Interview with Astrologer Deborah Houlding (Part 3 of 3)

July 10, 2008 by Nina Gryphon

This is the third and last part of Gryphon Astrology’s Interview with astrologer Deborah Houlding. If you have missed them, read Part 1 and Part 2 of this interview first.

Deb will be lecturing on forensic astrology this September in San Francisco.

Can we expect a forthcoming book on horary astrology or on another astrological topic from you? What books do you have out already?

Yes, there will be a forthcoming book, and I hope to have several forthcoming books on horary before too long, but I have a few large projects currently nearing completion and these are my priority for the moment. I came close to publishing a book on horary astrology a few years ago, but then all of these new translations started becoming available, and I decided to research and re-evaluate my understanding of some of the traditional writings on horary technique before committing myself to print.

I am pleased now, that I have not rushed to publish a horary book so far, because I feel that my theoretical knowledge has become far more robust over the last few years, and I want the book that I write to be a sum of my astrological knowledge, and not a summation of a stage where I was still exploring some of the theoretical principles.

One of the long term projects I have been doing involves going through Christian Astrology again, annotating it with more explanations and cross-references to other texts. I published an annotated version of Christian Astrology before, but that is out of print, and it was getting ready for an update anyway. Unfortunately the electronic files were lost, so it has been the case of starting again from scratch.

Although it has been more time-consuming, in a way it’s a good thing that I’ve started again from the beginning, because now I don’t have any restrictions in being tied to an old format. I do enjoy this sort of work, but it’s a monster of a project. Sometimes I wonder if I am seriously preparing something for publication, or using it as a place to park my own endless notes and annotations! Of course, I also wrote Houses: Temples of the Sky a few years ago, and that is still available.

You have a well-established astrological presence on the web with your website. I discovered it a few years ago, but it took me some time to realize that it belonged to a Deb Houlding. The site really is not about you, but about astrology, which is rare and refreshing.

I did not want the site to be just about me, as part of me does not like too much attention (I have the Moon in Virgo in the 4^th house), but because of that, I think, people have been extraordinarily generous in letting me use their content on the site. One person could never have done it all, and I think because the site was always about the astrology first and foremost, other people have contributed much more than if I had made it all about myself and my own views. I found that I would just start something, try out an idea on the site, and someone else would volunteer to make it happen and take it further; so if someone else was involved, I was now more invested in it myself.

I am finally now thinking of putting up a small personal site, separate from the Skyscript website, that will talk about upcoming events and such. But at the moment having time for students and my own research is my main priority, and in that respect I know that self-promotion is a double-edged sword, so I’m approaching it with caution.

Thank you for taking the time to talk, Deb, and I look forward to seeing you in California in September!

Deb Houlding kindly provided her birth data, and agreed to share her horoscope with us. The horoscope is below. I didn’t publish the birth data, as I’m old-fashioned and don’t believe in revealing ladies’ years of birth