And it all began when…
I, Anak Rabanál, was rudely evicted from my mother’s womb five weeks ahead of schedule during the fourth deadliest typhoon in history. Survived two plane crashes before the age of four. First generation immigrant. Grew up in Maryland. Graduated from the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama’s Directing Program.
Worked in LA in film and TV as a wide-eyed kid full of dreams. Moved to New York. On- and off-Broadway shows. Shows at NBC and VH1. Did a stint working commercial production. Then, my doctor delivered the news that I could be dead in a year and I had no health insurance. Full stop.
So, I switched over to venture capital; but, after being stuck in the first car of a subway pulling into Bowling Green, when the first tower collapsed on 9/11 — helplessly watching as the smoke, dust, and ash drifted across the platform…
It was time to move — to Charleston, SC to a dream job as the Gallery Director. My Southern idyll ended explosively on the business end of a domestic violence altercation. Full stop.
Then full circle back to LA to a string of dynamic roles in finance — but then all of the stories inside me demanded to come out and I returned to Directing…but, given that I’m a WOC and the industry’s patriarchal allergy of allowing anyone with a vagina and who isn’t white into the club without ridiculous proofing (like two shorts at Cannes aren’t good enough), I wound up also doing strategic consulting.
SO where does astrology fit into all of this?
It has been with me almost my entire life. My childhood was spent with my mother insisting I grow up to be a “proper” Leo. This admonition went as far as hanging a piece of pop art with a lion and a big Leo glyph with a list of Leo qualities explicitly defined, in my room when I was 4 like some kind of work place manifesto — and it followed me around until I left for college! My first hand drawn chart came out of me at aged 16. After graduating all girls’ Catholic high school, my best friend insisted we memorize Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs so that we would be better prepared to seduce boys. She went on to marry someone perfectly astrologically suited to her; and I wound up with an OBSESSION. This was then stoked by a Jungian therapist, who not only made a great case for the validity of astrology as seasonal development theory forming the human collective consciousness but also that it would make me a better storyteller as a director by allowing me to better understand foundational personality types, motivations, and relationships.
“What I learned from them and from my subsequent studies and teachers is that astrology is a time tested tool in our lifelong journey of self/Self acceptance.”
However, my full deep dive into using astrology to guide how I approach self development and strategically timing choices and actions was during my first Saturn Return — the skies against which it took place were a doozy. When Saturn was in my natal decan, I received three natal readings from three different astrologers from three different traditions of astrology — Uranian/Evolutionary, Kabbalistic, and Jyotish. They all encouraged me to deepen my knowledge of astrology because I would have a “knack” for it.
More importantly, they insisted that it would help me move away from “ego based” manifestation of my life purpose — which resulted in anxiety, depression, and a constant sense of not being or doing “enough” — and towards crafting a more meaningful life — which feels “in flow”, “as it should be”, and organic — by focusing on my values and value and being in sync with what current cycles cultivate and unlock for me.
Ultimately, astrology is a tool that illuminates fundamental Mission, keeps focus on the Vision, and serves as a guide to how ACTION, RESOURCES & CIRCUMSTANCE result in Manifestation.
How? First, by providing a framework of symbolic archetypes that allows one to grasp the gestalt of one’s narrative in order to distill that into the central question of one’s experience, consciousness, and value and values set. Then, it lays out an agenda through time of how external cycles trigger internal developments that lead to external manifestations of how this central quest develops.
In less esoteric mumbo jumbo: Your natal chart is like a screenwriter’s script for a film or a founder’s company deck. The transits of planets progress that script from words on a page through development, prep, principle photography, post, and release or transforms a business plan into a business as it is developed through different stages of investment and implementation.
It’s this understanding of how astrology can be a practical tool in crafting a life well lived coupled with the implementation of multiple astrological methodologies (I can’t get enough of studying the various schools of astrology and seeing how they can be synthesized) that allows me to be of greatest service to my clients.