The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 473, titled:
The 5th House: Sharing Life Stories
With Chris Brennan
Episode originally released on January 11, 2025
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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 February 11th, 2025
Copyright © 2025 TheAstrologyPodcast.com
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CHRIS BRENNAN: All right. Hey, everyone. Welcome to this webinar on the 5th house in astrology. So joining me today I have a group of patrons of The Astrology Podcast who signed up for the livestream tier through my page on Patreon.com. And I’m gonna be talking to them about the 5th house and how it’s worked out in their birth chart and trying to collect some good examples as I’m currently in the process of researching my big episode on the 5th house that’s gonna be coming up in the next month or so. So today I’m recording this on Sunday, November 24th, 2024, starting at 12:48 PM in Denver, Colorado, with Pisces rising.
All right, so we have a good group here. Let me make just a few introductory remarks, and then we’ll get started with the first interview. All right, so here is a diagram that shows the significations of the 12 houses or some of the basic significations. And the 5th house is primarily associated with the topic of children. So it’s the 3rd house in a sequence that represents our immediate sort of blood family line connected to the 4th house, which is parents, the 3rd house, which is siblings and extended relatives, and then we go to the 5th house, which represents the continuation of the family line basically, because it’s the house or the sign that follows after the 4th house, which represents our parents, our home, our family, and our ancestry. So the 5th house is sort of like a continuation of that, essentially.
So the 5th house primarily pertains to children, and that’s gonna be the primary thing that we focus on today when we’re talking about the significations of this house because that’s the primary access point for how it’s useful in a very literal sense. But also, the 5th house in traditional astrology also became associated with like, sex and sexuality and procreation, which is like, what’s necessary in order to make children. But also more broadly, the 5th house became associated with pleasure or things that you do for fun and enjoyment or entertainment, which can also include things like games or fun and games and gaming, and I have some interesting examples I’m gonna share in the full 5th house episode of like, one of my favorite ones is a famous chessmaster who has the ruler of the Ascendant in the 5th house. Or another is a famous golfer that has the ruler of the Ascendant in the 5th house. So those are people where just something like a game became a major focus of their life or became their life’s work.
The 5th is also more broadly can be symbolically things that you create in general, so taking that concept of children, which is like, a physical thing that you create. The 5th house more broadly can also be other things that you create as well as the process of creation or creativity in general.
So that’s not a full breakdown of the 5th house significations, but that’ll give you at least some orientation towards the primary meanings of what we’re gonna be looking for and talking about today, and also showing what happens when that house is connected with other houses in a person’s birth chart, especially through the rulers of the houses or through transits or other things like that.
All right, so what we’re gonna do today is I’m gonna do little short interviews with different people. Different patrons have submitted brief examples to me in the live chat, and I’m gonna go through – we’re having them vote on those, and I’m gonna go through and pick some of the highest voted ones, and then do little mini-interviews with each of the people that submitted a good example or story. So the mini-interviews sort of range in time frames; I’ll try to keep it somewhat concise so that I can go through a lot. But hopefully we can get into some interesting stuff and get to the core of what the 5th house means by talking to real life people. And I’ve been doing this as a complement to my houses series because it helps to balance out that in the primary houses series, I’m primarily focused on celebrity charts and the charts of notable individuals, and that’s really good because their lives are so well documented that I can make a statement about their life and you can verify whether that’s true or false most of the time through actual like, books or biographies and documentation. But obviously, there’s a whole other element that’s missing that you can only get if you have a direct one-on-one conversation with a person about their chart. And typically, that’s something that really comes through especially in an astrological consultation. So that’s part of what I wanna recreate a little bit here today by getting that more personal side of the 5th house as I’m researching this topic, and I think that’ll help me get some good ideas as well about avenues to focus on in my research when I’m looking at the notable celebrity charts.
All right. So let’s jump into it with the first one. The first one that has the most upvotes is a patron named Kristen. So I’m gonna promote you to a panelist now, and then we can talk about your chart.
KRISTEN: Hi there!
CB: Hey. Thanks for joining me!
K: Of course. Thanks for having me.
CB: Yeah. All right. So we already cast your chart. Is your Ascendant 23 Virgo rising?
K: That’s it.
CB: Cool. All right. I will go ahead and share that here on the screen. So here’s your chart. For those watching the video version, you have – or listening to the audio version – you have Virgo rising, and you have a night chart with the Sun in the 4th house, and you have Mars in the 5th house in whole sign houses. And the ruler of the 5th house is – Mars is ruling the 3rd house of siblings, and the 5th house is ruled by Saturn, which is placed in Libra in the 2nd house. So what’s your story?
K: Oh gosh! So my story goes that my entire life, I just wanted to be a mom. The 5th house has brought me years of struggle, difficulties, pain. But later in the life, it did bring me three biological children and a stepson, but the astrology correlates all of it with transits and profection years and all of that good stuff. So pretty much what happened at the beginning was I was initially married to my now ex-husband; we started to try to conceive in September of 2007. I got pregnant for the first time in May 2008, but miscarried in July of 2008. So at that time and over the next five years up until 2012, I had four more miscarriages, so a total of five in that time frame. And all while Saturn was transiting that 2nd house.
CB: Wow. Okay. So this was during your Saturn – it was really focused on your Saturn return, which would have been between like, especially 2009 and what, 2011 —
K: 20 —
CB: — 2012?
K: Correct. Yes.
CB: Okay. So that makes sense. So it’s like, the ruler of your 5th house —
K: Yeah.
CB: — is Saturn, and it’s a night chart so it’s a little bit more challenging. And sometimes Saturn can indicate delays or difficulties or obstacles in terms of being able to conceive, or sometimes Saturn’s function is just to say “no” to things in a chart. Like, “No, you can’t do this.” So that’s really what you were encountering, and it was actually activated during your Saturn return at its most intense point.
K: Yeah. It was extremely difficult. So at that time, around October of 2012, at that point, the doctors had informed me that genetically there was nothing wrong with myself or my ex, but because of the condition of my uterus, I would not be able to physically carry a child. I have a set of identical twin sisters that are a little younger than I, and when I let my family know that that was gonna be the end result, one of my twin sisters offered to be our gestational carrier around October 2012, which is – it’s a very extensive process then to kind of go through, both legally with the IVF place that we were going through to kind of do all of that, but we got started on that in October of 2012 right as Saturn left my 2nd house and entered the 3rd house being Scorpio. And then we found out that that IVF treatment worked, and she was pregnant on Christmas Eve in 2012, and then she successfully carried my son August of 2013.
CB: Wow, that’s incredible. So it shifted from like, your 2nd house and going through the intensity of your Saturn return, which that was interesting that it was essentially there was a medical issue that was causing you to not be able to. And because Saturn’s not just ruling your 5th house, it’s also ruling your 6th house, so that’s actually also a good demonstration of how we usually talk about Saturn returns that it activates both of the houses that it rules during the course of the Saturn return. So for you, that was connecting the topic of the 5th house and children and the 6th house of like, a medical issue. And then Saturn departs from there, it goes into your 3rd house which is the primary place of siblings, which is also where you have the ruler of your Ascendant, and your sister is able to do that for you, which is just incredible. And one of the things you pointed out in your writeup is that you have the ruler of the 3rd house of siblings in the 5th house of children, so it literally connected those two topics because your sister was able to do that for you.
K: Yeah. It was pretty wild. You know, I mean, obviously, had I known astrology way back then, this would have made a lot more sense to me as I was going through all of this! But —
CB: When did you learn it?
K: I just started about a year ago.
CB: Okay! That’s wild then that you’ve then discovered all of this in retrospect.
K: Well, and really, the reason why was I – like I said, I have two more children biologically, and I was able to carry those, so that’s where the story gets a little crazier.
CB: Wow.
K: So the following year, I wanted – right after my sister had my son for us, I desperately wanted another child. And I went through another nine months of experimental treatments to try to clear a scarring that I had, and in November of 2014, the doctors called it “divine intervention” and said they couldn’t come up with another reason why, but the scar tissue was gone, and I was free to try on our own. So I did and got pregnant with my daughter, had my daughter, and I mean, it was during just a time that I just didn’t think that was possible. But then I got divorced from my ex-husband. Met my husband now, and with my baby – which introduced me to astrology, which is kind of why I wanted to go that route, was because I got pregnant at 39 during a 4th house profection year despite taking cautions to not get pregnant, which is the irony of it all. Right? We weren’t trying to have children. Wasn’t looking – you know, we’re trying to blend families, and got —
CB: So this —
K: — pregnant.
CB: — was the third pregnancy?
K: Yes!
CB: Or third child.
K: Yeah, the third one.
CB: When was this?
K: So I was 39. I found out I was pregnant of August of 2020 during covid. So kind of like, August 21st or 22nd, I found out I was pregnant with my son. And like I said, we were not trying; we were taking precautions to not get pregnant. And then I had my son in March of 2021 when I was then 40 and in a 5th house.
CB: So then you – yeah, you switched into the 5th house profection year. That’s incredible.
K: Yeah.
CB: So that’s actually further incredible, because I’m just looking at the transits for both your second and your third —
K: Yeah.
CB: — child now. So you realized you were pregnant – you got pregnant in August of 2020?
K: Correct.
CB: Okay. So and Saturn’s like, Saturn, Jupiter, and Pluto of course – there was that pileup in 2020 in Capricorn, so those are, that’s transiting through your 5th house now, which is interesting because that’s also your Saturn square. That’s the waxing Saturn square and the first hard aspects since your Saturn return. And then you actually gave birth in did you say March?
K: March 11th, yeah. March.
CB: March.
K: I was 35 weeks, so I had him early, but it was March 11th of 2021.
CB: Okay. Got it. Incredible. So and then that’s the 5th house profection year. Backing up, I was really fascinated by your transits for the like, miracle birth that you mentioned.
K: Yeah.
CB: So when did you say you got pregnant then?
K: I found out I was pregnant on Valentine’s Day. So Valentine’s Day of 2015. So I would have conceived, you know, maybe February 1st, something like that, of 2015.
CB: But you found out on Valentine’s Day, okay.
K: Yeah.
CB: So 2015. Okay. And then you – what was the one – you said it was like, November of…
K: So November of ‘14 is when the divine intervention surgery. They were doing, they actually called doctors in from Chicago to perform this procedure to try to eliminate the scar tissue, and crazy enough, they went in and saw no scar tissue at all. And literally they were dumbfounded. Couldn’t figure out what happened over the past couple of years that eliminated it all, and that’s what they call – and since that point is when I really started to go, “Something is wild and crazy here.” You know, it’s something bigger than medical science that I can explain, but they gave me the clear in November. It was like, November 16th, 17th of 2014.
CB: Okay. I was really – so that – because like, at your solar return that year – so November 16th. Yeah, it’s like, transiting Saturn was like, going over your Uranus, which is usually like, something unexpected happens. Saturn is usually blockages and Uranus is usually like, the unexpected removal of things. So it’s amazing that you were having that transit of Saturn like, to your Uranus at this time and then you have this unexpected surprise that the doctors tell you that this thing that was blocking you from having children to such extent previously was suddenly not present at that point.
K: Yeah. I mean, the end goal – I was prepared. I told them to be aggressive and to try to cut out as much of the scar tissue as possible, and if that meant that I had to have a hysterectomy, then do it. You know, I mean, what was the point anyway if it wasn’t gonna fully function to the point that I wanted it to? But when I woke up and they told me that news, it was just mind blowing. And so yeah, and then at that point, we didn’t need any IVF – you know, like, just try on your own like a lot of people are able to, and we did, and then found out we were pregnant in February. Yeah.
CB: Got it. Okay. And then when did you have that child?
K: I had her on October 23rd, 2015. I will say, though, that year was probably the most shocking and exciting year of my life, but I also lost my father around eight months pregnant. So two months prior to, which was extremely difficult. So it was one of those years, though. I think I was in 11th house profection year. But I lost him August 15th of 2015, and then I had her October 23rd of 2015.
CB: Okay. Yeah. It’s like Saturn was just getting, it was just about to go into your 4th house of parents, and it was already within three degrees of conjoining your Sun at zero degrees of Sagittarius, so that makes sense in terms of that transit being difficult and coinciding with the loss of your father or that being part of it, at least.
K: Yeah. And then I had her October 23rd, 2015, and I think her and I – I think she’s 21 Virgo Ascendant. We’re extremely close with our Ascendants.
CB: Oh wow. That’s cool. Yeah, I always love when that happens with family members with repeated Ascendants.
K: Yeah. My twin sisters have Virgo Ascendants as well. It’s pretty crazy.
CB: Wow. Yeah. I had – yeah. I’ve seen that a lot. So going back to that, because that’s actually a point that I’m curious about, with just your natal chart in general, you have the ruler of the Ascendant in the 3rd house. So you know, sometimes when that happens, there’s like, something about the person’s life where the topic of siblings is more important to them than other people or has a greater role sometimes in determining things about their life direction. What was your – you said you have two twin sisters. What was your relationship with them – and that sister in particular – like, before this?
