The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 350, titled:
Sharing Astrology Transit Stories
With Chris Brennan and the Denver Astrology Group
Episode originally released on May 6, 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 May 8, 2022
Copyright © 2022 TheAstrologyPodcast.com
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CHRIS BRENNAN: Welcome to the first meeting of the Denver Astrology Group in two years, this is our first meeting since the pandemic. [applause] Yeah, it feels really good to be back here at the Mercury Cafe. For those that aren’t aware, I started this group back in May of 2008 and we had a really nice 12-year run there where we didn’t miss almost a single meeting for 12 years until the pandemic hit and the lockdowns happened starting in March of 2020. Since that time, a lot of things have happened and we’ve been wanting to bring the group back but wasn’t sure when it was time. But it feels like with Jupiter in Pisces this spring, we’re finally getting back to normal and it was time to bring the group back. So let’s see, a few things to get out of the way first. So thanks, everybody. We weren’t sure– since it’s our first time doing a group meeting– what to do in terms of masks and other things like that. So we ended up asking for a mask policy very late in the process just to make some people feel more comfortable coming back. We’ll continue to talk about that over the course of the next few months but since it was the first meeting, we just felt like playing it safe. I am going to not wear a mask just so you can hear me, but I did take a COVID test this morning and it was negative just for the sake of being safe.
What we’re going to do in this meeting is I’m going to open up just by talking about some transits starting two years ago at the beginning of the pandemic, some of the major outer planet transits that were indicating what was going on and what was happening in the world in general. And we’re going to personalize some of that by talking about how some of those transits impacted us in our personal lives over the past two years. Some of those transits for example, were Saturn going through Aquarius where in March and April of 2020, Saturn went into Aquarius, Mars conjoined Saturn in that sign, and that was sort of like the beginning of the lockdowns and everything else and a lot of the things we’ve been experiencing over the past few years. I want to talk about some of these transits in the context of our birth charts and I was hoping that individuals would feel comfortable coming up to the mic and sharing one positive transit that they had or one negative transit that they had over the course of the past two years, and how that worked out in their personal life. Because sometimes it’s really by talking about our personal stories that astrology comes alive in a way that’s much different than when you’re just reading about it in a book or you’re watching it on a YouTube channel or something like that. And having the ability to have those discussions, I thought would be a good way to bring the group back and start building a sense of community again after that little two-year break.
Why don’t we get started first by… I wanted to pull up some charts to set some of the context for the group. So first, I wanted to pull up the chart of the Mercury Cafe. So this is the actual birth chart for the opening and the first day of business of this building when Marilyn opened it on Halloween morning, October 31st, 1990. Marilyn’s in the audience. This was an electrical chart, right? Yeah. And you can kind of see that because it’s funny when you look at charts done by astrologers, some things are done very deliberately. In this instance, Marilyn put it so that the Sun and Venus were right on the Ascendant at five degrees of Scorpio, and Jupiter was placed right on the degree of the midheaven at 12 degrees of Leo. And then the Mercury Cafe opened for business in this location for the first time at this exact moment, and this has forever been the birth chart of the Mercury Cafe and the energy of this place, and as well as some of the events that have happened with it. One of the things that’s been really fascinating that we talked about even a few years ago that was starting to happen as Saturn was transiting through Capricorn in 2017 through 2020, is that Saturn was going through the third house of the Mercury Cafe’s actual birth chart. The third house is the house that represents your neighbors and your neighborhood, and the Mercury Cafe was actually going through a Saturn Return at that time. And one of the things that was funny is for many years, this building was kind of on the outskirts of downtown Denver but then all of a sudden during that timeframe over the past several years, these huge highrises and skyscrapers started going up and now we can all see as we look out the window that there’s just buildings and sort of a flourishing neighborhood of large buildings that is almost dwarfing the Mercury Cafe in some respects. This is a good example of how sometimes even the birth charts of businesses or entities or other things that are not necessarily humans not birth charts can still be reflected in the transits of what’s going on in the world at the time.
And then of course in 2020, Saturn ingressed into Aquarius and then went into the fourth house of the Mercury Cafe chart and the Mercury Cafe was able to weather the pandemic, and then eventually Marilyn made the choice to sell the Mercury Cafe to new owners. Which I thought was kind of interesting symbolically since the fourth house in a birth chart represents your parents. So, who are the parents of a business? It’s the owner. It’s the person who started it and birthed it and nursed it and brought it up into the world. And then at some point when there’s a transition or there was a transition here, Saturn was transiting through the fourth house. So that’s been a major change but it’s also been nice to see some continuity in the Mercury Cafe and that we’re still able to do things like have these meetings here and have it be a thriving place for community, not just for our group but for other groups as well.
All right. Here’s the chart for the sale of the Mercury Cafe. This was the one you ended up using, right Marilyn?
CB: Okay, so it’s June 22nd, 2021. And you can see that Saturn was right at 12 degrees of Aquarius, which in the previous chart was the exact degree of the IC in the birth chart of the Mercury Cafe. So it wasn’t just that it was going through the fourth whole sign house, but it actually hit the degree of the IC at the time of the sale. And some of that was electional because you were searching for a good chart, but some of that was sort of accidental of just the timing, right? Actually, do you want to come up to the mic and talk about the chart? [audience claps]
Marilyn: I didn’t know that we were going to talk about this chart but it’s fine. I really liked- I wanted the Sun-Jupiter trine and I think there was another trine in there that I was looking for. I wanted the power of the solstice. The transit that to me really depicts this sale is the Uranus opposition from the seventh house to the first house in the original chart. Also, I’m 71 years old and I knew when I was 68 that I needed to figure out the future because I really can’t work that hard anymore. [laughs]
CB: Do you mind if we take a look at your chart? You don’t have to, it’s up to you.
Marilyn: Well, do you want to look at this chart anymore?
CB: Yeah. So this is an electoral chart that you and I talked about and went over that were kind of picking together because you were like, “Find a chart that’s really close to the summer solstice.” And one of the things we got was Mercury stationing direct in Gemini in the first whole sign house.
Marilyn: Oh, yeah. Okay, all those stations. There’s really three stations. Jupiter stations retrograde, and I think Neptune although it doesn’t show it on the chart, is really stationary too that if we could see these planets in the sky, they’d be standing still. And I don’t remember that it was like within a day all these stationary things.
CB: Yeah. And the bottom right corner, there’s a little table that shows the last station of each planet in the next station. So it shows that Mercury was about to station 10 hours later so it’s basically stationary direct to that day. Elsewhere, Jupiter had just stationed retrograde 1.2 days before so Jupiter was stationary retrograde, basically. And then there’s Neptune. Neptune was about to station three days later.
Marilyn: Yeah. And because they move slow. It’s like by then Neptune’s pretty much standing still. I wanted the power the stations and I wanted to power the solstice. And when I started talking to Chris about it, we were looking at different charts and I said, “Well, hey, wait! What if we put Jupiter on the midheaven?” He goes, “Yeah, but that’s about the middle of the night. And it’s like, “Okay.”
CB: Right. Well, it’s early in the morning so you have to sign the paperwork basically before sunrise.
Marilyn: We did. We were here.
CB: And you got the other owners to go along with that?
Marilyn: Yeah.
CB: Nice.
Marilyn: And so in this chart, where is the Uranus?
CB: Uranus is at 13 degrees of Taurus.
Marilyn: Okay. And in the original chart of the Mercury, Mercury is at 13 degrees Scorpio. And the midheaven and Nadir are at 12 degrees. So to me, that Uranus transit is really a kickoff on ‘something must change.’
CB: Right. So it was part of that tension that we were experiencing over the past year between the Saturn and Uranus square in the sky, where they were really close to each other and that tension between keeping the status quo and wanting to maintain old things versus needing to make major radical changes for the future.
Marilyn: Yeah. And demanding change, you know?
CB: Right. Like, change being a necessity at that point?
Marilyn: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Partially because it was hard running a business during the pandemic, I’m sure, especially one that was more community-oriented.
Marilyn: It’s hilarious and hard. [laughter]
CB: Well, it’s really fitting then that in the Mercury Cafe chart, Mercury itself is at 13 so it really was getting hit by both that Uranus opposition as well as the Saturn square from Aquarius. So really, those are two of the main energies hitting Mercury itself or the Mercury Cafe.
Marilyn: Yeah.
CB: All right. Do you have a transit or anything in your chart that was-
Marilyn: Okay. My chart and one of the new owners’ charts, the Neptune hits hard Transiting Neptune opposes my seventh house planets and is the ruler of the ascendant. And one of the new owners has a 21 degrees Sagittarius-Neptune. So, things were cloudy, [laughs] and still yet to be revealed.
CB: Okay, so there’s some uncertainty that’s always really tricky with Neptune transits, is when you’re in the middle of them it’s hard to see outside of that.
