The Astrology Podcast

Transcript of Episode 532, titled:

The Birth Chart as a Story: Fate and the Life Narrative

With Chris Brennan and Patrons of The Astrology Podcast

Episode originally released on April 12, 2026

Original episode URL:

https://theastrologypodcast.com/2026/04/12/the-birth-chart-as-a-story-fate-and-the-life-narrative/

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Note: This is a transcript of a spoken word podcast. If possible, we encourage you to listen to the audio or video version, since they include inflections that may not translate well when written out. Our transcripts are created by human transcribers, and the text may contain errors and differences from the spoken audio. If you find any errors then please send them to us by email: theastrologypodcast@gmail.com

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Transcribed by Teresa “Peri” Lardo

Transcription released April 15th, 2026

Copyright © 2026 TheAstrologyPodcast.com

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CHRIS BRENNAN: In this webinar, I wanna talk about the birth chart as your life story as your fate or life narrative and how it describes those things in a broad, overarching context. 

So ancient astrologers conceptualized astrology as the study of fate. And that’s actually why the subtitle of my book is Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune. And fate itself was conceptualized as an ordered sequence of events that was arranged in accordance with the divine plan or purpose. 

So the second century astrologer Vettius Valens used an analogy, actually, where he said that each person’s life – each person is like an actor that’s in a play. And in a Stoic context, he said that each of us must play our part the best we can, whatever our role is in life, because each of us has different roles in the overall grand scheme of things. 

So in this context, the birth chart becomes sort of like a map or a guide to understanding what your life narrative is, and it asks or helps to answer, “What am I doing here?” Or “What makes my life unique compared to other people?”

So while the chart itself, you know, you can use a lot of highly technical like, techniques to look into minute details in the chart through paying attention to smaller measurements or different timing techniques, sometimes I find it really useful to zoom out and to look at the life as a whole and look at the big picture of the birth chart and what it says about what is the overall narrative arc of a person’s life. What areas of the life are a major focus compared to other people? What are the areas in a person’s chart or a person’s life where they experience luck or good fortune, versus what are the areas in a person’s life where they experience challenges or even misfortunes or bad fortune? Who do different timing techniques indicate when certain events in the person’s life will unfold? These are the big picture questions that interest me the most in astrology when you pull up either a celebrity chart and you can kind of get a big picture overview of the overall narrative of the person’s life and the things that are known about that person publicly, or even just looking at individual charts when you can talk with a client or talk with another person about their birth chart and truly start to hear the person’s life narrative come alive in this really unique way through the lens of the birth chart. 

So every time I look at a chart, I love doing it because I love learning about the life story of an individual. And there’s something about that which is something we all get through let’s say those of us who enjoy reading a biography about a person or even a famous person like a celebrity. There’s something inherently interesting in learning about somebody’s life that you’re interested in. But doing that through the lens of astrology opens up this whole other context in helping to truly understand the person’s life narrative and their fate. 

So within this context, today I’m going to do a series of birth chart readings with patrons of The Astrology Podcast who signed up through my page on Patreon. And I’ve asked them to write out one to two sentences as a synopsis about what makes their life story distinctive or unique in some way. And then I’m just gonna go through and do some little mini-consultations talking to people about their chart and their life and asking them questions about their life story in order to understand how the birth chart itself matches up in different ways or describes their actual lived experience. And so I just wanna do that today, because I genuinely enjoy talking to people about their lives, and also because I learn a lot every time I read a new chart. You learn something in the process of doing that, and I’ve always told me – like, when I teach astrology – that that’s one of the big secrets is like, an astrologer learns something new every chart they look at, even if the chart has placements that they know how to interpret or placements that they’ve seen before in the past. There’s always something unique about the specific manifestation of a person’s life, and I find that really interesting each time to see and actually hear the unique manifestation of specific placements in the chart. 

So these live webinars, if you’re watching this later on YouTube, are one of the benefits of signing up through my page on Patreon. So if you’d like to get access to attending one of these in the future and get your chart read, then you can sign up at Patreon.com/TheAstrologyPodcast. It’s actually Patreon.com/AstrologyPodcast. 

Yeah, so why don’t we just jump into it then and then I’ll sort of expand on some of these themes and add some commentary later as we go. 

All right. So let’s go ahead and talk to the first patron that I was gonna talk to, whose name is Charlene. 

Hey, thanks for joining me. 

CHARLENE: Hi, Chris! Thanks for having me today. 

CB: Yeah. Thanks for being a guest. So you already gave me your birth data, and so I’ll put up the chart. You were born September 6th, 1979, right? 

C: Yes. 

CB: Okay. So let me share the chart, and then let me know if this looks correct. You have three degrees of Pisces rising? 

C: Yes. 

CB: Okay, awesome. And in your synopsis, you said that you were adopted by extended family as your birth parents were 14 and 13 years old at the time of birth, and you were gifted and attended college at 16. Your parents thought you’d be a lawyer, but you wanted to be a musician, and you ended up in admin ops. So yeah, let’s talk about it. 

I guess first let’s set up things with the chart itself. So you have Pisces rising, the ruler of the Ascendant is Mercury; it’s in Virgo in the 7th whole sign house in the place of relationships and partnership. You have a whole stellium of planets there, including the North Node, the Sun, and Saturn, and Venus. So that’s a lot of concentration in the 7th house of relationships. This is a day chart, so I would expect your most positive planet would be Jupiter, which is in the 6th house of work and health and also subordinates. And then the most challenging planet is Mars, which is in the 5th house, which is usually the place of children, creativity to some extent, leisure activities and other things like that. 

So oh yeah, the last thing is you’re born – your Moon is opposite your Sun, and the Sun is near the node, so you’re actually born the day of a lunar eclipse in Pisces. So you are a — 

C: I was! 

CB: — a lunar eclipse birth, which is pretty cool. 

C: I think so! My 13-year-old daughter says that I have lore in regards to just my life in general and all the things that I guess all the stories that I tell her just about being me. 

CB: Yeah. So you got a lot of stories. I mean, you know, having an eclipse birth means that eclipses would be particularly important for you and probably some of the most important events in your life have happened within seven days of an eclipse during an eclipse season. So that’s something we can get into. But why don’t we start at the beginning with – I guess your primary unique thing at the beginning was just that you were adopted by extended family at birth, right? 

C: Yes. My great aunt and uncle – I’m sorry, my great grant aunt and uncle. So by blood, my dad and my great grandmother are brother and sister by blood. 

CB: Okay. 

C: And they had me since I was four days old, and they legally adopted me at two years old, and I remember like, the entire thing. 

CB: You remember the process of them adopting you? 

C: I remember adoption day. I was in a plaid skirt with a black vest and a little bow blouse. I remember riding the glass elevator up the stairs. I remember being in the courtroom. People’s Court was really popular back then, and I was going, “Take it to court!” which was like, the little slogan from People’s Court from the commercials, and it was getting a chuckle out of like, the courtroom, so I always like to get a chuckle from a crowd and even at that age I remember that feeling of everybody laughing with me going, “Take it to court.” But I have memories going back to whenever I was a baby. Before I could even speak, I remember feeling things that I could not describe. 

I graduated high school at 16; I went to college at 16. I have been known for basically my intellect. And my parents always viewed me as like, this big gun that really didn’t quite go off because they thought that I was gonna be like, a senator or an attorney – somebody that really liked to talk, if you can’t tell – I’m still talking! But I got bit by the music bug at 12, and did a hard pivot into the arts and music and went to school as a trumpet major and then switched to being an opera major. So I have a degree in opera. 

CB: Oh, okay, that’s what you meant – is that what you meant at the end by admin ops? 

C: Admin ops is me not using my degree. I’m an administrative person, basically – an operational administrative person. So I’ve been managering in an administrative capacity operational admin. So things behind a computer. I worked in finance for 22 years and actually now I’m in manufacturing, but it still is a position that is behind a computer administratively running the background of my plant. 

CB: Got it. Okay. So you’re definitely – the Virgo stellium’s definitely coming out with like, Mercury — 

C: Absolutely. 

CB: — Mercury in its own sign and in Virgo along with that whole stellium and just Mercury being the strongest planet in that stellium, and therefore the sort of intellectual abilities as well as the detail-oriented abilities of Mercury in Virgo really excelling there. 

C: Yes, it seems that way. That’s how I get paid; that’s my profession. But I still do music stuff. I’m in a band; I’m a vocalist, and I’ve continued to do music things, you know, since I’ve left college and graduated college. But it never was a paid kind of gig. It was just a little bit of money if any money at all. It’s something that I do as a hobby more than my career. I’m an administrative person in my career probably forever. 

CB: Got it. Okay. So rather than – you so work then for a company or for somebody else in most contexts or have most of your career? 

C: Yes. I’ve never been anything entrepreneurial-y or had any kind of like, gig work. I’ve always worked for somebody else and I prefer it that way. 

CB: Got it. Yeah. That makes sense. I think I misspoke and I said the ruler of your Ascendant was in the 7th at the beginning, but it’s not, because your Ascendant is Pisces, so the ruler is Jupiter which is in Leo in the 6th house, which is usually, like I said, the place of work and service, and that’s actually your most positive planet. So it’s like, the signature of almost somebody that works in that capacity for somebody else, but in that area does well or excels or actually has enjoyment and good fortune in doing that. 

C: It seems like it. And all of my Jupiter returns, which will be happening again this summer when Jupiter goes back into Leo, have signified some sort of leveling up in my career or my job at the time. And currently, it looks like it’s happening again. 

CB: Okay. Yeah, I liked – at the very beginning, you said that when you were 12, that was when you made the switch from — 

C: Yes! 

CB: — the initial aspiration to doing music, and 12 of course would have been a Jupiter return, which is relevant for you and your overall life direction since Jupiter is both the ruler of the 10th house of career and life direction as well as the Ascendant and the first house. 

C: Yes. And when I got to studying astrology and one of the cycles that I studied at first was the Jupiter cycle. It was very tied into my career, and I could take it back even all the way to the age of 12 where I made a hard pivot of wanting to be an attorney up until that point, and right into the arts going into music that year. It was a very hard pivot, and it was shocking. It was shocking to me, honestly, and it was shocking to my parents as well. 

CB: Yeah. It’s interesting how you have like, Neptune as one of your more angular planets, like, right on the Midheaven. I mean, aside from Mercury in the 7th, like, Neptune is your most angular planet with your Midheaven at 15 Sag and your Neptune at 17. So it’s interesting that when Jupiter, the ruler of that, got activated that you had this impulse to go in more of an artistic direction as opposed to the more analytical, argumentative direction of the Virgo placements. 

C: Yeah. I still never lost that analytical, argumentative piece of me, but I just didn’t want to make a career out of it. 

CB: Okay. So in terms of like, big picture stuff, though, why are so many planets in your 7th house and like, what is the role of relationships in your life or partnership or one-on-one interactions with other people that sort of accounts for having so many planets in the 7th house at this point? 

C: So this was one of the things that actually drew me to astrology, because I feel like I am – my ultimate role is as a connector, a connector to people. That I need to make heavy, deep connections with almost everybody that I befriend. And then I continue to stay friends with these people for an extended period of time. I have a lot of friends still from grade school. My internal clique has been with me for like, 35 years, and we just hold onto these relationships. And once I befriend you, then you’re just a part of my community and there is a connection that is established that almost cannot be broken. It’s almost like, whenever you become my friend, you’re like my family. And then there is a support that comes from that that I’m willing to provide you. And I like to kind of like, collect people almost like Pokemon. You know, like, a different cast of characters and different kinds of people, eccentric personalities and things like that. Each person serves a different purpose for me; they’re all very different, but they all serve a purpose, and I stick with those relationships for a long time. But like, that connection that I have with people seems like it is a driving force just in my life in totality. 

CB: Yeah. Of connecting with people individually and that being really crucial to you and also making them almost like family to you. I thought it was interesting how you describe that, just because you have the ruler of the 4th house of family and home and living situation placed there – you know, that Mercury in the 7th house – creating a connection, and that you would describe it like that is interesting. 

C: Yeah. And I tend to make a lot of friends through work. And there’s something about the 17 connection, how it staircases from, you know, I have Venus at 17 and Pluto at 17 and Uranus and Neptune at 17. The way that it staircases up the wheel of the chart. I befriend people at work, and they become my family, and it intersects to the 10th house as well. And it’s like, all one big flow how I typically make friends at work and I keep them for a very long time. I have friends from my first job when I was 15 years old that I still keep in contact with today – close contact. But I tend to make a lot of my friends at work, and I like to have a really good time at work. I’m a silly goose. 

