The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 142, titled:
Astrology Forecast for February 2018: Pileup in Pisces
With Chris Brennan and guests Austin Coppock and Kelly Surtees
Episode originally released on January 31, 2018
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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 September 16th, 2025
Copyright © 2025 TheAstrologyPodcast.com
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CHRIS BRENNAN: Hi, my name is Chris Brennan. You’re listening to The Astrology Podcast. This episode is recorded on Monday, January 29, 2018, starting just after 3:00 PM. Actually, it’s 3:12 PM in Denver, Colorado, and this is the 142nd 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 February of 2018. Hey, guys, welcome back to the show.
AUSTIN COPPOCK: Hey, Chris.
KELLY SURTEES: Hey, guys.
CB: Hey. All right, so we are back. Last month, we did an entire yearly forecast, which was kind of a big thing to do. And this month, we’re back to our usual monthly grind, which feels a little bit more approachable. It feels a little bit smaller, a little bit more cozy, but I think better in some ways cuz we don’t have as much work to do. How do you guys feel about it?
AC: Yeah.
KS: I think the vibe for February is very mellow all around.
AC: I’m ready for some ‘less’ epic themes.
CB: Yeah, less epic, far-ranging. Like we’ve been talking about Saturn in Capricorn and like Uranus moving into Taurus for the next seven years and all of this other stuff. This month, we’re just gonna talk about some pretty light things, I think, by comparison. So we’re gonna start by doing some news and announcements, then we’re gonna do some sort of general discussion topics about things that I’ve touched on in the podcast so far this month in order to get you guys’ take on it. And then after all of that we will jump into the forecast for February and talk about—also, eventually—the auspicious electional chart that we’ve picked out for the month of February. So, for anybody that just wants to jump ahead to the forecast, or different parts of this episode, you can look in the description for the episode, and I’ll put some timestamps so that you can jump ahead. Otherwise, just enjoy the rest of the discussion. So, first things first, what do you guys have coming up in terms of events or things in the next few weeks that you wanted to let people know about? Kelly, I know you just got back from Australia and are doing a bunch of consultations. And you’re getting back into the swing of things now that you’re back home, right?
KS: Yeah, I am. I feel like December-January were these kind of ‘island’ months. And what I’ve got coming up for February—I start my first online class for the year, which is a four-week, deep dive on transits. So that starts the first week of February. And I’ve also got a very exciting new product—my Stellar Insights Monthly—which is like an exclusive access, subscriber-only program we’re offering. So there’ll be some really special content that I’m putting together for that: a lot of videos about the month ahead, different energies for February, that type of thing. So working pretty hard on those two things—prepping those two things right now.
CB: Awesome. I’m excited about it. So you’re actually gonna be doing more deep-dive, forecast-type episodes, but for an exclusive, subscription audience basically, right?
KS: Totally, totally. I mean, I always have so many ideas and so much to say. And, yeah, I just thought why not create some really good content, use the video format—which I’ve been wanting to do more video for a long time. And my business partner, Tony—who gives me some really good advice—encouraged me to structure it in this way. It’s a massive experiment. We have no idea. We are getting people signing up, and we’ll see. You know, we’ll look forward to feedback from everyone. But, yeah, so it’ll be like a short video overviewing the month and then a deep dive, sort of week-by-week, this is what’s happening, this is how you can use the energy for the month ahead. And people will be able to access that content. You know, if you don’t know a lot about astrology—I think about my sisters, my three sisters, who are very interested in astrology but don’t know a lot of the technical stuff. So you don’t have to know the technical stuff; I’ll be doing the hard work for you. And then if you do know your chart, there’ll be some ‘check your chart’ tips where I’ll sort of say, “This is how you connect it to your chart, this is how you find out,” where specifically it’s for you. So, I don’t know. Austin, you might find this, too—when you share astrology in a more broad sense—you’ve sort of got two levels in your audience, where you’ve got the more interested enthusiast, but then the more serious person who might have their chart. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that. I’d be curious to hear.
AC: Yeah, that’s a pretty key distinction. You know, I think we probably both think about that when we’re writing. Will this be interesting for somebody who knows what a Mars-Venus square is, while at the same time, also be comprehensible to someone who doesn’t know the technical part of it? Yeah.
KS: Yeah.
CB: Definitely. So people can find out more information about that on your website, which is kellysastrology.com, right?
KS: Yes, thank you. And, yeah, the new program is called Stellar Insights Monthly, but it’s right there on the homepage. So it should hit you in the face when you walk into the proverbial ‘front door’.
CB: Okay, brilliant. And, Austin, what do you have going on this month?
AC: Well, I’m finally going to get my 2018 class schedule out—
KS: Yay.
AC: —hopefully before this podcast airs. I’ve been a little over-busy and delayed and a little finicky about getting it perfect. But that’ll go out this week and first week of February, and enrollment will be open for the entire year of classes. And there’ll be an eight-month basics class, and there’ll be a sort of intermediate timing techniques class. And then there’s gonna be a bunch of—there’ll be several astrological magic classes, and then a bunch of little talks and seminars on, not random topics, but not like long, 12-session class topics. So I’m sprinkling those around. So that’ll finally be out this week. And I’m always writing. You know, I’ve been doing my ‘decan-lies’ rather than my weeklies, and I’ve been doing my dailies for quite some time now. And if people like those, they can support me on Patreon and get a bunch of bonus free stuff or extra stuff.
CB: Awesome. And people can check out more information about that on your website, which is austincoppock.com, right?
AC: Mm-hmm.
CB: Brilliant. All right, and as for myself, I’ve been working on this ‘poster’ thing for the past month, which has kind of been a little bit crazy, a little hectic, and has gone a little bit awry. So, first thing’s first, there’s been some shipping delays with the posters. Because apparently I bought poster tubes—like round cylinders—to ship the posters in, and evidently the US Postal Service has problems. Yeah, Kelly, you’ve got one.
KS: Yeah. I’m like, “I can demonstrate.” You can imagine this rolls off the roller, literally.
CB: So, apparently, I’m having a hard time getting answers from USPS. But a nice guy at a UPS Store told me that part of the issue is that these systems are fully automated now and round tubes will roll off of conveyor belts or sometimes won’t be scanned properly, cuz they don’t have a flat surface. So that’s why a lot of places are shipping, using triangular tube boxes. So I didn’t know that when I shipped like the hundred, two hundred orders of posters, which are traveling in different parts of the world right now and some of them are getting stuck. So if your poster hasn’t shown up yet—which has happened to like a few people, not a lot, but a decent number—send me an email, and I’ll check the tracking and see if I can get you a replacement sent if necessary. Otherwise, it may just show up randomly in the next few days, which is what most of them are doing at this point. I’ve since switched to amazon.com in order to fulfill all of the orders, which actually my original plan was just to sell them through Amazon and then let Amazon deal with shipping. But what happened is the page on Amazon—due to a glitch—I couldn’t get it set up in time and just decided to ship them myself in early January. So now that that’s out of the way, Amazon’s dealing with it. So if you go to Amazon and just do a search for ‘2018 Astrology Calendar Poster Bundle’, you’ll find the posters there for $19.95. And on Amazon, of course, you can get free, two-day shipping if you have a Prime account, which is pretty sweet. So there’s also more information about the posters at theastrologypodcast.com/2018posters. So thanks to everybody who’s bought one. If you support the podcast, if you listen, but you’re not necessarily a patron and you want to support us, one good way is just buy a poster, and it’ll be a good way to sort of show your support and get a cool, sort of useful product that you can use throughout the course of the year to improve your astrological studies in the process. So that’s it for my plug on that, and I think we can move into our general discussion at this point. So there were a few topics that I’ve dealt with—a few actually interesting and important ones that I’ve dealt with over the past few weeks since I talked to you guys last. There’s one that I want to talk to you about, which is the episode I just released today, which is on Jung. But I just actually remembered the other episode—I was curious to get your opinions on—that I did, which was the topic “Is Astrology Becoming More Popular?” And I was actually curious what you guys thought about that question, or if that’s a question that either of you had ever considered or had like an inkling on, one way or another.
AC: Yeah, it appears to be more popular. It certainly looks like that, yes.
CB: That it’s becoming more popular in society in general?
AC: Yeah. Or maybe—I don’t know—maybe some people are just realizing how popular it always is. You know, when you look at statistics on people who read horoscopes—or how many people who read horoscope columns, even at times where astrology is or was largely shunned, you had this giant percentage of the population of the United States who does read horoscope columns. You know, there’s a little bit of a ‘dirty secret indulgence’ quality about astrology for a lot of people. They think they shouldn’t be paying attention to it. They’re like, “Oh, I know it’s not real, but I really like reading this thing.” And so, I don’t know. I guess one question I would have is, how much is the art of astrology actually more or less popular versus how willing are people to talk about it and admit it? That would be maybe another question I would throw in there. I don’t have the answer.
CB: Right.
AC: That’s one of the directions my mind goes.
CB: Yeah, I mean, cuz that’s important. Cuz the success of like science education since that 1960s and ‘70s, I feel for a lot of people that have like a basic high school education or even college education would almost—I can’t think of a better term—but it almost inoculates you against taking astrology seriously on some level, just in the presumption that it’s not or that scientists have looked into it and it’s false, or because of dumb things like the ‘zodiac’ controversy, which has supposedly disproven astrology or other things like that. And I often wonder if that’s not part of the thing underlying the tendency you pointed out, too, where sometimes people have this reticence towards saying, “Yeah, I’ll read it,” but maybe not taking it too seriously, or having almost like, I don’t know, a reluctance or some sort of feeling underlying that of resistance despite it otherwise making sense.
AC: Yeah, not wanting to talk to a friend of theirs about they’ve read this astrology thing, and it’s kind of really true and was meaningful and actually changed the way they interacted with reality that week. You know, if your friend’s just gonna make fun of you for that, you’re just not gonna talk about it. Again, when you look at the statistics, how many people engage with astrology in some way—‘consume it’ for lack of a better term—versus how many would talk about it publicly and say, “Yeah, I don’t know. I think there’s something there?”
