The Astrology Podcast

Transcript of Episode 228, titled:

November 2019 Astrology Forecast: Last of Jupiter in Sag

With Chris Brennan and guests Austin Coppock and Kelly Surtees

Episode originally released on October 30, 2019

Original episode URL:

https://theastrologypodcast.com/2019/10/30/november-2019-astrology-forecast-last-of-jupiter-in-sag/

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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 May 13th, 2026

Copyright © 2026 TheAstrologyPodcast.com

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CHRIS BRENNAN: Hi, my name is Chris Brennan, and you’re listening to The Astrology Podcast. Today is Sunday, October 20, 2019, starting at 10:53 AM in Denver, Colorado, and this will be the 228th episode of the show. In this episode, I’m gonna be talking with astrologers Austin Coppock and Kelly Surtees about the astrological forecast for November of 2019. For more information about the show and how to subscribe to it, go to TheAstrologyPodcast.com/Subscribe. Hey, guys. Welcome to the show.

AUSTIN COPPOCK: Hey.

KELLY SURTEES: Hey.

CB: Hey. So we’re back again. It’s been a month. And it’s time to get into the astrological forecast for November, where things are finally starting to heat up again, and we’re about to get into a really interesting part of the year that everybody’s been looking forward to in December. But first, we gotta get through one more month of Jupiter in Sagittarius and Mercury retrograde in Scorpio. So we’re gonna do the forecast a little differently today. We’re going to present the forecast, the astrological forecast and the planetary alignments for November first, and then afterwards, in the second half of this show, we’re just gonna chat about random astrological topics. So usually, we do it the other way. But then there’s a lot of people that are always asking for timestamps and how do they skip our boring chats at the beginning, so they can go right to the forecast. So we’re gonna try testing this out, sort of throwing a bone to those people by just doing the forecast first. And then if they wanna check out, at that point, then they can. For everybody else, they can skip straight to that if they want to. Anyway, yeah, where should we start? Right now, as we’re recording this, Mercury is slowing down and getting ready to station retrograde, but it’s not quite there yet. But by the time I release this episode, it’ll probably be like right on the Mercury retrograde station that’s happening on Halloween, in Scorpio, right?

AC: Mm-hmm.

KS: Yeah.

CB: So that kind of opens the month in many ways, it seems like, right?

AC: Yeah. Well, and that’s probably the most consistent thing about November. Mercury will be retrograde until the 20th and will be in Scorpio the entire month.

KS: Yeah.

AC: And so, other than the outer planets, that is the most consistent thing about November. It’s all Mercury in Scorpio, all the time. Little bit retrograde, little bit direct, but in Scorpio the whole time.

CB: Yeah, I love that because, then, when a planet slows down and stations in just one sign, you really get a much better feel for what that planet—especially an inner planet like Mercury—is all about. One of the things I was doing—a thread on Twitter—earlier this week was talking about the famous Mercury in Scorpio placements, and some people threw out some pretty good ones. I was curious if you guys have like a favorite Mercury in Scorpio example that comes to mind?

AC: Well, so I believe you and Watson—Patrick Watson—threw out Eminem and then “Weird Al” Yankovic who’s parodies of Eminem were brilliant.

CB: Right.

AC: Those are both Mercury in Scorpios. I can contribute Aleister Crowley, who had Mercury and Jupiter both in the first decan of Scorpio. And so, I think that, I don’t know, his reputation probably makes a lot of sense as far as a Mercury in Scorpio. He was obviously obsessed with magic and mysteries and the occult, and also, as not everyone might know, like Eminem and like “Weird Al” Yankovic, a relentless troll.

CB: Right. I was thinking about the episode I did on Evangeline Adams, and one of the things, he had a falling out with her, and he wrote this just screed about horoscope writers that was like a very thinly-veiled attack on her.

AC: Yeah, he wrote an essay on Arthur Waite. And people may know Waite from the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot. He was one of the designers of that very popular tarot deck. And he called that essay “Dead Weight”—

CB: Okay.

AC: —about his uselessness.

CB: Right. But yeah, that earlier one that you mentioned, Eminem was my favorite one. And obviously, there’s a lot more going on there. Cuz he’s like a Libra, Sun in Libra, with Mercury in Scorpio, and he has Saturn in Gemini. And he was going through a Saturn return during the height of his popularity in the early 2000s, so obviously, there’s a lot more going on there. But it’s just funny thinking back, especially to a lot of his earlier music and how—what’s the word? Like acerbic it was in many ways as part of the reputation and the way that he expressed himself, despite being a Libra, but having that Mercury in Scorpio.

AC: Mm-hmm.

KS: Love it.

AC: Yeah, I think all three of our examples are Sun in Libra.

CB: Okay. What about you, Kelly? Do you have one?

KS: Yeah, the one that first came to mind when you mentioned that was our previous prime minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, who was this incredibly sharp, intelligent woman. And she’s very famous for a speech about misogyny, which she gave in parliament, sort of attacking the opposite party and some of their views, I guess. I think she actually gave that speech when Saturn in Scorpio was on her Mercury in Scorpio. So that’s a really interesting one. Just sort of speaking up, from her perspective, about how women were being treated according to the issues of the day. And I think that speech is actually on YouTube, if anyone is interested to check it out. But she’s the first one. She’s also a Sun in Libra, actually. I was just having a quick check of that. Yeah, so there’s that mix, if you like. And the other one, funnily enough, is a poet, Rainier Marie Rilke. I love his writing. And I often quote some of his poetry when I’m talking about Mercury in Scorpio, about the truth-telling but the depth. You know, there’s a quote of his that says something like—I’m just paraphrasing here, but something like, “You’re not dead yet. It’s not too late to dive into your depths and to find what’s kind of hiding in there.” And Mercury in his chart is like 29 Scorpio.

AC: That’s interesting.

KS: Yeah, the darkness of Rilke. And he’s actually a Sun in Sag.

AC: Yeah, it’s not just darkness. There’s also the juiciness of hidden rivers of blood. It’s very passionate.

KS: Yes.

AC: You know, it’s the depths of passion, right?

KS: Yes.

AC: It’s very elementally watery, but it’s like a throbbing-lifeforce sort of water. Not tepid water.

KS: No, no, no.

CB: I was thinking of that. Cuz, previously, I think, on the zodiac series, I had used ‘ice’ as a Mercury in Scorpio descriptor, like an ice cube. But I was thinking about that earlier today and that doesn’t actually make as much sense, cuz it’s like a Mars-ruled sign, and Mars tends to be much more hot and much more fiery. So it’s more like hot water or water that’s been rapidly brought to a boil. And the funny imagery I thought of, actually, for Scorpio was a hot tub, or like a jacuzzi would be great imagery for Scorpio.

AC: We all know what happens in hot tubs.

CB: Right.

KS: Yeah.

AC: So for Scorpio water, that fixed-but-martial water, I usually use water which is flowing in a consistent direction, such as in a fierce river or through a sewer system, right?

KS: Course through a sewer system.

AC: It’s always moving, always moving, always moving. But it’s still fixed, you know its course. You know where the river is headed. And also, blood, like arteries, right? Arteries and veins. Like always flowing but fixed in direction.

CB: As a Scorpio, I’m gonna go ahead and stick with my ‘jacuzzi’ analogy instead of your ‘sewer’ analogy. But I appreciate, nonetheless, the imagery.

AC: I mean, you know, if you think about the rivers of blood within you, it’s important to have a sewer system, right? If your blood couldn’t clean itself, then you’d be dead.

CB: Sure.

KS: Yes. Okay, well, I think it is important to keep in mind what you guys are talking about. Mercury is in a sign ruled by Mars. So there is a sharpness or a directness or piercing quality to words and communication as Mercury goes through Scorpio. And as you said, Austin, it’s Mercury in Scorpio all the time this month, sometimes retrograde and sometimes not. I mean, if you’ve never read Rilke’s poetry, this might be a good month to try some of it. But it’s very piercing. You know, there’s nothing that is left unexplored or unsaid, no matter how sharp or direct it might be.

CB: So there it is. We open with November 1, Mercury is retrograde already conjunct Venus. Venus quickly changes signs that same day and moves into Sagittarius. And Mercury basically spends the rest of the month in Scorpio before eventually stationing, about three weeks later, into November.

AC: Yeah, so it’s worth noting here that Mercury, during this retrograde, is really not strongly-configured too much, right? Its ruler, Mars, is in Libra for almost the entire time that Mercury is retrograde. Mars does move into Scorpio later in the month, but just as the retrograde is leaving off.

CB: Yeah, weirdly, literally, almost simultaneously, as Mercury is stationing direct is when Mars joins the party.

KS: Yeah.

AC: Yeah, and then Venus leaves Scorpio for Sagittarius a day after Mercury turns retrograde. And so, Mercury has a sextile with the Saturn-Pluto stuff in Cap, and it makes a trine to Neptune in Pisces, but no angles.

KS: No.

AC: You know, no angular configuration to anything, no real configuration to Mars, which is its ruler. And so, this is a somewhat less eventful retrograde, Mercury retrograde, than the other ones that we’ve experienced this year. You know, the two previous Mercury retrogrades this year were both right on top of everything and right in the mix.

KS: Yeah.

AC: Whereas this one has some space to do its own thing, which is nice. It’s not that there won’t be some of the standard Mercury retrograde types of events and experiences, but there’s a little room for that. It’s not crowded, and it’s not on top of malefics and during eclipse season and all of that business that we experienced earlier.

CB: Yeah, that’s a good point.

AC: I have a great sort of future anecdote about this Mercury retrograde.

CB: Okay.

AC: I had scheduled myself to finish my second edition rewrite of 36 Faces during the second half of October and get it done in November. You know, oh, it’s a Mercury retrograde, you’re rewriting. Yes, but there’s more. Also, I am in a 5th house profection, right? The 5th is what you create, right? This is literally a book I have created. My 5th house is Scorpio.

KS: Yeah.

AC: And so, Mercury’s retrograde through my profected 5th house is literally rewriting my creation. Like you kind of can’t beat that.

KS: You couldn’t make it up, right? It’s like so classic.

AC: Yeah, and I didn’t schedule that. Or I did schedule that, but I didn’t do it with that in mind. So I was like, “Oh, of course I’m doing that then.”

KS: That makes good sense.

CB: And that’s easier to do with a book than rewriting a child or something, another 5th house topic. I’m not sure how that symbolism would manifest.

KS: I love that story, Austin. And a little personal one for me is that Scorpio is 9th house for me, so Mercury retro is happening in my 9th house, which has to do with international bits and bobs. And I just heard actually about my Canadian citizenship test, which I applied to do sometime ago. And I literally just got an email as Mercury’s slowing down, saying, “Can you show up in two weeks, back in Canada, to take this test?” And I’ve had to reply, “No, I cannot, and here’s why. Because we’re somewhere else in the world right now.” So having to look at rescheduling that citizenship test based on our international relocation.

CB: So you’re still gonna take it, even though you’ve relocated to a different country, under the premise that you’ll go back at some point?

KS: Oh, yeah. We are actually considered to be somehow still legally domiciled residents in Canada, because we’re here on a defense posting, if that makes sense.

CB: Okay.

KS: And we will be returning once the posting here is done.

CB: That’s a good Mercury in the 9th.

KS: Mercury retrograde in the 9th. Documents to do with international, and we’ve gotta reschedule. You know, that’s a to-be-continued and don’t have an answer for that one yet.

CB: Yeah.

KS: But that’s showing up so classically for each of us. And what about you, Chris?

CB: I’m trying to just avert Mercury retrograde issues. My laptop died like two days before Mercury went into its shadow on October 11.

KS: Yeah.

CB: So I was kind of scrambling. Cuz every time this happens, then I’ll get a new laptop right about the time it’s going retrograde. And then I’ll just go deal with like three weeks of hassles and having to return it and having the new laptop not work and all sorts of weird stuff, so I tried to get it in before it went into its shadow.

KS: Yeah.

CB: And I got the laptop. And it’s working out well so far, but I’m keeping the box. And I realized that’s the great piece of advice if you get something significant, especially for technology purposes during a Mercury retrograde—keep the box. Like sometimes you buy something new, you throw the box away, you’re like, “I don’t need that.” But then it turns out you need to send it back or return it or something. If you don’t have that, it’s kind of a hassle.

AC: Agree entirely. There were a few new home purchases that we made during the previous Mercury retrograde, where we really wished we’d kept the box.

CB: Yeah.

KS: Totally. So I’m really struck, cuz that’s a work thing for you, Chris, isn’t it? This is a 10th house retro for you.

CB: Yeah, I mean, it’s gonna be a major work thing. I just redesigned—I put out that call last month for help doing website redesigns. And I’ve started some of that and started working with a lovely astrologer and website designer named Cat Rose Neligan, who does a podcast, and she helped me redesign my consulting site. And we’re talking about redesigning some other stuff, like the podcast website and other things like that. Cuz I’ve got too many websites. I need to consolidate some of them. But yeah, and then of course we’ll be having you guys out, and that’s gonna be a major turning point in terms of the podcast and everything. Cuz we’re gonna have—I think you’re calling it ‘astrologer summer camp’, right, Kelly?

KS: Well, I was calling ‘sleep away camp’, but I don’t want anyone to get murdered. So maybe we’ll call it our ‘think week’ or something like that.

CB: Okay.

AC: That’s funny.

CB: Yeah.

KS: Yeah.

CB: So you guys are coming out here next month, and we’re gonna record like four or five episodes. We’re gonna do the December forecast, the 2020 year ahead forecast, in person, here in the studio. And then we’re gonna do our long-awaited, two-part series on the significations of the 12 houses.

KS: And maybe something else. Or is that it?

CB: Yeah, maybe like a Q&A. Like if we can squeeze in a Q&A, we’ll do it. You know, maybe we can squeeze in like a drunk astrology podcast, something like that. I don’t know, we’ll see.

KS: Oh, my lord. I’m not sure if I can do that on camera.

CB: Okay. We’ll see what happens.

KS: We’ll see. We’ll see what happens with peer pressure. And for our listeners, think about what house this Mercury retro in Scorpio is happening in your chart. Because as you mentioned, Austin, it’s not interfered with, if you like. It’s just Mercury doing retro in Scorpio. And so, there may be just some very topical things to do with the house that Mercury is retro-ing in, in your chart, for listeners.

CB: Yeah.

KS: Yeah.

