The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 98, titled:
Astrology Forecast for March 2017
With Chris Brennan and guests Austin Coppock and Kelly Surtees
Episode originally released on February 28, 2017
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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 27th, 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. Today is February 24, 2017, at 3:54 PM in Denver, Colorado, and this is the 98th episode of the show. Today I’m gonna be talking with Austin Coppock and Kelly Surtees about the astrological forecast for March 2017. So, Austin, welcome to the show.
AUSTIN COPPOCK: Thank you for having me, Chris.
CB: Welcome. And, Kelly, welcome back.
KELLY SURTEES: Thank you for having me. It’s good to be back with you guys.
CB: Awesome. All right, so, yeah, Kelly, we missed you last month when you had to take a month off to do your vacation, and Austin and I just basically talked politics for like an hour or two. So I’m glad to have you back.
KS: Look, I missed you guys. I wouldn’t have said I missed the politics, so I’m glad that you guys did that last month.
CB: Right. And luckily, I think everybody’s pretty exhausted from that and are done talking politics to some extent, so I think you’re in good company this month, right, Austin?
AC: More or less.
CB: More or less. Not that we’re not paying attention, but, yeah, I think we’ve got other things to talk about in this episode in terms of the astrology of next month, as well as other things that are going on. So we’re sort of flying by the seat of our pants today in terms of setting this up quickly. And we had a false start, but we’re back again, and it seems to be working this time. Austin, you’re in transition right now. You’re literally getting ready to move states over the next few days, right?
AC: Yeah, the moving truck pulled up about a few hours ago.
CB: Wow. And so, you’re packing up literally as we speak. And it will be Sunday?
AC: Our last day will be Sunday. And this transition came along very suddenly and semi-unexpectedly. It’s a choice. It’s not like we’re getting kicked out or our house caught fire or anything, but it just kind of came almost out of nowhere. And it’s interesting because we’re gonna spend this first week of March with things volatilized in a chemical sense, right? Volatilization is a chemical process where things go from solid or liquid states and they become gases and fires and all that. And so, you know, the month begins on that kind of note. It’s not always bad. It’s just not stable, right?
CB: Right.
AC: You can’t move and remain perfectly stable.
KS: Correct.
CB: Yeah, I like that notion of instability. And you also said something last month I have to give you a bit of credit for. We were debating the pros and cons of our eclipse elections, where one of the elections that we were highlighting last month was an eclipse. And one of the warnings you had—that I think was valid in retrospect—is that things will not necessarily turn out the way that you expect if you’re trying to elect things coinciding with eclipses. I think that was one of your main points, right?
AC: Yeah. So we talked about that in-between episodes, and it actually helped me clarify what my objection to eclipse elections is. I think the eclipse elects you.
KS: Correct.
AC: And I think that your best use of those time periods is to see it coming and work with it. I think that attempts to be like, “Well, I’ve decided that this is gonna happen, come hell or high water,” I think that’s a bad plan. But there are certain things which have been in the works for a long time and they’re just ready to happen, right? Like for you, your book ended up hooking into these eclipses. And my move—which had been building for a while, but we never thought it was gonna happen—it just happens that my last day here is the solar eclipse.
CB: Right.
AC: And so, yeah, I think that’s a cleaner version of the points I was trying to make last month. Let the eclipse elect you and then work with that.
CB: Yeah, and I really have to tip my hat to you for that. Like a month ago, when I was setting up the book and getting into the final phases of getting ready to publish it, the print on demand company that I’d print the book through was asking me to set a publication date and then an on sale date when online retailers like Amazon could start selling it. And so, I just glanced at the month and I was like, “What are the major things that are gonna happen in February,” and of course I saw the lunar eclipse on February 10 and the solar eclipse on February 26. And the lunar eclipse on the 10th ended up being—despite being an eclipse—one of the best elections that Leisa was able to find last month, when we were doing the electional work. So I set the 10th as the release date, thinking I would do a soft launch at that point where officially that would be the publication date. But I would do sort of a slow, quiet roll-out because this is my first time publishing a book, and I need to learn the ropes of fulfilling orders. And I wanted to have two weeks of lead-up time where I could sell the book to people directly and make a little bit more from it before Amazon started selling it and taking a huge cut of the profits just for distributing it. So I thought that was good. And then I saw at some point, a few days before the 10th, that Amazon was doing pre-orders for the book, which was fine, because people ordering it then presumably would know that they’re not gonna actually get the book for a few weeks. Presumably not until the 26th or something when Amazon’s supposed to start selling it. And then suddenly at midnight, on February 10, Amazon’s page switches—and I noticed it—from pre-order to ‘This book is full on sale. Buy it now, it’s going quick’. And I panicked and scrambled and launched the book later that day, on February 10, because I thought Amazon was starting to sell copies. I sort of imagined everybody buying them from Amazon. And so, I needed to launch it in order to start selling it directly to people, as well as to make the original pitch for the book that I want to make, which was supposed to be on my own site and in my own words, where I could put in the introduction and table of contents and all that other stuff. So my book is out. It launched officially on February 10. It’s been a crazy ride since then in terms of fulfilling orders and having some delays—and that was punctuated by the Baltimore NCGR conference, which started a few days later on the 16th or 17th—and is now finished. Yeah, so things will not necessarily turn out how you’d expect, or sometimes the eclipse chooses you. And definitely in my case, that was the day the book was coming out, and it was not gonna be a quiet affair.
AC: Yeah, that’s great. So a couple of things, one, congratulations.
KS: Huge congrats, Chris.
CB: Thank you.
AC: Two, double-congratulations for getting it out before that conference, cuz I know that that was a question mark for a long period of time. So secondary congratulations for that.
CB: Right. And that was just crazy pushing that. And my hat goes off to Shannon Garcia, my layout person, because without her there’s no way I would have gotten it out in time. And I’m really shocked at the amount of work we did in the very last few weeks, or even last week or two before it came out, where there were still pieces that were very not-done. And then suddenly it turned into this amazing book at the last minute in terms of the layout and design and everything else. And also, Paula Belluomini from Brazil—who did the book cover, as well as many of the diagrams—she also created a little ornament for the chapters. Both of them were just amazing and brought it together at the last minute for me, or helped me to bring it together.
AC: Yeah, it’s amazing how something goes from being a bunch of files of text and images to becoming a book in a few magic days. The last thing I wanted to say—just on an astrological note—is that your experience tells us something and confirms something a lot of people have said about the North Node, because eclipses are either on one node or another. The one on the 10th was a ‘North Node’ one. You know, the North Node is the better, faster, stronger, quicker. It’s associated—especially in Indian traditions—with getting in potentially over your head, or getting into something new which you don’t know how to handle yet, and there being some confusion because of that. Not because anything is particularly terrible, but just because you haven’t done this before, and things are going faster and getting bigger than you were prepared for. You know, that’s why they say Rahu as having potentially malefic qualities. One of the things that Bepin Behari says in Myths & Symbols of Vedic Astrology is that a lot of times Rahu grants fortune or success, but not peace of mind. And so, you got the book out, that’s amazing, but it probably did not grant you peace of mind. You get what I’m saying.
