by Marilyn Muir, LPMAFA
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Astrology is a language within itself. To me that is the most important message shaping Michael Munkasey’s latest book: Astrological Keywords, Signs of the Zodiac. While not his first or only book, Keywords now sits on the bookshelf next to my personal workspace, the shelf reserved for frequent referencing as I study and research for my clients and to teach others “how to”.
I have known Michael and his work for over 40 years as friend and mentor. We met at the 1980 AFA conference in New Orleans, LA. From my personal observation, his astrological knowledge is phenomenal. His computer and business-oriented background equipped him for the technical skill to accomplish his mission: to first simplify and refine to learn the language, and then to expand and apply that knowledge as actual delineation.
I have used the keyword system for my almost 50 years of astrological studies, readings and teaching workshops. Keywords provide a simple learning base for beginners, allowing them to develop depth for delineation through experience. Michael’s Keywords book explained to me why this simple system works so well. His analogy? Language has parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs. They readily match Astrology’s planets, signs, houses and aspects, etc.
Michael has been an ardent student of Astrology for decades. To accomplish this keyword task over many years, Michael completely absorbed his dictionary and thesaurus to obtain the widest range of definitions and meanings – over 78,000 of them, individually. He then refined that knowledge into themes and pertinent applications, turning thousands of individual word meanings into patterns of meanings. Using his material, beginners can learn the basics quite simply. Astrological practitioners can broaden and deepen those basics into actual delineations. Researchers can take those meanings beyond personal application for a natal chart. The language themes Michael developed can also be applied through non-personal astrological application including mundane, horary, relational, as well as my personal area of study – research.
This is not Michael’s first book. His House Keywords and More, The Astrological Thesaurus preceded this new book and is a companion piece to Astrological Keywords. Michael’s intention is to continue his research and application through more keyword books.
Additionally, Midpoints: Unleashing the Power of Your Planet, and his Concept Dictionary are excellent desktop reference books. For many years, I repurposed his midpoint material for use in relational chart readings. If a Moon / Mercury midpoint has a specific meaning in a one-person midpoint chart, it should also have meaning between charts for use with composites or synastry, such as person 1 Moon to person 2 Mercury and the alternative person 2 Moon to person 1 Mercury. This has worked for me for many years and I have taught such usage to my students.
Michael’s books have been available since 1991 – simply Google his name. His newer books are published by AFA and are available through their website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.