CB: And some people, the Mercury retrograde will be a big deal, for other people, it won’t. Especially if you’re in an annual profection year where Gemini or Virgo are activated, that retrograde could be a bigger deal for you. Or if it’s hitting a crucial part in your chart—let’s say it’s going through your ascendant or going over the Sun in your day chart or the Moon in your night chart—then it might be more significant.

AC: Yep. If it goes over a planet, then you wanna look at the house or houses that planet rules and if those are activated by other things.

KS: Well, yeah, and so, the degrees that Mercury will be retrograde is from 27 Scorpio back to 11 Scorpio. So if you’ve got any planets in your chart in that zone, or your ascendant, or MC, or descendant, that can make this retrograde a little more relevant.

CB: Right. So what are the degrees, again? What did you say?

KS: 27 back to 11.

CB: 27 to 11, okay.

KS: Yeah.

CB: So anything in that range. But especially if you’ve got anything around 27 Scorpio, or if you have anything around 11 Scorpio, that could be more crucial for you than others. All right, so that’s the Mercury retrograde that’s gonna dominate like the first three weeks of the month. But that is not the only thing we have going on this month, right?

KS: No, it’s not.

CB: Okay.

AC: Yep, go ahead.

CB: Maybe let’s do it chronologically and let’s start going through some of these. So here are the planetary alignments for the month of November. We can see the ingress of Venus into Sagittarius, right away, on the 1st of the month. One of the other things mentioned very early on is Saturn sextile Neptune goes exact on the 8th of November. Then, a few days later, we have the halfway point through the Mercury retrograde cycle, where the Sun conjoins Mercury on November 11, in Scorpio. So that’s the halfway point in the retrograde cycle. The day after that, we have the Full Moon in Taurus. Then about a week later, we jump forward to Mercury ingressing into Scorpio on November 19.

AC: Mars.

KS: Mars.

CB: Sorry. Yeah, Mars ingressing into Scorpio. And that happens nearly, almost simultaneously, as Mercury’s stationing direct in Scorpio on the 20th of November, followed, of course, by the annual ingress of the Sun into Sagittarius on November 22. Then at the end of the month, we have Venus quickly moving into Capricorn on the 25th, New Moon in Sagittarius on the 26th, and Neptune stationing direct on the 27th of November. So those are the major things. Are there any major alignments that I didn’t note here?

KS: I mean, I don’t know if I would necessarily say it’s super major, but having Venus conjunct Jupiter is gonna be a nice one. I think it’s November 24, around 24° Sag.

CB: Yeah.

AC: Yeah.

CB: And that is our electional chart.

AC: Well, and we’re gonna be feeling that for weeks and weeks.

KS: That’s the other theme, yeah.

AC: Venus isn’t in Sagittarius the entire month, but it’s almost the entire month.

KS: Yeah.

AC: And so, we’ve got Mercury in Scorpio, direct and otherwise. And then we have Venus in Sag, co-present, sharing the sign with Jupiter, from the 1st until—what was that? Was that the 26th?

KS: 25th.

AC: 25th.

KS: Yeah.

AC: So that’s 25 days.

KS: That’s a nice amount of time. I’ll take it.

CB: This is like one of the last, great, flourishes of Jupiter in Sagittarius, basically, this lovely conjunction with Venus later in November. Most of November, but building up most of November and then culminating around the 23rd, 24th, and 25th.

AC: Mm-hmm. So let’s talk a little bit about Venus in Sag.

KS: Let’s do that.

AC: So Kelly, you’re the Venus expert. What are your—you have the flowers.

KS: I have the flowers. First of all, I mean, I love the change of Venus out of Scorpio into Sag. When you see this in client work, with progressions and things like that, it’s such a sense of freedom. Not just because Sag could be about freedom, but because Venus is moving out of a place where she’s been locked or limited, because she’s uncomfortable and in her detriment in Scorpio. And so, there is a sense of lightness and this idea of going from looking inwards and introspective to starting to look outwards at possibilities. And so, that sense of returning to a sense of perspective or hope or possibility. If hope is too strong, at least you’re starting to see movement. And this is actually the second cycle of Venus through Sag this year with Jupiter. We had that back in January and early February, so there is perhaps some resonance with that timeframe for some people. But it’s just such an uplift of hopeful, connective energy that it feels like there’s gonna be a lot of maybe happy encounters or positive plans. I know Mercury’s retrograde, and I understand logistics are gonna be tricky. But there is this real sense of ‘we can do this’ or ‘I’m willing to take this leap’ or ‘I’m gonna give this thing a shot’. How would you guys describe it? Cuz I know you’ll have a lot of thoughts on this, too, Austin.

AC: Well, let’s see. Well, one, we’ll be seeing the best-case scenario of Venus in Sag this particular time because we’ve got the ruler of Sag, Jupiter, in the sign with Venus, right?

KS: Yeah.

AC: And so, a planet that’s in the same sign as its ruler is going to be abundantly provided for, right?

KS: That’s a beautiful way of saying it.

AC: Oh, thank you. It’s all of the Jupiterian fixings, right? Let’s see. I mean, I like Venus in Sag. It’s much less personal than Venus in Scorpio. Even though Venus is in its detriment in Scorpio, Scorpio is a water sign, and Venus has a very strong proclivity for water signs, being one of the triplicity rulers of water signs. You know, if we look at Venus’ contribution to temperaments, we have ‘cool’ and ‘moist’, which are the qualities of water. And so, Venus in Sag can be emotionally-disconnected and sort of, how shall we say, excited about the exciting things that are exciting.

KS: Yes.

AC: And I think excitement is a good thing. You know, it doesn’t have a tremendous amount of depth or weight. But that’s okay. You know, we’ll be getting depth from other places here. I think it’s nice. You know, it’s probably not the right part of the year to be setting off on totally new adventures. You know, we’ve got a nice adventure coming up.

KS: We do.

AC: We’ll be traveling to the forbidding mountains of Denver. You know, it’s a good mood. And I think the way to further activate it is to do ‘adventure-y’ things. You know, ‘quest-y’ things, ‘adventure-y’ things. You know, tonight, we ride—it’s that kind of feeling.

CB: Yeah, I mean, it has a real sense of hope and optimism when Jupiter and Venus come together in a sign like Sagittarius, more than any other sign.

AC: Pisces would be vastly superior from an essential dignity perspective.

CB: Yeah.

KS: It would be, but it’s not gonna have that outward, ‘let’s ride’ vibe.

CB: Right. It’s not gonna—it’ll be idealistic. But optimism is almost more of a Sagittarius vibe to me. Which is interesting, cuz I keep thinking of it in terms of the contrast with what happens pretty much immediately after this month, in December, when just everything goes into Capricorn, and we have everything moving through the darker, Saturn-ruled sign and really setting up most of next year during the course of the month of December. And the contrast, then, with that, and everything moving into Capricorn, makes it so much more stark and makes just how bright that transit of Venus through Sagittarius, conjoining Jupiter, looks in comparison.

AC: Yeah, it’s like the opposite of ‘it’s always darkest before the dawn’.

CB: Right.

KS: You’re right. It’s opposite month. You’re right, Chris. It is quite a change. There’s a sobering energy that comes in, in December, so you wanna get the quest out now. I like the distinction you made, Austin, around the less-intimate quality of Venus in Sag. That she’s maybe less connected at that personal level and more interested in the outward experience, if you like.

AC: Yeah, with Venus in Sag natives, I see—so I don’t want this to sound superficial, but there’s almost like the movie of what’s happening is just as interesting as what’s happening. You know, that something amazing is happening. It’s a little ‘Instagram-y’.

KS: Like the best version of something, yeah.

AC: Yeah, well, it’s the vision of the best version.

KS: Yeah.

AC: You know, I would say as far as emotions, Venus in Sag is really good for excitement, positivity, being ready for the best, and to bring the best. You know, I think as far as Venus goes, there are some places that are good for Venus, that are nonetheless very counter-productive for getting things done, for getting work done, right? And Venus in Sag is good for going and getting your work done and being awesome and feeling awesome and feeling like you’re doing a good job, which feeds your desire to accomplish things. It’s worth noting that Venus doesn’t have any essential dignity in Sagittarius, except for one bound.

KS: Yeah, just her terms.

AC: And so, I don’t wanna oversell it. Like it’s nice, and this is the best possible version.

KS: Yeah.

AC: You know, there’s not a lot of, how shall we say, opportunity for lasting work that Venus has here. You know, it’s like being Jupiter’s Flavor Flav for a month.’

KS: Nice.

CB: Yeah.

KS: Do you have a chart you wanna share, Chris?

CB: No. You mean the election?

KS: Yeah.

CB: Should I? Yeah, I mean, I should.

KS: Well, I don’t know.

CB: This is basically the election. We’re looking at it right now, so I guess I’ll go ahead and introduce that. So our electional chart, where Leisa Schaim and I pick out one auspicious electional chart, where we find the date—during the course of the entire month—that looks like it’s the most positive or most auspicious in terms of planetary alignments for starting different types of ventures and undertakings using the principles of electional astrology. And the month, or the day specifically that we came up with this month is November 23, right around the middle part of the day. The exact time, I guess, you would set the time to around, let’s say, 1:24 PM in your location, in your city, and set the chart so that it has Pisces rising. So if you set it up like that you’ll end up with a chart that has Pisces rising. The ruler of the ascendant is Jupiter, which is located in Sagittarius, in its own sign, in the 10th house, in a day chart. So it’s of-the-sect-in-favor. It has no affliction from malefics. It’s pretty much in aversion to Mars and Saturn, so it has no aspect to either of them. It does have an applying aspect from Venus, which is at 27° of Sagittarius, applying to a conjunction with Jupiter, which is a helpful and affirming or stabilizing influence that Venus is bringing onto the table to help out Jupiter, the ruler of the ascendant. Jupiter is also the ruler of the 10th house of career, reputation, and action. So it’s a good general-purpose chart for things where you have to make a good public impression or have to accomplish something in terms of business or just actions in general. The Moon in this chart is at 24° of Libra, and it’s applying to a sextile with Venus with reception, followed by a sextile with Jupiter. So the Moon is also applying to both of the benefics in this chart and that’s strengthened through the reception. It’s not in a great house, cuz it’s actually in the 8th house. But this is mitigated somewhat by the fact that it’s applying to two angular planets very closely, so that’s not a huge deal. We would recommend setting the time so that if you can in your location, try to make the midheaven sextile to the Moon, like we have in this chart set for Denver, where we set the midheaven at 24° of Sagittarius. So it’s exactly sextile to the Moon at 24 Libra. If you do that, it will completely mitigate that 8th house placement of the Moon. So you’ll have more positive manifestations coming from that, like things having to do with shared resources or other people’s money or things like that. It’s a little tricky because even though this is the best—go ahead.

AC: Chris, I just wanna jump in. Another thing that mitigates that Moon is it’s right next to Spica—

KS: Yeah.

AC: —which is a very friendly fixed star.

KS: Very friendly.

CB: Yeah. And the only downside to this chart is by this point in the month, this is right after Mercury has stationed direct. It’s literally just stationed direct three days earlier, at 11° of Scorpio. So the other thing that’s nice is we’re able to take advantage of the Venus-Jupiter conjunction, and we’re also at the very tail-end of the Mercury retrograde period. So Mercury’s actually direct by this point, which is the other reason why this is one of the best elections of November compared to, let’s say, some of the earlier ones, where Mercury was still retrograde. The only downside that I’m not that thrilled about is that Mars has already ingressed into Scorpio at this point. And like all of the planets that have transited through Scorpio so far this year, I think Mars is the last inner planet that has to make that trip. Mars is coming up on an opposition with Uranus, at 3° of Taurus, which adds a little element of instability, a little element of erratic-ness that I’m not super thrilled about. But I think, all other things considered, and the fact that Mars is otherwise not a major player in the chart, that should be okay and should be doable.

AC: Yeah. One of the things that that makes me think of immediately—I’ve been rereading Firmicus. A strong Mars in the 9th, with Mercury in a day chart—this would be a good time for abominable heresy against the gods and the emperor.

CB: Is this gonna be our transition, again, into advertising for our sponsor this month? Last month, we started talking about the Anti-Christ and then that was our transition into the Honeycomb, which did pretty well despite that. So we might actually wanna repeat that, since it seemed to have done relatively well.

AC: Okay. Well, I’ve got plenty of abominable heresy—

CB: Okay.

AC: —having Mars in the 9th, in a day chart.

CB: Okay. Well, save your satanic imagery for later in the episode then, once we transition into the promotional aspect of this episode. Kelly, what do you think about the chart?

KS: Yeah, look, I was picking up on Austin. That Moon—I know it’s in the 8th—but it’s so beautifully-placed on Spica. It’s around 23 Libra. It’s just generally a helpful, uplifting kind of star. It can offer some protection or some insight. It’s one of those stars that if you can get it in a chart, it’s always nice to have. And yeah, the aspect from the Moon to the MC degree—as you’ve got it in the Denver location—is helping partially mitigate the 8th. I really like the Moon-Venus-Jupiter interplay there.

CB: All right, good. Well, I’m glad you guys like this chart.

KS: Yeah.

CB: Cuz this is the chart we’re using to record our year ahead forecast, and this is the chart that we basically centered your trip to Denver around, next month.

KS: I did think it looked familiar.

CB: Right.

AC: I remember this.

KS: Yeah.

CB: So this is, hopefully, if all goes well, when we will press the ‘record’ button to begin recording our 2020 year ahead forecast, which we’ll release in December. Although, I’ll release it earlier than that for early access to patrons who are signed up on the early-access tiers through our page on Patreon. So we’re gonna be using this chart. We’ve got some other charts we’re gonna use that week for other, lesser episodes. But I think this is the one we wanna focus on for the year ahead.

KS: The biggie, yeah.

CB: Right. All right, so yeah, that’s the electional chart for this month. There’s gonna be three or four other electional charts. So if you wanna get access to those, they’re available through our private subscription-only, Auspicious Elections Podcast, which is available to patrons on the $5 and $10 tiers, through our page on Patreon. All right, so that’s the electional chart. What are the other major alignments this month? Should we start talking about lunations? Like the first lunation?

KS: Yeah, we need to circle back, I think, to that mid-month period, centered around the Full Moon in Taurus. Austin?

AC: Yeah, definitely.

KS: There’s just a lot happening.

AC: Right. So Mercury kicks off the month being retrograde, Venus moves into Sag on the 1st, and then once we get to the 11th-12th, we’ve got a couple of things.

KS: Couple of things.