Marilyn: Yeah, there’s that. And there’s also illusion and delusion and deception.
CB: Sure.
Marilyn: But here we are. Here we are today, the astrologers’ meeting at the Mercury Cafe. It’s great.
CB: Yeah. It’s largely thanks to you because you kept encouraging me saying it’s time to come back, it’s time to get the strategy meetings going again. And you’ve always helped us to start this group and have it for so long now, for 14 years. Thanks a lot for allowing this to happen.
Marilyn: I’m addicted to community and the astrology language. [applause]
CB: All right. So here’s the electional chart for the very first meeting of the Denver Astrology Group, which was an election that I picked on May 4th, 2008 starting at exactly 1:00 PM in Denver, Colorado. One of the things that was really striking when the pandemic happened is that Uranus was transiting through the middle of Taurus and just started really nailing a lot of the Taurus planets that I had set up in the electional chart for this group. On the inside wheel, it shows the chart for the Denver astrology group and on the outside wheel, it shows the transits for our last meeting that we had on March 14th of 2020. That was right when the lockdowns were about to start happening and we had a speaker coming in from out of town, but we had to switch it to an online meeting at the last minute because the lockdowns had started and everything was just going crazy.
So one of the things you notice is that transiting Uranus was at four degrees of Taurus at that point, which was exactly conjoining the natal Moon and the natal Venus that were up in the 10th House of the Denver Astrology Group’s chart. So there was just this unexpected or sudden disruption in something that had been relatively stable for 12 years up to that point not missing a single meeting, and then suddenly Uranus comes in and like it does sometimes in transits to your birth chart, it can bulldoze things or really shake things up unexpectedly. So that’s one of the transits I want people to pay attention to, is the Uranus transits that were happening over the past few years because those slow-moving Uranus transits can be very important especially when they make a hard aspect like conjunction or square or opposition to one of your natal planets. It can shake things up or disrupt things; sometimes in positive unexpected ways, other times the negative ways. The core theme is always just an unexpected surprise or disruption of some sort. Here’s the chart for that last meeting of the Denver astrology group on March 14th, 2020. And the big thing that you can see that all the astrologers commented on at the time was that there was just this huge pile-up of planets in the sign of Capricorn and that Capricorn stellium was one of the characteristic things that started building up in early 2020, especially starting with the Saturn-Pluto conjunction that happened in January. And I think it was the very day of the Saturn-Pluto conjunction around January 12th or 13th or something like that that the New York Times ran one of its first stories about COVID and this mysterious virus that had broken out in China. So, that Saturn-Pluto conjunction is one of the major signatures that astrologers ended up associating the pandemic with, in the same way that other Saturn-Pluto conjunctions going back– for example, the previous one being in 1980-1981 in Libra was really the start of the AIDS pandemic. So if you take those Saturn-Pluto conjunctions back, you tend to see major turning points and pandemics and things like that at that time. All of that got accelerated because Jupiter also was there conjoining Saturn and Pluto, and then Mars moved into Capricorn right when the lockdown started happening pretty much across the US and across most of the world at that point and it became a worldwide thing.
What happened after that point, though, is Saturn in late March made its first initial ingress into the sign of Aquarius. So all of a sudden, Saturn has moved into a new sign of the zodiac and it’s activating, for many people, a brand new part of their chart all of a sudden. And this is right when we’re in the thick of the early phases of the lockdowns. Not long after that, transiting Mars came up and also moved into Aquarius and we had this major Mars-Saturn conjunction in the sign of Aquarius, which occurs about every two or two and a half years but sometimes, at least traditionally or in ancient astrology, Mars-Saturn alignments or conjunctions tended to be associated with pandemics as well because Mars and Saturn were the two quote-unquote “malefic planets”. So the last time we had one of those, for example,the Mars-Saturn conjunction in Scorpio back in 2013, I remember there was some panic about the outbreak of Ebola and the attempts to put a stop to that to stop it from spreading too far, which ended up being successful or at least more successful than what happened later with COVID.
That ingress of Saturn in March of 2020 marked a major shift for a lot of people because as soon as Saturn moved into Aquarius, it moved into a new whole sign house and so it would have been activating a new sector of your chart or a new area of your life at that time. So one of the things I’d like everybody to think about is what whole sign house did Saturn move into in March of 2020 for you? What topics are associated with that house, and in what ways did some of those topics become more prominent in your life over the course of the past two years since that time, roughly starting in about March or April of 2020? For many people, it was initially– because it wasn’t just Saturn but also Mars moving into that sign at the same time– some sort of difficult thing was brought up at that time in that sector of their life or in that area of their life, there was a challenge that arose at that time. In terms of topics, here’s a diagram that lists the different significations of the houses that you should think about or that should come to mind when you’re talking about or thinking about the different areas of your life and the different houses of the chart. So the first house primarily represents the body and the physical incarnation, but also a person’s mind and character and spirit. Sometimes first house transits can be reflected in changes in terms of your appearance or how you appear to the world in some way. But it can also reflect, if it’s a difficult transit, sometimes a challenging health event can come up during that time. The second house is finances and possessions and income. So your money, basically, and your possessions. The third house is things like siblings, short-distance travel, education, but also communication; like how you talk, how you receive information and learn, but also how you communicate information and what you know to the world. The fourth house is parents, your home and living situation, extended family, and also just your private life in general since the fourth house is the most hidden part of the chart and is opposite to the 10th house which is the most public part of the chart and represents your public life. The fifth house is things like children, creativity, pleasure and how you do relaxation, and also sometimes sex and sexuality and topics surrounding it. The sixth house can be illness, injuries, but also work like your job. And sometimes if you’re in a managerial position, it can be subordinates or people that work for you. Seventh house is relationships, partnership, marriage and other people in general in your life. The eighth house can be issues related to mortality or death, but also inheritance and the assets that belong to other people in your life besides you since the eighth house is the second house relative to the seventh house of other people. Ninth house is travel, things that are foreign from your culture that you grew up in, but also education and religion. The 10th house is career, action, reputation and your public life. The 11th house is friends, groups, alliances, and hopes for the future or things that you’re building on towards the future. And then finally, the 12th is one of the more difficult houses and can sometimes pertain to themes like enemies or people that you just don’t get along with or that work at cross purposes to you and your life. Also, sometimes illness, loss, or themes having to do with seclusion or isolation. S,o everybody should think about what your rising sign is, and then what house Saturn moved into relative to your rising sign if you just count signs from your rising sign starting in March of 2020.
All right. To give sort of a demonstration of that, this is my chart and I have Aquarius rising. And what happened with the last meeting… So this is my chart on the inside and this is the transits for the last meeting of the Denver Astrology Group in the middle of March of 2020. What happened is that using the timing technique known as perfections that we’ve talked about in a previous meeting a few years ago where you just count one sign per year from the rising sign and then whatever sign you land on is activated for that year of your life. So you start at your rising sign for the first year of your birth then at your first birthday it moves to the second sign, then at the next birthday it moves to the third sign and so on and so forth. I was in a 12th-house perfection year when the pandemic hit in March of 2020 and it was activating my natal Mars placement at 19 degrees of Capricorn in the 12th house. The 12th is one of the more difficult houses and what happened is that transiting Mars came up and conjoined my natal Mars and then about a week or two after that, both Mars and Saturn moved into Aquarius in my first house and formed that conjunction in my first house of body and health and physical vitality. And what happened is that I got sick basically that weekend of the last meeting of the Denver Astrology Group and I got COVID. But what happened is I thought it was going to be a light thing and it was going to wear off after like a week or something like that and I’d just hang out like everyone was doing and then bounce back to normal, but then the cough lasted and the fatigue lasted for over a month and I was bedridden for a month as Saturn moved into my first house and into Aquarius. And I knew sort of intellectually at the time that that could mean that I was in for some sort of longer-term health issue but at the time it just seemed like something that would pass and I would get over after a few weeks. But because Saturn had just ingressed into Aquarius, it was indicating the beginning of a two or three-year transit of Saturn through my first house of body and physical vitality. And in working with clients in the past, I knew for 10 years that Saturn transits through the first house. Saturn can slow things down, it can indicate advancements in age like feeling older, feeling slower, it can indicate major health crises and dealing with health issues that are hard or take a lot of work to overcome or to push through. I ended up being sick for about two months before I started fully recovering and then after that point, I was still dealing with this weird fatigue that never went away that I was always tired and I had this fogginess in my head and my memory didn’t work as well even though that always used to be one of my strongest sort of gifts– having a good memory. And for the next several months, I realized and started to emerge that some people for some reason COVID hit them differently and lead to longer-term symptoms that they call Long COVID that doctors don’t really know how to treat. They’re trying to figure out how to treat it but it turns into like a longer-term health issue for some percentage of people and unfortunately, I was one of them. That was my Saturn transit or that’s been my Saturn transit through the first house was the first year of that, was learning how to deal with a long-term illness that was slowing me down or that was impairing me and made me feel like I had aged 10 years basically over the course of a few months. Which is very fitting for a Saturn transit, for anybody that knows what Saturn transits are like. The ideas of age and time and things like that are usually very prominent. So in this instance because it was my first house, it was relating to the body. The good news is that by the end of 2020, Jupiter also moved into Aquarius and it caught up with Saturn and started moving through my first house. And at that Saturn-Jupiter conjunction was actually when the vaccines were first rolled out and I ended up getting the vaccine not long after that and it actually did help with some of the symptoms that I was dealing with of long COVID for almost a year at that point. So there was starting to be an improvement during the course of 2021 as I learned sort of how to deal with it and I had some additional tools for addressing this long-term illness that had developed with Saturn in the first house. That was both the negative transit but also the positive transit of Jupiter kind of swooping in and cleaning things up a little bit. So now I’m just getting through the rest of that Saturn transit through the first house over the course of this year, and then early next year Saturn will depart from Aquarius and move into Pisces and go into my second house. And I sort of expect at that point that I’ll be in much better shape than I have been over the past year or two. Yeah, not not financially. I’ll take that at this point as long as Saturn departs from the first. Anyways, I wanted to explain that story partially as an example to set up what I had in mind when I was going to ask people to share stories of Saturn transits through whatever house it went through, or Jupiter transits or whatever their long-term transits you’ve all been experiencing in order to personalize some of what the past two years have been like. But also in order to explain why we’re just now finally having the first meeting of the Denver Astrology Group in two years, it was because I didn’t have the energy to do it until now. But that’s one of the reasons I’m so excited to be back here today and to be starting this group again and getting back to normal finally, not just for the community but also for myself personally.
