My Journey with Astrology
Frank Salzano is an astrologer, cultural astronomer and storyteller that focuses on vedic astrology & cross-cultural star myths and celestial folklore. My astrology practice, Medicine of the Starry Heavens, is steeped in the astrologies of the ancient world, particularly those from Indo-european and Semitic lineages. I also love rapping on the new stuff: asteroids, outer planets, evolutionary & archetypal astrology, contemporary astronomy.
The School of Celestial Illumination is my mosaic of community offerings and teachings that weave together astrology and divination with an ancestral understanding of ethnoastronomy, myth & cultural astronomy, modern healing modalities, and most of all an embodied, animate relationship to the sky. I love doing late-night storytelling under the stars and consider it a big part of my life’s work to share with people a deep remembering of an animate cosmos that ritually illuminates & brings the sky mytho-poetically back to life.
“My practice is wellness & spiritually-oriented, as well as grounded & pragmatically supportive. My sessions are candid & sensitively address my client’s inquiries with a clarity of depth, soulfulness of the imagination, & practical integration in mind.”
I have studied several types of astrology over the years (Western, Arabic, Persian & Vedic) & have a great appreciation for the Jungian/Archetypal psychology-influenced branch of the discipline, as well as how the art & science of astrology relates to the deep-rooted worlds of mythology & ancient human culture. Once I discovered Vedic astrology (also known as Jyotish in sanskrit: “the science of light’), I have been primarily focused on using the systems & techniques of ancient India because they are extremely sophisticated, complex, subtle, & accurate.
I consider astrology to be a divination practice and healing art, and an astrology session to be a blessing that goes both ways. My experience in giving readings is that I receive the intimacy & gift of getting acquainted with another person, their personalized celestial map and the uniqueness of their human experience. Each of these relationships is another window to the world-soul, and gifts me the opportunity to understand life with more nuance, texture, meaning, beauty & depth.
I grew up in the Allegheny Plateau along the sandstones and shales of the Kanawha River valley. I’ve got Mercury very near the ascendent conjunct the Pleiades, and a lot of planets in Gemini,Taurus & Scorpio. Love my Leo Moon conjunct the royal star Regulus! I was born days after a solar eclipse in the constellation of Gemini. While I didn’t seriously discover astrology till my Saturn Return, I was enthusiastic about the science of the night sky & astronomy in my younger years.
“I consider astrology to be a divination practice and healing art, and an astrology session to be a blessing that goes both ways. And Vedic astrology is particularly sophisticated, technically elaborate and very nuanced, which produces beautifully accurate and meaningful results.”
I have been living my dream life in the Blue Ridge mountains, nestled in an eclectic and amazing community of farmers, herbalists, carpenters, healers, & artists, with my wonderful family and friends. I live and teach at a homestead/school (Wild Abundance) dedicated to empowering & supporting people on their journey towards becoming more sustainable, practically-skilled & harmonious companions to their local human & more-than-human communities. We live a healthy & humble life-path that is very grounded in the patterns of our natural surroundings, and are passionate about helping others do the important work of developing the tools to live an authentic place-based life that cultivates belonging & relates well with the rest of the natural world.
I spend more time under the stars than looking at computer screens!