CB: Yeah, I mean, it’s just been non-stop since then. It’s been interesting. It hasn’t been a rest. Everything’s been very unsettled. You know, Amazon’s been crazy because it’s doing unexpected things like hitting the top of sales charts for the astrology books, which is interesting. But more interestingly, it was becoming a hot, new bestseller in the Greek philosophy and Ancient Roman history sections, which is just wild. So go to those sections where you’re looking for books by Cicero or The Decline of the Roman Empire, and then number one you see this astrology book at the top of that. That’s been really surreal.
KS: That’s wonderful, Chris. It’s well-deserved.
CB: Yeah, it’s been a long process. So anyway, I’ll have a separate episode—that I’ll probably have released already before this one—about the book, so we don’t have to dwell on it too much. It is going all over the world. You can order it directly from me at hellenisticastrology.com/book. And obviously I’ll have a link for it on the description page for this. And if you do order it on Amazon—I mean, I’d prefer you order it from me. If you order it on Amazon, if you like the book, once you’ve read it of course, give it a good rating, since that’ll make a difference. I’m sure we have a lot of other business before we get into the news this month and the forecast this month.
AC: I think you have a drawing to announce. Something like that.
CB: Yeah, let’s get that out of the way. So we had actually a big one this month. We had two sponsors for the last four episodes, and this is now the fourth episode in a row. So we’ll be drawing for supporters on Patreon who are signed up for the $5 and $10 tiers. And, let’s see, on the $5 tier, the prize this month is two CDs from The Mountain Astrologer magazine, which contain four years of back issues of the full run of the magazine as PDF files from 2007 through 2010. So it’s 24 issues in all, with a total of over 300 articles, which is just this amazing wealth of information on two CDs. So you can actually purchase these CDs if you want yourself at mountainastrologer.com. It’s only like $48 or something like that. But, let’s see, for the drawing for that, the winner of that two-CD package this month is listener Andra Sampson. So, Andra, you’ve actually won the two-CD package from The Mountain Astrologer magazine. I will probably send you an email about that. Or if you listen to this before I get a chance to contact you, then just shoot me an email and I’ll give you information about how to collect that prize. So thanks—Austin?
AC: I was just gonna say I think that’s an awesome prize.
KS: That’s huge.
AC: As I think I’ve shared before, my first couple of years of astrological education were the astrology books I found at the local used bookstore and then a stack of old Mountain Astrologers. I think I bought like 40 of them for like a quarter a piece at another used bookstore. And just going through The Mountain Astrologer—it was like a couple of years of Mountain Astrologers—was so fantastic, cuz it exposed me to so many people’s work.
CB: Yeah, it’s really one of those things I wish I had found earlier in my studies than I did. Then once I did, it’s just been amazing because it really gives you access to the full breath of the astrological community, including what people are currently thinking and news items—like Gloria Star’s column, where she talks about the latest things with astrology in the news—and then you have the forecast section. And Nina’s doing her new section on magical elections for each month. Yeah, it’s like a great prize for the astrological community, just The Mountain Astrologer in general, or a gem for the astrological community. So any chance that I get to work with them to promote it, I’m always happy to do.
KS: It is an amazing resource, even for listeners who are outside the US and Canada. I used to subscribe when I was in Australia. And one thing I always encourage students to get the magazine for—in addition to all the great points you guys have said—is that it’ll also give you a clue as to some of the different conferences and different astrological groups that are happening all around the world. So really it’s like a key into the global astrology community in many ways.
CB: Right. And as a practitioner, one of the first things I always look at is the different ads people are running in this issue, just to give you a sense of what other professional astrologers are doing right now at this point in time, and who’s trying to promote what, or what kind of traditions are being promoted, or what new books have come out. I know I’m gonna run an ad for my book of course in one of the upcoming TMA issues. Yeah, so it just gives you a great sense of what’s going on in the community basically. All right, so that is the prize for the $5 Patreon tier this month. The other prize that we’re giving away for subscribers on the $10 tier is a free pass to the upcoming Northwest Astrological Conference, which is taking place in Seattle, May 25-29, 2017. So this is a huge prize, and I’m actually really excited to give this away cuz this is my favorite astrology conference. It was actually my first astrology conference. I think it was almost exactly 12 years ago—so one Jupiter cycle or one profection cycle ago—that I attended my first Northwest Astrological Conference in Seattle, in May 2005. So I’ll be there this year, at the one coming up in May. And I think there’s also a bunch of other people that have appeared on the podcast who will also be at this year’s NORWAC, including Robert Hand, Maurice Fernandez, Demetra George, Mark Jones, Laura Nalbandian, Sam Reynolds. And I think you’re gonna make an appearance as well, right, Austin?
AC: Yeah, I think so. I haven’t locked in any plans. But I’m moving about 11 hours closer to Seattle, so I think the chances are significantly better.
KS: You have less of an excuse.
AC: Yeah, well, I really enjoy NORWAC as well. It wasn’t my first conference, but I’ve had a good time every time I’ve been there. I’m not obligated—because I didn’t apply to speak—but I think I’d like to come up and see everyone.
CB: Yeah, I think the gravitational pull of this year’s NORWAC conference is gonna be too great—if you’re that close to it—not to attend. So there’s gonna be 30 astrologers speaking on a variety of different topics. There’s gonna be pre- and post-conference workshops. There’s always a banquet. And I think Rob Hand’s giving the keynote lecture—as he usually does—on Sunday, at the end of the conference. I’m gonna be there. I brought like 40 copies of my book to the NCGR conference, and we sold out of all of them immediately. So I’m not gonna make the same mistake again, and I’m gonna ship a hundred copies of the book to Seattle to have at the NORWAC conference. And we’ll be doing a book signing there, as well as giving two talks. So yeah, it’s gonna be a great conference. You can find out more information about it at norwac.net. And, let’s see, who won the pass? Okay, the winner of the pass on the $10 Patreon tier is listener Suzanne Carter. So, Suzanne, you won a pass to the Northwest Astrological Conference. Hopefully you’re free that weekend and you can take advantage of it. If not, let me know, and we can do a drawing again and see if somebody else would be available. Otherwise send me an email and I’ll let you know how you can get a hold of that pass, and then definitely I will see you at the conference.
All right, so that’s it for the drawing. So thanks to everyone who has become a patron. It makes a huge difference and has helped me to keep the show going over the past year, even though I was writing the book and was completely distracted. And I actually apologized for not doing that many episodes over the past few months, as I got into the most intense phase of trying to finish the book. But one of the things that I’m excited about—now that the book is over—is I can get back to doing this podcast more regularly, and I’ve already started lining up the full four episodes for next month, starting in March. So pretty soon you’ll start hearing me doing the typical four episodes a month and probably continuing to expand and do other things with the podcast. I already have some other ideas about different things I’d like to do in order to expand on what I’m doing here and keep making it better and better. So thanks to everyone who’s a patron. If you’d like to sign up to become a patron and help support the production of future episodes, you can find out more information at theastrologypodcast.com/subscribe. All right, so with that out of the way, what is next? Should we jump into the alignments for the month? Is there any news that we need to cover? Or do you guys have any announcements that you need to make really quickly?
