Down the Rabbit Hole

When Fate and Free-Will Lock Horns

It was 3 a.m., Wednesday, October 22, 2025. I was wide awake, both figuratively and literally. Normally, I would have lain there and attempted to drift back to dreamland for a few more hours, but something whispered, "Get out of bed." Stumbling upright, I made my way downstairs to my office, where initially I resolved to do some work on two astrology charts related to upcoming appointments for people I would be seeing soon. Again, that little voice said, "No, open YouTube." My feed is loaded with astrologers and metaphysical content; I know, big surprise. This is partially due to the channels I subscribe to and partially the algorithm posting content it thinks I would be interested in. The first option that appeared was a recently posted video by an astrologer I like and respect, doing an interview with another astrologer who is an expert on the use of asteroids in astrological delineation.

Within seconds, I was sucked into the content, and my mind was racing with a desire to test the theories being proposed. Approximately ten minutes into the video, I hit pause. I was going to test this far-out idea. I will share the idea in just a moment. Before I do, let's lay a little groundwork as to what potentially led up to this early morning revelation.

I attended a formal astrology school to learn this craft. During those studies, there was a discussion of the use of asteroids in astrology; it was limited and not the emphasis of the program, but enough to be intriguing. The asteroids I am speaking of make up what is known as the main asteroid belt, which lies between Mars and Jupiter. The dwarf planet Ceres is the largest object in this main asteroid belt. This region spans roughly from about 2.1 to 3.3 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun. As of the time this blog is being written, over the past 200 years, astronomers have cataloged over a million asteroids in the main asteroid belt, including objects down to around one kilometer in diameter.

Currently, there are about 25,586 of these asteroids named officially by the IAU (International Astronomical Union). This list is available at http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/lists/MPNames.html. It is from this list of named asteroids that astrologers have found remarkable insight and correlations that add depth of understanding to astrological delineation, be it individual or mundane astrology.

Circling back to my introduction to asteroids, I was extremely excited when I first learned of them. In truth, astrologers generally use only a handful of asteroids in their practice. The main asteroids widely utilized include Ceres, Pallas Athena, Juno, Vesta, Chiron, Eros, Lilith, Hygeia, Psyche, Sappho, and a handful more. These number roughly around 10 to 15 major asteroids typically considered for astrological meanings and chart interpretations. In my own work with individual charts, I have found that Chiron is very useful, particularly in identifying where someone carries a wound and where healing needs to take place.

But what about all of the other 25,000-plus asteroids? Well, this is the reason I am writing this blog, and I believe the reason I was rudely awakened at 3 a.m. Tapping into a currently popular motto... "Other Asteroids Matter." Moving now to what was being suggested in the video. There was a proclamation that one could identify significant people in our lives, and often an asteroid exists with their name or something close. Further, if you cast your birth chart and include where that asteroid would be located, it correlates with actual people and the events and energies they have personified in our lives! My initial reaction was... RIGHT! Followed by a quiet chuckle in the wee hours of the morning while seated at my desk. Keep in mind, I am an astrologer, so I believe in this stuff and have had a front-row seat for years now witnessing the miraculous connection between the cosmos and us. This one, though, seemed a little bit of a stretch.

Nonetheless, I paused the video and fired up the necessary software, complete with a full listing of the 25,586 named asteroids, and began to test this heresy. I started with my wife's name. Lo and behold, there was an asteroid with her name. Upon selecting "add to my chart," I mused quietly that wouldn't it be interesting if she fell into my 4th house of family, home, ancestry, roots, emotional foundation, and sense of belonging or in my 7th house of marriage, partnerships, and close relationships. What came next with the push of the enter button has had me "down the rabbit hole" since Wednesday... today is Sunday. The asteroid named after my wife was located next to my Sun in Pisces at 21 degrees and 54 minutes in my 4th house. And for those with a more nuanced understanding of astrology, she was conjunct my south node of the moon. Without going into great detail, this is our karmic past, previous lives. What?

Determined now to undo what had just occurred, I settled upon the name of my long-term business partner to whom I am selling my financial business practice and with whom I have often mused about being connected in some past life. His name also had an asteroid named after him. Stunningly, he also showed in my 4th house, and almost like an exclamation point, he was positioned at 4 degrees and 44 minutes of Pisces (444 is a number that has repeated in my life over and over again since what I know to be my awakening moment) immediately before my 6 degree and 38-minute Sun in Pisces. What?

Now a combination of perturbed and enchanted was swirling in the room. A little backstory. Many of you may relate to the following. In my college years, I had several romantic liaisons. One stood out above the others as it was the kind you might call "the one who got away." Chalk it up to being young and restless, the story is complicated, but suffice it to say, I broke someone's heart, and I never really felt settled about it. Years later, after experiencing a divorce at my first Saturn Return, this unresolved situation reemerged in my mind. I decided to do a little detective work and discovered that this woman was unmarried and living in Utah.

