Aruna Dismont understands that there are many people who do not believe in astrology.

She herself was a sceptic until she decided to dig deeper than the generic forecasts of the 12 zodiac signs thrown up by pop culture.

“I read my moon sign and there were things about me that it mentioned that not many people know about,” she said.

Astrologers say the moon sign reflects hidden emotions and weighs heavily on relationships. Aruna’s made reference to her mother, the late social worker Martha Dismont.

“Our personal relationship was very powerful, because her relationship with the world was very public,” she said. “It spoke a little bit to our relationship and I was like, wait a minute … Because [these were things] no one knew.”

She now sits somewhere between a “hobbyist” and a “novice professional”.

Friends, and friends of friends, often ask for her input when challenged by “the ebbs and flow of everyday life”.

Astrologers are said to be able to forecast events based on their observation and interpretation of the sun, moon planets and fixed stars.

Widely described as pseudoscience, Aruna insists that is incorrect.

“The thing about astrology is, I think people who don't know anything about it, literally don't know anything about it.

“I would say it is [a science] because it's an observable pattern you can track and relate to other things. It is something that actually can have practical uses.”

Most people’s understanding of astrology is limited to the horoscopes that offer forecasts based on the positions of planets at a particular time, but there is a lot more to it according to Aruna, a student of several years.

“Everybody has every sign and every planet in their chart. There's no way for someone to say I'm just [a particular sign] and I'm not [another one].

“The most important thing that does not come up in most pop culture, because it's a third level of understanding, is that there are things called houses.

“There are 12 houses and there are 12 signs and a house is actually the area of your life that the energy shows up in. So for instance, the twelfth house is the hidden house.

“A lot of things that are associated with the twelfth house people don't really know about or see on the surface.”

That energy is hidden as the twelfth house ties in with our subconscious, she said. As such, a person with a sun sign of Capricorn whose twelfth house is in Pisces may be completely unaware of the connection.

“That's the dreams, drugs, escapism, creativity, sleep, all of these things. So you [might say] ‘I’m not a Pisces’, but actually you have Pisces energy with you.

“It just shows up in a different area than you or others might see. Each house has a different area. The first house is the body, the second house is your tangible money and values; third house is communication and thinking.

“So everyone has everything in their chart. It's not just Taurus are this and Libras are this. It actually has practical things you can do with it,” she said.

Electional astrology can pinpoint the best day or time to do something; horary astrology helps find answers to specific questions and is often used to find lost items; there is also relationship or synastry astrology which is meant to show the compatibility of romantic partners.

“Astrology isn't just for people,” Aruna said. “We can do it for businesses, you can do it for a country – as long as there is a point in time that you can relate to, then you can make a chart out of it.”

In As The World Turns: Astrology, the Soap Opera of the Sky, the Pecha Kucha talk she gave on astrology last month, Aruna described the overturning of the landmark 1973 case that legalised abortion in the US as an example of how astrology could chart a country’s path.

“Right now the United States is kind of having its Pluto Return. It's a long story about what that means, but [what it ties in to] is the United States’ foundation being upended.

“In my presentation I spoke about the abortion bill being turned over and you can see that in the charts – the time period when it was signed, and the time period when it was turned over and what was going on then.”

She’d like to do the same for Bermuda, but needs its birth chart – a snapshot of the position of the planets on the exact day, time and location of its creation – for that to happen.

“With a country it's hard to get a time right. I would need to look at roughly three dates – there's the day when we got mapped by Juan de Bermudez, there's the day when the first person stepped on the island and the day that we were settled as Bermuda.

“All the planets will be in a certain spot-on the chart [at those times], and will talk to things around Bermuda. I personally believe Bermuda has a lot of Pisces energy.”

Pisces, the twelfth astrological sign of the zodiac, is a water sign.

“Every sign and every planet and every house, depending on how you look at it, rules things. We talk about Aries the ram and Taurus the bull, and then you have modalities which is the way that the energy works. So there's fixed, mutable, cardinal and then there's also the elements – water, fire, air and Earth,” Aruna said.

“Those things show up as well, when you’re looking at different charts and so having all of that knowledge is really important to understanding how the stuff that you're staring at will play out.”

With all that to consider it’s no surprise that she describes astrology as a “very deep and very broad” study that is often misunderstood because people “can only grasp a small part”.

“A lot of celebrities, billionaires, gamblers have professional astrologers because they talk about the time when to do things or not to do things,” she said.

“I tend not to try to use [astrology to plan] things because I do like to experience life as it comes. I don't necessarily like to look too forward, mind you a lot of it is in my head so I can't help it sometimes.”

Although “prediction” is a word often bandied about in relation to astrology, it is not one that she would use.

“There are professional astrologers who 100 per cent will predict things and stand by them and be correct. I'm not saying I'll ever be incorrect, but I speak more generally because I don't feel comfortable being as concrete because there are so many things to look at even if you’re doing a certain type of astrology.

“There's Vedic astrology, which is ancient astrology, Egyptian astrology; there's Greek, there's modern and traditional. So there's many ways and many things to look at.”

She prefers not to know anything about strangers’ charts until she gets to know them.

“I do have a very good way of usually picking out people's placements, I can’t help it,” she laughed. “But a lot of friends and such often come to me looking for guidance on [various days, things, people and events]. I haven't really promoted it but I do definitely do [placements for] people I know, friends and friends of friends and all that kind of stuff.

“I've been thinking maybe I'll do a course, because I feel I need to have some letters [to my name] or something, so people take me seriously.”

• For more information on Aruna Dismont’s astrology offerings look for her onFacebook. Find more about Pecha Kucha atwww.pechakucha.com/communities/bermuda