K: Very close. We’re only about 15 months apart. So all girls, just growing up, we were a pretty close knit family. I mean, of course, having sisters that close in age can cause issues kind of in your teen years, but growing up we were super close. And you know, I will say that – I being the oldest – I got married first, was trying to have kids first. They saw my difficulties. They both got married, and they both had children of their own. And actually, the sister that carried my son got accidentally pregnant while I was going through my struggles, which at that time was pretty upsetting to me. You know? That she was not trying, she was not married – not that there’s anything wrong with that – it just, that was gonna be the first grandchild out of any of us as I was kind of struggling going through what I was going through. So that was really hard to kind of go through, but at that point, I kind of took it as, “I’ll be the best aunt that I could be!” You know, and maybe eventually a mom, but looking back, she then had another child immediately after, and that completed her family. So it’s kind of crazy to think that, you know, it almost was supposed to play out that way. That she was supposed to have her kids first to be able to allow me to, you know, to give me the gift of being a mom. Because if she wouldn’t have had those kids at the time she had them, she wouldn’t have been able to offer that. So much so, I was so incredibly grateful – just a side note – back in the day in 2013, the Today show had like, Kathie Lee and Hoda show – part of the Today show – and they were running a Mother’s Day contest for the most deserving Mother’s Day contest, and I saw it, and I started crying. And I wrote an essay in, and I think out of like, 5,000 people that wrote in, they chose our essay and had us on the show to tell our story.
CB: Oh wow.
K: Just with how incredible it was, and it’s just definitely something that I never expected and forever in debt to her for allowing that to happen.
CB: Do you remember what day that was that you appeared on the show?
K: It was May. So it was May of 2015. So they have like, a little clip you can see online of it, but yeah, they flew – they actually flew out to Pittsburgh. We were there; they had like, crews there videotaping us kind of like, a behind the scenes, and then they paid for us to fly to New York to be on the actual show. And there was two contestants that were there, and then we won a cruise to – like, my sister – to go away, but yeah, we were on that part of the Today show.
CB: Got it. That’s incredible.
K: Yeah.
CB: Wow. So just like, looking at your transits there. It looks like the North Node was like, transiting over your Saturn at that time, which is kind of interesting, so that the eclipses were taking place there. So, I mean, I guess it’s hard to measure this relative to outside of one’s family, but I guess you would say you have a relatively close relationship with your siblings?
K: I do.
CB: Okay.
K: I do feel like, you know, the two of them – and I have an accurate birth time for the one. The other is a couple minutes before, but not recorded down. They were by C-section. But you know, I will say that the two of them kind of more butt heads a little bit more, and I’m kind of the moderator one. You know, so I’ll have one call complaining about the other twin; I’ll have to talk the other twin off the ledge, you know. So they have more disagreements than I, and it’s always been I think in my entire family between both my sisters and my mom and my dad, I’m kind of the one that they call or the leader or the one that they kind of trust with things, you know. But I’ll say we’re extremely tight. Now, I don’t live in Pittsburgh anymore; I live a little bit further away – about three hours away from them. But we’re extremely close. It doesn’t matter. We don’t talk all the time, but you know, it’s one of those things where I’ve always had their back; they’ve always had mine. We don’t get in arguments or anything like that. If we lived closer, I think it would be a much stronger relationship, but it’s like, when we get together, we haven’t left.
CB: Nice. That’s incredible. All right. And then when was your third child born again?
K: He was March 11th, 2021.
CB: Oh, 2021. Okay. So March —
K: He’s not quite four.
CB: Got it. I’m really interested that like, this entire saga and chapter of your life has kind of been bookended by Pluto’s transit through Capricorn and through your 5th house, which is now just recently come to an end with Pluto departing this month just a few days ago from Capricorn and moving into Aquarius after starting that transit way back in like, 2008, 2009. Did you say that that was roughly when you were starting to try to conceive but running into issues?
K: Yep. So we got – my first husband and I got married in September 2007. We tried for six months or so to get pregnant and couldn’t until I finally, at that point, I saw an infertility doctor, and they had diagnosed me then with endometriosis as well. I mean, which is way more common than Asherman’s syndrome that I had, but. The first pregnancy was May of 2008. So yeah, ever since then, it’s been a wild, crazy ride as it pertains to my 5th house.
CB: Yeah. It’s like and we can see that right here. It’s like, September of 2007, Pluto’s at 26 degrees of Sagittarius, and it’s just coming off of a square with your Ascendant/Descendant axis, and the nodes are actually in your Ascendant/Descendant axis at the time, so that means you were having eclipses in your first and 7th house. So the marriage makes sense.
K: Now! Right?
CB: Right. In retrospect!
K: Yeah.
CB: But so Pluto though was direct, and it’s heading right for your 5th house at that point, which it finally goes into by, what is it, January, February of 2008 we see that first ingress of Pluto into Capricorn with Venus and Jupiter going in at the same time. But then as a result of that, it just hovers around that degree, around the first couple of degrees of Capricorn, and then it stations by March-April. And when it stations, it’s stationing exactly conjunct your natal Mars in Capricorn in the 5th house, so it’s really emphasizing that placement, but that was when you had that first instance of having a miscarriage, right?
K: Yeah. I mean, I felt like it was there forever. I will tell you, you know, the focus on my life ever since that marriage has been my children. Has been just, I mean, I had an unwavering – people would ask, you know, over all of those years, like, “Well, how are you still going through this?” You know, just mentally, emotionally, physically – all of the surgeries, procedures, losses, whatnot. And I just wouldn’t have stopped. I mean, it was some type of passion that just was forcing me to go through and not having children was not an option. It was just how. So whether – and if my sister wouldn’t have asked, I mean, I would have gone the adoption route. I just did not foresee after my oldest son being born via my sister, I did not foresee the rest of that story I’m telling in the fashion that it did.
CB: Right. Yeah. That’s incredible. I mean, yeah, that’s such a crazy transformation, and to go through the worst part of that and the toughest part right at the beginning of that Pluto transit through your 5th house so that you’re dealing with literal themes of life and death, of attempting to conceive but also having to deal with the pain of not, and then of… Yeah, like, that’s just a very vivid example of like, a Pluto conjunct Mars transit in the 5th house that starts the transit, but then it begins this entire decade, decade and a half long process of just like, change and transformation and intense ups and downs as it’s going through your 5th house that completely transformed your life from the beginning of that transit to where you are today at the very end of that transit so that ultimately, while you experienced many hardships and difficulties during the course of that, you know, there was also some very incredibly positive things that came out of it as well. So it wasn’t necessarily all bad, even if you did have to go through the first part of that.
K: A hundred percent. And that’s what – you know, that’s kind of the mantra with it. I’d do it all over again, even without knowing the outcome at this point. Like, that’s what even makes me think, you know, my daughter – we called her the miracle baby. You know, just unbelievable that that could happen, but really then even to have that happen again with my son… And honestly, I mean, we were trying to prevent that from happening. And to be 39 and to not being trying? The irony was just so there. You know? I mean, trying for so many years to have that happen and then trying to not and it happen just made you think that there’s just something bigger out there that, if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. You know what I mean? Who am I to say? But he definitely has completed our family. It’s the best thing that’s happened, and so yeah, we’re a crazy, chaotic crew over here going from —
CB: Right.
K: — super quiet house to being extremely busy. Yeah.
CB: Yeah, that’s amazing. How incredible. Okay, one last —
K: Yeah.
CB: — thing before we wrap up. What were the dates again of the birth of each of your three children? I just wanna quickly check the transits to see if there’s anything else I overlooked. So what was the first birth?
K: August 26th, 2013. He was at like, 8:48 PM.
CB: Okay. So that’s what I was thinking, because that’s what I was curious about is so you – the North Node is at 10 degrees of Scorpio. I have this right – August 26th, 2013?
K: Yep. That’s my son.
CB: Okay. So your first – your son’s born through your sister through the surrogacy, and the North Node is at 10 degrees of Scorpio; it’s exactly conjunct your Mercury at 10 degrees of Scorpio in the 3rd house. And that’s just incredible because that also means that eclipses were taking place for like, that entire year in your 3rd house. There would have been a number of Scorpio eclipses that both preceded that. Like, the preceding one would have been here, probably around like, April there would have been a lunar eclipse in the sign of Scorpio of 2013. And then yeah, even subsequent to that, there would have been a solar eclipse just a few months later in Scorpio as well. So that was something I was curious about and just interested in because I’ve been tracking eclipses so much, and I love then that basically in that year in which you had such that important connection with your sister that eclipses were taking place there and then that was also part of what was helping to activate that connection between the ruler of your 3rd house being in your 5th house. So that might be illustrative for people in the future in terms of if they have an important placement or if they see an eclipse coming up in a certain house that it can be relevant to the topic of that house, but also the topic of the ruler – whatever house the ruler of that house is located in.
Okay, so what was the second birthdate?
K: My daughter, she is October 23rd, 2015.
CB: Okay, right, so this was the one just after your father has passed away when Saturn’s transiting through your 4th house and over your Sun. So Pluto at this point is like, halfway through Capricorn; it’s at 13 degrees. And this is the one where you turned 40, right?
K: No. That’s the next —
CB: No, this is earlier. Okay. How old were you here?
K: 34. So I was in an 11th house profection year, because I would… Yeah, I was 34. Because the next month I turned 35.
CB: Got it. Got it. Okay. So Saturn transiting Pluto’s in the 5th. The nodes are switching from the 2nd house – you might have had an eclipse because the node’s just a little bit off of Saturn. So that means you were having eclipses on your Saturn in the months preceding then, probably around that time. Let me check.
K: It was at like, 4:18 AM.
CB: The birth time was?
K: M’hmm.
CB: Okay. Here it is. Actually no, that’s not close enough. Oh, it was this one. There would have been – so there was a lunar eclipse in September of 2015 in Aries. I don’t know if that’s close enough. There might have been a solar eclipse there in Virgo or in Libra at that time. So that’s kind of curious if it was activating the ruler and that’s what that was about. All right. And what was the third birthdate again?
K: March 11th, 2021.
CB: Okay. So —
K: And I was in a 5th house year this year.
CB: So this was the 5th house year, this is the very tail end of your Pluto transit, which is interesting because then also like, it’s your Pluto square Pluto with your natal Pluto-Venus conjunction in late Libra. What else is going on here? Yeah. And Saturn has just finished up its transit through your 5th house and now it’s in your 6th house. And where the eclipses are in your 4th and your 10th. Interesting. Okay. And then yeah, this was the last – so now that Pluto’s like, departed from Capricorn and from your 5th house, do you have any other intentions of having more children, or where are you at at this point?
K: No.
CB: No? Okay.
K: No, yeah. We made that permanent with my husband, so we ensured that – no more children. While we are blessed, we definitely have our hands full, so I think that chapter of our lives is officially closed.
CB: Excellent. Well, that then is a really nice bookend then, and I think it can show that, like we said earlier, like, the difficulties of Pluto transits but also that they’re not all negative and sometimes those powerfully transformative experiences can be for a reason or can lead you into something that has a greater purpose and can be positive and constructive in the end. And I can’t think of a better example of that than what you just showed us here.
K: Thank you. Thanks.
CB: Yeah. Thanks so much for sharing this. This was an amazing example for so many different reasons. It’s amazing that you’ve just been learning astrology for a year but you saw all this and pieced all this together, because your chart just is such a good example of so many of those different things.
K: Yeah. Thanks. I mean, it really sparked my interest in it knowing there has to be something out, and I found your podcast. I’m taking the course now, so it’s definitely mind blowing what it can show you, and just the impact that it can have on you. So thanks for everything that you do.
CB: Awesome. Thank you! Well, send me that – I’ll find that clip later or send me that clip, because I’d love to —
K: Yeah, I will!
CB: — see that. Because that would be cool to see. Maybe we can splice it in or something in post.
K: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. But otherwise, thanks for sharing your story; I appreciate it.
K: Of course. Thanks, Chris.
CB: All right. Bye.
K: Bye!
CB: That was a good example, I think, everyone – right? Yeah. Cheyenne says, “Astrology is so insane.” Kyle says, “Thanks for sharing.” Yeah, everybody was super stoked by that example. I am also blown away.
All right, that’s gonna be really hard to top. So that’s what’s funny is somebody, you know, does anybody have anything up there comparable to that? Like, that’s okay if you don’t. But let’s see what we’ve got or let’s see what the next one was that was voted on.
Kathryn, if you’re here, I’d like to talk to you about yours.
KATHRYN: Hello.
CB: Hello. Hey! Thanks for joining me.
K: Thanks for having me!
CB: What’s your birth data?
K: Oh yeah, so June 12th, 1980. 12:31 AM. Buffalo, New York.
CB: All right. Is your Ascendant 24 Aquarius?
K: That sounds about right. I know it’s Aquarius; I don’t know the degree.
CB: All right. So here’s your chart. For those listening to the audio version, you said June 12th, 1980, right?
K: Correct, yeah.
CB: Correct. Okay. So for those listening to the audio version, we’re looking at a chart that has Aquarius rising and there’s a stellium of three planets in the 5th house, which includes the Moon, the Sun, and Venus in Gemini. And the degree of the IC is also there at 11 degrees of Gemini. The ruler of the Ascendant is Saturn in Virgo in the 8th. And this is a night chart. So yeah. What’s your story or what’s the short synopsis version first?
K: Yeah. So I do wanna preface that I am new to astrology, so I may require a little bit of prompting, but basically in a nutshell, the story is I… Well, I guess I could start with I’ve been an artist, you know, my whole life. I’ve gone to school for various forms of art. And right after I finished my MFA, I started my own business, but it really kind of kicked into gear. I’ll just say in January of 2022, I was working in a school, and still also running my business on the side. But I had this really kind of shocking experience. It was January 7th of 2022, and I abruptly left that job and I sued the employer; it was a sexual harassment situation. But that —
CB: What kind of school was it?
K: — kicked me into starting… It was a high school. It was a charter school.
CB: Okay. Got it. Okay.
K: And I was actually the visual and performing arts like, director, so I was like, creating like, the whole program for visual art.
CB: Okay.
