The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 126, titled:
Astrology Forecast + Major Alignments for October 2017
With Chris Brennan and guests Austin Coppock and Kelly Surtees
Episode originally released on September 29, 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. This episode is recorded on Tuesday, September 26, 2017, starting just after 4:00 PM in Denver, Colorado, and this is the 125th episode of the show—or actually it’s the 126th episode of the show. For more information about how to subscribe to the podcast and help support the production of future episodes by becoming a patron, please visit theastrologypodcast.com/subscribe. In this episode, I’m gonna be talking with Kelly Surtees and Austin Coppock about the astrological forecast for October of 2017. Hey guys, welcome back to the show.
KELLY SURTEES: Hey.
AUSTIN COPPOCK: Hey, Chris. What’s up?
CB: Hey. I can’t believe it’s been a month already since our last forecast. I realized I always say that, but this time it seems like it did go rather fast. So I thought that we would sort of touch on a few things that I’ve talked about in the podcast this month, just to get you guys’ opinion, talk a little about news and events that are happening, and then we’ll get straight to the forecast. So in the description, I’ll put timestamps. So if anybody wants to skip our initial discussions and go right to the astrological alignments, just look at the description page for this episode and you’ll see what point in the recording you can jump to. So Austin is joining us from Oregon. And, Kelly, you’re traveling at the moment, right?
KS: Yes, I am actually coming to you from Sydney, Australia, where I am visiting family at the moment.
CB: Brilliant. And you lugged your microphone all the way down there.
KS: I did. I know how important the sound is. I know my Aussie accent—it can be a little thicker sometimes when I’m here, so at least we’ll hear that clearly.
CB: Sure. Well, I appreciate it. And you’re nursing a cold.
KS: Yeah, exactly. So I sound like a—I don’t even know what I sound like right now. I did get a bit of a cold. For the Sydney listeners, they’ll know that they’ve had a very bad cold-and-flu season here. And landing in the thick or the tail-end of that, but not having any built-up immunity, I’ve got a little bit of a cold.
CB: Well, it sounds fine, so I think we’ll be okay. And, Austin, are you coming out of the smoke-and-fire period? Has that cleared up at all in Portland yet? Are you still dealing with that?
AC: Yeah, so I’m about five hours south of Portland. So yeah, we had over two weeks straight of just skies full of ash, and it had really just started when we talked last month. You know, people told me it was normal, but then it kept going and getting worse and worse and worse. Ashland—where I am—actually had the honor of having the worst air quality in the United States for a couple of days. You know, it was just skies full of ash, Sun looking red through it.
CB: Right.
AC: Half the state on fire.
CB: Right. And that was one of your post-eclipse observations in that part of the country.
AC: Yeah, I mean, one thing about the eclipse, interestingly, was insofar as it was the ‘Great American Eclipse’, the immediate effects were entirely physical and literal. There was some political drama, but that’s normal this year, right? It would be strange if there wasn’t political drama. But as far as the immediate aftereffects, it was just literal for the United States. You know, multiple hurricanes, half of—not half, I’m speaking hyperbolically. But an unusual amount of Oregon and California on fire. Fire and water—it’s a little poetic.
CB: Right. And all of the hurricanes. And then of course we’re thinking of a lot of the people in Puerto Rico at this point. A lot of people have lost homes and stuff in Texas and Florida. And then of course I just did a webinar, and we had a few—
AC: Oh, and the Mexican earthquakes, too.
CB: Yeah, I was just about to mention that, in Mexico City, and around Mexico. We had a friend—Victor from Mexico—who attended a zodiacal releasing workshop I did last weekend, and he’s right there in the heart of it. So definitely our thoughts go out to everyone there as well. All right, so I think there’s a few preliminary things we needed to get out of the way before we fully jump into the forecast and some of the other discussions. Kelly, you just finished a major project, right?
KS: Oh, yes. Well, actually the joys of publishing, I finished it in May, but it’s finally on sale, which is the WellBeing Astrology Guide. So it is—Austin’s laughing cuz he’s published as well. He knows how it works. It is published out of Australia. It’s kind of like a keepsake. We say it’s a ‘book of zines’, so it’s pretty high quality. You know, it’s not on cheap paper, etc. It does have annual horoscopes in it. But in addition to that it has a bunch of articles on a variety of topics, all astrological. And it’s a mix—some of it’s a bit more modern, some of it’s a bit more traditional. So yeah, that’s out. I’ve worked on it every year for the last 13 years maybe. Yeah, so it’s a great project to do. This year we’ve got Lynn Bell contributing an article. Who else are our contributors this year? I think we had AstroSparkles who’s a very popular Facebook astrology for people who might know her. Mari Garcia, Andy Gertz, Wade Caves, Shawn Frank, and a bunch of other people.
CB: That’s a lot of people. That’s almost as much as a non-astrologer magazine or something.
KS: Yeah, it’s comparable. Like if The Mountain Astrologer did an annual edition that would be what it’s like. So can you buy a hard copy from the publisher in Australia, if you’re looking to do that. Or you can buy an e-version, cuz it’s available digitally through ZINIO. So they are the international distributor of the e-version. But if anybody wants info, just contact me and I can give them the right links.
CB: Awesome. And I’ll put a link to those. I’ll get those links from you and put them in the description page for this episode. And you’ve graciously donated two copies that we’re gonna give away in a raffle to two lucky patrons. So I will put out some information about that through Patreon shortly, and in the next week or two, announce the winners of that giveaway. So last month, I actually gave away three copies of Ben Dykes’ translation of Theophilus of Edessa to three lucky patrons. And I just sent those off in the past week, so people should be receiving them shortly. Yeah, so we’ll give a couple of copies of Kelly’s magazine here in the next week as well. So, Austin, do you have anything coming up in terms of news and events, before we jump into other stuff?
AC: Oh, let’s see, I’m pretty mid-stream on things right now. I’m doing that zodiacal releasing class. We’re about halfway through, that’s fun. And then I’m actually starting a fundamentals class on synodic cycles. But that starts on the 30th, so this might not be out until the day before or the day after. I don’t know. If people hear it—I guess the live audience—if you want to do synodic cycles and look at planetary appearance and disappearance and retrograde motion and forward motion and visibility and invisibility and Eastern visibility versus Western visibility, etc., etc., we’re gonna do that for a month. That starts this Saturday, September 30. And then everything else—I’m just sort of in the middle. I’ve got some old classes that finally got edited, so the sound’s cleaned up. And I think I’m gonna put some of those on sale at some point in October, but I don’t know when.
CB: Okay, awesome. Well, I’m sure people can find those on your website at austincoppock.com. And Kelly’s website of course is kellysastrology.com. As for myself and for the podcast, Austin mentioning the audience actually reminds me that today we have a live audience of people joining us who are patrons of the show, who support us through our page on Patreon. And from now on that’s gonna be a regular benefit that’s available to people on the $3 tier—on Patreon—and above. So if you’d like to join us for the live recording of the next forecast episode, using our live webinar format, then all you have to do is become a patron on the $3 tier and then you can join us and take part in the discussion that’s happening as the episode is taking place. Which is not that lively right now, but it might pick up a little bit later once we get into the actual forecast. Aside from that, I’m also starting a new private podcast for patrons. It’s gonna be called The Casual Astrology Podcast, which is basically a monthly show where I just talk about things that I’m researching and little things that were interesting topics that didn’t quite make it into a full episode of The Astrology Podcast. I’m gonna take some of the little pieces and turn them into a 45-minute or an hour-long episode as a benefit for people on the $10 tier on Patreon, in addition to some other audio snippets and things like that, that didn’t make it into the full podcast. So again, if you want to sign up for that, just go to our page on Patreon and you can find out more information.
All right, so with that out of the way, before we get to the forecast episode there were a couple of topics that we touched on this month. One of the ones that people were the most excited about—and that I saw a few people asking what Austin and Kelly thought about—is the first episode I did, where I did an interview with Moses Siregar about relocational astrology. And we talked about that topic—it’s something that he specializes in—and I gave a couple of anecdotes about how relocational astrology has worked in my own life. But I was actually curious if you guys had any experience with that, and if it’s something that you use much, or if you put much stock in locational astrology.
KS: Austin, do you want to go first?
AC: Sure, I probably have the least to say. So yeah, I mean, I’ve been looking at my lines on the free ‘Astro-Dienst’ thing for 15 years. You know, boy, I wish I’d listened to your talk with Moses, but what I’ve found is that the lines make sense, but they’re not enough by themselves to make a judgment. If I remember correctly from talking with Moses in the past, he also does a relocated ascendant for the chart—it doesn’t matter. But my impression of the lines was that there was absolutely something there, but if I were to have made decisions based on the lines alone, I would still be living just south of Cleveland, where I grew up, and I’m very glad that I’m not living there. No offense to people who decided to stay in Ohio, it was not for me. I’ve got like a sweet Jupiter line there, whereas the West Coast—which I’ve bounced up and down for the last 10 years, and which I really like as far as regions in the United States—is just ‘Mars-Saturn-y’ doom, but my experience of living here has not been ‘Mars-Saturn-y’ doom. I’ve certainly worked hard. I would caution people from just looking at that one layer and thinking that that’s enough to render a judgment, that is one important factor. And I would just also say if we look at other systems that do this—if we look at traditional feng shui or Vastu, the ‘Indian’ feng shui for lack of a better term—they both have a very precisely-engineered intersection with the astrology, and that’s more philosophically-satisfying to me to understand the nature of the land and the nature of the sky and to be able to put those two structures together. I feel like no matter how good your understanding of one or the other is, if you don’t have both shapes you’re kinda missing something.
CB: Sure.
AC: Which is not to say that I think relocational astrology is garbage, right? Just that that seems so nice and ideally there would be that intersection. Anyway, those are my thoughts on that.
CB: Yeah, definitely. And I think Moses said something similar in terms of what’s more important—like the natal chart or the relocated chart or lines—and he said the natal chart, definitely, still has primacy over everything else, and this is just some other additional shade or perspective that you can get on things. And, Kelly, you’ve had some experiences with relocational astrology as well, right?
KS: Yeah, and they’re kind of those experiences that I didn’t know I was having until after. Because I’ve only started, I guess, learning the theory of relocational or local space astrology—whatever the technical term is—in the last couple of years, partly because Frank Clifford wrote a feature in the 2017 WellBeing Astrology on relocational astrology. So editing that was like a crash course, and I learned about some features of astrocartography or local space astrology—or local space horizon I think it might be—that I didn’t even know existed. But in terms of my personal experiences, when I was 29, I won a scholarship to go to UAC 2008, which was held in Denver, which I think is probably where I first saw you in the flesh, Chris. Although I don’t know that we actually met.
CB: Right.