All right, with that setup out of the way, is there anybody that has a good transit, that’s had a good outer planet transit that’s a really good example that you would be willing to share with us? Either a positive one or negative one, and that you’d be willing to share your birth chart and just talk about it for let’s say, like, three to five minutes each. Yeah, you got one? Okay. Come up to the mic. All right. What’s your name?
Mark: Mark Anthony Montoya.
CB: Mark. What’s your birthday?
Mark: 2/28/86
CB: What’s your birth time?
Mark: 2:25 PM.
CB: In what place?
Mark: Colorado. Springs, Colorado.
CB: All right. Is your Ascendant at 29 Cancer?
Mark: Yep, that’s me.
CB: Okay. Cool. So let’s see. I’m not sure if I should state placements. Maybe not. Maybe I’ll wait. Why don’t you tell me what your transit was?
Mark: Yeah. It was around that time Saturn was in Capricorn, so certainly my seventh house was being affected. So going back to March 2020, things were going well. I recently moved to Las Vegas in 2019 through 2020. I went there, lived in Denver for about 10 years, decided to move to Las Vegas to pursue DJing and for my career. I made some good inroads and then COVID hit, shut everything down. And so I made a very quick decision to end my lease, move back to Pueblo, Colorado and I’m still kind of in the midst of rebuilding my life. I like to call it a personal Renaissance essentially. So certainly my seventh house is really affected as well as my career, and even kind of my philosophies in terms of what I now value in life in terms of… I’m really into farming now, like backyard gardening. I’m part of the Pueblo Food Project where we’re all about food agriculture and sustainability. My North Node is in Taurus, so Uranus in Taurus I feel like is really affecting that in terms of, you know, at one moment I’m pursuing music for a passion and now all of a sudden, I’m a gardener.
CB: Right. [laughter]
Mark: I never would have put those two together.
CB: Yeah. That would have been some of that Uranus transit through your 11th house as well of Uranus going through Taurus and the community, but also that being sort of a sudden or unexpected thing.
Mark: Exactly. Yeah.
CB: What were you saying right aout that?
Mark: So yeah, even the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction, I had some interesting experiences. My relationship had ended at that point somewhat abruptly and prompted me to move, you know? I essentially went to Las Vegas in 2019, pandemic hit, moved back to Colorado in 2020, moved to Boulder, came back to Pueblo, moved to Reno, came back to Pueblo… Throughout the whole process, I’m just searching to find home in the midst of a lot of external turmoil with the world, you know? I wasn’t able to work, I kind of rode out unemployment as long as I could so fortunately through the stimulus money. Currently, I’m working. I have a job at a marketing agency and I’m rebuilding my career on that point. At this moment I’m actually at a high point in my career when it comes to my finances, but certainly 2020-2021 were really low points in terms of my money game, my relationships, and really just learning how to accept life in general. Really inspired by the book, A Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, where he’s talking about whatever external circumstances may exist, nothing can take away my personal will to live life robustly. So really easier said than done, sincerely. And fortunately, recently I had a Jupiter return within the last few months.
CB: Yes, your Jupiter is located at one degree of Pisces with your Pisces stellium?
Mark: Right.
CB: Nice. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And during the entire second half talking about the career things and some of the challenges there, that was one of the other standout transits in the entire second half of 2020, was the Mars retrograde in the sign of Aries. Because it moved into Aries over the summer earlier in 2020 right here. Like, June-July of 2020 it already moved into Aries and into your 10th whole sign house but then it slowed down in September and it stationed retrograde and then it just grinded across those degrees for a few months before it eventually stopped and left that sign in early 2021. So that Mars retrograde would have coincided with some of the challenges in terms of your career, especially in the second half of 2020. And then you said the relationship stuff and a lot of that was Saturn going through, you know, it’s tricky because your Ascendant is so late at 29 degrees of Cancer. That entire Capricorn transit is like Saturn through your seventh whole sign house but even once Saturn got into early Aquarius, I think it’s stationed at what? Two degrees of Aquarius. And then it retrograded back into Capricorn. So it’s just like straddling your descendant for the better part of a year or two. So some of the relationship stuff, you said that a major relationship ended?
Mark: Yeah. She was really cool, it kind of dissolved abruptly. But once again instead of trying to fight for something, something internally just made me learn the practice of accepting. So as we speak right now in 2022, I’m still working on that new perspective and mindset in terms of accepting things that I really don’t have any control of. And with that, it brings a deeper sense of happiness and joy. But yeah, it’s like a whole personal philosophy has really in the last year and a half because of that, I think, really been a focus in practice for me. We have an Instagram mutual friend, Ris, she’s my shadow work coach. I’ve been working with her really throughout this process as well. So that would make sense as to why my personal viewpoints on myself as an individual have shifted, as well as how I foresee an ideal healthier relationship looking in the future.
CB: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And that’s really big Saturn-themed, I think. It’s like sometimes learning to identify and let go of the things that you can’t change and being okay with that, which is kind of like a stoic sort of mindset, but it can be a very important one sometimes during heavy Saturn transits, is trying to identify those things that you can change in your life and fighting to change those things that you actually can control versus sometimes the things that are outside of your control, learning to be okay with them and to let them go.
Mark: Totally.
C: Yeah. All right, so that was the seventh house transit and then you’re about two thirds of the way through the Saturn transit through your eighth house, which represents one of the financial sectors and just some of the things that go along with that.
Mark: Right. So having moved beyond some of the more challenging relationship things, I’m working on getting my credit together, really focused on getting into real estate. I’m into precious metals so I figured out a strategy to get silver bullion and get a loan in exchange for it to go buy more silver bullion. It’s a new strategy but I’m learning how to leverage money in order to make a little bit more money. So yeah, certainly working on those long-term asset pieces in my financial lifestyle. It’s been a challenge, you know, like literally a lot of people in 2020 through up to this point just getting by day-to-day paycheck to paycheck, and fortunately I’m at a good point now where once again because of the current job I have and really working to get my credit put together in the last two to three years, I’m finally in a position to where maybe I can take out a loan. I was recently pre-approved for a home mortgage for like the first time ever. It’s not a lot but it’s enough to at least get into the market. So yeah, I appreciate Saturn. I actually said the stoic thing as a Moon in Scorpio, I take that as a compliment to some degree. And so with Saturn, I appreciate the long-term dedication to something in order to build it for sustainability. So yeah, ideally, in the next few weeks and months, I’ll be able to get some loan and get into into that. Fortunately, really I’m feeling pretty good right now because of all the Pisces stellium at the present moment. Neptune has been stationed on my natal Venus for the past almost half year or so, so it really helped me focus on just finding pleasure in the moment and also redefining what’s valuable in life. Like, really appreciating time versus money. And with eighth house as really looking to figure out how to get passive income flowing so I can have more time and money flowing in. It’s easier said than done but inspired by Robert Kiyosaki.
