The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 462, titled:
2nd and 3rd House Birth Chart Readings
With Chris Brennan
Episode originally released on September 15, 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 October 10th, 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. In this episode, I’m gonna give a live birth chart reading webinar on the 2nd house and the 3rd house in astrology. And I’m gonna talk to and interview some people about their charts where they’re gonna share specific examples with me about those placements which help us to understand the significations of each of those houses in a much deeper way.
So I’m recording this as a little preview or a little bit of a segment to lead into the actual recording because I just got done recording it, and originally this was actually just supposed to be a live chart reading webinar with patrons to cover just the 2nd house. But right away as we got into the discussion and I started interviewing people, originally some of the early charts had connections between the ruler of the 2nd house of finances being in the 3rd house of siblings. And right away there started being in the interviews like, this draw towards talking about the 3rd house in addition to the 2nd house. And initially, I was kind of reluctant and almost wanted to like, refocus on the 2nd house since that was supposed to be the main focus of the episode. But then eventually I realized that we were almost kind of being like, pulled into not just a 2nd house discussion but also a 3rd house discussion. And in fact, right now, I’m in the process of preparing for the next episode in the houses series, which is an episode on the 3rd house. So I realized at a certain point that instead of fighting it I should just sort of roll with it and see where it went. And in the process, I think by the end we ended up having some pretty profound and pretty interesting discussions that really got to the heart of what not just the 2nd house means but also what the 3rd house means as well.
So I just wanted to preface this with that. We also, though, got into some pretty heavy discussions at times because sometimes we were dealing with difficult chart placements. So I needed to put a little bit of a trigger warning on this episode that if you’re not comfortable dealing with heavy topics or topics surounding even death or in some instances suicide that this may not be a good episode for you if that’s not something you’re sort of prepared to handle or deal with right now, which is fine. But if you are, I think that you’ll find we ended up developing some pretty profound insights into the core nature of what the 2nd house and the 3rd house mean. And after just finishing recording that webinar, I’m actually so happy that we had some of the discussions that we had that I think it was one of the best live chart readings webinars that I’ve ever done, and it will provide a nice addendum to both the 2nd house episode as well as the 3rd house episode that I’m gonna do in this series.
So that’s pretty much the introduction. So I just wanted to put that little warning ahead of time for some people but also to describe better what you’re gonna find in this video and in this podcast episode once you get into it just because it turned into something that, as you’ll see, I’m gonna open just talking about the 2nd house and walking into it thinking that’s all we’re gonna cover, but in fact it ended up being much broader and much more profound than I could have expected when I started this today, but in a really good way. So I’m excited to share it with you.
So without further ado, let’s get started with the episode.
Hey, my name is Chris Brennan, and you’re listening to The Astrology Podcast. In this episode, I’m going to do a live chart reading webinar where patrons of The Astrology Podcast who have signed up to support my work through my page on Patreon.com are joining me today for a live webinar where we’re gonna look at 2nd house placements in their birth chart, look at transits through the 2nd house of their birth chart, and other 2nd house related things in order to see how these placements and astrological transits work out in the lives of real people.
So I just released not that long ago a long, what was it, like, three or four hour workshop essentially episode on the 2nd house in astrology. And in that episode, Leisa Schaim and I primarily went through celebrity charts in order to demonstrate different variations of how 2nd house placements can work out. And I like that approach with celebrities as the primary thing because their lives are so well-documented or publicly documented, and therefore you have kind of like, an objective way of looking at the astrological placements so that when I say, like, “The ruler of the 2nd house in the 7th house means this,” and then I give a publicly documented example where somebody’s biography or multiple biographies are out there, you can kind of see and validate that that’s true. So that’s one piece of thing, and I think that’s one half of approaching astrological research that’s very valid and very important. The other half, though, is the importance of talking to real life people that are not necessarily celebrities and of having a one-on-one direct personal interaction with them and being able to actually ask them questions, since that’s something we can’t necessarily do with celebrities. And when you do that approach, as we’re gonna do here today with some of the people attending this webinar, you’re able to draw out some of the nuances of the placements a little bit more because you’re able to have that dialog and ask questions and get feedback about some of the delineations and how the placements actually work out in practice by, especially in our case, by talking to astrologers or astrology enthusiasts who have their own 2nd house placements and have their own lives, but have thought about those placements and sort of reflected on them and see how they’ve worked out in different ways. So that’s part of what we’re gonna demonstrate today.
So everybody who’s attending today has signed up for the livestream tier on The Astrology Podcast Patreon page at Patreon.com/AstrologyPodcast. I’m thinking about doing one of these for each of the houses episodes that I do, so we’ll see how it goes and we’ll see how it works out. We did one on the first house last month, and I think that was a helpful additional like, addendum to some of the things we did in the standard first house episode itself.
Some things I wanted to mention before we get started – yeah, there was a few comments that I’ve gotten a lot from the last webinar that we did or from the episode that Leisa and I did on the 2nd house. So one of them is a lot of people are asking why we didn’t address or what it means when the ruler of the 2nd house is in its own sign, and in terms of that, we actually had a bunch of examples with people that had the ruler of the 2nd house in its own sign, and one of the reasons we didn’t go into it a lot is because one, it’s just a generally favorable placement for the ruler of the 2nd house to be in its own domicile or in its own sign and it indicates positive things for the manifestation of that house for the most part, that things will go a little bit more positively or a little bit more smoothly in that area of the life than they could be compared to other people, as long as there aren’t major contradicting factors involving malefic planets especially. So if you look through our actual examples, you’ll see actually we did have a bunch of people like that. Like, King Farouk, for example, who had Mars in its own domicile in Scorpio in the 2nd house, and that was one of the things that kind of characterized that he was particularly fortunate when it came to money and wealth and possessions. So part of the delineation is that when the ruler of a house is in its own sign, it’s more fortunate or it is a somewhat fortunate area of the person’s chart and the person’s life potentially, other counteracting factors aside. It also means that the significations will tend to arise from the nature of the planet, so you have to focus in that instance that the nature of the ruler of the house will manifest its significations much more clearly in that area of the life. Like, if it’s Venus, for example, versus if it’s Saturn, for example, that’s the ruler of the 2nd house in its own sign, they’ll tend to have a much more pure expression of whatever that planet means as manifesting in that area of the chart. And I think we have some examples of that in that lecture.
Let’s see, other things. The other house, though, is still relevant, and that’s part of what we were demonstrating in that talk is that oftentimes when a planet’s in its own domicile, most of the time it’s still gonna be ruling one other house in the chart, and so it’s gonna import the significations of that other house into the 2nd house while also generally being a generally fortunate placement. When a planet’s in its own house, there’s also things that have to do with self-autonomy being more prominent sometimes in the person’s life in terms of having more freedom or control to decide or choose how one makes money or material resources than you might have if the ruler of the 2nd house is in other houses of the chart, in which case it gets more wrapped up in other people in the person’s life, whereas the person when it has the ruler of the 2nd in its own sign may have greater self-autonomy in terms of that.
Another one where there’s some overlap there that people are asking about is the ruler of the 2nd in the first house. So this one is tricky, but it also has some similar things because it means the ruler of the 2nd house finances is in the first house of self. And so sometimes that means that the person’s financial success or failure is more up to them and in their own hands than it is for other people in some way, or that sometimes there’s something about you and your sense of self where your finances stand out in terms of who you are and how you’re defined in the world more than other people. So one example of this is like, Elon Musk, for example, has the ruler of the 2nd in the first house, and he’s become at different points the richest man in the world. So that’s one way that that can work out in terms of that. It can also – that somehow money is a special property of who you are or characterizing who you are in the world. Also, it can sometimes mean that you make money or finances as a result of the body, which is the first house signification, or the mind, which is another first house signification. It can also mean that you make money from your appearance since the first house also represents appearance.
So I don’t wanna go into spend more time on doing all of that than I need to, so I’ll leave it at that, but I just wanted to mention that because I know there’s a lot of people who asked about that. So perhaps that’s something we’ll revisit at a future point in this series.
One last thing before we get started with interviews is there was one chart that I left out. I actually forgot to mention like, a bunch of charts just because we covered so many. But one of them that was really interesting that I found was Harry Truman had Libra rising, Cancer on the 10th house of career, and the ruler of the 10th house was the Moon, which was placed in Scorpio in the 2nd whole sign house, and it’s ruled by Mars, which is up there in Leo in the 11th squaring the Moon through a superior sign-based square with reception. So I thought this placement was interesting because he’s one of the few US presidents that actually really struggled financially, and in fact, he struggled so much after the presidency in terms of his finances that Congress actually passed an act which made it so that presidents would get an annual salary after they left office or stipend of some sort basically. In the 1950s, they passed this act, and it was really primarily about taking care of Truman because it was seen as somewhat like, embarrassing that there was like, a former president who wasn’t doing very well financially or who was struggling. And I just wanted to mention that because I thought that was such an interesting thing because it’s something that comes up frequently in his biographies, and it’s sort of right there standing out in terms of that Moon struggling a little bit in the 2nd house. But also that because it’s connected with his 10th house of career that it’s something he became known for and that part of his legacy was that then subsequently presidents would receive that money each year as a result of having been president.
So I thought that was kind of a cool example, and I meant to mention it. I’m surprised I accidentally overlooked it in the last episode. I wanted to put that in here as something to think about.
All right. So let’s do some interviews. I’m gonna do some interviews with people and look at some charts and see what we learn. So Amelia, I think you’re the first person up, so I’m gonna promote you to a panelist. And I know you have an example of a transit that you had at one point.
AMELIA: Okay.
CB: Hey. Thanks for joining me.
A: Thanks for having me on.
CB: All right. So your… I’ve got your birth data; I’m just entering it in. So what is it again, just verbally for those listening?
A: It’s April 4th, 1980, Woodside, Queens, New York, at 10:47 AM.
CB: Got it. All right. And is your Ascendant 15 Cancer?
A: Yes.
CB: Cool. All right. So I’m gonna show your chart first and then we’ll show the transits. So natally, you have Cancer rising, and you have Mars, which is retrograde, in Leo at 25 Leo conjunct the North Node in the 2nd whole sign house in a day chart. And so I thought your example was interesting because you had an example where you had a bad experience where you were basically like, almost robbed or something while you were traveling, right?
A: Yes, that’s correct. Do you want the time and date of that event?
CB: Yeah. Let me do a – I will do, instead of the time, I’ll just do a biwheel for the broad transits. So what was the date of the event?
A: July 11th, 2007.
CB: Okay, there we go. So tell us the story or set up the story and tell us what happened briefly.
A: Yeah, so I was traveling abroad. I had spent the summer in Europe, and I made it to Istanbul. And I was traveling with a friend. We were in our like, mid – I was 27 at the time, but I would say that like, we looked quite a bit younger, so that also have had something to do with like, the target. But we were followed by what looked like police officers; they were dressed as authorities and they stopped us and asked for our passports to verify our visas, which were accurate. But then they got quite aggressive and like, started to tell us, like – there was a lot of language barrier going on – that our visas weren’t valid. And it became like, pretty escalated where it seemed like it was gonna turn into a scary situation. And it was late, and there weren’t people around. And so they had our passports in their hands, and I just like, very instinctually – I get very grabby when I get in very tense situation – and I grabbed a passport out of one of the police officer’s hands and then the other one just looked confused and handed the other one back, and we just took off running. And we did get chased; they did follow us. But through a variety of chances and good luck and a miracle, even though they walked right past us while we were hiding like, aside a bush basically, I don’t like to think about what would have happened if they did see us in that situation, because we were actually trapped. But they did follow us and find out like, where our hostel was and try to come into the hostel we were staying in. But yeah. So I was able to retrieve the passports. It was scary. It could have been a lot worse. But I guess what like, sort of triggered that 2nd house experience that I related to you mentioned in the podcast that there was text indicating thievery and robbery, which made me sort of go back and think about this particular situation.
CB: Nice. Yeah. That sometimes like, Mars in connection with the 2nd house can indicate like, thievery or robbery was a really common delineation. And I think I used like, King Farouk’s chart that had like, Mars in the 2nd, and he actually had a tendency to like, steal stuff from people. He was kind of like a kleptomaniac, which was an interesting manifestation of that symbolically. So what happened in terms of your chart is your Mars in the 2nd house placement, which is where you have the most challenging planet for you because it’s a day chart, was getting activated at that time among other transits, but transiting Saturn – there was a Venus-Saturn conjunction in late Leo, and it was conjoining your Mars in late Leo that was getting activated that day.
A: Yeah. And weirdly enough, I actually, when I got home back to the states like, two months later, I ended up getting mugged again. And I did come out of that also safe, but like, not totally physically unscathed. So I, you know, was a bit violently assaulted. But also in that case, my passport was actually in bag as well, and I was able to retrieve my bag. That whole just Saturn transiting the 2nd house with Mars was like, not agreeing with me when it comes to that topic.
CB: Yeah. That’s really rough. Do you know the timeframe of the second incident?
A: I never recorded that date specifically. I think it was September of that year.
CB: Because that – like, Mars – yeah, I mean… What’s going on there? Oh right, this was a Venus retrograde year; I forgot about that. So you actually had Venus go retrograde that summer through your 2nd house at the same time, so it’s funny that you had two separate incidents potentially in a few month time frame.
A: Yeah. I actually had three. There was one in January of that year where I was also.. Out of my whole entire life, that particular year I had three instances where I had like, violent attacks by men.
