The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 110, titled:
Astrology Forecast for June of 2017
With Chris Brennan and guests Austin Coppock and Kelly Surtees
Episode originally released on May 24, 2017
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Note: This is a transcript of a spoken word podcast. If possible, we encourage you to listen to the audio or video version, since they include inflections that may not translate well when written out. Our transcripts are created by human transcribers, and the text may contain errors and differences from the spoken audio. If you find any errors then please send them to us by email: theastrologypodcast@gmail.com
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Transcribed by Andrea Johnson
Transcription released February 13th, 2025
Copyright © 2025 TheAstrologyPodcast.com
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CHRIS BRENNAN: Hi, my name is Chris Brennan, and you’re listening to The Astrology Podcast. Today is Wednesday, May 17, 2017, starting just after 12:14 PM here in Denver, Colorado, and this is the 110th episode of the show. Joining me today are Austin Coppock and Kelly Surtees to do the forecast for June of 2017. Kelly, welcome back.
KELLY SURTEES: Hey, Chris. Hey, Austin.
AUSTIN COPPOCK: Hey, how’s it going?
CB: Very well. I think it’s been great. It’s surprising. It’s only been actually a couple of weeks—like two or three weeks since we talked last, but I think we’ve got a different vibe for today’s show compared to last time, yeah?
KS: Totally.
AC: I’m certainly feeling different. Oh, go ahead, Kelly.
KS: Oh, I was just gonna say, yeah, the ‘benefic’ sandwich. We’ve got lovely Moon aspects today. So that’s nice for our recording.
CB: Yes. So we picked an electional chart where the Moon is separating from a sextile with Venus and applying to a trine with Jupiter, so I’m pretty excited about that.
KS: Yes. And I think—was it this month? Is this one of the elections? Maybe not. That might have been last month.
CB: Uh, yeah, it may have been actually. It’s a pretty good chart. So this may have been one of the ones that we recommended in the electional charts for last month. Let’s see, so let’s get into things. First, we have to announce our sponsor, since this is the final episode of May. We’re giving away two prizes at the top of the show for our software giveaway this month. The first is a copy of Solar Fire, and the second is a copy of Astro Gold. So Solar Fire, as everyone knows, is a popular astrology program that’s used by many pro astrologers. It’s got a million different features, including a chart database where you can search through charts and placements, which was very useful a few years ago when I did some lectures which required that. It has an ‘animate wheel’ feature—where you can move the chart—that’s useful for looking at elections. You can customize the design and layout, and so on and so forth. So that’s the first program that we’re giving away this month, and that’s our primary sponsor for this month. I use Solar Fire. I mean, that’s the main program I use. Do you guys use it?
KS: Yeah, I do. I have only ever used Solar Fire. And I’m very proud to say that we’re being sponsored by an Australian company.
CB: Yes, Solar Fire was originally made by Australians or was an Australian company. And so is Astro Gold actually as well.
AC: Wow.
KS: Yeah, I think Astro Gold is the app for iPads and iPhone. I think it’s made by Esoteric Technologies, which is the same company that developed Solar Fire.
CB: Right. So they work in Australia. And then the other co-company is Astrolabe, which is located up in Massachusetts. So their website—and they’re the main sponsors this month—is alabe.com. And they were actually kind enough to give us promo codes so that listeners of the podcast can get a discount on Solar Fire by entering the promo code ‘AP15’ during checkout. And then you just get 15% off just for nothing, just for entering the code. So a pretty awesome deal.
KS: That’s a great savings.
AC: Well, that’s fantastic because that makes me feel a lot better about procrastinating buying Solar Fire.
KS: This is your gift, Austin.
AC: Yeah, we can maybe say that this is one of those ‘Mercury cycle’ things. Sometimes a task being delayed for a month or so—or more than that—actually ends up being a good thing. Like it’s good that you didn’t do what you thought you were supposed to do and would have considered responsible. I’m glad I didn’t buy Solar Fire like five weeks ago when I was going to because now I save money.
CB: Right. So you’re not even making this up. You’re literally about to finally break down and buy an astrology program, and now you can do it.
AC: When I looked ahead at my week—which I do on Sundays—I was like, okay, what am I definitely doing this week? And I was like, okay, I’m actually going to buy Solar Fire rather than just going, “Yeah, I should do that,” and not doing it for more than a month. And what’s funny—what I reflected on, but didn’t plan specifically around—was the fact that Mercury’s just gotten back into Taurus and is finishing up the final degrees of the retrograde shadow. It’s finally about to get back to the same place. And it’s in Taurus. It has to do with material things that didn’t get done or purchased or whatever. Anyway, it was just funny. I was like, yeah, I’m finally gonna do that. I’m buying a heavy bag, so I can kick in my garage, which I’ve been meaning to do, and I’m buying Solar Fire.
CB: Brilliant. Well, that is excellent timing. Yeah, I mean, that’s the thing about shadow periods, and that’s the reason I always still really believe them. When I hear of astrologers that are skeptical about the fact or that express, “Oh, you’re just extending the retrograde period or pretending the retrograde’s longer than it is,” it’s like, no, there’s actual, oftentimes, real phenomenon. Sometimes it’s not until Mercury gets back to the degree it originally went retrograde at that you’re sort of fully out of the phase of there were things that got delayed or postponed that aren’t really fully worked out until it passes that degree it stationed at. Which was what? 4 or 5 Taurus?
AC: I think it was 4, yeah.
KS: 4 Taurus, yeah.
AC: I do respect some of the critiques of the way shadow periods sometimes get implemented. Cuz sometimes I see people just treating it as if the retrograde lasts for that long, which is literally almost tripling the length, and that’s not how it works. But there is a relationship between a planet being in the same degree three times. Those three moments have a relationship. And we don’t have to say that it’s identical, but those are related parts of a cycle, right? Just like pieces of a story, you can have the first act connects to the third act. There are things that happened in one that determine or provide context for things that happen later. Doesn’t mean that it’s all the same thing.
CB: Right. And it’s just a connected series of events sometimes. If there’s a sequence or series of events that happens around the retrograde, sometimes there’s still related events that are clearly part of that sequence that are happening in the shadow periods. I know another one you and I have been experiencing over the past month—with this retrograde, Austin—was the whole microphone fiasco. There was a Windows update and suddenly both of our expensive microphones suddenly stopped working, and we had to scramble to figure out what to do for a few weeks.
AC: Yeah, yeah, that was good. I think that was like right on the station. Was that like the first week after the retrograde station?
CB: Yeah, it was super-close to the retrograde station in Taurus, which was like a month ago. You know, we both panicked. And you got a Blue Yeti, and then I got some advice and jumped up to the next tier of microphones and bought a lot of expensive microphone equipment. And then none of it worked for like the two or three weeks I spent troubleshooting it during the entire retrograde period, trying to figure out why this very expensive equipment that I invested in for the podcast wasn’t working. I finally just gave up at some point, had to switch back to another microphone for a few episodes. And then when Mercury stationed and started moving forward again, I decided to try replacing this one piece of equipment and then it turned out everything worked, and that was around the direct station.
AC: That makes sense. So actually one of the things I wanted to ask you all about is what your experience of the extended Mercury-Uranus conjunction was. Because I got some of what I expected, and I guess some surprises. I had more than a handful of, I don’t know, white-hot, what felt like creative, brilliant moments where I was like, “Oh, such good ideas,” and I could see things really clearly, and I was super-inspired. But there was a lot of burnout in addition to that. It made me think about how Uranus is this class of invisible planets, invisible to the naked eye. Uranus and Neptune are very often said to be like higher, spiritual frequencies or something like that. One of the ideas I’ve sort of had in the background of my thinking about them for a while is that with Uranus especially, it’s not something you can sustain. You get zapped by it cuz you can’t just run that current all the time. It just fries your wires.
KS: Yes.
CB: Yeah. What was your experience, Kelly?
KS: Yeah, really similar actually. You make some great points, Austin. I had a bunch of things kind of come together around technology stuff with work. So starting to have my teaching programs more in one of those online formats rather than sending out files each week, which probably sounds like, “Duh, why aren’t you there yet?”
AC: I totally made that transition a couple of years ago. You will be happy to be on this side of it.
KS: I’m so happy, but it all happened really quickly. And it was all part of that Mercury-Uranus, which is 2nd house for me, and of course trine to Saturn in my 10th. So it’s all been about being a bit more efficient with work and organization. But at the same time there was this adrenal sort of burnout, fried, like, “I just can’t take this.” So many ideas, which are great. I think I got a download of enough ideas for the rest of this year basically, by the time I can implement everything.
AC: That’s exactly how I felt. And I was really disappointed when, I don’t know, ‘brilliant’ mania faded. I was just like, “Oh, man, if I actually want to follow up on this, this is gonna be so much work,” but it felt effortless vision and exploration and writing in the moment that was coming up with this. It’s like, “Oh, man, there are gonna be boring parts to this,” it didn’t feel boring when I was thinking about it. It felt like fire.
KS: And that’s what fire is. That’s exactly what I was thinking. That’s the combination of Mercury-Uranus—which is blowing your mind—and in fire. In that uplifting, inspirational, ‘this is the vision that’s gonna lead you forward’ kind of thing.
AC: And in Aries of all fire signs.
KS: Right. Like the pioneering. What about you, Chris? Did you have anything along these lines?
CB: Um, yeah. I mean, just sort of that explosion of activity. You know, it was happening in my 3rd house. One of the remarks that Leisa always made over the years is she was surprised at how the ingress of Uranus into Aries—which is my 3rd house in whole sign houses—not long after that, was when I started getting into podcasting and went through this whole exploration of using technology and developing new communication styles and other things.
AC: Quick anecdote. I remember the first time you had me on a podcast. It was literally a week-and-a-half after the Uranus ingress into Aries, and I think the Moon was doing something with it. But yeah, I remember that ingress being correlated very tightly with—I don’t think it was the first podcast I was on, but it was my first podcast with you, which is special.