K: But in any case, after that thing happened, I decided to really go full force into my business, and so I created a program called the Creative Youth Collective, and I work with kids between the ages of 10 to 18 on from idea generation through publishing. And so I’ve published now 16 books written by kids, or most of them are creative writers, but some of them are photographers as well. And I work really intensely with them one-to-one. But then we also create opportunities for them to connect as a collective. And then the other piece is I’ve had a lifelong relationship with my husband; I actually met him when I was 10, which is crazy. But we’ve been collaborating our whole lives, and we have two musical projects together, but in any case, I just found that his Moon is actually conjunct my Sun in Gemini in the 5th as well.
CB: Nice.
K: So that’s the nutshell. I’m sure there’s more there, but in any case, that’s what I know right now!
CB: Yeah, that’s incredible. So yeah, so the primary thing is that you publish creative writing and photography books by children and you published 16 of these already, which is pretty – that’s a lot. I mean, how did you – so and then there was already a prior thing of starting to work with children in high school, essentially, or adolescents. Was that a theme that came up prior to that time, or how did you get on the track that eventually led to that? Was there any like, foreshadowing of that earlier in your life or any desire to work with kids, or how did that happen?
K: Yeah. I mean, actually, it does track onto Pluto entering Capricorn in 2008. I moved from Amsterdam to San Francisco in August of 2008. And around I would say – I was trying to just kind of like, find my way. When I was living in Amsterdam, I was working at a gallery. I wasn’t working with kids, but I was working in art. And when I moved to San Francisco, I found a program called First Exposures, and so I started mentoring one-to-one in the dark room in the context of this program. So it was a photography mentorship program. And that completely changed my life. And I completely fell in love with the program. I started teaching for the program in 2010, and then ended up leaving in 2012 to move back to Berlin. When I came back, I was still teaching, but I was actually teaching at the college level. But then yeah, when I graduated from my MFA in 2016, I really just like, went full force into working with kids. I do a lot of work one-to-one. I have like, throughout my life, but yeah. On and off —
CB: What was your —
K: — with different jobs like —
CB: — MFA?
K: — in schools. Interdisciplinary studio practice.
CB: Okay, so —
K: So, yeah.
CB: Maybe that’s actually the question I should have asked, which is it seems like creativity or that drive for like, creativity and focus on like, art is something that goes back much further, and that’s one of your like, core impulses. Where does that come in, or how long has that been a theme for you in your life?
K: Oh god, my whole life. Honestly. Like, I changed schools in high school because I couldn’t take photography at the original school I was at. I was very, very drawn to photography specifically. So in my junior year of high school, I like, you know, I was like, living in the dark room. And then actually in that same year was when I started dating my husband in my junior year of high school. And he was actually really one of – he was really the person that really encouraged me to keep going and pursue it. And so I did a BFA in photography starting in 1998. Finished in 2002. And the two of us got married, like, two weeks later, so.
CB: Oh wow. Okay. 1998.
K: Yeah.
CB: 2002… Let me pull up your transits, because that actually just made me think of some interesting ones. What happened in 1998 again?
K: I entered my undergraduate program in fine art, in photography.
CB: Got it. Okay. And then you finished in 2002, and also got married in 2002?
K: Yeah, exactly.
CB: Okay, so the —
K: Yeah, I finished like, I think I graduated the 12th of May and we got married on the 25th.
CB: 12th of May. Okay… There we go. May. There keeps being this overlap, and it’s because you have – one of your signatures is that you have the ruler of the 7th house of relationships, you have Leo is on the 7th house, so that’s the sector of your chart that relates to relationships and marriage. And the planet that rules that house, and it represents it in your chart, is the Sun, which is actually placed in Gemini in the 5th house. So like, the broadest thing we could say is that there should be some connection between the topic of relationships and the topics of either like, children or creativity in your life, and so it’s interesting that he was both he was one of the people that encouraged you or the one who encouraged you to pursue your creative passion, which is what you ended up doing, but then also that there ended up being this overlap in continuity between when you completed that line of schooling, but also when you got married basically at the same time.
K: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So that’s really cool, and it looks like there was a big pileup of planets of a stellium of planets that was going through your 5th house at that time, both when you completed your initial degree but also when you got married at that time also simultaneously.
K: Yeah. I never really put that together before, like, the kind of correlation between me completing that degree and us getting married, but definitely very connected. And also I think the interesting thing is that my work with children has always been one-to-one. You know, for the most part. Like, every piece that has really resonated with me in my work with kids and in creativity and art has been on that one-to-one level, which is I think it probably has something to do with that 7th house placement —
CB: Totally. That’s excellent. I’m really glad that you pointed that out, because that does make a lot of sense.
K: Yeah.
CB: Because I’ve seen this in a few other houses, that when the ruler is tied in with the 7th house – I can’t think of the examples right now from the 4th and 3rd house episodes – but that there was this component of working direct one-on-one with other people, so that’s actually really incredible that you bring that up or that it manifests that way in your chart, but in this instance in working with children.
K: Yeah. Absolutely.
CB: One of the things that’s also cool about that – I’m glad that we did your example – is just it brings up a point that the 5th house is not always a person’s own biological children, but sometimes when a person has placements in the 5th house, it means the topic of children is important to them in some broader sense. And it can just be like, working with younger people, for example, which is how it’s manifested for you.
K: Absolutely. Yeah. I never had like, a huge draw to have my own kid. And so but I was always, I’ve always been drawn to working with kids, and I feel like I just have a really natural relationship with young people. Like, we connect really easily, and I approach our relationships on a really like, kind of like a horizontal playing field. Like, it’s not like a teacher-student relationship; it’s really more of like a facilitator of helping them to really realize their own ideas. Like, I don’t have like, a curriculum that I bring to the kids in my program; they bring their ideas, and I help them bring them to life and then publish. Publishing is like, a really big part of it, because that helps – it really like, gives weight, literally and figuratively, to their ideas when they have that physical book. It’s really important.
CB: Okay. That’s incredible. So it’s like, part of what you’re doing is you’re helping them to unlock or to at least put out their own creative impulses into the world and to like, make that achieve like, a permanent physical form in some sense by like, producing an actual book that then is there as a representation of what their own creative impulse is.
K: Yeah. Some people have described it as like, creative midwifery, so. It’s like helping them like, really kind of like bring their ideas into the world.
CB: I love that; that’s brilliant. What else? I mean, that might be in and of itself tied in with like, having the ruler of the Ascendant in the 8th house, because the 8th house – one of the things it’s about is like, other people’s finances, but also other people’s things. And to some extent, like, you’re working with other people in this context; interestingly, the house is ruled by the same planet – Mercury rules both the 5th house of children and the 2nd house of other people’s stuff – and yeah, and that’s part of your focus here is you’re helping other people with their stuff or to bring their stuff into creation, which also I’m sure with some of the kids it’s like, that book then sells even if it’s like, a modest amount of copies, then it also generates like, a little bit of income or something to some extent?
K: Yeah. And that’s actually – I’m glad you brought that up, because that’s an important part of the program. So when they do sell their books, I help them donate their royalties to causes that they care about. So it’s about the connection between their creative practice and the changes that they wanna see in the world. So it’s really about youth activism through the creative process, so. Yeah, and then some of them do choose to keep their own royalties, which is completely fine, but most of them do actually end up donating their royalties to causes they care about.
CB: Nice. That’s incredible. Okay. So that brings in the 8th house component; that makes sense. And then is your partner tied in with this work to any extent at this point, or was it just his encouragement of you to follow that path that was the tie-in early on?
K: He has – I mean, he’s like, been with me every step of the way in terms of like, talking it through and developing this business, but he actually is on the cusp of joining me next year. So we’re like, actually like, paving his path into this business right now where he’s not going to be – he doesn’t work with children the way that I do, but he works with adults – more like, college age individuals. So we’re actually like, creating his pathway in there right now. But he’s been like, a huge support and like, behind the scenes like, the whole time.
CB: Nice. Okay. So that brings in that component again, both in terms of the 8th house as well as the ruler of the 7th in the 5th.
K: Yeah.
CB: Earlier this year, I notice that you have Venus retrograde, and it’s applying to a conjunction with the Sun in Gemini, so that means you were essentially born at the Sun-Venus cazimi in Gemini in June of 1980. And since you have a night chart, Venus is the most positive planet in your chart, so that makes sense. Some of the most positive things are gonna happen in the context of the 5th house where both working with children is something that goes well for you and that you enjoy, and then also you’re essentially doing good things for the topic of children at the same time. One of the things I was curious about in terms of timing is we just had that cazimi repeats every eight years, and I guess we didn’t have an exact repetition, but we had like, a half four year repetition back in June when we had that last Sun-Venus cazimi in Gemini and I was just curious what you were doing around that time or if there was any important turning points with respect to some of this work with children that happened recently?
K: June of this year?
CB: Yeah, I think it was like, June of this year. Let me animate the chart and just —
K: Okay.
CB: — get a better idea of the timing. And I don’t know how relevant that is, because it was just a direct conjunction rather than a retrograde one, which would have —
K: Actually super relevant!
CB: Okay. So here’s the date. It looks like it was around June 3rd, give or take. There was a Sun-Venus cazimi at like, 13, 14 degrees of Gemini.
K: Yeah. So what was really wild was on May 25th of this year – and I remember because it was our anniversary – a parent in my program shared kind of a testimonial about my work with like, an entire, like, a school parent board kind of thing. And it just caused this like, explosion of interest. And it’s all word of mouth. Like, my program is really small, and like, I don’t market or anything; like, it’s just like, you know, people just talk about it, and that’s how it gets shared. But in any case, this woman shared my work, and it just created this like, massive amount of interest. And so in June of this year, like, I was just doing a ton of interviews and like – because I interview all parents and kids coming in – and like, I just got a lot of new kids in the collective at that time.
CB: Nice. That’s incredible. Okay. That’s brilliant, and it’s also interesting – this might be relevant, but it was – one thing I was not clear about and that I’m actually still trying to delineate, but having the degree of the IC there at 11 degrees of Gemini is supposed to like, import 4th house significations of like, of parents, family, home and living situation into the 5th house. And as I’ve been preparing the 5th house episode, I’ve been struggling to delineate how that actually exactly will work out for people in terms of that overlap, but’s interesting if in that instance it was like, a parent of one of the children that you work with sharing a positive review which then generated more interest and caused even more children to like, sign up for your program. That might have been part of what we’re seeing there with the degree of the IC in the 5th, that it wasn’t like, your parents, but it was the topic of other people’s parents overlapping with the topic of children.
K: Definitely. And one other thing that I could add to that that’s not necessarily about this year, but in that experience in 2022 that kind of catalyzed me creating this specific program having to do with publishing and like, the collective and all of that, it transitioned me into working from home. And —
CB: Okay.
K: — working remotely. And for the most part, we do like, some in person events, but in any case, most of the work I do from home. And that has been an incredibly positive shift for me. Like, there is something that is very supportive for me in being in my own space when I do this work. Because I used to work in person at other people’s houses, and that was not nearly as supportive for me.
CB: Okay. So you work from home with children doing creative projects, and you have a stellium of three planets in the 5th house on the degree of the IC in the 5th house. I cannot think of a more literal manifestation of that. That’s amazing.
K: It’s kind of crazy! I never quite understood why that was so important to me – like, working from home. It just is like, it’s a game changer. Like, I need that kind of like, location independence.
CB: That’s amazing. All right. And that kind of ties in the final point, which is just that the ruler of your 5th house is Mercury, which is in the 6th house of work. So it’s like, the ruler of your 5th house of children is in the 6th house of work, and that’s literally your job is like, you work with children. And yeah, that ties together things —
K: And I’m communicating too.
CB: Right. Like, talking with them and communicating about those creative projects – that’s a good point. Nice. Okay. Well, that’s really interesting about the Venus cazimi. I bet because you’re born so close to a Venus cazimi with Venus retrograde that especially those conjunctions in Gemini are super important to you. It sounds like this one was, and then I bet if you took that back there would be other ones. Like, especially the eight-year repetitions. So one of those, for example, would have been in like, June-ish of 2020. And that would have been an actual retrograde conjunction of Venus at like, 13-ish degrees of Gemini. Do you happen to remember like, what was going on for you in terms of stuff at that time period?
K: Yeah. I won the lawsuit with my former employer. And my husband and I actually created our second band at that time, and it was really difficult after that whole experience earlier that year for me to say. I don’t know why. Like, I couldn’t approach a microphone. And at that time, I actually did, and we recorded – we began recording – our first album with that second project. That project is just the two of us, so. Yeah.
CB: Nice. That’s really cool. And yeah, and I’m sorry – so and you also won the lawsuit around that time. I think – I mean —
K: Yeah.
CB: — that’s incredible, and that’s positive. I guess that also ties in just having the ruler of the 5th in the 6th place of work and having to deal with that at some point that there was a connection between those two things where there shouldn’t have been. Yeah, but that’s great that you won the lawsuit during that time in which that was activated as well.
K: I’m actually incorrect – 2020 it was not – that was not the lawsuit. So 2020 was actually – that’s correct about the band, but the lawsuit thing, that was actually two years later. So that was 2022!
CB: Got it.
K: Sorry about that!
CB: That’s all right. So that was just the band and like, yeah, connecting with —
K: Yeah.
CB: — your husband and having the overlap —
K: Yeah.
CB: — between the ruler of the 7th house of relationships in the 5th house of creativity and in this instance music.
K: Yeah. And I started learning synth; I started learning a whole new instrument and, you know, drum programming. It was like, a whole new language really.
