If you have problems, Tricia Duffy Foggo recommends you look at the stars.

It’s something she does regularly for herself, and for clients of Bermuda Fog Astrology, the company she started after she quit her job as a teacher.

She became interested while a child, led by her mother who “dabbled in astrology” as a way of finding out more about her brood of nine.

As time went on Ms Duffy Foggo began studying and saw the impact the solar system had on people, children especially.

Bestselling author Jan Spiller’s book, Astrology for the Soul, “struck a chord” with the quote, “Life is too short to go around blindfolded.”

“We’re conditioned by our family, community, church, school, peers, media … they influence us to hide who we truly are, and put on like a mask for the outside world so that we all look acceptable,” Ms Duffy Foggo said.

“And so when I read that quote it made me dive deeper. And then the pandemic hit, and so [Bermuda Fog Astrology] was basically a pandemic pivot; I decided to retire from teaching and do it full-time.”

To anyone who links astrology with daily horoscopes, she insists the two are not at all related.

“Horoscopes do a disservice to astrology because horoscopes take one tiny, tiny piece of information and make a blanket statement about it – and that's why they're wildly inaccurate. It’s just not true. Astrology has nothing to do with horoscopes.”

What she does, in a nutshell, is create and interpret natal charts, “an astronomical snapshot of the stars” based on a person’s exact day, time, and place of birth.

“It’s kind of like a blueprint for your life. Every single natal chart is unique and it won't be repeated for about 25,000 years,” said Ms Duffy Foggo, a certified moonologer, intuitive astrologer and infinite possibilities trainer through her studies at Applied Astrology School.

“Your big three pillars of your personality are your sun sign, your moon sign and your rising sign. And your sun sign is your ego, your moon sign is the way you do emotions. And your rising sign is your soul, it’s the essence of you, why you're here and what you’re rising towards.”

She then considers the planets, as each one tells her something different about a person.

“Mercury is how we communicate; Venus is love and money; Mars is your assertiveness; Jupiter is your luck. Saturn is how you do responsibility, it's also your limits and your discipline.

“And then Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are outer planets that affect the collective more than the individual. And then there's other points in your chart too. So I sort of give you an overview about why you're here and what you're supposed to be doing. Most times people know innately, but this just helps to clarify it.”

The reasons people come to her vary. Some are curious about the information in their natal chart, others are “at a turning point in their life” and looking for advice.

“So if they’re not happy with their career any more, they want to know what they should do next. Or they may have divorced and they're wondering about relationships. With a natal chart there's just layers and layers and layers and layers of information. So we can dive deep into, really any area.”

Each chart is divided into 12 “houses” and each house is related to an area in a person’s life.

“The tenth house, for example, is the house of career. So I would look at what's happening in the tenth house – what planets are there, what the planets are doing, if any other planets are affecting those planets, there's just a ton of information.”

Although she’d had a passing interest in astrology for much of her life Ms Duffy Foggo was drawn in at a time when she really needed something to anchor her.

“What I first got interested in was following the moon, understanding the rhythm of the moon and using the new moon to set intentions and the full moon to release things that are no longer serving.”

She found it gave her the “good energy” she needed at that time.

Added proof came from her students.

“You always knew when it was a full moon because there would be more fights, more arguments, kids just completely out of control, not knowing what to do with themselves. They would just go out at recess and scream.”

Watching them made her more interested in “finding out what makes all of us tick”.

“We're all here together, but we're all walking our own path. The sun lights up the entire universe, the moon moves all the time, how could we not be affected by the planets that are up in the sky?”

Sometime around 2017 she realised she wanted to know even more.

“I was just sort of learning, learning about myself, trying it out on family and friends. And then it really was during the pandemic that I took a deep dive into it and decided that I was done with teaching.”

Bermuda Fog Astrology provides “several different readings”, offers classes and hosts a group, Moon Magic Monthly, which gathers every full and new moon.

Each meeting ends with a Reiki session led by Ms Duffy Foggo’s business partner, Jenna Partridge, a Reiki master.

Generally speaking, people have been eager to learn more about what’s on offer.

“I am on Instagram and I've been noticing that there's more Bermuda people following me and reaching out and asking questions [which] is interesting because my clientele is really international. I do everything on Zoom.”

Locally, there are people who are fearful of her practice. A big misconception is that astrology is “a belief system” when in actuality, “it’s really like a language”.

“I don't know why people are afraid of it,” Ms Duffy Foggo said.

“I look at it as a practical tool to guide you in your life.”

As her mother came to appreciate, astrology can help parents better understand their young children.

“If we look at the different milestones in life, many of them can be connected to astrology. The ‘terrible twos' can be connected to astrology because the child is having a Mars return, they're learning about willpower and that's why they're screaming ‘no’ all the time.”

Chiron, an asteroid that represents birth, “the core wound”, is usually the cause of any “midlife crisis”.

“When a planet returns to where it was at when you were born, that's a ‘return’,” Ms Duffy Foggo said. “So most people have their Chiron return between 46 and 50 years old. And that's when you start doubting yourself and asking ‘Why am I here? What's it all about?’ And really, it's just because the wound is being triggered.”

Bermuda Fog Astrology is holding a free master class on Zoom on Sunday at 4pm. Register here: bit.ly/439VKme.

For more information visit www.bermuda-fog-astrology.com or @bermuda_fog_astrology on Instagram