The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 81, titled:
Astrology Forecast and Favorable Dates for July 2016
With Chris Brennan and guests Austin Coppock and Kelly Surtees
Episode originally released on June 27, 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 10th, 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 is recorded on Sunday, June 26, 2016, starting at 2:29 PM in Denver, Colorado, and this is the 81st episode of the show. For more information about how to subscribe to the podcast and help support the production of future episodes by becoming a patron, please visit theastrologypodcast.com/subscribe. In this episode, I’m gonna be talking with Austin Coppock and Kelly Surtees about the astrological forecast for the month of July 2016, as well as giving a few auspicious dates over the course of the month for beginning different types of ventures and undertakings using the principles of electional astrology. Kelly and Austin, welcome back to the show.
KELLY SURTEES: Thanks, Chris. Hey, Austin.
AUSTIN COPPOCK: Hey, happy to be here.
CB: All right, it has been a busy month, both for me, personally, but also just in the world in general there’s been a lot of stuff going on. What have you guys been up to? Kelly, I think the last time we talked to you, you were getting ready to head off to the Northwest Astrological Conference, right?
KS: Yes, yes. So I have been on the move. I’ve only been home for a week actually. Yeah, so I went to the Northwest Astrological Conference—NORWAC, which was amazing—out in Seattle, and then from there, went out to Sydney to spend a couple of weeks, both working with my students and clients out there, but also catching up with family. So in truth, kind of with that mutable cross, I was wandering the globe, which is a very happy place for me.
CB: Awesome.
KS: How about you, Austin?
AC: I actually had to take my schedule down a notch because I’ve been pushing so hard this spring. And so, I took a two-week break from writing my weekly column, which was great and sort of allowed me to replenish my reserves mentally. And so, I was still working full-time during that, it just was one thing off my plate, but I’m back to writing. And let’s see, what else? I did a lot of kung fu and tai chi. I set myself two hours a day minimum, and so I’ve done that for pretty much all of June.
CB: Awesome. Yeah, I know you were saying that you were feeling pretty overwhelmed or rundown in the last forecast episode, like right at the top of the show.
AC: Yeah. You know, when I looked at June’s configurations—especially those mutable grand crosses—I have a mutable grand cross. And so, I knew that I would either just sort of shred myself in an attempt to keep up, or I could just take a little bit of a breather, catch my breath. And so, I decided to catch my breath and do not regret it in the slightest.
CB: Totally, but you’ll be back. I guess both of you are getting ready for a busy summer. What’s the plan for the summer?
KS: Oh, yeah, definitely busy. Straight back into teaching my online classes for me. So my most recent class is running at the moment on an intro to predictions on transits and progressions. So that’ll run through till the end of July. And then I head out to San Francisco where I am doing a talk and will be seeing clients at the end of July there. And then back to Seattle at the end of August for a three-day workshop that I’m teaching, or co-teaching with Laura Nalbandian and Kira Sutherland. We’re focusing on the Moon for three days. So if anybody’s interested, feel free to get in touch and I can send them more info. But it will definitely be a fun, full summer.
CB: Awesome. And what do you have coming up, Austin?
AC: Oh, let’s see, on Saturday, July 9, I start a month-long unit on aspects, which is a module in my foundations class. It’s part of a larger arc of classes, but people are free to join just that one. And then I’m gonna be doing a new class that I haven’t taught before, I’m gonna teach Wednesday nights. It’s gonna start on Wednesday, July 13. In my mind, I’m calling it the “Proper Care & Feeding of a Natal Chart,” and it’s about wellness and remediation. Okay, so you have a chart and you have a life, and you’d like to get the most out of that. How do you bring things into balance if they’re out of whack? How do you polish your strengths and recognize your weaknesses? Like what do you do with that? So I guess you could call it a wellness model, doing things like figuring out which planets are going to be the strongest and most favorable in the chart, and which ones are gonna be the problem areas, and then what to do about that; like what habits to install in your life to make the most out of your best planets to try to bring the ones that aren’t so good up to speed. So it’s a different kind of class, cuz it’s not just straight technical material. It’s sort of like, what do we do with this? And I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, so I think I’m finally ready to teach that. I think it’ll be really interesting and fun. So there’s remediation, which is fixing problems. But there’s also just running the things that aren’t in of themselves a huge problem, like how to stay in balance and keep in balance. Anyway, so that’s that. I think it should be interesting. What am I doing? I’ll be writing all summer. I’ve got next week’s column ready to go. I’ve got my July monthly almost ready to go, and I’ll be writing every week and every month. And I guess my last thing I’m doing over the season is I’m going to be finishing up editing the planetary magic anthology that I’ve been working on for sometime, a co-editor on that and also a contributor. So I’m gonna polish that off, and hopefully it’ll be out before Christmas. It’ll be coming out through Three Hands Press. Yeah, what else am I gonna do? I don’t know, I might have some fun. I might see Kelly in the Bay Area in July. It depends on when she’s there.
KS: Oh, cool.
CB: Oh, yeah, so that’s the workshop Kelly’s doing. What are you gonna be in the Bay Area for?
AC: Oh, we have a wedding.
CB: Oh, nice. Excellent. All right, well, it sounds like you guys both have a lot going on. For me, I’m just writing still. I’ve been making amazing progress. I just finished a chapter on the triplicity rulers and a chapter on the rulers of the houses and another chapter on profections. So I’m on track possibly to have my manuscript finished by August, and it’s actually turning into a full book. So that’s gonna be my main focus between now and most of the summer. Let’s see, in other news, we actually have a few pieces of news going on in the community to mention just before we get into the thick of things with the forecast and with the auspicious elections. So the first one I wanted to put out right away—and I wanted to mention right at the top of the show because it’s sort of relevant to the podcast—is that ISAR is sending out these announcements. They’ve suddenly started sending out these announcements that they’re giving out an award at their upcoming conference in October for the best audiovisual production. And right now there’s an open call for nominations—but it’s only open for the next few days, it ends on June 30—but apparently whatever they’re defining as ‘audiovisual production’ includes podcasts. So the initial phase of this is basically that you send an email to ISAR nominating a podcast or a YouTube series or something that you think has done a good job being an audiovisual production in the astrological community, and the show that has the top five nominations will then be voted on by the ISAR membership sometime between now and October, and then one of them will win a reward at the ISAR conference in October.
So if you’d like to nominate The Astrology Podcast for this award, for best audiovisual production, then you should send an email to Glenn Perry, which is glenn@aaperry.com, saying that you’d like to nominate The Astrology Podcast and giving them the link to it. Please also CC Sam Reynolds, another ISAR board member, on the email, whose email address is unlockastrology@gmail.com. So you don’t have to attempt to recreate what these email addresses are just from audio, I’ll put both of the email addresses on the description page for this episode. Basically, if the podcast gets enough nominations in the next few days, then it could win an award, which would be kind of cool. So if you’re a fan of the show, then please send in a nomination and we’ll see what happens. Are you two ISAR members? Can I get you or talk you two into nominating, or would that be a conflict of interest if you’re guests on the show?
KS: I don’t know. It could cost.
AC: Yeah, I mean, we can try.
KS: Of course we can. Of course we can.
CB: All right.
KS: I mean, I’m an ISAR regular member. I’m sure you are too, Austin.
AC: I am—I mean, if I remembered to pay my dues. I don’t remember. I know that I was paying my dues at some point.
KS: I think I just did the lifetime thing once. I worked out, based on my age, it was probably just better value to that, since I do intend to be in this industry for a long time. Yeah, we could, totally. If they don’t want our votes, they’ll tell us.
CB: Right. I think that’s a good philosophy for everyone, even for delinquent ISAR members, like Austin and Kelly. Just send in your email to Glenn and Sam nominating the show in the next few days and then we’ll see what happens from there. In other conference news, there was also a recent announcement where there was an open call for new UAC speakers. So the upcoming conference, a huge mega-conference—it’s not a normal, little, or mid-sized conference. This is like the biggest conference—it takes place two or three times in a decade—called the United Astrology Conference, and the next one is happening in Chicago, in May of 2018, so two years from now, and they’ve just put out an announcement of an open call for new speakers. So if you haven’t spoken at a previous UAC before, then this is your chance to apply. Basically what you do is you have to send in a recording of an example lecture that you’ve given in the past. So a lecture no longer than—I think they said 90 minutes, and the deadline is July 31, 2016. So any professional astrologers out there, or any long-term astrology enthusiasts that give lectures on astrology and want a chance to present your research or your work at a really significant conference, this is your chance. You’ve got basically a month to send in a lecture and a bio and stuff like that, and with any luck it’ll be selected and we’ll be seeing you at this conference in Chicago in two years. So I’m gonna put the link—on the description page for this episode—to the full details page and the form that they’re sending out. It’s like an online form that you have to fill out. So just look for the description page for that, and good luck to everybody who’s applying.
