The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 345, titled:
April 2022 Astrology Forecast
With Chris Brennan, Austin Coppock, and special guest co-host Samuel F. Reynolds
Episode originally released on March 30, 2022
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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 April 6, 2022
Copyright © 2022 TheAstrologyPodcast.com
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CHRIS BRENNAN: Hey, my name is Chris Brennan and you’re listening to The Astrology Podcast. In this episode, we’re going to be talking about the astrological forecast for the month of April 2022. Joining me today are astrologers Austin Coppock and special guest co-host, Samuel F. Reynolds. Hey guys.
SAMUEL REYNOLDS: Hey.
AUSTIN COPPOCK: Hey, hey.
CB: All right. First, I’m going to give a little overview of the month ahead using our planetary alignments calendar and then we’ll jump into a more detailed discussion and forecast immediately after that. Let me first share the calendar here. Here’s a brief rundown of the astrology of April. So we start off the month with a New Moon in the sign of Aries right away on April 1st followed by a Mercury cazimi on the 2nd April. Then after that we have one of our major alignments of this month, which is a Mars-Saturn conjunction in Aquarius on April 4th, followed by Venus ingressing into Pisces on the 5th April. The following week, Mercury moves out of Aries and moves into Taurus on the 10th and then we get our second major conjunction this month and the main outer planet conjunction that’s taking place which is a Jupiter-Neptune conjunction that goes exact on April 12th. A couple days later Mars moves out of Aquarius and into Pisces finally, then we get a Full Moon on the 16th in the sign of Libra. The Sun moves into Taurus on the 19th, and then finally at the very end of the month, Mercury ingresses into Gemini. There’s a solar eclipse in the sign of Taurus and Pluto will station retrograde at 28° of Capricorn. So those are the main things we’ll be talking about today, here is all of that plotted onto a 12-sign sort of illustration of the zodiac so you can see how all the planets are basically clustered up and moving through just three or four signs this month, which are Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, and Taurus aside from that little Full Moon that’s happening in the sign of Libra later on. All right, so that’s the overview. Let’s first introduce our guests. Sam, thanks for joining us today. This is your first time. You’ve been on the podcast many times in the past but it’s your first time doing a forecast with us so thanks for joining us.
SR: That’s correct, thank you for having me.
CB: Yeah. And the three of us actually all go back again to the MySpace days back circa 2005-2006. I think all three of us started interacting first back then.
SR: Well, he was Baron Samedi.
CB: Right, most people don’t know that, actually don’t know what that refers to at this point.
AC: Yeah, it’s been a while. Did we interact on MySpace, or was it like an earlier conference?
SR: I think we did. I mean, I talked to you a few times I think when you were the Baron.
AC: Okay. Okay.
SR: Yeah. But I don’t know if we did a lot of talking.
AC: Yeah. Anyway, it’s 15 years ish?
SR: Or more, like 17 years. Yeah, 17 years or so.
CB: Yeah, that is weird to say. So today we’re gonna be talking about the forecast for the following next month of April. We’re recording this today on Friday, March 25 2022. We started at about 12:15 pm here in Denver, Colorado, just for the record. We’re going to start with a little bit of review and talking about some of the astrology that has happened over the past month and how that turned out since the last time we did a forecast about four weeks ago. And then eventually, we’re going to jump into a detailed breakdown of the astrology of April. We need to start with current events and what’s been going on in the news. Obviously, one of the major things that happened that actually started officially finally, I think later, the same night of or within 24 hours of us recording our last forecast, the war between Russia and Ukraine was launched literally that same night. It was the main focus of our last forecast and we spent a lot of time talking about it, and then of course for obvious reasons, it’s really dominated the news and the focus and attention of much of the world over the course of the past few weeks, especially as we’ve had that interchange that we focus on so much between the conjunctions of Mars and Venus, and now both of those planets piling up in Aquarius along with Saturn. So, where should we start when it comes to that or what comes to mind? What have you guys been thinking about astrologically when it comes to that?
SR: Let me start with the egregiously literal part of it. We were looking at for much of the astrology of March was Venus being bodily between Mars and Saturn, which is in the traditional literature referred to as a besiegement. And seeing that besiegement happen in the sky and then having the news on a daily basis being about besieged cities was impossible to ignore. It’s like, “Oh, it’s besiegement.” You know, we have the besieged cities and the idea of being caught between resonates on a couple different levels. You know, Ukraine has been caught between Eastern and Western forces for a long time. And then we also have, you know, some of the strategy of attack has been literally to pincer or come at cities from multiple sides. And that’s exactly the excruciatingly literal condition of Venus being pincered by Mars and Saturn.
CB: Right, and that condition in Hellenistic astrology in the Greek texts they originally called enclosure, but then by the Mediaeval period with authors like Guido Bonatti, it was being called literally besiegement because the planet is surrounded on all sides by difficult planets and it was thought to show things very literally like that. But you’re right, that is really a literal manifestation of that that’s been happening over the course of the past month, and is also a continuation of just Venus has been in terrible shape for months now since December when it went retrograde in Capricorn conjunct Pluto. And then eventually once it started coming out of that, it was conjoined by Mars. Now it’s enclosed by both malefics and it’s not until April actually that we finally see some resolution of that with Venus moving out of that configuration and moving into Pisces, the sign of its exaltation, where it eventually conjoins Jupiter. But it’s been surprising how literal some of that is with the themes that Venus represents like peace and accord between people or between nations actually being almost under attack here over the past month or so.
SR: Yeah, and I think one other thing just to bring it home or closer to home, it’s interesting to think about what I’ve talked about on your show, thanks to Nick Dagan Best in terms of Venus being a morning star coming out of her retrograde. You know, I expected things to be a lot worse in terms of racial relations in our country in the US than they have been. So I think it’s interesting to think about this Venus who is as a morning star coming out of a retrograde, usually kind of going coterminously with some other issues that usually happen in our country. And we’ve had some of that but we’ve also had some resolutions, interesting resolutions with convictions, you know, even things related to Jussie Smollett. I think it comes under that sway. So it’s an interesting thing to think about that as difficult as it has been for Venus, it still hasn’t come out with complete disasters and all these other things.
CB: Right. Yeah, for sure. Compared to some of the other Venus retrogrades where that was much more of the focus. I think that was the previous Venus retrograde before this one, right?
SR: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
CB: It was June of 2020. Yeah. And then one of the things that’s been very relevant and very obvious also is just a lot of Saturn return themes have been coming up connecting this period with a time period 30 years ago. On the one hand, we had Ukraine declaring its independence in 1991 and becoming an independent state and breaking away from the Soviet Union. That happened in 1981 when Saturn was in Aquarius, and now Saturn has returned back to Aquarius so we’re seeing a sort of challenge of that, and returning back to a reviewing of what happened 30 years ago and that attempt to break away from that other larger country. But then interestingly at the same time, the modern Russian state, the Russian Federation and the fall of the Soviet Union was completed in 1991 and the current Russian state was started in 1991. So that’s also experiencing its Saturn return. And it’s been interesting, you know, that at the time was sort of like a fledgling attempt to turn Russia into a democracy and now with the Saturn return, it seems like that’s being sort of canceled out or turned on its head in some ways.
SR: Yeah. Go on, Austin.
AC: [00:09:05] [Saturn returns all want to do pressure tested. Right?]
SR: Yeah. For both. I mean, for Russia and for the Ukraine. And then one thing I have to tie in because this is also the Saturn return for the World Wide Web, is that we have a moment where things are related to the web. Because I think this would be a completely different war or incursion or special operation if we didn’t have the World Wide Web. I think this would look very different for all countries involved. I think the other thing is that we often talk about one of the countries winning the information war related to it. I think that’s another testimony to Saturn’s return for the World Wide Web.
AC: Yeah, absolutely. We were talking the other day, and this is in some senses the first internet war. Yes, there have been wars while we’ve had the internet but I’m reminded of what happened 30 years ago during the first Gulf War where many people were like, “Oh, this is the first fully televised war,” you know, you could watch the tracers going up in the sky over Baghdad. And there was television before, the Vietnam War for example was covered, but not 24-hour news cycle like it was in ’91. And this is like, you know, the internet has achieved 24-hour news cycleness in a way that it didn’t have 18 years ago. And then there’s also, as people are looking at the conflict and looking at ways that it could escalate, one of the very real ways that it could escalate is cyber attack. Right? Like that’s now a huge strategic consideration that hasn’t been as prominent feature before.
CB: Right. And also just a war of public opinion as well, and seeing what that looks like in the modern age in this interconnected international world at this point where all the economies are interconnected so much. What happens when a country does initiate something like this and then all of the other countries that have reacted very strongly to Russia initiating the war and imposed really hard sanctions, and suddenly Russia being super isolated in terms of the international community in so many international or Western businesses pulling out and a lot of symbolic endings, even of some somewhat minor things like McDonald’s which opened up its first store in Russia in like 1990 during the fall of the Soviet Union closing its stores completely and pulling out this year, which even though that’s a smaller relatively minor thing, there’s a lot of interesting symbolic things like that. But also, it’s just making me think of Aquarius and in terms of the international communities and relations, and what happens when some of those relationships grow cold as a result of actions and things like this.
SR: Yeah, someone just mentioned in the chat about 1991 babies getting it hard. But it just hit me that they may not be the only ones dealing with this and how we’re dealing with the aftermath of a couple different things. One, is kind of the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in Aquarius from 2020 and how we now are in a certain age related to air. But it also makes me think about the mutation from 1980 1981, which also kind of is a key development related to the tech age or what becomes the cyber age. In terms of personal computing, Max Headroom coming in a little later in the 80s, and then just kind of the explosion that happens in 1980/81 related to bringing more people together through things like even later MTV. So we’ve been on this brink of globalization for about 40 years and this is the first full challenge I think we’ve had to globalization. We saw some measure of it during the pandemic, but now with Russia going toward this profound isolation and having to think more about things after the pandemic, I think we’re dealing with a lot of issues related to air on top of the pandemic which is also airborne.
AC: I’m super glad you brought that up, I think that’s dead-on. I’m also glad you brought up Max Headroom. [laughter] But so in my trying to understand the age of air by looking at previous historical iterations, there seems to be- The wind has the power to scatter, right? Wind doesn’t push things together. Earth Kind of gloms things together into a structure which is reliable but can also be imprisoning but it’s structural, whereas air scatters things, which can create freedom but also disorganization and chaos and decentralization. And, you know, there’s a good argument to be made that the events in Eastern Europe right now are triggering a wave of deglobalization or a breakdown of what had been reliable global trade networks. And that’s pretty important. For example, there are a number of countries or places all over where it’s like, “Oh, I can get fresh avocados in Canada, right, at whatever time of year.” That’s a result of trade networks. And on a more Uranus and Taurus level, Russia is the number one exporter of wheat in the world and Ukraine is number five. And so the countries that don’t make wheat but depend on wheat are going to feel that link broken.
SR: Absolutely. Yes, Syria… I mean, many countries in the Middle East, some parts of Africa, definitely maybe even Europe is going to feel some measure of this pinch. It’s definitely going to be the net result not just of this special operation but also in terms of what other things may break down. And we’ve been experiencing problems with the supply chain for about two years. So this is almost like– I won’t say crescendo because we don’t know where this goes– but it is kind of another telling moment, one of the Saturnian moment.
AC: Yeah. I associate the breakdowns in the logistics stuff and wildly fluctuating prices of commodities very strongly with Uranus and Taurus. Like, Taurus is those steady fundamental things like, “Yep, bread.” Anyway, we’ve had Uranus and Taurus being pretty active and what’s coming up or actually the period we’ve just entered into as of last fall was that the north node and the eclipse axis moved into Taurus so we’ve got a couple sets of big Rahu eclipses on Uranus juicing it with steroids. And so and knowing that that’s coming up and that we have Mars visiting Taurus over the– was it the beginning of the third quarter? You know, you can see these grain prices shooting up, there’s also the issue with fertilizer. All of this Uranus in Taurus basic foodstuff, the disruption markers are there in the transits we know are coming.
