The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 114, titled:
Astrology Forecast and Electional Chart for July of 2017
With Chris Brennan and guests Austin Coppock and Kelly Surtees
Episode originally released on June 30, 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, June 28, 2017, starting at 4:09 PM in Denver, Colorado, and this is the 100-and-I-want-to-say-13th or 114th episode. You can find out more information about the podcast at theastrologypodcast.com/subscribe. You can also find out information about how to subscribe and support the production of future episodes by becoming a patron through our page on Patreon. So today we’re gonna be doing the forecast episode for July of 2017. And we’re actually doing an experiment, cuz we’re livestreaming this episode on Facebook at the same time that we’re recording it. Joining me today are Kelly Surtees and Austin Coppock. Hey, how’s it going guys?
AUSTIN COPPOCK: Good. Actually fantastic.
KELLY SURTEES: I’m good.
AC: We’ve been working on webcam issues for about 40 minutes. So off to an excellent start.
CB: 60 minutes. We were actually supposed to start an hour ago, but we had some webcam issues. But I think we’ve worked it out at this point. We have our recordings going. Kelly, how are you doing?
KS: I’m doing really well. I just grabbed the link, and I’m posting it on Facebook now. But yeah, I’m great. I’m just back from a couple of weeks’ holiday, and it feels like it’s been forever since we’ve all chatted. And I’m really excited to talk about July. There’s a lot going on this month.
CB: Excellent. Well, I’m gonna send this link out to all of our subscribers. This was kind of last minute, spur of the moment-type thing, but we’ll see how it goes. We’ll be able to share some charts, and we’re going to eventually get into the forecast and talk about the astrology of July of 2017. And I’m also gonna share one auspicious electional chart that Leisa Schaim provided us with for the most auspicious election she could find for starting new ventures in July. So before we get to that point, if anyone’s watching on Facebook, please like and share this post, so that we can get it out there to as many people as possible. And if this works out, maybe we’ll make it a regular thing in future months. All right, so has it been like six weeks? I think we recorded the last forecast episode, what, in mid-May?
KS: Mid-May, before NORWAC. So it’s five weeks, maybe.
AC: Yeah, I think it was the 18th or something.
CB: Okay. So it’s been a while since we talked. So a lot has happened. So maybe we should catch up a little bit on what’s been going on since mid-May, just in terms of what you guys have been up to. I think, Kelly, you said you’ve been traveling for the past few weeks.
KS: Look, I attended my sister’s very ‘Leo’ wedding in Santorini, in Greece, in June. So that was wonderful and very ‘Leo’ and ‘luxury’ and amazing. So that’s been great, but I feel like I’ve been away. I’ve never been to the Greek islands before. And it really is a long way away and a great chance to kind of totally disconnect. But I have been thinking a lot about July, cuz I didn’t take a lot of astrology stuff with me, other than my ephemeris. Total ‘astro’ nerd. And then of course I came home to a physical manifestation of Austin’s description of the late June ‘poop in the pool’ metaphor, where one of our cats had left us a little surprise on our bed. So Austin was spot-on as usual with his wonderful metaphors.
AC: Why thank you. I got a sort of ‘different-but-still-pool-oriented’ version of the Mercury-Mars opposite Pluto. So there were two separate instances and both of them involved tiny, crawling, poisonous beasts, which I feel like is pretty appropriate for Mars-Mercury in Cancer.
KS: Totally.
AC: So I was out in the pool, and I looked over at the rocks nearby and there was a black widow. Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen a black widow in person before, and so that was interesting and potentially dangerous. And then the next night—or maybe it was the same night, but it was within a day—I was like, “I’m gonna take myself a nice bath.” I like baths. I don’t really like showers, but I love to soak in the tub, which I believe we’ve discussed before.
KS: You have shared your love of baths before.
AC: Right. Well, we were gonna have a spin-off show, right?
KS: The podcast.
AC: ‘Pisces: Live from the Bath’ or ‘Baths’. But anyway, in the bath was not ‘a’ spider, there were four goddamn spiders in my tub.
KS: Wow.
AC: I thought the ‘spider’ people and I had an understanding. I thought we had reached a nice truce. And so, I did remove all of them forcibly, but I did not murder them brutally.
KS: How very kind of you.
CB: He’s tough, but fair.
AC: Again, I’m trying to maintain peace between the ‘spider’ people. None of them have bit me.
KS: That’s a good start.
AC: I haven’t bitten any of them, that I know of.
CB: Well, that sounds eventful. And, Austin, you actually switched recently your column. You’re starting to do a new decan series. Or you’re breaking it up by decan, right?
AC: Yeah. As you know, and as a lot of people probably know, I’m really big on the decans—the 10° arcs that trisect each sign—and there are 36 of them in a year. And I thought it would be more interesting to use a natural division of time like that, or a more natural division of time than the seven-day week. And so, yeah, on the Sun’s ingress into Cancer—which in the older systems actually begins the decans; think Thema Mundi, think Egyptian inheritance, think flood—I published my first ‘decanly’; weekly ‘decanly’. And so, I don’t know if I’m gonna do it forever, but I’m definitely gonna do one complete run of 36. Really enjoyed doing the first one, and the second one’s just about done, too. That’ll come out either Friday or Saturday.
CB: Awesome. That’s exciting. Except it sounds like you have a huge workload in terms of writing these days, right?
AC: Yeah, well, it just so happens that I need to get my monthly overview, every single day of the month’s dailies, and the ‘decanly’ all out by Saturday, this week. And I’m most of the way there, but I’ve been sweaty at the forge with it.
CB: Fun. You know, one of the things we sometimes do on the podcast is we talk about—since it’s been a month since our last forecast episode—some of the specific astrological combinations that we pointed out, that were supposed to take place in June, and if we noticed them correlate with any specific events. So have you guys noticed—
AC: Actually I have one, and it’s actually something that we missed, and it’s for the same reason that we’ve missed things before. So we were really focused—especially Kelly and I—on the Mars-Saturn opposition, and that played out I think very much like we expected it to. However, what we missed was that there was a Mars-Saturn contra-antiscia, perfect, about a week later.
KS: Mm-hmm.
AC: And I remember there were things on fire and people were super unhappy. I was like, “What is going on?”
KS: Oh, yes.
AC: I was like, “These are supposed to be happy days,” and I had a 10-minute existential astrology crisis. And then I was like, does it just not show up? Is it something with the national chart or whatever? And then I was like, oh, Mars and Saturn are in a perfect contra-antiscia, which contra-antiscia is supposed to act just like an opposition. And so, there was like this ‘shadow’ opposition a week-and-a-half/two weeks later. Again, I’ve missed things before because I didn’t look at the antiscia, and so that’s another reminder.
CB: Yeah, I think that was your takeaway lesson from either the last yearly forecast or the presidential election, wasn’t it? That the antiscia was much more important than you expected?
AC: Yeah, a little bit of both. Yeah, a little bit of both.
CB: Okay. And what about you, Kelly?
AC: I didn’t learn my lesson, though.
CB: Of always paying attention to them? Yeah, I mean, I had a similar thing. With the elections last month, I forgot that Leisa said there was this whole span earlier in June where she really would have liked to use Virgo rising and Mercury in Gemini for some of the electional charts. But there was this period where it was like exactly squaring Neptune, and she felt like that would be too problematic for the ruler of the ascendant for a lot of those electional charts. And I conveniently forgot that when I was scheduling podcast episodes for last month, and I was like, “Look at this great line-up of charts in the second week of June where we have Virgo rising and Mercury’s in its own sign in Gemini in the 10th house. That’s great.” And I was completely overlooking or at least devaluing or underplaying the Neptune square. And so, we recorded our first podcast last month with my good friend Chet Zdrowski, and we recorded this great two-hour episode on Dane Rudhyar and his life and work, for Episode 112. And then after the two-hours-and-five-minutes we got done, uploaded the files, I opened them up, and I had my full audio file. And then I looked at his audio file, and it only had the first 30 minutes of the recordings. So that recording just vanished into thin air. And it was the first and only time that I’ve actually lost an episode of the podcast, and it was with Virgo rising, Mercury ruling the ascendant and applying very closely to square Neptune. So Leisa had a very good ‘I told you so’ moment that we’ll be talking about on the Auspicious Elections Podcast that we’re gonna record tomorrow for patrons of the podcast.
KS: Yeah, that was tricky because Mercury was trine Jupiter at about the same time. So it looked like there was this lovely Mercury-Jupiter aspect, which would be helpful, but the square to Neptune was happening within a couple of days. So yeah, that must have been frustrating.
CB: Yeah, that was a bad time. And so, we learn from every electional chart and every natal chart that we do, but that was an interesting learning experience. Did you see anything like that, Kelly, in terms of things that we had pointed out last month, that when we actually got there you were interested or surprised?
