The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 446, titled:
Astrology Forecast May 2024
With Chris Brennan and Diana Rose Harper
Episode originally released on April 30, 2024
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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 Teresa “Peri” Lardo
Transcription released May 3rd, 2024
Copyright © 2024 TheAstrologyPodcast.com
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CHRIS BRENNAN: Hey, my name is Chris Brennan, and you’re listening to The Astrology Podcast. Joining me today is astrologer Diana Rose Harper, and we’re gonna be talking about the astrology of May 2024. Hey Diana, thanks for joining me again.
DIANA ROSE HARPER: Hey, Chris. It’s great to be back.
CB: Yeah. Thank you for joining us. Our mutual friend Austin is still away on paternity leave, but he’s doing well. So today we’re gonna check in and do the astrology forecast where we’ve gotta check in since last month since a ton of important news stories have happened over the past few weeks since our last forecast and talk about the astrology of those news stories in the first half of this episode. Then in the second half, we’re gonna jump into the astrology of May and look at what the astrological alignments are over the coming four weeks.
So first things first, there will be timestamps if you wanna jump forward to the forecast section in the description for this episode. But let’s go ahead and jump into it and do first a little preview. Before we do the news section, I wanna give a preview and an overview of the astrology of May.
All right. So here is the planetary alignments calendar that shows when different planetary alignments will occur during the course of the month. So as we open the month, of course, we’re coming off of the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction that just took place in Taurus and is still very much active as well as Mercury having stationed direct towards the end of the month in Aries. So the first astrological event of the month besides that is on the 2nd of May – Pluto stations retrograde in the sign of Aquarius. Then the following week, our first lunation of the month is a New Moon in the sign of Taurus on May 7th. Then after that, Mercury moves into Taurus on the 15th of May. Then on the 18th, we get a double pileup of two conjunctions of the Sun conjoining Jupiter and Venus conjoining Uranus. Then two days later, the Sun moves into Gemini, and Gemini seasons begins. And then we get our second lunation of the month on the 23rd, which is a Full Moon in the sign of Sagittarius, and the same day, Venus conjoins Jupiter, and then Venus moves into Gemini while Jupiter sextiles Neptune. Then two days later on the 25th, we have Jupiter ingressing into the sign of Gemini, where it will stay for a year. And then finally at the end of the month, we get a Mercury-Uranus conjunction at the very end of Taurus before Mercury moves into Gemini at the beginning of June.
So that’s kind of the astrology of May; those are some of the major alignments we’re gonna be talking about during the course of this episode. Yeah. But it’s been a big month; a lot of stuff has happened. How are you doing? How did the astrology work out for you over the past few weeks?
DRH: Man, I’m tired!
CB: Yeah.
DRH: I feel like April was pretty exhausting and in many ways lived up to its reputation as the cruelest month, I would say. There was a lot of hard stuff, but also, you know, some good stuff happening, too, like interspersed within all of that. But yeah, it was, for myself, for a lot of the people that are close to me and then for my clients, it was not a cakewalk of a month, you could say.
CB: Yeah, for sure. It definitely ended up being one of the most eventful months, I think, of the year as we were anticipating in many different ways. We’re gonna go through each of those stories sort of chronologically, and we can’t cover everything, but we’ll primarily focus on stories where the astrology was really striking and obvious. Although this month like, pretty much all of the stories were very striking and obvious, so there’s a lot to talk about.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: So first things first, first piece of astrology that we’ve gotta talk about and cover is the solar eclipse that happened in Aries on April 8th, where millions of people viewed the eclipse all across North America, and there were lots of cool photos and reports with lots of people who saw it in person in the path of totality saying that it was awe-inspiring. And I’d actually love to hear some reports from listeners, if people wanna leave a comment letting us know if you witnessed it in person, like, what you thought, if it was really striking, if it was awe-inspiring or what. Did you watch the eclipse?
DRH: Yeah, I watched it a bit. I did happen to get my hands on some very official eclipse glasses, so I was able to go out and look at it. But I’m here in Southern California, so it wasn’t close to totality, but there was, like, I got a really cool video of the eclipse shadows coming through a palm tree and the way that that, you know, I don’t know, all of you have seen these sorts of images of how you can see the eclipse shape in shadows. It was very, very neat. And I tried to use my eclipse glasses to take a photo with my phone. That failed. But yeah, it was a very, it was a day that I stayed very firmly at home, and I had actually anticipated going out and about a bit more. But the eclipse in my 4th house said, “Nah. You’re parking it.” So yeah.
CB: Nice. That’s good 4th house, so you had some like, 4th house stuff come up as well?
DRH: Yeah, I did. My eclipse story included getting some pretty grief-striking news about my family, like a member of my family. That part was not so fun but lined up pretty perfectly with how it was impacting my own chart, so hashtag astrologer good.
CB: Yeah, astrologer good when the astrology’s really good even if the circumstances aren’t, but you’re still sort of impressed with how well it always lines up.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: Yeah, I had the eclipse fell in my 3rd house of neighbors, and I was not gonna do anything major for it, because I was in Denver, I wasn’t in the path of totality, so I was just gonna like, go up to the roof and like, glance at it and then go back in real quick. I didn’t even buy glasses or anything like that, so I wasn’t gonna really enjoy it. But then I ran into a neighbor who had just been given a pair of like, reliable glasses from another neighbor, and I ended up hanging with him and being able to actually witness it and see the Moon like, crossing the path of the Sun because this neighbor gave me eclipse glasses. And it ended up being a funny little like, 3rd house event and set off a whole other series of events of other 3rd house related neighbor things that have played out over the past month since the Mercury retrograde was also in that house in my chart. But I thought it was really funny that it was something as simple as that, as suddenly I was able to see the eclipse as a result of the neighbor and it was in my 3rd house of neighbors.
DRH: Yeah, that’s really funny.
CB: Yeah.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: It’s pretty good. And then, of course, it’s like, the eclipse was happening, but at the same time, there’s like, the Mars-Saturn conjunction that was going exact pretty much right after that.
DRH: Literally two days later, yeah.
CB: Yeah. So it was a little mixed, and that as well as the Mercury retrograde that was happening in Aries in the same sign as the eclipse, so it was like, there’s some tough stuff happening as well and some annoying stuff. I know you had one incident, right?
DRH: Yeah. And my incident was interesting because it was pinging like, the aftermath of these transits whenever particular planets were forming exact aspects to my own chart after these tranists went exact. So the largest like, harrowing experience that I had this month was one of my glass shower doors shattered while I was holding it. And it shatter – like, good astrologer that I am, I’m like, literally standing in my bathroom, my feet are bleeding, I grab my phone and I screenshot the chart for the moment before I start cleaning up.
CB: Nice. That’s dedication.
DRH: You know you’re an astrologer when.
CB: Right.
DRH: But like, right exactly at that moment, Mars was exactly square my Mercury and also exactly on the local Midheaven. And at the same time, retrograde Mercury was exactly square my Venus. And Venus and Mars are my two primary timelords this year. So combined with mercurial influence, I’m holding something made out of glass, which has some Venusian elements to it, that shatters while I’m holding it in my bathroom, which like, violence in the home – Aries 4th house situation. And it’s like, the bathroom component comes in with the Pisces element, and my primary injuries were my feet – Pisces.
CB: Wow.
DRH: So yeah.
CB: Yeah. That’s pretty good. And those profections, you know, hit really well in telling you what transits are important, but also that’s cool that you noticed that Mars was exactly on the Midheaven at the time —
DRH: Exactly.
CB: That’s so important. Like, I’ve become so interested in that phenomenon over the past decade as I pay attention to electional astrology more and more that sometimes when an event happens, you’ll see a planet that’s like, right on one of the angles that describes it.
DRH: Yeah. Right there. Yeah. It was also a Cancer rising chart, and just thinking about action happening in the place that involves running water – super fascinating. Yeah.
CB: Super cool. Nice.
DRH: Yeah. And I’m no longer like, you know, it could have been a much worse circumstance than it was. Just a few scars on my feet, that’s it.
CB: Yeah. Good. Well, I’m glad you still have feet and it wasn’t worse. Sometimes the astrology does stuff like that that’s just like, annoying, but then memorable, but then you move on. My thing – I had, you know, Mercury was retrograde but also Mars was conjunct in my 2nd house of finances, the Mars-Saturn conjunction. And I was going through some boxes and like, old boxes in the middle of the month, and I found this box from 2013 that had a piece of paper, and it had codes for a Bitcoin wallet from like, 2013. And I got really excited for a minute, because I was like, wow. Like, I remembered setting up a Bitcoin wallet because I was gonna be – I was like, one of the first astrologers who was like, into tech and that was interested in that, and I was gonna accept payment through Bitcoin. But after like, a day of setting it up and trying to see what it had in it, it turned out that it was empty and I’d never put any money in the wallet because like, no clients were paying for astrology consultations in Bitcoin in 2013. But if they had, one Bitcoin is worth 64,000 dollars right now. So it’s a really funny experience where I was like, this close from being like, a Bitcoin millionaire, but with the Mercury retrograde, you get the like, backwards, finding something from the past. But the Mars-Saturn conjunction was just like, “Nope.” Like, you missed the boat.
DRH: Yeah. Dang.
CB: Yeah. So that was my experience of one of those transits. All right. So those are our personal anecdotes. Yeah, thank you – commiseration in the live chat – I appreciate it. So yeah, let’s move onto major news stories. So there’s a lot of big stuff that happened. One of the major stories that started happening like, right in the middle of eclipse season was between Israel and Iran.
So we were expecting major developments with Israel because of the eclipses that occurred back in October. We were expecting something to come up in terms of that, and then what happened is that eclipse season started on March 25th with the Libra eclipse and continued a couple weeks later with the April 8th solar eclipse. So right in the middle of that once eclipse season was open and at its most intense, on April 1st, Israel killed several Iranian military officers at an embassy in Syria. And this was viewed as a serious escalation in a long-standing shadow or proxy war between the two countries and was viewed as more provocative due to it happening on an embassy, which is usually off-limits.
So Iran responded on April 13th by launching 300 missiles and drones at Israel, and the attack was highly telegraphed with lots of advance warnings so that 99 percent of the missiles were shot down. So as a result of that, it was viewed largely as political theater or as a warning. But it seemed intended to make a point without starting a full-fledged war, and still ended up being symbolically significant because it marked the first time that Iran had directly attacked Israel using like, missiles from their own country directly. So previously it had just been through proxies.
So that was one of the like, major stories that was happening at the time, and initially as I was watching this happen because it was one of the primary pieces of like, international drama that was really visible happening for like, the entire first half of the month or most of April, and initially it seemed like a disconnect to me in terms of events that we were expected with Palestine. However, as I was thinking about it and watching it more and reading the news, I realized that to the extent that Iran has backed HAMAS and Hezbollah and the Houthis in the past, there was already kind of an ongoing proxy or shadow war between Iran and Israel, and this was just the first time it became an open and direct conflict. So that kind of matched the symbolism of the eclipse. And as I looked into it more, I found out that the supreme leader of Iran was actually born the day of a solar eclipse in Aries, which is just stunning because we already know that the leader of Israel was born the day of a solar eclipse in Libra. So both of their charts have been activated by this series of eclipses that keeps bouncing back and forth between Libra and Aries over the past year. So all of this —
DRH: One —
CB: — makes me – oh, go ahead.
DRH: I was just gonna say that just, it brings up something that I think has been discussed in the past, which is the way that the birth charts of leaders of nations in a way become a sort of proxy chart for the nation while they are in leadership positions.
CB: Right.
DRH: It’s just really striking to see how that is showing up in this particular instance.
CB: Exactly. That it’s like, if the leader of the country was born during an eclipse in a certain sign, that when an eclipse happens in that sign, something really important will happen with the country.
DRH: Yeah, exactly.
CB: Yeah. So all this makes me nervous, though, because sometimes eclipses represent momentous beginnings that have humble origins. And I’ve talked about this in previous episodes where it’s like, sometimes there’s a new beginning, but it’s something that doesn’t seem super important at first, but sometimes it acts as like, a sign or an omen of more important events to come. And sometimes eclipses are like starting points that develop into something more significant in the long term. So if that’s true, we would then expect significant developments at the next set of eclipses in Libra and Aries, such as the Libra eclipse in late September/early October of 2024 or the Aries eclipse in late March and early April of 2025. So we’ll have to see if that continues and what the next development is in terms of that story during those two next sets of eclipses.
DRH: Yeah. It’s a multi-part series with pretty loud eclipse underlining, or – hmm, emboldening isn’t quite the word that I wanna use, but in terms of the timing, it’s super, super stunning.
CB: Yeah. And people in the live chat are saying it may have been 350 or 400 missiles that were launched from Iran. So yeah, that’s good to know. So we’ll return back to this topic later when we talk about the protests in connection with the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction as well.
All right, so moving on. Another major eclipse story that happened at the beginning of the month happened closer to our community, and it actually involved the death of an astrologer. So I’m gonna go into some detail about this, because there’s a lot of misinformation about that story out there, and I wanna clear some of it up. Though trigger warnings – the story is pretty shocking and pretty serious and involves some serious topics including mental illness, murder, and suicide. So if you want to avoid those topics, then skip ahead now if you don’t want to hear that stuff.
All right, so what happened is that there was an astrologer who suffered some sort of mental break with reality, possibly related to postpartum depression or postpartum psychosis, and then was involved in a murder-suicide. And this happened the night before the solar eclipse.
So her name was Danielle Johnson, and she went by the name Ayoka online and had built a large following on Twitter under the handle MysticxLipstick. So she did threads over the years sort of like, dragging the zodiac signs and also sold energy healing. So in her Twitter posts over the past decade, she had always been very open about having struggled with intense postpartum depression after her first child was born nine years ago, and then late last year in late 2023, she had another baby.
So what happened is if you go through her Twitter posts, there’s signs that there was some sort of severe episode or like, mental illness that becomes evident in the last two to three weeks of her life where she started posts just, like, a lot of frankly crazy stuff on Twitter, and she hadn’t posted anything like that before up to that point. There was a lot of like, really paranoid conspiracy theory stuff, and one of her final posts was about QAnon. So it was clear that she got – she was both seemingly having a mental episode but also getting sucked into some pretty extreme, dark conspiracy theory type stuff at the same time, which we’ve all seen, you know, versions of that online.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So.
DRH: It’s one of those very unfortunately common things these days, and whenever someone is in a very tender or sensitive place mentally, it makes all of those conspiracy theories even more dangerous.
CB: Right, exactly. So, you know, in those posts, it’s clear that she was suffering from some sort of mental health episode, and her mother later confirmed that she was dealing with mental health issues. So what ended up happening is that late on the night of April 7th, she got into some sort of altercation with her partner, and she ended up stabbing him in the heart and murdering him. So she then – her two children were present in their apartment, and she then ended up taking her two children and throwing them in her car, which was a nine-year-old and an eight-month-old, and then she tried to get out of the building complex and somehow ended up crashing through a security gate in order to get out of there. And then sped down the highway, evidently intending to commit suicide. And at some point while driving down the highway, she either ordered or pushed her two daughters out of the car; there’s conflicting reports about which it was. And somehow in the process of this, the baby fell out of the car and was killed on the highway while the nine-year-old survived with some injuries. So Danielle then floored her car, hitting more than a hundred miles an hour, and then crashed the car into a tree, killing herself.
So this whole story happened, and at first because it was spread out, the police didn’t know that the incidents were connected but then eventually they were connected together, and it started to be pieced together what happened. So what happened after that is The LA Times picked up on the story, and a reporter from The LA Times wrote an article on April 10th titled, “Mom Who Pushed Kids From Moving Car Was Astrology Influenced Disturbed By Eclipse” because the reporter saw that she was an astrologer and she had made some references to the eclipse on her Twitter account amidst some of the different conspiracy theories. And so the reporter then seems to have sensationalized the story and started claiming that she had done it because she was “disturbed by the eclipse” or because somehow linking it statements that she thought the apocalypse was about to happen or something like that. And the reporter tried very hard to link the murders to her belief in astrology while also ignoring other factors, such as that she clearly from her Twitter posts had developed some sort of sudden mental illness in the two weeks before she died, and also that she had a history of postpartum depression.
