The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 302, titled:
The Sun in Astrology: Meanings and Techniques
With Chris Brennan and Demetra George
Episode originally released on May 4, 2021
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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 Mary Sharon
Transcription released September 2, 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. In this episode, I’m talking with Demetra George about the Sun in astrology and what it means and some of the techniques that are associated with it. Today is Thursday, April 22 2021 starting at 12:49 p.m. in Denver, Colorado. And this is the 302nd episode of the show. Hey Demetra, welcome back to the show.
DEMETRA GEORGE: Hey Chris, it’s terrific to connect with you and all of your listeners.
CB: Yeah, I’m really excited to have you back on the show and excited to have this discussion because in volume one of your book, Ancient Astrology, you had a pretty huge section dealing with the Sun and dealing with different solar phenomenon related to the Sun. So that’s something we’ll get into today. And then I just recently got in the mail the proof copy of volume two of your book which is going to be coming out pretty soon in the next– It’s going to be available for pre order in the next month and then probably in print the following month, right?
DG: Right. We’ve been expecting it any month for about two years now but my publisher’s ready to make the pre-publication order announcement within the next couple of weeks so that means it’s really, really close. It’ll be fantastic to have that completed. It’s been, for me, really officially a 20-year project and if I add going back to graduate school and learning Greek, it extends even more years than that.
CB: Yeah, it’s like 25 years?
DG: 25 years. So I feel grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to take that tradition to the best of my understanding which is by no means complete, but put it in a form so that there’ll be a record of it for future generations.
CB: Definitely. Well, I have the book in hand and I’m pretty excited. It’s pretty thick and competes with mine in terms of thickness and it’s even more comprehensive than mine because mine’s just a single book and you wrote two volumes. I’m really excited because it goes into the houses in detail, and just as much detail as you spend going into the planets and solar phenomenon in the first book. So, people can find out more information about that if they go to your publishers website which is rubedo.press. And if they sign up for the mailing list, then they’ll get a message as soon as it’s available for pre-order sometime around May 13th. I think you guys are shooting for when Jupiter goes into Pisces, right?
DG: Right. That’s what Aaron Cheak wanted to celebrate the Jupiter ingress.
CB: Perfect. Okay, well, people should check that out. So in the meantime, we’re going to jump into our topic today which is the astrology of the Sun. So, last month I started a series where we’re going through each of the planets and going into a detailed deep dive on the meanings of each of the planets and reading through some ancient authors as well some modern astrologers who talk about what the Sun means in astrology and trying to get a sense of what the core underlying meaning is throughout the astrological tradition. So, this approach where we’re going to read some about, I think, six excerpts from different ancient and modern authors. This is also something that you do in your books, especially this new book volume two where you focus on talking about how different astrologers talk about the houses. What do you gain from that approach? Or why is that part of your approach at this point?
DG: Well, in contemporary astrology, especially until recently, our understanding of the houses were as a hodgepodge of different meanings and significations and that we did not necessarily learn any cohesive underlying principles to them. And in investigating with the translations having access to be able to investigate earlier meanings, we’ve seen that some meanings that once existed have dropped out of the tradition, and other meanings that weren’t there at the beginning have entered into the tradition. And so by doing that historical survey, we have a sense of what meanings have remained constant in our understanding of the houses and which meanings have come in or dropped out often depending on the context of the culture that was holding astrology during a certain period of time. Now where this becomes especially important is in some of the research, statistical research that’s happening on astrology in terms of the field called evidence-based astrology. And they’re researching certain house meanings that they’ve been given in the modern context. But there isn’t this awareness that some of those meanings are very recent to the tradition and didn’t have the continuity throughout the entirety of it. So they may discard some modern meaning or some ancient meaning as being irrelevant without having that larger scope of, “Oh, it’s been only like in the last 100 years and astrologers have attached that.” So it certainly in that particular field, it can help. And then in other fields, let’s say, our knowledge that the third house represented was named the goddess. And it had to do with sacred rites and rituals. For many of the contemporary women now who are connected with feminism, with women’s spirituality, with goddess worship, with goddess archetypes, with women’s groups, and they have an emphasis in their third house or a strong third house ruler without knowing that that was one of the meanings, they might still be struggling to figure out, like, well, what sibling or what piece of writing are they supposed to be doing with their third house energy, whereas when they see that it was long connected with feminist activism, all of a sudden, many parts of their lives completely make sense and fall into place. So those are some of the values that having that historical sweep.
CB: Okay, awesome. That makes a lot of sense. And I think helps to contextualize a lot of the approach that you take in your latest books and then also a bit of the approach that we’ll take today. So, why don’t we jump into it with our first author who is basically one of the most ancient authors we have that gives a list of just the significations of the planets which is Vettius Valens from book one chapter one of his anthology. So here is a little glimpse of the Greek text where Valens gives the Sun first and then he gives the Moon significations, then Saturn and so on and so forth. And here’s a translation from my book. So this is from the second century and Valens says, the all-seeing Sun consisting of fiery and intelligent light, the instrument of perception of the soul in the nativities signifies kingship authority, mind, intelligence, form, motion, height of fortune, dealings with the gods, judgment, being engaged in public affairs, action, leadership of crowds, father, master, friendship, notable figures, being honored by portraits, statues and crowns of office, high priests of the fatherland. Then there’s a lacuna, it says blank places and then it switches to talking about parts of the body and he says, Of parts of the body, the Sun rules the head. Of the sense organs, the right eye. Of the torso, it rules the heart, the life breath or sensory movement and the nerves. Of substances, it rules gold, of crops it rules wheat and barley. He is of the diurnal sect, the color lemon yellow and bitter in taste. So those are Valens basic significations. And this goes back pretty early and is pretty representative of what the early Greco Roman astrologers thought of the planets when they talked about them. So what is a good starting point? I mean, the very first thing is just–
DG: Right, the all-seeing Sun. [Laughs]
CB: Yeah, the all-seeing Sun and light, fiery and intelligent light. And that’s the core underlying thing for the Sun is the underlying concept of emitting light and being the primary source of light in our world or in our solar system.
DG: Yes, I’d actually like to start with some of the images of the Sun as a deity from the cultures that all had an early practice of astrology. And in the Western tradition in Mesopotamia, the Sun, the planets were, well, their cosmology was that the divine permeated all of nature and the planets were one of the manifestations of the divine, and they connected each of the planets with one of their deities and the Sun was Shamash. And he was often depicted as rising over the mountain in the east at sunrise with all these flames emanating from his head. And then we see similar image in India with their god of the Sun, Surya, who’s driving this fiery chariot with the rays emanating from his head. This is also Helios in Greek that was later conflated with Apollo. And Apollo is shown driving the steeds with a halo of light. And that halo of light then became attached to Jesus with the same image. And so in all of the depictions of the Sun, we have those rays of light bringing to the extent the Sun was connected with the light and warmth which generated life. The Sun was the all giving principle of life. And furthermore in these different cultures, the Sun god was linked with the all-seeing Sun who saw everything with justice, with keeping oaths, and with divination. And we see the joy of the Sun being placed in the ninth house of the chart which was called Atheos or god. And so the idea is that the Sun sees all and because of that wide ranging perception, the possibility of knowing what the future may hold is focalized in that particular body and hence the ninth house where the Sun rejoices one of its primary significations was all forms of divination including astrology. And the ancient texts list those of dream interpretation, and augury, and horoscopy, and prophets, and oracles, and astrologers. And if the Sun was located in the ninth house especially with the planet Mercury, then that was the indication of a great profit through the capacity of all seen.
CB: Here’s a diagram for those watching the video version that just shows the planetary joys and the Sun having its joy in the ninth house, opposite to the Moon having her joy in the third house in the place of goddess which is opposite to the place of god which is the name for the ninth house. So one of the things you mentioned that was really interesting just now is that also becomes associated with the Sun is not just ideas of illumination, but also ideas of sight and the idea that in order to see something it kind of needs to be illuminated. And in the term that word, illumination, we still have that idea of something being illuminated in your mind’s eye as a result of becoming enlightened or what have you. And notions of light and seeing being very much interconnected sometimes in our language.
DG: Yes, yeah. Oftentimes the colloquial expression is when we’re trying to figure out something or make sense of something, and then we might say, “Oh, and all of a sudden, this light bulb went off in my mind, and I was able to finally get it or understand it.” And so there is this connection with bringing something to light of uncovering the ways in which it’s been concealed so it can be made visible and then through that made manifest.
CB: Right. That makes sense. And so the Sun is commonly pitted against Saturn most commonly in the astrological construct in traditional astrology, where the Sun as well as the Moon, to some extent, which reflects the light of the Sun, are the two luminaries that are pitted against Saturn which is the furthest and slowest and darkest of the seven traditional visible planetary bodies. And so they’re placed in opposition to each other in the domicile scheme where the planets are said to rule one or two signs each and the sign of the Sun is said to be Leo, and that’s opposite to the sign of Saturn which is said to be Aquarius.