One last thing I’ll mention is I recently went to Miami about a month ago for work, got to see Growth Conference from Grant Cardone, he’s a YouTube influencer. He was in public for Undercover Billionaire which was a TV show where he had to create a business in 90 days and make it worth a million dollars or more. So that’s where I actually work right now. It’s a place called Wake Up, Pueblo Marketing Agency that this guy created on a TV show during the time where like, I had randomly moved home because of COVID and they’re taping a TV show in my hometown because it’s like a beat-up economic spot and they’re like, “If you can make it here, you can literally make it anywhere in America.” So the fact I got to go to his conference in Miami a few weeks ago is just very surreal. That’s just kind of my feelings in the last couple years. It’s very surreal.
CB: Yeah, that’s awesome. And those are really concrete things. Some of the things you’re mentioning of things like debt and loans are really concrete, eighth house significations. And that’s when I use the keyword at the beginning of, you know, other people’s money or other people’s assets, the assets of others for the eighth house, that’s one of the ways that that comes into play in really concrete ways. That’s really cool that you’ve had, you know, sometimes a Saturn transit when Saturn will close one door, it opens another. And so it sounds like that’s a little bit of your experience of Saturn going through your eighth house, and sometimes an initial difficulty or surmountable difficulty ends up opening up other opportunities in that area of your life.
Mark: Awesome. Thank you.
CB: Cool. Thank you. [applause] Yeah, did you have one? All right. What’s your name?
Ashley: Ashley.
CB: What’s your birthday?
Ashley: October 21st, 1982.
CB: What time?
Ashley: 3:15 PM.
CB: What city?
Ashley: Miami Beach, Florida.
CB: All right. Is your Ascendant at 18 Aquarius?
Ashley: Yes.
CB: Cool. All right. What have your transits been like?
Ashley: Well, I’ve had two major lifetime transits in two years. In 2020, I had a baby. So, first house Aquarius. Then last year and this year, going through a divorce.
CB: Last year and this year, so Saturn has been transiting over your Ascendant and then that means it’s been opposing your Descendant degree, which can sometimes create a tension in whatever the opposite houses that Saturn is transiting through.
Ashley: Then I had Neptune and Pluto transits back-to-back.
CB: What were your Neptune and Pluto transits?
Ashley: Mars-Moon-Neptune square and Pluto-Venus-Saturn-Pluto.
CB: Pluto is in late Capricorn so it’s squaring your… So you have two stelliums but the clustering is a bunch of planets in Libra so Pluto has been squaring all of that, including the ruler of your Ascendant and your natal Venus at 24 and 25 Libra. And then Neptune in late Pisces at this point is squaring Mars, the Moon and Neptune in late Sagittarius?
Ashley: Yeah.
CB: That’s a lot. [Ashley laughs] Are there outer planet transits?
Ashley: I’m ready for a gift or something different. [laughter] I had someone tell me after you go through crazy Pluto transits you get a gift. So I’m like, I’m ready. Yeah, right? I mean, I’m holding on hope.
CB: Yeah, sometimes Pluto can take us to the depths of the human psyche and of human experience. But then sometimes we do find things there that are very valuable. Then the challenge is then to bring that back up from the underworld and to emerge from that at the end of the transit.
Ashley: I’d also say that I have a full-time job, but I’m also an astrologer and a past life regression practitioner. I’ve been doing a lot more deeper, soulful integration into the work that I do. So that makes a lot of sense.
CB: Yeah, the Neptune stuff would be very helpful for that, I would think squaring your natal Neptune as well as your Moon and your Mars up there in Sagittarius. What else is going on? Then the Pluto transit, then the Saturn transit. You had your first child. Was it your first child?
Ashley: Yeah, my first child in August of 2020. In March, I started to really show but then I was locked in and that’s like you really look like you’re pregnant. That started like the end of my pregnancy during that major lockdown.
CB: That’s pretty wild. That was right when, especially in the second half of March, that’s when Saturn went into Aquarius for the first time.
Ashley: There’s people that I work with that didn’t even know I had a kid because I wasn’t showing until lockdown and then you’re just working remotely most of the time.
CB: Got you. That was your first house body changes, like physical body changes transit is that you became pregnant basically and started noticing in March of 2020.
Ashley: Similar to your story, in the sense of it wasn’t COVID but postpartum is you have zero energy and you’re so tired. It’s taken my body a long time to get back the energy, to bounce back from having a kid. Even though it’s wonderful and it’s beautiful, you’re exhausted most of the time. And so now really just starting to feel like the energy is coming back. So I really resonated with what you said. Yes, it’s a different situation, but it’s ultimately the same health stuff.
CB: Yeah, you’re dealing with the same archetype of the old slow planets moving through your first house and then having some of that archetype of Saturn manifesting physically in the physical body and to some extent even just in your mental body at the same time to the extent that some of the physical stuff is also affecting your mental state. Then did that become, because for example by December and certainly by most of 2021, Jupiter moved into Aquarius. I would think that that would have helped a little bit with Jupiter balancing Saturn out to some extent.
Ashley: 100%, yeah. It was definitely my energy started getting better around that time. I would say I’d also equate that to having difficulty with losing the weight. I would tie that there too. Then just like once Jupiter got past that, it became a lot easier, so we didn’t notice that physically.
CB: Yeah, that’s a common thing that astrologers remark on that Jupiter transits sometimes even though they can be positive, sometimes you can gain weight during a Jupiter transit through the first house. That’s really amazing. You’ve had a lot… This is clearly you’re having some of the most important outer planet transits in your life. Clearly, this is like it’s been a huge turning point for you over the past couple years. Are there any transits like good ones that you’re really looking forward to? I guess, Jupiter is going through your second house now. It’s about to go into your third house of communication pretty soon.
Ashley: When it does that, I hope to write a book. That’s the goal. That’s the dream.
CB: You’re actually thinking about or anticipating writing a book? Okay. Jupiter is literally, let’s look at where it’s at now. Jupiter is at 24 Pisces. If we move it forward in May, Jupiter is going to move into Aries on May 11th in your third house of communications. That would be an amazing time to start writing that book.
Ashley: Yeah, I was going to line it up with the eclipse too.
CB: Which one?
Ashley: The Scorpio eclipse in the 10th.
CB: Perfect. So that’s coming up here. So soon we’re about to get our first Scorpio eclipse and that’s going to fall in your 10th house of career and public reputation. Here is that eclipse. Here we go, May 15-ish around 25, 26 Scorpio. That’s great that you mentioned that because that’s a major shift that’s coming up for everybody and everybody should be paying attention to where the Taurus and Scorpio eclipses are going to fall in their chart because it’s going to activate that axis.
Ashley: Selling the house that we own together is happening actually at the end of this month alongside the Taurus eclipse.
CB: The one on your fourth house of home and living situation? Okay, that’s perfect. You’re an amazing chart example for transits. Every one of them is just nailing it with the literal… Sometimes it’s like we have psychological or internal character experiences of transits and that’s valid and important, but it can sometimes be harder to articulate. But other times, it’s like it can just be very literal like this is the event that coincided with that transit.
All right. Well, so fourth house eclipse coming up selling your home and then 10th house eclipse coming up and you’re going to write a book. That looks pretty good. All right, well, thanks for sharing that with us. You’ll have to let us know when you write the book and when you publish it and what your transits end up being for that.
Ashley: I will do. Awesome.
CB: Thank you.
[Applause]
CB: All right. Is there anybody else that has a transit or anything that’s come to mind as you’ve been hearing some of these stories and you feel like sharing one, even if it’s like a little one? All right, what’s your name?
Mani: Mani Powers.
CB: How do you spell your first name?
Mani: M-A-N-I.
CB: What’s your date of birth?
Mani: October 9th, 1947.
CB: What time?
Mani: 7:30 p.m.
CB: What city?
Mani: Del Norte.
CB: Spell.
Mani: D-E-L N-O-R-T-E Colorado.
CB: Is your Ascendant 27 Taurus?
Mani: Yeah.
CB: Okay.
Mani: In March of 2020, March 12th exact, I drank some coffee that had Cordyceps in it, which is a mushroom. The mushrooms were contaminated with black mold. I didn’t know that until a long time. That was right when the pandemic was shutting down, everything was shutting down so you don’t go to the emergency room. Anyway, it was terrible. I ended up getting help from my chiropractor and took activated charcoal. Actually, took it for too long because I didn’t know what was happening really. Then I ended up with severe muscle spasms and did end up in the emergency room in May of that year. It took a year to get over the contamination. But I was looking at the chart and I’m just learning astrology so I don’t know too well, but it seems like I would like to understand what happened. Then this past November-
CB: Hold on, let’s focus on that one first and then we’ll do the next one. Do you know roughly what part of March it was or what day that you took the Mushroom?
Mani: The 12th.