CB: Oh no. Okay. Yeah. So maybe it was more the Saturn thing in terms of talking about a long term like, entire year in which you’re experiencing this. How old where you that year?
A: 27.
CB: 27. So that’s…
A: I was 26 when the first altercation happened in like, January of 2007. You know, but like, in the end, it was, I sort of came out of it like, not – you know, there was not any situation where I was like, very harmed, but it was like, an escalation happened where it could have been worse. Where like, I felt like, my life was threatened, but in the end, obviously I’m still here, thankfully.
CB: Yeah. I mean, it probably like, psychologically would have made you more like, wary about like, strangers and especially like, handing out stuff – giving physical stuff to people like your passport and stuff, I assume.
A: Yeah. I mean, the grabbiness has actually saved me in almost all of those circumstances. So I don’t know if that’s, you know, what that part of my instinctual nature is. Maybe it is that Mars.
CB: Yeah.
A: But I do have Mars stationing direct, and it also has other mitigating factors. It’s in its own terms; it’s in its own decan.
CB: Right. So Mars is one point seven days away from stationing direct?
A: Yeah.
CB: Wow. Okay. That – yeah, that’s a pretty striking Mars placement. And then where’s Jupiter? Jupiter is in your – oh right, yeah, it’s right next to it in Virgo. I mean, the other thing I noticed about this chart just in terms of you being on a foreign trip at the time is that transiting Uranus was like, right there at 18 degrees of Pisces retrograding back into a conjunction with your Mercury at 17 degrees of Pisces, and that seems very relevant as well in terms of being in a foreign country at the time, traveling and then having this unexpected event that kind of like, disrupts the trip.
A: Yeah, we actually were so distraught by the situation that we ended up leaving the next day. And we had intended to stay for several days.
CB: Okay. Got it. Yeah. And then obviously there’s also transits going on. So in terms of your Mars in the 2nd house, I mean, how else has that worked out for you? Or do you have any general reflections about how that’s worked out for you in the past? I know like, sometimes people – yours is retrograde, so I don’t know if this would counteract it, but sometimes people can spend money like, very quickly if they have like, Mars in the 2nd house in a day chart. I don’t know if that’s ever been an issue for you. Have you ever had any other financial issues or other things involving money that stand out to you in terms of your chart?
A: Yeah. Pretty financially unstable. Usually on the lower end of the poverty scale, at least, you know, in my sort of independent adult life. But trying to sort of make money in really independent ways has kind of always been at the like, forefront.
CB: That kind of makes sense, since that’s one of the nice positive things you have going on is like, the ruler of your 2nd is the Sun, which is like, in Aries in the 10th house, so there’s a nice mutual reception between your 10th and your 2nd. So the idea of being more independent in terms of how you make finances would make sense there.
A: Yeah. And I’ve always been able to just get by. I would say it’s a lot of treading water to keep my head above, but I’ve had a couple like, financial drops, I guess, that have kind of really got me out of sticky situations, whether it’s like, winning like, a photo competition or something like that, and suddenly I just, you know, I was like, didn’t have a place to live and I was sleeping on a couch in a state that I didn’t wanna live in, and then I won a photo competition and got like, 3,000 dollars and I was able to live and like, go somewhere else to make more money kind of situations.
CB: Nice.
A: Let’s see. Other reflections on the 2nd house… Yeah, I mean, I guess as far as spending money, I’m actually really good at saving and being kind of quite frugal and actually I’m a little bit of like, a control freak when it comes to how I spend my money. And I will hoard what small amounts I have sometimes.
CB: Okay. Yeah. I’m curious about that. Sometimes like, control things are like, a Pluto thing. You do have that sextile there between Pluto and Mars. But I’m curious what else that comes from. It’s probably like, echos of different placements.
A: Yeah. Probably might be my Scorpio Moon square, that kind of like, control aspect.
CB: Right. Yeah. The Moon-Uranus conjunction for those listening to the audio listeners is in late Scorpio in the 5th house, and it’s configured pretty closely by a square to the Mars and North Node placements in the later part of the 2nd house.
A: I definitely have scarcity anxiety. Big time. Huge. Major.
CB: Okay. So that’s interesting, because that’s something that I find really commonly when people have like, Saturn in the 2nd house, especially in a night chart, that – because Saturn often indicates things we fear and the people sometimes end up fearing financial lack or scarcity. So that’s interesting actually if that’s also a manifestation that you experience of having the most challenging planet in the 2nd house and being concerned or worrying about finances.
A: Yeah. It’s a pretty big topic for me.
CB: Is it something that, like, I had a client once with Saturn in the 2nd house in a night chart; it was like, ruling his Ascendant, so it was much more important. But it was like, there was some pivotal early foundational experiences that kind of led to that or left that imprint for him in some ways. Was that the case with you that there was some early foundational experiences like that? Or is it more just as a result of things you’ve experienced throughout your life?
A: Yeah. I mean, maybe it was being raised by a single parent who, you know, I didn’t get to have like, a great bond with because they were working all the time. So I was sort of left to my own devices a lot. Maybe kind of, yeah, like that thought of not – yeah, I’m not sure. There seem to be some sort of connection to like, a lack of feeling safe, maybe.
CB: Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, and maybe just the configuration with the Moon then coming back into play and representing like, the mother to some extent, if she was the one that was like, raising you on her own and kind of doing what she could to get by.
A: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Interesting. All right. Well, thanks for sharing that example. I think that was a really good example in showing, you know, sometimes having a year like that when you’re having a long term Saturn transit that’s going over a sensitive degree in your chart in the 2nd house and having those three discrete incidents, but then luckily that being somewhat isolated to just like, having a really bad year in terms of that, and that transit eventually going away.
A: Yeah. And I also I liked it as sort of another kind of example that is kind of away from just like, money and material objects, but sort of like, other delienations that we can sort of take about like, livelihood. And I thought that one kind of matched up nicely!
CB: Sure, yeah.
A: That came out, and I’m safe, so it’s fine.
CB: Yeah, which is the most important part. That was actually something I was just talking to Leisa about this morning. She couldn’t make it here today, but we were talking a little bit about the possibility of the 2nd house also representing body things, like things related to the body and like, potentially physical health or physical wellbeing as part of an early delineation of the 2nd house that may have gotten lost and gotten forgotten about. And I think it’s kind of interesting, maybe relevant here just because it wasn’t just that your possessions were in danger at that time but your physical wellbeing also was potentially in danger at that time, so that may be part of what we’re seeing potentially here as well.
A: Yeah. I mean like, you know, in order to survive, yes, you need material objects – you also need like, yourself, like, your body.
CB: Exactly.
A: Your physical self. So I guess when I think about like, the Ascendant as you know, when we were born and it’s like, okay, well, like, sure we’re born, but we need – you know, what do we need to be able to survive and sustain?
CB: Exactly. And that’s actually, that may be why the 2nd house – because it was called bios or bios in Greek, which does mean “livelihood,” but it also just means “life.” And that may be why the 2nd house is opposite to – or why the 8th house is opposite to that and is said to signify death as the opposite, because there’s something about the 2nd that represents not just the material life of the native but also their physical potentially life or wellbeing as well. So that’s something I’m really interested in exploring, and that could be relevant here also just because you had, you know, that main incident was also potentially could have been really bad in terms of just your bodily wellbeing and safety and like, mortality and other issues like that, so.
A: Yeah. I mean, I’ve never been so sure in my life that if they had caught us, like, I would not be sitting here. It was that intense and that scary. And I’ve never had that experience before. So just instinctually, I was like, this is life or death.
CB: Okay. Life or death – that’s it. Like, that’s the signification, like, life or death. Okay. This is really interesting because that was something Leisa and I were just talking about. So I’m gonna have to keep an eye out for that, and we’re gonna have to see if we see anything like that that comes up in other examples or if other listeners have similar stories related to their 2nd house, and maybe there’s a whole property of the 2nd there that’s worth exploring and expanding on more.
A: Yeah, I’d love to see your research if it ever comes about.
CB: Cool. Well, thank you for that. That was perfect. Thanks for helping me discover that. So yeah, thank you.
A: You’re welcome. Thank you!
CB: All right. So I’ll leave you as a panelist and we’ll just mute your mic and stuff so you can stay in the meeting. That was a great first example to get us started.
So all right, I’m gonna go into the Q&A, and I’ve asked different people to submit their stories through clicking the Q&A button here in Zoom and then submitting a brief paragraph. And then people can go through and vote on those in order to help me prioritize which ones I should cover next.
So Maria, I know you were up for sharing, but you said you were having some noise issues. Is that good now? Do you feel like sharing? Yeah? Okay. I will promote you to a panelist then.
All right. This is fun; we’ve got a good group here today. Thanks everyone for joining me for this live webinar to do a more casual chart reading session. I’ve really been enjoying this the past few months, doing these.
Hi. There we go.
MARIA: Hi.
CB: Hey. How’s it going? Yeah, thanks for joining me.
M: Yeah.
CB: All right, so what is your birth data?
M: So it’s January 14th, 1994, at 3:55 AM in Guatemala City, Guatemala.
CB: All right. So 16 Sagittarius. And we’re looking at a chart, for the audio listeners, where you have a large stellium of several planets, of five planets, in the 2nd house in Capricorn, including Mars, Neptune, Uranus, Venus, and the Sun. So you‘ve got like, a major focus on 2nd house placements in your life just with such a large cluster of different planets in that house. So what’s your example or how has that worked out for you or what did you wanna highlight for us today?
M: Well, in general in my life, the way I see that represented is I’m an artist and I’ve always just had a knack for like, making things, and I have a storage unit full of like, 50 paintings that I haven’t sold yet, and I don’t know if it’s an investment that’ll ever pan out. But you know, that Neptune conjunct my Mars – I have faith. And these last seven years, Pluto has been, you know, closely conjunct first my Mars in Capricorn and now it’s still conjunct my Sun and now conjunct my Mercury. And I had just extreme experiences of power dynamics and death, too. At the end of 2017, a friend of mine committed suicide. It really, for the first time in my life, I felt able to confront the fact that I always felt that relationship with what I don’t see and with like, the beyond or you know, thinking about life after death. You know, I had very like, strong experiences with my friend who had just died, and like, feeling her and talking to her in the five months after she had died.
And then that last year, I got married —
CB: That’s actually interesting that you mention that, only because I was – you know, because of the discussion I was just having with Amelia, but also I was reviewing some of the earliest significations in the Hellenistic tradition for the 2nd house, and they were oftentimes with all of the houses treating it as if it was a pair and that there was overlapping significations between opposing houses. And I was surprised that in like, Rhetorius and Valens especially in calling it “the gate of Hades” or “the gate to the underworld” that there was sometimes connections with death in connection with the 2nd house. So it’s interesting that you mention that.
M: Yeah. I mean, in this period, I’ve had two friends commit suicide, actually, so that happened in 2017, and then in 2019 again I had another friend commit suicide. And again, I had a very powerful like, psychic kind of experience, like, where I had a dream with my friend who committed suicide first the night that she committed suicide. Then my other friend committed suicide.
CB: Okay. Yeah, and it’s tricky because it’s like, that Pluto transit at the same time – Pluto and Uranus – you have Libra on the 11th whole sign house and the ruler is Venus, which is there at 23 degrees of Capricorn, so you’ve just been getting some of those transits over the ruler of your 11th house there in the 2nd at the same time.
M: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
M: And at the same time, I had just taken a job in India. I traveled all over the world to get there, and it was like, an extreme power dynamic where my employer controlled my food, my transportation, my housing, everything. Because I was working in a residential like, boarding school that was very isolated in a mountain in India. And it was —
CB: In 2017?
M: I took it in 2018 and I left 2020.
CB: Okay. So this was during Pluto in Capricorn – or Saturn in Capricorn, especially while Saturn is transiting through your 2nd house.
M: Yeah. Well, Saturn and Pluto.
CB: Saturn and Pluto, yeah. Right. So you take a job in another country, but the employer has extreme like, control over everything and it’s very, like, isolated and kind of sparse?
M: Yeah. And the kind of situation where when there was conflict in between, you know, colleagues and especially, you know, my superiors and the rest of us teachers, it could have repercussions that affected the way that we lived.
CB: Okay.
M: Like our housing because we’re all living together.
CB: It’s interesting also just because your Sun is there at 24 Capricorn, and so that’s getting hit as well. And it’s like the Sun itself is the ruler of the 9th house of foreign places and travel, so it’s like, getting things wrapped up in the 2nd house, especially when you have major or intense 2nd house transits.
M: Yeah. And after that, the pandemic hit. I spent like nine months without working because I was applying for a green card. Worked on my art for nine months. Got into the program that’s the hardest to get to in painting in the world, and went. It was incredibly difficult. I felt like I was very idealistic about my vision of art versus what I found in the commercial art world. I felt very alienated, and it was just like, a hard reckoning. And then I got divorced, because I was a student and I wasn’t working, and I was without an income, and so it was a very difficult moment financially. Like, at one point I had zero money, and you know, a lot of paintings to take care of. And —
CB: When did you get divorced?
M: It was – well, it was legal in July 2023, last year. But we broke things up super suddenly, too – like, thinking about Mars and Venus together and the Mars retrograde in Gemini in November 2022.
CB: Oh, okay, it was the Mars retrograde in your 7th house.
M: Yeah.
CB: Got it.
