Alex Trenoweth is an award-winning astrologer, author, musician and school teacher. Her written work has been featured in the world’s leading astrology magazine, Dell Horoscope and many others and she is the co-editor of “Constellation News”. She is also a veteran speaker at the United Astrology Conference and lectures at astrology conferences all over the globe.

Alex serves as International Secretary General for the 2018 Institute of Vedic Astrology (IVC) conference in Kolkata India. She is currently helping to prepare the conference for 2020. Alex is also Vice Principal of IVC’s affiliate school, Krishnamurti Institute of Astrology (KIA). KIA  has more than 600 currently enrolled students in six branches distributed throughout West Bengal and over 20,000 alumni. In late 2017, she coached several of KIA’s astrology pupils to deliver lectures at the IVC Conference and taught them principles of Western Astrology.

In 2018, IVC awarded her with both a PhD for her ground-breaking work on astrology and education as well as an award for “Outstanding Service to Astrology”.

Background

Alex was born in Port Huron Michigan and is of Ojibwa heritage via her mother’s family and Eastern European heritage via her father’s family. She is band member of the Saugeen Indian Reservation and enjoys preserving the First Nation culture through storytelling. Before he retired, her father was a long distance truck driver and a chronic pain sufferer.

At 9 months old, Alex contracted meningitis and was not expected to survive. Her medical records list her as a “miracle baby”.

“I was very aware that I was not like the other children,” she has said in interviews. “Being half of anything means you can feel like you don’t belong anywhere. But I also knew I had somehow survived something terrible and that gave me a purpose. My problem was I didn’t know what that purpose was supposed to be.”

It took Alex until her early teens to discover astrology. To her annoyance, she found that newspaper horoscopes described her as “home-loving and shy” due to being a Cancerian. Being born on 20 July, she would tell people she was born on the cusp of Leo.

“I really wanted to be a Leo!” she says. “Who would want to be described as home loving and shy?”

In university she discovered she did in fact have the Moon in Leo as well as Mercury in Leo as her ruling planet. It was this discovery that sent her off on a life long pursuit of astrological knowledge.

The Starry Path

After moving to the UK in 1990, Alex studied astrology independently for several years before working with Jonathan Cainer at Rainbow Circle as an astrology camp coordinator. She has also worked at the world famous Glastonbury Music Festival and The Big Green Gathering as an astrologer, palmist and tarot reader.

In the late 1990s, Alex embarked on a more structured course of study with the Faculty of Astrological Studies (FAS).

“I loved the fact that the FAS allowed me to learn from like minded people because studying astrology can be an enormously isolating experience. It’s like being the only speaker of an obscure language.” She later reflected that although astrologers speak the same language, they all have different accents.

She is rightly proud of the fact that her engagement with a more formal level of study enhances rather than replaces her skills at a grass roots level of astrology.

Alex eventually earned the coveted DFAstrolS degree from the FAS in 2016. She then went on to study with the School of Traditional Astrology’s, obtaining the certificate in the autumn of 2015. She has studied Hellenistic Astrology with Dorian Greenbaum at the prestigious Faculty of Astrological Studies Summer School at Oxford University in 2015.

Further Study

While still a student of the FAS, Alex earned an MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology from Bath Spa University in 2007 and is now one of the few people in the world to hold both an MA (CAA) from BSU as well as the diploma from the FAS. At the time, she was also a highly successful History teacher and pastoral care provider at an inner city London secondary school.

“Looking back, I can see I had put myself under an enormous amount of pressure. I don’t know where I got the energy for it all. What I do know is that I felt I had something to prove,” she has said of this hectic time of her life.

Alex was also the long serving editor of the Astrology Quarterly for the Astrological Lodge of London (also frequently lecturing there), a contributor to The Astrology Show (with Jessica Adams, Neil Spencer and Adam Smith) and was a speaker at the internationally renowned United Astrology Conference (UAC), Denver Colorado in 2008, returning again in Chicago 2018. She lectured at the International Society for Astrological Research (ISAR) in 2014 and continues to write for their magazine.

“Growing Pains”

In 2012, Alex began writing her book on astrology and education after studying the behaviour statistics of her pupils.

“I knew Jupiter and Saturn were being activated and I had the evidence in nerdy graphs right in front of me,” Alex said. “Growing Pains” was published in 2013 by My Spirit Books and re-published by The Wessex Astrologer in 2017.

Shortly after the book was published, Alex was in demand on the astrology lecture circuit and she decided to leave the teaching profession as a full time career.

“I was burnt out with teaching by this time,” she said. “I liked teaching kids but other things were calling me. Vaguely I remember thinking that I wished I could get the work-life balance right.”

After lecturing at the Astrological Association of Great Britain in September 2014, she embarked on a cross country tour in the US from ISAR in Phoenix in September to the State Of The Art Astrological conference (SOTA) in New York. In the US for 6 weeks, she visited the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, California, Texas, New Orleans, Atlanta seeing old friends and making lots of new friends.

It was in Texas that she decided to visit India and she wrote off to an astrology conference organiser, Gopal Bhattacharjee, asking if he might consider having her as a speaker at his conference in 2016. It was on the last night of her US tour that she was invited to speak at IVC 2015–only 3 months away.

