Little Things To Know

406-404-8812

Little Things to Know...about working with me.
Julian Lee

Hmm. In the past some people have been put off by the grouchy content on this page. I reviewed it and see they were right. I have deleted or changed most grouchy content here. It might not be as funny now, but it's a more helpful page...

Summary of this Page:

-- This page has more than you need to know, but you should read at least this upper italics "Summary" part.

-- Please phone, don't email or do Skype texts to get in touch with me. Leave a message at 406-404-8812. If you email instead of call, it is unlikely that I will respond in any timely manner. If you phone PLUS email, sending the email will slow down my response time over people who just call. Phone, phone, phone. Thank you.

For those outside of the U.S.A., if there is time zone difficulty, you can try ringing me opportunistically on Skype. More about that is below.

-- I ask that you not email me. You will be getting your audio from my via email. If you have any issues about the audio (like, there is nothing on it, unlikely to happen) -- phone me about such an issue to be sure I notice: 406-404-8812. You can write emails reporting on your experience in a location, though I may not always answer. I venture into the email wildrerness about once a month, then deal with 10-15 percent of emails. So please always phone instead of email.

-- I like being told the name of your actual town and state when you first call, not broad regions like "the east coast" or "in central time." When you tell me where you are located, I start to get you in my head.

-- You will get a faster callback from a shorter message over a long message. A short message to me is less than a minute.

-- If I'm taking over a week to get back to you it's because my calls are heavy. Call back and leave another message; I'll be reminded and try harder on you.

-- A good lawyer doesn't take all cases. A good doctor doesn't take all patients. A legit locational astrologer won't always recommend that you relocate, at least at that particular time.. Some cases I call "deferral cases" and ask you to wait for a future time. I usually then make a full refund. This is for your own good. Read about "Deferral Cases" below.

-- If I am coming out "deferral" (formerly "stumped") on you, and doing a full refund, I may inform you about it at the appointment time by text rather than a call. This means I am all talked out on you at this time and do not wish to speak any more about it beyond what's in the text.

-- I schedule you after you pay me online using either my taupe-colored buttons on the left of JulianLee.com, or paying on PayPal (ask me for that). Anyone who pays me, whether from the site or by PayPal, should leave a message right away informing me about that: 406-404-8812. That way I'll have your number and can phone to schedule you. I try to get you scheduled within 24 hours of your payment.

-- I get an interview from you first, then later I give a reading to you. The interview, scheduled first, is where you do the talking telling me your goals. The interview isn't happening during initial calls. It is formally scheduled.

-- It's hard for me if I'm interrupted unnecessarily or often during the reading. There will be time to ask assorted questions at the reading time.

-- I keep confidentiality for my clients and I don't tell anybody, anywhere, who my paying clients are. This includes those with fame. If anyone asks me: "Is so-and-so your client?" my answer is always, "I don't talk about my clients, who they are, or who they aren't."

-- I speak in terms of your time zone, not mine.

-- I expect you to entertain my locational recommendation and listen/hear me out, especially when I first present it. Any extreme reservations about it (because of what your friend said, etc.) should be saved until the end after I have given my presentation and made my predictions about the place.

-- In the end you must move to the place for your own good reasons.

-- I do all kinds of Timings, but I won't do wedding timings or surgery timings. (I have done them, and well, but I don't want that kind of pressure or burden.)

-- I'm not the best with emergencies. Every now and then, in the case of an emergency, I may get back to a caller in decent time or even immediately. But I can't promise that.

-- I own and retain copyright on my readings. I'm paid for my opinion. I don't sell audios. I do record an audio of my reading and send it to you as a courtesy. I get them out in about in 1 to 2 weeks after the reading, an MP3 by email.

-- When I recommend a location it is time-sensitive. If more than 3 years have passed since I recommended a place I urge you to have me look at it again before moving there. You may have waited too long and it's no longer worth doing. If it's within 3 years of the original reading, I will check it for free. To read more about this matter find "The Passage Of Time" down below.

-- I don't want to be on speaker phone for others to hear if the "others" are not part of the study and not interviewed by me. I don't like to be used for entertainment, like a monkey on a string, for a hidden audience. (You will get a recording, and "whoever" can always listen to it later.) If I know a 2nd mind is in the room (other than a spouse included in the study), it makes me have to work extra hard because I end up processing my words (filtering them) with two persons in mind. I will edit myself from the perspective of the person getting the reading. There is also typically dropped words and audio problems with speaker phone. If you need to use speaker phone for some reason and it's just you (or a spouse who's part of the study), it's fine with me. But stay close to the device.

-- Approximately 5 out of 100 people find me to be a an unpleasant prick. In my defense, it's only five percent. But when this five percent annoys me I tend to end the reading abruptly and instantly refund them. This makes them angry. Maybe I'm a bit crotchety in old age. (I am sixty-six.) Sometimes it's because the client seems to have little idea what I do. Or they are skeptical, or don't have faith in it. Another would be a client constantly referring to "astrocartography lines." Another is the client who often obliges me to repeat myself. Another is the "bargainer" who is trying to "get a better deal" by keeping me on the phone as long as possible, or suddenly switching the goals of the reading to something else. (Like, I do the reading on Delhi that he paid for, but now he says "I don't really need to know about Delhi. What about Paris? Hannover? London? Los Angeles? New York...?" And it goes on and on.) Also, I don't like to "spit in the wind." If a client makes all kinds of trivial objections to my recommendation just seconds after I've laid it all out, I may find this insulting and drop them instantly. In my defense, I find this work hard, not easy, and things have to feel right. I am too old for uphill battles.

-- The rest of what's below is more optional material, if you find it interesting.

