AT WORK WITH Susie Cox
Even Stars Need a Map to the Galaxy
By Alex Witchel

JUST try tempting Susie Cox to name the film stars, politicians and members of the British royal family whose charts she reads. As the astrologer at the Canyon Ranch Health and Fitness Resort in Tucson, Ariz., she refuses to comment when asked to confirm reports that she saw Julia Roberts just before she broke her engagement to Kiefer Sutherland. And that's without even asking about the dirt. Just the names would be enough.

"From a professional viewpoint, it is unacceptable," Ms. Cox insists. "It's the same as a psychiatrist: a breach of ethics."

Well, what about Joan Quigley, the Reagan family astrologer who turned her experiences into a best seller?

Silence.

"I would not have told about it," she finally says.

Oh, all right. Discretion has its up side, after all. Besides her three-day-a-week roster at Canyon Ranch, Ms. Cox's private clients, whom she sees annually, number 1,200 and live everywhere from Tokyo to Turkey, Rio de Janeiro to Syria. So many are either celebrities or spectacularly wealthy because they come from her client base at Canyon Ranch, two-thirds of whom are women.

"Men are less willing to be uncovered," Ms. Cox says, sitting in a friend's apartment in New York, where she has come to see clients. "Women will cry and tell you everything: Men will say, 'I want to hear what you have to say.' They're not quite as open metaphysically."

Ms. Cox, who is 45 and has a six-month waiting list, shuns the cliched gypsy role that many people associate with astrology. She wants people to know that it is more than just a syndicated feature buried next to the movie listings in some newspapers. "There really are two groups that people should be aware of," Ms. Cox says. "There's astrology, numerology and palmistry, and that's all you. It's your chart, your numbers, your lines. Different languages that explain basically the same pattern.

"The second group is psychics, card readers, I Ching, all of which depends on the feeling of the moment. I once had my cards done with an old boyfriend and we were told, `marriage and kids.' We broke up a week later and I never saw him again. But that was very much the feeling of that moment."

"Astrology is more about geometry," she continues. "Planetary movements are predictable. The sun will rise-and set. I call it the clock in the sky. And 3f you know how to read it, it will explain to us a pattern in our lives, ways to strengthen personal understanding and help us make good decisions. This is different from the old-time predictive style of the astrologer who wants to fix people, imposing his or her own `shoulds' on them. And even though a lot of people want that done, trying to map the timing of every little thing is not the purpose of astrology."

Which is also why, Ms. Cox says, a lot of people are afraid of it. "When the information is presented in a negative, fatalistic way, it turns people off, and you can't blame them." It may be because her approach is different that so many celebrities are drawn to her. She won't choose their films for them, but she will illuminate their strong points and "empower them to make changes."

"Astrology should be positive," she says.

O.K., I'm game. While I'm not prepared to cry and tell her everything, I'm curious to hear her planetary analysis minus the directives. An astrologer once told me not to sign anything when Mercury was in retrograde. "But I'm moving," I told her. "I have to sign a lease." She shook her head. "It will only be temporary. It will not last." Meaning what? That the building would burn down? Collapse? She wouldn't elaborate. (It turned out, actually, that she was right. I got married.)

A reading with Ms. Cox ($200 for 60 minutes) is part astrology, part astronomy, part girl talk, part therapy. She's warm and cozy, very positive and full of encouragement to "be yourself" and "be true to yourself." One client attributes her style to having "a lot of white light." A little New Age, perhaps. But Ms. Cox's point is that astrology is a symbolic language similar to hieroglyphics, and has nothing to do with crystal balls.

So, before my chart, I get background.

"There's a real need in the astrological world to have an accreditation and I think that will happen," she says confidently, because she is making it happen. After reading more than 22,000 charts, she finds herself at her own turning point. This year, she created the Foundation for the International Study of Astrology, based in Tucson, which she hopes will bring her field into the 20th century by financing astrological research and education internationally.Her fund-raising efforts have so far, been successful. "One-third of my, clients fund foundations or live off trust funds," Ms. Cox says. "Before I even incorporated the foundation, one client donated $10,000."

Does that mean astrology is just a rich person's hobby?

"Not at all," she says. "When people are very successful, where else is

there to look except up? They have the time to focus on personal growth."

"Do you have a meditation?" Ms. Cox asks me earnestly. Her enormous blue eyes are expectant.

Uh-oh. I don't. This is probably the moment when I should tell her I got a "Needs Improvement" in kindergarten rest period. "I exercise," I say hopefully and she nods approval. I am ready, she says, to "take the next step during this Renaissance time" between 1992 and 1996.