KS: I can make an announcement. I will be opening registrations for my online classes. So the next intake for my 18-month program registration opens the first week of March. The first level in the program is the beginner levels. So for people who are just totally new to astrology, or who have maybe done a few basics but have some gaps, you’ll be able to find that info on my website starting the first week of March. So that’s what I have coming up in the near future. What about you, Austin?
AC: Well, I’m doing something similar-ish. I started my eight-month fundamentals class in February. And I do that both with people going the whole way, and then I also allow people to drop in for monthly units. It’s chunked up so that you can jump in for one if you know lots of other things, but you’re a little rusty on ‘fill in the blank’. And so, during March, we’re gonna be going over the zodiac from the ground up. And so, that class is on Saturdays, and it starts on March 11. It’s a four-week class. And then in April, I’m taking registration now, but I’m gonna be starting a new class that I haven’t taught before, and that’s gonna be an arc of classes I’m calling Timing Techniques, which is primarily transits and time-lords. It’s not every single timing technique that every astrologer has ever used, but it’s the ones that I use for every chart. And so, that’s transits, profections, and zodiacal releasing and how to use them together. And so, we’re gonna start with annual profections because it’s a gift from God, I think we could all agree. As far as bang for your buck goes there’s just nothing like profections. And so, I’m gonna teach profections before I teach transits. And then we’re gonna spend eight weeks on transits, and then we’re gonna end with a unit on zodiacal releasing and how those releasings intersect with planets and profections. So that officially starts on the day Venus’ direct station in April, but enrollment is open from now until then. And with those three units—like with all my classes—you can jump in for just profections if you feel like you couldn’t possibly hear another word about transits. Or you could jump in for just ZR.
CB: Awesome. That sounds great. And speaking of profections actually, you’ll enjoy this as a profections example. I’m in a 9th house profection year this year using whole sign houses, activating Libra, my ninth whole sign house. And the way that it lined up, we were pushing and sort of rushing to get the book out before NORWAC—or before the NCGR conference—and the night that we submitted the final manuscript to the printer coincided with the same day that Jupiter stationed retrograde in Libra, in the profected sign of the year. So transiting Jupiter stationing in the profected sign of the year was me submitting the manuscript for the book. And then about a week later, Amazon suddenly launched the book, and I suddenly had to launch the book that day as well, the day of the lunar eclipse. If you actually do the profections from my sect light—so from the Sun, because I have a day chart—it goes to Cancer. So I’m actually in a Cancer profection year. And so, it’s a perfect example of two things I always say—one is that in addition to doing the profections from the ascendant, you always have to do the profections from the sect light. And it seems like every time I overlook that, that ends up being a really major thing. And I know in Valens, for example, he emphasizes that the profections from the sect light are first and then you can do the profections from the ascendant, but I always overlook that. And every time I do, it ends up being this major thing, such as in that instance. And then the other thing is whenever somebody learns profections first, the question always comes up of, well, if profections activate transiting planets, then what do you look at if the Moon or the Sun is activated in a Cancer or a Leo profection year? And the answer is the lunations. Especially if there’s a really major lunation, such as an eclipse, then those are gonna tend to coincide with some of the major events of that year. So it was just a really great demonstration of both of those, with the release of the book on the 10th.
AC: I agree. And case in point, my move—my last stay in LA—is a solar eclipse. I am in a Sun-ruled profection.
CB: Nice. You’re in a Leo profection year?
AC: Exactly.
CB: Beautiful.
AC: I would also add that I treat the solstices and equinoxes in many ways like they are stations of the Sun.
CB: Okay.
AC: Because literally the Sun is more stationary than it is during the rest of the year. The proportion of night and day holds for a little bit.
KS: Especially at the solstices. I mean, that’s literally the meaning of the word, the ‘standing still’.
AC: Right, exactly. So there are a couple of different types of holding of position during those four points. So yeah, I would just add that. So lunations, not for the Moon, but for the Sun. The cross of the year is really important for the Sun.
CB: Sure, definitely. And that’s why profections are important. You know, this is the reason why sometimes people have that experience where at a lunation for some reason, some really important event will happen on a New Moon or a Full Moon or an eclipse or something like that, whereas other years you’ll have lunations come and go and it’s not a huge deal. Or something will happen, but it’s not a life-changing event. It’s really when those planets get activated as time-lords—using some of these ancient timing techniques—that’s when you really know that some of those alignments are gonna be much more important than they would be otherwise. So yeah, that’s a great example. Okay, so, let’s see, we got all the announcements out of the way. Is there any news stuff? The only sort of interesting thing in the news that I noticed recently, that’s sort of quasi-astrologically-related, was NASA’s discovery of a solar system that has seven potential planets that are in the habitable zone where they could support life. Or water could be on these planets or have the same conditions roughly that Earth has, so that they could have developed life. And I thought that was wild because I never really thought about a scenario where you had multiple planets in the same solar system that all independently could have developed life. Like if you had other forms of life that developed on Mars and Venus and Jupiter and Saturn or something in our solar system and what happens when all of those different forms of life become cognizant of each other. Was that a surprising or interesting point for you guys as well?
AC: Um—
CB: I’ll take that as a ‘no’.
AC: I don’t know. I guess I assume that that is the least of the surprises waiting out there for us. That’s well within my set of things I would not be surprised to hear about the universe. Although I do like the science fiction scenario you’re laying out there. The space race would go down very differently if you had multiple planets all kind of doing that around similar times.
CB: Right.
AC: Or one race of sentient beings discovers another at, I don’t know, a Byzantine-level of technology. I think that’s really interesting.
CB: Yeah, and the interactions that would take place between them over decades and centuries and stuff is kind of wild to think about. And somebody—Patrick Watson, I think—made a post where he pointed out that it was interesting that the astronomers are discovering these planets by looking at them, and then they’re seeing when the planet passes over the face of that star. From our perspective—from the perspective of us as the observer—it’s actually happening when those planets are eclipsing the Sun. So essentially an eclipse relative to our perspective. So to whatever extent you could almost attempt to draw any sort of astrological connection between this—which is an entirely non-astrological story—I think that’s probably the closest you could get at this point. But yeah, that’s the only piece of news. Is there any other news that you guys remember from the past month that’s worth mentioning or talking about?
KS: I have to confess to have been in a little bit of a travel void. I’ve only been back from Australia for a couple of weeks, so I still have memories of the beach clouding out much of real life, I guess.
CB: Right. You’ve been drinking martinis and stuff on the beach and not paying attention.
