Ken Hirano is a former “Tokyo Salaryman” from San Francisco, California that quit corporate life to pursue his interest in Astrology, cycling and counseling.

Years in Tokyo: 8 in total
Job: Astrologer
Favorite Place in Japan: Shikoku near the Shimanami-Kaido bridge. Dramatic whirlpools swirling around in a beautiful turquoise sea.
Recommended Night Spot: All the tiny oyaji bars around Shin-bashi.
Favorite Japanese food: kushi-yaki

What exactly is Astrology?

It’s the notion that the planets in our solar system represent archetypes, that they’re alive in a certain sense, and that we humans are deeply and mysteriously connected to them in some way. It’s a return to an ancient way of perceiving the universe and our place in it – “as above, so below”.  Central to astrology is the concept of an archetype – that is, the concept of universal principles or instincts or forces that structure human experience. Saturn, for example, represents the saturnine archetype of restriction, limitation, old age, authority, wisdom, hardship and structure. It’s associated with the Greek God of Cronus who was the father of Zeus and is often thought of as a stern father figure.

Most of us believe in some sort of mind-body connection. Astrology takes it a step further by believing in a mind-body-cosmos-consciousness connection. It’s related to the notion first popularized by Carl Jung that there is such a thing as meaningful coincidence – the concept of synchronicity. In these modern times where a mechanistic and materialistic view of the universe is a prerequisite to being considered educated or intelligent, it’s the hardest thing to talk to people about the existence of a cosmic soul or consciousness.  It’s important to note we don’t think the planets “cause” events or generate particular personality types. It’s about the mysterious correlation between events / personalities with planetary alignments. It’s a correlation that’s rooted in a deep interconnectedness with human consciousness and material reality.

Well, I could go on but maybe answering your other questions will help to clarify these ideas. But let me just add that it’s not about fortune telling as commonly understood or other such silliness.

What is your background and what made you decide to pursue Astrology as more than just a hobby?

After graduating from college, I held a variety of jobs in academic and business settings including in the technology industry. After leaving the busy life of a salaryman, I naturally drifted back to a couple of persistent interests one of which was metaphysics and spirituality. I went back and reread one of Gauquelin’s books and discovered Richard Tarnas. And of course, I have to mention the midlife tumultuous influence of the Neptune square and the Uranus opposition that I was undergoing at that time. Pluto and Saturn were mixed up in that combo as well. Basically it meant that I had to become really honest about what my true interests in life were and what my life’s mission was. Was I always going to keep one of major interests in life hidden or was it safe to come out of the closet? Well, I came out of the closet…but it wasn’t quite safe but it was strangely liberating. And the friendships that developed are things I’ll always treasure.

What is your connection to Japan?

Well, I’m Japanese…sort of. My parents are Japanese but I was raised in California and became a San Franciscan. About 10 years ago, I felt a yearning to discover the mother country and moved here to begin a new phase of my life.

When you or another professional astrologer gives a reading, what do you do?

When you call up an astrologer, you’ll first be asked to provide your birth date, birth time, and location. For example, January 23, 1971, 7:20pm in Seattle, WA. I often ask how confident they are of the birth times as this is often based memory and can be faulty. One additional question I ask is whether they know their birth was artificially induced via either drugs or through a C-section. The reason I ask this is that there’s fascinating evidence that the fetus knows when to be born and artificially speeding up the birth time can lead to an inaccurate birth chart. You’ll also typically be asked if there are areas in life you’d like to focus on such as relationships or career.

Then there’s the reading, which if it’s your first time will typically be about 1 to 1.5 hours. You’ll be given a copy of your natal chart (hopefully an aesthetically pleasing one with many colors) and the astrologer will provide an overview of the chart and its major symbols. The astrologer will explain the most prominent archetypes present in your chart and which life area – career, relationships, home, etc. – they will most likely be expressed. Natal chart interpretation is more art than science. It’s closer to music criticism than analyzing sound waves. And while we’re on this subject of aesthetics, I’d like to point out that astrologers, like poets or mystics, view the world not in a material way but in an imaginal way that’s informed by myth, by imagination, by archetypes. For example, at one level, the planet Jupiter is a giant ball of helium and hydrogen that’s millions of miles away from earth. But this isn’t as interesting as the mythological symbolism of an enormous planet that’s the archetype of expansion and benevolence. Or to take another example, the sun and moon are vastly different in size in material reality. But for us, what’s more crucial is that they both appear to be exactly the same size when viewed from the earth suggesting an equality between the male and female principles – the traditional mythological symbolism of the sun and moon.

What’s a natal chart? And what are transits?

A natal chart is a map of the heavens at the exact moment of one’s birth. It shows the position of the planets in the various zodiacal signs and the geometric relations among the planets. Transits happen when planets move into various meaningful positions in relation to the planets in the natal chart. For example, let’s say Saturn is in 10 degrees Pisces when you’re born in your natal chart. In about 15 or so years, Saturn will be around the opposite point in the heavens, in about 10 degrees Virgo. So this is called a transit of Saturn on one’s natal Saturn. Some transits last several years and have a long-lasting impact while others last only a few hours and have a short-term impact.

What do you think of horoscopes printed in newspapers, online and in magazines?

I think I speak for most serious astrologers when I say that most of this kind of stuff is just for entertainment purposes. They’re simply based on the zodiacal sign the Sun was in when one was born and this is a vast oversimplification of this ancient discipline. One astrologer said that newspaper astrology is to real astrology as snake oil medicine is to modern medicine. That about sums it up.

Often people think of astrology as not having any scientific basis and being purely a form of entertainment, what do you say to these people to convince them otherwise?