CB: Got it. Before that, there would have been one other if we took it back in an eight-year increment. This is, again, if you’re responding to like, the Venus retrograde conjunction rather than the direct ones, but another one would have been around June of 2012 if you happen to remember what was going on then.
K: Yeah. June of 2012 we were preparing to move back to Europe. So the two of us spent most of our 20s living in Europe, and in June of 2012, I think we had just found out that Joshua – he won a grant to do his dissertation research in Berlin. So we were preparing to move to Berlin, and we moved in September of 2012.
CB: Wow. Okay. So you ended up moving partially as a result of your partner, essentially, during that time?
K: It was a result, yeah, of his work. Because he had the kind of – he had an acceptance at a university there, and so he had a paid position, and so I went with him and I actually started developing a program for youth there as well.
CB: Got it. Okay. Yeah, that was something we were seeing a lot in the 4th house episode when the ruler of the 4th was in the 7th or the ruler of the 7th was in the 4th that the native would often move as a result of their partner or their partner’s work. And so that must just be what we’re seeing here because the IC is there in the 5th for you. So you have the ruler of the 7th essentially like, conjunct the IC, and —
K: Yeah.
CB: — we’re seeing like, a similar thing there at that activation of moving as a result of the partner.
K: Yeah.
CB: Okay. Let me ask about one more repetition. So if we take it back eight years further… So that takes us back to June 2004 where we have another Venus retrograde conjunct the Sun, and I was just curious if you happen to know what was going on in your life around June of 2004?
K: Yeah, we were preparing to move to Europe!
CB: Okay!
K: Actually! It’s kind of funny, because in June of 2004, I was offered a fellowship in Germany, and so that was… Yeah, that was when I began, we moved to Brahmin – it wasn’t Berlin this time, it was Brahmin. And I was about to begin my first master’s in the theory and history of contemporary art in August of 2004.
CB: Incredible. Okay. So yeah, that’s incredible, so both of those you ended up moving. So that’s a pretty core repetition for you.
K: Yeah.
CB: When do we get the next one of those? In like, four – three and a half to four years from now, I guess. Yeah. So you could probably take that like, all the way back in your life and keep studying those, and it would probably show interesting things. Both the retrograde ones that happen every eight years, and then there’s an intermediate conjunction that happens every four years. But just because you were born at that Sun-Venus conjunction and because it’s the most positive planet in your chart, it seems like an important recurrence transit for you. So it would be one to just like, pay attention to in the future. And so we just did the one in 2024, and then the next one will be in four years in 2028, and that’ll be a retrograde conjunction, so that’ll actually be a really big one. That should be an important one for you. And it looks like Uranus and Mercury will be transiting through there at the same time, so it’ll be really interesting. Oh right, of course! Like, Uranus is about to go into your 5th house this year in July. So you’re getting ready to start like, a seven year transit of Uranus through your 5th house, which should be bringing some innovation and change and acceleration to some of the stuff that you’re doing in terms of your 5th house up to this point. So in some instances, that can really supercharge things and make things start moving a lot father. Other times, it can just bring changes in terms of doing things a little bit differently than you had up to that point, but it’ll be really interesting to see how that goes and like, what some of those new changes bring.
K: Definitely! We have had – my husband and I have had about a 10 year hiatus from releasing our work, and so we actually have our next release date is it’s a double LP that’ll come out May 2nd of 2025, and so July – it’s like, yeah, a lot of those changes are gonna be like, kind of like, really in full swing at that point.
CB: Awesome. Cool! That’s exciting.
K: Yeah.
CB: Thank you for sharing that; this was such a great example, and it was a great combination of like, a number of different things, but it’s cool to see somebody, yeah, following their path and having that be so aligned with the chart indications so that the topic of children comes up but in a way where you’re working with children and that becomes, you know, part of your life’s work. So thanks for sharing that with us and yeah, thanks for doing that work. It sounds really important and really cool.
K: Thank you so much. Thank you for your time. And thank you for your work – I’m learning so much from you, so I really appreciate it!
CB: Good! Thank you. Okay. So it looks like the next most upvoted one is Stephanie. Are you still here, and do you wanna share your example, Stephanie?
STEPHANIE: Hello!
CB: Hey! All right. What’s your birth data?
S: It is November 27th, 1978 at 6:37 PM in Fairbanks, Alaska.
CB: Right. Is your Ascendant three Leo?
S: It is.
CB: Perfect. All right. Let me share your chart. So for those listening to the audio version, we’re looking at a chart with Leo rising, and there’s a stellium of four planets in Sagittarius in the 5th whole sign house, which includes the Sun, Neptune, Mars, and Mercury. And the ruler of the 5th house is Jupiter, which is in Leo in the first house, and there’s a mutual reception between the ruler of the first and ruler of the 5th. So we would expect the topic of children to be a major topic for you since the ruler of your Ascendant is located there, and also because there’s such a close strong connection between the rulers of the 5th and the first house. So how has that played out for you?
S: Yeah, pretty dramatically in a lot of ways. I had my first child very young; it was an unexpected pregnancy. I was 22. Well, I was 21 when he was conceived, and I was living a sort of reckless lifestyle. I had just moved to Portland, Oregon, and I was a bartender, and I was spending every night at the bars and I had a couple of lovers that were just friends with benefits and a roommate, and it was all a lot of fun until I got pregnant. And I guess I’m getting a little ahead of myself, but there was these two men, and I broke up with one of them because I felt this societal pressure that I shouldn’t be involved with more than one person. I was grappling with polyamory versus monogamy even though I didn’t have that word back then. And so I broke up with the Gemini; he was a Gemini with a Cancer Moon. And I stayed with the Pisces who had a Gemini Moon, and found out I was pregnant after the breakup. And in my youthful innocence and crunching the numbers, I just thought there was no possible way that Joshua could be the father. And I chose Jeff, the Pisces, because I felt he was more stable and I wanted to build a future; I wanted to have this baby, and you know, I knew I wanted to have children my whole life because my – even though I was living a lifestyle that wasn’t preparing for that stability, I knew that that’s what I really wanted, and I was seeking connection and I was seeking love, and I feel like becoming pregnant was the thing that snapped me out of my self-destructive behavior of escapism through alcohol, and I cleaned up and I really committed to motherhood and embracing that. And even though it was scary because we didn’t have money, and we had a lot of financial challenges. He was 10 years older than me and struggled with addiction to gambling, and so it was really complicated, but we had him – our son. My son was born July 13th, 2001, and there was some pretty dramatic transits at that time.
CB: What was the date again? July 13th, 2001?
S: Yes. Oh my gosh. Let me grab his birth time, because I’m totally blanking and I have it right here.
CB: No, that’s okay; we’ll just stick with the dates for this purpose.
S: Oh, the dates are fine. Okay. Great. So basically, when he was 13 months old, there was a mysterious tragic incident where Jeff was out at the bar after band practice – he was a drummer – and he had an interaction with my former lover, Josh, who was the real father, and we didn’t know this at the time. And I should have known, because of like, my son was born with bright red hair, and his father has bright red hair. And the man that I thought was his father didn’t look anything like him! But in my self delusion – I’m very good at telling myself the narrative I wanna hear because I can’t cope with the choices I made that might have been wrong, or – and other people gaslighted me in my youth about my paternity. I didn’t find out who my real father was until I was 15 when my mother told me because her quote was, “Well, Stephanie, you said you wanted to be an actor, and you thought your life was so pleasant, and all these actors have really tragic stories, and you don’t have any drama to draw upon! So here’s a dramatic thing! There’s actually this big skeleton in our family closet that your father’s not actually your biological father!” And so that really derailed a lot of things when I was 15.
CB: Okay. Which is – 15 is the planetary period of Mars; that’s when Mars is activated. And Mars is the ruler of your 4th whole sign house of parents, of father, and it’s actually placed in Sagittarius in the 5th house. And it’s conjunct Neptune, so some of the stuff you’re describing is like, Neptune stuff in terms of like, a lack of clarity or mystery or other sometimes deceptiveness surrounding —
S: Yeah.
CB: — 5th house topics. And it’s interesting that it’s connected there with the ruler of your 4th. I can see when your first child was born, it looks like Mars was retrograde in your 5th house and conjoining Pluto, and they were the closest aspects where they were kind of like, on top of that Neptune at 17 degrees of Sagittarius. So it’s interesting that there was like, a little bit of mystery surrounding that or surrounding his father, like, who the correct father was. And then we can also see that because you have Leo rising that transiting Uranus was going through your 7th house at the time, and also transiting Neptune was still pretty close to your Descendant at the time. So that can bring in some ambiguity and stuff as well.
S: Yeah. And my son’s Venus, as a side note, is at the same degree as his father’s Sun – his biological father’s Sun sign. And his – the father I thought was his father, who died – his Moon sign is the same degree as the Venus. So these two fathers have the same degree of Gemini placements; one the Sun, the other the Moon. And then the Sun here – from my son’s Sun in Cancer is directly on my Black Moon Lilith. And my Part of Spirit is up there at the beginning of Cancer.
CB: Okay. Nice.
S: Yeah.
CB: So back to that – you just mentioned an important detail I don’t think we had gotten to yet. You said something happened at a show between the —
S: Yeah, so —
CB: — biological father and the guy that you were with at the time?
S: Correct. So Jeff, who ended up dying that night, was at the bar where I met him, hanging out, having a great time. I learned about the events at the bar because my son’s biological father, Joshua, visited me two weeks after Jeff died to tell me, “I’m so sorry; I was there with him that night.” He was in a really good mood, and he left, and he rode a bicycle – I’ll just tell you how he died. He was bicycling home, and he was found on the sidewalk with a terrible head injury that the police interpreted as him being drunk and falling off the bike and hitting his head. But the doctor said it doesn’t line up because he has no other scrapes or bruises on his body to indicate a fall; it looks like someone hit him in the back of the head with something. And he was not tangled up in the bike; he was laying next to it. So I suspect someone confronted him while he was bicycling home and they had an altercation and he was either pushed down to the sidewalk or hit in the back of the head as he was walking away. I had so much trauma at the time of this that when the cops asked me if there was anyone who would have wanted to hurt him, I said, “No, no, everyone loved him,” which was true, but at the time, I didn’t know he had 30,000 dollars of gambling debt to loan sharks at the casino. He had hidden that from me, and I only found out 20 years later when I was asking band members that he was friends with. He had confessed to them, but I ran away from the whole situation after he died and I lost touch with a lot of people, and it all came back in 2018. Right around my 40th birthday, I started going back into the past and trying to answer these nagging questions that I had about his death. And that’s when I realized it wasn’t an accident, and I had this revelation that it was an assault because that’s what the doctors had said, and I had blocked it out of my mind, and I contacted Jeff’s aunt who was there when we were at the doctor’s, and she said, “Yes, Stephanie. You were so traumatized – and Jeff’s mother – that you both wanted so desperately to believe it was an accident. You couldn’t fathom that someone would have done this violence, and so we just let you believe that, because it was uncertain.” and we didn’t 100 percent know. But there was a disagreement between the doctors and the police. And ultimately, the police declared it an accident, but my, you know, his aunt and his – she confirmed that like, other people in the family accepted that it was probably an assault. And the other third person involved in this weird love situation, the person I think perpetrated this crime, was a friend who was gambling with Jeff a lot who was in love with me secretly and had felt jilted and had been friends just to be near me. And after Jeff died, about six months later, he visited me and I hadn’t seen him since the death, and he confessed to me that he had been secretly in love and he actually didn’t like Jeff at all and he was only pretending to be his friend to be near me, and it was all very much like, out of a movie. And I feel like what he was actually doing was confessing that he may have been the one without actually saying it, because it was all very tearful and dark, this conversation. And —
CB: That’s really intense.
S: Yeah.
CB: Let’s keep it to just like —
S: Yeah, so —
CB: — instead of names, sorry, I was just —
S: Sorry!
CB: — gonna say instead of names, because —
S: Yes.
CB: — I don’t wanna get into any like, legal issues with just like —
S: Yeah. I’ll be careful.
CB: — you know, either biological father, person I was dating, et cetera. So —
S: All right.
CB: You have – like, one of the things I was looking at is just the ruler of your 7th is Saturn, and it’s in the 2nd house of money and finances, and then it’s squaring Neptune. And I just wonder if that’s symbolically relevant just in terms of what you were talking about there. What – before we move on to the other 5th house stuff, what was the date that he passed away? Like, what time frame are we talking about?
S: So he was found on August 9th, 2002 at about four AM, and we suspect the injury happened at about 2:30 or three AM according to the doctors. And so then he was on life support and we turned off the life support and he actually died on August 10th at 7:20 PM in Portland, Oregon.
CB: Okay. I’m really sorry to hear that. I’m sorry you dealt with that and you had that loss.
S: I will say that it’s spiritually significant, the August 9th date, because he had a spiritual connection to Jerry Garcia, and that was the anniversary of Jerry Garcia’s death. And at the time, it gave me a sort of sense of peace that there was some part of him that was ready to go, and when they did the – we wanted to donate his organs, and they said that he was actually in poor health, and he was only 33. But his organs were used so much that they couldn’t take them. And so he was in pain that he wasn’t telling anyone about, and in retrospect, it felt like I could find some peace in that. And now, even farther in the future, I can see that if that hadn’t happened, my other three children wouldn’t have been born because I wouldn’t have left, and everything would have been different. And so I’ve been able to find some peace in that angle of it all.