CB: What do you think, Kelly? I mean, you just got back from Australia where you were pretty busy, right?
KS: I was. Gosh, I could say so many things. I do think it’s getting more popular. And I guess, it’s hard, though. I know I’m very mindful, like Austin is—we’re in it. You know, for us, our lens and our filter is we see it all the time. Probably you guys are like me where Facebook channels—you’ve got your regular, real-life friends, but there’s so much astrology there, because we have so many connections in this world.
CB: Right. That’s a really important point, that enthusiasts of any one thing always have a tendency to see their thing as being really popular or something. That tendency actually is one thing that makes me sometimes question when all the astrologers answer. Cuz I put out two polls on this, and like 85% of the astrologers were just like, “Yeah, of course it’s getting more popular.”
KS: Yeah.
CB: And it makes me slightly nervous about that, cuz I don’t know if that’s almost like confirmation bias or something to a certain extent.
KS: Yeah, that’s what I wonder about, too. But then I do think about how things like YouTube and even Facebook and the explosion of good quality astrology on the internet. Don’t get me wrong, there’s definitely some crap out there, but there is also a plethora of high quality stuff available either free or very cheaply, and I do think that helps. I think about my siblings—I don’t know if I’ve ever shared this with our listeners—but I’m the oldest of six. So in my family, we have this big age range, and then by the time you throw in everyone’s partners, you get this 15-year demographic. And I guess I’m always struck by not just my sister’s interest, but when my brothers have partners or what have you. I mean, one of them is in a serious relationship; one of them is more of a single, dating kind of guy. Everybody wants to know about astrology. But I think part of the reason that it’s becoming so popular—or my take is that it is becoming more popular—is that people are increasingly interested in themselves, and astrology is a wonderful tool to kinda try and figure yourself out. Not just where your golden talents and how you can hit the highs are, but to get a really honest appraisal of who you are, where your life can be in flow, and where there might be some blockages. So, yeah, being mindful of the bias. Even Chani Nicholas to sort of quote or name-drop her—think about the success she’s having in the mainstream media as well. And whenever you see an astrologer that is really of substance, that seems to be breaking through, where they’re treating her with a level of respect, I think that’s always a good clue that the work we’re doing is reaching people. And maybe there’s enough of us doing it to a high enough standard that we’re generating more respect for this craft that is often misunderstood.
CB: Sure. Yeah, when I talked to Chani Nicholas and Jessica Lanyadoo about this earlier this month, part of the conclusion we came to is it’s growing partially because there’s representatives of it that are making it sort of more diverse in some ways than it used to be, and it’s reaching audiences that perhaps it didn’t necessarily reach before. And that’s part of the growth that’s pretty tangible, that you definitely can see within the community I feel like over the past decade or two.
KS: Absolutely. And I think even just the fact that people like ourselves are making a really—I don’t want to say we’re making an excessively good living, but we’re able to support ourselves. We’re able to contribute to our families, to our partners’ lives, through making a living with astrology. And I think that means there are more people wanting to pay for the quality, not just that we provide, but that our peers provide. And it just feels like there’s more and more of that, which, to me, I can only interpret as there’s more and more people wanting that.
CB: Sure.
AC: Yeah, let me add a few things. One, I’m really glad that you spoke to the astrological content that’s available for free on the internet these days, Kelly, because, you know, it kind of used to be that there were newspaper horoscope columns, which were often written by people who weren’t astrologers.
KS: Yes.
AC: And that’s still sometimes true, but much less true. But, you know, I started blogging, doing astrology blogging in 2005, and there wasn’t a lot then. And so, since then—that was 12 years ago—there’s a lot of really good content. There are a lot of really good astrologers writing in a variety of ways, at a variety of levels. And so, you know, it used to be that if you wanted ‘real astrology’, you would pick up The Mountain Astrologer once a month. And that’s still a good thing to do—props to The Mountain Astrologer—but it’s not one of the only places to get it now.
CB: Right.
AC: And I think there’s this sort of middle-ground in astrology, sort of between what we do at conferences and how professionals talk to each other and a daily horoscope. I think that my writing often occupies that middle-ground. I think this podcast in many cases occupies this ground, where it’s not simplified down to the point where it’s intellectually uninteresting or repugnant, but you don’t already have to be an expert to be engaged. And I also think—remembering back from when I thought astrology was dumb—simply, when you get into that middle layer, if you come into it with the idea that the central hypothesis or thesis of astrology is inaccurate, you do get the sense very quickly that these aren’t a bunch of dumb people who are doing astrology. You know, astrologers—there’s some dumb ones, just like there are for anything. But in general, you know, astrology requires both a very well-trained left and right brain—to use that metaphor, whether it’s biologically accurate or not. You know, you need to be symbolic, imaginative, but also very precise and linear and able to do some math very quickly in your head, etc., etc. And so, you’re like, “Oh, it’s just a bunch of dummies.” If some listen, for example, to this podcast, they might think that we’re wrong, but the problem isn’t a sub 80 IQ.
KS: Mm-mm.
AC: And I think that that surprises people and lets them know that this is something that smart people think about. And just the smallest amount of historical research will also show you that smart people have been interested in thinking about astrology for a long time.
CB: Sure. And it seems like that bar—that difference between that ‘middle-ground’ astrology and the basic ‘entry level/pop level’ astrology is getting smaller because more advanced astrological concepts are starting to penetrate the mainstream, like the concept of Mercury retrograde or the Saturn return, things like that. And in some ways the popularization of those concepts can be problematic, cuz sometimes it becomes obnoxious. Like the ‘Mercury retrograde’ thing can sometimes get overblown or overplayed. It still seems to be indicative of more advanced forms of astrology becoming slightly more popular in modern culture in some ways, and that has to indicate some level of popularization you would think.
AC: Yeah. That’s a great point, too. So two things. One, I see a lot of technical distinctions that were buried in an 800-year-old book 20 years ago being trotted out and utilized in very ‘horoscope-y Sun sign’ stuff. Some of the traditional revival has filtered into a lot of astrologers’ practice. And some of those technical distinctions, I think, are literally just making astrologers better. And then my second point is—and this is sort of complementary in relationship to a point you made earlier, Kelly, about astrology being useful for people who want to explore themselves. I also think that people are interested in doing a little work remodeling their idea of what reality is and how it works. I don’t think that a lot of the explanations and models that people grew up with or were taught in school seem very satisfactory at this point in time. A lot of the holes in those models—there’s a loud, shrieking wind blowing through them. And I think more people are interested in what might be real that they were told was not real.
KS: Yeah, that’s a really beautiful point, Austin, and I’ve always thought astrology fills part of that gap where people are looking for some contextual or philosophical framework. And I think you make a really good point around how you may disagree with astrological ideas or concepts, but if you talk to an astrologer, you’re more likely to find a well-educated, well-read individual than you are to find someone that you might be easily able to dismiss out of hand.
AC: Yeah, I remember a conversation I had 10 years ago. I don’t know, I was meeting someone. I was meeting a friend of a friend. And we were sitting around eating some food, and they were like, “Oh, you’re an astrologer. But you seem like a rational person.”
KS: Yeah.
AC: That’s not a contradiction. Astrology would be very difficult to do without the faculty of reason.
KS: Correct. Yeah, that seems to be the biggest response when I’m meeting people. They’re like, “Oh, what do you do?” and it’s like, “Oh, I’m an astrologer.” And they sort of give you this look that’s sort of like, “But you seem normal.”
AC: Right.
KS: And it’s like, well, yeah, I am.
AC: But you don’t seem mentally ill.
KS: Yeah.
AC: You must be extremely high functioning.
CB: See, and to me that’s the outer reality of what has to be the majority of the population that still views astrology as not a legitimate phenomenon, that’s done by crazy people or pretenders or what have you. I guess that’s the broader reality I want to be careful about, because in the episode we did earlier this month, we were very positive in looking at the bright side. But I always want to keep in touch, to some extent, with that other broader reality of where society is at today, where astrology is not broadly accepted as a legitimate viewpoint or point of view or cosmology, or whatever you want to call it.
AC: Okay, I want to take that point and go even bigger in frame because our world is the English-speaking world. And if we’re talking about ‘the world’ and actually the ‘human world’, I think that studies would show—I haven’t done these studies—but I’m rather certain that the English-speaking world is probably the most skeptical towards astrology. And I would probably include Western Europe in that, generally speaking. But, you know, there’s like billions and billions of other people. You know, there’s all of the Asian continent and the subcontinent. I find that people who are not from Western Europe or an English-speaking country—I can’t depend on them to be like, “Oh, but astrology is for stupid people.” Like that’s not an impression I get nearly as often. I think that some of that materialism and skepticism can be located in the Anglosphere. I don’t think it’s evenly distributed throughout the world. And I’d love to hear from listeners as to what they think, if they’re living in other places.
CB: Sure. You brought up numbers. And that was actually one of the criticisms I got of the previous episode, which was that we didn’t cite specific studies, or like how many practicing astrologers there are, or how many websites and things like that. And I didn’t make that the focal point of the discussion because there’s really not good statistics for most of those things. Like we don’t know how many practicing astrologers there are in the world. The number of astrology websites is not really representative of necessarily hardly anything. And it’s a little bit hard to check and watch the growth of that relative to the growth of the internet in general, with so many people getting online for the first time in the past decade, or with the decline of astrology books in the publishing industry in general versus more things moving online and all these other things. So it’s very hard to actually get statistics for astrology.
AC: Yeah, it would be nice, but all of those factors you discussed do make it really difficult. And I don’t know that number of websites would be a good indicator.