Wow. I have to keep my answers short, right? Well, first, I would say that the astrological community needs to mature to the point where we don’t feel the need to be “scientific” or to prove things. Like an adolescent seeking approval from an adult. And then I’d mention that astrology deals with the most complex phenomenon out there: people and their consciousness. It’s extremely difficult to design statistical tests to “prove” that a certain archetypal principle (Saturn, let’s say) expresses itself more often during Saturn influenced periods / persons than other times when there are so many different expressions of the Saturnine archetype. Asking statistics to prove astrology is a bit like asking it to prove that one artist’s work is superior to another’s. It just isn’t easily quantifiable.

Having said this, there are have been some extremely intriguing statistical experiments the most famous of which are the extensive analyses of the French statistician – Michel Gauquelin. Like myself, this guy had the astrology bug as a child and pursued it incessantly. But during his later teens, he began to have some doubts. So he set out to see if any of this astrology stuff is true via statistical experiments. First, he looked at zodiacal signs and didn’t find any meaningful correlations beyond mere chance. He looked at several other astrological elements but couldn’t find anything meaningful. Then he studied the positions of the planets in a person’s horoscope (whether the planet was rising in the east or reaching its highest point in the sky) and he hit a jackpot. He found that Mars was more often rising in the east for prominent athletes than for other people, and that the Moon was more often rising in the east for writers, etc. And these correlations matched the classic archetypal meaning of the planets (Mars for war, physical strength, and Saturn for scientists, etc.). To this day, Gauquelin’s experiments have stood the test of time and have puzzled the scientific skeptics. Even the super-scientific psychologist, Hans Eysenck, had to admit there was something in the Gauquelin evidence worth exploring.

But as I mentioned before, statistics isn’t really suited to “test” astrology so we should view Gauquelin’s work as providing simply a tantalizing glimpse. As for non-statistical evidence, I’d refer you to Tarnas’ 2005 book – Cosmos & Psyche. It was written by somebody who was part of the mainstream academic philosophy community and whose prior book – The Passion of the Western Mind – was a commonly used textbook in philosophy courses in many universities but who also, it turns out, was compiling evidence correlating the archetypal nature of historical events with the archetypal nature of the planets. One of my favorite books on the subject.

And though it smacks of the insecurity I mentioned earlier, I’ve been guilty of throwing out names of mainstream intellectually respectable people with a serious interest in astrology such as Carl Jung, Kary Mullis (1993 winner of the Nobel chemistry prize), James Hillman, Johannes Kepler, and Richard Tarnas, whom I just mentioned.

What about astrology and free-will? Does astrology mean that we’re all governed by destiny with no free will?

Philosophers, scientists, psychologists, theologians, biologists, etc. have grappled with the concept of free-will for the longest time and will probably continue to debate this deepest of human issues. The short answer is that the majority of modern astrologers are strong believers in our capacity to steer our own course and influence our situation. We believe that understanding our archetypal situation via astrology can be a deeply liberating experience. It’s like the belief shared by depth psychologists who believe that making unconscious forces conscious is to be less controlled by them. With an understanding of the major archetypal forces in our lives as expressed in the natal chart and how they might be triggered during planetary transits is to be better prepared to participate in these forces rather than be tossed around like a tiny boat in rough waters.

Any interesting astrological profiles you can share with us?

A natal chart? Well, one of my favorite ones is the one proposed to be that of Jesus Christ. It was theorized that the Eastern Star the Magi followed to Bethlehem was really the conjunction between Saturn and Jupiter that happened in the summer of 7 BC. Based on this and other research, one of the most accomplished astrologers of the last century, John Addey, proposed a birth date / time for Christ  of Aug 22^nd, 7 BC in the evening. What’s fascinating about this chart is that all the personal planets are in the signs of their rulership. So the Sun is in Leo, the Moon in Cancer, Mercury in Virgo, etc. What a powerful chart! All the archetypal forces are able to fully express their nature in such a chart. This chart has lingered in my memory for the past 25 years.

Any astrological predictions for the future?

It’d be hard to talk about the future without mentioning the massively powerful T-square combination of Pluto, Uranus, Saturn, and Jupiter now forming in the skies. The last time we had something similar was during the 1930s and I think many of us agree that there’s an eerie resemblance between these current times with those of the early 30s. The stock market crash, the breakdown of institutions, the sense of anxiety, etc. We even have the archetypal equivalent of the dust bowl of the 30s – the oil leak in the gulf.

At a higher level, we’re in the early stages of a deeply transformative time in history where more and more people are becoming conscious of the interconnectedness of all nature. And that maybe, just maybe, there’s consciousness and design and purpose out there in the cosmos where mechanistically minded people see only inanimate matter. That we humans aren’t the only source of intelligence and meaning and purpose in the universe. I believe this awakening will correlate with the Uranus – Pluto stressful alignment that is now underway and will continue exert its influence for a number of years.

So where do you go from here?

I’ll be studying counseling psychology with a spiritual bent at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco where I hope to integrate mainstream psychological counseling methods with spiritual traditions such as astrology and eastern philosophy. I feel it’s part of my life’s mission to expand my understanding of such things and to help others do the same. It’s a real shame that a once revered field of knowledge such as astrology has been reduced to a parlor game and serious discussion of it has fallen by the wayside.  Like many others, I believe we’re in the early stages of a shift in consciousness in which there’ll be a renewed openness to various spiritual studies and metaphysics. So while I have a normal dose of anxiety about the challenges ahead, I also feel tremendous excitement about the great leap forward in humankind’s sense of unity with the cosmos and with other human beings and with recognizing that there really is order and meaning in this seemingly chaotic universe.

interview: Cy Marquart
photography: Michael Beaty
translation: Takeshi Kobie, Natsuki Yamada