DG: Right, so one way of interpreting the domicile, detriment, exaltation, fall that was alluded to by the ancient astrologers has to do with the increase and decrease of light. And in one of my understandings of the Thema Mundi where the two lights in the sky, the Sun and Moon were assigned to respectively the signs of Leo for the Sun and Cancer for the Moon, that it was said that at least in the Northern Hemisphere that these were the months in which the light force was the strongest. And of course, the Sun and Leo was connected with heliacal rising of the star Sirius that happened during generally during the month of Leo. And so and by contrast, the months in which in the Northern Hemisphere there’s the least amount of light are Capricorn and Aquarius. And that these are given to the planets Saturn, which is not only the furthest planet in the solar system away from the Sun but corresponds to the shortest number of daylight hours in our seasonal year. And then we have a similar situation with the Sun’s exaltation Aries and its fall in Libra, is Aries marks the spring equinox when the number of daylight hours begins to increase, so it’s in Aries where the Sun’s light starts to grow stronger. And by contrast in Libra which is the fall or autumnal equinox, we now have after that point the number of daylight hours starting to get weaker with there be less daylight hours. And so the domicile and exaltation of the Sun are connected with the increase of light coming up to its maximum strength in mid-summer. And the detriment and fall are connected with the beginning of the decrease of light until the winter time when we’re in that frozen darkness.
CB: Yeah, and one of the things that came up last summer when the Abu Ma’shar translation came out and there was that new Hermes text that was discovered that was embedded in Abu Ma’shar that seems to come from an earlier Greek tradition is it actually that was really interesting to me is it actually specifically said that the Sun has its domicile in Leo because and that it’s right in the middle of Leo at 15 degrees because that’s the very middle of the summer when the heat and light is at its most intense and most stable. And so the Sun then becomes the center focal point for all of the rest of the planets then receiving their domiciles because then Mercury gets its next domicile in Virgo because it never gets more than one sign away from the Sun before it turns retrograde, so it’s a sign of Virgo. And then Venus gets her domicile in Libra because it never gets more than two signs away from the Sun and so on and so forth. And each of the other planets assigned based on their speed and distance from the Sun after that point. So that really means the Sun is the anchor point for pretty much everything, both in terms of the domicile rulership scheme of you know why different planets rule different signs of the zodiac in western astrology, as well as even the exaltation scheme which really also seems to have its start and basis in the notion that the Sun and the days start becoming longer when the Sun reaches the spring equinox. And so there’s this notion of the concept of light being on the increase which is what the Sun signifies is light.
DG: Exactly. And then you also have the principle of centrality. So not only in the Thema Mundi chart does the Sun have that central starting point from which each of the other planets and their domiciles are generated, but we might say now with a discovery of the heliocentric system, that the Sun is the center of our solar system and all of the other planets revolve around the Sun. But even from the ancient cosmology when they were still using the geocentric system where they believe that the Earth not the Sun was the center, the order of the planets starting with the Earth in the center and then the Moon, Mercury, Venus, and then you have the Sun as the nested sphere, and then following that with Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. And so even within the geocentric system, the Sun has that position of the centrality of the order of the planets. So these are three different ways using completely different conceptual structures that we see that central organizing principle of the Sun holds.
CB: Yeah, and this notion of it ends up being an archetypal notion associate with the Sun of that which is central or that which holds a central role in whatever system it is a part of. And then if you take that as an archetype and start applying it to other things, that’s why you get significations like the Sun signifies the king if we’re talking about a monarchy or a monarchical system that the Sun would be represented by the king. Let me see if there’s other ones like that that that thinking then gets extended to for example in Valens or other ideas of centrality besides just kingship. Go ahead.
DG: Yeah, we have leadership.
CB: Yeah, the leader.
DG: Yeah.
CB: So, the one who leaders leads the crowd, the father which in that system is like the head of the family, in some sense in second century Roman society, the master, the person that’s in charge, notable figures or celebrities. Yeah, and then it starts going into another one of figures that are not just central, but are honored or given a place of honor, or praise, or reputation, or what have you.
DG: Right, or we can even say illuminated, because the spotlight of the sight of our vision shines on them. So when a notable person walks out onto the stage, the person running the lights at the back of the room aims the spotlight on them so that they become illuminated out of the crowd as being of importance and centrality to what is going on and again, holding that position of notability or centrality.
CB: Yeah, I like that the person who takes center stage and who the spotlight is shown on.
DG: Yes. Yeah, you said it beautifully.
CB: And that might be a good time then to mention which already mentioned in passing, but just that is the one sign that becomes associated with the Sun primarily which is the sign of its domicile which is Leo. So, Leo becomes the primary zodiacal sign associated with the Sun and some of the Sun’s significations. I can already hear some of them that we’re using that we end up using also as significations for Leo. So, the domicile of the Sun is Leo. Its detriment or what I’ve been calling the sign of its antithesis is Aquarius, which is the sign opposite to that. Its exaltation as we said earlier is Aries and its fall or the sign of its depression is Libra.
DG: Yeah, and if we were to interpret those from a more modern or psychological perspective, Leo has to do with being special, standing out from the crowd, being royal or regal in some way, and receiving honors on the count of that specialness. In our contemporary understanding of Aquarius and one of the reasons why the Sun can be explained as having its detriment in Aquarius from a modern perspective, is Aquarius has been linked with the sign of the group. And that in Aquarius, you’re told like, “Well, you’re nothing special. You’re just like equal to everyone else.” Where we have that whole egalitarian brotherhood and sisterhood made up of a group of people who all share equal power and they rule by consensus where everyone has an equal voice as being opposed to the specialness and the centrality, the authority that’s connected with Leo. And so if your Sun which wants to shine and be special and stand out falls in Aquarius, the filter through which the Sun tries to shine is a filter of, “Hey, you’re just like one of the crowd.” So that can be understood as the challenges that face the Aquarian Sun working from some of these principles that we’ve been talking about. In a similar way the Sun being exalted in Aries. And again, from a modern perspective, we associate Aries with being independent, autonomous, doing what you want to do. Sometimes Aries is criticized for not taking others into consideration. But the Sun when it’s in Aries has the ability not only to shine and be illuminated in that fiery sign, but also to have autonomy in terms of its actions and decisions. However, again, from the modern psychological point of view, when the Sun is in Libra, the sign of its fall or depression which is sometimes interpreted which doesn’t mean melancholy depression but means like a hole in the ground where it’s brought down low instead of exalted, raised high, that Libra we understand from the modern perspective is being about partnership and sharing and taking others into consideration. And the Sun may feel challenged in Libra if every action it tries to take, it has to clear with someone else first who may have a totally different idea and struggle to find a compromise that it’s antithetical to the nature of the Sun seeing what it wants to do and having the ability to just do it spontaneously in the moment. Now this is not to– I’m not suggesting that it’s bad to take others into consideration or to participate with Libra or to participate in a larger group consciousness if that’s how we see Aquarius for all of our modern astrologers. That’s actually those are both important things as we move forward. But we can also see why the Sun may find that position to be challenging or frustrating.
CB: Yeah, one of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot lately especially since last year and finding that Hermes text was how the nature of the Sun and the sign that it has its domicile and exaltation in are both hot, fiery signs, and they’re both opposed by what in the stoic and in Valens’s system would be called air signs. It’s like the Sun has this sort of, again, goes back to one of its other significations which is leading from the heart in some sense and this fiery passion that’s very involved in its decision making process both in Leo as well as in Aries, but the issue with its opposite signs is they tend to be a little bit more cold and a little bit more dispassionate and a little bit more intellectual as air signs both in Aquarius as well as in Libra.
DG: Right. They’re more socially oriented rather than individually oriented. Right, they have to do about relationships with others, whereas Aries in Leo speak very much to the primary relationship. I don’t want to say with oneself, but having that autonomy.
CB: Yeah, and just the balance between autonomy, self-autonomy versus working with others. Alright, so that’s getting us to some pretty core meanings that I feel like of the Sun and it’s helping us to understand some of the things Valens talks about. One of the distinctions we should mention early on since we talked about the concept of light is the concept of sect. And one of the things that the Sun does and one of the primary techniques in ancient astrology that it does is it is the primary celestial body that divides day and night. And when the Sun rises up over the eastern horizon each morning, it becomes day time. Eventually it culminates overhead in the middle of the day. And then in the evening, it sets at the Descendant and it becomes nighttime as long as it’s in the bottom half of the chart under Ascendant Descendant axis. So in that way, it kind of acts as like a celestial monarch in that it tells us or it sets the stage for all the rest of the planets of whether it’s day or whether it’s night.
DG: Right, exactly. And that the Sun is the prime determiner of whether you have a day or night chart. And if it’s above the horizon, you have a day chart. If it’s below the horizon, you have a night chart. And what that means if it’s below the horizon when you’re born and you look out the window, it’s night in very sort of literal way. If you have a day chart and you look outside the window, it’s day. Now, it is said that both the Sun and Moon were considered to be equal in their potency of being the sources of life. And they were conceptualized as the god and goddess, the divine masculine and the divine feminine, the king, queen, the father, mother. However, when determining the sect of the chart and then everything that then follows from that, the Sun is the factor that makes that determination.
CB: Right, so the Sun is kind of in charge of making that determination of whether it’s day or night. But once that determination is made, the Sun is the head of one team of planets around the sect of planets which is the daytime or the diurnal team which consists of the Sun, Jupiter and Saturn. And then there’s a nighttime team of planets which is led by the Moon and the Moon has as its teammates, Venus and Mars.
