The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 410, titled:
Sharing Venus Retrograde Stories
With Chris Brennan and the Denver Astrology Group
Episode originally released on July 23, 2023
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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 July 27th, 2023
Copyright © 2023 TheAstrologyPodcast.com
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CHRIS BRENNAN: Welcome everybody to the July meeting of the Denver Astrology Group. If this is your first meeting, we always meet on the second Saturday—or second Sunday of each month, always from 2:00 to 4:00 PM, here at the Mercury Cafe. Over the past year Rosalie has been helping to run the group and manage the group, and right now Ashley and Yelena are also starting to help as co-organizers this month as well. So I wanted to thank them for their help ‘cause I’ve been busy running the podcast and haven’t been able to run the group as much over the past year. So at this meeting we’re gonna be doing something we’ve done a few times in the past, which is to share transit stories of recent transits and how they’ve manifested in our lives. So this is something we started doing a few years ago with eclipses because when eclipses happen, they bounce back and forth between two houses in your chart over the course of a couple-of-year time span, and sometimes the activation of the topics associated with those houses is really vivid and really obvious in a person’s life.
So this time we’re gonna do a little bit more general of a transit-sharing workshop where we’re gonna ask people to share some stories of recent transits that are happening or that are coming up in your life that you’re kind of anticipating because there’s been a lot of different transits recently that have been pertinent in different people’s lives in different ways. So the primary one we’re gonna talk about, I’m hoping, is the Venus retrograde, which is just starting to get going this summer. We’ve already entered the shadow period for this retrograde, and Venus is actually gonna station retrograde and start moving backwards in the order of degrees in the sign of Leo, starting on July 22. So today is, what, July 9, so we’re only a week or two away from that really starting. But since it’s already entered the range of degrees that it’s gonna retrograde back to, for some people these stories are already starting to come up, and they can already sort of see and start to anticipate what that retrograde’s gonna be about.
Additionally, because Venus retrogrades, due to the synodic cycle of Venus, repeat every eight years in roughly the same sign of the zodiac, with this retrograde it means that you can actually sometimes anticipate some of the topics that are gonna come up by looking back into the past and seeing, for example, what happened in your life in the summer of 2015, which is the last time that Venus went retrograde in Leo. And I’ve created a Venus retrograde worksheet so that you can look back and see what the specific dates were of that retrograde and shadow period and start to think about what events happened in your life over the course of that summer; similarly, between like July and September basically. And I also included other Venus retrogrades so you can go back and compare. Maybe if that Venus retrograde wasn’t necessarily so important for you, what have other Venus retrogrades been like?
So I’m hoping some people can share some stories today either about what they’re anticipating or what they can already see this Venus retrograde is starting to manifest as in their life and how that connects with their chart, especially in terms of what planets—or what house Venus is gonna go retrograde in in your life, and how that connects up with the topics. But also, if you see how past Venus retrogrades have manifested in some striking way in your life, I’m hoping we can have some stories shared about that as well. Let’s see—other preliminary things. So I am recording this like I said in the announcement, and I’m gonna post it as a video on YouTube afterwards, just so more people can share and learn from some of the stories we share here today.
So if you’re not comfortable with that then you probably shouldn’t share a story. But since that was already in the announcement I assume everybody who shares one is okay with that. All right, here’s a graphic that shows the transits during the course of this year, just to show you where some of the major activity is, and this is the Venus retrograde graphic. So I think that’s it. Why don’t we just start sharing some stories? Let’s start with the Venus retrogrades ‘cause I’m really curious about that. Does anybody have any good Venus retrograde stories that show especially a connection between one Venus retrograde—like the one happening now—and some event that happened eight years ago for you?
So, for example, I just discovered the other day was back in 1983, there was a Venus retrograde in Leo and Virgo, and that’s the same Venus retrograde that’s about to happen this summer in Leo. So this is in 1983, and that summer, on the cover of Newsweek, was the first time that a same-sex couple appeared on the cover in any national print magazine. So there were a couple of gay men on the cover of Newsweek; this was during the Venus retrograde in Virgo and Leo. And then what’s interesting is if you count forward in eight-year increments, in the summer of 2015, when Venus again went retrograde in the same signs of Virgo and Leo, that was when the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. And that summer there was a huge uptick in same-sex couples who got married. Something like 10% of all marriages that summer were same-sex marriages. So sometimes in mundane events you’ll see repetitions like that with these Venus retrograde cycles that connect events, broadly speaking, in eight-year increments.
When researching your chronology, was there anybody that noticed any connections like that, or has a story they wanted to share about a repetition? Or even just an interesting Venus retrograde story? No? All right. Oh, there’s one. So you’ll have to come up to this microphone upfront. Sorry, I forgot to mention that part. So speak directly into the mic.
BETHANY: Hi, I’m Bethany.
CB: What’s your name?
BETHANY: Bethany.
CB: Okay, Bethany. What’s your birth data?
BETHANY: July 7, 1982.
CB: Okay.
AUDIENCE: Happy birthday.
BETHANY: Thank you.
CB: Oh, yeah, happy birthday. July, 7—
BETHANY: 1982.
CB: Okay.
BETHANY: 6:45 PM in Louisville, Kentucky.
CB: All right. Is your Ascendant 15 Sag?
BETHANY: 13 Sag.
CB: 13 Sag, sorry.
BETHANY: Yep, that’s me.
CB: Having some vision issues. All right, so what’s your Venus retrograde story?
BETHANY: Okay, so in 2008, there was a Venus that was retrograde in Leo. I think it started in Virgo. At that point I was married to a soldier in the Army, and he was stationed in Iraq. And I had a friend who—like something happened where she was gonna be homeless for like four months. Like one lease had ended, she had another one planned, but there’s this four-to-six month thing in the middle and she had nowhere to go and was very worried she was gonna be living in her car. And I was desperately lonely in Fort Hood, Texas. I was like, “Oh, my God, come live in my guestroom.” We had to make up a story to the Army that we were actually relatives, which they bought. And it was wonderful. It was like having a roommate. It was really, really fun.
CB: And this was the Venus retrograde in—did you say 2015?
BETHANY: 2008.
CB: 2008.
BETHANY: 2008.
CB: So that was also the Virgo-Leo one?
BETHANY: Yep.
CB: Okay.
BETHANY: And then 2015, I had just come out of that marriage about a year ago, was trying not to live in my car, was couch-surfing and bouncing around, made it to Denver and so was living with her. It started in July—June or July. So this doesn’t totally perfectly line up, but really, really close.
CB: So she was living with you the first time, and then eight years later there was a connection, reversed position—
BETHANY: Reversed.
CB: Yeah, okay.
BETHANY: Exactly.
CB: Nice.
BETHANY: So, I don’t know, this time around we both have fairly stable housing, so I don’t know what’s gonna happen.
CB: She’s still in your life.
BETHANY: She is still in my life.
CB: Okay.
BETHANY: Yeah, she’s a close friend. But, yeah, I’m not scared of the Venus retrograde in Leo. For me, it’s the ones in Capricorn that are just doozies. This will probably be more fun than anything else.
CB: So that Capricorn—like the one we had the previous winter—what was tough about that one for you?
BETHANY: The first one that was in, what, end of 2013 or 2014, that was when my marriage fell apart, and I was like desperately broke, like broke and hungry. And then there was this most recent one—there was just a lull in my business. So I’m not homeless, but still like really broke and hungry. It’s just a time of lack.
CB: Yeah, so that’s the one that’s in your 2nd house.
BETHANY: Yeah.
CB: There’s like financial issues?
BETHANY: Yep.
CB: Okay, that’s really interesting.
BETHANY: Mm-hmm.
CB: And in terms of this current one in connection with a friend, I mean, I guess the previous one went across your 10th and 9th house in terms of whole sign houses, and I’ve noticed that sometimes it connects both of the topics in those houses. But this one’s interesting ‘cause it’s just gonna be in Leo. So now we’re just focused on your 9th house and any aspects that take place then.
BETHANY: Yeah. And I’m in a 6th house profection year, which is ruled by Taurus.
CB: Okay.
BETHANY: Yeah, Venus retrograde might be interesting.
CB: Yeah, so that’s really important. So that’s a good note for everybody that if you use annual profections—where you just count one sign per year from the Ascendant—if you come to a sign that is ruled by Venus, and there’s a Venus retrograde that year, then the retrogrades will be more important for you, and the Venus retrograde will mark an important turning point during the course of the year. Either that, or if the profection comes to the sign that Venus will go retrograde in that’s another indication that the retrograde will be more important for you. So it’s about to go retrograde in your 9th house, though. Are there any 9th house topics that are coming up related to education, philosophy, travel, politics, your beliefs, or other things like that that are relevant? That’s the only thing I’m a little curious about in terms of how it connects for you.
BETHANY: Yeah, I can’t think of anything coming up. Like I’m certainly not going back to school. I don’t know. I think this one will be a surprise. So this one will link to some other Venus retrograde I’ve had in the past.
WOMAN: Well, the last one was a surprise. It’s probably gonna be a surprise again. Your husband was out of the country.
BETHANY: Oh, yeah.
CB: What was the ‘out of the country’ piece?
BETHANY: In 2008, my then husband was stationed in Iraq, out of the country.
CB: Oh, that’s funny, okay.
BETHANY: Yeah.
CB: So it was like the relationship was abroad.
BETHANY: Yeah.
CB: Your partner was traveling abroad.
BETHANY: Right.
CB: Okay.
BETHANY: Maybe I’ll suddenly be called out of the country or something.
CB: Right. And it’s activating your 6th house. So that could also be work-related since it’s putting more of the focus on your 6th house at this point, at least temporarily this year. So, yeah, it may bring in work matters or things like that.
BETHANY: Definitely anticipating work matters. My work is kind of cyclical and like a large license application around New York is coming online where it’s gonna create a lot of work.
CB: Okay. So that’s your current job? How long have you been doing that?
BETHANY: Since 2018.
CB: Okay. What’s the timeframe in which you think a change is gonna happen or that it’s gonna come online?
BETHANY: Probably end of August or beginning of September.
CB: Okay. So that would be when Venus stations direct basically. Cool.
BETHANY: Mm-hmm.
CB: All right, does somebody else have a comment?
WOMAN: That was awesome. Right on schedule, that was awesome.
CB: Yeah.
BETHANY: Thanks.
CB: Yeah, I think that’s a good example of tying in how the profections sometimes can be important, as well as sometimes the house that the planet itself is transiting, like it was in that retrograde when your husband was abroad.
BETHANY: Mm-hmm.
CB: Cool. All right, well, thanks for sharing.
BETHANY: Sure.
CB: That was a good example.
BETHANY: Thanks.
[applause]
CB: All right, you got one? So first thing’s first, what’s your first name?
MAREN: Maren. M-A-R-E-N.
CB: What’s your birth date?
MAREN: April 15, also 1982.
CB: What time?
MAREN: 11:26 AM.
CB: And the city?
MAREN: Denver, Colorado.
CB: All right. Is your 0 Leo?
MAREN: Correct.
CB: How sure are you about your birth time?
MAREN: Um, pretty sure.
CB: Okay, just wanted to check. Sometimes when the Ascendant is 0° or 29°—it can shift the houses—I sometimes get nervous. But if you’re pretty sure—
MAREN: Me too. Yeah, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure which I am.
CB: Right.
MAREN: And my mom remembers the doctor yelling it out.
CB: Oh, okay. That’s a pretty good sign, the doctor yelled it out.
MAREN: I’m pretty sure.
CB: Okay. All right, so you have 0 Leo rising.
MAREN: Right.