M: Like you said, like, something that I said – I believe that it was one sentence I said that really eventually led to my divorce.
CB: Okay.
M: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So backing up, so the pandemic was really tough, especially financially for you, and that’s – especially Saturn kept going through your 2nd house. And then you go into your 3rd house – your Saturn return, basically – like, right around that time and after that with Saturn in the 3rd house. And it sounds like a lot of this is focused on your painting and wanting to make, like, a career out of that.
M: Yeah. And not fully like, recognizing like, the business side of it. Right? When I —
CB: Sure.
M: — think about like, Neptune trining my Midheaven. That’s how it strikes me. And…
CB: Yeah, sometimes people with Neptune in the 2nd can be very idealistic around finances or can be sometimes not very, like, grounded around finances, which is an interesting contradiction there in your chart since it’s otherwise in Capricorn ruled by Saturn. So you have these like, tensions between groundedness and not groundedness when it comes to that topic.
M: And so reckoning with like, not immediately making a career as an artist was very difficult. And then I thought I was going to China. I got a job in China. My visa didn’t work out. I had to spend like, three months living with my mother, and then I got the job that I have now where like, I’m roughly making around like, twice as much as I think I would have been if I was actually being successful as a commercial painter right now.
CB: Okay. Saturn’s finally out of not just your 2nd house but also your Saturn return, which was extending that since any time you have a Saturn return, it’s gonna activate both the signs Saturn is in as well as the sign that it rules. So it was really dragging out that 2nd house transit that you experienced from roughly 2017 through 2020 into a longer one of Saturn through Aquarius from 2020 to 2023 as well.
M: Yeah.
CB: When did you get that job that you’re working at currently?
M: December 2023. Yeah.
CB: Okay. Yeah. So that’s perfect. So it was just months after Saturn finally departed from Aquarius and you completed your Saturn return, and Saturn went into Pisces. So now it’s transiting through your 4th house. You said at one point you were living with your mother?
M: Yeah, I was living with my mother.
CB: When did that start and end?
M: Beginning of October and it ended in mid-December last year.
CB: Okay, so Saturn in your 4th house coincided with a period of having to move in with your mother while Saturn was transiting through Pisces, through your 4th house. That’s really interesting and brilliant. And then you were able to move out on your own after that this year?
M: Yeah.
CB: Nice. Okay. Well, that makes sense, and that’s really interesting. So it seems like part of your story is one of developing financial independence but also the tension between wanting to create and do what you love and communicate your artistic sensibilities, but also the tension in terms of the struggle to make money from that. You know, which is struggle some other people – famous artists – have had as well, like van Gogh, for example.
M: And you know, on the topic of life and death, really what it – you know, I always say it’s like the motto of making art for me is my family’s history with like, persecution and trauma around the war in Guatemala in the ‘80s. Like, my family was persecuted for nearly a decade. And just like, questions that that left me as someone who was born 20 years after my first sibling, because I have older siblings that really helped kind of taking care of me but who are like, very traumatized by this experience of persecution that I did not go through. And my artwork really it’s all in some way related to this history of war and genocide, and it took me a long time to really accept that and be able to present my artwork in that context, and also in a way that didn’t make me feel like, either victimized or too vulnerable. And so for me, the past seven years I feel like have been able that, too, and the current job that I have – like, the reason why for me it’s sometimes so hard to believe that I’m doing this is because – I teach university credits in high school, and so I, for example, now I’m teaching a class on genocide and collage and artmaking and just the history of fragmentation and trauma in art. And I really feel like I’m able to express both my artistic sensibility and my kind of personal history, and yeah.
CB: Yeah. That makes sense. I feel like some of that’s coming through your Saturn in the 3rd house placement in a night chart, and I’m working on the 3rd house episode right now and starting to research it and delving into the way that that can – I think some of your communication style, part of your artwork may be coming through that 3rd house placement. That’s interesting, also, that you mentioned your siblings. So your siblings are older, and they are old enough that they experienced some of that war more directly and more intimately?
M: Yeah. And they also helped raise me, because my mom was a single mom, so it’s like I have three parents. Like, a single parent and at the same time three parents.
CB: Okay. So they helped raise you. How many siblings do you have?
M: I have four siblings. Originally five, but one of them died before I was born.
CB: Okay. So there’s some history of like, loss there in terms of there was an older sibling who was lost, and so that probably left part of a mark on your family.
M: Yeah.
CB: Yeah? Okay. That’s really interesting. Thank you for sharing that. That was just like, so much there that’s interesting and it’s also interesting because you’re just barely post Saturn return right now, so so much of your story still has yet to develop and will develop over the course of like, the next 30 years based on the foundation and the seeds that you just laid over the course of the past like, three to six years basically as you were having those Saturn transits through your 2nd house and then your 3rd house. It’ll be really interesting to see in the long term how that grows and develops and how you’re able to continue to express yourself through your artwork and find ways eventually also to have that support you perhaps or to return to that topic in the future. Are there any other things you think that are relevant about your 2nd house that kind of stand out to you, or – like, in this instance, was there ever any connection between money or finances and siblings, for example?
M: Yeah. I mean, when I say my siblings helped raise me, I mean, my older brother, you know, frequently like, paid things for me, you know? Either related to my education or to my recreation in some way. Like, my two older siblings have always been super generous. And because, you know, I’m living abroad and it’s kind of a big deal, they’ve just kind of been wanting to support that for me.
CB: Got it. That’s awesome. I love that with that connection just with the ruler of the 2nd house being in the 3rd house of siblings and having Saturn being in its own sign and having some positive things come as a result of that placement even though it’s also an area where there’s some challenge as well since it’s a night chart. And having Venus there, having Venus cazimi – it’s just about cazimi with the Sun in the 2nd house – is pretty fortunate in the long term, and then having Mars as the ruler of the 5th house of creativity in the 2nd house conjunct Neptune is also where some of that overlapping creativity is coming from. Yeah, that’s brilliant. There’s like, so much there, but I think that’s a really great example. Thank you so much for sharing it.
M: Thank you so much for letting me be here.
CB: Yeah. So some people in the live chat – Izzy – says is there like, an Instagram or a website to see to follow your artwork, or do you have anything up for that?
M: Yeah, my – I’m gonna put my username in the chat. I am at aguilar_marias. Then I have some writing in my website; I have a bit of a writing blog.
CB: Cool. All right. Put it in the chat. And let me see if I can put it up really quickly just so I have it in the recording. Is this it?
M: Yeah, that’s it.
CB: Cool. All right. Well, people can check out your – watching the video version, they can see it and see some of your artwork. Wow, that’s really amazing.
M: Thank you. And you know, this idea of bringing up, like, death has been like, a central topic in my education. Just, you know, what it means to like, having people criticize something that it’s one, like, so deep but also so taboo. It’s like, the, you know, in art school they call it “the room of silence.” Yeah.
CB: Yeah. And just the topic of life and like, the absence of life, but the taboo surrounding that – that’s an interesting thing. You know, Saturn in the 3rd house sometimes could be about like, not communicating or having a difficulty communicating things, but in that instance of what you’re talking about, you’re talking about things that are almost, focusing on things that people find difficult to communicate about or that people usually don’t talk about, but talking about them more openly.
M: Yeah. And the other way I see the communication bit is just the language. Like, English is not my first language, and so, and I used to stutter and just take me a long time to be able to speak in English and not stutter, yeah.
CB: Okay. Nice. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense; that’s a really common thing for Saturn in the 3rd house, so I might have to interview you again when I do my 3rd house episode, because you have great like, 3rd house stuff going on that makes a lot of sense in terms of all of that. But it’s also a good story just in terms of your obviously very fluent and a good speaker now, so Saturn’s always something that gets better with time and with work and effort and things like that. So it’s nice encouragement I think also, especially for younger people that might still be struggling with things like that that there’s a possibility to work on or to overcome things.
M: Yeah. Definitely.
CB: Cool. All right. Thank you so much.
M: Thank you.
CB: All right. Bye.
Awesome. That was a great example. I feel like we’re getting to some pretty deep things here at this point, and this is going even better than I was hoping.
All right, so let me see who’s next. Everybody can vote on by hitting the “like” button next to the ones that you think I should answer next, and then I’ll try to prioritize those.
All right, so it looks like Dawn is the next one that everyone has voted. Dawn, are you here, and are up for doing a chat? Okay. So it’s gonna have you leave and rejoin.
And while I’m waiting, definitely – I’m starting to collect 3rd house examples. I think I’m gonna focus primarily on celebrity examples first for the first one like I did last time. So if anybody has any good 3rd house celebrity examples that really stand out to you, then please send them in. You can – I’ll put out an open call for those soon, potentially I think especially on Twitter and Facebook.
DAWN: I’m here.
CB: Oh, you’re here! Oh, there you are. Hey. Sorry, I didn’t hear you or see you for a minute. All right. So let’s do this then. What’s your birth data?
D: February 3rd, 1966.
CB: What time?
D: 5:41 AM.
CB: Okay.
D: In Bridgeport, Connecticut.
CB: And your Ascendant is 17 Capricorn?
D: Yes.
CB: All right. So here’s your chart. 17 Capricorn rising. In your 2nd house, we see we have a retrograde Venus at one degree of Aquarius, and then we have a Sun-Mercury conjunction with Mercury at 12 and the Sun at 14 Aquarius, and the ruler of the 2nd house is Saturn – interestingly, in the 3rd house, just like our last chart example, in a night chart – where Mars is placed as well. So tell me about your chart and your life and how – what’s your 2nd house example?
D: Well, I didn’t plan any of this, but I’m by trade a chef. On the day Pluto entered Aquarius, I quit my job on a whim. It was a bad day.
CB: You quit your job as a chef?
D: Yes. And —
CB: How long had you been doing it at that point?
D: That particular job, not very long. But being a chef? My whole life.
CB: Okay. So you had a really bad day and you quit your job.
D: Yeah.
CB: And Pluto was conjoining your Venus.
D: Pluto – yes, it was at zero zero Aquarius that day.
CB: Do you know what day it was?
D: February 2nd. It was the day before my birthday.
CB: Oh wow. Okay. So let me – February 2nd of, what, this year?
D: Yes.
CB: 2024. Okay, there it is. Yeah, we see Pluto – Pluto is not just at zero Aquarius; it’s zero 24 Aquarius, so it’s, yeah, it’s very close to your Venus.
D: Yeah. The other thing is – it’s not 2nd house, but when Pluto conjoined my Ascendant, I had an opportunity to go to an art class, and I ended up falling in love at first sight as an artist, and that’s part of the impetus to quit. You know, I just kept wanting to do art and astrology more than I wanted to be a chef. But yes, that day, I quit my job, which allowed me to drive to Los Angeles on March 5th, which I think is another – I think maybe Pluto was exact on that day? My Venus?
CB: Oh yeah, it was. That was the exact day that Pluto was conjoining your Venus.
D: Yeah, so I was, I drove to LA for my daughter’s 40th birthday party. I met these two men who we wanted to do this philosophical experiment together, and I just had such a great time with my daughter. I decided to quit my life in Massachusetts and move to New Mexico, which was the closest state I felt comfortable moving to California where it was within a day’s drive.
CB: Of where your daughter lives?
D: Yeah.
CB: Okay. So and for those listening to audio, it’s like, Venus is actually ruling your 10th whole sign house of career as well as your 5th house of children, so that’s part of the reason why when you’re having this exact Pluto transit, your both making major changes in terms of your career but also there’s important stuff happening in terms of your daughter. She was getting married during that trip, that’s why you took it?
D: Oh no, she turned 40. She has a cool like, home goods store, and I went out to do a show with my art – that’s why I drove – and we just had the best time that we agreed we would do some work later on where I would pick furniture for her store in my area, and then we’d get to visit each other on the regular. So that was the plan, and New Mexico was a good straight shot to Los Angeles, so. And also business in Texas – there’s a big show in Texas that we wanted to do, so it was in the middle of both.
CB: Okay. Got it. That’s also interesting, because March, of course, just starting later that month and in early April of course was like, the beginning of eclipse season. And I see the nodes transiting through your, right in the middle of your 4th house and your 10th house, so you’re having major eclipses in your 10th and 4th during this entire period, and you’re deciding to move and relocate with the eclipses in your 4th house, but also having major career beginnings and endings with eclipses in your 10th house during this year and a half long period at the same time.
D: Right. And it’s funny because the realtor, when I got home I called my realtor friend, and she listed the house. And the open house for my home was the weekend before the eclipse on, was it the 7th? 6th or 7th.
CB: Of April?
D: April, yeah. That Monday was the eclipse, I believe.
CB: 6th, 7th – and this is, yeah, the eclipse took place on the 8th. And this was —
D: Okay.
CB: — what, the realtor —
D: Yes, the open house for my house was the 6th and 7th. There was such a buzz about it that she said, “Best and final,” and we got like, eight offers. And we decided on the day of the eclipse that – the 8th – which offer I would take.
CB: Wow. Okay. That’s incredible.
D: Yeah.
CB: Perfect. And something I noticed actually earlier – I forgot to mention – so it was a month earlier that you were out there in, what day was it? March…
D: March 5th.
CB: And that was the day you were out there. And is this when you make the decision to sell your house, or this was just the trip?
D: No, I decided to sell while I was there.