KS: And while I was in Denver, I met a man who has gone on to become my husband. I met ‘Mr. Scorpio’, my husband Peter. And afterwards I found out that I had a Saturn line running right through Denver, and I have Saturn—in my natal chart—in my 7th house. So I was in a place connected to a 7th house planet at the time of having a Saturn return—so a cycle activating the planet—and I met an older man who I fell madly in love with and ended up moving halfway around the world for. So that was my first, ‘oh, wow, maybe there’s something to this,’ totally understanding that there were a couple of things going on; that the natal planet has a connection to the topic of the events that were activated there. And my husband and I say if we had never met then, we can’t understand how we would have ever crossed paths.
CB: Right.
KS: He’s Canadian. He lives in a small town outside Toronto. I’m Australian, and until meeting him, Sydney was my home and I never thought I would leave. And then this weird quirk of fate brings us together in this place in the world where I have this 7th house activation, I guess, at the time where that planet is returning for the first time.
AC: Yeah.
KS: So I think it’s a combination of the two. And then not realizing it, later on, of course we’re happy together, and it’s all very romantic, we’re like, okay, we’re gonna get married. Where will we get married? And we had always wanted to get married in Maui. And after the wedding, like months later—if anyone has been married, there’s so much to organize. Afterwards, I’m like, “I wonder what lines I have that run in the middle of the Pacific?” And my Venus line goes through the middle of the Pacific, right near Hawaii.
CB: Wow.
KS: So that wasn’t a conscious choice to go and get married on a Venus line, but in hindsight people said we did have this sort of very dreamy, fairy-tale, very Piscean-style wedding. I mean, I did pick a wedding chart that had Venus at her exaltation degree in Pisces, which happens to sextile my natal Venus anyway. So I think, to your point Austin, there’s definitely more than just this line always, but maybe this line and this place, at a particular time or a point in your life. So yeah, I’ve had a couple of spooky experiences that have sort of shown me there’s some validity to this that I’m interested to learn more about it.
AC: Yeah, yeah. If I came off too critical earlier—
KS: Oh, not at all.
AC: Okay, well, just the positive side was that I absolutely can’t dismiss the lines.
KS: Yeah.
AC: It’s just that it’s not enough. It’s not enough by itself.
KS: I think the activations for whatever reason maybe.
CB: Well, and it’s interesting cuz your experience kind of speaks also partially to Austin’s point, which is that was a Saturn line that ran through there.
KS: Yeah.
CB: It’s not something you should have avoided, but in fact it ended up being a very positive and very constructive experience overall. I mean, you were going through your Saturn return, so of course there was some Saturn stuff that came with it.
KS: Oh, yeah, I was in another relationship when I met Peter, so there was a little bit of a backstory in the drama.
CB: Minor details, I wasn’t sure.
KS: I was just trying to give the rosy, and at the time there was a lot of drama to do with that. My husband was in another relationship, too, so it was very messy. But from our personal journey, it’s like there was a lot of ‘Saturn’ shit in the beginning, that’s for sure.
CB: Yeah, like constructive difficulties.
KS: Yeah.
AC: Well, and that was also the period of time where Saturn and Uranus were doing oppositions.
KS: Yes, correct. Yeah, I think by degree they weren’t quite there yet, because Uranus was a little later in Pisces and Saturn was more about mid-Virgo. But yeah, they were opposing by sign, for sure. So I had a Saturn-type event that had the Uranus side, the twist.
CB: And it’s interesting that there were those overlapping factors. It’s like you natally had Saturn in Virgo, and you were having your Saturn return, and then you end up traveling to a place where your Saturn line is, and that ends up coinciding with the pivotal event of the manifestation of that Saturn return transit.
KS: It’s phenomenal. I couldn’t afford to go to the conference, the UAC conference, cuz coming from Australia it’s really expensive. But in 2007, I had done my certification exams here in Australia, and weirdly, unusually, there was a scholarship available to the person who got the top marks around the country in 2007. It wasn’t me. I came second. But the person who won the scholarship said even with this amount of money—which I think was maybe a thousand dollars—it would only cover half the airfare from Australia. She was like, “Even with this money I wouldn’t be able to go. Please give it to someone who could use it.”
CB: Wow.
KS: And that someone was me, and that was enough to get me across. So it wasn’t just deciding to go to the conference. There were so many weird little things that came in, if that makes sense.
CB: Yeah, definitely.
KS: Very weird.
AC: All right, so—
KS: Austin, you’re gonna go all over this.
AC: No, no. I’m just using the Saturn return technique to time my relationship with my Saturn line.
KS: Oh, cool.
AC: Okay, so I said my Saturn line runs up and down the West Coast.
KS: Yes.
AC: You know, I’ve been around here for about 10 years. Yeah, I moved out here like within a week of Saturn moving into Virgo.
KS: Wow.
AC: And I met Kait, who is now my wife, within a month or two.
CB: Right.
KS: Oh, my gosh.
AC: So Saturn rules my 7th.
KS: Yep.
AC: So okay, no, I like this. I like this timing.
KS: It’s not bad.
AC: That totally works for me.
KS: So it works for you, too. And our charts are similar in that we both have a Saturn/7th house connection. Mine is the planet inside and yours is the ruling planet of. So that makes sense that Saturn line activation, that Saturn return would bring our partners. And it brought beautiful Kait to you.
AC: It did, it did. You know, what’s funny is I’ve lived in several places on the West Coast. I’ve lived in LA and the Bay Area and Portland, and now down in Ashland, and up in Seattle. And so, I’ve moved around a lot, but that Saturn line for me is basically vertical, up and down the West Coast.
KS: Yep.
AC: So I’ve just been going up and down that line ever since my Saturn return began.
KS: Wow. There’s definitely something to this ‘relocation’ business.
CB: Yeah.
AC: No, it’s all made up.
CB: I shared an anecdote with Moses. Background 2005, I was going through a heavy Neptune transit where it was moving over and conjoining the degree of my ascendant, and then I ended up moving across the country to Maryland to live at Project Hindsight; and that happened to be where my Neptune line ran exactly through that city. And everybody there had very prominent Neptune placements and it was a very interesting couple of years.
KS: Was it very Neptunian?
CB: I mean, Austin maybe can speak to that, cuz he visited once. Was your week or two there pretty Neptunian?
AC: Oh, no, I spent like three weeks there, two years in a row.
CB: Right.
AC: It was like a very odd summer camp. I would say that it was very Neptune in Aquarius. I would not say that it fits the parameters of Neptune in Pisces—but Neptune wasn’t in Pisces then.
KS: No, it wasn’t. It was in Aquarius.
AC: It was very mental.
CB: Right.
KS: Yeah. So a mind-bending type.
CB: But I like that idea of somebody having a major transit involving a planet or a placement in their chart and then if you go to a location that matches that line—or makes it prominent in your relocated chart—perhaps that could be something that could prompt or trigger the manifestation of that transit for better or worse. At least in those instances that we’re talking about, that seems to be the case. So we’ll have to look into that more.
KS: Totally.
AC: Yeah, absolutely. You know, one application that occurs to me right away is that somebody says to me, among other topics while I’m doing a reading, “Oh, hey, I was thinking about maybe moving, not right now, but maybe beginning of the year,” and I see that Uranus is about to move into their 4th, I can just look at their relocation and see where the Uranus line is. Maybe Uranus is about to hit the ruler of the 4th. You know, look at where the line is for the ruler of the 4th. That seems like an easy thing to just kind of check out to see if there are hits there.
CB: Yeah.
KS: Great point.
AC: I mean, people always ask you about moving.
KS: Totally. Should I move? And if so, where should I go? It comes up all the time.
AC: Yeah, it’s usually like, “Well, I’m kinda thinking about maybe three locations.”
KS: Yeah.
AC: Usually if people are serious they’ve usually thought about where they’d like to live.
CB: Right.
KS: The ‘loggies’ going around. We could probably go on about this topic for about two hours, Chris, by the sounds of it.
CB: Sure. Yeah, yeah, I can move us on. Let’s see, so we’ve touched on all of the major preliminary announcements stuff. Kelly, you did have a workshop, though. Did we mention that? In Sydney?
KS: Oh, yeah. Sorry, I forgot that I do have a workshop next Friday, which I know is weird, but it’s just what worked with the travel schedule. I’m doing an intro to Hellenistic and traditional concepts, basically. So for people who are maybe already working in astrology but are like ‘what is this whole sign business’ or ‘what does sect really mean’, ‘why is the ruling planet of the ascendant so important’, for instance. So we’re gonna go through some of those main ‘Hellenistic-y’ type techniques or concepts and then also look at how it might shift your charts. So if you’ve been working with your chart in a quadrant system—like Placidus or Regio or Porphyry—what changes? And how does that shift the interpretation if we introduce these concepts? So that’s what I’ll be doing next Friday in Sydney. So yeah, I’ve got a big space. So if anybody does want to join or has questions, the info’s on my website, but you’re also more than welcome to email me.
CB: And is that the 29th?
KS: Oh, I beg your pardon. It’s Friday, October 6.
CB: 6th, okay, got it.
KS: Yes. Sorry, yeah, so it’ll be at the end of the school holidays here in Sydney.
CB: Okay. What were you saying, Austin?
KS: Sorry, Austin.
AC: Oh, I was gonna say, so Kelly, are you ready to handle the ‘whole sign-induced identity crisis’ trauma?
KS: Yes. I feel like having gone through this a number of years ago—and now because I’ve switched my clients to that over the last three or four years—I feel like I’m ready to do that with a bunch of students. I’m excited because 99% of the people who I’ve now started working with the whole sign shift. I had a client email me this past week saying they were blown away with the insights that they got out of their whole sign chart, and how that just seemed to resonate with them much more deeply. When people say, “What is the whole sign house system?” my soundbite response now is almost like it’s the philosophical house system. It’s kind of based on the meaning between the signs and the houses and then how that connects all to the ascendant. So it’s not technically the same as some of the other house systems, but it seems to hold something about the intention, the purest intention. So yeah, I’m open to that, Austin, and I’m ready to help people through that ‘whole sign’ identity crisis.
CB: It’s interesting.
AC: Oh, I was just gonna say I have a 29° rising.
KS: Yeah, so you go through it.
AC: Well, yeah. So I think one planet in my chart stayed in the same house.
KS: Right. Yeah, and it’s always the late-degree ascendants that struggle the most with it because they have the biggest amount of house placement changes.
CB: It’s interesting seeing more established astrologers go through that crisis process if they do make that change, and they do switch to whole sign houses. They often go through an identity crisis and everything else just because oftentimes astrologers’ views of themselves and their lives or their world often become wrapped up so much in their own birth chart and in the charts of other people that they’ve looked at and things like that.