CB: Nice. I love that. Yeah, that Jupiter placement in the 6th house in a day chart as your most positive planet is really shining through there as just an area that goes really well for you, as opposed to we could think about hypothetically a scenario where somebody has their most challenging planet in the 6th house and like, work is not an area of enjoyment for them, or where maybe they don’t get along with people at work or they feel isolated or what have you. You have really have the opposite end of the spectrum there. 

C: Yeah, I have a good time at work. I don’t necessarily think that my work is very meaningful, and I wish that it was, but what has a lot of meaning are the connections that I’ve made personally with the people that I work with. I feel that I’m able to guide them not only at their job and their function but throughout their life. I’m giving them probably unsolicited advice and guidance as they just chit-chat with me, but I have developed very close relationships with all of the people that I work at my current job, and I kind of mentor them throughout their life moments that they’re dealing with.

CB: Got it, okay. That makes sense. So this is a thing I talk about with like, the ruler of the Ascendant, which is that whatever the planet is that’s the ruler of the Ascendant, the person will tend to become the avatar of that in their life. And if it’s a challenging planet, sometimes they can bring about some of the difficulties in that area of the life on their own, whereas in your case since it’s a positive planet, it’s like, part of your fate or your narrative or your life story is that you bring about positive experiences for other people in your workplace, and you act as a positive influence basically for other people that are there because you’re literally represented by Jupiter, the most positive planet in your chart, which is the ruler of your Ascendant in the 6th house of work. And that’s actually like, a crucial important role that you’re playing in the world in some way and like, bringing about good things in the workplace. 

C: That’s a perfect kind of way to describe it. 

CB: Nice. Okay, I like that. What’s the deal with the Mars in the 5th house as being a challenging area for you, or how has that arisen for you at this point if at all? 

C: You know, I’m not really sure. I notice it more in transit more than I have as a natal placement. When Mars comes around every two years to kind of intercept my Virgo stellium, I always have some sort of calamity. I had my bestie from college pass from an overdose; I had my mom pass from ALS; I had my work dad pass of a heart attack, and this is all when Mars comes around and intercepts that Virgo stellium. Every two years or so, there’s always a big like, meltdown crisis of something whenever the transit happens. But natally, a little bit hard to kind of tell being like, a relationship house. Well, I was single on purpose until I met my husband until I was about 27 years old. I had a boyfriend early on in high school, and again I was kind of like a brainiac and excelled at music and turned down some big scholarships to go to the same college as my boyfriend at that time, and then we ended up breaking up before I attended college. Didn’t have any other scholarship opportunities at that point, so had to go ahead and go to the school where he was, and from that moment on, I was 16 years old, I was single until I was 27, the way that I wanted it. 

So no real — 

CB: You were single from the ages of what? From the age of — 

C: Of 16 to 27. 

CB: Okay, so that’s a pretty big gap. So it’s like — 

C: Yes. 

CB: This is Mars, so I wouldn’t normally think of that with Mars, but I’ve seen other people like, with Saturn in the 5th house are sometimes like, voluntarily celibate for a period of time, for example. And I don’t know – that’s almost sort of similar in some way, because you’re like, not – or okay, maybe I shouldn’t! Not that that’s — 

C: Totally gonna declare it – I wasn’t celibate. All right — 

CB: Okay. 

C: — I just was single, okay! I just was single! And — 

CB: Got it. 

C: — I liked it that way. That was a fun time, you know. I had a stable of people that I could pick and choose who I wanted to actually hang around, and that was a fun way for a younger person to live that had the vitality that I had back then. I’m 46 now, but back then that was a fun way and a choice to live like that. And maybe I could attribute that a little bit to Mars being in the first house just kind of like, cutting up little connections that I made where I thought something would last, and then it wasn’t gonna last, so I just went ahead and continued with the stable life. 

CB: So maybe there was – I mean, were there like, other people during that time that maybe would have been in a relationship with you but you chose to cut and — 

C: Yes. 

CB: — move on? Yeah, okay. 

C: Yes, for sure. For sure. 

CB: Got it. That makes sense. And then did you say it was 27 when you met your partner? 

C: Yeah, I was 27 years old when we met. 

CB: Okay. So that was the start of your Saturn return in your 7th house? 

C: Yes. 

CB: Okay. That’s pretty cool. And is that ongoing? 

C: Yeah, we’re still married. We’ve been married for 15 years, and we were actually married – you had asked for some degree examples in a previous webinar, and we were married on my Venus sextiling my North Node exactly eight degrees during a Venus retrograde in Las Vegas. 

CB: Venus sextiling your North Node exactly the day you were married? 

C: Yes.

CB: Nice. Okay. So that’s pretty cool. So was Venus in Cancer or was it on the other side in Scorpio? 

C: Scorpio. 

CB: Scorpio, okay. Why don’t we look at the date just out of curiosity? Let me animate a biwheel – do you know the date offhand? 

C: Yeah, it is October 23rd, 2010. 

CB: Okay. So it should be up, so October 23rd, 2010? 

C: Yes. And it was in —

CB: Okay. 

C: — Las Vegas, Nevada, at one PM. 

CB: Okay. I’ll just approximate it here. So yeah, we see Venus was retrograde at eight degrees of Scorpio, and it was sextile your North Node in the 7th house at eight Virgo and also heading towards – it was also applying within a degree of sextile the ruler of your 7th house, Mercury, at late seven degrees of Virgo. So that’s pretty cool. This is just post Saturn return, so it’s like, you met at the beginning of your Saturn, went through the initial two to three years of the relationship, and then decided to make it official once Saturn had shifted into your 8th? 

C: That’s about right. And this is right at the end of my husband’s Saturn return; he is two years younger than me, and he is also a Pisces rising and Virgo Sun. 

CB: Wow, okay. Is he — 

C: Right. 

CB: — also Saturn in Virgo? Or is it in Leo? 

C: I think he is – and I can just check for you very quickly – I think he’s Leo. 

CB: Yeah. It’s kind of borderline; it might be late Leo. 

C: His Saturn… 

CB: I mean, I can look it up. What’s the birthdate — 

C: Oh wait, it’s actually Libra. His Saturn’s in Libra. He’s — 

CB: Okay. 

C: He has a Libra stellium. 

CB: So meeting him was your Saturn return, and then getting married was his Saturn return? 

C: Yes. 

CB: Got it. Okay. And that actually brings up that, you know, recently you’re just getting out of – you’ve just completed your Saturn opposition. Like, Saturn’s been going through your first house the past few years, which can — 

C: Oh yeah. 

CB: — sometimes be a tough transit for body and sometimes mind. But sometimes it’s a period of not great health. And you’re also still wrapping up eclipses bouncing back and forth between your first house of self and your 7th house of relationships, which is usually a period of major beginnings and endings and like, ending on chapter and beginning another when it comes to your sense of self and who you are versus your sense of relationships and the people that you’re with. And with that activating your entire Virgo stellium, I was just wondering what’s been going on the past few years with the Saturn transit and the eclipses. 

C: Man, my health has been just like, ridiculously bad. It started off with a rheumatic muscle disorder diagnosis that hasn’t really stuck with my rheumatologist. So some sort of ongoing rheumatic issue. And I also tore my meniscus in my knee. I got Lyme disease the summer of ‘24, and like, that’s an ongoing thing. Like — 

CB: Wow. 

C: — so many things have happened with my health during my Saturn opposition in the first house that I was just so stoked to see him go to Aries. Like, goodbye! And hopefully my money won’t be too crazy this time, but definitely my health was going downhill. But my marriage continues to stay solid. Married in Venus retrograde and all. Like, it’s probably the most like, positive foundational part of my life is the relationship that I have with my husband. 

CB: Nice. Have there been any significant changes in his life lately? Like, there was the eclipse in September in Virgo, for example, which would have been in your 7th house, and then there was another eclipse that just happened in March that was in your 7th house. And sometimes it’s not always like, changes happening in our life, but sometimes when we’re having 7th house stuff, there’s important changes or beginnings or endings going on with our partners around those times. 

C: No, not really. I mean, he would probably say the changes are going on with me. And I think that this probably started – there was an eclipse in 2023, and I can’t remember which one – the houses of mine that it hit, but lots of things just about the way that I thought about the world in general at large started to change with me in 2023. I was very much a scientific minded kind of like, materialist, and like, I still am, but that kind of marks the spot of when I really got into astrology. And I started to go down the wormhole of that, and it really has intensified over the past year. So if you talk to my husband, he’ll tell you that I just personally am vastly different than I was three years ago because I have made astrology such a important part of my outside-of-work activities as a hobby. 

CB: Got it. Yeah, 2023 I remember was the eclipses that were happening in Scorpio, which would be your 9th house of beliefs, but also astrology and like, world outlook and philosophy, but also Uranus was opposing your natal Uranus in the 9th house at that time. So your Uranus opposition had to do with beliefs and philosophy and even like, sometimes the 9th house is religion. So at that time, that transit for you was – and the major beginnings and endings – was getting into astrology and how that changed compared to your worldview up to that point? 

C: Yeah. Again, just, you know, very much a materialist. But just not that way anymore. My husband calls me “woo woo,” you know, and I lean into that a little bit because I think that it’s cute and it’s funny. But I just have my mind more expanded. I am more willing to hear people’s thoughts about just the way that everything is. My belief system has completely been altered. Like, thrown upside down completely since the 2023 eclipses, I bet, happened in my 9th house. 

CB: Got it. Okay. Well, that’s the tension – I mean, because sometimes when a partner goes through a deep change like that, it can be a little tough for the other partner who still is the previous way. 

C: Yeah. Yeah. It’s hard for him to get used to. 

CB: So that’s been an area of tension for you is over the past three years, you’ve gotten heavy into astrology, and that’s changed your worldview, whereas he’s not necessarily on board with that and still has more of a skeptical sort of orientation towards that? 

C: Less skeptical. He’s coming along, because astrology continues to prove itself every day. But he was skeptical at the beginning. And he’s sliding down more my way of thinking every day, just because of current events and paradigm shifting. I think, you know, Saturn-Neptune probably has a lot to do with this, too – like, what is real and what isn’t. These kind of determinations that we’re all thinking every day. It’s not necessarily a point of tension, but it is something very different that he has to get used to about me. 

CB: Yeah. I mean, that can be – I’ve seen different versions of that, just because when it’s the 9th house, so that can be astrology in this particular instance, but I’ve seen other instances of that where one partner goes through a religious conversion, and then that can be really tough for the other partner and to have a partner go through this transformation of their worldview. And thinking about that from the other perspective, if I wasn’t an astrologer, I could see how that could be tough for the other partner if they didn’t resonate with that or if it wasn’t something they were fully on board with, so that — 

C: Yeah. 

CB: — kind of makes sense in terms of seeing the trigger for you, which was your Uranus opposition, which is funny because Uranus is oftentimes the thing that you don’t expect. It’s something that comes out of left field; it’s a curveball, and it’s also something different and unique and innovative, but also can be weird or eccentric. And that’s really funny that for you, that Uranus opposition where, you know, sometimes that’s the midlife transit that happens in the early 40s. And sometimes that’s the — 

C: Yeah. 

CB: — person runs off and buys a red sports car thing. But for you, it was person gets into astrology and it really has a — 

C: Yeah! 

CB: — deep change on their worldview, basically. 

C: Yeah. I mean, that’s exactly what happened. And you know, I have been trying to kind of like, think back to what is the transit that sparked all of this. It’s that. It’s the Uranus opposition in the 9th that like, lit me up, and out of the blue, no one would have expected scientific Charlene to go down this woo-woo lane. Like, there was just no way that – if I would have talked to myself 10 years ago and said that hey, like, you’re going to be like, a baby astrologer here in about 10 years. I would have laughed and laughed and laughed. I would have never ever thought that that would have been a path that I would gone down, and neither would have anybody that has known me either. No one would have expected that, but like, that’s it! 

CB: Right. That’s really funny. Yeah, that’s brilliant. So I’m looking at like, for example, there was an eclipse in May of 2023 that was in Scorpio, and I’m wondering if that wasn’t – do you know when? You said 2023, and you mentioned eclipses, so that was the one I immediately thought of. But do you know what the timeframe was in 2023 when you got into astrology? 