AC: Couple of things.

KS: Yeah. We get the Sun-Mercury. The conjunction, midway point, I think is on the 11th.

CB: Yeah. And people often pay so much attention to Mercury stationing retrograde and Mercury stationing direct, but that conjunction with the Sun and Mercury is arguably just as important of a turning point in the Mercury retrograde cycle and really deserves a lot of attention, if you’re paying attention to Mercury retrogrades and trying to time things. Do you guys agree with that?

AC: I’ve been saying it for a decade.

KS: Hundred-percent.

AC: So one thing that’s particularly cool about this one is that Mercury will actually be at the same declination as the Sun. And so, that means we’re actually gonna have Mercury trying to eclipse the Sun, like a bumblebee trying to eclipse a basketball.

KS: Wow.

AC: And so, the astronomical term is it’s a ‘transit of Mercury’, which of course overlaps, unhelpfully, with our astrological terms

KS: Yes.

AC: So if we’re thinking about a planet in the heart of the Sun, cazimi, then this is as cazimi as it gets.

CB: Yeah, in transit. The original Greek term for transit was epembasis, which means ‘to step upon’ or ‘to walk across something’. So that’s where that term comes from and that’s why that’s what Mercury will literally be doing in this instance. Literally, you’ll see a little planet just like start walking across the Sun for a brief period of time when it moves in front of it.

AC: What was the Greek term, again, Chris?

CB: Epembasis.

AC: Epembasis, okay.

CB: Yeah.

KS: Love it. I mean, I love that imagery, and then, also, the idea that this conjunction is happening at 18 Scorpio, which I think is inside the bounds of Mercury in Scorpio, just to add a little extra Mercury mojo.

AC: It’s the last degree of the bounds.

KS: Yeah.

AC: The bound of Mercury within Scorpio.

KS: Within Scorpio, yeah.

CB: Very nice. So this is the halfway point in the Mercury retrograde. There’s also, often, a turning point that occurs around this time. So whatever the crisis was or the problem that was set up around the time of Mercury stationing retrograde—and then being retrograde for the first week or so—often you’ll see things reach a crucial or a pivotal turning point at this point, where the issues start to recede. Or at least the solution to the issue starts to become clear and starts to manifest in the person’s life. So whatever the problem was that you needed to deal with, you start working through and working out, so that you start to see that there might be an end in sight by this point.

KS: Yeah.

AC: Yeah, it’s the revelation at the bottom of the underworld. It’s that point where walking through the forest lost, if you just keep walking, you’re not walking out of the forest, right?

KS: Yeah, it reminds me of a part—and I’m gonna be maybe butchering this a little bit—like in the hero’s journey, where you’ve kind of figured out what you’re doing in there, and now, yeah, you can make your way. It’s the beginning of the return.

AC: Yeah, yeah. You know, from a visibility perspective that’s as invisible as Mercury gets.

KS: Yeah.

AC: All movement from this point forward is on the way to a return to visibility, as far as narrative structure. This is the ‘coming out of the underworld’, right?

KS: Yes.

CB: Brilliant.

KS: Which is interesting, to play off that piece around visibility and darkness, is that this happens just the day before the Full Moon in Taurus.

AC: Yeah.

CB: Good segue. Yeah, there it is. So the very next day, the Moon—which is already in Taurus at that point—is actually passing over the conjunction with Uranus, right around the time that Mercury is hitting the exact conjunction with the Sun. But about a day later, the Moon hits 19° of Taurus, where it opposes the Sun. And the Moon, thus, reaches the height of its emitting of light, its peak brightness, and we have a Full Moon that goes exact in Taurus at this time, on November 12. So that analogy—we get like an almost repetition of the symbolism you were talking about, Austin, where Mercury reaches that middle point in the cycle and the sort of beginning of a return to visibility. And at the same time, we have the Moon at its peak visibility and peak emitting of light, lighting up the darkness surrounding it at night.

AC: Mm-hmm. And I like this Moon because it’s uncomplicated.

KS: Yeah.

AC: You know, the Moon’s exalted in Taurus. You know, it is not only good at Moon stuff. It avoids the error that you get in Cancer, where the Moon is also strong. Things are too sloshy, right? One of the Moon’s problems is that it changes too much.

KS: Yes.

AC: When you look at delineations for the Moon, it’s like, “Oh, it’s changeable.” And so, the Moon in Taurus provides for manifestation, materialization, nurturance, etc., etc., but it does in a stabilizing way, right? That fixed earth in Taurus is very helpful. And the Moon is largely left to its own devices here. You know, we have a trine to Pluto, and it’s coming off of a trine to Saturn. We have a loose sextile with Neptune. It’s completely unconfigured to Mars. Its ruler, Venus, is in a good place, but it’s unconfigured. And so, we might get a little bit of ‘Saturn’ flavor from that trine, but it’s by trine, and it’s departing. It’s separating. And so, I think this Moon in Taurus will feel like a Moon in Taurus. The other planets aren’t in places where they can testify—

KS: Against.

AC: Yeah, overwhelming vigor.

KS: Yeah, I do have a bit of a bias to the Full Moon in Taurus each year. And I know it varies, depending on the testimony of other planets. But it’s one of the Full Moons that I really like, just as a starting point of what you’re talking about, Austin, that it is stabilizing. The energy of Taurus is so anchoring for the Moon, which, otherwise, can flit around so much. So it’s almost that cliché grounding-type energy where you can be in your body or be in the present. Or you might be feeding your body well or nourishing or pampering your body in some way. But you might also be just having a chance to catch your breath and pause, to do some reflection from that place of a moment’s stillness. I know Uranus is in Taurus, but it’s quite separated by degree. And so, I love that idea of the stabilizing, the earthiness of that Full Moon.

AC: Yeah.

CB: Two things really quickly. One, did you guys notice? That Aries Full Moon that happened this month—I saw in some people’s lives—was much more crucial than it should have been or than I anticipated it being. And I realized, in retrospect, it’s because it was the halfway point between the Cancer/Capricorn eclipse series that we’re in. And I forgot what a crucial turning point that is when you get the Full Moon that falls in between two eclipses. Because it’s almost like the continuation or the next turning point in the series, connected with those eclipse series.

AC: Yeah. I mean, it was also square Pluto by degree and trine Jupiter by degree and had Saturn and Mars angular. There was a lot on deck for that one. And what’s interesting with—yeah, square the nodes—there being both a really powerful benefic influence, with the perfect Jupiter trine, as well as a variety of malefic influences, I saw it go both ways for people. I was talking with my students in my classes after that happened and some people had a great time, some people had a fucking awful time, but there was so much on deck there, in addition to just the Moon. And so, that’s in many ways the opposite of what we’re dealing with here.

KS: Yeah.

AC: This is a Full Moon in Taurus. How do you like Taurus Moon? You know, like that’s what’s on the menu.

KS: It’s just there’s not a lot of choice here, but we are offering high-quality. I mean, if it was a menu, to use that metaphor, Austin, it’s like organic, grass-fed or totally locally-grown. You know, it’s very high-quality nourishment.

AC: It’s actually just an all-beef menu.

KS: I was gonna say, but there isn’t a lot of choice.

AC: Yeah, whereas that last one had all sorts of things.

KS: It was like a buffet.

AC: Would you like a half-eclipsed Pluto, but with Jupiter sauce, and maybe some Mars angular, but not by degree aspecting?

KS: With a bit of Saturn, yeah. The Aries Full Moon, yeah, it was definitely dramatic, and it had a lot of indications of being quite explosive.

CB: One of the things, though, that’s a little unique about this Moon is it’s one of the first Full Moons where we have Uranus now firmly in Taurus. And I’ve been noticing for some of the people, where Taurus is a dominant sign in their chart. It’s been interesting watching some of those people—like Taurus risings, for example—who are going through periods of a Uranus transit through their 1st house and are seeking liberation and breaking away from old structures and things like that. But then it’s interesting seeing how other people in those people’s lives are dealing with that. Because sometimes I was realizing when you’re dealing with somebody in your life that’s going through a heavy Uranus transit—and what they’re experiencing is sudden liberation and breaking away from constraints—is sometimes experienced by other people in their life like that person’s acting very erratic right now and this disrupting old relationships and can sometimes be difficult to deal with if you’re not the one that’s going through the more liberating phase of that.

AC: Yes. One person’s liberation is another person’s, I don’t know, irritation, maybe?

KS: Not even irritation. When you’re the person seeking the change because it’s going to liberate you, it can feel like you’re setting bombs off in the lives of others.

AC: I remember many years ago, I was doing some business and was maybe going to start a business with a friend who was having Uranus transit the degree of his ascendant. And he was like, “Yeah, we could do that, or I kind of wanna just live on a boat.” This was in Pisces.

KS: Yeah, Uranus in Pisces.

AC: And he was like, “Yeah, that all sounds good, but I kind of wanna just live on a boat.” And I checked it, and I was like, “Oh, yeah, Uranus is on your ascendant by degree, and you wanna live on a boat.”

CB: Right. I mean, but it’s maybe good advice then for people going through Uranus transits to maybe have patience with other people in their lives that might not be onboard or still struggling to adapt to their sudden, rapid, complete life overhauls. Develop a little bit of patience for those that are still catching up with where you’re rapidly going in new directions.

AC: Yeah, it can be totally authentic for you to flee the tyranny of land and go live on a boat.

CB: Right.

AC: But just consider how that may affect other people. Don’t not do it. I guess with Taurus now, I guess, it would be fleeing the ocean—

KS: For the land.

AC: —for the sweet embrace of terra, yeah. But whatever, I think that’s great advice, Chris. And yeah, that goes both ways. If you have someone in your life who’s going through Uranus—or if you’re the someone—some understanding. I would also add that when you’re in the middle of the series of conjunctions, a lot of people do experiments with their life. And experiments yield valuable data, whether they are successful or not.

KS: Yes.

AC: But give them a little time. They may not settle on the current experiment. Sometimes I see people hugely concerned that a change someone has made is going to, “Well, if they do this with their life, then,” this and this and this and this are going to proceed from that. When somebody’s in the middle of a couple of years’ of Uranus conjunctions, they do stuff and then they do other stuff. It’s usually not one change and then it’s done.

KS: Absolutely not. It’s a series of changes. And some of the things I often say to clients with Uranus transits is your pace is not gonna be everyone else’s. So be mindful that you wanna move quickly and other people may need time to adjust. But the trial-and-error experimentation piece, Austin, for sure. It’s like you do this one thing, and you get some stuff out of it, but usually, you’ll have a sequence of at least two, but possibly more, changes. And if you are in the middle of a series of Uranus transits, keep in mind that your timelines are much shorter. Don’t think about making a five-year plan. Just think about a three-to-six-month plan and then reassess. Because everything is moving so quickly that you couldn’t possibly commit to something 12 months or two years out at that point in time.

CB: It’s like Uranus is the archetype of the mad scientist, except your laboratory is your life.

KS: Your life.

CB: Reconfiguring things.

KS: What will happen.

CB: Yeah. If I move this here and sell my—

KS: And you don’t know. The tricky thing, I think—especially with Uranus in Taurus—you can’t anticipate what it’s gonna be like. Until you pour the thing in the test tube or move that piece of your life somewhere else, you won’t know what it looks and feels like or whether it’s right for you. Have to get into the lived experience of it. And that’s why it seems a little hectic from the outside looking in.

AC: Absolutely. And I would say that Uranus pushes us to the edges of the known and has us gazing at the unknown, right? Like Uranus doesn’t pull our attention towards what we already have data on.

KS: Uh-uh. It loves the unfamiliar. It’s like this is different. This is outside my realm of experience, and now I’m curious about it, cuz that’s, I think, what Uranus does. It arouses that curiosity or that willingness to go into the unknown.

AC: And restlessness.

KS: The restlessness. It’s like you can say restlessness to someone having a Uranus transit and they totally get it because they are bored.

AC: And they get itchy.

KS: Very itchy, yeah.

AC: And if they’ve previously been, they stop being risk-averse in that area. Cuz they’re like, “Yeah, whatever. I’m so sick of this, I’m willing to roll the dice.”

KS: To try almost anything else, yeah.

AC: Yeah.

CB: So I brought some of that up as a little segue, with Uranus going through Taurus, because this lunation, I feel like, in Taurus—this Full Moon that’s taking place—is probably gonna bring to light and there’s probably gonna become some clarity this month for some of the people that were starting some of those experiments, especially earlier this year, around May, when we had the New Moon in Taurus, not long after Uranus went into Taurus for the final time. Some of the experiments and some of the new changes that people made in their lives at that time or initiated in their lives back in May, you’re probably gonna start to see some of the results of that. So it becomes clear what the outcome of those changes were and whether that experiment was a success or whether you have to get back to the drawing board.

AC: Yeah, definitely. Whatever that stabilization piece is, right? Because the night before the Full Moon is cazimi time and Moon conjunct Uranus.

KS: Uranus time, yeah.

AC: And then the next day, the next night is the Full Moon, right?

KS: Yeah.

AC: I agree completely, Chris. Okay, so here’s what we’re doing with Uranus. Here are the experiments, here are the changes and process. And then, next day, okay, what are we gonna do with this? You know, let’s sit with it. You know, that’s stabilizing. But yeah, if you’ve got early fixed stuff, then it’s gonna be a review of this year’s science.

KS: Yes. That’s great. A review of this year’s science. Love it.

CB: Definitely. All right, so that is the Full Moon that’s going on right around the middle of the month. Are there any other major, mid-month things that we need to note? We’ve got the conjunction. I guess, basically, we can move onto the third week or the following week at this point, when the other stuff starts happening, right?

AC: Yeah, I mean, the Moon in Gemini’s nice, cuz it’s configured to both Venus and Jupiter.

KS: Venus and Jupiter.

AC: And the Moon in Cancer—especially the second day—kind of sucks, cuz it’s configured to Saturn-Pluto-Mars, but those pass quickly.

CB: Yeah, that’s like my solar return this year.

KS: Lucky you. Is it?

AC: You’re earlier.

CB: My solar return’s really bad. Look at it. It’s November 1, and the Moon is conjunct Saturn, and it’s just barely separating by minutes. But thankfully, it applies, directly after that, to a square with Mars and a conjunction with Pluto. So I’ve got this lovely Moon enclosed by the Mars-Saturn-Pluto conjunction in the old solar return chart.

AC: I’m sorry.

CB: Yeah.