CB: Yeah, I’m sure. Yeah, and it was totally tied into that whole Uranus ingress into Aries. So we’re getting towards the tail-end of that, and Uranus is getting very late in Aries at this point. But that Mercury retrograde was very much about trying to up my technology game with the podcast and audio and trying to do that, and running into frustrations; and like Austin said, that explosion of intense activity, but eventually this sense of burnout and going too far and being over-energized. But at the same time I was also working on video. So I’m trying to transition to video and trying to figure out how to make YouTube videos. And it feels very much like the same transition as when I was doing the podcast, because it’s like learning a whole new set of technology and learning how to communicate through it; making mistakes and having frustrations, but then going back at it and trying over again. So there was a lot of that with that retrograde for me, which I connected with Uranus of course, but also my 3rd house and just the process that I’ve seen over the years of what happens when stuff goes through there and I have these periods of innovation when it comes to communication.
AC: That’s interesting. You know, that also makes me think about something I’ve been seeing from Uranus aspects and activations lately. It seems like there’s a lot of finishing things up or wrapping things up as far as Uranus’ transit through Aries is concerned, which actually makes sense.
KS: Total sense.
AC: We’re like, what, 85%-90% done with Uranus in Aries. On one level, I’m seeing you got it. This has been going on in your life for more than half of a decade now—the lesson or the point or the change. I don’t know. Yeah, it just seems like it’s the ‘wrap up/completion’ phase where you gotta do this one last thing. You also need to do video, Chris, right?
CB: Right.
AC: It’s the same arc, it’s just completing the arc.
KS: Yes.
CB: Yeah, exactly. And that really drove home and reemphasized the point that a Mercury retrograde is not just a Mercury retrograde. It really matters what it’s configured to during those stations and during the time in which it goes retrograde. And that station with Uranus, I think every astrologer I’ve talked to has said, yeah, this was a lot more of a cliché Mercury retrograde-type period than others have been. And so, it really drove home the point for me that sometimes what astrologers associate with Mercury retrogrades during different periods—or the ones that stand out—are ones in which it’s also closely configured to some other planets in a really striking way, that draws out some of the specific qualities or characteristics that we associate with that phase.
AC: Yeah.
KS: For sure.
AC: I think that’s absolutely the case. Either it’s doing something in the sky, or it needs to be hitting a very sensitive point in a person’s chart, like the lord of the year; whatever planet’s profected. But there are plenty of Mercury retrogrades where I can tell Mercury is retrograde, but it’s not writing the storylines for me.
CB: Right. All right, so I accidentally skipped over and got into a discussion before I finished our promo.
KS: Oh, yeah, we’re still talking about Solar Fire.
CB: Yeah.
AC: Well, we’re still talking about last month. We haven’t moved on to this month yet.
CB: Right. And I’ll put timestamps and all of this for those that want to skip ahead. So before we move on, Solar Fire’s our first sponsor. Our second sponsor is Astro Gold. Basically, it’s a mobile version of Solar Fire that you can run on your iPhone or your Android device or on most tablets. So it’s really awesome. I’ve been looking forward to having a mobile version of Solar Fire for years, and they finally released it a few years ago. And I was just ecstatic because it allows you to save a bunch of charts. You can customize charts. It has an ‘animate chart’ feature that’s really useful for electional astrology—that I use all the time—just so you can move charts forward or backwards and see what the ascendant will be two hours from now. Or if some event just happened in your life, you can cast the chart and look at the chart for that moment and even save it for later. So it’s a really useful program. I don’t know. Have either of you used it? Do you use Astro Gold?
KS: I have seen it in action, because, as you guys know, I still have a Blackberry.
AC: I did not know that. So if it makes you feel any better—
KS: I’m gonna duck now.
AC: I have had smartphones, but only because my flip phone got destroyed. And Kait was just like, “I’m gonna get a new phone, and you’re going to have my old iPhone.” And I was like, “Fine,” and I refused to use them for anything except phone.
KS: Yes.
AC: For some reason, I have this ‘cranky old man’ reaction to apps. I’m just like, “Ugh, apps.”
KS: Austin.
AC: It just means ‘an application’. They’re programs.
KS: They’re programs.
AC: There have been applications on computers the whole time there have been computers. But I’m like, “Ugh, apps.” I use the map function, and I use the phone stuff, but I refuse to use my phone for anything else. I’m stubborn.
KS: I don’t do email on my phone, and people are often surprised by that. But I’m like it’s how I get away from the whole everything. Cuz when you run an online business, email is everything. But I did get an iPad—my first ‘i’ device—my husband Peter bought me for Christmas this past year. I’ve given in. I just didn’t buy it cuz I was a little bit surprised at the price. Although knowing how much the Astro Gold app does, that’ll be my next—well, actually I’ll have to get a new phone, but after that. Do you use it, Chris?
CB: Uh, yeah. I mean, I use it all the time. Like when Leisa and I go on trips, and we’re trying to time the electional chart for starting our trip and leaving the house. Usually I’ll pull out my phone and I’ll have the chart for the moment, and I can kind of see the ascendant has switched over into Libra or what have you, the election is there, and then we head out.
KS: And then it’s like, ‘go now’.
CB: Yeah.
KS: I can just imagine you guys at the front door waiting to cross the threshold.
CB: Right. Or Austin’s wedding, for example, is another good one. I was sort of paying attention, but I did have my phone, and I caught the exact time. And I glanced at the chart and saved it right when Austin and Kaitlin said their vows. So there’s good reasons to be wanting to be able to cast a chart for a moment and save it at different points.
AC: Yeah, I don’t think I’m right. That’s just my attitude.
KS: I like it, Austin.
AC: It’s entirely an emotional reaction. I’m like, hey, you know what’s a portable computing device? A laptop. It’s great.
KS: Austin, but people are like ‘you need to get this iPhone’ thing. Before I had an iPad—which actually I really haven’t taken out of the house—they were like, “You can do all these things.” I’m like, but I can do all these things on my computer, which is a laptop.
[crosstalk]
AC: I think a lot of astrologers are ‘laptop’ junkies.
KS: Totally.
AC: And so, somebody’s like, “Hey, it’s a portable device,” and you’re like, “Eh, whatever.” You know, if I spend $800 on a laptop, it can do more than that.
CB: I do not think I could have gotten away with sitting there with a laptop while you guys were doing your vows.
AC: It’s much better for stealth.
KS: Yes.
CB: Yeah, I’ll put that out there. All right, I think I am the ‘technology’ guy then.
KS: You are, Chris. You just spent how much money?
CB: I think I’m the ‘technology’ guy out of the three of us.
KS: Totally.
CB: All right, just to wrap up this promo and this section—which you guys have kind of killed at this point with your anti-technology.
AC: I’m buying Solar Fire right now—
KS: And I’ll be buying the Astro Gold app.
AC: —literally this afternoon.
KS: So we are both onboard with this, Chris.
AC: Kelly and I are cautionary tales.
KS: Don’t be like us.
AC: Yeah, don’t be like us. Buy Astro Gold.
CB: All right, I will send that to them as an endorsement that they can use in future promos. In the meantime, you can find out more information about Astro Gold at astrogold.io. So I’m gonna do a drawing. Instead of spending another 5 or 10 minutes pulling names out of a hat for that drawing, I’m gonna do the drawing after we’re done recording this. And then I’ll notify the patrons of the show who won either the free copy of Solar Fire or a copy of Astro Gold directly through Patreon. So for those of you who want to be entered into the drawing next month, all you have to do is become a patron of The Astrology Podcast on the $5 or $10 tier, and then you’ll potentially win a prize during our drawing next month. So you can find out more information about that at theastrologypodcast.com/subscribe, and there’s a link to our page on Patreon there. All right, so that’s it for our sponsors and promos for the month. So let’s actually get started talking about the focus of the month, which is the astrology of June of 2017.
KS: One of my favorite things is happening this month.
CB: Are there any more preliminaries?
KS: Oh, Venus is going into Taurus. Sorry, Chris. I didn’t realize you were gonna talk about more promos or things. Go for it.
CB: No, no. Are there any other preliminary things that we should get out of the way first? Was there anything from last month or this current month? We’re recording this halfway through June because of NORWAC. I’m heading off to a conference at the end of this month, and so I wanted to get this recorded in time to release it before the end of the month. But is there anything that’s been happening over the past two or three weeks since our last forecast episode that’s worth mentioning, aside from the Mercury retrograde?
AC: Yeah, just one reflection. Cuz I pointed it out two months ago, and then we talked about it a little bit last month. That unaspected Mars in Taurus in the Aries ingress chart got activated by the New Moon in Taurus a little bit less than a month ago, and we had a very obvious martial display on that day. That was the big ‘North Korea’ thing. And the Mercury retrograde station right around that Mars was the ‘Syria bombing’ thing. There was the ‘Afghanistan bombing’ thing. And I think it’s interesting that that Mars was totally unaspected, suggesting that it doesn’t connect to anything; because with all the war bluster, it doesn’t seem to matter. It seems like it’s already all forgotten and we’re already in the middle of May, and things have moved on to other topics.
CB: Yeah. I mean, it’s kind of crazy how fast the news is moving today. Not to go back to the retrograde too much, but one of the really crazy things was the day that Mercury conjoined Uranus was when James Comey—the firing of the FBI director occurred, and then the media went nuts. Cuz it was such an unprecedented thing, the news was just crazy immediately. And what was so crazy is it happened that evening, really, really close to that conjunction. So it was one of those times where the astrology is pretty direct and pretty literal.
AC: Yeah. And just on that extended Mercury-Uranus conjunction—while Mercury’s in mutual reception with Mars in Gemini—we also had that swarm of ransomware attacks. And there was the hack of Macron right before the final round of the French election.
KS: Oh, yes, the French election. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to that. I can make jokes about myself about my technology now.
AC: Anyway, it was just all very, ‘that makes sense’.
KS: So classic.
AC: Digital attacks. And they were surprising ‘Mercury-Mars’ digital attacks. Uranus—wasn’t that shocking?