CB: What’s your Venus retrograde story?
MAREN: So, okay, I’m just gonna stick with the Leo retrograde.
CB: Sure.
MAREN: So going back to 1991—okay, so I was in fourth grade. So Disney was my only concept of art when I was young. I grew up in a rural area. So I was born in Denver, but I grew up in Cheyenne, and there were no artists in my family. So, anyway, Disney was art. So Beauty and the Beast came out during that time and I just love it. And I just wanted to be an artist and I wanted to draw flowers, like roses, and people. I really started focusing on drawing. So I would look at the pictures and I kinda started teaching myself how to draw.
CB: Okay, it unlocked an artistic inclination or ability.
MAREN: Actually Little Mermaid did, but that’s a whole other—that’s okay. But this is when realism kinda came into it.
CB: Okay.
MAREN: I think it’s ‘cause I had more control over my fine motor skills.
CB: That was during the Disney renaissance.
MAREN: Yeah. So it was like Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and it was like, “I just have to do this.”
CB: Yeah, I’m more of an ‘Aladdin’ guy myself, but I can understand.
MAREN: What’s that?
CB: I’m more of an ‘Aladdin’ guy myself.
MAREN: Oh, loved Aladdin. Loved Aladdin. But Beauty and the Beast, I don’t know, there was just something about it. I think ‘cause she kinda maybe looks like me a little bit. And, plus, I really loved “Be Our Guest,” and I performed it in front of the school. It was like really this unlocking of my art.
CB: Sure.
MAREN: It was weird.
CB: And having Leo retrograde, I mean, one of the key things is if a retrograde goes through your rising sign, that retrograde does tend to indicate an important turning point in a person’s life.
MAREN: Yeah.
CB: Okay.
MAREN: So that’s fourth grade. And then we go to the next one in Leo—oh, I didn’t write down how old I was, sorry. Oh, I was in high school, and I had to move. I moved my senior year to Salt Lake City, and I thought I was gonna be a scientist or something. I kinda had abandoned—I didn’t abandon it. Never mind. Well, anyway, the art thing became more prominent again in Salt Lake City because all I did was take art classes. It was like my last year, I just wanted to get the heck out of there. So it just became a focus, and I knew that that’s what I wanted to do. So I applied to CSU in Fort Collins ‘cause I wanted to get back here and got into the art program. That was it. It was just like it unlocked that singular focus for me.
CB: So you started doing art programs in college in 1999?
MAREN: No, it was senior year of high school, and once again it was an unlocking of, “I just wanna do art.”
CB: Got it.
MAREN: “I don’t want to do all these other things people say I should do.” So, okay, then, 2007, the next Leo—so then I was on the path of an artist. It’s really, really hard. You can’t make any money. And then I was like, “Well, I’ll teach art. I’ll be a teacher.” So then I got into teaching. So that was that. That retrograde was me going to Metro and becoming a teacher.
CB: Oh, wow.
MAREN: So I became an art teacher like around that time, or like it initiated that.
CB: Wow. Okay, that’s pretty good.
MAREN: Yeah. Okay, so then, the next one in Leo—oh, a long story, we don’t need to go into it, but I had to move back to Wyoming. So I had to be kind of done with teaching in a way because it was like a family ordeal and it was the family business. Anyway, I went back to Cheyenne and I committed myself to plein air painting. So I was like, “Okay, teaching kinda sucks. It’s not actually art. Like there’s art teaching and then there’s being an artist, and those are two different things.”
CB: Sure.
MAREN: And I realized that at that point. And so, then I just committed myself to plein air painting. Also, at the same time—it’s funny—at that same time Beauty and the Beast came back.
CB: Oh, yeah.
MAREN: It’s the remake.
CB: The live version.
MAREN: During that same one.
CB: Right.
MAREN: And I was like, “So weird.” And also—
CB: Wait. And that was summer of 2015?
MAREN: Yes, that was 2015.
CB: Well, that’s interesting in and of itself if the first animated one came out around that timeframe in ‘91, around that Venus retrograde, and then the remake.
MAREN: Right. So it’s like I recommitted myself to art in that ‘cause I’d been doing teaching for that whole time, and it was kind of like, I don’t know.
CB: Sure.
MAREN: So that’s interesting it coincided with the re-release or the remake with Hermoine.
CB: Oh, yeah, with—what’s her name?
WOMAN: Emma Watson.
CB: Emma Watson, yeah, yeah.
MAREN: Yeah. Anyway, I loved it also. I loved the new song they put into it. It was very exciting. Oh, and also, I’m a tarot practitioner. And so, back to the first Beauty and the Beast—do you remember trading cards?
CB: Mm-hmm.
MAREN: Okay, so I was really into trading cards for a long time, and like Beauty and the Beast was the first trading card thing I started doing. ‘Cause Disney came out with these little pictures, and I would look at them and try to draw them, I was really into them, and then it led into Marvel trading cards and all this stuff. Well, anyway, now I’m making a deck, a tarot deck.
CB: Oh, wow.
MAREN: So I started that. So it’s like the ‘card’ thing and the making of your own, and like images on cards. And Beauty and the Beast kinda started that for me and then came back. It’s funny.
CB: When did you start that?
MAREN: 2015.
CB: Oh, in 2015. Okay, wow.
MAREN: It takes a really long time it turns out to make a tarot deck.
CB: So you started working on your own tarot deck in 2015. And is that something you’re still working on now?
MAREN: Yes.
CB: Okay.
MAREN; 78 images, and they’re all unique. I don’t know—like the images just keep changing. Like the Rider-Waite deck is not the only one. I’m trying to play off of it, but not go where Pamela Coleman-Smith did ‘cause she has her own thing. I’m not trying to copy her, but at the same time I really think the way she incorporated the themes—anyway, that’s a whole tarot tangent. So tarot cards—that ties in with Beauty and the Beast somehow. I don’t know.
CB: Yeah, with artwork especially. I mean, just looking at your chart in general, having Leo rising and having the ruler of the Ascendant in the 9th whole sign house conjunct the Midheaven—I could see a gravitation towards tarot, as well as teaching. ‘Cause the 9th house is both the place of divination, as well the place of teaching and education. And you have such an emphasis between the 9th whole sign house and the 3rd whole sign house, which is another kind of teaching/communication house.
MAREN: Correct.
CB: So that’s actually really amazing. It’s a good example of Venus retrogrades sometimes bookending periods in a person’s life. So it sounds like they often end up being pivotal turning points for you, but in eight-year increments, and then you move into a new chapter.
MAREN: Yeah. Yeah, it seems like that’s kind of what’s happening. And it’s funny—I moved back up to Cheyenne, and I stopped art teaching more or less, then I started moving into teaching tarot just up there.
CB: Okay.
MAREN: So teaching’s kinda still in there, but it’s like in a different. And I am still using symbolism, but I’m talking about it differently. I don’t know how that relates.
CB: Right. Well, one of the things I love—that this is a good example of as well—is that it’s really important for people to go back and study their early chronology. ‘Cause sometimes really important events happen really early in our lives that at the time were like major events and sometimes in retrospect we don’t even always recognize their significance. But if you go back and really pay attention to major transits that happened when you were young, sometimes there will be a foreshadowing of things that will come up and become important later on. Sometimes it’s through looking at things like Venus retrograde repetitions that you’re able to go back and unlock and figure out what the important events were when you were younger and how they sometimes still pertain to your life as an adult.
MAREN: I know, it’s wild. Like it started off as so small and funny and childish, but it’s still with me and just keeps circling back upon itself. Only I feel like I have more agency over it now or something. I feel like I’m getting better at the ‘1st house’ thing, I don’t know. And this will be the first time that it’s not in my 2nd house also. So I don’t know how that’ll play out.
CB: Did any financial component come up in the previous ones?
MAREN: The previous ones—there was always this like, “Well, where am I gonna work now?” There was always some kind of financial insecurity along with it.
CB: Okay.
MAREN: “How am I gonna make money?” Not when I was in fourth grade and 18.
CB: Right. You said there were job changes sometimes.
MAREN: There was a shift. And some of them I actually moved physically, like when I moved to Salt Lake. But that year, Saturn was the ruler, and Saturn’s on my IC. So I don’t know, moving was a theme.
CB: Right.
MAREN: Actually moving houses.
CB: Yeah, I don’t know. I might be relevant. Just sometimes people look at the houses that Venus rules in a chart and whether that’s connected with Venus transits, like when a retrograde happens. It is ruling your 10th whole sign house of career, as well as the IC and the 3rd house. So that could be relevant in terms of why moving and career things are sometimes getting tied in with this.
MAREN: Yeah, for sure.
CB: There’s a comment in the back.
WOMAN: Oh, sorry. Did you see there’s kind of this re-birthing period where you kind of reinvent yourself and then you come out with a new type of artistry, but there’s always like this type of expression. It’s like this beautiful Venus in Pisces. And it’s like, “How do I want to reflect that?” So it’s a re-birthing.
MAREN: Yeah.
WOMAN: And then the move, with Jupiter in your 4th house of Scorpio, there’s probably certain types of opportunities that come from where you’re living currently and then having to change homes. So that could be part of the theme as well, depending on the timing.
MAREN: Or the cycle.
CB: Yeah. So some of that has to do with what’s happening when Venus goes retrograde. It doesn’t look like I have the diagram. But when Venus stations retrograde, part of what’s happening is it’s getting as far away from the Sun as it can before it turns around and comes back and moves towards it. And then in the middle of the retrograde cycle, one of the important key turning points is that Venus goes sort of with the Sun and conjoins the Sun exactly. And sometimes there can be this internalization process where through these 40 days and 40 nights, the person goes through this internalization process, and then eventually Venus emerges from the conjunction with the Sun renewed. And then eventually, at the direct station, again, it’s about as far as it can get from the Sun before moving direct and moving forward again.
So sometimes there can be this process of looking back into the past and reflecting on how far you’ve come in the past eight years, going through a sort of internalization of that and then reemerging from it sort of renewed and ready to move forward again and create a path for the next eight years. And I think especially for you—because Leo in this series is in your 1st house—themes of self and identity and other things like that and how you define or identify yourself through your art in some ways is why that’s more relevant because it’s happening in your 1st house of self.
MAREN: Yeah, I think so. For sure.
CB: So that’s a great example that basically retrogrades are more important if they’re happening in your rising sign or in one of the four angular houses. So something that other people can think about as they’re thinking about their chronology is which retrogrades occurred especially in your rising sign, or which ones occurred in your 10th house, 7th house, or 4th house?
MAREN: Which is why I’m pretty sure I’m Leo rising and not Cancer, just because of how it is so potent.
CB: That’s a perfect example of how you can use Venus retrogrades for rectification. Because if you had a choice, like you were saying, between Cancer rising versus Leo rising, but you keep seeing the Leo rising/Venus retrogrades as these hugely important turning points, then that really helps narrow down that you’re probably Leo rising.
MAREN: Yep, sure. This is one way of me rectifying my own chart.
CB: Yeah.
MAREN: I’m right on that. I straddle the line in a lot of ways.
CB: Brittany, you had another comment?
BRITTANY: I think it really nails it when every time it happens in the past it was revealing what you were doing for work as well, and the artistry. It’s that 2nd house, then it goes into the 1st house.
MAREN: Yeah.
BRITTANY: It might be more of a focus—
MAREN: I hope.
BRITTANY: It’ll be interesting to see if it will.
MAREN: Yeah.
CB: Yeah, for sure. That’s a good point.