DG: Yeah, and let’s just pause here for a moment around the sect rejoicing conditions that have to do with this above or below hemisphere. And it is said that the planets that belong to the solar or diurnal sect, Jupiter and Saturn and Mercury if it’s morning rising, rejoice are happier when they are located in the same hemisphere as is the Sun because they do better by the light of day. What they stand for in terms of their significations at least Jupiter, certainly, the activities are more enhanced during the daytime hours. Saturn is placed in that because of its cold nature being warmed up and being more benefic. But the point that I wanted to make is when you look for the rejoicing hemisphere of the nocturnal or the night planets, it’s not a matter of whether they’re in the same hemisphere as the Moon, but they have to do with being in the opposite hemisphere than the Sun. So that the nocturnal planets like to be where it’s night, that’s their preferred environment. And certainly, Venus that has to do with sexual activity and pleasure generally happens in the night after the work of the day is done. So that’s her preferred environment. Mars, they say because he’s so rash and impulsive that’s enhanced by fiery daytime energy is more tempered and reasonable and benefic within the coolness of night. But Moon can be located in the daytime hemisphere, so that’s the reason if you have a new Moon waxing Moon when you see in the sky, it’s still daytime. And so this is why the rejoicing by hemisphere doesn’t have to do for the night planets, doesn’t have to do with being in the same hemisphere as the Moon but being in the opposite hemisphere as the Sun. So once again, we see how the Sun sets the stage, so to speak, for many other conditions.
CB: Yeah, so it is the one that’s in charge in some sense.
DG: Yeah.
CB: Okay. So let’s see. Let’s go back to our significations of Valens before we move on to another author since all of these are so central. Let’s see. So kingship we’ve talked about sect a little bit we’ll come back to that a little bit.
DG: Right, with kingship, do you want to say something about Leo in which the Sun rules is the lion? The image of the lion and the lion was considered like the king of the jungle, so to speak.
CB: Yeah, right.
DG: So in there, you have another connection with the royalty associated with the Sun and Leo.
CB: Right. Yeah, royalty, leadership, centrality, being in charge of things or being the one that calls the shots in some way. Sometimes they’re being a, I don’t want to say egotistical, but point to that were sometimes taken in the wrong way or when taken in an extreme direction can be overly focused on the self and the sense of self, or attracting power to itself, or acting completely on in accord with its own wishes and not taking into account those of others. Okay, so one of the things… I translated these into English and used English terms that I thought were best for some of these, but some of these words that are used in Greek could actually be an entire episode in and of itself. One of them, for example, is mind or noose, as well as intelligence. And I don’t know if you want to talk a little bit about those two.
DG: Yes, in the previous episode you did on the Moon, the discussion centered around the Moon as the body being embodied, being brought into physicality is being contrasted to the mind which is connected with the Sun as being outside the body or something more ethereal or abstract.
CB: Yeah, like a mind body or a spirit body distinction.
DG: Right. And one of the points that– There are several points I want to make. But first of all, is to I just want to speak for a moment of Buddhist belief that talks about what they call the precious human body because it’s only by being alive in a body that a person through the faculties of their mind, through visualization and other spiritual practices can achieve spiritual liberation, or consciousness. And so in that way that the mind is separated in astrology with Moon Sun doesn’t imply that one is more important than the other or that the mind for the Sun is elevated over the body because without the body, the mind can’t do its thing, so to speak, of attaining full consciousness and realization. So, I just want to make that point and establish that so I’m not misunderstood as going off on [laughs] the mental qualities of the mind. I also found it interesting that Israel, he was a Cancer. Was that true with the Moon exalted in Taurus?
CB: Yeah, for my last episode.
DG: Right from your last episode he was talking about the Moon, you have me for the Sun. And I’m a Leo with the Leo rising, so in some way you’ve picked embodiments of the planets or signs to give these talks and I found that it made me smile as I was listening to that discussion going on. But in terms of contrasting to that one, for me having that strong fire energy and air energy with a Gemini Moon, I have found being in my body and being in the world is really challenging. And I often see it as providing endless obstacles for me to have to deal with in order to have that free floating mental space that’s my preferred environment. And so there’s this quality of the Sun having to do with the mind and intelligence is that it could be the case that people with the emphasis on the solar diurnal energies are more comfortable and what’s the word? Not only comfortable, but they feel more confident and capable in operating in the mental realms of pure ideas, and again, coming from a filter expression of myself without being constantly thwarted by having to deal with the physicalities of the world. And so in that way and we saw that even in getting ready for this discussion that always right before any webinar, I’m tangled up in getting all the microphone, the camera, and the wire, and the plugs, clicking all the different things, I have to click and it becomes this whole terrifying process before I can then just speak. And so in that way, I see that challenge that exists between solar and lunar states of consciousness with dealing with the realms of ideas and dealing with the realm of physicality in the body.
CB: Yeah, I like that contrast between the Sun and the Moon. And there’s a lot– When we’re introducing one planet which was just the Moon last time, or we’re talking about one thing, but now that we have two it’s nice having this binary to contrast of mind versus body or physical incarnation versus one’s mental or spiritual sort of side. And sometimes having contrasts in astrology is really rich. And that’s where a lot of the meanings come from that you can only come up with the meaning for one thing when you can contrast it against whatever its opposite must be.
DG: And then do you want to talk about the mind in terms of visualization of image, of concepts, of having a creative vision or idea that you then try to bring into form that sometimes the artist has a vision of what they then becomes the object of what they bring about, or, and with that, when we talk about the Sun and Moon and lots of fortune and spirit, and the Moon having to do and a lot of fortune having to do with the body, and the health, and the comfort, and the physical well-being. But the Sun and the lot of spirit having to do with our intentionality of what it is that we envision that we want to bring about and then through that being linked with our profession or career sometimes or our actions in the world that arise from some sort of mental construct.
CB: Yeah, those are two significations from Valens I did want to bring up and that’s a good segue which he mentions motion and then action. And the term he uses for action is praxis which means action, literally, but it also came to me in occupation and doings or what you do for work because it’s that which you bring into motion or the way in which you bring something into motion through action in the world.
DG: Right, that’s all absolutely true. And that there was another way in which praxis had the sense of actions, especially connected with the 10th house. And that had to do with actions that were seen as virtuous by which one could gain honor and respect in the eyes of one’s peers. So wasn’t only the actions you did for your occupation, but the actions that you did that gave you a moral accountability were being seen as honorable resulted in privileges or money or good associations, whereas being seen as dishonorable was one of the worst offenses because then not only did you not get certain rewards, but your family was seen as being a dishonorable family because of your actions and denied from positions of privilege, of money, of opportunities, of jobs, educations because of one’s own honorable or dishonorable actions. So that word proxies has a deeper meaning than simply your job. It has to do with your honor and the actions that lead to that. And that sense of honor and justice are very much connected with the Sun.
CB: Okay, that makes sense. And that really ties into his other significations of being honored by portraits, by statues, and by crowns of office, and so on and so forth. Okay. And then other thingsI want to mention before we move off of Valens is when he starts assigning parts of the body, he says that the Sun rules the heart. And I thought that was really important and interesting and again another way that we can link back to the idea of centrality that the Sun or that the heart is literally that organ that pumps blood through the rest of the body. And that while in some instances, it’s like you can lose other organs and still survive if you if your heart is pierced or something, then that can be it for you. I mean, that’s it’s such a central organ that everything else is supported by and flows from and is enlivened by that it sort of in some way is the, I don’t know, not king of the body but something close to that.
DG: Right. And whereas in our contemporary culture we think that the mind is located in our head, in our brain, there were many cultures that believe that the center of the mind was in the heart. And so in that we see this connection in Valens between the Sun ruling both the mind and the heart. While it rules the head in terms of our vision, there may be a way in which it’s located in the heart rather than the head.
CB: Okay. And then the last thing is just it also when it goes to substances says that the Sun rules gold, and gold being the metal associated with the Sun which has been pretty consistent throughout the western astrological tradition. And again, this notion of it not being just central but being the most valued metal in the world.
DG: Right, and the very basic level you can see that gold is the color of the Sun whereas silver is closer to the color of our perception of the Moon.
CB: Right. Yeah, and it’s funny sometimes, like recent stories about famous people or presidents that like to decorate things in gold that had a prominent Leo rising or something like that.
DG: Yeah, that’s the gold standard. Yeah, our money system used to be these bricks of gold stored in the vault.
CB: Right,
DG: Right.
CB: And then, let’s see. I mean, I want to mention one other thing with the heart thing just to go back to that, that sometimes some of these significations can be metaphorical, but sometimes it can be really literal and it can pertain to things like about a person’s heart in some instances.
DG: Yeah, so when you’re doing medical astrology or if you’re looking at– Well, it’s hard because if you’re doing medical astrology, the Moon is the general significator of the body and our health is a set of planetary indicator. But certainly myself being a double Leo, I’ve had like two major heart incidents in my life that have required surgery. And so we could say that people who have strong solar energy or strong Leo energy that the care of the heart should be a concern that they keep foremost in our minds.
CB: Right, or even Valens says not just that the Sun is the all-seeing Sun and the instrument of perception of the soul, but also that from a physical or medical standpoint that it does rule one of the eyes at least if not the eyesight in general. And sometimes like I remember having a transit where I got an eye infection and my Sun was afflicted at the time or something like that. And sometimes you’ll see very literal manifestations in the astrology of your organs of perception being affected when your Sun is getting a serious transit.
DG: Right. And Chris in that optical theory during the ancient time period where they thought that rays coming out of one eye landed upon an object and then the rays that came back into the other eye, I know that you wrote about that and were that emitting rays out of the right eye and the receiving rays coming back into the left eye that was part of the aspects theory.
CB: Yeah, I think that’s part of the reason why we have the idea of overcoming aspects versus hurling rays and through the traditional domicile rulership scheme the notion of rays being emitted by the Sun and Leo and going forward in zodiacal order versus the Moon receiving the rays of the planets from the other signs of the zodiac from Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus forward into its placement in Cancer. So there’s a whole optical theory there tied into ancient optical theories. All right, so that might be good for Valens, I don’t know maybe we should keep moving so we can get through some of the others. I don’t know if they’re– I think we covered most of the core ones from Valens. So, here we’re going to jump forward several centuries. So that was the Hellenistic or the Greco Roman tradition and then the next one you wrote down from the ninth century astrologer Abu Ma’shar was one of the most famous Medieval astrologers that we’ve talked about in a few episodes recently. Do you want to read this one?
