The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 486, titled:
Venus and Mars Retrograde Stories
With Chris Brennan
Episode originally released on April 16, 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 April 25th, 2025
Copyright © 2025 TheAstrologyPodcast.com
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CHRIS BRENNAN: Hey. My name is Chris Brennan, and you’re listening to The Astrology Podcast. In this episode, I’m gonna be talking with a group of patrons about their birth charts, and we’re gonna review some of the recent transits of Venus retrograde, Mars retrograde, and the eclipse season that we just got out of last month to talk about how some of these transits have showed up in different people’s lives and what sort of things they’ve coincided with based on where those transits fell in different people’s birth charts.
So I’ve talked extensively about the Venus retrograde over the past few months and how that started in Aries at the beginning of March and then retrograded back to Pisces. And it’s actually stationing direct today, because we’re recording this on Saturday, April 12th, 2025, starting at 3:48 PM in Denver, Colorado. So today is officially the day of Venus technically ending its retrograde station, which is its 40 days of backwards movement through the signs of the zodiac. We’re still gonna have a ways to go before Venus leaves its post-retrograde shadow and departs from Pisces and then eventually passes the shadow degree at 10 degrees of Aries next month, I believe, either in late April or early May, and then eventually departs from Aries for the final time, I think, in like, early June. So some of the things with the retrograde are still gonna be wrapping up, but it’s still a good time since we’re on the day of Venus’s actual station to actually check in, because I think most people should already see and have experienced some of the main themes that this transit’s all about at this point, and they should be able to talk about how that’s been impacting their life in different ways.
Additionally, same thing with the Mars retrograde. So Mars first went into Cancer last September, and that was when it entered into the sign that it would later retrograde back to. Then it stationed retrograde in early Leo in December, retrograded back into Cancer in early January, and then eventually stationed direct in later in February. But Mars is still moving so slow that it’s still in the later degrees of Cancer at this point, still picking up steam, and trying to make its way out of that sign. So Mars is gonna go into Leo later this month in April, and it’s not gonna finish its transit and its post-retrograde shadow effectively until I think again in June. So we still have a ways to go in wrapping up this Mars retrograde transit, but some of the most important themes should have already become very clear in everybody’s lives, so I think it’s something we’ll be able to talk about with people and get a sense for how that transit worked out, especially the Cancer portion of it that’s been just like, sitting in that sign for the past few months in the very beginning part of this year, the first quarter of this year essentially.
And then the last thing was the eclipse season where we had a lunar eclipse in Virgo in the middle of March, and then we had a solar eclipse in Aries towards the end of March. And we just finally got out of eclipse season, and today is actually the first lunation since the last eclipse, which really fully takes us out of the eclipse season timeframe, because we’re having a Full Moon today in Libra that is not an eclipse. So eclipses, I always associate with major beginnings and major endings, so I’m curious to hear how that worked out in different people’s lives. And in some instances, we may see, we may just focus on like, one transit and how that manifested in a person’s life in a particularly obvious or, as I always say, like, striking way. But in other instances, we might see how all three of those broadly speaking transits activated different parts of a person’s life all at the same time in a way that was like, interconnected or indicating the activation of those topics or those parts of the chart sort of in parallel.
All right, so why don’t we just jump into it, and I’ll see how many charts I can get through today. We were gonna start with Kelly, I believe.
Hey.
KELLY: Hello! Nice to meet —
CB: Thanks for joining me!
K: Thank you.
CB: All right. What’s your birth data?
K: Nine 21, 1962. 5:20 PM, Durand – D U R A N D – Michigan.
CB: Let me see if this calculates correctly. Is your Ascendant 27 Aquarius?
K: Yes.
CB: Yes. Okay. All right. So I’ll share your chart, and I’ll just briefly describe some of the main points for those watching the – listening to the audio version. So you have Aquarius rising, you have a day chart with the Sun in Virgo, and you have Jupiter in Pisces, which is your most positive planet, in the 2nd house. And then you have Mars in Cancer conjunct the Moon in the 6th house. So you natally have Mars in Cancer, and that was part of your description that you sent in is you said that there were some issues with like, somebody that works for you, because shortly after Mars went into your 6th house, and that was the primary thing about your example, right?
K: Right.
CB: Okay. So set that up for us. Like, what happened starting last fall?
K: Right. So it started October 1st was the last day for my key employee that I worked with for 10 years. And I found out like, the day before the lunar eclipse, actually, in September that – that’s like, when he gave his two weeks’ notice. And —
CB: Okay.
K: And he does, my first thought was, I knew that I would miss him, but I was happy for him but sad for me because he did everything possible to keep my job stress-free to keep me from having to do more work than I needed to. So it was a big loss.
CB: Okay. That makes sense. So yeah, the 6th house is traditionally the house that’s associated with like, employees or people that work for you. And sometimes when you have a transit like that, of like, Mars through the 6th house, it can indicate like, a severing or a separation with somebody that works for you. So in this instance, it wasn’t like, an acrimonious split or something like that, but it was something that as a result of that separation, it created additional stress and work for you —
K: Right.
CB: — subsequently for a while after that?
K: Correct. And I’m also having a 3rd house profection year, so that’s Aries. And then so Mars is the ruler, and that —
CB: Got it.
K: — happened at the same time.
CB: Right. So you actually switched into that around the same time of that eclipse in September. You switched into an Aries profection year, making —
K: Right.
CB: — Mars the lord of the year and making that transit even more important.
K: Exactly.
CB: So what – because Mars went in at the beginning of September, and then it was there through September and October. How long had you worked with this like, employee?
K: For over like, 10 years.
CB: Oh wow, okay. So that’s a long time.
K: Maybe actually about 14, probably. Yeah. It’s a long time. Like, he could read my mind. Like, we worked really well together. It was just devastating.
CB: Yeah. And then when he left in October, at the beginning of October, could you describe what happened subsequent to that in terms of how it complicated things for you at work?
K: Sure. So an employee like that takes a little bit to replace and to train. Even if somebody comes in with a lot of experience, there’s still needing to have the knowledge of the business that we ran. So it’s not somebody you can just replace next Tuesday and expect them to be, you know, up to speed, so I actually ended up having – I had to make, made offers to a couple different people, and things just fell through with either them getting another job offer at the same time, or their employer wanting to keep them. So it actually took three offers before I actually got somebody put into place.
CB: Oh wow. Okay. And when was that roughly?
K: Let’s see… It was in October 16th, 17th, around that area.
CB: Okay.
K: I think. Or was it November? I’m sorry; I didn’t write that down.
CB: So and you got somebody new in place and then has that —
K: Yeah.
CB: — stayed good, or?
K: Yes, it’s been very good.
CB: Okay. And then that transit by November, it was like, that initial Mars transit completed, because Mars – let me share the chart, actually. So here’s a biwheel with the transits, and we just see Mars is going through… You actually had your exact Mars return like, immediately after that initial employee left when you were kind of probably struggling the most.
K: Yes.
CB: And then Mars departed from your 6th house early in November, and it was gone for a couple of months. So usually there’s like, an alleviation of some of those tensions. But did any issues in terms of the 6th house come back later on in like, January, February, March when Mars went back into your 6th house?
K: Yes, I did end up just in March, I actually had to write up an employee. So I had to have that difficult conversation, and in the over 30 years that I’ve worked there, I’ve never had to write anybody up before.
CB: Oh wow. Okay. So this was due – so there were tensions at work, and it looks like that would have been shortly after Mars stationed direct around 17 Cancer, and that was like, right on top of your natal Mars at like, 18 Cancer.
K: Yes.
CB: Do you – so that was creating like, friction and tension at work?
K: Oh yes.
CB: How would you describe it besides those two words?
K: Maybe a lot of drama?
CB: Okay.
K: So you know, nobody wants to be written up, so it doesn’t make them happy and they get defensive, but I tried to use it as more of a learning tool and say, “This is just something we need to work on, and let’s just move forward.”
CB: Got it. Okay. Nice. Well, that seems relatively productive. It seems like you encountered some obstacles and setback and tensions in that area of the 6th house during the course of this Mars retrograde transit with it activated as the lord of the year. But they were kind of like, surmountable difficulties that you were able to overcome as a result of just, you know, doing what needed to be done.
K: Absolutely.
CB: Okay. Do you feel like that’s maybe part of the take-home lesson that sometimes maybe that transit was like, having to do something that was unpleasant that needed to be done, but that by dealing with it sort of like, head-on, you were able to navigate it successfully?
K: Yes. I think that was a big lesson that I’ve learned in probably the last few months is having those difficult conversations that you don’t want to have, but when you do, you just get through the other side, and you’re both on the same page and everybody knows where we are. And you know, instead of just burying it and let the problem fester and everybody, you know, being upset or not working well together, I think that’s made a big difference.
CB: Nice. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. I mean, one of the things I like about your chart and the way that Mars is situated is it has trines from both of the benefics. It has on the one hand, with Jupiter in Pisces in your 2nd house, Jupiter’s in a sign-based superior trine overcoming Mars in Cancer, which is helping to bonify it or to make it much more positive than it could be otherwise. And then you’ve also got this Venus up in Scorpio in the 10th house, which is also moving into a trine with Mars with reception. So it’s like, even though Mars is the more challenging planet in your chart because you have a day chart, it’s heavily mitigated so that it’s almost like some of the best outcomes from that Mars are more possible.
K: Yeah. I had not thought of that before, so that’s a good point.
CB: Nice. All right. So you said you also had like, a possible like, health thing come up at one point as well?
K: Yeah. Nothing – just some minor things. I ended up having a suspicious mole. I had went to the doctor and had that looked at and ended up having to have that cut out and removed, but it did come back negative, so that part is good.
CB: Nice. When did that happen, roughly?
K: So I had it cut out on three 13. Oh whoops, I got the wrong date. Three 24.
CB: So March 24th, okay. So this is Mars still coming off of that station in your 6th house. So if you had it cut out on the 24th, do you know, did they find it very soon before that, or when did they find it?
K: I think it was the end of January, because I had to wait several weeks to get back in.
CB: Got it.
K: Around January 24th or something like that.
CB: Yeah, so that’s all Mars slowing down and stationing. They find it, and then you have to go through this process of like, waiting for a month to have it removed?
K: Yes. And then also during that period, I developed what they called Burning Mouth Syndrome, which is just uncomfortable and annoying mostly. Just makes you feel like, certain parts – I think it has more to do with the nerves in your mouth and it just feels like it’s burning. Like maybe you’ve burnt your mouth during like, when you had a cup of coffee or something, and so it kind of leaves it a little raw. But I’m hoping that goes away as soon as Mars goes out of Cancer!