KS: It’s a great opportunity. This was how I was successful to speak at UAC in 2012, I went through the new speaker submission process. Of course it’s popular. There’ll probably be between 100-200 people that will apply through this process. So part of the application process involves uploading an MP3 of a lecture you’ve given at maybe a local group, or maybe you’ve spoken at a conference somewhere else since UAC 2012. But as long as you haven’t spoken at UAC itself, you can apply. It’s well worth it. Just throw your hat in the ring. Give yourself a chance if you’re interested in doing that going forward.
CB: Yeah. And like you said, it’s gonna be hugely competitive. I mean, it’s open to people from all over the world, and UAC tends to be much more of an international conference than other conferences.
KS: Yeah, so put in your best speech that you have done—make sure you use that—and don’t feel that you can’t apply if you’re not from North America. Cuz, as you say, Chris, it’s totally international.
CB: Yeah, yeah. And that’s one of my favorite parts about. You get to see and catch up with so many different astrologers. But, yeah, definitely apply and put your best foot forward. Not a ton of people are gonna make it. I had submitted this way for UAC 2008, and I actually got rejected, both for my initial application, as well as for a free speech position. And then I lucked out because somebody else dropped out at the last minute, and I happened to take that person’s slot like a week before the conference or something like that. So even amazing astrologers, such as myself, do not necessarily make it in when they apply this way, but it’s worth a shot.
KS: Oh, Chris, that’s hilarious.
CB: All right, so that’s the second announcement. The other announcement is just that we’re doing our June giveaway drawing in the next episode, in the Q&A episode that we’re gonna record in the next few days. So we’re gonna give away two prizes. And it’s only for patrons of the show who donate on the $5 or $10 tiers, but there’s still time to sign up. So the first thing we’re giving away on the $10 tier is a scholarship, a free pass to the upcoming ISAR conference in October. And then the second thing we’re giving away is a free, one-year subscription to The Mountain Astrologer magazine, and we’ll talk a little bit more about those two things later on. But in other related news, we’ve actually almost met our fundraising goal for the next fundraising level that we were shooting for, which is now going to allow me to send microphones out to every new guest in order to help improve the audio quality of the show. And you’ve already seen a bit of that over the last month or so of the episode. So it’ll just take actually a few more sign-ups in order to put us over the line. If anybody wants to sign up and also get the potential of an additional bonus—if you win this drawing to go to the ISAR conference or win a subscription to TMA—then that’s sort of an added benefit, in addition to helping us to improve and continue to produce the show. So I think that’s it in terms of announcements. Should we move onto the forecast, the astrology for the month?
KS: Let’s do it.
CB: All right, so looking at astrological signatures for July, I think we all talked a little bit about what was going on. And there’s not a lot of stuff. I think all of us kind of agreed that there weren’t—compared to other months in this year or other time periods—a lot of huge things happening. But really a lot of what’s happening is we’re still coming down off of or feeling the immediate aftereffects of some of the astrological alignments that are still taking place in June, and either just happened or are about to happen in the next week, such as, for example, the Mars retrograde station, or when it stations direct here in the next few days of June. And one of the things that might be useful is just talking a little bit about—there’s actually been some events over the past few weeks, where it’s actually been a very crazy month in terms of world events that kind of connect with some of the things that we predicted in terms of what the general feel of June would be like. Do either of you want to take that over in terms of major events that stood out to you over the course of the last month?
AC: Let’s see, things that were a big deal. Well, there’s the Brexit referendum, which only happened a few days ago. And then, I believe, Obama had an immigration bill blocked, if that’s correct. And so, both of these issues tie in very tightly, very neatly with what we were saying about the Saturn-Neptune square, which made its second exact pass during the middle of June. We have ‘borders’ with Saturn and then we have ‘what crosses those borders’ and ‘what’s allowed to cross those borders’, and ‘where are the borders really’ with Neptune. And so, that lined up very neatly. We also, Mars slowing down. Even though Mars hasn’t quite stationed yet as of this recording, Mars has slowed down to a crawl, and there have been a lot of events which testify to the upcoming station. I think we can also read the Brexit vote in that light. It is a profound separation, right? It’s a vote for separation. It’s a vote against.
CB: Somebody said that that was prominent in the chart of the EU or something?
AC: I believe so. And then Nina Gryphon actually wrote about Brexit in February and ended up being fantastically accurate. It’s nice to see people writing months and months and months and months ahead of time rather than frantically scrambling to be like, “Well, it’s gonna happen in two days. I’m an astrologer.” Not that I haven’t done that, not that that’s a terrible sin, but it’s just nice to see someone writing calmly five months ahead of time, looking at the Aries ingress chart and saying, “Well, there’s a Mars retrograde. It’s right up there, and it indicates this.”
CB: Yeah, it’s always more impressive to see somebody issue a prediction of that magnitude way ahead of time versus much closer to the fact.
AC: Not unlike your prediction about Hillary Clinton years ago, which is looking more and more as if it will come to pass. And just as a note for astrologers doing predictions, I think that a lot of times it’s easier to just look at the astrology when you’re not in the middle of things. It’s very confusing to look at things as they are developing. Whereas sometimes years ahead of time, it can be easier—or months ahead of time—when you’re not in the middle of the storm. It’s easier to see a storm system on radar than it is to report live, like those funny reporters who get—
[crosstalk]
KS: Standing in the middle of the storm. Nina’s article is fantastic for readers who want to look it up. It’s called “The Astrology of the Brexit Referendum,” and it was published on her website on the 20th of February, 2016. And one of the things she identified in that article was something that we talked about in our last episode, which was the significance of this 23° marker of Scorpio and Taurus. And, interestingly, Nina has included the chart of the European Union in this article, which has Mars at 24 Scorpio opposite the Moon at 24 Taurus. So this Mars station is kind of vibing that opposition 24 Taurus/Scorpio, which is in the EU chart. So it’s kind of interesting that we said that degree was gonna be significant, and we’ve got this major separation. Cuz what people are talking about with this Brexit is that not only is Britain of course leaving the EU, but what does this mean for the future of the EU as a whole. And so, there are some pundits speculating this is the beginning of the end of the EU as it stands. So that’s really interesting to what you were saying there, Austin, around the idea of Mars as a vote for separation.
AC: Yeah. And so, what’s interesting is the EU is basically having a double-malefic return, cuz it has Saturn at 14° Sagittarius.
KS: Right.
AC: So it’s been having its second Saturn return while having a Mars return. A super Mars return. Although that referendum was not binding in and of itself, it did occur while Mars was still retrograde. So Britain may or may not end up leaving the EU, and leaving may look different than people imagine, but it was a hammer blow to confidence in that union and there’s certainly cracks spider-webbing out from that. It was a huge thing regardless of what Britain actually does. It was a big event.
KS: Huge. And I think that kind of brings in the Saturn-Neptune square, which peaked in the middle of June, but really doesn’t separate by more than 2°, until we get this third hit in September. So we’re still sort of under that cloud.
AC: Oh, yeah.
KS: And you’re right, Austin, because even though this referendum says 52% of the Brits want to leave, we don’t know what leaving looks like. And the process of leaving is a two-year process in which there’s a huge amount of negotiations and discussions. So I think there’s something in that too, the symbolism of the Saturn-Neptune, which is maybe having a vision for change but not knowing exactly what it will look like by the time it becomes manifest, which would be the Saturn portion of that.