KS: It’s huge, it’s huge.
CB: Yeah, so that’s like a real thing. There needs to be a psychological support group for people going through that.
KS: A therapy group.
CB: Right.
AC: You know, that’s part of why last year when you were discussing—or it’s one of the reasons why last year when you were discussing house systems that a lot of people had some very emotional responses on every side of the debate, because it’s literally a different portrait of your life. I mean, technically it’s really just a different layer of the same portrait, right? It’s not like the angles change.
KS: No.
AC: But it’s a very different angle. And for some people it can be more or less flattering, and it’s also weird. You know, everybody has an identity construct, and we carry around an image of ourselves and our lives that’s based on everything we know about ourselves. And astrology’s wonderful for teaching us things about ourselves.
KS: Some things that we may not want to see or accept, but they’re there anyway.
AC: Yeah. So anyway, yeah, it’s an interesting thing.
CB: Definitely. All right, well, I think on that note maybe it’s time to move onto the forecast. Let’s do it. So I think we’ll stick with the format of last time where we sort of go through sequentially rather than focusing in on what is the most major thing, because I think some people have expressed in the past that they’ve found that a little bit easier to follow. So what is our starting point? Or what’s the first thing that happens in October that really signals the move into the new month in terms of astrology?
KS: Well, the first big thing, I guess, I’m thinking, how close to the start of the month is the Full Moon?
CB: Close enough.
AC: Pretty close.
CB: I mean, that’s pretty much the first major ‘astrology’ thing that happens in October, right?
AC: Well, let me start then.
KS: Yeah, you go, Austin.
AC: There are a couple of aspects on the first couple of days of the month.
KS: Yeah.
AC: So we’ve got Mars in Virgo trining Pluto, and then Venus is right behind Mars in Virgo. And so, they both trine Pluto in quick succession, and so they’re getting closer and closer. Venus is moving faster than Mars. And so, Venus is just about to catch Mars, and catches Mars in conjunction on the same day as the Full Moon.
KS: Right.
AC: And so, what’s really interesting about this is that the first couple of days the main thing is the Mars-Venus dynamics, with them both drawing closer, closer, closer, both hitting Pluto, and then they conjoin. And they conjoin within like an hour-and-a-half of the Full Moon, and the Full Moon is in Aries and the Sun is in Libra. So we have a Full Moon whose rulers are Venus and Mars. Mars ruling Aries and Venus ruling Libra literally at the same moment that Mars and Venus are conjoining. And if you look at the antiscia, the Mars-Venus conjunction is in an almost perfect contra-antiscial relationship to the Sun and Moon. So that’s a lot of Mars-Venus back and forth going on right there.
CB: Right.
KS: There is.
CB: Right. For the people joining the livestream, or the people watching the video version of this, I’m gonna pull up the charts and display them as we go, just to visualize a little bit what you’re talking about.
AC: Yeah, easier to see.
CB: Yeah, so we’re focusing on this first week of October, and especially around the time of the New Moon, which takes place—or sorry, the Full Moon, which takes place on October 5, right?
KS: Yes.
CB: And that is at 12°. So the Moon is full. It hits its fullness at 12° of Aries, and the Sun is at 12° of Libra.
KS: Yes. Yeah, that’s an interesting point, Austin, that you made. The ruler of the Sun and Moon at the lunation are actually conjunct in Virgo, and then very close to squaring Saturn, too.
AC: Indeed.
KS: Yes.
AC: They’re both gonna have to do that.
CB: Right. That’s so close. So it’s right at like 16, 19°17—or 19°14’ is the conjunction of Venus and Mars in Virgo.
KS: Yeah. So as Austin was saying, it’s basically happening on the day of the Full Moon.
AC: It’s happening within like an hour or two. It’s super-duper close.
CB: Right. Very interesting. Cuz we talked about this and we focused a lot on it, but it’s still so close at the time of this very last Jupiter-Uranus conjunction that we’re coming out of. Because it’s still within like a degree or two of exact. Around 27-28 Libra and Aries by this point.
AC: Yeah. And there are a couple of different moments within the month—usually it’s the Moon—that hit either that Libra point or that Uranus point or square from Pisces. The final moments of that Jupiter-Uranus opposition get re-fired up. Again, because they’re both so slow, it’s not like an aspect from Venus, where it’s like it happens and then three days later it’s gone.
KS: It’s well gone.
AC: And so, we’re basically gonna get that ‘Jupiter-Uranus’ firing or aftershock over and over again until Jupiter moves into Scorpio on the 10th.
CB: Okay, right. So that is gonna be one of the big shifts. And that’s one of the things that that ingress—one of the reasons why it’ll be a shift, in addition to Jupiter just leaving Libra. It’s finally getting free of this huge opposition that’s been going on over the course of the past year.
AC: Yeah. And so, let’s restrain ourselves from following up on that until we get to the portion of the month in which it occurs.
CB: I will try. Okay, so Full Moon in Aries, October 5. And not long after that we get the Mercury-Sun superior conjunction on October 8. And that comes up really quick, pretty shortly after the Full Moon basically, right?
AC: Yeah, it’s certainly in the making when the Full Moon takes place.
KS: Absolutely.
AC: Before we move from the Full Moon, do we have anything to say about it? Any delineation? We just kinda gave the technical outlines.
KS: I mean, Austin, you mentioned the antiscia. You mentioned contra-antiscia, I think. But isn’t by antiscia, that Venus-Mars conjunction at 11 Aries, and therefore, conjunct the Moon?
AC: There’s an antiscia and a contra-antiscia.
KS: Yeah, yeah. So the contra-antiscia is the opposition to the Sun.
AC: No. The ‘contra’ is gonna be conjunct the Sun.
KS: Oh, I beg your pardon. And the antiscia itself is conjunct the Moon.
AC: Right.
KS: I mean, that’s gonna add in a shadowy component, right? That idea of behind the scenes or things being hidden. That mystery.
AC: Well, and these are the rulers of both sides of the lunation, behind the scenes, or seeing through a mirror.
KS: Yes.
AC: Like you can’t see them directly, but you can see their shadows moving. Or you can see a mirrored image, but you can’t see them directly.
KS: So like the ‘smoke and mirrors’. Like the idea of false presentation.
AC: I don’t know that I would read it that way, because an antiscia means that you actually have information you wouldn’t otherwise have.
KS: Right.
AC: Like you can make out the form through the silhouettes, as opposed to having no images whatsoever.
KS: Got it. But there’s a level of speculation, cuz you’re pulling it from a silhouette rather than a physical thing.
AC: Yeah. Yeah, but it also means that Venus and Mars can see the Sun and Moon, which it’s their job to rule. You know, just to go back to basics, Full Moon in Mars-ruled Aries having tension with the Sun and Venus-ruled Libra, right? Libra says, “Oh, let’s make a deal, let’s compromise, let’s be balanced, let’s find the point of equilibrium.” And the Moon in Aries, the Full Moon in Aries says, “What about what I wanna do?” You know, it’s the classic ‘self versus other’. Or it’s the ‘me versus we’ Full Moon. Or it’s like, what about the case for conflict? Well, what about the case for peace? And what’s interesting is those are Venus’ and Mars’ priorities and they’re right there together in Virgo. One of the things I imagine coming out of it—and with Mercury right next to the Sun, too—that’s a lot of thinking about what constitutes balance, what constitutes fairness. You know, when I was thinking about this for my monthly piece, ‘deal-making’ came to mind, right? Deal-making, like hashing it out, but not just like, “Here we go, now we’ve all agreed on everything,” but like working through Mars to get to Venus, and then maybe finding some more Mars and working through layers of harmony/strife, strife/harmony, harmony/strife. Sort of like ‘he loves me/he loves me not’ and what the last petal is you don’t know, but that layering of harmony and strife. Cuz that’s so much ‘Venus-Mars’ stuff with both the lights and the rulers conjoined and all the factors that we delineated. Anyway, that was part of what I got from it.
CB: Definitely. I mean, one of the things that’s interesting—and that we dealt with in trying to look for electional charts for the beginning of the month—was just the fact that Mercury and Venus are exchanging signs, or are sort of loosely in a sort of mutual reception during this part of the month, and the reciprocal nature of a mutual reception between Libra and Virgo and the exchange taking place. But the weird balancing act that’s going on—where you have Mars in there with Venus in Virgo at the same time, and Jupiter temporarily, at least for the first week or so, still in Libra with Mercury—what a mutual reception. I mean, are you guys okay with using the term ‘mutual reception’ for an exchange of two planets between signs, even if there’s not an aspect between them? This is something that came up recently in one of my courses. And so, we had a discussion about the concept of reception and mutual reception, exchanging signs. But I’m always curious how other astrologers use those terms or concepts.
AC: I much prefer they have an aspect. Contra-antiscia is just fine.
CB: So you’d view that as a mutual reception because there’s a contra-antiscia, and they’re exchanging domiciles?
AC: Yep. You know, there are other ways to use this, to use that term. You know, you can have a mutual reception by bound or by triplicity or by exaltation, if you want to get Medieval and Renaissance. But in terms of what I guess people have come to associate with mutual reception, if it’s by rulership, and there is either a classical aspect or there’s an antiscial relationship or a contra-antiscial relationship, thumbs up, that’s a real mutual reception. Or that’s a full-strength mutual reception, not to get into real versus unreal.
CB: Sure, that makes sense. So there can be a gradation or different levels of it, depending on what the specifics are.
AC: Yeah, that’s gotta be stronger than a mutual reception by bound.
CB: Right.
KS: Absolutely.
CB: All right. Does that become one of the major signatures for the early part of the month then, in terms of that emphasis on those two signs, with Libra and Virgo, do you guys feel like?
KS: Look, what I would say, too, around this, it’s highlighting the Aries/Libra axis again. So that’s just been triggered by the third and final Jupiter-Uranus opposition at the end of September. Then we have a Full Moon, not at the same degrees, but certainly in the same signs and activating the same houses in your chart, depending on what house system you’re using. And at the very end of the month—which I know we will get to—we’ll have another lunation that is activating Uranus. So it does feel just generally that this ‘Aries/Libra’ polarity—Austin, you said it beautifully, that idea of harmony and strife and the dance between agreement versus negotiation or even disagreement is a bit of an underlying theme probably from late September to late October. But it sort of peaks at these punctuation points around the lunations, and this is the first one. And then as you said, too, Chris, having Mercury—or maybe Austin had said this. Mercury is right there with the Sun, in many ways, exacerbating that indecisive or too-and-from, back-and-forward energy that is already there with the Libra influence.
AC: Yeah, awesome. Yeah, agree 100%.
