Your family, in a new light.
Your family isn't a problem to fix.
It's a pattern to understand.
Star Roots is a family design practice that uses astrologies and family systems and attachment lenses to help you understand how each person in your household is actually wired — and build tools to work with that, not against it.
What is Star Roots?
Most family tools are built for a generic family, or are a one-size fits all. But families aren’t generic.
Your child's resistance at bedtime isn't defiance — it might be their design. Your partner's approach to conflict isn't wrong — it might just be a different authority type. The chore system that works for one parent might fall apart completely when the other implements it.
Star Roots reads the natal charts (Western astrology, Human Design, Ba Zi/Chinese Zodiac, and Vedic) of every person in your household and cross-references that with what your family is actually struggling with. Every family has them — the moments, the transitions, the dynamics that just won't budge. We call them the sticky places, and they're usually where the most important design information lives. Then we sit down together and build something real. A routine. A chore system. A communication structure. Something beautiful enough that people actually want to use it, and beneficial enough to maintain.
Who is this for?
Parents who have tried the standard approaches and found something is still not landing. Families who know they're each wired differently and want language for it. People who are curious about astrology and want to do something practical with that curiosity. It's fine if only one parent can make it to the actual sessions — the tools we build will still be designed with your whole family in mind.
You don't need to be an expert in any of these systems. You don’t even have to really believe in them.
That's what I'm here for.
How it works:
Free 15 minute Discovery call (optional)
We’ll talk about your family and what feels sticky right now, and see whether this is a good fit.
Step 1 — Tell me about your family
You’ll fill out a short intake form with each person’s birth details and 1-3 places where things get stuck. Then I start building your family’s charts.
Step 2 - Session 1: The Family Snapshot (60 minutes)
Before we meet, you’ll get your Family Snapshot: a document with everyone’s charts side by side, a description of who each person is, and a glossary of the words we’ll use. You’ll have time to sit with this and take notes on what fits and what doesn’t. Then in the session we walk through it together, make adjustments, and start untangling one to three of your sticky places. This is where I bring in the family systems and attachment lenses I’ve used for 20 years as a therapist.
Step 3 — I build your Family Playbook
Between sessions I turn what we learned into your family’s Playbook: scripts and small steps for your sticky places, designed around how each of you is actually wired. You’ll also get a Family Language Guide. Both arrive 48 hours before Session Two, so you have time to read them.
Step 4 — Session 2: The Co-Design (90 minutes)
We work through the Playbook together and shape the tools until they fit real life in your home. That might mean routines, chore systems, bedtime flows or ways of asking each other for things. Afterward, you get a revised Playbook that reflects the changes we made.
Step 5 — Session 3: Settling In (60 minutes) {3-4 weeks after Session 2}
You’ve been living with the tools for a few weeks. We look at what’s working, adjust what isn’t, and talk about what comes next. You leave with your Family Takeaway: full portraits of each person, everything we built, and a resource list chosen for your family.
As your family grows and changes, you can always come back!
Families return for an accountability check-in, a new sticky place, or a new baby’s chart.
What you walk away with:
A customized family tool — a routine, a chore system, a communication structure, or something else we invent together in the session.
A language for understanding why each person in your household operates the way they do.
This part is harder to describe but often becomes the most lasting thing. When you can say she's a Waxing Crescent — she needs each step to signal the next one instead of she's impossible at bedtime, something shifts. When you understand that he's not being lazy, he's a 6/2 in his hermit phase, composting experience into wisdom — the frustration doesn't disappear, but it stops being personal.
That's what this language does. It's specific enough that people feel genuinely seen — not in a general horoscope way, but in an how did you know that about me way. And because it lives in a framework outside the relationship, it can be received without defensiveness. It's not you telling your partner they're emotionally unavailable. It's Yang Water flowing around obstacles rather than through them. The insight is the same. The sting is gone.
Families leave Star Roots with a language and tools they can use, and a map they can return to — a way of understanding each other that doesn't require anyone to be wrong.
How do we start?
Let's start with a conversation.
Before anything else, we can hop on a free 20-minute video call — no charts, no jargon, no pressure. Just a chance to talk through what's going on in your family and figure out, together, whether this is genuinely the right fit.