CB: Yeah. That makes sense. Sometimes certain chapters of our life close, and that opens up and makes room so that other chapters can be born. Sometimes literally, in that instance. So I mean, that is interesting. You had, I see just that Pluto was at 14 degrees – it was like, retrograde at 14 degrees of Sagittarius, and it was squaring your Saturn like, really closely, which is the ruler of your 7th house of relationships. And so there was a loss at that time, and a really traumatic – in this instance, you know, violent sort of loss at that time. And how much – what was the previous date again that you said of when your first child was born?
S: July 13th, 2001.
CB: Okay, so just a year earlier.
S: Yeah.
CB: I was just curious about that because I can see that the nodes at this point now have moved into the middle of Sagittarius, so that means you were having eclipses there in your 5th and 11th houses. So basically, in the first year of becoming a mother and starting to raise a child, you started having eclipses in your 5th house. But then you’re getting this Pluto transit at the same time that’s conjoining your Neptune and squaring your Saturn, and there’s both the tragic loss of your former partner and your biological – the biological father of your child, but then also this ambiguity there with Neptune. So that’s pretty intense.
S: I will also say about the nodes – because I was an avid journaler, I have the date that I met both of these men, the man who died and the biological father, and that was December 30th, 1999. And the moment that I was hanging out with them both, and I remember that night we were having so much fun playing billiards, and it was like, 1:11 AM, I remember thinking that like, I really wanna like, hang out with these guys more, because they’re both really awesome. And so I looked at that and the nodes are directly on my Ascendant. Like, the North Node is exactly on my Ascendant.
CB: Oh wow. Yeah. So and the South Node’s on your Descendant.
S: And his – Jeff, the one who died, sorry – his rising sign was Aquarius. I have his birth data too.
CB: Okay. Yeah. So that means that there were eclipses taking place in your first house and your 7th house of relationships when you basically started those major relationships or interactions, as well as there would have been eclipses then if he had Aquarius rising in his first and 7th house as well, which is something that you see, which is sometimes why it’s so notable when two people have opposite rising signs, because it means when eclipses start happening in the first and 7th houses of one of the people, it’s also happening in the other.
So what happened after that point? So you said you actually have multiple children, and this was your first child?
S: Yes. And so about almost a year afterwards, after he died, I went home to Fairbanks and ran into an old friend that I had known through high school and I’d always had a crush on but nothing had ever happened. And we hit it off. I ended up moving to Colorado with him the summer of 2000 – it was, fall of 2003. I got there in August. And he was going to college there, and we ended up having some emotional stuff go – he has a Gemini Moon that’s at the exact same degree as the man who died. So and he’s a Scorpio Sun – this is my first husband. I ended up marrying him, and we had two children together. The first was conceived a bit by accident, but the second child we definitely planned on having, and they both have Scorpio Venus at the exact, like, very within one degree of my Moon and Venus conjunction – a Virgo and a Sagittarius child. And that marriage was okay, but I eventually left him in 2011. I was unhappy for a lot of reasons. And I ended up – let me just say, the primary reason was that so much emotional processing. As a Scorpio, I thought I wanted that, but his Gemini Moon and rising, there was just so much, and I was overwhelmed, and it was too much. And so I ended up after I left him, about three months after that, I was living with my mother and sharing custody of the kids. I met my now current husband at a wedding, and he was from Hawaii and he was the best man at one of my high school friend’s wedding. He had flown up here. And so we started dating in August of 2011. I had left my husband in April 2000 and met my husband in July. He was long distance dating me until May of 2012 when he moved up here. And we ended up conceiving a child. We were trying to avoid pregnancy; I did not plan on having my fourth child. We didn’t have precautions on one day, so I know the one day that he was conceived, which was on my now husband’s birthday, and it’s so interesting to look at the transits of his birthday, which is January 26th. And so 2013, January 26th was when my youngest was conceived, and he was born on October 29th, 2013. And so then it was so joyful because one of my greatest pains was having to share custody of my kids, and it took me three years to decide that I wanted out of my first marriage, and a lot of it was because I didn’t wanna only see my kids 50 percent of the time. And so it was really painful, and having my 4th child healed a lot of that, because I had a child again who was with me full time. And that brought me so much joy; I love being a mother. And yeah. I don’t know how much I wanna get into my current marriage, because it’s been tumultuous these past couple of years, but…
CB: Sure.
S: The children have been the anchor and the rock that have really kept everything together.
CB: And you said the birthdate of your 4th child was in October of 2013?
S: Correct. Yeah.
CB: Okay. What was the – what day in October again?
S: 29th.
CB: Okay. Okay, so Venus was like, transiting through there conjoining your Mercury in the 5th house. That’s interesting. So Pluto had moved out of your 5th at this point, but your second and third children were like, the tail end of your Pluto transit through your 5th house. And you said that —
S: Yeah, I can give you the quick dates. So my second child is September 19th, 2005. And my third child is December 13th. Wait, did I say September – so sorry, I’m getting the numbers – September 19th is my second child. December 13th, 2007, is my third child.
CB: Okay. Got it. So that was your Saturn return. And that was the, like, second half of Pluto transiting through your 5th house. And you were still together, but was this —
S: And I was unhappy. Yes, and I had – we planned – I wanted to have another baby, and I think in part because I was really hoping that that would… I wanted to have two children that were close together in age because my first and my second were separated by more years than I… I just wanted a big family. So but it wasn’t enough to heal a lot of the stuff going on in my relationship, and I just felt like I didn’t wanna have two parents that were just together for the kids but unhappy with each other because my grandparents stayed married even though they were unhappy, and even though it gave us a stable grandparents’ home and I loved hanging out with them, as an adult, I learned that they weren’t happy. So I, you know, I left at that time, and I have been grappling with whether or not to leave because there have been some pretty painful things happening the last couple of years, revelations about my current marriage, and so I’m grappling with issues again. It’s very fresh right now, but we’re staying together because we’re good friends, my husband and I. We’re able to make it work, and it’s definitely the best relationship I’ve ever been in because we’re able to not fight. You know, my first husband and I, we had had terrible arguments, and one of the things I love about my current husband – he’s so air. He’s so able to not let his emotions overwhelm him. And if he gets overwhelmed, he knows to just take a break instead of saying regretful things. And one of my things is I try never to fight in a way that I say things I later regret and call names. I don’t do that. And so I really appreciate that. It’s just that, again, we’re coming back to this theme of monogamy versus polyamory or ethical nonmonogamy that’s like, a continual theme throughout my life as to what is – what am I? You know? Am I meant for monogamy, or am I capable of loving more than one person? Is this just who I am? And I don’t know those answers entirely yet as to how I should proceed, so.
CB: Sure. So that’s something maybe then it could be partially like, a 5th house topic in terms of that.
S: Yeah.
CB: And some of those questions or some of that ambiguity in and of itself. When it comes to the topic of children, with the ruler of the Ascendant in the 5th house, as we’ve seen in like, earlier in the houses series, whatever house the ruler of the Ascendant is located in, it often indicates that becomes a major defining topic in the person’s life and something that will set their life’s course in different ways. Do you feel like having children – has this been a major topic in your life, or to what —
S: Absolutely.
CB: — extent do you feel like —
S: Yes. So I always wanted to be a famous actor. As a child, I wanted to be influencing people through art to where they had cathartic emotional experience, because I found viewing film to be so moving, and I would reflect on my life. And from a young age, I realized the power of performance to give people transformative emotional revelatory experiences. And I was always at the same time afraid of fame, because I know that once you open that box, you can’t stuff it back in. And so I’ve also avoided it. And the children basically kept me from moving to LA and actually pursuing the dream that I’d had since childhood. And in some ways, it was good, because I think that if I had done that when I was younger, I would have been in a lot of trouble and I probably would have crashed and burned. And I’m not famous now, but I do work in film and theater at the university level, and I love it so much. I love mentoring. And because I had kids, it made me take this slower, plodding course towards my career, and I got my degree – my bachelor’s degree finally – after 13 years just last year I graduated. So I’m really proud of that. And I have a bachelor’s – yeah, in film. So technically, my degree is performance art – theater, acting focused with a double major. I also do ceramics, so fine arts with a ceramics focus, and then a minor in film. So —
CB: That’s incredible. That’s really cool that that aspect of your 5th house that’s there that you’ve always had and that may have gotten delayed or sidetracked to a certain extent by the other 5th house topics of having children, that that’s still come full circle in some way in that that’s something that you’ve been able to produce and pursue and manifest to some extent later on in life.
S: Yeah. And the financial benefits – back to that Saturn issue – are slow to arrive. It’s not until I was, you know, after I’d had my last child and at the time when I had him, I was still a student and I wasn’t employed at the university, and I actually got employment there as the manager of the costume shop. And that was in 2018 that I got that job. And it changed everything. Now I have a level of financial security I’ve never experienced, with like, retirement and health benefits for my husband. And it’s in the arts, and I’m so relieved and happy that I chose to pursue a degree that I didn’t think would make me money. It’s acting – I mean, I just took it because I knew I needed to get a degree; any kind of piece of paper would be better than nothing, and I thought my best chance of actually following through was if it was something I loved. And inadvertently, it ended up landing me this job because I’ve always been good at sewing. My grandmother taught me to sew. And I fell into it because the manager retired and I’d taken the costuming classes, and I loved what I did, so I just sort of fell into it because I followed my passion. And even though I’m not acting, being around actors and being able to mentor in as much as I’m able has been really gratifying. And my children get free college tuition because of my job, so it’s an extremely huge blessing that I have it. It’s like, the only job that exists in Alaska like it, so —
CB: Yeah, that’s incredible.
S: Yeah, they led me here, for sure.
CB: That’s kind of interesting, just with the connection of… So Jupiter rules your 5th house of children but also your 8th house of other people’s money is Pisces, ruled by Jupiter, and the degree of the Midheaven is there, which is like, your career or your work, and that’s interesting that you said that that like, your children will get, you know, a ride to college or will get access to college as a result of you having that job. And that otherwise the financial benefits of that as a result of you and what you do – that’s really cool. In addition to just getting your degree in that and having Aries on the 9th house of education, and the ruler is Mars in the 5th house of creativity. Yeah.
S: Yeah.
CB: That’s actually really cool.
S: People always tell me they appreciate my boldness and willingness to be vulnerable in my art. So that —
CB: When did you complete your degree?
S: In May of 2023.
CB: May of 2023. Okay. Here let me share the transit chart. So it was like, Jupiter was —
S: On the 8th – I think I, yeah, I walked on May 8th, I think it was.
CB: May 8th. Okay. That’s cool. So Jupiter was finishing up a transit through your 9th house of education, and it looks like you were having the nodes were going through your 10th house, so you were finishing up eclipses in your 10th house at that time in terms of career and in terms of manifesting that. Yeah. That’s really cool. Well, I think that’s a great example because it means that you’ve manifested both the 5th house topic of like, literally having children and children being a major focus or major part of your life, but then also this other 5th house area of creativity and performance and art has come through very strongly as well, and in a very personal way which helps to further clarify like, the mutual reception between your 5th and your first just in terms of how personally important that is to you and how that’s tied in with your identity and your personality in some way.
S: I will also say that’s significant – you just reminded me – the year I left my first husband, in April, I had just started my first semester back to college in January of 2011. So I was both ending my marriage and beginning my trek back through college to get my degree. I had taken three semesters directly out of high school; I graduated in ‘97 and I took three semesters and bombed out. But I went back in 2011. And it took me from 2011 until 2023 to actually complete it, and that’s why I’m a double major; I just took so many credits. And having kids made me go really slow.
CB: Okay. I see Jupiter went into Aries in January of 2011, so that means you started that process in 2011 when Jupiter was transiting through your 9th house of education. And then one full Jupiter cycle later when Jupiter came back to Aries and was finishing up its transit through there, you finished that cycle of education, so that’s actually perfect, and that’s really interesting just because Jupiter is the planet that’s so important for you because it’s ruling that 5th house stellium and also because it’s right there on the degree of your Ascendant in the first house. So —
S: Yeah.
CB: — that’s really cool.
S: That’s really cool. I hadn’t thought about that one before.
CB: Yeah.
S: Yeah.
CB: Brilliant.
S: I’ve studied astrology for a really long time. I’ve just – and ancient astrology is new to me; I basically just obsessively collected charts and looked at them, and I read a lot of cookbook descriptions of like, placements, but it was very like, freeform, not super like, consistent. But since the year 2000, I’ve been obsessively collecting charts. I have hundreds of them, and it’s just such a fascinating topic. I want to try being a professional as like, a side hustle one of these days maybe soon. I’m just intimidated, and I know I shouldn’t be because you’ve given great advice about how so many astrologers need to just jump in, because you learn a lot from giving readings. So I really appreciate you giving that advice, and I wanted to thank you for it, so. Yeah.
CB: Thank you. Yeah. Well, I learn a lot – every chart you read, you see a unique combination of stuff like we have in your chart. But you see some ways in which it’s what you would expect of a placement, but also you learn a new way that that can manifest in terms of the specifics each time. And you know, it’s interesting in your chart, you were born in Alaska, so you have the MC in the 8th house and the degree of the IC in the 2nd whole sign house, which is very unique and it’s not something I see very often. Like, I’m trying to think of questions —
S: So —
CB: — related to that or how —
S: — in Placidus – I would just say, in Placidus – which is what I’ve always looked at until about two years ago I just started looking at whole signs – I have seven. All my Scorpio placements are in the 5th house in Placidus, though. I’ve always thought of the 5th house as being the most powerful house in my whole chart. Yeah. Because Sagittarius is intercepted, and so is Gemini, so I don’t know. It’s a lot. I really am fascinated with the predictive stuff that happens with the whole signs, though, so I’m on board for that. It’s awesome.