CB: Oh, okay, so what I thought was interesting about that – because I was highlighting different things, of course, but – transiting Jupiter is at 12 degrees of Taurus, and it’s exactly conjoining your IC almost at 12 degrees of Taurus in the 5th whole sign house. So this is actually a perfect demonstration of that principle that I always talk about of needing to pay attention to how the degree of the IC can import 4th house significations into whatever whole sign house it falls, just because what we have here with your IC falling in the 5th house is like, a doubling up of home situation significations with children and creativity significations, because you’re out there visiting your daughter, also having this show of your work, and then you make this decision to move partially in order to be closer to your daughter.
D: Yes. Yeah. That’s cool.
CB: Yeah, that’s beautiful. So and that’s, again, just to reiterate for people, that’s transiting Jupiter conjoining the degree of the IC in the 5th house and then on this trip, it goes evidently so well that you make this decision to move. Where were you moving from, or where were you living at the time?
D: I lived in Massachusetts, western Mass.
CB: Okay, yeah, so you’re literally moving to the other – you decide to move to the other side of the country.
D: Yeah.
CB: And then you evidently like, accomplish it by selling your house only four weeks later, essentially on the day of a solar eclipse in Aries, your 4th whole sign house.
D: Yes.
CB: That’s honestly really stunning, and it’s a really good demonstration also of just why you need to pay attention to and why they both work and are relevant of paying attention to, for example, the degree of the IC and that being relevant in terms of having a sort of 4th/5th house transit with Jupiter conjoining your IC in the 5th whole sign house, but then having that eclipse in your 4th whole sign house and that obviously being a 4th house transit then in the 4th sign because you sell your house or you decide to take that offer on the very day of that eclipse in your 4th whole sign house.
D: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. That’s just a great demonstration of that principle. So I hope everyone internalize that, because that’s what I see come up over and over again in like, client and celebrity cases. But it’s sometimes very hard for me to convey that principle to people; when I say it, it sounds kind of abstract. But I think when you see it in an example like this, it’s really good.
All right, so you sell your house or you agree to take that offer on April 8th, like, the day of the eclipse. And then what happens after that?
D: Then I – May 15th, I close on the house. I think that’s a friday. And then I leave for – I put my things in storage and I drive across the country with all my plants, which I have a lot of, to go to an AirBNB in New Mexico in Albuquerque.
CB: Okay. Got it. And…
D: So I arrive on the 20th in Albuquerque. I always rent a house that’s, you know, not attached to anything, just for safety – I just feel more comfortable. And turns out that the woman who owned the AirBNB had a little casita behind, and she just walked into my rental, stole my bag with my wallet and my ID – actually my social security card, because I was moving – and my computer, which I’m pretty sure was dead because I had been watching TV on the couch. So I brought my phone into the bedroom with me; she walked in. I’m pretty sure it was around four AM because her dog was barking and then it woke me up and then it stopped barking. So that was the Persephone journey – the start of the Persephone journey.
CB: Got it. Just looking through – it’s interesting; Pluto stationed around that time in early May at two degrees of Aquarius very close to your Venus there in the 2nd house. So it’s interesting having that experience of having something stolen. You’re also like, right in the midst of your exact Saturn return in the 3rd house, and I think it’s fascinating that you’re traveling at that time. You’re doing this like, cross-country journey, essentially, in your car.
All right, so you had that experience of like, theft at that time in the place that you were staying. And then what else happened?
D: Then with my daughter’s help, my next – I was only staying in Albuquerque for a week, but obviously I didn’t feel safe. So my next AirBNB was in Taos, New Mexico. I could not bring my plants into the hotel, because I had about 30 in my car. So every day, I would – for those five days – I would drive, take long drives with the AC on because it was so hot. And I ended up finding this place – Fort Garland, Colorado – just because it was one of the drives I took. Which I guess that doesn’t sound that amazing, but the synchronicities of me and this house and me and the guy who died are incredible.
CB: So you found a place to stay temporarily, or that you decided to stay in?
D: No, I was in the hotel for five days, and then just driving up and around the area to keep my plants from dying, I found this place that I live in now. And…
CB: What day, or what timeframe was that?
D: That was a holiday – what is, is it Memorial Day?
CB: Oh yeah, the end of May.
D: Yeah, it was I think that Saturday of the holiday weekend.
CB: I know that’s around – I don’t know if somebody in the chat can look up when Memorial Day – NORWAC always takes place that weekend, so I think that’s around the 24th. It looks like that’s a Thursday. I do see like, Mercury transiting over 12 Taurus over the degree of your IC leading up to that.
Okay, so you found this place and you decided that that’s where you were gonna land and move into?
D: Yes. And I actually don’t remember, but I – because I lost my license – I knew I had the money from the sale of my house, and I knew I needed to buy another house because I only had an AirBNB for a month and a few days. So I drove back to Massachusetts somewhere in here, got my license sorted out, which they were gonna mail back to me. But all of my mail just went missing. Like, it disappeared. Some of it I still don’t have! So the license had disappeared for most of this time, and meanwhile, I move into the next AirBNB, which was on the 27th, in Taos.
CB: The 27th of May?
D: Yeah.
CB: Okay.
D: And this guy is a creep. He was using basically the AirBNB as a dating service kind of thing. So we had our issues; he kept just showing up, wanting to do, you know, stupid stuff like gardening or pick up a bag or whatever. So the two AirBNBs – I don’t know how to describe it. It just felt like the communication of having to talk to AirBNB over and over about the theft and now about this guy, I actually didn’t speak to them about the guy until he actually kicked – he locked me out of the AirBNB on July 5th because I told him to leave me alone over and over, and he finally understood that I really wanted him to leave me alone.
CB: Yeah, there was different stuff, like transiting Saturn stationed finally in late June, so that intensify things with your Saturn return and travels in your 3rd house, and then Mars passed over your IC at 12 leading up to that. Okay. So to…
D: Also, the house – I bought the house on I think it was the 9th – well, I was supposed to buy the house on June 19th. That’s the date the realtor had set the, a closing on, but that ended up being a holiday – Juneteenth. Which, because of my trying to get ID to be able to even buy a house, I didn’t notice. I ended up going across two, three times more, because everything was gone. Like, the conundrum and catch-22 of how do you buy a house or move somewhere or get anything without having any way to prove you are you? I also didn’t have access to any of my money, which probably was the most money I ever had in my bank account ever. So it was this weird situation. And those guys that I met in California that I thought were so cool and we were gonna do this thing together, one of them ended up calling me to borrow money from me, which was hilarious. I couldn’t even access my own money.
CB: Right. So yeah, so it’s like, Saturn’s stationing around this time – an intensification of your Saturn return transit in the 3rd house – you’re like, relocating and then also having challenges with financial stuff. And yeah, Pluto is just exactly hitting your Venus again at this time. So I would like to sort of bring this to some sort of close, so what was the end to this whole story?
D: The end of the story is that the guy who owned this house was, he died in February on the 14th in the house. The house was just ransacked. He is a gay man, and his brother is religious and so he had a lot of persecution. Anyway, even though I’m not gay, I had a lot of religious persecution growing up. My family didn’t speak to me. I felt like this is my house and I have to protect it because it’s so beautiful. I ended up needing the people – because he was a writer – basically, “dreams come true” kind of situation where this house is my dream house, and I’m now friends with the people he’s friends with. They are into the writing I’m doing. I basically am the new caretaker of this beautiful property.
CB: Okay. Nice.
D: Which I wouldn’t have gotten unless I was robbed.
CB: Right, because it pushed you to go into a different place that you wouldn’t have had, or why? What’s the direct connection with that?
D: The connection is that I was – all my plants were in my car, and they would have died in the hotel. So for that five-day period, I would drive to different locations within an hour or two of Taos, New Mexico —
CB: Okay.
D: — and so ended up driving into this location.
CB: Okay, that’s kind of interesting in terms of the 3rd house and like, driving around the neighborhood before you eventually like, find the place that you wanted to settle in. Okay. So let’s see. To wrap things up, I just had a few questions about like, universal things about your life. One, do you have siblings?
D: I have four sisters and a brother.
CB: Okay. Was that an area of like, challenge, or was there any challenge there? I mean, I guess that’s gonna get us way too into like, 3rd house stuff, so maybe I should make that – maybe I should condense this and just ask. I thought it was interesting that you have the ruler of the 2nd in the 3rd like the previous person. Was there ever any connection between finances and siblings in your life in some way that was like, striking?
D: Well, right before all of this happened, my dad who – my parents are – I say I was raised feral. For lots of reasons, they were not good parents. And we just put my dad in care; he said he would have money for his children, but he’s gonna end up using it all. So I had to deal with that right before I left, and that was also part of the reason why I left – so I didn’t have to deal with my siblings or any of my family for a lot of reasons. So it was kind of a cutting of ties moving out here, too.
CB: Got it. So your relationship with your siblings is not very good?
D: Well, since I was in my early 20s, most of them don’t speak to me because of their religion. And then the other two because of just upbringing. Our upbringing as bad. They are just traumatized and didn’t do any work on themselves. So, you know, you can speak to them, but it’s not – you don’t get real far.
CB: Okay. Yeah. In researching the 3rd house episode right now, I’m reading Rhetorius – one of our earliest sources – and it keeps emphasizing religious themes in the 3rd house. So I’m actually curious about that because you mentioned that a couple times now about how there’s been religion was like, a – there were challenges involving religion for you from early on. What was the deal with that?
D: Basically, the story of The Scarlet Letter. When I was 12, my parents moved – separated – and we moved to a very rural place from a not-so-rural place, and my mom became a Jehovah’s Witness. I rebelled, being an Aquarius, and I met a boy at the Kingdom Hall and we didn’t do anything wrong. We just were, you know, secretly dating at night since I was probably 15, I think. And so the religion at the time kicked people out who didn’t follow the rules, and so even though I hadn’t had sex at the time, somebody had told on me saying I had, and so I got kicked out of the religion over and over and over again —
CB: Okay.
D: — from age 15 until probably, I don’t know, the last time. But I ended up becoming a Jehovah’s Witness for two years. It was terrible. And then I got kicked out the last time in my early 20s, and now none of my family speaks to me.
CB: Okay. And did your siblings convert to it as well and is that part of the tension with them?
D: Yes. All but two converted to that religion. And then the other two – one became religious with a different religion, and then the other one is just sort of just not religious at all.
CB: Okay. And that’s interesting because it’s one of the things that characterizes it and what little I know about it is they have very strict religious rules and like, observations about what you can and cannot do, which is very Saturnian. Like, one of the things I’m focusing on here is just that you have Saturn in the 3rd house in a night chart, so it’s your most challenging planet, but it’s also like, the ruler of your Ascendant as well as your 2nd house of finances. But it’s interesting that having the ruler of the 1st house of self in the 3rd house and that it is that Saturn that part of the tension then becomes is your rejection of some of those religious restrictions that your family has gotten into, then sort of alienated you from them to some extent from your mother and from your siblings. The 4th whole sign house is Aries, and it’s actually ruled by Mars, which is in the 3rd house with Saturn, so it’s tying the parents as well as the siblings into that difficult cluster. And it’s interesting your rebellion against that and standing out with Saturn at 15 degrees of Pisces opposite to your Uranus at 18 Virgo and your Pluto at 17 Virgo, and just the sort of tension there surrounding it. Yeah. But I’m glad – so this is your second Saturn return, then, part of what you’re experiencing right now. And part of your experience then and the significance of this trip in terms of the broader, overall meaning of your life is you’re really finally also in your second Saturn return breaking away completely from all of that and moving away from your family and from that entire part of the country, and in some ways a final rejection of that. And you’re relocating and setting up an entirely new life on the other side of the country partially to be closer to your daughter but also there’s a broader context of that in terms of finally achieving some independence from all of the family stuff as well.
D: Exactly.
CB: That’s beautiful.
D: Thank you.
CB: Yeah. Alright. I think that makes sense, and this is amazing because this is doubling up then not just for 2nd house stuff, which is what this webinar was supposed to be focused on, but ironically we’re really getting into like, 3rd house stuff pretty heavily at this point as well. But that’s actually great, because that’s the episode I’m preparing for next, and I think this is starting to help me see some of the ways I need to approach that episode and some of the topics and themes that come up when the 3rd house is prominent in a person’s chart. But that’s really beautiful and I’m glad for you that you’ve done that and you’ve made that choice, and that it seems like you’re laying a good foundation for you and your life that’s gonna grow and develop for many years to come. You know, the start of a new 30 year Saturn cycle, not to mention laying those new foundations in terms of the eclipses in your 4th house and your 10th house, and the beginnings and endings in terms of both your career as well as your home and your living situation, as well as family for that matter. So that’s really brilliant and beautiful. Yeah. Thank you for sharing this with us.
D: Thank you for letting me.
CB: Yeah. Do you have any last final thoughts about your 2nd house of finances or anything that we forgot to mention in terms of how those placements have worked out for you in some ways universally?
D: Well, just like the last example said, Maria – was it Maria? – or someone, I don’t remember. Anyway, it’s been like this rollercoaster of finances where I will have a job where I make so much money, and then I will go to – like, right before I sold my house, I had so little money in the bank. And then, you know, then not having access to my money. So it’s like this weird rollercoaster that I’ve kind of gotten used to throughout my life and I semi like of just going with the flow.