CB: It was the 12th. Perfect. All right. That’s it right there. What I was seeing right away was, I was looking at the ruler of the Ascendant. The first house, as I talked about earlier, represents the body as well as the mind in your rising sign and your Ascendant or in Taurus. One of the things we look at is where is the ruler of the Ascendant, which is the planet that rules the first house, because that planet will become the primary planet that then carries out some of the duties or represents the duties of the first house in the chart, which are body and physical vitality as well as mind and spirit. The ruler of your Ascendant is Venus and it’s located at 25 degrees of Libra in the sixth house. It’s at 25 Libra and so all of those Capricorn transits that are happening in the later degrees of Capricorn in March of 2020, that stellium of Capricorn planets was all squaring your Venus basically at that time, at 25° of Libra the most important and slowest moving planet in the entire chart of which is Pluto, and it was squaring your Venus almost exactly at that time.
But then what happened is that Mars would have caught up to that over the next few weeks and eventually conjoined Pluto at 24° of Capricorn and 25° of Capricorn squaring your Venus. So you’re having basically like transits that could have indicated hits to your vitality and health at that time, essentially the most generally speaking. That’s one thing. Does anyone else see anything that I’m missing, that I’m overlooking that are important transits here that could have represented that?
Unidentifiable speaker: [00:52:19]
CB: Where’s that? So, transiting Uranus. Was it-
Unidentifiable speaker: [00:52:25]
CB: Yeah, that’s true. Uranus is going through the first house and it was squaring Mars down there at 5°of Leo as well as the IC. That can be disruptive.
Mani: I wondered about the Saturn in opposition to my birth Saturn and the Moon.
CB: That would have been the start of your whole Saturn opposition transit. That’s a good point. Then what was the more recent event you started talking about?
Mani: Just to say a little more about this, I feel like I actually went through a rebirth. I feel like I’m a different person. I had had chronic fatigue, coffee with Cordyceps. After I came through it, I don’t have chronic fatigue anymore. So just a positive thing about a very terrible event.
CB: It was like a really difficult thing at the time and you went into the underworld again like a Pluto transit, but then you emerged in better shape afterwards?
Mani: Right. Yeah, and different.
CB: Was that the reason why you took the Cordyceps was that you were trying to address the chronic fatigue?
Mani: Right.
CB: That’s really interesting. Also, just because nataly, Venus as the ruler of the Ascendant is nataly in the sixth house of illness. Sometimes when people have sixth house placements that can indicate physical ailments that come up at some point in the life of the person that has to address. So maybe what that was activating through that Pluto transit at that time was just the addressing an attempt to fix that long standing issue.
Mani: Right. Well, I’ve had various things in my life that have been challenging but not killed me. I think that’s that. That sucks.
CB: How long have you struggled with chronic fatigue prior to taking that treatment?
Mani: 30 years.
CB: That’s like a full Saturn cycle in and of itself. I mean, if it was 30 years, then that might have started the last time that Saturn went through Capricorn and squared your Venus, the ruler of the Ascendant. So then the next time 30 years later that that came back and squared it again. You had a health crisis, but you were able to fix it finally.
Mani: Yeah, good. The eclipse in November the 18th-
CB: The Taurus eclipse?
Mani: Yeah.
CB: Yeah, that was very close to your Ascendant, wouldn’t it have been?
Mani: Yes. A very weird thing happened. I don’t even know what happened. I have some close friends that say I was downloaded with light. But I thought I was having a heart attack or a stroke or something. I went to the hospital emergency room. That day it was like 12 hours exactly from when it had been the eclipse. Came out knowing that I’m in perfect health, that I had a blood pressure spike. So that made me afraid of the eclipses and the Moon. Then Chelsea helped me understand that I’m in my third house perfection and so the Moon-
CB: The Moon’s activated as the timelord of the planet for the year? And that started in October right on your birthday?
Mani: Yeah. It was like three days afterwards, after my birthday, I had a car accident and then it went on and on.
CB: That’s not… Funny is not the right word. I often misuse that word as a good astrology example. But the Cancer perfection here is the third house is also the house of short distance travel, which is like cars and getting around your city. You got in a car accident three days after you moved into that third house perfection year?
Mani: Yeah.
CB: Okay. Was that bad or just a minor thing?
Mani: I felt like the universe said, “Stop.” I was stopped for six weeks because I didn’t have a car for six weeks. But nobody was hurt, nothing. Insurance paid for everything. It was all fine. It’s just I was supposed to stop. Then in November, the other thing happened.
CB: It was a blood pressure spike that happened. You said the day or within hours of the eclipse happening on the degree of your Ascendant?
Mani: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
CB: Okay. Everybody can see this that here’s November 19th, 2021. We see the Moon going exactly in opposition to the Sun from 27th Taurus to 27th Scorpio and the transiting nodes were at 1° of Gemini and 1° of Sagittarius. Any time a New Moon or a Full Moon takes place within about let’s say 15°of the nodes, that’s when an eclipse takes place. This was the first in a series of lunar eclipses in Taurus, but this one just happened to fall exactly on the degree of your Ascendant. It was a blood pressure spike. But what did they say about it? Or what was the result?
Mani: The result was I had anxiety after that and I’ve had to deal with that because it scared me. I didn’t know what was happening. I still really don’t understand. But they couldn’t figure out anything that was wrong. I’ve had lots and lots of tests and there’s nothing wrong.
CB: But it’s still something that you’re actively looking into?
Mani: Right. Well, I know we’re having more eclipses coming in Scorpio. I’ve gotten all that stuff all out here.
CB: When the eclipses move into the first house-seventh house axis, usually it can be bouncing back and forth between themes of yourself and then other people or relationships in the person’s life.
Mani: Well, there is a lot of change going on that way.
CB: So you already anticipate a little bit some of the seventh house changes that are coming up?
Mani: Yeah, yeah, I think so. I don’t know what’s going to happen with it all, but there’s big stuff happening with my daughter. Not with me exactly, but with my daughter.
CB: Well, that’s good. Did you have-
Unidentifiable speaker: When I think of [inaudible 00:59:11] that happened with your Neptune, you’ve had people tell you that there may be more of a spiritual connection to it. That’s what I was tying into the Neptune square [inaudilbe 00:59:24]
CB: You’re talking about transiting Neptune at 20 Pisces being in conjunct or quincunx with the natal Moon at 21 Leo?
Unidentifiable speaker: Usually, that’s what [inaudible 00:59:40]
Mani: Right, I’m definitely different.
CB: Sure. Just sometimes when we see themes like that come up during the first eclipse, it can open up a sequence of events and these six-month chapters and it can be good to just continue to explore and see what you can find as those eclipses are happening. It doesn’t always necessarily have to be as dramatic as that first one was. But instead, that may have just opened up a series of you looking into things and maybe eventually being able then to catch or find something eventually before it actually becomes like a major thing. I wouldn’t necessarily worry about it too much. Because while that first one may have been like a physical event, sometimes subsequent ones can be more like a mental event or a mental change in yourself and how you relate to other people in your life, because it’s tying in the seventh house at the same time.
Mani: Yeah. Well, I definitely listen to my intuition. Not always heard it. Not always acted correctly. Now I do. So that happened.
CB: Good. That’s a really good one. Thank you for sharing it. Those are both actually really great examples.
Mani: Thank you.
[Applause]
CB: All right. Doug, do you have one? All right. What’s your birthday?
Doug: May 13th, 1952.
CB: What time?
Doug: 5:21 a.m. Kansas City, Missouri.
CB: Is your Ascendant 25 Taurus?
Doug: It’s me.
CB: All right. You’re almost time twin with our previous chart example, which was 27 Taurus?
Doug: Yeah. Just a couple of things occurred to me that are classic astrology stuff just sitting here. The truth is over the last couple of years, I haven’t really been paying that much to my astrology or any astrology and so I’m sitting here and I’m feeling really rusty. I’m looking at all this and hearing all this stuff and I’m thinking, “Man, I’m really getting rusty at this stuff.” But one thing, this goes along with how our birth charts determine our lives and the transits work with the birth charts. For the last couple of years, Saturn has been going through my 10th house has been. That’s been the last couple of years. It’s hard to tell by the whole sign houses you have here. But the way I read it, all those planets, Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, and Sun are all in the 12th house so I consider myself a 12th house person.
CB: I can switch the house system. What house system do you want to use?
Doug: Placidus. That’s what I learned many years ago.
CB: Here we go.
Doug: That shows I’m very much a 12th house person, which I feel. I do consider myself as well a 12th person. Actually, I think looking at, you had the chart up about the houses, I’m thinking, “Man, 12th house people need an advocacy group.” It’s like loss, sickness, enemies. Geez, man. But the truth is, and seclusion, the truth is-
CB: Galileo wrote his most important works while he was under house arrest. He had a stellium in the 12th house. So at times it can be good.