KS: Well, no, I’ve been working. I work so much when I’m in Sydney. I have all my beautiful clients and students there. I was hanging out with my nephew who’s 19-months-old. So I didn’t get to drink a lot of martinis, but I read a lot of books. The same book over and over again, as kids that age are wanting to hear. So beautiful.
CB: Nice.
KS: But yeah, nothing newsworthy astro-wise, sorry to say.
CB: Okay. Well, that’s not a problem, since we’re in a time crunch today.
AC: I have something.
CB: Oh, you have something?
AC: I’m gonna keep it brief. This does have to do with some of the things people say and talk about on the news, so warning. So the solar—not solar. The lunar eclipse in Leo—which is a solar sign—on the 10th of February in many ways foreshadows the big solar eclipse that we’re gonna have in August, in position among other things. And so, I feel like that eclipse was kind of a litmus test for where things are going. And what’s interesting is not only am I moving, but I had several clients who are moving, and they all went on scouting trips for where they’re gonna be next during that lunar eclipse in Leo weekend, right? So I write figuratively or metaphorically about it foreshadowing and getting a glimpse of what is to come, but you’re not quite there yet. That literally happened. And I think every other astrologer is very interested to see what the big eclipse is going to mean for the current president of the United States who has his ascendant and Mars right next to it. And one of the meaningful possible ranges of interpretation for lunations (eclipses) on the North Node—as I mentioned earlier—getting in over your head or overreach are both things that you see with the North Node. And if we look at the time period—it’s been about two weeks since that lunation—a lot of the very bold and provocative executive orders and such that have been put out have hit walls or have been reversed or have been unexpectedly unpopular. To me, what I’ve seen—and this is just what I’m seeing in between freaking out about moving, other interpretations might be possible—it looks like it’s building a good case that this cycle has something to do with overreach for Donald Trump.
CB: Sure. Well, yeah. I know everybody’s talking about that because pretty much immediately after the election took place that eclipse came into sharp focus. Thinking about the eclipse taking place and having a sort of general awareness of somebody prior to the election, and then suddenly realizing that’s the president’s chart—and it’s gonna have an eclipse take place right on the ascendant and conjunct his Mars over the summer—a lot of attention has been directed towards that over the past few months. So yeah, it’s gonna be interesting to see how that plays out, one way or another. Okay, so should we jump into—because I’m hesitant to get into further political talks. So I don’t know if I have anything to add to that.
AC: I just wanted to offer one simple astrological observation, which is using the first in a series of eclipses to get an angle on the next one.
CB: Right, right. Yeah, and that makes sense. I mean, that’s become really interesting over the past couple of years, seeing the eclipses in Virgo/Pisces and contextualizing those more as a series of something that’s playing out over the course of that year-and-a-half- or two-year-period, rather than just a single significant event, although sometimes they do culminate in something like that; for example, when you have a discrete event—like the release of my book—although that was the culmination in some ways of this series of eclipses that’s been taking place over the past few years. So it’ll be interesting to see if it coincides with a major event—which I think everyone’s pretty much assuming that it will at this point—but also seeing how it ties into the rest of that eclipse series, which we’re gonna be in for quite a while now.
AC: Yeah, we actually don’t get the last one on the Leo/Aquarius axis until 2019.
CB: Wow.
AC: It’s the very first quarter of 2019. But if we look at the first-to-last eclipse on that axis, it’s actually gonna be almost exactly two years rather than the more common 18 months.
KS: Yeah, that is a little longer than usual, Austin. Good point. It looks like January 21, 2019.
CB: Wow, that’s wild. And then that sets it up, basically leading into that whole crazy cluster of alignments in 2020 that a lot of people have started to talk about as well, where you have the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction, the first one in 20 years, but you also have a bunch of other alignments as well.
KS: Well, also December 2019 and January 2020, there are eclipses in Cancer and Capricorn as well. So there’s gonna be a lot of activity. I mean, we need a whole other show for that.
AC: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. And we’re at the tail-end of Saturn in Capricorn at that point, right? 2019?
KS: Oh, we’re at the middle of it, I think. That’s not the tail-end.
AC: Yeah.
CB: Yeah, I guess I’m overestimating, cuz I’m still getting used to the fact that it’s early 2017. So Saturn goes into Capricorn at the end of this year, which is not that far away. So in reality 2019 is two years from now.
AC: Yeah.
KS: Yes.
CB: Okay, yeah. And at some point maybe we should do a long-term forecast, because I know a lot of discussion is starting to take place about some of those long-term alignments that are taking place around that 2020 timeframe. And it might be nice to get something out that’s looking that far ahead from our vantage point, and then being able to look back on that a few years from now in retrospect and see how we did. I know some astrologers, like Maurice Fernandez, published a long article on some of the 2020 alignments several months ago in The Mountain Astrologer magazine. I feel like I’ve started to see some lectures about this on the lecture circuit as well.
AC: Yeah, I’ve done some relatively long talks on other podcasts—that are not necessarily inside the astrological community—discussing a variety of those: the Jupiter-Saturn cycle, the Saturn-Pluto, and then some of the stuff that we’ve talked about that’s just inside this year.
CB: Sure.
AC: Yeah, we should probably have—
KS: We should totally do an ‘Astrology of 2020’ episode.
AC: Obviously, we will in December of 2019. But I agree with Chris in that there are a number of alignments that you miss if you only look at what they’re doing for a single year, because they’re the beginnings and ends of much larger arcs.
CB: Right.
KS: Totally. I mean, even if you say it’s 2020, you have to be explicit and say, well, this is actually the second hit of whatever, and it’s happening in 2020. But the first thing actually starts in 2019 or 2018. You mean, put it into context, right, Austin?
AC: Yeah. Like you can’t just watch Episode 12 of Season 3 of The Walking Dead and then judge the show or understand what all that’s about. Even if that’s a particularly spectacular or horrifying episode, you need the larger story, right?
KS: Totally.
CB: Like watching the season finale without watching what built up to it.
AC: Yes, exactly.
CB: Before we go on a whole digression about the statistical significance of zombies—
KS: Let’s talk about Venus retrograde in March, or some other March configurations.
AC: Yes, let’s do that.
CB: Yeah, I think we’ve got about 28-ish minutes left. So we should probably jump right into the alignments for this month, so we can hammer them out. I should mention this really briefly. Kirk Kahn’s Planet Watcher Calendar for 2017 is finally out. He had a bunch of copies at the NCGR conference. They’re also available online if you go to his website, which is planetwatcher.com. You can find a link to the calendar. I’ll also put a link to his Amazon page on the description page for this episode. So it’s a great calendar. It’s finally out again, and you can purchase it. One of the things he shows right at the beginning of March—and I meant to check with you guys. I don’t know if he should be depicting this, but the very first thing that he shows on March 1—I guess he’s trying to show Jupiter opposite Uranus, with the Moon conjunct Uranus. Is that accurate?
KS: Yeah, it sounds close to being accurate.