KS: Absolutely. I mean, the only other funny thing I saw—we’ve just had the Sun pass over Algol, doing its annual pass over that fixed star, about losing one’s head, and I just wrote a little blog post about it on my website. And then within a couple of hours of posting it, there was a headline on an Australian news website about Americans, saying “Americans are starting to lose their minds,” with a picture of the American president and whatever latest drama. And that was basically on the front of this major Australian news website—Americans are losing their minds—for the 24-hour period that the Sun was on Algol, which I thought was just a really fun, simple manifestation.
AC: Yeah, that’s nice.
CB: Interesting.
AC: It’s better when Algol is metaphorical.
CB: Right. So I’m trying to think of anything else that was relevant about the past few weeks of the astrology or other notable things that came up. Did you guys notice anything?
AC: I mean, it was pretty centered on that extended Mercury conjunction to Uranus. I mean, Mars went over my Moon, and my lungs got really irritated.
KS: That makes sense.
CB: Yeah, okay. Well, I think then maybe we can move on to June, since the Mercury retrograde was the main thing that stood out in terms of things that happened last month. So, Kelly, you were just about to talk about one of the main things or the first thing that stands out for you in June.
KS: Yeah. I just really like it when Venus is in dignity. And I realize though I’m totally biased this year because, Austin, you and I are in a 3rd house profection year. And I have Taurus on my 3rd house cusp. I’m so loving this year. Venus is in—she’s in fair condition. She’s in the 11th house natally for me, so she definitely works. And I’ve been going on a book-buying binge basically this year, and there’s just all these Venus signatures. My husband’s band is playing a gig at the end of May, and our living room has become their rehearsal space. So we have live music at home, two nights a week, if anyone locally wants to join, but more Venus. I mean, there’s a lot of juicy Venus, so personally, I’m a bit biased about this, this year, particularly. But Venus in Taurus—I mean, after May, where we hadn’t really had anything in great dignity, we’re gonna have Venus in Taurus, plus also Mercury in Gemini for a couple of weeks.
CB: Oh, yeah.
KS: Mercury’s really quick.
[crosstalk]
AC: Uh, no. Mercury’s quick. Just to contextualize this, I really like the first 10 days of June. We get Venus going into Taurus, and then the same day, we have Mercury going into Gemini. Like badda-bing. We do have Mars going into Cancer, which I’m not generally a fan of, but it’s Mars escaping the opposition with Saturn, which I am a fan of. And we get Jupiter stationing direct literally one hour after a Full Moon in Sag—which is ruled by Jupiter—is completed. So both benefics take a step towards—
KS: Plus a Sun trine Jupiter aspect in there as well in the first 10 days.
AC: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I like all of that. That Full Moon is a little bit more complicated. We’ll talk about that. But generally speaking, there are a lot of really positive shifts.
CB: Sure. So we got three really positive things off the bat, or at least could be positive things. You’ve got Venus ingressing into Taurus June 6, Mercury into Gemini, also June 6, and Jupiter stationing direct in Libra on June 9. And that’s kind of important because that’s the final station in Libra, I believe. And then Jupiter is on its way out of Libra for the rest of the year, or it quickly moves through the rest of Libra over the next few months before it goes into Scorpio sometime later this year.
KS: Early October.
AC: Yeah, in the fall. It’s basically the beginning of the last third of Jupiter’s time in Libra. And yeah, it’s nice. It’ll be ‘evening’ Jupiter over the summer. I like that phase, personally. You know, the first-third of Jupiter’s time in a sign will usually be a ‘morning’ Jupiter, and then you have the retrograde phase, the sort of ‘midnight/Full Moon’ Jupiter. And then you have that last third, which is the ‘evening’ Jupiter. I mean, it’s a little different than ‘morning/evening’ Venus and Mercury. And I really like that phase. It’s sort of like the ‘payout’ phase with Jupiter. It’s like, well, you’ve literally done a lot of these degrees twice now, speaking of shadows. It’s sort of like, okay, you’ve been working on this all year, let’s see what you’ve achieved. And so, I see a lot of nice results that are more fixed in their implications than the opportunities, which arose earlier in that Jupiter synodic cycle.
CB: Yeah, I think those are good keywords. It’s a direct station, and it’s Jupiter. Especially if it’s a day chart, it’s a very affirming, empowered-type Jupiter to be happening at that point in early June.
AC: Yeah. You know, one thing that’s really unique to this year is that Jupiter’s in a Venus-ruled sign, and for the last maybe three months, Venus has been going through some very challenging circumstances. And so, that opportunity to balance things, to find a point of equilibrium emotionally, or to fortify your homeostasis that Jupiter in Libra brings, or to solidify your diplomatic position—all of these Jupiter in Libra benefits, which depend on Venus—have gone through a period of pretty much maximum challenge. And there are some challenges left. But as Jupiter moves into this new direct phase, Venus is done with her trials this year. And so, it seems like the improvements that you made, or the opportunities that you thought you were gonna work on and then got super-distracted by other stuff, I imagine a lot of those will come back and a lot of people will find that they can get back to an improvement project of some sort.
CB: Definitely. And I wanted to mention very briefly—I don’t want to dwell on it, but it’s actually kind of interesting that we’re talking about this, thinking about that aspect right now of Jupiter stationing direct in Libra. Cuz I was literally just thinking about that a few days ago in another chart. I was putting together this lecture for NORWAC that I’m giving next week on the master of the nativity, or the overall ruler of the chart, which is like this mysterious concept in ancient astrology. Well, there can be two rulers of the chart. There’s one chart that’s kind of in charge and is directing things, which is the master of the nativity, and then there’s another planet that’s called the lord of the nativity, which is the overall owner of the chart and the guy who’s ultimately in charge versus the guy who’s merely sort of at the wheel, steering things. And one of the things that was weird is I decided to throw an example chart in to demonstrate the concept, and I pulled out Trump’s chart. And one of the things that was really interesting actually—that I never noticed before—is he actually has Jupiter within a day of stationing direct in Libra in the 3rd house, so that exact aspect that we’re talking about. And that Jupiter kept coming back as the lord of the chart, the planet that was ultimately in charge in some sense, which is kind of interesting. And I had never, for some reason, noticed that it was stationing direct in his chart before. But if you wanted to ever look for the really positive or lucky aspect or signature in his chart, I would really think that that’s it: Jupiter stationing direct in that same phase that you were talking about, Austin, in the 3rd house in Libra.
AC: Right. And ruling the Full Moon, the full eclipsed Moon in his chart. That’s very important.
CB: Right.
AC: I don’t want to get too far down into a ‘Trump-hole’, but he’s got some transits going on now. As one would expect, this is certainly one of the most dramatic portions of his life.
KS: Yes.
CB: Sure.
KS: We have to stay on Jupiter. I was just gonna say otherwise we’re all just waiting. Cuz if we go down the ‘Trump-hole’, we’ll be going for two hours.
CB: Right. What do you think about Jupiter in Libra, or stationing, or any of that?
KS: Oh, look, I am very happy about it. Especially when I’ve been working with clients who have planets around that 13° marker in any of the cardinal signs, which is the station degree of Jupiter. Jupiter is spending about six weeks at 13 Libra, from mid-May until the end of June. For clients or people with planets at 13 cardinal for sure, but for all of us I think it does feel like we’re at this pivot point with the Jupiter in Libra process. And as you guys were saying, Chris, too, once we get to that station direct point in early June, it’s almost like the wheel starts turning, or the forces of goodness or support are unleashed, or the forces of activity, we might say, wherever Jupiter in Libra is activating in your chart. I do think it’s also significant that just a couple of days before Jupiter stations, Venus will enter into her own dignity. So given that Jupiter is in a sign of Venus, I don’t know. I like the idea of Jupiter moving forward with the watchful guise of a well-placed Venus. I know Venus can’t see Jupiter from Taurus, but she’s certainly got resources at hand to make sure that Jupiter has what he needs to get going. So I’m quite happy about that for this month.
AC: Yeah, it’s a nice moment for both benefics, where they’re both getting into a place or a phase where they can do some work. You know, Venus has basically been stuck in Aries forever, which is not Venus’ favorite place to be. And when Venus got to go back to Pisces, Saturn was waiting there. So Venus hasn’t been dignified and unafflicted for many, many, many months.
CB: Yeah, that’s a really interesting point. And so, this will really be the first time in a while. And that’s basically a phase that lasts from when it goes into Taurus on June 6, all the way until it goes into Gemini on July 4, right?
KS: Yeah, early July, which is juicy.
CB: Okay. An additional thing that’s interesting about Jupiter stationing is Jupiter’s stationing direct in Libra, and that’s really great. But there is something that does dampen a little bit that I wanted to mention, which is the Mars ingress into Cancer. Because that starts building up or is the onset of one of the more tense aspects that does happen this month—but not until I believe the end of June—which is that Mars, as soon as it moves into Cancer, starts building up to an exact square with Jupiter. Do you guys know when that goes exact?
KS: June 24.
AC: Yeah, I think we should speak about that as a period rather than a moment, because there is a cluster of things I don’t like—and I doubt you all will like—at the end of June. Basically, by the time Mars gets into position where it can square Jupiter and start to oppose Pluto, Mercury has caught up with Mars.
KS: Yeah, Mercury and Mars together.
AC: Yeah, Mercury and Mars together. Remember that Mercury takes on the quality of the planets that it conjoins. And so, Mercury is taking on Mars in what is arguably Mars’ least favorite sign while in position to disrupt the happy-goodness that Jupiter is attempting to enact, and further pressurized by an opposition with Pluto. And then the Sun is not too far behind. So the end of the month comes with these oppositions, both Mercury and Mars making their way through these oppositions and squares, and with the Sun not long behind, right? So that story of the planets in Cancer opposing Pluto and squaring Jupiter, that’s going to continue into July. And so, I’m not super-into that. You know, with Mercury-Mars conjunctions in Cancer opposite Pluto, that’s a lot of not-so-good feels. So I was writing about this, and I was kind of digging for metaphors. I had written my section about the Sun’s ingress into Cancer. You know, I write little fun titles, or I try. I’m like it’s everybody into the pool, cuz Mercury and the Sun both go into Cancer. And then I’m moving on and I’m writing about, oh, Mercury conjunct Mars in Cancer and opposite this Pluto, and the image that I—well, I got a bunch of images, but one of them was that moment in Caddyshack where they find out that there’s a turd in the pool. That somebody pooped in the pool and everybody’s freaking out. I do think it’s the poo in the pool.