______________________

Calling Me

Calling me is simple and everyday: Phone my 406-404-8812 and leave message. You can call that at any time of the day or night, and I listen to the messages there almost daily. If you forget it, just remember my web domain: JulianLee.com. The phone number is prominently posted. You can also easier remember the domain (Julian Lee dot com) when passing my name to friends.

I have a reading line, an 801number, and I tend to call you from that number. It's a Skype number with a Utah area code I picked up years ago. I liked the number and kept it. Some people, when I try to call them, don't answer because they think it's a marketing call.

Though you will get your reading via this number (because I'll call from it), I don't advise you start trying to communicate with me on this number. Any calls or texts to this number are 2nd priority for me. (Presently I am having difficulty just keeping up with calls to my 406 main number.)

Payment
I schedule you once you pay. I'm paid in advance. Don't want to be a bill collector. Use the taupe (lavender?) buttons at upper left on JulianLee.com. You can also pay by PayPal and I sometimes prefer it. For PP, I'll give you the necessary email address by or by text. Once you have paid, either way, CALL ME RIGHT AWAY at 406-404-8812 and leave quick message to let me know you paid. You are then my top-priority callback, to get you scheduled. I try very hard to get back to a paying client within 24 hours.

People in Europe

The Europe time zones is harder for me to work with because I am a night owl and get up late. It's common that by the time I start returning messages it's too late in Europe. I will make an effort to return calls to you, but it may take a little more time, even to get you scheduled. Using Skype can be a solution to this problem...

Try Getting Me On Skype if Out Of U.S.A.

If you are outside U.S. and use SKYPE, try adding my user name of juliancurtislee. You will be able to watch me appear online as my icon goes green and ring through to me opportunistically. With Skype it's better to phone rather than text. If I don't answer, leave a voice message. Skype forwards calls to my 406 number. I'll hear this message along with my main calls to 406. Typing texts-only (into the Skype text box) -- is more iffy. I may or may not see it. It's like another kind of email to me. Skype entries scroll down fast and disappear!

I don't send video of myself on Skype. I'm not a media star or much to look at.

Since Microsoft took over Skype, sometimes people get no results trying to add my username: juliancurtislee. I don't know why. In that case tell me your user name in your first message to 406-404-8812. Sometimes it works if I add you instead. Using Skype is often a good solution for people outside U.S. to grab me and get around the time zone problem.

I Have a Cell Phone But I Generally Don't Use It For Business

In rare cases I may phone you from my cell phone if I'm going to be late (because I'm away from my office). Or may text from it. This is a 503 (Portland) number. I request that you don't use my cell beyond that one incident.

In general, it's easy to get ahold of me unless I am swamped with many calls.

The Interview

I do a pre-interview with my clients before I ever study their charts, look for locations, or give any reading. This is to find out your goals, problems, motives -- the things you are seeking in life, basically. Typical starting questions are: "Why are you thinking of moving?", "What's wrong with things now?", "What are the 2-3 most important things in life you're hoping to improve." I hear quite a lot about people's aspirations in this interviews. But it's good for you to focus in on 1-3 critical things.

In the interview I'm trying to get a picture of your life as it is. I usually ask what you do, how you make a living, the nature of your work (if working). I may ask if it's working for you, and if you'd rather be doing anything else. I usually ask what your living situation is (apartment/own, etc.) I may ask how you like your current town, as a town. Sometimes I ask if you work at an office or at home, and whether you commute. Whatever will give me an accurate picture of your life as it is. One reason for the interview is so that I'll later be able to understand your present chart, what it's "doing" and not doing, including gaging whether I think you're "making sense" according to my experience. (If nothing's making sense, or not fitting, I may decline to do the case.) I'll also ask if there are particular locations you're thinking about that you definitely want considered.

At Interview time I am listening, want you to do most of the talking, and I'm taking notes. My clients can tell me anything they want me to know in that interview.

My clients typically tell me things in our first chat, too. Sometimes they mistake that for the Interview. In initial chats the client is trying to get a general idea of how I work, what I'm like, and deciding if they even want to work with me. The object there is not to tell me all the details, facts, and history of your situation. That should be saved for the Interview.

Sometimes my client misunderstands the process. Sometimes during the initial chat they ask, "Is this the interview?" I answer, "No, I schedule people for Interviews once they tell me 'check's in the mail.'"

Or, after scheduling them for their interview, and after asking questions for a while, then concluding, they say: "Oh, I thought this was going to be the reading!" They are confused that I am not already giving them their reading. (They didn't read my site, etc.) I just say, "No, this is the interview. I interview you first, and do it formally. I have to know your goals and problems in order to work with you. Now, what about such-and-such date for the reading?"

I can only conclude that many astrologers give locational opinions after the shortest, most casual, initial phone chats and that most are not used to an astrologer having three separate conversations with them. It also tells me that people are used to "readings" from other astrologers in which the client actually does most of the talking! (Astounding! What an easy way to do readings!) Anyway, now you know. I wouldn't do this any other way.

I am a pretty good listener and people are not used to this. I grew up with a father who never listened, but only talked. And he would talk for a long time, always taxing my powers of listening. It turned out that the prime way I ever felt close to him or got nurtured by my father was by listening to him. What this did was two things: 1) It gave me the capacity to listen well, and 2) A general quality of being a listener/observer, and 3) Made me able to listen long and hard. It actually helped me to be a good astrologer. It's really sad how few people ever get listened to in this life! And it's pathetic when even astrologers don't listen well. But me, I'm a listener, thanks to my father, Victor.

Just remember: Your first conversation is never your interview. The interview is called "The Interview" and it is formally scheduled, and I'll be calling you. (You won't be ring me.) That's how you can tell when you've been really interviewed.