C: It was about… Okay. So the job that I’m working at right now, I started in April of 2023. And before I started this job, I was laid off. I had a dream about two months before I started this job, being laid off, that I was looking at a piece of paper, and someone was saying, “The rail is coming in from Wilmerding.” And I could see this black and white piece of paper in my dream, and when I woke up, I told my husband immediately that I had the strangest dream. That I was looking at some paper, and they were talking about a rail coming in from Wilmerding, and I was like, “Where is Wilmerding? What does this mean?” I was like, it was so vivid! And whatever! 

So three months later, I’m at a new job, a new completely different field. I went from finance to manufacturing. And the plant that I work at has fluids coming in via rail on the train, and our second plant is in Wilmerding. All right? We’re — 

CB: Wow. 

C: — located in a place called Ambridge. My second plant is in a place called Wilmerding. And we receive fluids coming in from a rail. And I’m looking at the piece of paper that I saw in my dream. All right? So I started that job April of ‘23 from right before the eclipse. And now the Jupiter return is about to happen, and it looks like I’m about to be promoted. And like, as I’ve worked this job, I’ve had so many experiences of “I’ve done this before; this is what you’re supposed to be doing,” especially as I help people in their personal life outside of work, because I’ve befriended all of the people that I work with at this job – like, all of them – and I help them, you know, with whatever they need, whether it be work or something personal. And it just seems like this is what I’m supposed to be doing. 

CB: Nice. I love that. The eclipse that happened in April when you got the job was in your 2nd house in Aries, and then the next eclipse was in your 9th house, and then that sort of began the series of eclipses that would bounce back and forth between your 9th and your 3rd for – or had been happening a little bit, but would for a little bit longer after that. And that’s really cool about the dream. Like, I used to be skeptical of that, but I’ve had instances like that as well, like last fall I had a dream about my websites getting hacked. And it was about a month before that actually happened. And I thought that was bizarre at the time, but it’s made me more open to things like that because I’ve had things like that periodically as well. But it’s something until you experience it firsthand, you wouldn’t think that that’s like, an actual thing. 

C: I mean, it definitely sounds like some BS! If somebody was telling me this story but like, it really — 

CB: Right. 

C: — did happen. And like, I was asking my husband like, “Where is Wilmerding?” Like, I heard of that place, but like, where is it? And like, he didn’t know, and I didn’t know, and it was just strange to be then like, a few months later literally holding the paper in my hand that I dreamed about. I dropped it. Like, when I realized that was the paper from my dream, I physically dropped the paper and it was like, oh. I guess I am supposed to be here. And that was it. 

CB: That’s beautiful. Yeah. I mean, I think things like that happen probably because – I don’t know what the mechanism is, but that if astrology exists and fate exists, and there’s some form of our lives being mapped out ahead of time, then it just seems like occasionally people have a dream where they get insight into that future for some reason or a glimpse into that. And it’s probably tapping into something similar to whatever the underlying system of fate or something is that’s underlying astrology to begin with. And I don’t know what that is, but those two things might be related in some way. 

C: Definitely. I remember like, seeing Sylvia Browne on Montel Williams back when I was in high school, and she was talking about deja vu and kind like, precognitive dreams, and I liked her explanation of that’s a marker on a road map. It’s a little like, just a little wink to you letting you know that you’re on the right path. Like, if you were going down the road and you saw a sign that said “Pittsburgh – 22 miles,” you know that you’re on the right path. That’s what deja vu and precognitive dreams are; it’s just a little wink to let you know that you’re on the right path. It resonated with me, so I just kind of like, continue to believe that. 

CB: I like that. All right, so let me see. So back to the chart. The last thing was just – so I mean, with – because that’s one of the interesting things. It’s like, there was some… You know, when I originally asked was there any tensions or was anything going on with your partner, and you were like, no, not necessarily, but this has been a big change for you that started at the beginning of like, Saturn going through your first house and then you’re now on the other side of that. So it’s probably started to calm down somewhat now that Saturn’s no longer opposing your 7th house Saturn. But there were some like, tensions or things going back and forth as you were defining yourself and this new sense of identity that you have in some ways through some of these new beliefs versus how that impacts your relationship and your partner. But it’s not something initially when I asked the question that you sort of recognized as something that was a big issue or something that’s been happening, right? 

C: Right. I mean, just like talking about it to you kind of unpacked that and made me realize, oh wait, that is a thing. You know? 

CB: Right. 

C: You know, that we’d not only like, went through but continue to kind of go through as he adjusts to the change too. But he’s on board now! 

CB: Yeah. Well, I think that’s part of the purpose or the function of astrology for me is when you have – when I can sit down here as an objective observer of a person’s life, and I know nothing about you; this is like, the first day we’ve ever met or talked — 

C: Yeah. 

CB: I have, you know, this – your birth chart, and I know a little bit about your transits, your recent ones, the slow-moving outer planet ones and the eclipses, so I have some clues about some things I would think should be going on. But then through the dialogue, we’re able to uncover that together sort of like the sequence and the unfolding of things that’s been happening for you not just throughout your life, but especially over the past few years. And we go through a process together through the dialogue of clarifying and understanding it better together as we go the further we talk and the more we look into and start to understand it better through the context of what you know about your life and what I know about the astrology. And that’s the dialogue, essentially, about a person’s fate or whatever you wanna call it that yeah, I think is really the purpose of astrology, and it’s one of the things I really like about it, and that’s why I like having these conversations. 

C: Yeah. It was really cool. One thing – let me add one more thing too that was like, an occurrence that happened, and I don’t know if this was actually around an eclipse, but again I’m adopted, and I’m adopted by family. But I never knew who my birth father was. I had very vague details about it, but I did find out who my birth father was in June of 2025. Like, I took a DNA test – like, one of those online DNA tests, and they upload the results, and that was back in like, 2017-ish, 2016-ish. Let the results hang out there. Over the years, people have contacted me, but it was actually for the part of my family that I had a connection to. And then out of the blue, somebody contacted me that was actually from my father’s birth side, and with a conversation with her and a little bit of like, moderate genealogy just through public sources, we got it confirmed who he was. Even got a picture. I do still have like, a connection to my biological mom, so I hit her up just to confirm if the picture that I had was the right person, and she said that it was. So I found out who my birth father was in June of 2025, which was that was like, a big deal for me. Not that I had ever wanted to have a relationship with him or anything like that, but I definitely wanted his medical history because I was going through so many health problems at the time. And I found out that he actually passed of cancer in the year 2000 – in 2000 at the age of 40. He died of lung cancer. I quit smoking the next day! But I did find out his information in June of this past year, and I don’t remember if that was around an eclipse or not. 

CB: Do you happen to know the date or approximately? 

C: Of when I found out of who he was? 

CB: Yeah. 

C: Yeah, I can probably tell you here in a second… It was oh, I thought it was June, but it was May 22nd of 2025.

CB: May 22nd. Okay. I’m trying to remember what else was going on in May of 2025, but here’s the transits. 

So the South Node’s going through your 7th still. The eclipses were already starting to happen there. Jupiter is transiting through your 4th house, and then it sextiles your natal Jupiter almost exactly in the ruler of your Ascendant like, there in the 6th house. And the Sun has just ingressed into your 4th house as well. Yeah. It might have been – I’m trying to think if there’s anything more significant going on than just having that Jupiter transit going on. What’s the chat say? 

Not sure. 

So you found out then – and how did you know – so you knew your biological mother and she was, but you didn’t know who your biological father was until this point? 

C: Yes. Because I was adopted by family, so they still maintained a relationship with my biological mother. 

CB: Okay. Got it. Well, that’s just interesting in terms of the Sun-Saturn conjunction there that you have natally as part of your Virgo stellium, as well as how that’s like, squaring Neptune, and just that there was some lack of clarity surrounding that and that he was somebody that was just like, a question mark for most of your life up until this point, like when you’re already in your 40s at this point by the time you finally learn who he was and you learn about that side of things. 

Do you happen to know when he passed away, because you mentioned 2000, and I know there was stuff that was like, shifting from Taurus into Gemini around that point, especially Saturn the following year I think in 2001. 

C: You know, not offhand. I wanna say that it was November, but I don’t know the exact date. 

CB: Okay. I was just curious in terms of… Yeah. Sometimes we have transits that are happening in our chart – like, for example, Jupiter in that year was transiting through your 4th house, but also so was — 

C: Yeah. 

CB: — so was Saturn. Saturn was in the process of going through your 4th. And sometimes we have transits and something important happens in our life or to the people around us in our lives who affected our lives, but we don’t always know about it until later on. And that’s one of the most fascinating phenomenon for me in astrology is sometimes when you do find out about something looking up the transits at that time to see what was going on. So yeah, whenever it was in 2000, it’s just interesting that you were having a Jupiter transit through your 4th house around then, and then when you actually found out who he was, yeah, Jupiter was back there again. 

C: I think so. Jupiter in the 4th house was noticeable for me. And then as you started doing webinars about recurrence transits, I thought about the Saturn-Sun conjunction that was happening then. That’s really the only thing that came to mind when I noticed the date. 

CB: Yeah. Sure. All right. I’m trying to think of any other questions I have, but we’ve covered like, a lot. This has been actually really interesting. Is there anything worth mentioning as parting thing before we wrap up? 

C: No! I’m an open book if you ever have any more questions, though! 

CB: Yeah. Well, I would love to hear how, you know, we still got some further eclipses going on through the – actually, let me just put that back to where the transits are today. Yeah, just like, continued eclipses as you wrap up that eclipse series in your first house and your 7th house, and continuing to negotiate that difference between your emerging sense of self and identity and who you are versus how you are in relationships and the room that that makes for partnership. And what I usually see is people seesaw back and forth for a few years during that time, sometimes giving more weight to developing their own identity and their own needs and wants, versus other times trying to make more room for their partner or trying to be accommodating or do the things that are necessary to maintain a healthy relationship. And that’ll probably be a continuing ongoing theme for you a little bit as you finish up that eclipse series in your first and 7th house, although it’s nice that with Saturn out of your first that some of the heaviness of that has finally lifted. And hopefully some of the health things that you’d been dealing with for the past three years will lighten up at this time as well. 

C: Yep. I’m hoping so too. Fingers crossed! 

CB: Yeah. Awesome! Cool. Well, thanks so much for sharing your story with us; I really appreciate it. 

C: Yeah, glad to do it! Anytime. 

CB: Okay, awesome. Take care! 

C: All right, you too! 

CB: All right. So we’ll just turn off your audio and video, and we’ll leave it in the panel that way you can stay in the meeting. But all right. That was awesome. 

That was a really good example; we learned a lot of stuff, and yeah. That brought up a lot of different points that we could have, you know, spent the entire time on. We could have gone into more, but it was nice seeing some of the different things we did and talking about and identifying through the course of that different things about how the chart matched the life story. 

Yeah, it really was an episode unto itself! Okay. I’m gonna get another drink, because I drank all my coffee, and then I’ll come back and we’ll do the next one. 

So Jennifer, you were the next that had the three siblings. Let me know if you’re still here and if you’re up for joining me to share your chart right now. Let me know in the live chat. 

Thanks for joining me! I think you’ve gotta hit the mute button; just unmute it. There we go! 

JENNIFER: There we go! Can you hear me now? 

CB: Yeah! Thanks for joining me. 

J: Okay! Thanks for having me. 

CB: All right. What’s your birth data? 

J: Eight 28 ‘73. 

CB: Okay. So here’s the chart, and in your description you said that you discovered three siblings you didn’t know you had on Ancestry.com, and one — 

J: Yeah. 

CB: — was a full sibling, and now you’ve become close to the full sibling? 

J: Correct. Yeah. Just started a couple years ago. Back in February of ‘24, one of the siblings’ daughters reached out to me, and through that year I had another sibling reach out to me, and then they got me in contact with someone who I thought was just another half-sibling. And I actually thought I knew who this half-sibling’s father was, and it turned out to be mine. She ended up coming back to me on Ancestry and saying, “We’re a full sibling! We’re full matches.” 

CB: Wow. Okay. 

J: Yeah. 

CB: All right, so — 

J: Yeah. 