“So I hadn’t even unpacked from one adventure before I have to get ready for the next!”

International Astrologer of the Year, 2015

In February 2015, Alex was the UK Chapter Chairperson at the Krishnamurti Institute of Astrology (KIA) conference in Kolkata and was voted “Best International Astrologer, 2015” by the executive committee. The award was given for her dynamic lecture and research into astrology and education.

She is shown to the left being presented with this great honour by the Minister for Women and Children, Dr Shashi Panja. Shankar Nash Kapoor, a former High Court Justice of Delhi is to her left.

“I didn’t even know I was in a contest,” Alex said of her award. “No knew me but I knew I had a message to deliver!”

Later that month, Alex also delivered an academic lecture at the University of Delhi on the philosophical roots of modern astrology in Europe.

Cape Town

Following being awarded with “International Astrologer of the Year, 2015” for KIA, in November 2015,  Alex spoke at the Astrology Restored Conference in Cape Town South Africa along side Robert Hand, Komilla Sutton, Richard Fidler, Kate Petty, Michelle Gould, Nick Dagan Best and Samuel Reynolds.

Attending her lecture in Cape Town was legendary astrologer Rob Hand. Impressed by her research, Hand bought a copy of her book. 

“I honestly thought my life had peaked in India,” Alex says now. “I tell you, I never would have thought that Rob Hand would ask me to autograph my book for him!”

Alex decided to extend her stay in Cape Town until January 2016 when she returned to India. Shortly after IVC 2016, she was asked to be the International Secretary General. She’s been gathering astrologers to speak in India ever since.

Further Travels

Speaking engagements in 2017 included the Kepler Research Conference, the 1st Annual International Conference (Portugal), Northwest Astrological Conference (NORWAC), the San Francisco Astrological Society and several NCGR branches.

In 2018, following India, she lectured in Belgrade, at UAC, the Denver Astrology Group, the Perugia Astrology conference in Italy and visited several local astrology groups in the UK.

She will be lecturing at the Sedona Astrology Conference in late 2018. She will also return to the Kepler Research Conference in 2019. India, Portugal and another tour of the US are all in Alex’s plans for 2019.

Writing

A prolific writer, Alex contributes to high quality astrological magazines across the globe. She is a regular contributor to ISAR, Cosmic*Intelligence*Agency, Dell Horoscope, OPA Career Astrologer, and was delighted to have several articles selected for Astrodienst.

“Constellation News”, the conference magazine Alex edits along with Gopal, is now featured on astro.com. The magazine contains the research of the IVC lecturers. It was translated into Bengali and distributed to over 20,000 people under its Bengali title “Nakshatra Barta”. “Nakshatra Barta”, edited by Gopal Bhattacharjee, has been in print for many years. It is available not only through subscription but is on newsstands across India.  Like the IVC conference, “Nakshatra Barta” is providing true interface between East and West.

Alex’s articles have been translated into Bengali, German, Italian Portuguese and Spanish. Alex is also well known for her groundbreaking research on astrology and education and her academic paper on Adolescent Behaviour and Lunar Phase (2016) which was made possible from a grant from the American Federation of Astrology. A write up of this important research was reported by the Astrology News Service in late 2016.

Other Activites

In addition to her prestigious speaking engagements and busy teaching schedule, she teaches astrology in London, holds “Astrology and Education” workshops around the world, plays the trumpet in the South London Jazz Orchestra, is a self professed cat lover and supports the Detroit Tigers baseball team from across the Atlantic.

Her books on Palmistry, Astrology and Adolescence (“Growing Pains”) and a collection of astrological essays are due out later this year. Additionally, Alex has four books of fiction and a collection of short stories  pending publication. A selection of Alex’s fiction can be accessed via her home page and she is a member of the Society of Authors.

Music

Music has always been a huge part of Alex’s life. She began playing the trumpet at the age of 9 as part of a youth group with the Salvation Army.

In high school, her band won “The Heart of St Petersburg” award. Unfortunately, orthodontics put an end to her desire to be a professional trumpet player.

“This has always bothered me. But I often think of what my life may have been like had I become a trumpet player. My chops would have been on ice every night and I probably never would have left the continental US.”

At Western Michigan University, she played in the Bronco’s marching band. Although a career as a trumpet player was not something she could achieve, Alex is still a jazz trumpeter with the South London Jazz Orchestra and a trumpet soloist at various gigs and venues, including Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Performing

She also sings with the St Michael and All Angels parish church choir in Walthamstow. Every November, she plays “Last Post” at Walthamstow Town Hall.

“A childhood in the Salvation Army produces the best altos,” Alex says.

Alex performed with the South London Jazz Orchestra at the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) Beer Festival in Liverpool.

The articles on this site reflect some of Alex’s work. Have a look around. If you like what you see or would like to learn more, drop Alex an email via the contact page.

See the lecture schedule for details of past and upcoming lectures

Alternatively, you can visit her blog to see what she’s been up to or to have an astrological giggle: www.alextrenoweth@blogspot.com

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