Calling vs. Emailing

I try not to even give out an email. But people get it because their audio comes by email. But always phone, and phone the number at the website: 406-404-8812. I don't work through email except for sending out the audios. This includes if you are wondering where your audio is. Phone.

(One exception: I do welcome emails telling me about your move and move results; reporting to me. I read these, though I might not always respond.)

Emailing me is the slow, slow, slow track and even slows down a phone call response. Most emails from clients will not get answered. If any do, it's luck.

If you email me instead of call, it means you didn't really want to talk to me. Even if you phone, emailing me too will slow down my response and put you in a slower track. It complicates my way of responding to you. If I see the email and recall it I will note in my phone log next to your name "there's an email." This will put you in the slow track for getting called back, because I may not call you until I've read the email, which may possibly even happen, the gods willing, after some lapse of time. Your name will slowly move into my back pages.

If you leave a message and reveal "I emailed you" it will have the same effect: You'll get put on the slow track because now an expedition into the email wilderness is required. This could even happen some day.

So, before calling you back, I would, possibly, first go through a process of finding your email before I phone you. This, if it ever happens, will take time. Why do I want to read your email first? Because I hate it when somebody says, after I call them, "Didn't you get my email!" I feel put down by it, and embarrassed, as if I am incompetent, even though I told them here to "call; don't email."

So, simply returning a phone call (Fast! Easy!) gets complicated if I think you emailed me. I won't phone you until I read the email, to avoid that moment, see? So don't email unless it's one of the two things above, or it slows things down.

Another way to understand this is that I don't like to be asked the same question twice, or ponder it twice, and I like to work by phone. So aside from all the other complexities email creates, it means I'll usually be getting your questions twice and thinking about them twice. I don't like to do that, and it actually gets lesser results from me (in terms of accuracy, etc.) So read this simple chart if this is not clear:

-- If you want me to call you back fast, just call and leave a message, and send no email about your issue.

-- If you want me to take longer to call you back, send one email.

-- If you want to get called back in maybe 2 months, send 2 emails.

-- If you want a strong chance of never being called, send me 3 emails.

Time Zones

I speak in terms of your time zone, not mine. I deal with all kinds of time zones, so time-zone-translating is second nature to me. I don't expect my clients -- who don't often deal with different time zones, to do time zone translating. Thus if I say "How about 8 PM?" -- I mean your time.

Nowadays, just to avoid this confusion, I often explicitly say "8 PM YOUR TIME." I use those two words "your time" after after the number. Funny thing is, I often find they are still confused about it and have to ask "who's time"? right after I say it, and later on ask again. So maybe if you read it here, that I speak in terms of your time zone, we won't have to have many conversations about it and you will not to be on pins and needles come reading day wondering "I wonder if he meant my time or his time?!" I speak in terms of YOUR TIME. It would be absurd to expect my clients to translate it for me, because they would tend to find it new and confusing and get it wrong, and I am used to dealing with all time zones from Hong Kong to Melbourne to Hawaii to Maine to Rome. I do this every day.

I very rarely mess this up. You can be confident that I am talking in your time zone whenever I refer to an appointment time. I deal with every state. Occasionally I may ask 'what your clock says right now" just to assure myself that I have your time zone right.

I Call YOU

At the reading time, just wait by the phone. I normally say "I'll call you at such-and-such o'clock" in my chats with clients, but many forget this and start phoning me, instead, at the appointment time, just because it's 30 seconds after or whatever. This just leads to us getting voice mails or busy signals. I ask you to just wait by the phone at the appointment time and keep the line clear. I sometimes phone "right on the dot" but usually not; usually sometime within 5 minutes of the appointment time. I have to be good and ready. If I am going to be over 5 minutes late, I will call you to let you know. Some clients start ringing me and ringing me at 1 or 2 minutes past the appointed time, and it just creates problems as I am trying to call them. I have done it this way for 20 years, ever since I first started this. I call you.

Occasionally -- not very often but occasionally -- I have not "cracked the case" yet, and don't have my answer for you, though I have worked on it. In such cases I will hold you over and give you a new day and appointment time some days away. I hit it another day.

I Astrologically Time Your Reading

To schedule your reading I use astrological timings -- i.e. transits going on in YOUR chart. Repeat: I do your reading at a time especially selected FOR YOU. I pick a particular astrological time. I do this even if the time is inconvenient to me, because I consider it very important. I don't just choose your appointment time from random "open dates" on my calendar, arbitrarily. This means I am seriously after a particular few dates, within a given month, to deliver your reading to you. Not just any old day. I DO TRY to accommodate my clients in terms of choosing a time convenient to them, whether "on a weekend," or "on my day off," or "in the evening" etc. I almost always succeed in accommodating those practical scheduling requests. However, I do insist that you let me choose the good astrological dates for your reading. Therefore, in cases where I have to reschedule you (because the answer is not found yet) -- I will also choose another good astrological time. So do not worry about that. I do this as consistently as the sun rises. It is second nature to me, and I consider it very important.

Recordings

Notice: I am presently a bit behind on "audios-out." Normally I'm getting them out within a week after the reading, but I am presently backlogged a bit more than that. Please be patient, those waiting over a week!

I record the reading digitally on my end. You'll be able to hear both me and yourself. I make an MP3 file that will play on any computer. The audio file comes to you usually about a week after the reading.

Some people freak out and start calling me the next day when they don't see the audio in their email the next day. But I do these in batches about a week later, and my recording of your reading is a complimentary free service. In very rare cases a recording fails to record on my end. If you want to be absolutely sure you get the recording, you should also record it on your end. I sell my opinion, not MP3 files. I do not sell CDs, paper, or digital files. 99 percent of the time, however, I successfully record your reading and get it to you.I have over 10,000 readings behind me, always put time in on you.