CB: — for the audio listeners for the chart, we’re looking at a chart with Leo rising and the ruler of the Ascendant is the Sun, which is in Virgo in the 2nd house along with the Moon. You were born the day of a New Moon in Virgo. And then since we’re talking about siblings, we’re automatically looking at the 3rd house, and your 3rd whole sign house is Libra where we find Venus in her own sign along with Pluto and Uranus. And then they have a square from Saturn, which is in Cancer in the 12th house in a night chart. So there’s some challenges going on there. And then we’re also obviously by extension thinking about the 4th house as well of parents, and we see your IC is in Scorpio in the 4th whole sign house, and the ruler is Mars which is in Taurus in the 10th in the sign opposite to its domicile. 

So what was the setup like, growing up-wise? Or what was the baseline of how you grew up or what your parents’ situation was before this situation happened? 

J: Yeah, the irony I guess through all of this was – so growing up, it was just my brother and i. So I just, to my knowledge I had one other sibling who was two years younger. But my dad, I remember — 

CB: And that relationship, it’s like, you have — 

J: Is good. 

CB: Yeah. So Venus is in the 3rd house in a night chart, and I’d expect that, you know, there to be some good things there. So you had a good relationship — 

J: Yeah. 

CB: — growing up with your one sibling. 

J: Right. Yeah. We did. And the home life was tumultuous for sure. Parents divorced; they should have. And but my dad, I remember, he jokes that if my mom thought about getting pregnant she would get pregnant, which never really made sense to me because there was only two of us. But there were different things that were mentioned sort of throughout growing up. Grandparents talking about them living in sin, making a huge deal out of them living together before they were married, and just all sorts of little things that would crop up. 

So as time went on, my mom actually did tell me that she had given up two siblings for adoption, and at one point, she told me that one of them was a full sibling, but I didn’t believe her at all. I don’t speak to her anymore. Very toxic. And so shortly after that, I did the Ancestry DNA thing, and — 

CB: And that was in — 

J: — with — 

CB: — did you say four? 

J: And this was in – so I did it in December of ‘23 was when I took the test. And then the results, I started getting hit up February of ‘24 by one sibling, and then May of ‘24 and then June of ‘24. So by that summer, so from February through the end of June of ‘24, I had connected with all three of them at that point. 

CB: Got it. Okay. I’m just looking to — 

J: Yeah. 

CB: — see what was going on. We can see that the nodes are going through your 3rd house – the South Node’s going through your 3rd house. So you start having eclipses there basically. Actually, yeah, because that means that Libra famously in like, October of 2020 – or not October. In — 

J: Which would have been when I ordered the test. 

CB: So you ordered the test in — 

J: Yeah, I ordered it because it took a while to like, get there and then actually do it and then get the result, so. 

CB: So the eclipse I was talking about was in October of 2023 in LIbra in your 3rd house. So are you saying it was that early, or? 

J: Yeah, that’s when I would have started the process to take the test for Ancestry. 

CB: Nice. Okay. So — 

J: Yeah. 

CB: — and this was a solar eclipse in Libra, and it was at 21 degrees of Libra, which is actually conjunct your Uranus in the 3rd house, the planet of like, unexpected things, of like, curveballs — 

J: Yeah. 

CB: In the last chart example, we were talking about Uranus in the 9th house and how that brought an unexpected change and shift in terms of a person’s beliefs and getting into astrology, and here we have an activation also with eclipses. You know, hers was in the 9th house; yours was in the 3rd house, and it’s like — 

J: Yeah. 

CB: — you start the process of doing Ancestry and discover that you have siblings that you didn’t know about, which was completely unexpected. 

J: Yeah. I mean, I knew I had two, but I really wasn’t expecting much. And I just really didn’t fully believe kind of what the stories that – I don’t know. Things just didn’t match up, so that’s when I took that, yeah. 

CB: What was your – so what was your motivation for doing it? Just that you wanted to sort out some of the things — 

J: Yeah. I wanted some clarification. I felt that there was a lot of deception growing up, just with regards to family situations and the stories. Some things just didn’t line up. I just had a feeling. And it was just crazy how rapidly the results and the cascade of events that took over that next year. And it was really emotional, yeah. It was a lot to process, honestly. You know, feeling lied to by my dad. You know, feeling like, just a whole – all kinds of things. 

CB: Yeah. So we had this first eclipse, which is in Libra, and that’s you starting the process. But then – I remember that one, because then there was another eclipse in Taurus at the very end of that month. So that’s in your 10th house, but it was at five degrees of Taurus, I believe, which would have been right on top of your Mars, which is the ruler of the 4th house of parents. So that’s interesting how, you know, part of the dynamic — 

J: And a lot of – a lot of displayed anger over some of it, to be honest. 

CB: Okay. You were, yeah, you were pissed off once you found out — 

J: Yeah. 

CB: — the truth? 

J: Yeah. Like, just feeling – because I specifically asked my dad point blank if the sibling that had been given up that my mom said was his was his, and he said no. That it was not. That he would never do that. And he’s already passed away; he had already passed away by this point, so I could not confront or ask him or anything. I’ve since — 

CB: Okay. 

J: — made peace with it, but the initial shock was a lot. 

CB: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, one of the things interesting about these two eclipses, though, is this is happening as you’re beginning this process, but it’s like – and eclipses last, they have like, a six-month window of some of like, impacting things. But you couldn’t have known at this stage – you’re just in the early stages as those eclipses are happening, and that’s one of the things I always note about eclipses. How sometimes it’s like, a small beginning that you don’t always know that it’s gonna be a major beginning until later on. 

J: Yeah. 

CB: Because something is planted at the time that’ll grow and develop for a while — 

J: Right. 

CB: — in the future. So you — 

J: Yeah. 

CB: — began the process in October, and then what happens in December? 

J: So December was when I took the test. So I started the process like, ordering and all that stuff. Took the test. Got the results back. And then started getting contacted by my siblings. 

CB: Starting when? What happened after December? 

J: February 28th of 2024 was the very first contact, and that would have been with the first sibling – first half-sibling through my mom. 

CB: February 28th. Okay. So February 28th. And you were contacted by the first half-sibling through your mom.

J: Yeah. 

CB: Got it. Okay. So this is just a little bit before the next eclipse season would begin, and that was late February. And then when is the second one? 

J: So and then May 20th was when I found out I had a half-sibling on my dad’s side as well through my dad, so. 

CB: What was the impact of the first one, if any? 

J: The first one was… It was his daughter; he actually did not want to have really any relationship. She was doing it to try and figure out her family tree. And I found out, like, they had actually met with my mom, and it didn’t go well. 

CB: Okay. 

J: So it was just kind of like, there was just a lot of sort of validation of who my mom is as a person. 

CB: Got it. Okay. 

J: That I was sort of coming to terms with as well. That she just was not a good mom. 

CB: So and she hadn’t told you about that, that they had already met? 

J: No. No, not at all. She told me that she had just given up kid – like, she’s never met him, she had no idea where they were or how they existed, you know. Anything about them. And come to find out, she met both. Yeah. And my dad never — 

CB: Like a while before this? 

J: Oh yeah. Yeah. Like, a good five and seven years prior to this. 

CB: Got it. Okay. 

J: Like, flew back to where they were to meet them, yeah. 

CB: Okay. So well, that – I mean, there’s probably some interesting transits there that were happening at the time, but we’ll skip over that for now. But so in March, it’s like, we get the second set of eclipses. There was – I believe this is a lunar eclipse in Libra in your 3rd house conjunct Pluto not long after the contact with the first sibling happens. And then you said it was June that you talked to the other two? 

J: Yeah. So and then I think – so in between that time, that one niece was – she thought she knew who the other sibling was from my mom’s side. So she had her take an Ancestry test, and then that’s when in June she got the results back and reached out to me. So sometime between February and June, that other sibling had taken the test, and it takes like, six weeks to actually take it, send it off, get the results back, all that stuff. 

CB: Okay. 

J: And then she told me that we were in fact full siblings. She was born five years prior to me. 

CB: Got it. Okay. So and I’m seeing like, you know, Uranus is stationing all over your Midheaven and opposing your IC, so this is some of the upsetting, surprising like, parent stuff that you’re — 

J: Yeah! 

CB: — finding out you have, like, a — 

J: Yeah, Uranus ran roughshod over me! 

CB: Yeah. And then you have like, a Mars return in June, so Mars is conjoining your natal Mars, which is the ruler of your 4th house. And then we see even the South Node is like, now moving over your Venus at this time. Okay. So this was a big deal, and this was — 

J: Yeah. 

CB: — almost two years ago now. Have you – I’m trying to think of are there any more like, short-term things — 

J: Yeah. 

CB: — that are important that happened, or can I ask like, long-term things? 

J: So it was – it took about a year, I think, for all of us to sort of process what we had all discovered and found out. And so just to kind of fast forward to 2025, so a year later, we ended up moving out of state, and I ended up on the way here, stopped and met one of the half-siblings. So the one with my dad, she lives in Dallas; I’m now in Houston. And so I stopped and met her, and we talk every couple of weeks or month or whatever. Everything’s good. And the – my full sibling, my sister – it’s still weird to say – is still in Saint Louis where I was born. And making a trip to go back and see her in a couple months when I’m back for my niece’s high school graduation. So it went from just like, out of the blue, a lot of crazy and a lot of emotion for all of us to really kind of settling in and over, you know, 2025, you know, now we’re talking about maybe doing like, a sisters’ trip later this year. So — 

CB: Nice! 

J: Yeah. 

CB: So you — 

J: And we were the – and my brother wants nothing to do with any of it. Like, he accepts the information, but then he’s done. Like, he just has zero interest. But I’m now I’m happy that it all came out. 

CB: Your brother that you grew up with doesn’t have any interest? 

J: No. 

CB: Okay. 

J: None at all. 

CB: Versus the three new siblings. Are they all — 

J: Right. 

CB: — women? 

J: No, the one male half-sibling through my mom, he doesn’t want anything to do with it either. And weirdly, they’re both Scorpios.

CB: Got it. Okay. So but the two half-siblings – right — 

J: Yeah. 

CB: — are both women — 

J: My full sibling and the half-sibling on my dad’s side, both are girls, and both sisters and very good relationships with now. 

CB: Got it. Okay. So you’ve been able to basically develop or cultivate like, a pretty good relationship with two of the new siblings that you discovered? 

J: Yeah. 

CB: Nice. That’s beautiful. 

J: Yeah. 

CB: Okay. So where are we at then in that case? So what happened then, or what’s the timeline in terms of – like, what was the implication of that for what was happening with your parents’ marriage? Does that mean – so you were born, and then was he having children secretly outside of the marriage, or was this before the marriage or? 

J: No, so what happened was so he had – so my mom had given up a child at 16, and then one at 18. My dad had given one up at 18. 

CB: Okay. 

J: So yeah, 16 — 

CB: And then they had you? 

J: Sorry. So she gave up 16, my dad gave one up at 18, then they gave up my full sibling when my mom was 20 and my dad was 25. And then they had me when they were 25 and 30. So she was – my full sibling was born five years before me. So what happened, what now I understand, though, is my grandparents who were all about them living in sin and all this stuff – like, all the stuff that kept coming up because my mom got pregnant and they moved in together. She had the baby; they gave the baby up for adoption. Continued to live together. Got married and had me. So it was just – which, I still don’t understand why – they were just two red flags together. They should have never, but I guess that was sort of what was interesting, because the way that I always understood it was, you know, they met, it was great, they moved in, yes they lived together for a year before they got married and had me, but that was just not the story at all. Like, they had been together, she got pregnant, they moved in together, lived together for five years, and then gave up a child and all of this, which makes so much more sense why both of their parents were really leery of them and everything. 

So it was just, you kind of like, realize – or I appreciated more the world that I came into and understood that so much of the chaos and ill will that was already there just had nothing to do with me. And so that was — 

CB: Right. 

J: — a really important part of this journey. Right? Because — 

CB: Well, is — 

J: Go ahead. 

CB: Is part of the implication that your grandparents, that there was pressure from the grandparents on the parents, and that’s part of why they were giving up because they didn’t approve of them having — 

J: For sure, yes. 

CB: — children out of wedlock? 

J: One side was very Catholic, and the other side was very Southern Baptist. And so there was a lot, a lot of pressure on them. You know, this would have been in 1968 when they got pregnant with her before marriage, so. 