CB: Yeah, it’s not. You know, the quality of those websites varies widely, who’s doing them, why are they doing them. Is it legitimate astrology, or is it fake? Like there’s all these variables that make a lot of those statistics—if you’re trying to analyze them—completely pointless. And so, that’s why I prefer to just talk with astrologers to get what their subjective viewpoint is and what they’ve considered in terms of things they’ve seen, where it seems to be growing or becoming more popular in their subjective experience versus areas where there’s still resistance or opposition, or areas even of decline. And that brings up the last point I wanted to mention about—one area that you might be able to speak to, Austin. Just it seems like while I feel like I’ve seen a decline in the publishing of astrology books, I almost feel like I’ve seen more magic books being published over the course of the past decade than I thought there were before. And I was wondering if there wasn’t a bit of a growth in that area in terms of the popularization of magical or occult or other types of studies, especially amongst the more recent Millennial generation.
AC: Yeah, it certainly seems like that. I mean, there were a lot of ‘mass-market, Llewellyn, be-a-teenage-witch’ books in the ‘90s.
CB: Right.
AC: So I don’t necessarily know that there are more occult books being published now. One thing I can say is that magic and astrology have run very parallel over the last 20 years in the sense that there have been translation movements and a wanting to look back 500 years or 2,000 years before a lot of the sources, just like with astrology. Let’s say 1989, people would look back and were basically using late 19th century models of magic or Theosophically-influenced, 19th century models of astrology. A similar thing happened in both subjects where people were like, “Well, yeah, but what were their sources?” And suddenly you’re back in the Renaissance. And you’re like, “Oh, what were their sources?” And then you’re back another 500 years. And then before you know it, you’re in Alexandria. So that’s been happening. The ‘magics’ have been getting better just like astrology has been getting better by reintegrating some of that old, good, juicy material.
CB: Sure. And, you know, they’re not necessarily one and the same because most astrologers, I would say, don’t have any background or training in magic or anything like that. Even though there’s linkages historically or even currently between the two, they’re not necessarily fields that exactly overlap, even though they can. Like Kelly and myself—I don’t think, Kelly, you have much background in that field, right?
KS: Not a lot, no. Just a dabble. Like I’m a working astrologer with only a tiny little bit of experience with the magical side of things.
CB: Right.
KS: To be different from Austin, yeah.
CB: Yeah, and I think that’s important because the general public might not know that. They might just lump it into one general category of whatever wacky occult stuff that some people do. But, yeah, it’s just interesting to see that as another field where there may be some popularization at the same time.
AC: Yeah. Especially the last maybe two years, I can really see there’s sort of been a re-invigoration of what people call the ‘chaos magic’ movement, which was sort of like the late ‘70s ‘punk rock’ of magic. It’s sort of punk rock, but reading 2,000-year-old texts has been the most recent version. I would say, like astrology, the cracks in the dominant paradigm or worldview are enticing people to look through them and see what’s on the other side. And astrology is one of those things and magic is another. There are of course others. And of course that’s not a wholly good thing. When people realize that the worldview they have—the dominant worldview that they grew up with—isn’t working, that creates a variety of crises and problems and people can end up exploring things, ideas that aren’t useful, that weren’t part of the reality model for a very good reason, right? Where everything becomes conspiracy theory.
CB: Right.
AC: I don’t know. I feel like this is part of the Neptune in Pisces melting reality the slow way over its 14 years. We’re coming up on the halfway point, and I think things are getting good and ‘melt-y’ and people’s worldviews are getting more plastic, which is both good and bad. I don’t mean ‘plastic’ in the sense of fake, but in terms of malleable.
CB: Sure.
KS: Yeah. And not that we’re necessarily looking to time this potential popularity—increasing popularity in astrology—but I did wonder about the ‘Neptune in Pisces’ piece and that just general openness around spiritual, metaphysical, mystical things in general, to speak to what you were saying there, Austin; that idea of people are peering through the cracks to see what’s on the other side. There’s a lot of options on the other side. But I think that need to peer through or that calling or drawing to do that—it sort of feels like it’s part of this ‘Neptune in Pisces’ thing, the questioning of what you were told as a child. Is that real? What were you told was fake? Maybe that’s real. So, yeah, the questioning. Just the searching, the questioning.
AC: Yeah. And even if you look at mainstream physical science, if you look at what physicists are talking about right now, they’re very out-there ideas. You know, it’s a lot of stuff that makes the somewhat mind-boggling ideas that we got from exploring quantum mechanics seem almost quaint. You know, people announcing that, “According to our calculations the universe shouldn’t exist.” You know, it’s all very challenging to a sort of half-educated materialism. “Well, everything’s made of gears, I know that; there’s definitely no such thing as a conscious being,” says the conscious being. You know, we have biologists—respected biologists—doing experiments and finding out that plants appear to have thoughts and intentions and react to their environment as beings. Like that’s pretty out-there. That’s very challenging.
CB: Sure. So speaking of out-there stuff, that’s a transition—it’s not a very good transition, honestly. I’m just trying to move us to the next topic.
KS: What a segue, Chris.
CB: Right, thank you. It takes a lot of practice to do segues that good. So the other topic that I just did was an episode I released today actually—so you guys probably hadn’t had a chance to listen to it yet—which was an episode on Carl Jung and his thoughts and views on astrology based on a new book that just came out a few months ago titled, Jung on Astrology, but also, his influence on the astrological tradition. This is something I was really interested in because I was really into Jung’s work and his theory of synchronicity, and I wrote a term paper on it back at Kepler around 2005, right at the same time as I was getting into Hellenistic astrology. So I would have probably continued on the route of focusing on Jung and being really interested in his thought and his work if I hadn’t gotten deeply sucked into Hellenistic astrology and went off to live at Project Hindsight at that time to study ancient texts and work on my book for the next 12 years. So having just published the book last year, it was interesting coming back and reading this book, Jung on Astrology, because it sort of just outlines his thought and shows how this was really a subject that he studied pretty intensely for the larger part of his adult life and how he incorporated it into his thought and into his practice as a psychologist. Yeah, so, I just wanted to mention it to you guys. I mean, have you spent any time either studying Jung’s work? Most people’s introduction to Jung is usually through intermediaries like Liz Greene or Dane Rudhyar or people like that. Kelly, I mean, have you been influenced at all by his work? Or what are your thoughts on that?
KS: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, my background in counseling and therapy sort of blends that a little bit, too. But, yeah, I mean, Jung’s understanding of archetypes and the elements—whether we like it or not, whether people agree with it or not—a huge amount of elemental archetype information that is in astrology today is fully informed by Jung’s ideas on those types, if you like: the ‘watery’ type, the ‘fiery’ type. And you’re right, Chris, whether people get it through Liz Greene’s work or whether they’ve got it directly from reading and exploring Jung, it’s a huge component. And I think the point you make is really interesting—which a lot of people don’t realize—is that Jung deeply looked into astrology. And, in fact, part of the rift with him and Freud—cuz they were very close for a very long time. Part of the rift that pulled them apart was Jung’s interest in things like astrology and the dreamscape, the dream world. And Freud just couldn’t make that leap. You know, he didn’t want to go into that more imaginal realm, which Jung was so passionate about.
CB: Right. You can really see that actually in some of the excerpts they have in this book, from some of the letters between Jung and Freud, where Jung is like this guys that 20 years younger than Freud, and he’s trying to convince him that, “This ‘astrology’ thing is really interesting, and you should look into it for this, this, and this reason. I think you’ll find it useful.” And I’m sure Freud was just thinking his protege had just gone off and gotten lost in this weird realm.
KS: Yeah, Freud’s like, “It’s all about the parents, mate.”
CB: Yeah, exactly.
KS: There’s nothing else. There’s nothing else. So, yeah, the letters between Freud and Jung were really interesting, and they do reveal Jung’s passion for astrology. And then I believe there was a study that Jung did in the ‘40s or ‘50s looking at synastry connections between married couples to try and find out astrological indicators of couples that would stay together for a long time. And some of those links—like Sun-Moon aspects, for instance, or Sun-Moon-ascendant aspects—are kind of commonly accepted today as really positive indicators of astrological synastry, but it came out of a smaller research project that Jung did.
CB: Right. That was actually something we didn’t get a chance to mention in that episode, because his conclusion from that was actually really weird, cuz he concluded that his own expectations were influencing the outcome of the test. And so, he ended up just deciding astrology was divination or that there was too much input that the observer could have in terms of their expectations, so that it wasn’t actually working out as a statistical test in terms of his conclusions to that.
KS: Yeah, that it wasn’t as objective as he’d hoped. He was feeling that he was having an influence, or his bias was coming through.
CB: Right, right. Yeah, and Austin, before the show, we were talking. You said that you thought it was weird that I had just released that episode today, cuz you had recently also synchronistically just started picking up Jung and looking into him again or something, right?
AC: Yeah. Well, I guess people don’t know this but depth psychology was very much my first love. My parents met in graduate school for humanistic psychology, and so the bookshelf, growing up, was full of Jung and Freud, and especially Fritz Perls and Gestalt psychoanalysis.
KS: Yeah.
AC: You know, when I was 19, I was drenched in the Gestalt reformation of Freudian psychology, and I was reading Jung and all of that, and then I discovered some other things and kind of went away from that. But recently I’ve been kind of wanting to come back to some of those depth psychology models, especially that of Jung. Cuz Jung seems to be having a moment ever since the release of The Red Book a few years ago. People are rediscovering Jung, and it’s the ‘undiscovered’ Jung. It’s not the ‘Jung’ that very carefully—with his Saturn in the 1st house in Aquarius—formulated his ideas in such a way that they could be heard by his professional peers. This was like Jung allowing himself to get crazy privately.
CB: In The Red Book, you mean?
AC: Yeah.
KS: Yeah.
