The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 234, titled:
2020 Astrology Forecast: Overview of the Year Ahead
With Chris Brennan, Kelly Surtees, and Austin Coppock
Episode originally released on December 16, 2019
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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 Alisha Park
Transcription released June 17, 2021
Copyright © 2021 TheAstrologyPodcast.com
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Chris Brennan: Hi my name is Chris Brennan and you’re listening to The Astrology Podcast. Today is Saturday, November 23rd 2019, starting at 1:31 pm in Denver, Colorado, and this is going to be the, not sure what episode number, but this is the 2020 forecast, where we’re going to look at and give an overview of the year ahead for the astrology of next year.
Joining me today is Austin Coppock and Kelly Surtees, we’re here in the studio here in Denver. Thanks for joining me today guys.
Kelly Surtees: Anytime, thanks for having us.
Austin Coppock: Yeah, our pleasure.
CB: Chronologically, we just recorded our forecast for December yesterday which was a very light preview of what we’re going to be doing today. But today we’re going to give an overview going through quarter by quarter of the entirety of the next 12 months.
KS: Yes.
CB: So are you guys prepared for this?
KS: I have many notes.
CB: Are you prepared just in general, mentally and spiritually for 2020?
AC: Getting there.
KS: Yeah, I will be.
AC: I have 38 days to be fully ready.
KS: Yes, 38? Is that how many days?
AC: That was my quick guess. Today’s the 23rd of November.
KS: Yeah, that makes sense. I’m just impressed with your quickness.
AC: I’m looking to be ready by New Year’s.
CB: So what we’re gonna do is, our plan, and you know best laid plans, [is] we’re going to try to go for about 45 minutes per quarter. So first three months the year at the start, then three months, then whatever else.
Obviously, since we’re going to keep doing our monthly forecast episodes, we’re not going to go into fine detail about every single transit for every month this year because we’re gonna do that once we actually get there in our future month ahead forecasts. Instead we wanted to do a very broad overview just to give people an idea of what to expect and what the major transits are next year.
KS: Yeah, like the highlights of each quarter, and then we’ll go into more detail because we’ll be still coming at you every month and we’ll be able to go into more detail throughout the year.
AC: Yeah, think of it as a tour of the landmarks like a cartographic sort of mission, surveying the wild terrain.
KS: The wild terrain of 2020 (laughs).
CB: So is there anything else, preliminary wise, that we need to touch on before we jump right into the first quarter and jump into January of 2020?
AC: Maybe two minutes, or maybe five minutes on the very larger Jupiter-Saturn cycle framing? What do you think about that?
CB: Just in terms of the upcoming conjunction?
AC: Well yeah, I’ll just say something. So we’re at the end of a long couple hundred year cycle and we’re very much on the cusp. Technically, the new cycle by most measures begins in December of 2020, and that’s the end of a 200-ish year cycle and the beginning of a 200-ish year cycle. And those cycles are delineated by very clear conjunctions of two planets. It’s not just five-dimensional transcendence imagining. This is a way to measure history that astrologers have been using for at least 1200 years. Kelly and I have both done webinars on that. And just that big change energy, that big cusp, is behind this year and last year and next year. That’s where we are in history.
KS: I think that’s a good point to make in terms of the larger context of how 2020 fits into these longer cycles, like 200+ years. We’re always talking about a two-year cycle that’s changing or a 12-year cycle that’s changing and that can be fairly significant, but when you have a 200+ year cycle changing, it does create more of that feeling of transition over a longer period of time, and 2020 is part of that because of the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in December.
CB: Right. So we’re at the turning point of a new epoch in history in terms of longer term cycles, not just in terms of the 20 year cycle, but also astrologers use longer, nearly thousand year increments as well in terms of the mutation and the change in the elements.
AC: Yeah and that’s just kind of behind everything, and everybody’s kind of feeling that anyway. And astrology clearly agrees with you, if you’re feeling that. It’s not just illusory millennial angst.
KS: Yeah, there is something behind it.
CB: I know there’s plenty of that going around.
AC: Oh yeah, there’s that too.
CB: And is that the broader, millennial angst, or are we talking about millenarian angst?
AC: Yeah, just the general, “Oh my god, everything’s ending…”
KS: Millenarianism, not millennials.
CB: You’re not talking about the mid 20-year-old angst?
AC: Well, those are two intersecting phenomena.
CB: Okay. That could be the title of this episode, actually.
KS: There you go.
CB: That would be a good title.
AC: Millennial angst
(Laughter)
AC: Poor Millennials
CB: All right…
KS: That’s why I was like, we’re not trying to crap on them, that wasn’t the point, no.
CB: Let me throw up the chart. This is our electional chart that we used for the month to get together. So this is the best electional chart we could find for November. We decided to use it today with this lovely Venus-Jupiter conjunction that’s right in the middle of the sky right now.
Let’s go forward and take a look at, first, one of the diagrams that Paula Belluomini made for us. This is actually from our planetary movements calendar, which is a poster we’re selling this year as we have for the past three years. It shows where the planets will start in the signs of the zodiac at the very beginning of the year starting on January 1st. And then over the course of the next 12 months how far through the zodiac they will get and where they’ll end up by the very end of 2020. So it’s kind of helpful for just visualizing how fast some the inner planets are, or how slow some of the outer planets are, as well as where some of the planets will spend the most time in terms of signs of the zodiac or in terms of different parts of your own birth chart, if you want to conceptualize it that way, as well as some of the turning points where they’ll slow down and turn retrograde and then spend a bunch of time in certain signs. So for Mercury, of course, we always get the three Mercury retrograde periods, which we can see in certain signs this year. But also there’s a few other retrogrades that are coming up this year, right?
KS: There’s plenty of retrograde action. We’ll have a lot to say about that.
AC: Both Venus and Mars.
KS: Yeah. One thing I love about a diagram like this, because I always use something very similar for my year ahead horoscopes, is that you notice every second year we have either, what I’ve started to conceptualize as, Mars in a fast year or Mars in a slow year.
So that we have one year in the zodiac where Mars covers like two-thirds of the zodiac, and then the following year Mars only covers about one-third of the zodiac because he’ll be retrograde, and that’s part of the 2020 action which we’ll talk about when we get to that quarter.
AC: Yeah, because it’s an every two year retrograde. It’s either a retro year or not retro year, and that has speed implications.
KS: There’s a speed implication, yeah. So some years Mars is going to cover two-thirds of your chart, and other years Mars is just in one quadrant.
CB: Yeah, so this year…
KS: You can see that there on your diagram.
CB: Yeah, we will get that Mars retrograde in Aries this year. So we’ll talk about that later in, I think, quarter three. Any other broad overview? Of course, we can see the clustering of stuff that’s happening up in Capricorn this year and that’s going to dominate a large part of our discussion. Pluto’s been there in Capricorn since the later part of 2008. Saturn’s been in Capricorn for a couple of years now and is in the process of finishing up his trip through that sign this year and we’re also getting the first and only exact Saturn-Pluto conjunction. But also Jupiter is joining, as we talked about in the forecast last month, Jupiter has joined the party in Capricorn for most of this year as well, and then we’ll get Mars passing through there and everything else.
KS: Yeah, there is quite an emphasis on Capricorn this year, even a little more than what we’ve had already.
CB: All right. Any other overview stuff or should we jump right into the astrology of January?
KS: Jump
AC: I feel like we’re already sliding in, so we might as well jump.
KS: Yeah.
CB: All right. Let’s let’s dive in then.
AC: Boldly.
CB: So here is the planetary alignments calendar, again one of other monthly calendars that we do each year that I’m going to release on the podcast website, so you can have it up on your wall. But this is the planetary alignments for January, which shows different dates when certain planets will move into different signs of the zodiac, dates for the two lunations: the new moon and the full moon, which are actually eclipses this month, as well as planetary conjunctions and planetary stations, either direct or retrograde.
So, quarter one of the year. Where do we start? Should we start with the eclipses, the Saturn-Pluto conjunction?
AC: We have to start with the Saturn-Pluto conjunction…
KS: I think we do, yeah.
CB: Yeah, that is the elephant in the room?
KS: Yes, yes.
CS: Or what’s a better analogy? That’s a pretty good analogy.
KS: The big rock everyone is trying to pretend isn’t there.
AC: The Saturn-Pluto conjunction is heavy. It’s heavy and it’s big.
CB: And it’s been building for a while, like this is the exact conjunction.
KS: Yeah.
AC: But it looms.
KS: There is a looming quality to it.
CB: Let me throw up the chart, and I will animate and and take us first to January 1. So you can just see where we start at the beginning of the year and then I’ll take it to the exact conjunction.
Here’s January 1 in the chart of the day, showing that huge pile-up in Capricorn, which were coming off of and we talked about a lot in the forecast episode last month. And there was a lot of good discussion we just did yesterday about Jupiter in Capricorn; a lot of the themes going on with that with the Capricorn stellium and everything else, so people should definitely check that out because there’s some carry-over from that episode into some of the themes this year.
KS: Definitely
CB: Let’s see, there’s the Capricorn pile-up and the exact Saturn-Pluto conjunction, what’s the exact date of that again?
KS: Like January 11th/January 12th, just depending on where people are in the world.
CB: All right, there it is. So it’s at 22 degrees of Capricorn.
KS: Yeah, with the Sun and Mercury, kind of…
AC: Attending…
KS: Attending, yeah.
CB: Yeah, it’s funny. There’s so many planets in Capricorn that my chart style is struggling with it and it’s extending the 10th house.
KS: Yeah, it’s quite extreme.
CB: So yeah, 22 degrees of Capricorn, and you’re right, the Sun and Mercury meet up and conjoin each other just before that but also then hit and conjoin Pluto and Saturn right around the same time. So there’s this huge concentration of both really far out, slow outer planets, as well as kind of quick inner planets all around the same degrees, around 22 degrees of Capricorn, roughly around the same time.
AC: Yeah, so we have just basically the day and a half before, we have Mercury making a superior conjunction to the Sun, which means that mercury is on the opposite side of the Sun from us, and if we follow that line further out, Mercury’s in line with Saturn and Pluto. And so not it’s not merely the exact conjunction between Saturn and Pluto, but the the Sun and Mercury are focusing a lot of attention, intention and thought on that. And it probably deserves that much thinking.
KS: Yeah, in some ways I kind of like that Mercury is involved here because it can add a level of articulation or thinking. It can help with trying to process or trying to express some of the material that is being stirred up. I don’t know that it’ll necessarily be elegant and I don’t know that it will be light, but you know the idea of Mercury with the megaphone or just Mercury sort of helping give voice to things?
CB: I would give it a megaphone, for sure.
KS: (Laughs) I mean I don’t know that it needs help, it’s pretty megaphone-y.
CB: But that’s a good point that one of the traditional things that Mercury has always done is if you have a conjunction or some other configuration in a chart and then you throw Mercury in, and it’s usually interpreted as like exacerbating or amplifying whatever it’s touching at that time. So it’s weird that it’s hitting that Saturn-Pluto conjunction exactly is it’s forming its only exact conjunction.
AC: Yeah, and on a positive level, it’s a point of concentration for the intellect, for the thinking…
KS: Yes.
AC: And the Saturn-Pluto conjunction is a very large, heavy- it’s a large puzzle worth solving. I think of a giant labyrinth.
KS: Yeah, like a puzzle that needs solving, I like that. It requires attending to, or the effort and the diligence to puzzle that out.
AC: Yeah, it’s worth thinking about. And so we should maybe say something about what the essential qualities of the Saturn-Pluto conjunction is. I’ll just say, historically, Saturn conjoins Pluto at very heavy moments in history. Basically, leading up to and the outbreak of World War I, the division of the world into a lot of its current national boundaries just following World War II, and the last gasp of the Cold War in the early ‘80s; the beginning of the Reagan era, and that sort of last, “Oh my god, are we all going to nuke each other or not?” And that last one in the early ‘80s was in Libra, and this is the first Saturn-Pluto conjunction since then. And we’re, I think, at an appropriately heavy and momentous-seeming period of history.
KS: Yeah, I like the piece about what you were saying about the redrawing of boundaries. You know, the redrawing of power centers or power alliances, if you like? That seems like a relevant thread.
AC: Yeah, and so from from a little individual human perspective…
KS: Yes, there’s the macro and the micro.
AC: Which I take…
KS: Yes.
(Laughter)
AC: There’s a lot of, “Okay, so if the gameboard is shifting, where I fall in that matters. I can’t necessarily rewrite history, but you can be on the right side of history.” And you can also just be like, “I think that’s falling and that’s rising, and I’ll be over here. And I’m just going to stay out of the way of that thing over there.” Because, like you said Kelly, we’re dealing with power, and power can be very dangerous.
KS: I always think of power as like a raw force that, it’s how it’s used or the intention that is put behind the power that can make it productive and useful, or destructive, basically.
AC: Yeah. I agree completely, I would also add that blind power is dangerous.
KS: Absolutely.
AC: Like an earthquake is powerful and an earthquake probably doesn’t hate you.
KS: No, it’s not personal. (Laughs)
AC: But if you’re in its zone, that’s an issue for you.
KS: Yes, and to think about it from that personal level that you are alluding to, Saturn and Pluto have been together co-present in Capricorn for two years. So from an individual level, if we’re thinking about where in our own individual charts is this Saturn-Pluto conjunction coming together, it’s definitely a punctuation point, an exclamation point or an emphasis point, but it is also bringing to a head, in some ways, topics that you have been exploring or diving into or even already pulling apart over the last couple of years.
AC: Yeah and that’s a really good point. This is not new, this is a magnifying lens on a dynamic that we’ve been living with.
KS: Yeah.
CB: When did Saturn first ingress again? It was in December…
KS: December 2017. So it’s two years.
CB: Yeah, since December of 2017, and even some of the longer-term themes we might even trace back to the Pluto ingress…
KS: Which I think was January 2008? Off the top of my head, but don’t quote me.
CB: That sounds about right.
AC: Yeah, if that’s not right, that’s really close.
KS: The only reason I remember is there was a big conference in Australia at that time and I’m pretty sure the timing was close to that.
CB: So in terms of some of the mundane world events that this has been building up to, some of the groundwork for that was probably laid way back then when Pluto first ingressed into Capricorn and then especially when Saturn went in, a couple of years ago now, in December of 2017.
KS: Absolutely. Because you know Saturn is- I always think about Saturn’s role in the cosmos, he’s the last of the visible planets so there’s something about how what he does triggers things that need to be then really made manifest or restructured in the here and now. And that tour of Saturn through Capricorn is like all this Pluto in Capricorn stuff that’s been going on, how are we really going to concretize or clarify the influence of that at the larger picture level?
CB: Right, yeah.
KS: And the emphasis, with Mercury and the Sun there is really poignant as well.
AC: Yeah, and so it’s worth paying special attention to on January 12th at 1:50 at night, but this is something that’s been around and it’ll be strongly emphasized off and on throughout the year.
KS: Yeah. So, I think for me, I know it’s important that we all note exactly that it’s happening in January, but it’s not as though that energy is only relevant for us in January of 2020.
AC: Yeah, it’s not resolved and disappeared on the next day.
KS: Exactly, yeah. But it is a sense of that peak point within that longer journey of Saturn through Capricorn
CB: Yeah, a pivotal sort of turning point, that we then still hear some of the echoes of throughout the rest of the year, as Saturn continues its journey through Capricorn this year and for most of 2020 with a brief exit into Aquarius for a little bit, before it comes back into Capricorn, and then Pluto will be making its way through the rest of Capricorn for another four or five years.
KS: Yeah, still a few more years.
CB: All right. So, that’s the dominant theme of January, the Saturn-Pluto conjunction. It’s kind of emphasized by another piece, and I know we don’t want to move on completely from Saturn-Pluto, but it’s not just Saturn-Pluto that’s happening there, but we also have eclipses taking place at the same time, which complicates things and emphasizes some of that cardinal axis.
AC: Oh yeah, that’s absolutely a piece of it. Two days before we have a lunar eclipse, I believe, a partial lunar eclipse in Cancer at 20 degrees-ish, which is only two degrees away from a perfect opposition to Saturn and Pluto. So that eclipse has the Saturn-Pluto conjunction very much…
KS: As part of it.
AC: Yeah, it’s what it will be gazing at with it’s reddened eye.
CB: Here it is. So it’s at 19 degrees of Cancer. Looks like it’s the lunar eclipse.
KS: Okay yeah, let’s just double check here.
CB: 19 degrees of Cancer and that’s opposing the Sun…
KS: I’ve got 20°…
CB: You’ve got 20°? What am I missing? Oh, you’re right.
KS: Maybe some minutes?
CB: Yeah, it’s the minutes.
KS: I mean, you’ll be in the ballpark if you have 19° or 20°, you won’t miss it.
CB: Wow okay yeah, so that means the Mercury conjunction is simultaneous pretty much with the Sun.
AC: Yeah, January is very good about introducing some of the themes of 2020. The sizzle reel is very impactful.
KS: Right, yeah. The Cancer eclipse, hugely significant, but also echoing threads of eclipses that have been bouncing around through 2019.
CB: Yeah, it’s like this has been happening all year. We had some Cancer-Capricorn eclipses last in June and July, and then at the very beginning of the year we also had a set of Cancer-Capricorn eclipses. So these are some themes, and especially in people’s birth charts or natal charts, these are themes that have been activated in those two pairs of houses where it’s bouncing back and forth between one house and its opposite for the past year, year and a half now.
AC: There are a lot of things we can say about this. One of them is just that, like we said in yesterday’s episode, which you probably won’t view these back-to-back like we recorded them, but it’s fresh in my mind- one thing we can say that I think every astrologer will say with absolute certainty is, eclipses are triggers for significant experiences and events. And in particular with this being in Cancer and looking right at the Saturn-Pluto, one thing to think about here is that as you’re looking at big, heavy, historical powerful things- that’s the Capricorn part, the Saturn-Pluto part; the Cancer part is taking care of you and yours…
KS: There’s a nourishment component.
AC: When the going gets tough, the tough double down on self-care. (Laughs)
KS: Yes, the tough or the smart realize that the self-care becomes more important.
AC: Yeah, and there’ll be chart-specific things. But in general, it’s a Moon in Cancer, which is the the snuggliest of signs.
KS: (Laughs) That’s true, yes, it is.
AC: There was a snuggle off and Pisces lost, it was a close second.
CB: Pisces lost the snuggle off?
AC: To Cancer, yeah.
KS: I find that very hard to believe…
CB: That’s a tough…
KS: I would like to see some Cancer Moon and Pisces Moon in a room and see who is really the best at cuddling.
CB: I’d like to see some data graphs of how that came out.
KS: (Laughs). I love that we just had a conversation about the cuddle off, because it is a contrast to the Capricorn energy that’s going on.
AC: Yeah, I think we can all agree that the Saturn-Pluto conjunction in Capricorn is not snuggly?
KS: Correct.
CB: Right.
KS: It’s the anti-cuddle aspect. It’s so dry, Saturn in Capricorn, the pure energy of that is like distant or detached or hands off.
