Karmic Astrology: A Tool For Self-Awareness & Soul Growth with Chelsea Jewel

Astrology is a great tool that can help us better understand ourselves and others. As a light worker, I firmly believe that transformation starts from within. Many practices and belief systems allow us to do just that: dive deep in order to awaken to our true potential and power. In this context, I invited Chelsea Jewel to explore these themes with me. She’s an incredible Intuitive Coach and Karmic Astrologer I met through working with OuiWeGirl this year. So, buckle up, and let’s explore Karmic Astrology as a tool for self-awareness & soul growth.

Hi there Chelsea! So glad to have this chit chat with you today. Before we begin, could you please introduce yourself.

Thank you, Fatii – I’m so excited to be here with you too! My name is Chelsea Jewel and I am an Intuitive and Karmic Astrologer and a Spiritual Life Coach. 

I’m from Atlanta, GA in the US, and now that travel is becoming a bit more accessible again, I’m starting to pick up my part-time digital nomad lifestyle, so that I can coach and do readings from anywhere in the world! 

I used to work in corporate marketing, and around 2018 I went through my own spiritual awakening, where I really started asking myself the deeper questions of life: What do I actually feel fulfilled by? What am I here to do? What is my purpose? Who am I really, on a soul level?

That’s when I kind of stumbled into Astrology and started to learn more about how to read and understand my own chart. I never really planned on giving readings to others, but once I started studying it, it seemed to feel more like a soul remembering than a completely new introduction. 

Once COVID hit, I finally decided that my corporate marketing career had taken me as far as it could, and I decided to launch my own business. My spirituality and my connection to Astrology have become much bigger components of my daily life and identity than I ever expected, and I feel so much more content and fulfilled these days – I just want to help others claim that for themselves as well.

What’s your big three: Sun, Moon and Rising? And what do these placements say about you?

I’m a Leo Sun, Scorpio Rising, and Sagittarius Moon – and I feel like these 3 describe me perfectly! My Leo Sun and Sag Moon both give me a ton of optimism and vitality. I love to travel and I definitely love to receive lots of validation and praise (my Leo Sun is in the 10th house too!) – although I’m definitely working on being the one to validate myself more. 

My Scorpio Rising side is much more intense, deep, and complex, which I also love about myself. I definitely need a lot of alone time to recharge, and while I enjoy being social, I really prefer to form intimate connections with others where we can dive in way deeper than surface level. 

I see the intersection of all 3 of these placements being about owning a sense of deep inner power. Not power over others, but more authentic power in understanding myself to be the creator of my reality. This is one of the core drivers of my life and the work I want to empower others with through everything I do.

I can absolutely see how these 3 beautiful energies play out in your personality and offerings. On a completely different note, if you needed to explain astrology to an alien (or to a neophyte), how would you describe it?

Oh wow, well first of all, I’d love to have a conversation about astrology with an alien! I feel like there’s probably a ton I could learn from them about the cosmos and planets, haha. 

Here’s what I would say to that alien or neophyte about it…. Astrology is the energetic language of the cosmos. Just as each person on earth has a unique fingerprint and personality, each planet, star, constellation, and asteroid in space has its own unique energy and personality. And we study those energies because we know and understand that we live in a fractal universe, where within each part of the universe – both big and small – exists the whole as well. 

In other words, everything that is a part of our lived experience here on earth is reflecting back to us some part of ourselves. On a micro level, we understand that one cell or group of cells in our bodies can impact the health of our entire body. Similarly, and on a macro level, the actions and movements of celestial bodies impact each of us on an individual level and on a collective level. 

But I think that even more importantly than the ‘what’ of astrology is the ‘why’ behind it – why we study it and use it. We use astrology as a shared language with something bigger than ourselves – call it God, Source, the Universe, the Sun, the planets. And we use astrology to help us understand the deeper meanings and lessons within our life experiences.

Lovely! Tell us, how did your astrology journey begin?

