We were lucky to catch up with Britten LaRue recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Britten thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

On a warm summer night in 2017 and I looked up and knew the full moon was talking to me.

At the time I was uneasily married, finishing my PhD, and had been living on Maui (and waking up to my life) for a year. The moon was telling it was time for change, and that it would involve listening to the deepest parts of myself.

Two months later, I was back in Texas, separated, and spending half my time in a bare apartment when I didn’t have my kids. I was studying what I could about old ways of turning to the moon for guidance and trying to find teachers who could help me figure out how to create rituals for my baby practice.

I see now that I was waking up to my inner mystic, learning to trust in an irrational knowing. I see now I was emerging into my Future Self that I am now, fumbling in the dark.

It was around this time my brother gave me a PDF of my birth chart. I didn’t know what a chart was as I knew nothing about astrology beyond being a Pisces. I saw its circle with glyphs and lines and I knew I could understand its language. I knew that I already knew how to read it! And so I set about learning with the same devotion I had been giving academic work for two decades.

Six months after that I said out loud for the first time: “I want to be an astrologer. But more than that: I want to be a midwife for people going through major transformation.”

I had three years of alimony to support me while I figured it out. With zero business experience or training ever, like ever, I was able to quit my university gig exactly when my alimony ran out! My business has quadrupled each year, and I now make more money than I ever would have as an academic. And ahem, I don’t need my any man’s money.

I am now Britten LaRue: creator of Emergence Astrology. Emergence Astrology leans on this ancient symbolic language to help us become approachable to the self and the wild path that is emerging in the dark for us. My second business In Case of Emergence is a publishing venture I share with my design partner, and we’ve published 15 astrology workbooks for self-care and evolution.

Because of the risk I took in trusting my dream field, I now serve and mentor exquisitely brave one-on-one clients, a vast community of sparkling and curious students, loyal podcast fans, and thousands of readers of my workbooks. More than this, I am living an abundance that comes from trusting my intuition and following my dreams.

Britten, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am Britten LaRue. I help those who feel themselves on the verge of emerging into an unknown part of themselves: more magical, more mystical, more wildly alive.

People come to me because they are inspired by my story: I walked away from a home on Maui, a supportive marriage, financial security, a future in academia. But a voice buried deep within nudged me to say No. And I have been calling forth this voice ever since and letting it lead the wild path emerging before me.

Whether folks find me via IG, my podcast Moon to Moon, my many workbooks, or a random google search, my clients, students, readers, and listeners are invested in me because they too want to trust that voice and follow it.

The seduction begins with my voice., and then the journey becomes learning to let yourself be seduced by your own.

I teach courses in living the language of astrology in your body and your choices. I give readings. I sell my books. I coach budding mystics to grow their practice. I do speaking gigs and share on my podcast. But what I’m really doing is dealing in the business of emergence.

And so I call what I do Emergence Astrology. It’s an umbrella term for everything else. Not everyone wants to change, to grow, to heal, to transform, to be responsible for their own emergence… and so I am not for everyone.

I am most proud of myself for listening, after so many years not able to find my own words, wanting to be someone else, someone I thought people wanted me to be. Everything I create comes from my dream field. I try learning business templates from other people but I prefer to let everything emerge from within.

What I have learned is the most important thing I can do to inspire my community is to keep being my raw, wild self. And this coaxes forward – like a courtship – the wild self in others. It’s the best! I love the life I have and I love what I do.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

I started with one client and that grew steadily as they referred me. At the time, I thought what I wanted was a quiet, referral-only practice where I could hide out and take it slow and easy.

But very quickly I realized from watching astrologers on Instagram that I wanted to participate in the dialogue. I knew I had things to say and I knew my background in writing would help me leap quickly. And so I started an IG account and a few months later a newsletter.

About 9 months after starting my IG account, I got a gig as a horoscope writer for D Magazine here in Dallas, and that was a huge boost. I decided to start offering online courses with my long background in teaching, I knew what to do.

Two years into my life as an astrologer, I started writing 1-2 140-page workbooks per month with my client, who is a designer. Across 9 months in 2020, we created what I honestly think is the best series on the signs that exists. I couldn’t have done this without my long background in academia, where I learned how to churn out excellent writing very fast. Our workbooks are now sold in boutiques across the country and now in Australia.

That same year, I launched my first long-term astrology foundations course to add to my stable of smaller courses.

In 2021, I launched it again and brought in 9X the revenue. And I also have another major course that tripled in revenue from 2021 to 2022.

In the fall of 2021, I quit my last academic gig and became a full-time astrologer.

Scaling with my books and courses has allowed me to focus on big-investment clients who want to go deep. I don’t do a lot of one-off readings any more because it’s not what I want to do. Profound transformation and big emergence happen slowly over time, and I’m into real, lasting change.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

My reputation is rooted in a few key factors:

– my raw vulnerability: people feel safe to go super deep with me because they see me do it, too. They know I am not afraid to imperfect, to be honest, to be real. They find healing in my spaces because I let. them unfurl without shame or apology.

– my showing up: I consistently bring my whole self, again and again. People don’t have to wonder about quality or my presence.

– my intellectual training: it helps people trust me who are also ready to transition from the analytical to the mystical. I always have a place for skepticism. I don’t ask people to believe anything. I cite my sources and hold integrity with my ideas.

– my story: I am a model for what’s possibility and I take that very seriously.

– my values: I am trauma-informed and aim to provide space holding with integrity. I am not interested in group think or being a guru, and welcome divergent viewpoints in my community. I am dedicated to reprogramming from patriarchy, decolonizing my teaching style, and weaving social justice into my business.

– my presence: there’s something about my vibe that has proven to be a big part of my allure. I believe it’s my willingness to be turned on by being alive. This from someone who admittedly didn’t have an orgasm until age 39. Truth!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://brittenlarue.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brittenlarue/