DG: Okay. The Sun is a benefic. Its nature is hot and dry. It indicates the animal soul. This is Burnett’s translation but alternate translations have had the life spirit as being another translation of the word use for animals soul. Light, brightness, the intellect, knowledge, intelligence, leaders, leadership, nobility, communities of men, wealth, riches, eloquence, cleanliness, judgment, religion, the life to come, fathers, middle brothers mixing with men, powers over evil men, it brings good fortune, it brings bad fortune, at one time it raises, at another time it brings down.
CB: Okay, and that was from the lesser introduction or The Abbreviation to the Introduction of Astrology of Abu Ma’shar sometime around the middle of the ninth century.
DG: Right. And this was translated by Burnett from the Arabic not the later Latin translation. And I believe then, well, Ben has pieces of this translation, but I think that when he did that he was taking it from the Latin in his Introduction to Astrology book. Do you know for sure about that, Chris?
CB: Yeah, I think he was still doing the Latin at that point. But I’m not positive. But I’m sure since he just translated the greater introduction, maybe he’ll translate the Arabic version of the lesser introduction sometime before too long. All right, so a lot of this is familiar to us from Valens, there’s a lot of continuity even though this is, what, seven centuries later and it’s been translated in a different language now in Arabic and astrology has changed a little bit. There’s still quite a bit of continuity. One of the things that mentions though to come back to an echo one from Valens is family members, and especially the father and just the notion of the father. And this is something that comes up a lot in modern astrology with its psychological bent. And like the focus in the 20th century on psychologically the foundational role that the natives parents have in helping us to form our personality and our habits and our early home life having a lot of impact on who we later become as adults. And the Sun’s role in representing that one point Valens says not just the father, but the person who acts like a father figure to the native and in some ways describing different ways, either about the natives relationship with their father or father figure or something sometimes literally what the circumstances were with that person in general in the person’s life. What are your thoughts about that in terms of like the especially from a modern standpoint, the psychological impact of whatever the father figure is that’s represented in the chart?
DG: Right. Okay, I’m going through my mind now trying to organize because we can talk about the role of the father as being central to the child’s life in the connection with the fourth house. And then that brings us into the whole is the fourth house, the father, the mother. And what is the story on the 10th house being a mother, and then going back to the fourth house is father, so it’s like, do you want to go there?
CB: It depends how–
DG: Is that where you want to go?
CB: No, I think only if you mind getting a few hours.
DG: Okay, then I’ll pull that back.
CB: So we’re at one hour now. So we got one hour to go through the rest.
DG: Okay, so I’ll pull that whole discussion back and say in the time period when Hellenistic astrology was being formulated, that it was the father, after the child was born, the father picking up the child and placing the child on the left on his lap which was a sign that he acknowledged the child as his and gave it legitimacy that allowed the child to inherit the paternal legacy associated with fourth house matters. And so it was the acknowledgement by the father that gave that child his position and status and hence the education and opportunities that it might receive in the course of its lifetime. And so from that point of view, the father had, again, one of the central organizing principles of the child’s life. Then father also comes from the idea of the Sun being the divine masculine, the god, the divine masculine, which then is it filters down becomes the king of the country, and then becomes the father of the household or in some ways, we could go the Oikodespotes or the master of the house or of the estate. And so in those ways, the Sun was seen as a primary paternal symbol. And then Saturn was also seen as a symbol of the Father, but particularly in the night chart that when it’s night and the Sun goes away to wherever it goes to, Saturn then assumes the rulership over the father by night. So they also made that distinction that Sun was the principal of father particularly by day. And Saturn came into his role of that especially by night.
CB: Yeah, and I think that like a lot of the father was a Sun Saturn lot, right?
DG: I don’t know that.
CB: Okay. So one of the things we talked about that’s tied in with this in the Moon episode with Israel Ajose was the notion of the mother being represented by the Moon and the native actually coming from the mother’s body and being with the mother for the first like eight or nine months as a part or extension of her body and the Moon being the closest celestial body to us just in terms of proximity and in terms of the spheres and in that way, at least in terms of the immediacy of one’s parents having a much more immediate and much more physical connection with the mother. But then the Sun’s still being this other huge celestial body that is out there. And that is the other large celestial body that is the same from our vantage point size as the Moon and therefore has an equal or otherwise important role to play in the natives life even if it’s not in an immediate physical connection in the same way that the mother’s role is. How do you feel about that?
DG: Well, this– I don’t know as if I have so much to say the mother is matrix is the body and the nurturing principle that is especially active during the gestation and early years of the child’s life. The father is the– I don’t know if we want to go into conception and sexuality matters, but the father can be connected with the action associated with the sperm that swims and fertilizes the receptive egg. And the father becomes active later, well, becomes more active later in the child’s life, as I said before, establishes the child’s position in society.
CB: Okay. And even just in a modern context like sitting down and let’s talk about not just a purely an ancient context, but looking at people’s charts, I do feel like sometimes with the Sun as a general significator that sometimes close aspects to the Sun can sometimes describe the relationship with the father figure or close aspects to the Moon can describe the relationship with the mother figure in some way. Do you feel like that’s true or that’s shown up for you?
DG: Well, one of the things that I’ve seen is that when the Sun and Moon are in the 12th house, one of the questions I always ask clients was, was there some difficulty or loss associated with your father if it’s the Sun or with the Moon if it’s with your mother? And often the response was, yes, that that was the relationship that had some sort of loss or tragedy connected with them. So in that way, I’ve seen the Sun and Moon reflecting the father and mother relationships.
CB: Yeah. Yeah. And there can be different combinations with that or if it’s really positive thing. Sometimes it’s a conjunction with Jupiter or something in a day chart, maybe the father figure ended up that relationship ended up being better. And if there’s difficulties with the Moon, maybe that relationship was more difficult or vice versa. But just in terms of, sometimes the placement of the Sun or the Moon is just general significator is on their own indicating things about important figures in the person’s life.
DG: Right. I mean, I’ve tried to follow that through in my own chart which is does my Moon indicate, describe my mother and my relationship with her? Or does the ruler of the fourth house which is a different planet more describe my mother or does the ruler of the 10th house which has also been seen as the mother better describe her? And the same process with the Sun and the ruler of the fourth and the ruler of the 10th with my father, and for myself, I’ve never been able to make sense of any of that. So, I don’t know the answer.
CB: Okay. I mean, for me, it’s worked out pretty well because my Sun is in Scorpio and it’s sandwiched in between a conjunction with Saturn in a conjunction with Pluto. And my father passed away when I was like five and most of the delineations early on are the modern psychological delineations of like the late 20th century. There’s some issue with the father and there may be some distance or loss involving the father and even as a general archetypal delineation, that’s pretty straightforward and pretty accurate, I would say. And while it doesn’t always have to be that extreme, I think sometimes even just general delineations like that can be accurate.
DG: Right. In general, my Sun is on the cadent side of my Ascendant, so depending on what you want to do with that. And I also lost my father by the time I was four so that there was a loss associated with that cadent position of the Sun whether or not I want to call it the 12th house or not. So that I’ve seen that I mentioned, but other things I don’t know.
CB: Okay. Do you share your chart or do you mind if we share?
DG: Yeah, certainly. It’s fine. It’s out there in public domain so.
CB: Okay, I’m going to put it up right now if that’s okay.
DG: Yeah.
CB: Okay. So I’ll be right because you also have a Sun Saturn conjunction.
DG: I also have the Sun Saturn conjunction, yes. And from that point of view, Saturn is in my 12th house both by whole sign as well as by quadrant system.
CB: Okay. Yeah, so both of those could be relevant, not just the Sun being on the 12th house side of the quadrant system even though it’s in the first house, but also just within three degrees Sun Saturn conjunction?
DG: Yes.
CB: And that’s also ties into sect and just even though Saturn is supposed to be more constructive and is more constructive in day charts, it’s still especially when the person is young those Saturn aspects can be experienced as real sore points or real major obstacles and difficulties that early in the life are not experienced very easily, but can still be formative obstacles and challenges or difficulties in the native’s life in some way.
DG: Definitely. Right, Saturn’s augmented with not only being in that position, but also being in Cancer, the sign of its detriment or antithesis. And to the extent you associated Saturn with rejection and Cancer is emotions that there were some sort of abandonment principle with the father even though he didn’t voluntarily die, he nevertheless did die and the emotional imprint that the child receives at a point before they can understand what happened is that of abandonment.
CB: Yeah. And I think to me that’s really important. And that’s one of the great, really powerful things I think that modern psychological astrology did develop is just talking about how some of those early life psychological events and things that happen in the first seven years of life can really impact the entirety of the rest of the natives life in very significant ways. And that when I first got into astrology I expected it to be much more concrete and straightforward and predictive, and what I found was like late 20th century modern psychological astrology and that it wasn’t as straightforward and predictive as I would later find that ancient astrology is or was, but the one area where modern astrology was more predictive was in making psychological statements that if you have X configuration, then it may set up these types of family dynamics early in your life and it could lead to X outcome as a result of that. And there was still something that’s very powerful about that to me in some sense.