CB: Yeah, and let me share some charts to ground some of what we’re saying a little bit. I was doing some research. So this is the chart, there’s several different charts for Russia but this is the symbolic moment at the end of 1991 on December 25th when the flag of the Soviet Union was lowered and the flag of the Russian Federation was raised for the first time. I was having some issues with the timezone at least in Solar Fire so the degree may not be correct but the rising sign should be correct for Leo rising. And we can see Saturn there at 5° of Aquarius just in terms of talking about that Saturn return and the attempt to sort of start democracy in Russia at that time and now how that’s turned out 30 years later as we come full circle and it seems to be almost back where it started in some ways. Then elsewhere we’ve got the chart for Ukrainian independence set for August 24th, 1991. I think this is correct, I had to do some weird things with the timezone but it should be Capricorn rising, and Saturn is at one degree of Aquarius in that chart. So again, also experiencing its Saturn return and initially breaking away from a country and now one full cycle revisiting that and attempting to still maintain its independence but that really coming under fire at this time. And then finally, we also have a time chart interestingly for the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy who’s become such a focal point and a figure over the course of the past month with so much focus on him because he’s leading the country and because he’s stayed in the capitol during the invasion and continued to try to sort of rally his troops and rally the country in order to fight off the invasion. He started out as a comedian and then became president a few years ago after running a successful campaign. In his chart, we actually have some interesting Aquarius placements with a Sun-Venus conjunction in the ninth whole sign house of five Aquarius and then the midheaven at 20° of Aquarius. And I’m really interested in that placement because that means Saturn is transiting over his midheaven right now in the ninth whole sign house, and he has this defining act of like, you know, the main thing that he’s going to be known for is being the president when Ukraine was invaded by another country and potentially the attempt to take it over or whatever comes from this. But nonetheless, seeing that transiting Saturn placement right on his midheaven right now is pretty striking.
AC: Yeah. I was really struck immediately when I looked at this chart with the fact that he has Mars and Saturn in the same sign opposite where Mars and Saturn are right now. Like, that Mars-Saturn energy is part of the natal chart and this is activating it on the same axis. And although it is intercepted by aspect, if you look at Leo, the Moon is between Mars and Saturn. So you have the same bodily enclosure or besiegement of the Moon, which is parallel to what’s been happening in the sky except that it’s Venus in the sky. And he actually has Venus in Aquarius, which is where Venus has been besieged. And so this pattern of besiegement is there in the natal chart and it’s really interesting that that got activated.
SR: And even the volatility. I mean, the volatility is also there with the Moon-Uranus Square related to his presidency, coupled with the idea of how he became president. No one really probably would have expected him some years ago to become president. I mean, first he was playing the president on TV in a show and then he becomes the president. So kind of the wild ride that Zelenskyy is is also evident in this moment as well.
CB: Yeah, that’s a really good point. And he’s 44 years old which immediately all astrologers when they hear of 44 they think of the Uranus opposition, and we see his Uranus at 16 Scorpio in the sixth house and transiting Uranus is coming up to an opposition with that. So that’s on the sixth 12th axis, which to me is kind of interesting because that was traditionally in ancient astrology the enemy’s axis and those who sort of seek to do harm or working against you in some ways, and seeing that opposition getting activated by that in addition to of course the Mars-Saturn conjunction that’s coming up at 22 degrees of Aquarius this month being so close to his midheaven is tricky as well.
AC: And he’s in an Aquarius perfection, too.
SR: Yeah.
CB: Ninth house perfection. Wow, okay.
SR: Yeah, ninth house perfection. Yeah. And I think this is a sobering moment for him in a lot of ways. I mean other than maybe dealing with the threat to his actual life, I think in terms of dealing with the idea of the people probably became even more real for him in some way. As you know, he’s a Moon in Leo. There’s often, I have found, Leo influences people especially with the Moon. There’s a tie to the idea at least a folk, or even we could say German folk, the idea of being in the trenches, being on the ground, dealing with people, I think was another sobering moment with his Neptune trine to his Moon. I remember reading– I think you both can remember this, too– that Zelenskyy wasn’t convinced that the invasion would happen, or the incursion would happen. So I think dealing with this now is kind of really a profound moment at least for growth and development for him as well. It’s sobering.
AC: Yeah, when you have Mars-Saturn as a pair and that gets activated, it’s this dead serious quality.
SR: Yeah, you were talking about that. We’re gonna get more into that, I guess on the 4th of April, but that kind of relentlessness or kind of having to really march forward against the odds. I think that’s also another testament to Mars-Saturn.
AC: Yeah. Just to make sure we don’t skip over it, in the Ukrainian independence chart the Moon is at the exact degree that Mars and Saturn conjoin at.
SR: Yeah, can you show the bi-wheel with that again, Chris?
CB: The Ukrainian independence chart?
SR: Yeah.
CB: So for the audio listeners, it shows the Moon at 22 Aquarius.
AC: Which is just exactly where Mars and Saturn make their perfect meeting. That’s such an intense and literal signature, that enclosure or besiegement configuration is coming for the natal Moon.
CB: Yeah. And that’s almost a Full Moon actually in this chart because the Full Moon would have taken place just hours later at zero Pisces, a little bit after this independence. That’s kind of interesting. Other things that we meant to touch on in review for everything going on just internationally… You know, originally we were looking at the Mars conjunction with Venus on February 16th as being a possible starting date. And if you go back and listen to previous forecasts, what was interesting is at one point the US intelligence about a week or two before that was saying the 16th they thought was going to be the starting date. Because one of the remarkable things in the lead up to the war, of course, was that the US intelligence was just declassifying and dropping all this intelligence they picked up, which apparently ended up being true saying that there’s about to be a war and Russia’s about to invade the Ukraine, which was really striking because it makes me think back to when we had Patrick Watson on a few months ago for one of the previous forecasts, and he was focused on the Mercury retrograde conjunct to Pluto. And he was talking about the potential for disclosures, which we’ve seen during other Mercury-Pluto alignments in the past, like the release of the Pandora papers. And I think what that ended up being in retrospect was the US declassifying and putting out there in this really extraordinary way, all of this intelligence they’d been picking up from spying on the Russians, basically, and trying to alert the world that this was about to happen as a way to either forestall or stop it from happening, which didn’t end up working, of course. But I do wonder if it did end up delaying it past the original February 16th date, and if that would have aligned more closely with that conjunction if that hadn’t occurred.
SR: Yeah, I wonder. I mean, I don’t know though. We can ever fully know. Lots of things probably contributed to the decision to go later from dealing with thaws or anything like that. But yeah, that is interesting to think about the Mars-Venus conjunction.
CB: Yeah. And I think, Austin, you had said that it was kind of remarkable how much this was like a unique thing in terms of US intelligence, like releasing that much information.
AC: Yeah, that is interesting. It was an interesting declassification. One with the Mars-Venus, I wanted to point out that- You know, we talked a lot last month and the month before about how Mars and Venus interact. And we talked about it a lot relationally. But, you know, the events of this last month have made me think about it a lot in military terms. You know, how can Venus help Mars? We can look at it a couple different ways. We can look at what do they do together? How does Mars affect Venus’s significations, but then how does Venus affect Mars? And so, you know, if we’re doing a kind of a traditional analysis we’d be like, “Oh, well, Mars is conjunct or benefic,” which will help confirm Mars in significations or help Mars do its job. And so what does that look like? And I think it looks like morale. Right? There are a variety of famous sayings. One of the people who said it being Napoleon who was like, “In war, one third is physical and two thirds is morale.” And one of the big surprises, I think, for a lot of people was how much morale the Ukrainian forces had. All reports seemed to indicate that the Russian planners of the invasion did not expect so much resistance, and I think a number of other people were surprised by how willing to fight. And that willingness, that desire is absolutely Venus’s domain. And willingness to fight with Mars Venus in the sky has also been a notable feature, you know, notable and even surprising feature of the events that have unfolded.
SR: Yeah, it gives grit. It definitely gives a lot more grit to just, you know, we were talking earlier related to the stage with Venus kind of coming out of her retrograde, but I think the hookup if we can put it that way to Mars really has strengthened to some degree, even though that’s not the traditional idea of it, of how bonding happens, but not necessarily the bonding that sometimes people will expect. At least the Russians didn’t expect it among the Ukrainian people.
CB: Yeah, and we had talked about it. I talked about it last month about how I’d hoped that if the war did start around when Mars caught up to and conjoined Venus in mid to late February, that hopefully when the reverse happened and Venus caught up to conjoined Mars in early March would be more like a cessation of what started earlier of the war. But instead it looks like when Mars and Venus went into Aquarius by that time, what had happened was that the initial really rapid advance of the Russian invasion suddenly was really slowed down by that point. And I think that has to do with the co-presence with Saturn, which we had focused on how that would go exact later in the month and kind of dump cold water on Venus and Mars once they both conjoined Saturn by degree. But instead, I think we saw the effects of that sign-based conjunction already coming into play there with things slowing down and sort of getting bogged down.
AC: Yeah. As soon as they got into Saturn’s domain with Saturn, everything slowed down.
SR: Right. It’s stagnation related to the war.
AC: I mean, we literally if we’re looking for Saturnian delays, we literally have like stalled columns of vehicles obviously behind schedule, battle plans etc. It’s very Saturnian. And, you know, if you’ve been keeping up you’re just watching the sort of battle nap inch forward day by day. That’s Saturn.
CB: All right. Let’s see… Is there anything else we meant to mention? I mean, this war in some ways is actually just a continuation and expansion of the war that had already started eight years earlier when the Crimea was annexed under the previous Venus retrograde in Capricorn. So it’s interesting sometimes thinking about and understanding that things are often a continuation of some earlier beginning and thinking about in terms of that with different planetary cycles. And it’s good to keep in mind when contextualizing world events that this didn’t just start or the circumstances surrounding this didn’t just begin yesterday but have been building up and ongoing or in some instances are just a continuation of things that started years ago. Are there any other points that we want to mention?
SR: Yeah. When this war does cease, and we do hope it ceases soon, one thing I hope comes as the resolution between these two countries between Russia and Ukraine is a realization that its honoring Ukraine as a separate country and entity. When you look at the December 25th, 1991 chart of Russia compared with Ukraine, you really do see where that chart really hooks deeply into the Ukrainian chart. And really, you know, there seems like there’s something about these two that if they were in a relationship, it’s like yeah, you’re still gonna stay in each other’s orbit. Even though yes they’re neighbors, all these different things, share some different dimensions of culture depending on which part of the country in Ukraine you’re talking about… But there’s something deeper there and I think it’s going to require, at least on the Russians, honoring that kind of separation.
CB: Yeah, which is not looking good so far. I mean, some of the Venus-Pluto stuff and the fact that this started under a Venus retrograde and then in the Russian flag chart, there was a Venus-Pluto conjunction in Scorpio it made me think about how Venus-Pluto hard aspects sometimes work out in the shadow side and birth charts sometimes where it can sometimes be the jealous or possessive former lover that doesn’t want to let go of the previous relationship and, you know, says why are you making me do this to you? And sort of things like that, and this weird sort of reverse psychology that’s maybe not healthy sometimes
SR: And all of this gets really exacerbated and touched upon as Saturn is going over the Ukrainian independence proclamation chart, which has the Moon at 22° Aquarius. And depending on which chart and which time frame you’re able to use for Russia, you are going to get a Leo rising chart, but the one particular chart we see is 21 degrees Leo. I don’t know if that’s accurate because it’s using GMT time but that’s another aspect of it. And then as Saturn goes into Pisces, it’s going to be opposing the Russian Moon. So I think there’s definitely something happening between these two countries. There’s a measure of depth that I think is going to require some disentangling on both parts.
CB: Sure.
AC: I’m glad you brought up Saturn in Pisces because as we’ve been talking about for years, the periods of when Saturn and Neptune are in the same sign are absolutely pivotal in Russian history. The last one was the fall of the Berlin Wall, the one before that was the death of Stalin and sort of literally the midpoint of what the Soviet Union was and how it was run. The one before that was the Russian Revolution. Saturn-Neptune just has been a tremendously pivotal configuration for Russian history for a while, and so we start another one of those periods in about a year.
CB: Yeah, so when Saturn moves into Pisces which is co-present, and then there’s a weird extension of that where it goes two or three years longer than it should because then Saturn and Neptune move into Aries around the same time as each other just a few years after that, right?
AC: Yeah, it’s a five-year co-presence rather than a two-and-a-half-year copresence.
SR: Right.
CB: Okay. So major stuff coming up there. And then finally, one of the things that’s making us a little bit nervous, Austin you and I were talking about is how we had both looked at the Mars-Jupiter conjunction in the year ahead forecast, and you especially were focused on that as potentially a feeling like it gave you sort of like war type feelings. And I mentioned how 12 years ago, the last time that Mars-Jupiter conjunction occurred we saw the assassination of Osama bin Laden which was a weird sort of culmination of some of the things that had started back in the September 11th attacks in 2001. But that’s still coming up in the future and it’s one of the things that makes me a little nervous about how this whole thing is like a powder keg and the threat that this could become bigger could become a bigger conflict or that other countries could get involved in things like that. But it’s something to sort of think about with the Mars-Jupiter conjunction still looming and going exact around May 29th.
AC: Yeah. And the other, you know, there are a couple other big Mars moments. When I was looking at 2022, I could definitely hear sabres rattling and sliding out of the sheath. I thought we would get war events, for lack of a better term, but I didn’t think it would start this way. I thought we could get through the Mars in Cap, but I think maybe that was clearly overly optimistic.
