Recently, I watched Bazi Queen’s workshop about the ten day masters. She said something during that workshop that blew my mind, something that only a very experienced practitioner would be able to say. And that thing that she said gave me so much solidity. I’ve been chewing on it for the last couple days.

During the workshop, when Bazi Queen was talking about why Geng Metal doesn’t produce water well, someone asked her what that means. The student and Bazi Queen had a bit of a back and forth. “What do you mean?” Bazi Queen asked. The student said, “Just in general.”

That was when Bazi Queen said something that made me widen my eyes and laugh out loud. She said, “In bazi, the in general question will kill you.”

Oh my lord!! Bazi Queen is talking about bazi but I think what she said can be applied to any kind of astrology or divinatory practice.

How many of you who practice astrology or dabble in it have run into people who come up to you and ask, “What does this place/aspect/house in my chart mean?” without any context whatsoever? If you’ve ever run into people who do this and have not known what to say, you’re not alone. And it’s not how you practice astrology that is the issue.

I think that, culturally, we have this understanding of storytellers that is actually quite flat. Under capitalism, we think of storytellers as entertainers and of storytelling in general as the movies. Movies aren’t supposed to require you to participate or even to think. Stories are just something that you use for some brain rot at the end of a hard work day.

Participate in storytelling? How awkward! How weird…how queer. Ugh. No one wants to do that. No one wants to own our participation in the collective storytelling that we are doing together as we live these entwined lives. I wish my astrologer would just tell me some cool story about Artemis that just happens to resonate with my love life because processing all of that is just way too much effort.

Now, I’ve been there. Most of us aren’t trying to drop out of participation. We just don’t know how to participate.

Astrology, and other types of divination, is a storytelling practice. Most divination practices are question based for a reason. Imagine handing someone a playing card and asking them “what does this card mean?” In what context? Are you doing a tarot spread using the cards about your complicated relationship with your ex or are you playing poker? The card is a tool. So is your chart.

Later on in Bazi Queen’s workshop, someone else spoke up to ask a question about Ren Water and its relationship to earth. Again, an in general question. Bazi Queen said, “Let me give you all some feedback. You need to learn how to ask questions if you’re going to work with bazi.” She then guided her student into finding the question. “What is the question that you are trying to ask?” The student tried a second and then tried again, each time becoming more specific. As soon as the student found the right question, she realized that she had also found the answer.

Sometimes, we treat divination like a party trick. I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with that. Yeah, there’s some snappy things that you can read about a person using their chart. But those things are easy to see through if you know a bit of astrology. If you meet a person with a Scorpio Mars, then you might guess that they like athletics and they might feel really surprised if you are right (not all Scorpio Mars choose to direct their Mars into sports but some do) and they don’t know how you got there. But that’s not divination. That’s a party trick. You’re not responding to any query that person is making and, because of that, you don’t know if they really need the fact of them being into sports reflected back to them by the chart.

There’s nothing wrong with using astrology for entertainment. It’s a fun art and art can be showy. Performance has a place in astrology especially when you’re just talking shit about the signs with friends. But it’s not serious astrology. You can’t have both. You can’t expect an astrologer to be an entertainer while simultaneously wanting them to say things that will change your life somehow.

To really use divination, you have to use your curiosity. You have to find your precise questions. Divination is the art of seeing and observing. You have to use these tools to help you observe the world that you’re also a part of. You have to find the things that you are interested in enough to actually try and observe. That’s the true value of divination.

This is why I wanted to scream with mirth when I watched the recording of Bazi Queen’s workshop. Yes! Asking some random person what your entire natal chart means in general is like asking someone what the entire I Ching means. What does it mean? Absolutely nothing if you don’t have a question.

And the I Ching is a bitch. Let me tell you. If your question isn’t the right question, the I Ching will not give you a good answer. It sometimes refuses to answer if it thinks that you’re not taking the art of question asking seriously enough.

“Bazi isn’t math,” Bazi Queen says. “You can’t say that there’s three of this here and so it means this.”

When she said that, I knew that I was absolutely in love with this practitioner.

What are you actually curious about? What brought you to studying astrology in the first place? What are you looking for? Divination is the art of seeing. You have to be looking for something.

I know why people don’t like to ask questions. Y’all don’t want to seem self centered. Question asking is vulnerable. Oh no, I’m curious about my life because I care about people and the world and myself! Let me just ask a “in general” question because I’m trying to pretend to be a humble student who is just studying astrology like one might study algebra. Someone else might have the same placement as me. My question is not about me. I’m a scientific thinker, not a personally motivated one. I don’t want to be awkward.

No, you’re here because you’re interested in living as yourself. This doesn’t work if you’re not interested in some aspect of your own life.

Am I self critical because I tend to take on too much responsibility or am I truly flakey?
Will paying my roommate’s rent be a good move for stability or am I falling into bad patterns?
Am I moving for the reasons that I think I am?
Why does this thing that my partner does that used to turn me on disgust me now?
Why do I laugh when I am angry?

These are the kinds of questions that you can use astrology to find and then to ask. People don’t just get into astrology out of the blue for no reason. You have a question. You are interested in something. That curiosity is what makes the art of divination come alive, what saves storytelling from being entertainment and what transforms it into participation.

And guess what? Astrologers are curious about you. We’re not some kind of Yoda like human who is channeling the spirits for no reason. We got into our practices because we are interested in people and we want to hold your curiosity with you. Most of us, anyway. You can practice astrology if you are curious about the people who you work with. That’s what I think.

Be curious. Ask. Be precise because your imagination thrives on details. Give your compassion because curiosity can turn into criticality if you’re unkind. Participate. Participate in your own divination! Do all of those things and you will find your questions. If you can look for them, truly look for them and find them, then you might even find your answer.

And I know—not every setting is the right one for showing your curious side. It takes some level of trust and not every moment is the right one for a reading. That’s true. If you’re sitting with an astrologer and you have no questions that you want to ask them because it’s not the right setting or the right astrologer or the right moment? The astrologer might give a party trick and you might be happy with that if you truly don’t have any questions for them. You might not be happy if you actually did have a question that you didn’t know how to ask.