DG: Right. I totally agree with you there, and my personal position on what is the ultimate value or purpose of astrology has to do with a kind of healing of the soul. And part of that has to do with helping clarify what it is that you can do that brings you to a sense of having a meaningful or purposeful life. And this is where the ancient astrology can help provide a solid foundation for making those understandings or judgments, but it’s ultimately what modern astrology has stressed in terms of psychological healing, that is the value that astrology has to our lives much more so than predicting when some event is going to happen in the future.
CB: Right, the name of one of your previous books from 2008 was Astrology and the Authentic Self and the notion of finding through astrology or astrology helping you to find your authentic self.
DG: Exactly. And this is something that I was influenced in my thinking by Rudhyar who of my generation, almost everyone read Rudhyar and sometimes I smile and that someone will say or we said, “Oh, he completely influenced us.” And then someone asked, “Well, what exactly did he say?” And we would respond, “We don’t know exactly what he said, but he totally influenced our thinking.” But the Sun as our intention, as our vision helps illuminate what our larger purpose is in the world that leads to a meaningful life and thus a happy life that like doing what you can do well and is one of the bases for happiness. And so many of my clients would come in not knowing what they were supposed to be doing and there was endless suffering through trying one thing or another and experiencing failure and disappointment and frustration and so that the Sun can illuminate what that larger agenda is. But the Moon as the Sun’s partner is then how do we bring that into form? How do we manifest it in the everyday world? And this is where the Sun and Moon can work together in having the vision, having the idea, having a side of the agenda, and the Moon is the means by which one actualizes that. And so that was really the underpinnings of Astrology and the Authentic Self is using both traditional and modern astrology to discern what each of those meant and then working the Ascendant in with that is the third point. So that’s one piece. But the other piece that we haven’t mentioned yet that I want to make sure we get in here that has to do with the Sun and Moon is that, we’re starting with the psychological astrology and that’s how we got to that, but that one of the main inquiries of ancient astrologers had to do with longevity and length of life. And by and large, they saw the Sun and Moon as being the primary indicators of where the vital essence or the life force is most concentrated and then they would land upon, ideally, using the Sun or Moon as their starting point for then understanding the trajectory of the life force of the individual. So in those ways, the Sun is more than just our mind, it’s more than just our indication of our life purpose or agenda. It has to do with one of the two factors that indicate indicates the most vital and life-giving source or center within our being.
CB: Right. So, how is our chart and where in our chart are things enlivened or put into some actualization in some way?
DG: Yeah, the enlivening come from the Sun and Moon, in particular, the vision of what we’re supposed to do can be found from the Sun and the understanding of how to actually do it in the world comes from the Moon.
CB: Okay. This then is why your big three is so important. You have your Sun, your Moon and your rising.
DG: Right, exactly. And if I were to use my own chart to illustrate that with the Sun in Leo and the Moon in Gemini, I have often been asked what was it that I most valued in how I live my life and I said to have the freedom to live an intellectually creative life. And one could see that as the Sun in Leo having to do with the mind and creativity. And then my Moon is in Gemini in the 11th house and how have I manifested that through endless teaching and presentations and books and writings, Gemini to 11th house groups of people through the astrological community. And so the Sun generates the vision of the intellectual creativity, the Moon anchors it by bringing that vision into the world.
CB: Okay, brilliant. One piece I meant to bring up in terms of the centrality of the Sun that’s really important that is part of the reason I wanted to talk to you about the Sun more than anybody else is the solar phase cycle and the relationship that all the rest of the planets have. Paula Belluomini helped me make a simplified version of the solar phase cycle diagram, partially connected with yours and partially connected with one that was made by Robert Schmidt, and this shows the synodic cycles of the superior planets Mars and Jupiter and Saturn and their relationship with the Sun because this ties in in two ways. One of them is that we’ve been talking about the role and the power of the Sun to illuminate things and to make them clear or bright as a result of its light, but one of the interesting, contradictory things in the ancient astrology is that when planets get too close to the Sun, they were said to be under the beams when they’re within 15° of it and they’re said to become hidden or not visible. And this is sometimes interpreted in a negative sense in ancient texts when planets get too close to the Sun’s that they get either burnt up by the harsh rays of the Sun or they become invisible. I’ve got that one for the outer planets and then another one for the inner planets, Venus and Mercury. And this one maybe is a little bit more clear for under the beams and when the planets get too close to within 15° of the conjunction with the Sun so the Sun has the power to both illuminate things but also the power to hide or obscure things as well.
DG: Right, okay. Let me start talking about that going back to Greek mythology, and they said that the planets were fiery light and mortals did not want to make the gods appear to them because then they would be consumed and burnt up in the rays of the god. And there’s this mythological story about Dionysus’s mother Semele, who was having an affair with Zeus or Jupiter. And Hera, Jupiter’s wife, became very jealous over the affair and presented herself to Semele with the conversation about you should extract a promise from him and demand that this god who’s visiting you reveal himself. And Jupiter, Zeus, is very reluctant to do that but somehow he got tricked into the promise. And then when he did manifest as fiery light, then she was consumed and burnt up in the flames. And Jupiter, Zeus, managed to rescue the baby, Dionysus, out of her womb before he was born and insert him into a cut in his own thigh and bring him to gestation and birth. And so there’s a warning of don’t get too close to the gods and don’t demand to see them because one will be burnt by their rays. And so, we have this image of a planet being too close to the Sun being under its beams as being debilitated or made weaker. And often when I teach, I say, “Imagine that it’s summertime and you’re living in Arizona and it’s 120° by day at noon and you have to go to the grocery store and you have to walk and it’s three miles away and you’ve walked that distance, you’ve bought a big bag of groceries and then you walk home. And imagine how heat exhausted you might feel at that point. And that’s the kind of debilitation or weakening that occurs when the planet is too close to the Sun. And so, there was different ranges. It became standardized to 15. But even some astrologers like Paulus mentioned, well, 12° was really the range and then
Medieval astrologers gave the combust range to 8° and then sometimes 3° so that there was a gradation that happened. But if a planet was in the heart of the Sun, which for the Medieval astrologers they called Cazimi which was 17 minutes away, or for the Hellenistic astrologers, I believe it was… I’m trying to think. It was Rhetorius who said if it’s 1° on either side of the Sun, then it’s protected then in the heart. And one might imagine the eye at the center of the hurricane being beautiful, calm, sunny, lovely weather where everything else is raging around, or Bonatti mentioned that when you’re in the heart of the Sun, it’s as if the Zeus or the God has picked you up and put you on his lap and that you’re in that state of protection so that there is a belief that when the planet was right there in the center, it was protected from the debilitating rays of the Sun. Now, can you put that diagram back up again?
CB: Sure, hold on just a sec. Let me share one other image. Another myth that it makes me think of also is the myth of Icarus, right?
DG: Right. Icarus flew too close to the Sun ignoring his father’s warning, he was burnt up and he fell to the ground. And so that’s another depiction of the danger of getting too close to the Sun as the deity and his fiery life-giving rays.
CB: Here’s the inner planet diagram. Is that the one you wanted?
DG: Yeah, that’s the one I wanted. And a planet was said that when it made its heliacal set as an evening star and this is the inner planet diagram, yeah?
CB: Yeah, just applies to Mercury and Venus.
DG: Mercury and Venus, okay. Because you have the retrograde here. But even for the outer planet, when a planet becomes its evening star and makes its heliacal set, it was thought to die as it entered the underworld, which was sometimes conceptualized as being under the Sun’s beams was entering into the underworld. And then when it made its helical morning rise, it was believed to be reborn and that was the power of the morning rise position. And that from a mystery initiation perspective, initiation was likened to a journey through the underworld and it was right at the conjunction of the planet with the Sun of being the heart of the Sun where the great mystery took place that had to do with insemination and renewed life that then emerged at the heliacal rise. And so, on an ordinary level, we can see this going under the Sun’s beams as a weakening or debilitation. But on a secret mystery level, we can simultaneously see this as an initiatory process that has to do with, as I said, connecting with the great mystery of life which is how does renewed life come out of death and that one can understand that simultaneously with looking at the chart.
CB: Right. And as the end of one cycle as well as the beginning of another cycle in terms of the planets phase relationship with the Sun?
DG: Exactly. And it’s like when we look at aspects as being one of the main criteria planetary condition, we’re looking at planets aspects with one another and if they actually have them by whole sign or by degree. But when we look at the solar phase cycle, every planet has a relationship with the Sun and that relationship has an interpretive meaning regardless of whether or not there is some kind of aspect between the Sun and the planet. And it’s the planets’ relationship with the Sun that resulted in the visible phenomena that we see associated with planets that have to do with a planet’s speed, whether it’s moving fast or slow, whether it is visible or not visible and whether it’s direct or retrograde motion. So if I can just take you briefly through this process, and I don’t have a pointer but Chris you’ll have to move your cursor. And let’s start with the conjunction. Yeah, when the planet is conjunct the Sun. For the outer planets, the planets are moving very fast at this point in their cycle. And then when they clear the 15-degree point when they’re under the Sun’s beams, they can’t be seen. So even though they’re really fast, they’re invisible. At the 15-degree point heliacal rise is their first visibility, and this was seen as the most auspicious moment in a planet’s cycle that was often seen as flashing on the horizon. And Schmidt coined the word phasis for this point in the cycle where the planets energies are intensified, and its first visibility is a morning star goes back to the earliest Mesopotamian astrology of a planet rising over the rise in the Egyptian astrology with the decan stars making that first appearance after their death in the underworld. Then a planet starts becoming effective at this point in the cycle, it’s heliacal morning rise. It is visible on the sky. It’s moving with faster than average motion at the sextile, average at its first square relative to the Sun. And as it approaches the trine, it begins to slow down and make its retrograde station right around its first trine. And here we’re looking at diurnal motion of the planets that goes in the clockwise direction as opposed to zodiacal motion that moves in the counterclockwise manner.