AC: And so, there’s a little bit of a, oh, this is what was going on inside the person who said those things. But anyway, yeah, I have Aion on my bookshelf, which is his essays on the phenomenology of the self, and I decided that would be my companion for the bathtub. And I was very interested in his idea of the Self with a capital ‘S’. He was talking about how just as there are unknowns that we encounter in the external world, that we have to adapt to or change us—we have new experiences—he said that there are also experiences we have internally, where we encounter a piece of our self or a figure or a vision or a set of feelings that were part of us, but not yet part of our conscious personality, and that there is just as much undiscovered that could change us on the inside, which of course presupposes a much deeper and larger landscape of self. And I thought that was just so interesting and fit so well with what you see astrology modeling in practice. You know, sometimes it takes a long time for a person to discover their chart. They may not recognize their Mars at age 14, but if you talk to the same person at 38, they’re like, “Oh, yeah, I know that part of me, I integrated that when I was 25,” or whatever. But anyway, the funny, synchronous part of that was that next day, I woke up and I was like, “Okay, I’m gonna finish my essay, my column, on the first decan of Aquarius,” which is a place that’s about discovering and encountering the unknown. And then I was like, “Oh, that’s exactly what I read in Jung last night.” And then I looked it up, and of course, Jung has the first decan of Aquarius rising. I was like, “All right, great.” So, yeah, there have been ‘Jung’ things happening lately.
CB: And speaking of—he has this amazing chart from a Hellenistic standpoint. And I didn’t know this until last week, when I pulled up his chart for the first time.
AC: It’s a beast.
CB: And this is great. Actually since we can share the video for the people watching this on YouTube, I’ll actually go ahead and share the chart right now, and I’ll try to describe it for those who are just listening to the audio version. So this is purely just from a Hellenistic standpoint. Assuming it’s correct—which I think the time is actually really good—
AC: Oh, there’s a tiny debate about it. It basically is the Sun—it’s about a ‘5°’ debate at max. And so, almost everything is sure except whether the Sun is above or below the horizon.
CB: Okay. Well, this is the version, I believe, at the end of this book, Jung on Astrology, which I should mention. Actually I’m gonna do a giveaway. Our giveaway this month is I’m giving away two copies of this book, Jung on Astrology—which was edited by Safron Rossi and Keiran Le Grice—to patrons who are on the giveaway tier, who are listeners. So I’ll announce the winners of that on Wednesday, I believe, but I just wanted to mention that that’s the giveaway this month. At the end, they actually have an interpretation of his chart, which was by his daughter. So his daughter—Jung’s daughter actually grew up to be an analyst, but also an astrologer, just like her father. And she used a time that’s pretty similar to this, or pretty close. Okay, right, within five or six minutes, I guess. So she put 7:32. Yeah, so he has about, let’s say, 2° of Aquarius rising. He has Saturn ruling the ascendant, as the traditional ruler. And, interestingly, in one of the excerpts in this book, he actually refers to Saturn as the ruler of his ascendant; which I thought was interesting, as an early-to-mid-20th-century astrologer, that he was actually still using the traditional ruler of Aquarius, which is Saturn. So he has Aquarius rising, Saturn in Aquarius in the 1st house. It’s probably a day chart, even if the Sun just set recently. In a lot of charts that I’ve been working with over the past few years, I tend to see them as still behaving like day charts, even if the Sun is just barely below the descendant.
AC: You know, Chris—
CB: Yeah.
AC: —we don’t have time for this now, but I actually did a zodiacal releasing for Jung.
CB: Right.
AC: And I’ve got the case for the day chart versus the night chart based on the releasing that I think you would enjoy.
CB: I mean, I ran the day chart and I saw that he was in a 20-year peak period for the last 20 years or something of his life, and I thought that was pretty convincing. Did you find something else interesting with the night chart? Or where did you come down?
AC: Yeah, there’s a good case for both—I’m not prepared to make all of it right now—but they’re both very interesting. And you can—yeah, there’s not enough time to get into it. I’m not fresh with the data right now.
CB: Okay.
AC: But they both work extremely well.
CB: Maybe we could do that. I’m gonna do an episode on Jung on The Casual Astrology Podcast here, I think in the next few days, for patrons who listen to that. So maybe we could review that privately there.
AC: Hmm, that’d be fun.
CB: Yeah. So Aquarius rising, Saturn ruling the ascendant. It’s in its own sign. It’s in its own domicile of Aquarius. It’s in the 1st house. It’s probably a day chart—potentially, arguably—which would make it of-the-sect-in-favor. So this is basically pretty much as well-placed of Saturn as you could come up with. It’s actually kinda reminiscent of the Saturn of Marsilio Ficino. I believe it had a similar—was it Aquarius rising, with Saturn in Aquarius?
KS: I think so. That rings a bell.
CB: So that Saturn is actually being bonified by Jupiter—which is up in Libra—in the ninth whole sign house, potentially in a day chart, where it has a superior, both sign-based and degree-based, trine over Saturn, which is actually applying and will eventually complete in an exact aspect. So Jupiter is in Libra in the ninth whole sign house, and it’s overcoming and bonifying Saturn, the ruler of the ascendant.
AC: It’s also perfectly conjunct Spica.
KS: Uh-huh.
CB: Oh, Jupiter is?
KS: Mm-hmm.
AC: Mm-hmm.
CB: Right. And it’s in his 9th house, which is just so interesting because that was the other dimension that he really brought to psychology, that set him apart and also partially caused the rift with Freud; but the thing that really separated his psychology was integrating this spiritual or quasi-religious component. And so, it’s interesting to see his 9th house being so prominent, partially, as a result of that.
AC: Yeah, yeah. No, it’s a great chart. I think I did like an hour of class on this chart. We had such a good time pulling it apart.
CB: Sure.
AC: It’s one of those where everything works.
CB: Right, right. So he’s got the Sun in its own domicile, in Leo, in the seventh whole sign house conjunct Uranus, and squaring Neptune. Neptune is squaring the ascendant/descendant axis. The Moon is exalted in Taurus, in the fourth whole sign house, and it’s actually, interestingly, in a mutual reception with Venus, which is in Cancer—at 17° of Cancer—in the 6th house. That Venus and Mercury otherwise would be the two planets that are a little bit more problematically-placed in his chart in the 6th, but they’re actually being improved by that configuration with the Moon, where the Moon is angular, and it’s aspecting both of them with reception within 3°. So the Moon’s actually helping both of them out. Venus and Mercury are both overcoming Jupiter through a superior, sign-based square. That Mars—potentially in a day chart—is the most problematic planet in his chart. And it’s interesting that it’s placed there in the 11th house of friendship, given his famous split with Freud. But that Mars is otherwise really well-placed, and even its condition—as the more difficult planet in the chart according to sect—is being mitigated through the sextile with Jupiter, with reception, which is offsetting and helping to ameliorate Mars’ condition significantly. Yeah, so there’s just a lot of really great—at least from a traditional or a Hellenistic standpoint, this chart has almost everything going for it. And even the parts that are difficult seem to have some major mitigating factors going on.
AC: Mm-hmm.
KS: Mm-hmm.
AC: Yeah, that’s a good one.
CB: Yeah.
KS: It’s a very functional chart.
CB: Sure.
AC: That reminds me—the talk about Mars in Sagittarius reminds me—
KS: Oh, yeah, segue.
AC: —of this February.
KS: Very smooth, Austin.
AC: Thank you.
CB: Is that our segue? Is it time to jump into it? Or do you want to? Go ahead.
AC: I feel ready. But if you’d like to discuss other things—
CB: No, no, that was actually the last thing. So that is a perfect segue, I just wanted to make sure. So we’ll do a ‘hard’ segue. So we’re now jumping into the forecast—
AC: Ah, you’re messing with my smooth segue, Chris.
CB: Sorry.
AC: That was on its way.
CB: My segues have to be awkward and forced, otherwise I just don’t do them. All right, so we’re doing our segue now at this point into the forecast episode. I just wanted to note the time, so that I can get the timestamp down. So we’re 50 minutes into the episode. Let’s talk about the forecast for February. Austin, you were saying that the Mars in Sagittarius provides a good jumping-off point for that?
AC: Yeah. Well, so Mars is gonna be in Sagittarius for all of February, and I was thinking about it the other day. You know, I did a little writing on it and I was thinking about the various topics—what does Mars do in Sagittarius—and I realized that it being Mars in Jupiter’s domicile, there’s a certain ‘heretical’ glee to Mars in Sagittarius, and Jung was also a very ‘happy’ heretic. You know, he was a heretic in the eyes of this psychoanalytic establishment, and he loved the ‘gnostics’ who were condemned voluminously as heretics. And it just got me to thinking, I have a friend who has Mars in Sagittarius, who wrote a book that has ‘heresy’ in the title. And the more I looked for ‘heresy’ in Mars in Sagittarius, the more I found it, and it made me want to redo the Warhammer ‘heresy’ memes. I don’t know, the younger, hipper kids out there in the audience might know what I’m talking about. Just look up ‘heresy memes’. You guys are looking at me blankly.
CB: Yeah.
KS: Totally.
CB: We are neither young, nor hip at this point.
KS: No. Sorry, Austin.
AC: No, it’s okay.
KS: But you’re just revealing our nerdiness to the public, that’s all.
AC: Or just not the ‘right’ kind of nerdiness. It’s a tabletop, fantasy war game. So less nerdiness and not the exact type of nerdiness that I was referencing.
CB: Sure.
AC: I’ll have to save my Dungeons & Dragons references as well, I suppose.
CB: Yeah.
KS: Yeah.
CB: I like that, the Mars in Sagittarius as the ‘happy heretic’, yeah, that idea. Cuz Mars in Sagittarius is Mars bringing his significations and bringing the fight basically to Jupiter—Jupiter being the domicile lord of Sagittarius. And that’s interesting because that is basically one of the main signatures this month. We’re finally out of Mars going through Scorpio, after it seemed like forever. How long was that? Was that like two months? Two-and-a-half months?
KS: Yeah, it was like from the 9th of December to late January. So it would have felt like two months, basically, December-January.
AC: Yeah, it’s slightly longer than normal, because Mars is already slowing down—
KS: Slowing down.
AC: —in preparation for the end-of-June retrograde. And so, usually it’s like five-weeks-and-change. This time it was a little over six. And then when Mars moves into Capricorn in March, then it’ll be a solid two months. And then after that, then we’re in ‘super-slow’ town. But, yeah, that’s a background. It’s not that this is an incredibly ‘martial’ month, but that is where Mars will be literally the whole time. And so, in addition to getting your ‘happy’ heresy on, Mars in Sagittarius—one of the things I was thinking is that it really reveals the connection between purpose and motivation and action. You know, with Mars basically needing Jupiter for fuel in Sagittarius, it’s a good time to work on ‘why’ you’re doing things. And it will also of course show how without a ‘why’, we collapse in the face of hardship.