CB: Yeah. You both have just very similar thing in terms of having Venus in a night chart as the most positive placement in the 2nd house, but then it’s like, the ruler is Saturn, which is the most challenging planet. And so you kind of get this alternation where it goes back and forth between sometimes having very positive things happening in that area and other times sometimes having very challenging things come up in that area so that it’s distinctive for leaning towards extremes at different times. With your Sun there, sometimes with the Sun – like, when people have like, the Sun in the 7th house, I notice that a lot of their identity can sometimes be around who they’re with – like, what their relationships are, for example. Or if the Sun’s in the 10th house around their career; if it’s in their 11th house, their friends. Is there a way in which your identity sometimes can be tied in with what you’re doing or what you’re doing for your livelihood or things like that? Like, when you were a chef, how much did you identify with that as like part of your work being part of your identity?
D: That’s a great question because I got, I was a cooking instructor at the school, and a woman came in and said, “Hey, come to this art class I’m teaching.” And it was an oil painting class, and it was pivotal. It was just love at first sight. I absolutely – just like I quit my life now, I did the same when that happened. And I got a waitressing job because I was like, I can’t do anything; I can’t be a chef and be an artist. So I ended up being a waitress so that I had time to be able to paint, and people would say – it was very awkward for me, because I had been a chef my whole life. People would say, “Oh, what do you do?” And I didn’t feel comfortable saying I was an artist, and I didn’t feel comfortable saying I was a waitress – not because there’s anything wrong with it, but it just felt like it wasn’t me. So it was this whole egoic death that I went through stopping saying that I was a chef.
CB: Okay. And that’s part of the Pluto transit as well, is it’s like, an ego death of what you used to identify with as you’re making this transition into what you’re starting to become.
D: Exactly.
CB: Nice. Okay. Yeah. It just keeps coming back to that, especially like, Venus ruling your 10th house of career and having that Pluto transit and then also that also awakening something about your 5th house of creativity at the same time. So it’ll be really interesting to see how that continues to grow and develop as Pluto continues to have that transit over your Venus and some of that transformation is completed and then moves through into eventually like, your Mercury and your Sun later on, and what sort of additional sort of transformations are in store in terms of the way that you communicate or the way that you identify with what you do for a living. But this, you know, past year or two of Pluto starting to dip into Aquarius has been not just that Venus transit itself getting activated, but also just a preview of that entire process that’ll play out over the course of the next 10 to 20 years at Pluto makes its way further into Aquarius and moves through your 2nd house in its entirety.
D: Yeah. I’m actually excited about it.
CB: Yeah. It seems really exciting; it seems like you reached a great time in your life where you’ve put some things in the past that are probably you’re ready to move beyond, and also to open up and fully step into some things that maybe you’ve wanted to do for a long time but now it’s finally time to do it.
D: Yeah, exactly. And my Jupiter return is coming up as well, which is pretty cool.
CB: Yeah.
D: Sorry to keep going.
CB: That’s all right. Cool. Well, I think that’s a good stopping point, so thank you so much for sharing your example, and I look forward to hearing at some point and having like, a check-in or a follow up to hear how it all continued to play out.
D: Okay.
CB: Cool. All right. Thank you.
D: My pleasure.
CB: All right. This is amazing. Let me check the chat. Yeah, thank you, Eva. Eva says, “I appreciate how Chris takes his time with all the delineations. I enjoy watching him work a chart.”
I love it also sometimes where you have disparate events but you – I’ve been experiencing this a lot over the past month, especially when I was doing the 2nd house episode and I was going through celebrity charts. And recently now that I’m doing the 3rd house episode, sometimes I’ll have somebody like, a celebrity like Jim Carrey for example – I mentioned Jim Carrey in the 1st house episode in passing and having Neptune on the Ascendant, and that I was having some sense of that. But recently, he has some 3rd house placements so I’ve been returning to his chart and researching his life. And sometimes you look at a chart, and you see certain placements and you don’t really know how that works out, or you have some abstract notion of what the combination of those two things means, but you don’t know how that actually works out in the person’s life. But then you start reading their biography and their chart starts to come alive, and you start to go through this process of realization of how the placements actually work out in very striking ways in describing their life. It’s nice to have that experience in researching celebrity charts; it’s also nice to have that experience when you’re just talking to clients or any individual about their chart and seeing the picture come together in its totality of not just what the person’s chart is and what it means about their life universally, but also sometimes – like just now – the specific slice of their life that they’re currently in and what all of the events are about. Seeing the totality of that come about in the transits is really amazing sometimes, and it’s nice to have people to have those conversations about it and just see it all come together. There’s something really fulfilling about that.
So all right, I wanna take a little break for a few minutes to go grab a drink, but then I’ll come back and we’ll continue maybe doing another couple of examples, because I was shooting for about two hours today. Yeah. So I’ll be right back, and then we’ll resume.
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All right, I’m back from break. So this is going really well. I wanna talk to the next person who submitted a story that was upvoted the most, which is Wil Aquino. So let me promote you to a panelist right now.
There we go. Hey.
WIL: Hey there.
CB: Thanks for joining me.
W: Yeah, thanks for having me.
CB: What’s your birth data?
W: Oh yeah, I didn’t have a chance to put it in there. It is September 5th, 1986. 3:21 AM. In Reno, Nevada.
CB: All right. Is your Ascendant four Leo?
W: That’s correct.
CB: Okay. September 5th – happy recent birthday.
W: Thank you!
CB: All right. So here’s your chart. You have a chart with Leo rising. You have a Sun-Mercury conjunction or cazimi at 12 degrees of Virgo in the 2nd house, and the Moon is also in the 2nd house at 26 degrees of Virgo, and they are opposite to Jupiter at 18 degrees of Pisces. So what is your 2nd house example or what did you wanna share?
W: I have a couple different things. I just went through a 2nd house profection year, and I feel like it’s because of the opposition there to Jupiter that like, I had some good times with financial gains and then some like, really big debts as well. So like, they both were kind of like, popping in there. Also, like, Venus recently transited my 2nd house, like, last month as she was going through Virgo. She just brought all kinds of – because she’s the benefic of sect, also the ruler of the 3rd and 10th – like, she brought not only a bunch of gains, like, really, really, really good money last month. She also helped me make different connections that are gonna help me with my creative project that I’m gonna do where it’s gonna be talking a little bit about astrology but other aspects of things that people can do to get to know themselves.
CB: So you have Leo rising with the ruler of the Ascendant as the Sun in the 2nd house of finances, and how does that topic show up in your life as – did you say you work in finance?
W: No, I don’t work in finance.
CB: What do you do?
W: Right now, actually, what I’m working on is probably something where that’s gonna show up a lot more. I’m working on a project called “As Within with Wil,” and it’ll be going over like, just a bunch of things that would connect also the Uranus there in the 5th. And basically what I’ll be doing is going over different ways that people can get in touch with themselves, get to know themselves on different levels, and then be able to use that to live in the world in an authentic manner. And one of the things I do personally is I’m an astrologer, so like, I’m able to like, link a lot of these different things together in that sense. But I wonder also like, since Mercury is traditionally the ruler of astrology if that has something to do with the connection there to astrology as well, and Jupiter in the 8th maybe.
CB: Right. Yeah, for sure. So the 2nd house profection year that you’re talking about is the one that you just got out of in the past few —
W: Yeah.
CB: — days?
W: Yeah, I literally just finished it.
CB: So you just finished the 2nd house profection year, and you said it was kind of like, alternating between sometimes being – finances were very good for you in this past year and having windfalls like when Venus was going through your 2nd house. But other times there were challenges and you were having some struggles with it?
W: Yeah, struggles with debts, big debts popping up throughout the year, actually.
CB: Yeah. It’s like, that Saturn transit through Pisces has just been hovering —
W: Yeah.
CB: — all over your Jupiter placement in the 8th house and then sometimes opposing your 2nd house placements, so I could see how that would cause some tensions. So it’s just debts from the past that you’re having to deal with, or is it more recent debts that you’ve had to take on?
W: They’re more recent debts that I’m taking on. And some debts from the past well, but like, there’s been a mixed bag with debts.
CB: Okay. Yeah. You have Jupiter in the 8th house in Pisces. I knew somebody once that had that where they had a knack for like, getting money from other people, or other people would like, donate them money and support them financially in different ways, and it was actually quite striking the extent to which that seemed to play a major role in their life. With Saturn transiting that house, you may not be feeling that right now. But do you feel like there’s been times in your life where you’ve have financial windfalls from other people or in which somehow other people played a major role in helping you financially?
W: Yeah. Like, I’ve had it go kind of both ways where like, I definitely have been helped out by people financially, but I also do a lot of help financially because I don’t really have much – I don’t put much value on money itself. Like, part of me wants to; part of me sees that like, it’s necessary. But the other part of me is like, whatever, I can make it, it’ll – like, it always makes its way back in. Like, Jupiter there just I guess makes me super optimistic and like, it always comes through. Like, I always have enough because I’m always giving. Like, I just feel like that’s just kind of the way it works.
CB: Okay. Nice. Okay. And I’m trying to think of what else in terms of the concrete example. So you have the ruler of the – you have Mercury in its own domicile as the ruler of the 2nd, which is a positive placement in terms of finances and indications for finances. And then Mercury is also ruling the 11th house of friends. So I guess I was curious if you’ve ever had a connection in some way between your personal finances and your friendships or alliances that stood out.
W: Oh, definitely. I’ve had many opportunities where like, it’s been either friends that have helped like, support me throughout different periods of time. But then they also like, refer me clients and stuff for astrology readings. So like, it’s very connected in that sense as well. Like, I have friends – actually, my siblings have helped out with that aspect as well where they’ll refer me clients and then I’ll have clients that refer me other clients. And right now, like, the project that I’m working on’s gonna hopefully like, give me like, an audience as well there in the 11th to draw in more of like, that aspect of things.
CB: Nice. Okay. Yeah, you have Venus in Libra in a night chart in the 3rd house and also ruling the 10th house. So I guess since we’ve been talking so much about the 2nd and the 3rd, I might as well ask – so you do have siblings. What’s your relationship with them like? It’s positive?
W: Yeah. I love my siblings.
CB: Okay. Do you have a lot of siblings.
W: I have a whole lot of siblings! Like, an ungodly amount of siblings.
CB: Give me like, a ballpark number.
W: Like, we’re gonna say over 12.
CB: Wow, okay. That’s incredible.
W: Yeah. I’ve got like, people that aren’t necessarily blood family that are also considered family. And then like, it’s interesting to me because I’ve got the – I live here in Vegas, and that’s on a Venus IC line in astrocartography. And I’ve met a lot of people who have just become like, extra siblings for me. And some of those people I’ve actually ended up living with. And with the IC being brought in there, like, it’s super interesting to me in that sense. And some of them do feel like it’s like, very destined meetings with some of the people that I’ve met up with that end up being like siblings.
CB: Yeah. So it’s like, there’s an overlap in your chart. The other person we talked to had the IC in the 5th whole sign house, but you have the IC in the 3rd house, so somehow like, living situation things are overlapping with siblings or other 3rd house topics.
W: Yeah.
CB: Okay. In your adult life, have you lived with siblings, or was it just those —
W: Yeah. I’ve lived with siblings; siblings have lived with me. It’s been like, a constant taking turns on that whole situation with like, I might live with a sibling for some time, and I’ll have like, a sibling live with me. I currently have a sibling living with me.
CB: Nice. That’s awesome. And you’re in – that’s really interesting what you said about the relocation, because Reno’s far enough away from Vegas where you are now that in Vegas your IC actually shifts to being much closer to your Venus.
I think we had a technical thing; the connection might be delayed or cut. Alright. Yeah. So in terms of – let me see other comments. Just siblings – I think that’s really interesting, so now we’ve seen again another example of that principle I was talking about earlier where whatever whole sign house the IC falls, it just doubles up on significations so that you get both 4th house significations and in this instance 3rd house significations. And so he has lived with siblings at different points in his life, not just as a kid or not just as a child as you would, but even into his adult life.
W: Sorry about that. Vegas heat took out my phone.
CB: No problem. That happens. So one other question – so Venus also rules your 10th house, and it’s in the 3rd house, which I would normally associate with things like communication. Venus is in its own domicile, so the potential for being good at communication or communication being a large part of your work, which it is, but – and actually, I found like, one of the most famous podcasters in the world recently – Alex Cooper – has that placement. And she does the Call Her Daddy podcast and has – yeah, she has Venus ruling the 10th, and it’s in Libra in the 3rd just like your chart. And she’s become successful at literally doing communication. But I was curious if it overlaps at all with the sibling thing. Like, have your siblings ever been tied in with your career in any way or have they ever prompted you to go down certain career paths?
W: Oh yeah. Like, actually, one of my first readings that I actually did professionally was from like, a client that my sister actually referred to me. Like, she actually got me my first paid reading.
CB: That’s incredible.
W: Yeah.
CB: That actually really reminds me of the Anthony Bourdain example that Leisa used in the last episode where he got his first writing gig from a friend who recommended him and referred him, and that’s why he started that career originally as a writer was basically a friend just referring him and having the ruler of the 11th in the 2nd. And sometimes it can be like, a one-time pivotal event that pushes a person in a certain direction. So that’s an interesting overlap there with you in terms of that here.
W: Also, I do Uber currently. Like, I do Uber and I’m an astrologer. And Uber I feel like is very 3rd house as well. Like, the back and forth with like, the movement there.
CB: For sure. You’re driving around all day.