CB: Right. So —
K: And it is getting better.
CB: I’ve never heard about that before. So what —
K: Me neither.
CB: When did that happen?
K: Well, I wanna say it was in the middle of let’s see, right around the middle of March that I first —
CB: Oh wow.
K: — kind of noticed it, but I didn’t really know what it was because I’d never heard of it. But there’s some days that it’s worse than others and it just feels like your mouth’s on fire like you had spicy food or something.
CB: Got it. That’s actually really —
K: Yeah.
CB: — interesting just because that was like, the analogy I kept using over the past year to describe Mars retrograde is —
K: Okay.
CB: — I kept talking about, because it’s like, an extended Mars transit through a certain part of your chart, it’s like eating a spicy pepper —
K: Okay.
CB: — and then the heat like, doesn’t go away for like, a long time. It’s something that like, sticks with you as opposed to Mars transits normally outside of a retrograde are really fast and just like, come and go relatively quickly. But in this instance, you had something where in the middle of March, Mars was really just kind of sitting on top of your natal Mars right there in the 6th house and then you had this spontaneous like, burning sensation in your mouth.
K: Yes.
CB: Wow. Okay. So that’s lessened a little bit in the past few weeks since mid-March?
K: Probably in just like, the last week or so.
CB: Okay. So it took a while for it to get further away from your natal Mars placement. Okay, right, because you had – it wasn’t just like, hitting your Mars, but then it also squared your Mercury at 21 Libra in the like, March 24th timeframe. And now that we’re in early April, Mars is at the end of Cancer, so you’re almost finished with this transit.
K: Right.
CB: Nice. Okay. That’s pretty good. Let’s see, there was one last thing.
K: Was it the relationship?
CB: Yeah, you said there was like, one relationship thing that came up?
K: Yeah, but you know, it was during this Mars period, because Mars was still at 18 degrees Cancer, and it was just, I’ve had this long-time friendship with a person, and he and I were, you know, discussing taking it to more of a dating relationship. And it’s something that I thought that I always really wanted, and after really – and again, had to have that difficult conversation, because I realized it really wasn’t. It wasn’t the right person for me, although I valued the friendship. And so it was a big like, kind of soul-searching kind of a thing, I guess, but then I had to have – or I needed to have, for me, that conversation to explain to him why I didn’t want to just, you know, ghost him or blow him off, so.
CB: And what was the timeframe on this?
K: That actually happened toward the end of January, we ended up having that last conversation on February 9th.
CB: Got it. Okay. Because I was originally curious about this because of, you know, the Mars retrograde started out in your 7th house, but that was back in November and December —
K: Oh, okay. Yeah.
CB: Was there any build up with that in terms of – obviously, it escalated and reached that important —
K: Yeah.
CB: — turning point in January and February, but was there anything going on with that in November and December?
K: Yeah. So well, probably more in January. We started talking more regularly, probably, in December.
CB: Okay.
K: For that month in December. And started talking about possibly taking the relationship further, but hadn’t really acted on it or anything. Just more of a daily conversation at that point.
CB: Got it. Okay. So yeah. But things picked up – I mean, so Mars slowed down and stationed retrograde at six Leo December 6th, which is your 7th whole sign house. But then —
K: Right on my North Node.
CB: Yeah, right on your North Node at seven degrees of Leo.
K: Yeah.
CB: And then by what, late January, Venus is finishing up in Pisces and then in early February, it moves into Aries, which is your profected sign, which is Aries, your 3rd house. And then gets ready to slow down and station retrograde there. So you made that choice or that decision and had that conversation around when?
K: February 9th.
CB: February 9th. Okay, got it. So yeah, right after Venus went into Aries basically. It was only at three degrees of Aries at that time.
K: Yeah.
CB: Okay. So was that… Obviously that was another kind of like, difficult conversation to have on some level. Did that change things going forward at that point in terms of that relationship or what?
K: Yeah. We haven’t had a conversation since then.
CB: Got it. Okay.
K: So yeah.
CB: Yeah.
K: But it was a big thing for me, because it’s kind of, I don’t always tell people how I really feel about them sometimes. Sometimes I hold a lot in. And I felt like it was a big step for me in having that real, honest conversation. So we talked about – it was a good conversation. We talked about a lot of things, so it was good in that sense, but…
CB: Yeah. It was like, a —
K: But it also helped me to realize like, that I was happy with my life the way it was, so.
CB: Sure. That makes sense. Yeah, the other thing I’m noticing is that was the day of the Mercury cazimi, and the Sun and Mercury were conjoined at —
K: Oh.
CB: — 21 degrees of Aquarius on February 9th, right in your 1st house and not too far from your Ascendant. So it was interesting that what you ended up coming to was just kind of like, centering on yourself and like, what you wanted in terms of your own heart and in terms of your own personal direction in life and everything else, and then having that conversation based on that.
K: Correct. And I’m not so sure that Pluto doesn’t have something to do with it all too.
CB: With the —
K: With me trying to think about what I really want and being honest with people about it. So.
CB: With the Pluto transit in your 1st house, or what do you mean?
K: Yeah.
CB: Sure. Yeah. So maybe is that something you’ve been going through as a process, then, more over the past couple of years since Pluto started going into your 1st —
K: Yes.
CB: — is just trying to focus more on your own —
K: What do I want.
CB: Got it. Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. All right. Cool. I think those were like, the main things I wanted to ask you about. Oh right! So the other thing was your sister, and I didn’t initially —
K: Oh.
CB: — understand how that connected, but you actually had some 3rd house things going on as well.
K: Yeah. So at the same time, my sister has had to have two different surgeries. She had an Achilles tendon that snapped, and she had to have surgery on that. And then shortly after that, she ended up having to have laser surgery on her eye.
CB: When did this happen?
K: So it was in February when she had the surgery on the Achilles tendon. I don’t have the exact date… I think it was toward the beginning of February.
CB: Okay. Yeah. So it’s like —
K: And then let’s see. Go ahead.
CB: It’s like, you’re in a 3rd house profection year. Venus has just moved in there, but the biggest thing is just the ruler of the 3rd house is your Mars in Cancer in the 6th, and it’s having that Mars return all during this time. And so your sister, with the ruler of the 3rd house of siblings in the 6th house of health, is having some major like, health issues arise at this time?
K: Yes.
CB: Got it. So do you think both of those things happened in February, or —
K: Yes. Yes, it was February 4th when she came home from the surgery; I have that. So she would have had it like, that day before. And then the laser surgery was March 7th.
CB: March 7th. So February 4th was the day Venus moved into Aries, and then March 7th…
K: Yeah. So my sister —
CB: Got it.
K: Yeah.
CB: Go ahead.
K: Venus could be a woman figure, right?
CB: Right. With Venus having just stationed retrograde there in your 3rd house of siblings.
K: Yeah.
CB: Yeah, that’s incredible. I mean, this is a really good example, because it shows like, different ways in which all of the different possible archetypes of many of these placements worked out ever since your birthday roughly, since September when you moved into that 3rd house profection year. And like, you know, a major theme that has come up throughout has been important conversations that you’ve had to have with people, whether the 3rd house being about communication, whether that’s like, communication with people at work or employees, or whether it’s communication about relationships. Another theme has been, obviously, the workplace itself with like, Mars transiting through your 6th house and employees. You’ve had two notable health things that have come up that are 6th house Mars-related things. And then finally, the 3rd house as it relates to siblings also came up just with respect to some of the health issues your sister has been dealing with. Although is she recovering well from both of those things?
K: Yeah. But we kind of laughed. I told her I was sorry that I was having that 3rd house profection year.
CB: Right! Yeah. That’s really good. So yeah, that’s actually a really brilliant just demonstration of the multivalent meanings of all of these different both natal placements as well as transits and how it can work out on a number of different levels and still all be archetypally consistent with what the placements are supposed to mean in a broad sense.
K: Right. And I didn’t even realize all of it until I started making notes after you sent out the notice that you were gonna do this, and I thought, well, I didn’t really have much! And then I started writing it down, and it kind of all came together, and I’m like, oh, okay, this affects a lot of different things!
CB: Right. Yeah, sometimes it’s not – especially when you’re in the moment, like, we don’t always recognize. Because sometimes as astrologers, we expect it to be something like, big and loud and like, obvious, but sometimes these transits can be a little bit more subtle as you’re experiencing them so you don’t always connect like, one-to-one when it’s happening. But sometimes when you start to get towards the end of those transits, you can look back and sort of realize what that was. And it sort of comes together and makes sense.
K: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Cool. All right. I think – that was a great example to start with. Thank you for sharing that.
K: Of course. Thank you. I appreciate it.
CB: Awesome. That was a great example. I’m gonna check the live chart, because I’m not always able to see it at the same time. What did people think about that example in the live chart? Yeah, the super, super literal with the burning mouth. That’s a really striking example. And also having to do with difficult conversations, Gina says. Yeah, absolutely. All right, cool. Well, that was a really good example.
So let’s move onto the next one. The next one I was gonna talk to was Erin.
ERIN: Hi, Chris!
CB: Thanks for joining me!
E: Thanks for having me.
CB: What’s your birth data?
E: So, May 12th, 1982.
CB: Okay. And what time?
E: 11:26 and 50 seconds PM.
CB: 50 seconds?
E: Yeah. Because it’ll move —
CB: Nice.
E: — my, yeah, it’ll move my MC and IC.
CB: Oh, okay. I thought your mother or somebody was there with like, an atomic clock.
E: Just that good?
CB: Yeah. What place?
E: Summit, New Jersey.
CB: Is it five Capricorn rising?
E: Yep.
CB: Got it. Okay. Here we go. So here’s your chart. So Capricorn rising. Night chart with Sun in Taurus in the 5th house. Jupiter’s up there in Scorpio in the 11th, and Mars is in Libra in the 10th. And you actually have Venus in Aries in the 4th whole sign house natally, and it’s actually at nine degrees of Aries, which is very close to where Venus stationed at 10 Aries. So what was thing transit about for you?
E: So it was pretty on the nose, because we did a thing round of construction on our house that pretty much started and ended this entire Venus retrograde. So we started on March 3rd, and it’s wrapping up on Monday.
CB: So you did like, redesigning of your home —
E: We did.
CB: — and living situation?
E: We did. We redid our bathroom, and it was interesting because anything that I had purchased, designed, planned before the retrograde worked out great. But everything that I ended up buying or designing once Venus went retrograde all had to be returned, didn’t work out for whatever reason. So it was always like, a setback or a delay. So it was just —
CB: Oh wow.
E: — kind of comical how —
CB: Right.
E: — spot on it was.