CB: Yeah. So part of that axis and the opposition between the two rulers of that axis are Saturn and the Moon, and the notion of the gathering and inclusiveness of the Moon as the ruler of Cancer versus Saturn as the opposite, which is more of a theme of discretion but also rejecting and excluding things, which sometimes can be positive and necessary. Like when you have to remove things from your diet or remove things that have become unnecessary from your life. But other times that factor can go too far, and you can largely or societally can start excluding things unnecessarily, or excluding groups or other things unnecessarily.
KS: And it can become isolating or there can be this feeling of barriers.
CB: Yeah isolationism. That’s a good theme if we’re talking about this in a mundane sense with the Capricorn-Cancer axis as different themes of security and what it takes to create a greater sense of security versus a sense of isolationism as something that goes along with that.
KS: Yeah, they’re opposite sides of that.
AC: And the Saturn-Pluto conjunction historically has been very pro-barrier and pro-wall.
KS: Very pro-wall.
AC: A wall being the physical embodiment, or the archetypal physical structure which creates separation
KS: Yes
AC: Which, again, we’re glad we have walls between us and outside because it’s cold. But one can get a little crazy with walls.
CB: Yeah and the last major transit of Saturn through Capricorn 30 years ago, there was a famous destruction of a wall.
KS: Yeah, the wall came down, the Berlin wall?
AC: And we can thank Uranus and Neptune.
KS: I was going to say there was a different tone into that Saturn in Capricorn.
AC: Yeah, that Saturn had to argue walls with Uranus who is very, contra-wall, and Neptune who doesn’t even believe that they exist.
CB: Sure, whereas Pluto tends to just amplify whatever it’s touching and like let it go nuts with whatever it’s normal tendency already is.
AC: Yeah
CB: So if the normal tendency for Saturn is to build walls and create a greater sense of exclusion and separateness, then Pluto is just going to amplify that and blow out of all proportion.
KS: Makes it very extreme.
AC: Yeah, and not only is that like good astrology logic, but we can just check history and it’s true every time.
KS: Yeah, so that’s the start of the quarter.
CB: Yeah, and one thing is that because we’re starting to move very quickly this year, we’re going to move out of eclipses on the Cancer-Capricorn axis, this eclipse in Cancer is going to start to bring to completion and at least enter into the final phases, like let’s say a six month phase of wrapping up some of the changes that have been developing in your life and the part of your chart that the Cancer and Capricorn eclipses have been falling in over the past year, year and a half.
AC: Yeah, after this one there’s just one more big eclipse on the Cancer-Capricorn axis, and it’s a solar. So this is the last lunar eclipse in Cancer and there is one more lunar eclipse on the Cancer-Capricorn axis but it’s so weak.
KS: It’s a very minor, like partial-
AC: Like, very weak. We’re coming to the end of that arc, of that Cancer-Capricorn arc, and as a Cancer rising I’m all for it.
CB: Okay. And as a lunar eclipse, seeing some of the end result of that, or a culmination of events in that area of your life. So people could think about what house that’s falling in, and think of perhaps either the end result or the culmination of a series of events that have been building and developing off and on for the past year and a half or almost two years now.
All right, so that’s a lot of what’s going on in January, and we’re still just talking about the major outer planet stuff happening in January but there’s some smaller, more localized things we need to mention as well, right?
KS: Absolutely, yeah. When’s the Uranus station? Is that in January?
CB: Uranus stations, yeah, it is in January. It’s the 10th I believe. So let me pull that up. Of course that’s basically happening right around the same time as everything else. Here is the chart for that.
KS: Which is at 2° Taurus, and this is like the fifth time Uranus has been back at 2° Taurus, but it is the start of the last part of Uranus at 2° Taurus.
CB: Yeah. It’s not going to get any further back in that fixed sign. So especially if anybody has any planets in very early fixed signs, this is going to be the last very close pass of Uranus over those degrees.
KS: Yes, so for anyone with early fixed sign planets… (Laughs). But there were a couple of other things in this quarter, unless, did you guys want to say more on Uranus?
AC: Well, we haven’t gotten out of January yet.
KS: No we haven’t, but we had our list of things.
AC: Yeah, February’s got stuff. March has definitely got stuff.
KS: Yeah, we were gonna talk about the Mercury retrograde, I think, briefly?
CB: Yeah, so mid-January we’re only halfway through the Mercury cycle. It restarts its synodic conjunction with the Sun right around the time of that Saturn-Pluto conjunction. But then if you go forward, Mercury, after it passes that conjunction with the Sun, is moving very quickly. But then eventually, as it always does, every few months starts to slow down after it goes into Pisces in February. And it’s stations retrograde at 12 degrees of Pisces around February 16th/February 17th.
AC: Yeah and that mid-February has two important shifts. One being Mercury’s retrograde station, and just the day before, Mars enters Capricorn. So back to Capricorn emphasis. It’s not been very long, but more planets in Cap. So Mars in Capricorn will take us to the end of the quarter, but Mercury’s retrograde will be about three weeks.
CB: Okay. So Mercury retrograde in Pisces, does it stay in Pisces?
KS: There is a little bit in Aquarius, actually. I think the station direct is in about 28° Aquarius. I don’t remember the- it stations retrograde around 12°…
CB: This is another one of those ones just like a year ago…
KS: Yeah, remember last year?
CB: Last year was annoying. The Mercury retrograde where Neptune was all tied into it, and this is another one of those where it’s stationing within orb of a conjunction with Neptune.
KS: I don’t think it’s quite as tight as last year but it is still going to have that feeling of Mercury retrograde with Neptune in Pisces.
CB: Yeah, which is always a tricky combination because Mercury tends to want to signify communication and clear communication, whereas Neptune tends to muddy the waters and any significators it’s touching. And so that usually results more tangibly in just miscommunication as one of the primary significations, which is then amplified if it’s also a retrograde.
KS: Yeah, the confusion, the overwhelm, if you like. One of the things Mercury struggles with in Pisces is just so many things going on that things slip through the cracks, basically.
AC: Yeah, it gets pretty soupy.
KS, Soupy! That was your word, yeah, that’s totally it. It’s all a bit of a puddle.
CB: So that Mercury retrograde station, we can see it happening here when it begins the retrograde cycle around February 16th/February 17th. And then as always, it’s going to be retrograde for three weeks. It’ll reach the halfway point in the retrograde cycle and conjoin the Sun around February 25th/February 26th around 7-ish degrees of of Pisces before eventually moving back into Aquarius and stationing direct March 9th/March 10th at 28 degrees of Aquarius. So that is our first Mercury retrograde period of the year, one of three happening already in February and March.
KS: Yeah so it is a feature of this quarter for sure. And, Mars?
CB: Yes. The other thing we wrote down that we wanted to touch on, is most of the early part of the year we have Mars just going through Sagittarius and not doing much that’s hugely notable. But then eventually in about mid-February, Mars departs from Sagittarius and ingresses into Capricorn where we have all of that other outer planet action going on this year. So suddenly we get a pile up of the three traditional outermost visible planets: Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, thrown into the mix with the south node already being there, as well as Pluto still being there at 23 degrees of Capricorn. That ingress of Mars into Capricorn is the starting point of a build-up phase of Mars then building up to exact conjunctions with all of those other planets as it moves through Capricorn over the course of the next month or two.
AC: Yeah, there’s a lot there. There are several different conjunctions to think about. Because it’s Capricorn, because Saturn rules Capricorn, it’s safe-ish to always go back to Saturn as a way of thinking about what’s happening in Capricorn. The first part of Mars in Cap, it will conjoin the south node. And that’s going to be Mars’s input into that already quite developed eclipse story between Cancer and Capricorn. Mars adds fire, and separation, and action.
KS: Yeah, divisiveness.
AC: Yeah, and separating oneself from people can sometimes be a good thing. It can also be getting rid of things that you’ve been clinging on to that you know you don’t need anymore.
KS: I think there can be a bit of like, “I’ve outgrown this” or, “This is no longer serving its purpose”. When we say the divisiveness or the cutting away, sometimes people think, “What if I want to keep it?” but sometimes the point of a combination like this is to bring you to a place where you realize that it’s good for you to not have that anymore.
AC: Well and with Mars, Saturn, Pluto, south node all in the same place with Jupiter, as a combination it has a hard-ass character. Like, “I don’t love this but it’s the right thing to do” or like, “This isn’t easy but this is what I have to do for now”, and it rewards more stoic attitudes.
KS: The stoic attitude I think is going to be really helpful for this time, the Mars in Capricorn period, which will be about six weeks. It’s gonna take us from like the middle of February through to almost the end of March.
AC: What’s interesting is when we get towards the end of that, it’s not just Mars in the same sign. Mars and Jupiter and Pluto and Saturn are all very close by degree. The conjunction with the south node is separate by 15-ish degrees.
KS: Yeah, that happens earlier in the piece. That’ll be kind of the second/third week of February, maybe? The Mars, south node, maybe the last week of Feb?
CB: Look at this, it’s funny, the…
KS: Oh, the Moon comes through! Just for a…
CB: Yeah, the Moon sweeps in right around the same time.
KS: Now that’s an anti-cuddle aspect.
(Laughter)
CB: There’ll be no cuddling in the third week of March?
KS: None at all.
CB: Okay.
AC: So these combinations, it’s a lot of combinations at once, right? Mars-Jupiter, with Mars in the sign of its exaltation, like that’s great-
KS: That can be very productive, yeah.
AC: That’s ass-kicking. That’s organized and effective…
KS: Very strategic.
AC: But Pluto, but Saturn, all of this stuff is happening more or less at the same time.
KS: With Mars as the trigger planet there, that does add a level of the potential for tension or the disagreement piece.
CB: So Mars hits Jupiter at 22 degrees of Capricorn, which is interesting since that was the degree where the Saturn-Pluto conjunction just happened a few weeks earlier. So anybody with 22 degrees of cardinal sign placements is going to be getting hit with… It’s really interesting because it means no matter what the sect is of your chart, either you’re going to get Saturn-Pluto hitting that exactly in January, or you’re going to get a couple months later Mars-Jupiter hitting that exactly. So either you’re getting Saturn or you’re getting Mars on that degree this year within a two-month time frame.
KS: It’s a lot
AC: Yeah, I believe Rhetorius referred to that as, “a whole lotta lovin”.
(Laughter)
CB: Right, in the ancient Greek do you recall what the Greek term for that was?
AC: I can’t, I can just remember the translation, it was Holden.
KS: The translation, I love it.
CB: I think that was by the famous second century astrologer, Fraudius?
AC: Yeah, Fraudius.
(Laughter)
KS: So that was all the second half of March, I think those Mars conjunctions were happening, just to give people a ballpark timeline.
AC: Yeah, the week leading up to the equinox and the week following the equinox are um… there’s a whole lotta love.
CB: I forgot about this though, at the end of quarter three, which is what we’re at at this point… Sorry, quarter one- we get the Mars-Jupiter conjunction, we get the Mars-Pluto conjunction, but Saturn actually escapes into Aquarius before Mars catches up with it, and that’s actually what leads us into quarter two.
AC: Yes, significant quarter two consequences.
CB: So Mars hits Pluto about March 22nd/March 23rd at 24 degrees of Capricorn, but Saturn departs from Capricorn and makes its first ingress into Aquarius on March 21st/March 22nd. So we get the very first introduction of Saturn into Aquarius in the beginning of a new two or three-year phase of Saturn moving through a new sign.
KS: Yes
CB: So it’s not finished with Capricorn because it’s going to retrograde right back into there, but this is going to be the first preview, especially for people with fixed sign placements of what that new Saturn transit is going to be about for the next few years.
KS: Yes, and I think they’ll get a real taste of that in the second quarter with Saturn there.
CB: Yeah, when Saturn stations and when Mars conjoins Saturn and all sorts of fun stuff.
KS: More fun stuff (laughs).
AC: Just to speak a little bit more about Mars hitting- we’re coming up on a Jupiter-Pluto conjunction. But that big pile up in the third decan of Capricorn, the anchor there, the thing that is most long lasting and impactful is the Saturn-Pluto. So thinking of Jupiter relating to that, trying to turn that to one’s advantage, trying to think about what opportunities are present in a situation that might be scary but there are still opportunities there, what can be done to improve it? Then we also have Mars- what are the more immediate actions that are required or would be strategically useful to take during that time? And so it comes back to the big power dynamics that Saturn and Pluto are um, planning; overseeing could be a better term.
KS: Overseeing, definitely that.
AC: What’s interesting is the third decan of Capricorn has images of power. One of the traditional images is like a guy with the big bag of money sitting behind the big desk.
KS: Right, oh wow, interesting. Like the Godfather or the Sopranos or something.
AC: Yeah, it’s that guy with a bunch of money behind the desk. I abbreviate it as just the throne, because I think that works as a quick symbol, but the image is the dude behind the desk with a bunch of power.
CB: That’s really interesting symbolism given that so many astrologers associated the financial collapse and the recession that happened in 2008 with Pluto ingressing into Capricorn. But now us having at the very end of Pluto’s transit through that sign or in the last decan or the last third of it, now we have these intense conjunctions taking place before we finish up that that transit through that sign.
AC: Yeah and I believe that the United States was born with its Pluto in the third decan of Sag? Oh sorry, Scorp- Capricorn, gotta learn my signs.
(Laughter)
CB: Yeah, the United States is having a Pluto return.
AC: In terms of individual charts that this year connects with more, this this year connects a lot with the U.S. chart.
KS: Right, yeah.
CB: Sure. And we can introduce this and go into it more because it becomes more relevant in quarter two with the ingress of Saturn into Aquarius. But we kind of skipped over a whole eclipse that’s happening in January, which is the solar eclipse in Aquarius, which is like the first of- even though the Cancer one is perhaps more notable in that it’s tied in with and happens almost simultaneous to…
KS: I don’t know that that’s an eclipse.
AC: I don’t believe that there’s a solar eclipse in Aquarius.
CB: Isn’t that the one that’s just outside of- what’s the other eclipse?
AC: It’s in December, it’s in Cap
CB: Right, it’s the Capricorn…
KS: I think it’s just a regular new moon.
CB: How close is it to the nodes?
AC: Over 30 degrees?
KS: 34 degrees apart
CB: Okay, so we’re just talking about a normal new moon.
KS: Yeah. I know you’re just like so excited about eclipses.
CB: I got a little bit too excited.
KS: That’s okay, that happens.
CB: It’s the Saturn going into Aquarius which is such a big shift.
AC: Yeah, which is right around the equinox.
KS: Yes.
CB: All right, does that take us into quarter two then or are there any things that we need to touch on that we skipped over about quarter one before we move forward?
KS: I think we covered our highlights list, yeah.
AC: Yeah, I think if we go into a finer level of detail we will obscure the big landmarks.
CB: Right, which are the Cancer lunar eclipse in January, the Saturn-Pluto conjunction, the Uranus stationing direct, which is around the same time and kind of tied in with that whole cluster of stuff, the Mars in Capricorn co-presence once it starts transiting through that sign, and then finally the Mercury retrograde in Pisces.
KS: Yeah
AC: And by the very end of the quarter we get Saturn’s ingress.
KS: Yes, which we’re gonna talk [about], because it’s more fully in quarter two. But just so people know, that planet changes signs at the end of March.
CB: Then before we move on to quarter two we need to talk about the electional chart for January. And our in-house electional astrologer, Leisa Schaim was going to join us really quick for that.
KS: We’re going to have a quick transformation here.
CB: Austin was going to get a coffee or something?
AC: Yeah, I’m gonna just go change clothes, and skin.
KS: Okay, there’ll be a new figure coming in, a new hairdo and outfit and everything.
CB: Let me throw up the chart. So we had some tricky- we always in our monthly forecast episodes try to pick out one auspicious electional chart that people can use for starting different types of ventures and undertakings using the principles of electional astrology. We do a whole separate podcast on this where we give four to five electional charts each month, but we try to give one in the forecast episode and so we need to highlight one electional chart for January.
So there’s Leisa. Hey, how’s it going Leisa?
Leisa Schaim: Hey, good. How are you?
CB: Good, we’re having time so far just talking about Saturn-Pluto conjunctions.
KS: Yeah, we’ve called it the anti-cuddle aspect.
LS: I love that. Yeah, I’ve been listening from the other room.
KS: Yeah, and actually I do have a point as to why I think Moon in Pisces would win the cuddle competition…
CB: Okay
KS: A technical point- the Moon in Cancer has a protective quality, so it might be a little bit like, “Will we cuddle everyone?”, whereas the Moon in Pisces ruled by Jupiter- for sure, cuddling everyone. So, that’s my technical reason. Standing up for team Pisces.
CB: I like that.
(Laughter)
CB: We’ll have to run a poll. We’ll see.
KS: Absolutely. People can put a comment under the video below and tell us, team Pisces or team Cancer?
CB: Austin is the Cancer rising and you are the Pisces rising?
KS: Yeah, so I need to talk with him about it.
CB: I see what’s going on here…
LS: Right
(Laughter)
CB: All right. So talk us through, what is the electional chart that you wanted to highlight for January, Leisa?
LS: So this is going to be January 5th, around 12:50 pm and it’s going to be a Taurus rising chart. January, not unexpectedly for anyone listening to the Astro weather so far, was particularly challenging for finding good electional charts. But this is a nice, solid, basic one I would say. This is going to be a Taurus rising chart with Venus ruling the ascendant placed in the fixed sign of Aquarius in the 10th house, so in the career house. The Moon is in Taurus in the 1st house, and depending on your location- here, for instance, it’s applying by trine to the Sun in Capricorn in the 9th house, and then applying after that to a square with Venus but with reception because Venus is ruling the Moon, and so it softens and improves that applying square.
So this one is a basic solid election and much better than most of the month. It has all those planets piled up in Capricorn in the 9th house. Even though the ascendant ruler is in the 10th house so it’s a good career oriented election, there is a lot of focus on solidity, slow building and power with regard to 9th house topics, so either higher education or things involving foreign places, international topics.
CB: Right, so this is a heavy- it’s a 9th and a 10th house election.
LS: Exactly, yeah. And it’s kind of also the only decent Venus election in the month, even though it’s not, speaking of cuddles, it’s not the cuddliest. I’ll just continue that theme, it’s not the cuddliest Venus; it’s Venus in the air sign of Aquarius, but it’s still the best conditioned-Venus election that I could find during the month.
CB: People in the chat are saying things like maybe this could be a book publishing election, as a 9th house type election. Someone else says launching an online course, since teaching is a 9th house activity
LS: Definitely.
CB: Yeah, there’s a lot of good things you could use this for in terms of 9th house activities. What are other 9th house significations or themes?
KS: It makes me think of international business opportunities.
LS: Yeah, international business.
CB: Sure, yeah. 9th house is the place of foreign travel and interaction with foreigners, so anything having to do with that. It’s also the house that has to do with philosophical or religious matters, so things like-
KS: Yeah, like studying the wisdom traditions.
CB: Sure. Or even taking a course or starting a long term course of study of some sort.
KS: Something with a bit of effort behind it.
LS: Yeah, it’s similar to the December ones in that there’s just this huge Capricorn-Saturn build-up. So it’s going to be the slow and steady election, it’s not going to be an immediate payoff election. But it’s pretty solid, especially with the fixed signs focus. Because, not just the Capricorn build-up there with Saturn in Capricorn, but the ascendant and the ascendant ruler are both in fixed signs as well, and the Moon. So it’s a good long-term election for something that you want to last, but may take a while to get there.