Doug: The truth is, I’ll just be a little advocate for 12th house here, but the truth is the people I know that are heavily 12th house people aren’t really unfortunate. What they are is quiet and interior and oriented towards wisdom and thinking and stuff like that. That’s certainly my story. Most of the people I know that have a lot of 12th house, it doesn’t seem to be an unfortunate thing. It seems to be just that interior self-seclusion that you enjoy being alone and stuff like that. But anyway, what I was going to point out is that over the last couple years as Saturn has transmitted my 10th house, if had I been a first house person, for example, maybe I would have had some prominence, maybe I’d be on radio and TV, something like that. But since I’m a 12th house person, it’s manifested different. It’s manifested the way it manifests in my chart. I’m very active in another group of folks, and I found myself turning into a wise elder of the group. I like it. It feels good. People look up to me. I have more influence and stuff like that. I’m just pointing that out as a way of transit interacts with the chart that I have an interior, introverted chart and so when I have my peak of success in the 10th house, it manifests in a quiet way. That’s one transit.
The other one I was going to mention is that I’ve had a lot of transits over the last couple of years, but I haven’t really noticed a whole lot of effects. Part of is because some of them are good transits. I think we tend to focus on transit that cause us problems. We’d take the good stuff for granted. For example, Pluto has been trine my Sun and Ascendant and things like that and so I don’t notice that. It’s like just I take it for granted. But one thing I have noticed and I just noticed that sitting here, which is why I came up, is Uranus is affecting my Venus right now and it’s conjoining my Venus. I was looking at relationships and I’m like, “Well, my marriage is stable. Nothing’s really going on with that.” However, I noticed that a couple of months ago… I’ve always been a musician and a couple of months ago, I just somehow read about synthesizers and I decided, “I have to get a synthesizer.” I ended up buying two synthesizers, classic analog old school synthesizers. Over the last two or three months, I’ve spent tons of time researching, reading books about synthesizers, researching the history of synthesizers, playing around with synthesizers. So just sitting here, I realized we have Venus and we have Uranus and electronics and there you go.
CB: This is the first time ever? You’ve never done anything with synthesizers?
Doug: I’ve always been a musician, but no, nothing was synthesizers. It’s like now I’m nuts over synthesizers.
CB: That’s hilariously literal as Uranus is the planet of technology and electronics and things like that and Uranus is hitting the ruler of your Ascendant in Venus, which is usually especially as a Taurus rising is more of a creative placement or an artistic placement for you as a musician. But then Uranus comes in and all of a sudden, there’s a difference. You’re doing something that’s different and a little bit… You might have considered earlier in your life when you’re just using classical instruments to be a bit weird to do like electronic music rather than something more standard or classical. That’s really funny. That’s very literal.
Doug: Yeah, it’s very literal. I just thought I’d share on that.
CB: I like that. Also, your 10th house Saturn transit and you were talking about those themes, because it was similar themes that we’re talking about the first house transits of like age and maturity, but also themes of authority, like becoming more of an authority in your community and looked up to as respected elder member of your community I think is what you’re saying. That is cool as that Saturn 10th house transit in addition to Jupiter in Pisces going through your 11th house of community and just like growth and expansion there as well.
Doug: And the things that I value, quiet wisdom is what I pursued all my life, that’s what’s actually coming to prominence and being recognized. Thanks.
CB: That makes sense. Thank you.
[Applause]
CB: All right. Does anybody… We still have some more time for maybe a couple examples? Yeah.
Chelsea: Hi.
CB: Hey, what’s your name?
Chelsea: Chelsea.
CB: What’s your-
Chelsea: This is my daughter Quinn. We’re going to tie charts in together.
CB: Okay, let’s do yours. Did I spell your name right?
Chelsea: Yes.
CB: What’s your date of birth?
Chelsea: December 15th, 1979.
CB: What time
Chelsea: 11:30 a.m.
CB: What city?
Chelsea: Denver, Colorado.
CB: All right. What’s the other chart?
Chelsea: Quinn.
CB: How do you spell?
Chelsea: Q-U-I-N-N.
CB: What date?
Quinn: May 18th, 2009.
CB: May 18th, 2009?
Quinn: Yes.
CB: What time?
Quinn: 3:54 p.m.
CB: What city?
Quinn: Denver, Colorado.
Chelsea: No, Littleton.
Quinn: Littleton, Colorado.
CB: All right. Is your Ascendant at 8 Libra?
Chelsea: Quinn’s is. Can we start with mine and then we can tie in?
CB: Is your Ascendant at 7 Pisces?
Chelsea: Mm-hmm (affirmative). In March of 2020, Saturn went into my 12th. I’m a hairstylist, so we were shut down like everybody else but like instant. There was musings we were like, “No, no,” kind of denial. But nevertheless, that obviously happened. Eclipses were also going on in… Was that before the Sagittarius eclipse started?
CB: I think we were in the Capricorn-Cancer eclipses I want to say, but then I could be wrong.
Chelsea: Saturn went in to… Sorry, this is going to tie into… I think that’s when the Sagittarius eclipses started.
CB: Around you mean March of 2020?
Chelsea: Mm-hmm (affirmative). It’s like really close.
CB: The ones right after. Okay, you’re right. In like June?
Chelsea: Yes.
CB: Sorry, I thought you were talking about the ones before. This might have been the first one because there was like a partial eclipse around June 5th of 2020. That was in Sagittarius, which was your 10th house. It was actually very close to the degree of your Midheaven?
Chelsea: Yes. We had to go home. We are on lockdown, everybody obviously. I also got sick, her and I.
CB: Around this time in June?
Chelsea: No sorry, at the end of March, beginning of April. But it all starts to tie in together. So 12th house where you’re secluded, isolation closes in my 10th and fourth. I actually, through the process of COVID, found it difficult to work in a salon just with all of the regulations that we had with DORA and everything else. There’s only a certain number of people that can work in the salon. At the same time, obviously masks, all of that, testing, just craziness that actually I started working from home 10:00 to 4:00.
CB: Right, that’s perfect. The first eclipse on June 5th was in your 10th house of career and then the next one two weeks later was in your fourth house of home and living situation and your career actually moved to your home.
Chelsea: Yeah. But at the same time, I had a townhome at that time and my neighbors… Because I owned a boutique salon, I had to move all of my salon equipment to my house temporarily to store it. My neighbors thought I was doing hair from my house so they reported me to DORA, and for the first time in 25 years that I’ve done hair, I had to defend my license and prove through all the photos that I took as I was closing my salon to safely close out my lease with my landlord. I had to submit all of that to DORA, too. Then I realized that I didn’t really care for my current situation and it wasn’t conducive too working from home. So I needed to find someplace bigger and in a different neighborhood, of course.
CB: With different neighbors.
Chelsea: Yes. Yes.
CB: It’s a little bit of a 12th house transit, too.
Chelsea: Very, very Saturn in the 12th and a lot of chatty Cathys.
CB: Because the ancient authors, if you read a first-century or 10th-century text, they always talk about enemies with the 12th house, which seems abstract and kind of archaic. But in our actual daily lives, when you think of it just as people that you don’t get along with or people that work at cross purposes to you, sometimes the meaning of that becomes much more tangible.
Chelsea: Well, the literal part is that they were all looking from their windows. So hidden enemies, 12th house. [laughter]
CB: Okay.
Chelsea: Literally from their windows suspecting, but having no idea what was really going on. So a little vindication, as I was leaving I attended an HOA meeting and actually told them what happened and they were like, “Oh.” Yeah, yeah, too late. Anyway, so in addition, this is where her part comes in. She was no longer allowed to be physically at school, and so I also became a teacher at home, fourth house Gemini. And Saturn was going into her fifth house as a Libra rising. And so no longer being able to be in groups in her 11th and just being with her sister and me kind of fifth house transit there, basically stifling her ability to have fun. Fifth house.
CB: Yeah, the fifth house is usually the place of fun.
Chelsea: Yeah. So was it fun? Not fun?
Speaker 3: No.
Chelsea: Did you like me teaching you?
Speaker 3: It was kind of nice to get one-on-one help, but I do prefer being in a classroom with my friends and all that kind of stuff.
CB: Yeah, and that’s interesting. So in your chart you have Libra rising so same eclipses were falling in the third house, ninth house axis which are the two houses of education and learning. Okay.
Chelsea: And so as I was selling my townhome, this was back in 2020 again, sorry, was July of 2020. I sold it totally thinking I could find something else and I couldn’t. I did really well on the sale, but I had to live at my mom’s house for four months until I… I was on a holdout for a certain neighborhood.
CB: Starting in July of 2020?
Chelsea: Yep.
CB: That was towards the end of that, I remember that Venus retrograde which would’ve been in your fourth house. When was the last time you had lived with your mom prior to that?