AC: I’ve had some non-advantageous solar returns the last several years in a row. One thing I would say is thank God that solar returns are not the—

KS: Permanent.

AC: Well, and they’re also, I don’t know. There were some questions about this the other day in one of my classes. You know, they’re useful. I would put them fourth or fifth in line behind a lot of other timing techniques. I’ll take zodiacal releasing and annual profections and certain transits and probably natural years and Vimshottari dasha before I will look at solar returns and then filter what’s going on I solar returns. You know, it’s not as important as other things. I see a lot of people freaking out about solar returns. Chris, what profection are you going into?

KS: Yeah, that’s what I wanted to know.

CB: That’s not leading anywhere good. I’m going into the 12th. I’m going into my 12th house profection year.

AC: Okay.

KS: Okay, okay, right.

CB: So now we can just segue on and move into a different conversation.

KS: Oh, Chris. We will be there with you.

AC: We’re gonna start a GoFundMe to fly Chris to a location where Jupiter will be conjunct the degree of the rising for his solar return.

KS: There we go.

CB: Like to Hawaii or something.

AC: Yeah.

KS: Nothing wrong with going to Hawaii.

CB: I would actually have bad luck, though. I’m sure it would be, Jupiter conjunct my ascendant, I would have to go to like Siberia or something and hike for 10 miles to get into a remote location in order to have my solar return.

AC: Which would be perfect for a Moon conjunct Saturn, right?

KS: I was just thinking, yeah.

CB: Right.

KS: You will be in the mountains, that’s good.

CB: Yeah. Anyway, well, at least we’ll have a lovely Venus-Jupiter conjunction in my 11th house, and you guys will be joining me out here in the studio for the first time.

KS: Also think about that. Like that’s happening about five minutes after your solar return, your new birthday year begins.

CB: Yeah.

KS: And that’s just maybe a sign of things to come.

CB: Totally.

KS: Yeah, because there’s gonna be that big conference next year in your backyard, where all of your astrology peeps are gonna fly in just to see you.

CB: Yeah, I don’t know just to see me, but they’ll all be here.

KS: They’ll all be here.

CB: We’ll definitely have a lot of fun. The early-bird special actually just ended for that. I was really surprised that that’s already over.

KS: They did a very short, tight, timeline.

CB: What was it? Like a month?

KS: Basically. I think they slightly extended it for a couple of days. But then, yeah, it’s done now.

CB: Okay. Well, but there’ll still be other price hikes. So if you’re gonna go to the conference, then the earlier you buy the tickets, the better.

KS: Yes, yes.

CB: Okay.

KS: Okay, third week of November.

CB: Third week, all right.

KS: Planets on the move.

CB: Chart again.

AC: Mars into Scorpio, I believe, is our first order of business.

KS: Correct. First order of business. Let’s get the itinerary. Agenda. Meeting agenda. What do they call them?

AC: The marching order.

KS: The marching order. Well, that’s appropriate, isn’t it?

CB: So there it is. So, what, about the 19th, Mars ingresses into Scorpio and returns to its home sign.

KS: And is no longer on that angle to Capricorn, which will be a pleasant shift.

CB: That’s the very tail-end. That’s the end point of the Mars-Saturn square that’s been going on for a long time up to that point. And even though it’s been separating from the exact square for quite some time, this is when that square is finally officially over.

AC: Yay.

KS: Yes.

AC: And that is replaced by Mars’ opposition to Uranus. That’s just a little bit. You know, that’s not the whole time.

KS: Just a little something-something.

CB: Yeah. Is this the first time we’ve had a Mars-Uranus opposition? Or did we have that all during the last round?

KS: I don’t think we could have.

AC: No.

KS: We did not have it.

AC: We haven’t had Mars in Scorpio opposite Uranus in Taurus.

CB: For like two years. Yeah, yeah, okay.

KS: Yeah, we haven’t had Mars in Scorpio since Uranus has gone into Taurus.

CB: So this is a new one. And this is one of the things we talked about last month that’s really weird. This is the first time—with Uranus going through Taurus—having an outer planet change signs like that and being in the sign for the first time in 70 or 80 years. It’s really changing the dynamic of some of the inner planet transits that otherwise we’re used to and would have their own flavor on their own, like Mars going through Scorpio and returning to its home sign. But it’s really getting altered and offset and changed in potentially dramatic ways by hitting this opposition with Uranus, as it returns to its home sign. So it’s not just a pure Mercury in Scorpio archetype, but it’s changed significantly. So what are some possible keywords for, let’s say, Mars opposite Uranus, or Mars opposite Uranus, with Mars going through Scorpio?

KS: Well, Mars opposite Uranus gives, I guess, a volatile or a combustible-type quality. It’s gonna be a different tone to that, though. Because the last time we had Mars opposite Uranus, Mars was in Libra, Uranus was in Aries, and that’s a more volatile sign pairing versus the Scorpio-Taurus. It’s like the rumbling from deep within, if you like. Like it’s coming up. It’s not just on the surface. It’s very much like the belly and rising up. Very deep.

AC: Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, I mean, any angular configuration between Mars and Uranus—one of the analogies that I’ve used is that Mars is the keg of gasoline or the powder keg, and Uranus is the lightning strike. You know, it’s very explosive. If you can contain and direct that explosion, it can be very high energy. You know, it’s worth remembering that all combustion engines—that all our cars or most of our cars run on—those are all contained and directed explosions, right? You know, we’re setting gasoline on fire and then using the contained power of that to drive really fast. And so, you wanna, how shall we say, consider the integrity of your containment structure around that. Especially around what looks like the 24th, which Chris has just put up, where we have the Moon conjunct Mars and opposite Uranus.

KS: Yeah.

CB: Yeah, look at it. The Moon hits those two right about the exact same time that Mars is exactly opposing Uranus on the 24th. The Moon like comes up and conjoins Mars and opposes Uranus almost simultaneously.

AC: Yeah, this was the day that I didn’t wanna do any recording.

KS: Yes.

CB: This is Sunday? Okay.

KS: This is Austin’s hard-pass day, yeah.

CB: This is the day after our amazing electional chart. It just goes into like a really kind of a tense one.

KS: Yeah.

CB: Kelly, you’re doing a workshop in Boulder on this day.

KS: Yeah, it’s funny because I know when Austin said, “Let’s not record something together,” I was like totally fine. And I remembered thinking, “That’s all 9th house for me.” And I know it’s not perfect in terms of configuration stuff, but I often end up teaching when there’s a lot of Scorpio activation, just because it is 9th house. So it has turned out that I will be teaching in Boulder on that day.

CB: Okay.

KS: Thankfully, a few hours after this exact thing has passed. Cuz that was like four in the morning, right?

AC: Yeah.

CB: Yeah.

AC: Moon on Mercury. And also, I think it’s much easier to do a solo thing under any really ‘Mars-y’ configuration than to engage in an activity which requires cooperation.

KS: More collaboration.

AC: Yeah, like space-sharing and handing off back and forth and maintaining cohesion. If it’s just ‘get up and do your thing’ that’s within Mars’ wheelhouse in a way that dialogue or trilogue isn’t.

KS: That’s a really good point. And I liked what you were saying, too, Austin, about the combustion engine. There’s a lot of energy in this configuration and essentially it’s what you’re gonna channel it into.

CB: Yeah. Well, and the energy, though, in both cases—with both Mars and Uranus—with Uranus, it’s like a liberating energy or a desire to seek liberation, like we were talking about earlier, whereas Mars is often a desire to separate from something. And when you put those two together, and put them in a tense aspect with each other—where they’re at extreme opposite ends of the spectrum, that’s where you start getting some of the explosive and potentially tumultuous-type significations. Because those are kind of difficult energies to combine into something, in a way that is not subjectively unsettling when it occurs. To have to liberate or separate from something, but often in a way that’s difficult or hard.

AC: Yeah, and they both have ‘change’ as what they like. You know, when Mars acts, it’s not to keep the situation the same, right? Those are, I would say, undoubtedly the two most impatient planets.

CB: Yeah, it’s not like slow change. Like Saturn can sometimes be slow, laborious, like building one stone each month in order to build like a temple over the course of a 30-year period. Like Mars and Uranus are both really rapid, really sudden, and really impatient changes. And sometimes that impatience can lead to an impulsive action that leads to the separation or the liberation. But in the process, there’s usually somebody involved in that process that’s not having a good day when that takes place.

AC: Yeah, yeah.

CB: It may not be you. You may be the one that’s suddenly having this desire cut and separate and sever yourself from things unexpectedly, but the person on the other end of that might experience that subjectively negatively. On the other hand, you might be the one that experiences a sudden separation or disruption of something that could be experienced as unpleasant, even if in some instances it becomes necessary or constructive in the long term.

AC: Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. You know, it’s always useful to think about any configuration both from ‘what if it’s me’ versus ‘what if it’s somebody I’m relating to’. But I think that that becomes all the more vital and important when we’re dealing with Mars and Uranus especially, where we’ve got dramatic, big action. We were talking about that earlier. You know, Chris, you brought that up earlier with Uranus. Like it’s a big difference between the person who’s going into the wild versus the person who is left behind.

KS: Yeah.

CB: Right.

AC: Whereas if it’s Saturn and a person is slowly stacking bricks, you’re like, “Yep.”

KS: “You’re gonna be here for a while.”

AC: “Yep, she’s slowly stacking bricks. It’s not a big deal.”

CB: Yeah, you’ve got some adjustment time of like 30 years to get used to that.

AC: Yeah, right?

CB: Versus the person who just wakes up one day and says, “I don’t wanna be in this situation anymore, and I’m leaving this afternoon.”

AC: Yep. “And I’m taking the cat.” I think we’re gonna get a new cat, by the way.

KS: An extra one?

AC: Yeah, an extra, yeah, in case ours wears out.

CB: Is this an actual cat, or are you talking about a metaphorical cat?

KS: No, I think he’s being serious now.

AC: No, it’s a literal cat.

CB: Literal cat.

AC: We’ve been on a waiting list for a Maine Coon kitten for like 10 months, and we just found out that we get our pick of the next couple of litters. And so, I want a giant, silver kitten, cuz we have a kitten made of gold.

KS: Do you know how much hair you’re gonna have with a Maine Coon?

AC: Probably not as much as from my current cat.

KS: I mean, I know your current cat’s quite big. But aren’t Main Coons long-haired?

AC: He’s the sheddiest.

KS: Okay.

AC: So the point—

KS: Yeah, tell us more. This is gonna be very exciting.

AC: So Maine Coons are very large.

KS: Yes.

AC: So he’s getting old. Our cat—he’s about 12 right now. And so, the plan is to get him a kitten, so he has somebody to care for and keep him young. And then by the time he’s super old, the kitten will be gigantic, and he will be like a kitten to what was formerly the kitten. And he will be cared for and have his head licked in his old age.

KS: Aww. That’s beautiful. I don’t know why the Scorpio/Mars-Uranus conjunction makes me think of that, but I’m very excited that you’re getting another cat.

AC: Yeah, that was a complete non sequitur.

CB: We will have to check in again this month for Cat Watch 2019.

KS: Yes, to get an update.

CB: On that transit.

AC: Yeah, I’m sure Kait will let the ‘Gram’ know.

KS: Let the world know.

AC: Yeah, about the kitten.

KS: Okay, I mean—sorry, Chris.

CB: Back to this. We didn’t mention, though, that Mercury is stationing direct pretty much simultaneously. So all of this stuff we’re talking about—sudden, decisive, possibly unexpected, possibly disruptive action needing to take place and perhaps taking place at the Mars-Uranus opposition around the 23rd-24th, when the Moon especially comes in and activates that—we have Mercury stationing direct at the same time. So it’s almost like there’s some deliberative act that had been taking place for three weeks, up to that point, and then all of sudden Mercury stations direct and the action that has to take place becomes clear at that point. So for some people this may have been something you were stewing on for a while, during the course of the Mercury retrograde, and then it happens and everything becomes clear around the 23rd and 24th.

AC: Yeah, that 19th through the 24th, a lot of things—

KS: Happen.

AC: Yeah, there’s a shift into drive there. And so, I feel like we should talk about Mars in Scorpio outside of the—

KS: The Uranus piece.

AC: Yeah, cuz Mars in Scorpio is great.

KS: Yes.

AC: And so, here’s the connection between cats and Mars in Scorpio. Both are vicious killers.

KS: That’s true. A cat’s hunting instinct is phenomenally deeply ingrained.

AC: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

KS: Yeah. They’re vicious killers. Tell us about that, Austin.

AC: Well, so you probably shouldn’t be killing people or animals.

KS: Right.

AC: But Mars in Scorpio brings that killer instinct, and that’s the same energy and mindset that’s required to bring things to completion, to get it done, right? To scratch off—it’s not your to-do list and your hit list, right? You get it done, done, done, done.

KS: It’s like that—

AC: Go ahead.

KS: I was gonna say it’s like that writer’s adage, “Kill your little darlings,” where you’ve gotta kill off some of what you’re doing, so that you can get to the quality of what you’re doing. Have you heard that phrase? That writer’s phrase, “Kill your little darlings?”

AC: Oh, sure.

KS: Yeah. And then, yeah, Mars in Scorpio has this very, almost obsessive, single-mindedness.

AC: Yeah, Mars has two domiciles, right? There’s Aries and Scorpio. You know, Aries is the bright, bombastic, well-lit, visible initiatory-side of Mars. And then Scorpio is fixed, and it’s water, right? So it’s pressurized and emotionally-fixated in a way that can be very helpful, right? Think of steam engines, right? Or hydraulics. You know, it’s that emotional energy fixed on getting it done, fixed on getting through, fixed on whatever. And it can be very productive.

KS: Very productive. Yeah, it’s like having blinkers on and just keeping on with whatever is in front of you and just consistent effort. Tackles the to-do list, or slays it, as you were saying.

AC: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

CB: I’ve said this a million times on the podcast, but Zoller always had a saying that Mars in Aries is like a machine gun and that Mars in Scorpio is like sniper rifle, and that was his analogy for the difference between Aries energy versus Scorpio energy.

AC: Yeah, I’ve always gone with samurai and ninja.

KS: Yeah, this is ninja energy.

AC: Yeah, just moving silently though the night, but steadily. Like penetrating the defenses, accomplishing whatever your motive is. Ooh, ‘Ninja November’. I like that, in the comments.

KS: Here we go, hashtag, yeah.