CB: Definitely. And in terms of that theme of harmony versus strife, with that conjunction taking place right there in Virgo, one of the things I’m always constantly amused by is we often talk about Virgo being detail-oriented, but a large part of the archetype of Virgo ends up being this general theme of the small things or the smaller things as contrasted with Pisces, which tends to be much more the larger things or the big picture. I mean, maybe part of the theme of that conjunction is harmony versus strife that’s taking place within the context of looking at the details, or is hashed out partially by working with the details, and those being crucial towards finding that balance that’s kind of indicated there by that conjunction.
AC: Yeah, totally. Well, it’s like placing many small things on the scales, right? Well, there’s this one little thing, well, but there’s that—that fits really cleanly into any image of deal-making. Like if you’re looking at legal deals, it’s like, “Well, we’re gonna have to get rid of this line of the agreement, and I want to add this line.” It’s like, “Well, okay, well, if you do that, then I want to add this.” And if you’ve ever played with an actual scale or balance, there are like little, tiny metal things where they’ll be one gram or whatever. To balance them, we have to put one on here and it’s like, oh, that’s too much, and you put two of these over here. It’s very ‘that’ world. But yeah, I don’t know, it definitely feels like a ‘harmony and strife’ tiramisu or lasagna where it’s layered.
CB: Right.
KS: I love that, Austin. Your images are so good.
CB: And in connection with that, I mean, the other thing that came out—it’s something that I overlooked last month in working with some elections and then it came up in a really striking way. But not being able to get away from the fact that a lot of these conjunctions and planets transiting through those degrees of Virgo are running smack into that square with Saturn at 22° of Sagittarius, that’s sort of an overlaid concept with that conjunction. It’s not just some sort of pure conjunction with Venus and Mars in Virgo and then it’s exchanging signs with Mercury, but Saturn’s in this pretty pivotal location, and they’re all basically getting ready to run into it, or are both getting ready to run into it.
AC: Yeah, a couple of things. One, after that Venus-Mars conjunction is complete on the 5th, Venus has a couple of more days until it completes the square with Saturn. And that’s a pretty classic enclosure or besiegement by malefics. Venus is getting hit on both sides by the malefics there. The Moon sends one ray of ‘silvery’ hope from Taurus, but other than that it’s a pretty rough place for Venus to be. And generally, when Venus is afflicted in the skies, Venusian things don’t tend to go well. You know, it’s hard to find your joy. Your joy has gone off and hidden somewhere. And it’ll come back, but periods of times when Venus is afflicted are painful. Or they’re not necessarily painful. They may be painful, but oftentimes there’s a conspicuous lack of pleasure.
CB: Right.
AC: And then that Mars-Saturn square that you’re looking at right there, that’s Mars in Virgo squaring Saturn in Sagittarius at 22. The Moon opposes that actually on the 3rd, which makes for a perfect besiegement from malefics. And the Moon also hits it there on the 10th, which puts the Moon in a perfect T-square with Mars and Saturn. And then once it’s departing but still close, when the Moon is in Virgo and conjunct Mars, you also have another brief besiegement. And so, those aren’t monthly things, but there are a few nasty moments that are provided by that Mars-Saturn square beyond the day that it simply occurs. And so, those would be my anti-electional moments. Like don’t schedule anything important. You know, it’s only about 12 hours out of the whole month, but it’s like that’s not a good time to do things unless you’re intending to do something destructive; in which case I guess an election. But for 99% of what we want to do, those are moments to avoid.
CB: Right. Like it makes me think of some of those terrible elections in The Picatrix where it’s like, “If you want to make a talisman in order to exterminate a rat or vermin or something like that, then use this terrible alignment of planets.”
AC: Yeah. In one translation, they say ‘bring evil to the ascendant’.
CB: Right.
KS: Yes.
AC: Which is saying bring one of the ‘infortunes’, one of the malefics to the ascendant. Have the other one on the 10th. But yes, I suppose if you want to bring evil to the ascendant.
CB: Sure. So somebody asked—and I think this is gonna be in the next Q&A episode, but it was actually such a good question, it might be relevant here. And I haven’t introduced the electional chart this month, but I’ll get to it pretty soon. But they were like, what do you use those electional charts for? Or if you know when some of the good charts are in a given month, what types of things do you even use them for? You know, for me and for Leisa, we’re always sort of aware of what the electional charts are on a given day throughout the month, and often we have Solar Fire running in the background so we even know what the rising sign is in different parts of the day if we’re working on things. I mean, we’re often generally using that for general purpose things like even something as simple as sending an important email, or scheduling a meeting, or having an event or something like that. Sometimes recording podcast episodes, I try to pick a good electional chart to whatever extent I can. But sometimes I go back and forth between thinking this is really a good application of astrology versus am I just being neurotic electing all of these small things, and what the line is between those two. Have you guys found a comfortable balance between those things yourselves? Or where do you fall when it comes to that?
KS: Uh, a comfortable balance. I don’t know if it’s a comfortable balance. And, Chris, what you said, I’m like people may not know this, but as working astrologers, when I’m at my computer, I have Solar Fire open, and I’m in and out of it all day long.
CB: Right.
KS: So I’m very aware of the Moon changing signs, for instance. You know, the amount of times I think, “God, I just wanna go and do nothing for a couple of hours,” and sometimes I do, and I realize the Moon is at 28° or 29° of her sign. Or I’ll sit down at the computer with this spur of inspiration or motivation and just get heaps of stuff done in 20 minutes and realize the Moon has just ingressed into a new sign. So look, I think as working astrologers we are looking all the time. And I do the same thing you guys do. If I’ve gotta send a newsletter, I think, “Oh, look, that ascendant is a bit nicer than the one that’s happening now. I’ll delay sending the newsletter by an hour or two.” Or there’s a much better time tonight and I’ll schedule it for then. And yeah, for meetings and social events, too, I mean, sometimes social planning. If Peter and I are hosting something, I’ll think, “No, we don’t want to do it that night. The balsamic Moon, everyone won’t want to come out of their houses or something.” Balsamic Moon in Cancer is not ideal for hosting a party. But a Full Moon’s a great time, and everyone will get drunk off two drinks or something. From simple things to ‘Oh, my God, the Moon’s squaring Saturn, no wonder I’m under the deadline’ to more technical things. There are some times where it’s like I just have to do this now and it doesn’t matter what the astrology says, whatever task it is.
CB: Right.
KS: But certainly to the extent that it’s possible, absolutely.
CB: Okay, good. That makes me feel slightly better.
KS: Yeah, I’m like you’re not neurotic. I mean, I don’t know. I just assumed that all astrologers do this, but maybe you don’t, Austin, I don’t know.
AC: Oh, no.
KS: I think we all do.
CB: Okay.
AC: I also filter through planetary days and hours a lot.
KS: That’s the other thing I do is planetary hours as well.
AC: I always have those open.
KS: Yeah.
AC: I structure a fair amount of my workday around that. I always try to do a solid block of writing on the Venus-Mercury hours, which are sequential. You know, I always break for food and sanity during the Moon hour, etc., etc.
CB: Nice.
KS: Yeah.
CB: And have you worked Solar Fire into your workflow, Austin, now that you have it? Or are you still getting used to it? I know you just got it in the past few months. On your way, more or less?
AC: It’s getting there. I obviously use it, but I’m still getting to know how to tell it to show me what I want to see.
CB: Yeah.
AC: And so, I do sometimes just default to old tools that are probably inferior, but I know how to use them. I just like, just show me this. I don’t want to spend 20 minutes figuring this out. I just want this and I wanna do something else. So it’s getting there. There’s obviously a lot there. And that’s actually, I would say, both the advantage, and this point, the problem for me.
CB: Yeah, I had a really hard time transferring from Astro-Dienst to Solar Fire at first, just because I was so used to looking at the chart designs of astro.com, and I couldn’t get Solar Fire to look exactly the same. And it really bugged me for a long time, but eventually I got over that.
KS: I would say the shift of software is actually as discombobulating as changing house systems.
CB: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
AC: With maybe less personal implications.
KS: For sure, for sure. You haven’t changed your personal self-view. Cuz I first used astro.com in the beginning, too, and the Solar Fire chart display is so different, and I remember just taking my time with that. Now when a student throws an astro.com chart in front of me, I almost want to gag because it’s just not as clear. But that’s also just because I’m conditioned to looking at Solar Fire-style charts. So, Austin, I can totally understand that time for transition.
AC: Yeah, well, and there’s also 30 different styles of charts in Solar Fire.
CB: Right.
AC: I haven’t found one that I really love. I’m like, um, that has the information.
CB: You might like this. I only did one video last month because I’ve been lost on other things. But I released a tutorial, and I released my chart design. So the chart design you’re looking at right now on your screen, I released the files for that, as well as a tutorial for installing it, if you happen to want to use this chart design. So just check it out on YouTube, which is youtube.com/theastrologyschool.
KS: Excellent work.
CB: I also found out—talking to the Solar Fire people—that we still get that discount. So there’s still a podcast discount in effect, if anyone wants to buy Solar Fire and get a 15% discount. Just enter the promo code ‘AP15’ during checkout, and you’ll just get a 15% discount for just being a podcast listener.
KS: That’s great.
CB: Yeah, it’s pretty useful being able to use the program—something I use all the time—and being able to offer something like that. All right, so that was a nice digression.
KS: Oh, yeah.
CB: We were talking about the Mercury-Saturn—
KS: Oh, elections, yeah.
CB: Yeah, we were talking about the Mars-Saturn square and the Venus-Saturn square that’s gonna take place around the second week of October; basically that’s when that stuff starts hitting.
KS: I’ve got the dates here in the Eastern timezone: the 8th of October for Venus square Saturn, and the 11th of October for Mars square Saturn.
CB: And, Austin, you raised a really important point—just looking at Venus as a general significator—in saying Venus-type things are affected sometimes in general. And that’s something I had always been uncomfortable with, the idea of just using general significators, especially in a mundane context. But I’m becoming more and more comfortable, and more and more realizing that that’s actually really a relevant and important thing that you’ve gotta pay attention to just on a regular basis in terms of what the transits are, but also in terms of electional charts as well. It’s not always just about looking at the unique rulers of the houses in a specific nativity. But sometimes something as simple as what we’re doing here, which is talking about the state of general significators—like Venus for relationships, or Mercury for communication or something like that—can be super-relevant and super-descriptive of what’s going on in people’s lives at the time.
AC: Yeah. And especially when you filter a planet’s general condition through planetary days and hours, it’s really obvious. ‘Afflicted Venus’ Friday’s are not fun.
KS: No.
AC: You know, ‘Mars retrograde’ Tuesdays are a pain, right? ‘Exalted Mercury’ Wednesdays are fantastic.
KS: And ‘Venus in rulership’ Fridays are fabulous.
