No One Knows You Better (Than You Know Yourself)
“Astrology is a powerful weapon to bring people out of ignorance and fear.” Photographs by Miguel Figueroa
Have you ever met someone who changes your life in under an hour? Andrea Lobo is an Argentine Astrologer who’s been living in Puerto Rico for almost 30 years. Her approach to astrology is no monkey business. Sessions with her are conducted in a loving, compassionate and tender manner and will take you to places you’d never been before; yet always wanted to go. In a world where chaos and confusion are the norm, there’s no better secret weapon than getting to know the real you.
Why do you think it’s important to believe in astrology?
Oh because it makes life much easier! When you know your natal chart you can better understand your life. It’s a map that gives you possibilities in “choosing” your best paths to be happy and fulfill yourself. We’re not perfect nor we can manipulate life to our own ways [laughs]. Our superior being knows which is the way and your natal chart can give you the knowledge you need to become the best version of yourself. It’s fabulous. I think parents should do their children’s chart to see what are their best traits, where to help them, to have an insight on how their relationship will be and also to know what they’re going to like. It’s a tool to set them off in their path—their own little book. Who knows what’s in it? Discovering as you go is also great, but having your chart makes you more assertive—makes it easier!
My daughter used to thank me for giving her all the information beforehand because there are different stages in life: some are sad, some are difficult; and through astrology you can know why they are happening, for how long and how you can resolve them. Returns of Saturn are difficult and it’s wise to know when and in which areas of our lives it will influence us.
I think that up to your 30s it’s like that…
I agree with you and astrologically there are reasons. Sometimes you don’t know what’s happening, “I’m depressed…” that’s when you find out. It’s even a tool to help people find their jobs—who can be a leader, assist or be practical. It helps with distributing roles and bringing out each person’s maximum potential. Now, why haven't charts become more popular? I don’t know. But, I think that astral charts have extraordinary value. Astrology is a powerful weapon to bring people out of ignorance and fear. Maybe that’s why the Catholic Church doesn’t use it? There used to be a Pope, Julius II in 1503, who had his natal chart done to know when the most convenient day for his coronation would be, and to my knowledge, they still study this chart.
Everybody reads the horoscope.
Of course. But the ones you read in the newspaper are nonsense! [Both laugh] Those have no value! They give you so little information. “Your Sun is here or Pisces is in this other place…” It’s of minimal insight. Also, it depends on where your Sun is. If it’s in a good sign, well, you’re gonna be great. But if the Sun is somewhere that’s not got good for you, then you will have a tough month. Those horoscopes are…
Placebo.
Yes. They’re not accurate.
I used to be a devout reader of Susan Miller, but sometimes she’s such a fatalist and then I would set myself up to have a terrible month.
There are people who get frightened easily. I prefer to say “don't talk too much and you'll avoid problems.” If there are a lot of heavy aspects, you can see how you can make them better, let them flow and be just fine. My mission is not to scare you. If you’re someone who doesn’t have an easy personality and is prone to fighting, well then it’s best to let go, go with the flow and not speak so much. Scaring people is not a good tactic. I’ve had some clients who come to me frightened. I’m never going to forget this one client who had just done a Vedic chart and told me that she had a terrible experience. She left so scared from that reading. I redid her natal chart and it was a whole other ballgame. Jeez… Some people can scare you!
You have to be so conscious. Our words have great powers. Coming to an astrological consultation is not the same as talking to one of your girlfriends. You need to be really careful [how you say things].
Of course, we come looking for guidance. But I'm sure that not everything’s peaches and cream. You must have some difficult clients as well…
Yes, there are some people who refuse to see beyond what they "know" and with those clients [Andrea makes a gesture of indifference]. There are some people who have a lot of difficult aspects in their chart: you let them know, but with time they forget. But very few of my clients are like this. In my 32 years as an Astrologer, I’ve only encountered three very difficult and complex charts.
Coming to a consultation with you feels like getting naked in front of a stranger. You have to be so brave to hear what you have to say.