SR: Mars in Cap brings a lot of different things like that. Like, we had Mars and Capricorn conjoined to the south node for 911, we had Mars and Capricorn conjoined to the south node for the start of the pandemic. So there’s a way in which Mars and Capricorn– and I’m saying this as one who has a nataly– often start shit. And like you said, sabre rattling is a very good word for it.
AC: I think I was just being hopeful.
SR: One thing I do want to mention because we haven’t talked as much about Uranus in Taurus, I hear most times we talk about Uranus and Taurus related to terrestrial earthy things or related to things that grow or whatever. But one thing to observe and thinking about it’s 83 or 84-year-old cycle is that the last time Uranus was in Taurus, it came along with a lot of the different shifts that led up to the combination of what we call World War II. Now, some elements of it began before December 7th 1942 for the United States or 1941 for the United States, but that was definitely waging in Europe before that and building up. So I think I always define and look at Uranus and Taurus as tectonic shifts, tectonic plates shifting, reorienting. And this is what we’re seeing related to Russia. This is the same thing– speaking of like, Saturn cycles– this is a similar thing even though it was 15 years ago that Putin talked about in 2007 with one of his key speeches given in Germany. I believe it was in Frankfurt or in Munich. We’re coming to a culminating moment– and I don’t think we’re gonna see a complete conflagration per se in 2022– but I think we’re seeing some tectonic plates moving and shifting that we should be mindful of.
AC: Yeah. I think on a really simple level, sort of war is back on the table. And I hate to say it but so is famine. It’s time for the horsemen to show themselves. We’ve got plague, famine, and war now. This is a big pivot point in history, and the whole may-be-born-during-interesting-times-as-a-curse, I think the wisdom of that is is quite evident. And I just wanted to say with the tectonic, earthy, very real shifts, the last time we had Uranus in Taurus also overlaps with the Dust Bowl phenomenon in the United States.
SR: Yeah.
AC: We’re talking about the disruption of grain and grain prices. [laughs] You know, which is happening now for totally different reasons but you get that. We’re we’re getting those same themes again.
CB: Yeah. And then finally, I saw some astrologers express nervousness about the fact that the war with Russia and Ukraine was initiated very close to the day of that first US Pluto return to the Sibley chart that we talked about before in the past few forecasts, and then also that we’re still looking ahead at the Mars retrograde in Gemini in the seventh house and across the Mars and Uranus in the US Sibley chart, and just the question of whether that indicates dragging of the US further into this or some larger scale conflict coming up later on. It will be interesting to see what the next two exact Pluto returns coincide with over the course of the next several months this year when it comes to the US and its involvement and all of this.
All right, so we’re at time. We set a time limit of how long we’re going to talk about stuff that’s been happening over the course of the past month. Maybe it would be good to transition at this point into talking about what’s coming up in April. What do you guys think?
AC: Sounds good.
SR: Thumbs up.
CB: All right. We’re gonna go through chronologically but we need to talk about the two. There’s two elephants in the room, so to speak, in this month, which are very-
AC: Chris, that’s very rude to Sam and I. [Sam laughs]
CB: [laughs] Right. Two very colorful… You’re very colorful-shirted, which I appreciate.
SR: Yeah, there we go. Thank you.
CB: So there’s the Mars-Saturn conjunction which is happening going exact on April 4th and that’s already been building up for several weeks now ever since Mars moved into Aquarius on March 6th. But that will culminate on the 4th and then eventually Mars will depart from Aquarius and move into Pisces on April 14th, at which point that conjunction will largely be over. Then we have the Jupiter-Neptune conjunction, the exact singular exact conjunction that will take place. That’s going to go exact on the 12th of April and is one of our major outer planet alignments that we’ve been talking about as far back as our year ahead forecast because it’s taking place between two of the furthest and largest outer planets in our solar system. And that alignment and the fact that they occur so close together is something that we’ve focused a lot of attention on over the course of the past several forecasts, just because you don’t usually see an alignment of that and it’s also like that and it’s very distinctive, whereas the Mars-Saturn conjunction the last time we had one of those of course was during the early phase of the pandemic and the lockdowns around March and April of 2020. And that can be a very harsh discordant alignment of the two traditional quote-unquote “malefic planets in the sky” versus Jupiter in Neptune, Jupiter being the greater benefic and Neptune having this sort of mysterious or illusory quality is often conceptualized at least experientially as more positive alignment and it’s weird to see both of those happening together at the same time. So we’ve been trying to figure that out and trying to understand what a very difficult alignment with a more positive one would look like, and we’re finally there now in April of 2022.
AC: And it’s not just Jupiter and Neptune, it’s actually Jupiter-Venus-Neptune. We literally have both traditional benefics and both traditional malefics conjoining at the same time. You know, it’s as polarised- [laughs]
SR: It’s like a movie. It’s like a movie. It’s kind of, yeah.
AC: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
SR: [laughs] Yeah.
CB: Showing the video viewers how Venus will move into Pisces this month and how it will catch up to and conjoin Jupiter at the end of the month at 27 Pisces on April 30th. There’s the Mars-Saturn conjunction earlier in the month at 22° of Aquarius. So those are two of the sensitive degrees to really pay attention to this month especially if you have any natal placements in your birth chart that are very close to those degrees, especially through a major aspect.
SR: Yeah. And then have, yes, Saturn and Mars are at the south bending then.
AC: Yeah.
CB: Square the nodes. Okay. Are you guys getting any clear sense of what that almost contradictory influence or alignments, what sort of keywords or how that’s manifesting in the world now that we’re starting to build up to it?
SR: I guess we could define it as cautious optimism at its best. Maybe there’s some ways in which we start to see some progress, whether we’re talking about things that are happening with the Ukrainians and the Russians, or just some things I think people are definitely feeling a lot more or wanting to feel a lot more optimism and hope related to the pandemic and kind of dealing with things. But I think we may have some somber moments that we’re facing related to that, which gives us a sense of caution. Right? There’s a spike, but perhaps it’s not leading to as many hospitalizations. So there may be ways in which we start to really feel like, “Okay, we’re getting on the other side of that.” We’ve said that a number of times over the last two years but I think maybe we have some cause to really think something’s taking hold.
CB: Right. So on the one hand, this is the end of one two-year cycle that started back in the early phases of the pandemic with the Mars-Saturn conjunction at zero Aquarius and March and April of 2020. And on the one hand, hopefully coming to the end of something and moving into a new phase because it’s also the start of a new two-year cycle between those two planets. We have seen, during the previous two hard aspect alignments between Mars and Saturn over the past year, we’ve seen different COVID variants come out of nowhere and then create major COVID waves. First, the Delta wave during the Mars-Saturn opposition last summer and then the– was it the Omicron?
SR: Omicron, yeah.
CB: -was in November. That started in November under the Mars-Saturn square. Now we’re at the conjunction and we do see potentially the rise of a new variant that people are starting to pay attention to in the UK and some other countries that may or may not end up becoming important for the US. The main variant right now is called BA.2, which they’re calling stealth Omicron. That’s a potential but then at the same time we’re seeing a lessening of restrictions. We’re seeing the government has reclassified over the past month and changed the threshold for what is really the different levels of how severe the COVID pandemic is at any given time by sort of reclassifying what the focus and shifting the focus more towards hospitalizations and hospital capacities instead of positive COVID tests. Also, there’s been a shift away from sort of public testing to a certain extent to home testing, which then may not show the numbers as clearly as we’re used to seeing them before based on positive tests just because at-home tests are not reported as frequently as ones when people have to go straight to a hospital to get tested. So that could be a manifestation of what we were talking about there still being when we were looking at the year ahead forecast of there still being problems and issues with the pandemic being ongoing, but they’re also being something that’s kind of distracting us or making it look hopeful at the same time or more hopeful because of the Jupiter-Neptune conjunction. And I guess the question will just be how grounded that is versus how much there’s still things to work out in the ongoing process of getting used to whatever the new normal is as COVID becomes more of a permanent thing around the world.
SR: Yeah, perhaps that Mars-Saturn and I think he did talks about this during the March forecast, maybe the Mars-Saturn is more discourse that centers itself around government and public space. And then the Jupiter-Neptune becomes more about individuals and private space.
AC: Oh, go ahead.
SR: Go on, Austin. Sorry.
AC: What I was going to add was that part of what we’re seeing with these happy conjunctions, sad conjunctions, is that they don’t have an angle on each other so that they’re mutually relating.
SR: Right. They can’t see each other.
AC: Yeah, they can’t see each other. And so a lot of it is going to be something really good is happening over here and something really bad is happening over here. And the bad doesn’t actually ruin the good, but the good doesn’t provide much help with the bad. It’s like when somebody is, you know, it’s like a new career peak and then their cousin dies at the same- You know, it’s like one doesn’t really affect the other. You can’t use your new professional status to help your cousin. They’re just unrelated but both happen at the same time.
CB: Right. Yeah, that makes sense. I was trying to think of some additional keywords for the Mars-Saturn contrast just on its own. And we have things like hot versus cold, fast versus slow, impulsive versus deliberate, exciting versus boring, loud versus quiet, aggressive versus restrained. And the inherent tension between those is really something that comes out and sometimes is experienced as just frustration or extreme tension when you have those polar opposites trying to pull you in two different directions as being one of the energies at the very beginning of the month with that Mars-Saturn conjunction culminating.
SR: Yeah. The famous one is driving with the brakes on. So that’s another one. But what’s interesting about its exactitude on April 4th is that that’s also the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s death and assassination. I think for Americans, at least, it becomes a moment where we can think about or I hope, reflect on our progress. One thing that becomes critical to think about, because I think a lot about 1968– I was born in ’67 but ’68 especially related to King’s death and what he was talking about, a lot of people focus on racial dynamics related to Dr. King. But Dr. King also talked a lot about economic realities. In fact, he was actually assassinated in Memphis while he was supporting union workers on strike. And also in his last book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community, he was also talking about having a guaranteed income. He was concerned about the safety net that many Americans don’t have. Many of these are still topics and issues for Americans and so we have an interesting juxtaposition between this Jupiter and Neptune. “I have a dream!” Right? And then it’s at the moment, you know, this Mars and Saturn dealing with the sober realities of how other things have kind of afflicted the average American over the last two years. And again, I know our audience is international so I don’t want to just focus on America itself but this might be an issue that might even develop in other parts of the world too in terms of the public net or safety net.
AC: Piggyback one thing on that as far as the relevance of that conjunction to the United States. If we’re looking at the Sibley chart, that Mars-Saturn conjunction is four degrees off of the natal Noon. And then with that Sibley chart, the US has four planets in Cancer. That’s a lot of the chart looking to the Moon. That looks red and you know, the Moon often in a chart like that it’s like, “What is it like to just be a person? To be a normal person in in that country? What does it feel like? What’s the mood?” Right? And so that Mars-Saturn highlighting difficulties, struggles, etc etc. The Moon is literally the caretaker, which on a larger scale level maybe looks like what is a safety net. If a planet is going to give you a safety net and make sure you’re taking care of, that’s going to be the Moon.
SR: And speaking of Moon- I’m sorry, Chris, I’ll just finish with this point too. In terms of mood, it might be a recalibration or recounting of a moment that I think we experienced this week– I think at least it was this week– with a little girl in Ukraine who was actually in the fallout shelter or a bomb shelter maybe some time ago, and she sang Let It Go in Ukrainian and it was recorded and it kind of became viral. And then she was singing in Poland the Ukrainian national anthem. And what that is that it’s a moment of dealing with hardship the Mars-Saturn, but finding inspiration in that Jupiter-Neptune. Finding some way in which we deal with dire moments, but we deal with it with going for the dream, going for something more.
AC: 100%. Something I’ve been thinking about is there is no time that mercy is more appreciated than when brutality is present. Right. When life is utterly brutal, a small mercy, a small kindness, a small moment can be tremendously impactful.
SR: Absolutely certain. Yeah, that’s spot on. I saw that in New York after 911. You know, everyone was looking out for each other.
CB: Well, that may be something also that’s relevant as hundreds of 1000s of Ukrainians are being displaced and are having to go to different countries as refugees and in some instances needing to be put up or taken in. And maybe that can be part of the contrast as well that’s being experienced by large groups of people of hopefully, despite really terrible circumstances, they’re also being moments hopefully of people helping each other in some ways. I did want to mention, because you were mentioning those dates in early April, and that made me think of how the new Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is supposed to be confirmed as– if everything goes on track by April 8th or so at the latest– if confirmed, she would become the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, which is kind of interesting. And there’s been a weird synchronicity over the past week also with Clarence Thomas, the other Supreme Court Justice who has been sick recently and there’s also been some controversies. And he, of course, was appointed in 1981 which again, takes us back to that Saturn in Aquarius period. So that’s experiencing a Saturn return at the same time.