CB: And the other is I don’t live in the UK, and I wasn’t following this very closely politically, so I don’t want to piss anyone off by mentioning certain speculations about the implications of this or different things like that. But from my unenlightened standpoint, one of the things I thought was interesting in the immediate aftermath was that some of the reasons that people gave for voting for Brexit or some of the things that the campaign for Britain to leave the EU were based on were, immediately after the vote, said to be false, like £250 million or something that was being given to the EU each year would instead be directed back towards Britain or something like that. And so, even the premise of some of the arguments that were made about why they should leave may not have been on completely solid ground. That really struck me as like a Saturn-Neptune-type issue in terms of the potential for illusions or a lack of clarity surrounding why they were even going for this specific change.
KS: Yeah. I mean, it really brings in this whole ‘redefining boundaries and borders’ piece. You know, Scotland, which is part of the United Kingdom, there’s been a bit of an uproar there, because they voted a couple of years ago to remain in the United Kingdom because they wanted to remain as part of the EU. So now there’s potentially gonna be another referendum, just in Scotland, about whether they then break away from the United Kingdom because they want to stay in the EU and Britain doesn’t. I mean, it’s almost left more questions than answers, and that murkiness of Saturn-Neptune is just so clearly coming through.
CB: Sure.
AC: And Scotland votes overwhelmingly to stay.
KS: To stay in the EU, yeah.
AC: Yeah, they did. And so did Northern Ireland.
KS: Yes.
AC: Because Ireland is in the EU. If Northern Ireland left the EU, they would literally have an unnecessary wall between them and the people who live 10 miles away.
KS: Yeah.
AC: So the issue’s a little bit different in different parts of the islands.
KS: Yeah. And it really captures the symbolism of the blurred boundaries. Where are the borders, and what do the borders mean? So I think you were saying—maybe before, Austin—the idea of what is moving through a border and what’s not, and that is all the manifestation of that Saturn-Neptune symbolism.
AC: Yeah, it’s a question of permeability, I think.
CB: The other thing, I was watching some PBS commentator the other day, and something that he said that I found really interesting, I connected a lot more with Saturn in Sagittarius; but certainly Neptune squaring Saturn in Sagittarius by transit would make sense. He said that part of the vote, or part of the thing underlying it—he said it was a rejection of freedom of movement that had been established by the EU between member countries based on some of the things that are going on with immigration and the ability to freely move between countries. This was more of an inward-looking, partially nationalistic rejection of that sort of openness in some sense, which was leading some people to feel like there were too many people coming and going across the borders. And this vote partially represented a sort of rejection of that, which is very interesting symbolism in terms of Saturn in Sagittarius and a rejection of movement, or a rejection of internationalism.
AC: Yeah. Immigration has been the Saturn-Neptune issue since it got started, whether it was refugees. In England’s case, it’s primarily people coming from less-well-off parts of the EU to work in England and being able to work there for long periods of time without excessive paperwork. And so, yeah, immigration. You know, we’re dealing with immigration issues in the United States. That seems to be the single issue that has been most consistently brought to the forefront by the Saturn-Neptune square.
CB: You keep saying ‘Saturn-Neptune’, but what about Saturn just in Sagittarius? Cuz it seems like that was our main theme for Saturn in Sagittarius just in and of itself. Are you thinking that the Neptune square is more important, or are you saying, implicitly, in Sagittarius at the same time?
AC: Well, the whole configuration has done that.
CB: Okay.
AC: Like some of our peak moments for immigration crises have occurred when Saturn and Neptune have tightened their square or perfected their square.
CB: Got it, okay. And you had mentioned this earlier, but this was also an observation that I had made that didn’t get reported as much because Brexit became the bigger story. But right around the same time, the US Supreme Court deadlocked on Obama’s major immigration act, which was supposed to be a major staple of his presidency and his legacy, which was this legalization of millions of Americans—or millions of people that were from different countries, that had immigrated to the US illegally. It was essentially going to legalize a whole group of people, especially people that were brought here by their parents, or that grew up in this country but weren’t necessarily citizens. And the Supreme Court deadlocked on that, which effectively put it back to the lower courts which had already rejected it, which seems to have basically put an end to this major piece of legislation that focused on immigration for Obama pretty much right around the same time, the same week, or within a few days of the Brexit vote. So, again, we have this other theme in a completely different country, completely unrelated, but also tying in this concept of immigration and freedom of movement and things like that.
AC: Yeah. How permeable are the walls? Where is the water allowed to get through the wall? You know, it’s waves and walls, that’s the theme. And it’s worth noting—I believe we’ve talked about this before—Saturn is in the superior position in that square. And so, generally, the planets that are in the superior position tend to triumph in squares for their duration, right? So if we had to bet, we’d probably bet on walls over waves. And that might suck, and it might be the wrong thing, but astrology is full of suck—or it’s not astrology. History is full of suck and wrong things.
CB: Sure. Yeah, that sense of pulling back, of conservatism, or of rejection or saying ‘no’ to something seems like it was one of the underlying things that was motivating the Brexit vote. Or at least I got that sense in terms of what most of the commentators were saying. All right, so that’s one of the most recent major pieces of news. In terms of other things, there were two or three other major events, and there were a lot of major events around the world just in terms of transits recently that I think we wanted to mention.
AC: Well, there was the horrific massacre in Orlando.
CB: Right. And that was something that a lot of astrologers ended up tying into the Mars station. Mars had retrograded back and was slowing down and pretty much already within a degree and just hovering around that degree where it was going to station. And if I remember correctly one of the things that was pointed out by different astrologers was that it was hitting the chart of the shooter very closely. Somebody was able to get a hold of his birth time.
AC: Mars in general, I mean, it was right after Mars opposed Algol. There was a Mars-Mercury opposition basically on Algol. And if you remember back to the Mars retrograde episode we did with Nick, one of the horrible precedents—when we looked back at the last time Mars retrograded in this part of the sky during the spring—was the second quarter of 1937. That’s when the Guernica bombing occurred, and it occurred with Mars retrograde in Scorpio opposite Algol.
CB: Sure. And you had said that there was another timeframe when Mars had done that, that you felt probably raised the likelihood then that there was another massacre of some sort during that time as well.
AC: Yeah, well, we looked at that months ago and said, “Let’s hope that nothing like this happens again.”
CB: No, you were talking about Fallujah or something being another period.
AC: I was concerned that we’d have a replication of lots of civilian casualties in the middle of a messy war in the Middle East. I was thinking Syria. But there’s been a really fierce battle to retake Fallujah in Iraq. There have been multiple offenses against ISIL/Daesh over June. For some reason people aren’t really talking about it in American news, but the Russians and the Americans and the Iraqis have all been doing huge offensive pushes, and one of the biggest single things is retaking Fallujah in Iraq. And Fallujah has something like a hundred thousand non-combatants in it, or it did before this campaign began. And so, I hope that wasn’t horrific. I haven’t seen much. I hear reports that, yes, they’ve retaken one-third of the city, but the details haven’t come out yet. So let’s hope that that has gone as well as that possibly can in terms of the toll that it takes on human life and suffering.
CB: And you guys were mentioning Algol, and so that caused me to actually pull up the charts again. Because I forgot a student of mine sent—he sent me this New York Times article where they had the chart, or the birth certificate of the shooter in the Orlando shooting, and I pulled it up. It’s a rounded time. It’s 7:00 PM. You might be interested, even though this is kind of getting into something that we’ve talked about before in terms of the appropriateness of looking at charts and things in the immediate aftermath. Anyway, he has Cancer rising, and the Moon is at 29 Taurus. I thought you’d be interested to know that.
AC: Oh, that’s right. So Mercury was right on that, and Mars had just opposed that.
CB: Yeah. And so, the ruler of his ascendant—which is one of the most important planets in the entire chart—is actually conjunct Algol, or pretty close to Algol in the natal chart. Also interesting, his Sun is at 24 Scorpio, and his Mars is at 23 Aquarius. So that’s actually really interesting, cuz if you compare the Brexit chart, the Brexit chart has Mars and Pluto at 24 Scorpio and Saturn at 23 Aquarius. So the point there is just two prominent charts—sort of tied into that Mars retrograde station at 23 Scorpio—becoming activated at that time because they had important placements at 23 Scorpio/23 Aquarius, and that just being a stark and not necessarily pleasant demonstration of that basic, fundamental astrological principle. All right, do you guys have any other comments about that? Any other news?
AC: Did anything good happen in June? Can we just end our recap with something vaguely positive or pleasant?
CB: Sure. Positive things.
KS: Let’s put our thinking caps on.
