The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 66, titled:
Astrology Forecast and Elections for March 2016
With Chris Brennan and guests Austin Coppock, Kelly Surtees, and Leisa Schaim
Episode originally released on February 28, 2016
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Note: This is a transcript of a spoken word podcast. If possible, we encourage you to listen to the audio or video version, since they include inflections that may not translate well when written out. Our transcripts are created by human transcribers, and the text may contain errors and differences from the spoken audio. If you find any errors then please send them to us by email: theastrologypodcast@gmail.com
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Transcribed by Andrea Johnson
Transcription released November 25th, 2024
Copyright © 2024 TheAstrologyPodcast.com
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CHRIS BRENNAN: Hi, my name is Chris Brennan, and you’re listening to The Astrology Podcast. This episode was recorded on Tuesday, February 24, 2016, at 2:00 PM, in Denver, Colorado, and this is the 66th episode of the show. For more information on how to subscribe to the podcast and help support the production of future episodes, while getting some great subscriber benefits, please visit theastrologypodcast.com/subscribe. In the first part of this episode, I’m gonna be talking with Kelly Surtees and Austin Coppock about the astrological forecast for March of 2016. And in the second part of the episode, I’ll be talking with Leisa Schaim about some auspicious electional dates over the course of the next month for beginning different types of ventures and undertakings using the principles of electional astrology.
I divided up the episode into two parts this month because earlier this week, when Kelly and Austin and I recorded the forecast section of the show, we also recorded the previous episode on the seven visible planets. And we ended up going over our time talking about the visible planets, and so we ran out of time to do the complete forecast episode. So we just focused on the forecast when I talked to Austin and Kelly and decided to make that the first part of this episode, and then I said that I would do the electional segment separately and record that later on my own. So in the first part, I’ll be talking to Austin and Kelly about the forecast, and then in the second part, I’ll be talking to Leisa about the electional charts for March. So let’s go ahead and get started with the first part of the episode. Kelly and Austin, welcome back to the show.
KELLY SURTEES: Hey.
AUSTIN COPPOCK: Hi, Chris.
CB: Good of you guys to come back again. It’s been a while since I talked to you last.
KS: It’s been so long.
AC: Been minutes.
CB: All right, so we just had a very productive recording of the ‘planets’ episode, and I’m gonna have—by the time I release this episode—released that several days ago, but we decided to do a double-header and record both of these today. We don’t have a lot of time, so let’s jump right into the forecast for March. Right at the top of the month, what are some of the highlights of the month of March, as far as you guys are concerned?
AC: Eclipses.
CB: Eclipses. So this is ‘eclipse’ month. We’ve got two eclipses, a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse. Where are those taking place?
KS: Pisces and Libra, but we can probably be more specific than that.
CB: Let’s be a little bit more specific. I may have worn the two of you out by doing a two-hour ‘planets’ episode just before this.
KS: No, no, it’s good. So specifically, a New Moon solar eclipse in Pisces at 18°. Now it’s telling me the 9th, but that’s GMT.
CB: It’s the 8th.
AC: It’s gonna be the 8th over here.
KS: Okay.
CB: All right, so a solar eclipse in Pisces on March 8. That’s one of the early things that we have right away towards the beginning of the month, in the second week of March. And then later, in the third or fourth week, on the 23rd, we have a Full Moon lunar eclipse in Libra on the 23rd of March.
KS: Yes. And one interesting little tidbit of info is that Easter is also coming up in March, the Christian celebration of Easter. And the way that the date of Easter is calculated has a lot to do with—I don’t know if I would say astrology, but certainly Sun, Moon, and equinox cycles. We wait for the March equinox—which is the 20th or the 21st each year—we look for the following Full Moon, and the Sunday immediately following that is Easter Sunday.
CB: Okay. So it’s the Full Moon after the vernal equinox.
KS: That’s it.
AC: It’s the Sunday after the Full Moon, after the vernal equinox.
KS: Cuz it’s a Christian-based thing, so it’s all about the Sunday.
CB: Well, that makes sense, and that’s purely, I’m sure, non-astrologically-based.
KS: Well, the fact that you time this huge cycle—and I was raised Catholic. In the Catholic faith, Easter is a much bigger celebration or an important ritual in the Church than Christmas is, cuz it’s got to do with the death and rebirth of Jesus Christ. And it’s very interesting that it occurs at a time in the natural or pagan calendar of the year at which we’re celebrating the reemergence of the actual Sun—in the northern hemisphere at least—where we cross that vernal equinox, and we start to really have the Sun climbing in the sky.
AC: Yeah. If you were to take that configuration as recipe for timing a planetary talisman, what you’re doing is you’re picking a date where the Sun will be in its exaltation in Aries, and then you’re choosing to celebrate on the day of the Sun, which will highlight our exalted Sun in Aries. And so, it’s almost like there’s some resonance between the story of the Lord of Light who goes into the darkness and then arises again. It’s almost like there’s a resonance there with the Sun.
KS: Yes.
CB: And then of course we have the celebration of Christmas in December, which, as we pointed out during the ‘Magi and Star of Bethlehem’ episode, happens to fall nine months later—which is a gestation period—after March, and after the Easter celebration, which were otherwise pagan fertility celebrations around that time of the year.
KS: Yeah, originally, for sure. And so, Easter in 2016 is a little early because we have that Full Moon, which happens to be an eclipse. But the Full Moon is just a few days after the vernal equinox this year.
CB: Right. And it happens to be an eclipse because the nodes are within the vicinity of where the luminaries are having their Full and New Moons.