CB: Yeah. Yeah, that’s really cool. Yeah. Well, I’ll have to come back to that at some point and look at more charts like yours from Alaska just to get a better sense of —
S: Yeah.
CB: — you know, what that can look like when the Midheaven is falling in signs other than like, the top few, which is what we see most often is the MC in like, the 9th or 10th or 11th whole sign house. Yeah, so maybe we can talk about that more some time.
S: That’d be great. I would appreciate that. Thank you.
CB: Cool! Well, thank you so much for sharing your example; I really appreciate it. And thanks for like, opening up and being vulnerable and telling us about that stuff even if it was hard. I appreciate you sharing everything with us.
S: Yeah. Thank you. I’m pretty okay talking about it; it’s kind of like, a superpower that I can talk about really hard stuff. I’m just resilient in that way, so thank you for listening.
CB: Yeah. Thanks for joining me. I appreciate it.
S: Thanks.
CB: Okay. Jessica, if you’re still here, that sounds like a really good example of the ruler of the 5th in the 9th.
JESSICA: Hi!
CB: Hey! Thanks for joining me.
J: Thanks for having me.
CB: All right. What’s your birth data?
J: November 30th, 1989. And it’s 4:35 AM, and then it’s technically called Ford Ord – sometimes it doesn’t pop up as a location, depending on the site.
CB: What was the – how do you – what was the name again?
J: Ford Ord. It’s in California.
CB: Yeah, it’s not showing up. What’s the closest like, large city?
J: It’d be Seaside.
CB: Okay. Is your Ascendant approximately seven Scorpio?
J: Yes.
CB: All right. So here is your chart. So you have a night chart with Scorpio rising. The ruler of the Ascendant is Mars in Scorpio. Pisces – your 5th whole sign house is empty, but the ruler is Jupiter, which is placed in Cancer in the 9th whole sign house in the sign of its exaltation. So what’s the synopsis of your story again that you submitted?
J: Yeah, so high level overview is that I have never seen myself having my own kids, but I’ve always been interested in adopting or fostering. And then in 2017, and I just checked the date and it’s kind of funny because it actually ended up being a 5th house profection year – I ended up getting involved with an organization that sponsors children in Kenya. I guess going there after a certain age, you have to pay to go, and so I was sponsoring children that are trying to go to school. And then in 2020, I met my current partner, and he has two kids, so they’re my stepchildren.
CB: Wow, that’s incredible. Okay. What was the date on that? You said in 2015?
J: It was – it was actually my birthday, so November 30th, 2017.
CB: Yeah. Important stuff can tend to happen around our birthdays, and it’s always really striking when that happens, like, exactly on the birthday.
J: Yeah.
CB: Okay, so November 30th, 2017. Your nodes are almost like, exactly reversed at that time, which is interesting. How old did you turn this year?
J: I’m turning 35 in a few – I guess in a week now.
CB: So you turned 28 in 2017, I think?
J: Yes.
CB: All right. So let’s see. First 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 – that is a 5th house profection year, my friend, if I’m calculating that correctly on the fly, though I’m a little tired. Live chat, can you confirm that? We’re talking about a 5th – yeah, because 30 is 7th house profection year. Okay. So you went into a 5th house profection year on your birthday, and then what happened exactly on that day?
J: Yeah. So my manager at the time – I had just started a new job that ended up kick starting my career – but essentially she was pretty involved with this organization, and they had a little site visit at our job where folks from the organization came to talk about the program and what all it involved. So I attended one of these like, little mini-sessions to learn more, and I ended up signing up on that day to sponsor a little boy.
CB: Wow. Okay. That’s incredible. Had that topic ever come up before, or was there any sort of, I don’t know, foreshadowing of that earlier in your life? Or did that topic really just come out of nowhere at that time?
J: It came out of nowhere.
CB: Okay.
J: Yeah.
CB: Interesting. So that’s really cool. So yeah. I mean, the basic placement, you know, with the ruler of the 5th house of children in the 9th house of foreign places and foreign travel is like, the most general thing that I would have said if I was trying to delineate that was just like, there should be some connection – there may some connection between the topic of children and travel, or children and foreign countries in your life for some reason. And that ended up being a very specific manifestation of that in terms of sponsoring one child. And what did that involve, or how did that go?
J: Yeah. So basically, we would be essentially pen pals. Like, we’d send like, letters back and forth. I’d get updates on his progress as he was going through school, and he actually just last year graduated. And we do like, Skype calls twice a year. There was opportunities to go to Kenya to visit, but I wasn’t able to at the time.
CB: Okay. That’s incredible. So yeah, you really did build like, a strong connection with this child at this time?
J: Yeah.
CB: Okay. Interesting. And so yeah, and that’s also interesting in terms of it being manifestation of like, Jupiter being in its exaltation, and I’ve been really fascinated with exaltation over the past year that I’ve been doing a lot of these chart examples of just like, whatever the highest expression is of something that you can possibly do, that’s what will manifest from an exalted placement. And in a social context, we’ve seen some very literal examples of that representing like, royalty or people who are in high social positions. But it’s interesting in this instance that it’s like, you doing positive things for somebody else or doing almost like, a sort of charity work in some sense for somebody else in that context and manifesting that as like, the highest good or the highest manifestation of that placement.
J: It feels very Cancerian. And then what was also kind of interesting to me was the Capricorn Moon. As I learned about astrology, I’ve learned that it can be indicators of not having your own children perhaps. Just like, that’s a barren sign. So I’ve —
CB: Yeah.
J: — always known I didn’t want children. I didn’t wanna have the experience of pregnancy. But I do have that like, call to like, help other people. So it’s kind of interesting.
CB: Yeah.
J: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Saturn especially… Saturn when connected with the 5th house is often associated in, like, ancient astrological texts with either not having children, having children delayed and like, later in life, or sometimes like Vettius Valens says, the parents of other people’s children is one of the common delineations for Saturn especially. And so it’s interesting that on the one hand, that entire Capricorn stellium which includes Saturn at 12 degrees of Capricorn is like, opposing your Jupiter, the ruler of the 5th house, so in some way that was negating the topic or making you not inclined to want to have your own children, at least not inclined to wanna go through the process of pregnancy. Is that primarily what it was? Was it not wanting to go through pregnancy, or was it not wanting to have your own children, or what was the background leading up to that in terms of not wanting that up to that point in your life?
J: Yeah. So we had – “we” being my three brothers and I – had a pretty rough childhood. And I think coming out of that left me with feeling like I wouldn’t want to have kids unless I could be certain that they would have the best life possible.
CB: Okay, that makes sense. So it was the experience that you had of your parents, which is like, Saturn ruling the 4th house but also seeing what happened in terms of your early home life in terms of your siblings, which is like, Saturn in your 3rd house of siblings. What was it – was it that they just had a really rough – your siblings in particular had a really rough time in terms of your parents?
J: All four of us did. Our mother died at an early age. And then our father was just massively physically abusive.
CB: Okay. Yeah, that’s really terrible. I’m sorry to hear that. What in terms of that – so it’s like, you have the most difficult – because you have a night chart, of course Saturn is the most difficult planet and it’s ruling the 4th house. It’s in the 3rd house. But then you also have Venus in the 3rd house in a night chart, which is your most positive planet, in the place of siblings. What’s your relationship with siblings been like? And has there been both good as well as bad stuff there?
J: So I’m the oldest out of four. And we have a really close relationship. And I think it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that I feel like at some parts throughout our childhood I was mothering them. And the relationships continued on not mothering them, but we have a really strong relationship coming out of childhood. We talk frequently. But the thing is with that, I’ve been thinking about how the 3rd house manifests for me, and we’re all living in different states. So there’s like, separation from siblings. And then because of the stuff that happened with our childhood, there were periods I guess of intermittent issues with schooling because we were being taken out of one school district to go to a different one at various points throughout childhood.
CB: Okay. Wow, that’s – yeah. So that’s all very literal manifestations of each of those. It’s interesting that you played that nurturing role or almost like a mothering role to them having your Moon there in the 3rd house and having to like, take care of and raise your siblings as being the oldest as well as due to the loss of your mother there in her absence. And then yeah, having some positive relationship with them in terms of Venus being placed there, but even as you’ve gotten older with Saturn there there now being a distance as a result of just not being in the same physical location.
J: Exactly.
CB: Okay. Wow. So that’s all interesting, and then that contributed to bring it back to things just to not wanting to have children yourself biologically, and that’s the I guess the Saturn opposition or the opposition of all of the Capricorn stuff that you experienced growing up to like, the ruler of the 5th house itself. But then with Jupiter still being in the sign of its exaltation going into that 5th house profection year and suddenly having some aspect of the natal promise or the natal potential of your 5th house placement become awakened at that time and ending up developing that connection with this child that you were helping in a foreign country, and that’s really special.
J: Yeah. Well, and then the second part of my story was my partner having two kids, so I’m a stepmother to them.
CB: Right. Okay. And when did that come about?
J: May of 2020.
CB: May of 2020. And is that when you got married, or that’s when you started the relationship?
J: It’s when we started the relationship.
CB: Okay. So May of 2020… Just move the transits forward. Oh wow, okay. Do I have the transit – yeah, you can see the transits. So do you know the day in May, or just sometime in May?
J: It might have been the 8th.
CB: Okay. Yeah, like, Uranus is right on your Descendant at that point. So that’s actually really striking, because usually that’s like, unexpected developments in relationships. Sometimes when people aren’t’ in a relationship and they have like, a Uranus transit connected to the 7th house, it can be like, a relationship that comes out of nowhere that is very different and brings something like, a new element to their life that they never would have expected or that they wouldn’t have otherwise anticipated that they could a life like that, or would choose to. And in your instance, it’s like, suddenly you became romantically involved with somebody who had children already, and so that, I’m sure that would have initially been really surprising to you that it’s like, this is happening, and that’s how things are going.
J: Yeah. And then even Saturn had just ingressed into my 4th, so like, solidifying the home life, perhaps.
CB: Right.
J: Or like, adding structure to it.
CB: Yeah, totally. Saturn going into your 4th house. I see Jupiter is like, transiting over Venus, the ruler of your 7th, at the time, which is positive. Pluto’s going over that at the same time, so it’s like, a very transformative type of relationship experience. What – were you initially reluctant at all, or what was your initial, how did the relationship come about or did you have any initial reluctance to the fact that he had kids?
J: No reluctance at all. I was open to it. And then we started, we met on a dating app, actually.
CB: Okay.
J: Yeah.
CB: So yeah, so it —
J: And it was kind of —
CB: So that’s not something that happened like, gradually. That’s something that is kind of sudden.
J: Very. Kind of like, Uranian if you think about it – it’s online.
CB: Right, using technology – totally. That’s a good point.
J: Yeah. And but that was during the start of the pandemic, so what ended up happening was our relationship I feel like was sped up so quickly because everything was closed. And so all you were doing at the time was cohorting with like, people that you knew. So we ended up spending a lot of time together.
CB: Got it.
J: And he invited me to move in a year later.
CB: Oh wow, okay. So that was part of your Saturn transit through the 4th house as well is you moved in with him, with your new partner, but also with his family and his children?
J: Yes.
CB: Okay. And your, the degree of your IC is around 13 degrees of Aquarius. So a year later, Saturn was like, there on your IC.
J: That’s funny. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. That’s interesting. Let’s see, what else do we have going on here? Oh yeah, and Jupiter was transiting through – right, because Jupiter was in Aquarius. So that was also partially your Jupiter transit, but then when did you move in? Like, what time – do you happen to know what month or day?
J: It was February 14th, 2021.
CB: February, okay. On Valentine’s Day.
J: Yeah.
CB: Okay. So it actually it wasn’t just Saturn transiting through there. There was an entire stellium of like, all the planets in the sky lined up in Aquarius in your 4th house, and then you moved.
J: Yeah.
CB: And actually technically at that time, it was – there was a Mercury retrograde at 13 degrees of Aquarius that was conjoining Jupiter at 13 degrees of Aquarius, and this was right on the degree of your IC at 13 Aquarius. And even Venus was there at the same time at 16 degrees of Aquarius. So you’re just having this huge stellium and like, pileup of planets going on in your 4th house. How long had you been living in your current situation up to that point that you moved out of?
J: Been there for two years. But I think thing that was significant to note was I had lived in apartments all of my life, and this was the first time going into like, a home. A home home.
CB: Wow. Okay. And had you lived with roommates, or had you lived alone up to that point?
J: I had roommates early on. Like, back in 2009. And then just like, romantic partners if I had any at the time. And then cats.
CB: Okay. So just like, off and on. How long had you lived alone prior to moving in with at this point in February of 2021?
J: It would have been like, five years or so.
CB: Okay. So that’s a big shift as well, and that’s the other reason why there’s like, so much activity happening in your 4th house here. It’s almost like, literally symbolizing suddenly you go from living on your own to suddenly you’re living with like, multiple other people, so there’s just like, a lot more activity and things going on in that area of your life when it comes to the home and living situation.
J: And the eclipses would have been going back and forth between the 2nd and 8th at the time.
CB: Okay.
J: So —
CB: Right.
J: — things.
CB: Right, other people’s like, possessions and stuff and just having to be more cognizant of that as well as the merging of your financial situation with your partner.
J: Yeah.
CB: Got it. Okay. And then Jupiter went into Pisces not long after that. So that’s positive. By like, May, basically, like, Jupiter goes into your 5th house of children where it starts a year long transit through that sign. Were things relatively positive in terms of that transit for that first year in terms of children?
J: Very. We had a really strong relationship that year. And it’s gotten stronger over the years.