KS: Yes, which brings me back to Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning work, since we’re talking about early 20th century stuff today, I guess. Have you guys read that book, Man’s Search for Meaning?
AC: Yeah, I read that 19 years ago, yep.
KS: Yeah, way back. There’s just a little bit there around the idea—that idea of the ‘Sag’ philosophy. If you know why something’s happening, or you can have a sense of the larger context of something, you can handle almost any of whatever that thing happens to be. So he was in the concentration camps, and he was a psychologist. Well, he was a psychologist before he went in, so he had this different framework that he used to help understand his time and his experience there. Yeah, some of the people that were able to really handle, survive some of the horrific circumstances there were able to really tap into that larger conceptual framework of why or how—the motivation, as Austin’s speaking to here with Mars in Sag. So if you can figure that out, then you’ve got more chance of being able to push through the hard stuff. And there’s hard stuff even when you’re following your passion. And I think that’s a fallacy that sometimes people think, cuz Mars in Sag could be a little bit collectively about ‘what’s your passion’, ‘are you living your passion’, and ‘are you living your truth’. And those things are all good to pursue, but don’t do them thinking that it will be ‘sunshine and roses’ all the time. A couple of other points though on the ‘Mars in Sag’ piece. The last time we had Mars in Sag was in 2016, when we had the ‘Mars retro/Saturn’ combo. So this is a very different ‘Mars in Sag’ cycle this time around, so a little bit more maybe benign than the last time. Because I think we’ve talked on the podcast before about that very difficult ‘Mars-Saturn’ double-header in Sag in 2016. It’s also the last time for most of this year that we will have Mars not in a Saturn-ruled sign. Because once Mars goes into Cap, then we’re into Aquarius, and then we’re into the retrograde. It’s something like nine months of this year, Mars will be just in those two signs.
CB: Yeah.
KS: So there’s definitely some things to be mindful of with Mars in Sag, but I also feel like if you don’t love Mars in a Saturn sign, then you want to make the most of this vibe now.
AC: Yeah, I agree.
CB: And this is also the first time—with Mars moving through Sag—that Jupiter’s in Scorpio, so that they’re actually exchanging signs at the same time. Or the first time since Jupiter’s gone into Scorpio since that’s been the case.
AC: Yeah, yeah.
KS: Yes.
AC: And that can’t hurt. It’d be nice if they had an aspect between them, but that doesn’t hurt. So quick—just a quick note. Kelly, I ‘Astro-Databank-ed’ Viktor Frankl—
KS: Oh, yeah.
AC: —and Sag Moon.
KS: Oh, Sag Moon. Oh, my God, of course, of course, because it’s all about the ‘Sag’ perspective. Thank you.
AC: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and that’s funny because another writer who always emphasized the necessity of meaning and purpose and how we kind of fall apart without that was Friedrich Nietzsche, who was also a Moon in Sag.
KS: Oh, there you go, yes. And that’s the quote that I love, “He who has ‘why’ can bear almost any ‘how’” or something.
AC: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
KS: Yeah. So maybe that’s the theme for this ‘Mars in Sag’ cycle for our listeners. Get your favorite philosophers or your favorite quote—get those as motivation tools.
AC: Yeah, shore up your ‘how’–or excuse me, shore up your ‘why’ if the structure of that is a little shaky. And if you have a good ‘why’, but you keep forgetting about it, maybe integrate a way to remind yourself of why you’re doing what you’re doing into your week.
KS: That’s a great tip. Because one of the thoughts I had about February as a theme is it’s a very fairly Jupiterian kind of vibe. We’ve got this Mars in Sag, and then in the latter part of the month, we will have—not that I want to necessarily skip ahead. Just conceptually, as we take the ‘big-picture’ look, in the latter part of the month of course we have the personal inner planets—Venus, Mercury, and the Sun—going into Pisces.
AC: Well, I would say it ‘becomes’ Jupiterian.
KS: It ‘becomes’ Jupiterian. Yes, it’s a becoming.
AC: I think we really have to clear the ‘Leo/Aquarius eclipse’ tunnel before it’s gonna feel too Jupiterian.
KS: That is a good point. Because we do have a lot of Leo and Aquarius at the top of the month.
CB: I mean, and that’s one of the issues though we ran into in doing the elections this month, or that Leisa ran into. She said she really had a difficult time. Once you get to the second-half of the month, all of the inner planets—the Sun and Mercury and Venus—move into Pisces, which is fine in and of itself. But then they all start squaring Mars, which is going through Sagittarius, so that Mars is in a superior square over the ‘Pisces’ planets, which all eventually perfect over the course of February and March; which just creates a difficult setup for finding a good electional chart during that time, just because it creates some tension between the square from Mars in Sagittarius to the planets going through Pisces. I mean, how do you guys feel about that square, in terms of balancing out, on the one hand, what should otherwise be a more positive thing, with everything in Jupiter-ruled signs. and even Jupiter itself being in Scorpio trining all those ‘Pisces’ planets, but then Mars creating some tension from Sagittarius at the same time?
AC: Yeah, it’s a little bit of a fly in the ointment, but it doesn’t worry me over much. I think the planets in Pisces and Sagittarius having the same ruler helps a lot. I also like all of the planets in Pisces being able to ‘see’ their ruler, Jupiter in Scorpio, by trine. I think that’s really nice.
CB: Yeah. That’s a huge mitigating factor.
AC: Yeah. And Mars in Sag just isn’t that—I mean, honestly, Mars in Sag, it might be a little loud-mouthed at times and a little inflammatory, but it’s like honestly the least-threatening Mars all year compared to Mars in Cap, or retrograde Mars in Aquarius, or the Mars in Scorpio we just got done with. Again, that’s like the least-threatening Mars I see this year, except maybe the Pisces at the very end of the year.
KS: At the tail-end. Look, I mean, the Mars in Sag—definitely that overcoming square—I think I got a new appreciation of that when Saturn actually left Sag at the end of last year, cuz you don’t realize necessarily how heavy something is until it’s gone.
CB: Right. Especially if you have a huge stellium in Pisces, perhaps? Just hypothetically?
KS: Just conceptually speaking, possibly.
CB: Right. In terms of your historical studies and client work and things like that.
KS: That’s right. All of the detailed, objective research I’ve done on Pisces stelliums.
CB: Right.
KS: But the other side of it is a Pisces stellium needs a little bit of prodding to get its act together to be productive. So technically it’s maybe like a potential negative or a problem, but in the context of the specifics of this, I think that it can just be a little bit of fuel just to get going. And as we’ve said, with the mitigation from Jupiter, I think the Jupiter trine all the planets is maybe an override or more of a special feature, I think, for this month.
AC: Yeah, I can see it being actually a more ‘trouble picking a perfect electional’ moment than it’s gonna provide trouble on a lived, daily level.
KS: That’s a great distinction.
CB: I’m trying to pull up some ‘Mars in Sagittarius’ natal charts to compare your ‘Mars in Sagittarius’ statements, Austin. And so far the people I’m coming up with are Elliott Smith. Oh, there’s a good one, George Carlin.
AC: Oh, he’s a ‘happy’ heretic.
CB: Yeah, that’s a good ‘Mars in Sagittarius’ example. There it is—Mars at 0 Sag retrograde. Who else? TS Elliott, Richard Nixon, a few others. Jeffrey Wolf Green, interestingly. Kim Kardashian.
KS: Say no more, please.
CB: Yeah, and a few others. Oh, that’s so funny, James Dean is actually—oh, no, no. I was thinking of the other one, never mind. So we’re talking a lot about Mars in Sagittarius and that being one of the major signatures for this month, and that being one of the things that really sets this month apart from last month, as well as the next few coming up, where Mars will be going through Aquarius and Capricorn. But we should probably—I mean, the elephant in the room this month really is the eclipses, right?
KS: Mm-hmm.
AC: Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
CB: And we actually have one that takes place right before the month starts, but we should probably start and talk about that one a little bit. Even though it happens the day before February begins, it’s still very much setting the tone for the first-half of the month essentially, right?
AC: Absolutely. Well, it’s the morning of the 31st, and it’s a total lunar eclipse in Leo.
KS: Yeah. And for our Australian listeners, it’s actually on February 1 there. So it kind of straddles, so I’m glad we’re gonna talk about this.
CB: Okay.
KS: Cuz it’s a total lunar eclipse. I mean, I don’t know if we mentioned this earlier, but the lunar eclipses this year are much more dramatic, and they’re the total eclipses of the year. So this eclipse is definitely one of my highlights as we head into February for sure.
CB: And what’s the deal with it? There’s some other notable astrological things. Is that real, or are people just falling for—
KS: It’s a ‘Super Moon’ thing. Is it because it’s two Full Moons in the month, or is it because it is actually quite close? I’m not sure.
CB: Well, they’re saying it’s a—
AC: Go ahead.
CB: It’s a Blue Moon and it’s a Super Moon, and it’s something else. Maybe just an eclipse, right?
KS: So the ‘Blue Moon’ piece will just be because it’s the second Full Moon in a month, which doesn’t mean anything.
AC: No.
CB: Right. You guys are, historically, very down on the Blue Moon.
AC: Well, it doesn’t mean anything.
CB: Right.
KS: It’s only significant if you’re using the modern calendar. Like it’s arbitrary.
CB: Yeah.
KS: It’s not significant for a celestial phenomenon.
CB: Astronomically.
KS: Yeah.
AC: When you have two Full Moons in the same sign—
KS: That’s more significant.
AC: —that’s a ‘real’ Blue Moon.
KS: Yeah.
AC: But the ‘Super Moon’ thing is real. It just means it’s closer rather than farther. The Moon gets a little closer or a little farther.
CB: Right. It appears visibly bigger to the naked eye.