CB: No, cuz all I can think of is just other drama. Like the president of the NCGR—who I just interviewed last month, John Marchesella—suddenly and unexpectedly stepped down in a very sort of dramatic letter, a very fiery letter on Facebook, on the Facebook NCGR page. He suddenly said he’s not gonna be president anymore, and he’s not organizing UAC anymore. And he seemed to be singling out some person in particular or something that was causing him problems, and then the next in command of the NCGR stepped up and became president. So that was not very pleasant. That was another bad something that was probably tied into the Mars retrograde station with that hitting prominent parts of either his chart or the person who took over the organization itself. In terms of positive things, I have a positive thing. The season finale of Game of Thrones is tonight. I mean, that’s something I think we can both agree on has been pretty good over the course of the past month. Right, Austin?
AC: I think last week’s episode, the penultimate episode, was a positive thing. That was Mars acting as a benefic. That was a hell of a battle.
CB: Right. So heroism or, yeah, bravery in battle. But also they really depicted the brutality and the gore and the downsides of battle, which there was a lot of commentary leading up to about whether they would. Because that was something that was much more prominent in the novels, and it wasn’t always clear if battles and war and stuff was being glorified too much in the television series. But even though there was some element of that in that episode, it was very stark in a number of ways that is not usually depicted in war films.
AC: You did not do that on purpose, did you? It was very ‘stark’.
CB: Right. We want to be careful not to give away any spoilers.
AC: There were Starks involved. That’s all you need to know.
CB: Okay. Maybe we’ll leave it at that.
KS: I can’t comment on this. I have not been watching the show.
AC: So reality was horrific, but the television was good at being distracting.
KS: I’ve read some great books.
AC: Me, too.
CB: Awesome.
KS: There we go. Look to real life for happy news.
CB: Yes. So moving along then to the future, casting an eye to the future, Mars is actually stationing direct this week, at the very end of this month. So we haven’t even fully hit the final act of that, because it hasn’t fully done it yet. So there may still be some things coming in terms of the end of June, and I’m sure there will still potentially be some aftereffects that ripple out from that over the course of the next few weeks in July, we could say, right?
KS: Totally. A planet like Mars, starting to move forward again after a period of stagnancy or treading water, there’s a couple of ways that I would read this, for sure, heading into July. Look, Mars is at its station degree until about the 10th or the 11th of July. So it’s a month that might start slow, but is also a month that can bring some progress on matters that had been delayed since February or March, when Mars first hit this part of Scorpio before the retrograde. So stuff that’s been stuck is now starting to move through the system. There’s a very famous line from an Australian poem you’ve probably heard, “The Man From Snowy River,” which was made into a movie, was originally a very famous Australian poem. The first line of that is: “There was movement at the station.” And that’s what July feels like. That we’re starting to get some kind of wheels turning, even if they start slowly. Not necessarily saying it’s all gonna be good, but things that have been stuck or hard to move or people have been putting a lot of effort in just to try to maintain their current position, you will start to get progress through July, with that planet coming off station.
CB: Totally.
AC: Yeah. It’s important to note, like Kelly said, that even though Mars stations direct—is it the 29th or the 30th? At the very end of June, Mars isn’t going anywhere. It’s not like the start of a race where somebody fires the gun and everyone’s off. Mars is like, “Okay, now I’m barely moving forward,” right? And so, it doesn’t leave that single degree for like 10 days after the direct station. But what’s important is momentum and direction, right? The direction is now forward. And if we look at the movement, it’s accelerating forward, right? Accelerating forward, cuz Mars is gonna be going faster and faster and faster and faster throughout the summer. And so, we like that. It’s pointed in the right direction and picking up speed, and so that’s really important. And so, one of the things about July is that July pretty much contains Mars’ third pass through the end of Scorpio. And then as soon as we get into August—I believe August 2—Mars is gonna be back in Sag, and then we’ve got this whole Mars-Saturn co-presence thing, which is really gonna define August. But we don’t have that in July. It’s just Mars turning around and getting moving again in July. And then we have all these planets in Cancer for the first-half of July. You know, when I was writing about this for my monthly, there’s really this sense of getting a little bit of a break, or needing a little bit of time to kind of reestablish coherence, to kind of put things back together to have a little comfort maybe to get back up to speed. Planets in Cancer are really good at helping us take care of ourselves and take care of each other, cuz as the month begins, we have Mercury, the Sun, and Venus in Cancer. And so, what’s really interesting about this trio—oh, and on July 4, we have the New Moon in Cancer, right?
KS: Yes.
AC: So we have Moon, Mercury, Sun, and Venus all in Cancer, right? Now what’s interesting about this is in this phase, Mercury and Venus are both invisible to the naked eye. They’re both hiding behind the Sun’s ‘radiant’ skirts, right? And so, what’s cool is that if we look at the middle of the month—this will be a big change in tone, cuz it’ll occur just as Mars is starting to pick up a little bit of speed—Venus and Mercury both emerge back into visibility in Leo. They both pop out and you can see them. You’ll be able to see them again really low on the western horizon, and they’ll be right there together. And so, we have two heliacal risings after periods of absence, after both have made their superior conjunction to the Sun. And so, that should be nice, honestly. So that’s really the second-half of the month you can see them. By the middle of the month, they’ll be about 10° separate from the Sun, which means that you’re gonna need good atmospheric conditions. You’re not gonna be able to see them for long, but they’re gonna be peeking out, and they’re both going to be increasingly visible. They’re gonna be climbing that western horizon at sunset for the second-half of July. And so, when planets go from invisible to visible, a lot of times those energies within us and those parts of our lives go from a period that is inward-facing to a period that is outward-facing, where you can see it in the world. And because that also coincides with a shift from Cancer, which is very inward-facing, to Leo, which is very outward-facing, I think that will be a significant shift in tone for what’s happening, and a significant shift in direction for people.
CB: Yeah. And that shift into fire signs, it becomes kind of a fiery summer in some sense as well. At least this month, with three planets shifting into fire signs over the course of the month—Venus, Mercury, and the Sun—and then Uranus stationing direct in Aries towards the end of the month as well. Or stationing retrograde.
KS: Station retrograde, yeah. So there’s a different feel to the second-half of the month versus the first-half of the month. The first-half of the month, we’ve got Cancer plus Mercury and Venus hidden, plus Mars, even though, as you said, Austin, we’re facing in the right direction, we don’t really have momentum yet. And the second-half of the month, Mars does move off that station degree, and that is usually when we start to see the pace kicking in or movement happening. And then by that time, Venus is just about to move into Leo, Mercury soon to follow, and by the end of the month, the Sun of course as well.
CB: I’m kind of surprised at how fast Mars starts picking up speed and gets out of Scorpio by the end of the month, or by early August. So we’ve got one more month left of Mars in Scorpio at this point and then it’s done. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s just gonna go by terribly quickly in terms of some of the major events that take place during the course of that, and coincide with it. Looking at it now, it looks like towards the end of July, we get one more Mercury-Mars square—one more Mercury-Mars hard aspect, where Mercury catches up to Mars and squares it at the very end of Leo, while Mars is still at 28-29 Scorpio, right?
KS: Yes. Yeah, I think it’ll be 28 Leo/Scorpio. And that literally is at the end of July. I think July 29th or 30th.
CB: Yeah. So that’s almost like the last hurrah of Mars in Scorpio. It seems like most of the year, we’ve been dealing with different hard aspects between Mars and Mercury at different points.
AC: Yeah, we have. It began on January 4 or something. No, we had a Mercury-Mars square on New Year’s or the day before New Year’s.
KS: Yes. And they were still in Libra/Capricorn then.
AC: And then Mercury stationed retrograde and then we had another Mercury-Mars square, that time with Mars in Scorpio.
KS: Yeah, Mercury in Aquarius. That was early March, I think.
AC: No, no. That was literally when the year began. We got two Mercury-Mars squares one week before the year began.
KS: Oh, I beg your pardon, yes.
AC: And then we had more Mercury-Mars stuff. But, yeah, lots of Mercury-Mars stuff.
KS: It’s been a theme.
AC: It has definitely been a theme.
KS: So the last hurrah, end of July, is what you’re saying, Chris.