CB: Nice. Okay. And then in like, early 2023, Saturn went into Pisces. Were there any like, challenges that came up as a result of that over the past like, year and a half?
J: I think they just transitioned into middle school, so we’re dealing with like, different kinds of I guess topics related to like, them just getting older and having like, to add more structure to their lives is kind of how I’ve seen that manifested.
CB: Yeah. You’re dealing with like, teenagers now, or about to be dealing with teenagers.
J: Exactly.
CB: All right. Good times. That’s always fun.
J: That’s funny.
CB: As I recall from being a teenager. Nice. All right. Well, that’s really cool. And then have you been able to keep the connection – you said that the child that you had the connection with in Kenya graduated from high school recently?
J: Yes. He graduated, and then I’ve started sponsoring another little boy.
CB: When did that happen?
J: This happened last year, probably in August.
CB: August of 2023 or ‘24?
J: ‘23.
CB: Okay. So that was maybe part of that transition of just, yeah, Saturn going into the 5th house and then that… You started sponsoring another little boy, so and the previous one graduated, that means maybe that relationship – it didn’t necessarily like, end, but it moved into a different phase now that he’s like, going into adulthood?
J: Yeah, exactly.
CB: Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. So that was part of the Saturn transit as well is just that transition.
J: M’hmm.
CB: Cool. Well, that’s a really amazing example. And I think that’s awesome because it brings up a lot of stuff about how on the one hand, the topic of children can sometimes be as we’ve seen earlier like, other people’s children, but it can sometimes be in a very personal way. And that was really like, evident in your chart in very interesting and like, striking ways. But obviously, it’s still, it’s become a significant part of your life in a way that you wouldn’t have anticipated earlier on.
J: Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Has that been, I don’t know, has that been eye-opening for you? Has that really changed your life? And has that been surprising for you?
J: I would say it has changed my life. I’ve grown a ton just from having like, this like, relationship with my stepchildren. It really helps put things in perspective and like, see the bigger picture in life. At least for me. And it’s incredibly rewarding, too.
CB: Yeah. Has it also has it reflected back in different ways on some of the stuff that you experienced earlier on and given you different perspective on that, or has that caused any growth in terms of that area of your life and the reflections that that’s caused compared to where you were earlier of just like, not wanting to have children because of what you sort of witnessed growing up?
J: I think the way that that’s shown up for me is having seen like, how bad life can be, and just the things I went through as a child I almost see as like, a karmic undoing of what was done to me. Because I’m able to like, take the lessons that I learned from being a child of parents that weren’t great, and then paying it forward, or just like, fixing that. I don’t even know how you would explain necessarily, but I feel like it’s very karmic.
CB: Yeah. For sure. Like, rebalancing the scales and —
J: Yeah.
CB: — that there was something unbalanced that went in an extreme opposite direction, but in a way you’ve been able to rebalance that. I mean, which is actually a good very literal way to describe that opposition you have between Saturn in your 3rd house and that Jupiter that’s up there in the 9th and how you’ve been able to rebalance things.
J: Exactly. Yeah.
CB: I love that; that’s brilliant. All right, thank you for sharing that. I really appreciate it.
J: Thank you for having me! I’m a huge fan of your channel. I’ve learned a ton, so I appreciate everything that you’re doing.
CB: Thank you. I appreciate it. Awesome. All right. Well, thanks a lot for sharing that, and yeah, take care.
J: Take care!
CB: Okay. Let me do a few more really quickly. I wanna do some like, rapid-fire ones. So here’s the deal. I’m gonna promote a few people, but we’re gonna do these really quickly, and we’ll just get to the point of what the example is right at the beginning. So as soon as I promote you, give me your birth data and then essentially like, read what your synopsis was that you wrote, and then we’ll talk about it a little bit and then I’ll move on. Sound good, everyone?
All right. So the first one that I saw that could be a good quick one is Cheyenne, if you feel comfortable sharing yours.
Hey. Thanks for joining me.
CHEYENNE: Hello!
CB: What’s your —
C: Thanks for having me.
CB: — birth data?
C: 10/30/94 at 4:26 PM in San Diego, California.
CB: All right. And your Ascendant is 27 Aries?
C: Yep.
CB: All right. So you have the ruler of the Ascendant in the 5th house, and what was your example again?
C: I was a camp counselor at this camp called Knock Around Camp, which is kind of funny and sort of rough-housey. And while I was a camp counselor, I got chosen to be on the like, fencing team, even though I had no prior experience and basically learned how to fence on the spot and was like, a leader who didn’t know how to do the thing, but was like, teaching little kids how to do it, which was really fun.
CB: Nice. That’s an incredibly literal manifestation; you were literally like, using swords and to – you actually like, poke people with fencing, right? Like, that’s part of the thing?
C: Yeah, your goal is to stab your opponent! Obviously, we used like, swords with like, little, you know, buffers at the end so nobody got hurt. But yeah, that’s the whole point of it.
CB: All right! So we have a manifestation of like, the, this would be a good ancient astrology delineation that like, the ruler of the Ascendant is Mars in the 5th house, and the native will stab children, basically, with swords would be the delineation here.
C: Yeah, exactly. And it was totally unexpected. I don’t remember how old I was; I was somewhere between like, 15 and 16, maybe even 14. So somewhere between that like, 4th to 5th, maybe 6th house profection year, so I’ll try to dial that in, but yeah, I thought that was a kind of funny example.
CB: That’s brilliant. I love it. Are there any other ways that like, children have come up in any other – I mean, I’m sure that was being activated at that point by some transit or profection. But do you happen to know any other ways that your 5th house ruler of the Ascendant has manifested?
C: I think – well, so I have Sun and Mars mutual reception, and then also having an Aries rising, I’ve always been kind of like, a fiery like, sort of independent leader type person, so, and it’s always been in like, groups of my peers. So I was like, a peacekeeper, which is like a mediator. I was like, a resident assistant, which again is like, you know, kind of like, leading a group of peers or children. I’m not having kids or maybe won’t have kids; I’m not sure, so I don’t necessarily have an example that’s, you know, that succinct, but that’s kind of how it’s shown up in my life as mainly being like, a leader for my peers.
CB: That makes a lot of sense. Okay. Cool. And yeah, you’re just finishing up – well, you’re two-thirds of the way through your Saturn return right now, so you still have a lot of life to go, so it’ll be interesting to see if you find new and other creative ways to like, poke children with swords or other devices. Axes. Like, you might mix it up at some point.
C: Yeah, yeah, we’ll see how many weapons we can squeeze in there. I do love acupuncture, which is kind of a form of getting pricked and whatnot, but yeah.
CB: Oh my god.
C: We’ll see.
CB: Yeah. If you get into childhood acupuncture at some point, you definitely have to come back and give us an update about that, because that would be also very literal as well.
C: Yeah, that’d be great. That’d be really funny.
CB: For sure. All right. That was an amazing example. Thank you for sharing that; that was a perfect like, little good literal example.
C: Awesome. Thank you so much!
CB: All right. Bye!
All right, that was amazing. All right, let’s see… Okay. So I’m just gonna read this one. So there was a person named Lou who said, “Ruler of the 5th house is Saturn in the 4th house. I wanted to become a mom since I was a young child, but always felt like it would somehow be difficult or later in life. It didn’t end up happening until Saturn was transiting my 5th house shortly after my partner and I moved across the country into my grandmother’s condo while she moved in with my parents.” I thought that was an amazing like, quick little combination of ruler of the 5th house in the 4th and having a connection between children and the home and living situation or parents, and potentially grandparents, and how there did end up being a major connection there in this person’s life. So that’s a really cool one. Because I’ve been – recently, I’m working on the 5th house episode, and I was struggling to delineate connections between the 5th and the 4th house. So it’s interesting to see that here and then we saw another example earlier today that explained that as well.
All right. Olabimpe, if you’re still here, that sounds like it would be a really good one.
Hey.
OLABIMPE: Hello.
CB: All right. So it’s – let me make sure I still have it correct; it’s nine Capricorn rising?
O: Correct.
CB: Okay, cool. So here is your chart. And what’s your example?
O: Yeah, so I have my Lot of Eros and my Lot of Fortune in my 5th ruled by my Venus in the 12th house. And when Jupiter transited my Lot of Eros back in June 2023, I found out from a New York Times article that my ex-partner was in jail and now in prison for politically motivated arson because he was protesting the reversal of Roe v. Wade and targeted an anti-abortion group in my hometown. So I thought not only the 5th house ruler in the 12th as like, imprisonment, but also that like, anti-abortion topic of the protest that he was arrested and jailed for.
CB: Yeah, that’s incredibly literal that it’s the ruler of the 5th house of children in the 12th house of – which can be prisons and places of isolation and that he was literally arrested and put in jail or imprisoned for something in connection with that.
O: Yeah. Very on the nose!
CB: Let me do the transits. You said it was Jupiter transiting through your 5th?
O: Yes. June 2023. Like, end of June, about June 25th or so is when I found out. And it was actually an activation for releasing from my Lot of Eros, too.
CB: Okay. Nice.
O: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. I see Jupiter was there. Uranus was also transiting there, and then of course the nodes were finishing up transiting through there, so there had been eclipses going back and forth between your 5th and your 11th at the same time. So yeah, that’s a lot of activations of that. And that’s so interesting because you found out through like, a newspaper, so it was something that —
O: Yeah.
CB: — you learned at that time of something that had happened.
O: Right. Yeah. I learned about it just during a Google search. And then it had happened over a year earlier.
CB: Got it. Okay. Interesting. Cool. Well, that’s a really good example. Is that something – is he still there? Or was he released, or?
O: Yeah, so he was sentenced to like, seven and a half years? I think minimum was five because they called it a federal crime instead of like, a state crime. So he’s there for the foreseeable.
CB: Okay. Yeah. So that is definitely 12th house – that’s a long term, yeah, period of isolation in prison, which makes sense in terms of the 12th house. Cool. All right. Well, thanks for sharing that. That’s a really great, again, very literal and also interesting manifestation of sometimes when there’s like, challenging placements there and how that can manifest literally, although it wasn’t necessarily something happening to you per se that you were sort of experiencing or suffering directly, but nonetheless connected with somebody that you had been with previously.
O: Right. Yeah. I thought it was interesting how that showed up in my chart somehow.
CB: Totally. I love it. Well, I don’t love it, but thank you for sharing! It’s very hashtag like, astrologer good, I think is the phrase I’m looking for.
O: Yeah.
CB: All right. Thank you!
O: Yep, no problem.
CB: All right. Yeah, that was really good. People in the audience are saying. You know, sometimes I struggle looking for delineations when I get to some of the difficult houses or certain combinations that I’m not sure of as I’m researching this episode and as I’ve gone through the past several one, and that’s sometimes why the episodes have been so long, especially once I get to the ruler of the houses section, because I try to find so many because I’m trying to find and see what the different combinations are and how that can manifest. Because sometimes you look at a combination, and you don’t really know initially aside from the abstract of ruler of the 5th in the 12th, maybe there’s a connection between the topic of children and topics of isolation or places of isolation. And then there’s a very literal manifestation of it, but if you’ve never seen a chart before or you’ve never heard of a life where that happened, it might not initially come to mind.
Okay. Harnoor, if you’re still here, that might be a good quick one with the eclipse. Let me check. It looks like they are still here, so I’m looking for the one that was Aries eclipse in the 5th house. And if you’d be up for sharing your example, if you’re still here in the webinar.
Hello!
HARNOOR: Hi.
CB: Hey. What’s your birth data?
H: July 24, 1986.
CB: Okay. What time?
H: 4:55 PM.
CB: And what place?
H: I’ll spell it. So it’s Patiala, P-A-T-I-A-L-A.
CB: And what country?
H: Punjab, and then India.
CB: Okay. Is your Ascendant 25 Sagittarius?
H: Yes.
CB: Let me see. I’ll share your chart first, and then I’ll do a transit wheel. And what was the time frame we were talking about again?
H: So it was the Aries eclipse that happened in 2023, so last year when Jupiter was also in Aries. So April 19th or 20th – I don’t know; I was kind of undecided on the dates, but I feel like it took place on the 19th.
CB: Okay. So yeah, this was the Aries eclipse that occurred at like, 29 degrees of Aries, and Jupiter was also transiting through there. You have Sagittarius rising, and Aries is your 5th whole sign house. And you also have the degree of the IC and the North Node in the 5th house. And what was the event that happened?
H: Yes, so this is how I interpreted it. Basically, my son was at a day home, and it was going okay, and then I wanna say like, the month of April, they had a new – sorry – child start at the day home, and then they started to say that it was too much for them to take care of my son because he’s on the spectrum, and so he’s a little bit extra needs, and we didn’t know this at the time. There was no diagnosis, nothing. But anyways, we were just having conversations, and then the director called me of the day home agency and things like that, and they were trying to see if like, what I was thinking and if it was a good fit and things like that. And then I was still kind of digesting this information, and we hadn’t really thought that we were gonna move him or anything like that. And then I think that week we started to say that, yeah, like, she’s pretty certain – the day home provider – that she can’t look after my son, and that we should start looking at other options. So I started to look at other options, but literally I like, remember I came to pick him up that day on the day of the eclipse from the day home, and she had the contract ready – like, the termination contract. And I was so kind of shook, because I was like, “Oh,” like, “We’re doing it like this?” Like, I thought we would have, you know, time to talk through things and for me to look into things. And we still had a month to still find another placement, but just like, the termination contract came really quick and I didn’t anticipate it to be that fast.