[Brittany comments]
CB: Yeah, and that ties in with what I said in the previous example. We’re not gonna see it with this retrograde—‘cause it’s gonna be entirely in Leo this summer—but if we go back eight years, we see that it crossed over from Virgo to Leo and sometimes both of those house topics are either being connected or coming up somehow simultaneously. An astrologer on Twitter just posted a couple of days ago, and he pointed out that Robert Downey, Jr. was in the press eight years ago, in the summer of 2015, for becoming the highest paid actor in Hollywood, and he’s Leo rising. So that was the Venus retrograde that was also going retrograde in his 2nd whole sign house and then falling back into his 1st. So that’s another example of that.
MAREN: Well, the ruler of my 2nd is combust. I don’t know, I think I need help in the 2nd house.
CB: Okay.
MAREN: I mean, if it’s not going retrograde in there, I’m cool with it.
CB: Sure. Yeah, well, it’s also in pretty decent shape. But having the ruler of the 2nd in 9th and just combining some of those 9th house topics seems like it would be the way to go, especially with the ruler of the Ascendant there, finding yourself through 9th house things of either teaching or divination. It seems like that’s what you keep gravitating to in addition to your artwork.
MAREN: Right. Yeah, exactly.
CB: Cool.
MAREN: Thank you very much.
CB: Thanks for sharing that. That was great.
MAREN: Yeah, sure. This was great. I love this worksheet.
CB: Good.
MAREN: Like very handy.
CB: You’re the exact example of what I’d hoped for that we would find.
[applause]
CB: All right, does anybody else have any Venus retrograde examples? They don’t have to be as amazing as that one. But even just a one-off Venus retrograde and how that went for you. Oh, yeah.
CLAIRE: So I have way less life, so there’s way less of a pattern.
CB: Okay. What’s your first name?
CLAIRE: CLAIRE. C-L-A-I-R-E.
CB: What’s your date of birth?
CLAIRE: 07/16/1996.
CB: July 17—
CLAIRE: 16.
CB: Sorry, 16th. What year?
CLAIRE: 1996. And then my birth time is 7:08 PM, Hanford, California. H-A-N-F-O-R-D.
CB: All right. Is your Ascendant 8 Capricorn?
CLAIRE: Yes.
CB: Okay. What’s your Venus retrograde story?
CLAIRE: So I have one in the Gemini pattern. It seems to be pretty relevant for me.
CB: All right, so Gemini is two Venus retrogrades ago. Yeah, that was the summer of 2020. May and June was the last one.
CLAIRE: Yes. So a little bit of a trigger warning, ‘cause I, for some reason, had a serious mental health issue during this one. So the 2020 Gemini Venus retrograde, I had just gotten back into therapy and was taking a bunch of bad stuff and had a lot of behavior that was not ideal come up, as well as it ruined a couple of my friendships at the time.
CB: Okay. Yeah, so this one’s in your 6th house, which is traditionally the house of illness and different things like that.
CLAIRE: Yeah.
CB: So you have Venus and Mars there natally in a day chart. So, yeah, that Venus retrograde went through and activated both of those.
CLAIRE: Yes, correct.
CB: Okay.
CLAIRE: I had the same sort of engagement in 2012. That was probably my first real big depression spurt and my first experience with suicidal ideation. And then the one before that, 2004, it doesn’t match up perfectly because I was six at the time. I don’t exactly remember all the details, but I do know that my mom filed for divorce earlier that fall. That happened in May to June. So I’m imagining that first six months of my parents separating and moving apart was also really intense for me.
CB: Right.
CLAIRE: I don’t have memories for quite a while in my childhood.
CB: So that was the 2004 one. And then you said later that fall is when they separated?
CLAIRE: No, previously that fall.
CB: Okay.
CLAIRE: That previous fall. So I’m imagining that my mom filed for divorce. I know they lived together for a period of time. So I’m imagining that same retrograde time is when they actually separated, lived separately, finished the divorce, filing.
WOMAN: How old were you at the time?
CLAIRE: Six.
[audience member comments]
CLAIRE: I can be really bad at names, but I know the fall of 2003 is when my parents got divorced. So I might have just accidentally calculated my age wrong.
CB: Yeah, well, one of the things I noticed in the bottom-right corner, in the box I have that shows the retrogrades and the stations and stuff, we can already see Venus was super far from the Sun when you were born. And in the bottom we see that Venus actually stationed only 14 days earlier. So Venus actually had just stationed direct in Gemini like that summer you were born.
CLAIRE: Yeah.
CB: So you were actually born under the same Venus retrograde in Gemini cycle.
CLAIRE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So not as long and beautiful of a story, but that is my pattern.
CB: No, I think that’s really good ‘cause it shows how sometimes if a person’s born under or close to—‘cause Venus would have still been in her shadow phase. If a person’s born under a certain Venus retrograde sometimes that retrograde can come up again at important points in their future. And it sounds like it’s come up at those points for you in basically eight-year increments since then.
CLAIRE: Yeah, they’ve been really big, like, “I need to make major life changes.” I guess being born is a major life change.
CB: Sure.
[laughter]
CB: But you’re still here, so it seems like some of the major life changes that you made during those times have been good, or you’ve done what’s necessary during those times that you’ve been able to continue to live and thrive. Yeah, so have they ultimately been productive?
CLAIRE: Incredibly. I didn’t have parents that were super supportive of mental health issues. So the 2012 retrograde—the one that was really, really hard for me—that was the first time I knew. As soon as I could pay to go to therapy and was out of my parents’ house that was the time that I knew I was gonna do it. And then the one in 2020, I had just found a new therapist. I had to take a break and I just found another one. I think that’s probably the one where I started to really sit with some other changes I needed to make. So they’ve all been really intense. Also, I have noticed that in most of them I have pictures of starting new art projects at the end of a Venus retrograde.
CB: Interesting.
CLAIRE: I never finish them at that time, but I started them.
CB: But sometimes that in and of itself—like art itself can be therapeutic in a way.
CLAIRE: Yeah, yeah. I’m a Capricorn rising. I don’t feel naturally that creative. I kinda create out of requirement, not because it’s something that comes supernaturally. It’s just like something I have to do to get it out.
CB: Yeah, both of those instances—it makes me think of in some of the older texts, when benefics, like Venus or Jupiter, are in difficult houses sometimes the delineations in ancient astrology are about getting help from something represented by that planet with a difficult situation or with a difficulty in the person’s life. And so, in one instance it’s coming out in you’re changing therapists, but that means you’re building a new relationship with a new therapist, or having some sort of relationship with a therapist during that time is something that’s actually helpful for you, and maybe part of the Venus indication is just building a connection with somebody that help you get through those times. And then the other thing is doing artwork and that being another helpful or healing outlet.
CLAIRE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, anyways, it’s not as perfect as the other one, but I saw pretty clear patterns, so I wanted to share.
CB: No, that’s brilliant. It’s a great example of another thing. If I was doing this more methodically—which I guess I did in the actual podcast episode a month ago, but that was like a whole section we did of if you were born under a certain Venus retrograde, then that retrograde will be important in eight-year increments. And your example is just a perfect demonstration of that.
CLAIRE: Yeah. And I think it’s poetic that my Venus sits right in the same house.
CB: Right.
CLAIRE: So, anyways, thank you for letting me share.
CB: Thank you. Thank you so much.
[applause]
CB: All right. Verdarluz, you have one? What’s your birth date again?
VERDARLUZ: Uh, 05/16/78.
CB: May 16, 1978. What time?
VERDARLUZ: 6:23 AM.
CB: City?
VERDARLUZ: San Jose, California.
CB: All right. Yeah, 1 Gemini?
VERDARLUZ: Yeah, yeah.
CB: Okay.
VERDARLUZ: So a couple of quick stories and then a question, ‘cause this is quite an intense cycle that’s coming in. So the last time, 2015, for the Venus Leo—actually both times Venus Leo—I actually met partners that had Venus in Leo, and I have Mars in Leo and Saturn in Leo, and there were conjunctions there, and both of those relationships happened here in Denver. I’ve traveled a lot. I’ve been traveling a lot over the last many years, but I just came back here this last week as this retrograde is about to happen. So something about this place and that cycle and this connection with one of those people. Actually we created one of the greatest artworks I’ve ever done, together. It was a dance music performance with music that I created, and we choreographed the whole story about love and relationships, and it was quite strong.
There seems to be something about movement and storytelling and dance and archetypes that’s been really strong with this. It’s something I’m really present to right now. And in 2008, I was teaching about that and some of the first workshops I taught in astrology were more movement-based. And so, I’m curious about that with the 3rd house. I’m having some trouble seeing this Venus retrograde/3rd house stuff. But what I’m really interested in is the enclosure. Because I’ve been studying astrological enclosure a lot the last couple of years, and learned about that from Chris’ course, and it is extremely powerful in my life, especially when Mars is enclosed, as it’s been the last few weeks. And I’m curious to know about and to study—here’s my question, Chris—the square aspects to an enclosure because then I would look at the Venus retrograde like in Scorpio at the degrees that are squaring my Mars-Saturn. And I haven’t done that yet, but it’s a question I have for you around that. But I’m a little intimidated with this retrograde ‘cause it’s gonna be three times in enclosure basically the whole time.
CB: When you say ‘enclosure’, what do you mean?
VERDARLUZ: The malefic enclosure between Mars and Saturn.
CB: Just that transiting Venus will be in between your Saturn and your Mars?
VERDARLUZ: Yeah.
CB: Okay.
VERDARLUZ: Like the whole time. ‘Cause 12° is basically on Mars, so the whole time. So months of this. And what I’ve seen with Mars—and I’ve watched really strong in the last year—the positions in Aquarius and in Leo have been just pretty devastating for me. I’ve had to move a lot. There’s just been a lot of stress in my life. And it’s consistent because there’s a lot of aspects that can happen between those degrees. So, yeah, that’s my question.
CB: Yeah. I mean, even though that’s a challenging area in your life, some of it just having the IC there in Leo, is just that you’ve moved around a lot and you travel a lot. And that’s partially connected with the MC being in the 9th whole sign house. And so, that Saturn that’s ruling it is down there in the 3rd, on the IC. So I think it’s really interesting already that you just moved back here. You keep coming back to this place and this city at different points, even though you’re going around and literally traveling the world. Like you were in Europe for a while, right?
VERDARLUZ: Yeah.
CB: Off and on. So one of the things that sometimes comes up with retrogrades—and I realized why this was last month, and it was so simple that I was sort of surprised that it wasn’t at the forefront of my mind already. But because Venus is moving forward and then it turns around and it starts moving backwards, it’s not just that it’s moving backwards in time, but it’s also oriented and looking backwards. So when a planet is retrograde, it means it has more of a past-oriented or a ‘looking back to the past’ orientation rather than looking forward to the future. And I think that’s such a simple distinction and it sounds really basic, but it’s actually a really important and profound one. Because it means that sometimes when planets are retrograde, during those periods our orientation starts being the past, and looking back into the past somehow suddenly becomes important and you can’t move forward into the future until you’ve gone back into the past for a while.
So, for you, it may be what this is about is returning back to this past place that you lived, with Venus going retrograde over your IC, where eventually it’s gonna station direct. And while there may be some challenges there—especially in terms of the Mars placement—the positive thing is that Jupiter is also gonna be stationing there in Taurus pretty close to squaring your IC at the same time. So there’s like a very positive, counterbalancing benefic transit that’s occurring simultaneously.
VERDARLUZ: Well, yeah. And that’s my profected planet.
CB: What profection are you in?
VERDARLUZ: 10th.
CB: 10th. In Pisces?
VERDARLUZ: Yeah.