KS: Well, I think the one thing which is happening—we are recording this just after the Mercury-Mars ‘brouhaha’ in Cancer—I got an email this morning from Norton, my antivirus software, saying there’s this big malware virus that’s been going around. And I thought that is very appropriate, late June, with the attack, if you like. So I thought that was a really good fit and a little bit more current. Cuz I think I was caught up in the Mercury-Neptune square on a beach somewhere for a few weeks. But yeah, I saw that this morning, and I was like, “That makes complete sense.” And yeah, I had quite a few testy conversations today, so I’m happy that that whole aspect is now separating.
CB: Yeah, so we’re recording this the day of the Mercury-Mars square. Which, Austin, I know you were a little hesitant to attempt to experiment with the livestream today. Rightfully so. Obviously, we didn’t use an electional chart to schedule this episode, but we just sort of threw it together. But it looks like we were smart enough to at least schedule it for later in the day, after the Mercury-Mars square was separating rather than earlier, when it was still applying. So we at least applied some astrology to our scheduling here a little bit today.
KS: Some intelligence.
CB: Right. All right, so before we move, I forgot that we were supposed to do the giveaway for this month. So I’m not doing the giveaway anymore. I’m gonna stop running ads on the podcast at the beginning of each episode, because that was getting a little bit tiring, but I am still doing book giveaways for patrons of the show who are on the $5 and $10 tiers. So I’m actually gonna announce the winners of that later tonight once we’re done recording this episode, but I just wanted to mention the two books that we’re giving away. So one of them is the Astrological Works of Theophilus of Edessa, which is Ben Dykes’ new book. It literally just came out. You can order it on his website right now at bendykes.com. It’s a translation of a 7th century—sorry, and 8th century work that was written in Greek by this interesting figure who was a middle figure between the Hellenistic and the Medieval astrological tradition, because he was writing in Greek, but he was actually working for the Islamic Empire at the time. So he’s kind of in-between the late Greek authors, like Rhetorius, and the early Arabic authors, like Masha’allah and Sahl, and this is the first time his works have ever been translated into any modern language.
AC: So he’s pretty, solidly Byzantine, then.
CB: Yeah, he’s like a Byzantine guy from Edessa who worked for the Islamic caliphate. So there’s actually recordings of him using electional astrology to elect battles and wars and stuff. And one of the texts that they translated here is supposed to be one of the earliest texts on astrology electional rules for war and stuff like that.
AC: That’s interesting. Do you know where he went to work for the caliph?
CB: Well, supposedly—and this is one of the things that Ben talks about in the introduction—he actually went to Baghdad. And Pingree actually makes this argument—which Ben is a little bit skeptical of, but he talks about in the introduction—that Theophilus of Edessa was working in Baghdad, and that he actually met Masha’allah, and passed a complete text of Rhetorius to Masha’allah, which Masha’allah then read and incorporated into some of his works. And then that’s why you have concepts like ‘striking with a ray’ or ‘hurling rays’ showing up in Masha’allah, in his early horary text, On Reception.
AC: That’s really interesting.
CB: So it’s a really interesting and fascinating book. I’m gonna give away one copy of this to one lucky patron on the $5 or $10 tier. The other giveaway—so check that out at Ben Dykes—is this book I actually found at my local bookstore that I thought was really funny and I’m really enamored with. It’s actually a fiction book titled The Madness of Mercury.
KS: Oh, I love it.
CB: I don’t know if you can see this. So it’s titled The Madness of Mercury by Connie di Marco, and it’s hilarious. I have to read you the description, cuz I just found this at the bookstore the other day. It says: “Mercury retrograde wreaks havoc on astrologer Julia Bonatti.” So the protagonist in this—
KS: Bonatti?
CB: Yeah, her name is Julia Bonatti. It says: “San Francisco astrologer Julia Bonatti’s life is turned upside-down when she becomes the target of the city’s newest cult leader, Reverend Roy of the Prophet’s Tabernacle, driven out of her apartment in the midst of a disastrous Mercury retrograde period. She takes shelter with a client who is caring for two elderly aunts. One aunt appears stricken with dementia, and the other’s fallen under the spell of Reverend Roy.” Blah, blah, blah, it keeps going. And then it says: “Is the young man truly a member of the family? Can astrology confirm that? Julia’s not sure, but one thing she does know is that Mercury wasn’t really the messenger of the gods, he was a trickster and a liar as well.” So it’s like a novel that’s written with young adults in mind, and it’s called A Zodiac Mystery. So it looks like it was published by an imprint of Llewellyn, but not quite the same as Theophilus of Edessa in terms of reading level.
KS: Two extremes.
CB: A little bit. Yeah, we’ve got a little bit of a contrast there. But it’s a funny book. It’s interesting to see astrology integrated, or somebody attempting to integrate astrology into a young adult reading level-type novel. And I support that idea in theory, even though I haven’t read the book personally. So if people want to check it out, it’s titled The Madness of Mercury by Connie di Marco. And I’m gonna give away a copy of that to one lucky patron of the show who supports us on the $5 or $10 tier through our page on Patreon. You can find out more information about how to join that at theastrologypodcast.com/subscribe. Any other promotional stuff that we want to mention before we get into the forecast episode? Do you guys have anything coming up?
AC: I think so. Uh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I just finished the first-half of my fundamentals class—the first four months—which obviously have to be planets, signs, houses, and aspects. And then I’m beginning the next arc, which will begin with a basic tutorial on integrating fixed stars into your astrology, and then an extensive discussion of traditional dignity, all five layers of the cake. And then we’re gonna do synodic cycles, and then we’re gonna have a month of actually integrating those. So even though the title of the complete eight-month class is ‘fundamentals’, there is a natural break between planets, signs, houses, aspects, and the somewhat more advanced topics that I’m gonna be doing over the next four months. And so, people can join any one of those classes. I didn’t have them packaged together, but I realized that it’s actually sort of a nice four-course arc for someone who’s already got planets, signs, aspects, houses down. And so, I’ll be sort of packaging that with a discount, and that’ll go up on my website in the next couple of days.
CB: Awesome. Sounds good. And your website is austincoppock.com.
AC: Mm-hmm.
CB: All right. What do you have going on, Kelly?
KS: Similar thing in my next offering of online classes, I am doing a series on chart interpretation. So it’s three blocks of four weeks. The first block of four weeks is just on the planets, looking at passions, problems, and potentials. So we’ll be looking at what the planets are and starting the process of interpreting them in a chart. That actually starts July 10, if you’re in Canada or the US, and it’ll be July 11 in the morning if you’re in Australia, and that’s the first part. The second block will be on aspects, and then the third block will be on Moon phases and special configurations. And they’re just gonna run consecutively from now until early November, late October. So you can do all three, or you can just do one block of four, depending on where you’re at. So yeah, all the info for that first block is on my website, kellysastrology.com.
CB: Awesome. That sounds great. Let’s see, and in terms of my stuff, I’ve spent most of the past couple of months working on two projects: one is moving my courses over to a new course site; a new online school, which is at theastrologyschool.com. So I actually moved my Hellenistic course and my electional and my horary courses, and all of the modules over to this new site. You can find it at theastrologyschool.com. The course site specifically right now is at courses.theastrologyschool.com. And in order to—not commemorate, but in order to promote the course site, I’m actually doing a 10% discount on my Hellenistic course if you sign up between now and the end of July. So just use the promo code ‘ASTROLOGYPODCAST’. So all one word with no space. Just ‘ASTROLOGYPODCAST’ and get a 10% discount on my Hellenistic course if you sign up between now and the end of July. And I’m doing that actually together. It’s kind of a side project together with launching or relaunching my YouTube channel and starting to produce some astrology videos at youtube.com/theastrologyschool. So all one word. And yeah, that’s been kind of a hassle learning about lighting and learning how to use a DSLR and white balance and all those other things. But I’m actually starting to get it down, and I’ve produced a few videos on sect, whole sign houses, benefic and malefic planets, and things like that, and I’m pretty excited about doing more tutorials there. So people should check that out on YouTube and subscribe. And yeah, things are pretty exciting. Kelly, you’ve actually been doing a lot of livestreaming lately, right?
KS: Yeah, back in May and April, I was doing a Facebook Live. I did a few of them in a row just to try them out, and they’re lots of fun. I know we were chatting about this before the show, Chris, the power of Facebook is that it does act as a wonderful access point for everyone, where instantly everybody gets everything in terms of making your info or your stuff available. Yeah, Facebook Live, I’ve been doing a bit of that, and also trying to do a little bit more on my YouTube channel, because it does seem like video is what people are really looking for going forward. So yeah, I’ve had to upgrade my webcam, which I was very happy to do and that’s working well. I haven’t quite gotten to the ‘light’ piece yet, Chris, so I might be tapping you for tips on that. But yeah, the video stuff is great. Austin, do you do a lot of video stuff, or just in your classes?
