The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 38, titled:
Astrology Forecast & Auspicious Dates for August 2015
With Chris Brennan and guests Austin Coppock and Kelly Surtees
Episode originally released on July 26, 2015
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Note: This is a transcript of a spoken word podcast. If possible, we encourage you to listen to the audio or video version, since they include inflections that may not translate well when written out. Our transcripts are created by human transcribers, and the text may contain errors and differences from the spoken audio. If you find any errors then please send them to us by email: theastrologypodcast@gmail.com
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Transcribed by Andrea Johnson
Transcription released August 28th, 2024
Copyright © 2024 TheAstrologyPodcast.com
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CHRIS BRENNAN: Hi, my name is Chris Brennan, and you’re listening to The Astrology Podcast. For more information about subscribing to the show, please visit theastrologypodcast.com/subscribe. For the price of a cup of coffee each month, you can sign up to become a supporter of the podcast on Patreon and get access to some exclusive benefits such as a private discussion forum, early access to new episodes, higher quality recordings and more. Today is Thursday, July 23, 2015, at approximately 1:21 PM in Denver, Colorado, and this is the 38th episode of the show. In this episode, I’m gonna be talking with Kelly Surtees and Austin Coppock about some of the major astrological alignments occurring over the course of the next month in August of 2015, as well as highlighting some of the most auspicious dates for starting different types of ventures using the principles of electional astrology. For more information about Kelly, see her website kellysastrology.com, and for more information about Austin, visit his website at austincoppock.com. Welcome back to the show, guys.
AUSTIN COPPOCK: Thanks for having us.
KELLY SURTEES: Thanks, Chris.
CB: All right. So last month went so well and the feedback was so positive that I thought we would do another forecasting episode. This will be the third forecasting episode between me and Kelly and the second between the three of us. So let’s jump right into it and start talking about the astrological weather in August. So, Kelly, what are some of the main themes that you wanted to mention?
KS: So we’ve got a huge focus on the signs of both Leo and Virgo coming up in August. We’ll have Jupiter moving into Virgo as really the astrological headline for August, and that will kick in around the 10th-11th of August, just depending on your timezone. And that’s gonna create a whole new vibration. Jupiter in Virgo—very different kettle of fish to Jupiter in Leo, so we’ll get into that as we go through the show today. But there is still going to be a fair amount of action happening in Leo, because we do have Mars finally leaving Cancer and moving into Leo early in the month as well. So there’s a couple of big planets changing signs. And in addition to that we have a major aspect between Jupiter and Saturn—a square happening in the first week of August—from 28 Leo to 28 Scorpio. So that’s gonna be quite interesting cause I always see Jupiter and Saturn as these two sort of celestial heavyweights, the two big visible, traditional planets, and they’re kind of at odds with each other. So I’ll be interested to get you guys take on that square actually.
CB: Sure. I mean, this came up. I think Jonathan Pearl was asking people yesterday about that.
KS: On Facebook.
CB: Yeah, in a Facebook discussion on his page, and he was asking which one has the upper hand. And from the perspective of Hellenistic astrologers, or from ancient astrologers, they would say that the planet that is earlier in zodiacal order is the planet that’s in the superior or the dominant position. So zodiacal order always runs counter-clockwise. So Jupiter, then, being this planet that’s in the earlier sign, is in the superior position in Leo, and that’s true as long as they’re in a sign-based aspect. But then there’s a special exception to that where once Jupiter gets within 3° of applying to Saturn, suddenly Saturn has the ability to, what was called, ‘cast rays’ or ‘hurl a ray’ backwards in the order of signs and strike Jupiter with it. So even though Jupiter is normally in the superior position, suddenly Saturn is able to get the upper hand in a situation and become almost more powerful than Jupiter in the relationship. So that’s one of the background things for me in terms of that square. Jupiter’s been in the superior position for much of the time over the past year, but suddenly it finds itself in kind of an awkward position for about a week or so.
KS: Yeah. Is that a condition of maltreatment as well, with those close degrees to Saturn, or not from the square?
CB: Yeah, so according to the reconstruction I did with Demetra George and Benjamin Dykes of this lost, 1st century text attributed to Antiochus of Athens, one of the conditions of maltreatment—or what we now call ‘affliction’—was when a malefic planet casts a square backwards in the order signs and another planet applies to that exact square within 3°. That’s one of the original, classic conditions of affliction or maltreatment.
KS: So it’s getting pretty hairy for Jupiter.
CB: Yeah. So Jupiter’s not doing that well. Although one of the things that’s funny most of August and some of the subsequent months is there’s this weird trade-off. Because Venus goes retrograde, there’s different weeks in which Venus and Jupiter are actually enclosing or besieging Saturn between their rays. So they actually almost counteract that or get the upper hand on Saturn for a little bit despite the ray that Saturn is hurling backwards at Jupiter. So things are actually a little bit more complicated with that just because Venus is also involved as a third party.
KS: Yeah—
AC: Yeah. Well, and it’s—
KS: Go, Austin.
AC: —made me think about just what that looks like. So Jupiter in Leo provides this sort of triumphant, sometimes very egotistical excitement. It’s hard not to think of Donald Trump as sort of an example of what can go wrong with Jupiter in Leo.
KS: Oh, wow.
AC: Right? Like he’s very confident. That’s not a problem. He styles himself as a ‘king’ of business, ‘business king’. Anyway, so if we’re looking at a planet that is maltreated, we’re looking for a planet that’s malfunctioned, right?
CB: Sure.
AC: And so, with Jupiter—Jupiter usually tries to help or remedy a situation. But the idea that if you have a benefic, which is trying to help, but has the fundamentally wrong idea of how to help, or is mostly maybe trying to help themselves (again, Trump), we have some of that coming in. And that idea of malfunctioning or problematic benefics is doubled by exactly what you were saying, Chris, where we have Venus coming to join in this interaction. And Venus—as we talked about quite a bit last month, and I’m sure we’ll talk about this month—Venus will be retrograde, which is a difficult condition for her.
CB: Right. So we’ve started that retrograde now in late July. But it basically carries through pretty much the entirety of August, right?