KS: Yeah, that you want maybe some sustained effort for, that you want to stick with rather than just get bored with.
LS: Yeah, exactly.
KS: Yeah, staying power.
CB: It’s also not just 9th house focused but very 10th house focused in terms of business, career, reputation, social standing and things like that.
LS: Definitely, with the ascendant ruler there. So any of those 9th house topics that you can tie into your personal career trajectory would be perfect to use this for. The main topic I wouldn’t use it for would be anything that involves your resources combining with someone else’s, since Mars is in the 8th house in a day chart of shared finances. You could have some conflict around that with Mars there.
CB: So it could be problematic for like a business partnership in terms of financial matters, or what are some other 8th house topics that are sometimes relevant for elections?
LS: Taxes, loans, debts, mortgages all of those type of things. Things involving…
KS: All the borrowing of money…
LS: Yeah, borrowing money, anything involving banks, stuff like that.
CB: Got it, okay.
LS: Don’t do your will then either. That’s an 8th house topic.
CB: Oh yeah. A will, that’s funny. Yeah, that would be…
KS: Which is also 9th house-y…
LS: Oh that’s true
KS: …with the legal side of it.
LS: Yeah, right. But the 8th house: will, mortality…
CB: That would be pretty straightforward Mars in the 8th house signification: contesting of a will.
LS: Yeah, exactly. So don’t do the will then. This is actually also a really nice solid election in terms of the featured one because it will work for most, if not all locations. Sometimes you have to adjust it a lot. This one you’ll probably only have to adjust, if anything, an hour forward or an hour back, depending on your location. But it should all be the same day, and in fact in a couple locations like around Beijing, Sydney, Australia, the Moon will actually still be applying to a trine with Jupiter at that time, which is even better. So if that’s actually true in your location, you should leave it there, because that’s even better.
KS: Oh that’s a good point, yeah.
LS: Just make sure it’s a Taurus rising-
CB: In your location. So cast a chart for your city for January 5th, and then adjust the time. You can start with about 12:50 but adjust it so that Taurus is rising.
LS: Exactly, and then if the Moon isn’t directly applying to Venus but is earlier in the sign, as long as it’s not applying to a conjunction with Uranus, you would want to avoid that, and so do it later or try the next day if that’s the case, but most places I spot checked, it was either applying by trine to the Sun, already applying by square to Venus, or in a couple of those locations I just mentioned, still applying to the trine with Jupiter, which is the best.
CB: Okay, cool. All right. Well, that’s our electional chart for January. That’s one of the best charts we can find for starting something new in January. But we also found four or five other possible electional charts that tended to cluster at either the beginning or the end of the month?
LS: Um…
CB: Or was that last month?
LS: That was December, yeah.
CB: Okay. But we’ll be presenting those in the auspicious elections podcast for next month, which is available to patrons through our page on Patreon. And then we’re also releasing a year ahead electional report where we give the most auspicious electional chart that we can find for each month, for the next twelve months.
KS: When will you guys have that ready for release?
LS: Hopefully soon.
KS: Soon, okay. Stay tuned.
CB: We’ll be releasing it by the end of November or the beginning of December. So if you go to theastrologypodcast.com website, in the navigation you’ll find a link to that. I’ll put a link to it in the description page for this episode of the year ahead forecast, just a link to the 2020 year ahead electional astrology report.
KS: Fantastic
CB: Cool, all right. Well thanks a lot for joining us today.
LS: You’re welcome. All right, see you later.
KS: Thanks Leisa. Leisa will have her own transformation now.
LS: Yeah, I’ll turn into Austin again.
CB: So, here is the chart again for…
KS: The year
CB: …just the movements. Now we can see Mercury starts off in Sagittarius but you can see that little retrograde period that it has in Pisces and Aquarius.
KS: Yeah, it’s so handy to do these visual wheels because there is something to be said for just looking at the emphasis and it’s just putting the data into your brain in a different way. I’ve done something very similar with my markers.
CB: That’s why I put it on a poster because I like having it on my wall so I can refer to it.
KS: You can just quickly see.
CB: Yeah, like glance at it.
AC: Yeah, I basically do that with a pen for annual consultations. Still do it. I would also do it in PC paint…
KS: Oh!
AC: …on my chart files.
CB: Like Microsoft Paint, is that what you’re talking about?
KS: Oh, on the computer, okay.
AC: Yeah, whatever the crappy 20-year-old graphics program that comes with every Windows machine.
KS: I’m like wow, I didn’t even know about this. That’s clever.
AC: It’s high level stuff.
KS: High level, very high level.
CB: All right guys, let’s get into quarter two. We’re going to transition into the second quarter, which is April, May and June of 2020. We’ve already actually started to go into that in terms of talking about some of the ingresses that take place like right at the end of quarter one and very beginning of quarter two, and that’s where we start with that, right?
AC: Yeah and the biggest ingress by far is Saturn’s ingress into Aquarius.
KS: Hugely important. And, I know we’re not done with Saturn in Capricorn, but I am very much looking forward to just a change in the quality for a few months of his energy.
AC: Yeah, I’m pretty tired of Saturn in Capricorn.
KS: Yeah, I know we still have to deal with the Saturn in Capricorn second half of the year stuff, but I am looking forward to the feel of Saturn in Aquarius.
CB: I think you’re both speaking as people that do not have Aquarius rising.
(Laughter)
KS: That’s true. I mean, we both actually have a personal planet in Aquarius, so…
CB: Okay, that’s something.
AC: There’s something to be said for fresh hells, rather than stale ones.
KS: Fresh hells- than stale ones, yeah. And also, Aquarius- we don’t have the co-presence with all the other palaver that we’ve been dealing with.
CB: Yeah, Pluto…
KS: It would just be nice to have that go down a notch, and that’s basically this whole quarter I think.
AC: Oh yeah. One thing that’s really interesting about Saturn moving from Capricorn to Aquarius is that those are the only two consecutive signs which are ruled by the same planet. So Saturn is still in a sign that it rules in Aquarius, but it’s the other one. It is Saturn ruling air.
KS: It’s the less heavy one.
AC: If we have Saturn planning and doing structure as always, with Capricorn there’s more of a focus in the past, and there’s more of a focus of architecting the future possibilities with Aquarius, which sounds very positive and can be, but it means managing looking at what the probabilities are and then trying to architect a way to get to the future you want. Steering- affecting that vital compromise between dystopia and utopia.
KS: Yes
AC: And it’s still Saturn work.
KS: It is still Saturn work but there’s a qualitative tonal change, if you like.
CB: Yes, so we’re talking about moving from what’s traditionally called the feminine…
KS: Or the night sign?
CB: …yeah, the feminine or nocturnal sign that is ruled by Saturn to the masculine or diurnal sign that’s ruled by Saturn. So while it’s still Saturn ruled, there’s more of a… how would you guys frame it or what terms? It’s a little tricky because we’ve gone over this like a bunch of times in previous episodes in terms of how to qualify…
KS: There’s a temperature change and there’s a pace change that happens between Capricorn and Aquarius. We go from the cold earth into the hot air so there’s a warming up, if you like, which I know it sounds a bit weird… um… you don’t think air signs are like the hot quality? I know Saturn’s not…
AC: I don’t think Saturn in Aquarius will be experienced as a warm breeze. I would say…
KS: No no, I’m not trying to say a warm breeze…
AC: I would say like stony, cold earth to biting wind. (Laughs)
KS: Okay, biting wind, okay. I might not have gone with biting…
AC: I don’t disagree with you about air signs generally.
KS: Yeah, and I think that’s relative. Like yeah, it’s definitely not a warm breeze, but there is a…
CB: More active?
KS: It’s not as freezing cold and there is more of an active component, for sure.
CB: Yeah, sure.
AC: Absolutely more active.
KS: Yeah
AC: With Saturn in Capricorn there’s a lot of dealing with situations, and that’s true of the yin/feminine/night signs. They’re less active. It’s more like, “How do you like where you ended up?”
KS: Yes. It’s like reflecting on where you are.
AC: Right. Whereas the fire and air signs are- air can travel very easily, whereas Earth does not travel very well.
KS: No and that’s what I guess, the pace change there- the masculine signs do tend to have a little bit of a faster pace, and again, not saying that Saturn becomes massively quick, but quicker, relative. When I do progressions with clients I always love this progression because there is a little bit more movement from Capricorn into Aquarius. A little bit more of that outward focus, if you like. And the articulation- let’s think about it, or as you say, architect the future, rather than just ruminate on the past.
AC: And that active quality will be exacerbated by Saturn’s… Well, two things: one in the short term, which is Mars ingressing into Aquarius shortly after Saturn, and then the other, which is a much longer term thing, is that Saturn’s movement into Aquarius puts it in a sign-based square with Uranus in Taurus. And that doesn’t quite get exact this year but it will be a very big theme in 2021. And Uranus is if nothing if not, inspiring of movement, often very quickly.
KS: Yes, very inspiring of movement. You have mentioned the other significant event that’s really kicking it off this quarter, which is the Mars ingress into Aquarius. I think that technically happens on March 30th, but we will have Mars conjunct Saturn as soon as that happens, so that’s the signature for this quarter.
CB: Yeah, so Saturn goes in March 21st.
KS: Yeah and then Mars around the 30th I think.
CB: And then Mars right there on the 30th
KS: 31st, I guess depending where you are.
CB: And then it conjoins Saturn immediately at 0 degrees of Aquarius. So that’s a weird start to Saturn’s journey through Aquarius. It’s not just Saturn in Aquarius that we’re experiencing but it’s a Mars-Saturn conjunction which is such a contrast and an opposition of opposing, extremely opposing qualities right at the very start in Aquarius. I remember some of the past Mars-Saturn conjunctions that we’ve had over the past few years that we’ve been doing the forecast episodes, like Mars-Saturn in Scorpio, and…
KS: Sag, and Cap.
CB: Oh yeah, Sag.
AC: That Sag one was a big one.
KS: That was a doozy. And then with the most recent one which was the Mars-Saturn in Capricorn.
AC: Yeah and what’s interesting is that even though there’s much other stuff in Capricorn, we had Mars and Saturn in the same sign from mid-February until the end of March. And because Saturn and Mars’s ingresses are pretty close together, we keep having Mars and Saturn in the same sign basically until mid-May.
KS: So it’s almost like two six-week chunks of Mars-Saturn co-present.
AC: Yep, it’s a lot of Mars-Saturn.
CB: One of my favorite images of Mars-Saturn is like, Mars is pressing the gas in the car all the way to the floor, like flooring it, while also Saturn is hitting the brakes at the same time or while having the emergency brake on.
KS: Yeah
CB: And sometimes in life we’re in the part of the chart where that falls, having those dueling qualities of wanting to move forward rapidly but also sometimes being stopped from moving forward or having a barrier that you have to decide whether to attempt to just push through and remove from your way as an obstacle or if it’s something that actually stops you so that you can’t proceed further.
AC: Yeah and one very common Mars-Saturn experience is frustration.
KS: Yeah, I was like that’s the word for Mars-Saturn.
CB: Right, frustration.
AC: One thing they can agree on is removing or destroying something, which can be barriers, obstacles. Mars-Saturn configurations can be unfortunate triggers for bad things. Remember there’s a Mars-Saturn conjunction about every two years. And they’re in the same sign a bare minimum of six weeks every two years. So it’s important to note that, yes, that’s the kind of configuration that can signal misfortune, but it’s not every time. You don’t need you be like, “Oh my god, it’s gonna get me”. If you get gotten for six weeks every two years consistently your entire life, then sure, maybe that’s worth being concerned over. But that’s not the case for most people.
KS: I think one of the key things, particularly when I think about Mars-Saturn in Aquarius, Mars doesn’t have the dignity here that it did when Mars and Saturn were together in Capricorn. So Mars does have to bow down a little bit more to Saturn here. So whatever your Aquarius part of your chart is, there’s that enthusiasm and energy of Mars wanting to get things started, but having to be strategic about it or having to think about long-term plans or consequences that you may have to move more slowly than you would like, but it is a time for- it’s a little bit of the slicing and dicing. If you want to go forward, you can’t do everything, what’s the prioritization, the choosing, which is something Saturn always asks us to do and we don’t like that, that’s why we struggle with Saturn sometimes. It’s, you can’t have it all and you can’t have it all at once, you’ve gotta make a choice. And I think there’ll be, because it’s an air sign, I think there’s a little bit of just like an overthinking or just a bit of that mental angst that could go with this, that we should just all be aware of. It’s very common of Mars in an air sign to trigger that, and to have Saturn here at the same time I think we’ll definitely see some of that.
CB: Yeah, because air signs tend to have more to do with communications and groups, but also intellectual type activities.
KS: The thinking, the mind…
AC: Kelly, I really like that point about the dignity change. Saturn moves from one sign that it owns to another sign that it owns; Mars moves from its exaltation to basically homeless.
KS: Nada, bupkis.
AC: And so, if there’s disagreement between the gas pedal and the brake… in Capricorn, there’s a real disagreement. There’s also a real possibility of them working together because they’re both so strong there.
KS: Yeah, yep.
AC: Whereas in Aquarius, Saturn is in a vastly superior position. So the brake will naturally win and is probably the right move.
KS: Yes. I would totally agree with that.
CB: Yeah. One of the things about that conjunction I like that you brought up at the beginning, Austin, that we can’t almost can’t remove from it is just how early Uranus still is in Taurus. And certainly from a sign-based standpoint, as soon as both of those planets ingress into Aquarius they start applying to and start moving towards or at least begin engaging in a square with Uranus. So we’ve got to delineate this Mars-Saturn conjunction partially, within the context of a square with Uranus at the same time.
AC: Yeah, I agree that does need more time. Especially because they’re only five degrees out, and applying. It’s not a vague whole sign aspect, it’s within 5°. Also in the week following the exact Saturn-Mars conjunction, Mars will just march right ahead and make an exact square with Uranus, so that definitely gets pinged.
KS: Yeah the Mars, that’s gonna trigger it. I was just thinking, “Oh yeah, Mars square Uranus”.
CB: And it looks like that aspect goes exact around the, around April 7th/April 8th, so really early in this whole period that we’re talking about, Mars exactly squares Uranus from 5° Aquarius to 5° Taurus.
AC: Saturn-Uranus have very contrary significations. Saturn likes things to stay the same, likes to build systems, likes security. Uranus prefers freedom over security, it prefers improvisation over plans. Uranus brings the sudden change rather than the slow concretization. They’re very different in their powers.
KS: Yes
AC: And when they get configured by hard aspect, you see a war- or not a war, you see friction between, “I’m trying to do this plan, but oh, things just changed”. One way that works out is having to radically and quickly alter a longer term plan to take into consideration a new and important development.
KS: Yes. So the idea of having a plan but the situation changing faster than you can actually enact your original plan, and then having to go back to the drawing board, or even on-the-fly having to be a little bit flexible or a little bit spontaneous, which is not something Saturn does very well naturally.
AC: No, and Saturn’s there to advocate for, “You know what, we don’t change plans every time…”
KS: Yes, every time the wind changes, or something.
AC: Exactly. And there can be strength to that robust, unchanging quality.
Chris: And then…
AC: But Saturn- yeah, you were going to say something Chris?
CB: Yeah just because it’s interesting that Aquarius is a fixed sign, so we’re moving from Saturn being in a cardinal sign, which has a little bit more ease in initiating change, even though it’s not something that we normally associate that much with Saturn. The initiation of change in Aquarius moving into a fixed sign, that’s much harder, and as an air sign, one of the funny things about Aquarius that isn’t often emphasized enough, is there can be more of a fixidity intellectually, like adopting intellectual positions and being very strong. Because sometimes in modern texts, because of the association that some modern astrologers have with Uranus there and the ideas of change and eccentricity and things like that, they don’t emphasize properly the more traditional components where there can be that intellectual and eccentricity that’s partially coming from a position of ideological fixidity.
AC: Yeah, absolutely.
KS: It’s very stubborn about what it thinks, Aquarius.
CB: Sure. I mean it can be something that’s unique, like adopting an unique position or even an innovative or progressive position, but there’s a drive behind it and there’s a certainty and a surety about sticking with whatever that position is, to the last breath in some ways?
KS: Like defending it, until the end.
AC: Yeah, absolutely. So we have that, versus the very practical disruptions that Uranus in Taurus likes to throw our way.
CB: Right
AC: And that is really emphasized during that that first week and a half, where we have Saturn-Mars square it, and then Mars square it exactly. And that will be a background theme for the entire second quarter, is Saturn square Uranus.
CB: Yeah
AC: Because every time the Moon is early in a fixed sign, it’s going to aspect both of them and it is going to join their light.
KS: Yes, to collect their forces together, for better or worse.
CB: I don’t know what that is in practical or specific terms, but there’s some sort of technological disruption, with Saturn moving into an air sign like that in Aquarius and squaring Uranus in Taurus. That part of what we’re talking about there is changes in technology as being a major backdrop to that. Because that’s already something we’re all thinking about in terms of the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction, which is going to take place in Aquarius, and that shift into a new triplicity where we’re going to be in air signs for quite a while after that- for how long, a
couple hundred years?
KS: Couple hundred years, yeah.
AC: Yeah, 200-ish.
CB: Yeah- of all Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions in either Aquarius, Gemini or Libra. But even just opening that up, we talked in the last episode for December about Uranus’s move through Taurus and just the first few degrees of that and already starting to see over the past year the advancements and certain things like alternative meats or lab-grown meat and things like that.
KS: Yes, the food innovation.
CB: Food innovation and just the idea of technology being brought to bear on the issue of food or different ways of creating food. But now we’re throwing Saturn into the mix in a very tight square that’s going to be one of the signatures of this year.
AC: Yeah, and even more so next year.
KS: Yeah, the second quarter Uranus-Saturn action is very much a preview or a background, as you said, Austin, and that’s something we will return to in 2021 with a lot more strength and intensity.
AC: Yep, with multiple exact squares. Just quick within memory, Saturn hard aspect Uranus was 2007 to 2010.
AC: It’s disruptive. That was the opposition, this is the square.
CB: 2007 to 2010 was the opposition?
AC: Yeah, whole sign.
KS: Yeah, Leo-Aquarius.
AC: Pisces-Virgo.
KS: Oh, I beg your pardon. Oh yeah, of course. How could I forget?
(Laughter)
KS: I should be what happened in those two signs.
CB: I saw an announcement the other day that one of the major game companies, Valve, announced the release of a new Half-Life game that they’re gonna tie into virtual reality, which normally would just be a blow-off thing, except it’s one of the major players in terms of the gaming industry trying to push a new innovation with interactivity, and there’s something about that; it’s supposed to be released in March or April which is right around this timeframe that we’re talking about.
AC: Mmm, that’s interesting.
KS: That’s interesting, yeah.
CB: Yeah, just in terms of, I’m thinking about the technological quality of Saturn going into Aquarius but then the physical quality of Uranus in Taurus, which we keep talking about as being like a physical thing, which sometimes brings us to food, but Taurus is also very, like, tactile and very about sense and touch.
KS: Yeah, the material world.