So there’s very little reason to believe that she did this due to the eclipse, and while some of her last posts mention the eclipse, it was tied up in a series of paranoid rants about a bunch of stuff, and it’s clear when you look at her account that she had some sort of mental breakdown. So trying to blame it on the astrology is misleading.
DRH: Like, super irresponsible reporting that also doesn’t facilitate any amount of like, compassionate understanding of what was transpiring within Danielle and also within her household prior to this particular event. It’s like, super harrowing.
CB: Yeah. And —
DRH: Yeah.
CB: Well, and also it was like, so clearly – you used the phrase at one point that some of the phrases used in the original article seemed like sort of like Satanic panic type things. Because at one point, like, it talks about how her place was strewn about with tarot cards and a black feather or something like that, and it’s like, obviously it’s trying to paint this specific picture even though what happened had this strong grounding in this like, sudden mental illness.
DRH: Yeah. It felt very salacious and sensationalist and unkind rather than truly investigative in terms of what was actually happening here. It almost feels like capitalizing on an angle that will get clicks versus having any kind of comprehensive understanding of what is happening with someone who had mental health history, like deep issues with their mental health history, that it wouldn’t – like, it’s not hard to see that that could also be happening now.
CB: Right. So it’s like, despite this, and despite it was misleading, the article went viral and was picked up by many other news outlets over the next couple of days who then repeated the claim from The LA Times article claiming that the murders were somehow due to the eclipse or claiming that she thought that the apocalypse was about to happen. But in her posts – I actually went back through her Twitter posts, and everyone can still do this – at one point in a Twitter post on like, March 28th, I think, she says that apocalypse means unveiling, and she said,
“Apocalypse means an unveiling of things not previously known.”
So that means that it was like, what happened is she was kind of like, mentally disturbed and got sucked into conspiracy theories where she thought she had become enlightened. So people even by saying that she though the apocalypse was gonna happen are actually misconstruing what she even said in her, you know, in the stuff that was happening towards the end of her life, and I’m —
DRH: Yeah.
CB: — actually…
DRH: I was just gonna say there’s an imposition of someone else’s definition of apocalypse in this particular circumstance.
CB: In order to suit like, a narrative that’s attempting to be constructed instead of just like, actually trying to document what happened with this person.
DRH: Yep.
CB: So what happened then is the story went viral, and when the story went viral, bigger news organizations picked up on it that did better reporting, and the Associated Press actually looked into it, and the very next day put out a story contradicting The LA Times’s article where they asked the police for an official statement, and the police said that they were not considering the eclipse to be the motivation. And I have this quote from the article; it said,
“While detectives have reviewed Johnson’s posts” on Twitter, implicitly, “police are not considering the eclipse to be a precipitating or contributing factor to the slayings.” From the police, “Because we just don’t know why she did what she did.”
So the Associated Press article completely contradicted the original article, but it was too late because it was out there and everybody just repeated the original story, and hundreds of news outlets had run the story that an astrologer had murdered people due to an eclipse. Even many astrologers repeated this false narrative, not realizing that the original news story had been highly speculative at best.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: So yeah. You say the sort of like, media frenzy surrounding it.
DRH: Yeah, huge media frenzy. Also one of the things that I found really upsetting was how many people were basically trying to claim that, you know, if Danielle, if Ayoka had been like, “better” at what she did, then this issue wouldn’t have happened, as though there’s like a moral component to the experience of mental health issues, when mental health issues are – like, they’re something that can strike anyone at any time, especially if you already have an established history of mental health issues. And blaming people for the experience of mental health breaks versus making clear that there are structures and support available whenever mental health is happening – like, that I find, I found it really upsetting when people were basically blaming her for this tragic event happening as though she should have known better simply because she’s a participant in the world of like, spirituality and things like that. Like, you know, if it was postpartum depression or postpartum psychosis, it’s like, that is a sign of insufficient resourcing, like personally and socially. Like, you know, in your own personal life, but also in a broader sense. And it could have been for a lot of these folks an opportunity to talk about how important it is that we show up for people in our community versus that impulse to distance of like, “Oh, I’m not like that.” Like there’s so much nuance that should have been happening instead of like, blame and dismissal and I don’t know. I could go on about it because I get quite flustered —
CB: Sure.
DRH: — around issues like this, so.
CB: Yeah. And it’s not that… Yeah. I mean, I think that was the major takeaway is that mental health is a really big issue, and that our society does not deal with it well, and that people fall between the cracks in society all the time, and that people need to understand – and I didn’t understand this until a few years ago when I had a first-hand experience with a friend who went through it that sometimes when a person has a mental break, they become a completely different person.
And I had this experience with a close friend of mine who was an astrologer named Kirk Kahn who completely became dissociated with reality, became sucked into conspiracy theory stuff, which just exacerbated the mania, and then eventually also took his own life. But it didn’t have to do with astrology; it had to do with he had developed a mental illness, and that there’s not a lot of tools in society to be able to help somebody especially when they’re that far gone or when something comes on very suddenly, you know, as a result of some sort of like, biological function that’s gotten out of whack.
So part of the take home lesson is, you know, try to take care of yourself as well as others. In general, astrologers should spend more time thinking about this, about mental health issues and even getting training on how to recognize and deal with it, or even when to know when something’s like, above your paygrade in terms of that somebody needs to be referred to professionals. But I hope this, in general at least, starts some sort of dialogue in the community about mental health issues, and that’s probably the better way we can deal with this instead of this like, attempt to sensationalize it.
DRH: Yeah. A hundred percent. And I think it also foregrounds like, you know, the worlds of astrology, wellness, spirituality, whatever, it’s like, they are industries in very many regards, but within these industries, there are communities that form and it’s really important to actually be in community with people who, with whom there’s sufficient trust that people can point out when you’re starting to shift in troublesome ways and to have other forms of community available. Like, to be able to contact people like, “Hey, I think this person is not doing so good. Can you check on them?” Like, there are ways that we can be much kinder to each other, both within the astrology sphere but also beyond it. And so much of the consequences of mental health issues come from insufficient community support.
CB: Right. For sure.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So other points – I mean, this story is a concerning additional instance. Another perspective on this story for me or another takeaway was that this was another concerning instance of a sort of anti-astrology trend that I’ve been nervous about coming about for a while now under the Saturn-Neptune conjunction in Pisces and Aries. And it gave, like you said, like a serious, Satanic panic type vibe from the 1980s, and what was bizarre is when you mentioned that to me, a day or two later on April 15th, the guy who actually created the whole Satanic panic thing in the 1980s, he actually passed away. He was 83 years old, and he actually passed away this month, which was a weird coincidence.
DRH: Yeah. And I know there’s an additional weird layer there with the Jupiter-Uranus things, but yeah. Especially as we’re coming up on like, the Saturn-Neptune conjunction and Saturn and Neptune moving into Aries together, being really conscientious about these sorts of issues just becomes even more crucial for a variety of reasons.
CB: Yeah, for sure. So while it’s important for astrologers to own up to our failures or our shortcomings in our community, it’s also important when that happens – when there’s genuine incidences like that that happen – it’s also important to push back on false narratives when they start being spread like this. And I did see some people doing that, like, you know, shout out for example to Kirah Tabourn who I saw calling out The LA Times in their post on this on Instagram. I think it’s important to balance those two things in terms of humility as a community sometimes when something not good does happen, but then also if this is gonna be part of a growing trend, astrologers need to learn how to kind of defend ourselves more if we’re being unfairly targeted.
DRH: Yeah, to push against misattribution like, in circumstances like this is super important.
CB: Yeah.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: So most of all, of course, our sympathies go out to the families of everyone involved in this just like, senseless tragedy. I hope that we can learn from it as a community and grow, and that it will open many eyes about mental health as a serious issue to help ensure that things like this don’t happen again or that somehow, you know, if there’s ways in which things like this develop, where hopefully in the future if people are more aware of it as a result of this instance they’re able to reach out to and help a friend if they see somebody struggling. And then hopefully, you know, if that happens and it raises awareness of it, hopefully something positive can come out of what was otherwise a terrible, terrible tragedy.
DRH: Yeah. Learn better. Learn to do better, as much as we can.
CB: Yeah. For sure.
All right, so those are the two primary things I wanted to mention for the eclipse. Moving on to other news and what is somehow ironically brighter news, let’s talk about the Mars-Saturn conjunction.
So the Mars-Saturn conjunction went exact on April 10th in the sign of Pisces. And previously, we talked in the last few forecast episodes, even the year ahead forecast, about expecting things like issues surrounding the water being poisoned or polluted as well as issues with floods. And I may splice in a clip here in editing of some of the clips to show you what we talked about in previous episodes with respect to that. So I’ll put that clip here right now.
AUSTIN COPPOCK: Yeah. The Mars-Saturn cycle, which is a two-year cycle, the Mars-Saturn conjunction – which marks the beginning and end of those – is sort of like a New Moon for double-malefic things, and as Chris said, this will be water element, so we’ll be looking for boat-on-boat violence. We’ll be looking for destructive waves, destructive storms and floods, etc.
CB: Yeah, the water being polluted or like, being poisoned.
So one of the things Austin and I have been discussing over the past few months with this conjunction is just this is the first time that we’re not having a Mars-Saturn conjunction in Aquarius and in that air sign in the past four years, but instead the conjunction’s happening in Pisces, in a water sign, and what that shift is from the metaphorical element of air where we had literally like an airborne disease or like, sickness that spread around the world, to having a Mars-Saturn conjunction in water and what that looks like in terms of… We’ve already seen since Saturn has been in Pisces over the past year, issues with like, difficulties with water, with like, pollution, with shipping and other things like that, but adding Mars on top of that you get this extra potentially difficult or destructive element on top of things.
DRH: Yeah. Contamination of water is something I’m definitely concerned about with just Saturn in Pisces in general, as well as like, water as a vector of disease.
CB: The water getting like, poisoned and becoming, instead of like a source for life, becoming a source for the opposite of life, for death in some ways.
All right, so those are some of the things that we said that we were anticipating previously. But then what actually happened around the conjunction lined up strikingly well. So the first story – and this was the most striking to me – is that on April 10th, exactly the very day of the conjunction, the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States issued the first ever national limits on forever chemicals in water. So this was huge. It fell right on the conjunction, and it’s the first national water limit for toxic chemicals, essentially. So forever chemicals are chemicals that don’t degrade in the environment, and they are linked to health issues like cancer, low birth weight, and liver disease. So with this new move, you’ve seen like, stuff with forever chemicals, right?
DRH: Yeah. I mean, like, a lot of them have just been kind of poo-pooed as to whether they’re very concerning, but at this point, there is so much documented evidence that they are, that they’re problems, that regulating them matters. Right? Like, regulating them is extremely important moving forward.
CB: Yeah. Well, it’s like, companies – we’ve been aware that these are damaging for health and that the chemicals don’t go away and stick around forever for decades. But the companies that manufactured some of the products would like, downplay and suppress some of the studies or lobby against rules being put in place. So some of the environmental protection agencies this week were – or environmental groups and health groups were – happy and like, elated with the news that something had finally been done, but they were saying, you know, this should have been dealt with decades ago.
So the limits will reduce the chemicals to their lowest traceable levels, and cities will have to start implementing new filtering equipment and testing over the next few years. And a side effect of that that’s interesting is that the price of water may go up due to the cost of the new filtration equipment, which is part of the tradeoff. But, you know, it’s a tradeoff between paying a little extra for water versus like, getting cancer from your water; I think that’s like, a fair trade in my opinion.
DRH: Yeah. It would be pretty cool if the companies that produced the chemicals were responsible for paying for removing them from the environment, but we can’t have everything.
CB: Yeah. We’ll see what happens in the future with other lineups in Pisces, but that was a big story for just like, Mars conjunction Saturn in Pisces and as we’ve been seeing like, Pisces relating to water. And it’s so literal that like, when I first started doing forecast episodes and trying to forecast world events, I wouldn’t think like, astrology was that simple and that literal, but it literally is —
DRH: But it is.
CB: — sometimes.
DRH: It literally is.
CB: It really is.
DRH: Yeah. Constrictions on poisons and especially like, the forever chemicals component – like, I wanna emphasize the saturnian element of that. Right? Where it’s like, Saturn is both constriction but also like, eternity. So to have regulations put in place to mitigate forever chemicals, it’s just, it’s too on the nose.
CB: Right. Well, and it’s like, Mars and Saturn conjunctions in ancient astrology were traditionally, they’re the two malefic planets, the two most negative planets, so when they would align in certain signs, it was associated with like, pestilences and wars and death and all these sorts of things. And Pisces is one of the three water signs, and as we’ve seen ever since Saturn went into Pisces last year, every time there’s an important development with Saturn in Pisces, there’s just like, something happens related to water.
DRH: Yep.
CB: In this instance, though, it was interesting because the Mars-Saturn conjunction indicated like, restrictions being put on place and like, rules and regulations, which actually are positive things even though it’s bringing it to bear on something that’s negative.
DRH: Yeah. Like, the preservation of life-giving stuff versus the worsening of the health of life-giving stuff.
CB: Yeah. So we’ll see that, I think connected with Mars-Saturn but also Jupiter-Uranus in Taurus as an earthy, environmental sign that there was a string of other rules and regulations that were put in place this month that we’ll talk about that I think were also important.
DRH: Yeah, a hundred percent.
CB: All right. So in other news, there was one other water story I caught. I opened up The Washington Post on April 17th and there was this headline that said, “Texas Hack May Be First Disruption of US Water System By Russia,” and the story was about a town in Texas that had their water control systems hacked by online hackers in January, and the hackers posted a video after that they had gotten into those systems. But what happened is that on April 17th, a major cybersecurity firm reported that the source of the hack was a major Russian group that was behind it or had conducted it or carried it out, and that there were other towns that may have been targeted as well. So it’s interesting to me because it’s like, the news came to light fully now at the Mars-Saturn conjunction and also that it raised the alarm that this may be a larger issue or vulnerability in terms of the nation’s water supply and that that’s a potential target for foreign entities.
DRH: I think it’s also interesting that this is coming after eclipse season, since eclipses often come with concealment or revealment of things that were previously the other direction. So that layering of signification like, post eclipse season plus Mars-Saturn equals revelations around the identities of people implicated in messing around with water systems.
CB: For sure. And also that theme again of sometimes an eclipse indicates a small beginning of something that looks minor at the time but then later turns out in the future like, snowballs into a bigger thing. So it’s like, if that ever becomes a bigger thing, we’ll look back to this point and realize this was an early like, warning sign.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So those are two of the water-related things that happened this month. The other major water-related thing is right in the middle of the month, the week of April 16th, social media was flooded with – metaphorically flooded with – videos and pictures from Dubai where there was just this major, major flooding where there were these torrential rain storms that just dumped huge, huge amounts of rain all at once in the region. And we were seeing these just like, wild videos on social media of airplanes that were just completely submerged in like, lakes of water as well as cars and businesses all around the city that were also submerged in like, huge pools of water. It was pretty wild.
DRH: Camels out in the desert just like, trying to brace against this onslaught of water. Just wild stuff.
CB: Yeah. It was really wild to see, you know, lining up with that Mars-Saturn conjunction. And you know, the city wasn’t really designed to handle storms of that magnitude, and some of the discussion surrounding it is that the UAE regularly uses cloud seeding to encourage rain in the dry climate. And people started speculating about whether that could have impacted things, which I thought was interesting as a component with the Mars-Saturn and Jupiter-Uranus conjunctions taking place at the same time. But then in response to this, some of the follow up coverage I saw said that climate scientists were tending to say that it may have more to do with global warming actually. And that same week around April 19th, Russia and Kazakhstan suffered their worst flooding in 80 years.
DRH: There were like, over 100,000 – was it 100,000 or 200,000? Like, massive numbers of people who were evacuated out of Kazakhstan and like, Russia close to Kazakhstan because of this flooding. So lots of flooding in the middle of April.
CB: Yeah. That’s really wild. So yeah, we got two very literal manifestations of that, of the things that we said in the previous forecast episodes, which is like, water being poisoned and floods. So there was one other, there was another major news story that coincided with the Mars-Saturn conjunction that you were really following closely, right?