CB: I mean, I’m sure it’s close, because we know that Jupiter—
KS: Yeah, it totally is.
CB: —is opposite Uranus and Mars on the 27th of February. But is the Jupiter-Uranus opposition exact again around March 1?
KS: Yeah, let me be really ‘Virgo’ about this. Jupiter opposite Mars—looks like it’s exact on the 2nd of March maybe, if we get into the minutes of it. And the Moon on the 1st, the Moon is with Uranus in Aries. So that is probably what is really gonna feel like a lot of that energy. Cuz I always find when the Moon triggers a configuration like that, it really sparks it off.
CB: Right.
KS: Yeah.
CB: Okay, so that’s what it is. So the Moon conjoins Uranus and Mars around 22-24 Aries, and opposes Jupiter at 22 Libra. And then about a day later, about March 2, Jupiter at 22°11’—
KS: Yeah, they’re opposite. It’s evening time on the East Coast, on the 2nd, late afternoon, early evening on the West Coast, and it’ll be Friday morning, the 3rd, in Australia for people to have that Jupiter-Uranus opposition exact to the minute.
CB: Okay. So that’s wild that we start off March with the much-talked-about—but I think we’ve mentioned it. It was one of the aspects that we really emphasized in our forecast that we recorded in December. But March literally starts out with that as the first—
KS: With a bang. And it is a second hit. Like we have already had a Jupiter-Uranus opposition. The first hit was at the end of December 2016, to put it into context, cuz I know Austin will want that.
CB: Right.
KS: Right?
AC: Oh, of course.
CB: You could say that was the start of the series, and then this is the second pass.
KS: And there’ll be a third.
CB: And we’ll get one more. So this is sort of like the midway point in some sense in that series.
KS: Yeah. And the third one is late September/early October. But Jupiter-Uranus is a really dynamic aspect pattern. You know, we’ve got Mars in the mix as well. I think that’s what’s really key as March kicks off. So there is more of a—I mean, I don’t want to scare people, because usually that’s Austin’s job, but it’s explosive. Mars-Uranus-Jupiter—there’s big stuff, big change. Austin, you guys moving a little unexpectedly is maybe one productive example of this type of energy. Not necessarily that you guys are moving because of this, but people can make an expected or a quick move that takes them in the direction they want to go, but just on a timeframe that they weren’t expecting.
AC: Exactly. And what I was saying earlier is that I actually had a couple of clients this month that were doing exactly the same thing. It wasn’t the right timing, but it was the right place. It’s not the beautifully laid out ‘do this and then you’re there and then this is gonna proceed perfectly’.
KS: No, that’s moving under Saturn. This is Uranus-Jupiter.
AC: Yeah, it’s like, well, this is your opportunity. You gonna do it or not? You don’t get to wait until everything’s perfectly lined up. And then Mars absolutely pushes the pace, right?
KS: A hundred-percent. Fast, fast, fast.
AC: And we gotta remember March 1 is the third day after the last solar eclipse in Pisces.
KS: Totally.
AC: One very simple way to look at eclipses, there’s the ‘solar eclipses are valid for six months’. Yeah, in a way. They’re absolutely valid for the next few weeks. Any lunation has a ton to say until the next lunation comes around, right? So this is a lunation. Like we just had a big old crazy lunation, and then we’ve got Mars-Uranus-Moon-Jupiter. I just got done writing, doing my monthly write-up on this a few days ago, and I was really struck by how much fire and water is going on for the first third of March. You know, while it’s like, “Oh, my God, it’s Uranus,” it’s Uranus and Mars in Aries, with Venus there. Venus is in the process of stationing retrograde. Fire, fire, fire. Mercury and the Sun are conjoining Neptune in Pisces, right?
KS: Yeah.
AC: And so, it’s like deep, primordial water, like crazy, primordial fire. And then what I found when I was doing the daily write-ups is I was like, wow, these days look really different depending on whether the Moon is lending its power to the fire or to the water.
KS: That’s a really good beautiful point, Austin, whether the Moon is emphasizing the water (Pisces) or the fire (Aries). And it’s just gonna change every couple of days, basically.
AC: Yeah, yeah. Cuz I was writing, and I’d write an entry the next day, and I’d be like, “Now it’s a Cancer Moon, and we’ve got planets conjoined Neptune.”
KS: And then it’s a Leo Moon and we’re back to all the Aries stuff. Yeah, that’s a really good point for people who are planning March.
AC: So my quick version of that first-third of March is that there’s a lot of volatility. And again, that’s not necessarily a negative thing. Volatility is good if you want to change. It’s bad if you want things to stay exactly the same way, right?
KS: Yeah.
AC: But if we look at factors that I would consider volatilizing, the Uranus-Jupiter opposition being perfect volatilizing, Mars further activating that configuration, volatilizing. Having an annular solar eclipse as a previous lunation, volatilizing. And then, finally, Venus stationing retrograde—in Aries, no less—volatilizing. There’s just a lot that’s up in the air and some of it might get messy. What I will say is that I see this period of unusual volatility calming down in two stages, one is the movement of Mars into Taurus on March 9, right? Say what you want about Mars in Taurus—
KS: It is stabilizing. It is calm.
AC: Lack of dignity, right?
KS: Yeah.
AC: So it’s the difference between maybe digging into a trench for the long war versus the kamikaze charge.
KS: Yes. I love your ‘war’ references, Austin.
AC: It’s Mars. I get to make War references, right?
KS: I’ve missed these.
AC: Well, we missed you, too. There was a palpable void in Chris and I’s podcast last month.
CB: Yeah.
AC: But anyway, the other thing that I think is relatively calming—and I’m not saying then we ride around on gauzy, cotton candy clouds for the rest of the month—but the next lunation is on the 11th. Actually it’s early.
KS: The Virgo Full Moon.
AC: It’s like early on the 12th, but the Moon will be most full on the night of the 11th. I always hate those cuz I have to write about them.
CB: Oh, right.
KS: Cuz that’ll be configured out, when?
AC: Right. But it’s a Full Moon in Virgo. It’s in an earth sign. Yeah, it’s kind of square Saturn. It’s not the happiest lunation ever, but it’s not a crazy eclipse. And it’s literally the Full Moon in Virgo. It’s, hey, you need to get things together, right? Okay, so that all happened. Let’s come back to a semblance of organization and order. And so, those are the two markers that, together, transition us into what’ll feel like a very different portion of the month.
KS: Yeah, that’s a really good summary, Austin. You know, the other thing, too, eclipse season is defined by the proximity of the Sun to the North or the South Node. And I think it’s about 18°. So we get this six-week window where any New or Full Moon in that six-week window of eclipse season—when the Sun is within 18° of the nodes—will be an eclipse. And that Full Moon in Virgo—the eclipse season sort of ends the day before. I mean, it’s very close to that 18° boundary, but it is outside of it. And so, we have stepped out of that Sun/nodal influence, which is definitely a volatilizing factor. So yeah, I’m just looking at the chart now for this Full Moon. Mars is in Taurus, the Full Moon in Virgo. I mean, isn’t the Full Moon in Virgo so good for just getting grounded, dealing with details? Maybe it’s a bit nit-picky and a bit fussy, but it just gets you back to basics.