AC: Yeah, Uranus in Taurus is- well that’s a whole two hour thing…
KS: It’s a whole show in itself (laughs). We have touched on that, in previous episodes.
CB: So, quarter two. Other stuff…
KS: Jupiter-Pluto
CB: Jupiter-Pluto, that’s the next major thing because that’s happening also in early early April?
KS: Yes
AC: And that was almost there at the end of March, the end of quarter one, but it’s exact in April, and I think more importantly, both Saturn and Pluto moving into Aquarius lets us see the Jupiter-Pluto dynamic for what it is much more clearly, because we don’t have 18 things on top of them.
KS: Right, so Saturn and Mars coming out of Capricorn kind of clears the energy, if you like, for Jupiter-Pluto.
AC: Yeah, well it’s less- extraneous ingredients.
KS: (Laughs) Yeah, I mean there is a wealth signature that I often see referred to with Jupiter-Pluto. It’s that idea of, “What are we doing with money? What’s happening with the money that’s kind of behind the scenes?” Or the, “How is money and power coming together?” to a certain extent.
CB: And extremes of those in terms of not usually in between but either like extreme wealth or extreme poverty?
KS: Extreme poverty, yeah, yeah.
AC: I would add to that- with Jupiter-Pluto, hidden opportunities. That’s often how the people who have Jupiter-Pluto in their natal chart obtained great wealth, is they saw a giant opportunity that nobody else saw.
KS: Nobody else paid attention to. Yeah, that’s a great point.
CB: All right, I’m taking a look at the alignments for then. Let me throw that back up. There’s the chart. So Jupiter-Pluto by April 4th/April 5th conjoining. Other early quarter two stuff- do we need to like start getting out of April because we’re still talking about basically the first week or two of April at this point?
KS: Yeah, I mean there’s a couple of things in May I think we wanted to look at.
AC: One more thing on Jupiter-Pluto. As with a lot of these configurations, that doesn’t click on one day and click off the next. Jupiter has been hanging out with Pluto and will continue hanging out with Pluto for the next couple of months.
KS: Yeah, I think we have another Jupiter-Pluto in Q4, which we’ll return to, so there is a vibe there.
CB: And we’ve got Pluto stationing on the 25th of April later that month.
KS: Oh, I do want to say something on that.
CB: Go ahead
KS: Yeah, so keep in mind this is the second time we’ve had Jupiter in Capricorn since Pluto went into Capricorn.
CB: Oh, right.
KS: So 2008, we had Jupiter in Capricorn with Pluto there as well. So…
CB: That was a fun time.
KS: I don’t want to cause any concern for people, but just to be aware that there may be an echo of theme, if you like- macro level but also at a personal level.
CB: In terms of like fluctuations of wealth and things like that.
KS: Fluctuations of wealth. I think also in a personal, individual life, you know, there’s sort of extreme developments that can happen with Jupiter-Pluto. So think about the house area of Capricorn and whether there’s a hidden opportunity, as Austin says, where there can be some extreme growth or unlocking of something. Or whether there is an event or a situation that just takes up an extreme amount of your energy and your time because it is a bit of a problem that needs to be addressed.
CB: Oh yeah and Jen H mentioned this in the podcast. I think you mentioned it earlier as well, Austin, that Patrick Watson just released a good Jupiter-Pluto article.
KS: With a lot of historical examples and things.
AC: Yeah, a lot of good historical stuff.
AC: Some of it was about advances in telescopy and microscopy, and being able to see for the first time the huge and distant, as well as the absolutely tiny, which is very interesting.
KS: Pluto has those extremes of like really tiny or really big. No halfway with Pluto.
AC: Yeah and Jupiter bringing knowledge.
KS: Yeah, the insight or the wisdom.
CB: It takes, like Alan White always used to say that it takes that which is really small and makes it really big or it takes that which is really big and makes it really small. And that’s just exacerbated even more with Jupiter thrown into the mix which already has a tendency to make things big and overblown. So people can find Patrick’s article just by Googling Patrick Watson, Jupiter-Pluto conjunction, I’m sure?
AC: Mm-hmm, yeah.
CB: Okay, cool.
AC: Yeah, those extremes of scale.
CB: Yeah. All right, so where does that put us?
KS: Early May, I think.
CB: Yeah, we need to jump forward here just to keep going, maybe to the Venus retrograde?
KS: Briefly, Saturn retrograde as well?
CB: Ohh right, the station?
KS: The Saturn station, and the nodes changing sign, which is all early May; May 1st and then May 5th.
CB: Here’s May; we have Saturn stationing retrograde in Aquarius. Is that correct? At like 11th of May?
KS: I beg your pardon, 11th, yes.
AC: I have the 10th but that’s a time zone thing.
KS: Yeah, I can’t read my own notes. So Saturn retrograde…
CB: So Saturn stations retrograde, Jupiter stations retrograde, Venus is retrograde.
KS: Yes, which is a big signature for this month.
CB: So May is like the month of the retrogrades this year. I mean, not quite, because we haven’t got Mars yet…
KS: Not quite, yes. There’s a couple of retrogrades in May, for sure. It’s part one of retrograde.
AC: Three stations in a week is pretty good.
KS: It’s a lot, it’s a lot.
CB: That’s that second week of May. Let me throw that up on the chart.
KS: I think with Saturn retrograde it’s very much just a dipping the toes into the Saturn in Aquarius energy. If you do have planets at 0° or 1° of a fixed sign you’re going to get a direct activation of that Saturn in Aquarius energy. Which is like, that’s the start of your Saturn transit to a planet or point that you have at 0° or 1° of any of the fixed signs. But in terms of the tone or the theme of Saturn in Aquarius, it is just a little taste.
CB: Yeah, because retrograde stations are like an intensification of the energy of the planet and an elongation of the energy because it’s just sitting on the same degree in the same minute for an extended period of time.
KS: Yeah, it can be quite full and solid, and Saturn.
AC: Until December, Saturn doesn’t get past 1°57’ of Aquarius. But it’s spends three-ish months just in those first two degrees of Aquarius.
KS: Yeah, which is a little unusual.
CB: So there’s that station of Saturn in the second week of May. What else do we have going on here with this chart? We’ve got Jupiter stationing right after that, about a week later, at 27 degrees of Capricorn.
AC: And Venus even before that.
CB: There is Venus stationing at 21 degrees of Gemini around the 12th or 13th.
KS: Yeah
CB: Nice. And that Venus station is really closely square Neptune. So Venus at 21° Gemini squaring Neptune at 20° Pisces.
KS: Yeah, Venus will technically make two squares to Neptune: one just before she stations retrograde and one just after. So that just adds a quality to that particular Venus retrograde of confusion or cloudiness or that rose-colored glasses quality, which is so Venus-Neptune, where you might have a slightly overly hopeful tone and then we need to untangle what’s really going on, both through the Venus retrograde and then afterwards.
CB: Yeah, so rose-colored colored glasses and the idea of an unreasonable picture of what’s going on in terms of interpersonal relationships.
KS: Yeah, being maybe a little overly hopeful or overly idealistic, potentially.
AC: Venus’s retrograde station there suggests that’s what’s going to be undone or thought through, and so there may be the experience leading up to that of- with Neptune, it’s ignoring problems in relationships, like “Oh, it’s fine”, whereas the goal of the Venus retrograde is to get to a more real place. But the experience, especially with the first part, will probably be disillusionment, wherein disillusionment isn’t necessarily an accurate view. When you first flip from, “Oh, everything’s fine” to, “Oh, there are problems”, the problems are actually overemphasized, and you can actually get into an illusory state where you’re like, “Oh, everything’s terrible”.
KS: Yes, where you think it’s worse than what it is.
AC: Yeah, which is also not accurate.
KS: Yes, so it’s the whole Neptune, not saying things for what they are, good or bad.
AC: So that begins a solid six weeks of Venus retrograde.
KS: Yes, and that’s a feature because that’s wholly contained within this quarter, the Venus retrograde.
AC: It’s a feature, not a bug.
(Laughter)
CB: So it stations retrograde, and what was the date of that again?
KS: Around May 13, I think? It goes retrograde and then the direct station is around June 25th.
CB: It looks like the halfway point when Venus conjoins the Sun at 13° Gemini is June 3rd?
KS: Yeah, that makes sense.
CB: Then let’s see, Venus eventually slows down and stations direct at 5 degrees of Gemini, June 25th/26th?
KS: Yeah
AC: Venus retrogrades are very orderly. They repeat with just the slightest bit of alteration every eight years. So this is a repetition of the Venus retrograde in Gemini that we had in 2012, and it was in the second quarter of 2012. Although it won’t be an exact repetition in terms of life events and experiences, there will be a strong parallel to what was going on for you during the second half of Q2, 2012.
KS: Yeah, like an echo of a theme.
CB: Yeah, or even taking it back eight years before that to…
KS: 2004?
CB: Yeah, that would be it.
KS: 12 minus 8. We’re just trying to do math live on camera (laughs).
CB: Yeah, it’s been a long week.
KS: Our brains are very full right now.
CB: So those repetitions, and that’s something we’ve talked about a lot on the podcast in different episodes, like some of the Nick Dagan Best episodes on Venus retrogrades and just because it’s so close, it always goes retrograde so close within- two degrees?
KS: Within one or two degrees, the stations, every eight years. So it’s very very close.
CB: Yeah, and people that are really tied into that cycle can get really locked into those repetitions.
KS: Yeah, and I think we’ve talked a lot about the Capricorn parts of people’s charts and things like that. This is emphasizing the Gemini part of your chart, so it will bring up a different topic with a different quality of energy. It’s very interpersonal with Venus retrograde in Gemini, in terms of how you’re interacting with people around the Gemini themes or topics. If it’s 6th house it might be subordinates, or 7th house it could be relationships, if it’s 11th house it could be with friends and groups and things like that. I like the disillusionment, and I would also add sometimes there’s a bit of a tone of disappointment; something doesn’t quite happen the way you had hoped, and it just gets you to question things or go back over things. It doesn’t have to be a tragic end of something, but it is just that sense of like, “Oh, that wasn’t quite what I had hoped”.
CB: Right, but the retrograde- there’s going to be a whole process that people go through during the course of it, of maybe seeing something and it seeming really great but then having to come down from that and adopt a more realistic tone eventually, if it doesn’t pan out exactly as you initially thought.
AC: When Venus is retrograde, Venus is much more acrimonious as a background influence than Venus direct. It’s interesting because Jupiter and Saturn are a little different retrograde but they’re still very recognizable, whereas when Venus is retrograde it acts as a trigger for separation and acrimony; it takes on some of Mars’s significations. It’ similar to Mercury in that sense, in that there’s a real difference when it’s retrograde.
KS: That’s true, because as an inferior planet they’re much more- the quality is very there.
AC: There’s generally a lot of soul searching or heart searching during Venus retrogrades. One of the
questions that I find comes up during every Venus retrograde with varying degrees of intensity is, “What do you really want?” Venus is the planet of desire; “What do you really want? Do you want this? Do you want this person? Is that not what you desire?” – sorting out your desires.
CB: Right, and so you can see people reflecting on and reviewing relationships and sometimes deciding whether to continue one that they’re already in or in other instances returning back to one and restarting one that they had previously left.
AC: Yeah, I’m glad you brought that up, because the emails from old lovers, emails from exes is, or DM’s from exes, is such a thing during Venus retrogrades.
KS: Totally, and I think for people who are in longer term relationships there is often a questioning about, “How are we going?”, either in the relationship as a whole or around a particular part of that relationship. And I keep thinking of questioning with Venus retrograde in Gemini; it’s the talking, the ideas, the, “Do we do this?”, the options, if you like, and trying to sift through all of those and just taking the whole retrograde to go through that process.
CB: Was our last Venus retrograde the one in Scorpio a year ago? Was that the last time?
AC: Yeah.
CB: Because there was a great example, like a public example during that time that was such a classic Venus retrograde, and it was obviously colored by Scorpio, but it was the Ariana Grande/Pete Davidson breakup, where her former ex-boyfriend Mac Miller committed suicide, and she was in the relationship with Pete Davidson, but then he said something and they went through this very difficult period and she ended up reviewing the relationship and breaking up with him. And it was very rough on him as he tried to get her back but then eventually they became friends again… (laughs) I realise I’m going into a lot of detail about this, but was just such a classic…
AC: When it’s fully enacted, that’s kind of what the Venus retro-coaster feels like.
KS: Retro-coaster, I like that. Hashtag.
CB: If you’re tied into it for some reason, either if it’s hitting your birth chart very closely in terms of the specific degrees involved, the stationary degrees especially, or if you have Venus activated as a time lord, or any of those things that can make a transit more closely tied into your chart in that specific year.
KS: Absolutely.
AC: Yeah. It’s primarily relational, but it can get tied into other things. If Venus is the ruler of your 10th, then it’s like how you get along with people at work.
KS: Totally. Do use the topics of Venus that are unique to your chart.
CB: Yeah. All right. So, what else is going on? Let’s see, we’re in May, we’ve got all the stations…
AC: Well just one thing that happens, strangely enough on the same day that Venus turns retrograde, is that Mars enters Pisces. And it’s not so much that we think that’s amazing, it’s just that means Mars is no longer in the same sign as Saturn for the first time since February.
KS: Yes and it’s not in a Saturn ruled sign either, like that’s a double Mars-Saturn. It’s just a change.
AC: And that’s very important because after Mars leaves Pisces it’ll be in Aries, and then it’s back to being configured with Saturn. So it’s actually one of the few windows this year where Mars and Saturn are partying separately.
KS: Yes.
CB: Good point. So that’s going through May and most of June before Mars eventually departs from Pisces and moves into Aries around June 28th?
KS: Yeah. It’s sort of the rest of the second half of this quarter, is Mars in Pisces.
CB: Okay, got it. Should we take a look at June? Let me throw up the artwork for June. We’ve got the Sun-Venus conjunction on the 3rd, which is the halfway point of the Venus retrograde cycle. And we get back into eclipse season by June.
KS: Eclipse season- yes, on the solstice, and we’ve got our second Mercury retrograde of the year.
AC: June is busy. We’ve got a Mercury retrograde, we’ve got a big ol’ eclipse, we’ve got Venus stationing direct, we’ve got Mars going into Aries; there’s a lot that happens in June.
CB: One of the things that sets that up just beforehand that’s probably important and relevant is the nodes actually change signs.
KS: Yeah, May 5th, we missed that actually.
AC: They kind of invisibly slip over back through Cancer into Gemini. It’s important to remember that the nodes move in a pattern that is contrary to the planets. The nodes move clockwise.
KS: Which is like backwards through the signs.
AC: They start at the end of a sign and they exit through the beginning of a sign.
CB: Yeah, so we’re ending our year and a half, or almost two-year period of the nodes moving through Cancer and Capricorn. That’s the reason why we’ve had that series of eclipses that are bouncing back and forth between those two signs over the past couple of years. But now with the nodes moving into Gemini and Sagittarius, we’re queueing up a year and a half or two-year period of eclipses in those two signs.
AC: We have one more big eclipse in Cancer before that’s official. So for people who are studying astrology, the nodes will generally tell you around where the eclipses are, but even after the nodes shift you can still have one more eclipse in the previous sign, and sometimes the eclipses will jump ahead of the nodes as well.
KS: Yeah. With the nodes changing sign, coming out of the Cancer-Capricorn axis, it’s been 18 months. It was November 2018 that the nodes moved into the Cancer-Capricorn axis, so it is reducing a level of intensity on that axis. It’s not taking it away completely, but it is going to- one of the factors that has contributed to that emphasis is now gone, basically.
AC: I’ll take it.
KS: Yeah. I know we have Saturn coming back into Capricorn in the second half of the year but it will no longer be co-present with the nodal axis, and that is a level of improvement.
AC: Yeah, for that axis.
KS: For that particular axis, exactly.
AC: Right, whereas the…
KS: The Gemini-Sag?
AC: Yeah, and also the Venus retrograde cycle in Gemini also serves as an introduction to an emphasis on Gemini and Gemini-Sag, which will continue for a while.
KS: Yeah, for the next 18 months.
CB: Yeah that’s a good point.
AC: So instead of my rising, it’ll be my Moon.
KS: Yeah (laughs). You can’t get away from it.
AC: No. It’s hard to get away from the sky (laughs).
KS: You can’t, you literally can’t. I mean look, the nodes do take about 18 months per sign, but it means about every nine years the nodes are back into the same pair of signs. Right now we’ve got north node in Gemini, nine years ago we had south node in Gemini. So it’s not as though it’s a rare cycle, we’ve all had this.
AC: Yeah, you’ve done it before.
KS: You’ve done it before. I think it will be interesting to have the Venus retro in Gemini with the nodes having just come in there. I liked how you said that’s like an introduction. And it is starting to pull our focus off the Cancer-Capricorn axis. There is going to be that period from mid-May to the end of June with Venus retro in Gemini. There’s going to be a lot of focus on that Gemini part of our charts.
AC: Yeah, there’s a mutable focus developing. The eclipse situation is the less common but not completely unusual one. Usually you get a solar and a lunar of similar-ish strength, or both visible. In this case we have one super intense solar, which is right next to the solstice- I believe it’s a day and a half after the solstice. But before that there’s a lunar, but it’s very weak. It is technically an eclipse, but it’s one you wouldn’t be able to note with the naked eye. And then there’s another; there’s a third one that’s very weak two weeks after the solar eclipse; so two weeks after, two weeks before. Whenever there are three eclipses, two of them will be exceedingly weak, and one will be super strong.
KS: Very potent. I think it’s around June 5th is the weak one.
AC: And that’s a relatively intense full moon.
KS: Full moon in Sag I think?
CB: Yeah, Sagittarius
KS: Yeah, full moon in Sag. The Sun and Venus are very close to their conjunction. .
AC: And Mars is…
KS: At the square point
(Laughter)
AC: …very tightly configured.
KS: Talk about mutable emphasis!
AC: Yes, indeed. But it’s really Mars and Venus making that one worth noting.
KS: Yeah, rather than the eclipse…
AC: It’s just the Moon wearing a touch of eyeshadow on that one.
CB: We’re right in the middle of the Venus retrograde period?
KS: Yeah.
CB: That’s really interesting, okay.
KS: Because the lunation is 15° Sag and the nodes are 29° Gemini-Sag; there’s a 14-15 degree difference.
CB: To me that increases the, what you were talking about earlier, Austin, that already normal tendency of Venus retrogrades to be acrimonious. To put Mars squaring it right in a superior square halfway through the cycle ups the acrimony.
AC: Yeah and by sign the whole time. Mars enters Pisces the day that Venus stations retrograde. Yeah, I agree- the saving grace actually might be Neptune buffering the Mars. Neptune by conjunction or co-presence, Neptune we’ll put out some of Mars’s fire.
KS: Yes, absolutely, yes.
AC: In a way that can be a problem in natal charts because Mars-Neptune have a hard time standing up for themselves. They feel guilty about asserting themselves. But when we’re looking at the skies and we don’t want extra fire, we are grateful for Mars-Neptune.
KS: 100%, yeah. But the big eclipse is the June 21 or 22 solar eclipse.
CB: Yeah, in Cancer
AC: The solstice, which is the ingress of the Sun into Cancer, is on the 20th and then within 12 hours we have an eclipse.