DRH: Yeah, that was the resuscitation of Arizona’s abortion ban, which comes from like, the 1800s essentially. And that came – well, it was sort of brought up right around the Mars-Saturn conjunction after the eclipse and set off additional abortion debates around the legality of enforcing laws from, especially in that particular instance there were a lot of people talking about the correctness of enforcing laws about women that were put in place before women could vote. So an ancient law that’s constricting agency – Saturn, Mars – and then if we also think about Pisces as Venus’s exaltation, there’s additional layers there in terms of the rights of women.
CB: Yeah, for sure. And that just set off a huge firestorm, and then of course put the focus, because of election season, on abortion rights and women’s rights issues since that’s really front and center in terms of the presidential election this year and what happens in November.
DRH: Yeah. And then there’s, you know, more recently, there’s been additional stuff with the Supreme Court discussing the abortion laws in Idaho.
CB: And what’s the deal with that?
DRH: Oh, that’s just like, Idaho’s current anti-abortion laws mean that women who are undergoing say like, non-desired miscarriage that would need abortion kinds of healthcare have to be airlifted out of the state unless they meet very, very strict requirements according to Idaho’s laws around abortion.
CB: Wow.
DRH: So that’s been being, that was discussed quite heartily by the Supreme Court this week.
CB: Right.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: Okay. Yeah, so those are some of the Mars-Saturn stuff that happened, yeah, with some bad stuff and some otherwise good sort of progress-oriented things. Some progress and the opposite, I guess.
DRH: Yep. Forward and backwards, which I feel like is emblematic of Saturn in generally, so.
CB: Right.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: All right. So moving on, the next major alignment that happened, of course, this month was the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Taurus, which went exact on April 20th. But this is such a major outer planet alignment it only happens every 14 years, so it was really in effect all month. But it was wild seeing just the wave of stories that really picked up around the time of the exact conjunction, especially that week around April 20th.
DRH: Yeah, I was noticing a lot of things that were happening basically as soon as Jupiter was within like, a degree of Uranus. Like, the window for it was quite broad.
CB: Yeah, for sure. And so let’s see – the big one is, you know, Jupiter-Uranus I just did two episodes about this, one with Richard Tarnas and then one with Patrick Watson, and I recorded both of those on the same day on April 17th before the conjunction had gone exact. And one of the things we focused on in both episodes but I expanded on a lot in the episode with Patrick was that Jupiter-Uranus conjunctions often coincide with uprisings, revolts, and revolutions. So for example, the last Jupiter-Uranus conjunction occurred 14 years ago, and it coincided perfectly with the beginning of the Arab Spring. There was also one in 1968 through 1970 that coincided with a string of protests during that period against the Vietnam War. And also, Jupiter-Uranus conjunctions have coincided with both the beginning of the American Revolutionary War as well as the beginning of the French Revolution. So it’s like, that gives you some idea of the nature of that conjunction going into it, and then of course, what ended up happening pretty much right on the conjunction was the university protests, which started at Columbia University around April 17th. Or actually, it started exactly on April 17th where there were coalitions of student groups who are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, and they’re also asking universities or demanding universities to divest from weapons manufacturers that are selling arms to Israel. So they started setting up encampments and also defying pressure to disperse. The protests started at Columbia on April 17th, but then they spread to many other campuses around the country.
DRH: I believe there’s like, at least 70 campuses now. I might be wrong about that number, but I saw a number yesterday – I think it was like, at – 61 universities, thank you. There’s somebody in the chat saying 61. But very many universities are – like, very many students at very many universities are participating in this protest at this point.
CB: Right. Yeah, it’s just huge. And it started at Columbia on the 17th, but then I noticed it started becoming reported really heavily in the news right around the time of the conjunction on the 20th. I saved this one headline which was from The Washington Post on April 22nd that said, “Dozens of Pro-Palestinian Protestors Arrested at Yale and New York University.” So, you know, that’s April 22nd, and that was just two days after the conjunction that it just exploded, both in terms of the protests but also in terms of the media coverage of it.
So many people have been making comparisons to campus protests that happened in 1968, ‘69, and ‘70 where students were protesting the Vietnam War, and what’s interesting from an astrological standpoint, of course, that all astrologers know immediately is that those were also years in which Jupiter and Uranus were conjunct by sign or even by degree. Because it was – it’s kind of interesting because in the late ‘60s, Uranus was in late Virgo moving into Libra, so that ended up extending the sign-based conjunction between Jupiter and Uranus where they were conjunct for at least a year in Virgo by sign, and then Uranus moved into Libra around the same time Jupiter moves into Libra, so then they get an extended sign-based conjunction for another year or year and a half in Libra. So it ends up perfectly falling across that timeframe of 1968, ‘69, and ‘70 that everyone’s like, drawing comparisons to right now.
DRH: Yep. And it’s interesting that it’s including an earth sign and a Venus-ruled sign, so there’s like, additional elements of overlay, significations-wise, with this conjunction happening in Taurus, which is a Venus-ruled earth sign.
CB: Totally. That’s a really good point. And also, that one was interesting because if you go back and look at some of the events like Tarnas documents it pretty extensively in Cosmos and Psyche, but one of the events in that Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Libra that was always the most striking to me was in 1969, the Stonewall riots, which became such a huge pivotal turning point in the gay rights movements, started with a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction when Uranus had just moved into zero degrees of Libra.
DRH: Yeah. And it’s, you know, one of the things that I think is really interesting about the protests that are happening on campuses now and the campus protests that were happening in ‘68, ‘69, ‘70 is the focus on “we don’t wanna be at war,” which really brings in that Venusian element, I think, of we are fighting to not be fighting in this way, essentially.
CB: Right. As well as like, the rebelliousness of youth and that when you try to clamp down and suppress something, it sometimes just makes it grow even —
DRH: Makes it bigger.
CB: — more, especially during Jupiter-Uranus alignments. And that was something we saw a lot like, 14 years ago with the Arab Spring.
DRH: Yes. Yeah.
CB: So at this point, at least 900 people have been arrested on campuses across the US, including some professors, some of which were trying to shield students or protect students. And the crackdowns have been really severe in some instances, which is somewhat nervous because it’s reminiscent of Kent State in 1970 where some students that were protesting were murdered, and that happened under a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Libra. So that makes me nervous. Some colleges have stopped doing in-person classes and some have even canceled graduation ceremonies as a result of everything going on. In terms of the astrology, the last thing I noticed was that the Columbia encampment and their protest that started everything was first set up supposedly at dawn on April 17th. And if that’s true, it’s actually really striking because it means, I assume what that means is that it began basically just after sunrise on April 17th, and if that’s true, then this is roughly what the chart would look like set for 6:30 AM in New York, and it would have Taurus rising. And so basically in the first hour or two of them launching this protest, the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction actually would’ve been rising up over the eastern horizon at that time just three days —
DRH: Within a degree.
CB: Yeah, within a degree just three days before it went exact.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: So and we can see it here at 21 degrees of Taurus. So that’s pretty striking in terms of the astrology and how well that lined up and of course we’ll return back to that a little bit later because of course in this coming month, a bunch of the inner planets are about to move into Taurus where they’re going to conjoin and potentially accentuate or exacerbate some of the things going on with that conjunction.
DRH: Yeah. It’s a story that continues. It’s not done yet.
CB: Yeah, for sure. All right. So moving on to the next story – another really major thing that happened, and this happened on the exact day of the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction on April 20th, is that the US House passed a massive aid package that included Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. And this package also included a ban on TikTok if the company doesn’t sell it. So the bill included 60 billion dollars for Ukraine, 26 billion for Israel, and 9 billion for Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific. So I thought this was really striking because this conjunction is actually a repetition of a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction that occurred in 1941, and on April 17th just three days before this bill was passed in the episode I did on Jupiter-Uranus conjunctions part two with Patrick, I actually talked about this a lot, how when I went back and I was studying 1941 and what the repetition and comparison is of today versus now, one of the major news stories that I kept hitting on in 1941 when Jupiter and Uranus were conjoined in Taurus again was that President Roosevelt got passed the Lend-Lease Bill. And that bill sent arms and food and supplies to the Allies to fight against the Axis powers such as Nazi Germany while keeping the US at that point ostensibly neutral. But it ended up becoming a precursor to entering into the war later that year after Pearl Harbor occurred.
So the parallel with that is completely striking because I had focused on that just three days before it happened, and then they passed basically a similar bill sending a bunch of aid to especially Ukraine just three days later on the 20th. So this does make me, you know, nervous a little bit if the comparison is 1941, just because then the potential implication is that the US is preparing to enter some sort of war with Russia and/or China.
DRH: Yep.
CB: Yeah.
DRH: Yeah. Plus the ongoing situation in the Middle East, which doesn’t really ever seem to end, so.
CB: Yeah. And then of course we’re all – astrologers have been talking for over a decade now, or maybe longer at this point, maybe a century now about the impending Uranus transit into Gemini and how that’s coincided with the Civil War and World War Two previously the two other times it happened in US history as well as the American Revolutionary War.
DRH: Yes.
CB: One part of this bill that I think Austin will appreciate – I haven’t mentioned it to him yet, but the last time I checked in with him, he asked me – I was telling him all the like, crazy stuff because he’s checked out from the news right now and I was telling him all the crazy stuff about what was happening with the Mars-Saturn conjunction and everything else this month and the eclipses. And he was like, “Was there any submarine stuff?” Because he was like, that was one of the predictions that I made and that was one of the things I was really anticipating that there might be some sort of submarine stuff. And I just found a quote in one of the articles; it says that some three point three billion dollars of the stuff of the bill that’s allocated for Taiwan will be allocated to developing submarine infrastructure. So somehow submarine warfare is like, a major part of what that money allocation is for, so I think Austin will get a kick out of that in terms of the ongoing symbolism. Because of course last year when Saturn moved into Pisces, the very first time it stationed, of course, the first major like, news event that happened was that crazy media firestorm around the submarine that had those people —
DRH: Yeah, the millionaire submarine? Yeah.
CB: Yeah. That had those people trapped in it and then imploded, but it was like this weeklong media sensation. So I think that was part of it as well as some of the shipping lane issues and other boat-related issues like the boat that slammed into the bridge and collapsed it, so that —
DRH: And the orcas rising up against yachts —
CB: Right.
DRH: — also being a part of this.
CB: Yeah. So submarines was the last like, checkmark we were looking for, and I think we’ve started to see the submarine part. Yeah. Astrology’s very literal, you know, example 300,067.
All right, so I think that’s good for that. But definitely check out the Jupiter-Uranus part two with Patrick for more on how this repetition connects with other events in 1941, and you’ll hear some other stuff that’s striking for today as well.
All right. Moving onto other stories. On April 18th, just two days before the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction, the company Meta, which is the parent company that owns Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp, released a new artificial intelligence where it releases their new AI model called Llame Three. So this was striking because one, this is an open source AI model, but two, and more importantly, they immediately integrated this AI which acts like a chatbot into all of its properties, which includes Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. And this is really important because this is essentially a free AI chat app that they just put in the hands of literally billions and billions of people who were given free access to this when it was rolled out all at the same time on April 18th. So I think that makes this the biggest single AI rollout ever, and it puts Facebook and Meta in direct competition with Google and with Open AI, the makers of ChatGPT. Yeah, and it’s just huge. Like, while some people – I was reflecting on it, and while some people may have like, initially tried out ChatGPT or maybe you’ve tried like, the Google chatbot or something like that and then forgot about it, this is now like, integrated into an app that billions of people use on a daily basis. And the symbolic like, significance of that happening right on the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction is just kind of astounding.
DRH: Yeah. I mean, it’s one of these things where it brings up the – how do I put this? Like, I think about the physical component of technology and how the more integrated the physical thing of technology is, the easier it is to then add the less physical things. So everybody has phones in their hands, and so many people – like, so, so, so many people – use Instagram and Facebook and rely on WhatsApp as a primary messaging tool. So the ease of access to this particular AI functionality is significantly greater because you don’t have to go search for it; it’s literally integrated into something that’s already physically integrated into your life, bringing in some of that Taurus component that you know, has a very expansive – Jupiter keyword – on the interconnectivity across lines that are not… Like, lines of connection that require technology in order for that to happen, which is one of the ways I think about Uranus and Uranus’s association with technology. Like, it’s beyond normal reality. It requires this additional technological participation. So it just really is expanding that technical component.
CB: Yeah. For sure. And it’s like, in the two Jupiter-Uranus episodes with Tarnas especially in Cosmos and Psyche, he just emphasizes how technological advancements start happening really rapidly. There’s these like, big quantum leaps that happen around the time of Jupiter-Uranus conjunctions. And this really seems to be a great example of one of those, of just it was only a little over a year ago, like a year and a half ago, that the whole AI craze started when OpenAI released ChatGPT in like, late November, early December of 2022. And here we are a year, year and a half later, a year into Jupiter and Uranus being copresent in Taurus at the very tail end of it, and all of a sudden we get an AI integrated into billions of people’s phones and computers just in the blink of an eye overnight.
DRH: Yeah. It’s astounding. Really changes the landscape quickly.
CB: Yeah. Well and one of the things is we can’t even see the implications of the ways that this is gonna affect so many different people’s lives. We’ll see it in retrospect, but we can’t even fully imagine like, right now, how that might affect things or how that’s gonna change the course of potentially like, human history in different, interesting, maybe either major or moderate or minor ways in the future. But we know that because it happened close to that conjunction that this was an important turning point.
DRH: Yep.
CB: Yeah.
DRH: Yep. And you played with that a little bit, right?
CB: I played with it a little bit. I asked it some questions. It was pretty decent. It was like, comparable to the other AIs. There was like, a weird thing, though, that happened. Nicholas Polimenakos sent me this where on Instagram’s Facebook account, like their official Facebook page, they put out this post where it said – on April 25th, it said to do – it was like a status update – it says, “To do: Ask Meta AI for today’s horoscope.” So it’s like, Instagram – which is owned by Meta and that put out the AI – is like, suggesting people like, they’re telling them basically that they can look up their horoscope. And when I did this, I said, “Give me today’s horoscope for Aquarius rising.” And it generated like, a horoscope for Aquarius rising, and then at the source at the bottom, it said, “Source: Bing search.” So I clicked on it, and it brought up a bunch of search results for like, “What is Aquarius’s horoscope for today?” And I’m trying to understand fully what that means, but I think that means that it’s aggregating – it went through all those pages that came up in the search results of different horoscopes that had been written for Aquarius for today, and it read those pages and then aggregated together and wrote a sort of synthesis of all of them in an AI. Which, if that’s true, is both on the one hand striking in terms of the technology and that it can do that, but then on the other hand obviously is disturbing and brings up the issues of like, copyright and plagiarism and all those other things that have been so hotly discussed when it comes to AI over the past year.
DRH: Yep. Yeah. I’m also reminded of the various – like, I think – what was it called? Nightshade or something? But like, the various complicators that have been created to like, kind of poison AI models and whether there will be like, especially thinking about, you know, it’s like, for now Mars and Saturn are still together, but I wonder if there might be a revelation at some point soon of something developed under Mars-Saturn that’s, you know, like, if we’re thinking about poisons in the water, like poisons that people can use to try to detract or dissuade AI from crawling their own sites.
CB: Right. Like if you can either opt out or if you can find ways to like, get it to not do that to like, hack it or something like that.
DRH: Yeah, to shield in some way, or otherwise like, corrupt the programs and their processes.
CB: Yeah. That will be —
DRH: That’s a TBD.
CB: That’ll be interesting to see for sure. All right. So moving on – just a few more. One major like, news story, one other major one that I saw – because I was trying to pay attention to what other major news events happened around the time of the conjunction or what major news events happened that didn’t seem major but could be —
DRH: Could become?
CB: Yeah. Like, Tarnas has a whole chapter called “Hidden Births,” and he uses this analogy of like, sometimes there’s almost like, a birth in a manger of something that doesn’t seem really big at first, but it actually is because it’s like the seeds of a plant that will then grow and develop and become like, a huge thing that we’ll look back on in retrospect and realize. Like, he used the example of how Darwin announced his theory of evolution on a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction, but at the time in like, the scientific review journal at the end of the year, the lead scientist looked back over the journal and said, “Nothing much important happened this year, so sorry.” Like, better luck next year. But it turned out he just wasn’t recognizing that this hugely important theory or discovery that would change our understanding of biology and even theology and other things like that —
DRH: And sociology and all sorts of things, yeah.