W: Yeah, when Venus went retrograde what was it – last year, the year before? There came sometimes where I was like, okay, well, this is no longer sustainable; I need to like, move into something else. Because I had been feeling that I needed to actually start doing more readings and everything; I just had been really lazy about like, trying to do so.
CB: So that would have been the Venus retrograde last year that would have been, it would have started in your 2nd house of finance and retrograded back into your 1st house. So at that time, you ran into a wall where you felt like financially you needed to start doing something else?
W: Yes, exactly. Like, doing Uber on its own is just not sustainable.
CB: Yeah. That makes so much sense. That’s a great example of a Venus retrograde. So I’m gonna animate the chart for those watching the video version, and you can just see… Yeah, the Venus retrograde that was like, around your 2nd house. When it started, Mars would have been going through your 2nd house at the time that the Venus retrograde is taking place. Nice.
W: Yeah.
CB: Okay. So that’s when —
W: And since she rules over the 3rd and 10th, it was like, actually on the day of the Venus cazimi, like, something big happened. I was like, all right, like, I really, really need to like, leave this stuff alone and actually move onto something else. And so that kind of like, spurred me to actually get started on like, doing my website and everything. And during the 2nd house profection year, I’ve actually started the website; I’ve actually started posting like, blogs. I haven’t gotten to do the videos just because that Virgo perfectionistic stuff along with Mars in Capricorn – like, I really have a problem with putting out things that aren’t really good quality to me, so.
CB: Yeah. That’s, as a Mars in Capricorn, that is an issue I struggle with as well, and I always – I think the way I’ve figured out how to do that is just if you can put things out, and then just improve. Just put it out, and then just improve one little thing each time. So then you’ll look at what you’ll put out, especially early on, and you’ll hate it. But if you like, identify one thing that you can improve when you do your next piece of content, that will add up slowly over time. And eventually if you just keep improving one thing each time, you’ll eventually get into really good shape, but it’s important to push yourself to like, just start putting the stuff out there.
W: Yeah. That’s what I’m working towards. That’s why I started with the blog posts, because I’m like, at least I’m out there. Like, I’ve already recorded a bunch of videos; I just have to actually like, decide to – the editing takes so long. I don’t know how you guys do it. Like —
CB: Yeah.
W: — the editing is, it is intense. But I feel like if I do actually start doing things, since Mars is actually trining my Mercury and Sun and then sextiling my Jupiter, like, I feel like that could actually start to make something happen.
CB: Yeah. For sure. I mean, it sounds like this 2nd house profection year and the Venus retrograde the previous year was the start of pushing you in a direction of having greater financial success and especially self autonomy, because this is basically then – the 2nd house profection year has been the year in which you transition from having to work for other people to starting to work for yourself. And that’s part of what I was talking about at the beginning of this when I said planets in their own domicile, when the ruler of a house is in the house that sometimes it indicates greater self autonomy because the planet symbolically is like, a planet that’s at home as opposed to when a planet’s in someone else’s sign it’s like, a person who’s a guest who’s staying away from home. And the biggest difference between being in your own house versus being in somebody else’s house is having greater self autonomy and the ability to do what you wanna do and have the freedom and control to make your own choices when it comes to, in this instance, your own financial success or failure, essentially. But what was the thing – because Mars was transiting through your 2nd and it sounded like you said during the cazimi that there was almost like, an event or something that really prompted you of being like, okay, this isn’t working and I need to start getting something else going.
W: There was an incident where…
CB: You don’t have to go into the whole thing. Was it just, was it a negative thing that prompted it?
W: Oh. Yeah, it was definitely a negative thing. It was a negative thing, and it probably actually lasted pretty much most of the time that Mars was there in Virgo. And then it kind of loosened up, so like, then I got lazy again. I was like, oh, whatever, I can continue on with this. And then just different things are like, kind of pushing me to the point where like I have actually started setting myself up to where I can do more readings, and I’ll be able to like, actually be more self-sustaining in that sense. And we’ll see how the eclipses, which are upcoming in my 2nd and 8th house, end up affecting that stuff as well, because that’s definitely something to look out for next.
CB: Yeah, for sure, that’s gonna open a whole, what, two year window of —
W: Yeah.
CB: — major beginnings and major endings when it comes to on the one hand the Pisces eclipse first this month and issues of like, debt and other people’s money, and then on the other hand when the Virgo eclipses start whenever that is – like, next year – the 2nd house and your own personal finances and wealth and what it takes to make a living.
W: Yeah. I’m excited for it.
CB: Yeah. This is all heading in a good direction, and this is like, you have a very good chart for this, so it’s amazing to see you at a relatively early stage in your life compared to other people making some of these choices and making this shift now and setting yourself up to be in a great position in the future and to have greater financial self autonomy and to manifest some of the positive placements that you really have in your chart, like having Mercury, the ruler of the 2nd, in its own sign. Having Venus, the ruler of the 10th, in the 3rd in its own sign, and even having Mars exalted in Capricorn as well and starting to really take some of those placements and manifest them to their fullest potential.
W: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So I think the last thing is just – I just realized with the nodes transiting through Libra and —
W: The nodal return?
CB: Not just the nodal return, which is part of it, but also just that you’ve been having eclipses starting, what, at least a year ago – certainly in October – bouncing back and forth between your 9th house and your 3rd house. And so I think it’s interesting that you’re starting to learn how to communicate within the context of your chosen field as an astrologer, and so we get both the 9th house astrology significations as well as the 3rd house communication things, but it’s like, a new beginning for you in a way that starts out very humbly, which is something I commonly say with eclipses in terms of you’re starting to write blog posts or learn how to edit videos or other things like that. But it’s a new beginning for you essentially.
W: Yeah. And what’s interesting also is that like, part of what I’ll be doing with the As Within series is that I’ll be talking about different religions and stuff like that. And last, like 18 years ago, I actually went on a mission. I served a mission and I went to Spain. So like, I went abroad and I was preaching. So it’ll be interesting to see how this comes around now, because it’s a whole different ball game.
CB: And that was 18 years ago, so that was the last time the nodes were in these signs exactly —
W: Yeah.
CB: — you were having eclipses in the same axis.
W: Yeah.
CB: Wow. Okay. That’s really cool. So you did some like, missionary work back then; that’s interesting also just with having the degree of the Midheaven in the 9th house, so an overlapping of like, career and sort of like, religious significations in addition to just the religious potential significations of the 3rd house.
W: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. All right. Cool. So do you have like, an Instagram or Twitter account?
W: Yeah. My Instagram is the number one, WithWil with one L.
CB: Let me look that up.
W: I wonder if I can write that down here. One… I was actually set up in my room where I do my readings, and then I had to leave because I have to go to a lunch, so.
CB: Sure.
W: We’ll see! But I just typed it in there; did that pop up?
CB: Yeah. There it is. I think that just showed up. So here’s the Instagram account so people can check that out for —
W: Yeah.
CB: — astrological readings and other stuff that you’ve been talking about.
W: Yeah. And my website is WithWil.com.
CB: Awesome. Cool.
W: With one L.
CB: Cool. Well, people should check that out. Thanks a lot for sharing your story; that was a really good example of both 2nd house stuff but also 3rd house stuff. So I love that this workshop somehow very accidentally turned into a 2nd/3rd house workshop, but I’m loving it because that’s exactly where my mindset was today. So it’s nice to have that. So thanks for sharing your example.
W: Yeah, thanks for having me on.
CB: All right. Take care.
W: Bye.
CB: All right. Amazing. That was great. Yeah. This has been really good. I’m glad this actually – I was not reluctant, but I was trying to at different points like, refocus it on the 2nd house, but then I realized this had a life of its own and it was turning into a 2nd/3rd house workshop, so I might actually have to title it that, which is unexpected but has been actually really delightful since this has been a really good preparation for that 3rd house episode that I’m working on right now.
All right. So let me see how many people are with us in the live chat. Still got some people here. What does everybody think? Does anybody have any questions or comments at this point about everything we’ve seen or reflections about stuff? Yeah. L&M in the chat points out that his Mercury-Sun cazimi was in 17 minutes, so that’s a really amazing example of a cazimi in the 2nd house. Yeah.
I think this has worked out great. I’m trying to decide to do any more examples. If people wanna take a look at the Q&A and upvote the example you’d like to do next, I’m trying to decide whether to just end it on a high note since it’s now been about two hours, which is what I was shooting for, or whether to try to squeeze one more in. I just did another webinar yesterday for my Hellenistic astrology course where we talked about zodiacal releasing, so getting a little tired in terms of continuing for today. Ian says the Moon is opposite Uranus today, so it’s not surprising we got onto the 3rd house unexpectedly. That is actually an amazing point. The Moon is at, yeah, 19 Scorpio applying to an opposition with Uranus at 27 Taurus.
All right. I’m just looking through some of the last ones. Okay. So Jayleene had one that was an eclipse. Are you still here and do you wanna share your example real quick? It’s a quick one? Okay. Let’s do it. All right. I will promote you to a panelist. So give me your birth data, and we’ll jump right into it.
JAYLEENE: Can you hear me now?
CB: Yeah, I can hear you.
J: Awesome. Thank you for having me.
CB: Yeah. Thanks for joining me. What’s your birth data?
J: 12/15/93.
CB: Okay.
J: New York, New York.
CB: What time?
J: 19 AM.
CB: Say that again – what time?
J: 10:19 AM.
CB: 10:19. Okay.
J: So it should be 12 degree Aquarius rising.
CB: Got it. All right. So here is your natal chart. And tell me what’s your example that you wanted to share?
J: So last year, May 5th – the day of the Scorpio South Node lunar eclipse – it was about 13 degrees Scorpio; I lost my job on that day.
CB: What day was that again?
J: May 5th of 2023.
CB: May 5th, okay. May 5th. There we go. Okay. So this was the day of a lunar eclipse at 15 degrees of Scorpio in your 10th house of career, and you lost your job?
J: Yep. It was also a 6th house profection year ruled by the Moon, which is —
CB: The Moon. Yes.
J: — by Mars in the 12th.
CB: Natally… Okay, yeah. So natally your – so that’s actually interesting in and of itself that you’re in a 6th house profection year, and transiting Mars is in your 6th house at the time. You have a day chart, so Mars transits are more difficult for you, and then transiting Mars hit 21, 22 degrees of Cancer opposing your natal Moon at 22 degrees of Capricorn. So it’s like, you were getting essentially the worst possible transit for the ruler of the year to get in a day chart, which is an opposition transit from Mars. And it —
J: And it’s the dispositor of the eclipse.
CB: Yeah. Well, that’s actually the other point that I thought was really great and that I – what I explained at the beginning, which is just is a great demonstration of when a person is in a Cancer or a Leo profection year, the eclipses tend to be much more important and much more potent for them compared to other years, because it makes the Sun and Moon the lord of the year. And normally, people don’t know what to do with that because the Moon moves so fast that it’s weird to think about using it as the time lord of the year and paying attention to all of its transits being more important. But in reality, what happens is it’s just the lunations and especially the eclipses that become more important. So that’s the other reason why this happened like, right on an eclipse in your 10th house. Give me the context, though, in terms of letting us get a sense for your subjective experience of this and how shocking it was to be fired. How long had you been working at this job? What can you tell us about what you did?
J: So I realized that I actually had my final group interview for that position on December 14th of 2020, and it was an eclipse in Sagittarius. So it made sense to have lost the job. We weren’t having layoffs; it was a very small energy consulting firm. And my manager and I and a person that we hired, we all got laid off at the same time in the morning of the eclipse. Very shocking. Like I said, we weren’t aware it was happening.
CB: Okay. So it just came out of left field and then all of a sudden, you’re unemployed from a job that you had been doing for, what, like —
J: Three, two and a half, I think.
CB: Yeah. Two or three years at that point. And so let me go back to your chart. Also relevant in terms of that was, of course, since you have Aquarius rising, Saturn had just recently like, two months earlier, ingressed into your 2nd house of finances. So you’re having like, a Saturn transit in your 2nd house at the same time, and that’s kind of like, inaugurated with losing your day job at the time.
J: It also squares my MC, which is very cute.
CB: Yeah. So your MC, for the audio listeners, is at two degrees of Sagittarius, and Saturn was at five, so it had just squared that, and then in fact would retrograde back there and station later in the year at like, zero degrees of Pisces again.
So after you lost your job, what happens? Like, what do you do?
J: I start kind of just taking the severance pay because it was the first time that I had been unemployed, and unemployment, so I was just kind of living life as a true Sag. And then I eventually began becoming serious about applying in October of 2023, and then I connected with someone at a networking event beforehand while I was working for that company, I connected with them afterwards and actually became their like, consultant. So I was getting income that way. And then I also started teaching dance, but all the interviews – I would always get an interview in everything I applied, but I would never make it very far. And just recently, I had an old colleague pass on an email from somebody who’s looking for a skilled, like, very specialized that I have, which is I work in green hydrogen in the environmental justice and community engagement side, which is very 11th house.
CB: Yeah.
J: So I ended up applying, interviewing, got the position, start on Monday ahead of a 2nd house eclipse, full Moon. So it ends my unemployment.
CB: Wow. So your unemployment is just about to end right on the Pisces eclipse that’s about to take place in your 2nd house?
J: Yep. Start tomorrow! It’s been really crazy.
CB: That is incredible, and also I like that because what is tomorrow? Today is the 9th.
J: Tomorrow’s the 10th.
CB: Oh sorry – oh yeah, today’s the 9th. Well, today here it’s the 8th.