KS: I love it.
AC: Has nobody seen Caddyshack?
CB: You have a way with metaphors.
AC: Yes, elegance. Elegance is key. But it turns out to just be a Baby Ruth.
KS: A Baby Ruth, like a chocolate bar.
CB: Okay.
AC: You guys haven’t seen Caddyshack—
KS: No.
AC: —have you? That’s inexcusable.
CB: It’s a little bit before my time.
KS: You can blame it on age, Chris.
AC: It’s a classic. All right, I would like people in the comments section to tell Kelly and Chris what they’ve missed and how much heresy is happening right now.
CB: How appropriate and evocative it was in retrospect for the transits—that’s what I’ll forward to later.
AC: Indeed.
CB: So you’re talking about this whole period in late June basically, when Mercury conjoins Mars?
AC: Yeah.
KS: And it carries into early July. Cuz the Mars-Pluto opposition is actually early July.
AC: It’s the beginning. And Mercury opposes Pluto right before Mars. Yeah, it’s a series of deposits in the community pool that I’m not super-excited about.
KS: I was just gonna say the ‘pool’ analogy—Austin, I think I’ve taken a leaf out of your book. Cuz I was thinking ‘shark teeth’. There’s a shark in the pool, or the pool is full of jellyfish or something because that Mercury-Mars-Pluto combination just has this really sharp, prickly. You know, it’s so emotional with Mercury-Mars in Cancer, but sharp and to the point with that Pluto energy. So yeah, I think it’s really good that you’re making the point it’s a series of things that has this prickly kind of quality to it.
CB: I mean, I was just gonna say that there seems to be a warm-up to it, which happens at the ingress of the Sun into Cancer. It’s really weird that the Sun ingresses almost exactly right around the same time, within a few hours of Mercury going into Cancer, and then that’s really the start of the buildup to the Mercury-Mars conjunction. But it’s just weird that it happens then—in the northern hemisphere—at the summer solstice.
KS: Totally, yeah. So they’re both kind of crossing in, and then Mercury’s just moving so quickly. So I guess that’s where Austin’s coming from with his point about ‘everybody into the pool’.
CB: Yeah.
AC: Well, yeah. Let me just summarize. Catharsis, in retrospect, is a good thing. There are some things that people have to work through that they are glad that they have worked through, but they are not fun to work through. And all that Mercury-Mars-Sun opposite Pluto—all that stuff will bring things up for people, and it may not be pleasant to work through. And some people might not work through anything. They might just feel bad and act bad and then move on to other things.
CB: Sure. So that whole cluster of things really culminates. It looks like Mercury conjoins Mars around June 28, and then they both hit Pluto shortly after that over the course of the next few days, at the end of June and beginning of July.
AC: Yeah.
CB: It’s really interesting. That whole sequence seems to begin, weirdly, right at the summer solstice. Because the Sun and Mercury move into Cancer almost precisely at the same time, within a few hours of each other on the 21st, and the cazimi between Mercury and the Sun actually takes place at 0° of Cancer. And then after that Mercury is just full speed ahead towards eventually the square with Jupiter at 13 Libra and then the conjunction with Mars at whatever it ends up being. Like 15-16 Cancer.
AC: Yeah, I really like that superior conjunction between Mercury and the Sun. You know, it seemed to me that that’s a moment of emotional insight. It’s in Cancer. And so, there’s this thinking about the principle of nurturing and what you really need and what other people really need in your life. But then the pristine nature of that moment is then scheduled to be challenged by some less-pristine feelings, which are due to arise during that Mercury-Mars-Pluto thing.
KS: That’s a good way of looking at it.
CB: Right.
KS: I don’t know. It feels a little poignant or significant that the cazimi is happening right on the solstice point, too.
AC: Yeah. No, I think it’s really lovely. I wrote this whole thing about looking outward and seeing the principle of mothering outside of yourself, right? Cuz this Mercury conjunction with the Sun is Mercury on the far side, and so it’s looking outward, as opposed to the one where Mercury is close to us and we’re looking inward. You know, it just occurred to me, looking out at the sky, if you look at the mythology of many, many cultures—like ancient Egypt, for example, that is the body of a vast goddess, right? That’s Nut.
KS: Yes.
AC: Nuts, Nuit—I don’t know how to pronounce it. I don’t speak ancient Egyptian. And her body spangled with stars, right? That’s not a conception that is unique to ancient Egypt. That’s in lots of places. We are in the womb of the Mother, and the Mother is creation itself, right? It’s space and time, and it just seemed to want to go in that direction.
CB: Yeah. Also, there’s some Medieval astrologers that will cast charts not just for the Aries ingress, but for the other cardinal ingresses as well—including the solstices—as indicating the tone for that quarter of the year. And so, that cazimi happening right there, and then Mars being very close to almost squaring Jupiter already by that point, where Mars is at 11 Cancer and then Jupiter’s at 13—it may mean that that chart has much greater relevance for the next three months after that point, essentially the summer in the northern hemisphere, than it might otherwise.
AC: You know, Chris, I sure hope so. Because we’ve also got a nice Venus-Moon conjunction in Taurus at that point, ruling that solstice.
KS: And that will be a much nicer energy for the next quarter than what we’re dealing with in this quarter.
AC: Yeah. So what is the role for the ingress? There are probably a couple of them. But depending on the mode of the sign which is rising in the Aries ingress, you do or do not look at the other quarterly charts. I think if it’s fixed, you keep the Aries ingress one. But if it’s mutable, you look at every quarter.
CB: Yeah, it’s something like that.
KS: And if it’s cardinal, maybe you do the Aries one and then you do the Libra one.
AC: I think that’s at least the rule according to one astrologer.
KS: Which one?
AC: Yeah, there’s no complete uniformity of opinion over 2,000 years of astrologers.
KS: Well, it also depends on place, right? Because the rising sign will be different at the solstice depending on where we are.
AC: Right. Or the Aries ingress rising.
KS: The Aries ingress, sorry, beg your pardon.
AC: Do y’all remember, was it a Pisces rising for the US this year?
CB: I can’t remember.
AC: I’m gonna look it up. It’s gonna take two seconds.
KS: Were you gonna say something, Chris?
CB: Just that I’ve seen debates about that with people that use Aries ingress charts. You know, I’ve seen some people, just contemporary astrologers who are either following traditional sources or not following traditional sources who do that or say that they don’t do that. They will look at the other ingress charts if the rising sign isn’t fixed or whatever the rule is versus there’s others that say that they disregard that rule, and they think that the Aries ingress chart is the Aries ingress chart regardless of what the rising sign is.
AC: Right.
KS: Got it.
AC: That makes sense. And I’m sure there are dead astrologers who also had the same debate.
KS: It’s Pisces.
AC: Yeah, it is. For the US, the Aries ingress was a Pisces rising sign.
CB: Oh, interesting, okay. So then using that rule—if any of us are remembering it correctly, which we’re probably not—the Cancer ingress could actually be more important for setting the tone for the rest of the year.
AC: I hope so. I like this summer ingress chart a lot better than I like the Aries ingress chart. For example, the solstice ingress doesn’t have an extremely tight Moon-Saturn conjunction. It has a Moon-Venus conjunction.
KS: Much more pleasant.
AC: Yeah.
CB: Right. I mean, the only thing I don’t like about, though, is that Mars-Jupiter square, which is pretty close and pretty tight at that point. It’s only a couple of degrees away. Really, that’s one of the more tense aspects of June, except for the Mercury-Mars conjunction towards the later part. And so, that was an issue we actually ran into this month in looking for electional charts. And for that reason the chart that we wanted to highlight this month occurs before Mars goes into Cancer, in order to avoid that whole issue. So Jupiter is just kind of on its own, getting ready to station direct in Libra, unencumbered by that superior square from Mars in Cancer. So the electional chart for this month that Leisa picked out is June 3, 2017 at about 3:15 PM local time. So you should be able to cast a chart for most areas of the world at about 3:15 and get the same chart roughly. And what you want to shoot for is about 13° of Libra rising, so that Jupiter at 13° of Libra is conjunct the ascendant. So the chart has Libra rising, Jupiter conjunct the ascendant. It’s a day chart, so that Jupiter is fully benefic according to sect, and it’s only about five days away from stationing direct in Libra. So it’s really getting amped up or getting powerful in its placement there. The chart also features the Moon at 10° of Libra, applying to a conjunction with Jupiter in Libra in the 1st house. So the Moon is relatively well-placed as well. It’s the ruler of the 10th house, ruler of the midheaven. So this would be a good chart for 10th house matters pertaining to career or reputation or social standing and things of that nature, because the ruler of the 10th is basically being bonified or being affirmed through its applying aspect or applying conjunction to Jupiter. The Moon is also waxing in this chart. So it’s moving from the New Moon up towards the Full Moon. So the Moon is actually getting brighter and brighter; it’s called ‘increasing in light’. So it’s actually a good chart for building things up or starting new things that you want to see grow rather than the opposite, which is winding something down or ending something or tearing something down. Let’s see, other placements. The ruler of the ascendant is Venus, which is in Aries. So this is the very last of the ‘Venus in Aries ruling the ascendant’ charts that we’ve been using for a while. Even though Venus isn’t terribly well-placed by sign, by zodiacal sign, it at least has that opposition with Jupiter, and Jupiter’s in the 1st house. And Venus is applying to a sextile with its domicile lord, Mars, with reception. So even though it’s in a kind of strange and not very powerful sign for Venus, it at least has some support, to some extent, from the ruler of that sign, which can help to counteract a little bit of the difficult placement of otherwise being in Aries.
AC: It’s in its decan.
CB: So the last decan of Aries is Venus?
AC: Mm-hmm.
CB: Nice.
AC: It’s something.
