What's Your Sign?
Woodstock Astrologer Carole Gaudet Helps Clients Find Wisdom In the Stars
by Anne Clemens
Photographs by Medora Hebert
For a lot of people, the word "astrologer" evokes an image of a caftan-clad seer peering through a crystal ball. What probably doesn't come to mind is a former environmental lawyer and mother of two reading mathematically-calculated charts at her dining room table.
Woodstock resident and astrologer Carole Gaudet, forty-five, wants to demystify astrology and put a different face to the term. "I'm trying to share its beauty, wisdom, the sense of balance it brings," Carole says, "and the fun and magic of it."
According to Carole, who recently turned her lifelong passion into a profession when she launched her Complete Astrologer business and website in 2007, the biggest misconception people have about astrology "is that they're going to hear something bad, like they're about to have seven years bad luck, financial disaster, or an illness."
This interpretation of astrology is based on superstition, what people commonly see in the movies, or read in the daily horoscopes. "There's that scene in so many movies where the protagonist consults a psychic, and the psychic sees some terrible omen, like Saturn crossing the Moon. Or, the Death card comes up in a tarot reading. People think readings are creepy, and full of bad news," Gaudet says.
She elaborates,"I practice evolutionary astrology, which focuses on the inner work of our heart and soul, not the specific comings and goings of our lives." It's not about "fortune telling," when someone might meet the love of their life or win the lottery. Instead, she explains, "It clarifies our makeup (emotional, mental, spiritual, psychological) and predicts inner events, what we are naturally drawn to do."
Carole helps her clients answer questions such as: Who am I? Why am I here? What lessons are the difficult times in my life trying to teach me? What gifts are the easier times in my life trying to offer? Evolutionary astrology assumes that individuals have free will and complete freedom to choose their own paths.
Carole's interest in astrology began at age twelve, when a boyfriend gave her a book on the topic. "I ate it up," she recalls, and she continued to feed her interest through further reading. While she found many of the texts on astrology arcane and hard to get through, she was entranced by the mysticism and poetry in astrology's symbolism.
Almost immediately, she started applying her new-found knowledge. During school birthday announcements in her hometown of Topsfield, Mass., she copied each name, consulted her books at home, and thought about whether each person fit their sun sign. She never shared this information with anyone, but "I still have the lists of names in my old diaries that I kept in junior high school."
Earning a law degree from Northwestern University Law School (1992) and a master's degree in environmental law from Vermont Law School (1993), Carole practiced law for a short time, before opting to stay home after her son and daughter were born.
By the time her children entered elementary school, Carole was divorced and ready to seek new professional ventures.
Wanting to use her education as an environmental lawyer, but not practice law, she decided to be a freelance copywriter specializing in renewable energy. At the same time, she understood that this was her chance to take her interest in astrology to another level, a skill she had continued to hone throughout adulthood by reading friends' charts. She thought, "If I don't go public with this weird talent of mine now, I'll never be motivated and desperate enough to try it some other time."
Carole's own chart pointed toward the need for her to expand beyond the confines of convention. "Advertising my astrology work was not an easy thing to do," Carole admits. "When I tell people I'm an astrologer, I get my share of eye-rolling, and I can understand why."
Carole offers in-depth individual birth chart and tarot card readings, but can also scale back her sessions to accommodate small house parties of about six guests. A birth chart shows the placement of each planet at the moment of birth - a person's unique footprint. Using the date, year,. time and place of birth, Carole researches a client's soul path, gifts and challenges, and life's work. Sessions cover issues that have been with the person for a lifetime, as well as more current concerns.
Carole's clients run the gamut from teachers to shop owners to inventors, and from grade school kids (accompanied by a parent) to seniors. Client Gerry Sandweiss, a professional photographer from Woodstock, credits Carole with being able to "distill a lot of information and make it accessible to the person who is not a student of astrology."
Whe Frances McManus, a reflexologist and yoga instructor from White River Junciton, had Carole read her cards, she was deciding whether to pursue a new business partnership. "I wasn't going to alter my life based on the reading," Frances says. "But it was like someone holding my hand while I made that decision."
For Carole, one of the most rewarding aspects of her job are those Aha! moments that can happen during readings. She explains, "I'll be describing an intense, challenging dynamic I see in a chart. For instance, a person might be having a difficult time balancing her desire for precision with a wild creative ability. Then suddenly she'll say, "Yes! That's my problem exactly! Now, what do I do about it?" I love those moments, because I can describe the upside of that dynamic within a person, and help them realize that it can just as easily be flipped into a positive quality," she says.
"I'm trying to help people live better lives and make better decisions from their hearts," she continues. "I help them live through painful or difficult periods with dignity and courage, so they can come through these times having learned and grown."
And what about her own future?
"Because astrology is a symbolic system, I'll always be able to go deeper with it," she says. "With age comes wisdom, which will only help me become more useful to my clients, as I gain life experience that puts their paths into context."
In layperson's terms, Carole adds with a smile, "I could do this forever."
Carole Gaudet, Complete Astrologer
Astrology And Tarot For The Upper Valley And Beyond