AC: Yeah, I think it’s a little bit closer. You know, there’s a little wobble back and forth.
CB: Okay, I just wanted to clarify that. Cuz it’s like sometimes these are actual legitimate astronomical things and other times they’re not. Like today, what’s blowing my mind is that I saw a bunch of astrologers starting to share this fake article that’s saying that Pluto had been officially reclassified by the American—or the International Astronomical Union to be a planet again. There were like a handful of astrologers that were starting to share this—this was a thing that actually happened—and it was on NCGR’s page. Like the NCGR shared it, which freaked me out, because then it was only a matter of time before hundreds of astrologers were sharing it. But if you go to the article and actually read it, halfway through it links to its source for the International Astronomical Union, and then it takes you to a page that just says: “April fools.”
KS: I guess they got in early.
CB: Yeah. Yeah, it’s not even April. It’s like February. So, I don’t know, this is something we’ve gotta be careful about. And I feel like as astrologers, we have to be proactive when there’s some sketchy astronomical thing that’s being promoted as a big deal, to really get on that pretty early and shut it down as being not valid or not legitimate if it’s not. Because that’s partially where the latest ‘zodiac’ controversy came from just a couple of years ago, from just some random blog that was just making up something and pretending as if NASA had made a new discovery. And then that generated the whole controversy that came over the next month or two.
KS: Totally. Yeah, so the Super Moon is when we have a New or a Full Moon at the same time the Moon is in perigee, which is close. I just couldn’t confirm whether it was the perigee close or apogee furthest. So I guess it adds to the visual phenomenon because it is physically, relatively speaking, closer. We can respect the Super Moon for sure, but the Blue Moon, I think we’ll kick to the curb.
CB: Sure, except for the astrological version of the Blue Moon. Can we call that a Blue Moon if it happens like two lunations in the same sign? Or do we need to come up with another term in order to distinguish that from the ‘fake’ Blue Moon?
KS: I would give it its own term. Or I’d just say it’s two Full Moons or two New Moons in the same sign, which is unusual.
CB: I feel like we need a catchy phrase for that to come up with so it can catch on. Cuz even the term ‘Super Moon’, if I understand correctly, I’m under the impression that somebody attributed that name to the astrologer Richard Nolle. And in some astronomical books, this astrologer’s actually credited with coming up with that name, even though he only introduced it like two or three decades ago. So maybe we could crowdsource this and see if anybody in the audience can come up with a catchy name for two lunations in the same zodiacal sign. I’ll let you guys think about that.
KS: Yeah.
CB: All right.
KS: Clearly, our Saturn in Virgos are freaking out by being put on the spot, Chris.
CB: Right. Yeah, I don’t want to put you guys on the spot. So this lunation, this Full Moon lunar eclipse, is taking place at—it looks like 11°37’ Leo. So 11° of Leo. The Moon will be at 11° of Leo conjunct the North Node at 14 Leo, and the Sun will be at 11° of Aquarius conjunct Venus, which is at 16° Aquarius.
KS: Yes, yes. I don’t know, I kinda like the ‘North Node’ element of the Moon. I mean, I know it’s an eclipse, so I know the Moon will be partially not visible for a period of time. But the symbolism of the ‘Full Moon’ energy coming up to the North Node—that idea of I want to say the word ‘spotlight’, but I don’t mean a literal light because it’s an eclipse and the light is blocked. It’s more like the internal awareness that might be described as coming into the light or gaining clarity about something. I don’t know, I’m excited for people to get a taste of something new or fresh or different around whatever house area this eclipse is triggering for them.
CB: Right.
KS: But that’s probably my typically positive spin. And over to you, Austin.
AC: Okay, yeah, so, one, eclipses stir things up. They stir up the ‘deeps’ and stuff comes out. One of the most general but accurate things we can say about eclipses is it stirs up the unknown, both inside you and outside your life, and stuff just happens. Things happen out of the blue. Or those things which were latent jump into being visible. You know, one of the phenomenons I’ve seen is people always report really intense, strange dreams around eclipses, even people who aren’t big dreamers. And you often have something which maybe you suspected would happen, or a change you think you’re maybe gonna make, suddenly it comes into being fully formed with surprising rapidity. There’s an emergence from darkness into light. We get to see what’s in the shadow, right? On an experiential level, a total lunar eclipse like this—that’s a lot of ‘lunar’ juice. It’s going to activate people emotionally. There’s gonna be a lot of feelings. There will be many ‘feels’, especially with it being in Leo.
KS: All the feels.
AC: Yeah. There will be a tendency to act that out and to express that, which I will ask you to kindly restrain. But on a psychological level, I think there’s a lot of stuff that’s asking to be—a lot of people are going to encounter parts of themselves, parts of their soul, parts of their Self, with a capital ‘S’ that it is now time to integrate into how they consciously see themselves and present themselves to others. You know, Leo is very much a place where we see the ego structure, the identity structure, and the way it’s expressed. And in a sense the North Node overfills that, and it fills that beyond capacity, which is in some ways a challenge to make it bigger so all that fits. You know, as I’ve been writing about it and thinking about it, I think there’s a lot of stuff that’s gonna come up—both the wonderful qualities you have that you don’t necessarily know how to fit into your personality and own, as well as the kind of icky, gross, petty parts of your self that you’d rather not identify with. I think that psychologically it’s really asking you to figure out how to be more of what you actually are consciously. And, you know, in general, an eclipse like that is just gonna stir up whatever house it falls in in your natal chart. You know, if it’s in your 4th, look at family for the next two weeks. If it’s in your 2nd, look at money. If it’s in your 9th, look at your spiritual beliefs and practice. If it’s in your 1st, look at your health and your state. The level to which an eclipse, especially a total eclipse, will impact the house that it takes place in in your chart I think should not be underestimated.
CB: Yeah.
AC: What do you think, Kelly?
KS: Yeah, I agree completely. And I love the phrasing you used, Austin, around the ‘stirring things up’. Even that sorta ‘James Bond’ phrase of ‘shaken, not stirred’, this is really going to agitate things. And I do like the point that you made around—because it’s in Leo—it’s very much about the self. It’s about the expression of one’s ego. Are you doing that consciously or unconsciously? Are you doing it with awareness? Or are you doing it in a way that’s maybe driven by some sort of unconscious thing like fear? Yeah. But sorry, Chris, were you gonna say something there, too?
CB: Yeah. I was just gonna say in addition or to add to that—in terms of the house placement—to really see this as a continuation or a culmination for many people of things that started last summer, around the time of the solar eclipse, which took place in Leo in August. I think there’s a lot of people where there were probably some events and circumstances that really started to germinate or there was a foundation laid for back then, that might have even been a little bit obscure or not clear, that will probably come to culmination around the time of this lunar eclipse. Cuz you’re going from a Super New Moon—which was basically the solar eclipse in Leo last August—to a Super Full Moon now basically taking place in Leo, here in late January/early February, and therefore seeing it not as just a one-time event, but as more of continuation of a sequence of events that leads all the way back to last summer.
AC: And this is actually—I think that’s a great point, Chris. And this is actually the dead center of the Leo/Aquarius eclipse series, because we get another full installment in Leo and Aquarius over this third quarter, and then we have a ‘bidding goodbye’ eclipse in about a year. And we had another one of these sort of ‘halfway between signs and cycles’ eclipses that began last year, and so this is like in the thick of the Leo/Aquarius eclipse series. You know, there’s plenty more to go, but a lot of the themes have been introduced. And like Chris said, I think that these things will start moving in a more sensible direction, or in a direction that’s easier to ascertain, whether they are internal or external. And, you know, you should be able to figure out what the storyline is for these with this second, full installment.
CB: Right. And here’s the chart for the eclipse. I can’t believe it’s been almost six months now since that eclipse, ‘The Great American Eclipse’ across North America, which we all, or so many of us watched happen live and that we spent so much time talking about in the lead up to it. I mean, one of the interesting things about that was just the reminder that sometimes eclipses and New Moons in general are often the closing of one cycle—in terms of the relationship between the Sun and the Moon—and the beginning of another. But sometimes that can be kind of muted or kind of low-key in terms of new endings and new beginnings, because typically a new beginning can sometimes be very subtle. I mean, sometimes it doesn’t always start with a bang. But sometimes it’s something that starts very quietly and gradually and then eventually ramps up into something more obvious or more overt, especially when you get to the other side of it, six months later, where we’re about to have a Full Moon lunar eclipse in the same place.
AC: Yeah. And so, I just wanted to jump in here with pointing out that this is basically—in terms of where people can see it—it’s basically centered on the Pacific Ring of Fire, to be able to see it well into Eastern Asia and then Australia and in the more western parts of the United States. But it’s really centered on the Ring of Fire.
CB: Okay.
AC: The Pacific Rim.
CB: Got it. All right, and that opens up the first-half of the month. What else, in terms of early stuff, is happening at the very beginning of February? Are there any other major things that take place that we should talk about? I have an electional chart that happens in the first week of the month, so I could move into that. Unless there’s anything else we should really focus on before we move on from the very beginning of the month.
AC: Well, Mercury enters Aquarius at the beginning of the month. Or actually it might even be the very last moments—yeah, it’s the last moments—
KS: Yeah, the 31st of Jan.
AC: Yeah. So Mercury is in Aquarius when the month begins and will shift into Pisces later.
KS: Yes. And I think the only big sign change—or not even necessarily a big one—but Venus moves into Pisces on the 10th of Feb. So to speak to what you were saying, Austin, we come into February—Mars just having moved into Sag and Mercury having just moved into Aquarius, which is a different tone to what we’ve had throughout January.
AC: Yeah, I’m a bit sick of Mercury in Capricorn. I’m ready.
KS: You’re ready for the next bit.
AC: Yes.
CB: Yeah.
KS: Yeah, I’ve gotta get a new phone. So I’m happy about Mercury going into Aquarius.
CB: Yeah, I’m happy that Mars is no longer through Scorpio, even though it was nice having it applying to that conjunction with Jupiter for a while with reception, especially in some electional charts, and I’ll miss that. Some of the squares and other things that it was having were not that great.