Chelsea: When I was in college.
CB: So just years ago?
Chelsea: Yeah, yeah.
CB: Okay, that’s a great Venus retrograde example, is sometimes when Venus goes retrograde in a house, it can bring back a relationship or some sort of prior interaction from years ago in the past in whatever that house is, and it just happened to be in your fourth house of parents.
Chelsea: And my mom’s a Gemini.
CB: Okay, that’s great. Which is Gemini is your fourth house?
Chelsea: Uh-huh. And then December 2020 was able to finally move in the neighborhood I wanted. And then February was able to begin work 2021 from home once the salon was kind of ready to go and all of that.
CB: You were finally able to move in December of 2020?
Chelsea: Mm-hmm.
CB: So that was around the next set of eclipses basically, then six months later in your 10th and your fourth houses. So December 14th was the Sagittarius eclipse in-
Chelsea: Yeah, and I think we closed on the 4th.
CB: Of December, okay. And that it allowed you to both move and set up a new business?
Chelsea: Yeah. And then going forward in August of 21-
CB: Hold on. Before we move on to the next one, could you just explain a little bit more about that significance and the completion that happened in November and December? What happened? You relocated your actual living situation and moved out from your mom’s place?
Chelsea: Yeah. So then that completed that like eclipse cycle of going from the public where I had been for a number of years to then working from home, doing everything, north node Gemini kind of eclipse series through that whole thing.
CB: And then what’s the new working situation as of this point?
Chelsea: So working from my house. But the positives is, this was going to tie into the positive part of it I guess, obviously being more available to help with all the [unintelligible] They were hybrid half the time, so it would be very hard to be… I don’t see how parents do it, where they can actually have to go to work, but then their kids are still homeschooling and trying to oversee all that. So I was able to actually be there through it with them to help them with that. So that was good.
CB: So this was also then the next phase of partially learning from home for Quinn.
Chelsea: Yeah. So then, well, my partner and I moved in together at that time, he has four kids and I have another daughter. And we found out August 13th… So yeah, August 13th last year…
CB: Of 2021?
Chelsea: Uh-huh. The mother of his four kids we found out had alcoholism and she died. And that was incredibly shocking. And my ex-husband, who’s now remarried, had a son within like nine days.
CB: Of that same event?
Chelsea: Yep.
CB: Wow.
Chelsea: So August 13th is when she passed away.
CB: Yeah. I’m looking at that Mars transit. She had an exact Mars return of transiting Mars conjoining your natal Mars in the seventh house of relationships.
Chelsea: And Saturn is squaring my Moon, which is the ruler of my fifth house
CB: Transiting Saturn was at nine degrees of Aquarius at that time, and it was squaring your Moon at nine degrees of Scorpio?
Chelsea: Uh-huh.
CB: Wow, okay.
Chelsea: Yeah, so I am now an unofficial mom of six in a very short period of time. So, yeah, it’s been a busy time. So I hear everybody with like the just kind of letting it go and letting it flow and you got to just go with it. But through the Saturn cycle so far has just been the 12th house also just either suffering yourself or helping other people that are suffering, that has been like a huge Saturn transit for me.
CB: Yeah. So, people needing to lean on you in order to get that help, and you acting in that way to help out other people.
Chelsea: Yeah. So it can just keep on going. Although, I’m a little worried going into my first house, but the really cool thing, and this is, I think, yet to manifest, is the latest Jupiter-Neptune conjunction that just happened in Pisces. Squared my Sun in Neptune and then sextiled my Venus, trined my Uranus and is opposite my Saturn in the seventh. So I don’t see any of that really being negative just because Jupiter is kind of at the helm of the whole thing, and just being Sagittarius, that’s super helpful to me. So I’m really hoping that it’s just with everything that’s kind of had to transition and to be kind of let go, that this is going to be something really big and new. There’s too many positive indications in my opinion. And then Venus was exactly on my Midheaven, oh, I’m sorry, my Ascendant, when that happened as well. So an exalted Venus too. I’m really excited about that.
CB: Just Jupiter transiting through your first house, that can be a really positive period for growth and aspecting those other planets. And again, that’s probably just reinforcing some of those themes of you playing that positive role in the lives of other people around you.
Chelsea: Mm-hmm. And then her Moon is actually in Pisces in the sixth, and so it’s been a good, I think she’s going to have some good stuff. But she also is going to have an exact… The eclipse coming up is going to be opposite her Sun in the eighth.
CB: Okay. So the Taurus Scorpio stuff. Usually when eclipses move into that can activate the financial axis. So could be like getting like a little job or starting to make money or something like that.
Chelsea: Yeah. I was hoping she could get a summer job.
CB: Okay. Sorry, I didn’t mean to like put thoughts in the…
Chelsea: Well, another really cool thing about kind of being unofficial homeschooling parent is that the kids are really interested in astrology. And so that’s why she’s here today and just really kind of hoping that we can further the next, next, next generation of young people to being exposed to astrology to help them, you know, maybe figure out in advance of leaving high school what they want to be doing, what they should be doing, kind of gifts to them. So I think that’s what’s really been cool about having a little bit of control over the curriculum is to kind of squeeze a lot of this stuff in, and there’s a huge interest in it. So that’s been another positive new beginning, I think, for the young kids.
CB: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, and even more sense of those eclipses between the third house and the ninth house axis. Because the third house is typically education and like K-12 through high school, but the ninth house typically is college, but the ninth house is also the house associated with astrology and things like that. So that makes sense of why both houses were activated with that eclipse series when you started doing homeschooling and stuff.
Chelsea: Yeah. And then I’m going into a major ZR lot of spirit beginning May 3rd or 6th, I can’t remember, of this year in Cancer, my fifth house ruler. A lot of change coming I think, but I think it’s going to be good.
CB: Yeah. Well, and those eclipses are going to bounce back and forth between your third and ninth from this point forward. So it makes me think of the previous person that was thinking about writing a book with their third house transits, but maybe just something about communication and education or communication and teaching and maybe some of the things that you’ve gained over the past few years from having to do that could come into play in the future in terms of teaching in some way.
Chelsea: Yeah, we’ll see.
CB: Yeah, awesome. Thank you, that was awesome. All right, I think we have time for at least one more example if anybody has one. Yeah, in the back of the room.
Lilah: Hello everybody. I’ve been sitting over there. And when people are up here, I was kind of wishing they would look this way. So hello everybody.
CB: Hi. What’s your name?
Lilah: My name is Lilah.
CB: Okay. How do you spell it?
Lilah: It’s L-I-L-A-H.
CB: Okay. And what’s your birthdate?
Lilah: And so it’s 2/11/1973.
CB: And what time?
Lilah: 8:30.
CB: AM or PM?
Lilah: AM.
CB: And what city?
Lilah: Santa Fe, New Mexico.
CB: All right. Is your Ascendant 27 Pisces?
Lilah: No, it’s four degrees Aries. Wait, hang on.
CB: Maybe I had the data wrong. You said February 11th, 1973 at 8:30 AM?
Lilah: Yeah, that might be the wrong time. Let’s see here. 8:50.
CB: AM, okay. There it is, 4 Aries rising. Okay. All right. So this is good, this is a rising we haven’t done yet. So what’s the transit you wanted to share with us?
Lilah: So, well, when COVID first started, I was an elementary teacher and a Target checkout person at night. And so like I just remember everybody checking out and like getting all their groceries and we’re out of night [unintelligible 14.02] on the shelves when they walked to the break room. So it was going through… So I was never like locked down. I had like a piece of paper I kept in my card because I was like an essential worker. And I started teaching online to my little kids online, and so yeah, that was crazy.
CB: So there’s major like job change with both of your jobs because the teaching thing suddenly initially shuts down or there’s a little break or you have to switch to online basically at that point.
Lilah: Yeah, we switched to online. So my teaching, it started off online the following fall and then it went to in-person, but there were a few classroom quarantines.
CB: So that was part of the like 10th house stuff initially at least like the lockdowns in March of 2015 was all the transits in Capricorn were in your 10th house of career. And so it was both the teaching job, but then also suddenly the stakes being raised on your other job which was otherwise like a day to day job, but then all of a sudden, you’re a frontline worker in the middle of a pandemic.