AC: Oh, zero, with no plans.
KS: Okay.
AC: I do PowerPoints. I present material.
KS: Yeah.
AC: Yeah, I have no interest in performing like that.
KS: Okay. So that is just not for you.
CB: Yeah, yeah. Well, we’re gonna still drag you in here for the purpose of doing the forecasts. So you’ll maybe be dragged, kicking and screaming, into doing some video.
AC: No, I will sullenly consent.
CB: Okay.
KS: We’re happy to have your consent, no matter how sullen.
CB: Awesome.
AC: Oh, fine.
CB: So I think we’ve gotten most of the preliminary stuff out of the way. I’m just trying to think. The only other thing was that between now and the last time we talked NORWAC happened.
KS: Yeah.
CB: And it was actually a great conference. There were tons of people who listened to the podcast, who joined us there, some of whom said it was their very first conference. And I actually really regretted, in retrospect, not setting up an actual meet-and-greet for everybody. I did a book-signing, and I met a lot of podcast listeners there. But, Kelly, your idea of doing a meet-and-greet at UAC next year—that idea became even better after NORWAC. Because there were just so many people that came up at different points in the conference, but I really want to find a way to connect listeners of the podcast together when they attend a conference like this. So let’s definitely plan on doing a meet-and-greet and maybe even recording a live episode of the podcast at UAC next year, if we can pull it off.
KS: Totally. I think that’s a great idea. I think the meet-and-greet for sure. And if we can get Austin to deal with a live audience, that would be good.
CB: Okay, awesome. So yeah, NORWAC was a great event. Thanks to all the podcast listeners that came up and said ‘hi’. Why don’t we transition at this point and actually get into the actual forecast, which is the focus of our discussion today. So we’re talking about the month of July and the major astrological alignments during the course of it. Should we do it in terms of prominence? Or should we go through in terms of chronologically what comes first? What do you guys feel like?
AC: I like sequential.
CB: Yeah, okay. Sequential’s good. In that case, what’s the first thing that happens in July that you think is really important or that stands out to you guys that you want to highlight?
KS: This is easy. Mars opposite Pluto.
CB: Mars opposite Pluto.
KS: That’s what I would say.
CB: Okay, so that aspect happens right out of the gate around July 2, I think.
KS: Yeah, it’s right out of the gate. We’re building into it already. You know, end of June, we’ve got Mercury conjunct Mars, and Mercury opposite Pluto. For my money, I think it’s gonna be the most complex aspect of the whole month, but it definitely flavors the first week, if we think about week one, week two, week three, week four. I mean, the first two weeks of July I’ve got this ‘Pluto’ theme. Well, I don’t have it, that’s what’s happening. We’ve got Mars opposite Pluto in week one, and then the Sun opposite Pluto, with the Full Moon conjunct Pluto in week two. So anything you want to know about Pluto in Capricorn and what it might be doing to you—or your life or your chart—you’re going to get examples of this or activations of this, and maybe not in the most fun way. Mars opposite Pluto, I feel like I’ll turn into Austin on this one. It’s intense. You’re wrestling with stuff. And it’s not happy stuff. Yeah, you’re gonna become aware of stuff that you didn’t know, that had maybe been driving you. And that awareness and clarity can be really good, but the process by which things become clear is gonna be difficult or confronting for a lot of us. I don’t know, would you agree, Austin, or would you go in a different direction?
AC: Um, I wouldn’t disagree with any of that. I would add a couple of things. So that Mars-Pluto is then followed by Sun-Pluto, right?
KS: Yeah.
AC: And Sun-Pluto basically happens on the Full Moon, and the Full Moon is right on top of Pluto. The Full Moon is on the 8th. And so, really, for the first-third of July that’s the theme, right? It’s Mars-Pluto, Sun-Pluto, Moon-Pluto. Like I absolutely agree. You know, to a certain degree, even at the present moment—which is June 28—we’re already entering that. When we were discussing June last month, I said it starts in late June, but this series of planets in Cancer opposing Pluto goes well into early July. One of the things that I see, especially with Sun and Mars opposite Pluto—let’s just start with Mars—is that people often deal with feelings of powerlessness. And when we’re dealing with Pluto, people love to use the word ‘evolutionary’. And I do, too, but I mean it in a more strict biological sense. Pluto has to do with slow, permanent changes to the environment. And being creatures that we are in environments, a lot depends on our ability to mutate and adapt to the changing environment. And that can be an inner environment or terrain or it can be an external one. But we may be recognizing that the claws and teeth we currently have (our Mars) are not really suited to what the environment is becoming, as indicated by Pluto. And that pings another one of July’s ongoing themes, which is the combustion and purification of Mars, which occurs all month. And I have a lot of thoughts about that, but I don’t want to jump to that. I just want to say that the Pluto-Mars stuff connects to it. And then Pluto-Sun—Pluto can temporarily put out or obscure the Sun’s light like a dark cloud. It’s along the same lines as feeling powerless. Oh, my God, what can I do? I’m not able to do this. This is overwhelming, right? And it’s overwhelming until a particular change is made. So those are definitely themes. And also, with Cancer and Capricorn being so active, you have matters of security, feeling secure, feeling safe, feeling internally for Cancer and externally for Capricorn, and so those are themes. What I will say is that I can’t think of a better Full Moon to have a horror movie marathon on or to go, I don’t know, get drunk in the graveyard like a teenager. Even if it’s not your normal MO, just pretend you’re a goth for a couple of days. There’s a way to move with that and to explore these themes without necessarily just being in bed and being depressed and crying.
CB: All right, so this is the ‘goth’ Full Moon in July of 2017.
AC: Mm-hmm.
CB: I mean, one of the things that’s interesting is these lunations this month are the lead-in to the eclipses next month, basically, right?
AC: Mm-hmm.
CB: So this is our precursor or our ramping up in some ways to whatever it is those eclipses are gonna be about. Have you guys seen—and it’s not just astrologers.
KS: Everything everywhere?
CB: It’s everywhere. I was in a grocery store the other day, and I found this amazing magazine. There’s a whole magazine—it must have been one-off, cuz it’s not part of a series. But it’s like a whole magazine dedicated to the eclipse, and it had a lot of great articles on the eclipse. But I was actually surprised there was an article by Steven Forrest in the middle of it, which was talking about what does astrology say about this eclipse. So it’s been a really interesting phenomenon seeing the eclipse that’s about to take across the entire United States become a broader phenomenon that so many people are paying attention to at this point in time.
AC: I mean, a total eclipse of the Sun is the single most dramatic celestial phenomenon that we track in astrology.
CB: Yeah, I’m gonna see if I can find that magazine. You guys keep talking while I do that. And it’s unique because we haven’t had an eclipse like this—for US astrologers—that goes across the entire country in a long, long time, right?
AC: It’s been about a hundred years.
CB: Yeah.
KS: Well, I think part of what makes this eclipse grab the popular attention is that it is visible over so much land that is heavily populated. It’s basically going from the Pacific Northwest, all the way down to the Carolinas or Virginia. Austin, correct me if I’m wrong.
AC: Yeah, I believe the exit wound is in the Carolinas.
KS: Yeah, the exit wound. So separate to astrology and witchcraft and the pagan peeps—which is obviously all of our crew and our tribe—the astronomers will be tracking this as well, because, as you said, Austin, this is a visually-spectacular and dramatic phenomenon. To have the Sun in the middle of the day, in the middle of summer—which is the highest, stronger Sun—darkened, and for people to be able to stand outside, it is phenomenal. It defines that. It will be spectacular. But going back to the origins of humanity, it has been shocking, and historically, eclipses were always a cause for concern. Because if we look at the Sun as the leader figure or that solar, divine light, to lose that light, it always sends ripples through the consciousness, I guess.
AC: Yeah, without making any specific traditions, I think it’s very safe to say that it will time the peak of the United States leadership crisis, which has been ongoing for several years.
KS: You have used your words very well there, Austin.
AC: Thank you.
CB: Yeah, I mean, that’s the thing everyone thinks about, just because the president has Leo rising, and we’re about to have a solar eclipse that goes across the entire United States that’s in Leo. So one way or another that’s obviously very much tied into Trump’s chart and into the leader of the country’s chart at this point in time.
AC: Yeah. And even if we have a different leader, again, there’s a leadership crisis, which is not the product of any one leader. If anything, our current leader, as well as the people who were running last year, were a product of a systemic crisis, which takes years to develop and will take years to resolve. But I believe that this solar eclipse in Leo—and maybe the one next year, too—will certainly time the peak of that crisis.