SR: Yeah, it’s a profound moment. I mean, we go from a Black woman facing a confirmation hearing and actually being besieged herself to, if we go back to 1991, to Anita Hill being a witness for Thomas’s confirmation. So on some level, you can make even an argument that there’s that transformation growth that now we’re hearing this, even though Ketanji is experiencing this immense different waves of attack during the confirmation hearings, I do believe that she may be confirmed. The only problem now that we’re talking about this Mars-Saturn, I wonder if that could signify some way in which some measure of it gets held up a little bit. But that is definitely a parallel moment. And it is interesting to kind of think about where we now have had a moment where we don’t see Justice Thomas for a while. Actually, he’s going through his own particular issues if you look at his chart, particular things that are happening for him that my highlight yes, you know, he had a recent health crisis that may have abated. But it seems that things that are happening with his wife, Ginni Thomas, and being directly involved with the January 6th insurrection. I’m sure that’s going to definitely deal with him.
AC: One thing I wanted to say is that as of this recording, anyone who is in a position where they are besieged whether you’re a person, a family, a nation, state, things look a lot better. It’s really important that by the time April has begun, Venus has escaped the beseiged moment. Early in the month, the movement of Venus into Pisces is really significant. Because it’s not, you know, it’s literally going from worst technical condition for a planet, right? Besieged in a sign where it doesn’t have much essential dignity, to escaping that to getting to be in the sign of exaltation and co-present with the benefic ruler. That’s literally, you know, it’s not on a technical astrology level, that’s going from absolute worst to absolute best. And so if your life or whatever part of your life is tracking with Venus, that part is going to improve significantly in the way that it feels and what it looks like by the time we get to the end of the first full week of April. It’s a really dramatic change in position and condition.
CB: Yeah, I think that’s super crucial because Venus has been in such difficult condition either by sign being in Capricorn since November and then stationing conjunct Pluto, and then getting conjoined by Mars and now getting enclosed and conjoining Saturn, it’s kind of getting into sign-based dignity and then it’ll culminate eventually at the end of the month with that conjunction with Jupiter. That should be good.
SR: It should be good. Yeah, I’m sorry.
AC: It’s better. It doesn’t solve all the problems, right? But for Venus, it’s way fucking better.
SR: Well, I think you should still with Venus- Yes, it’s definitely better because it’s exalted. But one thing to remember about exalted planets, I always say that they end up having also more attitude rather than what they have when they’re just in rulership. And so we have to be careful not to take too many things for granted. It’s kind of like, from the very minor things as you’re about to go on a date like, “Oh, yeah, I look fantastic,” to not really, like, “Just what happened to me,” and you got to check your shirt, make sure you don’t have any other things on it. It’s kind of like you really have to be mindful. I think that’s an important word we can use with Venus and Pisces, like be mindful of the good that you have and not waste it. Not be extraneous, not be overzealous with it or too anticipatory. That’s one thing that I know you guys talked about last month with Jupiter. Because sometimes with Jupiter, especially when he’s in this dignity it’s kind of like, “Oh, yeah, he’s great! Everything’s gonna be great!” Not thinking like, “How do you ensure greatness? How do you ensure excellence?
CB: Yeah. I think the main challenge that Venus will have in Pisces is going to be the conjunction with Neptune and staying grounded and not getting swept away. Because one of the things that comes up with Venus-Neptune conjunctions is that things just look so good that there’s a tendency to over-idealize, let’s say, a natal chart romantic partners or over-romanticize situations that one finds themself in and to raise things up, especially in its sign of its exaltation and put things on a pedestal. But then oftentimes, eventually that will fall out from under and there’ll be a realization of the reality not being quite as great as you thought initially. And sometimes then things can swing in the opposite direction and the person can sort of demonize or overly make things look much worse than they actually are. There’s a tension staying grounded and staying connected with reality when Venus and Neptune make hard aspects with each other.
AC: Yeah, and I would just agree with what both of you said entirely. What I would add is that this is a transit and so even if the period that Venus is in Pisces is as good as can be hoped for, it’s a month. It’s not May, it’s not June, it’s not July. [Samuel laughs] You can– how should I say it– have the good fortune to arrive at spectacularly beautiful moments. That doesn’t mean that life is spectacularly beautiful from now on. But knowing that it’s temporary and that there is the get-while-the-getting-is -good, there is a little bit of a carpe diem, carpe noctem seize the moment. It is a good time, for example, for peacemaking. It’s one of Venus’s core significations. And although it’s hard to talk about peace or harmony without immediately referencing an ongoing military conflict, lots of us have relationships in our lives that could use a little bit more peace, right?
CB: Yeah. Well, and also Venus is just moving through Capricorn and Aquarius, it’s been so dry. And that’s been one of the things just over the past two years with so much of an emphasis on Capricorn and Aquarius placements is the dryness. And I think Venus going into Pisces with Jupiter will be partially like the reintroduction of some moisture and sort of like social lubrication after a really dry winter. And in the US, at least in the Northern hemisphere, it’s now springtime, we’ve passed a recent wave of COVID that was really intense in the later part of the winter and people were isolated again. And I think it’s going to be hard now after two years for people not to want to just go out and start reconnecting and meeting up with each other. I’m going to be trying to restart my local astrology group, the Denver Astrology Group. People have been trying to get me to restart it for a while, and I didn’t think it was time this winter, but now I think we’re getting there. So we might hold our first meeting again here in April. And I can just see a lot of other people moving more toward socializing and social events again at this time.
SR: Yeah. But like I would say, I mean, like to have some measure of, I don’t want to use caution, but carefulness. Same thing as we talk about… You mentioned lubricant, and now I see in the chat people are talking about Venus as lubricated. So yeah, use safety precautions if you get even further along in terms of getting closer together. So that’s the kind of thing we can think about.
CB: Yeah. Well, and as we talked about earlier that maybe the hidden thing of the Mars-Saturn conjunction is there’s still more highly transmissible versions of COVID out there, and now the emphasis has shifted away from government mandates to the individuals having to figure that out and decide for themself what their acceptable level of risk is. And for some people that may never be fully clear what you’re getting into until you get it. And then it hits different people in different ways, and some people it’s nothing and other people it can become a bigger, long-term thing than you realize.
SR: Yeah, it’s fascinating that way. It’s never the same thing for any one person.
CB: Yeah. So Venus definitely in better shape, Jupiter doing its speed run. It’s really doing a speed run through Pisces. I’m a little disappointed it’s not hanging out there very long.
SR: It never does. It never lingers in Pisces.
CB: This is the last full month of Jupiter in Pisces, and it’s already going to go into Aries during the middle of May on May 10th. So this is the last of that, and it’s nice that it kind of culminates with that Venus-Jupiter conjunction towards the very end of the month. And we get like a nice full expression of both benefics in their sign of exaltation or domicile. How are you guys feeling about Jupiter in Pisces this month or how’s it been sitting with you?
SR: Yeah, I’m really excited for a number of reasons. I mean, we could talk about all the immediate mundane aspects of Jupiter in Pisces in terms of things I think you also talked about last month related to hope and some dimensions related to optimism and faith and dreams, but there’s some other interesting practical things that have happened when Jupiter has conjoined with Neptune in Aquarius. It came along with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the film Avatar was released and it breaks all previous Box Office records and becoming one of the highest grossing films of all time. And those of you who remember that film or know about that film know that it was unique in a lot of ways. And it seemed like the perfect manifestation of a Jupiter-Neptune.
CB: We have discussed extensively, Austin is a huge Avatar fan.
SR: Oh, okay. And then the big thing is that the first time they conjoined in Pisces was March 17th, 1856, and an 18-year-old-kid, William Henry Perkin, revolutionized the textile and fashion industry when he synthesized quinine to treat malaria, at least that was his intention, but he instead created a new kind of dye, a Mauveine, aniline purple. I’m pointing to Austin here. And this change became monumental because it led to the creation of what we now know as the pharmaceutical industry, when dye manufacturers focused on producing medicines. And one other thing I’ll say about a Jupiter-Neptune conjunction was in 1984 when Jupiter and Neptune were conjoined, we have Prince’s Purple Rain. So there’s this conjoining that does bring some interesting things. So I think something creative, something imaginative may come of it. We may not see it immediately on April 12th, 2022, but I think it’s the auger of something. Oh, one other thing I want to say is that about around that time, 1856, was the peak of the spiritualist movement that came somewhat in England. So I think we may also see the beginning of a certain mystical, spiritual or set of mystical, spiritual developments that come along with it. Now you might say this might be more the hurray related to astrology, but I think it’s going to be bigger than astrology. I think astrology might tie into that, but I think now that we’ve had a big moment related to astrology, I think people may hunger for more.
AC: So Sam, that was really interesting. One thing, the Dreamliner, how perfect a Jupiter-Neptune name is that? But with the, as we say, the spiritual, the mystical, the magical qualities of Jupiter-Neptune in Pisces, I’ve been seeing it, and Chris and I have been talking about this, Jupiter-Neptune as the crest of the astrology wave, the magic wave that’s been building really since shortly after Neptune’s ingress into Pisces. What better support could Neptune in Pisces have than Jupiter there? And yeah, the sort of… I guess one way to say it would be the high point or the last significant expansion of a wave that’s, I guess, I see that as having been present.
CB: Yeah, the high water mark. And in the episode, actually, that will be released just before this one, a few days before, Rick Levine and I talked about that wondering whether this year is like the high water mark, not just of astrology, but some of the other things. It hasn’t just been an explosion in the popularity of astrology, but also in other things like tarot and magic, but also some less favorable things like the weird explosion of the flat earth theory and weird conspiracy theories and other stuff or misinformation or different things like that through…
AC: All works of imagination.
CB: Yeah, or inspiration or other worldly type things. Because the contrast we have to think about and it’s hard sometimes to think about it when you’re in the middle of it is what we’re experiencing now when things are really good and the floodgates are open versus one year from now when Saturn ingresses into Pisces and what a contraction or what it looks like when things dry up in that area in some way. And whether we might see some challenges to some of those things that otherwise flowed so freely over the past few years and maybe just taking stock of and appreciating this sort of nice part of the Renaissance that we’re in right now.
SR: Yes. And that also could mean when Saturn goes into Pisces, more I guess structure, structuring or restructuring, solidifying particular things that may come up during Jupiter-Neptune. So that’s another way to think about it. I mean, it’s definitely where we might not… We might have the aftertaste, a bitter aftertaste of it, but it also could be where we really get the flavor and then have to ground things, especially particular ideas that start to gestate during this year. So that’s one other way to think about it. I mean that could be… Yeah, sorry, go on.
AC: Oh, no. Yeah, I think that that’s… I agree with both of you that that sort of need to figure… Okay, now that there are five times as many people doing this, what are our ground rules? The need for some level of institutionalization or setting of limits, which is Saturn’s thing makes a lot of sense because we all know that astrology’s kind of a different thing now than it was 10, 15 years ago. It’s much larger, what are the rules? And what do we make rules about and what do we not make rules about? Which is also a Saturnian consideration.
CB: Yeah. One of the things Rick and I were talking about was if it was possible to anticipate. Because anytime something becomes, let’s say, trendy in society or super popular, there’s eventually like some backlash. And if we could anticipate what the backlash is and what the astrological community could do internally in order to try to anticipate that and do the best we can to, let’s not say, maybe not regulate ourselves, but actually just to do a good job as a community and make sure everything is ethical and above the board as much as possible to set those sort of standards ahead of time and how that might lessen the impact of any blowback, let’s say, in the future.
SR: Well, yeah, I think we are doing that. I think there’s the creation of IAEA ethicalastrologers.org. I think that’s been something that’s been instrumental in doing that. I know ISAR for a fact is revising their ethical standards and making them come into the 21st century versus the early 21st. So I think there’s definitely some particular things that we’re doing. One thing I think about a lot, and this is my Jupiter in Virgo speaking is that I think that we also have to be mindful. If we’re talking about a certain backlash or backwash even related to astrology, I think it’s really going to center on, “Okay, you know about the whole article rising of planets, you know about this being in its chariot, what does that mean for you?” I mean, one of the things that I also went through a transformation, I went through a point some years back where I was very anti psychological astrology. I was really hard on psychological astrology. And one thing that has kind of swung with my scorpion pendulum, I guess, is a deeper appreciation for the wisdom of psychological astrology. It’s kind of like just knowing where things are, but getting more into what things mean and relate to you. So I think one of the things that we need to highlight as astrologers is more so… Okay, it’s good to know the astrology but how does that come alive in your life through your work, through your spirit? I think I’ve heard you talk about having an altar, Chris. I know Austin has… No?