CB: Got it. I was trying to understand the – because it’s like, we can see why this is like, a prominent part of your chart with the ruler – like, the Midheaven is in Taurus in the 10th house, and the ruler is Venus, which is in Libra in the 3rd house of siblings. And Venus, though, is copresent or sign-based conjunction with Uranus, and there’s unexpected or weird component of things, but then Pluto’s there as well. And that Pluto is like, really closely square Saturn in the 12th house, and the 12th house can have to do with secrets or things that are hidden or sometimes loss. And Saturn is like, squaring that Pluto really tightly in the 3rd house of siblings. But the 3rd house can also have to do with, if the 4th house is parents, the 3rd house can sometimes have to do with grandparents. And I’m wondering how much with that Saturn-Pluto square a lot of the stuff that happened with your siblings wasn’t due to the tensions with the grandparents and the parents that led to — 

J: My grandparents played a very big role in my life as well. So — 

CB: Okay. 

J: — yeah, they were – my dad’s parents were always present, and my mom’s parents just played a significant role more behind the scenes. But they were all four very present. Good, bad, and ugly growing up, so. 

CB: Okay. Got it. All right. Well, I think — 

J: Yeah. 

CB: — that makes sense then in terms of all of that, and that’s great that again, like, we had eclipses activating that house in your chart, and then that began this process of discovering that you had siblings that you didn’t know about and then eventually building relationships with them. And then, you know, hopefully that continuing to just be a positive thing in terms of building positive, familiar relationships with people that you didn’t know up to this point, but doing it later in life. And it reminds me of like, I used an example in the 3rd house episode of like, Jack Nicholson who had the ruler of the 3rd house was like, retrograde and he grew up thinking that the person that was his biological mother was his sister. And then later in life, they discovered that that wasn’t the case at all. That who he thought was his sister was actually his mother due to similar dynamics in terms of, you know, early societal pressures on families that have children outside of marriage being different, you know, decades ago than they are today, especially in a religious — 

J: For sure. 

CB: — context. But it’s interesting that the eclipses brought to light something that was previously hidden, which is an interesting thing in terms of that being part of something that was built into your chart, but something that you wouldn’t discover until much later on. 

J: Yeah. And just on a little sidenote, there was – I had met with an astrologer a few years prior to all of this going on, and she had noted that I was born on a New Moon, and she was kind of gathering some data. And she asked if there was any secrets in my family! And I’m like, “No, we’re pretty standard. Like, nothing.” No — 

CB: Right. 

J: — big secrets! you know, sorry, you know. Nothing for your data or whatever! And then it was like, three years later, all of this came out, and I was like, oh. So! 

CB: Right. Well, it’s like, the Sun and the Moon in your chart are both square Neptune pretty closely, and I don’t know if that’s what she was picking up on, but that can — 

J: Yeah. 

CB: — you know, having both of the significators for the mother and the father both having a hard aspect with the planet that can indicate illusions or deceptions or things that seem one way but are actually another. But that’s so funny that you had that experience with that reading, because that — 

J: Yeah! 

CB: — I have to say, that’s like, one of the worse experiences as a consulting astrologer is like, you say something that seems pretty straightforward in the chart, but the person’s just like, no, that doesn’t land. And it’s because either it hasn’t happened yet, or the person doesn’t know about it. And — 

J: Yeah. 

CB: — that’s one of the biggest trickiest things with doing astrological research. Because obviously, there’s a third scenario, which is just the answer is no – that they made — 

J: Yeah. 

CB: — a statement that wasn’t true about the person’s life, and that interpretation just doesn’t land at all. But those other two scenarios are the ones we always have to be careful about, because sometimes, yeah, that’s part of it is it may not be evident yet, or especially if you’re doing consultations with somebody that’s younger, there’s so much of their life that just hasn’t unfolded yet, even though — 

J: Oh yeah. 

CB: — the birth chart’s saying there’s something important there. 

J: Yeah. I’ve definitely from being an astrology, you know, when I was a teenager and I look at, you know, I think about having a reading then as opposed to now, you know, in my 50s. And yeah, just so many things that wouldn’t have played out or would have hit differently, and I think it’s all wonderful, but definitely there’s something to be said for having a few more years and seeing your chart sort of play out in different ways, and how different transits hit differently, so. Yeah. Because I would have never seen this coming in a million years. 

CB: Right. Yeah. That’s really funny. Well, yeah, I think that’s a great example, and we learn a lot from that just from your experience. So thanks for sharing that with us; I appreciate it. 

J: Absolutely. I appreciate it. Thank you so much! 

CB: Cool. All right. Take care! 

J: All right. Have a good day! 

CB: Awesome. That was really great. Let me take a look at the chat. 

Okay. Ray, are you still here? Yours was the original one that I was gonna do next. Yeah? Okay. 

Hey, thanks for joining me! 

RAY: How you doing? 

CB: Doing all right. 

R: Can you hear me? 

CB: Yeah. All right. What is your birth data? 

R: January 2nd, 1970. 

CB: All right. Is your Ascendant 29 Cancer? 

R: Yeah, sorry. Very late degree. I know that gets tricky. 

CB: Yeah, that is my worst consultation — 

R: Yeah! 

CB: — nightmare. 

R: I know, and I tell you, it’s the time on my birth certificate, so. 

CB: All right. So let’s do animate chart. Okay, here we go. So here’s the chart. So your birth time on the birth certificate is 6:12 PM, which is not a rounded time; that’s obviously a very specific time. The Ascendant at that time at the beginning of that minute is 29 degrees and 14 minutes. Let me see how long — 

R: It’s like, four more minutes, it becomes a Leo rising, yeah. 

CB: Okay, yeah. So it’s not until 6:16-ish that it switches over to Leo rising. So we’re probably safe treating it as a Cancer rising chart.

R: It does read well in any other quadrant houses, and I tell you, I don’t know, just it keeps me kind of agitated that it’s not just clearcut, you know? 

CB: Yeah. Well, I will… Like, normally, if this was a consultation and I had an hour to two hours, I would quickly like, either quickly or throughout the course of talking to you I would rectify the chart. And I may still do that in the back of my mind. But we’re gonna approach it from a default of assuming it’s Cancer rising, and I’ll approach it from that perspective. But I’ll let you know if that changes wildly during the course of this. 

So let’s see, so we’ve got a chart with 29 Cancer rising for those listening to the audio version, and the Sun is in Capricorn at 12 degrees. So you were born a bit after sunset, and this is firmly a night chart with Venus and Mercury also in the 7th whole sign house. And Venus is your most positive planet then, because it’s a night chart in the 7th house of relationships. Your most challenging planet — 

R: And Saturn is most difficult. I mean, you can watch it walk its way around my chart. I mean, just leaving devastation all the way through! 

CB: Yeah. So Saturn is your most challenging planet since it’s a night chart and it’s up in Taurus in the 11th whole sign house. And it’s actually stationing on that day, which makes Saturn a little bit louder. Okay. So let me pull up the description. You had actually a very lovely written description that I’ll just read really quickly where you said that you married your high school sweetheart at 17 and stepped into adulthood fast, leaving school to support a growing family through years of poverty, multiple jobs, and even losing everything before eventually rebuilding and creating stability, all while remaining devoted to your wife of 38 years. Later discovering your true parentage and suffering a life-altering back injury in 2020 forced you to confront both identity and limitation, making a shift from a life defined by survival and responsibility to one shaped by reflection, resilience, and a search for deeper meaning. 

R: Yep! 

CB: First, I have to say you’re an excellent writer, and that is a great synopsis. When I ask people to write like, a summary of their life, I was not expecting one to be as well done as that. So thanks for — 

R: Well, actually, I wrote it before. I saw your thing come to my email, so I hurried, I said, “I’m gonna try to get on there this time!” 

CB: Nice! Well, it’s really — 

R: I worked on it for like, an hour. 

CB: That’s really good and really self-reflective. Let me see. So the other thing – so you also have – so Cancer rising and ruler of your Ascendant is the Moon, which is in Scorpio in the 5th whole sign house in the place of children. So — 

R: I have three. 

CB: And you have three children? Okay. Yeah, so — 

R: And coming from like, I guess a tough story. You know, teenage parents. I was 17. We quit school, we got married, and then we had three children. So very young parents, but you talk about luck there – that was, I’ve got three awesome kids, and we had great relationships. All my kids are very successful. Coming from like, an afterschool special, you know, parents, it really worked out good. 

CB: Nice. I love that, having the ruler of your Ascendant in the 5th house and usually you would delineate that as if there’s something about your overall life direction where the topic of children or other 5th house themes would be central or very important to your overall life direction. And that’s cool that you’ve had three children, and that that’s been an area of success and positive things for you. 

R: Yeah. Absolutely. 

CB: And then the other area of success has been your marriage, that you met your partner in high school and fell in love and just having the most positive planet in your chart, Venus, in the 7th house of relationships, and that being, again, an area where things have gone relatively well, it sounds like, as another area of good fortune for you, we would say. 

R: Yes. Yep. Through the good times and the bad, we’ve been together, so. 

CB: Got it. Okay. 

So I’m trying to think of where should we start, or what we should get into first beyond those. I mean, I do have a question in terms of like, what’s the Saturn doing in your 11th house then? That’s in the area of friends and groups, so I would assume that there has been some hardship or some loss or some challenges regarding friends and groups. Sometimes when — 

R: Well, I’ve always – yeah, I’ve always kind of thought of it, you know, I’m not a joiner. You know, I would say if there was a… I’ve never been one to join the group. So I don’t know — 

CB: Yeah. 

R: — if that’s it. 

CB: I know some – I’ve met some people over the years where sometimes when they have Saturn in the 11th house, there can be some fears surrounding groups and friendships and things like that about putting themself out there, and as a result of that, sometimes they deliberately kind of avoid going out into either social situations or forming friendships as a result of that. Is that something that’s always been the case for you, or is that something where there was an experience that led to that? Or where does that come from? 

R: I don’t know where the – I’ve always had like, one friend at a time. So I’ve had, you know, then that friend would go away and I’d get another one friend. And it would be, you know, just that. Never like a group of them. 

CB: Okay. 

R: I didn’t ever belong to any kind of groups or anything. 

CB: Well, one of the things that’s — 

R: I don’t know why, just yeah, I guess you would say shy, you know? 

CB: Shyness? Yeah. 

R: Never one to join — 

CB: That could be. 

R: Not a joiner.

CB: That makes sense. Yeah. Well, one of the things that’s nice is just that Venus at six degrees of Capricorn is trining your Saturn through a superior trine in a night chart, so that Venus — 

R: Yeah, mutual reception. 

CB: Yeah, because Saturn’s in Venus’s sign, and Venus is in Saturn’s sign. But those are two mitigating factors that makes the Saturn placement not as difficult as it would be otherwise, which is both a positive thing in terms of some of the 11th house stuff as well as Saturn ruling the 7th house of relationships, but it also nicely offsets a little bit the opposition that Saturn has to Jupiter and the Moon where the Moon is like, separating from Jupiter and Saturn, and it’s applying to that sextile with Venus, which is probably a helpful offsetting factor in terms of the topic of children going relatively well for you, for example. 

R: I kind of thought that, because the Moon in Scorpio, but it’s like, a benefic enclosure, right? So between the Jupiter and the Venus? I mean, so yeah, making it more positive, I think. 

CB: Right. Yeah, for sure. So where should we start, though? I’m sort of talking about it from a technical standpoint, but what are the parts of your life story maybe we haven’t gotten into yet. You said there was an important turning point at one point in 2020? 

R: 2020 was when I fell off a cliff, basically, in my life, but yeah, that’s right there during the, you know, when all the covid stuff started. 

CB: Yeah. That was like, a pileup in Capricorn — 

R: Capricorn, yeah. 

CB: — and Aquarius. 

R: Yeah. And when it – March 13th. Like I said, you can watch Saturn start from my Saturn return in ‘98 just as it walks around, you know. My grandmother died, my grandfather died, you know, we went bankrupt. My dad died. You know, just around the clock! Just like it works its way around to — 

CB: During your — 

R: — 2020. 

CB: — Saturn return? 

R: Yes. Starting at Saturn return in ‘98, yeah, and then going around. Like I said, once you get to 2020, I don’t know where you wanna start but. 