AC: I was thinking about names for this Mercury retrograde—the ‘Spooky-grade’ got me thinking—and I couldn’t come up with anything. If Mars was co-present with Mercury when it was retrograde, we could have gone with ‘Retro-blade’.

KS: Oh, that would have been brilliant.

AC: But it’s not co-present, so I feel like that’s off limits.

CB: Yeah, Mars is over in Libra most of the time.

KS: Chris, just to add to what you were saying before around Mercury being direct, as this Mar-Uranus stuff is happening and the Moon’s there, the Moon, of course, is gonna pass over Mercury for the first time since it stationed direct. So I always find that tends to pick up some of the stuckness of the Mercury retrograde, like the hangover, and just help clear that forward or get things moving.

CB: Right. Yeah, that’s a good point.

AC: Yeah, then we’ve got a New Moon a day-and-a-half later. So there’s a big reset 19th through the 25th-26th. You know, we get Mars moving in, we get the Uranus opposition to Mars, we get Mercury direct, and then the Sun ingresses, and then we get the New Moon in less than a week.

KS: It’s a busy time.

AC: Actually I don’t think it’s gonna—sorry to argue here.

KS: No, no.

AC: It’s the last couple of days of the lunar cycle. I don’t think it’s gonna be busy. It’s gonna be all the stuff clicking into place. It’s gonna be the stuff clicking into place to then do the next cycle.

KS: Yeah, I thought about that balsamic Moon when you guys were talking about the Moon-Mars-Uranus combo and that idea of the cutting and the clearing. Just like need to release, need to let go, or need to get it done. You know, that closure/completion thing. I just wanted to also throw in the Venus-Jupiter conjunction is happening basically within the same 24-hour period as the Mars-Uranus.

AC: That’s a great point.

CB: That’s a weird contrast.

KS: It’s a weird contrast, yeah, of energies there. The Mars-Uranus obviously has the Moon on its side, but Venus-Jupiter is happening there in Sag, in that same period.

CB: And slightly related, but I was thinking earlier today—I saw somebody talking about Mercury in Scorpio and how they communicate, or how Mercury in Scorpio communicates, with the premise being that Mercury represents communication. And they said something about silence, which makes me think of Austin’s ‘ninja’ analogy and the idea of assassins moving in silence. But Mercury in Scorpio isn’t always just silence. But it can also just be—if you were to describe a mode of communication—it would be like whispering. What is the related term of whispering, but also, passing something or a message secretly and subtly?

KS: Like in code?

CB: Yeah, like encoded versus Mars in Aries, which is much more overt.

KS: With a megaphone.

CB: Yeah, with a megaphone versus passing a secret message or like a note.

AC: Yeah, absolutely.

KS: It makes me think of those spy drops, where you would have to leave it on the park bench at a certain time, under the newspaper, and someone else is gonna come by and pick it up and hope they know your code. Or maybe I’ve watched too many 1950s spy movies or something.

CB: Right.

AC: It’s the secret handshake.

KS: Yes.

CB: Sylvie in the text of the chat says: “Everybody uses Signal and WhatsApp.” And that actually reminds me, a few years back when—what was it? It was a Saturn in Scorpio transit, and there was like a Mercury retrograde in Scorpio, and the head of the CIA at the time got caught. Remember that? He was like having an affair or something, and they were passing secret messages through Gmail drafts or something like that.

AC: Oh.

KS: Yes, that’s right. They were putting emails in the draft folder, and they could both log in and then delete them or something.

CB: Right. Which is funny, cuz it sounded like the least covert for the head of the CIA to be doing.

AC: Yeah, he was a former general in the Iraq campaign. What’s that guy’s name?

CB: Oh, Petraeus.

AC: Petraeus, yeah. I remember he had Saturn in Libra, and that’s all. And Mars in Capricorn.

CB: Okay. I just remembered. I thought it was a Saturn in Scorpio thing, but anyway. So with Mercury going retrograde in Scorpio in November, we might see some of that stuff.

KS: Well, cuz the water signs are mute. So that idea of the non-spoken message is definitely Mercury in Scorpio.

AC: Yes, the wink, the handshake.

KS: Yeah, the feeling, the touch.

AC: Yeah.

KS: The message in the song or whatever, yeah.

AC: Yeah, yeah.

KS: Yeah.

CB: All right, so Mercury stations direct. The Venus-Jupiter conjunction. And then, eventually—

KS: Venus into Cap.

CB: Yeah, so Venus changes signs and moves into Capricorn by November 25, it’s looking like.

KS: 25th. Yeah, and then the New Moon on the 26th in Sag.

CB: Okay, at 4° of Sagittarius. New Moon in Sagittarius, great. So that’s another shift that’s taking place. So right after all of that stuff then, basically, we get some major shifts happening with that lunation and with Venus changing signs.

AC: Yeah, yeah. And then the chart that we have during that New Moon is what we’re gonna have for a while, except for Jupiter’s going to move into Cap a week after this. But that Mercury in Scorpio, Mars in Scorpio, Venus in Cap—we’re gonna have for several weeks after this New Moon. So this New Moon sets it up differently.

KS: It’s definitely that sobering, end-of-year kind of qualitative change in the sky that we’ve kind of been hinting at and sort of previewing up until this point. Yeah, once Venus goes into Cap, she’s then starting a trend. Of course Jupiter’s gonna follow. And then we’re back down to ground, earth. The word I keep getting is ‘sobering’. Like the reality sets in. The party’s over, the clean up. Or now you’ve made all these big promises and plans with Venus and Jupiter in Sag, and now you have to deliver or follow through.

CB: Right. The work has to be done.

KS: Yeah.

AC: Okay, so I wanna make one point. I noticed something fun. So if we look at American Thanksgiving—

KS: I was gonna say we should look at that chart, right? It’s Thursday, the 28th.

AC: Right. And so, literally, it’s the last conjunction—

KS: Oh, it is.

AC: —of the Moon and Jupiter in Sag.

KS: Yeah.

AC: You know, and it’s on a Thursday.

KS: Yeah.

AC: And so, it’s really a pretty beautiful Thanksgiving chart.

KS: Like the last hurrah of Jupiter in Sag, with the Moon there.

AC: Yeah, cuz Jupiter’s gone in less than a week. Or not gone, but gone into Cap.

CB: Right. It moves in on the 2nd already, it looks like.

KS: Yeah, 2nd or 3rd. Yeah, it’s very fast.

CB: The very beginning of December, that’s gonna be all Capricorn, all the time.

KS: So this is interesting, though. This last week of November, we get Venus with Jupiter in Sag, then we get the Moon with Jupiter in Sag, and that’s it for Jupiter in Sag.

AC: Yep.

CB: Yeah.

KS: It’s literally going out with bang.

CB: Yeah, this is the last of it. So that’s another good reason to take advantage of that electional chart. Cuz that’s like the last major Jupiter in Sag election. That and maybe one or two others later in the month before you can’t use that again for 11-12 years.

KS: Yeah.

AC: Yeah, I mean, there’ll be Jupiter in Pisces in a couple of years. You know, you can’t just stick Jupiter in the 10th or the 1st in 2020 at all because then you’re also sticking Saturn and Pluto, and for half of the year, the South Node, in the 1st or 10th. You know, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze there.

KS: Well, no. And then in the other half of the year, you’ve got Mars at an angle to that.

AC: Excellent point.

CB: Oh, yeah, for the retrograde. Mars retrograde in Aries.

KS: Mars is there for six months.

CB: Right.

KS: Yes, that’s coming up next time.

CB: Right.

AC: It’s actually closer to nine months.

KS: Cuz it’s early 2021 as well. Yeah, we are getting way ahead of ourselves.

AC: Maybe eight months, I don’t know.

CB: You guys are literally flying all the way out here to talk about that, so let’s not jump the gun.

KS: We’re very well-prepared, Chris. We’re very enthusiastic and excited. I don’t wanna be a Debbie Downer for Thanksgiving, but I’m gonna add something. You know, when people say, “I don’t wanna be this thing,” and you know exactly they’re gonna be that thing? The Moon is with Jupiter in Sag, but I think it’s quite early in the morning. Cuz later in the day, it does go into Cap.

AC: Well, let’s look at it.

KS: Chris, will you show us on the screen, please?

CB: Thursday, 11:00 AM. Oh, yeah, it does go in really early, right?

KS: Yeah. At least there’s the Venus conjunction, actually. But then we’re onto the South Node. I mean, the eating goes on all day, right?

CB: Yeah, I mean, it is basically Moon separating from Venus and applying to sextile Mars in Scorpio, and then eventually after that, later in the evening, starts applying to a conjunction with Saturn. And the Sun will set, cuz the Sun’s setting early at that point in the year. So later, later on that day, it’s actually more Moon-Saturn applying than anything.

KS: I think it’ll just be interesting to see how the mood changes.

AC: Go have a big breakfast.

KS: Have a big breakfast. Do the family thing in the morning, maybe.

AC: Or live on the East Coast.

KS: Yeah. Oh, and of course, yeah, some commentary about the drinks kicking in later in the day from Kait. And the truth comes out. I don’t know. I do think it’s fun to look at the astrology of those big celebrations, just to see what the mood might be, basically.

CB: Yeah. And it’s not connected almost with anything especially, but Neptune is also stationing direct basically at the same time.

KS: Oh, yeah, that’s on the 27th.

CB: So Neptune’s stationing direct at 15° of Pisces.

KS: With Mercury in a little trine to it.

CB: Yeah. So I don’t know, that’s not huge, not that significant. I’m not sure what to say about that, since this is like a decade-long transit that we’ve already been dealing with for a while.

KS: Yeah. I mean, that Moon-Jupiter does look really nice. Well, and that’s building on Wednesday night, which is when everyone’s often traveling, too, right?

AC: Mm-hmm.

KS: Yeah.

AC: Most people—they’re gonna be where they’re gonna wake up on Thursday morning, on Wednesday night.

KS: Wednesday night, yeah.

AC: So yeah, maybe it’s Thanksgiving Eve that’s gonna be truly glorious.

CB: Sure. So that pretty much brings us to the end of November then, right?

KS: Yeah.

AC: Mm-hmm.

CB: Any last thoughts or final words about the astrology of November before we hang out and chat about some other astrological topics in the second part of the show?

KS: So what was the ‘ninja’ reference? I want that hashtag again. Austin, what did you say?

AC: Oh, someone in the comments—I’m sorry, I can’t remember your name.

KS: It was Nate.

AC: Oh, Nate.

KS: ‘Ninja November’.

AC: ‘Ninja November’.

KS: ‘Ninja November’.

AC: Why does November get so many nicknames? There’s like ‘Mouvember’, I think, where people grow moustaches. Isn’t there a try-to-write-a-novel-in-a-month thing?

KS: National Novel-Writing Month. There’s an acronym for that, that I can’t remember right now.

AC: Last year, wasn’t there a thing that was like ‘No-Fap November’, where a number of men swore off masturbating for the Scorpio month?

KS: I did not hear that. Wow.

AC: I’ll send you some links.

KS: But why would they do that?

AC: Well, probably cuz they’re doing it too much.

KS: Okay.

AC: But yeah, like you don’t have that with June.

KS: No.

AC: Nobody’s got like 10 different things. Yeah, ‘No-Nut November’, that’s it. Sorry. Thank you, Christina. But people don’t do that with May.

KS: No.

AC: There are like 10 different protocols that people get into.

CB: This is really funny, cuz this is about to be our segue into our sponsor segment again.

AC: I told you I had some more for you, Chris.

CB: Okay.

KS: Oh, gosh, that’s so funny.

CB: Give me another topic, so that we can have a different segue. Anything?

KS: Well, I was trying to summarize the November stuff.

AC: Please go on.

KS: Mercury in Scorpio, the ‘kill your little darlings’ with Mars in Scorpio—enjoy some good times. Go for the excitement, Venus with Jupiter in Sag. I never have the fun alliterations. Yeah, I don’t know why November.

CB: We do need a keyword or a title for this episode.

KS: Yeah.

CB: If anybody wants to throw out any short, concise titles in the chat, let us know.

KS: There is something, though. I mean, as soon as you said that, Austin, like why does November have all these things, I was thinking about the Halloween/All Saints’ Day at the end of October/start of November, as why November has all these things. Historically, it’s such a pivotal time in a number of different cultures and religions to think about transition. In some ideas, it’s actually the start of the year. In the non-religious world, we celebrate New Year’s on the 1st of January, but in most religious or spiritual traditions, New Year’s happens at some other, slightly more relevant or energetically-significant period in time.

AC: How dare you call Christ’s birthday insignificant?

KS: When did I do that?

AC: Well, that’s what our calendar’s anchored to. But I think you’re totally right.

KS: No, no. Do you mean because of the Christian Christmas thing?

AC: Yeah.

KS: In the Catholic faith, Christmas is not the most important celebration. Easter is.

AC: Well, I know that. But I think you’re ignoring our Lord’s birthday. Anyway, I wanna go back to the point, to your real point—

KS: Go back to what you mean.

AC: —which is that, yeah, I think that’s a really good point about November. In the Northern Hemisphere, where the overwhelming majority of the human population lives, it’s a time of transition and death. And so, letting go of something, making a transition. Or like, “You know what, I’m gonna start doing this now (I’m gonna stop doing this now),” make a lot of sense. I think I saw a comment flash that Scorpio energy is good for obsession, right? Like, “I’m definitely doing this,” or “I’m definitely not doing that.” Whereas, I don’t know, Gemini energy in June is not so good for fixating on a particular task.

KS: No way, Jose.

CB: So the attempt to make sustained efforts to make changes in one’s life. Although, in this instance, with the Mars-Uranus opposition sort of starting it off, it might be something that still proceeds from a decisive action or a sudden impulse to want to make a major change.

AC: Well, I think with Mercury being retrograde for so much of the month, people may experience more vacillation in whatever their pledges are. You might wanna delay whatever oaths you’re gonna take until Mercury’s direct and Mars is in Scorpio.

KS: Yeah, later in the month.

AC: Ooh, somebody suggested ‘Retro-vember’.

KS: Yeah. Nice one, Ashlan, yeah.

CB: All right.

KS: Okay.

CB: All right, well, that might be the forecast for November. So this experiment was interesting, cuz we did an hour-and-a-half forecast. So now, in our usual two-hour episode, we would have about 30 minutes to talk about stuff. Since this is the midway point and the transition point, that’s when we throw in talking about the news and what we have going on. Do you guys have anything you wanted to mention, that you have coming up this month, or that you’re launching new classes, or anything like that?