KS: And this is where it’s really important, to understand that eclipses are caused by the proximity of a lunation to the nodes, and the sign boundary becomes irrelevant in that regard. So here we have the node at 29° Gemini and the lunation happening at 0° Cancer. So separate signs, but less than 60 minutes apart… less than a degree, sorry.
AC: Yeah, a degree and a quarter.
KS: It’s so, so tight.
AC: That means it’ll be a total.
KS: Total eclipse, which is maximum power from all the eclipse things- the occulting, the overshadowing, the blocked light.
AC: And it is at a very cardinal point, the very first degree of…
KS: Lunations on the solstices are more dramatic energetically but also in terms of weather patterns. To have this lunation be an eclipse is going to add an extra level of an extreme tone there.
AC: It’s rough on the quarterly ingress chart, if we’re doing mundane astrology.
KS: Yeah, if you’re doing mundane astrology and you’ve got a chart for the Sun into the…
AC: So in that chart we’d have the Moon just a few degrees away from the eclipse- very, very waned. The path of totality is going to cut through sort of Central Africa. It’ll head east, it’ll cut through Saudi Arabia, northern India, go through China and then exit in the the Pacific.
CB: Okay. That’s the path of the eclipse?
AC: Mm-hmm.
KS: Yeah.
CB: And is this the last major eclipse on the Cancer-Capricorn axis?
AC: Yes.
KS: It is the last one.
CB: This is it. So this is the final closing down of that and we’re starting to wrap up all of that activity and all of those changes that have been occurring in everybody’s charts, but some people in particular, if Capricorn and Cancer are a major axis in the chart.
AC: It’s potentially dramatic; let’s say, the punchline is a good one.
KS: It’s out with a bang.
AC: It doesn’t end with a whimper.
KS: No, out with a bang, for sure. That’s very strong.
CB: Yeah, and this is opposite to where we’ve had all the heavier stuff with the Saturn-Pluto conjunctions, and Mars transiting through Capricorn earlier in the year, but it’s closing up a sequence of events in the Cancer house in your chart, whatever house that is.
KS: There is, absolutely, that idea of the closing down of that and there is quite an emphasis on the Cancer part of our charts at this the very end of June because we’ve also got the Mercury retrograde happening there.
CB: Okay, right. Let’s mention that.
AC: Cancer will be okay by 2021.
(Laughter)
AC: There’s still a lot of cardinal to do.
KS: There’s still a lot of cardinal. And look, to put that into context, we see that year on year that different groups of signs will get more heavily emphasized or not, and it’s just the cardinal turn. So we do have the Mercury retrograde running through there as well.
CB: Looks like that stations around June 17th/June 18th at about 14 degrees of Cancer. Then it’s retrograde for the next three weeks.
KS: And I think that Mercury retrograde is actually wholly enclosed in the sign of Cancer.
AC: I believe so.
CB: The halfway point in that retrograde is 9 degrees of Cancer around July 1st.
AC: So many things happen while Mercury is retrograde. So within the confines of the Mercury retrograde, we have the Sun’s ingress into Cancer and eclipse, we have Neptune stationing retrograde, we have Venus stationing direct, and we have Mars entering Aries, which it’ll be in until January, and we have another exact Jupiter-Pluto conjunction, as well as Saturn going back into Capricorn, and all that happens within that three weeks. It’s a big three weeks!
KS: Like end of June, first part of July.
AC: Yep
CB: That Mercury, it’s slowing down and stationing direct right as Mars is passing over the square.
KS: Yes
CB: So look at Mars, it’s going at 5 degrees of Aries/6 degrees of Aries squaring Mercury as it’s slowing down to station direct at 6 degrees/5 degrees of Cancer around first/second week of July. Then it stations direct finally, July 12th and 13th at 5 degrees of Cancer.
KS: Yes. It’s the same axis but coming from a different perspective because there’s a bit more happening down there in Cancer now.
AC: Yeah. And so the Venus retrograde ceases to be retrograde. We get Venus direct during the first week of that Mercury retrograde…
KS: Yeah, 25th of June.
AC: So Venus is still gonna be in Gemini for quite some time afterwards, but moving forward, going over the same material, the same territory for a third time. And that’s generally emotional territory but it’s not tumbling backwards through it. That’s like, “Ohh kay, we’ve been over this twice now, let’s do it right the third time”.
KS: Yes. Let’s get it clear and get it set.
CB: It’s kind of similar to what we went through last year/this year, which is the first retrograde being more tied in with a hard aspect with Neptune and issues with miscommunication or potentially deception. But this second retrograde of the year being tied in with Mars and issues with arguments or discord or verbal sort of sparring that can come along with hard Mars-Mercury aspects.
AC: Yeah
CB: All right. So be careful about that, especially around this station of Mercury direct, where you have that exact square.
KS: Yes, in early July.
AC: Yeah and that whole period is in the lunation cycle following a very annular, that ring of darkness…
KS: Eclipse
(Laughter)
AC: …ring of light and darkness eclipse. So, you know, people, sometimes people will be finding themselves in dark situations or moods and will not bring their best selves forward. And so that ingress of Mars is so important because Mars in Aries is a consistent feature for the entire second half of the year.
KS: Yeah
CB: Right, yeah.
AC: So get used to Mars in Aries (laughs).
KS: Well you’re gonna have plenty of time to learn all about the ins and outs of Mars in Aries. And we’re going to talk a lot about that for quarter three and quarter four.
CB: All right
AC: Also within that short window, Saturn leaves Aquarius, back in Capricorn. Until the fourth quarter, it’s Saturn back in Capricorn.
CB: Got it. All right, so I think that brings us to the end of quarter two, and it’s time to transition to quarter three. Do we want to take a little break?
AC: I think we do.
KS: Yes.
CB: Okay. So how were we gonna do this? You guys need to do some plugs first, because I wanted to hear what you have coming up and what you have going on. So why don’t I turn it over to you; I’m gonna go get some coffee and let you guys let us know what you have coming up this year and if you’re gonna be teaching or speaking or other engagements that you have going on?
KS: Yeah, absolutely. We probably both have… things.
AC: Oh, I was just gonna hide in a bomb shelter all year…
KS: Are you?
AC: You bet.
KS: I’m not doing that.
AC: I think I’m gonna be teaching classes from the…
KS: You’ll be teaching…
AC: Live from the bomb shelter.
KS: Live from the bomb shelter (laughs). I love it, I love it.
AC: Well what are you doing outside the bomb shelter, Kelly?
KS: Outside the bomb shelter I will be doing a few things. So I’ll be teaching my chart interpretation series of classes live online. You can find out details about that in early 2020 via the events or the calendar tab on my website, so that’s kellysastrology.com. But I’ve got quite a few live events this year as well. I’m gonna be teaching a post conference workshop at the NORWAC astrology conference.
AC: Oh really?
KS: And I think I’m sharing the bill with a certain someone.
AC: Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m expected to teach a post conference workshop as well.
KS: You are, yeah!
AC: Are we on the same day, are we competing?
KS: We are competing with each other…
AC: Oh no.
KS: …which is not fun because I can’t attend yours. We’re both teaching on the Monday after NORWAC.
AC: Yep, yep.
KS: Then we’ve got the ISAR conference. I’ll be doing some live events in the second half of the year as well. So just keep an eye on the events on the calendar tab page of my website.
AC: Very nice
KS: So what else are you doing from the bomb shelter?
AC: I’ll be teaching my yearly classes; I will be teaching my thorough year one, which is eight months, which is going to be from March until October. For those who have taken my year one or who have all of the requirements covered through study elsewhere, I’ll be teaching year two. I might be teaching a year three, I haven’t made my mind up, but I’ll absolutely be teaching year one and two.
KS: Fantastic.
AC: I’m sure Kate will keep me busy all year finding elections for Sphere + Sundry, which is talismanic and magical material, all sorts of fun planetary magic stuff. And stellar, not just planetary, but astrological.
KS: Yes there’s some beautiful fixed star material that is coming out of there. So you’ll be picking the elections for that?
AC: Yeah. I’m the official electional astrologer and occasional consultant on Sirius.
KS: I love it, I love it.
AC: And importantly, 36 Faces, the second edition should be done first quarter. The illustrations have been taking a little bit longer because they’re lavish and beautiful and amazing. I’ll actually use this as an opportunity to say who I’ve been collaborating with.
KS: You should, yeah!
AC: So I’ve been working on this with Grant Hanna for a while now, Liber Celestis on Twitter, who is a fantastic graphic artist.
KS: Brilliant artist!
AC: And I couldn’t be happier with how things are coming along. I think, even if you don’t read the book, just paging through it should be an experience, courtesy of Grant.
KS: Yeah, which is amazing.
AC: Sure it’s taking a little longer, but it’s absolutely worth it. I’m so happy.
CB: They’re asking in the chat if you can pre-order it?
AC: No, not yet.
KS: But stay tuned on Austin’s website for info about that as it gets closer I presume.
AC: Absolutely. There should be an announcement at the beginning of the year. And the same for sign up with classes for year one and year two classes. And let’s see, hopefully my plans are to actually write some more books this year, write something new in addition to just editing what I already wrote. So there’s that, no promises. And then I will be at NORWAC- I’ve got a couple lectures, I’ve got a post conference workshop. And I will also, like yourself, be at ISAR- got a couple lectures, and I will be doing a workshop with the two of you.
KS: We’re gonna do one, all three of us at ISAR.
CB: Yeah, we’re gonna open the conference with a pretty sweet workshop on synthesizing modern and ancient astrology, and are both outlining- Austin, you and I last year at NORWAC did a sort of test run of this workshop. But now we’re gonna complete it by bringing in the third to complete the trine.
KS: You’re gonna have a grand trine for everyone.
CB: Yeah, the grand trine to talk about outlining both what are some of the problems and the differences between modern and ancient astrology, but also what are some possible solutions for reconciling those differences and creating something that’s a workable blend of both. Because I think that’s one of the big things that’s on a lot of people’s minds at this point. After the revival of traditional astrology over the past twenty or thirty years is like, what do you do with that and how do you get it to work and get along with modern astrology?
KS: Totally. And you mentioning the book reminded me I’m hoping to get my first book out this year, as well, which I can’t believe I forgot to mention.
AC: And Kelly will you be doing any readings in 2020?
KS: I am doing some readings, a limited amount though. I have actually booked out for about half the year already. So if you were thinking of having a reading I guess just check in with me sooner rather than later. And I always forget to mention that I do have a monthly subscription that people can sign up for via my website as well.
CB: Which is a monthly forecast.
KS: It’s a monthly forecast with weekly videos of the different aspects and things. There’s info if you go to my home page kellysastrology.com and just scroll down to the bottom, you’ll see a big, promo box with all the details if that’s something of interest for people.
CB: And your book is going to be on secondary progressions?
KS: Secondary progressions and we are hoping to get it out in the second half of the year, so stay tuned for more announcements about that as we get closer.
CB: Awesome. And your website: kellysastrology.com.
KS: Yes.
CB: And Austin?
AC: I’m austincoppock.com. Although I shut down new intakes for consultations last February, I’m gonna open that up before the end of the year.
KS: Okay cool. Oh that’s fantastic, people should take advantage of that because you haven’t been open for that for a while.
AC: Yeah, it’s gonna be a limited number; I’m trying to be responsible with my commitments, but I want to get back to doing some consults for people.
KS: Fantastic.
CB: Brilliant. All right. Really quickly I wanted to talk about our sponsor for this episode, which is the Honeycomb Collective Personal Astrological Almanac, which we’ve all got a copy of and have been enjoying over the past few months. And actually a ton of people; I’ve seen a lot of people listen to the podcast since we started talking about this a couple of months ago getting these and being really excited. Because we were talking in the last episode about how we all started it out, especially I think you and I, Kelly, but maybe you also, Austin, with just an ephemeris; that’s one of the first books you get when you start learning astrology and it’s still one of the books that I recommend, is to get an ephemeris early on. Then you can start studying how the planets move through the signs, how quickly they move through the signs and how that relates to your chart. But for us, we had to like use a highlighter, and the book would fall apart from carrying it around so much. This is taking the ephemeris to the next level, because it’s having an ephemeris, but it’s also tying it into your natal chart, to be able to see your exact transits over the course of six months or a year.
KS: It’s incredibly detailed and one of the things people should keep in mind is that you can pick when this ephemeris or diary starts. So it is a calendar, it’s a planner. It’s got the transit info for the day, but it also has transits specific to your birth chart. So when you go online to order it, you pop in your birth details. So you can look up what’s happening in your chart any day of the year and you can pick the 12 months timeframe. So it doesn’t have to be like a January to December timeframe. I got mine to start November of 2019 for 12 months, and Chris I think you got yours for October. Austin, when did you guys get yours?
AC: Mine is November as well.
CB: Yeah, I like that because then you can get it as like a gift. Like especially for like…
KS: A birthday, basically.
CB: I often see on Reddit people asking like, “I have a girlfriend or a boyfriend who’s an astrologer, what do I get them as a gift?” This would be a gift that I would actually enjoy receiving as an astrologer.
KS: Yes, absolutely. It’s perfect. And, do your profected year type of thing.
AC: Yeah. It’s not just zodiac Christmas ornaments.
KS: Exactly.
CB: Not to knock zodiac Christmas ornaments.
AC: No, my aunt got me them one time and it was very thoughtful.
CB: Okay. She may be listening right now, so…
(Laughter)
CB: It shows daily and monthly exact transits. It’s got a personalized ephemeris which is connected to whatever city you want it to give you the time zone for so you don’t have to do time zone conversions which is always…
KS: It just takes all the hard work out of it. You just put your city; I put where we’re living in Belgium and now I know what’s happening every day instead of having to adjust from other time zones.
CB: It has a visual transit identifier so you can see exactly when certain transits will hit and whether they’ll come back, like those long-term transits where sometimes you just get one exact hit, but in other instances you get two or three, which is super useful, especially if you’re just starting to learn astrology and really want to learn how to track your transits. Lunations, and just about anything else you could want in a personal astrological planner.
AC: Yeah, and the price is right.
KS: Yeah, I think it’s $35 for a year maybe?
CB: Yeah, for a 12 month…
KS: For a 12 month thing which is…
AC: Personalized
KS: For personalized information, that is phenomenal that it’s done at that price point.
CB: People can find out more information about the Honeycomb Collective Personal Astrological Almanacs at honeycomb.co and I’ll put a link to it in the description page for this episode on theastrologypodcast.com website. So thanks to them for sponsoring this episode of the podcast, since that actually is a part of what allowed you guys to fly out here to do it in person for the first time ever, which has really been a lot of fun this week.
KS: Yeah, totally.
CB: Cool. All right guys. Well, soyou guys need to take a break…
KS: A quick break, yeah.
CB: So I’ll just talk and plug things…
KS: Yeah, you can (laughs)
CB: Yeah, maybe Leisa, if she’s listening can come join us.
AC: Chris, what do you have going on in 2020?
KS: Oh, you’ve got to tell people what you’ve got coming up next year. And we’ll find Leisa.
CB: So, I will be speaking at the ISAR astrology conference, just like Austin and Kelly. Which is happening in Denver in September. And Austin is standing in front of my camera…
(Laughter)
CB: So the main thing I’m doing is I’m going to keep producing the podcast. And one of the things I wanted to mention is the reason I’ve been able to start having people out here and we’ve been able to build this studio over the past year was through patrons that are supporting the podcast through our page on patreon.com. So if you go to theastrologypodcast.com/subscribe you’ll find a link to that, and there’s different tiers where people can get access to bonus content, behind the scenes content and other benefits like early access to new episodes, higher quality recordings. What else do we have for patrons that are benefits?
LS: For the $10 tier we have the Casual Astrology Podcast on top of the Electional Podcast, so that’s at least one special podcast per month that’s only for those subscribers.
CB: Yeah, and last month we actually recorded one with Joy Vernon, which was about conducting astrological consultations in person. So sometimes it’s really good episodes just released to subscribers. We’ve also got the Electional Astrology Podcast you mentioned each month which is for people on the $5 tier. And we’ve also got the new producers tier which is to thank different producers, if you want to get your name listed in the credits at the end of each episode, or if you in some instances want to advertise some astrological product, as long as it’s cool. That’s the only proviso, is it has to be a good astrological product because I don’t want to promote lame things. But so far it’s been pretty awesome because we have companies like Astro Gold which does the astrology app that I use, I think both of us use, right?
LS: Mm-hmm, yeah I have that on my phone.
CB: Astro Gold, Portland School of Astrology, the ISAR Conference that’s coming up next year, the Northwest Astrology Conference, and of course specific patrons that support each episode like in this instance Christine Stone and patron Nate Craddock are supporting the production of this episode of the podcast. So that’s the main thing I wanted to mention and promote, but other than that if you want to learn more about my approach to astrology, I mention my book sometimes but I don’t feel like I mention it enough. And some people think because it’s a huge, thick book that it’s not a good intro book, but I’m at the point where I’m realizing if people want to start learning astrology, you don’t need to necessarily start with just basic modern astrology books anymore. You could get my book and start learning more advanced forms of astrology right from the start and you’re going to have a much better time because you’re not gonna have to unlearn as much if you go the route that all of us had to go instead.
LS: Yeah, definitely. I mean, you definitely have to be prepared for it, it’s not like a lightweight book, both figuratively and physically but…
CB: I mean it’s the same experience as with the podcast, which is people usually find the podcast and are like, “Wow, this is way more advanced that I can deal with right now and seems interesting”, but it’s usually over most people’s heads at first, but if you stick with it eventually you start learning and eventually get to the same level as everybody else and then enjoy the more in-depth conversations more, than maybe when you started.
LS: Yeah, I definitely agree.
CB: Sure. So, here’s my book, Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune. Just do a search for it on Amazon and you’ll find it there. If you enjoy the book I also have a course where I have long lectures that go into 5- and 10-hour lectures on detailed treatments of different topics and techniques in astrology to teach you how to read charts. And I use a lot of example charts starting in the middle of the course to demonstrate how the charts, the techniques actually work out in the charts of either clients or celebrities to give you some reference point for how to use this stuff in practice. All right. Is that the only thing? We’ve mentioned our yearly electional report, which we’re putting out. We’re gonna give one electrical chart for all 12 months of 2020.
LS: Right
CB: We also mentioned the monthly electional podcast, the Auspicious Elections Podcast, and that’s probably it?
LS: Yeah I think that’s it
CB: Okay, cool. So, Austin and Kelly are still taking a break. So how is our chat doing? Let’s check in on that. How is everybody in the chat doing? Do you guys have any questions or anything at this halfway point through the forecast or about anything we’ve just plugged?
Somebody says their Honeycomb planner just arrived yesterday and they’re enjoying it. That’s awesome.
LS: Nice.
CB: Thank you, I’m glad to hear that.
(Question): “How do I not be afraid of 2020?”
That’s a good question… from Erin.
LS: That was a good question, yeah.
CB: Somebody else asked if there’s a promo code for the planner. There’s no promo code at the moment because we talked about that with them and the planner is already priced so low, and that’s one thing that we keep being surprised about, whenever we think about it because we think it should cost like $100 dollars or something but it’s just 30 bucks so it’s already priced so reasonably that there’s not a discount code for it. But they definitely appreciate your support. All right, so…
LS: Yeah I think on the 2020 one, were you gonna say something about that? The how to not be afraid of 2020?