KS: Yeah, I think the definition is about the 18° mark. So whenever there’s a New Moon or a Full Moon that’s within 18° of the nodes—the North or South Node—we’ll have an eclipse. And the New Moon Pisces eclipse is very close to the nodes, so it’s what we would call a ‘total eclipse’. So that adds a level of perhaps drama or intensity to that eclipse. Whereas the lunar eclipse in Libra—it is still a lunar eclipse, but it’s a more partial eclipse because it’s a little bit further away from the nodal axis itself.
CB: Okay. And these eclipses are tied into a set of eclipses that occurred a few months ago back in the fall, which were in a similar set of signs, right?
KS: They’re almost exactly opposite the zodiac degrees of the eclipses in September 2015. So back in September 2015, we had the Virgo New Moon eclipse at 20 Virgo, and now we’re having the Pisces New Moon eclipse at 18 Pisces. So if that axis of 18-20 Pisces/Virgo is important in your chart, it’s being reactivated, if you like, again in March of 2016 as it was or similar to September 2015.
CB: Okay.
KS: Yeah, we had an Aries lunar eclipse in September 2015 that was at 4 Aries, and we’ve got the Libra lunar eclipse coming up at 3 Libra. So we’re sort of getting those pairings around those particular degrees in those signs reactivated, if you like.
CB: Interesting, okay. Cuz the nodes are starting to move out of there. I think this is the last of the cardinal sign eclipses, right, or something like that? We’re gonna start moving away from the cardinal eclipses?
AC: Yeah, I believe this is the last one in the Aries/Libra series.
CB: Okay. Cuz the nodes are now firmly out of Aries and Libra. So this is the last time we’ll have an eclipse of any sort in Libra for a while, and then it’ll be full on Pisces/Virgo eclipses for a while.
AC: Mm-hmm.
CB: All right. Let’s see, so those are big signatures for the month. And I’d definitely pay attention to what houses those fall in a person’s chart—especially the whole sign house that the eclipse falls in your chart—as being an area of extra activity, not just immediately but for the next six months, since eclipses tend to, at the very least, have an effect that lasts for about six months after they occur. Sometimes longer if it’s a really big one. Although that tends to be more in mundane events and things like that.
KS: The other piece in terms of working with or interpreting the eclipses is to have a look at the ruling planet of the eclipse, which is the ruling planet of the sign the Moon is in at the eclipse. And, interestingly, with the Pisces eclipse, we’ve got that focus on Jupiter. And just as a little segue, there are two pretty significant aspects involving Jupiter that are in play this March. So they’re important in and of themselves, but also because of that connection, if you like, with Jupiter ruling or having an influence over the Pisces eclipse.
CB: That reminds me that in our episode on the planets that we did earlier, we didn’t talk about the nodes, and it would be good to do a show on the nodes at some point.
KS: Totally.
CB: Okay. And in terms of eclipses, the ruler, you’re saying focus on the ruler of whatever planet the eclipse is falling—whatever sign the eclipse is falling?
KS: Yeah. Have you guys worked with eclipses like that, too?
AC: I actually work with every lunation like that.
KS: Oh, well, of course. Yeah, absolutely.
AC: Yeah, and it’s worth saying on a general note that basically every six months we get a pair of eclipses, and the eclipses are basically special lunations, right? And if we see the New Moon and the Full Moon as being the sort of ‘tent poles of time’, each lunar cycle kind of encloses a given month and it has themes. The eclipses—we always have one eclipse followed by another. Those tend to be kind of special months where things change more dramatically, both internally and externally. And they’re certainly not predisposed towards good or bad. A lot of times I would say you get more of both occurring with eclipses, but it’s a wilder ride. Eclipse months tend to be a little bit more ‘roller-coastery’ than your average other given month.
KS: That’s a really good point for people to keep in mind. The roller-coaster or the highs and lows can be a little bit more extreme or a little bit more polarized in eclipse months.
CB: I was reading this thing, as I was working on the chapter on the planets, where I had to deal with the nodes. And there’s not a ton of eclipse lore—or not a lot of nodal lore in the Hellenistic tradition with the nodes. They’re not as used as frequently or invoked as frequently as one would think compared to the modern tradition. But there seems to be two variant traditions, one of them is the idea that the North Node expands and sort of raises up whatever it touches and the South Node sort of subtracts or contracts whatever it touches. But I found this other interesting variant tradition that made me think of what you were just talking about, Kelly, where Valens says that whatever sign the nodes are passing through, it breaks down the power of the ruler of that sign somehow.
KS: Oh, that’s interesting.
CB: He doesn’t really go into what that means specifically or how that would be interpreted, but I thought it was an interesting mysterious statement that maybe could be tied into this emphasis that you put on looking at the ruler of the eclipses.
KS: Yeah, that idea of breaking down. That’s interesting because one of the concepts that I have discovered to do with the South Node—from a conversation with a friend who practices Vedic astrology—is that it has to do with a spiritualizing influence. And by that I understood that to mean that it’s less of this world. It’s less about material things or less about accumulation. And perhaps it’s got to do with that deconstructing, if you like, energy that can be associated with the nodes.
CB: Right.
AC: Well, that’s more or less how I work with the nodes. I see the South Node as separating entanglements of matter and mind, right? And of course that liberates the mind. Although the body is often not in a very good state after the mind has left it.
KS: That’s true.
AC: And then I see the North Node as unifying the body and the mind. Unifying sounds very benefic, but a lot of times the North Node signifies an area of life where a person feels stuck, or they can’t get away, or they can’t get any distance from it. It’s usually a point of intense identification. In the Vedic tradition, they see both of the nodes as disturbing the affairs of those houses and those signs.
CB: Right.
AC: Did you say it was Valens who said that it weakens the ruler?
CB: Yeah. He says that it breaks down the power of the ruler.
