People consult a sprawling wok of humans when seeking reassurance they are on the right track.
Psychoanalysts, gypsies in tents, God, hairdressers ... the list is dizzying.
My own list, however, is very small: it begins and ends with Jackie Stallone.
Jackie, mother of Sylvester, first appeared before me on The Clive James Show, sitting alongside another heavily painted, surgically sustained Italian mom, Georgia Holt, mother of Cher.
Both these old warhorses, babbling bizarrely about their famous children, bore a striking resemblance to the aforementioned gypsies in tents, so when Jackie moved on to the subject of astrology, it seemed to make perfect sense.
Her gnarled and bejeweled fingers held up a book for all the cameras to see Starpower, An Astrological Guide To Supersuccess, by Jacqueline Stallone.
I swear I became the first person in Dunedin to own this book.
Yesterday was my birthday, and I thought it would be germane to consult Jackie's book once more, for reassurance I am still padding along the perfect astrological path.
Of course, I don't believe in astrology for a second - who does? - but after that riveting Clive James show, I do believe in Jackie Stallone.
And let us not forget that in 2000 on national television, at the age of 80, Jackie nailed the result and margin of the Florida election which sent George Bush into office.
Only a top echelon astrologer could possibly be that attuned to the complexities of rigged Republican voter machines.
Starpower may or may not direct you towards supersuccess, but it does help, I guess, to know what weapons you will be bringing to the journey.
Jackie informs me coldly early on as she runs her eye over that vintage first decan male Cancerian, the Cancer-Cancer - "A crab can sit in its little shell mulling and fuming and planning the perfect moment of attack.
"Then, at the second that others least expect, you explode into action, like a geyser shooting from the ground."
As supersuccess has so far proved somewhat down the road apiece, I can only assume being bent double inside a shell waiting to explode like an unexpected geyser is a bad weapon.
The book has pages of male Cancer-Cancer pish that I have read many times before (good cook, bad traveller, yada yada) but Starpower's enduring appeal lies in its chapters on compatibility.
My wife and I rate as an 8.
This is very high - there are no 10s - though as Pisces-Scorpio women are described by Jackie as beautiful lovely sea maidens, you wonder what on earth they are doing with sulking crabs muttering angrily inside their shells.
But nothing beats a compatibility chart, so this is the perfect book to produce at prestigious dinner parties.
Actually, I lie.
This is the worst possible book for such occasions.
That couple down at the corner of the table who have been holding hands all night, 38 years together, never a cross word, find out they are a 2, argue bitterly all the way home in the car, and three weeks later he leaves her for the postie.
And, as a form of closure, she learns from the answerphone when he is inquiring after two missing golf clubs, a six-iron and a lob wedge, that he and the postie are a 9.
I eagerly scan Jackie's list of stars to find my own 9, to find who else is like me.
And I find Kris Kristofferson, the man whose Regent Theatre concert was the worst I have ever seen, apparently he was drunk, is my astrological twin.
As for my perfect mate, a first decan Taurus-Taurus, I comb through a pretty desultory lot.
Barbra Streisand is the best of them, Ann Margret a distant second.
Barbra Streisand! Phew, me and Babs, my gob is smacked.
But never question astrology's shifting lunar sands, they swirl mysteriously for a reason.
I mean, who would ever have guessed Barbra Streisand collected shells?
• Roy Colbert is a Dunedin writer.