CB: That’s Austin’s thing. [laughter]
SR: Okay. But having a practice, I think, that becomes important. I think these things, whether that’s tied to a traditional religion or not or some other way in which you’re also dealing with your ancestors, I think there’s a lot of focus. People are very curious about their ancestors. So it’s now trying to ground their spirituality related to their actual lives, not just what’s happening in the stars. I think it’s important to tie the two together.
AC: Yeah, I would say it’s not astrology if they’re not tied together.
CB: For sure. So I meant to stop at an hour, I think this is a good transition point since we’re about halfway. We’re a little over halfway through the episode. Because I’ve been using some graphics from Archetypal Explorer and they are actually our sponsor this month. So I wanted to make sure to plug them and mention them because it’s such a great program and it’s useful for visualizing some of these transits that we’re talking about. So Archetypal Explorer was built for astrology enthusiasts and it provides astrological tools like a horoscope chart, visual transit timeline, a calendar, it provides free reference guides with interpretations including a special delineation text that Richard Tarnas has written for different combinations and different transits like the current Jupiter conjunct Neptune alignment that we’re talking about now. And he hasn’t published that yet, so Archetypal Explorer is one of the few places you can actually access that wonderful book of delineations basically when you click on different transits, either as world transits or for yourself. So Archetypal Explorer is a membership program and if you sign up, you can get a seven-day free trial just to try it out and see how it works for you. All you have to do is go to archetypalexplorer.com to learn more. And yeah, they’re a huge friend of the show and are one of the places that we get all of these beautiful graphics that show the transits as a graph timeline and shows the increase and going up up until the point where it hits the exact transit. So super useful for that and very unique and sort of innovative as a way of conceptualizing how transits work. So thanks to them and shout out to archetypalexplorer.com. You said you signed up for that just recently, Sam?
SR: Yeah, I did. I mean just today. I did the annual rate. The annual rate, I signed up.
CB: Excellent. Yeah, it’s crazy, going back to what we were just talking about, when I started out there was astra.com for calculating charts, which was an amazing resource, but that was kind of it. And it’s crazy now in retrospect 20 years later, how many different websites there are for calculating your birth chart, your transits, getting interpretations, getting really good interpretations and resources. The field has exploded so much that sometimes recently when I was doing that talk with Rick, it took me a minute to look back and really take stock of how lucky we are to live at this period in the history of astrology and how there’s so many more resources available to us that we’re probably only scratching the surface, especially even of some of the things that are available to us in terms of the processing power and different things from different programs that we can now use and incorporate into our work.
SR: But there’s the Saturn, right? So just to have access means that we also need to have structure, because sometimes people are overwhelmed, don’t know where to look or what particular things mean, not just in terms of their lives, but like, “Oh yeah, I got this planet or this particular thing here, what’s this?” All these particular things that, this is where teachers or guides or you even particular books become very useful. Because I think even though we may see the orgs, the astrology orgs still continue to struggle a bit, more and more people are stepping up to the plate with classes or trying to offer some way to structure that. I think like an organization like IAEA or OPA trying to offer more and be inclusive drawing in, I think these become important moments for structure. And I think we may see some growth with Saturn in Pisces that way,
CB: For sure. Discernment is a tricky thing for Jupiter-Neptune conjunctions, or Neptune in Pisces. So that is a good energy to bring in as discernment is a good Saturn energy. All right, so let’s go into… We’ve talked about the big picture stuff, I want to go into more of a detailed breakdown and especially to look at some of the other ingresses that are happening this month, as well as the lunations. On the very first of the month, we need to mention our first lunation at least in passing briefly here, because we have a New Moon that’s taking place in the sign of Aries on April 1st. There we go. And that is very close to, just a day before for the Sun-Mercury conjunction and cazimi that occurs in Aries around the same degrees. And that’s kind of important because that’s the halfway point between Mercury retrograde periods. And we’ll see the beginning almost of a Mercury retrograde period at the very end of the month, Mercury stations retrograde in Gemini just a little bit into May on May 10th, I believe. So Sun-Moon conjunction, a New Moon in the sign of Aries and the ruler of that Sun-Moon conjunction is Mars, which by then is moving into and is within three degrees of a conjunction with Saturn. So there’s a little bit of an energy abnormally we would associate with Aries of wanting to get up and go, but then for some reason simultaneously, it’s ruler is getting the opposite where the brakes are really being put on Mars at the same time, and it’s creating tensions there as a result.
AC: In some ways it kind of redoubles the need to get up and go because there’s a lot of obstruction, there’s a lot to do, right? There’s all of Saturn to deal with and to do. The image that immediately came to my head is people doing like sled training, where you have like, I don’t know, a hundred pounds or five hundred pounds or whatever on a sled. And then you have ropes that you’re pulling where people are pulling the weight. Right. And that seems kind of like that, how should I say this, this New Moon seems focused on putting us in a position to carry the weight, whatever that Saturn weight that Mars is trying to move. Or to make the decision to be like, “You know what, my knees have been real bad. I’m not going to do a sled pull today for my workout.” Either really looking with accuracy and precision at exactly what the task at hand is or tasks at hand, how much weight that is to carry, and whether it’s worth it or not.
SR: Yeah, to look before you leap. I mean, we can’t ignore the fact it is April Fool’s Day. So I think we need to take stock of what is in front of us, so I think that’s another way in which we could look at that New Moon.
CB: That makes me think of… I’ve been getting into Tarot recently, which is my own personal Jupiter and Neptune odyssey as I’m in a Pisces profection year. Is there any, Austin, this would be a question for you, the fool was mentioned, does it have any parallel with Aries in terms of that type of energy?
AC: Not usually, there are a couple different systems. Generally, Fool and Uranus is a good match or like there’s a strong relationship there because who knows what’s going to happen right with the Uranus energy and also the fool. With Aries you generally see an association with the emperor, which is the desire to structure things in accordance with one’s will. I’m going to make this happen, speaks to sovereignty, self-sovereignty and trying to make it so.
CB: Okay, got it. I was just thinking of the sort of striking out on your own and the sort of boldness of needing to like go in new directions or blaze new trails that’s sometimes associated with Aries in that sort of independent character, but I still have a very surface level knowledge of the pictures on the tarot cards.
AC: Yeah. Well, we’ve talked about like the cards and planets aren’t one to one, but they have relationships. And I agree in terms of the initiating quality, the fool is the first card of the tarot, if we’re looking at Zodiac, Aries is the first, usually considered the first, there’s some resemblance there. That’s actually really interesting to think about because… So if we think about where Mars is when we have a New Moon in a Mars world sign and say what’s Mars doing, and Mars is actually sort of looking right at the past here with Saturn. And maybe that in and of itself can be a reason to want to do something new. It’s like, “Oh God, not this again. How do I keep from having to do this again?” But there’s also an implication of having to deal with the Saturnian. Saturn’s right in Mars’s face there.
SR: Well, it makes me think too of the imagery that we have on the Rider-Waite deck and other decks of the fool going toward a cliff as a dog is like yipping and nipping at his heels. And Mars rules dogs. So I think what’s interesting is not that we need to take it literally like, “Listen to your dog y’all,” I think it’s going to be more so pay attention to what’s happening around you, pay attention to what’s happening related to the natural world. One of the things I think about with the one tsunami, I’m not remembering the actual year right now, but the big one not to Japan, but there was one where was going toward an island and all the animals kind of went just before that, into the hinterland away from the beach. And I think if people were paying attention, and I think some people were paying attention, they were like, “Okay, we need to get away from the water.” And I think we may need to have a similar sensibility with this New Moon. It’s like go forward… Yeah, 2004. Thank you, Mo, 2004 Christmas.
AC: Mars-Saturn in Cancer.
SR: That was Mars-Saturn in Cancer?
AC: I believe so.
SR: Yeah. So it’s kind of like pay attention to what’s happening around you. And then you just made me think of the natural world with Mars ruling dogs and using the fool card. So maybe there’s a message there.
AC: That actually reminds me of something I was going to say earlier when we’re talking about morale in war when I quoted Napoleon. The other way to put that is, it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog. I don’t know who said that or if it’s unattributed.
SR: Yeah, well said.
CB: That’s a good one. So going back, so that’s April 1st then we see the Sun-Mercury conjunction at 12 Aries the following day. Of course the Mars-Saturn conjunction culminates on April 4th as we’ve talked about and then immediately the next day Venus skips town out of Aquarius finally and moves into Pisces.
AC: She do an escape.
CB: Yeah. It’s interesting and nice the timing that Venus moves into Pisces, literally just like the day after that Mars-Saturn conjunction is over. So there’s such a distinctive shift there of both the tense energy of Mars and Saturn starting to wane or starting to move away at that point and then Venus finally breaking free and getting into some of its own home territory once it gets into Pisces and starts running headlong into the arms of Jupiter over the course of the next few weeks. All right, so that’s happening. Then eventually one of the other major ingresses that happens this month aside from Mercury moving from Aries into Taurus between March 10th and 11th is eventually Mars gets far enough away from Saturn that it actually skips into Pisces on the 14th and 15th of April. So there’s only about a week there of just pure Venus, Jupiter and Neptune in Pisces on their own energy. But then Mars catches up by the 15th of April throwing Mars into Pisces. We get more of a spicy Pisces energy at that point.
AC: And what is it? The fireball whiskey.
CB: Yeah, that’s a good one.
SR: Yeah, that’s a very good one. And I actually, as I mentioned to you guys the other day, I think Mars in Pisces is pretty sneaky. So it’s like fireball whiskey that can sneak upon you.
CB: Yeah. So it brings some spiciness, but also some speed, some urgency, sometimes some combativeness, we’ve talked about and used the analogy before of Pisces being associated with the feet, and we’re always talking about Austin’s love of MMA as a Mars in Pisces person.
AC: Yeah, I think I’m actually going to record myself kicking some stuff for my Mars return finally. I can kick way better than I look like I can, I need to provide some documentary proof. But yeah, and the perfect MMA example for Mars in Pisces is Anderson Silva, arguably the greatest of all time, Mars in Pisces, Sun in Aries ruled by that Mars in Pisces and just fantastically tricky and elusive, but then the offense when he is not on the defense or on the trickery, overwhelmingly powerful offense. You think of waves crashing. It’s interesting, I was thinking about this and this is not just me hyping up my own Mars, but literally the two greatest of all time, Amanda Nunes, who’s undisputedly the greatest of all time in the women’s division, also Mars in early Pisces. You see absolutely title power, she just knocks people dead. And then Anderson Silva, arguably the… There’s a couple, GSP has a good argument for GOAT, but also Mars in Pisces. And I was like, “Wow, we do good in MMA. Maybe it’s the mutable quality of Mars in Pisces.”
SR: It could be quick, yeah, in that sense.
AC: Yeah. I don’t think that you have like a bunch of Mars in Pisces for legends of boxing, I don’t think it shows up there, but it does seem to show up in the mixed martial arts. I had one thought yesterday in terms of what this may signify in terms of the world. One, it is just like a less stressed place for Mars. Mars may still be rabble-rousing, but Mars is with two planets, actually three planets, Venus, Jupiter, and Neptune that are really much prefer harmony over conflict. If there is to be continued conflict, it does suggest to me that it would move to the waterways. And that’s certainly brewing now if you look at some of these trade embargoes and ports being blockaded or scuffles on the water. I’m not predicting that, but I’m saying that if we’re going to have continued conflict, it certainly looks like moving to the literal water would not be highly unlikely.
SR: No, that’s a good point. I mean, what I just read in news today is that the EU has agreed to take more oil from the United States. And I can’t imagine Russia might take that just sitting down, there might even come some suspicious attacks on particular boats or other things kind of going toward Europe.
AC: Yeah, you could have it there, there’s also the pipeline capacity doesn’t exist between Russia and China for Russia to export what will be excess oil if the European embargo continues. And so if you don’t have the pipelines, that means you have to do it with boats. And so the boats have to sail all the way up to the Black Sea. And then you have is NATO going to be cool with Chinese tankers lining up? Is Turkey going to be cool with it? They’re…
SR:… these questions, yeah.
AC: Yeah, and those are boat questions.
SR: International water issues.
CB: Less seriously, I remember how in November when Mars went through Scorpio and there was that funny, I mean, depending on your perspective, not so funny story about like scorpions raining from the sky in Egypt at one point, I’m hoping maybe with Mars going through Pisces, maybe we’ll have a story in the news about like fish falling from the sky at some point.
AC: Well, and that does happen.
SR: It does happen, yay.