AC: Exactly, exactly. No, I remember the first Sunday after the Sun ingressed into Leo this summer, I was just like, oh, it’s so good, it’s so good. Oh, it’s so good. Oh, it’s so sweet.
CB: Yeah.
AC: But yeah, and that’s a way to specify that, so you’re not looking for that planet all the time. You know, just look to assess matters connected to that planet on the days and hours. There are a thousand apps that you can just have open and it’ll tell you that, although you may not sit at your ‘astro’ computer all day long, like all of us do.
CB: Right.
KS: You have a real life to attend to.
CB: Right. Although I do have, in the chart design, a little ‘planetary day and hour’ thing. So you’ll be happy about that, Austin. We’ll have to set that up later and see how you like it.
KS: So to summarize that guys, Austin, you’re basically saying Venus hours and Venus days will be quite ‘crap-tastic’ in this period where Venus is seriously afflicted.
AC: Yeah, things are hard on Venus. And so, what’s interesting about the 8th is Venus had to do a conjunction with Mars and then a square with Saturn.
KS: But—
AC: But then things are starting to get better. Nobody harasses Venus after she clears the square with Saturn, and then Venus gets to move into Libra for more than the second-half of the month. But before we move onto that, the 8th, when Venus squares Saturn, is also when we have Mercury conjoining the Sun, the superior square—or superior conjunction. So that’s Mercury on the far side of the Sun, which looks the same on a chart as Mercury between us and the Sun because Earth, Mercury, and the Sun are all in a line. But the superior conjunction—which is the one we’re doing in October—is on the far side. And usually I love the superior conjunctions—and there’s probably a lot to love about this one—but it is square Pluto within a degree. It’s really tight.
KS: Very tight, yeah.
AC: And so, that’s happening the same day that Venus makes that square to Saturn. And so, what’s kinda wacky about that—as Chris pointed out—Venus in Virgo is ruled by Mercury. Mercury in Libra is ruled by Venus.
CB: Right.
AC: We have both sides of that mutual reception doing some interesting and challenging things.
CB: Yeah.
KS: Yeah, interesting and challenging. And then I think, okay, we’ve got this period where we’ve just got these really dramatic square aspects coming out. And one very basic keyword or concept that I always think about interpreting for a square is the idea of ‘adjustment’. The idea that neither party in that arrangement gets to move forward without some sort of negotiation or compromise. I mean, we’ve got Libra involved here and Venus anyway. But it is that idea of the frustration of not being able to get the alignment or the alliance that you need. I mean, if we’re talking Saturn to Venus, that idea that there are things preventing what you might prefer or you might choose that have to be addressed. That you have to adjust, even though you don’t want to. And the Sun-Mercury-Pluto combination, I’m really interested to see. Cuz I think Mercury going into cazimi is very powerful for picking up those bits of information or those important pieces of data that have been maybe overlooked or we didn’t have access to yet, and now we’ve got access to something that had previously been obscured. And because that’s happening with the square to Pluto, I’m really intrigued—even just on a personal micro level—how people get some sort of revelation or new information that comes forward then, and what they do with that because of the Pluto component. I don’t know if you guys have thought about it from an interpretive perspective for these pieces.
CB: I mean, one of the things that’s interesting about that is you could really treat this, if you wanted to, as the beginning of Mercury’s cycle. I mean, on the one hand, Mercury conjoining the Sun is like literally halfway between retrograde periods, or between retrograde stations, like the last direct station and the next retrograde station. And so, if you were to treat any point of any planet’s cycle and try to find the beginning, it’s usually gonna be the direct conjunction with the Sun. So in some way this is kind of flavoring the whole starting point of this new cycle for Mercury with that square with Pluto.
AC: Yeah. God, it’s more deal-making. You know, sitting down and talking with both of you about the first two weeks of this month, it’s an energy of haggling and of back-and-forth and thinking your position, whether it’s haggling with your own balance. How am I moving forward into this season? Whether it’s just about you and your own life, or in a close, personal relationship, or a business relationship, it’s very back-and-forth. In addition to harmony and strife in that tiramisu, there’s also this sort of thinking and rethinking and formulating and reformulating based on the last layer you ate.
CB: Right. And, I mean, one of the things we might want to do—sometimes it’s useful and I’ve meant to always push us to do more of this—is to try to just throw out or generate some keywords for some of the combinations that we’re using. So the ‘Venus-Mars’ one was great. But for Mercury and Pluto, I mean, lately, in looking at some ‘Pluto’ stuff recently, I’m just always surprised at how much some of the cliché keywords of ‘compulsion’ and ‘manipulation’ or ‘control’ and ‘power issues’ often really do become very prominent in Pluto-type dynamics.
AC: Yep, secrets.
KS: Yeah, well, the secrets, but I think the manipulation. Cuz I think that’s one of the ‘shadow’ sides to the sign of Libra, isn’t it? They seem to be very compromising on the surface—or planets in Libra—but they can somehow be pulling strings. So definitely that idea of what’s not being said or what’s going on behind the scenes from that ‘manipulation’ piece. I mean, I think if you wanted to get obsessed about a research project, that could be a really helpful energy. I don’t know.
CB: Yeah, well, it’s interesting.
AC: I could see that.
KS: You could see that?
CB: That combines one of the traditional placements that was associated with secrecy, which is being under the beams in general. And so, Mercury here is pretty much as far under the beams as you can get it by having that exact conjunction with the Sun. But then it’s also squaring the modern planet that I think most modern astrologers would associate with those types of themes, like secrecy.
KS: Absolutely. Yeah, I think the secrecy comes up from both a modern and traditional perspective with this component.
CB: Sure.
AC: Yeah.
CB: All right. Any other ‘Mercury-Pluto-type’ things that you guys want to mention in terms of keywords or significations associated with that?
AC: Okay, so Mercury-Pluto, definitely ‘going down rabbit holes’ obsession. You know, if you’re actually doing a research project, that’s good probably, but just going from YouTube video to YouTube video is probably not a research project. You know, if you just consider that you have an extra ability to get sucked into little ‘reality’ tunnels and ‘thinking’ tunnels during that time period, if you pick your wormhole, you’ll be better off rather than just kind of randomly stumbling down one.
CB: Right. Yeah, I love that. That’s a great image for Mercury-Pluto aspects, which if it’s a soft aspect sometimes that sort of compulsion can be like a driving force that can be channeled in a productive way. But sometimes when it’s a more difficult aspect, it can be difficult not to get sucked into that sort of black hole, focusing in on something that can become unproductive or unhealthy as an obsession in some sense.
KS: Yeah.
AC: Yeah, I think—
KS: Oh, I was just gonna say, just very quickly, I think the negative of that obsession—that mental obsession—is becoming really fixated on something, or overly-anxious or stressed about something, where you cause yourself this mental turmoil because you cannot set something down or let it go. So I definitely think there’s a time-wasting potential here as well.
AC: I would say that there’s also a potential for—yeah, I totally agree—letting suspicions overflow and letting distrust multiply itself.
CB: Right. Yeah, like that kind of brings us to the ‘conspiracy theory’ thing we jumped on or talked about very briefly last month. This would be a good combination. Mercury-Pluto would be a good thing about that, like becoming obsessed about suspicions or theories that other people might have, that there might be like a vast conspiracy. Or there might be underhanded things afoot and becoming sort of obsessed with that as an idea, sometimes to an unhealthy extent.
AC: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
CB: Sure. All right, so at this point we’re around the second week of October. So why don’t we fully move into that second week here at this point? Maybe one of the good transition points—I don’t know there’s anything I’m overlooking—Austin, I really liked the point you made that once Venus has that square with Saturn on October 8, or around October 8, it starts separating both from the square with Saturn and the conjunction with Mars and heading towards its home sign of Libra. So Venus’ condition basically starts improving from October 8 forward and then just keeps getting successively better, I think, first, starting October 8, with separating from the square. And then finally, by October 14, we have the ingress of Venus into Libra. And Venus then spends a few weeks or like a month or something in its own sign at this point, right?
AC: Yeah, which just makes everything better.
KS: Yes.
AC: And what’s interesting is we get both of the benefics—both Jupiter and Venus—changing signs over like four days, right? Jupiter moves into Scorpio on the 10th. And then is it early 14th that Venus moves into Libra?
CB: Yeah, here in Denver, for example, it looks like it goes in between four o’clock in the morning and five o’clock in the morning on October 14.
AC: Yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, those are both big shifts. And Jupiter will be with us for, more or less, a year, or more a year, and Venus will be with us for the rest of the month. You know, one thing I like about Venus in Libra—when there are planets in Libra—is I think of Libra and the scales and balance within relationships and justice within the world, and also the balance in trade. Scales are used in trade as much as they’re used in justice. Deals need to be fair, right? Venus is the fulcrum. Venus provides the center-point which allows you to find the balance between the two scales. And when Venus is in Libra, it’s like, ah, the scale’s working perfectly. It just makes it easier for the other planets which are operating according to that formula—which in this case would be the Sun and Mercury—it allows them to both do their ‘Libra’ thing so much more easily. Which is nice because if we look at the month up to this point, there’s a lot of trying to get the scales to balance, but there’s a lot in the way.
CB: Right.
KS: Yes. Well—
CB: Yeah, and—go ahead, Kelly.
KS: I was just gonna say, yeah, I think it’s gonna bring a very welcome and very positive change.
CB: And it’s funny talking about this, cuz Leisa and I looked through the electional charts—well, mainly Leisa looked through the electional charts. Cuz she’s really the expert electional astrologer at this point, and then we go over them together afterwards. But we were trying to decide which one to highlight, and of the ones that she came up with, I actually wanted to highlight this one, which takes place on October 14 at about 5:30 in the morning, with early Libra rising. So right after Venus goes into Libra, it opens up this kind of brief window that takes place during the second part of October, the second-half of October, where you can get some relatively decent Venus elections. Venus is in its own sign. It’s not really afflicted by anything through super-close hard aspects with malefics now that it’s cleared that Saturn square and cleared the conjunction with Mars. So the main electional chart that I wanted to highlight this month for this episode is this one. So October 14, 5:30 in the morning, early Libra rising, and Venus having just ingressed into Libra, which hopefully you can get in every location. I think most locations can get this. It might be a little bit dicey with some of them. But yeah, so it has Libra rising, with Venus in Libra, in its own sign, in the 1st house, or at least closely-conjunct the ascendant depending on what house system you’re using. It is a night chart, because this is a bit before sunrise. You actually have an option where you could make it a day chart if you want to by putting the ascendant a little bit later and doing it at or just after sunrise, and putting the Sun and Mercury on the ascendant. But it would actually be better in terms of sect and in terms of really emphasizing Venus’ placement if you kept it as a night chart, because then Venus will be at its most positive, both in terms sect and in terms of zodiacal placement, while ruling the 1st house, while ruling the ascendant. And therefore, whatever you’re starting or initiating at that time will be primarily signified by Venus in your chart. And, Austin, I think you’ll like this. This is also taking place on the day of Venus as well.