KS: Yeah. She doesn’t end her retrograde until early September, September 5. So Venus retrograde is a theme for the whole month of August. And the dates where Venus kind of ties into the Jupiter-Saturn square is literally the first week of August, between the 2nd and the 6th. So that’s when we’re gonna see all those configurations that you guys are talking about coming into play.
CB: Okay, perfect. And I was just looking it up really quick and apparently the birth time we have for Donald Trump has Leo rising, with Mars and Pluto in Leo. That’s funny that you’re highlighting that Jupiter. He actually has 29 Leo rising, not just Leo rising. So that Jupiter is hovering right around there right now.
AC: Yeah, a lot of times I listen to the news when I wake up in the morning, and I was listening to a story about Trump today and about how he’s a huge problem for the Republicans in American politics right now. We’re talking about Venus-Jupiter conjunctions in Leo. It’s a lot of noise and it’s a lot of noise that’s charming to someone. I didn’t realize it but apparently he’s climbed up to the top of a lot of Republican polls, which has sort of upset the party machinery. I would also say that on the Democratic side Bernie Sanders has been gaining a lot of steam, and there are people who are hoping or talking about him maybe dethroning Hillary Clinton. And one of the themes this summer—or this August—with these ‘problematized’ benefics is I think there’s gonna be a lot of excitement about things that aren’t going to pan out, and those are just political examples.
CB: Sure, that makes sense. So things that look good on the surface, but don’t necessarily have a lot of long-term follow-through.
AC: Yeah. Looking is one thing, but I think the way people are gonna experience this is enthusiasm, right? The Venus-Jupiter conjunction will happen with the Sun in Leo as well and for a little while with Mercury there, and there’s a lot of Leo that runs on enthusiasm and feeling it and seeing a vision. It’s all gilded in solar light, but it may not come to pass.
CB: Sure, that makes sense. Okay, so what are the other themes or things that we wanted to focus on or that are coming up this month?
KS: Yeah—
AC: Actually—
KS: Sorry. Go, Austin.
AC: Sorry. One more point just about that Saturn-Jupiter square.
KS: Yeah.
AC: So from a longer-term perspective—and to tie this into your recent conversation with Ben Dykes, Chris—
CB: On mundane astrology?
AC: Yeah, on mundane astrology. The Saturn-Jupiter cycle has been used for a long time to measure periods of history. There’s this 20-year-ish interval between them. And so, with Jupiter coming to an exact square with Saturn, that tells us that we’re three-quarters the way through a 20-year cycle. We’re three-quarters the way through an arc of history that began in 2000.
CB: Right. At the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in Taurus.
AC: Yeah.
KS: Correct.
AC: Or the Moon conjunction in Gemini, for those who looked into Ben’s methods.
CB: Right.
KS: Yes. And this cycle is gonna carry us through until 2020, when we get Jupiter and Saturn conjunct. I think it’s in Aquarius that year.
AC: It is.
KS: The very end of that year. So that’s a good point to make too, cause that’s a very long historical cycle that’s been used.
CB: Yeah, definitely.
KS: Yeah, I was just gonna say with the idea that Austin was talking about, of enthusiasm, I do think the first week of August really brings this sense of change around the exuberance of Jupiter in Leo starting to simmer down because we have that square. We might call it a ‘sobering’ square from Saturn where the enthusiasm comes under pressure, or it’s time to lay your cards down, and you either are gonna come up with trumps—God, we can’t get away from that phrase today. You’re gonna come up trumps or not, but you’re gonna have to show what you’ve got. You’re being forced to play your hand. And that’s sort of a segue into Jupiter moving into Virgo, which is much more, I mean, sobering again. It’s less enthusiastic and more about results-driven or more tangible-focused I guess rather than the vision.
CB: Sure, that makes sense. And maybe before we get there, I just remembered I needed to mention my first elections of the month, which are all Leo rising and Sun-focused. Because there’s so much stuff piled up in Leo during that first week of August, there’s actually a couple of good elections that you can take advantage of. The one I’d probably focus on if you wanted to do a Leo rising election takes place on August 6, 2015 at about 7:15 in the morning local time. So whatever the local time is for you, just make sure that the ascendant is located at approximately 26° of Leo rising. So it’s a pretty good chart. It’s a pretty good Leo rising chart in that it has Leo rising, the Sun in Leo in the first whole sign house, so this is shortly after sunrise. Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter are all forming a tight triple-conjunction in late Leo. The Moon is exalted in Taurus in the 10th house, so the Moon’s in pretty good shape. Mars is kind of out of the way in Cancer in the 12th. It’s not a very happy Mars, but it’s at least sort of out of the way in the 12th house and not aspecting or afflicting any of the major chart placements. Saturn is pretty prominent. It’s angular in the 4th house, kind of close to the IC, in Scorpio, and it’s squaring obviously the Venus, Jupiter, Mercury conjunction in Leo. But it’s also enclosed so that Venus is at 27 Leo casting a square ray right in front of Saturn, and Jupiter is at 28°56’ Leo casting a ray just after Saturn. So both of the benefics are perfectly enclosing Saturn between their rays and, thus, bonifying Saturn. So even though Saturn’s very prominent in this chart—and it’s also prominent because it’s stationing direct, or it has recently stationed direct in Scorpio—it’s at least counteracted a little bit by being a day chart and being enclosed by the rays of the benefics. So this is a pretty strong fiery chart. It’s also a very fixed chart. So it’d be good for initiating things that need kind of a dramatic opening of some sort—and in the long term maybe take a while to build up or get going fully—but have a lot of staying power and a lot of permanency just because of the emphasis on all the fixed signs in the chart.
KS: Fantastic.
CB: So that’s my first election of the month, or that’s the primary Leo one. There’s also a similar election you can use on August 1 that also has Leo rising if you use 6:50 AM in the morning, with 18 Leo rising shortly after sunrise. This has the Moon in Aquarius, which is not quite as good as the exalted Moon on August 6, but is still usable. And even though the Moon is square to Saturn, it’s mitigated through reception. Because the Moon is in Aquarius, which is Saturn’s sign, therefore the square between the Moon and Saturn—some of the edge is taken off of that square. So that’s the other Leo rising that you could potentially use if you wanted that type of election early in the first week of August.
KS: Fantastic. And that’s a general point to make too about August, isn’t it? Finally this month we do have a couple of planets, for part of the month, back in their home signs. So we’re getting some great dignities, and I guess that’s helping on the election front.
