I never had kids. Other than my cats, the nearest thing to children in my life has been my books – and at last count, I’m the proud papa of sixteen of them. In one way, my books are even more like my kids than my cats are. That’s because they last a lot longer. You expect to outlive your cat, but you can at least hope for the opposite with your books (and of course, your children.)

My firstborn book – my first published book to be precise – was The Inner Sky, which came out in August 1984. That’s forty years ago this month. Some of you older readers have seen your child turn forty. I suspect that’s a sobering moment – or at least one that really puts you on the map in terms of the aging process. It’s similar with books. When The Inner Sky was born, I was just thirty-five years old. Now I’m seventy-five. Knowing the book is now five years older than I was when I wrote it rings some deep bells in me.

I’d signed the contract to write The Inner Sky – and collected half of my $10,000 advance – in summer 1981. My progressed Moon had just risen into the 7th house. Solar Arc Uranus was squaring my lunar nodes, while transiting Uranus was finishing up a conjunction with my Ascendant. My chart was locked and loaded for some big, empowering changes, in other words. I dived into the writing process which took a couple of years. I wrote the whole thing on a manual typewriter and eventually mailed a thick stack of paper to the publisher – that’s how long ago all of this was. Just to be clear with any of you younger folks, on the day I finished writing The Inner Sky I’m pretty sure there were no mastodons grazing outside my window. The saber-tooth tigers had finished them off. 

In early 1984, I’d put the last period on the manuscript, mailed it to Manhattan, and thus began the meticulous editorial process. As we approached the actual publication date, I was on the phone with my editor at Bantam Books in New York City. Everything was good to go except for that one mission-critical ingredient: a killer title. To my absolute horror, Bantam was suggesting we call the book Astrology 101. My guardian angels came to the rescue – from somewhere in the ethers, a voice in my head said “the inner sky.” I repeated it out loud. My editor paused for a moment, then exulted, “That’s it –  perfect! It sounds like Inner Tennis.” 

Bantam had done very well with a 1976 book by that name. The marketing angle was that calling my book The Inner Sky might attract tennis players . . . or something like that. 

I was beginning to learn about the publishing industry.

In any case, my baby was now officially named The Inner Sky and it was off to the printers where they cranked out 35,000 mass market paperback copies of it. I was delighted. I loved the sheer dignity of that title. I reveled in its understated poetry, its play on the ancient Hermetic “as above, so below” formula. I knew I would be proud not only of the contents of the book, but how it presented itself on the world’s bookstore shelves.

I still remember the day my first copy arrived. It was in a heavy brown paper envelope, which I reverently carried up the stairs to my rented apartment in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I sat down. I opened the package. Out came my little darling with “the inner sky” printed in receding silver-gray lettering and THE DYNAMIC NEW ASTROLOGY FOR EVERYBODY emblazoned in big, brilliant, “in your face” white letters –  an alleged “subtitle.” For years, people thought that blaring blurb, straight out of a “Mad Men” ad-campaign, was actually the book’s title. 

As I say, I was learning about the publishing industry.

Nowadays there are still a few of those original Bantam editions around. Forty years down the road, their pages have gone brittle and yellow like old newspapers. Nowadays, the $3.95 price you can barely see on the upper left side seems like a joke – but back then, that kind of money would buy you three gallons of gas here in America. 

Ironically, I just saw one of these first editions of The Inner Sky advertised online for $270.89. 

Save your money – you can get a nicer “Trade paperback” version of it at Forrest Astrology for $16.95.

This may seem like me abruptly changing the subject, but it isn’t. Now, forty years later, I am very busy with my online school, The Forrest Center for Evolutionary Astrology (www.forrestastrology.center). I’m blessed with a wonderful, warm-hearted staff, all headed by my dear friend, colleague, and the school’s Dean – the one and only Dr. Catie Cadge. I mention Catie because she’s at the heart of one of those astonishing examples of synchronicity that leave you humbled by the intricate invisible coordination that underlies this universe.

At the time The Inner Sky was being prepared for publication – and thirty years before I had even met Catie – her father was working as a designer in the art department of Bantam Books. We can’t be sure, but there is an excellent chance that Catie’s dad designed the cover of my first book! (I’m not sure if he’s the one to blame for THE DYNAMIC NEW ASTROLOGY FOR EVERYONE. I prefer to think not. The actual cover art was lovely.) Catie adds, “I even remember him coming home from work and saying something about designing a “star-themed” cover. 