If we get disconnected

Just stay off the line and let me call back if we get disconnected. Sometimes I am using a hand-held digital recorded spliced into my phone line. My recording rig appears to develop some static electricity or something, and now and then, the phone just gets disconnected. If it happens, it usually only happens once. Just let me call back and we will resume the reading. It can be frustrating if we both start phoning each other at that point.

Deferral Cases

I used to call these "stumped cases" though they're really not. It's temporary. If I don't find a new location I am confident about at this particular time, I will decline to recommend anything and invite you to try again at a future time. In these cases I usually give you a full refund. In some cases, if I give some valuable information about the current location, or go over a list of your locational ideas for you, I may charge you the much smaller fees associated with "Current Location Commentary" or "Comparison Reading." ($50/$75) -- and refund the rest.

As far as I know, I am the only one who does declines to recommend a location at times and who also does refunds sometimes. The reason is I know too much, and I operate in a stricter set of rules before recommending any location. My "list of negative factors" (to be avoided) is longer than what is known by most locational astrologers. You could say I am more conservative and more careful. This has resulted in me sleeping well at night and having very few unhappy clients out of my 10,000+ clients.

Getting stumped always has to do with these things called transits and progressions. Typically it means that certain progressions/transits going on in your chart are causing many locations to be:

-- Too mixed in the near future
-- Temporarily negative
-- Temporarily too hard to call (hard to be sure just how the various transits/progressions will manifest in various locations)

So this stumped situation is not permanent. If a client comes back to me after waiting a year or two, things can very will change and I might be able to recommend a location, i.e. I often get "unstumped" later.

Usually it takes me two weeks to do your refund. If you paid on PayPal, I will be refunding you there. If by credit card at my site, it will come there, listed as "Geostelar." I do refunds as fast as I can. If anybody out there never got refunded, you should phone me at the number at the site and inform me. That would have been an oversight.

What the Reading's Like

In the Interview (prior to the reading), you do most of the talking. In the Reading, I do most of the talking. I will be saying a lot, and sometimes pretty fast, and it's coming to me as I look at the charts. I will be giving you a pretty coherent presentation and telling you the critical things I think you need to know, and the critical reasons I am recommending a location, and making some predictions. The reading is not of the nature of a conversation, but rather more an information download. So it's good to be a good listener, but you will have the recording later, too. I give more information and more detail than most astrologers, and each reading is unique. Many people are not used to the kind of detail and content I give. It's best if, during the readings, you keep interruptions to a minimum. Interrupt only if you simply didn't hear or understand what I just said. You will have time later to ask questions. This is not a strict rule. But occasionally there is a client who interrupts so much that it throws off the reading and it's difficult to give a coherent presentation. Usually these are people who are used to astrologers whose readings are more like conversations or counseling sessions. Some astrologers let the time get filled up a great deal by the client talking, acting like therapists. My readings are not like conversations or counseling sessions. I'm there to give as much information as I can and I wear down in about 45 minutes. When I am done, I am done. For the briefing I promise 30 minutes of my dense information presentation, but generally go well over that. Remember, I will have already spent other time and interviewed you -- getting your goals and problems -- in another earlier session.

Occasionally I will ask a client to respond, or describe conditions to me, or to confirm that something I said is true. I always enjoy hearing about conditions. But my main goal is to do the talking and give you maximum information. I have had clients tell me they wish they had not interrupted me so much (when later listening to the recording). This is especially true when they were simply repeating things, about themselves, that they had already told me in the pre-Interview. You will not want to hear lots of yourself telling me about yourself at reading time. The more you hear of me, the more you will like the recording. Again, there will be time to answer any important questions you want to put to me before we are done. In short, be a good listener during the reading, and let me do most of the talking.

Checking Out The Location

The least I ask of my clients is to be open-minded enough to at least visit the location once. In most cases, the first well-timed visit will give the client some positive ideas and attractions to the location, and they will begin already to have their own natural, sensible reasons to want to move there. This is because my recommendations are generally very good, and I also have you go at the right times. In some cases, the first trip will not be convincing, or it will be mixed. All trips are conditioned by the transits effective at the time of the trip. Some trip times are better than others, and I can't always find the strongest times in, say, the month you wanted to use. So, a second trip could turn out better still. I always feel that a client has not really give a recommendation a chance until they have gone there at least twice, using my timing. Generally, if I time the first trip, and your findings there are not mostly positive, it means 1) the timing I used was not as strong as it could have been, possibly because I was required to choose a particular time of year and not much was available for a good timing, or 2) Your birth time is wrong. If a client goes to a place I give, at a time I recommend, and has a negative experience -- it's almost a sure thing that your birth time is wrong. This rarely happens to my clients, but if it does, you should tell me right away and we should look at it and let me evaluate the time. In some cases, 2-3 minutes off can account for/explain the unexpected results. In such cases, I can sometimes adjust the location to a city to the west or east, and also make a slight correction to your birth time. (Give an opinion about a more correct birth time.) This correction can be very valuable for you in the long run.

About Birth Times

There is nothing really "Gospel" about the time on your birth certificate. It is probably very close, but not exact. I use the time you have as if it is correct, but you should understand why birth times are often not perfect in the first place. Some people get all excited if any doubt is raised about their birth time, saying "But it says right on the birth certificate." I have actually watched babies being born in delivery rooms, and there are at least four reasons 99 percent of birth times can be adjusted slightly:

1) Clocks are not perfect. This is even more true of the 1950s and 60's before "quartz movement" etc. But even today, you can walk out of a delivery room and the clock on the hall is a minute or two different. Unless the hospital clock is a digital radio clock, with a digital display -- tuned to the the Federal Time Signal -- it will run fast and slow. Just like clocks always have done. (Remember in school, waiting for class to end? The minute hand starts slipping down as it descends, then slowing and struggling as it comes around to 7, 8, 9 o'clock?) Clocks are a bit better today, but they are not magic clocks.