CB: Right. Because you had both Venus slowing down and stationing retrograde in your 4th house and then Mercury also slowed down and went retrograde not too long after that like, a week or two later in your 4th house as well. So you’re getting kind of a —
E: Double whammy.
CB: — double whammy. Yeah.
E: Yeah, definitely. And then I also noticed, because the retrograde also went back into my 3rd house, that throughout the process – because I have two little kids, we had to be out of the house a lot. So the amount of short-distance travel that I did was increased exponentially how much I was just kind of around the area where I live throughout on a day-to-day basis really went up.
CB: Nice. Like, traveling around your neighborhood?
E: Yeah. Just having so many different places to go or just needing to kind of leave because of people in the house or the noise or whatever was going on. So having to be like, okay, let’s go here, and then we’ll go here. And it was a lot —
CB: Nice.
E: — there.
CB: Yeah, that makes sense. With respect to the redesign at home, I like that because it’s very literal and that’s what I had been talking about when I feel like when Venus goes retrograde in a certain house in a person’s chart that sometimes they just have this internal compulsion to redesign or rethink or change something about the design of whatever that house is, the appearance or the aesthetics of whatever that area of their life is. And like, if that happens in the 1st house, sometimes it’s like, a makeover in terms of their appearance or like, getting a new haircut or changing something about their physical appearance. And sometimes in the 4th house, it’s very literally like, redesigning something at home. You didn’t… Did this arise naturally in terms of doing the redesign at this time? Because you didn’t like, go out of your way to do it because Venus was going retrograde there, right?
E: No, I didn’t go out of my way to do it, but I did kind of go out of my way to avoid the Mars retrograde, because I was nervous about that and its effect on construction, so I kind of thought that it would be better to push it and deal with the Venus retrograde rather than that. And the last major – we did two other big phases of construction; this was kind of like, the last piece. And those were back in 2023, and that was that last Venus retrograde through Leo. So it already… You know, we had already kind of had that, so this felt like a repetition, only more… I don’t know, a little more spot on because it was in my 4th house. My Venus return, and it felt a little different because of that.
CB: Right. Absolutely. And this is the final like, phase of the reconstruction of like, redesigning things?
E: Yeah, hopefully.
CB: Okay.
E: For now!
CB: Nice. All right. Let’s see, what else? Were there any other – so you had the Venus retrograde transit, and then you had the Mercury retrograde. And then the eclipse just happened in your 4th house at the end of all of that on your Venus. Where’s the construction at now? Is it still ongoing, or is it done, or?
E: It’s gonna wrap up – it’s supposed to be complete on Monday. So.
CB: Monday.
E: Yeah, that’ll hopefully be it and we’ll be done for a little while. I did have something interesting with the Mars retrograde that I just thought of with the last patron who was on and discussing that, which was that my youngest daughter who is a Cancer rising, she ended up the entire Mars retrograde, she ended up finally weaning. And it was interesting it being in my 7th house of that like, close, connected relationships and in her 1st house with this kind of like, separation from the mother, that final. So that really kind of started with the Mars retrograde, and she officially has been done since probably the very beginning of March or even end of February? So right after the Mars station going direct. It just kind of wrapped it all up. So that was also interesting to watch kind of happen at the same timespan.
CB: Yeah, that’s incredible. So for her, having that separation where she’s more of an individual. Like, she’s more focusing on herself now suddenly in that like, early stage of that being the very first time that she’s had an experience like that of a transit and the separation —
E: Yeah.
CB: — from you, versus you having this other person that you’re like, fully bonded with that you have to create a separation or like, some distance from at the same time.
E: Yeah! And it also went back into her 12th house, and she dropped a nap – like, dropped her nap so she’s not napping anymore. So it was also tied in with her sleep patterns. So it was just very – it all felt very like, oh, like, obvious on the nose kind of this is what this is about, clearly!
CB: Right. That makes sense. So she’s Aquarius rising, or what’s her rising?
E: She’s Cancer rising.
CB: Sorry, yeah, Cancer rising. Okay, yeah, so it retrograded back into the 12th. I’m trying to think of the… Yeah, okay. Yeah, that’s really interesting.
E: Didn’t it? Or no, it went into her second.
CB: Yeah, like, if she’s… Sorry, if she’s Cancer rising, then…
E: It was her second, so it was like, resources.
CB: Right. Yeah. But that makes sense just in terms of the separation though. How close or what’s the degree of her Ascendant? Do you know offhand?
E: 26.
CB: Okay, yeah. So she’s really finishing that up now, and that transit’s about to be fully over.
E: Yeah. I’m looking forward to it. Because she was super accident-prone too, during the times – any time Mars crossed over her Ascendant, which happened three times. There was always something that happened. Like, this last time, she tripped and hit her head on the edge of the porch, so it kind of got a big bump there, but it was just more, there was just something each time. So I was like, always watching her.
CB: Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah, Mars 1st house transits can be tricky for just, you know, sometimes getting into accidents or doing something impulsively and yeah, getting some bruises at that time. So it’s nice to be finishing that up. How old is she?
E: She’s three.
CB: Three? Okay, yeah. So this is probably the second like, Mars in Cancer transit that she’s even experienced in her entire life. Cool. All right. Well, that’s really good. Yeah, I think that’s pretty solid. Was there anything else about your transits lately that made sense in terms of any of this?
E: No, I think those were the big ones that really seemed obvious.
CB: Yeah. Absolutely. Cool. Well, thanks for sharing that; that’s a really good like, straightforward example, but it gives us some really nice insight sometimes into how things can work out, again, just going into some of those core principles of like, the 4th house and the home and living situation and the 7th house as those that you have close, one-on-one personal relationships in your life.
E: Yep.
CB: Cool. All right. Thank you!
E: Thank you!
CB: Let’s see what people are saying in the live chart. Ketzia says, “Venus rules the 5th house of children in Erin’s chart, so that makes sense.” Yeah, that could tie things in there with the retrograde. Excellent. That was great.
So yeah, again, this Venus retrograde and this Mars retrograde has been really useful to look at, especially in the context for all of the cardinal rising sign people. So Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn rising, because then both of those planets are going retrograde in an angular house in a very prominent house of the chart. So you can sometimes see it like, very vividly or much more vividly for the Capricorn or other cardinal rising sign people.
All right. So the next one I was gonna do was Jayleene.
Hey, how’s it going?
JAYLEENE: Hi! I’m good! How are you?
CB: Excellent! What’s your birth data?
J: 12/15/93.
CB: And what time?
J: 10:19 AM, New York City.
CB: Is your Ascendant 12 Aquarius?
J: Yeah.
CB: All right. So here’s your chart. So you have Aquarius rising, day chart with Sun in Sag in the 11th whole sign house. Jupiter’s in Scorpio in the 10th, and Mars is in Sagittarius in the 11th. So what was going on with you or what was this transit about for you?
J: So I moved from California back to New York at the end of January. And I moved back in with my family, so I reconnected with my siblings, and I also reconnected with my childhood best friends whom I’ve stayed like, best friends with throughout the whole 10 years that I’ve been gone.
CB: Nice. So you moved back home you said at the end of January?
J: Yeah. January 29th is when I like, took the flight back home. But I didn’t start seeing people – like, we had like, a whole housewarming – not a housewarming, like a “Jayleene’s back” thing dinner with my friends on March 15th. Since it was winter, people didn’t wanna go out, so it took a while to rally them all.
CB: So after – you said March 15th?
J: Yeah, that’s when I started to see everybody again. Like, I saw them individually, but very briefly. Like, my childhood best friends. But yeah.
CB: Nice. So that was – since you’re Aquarius rising, that was Venus going retrograde in your 3rd house of neighbors and siblings and also friends, especially in your immediate neighborhood as we talked about in the 3rd house episode. We were making a distinction between, you know, 11th house as friends and groups, but also the 3rd house as friends and groups but especially those that are in your local environment and especially those that you grew up with, so that’s a really literal manifestation of that.
J: Sorry, you go ahead.
CB: So how long had you been gone from where – where were you living versus where did you move back to, again?
J: I was living in San Diego, California.
CB: Okay, so on the other side of the country.
J: Yeah. And I believe it correlated with an eclipse back in 2017 in March, but I didn’t, I don’t remember which – I think it was the Virgo eclipses? But I can’t be sure.
CB: You moved in early 2017?
J: Yeah. I got the letter to go to grad school in March, and then I officially moved in June of 2017.
CB: Okay. Well, yeah, I mean, that was eight years ago, so March 2017 was the last time that Venus was retrograde in Aries in your —
J: Yeah!
CB: — 3rd house.
J: Yeah. And yes. And Venus rules my 4th house as well, so – and 9th house of travel. Long-distance travel.
CB: Right. So here it is. So this is like, March of 2017. We see Venus is retrograde in Aries in your 3rd house. And so you’re accepted to grad school, and you move from New York to San Diego?
J: Well, it was Oakland, and then I moved two years later to San Diego, but yeah.
CB: Got it. But to California in general. So this is like, eight years ago was you actually leaving the neighborhood, roughly, that you grew up in and like, moving to the other side of the country, which is far enough away that it’s like, practically like you’re moving to a different country and ending or like, severing that relationship with not just your local neighborhood but also your local friend group that you grew up with as well as your, you know, having your siblings local to you. And then exactly eight years later, the Venus retrograde repeats in basically March of 2025, and suddenly you’ve moved back, and you have a party that’s like, reconnecting you with a lot of those people?
J: Yeah. So it was pretty nice to see that. I can’t remember the exact dates from eight years before 2017, but there was something else that correlated, but we don’t have to talk about that because I don’t really remember what it was.
CB: From like, 2009 you mean?
J: Yeah. I think I can’t remember exactly what it was, so yeah.
CB: That’s okay. Could you describe – like, what was it like reconnecting with all of these people that you had, you know, lost I guess eight years ago? What were some of your feelings? Was it like…. I’ve noticed that like, the Venus retrograde, that because Venus goes retrograde and starts moving backwards in the zodiac, sometimes there’s this backwards looking component where you’re looking back into your past. And you know, it’s sort of a cliche at this point that sometimes that means romantic relationships from a person’s past coming back into the present. But here with it in your 3rd house, it’s like, a version of that of these other types of relationships, 3rd house relationships, coming back from the past. What did that feel like to you?
J: It was really nice. It kind of felt like when I left, I was a different version of myself, a little less healed, a lot more reactive. And now I have grown up a lot, so I think I have a better relationship with my siblings. And then I’ve watched my childhood friends find their partners and now become, you know, more like, they have their own lives sort of. So it kind of – during the retrograde, it felt like I was trying to find my place in their lives that now includes a partner that they have, if that makes sense, and trying to —
CB: Right.