CB: And that’s a really cool unique thing that most people don’t know, but it’s really important to pay attention to that when any of the outer planets like Mars, Jupiter, Saturn get within that trine of the Sun that they’re going to station retrograde.
DG: Exactly. If they haven’t turned retrograde, yet they’re about to turn retrograde.
CB: This is something you can eyeball like if you know the Sun is in Taurus for example, then you know that planets that are in the upwards trine and the other Earth sign are getting retrograde stationed in Capricorn.
DG: Yeah, and it’s standing still at the station. And then as it moves into its retrograde and this is what is called the achronychal phase, it not only slows down but its appearance in the sky is moving backwards.
CB: So this is the retrograde?
DG: This is the retrograde. And this was considered problematical by ancient astrologers. And again, the teaching image I’ve often used is you have an appointment for a job interview. You’re on the freeway. It’s a straight shot ahead. Traffic’s good. You’re moving along at a great pace. You’re going to get there early and you can have a coffee before it happens. And then all of a sudden there’s an accident in the road. It’s all blocked and there’s a detour sign and they’re taking cars off the freeway onto a service road, and all of a sudden your four lanes of traffic is merged into one. You’re going really slow in the opposite direction of where you’re trying to get to. And the frustration that you feel of being hampered or having your feet tied- which was analogy used in Medieval astrology of shackles around one’s feet as one entered into that retrograde phase. What we have here at that first stationary retrograde is that the planet is strong and then it starts weakening. It continues to be slow through its opposition to the Sun and if you have Mars, Jupiter, Saturn opposite your Sun, it’s going to be retrograde. That’s so crucial. It took me 25 years of being an astrologer before I actually realized that that was the case. That was something that I was never taught as learning astrology.
CB: So we know that anytime you see Mars, Jupiter, Saturn opposite to the Sun or even in the opposite sign from the Sun, they’re always going to be retrograde.
DG: Always going to be retrograde. They’re going to be retrograde from that first station through the opposition. And what happens right around the opposition is the planet that’s been moving slow has a temporary burst of speed. The Medieval astrologers explained these outer planets, superior planets that are opposite as being rebellious or pushing the envelope, so to speak, or erratic in their actions. Then the planets passes that opposition, it’s picking up from its speed, it’s starting to slow down until it becomes stationary again at the second trine at which it returns direct and starting to gain in strength. And then it proceeds toward picking up speed, becoming average at the square, faster than average at the sextile, making its heliacal set at 15° before the Sun, moving very fast and being burned up in the rays. But how this works interpretively that can be very helpful that if you know a planet well, it may still be direct but it’s about to go retrograde, you have this sense of strength starting to weaken. If it’s at its other trine having been retrograde and starting to go direct, it’s like you’ve been the planet is weak, but in its future it’s going to get stronger. So that’s a completely different interpretive quality that you give to the planet being at either of those two points in its cycle.
CB: Right. So, you got to pay attention if a planet stationing is stationing from direct going retrograde or is it going from retrograde direct.
DG: And these stationary points are also considered points of great intensity as is the heliacal set which is at 15° right before it goes into the underworld, which again is a point of weakening. And trying to understand that intensity and weakening, I sometimes see that is what they would call the warrior’s last stand, that you’ve been in a battle and you know that you’re losing, but there’s one last fight to have and all of the troops are rallied and you put on your best show before the descent goes into the underworld. And that’s part of an interpretive intensification that can be understood with the heliacal set and then that rebirth at the beginning of one’s power at the heliacal rise. Understanding where a planet is relative to the Sun and all of these different stages can show if it’s moving faster than average. There’s a lot going on. You’re getting a lot of things done. You’re feeling productive. If it’s moving slower than average, you’re taking your time. Things may need to just stay before they come about. Sometimes people feel depressed when they aren’t taking care of their business or they can’t get motivated, but it’s also understanding that this is not necessarily a time for moving fast, but for rethinking what you thought your plan was generally during that retrograde period and revising it before you start moving again with the direct station. There are all these different ways in which the planet’s relationship with the Sun affects. It’s not only visible in the sky, but it affects how we interpret it.
CB: Yeah, and how that planet functions in the chart. So again, we come back to this idea of the centrality of the Sun and we can see that the Sun’s relationship to all of the other planets really dictates what their condition is, in some ways, with the Sun acting as the central king or powerbroker for all of the other planets. Two things from this, I mean, one of the things is that it seems like some of the basic meanings of the aspects then get tied into the solar phase cycle and things like what is the nature of an opposition, needing to partially understand that within the context of this that for the outer planets, at least, the nature of the opposition partially comes about as a result of the planets being retrograde when they are opposite to the Sun and that may be providing important insight as well as the trines with the Sun and planets stationing retrograde or direct when they’re trines.
DG: Right, the power that comes from that standing still or being totally focused and concentrated for a period of time.
CB: Yeah, so there’s a lot of cool interesting stuff there. And the other thing is planets going under the beams getting interpreted, especially in ancient Hellenistic texts, as both hidden and there’s something hidden about the planet when it’s within 15°. Rhetorius says if the ruler of the lot of marriage is under the beams of the Sun that the person will get married in secret or something like that or have a secret relationship, so sometimes interpreted literally as something hidden or obscure in the person’s life. And the other interpretation was sometimes when the planet is under the beams, they would give an interpretation of an internalization of the significations of the planets where usually they’re giving that in a medical context like Valens says if a planet is indicating something medically and it’s not under the beams of its visible, then it indicates an external, let’s say, ailment or injury to the body whereas if the planet is under the beams that indicates something within the body, an internal ailment of some sort. And I think that might be good way where we could access that from a modern astrological standpoint as being external things versus maybe things that have been internalized in some way.
DG: Exactly. And we could also speak of it from having a powerful inner life as opposed to an outer life of being an introvert as opposed to being an extrovert. It’s not only secret or hidden matters, but of whether one primarily lives in an inner world or an outer world.
CB: Yeah, those parts of us that are internal versus external. And that ties in to the other diagram because the way the solar phase cycle works with the inner planets, Venus and Mercury is a little bit different. Even though there’s similarities, they still have that 15° range for heliacal rise and set, but Mercury and Venus never get more than Mercury 28° away from the Sun and Venus 48° away. So as a result of that, they’ll never get to the point where they’re square or trine or in opposition to the Sun, but they still have a phase relationship to it.
DG: Right. And I’m going to say something here that’s really important that you can’t actually see with this diagram that Mercury and Venus because they don’t have that expanded cycle, they’ll never make a sextile square opposition with the Sun. They have two conjunctions in one complete cycle, and one conjunction is when they’re retrograde, the other conjunction is when they’re are direct. And again, there’s a different interpretive meaning if you have Sun conjunct Mercury and Mercury is retrograde or Sun conjunct Mercury where Mercury is direct. But what’s even more important for people who are starting to look at that 15° range is being a point of intensification that when you see one of these planets at 15° away from the Sun, you can’t tell by simply looking at the chart whether the planet has just made its heliacal rise and is getting stronger or if it’s 15° away and it’s just made its morning set and it’s heading toward being under the beams in its next conjunction to the Sun, which is a place of weakening. And the same thing with after the superior conjunction, these two planets make an evening rise that are 15° away from the sun. But the Medieval astrologers love Mercury and Venus at the evening rise because not only were they direct, but that they were moving fast and they saw that sometimes as being preferable to the morning rise or might be an evening star and being 15° from the Sun and that’s about to make its heliacal set. And again, the heliacal rise and set are interpreted completely differently, but they both hover around that 15° point. So, one has to look at the ephemeris in that case and to see if the distance between the planets is increasing on successive days, they’ve made their rise or if the planet is decreasing in its distance from the Sun on successive days, then they’ve made the set and that becomes of utmost interpretive importance.
CB: Yeah, that’s a really good point. There’s one that you can do that with an ephemeris and I’m going to make a video at some point about how to read an ephemeris so that you can look things like this up, but that’s also another something you can do with astrology software and one of the real wonders of modern astrology software is being able to animate the chart and move it forward or backwards in days in order to see-
DG: Right, if it’s at that point, or it’s moving toward the Sun, or it’s moving away from the Sun.
CB: Yeah, if you just like animate a chart day by day and keep moving it forward one day at a time, you’ll see if Mercury and Venus if they’re increasing their distance from the Sun or if they’re decreasing it.
DG: Right. When I was trying to set this in place and especially for writing and teaching about it, I plotted Mercury’s distance from the Sun on graph paper for the period of a year and show that rising and setting above and beneath the horizon with its retrograde and direct periods. And one of the things that we see particularly with mercury cycle is that there are different amount of days for it in each cycle having to do with when it’s under the beams and when it’s gray this elongation, which is sometimes said to be the optimal period for working with one’s intellect and we see that variability in the cycle. And this is where I feel like, again, I’m old school, having that familiarity with the ephemeris makes the cycle more embodied than looking at a rotating wheel on screen and understanding what’s actually happening with the planet speed and motion relative to the Sun.
CB: Yeah, especially somebody asked me just last night on social media, what ephemeris, and I always recommend The American Ephemeris because it’ll show the retrograde phases, it’ll shade them when the planets retrograde so you’ll see the different color for that number of days. And people should just get like The Midnight American Ephemeris and that’s a great starting point. All right. Now you have even more detailed, these are like simplified versions of these diagrams just because I didn’t want to confuse people too much, but you have full chapters that go into this. And this is something I glossed over in my book and basically, I have a footnote where I said you’ll deal with it more in yours and you did have several chapters going into the solar phase cycle.