2) Unless there is a person in the delivery room trying to get a correct birth time, rarely do nurses etc. look up at the clock at the real moment of birth. (First in-breath.) Generally a nurse writes down the clock time soon after the first breath in, when she happens to look up. However, this will usually be after the crisis and hubbub of the birth has settled down, and it is the nature of the nurse character (their Virgo-like character) to not make things up. They have their routines and habits. "I write down the clock time after the doctor does such and such.) I know for a fact that in the births I witnessed, I looked up at the clock before anybody else did, and was the only one who witnessed the correct clock time. And yet, I couldn't trust the clock. (For reasons given.)

3) Even with a person there explicitly trying to get the right birth time, they may not watch the right event. They may time the physical exit. But the true birth time and "beginning of the chart" is the first in-breath.

4) Even that witness deliberately trying to get the right birth time with his own watch may not have a perfectly timed watch. It may lack seconds. He/she may not have checked its exactitude prior to the event.

5) The "seconds" fudge factor.

Birth times are rounded to minutes. A "5:14" pm time might have been 5:14:01
or it could have been 5:14:59, which is more like 5:15.

So, let's say you even have a friend timing the birth with a digital watch, not the mechanical hospital clock, and it's set as best she could. She even understandings the breath thing. She writes down "10:49" because her clock said that. But in reality the time was 10:49 and 55 seconds -- almost 10:50. Then there is a few seconds lapse before she realizes the baby is breathing. Effectively she records a birth time at least one minute off.

So you can understand how hospital times can be off. I only bring all this up for those rare cases where I might recommend 1 or a few minutes birth time correction based on anomalous reports from you, about your current location or a visited location. I don't want clients to think there is something inherently flawless about the time written on their certificate. I rarely recommend birth time alterations.

Usually the locations I recommend can tolerate a few minutes time inaccuracy. In most cases my locations have some room for birth time error, with the location still good 5 minutes off either direction. However, in some locations I give, exactitude really matters.

Trip Timings

You can take a trip to the same place 5 different times; you'll never have exactly the same experience. The difference in experience comes from the difference in the astrological transits during your trip. So, you can pick a place, say Santa Barbara. If you go under bad transits to Santa Barbara, you can have an unpleasant time. Go under good transits, and you can have a wonderful time. When people travel, their astrological transits at that time (those days, that week. etc.) dominate the results. The place may be one that will build you up and be positive long term, yet you could have a terrible time there on a trip. Conversely, the place might be one that will tear you down and ruin you over the next three years, yet you could have a wonderful trip there associated with, say, Venus sextiling your Moon, Jupiter Trining your this, or that -- during the trip. So, a trip does not necessarily "tell the tale" about a location's long-term potential for you. It is partly an expression of the location's long term trends, and partly an expression of the transits at that time. Any location (I mean anywhere) -- when visited under bad enough transits -- will produce negative experiences, and more importantly, negative "findings." Again: Any location in the world can produce the "trip from hell" if you go there at a bad time. There is no location that is so positive that you won't have a bad trip, or a very mixed one, if visiting it under bad transits. This is very important to understand.

Sometimes I get a client who says, "Why should it matter when I go, Julian? You said this was the fortunate place for me! I'm going this week!" However, if he visits briefly under a brief set of bad transits, he will produce a bad trip there. This will be a waste of his money and time, and possibly poison his mind against a place that is going to be very good for him over the long term. A place will "produce phenomena" for you based on the transits effective at the time of travel, and this constantly changes. It takes longer to see the long term themes of a location.

My clients naturally want their trips to be confirmatory, auspicious, and to give good indicators that the place will be fortunate. They also want to be attracted to the place and get natural reasons to move there. That is why it is important that for your first, and even additional, trips there you should use timings given by me. This brings out the maximum positive results from the trip and gives you the most "reasons to move." My trip timings for clients are a big reason I am successful in my work and have so many clients who finally relocate to the place I recommend.

It is a part of my service that I give AS MANY TRIP TIMINGS AS YOU NEED until you get moved to the location. I also provide a move timing when you have finally decided that you desire, for your own reasons, to move there.

What I'm Paid For

I am paid for my opinion, and, my opinion is what you are paying for. I am not paid for paper, CDs, cassette tapes, or mp3 files. I am also not even paid to be God, or to be infallibly correct, or to remove all future problems from your life. I am not paid to use the "system" that a client thinks is cool. You should leave the system to me, or at least understand aspects of my system and be interested in my results in that system, before hiring me. If a client thinks he you already know "the system," or has his "own system" he should do his own astrology and not hire me. If he thinks some other astrologer's "system" is theoretically "better" he should hire that astrologer, and not me. (My system is better than what the majority of locational astrologers use, in my opinion. You are encouraged and invited to ask about it when you are initially talking to me. Many do, and I am always happy to fully answer about it, because I am a natural astrological teacher. I am not covert or coy about explaining the important aspects of the system I have evolved to get improvements and happy results for my clients.)

What I'm paid for is my opinion, and my opinion is what I'm paid for.

Now, I couldn't be in this business if my opinion was not often right, with my clients often pleased with their moves and move results. So I'm also paid because I have a good reputation. However, the thing you actually pay for is my opinion. So, if I give you my opinion, I have given you fully what you paid for. That's if I whisper it behind a tree, or hand it to you written on a piece of bark, or give it to you with a great deal of supportive explanations and rationales (which is what I do, as a courtesy and confidence-booster for you).