J: — see where I fit into their daily routines. Yeah. So I think I, now that everything is stationed – or Venus, I think it might have just stationed. I’m not sure if it’s today or tomorrow. But —
CB: Yeah, today.
J: — okay. I feel like I’ve figured out the cadence in which we can hang out, like, my friends and I. Because it has felt very isolating, and I’ve also been like, moving in. So and also I’ve done some renovating, which I shouldn’t have been doing during the retrogrades because I’ve experienced the same thing as the person before where like, I had to reorder things. And I also like, was doing a lot of short-term travel because I was buying off of Facebook marketplace.
CB: Nice.
J: Oh! Another thing that happened is since I shipped my car, I actually got like, a toll by mail where they – since my car was on the back of a trailer, they scanned my license plate and then —
CB: Oh no.
J: — charged me instead of charging the shipping company.
CB: Right.
J: So that’s like, a 3rd house retrograde into 2nd house thing. But that’s completed now.
CB: That’s perfect. Yeah, that’s – was it like, a lot of money for what they were trying to charge you?
J: Yeah. It was like, 80 dollars. Obviously, and it was like, for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York like, separately. So I had to just let them know that my car was being shipped, but it was like, a real big pain for no reason.
CB: Right. Yeah. I love that, because that’s such a little thing to happen, but that’s like, isolated to this little part of your life, and yet it’s still like, an important or notable like, little thing that perfectly connected those transits of like, the 3rd house and travel and the 2nd house of finances.
J: Yeah.
CB: That’s good. And then you said there was also some – with the Mars retrograde happening over the past few months in your 6th house, that you’ve also had some issues in terms of your work?
J: Yes. So we last spoke when you were doing the 2nd house transit, the live chart readings, and I let you know that I got a position with the federal government. Now that there has been an administration change, the Mars retrograde kind of has mirrored like, all the confusion that has gone on since like, the election. And then being like, okay, well, all the like, DEI programs that I work on are going to pretty much be eliminated, and being afraid of that. And then going forward, there was more and more like, executive orders that were halting our work. Eventually, the probationary officers – since I’m like, technically a contractor, I wasn’t affected. My manager was, so she was laid off on February 13th. She’s an Aries rising. And then was reinstated I think March 14th. And then she also got a new job at the state government on March 14th, and then now she has to take the deterred retirement program, so most of the people in our office that are under three years are opting to take the like, severance pay thing now instead of the reduction in force potentially being laid off later when they reduce the federal government employees.
CB: Okay.
J: So work has been tumultuous, and Mars has been directly opposing my Moon during this time that rules my 6th house. But now —
CB: Yeah.
J: — it feels a little easier, I think. Like, things are a little bit more settled in terms of like, what’s going on in the office.
CB: Right. So it would have been at its most intense, basically, in February, like, immediately after the administration change happens and all the orders and stuff start coming out around the time of the Mars station.
J: Yeah.
CB: Okay. Yeah. That’s really rough. Yeah, because when was the 2nd house one? That was like, last fall. So you had just gotten that job. Well then —
J: Yep!
CB: When was that? Was that like, September, October?
J: So it was September 9th when I started the position, and it was a Virgo New Moon, I believe.
CB: That was like, right after Mars went into Cancer. You said September what?
J: 9th.
CB: 9th. Yeah. It’s like, that was the initial ingress of Mars into Cancer into your 6th house, which went in just a week before you got the position at the beginning of September. But that’s a really good example of how like, the Mars transit and the retrograde can be a sequence of events that plays out over many months, but it really starts as soon as that ingress takes place. But then there’s an intensification of it when the retrograde degrees, the stations, actually happen – especially that station in February when Mars stationed direct in the middle of Cancer in your 6th house of work.
J: I also wanted to note that this past week has been like… Mercury stationed direct while squaring my Mars natally, and Mercury is my profection year ruler. And during this week is when everyone in the office, like, this is when they had to submit their… Like, they had to decide whether or not they were going to take the deferred retirement program and therefore like, basically leave the job. And it was really sad, because everybody loves their job, and nobody wants to like, be forced into leaving. And so like, this past week has been really sad, because like, my manager finally came back, and then now she’s leaving again and then everybody that I’ve worked with very closely all of a sudden is also leaving. So it felt like the Mercury stationing direct and then squaring my Mars was like, all the retrograde with everything, including the Mars retrograde, like, finally everything has come to light, if that makes sense.
CB: Right. Yeah, and a bunch of like, friends, basically, at work that you work with are all leaving.
J: Yeah. So that’s been really sad, but astrologer good!
CB: Yeah. Very hashtag astrologer good of just when the transits are coinciding with really rough events, but the astrology is lining up so well that you’re kind of abstractly impressed by the astrology.
J: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Well, it’s good that things have stabilized a little bit now that Mars is getting close to completing that transit through your 6th house. What even precipitated you moving back to your hometown, essentially, during this time?
J: Remember – obviously, probably not, but like, when we did our last live chart reading, I had let you know that the third… We were looking at the 3rd house eclipses going back and forth, and I had my brother had passed away.
CB: Oh, right.
J: So I moved back to just be with my family.
CB: Right. Now I remember. Sorry about that.
J: It’s okay.
CB: Yeah, so that was back – we were talking about that in terms of like, the 3rd house Aries Full Moon, right?
J: I can’t remember exactly. It was in June that it happened, but I believe you and I spoke about it in August.
CB: Got it. Okay. Yeah. So it was one of the solar eclipses in the Aries series, the Aries-Libra series, and then this was the final eclipse and on top of that, like, a Venus retrograde and Mercury retrograde in your 3rd house. And you decided to move home during this time, and this was you coming back home partially to support and be with your family.
J: Yeah. I think it was like, the Mars-Uranus conjunction that coincided with my brother’s passing, but yes. Yeah. That kind of spread it all, so.
CB: Right. That was the Mars-Uranus in Taurus in your 4th house.
J: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Sorry, my memory like, doesn’t work very well anymore, but like, once I’m sort of reminded of stuff I can remember but I’m not very – it’s not very sharp anymore right now.
J: No, it’s okay!
CB: Okay. That makes a lot of sense, then, and that helps me contextualize and understand this even more so then. Like, how this Venus retrograde and you coming back and reconnecting not just with neighbors that you grew up with, but also with your neighborhood and with your siblings and everything else is has a lot more importance and like, depth of meaning in terms of your story over the past few years than it already, you know, has just from this current transit alone.
J: Yeah. And I’m pretty grateful for the opportunity or privilege to be able to move back and have like, a support system that is still here. Because they were there, they all like, showed up after my brother passed – like, all my childhood friends. And like, all my siblings are older than me – like, 12 and 15 years older than me, at least – so this is kind of the first time that I’m actually living with them as like, a, you know, because they were already off to college. But it really brought us all back together in a very close-knit way, so in many ways obviously it’s a very sad, tragic thing, but it led to a lot of beautiful relationships being rekindled, which is very nice.
CB: Yeah. That it changed your life in a way that’s like, very significant because your life path then did this not – like, I wanna say a U-turn in the sense that you went back to where you started, but you wouldn’t have like, perhaps made that change and gone back there to reconnect with all of those people if that hadn’t happened, and so therefore sometimes one of the broader things I always see in people’s lives and charts and transits is that sometimes a major loss or tragedy can force you to go in a direction that you might not have gone otherwise, and therefore it changes your trajectory in a very tangible way so that everything that happens subsequent to that results in that like, important turning point in your life.
J: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Okay. So that makes even more sense then, especially as this – not just the Venus retrograde and how it connected you back from when you left eight years earlier, but also the completion of the 3rd house, the last Aries eclipse in the 3rd house eclipse series and how the loss of one of your siblings brought you back to essentially where you grew up with to reconnecting with friends and siblings and family from back in the past and that things came full circle in a much more significant way during this time over the past few months as a result of that.
J: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Okay. Nice. That’s really beautiful, then, and I’m glad that we got to do this followup and just, yeah, hear where that ended up leading you, especially having these 3rd house transits subsequent to that, and bringing things full circle. Yeah. So thanks for sharing that; I appreciate it.
J: Yeah, of course. And if I find out what I was thinking about regarding the Venus retrograde in Aries prior, I’ll send it in the chart or on Patreon or YouTube.
CB: Yeah. Let me know, because I would be curious because it seems like those Venus retrogrades are important to you, so there probably was something significant in that one in basically —
J: Yeah.
CB: — the first several months of 2009 when Venus went retrograde in your 3rd house and then dipped back into your 2nd house briefly.
Cool. All right.
J: Thank you so much, Chris! It was great speaking to you.
CB: Yeah. Thank you!
All right. Let me see. Everyone in the live chart says thank you and thanks for sharing. Okay. So Will – I think yours is a house that we haven’t covered yet, and since it sounds like it ties directly into, the retrograde ties into the topic of that house, it might be a good one. Will, I’m gonna promote you to a panelist, and you’ve got a 9th house example to share.
Hey Will.
WILL: Hey there.
CB: Hey. What’s your birth data?
W: September 5th, 1986. Reno, Nevada. Should I put my camera sideways too?
CB: If possible, yeah. There we go! September 5th, 1986, at what time?
W: 3:21 AM.
CB: And what place?
W: Reno, Nevada.
CB: Oh, Reno. Okay. Reno, Nevada. All right. I’m a little out of it today; it is a Full Moon, and I never sleep well on Full Moons, so I’m functioning at half capacity today. But that’s one of the things you gotta learn to do as an astrologer is like, still try to do your best even when you’re not feeling a hundred percent during readings or like, consultations.
W: Yeah. I’ve actually been struggling with that myself, because I’ve been, I try and use the electional forecast podcast that you do to do certain things —
CB: Right.
W: — and sometimes I’ve just been like, so dead for the last couple of months just because there’s been so much going on, I’m like, okay, I’m gonna try and do something! And then like, something else will pop up, so it makes it super hard to actually stick with that. But I get what you’re saying. Like, you have to keep – because sometimes with the elections if you miss it, during certain times like, you have to wait like, a whole other period of time and like, then do you wanna wait, or do you wanna risk it, you know?
CB: Yeah. And that’s an issue too in terms of sometimes the best election is at like, some crazy hour, either very early in the morning or late at night, and then waking up and trying to do that, which itself can sometimes mean you’re not 100 percent like, awake or like, on top of your game at those times. So there’s a double-edged sword there of like, getting the best electional chart but also sometimes then not being as functional when you’re trying to get that chart. So yeah, it’s a challenge.