One fated afternoon, I managed to track down a phone number and nervously reached out to her. Needless to say, in a matter of seconds, I was back at school in my mind reliving what had gone down. Stupidly, my first words were, "Hey, this is Randy, I'm not sure if you remember me?" This was akin to the proverbial "Is the Pope Catholic" quip often bantered about to suggest something is silly. She did indeed remember, and an hour-long conversation ensued, catching up, apologizing, and concluding with an understanding that being fresh out of a divorce, I had a lot of healing to do and really had no business starting something new at that point. We wished each other well, offered up forgiveness, and hung up the phone.

Almost to the day, one year later, believing I might now be in a more settled state, I decided to reach out again to declare I would like to visit her. You could have heard a pin drop in the silence that echoed through the phone... then I heard, "You have the worst timing of anyone I have ever known, I just got engaged to be married this week!" Have you ever been on that ride at the carnival where you are strapped up against a wall as the ride spins and spins, then suddenly to intensify the experience, the floor drops out momentarily? The phone call felt like that ride.

Fast forward, I am married and have two adult daughters, one of whom is following in Dad's footsteps of competing in long-distance running events. This daughter was about to run her first marathon in St. George, Utah, and I had decided to travel to Utah and watch the event. Because of this, I was once again prompted that Utah was where "she" lived. I had heard from a common friend, my college roommate who had introduced us in college (he is the next asteroid I will discuss), that she was married, had two sons, and was living in Salt Lake City. I decided to engage the internet to see if I could gather some potential information to arrange a potential "say hi" while I was passing through town. What happened next added yet another layer to this very fated and karmic feeling relationship. A news story popped up announcing a terrible accident in which a woman was hiking with one of her sons and one of his friends and hit what is known as a "snow chute" and fell over 1,000 feet to her death. This hit hard. She was deceased. For several months, I tried to make sense of it.

Traveling back to this past Wednesday, I determined that if "she" appeared in my natal chart as an asteroid in an auspicious location, I would be a true believer. Upon accessing the catalog of named asteroids, I input her first name; it was there. For some reason, I also heard to input her last name, and remarkably (and it's not extremely common), it was also there. When I hit enter, my mind exploded as there she was also in my 4th house immediately to the right of my 6 degree 38 minutes Pisces Sun, at 10 degrees 35 minutes. Further, her last name was ominously placed in the natal 8th house. This is the house of death, intense merging with others, and experiences that forever change us. It is also the house of our shadows and the deep psyche. What?

On the spot, now remarkably close to 4:44 am, I resolved to deepen my research into the use of asteroids in my astrological practice. The rabbit hole was officially open, and I was jumping in with both feet. The expression “down the rabbit hole” originates from Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel Alice in Wonderland. In the story’s first chapter, titled “Down the Rabbit-Hole,” Alice follows the White Rabbit into its burrow and falls into a deep tunnel that transports her to the surreal world of Wonderland—an unpredictable place where logic bends and ordinary rules no longer apply. In this moment, even as a seasoned astrologer, logic was bending like Gumby in a hurricane.

I decided to complete the circuit; I would try one last name, my long-term friend and college roommate. He ironically had been the person to introduce me to the woman and relationship I just described. As you have probably already concluded, his name existed in the named catalog of asteroids. His placement? His asteroid fell at Pisces 28 degrees and 41 minutes next to my south node of the moon, which is at Pisces at 25 degrees and 44 minutes, also in my 4th house. To further add to the plot, in 2012, when I made the decision to walk the Camino de Santiago (a famous spiritual pilgrimage in Spain), he walked it with me. There is a more colorful way to say this, but you can't make this stuff up.

This all brings up the argument concerning free will vs. fate. I am personally comfortable with the belief that life is heavily fated, maybe even scripted. Recently, it has been interesting that scientists are considering whether we are in a simulation of some type. My sense is it's more like an agreed-upon general outline. There is an element of it that certainly feels improvisational in nature, but then there are those interventions known as the still small voice that seem to coax us back to the main thing. As we encounter fateful moments, I also believe we are permitted to exercise our free will. This may be what karma represents, those choices. I further believe we don't always complete the script as written. I will be discussing this more in detail in future blogs on this topic.

Since this early morning revelation, I have had two individuals allow me to test this technique on real-life events that were highly significant in their lives that involved a person or persons. And yes, they were both bullseyes. A deep dive into these events will be the topic of part two of this blog. There is also a multiplicity of other asteroids that can bring greater depth and understanding of the energies at play in one's life. I will also be discussing those. Stay tuned...