CB: Okay, so Jupiter’s your profected planet for the year. Yeah, I mean, it seems like the primary thing is just that. And that’s interesting you said ‘movement’ ‘cause the 3rd house is traditionally the house associated with the Moon, and it’s about things that move quickly and moving around your local city or your local neighborhood or area. But it’s interesting that for you that often gets specifically channeled into the theme of movement in general as a form or expression.
VERDARLUZ: Are you saying that could also mean foreign travel because Saturn is in that house, but ruling the 9th? And so, the 3rd and the 9th sort of overlap very easily for me because of that.
CB: Yeah. And also, I’ve just been noticing one of the ancient delineations for planets that are in detriment—which is also called ‘anti-domicile’ or ‘antithesis’—is just that it represents a planet being as far away from its home sign as it can get. So sometimes literally there are themes of like being away from home or being out of one’s element that are inherent to that placement. For you, that is your Saturn placement. So that could be why Venus retrogrades that go over that placement cause you sometimes to reflect and review those themes.
VERDARLUZ: Can you see anything about the enclosure and aspects? Have you found in that study of—I guess ‘besiegement’ is the other word—the square aspects would be important for that?
CB: Yeah. I mean, usually enclosure is not something you apply to transits. It’s just something you have in the natal chart or you don’t have.
VERDARLUZ: Well, I will tell you I can share lots of stories of transits of enclosure.
CB: Okay.
VERDARLUZ: Yeah, and I’ve been studying about it also on the level of relocation because I’ve traveled so much. And so, having the IC, let’s say, between Mars and Saturn or Jupiter and Venus, now you’re in a benefic or a malefic enclosure—and it is real. And so, I’d love to talk more about that with anyone here, but it’s a really powerful technique. Yeah, I’m interested to know if anyone else has studied it more through the transit cycles because I see it.
CB: Sure. Yeah. Well, that’s maybe something we could do another meeting on at some point to discuss or research that more.
VERDARLUZ: Cool. Well, thanks for the help.
WOMAN: I have one question about that.
CB: Yeah.
WOMAN: The exaltation of Venus is in a 10th house profection year. Venus is exalted in Pisces, and then it’s gonna have reception with Jupiter through this process. Would that be a mitigating factor for him?
CB: Why do you say—I know he’s in a Pisces profection year, but his Venus natally is in Gemini. Where’s the exaltation component coming in?
WOMAN: Just that he’s in a 10th house profection year, so it’s the exaltation of Venus.
CB: Like the exaltation lord?
WOMAN: Yeah. Do you feel like that is gonna help to mitigate this at all? Even though there’s not a natal planet there, Venus will still see its profected house from the 1st. I’m just looking for mitigations since he’s so concerned about it.
VERDARLUZ: Yeah, I’m just concerned ‘cause it’s like Mars-Saturn, Mars-Saturn.
WOMAN: Did you test it before so you could see what you’re in for?
CB: I mean, the primary mitigation is just that he’s in a Jupiter profection year, and Jupiter’s gonna station I think at 14 or 13 Taurus. So it’s gonna be squaring the IC and the Mars, which is actually a positive transit. It’s gonna be counterbalancing any of the challenging stuff that Venus is gonna be getting by stationing on Mars. I think those are both doubly-positive transits that are happening to what is otherwise the most difficult planet in the chart. So that’s the mitigation right there.
VERDARLUZ: Thank you.
CB: Thanks.
[applause]
CB: All right. Does anybody else have any—you have one?
SARA: January 19, 1990.
CB: Your name’s Sara?
SARA: Yeah, it’s Sara. Without an ‘H’, but it’s fine.
CB: Oh, sorry.
SARA: No, it’s okay. I really don’t care.
CB: What’s your birth date?
SARA: January 19, 1990. So Pluto’s on my Sun right now. 11:53 PM, in Newburgh, New York.
CB: In Newburgh. How do you spell it?
SARA: N-E-W-B-U-R-G-H.
CB: B-U-R-G-H?
SARA: Yes.
CB: New York.
SARA: Yes.
CB: All right. Is your Ascendant 22 Libra?
SARA: It is.
CB: Okay. All right, what’s your Venus retrograde story?
SARA: Okay, so it’s gonna combine my Pluto transit, my Venus retrograde, and eclipses. And I’m in a 10th house year.
CB: Okay. And you’ve got a couple of planets in Capricorn.
[laughter]
SARA: One or two.
CB: One or two.
SARA: Yeah.
CB: I don’t wanna exaggerate. But specifically you have some very late in Capricorn. Your IC is at 26. Your Venus is at 27. Your Sun is at 29. So Pluto has been like all over that recently.
SARA: Yeah, it’s been quite the past few years.
CB: Okay. And you were also born during a Venus retrograde.
SARA: As my chart ruler too, yeah.
CB: Right. Libra rising. So that Venus retrograde—the last one before this one, during that winter in Capricorn—that was the same cycle you were born in?
SARA: Yes.
CB: Okay, cool. All right, what’s your story?
SARA: Okay, so combining all of these things together, it’s kind of hard to extract them from each other.
CB: Right.
SARA: So with this Venus retrograde, combining it with Pluto on my Sun, obviously Pluto’s been on my Sun and back and forth to my natal Venus as well. And it was in my IC, which, thank God, it’s done with ‘cause that one was not fun. The Sun’s not fun either. So basically I had my first hit of Pluto on my Sun in March. It was awful.
CB: March of this year, 2023?
SARA: Yeah, yeah. I was just basically really depressed. So it goes off my Sun when it goes into Aquarius, obviously. Then the second hit of it on my Sun, the current hit, I was feeling very similar to the last hit. It’s amazing how precise I find that the Pluto transits are to the minute. Especially for me and since I’ve had probably more Pluto transits in my life than anyone can dream of up until this point. I kind of feel like I’m an expert. I mean, it’s not by choice. So basically I got the second hit and I was trying to think like, “What is this hit about?” or “What is this transit about?” ‘cause obviously it’s a big deal when Pluto’s on your Sun.
CB: ‘Cause it was like in March Pluto moved into Aquarius, but then it stationed, and then it retrograded back. In June, I think, it went back into Capricorn.
SARA: Yeah, exactly.
CB: Got it.
SARA: So during this last hit, I was hitting up my best friends because I wanted to see people since I was not feeling well. And one of my best friends is also in a Pluto transit, and she was also not doing well and didn’t want to see me. My other best friend just had a baby two days ago, so she was also busy, whatever. And given that Pluto—rather the Sun—my 11th house, it’s connected.
CB: You have Leo on the cusp of the 11th whole sign house.
SARA: Right.
CB: So the Sun is actually the ruler of your place of friends.
SARA: Yeah, exactly. So I was trying to put all this information together and I basically realized—or what I felt in a sense was that I didn’t really have anyone here anymore. I obviously still have my friends. My business is working in the entertainment industry and it kind of started during COVID or just before COVID, and I started to realize that I need to move after being here for 15 years, which obviously is a big deal once you’ve been somewhere for 15 years.
CB: 15 years. What year?
SARA: 2008.
CB: That’s when Pluto went into Capricorn.
SARA: I know. Yeah, so it’s also when Pluto went into Capricorn. As you can see I still had a Pluto transit pretty quickly since it was opposing my natal Jupiter. So not only was the entire cycle basically Colorado, of living here—
CB: From New York?
SARA: From New York, yeah.
CB: Okay, so you moved here to Colorado in 2008. That was when Pluto moved into your 4th whole sign house for the first time.
SARA: Mm-hmm.
CB: What prompted that, or what were the circumstances surrounding it? And you said that you ran into some issues as soon as you moved here?
SARA: I didn’t run into issues as soon as I moved here, thank God, but I just had a transit, I guess.
CB: Okay.
SARA: Pluto—it’s not bad on every planet the way of course. But, yeah, I moved here in 2008 for college, so it was a pretty normal way to move here. The interesting thing is I still am getting another hit of the Venus-Pluto on my natal Venus as well, which of course is my chart ruler. Also, combining other recent transits, the eclipse, the first Aries-Libra one, was squaring my Sun exactly almost to the minute ‘cause it was 29°53’, I believe.
CB: Let me check. Yeah, you’re right. 29°53’.
SARA: Mm-hmm. And my Sun is 29°52’, so that’s pretty close, I’d say. The next eclipse also—the last Scorpio-Taurus one—was on my Moon ‘cause it’s 14°. Other interesting things are the upcoming eclipses, the upcoming South Node one is on my IC. So it’s like literally changing every element of my life. So combining all these things it’s changing where I am physically, friends, the community that’s around me, location. Bringing in other transits, other Venus retrogrades, I bought my place eight years ago during the last one in Leo as well.
CB: Okay.
SARA: I guess that’s the biggest one to point out. But, as you can see, I’ve been having a lot of crazy transits that are very precise and basically changing everything in my life. And also, my Sun is of course in my 4th house of home as well.
CB: With the eclipses—the April one—do you know what profection year you’re in?
SARA: Now?
CB: Yeah.
SARA: 10.
CB: You’re in 10.
SARA: Yeah, so the eclipses are important.
CB: And that’s why I wanted to ask if there’s anything relevant with the topic. But one would have been in your 7th house of relationships, and the other would have been in your 2nd house of finances. Did any of those topics come up at that time, or was that relevant?
SARA: Yeah. So basically the entire time Mars was in Gemini, until it started to get relief, my business was completely dead, and it started heating up again once Mars went into Cancer, which is my 10th house. And as you can see with my chart there’s not that much going on with mutable. So it being a mutable wasn’t especially helpful.
CB: Yeah. And also, the last eclipses before that, late last year, would have been completely in Taurus and Scorpio. So that means they would have fallen entirely in your financial axis.
SARA: Right.
CB: So things dried up as a consequence.
SARA: And it was also combining it, again, with my Pluto transit. Every time it hit my IC—which of course is opposite my MC—I would lose a client out of nowhere, or have something go on that you couldn’t expect when it was exact as well on my IC. Or something of my family that took away my time.
CB: Got it, okay. That makes sense. Let’s see—so this Venus retrograde’s in Leo. So you are gonna move soon?
SARA: I think so. I’m pretty sure I am. There’s a lot of steps that go into moving that I haven’t started yet, so I have to start those steps. But I think by the time it’s my birthday I’ll probably have moved.
CB: Where do you want to move to?
SARA: LA.
CB: Okay. What’s motivating that?
SARA: Business, career, entertainment. I’m a publicist and grand strategist for people in the entertainment industry.
CB: Okay.
SARA: So it’s a logical decision.
CB: Yeah, that’s a big shift.
SARA: It’s a big shift and I’m very scared.
CB: Yeah, that makes sense in a 10th house profection year.
WOMAN: You said something really important a few times, like you completely change your life. How often does that happen?
SARA: Not very often.
WOMAN: Okay. This happened twice?
SARA: No. I mean, like right now I feel like it’s a time of completely changing my life.
WOMAN: It happened before with the move?
SARA: Well, I moved here when I was 18. So you could also say I was 18 and that could have shifted things. I’ve basically had Pluto transits since I’ve been 18. So it’s kind of hard to say ‘is this being an adult’ or ‘is this having constant Pluto transits’.
CB: Right.
SARA: And also, Pluto’s strong in my chart. It’s conjunct my Moon pretty closely. So I’m kinda used to the energy.
CB: Sure. But otherwise, aside from that, I mean, being in a 10th house profection year, having Jupiter there natally-exalted—while that is activating the eclipses, the other eclipses that happen later this year will continue to be important for you and are actually gonna get more important ‘cause it’s gonna fully shift to your 1st house/7th house axis.