All right. Rachel asked, “Did you intentionally schedule this live podcast to happen during the eclipse?” No. Well, today’s not an eclipse; it’s just a Full Moon. I did – let me pull up our electional chart for today, because that’s actually worth just mentioning as a example. Let’s see, is this it? Yeah. So this is transit chart. I think you can see the transit chart right now, right, Will?
W: Yep.
CB: Okay. So yeah. We just used Virgo rising today. So we started like, an hour ago. The main timing for today was just that, let’s see, that Venus is stationing direct today in Pisces. There is a Full Moon in Libra. I wanted to use Virgo rising because now Mercury has stationed direct, and we can put Jupiter in the 10th house. Of course, we have the Mercury-Neptune conjunction, so that’s not ideal, but this is our chart that we’re working with, and then I’m gonna have us finish up by the time the Full Moon goes exact. Because after it goes exact, it’s gonna start applying to Mars. So that’s kind of my electional thinking today. And I felt like today was better than today when there will be a Moon-square-Pluto. So but I was restrained by needing to do these on a weekend, since everybody’s – more people – are available on weekends rather than, you know, during the weekday.
All right. Sorry for that digression. What’s your – let me put up your chart. Is this correct? Yeah, you have four Leo rising?
W: That is correct, yeah.
CB: Okay. And we used your example previously for like, the 3rd house or something, right?
W: Yes! Oh my gosh, another 3rd house thing. You had mentioned at one point that you thought that maybe 3rd house stuff could possibly tie into grandparents as well. Crazy thing – I was doing a reading for a family member, and I saw where something played out in their chart, and I was like, well, that seems rough. I didn’t think of looking at my own chart to just kind of like, verify. And then when I lost my grandpa, it was like, okay, well, there’s that. And when you were gonna do the recording for like, I think it was 2nd house, because then you were gonna do the recording for the 3rd house. But during that time, I was actually heading to see my grandpa, so it was crazy. So like, oh, I gotta tell him that! But I forgot.
CB: Wow. Nice. That’s great.
W: But yeah, I saw it play out in somebody else’s like, 4th house, and I was like, okay! And then I was like, played out in my 3rd house, so it just kind of like, played out with the significations so it could be another point for the grandparents possibly being represented in the 3rd.
CB: Right. Okay. That makes sense. Good. Good to know. All right, so with your example, we’re talking about your 9th house. You have an example of – what was your example for today?
W: It’s actually 4th and 9th house, because I had a solar return around the time that we actually, that Mars entered into Cancer. But it was just – I think that my solar return was just before that. But Mars, when he went retrograde, rules my 4th house, and I just started having a lot of issues with my landlord company. Like, the property management company that I was dealing with at the house I was living in. And it ended up resulting in me like, having to leave. They ended up filing some fraudulent documents claiming that like, I hadn’t paid rent and stuff, so like, they were like, legitimately going above and beyond. And I was like, well, I don’t wanna have to deal with that anymore! And since I was dealing with that and I was expecting to get money from like, moving out, I was like, all right, let me just leave the country, and then I can actually go on and do the other things that I wanted to do anyways.
And so I was like, all right, I’m gonna go ahead and get ready to just leave, move to – I was gonna start here in Brazil, see people here, then go back to Spain, and like, just check out a few different places, see where it is exactly I want to move, right? And it all just kept getting like, completely like, thrown off. Even my trip, my plans to come here, I wasn’t paying attention to it at the time, but it just happened to be around the time that Mars was stationing and turning back. So like, I was trying to book my tickets and everything to come here at the end of December. But for some reason, it just wasn’t working out, and I ended up having to wait until the next month, got my tickets for like, later on that month and just came here to Brazil.
But yeah, it has me moving into a foreign country. And another thing that’s kind of interesting is it’s brining me back to like, I was last here in like – the first time I came to Brazil was in like, 2018. Very beginning of 2018, like, the end of 2017, beginning of 2018. And it was after I’d made like, a trip to Spain. I lived in Spain from 2006 to 2008; I was there as a missionary. And now like, I’m going back out to the world and like, doing my own thing. And I’m gonna be talking about things maybe not – like, I’ll be talking about god and spirituality, religion, and stuff like that, but from a different angle than what I did years ago when I went out as a missionary.
CB: Got it. Okay. So some of this relates to some challenges with respect to the Mars retrograde and some challenges that you had with – was it with the foreign country, or was it with some challenges you ran into with other people that caused you to go to a different country?
W: It was more so the people that were managing the place that I was living in that just kind of made it to where I was like, all right, I’m done with this. I had wanted to move back; I wanted to like, come here to Brazil like, years ago, but the covid stuff started getting really crazy and I’m like, I’m just gonna go back home and I’m gonna hang out there for a bit. And then like, when all of this stuff started just going out of control, I was like, all right, I’m gonna just go ahead and make a jump, and I’m gonna go for it. Especially because I’d already looked at my solar return chart; I’d looked at like, my profections and progressions. I’d looked at all kinds of different things. I’m like, well, this is my year for like, Venus to like, do her thing, so let’s see what she does! I just wasn’t actually… I hadn’t actually like, planned everything out necessarily. I was just trying to go for it. And during the Venus retrograde, like, a lot of things just kept reminding me of the fact that, guess what? You didn’t really set things up properly, so we’re gonna have to figure it out.
CB: Got it. Okay. So the Venus retrograde in your 9th house was you relocating to another country?
W: Yeah. And I’m still trying to figure out exactly how I’m gonna do that, because when I was back in the States, 3rd house – I did Uber, and I’m also like, a consulting astrologer, so like, I was able to, like, get a lot of clients because I was doing Uber because I was talking to people and they could see that I knew what I was talking about, right? And so I’m thinking, oh, okay, cool. Well, when I get out there to Brazil, I’ll just continue on with my clients and stuff and I’ll be fine; all I need is a few a month to like, make it, right? I wasn’t thinking about the fact that I wasn’t gonna be doing Uber, so I wasn’t gonna be catching new clients that way. So it was like, ah! And I’m like —
CB: Right.
W: — all right, well, I’ll have to pivot and then see if maybe social media will be a way to do it.
CB: Right. Because previously we talked about you having like, Venus as the ruler of the 10th in the 3rd and how you were driving for Uber at the time, I think, was part of the example last time we talked.
W: That’s right. It was, actually. That was when Venus was transiting through my 2nd house, and I ended up making like, a really good amount that month, and it happened to be like, linked to my sister who was the reason for me being there in the first place. And then another sister like, there was a lot of things like, linking my 3rd house up to actually siblings and my career.
CB: Got it. Okay. So Venus going into your 9th house – so you have Leo rising, for those listening to the audio version, so Venus and Mercury went retrograde in your 9th house, and you get out there and you now relocated to another country but you’re running into some issues in terms of like, work and finances that are side effects of that. And it sounded like the Mars retrograde, especially the station in like, February, was running into some tensions with some people that sort of precipitated things or caused you to move.
W: It was when Mars actually entered into Cancer is when I started having issues with them, and then in November around the time of like, the… As the Mars-Pluto was getting more exact is when I started actually like, I was like, I can’t stay here; I need to move. So like, I ended up leaving for like, at that point, I just left the place.
CB: Got it. Okay. Yeah. So I guess part of it is just because Mars is retrograde in your 12th house, and sometimes the 12th house in ancient astrology was associated traditionally with like, enemies. But in a modern context, sometimes it can just be like, people that you don’t get along with very well. And since Mars stationed like, early near your Ascendant in December, and you were experiencing the whole Mars-Pluto opposition across your either 12th house-6th house axis or your 1st house-7th house axis that there was some tensions with other people that were ongoing throughout that Mars retrograde that eventually pushed you to relocate.
W: Yeah.
CB: Got it. Okay. That makes sense. And then the eclipse, the last Aries eclipse, just took place in your 9th house at the end of March. So do you feel like you’ll be abroad for a while now, or what are your plans?
W: Yeah, the plan is to pretty much figure out exactly – like, everything’s in such a confusing state, like, I feel like the astrology of like, March really just kind of threw everything off. Because there’s just so much that was going on with like, the retrogrades and the – sorry, I’ve got a friend that’s popping in – the retrogrades and the eclipses to where like, I’ve just been kind of like, thrown off by all the energy. There’s like a whole bunch of back and forth. Like, you know, the Mercury going retrograde right after the eclipse, and then like, stationing at the same point that we had the Aries eclipse. And like, I’m slowly starting to figure out a lot about what exactly like, how things should work out and how I could possibly work them out. I’m hoping that with the Venus stationing direct and going direct, like, I’ll have a better idea of how like, a lot of my finances and things like that are gonna work out. As it is —
CB: Right. Okay.
W: — yeah, it’s already brought me more, because a lot of it depends on what exactly I’m able to afford, because if I don’t have too much coming in, then I won’t be able to keep on going like, into further areas.
CB: Got it. Yeah, that makes sense. Now I understand. So it’s like, the Venus and Mercury stationing in your 9th house and then retrograding back into your 8th house, and the fundamental tension that you’re dealing with during this time is between relocating to a foreign country but then how that’s affected your financial situation and the tension between those two that’s like, playing out during the course of this retrograde. But hopefully now that both planets have stationed direct and they’re gonna move out of your 8th house and back into your 9th house in order to finish things up there, hopefully some of those initial setbacks and things that you’ve experienced after that move will start to settle down a little bit so you can start moving forward again.
W: Yeah, that’s what I’m hoping, because like, there’s a lot that’s like, tied up for me with like, from the 2nd to the 4th all the way from like, the 8th – not the 8th – the 9th, 10th, and 11th. Like, that’s all like, tied in with the different retrogrades that we’ve had. Like, we had Mars, who went retrograde, and then before he was out, Venus went retrograde. Same time as she actually stationed to go retrograde, Mercury was entering his shadow. There’s so much, it’s just kind of like, mixing so much together. So my fingers are crossed, and I’m sure that like, as Venus starts to actually go direct herself and when she leaves her shadow soon, we’ll be fine. Like, I’ll be in the clear and I’ll be able to understand things a lot better, just because while they’re still in that period, I guess she’s turned around now – well, she’s gonna be turning around, I think, within the next couple hours – that’ll be great. But when she actually continues on in the morning star phase, it’ll be a lot more supportive of actually going out there and doing things and like, making things happen.
CB: Right.
W: Especially because like, I have actually started posting, even though like, I don’t like it. I’ve been like, at least blog posting; I’ve been doing that. So like, I’ve been getting that going. But like, trying to actually do things and make movement happen.