J: Oh. Sorry. I’m looking at the chart. Yeah. Tomorrow’s the 9th.
CB: So are you starting on the 9th or the 10th?
J: The 9th.
CB: Okay.
J: I had learned that I got accepted for the position when Mercury was at two degrees of Virgo and then it retrograded back, and now I don’t start until Mercury is pretty much where it was when it retrograded, so.
CB: Wow. That’s brilliant. That’s a good demonstration of why the shadow periods are important or why I always emphasize those. So you got the position when Mercury was at two degrees of Virgo. Do you have the day for that?
J: It was the 3rd or 4th, yeah.
CB: So it was around the time that Mercury was stationing —
J: Yeah.
CB: — basically in your 8th house that you —
J: It must have been before that, because that’s Sunday, right? So yeah. It was when it was at two degrees, yeah.
CB: Okay. So it was when it was direct still before it stationed retrograde, but it was in the pre-retrograde shadow period at two degrees. And then —
J: Wait, if you can go back, you can see that the Sun was also trining my Jupiter that rules my 2nd house. And since it’s the lord of the year, that was pretty cool. So I had Mercury squaring my Midheaven at two degrees. The Sun at eight degrees Leo trining my Jupiter in Scorpio in the 10th house, which rules my 2nd house.
CB: Squaring it. Right.
J: Yeah, squaring.
CB: Yeah. That’s still really striking. Well, it’s just a good example, because I don’t know, I’ve seen discussion about shadow periods recently, and people not being sure about the concept, but I think it’s really important because it sets up that sometimes when a planet goes retrograde around a sensitive degree or a personal degree in a person’s birth chart – like in this instance, Mercury here was at two degrees of Virgo squaring your Midheaven in Sagittarius – that it sets up a situation where you’re gonna get three exact hits of that transit. And that’s more than anything why shadow periods are important, because shadow periods are an attempt to describe and explain how there’s gonna be a connection between those three different seemingly separate dates in which Mercury is gonna be making the same aspect to a personal planet or a personal placement, but how they’re actually connected in part of a sequence of events. So it’s great that you noticed this, because that means on this date – so what happened? You think that they made the decision that you would get the job on this date?
J: Yeah. So I got the email pretty much that they were – because they had to go to the higher-ups and let them know because it’s government, so everything’s very complicated for no reason – and yeah, so they let me know that they were talking to them about having me come in as the candidate. I also forgot to mention that Venus is trining my Sun that day as well.
CB: Right, that’s nice. So you got the notification, and then it had to like, go through the higher-ups and maybe get approved because Mercury then stationed retrograde in your 8th house.
J: I also negotiated on the 7th and then got the new offer on the 8th, and then signed on the 9th.
CB: Nice. So your – the Mercury retrograde – that was actually – the 7th was actually the day of the Mercury-Venus conjunction in your 8th house, but it means you’re negotiating with your employer about how much essentially they’re willing to pay you, and how much what the terms are of your agreement with them for employment under the Mercury retrograde in your 8th house.
J: Yes. And then lastly, I just wanted to say that because of Saturn being in my 2nd house and all of this, I wasn’t into astrology as deeply. I just knew like, Sun sign stuff. But when I lost the job and heard it was an eclipse during Mercury retrograde, then I like, became interested in astrology. And everybody said that —
CB: Hold on just a sec, because I just wanted to finish the last point of the Mercury retrograde thing. So I just wanted to round that out – so you’re starting the job tomorrow when Mercury is back at like, two and three degrees of Virgo, which is where it was both when you were notified that you essentially got the job as well as when you were like, negotiating it?
J: Yeah.
CB: So that’s the post-retrograde shadow is even though Mercury is theoretically done with the retrograde, now that it’s getting back to the final degree that it started the retrograde at, you’re now finally moving forward into the thing that you were negotiating during the retrograde. So that’s just such a perfect – I don’t know if I ever had, I’m sure I have in the past but not anytime recently, that I’ve seen such a perfect encapsulation of why shadow periods are important than this. So sorry for interrupting, but I just wanted to make sure we emphasized that, because that’s actually really brilliant that you noticed that.
J: Yeah, I’ve been tracking it like a hawk after, you know, becoming aware of how accurate astrology can be with predictions, because I thought it was just psychological stuff. But yeah, with Saturn in my 2nd house as somebody who has never really had a budget, I hate finance. It’s the only B I got in my MBA. I have recently decided to create a budget, forecast like, my debt and paying that off. So I think that will satisfy Saturn so he’ll, you know, leave me alone a little bit as he squares all my planets. But yeah, I’m not looking forward to Mars running over my Moon again, so.
CB: Yeah. So with, in terms of… Well, you’re not in a – what profection year are you in now?
J: Seven.
CB: 7th. So you’re in —
J: Leo.
CB: Leo still. Okay, yeah, because December is when it’ll switch over to Virgo. Got it. Okay. Yeah. I think that’s really interesting, and that – so are you part of the Saturn transit through your 2nd house as well as the way that the eclipse is about to accentuate it is just, you’re gonna start budgeting. Because up to this point… So with like, with Pisces being your 2nd house and maybe it’s like, Neptune’s been transiting there for the past decade and Jupiter is the ruler, that financial stuff – you said you’re not very good at just like, keeping track of money and things like that? That it’s not something you focus on or that you have a lot of like, firm boundaries around up to this point?
J: Yeah, no. I live with someone who has kind of taught me how to do that, and yeah, so I’m pretty confident that I can do that now.
CB: Nice. So that’s a great – that’s a very constructive, you know, way of experiencing the Saturn transit in terms of putting more structure into your finances to have greater… What are some of the keywords? Like, control or greater responsibility, and what was the one you said?
J: Stability. .
CB: Stability, okay. Nice. Yeah, that makes sense.
J: Yeah. I feel like I’m in financial prison, and I want financial freedom.
CB: How would you or why do you describe it as financial prison currently?
J: Because I am stuck because I dn’t have the finances to go and do things, if that makes sense. So I’m kind of ball and chain. Everything I do, it has to eventually go back to the debt that I have to pay. So I feel like Saturn’s kind of making me work hard to release the shackles, pretty much and then learn how to budget and be serious about not just spending my money like crazy.
CB: So is it debt from school or debt from the unemployment over the past few years?
J: Both, and then just spending like I have all the money in the world.
CB: Right, yeah. That’s a real issue sometimes with Jupiter ruled – either Jupiter 2nd house or Jupiter-ruled 2nd house can sometimes be like, spending freely. But it sounds like, you know, with this first eclipse – because eclipses always when they happen in a house it opens up a year and a half period of focusing more on that house as well as the house opposite to it and the relationship between the two. So this first eclipse is gonna be in Pisces, but it’s opening up a series that’ll keep jumping back and forth between Pisces and Virgo and your 2nd house of finances and 8th house of debt and other people’s money over the course of the next year or two. As you – and what’ll happen is people kind of seesaw back and forth between focusing more attention on one and then less attention on the other, and they keep having to go back and forth in terms of putting more focus on one area or the other at different points depending on the eclipse until eventually the point of it is to reach balance and to set a new standard in the life for dealing with those topics by the time you emerge out of it like, two years later once the nodes leave those two signs.
J: Yeah. And I forgot a huge part. This new job is technically a fellowship. So it’s an educational stipend, and I have to take out my own taxes. So as somebody who hates finance, who has like, my mom and the accountant, they do that. Well, my sister. And so now I have to learn how to put money aside and keep it in a place and know that it’s there instead of spending that savings. So I think that’s also cool.
CB: Nice. Yeah, that’s actually really cool. That’s such a great Saturn transit that’s like, really annoying in terms of having to like, learn how to do those things and could be frustrating or could be seeming like extra work, but then eventually emerging out of it, you know, in a year or two having developed such a greater sense of responsibility. You’ll be in such a better place once you come out the other end of it.
J: And then you know you were looking at 3rd house examples, and I’ve been having eclipses between those two if you wanted to go over that, but we don’t have to.
CB: No, let’s do it. That’d be great. So what was that – starting like, a year ago, we had… Well, especially earlier this year in April, but which eclipses or what’s been going on? Tell me about it.
J: Well, I’m not really sure which eclipse. I think it was at the bending of the nodes at the end of June, and I don’t really know what that means, but my brother, he was mentally unstable, had bipolar disorder one. In a manic episode, he took his life. And I think that’s also Saturn opposing the 8th house, and then having the eclipses between the 3rd and the 9th. And then I have a very much older brother who has been suffering with lung Cancer, and he’s just not doing too well. So I’m very wary of the eclipses that are still happening in the 3rd and 9th, and then now beginning in the 2nd and 8th. So yeah.
CB: Yeah. I’m really sorry to hear that. Yeah, I’m sorry you went through that. When – so yeah, we had the major, you know, Great American Eclipse so-called which occurred in, what was it, April, and that was in the sign of Aries, which was in your 3rd house of siblings. So it can kind of, you know, eclipses can be an omen or a foreshadowing of events that will play out over the course of the next several months. Do you know – so you said it happened in June, but did he start struggling or was there some sort of advancement of his condition or of his mental issues like, around that time, around the April timeframe that then eventually culminated, or do you know what was going on with him back in April?
J: Yeah. Sort of, because my family’s in New York and I’m in San Diego, but I’m moving back now – Jupiter in the 5th on my IC – but anyways. He, I guess, had a really bad manic episode around April, May – no – around April, and then they sent him to the Bronx and/or Brooklyn for him to get mentally stable. I guess he came out of that and was great for two months, and then he had a trigger at work and yeah, that’s kind of what led to him getting into another manic episode after being like, the best he’d ever been in years for two months, and then ending like that. And I think when people have high emotional peaks when they’re happy at a really high happiness and then things come and they’re negative, the low is so low that it takes them.
CB: Right. Yeah, for sure. What – when did he pass away?
J: So he passed away technically June 27th, and I say that “technically” because he was missing for three days. Or I think my family – so we live in upstate New York. Andrew was missing, and then my mom finally called for a search, and they searched and found him in the woods of our yard. So I didn’t know until July something, and that week I actually had reached out to him and we spoke for the first time like, and it was like, you know, not hostile, because we had a very strained relationship. But I’m happy that we had a really great conversation before all of that happened.
CB: Yeah. That’s great that you got to have that with him even if you didn’t know that that would be the last conversation you would have with him. So that was like, the week before he died?
J: It was the week that he died. So it was Monday I reached out to him; Wednesday he called me. That night, he tried committing. Mom found him, took him to the hospital – they released him, which we’re doing legal action I guess, and then that night that he came back, that Thursday, he tried again and was successful. And he had been trying over and over. He had, you know, Mars in Gemini in the 8th and the Moon in Gemini at 29 degrees in the 8th, so I think that’s kind of what it was. And then yeah. So I think… I’m not really sure how it works out astrologically, but.
CB: Yeah. I mean, you did make a good point about it being at the midpoint essentially between eclipses, which I do think is important when you basically have a lunation or lunations that are squaring the nodes. I think those lunations are more powerful because they’re at the halfway point between eclipse seasons, and as a result of that, they’re squaring where the eclipses took place, so it sort of gets tied in w/ the entire eclipse cycle in some way.
J: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
J: And then I also had Mars in the 4th about to join up with Uranus that’s squaring my Saturn, and then it’s forming a T-square with Saturn-Pluto. And I saw it in my mother and my sister’s chart when I looked at it too beforehand, and I was wondering what this would be. And then my brother was also in a Leo profection year. The transit Sun was opposing his natal Saturn in the 3rd house, and transit Saturn had stationed at 19 degrees for a while directly opposing his Sun. So yeah. And then he had Mars in the 7th opposing his Pluto in the 1st. He was a Scorpio rising.
CB: Got it. Okay. Yeah, because I forgot at the end of June, Saturn was stationing at that time in Pisces. So that was also a station for you in your 2nd house, which then yeah, kind of brings us back to that question we were discussing earlier in the episode, which is just for all other houses, we can sometimes see this overlap or connection between the house and then the house opposite to it. The 2nd in modern times is usually one of the only houses that we don’t usually see that, but that maybe there is some sort of connection there between that axis and this notion of like, life and death and the barrier between them or sometimes the overlap and transition point between them being represented by that axis.
Yeah. And then there’s other stuff – the eclipses, of course. You respond – your chart is responding very strongly to eclipses, and I was trying to figure out why. I do see that your Sun is in the same sign as the North Node, so that must mean that an eclipse happened not too long before you were born.
J: It was like, a week or two. But I’m wondering if it’s the MC-North Node like, almost direct conjunction.
CB: Okay, yeah. That could be. That’s something we saw recently with like, Kamala Harris’s chart has the node right on the Ascendant, and she also seems to be responding very strongly to eclipses in her chronology. So I’ve been wondering if that’s actually like, a signature of why, another additional reason why a person might respond really strongly to eclipses.
J: Yeah, that would be interesting to look into.
CB: Yeah. For sure. And you know, with Mars transiting your 4th house during this – I mean, it transited your 3rd house just before, and I don’t know if that’s part of if he was already starting to decline somewhat during that time by like —
J: I think he was fine around that time, it seems. But again, I wasn’t directly there, so. It’s hard to say.
CB: Got it. I guess I was just wondering to what extent with it going through your 4th whole sign house that your family and your parents especially were really impacted by it, or how much more impacted were they by his death than – I don’t wanna say than you were, but were they very impacted by it?