CB: Yeah, that’s something. A little bit of essential dignity. It also has a trine with Jupiter, and it’s separating from the conjunction with Uranus. So all things considered, it’s not a terrible Venus. Yeah, so this is our electional chart for the month of June. Or at least it’s the main electional chart that I want to highlight for this podcast. So we do have three other electional charts picked out that we’ll talk about in the patron-only, private Electional Astrology Podcast that we do each month. And we’ve actually started doing videos with those, so that you get both an audio version—which is like a 45-minute podcast—and then we also have a private video version, where we actually show the charts as we click through them and talk about them.
AC: That’s good. That’ll be helpful.
KS: That’s a great resource for people.
CB: Yeah. Anyway, that’s the electional chart. You guys have anything to start in early June that you need launching?
KS: I’m gonna be on a girls’ weekend that weekend. That’ll be nice.
CB: Taking a vacation?
KS: Yeah, I’m actually gonna be away for a lot of June. Yeah, I do have to launch my classes for the second-half of the year. So I can steal this election? Is that what you’re telling me?
CB: Yeah, it’s not a bad one.
KS: Cool.
CB: Yeah, so that’s the election for June. Again, one of the reasons we went with that is we just really wanted to get one more election in with that Jupiter with Libra rising before Mars goes into Cancer and begins forming that square with it, that superior square.
AC: Yeah. Let’s talk a little bit about Mars square Jupiter, Mars in hard aspect to Jupiter. I don’t know, sometimes you get malefics and benefics in aspect and they almost have nothing to do with one another. There’s just a ‘good’ and a ‘bad’ happening, and they both happen. And sometimes they cancel each other out, right? You end up getting a ‘whatever’. There’s a problem, but it gets fixed quickly. This is interesting to me—the Mars-Jupiter is interesting—because I feel like the storyline will be Mars is going to potentially sabotage or damage the improvements that Jupiter is ready to make. And yet, at the same time, Jupiter—because it’s aspecting Mars—is in a position where it can help with whatever difficulties Mars augurs, right? And so, what’s interesting is if you look at the reception, Mars in Cancer receives Jupiter as the exaltation ruler. Jupiter can help you with ‘Cancer’ problems, whereas Mars in Libra really doesn’t want any help or commentary at all from Mars in Cancer, right? Libra is one of the places where Mars is in its detriment or exile. And so, Jupiter in Libra is asking Mars to stay out of the diplomatic talks—like there’s nothing that can be done—whereas Mars can really use Jupiter’s help. And so, there’s a specific dynamic based on the signs here.
CB: Yeah, definitely.
KS: And probably one way people can think about that is to look at the houses that the Cancer/Libra square will occur for each of them, to think about where is the problem or where is the solution or the nature of the issue, I guess. Is that kind of what you’re saying, Austin?
AC: Yeah, if I were gonna look for it, I’d look for what Jupiter in Libra has been doing, cuz it’s been doing that for a while, right? So for me, it’s in my 4th house, and it has to do with me moving and being in a new place, and getting to know the new place. And so, whatever the Jupiter in Libra thing is, it’s already happening, right? So figure out what Jupiter has been doing in your life for a while now, and then look at Mars as potentially bringing trouble to that, or indicating some issues or challenges in whatever house Cancer is for you, and then how that might ‘problematize’ your Jupiter storyline. So for me, Cancer is my 1st. The thing about the 1st that’s interesting—I’d like to hear you all’s opinions on this—is that sometimes it’s absolutely the native enacting the planet visiting the 1st, and sometimes it’s something from the world that’s brought immediately to their doorstep. I have a difficult time in 1st house transits knowing whether it will be brought right to the person or that the person will bring it right to the world.
CB: Right.
KS: That’s a really good distinction.
CB: That’s often an issue with natal astrology as well. Sometimes a planet in the 1st, or sometimes a planet ruling the 1st is something happening to the native, like let’s say they get injured or something at some point with a placement that matches. Like if it’s Mars, maybe it’s an injury, or they get stabbed or something at some point by somebody, versus other times when it’s ruling the ascendant. Sometimes it can be like the native themselves who is the agent of those things and who causes those things either in their own life or brings it about in the lives of other people. So it’s kind of a related issue to what you’re talking about when you have a transit through the 1st house. Is that you doing something, where maybe you make a mistake or an error? Or is it something happening to you?
AC: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Cuz the 1st house has such global significance within a chart, whatever is literally just arising is able to speak for the chart as a whole to some degree. Just like planets up in the 10th will have career significations, they also just have this throne over the whole chart, with some non-specific effects, as well as specific effects.
KS: So Mars square Jupiter, tricky.
AC: Yeah, I don’t know. I’m more concerned about the ‘Mars opposition Pluto’ moments.
KS: Yes. Well, and I guess it’s good to just be reminded, for all of us, that those two aspects happen in quite quick succession. The Mars square Jupiter, and then the Mars opposite Pluto, a week apart.
AC: Yeah, that’s what I mean. It’s not like Monday-Tuesday.
CB: Wow.
KS: No, no.
CB: That’s not that far apart for a Mars aspect, though. Kelly’s right. You know, the Sun is catching up to Mars, and they’re in the same sign at this point. So Mars is moving relatively fast compared to what a transit of Mars is usually like, or how long it usually takes him to move the same span of 7°-8°.
KS: Yeah, I think it’s only gonna go 5° from the square to Jupiter to the opposition to Pluto.
CB: Sure. So the square is about June 24-25. So that’s when Mars is at 13 Cancer and Jupiter is at 13 Libra. And then, finally, we get the opposition with Pluto. So that’s about a week later, about July 2-ish. Does that sound right?
KS: Yeah.
AC: Yep.
KS: Yeah, that sounds right.
CB: And that’s kind of interesting because it looks like the Moon completes a T-square with those two on the same day, if you guys are looking at that. So the Moon hits, what is it, 18?
KS: In Libra.
AC: More of the day before, but sure.
KS: It looks like it might be the day before. I mean, I always think that’s an amplification, right? Mars-Pluto is applying by then, and the Moon is just coming through to kind of whip things up, like a big wind that comes in before the storm or something.
CB: Right.
AC: Yes.
CB: So that reminds me, though, in terms of the Moon, one thing we haven’t talked a lot about are the lunations this month. Which is interesting because the very first lunation—the Full Moon that takes place on the 9th—actually occurs in Sagittarius, the same day that Jupiter’s stationing direct, right?
AC: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love this one. Venus has just moved into Libra. Mercury’s in Gemini now. And Mars is in Cancer, but Venus and Mars are in a happy, little sextile, and Venus is in a place where it can calm Mars down; you know, mitigate whatever issues Mars is having. Yeah, we have a big old Full Moon in Sagittarius, a Jupiter-ruled sign, just as Jupiter stations direct. So Venus is nice, but unconfigured to this. This is a very ‘Jupiter-Mercury’ moment, right? We have the Sun in a Mercury-ruled sign, with Mercury in the same sign which it rules, at the same time as we have the Moon in the opposite sign—Jupiter-ruled Sagittarius—just as Jupiter is stationing direct. The only fly in the ointment, or the complication is the fact that Saturn is relatively close to the Full Moon. It’s not like a super-tight conjunction, but it will be irresponsible to ignore it. I believe the Full Moon happens at—is it 18° or 19°? It’s 18. And then Saturn is right there at 24° of Sag. So we have the Moon only 6° away from Saturn, and so that needs to be taken into account.
CB: Yeah, so this is a Full Moon that’s very much tinged by Saturn.
AC: Yeah, I mean, it’s got such a strong Jupiterian quality, but then it also has a very strong Saturnian quality. And so, it’s like a ‘Jupiter station direct’ lunation moving forward (let’s get going in the right direction), but let’s do so thoughtfully and cautiously, right? Saturn here is certainly warning us not to be overly-exuberant and forget ourselves and just assume that everything’s gonna go great now.
CB: Right.
KS: Totally. And I think that Full Moon coming into Saturn—the one other aspect we haven’t touched on yet that is happening this June will be the Sun opposing Saturn, which comes in just before the solstice. So it’s almost like that middle period of the month. Once we have this Full Moon, we’ve got the Sun then applying to Saturn, and that’s definitely going to temper things, maybe.
AC: Right. So we have this great first 10 days, but that ends with the Moon magnifying Jupiter, but also pointing a very bright finger at Saturn. And then during the middle-third of the month, we have the Sun closing in on that opposition with Saturn, and Mercury racing to catch up with the Sun, opposing Saturn only a day or two later. And then the two both ingress into Cancer on the solstice and have the superior conjunction. And then we have that whole ‘Cancer Mercury-Mars-Pluto-Jupiter’ thing that we were talking about that sort of plays us out of the month.
CB: Wow, that’s quite a sequence. So things are definitely a bit easier, or at least we have more of a greater abundance of pretty flowing aspects and nice zodiacal placements of Venus in its own sign, Mercury in its own sign, Jupiter stationing earlier in the month. But then later in the month, we start getting more of these tense aspects, and that seems to be where some of the more challenging stuff comes in.
AC: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, the beginning and the end are not equally auspicious.
CB: Sure. And that then connects us to a nice segue into the second lunation of the month, which is the New Moon which takes place in Cancer on June 23, right?
AC: Uh, yeah, that’s what I’ve got.
CB: What do you think about that New Moon, Kelly?
KS: Well, I always like a lunation close to a solstice. As I’m saying that, I’m sort of thinking, what do I like about that? I always find the solstice points as points of extremes. Because they represent the extreme highs or lows of the Sun, they sort of highlight or spotlight events that pull us into the extremes of our life experiences around whatever topics that lunation might be activating, cuz it is just a couple of days after the solstice. So that idea of extremes. Maybe extreme fresh starts, because we’re running into this New Moon after the Mercury cazimi as well. So there is this idea of that seed planting, which is a classic Moon cycle theme, but sort of being echoed by the Mercury-Sun as well. But we are gonna have Mars in the same sign. The Mars in Cancer—there’s a feeling that I get about this that is sometimes hard to put into words. It’s kind of moody or prickly or even sometimes a bit of a passive-aggressive energy. So that idea of the moodiness may be interfering with action or progress coming out of the New Moon, as much as the New Moon so badly wants to seed or initiate. Yeah, so I think it’s definitely one to watch. Austin?