AC: There could be a storm out at sea and it’ll, I don’t know, grab-
SR: And someone has said in the chat shark attacks. So I think maybe we might see Sharknado. Isn’t that what you [unintelligible]
CB: Yeah, yeah. But otherwise, so Mars going into Pisces, it does on the one hand free up Mars so that it’s not getting slowed down as much by Saturn, and so we may see a speeding up of things. It does complicate the otherwise rosy picture of just Venus and Jupiter being there on their own in Pisces, and especially moving through that sector, that whole sign house of everybody’s chart and just indicating purely smoother, positive things for about a week. But despite complicating things and adding some friction, it also just will add movement to that part of everybody’s chart, whatever house Mars is ingressing into once it moves into Pisces and just think about speeding things up and perhaps having more of a necessity to act at that point once Mars goes into that sector of your chart versus the Venus and Jupiter period of just like in some instances being able to relax and sit back and not really do anything. Mars can sometimes push us to act more than we might otherwise.
AC: Pushes the pace. I can’t count how many times I’ve looked at a Mars transit and been like, “I don’t know, is this going to be something bad going to happen?” It’s not really what happens is just that there’s a lot to do. Like got be on your shit, got to keep moving, got to keep getting it done. Mars likes Taurusks, Mars likes missions, and Mars is happy to assign you more than seems doable.
CB: All right. So moving on, we do eventually come to our second lunation of the month which we have to mention which occurs on April 16th, and this is a Full Moon in the sign of Libra. I was looking at what that Full Moon is configured to, and the closest aspect I was seeing was a square with Pluto from 28 degrees of Capricorn to 26 degrees of Libra which looks like the degree of the Full Moon. There is also a trine with Saturn, which is a little bit more supportive or constructive, but yeah, the square with Pluto is a little bit tricky.
AC: Yep. The rulers are in great position though. The Full Moon in Libra looks to Venus, Venus is in great shape. And then the Sun looks to Mars and Mars is in a much more chill position than we saw two weeks earlier.
SR: Yeah. I guess for some reason we may have a very charged Easter and Passover. Now what that means, I don’t know, maybe that might also have some religious, spiritual significance for some people. I hope it’s not anything otherwise, but yeah, it’s something else because as you all know Easter is usually the first Sunday after the Full Moon, so it’s the very next day, of the vernal Equinox, sorry.
CB: Yeah. So we’re talking about a Full Moon and things coming to light or something metaphorical like that, sometimes literal, and then at the same time with it squaring Pluto, sometimes there are issues involving like control or manipulation, so maybe broadly speaking, archetypal themes that of things being brought to light involving controller manipulation.
SR: Yeah.
CB: All right, so after that, moving forward in the month, what is our next major aspect that we need to talk about? I see Venus moving in into that triple conjunction with Jupiter and Neptune by the time we get later in the month.
AC: We didn’t really talk about Mercury’s ingress into Taurus
SR: Or the Suns, yeah, I mean, so.
CB: Sure. So the first one is Mercury, which moves into Taurus around April 10th or 11th. And then several days later by the 19th and 20th, the Sun also ingresses into Taurus. All of this is important because it’s building up to a major Taurus event that occurs at the very, very end of the month, which we’re going to save and talk about mainly in the next forecast episode. But this is that we move into eclipse season at the very end of April, and we have a major solar eclipse that takes place in the sign of Taurus on April 30th. So that’s pretty big, that’s a continuation of the eclipse series that started back in November when we had our first lunar eclipse in the sign of Taurus. And so then six months later, we get this solar eclipse and that’ll be connected to a lunar eclipse in Scorpio that then will occur two weeks later in the middle of May.
SR: Yeah, that’s a pretty charged one too. I mean, yeah, I guess, you guys are going to talk about more in terms of May because I think it should just definitely be of a pair to talk about the April 30th and the May 16th in terms of how those two, because the May 16th also is a bookend to the Algol eclipse that we had in November.
CB: Well, we can at least say that Mercury and the Sun’s ingress and movement pretty swift movement through Taurus during most of April at this point, especially the second half of the April is just a build up to and is increasing the focus and increasing communication and also shedding light on whatever sector of the chart that falls in in your chart, especially whatever whole sign house and it’s building up to a sort of culmination that really hits at the time of the eclipse when there’s also a Pluto station simultaneous with the eclipse. Pluto stations retrograde in Capricorn on the 29th and 30th at 28 degrees of Capricorn. So especially anybody that has 28 degrees of the Cardinal signs as a sensitive point in your birth chart, that station is probably going to be important to you.
SR: Yeah. Building up to that buildup point, I think it probably can be more of a soothing thing I think with Venus being in her exaltation and ruling that Moon, Sun and the Mercury for most of that build up, I think there’s reason to think that it may not be as tempestuous or turbulent as otherwise we might think of just before an eclipse.
CB: Yeah. I mean, I really like that that Venus-Jupiter conjunction goes exact pretty much simultaneous with that solar eclipse. And I know we’ve had sort of like longstanding debates about eclipses and positive or negative or what have you, but at least having it be a Venus-ruled eclipse as the ruler and having Venus conjoining Jupiter simultaneously in the sign of its exultation is something positive happening parallel with the eclipse at least, especially if you have sensitive planets or degrees around 27 degrees of Pisces.
AC: Yeah, I mean, that’ll be good for… I mean, a lot of this is great for planets and Pisces. Just a few things about Mercury on the 11th and the Sun, 10, 11 days later. So in part it’s also just a tonal shift with Mercury, it’s thinking about practical things. And as we know these days, practical things are a little bit more up in the air than usual. Where’s the bread going to come from? And so Mercury definitely has some time to work on practical things, because the eclipse isn’t until 19 days after Mercury’s ingress. And I would also add that the first decan of Taurus is Mercury’s and it’s about the focus in that decan is on planning, material planning for lean times and also figuring out, what am I going to plant this year? Doing that kind of planning ahead for material resources and in fields and that it’s a good time to do that with the ruler of Taurus being Venus, which is in great shape. So there’s certainly an opportunity to do some planning, account for problems that may arise in the near future, to plan with them rather than to plan against them or to plan an ignorance of them. And I guess I have a little different perspective on the ruler of the eclipse in Taurus being in such wonderful shape. I guess I would see that giving the eclipse a chance to, how should we say, besmirch or stain something that looked like it was going to be just perfect. The eclipse wiped a little, I don’t know, how should we say, the part of the essential nature of eclipse is they take a point of brilliance and then they cut that light, whether it’s supposed to be the Moon at maximum silver or the Sun at midday and gold, and it’s like, “No,” And blocking the light of something that’s supposed to be brilliant.
SR: That’s still good, it’s still good. I mean, I guess I’m transmitting my-
AC: Yeah, we can different opinions, that’s just my take.
CB: We have a long-standing debate about eclipses and just as negative omens or as positive ones. One of the things, so just bringing up this eclipse series and showing some dates here in our graphics, so this eclipse on April 30th is at 10 degrees of Taurus and then the corresponding lunar eclipse will be on May 16 at 25 degrees of Scorpio. And so this is really important because this is when this eclipse series really gets going when we only saw a little bit of a preview of it back in November with that lunar eclipse in Taurus. But at this point, we’re talking major beginnings and major endings in a sequence or a series of those really starting in the Taurus-Scorpio axis of everybody’s chart. And if that’s an important axis for you, for example, if you have like a fixed sign rising or if you have fixed sign placements that are really important in your chart or even if your profected sign of year from the Ascendant or the [unintelligible 42.14] is Taurus or Scorpio, then these eclipses are going to be much more personally important and relevant for you. And it would be good to start paying attention to if there are any major beginnings or endings at that time in your life, because that could open up a sort of portal or a doorway to a larger sequence of events that’s going to play out over the course of the next year or so when we’ll get another series of eclipses later in the year, it looks like in October, November also in Taurus and Scorpio, so whatever starts or comes to a major ending around this time in late April or mid-May may be part of a larger sequence rather than something that’s just a one-time event.
AC: Yeah. This is as Chris was saying, this is the first set of Taurus-Scorpio eclipses where both sides, both the solar and lunar are on the Taurus-Scorpio axis. We did one of those one foot in, one foot out eclipses, set of eclipses in the fourth quarter last year, where one side was on the Taurus-Scorpio axis and then the other was the Gemini-Sag axis where we’d been for a while. But this is all in on Taurus and Scorpio. And then we’re going to go all in again on Taurus and Scorpio six months from that. And so we’re in the game now. And I would suggest to people looking at what is implied by the transit of the nodes to that pair of houses in their chart. And to think of that as a process that’s going to take roughly a year and a half, and this is the six-month mark. Right. So and that process is moved forward by the eclipses actually hitting.
CB: Yeah, that’s a really, really great point. And so the nodes this month it looks like by the time we get to the eclipse, the true node at least will be at about 22-ish Taurus and 22 Scorpio. So we’re starting to get to the node finishing up its transit through the first, or I guess it’s technically the third decan of that sign, and will eventually start moving into the middle decan of Taurus and Scorpio before too long here. Actually, it’s just like stuck there at 22, 21 forever. All right. Well, that’s pretty crazy. But the other thing that I wanted to mention that’s actually connected with that is Saturn is getting super far into Aquarius at this point during the course of the next month. It’s really traveling ground that it hasn’t gotten to before as it moves through 22 to 25 Aquarius basically during the course of April and May before it eventually stations retrograde at 25 in early June. So this is important just because Saturn only got as far as 13, I think, degrees last year of Aquarius, so it’s already been treading new ground for a while, but it’s getting super late in Aquarius at this point and therefore really going to be activating especially fixed sign placements or people that have stuff in the third or the last 10 degrees of any of the fixed signs through a hard aspect.
SR: Yeah, along with the node and along with the eclipses. So there’s definitely pressure.
AC: Under pressure, it’s hard out there for a fixed sign these days.
SR: I mean, the word I like to use is pressure, because it doesn’t always have to be hard. It can be ways in which it really prompts growth or action.
AC: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I don’t mean that… I don’t know. I guess, I don’t think of hard as inherently negative. I mean, sometimes that brings out the best in some people at some times, but I don’t know, I just try to acknowledge the… I like pressure, like you said.
CB: Yeah. Well, when one of the things I brought up last time was two years ago we experienced that first Mars- Saturn conjunction in Aquarius in March and April. So some people already there was already a really hard or let’s say tense conjunction of those energies in this sector of the chart, especially, let’s say, this whole sign house two years ago. So for some people this may be bringing back some of those energies or there may be some formal similarity where they feel a similar or parallel level of tensions in the sector of their chart over the course of the next month with Mars and Saturn conjoining in Aquarius again. But hopefully, for some people the first time something happens, it can be more difficult just because you’re kind of caught off guard or you haven’t experienced that energy before. But this time now that we’re talking about the second time around, hopefully for some people it’ll be a little bit easier here to deal with, because you’ve kind of experienced this a little bit before and maybe know how to handle it a little bit better than you did last time.
AC: Yeah, oh, we’re doing this again.
SR: And maybe people can also as a prelude look at the north node at 25 degrees of Taurus, which was maybe about two months ago and see what was happening in their lives. Maybe this might be continuation of that narrative.