CB: Yeah, exactly. This month is basically split up between really strong Sun elections and Leo rising elections in the first part of the month—when the Sun is in Leo, in its own domicile—versus really strong Mercury elections after the 7th, once Mercury moves into Virgo, which is its domicile. It’s kind of a unique electional month and a really positive electional month, in that sense, that you don’t usually get, where you have two planets in their own signs. And that provides a really strong foundation for some great elections that really capture the pure essence of both of those planets. So I would definitely take advantage of that this month since that’s not a common thing, and it certainly won’t be for the rest of this year.
KS: No. And that’s quite a change from July too, where we didn’t have any planets in dignity. In fact, we’ve had Mars in Cancer, so we’ve had a little bit of debility coming through there. Yeah, I think after August, we’re waiting until we get Venus into Libra, which isn’t until November, before we have the next planet/home rulership sign combination. So definitely something to take advantage of for August.
CB: Definitely, depending on what you want to do. I mean, what types of things? I mean, typically, the Mercury elections—with Mercury in Virgo—I’m thinking more communication and writing and other mercurial activities, especially ones that involve a lot of detail or focus on nuances and smaller things. What other types of things would you guys recommend for a Leo rising election, for an election that’s emphasizing the Sun and emphasizing a huge stellium of planets in Leo?
AC: Well, like you said, Chris, those things which depend upon making a bold impression or a dramatic appearance. Things that concern leadership and performance I think would probably be the top two.
CB: Sure, that makes sense.
KS: I would add in I guess the visual arts or the image-based side of things as well. Yeah, the thing that instantly came to mind is if you’ve got a photography exhibition, or you create some kind of visual art then these Leo elections would be fantastic for that as well.
AC: Yeah.
CB: Sure, definitely.
AC: And unveiling.
CB: Look at what I made.
KS: Yeah, the ‘look at what I made’ and ‘unveiling’. Is that what you were saying, Austin?
AC: Yeah.
KS: Yeah, so the revealing, I guess.
AC: Yeah. Kelly, you said something earlier about the Venus retrograde and her configuration with a couple of other planets, and you said that it was about everyone having to show their cards. I pinged on that. I do think that there’s a radical emotional honesty which will be very difficult to escape from while Venus is retrograde in Leo.
KS: Wow. So it’s really putting it all out there.
AC: Yeah. I mean, if you look at, for example, the Myth of Inanna—which is often associated with and may very well have been built to describe Venus’ retrograde cycle—when she descends into the underworld, she’s stripped of her veils, and I see this very clearly on a psychological level with people during Venus retrogrades. Venus is about making friends, right? So we veil certain parts of ourselves. We veil some of our feelings, etc., etc. And the Venus retrograde—it literally pulls backward and downward and inward, right? It pulls those veils away so we get to see ourselves and our relationships in a much more naked and honest light, which isn’t always easy. There’s a reason we don’t do that all the time.
KS: Yeah.
AC: And those reasons are part of the subject of the Venus retrograde on a personal level.
KS: So is there something there around—you know, whenever I think of Venus, I’m always thinking about I guess a Libran version of Venus in some ways, which is that idea of social etiquette and social mores, the things that we do that are pleasant, that keep us engaged and keep the wheels turning. And I’m wondering, with this Venus retrograde, whether our ability to keep up those fronts is reduced or limited, and therefore, those truths or true colors are sort of coming to the surface a little bit.
AC: Yeah, I think that’s absolutely the case. So I think one of Venus’ normal functions is to promote accord, right?
KS: Yes.
AC: And so, one of her retrograde functions is to promote discord or strife. But this doesn’t have to be meaningless strife if we’re looking at the sign for clues as to why it might be worth it to create strife. To be honest or in order to be seen for who you really are, you have to break a certain harmony within a relationship because that harmony is perhaps predicated on a false idea of who you are, right? Sometimes a person doesn’t feel like themselves, doesn’t feel seen, and so they need to speak up. I’ve been seeing this coming up in consultations, of people kind of getting ready to speak up about something which is connected to deeper inequalities in their relationship.
KS: Wow. And a couple of dates to throw out there for the Venus retrograde. Venus will conjunct Jupiter and square Saturn between the 3rd and 6th of August. And then later in the month, Venus will trine Uranus about the 18th to the 20th of August. So those dates, with those themes that you were talking about, Austin, could be significant.
CB: And also, the Venus-Sun conjunction.
KS: Oh, yes.
CB: Is that the inferior conjunction? I always mix up the terminology.
AC: Yeah, it’s the inferior.
CB: Okay.
KS: And that’s mid-month, I think. Isn’t it?
CB: Yeah, August 15. Cause that’s one of the elections that I’ll mention later in the show.
KS: Just—you go, Austin.
AC: Oh, we should probably just define ‘inferior’ versus ‘superior’ conjunctions for people. So the inferior conjunction of Venus and the Sun is when Venus is between us and the Sun, and those only occur during retrogrades.
CB: Right.
AC: There’s the superior when Venus is on the far side of the Sun. But this retrograde one that we’re coming up on this month is the one that’s literally closer to home. Venus is pointing towards us and into us, right? So it’s not a surprise that we experience it as more internal.
CB: Sure.
KS: That’s a really good point actually cause it’s literally closer.
AC: Yeah, it’s way closer.
CB: Right. And that was interesting what you said earlier about Venus retrograde and it sort of being opposite or contrary in some sense to the nature of the planet. It’s kind of interesting cause it goes back to one of the fundamental or just the conceptual premise of retrograde, which I think has been lost or a lot of people don’t realize. All of the planets—if you’re just doing observational astronomy—all of the planets are typically moving along the ecliptic in a forward motion through the normal order of the zodiac, and then when they go retrograde, there’s this visual anomaly. And I think anomaly or the notion of anomalous motion is really good as a descriptor. Because there’s something about the planet that is producing its usual significations and usual meaning, but then suddenly there’s an anomaly in the way that it’s moving, and suddenly it’s going contrary to its usual direction. So I like that idea that you were bringing up of what is contrary to Venus in terms of the potential for discord or strife or things like that.