I was really searching to learn more about who I am on a soul level. I had my ‘spiritual awakening’ and my first major ego death after I finished my dream job in marketing and had faced a lot of challenging corporate politics and challenging work relationships.

It was the first time in my life when I felt like others didn’t see me as the overachiever and the ‘perfect one’ – and without those labels, I had no clue who I really was. Without being defined by my career, I really didn’t have a strong sense of self-worth. 

Astrology was one of the many tools I started looking into to discover myself and to try and reclaim a deeper sense of purpose in my life. There were other modalities I explored too, but I couldn’t get over how every time I dove deeper into a particular part of my part, it felt so uncannily accurate and resonated so much with me. 

Astrology honestly helped me feel so much validation in the ways I naturally operate. I hadn’t even realized how much I had been resisting and suppressing parts of myself because I thought I ‘should’ be something else. For example, just learning more about my Scorpio Rising and my Pluto in the first house allowed me to understand that intensity is a natural part of who I am. I had always thought I should be more chill and easygoing, but understanding just this one small part of my chart helped me reclaim my intensity as a gift and strength.

Do you have a favorite astrologer, book or course to recommend?

My favorite astrologer by far is Steven Forrest. I always recommend his book The Inner Sky for anyone who is just starting out and wanting to learn a comprehensive start to astrology. I also LOVE his book Yesterday’s Sky, which is all about karmic and past life astrology – a lot of the concepts in that book are what I based my Past/Present/Future Readings off of. 

I also love Chani Nicholas, Dani Beinstein, and Tanaaz of Forever Conscious on Instagram.

And in terms of courses, I’ve actually just started the second round of teaching my own astrology for beginners course, called Discover Your Stars! I really love teaching it and seeing my students be able to trust their intuition and give really meaningful chart readings.

I plan on setting it up as a self-paced course after this round, so anyone who is interested in learning more about themselves through astrology, or anyone who wants to be able to give readings in the future, can go through it at their own pace!

Through following your amazing content, we quickly get a feel of your delightful way of delivering meaningful information. As a karmic astrologer, can you share with our readers what karmic astrology is?

Aww, thank you for that nice compliment – and I feel the same way about your content too! In Karmic Astrology, I not only look at the natal chart to tell information about personality, traits, and gifts in this lifetime, but I also pull information related to a client’s past lives, for the intention of healing and evolution. 

I believe that we each come into this lifetime with specific wounds and patterns to learn from and heal, and that information is encoded in a birth chart.

A lot of times, we understand karma as something that pays us back, either positively or negatively, for actions we have taken in this and previous lifetimes. I do think that partly explains karma – but when I practice Karmic Astrology, I also understand karma as the conditioning of our souls that we need to grow beyond in order to continue evolving into the highest versions of ourselves. 

In other words, karmic patterns are similar to how within this lifetime we often become conditioned to expect certain things out of our lives – being treated poorly by a boss, falling into similar relationship patterns over and over, etc. – and instead of drawing new boundaries and demanding new and better things from our lives, we resign ourselves to believing that ‘that’s just the way it is’ or ‘that’s how it always goes for me.’ 

Karmic patterns operate in the same way, except from lifetime to lifetime. So if, for example, we’ve been persecuted for speaking our true voice in past lives, our soul on some level comes to expect that we will again be persecuted in this lifetime for speaking up. That’s the kind of information I see and talk to clients about in Karmic Astrology readings, along with how their soul is asking them to adopt a new, more empowering narrative in order to heal those old wounds and move into new levels of experience.

By working very closely with the lunar nodes and their relationship with the Soul’s journey, how do you explain the importance of the north and south node in the birth chart?

The North and South Nodes are my FAVORITE parts of a chart, so I love that you even asked this question! That book I mentioned earlier, Yesterday’s Sky, talks all about their significance in relation to the soul’s journey of healing and evolution. 