AC: Yeah, like you do have to pay the electricity bill. No matter how crazy things have been, you do have to do that, right?
KS: Yeah.
AC: And it’s good to be reminded of those things sooner rather than later.
KS: Well, and I think you mentioned the square to Saturn, because the Full Moon is square the Sun and Moon. And Mercury is also kind of square to Saturn there as well. I mean, one thing Saturn does that can be positive is it does kind of anchor things. It’ll remind you that the bill is overdue if you’ve missed it. And yeah, I was listening to a podcast recently that Cheryl Strayed, the author of Wild, did, and she talks about, regardless of how creative or chaotic or inspired a life you might want to live, you still have to pay your bills. And we get a chance to catch up with some of that stuff, if you’ve forgotten it in the volatile first couple of weeks of March.
AC: Yeah. And that’s gonna be my very literal timeline as well. That’ll be like, okay, I’m actually in this new place.
KS: Yeah, how do I pay the electricity bill?
AC: Right. Do we have everything set up? Is it on auto-pay? Where do I buy coffee in this strange, foreign town? Do they have coffee in southern Oregon? I imagine they do.
KS: I mean, Austin, you’re moving to a much smaller town. This is the move that I did eight years ago when I left Australia for Canada. I know that sounds totally insane in and of itself, but I moved out of Sydney—where I was a stone’s throw from Sydney Opera House—to a small town of less than 30,000 people. And that took more adjusting than being in a different country, I think. It’s different. It’ll be slow, that’s for sure.
AC: That makes sense.
KS: You’ll get anchored.
AC: Yeah, I think I can deal with that. I primarily live in my office and talk to people and write things. You know, we’re paying quite a premium to be entertained by the proximity of Los Angeles, and I think I’m over it.
KS: Yeah. So a slow second-half of March is what you’re saying here.
AC: Slower. I would say the middle—
KS: Relative. That’s right, you said ‘relative’.
AC: If we’re gonna do like a big overview before zoning in, I would say the middle is gonna be defined by that slowing down. And then the last third sees Mercury T-squaring Uranus, Jupiter, and Pluto, and it’s Mercury just about getting into the shadow of the next retrograde. So there’s some stuff that gets complicated again there. And of course Venus is just retrograde pretty much the whole month. It goes retrograde early morning on the 4th or quite possibly just before midnight on the 3rd, depending on your timezone. And Venus retrograde is going to be a constant for March. That doesn’t change, right? But I would say relatively mellow in the middle, really front-loaded, and then we get—
KS: We do have Jupiter-Pluto at the end.
AC: Yeah. And we have Mercury right on them at the end, too.
KS: Yes.
AC: And Mercury is like, “You know, I’m gonna be back here in a month.”
KS: Yes.
AC: Cuz Mercury retrogrades back to conjoin Uranus at the end of April. And so, I would say that at the end of March, we get a preview of the next tangle that we’re gonna sort out, but it’s not going to be a rehash of the beginning of March. The beginning of March is a really unique period.
KS: Yes.
AC: There’s so much, so much going on.
KS: Well, that’s the thing. It’s not just Mars-Uranus-Jupiter, which in and of itself would be significant and dramatic and explosive and fast-paced, but it’s that, plus the eclipse. And either one of those things individually is usually enough for us all to deal with and process, but we’ve just got a double-whammy.
AC: Yeah, or a triple. I would say Venus’ station—
KS: With the Venus station, of course. We haven’t really paid enough respect to Venus retrograde yet, so maybe we should talk about that.
AC: Yeah, let’s do a 20-minute digression. I would do it.
KS: I would do it. And we even got a five-minute digression, Austin. Can you do it in five?
CB: We’ve got 13 minutes left to record this episode, but Venus retrograde is really one of the main signatures of the month.
AC: It’s the only thing that goes through the whole month.
CB: Right.
KS: Totally.
CB: When does it station direct?
KS: Mid-April, in Pisces, thank God.
AC: Square Saturn, I think.
KS: I know. The square Saturn, not thanks, not so good, but it’s basically April 14 at 26 Pisces.
CB: But March is the brunt of Venus retrograde in Aries, cuz it moves back into Pisces by April.
KS: Early April.
CB: Yeah, so this is a repetition of eight years. So Venus retrograde in Aries, at this point, approximately every eight years, so you can think back. And for some people, this is gonna be connected to a Venus retrograde period, around the same time of the year, eight years ago, or potentially eight years before that, or eight years before that. What are the other important bullet points that people need to know about this one?
KS: I think the eight-year cycle is really important. Because sometimes we think Venus is retrograde every 18 months, but it’s retrograde in a different part of the zodiac every 18 months. So to be specific to Venus retrograde in Aries—actually the Venus retrogrades in each sign are within a couple of degrees. So yeah, do think back to February, March, April 2009—if I’m doing my numbers correctly—which would be eight years ago when Venus was last retrograde in Aries. Because one thing I think people forget about the Venus retrograde cycle is that it really is an eight-year chapter, and so that’s definitely something to think back to. What would you add, Austin?
AC: Oh, let’s see, in general, just as an advisory, Venus retrogrades feel funny, and they bring up funny feelings. Nick Dagan—who has done a lot of Venus retrograde work—says that Venus retrograde doesn’t care about consensus.
KS: Correct.
AC: Which one of Venus’ normal functions is to create harmonious accord socially, acting in a way that’s agreed upon. Wearing a suit to an office job is consensus, right? If you came in in Mad Max gear with a mohawk that would be a form of ‘wardrobing’ which is very contrary to the consensus. And so, I do find that Venus retrograde periods stir the desire to rebel against consensus, and that’s externally. There’s an anti-status quo feeling that people get. They’re like, “You know what? I don’t feel like doing it this way. Why can’t I wear my spiked shoulder pads to work?” And I think also you see that in relationships and in people’s own internal arrangements, right? Like why do I have to keep doing these things? Do I like this? Or maybe I hate this show? Maybe I’ve just been watching The Walking Dead out of habit at this point? Or maybe Gilmore Girls is awesome and I never gave it a chance.
KS: Austin, you really need to get onboard with that or Sex and The City.
AC: Oh, no, I’ve seen the entirety of Gilmore Girls twice, thank you very much.
KS: Have you?
AC: Oh, yeah.
KS: And the new ones?
AC: Uh, yeah.
KS: Oh, I love you even more. Oh, my goodness.
AC: No, they’re amazing. Kait and I have been referring to our new town as our personal ‘Stars Hollow’.
KS: Oh, my God, that’s the way I talk about the town I live in. I can understand how to live here after watching Gilmore Girls.
AC: She found a troubadour in the park, and she was like, “All right, it’s Stars Hollow.”
KS: Get out. Oh, my gosh. So a lack of consensus with Venus retrograde is one of your big points.
