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BY A CORRESPONDENT
 "Venus
and Neptune will waltz across a star-studded sky on
February 14, 2005, and it will be a sight to behold!
Venus will wear her most shimmering, glamorous gown and
glitter brightly in the evening sky! Surely, this will
be night for candlelight, for walking under the
honeysuckle and for exchanging rings and promises.”
Astrology for the masses. A personalsed, human, way
of looking at the stars and predicting future trends. A
warm, caring way of writing. A non-technical way of
presenting technical astrological information. Guarding
you from evil, edging you to better days. Here is Susan
Miller for you, eminent astrologer and columnist, author
of several books on astrology and owner of the immensely
popular website Astrologyzone.com. Any reader of pop
astrology would be immediately able to recognise Susan
Miller's style in the passage above. One of the
early-day tech-savvy astrologers to venture into
cyberspace, today, Susan Miller's Astrologyzone receives
about 15 million page views and 6 million visitors per
month.
The success of both her website and her books has
made Susan Miller a regular TV guest on such shows as
20/20 with John Stossel, The View with Barbara Walters,
CBS' The Early Show, and The Other Half with Dick Clark
and CNN's American Morning with Paula Zahn. Susan also
teaches a free, eight-lesson astrology course on the
Barnes & Noble University online.
Given the astounding success of Astrology Zone and
her own career in astrology, one would that astrology
was the career of choice for Susan Miller. But Susan
laughs it away. "For my life's path, astrology chose me
rather than me choosing astrology," says she.
 No
one in her family wanted Susan Miller to venture into
astrology. Susan Miller (who currently lives in
Manhattan, US) came to be born in a family of Italian
descent. Her grand father came to New York City from
Sicily in 1898 and set up a shop selling Italian
delicacies. Later, he acquired a building to house his
store and his apartments. His family and relatives moved
into the building.
The Italian grandfather had passed away before Susan
Miller was born. Long before Susan Miller was born, her
mother took to astrology with the encouragement of her
elder sister. She initially read her sister's books to
see if she could find something to disprove. However,
the more she studied, the more fascinated she became. In
turn, Susan's mother passed her on her interest to
Susan. But the mother was against Susan taking up a
career in astrology, and would always discourage her in
this regard.
Susan Miller was born with a defect in her left leg,
which became worse by the time she was into her teens.
She was hospitalised and during a surgery, a nerve was
broken, paralyzing her left leg knee-downwards. In an
attempt to solve one problem, the physicians had created
another problem! She was advised to recto for over a
year, during which electric stimulation treatments would
be attempted. Doctors could not guarantee that Susan
Miller would be cured with this treatment, but it was
apparently the only possible solution.
"I could tell that he didn't know whether the
treatment would fully restore my ability to walk. I was
terribly disappointed to have to wear a brace on my leg
after the operation. I was only 14, and wanted to look
like everyone else," says Susan Miller.
A year after the operation, Susan wrote to Dell's
Horoscope Magazine to find out what her horoscope chart
said about her recovery chances. The editor of the
magazine printed her letter and answered that she would
walk normally again.
 Says Susan: "I'm not sure if my mother would have
told me I would never walk again. She is the most
optimistic person on the planet. Probably she would have
said that my chart showed I would need extensive
treatment and that to get well I needed to focus my
energies with great determination and dedication.
Astrology, she taught me, was not destiny."
After Dell magazine published her letter, Susan
Miller developed a serious fascination for learning
astrology. She wanted to know more about the aspects the
editor described in her chart. By now, Susan was 15. Her
mother discouraged her, saying astrology requires an
initial study of 12 years before she could scratch the
surface. But Susan was insistent. Since she was
recovering from the operations, she could not go to
school any way. Susan Miller was determined to learn
astrology.
Finally, Susan's mother relented and offered to teach
her astrology, though with tough conditions: Susan
Miller could read horoscopes for the family only until
her mother thought Susan was ready. She was told that
constant research and empirical observation was
imperative and could not be rushed. Also, she was not to
reveal her studies in astrology to anyone outside the
family for 12 years.
So the studies started, and as the Dell editor
predicted, Susan Miller recovered and started walking
again. After graduating with a business degree, Susan
started representing some commercial artists and
photographers. She enjoyed her work tremendously, but on
the secret side, Susan Miller continued to study
astrology. It was only after a study of 20 years or so
that she felt proficient enough in her career.
Now, Susan Miller started doing charts for many
friends, with her mother's blessing. Like her mother,
Susan never charged for those charts. With each passing
year, Susan learned more and more...
One of Susan's friends at Warner Books used to praise
her often on her knowledge in astrology. Soon, Susan
Miler was writing her first book, The Astrology Book of
Days: An Illustrated Perpetual Calendar, which was
published by Warner Books in early 1996.
The same friend also helped Susan Miller to get an
interview with the webmaster of the former Time Warner
website Pathfinder, to write a predictive column on
astrology. In December 1995, in the early days of the
Net, Susan Miller launched her website, Astrology Zone,
with every article penned by Susan. Later, in April
1999, she moved Astrology Zone to Disney's GO.com.
Later, the site was moved to her own servers.
Given her hectic work and writing schedule, Susan
Miller works on a tight schedule. She wakes at 5 AM, and
goes to the gym to work out every alternate day for
three hours. For the days in between, she does one hour
of cardio. After that, she is at her desk, constantly
writing. Susan Miller ends her day at midnight and often
later.
There are two engineers, a designer, a publicist, a
first and second editor and two assistants working full
time on Astrologyzone,com. There are also several caring
reader support people who can read and sort the reader
mail.
Astrology, says Susan, "is not an end in itself, but
a wonderfully creative tool to shape a happier, more
productive life, to use your talents to the fullest, and
to consider some of life's many rich and varied options.
Until you delve into the subject, you may never know how
perceptive and proactive it can make you."
"When I see difficulties coming up, I feel it is not
OK for me to simply flag those adverse trends. I feel I
should suggest specific ways the reader might want to
deal with those problems. In that sense, I look for the
key areas of benefit in the chart that will help the
reader out of the brier patch, so to speak. If the chart
is really spectacular, I want to coax readers to expand
their horizons!"
Carry on Susan!
BY A CORRESPONDENT
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