DG: Right, like close to 100 pages on this.
CB: Right, this is all a lot that we’re throwing out because it’s a teaser. But if people want to learn more about the solar phase cycle and the two different sets of phase relationships that the Sun has with the inner planets, Mercury and Venus, versus with the outer planets, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, and what the interpretive values are, you’ve got just pages and pages and you also have worksheets in the book of how to interpret this in your chart. Yeah, okay. So, people can check that out. That book is Ancient Astrology in Theory and Practice: A Manual of Traditional Techniques and Volume One on Assessing Planetary Condition is the one that has the solar phase cycle stuff.
Okay, so let’s go ahead and resume. I just wanted to read through some of the authors really quickly. One more traditional author in order to wrap up talking about the significations of the planets according to ancient authors, and that’s when we get to the 17th century and the first major English textbook on astrology which is William Lilly. And here’s a picture just showing his different significations of the planets and they’re much more extensive because he breaks it up into different categories like what the Sun signifies when it’s well placed in the chart versus when it’s poorly placed or afflicted, what it indicates medically or what it indicates in terms of the person’s appearance and different things like that. Let me read through just a few of those really quickly. Here it is on the screen. This is from Christian Astrology in 1647. It says, the nature of the Sun is masculine, diurnal, hot and dry, choleric, a fortune if well-dignified. People signified kings, princes, emperors, dukes, marquesses, earls, barons, lieutenants, deputy lieutenants of counties, magistrates, gentlemen in general, courtiers, desires of honor and preferment, justices of peace, majors, high sheriffs, high constables, great huntsmen, stewards of noble men’s houses, the principal magistrate of any city, town castle or country village. Yea, though a petty constable where no better or greater officer is, goldsmiths, pewters, coppersmiths, mentors of money, manners when well-dignified, very faithful, keeping their promises with all punctuality, a kind of itching desire to rule and sway where he comes, prudent and of incomparable judgment, of great majesty and stateliness, industrious to acquire honor and a large patrimony. Yet as willingly departing there with again, the solar man usually speaks with gravity, but not many words, and those with great confidence and command of his own affection, full of thought, secret trustee speaks deliberately and notwithstanding his great heart yet he is affable, tractable and very humane to all people, one loving, sumptuousness and magnificence and whatever is honorable, no sordid thoughts can enter his heart. Then Lilly goes on and he says, however, manners when the Sun is badly placed in the natal chart, then the solar man is arrogant and proud, disdaining all men, cracking up his pedigree. He is purblind in sight and judgment, restless, troublesome, domineering, a mere vapor, expensive, foolish, intude with no gravity and words or soberness in actions, he’s spendthrift, wasting his patrimony and hang on other men’s charity yet thinks all men are bound to him because a gentleman born. Yeah. That’s quite expanded in terms of the psychological or character descriptions of the Sun as it’s placed in a person’s natal chart.
DG: Right. And what’s good that Lilly brings out is when the Sun is operating in a beneficial way as opposed to the Sun not so. And what we might say a good Sun is warm, radiant, creative, loyal, generous, life-giving, but a Sun that is problematical. And we may see this through the Sun sign or through its domicile lord or through the aspects it has. The Sun can be overly prideful and rigid. It can be arrogant. It can be become domineering. It can be completely self-centered unless all the attention is on you, then the world is not right. And we can see individuals who always want to be the center of attention or in the limelight, which becomes boring, almost it’s like consuming all the air in the room. And then this is like too much Sun, but not enough Sun of having a deficiency and that can make one not have very much energy or be apathetic about life or a low life force and vitality, a weakness, a lack of confidence, a fear of putting oneself out there. We have that range between the optimal Sun and too much of a good thing and not enough of a good thing happening at the extremes.
CB: Right, that makes a lot of sense. All right, let’s shift then now to the modern authors where I’ve got two or three modern authors to see how it started being talked about in the 20th century where there’s some continuity and some differences. The first excerpt is from Reinhold Ebertin in his book, The Combination of Stellar Influences, that was written originally in German I think in 1940. Ebertin says, “The principle of the Sun is spirit, mind, and the living being.
DG: Right, that’s Valens. Right from the very beginning that has remained.
CB: So, psychological correspondences and then it gives a plus sign, so positive, the will to live, the urge to rule, the striving for an objective, organization, the ability to make a decision, which is really interesting, the notion of decisiveness.
DG: Right. And being the central organizing principle that sometimes characterizes a leader. You go into a situation that’s all over the place and chaotic and you take charge, and one of the ways you take charge is by organizing, you do this and you do that and etc., and coordinate all of the different pieces so it operates effectively as a whole.
CB: Yeah, that’s the person that steps up and takes charge and says you do this and you do this and in the most positive manifestation then everything works out because somebody is putting thought into the organization and is directing things around them. Whereas in the most negative one, it’s something that’s somebody who’s trying to steal the spotlight and is becoming domineering or something like that.
DG: Right. It’s knowing what you can delegate and what you can’t.
CB: Right. All right. He then says the negative points are lack of vitality and willpower, lack of determination and organization, indecision or vacillation. Great, okay. Biological correspondence, he says health, vitality, the heart, the circulation, the body, the cell. Sociological correspondence, man, father, authority, leading personality, official or civil servant.
DG: Right. For the most part, Ebertin mirrors the ancient sources.
CB: Yeah, there’s a lot of continuity here. Then we skip forward. This excerpt is from Richard Tarnas in his book Cosmos and Psyche, which came out in 2004, 2005. He says, the Sun, the central principle of vital creative energy, the will to exist, the impulsing capacity to be, to manifest, to be active, to be central, to radiate, to shine, to rise above, achieve, illuminate and integrate, the individual will and personal identity, the seat of mind and spirit, the animus, the executive functions of the self or ego, the capacity for initiative and purposeful assertion, the drive for individual autonomy and independence, directed and focused consciousness and self-awareness, the centrifugal expression of the self, the trajectory of self-manifestation, ascent and descent, the ruler of the day sky and of the clearly visible, the single source of luminosity that overcomes the encompassing darkness, the monocentric, Yang, the part that contains the hole in potentia, sol and all solar deities, the archetypal hero and its many forms. That’s Tarnas and Tarnas is bringing in a bunch of different elements. Some of those are ancient and some of those are modern like Jung’s idea I think right of anima and animus
DG: Right. Although we could say that the Sun was God as the divine masculine which then on the psychological level becomes the animus so it’s a direct derivative of that principle.
CB: Right. And then also notions of like ego and the concept of ego which again, has ancient precursors, but also talking about like a modern psychological sense as well.
DG: Right. Ascent and descent, I realized because you had Abu Ma’shar, the fortunes rise and the fortune fall, a line like that. And it’s just looking at the basic motion of the Sun, the Sun rises and then the Sun falls and so we have those ups and downs that it symbolizes on the daily level.
CB: Yeah. And then the final excerpt I had was actually from your book and we read it last time with the episode with Israel because it nicely integrates some of the ancient and modern notions in your 2009 book, Astrology and the Authentic Self and even though you’re here and we’ve talked about it, we might as well read the excerpt still today. It says, the Sun signifies the radiant core. Actually, why don’t you read it since you’re the author if you feel like it?
DG: Okay. The Sun signifies the radiant core of a person’s essence, the soul, the mind and consciousness, the life force and vitality, the basic sense of selfhood, the purpose of life, and the source of the will for accomplishing that purpose. I’m writing this to my students. Keep in mind that the Sun describes both the basic nature of the individual and the life purpose as an expression of that nature, thus what we do in terms of living a meaningful life is simply who we are on an essential level. The Ascendant ruler points to the capacity of the personality to accomplish a life goal that is motivated by the core drive. The Sun by its sign and health positions describes the nature of the underlying purpose striving toward expression. What is it that you’re here to do, what is that vision? And that is an expression of who you are and what brings you to a sense of having a happy, fulfilled, successful life, of doing what you’re built to be and doing it well.
CB: Right. Yeah, I like how you integrated some notions of purpose and almost the last phrase was underlying purpose striving towards expression and there’s almost this notion of destiny or fate or moving towards something in the, I don’t know if evolution is the right word because that gets overused in modern astrology, but this notion of… What’s that? There’s like a term like teleology in ancient philosophy and the notion-
DG: Teleology, right. Right, so everything is moving towards some final purpose or sense of completion. And that’s the root word of apotelesmatic, which was the name of several astrology books from the Hellenistic period of things being brought to their intended purpose as the final combination of the proverb process.
CB: Yeah, and the word that the astrologers used for the title of their books, even that Ptolemy use was apotelesmatic, which means the study of outcomes or the study of whatever that means the end of things.
DG: Right. Yeah, there’s this passage in Aristotle that is alluding to this where he says that an acorn is going to turn into an oak tree and that teleology the final purpose for which the acorn is intended is the oak tree. It’s not going to turn into a rather short carrot. And so that then becomes this symbol for a way to look at our chart of what is our chart constructed to be able to bring to a sense of complete fulfillment at the end of our life. And if we can see that, how can we cooperate with being able to do well, that which we are wired or intended to be?