Lilah: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Just nailed it right on the head there. And it was just interesting because I was going through all these crazy changes. My hair was black, then it was blonde, now obviously it’s gray. And also I just had like these different identities. I was like this checkout person and a teacher, and then I was online. Okay, so then when things started moving into my 11th house, my Sun’s at 22 Aquarius, so everything just went over that. So I gave up my teaching job to go into early childhood education. And I did that for like six months, then I did another job for like three weeks, and I started substitute teaching. And so I got back into my school district just recently and now I’m like trying just to get everything back. I have a job interview on Monday, and I just hate job interviewing. The last time when I got my teaching license and started interviewing, took me like three years of interviewing because just as an Aquarius Sun with my Uranus and Libra trining my Sun so closely, I just always go back and forth between like being like an outcast. And I just feel like when I go to these interviews, I can never get the job. And so here I am, I know that I can keep substitute teaching and stuff. And it’s fine, substitutes make a lot of money now, because there’s such a shortage, but I don’t have health insurance with it. But no complaints, people are a lot off worse, a lot more than that anyway. But it’s just been so weird. Jupiter I blame like all my losing my job, just everything. I was like high on this Jupiter like nothing can stop me because it like went over my natal Venus and my Sun. Then also though my Saturn went over, Saturn’s been back and forth, and so I let go of this like 13-year relationship, and I have Pluto in the seventh house and Uranus and this relationship was so much drama, I can’t even tell you. It was just drama. And so that ended and now that person is now just my friend. He has a girlfriend now. And I talk to my therapist about it and she’s like, “Yeah, you seem happy single, and I totally am so happy. And she’s like, “If you want to hang out with him when you want to hang out with him, great.” And I was like, “Yeah, I mean, people do all sorts of things. I’m not saying I want to, but there’s polyamorous people, there’s people in the spectrum, there’s whatever, it’s just all good.” And I’m just really good single now, but I’m just listening to everybody who came up here, we’ve just been through all of us so much and like nothing in my life is the same, nothing.
CB: That’s an interesting manifestation of that Saturn transit over your Venus in the 11th house of friends, but just having a relationship come to an end, but then having it turn into more of a friendship.
Lilah: Totally, and we’re just friends now. And also it was interesting because I was looking for jobs in my old school district, but I got rid of my car as I never believed in having car payments. So like I was taking a bus all around Boulder to get to my jobs and stuff. And then I wanted to apply to school jobs, teaching jobs like in Broomfield and Longmont and everywhere, but I didn’t have a way to get there on the bus. So then my ex, call him, he’s kind of a bad boy. Again, not Pluto, but he’s so sweet. He’s got Moon in Leo. He’s just so giving and generous, but also like crazy relationship. So anyway, he gave me his old like beat up rusty old truck, but it works. And so I’ve been driving that. And anyway, I just feel like that Venus in Aquarius is just getting these weird eclectic like helping things to me. Anyway, I’m rambling. That’s just what I do in the job interviews too and then they look at me like I’m crazy.
CB: Some of the transportation issues, that was from like 2020 and 2021 onward?
Lilah: Yeah, 2021 I just had the cutest car, which had been stolen a couple times. The name was speedy, this was my car. It had a sunroof, a manual like totally old, but it died. So I didn’t want to spend money. And I was like, “Yeah, carefree, no car, no car interest to pay for it, taking a buzz, woo. Wait a minute.” So it’s funny.
CB: Yeah, that makes sense. Those eclipses were just between your ninth house and your third house. And again, just one of the literal meanings of third house transits is just short distance travel and like how you get around town and that can mean things like that, new ways of traveling. I love that you have the ruler of the 10th house of career is Saturn and it’s located in the third house, which is associated with, as we talked about before, like K through 12 education basically. And that’s really one of your primary focus and interest is teaching kids.
Lilah: Yeah, totally. I just love working with kids and I stopped teaching because there was just so many hoops to jump through. Also like in my school building all the teachers just wouldn’t even talk to me and I just felt like such an outcast. So when I went to the preschool, I was like, “let me just enjoy these sweet babies, these sweet children.” And it was so fun, but then like there were problems with that because like my back started to hurt from picking them up. And then some of the teachers were like, “When they cry, you can’t pick them up.” And so then I was like, “Ah, I’m not supposed to pick them up, what am I supposed to do? And all the teachers were just like a fishbowl, I couldn’t get along with anybody.
CB: Yeah, you had to switch to online teaching during 2020, which would’ve been tough as well as those eclipses are going back and forth between your third and your ninth.
Lilah: Yeah. So but interestingly, I got this long-term substitute job teaching online for first grade, it’s just a total online school. So every day I just go in and I do a Zoom meeting with these first graders all day. And it’s really fun, but I just think that it’s got to be that Venus and Aquarius that’s getting me all these eclectic, weird technology job things. I don’t know.
CB: Yeah. I love that you have the Aquarius Sun in Venus, but your Mercury’s over in Pisces. And you have like a very sort of soft way of speaking I think would be really amazing like with children I’m sure. But it’s a great marketing Pisces example.
Lilah: Oh, thank you. That’s really kind. But then I feel like such a split personality because I have this Aries rising and I have that Mars-Pluto kind of closed square. So like I have this total anger issue, but I keep it totally under wraps. And also like when people see me, they hear my voice, but I don’t think they see the Aries rising or I don’t know. I’m just such a weird enigma. I don’t mean to focus so much on myself, but sorry guys.
CB: Yeah, no, I like that. It’s a good example of how different people have different distributions of planets and different elements and different signs. And sometimes times people see or connect with like one part of a person’s chart, but we don’t always see like the full spectrum until you’ve really gotten to know a person or sometimes it’s only the person themself that understands all the different parts of their chart. And that’s why it’s so important for us. Our own birth chart is always going to be our best example for our entire lives, because we’re never going to know anyone better than we know ourselves. So I really like that. That makes a lot of sense. Well, I’m interested to see how things go. You’ve got those eclipses now, I guess that’s going to shift from your third and ninth house axis and that like teaching and communication and travel axis over to your second house and your eighth house, so more of the financial axis. The first eclipse already started there in Taurus in November, do you have any inkling of where that’s going? I guess you’re interviewing for different jobs now.
Lilah: Yeah. So I just realized, oh my gosh, I eventually going to need to retire and all this. So I feel like the second eighth house axis is just sort of me coming to face that a little bit. I don’t know. It just feels like very unstable. I have a summer school job, but then July, I don’t know, and I have to go to all these interviews, but I can always substitute teach. It’s just work, to find something else. So yeah, I don’t know. I’m thinking the second eighth house financial stability.
CB: Yeah. I think some of that’ll start to become more clear over the course of the next month as this first eclipse series fully comes into play, and just making more long-term financial plans, I think, will become a lot more clearer over the course of the next month with those eclipses. Yeah, that was a good example. Thank you.
Lilah: Oh, you’re welcome. Thank you. I just want to say I’ve been listening to your podcast and your YouTube and I just adore your YouTube, I’m so glad you’re doing this in person. I’m just so excited.
CB: Thanks. Yeah, I’m excited to be here doing it and be able to record this and then be able to share this with the community outside of here who can’t attend, but it’s like a special privilege always to be able to meet other astrologers in person and like do this face to face. There’s an element that’s really hard to replicate on Zoom or something like that. So I’m glad we can do this again.
Lilah: Yeah. Thanks so much. You know, you’re just like online and there’s these friends you have online yet you’ve never met them, but you love them so much. Well, it’s a very big treat.
CB: Yeah. Well, nice to meet you.
Lilah: Nice to meet you.
CB: All right. So it’s 3:53 and we’re supposed to wrap up at 4:00. I think that might be it for our workshop today, talking about transits for the last two years. We didn’t get through quite as many examples as I thought we might but I think we still were able to cover like quite a bit and we got some good stories and we got a good idea about how some of these long-term outer planet transits with slow-moving planets and also eclipses and different things like that can sometimes manifest in very literal ways in a person’s life. I hope that’s given everybody something to think about and something to pay attention to as you’re looking at your own transits in the future. And especially as you start thinking about some of the transits that are coming up like the eclipse series, that’s going to begin later this month in Taurus and Scorpio, and just thinking about what houses those are falling in in your chart. So obviously there’s additional techniques that we could have looked at like secondary progressions or different time lord techniques, and there’s different ways that those can add additional layers of subtlety and nuance and other information that we didn’t even get to here. But I hope that in looking at this, you can see how sometimes even the most simple techniques of looking at slow-moving outer planet transits through the houses can really tell you a lot about what’s going on in a person’s life during different stages. So yeah, I think that’s going to be it for this meeting. So this went pretty well. So I think we’re going to try to resume doing these meetings and we’re going to shoot for the second Saturday of the month, usually from 2:00 to 4:00 PM here at the Mercury Cafe every month from this point forwards. And with any luck, hopefully, everything with like COVID will be okay and will agree with that. And we’ll just get the group going again and build up some momentum and keep meeting up here and doing things like this every month here at the Mercury Cafe. I think we’ve still got the room for another hour if people want to hang out and talk and socialize before they start setting up for dinner at five. Feel free to talk and introduce yourselves to each other and just start rebuilding the community that we sort of put on hold or had to put a pause on here two years ago. So, thanks everyone for coming to this meeting, and I look forward to seeing you next month again. [applause]
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.
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