AC: Yeah, I think it augurs a very ‘emo’ pair of weeks.
CB: Yeah, it’s interesting that traditionally Mercury and the Moon were treated very similarly sometimes, because there’s this perception of this unstable or erratic quality. Traditionally, before we had Uranus—which tends to be much more of the unexpected thing for modern astrologers—it was the Moon and Mercury, which were more associated with the potential for sudden reversals and for instability or even moodiness, if you want to approach it from a purely emotional standpoint, like you guys are saying. So it’s interesting that that’s in the mix here, and we get that moodiness or that instability. That Mars is really very much there, tied into that New Moon, setting all of that off; that stellium of four planets: the Moon, the Sun, Mercury, and Mars all around that point at the New Moon in Cancer on June 23.
AC: Yeah. You know, the next day, on the 24th, even though Mars isn’t opposite Pluto yet and Mercury hasn’t caught up with Mars yet, if you look at the 24th—which will be the first day that we’ll see the Moon in its new cycle—the Moon goes over and it conjoins Mercury, it conjoins Mars, it squares Jupiter, it opposes Pluto, right? The Moon sort of does a preliminary run through all of the difficult areas before they’re heated up closely with the tightening aspects from the other planets. And so, I would say that period of time that’s characterized by those oppositions and squares begins pretty much immediately. You know, we get almost a preview on the first day of the visible lunar cycle, although there is some help from Venus. And one thing to note is that through a lot of the ‘Mercury-Mars-Pluto’ stuff—that is not in and of itself tremendously pleasant or auspicious—we still have Venus in Taurus, right? Venus is still in Taurus. And a benefic, especially Venus, in a sign that it rules is in a position to fix things and to hold together relationships. You know, that’s part of what Venus does. It’s sort of like even though we had this fight, Venus in Taurus is remembering the underlying, positive stability of a connection or a matter. Venus in Taurus is a stabilizing force. And so, she’s not tied exactly into that, but Venus’ presence in Taurus does matter during this period of time.
CB: Sure. As a stabilizing influence.
KS: Yes.
AC: Mm-hmm.
KS: Well, just as a counterpoint in some ways too, right? There is this instability. And I think you made a great point there, Chris. All the keywords that we’ve given to Uranus in modern astrology, I think about 80% or 90% of those words used to belong to Mercury, and that variability that Mercury has. Plus the Moon—the Moon was known about, the change. Even going back to how the Moon is connected to the 3rd house, and the 3rd house has to do with these constant, short journeys back and forward, that was all ‘Moon’ stuff. So the movement inherent in the Moon and Mercury—that’s a really nice point actually. Cuz there is that feeling—particularly with so many planets in cardinal and mutable signs—running through the last 10 days of June that things are in flux, or things are moving, and it’s sort of more cardinal than mutable. So the idea that we’re moving with a purpose rather than just moving for the sake of moving. But yeah, I agree with Austin on the ‘Venus in Taurus’ stabilizing force. And Venus does make her only major aspect from Taurus—happens on June 24—which is just a trine out to Pluto. We’ve got a little bit of a component there, but that is the only interaction that she has. Of course the Moon will connect with her while she’s in Taurus, but that’s her major aspect. And that’s happening just after that New Moon as well. So a counterpoint.
AC: It’s appropriate. You know, there’s a way to lean into planets that are benefic and empowered. If there are troubles, you can do Venusian things, right? With Venus in a good position, those things will tend to turn out better with less effort. Lean into what is good and stable. Cuz there’s the planet being there, and then there’s whether you’re shying away or leaning in, or simply ignorant of what’s going on. I always try to lean into what’s good.
KS: So we all need to go for a massage or go to the beautician or splurge on a nice dinner out or a good bottle of wine or something.
AC: Yeah, yeah. And even if you’re having issues with some people, go hang out with the people that it’s a pleasure to be around. Have a pool party. Just remember to skim the pool carefully before diving in.
KS: Yeah, a really simple remediation or enhancing ritual for Venus is just to put some fresh flowers in your house or on your desk. Just buy a bunch of fresh flowers or pick some from a garden and keep them with you, especially for Venus in Taurus.
AC: Absolutely. And even better, schedule it for the day of Venus, and maybe even the hour.
CB: Yeah, a topic that I’d like to do a show on soon—that a few people have requested—is just magical elections or that stream of the astrological tradition that was about propitiation rituals or just ways in which to attempt to harness or capture either the literal energy of the planet in some sense, in a casual sense, or the symbolic essence of a planet in a more synchronistic sense in order to magical elections, where you’re trying to capture something about that moment in time and then emphasize it or accentuate it, either in your own chart or in an election chart for starting something or what have you. So I know Nina Gryphon’s new electional column in TMA is much more geared that way, in what she’s doing with magical elections in order to figure out times like that—like when Venus is in Taurus—where you can highlight certain planets like Venus in order to really capture it in a way that draws out the essence of that planet the most, at that specific point in time. But there would be other types of elections that you could do like that as well.
AC: Yeah. I actually just taught a class about that two days ago.
CB: Okay. Well, maybe you and Nina can join me, and maybe we can make that an episode in June.
AC: That would be a lot of fun. You know, Nina and I used to live like 15 minutes away from each other, and we would get together and talk about those very topics. So it would be great to do that publicly and have it recorded. I know we’ve had a bunch of great conversations.
CB: Cool. All right, well, let’s talk about that after the show then about June. And, Kelly, you were just saying that you do things like that sometimes with Venus when you’re trying to either emphasize it more, when you’re trying to capture things like that. Or what were you saying?
KS: Oh, yeah, totally. Even just day-to-day, I mean, I do love to garden. You know, with my lord of the year being Venus, we’re doing a lot more, particularly, flower planting; so even picking the moment when to put the seeds in the soil, or when to transplant the plant from the garden shop into the ground. But yeah, using planetary hours, I do and starting to do more and more, because it adds that ritual element, I guess. You’re putting your hands and your soul and your energy and your intention into the flow of the universe in a way that seems really tangible; to do it with a ritual element, or to do it with a talisman that you’re focusing energy into. So that’s something that I think people would love to hear about.
CB: Yeah. And it’s something I’m interested in exploring. From a modern astrological perspective, it’s like that is a whole separate thing. It’s like astrology is not usually treated as having anything to do with magic, and magic is like this separate thing that sometimes astrologers disassociate themselves with, or sometimes look down upon. But then you have other people more recently—especially with the rise of traditional astrology and the revival of traditional astrology—that are trying to bring that, as a component, back into astrological practice. And I know you’re very much one of those people, right, Austin?
AC: Uh, yeah. I’ve been giving lectures about that publicly for 10 years. Not a lot, but I think I’ve addressed that publicly at the Esoteric Book Conference in maybe 2010, so maybe seven years. But, for me, I feel like they are inextricably-tied, and you don’t necessarily have to know everything about every branch of astrology to be a good astrologer. I think it’s right there, and it’s a potential waiting to be realized. And one of the things I’ve noticed is, Kelly, to my knowledge, is not an obsessive occultist.
KS: Correct.
AC: But what you sort of intuitively came to are the elements for doing planetary magic, you’re just doing them in a less-condensed way. You know, if you look at the protocol for doing a planetary petition in the Picatrix, it’s picking the timing. You need a material component, like flowers. But then you’d also want the right incense, a type of incense that Venus would prefer. And they say, why not put on a Venusian outfit, right?
KS: Yes.
AC: Don’t wear rough leather when you’re approaching Venus. Put on something silky and nice. Make sure to wash yourself and be clean. Venus corresponds to that which is clean. Have other materials that are of a Venusian nature as a part of things. You know, it’s a layering and layering and layering of all of that which is within that planet’s sphere, and you’re condensing that into a particular moment when you know that Venus is in a lot of dignity and also emphasized, right? Ideally, electionally, you want that planet on an angle, in its day and hour. Anyway, it’s the same thing, you’re just doing more and more and more of it. But the simple version is buy some flowers on Friday afternoon during the hour of Venus, while Venus is in Taurus.
KS: Yes. I just find that synchronicity that we’re having this conversation, guys. Cuz I just started reading Ben Dykes’ book on astrological magic, which is starting to get into some of the things that you’re talking about, Austin. Well, probably a lot in, but I only just started reading it. Even the way you embody yourself when you’re doing the ritual and the invocations, you adopt the nature of the planet. So I guess there’s just levels of intensity that you can dedicate yourself to, from the simple ‘buy the Venus flowers on a Friday, when Venus is in dignity’ or what have you to something where you’ve done a little bit more preparation about the time, and you have gathered more components of Venus’ energy, I guess.
CB: What was the title of Ben’s book again on that? I forget.
KS: Isn’t it just called Astrological Magic?
CB: Yeah, actually I think you’re right. And he co-wrote that, I think, with a friend.
KS: Yes, a female, I think. A female writer. And the other book that I’ve just been reading on this, it’s called Influences: Art, Optics, and Astrology in the Italian Renaissance.
AC: Oh, I’ve been totally meaning to read that.
KS: Yeah. Ryhan mentioned it, I think, at a conference last year, and I finally got it. I’ve only read like the first couple of chapters, but mind blown. The first couple of chapters are just a wonderful summary of what astrology is and how it works, but then talking about how some of the greatest works of art that came out of the Renaissance were actually devoted to certain planetary and cosmic motifs, so that if you gaze upon these images, you are sort of communing with the energy of whatever planet is was created in honor of. So these are all elements of this magic/occult version, I guess, of astrology.
AC: I would say the ‘magic/occult facet of astrology’. It’s not a different version.
KS: Facet, yeah.
AC: It’s a different astrology.
KS: I was too excited to get the right words. You’re right. It’s part of it. It’s been in our tradition. If you go back to Ficino—
AC: Well before that.
KS: Even before him, well before. I mean, I know that we’ve got a lot predating that.
