements of the planets. Through studying astrology, it allows us to deepen connection and awareness to our how time works, and how it shapes our lives and the world around us. I take more of a pre-determined view to astrology and in my practice. Astrology is one of these studies that allows us to look into the future by calculating the positions of the planets thousands of years into the past, and thousands of years into the future. With modern technology, this can be done with accuracy and precision. Our free will is like a garden: we can move within the realms of walls of a garden, but beyond that, we are blocked and cannot influence and change things with our free will.
Astrology is divination, and ultimately what we are doing is reading astral omens. Except these omens are a part of nature, and they operate in cycles. Studying those cycles can help us better understand our places at this moment in time in our lives.
Astrology is the study of interpreting the omens of the celestial bodies as being descriptive of the potential outcome for a particular moment in time. Astrology interprets times itself has having fundamental qualities of smoothness or abrasiveness, governed by the motions of the planets. Ancient Astrologers heavily intertwined astrology with their faith and religion, and for them, Astrology was their deities speaking to them. In other words, God’s timing, whichever god that may be. Astrology can describe personality, but this isn’t how the ancient astrologers necessarily saw it. Astrology was descriptive of life, but also has a unique feature of prediction, since the motion of the planets are predictable, we can predict what future moments in time will feel like, and what events we can expect to occur. Whether they will bring chaos and hardship, like a breakup or illness, or positive and uplifting moments like getting married, or having children. Astrology is able to show the potential of what kinds of events can manifest under certain influences, but that potential moves through our free will, the free will of others, of nature, and of the entire world. Astrology is fundamentally the study of how the motions of the planets symbolize the events that happen on Earth.