CB: Yeah, I think so. And we had the opposition of course in June, and that was part of what both of you were focused on earlier in terms of Mars—or Mercury hitting Algol and Mars opposing it, and both of those planets opposing each other around the same time in June. And then, at the end of July, we have the final completion of that with Mercury now getting to Leo being in the superior position, but then having one more confrontation with Mars in the process before both of them move out of that fixed sign. Yeah, so I feel like that’s sort of the last phase of this Mars retrograde period. By then of course Mars will be off of that station degree. So some of the people that have that as a sensitive point, around 23-24 Scorpio, give or take, it’s already starting to move out of that range, so maybe it won’t be affecting as much. But perhaps there’s other people that have sensitive points at the very end of the fixed signs or the very beginning of the mutable signs that might coincide with something more significant for them.
AC: All right, so I have some bad news. One, Mercury’s retrograde in Virgo in September sees it square Mars a couple of times.
CB: Did we overlook something?
AC: Yes.
CB: Yeah, I didn’t look forward.
AC: So look at September 12. You will see Mercury at 20 Virgo square Mars at 20 Sag. And so, that’s on his way back. And so, that means that Mercury will come back and do that again.
KS: In October.
AC: We’ve got two more Mercury-Mars squares. And I disagree that the Mars stuff is over.
CB: I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that.
AC: It’s over for you and your little planets in Scorpio. But for those of us who are heavily invested in—
KS: In the mutables.
AC: —the first decan of mutable signs, August is when Mars goes back through that first 8° of Sagittarius for a third time. And for those of us who, I don’t know, have Mars at 4 Pisces and Saturn at 10 Virgo, that’s much more interesting. But if you got it during the Scorpio portion of the Mars retrograde, then, yeah, July is the end of that. If you’re on ‘team mutable’, like Kelly and I, well, then August is when we’re gonna deal with it.
KS: So we should enjoy our break in July, is what you’re saying, Austin.
AC: No, we should train for round three. I’ve been training for round three.
KS: And, honestly, I do have to say I agree, because I found the Mars in Sag portion of this retrograde much more difficult. I breathed a sigh of relief when Mars went back into Scorpio at the end of May. And, as you said, Austin, that’s because personally the mutable signs are much more significant for me. But, Chris, we’ll be looking to you for tips.
CB: Yeah, I’m gonna get a t-shirt printed up that says ‘Team Fixed Signs’, and you guys can get ‘Team Mutable Signs’ printed up, and we’ll see who survives the summer. So I forgot that I’m supposed to be mentioning electional charts in this whole little thing we’re doing. So the first electional chart—as usual, because I’ve taken time off to write, Leisa Schaim has been doing the electional charts for us. And she has a set of four charts for us to use this month again, starting out pretty early in the month. On July 4, we’ve got our first auspicious electional date. So it’s on July 4, 2016, with Virgo rising, around 11:20 in the morning. So 11:20 AM. We’ve got about 20° of Virgo rising. This is a day chart. The ruler of the ascendant is Mercury, which is at 10° of Cancer in the eleventh whole sign house. Mercury is sort of under the beams, it’s applying to a conjunction with the Sun, but also a sextile to Jupiter, which is in Virgo, conjunct the ascendant in the first whole sign house. So Mercury’s actually applying to that with reception. So the ruler of the ascendant’s relatively well-placed and applying to a benefic, there’s a benefic in the 1st house, and then this is just after that New Moon that takes place in Cancer about 12 or 13 Cancer. And the Moon in this chart is actually waxing. So it’s separating from the Sun. So we’re on the New Moon side or the waxing side of the New Moon, Moon in Cancer in the eleventh whole sign house, applying to a conjunction with Venus, which is at 20° of Cancer, also in the 11th house.
So this is an amazing chart for 11th house-type activities, both because it has a huge focus there with both the ruler of the ascendant and just a stellium of planets in the 11th house. But it’s also relatively well-placed in terms of the ruler of the 11th and all of those planets applying to benefics. I guess the Moon’s actually technically applying to a sextile with Jupiter. So this is an even better chart than I initially thought. So things revolving around the 11th house that have to do with friends, alliances, groups, social movements and other things would be well-suited for an election like this. I’ve been reworking this chapter on the original significations of the houses in Hellenistic astrology for my book. And one of the things I thought was really interesting—that comes up really early in the tradition—is just the idea that the 11th house also has to do with hopes or aspirations, because it’s the house that’s rising up towards the highest part in the chart. It’s not there yet, but it’s getting there, or it has its sights set on getting there.
KS: I did a lecture at NORWAC just recently on the 11th house and why it’s so positive, and that was one of the things that I had stumbled across in my research, the idea of the aspiration. A planet in the 11th house is reaching towards or rising towards the midheaven and knows that it’s going into that more prominent position. And, yeah, that’s where the idea of the hopes and wishes comes from. It’s fascinating.
CB: Yeah.
AC: When I think of these significations for the 11th, I think of it in terms of the philosophical question of the ‘good life’. What is the good life? What defines the good life? As we know, the 11th house has this title of being the ‘house of the good spirit’ or the eudaimon. And it’s sort of like, what is the good life? What does it mean it’s the place where Jupiter takes his ‘joy’? What is the vision of life? What are right relations with people? What’s right work? All of this sum total vision of, what’s the good life? I feel like a big part of the 11th house is aspiration. What is the life that you envision? Not the life that you have.
KS: No, it’s very aspirational. It’s about where do you want to go or how do you want to improve in some way, what are you aspiring towards.
CB: Sure. And then the related concept in Greek is eudaimonia, which is the Greek word for ‘happiness’.
KS: Yes.
CB: How do you achieve happiness? Or what does happiness mean to you? More broadly, this might be a good chart for some of those broader themes, in terms of what you are aspiring to achieve. What sort of hopes and dreams do you have your eyes set on? What would you like to accomplish or set into motion at this time for the long term? And what sort of things can you initiate now in your life that might bring about greater levels of whatever it means for you to be happy? Since that sometimes varies from person to person in terms of what happiness means subjectively to each person.
KS: A hundred-percent. And, also, maybe even the idea of the benefactors or people that might help support that happiness. This is a really nice chart.
CB: Yes, this is a great chart. So I think I tried to set up an interview with somebody for a podcast for this, but it didn’t work out. So I might have to schedule another one for this election and we’ll see if that works. Speaking of 11th house activities, we’re all gonna be at the ISAR conference in October, right?
AC: Yep.
KS: Looks like it.
CB: All right. So that is of course our sponsor for this month, and they’re hosting the conference event, 2016, in October, in—what’s the location, again? It’s in California?
AC: It’s in Orange County. It’s a little south of LA.
CB: And that’s not too far from where you live, right?
AC: No. I think it’s about 45 minutes without horrendous traffic. So I’ll just be driving down.
CB: Maybe a little party at Austin’s house for all podcast listeners or something like that?
KS: Yeah, we’ll really channel.
AC: Maybe not all podcast listeners. It’s really not that large.
CB: All right, well, it’ll be maybe more exclusive. Maybe just like a hundred people or so?
KS: The top tiers.
AC: Just a hundred people.
CB: Okay. So this conference is taking place in Costa Mesa, California from October 13-17, 2016. The focus of course is on astrological forecasting, so it’s a themed conference. Every once in a while different conferences do themes and usually they’re pretty goofy, but this one’s actually not a bad theme. Their tagline is ‘The Power of Forecasting Meets the Consequence of Choice’, which I really want to find out who came up with that, because that’s a pretty effective tagline compared to other conference taglines that I’ve seen. Yeah, so the conference is gonna feature more than 60 speakers from around the world, including us three, so Austin, Kelly, and I.
AC: You know, I forgot to apply. I’m not speaking.
KS: I’m not speaking. It’s just you, Chris.
CB: Oh, what? Really? Okay.
KS: Yeah.
CB: So you guys are gonna be there.
AC: Oh, yeah.
KS: Which means we can have a lot of fun. Because as we all know—
AC: Because we’re not speaking.
KS: —there’s a level of stress when you’re speaking at a conference.
CB: You guys don’t have to work.
KS: No.
AC: Yeah, Kelly and I will cheer with our beers.
KS: Yes. We’ll be in the perfect Pisces place.
AC: Yeah, and we’ll throw spit wads at you while you’re frantically trying to finalize your PowerPoint.