CB: Definitely. And I found that magazine. So it looks like this. But it was literally on a grocery store shelf at a Sprouts or something like that, and it actually has some really great articles, not just on the astronomy of the eclipse, but also on the history of eclipses. And it has this article by Steven Forrest talking about the eclipse from an astrological perspective. So this thing is starting to get a lot of coverage in very interesting ways. And so, it’ll be interesting—not the shock waves, but the ripple effect that has on some people’s awareness of astrology. It’s like, what does that mean? I mean, it almost begs the question, when you’re looking at an eclipse like that. Even if you have no background in astrology, what is the significance of something like that? It sort of leads to or sort of begs or brings up the question about astrology in general.
AC: Mm-hmm. We should probably talk about July.
CB: Yeah, yeah. We keep falling into this. Everyone wants to talk about the eclipse.
KS: And so do we.
AC: And we shall.
KS: We will next month. But, Austin, you made a point that I did want to rift off a little, which is the combustion of Mars.
AC: I’ve been obsessing about it.
KS: Yeah. In my very detailed notes that I was showing you guys before, I’m like, oh, shit. Basically, from the get-go, right out of the gate of July, Mars has just slipped into that combustion. We get the cazimi towards the end of the month for a couple of days, but this is Mars combusting Cancer. I mean, there’s a sneakiness or a slyness or a defensiveness/protectiveness that is almost percolating in the unconscious, I think, but I’m intrigued as to how this is gonna manifest. I mean, I’m not a huge fan of Mars in Cancer to start with, and I think this is adding a layer of complexity.
AC: Yeah. So I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and the conjunction of Mars and the Sun is—according to the vast majority of traditional authors—the beginning and end of Mars’ cycle. It is literally the invisible, dark, or New Moon of Mars’ cycle, whereas the Mars retrograde—which we had last year—is the out-of-control, Full Moon phase of Mars when he’s very bright. And so, when you’re looking at combustion, there’s a lot that’s said about combustion, burning up a planet and not permitting it to exercise its function independent of the Sun, right? You can’t see it. It’s the boss looking over your shoulder. But the flames of combustion—which are often considered negatively—are also in traditional texts considered positively as purifying.
KS: Yes.
AC: The Sun is bringing that planet—in this case, Mars—back into alignment with what the Sun represents, which is a centralizing, intelligent, intentional order, right? The Sun is the ‘great conscious’ despot of the solar system according to ancient authors. And so, even though there may be emotional overheating—Sun-Mars in Cancer, definitely there will be emotional overheating—the suggestion is that it’s purifying. That it’s burning off the dross that Mars has accumulated over the last two years since the previous conjunction. And I was thinking about metaphors for this. In my transits class, just last Saturday, I taught a two-hour class on interpreting Mars transits, and of course there’s a huge difference between a Mars retrograde visiting your chart and a Mars conjunct the Sun versus an occidental or an oriental Mars, right? And I was thinking about metaphors for what is that meeting between the Sun and Mars, that cazimi, and I was thinking about the metaphors that I tend to use for the retrograde. And a lot of times with the retrograde I see—we talked about this last year—a ‘berserker’ Mars, where it’s like super-out-of-control or doing absolutely nothing cuz it’s sleepy after berserking and then it’s super-out-of-control. And then I was thinking about it—Mars and the Sun—and I was like, oh, it’s the ceremony of being knighted, right? It’s when the sovereign is like, tap-tap, “Arise, Sir Mars.” It’s the rededicating the warrior to principle, to the principle honor/virtue of the Sun rather than just Mars going off by itself, and so that became my working metaphor for what that ceremony between Mars and the Sun is. And I also think if you’re going to contrast the ‘berserker’ retrograde Mars, Mars in combustion near the Sun like that—it’s like the ‘paladin’ phase, right? Anybody who plays Dungeons & Dragons will know exactly what I’m talking about.
CB: Kelly’s a big Dungeons & Dragons fan.
KS: I am a huge fan. I’m right there with you guys.
AC: You know, you guys can laugh at me, but we’re everywhere. Watch Caddyshack.
KS: No, my stepson and my husband probably know. Yeah, we’ll watch Caddyshack.
AC: You know, the sort of Arthurian knight rather than the blood-soaked ravager.
KS: Yeah.
AC: Cuz Mars contains both of those, right? And so, one, we use signs as a key to which one we’re gonna get, but we also use phases, or we should be using phases.
KS: Yes. And I always think, too, of any planet combust. But if we’re thinking Mars, it’s like the planet has the ‘cloak of invisibility’, to borrow a Harry Potter reference.
CB: That’s a metaphor that I can get behind, the Harry Potter one.
KS: Yeah, for the people who aren’t Dungeons & Dragons fans. So it’s operating as—I always think of spies, for instance, which is a really functional expression of a planet that is in combustion, if it has got clear directives and ability to act. If you’re a spy, you don’t want to be seen. You want to operate outside the realm of awareness. You don’t want that spotlight on you. And so, what you’re saying there, Austin, about this idea of the Mars-Sun conjunction—the purification and the knighting process—yeah, there’s maybe a particular task that needs to happen that has that purification burning off, but also maybe needs to happen in a way that is under that cloak of invisibility. It needs to happen in a private or an off-centered stage kind of way.
AC: Oh, yeah.
CB: That’s a really important point, just because, traditionally, one of the major interpretations of planets under the beams was that there’s something hidden, or sometimes something internalized about the planet. And that sometimes leads to a conflict in terms of how to interpret these or how readily apparent it’s gonna be in terms of what the predicted outcome is gonna be, when you have something that otherwise is supposed to indicate that part of what’s gonna happen is behind the scenes or not necessarily fully apparent because Mars itself is hidden underneath or behind the beams of the Sun during this time.
AC: Yeah, a lot of shadowy power plays, certainly on the political stage. I also treat planets which are combust the Sun as being ‘eaten’ by the Sun. But when the Sun ‘eats’ them, it has them inside it.
KS: Yes.
AC: And so, in some ways, being so close to the Sun is like the Sun eating a handful of habaneros. You know, it makes the Sun, which is hot, even hotter.
KS: This is spicy.
AC: Yeah. And so, there’s a general tempers flaring. There’s sort of a warning for that all summer. Or at least for July and August.
KS: Well, and that’s the other point to make, too. We’re going to have two different tones to this Mars combustion. The first three weeks of July, we’ve got it in Cancer—with Mars and the Sun in Cancer—and then last week of July, first couple of weeks of August—it will be in Leo. So definitely going for the northern, summer, the southern, winter. But I think it’ll feel different or manifest a little differently, the Cancer versus the Leo expression.
AC: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, and it’s also right after it moves into Leo that you actually get the conjunction, right? And that’s part of why that ‘knighthood/paladin’ sort of status, those images came to mind because it’s Mars in the sign of Leo. There’s something that wants to be virtuous about Leo.
KS: Yes.
CB: Right.
KS: Yeah, when you were saying that, Austin, I was like, oh, that’s the cazimi piece, because that ‘knighting’, if you will—it’s early Leo—with a sense of integrity maybe.
AC: Mm-hmm.
KS: Sorry, Chris.
AC: Leading up to that is the purification, right?
KS: Yes.
AC: There’s all this stuff you have to do to become a knight, right?
KS: Correct.
AC: You have to prove your honor and virtue and what not. And then there’s also, okay, you’ve been knighted, but you don’t instantly begin fighting dragons, right? There’s that period of coming back down to earth, which means, visually, Mars being visible here on Earth again. And so, there’s coming out of that somewhat sacred space and then emerging into dirt and sky and trees again, and be like, okay, so how do I live up to all that? You know, it seems really clear at the time when I was getting the benedictio militis. But now I’m here and these people are assholes, and I’m not feeling quite as noble. Nobility is much harder in practice than in theory.
KS: Absolutely.
CB: That actually brings up a question I had, or a discussion point that’s a complete sidetrack or a partial sidetrack from what we’re talking about there. But in this video I recorded and released yesterday on just the basic traditional distinction between benefic and malefic planets, I wanted to introduce that concept and reassert its usefulness and validity, because there’s a tendency for Venus and Jupiter to coincide with subjectively-preferable experiences and there’s a tendency for Mars and Saturn to coincide with subjectively-unpreferable or challenging experiences. But I had to sort of write off or say that even traditional authors acknowledged that there are positive or constructive manifestations of Mars and Saturn, and there are negative manifestations of Venus and Jupiter, and sometimes you can see that through the configuration or condition in the chart. One of the modern counterpoints is that those things are up to choice, that it’s up to a person whether they’re gonna manifest one of those placements in a more ‘benefic’ or ‘malefic’ way. But technically-speaking, I mean, what are some of the things that you guys look at when trying to determine if a ‘benefic’ placement or a ‘malefic’ placement is gonna work out in a more positive or negative way?
AC: Uh, phase, houses it rules.