CB: Well, I’m interested in that period you’re talking about. So tell me about your Saturn return. It sounds like — 

R: Yeah, Saturn return – it was June 9th, ‘98. You can see Saturn’s right there. That’s when my grandmother died, and she was the first of – you know how you have certain people in your life. She was the first to pass. And then two months after that in August, I ended up kind of losing my mind, I feel like. I’ve had some psych issues, I guess, through my life, but that was like, the first time. And I ended up quitting like, the best job I ever had or would ever have in August. 

CB: So part of it is like, with Saturn ruling the 8th house, sometimes it can bring up issues of mortality when Saturn – like, you’re having your Saturn return, so that makes sense. And then by August, it’s like, Saturn’s heading towards opposing your Moon, and you’re dealing with some mental health and maybe depression type issues? 

R: Yes. And I end up – like, that job I quit, I had worked there for 10 years. 

CB: Oh wow. Okay. 

R: Yeah. And then I was a manager, and I just – it seemed like I couldn’t take it anymore, you know? And I end up quitting, and it kind of just changed my life. It was life-changing. 

CB: It looks like Saturn stationed there in the middle of August at three degrees of Taurus, so right on top of your natal Saturn and opposing your Jupiter and your Moon. 

R: Yeah. 

CB: And then what else happened during that period, or was that the —

R: That was the biggie — 

CB: — height —

R: Yeah, that was yeah, my grandmother died in June. Quit that job in August. That was the big – like I said, I guess the mental factor too. Just kind of losing it a little bit. 

CB: So this might be a good opportunity then to demonstrate what I was saying in the last episode, and I’ve said about Saturn returns, which is that the Saturn return is the most intense when it goes exact to the degree, which here this is you having it exact to the degree. And you’ve lost a major person in your life, and you’re also dealing with the mental health issues and quitting a job as a result of that. So clearly that was the most intense part of your Saturn return. But then your Saturn return in the approach that I take wouldn’t really be over until Saturn departed from Taurus, so there would probably be a lingering clean-up from that over the course of the next couple of years, I would guess. Is that true or — 

R: Well, I guess the clean-up would be trying to start life over almost. You know, I had to find a job. You know, like I said, I’d always had multiple jobs, but that was the main job. And at the time, my wife wasn’t working. She had been at home with the kids, so I was working a couple jobs, but that was the main one, and I ended up quitting. So I had to try to – we end up trying to start life over. Now the funny thing was, out of all that badness, you know, losing my grandmother and losing my job, we ended up buying a house later on. I mean, within the next year. And I don’t know what the bank looked at really to give me the loan, but we did – we bought a house. And we kind of started life over. I end up going to a grocery store, which I had worked at a grocery store when I was younger so it wasn’t totally new to me. And I ended up being there for the next 20 years. 

CB: Okay. So you got a job with the grocery store in ‘99? 

R: Yes, like – yeah, ‘99, right in there. 

CB: Okay. 

R: ‘98, ‘99. That was like, you know, so that was August of ‘98. I usually – I don’t know the exact dates; I didn’t start keeping track until I started learning astrology! But you know, so it was like, I usually put on my application back then, it was like, I quit that in August ‘98 and I started another one in August ‘98. So it was like, I went ahead and immediately looked into and found a job. So within probably the next month or so I had another job. But the fact is I kind of quit and left us with nothing, you know what I mean? And it was kind of — 

CB: Right. Just financially. 

R: But like I said, it turned into something good. 

CB: How long would you say it took – would you say it took a couple years for things to level out before you sort of came out of that period and were able to build things back up? 

R: I don’t know. I would say, yeah, it wasn’t long after that. And I don’t know the exact year we bought the house that we bought. Probably within another year or so. Not exactly sure. 

CB: Okay. Got it. Well, by like, 2000, for example, Saturn starts getting out of your 11th house – out of Taurus completely and moving into your 12th. So that would be the official end of the sign-based Saturn return, so I would expect some of the whatever the mental health issues were and some of the financial stuff that was most acute when your Saturn return was exact around the middle of 1998 through the end of that year would finally be alleviated and you’d be completed that chapter of your life by around 2000, by mid-2000. 

R: Yeah. That’s it. 

CB: Okay. 

R: And then we started a period of just kind of, you know, cruising then. We were – everything seemed like it was going okay. The wife was working; I was working. We had a house. The kids were doing great. It seemed okay. Everything seemed like it was going well. 

That went on until about 2003. October 3rd, 2003, you can see where Saturn is there. My grandfather died. 

CB: In your first house. Okay. So Saturn starts going through your first house, it opposes your Sun. 

R: Opposes my Sun. And my grand – I was named after him. 

CB: Okay. 

R: And he passed. Again, a very hard time. 

CB: Okay. Yeah. So what else is going on – well, there’s a lot of stuff going on. I mean, Saturn’s opposing your Sun, but it’s also squaring your IC, applying to that within three degrees. And he passes away, and so that’s a tough time. And is that tough on you mentally then again? 

R: Everything, again, yes. I went crazy again. Yes. Very much so. And actually, at that point, I started – I guess it was around then I had really started into trying to get mental health. I had — 

CB: Okay. 

R: — gone through a period of that, trying to find – of course, back then it was harder to find a – get into mental health when you needed it. It wasn’t like now where you can just go on a computer and get it. You had to set an appointment. It was always like, six months wait time, so by the time it came around, you were feeling better, but. 

CB: Got it. So was your partner helpful, though, in being helpful or supportive as much as she could while you’re going through some of those periods of mental health issues? 

R: Yes. Well, actually, in that time too she had lost her grandfather and the following October of the next year, she loses her father. So it was a tough time for all – you know, for both of us. And I guess that’s, you know, a lot of death is very hard. Very hard. And then — 

CB: Yeah. 

R: — it gets even – I mean, you keep on going to 2006 — 

CB: So hold on just a sec.

R: Yeah? 

CB: So one of the things I wanted to mention is just it seems like one of the recurring themes is just the – with the Moon-Saturn opposition, issues of mental health coming up as a recurring theme, and that’s more central for you because the Moon’s the ruler of the Ascendant, and because it’s a night chart. But then it’s like, you have a great partner who’s trying to be there for you and is helping to offset it to some extent, and that’s probably one of the things that’s helping to break that opposition so that it’s… Like, imagine if you didn’t have that, for example, that maybe it would have been harder with that opposition to get some of the help that you needed or to navigate some of those periods of difficult mental health. 

R: Yeah. 

CB: Would you say that’s correct, or is that — 

R: I’d say that’s correct, yeah. Having her – it was definitely, she was the rock. 

CB: Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. Okay, so then you were talking about 2006?

R: Yeah. So then in 2006, that’s the first time I hurt my back – or first major time. I was out of work for – I don’t know the exact date other than I would say it was early 2006, and I don’t know the exact date. But anyway, that was the first time I hurt my back. We ended going bankrupt and lost the house. 

CB: Oh wow, okay. Yeah, I see Saturn has just gone into your first house – or, sorry, into your 2nd house of finances. And so it’s opening up a period of difficult financial times for two —

R: When we went bankrupt, I was out of work for a year. We lived on her income. Had to move back in with my parents, which I had been gone since I was 17, so that was – I mean, we had to live there for just a little while while we found another apartment that we could get just on her income. And I was — 

CB: And you were in your mid-30s. 

R: Yeah. And it was a back issue, so I was out of work for a year at that point. And we ended up losing the house, lost everything – cars, house, everything. Ended up getting an apartment

CB: Okay. So that was the beginning of like, a really tough financial period for you in 2006. And it’s like, right after Saturn has gone into Leo. And it would be there for a couple of years, because Saturn doesn’t depart from Leo until like, 2008 – like, the fall of 2008. Did that financial period start to alleviate by 2008? 

R: Yes, I ended up around that time, I ended up getting a job back at the grocery store. And then I was back there again. So that was like, you know, like, midway of that 20-some years that I was there. Ended up – yeah, I went back to work at that same place. 

CB: Nice. Okay. So you’ve got regular employment again. And then is that the job then that you had for a while after that point? 

R: Yep. Ended up same job, yep, I ended up working there. We ended up buying another house, and that’s the house we still live in now. 

CB: When – what year was that? 

R: 2011. 

CB: Okay. 2011. Saturn’s going through your 4th house. What caused you to get that house at that time – so you had lost a house previously — 

R: Lost the other house — 

CB: — that you owned. 

R: And you have to, you know, when you go bankrupt, there’s so many years that they don’t really give you any – you can’t get no credit, basically. So we went through the years, everything was fine, we ended up buying a car first; that was no problem. Ended up buying a house. Because we had been living in the apartment, and it was a kind of small one. 

CB: That’s funny. Did you buy the car between 2008 and 2010?

R: Yeah, so we bought the car first; I would say that was, yeah, between 2008, 2010. And then we — 

CB: Okay, that was when Saturn’s transiting your 3rd house. 

R: Then we got, yeah, that’s funny, isn’t it? I didn’t think about that. 

CB: It is funny. I don’t exactly know why it’s tracking in terms of Saturn’s supposed to be your most difficult planet, but for some reason, it’s really tracking — 

R: Well, I kind of thought too though that the debt, you know. Sometimes I think of – I don’t know if Saturn can be thought of like that. You know, debt. Because I go into debt with the car; I go into debt with the house. 

CB: With the house, okay. 

R: You know — 

CB: Yeah, you’re taking a huge amount of — 

R: — I’ll be paying for the house until I’m 70, you know what I mean? 

CB: Got it. Okay, yeah, you’re taking on a huge amount of responsibility and debt and making like, long-term contractual agreements — 

R: Commitments, yes. 

CB: Which it’s like, you’ve had the experience of — 

R: And I don’t like! 

CB: Right! 

R: You know, I would rather not have that. You know, I say it all the time – let’s just move, you know, sell the house and let’s go, you know, it’s just me and her now. Just take off and go somewhere, but anyway — 

CB: Got it. 

R: — yes, we have the house. So then you get to – oh, go ahead. 

CB: So and so far, and just to summarize what we just saw for the audio people, it’s like, when Saturn was going through your 2nd house, you suffered a major financial setbacks and had to declare bankruptcy. When Saturn went through your 3rd house, you were rebuilding, and you were able to buy a car, and then when Saturn was going through your 4th house, you were able to buy a house and — 

R: Yep. 

CB: — taking on more debt each time. So then what happens after that? 

R: Okay, so then you get to 2013, and then my dad dies on July 3rd, 2013. 

CB: July 3rd. 

R: And you can see like, the Sun opposite my Sun. And Saturn’s like, right on the Moon or close to it. 

CB: July 3rd, 2013? 

R: Yeah. 

CB: Saturn is on your – so Saturn’s at four degrees of Scorpio, and it’s conjoining your Jupiter and your Moon. And what was the other one you were pointing out? 

R: The Sun opposite my Sun. 

CB: Yeah. Well, it’s Sun opposite Pluto, also. Like, Pluto’s like – even though it’s two degrees off, Pluto’s at 10 degrees —

R: And Pluto’s on my Sun, right. Exactly. 

CB: 10 degrees of Capricorn, and your Sun is at 12. So yeah, that’s tough. I was gonna ask about that Pluto stuff, because once Pluto got to Capricorn, it started transiting over your Venus, and then your Sun. So having the loss of your father – was that, actually, it looks like that’s also your Uranus opposition. Uranus is up at like, 12, and it’s opposing your IC at 15 and opposing your Uranus at eight degrees of Libra. So was that a big loss for you, or how did that impact you? 

R: Oh yeah. I mean, definitely. Like I said, it was one of the – so if I were to say the three, when I talk about the three close people to me, to my life, both my grandparents, which we did everything with, and then my father, of course. Of course we find out – that’s what I said, found out later that he wasn’t my father, and we’ll get to that. But you should do like, an Ancestry episode – Ancestry.com versus people’s natal charts, because it’s crazy! That’s where you find out — 

CB: Yeah, I need to get sponsorship by Ancestry at this point, because like! I am a great obviously, like, proponent of that at this point with all the people finding out ancestry things; I should look into that. 

R: Yeah. It’s crazy. 

CB: Yeah. Okay. Were there any – between 2013 and 2015, Saturn’s going through Scorpio. Were there any issues that came up with the topic of children at this time? 

R: Not that I recall. I can’t recall any. You know, yeah, so then if you put it to the quadrant house, that goes through my 4th house, so I don’t know. You see, that’s my same thing, and I go, hmm, hmm. You know, seems like Saturn — 

CB: Right. 