As evidence of this, were I to give my opinion out to everybody who called, magically, the first time they call me, guess what? I would not hear from them again, and few would send me money, once they had their question answered. That's because the thing they dearly want is my OPINION. I am paid for my opinion, and that's what I sell. I am a consultant and advisor, and I give the advice.

I actually give a lot more that just the "name of the place" in my readings. That's because I want my client to have enough confidence to at least try out the location with a trip. But my opinion of location is the important thing I give. It's what I work to find, interview you about, and use all my experience to decide.

Thus, if you don't LIKE my opinion of location, you still got what you paid me for and were dying to know: My opinion. You got what you paid for. If a client thinks he's becoming his own astrologer and "doesn't like my system," he still got what he paid for -- my opinion. If you move to the location, and you are disappointed with your results, both of us are disappointed. But I still duly provided you what you paid for, giving it my usual time and effort. Sometimes lawyers fail to give you your hoped-for results, even after paying them thousands of dollars. Same with doctors and stock brokers and advisors. Still, they worked for you.

I say this because doing this 20 years, and having 7,000-plus clients, one naturally ends up with a few critics, wiseacres, and never-satisfied clients. I have very few of these, but its inevitable.

The Passage Of Time

When I recommend a location it is time-sensitive. If more than 3 years have passed since I recommended a place I urge you to have me look at it again before moving there. You may have waited too long and it's no longer worth doing. If it's within 3 years of the original reading, I will check it for free. To understand, be aware there is always a "bad arrival year" possible for any location. A "bad arrival month" could always be found, too. (Or blundered into, shall we say.) Generally I will be recommending a location partly based on helpful influences there in the near future. That is, I am especially interested in things going on there during the next 1-2 years from the reading. These factors help a move turn out well and allow for some "harvest." (Good happenings.) You can liken these influences to good potting soil. So don't wait a decade then suddenly pop off and move without checking it with me. I recently had a client who waited 9 years then finally moved to a recommended location without any contact with me. Although she was having good phenomena in the new location (strong income & other things) she was unhappy about living on an upper floor apartment. Since so many years had passed, her good results (including a nice apartment) were partly just luck. Yet she called me about her move as if "a client who was dissatisfied with a move" which about gave me a heart attack. Consider that every year you spend in any location will be different. Getting a reading with me doesn't put me on a "lifetime retainer" so that a client can call me the rest of their life, asking about their current year. I ask my clients to be reasonable. This life is dynamic, not static. If you've still not moved to a recommended place after 3 years, you need a new reading.

In the End, Move For YOUR OWN Good Reasons

The overwhelming majority of my clients are pleased and delighted with their moves, in the first month, the first year, and longer. But I can be wrong. I want all my clients to move, in the end, for good reasons of their own after investigating a location. Never 100 percent "because Julian said so." Everyone should find their own natural reasons, attractions, and good signs before making a move decision. It should feel right to you. My job is to point my finger to a good spot, a spot that will pull you in and give you good signs and results, and soon.

The nature of things is that everything is "mixed." There is no location without flaws. However, my purpose is to give you a location where you see important things improving, and soon. I don't give out any location unless I am 90 percent certain that it will be better, in future, than where you are now. And not just "a little" better, but significantly. So you can be confident that if I am recommending a location, I consider it worth looking in to with a strong prospect for improvement.

When I say "move for your own good reasons," I mean the sort of reasons you could tell your mother or a slightly cynical friend. These can include things like:

-- "We went there and really like it.
-- "Sam got a great job there."
-- "I just feel good there."
-- "I just love the air."
-- "There is a great house we can get."
-- "Some of our good friends are there."
-- "We met good friends there."
-- "It has better schools for the kids."
-- "It has the natural environment we want to be around (mountains, sea, etc.)
-- "There's a great community of folks there into all this same stuff we're into."
-- "John found a 50 dollar bill on the sidewalk, I found an old chair like my grandmother used to have, my cough went away, people smiled at us and were friendly, I met this guy who's a perfect contact for my business, they have us a free upgrade on our hotel room, little Stormy acted much better and met a friend," etc.

Stuff like that! Not this:

"Julian Lee, this locational astrologer, told us we should move there."

That's not on the list. So please, get some real-life reasons, such as above, before you move. To get a feel for it, imagine you have to tell your father-in-law why you are moving. Will he roll his eyes? if you say "An astrologer told us to move there," he will roll his eyes. So get other reasons onto the list from real-life.

If Getting Bad Results Soon After a Move

So we want the TRIP to turn out pretty good. I like to hear about positive results during a trip, but you don't have to tell me. On the other hand, if a trip is BAD and you really dislike the location, or the happenings, you should definitely call me. I give those timings to stack it the other way, toward good findings and happenings. So it could mean the birth time is off.

Same for after a move: If the first month or two after a move is really negative, and I timed the move, there is probably something wrong. You should definitely call me and report to me what's going on. Again, it may be that the birth time is faulty and the ideal location was a bit east or west from there. This rarely happens, but if it does: The sooner you call and report about contrary or anomalous results, the better. We may be able to salvage it and get you a bit east from there, or west, if you are not too hunkered down there yet.

Very Little Things

Much of what I am writing here is not important to know, and truly little things. But hey, I've been doing this 20 years, and now and then I've had some spare time to add to this page for the entertainment value, or to express myself, or whatever. These further items are indeed very little things, but I have run into them a lot. I am only fleshing it out for the entertainment. Some people have told me they enjoy reading this page, and I am a sober, grim and sometimes severe person. So in my old age, before I croak, I am trying to work on my humorous side. It's presently as wide as a strand of cheap thread from K-Mart, thus an unlikely prospect. Still the sat-chit-ananda ever avails.