CB: Right. Yeah. So sometimes that happens, so you gotta pay attention to these things. I think I found that thing. So on April 19th, literally the day before the conjunction – and actually, shout out to astrologer Debra Goldsman who brought this story to my attention – but on April 19th, a group of 40 academics held a conference on animal consciousness, and they issued a three-point declaration that 40 of the academics signed at this conference. And in essence, the declaration – it’s titled “The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness” – and the declaration aims to shift our understanding of animal consciousness and promote greater ethical concern for the wellbeing of animals. So here’s the declaration. You can actually find it online just by searching “the New York declaration of animal consciousness,” and they have the date on it – April 19th, 2024. It’s actually very short. It’s just a three-point declaration. But it reads,
“Which animals have the capacity for conscious experience? While much uncertainty remains, some points of wide agreement have emerged. First, there is strong scientific support for attributions of conscious experience to other mammals and to birds. Second, the empirical evidence indicates that at least a realistic possibility of conscious experience in all vertebrates, including reptiles, amphibians, and fishes, and many invertebrates, including at minimum cephalopod mollusks, decapod crustaceans, and insects. Third” – and final point – “when there is a realistic possibility of conscious experience in an animal, it is irresponsible to ignore that possibility in decisions affecting that animal. We should consider welfare risks and use the evidence to inform our responses to these risks.”
And then it was signed by 39 or 40 people who were like, professors of different universities and different researchers from universities around the world. So I think this is really significant; it happened as the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction also happened in the sign of Taurus, you know, which is an earth sign. And we had been looking for something that would fit the symbolism of like, earth sign and the connection with the environment and with nature but also potentially with animals, and I think this is it.
DRH: Yeah. It’s also really interesting because one, it brings up the question of the definition of consciousness. Like, as I was doing some reading around this, it seems like consciousness as it’s often defined in spaces in science, it’s basically the ability to self-reflect, to have a certain level of interior, subjective thoughts about experiences, versus like, sentience would just be as simple as has senses and responds to sensory inputs. Consciousness is inclusive of interior thinking and evidence of interior thinking. And so what’s additionally interesting, and this is one of the things that I feel like we’ve talked about before a little bit, which is the way that this is coming up alongside the increase in AI and the resulting conversations around consciousness in AI. And —
CB: Yeah.
DRH: — in both of these instances, the definition of consciousness is also a definition that creates the lines of who counts or what counts as being cared for from a moral and ethical perspective. One of the things that we were talking about in our prep show – not prep show, prep conversation – is this definition of robot, which – I said I was gonna do this and I didn’t, but – robot comes from the work of, I believe, a Czech playwright who used the word “robot” as an extension of the concept of slavery where like, we create machines to do the tasks that we previously gave to enslaved humans. And so a robot is functionally a mechanical slave. And the more “intelligent” a machine becomes, the more complicated the ethical and moral implications are of using that machine without the inclusion of consent processes. And the same thing is applicable for animal consciousness, other than human animals – thank you to this particular person in the chat, it’s from Capek’s play Rossum’s Universal Robots, which came out in 1920.
CB: Thanks to Jane Pierce and Maire Masco in the chat.
DRH: Yeah. That was – you’re so fast. So fast on that. Thank you.
CB: We have our own like, AI like, Meta brain working with us.
DRH: Yeah. A hundred percent. Thank you. I appreciate the contribution. So —
CB: Maybe not AI; it’s not artificial. It’s just the “i” – it’s just intelligence.
DRH: It’s just intelligence. It’s more like —
CB: Yeah.
DRH: — CI, like collective intelligence, than AI —
CB: Exactly.
DRH: — artificial intelligence.
CB: The hive mind.
DRH: Hive mind. I love that.
CB: Yeah.
DRH: So yeah, there’s a real question around like, ethics, morals, and consent whenever these questions of definition of consciousness arise. And all of this is presuming – like, all of these kinds of questions around AI consciousness and other-than-human animal consciousness, it continually centers human consciousness as the highest form that we are somehow in a position to ascertain and determine the consciousness of other beings and thereby have to adjust our behavior in relationship with those other beings, which really complicates a materialist worldview.
CB: Yeah. I think that’s such a brilliant point. I was actually really excited when you made that point that it’s like, this conversation now about animal consciousness is taking place, but it’s like, there’s already been a conversation that’s parallel about artificial intelligence and whether you can create an actual genuine consciousness in machines and what that’ll look like and then what the implications are and then what society will be like and different things like that. This is a perfect parallel with like, the already existing natural world and to go to your point, a tendency for humans to put their own type of consciousness and specific version of it at the top of like, a pyramid, and then to rank everything else below that in some sort of descending, often like, subjugated order of animal, machine, whatever. But with both of these developments, it’s almost like pointing in a direction of expanding the definition of what consciousness is and what constitutes consciousness. And I think if that really starts happening in a large scale way, that’s gonna force a lot of like, things to have to be redefined in pretty significant ways.
DRH: Yeah. Including the definition of what contributes to humans being human versus any other kind of animal. Consciousness and definitions of consciousness have been really important to protecting humans, like the concept of humans, as separate from and more special than other animals on this planet for a long time. And that’s even a contributing factor in various forms and applications of racism and sexism is, you know, when it comes to sexism, it’s like, women’s consciousness being influenced by the fact that they have uteruses and so they get hysterical and so we can’t trust them to make certain kinds of choices. Like, that being a very overt sexist position. Same thing with the misapplication of Darwin’s evolutionary theory to like, races of humans as a way to de-conscious-ify like, black and brown people around the world for a long time in order to render them more animal-like than human-like, and therefore more okay to oppress and subjugate and exploit for labor. So there’s also something interesting here that I think has strong potential of happening at a higher level and a broader conversation, which is if consciousness exists in these beings that humans consistently or at least scientific materialist humans in the “West” consistently say as below humans, at what point do we have broader conversations around consciousness that is “above” humans but that we haven’t perceived as such? Whether we’re talking in terms of god and spirit but also potentially thinking about like, ecosystem consciousness. Like, what is the consciousness of an ecological system, and how much different that is than our current conception of consciousness landing in individual beings?
CB: You know, I hadn’t thought of this, but now that you mention that, that’s one of the like, little almost throwaway lines that Tarnas has in Cosmos and Psyche, which is he says that the Gaia hypothesis was introduced at a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction at some point in the 20th century.
DRH: Yeah. So you know, that – wow. Wow. That’s really cool. I forgot about that particular tie-in from Tarnas.
CB: And that’s the idea that —
DRH: Yeah.
CB: — like the earth itself is like a living entity of some sort.
DRH: Yeah. It’s like if we are functionally bacteria on planet earth in the same way that we have bacteria inside of our bodies, that kind of thing.
CB: Right.
DRH: Fascinating. We’ll see.
CB: Yeah, that’s amazing. So yes, I think, you know, the implications are – like you were saying – it’s gonna raise all sorts of different broader ethical quandaries in terms of animals and in terms of like, how we treat the environment in terms of destroying habitats that are lived in animals but because we value their conscious less, that’s seen as permissible, but then all of a sudden, if something’s treated as the same level of consciousness as a human, then like, does that change the math in terms of that as well as other considerations like the eating of animals, for example, in terms of vegetarianism or veganism as well as an issue. And then as we’ve talked about before, and I talked about with Austin a few times and trying to warn him, I know he’s gonna have a hard time with this one, but I think at some point if humans create AI consciousness and it is deemed to be sentient and stuff at some point in creating another sentient consciousness that’s not human that’s from machines, like, there are at some point gonna be interesting social issues about interactions between humans and machines and different like, social quandaries that come up. Like, you know, human and AI relationships and things like that and the different things associated that will become debated as like a sort of social as well as theological and other issues in society.
DRH: Yeah. For some reason, I’m thinking about what was it called? Was it the technological or the AI jihad from the world of Dune? Which is, it’s like what sets up the story of Dune at some point in the past there was an elimination of all computers whose programming was too similar to human thinking as sort of a prevention of the creation of certain kinds of artificial intelligence that could compete with human intelligence. Anyway.
CB: Right. Yeah.
DRH: Niche reference.
CB: No, that’s good. They banned – in the Dune world —
DRH: Butlerian jihad is what it’s called. Thank you, chat.
CB: They don’t actually explain this very well in the movies that just came out that in the Dune universe that they’ve banned all artificial intelligence and therefore like, humans end up having to take on the role of computers, both in doing calculations as well as calculating routes for space travel. And that’s why the spice is so important from Dune.
DRH: Yep. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. All right. So anyway. So we’ll track that, but that could be again a big piece of news because it fits the bill of like, things that seem that they could be small at time but end up becoming something much larger. So we’ll see how that goes in the future.
DRH: Planting an acorn if we’re gonna bring the Jupiter back in. It’s like, just seems like a little hill of dirt with a seed in it, but at some point, it becomes a very large oak.
CB: Yeah, exactly. And that people in the future are gonna look back at like, the news headlines from this week where there was like – one of the things I – yeah, they’ll look back at the news headlines this week and they’ll see that on April 19th, like, headlines like this one from NBC News – “Scientists Push a New Paradigm of Animal Consciousness Saying Even Insects May Be Sentient: Far more animals previously thought likely to have consciousness, top scientists say in a new declaration, including fish, lobsters, and octopus.” That people look back at some point in the history books and will note this date as being like, one of those significant dates, and as astrologers, we’ll know and we’ll all remember now collectively that this is the day before the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction.
DRH: Yep.
CB: All right. Other news stories – there were a few regulatory ones that was all really interesting and you had a few major ones that you wanted to mention, right?
DRH: Yeah. So there were three like, regulation ones in particular that were really notable to me that corresponded both with the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction but also Mercury stationing direct in Aries conjoined the North Node. So the first is that – or what I think has the largest, the broadest significance is that the FCC restored net neutrality on April 25th. And that was something that was repealed during the Trump administration and was potentially creating issues around the consequences of the necessity of the internet at this point for broader function. So with the restoration of net neutrality, ideally that should improve people’s access to internet and the fairness of pricing around the internet and things like that. The other —
CB: It is also means just that like, companies can’t – that the internet is openly accessible and even to all and that —
DRH: Yes.
CB: — companies can’t throttle access to different websites based on how much you pay or based on how much the company has paid the internet service provider, that it’s like, an open and free information superhighway.
DRH: Yes. Yeah. And that is like, a default necessity for people at this point, and so should not be unfairly throttled —
CB: Right —
DRH: — because of that.
CB: It’s like, without that, service providers could manipulate what we see and do online just based on their own interests.
DRH: And yeah, based on their own interests and based on successful bribing, like bribing schemes and things like that.
CB: Right. Yeah.
DRH: So also beneficial for consumer protection is that the – what is it? The FAA, I think?
CB: Yeah.
DRH: Has now put forth a – no, it’s the Department of Transportation put forth a declaration that airlines now have to give you cash refunds when flights are canceled or adjusted excessively due to the airline’s own issues. So in the past, like up to this point, airlines will maybe give people vouchers or flight credits or things like that, and so this is putting pressure on airlines to actually refund customers instead. And theoretically, this could really improve a lot of the issues that people have been experiencing with flying lately.
CB: Yeah, I just found a headline. It says, “Airlines Will Now Be Required To Give Automatic Refunds For Canceled and Delayed Flights.” But then it’s funny, actually – it ties in with one of your other stories, but I found when I was searching for the results, an Onion headline came up and it says, “Airlines Now Required to Refund Canceled or Delayed Flights in Cash” – or “in Crash?” Yeah. It’s —
DRH: Yeah.
CB: And you had a story about that because the Onion was just sold, right?
DRH: Yeah, so the Onion was just sold from the conglomerate that used to own it, that owned it and then kind of gutted it for several years. It’s been sold, and at least one of the people that it’s been sold to is somebody that also works with The Daily Beast, so there’s this potential of The Onion sort of coming back to some of its glory days as a satirical “news source,” which felt to me – and that announcement went up the day Mercury stationed direct. And it just feels very hijinks-y which to me is like, a stationing Mercury conjunct the North Node; it’s very like, clown country right there.
CB: Totally. And with the airline thing, it’s interesting because that was one of the things Tarnas documented very well in Cosmos and Psyche was just the continued connection between Jupiter-Uranus conjunctions and flight. Like the Wright brothers took their first flight at a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in like, 1900, and some of the stuff with like, spaceflight ended up being Jupiter-Uranus conjunction and then eventually we landed on the Moon at a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction. So it’s funny, even though this is somewhat minor and this country specific, it’s still funny to see a major national story involving airplanes in the news.
DRH: Yeah, that’s hilarious. I love that. For some reason, that’s also making me think about all of the satellites that have been getting launched while Jupiter and Uranus have been together in Taurus, like all the SpaceX satellites and Starlink satellites.
CB: Right.
DRH: So anyway, the other like, regulatory news that I think is really, really huge and also ties into one of the other news stories that I’m tying in with Jupiter-Uranus is that the FTC put a ban on non-compete agreements, saying that it’s essentially unlawful to continue to control somebody’s form of work just because they worked with you at some point. And so that… Like, that particular story came out on April 23rd, and the implications mean that there are a lot of people that have non-compete contracts that are now basically null and void. And you actually had a story kind of about that; I don’t know if you wanted to talk about it.
CB: I mean, the day before this happened, I was literally just sent a contract that somebody wanted me to sign that I wasn’t gonna sign because it had a non-compete. And then they literally had to send me a revised one a couple days later after that law passed and they had to take out the non-compete part.
DRH: Yeah. Super beneficial for workers. And that actually brings me to the last thing, which is I know last month I was talking quite a bit about like, union stuff when it comes to Jupiter-Uranus. That’s something I’ve really been paying attention to. And this month, the United Auto Workers finally successfully did a vote to unionize a Volkswagen factory in Tennessee. And it’s a factory that they’ve had votes at a couple of different times through the years non-successfully, but this time it was successful. The vote happened on April 17th, which is the same day that the protests started at Columbia and is the same day that Jupiter was within like, half a degree of its conjunction with Uranus. And then the announcement that the vote went through was on April 20th whenever the conjunction was exact. And this is pretty big news because it’s I think one of the first unionized auto factories in the south, and opens up doors for continued unionization in factories in the southern United States.
CB: Nice.
DRH: And I think that’s pretty cool.
CB: Yeah. That’s really cool. That’s all really cool. I mean, there’s just this string of – it was interesting seeing with Mars-Saturn conjunction at the same time all month and then also Jupiter-Uranus at the same time that there was just this string of regulation and regulatory things, but they were often like, positive ones that were consumer oriented or people oriented or yeah. It was just interesting seeing the combination of those two and having it be positive rules that were being put in place, and I think that fits the symbolism of both of those conjunctions really well.
DRH: Yeah. It’s like, rules that bolster a better distribution of resources could even be one way of thinking about all of these things. You know, with like, net neutrality, we’re broadening the resource of the internet and allowing it to be a true resource versus an excessively gatekept resource. When it comes to the airlines situation, instead of airlines getting to keep people’s money resource hostage whenever they make changes, they actually have to return those resources. With the FTC ban on non-compete agreements, that’s allowing people to maintain access to themselves as a resource that isn’t being dictated by their previous employers. And then with the unionization, like, one of the things that goes along with unionization is a better distribution of the resources produced by whatever got unionized. So it’s pretty cool all around.
CB: That’s brilliant.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: Cool. Well, those are the Jupiter-Uranus stories that we found as well as the other news stories, but I’m sure there’s others. Like, some of those ones that I caught like the animal consciousness one, it wouldn’t have come across my desk or have been on my radar if it wasn’t sent in by a listener. So I’m sure there’s other stories out there that were important but are maybe a little understated or that I haven’t found yet, or maybe not a lot of people have heard about. So if you have an interesting story that you think matches especially the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction since that has longer term implications, let me know by posting a comment especially below this video on YouTube in the YouTube section comments, and maybe in that way we can sort of like, crowd-source the research surrounding and fully understanding what happened at that conjunction that is significant historically and for the future.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: Cool. All right. I think that’s good for the news section, so why don’t we take a little break?
All right, so we’re back, and before we jump into the forecast section, I wanted to give a shout out to our sponsors this month, which is the CHANI astrology app and the Northwest Astrological Conference.