CB: Um, we’re gonna have to ask Austin and Kelly because that’s a bigger- because we actually discussed that last night, which was the question of how to present some of the heavier transits that are coming up this year without necessarily freaking people out. I was a little nervous about how that went last year because one of the phrases that came out of our 2019 forecast was the meat-grinder, which was a sort of tough set of transits in June and July. And there will be some more challenging transits coming up later especially around the Mars retrograde, but without necessarily like freaking people out while still being descriptive is one of the challenges we were trying to work out especially for some of the quarters this year.
LS: Yeah, definitely.
CB: There’s gonna be some people experiencing the Saturn-Pluto conjunction and that’s going to be an intense transit, but other people are gonna flourish, so that’s one of the challenges that we have, is that it really depends on how it’s hitting your natal chart. And while there’s certainly some global events, or larger mundane things that can affect the mood of everybody in some ways, a lot of this is just gonna depend on what your personal transits are.
LS: Yeah, for sure. How focal it is in your chart and whether it’s activated?
CB: Right. But for electional work this year we can’t rely on Jupiter in Sagittarius, so we’re gonna get used to using Saturn elections. And it’s going to be one of the fun challenges this year, is how to use Saturn productively in a chart, especially for electional purposes.
LS: I’ve adjusted my mindset to that, I’m just kind of annoyed about Mars being square to it the whole second half of the year. That’s gonna be harder.
CB: Yeah, or Mars is in Capricorn for a huge chunk?
LS: Yeah, Mars in Capricorn and then Aries.
CB: Yeah. All right.
LS: I think they might be ready…
CB: Okay
LS: All right, we’ll swap again. See you all later.
CB: All right, we are back. Are you guys ready to transition into talking about the third quarter of 2020?
AC: Ready.
CB: Okay, so one of the questions that somebody had in the chat while we were on break was how not to be freaked out by some of the heavier transits? Let me see if I can find that to get the specific…
KS: So the question is how to not be freaked out by the stuff?
CB: Yeah, sort of something like that. I’m trying to…
KS: Okay, find the question.
CB: “How do I not be afraid of 2020?” was the specific question, but it was sort of like a L-O-L afterwards.
AC: Well, I would say one thing that I’ve considered when looking at the astrology of hard years, is think about all the history that human beings have made it through.
KS: That’s a beautiful way.
AC: My grandparents did the Depression and then World War II.
KS: Yup.
AC: Human beings, we’re shockingly resilient if you give us a chance.
KS: Resilient, yeah.
CB: Yeah and also sometimes, we know just as a matter of fact sometimes during things like recessions, some people obviously collectively have a hard time, but other people find ways to not just take advantage but to take advantage of opportunities during those periods that might help them in the long term.
AC: Yeah. It’s not just happy, shiny, bright times that have opportunities. And if you read biographies, you see that a lot of the best things that happen in people’s lives are a result of what they did when the worst times were happening.
KS: It’s how they made it through or dealt with- it’s what the tough times prompted them to re-evaluate or question or change their priorities around. And sometimes- I don’t want to be Pollyanna about it, but I do know that there are things that we learn about ourselves…
AC: You are kind of Pollyanna-rous
(Laughter)
KS: That’s great, I like that word play. Very clever. Sometimes you can only learn about what you’re capable of by being in a situation that is incredibly difficult or stressful. And I’m not saying that we should just all welcome stressful situation, but they can teach you things or show you things, or you can access something in a situation that is uncomfortable or challenging that you may not get to when everything is sunshine and roses.
AC: Yeah, and to use a Mars metaphor, which I think is highly appropriate for the second half of this year…
KS: Yes.
AC: You need heat and pressure to forge certain qualities.
KS: Yes, absolutely. And one thing we had talked about, because we were chatting last night around the show in general- actually no I’m gonna save this, because we’re not into the stuff yet…
AC: Yeah, we’ll do like, a wrap up. I think we will return to this question when we get done with Q4 and have all of the context necessary to discuss it.
CB: And that was one of the themes we talked about last month with Jupiter and Capricorn in terms of how to make the most out of very little…
KS: Oh yeah, the frugal kind of component.
CB: Yeah, but also making slow and incremental change that builds up over time- it’s not immediate, you don’t have that immediate payoff, but if you keep at it for a long enough time you eventually can sometimes achieve success with your intended outcome or desired goal.
KS: There’s definitely a delayed gratification quality, and the idea that this is a marathon, not a sprint.
CB: Mm-hmm
KS: We’re not looking for a quick fix or a fast solution or a quick solve. You are kind of moving the pieces around a little bit; that is strategic and with the long game or the long term in mind.
AC: Definitely. And yeah with Jupiter in Capricorn puts Jupiter in Saturn’s sign. So if we’re looking for opportunities, we should be looking for Saturn opportunities. Let’s say in your local area the real estate market tanks. Great, rents are gonna come down.
KS: Yeah, absolutely. That could be a positive for sure.
AC: And from thinking about- looking for examples, there are lots of animals like a vulture or crow…
KS: (Laughs) Yes.
AC: …like scavenger- what can you do with what what other people think is useless, right? Or the raccoons. Raccoons do great because they’re like, “Oh, you threw that away? This half sandwich is amazing.”
KS: This is my Thanksgiving dinner equivalent or something.
AC: And what other people think is worthless there may be hidden opportunities within.
CB: That’s a good keyword for this year, like seeking out the hidden opportunities or, what’s that phrase, of a diamond in the rough?
KS: Yeah. And the idea that like with a bit of elbow grease, you can turn something that looks a bit rough or a little bit battered into something. I think about the upcycling type of thing or the repurposing. I always think of the quality of frugal and making a little bit go a long way when I think of Capricorn. So there is that sense of- we do have more of that sort of thoughtful, conservative tone this year.
CB: All right. Let’s jump into the third quarter of the year, which begins with July.
KS: Yes, and a few things, which you guys flagged already.
CB: Yeah, we’ve already started to get into one of the things that is carried through from June is the Mercury retrograde, which eventually stations direct in early Cancer by the 12th of July, and we’ve got that whole Mercury-Mars square that’s happening in the first half of the month around that time.
AC: July opens with two things in addition to the Mercury retrograde, which will be over by mid-July; but there are two things which occur in the first week. July opens with two things that will be continuous for much of the rest of the year: one is Saturn is back in Capricorn. So no more preview; back to Saturn in Capricorn, back to Saturn-Pluto, all those dynamics.
CB: And that happens July 1st/July 2nd, Saturn retrogrades back into Capricorn?
KS: Yes, July 1st.
AC: And we have- the end of June gave us Mars’s ingress into Aries.
KS: Yes.
AC: Even though it’s correct to say that Mars will be in Aries until the end of the year, Mars’s first month or two in Aries it’ll be direct; it’ll just be doing Mars in Aries.
KS: Yeah, and it won’t be in shadow and it’s just kind of cruisin’.
AC: Right, whereas then there’s the retrograde phase, which is significantly different. And we would plan to adapt to that very differently than just a plain ol’ Mars in Aries. Then it’ll be direct again after the retrograde, and that’ll be very different than the previous two phases. So it’s Mars in Aries, but three distinct phases over the six months.
KS: I think there’s a lot of the Mars-Saturn dynamic playing out in the different iterations of those phases through not just this quarter but the second half of the year.
AC: Yeah, absolutely. They’re both in squared signs; they’re in Capricorn and Aries by the time we get to the 2nd of July, but they’re 25 degrees off- they’re a long way off from an exact square and then that’ll change as we get closer to the end of the third quarter.
CB: One of the things I want to mention really quickly about Saturn going back into Capricorn at the beginning of July is it’s making its final pass through Capricorn and this is going to be the final phase and the last check-in for many of the people who have Saturn in Capricorn, of their Saturn return. This is the end, final phase, and what’s funny is when Saturn does this and goes out of a sign but then it comes back, is especially for people that have Saturn in the middle or early part of the sign that had their exact Saturn return much earlier, they think it’s over, and in most instances, the most intense part of their Saturn return is complete, but there’s this last little reminder and this last little check-in to make sure that you got the point of whatever the return was about. And that’ll become clear, I think, for a lot of those people, whether they’re having a first Saturn return or second Saturn return or what have you, when Saturn dips back in for a few months in the middle of this year.
AC: Yeah, theme song, “Final Countdown”.
KS: It is a tying off of loose ends kind of thing, or dealing with the the last things; the the unfinished business or the little bit that’s not quite done yet.
AC: There still might be a…
KS: It might not, I know… As soon as I said that, I knew you were going to respond to that (laughs)
AC: Well, it’s an intense last bit.
KS: It is, well yes.
AC: And we’ll tell you why soon.
KS: We will get to that.
CB: Oh right, okay, that’s a good point. And of course for those that have Saturn natally really late in the sign, that might be the most intense part…
KS: They’re doing the degree-based part still.
CB: Yeah, but it’s just important- I just see people sometimes being like, “My Saturn return is over two or three years ago when it went exact”, and I think they might have a little bit of a surprise when Saturn- because it’ll leave Aquarius and a lot of those themes will recede, but then suddenly it just comes back, as sort of a surprise for one last pass through that sign.
AC: Yep I remember, being a Saturn Virgo native, I remember when Saturn went into Libra and I was like, (sigh of relief), and then it came back into Virgo and I was like, “Ohhhhh…”
KS: Not done yet.
AC: And that was a question to me whether that would feel like Saturn return again. It was within 24 hours I was like, “Yep! Feels like Saturn return again.”
CB: Yeah. Those sign-based aspects, and that’s going to be one of the themes we’ll learn if you pay attention to it over a long enough time frame, but especially this year, is those sign-based aspects really count.
AC: They do.
CB: It’s certainly at the most intense and most pivotal events often happen at the exact degree, but don’t discount those sign-based, even conjunctions or other aspects.
KS: Totally. Okay, are we going there?
CB: Where are we going, right for the Mars?
AC: Let’s do some August.
KS: August? Okay, tell us about August.
CB: Okay. Have we finished up with July?
AC: July is very front-loaded.
CB: Okay. And eclipses and everything?
KS: There’s only that very minor one, uh, let me get the date.
AC: It’s a few days after Mercury’s direct station.
KS: July 5th, yeah. Yes, that Capricorn- it’s July 5th.
CB: Okay. But because it’s so far away from the nodes…
KS: It’s like a very partial, tiny eclipse
CB: We’re having a debate over whether that’s a full-on eclipse?
KS: I think we all agree…?
AC: It’s technically an eclipse; visually – barely, if even detectable by the naked eye.
CB: This is then the final, if Twitter extent, it is an actual eclipse technically speaking, the final Cancer-Capricorn eclipse ever for the next, how ever many years, nine years?
KS: That is true, yes.
AC: Yeah and July is really cardinal stuff; the Sun’s going through Cancer so it opposes Jupiter, Pluto, Saturn. It’s another look at all the Capricorn stuff through the eye of Cancer.
KS: Totally
AC: Very familiar themes at this point.
CB: Yeah. Having a Saturn dip back into Capricorn for the last time in July and then having that eclipse there seems really notable in terms of rounding that out and completing that sequence of events in people’s lives in that area of their charts.
AC: I would say that total solar is going to take a little bit to play out. Some would argue that it’ll take six months to get fully done, but we’re in the six months of wrap-up for that cycle.
CB: All right, and we basically have to get into to Mars at this point, right?
AC: Yeah, so by the end of July, Mars has entered its shadow. The shadow being the set of degrees that it’s going to retrograde through. So these degrees are not…
KS: 15°, Chris.
CB: 15 degrees, okay.
AC: Yeah, and these degrees Mars will pass through three times.
KS: This is the hot spot basically.
CB: So Mars is gonna retrograde back to eventually later in the year to 15 degrees of Aries. So as soon as it reaches 15 degrees of Aries while it’s direct, which happens around July 25th, Mars has entered the shadow phase, the pre-retrograde build-up phase.
AC: Mars is light, Mars is getting starting to get brighter and brighter at this point and it’s getting slower and slower. One astronomical feature of Mars retrograde cycles is you’ll see Mars for a large portion of the night and Mars will be very bright.
KS: Very bright, yeah.
CB: Note that Mercury actually passes Mars at 15° right around the time it hits its shadow. So, Mercury is at 15° Cancer; at 16° Cancer squares Mars is right around that point. So there’s a nice little trigger as it would otherwise quietly pass over it’s shadow degree.
AC: Mars in Aries – quiet?
CB: Yeah…
KS: Mercury-Mars is that sort of frustration or heated arguments or kind of rash thinking and conversation.
AC: It contributes to a very loaded cardinal axis.
KS: It’s almost like a sparking it up, type of thing.
CB: So 15 degrees, and by then we’re in early August, and Mars is still going but it starts slowing down.
KS: Yeah I think it retrogrades at 28 degrees…
CB: of Aries…
KS: But before it goes retrograde- oh, you’ve got it there, haven’t you?
CB: Yeah, it’s almost there. So 28…
AC: So, just worth noting, it’s on August 7th that Venus finally makes it out of Gemini.
KS: That’s a good point.
AC: Even though Venus is only retrograde in Gemini for six weeks, we have four months of Venus in Gemini this year. So I hope you like wordplay.
KS: Yes. And that’s one thing for people who are perhaps newer to astrology to really understand, is that a retrograde of a planet: Mercury, Venus or Mars tends to massively extend the amount of time that planet is spending in a particular sign. So in addition to the retrograde influence or emphasis, it’s just like a really long Venus in Gemini, and as we’re getting into now, a really long Mars in Aries cycle.
CB: Yeah, which elongates a transit that otherwise should be short. Sort of like keeping a single note, like usually on a piano you have the keys and you might press a key once normally and then keep going, but it’s like holding the same key…
KS: A press and hold, yeah
(Laughter)
KS: It is! But, I mean…
AC: That sounds unendurable.
(Laughter)
CB: Well maybe it’s a really nice key for some people, I don’t know…
KS: They might like the tone. Because Mars usually spends about six weeks in a sign but we’ve got, like six months or seven months of Mars in Aries.
AC: And so by mid-August, Mars has gotten toward the end of Aries, and that means it’s tangling with what’s at the end of Capricorn.
KS: Hello, Mars square Saturn
AC: Right, so Mars, just like it conjoined Jupiter, Pluto, Saturn earlier in the year…
KS: When it was in Cap.
AC: Yep, now it’s going to square Jupiter, Pluto, Saturn.
KS: And this is a, like a funny feature, if you like, of the Mars retrograde in Aries this time around is that Mars is going to square Saturn shortly before it goes retrograde, then it’s gonna go retrograde and it’s gonna make another square to Saturn. So it’s very much…
AC: And then when it’s direct it’ll make it third square.
KS: It will make a third square, a little later in the cycle.
AC: Oh, but it, but that’ll be in a different sign.
KS: In a different sign, I think, yeah. So the Mars square- I guess, a tone that’s added into this Mars retrograde is that square to Saturn.
CB: A tone of frustration or restraint?
KS: Absolutely, because Mars in Aries does not like to slow down or think about consequences or the long term or the future, and that’s what Saturn in Capricorn is kind of all about.
AC: Yeah, so there’s a lot of… there’s a lot of acrimony there.
KS: Yeah, I think frustration is kind of a mild version; frustration is no longer strong enough…
AC: Wait till we talk about the actual station, and get into talking about Mars’s character and in the retrograde phase.
CB: So, it looks like this station is about September 9th/September 10th at 28 degrees of Aries.
AC: Sounds about right to me.
KS: Yep, 28° Aries is the spot.
CB: And Saturn at that point is at 25° Capricorn, so they’re within about three degrees?
AC: Yeah, they’ve done one square and then Mars is like, “Uhh, let’s turn this thing around”.
KS: Yes, back up.
AC: “That was so much fun, let’s do it again.”
KS: “I want to do it again”. I mean, there’s a slowness; there’s a need to pause and there is going to be some frustration there.
AC: What’s interesting is there may be a need for slowness but that’s not what Mars retrograde stations often feel like. Mars will be properly retrograde until November 13th. So we’ve got nine weeks of Mars retrograde. And just as I spoke earlier about how Venus’s character, the quality of that planet, changes during the retrograde phase, Mars also changes. It’s still Mars-y; Mars doesn’t become the bringer of harmony during the retrograde phase.
KS: It’s not gonna change his nature.
AC: But what a lot of people experience is wild oscillations in energy levels. Like the the range being total lethargy and berserker fury. Historically, Mars retrogrades, you see Mars dropping the rules of engagement. People will tend to fight dirty. If they fight, there’s a tendency for for conflicts to be outside of proper and civilized bounds.
KS: Mmm. That’s a beautiful way of putting it.
AC: Thank you. It’s something to watch in yourself and just to remember that when Mars is, even if you’re not having a big transit, if you’re around people, like somebody is. And just taking into account that people might be in a month where they’re gonna be much more unreasonable than they usually are. Right, and not testing, you know, not testing people if you’re not willing to engage in that kind of contest. But yeah, the Mars-Saturn, it’s rough. It’s a rough combination.
KS: It is a rough combination and one of the things I see coming up in client consults when we’re looking at Saturn-Mars sort of transit combinations can be the low energy thing that you were speaking to, Austin, is Saturn does contain or restrict the fire of Mars. And so it’s definitely that feeling of I need to do things but maybe I don’t have the energy or the spark or the motivation, and there’s often an undertone here with Saturn-Mars around what is it that I actually want to put my energy into? Because sometimes you can just be tired and that’s why you’re flat, but other times it may be that the spark has gone out of this project or that partnership, for instance. And I think it’s important to pay attention to those changing levels of energy and motivation- you don’t necessarily have to react to them right away, but I think it’s it’s good food for thought, when Mars and Saturn are engaged in this testy combination.
AC: Yeah. My mind leads me back to what Chris was saying earlier when we were talking about Mars conjunct Saturn, which is the brake pedal and gas. In this case we have a very strong gas and we have a very strong brake power.
KS: Yeah, we do.
AC: So there’s the possibility of contest between those; it’s not that one is in a clear position to win.
KS: And I always think, one key word that I often think of for a square aspect is this idea of adjustment. The image I always have is two cars coming to a T-intersection, and if they both try and go forward at the same time we’re gonna get the horrible crash or bang, and so the adjustment is modulating which is gonna go and when, and neither Mars nor Saturn necessarily wants to slow down for anyone else, so it’s the negotiation of priorities or, if we’ve got only a limited amount of energy, what are we gonna focus on first or second or third?
CB: Yeah. There’s also an element of endurance with Mars having a retrograde in Aries. Because Mars in Aries is not normally something we associate with an endurance-type signification or aspect if we had to rank them.
KS: It would be a sprint.
CB: Yeah, normally it’s a sprint. But having Mars slow down and stay in Aries for a long period of time and having that occurring within the context of a square with Saturn is definitely bringing up some challenges in terms of, “How do you keep up your endurance?” and “How do you develop endurance when initially what you thought was just gonna be a sprint?”