CB: Right. Yeah. Usually when Venus starts to – I mean, we’ve seen that in some of the examples so far with Mars that now that Mars is finally getting towards the end of Cancer and is starting to pick up steam again that some of the problems that were set up during the retrograde in the backwards movement, people start to slowly step out of that almost as if you were in like, quicksand for a while but you start to grab ahold of something and pull yourself out slowly until eventually you’re back up and walking away from that period where you got stuck for a little bit. Sometimes that’s people’s experience of retrogrades. And —
W: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. After this point, hopefully with Venus moving forward again, that’ll be helpful.
W: Yeah, especially with Mars being in the 12th, like, I haven’t been able to sleep for like, shit. Like, it’s been pretty rough for quite some time, so it would be great to have him out of there in a place that’s more stable and, you know, supportive of like, forward action. Everything else going forward as well, so fingers crossed. We’ll see what happens. Either way it goes —
CB: Yeah.
W: — I’m like, riding the wave. I’m learning to do that.
CB: Yeah. Definitely. Yeah, I think the 12th house does relate to sleep. I always think about it symbolically of how the 12th house was the sign that was rising in the hour or two prior to when you were born, so it’s kind of like, the sign that was rising an hour or two before you “woke up” for the first time and like, had your first full day of life. It’s one of the reasons I sometimes think about symbolically why the 12th might relate to sleep and just empirically it often does seem to for different reasons.
W: Yeah.
CB: Cool. All right, buddy. Thanks for sharing that example; I appreciate it. That was a good example.
W: All right. Thank you!
CB: All right. Thanks!
All right, let me check the live chart. Sadie says, “Thanks for sharing, Will.” Yeah, he’s got a lot of dignified planets. I think we talked about that last time, especially the Venus in the 3rd and one of the cool things in the 3rd house episode I think is Will also has like, a lot of siblings. Oh yeah, no, that was it. Has a lot of siblings and had lived with his siblings at different points with the IC in the 3rd house; it was a great example of that.
Okay. Amelia, Cancer rising. All right. I don’t – yeah, let’s try it. Amelia, let me see. If you’re Cancer rising, I don’t remember if we’ve done one of those yet. Are you ready to come on video?
All right. What’s your birth data?
AMELIA: It’s four four, 1980.
CB: What time?
A: 10:47 AM.
CB: And what place?
A: It’s Woodside, Queens County, New York. Sometimes I think it’s hard for them to find that one, so you can also just do Astoria, New York, if you can’t find that.
CB: Is your Ascendant 15 Cancer?
A: Yeah.
CB: All right. So here’s your chart. For those listening to the audio version, we’re looking at a chart with 15 degrees of Cancer. The Sun in Aries at 15 degrees of Aries in the 10th whole sign house. Let’s see, Jupiter in Virgo in the 3rd and Mars in Leo in the 2nd retrograde. All right. So what’s your example or what’s been going on with you? Your primary thing is the Mars retrograde, obviously retrograded back and stationed very close to your Ascendant degree.
A: Yeah. So I thought it was kind of a weird example for Mars in retrograde, or it took me by surprise that the manifestation of, but the backstory is that when I was born, I was born at home and it was 1980, so paperwork, you know, acted a lot differently back then. And I was given my father’s surname on my birth certificate like most normal children do. And then when I was entered into school, my mom forged my birth certificate to give me her last name. And so I’ve had all of my identification as my mom’s maiden name, except for my birth certificate.
So I started this process like, a year ago, but in October, which was like, mid-October when Mars was in Cancer still, but I think it was in its shadow period at that point, I got a denial. So I legally changed my name to Amelia Merrick last June. That went fine. You know, I got the court order. But it takes weeks if not months to get any kind of like, response from Vital Statistics in my city that I was born in in New York. So in this case, it was like, four months. And I got a rejection letter in October that said we cannot change your name on your birth certificate to match your legal name in this court order, because there’s these identifiers that aren’t on the court order because state bureaucracies don’t talk to each other. So this is like, a name that I’ve been using my whole life, which is Amelia Merrick, and I just wanted to change one document, which was my birth certificate, so I didn’t have to change my entire identity and like, documents thereon forward, which includes driver’s license, passport, social security number, stuff like that. And so October is when I got the denial letter, and it’s been like, months of going back and forth with Vital Statistics refusing to change my name because of the lack of these identifiers. So then in March, I got really overwhelmed and I just decided that I was going to actually reverse course and change my identity to my original surname, which was my father’s surname. And I just had court yesterday, and I just did that. Like, I finished that – I had that date, I set that court date in March, had it yesterday. So in theory, going forward, I should be – you know, it’s gonna cost extra month. It’s not cheap to change your name. So you know, I have natal Mars in the 2nd house, so I had to like, double the cost of changing my name two times. So I don’t know. The whole like, identity having to —
CB: Oh. So that’s funny, so it connected – it did connect the 2nd house and the 1st house because you’re going through a long, extended process of trying to change your identity in a sense, but it was also costing you a bunch of money at the same time?
A: I mean, what should have cost 250 dollars with the court name change and a Vital Statistics fee is now gonna cost me upwards of a thousand dollars for like —
CB: Wow.
A: — another court name change. And then I have to change my driver’s license, my social security card, my passport, my – like, all of the things. My Global Entry card, all of that stuff. So once the fees add up, it will cost me a significant amount of money to make my birth certificate match my identity, which has been in the news lately with like, the SAVE Act and stuff. Which is just —
CB: Oh right, because if you – if it doesn’t, you’re not gonna be able to vote now, basically.
A: Yeah.
CB: Wow. Okay.
A: Which is not the reason I am doing it; I’m doing it for immigration purposes. And my immigration lawyer was like, you need to have your birth certificate match your passport.
CB: Okay. Got it.
A: Yeah. So I mean, that’s just one example of how like, this law could affect people if they don’t get this taken care of. But also like, the hurdles and cost of making it a barrier for people, which I thought just that was kind of interesting that it’s all happening at the same time.
CB: You’re doing it for immigration purposes in the sense of so that you could immigrate if you wanted to, or do you have an intention to?
A: Yeah. My father is a Bulgarian citizen, and I’m trying to basically get an EU passport.
CB: Got it.
A: But I can’t even start that process until my name matches my other documents, which has now taken a year almost to do.
CB: So that’s the Venus retrograde component is like, Venus has just stationed in your 9th house in Pisces, in your 9th whole sign house, on the degree of your Midheaven. And you just had some court case yesterday that was an important turning point?
A: Yeah. I finally just took my birth certificate name, which is my father’s last name. Which, you know, he was estranged from me. He left when I was six months old, so I have no like, personal relationship to it. But I guess the plus side is that for immigration purposes, having a Bulgarian last name will look better on my application. So that’s a plus.
CB: Yeah. If you need to like, skip town if things start getting sort of sketchier here.
A: Yeah. Exactly.
CB: All right. That makes sense. So that’s really interesting because that’s tying together both of the retrogrades as well as it’s showing – you know, this is not a theory, but it was something that I saw really clearly for the first time in the 2003 – when I started doing the 2003 Venus retrograde where that cycle used to be in Virgo and Leo. And when I was doing the research, a lot of people had events that were connecting like, two houses, and so I was really curious like, how this Mars retrograde was gonna connect two houses in people’s charts. And this is a really fascinating example of that here where just, you know, Mars went retrograde in your 2nd house and it retrograded back into your 1st, and the core issue was like, trying to do these things to change your identity and running into obstacles and challenges in the process of that, but then having greater expenditures as a result. So that obviously ties together the 1st and the 2nd. But then also Venus retrograding back into and stationing in your 9th house and the purpose behind a lot of this behind potentially relocating to another country at some point so that getting it to start going through has now opened up your opportunity, at least, to be able to travel or to immigrate to a foreign country if you need to.
A: Yeah. And I have one more like, legal hurdle to overcome, which I’m hoping that these eclipses in the 9th and 3rd help that situation, because that’s another like, barrier for me is just like, clearing up some old legal stuff. I have an interview to meet with a lawyer on next Wednesday for, so you know —
CB: Got it.
A: — that hasn’t really like, clarified yet, you know. It’s like, before I can even like, send in that application. But I mean, I have like, a natal stationing direct Mars in Leo. That’s like, it’s retrograde, but it’s actually stationing direct in my chart. And then the whole like, identity stuff with having my luminaries like, ruled by Mars as well.
CB: Right. For sure. Yeah, I mean —
A: Yeah, how I’m perceived, I guess, and what my name is!
CB: Yeah. I mean, even the Venus retrograde – Venus and Mercury retrograde stations – were, you know, not too far off of your Sun there at 15 degrees of Aries. So it’s interesting how that’s kind of relevant as an overlapping theme as well in terms of identity and like, public identity especially with the 10th house.
A: Yeah. I mean, I love to live dangerously. So during the Venus retrograde near my Sun, I did buy a pair of scissors and cut my own hair for the first time, which I know is very taboo. You’re not supposed to do that!
CB: Nice. I mean, no, I mean, sometimes – I don’t know. Sometimes while those are guidelines, it’s like, sometimes the guidelines are meant to be broken.
A: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Nice. Okay. Well, I think that’s a pretty good example, and I like it especially just because it gives further insight into the 1st house. And when I did the 1st house episode, that was something I talked about – how the 1st house seems really abstract sometimes when you try to explain it or especially when I try to teach it. Because you know, the primary keyword for the 1st house is like, you. That it represents you in the chart, and your identity especially. But what “you” means, what the concept of “you” is in the chart as opposed to the concept of other people in your life, which is what the rest of the chart tends to represent, or other situations in your life, sometimes even though that seems really abstract, sometimes when you have a 1st house transit, the concept of you and your identity, how you appear to the world and different things like that can come up in very specific and obvious ways. And this is like, actually a really great example of that.
A: Yeah. And I didn’t come out unscathed on a physical manifestation, either, but it was pretty minor. But yeah, just I thought it was really interesting signifier, I guess, that I hadn’t really thought about deeply until it happened.
CB: Right. What was the physical thing?
A: I got into a bike wreck like, two months ago. Or sorry, not two months ago – in mid-March – and I gashed my shin open quite grossly. It wasn’t severe, but I will have a significant scar. But in January during the Mars retrograde, I got a tattoo on my other shin as like, kind of like, medicine I guess for the transit. And I just thought it was funny that it was the exact placement – the injury was the exact placement of where the tattoo was, but just on the other leg. I was like, my tattoo artist would have been really mad at me!
CB: Right. That’s really funny. So it’s like, you tried to propitiate at with the tattoo first, but then you still ended up having like, a injury to the other leg, basically.
A: Yeah. In the exact same spot, but just other limb.