CB: Right, that makes a lot of sense to me and something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, there was a thread recently on Twitter that was started by an astrologer named Dina at dinarising where they said they’re having a crisis about what the birth chart actually is and what it all means. And then a friend of mine, Jo Gleason, chimed in saying that they wanted to separate that from the question of what is astrology, which is a huge thing, and they mentioned my definition of astrology which is that it’s “the study of the correlation between celestial and earthly events” and noticed how that just describes the phenomenon, but it doesn’t really describe what astrology is about or what it’s doing. And she started heading in the direction of her thoughts lately, we’re going towards animism and that being an underlying thing. But something I’ve been thinking about recently was astrology and its connection with time and I was rewatching this old video about the notion of whether the fourth dimension of reality is time and if time is a dimension in and of itself and if there’s some sense in which if at all time is happening simultaneously but for us, we can only experience it in these small slices of time from moment to moment where we’re living in one moment and we have a past that stretches out behind us and a future that stretches out in front of us but we can’t really see time in its totality. But there’s something weird about astrology because it almost is like the ability to see time in its totality or at least as far as your life is concerned.
DG: Right, it’s being able to see the acorn and the oak tree. It’s being able to see the intended completion of the inception.
CB: It’s like taking if you were to look at the acorn and being able to see the entirety of life of that that stretched out like a snake in front of the timeline of the acorn until it eventually grows into a tree and reaches its fullest potential.
DG: And going back to the Sun, that our whole measure of time has developed so that the Sun is the primary timekeeper, the ticker.
CB: Right. Yeah, yeah, and the thing that is setting the stage for everything else, in some sense especially-
DG: Right, and then going back to being the central organizing principle.
CB: Right, which is interesting not just because it’s not just the central principle in terms of the synoptic cycles of the planets that we were talking about earlier and all of their phase relationships to the Sun dictating whether they’re direct or retrograde and different things like that, but also especially for Western astrologers that use the tropical zodiac since the second century, the Sun is also what dictates the zodiac as well and the different signs of the zodiac because they’re based on the solstices and the equinoxes which are different periods in terms of the phase relationship between the Sun and the Earth and different periods of the length of the days and the length of daylight versus night and different parts of that cycle having a foundational principle that becomes the zodiac and those different qualities of the signs based on the relationship of the Sun and the equinoxes and the solstices.
DG: Exactly. And on the simplest level, the Earth orbital period around the Sun sets the concept of our calendar and the days of the year and then how that’s divided up and how that regulates our lives at this point, you know? What season is it? Is it a Monday or Friday to starting work or finishing work, we have our weekend? It’s like bringing it down into the hours of the day when we go to sleep, when we eat our lunch and it’s all generated from the solar motion.
CB: Right, everything comes from the Sun. And even though we have different interpretive principles from the Sun and what the Sun’s position is in the natal chart and what it describes or says about your personality or the animating force in your life or in your birth chart and maybe even underlying your psyche in some sense or your soul or whatever you want to call that, there’s also other underlying notions of your potentiality and the timing and sequence of your life and your growth as like a being or an organism as long as you’re here in your body during the course of your lifetime.
DG: Right. And one point we didn’t bring out so much but it was mentioned by a number of the different authors is that the Sun represents your will and your willpower and how with a strong and beneficent Sun, sometimes the will drive the life force through all kinds of obstacles or impediments that a person with a weaker will might cave under or respond to and the will can just push through and push forward as it’s striving for that expression. And so, having will, having willpower, having that as part of one’s life force is one of the keys to understanding energetically the nature of the Sun.
CB: Yeah, and that’s really that’s so important and that’s touches on so many different areas, not just psychologically and in terms of actions and the way that we act and actualize our will or willpower, but also even other areas like when I did an episode a year ago with Austin on astrology and magic and I hadn’t thought about the concept of magic much, but once I started looking into it and researching like the Picatrix and different things and I was trying to come up with a definition of it, I realized a really good definition was that it seemed like they’re trying to actualize or actualize their will in some way and make whatever they willed to become manifest in some way through magical or occult means, but that you’re doing something similar with electional astrology when you’re trying to actualize your own will or what you want to happen by choosing different moments in time to initiate the action.
DG: Right, choosing a moment that will eventuate in a desired result.
CB: Right. Yeah, I like that, the notions of potential reality and teleology and different things like that as being tied into the Sun and the notion of the Sun in the chart. All right. There’s a few other things that go along with that that we didn’t get into that we don’t have to, but there’s also solar techniques in astrology like secondary progressions and every day symbolizes a year in the person’s life every day after the day the person was born and there’s a lot of interesting stuff in that in terms of the potentiality that’s inherent in the transits that you’re having in the first month or two of your life manifesting over the course of the rest of your life. There’s also solar arc directions which is kind of actually similar to secondary progressions where you’re directing the Sun about a degree per year until it meets different aspects with different planets in the natal chart. There’s solar houses which is basically like Sun sign astrology and doing whole sign houses from the Sun’s position, which is basically what Sun sign horoscopes are more or less, right? And the greater focus of Sun sign astrology in 20th century astrology.
DG: Right. Many astrologers who don’t have a birth time will use solar houses and interpret them as if they reflect the birth time and I guess this is what Sun sign astrology in its better form is based off of. So, when astrologers say if you have like Virgo or Virgo rising, then these are the indications for you for this period of time. But I would like to say one thing about progressions being based on the motion of the Sun in the days after the birth, Rudhyar spoke about that always impressed me as being very profound. And he said, “Why should it be that the first 90 days after birth were in secondary progressions each day corresponds to a year of a life? Why should the positions of the planets on those days be able to describe the entirety of the life using secondary progressions?” And he said that it takes the Earth a year to orbit around the Sun. And the first nine months of our life are spent in the womb where we’re gestating. And biologists have shown that in the stages of our gestation from the first cell to when we’re born, we capitulate all of the stages of evolution since the division of the first cell. We recapitulate all of time in that. So, one could speculate that in the first three months after our birth that completes that solar revolution that the events that happened on those days would fast forward us into the remainder of our life. And that to me, it was fascinating that what happens to us in the first 90 days after birth, each one of those days is a mini encapsulation of that corresponding year of our life so we symbolically live through the entirety of our lives in the first three months, and that’s the frame through which secondary progressions is operating.
CB: I love that. It’s a mirror image of the gestation period, basically. That’s really cool. I like that. And then one other point also to mention to wrap this up is that we celebrate the birthday when the Sun comes back to its position every year after our birth and we also have the other technique of the solar return chart where you cast a chart for the return of the Sun on your birthday each year and that chart is supposed to act like a mini birth chart for the following year itself. Yeah.
DG: Right. And a say like maybe if you’re a renter that every year on the same day, you renew your lease. So that can be like what that solar return moment is, and if you need to change any things in your lease at that point, you do. But it’s making that agreement or commitment or initiation of the next period of the year.
CB: Yeah. And what kind of terms your landlord’s going to give you like your pipes are going to burst in the bathroom that year or what have you. Yeah, I like that. All right, thank you so much for joining me for this-
DG: Yeah, it’s always a pleasure, Chris, to share these moments with you both on screen and off screen as well.
CB: Yeah. Well, we talk a lot even just normally about stuff, but then it’s nice to have it recorded for something like this and to just riff with you on different stuff like two astrologers do in private conversations. I can’t recommend enough if people want to learn more about the Sun and especially the solar phase cycle stuff to check out your book, Ancient Astrology in Theory and Practice Volume One, which is out and available now and people can order from pretty much anywhere. Volume Two, like I said, I think is going to go on sale on the Rubedo Press website starting next month.
DG: Yes, a few weeks actually on the Jupiter ingress into Pisces. Aaron Cheak will make the announcement that it’s ready to go up. Its publication will be forthcoming, but pre-ordering can happen soon.
CB: Brilliant. Well, here’s the Rubedo Press website where it has the first book and reviews and I think you can read a preview of it and everything else. And then if you go to the bottom of their website, there’s a little thing for the mailing list and that’s probably the best way to get the notification about when the next book comes out.
DG: Yes, that’ll come directly from them with all of the clicks for pre-ordering. And then I’ll also send out an announcement on my mailing list that you can access through my website demetra-george.com for that as well and other things that I’m doing.
CB: Cool. For those watching the video version, your website at demetra-george.com. And I know you also have recordings of workshops on using solar return charts and perfections and other things like that, right?
DG: Right, the whole gamut of both traditional and modern astrology. And the other part of my life’s work has been with the asteroids and the mythic archetypes and there’s a lot of material on that as well. But both interests, the ancient astrology and the mythology go back to my interest in antiquity as a historian.
CB: Brilliant. and people can check out the episode we did a year ago on asteroids. And oh, you actually have a workshop on using the ephemeris so that probably covers some of that stuff we were talking on earlier.
DG: Yeah, using ephemeris and how to look at your transits using the ephemeris and interpret them.
CB: Cool. And there’s the workshop on annual profections and solar returns and other workshops on asteroids and other stuff. Awesome, so people can find that at demetra-george.com. Do you have anything else we should mention coming up this year? You’re speaking at NORWAC next month, right?
DG: Speaking at NORWAC, I’m speaking at ISAR, speaking for the Astrological Association in Great Britain. I’m doing a weekend for Astrology Toronto in June, a three-day weekend. And then I have several four-week courses that will be offered through Astrology University in the summer and in the fall. So there’s a lot of work happening in the next six months.
CB: Yes, you’re going to be busy, plus with the book coming out and anything else. Good. All right. Well, keep up the good work. Thanks a lot for joining me today. I appreciate it.
DG: Oh yes, and the Canadian astrologers are having a conference. Let me not forget them, dear friends. I’m giving the keynote for that on integrating modern and traditional astrology.
CB: Awesome. Well, people should sign up for your newsletter for more about that whenever you have stuff going on. Thanks for joining me today and thanks everybody for watching or listening to this episode of The Astrology Podcast and we’ll see you again next time.
DG: Okay. Goodbye, everyone.
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