How's that again?

"Every 171 years something happens in the world," she explains. "The last time was the Industrial Revolution and 171 years before that it was the Renaissance. This time it started with the Berlin wall coming down, and most recently, the end of apartheid in South Africa. There is a newness happening in the world right now, a turning point. I'm suggesting to my clients to be really bold. We have the best opportunity now that we will in our lifetimes to start something new. And now's my time to make a change, too."

Which means developing the foundation, though she does plan to continue her 13-year association with Canyon Ranch, and she's halfway through her astronomy degree at the University of Arizona. Besides the foundation, her proudest accomplishment of the last year was publishing the International Directory of Astrologers, a worldwide listing that has been sold in 49 countries.

So something's got to give, and she has decided it's the number of clients she sees. "I wish I could do everyone who wants to see me," Ms. Cox says.

"But I feel that I give and give, and it's not enough. I'm so sensitive, I feel what they're going through. That makes me compassionate, but I go to sleep thinking about them, giving them energy. How can I not do that?

"But to get really involved in people's emotions is not good. When they cry, I cry with them, too." She sighs. "It's my Pisces moon." She also has a Gemini sun with Capricorn rising, which means, just in case you want to know, that her business and spiritual sides are balanced and she's conscientious and focused at what she does.

"If you know how to look for it, everything about human behavior is in the chart," Ms. Cox says. "There is a saying: 'Astrology is perfect. It's the astrologers who aren't.' "

It would seem that she comes close. "I knew when I was 7 that I was an astrologer," she says. "I was sitting in my room thinking about the universe and life and what it was all about. And 1 felt someone or something touch me here." She points to the back of her head. "And I was infused with astrology in one moment. I knew then what I know now."

A fourth-generation native of Tucson, Ms. Cox is the oldest of five daughters and was raised Roman Catholic. She even considered becoming a nun. "That lasted until I was 18 and discovered sex and boys, and that was the end of that," she says.

Ms. Cox's reading is designed as a lesson, complete with a recommended reading list. The chart itself is a large circle divided into 12 sections, or houses, that represent areas of a person's life, including self, money, health, marriage and occupation.

Mine turns out to lie a lopsided affair, with most of the planetary activity concentrated on the left-hand side. This means I am self-propelled, she says, and in control of my decisions. (Apparently, none of these planets are around when I'm getting dressed in the morning.)

Activity on the right-hand side of the chart means a person lives her life through others. Helen Keller's chart, she says, was all on the righthand side. The higher the percentage of empty houses, meaning the absence of planetary activity, the older the soul, Ms. Cox says. I have five empty houses, out of 12, which means that the issues represented by those houses were resolved during my previous lives. Busy, busy.

She continues: "But somehow, in your past lives you never got to assert your self-identity. That's why the planets are all on the left now. Who's in charge here? You are! You know that song, `I've Gotta Be Me'? That could be your slogan, really."

My poor husband.

She draws red and blue lines between some of the planets to signify karma (red) and destiny (blue).

"Karma is your lifetime homework," she says. "Not really a struggle, but almost a mission you haven't quite resolved, that you need to do in this lifetime. The blue lines are what you're best at. Your natural talent and direction."

The ensuing explanation gets pretty technical, but Ms. Cox peppers the reading with some down-home cheerleading. "Look, here's Jupiter, which is like having a Santa Claus who says: `You want this. You've got it.' " So where has he been all my life?

Does she ever sugarcoat a chart, ignoring anything bad?

"No, I say it," she says. "I try not to be real specific. I might say there's a stressful time coming up, but I don't know the real detail. Astrologers can get fancy with predictions and miss the boat. Unless you're really, really sure, it is inappropriate to talk about dying. Free will rules the whole thing. The future is not set in stone. If you are in tune with yourself you can even bypass an accident. One woman I saw needed to learn how to deep breathe. Her energy was really scattered.

"And she did learn. Then, she was almost in a head-on collision. But instead of panicking she just turned the wheel. She told me: `You saved my life. Five years ago, I would have freaked and gotten killed.' And she had had a very serious transit in her chart. Did she bypass a situation in. her chart that could have been serious? I think so."

"What astrology can do is encourage you to get in control of your situation," she says. "When you trust your inner voice you'll be happy. People say, `Isn't it selfish to just do what I want?' But isn't that what life's about, doing something appropriate to you?"

I guess.

This is not the right answer.

"Your homework," she instructs, "is to be you as dynamically as you can be. Shine!"

Well, why not?