So the CHANI app is an awesome astrology app that is available for both iPhone as well as Android. From personalized readings to real-time updates on the current astrological weather, it features everything you need to navigate life’s ups and downs. So this includes detailed birth chart breakdowns, daily horoscopes, current sky horoscopes, transit readings, intel on the current Moon phase and sign, as well as weekly sign-specific audio readings by Chani Nicholas, year ahead forecasts, and more. So as I’ve talked about many times before over the past year, my favorite thing about the app is it sends you this push notification on your phone whenever a transit goes exact in the sky. And sometimes this has helped to remind me when like, something’s happening in my life and I’m like, not paying attention to the charts at the moment, it will remind me what’s going on in the sky and then I’ll sort of like, know, “Oh, that’s why this is happening right now” or that’s what the astrological weather is that’s coinciding with it. The app also has a nice blend of modern and traditional astrology, which is similar to the approach that I use. It uses whole sign houses as its default house system, and I also really appreciate that it’s now available for Android as well as iPhone. So the app is free to download on iOS and Android. Just go to their app stores and search for CHANI – C H A N I – and then you’ll find it. Or you can visit app.chani.com. And Diana, you were just telling me the other day that you actually contributed some work to the CHANI app, right?
DRH: Yeah, right when it was getting put together in 2020, I was very honored to be one of the contributive writers to the like, planetary delineations for your individual chart. Like, I was one of the people that contributed, and that was super, it was a super fun project. Very hard writing that level of… Writing that kind of astrology is very challenging, but also really rewarding. And it’s been great, like, the CHANI app is the one that I most strongly recommend to astrologers at any level but especially new astrologers, like new to being astrology enthusiasts who want really solid guidance in the process and really wanna get into the nuts and bolts of their own charts. It’s pretty great.
CB: Yeah.
DRH: I also —
CB: For sure.
DRH: — love like, the weekly horoscopes by rising sign that Chani reads. It’s very soothing. Like, on Sundays after 12 – you know, they come at like, 12:30 in the afternoon or something. I’ll just like, lay in bed for like, 15 minutes and just like, listen to Chani tell me about my week; it’s very nice.
CB: Yeah, totally. Chani’s voice and she has that great like, microphone and she has like, a sound box, so it’s just like —
DRH: Yeah.
CB: — your own private almost like, ASMR reading from Chani.
DRH: Yeah, it’s great.
CB: Yeah, for sure. All right. Well shout out to and thanks to the CHANI app. Again, find more information by searching C H A N I in the app store, and you can get free access to the app.
All right, so our other sponsor for this month is the Northwest Astrological Conference, which is taking place this month, May 23rd through the 27th, 2024. This is the biggest astrological conference of the year that’s gonna have more than 30 professional astrologers giving talks, lectures, and workshops. So there’s gonna be five simultaneous tracks going with astrologers giving lectures at the same time on different topics, plus pre- and post-conference workshops that last for an entire day. So the in-person conference is already sold out; it sold out months ago because it’s so popular and everyone wants to get in and they have limited spaces at their hotel. However, you can still sign up virtually to attend the conference online, where they’re gonna be live streaming it to attendees. So all of the lectures are being streamed live online, and they’re actually adding a lot of extra perqs this year and different things for the online attendees to add more interactivity for people that are attending virtually. So there’s gonna be scheduled speaker Q&As, which is one of the major things that’s happening this year where during the breaks throughout the conference, you can do a live virtual Q&A with a speaker. They’re also gonna have room monitors who are gonna pass along questions from the virtual audience to the speakers during the course of the actual talks that are happening there in Seattle in person. There’s also gonna be a bunch of virtual lunches, dinners, and meet-and-greets throughout the conference with different speakers and attendees. So I’m pretty excited about this; I’m gonna be attending online, and I feel like things have come a long way since the first virtual conference took place in 2020 out of necessity because it happened in like, May of 2020, and they had to switch to virtual due to the pandemic. But that ended up being something that was good in the long term because it encouraged them to start offering a virtual component so that people could attend online, and I think it’s great having both now so that those that can’t travel there to be in person can still attend.
So you can find out more information or sign up at NORWAC.net, and I’ll put a link in the description of this episode. And Diana, you’re actually speaking at NORWAC, right?
DRH: Yeah, I have a lecture and my very first keynote this year, which I’m —
CB: Wow.
DRH: — super nervous about.
CB: Nice.
DRH: But I had a breakthrough on a component of my keynote this week, so I’m feeling a little bit more chill about it. But yeah.
CB: You found like, the right angle or the right phrase?
DRH: Yeah, just like a particular framework. Like, you know, the Saturn is Saturning. Whenever I have the right structure in place, it’s a lot easier to build something, so.
CB: Totally.
DRH: Yeah. But I will be doing a talk called “Infinite Resourcing: Seeing From the Second House” that’s gonna be about the second house. And then my keynote is called “Astrological Practices Love Practice,” so I’m very, really stoked about – I’m getting stoked. I will probably get nauseous again, but for right now, I’m really stoked.
CB: Nice. Yeah, I think you’re gonna have a good time, especially once you give your talk, you’ll be able to then relax and take it easy and enjoy everyone’s company. Yeah.
DRH: The keynote is Sunday morning, so…
CB: Okay. All right.
DRH: We’ll see how much time I get to relax, but yeah.
CB: I mean, actually, what’s gonna happen is you’re gonna prepare and you’re gonna finish your preparation, you’re gonna be completely relaxed for the entire conference and enjoy it and then give your keynote confidently on Sunday and then enjoy the rest of the conference.
DRH: Yeah. Something like that.
CB: All right.
DRH: Knock on wood. So it is.
CB: Well, a bunch of people that have been on The Astrology Podcast are actually giving talks at the conference, including our pal Austin Coppock, who’s scheduled to give two talks as well as a workshop at the conference as well. So —
DRH: Yeah, I’m signed up for that workshop, and it’s gonna be great.
CB: Yeah, it should be a really good workshop. Cool. Well, people can find out – thanks to NORWAC for sponsoring this episode, and you can find out more information at NORWAC.net, and I’ll put a link in the description below this video on YouTube or on the podcast website entry for this episode.
All right. So why don’t we transition to talking about the astrological forecast for May at this point?
DRH: Yeah. Let’s do it.
CB: Let’s do it. All right. So first, let’s set some context for May, because some stuff happens like, right at the very end of the month of April that is sort of like setting the context for as we head into things. So of course part of the context is that we’re finally done with eclipse season, which is great. We’re also gonna be finally done with the Mars-Saturn conjunction, because one of the things that happens is that Mars departs from Pisces and it moves into Aries, its home sign, the day before May begins, right?
DRH: Yep, right at the end of April we get Mars changing signs.
CB: So for those watching the video version, here’s the planetary alignments calendar for late April that shows that. At the same time, the Mercury retrograde has also just completed where Mercury stationed direct on the 25th of April, so we’re finally getting out of Mercury retrograde land by early May as well. And then also, Venus has just ingressed into her home sign of Taurus, where Venus is gonna spend most of the month of May. So those are some of the shifts that sort of like, set up the context of what’s happening as we head into the month and just that, you know, the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction is still very close and all of that energy is still gonna be very, very prominent, especially in the first two-thirds of the month while Jupiter’s still transiting through Taurus. And then what happens is that a bunch of the inner planets are all gonna move into Taurus as well, which is just gonna further accentuate and reactivate that Jupiter-Uranus conjunction and some of those energies.
DRH: Yep.
CB: Why don’t we then start with the very first alignment for the month, which is that on May 2nd, the planet Pluto is going to station retrograde in Aquarius. So here’s the planetary alignments calendar for May; we see Pluto. Pluto has made it up to two degrees of Aquarius, but that’s as far as it’s gonna get in this run, and it’s now gonna station retrograde at two Aquarius and then retrograde back into Capricorn this summer.
So this is important because retrograde stations as we’ve seen many times in past forecast episodes represent an intensification of the energy of that planet and whatever it means in that sign, it suddenly puts an exclamation mark next to it so that whatever that transit is about becomes much more acute for a period of time around the station.
DRH: Yeah. The image that I really like for planets that are stationing is if you’ve ever gotten like, a deep-tissue massage, the massage therapist has their elbow somewhere along, you know, maybe some of your back muscles or something, and they’re leaning into it and they really slow down and as they slow down, it increases pressure at that particular point.
CB: That’s a really great analogy.
DRH: Yeah, and so when it comes to Pluto, this is really interesting because it’s happening with a Venus square, like Venus in Taurus will be square Pluto at the time that Pluto is stationing retrograde.
CB: Yeah. Here, I’ll show the chart.
DRH: Amazing. And the Moon is also passing through Aquarius right as Pluto is stationing, so that really adds a double layer of inner planets enhancing the experience of the Pluto station. So especially anybody that has anything in the first like, five degrees or so of fixed signs, this is something to pay attention to.
CB: Yeah, for sure. Anybody with planets in early Aquarius especially, but also early Taurus, early Leo or early Scorpio. This is the furthest that Pluto has gotten into the fixed signs at this point, into Aquarius at two degrees, so it’s really gonna be activating some stuff that wasn’t activated before, especially towards the end of April and the beginning of May, not just on that exact date but probably in a range radiating out about a week before and after.
DRH: Yep.
CB: But the fact that it gets activated by the Moon at that time of the exact station and that Venus squares Pluto at that time is super important, and so with Pluto in Aquarius, we’ve seen some of the stuff involving technology. Like, a lot of the discussions surrounding artificial intelligence really ramped up once Pluto went into Aquarius. And so we’ve seen a lot of developments in terms of that, and we would expect some new and significant turning points or developments in terms of those discussions as well as just like, advancements in technology and the pace of technology moving forward so rapidly as being discussion points around this time. Since Venus is squaring Pluto, there may be an element that has to do with artistic matters, which immediately brings in thoughts of like, how some of the AI-generated artwork as well as videos and stuff have raised debates surrounding that material and copyright issues and artistic integrity and other things like that.
DRH: Yeah, a hundred percent. Like, I’m really thinking a lot about copyright and also thinking about consent processes when it comes to, you know, like, knowing how many things have happened with deep fakes, for example, and some of the really heinous applications of deep fake technology that have already transpired and whether debates and conversations around that will become louder at this time, or at least foregrounded in ways that might potentially lead to better regulatory processes, maybe.
CB: Hopefully. Hopefully. And on a more personal level, because it’s like a Venus-Pluto square, oftentimes that brings in an element of relationships, of having really deep transformative experiences with relationships, which can be very intense and sometimes positive as a result of the depth of feeling that comes about at those times. But other times, the depth of that can be too much and there can be issues with like, obsession or control or even manipulation in relationships that can come up around that time.
DRH: Power dynamics are huge with Venus-Pluto contacts, I find. And potentially perceiving power dynamics, given the Pluto retrograde component, potentially having to dial back or renegotiate power dynamics, both explicit and implicit dynamics in relationships that need to be renegotiated if the relationship is going to be sustainable.
CB: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Those are huge. Some other things I was writing because this is Venus has now ingressed into Taurus where we’re already seeing some of the environmental stuff come up in terms of the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction that’s been occurring there. I was thinking about things like, tensions between the environment or the material world versus the digital or the artificial world. Yeah, and just some of those dynamics coming up between, you know, animals and AI or other things like that as well as maybe relationships. Like, we were seeing a string of stories around the Venus-Pluto conjunction about people creating like, AI chatbots or like, relationship chatbots and things like that, and that square also reminds me of some of those stories.
DRH: Yeah, one story that’s been, to me at least, quite present on Threads over the past week is people talking about how women frequently would prefer to run into a bear alone in the woods than a man alone in the woods, which has stirred a lot of conversation around the sensation that women have or do not have of relative safety depending on how close they are to a man versus a bear, and how that stirs and highlights power issues and safety issues in relational dynamics of all kinds. That’s going along with a lot of conversation lately of women opting out of dating entirely because of the sensation of unsafety that comes from interacting with men. And I almost wonder if the Venus square Pluto might include updates or adjustments to dating apps or things like that in response to the sensations of unsafety that women who date men frequently have around men.
CB: That’s a great point, yeah. That reminds me, I just saw a social media thing like, yesterday of a video going around of a woman who had gotten a restraining order against like, an abusive ex-boyfriend who was stalking her, but then the judge removed the restraining order for some reason, and then he showed up and murdered her, basically, in broad daylight in public. And sometimes that kind of dynamic or energy can be something that can sometimes come up with Venus-Pluto of like, stalking or obsession or things like that. Yeah.
DRH: Yeah. Non-consensual intensification of relational ardor could be one way of putting it, or relational hyper-focus would maybe be more accurate than ardor. Yeah.
CB: Is there… What would be a positive like, Venus-Pluto thing which could be a positive manifestation to like, go together with our creepy —
DRH: Our more negative, creepy versions?
CB: Yeah, yeah.
DRH: Yeah. I mean, I think there’s something about the positivity of the clarification of power dynamics and the clarification of intense feelings. Like, if there are positive feelings that are bubbling under the surface between you and another person, sometimes Venus-Pluto can like, especially in a square, can sort of flick the match into the tinder and then the fire, you know, the spark is lit and you actually do have the like, cute romance. What other positive Venus-Pluto – I think there’s something about the artistic hyperfocus could be relevant for people who have creative projects going. The way that whenever you’re really working on something and you’re sort of absconding all of your other responsibilities, especially, you know, with a retrograde, like, what does it mean to go back into something? To alter it? To be what you originally desired it to be? I feel like that can be another sort of Venus-Pluto experience, too.
CB: Totally. Those are great examples. Maire in the chat asks about like, reinstating Roe vs. Wade, and I don’t know if that’s on the docket, but it does bring up a general thing where I know there was some news story at some point in the past few months where Venus literally involved women and if there was a really literal manifestation of Venus representing women or femmes in this instance and Venus squaring it, then a really obvious news story could be things surrounding abortion just because it involves like, control over women’s bodies and versus self-autonomy and things like that.
DRH: Yep.
CB: Yeah. Okay. I think that’s good for that aspect, because it kind of takes us – there’s a carryover into our first lunation of the month, which is the New Moon that takes place on May 7th in the sign of Taurus.
So I’m gonna animate the chart and move us forward. And it’s like, I guess we’ll talk about some of the rest of the stuff when we come back to it in terms of Mars being in Aries and Venus being in Taurus, but maybe this is the time to do that. So here is the New Moon that takes place in Taurus. It goes exact at 18 degrees of Taurus, and what’s interesting about it is it’s sextile Saturn, because Saturn’s at 17 degrees of Pisces, so it’s like the Sun and the Moon separate from the sextile with Saturn and then once the conjunction of the Sun and Moon goes exact, the Moon then applies to a conjunction with Uranus and Jupiter in Taurus. So I really see this New Moon as energizing and bringing the Uranus-Jupiter conjunction back into the discussion or maybe not back, because I’m not sure that it’s going to be gone by this point only a week from now, but potentially re-energizing it and sort of like, throwing additional fuel on that fire as all the planets in Taurus move closer and closer to that conjunction and accentuate it further. So some of those themes involving like, rebelliousness, of protest, of this push for like, freedom or other themes that have to do with – that Jupiter and Uranus have in common – are going to become more pronounced both collectively as well as in individual personal lives.
DRH: Yeah. And I’m even thinking, too, about the way that the Mars-Saturn conjunction alongside the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction included a lot of regulatory stuff, and I’m almost wondering if we’re going to be seeing some of the fruits of those regulations being put in place actually start to show themselves, essentially, in the aftermath of this particular New Moon.
CB: Yeah, for sure. So I’m gonna animate it just to show what happens after that New Moon and put it at the top of the chart. So, you know, the other part of this is that Venus is now in Taurus, and this is a much different energy compared to last month where we had Venus in Aries. Once Venus moves into Taurus, moves into her home sign and spends the majority of the month there, Venus slows down a bit and we get this much more earthy and much more relational dynamic, whereas part of the contrast is, you know, Venus in Aries likes to move fast, is more abrupt and more direct. Venus in Taurus, things slow down a bit. There’s less of a focus on the more independent side of things and a little bit more of a relational element as well as an element focusing more on material things as well as like, environmental or earthy type things.
DRH: Yeah. There’s something about the quickness of inspiration and action of Aries and the slowness of production that also comes with the transition into Taurus.