AC: Yeah, yeah. And one funny thing about that is if we contrast the visual anomaly with the knowledge that Venus is actually just proceeding along her course in a regular and steady manner—if seen from outside the solar system—Venus is doing her thing, right? She is, in the long term, trying to produce accord, but she’s performing her function in a way that seems contrary for those six weeks. Like when I was talking earlier about having to speak up and create discord, the purpose of that is to create a longer, lasting accord with deeper foundations, but it doesn’t look like that in the moment.
CB: Sure.
AC: And it may expose situations where that’s simply not possible.
CB: That makes sense. I mean, that makes me think of that recent story that was just in the news a day or two ago that a lot of astrologers are associating with either Venus retrograde or Saturn stationing in Scorpio, which was the hacking of the Ashley Madison website.
KS: The dating website.
CB: Right. It was like a website for people that want to cheat I guess on their significant other or something like that, and it had a database of a bunch of people that signed up for this. And then the whole database got hacked into and released by hackers so that presumably a lot of not very stable relationships are suddenly becoming even less stable or are becoming exposed for things that are happening within them.
AC: Yeah. Like you were saying, Kelly, the cards are getting exposed.
KS: I mean, we touched on this last month too. It is interesting that these configurations are pulling in the tail-end of the Saturn in Scorpio cycle.
CB: Yes.
KS: So that idea of exposure. We’re not just exposing something that’s superficial or has just been tucked in a corner for six months. We’re exposing something that is deep or profound or core and that maybe has been buried for a long time.
AC: Yeah, and maybe rotting too.
KS: I love your images, Austin.
CB: And that’s also funny cause I was thinking about that as well. Cause one of the events in the news that opened up Saturn in Scorpio—about a month after it went in, back in 2012—was in November of 2012, there was the David Petraeus scandal.
KS: Oh, yes!
CB: He was the head of the CIA at the time and was like the former head of the Army or something prior to that.
KS: Comes from a super high position in the American military.
CB: Yeah. And it turned out he was having an affair with his biographer, and they were communicating secretly through Gmail, like writing messages to each other in the drafts or something that actually doesn’t sound very high tech for the head of the CIA.
AC: Yeah, I think they would log into the same account and check the draft folder.
CB: Right. It was very ‘high’ cloak-and-dagger-type stuff. Yeah, that was one of the first really Saturn in Scorpio-type events. And what was interesting about it is it was a sex scandal, but also one of the things that started happening that I noticed immediately after that was people started talking about the FBI caught him because they started following his Gmail account, and they got into his Gmail account. And all these discussions about privacy and stuff started coming up in the immediate aftermath of that, in addition to him having this huge fall as a result of the affair. And that ended up being sort of a precursor to what happened about six months later when the Snowden controversy and the NSA controversy came out, which was another huge Saturn in Scorpio-type event around the time that Saturn stationed in Scorpio that spring or early summer. So here we have Saturn having left Sagittarius—or having left Scorpio and moved into Sagittarius last December, and then stationed this spring, and coming back for one last, final intense pass, and then stationing right now at 28° Scorpio and, yeah, just this huge event. It supposedly had seven million subscribers. I think probably largely bots or computer people signed up for it. But who knows how many people actually legitimately signed up to that website and now have been outed.
AC: If it’s just 20,000 people that’s a huge number of relationships about to be set on fire.
CB: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
KS: Yeah.
CB: So it’s like a big mundane event that happened that affects large groups of people. And then similarly, last month of course we had the other big mundane event where an astrological correlation affected hundreds of thousands of people, which was the Venus-Jupiter conjunction that coincided with the Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage in the United States. And one of the things I noticed about that is that the ruling from the Supreme Court came about two or three days before the conjunction went exact. But what I was thinking after that is that in the aftermath of that, there must have been like hundreds or thousands of marriages of people who have been waiting their entire lives to get married that suddenly got married in that few-day time-span, right after the Supreme Court decision. And it’ll be interesting to see the stats on that at some point, if there really was a spike in marriages in the few days after that I guess just anecdotally there almost seem to be.
KS: Yeah. I mean, I’ve got goosebumps as you talk about that, Chris. Because I remember at that time my Facebook feed on social media was lit up by stories of not just people you knew who had been prevented from getting married and now you can see their wedding photos. But there were also the stories of strangers, couples who had been together longer than we’ve all been alive—cause we’re all relatively young—and these were much more mature couples, and they were finally able to get married. So that—it’s gonna be really interesting to get some stats on. And I guess what we’re sort of alluding to here is that idea of the mundane or the collective experience when major configurations with Jupiter and Saturn are coming into play. And obviously Venus-Jupiter is a classic symbolic energy around love and romance and abundance, to have this flood of weddings sort of rings true.
CB: Yeah. This summer, it’s like you’re getting both sides of that spectrum—the extremely positive side and the extremely challenging or negative side—and both sides of that coin in some sense. I mean, I’m almost hesitant to link—
AC: I think that’s right on. If we’re talking about the exposure of the forbidden, that is true with the gay marriage ruling. A lot of people whose activities were previously legally forbidden are now literally coming out to the world, right? They’re coming out on social media to be seen and to be seen in the eyes of the law, right? And so, exposure of the forbidden isn’t one way or another. We also have the Ashley Madison thing, which is an exposure of the forbidden, but of quite different standing morally or ethically there.
KS: Yes. I just wanted to track back a moment to something, Chris, you were saying before about the Mercury in Virgo and the dignity in the elections.
CB: Right.
KS: The one other topic that I think is really associated with Mercury—we’ve got the communication, the editing, the organization, the data. But the idea of Mercury is that it’s the original planet to do with business. The mercantile, the contract, the exchange of documents.
CB: Right.
AC: Commerce.
KS: Sorry, Austin?
AC: Oh, commerce.
KS: The commerce, yeah, exactly. General commerce. So that’s something. It’s really just two-and-a-half weeks, Mercury in Virgo, from about the 7th of August until the 27th. I’m sure we’ve got more elections to go through, but even generally speaking that’s a great time for people to take advantage of. Anything under the commerce/business umbrella as well.
AC: That’s a good point. I’m gonna try to get all my writing done then.
KS: Yeah, go for it.
CB: Yeah. I mean—
KS: Go, Chris.