[Andrea laughs] There’s your ability! Listen… we all have our difficult things. We’re not precious angels…
We all have light, but also our shadow.
Of course! It’s good to see and emphasize your light but it’s also good to know your shadow so you don’t let it have too much power over you.
How can we use our shadow to our advantage?
Sometimes people think that our dark side is a bad thing—and it’s not. I tell them not to fight it. Also, people get so fuzzy when it comes to their intuition. I listen to mine so much; you have to. The thing is… jeez… you can’t continue thinking and thinking and ignoring your intuition. If you are doing that, something’s wrong with you. And it's your dark side refusing to listen to your interior voice, which is your intuition. Open up your mind and listen to it.
We also have to think, especially here, about our conditioning. We’re taught through our families, religion, the government and society in general that things are going to end badly. It’s so stressful!
Yes, and it’s also so structured. A lot of my clients come here looking for a way to let go of that. There’s nothing wrong with leaving structures behind. Who set them up? There’s nothing wrong with being wild and free. As long as you don’t hurt anyone, it’s alright. It’s fantastic to be weird, different and unique.
We need to create our own structures.
Of course! Indeed! Create the ones you like. But coming back to talking about the shadow, sometimes it's not as bad as you think. But it's not until you recognize it that changes in your life begin to happen. For example, I’ll have a client who tells me, “I always have partners who cheat on me” and I ask them, “Well, tell me why you attract that kind of person…?”
Because they’re also cheaters.
Of course! They are showing them, in an exaggerated way, something that they have in themself. And until you see it in yourself, those people will continue to show up in your life. Once you recognize it—poof!—they’re gone.
Or it may be someone who’s too controlling.
That too. When you stop controlling, or at least accept that you have those issues inside of you, those people will disappear and a new caliber of people will appear in your life. Sometimes clients think this is oh-so-terrible. But, the best thing that you can do is recognize an issue before life makes you deal with it. You need to start letting go and listening to yourself.
This is like receiving your instruction manual: “This is How You Can Arm or Disarm Yourself”
It’s up to you. If you want to be happy, then you pay attention to the nice things, fix the complicated ones and then there comes a moment when you don’t even need your chart. It doesn’t matter anymore.
Just like riding a bicycle.
You learned the lesson and after that, no more.
How did you become interested in astrology?
My mother believed in astrology a lot. She knew everyone's sign. She had me born when she was 8 months pregnant because she didn't want me to be Cancer.
You’re a Gemini.
Yep. She would run up and down the stairs so that I would come out earlier. Or maybe she was just tired of being pregnant; after all I have a sister who is only 10 months older than me. When I was seventeen I had my first natal chart read by an elderly astrologer. She didn't record any of our sessions. A lot of astrologers make this mistake, you have to record it. She told me, “Oh, you’re going to become an astrologer! And when you see fences, jump over them. And your best personality traits, you inherited them for your mother.” Well, at that moment I had just moved in with my father because my mother and I had been fighting… She also said that Aquarius was the worst sign for a partner for me. And the truth of the matter is that Gemini get along well with Aquarius; but, since I have a planet that is not good for me in Aquarius, it wasn’t the best bet. She kept telling me how bad they were for me and I was dating one! I thought it was nonsense. But, down the line, I realised that she was right.
Sometime later, a friend of my mother’s comes to visit from another province and she tells me that she has a male friend, an architect, who’s also an astrologer. I was interested and since he lived close to me I decided to pay him a visit. It was something else. It felt contemporary, more like me. We meet and he tells me that I have a knack for astrology and I ask him where should I study it. He tells me that there are no astrology schools nearby and that what he learned was self-taught by reading the Rosicrucianism books. He was a very intelligent man and offered to teach me.
The first thing you learn is mathematics. It’s a heavy process. Then comes the interpretation. That’s how I began. In the beginning knowing all the formulas was complicated. I was studying alongside another student. She was an Aquarius who never got to the point and talked too much. I was the complete opposite, I spoke very few words and got straight to the point. I took 15 lessons and then I started bugging everyone I knew: my brother, my friends, “come over, I’ll do your chart!” And that’s how I began at the age of 22.