In Karmic Astrology, there are a few key things in a chart I look at to help paint a specific picture of someone’s past life patterns, and the South Node is the very first and most important one. The sign and house that it falls in, along with the sign and house of its planetary ruler, and any aspects made to either, give us so much important information about where our soul healing needs to take place in this lifetime. 

And even though there are often a lot of shadow tendencies with the South Node story we need to release, I also like to emphasize that there are immense strengths that come along with our South Node energies as well. For me, it’s not all about leaving behind the South Node energy and moving single-focusedly toward the North Node – our karmic journey is more about integrating the highest potential of both signs and learning to come into balance between the two.

On top of being an intuitive astrologer, you also do Akashic record readings, spiritual mentoring, channelling classes, etc. What interests you in these other approaches, and how do you use all these spiritual tools to benefit yourself and your clients?

When I first started my intuitive business, I actually had some initial resistance to calling myself an astrologer, because I didn’t want to be boxed into doing just astrology. I love to use and teach a mixture of other modalities, like you mentioned, and I think it’s important for me to feel well-rounded in my spirituality.

I’ve come to the point now where I realize that all of these modalities – Astrology, Akashic Records readings, Channeling, Tarot, etc. – are actually all speaking the same language of Energy. It is just expressed in different ways – or in different dialects, if you will. 

In some readings, I like to combine information I receive from an astrology chart with information from a client’s Akashic Records, as a way to gain a more comprehensive and story-like understanding of what we’re working to heal. In my Past/Present/Future Readings, for example, I look at their chart to get an idea for the past life themes and patterns I should be looking out for. Then I visit their Akashic Records to view the actual details of their past life, and how those themes played out specifically for them. 

For me, the astrology chart and Akashic Records complement each other really well, and combining modalities like that allows me to better manage how I spend my own energy on behalf of a client.

One of your signature courses is called « Discover your stars ». Who is this course for, and what is it like?

Yes, I love teaching this course so much! It’s a Level 1 Astrology course, so it’s for beginners and people who know some bits and pieces of astrology but haven’t yet studied it as a whole system. 

Most of the students who take the course want to be able to give astrology readings to others at some point. Or, at least, they want to be able to mix in astrology to their existing coaching or intuitive healing business. It’s definitely not a requirement to have your own business or want to give readings through. I also designed the course with the intention of activating deep levels of self-discovery and healing. So, if someone just wanted to be able to learn super deeply about themselves on a soul level, they would gain so much from the course. 

Right now I’m in my last round of teaching the course live, and then I plan to put it up on my site as a self-paced program so people can go through the content on-demand, on their own schedule. And hopefully early next year, I plan to offer a Level 2 course that dives more into Karmic Astrology as well!

Do you have any tips for people just getting started in astrology?

My first tip would be to read books or learn from trusted mentors and not try to rely on free resources from Google alone. Astrology is a sacred art, and it is complex. When you cobble together bits and pieces of information from varying sources online – and all with different, unverified levels of authority – it quickly becomes overwhelming, confusing, and often, disempowering. 

A lot of clients come to me very concerned and panicked because they read something disempowering online about a part of their chart and now they think they might never be able to get married… yikes! That’s not a legitimate astrologer who instills generalizations and limited thinking in their readers, in my opinion. If you’re truly interested in learning to speak the language of astrology, invest in that curiosity and it will pay off. 

My other main tip is to practice with real charts – your own and those of family members and friends, if you can. Concepts are so much harder to grasp until you’re able to relate them to real-life people and see how pieces of their chart actually manifest.

And lastly, have fun with it! There is no ‘right’ answer in astrology, and no two people will ever interpret a chart in exactly the same way. So take any pressure off of yourself and just stay open-minded and open-hearted. ?

Thank you Chelsea for sharing your wisdom with us today. Let’s continue to raise the vibration, and hold space for healing, transmutation and spiritual awakening!

Karmically yours,

Fatii