CB: So this is something you’ve been getting more into reading lately, Kelly?
KS: Totally. Yeah, that’s why I’m just so blown away that we’re actually talking about it now. Cuz I don’t think we’ve ever had a conversation that’s gone down this path before, even though I know Austin has a great background in this.
AC: Well, it’s just part of how I do astrology and relate to planets and have forever, as long as I’ve had a daily astrological practice. I’ve just been trying to pick my moments about when to talk about it and how to talk about it. It seems like the time to talk about it has arisen, but it’s something you don’t want to freak people out about. You know, people are afraid of magic. Almost every movie you’ve seen that features magic, features it going terribly wrong and everyone being terribly sorry that they ever did such a sinful thing. And so, there’s this strata of the culture that’s deeply suspicious of anything that might be real magic.
CB: For me, I don’t have any background or thing in that, and so I don’t really have much of an opinion. And so, it’s sort of an unexplored area for me to some extent. And it’s also hard with astrologers. So much of the past few decades has been trying to even just reassert astrology and say this is a legitimate phenomenon that shouldn’t be rejected by the scientific or academic establishment, and attempting to reassert ourselves as a community and as a legitimate practice—or profession as it were. And so, that sometimes becomes an issue as well of astrologers not wanting to have to defend other practices outside of astrology, or not wanting to have to defend astrology and other forms of divination, or astrology and other connected ‘occult’ practices. And so, sometimes it becomes differentiated for that reason as well, even though your point is well-made, Austin, that it’s sort of had different points of intersection all along the astrological tradition.
AC: Yeah. Chris, have you ever looked at the Papyri Graecae Magicae, the PGM?
CB: Yeah. It’s the collection of surviving magical spells and things that are written in Greek, that there’s a translation of from the 1980s.
AC: Right. I think a lot of it was Demotic. But it’s Hellenistic-era stuff, and there’s just a ton of astrological material. It’s not a handbook, the same way that the Picatrix is, which is much later. But it makes it very clear that people were doing astrological magic, and that they were also using their astrology to time magic, which is a different thing, right? Like Easter is astrologically-timed, but we would not say that the celebration of Easter is a piece of astrological magic.
KS: Correct.
AC: But there’s literally a recipe that Aaron Cheak pointed out to me in the PGM where you’re consecrating stones for each of the planets, using particular elections, and then using those in your divination practice. Also, there’s this funny fragment that’s like, oh, yeah, the Moon in Libra, super-good for necromancy, and then the Moon in Sag is good for bindings, whatever. But it’s just like this little shorthand of these astrological configurations are good for this kind of operation. And so, that material was there in that first and fundamental period, we just don’t have handbooks from that time, cuz they may not have existed. The handbooks don’t come until the later Arabic period where you get the Picatrix and On the Stellar Rays and all that.
CB: Yeah. I mean, it’s one of those things where, I don’t know, there was still a differentiation in the sense that just because you’re an astrologer does not necessarily mean you were a magician or that you practiced magic. Whereas sometimes perhaps in order to do certain things or select auspicious times for magical practices, maybe you did need to know some astrology in order to pick that. I don’t know. On the one hand, it’s true that there’s a lot of overlap and a lot of intersection. But then on the other hand, I don’t want to go too far with that and say astrology and magic have always been completely intertwined and that astrologers are always doing things that could be considered or classified as magic necessarily.
AC: Well, if you think that divination isn’t magic, then you’re gonna run into some trouble. Divination is literally one of the classic forms of magic. So there’s an issue immediately right there. Unless astrology is 100% causal—and there’s no divinatory component—astrology is always magic. It’s just that particular kind. It’s not necessarily an active sorcery where you’re trying to influence things, but in a sense magic is knowing what’s gonna happen and then changing what’s gonna happen, right?
CB: Well, I mean, it goes back to the discussion I had. I had Sam on—and we just released that episode a few days ago—about his appearance on Bill Nye. And then we focused a lot on the definition of astrology and the mechanism, and his argument for ‘astrology as an art’ or ‘astrology as a language’ and not a science. And so, it really comes back to that whole discussion of, is astrology a science? And what do we mean by ‘science’? And what is the mechanism underlying astrology?
AC: Yeah, and I think that our current cultural definitions of art and science only make sense within a mechanistic or materialistic view of the universe, which I think is wrong at the beginning. And so, I don’t know. I’m just kind of tired of trying to cram astrology into a worldview that is demonstrably false just because that’s what people in positions of power, culturally, believe. I’m kind of tired of pretending that I/we need to justify what we’re doing to a paradigm that is blatantly incorrect. You’re never going to win because it’s a rigged game. If you accept that definition that that’s how reality works, and you want to fit astrology into that, you contort yourself endlessly, and you still don’t get anywhere.
KS: Yeah, I’m with you, Austin. That idea of having to justify or explain, it’s almost just a waste of energy. Chris?
CB: I mean, I think the only reason it’s important is because it provides us with justification for what we’re doing, when we do attempt to explain it. And we haven’t had to deal with this for the past few decades. It’s like the three of us are actually lucky cuz we sort of grew up—as astrologers—in a period in which astrology was not seriously threatened, or at least the practice of astrology wasn’t seriously threatened. But in the generation right before us that was still a threat due to anti-astrology laws and anti-astrology legislation and much more high profile and somewhat effective attacks on astrology from the scientific establishment. Like when the, whatever it was, 176 scientists, Nobel Prize winners sign a condemnation against astrology back in the 1960s or ‘70s or whenever it was. We haven’t had to deal with that for a while. But with things like the Bill Nye episode—the way that Bill Nye approached that, and his closing statement, where he said, “Things like astrology are inherently bad and inherently harmful,” he tried to connect it with other mistaken, anti-scientific notions like global warming denialism. And when he frames it like that, it’s very clear that things like astrology are viewed as a threat and need to be stamped out, or you need to put a stop to them. And that’s where I’m interested in presenting more of a justification for astrology, or at least a conceptualization, where you can understand how astrology could exist in the world, because it could become more of an actual existential threat at some point to the practice of astrology.
AC: I think to do that effectively you have to look at what assumptions people are bandying about in the name of science, because there are a lot of assumptions that get called science that you don’t arrive at via the scientific method. They’re not even necessarily what scientists think, cuz actual scientists are usually very bright, inquisitive people. Most of the people who are doing science media are not those people, and there are certainly exceptions. But Bill Nye is not a scientist, that’s not his life’s work. And there are paradigmatic assumptions which actually fall more properly into the domain of philosophy that are being made, and a lot of them are, again, demonstrably illogical. If you’re going to find out how astrology fits into the world—which is a noble project and one—we inevitably end up doing as we do astrology and see how it works. We’re always thinking about how does this work on a deep level? How does this intersect with the mechanics of our physical and internal lives? That’s real. But in order to find that answer, you’ve gotta break open some of those materialistic assumptions, because astrology can’t work inside of those. People tried.
KS: Yeah, it’s interesting. And, Chris, you make a good point about why you’re looking for the justification to fit astrology in. The question that I always come back—and maybe that is because we’re coming at this from (or I’m coming at this from) privilege—the issues that maybe happened in the States in the ‘60s and ‘70s against astrology, I don’t recall hearing about those as being a thing that happened in Australia around astrology. And so, I’ve never felt unsafe, and I’ve never even questioned this. And so, a part of me is like, how is it that we feel we do need to justify it? I’m like can’t we just do it? And then people will either be inspired by it and come towards it, or they’ll be turned off by it and they’ll go away from it, but we can carry on forward regardless, I guess. So that’s where I sometimes sit with it.
CB: I mean, I think Australia has a relatively robust skeptic community. Maybe there haven’t been anti-astrology laws, but there’s still groups out there that are just broadly against pseudoscience or things that they say are masquerading as sciences that need to be stopped or that you need to expose as false. I don’t know, it may not have been as much of an issue there compared to the US. I don’t know, I think we’ve gone over this before, Austin, where sometimes I’m paying more attention to what’s going on in the skeptical community and that’s making me more paranoid or at least hyper-aware of what people who are anti-astrology are saying, or what the anti-astrology positions are that are being promoted on talk shows and other podcasts and things like that. Maybe that makes me more concerned than the average astrologer is. I don’t know, maybe that’s where some of that is coming from.
AC: I don’t know. I mean, to a certain degree haters are gonna hate. It’s the internet. We now live in a world where we can always find people who hate people of our category. Whether it’s your race, gender, sexual orientation, your job, your country—there’s always somebody who hates what you’re doing and what you are, and we have this amazing ability to now read their comments. I simply can’t find the time for it. I will be concerned if that skeptical community and especially the subsection of those which are strongly concerned with taking down astrology—if they en masse start getting into legislative positions, I will be concerned. But until then, I don’t know.
KS: Carry on.
AC: There’s just not enough time in the day.
KS: No. Too many clients to see, so keep going.
CB: Sure.
AC: And I would also say astrology’s been hated for a long time.
KS: Yeah, this ain’t new.
AC: Doesn’t Cicero have a wonderful diatribe about how frustrating he is with the astrologers that other senators are talking about in Rome?
CB: Yeah, I mean, Cicero is one of the earliest skeptical attacks on astrology from like the late 1st century BCE. And then you have Sextus Empiricus in the 2nd century, and you have St. Augustine in the 4th or 5th century.
AC: But St. Augustine isn’t skeptical. He’s like, “Oh, yeah, all that’s real, but it’s bad.” He was like, “Oh, I was a sorcerer and I did all this, but you shouldn’t do that.”
KS: Yeah.
AC: Do as I say, not as I do.
CB: Because he’s approaching it from a Christian perspective. And that’s one of the funny, weird societal things that astrology’s always had. It’s always had attacks both from the scientific community, or philosophical community, and from religious communities. So it gets sort of double-teamed by both constantly over the past 2,000 years.
AC: And yet astrology has continued to thrive.
KS: And yet it is still here.
AC: Even in such a debased form as a Sun sign column, it’s continued to thrive throughout the skeptical 20th century. Astrology is shockingly robust and adaptable.
