Ryan Marquardt from Ryan’s Astrology was kind enough to spare MysticMag some of his cosmic time to share with us his passion and knowledge of the stars and what they have to offer. We find out more.
What can you tell us about your giant leap from the corporate world to being a full-time Astrologer?
I spent over a decade in Public Relations and Communications in Las Vegas. It was a very different way of living. It was all about celebrities, nightclubs and the wild side of life. I really enjoyed it for a while, and I was great at what I did. I learned from the start of my career that client work really mattered to me and I wanted to take care of people the best I could, and tell their stories. I liked this aspect of the job but otherwise I was always more inclined towards the mystical and spiritual side of life.
I was always a tarot fan and eventually started studying my own astrological birth chart but I kept this part of my life to myself. When I moved to L.A. in 2016, the whole corporate world collapsed for me. I was in my Saturn Return and my whole life completely changed. I was laid off twice in a row and other things were going on too. On a very pivotal and random day, I happened to meet an evolutionary astrologer (for a totally different reason) and he spoke about astrology in a way that I had never heard before. In a ten minute period of time, he completely altered my perspective and he gave me an astrology book that ended up changing my life. I never conceptualized that I could read astrology for others, or that it could possibly be a career.
I had an excellent resume and great professional references until this point, but after being laid off twice in a row, nothing in the corporate would materialize for me again. I could barely even land an interview, which was such a bizarre and new experience for me. With so much spare time on my hands, all I could do aside from apply for jobs was learn astrology. I was super hesitant to start doing paid readings, but after reading for so many friends, they all kept telling me to just go for it. I was the last one to believe I could take the leap. To make myself comfortable, I started by working events, which allowed me to do mini tarot and astrology readings. That quickly spiraled into people asking me for full-length readings, and I received a lot of referrals from those, which finally allowed me to transition into being a full-time Astrologer in 2019.
What would you describe your purpose to be?
This is hard to answer because I’m a Gemini – I have a different purpose every single day. I don’t really even think I have a specific purpose, because I actually think I am the purpose, just me existing is the purpose. There’s a quote from Joseph Campbell, my favorite quote ever, which put this in perspective for me: “Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.” I could go into more technical astrological explanations that might explain what my specific purpose is, but ultimately, I think just continuing to be a better version of myself – and be useful to others in the world – is my purpose.
How do you work with each of your clients – do you follow a particular methodology?
I never specialize, even in my old corporate career I was a a “Swiss army knife” type of worker always filling in different holes because I had a number of different skillsets that always seemed to come in handy. I never want to claim to be an expert in anything and prefer to view myself as a student for life. I want to continually evolve and learn.
Overall in my astrology practice, I combine ancient and modern techniques and I love client consulting which comes quite naturally to me given that I had worked with clients for over a decade in my previous career. I have a lot of different reading options and update them frequently when I feel like I’ve adequately grasped a new area of astrology or a certain technique. My most popular reading is the standard 90-minute birth chart reading, but I also do past life readings, love and relationship readings, tarot readings, birthday readings, and more. My work is ever-evolving.
How accurate are your readings and how do you determine whether or not to relay certain pieces of information?
I like to think I’m accurate, and the feedback I’ve received has echoed that which helps me feel confident in saying this. I never got into astrology for predictive reasons, because I always preferred it for self-awareness and wanted to help people view themselves in completely different ways. However, most people want predictions and to know what’s coming up in their future, so I learned predictive techniques and use them in every client session now. I am very comfortable with being wrong, though. I think that’s important. You’re not going to hit the mark with every prediction you make.
I think ethics are important as well when determining what you want to say to a client about their chart or something that might be coming up in their future. Metaphorically speaking, I don’t want to point out an ‘ailment’ unless I can also offer some ‘medicine’ or a way the client can work through it. A lot of younger astrologers are naive and don’t really understand how important this is. I see so many clients who have had other astrologers say horrific things to them, to the point where they become scared of astrology – and you should never fear astrology. You can really mess up somebody’s psychology in general by dishing out information without understanding how to deliver that information and how to care for them afterward. I love giving clients all the positives in a reading, but I don’t avoid the more challenging stuff either, it’s just about being extra conscious in those more difficult times. My readings are always focused on helping the client grow, and growth typically comes by persevering through a challenge.
What has been the most remarkable experience you have encountered within the realm of Astrology?
I’m mostly fascinated by how much astrology itself evolves over time. It’s a reflection of life on earth, and we’re all evolving individually and collectively, so naturally astrology must account for the changes we experience as a human race. Astrology has so many ancient archetypal energies, but they take on new form as generations go by. For example, psychology is a relatively new field in human history, and we have only recently understood that we have a subconscious mind. This is important science that we cannot ignore, and astrologers have grown to understand these concepts and relate them to astrology itself. We can tap into someone’s subconscious mind or relate to various psychological approaches in our readings. But even though astrology predates psychology by millennia, we only recently started incorporating these psychological understandings, which have profoundly changed the way many of us do readings.
I also love Astrology for the retrospective approach. So many astrologers use it for predictive purposes, but I think there is so much to gain from using astrology to reflect on past experiences. It’s helped me make sense of so many things that I went through in life but could never understand why. You can look back and gain new perspective, which fundamentally changes how you exist in the present moment, and how you will operate moving forward.
If you would like to find out more about Ryan’s Astrology, visit https://www.ryansastrology.com/ or follow on https://www.instagram.com/ryanmarquardt/