CB: Houses it rules. So yeah, houses it rules. So that actually ties into the whole ‘planetary yogas’ thing that I was talking about with Ernst earlier this month. That’s probably what you’re referring to.
AC: Yeah. Actually, as I told you privately, that came out right in the middle of an obsessive ‘Vedic’ kick for me. And so, I bought that, and I’ve been doing my best to memorize those and put fresh eyes on a bunch of charts I’m already familiar with. Really good stuff.
CB: You’re talking about Ernst’s book, Core Yogas?
AC: Yeah, the Core Yogas. And a lot of them, it’s like, oh, of course you look at that. I look at that anyway. This is just a more structured way to do that. So one of the things that was interesting from that—that actually ties into this month—there’s this intense, shady ‘Mars purification’ stuff going on, and there’s Pluto. But the first week, Venus moves into Gemini and Mercury moves into Leo, and then they form a nice sextile, right? And those are not the signs where they have the utmost dignity, but they’re both fun, and they’re in a sextile. Now here’s where it ties into the yoga. So one primary set of solar yogas is, is there a planet in the sign before the Sun and the sign after the Sun? And if so, then you have a planet which basically heralds the day and heralds the night, right? This is something we look at anyway. And so, we’ve got that, right? Furthermore, in Vedic astrology—or in a lot of Vedic astrology, there’s certainly dispute within it—Mercury is often treated as a benefic when it is not sharing the same sign with the Sun. When it’s sharing the same sign with the Sun, it loses its benefic power. But if it’s before or after, then it gets treated as a benefic. So if we were looking at birth charts, we would see Venus before the Sun heralding the day and Mercury after the Sun heralding the evening both having benefic status. Even though there’s all this ‘underworldy, deep, transformation, crucible, purification, being on fire’ stuff going on beneath the surface, I think there’s actually gonna be a lot of fun to be had externally.
CB: Yeah, that seems related to the Hellenistic concept of ‘spear-bearing’ and the idea of a procession of planets that either rise before the Sun—and act as spear-bearers or bodyguards—who march out in front of the Sun, on the morning of the native’s birth and rise before it. Or you have planets acting as the rear guard and coming out after the Sun, or setting after the Sun, on the day of the native’s birth, and therefore, sort of protecting it from the other side.
AC: I think that’s exactly what it is. I think it’s an evolution or a refinement of that doctrine. And they do the same thing for the Moon, and there’s a version of that for the Moon as well, right? That which precedes the Moon’s rise and that which comes after it. The Hellenistic version is those trailing after the Moon, but it’s the same idea of the Sun and/or Moon’s rise being heralded by something and then their setting being heralded by something, right?
CB: Right. I saw that. And he was actually defining that as kemadruma yoga, which is the term for void-of-course.
AC: Kemadruma is when you don’t have anything on either side of the Moon, and the Moon is lonely.
CB: Right, by sign. But it’s a transliteration of void-of-course. They’re taking the concept of void-of-course—which in Greek is kenodromia—and it’s been transliterated into Sanskrit as kemadruma.
AC: Oh, that’s nice.
CB: Conceptually, though, they’re using it as a sign-based, void-of-course. As it was defined in Ernst’s book, they said there’s no planet either in a sign in front of the Sun, and there’s no planet in the sign behind the Sun. So this is kind of interesting to me because it complicates the whole Western issue with the void-of-course, which is that there’s three different definitions. And I’m actually gonna do a video on this pretty soon. I have an article on it already on theastrologydictionary.com. Basically, there’s the original Hellenistic definition of void-of-course, which is that the Moon does not complete any aspect in the next 30° apparently, regardless of sign boundary. There’s a later Medieval or Renaissance definition, or the modern definition, which is that the Moon doesn’t complete any aspect until it leaves the sign that it’s in. And then there’s, finally, a reinterpretation of Lilly’s definition, which holds that the Moon is not within orb of completing any aspect, regardless of sign boundary, and whatever orb you’re using for the Moon. So there’s three different definitions. And now, with that Indian definition, we throw a fourth one in. So there’s four void-of-course Moon definitions.
AC: I think with the ‘Indian’ thing, I think it’s the same concept, but it’s a little different. I mean, it’s different in a lot of ways than being void-of-course. Really, it’s the principle that the Moon hates being alone more than any other planet, right? The Moon has power to offer every other planet. There are a lot of different electional techniques where no matter what you’re doing—even if you’re only looking at one planet—you always also look at the Moon. But yeah, it’s the idea that the Moon hates being lonely. And then there are a variety of cancellations to that. Like if the Moon is full, then it’s not lonely. Yeah, there are like five or six different possible cancellations, and it’s all ways that the Moon gets supported. But the Moon both requires and provides support. I mean, it’s literally the Earth’s satellite, right?
KS: It’s interaction.
AC: Yeah, it needs interaction the way that no other planet does. But anyway, yeah, so we’ve got Mercury and Venus—Venus heralding the day and Mercury heralding the night—and Mercury’s gonna get more and more visible in the Western sky. We get to the maximum elongation at the end of the month for Mercury, which means Mercury is bright and high in the post-sunset sky as it’s gonna get. You know, it’s this nice counterpoint to the intense and potentially dark stuff that’s happening.
CB: Sure. And, Kelly, I meant to ask you, what definition do you use for void-of-course? Do you use that as a concept when you’re doing elections? Or is it something that doesn’t play a huge role for you?
KS: I do think it’s really important, because one of the considerations that I would use for the strength or debility of a planet is the aspects or the relationships. You know, if you look at the difference between accidental and essential qualities of strength or qualities of weakness, the accidental configurations can really boost or give an outlet or provide support to a planet that might otherwise have restrictions. So with the Moon, it’s funny. I’m like I don’t have a hard-and-fast rule for this, but if it was more than, say, 12° away from making an aspect to another planet, then I would be starting to think about a different option. If I’m doing electional work with the Moon, or trying to time something that’s really specific, I will try and get the Moon applying within 12° to something helpful. I mean, the trick with the Moon—as Austin was saying—is it doesn’t like to be alone. So it’s better to have the Moon’s energy directed towards something than towards nothing. I mean, you don’t want to pick a really stressful something. Even though that can give a focal point, maybe it can cause more trouble than it’s worth. I mean, probably the definition that I would fall back to most quickly is, will the Moon make an aspect before it changes signs?
AC: Yeah, that’s a good one. Also, the arc of daily motion is a good orb.
KS: Yeah.
AC: Will it, in the next 24 hours, hit anything?
KS: Yeah. Which gives us up to about 15° if we’ve got a quick-moving Moon. 12 to be safe for a slower Moon.
AC: So I actually noticed the other day that if I remove things that were discovered in the 18th century and beyond from my chart, my Moon is actually super-void-of-course, and it rules my rising. Yeah, I have Moon at 16 Gemini, and it wouldn’t make an aspect with a planet until 2 Cancer.
KS: Okay. But it is 5° or 6° separated from Saturn, right?
AC: Yeah. It’s 2° separated by a square from the Sun.
KS: That’s your tightest one.
AC: Mm-hmm.
KS: And that’s where, okay, yes, it’s not applying to anything, but it is carrying the energy of that recent separation.
AC: Yeah.
KS: It’s not as strong, maybe.
AC: But it’s not totally alone.
KS: Correct. It is not alone.
AC: It’s bidding farewell to the Sun.
KS: Correct.
AC: It’s standing at the end of the driveway.
KS: It still feels the warmth from the hug, basically.
AC: Yeah, yeah.
KS: They’ve had their goodbye hug. You’re not in the car and pulling out of the driveway yet.
AC: That’s an excellent point.
KS: Yeah, I think those things—if we don’t have an applying aspect—do we have something that’s relatively close separating? That does make the Moon very happy, cuz she’ll carry that energy with her.
CB: Well, if you guys feel like it, I’d love to do a whole episode on the void-of-course Moon at some point, just because I’m pulling together those definitions and just talking about it. Cuz one of the things is that it seems like many of those definitions are relevant. It’s not that there’s just like one ‘true’ void-of-course, but there’s different phases that are all symbolically-significant in different ways and perhaps to different extents. So maybe we could talk about that sometime.
AC: Yeah.
KS: Totally. We could talk about that for two hours.
AC: I was just reading this last night—
KS: Sorry.
AC: Oh, no, no. You know, with the kemadruma yoga, the Moon having no love, what Ernst wrote is that it basically makes everything harder because there’s just no support. And it’s like, yeah, the ‘good’ yogas will still play out in their time, but it’ll be harder, and the bad stuff will be even harder. It’s just like a general ‘there’s no support’ for the life, internally or externally, or there’s very little support.