For me, there are things that are like opening up a door. If you follow it, the information comes to you. Have you ever felt that?
Yes.
See… When I opened that astro door I told myself, “this is it, I know it.” I told myself that I would read the basics because I didn’t want to contaminate myself with too much knowledge. And then from there I started working on my own mix. One of my first clients was called C. Aragón. What an awful chart! Just horrible! Red lines were everywhere, everywhere! I was with her for three hours. A normal chart will take you about one. She had gone through so much—the worst things you can imagine—and I told myself, “If I make it through this woman, I’ve graduated.” So, I began. Acquaintances, friends, my aunts, until I arrived here as an astrologer.
“Coming to an astrological consultation is not the same as talking to one of your girlfriends.”
How did you end up in Puerto Rico?
It was in 1989. Argentina was going through a great devaluation era. One day you had 1,000 pesos and the next you had 0. Something was worth 10 pesos one day and the next just 1. My husband asked me, “What do we do? Should we stay here or move to California?” Staying in Argentina was too complicated because there was so much instability, so we started making plans to move to California. Right around that time, a friend of ours who had just moved to Puerto Rico came back to visit. He told us he was thrilled to be living here, and that Puerto Rico was going through a prosperous period. So I thought, “The Caribbean, Spanish speaking and an island… Puerto Rico is the first option!”
We moved to El Yunque [a rainforest] and I wanted to kill myself. I had moved from Buenos Aires— a big city like Madrid where you can go to cafés, work all day, take taxis— to… the rainforest. My husband was out working all day so I was there by myself. Without television or radio. Everything was green with just the sounds of the coquí [a small frog native to Puerto Rico]. Those were years of silence. That’s life though… I always think that when you’re on your path, destiny will lead you on its way. Our friend’s girlfriend started getting me clients, so I would stay in San Juan for a couple of days. At that time I met Orlando Rimax, a radio personality who was very into UFOs and he invited me to the radio station where he worked, 11Q. Each Thursday I would go in and discuss astrology.
After that I started appearing on Hello Wapa [a TV variety show] with Gladys Rodríguez and Evelio Taillacq. Sometimes, I went through periods of doubt and wondered, “Why am I going to dedicate myself to this?” But as soon as I would ask that question, I'd get a surge of clients. So I said, “Ok, I guess this is going to work out.” Little by little, starting in 1994-95, I began meeting with clients at El Yunque. But I couldn’t continue living like a gypsy, staying with my friends; I needed a steady place to work in San Juan, so I got together with my two associates in 1999. A lot of my old clients still come to me and remember the times when they used to visit me up in the rainforest.
Well, I gotta say that after our first meeting, you have me as a client for life! [both laugh] It’s just that… it gives you so much grounding for these turbulent times.
Yes, it does. There’s so much turbulence in the world, at work and with people. Things are going to shift— and each time more quickly. People are not going to work on just one thing, they will have a couple of jobs. Times of changes are coming.
And you have to be ready.
Yes, you need to know how to work around it and be sure of what to do. Maybe you possess three different skills and for now you work on one, then the other and then the other. Some people, like you, have the gift of multitasking; yet others may have it as well, but they just don’t want to deal with it. It’s too stressful. We all have a unique style, we need to look for it and recognize it.
Who is your typical client?
I’m very lucky to have great clients. Everything is vibration.
It’s true, everyone who told me to set up an appointment with you come from the same wavelength.
I don’t mean to brag, but I have spectacular clients. They’re divine, very creative and in tune [to the energy].
You have to be.
It also depends on the themes that I’m working on. For example, when I was researching emotions, I would get highly emotional clients.
You drew them to you.
I also believe that we are reflections of one another and it all has to do with synchronicity.
If you think about it, it’s simple mathematics. One plus one equals two.