AC: Questioning the consensus. And a lot of times you see that with relationship dynamics. It’s like really? Is this the way we are? Maybe we need to be another way, right? And a lot of it leads back to emotional authenticity. The desire to live a life where you get to act in accordance with who you feel like you really are and what your passions really are, rather than just wearing the uniform because it looks right to other people. And there’s a solar element to that, right? And that’s because at the heart of every Venus retrograde there’s a Sun-Venus conjunction.
KS: Yeah.
AC: So that’s the inferior conjunction. By the way, we need another word for that, because it makes it sound like it’s the shittier of two.
KS: Yes.
CB: Right.
AC: It’s not. It’s the ‘interior’ conjunction. It’s the one that’s closer to us.
CB: That would be so much better, cuz I always get confused about which is which.
AC: I always feel like when I’m writing about it, I have to explain that it’s not the ‘crap’ version. It’s its own thing. And so, that’s the point where Venus is between the Earth and the Sun. And that’s as close as Venus gets to us, and we get an alignment of our ‘star-planet-planet’ trio. And there’s a lot of emotional truth. There’s a lot of the heart’s truth that tries really hard to become clear at that point. In a sense that’s why Venus bothers to go retrograde, it’s to get to that point. And what comes out of Venus retrogrades and we learn and try out is what we discovered in that secret heart of the underworld.
KS: For sure. And then I guess a couple of other ways I tend to think about Venus retrograde—for people, in their own individual charts—is to think about that idea of questioning consensus or questioning accepted patterns or styles, if you like, based on the house that Venus is retrograde in. So mostly Aries, but partly Pisces. For March, it’ll be Aries only. And then also think about the rulers of the houses. What houses in your chart have Taurus and Libra on the cusp? Therefore, what kind of a questioning or revision process are you going through based on the fact that Venus—the ruler of those houses—is going backwards for a period of time now?
AC: Well, Kelly, Venus rules my 4th house.
KS: I knew you were gonna say that.
AC: I’m really looking at my living situation to see if there are any changes coming up there.
KS: Yeah. And have you seen any? It’s almost a cliché, isn’t it?
AC: You know, I have some intuitions, but there’s nothing really solid yet.
KS: Nothing solid yet? Well, give it a couple of days and see if it crystallizes. Yeah, well, that’s a great example, Austin, for other people who are listening, who are like, “How could I do this?” And I guess you guys will have that. You get settled, and then what tweaks and changes do you have to make once you are in the new environment, basically.
AC: Yeah, yeah. Another thing that got mentioned earlier is this Venus retrograde is mostly in Aries. And certainly in March, we’re gonna be dealing with the Aries part. But it gets back to 26 Pisces in April. And so, there’s gonna be this other set of connected issues that we’re gonna need to resolve things fully, which I think is probably better to deal with next month in the podcast.
KS: Yes.
AC: But just on the Aries side, what is Venus in Aries about? What kind of topics might this bring up? Questions of power dynamics, self-expression in relationships, spontaneity—all of these Aries qualities. To a certain degree, how do you deal with conflict in relationships? There’s no relationship that doesn’t have any conflict whatsoever. You know, people sometimes talk about learning how to fight with someone being a really important thing, even if it’s not your favorite thing. And so, I think a lot of those topics are worth looking at. And one of the things that Venus retrogrades do is they dig up feelings that you don’t usually have a place for or you don’t know what to do with. And I would say that the likelihood of Venus retrograde in Aries digging up some feelings of anger—which you kinda set aside cuz you didn’t really know how to express them, or it wasn’t the right time or place, and then forgot about—I think the chance of Venus retrograde in Aries digging up some of those and asking you to figure out what to do with them is very high..
KS: Cool.
CB: And it’s interesting. I mean, even though the first-half of part of the month—like you said—seems to pack most of the power, it’s weird that by the middle and later parts of the month is when a bunch of stuff starts moving into Aries. Even though Mars leaves Aries when it moves into Taurus March 9, Mercury ingresses into Aries March 13 and passes through the sign pretty quick. The Sun ingresses into Aries March 20, and then we have that New Moon in Aries on March 27, which is then capped off by Jupiter squaring Pluto on March 30. So there’s a weird dynamic in terms of the first part of the month and the energy that has, with Mars being in the mix with the Uranus-Jupiter opposition, but then it’s not completely quiet. There’s still this dynamism that’s going on later in the month as well, but it’s more with some of these inner planets.
AC: Absolutely. That’s why I’ve tried to emphasize ‘relatively’ more mellow.
CB: Right.
KS: Yeah.
AC: It’s relatively underlined three times. Also, I feel like Mars in Aries—especially right next to Uranus—is worth three or four other planets in the sign.
CB: Yeah, definitely.
AC: But you’re right. It’s not gonna be—
KS: It’s not nothing.
AC: Right. It’s not margaritas by the pool once we hit the 11th.
CB: Yeah.
KS: No, we’re not into Taurus season yet.
CB: And Jupiter squares Pluto at the end of the month. Is this the second square?
AC: Yep. The first one was on Thanksgiving.
KS: Yes, that’s right. Late November, Thanksgiving for you guys.
AC: Excuse me, American Thanksgiving.
KS: Oh, yeah, Canadians do it in October.
CB: Right.
KS: Oh, gosh.
CB: So that’s the second. So that’s also the halfway point in terms of the Jupiter-Pluto stuff.
KS: And if you happen to be having a Pluto square Pluto transit, then that will just make all of that bigger for anyone else who’s around my age or our age, Austin.
AC: Oh, yeah. That was like the one transit I hadn’t been thinking about. We’ll see.
KS: I know. I’ve been trying not to think about it. And then just the other day—with the Mars square Pluto—I was like, “Kelly, just check out those degrees.” Anyway, Chris, you were trying to say something, and Austin and I are just babbling.
CB: Yeah, I totally forgot I have the most auspicious election for March that just came in. Leisa finished writing them all up yesterday. And we’re gonna record the next set of our new Auspicious Elections Podcast, which is a 45-minute discussion between her and I, where we talk about the four most auspicious charts each month. It’s available to patrons of the show on the $5 tier or $10 tier, but I am highlighting the most auspicious election that we find each month. And the one for this month is on March 14, 2017, at approximately 3:43 PM. In this case, that would be in Denver, Colorado. Although you should be able to set it for about 3:43 roughly in whatever location you’re in, and you should get roughly the same rising sign. So the rising sign in this case is gonna be Cancer rising. So you’re trying to get about 21° of Cancer rising. And the ruler of the ascendant is the Moon, which in this case is in Libra, in the fourth whole sign house—or probably the fourth quadrant house as well—at 20° of Libra, and it’s applying to a conjunction with Jupiter at 21° of Libra, also in the 4th house, in a day chart. It’s the middle of the day, so Jupiter is at his most benefic, at least in terms of sect. So the ruler of the ascendant is applying to the most positive planet arguably in the chart. These Cancer rising elections are now possible. They weren’t possible for most of February because Mars was moving through Aries, and so doing Cancer rising would place Mars in the 10th house. We try to avoid a lot of those. But now, all of a sudden in March—once Mars moves into Taurus around the 9th—you can start doing Cancer rising elections again. So this does place Mercury in the 10th, along with Venus and Uranus, which is okay. It kind of highlights that Venus retrograde a little bit, but that’s not necessarily terrible. Let’s see, what else is going on?