KS: Yeah, I think that is really important too. Mars in Aries is usually a quicker kind of tone so it’s, “How do you keep up your endurance?” but also, “How do you manage a high pace for a sustained period of time?” Because Mars in Aries still sort of has that sense of wanting to go- I know it’s retrograde and I think we do have to obviously pull in the idea of going back over old territory…
CB: Yeah, changes in direction or needing to swerve at one point to go back to something?
KS: Yeah, circling back to finish or redo so that you can then carry forward.
CB: Because that thing that would have been a sprint, if you didn’t have to stop and turn around and go back over ground that you had previously tread- but the need to return to something and have a do-over is what can lead to the sense of needing to have more endurance.
AC: Yeah. Because usually Mars is five or six weeks in Aries, and then hit the couch in Taurus. So as I said for the Venus retrograde, there’s a general cycle quality of trying to understand what it is you really want; what is the shape and face of your desire? With Mars, I would say that the question is, what’s worth fighting for? What’s worth the effort? And what’s not worth the effort?
KS: What hill do you want to die on?
AC: Yeah, yeah. What hill do you…
(Laughter)
KS: We were talking last night and that was something we came up with, yeah.
CB: Yeah. We were trying to come up with a title for this episode and that was one of our proposed titles that didn’t quite win out…
KS: It didn’t win in the end.
CB: “Year Ahead: 2020 Forecast”.
KS: “What hill do you wanna die on?”
CB: Right. Doesn’t have the same, like, ring to it.
KS: It doesn’t, no.
CB: We’re still working on that. I liked the Hero’s Journey that you threw out at one point, Austin. I don’t think you put that forward as a title, but you did mention that as a theme.
KS: The Heroic…
AC: Yeah, I was talking about how struggles are redeemed within a heroic context. You know, you can have all sorts of horrible monsters and tragedies, but if it’s part of a journey where you’re actually getting somewhere, teaching you things, then that’s meaningful and worth it and may be necessary… It’s important to not fall into a survival horror, Walking Dead narrative for your life, where you’re like, “Yep, I’m just making it to the next season”.
CB: Yeah. Well I mean the hero’s journey is sometimes prompted by an event that forces them to leave home and go outside of their boundaries where they wouldn’t otherwise. Like at the beginning of Star Wars; the first Star Wars Luke loses his adopted parents basically, Jessica’s aunt and…
KS: Yeah and you even see that in the Harry Potter films as well; the idea of the person having to go out and then there’s a trial or a cross point where there’s that feeling of being tested, and then having to dig deep, and it’s the people that you then meet along the way, and ultimately the journey to find the symbolic pot of gold. This is Joseph Campbell’s work; it’s the archetypal myth that underpins all of the great stories, and the end is the return, where you make it home, having discovered the thing, learned the thing, matured in some way, and then you kind of come back.
AC: Tolkien being perhaps the best version of that.
KS: Yeah.
AC: And as my friend Gordon White has pointed out, Tolkien is a particularly nice model for the hero’s journey because the hero, the Hobbit, isn’t this amazing warrior; doesn’t slay the Dragon single-handedly. But nonetheless, achieved something of great import, despite the fact that he’s just a normal Hobbit. You know, a lot of us are just kind of normal Hobbits.
KS: We’re just normal, human Hobbits (laughs)
AC: We don’t have armies at our command. You know, there’s big things happening all around the Hobbits. There are giant clashes, but the Hobbits got their job, and that’s important.
KS: Yeah, it is.
CB: I was going back and looking at the planetary movements. Look at Mars where it starts off at the beginning of the year in Scorpio, and you can follow its little path around through the signs of the zodiac; it has that little period through Capricorn, then Aquarius, then Pisces. And then we get to Aries, and that’s just the rest of the year, is Mars gets caught up in Aries and sort of stuck there, almost like quicksand or something, where it’s just treading water for this extended period for the rest of the year.
KS: Yeah. I think one of the other things we had touched on was the idea that the interaction of the Mars retrograde with Saturn in Capricorn- the Saturn in Capricorn is a cycle that we’ve all been dealing with in various ways over the last two and a half years by the time we get to the second half of 2020, and the Mars retrograde comes in as a complication or just this extra thing that you weren’t expecting, when we’re almost at the end of that Saturn in Capricorn cycle.
CB: Right, like a stumble before the end of the race?
KS: Yeah, or just somebody throwing you a curve ball when you’re almost there and you’ve just got to grab it and keep going with it, basically.
AC: Yep, it’s the last mile of the marathon.
KS: That’s exactly it, and all of a sudden there’s a hill you weren’t expecting or, I don’t know, somebody’s parked their car in the middle of the road and you’ve got to run around and it’s an extra 50 meters, which is the last thing you want to do when you’re running 40 kilometers.
AC: Yeah and so it’s challenging.
KS: It is effort and it requires you to dig deep at a time when you’re already maybe a little bit depleted. Because if it’s the last mile of the marathon, you’ve already run 25 miles.
AC: Yeah, you’re not…
KS: You’re not very fresh.
AC: Your glycogen stores are non-existent. So that kicks off basically end of the first week of September. September’s pretty dominated by Mars-Saturn.
CB: Yeah. So it looks like the station is at 28° Aries of Mars around September 8th/September 9th. Then Mars is retrograde, and hits the second exact square with Saturn, it looks like around…
KS: 29 September I think?
CB: Yeah, September 29th-ish, around 25° Aries squaring Saturn at 25° Capricorn and of course right at the same time Saturn is stationing direct, in Capricorn for the final time, that’s the final station. So that’s actually super notable; that’s the final station in Capricorn for the next couple of decades.
AC: Yeah the next…
KS: 30 years.
CB: Three decades, almost.
AC: Yeah, 28 years probably.
CB: Yeah. So that is the final exclamation mark of Saturn’s journey through Capricorn over the past two or three years. And it happens right around the same time that Mars, which is retrograde, squares Saturn at the same exact time.
AC: Yeah and coincidentally, or non-coincidentally, Pluto also stations direct within the week. And Mars is also close to square with Pluto.
CB: Very nice.
AC: We have both that Saturn-Pluto, which Mars is generally squaring both; both do stations. And the Sun has moved into Libra by the end of September and it’s again, big cardinal stuff. Right, so we have the Sun in a cardinal sign, Mars in a cardinal sign, Saturn and Pluto and Jupiter, and the Moon one third of the time.
KS: Yes
CB: Big cardinal stuff, I like that. That could be a good title.
AC: Big cardinal energy.
KS: Big cardinal mood, yes.
CB: So continuing on with the retrograde of Mars, which is super long…
KS: And that brings us into the fourth quarter.
CB: Oh, so we should not skip forward yet?
KS: I just don’t know, is there anything else in this quarter that we want to talk about? I mean it is the main theme, the Mars-Saturn.
AC: It’s pretty dominating.
CB: Yeah, what I wrote down last night while we were trying to outline this was just the Mars retro in Aries, entering that shadow in late July, stationing retrograde in early September, squaring Saturn, Saturn going back into Capricorn July 1st and then Saturn stationing in Capricorn late September as being the main things.
KS: Yeah and I think the date piece- the first Mars-Saturn square is August 24th, Mars station retrograde 9th of September, and then second Mars-Saturn square end of September. So it really feels like a six-week period where we’re just very much in the thick of that dominating theme, as you said, Austin.
CB: A theme of like stop and go?
KS: Stop and go. Probably maybe a bit more stop at that point or slow down, hit the road bump, and it’s like, “Okay we’ve got to pull back and reassess”.
CB: Right, hitting the brakes really suddenly. Because Mars is like pushing forward and it’s almost out of Aries then all of a sudden it just slows down itself and turns retrograde but also hits Saturn at the same time.
KS: Yeah. Thinking you’re getting through something and then realizing, “Oh we’ve got to pull back for a moment”.
AC: Yeah, and there are gonna be things that come up and it’s like “Ohh, I’ve got to deal with this”.
KS: Or, “This is gonna take longer than I thought. I’m not gonna get it done as soon as I expected”.
AC: And so, beginning of the fourth quarter; quarter of the game.
CB: Quarter four.
KS: Right. And you know in sports the third quarter is always the toughest quarter.
CB: Okay.
AC: Fourth.
KS: No no, the third is the hard one.
AC: Oh really?
KS: The fourth is when you’re bringing it home. Like in a relay race, for instance. In a relay, like the 4×100 relay, the slowest runner is usually in the third position.
AC: Ohh, okay.
KS: The fastest runners go in first and fourth position, but the third- there’s something about that third piece; three out of four is like the, “Are we there yet?” and we’ve just got to keep going.
AC: The middle of the work week; towards the end but it’s not Friday.
KS: It’s not Friday, yeah. There you go, I’m rediscovering my love of sports (laughs). October, is where we’re starting.
CB: October, here we go.
KS: Mars retrograde, I’m surprised.
AC: Yeah, we begin with a full moon in Aries.
KS: Just some more big cardinal mood.
AC: Indeed.
KS: Because both the lunations this month are cardinal.
CB: Yeah. Full moon in Aries, new moon in Libra mid-month, and then there’s actually a second lunation in Taurus at the very end of the month, a full moon.
KS: And we get some Mercury action, Mercury retro action coming through.
CB: Our third Mercury retrograde of the year; Mercury stations retrograde on the 13th of October.
KS: Funnily enough, at 11° Scorpio, which is where Mercury in 2019 stationed direct, which is just a weird coinkydink.
AC: Mercury stations retrograde within 24 hours of the perfect Mars retrograde-Sun opposition.
KS: Opposition. Oh, the midpoint.
AC: And that Mercury retrograde is ruled by Mars.
KS: Yeah
AC: And so, if you thought this Mercury retrograde in Scorpio was spicy, just wait.
KS: (Laughs) Until the super spicy, super hot… okay
AC: Note that this one will be covering the weeks leading up to the American presidential election.
CB: Yeah it’s also opposite Uranus on that station.
AC: Yeah that’s a great point.
CB: Uranus is at 9° Taurus and Mercury is stationing retrograde at 11° Scorpio and this is right in the middle October; this is the October Surprise.
KS: October Surprise
AC: Yep. This is the October Surprise.
KS: Super duper.
CB: That is fun. So Mercury retrogrades, general statements are usual things about miscommunication or reviewing old communications or re-tooling old things. This one though, that Uranus opposition is throwing in a major sort of unexpected disruptions-type signature.
AC: Yeah and the ruler of this Mercury is a…
KS: Retro Mars opposite the Sun.
AC: Yeah it’s retro Mars square Pluto.
KS: Square Pluto as well.
CB: That’s halfway through then the retrograde cycle literally right at this point.
KS: Yeah
CB: Okay. So there’s a theme of contentiousness that it draws in as well.
KS: Totally, because the sky is quite dominated by oppositions and squares.
CB: Right, so on this day when Mercury is stationing retrograde, when the Sun rises that morning Mars will be setting over the western horizon. And when the Sun sets, around that time Mars will be rising?
KS: Yes
CB: It’s kind of interesting symbolism.
KS: It is interesting, yeah, that they’re kind of trading off.
AC: And they refuse to share the sky with one another
KS: Yeah, they absolutely do not want to be in the same place.
CB: All right
KS: And then Mercury retrogrades back; the station direct of Mercury actually happens in late Libra.
CB: The halfway point looks like it’s at 2 degrees of Scorpio around October 25th? Is that correct? Conjunction?
KS: That sounds right. Yep, yep.
CB: Okay. Just a halfway point for the retrograde.
KS: For the retrograde, the Mercury conjunct the Sun, yeah.
CB: It’s so important, I feel like people focus a lot on the retrograde station and the direct station, but that conjunction with the Sun is such an important turning point in the overall cycle of when things start to be resolved that we’re initially thrown out of whack at the retrograde station, the first station- it’s just useful to note.
AC: Yeah it’s the heart of the purification process or combustion process.
CB: Right.
KS: Yeah. And I think we’ve mentioned that in one of our 2019 monthly episodes that once Mercury gets past that conjunction with the Sun, it’s not that the retrograde is over, but you’re starting to get into more of the clean up side of the Mercury retrograde.
CB: Yeah. So I like to mention it just because it’s helpful and if you’ve gotten really hit hard by Mercury retrograde, giving some hope or some time frame about when you might start to see some resolution.
KS: Yeah, just a shift in the tone.
CB: So it’s about the 25th/26th of October when that happens, and then Mercury eventually stations direct around November 4th/November 5th 2020 at 26° Libra.
KS: Yeah, in a nice square to Saturn.
CB: Oh right, very exact square where Saturn is at 26° Capricorn. Lovely.
KS: Yeah so that’ll be- the Mercury retrograde is over, but with the square to Saturn we’ve got that sense of, I don’t know whether it’s a heaviness or a pause, “We’ve really got to do this properly; we’ve got to think deeply about what we’re trying to bring forward”.
CB: Right. So if the start of the Mercury retrograde was opposite Uranus and has a sense of something unexpected or an unexpected disruption as well as the contentiousness of the Sun opposing in Mars and being halfway through its retrograde cycle at that point; the direct station squaring Saturn, what is the primary key word we would use for that? That there’s a sense of restructuring things, of slowing down.
AC: It could be, one: the answer to the question might be, “Oh, I really can’t do this”.
KS: Correct, the answer might be no.
AC: Or it might be, “If I do want to do this, this is gonna take a long time”.
KS: This is a big undertaking. There’s a cautious quality to that.
AC: When you see planets configured to the direct station degree of Mercury, that’s what moving forward looks like. So moving forward means looking right at Saturn, which could be, “This is gonna be slow”, or “You know what? Maybe not”.
KS: Yeah, maybe not, like in terms of, “Maybe I’m not gonna do this type of thing”.
AC: Yeah, “Maybe it was delayed so that I could realize that I don’t want to do this”.
KS: So there’s a caution or a restraint quality there.
CB: And also like a discernment quality.
KS: That’s a great word.
CB: We’ve talked about that with a Mercury-Saturn thing recently about how Mercury-Saturn combinations can be very discerning, which can be very positive if used in a constructive sense, but also sometimes if taken too far can be more negative. But may be this would be, because it’s closer to the direct station, it can be more of a positive sense of, positive discernment, or constructive.
AC: Yeah, accepting a negative.
KS: Yeah, or a thoughtfulness or a diligence like, “I’ve done my research and actually that’s not for me”.
CB: Like rejecting that which is no longer useful, especially if the Mercury-Uranus opposition at the beginning was more of an experimental phase.
KS: Yeah, yeah.
AC: It’s a hard October. I think October is my least favorite month so far.
CB: How is November, once Mercury stations direct on the 3rd?
AC: Well and 10 days after that, we get Mars stationing direct.
CB: Okay, in Aries.
KS: Yes, which is definitely a welcome shift.
AC: It’s preferred.
KS: Preferred. And as you were saying, Austin, you were spelling out the three different chapters or qualities to the Mars in Aries period, and that Mars station direct brings us into the third and final piece.
AC: Right, so there’s a couple things. We get our third Jupiter-Pluto opposition the day before that on the 12th.
CB: Jupiter-Pluto conjunction.
KS: Conjunction.
AC: What did I say?
KS: Opposition.
AC: Oh yeah, I’ve been talking for a while. I have approximately 1700 words left.
(Laughter)
KS: Yes. Word count, word limit.
AC: The indicator is approaching E, but not yet.
KS: Not quite.
AC: We have the Jupiter-Pluto conjunction exact for a third time on the 12th and then we get our Mars direct station on the 13th. It’s important to note that Mars station, even though we like that it’s direct, it’s still a stationing and intensification of Mars. And Mars direct stations are often very contentious.
KS: Yes, it’s like all the pent-up energy is now starting to, it’s got to be burnt off a bit.
AC: Yeah, so and it’ll take a little bit but Mars starts picking up speed and getting back to something approximating normal motion after that, which we like.
KS: It’s a step in the right direction.
CB: Yeah I’m just advancing it; it’s sitting on that degree at 15° Aries pretty much all of November.
AC: Yeah, it takes a couple weeks to get moving.
KS: It is pretty much sort of just paused, just hanging there in the sky. It’ll be quite red in the evening sky.
CB: For some people, if that’s configured well, let’s say by trines if you’ve got stuff in like mid-Leo or mid-Sagittarius, could be a positive empowering, energetic type thing, having Mars station and start moving forward again in favorable aspects to some of your natal planets. But for people that have, let’s say, cardinal planets in the middle part of that sign, it could be more of an irritating type influence to have it there hitting the same degree for an entire month.
KS: Yeah, because the whole month of November it’s just at 15 or 16 degrees of Aries either retrograde or direct. So if you do have planets at those degrees, it’s an intensification and Mars is heat- that can be aggravation or frustration or things boiling over.
AC: It’s going to depend on what kind of planets you have there.
KS: Yeah, absolutely.
CB: All right. So that’s starting to take us- we’re in November here, and Mercury retro, Mars stationing direct, we start to get back into a new eclipse season.
KS: Oh yeah we do have the eclipses kicking in then, because they’re earlier now.
AC: Yeah, they’re creeping backwards. And so we have…
KS: November 30.
AC: It’s not a total eclipse, but it’s a proper eclipse in Gemini on November 30th.
CB: So we’re fully in the Gemini-Sagittarius eclipse series by this point?
KS: Yeah
CB: Okay
AC: One thing that’s interesting is that this one, which occurs on November 30th, partial eclipse of the Moon in Gemini occurs at 8 degrees and the Sun’s at 8 degrees of Sag. And what’s interesting is that there are two royal stars that are within a degree and a half of both the Sun and Moon’s position. The Sun will be very close to Antares, which is very bright red, and then the Moon will be right next to Aldebaran, which is also bright red.
KS: Bright red. Both red stars, yeah.
AC: Generally speaking, the royal stars, of which there are four, are just powerful. They give greater strength, not necessarily for good or evil, but they intensify.
KS: The raw power, yeah.
AC: Especially when we’re thinking about a mundane context like this.
KS: Yeah that’s quite a signature. I was quite struck when I looked at that. I was like, “wow”, and it’s not just a regular lunation but an eclipse, so stirring up of themes to do with how that raw power is used.
AC: Moving beyond the obvious example of what will be the recent presdiential election at this point, there’s a lot of stuff, as we said earlier about power and thrones etc etc. Those themes run throughout the year, and then at the very end of the year, we have not just a lunation but an eclipse involving two royal stars. It’s a lot of interesting, who wins the power games, the game of musical thrones. And again, not just for the United States.
KS: Yeah, I think that’s a really beautiful point and I know we’re getting to that as we get towards the end of the year, but the the whole idea about the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction shifting into a new sign is that it is this transition in power sources or the concentration of power, if you like. There’s a changing and a transition which can be very unsettling as we are going through that.
AC: Yeah and historically the cusp years around a Jupiter-Saturn pivot see big changes in not only who is in power but what patterns are in power.
KS: Yeah and it’s a fluctuating energy, and when you say the years around it, it’s basically 2020 and 2021.
AC: Oh and 2019. Things are obviously…
KS: It’s kicking off already, or has kicked off this year.
AC: If you pay attention to national or international news, it’s a lot of big questions about power.
CB: And did we decide that the solar eclipse in June, that is a full eclipse in Sag, is the first one, right?
KS: Sorry, the solar eclipse in June is in Cancer.