"Your Living Situation"

When interviewing you I'll want to know your present living situation. In earlier years, already knowing their town I would ask: "What do you live in?" as in apartment? Mom's house? Mansion? Cardboard box? But clients would repeat their town to me. So I learned to ask: "What's your living situation?" That works better.

This means: Are you in an apartment you rent? A house you own? Couch surfing? In a tree house? Hiding in a hidden drain pipe with a cell phone? In the gorgeous guest house of a pal? Staying in a hotel? In your car?

I want the real picture. I am finding out about you. It's all relevant, and of interest, both as an astrologer and as your helper. Just today I had a client who was driving in traffic, initial call, and I always hate that because I'm afraid to cause them to have an accident. I just wanted to know where she lived and had to ask it 5 different ways (just like the above sketch with Shakti-ma). By the time I got the town I was about to have a heart attack worrying about her driving. It was Bay-area, Bay-area, Bay-area, Zip Code, then "all the places she's lived" -- then finally I got to hear the town. She literally did not understand my question until I asked, indeed, "What do you write on your envelopes."

Sam, Apple, Boy, Orange & Edward
and all those guys...

I'm pretty good with spelling and getting town names. (After 20 years I know a lot of town names, and spelling for them.) But I might not know how to spell a new town with a strange name. After you tell me the well-familiar name of your town Sebewaing, Michigan, I might ask you to spell it."

At that time I would like you to simply say the letters to me, like this:

"S - E - B - E - W - A - I - N - G."

That sounds like: "Ess, Eee, Bee" etc. That's the fastest and easiest for me to get it. I do not need this:

"S as in Sam, E as in Edward, B-as-in-boy,
E-as-in-Edward-again, (spoken lighting fast) Doubleyew as in William...."

...I don't want that if you can resist it. I know it's fun, and it's an opportunity to show creativity with words, and I have many creative clients. But this just jams my gears. I'll end up saying, after Sam and William and apple: "Just spell it once, please." If I ask you to repeat the spelling (because it shot past like a bullet or a desperate 9-11 call, or the cell connection is bad) still leave out Paul, Orange, Boy and the gang. Just repeat the letters once more. If I am having difficulty getting one letter we can try Sam and the rest.

Canadians love to do this with their zip codes. They utter the names of lovely Canadian Saints: Peter, John, Paul, Mark. I love to hear the names of saints, be assured. But a simple attempt to get the postal code A4J B6S becomes a cryptic "Anthony, Four, James, Bartholomew, Six, Steven." I'm too busy being impressed by the saints to parse all that code, plus working overtime just to get a zip code.

Anyway, I didn't attend THAT many Grand Funk Railroad concerts and I'm not that impaired. (A sign of the times? Everybody going deaf?) Paul and the gang are just an annoyance, to me.

Not that it's a big deal, but if I ask you for a spelling I like that you just spell. Like teacher did in school, not too fast.

Same with name, if an unusual name. Most people by age 20 know if their name requires spelling help. The Stewarts, Johnsons, and Smiths know that they don't need to volunteer help. I do want to know the correct spelling of your name and will ask if not sure! But please, not 20 other names along with it. Just the letters will do. These things don't need to be so difficult.

As I told you, none of these things are important. I just had some time today and felt like having fun writing, and adding things to this page from my 20 years of fun.

I'm not selling conventional logic

Conventional logic means ideas like these:

-- Alaska will be cold

-- San Diego will be warm

-- Iowa is no fun and the people are schmucks

-- If you live in Florida, all you'll see is boring elderly people

-- Such-and-such place must not be good, because the cost-of-living index (that you read in the paper) looks high. Or the "cost of real estate" is high.

-- Nobody can afford a home in California

-- The best time to go to New England is spring and summer. "What sort of fool would go in the winter??"

-- One doesn't go to India during the rainy season

-- In New York City you'll just see concrete everywhere

-- If you live in Hawaii you'll see lots of flowers, hula-hula girls swooshing hips and putting flowers around your neck when you land.

-- Hawaii is expensive

-- There are no jobs in such-and-such state (thus you'd never get a job) because the paper said the job market is depressed there

-- Only movie stars and moguls live in Santa Barbara

It would be a real swell job to get paid $200 to say, "You go to Maine during the summer, houses cost a lot in California." But if your chart didn't support that, I'd be wrong. I don't sell conventional logic. I use a higher logic, and my predictions are right much more often than what folks get using conventional logic. That's why people come to me.

The Hardest Thing About My Work

My greatest pain and difficulty in this work is getting people to reveal to me where they live. Actually, no, that's not it. But it's a smallish peeve of mine. Old men get to have peeves when doing one profession for 20 years. When you first call in I would be delighted if you would respond to my invitation to "tell me where you live" by actually telling me where you live.

Only the few, the rare, the intrepid, the canny -- dare to do this somehow. What I am asking for, you see, is a town and state. If you say "I'm in Central Time" trying to be helpful, or "I'm in the Pacific Northwest" trying to be cosmically broad, or "I'm on the East Coast" trying to be a suave jet setter whose domain is gigantic coasts -- it will bore to me. I will have a hard time remembering you. However, if you say "I'm in Camden, Maine" or "Sand Point, Idaho" I will be delighted and charmed. I speak about this matter later (below) purely for humor and fun and to explore the strange "placelessness" of us modern Americans. But I just thought I'd posit it here at the start. Not that it's a big deal. But I have noticed that though I've asked in my message that callers "tell me where you live" -- for year-after-year -- very few comply and prefer to remain mysterious by saying things like "I'm in Central Time." It gives me one more question I'll have to ask you later and I crave to spare my breath and speech.