AC: That’s very nice.
CB: Extra bonus points in terms of Venus. So this is really trying to emphasize this Venus electional chart, and so, ideally, you could use it for ‘Venus-type’ things. So that could be something as simple or as mundane as ‘beauty-type’ things, or things where aesthetic appeal is really important. But more broadly you could also use it for things that are in accordance with Venus’ basic nature of trying to unify and reconcile things. So if you’re trying to make peace with somebody that you’ve had problems with in the past, if you’re trying to create some sort of group endeavor that requires a sort of cohesive focus, then this might be a good chart. The other major point about this chart or the other thing is the placement of the Moon, which we couldn’t get super well-placed. And there’s a little bit of a question about putting it that close to the North Node, since in some electional texts, putting the Moon conjunct the North Node is not super-recommended. But in terms of trying to find one of the best Libra rising/Venus in Libra charts this month, this is one of the best ones we could come up with.
AC: And it’s applying to the Sun by sextile, which is nice.
CB: Yeah, with reception, because it’s in Leo, the Sun’s domicile. So the Moon’s relatively well-placed. It’s in the later part of its waning cycle. It’s not necessarily applying to benefics, but it’s not severely harmed by malefics either, and it has that nice applying sextile with reception with the Sun.
AC: Yeah, I think we could all agree that the Sun and Moon are friends.
KS: Absolutely.
AC: Especially when they’re in a sextile.
CB: Yeah, definitely. And so, because the Moon is in the 11th house, and it rules the 10th house, that kind of emphasizes some of those notions of friendship and alliances and unity and other things like that. So sort of circling around to that point that somebody had a question on earlier, which was, what do you do with charts like these? On the one hand, you could use it for very specific or highly-focused, ‘Venus-type’ affairs or ‘11th house-type’ affairs. But on the other hand, because the ruler of the ascendant and the Moon are relatively well-situated, this is kind of a good chart for a lot of things. Because you don’t have major afflictions going on for the principle significators in the electional chart, you could use it for a lot of different projects, and they’re just gonna tend to pick up a very ‘Venusian’ or ‘Venus in Libra-type’ vibe in whatever it is that you’re starting at that time.
AC: Yeah, I mean, this is basically a ‘Venus talisman’ election. I mean, most talismans—and there are a lot—but the main kind are just single-planet elections, and this is basically of that sort. And this would probably work just fine for a ‘Venus in Libra’ talisman, depending on where you are in the world and what the hours are, cuz the planetary hours are gonna be a little different.
CB: Oh, good point. I mean, you used something not super-different from this for your wedding chart, didn’t you? It was like Taurus rising, with Venus in Libra, or something like that?
AC: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was interesting. Venus and Mars had just come off a conjunction in Virgo, and it was Venus moving into Libra and getting that sign boundary between her and Mars. But yeah, not dissimilar.
CB: Brilliant, okay. So that’s the electional chart that I wanted to highlight for this month. The one electional chart of one of my best elections that we could find this month. We’ve got three or four other charts that we’re gonna present in this month’s Auspicious Elections Podcast, which Leisa and I are gonna be recording in the next few days and then releasing to patrons of The Astrology Podcast who are on the $5 or $10 tiers as one of the exclusive benefits of those Patreon tiers. So if you want to listen to that episode and get those other electional charts, you can find out more information at theastrologypodcast.com/subscribe and going to our page on Patreon. All right, so that’s the election for this month, and that’s taking place on October 14. So at this point we’re in the two main things this month. I mean, one of them of course is the Venus ingress into Libra, but the big ‘elephant in the room’ of course is the shift of Jupiter into Scorpio.
AC: Mm-hmm.
KS: Yes.
AC: Bring it on.
CB: All right, so we’ve had a year of Jupiter in Libra here at this point. And by October 10, it looks like Jupiter departs from Libra and makes its way into 0° of Scorpio. And that’s where it’s gonna be for the next 12 months or so basically, right?
AC: Yeah, 12-plus.
CB: 12-plus.
KS: It’s about 13.
CB: Okay. So what do you guys think about that? We’re getting into the period of time where I can think back 12 years ago pretty well and think about Jupiter in Scorpio and remember what that was like pretty clearly in terms of my study of astrology and understanding and awareness of the planetary transits at that point. So I’m kind of interested—getting to that stage in my career where I can remember outer planet transits like that 12 years ago. Do you guys have similar recollections about 12 years ago, Jupiter going through Scorpio?
AC: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We actually met during Jupiter in Scorpio.
CB: Oh, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So that would have been during the summer of 2006, and that was my first year at Project Hindsight. And learning Hellenistic astrology was largely under that Jupiter in Scorpio transit.
AC: Yeah, it’s almost like Jupiter went over all of your Scorpio planets.
KS: You learned something.
CB: As if I had one or two planets in Scorpio and Jupiter transited.
AC: Yeah, just like that.
KS: Yeah. My dad—who’s a ‘grammar’, he’s very specific about word choice—would be all over you guys. Was it like that, or was that what it was?
CB: Right.
KS: That’s what we grew up hearing.
AC: I think that your dad would appreciate my sarcasm and understand. I’m actually a great appreciator of the rules of grammar, and when I break them it is because I decide to. My mother was an English teacher.
KS: Oh, right, okay.
CB: Yeah, that’ll do it.
AC: By the way, that’s funny, Kelly, with us both having our Saturn in a Mercury-ruled sign, and having a clear familial experience of proper language.
KS: The Australian equivalent of something like The New York Times newspaper, my dad would read it on a Saturday with a red pen and correct.
AC: My mom does the same thing.
KS: Oh, my gosh, Austin, that’s hilarious. And then of course we do have Saturn in Virgo, so we appreciate the proper rules of particularly ‘Mercury’ things.
AC: They were explained very clearly
KS: From a very young age.
CB: That seems especially like Mercury in earth signs in general, like Virgo, but also Capricorn. I mean, I remember I had a teacher. Unlike you guys, my grammar is not as good, or I’m not as focused on that, but it was a ‘Mercury in Capricorn’ teacher that was very good about constantly asking and reminding about the rulers of grammar and how important that is in terms of sentence structure, but it’s something I’ve noticed especially with Mercury in earth signs.
KS: Fascinating.
AC: Yeah, well, it’s the form of things.
CB: Right. The physical form.
AC: It doesn’t matter what you meant, this is what you created the shape like, and it is deformed.
CB: Right. Whereas Mercury in a water sign might be more like, what was the feeling you were intending to convey with whatever word salad you just put together.
KS: Word salad.
AC: Yeah, I feel you bro. I feel where you’re coming from.
KS: Yeah.
CB: All right, so Jupiter in Scorpio. Kelly, do you remember Jupiter in Scorpio 12 years ago?
KS: Actually, I do. And I feel like that’s how we’re old enough to know that we remembered it last time. Personally, I remember it being subjectively-good, more just from that learning and growing and developing perspective. I think it was a 9th house transit for me. The thing that keeps coming up—I don’t know, maybe I should have researched this before we spoke today—I feel like there was something that was talked about in terms of maybe secrets to do with the royal family. Maybe there was stuff that went on with Prince Charles or something at that time, but I’d need to look into it. You know, that idea of maybe there being some revelations. I remember that being talked about last time, but maybe that’s a weird memory. But I really enjoyed it, so I’m looking forward to it.
CB: Awesome.
KS: I’m not scared of the dark, I should say.
CB: Sure.
AC: Yeah, I really liked it, subjectively. To offer a frame that is not entirely based on my experience, Jupiter in Libra is not a bad sign for Jupiter, but Jupiter had his work cut out for him this year, this last year. You know, Jupiter in Libra was like, “How about peace?” And Uranus in Aries was like, “How about shut up?” And Jupiter in Libra was like, “How about everybody, it’ll be okay?” And Pluto in Capricorn was like, “Well, how about you shut up?” You know, Jupiter was basically T-squared by Uranus and Pluto all year, on and off, and so there was nothing that Jupiter in Libra tried to do that didn’t get extra complicated. And when I think about the good things that were indicated for me this year with Jupiter in Libra, those happened and ended up being way more complicated. Which isn’t to say that good turned to bad, but just that the complications implied by Jupiter being opposed by Uranus and squared by Pluto were abundantly clear, and now, almost in retrospect, are even more abundantly clear.
CB: Right.
AC: And Jupiter in Scorpio isn’t gonna fight with anybody.
KS: That’s a really good point, Austin, the aspects.
CB: Yeah.
AC: Like nobody’s gonna yell at Jupiter to shut up.
KS: No.
AC: Jupiter’s gonna be like, “Hey guys, I learned this really important philosophical lesson by watching this horror movie.” And the other planets will be like, “Oh, that’s really interesting.”
KS: Austin.
CB: Yeah, that’s crucial. So there’s no other outer planets that it’s gonna hit during the course of that trip through Scorpio for the most part.
AC: I mean, it’ll trine Neptune in Pisces. And Neptune in Pisces will be like, “Tell me more.”
KS: Yeah, and that’ll happen early in December. I’m quite looking forward to that.
AC: But then I think the station degrees—the direct station degree way later in the year is pretty close to Neptune, too.
KS: Yeah, it’s a trine to Neptune, and they’re both in water signs.
AC: Yeah, they’re both in water signs. You know, Scorpio likes it dark, but Pisces can totally deal with the dark.
KS: Absolutely.
AC: Yeah, it’ll be nice to have a Jupiter that’s not impeded at every turn. Especially if you’re a very ‘Jupiterian’ nativity, it’s probably gonna feel good. If you’re used to leading with Jupiter, this last year there have probably been some frustrations with that. What’s interesting is Jupiter in Scorpio doesn’t have a rack-load of traditional dignity, but it’s not debilitated, right?
KS: It’s just kinda neutral.
AC: It’s kinda just gonna get to do its thing, yeah. I mean, it does rule the second face in one system, which is nice. I don’t know, when I think of Jupiter in Scorpio, I think of the less-celebrated quality of Jupiter. So people like to celebrate Jupiter’s distribution of opportunities and wonderful lessons, but the other thing that Jupiter does is it negates negatives. It helps you fix things that aren’t working. And I think that Jupiter in Scorpio will have an orientation that’s closer to that on a psychological level. Like it’s time to integrate with your shadow or whichever psychology’s language you would use to phrase that process. But it’s like going down into the underworld and finding out that you can be friends with a lot of the monsters, and maybe they’ll even do stuff for you.