CB: Right. And it’s tricky, because on the other hand at the same time with Mars having departed from – and part of the contrast this month is that Mars has departed from, you know, this conjunction with Saturn that was slowing things down, a conjunction with Netpune that was making things very ambiguous towards the end of April, and even just Mars being in Pisces as well where it’s not a very like, decisive sign. All of a sudden, we have Mars moving into its home sign of Aries, which is a fire sign, it’s cardinal, it’s much more decisive, abrupt, direct. Aries likes to move very fast. So there’s this distinction and sort of contrast between the Aries planets and the Taurus planets this month that are like, pulling in different directions.
DRH: Yeah. And Mars – I know we wanted to mention this as just sort of an overall thing for the month, but with Mars in Aries, Mars is also not really aspecting anything else, especially once it gets out of its sextile with Pluto. It’s not really interacting with any of the other planets in the chart except for the Moon whenever the Moon is making its aspects as it moves through the zodiac. So Mars is sort of a renegade in its own place, unchecked by other planets but also not necessarily getting in the way of other planets throughout the month.
CB: Yeah. And it has this copresence with Mercury, because Mercury has stationed direct, but it’s still moving very slow, and that’s one of the things is Mercury is gonna be moving through its post-retrograde shadow phase and sort of retreading old ground still for the first half of the month before it leaves it shadow. And there is still somewhat of a more direct or confrontational communicative dynamic in terms of communication with Mercury and Mars being in the same sign in the first half of the month, so that there could be more tendency towards verbal conflicts or saying things in the heat of the month that then later maybe you regret or wouldn’t have said if you thought things out. But that’s a really interesting point that aside from this conjunction with the North Node which occurs on May 18th and 19th, Mars otherwise isn’t making any aspects, especially any hard aspects to any planets this month.
DRH: Yep.
CB: So —
DRH: Just on its own, in its own room.
CB: Right. So it’s like, on the one hand, you would think then that Mars isn’t in a position to create as much drama compared to like, other months, but then on the other hand, it’s interesting that all month then Mars is going to be transiting through the sign where the Mercury retrograde and where the eclipse just happened. And in fact, once we get to the 25th of May, Mars actually reaches the degree where the eclipse took place at 19 degrees of Aries. So I do think that for people where if the eclipse or if the Mercury retrograde brought up some stuff for you last month and clearly activated that part of your chart and that part of your life, then Mars is gonna move into this sign and spend its time there. And for some people, like let’s say especially people with a night chart, you’re gonna find yourself putting extra energy and effort and focus in that area of your life once again this month with Mars. Whereas for some people, especially maybe if you have a day chart, it may kick up some additional tensions or drama or just heat in that area of your life as it’s transiting through that sign this month, perhaps in connection with events that happened last month.
DRH: Yep.
CB: Yeah. So that is part of what’s going on there with that energy of Mars. What else? Is there anything else we wanted to mention that we have to say about our first lunation of the month in terms of the New Moon? Just that it’s really gonna accentuate the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction…
DRH: I don’t really have much more. It might not be the smoothest New Moon in Taurus because of its proximity with Uranus and Jupiter, but that’s kind of the only additional thing that I would have to say about it.
CB: Yeah. That makes sense. For some people, I think the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction I noticed in some people’s lives that it was like, doing something new and different that they hadn’t done before, sometimes with technology but other times it was just a new development and branching out into a new area that they hadn’t really fully considered before, but it ending up being a positive area of growth and expansion. And I think for some people, that New Moon is gonna be a big continuation of that where they see something that sort of like, started off around that conjunction become more prominent in their life at that time. So I guess that’s the primary thing I would tell people to pay attention to is just what originated for you at the exact conjunction, and then expect to see more of an expansion of that story and laying the seeds for some new developments in that area this month.
DRH: Yeah. Will you remind me of the day that the Moon conjoins those areas again? I’m just —
CB: The —
DRH: The Moon conjunct Jupiter after the New Moon. When is that? May 8th, okay.
CB: Yeah.
DRH: Cool.
CB: May 8th.
DRH: Yeah. Interesting.
CB: Yeah.
DRH: I’m just thinking about like, my primary Jupiter-Uranus story is I went to the ren faire for the first time, and now I’m trying to think of like how additional ren faire things might happen that week. That’s all.
CB: I mean, that could be it. It’s like the beginning of the summer. Like, you could become like the astrologer at the renaissance faire or something like that. That’d be a cool gig.
DRH: Yo. Yo!
CB: I mean, I’m not trying to like, put any ideas in your head, but —
DRH: You are giving me ideas, Chris.
CB: Yeah. Astrology cosplaying, but —
DRH: Yeah.
CB: — as a medieval astrologer of like —
DRH: Wow! Oh my god, the potentials.
CB: I don’t know what the like, female name or version of like, Guido Bonatti is, but yeah, you could come up with —
DRH: Yeah.
CB: — something.
DRH: I could come up with a character. Wow!
CB: Yeah, exactly.
DRH: Wow. All right.
CB: All right.
DRH: You heard it here first, folks. Okay.
CB: If any listeners think of a good name for a medieval astrologer that Diana could adopt, let us know.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: All right. So let’s move forward to what comes after the New Moon, which is there’s a Sun-Uranus conjunction that occurs a few days later, which is partially a continuation of some of that energy, because just like the Moon conjoins Uranus after the New Moon, we also get the Sun conjoining Uranus here around May 12th and 13th. So —
DRH: Yeah, I really – sorry. I was just gonna say, I really feel like the middle of May where it’s like, we have the New Moon so close to the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction followed by the Moon actually hitting Uranus and then Jupiter, and then we have Sun hitting Uranus and eventually Jupiter, and then we have Venus hitting Uranus and eventually Jupiter. There’s just something continuously pinging the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction that really changes the flavor of this Taurus season significantly. Like, this is not a hobbit picnic in the park chill; it’s Merry and Pippin launching repeated, giant dragon fireworks out of the back of Gandalf’s carriage. So there’s something about it being both fun and delightful but also – I mean, maybe not only fun and delightful, but just like this continuous pinging of Jupiter-Uranus even when there’s an anticipation of something smoother happening simply because it’s Taurus season.
CB: I will see your Merry and Pippin cart analogy, and I will raise it and say that it’s like Merry and Pippin riding in on Treebeard into battle —
DRH: Oh, hell yeah!
CB: — in an act of rebelliousness. That’s a vibe the Jupiter, you know, is in Lord of the Rings, like, Treebeard and all the trees, they see the forest was like, decimated and they just become enraged and therefore —
DRH: Yeah.
CB: — decide to fight when they hadn’t chosen to before because suddenly they see how it personally affects them and the environment. There’s something about that energy, like you said, it’s almost like a windchime where the inner planets are just gonna keep hitting that note in different ways over and over again this month.
DRH: Yeah, until – as you were saying that, I’m even thinking about for a minute in Chicago, I lived in a neighborhood where my apartment was at the perfect intersection of like, three different churches that rang bells on Sunday mornings so that perfect like, “aah” sound occurred on Sunday mornings when I was in my – if I was at home at the time. And I feel like there’s even something about the building of collective energy around some of the different protests and issues that were – like, becoming so loud at the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction; I almost wonder if there’s just gonna be a continuous wave of that kind of thing. You know, how do we get more of the Ents to actually show up to rip down Saruman’s industrial works, so to speak?
CB: Right. Yeah, so let me show on the screen – and the Sun is really the first one that does this. This is a good example, and it occurs right after the New Moon, but it’s like, Uranus is at 23 Taurus, Jupiter’s at 26. So the Sun is the first inner planet that comes up and conjoins around the 13th it conjoins Uranus and hits that note of that like, rebelliousness of the Uranus significator there. But then not very long after by the 18th, Venus comes up and then Venus conjoins Uranus at 23 degrees of Taurus, so that’s the next planet. And —
DRH: At the same time that Jupiter and the Sun are conjoined at 28 Taurus.
CB: Nice. Okay, so then the Sun hits the second one and this is on May 18th, so it’s like we’re getting this double activation, especially on this day. That’ll be a date to really pay attention to in the news with the activation of that Jupiter-Uranus conjunction.
DRH: This is also when Mars is getting within a degree of the North Node, too, so.
CB: Okay. So the – you know, in medieval astrology, they say the North Node expands the potency of any planet that it touches and especially for malefics like Mars and Saturn makes them extra loud.
DRH: Yep. Noisy.
CB: So we get that conjunction, and then we see that by then, Mercury’s moved into Taurus, and by the very end of the month, Mercury is the very last planet which eventually catches up to and conjoins Uranus on May 31st. And then it’s like the last act of that is Mercury sort of giving Uranus a microphone or a loudspeaker, basically, to broadcast that message again before moving into the next sign.
DRH: Yep.
CB: So continual pinging of that over and over again, both collectively and in terms of our personal lives. Everybody should be thinking about what house Taurus coincides with in your chart, because that house is gonna see a tremendous amount of activity this month with so many planets with a full stellium of planets moving through that sign.
DRH: Capricorn risings, if you dont’ wanna get pregnant, be careful.
CB: Okay. That’s good advice. Taurus is your 5th house, and there’s a lot of activity in the like, having children house.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: Good idea. I, as an Aquarius rising, am going to be paying attention to my home and living situation as the source of activity.
all right, so going back to our charts. This actually brings us to this big stellium of planets brings us to our auspicious election for this month, which is the most fortunate chart that Leisa Schaim and I were able to find in our Auspicious Elections podcast this month. And we actually, in doing the year ahead report late last year, we really focused in on May especially because May is one of the best months for electional astrology of this year where you have the greatest preponderance of positive placements that don’t have downsides, and you have the least amount of like, major major downsides or afflicted planets out of any other time of the year, especially compared to later in the year where we’re gonna deal with stuff like the Mars-Uranus conjunction this summer or the Mars-Jupiter conjunction or especially the Mars retrograde that’s gonna dominate the later part of this year.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: So here’s the electional chart for this month, which is set for May 14th, 2024 at about 12:30 PM local time. So if you cast a chart for May 14th and then set it to 12:30 in your location, whatever your city is, you should end up with a chart that looks approximately like this with Leo rising. So you want the Ascendant to be in Leo in your location, and the major feature of this chart is it has Leo rising, and the ruler of the Ascendant is the Sun, which is at 24 degrees of Taurus, and it’s applying very closely within three degrees to a conjunction with Jupiter in a day chart in the 10th house. We also see that Venus is there in the 10th house in Taurus not too far away, and the Moon is in Leo in the first house, where it’s applying to a square with Venus. So this is a very 10th house focused chart that would be a great chart for career, reputation, public life, and all sorts of other 10th house matters just because you have a packed 10th house with a stellium there with both benefics present and with the ruler of the Ascendant fully bonified, which is to be in one of the best conditions possible where its condition is being improved and affirmed by the benefic Jupiter. So, great chart for starting different types of ventures and undertakings at this time.
DRH: Yeah, I feel like looking at this chart, I also feel like this could be an excellent chart for updating components of your more professional wardrobe or professional appearance type things, potentially maybe website updates, but particularly if you are wanting to shift something in how you are showing up, that combination looks very favorable for what might look like sudden updates according to other people because of Uranus’s participation, but that ultimately give you a firmer foundation in showing up well.
CB: Yeah, for sure. And especially doing something unique or innovative, because the chart does feature Uranus so prominently that to whatever extent you’re able to incorporate that actively as doing something that stands out from the crowd or doing something that’s different from what people have done before, then you’ll be able to take that energy in your own hands and sort of use it to your advantage.
DRH: Yeah. Hundred percent.
CB: Yeah. So the chart’s not very good for 9th house matters related to things like foreign travel, so I wouldn’t necessarily use it for that because Mars is in the 9th house in a day chart. But otherwise it’s a very fortunate chart that we would recommend using if you have anything major to start at this time or any major things that you need to do.
So Leisa and I actually found so many good charts this month; we found between 18 and 20 auspicious elections this month that we put in our Auspicious Elections report for patrons. So —
DRH: It’s like, you usually share like, four.
CB: Yeah, four or so is our like, typical and sometimes we’ll like, throw in a few extras. But because the charts are so good this month that we decided to just like, throw in all of them, especially because it kind of makes up for other months where things are more difficult and we have like, a harder time finding really good charts. So this is our way of off-setting things. So if people wanna get access to those charts, you can get access to that private podcast series and all those charts, which is a benefit to patrons of The Astrology Podcast if you just go to our page on Patreon.com and sign up. So you can find out more information about that at Patreon.com/AstrologyPodcast, and I’ll put a link to it in the description for this episode.
All right. So let’s move onto now the second half of the month where pretty much the day after this, Mercury’s been moving kind of slow most of the first week or two of this month, because it’s still coming off the retrograde phase. It’s still retracing its steps. But somewhere around here, Mercury actually has left its shadow, right?
DRH: Yeah, Mercury leaves its shadow the same day that I think the Sun-Uranus conjunction happens. I can’t – hold on. My notes have disappeared. One second. But it’s right around that time. Yeah, it’s when the Sun conjoins Uranus is the same day that Mercury leaves shadow.
CB: Okay. So the 13th?
DRH: Yeah. So the same day that’s also a Venus-Saturn sextile on that day, so I’m really envisioning that the clarity that can come once Mercury exits shadow being facilitated by constructive and surprising conversations. So.
CB: I like that. That’s a really good delineation. So yeah, Mercury – around this degree of Aries is where Mercury originally went retrograde, so that means that for different people, you’ve sort of been like, sitting in place or there’s been a certain issue that’s been coming up that you’ve been having to put extra focus on, especially in the area of your life that matches the house that Aries coincides with. But finally, after this point, once we get to May 13th and 14th and especially 15th, once Mercury departs from Aries and moves into Taurus, it’s gonna be treading entirely new ground. And so for some people, you’re gonna have this feeling of like, finally being done with some hassles that had been holding you up or keeping you in place and focused on something up to this point.
DRH: Yeah. And I find it really interesting that the post-shadow so quickly leads into a sign change, which doubles down on that sensation of fresh air and new something or other coming to fruition or coming into your sphere of care.
CB: Say that again.
DRH: The transition, not just out of the shadow but into a new sign, bringing a breath of fresh air that’s potentially also a topical shift. Like, that’s done, now I can —
CB: Yeah.
DRH: — move on to this.
CB: Totally. And having a shift into something completely new and into activating that new house in your chart that represents a completely different part of your life not becoming newly activated, because all these other planets have already been transiting through there, but just getting accentuated even further and drawing especially greater communication or potentially even commerce to that area of your life.
DRH: I feel like it’s creating more coherence in the Taurus house whenever Mercury moves into Taurus, because there’s already so much that’s been happening there, and Mercury joining that party puts… The image that’s coming to mind is an unsplitting of the mind, where some part of your mental energy has been devoted to the Aries area for quite a bit even though there’s all this stuff also happening in Taurus. And now you get both halves of your brain thinking about Taurus at this point.
CB: Totally. You know, funny anecdote I meant to mention about Mercury in Aries going retrograde in Aries, you know, because I’m Aquarius rising and it was my 3rd house. I talked about how the eclipse had to do with neighbors, but the Mercury retrograde – as well as me going back and like, opening up old boxes and discovering the Bitcoin thing with Mercury retrograde in my 3rd but also Mars-Saturn conjunct in my 2nd. I also like, discovered when Mercury stationed retrograde that my tags had expired on my car —
DRH: Oh yeah.
CB: — my memory’s become so bad, I’ve become really forgetful lately due to some health stuff that I didn’t even realize it. So I found out that I was sort of grounded and couldn’t drive my car during the Mercury retrograde in my 3rd house, but also with Mars conjoining Saturin in the 2nd simultaneously that I would have to pay like, a large fine. So I thought that was like, a funny – we’re talking about like, being grounded or being stuck in some area where Mercury was in Aries, and now eventually getting free of that once Mercury goes into Taurus, and I just wanted to use that as a concrete example, because for me it’s like, very literal.
DRH: Yeah. At that point, you’ll have your new plates?
CB: Yeah. Hopefully.
DRH: Nice.
CB: I mean, Mars is gonna go into Aries there as I’m trying to like, fix that up, so hopefully that’s a good thing, but we’ll see how that goes.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: I had – just reminded me that in 2020 when Mars went retrograde in Aries, like the day it went retrograde, my car got towed because it was like, parked on the street somewhere, so.
DRH: Oh no!