It’s being in sync, recognizing one’s road in life, knowing what to do and when to do it. Not everything is going to be perfect, you need to know this, and that there will be some difficult years as well. But, the smart thing is to have an upper hand and to know that these sort of cycles have a beginning and an end. 28 to 30 are difficult years, but after that… happiness. Bad moments don’t last forever, but even these times are good for you. Knowledge is power. It is the light. You can’t be uninformed just because you’re scared to know.
Listen, I came to Puerto Rico to be here and to be an astrologer. Let me tell you, when I arrived I had two very particular sensations. The first one was when I told my husband, “You’re going to think I’m crazy; but this house will be ours.” At the moment, someone was living in that particular house, but a year later we were moving in. Another time, we were driving down Route 10— which crosses the island north to south through the mountains. Suddenly, my soul was so happy and I told him, “Once again you’re going to think I’m crazy, but I am from here. I lived here in a previous lifetime.” My soul was happy to be back in the place where it had once belonged. Later on, I did a past life regression with one of Brian Weiss’s books and how do I see myself? As a Taíno Indian, in a riverbed with a sparrow at hand. I go and get my aura checked and that proved it to me then and there. I came back because I had unfinished business. Sometimes you go to a certain country and feel at such ease and in others you simply don't. There’s something about Puerto Rico. It has a very special energy.
That same feeling happened to me when I moved to Barcelona and it recently happened again when I visited Maunabo [a beach town in the south-eastern part of the island].
I’m sure you lived there in a past life. For me, it’s like a computer that turns on and suddenly data appears for these specific places.
What are some tools that we can have handy to protect us from lower vibrations?
First of all, it’s fundamental to pay attention to your intuition. When you don’t like someone, you don’t. You have to listen to it. Maybe that person will get along with other people, but with you, it doesn’t click. I tell people not to betray themselves. If there is something in you, in your psyche that tells you, “I don’t like this person”— why wouldn't you pay attention to it?
The problem with that is that you can spend years, decades… you could even marry someone like that!
It’s horrible, but you didn’t listen to yourself. Maybe it’s karma from past lives. If you had listened to your voice within, maybe you would’ve saved yourself from that suffering. Listening to yourself is key. No doubt about it. If you go somewhere sketchy, you cover yourself with a white light, you tell yourself, “angels are with me” and you’re good to go.
This kind of thinking for someone who is too rational (too many air signs in their chart) or who is very emotional (too many water signs) is a struggle. Who are you going to listen to? How are you going to guide your life? With your emotional or rational side? In my case, I chose my emotional side. I also use the other side, but there is always a dominant one.
Let’s talk a little bit about each zodiac sign’s characteristics.
As you know, signs are categorized by water, air, earth and fire. There are different styles and you have to pay attention—fire signs are going to be very spontaneous, a little rough around the edges and want everything now. Perhaps, if they mix with someone who is a water sign— which are very sensible—they will clash a little bit. It’s good to know about other signs: How each one chooses to love and express itself is totally different from another.
Are there some astrological combinations that are impossible to maintain?
Some may be complicated, but there really is no impossible match. Let’s say for example, a Taurus and an Aquarius—it’s an odd combination. Taureans don’t really like to move around, they enjoy routines, and are slow and organized. Aquarians are crazy, they love changes, everything that’s new and they aren’t really into order. How can they match? If the Taurean has its moon in Aquarius or has a lot of air signs in his or her chart, then they could be compatible. Maybe it turns out that the Aquarian has some earth signs in him or her and they enjoy the Taurean's routine.
When we talk about signs in general, you really can’t say much. You have to look into each person’s chart. That’s why, when that astrologer told me that since I was a Gemini I wasn’t a good match with an Aquarian, I was surprised; because air signs (Gemini, Libra and Aquarius) really get along with each other. I told myself, “What’s wrong with her?” You can’t really say that two signs aren’t going to get along with each other. That’s why you need to dive into your natal chart and the more you know, the better.