CB: Right. So you had this like, sudden ending when it comes to your child’s childcare, and that’s like, the ending is like the eclipse symbolism where I always say it’s like a major ending and a major beginning and a major ending in that area of your life that matches the house that it’s in. And it’s interesting that I can see that like, transiting Mars was up there at 13 degrees of Cancer on the day of the actual eclipse, and that would have been opposing your natal Mars at 13 degrees of Capricorn in the 2nd house, which is actually the ruler of your 5th house of children.
H: Yeah.
CB: So it’s like, this sudden also a severing that comes out of nowhere and is like, a separation.
H: Yes. And it was like, really hard on us, because you know, with full time work and things like that, it’s really hard to start looking for childcare suddenly and things like that. So when there’s a break in childcare, it is quite stressful when you don’t really have like, the time set aside to go find another placement. But then, I don’t know, because I was listening to a lot of like, podcasts and like, you know, sort of like predictions around like, the eclipse and things like that and with Jupiter copresent with the eclipse, you know, something good might also come out of it. And I do have a day chart. And so, again, this is all in hindsight, right? At the time, we weren’t sure what was happening. But I ended up actually then moving him to my aunt’s daycare, who owns a daycare in the city; it just wasn’t close to us. It’s really far. So it’s a far drive, but he is now thriving there. He’s been there a year and a half, and he’s doing really, really well, and we’ve set up extra supports for him there now. So it ended up being a blessing in disguise.
CB: Nice. That’s incredible. So it was not just a major ending, but it really was like, a new beginning and laid the seeds and the foundation for something that would eventually develop in a positive direction.
H: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Nice. I love that. How long did it take before he started – that you were able to get him in with your aunt or how long was that process after this point of separation?
H: So when we knew that, you know, she wanted us to end the placement anyway, we decided to see how quickly we could start him there. So again, this was April 19th or 20th – like I said, I can’t remember exactly, but – then May 4th is when we started to transition him. And so I think we started like, end of the first week of May, and then I think there was a Scorpio eclipse happening around that time as well. I don’t know if that really plays into anything, but yeah. There’s other stuff that happened.
CB: Okay. Yeah. It might. I mean, it might still play into it, just in the sense that maybe the ruler of – because it’s happening in Scorpio, it’s like, that’s also gonna be activating Mars to some extent in your chart, which is the ruler of your 5th house. So maybe it’s just something about the connection between that the ruler of the 5th is also the ruler of the 12th, and that it’s that Mars in Capricorn in the 2nd house and that obviously you’re like, paying for childcare, and that your son has some special needs that go along with that.
H: Yeah. And Mars ruling both of them does make a lot of sense. We also have like, another – we had several deaths in the family last year as well, but right around the Scorpio eclipse like, shortly after, we had a death in the family, too. So it’s all part of a…
CB: Yeah. Okay. Sorry about that. Yeah, that’s all part of the mix, then. And yeah, and you had Mars transiting your 8th house at the same time, so that’s actually really interesting. Okay. Well, I think that’s a great little example just because I like having an eclipse example that shows an ending, but then also clearing the way for something that, you know, ends up setting a positive foundation after that point. So that is a really good demonstration of why I have that basic keyword of like, eclipses as major beginnings and major endings, because it’s both a statement that seems very broad, but it is also actually incredibly specific when you’re actually experiencing those events during eclipse season at the same time.
H: Yes. I was actually quite surprising how it all played out, and I was just getting into astrology around like, in the last year, I think early last year. So I started to just listen for these things and then looking back I was like, oh, wow, okay.
CB: And how old were you last year when all of this was happening?
H: So I was in my – because I’m in my 38th year now – so I was 37? Would have been 37, yeah.
CB: Seven…
H: 2nd house profection year.
CB: Oh, okay, so you were in a 2nd house profection year —
H: Last year.
CB: — last year, yeah, that was activating that Mars, the ruler of your 5th.
H: Yeah.
CB: Brilliant. That’s perfect. All right. Cool. Well, that’s a good example. Thank you for sharing it; I appreciate it.
H: Thank you. I’m gonna run. Thank you so much!
CB: All right. Take care!
H: Bye.
CB: All right. That was great. Okay. That might be a good one if – Madeline, if you’re still here.
MADELINE: Hi!
CB: Hey! Thanks for joining me.
M: Yeah.
CB: What’s your data?
M: It’s March 3rd, 1993. 8:23 PM.
CB: And what city?
M: Portland, Oregon.
CB: All right. Is your Ascendant 11 degrees of Libra?
M: It is.
CB: Okay, cool. All right. So here’s your chart. So you have Libra rising, and Saturn is in the 5th whole sign house in Aquarius. And what was your story? What’s the short synopsis version?
M: Yeah, just the short story is that just a couple months after I turned 28, which was a 5th house profection year, my husband and I met this woman completely unexpectedly. We weren’t polyamorous at the time; we were just hanging out with friends, and we met this woman, and something somehow it led to basically forming a 13-month relationship with her. And it was very much a relationship that the three of us had. But for me in particular, it felt like just such a big deal around my sexuality and finding this like, new side of myself that I had never explored and didn’t know about because I had been with my husband for so many years. So yeah, very much like the 5th house topic around sexuality.
CB: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, and I’m glad you shared this because that’s another major topic that we didn’t get into today, and obviously that’s a whole other huge area which —
M: Yeah.
CB: — part of why I focused on children, because that’s often one way that the 5th house manifests, the primary way, but the other ways the 5th house can be sex and sexuality, and one of the things that you mention in your writeup that it also brought up themes for you having to do with like, bisexuality that you hadn’t dealt with before or hadn’t been a theme for you.
M: Correct. It had been something I think in my early 20s that I had known about, but just being, you know, in my early 20s with a partner that I had been with since 18 – it just felt too taboo to explore just being kind of in a culture where monogamy was the key. So when we got older, it just somehow felt safe enough to explore that.
CB: Right. Okay. Got it. And what was the time frame, or when did this start again?
M: So it was July 2nd of 2021 that we met her. And then it ended August 31st, 2022.
CB: July 2nd, 2021. Okay. So this is also coming off of the tail end of… Yeah, Jupiter retrograded back into your 5th house. So it wasn’t just that you were in a 5th house profection year; you were also going through your Saturn return in the 5th house, and also going through the tail end of a Jupiter transit through your 5th house at the same time.
M: Yeah.
CB: Okay. That’s really interesting. So there was a lot of activations going on there. I’m trying to look to see if there was other stuff going on, but I think – I guess one of the questions I had is because Saturn rules the 4th house and it’s in the 5th house, did it bring in any themes having to do with your home and your living situation at the same time? Like, did they live with you at any point, or was it always like, separate in terms of that?
M: They never lived with us, but they were over a lot, and my husband and I had actually gotten married earlier that year. And there was this —
CB: When was that?
M: We got married in February, so it was February 21st, 2021.
CB: February 21st.
M: After having been together for 10 years.
CB: Oh wow. Okay. So there was a whole stellium of planets going through Aquarius at that time through your 5th house. And that’s important, also, because I forgot that’s a topic that comes up, which is the two places for me that really pertain to relationships are the 7th house, but also the 5th house, which is the house that’s associated with Venus where Venus is thought to have her joy, according to traditional astrology, and sometimes you really can see themes not just surrounding sex and sexuality at the 5th house, but also romance and sort of romantic things at the same time. So it’s interesting for you it was a stellium in your 5th house at the time when you got married after 10 years.
M: Yeah. Nice.
CB: Cool. All right. And then that relationship ended when?
M: August 31st, 2022.
CB: Okay, so that was closer to your like, exact Saturn return. Saturn’s at 20 degrees of Aquarius at this point, and it’s very closely conjunct your natal Saturn at 23. And why did you decide to call it quits?
M: There was a number of reasons, but my husband and I felt that this woman we were dating was just really wanting something more serious than what we were able to give her. It seemed like the relationship wasn’t fully working for her, and unfortunately instead of her ending it and acknowledging that, we kind of had to acknowledge that it just – we couldn’t be more serious about it than what we had been. And so yeah, it just I think in the end it just wasn’t the right fit.
CB: Okay. Yeah, it’s interesting. I’m just looking at the other transits during that time frame, and it’s like, Jupiter was going through your 7th house, and it stationed retrograde on your Descendant by like, July. And then I can see it’s like, Uranus is coming up. Uranus wasn’t super close to squaring your Saturn at this point, but it was up to like, 18, 19 Taurus, so it was kind of squaring your Saturn at the same time. So it’s interesting that when your exact Saturn return got super close that you sort of reached the limits or the boundaries of what you were sort of willing to commit to and had to draw a line there, and that ended up having to result in a sort of rejection or in a negation of that relationship that had been going on for like, a year up to that point.
M: Absolutely.
CB: Got it. Okay. Well, that’s good – I mean, that’s interesting, because that means also part of it was finding like, a process of exploration, but also finding what your own sort of boundaries were in the context of relationships and sex and sexuality and other things like that.
M: Yeah.
CB: Cool. And then yeah, Saturn finished up that transit early the next year when it went into Pisces. And yeah, so did that close that chapter of your life?
M: Yes. We bought a house the following year, in 2023, and it definitely like, that chapter of my life feels very specific and closed, I think, around, yeah, by the time the next year came.
CB: When did you buy the house in 2023?
M: We closed on March 30th, 2023.
CB: Wow. That’s really close to basically the very tail end of your Saturn transit.
M: Yeah.
CB: And it moving into the very tail end of your Saturn return, and that’s just kind of interesting with Saturn ruling not just your 5th house but also your 4th house. Is that – you two – your first house together?
M: It is.
CB: Okay. Wow. Okay. So that was the other part of your Saturn return was you bought your first home together with Saturn ruling the 4th house.
M: Yes, exactly.
CB: Brilliant. All right. That’s really cool. Cool. All right. And then yeah, well, that’s a pretty clean example, and seems relatively positive, aside from eventually like, that relationship ending and having to put boundaries there. But otherwise there was like, a positive period of development at the same time.
M: Yeah, I absolutely agree.
CB: Cool. All right. Well, thanks for sharing that. I really appreciate it.
M: Yeah, thanks Chris. I really appreciate your work.
CB: All right. Thank you. Take care!
M: Thanks!
CB: All right. That was great. So yeah. So that’s a whole area that we didn’t really get into because I, you know, wanted to focus on the primary 5th house signification that’s always been there, which is the topic of children, and there’s so many different permutations of that that I know that’s gonna be the main thing I talk about in the 5th house episode. But you know, it’s also the house – because it’s connected with children, I think by extension it’s the house that’s connected with sex and sexuality, and that can sometimes have very a major impact on people’s lives in different ways for obvious reasons. And sometimes especially going through major transits through the 5th house can indicate a period of like, transformation when it comes to people’s orientation towards sex and sexuality and the role that that plays. And that’s probably sometimes also relevant, you know, obviously when people are having children or trying to conceive, it’s like, that’s how they’re trying to conceive. And sometimes if they have positive transits, sometimes that goes well, and other times if they’re having challenging transits, they can run into issues with both of those topics, and things can get kind of dicey for different reasons.
One of the examples I found, actually, that’s really cool for the 5th house episode that I’m working on is Marie Antoinette, who had – let me make sure I’m remembering this correctly. She had 5th house placements, but she had like, Saturn in the 7th house in Capricorn. And her husband who became the king of France had Saturn in the 5th house, and he had some kind of like, undisclosed or unclear medical issue so that for the first seven years of their marriage, they didn’t had sex or they didn’t conceive a child, which was a really big deal because they needed to produce an heir. And it really put her in a weird position at court where there was a lot of like, rumors and things swirling around about whether it was her fault somehow. But some of the historians today think that he had some kind of like, medical issue that made it painful for him to have sex so that they didn’t conceive as a result of that. But then he may have had some kind of operation or medical procedure and eventually they were able to, and then they did have children together. Unfortunately, of course, that was, you know, it was Marie Antoinette and her husband, so that didn’t end super well because then the French Revolution occurred. But it was an interesting small scale example of how those topics are sometimes connected and how sex and sexuality as well as the topic of children are both 5th house topics that can come up when important placements are there.
Anyway. So that’s some of the research I’m doing now. Today, thanks everyone for sharing your examples today because this gave me some really great ideas and avenues for further research as I’m researching this episode. If people find other good 5th house examples, let me know. I’m probably gonna focus on like, celebrity and notable individual charts still for the primary 5th house episode, but I will be looking for – one of the things that I did in the 4th house is I asked people to send in brief examples if they had the ruler of the 5th house in a specific house and a singular interesting manifestation of that. So if people find other good examples, be sure to email me at TheAstrologyPodcast@gmail.com, and especially if it’s a concise example it might make its way into the next 5th house episode. But otherwise, this was amazing. Thanks everyone for joining me today for this livestream and for this webinar talking about the 5th house. This went incredibly well. I’m so happy with each of the examples and each person that shared their chart and their life story.t hank you so much for sharing that with us. I really appreciate it, and I feel like we learned a lot, and I’m actually really excited now to dive even deeper into the 5th house, because this has reminded me what a crucial area of life that it can be in different ways. Either when people have important planets placed there natally, or sometimes even when they don’t when it’s activated by transit it can become a major area of a person’s life.
So I’m trying to think of anything else. And yeah, it’s also just been fun doing this webinar as a nice distraction from everything going on in the news, and we’ll talk about other news and stuff in like, the forecast and other episodes coming up. But otherwise, I’m gonna keep focusing on doing my 5th house research. So if anybody has any good examples, let me know. Otherwise, I think that’s it for this webinar. So thanks everyone for watching or listening to this episode of The Astrology Podcast, and we’ll see you again next time!
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