CB: Yeah, well, I’ll be doing that. And then I’ll be up on a stage for the presidential panel that’s at the very end of the conference. And that’s gonna be the most tense moment for me in terms of this being a workday, having to, yeah, get up on this panel of five or six people who are going to issue our predictions for who’s gonna win the US presidential election, which will just be taking place like a week or two later, since this conference is in mid-October.
AC: Yeah. I’m wondering if that’s not going to be terribly anti-climatic. I think there’s a good chance that Hillary Clinton will just be like 5 or 10 points ahead. It’ll just be like a gimme. I have suspicions that it’s not going to look very heated.
CB: Sure. Well, we’ll see. This election season has been nothing, if not full of surprises so far.
AC: Indeed, indeed.
CB: So there’ll be one presidential panel at the very end for people from the US, and then they’re doing something unique by having another presidential panel from speakers from outside of the US, from other countries. And our good friend, Nick Dagan Best, is gonna be on the panel, which will be at the start of the conference.
AC: What distant land does he hail from, again?
CB: He hails from this land of—
KS: A very foreign country.
CB: The snowy land of Canada.
AC: Ah, yes, I’ve heard of it.
CB: Right. I believe Kelly’s visited there.
KS: Chris, that’s hilarious. What I didn’t know—random trivia fact—about Canada, according to average temperatures or some such number-crunching, it is apparently the coldest country in the world.
CB: Oh, really? Just on average?
KS: Yeah, I guess that they have more consistently cold days than anywhere else.
AC: But is that counting all of Canada or the parts where people actually live?
KS: Well, it would probably have to take into consideration all of Canada.
AC: I mean, when I look at the map, it looks like the population density is crowding up to the border, to warmer climates.
KS: Of course, the majority of Canadians live within something like a hundred miles of the border with the US, which is the most temperate part of Canada. It’s what they call the tropical region, where all the bananas and pineapples come from.
AC: Right, right. And the hula dancing.
CB: Right.
KS: So, anyway, there may not be hula dancing at ISAR. That’s probably not what you want to talk about, Chris.
AC: Sorry.
CB: Well, I mean, that’s apparently what you guys are gonna be doing while I’m up there doing work.
KS: Doing something intelligent.
CB: Yeah. Issuing predictions about world events and teaching people how to predict the future and little things like that. So it’s gonna be a great conference. We’re giving away a free pass to it, because ISAR partnered with The Astrology Podcast in order to give away one free pass to one of our $10 tier patrons this month. I’ll announce the winner of that in the next episode. If you happen to hear this episode, and you’re not signed up for that tier, there’s still time to sign up in the next few days, as long as you do it before we do the final drawing for the giveaway. So you can find out more information about the ISAR conference at isarastrology.org. And if you go to the description page for this episode, you can find out more information about how to sign up for the drawing for the free pass. So we hope to see you there in October.
KS: Do you have another election, Chris?
CB: Yeah. Cuz there’s two early in the month and then there’s one in the middle and one later. So the other early-in-the-month election is actually very similar—it’s taking advantage of those Cancer and Virgo placements—and this one’s one July 9, at about 6:00 in the morning. So you’ll have to stay up or get up extra early for this one.
KS: You might stay up. The rest of us would get up.
CB: Yeah, I was gonna make that joke, and I realized I already made that joke last month about Austin staying up all night.
AC: Yeah, I can’t wait for nights to get longer so I can stay up later. It’s stupid. The Sun rises at like 5:00 in the morning now.
CB: Yeah, I’ve really been enjoying it in terms of the Sun being out until 8:30 at night. And then I’m sure you enjoy that part as well in terms of actually seeing sunlight for more than two or three hours a day.
AC: Oh, seeing sunlight is not a priority for me.
CB: Okay.
KS: Oh, gosh, such a vampire.
CB: Speaking of sunlight, so this election takes place at 6:00 AM, which is just after sunrise on July 9. And it has Cancer rising, and the ruler of the ascendant is the Moon. At this time in Denver, it’s about 19° of Virgo, in the third whole sign house—third quadrant house as well for that matter—and it’s actually separating from a conjunction with Jupiter. So in this location, you can’t catch the conjunction with Jupiter. If you live in another area, I think you might actually be able to catch the conjunction with Jupiter, which would be ideal. But even if you can’t, what you end up with is the Moon separating from a conjunction with Jupiter and then applying to a sextile with Mercury and then a sextile with Venus. So it’s almost actually a condition of enclosure, where the planet is separating—
AC: Mars.
CB: Oh, the trine—or sextile.
AC: Yeah, Mars is between the rays of Mercury and Venus. But that sextile with Mercury is also mutually-received, which is mighty nice.
CB: Mutually-received with whom?
KS: Well, Mercury and the Moon are in each other’s sign.
CB: Oh, right, that one. I thought you were talking about Mars for some reason. Okay, so the Moon is actually separating from Jupiter and then applying to Mercury, then a sextile to Mars, then a sextile to Venus. So still good. Still sort of broadly-applying to flowing, favorable aspects with three planets, including a benefic and separating from a benefic. If you are in a location that’s further east on the globe than Denver, then you might be able to catch the Moon applying to Jupiter, which would probably be even more optimal, but not a big deal if you can’t.
KS: I think in New York they probably can, a hint before.
AC: Yeah, I would just catch it while the Moon is between Jupiter and Mercury. That mutual reception’s really nice and that’ll power-up the Moon in the chart. I would just not catch it once it’s departing from Mercury. It’s sextiling Mars, and sextiles are hardly horrific aspects. But that ‘Jupiter-Mercury-Moon’ juice seems like the choicest moment in this one. So I wouldn’t wait until midday to grab this.
CB: Sure. Just in terms of really emphasizing that mutual reception by making sure it’s still applying.
AC: Yeah, yeah.
CB: Definitely. So that connection just shows a huge emphasis in this chart. The last one had an emphasis on the 11th house. This is more of a 3rd house emphasis, which the 3rd house, broadly speaking, has to do with things like writing, learning, education, travel in some sense. What other good 3rd house keywords?
KS: You know, the 3rd house—I have read some references—also has a connection to friendships, similar to the 11th, because it makes that sextile to the 1st. So it can have that social quality to it as well.
AC: Yeah, if you’re gonna start a gang.
CB: Right.
AC: I think of the 3rd as it’s people you see all the time. It’s siblings. It’s the guy at the gas station. It’s like people who are kind of just around all the time and it’s social in that sense. A lot of times you see little circles of people that just hang out all the time. Where not everybody has a really intense relationship with everybody, but it’s just sort of like the people that are always around, your crew. In a lot of locations, you could also wait a couple of hours and get Virgo rising for the 1st/11th action with this chart, too, cuz the Moon’s not that fast. Actually it depends on where you are. I guess you’d have to be in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for that.
KS: Like for our listeners in Australia.
AC: Yeah, for your listeners in Australia, you can probably get that.
KS: If they did the 9th of July, it would be about 7:00 AM in Sydney. The Moon is only at 11 Virgo, so they could certainly wait and come back later in the day.
AC: All right.
KS: But the other thing, 3rd house stuff, Chris, writing. All kinds of that communication, verbal, language-based stuff.
CB: Yeah, which is a great 3rd house keyword, but even more so for this because of the emphasis on Virgo and Mercury. Because the Sun and Moon are about 60° apart that puts the Lot of Fortune also in Virgo, depending on your timing. So you can also get the Lot of Fortune in the 3rd as well. So this would be a great chart for starting a writing project or even an education or learning project for that matter, since the 3rd house often has that quality of going both ways in terms of output and also sometimes input.
AC: I would also add with the 3rd—the 3rd is the ‘scheduling’ house. The 3rd is like your weekly schedule if you want to commit to a new schedule for a writing project, or for a ‘health’ thing, whatever it is. But committing to a schedule, starting a new regimen that day would also be really good.
CB: Sure. And I liked your point earlier about gangs, which is funny, but it actually makes sense just conceptually, cuz the 4th house is your home base. The 3rd house is often said to be like your neighborhood in some sense.
AC: Yeah, your stomping grounds.
CB: Right.
KS: Yeah.
CB: So what do you do in your stomping grounds? That totally makes sense.
AC: Yeah. Going back to being a kid, you just kind of hang out with the other kids in the neighborhood and go around and hit rocks with sticks and get bored and ride bikes. When I teach the 3rd house, a lot of times I address the ‘joy’ of the Moon in the 3rd, which is happening in this chart. I make reference to the old television series, Cheers. It’s the bar where everybody knows your name.