CB: Sure. Well, it will be interesting to see what the next century brings and the explosion of astrology that’s taken place, that the internet has allowed for, on top of translations of hundreds of texts or dozens of texts coming out. Literally, I turned around for like a week after doing an interview with Ben Dykes about Dorotheus, now suddenly he’s releasing another translation of Theophilus of Edessa a week later. So you really can’t take your eye off this guy for more than a few days before he starts releasing another translation.
AC: That’s absolutely true. I was also going to mention that the first 30 pages of Bonatti’s epic tome on astrology is a conversation with the many different critiques from many angles. He’s like, “Okay, so let’s just get all of this out of the way.”
CB: Right. Well, that’s important to point out, because Ptolemy did the same thing. So I’m gonna then go back and defend my paying attention, sometimes bordering on paranoia. Yeah, astrologers have done that traditionally for thousands of years now, because it’s important to justify what you’re doing within the context of contemporary society. Whether you’re facing religious opposition, whether you’re facing opposition from whatever the standard scientific presumptions about the world are and what’s possible in the world according to our current understanding of the cosmos versus what we think is not possible in the world according to our current understanding of the cosmos, which changes from century to century and decade to decade—astrologers still try to justify themselves. And there is some reason to do that because it is our explanation of why we’re doing what we’re doing, and our attempt to show how it’s valid and it’s not just something where we’re making something up, or attempting to rip people off, or whatever the accusations that are made. It’s still worthwhile to do that, I think, just for the sake of providing not just a justification, but in order to show people that this is something that is being done by normal people. That it’s something that’s approachable and that it’s something that the public should be interested in because it points to some incredibly weird and interesting property of the universe that not everyone is aware of.
KS: True. And I think Maternus mentions some things along this line at the start of his book, too. So you’re right. We have had to justify our position going back to the very beginning.
AC: Yeah. Also to intertwine with this is trying to help it make sense. You know, astrology has some—as you pointed out—staggering implications that are very challenging to just about anybody, and people will naturally have questions. I still have a lot of questions. But I would differentiate that from getting lopped into dialogue with people who’ve already decided that what you’re doing is bad, and that you’re bad, and who have no interest in your arguments, no matter how sound or valid or compelling they may be.
CB: Yeah. And I guess I’m not saying that people should engage fully in those sorts of pointless debates, especially with people that are not approaching it with some sense of goodwill, or are trying to seek understanding or shared ground or whatever. But just this traditional process that astrologers go through of attempting to defend and justify what they do, in the process of doing that, it helps you to understand and to articulate what you’re doing better. And I think that’s a healthy and natural and useful process because it does sometimes force you to challenge and to revise and to refine both your understanding of what you’re doing conceptually and practically—and sometimes to challenge that and make it better—but also to do a better job of articulating that to other people; whether it’s clients, when you’re trying to explain their chart to them, or whether it’s family members or your crazy uncle who thinks that astrology’s wacky and doesn’t understand why you’re wasting time with it, or the public at large. If you’re an astrologer and you end up on a talk show or something like that—like Sam did randomly last year—what are you gonna say? How are you gonna talk about what you do to a general audience? Do you just take it for granted that what I do is correct and I don’t have to justify it or explain it to you? Or do you find a way to attempt to present it to the public in a way that makes sense—where they don’t think it’s just some ‘crazy fortune-teller-type’ situation, where you’re looking into a crystal ball—and it actually sounds like you’re doing something halfway rational?
KS: Yeah. Chris, actually as you were talking earlier, that was the point that sort of settled inside me, the idea that it actually is good to keep diving into our own individual understandings of astrology and how it works or why it works. I think in those situations it’s really useful to be able to give clear or easy-to-understand descriptions of what we’re doing, and I think that’s where it can be really useful to talk to people who are interested or want to learn more, which is most of our students and clients, isn’t it?
CB: Yeah, definitely. Or who you don’t know or were referred to you by somebody and they have that question.
KS: Yeah.
CB: You do their chart reading, and it’s good. You do a good job and you’re able to tell them things about their life that you shouldn’t otherwise be able to know. And then they ask, “Why does this work? I don’t understand how this is possible.” What do you say at that point?
KS: I was just thinking I’ve had that exact situation with clients, where at the very end, they’re a little bit blown away, but then they’re like, “Can you tell me how this works?” And I say this to students, but it applies to all of us at whatever level we are with our astrology. How we understand astrology deepens and evolves and becomes more integrated inside our beings over time, the more we work with this magical practice.
AC: Absolutely. So one Hermetic perspective is that astrology and magic and alchemy are these three arts—you can call them sacred arts—and they have their root in philosophy and our understanding of the world in which these things can take place. There is that common root, which is the way that you understand the universe in which you act and in which astrology works. And astrology points to the universe, right? It points to the nature of reality, and it points some fingers at some very strange phenomenon, that if followed, have very revelatory implications. There’s a depth to those particular channels or tunnels into the real that seem at this point to be nearly endless.
CB: Right. All right, well, on that note, I think we covered all of the alignments for June. So I feel pretty good about that, and that’s why I was fine going on this long digression for the last 30 minutes. Is there anything else we needed to mention that we did not get a chance to?
KS: I’m pretty happy with what we talked about.
CB: I’m gonna be at NORWAC next week, so I hope to see some people there. Kelly, you’ve got a webinar coming up, right?
KS: Yes, I do, on the progressed Sun. So a little bit of tips around timing and techniques with using the progressed Sun. So that’s coming up at the end of May, which I’m looking forward to.
AC: I guess I’m going to be doing—oh, sorry, go ahead.
KS: Oh, I’m just on my website.
CB: Is that through Astrology University?
KS: Yeah, it’s through Astrology University.
CB: Is that kellysastrology.com?
KS: Yeah, yeah, my website or Astrology University. You can find it in both places. Thanks.
CB: Got it, okay. And what do you have going on, Austin?
AC: Oh, I’m teaching another class. I’m gonna do a month-long introduction to fixed stars starting in June.
CB: Awesome. Fixed stars, that’s always exciting.
AC: Yeah, well, it’s something that I didn’t get in my initial astrological education and I’m really excited to introduce people to either because it’s something they haven’t gotten to, or they’re in the process of learning astrology. I integrated it into my fundamentals class this year, because I feel like a knowledge of maybe 10 to 20 of the brightest and most obvious fixed stars—having an understanding of those is fundamental and has been part of the tradition for almost the whole time. It got kind of left out during the 20th century. But there’s a lot there, and a lot of it’s really simple. Like Kelly was saying the other day, Sun conjunct Algol, Algol theme, right? Just starting on that very simple level of sharing celestial longitude, there’s a lot there.
CB: Yeah, that’s a really great, unexplored area. Kenneth Miller just came to Denver a couple of months ago to give a talk about ‘Anonymous of 379’ and his book on the fixed stars that he and Andrea Gertz are doing a translation of and hoping to publish later this year. And then two episodes ago, Nina and I talked a little bit about some of Bonatti’s statements about fixed stars as ‘secret helpers’, one of the keywords that he used for them, right?
AC: Absolutely. Yeah, that’s in the Considerations.
CB: Brilliant.
AC: Just on a really simple level—which Bonatti talks about—you can have a planet that looks like it’s in a ‘shit’ position, but it’s got a really helpful fixed star closely-aligned to it, and the star is of a similar nature to that planet. And you’ll see this in practice where a planet that’s not supposed to work well works fantastic, or it works much better than you would expect. And then you have the contrary as well, where something looks fine, but it’s conjunct a very contrary fixed star. And so, that position’s gonna work out a little different than you would think if you only looked at the planetary level.
CB: Right. Awesome. Cool, well, that’ll have to be another show at some point later this year as well. We’ll have to touch on fixed stars. In the meantime, I think that brings us to the end of this episode. So this was awesome. So thanks both of you for joining me today.
AC: Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for having us on.
KS: My pleasure. Yeah, thanks guys.
CB: All right, cool. We’ll reconvene again next month. Actually if we do the next forecast episode towards the later part of June, we’re gonna do it right in the thick of all of that stuff. So we’re gonna have a fun time trying to find an electional chart for recording that one next month. Do you guys have any ideas off the top of your heads?
KS: I know I’m away until late in the month. So I’m back right for that ‘Mars’ drama. I was thinking this was going to be tricky to schedule.
CB: All right, well, maybe we’ll do an experiment and we’ll schedule it right on the worst day possible or something like that.
AC: No thank you. I’ve done that experiment where I’m like, “Does electional astrology really work?” and I’ve scheduled things at terrible times, and they go terrible.
CB: Right. I think we’ve all done that.
AC: Let’s do the Moon-Venus conjunction in Taurus, with Mercury and the Sun together at the solstice point.
CB: Okay. Yeah, that’s a good idea.
KS: I’ll send you good vibes from Greece.
CB: Oh, you’ll be in Greece, then?
KS: Yeah, I’m taking all that good energy and going on holiday with it.
CB: Okay. When do you get back, again?
KS: I get back on the 26th of June.
CB: Okay.
AC: Thanks, Kelly.
CB: Yeah.
KS: It’ll be all my fault.
AC: Do they have computers in Greece?
CB: Yeah, well, we’ll have to talk about it.
KS: We can talk after the show.
CB: We stopped doing the live episodes. But if we can, I want to start bringing back the ability to do live recordings and to do video podcasts, in addition to the audio ones. So that’s gonna be a patron-only-type thing, where you can actually attend a live taping of The Astrology Podcast. And I’m hoping, if all goes well, that we’ll resume doing that again like we used to, starting with the next forecast episode in June. We’ll see how it turns out.
AC: Yeah, right on that super-afflicted Mercury. That’ll be a great time to do that.
KS: Mercury trine Neptune, let’s do it.
CB: All right, we’ll see. Despite your skepticism, we’ll see what kind of electional chart we can come up with. I’ll talk to Leisa and see what the other elections are available for June. If we can pull it off, then we will. Otherwise, we’ll push it to July. Anyway, thanks guys for joining me today.
KS: Anytime.
CB: All right, and thanks everyone for listening, and we’ll see you next time.