Marriage: In the stars

“Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match. Find me a find, catch me a catch…”
—Fiddler on the Roof

Alexandra Karacostas is an honest-to-goodness, modern-day matchmaker.

The popular local astrologer—or “astrology consultant,” as she prefers to be called—has a particular affinity for the area within her profession called “synastry": relationship astrology. Astrological matchmaking is her self-professed “favorite thing to do.”

Karacostas, who is currently vice president of the national Organization of Professional Astrologers, has been a professional astrologer since the early 1980s. She moved back to Chico 2-1/2 years ago after a 21-year hiatus during which she lived in Santa Cruz; Montana; San Diego; Taos, N.M., and Athens, Greece.

The well-traveled Karacostas was born in Manhattan and raised in Greece by her Greek parents. She credits her traditional Greek upbringing with instilling in her a passion for the other-worldly. Karacostas’ grandmother—a “huge influence"—taught her to “recognize that there were powers in force that are invisible to the naked eye. … Our [Greek] tradition, our family, was always into dreams and metaphysical stuff.”

People come to Karacostas’ cozy, downtown office for astrological readings and advice on all sorts of things—where to live or travel to, what to expect in the coming year, how to break bad habits, what to look for in a love or business relationship—based on an in-depth examination of their birth horoscope.

Karacostas—a slender, pretty 51-year-old with long brown hair and bangs—tells the story of two of her friends whom she fixed up 20-some years ago, based on the information she obtained from the extensive astrological birth charts she put together for them—as she does for all her clients—looking at where the sun, moon and planets were at their time of birth, among other things.

Those friends are together to this day.

“I thought these guys would be a very good match,” Karacostas said. “Their suns are opposites—in Taurus and Scorpio. But their moons—the moons are really important; they tell how two people will sleep together, how compatible they are—their moons are very harmonious, in Aquarius and Libra. They have enough friction to create an attraction … but they have enough compatible elements to navigate their differences.”

“This is a couple that is successful that has some substantial opposition, but their moons are in a harmonious trine,” Karacostas continued, referring to the auspicious astrological fact of two astronomical objects being 120 degrees apart. Karacostas speaks easily in astrological terms that may be unfamiliar to the average person—trines, ascendants, planets being “well-aspected"—but is also quick to translate things into lay terms: “Their rhythm is similar.”

People will come to her with birthdates of current or potential partners and ask, “Will this work?”

“I can take two people’s charts and, through a mathematical process, combine them and come up with a third entity that reflects their relationship,” Karacostas explained. “I rely on the information on the paper. I can sense all I want, but the information on the paper makes it clearer where the relationship is good, and where the challenges are.”

Karacostas also distinguishes between matchmaking for romance and matchmaking for a more long-term relationship, such as marriage.

The position of the planet Mercury in a person’s chart is important, for instance, if a couple wants to be successful in marriage, since Mercury dictates “how we touch one another with our words, how we communicate. Sometimes, in romance it doesn’t matter [how well we communicate] because people are just into lust.”

On the other hand, if someone is looking for an intense, romantic fling with another person, “their Venuses need to be well-aspected.”

Karacostas, by the way, takes her own advice. She married her husband of 20 years after doing an astrological chart of the relationship.

“I knew this one was a go,” offered Karacostas, who has been married twice before (she did a chart before her second marriage, which told her a big, fat “no,” but she married that one, anyway). “I did the astrology on it and it said that it was promising, that it held potential. We’re still together and happy, and growing older and happier together.”