KS: Yeah. And, Austin, what you’re reminding me of, Shawn Nygaard—if I’m saying his name properly—wrote a beautiful article in WellBeing Astrology on Jupiter in Scorpio, and he made this beautiful point about the storyteller. And he lists a bunch of really well-known storytellers who actually have Jupiter in Scorpio in their birth chart, including Stephen King, which I think is fascinating. So Stephen King, Alfred Hitchcock, Danielle Steel who writes more ‘romance-y’ type, if that’s what they’re called.
AC: Oh, no, I’m pretty sure those are like tawdry, bodice-rippers—
KS: Yes, yes, they are.
AC: —which is very Scorpio. And then Stephen King and Alfred Hitchcock with suspense and mystery and suspicion.
KS: And Shonda Rhimes who’s the showrunner or creator of Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal. And I don’t know if anybody has watched Scandal, but that is the most trippy show, and it’s ultimately about power and control and there’s all these shadowy power organizations. Like you think the president’s in control, but there’s this shadowy organization called ‘B613’ that really runs the show. And who’s running that? So there’s all these things there. So when you mentioned the horror movie, I was like actually the ‘Stephen King’ thing kind of does really fit. So it’s that idea of storytelling where maybe there’s a message, or there’s something to be gained, but we go into those very ‘Scorpio’ topics to get there.
AC: Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. I was thinking about ‘philosophical’ horror the other day when I was considering Jupiter in Scorpio. Well, I mean, HP Lovecraft—which is one of the, I don’t know, ‘gods’ in the pantheon of horror literature—the philosophical elements were part of what made it work, and most people don’t think of philosophical horror. But if you did undergraduate in philosophy, you know that philosophy is full of horror. Cuz Jupiter’s about learning, right? But you’ll always get to a certain point in your learning where you will learn something about the world which you have not yet accepted.
KS: Yes.
AC: And, Chris, stop me if I’m wrong here, but part of your deep ingress into Hellenistic astrology meant having to confront questions of fate and free will, which you hadn’t before, which were not necessarily super-happy. The implication that maybe I’m making far fewer choices than I imagined I was—maybe I’m the puppet of forces I do not understand, right? These are things you have to grapple with when you go deep.
CB: Yeah, I mean, that was a large part of that ingress to me. And actually, now that you mention it, that whole process probably started very shortly after the ingress of Jupiter into Scorpio, which was being exposed to and finally learning and understanding how to use some of the time-lord systems, like zodiacal releasing, and then suddenly having a technique that seemed to be outlining the outlines of a person’s entire life from the moment of birth, but then also sometimes indicating that they would make certain choices deliberately at certain points in their life, and then the philosophical crisis that suddenly came along with that over the course of the next year or so of what does this mean about fate and free will and determinism and all sorts of things like that. So yeah, that’s a really good point.
AC: Yeah. And so, horror isn’t just a set of negative emotions, right? It’s an experience that we get sometimes when we discover something that we don’t have a place for. And what I meant by the horror of philosophy/philosophical horror is that you go deep enough and something becomes a question which before had been a pleasant certainty. And that’s actually what a lot of Lovecraft’s stories use as a structure, where any early 20th century man of science discovers that there is far more to this world and far darker powers behind it than he imagined in his laboratory or classroom.
CB: Right. And even just talking a little bit about Scorpio and the nature of Scorpio—of course this becomes eventually in this month the beginning of ‘Scorpio’ season, when the Sun ingresses into Scorpio around October 23. You know, something I’ve been really focused on in trying to develop a more, I don’t know, stable and practical understanding of the signs is just the idea of the sign borrowing some of the significations from its domicile lord, and the domicile lord of that sign feeding significations to whatever planets are moving through it. You know, if you have Jupiter transiting through a sign, it’s like a person who’s staying away from home, and they have to rely on the planet that rules that sign to feed it and to clothe it and give it a place to sleep and things like that. And the question becomes, what kind of significations does a Scorpio-type Mars feed to Jupiter, as Jupiter is moving through that sign?
AC: I mean, one way to think about it is that Jupiter will be in a position to learn from whatever conflicts or frictions or exertions Mars provides, and that will change as Mars moves signs and aspects.
CB: Right. Yeah.
KS: Yes. It won’t be consistent, because Mars will shift. Mars moves much more quickly than Jupiter, so we’re gonna get different iterations of the Jupiter in Scorpio based on transiting Mars. That’s something I’ve looked at when I’ve done my ‘Saturn in the sign’ e-books, how the ruling planet of that cycle shifts the dynamic of what we’re experiencing. So this ‘Saturn in Sag’ cycle has had different flavors based on Jupiter being in Virgo versus Jupiter being in Libra, where it is now. And this last bit of Saturn in Sag has got a different tone again, because Jupiter will be in Scorpio for that last couple of months.
AC: Right. And what’s interesting of course is that when a planet is in its own domicile, it feeds itself significations, which is so interesting about Saturn into Capricorn and then Aquarius for five years. Saturn’s just gonna be doing ‘Saturn’ and is going to need the opinions of no other planets.
KS: Yes.
CB: Right. The intensification of Saturn.
KS: Well, and it’s almost like it’s a more purer version, because the planet is not dealing with the influences of a ruler. It is the chairman of the board and the CEO, too, rather than being the CEO and having a chairman overseeing you.
AC: Right. There’s no need for discussions.
KS: Correct. It’s like an absolute, like a unilateral sort of approach basically.
AC: Right. Which is one of the reasons why Saturn has such a hard time in Cancer, right? The Moon is feeding Saturn—which is trying to be stable—something different every two-and-a-half days when it’s in Cancer.
KS: Great point, Austin.
CB: Right. A planet that thrives on stability being supported by a very unstable planet that fluctuates frequently.
AC: Right. Like literally changing the agenda and being like, “Actually, we’re not building a house. We’re building a pool. No, no, let’s not build it two-and-a-half days into construction. You know what? Let’s open a business?”
KS: Let’s make a cake. Let’s see these people.
AC: Yeah.
CB: Right. And Saturn is asking for a long-term, 10-year projection for the future of the company.
AC: Yeah, it’s like, “The Moon, revenues are down. We need to pick something.” And just speaking of, we should probably get back to this month, cuz there are a couple of important things that we need to talk about. But later this season, we’re going to have Mars in Scorpio with Jupiter. And that will be very interesting because it’ll be a very ‘pure’ version of Jupiter in Scorpio that does come later into the season. We’ll talk about that next month.
KS: Yeah.
CB: Right. And just related, before we move off of Jupiter in Scorpio, I mean, one thing that might be useful to think back on is I was always amused and surprised at how literal some of the ‘Saturn in Scorpio’ manifestations were. As soon as it went in there started being a lot of news articles in the very first part. There was that controversy with the head of the CIA, where he got caught having an affair or something, and they were using Gmail in order to send secret messages to each other. And then all of a sudden there was this early panic about privacy and using programs like that. And that ended up being a precursor to a year later, and all of a sudden the Snowden controversy came out, and then there was everything about the NSA tapping everyone’s communications and how private were communications, and then suddenly all of these different companies came out in order to protect privacy. Just issues about privacy and secrets, and a lot of ‘Scorpio’ themes came up with Saturn in Scorpio over that two-and-a-half year period. And it’s interesting here. We’re gonna have a return to that in some sense, but in a very different way, with Jupiter moving through Scorpio over the next year. And I wonder if we won’t see a return of similar themes. But I don’t know if it’s in either a more positive way in some instances—a sort of glorification of some aspects of that—or perhaps in another way, the expansion of some kind of themes surrounding that, which could be good or it could be bad.
AC: It could also be a proliferation of protective measures. You know, Jupiter likes to protect. That’s one of Jupiter’s themes.
CB: Right.
AC: And so, on this note, Mercury moves into Scorpio on October 17 and then conjoins Jupiter right away. And so, as far as getting this ‘Jupiter in Scorpio’ party started, Mercury’s the first planet to conjoin Jupiter in its new sign. And so, the ‘Jupiter in Scorpio’ significations should be pretty obvious, pretty quick. And then the Sun will conjoin it in a little bit less than a week later, after it crosses into Scorpio. But we have a big New Moon to talk about between those two, but we do get two planets conjoining Jupiter in its new sign. And so, it’s not like we’re gonna have to wait to see what Jupiter in Scorpio is about. It’s gonna be pretty clear.
KS: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
KS: And you gave the dates? The 18th with Mercury, and then the 26th with the Sun.
AC: Right.
CB: Yeah, so that conjunction with Mercury and Jupiter takes place at about 1° of Scorpio around October 18. And the Sun takes place just a few days later—here it is in the chart—around the 25th and 26th. Well, especially the 26th.
AC: Yep, especially the 26th.
KS: Yes.
CB: All right, this is like third quarter of October at this point.
AC: Right. But between those we have the New Moon.
CB: Yes.
KS: So tightly-conjunct Uranus.
AC: I think it’s four minutes away from a perfect opposition. It’s absurd.
KS: Yeah, so the ‘Uranus in Aries’ stuff that people might be dealing with late September with the Jupiter-Uranus, it’s kind of not done yet.
AC: Yeah. Yeah, you have both the Sun and the Moon taking up the position that Jupiter held during the final opposition.
KS: Yes.
CB: Here it is. So 26°35’ Libra.
KS: Sorry. I think I said ‘conjunct’ before. Totally opposite.
CB: Right.
AC: Yeah, we got 26°35’ versus 26°31’. Four minutes away from a perfect opposition.
CB: That is a really unstable, disruptive influence to have on what is otherwise a kind of nice-looking conjunction or New Moon in Libra, with the Venus itself in Libra at that point. And that sort of makes me think back to your statement earlier, Austin, about that Jupiter opposition with Uranus and what we learned from it over the past year, where Jupiter’s trying to say, “Let’s have peace,” and Uranus is saying, “Let’s have disruption.” So here, again, we get one more little taste of that as we’re finishing up the last bit of Uranus going through Aries, with a really, really tight opposition of Uranus to the New Moon at 26 Libra.
AC: Yeah, it’s a bit of a monkey wrench. I mean, to be fair, if we look at what else is going on, there are stabilizing factors. Mercury is still conjunct Jupiter pretty tightly. That’s pretty smiley face. And we do have Venus in Libra, providing the Sun and Moon with an ability to adjust or compensate for shocks to the system. But that shock to the system—that Sun-Moon opposition to Uranus certainly testifies to that monkey wrench.
CB: Yeah, I mean, it’s also nice that once that New Moon is completed, and once that opposition to Uranus happens between the Moon and Uranus, the Moon is not gonna complete anymore aspects in that sign, at least zodiacally. But after that point, it’s like pretty clear sailing right to that conjunction with Jupiter in Scorpio. So there’s this interesting transition where you have the New Moon, but then as soon as that’s done, it’s straight onto conjoining Jupiter in Scorpio.