CB: Yeah. So that’s, I mean, that’s another good one. So it’s like, first house, and yeah, the first house can represent the body and like, the physical appearance. And like, getting a tattoo, which is literally like, nail gun, but a needle like, puncturing the skin like, very rapidly in order to create the pattern and then the other, you know, first house Mars classic thing is sometimes getting a scar or having bloodshed of some sort, which you know, you could have seen that transit coming and maybe been more nervous because there’s like, extreme examples of that that could have been worse. But then you had that, and obviously there was blood, and you have a scar, but it also – and therefore that’ll leave like, a permanent mark on your body that you’ll remember that Mars retrograde transit from. But it also wasn’t the worst case scenario. So it’s kind of, again, just interesting in terms of one of the challenges looking at difficult transits coming up is we can never fully gage the level of intensity because it’s always gonna be on like, a spectrum of possible manifestations and it’s not sometimes until the event comes that you fully know the level of intensity or extremeness. And most of the time, when it finally happens, typically it’s more manageable than we might expect ahead of time in some instances.
A: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I saw the transit coming. I knew it was my first house. I was a little nervous in especially – I commute to work by my bike, not far, but it’s busy area. So I had actually been really nervous about getting hit by a car this whole time, but in the end, it was just like, I hit the curb at the wrong angle, and I just flipped over and it was on a sidewalk. So like, I still hurt myself on my bike, but the thing that, you know, I was sort of catastrophizing I guess, like, how bad it could be. But it also made me more cautious knowing that the transit was happening and I was like, trying to be more aware of my surroundings with cars and stuff like that.
CB: Right.
A: I mean, I guess, yeah, you could like, sort of see if you’re – to try to be more self-aware of your surroundings during these kinds of transits.
CB: Right. I mean, that’s the fundamental tension as astrologers is like, we are more aware and we do try to avoid stuff more, and yet sometimes there’s still things that happen despite our best, I don’t know, being on guard or our best efforts. Which is not to say that the being on guard doesn’t matter, because I do think that sometimes that mitigates things, especially when there’s things within our control or ways in which situations could be worse if we don’t restrain ourselves like, during difficult transits. And yet at the same time, there’s also like, a level of something still happening and the energy still needing to manifest in some way, like, one way or another.
A: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Cool. All right. That’s a really good example. Thank you for sharing that. I hope that works out well. And yeah, let me know how that turns out.
A: Maybe I’ll come up for your next Virgo-Pisces eclipse series and maybe my legal passport issues will have some fruition to them!
CB: Yeah. Maybe you’ll be in like, Europe by that point —
A: Yeah!
CB: — and you can Zoom and join the Zoom and tell us how things are going.
A: Yeah, exactly.
CB: Cool. All right.
A: Thank you!
CB: Thank you! Thanks.
All right. Let me look at the comments. Yeah, these have been some great examples today. Jen says, “Thanks for sharing.” Does anybody have an example of one of these retrogrades in a house that we haven’t covered yet where the retrograde clearly activated the topic of that house in a way that’s really like, striking and obvious with the sign that it went retrograde in? Let me know in the comments if you do.
Okay. Partner’s resources. So we haven’t done any that tied in the 8th house and partner’s resources, so that could be a good one, Abby. Do you wanna join me to share that?
Hi.
ABBY: Hi, Chris. Thank you.
CB: Yeah, thanks for joining me.
A: Yeah! Thank you. I’m excited to be here and share my 9th, 8th house story and this current retrograde cycle where it’s going.
CB: What’s your birth data?
A: It’s 1:13 PM, Albany, New York, April 10th, 1953.
CB: All right. Okay, right, yeah. So you have the Sun-Venus cazimi or Sun-Venus conjunction. You were born under this Venus retrograde in Aries in 1953. And you have Leo rising for those listening to the audio version with the Sun at 20 Aries conjunct Venus at 24 Aries, opposite to Neptune at 22 Libra and Saturn at 24 Libra. Your Jupiter and Mars are both in Taurus in the 10th house. So what’s been going on, or what did you wanna share in terms of how these transits have been working out for you?
A: Well, it’s interesting, because on March 1st, the Saturday just before all this activity of retrograde cycles began, I culminated a lot of heavy research into a paper that I delivered on that Saturday to a group of women. And the paper took me – I’m committed to writing these papers every year, and it’s like an adventure. And this particular one focused on eclipses, and I was inspired actually by a lot of your presentations on The Astrology Podcast for prompting me onto this paper that I wrote. And to make a long story short, I came out of the end of the paper incredibly desirous to see an eclipse in my lifetime. I missed the one last year in April, even though it was practically in my own backyard. And so I’m now on a quest to go to Luxor, Egypt, in 2027, because that will be the really big one that will last for six minutes and 32 seconds. And I’m now trying to make plans for that. And so during this whole cycle, since March 1st, I’ve been planning this trip to Luxor. I already know what hotel I wanna stay in and exactly what room I wanna be in. And also during this time, and I’ve been very homebound because I’m a 24/7 caregiver right now in my life, so I don’t have that Aries freedom, except when I’m studying and gaining higher knowledge. So for instance, for this paper for next year, I already sort of focused in on who I wanna write about, which are two of the women artists who designed tarot decks. You know, Pamela Colman Smith and Lady Frieda Harris. And so this quest is taking me on an adventure and a trip that I wanna take to New York shortly. You know, in the week after next. And I’m going on a trip on Tuesday, you know, just because I need to, I want to just be away, you know? Away from where I am now, not in my normal 3rd house, you know, place where I seem to always be existing, especially right now. So it’s just been a very interesting cycle for me. You know, picking these destinations, planning them, thinking about them, and in order to make that happen, I have to, you know, I’m not a moneymaker. I’m a spender. I was born into money. All my life, I haven’t had to really – you know, I haven’t had to work for it. It’s just sort of been there for me, although I have periods where I have highs and lows where I feel like I have more or less. I’ve been through a real less time in recent years. So you know, making these decisions to do things that I wanna do with expenditures, I have to, you know, think about how I’m spending them. I have to, I need to consult with others; I can’t make these decisions on my own. It’s like I have to get permission in a kind of a way. I’m not, even at this late date in my life, I’m not calling my own shots when it comes to, you know, thinking about making plans like this. So I’m always engaged in that 8th house, I feel like, experience.
CB: Sure. So you’re making plans for like, a trip for like, an international trip, but your personal finances are tied up with your partner’s finances, and that’s part of Venus’s connection in terms of going retrograde in your 9th house of travel and going back and stationing direct in your 8th house of shared resources?
A: I think. And also, with Venus in Pisces, somehow vanity seems to have been at the forefront in during especially this retrograde. And so I also wanna spend big bucks on self beautification. And so it’s like, I mean, my budget could keep going on and on and on and on and on, and you know, that I have to rein myself in and figure out where my priorities are right now and what’s really important, you know? I’m having to take a good look at that, especially on this birthday, and especially at this late date. Because I only have, you know, like, two more Venus retrogrades to go through in this lifetime, when I think about it. You know?
CB: Sure. So the paper you published it on March 1st, you said?
A: Well, I delivered it publicly. In other words —
CB: And what was that on?
A: It was on eclipses. It was actually, well, it became a focus paper on Mabel Loomis Todd, who was married to an astronomer who was an eclipse chaser in the 19th century. And Mabel Loomis Todd also was responsible for discovering and publishing all of Emily Dickinson’s poetry and letters. So without Mabel, Emily would never have been discovered. And I started channeling Mabel in my life and this woman traveled, she has a Guinness Book of World Records for seeing eclipses in the 19th century with all of her travels. And she traveled all over the planet to see eclipses with her husband. And I felt while I was researching the paper that I was almost like, traveling with her, and wanted to, you know, follow in her footsteps with the energy that I have left. I mean, really, writing about her has been the catalyst to spur me on. So it was through this research of eclipses that, you know, finally I landed into Mabel’s lap and kind of ran with her for months. And I have a bookshelf of everything she ever published and wrote, plus, you know, everything written about eclipses that you could possibly accumulate. I have a library that exceeds normal libraries.
CB: Nice. So yeah, there’s lots of 9th house themes there. And was this, like, an academic presentation, or what was —
A: Yes.
CB: — the context of presenting it?
A: Yes. In fact, the paper will ultimately be stored in the archives in the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe University. So it’s pretty, you know, it’s heavy duty. It’s a paper with gravitas. And —
CB: Yeah.
A: — I also was thinking of turning it into a powerpoint presentation, you know, to share with others. Because I feel like I need to share my knowledge and learning out there with others instead of just accumulating and accumulating and accumulating.
CB: Got it. Okay. I love that. So you have Leo rising; you have the ruler of the Ascendant in the 9th house in Aries conjunct that retrograde Venus. And you’re very like, academically focused. And then you researched and delivered for the first time an important paper with Venus stationing retrograde in your 9th house.
A: Yes. And also I have just a background of – I think I’m very proud of my higher learning that I’ve accomplished in this lifetime. You know, my degrees. Like, I enjoy wearing my rings from all of the universities I’ve received degrees from, you know, lined up in a little line. They make me feel good about myself. You know, that mark of higher learning. It’s interesting.
CB: What’s your academic background and training?
A: I studied first as a landscape architect. So I have a deep connection to the earth. My training, my bachelor degree was in that field. My master’s degree from Harvard was in that field. And then I took on serious astrological study learning, which feels very 9th house, after 9/11, and it’s been a deepdive into this subject ever since. I mean, I’m just so grateful I discovered astrology; I can’t think of a higher 9th house adventure. Even though I’m tied to my home and caregiving, I feel like I’m traveling further than most people who get on planes multiple times a year travel in the course of just a day.
CB: That’s a really good point that the ruler with like, so much 9th house emphasis that the 9th house emphasis can sometimes be literal travel and especially foreign travel. But it’s also the place of education and knowledge and learning and the travel can also happen in the mind and not just physically.
A: Yes. And it’s also interesting, because on several of the Venus retrogrades in the past, I literally have been in foreign places on my birthday during that time. Like, at age 16, I was in Israel. And in 2009, I was in Jamaica. In 2017, I was in Italy and France during my birthday. And I didn’t, you know, say, oh, you know, I need to be in a 9th house place on my birthday. It just happened to happen that way.
CB: Right. So it’s like, you’re born almost on a Sun-Venus cazimi with Venus retrograde in Aries in your 9th house, and periodically this same retrograde from your birth repeats every eight years and you find yourself traveling to a foreign country around those times.
A: Yeah. But only because of this topic and lecture have I actually like, looked back over all the nine Venus retrograde cycles to see and place where I was and what I was doing during that time. It’s very, very interesting in hindsight! And I think about it more poignantly right now, and even bound here I’m figuring out ways to get away during this time. It’s just so interesting.