CB: Nice.
AC: Right? It’s not like they have all these really intense relationships with each other for the most part. They just all hang out there and it’s comfortable.
CB: Yeah, that totally makes sense. So another excellent election, July 9, 6:00 AM. Take advantage of it. I still keep coming back to writing. And that invokes in my memory that The Mountain Astrologer magazine is our other sponsor for this month. You see how I smoothly transitioned and did a second plug?
KS: Lovely segue.
CB: Thank you.
AC: Like a dancer.
CB: Like an elegant, elegant dancer. So The Mountain Astrologer magazine, or TMA for short, they’re our second sponsor this month. So for patrons on the $5 tier, one of our giveaways this month is a one-year subscription to The Mountain Astrologer magazine, which is a pretty awesome prize. TMA has been published six times a year for nearly 30 years now. They’re actually at their first Saturn return with Saturn in Sagittarius. I think everybody generally agrees—I don’t know if this is unspoken or if it’s pretty overt at this point—that it’s basically the main publication for students of astrology, as well as professionals, because it keeps you connected to what’s going on in the astrological community. I mean, would you guys agree with that?
KS: Wholeheartedly.
AC: Yeah. I mean, it’s kind of an institution at this point.
CB: Right. It’s become an institution. In some ways, that’s the print equivalent of what I’m trying to do with the podcast here. And it provides a nice template in some sense in terms of how to really do high quality astrology, but also how to be inclusive. They have articles on just about everything, from just every tradition or approach, and they don’t keep anybody out. There’s nothing in astrology that TMA hasn’t covered at some point or doesn’t cover regularly. Even in the forecasting columns, there was the longtime forecasting column by the late Jeff Jawer that he wrote for years as a modern astrologer. And then right next to that, over the past few years, you’ve had my electional column where I have more of a blend between a traditional and a modern approach. But, yeah, they’ve got tons of great articles. I think, Austin and Kelly, you’ve both written for them, right?
AC: Yeah.
KS: Yes.
AC: I’ve written two pieces: one on Marilyn Manson, who has the most fun chart ever, and then one on sect. And then I was interviewed about being under 40 and being an astrologer at some point.
KS: Yeah, I’ve written for them as well. My most recent piece was on the 3rd and 6th houses from a more traditional perspective. I think that might have been in the December/January or the February/March issues earlier this year.
AC: Yeah, I read that.
CB: Yeah, that was just a few months ago. Somebody actually wrote in, in the latest issue, saying, ‘thank you’, or that they really liked that piece or something.
KS: Oh, I got a letter to the editor. That’s good.
CB: Yeah, I’ll have to check it out. I don’t know who—it was just sort of talking about that article being really good or invoking something in them, so you’ll have to take a look at that.
KS: Oh, yeah. It’s a great magazine, despite Austin and I writing for it, I guess.
CB: Sure.
KS: And they do cover a lot. They have a beginner’s section. So people shouldn’t feel intimidated, like you have to know a lot about astrology before getting into it. But there’s also some more advanced stuff, too. It’s a great, great publication.
AC: I have a TMA anecdote. So when I first got really into astrology, I was maybe 19, and I was in college. I went to college in a really small town. And so, what I learned astrology with were a bunch of Noel Tyl Learn Astrology books that I got at the used bookstore and at the metaphysical shop, the place where they sell the crystals. They had a stack of 50 old Mountain Astrologers, and I bought the stack.
KS: Wow.
AC: And that was so helpful. I mean, half of my foundation in astrology is like a three-foot stack of Mountain Astrologers.
CB: Yeah, and I think just about every astrologer. When I’m traveling to lecture to different groups around the country, I end up staying with one of the group members. And every time I go to a new astrologer’s house, they’ve always got that stack of The Mountain Astrologer somewhere in their general library vicinity, just because they do such a good job of continually pumping out high quality content. And they’re always things that people want to keep around. It’s not usually something that people read and then toss or something like that.
AC: Yeah.
KS: No. There’s a good mix of timeless information, as well as current stuff. So they’re definitely collector’s pieces.
AC: And just while we’re singing the praises, I’m continually impressed by their editorial standard.
CB: Right.
AC: Both as a reader and having written, they’re very thorough, which is hard to do in a publication that comes out so often. But, yeah, it’s the gold standard for astrology publications these days.
CB: Totally. So let’s see, they have detailed forecasts, a student’s section. They have astrology humor and cartoons.
KS: Oh, they’re hilarious.
AC: I do not think they’re hilarious.
CB: Really?
KS: Oh, my gosh. The one that I’ll never forget is Virgo’s worst nightmare, and there’s a picture of a public pool. Fantastic, right? I used to give them to students when they’re learning, and they’re trying to get their head around it. Is it the first thing you go to, Chris? Is that what you were gonna say?
CB: Yeah, it totally used to be one of the first things I’d go to, just seeing what the cartoon is for the month. It’s all in good fun. So TMA’s blog—they have a blog on their website, and they also have 15 years of back issues online that you can check out. For more information, visit mountainastrologer.com. All right, so moving on, we covered our second election. I’ve got two more for later in the month. But is there anything mid-month or mid-to-late-July, in the second-half of July that we need to mention?
AC: Well, so what happens in the middle of July, which I mentioned earlier, is we get Mercury and Venus both in Leo, conjoining and heliacally rising in the west. So that’s cool. I like that. That’s gonna be really fun and creative.
CB: Yeah, so both of those planets are heliacally rising in the west. And do we know when that’s gonna happen specifically? Is there a range that you’re using for heliacal rising? Like 15 or 8?
AC: So I’m using 10. Cuz at 10, you can see them if the conditions are right, but they’re still scarce. 15 is when they’re no longer under the beams, and one of the things that that means is you can definitely see them, right? When planets are separated by the Sun from at least 15, it’s really clear. But you can usually see them around 10, and there are some traditional sources that use 10 for visibility.
KS: So that gives us the 13th of July for Venus, and it looks like maybe early on the 15th for Mercury.
AC: Right.
KS: So using that 10-15 window, Austin.
AC: Yeah. And they’re conjoining, right? So you’re gonna be able to look—
KS: They’re coming out together.
AC: So just in terms of visually, look to the west at sunset—from the second-half of July onward—and there’s Mercury and Venus. Also, something I’ve been noticing during the few times that I’m outside is that you can see Mars and Saturn and Antares so clearly right now.
KS: Yeah.
AC: Just look up, there’s Mars. He’s super bright and red. You look a little bit to the left, there’s Saturn. And then a little bit below Saturn, you’ll see Antares, which is red. You know, it’s been cloudy here lately, and those are like the only things you can see, and there it is—Saturn, Mars, Antares. And so, whenever you see that, remember that Mars is closing in on that, and that those three are going to make this very dramatic conjunction towards the end of August, but it’s like that’s the thing. I would say that’s the real end of the ‘Mars’ show, the Mars-Saturn-Antares conjunction, which isn’t until the end of August. But you can just watch it. They’re all so bright.
CB: Yeah, totally. Because that was when it all started, that lineup of Mars and Saturn and Antares earlier this year, right?
AC: Mm-hmm. It wasn’t quite as tight. Saturn was maybe 5°-6° away.
KS: Away, yeah.
AC: But for this second round, they’re all gonna be lined up at 9. Antares of course is a fixed star, so it doesn’t move, but Saturn and Mars have their conjunction, which they make every two years right on top of Antares. And it just so happens that is only 1° beyond the degree that Mars stationed retrograde at.