I also recommend the “Sinastría” chart which is a compatibility study between two people to know if they’re in sync, what their best qualities are and what their conflict areas are.
Which are the most notorious signs?
Scorpios and Leos—you either love them or you don’t. There’s really no middle ground with these two. Leos are really all about themselves, for better or worse. Sometimes we need to battle with Leo's ego because they can be very selfish. They have to tone down their despotism. Leos crave a lot of attention.
If a Scorpio is bad, they are very bad to the point of being vengeful and spiteful. They have to transmute a lot. I love them if they are in a good place and have a sound planet in their Sun. It’s a powerful sign because they can manage the depths of their darkness, their psyche. Plus, they are fighters, hard workers—you can knock a Scorpio down and they’ll rise stronger than before. They also have a very deep point of view.
Virgos can be quite irritating. They love to criticize and are demanding and meticulous. On the other hand, they are brilliant, intelligent and they love to help others.
The most loved?
Pisces, for the most part, are always well-liked. If we look beyond their madness, they are empaths and are compassionate. Aquarians are also good people—they are social butterflies and people really like them.
Which are some cities or countries where astrology is very popular?
Spain and London. Many astrology books and schools have come out of England. Also, Argentina and Mexico.
Have you thought about teaching astrology seminars?
I’d like to. I taught a small group from 2002-2003. There were three to four lovely students but none chose to pursue this path.
Technology has helped to create astro charts, hasn’t it?
It used to take me half an hour to get a chart ready. Now the computer takes care of it.
Can you talk about it or is it a closely guarded secret?
Of course! It’s about learning the latitudes and the differences from the Greenwich meridian. All calculations are created on the ephemeris. For example, if they are charts based in Puerto Rico, you have to transfer to the Puerto Rican meridian which has a four-hour difference. You fix the degrees and add four hours. But now the software does this all for you. But, you still have to be careful because there are some astrologers who don’t correct the hours and you can’t do that. In astrology, timing is of utmost importance. You also use a lot of psychic energy. When I started, I would end up exhausted at the end of the day.
Astrology isn’t for everybody.
The truth of the matter is that it’s not. Sometimes you meet astrologers who are a hot mess. It’s like making a salad. You have to mix in, like, 800 ingredients. Computers have made it much easier, but a real astrologer has to analyze the chart beyond what the software can do and add what they’ve learned through the years. Astrology is a cosmic watch. It’s a superior energy that dictates everything.
Whoa. Do you believe in God?
Yes, faithfully.
Is it important?
Well… God… or whatever you want to call it. But, there is something that brings us all together and it’s necessary. I also believe in reincarnation. I do a Karmic Chart (which is specialized for past lives) and I recommend it to anyone who’s seeking to find something beyond. Souls wait for the right moment to return. “Is this the country or parents that suit me? Ok, here I come…” I think that every soul returns at a precise moment when it’s useful for their personal evolution.
So, we’re here to evolve.
To be conscious creatures of love.
To become better versions of what we were?
Always. It doesn’t matter how tough your life has been. I believe this. Life has fantastic timing. Before I moved to Puerto Rico, I had a yoga instructor in Buenos Aires that asked me how is it that someone comes to love freedom. His answer was that you probably need to be born in a place where they don’t let you do anything and you have to fight for your freedom. This makes sense to me.
We arrive and depart by ourselves. If you think about it, we’re born free.
Exactly. Free… but with your “little book”. [Laughs] That “little book” is called your natal chart and it’s done once in your life. I recommend that parents do charts for their children in order to guide them and help them excel in what they are good at. Prodigies are those who have been doing the same thing in past lives and now here, finally, they get it. They earned it.
If you want to be even more connected to your chart, progress and stages of your life, I recommend a “Solar Revolution” on each birthday (it lasts for a year) because it deals with the most important themes for that year and how situations will pop up month by month and we can see the path of the planets.
Contact Andrea Lobo via instagram to schedule your session with her. You won’t regret it. https://www.instagram.com/andrealoboastrologa/