CB: Right. And I love that they have in the Indian tradition—in Ernst’s book, Core Yogas—where he was talking about those additional mitigating conditions, like the one you mentioned; if the Moon’s void-of-course, but it’s a Full Moon—and the Moon is full in its light—then it’s a mitigating condition, and therefore, it cancels out the void-of-course. Cuz we have some mitigations in the Western tradition as well, where Lilly and I think Bonatti said that if the Moon is void-of-course that’s a negative indication, especially in an election or a horary chart, unless the Moon is in Cancer, its domicile, or Taurus, its exaltation, in which case it cancels out.
AC: Oh, and there’s also a cancellation condition if it’s in one of Jupiter’s signs.
KS: Yes, if it’s Pisces or Sag, then it’s okay.
AC: Yeah, that it gets some love.
CB: Right. You know, talking about different things like that, the idea that there’s other mitigating conditions from the Indian tradition, I think all of that would make for a good show. So anyway, we’ll come back to that maybe later in July. So let’s get back to the forecast for July. So we’ve talked about those ingresses. So you guys talked about the Venus ingress into Gemini, which takes place July 4, the Mercury ingress into Leo, which takes place on July 5. We touched base on the Full Moon in Capricorn, which is taking place on July 9. So we’re getting into mid-month at this point, and that brings us pretty much to that conjunction that we were talking about. So Mars eventually moves into Leo July 20.
AC: Yeah, the middle 10 days are sort of their own section. It’s the last third where it just becomes super-Leo-y, super-quick.
KS: Yeah.
AC: On the 20th, boom, Mars moves into Leo. 21st, Mercury conjoins the North Node perfectly in Leo. Then on the 22nd, the Sun moves into Leo. And then on the 23rd, the Sun and Moon align, New Moon in Leo. And then on the 26th, the perfect Mars-Sun conjunction in Leo, right? So there’s just a ton of ‘Leo’ stuff that happens to kick off that last third.
CB: Yeah.
KS: Totally. It’s like we go from, well, wet to dry or internal to external. There’s a bunch of different metaphors with that Cancer/Leo shift. The New Moon—which is at 0 Leo—I think that’s a really interesting one. I mean, the first few degrees of Leo, we’re gonna have the New Moon plus the Sun-Mars cazimi. And the terms of the very early part of Leo are Jupiter. I don’t know, there’s something about the early part of Leo that I think has maybe this noble quality that we alluded to earlier. And we do get a couple of activations at the end of the month, as soon as the planets hit Leo. I was curious, Austin, about the decan for that early Leo and whether that kind of feeds into that or adds something different.
AC: Well, the decan is ruled either in the triplicity method by the Sun or in the descending order And so, you don’t tend to get the nobility images there. It’s the
KS: Right.
AC: It’s the middle decan of Leo, which is Jupiter-ruled in both systems, where you get that more ‘triumph of the light’ nobility stuff. I mean, the first decan of Leo is still Leo, and the Sun’s still there, and it’s still super-strong for the Sun, but just image-wise. But what’s interesting is there’s trouble in the golden palace this year. If we think about the signs of the domiciles of the planets, the Sun has come back to Leo, but Mars is there. And Mars and the Sun are working it out, but the North Node’s there. Rahu’s there, the darkener. Literally the devourer of the Sun has set up residence in the Sun’s palace, right? And so, that changes things. You know, this one particularity of the way I do astrology is I’m very whole sign on the nodes. If you have the Sun or Moon in the same sign as a node, that matters a lot. I would say anything sharing co-presence with a node matters. Of course the closer it is, the more important it is. But even if it’s 20° away, I’m gonna underline that. And so, what’s really interesting about that New Moon is it’s a normal New Moon in Leo, right? So we’re starting Leo, and who am I really? I need to be more in line with my authentic self. I’m going to perform my truth and bring things into order in my life, etc., etc., all this normal New Moon in Leo stuff. But we get a second New Moon in Leo, and that is the giant solar eclipse. Not only do we have an eclipse, but we have two New Moons in a row in the same sign, which isn’t incredibly rare, but it’s certainly not the norm.
CB: It’s like the astrological equivalent of a Blue Moon.
AC: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
KS: Yes.
AC: I think it’s exactly that.
CB: I remember we had an argument about that like a year ago, because there was an actual Blue Moon that took place in a month. But you guys were like that’s totally arbitrary, because the months are arbitrarily-drawn. But this is actually two New Moons taking place in the same sign, in a one-month time span.
AC: I think we had that last year. I think there were two Full Moons in Sag last June and May. But yeah, it’s unusual.
KS: It is.
AC: You know, it’s all about Leo, Leo, Leo. Like this is where the action is. In many ways, the whole year has been leading up to all this stuff that happens in Leo. And so, look at where Leo is in the chart. And the Cancer stuff is important, it’s leading up to it, but Leo is where the royal rumble is gonna take place, right? And so, yeah, I just think it’s a really important area. I would say that if I had to pick a single sign that the configurations were most focused on changing—messing with, exploring, going deeper into, etc., etc.—it would be Leo.
CB: Yeah. I mean, for everybody personally, I would tell people to see where Leo falls in their chart. I mean, for me, from my perspective, from a whole sign perspective, what whole sign house does Leo occupy in your chart? That area of your life is about to get a lot of activity, especially if that sign happens to be activated this year through one of the timing techniques, like profections. I would also look at how Leo is activated in your chart, and what sign—using the advanced method of profections—Leo is activated relative to. That gets a little bit complicated, I guess. I probably can’t go into that. But I think you guys would agree that a lot of people—and some people in particular—are about to get a lot of activity in that particular part of their life, when you get this huge pile-up of planets in the same sign.
AC: Absolutely.
KS: Huge.
AC: And doing such dramatic things. They’re not all just sharing the sign, right? We have the Mars-Sun conjunction; that’s a rare thing. You don’t have Mars-Sun conjunctions in Leo, even every decade, right? And then a total solar eclipse. Even if you don’t live in the United States, total solar eclipses in the sign of the Sun are not that common. And then of course Mercury will eventually retrograde back into Leo. There’s other stuff. There are accents to it, but there’s a lot going on. You know, like Chris was saying, if Leo is your profected sign, that’s a big deal. But I would also—and, Chris, I’m sure you would agree—profect from both the Sun and the Moon, as well as the ascendant. And if any of those fall in Leo, you’ll probably get a big hit out of this year’s Sun in Leo period.
CB: Sure.
KS: For sure. I mean, the other thing that I would maybe just add at a more simplistic level is the focus on the fixed signs through the aspect patterns. So if you know your chart of course, if you have any of the fixed signs rising, then that’s gonna put Leo, by whole sign, into one of the angular houses, which is gonna make it a little more dominant. But I think, too, if you’re a person who’s very heavy in Taurus planets or Scorpio planets or Aquarius planets, there is this maybe tension coming in with all these Leo energies, with this conglomeration; I don’t even know what word to call this. Like a ‘pride’ of planets maybe in Leo.
AC: Nice.
KS: You know, they’re gonna be squaring Taurus/Scorpio and opposing anything in Aquarius. Though, of course, Aquarius is activated once we get to the eclipses anyway. But just on a more simplistic level, if people aren’t into profections, that’s another way to tap in. But it is going to be all about your Leo stuff this month.
CB: And it’s interesting. Since this is the lead-in into the eclipse—this pile-up of planets in Leo—it’s also kind of like the initial phase or the starting point of a race and sort of like a sequence of eclipses that are gonna take place in Leo over the next year or two. So this pile-up for some people might be particularly dramatic, but it’s not necessarily a one-off event. It’s like the start of a sequence of events that are taking place in six-month increments.
AC: Yeah, I would say this is the most dramatic scene in that story, but we actually had our first eclipse—which was a lunar eclipse in Leo—about February 10. And so, that’s foreshadowing both on the wordplay and the literal level of a shadow falling across the room. But it’s foreshadowing. That should give you a hint as to what this sequence is going to be about for you.
CB: Sure. I will just pull that up. That is the day that I published my book, of course, on the Leo eclipse, on February 10. That was a fun day to commemorate that back then. All right, and maybe the last thing that might be relevant is even using other simple concepts—that’s how you can get more clarity when you’re talking about a mundane event like this—is just layering on basic concept after basic concept. I mean, another one would be sect.
KS: Yes.
CB: Generally speaking, all other factors aside, with Mars going through Leo, the people with day charts might have more challenges or obstacles that are more serious that come up during that part of the year, in that specific part of the life. Whatever house Leo occupies in their chart is indicating a particular part of their lives that could be more challenging, whereas it might be a little bit more, still annoying, but a little bit more constructive for the people with night charts when they have Mars going through Leo, and that big pile-up of Leo stuff taking place over the next month or two.
KS: Totally.
CB: Okay. Any other points about that? One of the things I noticed here is, when do we hit the shadow period for the Mercury retrograde?
KS: Oh, yeah. The third week, maybe.
AC: Last week of the month.
CB: So Mercury stations retrograde—
AC: The 28th.