I realize they are trying to be helpful so I don't have to "look it up." What it does, however, is cheats me of learning a new Time Zone fact (in the rare instances when I don't already know your Time Zone based on your town), and I feel slighted at your stonewalling the two simple facts, plus cheated of the color and richness of your life. Two words: Town and state. I will be delighted and remember you from then on.

Do you know what the hardest part of my work is really? It's looking at the chart and feeling the burden and pain of it during the time I work on it. This is the serious truth. Plus visualizing the good things you want, finding them in the chart, and believing in them also myself as I prepare. But why be all heavy now when I am trying to be comic, which is a very difficult thing to do, in the first place, for any blighted Capricorn Moon to pull off, so no gloom. On the other hand, perhaps it will cheer you to consider the fact that a great many of us have, in fact, very painful and difficult lives. And that I see it, I see it. I definitely see, and feel, it when I see your chart. I sit in my parapet seeing little paths, chinks in the wall, unlocked doors, and escape hatches where some of you have a way to get out of the worse corridors of the suffering-castle. And this gives me joy. And it gives me joy to see without a doubt that "all is lawful." God has us all in His hand. (Pre-emptively I will mention here that later I'll lecture the very few women who don't realize how lucky they are to be born into a society in which God is featured as their opposite sex -- what a boon for the bhakti-- but I will save that.) Oh, what a complex, messed up world it has become to the weary eyes of a Capricorn Moon! Even a long-haired one. =8o)= A woman not getting what a boon is a "male God." Us men, alienated from our fathers in the first place, have a much harder time of it. But I wander...

The reasons I listen to long voicemails last (It's not what you think)

Below is an example of a short message and a long one. You might laugh but I get these kind of long messages constantly despite anything I have said on this here page. I probably shouldn't bring it up. But I wanted people to know I DO skip long messages and save them for later, and I wanted you to know why I sort of have to...

Short: "Hi Julian. This is Bethany. I think I need new timings for my move to Vermont, and have some other questions, too. Please call me back at 000-000-0000."

Long: "Hi Julian. This is Bethany. We talked, I don't know, back in July of 2020. You gave me three dates for moving out to Vermont. Anyway, I couldn't use any of them, and my landlord is now selling the house and I have to get out by May first. Meanwhile my job is looking iffy because of Covid, and I'm thinking of going a totally different direction and maybe we should even review the whole thing because I might want different things. Anyway, my parents are planning to visit this summer and I'm not sure what to tell them about that because all this is up in the air. And I was also thinking I might want to do a yoga retreat in Bali that's coming this July, and I wanted to ask you about that. The Pluto-quincunx-Mercury that you talked about, is that affecting me the same way in Vermont also or is that different there. Anyway, if you could please get back to me. I know I'm rambling. Oh, and my boyfriend, he wants to move to Austin and I don't think we ever talked about that. Well, my number is 000-000-0000. Oh by the way, I have told a few friends about you and I hope the are calling you. Bye."

So a strange fact is this:

-- I have found I do well answering a question the first time. If I revisit a question and ponder it a second time, I seem to be less effective and accurate.

This is a key reason I am very slow to listen to long messages. In long messages, the client is usually asking the questions, or bringing up all the issues, that they'd normally be speaking when we finally talk. But I'm not going to ponder them at all until we talk. They are asking to put all this content in my mind in advance or to carry it around in my mind working on it.

By asking all their questions in a long voicemail, the client is basically asking me to ponder the question TWICE -- there on the first listening, then later again when we finally talk. Certainly all these questions will be brought up again when we finally talk. Leave them for that time. By NOT LISTENING to your long message, I'm actually trying to keep from doing badly at my ultimate answers. Again, I do best on the first try (answering). Not the 2nd. So it's common people who live 2-minute messages won't get called back for 2 weeks or more. I won't be carrying all your content and questions around in my head, "working on it mentally" (or at my screen) in the meantime. So there is no point in giving me all that detail in a message.

I'm not trying to be a grouch, but you see how easy the first message was for her and me.

A final word

I consider it to be a big, heavy thing to be involved in lives in the manner in which I am involved -- being part of an impetus to make a life changing decision that will have life consequences from here on out. I don't take it lightly. That's why I am so careful and turn so many people down. I know what consequences a move can have, and don't want to make mistakes.

I am a Sun-Trine-Uranus and I think I have a broad ranging grasp of humanity. I can understand and appreciate all sorts of people, people of every stripe. I respond to people as individuals.

I have every imaginable sort of client. I have had a successful career in this, in my terms. I have an easy life, have the free time I want to devote to sidelines, scriptures, and meditations. I have enough money for me, and am contented. The technical astrology part came easy for me. But it's not the only reason for my success. One of the big reasons I am successful is that I have a capacity -- I don't know how -- to actually care about somebody I've just met over the phone, plug into them, entertain in my own mind their wishes, believe in their vision, and get behind them. I think I'm actually successful because my clients can tell that I care.

The biggest secret of my success, I can't tell here. But it is personal, and has to do with the power of speech. Though I think my technique is better than everybody else's, and it's not that, my capacity to care is why people come to me, then trust my advice, enough to reap.

Finally: This is actually hard work for me, not easy. But it's not hard in the ways you might think. It's hard because my clients have high expectations and, in a certain way, put me in the position of Santa Claus, or hoping to "win the lottery" of life by moving somewhere. The charts tend to be difficult and unfriendly in some ways, and I have to cope with that somehow. It's true that people often CAN get huge improvements by moving somewhere, yes. That's why it's exciting and why I do give opinions often. On the other hand, sometimes it's just not the right time. I take each client very seriously and mentally bear certain burdens while pondering their chart. The disappointment some clients have when I am "stumped" (temporarily, see above) is also hard for me to bear. But Priority One for me is being honest, keeping in good conscience, and "sleeping well" at night.