CB: Mercury in Virgo’s a great time for writing elections and just general communication, but especially writing. Especially if it’s something that’s detail-oriented because it’s more of the Virgo, much more grounded type of writing and communication rather than the lighter, Mercury in Gemini-type communication, which is a little bit better for shorter-type things that are not quite as focused on the particulars.
AC: Yeah.
KS: Yes.
AC: I think Mercury in Gemini is more casual.
CB: Yeah.
AC: And probably more fun, but not as meticulous or as well-researched. When I teach Virgo and Gemini as being both Mercury-ruled signs in my beginners class, a lot of times I talk about that Mercury is the scholar—oh, excuse me—Virgo is the scholar and Gemini is the reporter. The reporter gets it out there in a fast, quick, engaging manner, but the actual facts that are to be reported come by other researchers.
CB: That makes sense.
KS: Yeah. And it’s a good distinction just to clarify for people too, the idea that there’s more substance, if you like, to Mercury in Virgo because earth signs have more substance than air signs. And also often students get confused by the idea of Mercury being exalted and in rulership in Virgo, but I guess that’s sort of alluding to that more substantive nature of the Mercury stuff when Mercury’s in Virgo.
CB: Yeah, definitely. That makes a lot of sense, I think.
KS: Yeah. And there are just three quick dates to throw out with Mercury in Virgo, three particular aspects that Mercury in Virgo will make.
CB: Okay.
KS: We’ve got Mercury opposite Neptune from 8 Virgo to 8 Pisces and that’ll happen around August 12. Then we have Mercury trine Pluto August 15-16 and that’s about 12 Capricorn to 12 Virgo. 13. Sorry, 13 Capricorn to 13 Virgo. And then we have probably the best or the most applied or most diligent Mercury aspect with Mercury in Virgo. It’s the sextile to Saturn, which comes at the end of August, around August 26. And that will be with Mercury at 28 Virgo and Saturn at 28 Scorpio.
CB: Okay, perfect. Yeah, Neptune in Pisces really keeps messing up a lot of my Mercury elections.
KS: Doesn’t it just?
CB: Both here, while Mercury’s going through Virgo, but also earlier this year when Mercury was in Gemini, we were getting the square from it. So that’s interesting just in terms of these few years or this decade of what that does conceptually in the long term to when you’re trying to get good elections for communication, which otherwise would be very strong with Mercury in Virgo or Mercury in Gemini. But then you have this other element of Neptune casting an opposition or a square aspect and kind of interfering a little bit with that in some way.
AC: Yeah. I don’t think there’s another planet whose nature is as contrary to Mercury as Neptune’s.
CB: Right.
KS: That’s a good point.
AC: Neptune’s whole thing is to melt your categories, right? Neptune’s very strongly associated with non-verbal states.
KS: That felt sense.
AC: Yeah, trance states, altered consciousness. It’s like trying to describe a dream in its entirety with words, even though three-quarters of the dream is like—
CB: Sorry, it cut off a little bit towards the end. What was that last part?
KS: Well, that’s very Neptune, isn’t it?
AC: Oh, I was just saying that Mercury and Neptune. Yeah, right, dare invoke him. I was just saying that it’s like trying to describe a dream perfectly with words. Usually you’re like, “Well, this thing happened,” but when you’re in the dream there’s all of this weird texture that’s very difficult to describe. And so, yeah, I was just speaking about that as a way that Mercury has a very difficult time approaching Neptune, and Neptune really interferes with Mercury. I don’t even like the soft aspects for their impact on Mercury.
CB: Yeah, and that’s a huge issue. It’s like Mercury goes into Virgo by August 7, and I like to start recommending Mercury elections with Virgo rising or even maybe Gemini rising right away. But I have a hard time doing that just because Mercury’s applying to that opposition with Neptune, and that’s it’s next aspect for the majority of that first week basically, from August 7 all the way until a few days after that. So the earliest election that’s like a good Mercury in Virgo election that I would really recommend is on August 15, at about 8:50 in the morning, with about, let’s say, 22° of Virgo rising. So Mercury by this point is at 13° of Virgo. So it’s about 5° past the opposition from Neptune. And so, it’s still getting hit a little bit, but this is one of the earliest elections where it’s starting to finally get some space. And you can take into account that usual helpful rule in electional astrology that applying aspects indicate things that are developing in the future and separating aspects indicate things that are moving into the past. So the separating aspect with Neptune might not be quite as problematic as could be otherwise.
So this chart has Virgo rising, Mercury in Virgo in the first whole sign house. Jupiter has just ingressed into Virgo and it’s at 0° Virgo, or it’s recently ingressed, so it’s also in the first whole sign house. And the Moon is at 3° of Virgo, separating from Jupiter and applying to Neptune and in a conjunction with Mercury. So it’s a pretty heavy Virgo chart. And this is also the day of the Sun-Venus inferior conjunction at 22° of Leo, which unfortunately is in the 12th house with Mars, so we can’t really fully take advantage of it. But if you place the midheaven around 21° or 22° of Gemini—which is possible around 8:50-9:00 in the morning in most locations or in some locations—then you can make a close sextile between the midheaven and the Sun-Venus conjunction, which can help to counteract some of the cadency or the negative things associated with the cadency of the Sun-Venus conjunction, and, thus, incorporate some of that energy more into the chart than you might be able to otherwise. So that’s my first Virgo and first Mercury election of the month.
KS: Yeah, that looks like a good one. A juicy one.
AC: Speaking of Virgo, we should get onto Jupiter in Virgo. That’s a big shift.
KS: It is.
CB: Yeah, that is a huge shift, that we finally moved out of Jupiter in Leo—it’s been a full year already—and we’re moving onto Jupiter in Virgo. It’s been 12 years since the last time this happened. I’m trying to even remember what that was about. Like 2003-ish basically?
KS: Yes. So it was August of 2003. So all of 2003—the end of 2003, right through until September of 2004. Yeah, gosh.
CB: Okay.
KS: So cast your minds back.
CB: Yeah.
KS: Oh, okay. I mean, I don’t know what was going on generally, but I remembered what was happening for me. One of the discussion points around Jupiter in Virgo is of course this is the sign of Jupiter’s detriment. So there is like a slightly less vital, if you like, version of Jupiter. But if you think about listeners who are applying this to their own charts, let’s say if your midheaven or your 10th house is Virgo, the only kind of Jupiter transit you can have for your 10th is the Jupiter in Virgo kind. So there has to still be a sense of the Jupiter vibration, I guess. I mean, what do you guys think about that?