R: — touches it, works it better in the quadrant than it does in the whole sign. But like I said, I had that late degree and I’m not – I know you don’t wanna, we’re not talking about that. We can keep moving. And so then — 

CB: That’s okay. I mean, that’s a valid point to bring up in terms of like, whether the quadrant house overlapping – because your 4th house would extend from like, 15 Libra into, what, somewhere in like, mid-Scorpio depending on what — 

R: Yeah, mid-Scorpio. 

CB: — system you use. 

R: Exactly, yeah. 

CB: So it’s 2013 through 2015. How old are your kids at this point? 

R: So… 

CB: Because it’s like, eclipses are happening there as well. I see the nodes are like, halfway through that sign by 2013. 

R: Well, you know, I’ll be honest with you; I don’t know. I’m trying to think how old the kids were. So 2013, I know – or yeah, 2013… 

CB: Like, without giving their birthdates, do you know their birth years? 

R: Yes, my kids? Yes. My oldest was ‘88; the second was ‘90, and the next one was ‘93. 

CB: Okay, so from like, ‘90 to 2000 – 2010 would be 20, so they’re in their early to mid-20s, give or take around 2013, 2015. 

R: Yeah. And I — 

CB: Okay. 

R: — still had at least one of them here, home here with me, my son. 

CB: Did they go off to college, or did they stay — 

R: Yes! 

CB: — home? 

R: At one point, they didn’t, and that might have been – I’m trying to think of what year they went. It was kind like, my son had left, and then we were by ourselves for like, the first time. And it was kind of weird. But I can’t tell you what year it was. He was only gone for like, a year and he came back. They all finished college, but they lived at home with us most of the time. 

CB: The ruler of the 5th is Mars, which is in the 9th, which could – the 9th is the place of college and higher education. It’s also the place of foreign travel and foreign countries as well as the place of religion and beliefs. Have any of them developed either let’s say academic orientation or an interest in foreign countries and travel, or alternatively a focus on religious or like, philosophical beliefs? 

R: No, I wouldn’t say any of the three. 

CB: How would you describe them then in terms of — 

R: Well, they’ve all went to college, so like, you know, I have – and me and my wife and I never did. 

CB: Okay, so it’s like, the first in their family to go to college? 

R: Yeah, all three of them have graduated from college, yes. 

CB: Did they just do their bachelor’s, or did they do — 

R: No, my son is gonna get his master’s. My middle, she’s a nurse practitioner. And then my oldest, she’s got her bachelor’s. 

CB: What did the other one get their master’s in? 

R: My son, he’s a teacher. 

CB: Nice. Okay. Teacher. 

R: Yes. 

CB: Like, higher – what level of education? 

R: Which one? All of them? 

CB: The one that got the master’s, do they do K through 12, or do they do college education? 

R: Oh no, the K through 12. 

CB: Okay. 

R: Well, my son – he’s got his in physical education, and he’s gearing to get his master’s in adaptive physical education. 

CB: Okay. So — 

R: For handicap. 

CB: — two of them – handicap education? 

R: Yeah. 

CB: So two of them went in a more like, medical route, it sounds like? 

R: Yes. My oldest – yeah, well, actually, yeah, my oldest daughter, she works for like, insurance. It’s in a medical – doing some kind of medical audit. 

CB: Got it. Okay. Just trying to understand how that ruler of the 5th house was manifesting and if it was in any particular way that might like, clarify what was going on during that time period when they were all in their mid-20s. It sounds like if they were all in their mid-20s then, then they would have been at different levels of going through college, basically. 

Okay, well, we’ll leave that there. What was next on the timeline? 

R: Okay, so keep moving with Saturn. Kind of like in between there, it was a funny time, and I don’t know if this would pop up in any way – I did something a little bit different. I ended up becoming a yoga teacher. 

CB: When? 

R: 2016. 

CB: Oh wow, okay. 

R: And actually, before that, though, it started like, in 2015. For some reason, you know, I don’t know if you understand Maryland, but there’s an eastern shore and a western shore. It’s like, with the Chesapeake Bay in between. I went all the way across to DC to take a yoga class, and I ended up liking it so much that I ended up doing yoga teacher training there. So traveling, you know, a couple hour round trips to get to yoga teacher training. 

CB: Wow. That’s really cool. 

R: And I ended up quitting – I don’t eat meat, either. And I’m a meat cutter at the grocery store! 

CB: And this was all happening during that same period you also gave up meat? 

R: Yep. Gave up meat 2015, stopped smoking, gave up eating meat. Took yoga. Became a yoga teacher. And yoga is still a big part of my life. 

CB: So this is during this like, two or three-year period when Saturn’s going through your 6th house of health and illness. Were there – was there a reason – was there a health issue that came up that caused you — 

R: No. 

CB: — to start wanting to take greater care — 

R: No. 

CB: — of your health, or what prompted it? 

R: Actually, when you were talking to the other person before about the Uranus opposition or whatever, and I was thinking, well, maybe that was it! Something like that where really just a wild – actually another thing was around that same time, my wife and I took a trip. We went to Iceland. I know, it’s kind of odd! We’ve never been anywhere out of the country, and yes, the beginning – March of 2016, I think it was, we went to Iceland. 

CB: Okay. There was an eclipse in your 9th house of foreign travel at that time. 

R: Went to Iceland. Like I said, ended up going to… And why we did that I still don’t really know. Loved it, though! Awesome place. 

CB: Okay. Well, that’s interesting in terms of like, that and then you’re also taking classes and also – what was the motivation for becoming vegetarian at that time? Was it philosophical? 

R: Yes. If I didn’t – you know, if I don’t eat my dog, why would I eat a cow? 

CB: Was that influenced at all by some of the yoga and the eastern philosophy that you were getting — 

R: Yes. 

CB: — into? Okay. 

R: Yeah, ahimsa. Yeah, nonviolence, yeah. Exactly. 

CB: So this is similar to the case we saw earlier in the first example where there was like, 9th house activations going on and it indicated a change in the person’s beliefs, basically, and philosophy and worldview and outlook, but also educational things at the same time – like starting to learn and open themselves up to new ways of viewing the world through education, which then really impacting their beliefs. And then you’re also – so it’s like, that’s happening with the eclipses taking place in your 9th house for a couple of years. But then also there’s very tangible physical things happening where that same month, you actually traveled to a foreign country at the same time. 

R: Yep. 

CB: Cool. All right. And that’s impacting 6th house stuff with Saturn going through the 6th, and then what happens after that? 

R: Okay, then you go up to the – actually, before that, just before the 2020, if you go to early 2019, that’s when I found out my father wasn’t my father. So I don’t know if that was that Saturn going over the Sun; I’m not sure. I always kind of it – it was like, you know, we laugh about it now because it was kind of funny. Me and my wife, like I said, we’ve been together for 38 years, and I’ve said the whole time that, you know, I don’t think my father was my father. We used to laugh about it. I used to say like, my father must be like, John Lennon or something like that, you know, because we were really kind of different. But it ended up he wasn’t my father. Found out on Ancestry. 

CB: Oh, okay. So yeah, this is the – so you – why did you decide to look up ancestry in the first place? 

R: I was very interested in my own, just, you know, finding out your own heritage — 

CB: Okay. 

R: — kind of thing. And so I went on there. I still didn’t know it until my sister joined Ancestry. And actually, she’s the one that pointed out; she goes, “Why is Ray listed as a half?” You know? 

CB: Oh, right, because your mother’s half and then the other is unknown. 

R: Yes! 

CB: So this is interesting, because it’s like, Saturn did go over your – it’s doing several things, but it’s transiting through in early 19 – the first part of Capricorn, and it like, your natal signature is you have Uranus in the 4th house widely conjunct the degree of the IC with Uranus at eight degrees of Libra and the IC at 15 degrees of Libra. And then the ruler of the 4th house of parents and father is the Venus, which is at six degrees of Capricorn conjunct the Sun at 12 degrees of Capricorn. And you had said that your father was a very positive influence in your life, and that’s that benefic Venus. But then Saturn starts transiting over that, and like, squares your Uranus, conjoins your Venus and your Sun, and then this test result comes back and you find out quite unexpectedly that he wasn’t your biological father? 

R: Yep. I mean — 

CB: So how did — 

R: I guess, too, though, when I sit there and think about it, our family – we weren’t rich growing up by no means. But my father was very well-known. He was like, the chief of police in this small town that we live in. And it seems – and I was number two of five, so it wasn’t like I was the first one or the last one. I was the second one! So there was something happening there. You see what I mean? 

CB: So — 

R: Yeah. 

CB: So it’s like, maybe – so your parents were together, and do you know the status of your other siblings? Like, do they know for sure that they’re… Like, was it the case – is the scenario you’re saying that then your mother and father that you grew up with had one child, and then — 

R: My brother, yeah. Which is their child – yeah, theirs. And at least – how about that, yeah, you’re right. My — 

CB: You don’t know? I mean… 

R: Yeah, there’s two – me and my sister, I guess, are the only ones that done the Ancestry, and my mother. And she claims that I’m the only one that’s different. 

CB: Okay. Oh right, because your mom’s still around, so you’re able to ask — 

R: Yes. 

CB: — her about this? 

R: Yeah, I asked her. Now but – and maybe this is the Scorpio in me too – I don’t really believe anything that she says now that’s a 50-year lie! you know, so. 

CB: So did she admit that there was someone else, and that she had either had an affair or — 

R: She has a full story of it. Her story, yes. She has a story where my father and her were having – they had just gotten married. You know, so my brother’s two years older than me. So they had gotten married, had him, and they was kind of like, having a rough time. So mom’s story is that they had split up. She hooked up with her old boyfriend prior to my father, okay, and then that apparently, she says, is my father. Then they got my – the father that raised me, they got back together again, and then she had me. So it was in that… Apparently I was born while they were back together, so. 

CB: I mean, that’s — 

R: Whether or not he knew — 

CB: — plausible, I mean. 

R: Yes, but whether or not he knew, if he’s ever known that I am not his son, I don’t know. She says he knew, but the story doesn’t sit right with me, so I feel like that’s not the truth. Almost like, you know, she pulled a fast one on him. Maybe not! I don’t know. I shouldn’t say that. 

CB: Yeah. I mean, who knows. I kind of understand why you’d have those questions and stuff, but it’s interesting just looking at this with – so I’m looking at the timing, but just switching it back to the chart itself, I think it’s interesting that it’s like, on the one hand, we have Uranus in the 4th whole sign house not too far from the IC. And so this is like the previous chart we looked at where she had Uranus in the 3rd house, and there was something like unexpected and shocking that she learned at some point later in her life about having other siblings that she didn’t know about when that was activating. And for you, your chart is turned slightly, so that Uranus is in the 4th house, and you learned similarly through Ancestry who, again, I need to get sponsorship from — 

R: Yeah! 

CB: — that there was something unexpected or shocking that you learned at some point about your 4th house and that your father was different than what you thought. And in your case, I think it’s interesting that the ruler of the 4th house and the IC is that Venus, which is so close to the Sun that it’s actually — 

R: Combust, yeah. 

CB: — it’s combust. It’s under the beams of the Sun. And in the ancient texts, like in Rhetorius from the 6th century, he says that when a planet’s under the beams, there’s something secret or hidden about that planet. And he said that if the planet that signifies marriage is under the beams, then the marriage happens in secret. But for you, it’s like, the planet that represents the parents — 

R: The father. 

CB: — and the father is under the beams, and it represents there’s something hidden about the father that later when Saturn is transiting over that would be revealed in this interesting way. So that’s really interesting and really cool. 

You know, actually, even just the fact that you have a Venus-Uranus square, something that’s interesting and funny about that is sometimes when a person has a Venus-Uranus hard aspect, it can indicate having many relationships or having something unique about relationships or not settling down, basically, but it’s actually been quite the opposite for you. You’ve had a longstanding relationship for more than three decades. But the part about that signature that is true in your life is when you were born, if you think about that, like, what was happening with your mom and your father is that they’d gone through a period of breaking up, she’d maybe been with somebody else, and then you were born. And so it’s like, that’s the signature is that it was tied in with your parents’ relationship and whatever had happened there in that formative part of your life. But it wasn’t necessarily something that you yourself – you’ve had actually a pretty long and stable relationship. 

