The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and apparently, it is time to buy a fire extinguisher.
So says the queen of Canadian astrology, Georgia Nichols, whose new, and first, book, You and Your Future, is rocketing up the best-seller list faster than a Sagittarian with its moon in Uranus.
Born in Winnipeg and living “in a forest on an island” in British Columbia, Nichols took to reading the 12 signs of the zodiac as a profession after being laid off. But she’s been learning astrology for as long as she can remember.
“I would lie on the floor and read horoscopes. It was this esoteric knowledge, and it wasn’t mentioned in school, church whatever, but there it was in the newspaper for everyone to see,” says Nichols. “It was this hidden knowledge. Why wasn’t everyone talking about it?” After she found herself out of a job, Nichols turned to astrology.
“I was in Vancouver, and I took out an office. I didn’t know how, but I did,” Nichols explains. “I did readings for people, and then the columns took over to such an extent that I couldn’t do readings any more.”
What began as a weekly column in Monday Magazine grew into a regular daily horoscope in The Province as well as a full-page weekly article.
Now, Nichols is one of the most widely read astrologers in the country, appearing in the National Post, Winnipeg Free Press and Calgary Herald as well as American newspapers such as the Chicago Sun-Times.
“I still feel like this little daily horoscope is light stuff right,” Nichols says. “But I cannot tell you how many e-mails I’ve received about how I’ve helped them through their husband’s death or that I gave them courage to do something…. I talk to people daily, you see. Daily you hear this voice speaking to you. Eventually, it has an influence in their lives.”
Nichols’ 600-page tome offers up a couple of firsts in the astrology genre: a 40-year timeline for her horoscopes as well as delving into the past.
“They might be out by maybe one or two years, but the whole broad stroke of your life will be there,” she says. “You can go into the past, and a person can judge me, judge the accuracy — did they leave home then, did they find a partner then, right up to 2025.”
For non-believers, Nichols says, at its root, astrology is just math.
“I agree with a very famous astrologer, Sir Isaac Newton, who, when criticized by Edmund Haley for studying astrology said, ‘Sir, I have studied the subject you have not. If you actually started to study it, you would be shocked.’”