AC: Right. I would say that it could be seen as analogous—if you’re a ruler—to having the people in your house upset or squabbling or in revolt. You have to manage something which is less peaceful. And of course the nodes are always exactly opposite one another, right? So there’s no such thing as nodes without opposition. There’s a polarization of the two functions. In many ways, perhaps one of the easiest ways for people to remember what they do is they’re the lunar nodes, right? And so, in many ways what they are doing is breaking the power, splitting the power of the Moon into two. The North Node is the power of waxing and the South Node is the power of waning, and they’re both about proportion of light and darkness, or spirit and matter, but they are opposed in their natures.
CB: And it’s also important, the nodes are sometimes referred to in the Greek texts as the ‘eclipsing places’. And that becomes important because there’s a common Medieval and late Hellenistic interpretive principle that the North Node is good with the benefics and bad with the malefics, and the South Node is good with the malefics and bad with the benefics. But for the Sun and Moon themselves—because this is the place where the luminaries have the chance to be obscured or for the lights to go out—that’s not necessarily a positive thing, per se, or there’s something potentially detrimental for the luminaries themselves. Yeah, so, I don’t know. Maybe this is too much of a digression, and maybe we’ll have to do an actual episode on this. I know Mark Jones was asking me recently about how the nodes were treated traditionally, and maybe it would be fun to do like three or four different astrologers’ takes on the nodes from different traditions in order to see the full spectrum.
KS: Yeah, that could be a good way to go. Cuz there’s a lot of depth that you can go into with the nodes.
AC: Yeah, I’m actually going to be teaching a month-long class during this set of eclipses on the nodes that starts the day after the solar eclipse. It starts on Wednesday, March 9.
CB: Nice.
KS: What a clever astrologer you, Austin.
CB: Right.
AC: Oh, why thank you.
KS: They’re two big events, to have two eclipses in one calendar month for March.
CB: Yeah, it’s gonna highlight March, but also leave some lingering effects of March for the next six months. But more locally, maybe backing up a bit, on March 5, we get some of our first major planetary movements of the month, which is Mercury ingressing into Pisces, where it stays for two or three weeks, and then Mars going into Sagittarius, where it’s gonna stay for quite a while, because it’s slowing down and preparing to go retrograde.
KS: Yes. So we’re getting this sort of emphasis with these planets going into Jupiter-ruled signs.
CB: Right. And mutable signs.
KS: Totally mutable. Mutable mania, perhaps. It’s gonna be interesting. The one great thing about Venus going into Pisces though is that it is a planet in a great strong sign, Venus exalted in Pisces. And I don’t think we’ve had that level of dignity for a little while. I guess we’ve got Mars in Scorpio, although with the qualifier of slowing down for retrograde.
AC: Right. So when does Venus move into Pisces?
KS: I beg your pardon, the 12th of March, and she’s there until the 5th of April.
AC: Right. And so, that’s nice. So I wanted to get back to the Mars, because Mars’ entrance into Sagittarius portends much because Mars is gonna get—
CB: It’s the beginning of the ‘fun’ times.
AC: Right. So Mars entered the shadow of his coming retrograde—the degrees which he will return to—about a week ago, right? It was in mid-February. However, those were the shadow degrees that were in Scorpio, and that’s half of the terrain that the Mars retrograde will deal with. However, the other half of the terrain is in Sagittarius. And so, if we’re kind of tasting the air and trying to figure out what that’s gonna be about in general and for us in particular, Mars’ ingress into Sagittarius on the 5th really is when we’re gonna be able to see, “Okay, what else is this gonna be about for me?” And it’s also just an introduction to Mars in Sag, which we’re gonna have, I believe, almost four months of this year. It is also, unfortunately, our introduction to another dynamic which we’re gonna have for four months, which is the pairing of Mars and Saturn in the same sign. Although the malefics, Saturn and Mars, do sometimes signify positive things, or at least signify struggles which were worth it in the end, it is generally more difficult to have them paired up in the same sign. One of the things that’s interesting about the malefics is not only are they considered to bring about challenges, but they’re also considered to not get along with each other, right? It’s the ‘two bads that go bad’ together.
KS: Yes.
AC: The principle of the malefics is division rather than unification. And so, if people have a basic knowledge of their charts, really look at what house Sagittarius corresponds to cuz there are gonna be a lot of challenges there this year. And it’s not a bad idea at all to start strategizing about how you’re gonna handle issues there. Or just kind of get things shipshape so that if things do start to go sideways, you’ve got some stability already there and they won’t fall to shit.
CB: Yeah. And even from an electional standpoint, the entry of Mars into Pisces in March is annoying—or sorry, into Sagittarius is annoying because then all of the planets moving through Pisces are getting squared by Mars and Saturn.
KS: Yeah.
CB: And that’s really rough from an electional standpoint because you’re getting Mercury square to Mars and Saturn, or you’re getting Venus square to Mars and Saturn, or you’re getting the Sun—which is still making its way through Pisces for a bit—getting squared by them, and it sets up kind of a difficult situation. Yeah, so those are some of our early ingresses for the first-half of the month. By the time we get to the middle of the month, I feel like things start breaking up and going a little bit more smoothly more towards the second-half of the month. One of the nice aspects we have on March 16, right in the middle of the month, is that Jupiter trine Pluto. And I know that’s one that you were interested in, right, Kelly?
KS: Yeah, it just seems like it’s got a very productive undertone to it. Now that can go to an extreme where it’s overwork or a workaholic or it can be a more manageable version. But I do think it’s something productive. Things get done, or there’s a sense of progress or organization coming in that is streamlined or sharp or to the point. I know Jupiter is not in great condition in Virgo, but that’s what we’re working with right now. And so, I think ‘productivity’ is the word that really comes up, whether it’s busy, whether it’s work, practical, all of those very hands-on or tangible topics, I guess.
