This is a question we get a lot, and it’s a good one! The answer is: any way you want to, and any way that fits into your schedule and budget right now! Here are the ways you can get started:

• Book a Golden Shadow Reading: this is an especially good idea if you’ve never had your birth chart read. Even if you’ve had it read by another Astrologer, we highly recommend a reading with Lauren - Lauren’s readings have a way of taking you into the deep end, fast. Also, you’ll need to have had a Golden Shadow reading to move onto Lauren’s other kinds of Astrology & Tarot readings. Plus, you can talk directly with the Head Witch in Charge herself about your next steps.
• Life Coaching: Lauren’s private coaching practice is currently accepting new clients, and it is the fastest way to experience radical transformation in your life. The one-on-one nature of life coaching allows for the goals and materials to be tailored specifically to you and your life, and the changes come on quickly. You can book an Illumination Call with Lauren to see if Life Coaching is a good fit for you.
• Group Programs: Take a look at our group programs - they run for between 6 weeks and a 12 months at a time and the group work is deeply metamorphic. There is something different about working in a group container: the relationships you form and the energy built in coven life is unlike anything you’ve experienced before. Depending on the part of the Wheel of the Year we are currently in, we might be open for joining Soul & Synastry (our Astrology program), Ancestral Witch (our ancestral magick program), or the Wilde Apprenticeship (Lauren’s Signature Apprenticeship program and the foundation for certification as a Wilde Circle Facilitator).
• Self-Study programs: We’ve got some programs for self-study - these have the lowest barrier to entry! You download them and work on them at your own pace. There are no time-bound restrictions on enrollment, no deadlines, and you get lifetime access to the materials. And we’ve got bundles to save your hard-earned money, too!

Here are a few ideas to help you decide:

• If your primary goal is to collect knowledge of the esoteric arts, and/or deepen your Witchcraft practices, but you don’t have a large budget - take a peek at those self-study programs. 
• If you have a specific problem you’re trying to solve, or a situation in your life you’re dealing with (divorce, relocation, career changes, parenthood, etc.) and you need specific advice and support through it, life coaching is probably your best bet here.
• If you’re looking to expand your knowledge of tarot and astrology and get to know some like-minded people to learn in a community, check out Soul & Synastry. 
• Are you looking for help defining your path and deepening your witchcraft practice? Are you interested in leading New Moon circles or helping teach and facilitate others down similar paths? Our Wilde Apprenticeship is for you!

Here’s the bottom line: you may be called to all of these paths at different times, and only you can know what will fit your availability, interests, and budget. If you’ve taken a look at the pages for all this stuff and read this far and you still feel like you don’t know where to start - shoot us a message at [email protected] and our Desk Witch will be happy to help you figure it out.

This is a chart that shows the position of the cosmos from the vantage point of your birthplace at the moment of your birth. The position of some planetary bodies, asteroids, and other points on the chart are such that they can vary from minute to minute, which is why we need to know the precise time and place of your birth. 

There are loads of websites and apps which will display a natal chart for you, and a lot of it comes down to personal preference! Wilde Spirit Co. uses the Placidus housing system, but there are other housing systems out there with their own pros and cons. If you book a chart reading with us, you'll get a copy of your chart with your report afterwards! If you want to pull your own chart, we like astro.com as a starting point, or the app TimePassages. Both are free to generate a basic natal chart, at the time of this posting.

The first thing we're going to recommend is to get a certified copy of your birth certificate! This is not typically difficult or expensive, but can take a bit of time for it to get to you depending on the state you're ordering from. The reason we recommend this is because memories are tricky - we ourselves have been the victim of being told the wrong birth time!!! And having the time wrong can mean your entire chart is off-kilter. If there is truly no way to obtain your birth time with accuracy, what we can do is cast a "sunrise chart," meaning that we cast the chart for sunrise on the day of your birth- this gives us a pretty good idea about a lot of your placements and, if we know from the start that we aren't using an accurate time, we can tell you what to take as true and what could change with a more accurate time. 

If you've never had a reading *with Lauren* before, you should book a Golden Shadow reading. Based on your familiarity with your chart, Lauren can dive deeper with you during your reading if that's going to be helpful to you! If you've already had a Golden Shadow reading with Lauren, typically the next kind of reading that will be useful to you is a Transitory Reading. If you have a specific question or issue you'd like to discuss, you can always put that in the notes when you make your booking so Lauren can be sure to highlight it with you, as well.

Although our programs may look similar from the outside, they are actually very different! If you take a look at the program pages, there's a lot of info there, but if we were to briefly break down the differences, we might say something like this:

Soul & Synastry is for studying astrology from a pretty academic perspective - you'll be doing a lot of reading and memorizing (along with some embodiment practice).

Ancestral Witch is all about your own individual ancestry - getting in touch with your own ancestors and tapping into their deep wells of magick.

The Wilde Apprenticeship has a bit of astrology and a bit of ancestral magick to it, but is really almost a survey of witchcraft: you'll learn witchy basics like the Wheel of the Year, lunar cycles, how to get in touch with your own personal craft, and then in the back half of the year, you have the opportunity to learn the basics of Wilde Circle Facilitation.

What we find to be the case is that you'll be drawn to start your journey on a particular path, but many of our students choose to take more than of the courses at different points in time. 

Hi! We're glad to have you. Lauren has told her story in bits and pieces in many places over time, but we recommend starting with the Podcast (on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to Podcasts) - the first three episodes are Lauren telling her story. 

At Wilde Spirit Co., we price our offerings according to their value and with accessibility in mind. Lauren's Private Coaching Practice is priced in such a way that we are not able to offer scholarships or financial aid. In some cases, however, we are able to offer partial scholarships to our group programs or sliding scale fees for our one-time readings for BIPOC or other minority individuals, single moms, and/or neurodiverse folks. If you need a hand, we can't make any promises, but please do reach out.