J: Yeah. It’s my mom’s only son, and then my sisters and my mom have tried – it’s kind of really devastated my mom mostly, I think. Both of my sisters, they’re in the behavioral health arena in one way or another, so they have been trying their best, but my mom is really taking it hardest, because – well, my sisters know that they tried their best and they’re comfortable with that. My mom feels guilty. So yeah. And…
CB: Yeah, I think that makes sense just in terms of that Mars transit in your chart showing it being especially a hit to your parents and evidently for her. Did you say something like it was, that he, they found him in the woods or something behind her house?
J: Yeah, at home, in the woods. And yeah, he had taken a fentanyl pill just to end it, and he had been out there for a few days and we live in upstate New York. So definitely like, Mars stuff happened – like, coyotes got to him afterwards.
CB: Okay. Yeah. And that was all back at your – was that like, where you grew up in terms of your home?
J: Yeah. And I’m actually now – yeah. I’m actually moving back now to kind of fortify the home front. And I think I had all this time been wondering why Jupiter on my IC, like, what would that bring? Because I’m too broke to move. But now that I have this position and it’s a remote position, and my family isn’t doing too well, and part of the reason I couldn’t live home was because of him, I am now moving back home and hopefully, yeah. It all goes well.
CB: Yeah. With the Jupiter station in your IC sign, that is interesting coming up. Jupiter’s gonna station at 21 in early October, so that’s sort of potentially relevant in terms of that. And then of course – I know some people will be pointing out Mars would have been transiting your quadrant 3rd house on that side of like, the IC even when it was in Taurus, so I think that might be relevant as well, and it was something I mentioned in the 2nd house example with like, the episode with the Noel Tyl example of looking at the overlap between the whole sign and quadrant houses, and that may be relevant there as well as an extension of the IC principle. Yeah.
Well, yeah, that’s really striking example in terms of both your 2nd house transits and just how that financial stuff is happening for you at this time, but also potentially bringing up that entire axis of the 2nd house and the 8th house. And of course, that’s gonna tie in not just the debt versus like, personal finances themes, but also just sometimes the topic of mortality, and especially if you’re moving back home, having to work through those different stages of like, grief, and of yeah, having some of those realizations in retrospect as well as helping your mom to work through some of that at the same time. So we can kind of see how there’s this constellation of 2nd and 8th house things happening in addition to the eclipse that happened in your 3rd house just two months before having really marked that as what I always say; I always say eclipses are major beginnings and major endings. And sometimes the greatest like, end to something can be the end of a person’s life. Yeah. But it sounds like then that’s also – you said it’s allowing you in some ways to move back home, which you hadn’t felt comfortable previously because of that relationship with him?
J: Yeah. And part of what I can do now moving back home is not pay San Diego rent. So now I can completely eliminate my debt within like, two years. Well, not like, the federal loans, but like, the private loans and the credit card debt. So I’m pretty stoked about that. Very much a 2nd and 8th house axis eclipse season.
CB: Yeah. And that’s really interesting because it just shows how, you know, our lives are complicated, and it’s rarely just like, one thing that’s happening in our birth chart. But sometimes there’s multiple important things happening in our birth chart, but that shows how they can be interconnected and why, you know, you can be having major transits in your 2nd house of finances, in your 3rd house of siblings, in your 8th house of debt and mortality, and how sometimes it’s all relevant. Instead of it just being one thing that you go through this series of different experiences that let you experience different colors and different shades of the archetype of that house.
J: Yeah. And it’s been really exciting to kind of see how it all plays out, even though obviously there’s some like, emotional hurt that comes with life. But yeah – Saturn in the 1st! Resilient.
CB: Yeah. Very resilient. And yeah – I think – how long have you been studying astrology?
J: Seriously since like, October.
CB: Of last year?
J: Yeah. I got into it in May. Like, I was watching your videos and stuff starting in like, October, and now I have books everywhere.
CB: Okay. So you started seriously studying astrology then when a solar eclipse happened in your 9th house?
J: I think it was a few things. Yeah. So the solar eclipse – no, that was in the 10th house. I think my Mercury ingressed into my 1st house, into Aquarius, in March of 2023, and I think that’s kind of what did it. Because I didn’t have a 9th house eclipse, I don’t think. Or is that when it started? I thought it was October that it started.
CB: Well, you said you started seriously studying astrology in October of last year —
J: Yeah.
CB: So on October 14th, there was a solar eclipse in Libra, which would be your 9th house.
J: Yeah. So that’s when I started buying books. I had been watching The Astrology Podcast for like, a month or two, but it’s really hard to grasp when you’re so new to everything. So I just started buying books and it really helped to – as well as watch the podcast – and then I got the AstroGold app, and that is really kind of what elevated everything because I’m able to look back. And being unemployed, having all this time on my hands, I definitely like to be productive. So yeah.
CB: Nice. That’s incredible. Well, you’ve picked it up really, really quickly in terms of you seem to have a really strong command of it, and also you’re tracking everything really well in the same way that I would be tracking it. So I’m impressed at how good you are after only studying seriously for a year. And it seems like you found it at a right time where hopefully it’s giving you some good perspective on your life and maybe if it’s not like, fully answers necessarily giving you some of that perspective, hopefully provides some sense of relief or some sense of seeing the bigger picture of how things are playing out.
J: Yeah. I think it’s definitely helped me accept that everything happens as it should in some way. I know that we also obviously have free will, but I think I find a lot of comfort in that, so.
CB: Yeah. I think especially as astrologers seeing some of the stuff lining up like it does, especially when you’re dealing with grief, that for me at least I found that tremendously reassuring when I was dealing with grief. It was one of the few things where I could sort of step outside of myself and at least see some of the correlations and have a sense of like, “This is terrible and I’m extremely sad that this happened, but I also know that this is gonna push me in certain directions, and it’s gonna change my life in a way that I can’t fully appreciate now but that hopefully will take me in some directions in the future that are positive that wouldn’t have happened otherwise,” and that you can already kind of see echoes of that in the astrology, I think, is reassuring ultimately. And I think that’s one of the functions of astrology for us as astrologers or people that look into it is the ability to have some sense of reassurance when those things happen.
J: Yeah, exactly. And I think the last thing to end it more on a high note instead of like, “Oh, my brother died” – because of his death, after going back home, it kind of assembled all of my friends from childhood that I’ve always had and still keep in touch with, but I’ve been living in San Diego for seven years. So I go back home, and they all assemble like Avengers and they’re helping and, you know, they’re having – like, his birthday’s coming up, so they’re having dinner with my mom. So it seemed very much like 3rd house childhood friends being revived, and we’re all very tight knit again, so it’s nice. And I’m excited —
CB: That’s incredible.
J: — to go back home and be around them, so.
CB: Yeah, that’s incredible. I’m really glad you mentioned that, because as I’m again rereading Rhetorius, our earliest source, in modern times, astrologers tend to just associate friends with the 11th house, but Rhetorius is very consistently mentioning friends over and over again in addition to siblings in connection with the 3rd house having that sextile. And it’s interesting, like, you make an interesting point about that, which is like, the friends are the people you knew in your neighborhood largely growing up that were around your house and stuff. And for many of us, when we move away from home, they’re the people that continue to live back in the vicinity of where we used to live or where we grew up, and that sometimes when we go back there, part of reacquainting ourselves with our old neighborhood is we get to reconnect with our old friends.
J: Yeah. And honestly, I’ve missed them so much. You never like, realize it until you’re with them. Like, that’s how I feel when I miss somebody, so it’s very nice to connect.
CB: Yeah. That’s incredible. And of course, you have such a big 11th house stellium that that’s relevant as well where friends would be very more important for you than for other people. But also, yeah, like you said, I think that’s also a 3rd house thing, and that then also in some ways can be part of what the eclipse potentially was not just an omen of, but also was a preview or a foreshadowing of, that there would be a major change in that area of your life, too, and that you’re coming back to something and reconnecting with old friends.
J: Interesting. The 2nd and 11th house ruler are ruled by Jupiter, so I’m not sure if that has anything to do with it, with the eclipses, but yeah.
CB: Right. Yeah. At some point, there might be a connection for you with the ruler of the 2nd and the 11th in the 10th between your finances and your friendships and your career. So it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out in the long term.
J: Yeah. I’ll hit you up when you do the 10th house.
CB: Okay. We’ll check in again then. It’s gonna be a long several months before I get to the 10th house since I’m only on the 3rd, but I think that should give you time to let that develop and percolate a little bit.
J: Yep!
CB: Cool. All right. Thank you so much for sharing your example and chart; this was actually an incredible way to round this out. And thanks for your vulnerability and everything else and being willing to share. I appreciate it, and I think we all got a lot out of it and it helped to round out this what is unexpectedly turned into an amazing 2nd house/3rd house discussion.
J: Yeah. Obviously thank you so much for creating a community in which I can learn so much, because otherwise being unemployed, I wouldn’t have been able to, so thank you again.
CB: Yeah. All right. Thank you.
All right. That was incredible. Yeah. This has turned into – I did not plan for this episode. Like, this – I was not sure how this workshop was gonna go today and whether this was gonna go well. This has pretty much blown away all of my expectations. I did walk into this where I did a webinar recently where I sort of prepared it more ahead of time, and I like, I tried to – I always like to plan things ahead of time. So I had previously been asking people to submit their stories ahead of time and then like, putting them in a document and then, you know, people were not necessarily showing up or were not there, so I would sometimes read them. But I had this realization yesterday that I shouldn’t read the stories anymore, because the purpose of these is actually to talk with people directly. And even if that’s scary for me as somebody that likes to really prepare extensively ahead of time, that sometimes you just have to go with the flow and let the discussion take you where it’s gonna take you. And in this instance, this took us through this incredible journey not just through the 2nd house but also into the 3rd house and sometimes showing the connections between the two or the parallels especially when there’s overlap in people’s charts, either through natal placements that are connecting the 2nd and 3rd house or sometimes through transits that are either connecting those two houses or showing events that are happening in parallel in those two parts of the life, if there are major transits happening there at the same time.
So I think we learned a lot today. We got into some even deeper stuff about what the 2nd house means in terms of both natal placements as well as transits. And then we also had a nice preview and a nice transition into what I’m working on and researching right now, which is the 3rd house. And you know, sometimes when you mention some of the basic topics about it, like, it doesn’t sound like it’s a super important house, that people usually wanna focus more on like, the glitzy and glamorous houses like the 10th house or something like that or the 7th house of relationships. But sometimes when the 3rd house is important in a person’s chart, it’s important for a really major reason, and it can really alter the life direction in really major ways.
So my goal for this month is I’m actually going to be doing an intense bit of research over the next week on the 3rd house. I’m not sure when I’m gonna release this episode to the public. I am gonna release it to patrons for early access – the recording – later today immediately as soon as we get done, because that’s one of the benefits of being a patron of The Astrology Podcast is getting early access to the rough cut of episodes as well as the ability to attend these live webinars each month. So I’m not sure when I’m gonna release this episode and if it’ll be out in time for when I actually record the 3rd house episode; we’ll have to see. But if people do have other good 3rd house – I’m gonna start with celebrity examples for that first workshop. If you have any good 3rd house celebrity chart examples, please let me know and please send them in to me. You can send them to TheAstrologyPodcast@gmail.com; just try to keep it relatively concise. If it’s a celebrity chart, please stick with only AA or A-rated data, which is, you know, data where there’s a really strong source for it. Or maybe B data, which is a biography. But I try to stick with just well-timed charts in order to have solid research basis for the conclusions that we’re drawing from them. So if anybody wants to help me find good 3rd house examples, please let me know. And then I think this went so well that we’ll probably do a follow up at some point. Even though this did end up focusing on the 3rd house, perhaps we’ll expand that and return to that next time once I actually release the 3rd house episode and think about doing another live webinar like this one to talk about and revisit the 3rd house again. So we’ll have to see how it goes.
All right. I’m just reading some of the comments. Thanks everyone for joining me today for this live stream and for joining me in this journey. I really appreciate it, and thank you to everybody that shared their stories. Thanks to all the patrons that support this work, because I think – yeah, I’m really happy with this community and I feel a lot of gratitude that we’re able to have these sorts of discussions and find some of these things in the process, which is helping everyone to learn something about astrology as we go through these stories and share these examples. So thanks a lot for joining me as part of this journey.
Alright. I think that’s it for this webinar. Sorry we didn’t get to all the examples today; I wanted to let each of these examples breathe. But we’ll see if we don’t return to this in the future. If people are watching this on YouTube in the future, then please if you have a good example of especially a 2nd house or a 3rd house placement or transit, go ahead and post it as a comment below this video on YouTube, and I’d love to hear your story and hear additional stories shared that can help to confirm some of the significations and the meanings that we found in this episode or even potentially help us expand on certain significations. I think that would be great to continue this process of learning and growing as a community by sharing stories with each other.
So all right. I think that’s it for this episode. Thanks everyone for joining me, so much. And yeah, I will see you again next time.
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If you’re really looking to deepen your studies of astrology, then check out my Hellenistic Astrology course, which is an online course in ancient astrology. It’s perfect for beginner and intermediate students because I take people from basic concepts up through intermediate and advanced techniques for reading birth charts. There’s over a hundred hours of video lectures, including monthly webinars and Q&A sessions, and at the end of the course, if you complete the final test, you’ll receive a certificate of completion saying that you studied with me. You can find out more information at TheAstrologySchool.com.