CB: Definitely. Really ratcheting up also the placement of Jupiter in Virgo in a much bigger way, or doing it in a much bigger way than perhaps it would be doing on its own.
KS: Absolutely. And I think too, just in a general, big picture perspective, it’s also tapping into the Pluto in Capricorn, that longer cycle. Because here we have Jupiter sort of drawing out or applying some of the themes or the activations of Pluto in Capricorn perhaps in a very hands-on way, which is a way planets in Virgo tend to like to operate. To really get into it and to make something of whatever is going on. I don’t know, Austin. Do you have a different take there?
AC: I’m not too into it.
KS: Of course you’re not.
AC: I just don’t think it’s that important.
KS: Okay.
AC: I could be wrong.
KS: Do you think the Jupiter-Saturn is more important? The square the following week?
AC: I mean, I want to go back to what you started in on earlier, Kelly, where you said ‘mutable mess’.
KS: Oh, ‘mutable mania’.
CB: March mania.
KS: Yeah, ‘March mutable mania’.
AC: It’s all the malefics. It’s both malefics. It’s both benefics. It’s the Sun. It’s Mercury. It’s Neptune, whatever Neptune is. I think that it will be very easy to get confused during the first two-thirds of March. Generally, what that speaks to is ‘the good, the bad, and the who knows what that is’. And this is our first round of ‘mutable mania’. We’re gonna have another one when the inner planets go through Gemini.
KS: Yeah, June.
AC: Yeah, we’ll have a little bit more ‘mutable mania’ when the Sun enters Virgo. And so, just speaking to the quality of life and events during that period, I see a lot of wild sloshing around. And that’s a theme that we already have this year due to the Neptune-Saturn square, where people really aren’t sure what’s real. They’re like, “This is real, and that’s real. Is Donald Trump really gonna be the candidate? Is this Bernie Sanders thing gonna happen? Or are we just gonna end up with Hillary Clinton?” What’s real and what’s not real is kind of always a Pisces topic, but there are a lot of contending perspectives. I think that March promises to have a lot of sloshing back and forth and provide at least the opportunity for confusion. When planets are in mutable signs things tend to change quickly. And what’s happening or how you’re feeling one day, or the first-half of the week may change to something entirely different by the second-half of the week. And if we get stuck on anything and be like, “Oh, no, no, this is how it is,” we’re likely to be rudely surprised by the swiftly-changing environment.
KS: That’s a really good point, the variations, or that idea of things being constantly in flux, which is, oh, so mutable. And I think the other point—which is also really valid too to build on that—is that with mutable we have a lot of change and movement, but it’s often unfocused or scattered, or movement that is not necessarily about specificity. It’s not very focused.
AC: And it’s not necessarily progress toward a defined goal.
KS: Yeah, it can be movement for the sake of movement.
AC: Right. If we imagine the ship rolling—or not rolling—but the ship on the waves, right?
KS: Yes.
AC: If you put a ball on the deck of that ship, it will roll back and forth and back and forth. And it’s our job to not let our minds be that ball.
KS: That’s brilliant. As best we can with this ‘mutable mania’.
AC: As best we can.
CB: Other keywords for mutable in traditional texts are also that it’s ‘discursive’ or ‘digressive’, that it digresses. In Dorotheus’ electional text, he says that for mutable signs, when you make them prominent, you’ll start one thing, but then you’ll have to start a second thing. And oftentimes the second thing has to be finished first before the first thing that you initiated can be finished.
AC: Oh, that sounds like my life.
KS: I’m like this is so familiar. Chris, you know, you’re talking to two mutables, right?
CB: Right. I’m very aware.
KS: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. And then also tied in with that—cuz this is all taking place in mutable placements—that contrast that we were talking about earlier between Jupiter’s expansion and Saturn’s contraction really coming into sharp contrast in those mutable signs with the Jupiter-Saturn square taking place right around March 23 at 16 Virgo and 16 Sagittarius seems like an important long-term turning point that’s been coming and going this year as that square happens. This will be the second time out of the three times that that square occurs.
KS: Yeah, and I do think that’s an important aspect for people to be aware of. It’s pulling together—by that sort of friction, tension, adjustment square aspect—two principles, which are very different from each other, and that idea of accommodation or adjustment, where the grand Jupiter plan has to be shrunk down a little bit to make it more manageable. Or the obsession of Saturn to do with the structure might have to be somewhat malleable to allow for growth or new input. And it is important to remember that this Jupiter-Saturn square in March is the second of a series of three. And the first square that we had goes back to—oh, my gosh, I think they might have been fixed signs still.
AC: Yep.
KS: All the way back to August of 2015. And then the third and final square is going to be in May of 2016. There’s almost like a three-part process that people are working through. Maybe keep an eye on Jupiter in Virgo house in your chart compared to the Saturn in Sag house, cuz that’ll be the two areas of life where you might realize some kind of breaking point or boiling-over point and the adjustment may need to occur between those two areas of life.
AC: Yeah, just as an example, people have an idea of what that might look like. For myself, those are the 3rd and the 6th. And so, I’ve been doing a lot of work trying to figure out what it is that I have to do (6th house, the labors) and then trying to schedule that in the 3rd house. Virgo’s the 3rd, so Jupiter’s there. So the opportunity for growth or improvement or coherence—Jupiter is in the 3rd, which is scheduling—but then the obligation is in the 6th, right? Oh, all this stuff needs to get done. And so, in a chart with Cancer rising, like mine, it’s really about scheduling your workload, as well as probably dealing with health habits, which can also be seen in the 6th house. But you can’t really approach or fix bad habits that you have or create good habits without scheduling them, which is a 3rd house endeavor.