AC: Well, I think that’s correct. If your midheaven is Virgo, the Jupiter transit is still gonna be awesome. Or if you have your sect light in Virgo, it’s still gonna be awesome. It’s probably gonna be a lot more awesome for you than other people. But that’s sort of the point. You really have to have something very specific and powerful in Virgo that’s gonna be transited by Jupiter to reap the classical, stereotypical Jupiter-type rewards and opportunities. One of the things that I think about with Jupiter in Virgo in terms of the contradiction, what is the problem? What is the contradiction between Virgo’s significations and Jupiter? Well, Jupiter likes big, right?
KS: Yeah.
AC: Jupiter likes to expand and elevate.
KS: And Virgo likes small.
AC: Yeah. Jupiter says ‘more is more’, whereas Virgo says ‘no, no, less is more’.
KS: Way less is more.
AC: And so, I think when we’re looking at the improvement of something, we’re really looking at efficiency gains, right? We’re looking at taking what you already do and fine tuning it, whether it’s your business model or your approach to writing or just your daily schedule. It’s about cutting away. It’s identifying the wheat and the chaff and then separating them and keeping only what’s valuable. And so, there’ll be growth through getting smaller, right?
KS: Beautiful. I always think with Virgo too there’s a productivity component. And so, I wonder if Jupiter is about that idea of doing more with less in Virgo, or as you were saying, being so efficient that resources are used to their full potential.
AC: Yeah, totally. And interior resources as well. We have so much energy everyday. And so, what are you putting your energy into and what are you getting out of that? I think these kinds of analyses or these kinds of questions will become relatively constant under Jupiter in Virgo.
KS: Wow. And the idea of systems too. I mean, I’m thinking about now some of the online programs for automation and organization that perhaps will really take off with Jupiter in Virgo, as everybody looks, both in personal and professional areas, to make things more streamlined and efficient and functional.
AC: Yeah. So let me bring up this kind of ‘out there’ idea I had. So I was thinking about Saturn in Sagittarius and Jupiter in Virgo ruling Saturn in Sagittarius, which once we get into September that’s gonna be the deal.
KS: That’s it. That’s the lay of the land, yeah.
AC: And I was listening to this article about the technology displacing information workers, right? More and more people’s professional functions are able to be replaced or replicated by technology and that creating a growing job loss, right? It’s not just automation and factories anymore. And this report that I was listening to was actually saying that some of those fears were exaggerated because what would become common would be people whose labor was technologically multiplied or magnified by being interfaced with a variety of systems. And they referred to those kinds of workers as ‘centaurs’, right?
KS: Oh, my goodness.
AC: They’re like cyborg centaurs, right? For me, that was like, “Oh, that’s Jupiter in Virgo ruling Saturn in Sagittarius, becoming the cyborg centaur.” So I hope that made sense.
KS: Well, yeah, the centaur is an image for Sag, for sure. And then I always think of the worker bee as a very Virgo thing.
AC: Yeah, totally.
CB: Yeah, I liked what you had mentioned earlier, Austin. It brought to mind the idea of the elevation of the small or the magnification of the small. And just the idea of what does it mean for a planet to be ‘in detriment’, it’s that the planet has its own thing that it wants to do naturally, or the significations or meanings that are natural to it. But then what happens when you put it in one of those signs is that it’s in an element that’s completely opposite or contrary or almost antithetical in some sense to its basic properties or its basic meaning. And so, that doesn’t inherently mean that it’s bad, per se, because there can be positive manifestations of that. But sometimes because it’s acting outside of its element, or it’s not in its element, there can be problematic expressions of it, or more problematic expressions of it as a tendency than it might be if it was in its own sign or in its exaltation or what have you.
AC: Yeah. It’s almost like when we were talking about Venus retrograde earlier. Venus might be creating accord but through discord. So Jupiter will be creating growth through shrinkage, right? Which if you’re on a Jupiter in Leo high, and you think you’re just gonna keep getting bigger, you’re in for some disappointments, right? Whereas you might grow in a deeper sense but it’s gonna be through shrinking, through cutting back on what you don’t actually need to do or what you don’t actually need.
CB: And sometimes that’s the problem, that Jupiter is not able to cut back when it is in Virgo, and it just goes crazy with the details and focusing on the small things and sort of nitpicking every little detail and focusing on that so much that it sort of loses track of the bigger picture and isn’t able to rein it in.
AC: Totally. One thing I wanted to say just cause I’ve noticed this with a lot of my clients who have Jupiter in Virgo, they are—well, ‘terrified’ might be a bit exaggerated. But they don’t like to take big leaps because they don’t think they’re good enough at ‘x’ or ‘y’ yet to have the right to do that. And so, they go and work on technical capacity to become worthy of expanding or becoming more elevated in their career, but it’s just this thing where they’re never perfect enough to go do whatever. And so, they’re always preparing something rather than just taking a leap of faith, and that’s actually one of the significations of Jupiter that I think is really important that nobody talks about anymore. Jupiter has been associated with religion and faith and belief for almost the entire history of astrology. But because those words are kind of ‘dirty’—especially in the alternative spiritual context that astrology occurs in now—nobody wants to talk about that.
CB: Sure.
AC: You can imagine Virgo is not favorable for leaps of faith.
KS: No. And I have Jupiter in Leo, so I have to confess that I am all about the leaps of faith. I’m all about the idea of people backing themselves and having a crack at it. Just have a go. But that is just anathema, that idea, to people that have Jupiter in Virgo because it’s almost paralyzing.
AC: Yeah, it can be, it can be. Here’s the thing, what you’re doing with Jupiter is you’re expanding the boundaries of your life. You’re making your life bigger. You’re taking in or absorbing a part of the world that was not previously a part of your life, right? So if we’re doing that then the activities involved in that previously foreign part of life—what you’re expanding into—you can’t be good at that ahead of time because you haven’t done it before by definition.
KS: Oh, brilliant.
AC: You have to have some belief or faith cause you don’t have all of the facts, especially the experiential ones, so there’s no way to get there except for a leap. And that’s why Jupiterian people tend to take more risks, right? They’ll be like, “No, it’ll be fine.” That’s kind of the Jupiter thing.