AC: Yeah, that’s the annular in Cancer.
KS: It’s the last one in Cancer.
AC: There’s a super wimpy lunar.
KS: Lunar eclipse; the Sag was like a low-grade
CB: I was just trying to decide if that was a full one because it’s far enough from the nodes, and if that would have any connection with the eclipse that we’re definitely getting in November in Gemini.
KS: There’s a connection just in the sense that it’s Gemini-Sag being activated.
CB: Yeah. It’s just since the nodes are already firmly in those signs, we’re moving into that axis being activated more in people’s charts definitely by this time in November. I was just trying to get a sense of if there would be any preview of that already headed in that direction by the summer.
AC: I think there’ll be a whiff, but there’s so much other stuff in the foreground. Like all that cardinal stuff is so dominant and loud.
KS: I’d agree.
AC: I don’t think we’ll have much time to pay attention to that whiff of an eclipse, whereas when we get to November, we’ve done our Mars retrograde, we did a very intense October, now we’re getting a pair of proper eclipses in Gemini and Sagittarius.
KS: And I think that’s key too that we actually are going through the whole eclipse season and both the eclipses are on the Gemini-Sag axis.
AC: The one that follows on December 14th is it annular or total?
KS: It’s like within a couple of degrees.
AC: Yeah, it’s within about 3 degrees and 11 minutes.
KS: Of the nodal axis, like the lunation is at 23° Sag with the nodes at almost 20°.
AC: Yeah so it’s a very intense eclipse.
CB: Okay. So people are gonna have to start paying attention to their Gemini-Sagittarius axis, especially in terms of that pair of houses. Because one of the things that came up that was interesting when we did our houses episode that we just recorded that we’re releasing in November and December was how closely tied together the topics are between pairs of houses that are opposite to each other.
KS: Absolutely, yeah.
CB: And how they exchange significance and themes, but nowhere, I feel like, does that become more clear when you start having eclipses in an axis of two houses in your chart and you start seeing the exchange between those topics as they get activated or brought to the forefront in your life.
KS: Yeah. And the eclipses do have a really unique and potent way of activating those pairs of houses. They sort of stir things up; things that might have been tucked in the corner or under the rug or what have you, just brings it all out, and then you’ve got to sift through it all. And some of it you’ll enjoy doing and some of it you’d rather not do, but the point with the eclipse is you’ve got to go through all of it.
AC: I like the word, “churn” in relation to eclipses.
KS: Of course (laughs). Churn, okay, yep. Churning is good.
AC: Part of that is the myth of where Rahu and Ketu came from was the churning of the great ocean, but it’s not just a little mix it up, it’s a deep churn.
KS: It is, you’re right, yeah, and it’s all the stuff has to come out for that to happen.
AC: That’s how you make the butter.
KS: Well you have to, I mean butter is fantastic. Good quality butter is delicious.
AC: And so what’s interesting is, just timing wise, big eclipse on December 14th and then in the next week Saturn and Jupiter both ingress into Aquarius. Here comes the next epoch.
KS: So let’s just pause for that. Because that is the end of Saturn in Capricorn. Done. December 20th.
CB: December 20th, so right at the end of the year?
KS: Yeah
CB: Nice. And there’s the eclipse; the eclipse is at 23° Sag.
KS: Jupiter moves out of a sign that it doesn’t love being in; still gonna be co-present with Saturn, but again the dignity change.
AC: Jupiter is happier in Aquarius than in Capricorn.
KS: Much happier, yeah.
AC: And most importantly, they’re conjoined.
KS: They’re conjunct, right there.
AC: Like they get a proper conjunction before the end of the year. They do, don’t they?
KS: Oh yes they do, as soon as Jupiter goes in.
AC: Oh that’s so interesting, so it’s on the solstice.
KS: Yes, that’s the other thing, it’s the solstice.
AC: And so our two solstices this year are an eclipse and the Saturn-Jupiter conjunction.
KS: They’re very potent.
AC: It’s a lot of…
KS: Transition and turning points
AC: It’s a big year. It’s a big year for the world.
KS: Yeah
AC: So Saturn-Jupiter conjunction at 21° and we’re not going to get another one of those of course, Jupiter keeps sailing through Aquarius after that?
KS: Yes. Let’s double check, but I’m quite sure.
AC: Yeah I believe that it’s a single hit.
KS: Oh yeah, because Jupiter flies through Aquarius and actually goes all the way into Pisces.
AC: Yeah, before retrograding.
KS: But that’s for next year’s episode (laughs).
AC: It’s a single hit.
KS: It’s a single hit, yeah, it’s just a one-off. And that’s all we need; that’s the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction, the new element coming in, the start of the next 200 or so year chapter.
CB: We were talking about this at the beginning of the show, but I guess it’s worth returning to at the end since we’re at the end of this and the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction is not just the start of a new 20 year cycle, but it’s also the end of a 20 year cycle. So the last Jupiter-Saturn conjunction was in 2000 in Taurus?
KS & AC: Mm-hmm.
CB: Okay. And that was one of the weird ones that suddenly went back to the old elemental triplicity but the one prior to that in ’80-‘81 was in Libra.
AC: And the one in 2000 using the mean calculation was the first one in air. So depending on which method we use, the 200 year cycle started in the early ‘80s, in 2000 or the end of 2020. The first time that they all agree is December 21st 2020.
KS: Yep, yes.
AC: And so there’s no more like, “Are we in the past, or in the future? Are we fighting over air or are we fighting over earth?”
KS: Yeah.
AC: It’s like, “Nope, it’s all air”. This is the point where the different methods all come together.
KS: Yeah, which is huge. Normally Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions mark out 20 year cycles, and then somewhere between 150 and about 220 years, those Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions all happen, the theory is, in the signs of the same element for a couple of hundred years. And then we’ve had this transition period going on, as Austin’s saying, over the last couple of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions. But everybody’s agreeing now, and that’s where we’re getting this whole idea of the new epoch, the major change at the macro level as well. And that’s all interesting to note and to be aware of collectively. From a personal level, we’re now into an Aquarius focus. Pluto’s still in Capricorn, but all of this extreme focus on Capricorn completely subsides.
AC: Yeah, and by the time we get to December 21st 2020, Mars is still in Aries.
KS: Of course it is. (Laughs).
AC: But in a couple weeks, Mars will leave Aries and then the cardinal signs just aren’t getting…
KS: It’s hello fixed signs…
AC: Yeah, they’re not getting tasked with the heroic journeys (laughs). The emphasis will be much more fixed and mutable, it’ll be more distributed.
KS: Yeah and more evenly distributed, because it has been a bit extreme all in Capricorn.
AC: Yep.
CB: It’s almost too bad that it happens so late in the year because that turning point happens right at the end of 2020 but so much of the result of that we’re not going to feel until 2021.
KS: Yes.
AC: And 2021 is very- Saturn and Jupiter in Aquarius square Uranus in Taurus.
KS: So it’s a totally different kettle of fish, and I think… Is that a very weird saying?
(Laughter)
CB: No. I always love it.
AC: That’s one of your…
KS: Is that one of my Aussie-isms?
AC: …your trademark.
KS: Okay. Totally different kettle of fish. We all need our shirts; you could have your river of blood, your juicy river of blood, that’s like a mash-up. Anyway, that was a Twitter conversation.
I think it’s important for people to know that when we get to the end of 2020, we get to the end of this stuff that we’ve been dealing with for the last few years.
CB: Yeah. The cardinal stuff is over and the shift into fixed signs. It’s Saturn and Jupiter transitioning into the fixed signs but then also with the eclipses and the nodes moving into the mutable signs, that’s a shift as well.
KS: Absolutely, the mutable signs have just been really dealing with Neptune for the last little while. So that’ll be different for mutable as well.
CB: Right.
KS: And the mutable eclipses will run all through 2021.
CB: Okay.
KS: There might be a change at the end of the year…
CB: The keywords I usually use for that are great beginnings and endings and bouncing back and forth between beginnings and endings and those two houses of your chart that they’re falling in.
KS: The eclipses?
CB: Yeah.
KS: Yeah, so the Gemini-Sag.
CB: Gemini and Sag.
KS: Yeah, beginnings and endings. And I do find with the eclipses they’re a little more potent. They’re a little bit more significant or a little bit- they’re important.
CB: Yeah.
KS: But that’s December, Jupiter-Saturn.
AC: That’s the show.
(Laughter)
CB: And that’s the end of quarter four.
KS: That’s the end of the year
CB: Just looking at all of this, Mercury-Sun conjunction on the 19th, the same day that Jupiter changes signs. It’s so weird that they change signs almost simultaneously, Jupiter and Saturn.
KS: Yeah, it is a little unusual. And then I think as Austin was saying, right on the solstice, which really does- because the energy of a solstice is quite charged anyway. Then to have something else really significant happening within 24 hours of a solstice is just, as you said for the mundane thing, it really does change the dynamic.
AC: Yeah, it’s really important.
KS: Yeah. Now just to speak very briefly to the Saturn and Jupiter in Aquarius, as we were saying earlier when Saturn went into Aquarius for that preview period in the second quarter, it’s not lighter in an absolute sense but it’s lighter relative to what we’ve been dealing with. And so I’m certainly looking forward to Jupiter going into Aquarius.
CB: Yeah. I’m interested in seeing some of the technological changes that that’s going to signal in the long term. Even just a Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in it of itself or a Jupiter transit or a Saturn transit through Aquarius might indicate some of that. But having the conjunction taking place in that sign and having that open up a whole series of 200 years of air sign conjunctions between those two outer planets is going to be really interesting and hard to anticipate.
One of the things that was brought up in a recent episode were some of the discussions about whether there are game-changing technological developments that can’t fully be anticipated and what the world changing implications of them would be like. If something like AI for example was discovered, if artificial intelligence can be created, and some of the projections surrounding that in the next 20-40 years and what the implications would be for that in the world.
KS: Yeah, to speak very briefly to the technology component, when you look back to some of the previous cycles when we’ve gone into this air period, there have been developments in technologies relative to the time. So the previous time, which I think is late 1100s through to the 1300s, is that the last? Off the top my head, loosely?
AC: Yeah, mean conjunction, it’s about twelve to fourteen.
KS: Twelve to fourteen. One of the things that happened then was new technologies around how to create paper were developed. Now that sounds almost antiqua… I can’t say that word at this point. (Laughs).
CB: Antiquated.
KS: Yeah sounds very ancient to us in our modern minds, but at the time, to be able to more easily produce paper allowed distribution of ideas to take off, for instance. That’s just one little example.
AC: Yeah there are lots of language-oriented innovations, very consistent. Macro-politically, there’s almost always a massive decentralization of power.
KS: Like the dispersing with the air.
AC: Right, so at the beginning of the twelve to fourteen period, you get the the Mongols, which break up a lot of empire. And they leave some things, like they come into China and rule it for a little bit but that doesn’t last. It’s really the function is breaking up existing structures. And then 800 years before that, which is basically 400 to 600 mean conjunction, that’s the end of the Western Roman Empire, which was again a breaking up of a centralization. Eight hundred years before that, especially if you look at the apparent conjunctions within the mean conjunction cycle, you have of Alexander’s conquest. Alexander didn’t leave a giant Empire. Within a year of his death it had broken up into four, but he broke up a giant, dominant Persian Empire. That’s a very consistent theme of moving from a unipolar or bipolar macro power dynamic to a much more multipolar dynamic.
KS: Yeah, which is really good.
AC: Which is good for trade. It’s networks rather than towers.
KS: That’s a great visual, actually.
CB: And even in the 20 year span between the last air conjunction in 1980-81 to 2000, we saw the emergence of personal computers in everybody’s houses and the emergence of the Internet during that time period. Then we had the interlude of back to an earth sign from 2000 to 2020, and now we’re in the next phase of what is the next thing that emerges on that level of a global scale of impact.
AC: Yeah and what’s interesting about the the 2000 one is that you have a conflict between the apparent conjunction and the mean. The mean conjunction was in Gemini, and so if you’re looking at the 20 years and saying, “Okay, the pattern is gonna be Gemini”, that’s not wrong. But if you’re looking at it through Taurus and be like, “Okay, back to war for territory, back to trying to dominate the earth”, there’s a lot of that…
KS: There’s a lot of that too.
AC: …back to Iraq for the United States, all that. You had both running. And again, it’s in my thinking everybody agrees now; the different methods all agree once we get to 2020, [which] is really important.
KS: That’s a beautiful peace actually, that if everybody agrees then it’s more congruent or there’s more of a clear symbolism that we’ll see coming through.
AC: And I think on a societal…
KS: What are you smiling about?
CB: Well I was just going to say that what I think you’re saying, Austin, is basically that the Age of Aquarius is about to begin…
KS: (Laughs) I knew it was cheeky.
CB: …and peace is about to break out and we’re all about to start dancing.
KS: Peace, love and mung beans?
AC: Oh I think people are gonna be ecstatic about the results of the presidential election of the United States. I think it won’t just be some people that win, I think everybody will be really happy with it.
(Laughter)
CB: During those October/November transits that were so tense that we were just talking about?
KS: The Mars square Saturn stuff.
AC: Yeah, Mars square Saturn: one is peace and the other is harmony, right?
KS: I hope everyone’s detecting the dripping in sarcasm tone that is coming off here.
AC: Yeah, I hope.
KS: Just to be explicit, in case people were taking us too literally.
AC: And one thing I would just say about Jupiter-Saturn, like as Chris said, it’s probably not everything solved. What I’d say is that it will be more natural and easier and more necessary to actually agree on the problems facing us collectively right now. Because part of the issue for now and the last several years is problems can’t get solved because people don’t even agree on what the problems are. And I think that the Saturn-Jupiter co-presence in Aquarius will force the like, “No, this is really an issue”.
KS: Yes, so at least the agreement. You’re right, you can’t solve a problem till you’ve all agreed that it is a problem.
AC: In something even resembling a democracy, you need consensus.
KS: Correct.
CB: And I’m just remembering the conjunction at 0 degrees but also how close that square is to Uranus and just the idea of emerging disruptive technologies and new technologies that emerge that disrupt existing structures. We’ve seen a little bit of that with just really simple things like the emergence of mobile devices and apps like Uber, like Lyft and coming in and just decimating entire industries like the taxi industry, or what have you.
AC: That wave hit primarily during the Saturn-Uranus oppositions. That was during that 2007 to 2010 window when people started having smartphones.
CB: Right. So just imagine that on a more long-term field or more long-term timeline of a 20 year period getting started with the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction squaring Uranus.
KS: And to that point, Chris, Jupiter leaves the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction and moves straight into the square with Uranus, which is January of 2021.
CB: Right, and even Saturn starts making his way slowly towards Uranus.
KS: Absolutely. So there’ll be lots of juicy stuff to talk about in next year’s year head forecast.
CB: Definitely, and we will have to save some of that then for your next visit and for 2021.
KS: (Laughs) Yes.
CB: We’ve already got to start making plans.
KS: Yes, busy schedules.
CB: Yeah, well it’s gonna be a busy year. You guys will be at conferences, you got NORWAC and then we’re all gonna meet up again in person here in Denver, September for the ISAR conference which is scheduled for…
AC: Ohh right, yeah. I was like, were we doing something in September?
KS: Yeah, ISAR. Because that’s here, yeah.
CB: It’s scheduled for that lovely Mars station, right?
KS: Yes (laughs).
AC: Indeed.
KS: Yeah. And a question in the chat box, who else coming to ISAR 2020? So let us know via the comments below or in the chat box if you’re watching live. We’ll be all teaching together.
CB: Yeah. We’re going to get together and do that workshop on synthesizing modern and ancient astrology.
KS: Yeah, I think that’s the Wednesday pre-conference.
CB: Well and that’s kind of necessary in a nice Jupiter-Saturn thing…
KS: Yeah. We can take our inspiration from that, rather than Mars.
CB: Yeah. Well, really over the past 40 years in the long term and over the past 20 years that’s been the timeline for the emergence and the revival of traditional astrology and it’s re-popularisation in contemporary astrology. But then those tensions, and that’s a very Jupiter-Saturn thing in it of itself, figuring out when to stick with the tradition versus when to integrate and use things that are modern or contemporary developments and the tensions between those two.
AC: Yeah, recognizing both the limits of tradition and innovation
CB: Right. So that’s a really good topic and theme then for us to do that workshop on in September.
KS: Yes, it’s gonna be good.
CB: All right guys. Well I think that’s it then for our overview of the astrology of 2020.
KS: Amazing.
AC: We did it.
KS: We did it! Four quarters.
AC: Well now we have to actually do it.
KS: Now we actually have to live it, but we’ve at least…
AC: We’ve talked about it
KS: We talked about it. We’re all a little bit better prepared now, basically.
CB: An interesting exercise also is to come back and listen. I know somebody in the chat was saying they just went back and listened to the 2019 forecast that we did a year ago. And that is always nice to then go back afterwards and see how your lived experience was of a forecast and some of the things that you were anticipating or some of the major transits, not just in your own life but in the people around you and how that’s worked out. Because sometimes when you’re right in the middle of it you don’t know exactly how it’s going but it’s only in retrospect that you can fully contextualize how that actually played out in your life.
AC: Yeah there’s a saying that the meaning of a story is not clear until you know the end.
CB: Right, I like that.
AC: It’s Walter Benjamin?
KS: Okay. Oh, I just remembered one of our Jupiter in Capricorn examples, it’s very random.
CB: Who was that?
KS: Walt Disney, I think.
CB: Oh, was he? Okay.
KS: Yeah.
CB: That’s a good one.
KS: Yeah, how did we forget that? Anyway…
AC: All right.
CB: Cool. All right guys. Well thanks to our audience and all the patrons who joined us today for the recording of this episode of The Astrology Podcast, we appreciate it, and who have supported our work here, since it’s allowing us to do forecasts like this and to get together in person and do a better version of the forecast than the usual ones that we’re able to do. If this works out and if you enjoyed it then let us know and we’ll think about doing it again sometime next year. Any other closing words, final thoughts?
KS: I would just, in my typical way, I would just say thanks to everyone for listening and following along with us all year. It’s really been so fun to do and to get to know so many of you at different events. So just thanks to all our listeners, basically. It’s like our end of year thing.
AC: Thank you.
CB: Thanks and we look forward to seeing many of you in person at conferences over the course of the next year.
KS: Yeah, throughout 2020.
CB: Cool. All right. Well that’s it for this episode of The Astrology Podcast. so thanks a lot for listening and we will see you again next time.
AC & KS: Bye
CB: Thanks to the patrons and sponsors who helped to support the production of this episode of the podcast through our page on patreon.com including patrons Christine Stone and Nate Craddock, as well as the Astro Gold Astrology App available at astrogold.io, the Portland School of Astrology at portlandastrology.org, the Honeycomb Collective Personal Astrological Almanacs at honeycomb.co and also the International Society for Astrological Research, which is hosting an astrology conference in Denver, Colorado, September 10th through the 14th 2020, and you can find out more information about that at isar2020.org, and the Northwest Astrological Conference which is happening in Seattle May 21st through 25th 2020 and you can find out more information about that at norwac.net. For more information about how to sign up to become a patron of the podcast go to patreon.com/astrologypodcast.