How Timing Led to an Astrology Career

 

Barry D. Cowger Bio

Barry Cowger came of age in Seattle and not surprisingly became a professional musician as he excelled on the drums playing rock and roll music every chance he got. His father is a musician and retired music teacher from the Seattle school system.

In those days, through the 1980s, Seattle haunts thumped, twanged, and growled giving birth to a new music genre called Grunge, nurtured by the likes of Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, and Seattle musicians that would eventually form Pearl Jam.

Barry thrived on the Seattle music scene. His technical excellence, endurance, and affinity for the rock lifestyle made him a popular performer that was always in demand. But as happens in any career, there are moments when you ask yourself if this is what you are supposed to be doing.

Morning After

Nursing a hangover after a particularly bawdy show the night before, he stumbled upon an astrology book and found himself captivated, as if the book had been written for him because he innately caught on to all of the concepts, precepts, and math behind it.

He continued to play band gigs, but the singular focus of driving guitarists and vocalists shifted to include self-study of astrology. Of particular interest was the branch of astrology called Location Astrology that maps how a person’s natal chart overlays charts made for specific geographic coordinates, with timing and lunar return data factored in.

The idea of human compatibility with longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates compelled him to devote even more time to educating himself and the raucous long nights he once loved became a distraction from a greater goal.

What he needed was a mentor because Location Astrology documentation was not so readily available as the parlor astrology stuff.

Location, Location, Location

Barry noticed an advertisement for a Location Astrology conference and workshops in San Francisco headed by a guy he had read about, named Jim Lewis.

Lewis was easy to spot at six-four and surrounded by a coterie of disciples. He had organized seemingly unrelated data from independent Location Astrology researchers and practitioners for further exploration and launched a formal practice based in San Francisco.

Barry worked his way into the inner circle and hung on every word he heard, asking questions and assimilating knowledge. When he returned to Seattle the questions kept coming so he stayed in touch by mail and phone calls.

He continued performing in the familiar haunts of Seattle, but the jubilation of rock and roll waned as the para-diddles and Zildjian sizzles of musical timing evoked cosmic contemplation in his quasi solar system of toms, cymbals, and snare.

Jim Lewis

One day Barry picked up the phone, pleased to hear Jim Lewis on the other end. Lewis was impressed with Barry’s dedication and instincts, and especially with his intensity and growth in Location Astrology. He offered Barry a coveted position rumored to be available and Jim Lewis had his first full-time assistant.

This is exactly what Barry needed and wanted, being in daily contact with the guru of Location Astrology in a busy practice. If afforded him the opportunity to create and interpret a wide variety and volume of Location Astrology maps for clients around the world. The sheer quantity and diversity of clients was an empirical immersion into a production line of case histories few astrologers ever experience in a ten year period.

Then the news of brain cancer shocked the global community of astrologers in 1995 with Jim’s untimely death.

Bon Voyage

Barry had been looking at 1995 in his own life due to changes his personal  charts and maps kept floating in front of him.

Thus, with the proliferation of computers and the Internet, he embarked on a personal and professional chautauqua to experience and document firsthand the insight gained from
putting himself at both negative and positive Location Astrology coordinates.

Apart from numerous short duration side trips to astrologically auspicious and inauspicious locations, Barry resided during the next dozen years in Poland, Holland, Czechoslovakia, Arizona, China, Nepal, India, Saudi Arabia, and Thailand.

His pilgrimage is in part responsible for stimulating a commitment to write an interesting book, Reconstructing the Real You, which breaks down the landscape of familial and non-familial bonding dynamics based on birth order and astrology.

 

Early Client

A client request came in to Barry, when he first signed on with Jim Lewis, from a golf store owner in Santa Monica, CA who was interested in Solar Returns. While Barry was not aware at the time, the client was on a mission to disprove anything and everything astrological for reasons of his own.

That client’s mission didn’t go too far and, to make a long story short, that client wound up consulting with Barry every year for the next 30 years, not only for Solar Returns, but for every major travel and timing decision.

That client is now Barry’s partner and Chief Golf Officer at Golfstrology.com, Davy Hoffman.