KS: The Moon-Jupiter is really lovely.
CB: Yeah. It’s basically taking what would be a pretty nice Moon-Jupiter conjunction in and of itself, and it’s one that’s gonna be very visible at night, not in the middle of the day because it’ll be under the Earth.
KS: Yeah, that evening, it will be a beautiful one, cuz the Moon’s just past the Full Moon.
CB: Yeah. So you take advantage of that by making the Moon the ruler of the ascendant, thus, making it one of the most pivotal planets in the chart, and yeah, then just really emphasize that conjunction. Because the ruler of the ascendant is in the 4th house, this probably would be most suitable for 4th house-type elections, whether that has to do with the home and living situation, as in Austin’s sense, where you’re moving or reorganizing or doing something at home that you’re trying to create a new foundation for. But more broadly or metaphorically sometimes the 4th house just has to do with one’s foundations or setting a foundation for something and ideas of stability and permanence in creating an overall, metaphorical foundation for something. The 4th house also has to do with the end of the matter or the final place in the sequence in horary and electional astrology. So it’s also a good chart just in general for something you want to turn out well in the end and have some sense of stability and permanence.
KS: And, Chris, what sign do you have the midheaven in?
CB: So in Denver, the midheaven’s in Aries.
KS: Okay.
CB: So that’s gonna vary. I mean, there weren’t a lot of planets that we really needed mitigation for in this case, by having them closely trining the degree of the midheaven or something like that, so we really didn’t emphasize that. It is at about 3° of Aries in this chart, so that Mercury and Venus are sort of loosely-conjunct the degree of the MC. That doesn’t really matter all that much. I would just say keep the degree of the MC away from Mars. Because if you’re in a location that pushes the MC later in Aries or especially in early Taurus, then you could be in danger of putting Mars on the midheaven. You can avoid that just by pushing the time earlier and having the earlier part of the ascendant in Cancer and that wouldn’t be a problem. I think we have it set as 21 in this chart, just simply so that the Moon and Jupiter are configured to the degree of the ascendant. Although that’s of course a little bit risky because then you’re also emphasizing that opposition from Uranus at 22 Aries at the same time. But that can’t necessarily be helped.
KS: Yeah, that’s gorgeous. I’ve just pulled it up for the East Coast, and we get a late Pisces midheaven actually. So I thought it was kind of nice that the Moon, the ruler of the ascendant, is applying to Jupiter, ruler of the midheaven. Just to have the ascendant and the midheaven rulers configured to each other, I don’t know, it feels like it just adds a little bit of an extra chart. But if that happens to be where other people are, that can be an extra bit.
CB: Totally.
AC: I would agree that’s superior.
CB: Yeah, that’s a great point. And that probably is better, putting Jupiter as the ruler. That would also mitigate Saturn. Even though Saturn would then square the midheaven, which I think is one of the reasons why Leisa probably wanted to avoid that, at least it’s a day chart, so that Saturn is not at its most malefic. And even though he’s in the 6th in this chart, if you put the degree of the midheaven squaring Saturn, it will mitigate that 6th house position for him a little bit, which could be more of a good thing. The chart also features a Sun-Saturn square, which is arguably one of the downsides. The Sun is applying to a square with Saturn within 3°. But since it’s a day chart, that square is not gonna be as bad as it could be otherwise. That doesn’t mean there will be no challenges or no difficulties associated with that, but they’re gonna be much more moderate or constructive than they might be otherwise.
AC: Yeah. One, you look and the Sun in this chart rules the whole sign 2nd, so it’s maybe not a great big ‘money’ chart.
CB: Right. Or one that could be challenging. But even that will be mitigated to some extent by sect if you mitigate Saturn by having it square the MC to some extent, by the superior, sign-based sextile that Jupiter has over Saturn from late Libra to late Sagittarius. I mean, there’s a little bit of mitigation that sort of helps things out a little bit.
KS: For sure. It’s a nice chart.
CB: Yeah, that was one of the ones that we found this month. So March 14, at about 1:43 PM. Just make sure that Cancer is rising in the chart, and ideally put the midheaven around early Aries or late Pisces. So yeah, that’s the election for this month. I’ll also post the chart for that on the description page for this episode. And if you’d like to hear Leisa and I discuss the other elections for this month, and go into this chart with more depth, then just sign up to become a patron on the $5 or $10 tier, and you’ll immediately get access to that download once we release it this weekend. All right, let’s see, were there any other major alignments for March that we didn’t touch on briefly?
AC: My guess is that things will get significantly more stable after the 11th.
KS: Good guess.
CB: Yeah. I mean, we will be fully free of the eclipses by that point. And to whatever extent those have coincided with some instability or some major shifting of things, hopefully we’ll be far enough away from that to be able to look back on it and have a sigh of relief at that point, rather than still being wrapped up in it like we are now.
AC: Yeah, hopefully, if I make it through. Hopefully, I don’t end up a smear on the highway between here and Oregon.
KS: Oh, Austin, no.
AC: Probably not.
CB: Actually, as I was sitting here earlier in the episode, I emailed our winner for the NORWAC tickets, Suzanne Carter.
KS: She’s in Australia, isn’t she?
CB: Uh, no. You might be thinking of another astrologer that we know from Australia.
KS: Yes, sorry.
CB: She said she can’t take advantage of it right now, so she said it was okay if I went ahead and pulled another name out of the box. So I pulled another name, and the winner of the NORWAC pass for this episode is listener Josh Nelson. So, Josh, you won a pass to NORWAC, so let me know if you can take advantage of it. Otherwise, we’ll just keep doing this basically until we can find somebody who can make it to the conference. Thank you to the organizers at norwac.net for giving us that pass. It’s gonna be an amazing conference, and I look forward to seeing Josh there, and seeing Austin there and then Kelly. We may still try to talk you into it.
AC: Oh, we’ll definitely try to talk you into it.
CB: We’re gonna try. I actually do want to start doing—
KS: It’s hard to say ‘no’ to you guys.
CB: —some live episodes and stuff. So that’s something which would be a lot of fun, if we could somehow do a live episode at NORWAC. And if we could underwrite that somehow, then we’ll do it. We’ll see what happens. So a lot’s gonna start happening here. The podcast—I’m gonna start recording more regularly, and we’re gonna be back with a vengeance in March. So thanks everyone for listening, thanks for supporting the podcast. Thank you, Austin and Kelly, for joining me.
AC: My pleasure.
KS: Anytime.
CB: And I guess that’s it. So thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time.