CB: Yeah. I love that. Because it’s something that just happened naturally in your life that you happened to do that like, every eight years around your birthday. But now, you know, learning this technique that the Venus retrogrades repeat every eight years and that you have that natal signature in your 9th house, it sort of like, falls into place of why that pattern happened, basically.
A: Yes. And I think it also focuses on during the retrograde cycle reminding me because it’s always passing over that 9th house, you know, how really I think when all is said and done, when I express myself best, it’s with 9th house topics and in a 9th house place of being. So it’s almost like I had to revisit that after giving that paper this year, I feel. You know, I really started to really think about what do I wanna learn about again? So I signed up, yet again, for the tarot course I took with the London School of Astrology, you know, just so I could revisit it. I’m revisiting lectures I took with the School of Mormon Anatomy. I’m revisiting lectures that I signed up for you from eons ago; I don’t even remember what they were anymore, but I’m revisiting them again. So it’s like I’m relearning – I always feel like I have to learn and learn and relearn, and especially it’s very poignant right now during this retrograde cycle.
CB: Nice. I like that. So the backwards looking component of things coming back from the past and looking back to the past for you because it’s happening in your 9th house is you going back and revisiting topics of higher education and sometimes divination that you’ve studied in the past and refreshing yourself on some of those things.
A: Exactly.
CB: I love that. That’s really great. That’s really insightful, just into the way the Venus retrograde can be backwards looking and bring things back from the past. But sometimes that’s not just like, people or places, but it can be topics of study basically, in this instance with the 9th house.
A: Absolutely with study! I feel that’s where it’s hitting me the most. And it’s so interesting, because I know that Venus is in a few hours finally going direct, and it’s so interesting because I’ve even had trouble opening the few birthday gifts that I’ve received until waiting for this direct moment! you know? I’m just opening them now to look at them, and you know, allowing Venus to come in. I think being born with Venus retrograde, it’s kind of like, you know, a sponge doesn’t know how to let the water come through the right way, you know? So.
CB: Right.
A: I was very glad when it, by progression, Venus went direct in my life. After I studied astrology, I realized when that moment was coming; it was a moment to kind of celebrate. And then when Venus by progression entered Taurus, I started the Abby beautification project. You know? And now I just want to use my knowledge and put it out there and gift it back out there in the world with what time I’ve got left. But I’m still thinking about vanity. I’ve gotta look good while I’m doing it! You know, that Leo rising gets in the way.
CB: Right. Yeah, so it comes up as a first house component just because you have the ruler of the Ascendant conjunct Venus like, in that sign that the retrograde is hitting now so that there’s a first house body and like, appearance component to it.
A: Yeah. And the Mars retrograde through the 12th and 1st house, and also this is a 1st house profection year for me, which I’m thrilled about. Thrilled! Thrilled to have, you know, the Sun be the pilot this year as opposed to the Moon last year. That was not fun! That was like being in turbulence every other day!
CB: Yeah. So you’re just getting out of your 12th house profection year and two days ago you just moved into a 1st house year, so you’re setting a new foundation for the next 12 years.
A: Exactly. And that feels very refreshing for me right now. I mean, I haven’t looked at all the aspects that are – I mean, I know challenges are there, but right now I’m just sort of focused on the 1st house, the profection, you know, Venus going direct, Mars entering Leo, all of that after this whole retrograde cycle.
CB: Yeah. That’s exciting. It’s the beginning of a new 12-year profection cycle but also the new eight-year Venus cycle it seems like, since this Venus retrograde in Aries is your natal one. So it’s opening up a new sequence of like, eight years that you’ll revisit then like, eight years from now the next time Venus goes retrograde in Aries.
A: Yeah. I’ve already looked ahead. In fact, another interesting exercise was looking at the placement of Saturn during all of these cycles, because you know, Saturn was such, you know. I mean, it has such a role against my Sun and Venus in my birth chart; it’s directly opposite Venus. So I just was looking at, thinking about Saturn in Pisces this year versus the years when Saturn was in Capricorn. The one year when it was in Taurus, you know, during this retrograde cycle. And then, you know, looking ahead, I thought, oh, I don’t like where Saturn’s going to be in the next cycle or the one after that for me. You know, I’ve already like, I’m already not happy with Saturn in the next goes around! Oh well!
CB: Yeah.
A: But that’s okay.
CB: Yeah. I mean, it’ll be interesting, yeah, that shift of Saturn going into your 9th house and just as well as Neptune recently entering your 9th house and maybe getting more serious even about some of the studies that you’re focused on. Although it’s interesting, because part of the overlap is you’re also focusing on some kind of like, occult or sort of quasi-spiritual type topics. Like you were talking about focusing on the tarot and some of the women who were involved in illustrating cards and things like that, right?
A: Exactly. Yes. And I’ve studied the tarot – when I came into astrology with a tarot background, so that was sort of like, a foundation when I began this study.
CB: That’s interesting. You said 2001 was when you got into astrology, right?
A: Yes. And I began studying the tarot seriously around 1990, so about 10 years earlier. So I knew the deck. I was already giving readings to people when I began studying astrology seriously right after 9/11.
CB: Yeah.
A: And I’d been seeing astrologers for solar return readings for many years leading up to that, but my desire to truly wanna begin learning began then.
CB: 2001 was another Venus retrograde in Aries year, so it’s interesting that later that you had a solar return with Venus retrograde on your Sun was the year that you got into astrology.
A: Yes. And it’s so interesting, because I had to work hard to figure out how to find astrology at the time. I discovered astrology through Joseph Crane, who I’m sure you’re familiar with, and so I had a Hellenistic foundation which was amazing for me to be, you know, getting my learning from the ground up with that foundation from Joseph Crane at the time. And it just took off from there. I just, you know, it just took off from there.
CB: Nice.
A: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. That’s beautiful. Well, I think that’s an amazing example; I love how the natal signature of just having those 9th house placements has given you that predisposition towards 9th house topics throughout your life and how the activation of Venus retrograde in Aries subsequent times has unlocked different stages almost in terms of your journey with that. So that’s really beautiful.
A: Yeah, I mean, I can’t wait for your podcasts to come out! You know, when they come out it’s like, there’s an excitement there with higher learning. You know, I’m learning, learning, learning all the time, trying to keep my brain sharp and honed at this chapter of life. So thanks for letting me share; I appreciate it.
CB: Yeah! Thank you for sharing, and thanks for – yeah, that’s a great example of just multiple things, but especially just having the ruler of the Ascendant in the 9th house and that lifelong love of learning. So I love that. Thank you for sharing it!
Yeah. Ashley says, “Beautiful. Thank you for sharing, Abby! Great 9th house story.”
Tonya says, “Thank you for sharing, Abby.”
Yeah. That’s a good observation about the 1st house profection year. Beautiful! all right. I think that might be it for today. I’d like to keep going, but I’m a little running low on energy. So I think that was such a good example that I wanna end of a high note. I always try to like, go out on a high note when it comes to these, and I don’t can’t think of any way to get any higher than that, because that was just a very beautiful example having that signature natally in the chart and having it reactivated again. And even this, obviously, is also connected with that in terms of two days after the solar return and, you know, appearing in an episode of The Astrology Podcast, so that’s really beautiful.
All right. Thanks everyone for joining me for this today. Thanks everyone who shared your chart and shared your stories. I really appreciate it. I love – you know, we talk so much on the forecast episodes about transits when they’re coming up and what we’re anticipating from them, and we give news updates as we go about stuff that’s happening in the news that coincided with these transits. But sometimes it’s only when you talk to people directly about their personal lives and how these transits worked out in retrograde that you can truly get a deeper understanding of the importance of some of these retrogrades and eclipses and everything else. And that’s when it comes alive, but it also becomes very beautiful, both when talking about and dealing with some of the positive things that happen, but also when dealing with some of the challenging things that happen at the same time. We can learn a lot about that as astrologers and a lot – I feel like especially today, we learned a lot about the nuances of different houses based on where the transit was. And I think that’s always the biggest opportunity is being able to develop more nuanced understandings of what the houses and the planets mean by hearing how these transits played out in people’s lives, especially when it’s like, something the person just experienced or is in the process of experiencing. Because then in talking with them, you can talk about some of the nuances and details not just about like, the sequence of events, but also about how that made them feel during the course of it, or what their personal reflections are in terms of the impact that had in their lives. So that’s one of the reasons why it’s valuable to do that, like, right in the moment or right coming off of a period like this like we did today.
All right. I think that’s good for this. We might revisit this again in the future because I like doing these episodes where we talk with people and talk through their charts, so if you have a story that we didn’t get to today, there may be another opportunity in the future. I’m also thinking about doing possibly some kind of like, advice column type episode. I was watching another like, podcast recently that they did like, a call-in show for like, advice, and I’ve been wondering if there wouldn’t be a way to do that in a way that could be interesting from an astrological perspective where it’s like, an advice podcast type segment, but incorporating some astrology into it. So if people would be interested in that, let me know, because I might see if I can put that together at some point just because it might be an interesting way to try a new format that might be kind of fun and kind of interesting.
Yeah. Everybody says yeah in the comments. Okay, cool. Then I might think about that, and we might revisit that maybe as soon as next weekend, because I’m in the process of like, workshopping what my next episode will be next weekend. And I also, yeah, I was trying to take a month off – not a month off, but a month to do some more like, easier episodes and a little break from doing the super intense research episodes I’ve been on like, a three-month long kick of over the past few months. So something like that could be fun and light and like, kind of enjoyable and entertaining.
Yeah, my astro bender, Jenny says. I think that’s a good way to call it. My astro bender over the past few months of intense, like, research episodes looking at hundreds and thousands of years of history.
All right. All right, everybody. Thanks for joining me today. Thanks for watching this episode of the podcast. Thanks to all the patrons that both shared stories today, and thanks to all the patrons that support this work and make this possible so I can do episodes like this and put them out there to the community so everyone can kind of learn from it and get a sense for how to read charts and how to draw on and like, elicit some of the details, because that’s part of what I try to do with these episodes is demonstrate sometimes like, how I would talk through somebody’s chart with them and kind of draw out certain details that they may or may not be identifying already. But sometimes it helps even for other astrologers to have another astrologer there that’s helping them to unwind and unpack some of the story of their own transits and birth charts and just giving you a different perspective in that way. So that was a lot of fun.
All right. I think that’s it. 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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Finally, shout out to our sponsor for this episode, which is the Northwest Astrological Conference, which is happening May 22nd through the 26th, 2025. Their in-person conference is sold out, but you can still register to get a virtual ticket where they’re gonna stream the conference simultaneously online in May, and you can register for that now through their website at NORWAC.net.