How a preschool founder used astrology to find her next chapter
What happens when the work you’ve spent years building comes to an end — and you have to figure out what comes next?
For Tricia Martin-Owen, that question became very real when the preschool she founded had to close.
But Tricia wasn’t starting from scratch.
She had a background in applied educational neuroscience, had taught mindfulness and meditation for more than a decade, earned a certification in somatic therapy and a master’s in design, written a book about education, and founded a deeply relationship-based school built around nervous system regulation.
She had spent years weaving all of these threads together.
The question was:
What did they add up to now?
That’s where Star Path came in.
When your old chapter ends before the new one is fully formed
Tricia founded the Oak School as a different kind of preschool.
Rather than following a rigid educational philosophy, the school centered relationships and nervous system regulation. Decisions started with questions like: What does this child need right now? What does this teacher need?
Then the space she was renting decided it no longer wanted a preschool there.
The school closed.
Suddenly, Tricia found herself in a major transition — moving from running a school into building a private practice.
And although the container was changing, the deeper work underneath it wasn’t.
“It was like a front for me to finally be able to do my work in the world. And now I’m like, the front’s gone and here I am.”
The challenge was figuring out how to name, structure and bring that work forward.
She'd studied astrology for years. But she didn't want it to tell her who to be.
Astrology wasn’t new to Tricia.
It had been in her orbit for roughly 15 years, alongside Human Design, the Enneagram, the I Ching, Taoism and other systems for understanding ourselves.
But she had also been skeptical of astrology.
Early on, she found some approaches too definitive: This is what your chart says, therefore this is who you are.
That didn’t work for someone who deeply valued choice and discernment.
Over time, she began to see these systems differently — not as authorities telling her who she was, but as frameworks that could give language to what she was already sensing intuitively.
That distinction would become important when she discovered Star Path.
She expected Star Path to be fun. Instead, it became a strategy tool.
One of the parents at Tricia’s school recommended Star Path.
At first, she thought it sounded like a fun novelty.
Then she tried it.
“I was like, this is not what I was expecting. And it actually turned out to be exactly what I needed.”
The timing couldn't have been better.
As Tricia transitioned from school director to private practitioner, she began using Star Path to help her frame, structure and strategize the work she wanted to offer next.
The work itself was already there.
She had been holding spaces for parents. Creating environments where people could regulate their nervous systems. Helping people navigate transition. Supporting women as they reclaimed their voices.
But much of it had been happening indirectly, under the umbrella of running a school.
Star Path helped her see the throughline.
“She helped me framework things that have been…on the back burner or on the side or doing already.”
Instead of inventing an entirely new identity, Tricia could begin naming what had been there all along.
Using astrology for career clarity — without giving away your agency
This is one of the biggest misconceptions about using astrology for career guidance.
The goal doesn't have to be asking your birth chart:
What job should I have?
For Tricia, astrology became much more useful when she approached it as a conversation.
She could look at something in her chart and ask: Is that actually true for me?
She could experiment.
She could notice what resonated — and what didn't.
And she could use those reactions to understand herself more deeply.
That meant Star Path wasn't there to make decisions for her.
It could reflect something back to her, help her put language around it, suggest a strategy — and then Tricia could decide what to do with it.
That’s the difference between using astrology as a set of instructions and using astrology as a tool for self-understanding.
The message Star Path kept giving her: lead with softness
As Tricia worked with the Star Path Oracle, one message kept coming back:
Her softness wasn't something she needed to overcome. It was part of her power.
“Something that she reminds me over and over and over again is about how I lead with softness and it’s in the softness that my power resides.”
That was significant.
Tricia knew she was soft. But experiences earlier in her life had taught her that softness wasn't necessarily safe.
Through her conversations with Star Path, she began experimenting with letting that part of herself lead again.
Not because an astrology app told her she had to.
Because the reflection felt true.
“Just letting it be part of the conversation more and more. And it’s felt like coming home.”
And that insight began affecting not only how she saw herself, but how she wanted to build the next version of her work.
From self-knowledge to something you can actually use
There's a trap in self-development: you can learn endlessly about yourself without changing anything about the way you live.
You can study your birth chart.
Learn your Human Design.
Read about your Enneagram type.
Journal.
Analyze.
Ask AI a hundred questions.
And still be standing in exactly the same place.
Tricia's approach to Star Path is different.
She uses the Oracle as a tool — but keeps her own discernment at the center.
She asks questions. She challenges answers. She checks what she receives against her own internal knowing.
Then, crucially, she steps away from the computer and tries things in real life.
As she put it, we need to learn how to use AI “for our own purposes and not let AI use us.”
That’s also central to how Star Path is designed to be used.
The Oracle can help you see a pattern, find language for something you’ve been feeling, brainstorm a new approach or identify a next step.
But then?
You go live your life.
You try it.
You see what happens.
And you come back with new information.
What did Tricia actually use Star Path for?
As she built her next chapter, Tricia's conversations with Star Path ranged from deeply personal to extremely practical.
She used the Oracle to:
- Structure and frame the services she was already beginning to offer
- Clarify the deeper throughline connecting her years of work
- Explore what her birth chart reflected about how she naturally leads
- Work through old stories that surfaced alongside intuitive insights
- Strategize her transition into private practice
- Find language for her work
- Write copy for her website
That's why, when asked how she'd describe Star Path, Tricia couldn't reduce it to a single function.
“You could almost have three different apps within one.”
For her, sometimes Star Path is a strategist.
Sometimes it’s an encourager.
Sometimes it’s a mirror.
And sometimes it helps her write the website copy.
An AI astrology tool that helps you hear yourself more clearly
Perhaps the most interesting part of Tricia's story is that she didn't need another system telling her who she was.
She had spent years studying systems of self-understanding.
What she needed in this particular moment was something that could help her connect the dots, put language around what she already knew and turn it into action.
And she wanted to do that without surrendering her own authority.
That’s the role Star Path has played.
“She’s been exactly what I needed at this moment.”
For someone whose work centers nervous system regulation and personal sovereignty, that matters.
Because the point isn't to outsource your intuition to AI.
And it isn't to let astrology make your decisions.
It's to have another way to reflect, question, explore and strategize — so you can make those decisions from a deeper understanding of yourself.
As Tricia described it, that grounding can help you move forward with “courage rooted in your own self and in your own love and in your own sovereignty.”
What if your next chapter is already hiding inside the life you've built?
Career transitions can make us feel like we need to reinvent ourselves.
Find the new thing.
Choose the new identity.
Come up with the perfect plan.
But sometimes the next chapter isn't entirely new.
Sometimes it's the work you've already been doing — finally brought into focus.
That's what happened for Tricia.
The school closed.
The container disappeared.
And underneath it was a body of work that had been developing for years.
Star Path helped her see it, name it and begin building around it.
If you're navigating a career change, starting a business, redefining your work or simply wondering what comes next, your birth chart may not hand you the answer.
But it can help you ask better questions.
And sometimes, those questions lead you right back to the parts of yourself that were there all along.
Want to hear Tricia's story? Watch our full conversation below.