CB: Nice. Well, since you mentioned the conjunction and heliacal rising of Mercury and Venus, actually my next election takes place on the day that they conjoin. So maybe I should mention that really quickly. So this was the next chart that Leisa found, which is July 16, 2016, at about 4:40 PM in Denver, Colorado, with early Sagittarius rising. So the chart has Sagittarius rising. Jupiter is in Virgo, in the tenth whole sign house, potentially conjunct the MC, depending on your location. Jupiter’s in the 10th. The Moon is in Sagittarius in the 1st, applying to a square with Jupiter with reception. Saturn is in the 1st house in the chart. However, it’s a day chart, so Saturn’s a bit less malefic. And Saturn is also being overcome through a superior square from Jupiter with reception, and through a superior trine from Venus in Leo. So I really think you’ll get some sort of Saturn things from having Saturn in the 1st house in the election, but you’re gonna more or less get many of the more positive aspects of Saturn in Sagittarius than you might otherwise if it was a night chart, or if Mars was squaring Saturn or something like that. So Mercury and Venus are conjunct at 5° of Leo in the ninth whole sign house. If you can adjust things, I’d probably recommend putting the ascendant at 5° of Sagittarius in order to trine the Mercury-Venus conjunction, in order to give it a little bit of a boost of extra power, despite being in a cadent or declining house. Mars is more or less successfully hidden away at 24° of Scorpio in the 12th house, not hugely impacting anything major in the chart. And, yeah, I think that’s about it. It’s a major emphasis on the 10th house, with the ruler of the ascendant there, and then on the 9th house, secondarily, with the ruler of the 10th placed there, and with that Mercury-Venus conjunction being one of the closest aspects in the entire chart and taking place in the 9th. So career matters, travel matters, education, so on and so forth would be good activities for this chart. All right, so later in the month, now we’re moving on towards the end of July. Are there any other major signatures or things that you guys wanted to mention?
AC: Not really. I mean, the Sun follows Mercury and Venus into Leo, right? So it gets ‘Leo-ier’ and ‘Leo-ier’ as the month continues. By the time we get to, say, the 22nd, we have Sun, Venus, and Mercury all in Leo. That’s a lot of fire, and a big contrast to the beginning of the month when we had that trio all in Cancer.
CB: Right. So just before we get there, we’ve got a Full Moon in Capricorn on July 19, which we may or may not have already mentioned. I can’t remember if it was.
AC: No, we haven’t talked about it yet.
CB: Okay, so Full Moon in Capricorn. Then the Sun ingresses into Leo—you just mentioned—July 22.
AC: That’s a somewhat disruptive Full Moon in Capricorn.
KS: Yes.
CB: Why do you say that?
AC: Because it’s in a T-square with Uranus, and Mars is aspecting both the Sun and the Moon.
CB: That’ll do it.
KS: Anytime it will.
CB: Okay, so we’ve got a Full Moon in Capricorn square Uranus. And Uranus is getting juiced up itself because it’s actually getting ready to station retrograde at that point.
KS: Yes. So somewhat volatile.
AC: Yeah. And so, it might be about managing volatility. You know, Capricorn and Cancer are both about creating stability and control. Cancer is really about doing that more internally and emotionally, and then Capricorn’s about doing that externally, but they’re both about locking things down in a good way. And so, with both of them in a square with Uranus, it’s departing, but it’s only 3° departing. There may be challenges to what stability has been achieved or recovered, or you might need to integrate a new development into your situation. Mars aspecting them heats it up, but Mars is aspecting them by sextile for the Moon and by trine for the Sun. So, hopefully, it’s working with that and integrating part of what we’ve learned through this very long period of Mars in Scorpio into these new situations and arrangements.
CB: Sure. So that takes place at 27° of Cancer or Capricorn?
KS: Capricorn, yeah.
CB: Okay. And Uranus is at 24 at that time.
KS: Yeah.
CB: So like you said, it’s 3° off.
AC: And Mars is at 25.
KS: Yeah. Literally, in the hours leading up to the Full Moon becoming exact, the Moon will square Uranus. So it goes into that Full Moon. Well, it’ll separate directly and most immediately from Mars. So we’ve got the Mars square Uranus—sorry, the Moon square Uranus, sextile Mars, and then going into the opposition with the Sun.
AC: Yeah, it’s gonna carry that charge.
KS: Yeah.
AC: One things that’s worth noting about July is that even though Mars and Uranus do not form a traditional aspect between them, as the Moon goes about its business, there are going to be areas where the Moon is going to hit Uranus and Mars in quick succession, and this is the most dramatic one of those. But, for example, when the Moon’s at the end of Leo—which will be during the first week of July—it will trine Uranus and square Mars in quick succession, right? Any sign that can see both of those, you’re gonna get a ‘ba-bum’ from Uranus and Mars to the Moon.
CB: Yeah, that’s a really good point. Let’s see, so my last election of the month—which pretty much brings us to the end of July—takes place on July 30, at about 5:10 PM, with Sagittarius about 21 Sagittarius rising. So this is basically like the last chart, where the focus is having Jupiter, the ruler of the ascendant, in Virgo, in the tenth whole sign house. The main difference is Mercury has just ingressed into Virgo. So Mercury is at 0° of Virgo in the tenth whole sign house. So now all of a sudden you have the ruler of the 10th and the 7th in the 10th, with the ruler of the 1st in the 4th. So one of the things that this one’s a little bit better for would be 7th house activities, like partnerships, and potentially 4th house activities, but especially 7th house activities. Because now you have the ruler of the ascendant and the ruler of the 7th finally applying, or at least in the same sign, and then eventually widely applying to each other, where they’ll at some point form a conjunction. So that’s the core of the chart. The other part of the chart is that the Moon is in Cancer. It’s just ingressed into Cancer. The timing’s kind of weird, but it’s sort of separating from a sextile with Mercury and very widely applying to a sextile with Jupiter eventually, about 20° later, but it’s at least in its own domicile. It is in the 8th house, so you would want to try to use it for some more positive 8th house-type things dealing with financial matters or other people’s money or loans or other sorts of financial exchanges of that matter that have to do with other people. The 9th house is also relatively well-placed, with the Sun in Leo, ruling the 9th house, and relatively well-situated. So it could be a good chart for 9th house-type activities. It’s not quite as strong as some of our earlier July electional charts, but it’s a serviceable election if you’ve got to do something at 5:00 in the evening, around the very end of the month on July 30. And I think that brings us to about the end of the month. Are there any other major things that we meant to touch upon that we didn’t get a chance to?
KS: I think it’s a good summary of July. It’s a different month than what we’ve had through the first-half of the year.
AC: Yeah, it’s really different.
KS: And different in what many of us perhaps will kind of internalize or experience as different in a good way or different in a slightly more calm way. I liked what you said, Austin, about the idea of the Cancer planets earlier in the month as somewhat a chance to recuperate or train for what’s ahead.
AC: I think it’s a little bit more sustainable. It’s moving forward and sort of getting yourself ready to move forward. It’s not leisurely, but the pace is certainly not as break-neck as it was during June. Things are gonna move a little slower, and they’re gonna kind of tend to move in the right direction, or at least towards resolution. And so, I think there’ll be a lot less ambient stress.
CB: A lot less ambient stress, I like that. That’s good.
KS: That’s a beautiful, beautiful summary.
CB: Yeah. As we said earlier, I’m looking forward to all of us fixed signs having a sigh of relief as we get through the rest of Mars in Scorpio and let you guys take over with the mutable placements in August, when Mars moves into Sagittarius.
AC: Yeah. August is a very different deal, and so is September.
KS: Yes. So stay tuned for that next month.
CB: All right, sounds good. All right, well, I guess that’s it. So you guys have already said your news, what you’ll be working on. I’ll be writing. Austin and Kelly, you’ll both be teaching and doing consulting and all of the good things that you do. Where can people find out more information about your work, again?
AC: Austincoppock.com. It’s A-U-S-T-I-N and Coppock is C-O-P-P-O-C-K.
KS: And I’m at kellysastrology.com.
CB: Excellent. All right, well, thanks guys for joining me. And I guess, Kelly, I’ll be talking to you again in just a few days for the ‘question and answer’ episode.
KS: Yes. And with Leisa too, I think.
CB: Yeah, Leisa Schaim will be joining us. She contributed all of the excellent elections this month. And her website—I should mention really quick—is leisaschaim.com. So we’ll be talking again in just a few days. And then, Austin, we’ll see you again next month for the next forecast.
AC: Hopefully.
CB: All right. Yeah, so hopefully, if we all make it through in one piece in the next four weeks. All right, well, I guess we’ll call it a day for this episode. Thanks everyone for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please be sure to rate it on iTunes. That’s always appreciated. We also appreciate all of our patrons and supporters through Patreon who sign up to donate a dollar or more each episode, just to help keep the lights on and keep the show coming. So you can find out more information about that at theastrologypodcast.com/subscribe. So that brings us to the end of the July forecast. So thanks everyone for listening, and we’ll see you next time.