KS: I’ll mention my workshop in Boulder, which is Sunday, November 24, if you feel like braving Mars-Uranus, but enjoying Venus-Jupiter. I’m teaching a full-day training on aspects in Boulder. And the sign-up info—it’s on the event page on my website, but it’s also on The Astrology University website, if anybody’s interested in that. I also recently taught a webinar on the rulers of the houses. It’s a bit of a beginner look at how we do that in traditional astrology, just using very simple, the planet on the sign/on the cusp of the house. And that webinar is now for sale on my website. That’s it for me. What about you, Austin?

AC: Well, I’ll be hard at work finishing up the second edition of 36 Faces, and the Aldebaran series, which I elected earlier this year, will be released through Sphere + Sundry.

KS: Oh, I did see hints of this on social media. I’m very excited for that.

AC: It’s good. It’s one of the four royals.

KS: Yes. Yes, it is.

AC: It’s abundant red energy. But it’s not Mars, it’s interesting.

KS: Yeah.

AC: It’s the fire of the builder, I would say.

KS: I quite like that one.

CB: Aldebaran?

AC: Yeah.

KS: Yeah, we sort of accidentally ended up with it—well, not accidentally, but it’s in our wedding chart.

AC: Oh, that’s good. You will own many productive mines and agricultural fields together.

KS: Fantastic. Not saying ‘own mines’, but given that my husband and I both have jobs in education, that’s probably somewhat relevant.

AC: So child labor. I thought better of you, Kelly.

KS: I don’t know how you got to child labor from that.

AC: Well, you’re the one who was like, “Mines. Oh, we’ve got kids.”

KS: We don’t have kids.

AC: Army of children.

KS: No. I meant like just sharing ideas, in a nice way. Yeah, and when I say ‘accidentally’, obviously, unless you’re gonna relocate your wedding to like five years later—we just happen to get married the year that Jupiter was on Aldebaran.

AC: Beautiful.

CB: Nice.

KS: So we put the Moon applying to Jupiter for that.

AC: That’s awesome.

KS: So I’m excited for you guys to give us some juicy stuff and for people to learn more about the royal stars. I mean, it’s a great way to get people into the fixed stars.

AC: Yeah, they’re goodums. They’re goodums.

KS: So when is that coming out? Do you have a launch date, or is that to be decided?

AC: I think Kait is launching on November 14. I could be wrong, but I believe that’s the case.

KS: Oh, yeah, cuz the Moon will be there, then.

AC: Yeah.

KS: Yeah. Yeah, that’s nice.

AC: Yes, confirmed, 14th.

KS: 14th, 2:30 PM Pacific, I’m guessing.

AC: Yes, PDT.

KS: Love it.

CB: And then you guys will be coming out here for a week in November. We’re still trying to figure out how we can livestream that, cuz usually we livestream the forecast episodes. But we’re gonna be here in person. So I’m gonna be scrambling over the next few weeks to figure that out and figure out how to be able to bring our live audience in, as usual, of patrons, who always join us for these episodes. I think there’s 75 people that have been joining us here for this one today, which is awesome.

KS: Yeah, this has been great.

CB: Yeah. Let’s see, what else? I’m trying to decide if we’re gonna do posters this year. We are finalizing the designs for them. But it’s kind of a logistical nightmare getting those out each year, and it may be a little late to get them on Amazon. So if anybody has any idea about poster fulfillment and figuring out how to work out a system for getting those out, let me know. Leisa and I are also gonna work on our electional report for the entire year ahead. Because that went so well last year that we’re gonna do it again this year, where we pick out one electional chart for each month, and then sort of launch that as a video and audio podcast and written report that you can purchase for a reasonable price. And let’s see, the only other thing is our sponsor again this month is the Honeycomb Collective Personal Astrological Almanac. And it seems like a ton of people actually got this last month after being mentioned on last month’s episode. I know, Kelly, you ordered one. And Austin, you have one on the way.

AC: Indeed.

KS: Yeah, I haven’t got mine yet, but I’m very excited.

CB: Yeah, so I just wanted to show a little bit more of the features, cuz I mentioned it. This is a PDF actually of mine. So it comes with your Sun, Moon, and rising on the cover. And what’s weird about it—or what’s cool about it, it’s completely personally-customized to your birth date and time and location, which is unique compared to most things. Cuz usually it’s like you buy one of those planners and it’s just set to Eastern Time or Pacific Time or whatever and that’s it. But this is not just mundane transits, these are actually transits customized to your actual birth chart. So one of the things—go ahead.

KS: I was just gonna say, honestly, they’ve obviously created the right technology to do this. And this is something that I’ve just thought should be out there for such a long time, and I’m so glad they’ve done such a great job with the quality of it.

CB: Yeah. And I actually genuinely don’t know they’re doing that, to do a reasonably priced, print on demand thing that’s customized to each person. Cuz you can choose your zodiac, your house system, and a bunch of other customized stuff. Then one of the cool things is that it’s put together by an astrologer and professional graphic designer, and there’s a lot of interesting design decisions that they came up with. So you have a copy of your chart that’s at the beginning. And there’s this cool little cord diagram that shows up at the bottom of page five, where it shows what degrees and progression of degrees of all of your planetary placements. So you know which ones are gonna get hit earlier versus which ones are gonna get hit later. So I have Pluto at like 2° of Scorpio, so usually that’s one of the first planets that gets activated when aspects go over 2°. My midheaven’s at 5 Sagittarius. Chiron, Jupiter around 9-10 Scorpio. So there’s just cool, little design things like that, that show things and make things easier, especially for students of astrology. One of the things I’ve been working with the most, though, is the visual design that they have for displaying what transits are happening. And at the beginning of the booklet, they have this long-term transit calendar that shows you which transits are gonna be going exact and which planets are applying or separating during different months. So let’s see, the orange indicates the planet is retrograde, the black indicates that it’s applying, and then a vertical little tick line indicates the exact date that the transit goes exact. So that’s something kind of useful for people like us that are following long-term, outer planet transits.

KS: It’s gonna make a great gift idea coming into the holidays.

CB: Yeah. So it does the long-term one, but then it also has a calendar that shows you when the transits go exact and the exact time, set to your location. So you can pick what city you set it to. So it’s not just showing it for some random timezone that you have to do conversions for, but it actually tells you when it goes exact in your current city. Let’s see, shorter-term, inner planet transits, once you go to individual months. So at the beginning, it gives you long-term transits, but then when you go to the monthly breakdown, it shows you the inner planet transits that are much quicker and go exact. And often, unless the planet goes retrograde, it’s just a one-time hit versus the outer planet transits that are more long-term cycles. And then, finally, the favorite part that I know you’re gonna love, Kelly, is the ephemeris, the personalized ephemeris that is at the end of the booklet. And this is really cool because, again, it’s just an ephemeris, but it gives you the timezone set for your actual city and location. So I have this set for Denver. So it tells you exactly when the planets are making those stations or changing signs based on your actual city and location.

KS: I think that’s amazing because it just takes out the need to convert, and I know it’s here. Cuz obviously the standard—these types of ephemerises are just to midnight in Greenwich, so you do have to kind of mentally adjust.

CB: Right.

KS: I know there’s some comments going on about how people thought it would be really expensive based on how detailed and the quality. But they’ve done it in such an affordable way, it’s quite amazing.

CB: Yeah.

KS: Oh, look at that. The Full Moon and the New Moon.

CB: Mason in the chat says when I introduced it last month, they thought it would be like $130. But it’s not. It’s like 20 bucks.

KS: Yeah, like 35 or something.

AC: That’s really impressive.

KS: Isn’t it? It’s phenomenal. I’m very excited about the ephemeris part. The whole thing. Just that it’s got your own transits. Like it’s your diary, and it says, “Today, the Moon is doing something to your Mars,” or “Mars is doing something to your Venus,” or whatever. It’s fantastic.

CB: Yeah. So I think you’re gonna like that the most. So this is the Honeycomb Collective Personal Astrological Almanacs, and you can find out more information, or you can order one at Honeycomb.co. And we’ll have some links to it and other stuff. I think they’re gonna be producing some videos this month to show people how to use it, since there’s a lot of people that have it now and wanna make sure that they fully know how to get the most out of it.

KS: It’s fantastic.

AC: Yeah, that’s of remarkable value.

CB: Definitely.

KS: And it’s gonna be a really great teaching tool for people who are learning astrology. Because what’s better than having something that’s telling you this is what is happening in your chart this day or this week, and then you can start to correlate how your chart responds. You know, we always say to students, follow some of those personal planet transits, so you can understand what something in your 10th house means. If you know what Mars there means or how that stirs things up or what have you, you’ll have a better idea of what’s gonna happen when Jupiter or Saturn’s there. And it’s just giving people information that’s gonna help them learn. It’s great.

CB: Anyway, exciting stuff. Check it out. Thanks to our sponsors. They’re gonna help us sponsor covering part of you guys’ room and board next month, when we fly you out to Denver. And you guys are gonna have your own house, like a block over, to sleep in and hang out in next month when you’re in Denver.

KS: Yeah.

AC: Yeah. Chris bought us a house.

CB: Yeah.

KS: We’re never allowed to leave. Podcasts will be coming out.

CB: We’ll see how it goes.

KS: No, it’ll be great.

AC: Well, he bought us the basement of a house.

CB: Right.

KS: Yeah, no, it’s fantastic.

CB: All right, so I think that’s it for news and announcements. Other than that, let’s talk about just some topics. Usually we do the topics at the beginning, but let’s maybe do it now. One of them is a follow-up to last month’s discussion about the term ‘detriment’. I think I realized this after the fact, but I realized at one point, early in October, I was looking something up and realized that the term ‘antithesis’ is actually almost a perfect translation of the original Greek term that was originally used to refer to a planet in its detriment. And I’m really kicking myself because I have this whole extended discussion about trying to come up with a translation of the Greek term, and there were just like two that kind of conveyed different parts of it. One of them was ‘exile’, a planet being in its exile, because it’s the sign that’s literally the furthest away from its home sign as you can get, cuz it’s opposite to the planet’s domicile. And the other translation was from a Latin translation that one of the translators used, which is ‘adversity’, which describes another part of the original concept underlying detriment; the idea that the planet, being in the sign of its adversity. But I realized this month that actually the term ‘antithesis’ is really close to the original Greek word. And I’ve been searching for a better translation for a while, and I think that’s actually it. What do you guys think about that as a term for a planet being in the sign opposite to its domicile, being in the sign of its antithesis? And part of the reason that it’s antithesis is because, obviously, that sign opposite to it is ruled by a planet that has opposing or contrary or antithetical significations. So we were talking about Scorpio a lot, which is ruled by Mars traditionally, and that’s opposite to Taurus, which is ruled by Venus. And Venus and Mars both have very antithetical significations of like peace versus war or love versus hate, fighting versus friendship, and so on and so forth.

KS: Yeah, I mean, part of the definition of antithesis has that idea of something that is opposite to something or someone else. So that kind of represents the quality of a planet being opposite somewhere it would prefer to be.

CB: Yeah, so the Google definition says: “A person or thing that is the direct opposite of someone or something else. A contrast or opposition between two things. A figure of speech, in which an opposition or contrast of ideas expressed by parallelism of words, that are the opposites of or strongly contrast with each other, such as, ‘hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sins’.” Isn’t that good?

AC: I think it’s perfect.

CB: Yeah.

AC: Yeah, I believe I re-shared it on Twitter, and I just said, “Perfect.” Because it’s perfect.

KS: Yeah.

AC: It’s the antithesis. You know, the planet in the sign is the thesis, right? Mars in Scorpio is like, “Well, how about we fight some stuff.” And then the antithesis, the counter-statement in the dialogue is, “Well, fighting stuff breaks things, and it’s important to not break your things.” And so, the dialogue begins. I mean, it’s perfect.

KS: Yeah.

CB: Yeah, I think it’s something to think about. And it’s also not as doom-and-gloom as detriment or even adversity, which I liked because it was slightly less negative in its implications. And even though it still conveys the idea that there’s some sort of challenge that comes up, I think it gets more to the root, conceptually, of what the actual challenge is when a planet is in the sign opposite to its domicile. Which is that it’s struggling to function in an environment and in surroundings that are literally the opposite of what it’s most used to or what it’s most accustomed to.

AC: Yeah, or that quite literally attempts to invalidate its thesis or negate its thesis. And then the nature of that challenge—if we’re looking at the way the term is used in dialogue—there’s the thesis, which is the ‘how about this’, there’s the antithesis, which is ‘here’s the counter-statement, how about not that’, and then dialogue is supposed to move onto a synthesis, which includes what is true about both statements in a third statement, which is kind of what you need to do if you have a planet in its antithesis or detriment or exile, right? If you have Mars in Libra, you have to figure out a way to Mars that includes the Venusian priorities of Libra. So I think it’s just structurally correct.

CB: Right. And it doesn’t mean that you can’t, or that the planet can’t be functional in those surroundings. It just means that it’s not being given significations to work with that come naturally or easy to it, and it has to learn how to deal with and still make the best of that which is opposite; the opposite of what it’s used to.

KS: Yeah, it’s having to do something. It’s almost having to do something in a way where you have to get a bit creative or innovative because you have to do your job, but without your usual tools. I mean, the word, the concept—I don’t know if you guys are familiar with that show, MacGyver, that used to be on years ago.

CB: Yeah.

KS: And it sort of became a bit of a slang. I don’t know whether it was just in my family or social group, it was like you just have to ‘MacGyver’ it. You just have to kind of make it up with what you’ve got and figure it out, even though you don’t have the things that you would ideally like to have.

CB: Right. Having a planet in detriment is like you’re stuck in a bank vault and you have to get out using like an avocado, a snorkel, and—

KS: A flower or something.

CB: Right. Like a toothpick.

KS: Yeah, that’s exactly it. And then you have to think incredibly out of your normal pattern, and you may or may not be capable of doing that, basically.

CB: Yeah, or at least it’s gonna take a long time, sometimes. Maybe it’s something that you start off and you’re more uncomfortable with early in life, but sometimes later on, you develop ways to use that creatively, in a way that’s still effective in accomplishing things.

AC: Yeah, you have to take an unorthodox approach to that planet’s action in order for it to be effective.

KS: And it does come down, then, to the ruler of the planet that is in detriment, exile, or antithesis, whether there is that help or support, or whether it’s just gonna take a long time for you to be unorthodox about it.