CB: Okay. Yeah, all right. So that brings us, we’re already talking about the end of the month. That actually brings me to I need to talk about our electional chart, our auspicious electional chart and date, which I’ve actually got two charts I wanted to give people. It’s a variation of the same chart on the same day, but I wanted to give people some options because this pile up of planets in Pisces is so nice that it’s really good to take advantage of it while Venus and Jupiter are still there. So our auspicious electional chart is set for April 26th, 2022, and I’m going to give you two versions of the chart. The first version of the chart is at 4:25 AM local time with Pisces rising. So let me animate the chart and take it to 4:25 AM. Basically just set the chart for your location, set it for about 4.25 and then adjust the chart until you have around let’s say 22 degrees of Pisces rising in whatever your city is roughly on April 26th. So what you should end up with is something approaching this chart, where we have 22 Pisces rising, Venus is at 22 Pisces exactly conjunct the degree of the Ascendant, and Venus is moving into and still applying to that conjunction with Neptune at 24 Pisces and Jupiter at 27 Pisces. Jupiter is actually the ruler of the Ascendant, so it’s in the first house, first whole sign house. It is a night chart because the Sun is still below the horizon, it’s four o’clock in the morning and the Sun is in the third house. So Venus is actually the benefic of the sect in favor, because it’s a nighttime planet in a night chart. And that’s one of the reasons why we’re putting it right on the Ascendant. So this is both a good benefic Venus chart as well as not a bad Jupiter chart with Jupiter in its domicile and Venus in its exaltation. The Moon is in Pisces at 13 degrees or so, and it’s applying within about 10 degrees to a conjunction with Venus, which again just emphasizes that exalted Venus placement in a night chart. We do have Mars also in Pisces in the first whole sign house, but that’s acceptable and we’ll get a more constructive manifestation of Mars because this is a night chart and Mars tends to behave himself a lot better in night charts than he does in day charts. What else? Yeah, so this is our primary election and it’s mainly a Venus-Jupiter conjunction election in Pisces by really emphasizing that benefic energy, especially with the Venus, it can be good for things that you want to appear good, or to have a good appearance or have some sort of aesthetic appeal with the Venus-Jupiter-Neptune conjunction. It can be something even that looks a little bit mystical or sort ethereal in some way, but generally just things that have a favorable appearance where you want to put your best foot forward in some way. The variant for this chart is a Sagittarius rising chart at 10:15 PM on the same day on April 26th, I believe. Let’s see. So let me back that up. Here it is. So later that night, and part of the reason we’re giving variants here for this month is because the first one’s at like four in the morning and this one’s at 10 o’clock at night. So neither of these are super practical hours during the daytime, but if there’s one of them that makes it more usable for you than the other, then go ahead. So this chart, which should be set for about 10:15 PM, 10 minutes over, has Sagittarius rising. The ruler of the Ascendant is again Jupiter located in Pisces. But now it’s in the fourth whole sign of house along with the rest of that Pisces stellium of Neptune Venus, the Moon and Mars. Venus has moved much closer to the other planets at this point. And in our location it’s at 23 degrees of Pisces applying closely to a conjunction with Venus, which is also at 23 degrees of Pisces. So this one is less first house focused and is more focused on the fourth house, which can be practical things like home living situation, parents as are the traditional significations in ancient astrology or family. But the fourth house can also be one’s private life. And in a lot of the ancient Hellenistic texts, there were a lot of like mystical and sort of occult significations with the fourth house as well that had to do with one’s focus on religion or spirituality or other mystical matters because it’s the most hidden and sort of occulted part of the chart in some way. And in this chart that’s almost emphasized even more because of the closed conjunction with Neptune and Jupiter in the sign of Pisces. So it can be good for sort of quiet, private, contemplative or meditative types of elections, as well as just for building strong foundations in initiating something new that you want to begin or initiating a major project or undertaking.
AC: Someone in the chat points out… Sorry, I didn’t see the name, the fourth is also real estate. I’m not sure exactly what kind of… I don’t know if you want to begin building something or thinking about selling or acquiring, but it is just a fourth house thing. Or in addition to real estate in sort of a big market sense, it’s also where you live, where you dwell, and initiating some project to improve, beautify, upgrade in some way your space.
SR: Renovate that kitchen. So yeah, that’s one time to do it.
CB: For sure.
SR: [crosstalk] Yeah. I mean, and then go to bed.
CB: Yeah. I mean, sometimes it’s just with these making that symbolic first step towards starting something and sometimes that can be sufficient and that can be what you can use these times or these charts for just to get the ball rolling, and sometimes having a symbolic start to something that is astrologically auspicious can be more helpful than you might think at first. So that’s the featured election for this month. We have, I think, four or five other auspicious electional charts where we try to take advantage of Venus and Jupiter moving through Pisces during the course of the month of April. And those other electional charts are available to subscribers of the podcast through our page on patreon.com/astrologypodcast. So you can check that out by signing up and becoming a patron and getting access to that separate, I think, it’s an hour-long podcast that we recorded and released just a few days ago for the auspicious elections podcast series. All right. So that election chart is towards the very end of the month. We’ve already started touching on the eclipses, although we’re going to save the full discussion for that for later on. Are there other things that we’re missing or that we meant to touch on in terms of the forecast for April before we start to get towards the end of this or start to wind down?
SR: Well, we’re going to talk about Venus-Neptune, right?
CB: Sure, yeah. We touched on it very briefly, but that would be a good thing to touch on again just because that aspect, it looks like that goes exact here around April 26th, April 27th. We had talked a little bit before about how it has that double edge sword of sometimes looking very good or being really shiny, but sometimes having unrealistic expectations about things.
AC: Yeah. Well, the beautiful moment doesn’t guarantee the beautiful life.
SR: That’s true.
CB: It’s not always and they lived happily ever after, you don’t end the story. That’s where you’re supposed to end the stories right there, right?
SR: Yeah, I actually called this the Disney Princess aspect. Yeah, and that came from sitting with my now ex-wife looking at a bunch of Disney movies and realizing something actually quite profound that I think is useful related to Venus-Neptune, is that at the start of these movies, often the princess, however we want to talk about it, is in communion, happily communion with nature, with things. Whether it’s Belle with books or Sleeping Beauty with nature and birds and everything. So there is a way in which if you’re looking to commune with nature and kind of bond more with your animals, whether that’s your dog or your cat, or just to get out more into the wilderness or something like that, that could be an auspicious time because Venus-Neptune really is kind of celestial oxytocin, more so looking for a way to have some sense of bonding and that sense of oneness. You just have to be careful when you extend that sense of oneness with a lot of attitude and a lot of expectation toward a person. But when you’re talking about wanting to experience the sense of communion, whether that’s deep meditation, all these things are very auspicious.
AC: That’s a really good template for thinking about this. And so it’s interesting, it just made me think about the actual lived connection between, at least for me, between my Disney Princess moments and spirituality, which is also suggested by this. I’ve had like wild animals come up to me and like be Disney friends only a few times in my life, and it’s always when I was like an hour into an intense meditative or mantra practice. I had a moment two years ago where I was doing a practice out in the woods every night for about two hours. And I looked to my right and there was a fox just sitting like two feet behind me who’s just like chilling and listening to the mantras. Of course my Disney Princess moment involve worshiping [Kali] for two hours every night.
CB: Some day Disney will make a movie about you and it’ll be really good. It’ll be kind of dark, but really good. So something that might be good for both of you actually because you both have different perspectives on this that might be useful, can we talk a little bit about the religious or spiritual aspect both of Jupiter and Neptune and what’s tied in with that? Because that’s been something I’ve been interested in over the past few months and, Austin, we had a sort of curtailed discussion last month briefly that went in a different direction than I was thinking about like the importance sometimes of belief or the usefulness of belief as something that’s powerful that can actually change things when you’re inspired by something and the role of inspiration sometimes in being something that’s important. And sometimes this is a criticism that skeptics make against astrology where they say that people turn towards astrology when they’re having hard times and they’re looking for something to believe in, and they frame it as if it’s bad that people are then taken advantage of. But I think I’ve been thinking about this a lot more recently and actually there’s something very valuable about when you’re in a difficult place and you’re seeking answers and being able to have some sort of sense, you can ask questions to the universe and that the universe sometimes speaks back to you, that there can be something very powerful and very actually healthy and helpful about that in giving you a deeper sense of the world or a more important sense of the world than you might have otherwise.
AC: Yeah, a thousand percent. There’s a bunch here. I’ll just say one thing, which is that thinking about the situation that a number of Ukrainians are in, but the situation where you don’t have anything materially, right? The material things are gone. You still have your spirit and your spirituality, and that’s what you’ve got to work with at certain times. Like if everything else is stripped away, you still have that if you have that, and how that can be extremely sustaining to have a source of strength that can’t be removed except by you. And Sam, Chris and I wanted to have you on this month for a bunch of reasons, but one of them was like we wanted to kind of continue this Pisces inspired spirituality discussion, and I know have a life of practice and searching and thinking and studying.
SR: Yeah. And what’s deep about this happening, one thing we haven’t mentioned and I guess the onus is on me to mention it, this month also is the month of Ramadan for Muslims. So one of the things that I think about- Ramadan, in general, I’m just speaking because it’s going to change every year by 11 days, is a time of deep spiritual reflection on one’s relationship to the Divine, by not just partaking in your everyday activities which includes eating, drinking, having sex during the day, as an example. It becomes where it almost forces you to kind of think more about your relationship to your body and your material needs, but in terms of the spiritual. So it testifies to exactly what you’re talking about with what’s happening with many Ukrainians in terms of the deprivation of those particular things. But on a deeper level that you’re asking about, Chris, one of the things when I debate skeptics– and I’ve done it quite a bit on Twitter and even with Bill Nye and other people, is when they critique astrology for confirmation bias or basically toward belief in something that isn’t empirical, the one thing I countered back is kind of like, well, we don’t live our lives as based on empiricism in terms of like, I don’t describe or say to my partners, “Well, right now I have an acquisition by hormones for your particular body and all these particular things.” We say, “No, I love you.” Right? Or, “I feel some measure of affection towards you,” which are not quote-unquote “tangible things”. So what we’re really talking about is a longing in a way in which we’re talking about the intangible. And I might even go deeper and this is something Christopher talked about last month; that sense of awe, that sense of what’s beyond us, the numinous, the mysterious. You know, that is actually what Allah is for me, the numinous, the unnamed even though we could talk about the names. And so I think that does become important in acknowledging that in whatever spiritual practice that you have or approach to it. Because some of the best scientists, actual real scientists, always have a sense of awe. They never lose that sense of the appreciation for something that is utterly beyond them, beyond our language or any language, and any attempt at description. I mean this is something that speaking the Pisceans, this is something that Einstein wrestled with and talked about all the time, especially when he comes and says a statement like, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
AC: Yeah, absolutely.
CB: Yeah. Something I’ve been really focused on lately over the past month or two and thinking about the concept of divination, I was trying to formulate it earlier this month, but I was really struck by- Because when I first started learning astrology 20 years ago, I picked up astrology and tarot at the same time and I was gonna learn both, but then I realised really quickly I felt like I needed to really commit myself to one or the other because I wanted to master one and I felt like I would be able to master one as quickly if I tried to do both simultaneously so I started to focus on astrology. But now 20 years later and coming back to that, one of the things I’m impressed by and starting to learn tarot is how often and how startling it’s been to have a really important question or something I’m focused on in that moment, and to draw three cards and to have it perfectly describe the actual situation that I’m thinking about or talking about at that moment. And there’s something really startling about that that you have to experience yourself subjectively and experientially in order to understand it beyond just like a hypothetical scenario of that shouldn’t exist so that shouldn’t work. It shouldn’t work. Nothing should work that way but for some reason it does. But it made me understand also a deeper meaning that the implicit premise of divination is that the universe speaks to us, and that made me think more broadly also about astrology and how we’re used to– lots of astrologers use that phrase or that conceptualization that astrology is a language, but we often don’t talk about whose language it is and who’s talking? Like, when we’re looking at astrology or when we’re analyzing it, and we often use it more as this objectively occurring thing that’s happening out in nature, which is probably the more naturalistic or scientific side of astrology. But there’s also sometimes that more subjective or divinity side of astrology that’s more obvious and Horary where it’s doing the same thing, where the chart of the moment is speaking to and describing the thing that you’re speaking about or thinking about at that time, but then it’s also telling you something about the past and the present and the future. And there’s something that’s really inspiring and mystical but also just hard to fully comprehend about that.
SR: Yeah, I agree. And thinking about Neptune, now I’m not a big fan or person or advocate for the idea of higher octaves of planets especially the initial planets. But one thing I think about often, if there is such a thing as these higher octaves, I actually could argue that Neptune is the higher octave of Mercury. What I mean by that is that Mercury traditionally was the planet that we associated with astrology before modern astrologers got more into the idea of Uranus. And what’s interesting to me in thinking about Neptune is one, in Neptune’s discovery. Neptune was discovered by math, literally by mercurial thinking. It wasn’t like Uranus by sight– William Herschel and his telescope. It was literally by different people, at least two different people, mathematicians calculating what they expected to be the position of Neptune until someone actually did look in a national telescope and found Neptune. And I think that becomes significant in thinking about Neptune related to Mercury because it becomes a way of where we engage the numinous and receive almost like the antenna that we see on Neptune in the glyph, that reception of knowledge. But it’s an approximation, and that’s one thing that we always have to remember when we talk about astrology. It’s an approximation toward something, it’s not the actual language of the angels or the Divine. And I think we lose sight of that. I think sometimes we also kind of lapse into a certain empiricism. And that goes into more how we start to receive it. That can be received through tarot, it could be received through dreams, it can be received through a chart, all these particular things.
CB: Yeah. Go ahead.
AC: Yeah. I would just say I really like the question, whose language is it? And I think there are a lot of probably several good answers for that from different angles. One is that it’s essential grammar is the language of the body of creation and that it’s literally how the planets are moving relative to us, right? It’s like the language of increasing, of getting faster, of getting slower, of changing direction, you know, of different paces all intersecting. You know, in essence we’re looking at the astronomy of our solar system and assuming that that’s telling us something. And then there’s all the thousand different Tower of Babel ways to interpret that, maybe to interpret that speech. The speech is light in motion, right? And then our decoder rings, right, we’ve got a lot of different decoder rings for dealing with that. One other thing that sort of intersects with this in looking at something that’s more like cartomancy where there can be no argument that there’s anything resembling a physical cause. Right? It reminds me of one of the– according traditional text– one of the essential branches of Vedic astrology is the study of nimitta or omens. That’s part of the approach that I got from freedom. Something I was doing anyway but it’s really nice to see it recognized formally is that you pay attention to omens that occurred during a reading. Right? There’s an example where someone was looking at like, “Oh, me and my wife. Maybe we’re going to try to have a kid next year or maybe we’re going to wait a while.” And then a young child came into the astrologer’s office out of nowhere and it was like, “Okay! That’s…” at exactly the same time. The synchronicities pile up around really important questions and astrologers, we should be paying attention to those things anyway by the way. Like, the formal recognition that that’s a branch of it is keeping an eye on that while you’re doing the reading and looking at what the future may hold.
