It’s written in the stars, but only the experts can read it, and not everybody believes it. Jane Rosenthal visited astrologer Rod Suskin
The day I made an appointment with Rod Suskin, I did not know that my father would die (I knew he was sick) and nor did I know that a devastating forest fire would destroy our farm and farmhouse. But by the time I went to see him these things had happened, and I was quite keen to see whether these cosmic blows would show up in my chart.
I think it was the fact that some of my best friends take astrology seriously that softened me up in the first place for the idea of having my birth chart done. A chronic sceptic, my attitude was of the variety that scoffs: “Oh please. The stars and planets, way out there in space, that I barely think about, are influencing my life?” But feeling myself somewhat at a crossroads in my life, I heaved myself out of my (some say typically) Taurean inertia and decided to go and have my birthchart done. Just to see.
When I phoned Suskin I thought I’d better be entirely upfront with him. One never knows what powers of mind reading such a person might have, so I told him I was somewhat unbelieving. He was entirely unfazed: “Astrology, like other sciences, either works or it doesn’t. After five to 10 minutes of talking to you, you can tell if it’s the truth or not, because I’m talking about you.”
Mentally filing his use of the word “science”, which might be construed as a red rag to those with opinions on empiricism, I was rather amazed to discover that I had to wait more than six months for an appointment. Eventually the penny dropped and I realised that I was dealing with “a master” – as described by aforesaid friend who knows a thing or two.
As it turns out, Suskin is also a sangoma, fulfilling his own cosmic destiny. He started out studying psychology at Wits with a view to doing clinical psychology, but was deflected from this course when he was sent to Swaziland in second year as part of a module on alternative therapies. The sangomas there instantly recognised him as a fellow healer. This was at the age of 19 and, by the time he was 26, Suskin was working full-time as an astrologer.
Be that as it may, when I went to see Suskin I was full of a kind of hopeful, interested curiosity – not to mention that persistent scepticism. To enable him to establish an exact birth time for me (important in finding one’s “rising sign”, which affects one’s relationship with the world) I had provided him with a list of important dates in my life, prompted to some extent by a set of questions. So he already had a sort of framework and could reasonably assess from that some fairly general things that would apply to anyone roughly at my point in life: kids leaving home, less financial strain, more freedom, and so on.
But would he have anything to add to that? I wondered as I walked down the very ordinary steps of a typical Vredehoek block of flats and was welcomed into a flat which seemed enormously familiar, inspiring a flashback to the Sixties. Traces of incense, curtained doorways and a consulting room painted in radiant blue. A view down to the faraway sea was partly obscured by a venetian blind, the sun personified gazed at me inscrutably from a mural.
I was a minute or two early and had time to read the large poster on the wall: a passage quoted from Carlos Castaneda about choosing a “path with heart”. Whatever one might think of Castaneda, there’s much to be said for choosing a path with heart and that’s what I was there for … some light on the subject of my path.
The interview lasted a full hour, and was recorded on tape – very detailed. What did I learn from it? Far too much to list here. It was interesting to find out what my rising sign is, and to see that it does seem to account for parts of me that could never fully be explained by any description of Taurus. Knowing one’s rising sign and having the two blended by such a skilled commentator as Suskin provides a much more nuanced version of oneself. The aim of the exercise, Suskin explains at the outset, is to get a more objective view of one’s positive and negative potentials, and to look at how one goes through life dealing with the inevitable changes.
As therapy it works wonderfully. He does the talking (but takes questions in his stride) and knows his science thoroughly and deeply. He is fluent, engaging, light, serious and perceptive – as well as kind and tolerant. He shapes the hour with considerable artistry and generates an atmosphere which is simultaneously non- threatening and challenging. And because he is interpreting what the chart objectively throws up (there’s some value after all to the distance thing which I previously thought made it seem so unbelievable) the whole business of being irritated by the assumed or perceived superiority of a conventional therapist, falls away. So he sits there and yatters on about you (which is of course highly flattering) and you are free to pick up whatever means something to you while you are listening.
He seems to have an uncanny knack for saying what people want or need to hear. Is this astrology or the therapist coming out? A few casual enquiries among friends who have had charts done confirmed this. To someone whose life is presently constrained by a disciplined and difficult career and who is now longing for freedom, he said: “You won’t know your life in 10 years time.” For another, who has everything (friends, money, talent, good looks) but no partner and was essentially sad, he predicted a serious relationship. Saying in effect: prepare yourself to take something seriously, address emerging relationships with the right attitude. So of course it went better, became a serious relationship.
The question is: how does he know what people need to hear? Or have these friends only remembered what they wanted to hear? Does he pick up very subtle clues in what you say? Is he psychic or just very sensitive in tuning into and reading people (I didn’t know he was a sangoma till afterwards). Or, is it really in the chart, in the stars. All of the above ?
Suskin seems to have no side to him: he takes questions with ease, giving the impression that he’s already asked the same questions himself and worked through years of studying this science based on 6 000 years of empirical observation (that’s how the planets etcetera acquired their attributes). This accounts, to some extent, for the mystifying mumbo jumbo aspect – it’s quite difficult for the unread and unready to fathom how to use this vehicle. Hence the need for a mediator.
And as for the fire and my father’s death? Well, it was indeed right there in the chart. I was apparently due for “an intensely Plutonic episode” in 1998, an encounter with Pluto, Lord of Death, the subconscious and the underworld, Pluto who transforms by fire. So now I am into a time of restructuring. As with the examples above, that seems a very broad statement, and when I complain that, far from restructuring, it feels more like “falling apart”, he says, “Ah good! Let it all hang loose. When you feel a bit coming off, say: `Off! Off!'” Fine for him to be so cheerful, but strangely sustaining.