KS: 25th or 26th.
AC: So I have a thing that I want to say about shadow periods.
KS: Tell us.
AC: I use shadow periods. They’re great. However, the shadow period includes Mercury’s maximum elongation, which is its own phase. And if you’re just seeing as shadow, you’re actually missing something, that if you just looked outside would be super-obvious and trumps it as an interpretative factor. It’s the maximum elongation, which means that it’s as bright and high as it’s gonna get. It’s a phase of fullness. Like everything, since the superior conjunction is coming to a head. You’re like, “Oh, my God, I get it now. I have so much to communicate.” It’s a period of overflowing mentally, and it sort of gives what it has and then begins dropping down towards the western horizon very quickly. But recognizing that peak for what it is, is super-important for interpreting it correctly. Just saying it’s in the shadow—which it is, and is not wrong—will maybe confuse you if you don’t also take into consideration the maximum elongation.
KS: Yeah, that visibility component is a factor that shouldn’t be overlooked with that maximum elongation, the brightness. Good point, Austin.
CB: It looks like—
AC: Go ahead.
CB: So Mercury’s gonna retrograde back to 28 Leo. So it looks like it passes that point, and thus, begins its shadow period around July 24, when it hits 28 Leo while it’s still direct, but preparing for the retrograde station, which it’ll eventually hit in Virgo. So once we get to July 24, it’s like the precursor or the beginning of the sequence of events that will lead up to and coincide with the Mercury retrograde period. If that’s an important period for you, that sequence of events will really start happening sometime around July 24; or at least the precursor to those events.
KS: Yes. The other thing that’s happening right around that time, we’ve got maybe the final sort of larger or more significant aspect of the month, which is Venus opposite Saturn which will happen.
AC: That’s like an unpleasant day or two.
KS: Yeah. Again, I agree, Austin. It’s not like a game-changer, but it’s gonna flavor the mood.
AC: So I was thinking about that, Kelly. So what’s really interesting is Mercury at the end of Leo trines Uranus the same day.
KS: Yes, yes.
AC: And so, it’s like insight and mental breakthrough possibly at the same time as emotional compression. And so, I was thinking about that just in terms of the way it affected Mercury and Venus, and then I sort of flipped that. And I was like, oh, that will serve to move the ‘Saturn-Uranus’ story along.
KS: Yes.
AC: Saturn and Uranus have been bouncing back and forth between trines, and they’ve got another one to go before the end of the year. And so, it’s sort of like relating mentally and emotionally to where you’re at in this opportunity to reconcile your obligations and what you have to do, and your necessities (Saturn) with getting more freedom and choice in your life, and also adapting to things which weren’t part of the plan (Uranus). And so, yes, there’s the effect on Mercury and Venus, but it’s also them moving the ‘Uranus-Saturn’ story on.
KS: Yes. Well, exactly, because right at the very end of the month, Venus then will sextile Uranus herself. So it’s separated by a few degrees, and therefore, a few days, but I think that’s a really good point, Austin. It’s just bringing up that story of whatever the Saturn-Uranus trine is about for each person based on chart placement and activation directly. And the one thing that keeps coming up for me with this Venus in Gemini—just based on what you said earlier, Austin—is this idea that there’s a playfulness to Venus in Gemini for most of this month, other than those couple of days when she’s directly facing-off with Saturn. There’s nothing wrong with Venus in Taurus of course, but she’s lighter; that sanguine, maybe flirty or free-spirited vibe we get of her. And I think we’re gonna finish off July with the Venus-Uranus sextile, which is fun and playful, and there’s a little bit of confidence to experiment with or to explore. Mercury will be in Virgo by then. But yeah, the ‘Venus’ vibe is kind of fun and funky.
AC: Yeah. Well, and that sextile happens, I don’t know, on the 6th or 7th, between the two.
KS: Yes.
AC: In the middle of all the heavy stuff, early on the 7th.
KS: Yeah.
AC: So all that heavy stuff earlier in the month, again, it’s counterpointed by this fun ‘Mercury-Venus’ thing, which is nice. And I was thinking about what to say about heavy Pluto-Mars combustion, blah, blah, blah, which is the first 20 days, right? And so, I think it’s really about cleaning up in preparation for what’s gonna happen. And so, what does ‘purification’ mean? Well, it means maybe changing your diet. Maybe changing your exercise regimen. Maybe drinking less or smoking less, whatever habits you have.
KS: Except on the ‘goth’ Full Moon, of course.
AC: Well, yeah, exactly. Or you could take a hallucinogenic and a near-deadly dose of belladonna if you really wanted to—don’t do that, anybody. Not recommending that. It’s a joke. Yeah, but the cleaning up, the washing.
KS: It’s detoxification. It’s more than just a clean-up, isn’t it? It’s like a deep clean or that more thorough, intense purification.
AC: Yeah. Go ahead.
CB: Somebody named Peter Lu actually mentioned that earlier in the comments section on Facebook. He said: “Purifying usually means bringing up the toxins to the surface in order to be exorcised, right?”
AC: Yeah.
KS: Yeah.
AC: My last column was actually all about washing and using a laundry metaphor. Like if you’re doing laundry by hand, you soak it and then you wring it out. And then you soak it and then you wring it out and then you scrub it. You don’t just soak it, wring it out and done, right? You may have to beat it, you may have to scrub it. I mean, it’s literally the wash/rinse/repeat. The idea of cleaning things, whether it’s the dirty fabric of your soul or your ragged pair of jeans, it’s not a one-off, right? You’ve gotta repeat it over and over again, which is why changing habits is important rather than just having a day off, whatever your debaucherous life is.
KS: And to go back to that comment you just read, Chris, from Facebook, the idea of a detox. For instance, if you think about a physical detox, you often feel worse in the first few days when you start it because all the gunk is coming through. So that may be something to keep in mind, too, that you’re making good changes, or you’re stepping into the proverbial laundry. But initially, it might feel a little bit worse, but that’s only because so much has built up that you’ve really got to do that deep clean to get to that more purified or clear-and-clean place. You know, if you give up sugar, for instance, you usually feel like crap for a few days. But then you feel amazing, so it’s worth it. So these are good metaphors.
CB: Definitely. So it’s wild that the Sun-Mars conjunction in Leo, towards the end of July, actually takes place really close to Mercury hitting its shadow. And that actually reminds me about the electional chart for this month, which I meant to mention, because it actually takes place towards the very end of the month. So let me share my screen in order to show that. So the electional chart for this month—Leisa did the elections for this month, Leisa Schaim at leisaschaim.com. And one of the issues that she ran into we’re gonna talk about on our private, patron-only podcast on elections, where we outline four of the major charts this month. One of the issues that she ran into—which is an issue we’ve been dealing with in June—is that even though you could use some Sagittarius rising charts—where Jupiter is ruling the ascendant, and it’s a day chart, and Jupiter is in the 11th house—for a while now, with Mars in Cancer, you’ve got Mars squaring Jupiter. And so, it’s really not a chart that you would want to use for the most part, because you would have the ruler of the ascendant being afflicted by Mars, which is in a superior position in a day chart. So eventually, towards the end of July, one of the things that’s nice about Mars going into Leo is that it’s no longer in that superior sign-based square where it’s overcoming Jupiter in Libra. But now it’s just in a sort of sextile, which is not really harmful, so this opens up some Sagittarius rising elections. And even though Saturn is there in Sagittarius, as long as it’s a day chart, that’s not necessarily a deal-breaker. So Saturn in a day chart—even when angular—is not necessarily a deal-breaker. If this was a night chart, that would definitely be something we would probably want to avoid, but as a day chart, this is definitely usable.
So the electional chart that we wanted to highlight for this month takes place on July 28, 2017, starting at 4:21 PM. I have it set for Denver, Colorado. But you could basically set it for around the same time, whatever your location is, and just try to adjust the ascendant until you have about 9° of Sagittarius, give or take, rising, and that’ll give you the same electional chart that we have for this month. So the chart features Sagittarius rising, Jupiter in Libra in the eleventh whole sign house in a day chart. So it’s in the place of friends and alliances and groups, and therefore, it’s a chart that’s very much focused on social matters and alliances and friendships and things of that nature. The Moon is also in Libra, and it’s applying to a conjunction with Jupiter in the 11th house. So we’ve got an auspicious Moon-Jupiter conjunction that’s taking place on July 28, and we’re gonna focus on that and use that by making it prominent in the chart and having the Moon applying to the ruler of the ascendant. Mercury is also relatively well-placed. Even though it’s getting ready to station retrograde, we’ve got it in Virgo in the tenth whole sign house, largely unafflicted. Venus is helping out a little bit in Gemini in the seventh whole sign house by overcoming a superior sign-based square with Mercury, as well as a superior sign-based trine with the Moon and Jupiter. Let’s see, what else? Mars is of course in that close Sun-Mars conjunction with the Sun in Leo, but at least it’s separating at this point rather than still applying. So there’s something about that energy that’s passing away or flowing away into the past rather than still building up in the future. Let’s see, what else? I think that’s it. So this is the main election we wanted to highlight this month. Do you guys have any comments about that chart?