SR: Yeah. The moment that I hear from a client, that begins and I pay attention to anything that happens related to that. That also becomes, you know, related to the reading itself whatever happens.
CB: Yeah, that makes me think of I did- First episode I did this month or maybe second episode was the interview with Eric Purdue about his new translation of the Three Books of Occult Philosophy, and he was drawing on a lot of earlier platonic philosophy and religious concepts, partially about the platonic notion of the entire cosmos being like this cosmic animal that’s alive and is sentient to the notion that the body of the cosmos is the physical world that we can see in touch with our hands, but the idea that there’s also a soul and intelligence that’s infused throughout it. And that became then many ancient astrologers’ and diviners’ rationale for then why there could be signs and symbols that appear to people in the cosmos, because these are like the thoughts of this cosmic animal and that they’re somehow reverberating through nature at different points in time and reflecting the things that are happening within it.
AC: Right. Thoughts are expressed through motion. Like if I make a gesture to you, right? Thought’s expressed through motion. Thought expressed through motion.
CB: Right. Astrology is interesting in that way because then you can conceptualize things like what you’re talking about, which also Agrippa mentions which is omens and paying attention to things happening in nature as signs or symbols or messages that are being sent to you about something about the quality of that moment. But also, the Mercurial nature of astrology, I keep thinking about how Mercury was traditionally the ancient planet that was associated with astrology, and that Mercury always has one foot in each side of an issue. And on the one hand, it is probably partially like other forms of divination like tarot, where there’s this subjective element to it where it’s through the random allotment of something through fortune or chance sort of like the shuffling of the cards or the throwing of I Ching coins or something like that. And through the random allotment of something, you pull a card or you pull a number and that will give you something that should be random, but in fact it ends up being meaningful and purposeful and deliberate for some reason on the part of the cosmos and sending you a message that’s subjectively and actually important to you at that point in time. So there’s this subjective and divinity element to astrology which comes up clearly in Horary but may also be present in Natal astrology because most of the time Natal astrology, I think the original conception was that you sort of popped out and you come into the world at a random moment in time that’s not really under the control of anyone necessarily, and the sky or the cosmos is spinning at that moment. And then at the moment that you come out and emergent the world, you freeze-frame it and whatever the alignment of the planets were at that moment is the random or chance thing just like the casting of the cards in tarot. So there’s probably that divinity element to it but then there’s also something that makes astrology unique, which is that it probably does have some other more natural or almost scientific element where the movements of the planets are predetermined, and there’s this timing element in astrology and this whole other side to it. But the fact that it’s kind of both is what perhaps might make it unique as this sort of special thing that sets it apart from other forms of divination purely.
SR: Well, it’s also communal, and that also makes me think about how Muslims view the start of months. One thing that many people may not know is that, you know, and it’s sometimes very frustrating for bosses and different people, Muslims can’t just say, “Oh, Ramadan is actually going to be on the 3rd of April or 4th.” That’s because it requires you seeing the Moon. Someone has to see the Moon. It just can’t be from a tabulation or what’s written down, it’s a sighting. And one of the things that makes– going along with your point, Chris– that makes astrology unique in the forms of divination and the other Mantic arts is that jointly other people can see what you see, which is not the same as you’re dealing with entrails or not the same as dealing with cards. It’s like, “Did you see that in the sky?” “Yeah, I saw that!” And so there’s a way in which we also have a communal understanding related to the size of the planets.
AC: There’s also this very strange thing with astrology where we know what cards are going to be played 3,260 months into the future. In some ways, it’s the opposite of who knows what we’re going to get. With the cards if you shuffle well, it’s like, “All right, what’s it gonna be?” Where it’s like, you know the cards that are going to be played in the future as long as you have an accurate ephemeris for as far ahead as you might look.
CB: Right. And that repetition of historical cycles and events that you can see down through history and research objectively, like when Venus was retrograde and we had the initiation of this war. And four years ago under a Venus retrograde in Capricorn, there was something similar. Or the Saturn-Neptune conjunctions historically that you were talking about, Austin, and these important turning points in Russian history, and how that’s happened in the past and how we can see that already coming up again in the future. So there’s this weird objective component to and that’s something that makes astrology very unique and very interesting and hard to reconcile with that other part of it. But that’s part of our job as astrologers, and astrologers are also signified by Mercury traditionally as being the intermediaries and the interpreters of the stars and of the movements of the planets.
AC: And the calculators. You know, we talked about astrology programs. Like, that’s not most of the history of astrology, it’s a lot of calculation.
CB: Right. Mathematically. All right, I think that’s a really good note since we’re at two hours and 15 minutes, that might be a good wrapping up point in terms of this forecast. So, thank you both. This was amazing. Sam, what do you have coming up? Do you have any events, classes, other things, speaking engagements?
SR: Yeah. One of the things I’m excited about is that I’m participating in opaastrology.org, I believe, which is starting next month. It’s gonna start, I believe, on I want to say the 2nd. But yeah, it starts in April and it’s really bringing together a lot of different astrologers to really mentor and help people become better astrologers. I think I even had a mentee or maybe two in the room. So that’s something that I’m very excited about. And we’re also going to meet in person in Tucson.
CB: Nice. So you are a consulting astrologer. And what’s your website again?
SR: unlockastrology.com.
CB: Brilliant. There it is, unlockastrology.com. And you offer readings, classes… You’re speaking at one or two other conferences later this year?
SR: Yeah, I’m speaking also at NORWAC in May so, Memorial Day weekend. And then in August toward the end of August, we’ll be also presenting with ISAR. And then yet another conference– I think it’s a smaller conference. It’s in September, I’m blanking on the dates right now. It’s new. It’s going to be in Lily Dale near Buffalo, New York.
CB: Brilliant. All right. Well, people can probably find out more information about that on your website unlockastrology.com, and then you’re also of course very active on Twitter. What’s your handle there again?
SR: @UnlockAstrology since I lost the other one. But yeah, @UnlockAstrology.
CB: Perfect. All right. Austin, what do you have coming up?
AC: Well, the [02:18:49] series that I elected for Sphere + Sundry actually came out I think about two hours ago today for the Plus members and it will be out publicly on Monday the 28th. If people want to make sure to catch that, get on Kate’s mailing list, the Sphere and Sundry mailing list. Let’s see… I’m going to be opening up or reopening up my year one program for a little bit, letting some more students in April, specifically April 13th. It filled up really quickly last time and so if you really want to study with me and soon, get on the mailing list because I’ll send out a newsletter before I open it up publicly. For my returning students, if you’ve already done year one or year two with me, I’m going to be beginning a whole new year-long set of year two and year three classes in May. The enrollment for that opens on April 30th. That shouldn’t be a mad rush. So by all means, sign up for the newsletter and you’ll definitely get that when it comes out. But there’s not as much pressure there.
CB: Nice. And your website is austincoppock.com and you’re also speaking at NORWAC?
AC: I absolutely am. I’m gonna barely shut up at NORWAC. [Samuel laughs] I’ve got two talks as opposed to normal, right? No, but I’ve got two talks and like a five-hour workshop.
CB: Brilliant. Okay, cool. Yeah, we’ll check out his website at austincoppock.com. As for me, I did want to mention and plug briefly our sponsor from last month, which was the Zodiac Buzzed drinking card game. They have launched their Kickstarter, it’s almost funded but they’re very close to their goal and there’s only seven days to go. I think the deadline is April 2nd for it to be fully funded. So if you’d like to help them out to push them over the edge over the next few days or get a copy of those cards, a first edition copy which is probably going to be a collector’s edition, honestly, because I think this is going to be a big thing, just go to kickstarter.com and search for their funding project by searching for Zodiac Buzzed and you can find out more information about that.
SR: A good reminder. I thought that was such a fun thing last month, and I totally forgot to add to the Kickstarter. It was just in one ear and out the other. So…
CB: Yeah. Well, they launched it a little bit after our episode came out so that’s the reason I wanted to mention it again, because I think people may have checked out the website and not seen the Kickstarter yet and therefore forgotten about it. But this is a good reminder to go check it out and help fund them because it’s a great project. Speaking of other great projects, for myself, I don’t have any events coming up but I’m going to just continue focusing on the podcast and producing episodes each month for public episodes for the public or just free classes that I’m basically doing through the series through The Astrology Podcast as I get into the mid 350 range of episodes, and then to private episodes that are only for patrons each month. So if you’d like to help support that work and get access to bonus content like early access to new episodes, or if you’d like to attend the live recordings like our audience is doing today in the chat, or access the Auspicious Elections Podcast or even get a producer credit at the end of each episode of the astrology podcast, go to patreon.com/astrologypodcast, become a patron and you can support the work that I’m doing here. I’m still in the process of getting a new editor and that’s ended up taking a lot more time, and there have been a lot of applicants. Thanks to everybody who sent in emails, I haven’t been able to get back to or work with everybody yet but I hope to have that sorted out over the next few weeks and move into whatever the next phase of the podcast is over the course of the next month or two. Especially, I’m hoping to do some interviews at some of the conferences that are coming up this year, either in Seattle or here in Colorado in August when the ISAR conference takes place here.
All right, I think that’s it for this episode of the podcast of forecast. Thanks, guys. This was awesome. It was a great discussion. Thanks for joining us today, Sam.
SR: Yeah, thank you.
AC: Yeah, we really [crosstalk] from the brutal to the sublime.
SR: Yeah, that’s good. [laughs]
CB: That might be a good subtitle for this episode, I’ll have to think about that. All right. Well, in the meantime we’ll be back again in a month, the end of next month to do the next forecast for May so stay tuned for that. Please be sure to like, subscribe, and leave a comment if you’re watching this on YouTube. Otherwise, that’s it for this episode of The Astrology Podcast. So thanks everyone for watching or listening, and we’ll see you again next time.
Special thanks to all the patrons that supported the production of this episode of the podcast through our page on patreon.com. In particular, thanks to the patrons on our producers’ tier including Thomas Miller, Catherine Conroy, Kristi Moe, Ariana Amour, Mandi Rae, Angelic Nambo, Sumo Coppock, Issah Sabah, Jake Otero, Morgan MacKenzie, and Kristin Otero. If you like the work that I’m doing here on the podcast and you would like to find a way to support it then please consider becoming a patron through my page on patreon.com and in exchange you’ll get access to bonus content such as early access to new episodes, the ability to attend the live recording of the month ahead forecast each month, access to a private monthly auspicious elections report that we put out each month, access to exclusive episodes that are only available for patrons, or you can also get your name listed in the credits at the end of each episode. For more information, go to patreon.com/astrologypodcast. The main software we use here on the podcast to look at astrological charts is called Solar Fire for Windows which is available at alabe.com, and you can use the promo code AP15 to get a 15% discount. For Mac users, we use a similar set of software by the same programming team called Astro Gold for Mac OS which is available from astrogold.io, and you can use the promo code ASTROPODCAST15 to get a 15% discount on that as well.
If you’d like to learn more about the approach to astrology that I outline on the podcast, then you should check out my book titled Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune, where I traced the origins of Western astrology and reconstructed the original system that was developed about 2000 years ago. In this book, I outline basic concepts but also take you into intermediate and advanced techniques for reading a birth chart, including some timing techniques. You can find more about the book at hellenisticastrology.com/book. The book pairs very well with my online course on ancient astrology called the Hellenistic Astrology Course, which has over 100 hours of video lectures where I go into detail about teaching you how to read a birth chart, and showing hundreds of example charts in order to really demonstrate how the techniques work in practice. Find out more information about that at theastrologyschool.com.
Also, special thanks to our sponsors including The Mountain Astrologer magazine which is available at mountainastrologer.com, the Honeycomb Collective Personal Astrological Almanacs available at honeycomb.co, and the Astro Gold Astrology App which is available for both iPhone and Android at astrogold.io. There are also two major astrology conferences happening this year. The first is the Northwest Astrological Conference happening May 26th through the 30th 2022 near Seattle, Washington. Find out more information at norwac.net. And the second is the International Society for Astrological Research conference, which is taking place August 25th through the 29th 2022 in Westminster, Colorado. You can find out more information about that at isar2022.org.