KS: Fantastic.
AC: Yeah. Astrology’s much simpler than it sometimes seems.
CB: Sure, sometimes.
AC: Sometimes.
KS: Sometimes.
AC: Sometimes it’s very easy and very clear.
CB: Right. Let’s see, so moving ahead, we’ve got of course the Sun’s ingress into Aries at the vernal equinox on March 20. And that’s actually International Astrology Day, which AFAN, the Association for Astrological Networking, started back in the early ‘90s, I believe. I still have some, not ambiguities, ambivalence about that because it seems a little tropical-oriented. Despite being a tropical astrologer, I still sometimes feel like objecting on the part of the sidereal astrologers.
KS: Hey, Mercury objecting on principles.
CB: Right. But nonetheless it seems to have largely been embraced by many in the astrological community, using March 20 as International Astrology Day, whatever that means. Immediately after that we have the ingress of Mercury into Aries on March 21. So Mercury really zooms through Pisces.
KS: Very quick, very quick.
CB: Yeah, because around that time, very early in Aries, it actually conjoins the Sun and goes cazimi. And I actually in one of my elections have a Sun-Mercury cazimi election that I use. Then we have the lunar eclipse on March 23. And then, finally, one of the last major occurrences in March, on March 25, is Saturn stationing retrograde in Sagittarius. So this is moderately a big deal. This is the first time Saturn stations retrograde in the middle of Sagittarius. It’s not the first time Saturn’s stationed retrograde in Sagittarius in general, since we had one of those last year, but the furthest that Saturn gets into Sagittarius at this point occurs March 25 before it starts backing up and heading in reverse.
KS: Yeah, I think it’s good for people to keep that in mind that a longer cycle like Saturn in Sag is broken down into these chunks based on the parts of the sign that are covered during these retrograde periods. So if you’ve got planets between, say, 16 and 9 Sag, we’re coming back for a review over that part of the sky. But if you’ve got planets beyond 16 in Sag or even the mutable signs, Saturn’s not there yet and won’t be there until later in the year.
AC: Yeah, you’ve been given a reprieve.
KS: A reprieve, totally.
CB: And also if you have planets that are close to those degrees of stationary points that becomes important because the stations are sort of intensifications of that planet. And if they’re closely-configured to any planets in your natal chart then that’s gonna be a planet that’s gonna feel the effect of that transit much more distinctly than if it was just a quick transit that it passes over without lingering on.
KS: Yes. Like if you had a planet at 15 Sag, for instance.
CB: Right, exactly. And that becomes sort of the last major aspect or transit for the month of March, towards the end of it. Were there any other major transiting things that you guys noticed or that we forgot to mention during the course of the month?
AC: Well, there are a whole slew of aspects, but it’s all mutable stuff arguing with mutable stuff.
KS: Yes.
AC: And as I pointed out before both benefics and both malefics are mutable, right? So ‘good, bad, and other’ are all sort of taking part in those varied discussions.
KS: So lot’s of negotiation maybe.
AC: Yeah. And lots of weighing and balancing multiple things that are of different natures. And if we’re looking at March as, “Is that a good month or a bad month? Is that gonna be tough or easy?,” it’s a mixed bag.
KS: It’s a bit of both.
AC: Oh, there was one more thing I wanted to say about it. Just about the two eclipses and the Sun’s movement into Aries. That last third of the month—when we get to the 20th and we have the Sun moving into Aries, and then Mercury moving into Aries, then we have the lunar eclipse—that’s going to be finalizing and moving on from what we’re doing for the first 20 days. The first 20 days are where we have all of this mutable stuff talking with all this other mutable stuff, and that first eclipse—the New Moon eclipse, which is always solar—is on the South Node. One of the South Node’s functions when it’s activated is to bring up old shit, and so a lot of times you just get stuff emerging around eclipses on the South Node. And so, yeah, there’s a lot in the pot. It’s a gumbo we’re gonna have to cook down. But by the time we get to the last third of the month, it’s just Sun, Mercury in Aries, and they’re not in a big or complicated conversation with five other bodies, right? So things sort of straighten out once we get into that last third of the month. And that second eclipse is also much less intense. As Kelly mentioned earlier, it’s a partial lunar eclipse, and so that’ll also be our exit door from eclipse season. So if we’re contrasting the first and second halves of the month, the first is much more complicated—it’s a complicated, mixed grab-bag—whereas the second-half of the month gets progressively more straightforward and actionable.
CB: Right. All right, what do you guys have going on this month? Or what sort of things are you working on in terms of classes and teaching?
AC: Well, as I mentioned earlier, I’m going to be teaching a class on the nodes and eclipses in the middle of eclipse season. We’re gonna meet on Wednesday nights, beginning the day after the solar eclipse. We’re gonna be on Wednesday, March 9, and then we’re gonna until Wednesday, March 30. In addition to that, I’ll also be starting up my series of basics classes or fundamentals of astrology, which is a seven-month course. Even though it’s seven-months-long, it’s cut up into concise monthly units, and people can drop in or out of each month depending on what holes in their astrological education they need to fill. And so, the first of those units is the planets themselves, and that’s due to begin on Saturday, March 19.
CB: Okay. And people can find out more information on your website?
AC: Absolutely.
CB: Which is austincoppock.com.
AC: That’s right.
CB: All right, Kelly, what do you have going on?
KS: In March, I will have the very end of the month my next online class starting, which is a chart interpretation class, where we’re looking at working with aspects, Moon phases, and other factors that affect natal chart interpretation. So info about that will be available via my website, kellysastrology.com. And I think that’s all I have going on in March.