KS: And I always think of the chart for Australia, the 1900 or the 1901 chart when Australia became an independent country from Britain. It has a massive stellium of planets in Sag, including Jupiter in Sag. And there’s a classic Aussie-ism which is this idea of, “She’ll be right, mate.” Just get out there, do it, have a go. It’ll all work out in the end. And that is the classic sort of Jupiterian approach, isn’t it?
AC: Oh, that’s funny. Yeah, I mean, I catch myself doing that a lot cause I have Jupiter on the rising. And so, in my discussions with my partner, we talk about this and that and we’ll analyze all these details and look at all the potential negatives, and I always end up with, “Eh, it’ll be fine.”
KS: Yeah.
AC: Jupiter gives me the power to be as negative as I can be, cause in the end it’ll be fine. World War 3, mass extinction events, it’ll be fine. It’ll be all right.
KS: Oh, my gosh. And so, really the big thing with Jupiter—one of the personalized themes of Jupiter in Virgo—is that we’re all going to be taken to the next level: the Virgo planets or houses in our chart essentially.
AC: Absolutely, yeah
CB: Yeah. And one of the themes that sometimes comes up with that, that I’ve seen definitely personally—but it also might be relevant in terms of either elections or just people trying to use it in general—that I see come up for some reason with a lot with people with Jupiter in Virgo is the idea of the amassing of data or the amassing of research. So Nick Dagan Best, for example, is one of our famous friend/astrologers who has that placement of Jupiter in Virgo—and just his focus on building this huge database of hundreds of thousands of birth times and astrology charts and timed events for people and events and other things like that, so that it’s something he’s spent a large part of the past decade or two focusing on—is just amassing this huge database of research and times and birth data. And I’ve seen that in other people as well, like the famous historian of astrology; he was a historian of science, but he was also a very well-known historian of astrology. David Pingree had Jupiter in Virgo and Mercury in Sagittarius, so they were exchanging signs or in a mutual reception. And he just spent his entire life or his entire career amassing this huge library of ancient astrological texts in many different languages, in like Greek and Sanskrit and Arabic and Assyrian. And he learned all of these different languages so he could read all these different texts, and then he would just cross-reference them in a way that nobody could even imagine was possible for a human to do, to keep that much information and facts in their mind. And he would basically do translations and write out all of his texts not on a typewriter or something but by hand. So if you read his critical edition of the Yavanajataka, he’s writing it in Sanskrit by hand in his printed book.
Anyway, so the idea of the amassing of data or the amassing of research might be a useful use of some of the final Mercury in Virgo elections if somebody had a project that was similar to that they wanted to start. It’s basically the same—it’s very similar to the earlier August charts, but the two that I wanted to recommend are on August 23 and August 24, around 8:00 in the morning. So the Sun is now in Virgo in these charts. So we have Virgo rising and Mercury is in Virgo still. It’s getting towards the later part of the sign, so it’s pretty well clear of the exact degree-based opposition of Neptune at this point, which is great. And instead it’s applying to, within a few degrees, a close sextile with Saturn in Scorpio in the 3rd house in a day chart. So it’s an interesting contrast in terms of moving away from Neptune and moving more towards a much more practical, a much more grounded Saturn in the 3rd house. At the same time, the Sun has moved into Virgo and it’s applying to a conjunction with Jupiter in the 1st house, and the Moon is in Sagittarius in the 4th house. Depending on whether you’re using the 23rd, it’s applying to trines with Mars and Venus in Leo, or if you use the chart on the 24th, it’s applying to a square with Mercury. So those are the two final Mercury in Virgo elections that are probably even better than the ones earlier in the month because by this point, like I said, Mercury is far clear of Neptune than it was previously, and it’s getting a little bit more grounded by that sextile with Saturn.
KS: Yeah, I really find the combination of that Virgo/Scorpio, as I’d say, in this instance—Mercury in Virgo sextile to Saturn in Scorpio—is an incredibly strategic combination. Because you’ve got that sort of Scorpio ability to kind of get into the guts or the depths or leave no stone unturned, but you’re doing it in that very diligent, organized, and methodical Mercury in Virgo way. So that aspect in particular in the electional charts you’re talking about would really be very spot on for some of those really specific Mercury in Virgo-type things.
CB: Definitely, definitely.
KS: Juicy. There was one brief comment Austin was alluding to that I wanted to come back to, that the Jupiter in Virgo is kind of kicking off this shift into mutable signs.
CB: Yeah.
KS: Yeah. So by mid-September, like when we reconvene to do our September podcast, I’m sure we’re just not gonna shut up about the mutable signs. Because by the end of September, we’re gonna have Jupiter in Virgo, Saturn in Sag, and of course we’re still gonna have Neptune in Pisces. Neptune will be in Pisces until 2025, so we’ve got a solid 10 years of that, but certainly over the next 12 months with Jupiter and Saturn also in mutable signs. It is quite the energetic shift, guys. Would you agree?
AC: Absolutely.
CB: Yeah. After a year of Jupiter in a fixed sign, and two or three years of Saturn being in Scorpio, hitting the fixed signs, that’s a huge shift.
AC: And the nodes will move into Virgo and Pisces later in the fall, right? So that’s another thing just for longer-term projections about Jupiter in Virgo. Jupiter is gonna be sharing Virgo with the North Node for the entire time, and there are numerous conjunctions.
CB: Okay.
KS: Yeah, the North Node moves into Virgo around the 12th of November 2015 and will be there for the rest of the Jupiter in Virgo cycle.
AC: You can go a lot of places with the nodes, but one really simple thing is just to remember that the North Node acts as an intensifier or magnifier. So it’s not just gonna be Jupiter in Virgo. It’s gonna be ‘Jupiter in Virgo’.
KS: Capital letters.
AC: Yeah.
CB: So Jupiter—which was already magnifying the small or elevating the small—is now gonna be magnified even further itself.
AC: Yeah. And just experientially the North Node lends this obsessive, sometimes ambitious, focus-directed, hungry sort of energy. Yeah, that Jupiter, though—
KS: That Jupiter. And January 2016 is the big month where the North Node in Virgo and Jupiter in Virgo do come to that same 23° of Virgo.
CB: Okay.
KS: Definitely want to keep it in the back of our minds.