SARA: Yeah.
CB: It seems like it’s pushing you in a certain direction, or trying to push you forward in terms of your career this year and that’s ultimately what it’s all about.
SARA: It’s definitely career-related. It’s also relationship-related, if you want to bring in the axes.
CB: Yeah.
SARA: It’s important for me to end up with someone who’s Jewish; it’s just a part of my value set. And there’s not that many people in Colorado.
CB: Oh, okay. One of the things about the eclipses that’s gonna shift is we’re getting out of two years of the Scorpio-Taurus axis, and we’re moving into a couple of years of the Aries-Libra axis. Especially if a person’s in a Cancer or a Leo profection year—which you’re in not just this year but also next year. If a person’s in that profection year and they start having eclipses in the 1st and 7th then, yeah, usually relationships start becoming the focus of life. And sometimes if the person’s not in a major relationship, they can find themselves in one by the end of that transit.
SARA: Yeah, I mean, that could happen. I can’t speak to the future. But, yeah, it’s definitely a factor within my decision-making right now, which it’s not normally a factor in my decision-making, so I think that that’s fair to say.
CB: Sure. Well, it’ll be interesting to see. We’ll have to check in with you in a couple of years once those eclipses are over and see where things are at. And then, yeah, in terms of the retrograde—probably continuing to see more things in terms of friends and your friend group and that becoming part of the focus of this retrograde in your 11th house.
SARA: Yeah. And, I mean, I’ve already been kinda like slowly getting rid of friends over the last couple of years. So it’s kinda like ready for that transformation as far as that’s concerned as well.
CB: Sure. Yeah, well, maybe that could be part of your focus this summer. I know it’s tricky since your plan is to move away from here, but trying to reflect on the area of friendship; or perhaps build other friend connections could be a productive thing to do or build other social connections during the course of this Venus retrograde in your 11th house. ‘Cause the other thing is because you’re a night chart, Venus transits, and especially retrogrades, will sometimes tend to be more important, or at least in retrospect indicate more positive shifts in your life. Especially when Venus stations direct in your 11th house, maybe it’s either reaffirming old friendships that have otherwise fallen apart, or building new friendships could be a large part of the focus for you.
SARA: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s certainly a possibility and I’ve been doing a little bit of that as well just to be in line with my transits.
CB: Cool. All right, well, thanks for sharing that. That’s really good. I’ve been curious how people have been doing with some of those Pluto transits. But, yeah, I mean, the good news is that it’s about to move out of that sector of your chart where you’ve had so much of that recently and about to move into a completely new phase, and you can already kind of anticipate where some of that’s headed.
SARA: Yeah, absolutely. And it makes sense entering the 5th as well, for me, if I’m gonna be working even on a larger scale with creative people and within everything. So everything’s kind of making sense as far as it should, but it’ll be interesting to see my life without having constant Pluto transits direct on everything in my chart basically.
CB: Yeah, for sure. Just going through that complete transformation process and sometimes that ‘dark night of the soul’, but then eventually emerging on the other side a different and a newer person.
SARA: Exactly, yeah. Yeah, astrology’s very helpful if you have as many Pluto transits as I’ve had ‘cause you at least know that they’re gonna end at some point. I can’t imagine dealing with some of these things if I didn’t have a timeline.
CB: Yeah, I think one of the most useful things about astrology is it giving you a calendar for the different chapters of your life.
SARA: Yeah, absolutely.
CB: Did you have a comment? No? Okay. All right, I think that’s it.
SARA: Thank you.
CB: Thanks for sharing.
[applause]
CB: All right, do you have one? Cool. What’s your first name?
MONIKA: Monika.
CB: How do you spell it?
MONIKA: M-O-N-I-K-A.
CB: And what’s the birth date?
MONIKA: September 15, 1987.
CB: What time?
MONIKA: 9:05 AM.
CB: And what city?
MONIKA: Pleven. P-L-E-V-E-N. V-E-N.
CB: Got it.
MONIKA: And that would be in Bulgaria.
CB: Bulgaria, okay. And is your Ascendant 15 Libra?
MONIKA: Yes.
CB: Okay. What’s your story?
MONIKA: So it’s about the previous Leo retrograde. One of the significations obviously for Venus retrograde is affairs coming about and like changes in relationships. And at that time me and my ex-husband were at a wedding of our friend’s. The wedding was August 15, 2015, which was basically I think two days before Venus went directly on the Sun as it was retrograding.
CB: Okay. So it’s happening in your 11th house of friends. You’re at a friend’s wedding.
MONIKA: Correct.
CB: Okay.
MONIKA: Yeah, so on the way back, we drove from New York to Chicago, and a text message popped up as we were driving, from a co-worker of my ex-husband, which I was like, “Why is she trying to contact you now if she knows you are on vacation? What’s going on?” Like obviously nothing at that time particularly happened, but that was like literally at the same time Venus is on the Sun. And a couple of weeks later we had a conversation about that, and it turned out that it was an emotional affair that was going on that I was discovering during this entire Venus retrograde. And basically right before it ended, on September 6, we had our first therapy session for couples therapy. And my Venus in the 12th house of subconsciousness and conscious things and therapy and all of that, so I thought that was like funny and interesting how it transferred to the 12th house.
But also, at the same time, I was in a Saturn profection year—I was in a 4th house profection year—and the transiting Saturn was exactly trining my natal Venus at the same time, so it was really activating that relationship/subconscious connection. And I guess just sidetrack a little bit, a ‘Jupiter in Aries’ story. I have Jupiter in Aries obviously. Jupiter return happens for me and I usually get married around that time. So both times—the second time I got married was exactly when Jupiter was in Aries. And the first time it had just exited Aries, but it was still in the bounds of conjuncting my own Aries, even though it was in Taurus.
CB: Got it, okay. Wait—so you got married the first time at 24?
MONIKA: Yes.
CB: Okay, so 24 is the first time you had a Jupiter return, and Jupiter’s going through your 7th house. And then the second time, when you were 36—
MONIKA: 35.
CB: 35, okay.
MONIKA: Technically, 35 the second time.
CB: But at the same time that this was happening that summer?
MONIKA: Yes.
CB: Okay.
MONIKA: I mean, no. The 2015 summer was basically the end of the marriage, the first marriage.
CB: Got it.
MONIKA: Which began close to Jupiter in Aries.
CB: Nice. Okay, so you got married under the second one, with Jupiter. How long had you been married before this happened with Venus retrograde?
MONIKA: Six years.
CB: Okay, six years.
MONIKA: Yeah, yeah. Well, technically, six years. So it’s funny ‘cause I’ve technically gotten married several times the first time. We had two ceremonies and one legal marriage. The legal marriage preceded everything, but the official ceremony was with Jupiter in Aries.
CB: Okay.
MONIKA: Yeah.
CB: That’s great. Yeah, I noticed a lot—when was that—I guess just last year when Jupiter was going through Aries, Brittany Spears, who’s also a Libra rising, got married right when Jupiter was stationing I think in her 7th house.
MONIKA: Yeah. And obviously the first time we got married, Jupiter in Aries, and I’m in a 1st house profection year with Venus, and it’s like right there for me too.
CB: Right. So with the Venus retrograde you first get the inkling that something is not right. Venus is retrograde, and it’s halfway through the retrograde cycle, and it conjoins the Sun, you see that text message. And then when Venus slowed down and stationed direct in Leo, in your 11th house—so the Venus retrograde is ending—you had a therapy session. And then what happened?
MONIKA: I mean, then the whole thing unraveled from there.
CB: So it all came out.
MONIKA: It all came out. Everything was crystal clear that this has been happening. But it basically spanned the exact Venus station and direct, going backwards to my 12th house, I guess.
CB: Got it. So then once it came out in therapy and stuff, you broke up at that point?
MONIKA: No, we didn’t break up for like about a year-and-a-half.
CB: Okay. But that was sort of the beginning of the process of that.
MONIKA: That was the beginning of the process of everything evolving. It started it right there and then with that text message. It’s like a very vivid memory for me.
CB: Gotcha. So it was with a friend of yours?
MONIKA: Yeah, the wedding was at a friend of ours.
CB: Okay.
MONIKA: The wedding was in the ‘friends’ zone.
CB: Yeah, so it was in your 11th house. It was a Venus retrograde in your 11th house, and it just comes up, and the Venus retrograde is connected with friends.
MONIKA: Mm-hmm.
CB: Yeah, that’s a really good example. That’s a really classic example. One of the things that can sometimes come up with Venus retrogrades is scandals. Or if there’s something that’s hidden in relationships, there can be revelations in terms of relationships or things coming out. And sometimes because Venus is the planet of relationships and because it’s moving backwards—and in some ways going contrary to its normal significations—sometimes the reverse of Venus significations can be things like that; can lead to breakups or other things like that.
MONIKA: Right. I also had Uranus going through Aries in my 7th house at that particular time as well.
CB: Yeah.
MONIKA: That whole process took off. Basically it ended at the same time Uranus entered Taurus.
CB: Okay.
MONIKA: Like it was around that time that it actually ended.
CB: Got it. And then you split up your assets and everything.
MONIKA: Right.
CB: Okay. Yeah, so Uranus transit. And that’s a good reminder that there’s usually not just one transit, but usually there’s different overlapping things that paint the entire picture.
MONIKA: Right. So my question actually—I was I think in a 4th house profection year, and obviously that’s also family. It’s not necessarily relationship, but because we had been married. So does that also relate since it’s the 4th house profection year?
CB: Were you living together?
MONIKA: Yes.
CB: I mean, one of the ways oftentimes that it can relate is just through the living situation, especially if that changes, or if you stop living together; if there’s a shakeup in terms of that.
MONIKA: That didn’t happen. We didn’t stop living together for another year-and-a-half.
CB: Okay.
MONIKA: It wasn’t at that time. Well, I guess, I was very close to going into a different profection year ‘cause I was born on September 15, and that happened just right before September 15.
CB: So you’re getting ready to switch into Aquarius.
MONIKA: Yeah, getting ready to switch into Aquarius.
CB: Got it, okay. Yeah, I don’t know how that’s necessarily relevant, but only that it would have been activating Saturn for two years straight for you. And that may be tied in with the—
MONIKA: Saturn return that I was having.
CB: Yeah, you’re having a Saturn return, but also it’s activating the tension between the Saturn-Uranus conjunction in your chart, which is squaring the Venus-Sun-Mars conjunction. So maybe it just had to do with the activation of some of that in some way.
MONIKA: Yeah, yeah. Definitely, I think so. I’m in a 12th house profection year, and I’m seeing all of these themes come about. And it just all felt like it started back then with this Venus retrograde. And I feel like some sort of cycle related to my 12th house is gonna come about during this Venus retrograde because I’m in a 12th house profection year, and I’m experiencing the same retrograde that I did back then. So I think it’s gonna be very interesting to see how this whole 4th/12th house axis getting activated by this Venus retrograde comes about.
CB: Yeah, I mean, it’ll be in your 11th house, but you’re gonna switch profection years in September, right? So then you’ll go into the 1st house?
MONIKA: Yes, which is ruled by Venus.
CB: Right, but I think that’s good. ‘Cause usually a 12th house profection year can sometimes be a lot of looking back and reflecting on the past and the last 12 years up to that point, thinking about how far you’ve come, but also starting to close that chapter of your life and getting ready to move into a new 12-year chapter once you go into the 1st house profection year. So I’m just noting the close proximity of that—of how you’ll switch into that 1st house profection year not long after Venus stations direct in Leo, in your 11th house. So while it could be activating some of that, I think it’ll just be a lot of creating a new foundation for the next 12 years once you have that profection switch in September.