CB: Okay, excellent. And as for myself, I’m gonna continue working on my book. I am selling a new lecture titled, “Tips for Becoming a Professional Astrologer,” which is a 90-minute lecture that shows people how to make the transition from doing astrology as a hobby or as a side thing to doing it professionally, and it covers a wide range of things of what you need to do in order to make that transition. All right, well, thanks both of you for joining me this month, and I look forward to talking to you again soon.
AC: Always a pleasure.
KS: Excellent. Anytime.
CB: Okay. Let’s transition now to the electional portion of this episode, first, by welcoming Leisa Schaim as my co-host for this segment. Welcome back to the show, Leisa.
LEISA SCHAIM: Thanks for having me again.
CB: All right, let’s talk about some of the auspicious electional charts for this month that I picked out starting a few months ago for my electional column for TMA, which I usually write a few months ahead of time. So the first chart for March—and just to give some general points for March—you’ve been working with elections a lot recently, especially doing a lot of marriage elections, right?
LS: Yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of wedding elections lately. So, yeah, definitely very familiar with the swathe of the year right now.
CB: And what are some of the challenges? Cuz this part of the year has some unique challenges that we start running into that kind of set it apart from other parts of the year.
LS: Yeah, so much of it, it starts already with Jupiter in Virgo square Saturn in Sag. That’s not a huge deal overall. But what happens is with this Mars retrograde this year, you get Mars going into Sagittarius in early March, and then it’ll come back, and then it’ll go through Sagittarius again. And that really sort of has the Mars and Saturn kind of ganging up on the mutable signs. It becomes hard to do elections with mutable placements. One of the unfortunate things that that means for March is that even though Venus goes into Pisces early in the month—which normally you’d be sort of looking forward to because it’s exalted in Pisces—you get Mars and Saturn in an overcoming square to it, so that’s kind of too bad.
CB: Yeah. So Mars ingresses by March 6, I think—or maybe a little earlier than that—into Sagittarius. And that’s really annoying because then Jupiter—which is in Virgo—you suddenly can’t use. And then of course for a large part of March, you have the Sun and Mercury and other planets going through Pisces, which are then getting squared by Mars and Saturn. So March is not an easy month for elections. It’s probably one of the more annoying ones in the spring just because you have so many mutable planets, and now you have both malefics in mutable signs as well. So that being the case, my first election for March is actually on March 6, around 9:10 in the morning—so 9:10 AM—with about 20° of Taurus rising. So Venus is the ruler of the ascendant, and it’s placed in the tenth whole sign house—also the 10th house by quadrant houses—in Aquarius. It’s not got any hard aspects by Mars or Saturn. It’s just got sextiles. The Moon is also in Aquarius in the tenth whole sign house. Its primary application is applying sextile to Saturn, which is the Moon’s domicile lord since it’s in Aquarius, and Saturn is also the ruler of the 10th. So that’s helpful for both the Moon, as well as Saturn for that matter, since Saturn—even though it’s in the 8th house in the electional chart—is helped out as a result of being configured to planets in the 10th that can help to counteract some of the negative significations associated with being in the 10th.
Other than that, the Sun is applying to an opposition with Jupiter with reception, which is a little bit helpful. Mercury is in pretty terrible condition. It’s in its fall or detriment—not detriment. It’s in its fall or depression in Pisces. It is in the 11th house, but it has a very close degree-based square with Mars, which is in a superior position at 0° of Sagittarius squaring Mercury at 2 Pisces. But at least Mercury is separating from the square rather than applying to it, so it has a little bit going for it. But then eventually one of its next applications is a square with Saturn. So much of the chart is decent, but Mercury is definitely not in great shape. Luckily, it’s not a major player in this chart because it’s not the ruler of the ascendant, or it’s not ruling some other important sector of the chart. Therefore, that affliction to Mercury is not necessarily a deal-breaker, at least if you have to do an election during this early part of March. The other sort of nice offsetting thing is that with Jupiter in Virgo and Mars and Saturn in Sagittarius, Jupiter is in a position of overcoming both Mars and Saturn through a superior square with reception in a day chart, which means that Jupiter is gonna be offsetting and mitigating and sort of smoothing out some of the rough edges with the malefics, so that they may not have their most extreme negative manifestations necessarily. So that’s my first election for March, which is March 6. I think this is one of the charts—or you’ve come up with something similar to this, right, Leisa?
LS: Yeah, definitely. It’s nice to be able to get one of the last decent Venus-related charts before it goes into Pisces. Normally, you wouldn’t think that Venus in Aquarius was the most optimal placement for Venus, but this is pretty decent compared to the rest of the month if you need to do a Venus-related election.
CB: All right. Let’s see, it’s nice being able to use Taurus rising here, and Venus is the ruler of the ascendant. But once Venus goes into Pisces, it takes the position that Mercury is in now, and it just starts getting squares from Mars and Saturn, which is pretty tough.
LS: Yeah, exactly.
CB: All right, so that’s election number one. Moving ahead to the following week, my next election takes place on March 12. And actually by this time, on this date, is when Venus moves into Pisces. So by this point, we can’t use Venus anymore as the ruler of the ascendant because now she’s applying to a close degree-based square with Mars in a day chart. However, the Moon is relatively well-placed in that it’s exalted in Taurus on March 12. It’s at 14° of Taurus. So what we do is make the Moon the ruler of the ascendant by putting the ascendant in Cancer. So we have Cancer rising, around 11:50 AM, on March 12. The Moon is the ruler of ascendant, it’s exalted in Taurus in the eleventh whole sign house, and it is applying to a trine within about 3° with Jupiter, which is at 17° of Virgo in the third whole sign house—and at least in Denver—conjunct the IC, the actual degree of the IC. So you’re getting some overlapping 3rd and 4th house topics, but that’ll depend on your location and what specific time you pick for this. Let’s see, I mean, that’s really the main thing about this chart. Because now with so many planets in Pisces, they’re all getting kind of clobbered by Mars and Saturn through that overcoming, superior, sign-based square. So there’s not really a lot to say about what those planets are doing except that they’re all in the ninth whole sign house in this chart, whereas Mars and Saturn are in the 6th house.