CB: Yeah, cuz I think that makes a huge difference in all cases I’ve seen—the missing thing when people sometimes try to judge this concept. I notice sometimes modern astrologers will try to reject the idea of planets having dignity or debility in certain signs by pointing to examples where certain people have that planet in a supposedly debilitated sign, but do fine. But oftentimes in those instances, the planet will have reception with its domicile lord, and those will be the people who have the planet in, let’s say, detriment, but still are able to find an effective or a perfectly useful way to manifest that placement, that works out well for them, even though it’s unique or sort of different than how the planet might otherwise manifest naturally.

AC: Yeah. Well, and you can’t, how shall we say? Most of those critiques betray a complete lack of understanding of how essential dignity is supposed to work. If you’re doing essential dignity, it’s not that somebody with Mars in Aries is always super good at all of the Mars things. If it is in the 12th, and if it’s dah-dah-dah-dah-dah, that’s not what it means. But I think I actually have an example right now. I’m just looking it up. If there’s support and that is an area of life that a person bothers to spend the energy necessary to figure out how to excel—sometimes we have planets that aren’t in great positions, but those planetary spheres are not something that we care about a lot. Like let’s say you’ve got a great Mercury and Venus is not so good, but you ‘Mercury’ for a living, then Venus is only relevant in certain areas, right? Whereas if you ‘Mercury’ for a living, if that’s what you wanna do, and there’s some challenges to Mercury—Mercury’s in an antithetical sign—then you’re going to spend the time and bother to figuring out your own way of doing things, or an unusual way of doing things. Yeah, I was just gonna say—I was gonna use Muhammad Ali as an example, who’s one of the most well-known boxers in existence, who had Mars in Capricorn, or excuse me, Mars in Taurus, which is the sign of its antithesis. And so, worth noting that the ruler, Venus, was angular in the chart, right? It’s in the 7th, and with the Moon and Mercury. So the ruler is very strong and can see Mars, so there’s support there. And then it’s a Venus-ruled Mars. Have you ever seen Ali fight, relative to everybody else in his era? He’s pretty. He’s dancing. You know, there’s a focus on grace and fluidity that literally no one else in his era displayed. It’s a Venus-ruled Mars, right? And if you come into a slugging match with your first priority of, “I’m gonna be pretty,” then you’re probably going to lose. But that’s antithetical to the priority there, which is to beat and not be beaten. But with enough support, time, energy, etc., you see that raised to a higher level, right? You see the Venusian quality of that reconciled with the martial priorities. Like that’s the synthesis. And an antithesis begs for a synthesis, so I really like that.

CB: Definitely. Do you have any planet-in-detriment examples that come to mind, Kelly?

KS: I mean, the one that pops into my mind right away is Brené Brown, who has Mercury in Sag. It’s 1st house Sag, cuz she has a Sag rising. So she has a Virgo MC. Mercury is in detriment, obviously, but it’s in its own terms in Sag, which I also think can help a planet that’s in detriment. And Jupiter, its ruler, makes a sign-based opposition. Jupiter is also in detriment in that chart, in Gemini. And Mercury does make an exact degree-based aspect to the MC, if I’m remembering this correctly. And what she does—she’s known as this very thorough researcher. She’s got a Master of Social Work. She’s a professor, I think, at a university in Texas. I’m not exactly sure which one, but I know she’s from Texas. And a lot of her research is about our faulty thinking and our faulty thought patterns and how when we assume things that are not true to be true, how that interferes with our relationships and our success and our happiness in life. So she’s using, if you like, the detriment placement to look at what goes wrong with thinking patterns, and she’s applied some of the Mercury things—like research and what have you—in a very successful way. I mean, she has a TED Talk that’s in like the top five TED Talks of all time. So yeah, I’m not sure if people are as familiar with her work. Cuz she’s a great example of doing the Mercury, but in a way that has led to some really productive outcomes.

CB: Yeah.

AC: Yeah, that’s a great example.

CB: I like that. When you mentioned Mercury in Sag, I always think of Rob Hand as my favorite Mercury in Sag example.

KS: Yeah.

CB: If you go to a Rob Hand lecture, instead of focusing in on the details and the little things, he’s a very big-picture-type guy. And he also has this tendency to go on these very long discursions, where he’ll be talking about a topic and then it’ll bring up another topic, and then there’ll be like a 20-minute digression. Except the digression is usually very charming and interesting, and everyone’s very fascinated by this long journey that you go through during the course of the talk via the digressions. And he’s sort of made that work out for him in being able to be a big-picture person that captures and sort of synthesizes everything, instead of focusing in on the little details.

KS: That’s fantastic.

AC: Totally. I’ve been there for some of those.

CB: Yeah, definitely. All right, so that was my one topic. There was another topic that came up recently, let’s see, about what signifies the mind in the chart versus the body versus the native communicating. So I had this tweet. I was trying to think of single keywords for each of the seven traditional planets. And what I threw out—based on a Hellenistic thing—was Sun as mind, Moon as body, Mercury as speaking, Venus/love, Mars/fight, Jupiter/grow, and Saturn/consolidate. And I thought those were all defensible significations, although some of the feedback I got was funny. Because there were some people that really objected to that in terms of whether to switch up the Sun and Moon or Mercury, which is sometimes associated with the mind in modern astrology, and some of the different traditional approaches. Like I know in Indian astrology, for example, the Moon is the mind. And obviously, a lot of this comes down to how you define some of these things.

AC: Yeah, mind is a slippery word.

CB: Yeah. And in Greek, I was thinking of the signification of nous, which Valens assigns to the Sun, and that is sometimes translated as mind. And the Moon is often just translated in Valens as the body. But yeah, it brought up an interesting question. Cuz there’s also a sect issue, which is, which one is the sect light? And which one is emitting light versus which one is more dark at that time? And you could make an argument that maybe the sect light has some role to play in the source of light, and therefore, almost consciousness or mind in the person’s life.

AC: Awareness.

CB: Sure. But what do you guys think? Where do you come down? Do you assign mind or consciousness to one of those significators? Or how do you usually describe them?

KS: I would definitely give body to the Moon when I’m talking about health stuff in the chart, or looking at some of the medical astro. The Moon is always implicated as one of the two planets describing the body. The other one is the ruling planet of the ascendant. I find, between those two, we get a lot of the body. The Sun—I often use the idea of wisdom, which I think is probably getting closer to nous for the Sun.

CB: What was that? Wisdom?

KS: Wisdom. Like the idea of the Sun as like divine light, if you like. That there is some wise, higher quality to whatever the Sun might be emitting, yeah.

CB: Yeah, cuz there’s also a separate issue about where does the ascendant fit into this.

KS: Yeah.

CB: The 1st house.

AC: In answer to that question about the ascendant, the planet that rules the ascendant and any planet present, the sign of the ascendant, should impact all judgments of both body and mind.

CB: Right.

AC: I do see the, how shall we say, the Sun as being more subtle in its significations and the Moon being more manifest in its significations. I think that with the Sun, you see the image of self, which is the containing structure for the identity, which changes from time to time. I see both of them as both being luminaries providing awareness and vision. You know, vision of the world, vision of the self. You know, awareness and the ability to see are very tightly-correlated.

CB: One of the things that that raises for me is that in modern astrology, they often associate the Sun with ego, but ego is seen as not real. And so, in modern astrology, there’s been this rejection of the Sun as like the true representation of the self, but instead, seeing it as more, not transitory, but more illusory in some way and not the actual person.

AC: Yeah. So I’ve taught it as both for a long time, using the physical metaphor of the construction of the Sun. The core of the Sun, I don’t know, I think it’s thousands of times hotter than the edge or the corona. I would say that the Sun is both the structure or mass that is the ego at any given moment. You know, what we think we are, and we need one of those to contain that energy. But it is also the energy of self which fills that structure, which could fill any structure. You know, it’s the same awareness of self, basically, ego energy, which filled one structure when we were five and filled another when we were 30, and fills another now. So I would say that the Sun is both of those things. And I agree. I always look at the Moon when I look for bodily injury. I mean, the health of the body, being concerned about injury or disease. But the Sun also has a very strong role to play in terms of a person’s vitality.

KS: Yeah.

AC: You know, and vitality has kind of an energy-matter relationship to the body that it animates. But that animating power—there’s a physically-animating power to the Sun that is also important for both mental and physical health. Just like, for example, when a person has Saturn go over their Sun, and they go through a period of depression, and that has emotional and psychic repercussions. The person also has less physical vitality. You know, if you do exercise testing on people who are clinically depressed versus when they’re not depressed, they can lift less weight. They can’t run as far, etc., etc. But if I were gonna say primary body, Moon. Primary psyche, Sun.

CB: Yeah. I mean, yeah, that makes complete sense to me. Things just get complicated sometimes with the sect thing. In a day chart, that’s easy. But in a night chart, if the Moon is where the light is coming from, and the Sun is dark during that part of the day, how then do you describe the role that the Sun is playing versus the role that the Moon is playing? And then there’s a separate, extended question that I haven’t worked out, which is, again, separately, when you start dealing with the Lot of Spirit and the Lot of Fortune, which are meant to isolate certain qualities of the Sun and Moon at that point. You know, what role do those play at that point in describing characters of the spirit or the native’s psyche versus characteristics of the native’s body and physical incarnation? Yeah, Sylvia’s mentioning in the chat, of course, the important metaphor of how the ascendant and the first place always, in ancient astrology, signified both the body, as well as the mind or the character of the native, and that’s why you get those significations with the 1st house. But then how is that distinct, then, from some of these other things that we’re talking about, of the 1st house being the meeting point between the body and mind, and therefore, the point of physical incarnation of the native? But yeah, it gets a little tricky. I was thinking of trying to come up with a single signification. If I was to apply it to the houses, I would just say 1st house/self, which is opposite to 7th house/other, and then 10th house/public versus 4th house/private, if I were to try to ‘Twitter-fy’ my significations and just come up with one signification that you have to say for each thing. That would be the most bare essential I could come up with.

AC: Yeah, that works.

KS: That would work.

CB: Self, the 1st?

KS: Yeah, self, for sure. It describes the mannerism and the quality of the individual, if that makes sense.

CB: What’s weird about it is it has a lot of deeper implications than you realize, until you go through a heavy 1st house transit, and you actually have questions of ‘who am I’ and ‘what is self’ and ‘how am I distinct from other people’. And it’s something that sounds like a very generic signification to give to the 1st house until you start having a real period of dealing with 1st house questions and issues.

KS: Yeah. Yeah, it seems general until you live through something that really amplifies the depth of it.

AC: Well, just ask yourself, who am I?

CB: Yeah, it gives you a crisis of like, who am I?

AC: Have I always been this? Will I always be that? You know, come up with a sufficient definition. It’ll take you a couple of years.

KS: Little while.

CB: Right. And what is the distinction between how I perceive myself versus how others are perceiving me, when you realize there’s a disconnect between those two?

KS: Yeah, but there’s space between what you think you’re putting out and what other people actually get.

AC: Is self what I identify with?

KS: Yeah.

AC: Or is it something other than that? Well, I identified with this part of me before and this part now, but am I different? Anyway, yeah.

KS: Very existential questions.

AC: Yeah, yeah.

CB: Yeah.

KS: So there’s some food for thought.

CB: Yeah.

AC: So before we move on or leave off, just a little bit from the Vedic point of view on the Moon as mind, right? So the way that I was taught was to look at the Moon and its aspects and its mansion to understand what is the basic, how shall we say? What is the reaction tendency of a person’s mind? And by ‘mind’ here, we don’t mean intellect. But how does a person process interaction or stimuli, right? And so, if a person has, let’s say, Mars-Saturn configured to their Moon, like I do, then the first reaction will be to look for the negative or to look for problems to solve. And there’ll be a tendency for the mind to, what’s the word, to have a baseline.

KS: Did we lose the sound?

AC: Did you lose—

CB: Just for a brief second, but you’re back.

AC: Okay, yeah. You know, you look at the mansion. Like I’ve got my Moon in Rohini, right? So the baseline reaction would be, well, what can I build out of this? What can I make out of this? It’s a creative nakshatra. But then it’s configured to Mars and Saturn, so it’s like, “Eh, that’s a bunch of shit.” I perceive the negative, but then what can I build out of that?” and then you bring all of the person’s capabilities into the equation. But the idea is that the Moon can give you information about a person’s basic reaction to whatever experiences come their way, which is a different sub-definition or function of mind than some of the other ones we were talking about. Has nothing to do with intellect, for example.

CB: Sure. Right. Yeah, well then that’s a whole other conceptual structure and tradition. And I wondered sometimes if mind didn’t become more of the focus in the Indian tradition, partially not just philosophically, but because they had a more Moon-based, lunar tradition from the start, because of the focus on the nakshatras in indigenous Indian astrology, basically. In the West, there’s been this focus more on the Sun sign from the very beginning, especially to the extent that the zodiac itself—at least the tropical zodiac—is solar-based, or is based on the relationship between the Sun and the equinoxes and solstices.

AC: Yeah, yeah. Well, and one of the things that’s worth noting is that in Parashara, for example, there are several planets that are said to give intelligence. Intelligence is not necessarily mind. Like everybody has a mind. Some people are intelligent, and different planets give different types of intelligence. And intelligence isn’t necessarily intellectual excellence, right? Like Mercury gives intellectual excellence. But Mars gives intelligence, like mechanical intelligence, right? Jupiter gives intelligence and helps with the intellect that is not as clever as Mercury. But intelligence and mind are not exactly the same thing, whereas in our culture, we have a very flat, under-worded language for that layer of things.

CB: Yeah, that’s a good point, the different things that the planets contribute to intelligence or to wisdom. Like discretion versus ingenuity versus other keywords like that.

AC: Yeah, or just vitality of mind, right? Some people have vital minds, right? Like whatever intellectual machinery they have, it’s just always running, right? Some people are very intelligent, but they don’t have much mental energy, right? You know, we experience this where there’s like us when we’re smart—when everything is firing—and then there’s us the rest of the time, where it’s like, “Eh, I don’t know, I’ll figure it out later,” right?

CB: Right.

KS: Yeah.

CB: And that makes me think of what Saturn contributes sometimes when it’s combined with, let’s say, 3rd house or Mercury and gets involved in the native’s communication process or the intellect, where it can be highly critical. Like when you have Saturn involved in the positive level of criticism versus a negative level of criticism that that can bring. Kelly, you’re shaking your head, yeah.