AC: Right. And of course the Sun isn’t gonna sit there for a month, like Jupiter.
CB: Right, right.
AC: You know, there is something about New Moons which bakes some of that configuration into the DNA of the next several weeks.
CB: Yeah, definitely. All right, so that’s taking place. That New Moon is on the 19th, and that’s our second lunation of the month. So back to the outline. I’m just looking through other things. Shortly after that, it looks like a couple of days, or three days later, we get Mars ingressing into Libra on October 22. So the ‘Venus in Libra’ party doesn’t entirely come to a close, but it gets a new attendee of Mars catching up with Venus and moving into Venus’ sign, which definitely changes the formula a little bit from the purely ‘Venus’ action that was going on there to something more with Mars.
AC: Yeah. So they’re gonna be co-present for the next several weeks after that, or a couple of weeks, but the distance between them will continue to grow. Even though Mars has finally made it into the same sign as Venus again, Mars is falling further behind in that race everyday. We would be foolish not to interpret the co-presence, but it’s a widening, separating conjunction rather than an applying one. And so, I think that’s actually probably a good thing.
CB: Yeah, definitely. And in the elections, it’s like we tried to get that other election earlier in the month, before Mars goes in, and this becomes one of the challenging things with continuing to do Venus elections this month. It’s like you can pull it off, cuz at least it’s not an applying conjunction with Mars, but it does create a bit of a different dynamic. Especially in day charts, where Mars is gonna be a bit more disruptive to what Venus is trying to do in Libra. Whereas in night charts, I think you can probably still get away with using Venus as a primary significator, with Venus’ more unifying significations winning out over Mars’ more separating significations.
AC: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, and also just with both of the planets being in Libra, Venus certainly has the superior potency. You know, Mars is visiting Venus’ house, where Venus is in control, which also helps a lot. Yeah, the Mars in Libra, I’d rather it stay at the end of Virgo, but I don’t think it’s gonna spit in anybody’s soup. I think it’ll be fine.
CB: Sure. All right, and we’re getting towards the later part of October. Of course a day later, on October 23, we have the ingress of the Sun into Scorpio, beginning its one-month journey through that sign. And very early on in that, it’s met with the conjunction with Jupiter at about 3° of Scorpio on October 26 it looks like. And, Austin, you had a point about that, like I mentioned, in terms of Mercury earlier in the month, and this starting a new cycle for the Sun and Jupiter
AC: Yeah, I mean, it’s the beginning of Jupiter’s synodic cycle, right? It’s the Jupiter cazimi we get once a year, and then it becomes visible again in November. What’s interesting is that Jupiter moves into Scorpio and we’re barely gonna be able to see it, and then we’re not gonna be able to see it in the sky, and so this is the point of maximum invisibility. And then over the next couple of weeks, we’ll begin to see Jupiter again rising in the morning, just before the Sun. And so, from a synodic point of view, or from a phase point of view, this is the beginning of a whole new year of Jupiter cycle for a whole new 13-ish months. And so, on an experiential level, if you’re trying to get a beat on what there is to learn from Jupiter in Scorpio, or how you might benefit—or just kind of get acquainted with it—in a sense there’s no better way than having the Sun shining directly on it, right?
CB: Right.
KS: Absolutely. I think that it kind of creates a connection for each individual as to what that longer Jupiter in Scorpio cycle will be about. Symbolically, the Sun, even just the joining of the two together, whatever house or planets that might be activating for you, it’s really laying the foundation for how you’re gonna explore and grow or experience this Jupiter in Scorpio cycle.
AC: Totally.
CB: Yeah, that makes sense. And that had come up in some of our last discussions about Saturn moving through certain signs and having its last synodic conjunction with Saturn back when it was in Scorpio, and those being really pivotal turning points in laying the foundation or ending certain long periods in terms of those outer planet transits. So yeah, that seemed to work out pretty well in the past. So it’s probably good to focus in on that here, as we’ve done, as pretty much the last major thing that happens towards the end of October at this point. So are there any other major things that we missed or that we skipped over? I mean, I’m just looking at the chart right now.
KS: Just a little Venus square Pluto aspect around the 27th.
CB: A little Venus square Pluto, yeah, the 27th-28th. Or no, you’re right.
KS: Yeah, it might be. I guess it depends. I’ve got the Eastern timezone. Hang on. 11:20 PM Eastern on the 27th.
CB: There we go. So right at 17 Libra.
KS: Which is interesting because Venus will be in Libra. And I don’t know about you guys, but sometimes when a planet in its own sign interacts with an outer planet—not to take away from the outer planet’s influence and power or dominance, I guess—but sometimes there can be some resource or something that is unlocked inside that planet. I don’t think this is as difficult necessarily as Venus in Virgo square Pluto, for instance. Because Venus, she’s in her own house, she’s in her own sign, she’s got access to things here. It’s still a Venus square Pluto aspect, so there’s still some of these themes around trust, truth, loyalty, and betrayal, particularly in partnerships. Is there the trust you thought that you had? Has there been a betrayal that you’ve only just discovered? But it’s a little bit more of a rosy version of that, I guess. That’s just my take. Do you guys consider the strength of a planet in terms of how it interacts in an aspect?
CB: Yeah, definitely.
AC: Yeah, I agree with you, both generally and specifically in this case.
KS: Okay, so generally and specifically. Tell us more, Austin.
AC: Oh, no, I think the general principle you’re delineating, that a planet when it’s powerfully-positioned in terms of essential dignity is able to defend its significations and its priorities from contrary influences. Okay, just to use a crude metaphor, if you were gonna go up and steal somebody’s wallet, if it was a nine-foot man with robot chainsaw arms wearing Medieval armor (let’s say this is Mars), that would be a harder person to steal from than a five-year-old child.
KS: Sure.
AC: You know, the planets are always trying to do the same thing, right? Venus is always trying to do ‘Venus’ things. And Venus has pretty much maximum resources available to do ‘Venus’ things, to bring harmony where there’s strife, to bring people together when they want to separate, etc., etc. Pluto definitely can undermine a little bit here. There might be an undermining of a deal or an agreement, but Venus has a tremendous ability to adjust and adapt to whatever the challenge to the balance/just/fair/relating is.
KS: Yeah, as if she’s got access to better resources, or that her specific talents are more fully available to her right now, so that whatever Pluto is throwing at her, she can meet or respond to. She can deal with it fairly deftly.
AC: Yeah, and I would also just add that this is a couple of days.
KS: Yeah, it’s not a huge game-changer.
AC: We did harder stuff in October than this.
KS: Yeah.
AC: But you might feel weird for a day or two. A lot of times that’s how I experience these. I’m like [vocalizes] and then it passes.
KS: And it probably depends on whether the Pluto transit itself is triggering something in your chart.
AC: Right. If Pluto is on your descendant at the time that this happens, it’ll probably be more than just [vocalizes] for a few days. It might bring up something significant.
CB: I like that general distinction that you’re raising there, which is the difference between Venus, herself, in the inferior position of being manipulated or controlled by Pluto versus what happens when Venus is the one in the superior or the more dominant role and that theme. You know, she’s the one playing the manipulator or the one that’s in control of the situation maybe is part of the difference.
KS: Yeah, that’s a good way of putting it. She’s not completely at the mercy of whatever Pluto might be stirring up.
AC: Right. A planet in its own domicile is in many ways defined—as we got to earlier—by not having to answer to any other planet.
CB: Right. All right, well, and that’s a really interesting and great point to leave on, with Venus right there in the middle of Libra at the close of the month. Yeah, so maybe it’s time to wind this down. Do you guys have any other parting things? Is there anything we forgot to touch on that we want to do before we wrap up today?
AC: I like October. I have good feelings about October. I haven’t liked the last couple of months.
KS: Even with all of the Saturn squares, Austin?
AC: Oh, yeah, those were great.
KS: Says the guy who’s got Mars-Saturn and living on his Mars-Saturn line.
AC: Yeah. No, I’ve got enough of that, thank you.
KS: I’m really looking forward to Jupiter in Scorpio.
AC: Me, too.
KS: And the idea of Jupiter moving into a fixed sign, some sort of stabilization. It’s just an ‘anchoring’ vibration coming through.
AC: Well, and at the very least—oh, go ahead.
KS: Yeah, yeah, at the very least it’s not opposite Uranus anymore.
CB: Right.
AC: Yeah. You know, if you have water planets, it’s gonna feel good.
CB: Yeah. And this is the start of what the next year’s gonna look like and what that period is gonna look like of not just Jupiter in Scorpio, but really soon after this we’re gonna get Saturn in Capricorn. So there’s a huge shift going on here of outer planets moving into feminine signs and that’s a lot different.
KS: It’s huge, Chris. Yeah, I had meant to say this earlier. Jupiter going into Scorpio is the first of what will ultimately be three shifts of planets moving out of yang/air/fire signs into the more feminine earth and water signs. Jupiter in Scorpio in October. Saturn in Cap in December. And then if we just stretch it out, we will have Uranus dip into Taurus for a few months next year as well. I’m not necessarily saying that’s gonna be great—and I know we’ll talk about it more—but just from that shift of the ‘yangy’ air/fire into earth and water, it’s quite substantial.
CB: Is that happening for you too, Austin?
AC: Yeah. Kelly’s frozen and we’re not.
CB: Did time freeze? Or is it just us? Are we stuck?
AC: The ‘saved by the bell’ moment. Well, until Kelly unfreezes, I wanted to add another thing to what she was saying; cuz I think it’s a very real thing. If we look at Chinese years, our next Chinese year is of the earth element, whereas we’re doing a fire one this year. So we’re gonna be moving to a more yin elemental flavor in that system as well.
CB: We lost Kelly. All right, well, that’s a good natural way to close down the show. Hopefully, we got her recording.
AC: We miss you, Kelly.
CB: Thanks, Kelly. Kelly, I hope you’re okay wherever you are right now. And I’m gonna talk to you guys again in a few weeks when we meet again to do the forecast for November. So thanks for joining me, Austin.
AC: Yeah, that was great.
CB: Yeah, that was a good episode. And thanks to our audience who joined us for the live recording. I really appreciate it. And I hope to see many of you again next month when we do this again with a live episode for patrons. And thanks everyone else who’s listening to the show on the podcast website itself. So always remember to leave a comment in the comments section of the podcast episode for other observations you’ve had or other things that you were interested in, in terms of the transits of next month. If you’re listening to us through iTunes, then please go ahead and give us a good rating on iTunes, since that’ll help other people to find the show. And I think that’s about it. So thanks everyone for listening, and we’ll see you next time.