LS: Right. I mean, one of the nice things about this chart—even though the Pisces planets are getting hit by Mars and Saturn—is that it’s one of the first times in a while that you’ve been able to use the Moon in Taurus, at least in a day chart. Because Mars has been in Scorpio up until this point, and so you can have the Moon opposing Mars. It’s nice to be able to put the Moon in Taurus. Obviously, the rest of the chart is very important. But just being exalted in Taurus and being a fixed sign, it’s sometimes nice to be able to use the Moon in Taurus when you’re trying to do something that’s of good quality, that you want to last.
CB: Yeah, it definitely imports a good deal of stability into what is otherwise a pretty mutable and cadent chart, with almost all of the other placements in mutable and cadent signs. The other thing that’s nice about Taurus in this instance—with this being the day that Venus has ingressed into Pisces—is just that both Venus and the Moon are subsequently exalted. But, yeah, the stability that the Moon in Taurus brings is kind of helpful and maybe balances out a little bit of the overemphasis on mutable placements that you otherwise have in this chart. All right. And the chart would generally be good. I mean, it’s a little difficult. On the one hand, this might be a good chart for 11th house matters because the ruler of the ascendant is in the 11th house, and so things pertaining to alliances or groups or friends. But there’s a little bit of a problem because then the ruler of the 11th house is Venus, which even though it’s exalted, it’s applying to that square with Mars. So you get one of those classic issues where the planets placed in the house are good, but the ruler of the house is not so good. And usually what that indicates is that things go well with that topic initially but then there’s problems later on. So I would actually use this chart. You could use it for 11th house matters, but like with most elections during the course of this month, you can’t expect things to go completely smoothly without any hiccups. It’s not an ideal-type election where every single part of what you would be trying to get to work in the electional chart would just go completely smoothly. You’ll have some smoothness and some stability because of the excellent placement of the Moon and the application to Jupiter, but there is the potential for some contentiousness as well.
LS: Right, yes. But that said, it is one of the better ones you could do for mid-March.
CB: Right. All right, so that’s my second week of March chart. Moving on, we’ve got three more elections during the later phases of March. The first one takes place on March 23, 2016, at 3:50 PM, in Denver, Colorado, with about 23 Leo rising. So whatever your location is, just try to adjust the time so that you get about 23 Leo rising. And this is one of the first charts since the Sun and Mercury have moved into Aries very recently, just a few days before this, since this is just after the vernal equinox or the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere. And with Leo rising, the Sun is ruling the ascendant. It’s exalted in Aries in the ninth whole sign house. The Moon also has reception with its domicile lord because it’s applying to a trine with Mars, which is in Sagittarius in the fifth whole sign house. And Mercury is very, very closely conjunct the Sun in this chart, depending on your location and what time you’re using and what part of Leo rising you’re using.
This is actually a Mercury cazimi election, with Mercury direct. So it’s the best type of cazimi where Mercury is within at a degree, if not the tighter definition of within 16 minutes of a conjunction with the Sun. So this is taking place in the 9th house. So it’s something that would be good typically for 9th house matters, which could be things like education or travel or interaction with things that are foreign or exotic. Other than that we have the Moon in Libra in the third whole sign house, again, emphasizing themes having to do with communication or education. I couldn’t really get the Moon applying to any benefics in this chart—it’s actually in aversion to the benefics—but it is applying to a relatively stable sextile with Saturn in Sagittarius in the 5th house. So that’s not a terrible aspect in and of itself. The Moon is not otherwise afflicted. This is taking place just after the Full Moon in Libra, which will be very bright, both the night before this election and later in the day that this election takes place. Finally, the other thing about the chart is that Venus is in Pisces at 14 Pisces in the 8th house, and it’s applying to an opposition with Jupiter in Virgo in the 2nd house. So it’s not terrible for financial matters because of some of the positive placements of Jupiter in the 2nd and Venus in the 8th. Although that’s a little offset by Saturn at 16° of Sagittarius, which is completing a T-square with Venus and Jupiter, which is bringing in some tensions there in terms of the financial picture. Although since it’s a day chart, Saturn is gonna have more of its constructive significations emphasized rather than its restrictive or overbearing, depressive significations. Yeah, so that’s my election for the third week of March. What do you think?
LS: I mean, I think you’ve covered most of the points about it. It’s nice to be able to get a cazimi Mercury election in there with the Sun exalted. And Mercury is finally out of the mutables, so it’s in better condition than it was earlier in the month. Yeah, other than that, it is right after the eclipse. I know some people take that into account, the eclipse in the very early degrees of Libra. But it’s kind of nice that the Jupiter-Pluto—if you can get it—midheaven/grand trine in earth signs as well is getting a little bit of stability in there.
CB: Right. Yeah, actually in the forecast episode, just earlier in this episode, Austin and Kelly and I were talking about that. And Austin and Kelly were kind of debating which was more important in terms of the Saturn square to Jupiter or the Pluto trine to Jupiter, both of which are going exact around this time. And, I mean, the answer is that both are kind of relevant. Especially in this electional chart, more than any others, they both get fully tied in there. Especially if you can place the degree of the midheaven around 16° of Taurus, then you really complete a whole grand trine with Jupiter at 16 Virgo and Pluto at 17 Capricorn, which really ties the whole picture together in terms of some of the financial stuff.