KS: Yeah, yeah, totally, because my father has a Mercury-Saturn conjunction. So I grew up with that energy. I mean, his is in Leo. But I think Mercury-Saturn is very dry. And the critique is not a personal thing. It’s like a critique in the more academic sense of like let’s assess the validity or the weightiness of what is being discussed, if you like. And there is a real sense of—there’s a structure and form to things, and we need to sort of critique whether this fits the form, whether it’s indicative of a new form, or whether it’s outside the form, and therefore, it’s a rubbish sort of concept, basically.

AC: Well, having a Mercury-ruled Saturn in the 3rd, I don’t know what y’all are talking about.

KS: No?

CB: Right.

KS: This is totally unfamiliar to you?

AC: No, in truth, I feel called out by this relatable content.

KS: Well, I mean, one of the memories of my dad growing up—and I might have shared this story before—is the red pen correcting the newspaper.

AC: Oh, yeah.

CB: Yeah, yeah.

KS: So his structure, particularly with language, was so profound. I mean, this was back in the days when newspapers actually did have copy editors and proof editors. Not like today, when necessarily things are just kind of churned out a bit, but yeah.

CB: But what’s interesting is, again, with Mercury, the communication function, it might not be what’s underlying it in terms of the underlying, almost like intellectual vitality or wherever the wisdom is emanating from. It’s just the means through which it’s being communicated is being altered, in some instances, by or conditioned by, let’s say, a conjunction with Saturn or what have you.

AC: Right. And I think a good example of that is someone with Tourette’s, who will scream obscenities randomly. That’s not necessarily indicative—that’s literally not what they’re trying to communicate, right?

CB: Which is like a Mars thing.

AC: Yeah, most of us don’t have disorders that are that obvious, but a lot of us don’t end up saying it exactly how we wanted to.

CB: Yeah, that would be like a Mars thing. Or sometimes in the older texts, they’ll say that Saturn-Mercury stuff pertains to speech impediments, if there was some other impediment that was impeding the ability to communicate what is internally going on.

AC: Yep, yep.

KS: Yeah, the contrast, to offer something energetically different or antithetical—to use our analogy from before—is a Mercury-Venus aspect, for instance, which is gonna have a lot more moisture. And the first example that comes to mind is Maya Angelou, who has Mercury and Venus conjunct in Pisces. And the poetry and the artistry to communication there, the fluidity, maybe not necessarily conforming to rigid structure, but evocative nonetheless.

CB: Yeah, I love that. She’s a great example for that. So all of this, though, goes back, for me—

KS: Your tweet.

CB: Well, not just the tweet. But astronomically, when you look at the solar system, Mercury is the planet that is closest to the Sun, and it’s like the gateway and the go-between between the Sun and the other planets. And so, that’s why sometimes when I think about this, I do think about the Sun as, if not the mind, the thing that is within the person, that has some sort of consciousness or some sort of knowledge that they want to express. And then it gets expressed through Mercury as the sort of gatekeeper and the go-between between the Sun—as the central force of everything—and the rest of the planets. And I think, astronomically, that’s why we end up with Mercury playing this role of communication or of the go-between in different situations. And it’s because of that astronomical setup of Mercury being the planet next to the Sun that you have to go through to get back and forth between them.

AC: Right. For any of the Sun’s beams to get to the other layers of the solar system, it has to pass through Mercury’s ring.

KS: Yeah.

CB: Right.

KS: So the wisdom of the Sun comes through Mercury according to whatever planets Mercury’s in aspect to or otherwise influenced by.

CB: Yeah. Although it’s funny, then, because then you get this situation in natal charts where you have the person that has Mercury in the same sign as the Sun. And maybe there is more of a concordance between what is inside the person, in some sense, in their consciousness versus the way that they communicate that versus those people that have the Sun in a different sign than Mercury. Which is, just circling all the way back around, one of the reasons why Eminem is such a fun example, because he’s a Sun in Libra, but a Mercury in Scorpio. And the way that he communicates some of those things is very abrasive and dark and occasionally aggressive. But it’s interesting what’s underlying some of that compared to the way that he communicates it.

KS: So that somehow there’s a smoothness or a purity of message when Mercury and the Sun are in the same sign, and there’s a disjointed, jerkiness when Mercury and the Sun are in adjacent signs?

CB: Yeah, just because they’re in aversion, and they’re in signs that have completely different qualities and modes and everything else. And so, the way that the person is communicating sometimes comes off differently than the way that they might feel to themselves. And this is actually, I think, one of the issues when it comes to Sun sign astrology, in terms of people gauging that. Some of the people that have more of their personal planets all in the same sign might relate more to just like one sign versus having their Mercury or their Venus in different signs than their Sun and not being able to relate as much to just one, singular sign.

AC: Absolutely.

KS: Super cool.

CB: All right, well, I think that’s it. I got a few other topics, but nothing that’s really jumping out. Unless you guys have any major topics that you wanted to discuss astrologically before we wrap up the forecast for November.

AC: I’ll just add one more layer to Sun and Moon. So in, let’s say, more ‘Renaissance-y’ era stuff, especially in the intersection between astrology and alchemy, you get Sun is spirit and Moon is soul.

KS: Yeah.

AC: So spirit being the more raw emanation of a motivated awareness. And then soul, while still being more psychic than the body, soul is a collection of experiences and structures in a way that spirit is not. Spirit being a more raw form of energy and awareness, and yeah, soul being a collection of, how shall we say, charged patterns that that spirit illuminates or fuels.

KS: Nice.

CB: I’ll have to think about that. Because there’s usually so much otherwise collapsing of meanings when it comes to soul and spirit.

AC: Yeah, these are specific. These are specific definitions I’m trying to give a quick version of.

CB: Right.

AC: Cuz people will say ‘spirit’ for kind of anything, and people will say ‘soul’ for kind of anything.

CB: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. All right, last discussion topic. And this is a brief one that’ll just take a minute. But are we living in a simulated reality?

KS: Oh, my lord, this again?

CB: Did we already discuss this?

KS: No, no. Didn’t we have a brief something? Or maybe that’s my answer to your question.

CB: Okay.

KS: No. I did think we had some Matrix-level discussion. It was a while ago, though. But maybe I just imagined that we did.

CB: Maybe that’s like a glitch in the Matrix. Well, I just bring it up because occasionally I see it come up as like a popular sci-fi theory. But I always thought that astrology would be the best example if something like that did happen. Because if it did exist, then there would be, theoretically, some sort of underlying code that would be describing what’s going on in reality, that you might be able to access on some underlying level. And I’m not saying that’s definitely what’s happening. I’m just saying astrology would be an interesting way to conceptualize that. Or that would be an interesting way to conceptualize astrology and what it’s doing, if you wanted to approach it from that standpoint.

AC: Yeah, I would agree. And are we living in a simulation? Which is a way of asking, are there layers of reality that are more real, which I think we would say, more causal than this one? Yeah, probably. I would say, yes, there are probably also layers that are even less real and less causal than this one. I don’t know. My sense of it cosmologically is probably kind of similar to the structure that Robert Zelazny lays out in the Books of Amber, which are fiction, by the way. And I would say, yeah, I would agree that astrology is a good way to look at things that are, how shall we say, more consistently real than other layers of facts. And then I would say that astrological magic, or magic in general, is then acting at those more real or more causal levels, which might not be visible at this level, in order to create a cascade of desired effects or situations.

CB: What do you think, Kelly?

KS: Well, I don’t know if this is like a ‘lady’ answer.

CB: You’re like deeply unsettled by this question?

KS: No. I sort of think if we are or if we aren’t, we have to keep going on regardless.

CB: Okay.

KS: I sort of think if we are living in a simulation, we’ll know at some point, and then we can deal with whatever we need to. Do you know what I mean?

CB: Yeah.

KS: To my mind, I’m like I don’t know if this is being dismissive, I just feel like, well, if we are, great. If we’re not, we’ve still gotta get up tomorrow, ‘chop wood, carry water’ kind of thing.

CB: Yeah, that it’s immaterial. Or it doesn’t make a huge difference because you’re in it, and it’s a matter of living your life at this stage.

KS: Yeah, that’s kind of where I go with this question.

AC: I think that if we’re gonna use a Matrix analogy, it matters if we have an ability to access and read and/or manipulate the code, right?

KS: Yeah.

AC: Even if we are in a simulation, if we have no capacity to read or change that code, then it becomes completely immaterial. But if there is an ability to read or access it, then it has a most definite impact, and it’s worth pursuing as a method of living one’s life.

CB: Yeah, and that was actually the episode I did earlier this month on astrology and Christianity and if astrology was antithetical with Christianity. Cuz I’m still convinced that one of the selling points for Christianity really early on—that we don’t understand today, but would have made much more sense in the ancient world—was that they were basically saying that it gives you a cheat code, if you become Christian, to get out of your birth chart and get out of your fate. And that’s really appealing, I feel like. Especially if you’re living in a 1st century context where most of the astrologers are taking a much more deterministic approach to astrology, where they think that everything predetermined, or at least most things are predetermined, and the purpose of astrology is just to know what you have to accept in the future. But if somebody comes along and says maybe you don’t, maybe you can erase all of that, then that would be very, very appealing.

AC: Yeah. Oh, and I think that that’s further supported by Gnostic Christianity where the Archons, who are the cruel or unjust controllers of the manifest world, literally have the names of the planets in a lot of documents.

CB: Right. Well, the Archons are like the gatekeepers of the planets, and the soul descends through the planetary spheres, and it takes on all these qualities. And then when you die, it ascends back through the planetary spheres and gives the qualities back.

AC: But in that Archonic Gnostic perspective, those planets—once you’ve descended—literally have, as a job, to keep you ignorant and weak. And so, that ascent through those spheres was not natural, but required whatever Gnostic tech they were using. And so, yeah, we literally have systems, para-Christian systems, that see the planets as the enemies, as the cruel arbiters of, how shall we say? The cruel arbiters of an arbitrary fate as decided by the flawed creator of this world. And so, if Jesus was a way out of that, then, hell yeah, people would be into that.

CB: Right. But even like the magical traditions, that was just like one alternative. But there were Hermetic traditions. There were magical traditions. There were a bunch of different alternates or different groups that were trying to provide an answer for a way out or to change your fate. And I just feel like that’s such a different mindset that people were dealing with and why some of those philosophies would have been appealing compared to modern times. Like late 20th century astrology was so radically different in its stance towards fate and free will that it’s almost not comprehensible to us to understand what that would have been like in the 1st century.

AC: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

KS: Yeah. I can totally see the 1st century desire. Cuz in all ways, whether it was Christian orientation or other magical practices, was this promise of giving people some kind of control over their life and what was happening. That you could escape this path by going down this road instead.

AC: Yeah.

CB: Right.

AC: People are always into that, and with good reason.

KS: Yeah. That still happens today.

AC: Well, yeah. I would say that that’s healthy, right? If your path is barred, you look for a way around. And you may or may not find one, but just assuming that when you hit a roadblock, be like, “Yep, there’s a block in the road. I should probably just accept that.”

CB: Especially with like clients, when do you establish that there’s something you have to accept versus something that you have to actively strive to change?

AC: Well, it depends, right? I think a lot of times the answer is wait. You know, it just really depends on how, how shall we say? How many testimonies there are to things being a particular way, and how permanent those are, right?

CB: Yeah.

AC: You know, to give it sort of a dramatic example, there are some lives where people have extremely unsatisfying love lives, but then when they’re 65, they meet exactly the perfect person and they finish out their years in love and harmony. Now if you were able to predict that, which is not completely unlikely, whether you should predict that is another thing. Whether you could predict that, if you did to someone at 15 or 20, that would sound unbelievably horrible, but yet, we know that that happens. And so, obviously, if we’re looking at a chart like that, there are big afflictions to the 7th and to Venus likely and the ruler of the 7th. But time periods change later in life. Maybe they hit a unique and wonderful releasing from Eros period where those are mitigated, or where those don’t apply for a period of time. And so, I mean, I don’t know if anything is forever. Some things might be for an entire lifetime. But you’ve just gotta kind of judge it with all the factors you understand.

CB: Yeah, definitely. All right, well, I think that kind of brings us to the end of this episode, since we’re at two-and-a-half-hours. So thanks, guys, for joining me for the forecast today. I’m excited about having both of you here in Denver and recording our next two forecasts in person.

AC: Yeah.

KS: Yeah, that’s gonna be a real treat.

AC: Yeah, so the next episode’s gonna be live and in person, yeah?

KS: Yes.

CB: Definitely gonna be in person in like a month from now. What day are we recording that on? On the 24th?

KS: Yeah, just over four weeks.

CB: Okay. And I’m working on a way to livestream that for all of the patrons who wanna attend live. Thanks to all the patrons who attended this episode live. We had almost a hundred people here today, which is awesome. And we love seeing the chats from everybody.

KS: Yes.

CB: Yeah, I don’t have it worked out yet, but I’m gonna find some way to livestream that. So I’ll figure it out when we’re recording that next month. And we’re gonna record a bunch of episodes here in person, so looking forward to that. And Kelly, you’ve got your plane tickets booked. Austin, you’re about to book yours.

AC: Mm-hmm.

KS: We’ve got the house almost booked. We’ll get that sorted.

AC: I tried to book my plane tickets, but the website for Alaska Airlines fucked up, so I have to do it again. Also, can we dress like news anchors, if we’re all gonna be around a desk?

CB: Yeah, well, we’ll have to consider a lot of things like that.

KS: Okay, packing tips.

CB: Right. All right, and then before I wrap up, I need to thank the patrons. So let’s see, can you see that?

KS: Oh, yeah, the Patreon supporters. That’s come up, yep, nice.

CB: Yeah, so these are people on the new $25 tier, which I really appreciate, cuz it’s helping us to fund some of this stuff, like kicking in money for a place for Austin and Kelly next month. So thanks to the patrons, especially Christine Stone, Nate Craddock, the Astro Gold Astrology App, available at Astrogold.io, which is the app that I use on my phone. Also, thanks to the Portland School of Astrology, at PortlandAstrology.org, and of course, the Honeycomb Collective Personal Astrological Almanacs, which are available at Honeycomb.co. All right, guys, so thanks for joining me today. Thanks everyone for watching this episode of The Astrology Podcast. Please be sure to like, subscribe on YouTube. Subscribe on Patreon and give us a good review on iTunes. And I think that’s it. So we will see everybody next time, and good luck in the month of November.

AC: Ninja November.

KS: Bye, everyone.

AC: Take care.