CB: We’ll see how that goes, this 3rd house things and astrology being super literal.
DRH: Way too literal.
CB: Yeah.
DRH: Upsetting.
CB: So when Mercury ingresses into Taurus, though, it’s not like, all fun and games immediately because actually what it does as soon as it goes into Taurus is the first thing it does is like, with Venus earlier in the month, Mercury squares Pluto right away as soon as it ingresses, and that aspect goes exact on the 16th and 17th.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: So some of those issues that we talked about earlier surrounding issues of like, manipulation or control or even obsession become the focal point here in communications. And we talked a lot about that a few months ago, I think it was when Mercury conjoined Pluto. And some of the delineations related to that, which can sometimes be things like deep sort of penetrative communication, obsessive focus, almost like a – Austin used the analogy of an investigator, like a television show about somebody that investigated something as a detective – digging up the past, uncovering what was lost, hidden, or secret. I had that thing where I did that delineation and mentioned Herculaneum and how they were like, uncovering scrolls and would be scanning them soon, and then literally the day of the Mercury-Pluto conjunction, the news came out that they had used AI to scan and reconstruct a scroll, which was just gonna open up like a whole new world of uncovering these ancient texts, and it happened the day of the Mercury-Pluto conjunction. So this square has a similar energy in terms of sometimes having positive manifestations like that of uncovering something or investigating something and getting to the bottom.
DRH: Yeah. I’m also reminded that this is coming in the aftermath of the Pluto-Venus square earlier in the month, like that opens up the month, and considering how ongoing conversations might actually be able to deepen as Venus is further away from Pluto and you get a little bit more of the distanced nature of Mercury, and what that means in terms of being able to have deep and penetrative conversations with a little bit less of the tenderness and emotionality that Venus can bring into that kind of a square dynamic. So whether it’s the same story or a different story, there being a little bit more possibility of, “Okay, but these are the facts” and a little bit less of, “Ow, my feelings.”
CB: Right. That makes a lot of sense. It also makes me think of like, something happening under the Venus-Pluto square earlier in the month but then when Mercury gets there and squares Pluto, it’s like the reporting of something comes out that something had happened at that Venus-Pluto square.
DRH: Mercury providing the megaphone or the microphone for whatever transpired with the Venus-Pluto square. Yeah.
CB: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So those are some of the things with the Mercury ingress into Taurus and bringing some extra energy in that area of our chart and our life. So let’s move onto the next aspect.
So the next one is a few days later by May 18th, we’ve already talked about this, but to reiterate, Venus conjoins Uranus at 23 degrees of Taurus, and the Sun conjoins Jupiter at 28 degrees Taurus at the same time. So that’s a really like, good vibe type transit in terms of the optimism of the Sun and Jupiter as well as the excitement, the newness, and the sort of like, rebelliousness of Venus and Uranus. But it just seems like a relatively positive combination at least for that day on the 18th.
DRH: Yeah. It feels extremely buoyant, potentially disruptive like, more from the perspective of overwhelm because there’s so much. All of this happening in the same decan of Taurus implies that potentially it’s all happening at once in the same place. Like, these aren’t necessarily two separate events of Jupiter-Sun, Venus-Uranus. It’s like, Uranus-Venus-Sun-Jupiter all happening all at the same time is not necessarily a problem from the perspective of this is all, you know, it’s an extremely beneficially surprising combination. But also it’s just a lot. So this is happening on a Saturday, and I feel like has the potential of being quite a fun day if you’re somebody who doesn’t have to work on a Saturday. This could be a great time to plan on having a really nice time. But also plan on wanting to sleep in hard the next day.
CB: Yeah. For sure. Some of the keywords that I wrote down were things like, “exciting, optimistic, but also finding something or someone new and different that shakes things up for you. Relationships that ignite quickly but have a high burn rate. A period of optimism and expansion but also even luck.” Like, finding yourself in the right place at the right time so that you’re just, in a fortunate position at that point.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So that is that conjunction, that set of conjunctions. The very next day, Mars conjoins the North Node on like, the 19th and 20th of May, and I thought that was also notable because the Moon moves into Libra by the next day as well, by May 19th, and opposes Mars at the same time, which I think is important because I think the Moon then is acting as a trigger that’s gonna accentuate that conjunction of Mars with the North Node and some of that energy of Aries, which is very hot, very fiery. I remember when we had the retrograde, one of the stations – maybe it was the retrograde station – in 2020, that was when there was all those fires on the west coast and there was just these pictures of the sky becoming completely red —
DRH: Yeah.
CB: — with smoke and it almost looked like Mars at that point.
DRH: Yeah. And looking at this, it’s a form of an eclipse in a way, right? It’s not a solar or lunar eclipse, but if the same configuration was happening with the Sun insead of Mars, it would be an eclipse, and it would be a very total eclipse. So there’s something about the way it pings the recent eclipse stories and brings forward the tension between Aries and Libra that’s been transpiring since the nodes moved into these signs in a pretty intense way.
CB: Yeah, that’s a really good point. And the intensify for each of us, but especially individuals with placements in Aries and Libra that’s already been churned up so much by the eclipses bouncing back and forth there over the course of the past year as well as, you know, larger entities like countries. We were just talking about the two countries whose leaders have eclipses in those two signs and the tensions becoming activated between them. There’s something about this opposition that’s activating or reactivating those tensions.
DRH: Yeah. Considerably. One thing I’m thinking about with this combination as well on a more individual level is if the Aries-Libra process with the nodes here have included you relinquishing cares that have previously curtailed or edited your self-expression and self-assertion, this particular day potentially bringing forward an opportunity to enact the consequences of prioritizing what it is that you need even if it’s not always the most immediate way to create the experience of social harmony that might not be true social harmony. So the commitment to disruption that leads to peace versus keeping the peace even though there’s a lot of stuff simmering under the surface.
CB: Right. The delicate balance between those two opposing tensions.
DRH: Yeah. Yes.
CB: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Let’s see, other keywords. Mars in Aries is like, impetuous, it’s risk-taking, it tends to be more competitive but also sometimes more confrontational, more quick to act and sometimes more sort of like, warlike at the same time. But a lot of that energy just gets accentuated on this day for some reason with it hitting that spot of the North Node while being opposed by the Moon.
DRH: Yeah. There’s something about how Mars and Mars responses, especially anger, like, those are responses to boundaries or lines being crossed whether or not those lines are just or fair or considered or even, you know, a line that you were aware of prior to it being crossed. And I feel like, with the Mars-North Node combination, sensitivity to lines being crossed being increased. Whether or not that sensitivity is justified will vary depending on the context, but that increased sensitivity being a contributing factor to what arises on this day.
CB: Yeah. That makes sense. Vandana in the chat says quick-tempered. I think that’s a good one. Also, you know, Mars – Aries in general sometimes is like the hero archetype or the person that wants to be a hero. And sometimes that involves courage, sometimes like situations that involve being courageous or sort of like, putting yourself in the line of fire, and sometimes finding the difference between doing something that’s truly courageous and the dividing line between doing something where you’re just being like, reckless or something and not always being clear what the difference is between the two or how to tell the difference between the two in the moment.
DRH: Yeah. In the moment it can be hard, but ideally, strategy feeds into courage and bravery in ways that impulsivity feeds into recklessness.
CB: That’s good. All right, the last thing I’ll say about the Mars transit through Aries and that conjunction with the North Node is just, you know, there were some things that were started last month at the eclipse especially that took place in Aries that were like, new beginnings or that were the continuation of some eclipse stories from the previous year that represented a new development in people’s lives. And with Mars going through Aries this month, there may be some things that started at that time that you find yourself having to either have some sort of tensions over or having to cut out of your life or sort of prune different pieces from in order to move forward. And I think that’ll be part of navigating that transit is like, figuring out what things are worth fighting for, what things you have to have something conflicts or to but some heads with people in that part of your life for versus what things maybe aren’t worth, you know, going to war over in certain instances if it seems like there’s some sort of conflict that forms.
DRH: I think there’s also something about putting in the effort, and like, how much effort it might require. So if there were things that were really clearly initiated or really clearly parts of your eclipse story, the sort of focus to move forward, sometimes separation or relinquishing of things is because you have chosen one thing that you’re gonna focus on. One of my favorite Mars words is “decide.” And to decide is to – C I D E – it’s to kill off other options. Like patricide or fungicide or herbicide or whatever, it’s murderous of particular things for the sake of something else. So whenever you make a decision to really do whatever it is might have arisen for you during the eclipse, that is also deciding to not do the other options that might be available at the time.
CB: Yeah. That’s good. And you know, sometimes we don’t go seeking, looking for conflicts, but sometimes conflicts find us. And in some instances, there’s nothing you can do but just do the best you can to think out your moves, to act honorably and strategically, and try not to react impulsively, which will be the tendency with Mars in Aries, which is like, kind of shooting from the hip, or as Rick Levine always likes to say, you know, sort of like, shoot first and then aim later or something like that. Like, I think he says like, “ready, shoot, aim” is his phrase for Aries.
DRH: Yeah. This reminds me, I just watched the 1993 film Tombstone yesterday, which is a western for those who don’t know. And I feel like there’s something very instructive about a lot of things in that particular film, but I think there’s room in there to consider different expressions of Mars and different levels of strategy or lack thereof and the consequences of doing so. Also the way that fights find you versus you going out and finding a fight.
CB: Totally. And sometimes when you go out and find a fight that you get in over your head or you pick a fight with somebody that’s stronger that you don’t realize at first.
DRH: Yeah. Picking fights can lead to consequences that you really don’t want.
CB: Right. All right, that’s really good. I think that’ll be one of our lessons for this month that we’ll all sort of meditate on and experience.
DRH: Watch Tombstone.
CB: Watch Tombstone. Watch what happens to what? Wyatt Earp and like, Johnny Ringo, or? Who were the two – who was Val Kilmer again?
DRH: I am so – was Val Kilmer Virgil? Or Doc Holliday?
CB: Doc Holliday, okay yeah. Doc Holliday.
DRH: I’m terrible at celebrities. Like —
CB: Okay.
DRH: — really, really bad at celebrities. So yeah.
CB: Nice. All right. So let’s move onto the next aspect, which happens on the 20th, which is when the Sun departs from Taurus and moves into Gemini and we have the beginning of Gemini season starting and the first of a series of planets that’s gonna move into Gemini over the course of the next few weeks until pretty much almost the entirety of that Taurus stellium that we had most of May up to this point transfers over into a stellium in the sign of Gemini.
DRH: Yep.
CB: Yeah. So all right. So we have Gemini season, and then right after that to sort of expand on that, we get our second lunation of the month, which is a Full Moon in the sign of Sagittarius on the 23rd. So here we see the Moon moving into and opposing the Sun from two degrees of Sagittarius to two degrees of Gemini.
DRH: And the fascinating thing about this particular day is we also get Venus conjoined Jupiter, which is a combo that happens to be sextile Neptune, and the orb is a little wiggly, but – because of the sign boundary – but functionally, this Full Moon is opposite that Jupiter-Venus conjunction. Which really brings a lot more – I mean, there’s just, it’s very high-key benefic, and when you add Neptune to it, it feels almost like helium gas.
CB: Yeah. So it’s like, we have Venus-Jupiter going exact the same day, which is a very optimistic positive transit. We have both of those sextiling Neptune at 29 degrees of Pisces at the same time, and then we also have the Moon when it hits the exact opposition with the Sun, it’s like, sextiling Pluto at two degrees of Aquarius. So yeah. I actually, I really like this lunation, especially compared to some of the more tense lunations of like, previous months where we’ve got much more tense stuff going on. Having the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction taking place at the same time in such close configuration to it just seems like a much more positive optimistic vibe than other times we’ve seen at different parts of the year.
DRH: Yeah. I mean, especially because like, Venus-Jupiter combinations have this very – I mean, it’s like you’re combining the best of the night sect with the best of the day sect, and the unification of say, magnanimity and vision with relationality and connectivity in Venus’s sign just feels very favorable for solidifying relations and agreements that are rooted in shared philosophical orientations, but also that potentially have more staying power because of that fixed Taurus component.
CB: Yeah. The staying power – that’s a great point. So Venus uniting with Jupiter brings things like peace, traditionally, success, truces, favorable agreements, and unions between opposing parties. So some of this, what happens around this time, is gonna be a culmination of some events that occurred in world events as well as in our personal lives two weeks earlier at the New Moon in Taurus. We’ll see some of the things that were initiated at that time grow and sort of culminate eventually around the time of this Full Moon.
DRH: Yeah. It feels very like, feast-y. Like there’s a big feast sort of energetic to this – tables laden and you know, cups of mead, whatever, ren faire theme. Sorry.
CB: I thought you were like, verging into another Lord of the Rings meme or analogy; I could feel it.
DRH: Yeah, definitely more Lord of the Rings than, you know, Game of Thrones with this one, because there doesn’t really seem to be anything undercutting in, say, a red wedding kind of way.
CB: Right.
DRH: But with Neptune’s influence to that Venus-Jupiter conjunction, I do think that there’s maybe a bit of a risk of over-inflated fantasies of what could transpire, or what —
CB: Yeah.
DRH: — could fructify from whatever happens with that Venus-Jupiter conjunction.
CB: Yeah.
DRH: Definitely watch out for future-tripping and future-faking around that time.
CB: Yeah, especially with that Neptune sextile, there’s some sort of idealistic component about the agreements or the accords that are created at this time. And sometimes you need a certain amount of like, idealism or hope for the future or the belief, even if it’s not resting on a very solid ground, in order to make peace or have certain types of agreements with people to at least have the perception that something is possible —
DRH: Right.
CB: — but yeah, trying to keep yourself grounded at the same time is really important in terms of all of that.
DRH: Yeah. There’s something about the importance of the really fantastical dream that creates enough space to lay the foundations for the actionable dream. So yeah.
CB: Definitely. And then the Venus-Jupiter also sometimes you can sometimes run into the issue of there is a downside with is it possible to have too much of a good thing and like, maybe you really like chocolate, but maybe you kind of like, go overboard that day and have too much chocolate. Sometimes that can be possible under Venus-Jupiter combinations like that, so I guess that’s the only potential downside to be a little aware of is the tendency towards excess.
DRH: Yeah. Overindulgence and the risks of gluttony. Like, I think there’s something about deeply enjoying what’s present that doesn’t necessitate overconsumption in order to be satiated. But being able to enjoy what is available and really root into that and commit to making what is available a sustainable level of enjoyment, a sustainable level of peace, a sustainable level of connected endurance is another phrase that’s coming to mind. Like, connected and connective endurance towards something worth believing in.
CB: Definitely. And overall, just Venus-Jupiter conjunction in Taurus, and Taurus is such an earthy, sensual sign that is about material comforts but also the material world. It would just be a really good day to enjoy material comforts, sensual comforts, which includes the realm of like, food or other things like that, but also the earth and the environment and the embrace of that, and the sort of beauty as well as groundingness of just like, being in nature.
DRH: Yeah. It’s a good picnic day.
CB: Totally. A picnic – that’s it. That’s the keyword for that day is it’s a picnic day. It’s like the perfect picnic day.
DRH: Maybe the Neptune influence is concocting extremely fanciful stories about the shapes you see in the clouds.
CB: Yeah. It’s like reading Lord of the Rings at a park on a beautiful sunny day while you’re having good food.
DRH: Yeah. Exactly.
CB: I like that. All right. So well, that’s – I was gonna say that’s all the big stuff for this month —
DRH: No, it’s not.
CB: No, it’s not. We literally haven’t even talked about the biggest thing that then takes place this month, which is the planet Jupiter, which has spent the past year transiting through the sign of Taurus, will ingress into the sign of Gemini. And actually before we even get there, it’s like, immediately after the Venus-Jupiter conjunction on the 23rd, Venus ingresses into Gemini on the 24th and joins up with the Sun. Venus will not complete the conjunction; there will be a cazimi with the Sun and Venus, but not until early June. But Venus joins the Sun in Gemini on the 24th, and then Jupiter is not far behind, and it ingresses on the – what is it? The 25th of May?
DRH: The 25th, yeah.