LS: Mm-hmm.
CB: Yeah, so this is one of the first elections, as you said, once the Sun has left Pisces and is no longer getting hit by Mars and Saturn, and once Mercury has also left Pisces and is also no longer being afflicted, it’s really one of the first elections where you can use Leo rising and make the Sun the ruler of the ascendant suddenly, which sort of opens up some more options that what we had earlier in the month in terms of rising signs. All right, so moving on, just a few days later, there’s another Leo rising election that you can use. This one is a little bit more problematic in terms of the Moon, cuz it’s a little bit of a reversal of the last election. It’s largely the same. It’s March 26, at 3:35 PM, with about 23 Leo rising. The Sun is in Aries, exalted in the 9th again, and so is Mercury, although Mercury is no longer cazimi, so it’s not as great of a Mercury election. And the main difference in this chart is that the Moon is now at 13° of Scorpio in the fourth whole sign house. So it’s not doing very well in terms of its sign placement, since the Moon is traditionally seen as being in its fall or in its detriment in Scorpio. However, it is applying to a sextile with Jupiter, as well as a trine with Venus, while being in aversion to or not aspecting Mars or Saturn. So you get a situation that’s a little bit different than the last one, with the Moon in Libra, where here the Moon is not doing well by sign, but it’s actually doing quite well by aspect, especially in terms of its applications. Arguably, I think, at least in this instance, that the applying aspect is gonna be more important because the applications in an electional chart will indicate things coming up in the future. Additionally, although the Moon is generally important and we always pay attention to it as a secondary or general significator in any election, it’s otherwise not a key player in this chart, because we’re not making it the ruler of the ascendant or something like that. So I feel like we can get away with putting it in Scorpio—at least to the extent that it’s applying to benefics in this instance—and still probably be alright, especially given the options by the time you get into this part of the month.
LS: Yeah. If you need to do something later in the month, it might not be the most ideal chart, but at least you get the positive applications, like you said, to Jupiter and Venus. And the Moon’s gonna be in Sagittarius after that and it’ll be towards the end of the month. So it’s one of the last times you can get that.
CB: And that’s actually the election that we’re using today. We’re using Cancer rising on February 28 to record the second-half of this episode, with Cancer rising and the Moon at 16 Scorpio, applying to a sextile with Jupiter at 19 Virgo, which was one of the only halfway decent rising signs we could get today, where the ruler of the ascendant is applying to benefics. So we’ll see how that goes. It’ll be a good test for next month in using this election at the end of March. All right, and that brings us to our final election, which takes place on March 31, at about 3:10 PM, with 21 Leo rising. So, again, it’s another Leo rising election, since this is one of the only good rising signs that you can really find at this part of the month. The Sun is exalted in Aries in the ninth whole sign house. The Moon here, again, you run into another issue where the Moon is in Capricorn, which is the sign of its detriment or anti-domicile, the sign opposite to Cancer. It’s also in the 6th house, and it’s also conjunct Pluto. However, it does have a positive application where it’s applying to a trine with Jupiter within about a degree or two, which is in the 2nd house, followed by some other aspects, like a wide sextile with Venus and eventually a square with Mercury. So you can also offset the 6th house placement by—hopefully in your location—putting the midheaven around 120° from the Moon. So make it so that the MC is trine to the Moon and that will help to counteract the cadent 6th house placement of the Moon. Yeah, this chart’s very similar to the other ones. It has the 9th house emphasis due to the ruler of the ascendant. It has a relatively decent financial emphasis due to the 2nd and the 8th. The Moon is not great,but you run into this situation again where even though it’s not great by sign, it does have applying aspects to benefics, which is usually indicative of circumstances that aren’t great that the election starts out in, but eventually, at some point in the future, it’s still able to achieve success or have a favorable outcome because of the positive application of the Moon to benefics. So, yeah, what do you think about that one?
LS: Yeah, I mean, similar to the last one, like you said. But I like this one a little better. The Sun is applying to a nice trine with Saturn by about 5° instead of being closer to Mars, and that’s kind of nice in a day chart, without ruling the ascendant. And the Moon is not just trine Jupiter, it’s pretty close, just about a degree off, so that’s nice as well. The 2nd house is kind of interesting cuz it’s got Jupiter there in a day chart, which is good, as you’ve said. I’m kind of curious. Because it’s ruled by Mercury in Aries in the 9th, very closely conjunct Uranus at this time at 3°10’, it’s just a minute separating. So it could be positive financial things, but that kind of go in an unexpected manner.
CB: Yeah. And it’s a little risky because that could go either way in terms of it being positive or being negative in terms of unexpected developments. But at least with Jupiter there in the 2nd and Mercury not otherwise being afflicted by Mars and Saturn, I think there’s a potential for things to still work out relatively well or to have a positive outcome.
LS: Yeah, I like this one pretty well for the end of March.
CB: All right, well, that’s all of the elections that I’ve picked out for the month of March. So I guess we’ll have to do this again for April, since those are some of the months that you’ve really been focused on recently, April, May, June, and things like that, right?
LS: Yeah, a lot of upcoming weddings this summer.
CB: Okay. What’s your favorite part of the year so far for electional charts?
LS: Favorite part—well, I mean, I have to say I kind of favor the later parts of the year just because Mars gets out of all that Mars-Saturn stuff. It’s out of the retrograde cycle. But you can usually find, if you have at least a few months’ window, something pretty good.
CB: Right. All right, great. Well, we’ll have to do this again next month then to look at the charts for April.
LS: All right, sounds good.
CB: All right, well, thanks everyone for listening, and we’ll see you next time.