MONIKA: Right. And I don’t know what exactly is gonna happen, but I have a feeling this Venus retrograde is gonna bring some of this stuff going on. It’s just gonna activate whatever is gonna be the next chapter.
CB: Right. Is there any ‘friend’ stuff? How’s your ‘friend’ life right now I guess would be one question? ‘Cause the most recent eclipse happened in Aries, that’s kind of ramping up for major relationship beginnings and endings soon as well. Where are you at with both of those areas?
MONIKA: So it’s interesting. With the ‘friend’ stuff, I’m actually coming here today later for the poetry slam. We’re organizing a little group of ladies that are gonna do a poetry club.
CB: Nice. Is that your first time doing that?
MONIKA: Yes.
CB: Oh, wow, okay.
MONIKA: Yeah, so that’s happening right now.
CB: That’s great.
MONIKA: So it’s gonna be interesting to see maybe what that brings about in my life as it develops.
CB: Yeah, that’s a great 11th house example of not just friends. But also, groups and alliances and organizations are very 11th ‘house-y’.
MONIKA: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, we’ll see.
CB: Cool. All right, well, yeah, I look forward to hearing how that goes. Sometimes things happen that at the time it’s something you do but it doesn’t seem like a big deal at the time, but then in retrospect it turns out that that actually was more important than you thought it was gonna be. So that might be the case with that for you.
MONIKA: Yeah, yeah.
CB: Cool. All right, thanks for sharing your story.
MONIKA: Thank you.
[applause]
CB: What’s your first name?
SAMANTHA: Samantha.
CB: What’s your birth date?
SAMANTHA: February 3, 1994.
CB: What time?
SAMANTHA: 10:02 PM. And Burien, Washington. B-U-R-I-E-N.
CB: I-E-N?
SAMANTHA: Yes.
CB: All right. Another—
SAMANTHA: Another Libra rising, yeah.
CB: We’re on a stretch here, a streak.
SAMANTHA: Right.
CB: All right, so 9 Libra rising. All right, what’s your story?
SAMANTHA: So I have some spotty memories, so patterns are a little tricky for me, but I have a couple notable ones. The Capricorn retrograde in December 2013 was actually sort of funny because just less than a week after that retrograde stationed, I was in a bad car accident with my family. Like the vehicle rolled, somehow we all ended up completely okay, but that catalyzed a breakup with the guy I had been dating for just over a year. So we broke up in January, and then, again, less than a week after the direct station, I started seeing my current partner. So that all kind of folded into everything.
CB: So did you say you were in a bad car accident with your family?
SAMANTHA: Mm-hmm.
CB: Okay, ‘cause that station was right there in your 4th house conjunct Uranus. What was the situation surrounding that?
SAMANTHA: So that was we were just having a family trip after Christmas to go to downtown Seattle, to just kind of hang out as a family. And it was this crazy, seemingly out of nowhere, we just kind of got sideswiped by this vehicle that was being really erratic.
CB: How old were you?
SAMANTHA: I would have been—I know I was in an 8th house profection year. I don’t remember how old that was.
CB: Okay. What family members were with you?
SAMANTHA: So it was my parents and both my sisters.
CB: Okay, so this was like actually a family outing and then you got sideswiped?
SAMANTHA: Yeah, we were just pulling onto the highway, and this truck just pushed us over into the guardrail and flipped—it was very fun.
CB: And the car flipped?
SAMANTHA: Yeah, the car rolled.
CB: Wow, okay. What sort of damage did you or your family sustain?
SAMANTHA: Most of us ended up with some back problems that needed some chiropractic attention. That was pretty much the extent of it. Surprisingly, we walked away without anything too catastrophic; just some bruises and what not; although I was in one of those slightly rebellious phases of not wanting to wear a seat belt all the time. And my youngest sister actually made sure that I put my seat belt on before we took off.
CB: Wow.
SAMANTHA: Yeah.
CB: So sister saved your life.
SAMANTHA: Yeah.
CB: And did you say you were in an 8th house profection year?
SAMANTHA: Yep.
CB: Okay, so the short sentence is that you were in an 8th house profection year, and Venus stationed retrograde in your 4th house of family, conjunct your Uranus, and you had a near-death experience.
SAMANTHA: Yep.
CB: Yeah, that’s really good.
SAMANTHA: Yeah, I was reflecting on that, like, “Oh, that’s pretty significant there.”
CB: Right. And actually you said a near-death experience with your family—
SAMANTHA: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
CB: In the 4th house with your entire family, and one of your family members basically saved your life.
SAMANTHA: Yeah.
CB: That’s really good. Let’s all just reflect on that for a moment. Like sometimes it’s just very literal. We now know—‘cause probably none of us walked into this—if somebody was like, “Generate a delineation that connects the 8th house and the 4th house, and Venus stationing direct conjunct Uranus,” nobody would have immediately come up with that. But if you tried to come up with the most literal delineation you could, you might get kind of close to describing it sort of broadly archetypally if you said there might be a connection between themes surrounding mortality and family or something like that in this year. And if you know that a person’s in a Venus profection year then one of the things to do—or actually any profection year, anytime a sign is activated, always pay attention to the dates in which that planet will station retrograde or direct in that year ‘cause those will often become the most important dates that stand out in that year for the person. And so, for you, that would have been really the case for that crash at least. Okay, so that’s a really important one. That’s really good and really straightforward. So Venus started to retrograde at that time; then it went retrograde in your 4th house. And then the other piece that you were bringing up was that there was some relationship stuff.
SAMANTHA: Yeah. So that kind of classic, you have a near-death experience and you reflect on your whole life, and I realized I needed to break up with the guy I had been dating for a year.
CB: Oh, wow.
SAMANTHA: So that catalyzed that breakup.
CB: So that’s important, just in and of itself. So you have the near-death experience, you’re in an 8th house profection year, and that causes you to reflect on your current relationships and decide that where you’re at with the current one wasn’t where you wanted to be, so you decided to exit or back out of it.
SAMANTHA: Yep, yep.
CB: Okay. And sometimes that keyword of ‘exiting’ or ‘backing out of a relationship’ can be a very Venus retrograde thing ‘cause Venus is literally just backing up, and sometimes, symbolically, backing out of a union.
SAMANTHA: Mm-hmm.
CB: Okay.
SAMANTHA: And then the direct station was shortly after when I started seeing my current partner. So having that forward motion into something new that at the time was very just casual, and we didn’t think it was going to turn into anything. And here we are almost a decade later still together.
CB: Wow.
SAMANTHA: Yeah.
CB: So that was when Venus stationed direct.
SAMANTHA: Mm-hmm.
CB: Yeah, that’s another example of what I mentioned earlier. Sometimes, especially if you’re in a Venus profection year, and Venus stations retrograde or direct, something important will happen, but sometimes at the time you won’t recognize that it’s that important, or you’ll think it’s a minor thing. But it’s only years later that you’ll realize with the benefit of hindsight that something really important actually happened at that time. And, for you, it was starting a major relationship.
SAMANTHA: Yep.
CB: Cool. That is a perfect example. I can’t think of a better—
SAMANTHA: Yeah, yeah. And especially the more I talk about it, the more it lines up, and all the memories come out.
CB: Well, that’s the thing, and that’s my job here—to initiate the dialogue process. And one of the things I like about doing these live like this is this is part of what happens in an astrological consultation. Part of your work as the astrologer is to identify what placements or what transits are correlating with what events, but also to help the person to recognize the uniqueness and the importance of that better. ‘Cause even as astrologers I think sometimes we take for granted some of the things in our birth chart or some of the events that have happened in our lives, and I think it’s just a natural human tendency to assume that everybody’s had those types of experiences or to generalize things. But in reality oftentimes our specific experiences are much more unique to us than we realize. And the way in which that’s described in the chart, sometimes it helps to have another person to draw those things out to really get some perspective on it.
SAMANTHA: Yeah, definitely. Then I also have a little bit of a pattern with these Leo retrogrades as well. So going back to the one in 2007—so I have a background as a ballet dancer. So when I was in middle school, I had some of my first big performance opportunities. And during that retrograde was one of the bigger ones that I really felt like I earned. And also, during that timeframe, I had a big falling out with that current friend group. So that was in my 11th house opposing of course my Sun and everything in my 5th. And then I had a little bit of, in a way, a repeat of that with the following one in 2015 where, again, I had a role in performance, this time in college; I finally felt like I had really earned that one and also had some weird friend group things. This time I was actually reconnecting—not really reconnecting—but connecting with some people that I hadn’t really thought to connect with before. We just ended up working together and really developing a friendship there.
CB: And that was after the falling out?
SAMANTHA: So that was the college friend group.
CB: Right.
SAMANTHA: So, yeah, the first one was the falling out with the middle school, just ‘clique-y’, not-great phase. The second one in 2015 was a new friend group in college where I actually found some good friends. And then for this one I have been starting to connect with some people and socialize a little bit more. And then I actually just yesterday took my first ballet class in like four years, I think, which was a very welcoming group that also has performance opportunities. So I’m really curious to see how that will play out in the coming months with that.
CB: Yeah, so it’s suddenly coming back again and that was part of what was present in the previous two retrogrades.
SAMANTHA: Yeah, yeah.
CB: Okay.
SAMANTHA: Yeah, that kind of interesting combination of both the friend groups and the creative expression through dance that I have.
CB: Yeah, so that’s really striking also because one of the things people should notice is Venus is at 25 Leo today, on July 9, so it’s not even retrograde yet. But because it’s already passed over the degrees that it will later retrograde back to—and also because Venus for a while now has been in the same sign that it will be retrograde in—many of the topics associated with the Venus retrogrades start coming up as soon as Venus moves into the sign that it’s gonna go retrograde in because the retrograde essentially functionally just acts like an extended transit of Venus through that specific sign and through that specific house of our chart. So one of the things that has become really clear I think with most of the stories today, including yours, is that a lot of the topics associated with the Venus retrograde—people can already see them developing, and it’s already starting to be clear what that retrograde’s gonna be about. For you, it’s the social component with your 11th house coming back again, as well as some of the previous things you’ve done with ballet.
SAMANTHA: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
CB: And even though Venus isn’t even retrograde yet, you already see that forming in the same way that if you’re driving on the highway, you can kind of see when the highway is gonna curve off in the future and already anticipate that even if you haven’t started to make that turn yet. So that’s amazing. And really quickly, with the middle school one, could you expand on a little bit what happened with that? ‘Cause I think that sounds like a fitting one as well.
SAMANTHA: Yeah. Let me double-check the dates here. That was that summer. I don’t remember if it was—it would have been July or August. Even leading into this event was kind of messy. This group of friends and I were going to this dance intensive that was not what we first intended to go to, and I kind of got blindsided by them deciding to go somewhere else for the summer. And we all carpooled together. We would go to these classes together and go home together because we all lived near each other, and it was about an hour drive. And I think it was over three weeks that these classes were held, and the farther we got through those three weeks, the more they distanced themselves from me. So it was this group of three and me, and they just would go get lunch without telling me. They would just not talk to me during these classes. So I ended up making friends with somebody else who I had never met before, which was really odd for me at the time. I usually very much keep to myself. So for me to make a new friend at an event like that was kind of a big deal. But, yeah, they just basically ignored me for the entire time.