Synchronicity!

Here’s another factoid. I’m not sure it’s truly an example of synchronicity, but it’s always felt that way to me. Around the time my very wonderful second editor, Peter Guzzardi, was working with me on my book, he was simultaneously involved with another editorial project. That was physicist Stephen Hawking’s monumental work, A Brief History of Time. For some reason, Hawking’s book didn’t come out until 1988, but it was birthed alongside The Inner Sky and by the same editor. 

I’ve always felt that putting Stephen Hawking and me together that way was the work of the Higher Powers. I think they were hinting at a time in the future when astrology, astronomy, and cosmology would all be seen as different viewpoints on the same mysteries.

WHAT’S SO MAGICAL ABOUT FORTY YEARS?

So The Inner Sky is now forty. For astrologers, that number rings a bell. Forty years is a major cycle in astrology, although one that’s not used as commonly as it should be: the mind-boggling “Venus pentangle” cycle. Every 584 days, Venus lines up on the other side of the Sun forming what’s called the “inferior conjunction.” Trace out the positions of five of those inferior conjunctions in a row – a process which takes almost exactly eight years – and you’ll see that they form a nearly perfect five-pointed star. Repeat that same star pattern five times and it returns to its starting point. Five times eight years – that’s forty years. 

I wrote a more detailed blog about these Venus cycles in summer 2023. If you want to understand them more deeply, here’s a link to that essay.

For our purposes here, let me just say that if you pick any major event in your life – especially a Venusian event – and count forward and backwards in eight-year leaps from it, you will very likely find some kind of “echoing” pattern. There’s a “slush” of a few months, but it’s a pretty reliable principle – and a relatively unexplored technique in astrology. 

Here’s how these eight-year “ticks” worked for me, counting forward.

1984: The Inner Sky is published.

1992: With the epochal Uranus/Neptune conjunction landing on my natal Capricorn Sun, I basically began to get famous in the world of professional astrology and a little bit beyond it. The work that started with The Inner Sky began to gain serious momentum, in other words. The musician, Sting, publicly endorsed my work which opened many doors.

2000: After a tentative start in Kansas City in 1998, my astrological apprenticeship groups began gathering steam and multiplying in number. I was also busy working with Jeffrey Wolf Green. Our book, Measuring The Night, Volume One, was published. The term “evolutionary astrology” began to be widely recognized and associated with both of us. His fans and mine, put together, reached some kind of critical mass. Around then, evolutionary astrology became a recognized movement.

2008: I moved west and devoted myself, breakneck fashion, to full-time astrological practice and writing. I had always been busy with it, but almost half my work during my forty years (!) in North Carolina was straightforward counseling. I was also very involved with the music scene there. In California, everything but astrology fell away – including my long marriage. 

2016: I began planning my four-volume “Elements” series, setting the ambitious intention of “writing down everything I knew about astrology.” When complete, that 1728-page project ultimately laid the foundation for the Forrest Center for Evolutionary Astrology. By then, I had also received the Regulus Award for astrological education – something that makes me feel very proud. My teaching was poised to go to a new level.

2024: The FCEA graduated its first class – and the flame that was kindled with The Inner Sky forty years earlier is now being passed on to the next generation. Talk about coming full circle – in this case, quite literally.

So happy fortieth birthday to my firstborn book! It’s been through many editions, but every word in today’s version is the same as what I wrote in my ratty little apartment in North Carolina on that manual typewriter in the early 1980s. After Bantam bailed on the book three years after its publication (which is the way of the paperback world) it was picked up by ACS Publications in San Diego. When ACS died, I began self-publishing. By then, I was well-known enough for that to be a practical financial option. 

All these years later, I am still proud of The Inner Sky. Blessedly, while there are some things I would write differently today, there is nothing in those pages that I repent of having said. I’ve lost count of how many languages into which it’s been translated. Legally, I know it’s been in print in Danish, Turkish, Dutch, German, French, Romanian, Chinese, and soon in Portuguese – along with a recent nibble from Spain. Illegally, in bootleg form, I have no idea how many of them are out there in various languages – that’s too depressing to think about. 

Thanks to all of you who have read my firstborn book in any language. I am grateful for the life you have given me. Above all, I hope you’ll take the book’s message about empowering, spiritual, choice-centered astrology and shout it from the rooftops.

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