CB: Yeah. So that’s a big deal to have a shift from we’ve been talking so much, you know, to give the contrast between Taurus as like this earth sign that’s slow, it pertains to like, earthy things related to the environment, related to material things, even related to like, wealth or things related in that realm. With Jupiter moving into Gemini, it’s moving into an air sign and a mutable sign, and we get this sudden shift that’s gonna last for about a year where it expands communications, expansions in travel, technology, social media, especially because Jupiter’s then gonna be forming trines with Pluto in Aquarius very quickly, which is just gonna accelerate some of the transformative stuff that’s happening with artificial intelligence, with robotics, especially cars and planes and other technologies that move humans from one place to another. And I’m just really expecting, once this ingress takes place, that we’re just gonna see an acceleration of technological advancement that continues to grow by leaps and bounds at this point.
DRH: Yeah. I’m anticipating Jupiter in Gemini feeling very busy. The image that comes to mind for Jupiter in Gemini is lots and lots of bumblebees, like really big bumblebees like, having the time of their life in a particularly blossom-filled meadow or something like that. Like, there’s a lot of data that’s getting moved around. There’s a lot of innovations in the application of various forms of thought. Trying to collect lots of little bits of information into some level of coherence with more or less success depending on what’s transpiring. That kind of thing. I am anticipating personally feeling overwhelmed during Jupiter in Gemini.
CB: Right.
DRH: So yeah.
CB: Yeah. Especially if one’s already overwhelmed like, communications or with social media and stuff like that. It just seems like the pace of words and of technology and of exchanges between humans just like starts picking up very rapidly at this time.
DRH: Yeah. For some reason, I’m also thinking that this might… Like, take this with a huge grain of salt, but I wonder at environmental allergens while Jupiter is passing through Gemini. Like wondering if there will be heightened allergy season, which makes sense alongside some of the things that have been happening with global climate change, but yeah.
CB: Yeah. So let’s see – so Jupiter in Gemini along with Venus, it’s like we have both of the benefics there and then eventually Mercury will catch up next month and go into Gemini so that we’ll have a full stellium of four planets. Most of it’s positive. I mean, we will start the build-up in June of a buildup to a square with Saturn where there’s gonna be this growing sense of tension between the Gemini and Pisces parts of our charts and of the world in general and perhaps something about like, the feeling or imaginative part of things versus the intellectual, talkative, more technological part of things.
DRH: Also water and air. Like, when I think about Gemini square with Pisces in this way with Saturn in Pisces and everything else hanging out in Gemini, I almost wonder about like, what is this – for some reason, I’m thinking about like, water and air shows. Like, I don’t know if you know – like, in Chicago, there would be like, these shows along the lakefront where there were like, boats and military planes and stuff, and it was very noisy. I think they’re air and water shows, not water and air shows. Whatever. Order of words. But also just thinking about, you know, potentially even how atmospheric things affect oceanic things. Like, what might be happening or transpiring in terms of innovations of greenhouse gasses and how those atmospheric things are very much affecting what’s happening in our largest bodies of water, that kind of tension, yeah.
CB: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Oh yeah, when you said water air shows, it made me think of like, those guys that have those like, jetpacks that shoot water out in order to propel you into the air. Do you know what I’m talking about?
DRH: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: It’s a funny combination of that. We know, though, I’ve said on like, the year ahead forecast, one of the things I was looking forward to with that is just there’s gonna be some changes in travel, both in terms of like, continued rise of autonomous vehicles and autonomous deliveries and things like that. But also short distance air travel becoming more common over the course of the next year, because a bunch of companies are trying to roll out these like, drones or planes that can like, take you from point A to point B in a city through flight and yeah. This Jupiter ingress is when we start seeing a ramping up of that, and we start getting into full like, you know, Jetsons —
DRH: I was gonna say Jetsons-level, the future is now.
CB: Yeah. We are there. That’s the last sort of like, checkmark on our bingo card of it’s really 2024 and all of this is happening.
DRH: Yeah. It’s like, we already have roombas, which are kind of like Rosie the Robot, so.
CB: Right.
DRH: Yeah. Interesting.
CB: Yeah, a robot – robots, actually, that’s the other thing that’s really ramping up is so many companies are really investing in robots and there’s been some major leaps and bounds in that recently. That may be also one of the things we’re looking at here with this in the activation of that trine between Gemini and Aquarius.
DRH: Yep. Wow. Incredible.
CB: Yeah. So in terms of our personal lives, you know, Venus-Jupiter going through this sign for this period of time for at least a month should be pretty positive where we get some pretty positive things happening. And for some people, especially if you have a lot of mutable placements, it will act as an alleviation of some of the heaviness that we’ve been experiencing from the Saturn transit through Pisces over the past year. So now all of a sudden, you’ve got some benefics there that are balancing things out, making life feel not as heavy or slow or burdensome or restrictive by adding some levity and some greater freedom and buoyancy to things. For those that were not necessarily getting hit by that stuff too hard, though, it’ll just be good to pay attention to what house Gemini coincides with in your chart, and yeah, just having a period of things going relatively well, relatively smoothly, successfully, or having a period of optimism in that part of your life for a period of time.
DRH: Yeah. And this is, you know, reminding me like, one of the things that we were talking about when we were preparing, which is how May is, you know, there’s less harsh astrology happening in May than April. And then in June, we do have these squares with Saturn from the Gemini stellium. So there’s something about how in May, the positive expressions of stuff in Taurus and the positive expressions of stuff in Gemini, it’s a really great time to take stock of positive things within your life. Use, if you are an auspicious elections user, use those elections to sort of prepare yourself in positive and affirming ways for June and further into 2024. There’s a lot of positive support, and the optimism to use that positive support towards that which matters to you.
CB: Yeah, for sure. There’s some old phrase like that, it’s like, “make hay while the Sun shines” or something like that.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: Take advantage of the opportunity while you have it to cultivate things or grow your crops while the weather is good to sort of prepare for other times where it might not be as good.
DRH: Right.
CB: Yeah. So I think that’s especially the case with the Taurus and Gemini sectors of our chart, because of course in June, Mars is gonna go into Taurus, so then it’s gonna bring some of that more conflict energy to that sector of our chart. And then eventually this summer, Mars will go into Gemini. But this is like the precursor where you have this period of time of a couple months where things are going relatively smoothly in that area of our life.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: Cool. All right. So that brings us, eventually, surprisingly, to I think our last major aspect of the month, which is that Mercury, which is now zooming at this point, gets towards the end of Taurus and it conjoins with Uranus on the 30th and 31st of May. So we have an exact Mercury-Uranus conjunction where Mercury as we talked about earlier kind of brings a megaphone to Uranus and the Uranus part of our chart at this point, the Taurus part of our chart that’s been getting hit by Uranus transits, and there’s one last final blast of the inner planets saying something about the experiences we’ve been having in this part of our chart, especially over the course of the past month.
DRH: Yeah. And you know, Mercury-Uranus together can be quite out of pocket. Like, really surprising and startling and upsetting, but also engaged with deliberately can be a great time to intentionally deliver what could be surprising news.
CB: Yeah. Surprising news. Unexpected developments. Unexpected communications with somebody you’re not intending on having a conversation – sometimes those can be positive things that leads to an unexpected connection or unexpected communication from someone that you weren’t anticipating.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
DRH: I think there’s something about Mercury-Uranus, especially because it is in that wide but not irrelevant sextile with Neptune of surprising conversations that open up possibilities that were previously unimaginable.
CB: Yeah. The thing that you – that’s the difficult thing about Uranus transits is it’s often something that you didn’t expect or you can’t expect. It’s like, the curveball that comes out of nowhere that’s hard to anticipate except that you know something unexpected is coming.
DRH: Yeah, exactly. And it’s like, you know, sure you could think of it in terms of Taurean things or try to think through what Mercury is responsible for in your own chart, like your Gemini house and your Virgo house, where your natal Mercury might be. But even then, like all of the thinking in the world is not going to get you to a place of knowing ahead of time what the Uranian experience will be.
CB: Yeah, for sure. But it definitely, Mercury and Uranus combinations, they favor flexibility and the ability to adapt to circumstances that are developing quickly on the ground and to think on your feet.
DRH: Yeah. And it’s also – sorry, go ahead.
CB: Especially if there’s unexpected disruptions, especially technologically are a common Mercury-Uranus theme.
DRH: I was gonna say both Mercury and Uranus have associations with the nervous system, and whenever they are connected, there’s something about the rapidity with which your nervous system can respond and communicate effectively in a given moment in order to navigate whatever has arisen.
CB: Definitely. Yeah. Having your nervous system being amped up on Mercury-Uranus days is definitely a thing.
DRH: Yeah. It’s a good day to be cautious with your caffeine consumption.
CB: That’s a good one. Yeah. That’s gonna be one of those days that I’m recording a podcast episode and I’ve had too much caffeine and —
DRH: Yeah, and you’re getting a little jittery from it?
CB: Yeah, exactly.
DRH: Pro tip as a former barista – eat a banana. Bananas help sort of smooth some of the caffeine zippity-zap.
CB: I didn’t know that. Okay. That’s good. All right, cool. Well, I think that brings us to the end of the month. That’s the last major transit that we had to talk about. Obviously we’re on the cusp of some other major transits, because we can see Jupiter coming in for a close trine with Pluto by this point. Once Mercury departs from Taurus soon into June, it’s gonna catch up with all of the other planets in the Gemini stellium. And Mars next month will move into Taurus. But we will have to save that for the next forecast next month.
DRH: Yep.
CB: Yeah. Do you have any final thoughts about May, or have we done it pretty exhaustively at this point?
DRH: I think we’ve done it pretty exhaustively. You know, there are gonna be stories that started in April that continue all the way through May, and we will see those stories unfold alongside the transits, especially those that ping Uranus ongoingly. But otherwise, you know, if the thing that you need to prepare for the rest of the year is rest, rest. If the thing that you need to prepare for the rest of the year is do stuff, do stuff. But either way, I think it’s really important to enjoy as much of May as you can.
CB: Yeah, definitely take advantage of the stellium. Take advantage and grow the crops while you can, as we said earlier. Certainly for some, you know, Uranus is still gonna be bringing that rebellious energy and some of that’s gonna be expanded by the Taurus stellium, so that’ll be the focus for some people. But yeah, for others, cultivating the internal sense of optimism and stability that the Taurus stellium brings most of the time when it’s not exactly conjunct Uranus will be a large part of the month, and then eventually the same thing in Gemini when those benefics shift in there in the last week.
DRH: Yeah.
CB: Cool. All right. Well, I think that’s it for the forecast. That was a huge month. We had a lot of news stories, but we did it. Thank you so much for doing this episode with me and helping me to talk about some of these just like, historic times that we’re living in.
DRH: Yeah. Capital H Historical, capital H Times. It’s like Medieval Times, but different. Sorry. Gonna keep with the ren faire references now.
CB: Right. Yeah. So you, my friend, as we’ve said earlier, you have something big coming up where you’re gonna be speaking, actually giving a keynote at this conference at the end of the month.
DRH: Yep. Keynote and a lecture. Those are the very primary huge things that are coming up for me and what I’m working on ardently throughout this month, so. Yeah.
CB: Cool. And last month, you mentioned a promo code where people can get access to your lectures, listeners to the podcast can for a discount, right?
DRH: Yeah. It’s 20 percent off if you use the code TAP24 on the website where I have all of my lecture recordings available for sale, and that code expires at the end of May. So the same day that the Mercury-Uranus conjunction happens, this code expires, so. There’s a collection of things, many of them are former NORWAC presentations, but also a couple of other things in there as well.
CB: Nice. You’ve got some great talks there. And I’ll put a link to your website in the description below this video. Cool. All right. Good luck with NORWAC. As for myself, I recently – since we’re almost about halfway through the year, I have discounted my 2024 year ahead electional report where Leisa Schaim and I went through and we picked out the best elections for each month over the course of the next year, and you can get access to that now at a discounted price by going to TheAstrologyPodcast.com/2024Report for more information about elections in the long-term over the course of the next six months.
So other things – the only other major thing is people often ask me, they wanna start learning astrology, they’re still relatively new, and they don’t know which of my courses is the best to begin with. And the primary course that I teach for reading birth charts and for my approach to astrology in general is my Hellenistic astrology course. And I’m super excited about that, because I keep adding new lectures to it and expanding the course, and it’s really become this resource at this point that once you sign up, you get access to all of these lectures sort of permanently. And yeah, I’ve been seeing some people go out and starting to use that system, and I’m excited with how good, you know, astrologers have access to so many different resources, but it’s cool to be able to teach somebody like, your approach to astrology so that they can replicate that themself. And if you wanted to practice astrology in the way that I do, then that would be what I would recommend is taking my Hellenistic course, which you can find out more information about at Courses.TheAstrologySchool.com.
DRH: I would say it’s one of the largest, most robust, and most generous introductions to any of the forms of ancient and traditional astrology out there. It’s massive, and I feel like every single person – almost every single person who practices Hellenistic who I respect and admire has somehow learned from you, so.
CB: Thank you. Yeah, it feels really good to have that many students out there and to influence the tradition in that way, both with my like, free offerings through the podcast but also still holding back some of the most advanced teachings for my students in my courses.
So if people would like to learn more as well as support my work, you can sign up for that course. Otherwise, thanks to all the patrons – this has been a big month on the podcast. We’ve done a lot of stuff. I actually have a lot of big episodes next month as well. But thanks to the live audience of patrons who joined us for the recording of this episode today; I really appreciate it and I appreciate your support. And yeah, I think that’s it for this episode of The Astrology Podcast, so good luck everybody this month. Let us know how things go, and we’ll check in again a month from now to see how the astrology played out over the course of the next few weeks and continue to learn from it as astrologers and grow as a community. So yeah, thanks a lot for watching or listening to the podcast, and we’ll see you again next time.
DRH: Bye!
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CB: If you appreciate the work I’m doing here on the podcast and you’d like to find a way to support it, then consider becoming a patron through my page on Patreon.com. In exchange, you’ll get access to some great subscriber benefits, including early access to new episodes, the ability to attend the live recording of the forecast each month, our monthly Auspicious Elections Podcast, which is only available to patrons, a whole exclusive podcast series called The Casual Astrology Podcast, or you can even get your name listed in the credits. You can find out more information at Patreon.com/AstrologyPodcast.
Shoutout to our sponsor for this episode, which is the CHANI App, the #1 astrology app for self-discovery, mindfulness, and healing. You can download it on the Apple App Store or on Google Play, or for more information, visit app.chani.com.
Special thanks to all the patrons that helped to support the production of this episode of the podcast through our page on Patreon.com. In particular, a shoutout to the patrons on our Producers tier, including patrons Kristi Moe, Ariana Amour, Mandi Rae, Angelic Nambo, Issa Sabah, Jake Otero, Jeanne Marie Kaplan, Melissa DeLano, and Sonny Bazbaz.
If you’re looking for a reliable astrologer to get an astrological consultation with, then we have a new list of astrologers on the podcast website that we recommend for readings. Most of the astrologers specialize in birth chart readings, although some also offer synastry, rectification, electional astrology, horary questions and more. Find out more information at TheAstrologyPodcast.com/Consultations.
The astrology software that we use and recommend here on the podcast is called Solar Fire for Windows, which is available for the PC at Alabe.com. Use the promo code ‘AP15’ to get a 15% discount. For Mac users, we recommend a software program called Astro Gold for Mac OS, which is from the creators of Solar Fire for PC, and it includes both modern and traditional techniques. You can find out more information at AstroGold.io, and you can use the promo code ‘ASTROPODCAST15’ to get a 15% discount.
If you’d like to learn more about my approach to astrology, then I’d recommend checking out my book titled Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune, where I go over the history, philosophy, and techniques of ancient astrology, taking people from beginner up through intermediate and advanced techniques for reading birth charts.
If you’re really looking to expand your studies of astrology, then I would recommend my Hellenistic Astrology course, which is an online course on ancient astrology, where I take people through basic concepts up through intermediate and advanced techniques for reading birth charts. There’s over a hundred hours of video lectures, as well as guided readings of ancient texts, and by the time you finish the course you will have a strong foundation in how to read birth charts, as well as make predictions. You can find out more information at Courses.TheAstrologySchool.com.
And finally, thanks to our sponsors, including The Mountain Astrologer Magazine, which is a quarterly astrology magazine which you can read in print or online at MountainAstrologer.com, and the Northwest Astrological Conference, which is happening both in person and online, May 23-27, 2024. You can find out more information at norwac.net.