CB: Yeah, so one of the things about that previous one is just that previous series, like we talked about before, would have started in Virgo and then gone into Leo, so it would have been connecting 12th house and 11th house topics. And while the 11th house is traditionally the place of friends, the 12th house as its partner is the place of enemies or people that you don’t get along with, or people that work against you in some way. And while that keyword of ‘enemies’ sounds so weird and kind of archaic, in modern times it actually does sometimes come up in people’s lives. So just like people you don’t get along with, or sometimes people that don’t treat you well or other things like that. So it’s interesting with that retrograde because it wouldn’t only be in your 12th. But also, if Venus was stationing retrograde in early Virgo then it would have been stationing opposite to your Mercury-Saturn conjunction in a night chart at the same time, so that would probably be relevant as well. So the good news though is since that shift has happened, this retrograde is gonna be entirely in your 11th house. It’s probably entirely about friends. And that component about not getting along with people or feeling ostracized probably won’t be present in this one.
SAMANTHA: Fingers crossed.
CB: Okay.
WOMAN: Knock on wood.
SAMANTHA: Right.
CB: But that’s a really good example. Thank you. Thanks for sharing that.
SAMANTHA: Yeah, of course. Thank you.
[applause]
CB: All right, I think we have time for a few more examples. Does anybody have anymore Venus retrograde ones? Yeah? All right, what’s your first name?
ISSHAELA: Isshaela. It’s I-S-S-H-A-E-L-A.
CB: What’s your birth date?
ISSHAELA: 01/26/1970.
CB: January 26—
ISSHAELA: 26th. 1970.
CB: Okay. What time?
ISSHAELA: 5:20 AM.
CB: What city?
ISSHAELA: Morrisville.
CB: How do you spell that?
ISSHAELA: M-O-R-R-I-S-V-I-L-L-E. In Vermont.
CB: All right. Is your Ascendant 2 Capricorn?
ISSHAELA: Yes.
CB: Okay. What’s your story?
ISSHAELA: Yeah, so actually I just was doing the worksheet and the patterns that came up with this specific Venus retrograde in Leo actually corresponded with a recovery period. You know, like after you travel, you’re imbibed in culture and languages, usually multiple countries and languages? It would be a recovery period where you come back and you’re like, “Okay, now I have to save money.” Usually there would be a major obstacle though at the same time where I couldn’t come back. It was always recovering while all of that wasn’t going on and then doing something with the travel; it was like gathering resources again.
CB: Right. So the Leo one—the one before this current one this summer—it would have started in your 9th house and then retrograded back and station in your 8th house. You’re talking about the Leo retrogrades?
ISSHAELA: Yeah, if I go back to 1991, ‘99, 2007, 2015.
CB: And they all involve travel for you?
ISSHAELA: They all involved recovering from travel, coming back, and either there was a car accident—so I couldn’t then go and do the next thing, which usually would involve traveling or returning to that place—relationship change, major financial. So each one had that exact moment in my life.
CB: All right. That sounds like a great example. Let’s work through them. Let’s do them all in order. So let’s start with 1991.
ISSHAELA: Yeah, so what I would like to ask you is picking out those patterns—I haven’t dealt with profections a lot.
CB: Okay.
ISSHAELA: But what came out of that was that certain rulerships came up that had patterns. So those didn’t always correspond to Leo, if that makes sense.
CB: Okay.
ISSHAELA: But if I had a repeated 4th house Mars ruler in Aries then that travel thing intensified where I was actually traveling. And then if I went further where the years straddle—I don’t know how you do that. I don’t know if you take both rulerships. But if I looked where it straddled years, and there were possibly two rulerships in two different houses that I could look at, it even intensified further.
CB: Okay.
ISSHAELA: So that was really interesting. So we can go back, but I just thought it was interesting the more I went into the worksheet and looked at the profections.
CB: Yeah, the profections definitely help ‘cause it’s so crucial knowing your profection years and what houses are activated and what planets.
ISSHAELA: Mm-hmm.
CB: I don’t know how much we can break that down for this, but I would be interested, if you feel like it, just to go through some of the Venus retrogrades.
ISSHAELA: Yeah.
CB: ‘Cause it sounds like you have a unique example where it’s connecting the 9th house of travel and foreign countries and foreign places and people, as well as the 8th house, which can relate to issues of mortality, finances, and things like that.
ISSHAELA: Mm-hmm.
CB: So if we go back to 1991, which I think is the first one you mentioned—
ISSHAELA: Yeah.
CB: That was a Venus retrograde that, yeah, started in Virgo and went back to Leo. What happened then?
ISSHAELA: So the travel was Italy, Germany, and Belgium. I actually studied abroad that year.
CB: Okay. Was that your first time traveling that much?
ISSHAELA: That much to multiple countries, involving multiple languages.
CB: Right. Did you try to learn the languages?
ISSHAELA: Yes.
CB: Okay. Do you have a facility with languages?
ISSHAELA: Yes.
CB: Okay, cool. What languages did you learn?
ISSHAELA: Then it would have been German, Italian, and French. French has been ongoing in my life.
CB: Okay, so German, Italian, and French. And you started learning them roughly at that time?
ISSHAELA: German and Italian was my first time.
CB: Okay. I mean, that’s pretty big. How many people speak three to four different languages in this room? All right, you’re the only one.
ISSHAELA: It’s interesting ‘cause my first partner—his mother actually spoke eight different languages. 8 to 14 different languages. It was crazy.
CB: Yeah.
ISSHAELA: It’s kind of a draw, but it’s a draw in my life.
CB: Well, you have Cancer on the 7th house, and the ruler of the 7th house is in the 9th house of foreign travel and foreign countries and places.
ISSHAELA: Mm-hmm.
CB: So you said that’s kind of a draw?
ISSHAELA: Yeah.
CB: Okay, that makes sense. So you’re drawn to that. Okay, so you traveled a bunch all over Europe. You learned languages that summer. And actually you were born with a night chart, so actually the Moon’s even more important ‘cause it’s actually the sect light.
ISSHAELA: Yeah.
CB: In a night chart, the Moon is more important basically in your chart, and it’s in your 9th house. So that’s one of the reasons that placement is so crucial for you. Okay, so you’re traveling, learning languages, and then you have to come back to the US.
ISSHAELA: Yeah, and then I came back to the US. I actually met somebody in Italy who was from Australia—he had been traveling around the world—and I was supposed to go there.
CB: Like a romantic thing?
ISSHAELA: Yeah.
CB: Okay, so you started a major relationship. And what was the situation again?
ISSHAELA: And it was long-distance.
CB: So they were from Australia?
ISSHAELA: Yeah, they were from Melbourne.
CB: But you met them in Italy.
ISSHAELA: I met them in Italy.
CB: So this is your Venus retrograde experience. You have Venus retrograde in the 9th house. You have a relationship with somebody—and then what?
ISSHAELA: And then I was earning some money to go on a trip, and I was going to babysit. And I was parked at a stoplight one morning, and a cop just ran into the back of my car like it wasn’t even there.
CB: Oh, no. So he crashed into you and totaled your car?
ISSHAELA: Yeah.
CB: Were you injured?
ISSHAELA: Not significantly. There was whiplash.
CB: But the car was totaled?
ISSHAELA: I was lucky, and the cop had to emphasize to my mother how lucky I was.
CB: So you had like a near-death experience, sort of.
ISSHAELA: That’s what the cop told my mother, that I was very lucky. For whatever reason my foot was on the brake. For me, it felt like a basketball on the back of the head, but he told my mother I was gonna veer off into the light post, but I was really lucky that I made it.
CB: But you didn’t because you had the brake on or something?
ISSHAELA: Yeah. To me, I didn’t have the same impression that the cop did. But for whatever reason he told my mother that it was lucky.
CB: Since he was at fault, like I’m gonna take his word for it if he’s actually saying, “I almost killed you.”
[laughter]
ISSHAELA: Yeah, it wasn’t the one that—
CB: Oh, another cop showed up.
ISSHAELA: Right. The cop who hit me in the back—I was in the car, and he came up around the side. And I was like, “That was quick.” I was 21-years-old, and I just let loose on him.
CB: Okay.
ISSHAELA: “No way, you just did this; you just changed my life,” is what I said to him.
CB: You said that to him?
ISSHAELA: Mm-hmm. I ended up not going to Australia.
CB: Oh, that’s what’s happening. You’re 21, and you’re pissed off that he just totaled your car, and that’s gonna screw up your relationship and travel plans. Okay, I got it.
ISSHAELA: Yeah. I mean, I just graduated from college. I had all these expectations where life was going.
CB: Got it. But you almost died.
[laughter]
ISSHAELA: But I didn’t.
CB: No, but you didn’t. I’m just marveling at the parallel with the other example of the ‘8th house profection year’ person who also had a near-death experience when the 8th house was activated. And that’s an interesting parallel here just in terms of the connection with those two houses.
ISSHAELA: Hmm, that’s interesting ‘cause I have Venus retrograde in the 8th house this year, right?
CB: Yeah. It’s like one of the things we’ll be curious about is just the shift to that from your 9th house ‘cause I want to ask about some of the financial stuff you mentioned as well. Part of the big thing that happened with that crash is you had a job, and you were trying to make money so you could go travel more or reconnect with that relationship thing.
ISSHAELA: Yeah, and I kept having obstacles. Like my car had broken down. I had actually just had it fixed the first day, and at that age it’s a lot of money to put into your car.
CB: Right.
ISSHAELA: I was still trying to get money together for the trip and then all of that happened. So it was an obstacle. I had to overcome that obstacle, and then another big one that was like, “Nope.” That’s what happened.
CB: So the financial issues then stopped you. What would you have done otherwise? So with the car being crashed, did that stop you from traveling or from connecting with that—
ISSHAELA: Yes.
CB: Okay.
ISSHAELA: It was a significant setback.
CB: Got it. All right, so that’s it, and that was a setback. So then you stayed put and didn’t go anywhere for a while?
ISSHAELA: Right.
CB: Got it, okay. So that’s pretty good.
ISSHAELA: So for another two years—and that’s happened with every single transit. It’s about two years before I can do the thing I envisioned doing at that point. Every single time.
CB: There’s a Venus retrograde, a synodic thing, when it conjoins that may be connected with that, but we can skip that for now. So what was the next one?
ISSHAELA: The next Leo—‘99.
CB: Okay, so eight years later Venus, again, stations retrograde in your 9th house and goes retrograde in your 9th, and eventually goes back into your 8th house.
ISSHAELA: Mm-hmm. So I came back from France. I was teaching university there, and I was doing research in Greek tragedy. So I had traveled all over Greece. Yeah, I was doing that, so it involved a little bit of the language in terms of French, Latin, and Greek.
CB: So you were learning Greek and teaching abroad at that time.
ISSHAELA: Yeah, enough to do my thesis. So I was in France, I came back, I had to do my thesis. So there was both the traveling, coming back, recouping, working, working on my thesis, and then the languages involved.
CB: Wait. Were you learning modern Greek or ancient Greek?
ISSHAELA: Ancient.
CB: Oh, wow. That’s really hard. That’s like one of the hardest—
ISSHAELA: I mean, I know that’s like your role too.
CB: Yeah.
ISSHAELA: But I just learned enough.
CB: Right.
ISSHAELA: My professor, my thesis advisor, was a specialist in Greek.
CB: Okay. Still, I mean, for most people that would be really difficult. Learning a modern language is different than learning an ancient language ‘cause they’re so highly inflected. So that’s impressive. So then when you came back, what was the recovery like for that? Or what was that component?
ISSHAELA: Yeah, again, it was two years. It was a lot of just difficult work.
CB: Due to financial setbacks?
ISSHAELA: Yeah.
CB: Okay.
ISSHAELA: Just trying to reestablish in the US relationships. Each time relationships are somewhat involved. Not surprising if everybody’s traveled that much. Like usually there’s something.