AC: I liked it, but I got so much done. I almost completed my transformation into a ‘human’ freight train.
KS: It’s funny, Austin, cuz I know you mentioned in our pre-show chat that you were exceptionally busy at that time. And I would have to say that I was busy doing slightly different things but with that ‘freight train’ energy. I met up with an ‘astro-buddy’ in Sydney, and she reminded me that the last time Mars and Jupiter were actually together in Scorpio was in the early ‘80s.
AC: Really.
KS: Yeah, which I was surprised by. And I have to confess, I have taken her word for it. I haven’t done the research myself, although it sounded reasonable. Anyway, just based on my personal experience. But, yeah, we don’t often think about something like Mars and Jupiter being in the same sign together. We might make an assumption this happens every 12 years. But Mars only covers half the zodiac in a 12-month period, and Jupiter will only be in one sign. So actually more often than not, Mars and Jupiter do not end up in the same sign at the same time.
AC: Yeah, so I just checked it. Your friend was right.
KS: Yeah, yeah. She would have written about it. I don’t want to name her, but I didn’t think she would be wrong. Yeah, so the freight train—so that was good, but it’s nice to have a shift now, I guess, with Mars going into Sag. We’ve gotta get our lives back, Austin, from our ‘freight train, workaholic-ism’.
AC: But I like being a freight train.
KS: It’s funny, Austin, talking about this with another friend who’s not an astrologer, but who also loves working. We just have to keep that work/life balance going. Anyway—
CB: Sure.
KS: —shouldn’t you do your electional, Chris? Over to you.
CB: Yeah.
KS: I’m sure it’s got Venus in Pisces.
CB: Can you see this chart? I’m not sure if I’m sharing it correctly.
KS: Yeah, Feb 11, just before 11:30 AM or something.
CB: No, it should be February 7. Here, let me try switching it.
AC: That makes more sense.
CB: Yeah.
KS: Okay.
AC: I was a little curious why you put the Moon on top of Saturn in its detriment.
KS: Yeah, why the chart ruler was combust the Sun or something.
CB: I don’t. I mean, we’ll see if you like this Moon position any better. This is the electional chart. This is the one we’re gonna highlight. So we’ve got I think four or five electional charts we’re gonna highlight this month that Leisa Schaim found, of leisaschaim.com. Leisaschaimastrologer.com. Not sure, one of the two. She was having some problems, though. Like I said, now that Mars is in Sagittarius, once everything moves into Pisces, it’s a little bit difficult to find good electional charts, because so many of the inner planets then are gonna be applying to that square with Mars; which is, certainly in day charts, something that you want to tend to avoid for electional charts. So the one that we wanted to highlight for this month actually takes place earlier in the month while most of those inner planets—the Sun and Mercury and Venus—are still in Aquarius, where they’re getting this superior square from Jupiter in Scorpio. So here’s the chart. It’s February 7, 2018, starting around 5:00 PM. So just before sunset basically in whatever your location is. So in these electional charts we set it for local time. So what you want to do is basically set the chart for this date, around the same time, and then try to adjust the chart so that the ascendant is around 14° of Leo in your location. And if you do that, then you should end up with somewhere around 5:00 PM in whatever city you’re located in. So the chart has mid-Leo rising, and the ruler of the ascendant is the Sun, which is at 19° of Aquarius in a day chart, and it’s applying to a square with Jupiter within 3°, which is at 21° of Scorpio.
So part of the thing we’re going for in this chart is that the ruler of the ascendant is applying to a benefic. It is a square, which is slightly difficult, but because it’s a benefic, it’s not that problematic. The fact that it’s a day chart makes Jupiter the most positive planet in the chart according to the doctrine of sect, which is very helpful in this instance. You’ve also got both of the benefics beings angular: Jupiter in the fourth whole sign house and Venus in the 7th house in Aquarius at 26°. The Moon is in Scorpio, where it doesn’t typically have a lot of dignity. However, it is separating from a very close conjunction with Jupiter and then applying from there to a square with Venus. So you’ve got almost kind of like a quasi-enclosure of the Moon between the two benefics, where the Moon is separating from Jupiter and applying to a square with Venus. Saturn is the ruler of those 7th house Aquarius planets, and it’s actually in the 6th house, which is not a great position. Typically, that could be a condition known as ‘counteraction’ where you have a planet that’s relatively well-placed—like those 7th house Aquarius planets are—but they’re ruled by a poorly-placed malefic that’s in the 6th or 12th. That was historically or traditionally called a condition of ‘maltreatment’ or ‘affliction’, however, Saturn is mitigated in several different ways. The most important one—for my purposes—is that I made sure that it’s very closely trine the degree of the midheaven, which is at 5° of Taurus in this chart, trining Saturn at 5° of Capricorn. Saturn is also in its own domicile, and it’s also a day chart. So there’s some major offsetting factors that are making Saturn in a much better condition than it would be otherwise, which is important since it’s the planet that rules the sign that the rule of the ascendant is located in, which is the Sun. Other things about the chart—I think that’s pretty much it. I mean, Mars is the planet that’s more problematic in this day chart. But it’s in the 5th house, and it’s not really afflicting anything yet, like it would be later in the month when it starts overcoming all of the Pisces planets through a superior square. So this is the one that we wanted to highlight for February as the most auspicious electional chart that we could find. There’s three or four other charts that we’re gonna go through on the Auspicious Elections Podcast this month that Leisa and I are gonna record tomorrow, but I will go ahead and save that for that recording. So, yeah, what do you guys think?
KS: Well, it’s nicer than the other chart we were looking at.
CB: Yeah, that was not a great chart. I should pull that up again and see how it compares.
KS: I had to do this in some of my own elections with the Moon in Scorpio, where you wouldn’t normally necessarily—I mean, there are some challenges, I guess, with the Moon in Scorpio. But to be able to put it right next to Jupiter I think is a great thing.
CB: Yeah, definitely. If you’re gonna put the Moon in Scorpio, putting the Moon in Scorpio conjunct Jupiter and applying to Venus is gonna be one of the more positive manifestations of the Moon in Scorpio that you’re gonna find.
KS: Yeah. I think the only slightly-better version of that will be the following month, when Venus is in Pisces, and if it’s possible that the Moon can be moving between Venus and Jupiter, with Venus in Pisces rather than Aquarius; but obviously it doesn’t exist in February of 2018. But, yeah, to have the Moon going between both benefics is great.
CB: Yeah, definitely.
AC: Yeah, that’s the most you can do with the Moon in Scorpio.
CB: Sure.
KS: Yeah.
CB: And then the last thing I meant to mention—I want to talk about this more on the Auspicious Elections Podcast this month—I was actually surprised and I found it kind of humorous, well not actually that humorous, kind of annoying. In December, when I was getting this whole ‘posters’ thing together, Mercury was retrograde most of the month, and that in and of itself led to some delays as I was actually trying to get the posters and get them prepared to go on sale. And I got them printed up by this company, and the company shipped them to me. But then FedEx lost them and they claimed that they had delivered the posters to me and left them with my roommate, but I don’t of course have a roommate. And so, they ended up having to send me a second order of posters, and it was this whole ‘Mercury in retrograde-type’ debacle. One of the funny things about that though is I actually ordered the round tubes right in the center of the retrograde—using an electional chart that ended up emphasizing Mercury—because I just knew that I had to order them that day in order to get everything on time, and I just sort of crossed my fingers and hoped that it would work out for the best. So that ended up being ironic then of course that the following month, the big issue with the posters would be them not being delivered or getting stuck in the mail because they were round tubes that were getting stuck in the postal system. So it brought up kind of an interesting issue in terms of both electional astrology and things like Mercury retrograde. Sometimes you can initiate something potentially earlier on, under a Mercury retrograde, and it can kind of stamp that activity with that particular quality, which then sometimes doesn’t always manifest exactly during the Mercury retrograde itself, but sometimes can have a delayed fuse which shows up later on during the development of whatever venture it is that you’re trying to initiate at that time. Have you guys dealt with stuff like that?
AC: Yeah. I mean, I think that’s a big part of how electional works. I would also add that that Mercury retrograde had the distinction of beginning conjoined Saturn and then concluding afterwards with another conjunction to Saturn. And so, that particular cycle had delays particularly baked into it.
CB: Yeah. And it’s so funny because it’s a basic principle of astrology. It’s not like I was surprised. But it’s funny to get reminders or to have things like that reemphasized in different ways, at different times constantly, and just to see a reminder of very basic principles like that. Like, yeah, if you start something under a certain alignment, it’s gonna carry the energies of that forward, and that’s gonna show up at various points during the lifetime of that venture, whatever it is or however long it lasts.
AC: Yeah, when I think of electing things or the birth of a human being, creating their natal chart, it’s a little bit of ‘when do you loose the arrow from the bow’, because it sort of has its own trajectory once you loosen it.
CB: Right.
AC: There’s a little bit more steering involved, obviously, in human affairs, but there is an element of that.
CB: Sure. Definitely. All right, so that brings us back to February then, since the electional chart was on the 7th. And we talked about Venus going into Pisces around the 10th and 11th. What’s coming up after that?
AC: And Kelly and I both love that.
KS: Yes, we agree.
CB: You both love Venus in Pisces.
KS: Yeah.
AC: Yeah. You’re supposed to love Venus in Pisces. It’s exalted.
CB: I mean, I like that. I’m still a little thrown off by that Mars. I know you guys don’t think that Mars is gonna be too much of a problem. But it’s not as clean of a Venus in Pisces as we normally are used to experiencing, and there’s just something about that that’s a little problematic to me.
AC: It’s better than squaring Saturn, which it did for the last three years.
CB: Yeah, I will definitely give you that. That’s a good point. Okay, so we have—
KS: And the Venus square Mars—for people listening at home—will be in exact aspect on 25th of Feb.
CB: Okay, 25th. So right at the end of the month. And that’s the first planet basically that catches up to Mars eventually.