AC: I think that’s a fine-looking chart.
KS: Yeah.
AC: That’s one of the best-looking electional charts I’ve seen for a while.
CB: You like it? Good. Yeah, you’re usually a little bit skeptical sometimes about our electional charts. Sometimes with good reason, other times I think you have a little bit higher standards for electional charts. So hearing you think that this is a good chart is high praise.
AC: Oh, good. No, this is a great-looking chart. I’m gonna have to do something on the 28th.
KS: Yeah. I mean, it even speaks to some of the things we were talking about before around the Moon. It is tightly-applying to a benefic, so that is a massive, good thing for the Moon. The house placement is strong. The phase of the Moon is strong. And then of course you’ve got Jupiter, a) as the chart ruler, b) in the house of its joy, but also receiving that push or that extra support from the Moon. So yeah, I think this is a wonderful chart. I mean, I’m always of the view when you’re doing electional work that a little bit of good can go a long way and really help, but if you can get a lot of good or a lot of function into an electional chart—even if there’s one prickly bit—it just becomes a thorn in your side that you don’t even really have to focus on because there’s so much that is coming forward. Yeah, I’m with Austin, actually. I’ll be stealing this chart for something later in the month. Even having the Sun exalted—no, in rulership, sorry—in the house of its joy as well.
AC: Yeah.
KS: Mercury—I mean, there’s so many planets in rulership. Maternus talks about if you have one planet in its own sign, this is a good thing. But if you have two or three or four, nearer to the gods must you be. So whenever you can throw that into charts like this, this is great.
CB: Definitely. Yeah, I was really impressed when Leisa came up with this chart. And she’s actually got three other charts that she found for July that we’re gonna talk about in what we’re calling—we’ve actually given it a name now—the Auspicious Elections Podcast. And Paula Belluomini actually created some nice little branding for us. So let me show off our page there. There it is. So if you go to theastrologypodcast.com, and you go to the ‘Elections’ tab, you’ll see the whole page and a little preview for our Auspicious Elections Podcast. For 45 minutes, Leisa and I do a little webinar where you have either an audio download or a video download, and we talk about the four most auspicious electional charts we found that month, and we give them to you ahead of time if you’re a patron of The Astrology Podcast on $5 or $10 tier. So all you have to do in order to find out more information about that is go to our subscription page or sign up at patreon.com/astrologypodcast. All right, so that’s the auspicious electional chart for this month, and that kind of brings us towards the end of the month. What are some other things that we haven’t talked about? Somebody—Kelly, you mentioned the Jupiter-Pluto square. Have we touched on that?
KS: Look, we haven’t. Somebody mentioned it on Facebook. I think we’ll probably cover it next month, because it is exact next month—unless either of you guys really want to chat about it. The one other aspect—Austin’s giving me faces. The one other aspect I did want to mention—which your electional chart reminded me of—is one kind of good aspect, which is Venus trine Jupiter. Look, I’m sure she’s gonna be close to squaring Neptune as well, but I still think a Venus-Jupiter trine—with Jupiter in the sign of Venus—is worth mentioning.
AC: Mm-hmm.
KS: I’ve got that coming in around the 17th-18th of July. So separate to all the other stuff, which of course we’ve gone into in a lot of detail. The other thing, I did think about that Moon-Jupiter conjunction at the end of the month. I hadn’t thought about it in the context of an election, but it is a waxing Moon conjunct Jupiter, and that’s always nice. So those two activations are a couple of little bright spots.
AC: Yeah, definitely.
CB: Brilliant. All right, and the last thing, you guys have kind of mentioned this, but it’s a very fiery month with all those planets in fire signs. And that was something we mentioned in the yearly forecast. This entire year, especially in different spots, seems to have a huge emphasis on fire sign placements, but this month is really one of the focal points for that, right?
AC: More so next month. But I feel like Mars combust Sun all month qualifies as ‘secret’ fire sign planets. I mean, they’ll be boiling the water. I mean, next month, it gets even fiery.
KS: Yeah, I think it’s the ‘Leo’ season, if you like, that is the fiery period there because we’ve got the Sun-Mars. You know, they’re both dry planets. Mars in an extreme way, the Sun slightly more functional. I mean, when I do fertility work with clients, too much Sun doesn’t work, basically, or to have those two planets together. Maybe the more accurate time period is the Sun in Leo, which is gonna be of course late July and then the first three weeks of August.
AC: Yeah.
KS: That’s definitely fire on top of fire, to have the Sun and Mars together in a fire sign, with Saturn in Sag and Uranus in Aries, plus throw in the eclipse. I mean, we’re having two lunations in that Sun in Leo period, where the Sun and Mars are basically conjunct. We’ve got that very early in Leo New Moon, in which the Sun and Mars are conjunct, and then we have the eclipse in August. It is an eclipse, but Mars is in the mix, too, which I think is part of what adds to what would already be dramatic, just with the solar eclipse.
CB: Definitely. All right, are there any other major alignments, or anything that we wanted to touch on before we start wrapping this up? I’m trying to think if there’s any aspects. I mean, we’ve already mentioned Mercury goes into Virgo by the 25th; that was in the electional chart. At the very, very end of the month, Venus goes into Cancer, but I think that’s about it, right?
AC: Yeah, I think so.
KS: I think so. Just on the ‘fire’ theme—obviously now I’ve become obsessed—we only have Mars in fire signs twice this year. The first time was earlier, when Mars was in Aries; so late Jan through to early March, late Feb. And then this is the final time. After this, Mars won’t come back to the fire signs. So it is the burning, if you like.
CB: All right, excellent. Well, I think that brings us to the end of this episode, then. So yeah, thanks everyone for doing this. Thank you both for joining me on this little experiment in livestreaming. I think it went well, and we got a decent-sized audience following along with us today as we record this episode, which is usually kind of like a solitary thing. It’s usually just the three of us recording it together, and we crack off-colored jokes—or at least the two of you do—and then I edit it out in post-production, but today was our first live episode.
KS: We had to behave. It’s nice to have everyone’s comments and stuff, to get a check-in with Facebook. I don’t know, what are you seeing there, Chris? There’s probably some cheeky comments coming through.
CB: No, no, it’s good. So if people enjoyed this, definitely let us know and we’ll keep doing it again in the future. If you want to support the podcast, of course sign up and become a patron, since that really helps us to keep the lights on and keep doing new episodes on a month-by-month basis and expanding and improving the show. You should of course check out Austin’s website at austincoppock.com and some of those classes that he mentioned coming up, and Kelly at kellysastrology.com, right?
KS: Yes, that’s right.
CB: And you can find out more information of course about the podcast at theastrologypodcast.com, and you can subscribe at theastrologypodcast.com/subscribe. And you can find out more information about me at chrisbrennanastrologer.com. All right, well, thanks everyone for—
KS: Oh, I want to say something really quickly. Isn’t this our two-year anniversary of doing the podcast?
CB: Oh, you’re right. This is actually the two-year anniversary of when we first started doing the forecast episodes.
KS: Yes.
AC: Yeah, I think it was June 26, maybe.
CB: Yeah, cuz you were actually visiting me. Austin was visiting. And, Kelly, you and I had just started doing it a month earlier, right?
KS: Yes.
CB: And then Austin happened to be in town visiting me. And so, we were just like, “Austin, do you feel like joining us? And we’ll do our astrologer three-way.” And it worked out.
KS: It’s been great. I’m a lucky girl, what can I say?
AC: So we’re moving into our 3rd house profection, then.
KS: Oh, yeah.
CB: That sounds good to me.
KS: That’s brilliant. I’ll take that. We’ve survived the 2nd house.
CB: And we started our first solar return with that 3rd house profection by doing a livestream in front of a hundred people. So that’s a pretty good start to a new year.
KS: I think so. And it’s a hundred people to start, guys, cuz keep in mind this video will stay on Facebook. And over the next few days, there’ll be a lot more eyes on it than just the people that were here live.
CB: Excellent. And I will release a high-quality version of the audio to patrons here in the next day or so. The high-quality audio version will also be available on the podcast website, theastrologypodcast.com. The video will be posted to YouTube in hopefully a high-quality version. And we will come back again next month to do another forecast and to talk even more about the eclipse, right?
AC: Oh, yeah.
KS: Yes, we will be talking a lot about the eclipse.
CB: All right, well, we’ll be preparing for that. So in between now and then, everybody have a good month. And thanks everyone for listening, and we’ll see you next time.
KS: Bye, everyone.