CB: So there was in that instance as well a relationship?
ISSHAELA: Yeah.
CB: Okay.
ISSHAELA: Figuring out relationship, whether I wanted the one in France or the one here, and then finishing my thesis. So there were like these big things to overcome to get to the next point where my life felt a little freer and I could travel.
CB: So one of the components that’s recurring also is education as a 9th house topic for you that’s coming up during this time. And then that’s actually a common Venus retrograde thing, and I’m glad you brought that up or mentioned that in this instance. But sometimes people having to choose or sometimes being presented with a problem of two love interests and having to make a choice—sometimes a major Venus retrograde theme is making a choice in relationships that’s gonna change the course of your life or of your future. Yeah, so that can be a major theme. So you were having to choose between two people at that time.
ISSHAELA: Mm-hmm.
CB: Okay. Is that it for that one in 1999?
ISSHAELA: I would say that’s primary, yeah.
CB: Okay. All right, so then was the next one in 2007 important? I think that was the next one, right?
ISSHAELA: Yeah, I mean, that would be the next one where I was recovering from travel. So with my partner at the time—we traveled for a Fulbright that I helped to write. And so, we traveled to Germany and France, and then there was a recuperation period before I went to New Zealand. So, again, there was like the recovery and then two years later I went to New Zealand and was possibly gonna move there.
CB: ‘Cause you would have moved to New Zealand immediately at that time during the retrograde if not for something that came up, that delayed you?
ISSHAELA: No. So this is always a recouping from travel that happened before the next significant travel.
CB: Okay, got it.
ISSHAELA: So the next significant one was moving and traveling to New Zealand, again, always two years later from the Venus retrograde in Leo. Always two years later I have like a major travel again after recouping, during the retrograde.
CB: I mean, one of the themes that it might be bringing up that shows up with other retrogrades—like Mercury retrogrades—is just delays or things taking longer than you think. And that’s actually a natal signature. Some of the ancient astrologers—when they would interpret retrogrades in a natal chart, they would just say that the significations of what the planet indicates will develop later in the person’s life rather than earlier. So that could be part of what we’re seeing here is something that’s coming into play with delays for you in some of the areas that Venus is going retrograde. All right, so that was the 2007 one. And then that brings us up to the last one, which is 2015.
ISSHAELA: 2015. Yeah, this one’s a little different. It was recouping from something that I found in the pattern related to travel and stuff and also education. So I was in school for Chinese medicine at this point.
CB: You completely changed educational fields and jumped into something completely different.
ISSHAELA: Yeah, I went from academia to Chinese medicine. But at this point I was recouping from my second graduate program. So obviously, yeah, 9th house is the theme in my life.
CB: Second graduate program, which was related to or not related to Chinese medicine?
ISSHAELA: Yes, it was Chinese medicine.
CB: Oh, it was. Okay, got it.
ISSHAELA: And so, this was before I went to Ireland. So, again, it’s recouping, but before I went to Ireland.
CB: Okay.
ISSHAELA: So that was that one for the most part. And each time there’s relationship stuff as well.
CB: There was a relationship?
ISSHAELA: There’s a decision between two people.
CB: Right.
ISSHAELA: That sounds awful, doesn’t it?
CB: We were speculating in the Venus retrograde episode that I did with Nick Dagan Best and Patrick Watson last month—which you can find on The Astrology Podcast YouTube channel—that it has to do with, I wish I had the diagram, just the fact that Venus changes sides. And if you imagine the Sun in the middle of this diagram, Venus starts out on one side of the Sun. And then when it goes retrograde, it conjoins the Sun, and then it switches to the other side. And one of the things that it does is it switches from being an evening star to being a morning star by the end of that cycle. And sometimes I think that astronomical symbolic process of switching from one side to another can be about that choice that people are sometimes met with, that they have to make, of choosing one side or choosing the other side, and sometimes it can go either way. But by the end of it usually that choice has to be made. There’s like a pressure to make it.
ISSHAELA: Mm-hmm.
CB: All right, so that’s the 2015 one. And then that brings us to today where Venus is about to go retrograde in your 8th house, which is like a financial house. Are there any themes related to that stuff that have come up at this point that you’re already seeing?
ISSHAELA: Yeah, it could be. So I traveled at the beginning of last year to three different countries, just for travel sake to learn the different aspects of languages.
CB: At the beginning of last year, during the Venus retrograde in Capricorn?
ISSHAELA: Yeah
CB: How early?
ISSHAELA: But, again, it’s like the recuperation period. So we went on a big trip, went to Iceland and the Faroe Islands and Scotland, and now it’s like a ‘buckle down’ period. And, again, an obstacle for the next thing I want to do—my partner wants to change everything he’s doing. He wants to change what—
CB: Career-wise.
ISSHAELA: He wants to do. So we’re having to look at resources and buckle down and do that. So it’s kind of interesting.
CB: Yeah, so this one you have a long-term partner.
ISSHAELA: Mm-hmm.
CB: How long have you been together?
ISSHAELA: Five years.
CB: Okay. And they’re changing their career, which is changing their income.
ISSHAELA: Changing, yeah, everything. Lifestyle and a lot of things.
CB: That’s very 8th house. Like the 8th house is the second from the 7th house of partnerships, so it often has to do with partner’s money and resources and the availability or lack of availability of that and how that affects your life personally. So it sounds like that’s how this is manifesting. It’s going through that reflection and that change period in terms of that.
ISSHAELA: Yeah. And my grandmother just passed too. So it’s bringing up a lot of ancestral things, not only her, but my grandfather. So we’ll have the service for them coming up.
CB: How recently?
ISSHAELA: Just over a week ago.
CB: A week ago?
ISSHAELA: A week ago, like Wednesday.
CB: Okay, yeah. So Venus is already in its shadow, and it went retrograde. And you’re gonna have the service for her soon?
ISSHAELA: It’ll be in mid-September.
CB: Okay, so right after Venus stations direct.
ISSHAELA: Yeah.
CB: Okay.
ISSHAELA: But it’s brought up a lot of old familial things, things under the surface. Very 8th house things that haven’t been said about another death in the family are things that are coming up. It’s been very interesting.
CB: So that’s the mortality and other bits of the 8th house as well coming up at this time. And since it’s Venus, it has to do with a female relative passing away, but also that unearthing some things, and that process of dredging some of that up.
ISSHAELA: Yeah.
CB: Okay.
ISSHAELA: The other thing I would say is someone came back into my life that’s a relationship from the past, but presented a project that might come up in the next year or two that would involve language. I studied in Wales a long time ago, and so it was involving the Welsh language. So, again, it’s like these things that I saw a pattern of a potency around that, with the two-year period leading to the next thing that was very potent, if that makes sense.
CB: So queuing you up or getting your ready for that, and that would be worth looking into. There’s some sort of transit or something that that must be tied into that happens about two years later each time. I’m not entirely sure what that would be. It might be tied in with Venus ‘cause I know Venus does have some repetitions in four- and eight-year periods.
ISSHAELA: Mm-hmm.
CB: Last thing, though, this is the first one where you’re not traveling this time, like right now, right?
ISSHAELA: No. But, again, it’s not the retrograde that’s the travel time. The retrograde’s the recoup time from the travel from last year.
CB: Yeah, I’m just noting that there was travel a while ago, and you’re in the recuperation time, which often connects with the 8th house bit. This is the first one that’s not at all in your 9th house.
ISSHAELA: I guess the only thing I would say to that is that for the service I’ll travel back to Vermont, so I have that. And I’m also being asked by the other side of my family to travel there. I’m also being asked by this project—like over the course of this whole year I’ve been asked to potentially travel.
CB: Okay, so the travel component may still come up to some extent. Got it. Well, that’s another really striking example of just the repetitions and how it connects in a unique way between your 9th house and your 8th house that we might not have come up with on our own. But hearing your lived example now we all sort of understand better what that can look like and how it can work out.
ISSHAELA: Yeah, thank you.
CB: Yeah.
ISSHAELA: And then with the profection—like when we look at the house and the sign and the ruler—I keep seeing not those exact Leo patterns. But if I see patterns that are even more concentrated—the same themes but even more significant to my life, like the happiest or the best relationship point—it seems to go with those profections.
CB: In what sense does it go with them?
ISSHAELA: In the sense that there are four different examples of when Mars is the ruler in the 4th in Aries. And then two examples where Mars is the 4th in Aries, but then also it’s that ‘straddle’ year where there’s Venus in the 5th in Taurus.
CB: So you’re saying some of the retrograde years—when you were in a 4th house profection year—stood out as being more important than others?
ISSHAELA: Yeah. So like ‘97 and 2009 have that overlap because they go into two different years. So they could possibly have two different rulers, if I’m looking at that right, if I’m working with that correctly.
CB: So ‘97. So you’re talking about looking outside of the Venus retrograde in Leo series and looking at other series.
ISSHAELA: Right. So if I’m looking at patterns then the profections have patterns. Is that something to work with?
CB: Yeah, so profections also have similar repetitions, but it’s in 12-year periods because the profections are on a 12-year cycle. So you do a very similar process. We’ve done workshops on that before where if you identify a theme in one 12-year period, then you look back in 12-year increments to see if that’s come up in similar ways. And then you can similarly kind of project that out into the future to anticipate what the next profection year will be like.
ISSHAELA: Okay. Yeah, that’s outside the Leo, but that was interesting doing this worksheet.
CB: Yeah, and I think that’s a great note to end on. Probably the most important principle for making predictions with astrology is studying repetitions of patterns in the past, figuring out what a person’s astrological patterns and repetitions are, and then using that to project it out to the future; and if you do that you can truly predict events in the future. And even if you can’t predict it with a type of precision—because it’s not like looking into a crystal ball and seeing a movie of what’s exactly gonna happen—you can still, I think we’ve seen through this, identify some really striking repetitions and patterns in a person’s life and be able to state things that are gonna come up in the future for a person just based on astrology and just based on your understanding of a person’s chronology. There’s something that’s really incredible about that. And that’s the power that astrology has, and that’s what we’re doing here as astrologers when we try to use astrology for prediction. Yeah, so thanks. That was a really good example of that in finding those patterns. Thank you.
[applause]
CB: All right, so it’s four o’clock, so I think we’re out of time for this meeting of the Denver Astrology Group. I never know when we do these meetings. Like it makes me kind of nervous getting up here. Because we don’t prepare ahead of time, and I’m somebody that likes to prepare ahead of time and know exactly what’s gonna be said, and if it’s gonna be a good podcast or what have you, so I always have some trepidation going into these. But, once again, as with all the previous times we’ve done this, this went really spectacularly well, and I’m really surprised and happy with how good all of the examples were that everybody shared. So, first thing, just thanks everybody that shared your example and your stories with us in this meeting.
[applause]
CB: All right, so I think we all learned a lot here today. That was really productive. We saw different ways that this stuff can manifest, and we’ve got some good things to look out for now. I think each of us in our own charts—we now know what to pay attention to and what to look out for in order to see what this Venus retrograde is gonna be for each of us coming up in the future. So everybody pay attention to it. And hopefully we can share some stories and comments in the future and perhaps check in again—maybe in September, once this Venus retrograde is over—and come back and see if we’ve had any new stories since that time, in order to, yeah, learn more together collectively as part of our research as astrologers. So I think that’s it for this meeting. So thanks everyone for joining us today. We’ll be back again next month, topic to be decided, but we’ll do this again at some point and otherwise meet here at the Mercury Cafe next month in August. So good luck with your Venus retrograde this month and this summer.
[applause]
[credits]
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