If it is, I'll walk you through exactly what happens next. If it's not, that's useful too — and I'll do my best to point you somewhere that might serve you better.
Ready to jump in without a Discovery call? Click here to access the questionnaire.
Investment
$1,111 for the full Star Roots experience — customized family tools and a language for understanding how your household actually works.
Pay in full, or split into 2 payments - $555 at booking, $556 the day of your Co-Design session.
The Family Snapshot on its own: $444
Session One plus your Snapshot documents: every chart side by side, the glossary, and a first look at your sticky places. It’s a good starting point if you want to see how your family is wired before committing to more. If you decide to continue within 30 days, the $444 goes toward the Full Experience.
This is designed as a one-time investment — not an ongoing service. Even if you outgrow the specific systems we build together, you'll keep something that doesn't expire: the habit of approaching your children with curiosity, love, and a willingness to keep learning about yourself and the people in your family.
Coming back
That said, families love coming back, and I love having them! You’re always welcome.Accountability Check-In: 60 minutes, $333
Support while you put your tools into practice. We’ll look at what’s working, adjust what isn’t, and I’ll send an updated Playbook afterward. Some families add these sessions on to learn more about their charts.New Sticky Place Session: 90 minutes, $555
For when kids grow, life shifts or something new keeps getting stuck. You’ll fill out a short “what’s changed” form, and I’ll take a fresh look at your charts through that lens. We’ll work through it together, and you’ll leave with an updated Playbook and a new Takeaway. Your charts don’t change, but how they play out does.
About me
I'm Amanda Dishner — a licensed marriage and family therapist with advanced training in attachment and family systems. I have been working with families for over 20 years and have studied astrology off and on since long before that. I live in Austin, Texas and work with families all over the world.
Star Roots grew out of a question I kept asking in the therapy room: what if we could understand not just what a family is struggling with, but how each person is designed to move through the world — and build from there?
I use Western astrology, Human Design, Ba Zi, and Vedic astrology as lenses — not as answers, but as extraordinarily specific ways of asking better questions. My clinical training is what makes the difference. I'm not just reading charts. I'm synthesizing what the charts reveal with what your family is actually living.
Why astrology? We are so far removed from the stars these days that it might seem a little ridiculous at first. But it wasn’t really that long ago that staring up at the sky, noticing and tracking the stars and planets, and creating meaning in these patterns was one of just a few options for nocturnal pastimes. Every culture in history has looked to the stars for information about themselves and the world. That ancient wisdom is magnetic. Surely there is something to it.
I am also fascinated by how astrology can be deeply personal while also externalizing quirks and behavior patterns just enough to see them more objectively. It lands in a way that doesn’t sting.
I love being able to have so many different lenses to look at the same presentation, issue, or person. Any single lens — astrology alone, HD alone, attachment theory alone, diagnostic category alone — only gives you a partial picture. The power is in holding all of them simultaneously and letting each one illuminate what the others miss. The chart sees the design. The diagnosis names the challenge. The attachment framework describes the wound. The intake reveals the life. Star Roots brings it all together, illuminating not just the struggle, but the strengths already there.
Why families? I read family charts instead of individuals because we are all connected. You interact with each other every single day, and every small moment has the potential to build the relationship or chip away at it. Underneath most of it, we’re all after the same thing: unconditional love. We NEED to feel it. Ideally, our first experience of that is from our parents - but few of us get it. And so, while we are raising our own children, that old lack gets stirred up. Parent and child end up wanting the same thing, at the same time, from each other.
If we can begin to give our kids, and our selves, unconditional love and real compassion, that ripples outward. Families are the containers for where this kind of healing and growth happen first. Feeling truly seen and loved at home is often what gives us the confidence to go find it out in the wider world.
Astrology can be the container - a safe structure for curiosity, exploration, reflection, and growth. My hope is this work opens you up to being curious enough about yourself and your family that you let your love lead the way.
Why “Sticky Points”? Astrology and Human Design are both so vast with so many layers it would be impossible to cover all of a person’s design (much less a whole family!), no matter how many sessions. So focusing on a few areas of life or a few specific questions allows us to really examine the factors at play, to see how each element interacts with the others around it.
The most powerful thing a family can cultivate is the habit of staying curious about each other — especially when it's hard.