CB: All right, were there any other major alignments or aspects in the month of August that we wanted to mention before we start to wrap up our August forecasting episode? Any final thoughts about just the energy of the month, or maybe parting words for listeners until they hear your beautiful voices next time?
AC: Well, one piece of contrast with July is there isn’t one or two anti-elections this month. There aren’t just totally unbearable, awful moments. There’s definitely a slather, like a buttery coating of drama courtesy of the Venus retrograde and Saturn squares. And there are those moments towards the end of the first week when it’s really intense, but they aren’t intensely wholly malefic. They’re really a mixed bag, right?
CB: Yeah, right.
KS: Yeah, absolutely. I think the only other point I would throw in is that it really is a month of movement and change from Jupiter changing signs to Mars changing signs. Mercury is gonna touch into three different signs this month. We’re gonna talk a lot about Mercury in Libra next month.
AC: And the next month.
KS: Yeah. What were you gonna say?
AC: Oh, I was saying not only next month but the next month as well.
KS: Oh, the next—exactly. It’s like two months, I think.
AC: Two months of Mercury in Libra.
KS: Yeah, so there’s a lot of movement and chopping and changing. Generally, if you take that step back or a meta-perspective, it feels like maybe the wheels do start turning, especially with Saturn stationing direct. And whether there are bumps along the way or not, there is this sense that the wheels are turning and things are moving.
CB: I definitely agree with what you were saying, Austin, in terms of it not being very dramatic, but there were two potentially dramatic parts. I kind of wonder if the more negative or challenging side of the Venus retrograde isn’t gonna become more prominent. About August 8 or August 9, Mars ingresses into Leo where Venus is retrograding. And at the same time, just a few days later, we have Jupiter departing from Leo, so that it kind of leaves Venus behind. Venus was getting a nice, very optimistic, very positive hand-up from Jupiter for the past month or two, as Venus was slowing down and getting into a retrograde. And there was a lot of optimism behind a lot of that, certainly with the Supreme Court case that came out a month ago and the optimism behind that with the conjunction of those two planets. But there’s like a change that happens or a turn that happens at some point in August where suddenly Mars shows up to the party and he’s kind of like, “Hey, guys. Forget about me? Remember me?”
AC: Yeah, absolutely. And just to clarify, I didn’t say August wouldn’t be dramatic. I think there’ll be lots of drama, but it’s gonna be more evenly distributed. And that point about Mars is super important because Venus’ direct station has her basically sitting right on top of Mars. The two are coming together, right?
CB: Right.
AC: They’re both seeking each other.
CB: Yeah, exactly. And they actually catch up by about August 31-September 1. They form the exact conjunction while Venus is still retrograde, about 14°-15° of Leo. So that’s the very, very tail-end of our current month. So that might be one of the things that we want to talk about when we open up the forecast for next month.
AC: Absolutely.
KS: Yeah, absolutely. And that is the big week of change between, say, August 7 and August 13, when we’ve got Mercury into Virgo, Mars into Leo, and Jupiter into Virgo, all within a few days of each other.
AC: Yeah.
CB: Right. All right, great. Well, as we’re wrapping this up, one of the things I wanted to mention is since we’re gonna do this as more of a regular thing, I wanted to have an image that would be good, that would sort encapsulate a lot of the different astrological placements that we’re talking about each month. And something I’ve used for years—I think since about 2008 when he first started doing it, Kirk Kahn, the astrologer from New York—is his astrology poster that he puts each year, that he calls the Planet Watcher Calendar. And it basically allows you to take in each month at a glance what the major astrological shifts are, such as stations or ingresses, as well as lunations and other stuff. And he graciously allowed us to use that on The Astrology Podcast website as the lead image for each of these forecasting episodes from here on out. So I just wanted to thank him for that and give him a shoutout and say that if you wanted to, you could order a very nice, high quality print version of that poster that shows you the entire year at a glance from his website at planetwatcher.com. And I’ll have a link to that on The Astrology Podcast website page for this episode if you want a direct link to the calendar itself. I mean, I always have one up on my wall. I think you have one as well, right, Austin?
AC: Oh, no. But I use the planetwatcher.com website, which has a really easy-to-navigate visual ephemeris. I have that window open pretty much every day of my life.
CB: Okay, awesome, great. All right, one last thing is just that we wanted to mention that each of us does consultations. So if you liked any of the delineations or the interpretations that each of us gave in this episode, then you can, if you wanted to, set up an appointment for a consultation with any of us. And I think all three of us offer natal astrology consultations or sometimes electional astrology consultations or other things like that, which you can find out more information on our websites. Do either of you have any other specific things that you specialize in or wanted to mention in terms of that?
AC: I don’t have anything to add about consultations. I’m also in the middle of teaching a variety of month-long online classes that I’ve been having a really good time with. In August, I’ll be starting a unit on aspects. I know a lot of people when they get into astrology, they make good progress until they hit aspects.
KS: So true.
AC: Yeah, they just sort of stick, right? And so, it’s part of a longer six-month class, but the class is modular. So I encourage people, if they just want to spend a month going over aspects and doing it from the bones up, that’s what the class is focused on. And then I’m gonna have another advanced class that I’m gonna run, but I haven’t decided which one to do exactly. So no news there.
KS: No major news for me either at this stage. I could blame Neptune, or I could just say that I’m spending too much time in the garden right now. But I will have some news next month. I’ve got a couple of things that I’m working on behind the scenes that I will be excited to share with everyone when we reconvene for September.
AC: Awesome.
CB: All right, awesome. Well, you can find out more information about Kelly at her website, at kellysastrology.com, and more information about Austin at his website, at austincoppock.com. And of course you can find the podcast itself at theastrologypodcast.com. And I did want to mention, thanks everybody who signed up. We had a great launch with Patreon over the past month and we met our first milestone goal. So the podcast is now on its way to being funded and being sustainable and being something that I can do more regularly, where I’m putting out one episode a week. So thank you to everyone who signed up for that. And like I said at the beginning of the show, you can support the show by essentially buying me like a cup of coffee each week. For the price of that, you can support the show and ensure that more episodes come out, as well as get access to some really great benefits, like a private discussion forum or early access to new episodes and so on and so forth. So thanks everyone for supporting the show, thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time.