KS: Doesn’t Mercury get there first?
AC: No.
KS: No. Oh, Mercury is at the end of the month, the 28th. Oh, yeah.
CB: Okay.
KS: Mercury does a double-header with Mars and Pluto on the 28th. Okay, so we’re back around the 10th. The only aspect I have, the Sun will square Jupiter on the 10th as well, and then we’re into—anything to add there, Austin?
AC: No. I mean, the way that I’m looking at the month, it’s sort of like, yeah, Venus in Pisces is a nice little change. It’s more soothing than Venus in Aquarius. It kind of oils up the machines a little bit, reduces friction, but really I’m just kind of waiting for the partial solar eclipse to close out and balance the pair of eclipses. I think the eclipse dynamics are going to kind of dominate what’s happening until we can get a couple of days past that solar.
CB: All right, so you’re talking about the solar eclipse that takes place at 27° of Aquarius on the 15th of February?
AC: That’s the one.
KS: Right in the middle of the month.
AC: I was disappointed that it wasn’t gonna be a ‘Valentine’s’ eclipse. I thought that would be—
CB: Right. It’s very close.
KS: Well, the Moon is on the South Node on the 14th.
AC: You guys know that Valentine’s Day enrages me, not because—
KS: What a surprise, Austin.
AC: No, it’s not because I’m against romantic or erotic love.
KS: No.
AC: I am in a romantic and erotic love with my partner of many years, Kait. But here’s the thing—if we’re talking about scheduling holidays, there should be some astrology to that.
KS: Correct.
AC: Right?
KS: Yeah.
AC: And so, even something like Thanksgiving—it’s like, well, it always occurs on a Thursday—which is Jupiter’s day, when the Sun’s in Sagittarius, a Jupiter-ruled sign—and we’re supposed to give thanks. Makes sense.
KS: Makes sense. Eat yourselves crazy also makes sense.
AC: Right. And, you know, Christmas makes sense as sort of a ‘Yule-solstice’ thing. However, with Valentine’s Day, the only thing we’re guaranteed to get is the Sun in late Aquarius.
KS: Yeah.
AC: And actually one of my best friends has the Sun in late Aquarius. It’s not a romantic position. He’s a Libra rising, so he’s relatively smooth. But the Sun in Aquarius—the Sun in late Aquarius—that’s not like, “Ooh, that’s the ‘romance’ election.” Kait and I did this—and I propose this for everyone. Reschedule Valentine’s Day for the day that the Sun hits Venus’ degree of exaltation at the end of Pisces.
KS: Yes.
AC: Try that.
KS: Yes.
AC: Anyway, end rant.
CB: That’s a good idea.
KS: You make a good point, Austin, because there is no connection. I mean, Aquarius is a great sign with some fine points, but you wouldn’t put it in anything to do with sweetness or romance.
AC: Right. If you’ve got the entire year to choose from, right?
KS: Yeah.
AC: So it’s not a ‘Valentine’s’ eclipse, unfortunately, it is the day after Valentine’s Day. It is the 15th of February. And this one’s a lot more mellow than the big lunar that sort of preempts the month. It’s a partial solar eclipse in Aquarius. It’s off the South Node rather than the ‘Nerth’ Node. The ‘Nerth’ Node. The ‘Nerth Nerd’. Uh, it’s the South ‘Nerd’.
KS: But it is a ways off, the South ‘Nerd’. Like I think it’s 13° separated or something.
AC: Yeah, yeah. And so, it’s not as intense. And, you know, the South Node is about letting go of things. And what I think is interesting is that we have this sort of relatively mellow, ‘but kind of releasing/letting go of some stuff’ eclipse, and it’s just a day-and-a-half before Mercury makes a perfect superior conjunction to the Sun, right? Mercury superior conjunction to the Sun is very much a point of mental clarification. And, you know, if we’re talking about Aquarius, we should be talking about what’s up there in the winds. We should be talking about the mental layer of things. And so, I don’t know, I think a lot of people might experience this as an insight or a series of insights that lets them kind of let go of some things. And I think it’s going to serve to depressurize some of the emotional thickness and intensity that the total lunar eclipse in Leo sort of slathers over the first-half of the month.
CB: Definitely. That makes a lot of sense to me. Cuz it’s also a lot more easy going with that square with Jupiter being one of the only things that’s really tightly tied into that in terms of hard aspects. Jupiter’s at 22° of Scorpio, and it’s squaring the Sun and Moon conjunction at 27 Aquarius. There is a sextile from Uranus at 25 Aries, which is sending a sextile ray to 25 Aquarius, but that’s not a problem. So, yeah, I mean, it is much more easy going compared to the lunar eclipse that precedes it two weeks earlier.
AC: Yeah. And if we’re talking about insight and what occurs on a mental level, Uranus is good for insight. There are things it’s not good for. But, yeah, I don’t know, just looking at it and talking with you guys about it now, it’s sort of like the lunar feels really sensitive and egoic and personal—and it’s also just a bigger eclipse, whereas the South—excuse me, the partial solar feels much more mental and sort of detached and not so, ‘oh, my God’, all the feels. You know, there are a couple of different facets of it that suggest a clarifying and releasing rather than an overfilling the cup.
KS: That’s a really nice distinction, the clarification, I think. The tendency with that Full Moon in Leo—one of the potential problems what I can see with that, the Leo eclipse—is just the being overrun by emotion or passion or primal influences, which is the opposite of what this Aquarius eclipse is, which is just much more cool, calm, collected, or at least logical. And it’s almost one of the anomalies—not anomaly, that’s not the right word. It’s a New Moon eclipse, but it’s on the South Node. So the nodal influence about that need to release will override the ‘normal, starting new’ energy, I think. It’s sort of a weird blend that we’ve gotta have some of that ending and releasing and that clearing out.
AC: Well, as a New Moon, you can begin a lunar cycle, or half of a lunar cycle, that has release and cleaning out as a theme.
KS: Yes, absolutely. Like you could even set it as an intention for two weeks to kind of clear some of the dregs from the last little while and then kind of get set for the next few months.
AC: Yeah. And so, you know, Kelly, we were all talking about this before we started recording. Once we get past this eclipse, it’s not perfect, but really the next month—sort of mid-February to mid-March—is pretty mellow as far as this year’s astrology goes. You know, it’s almost like a little bit of a vacation, or a little bit of a calm before whatever weather comes afterwards.
KS: Whatever comes next.
CB: Right. Before everything gets busy with the Mars retrograde, or getting ready to go retrograde, Uranus going into Aquarius, or going into Taurus, Venus going retrograde eventually, and everything else that’s gonna happen later this year.
AC: Yeah. Cuz once we get in towards the equinox—like the second-half of March—we’ve got Mars in Capricorn with Saturn, which is tough. That could be ‘good’ tough, but that’s not like ‘take a little time off’, right?
KS: No.
AC: And then we’ve got a Mercury retrograde in Aries that starts up just after that. You know, it’s gonna be a somewhat chaotic equinox. And then by the time we’re done with that, it’s Uranus in Taurus, and, oh, Mars is deep in its shadow, etc., etc. And so, I like this ‘second-half of February through the first-half of March’ thing. It’s a nice little piece of territory.
CB: Yeah. I mean, even just visually, if you look at the Planet Watcher Calendar for this month—which I’ll make February the cover image for this episode—there’s hardly anything on it. It’s like the one month this year where there’s only, what, like three or four things that I note, which were just the eclipse happening on the 15th, and then the three planets ingressing into Pisces, and that’s pretty much it, whereas almost every other month has multiple or at least 5 to 10 different things going on.
KS: Yeah. So in some ways if it feels a little ‘pause-y’ or there’s just a couple of things going on, use February to kind of get centered and deal with that, cuz there will be much more happening at other points in the year.
AC: Yeah. You know, if you had some New Year’s idea, some New Year’s resolution ideas, and you kind of already got off track, it’s maybe a time to put that freight train back on the track, so that by the time things get exciting again you’ll be on that track. You’ll have some momentum in the right direction.
CB: Definitely. Yeah, and the calm before the storm, so to speak, of the rest of 2018. All right, well, I think that’s a good note then to wind down on, since we’ve pretty much covered all of the major things for February. I meant to mention at the top of this episode—because we got a lot of comments from people asking me what software I’m using when I did the yearly forecast last month. And so, the software I’m using for the ‘Animate Chart’ feature is called Solar Fire. You can actually get a discount on Solar Fire if you use the promo code that they created for us, which is ‘AP15’, when you purchase the software from the company that makes it, which I think is called Astrolabe. So Astrolabe software, which is based in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. All right, well, I think that’s it then for this episode. Do you guys have any parting words before we adjourn for the month?
AC: I don’t think so.
KS: No. I think everyone’s got the vibe, which is good.
CB: Yeah, yeah, I think it’s good. This is a nice change of pace from the frenetic, ‘we have to cover everything that’s gonna happen in the next 12 months’ of last month. And then, Austin, you and me and Patrick in our ‘Saturn in Capricorn’ attempt to give an overview of the entire history of Saturn in Capricorn and all previous transits of that planet, and then everything that’s gonna happen in the next two or three years—this is a much more low-key episode than those have been. So I appreciate that. It may not be as dynamic or as exciting as those were, but, yeah, it’s good to be back to doing these monthly forecasts with both of you again, and I look forward to meeting up with you again next month to look at March.
AC: Yeah, that’ll be fun.
KS: That’ll be fantastic.
CB: All right, well, so I guess then we’ll call it quits. Austin, where can people find out more information about your work?
AC: At my website, which is austincoppock.com. A-U-S-T-I-N-C-O-P-P-O-C-K.
CB: Brilliant. And, Kelly, what about you?
KS: Kellysastrology.com. So kelly-s-astrology.com.
CB: Awesome. And you can find out more information about the podcast at theastrologypodcast.com. If you’re listening to us on iTunes, then please be sure to go and give the show a good rating, since that’ll help other people to find it in the future, and we’ll appreciate it. So that’s it for this episode. So thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time.