R: Yes. Of course my wife says I’ll never make another commitment. That was the big one, and I’m always like, you know, no more major! Just like the house, like I said, I don’t want to really buy into new long-term things. It’s kind of a funny thing. But yeah. 

CB: Okay. That’s funny. So yeah, that’s pretty big. How did that hit you at the time with Saturn transiting over your stuff when you found that out? Was that hard, or — 

R: Yes. 

CB: — how did you take it? 

R: Extremely hard. We had a really rough time. And then it was kind of like, a shock – it seemed like, that’s part of the reason why I didn’t really believe my mom’s story. It seemed like a shock to her, too. And she knew I was on Ancestry, knew my sister was on it, and she actually did Ancestry. So it seemed like it was a – that’s why I kind of, you know, it was a hard thing. And then she had to tell my other brothers and sisters, and it was a kind of — 

CB: Right. 

R: — a big weird family thing. 

CB: Maybe she always had uncertainty surrounding which one it was, just because the timeframe was so close — 

R: So close, yeah. 

CB: Yeah. So maybe she didn’t know until then. 

R: ‘Til then! Right. And then she kind of like, maybe buried it in her mind, you know. It just it’s 50 years. I mean, I was 50 years old. 

CB: Right. That’s wild. Yeah. 

R: Yeah. 

CB: And then her chart – I mean, not that we’re gonna look at it, but do you have a timed chart for her? 

R: I don’t have a timed chart. She was born at home. I know it’s a weird deal. My grandfather delivered her at home, so it’s kind of hard to get an exact time. 

CB: Yeah. It would just be fascinating to see what that’s like in her chart where maybe that Uranus is like, in the 5th house or there’s something going on there in terms of her experience and fate, basically, in terms of the topic of children as well as, you know, probably activation and transits that she was having when you find this out. 

R: Right. 

CB: That’s always fascinating to me. 

R: Yeah. 

CB: All right. Well, and then — 

R: And the biggie! I fell off the cliff, I felt like, just in March 13th, 2020 – yeah, 2020. March 13th. Saturn —

CB: So a year later you — 

R: — here on my Descendant — 

CB: A year later, you have a major accident? 

R: Yeah. Right when covid broke out, when the store was going crazy, I end up rupturing a disk in my back that — 

CB: You fell off a cliff? 

R: Yeah, I felt like I fell off a cliff. Not really – I didn’t really fall of a cliff. I said it felt like it. 

CB: Oh. What happened?

R: My disk ruptured, and I ended up getting a drop foot out of it. So like, I can’t lift my foot. I had surgery, but that was all during covid, so the emergency surgery that I needed took like, two months to get. 

CB: Right, because of the lockdowns. 

R: Yeah, it was crazy, and it was hard to get anything done. And — 

CB: So – go ahead. 

R: So I ended up losing my job. Ended up losing my health. All in one fell swoop. 

CB: Oh, you lost your job as a result of this? Okay. So —

R: Yeah. I did. Yeah. I ended up on workman’s comp while they did the surgery for the next six years. So just this past February, they finally resolved it, and now I receive disability from workman’s comp. 

CB: Okay. Got it. 

R: But it’s never been contested; it was never – I mean, always understood, but for some reason, I just – how they sat me just kind of like, out in limbo, I guess hoping to see if I would get better, and I never have. And actually, I developed another illness, and that’s a funny thing with that – it’s not really funny, but astrologically funny – that I have, what’s it called, CRPS – complex regional pain syndrome. And it’s in my feet. And you see that Mars in Pisces. I always say now that that’s Mars in Pisces, that burning feeling in my feet. 

CB: Okay. It feels like actual burning in your feet? 

R: Yes. Yep. 

CB: Interesting. 

R: And it’s pretty much all the time. I have some kind of, you know, whether it’s like, electrical or a burning or whatever, it’s just always pain, constant pain from that. 

CB: Sure. So but in terms of this event on March 13th, 2020, we see that Saturn was at 29 degrees of Capricorn, and it was exactly conjoining your Mercury and opposing the degree of your Ascendant. And then you have this really bad physical injury that actually affects your mobility, which is interesting both because of Mercury as well as the Ascendant degree. And Mercury’s actually the ruler of the 3rd house of like, local travel. And then shortly after this, there would have been a Mars-Saturn conjunction in your 8th house, and Saturn dips into your 8th house for the first time and you lose your job at this point. 

R: Yes. Lose my job, which I had been working there, like I said, a total of 20 years, but that in between time, so that last, what was it, 10 or 11 years, I had worked – yeah, they end up letting me go. Now the one good thing is that we, I’ve still gotten paid. I’ve never lost money. So we didn’t lose like the other time when my back injury that I lost money when Saturn was in my 2nd; we didn’t lose money —

CB: Right. 

R: — this time. We kept getting paid. 

CB: But then you didn’t get the disability until 2026? 

R: Yeah. Well, the firm – yeah, so I still got paid through workman’s comp, but the disability when they finally come through, you have to go to court and go through all that. And the judge came back with permanent disability. And that wasn’t declared until February, this past February. 

CB: Was there like, a reduction in your income at least? Or how would you describe it when Saturn goes into your 8th house? 

R: Well, I guess it didn’t feel like a reduction, because you don’t pay tax. So it’s a reduction in pay, but it’s basically just the tax, I think, it feels like. 

CB: Okay. 

R: So we never really lost – I was lucky. I feel like we got lucky through that. 

CB: Okay. 

R: So not like the other time when we lost everything – the house, everything. We didn’t lose anything this time, other than my job and my health! 

CB: Yeah. 

R: But actually too, it put me into astrology! So I think that that’s an interesting thing. So right at that same time, following what June, I started my first astrology class. 

CB: June of 2021? 

R: 2020. 

CB: June of 2020, okay. 

R: I think yeah – 2020. 

CB: What prompted that? 

R: I was home. I knew the instructor from the yoga class was Adam Elenbaas; he does the Nightlight Astrology. 

CB: Yeah. 

R: I took his class. 

CB: Nice. 

R: I had taken – I was in his their yoga class with Sky House Yoga. That was the class I took in DC. 

CB: Oh, that makes – yeah, on the east coast. That makes sense. 

R: That’s how I knew him, yes. 

CB: Okay. So I’m trying to look and see what was going on in terms of that or what would indicate that. Saturn’s retrograding back over your Mercury… Right. Because Saturn retrograded back into Capricorn after dipping into Aquarius, and then Jupiter eventually would come up on that as well. Yeah. I don’t know what the primary thing is for that in terms of the indication for when you started studying astrology. I might just not be seeing it here. I see Neptune’s like, going over your Mars and stuff and your North Node in the 9th house. 

R: Yeah, I’m not sure — 

CB: Yeah.

R: — about that one. I just find it – actually, so it became like, an opportunity. You know what I mean? So for the last six years, I’ve got to study stuff! 

CB: Yeah. Just because you – due to the lack of mobility, it’s like, there’s not much else you can do. 

R: Yep. Astrology, I dipped into Egypt. You know, as soon as that Pluto goes over that Descendant degree, I have dived deep into Egypt – the funerary text. 

CB: Okay. 

R: Yes. I just majorly, I don’t know what – well, you know what prompted it was the Egyptian bounds. From there it took me into Egypt. 

CB: And you said that was when Pluto reached 29 Capricorn? 

R: Yes. 

CB: Okay. Conjoining your Mercury and your Descendant, and you got really into the Egyptian — 

R: Just — 

CB: — funerary like, afterlife? 

R: — dug in deep. Yes. And — 

CB: Okay. 

R: — investigative, you know, digging into the stuff. It was fascinating. And I still am. 

CB: Nice. That’s cool. Yeah. And I mean, that’s interesting that Saturn was moving out of your 8th, and like, Pluto when it’s hitting your Descendant, it’s also moving into your 8th house. And yeah. That’s really cool. So that brings us to today, to 2026. 

R: And I’m not anxious for my next Saturn return. 

CB: Yeah. Well, you’ve been — 

R: Actually, I can’t imagine! 

CB: You’ve been around the – or you’ve got the hang of things at this point with Saturn. And it’s interesting — 

R: Well, that’s what you say, but I don’t know that that’s gonna be the truth. I hope it’s the truth! Yeah, you’re supposed to like, you gain something from that, you know, all the other years, and you kind of have mastery, right, or something like that? 

CB: Yeah. I mean, I think – well, on the one hand, I think it’s interesting with your chart with having that stellium in Capricorn how important Saturn has been in your life, and how much its transits have tracked, especially through the houses. Like, those different phases of your life as we were seeing when it was going through your 2nd house and financial issues, bankruptcy, and then the 3rd house and then getting a car, and the 4th house and buying a home. It’s been interesting seeing how important – and then eventually Saturn going over your Venus, the ruler of the 4th, and your Sun and finding out about your father. It’s really tracked a lot of times. And they haven’t been super easy times. Oftentimes there’s an obstacle or a setback or something challenging that comes up. But then it’s also been periods in which you are sometimes, even though you take two steps back, you then take steps forward and there’s forward progress often through effort, like striving and movement and things like that. So it’s not all — 

R: Oh, that’s true – I mean, it is true, like, too when we lost that house in 2006. You know, that house that we were living in, it needed a roof. It needed heat. It needed a connection to the street for a septic. All these major financial things that I couldn’t afford at the time. So a lot of times, we say, hell, we got lucky! Again! Because even though we lost that house, we bought this house, you know, so many years later. And it feels like we’re not under those same burdens that we had before. You know what I mean? 

CB: Yeah. Sometimes when there’s a difficult – like, a malefic transit, there can be a loss. This came up in the last webinar last weekend. There can be a loss in some area, but then it opens you up for an opportunity later on. And even though that sounds like a cliche, sometimes you actually see that happening through the transits and through the astrology. 

R: Yeah. 

CB: I like that. So we were seeing that last week in the context of like, the 7th house where there would be a difficult transit and there would be like, a relationship loss, but then it opened the person up to find somebody better later on. But for you, you were talking about instances where there was like, losing a house, but then opening you up to end up being on the path to eventually find what would be a more long-term living situation — 

R: A better house for us — 

CB: — that was better. 

R: Yes. Yep. Exactly.

CB: Okay. I like that. I think that’s really good. Yeah. Well, and also, part of your story has been developing things, working on things internally. Like, you’d dealt with – especially when you were younger – some issues in terms of mental health. But then it sounds like there’s been some points along the way where you focused more on both your physical health as well as your mental health. And that’s something where you’re probably in a better place today that you had been at other points earlier on, I would think. 

R: Yes, with the yoga and actually – so I mean, you could think of it that way. Learning yoga, meditation has helped me with my illness. So it almost seems like the road was being paved, you know – fate has a place to get to, but they give me this tool, you know? And then the astrology – so my spiritual practice has just blossomed, bloomed, whatever you wanna say, especially since the time of my back allowing me to go deeper, I guess. And then having the astrology to back it up, seeing your place in the cosmos? I mean, even through the hard times, if you know that almost like, someone’s watching, you know what I mean? A higher power or whatever you wanna say. I’m not saying astrology is religion or anything like that; I’m saying that your time here is being marked. 

CB: Right. Yeah. 

R: You know, and you can really see it just in this – I mean, this is not – you cannot. To me, you cannot doubt that there is something here. You can see a relationship between – we went dark, but – the stars and yourself. 

CB: Here, I’ll reshare it. Give me a sec. If that helps for the lighting. There we go! Yeah, I mean I think that’s one of the important things that we’ve seen here is sometimes when you’re going through good times or you’re going through challenging times, that sometimes being able to externalize some of that to get some perspective on your life and how the timing lines up does provide some perspective, and there’s something reassuring about that — 

R: Yes. 

CB: — I feel like to see that it’s part of a broader sequence of your life — 

R: A grand plan. Yeah. 

CB: Yeah. And to help identify like, what your life narrative is. And even though some parts of our life narrative can be challenging, and that’s not always good things, even just having some perspective on that can sometimes be inherently beneficial or inherently helpful. 

R: Yes. Definitely. 

CB: I love it. All right, awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining me for this, and thanks for sharing your story. I really appreciate it. 

R: Thank you! Hey, and then thank you for this astrology podcast, you know? It’s kind of like, anchored me too, to be honest. I love it. 

CB: Good. I’m glad to hear it; I appreciate that! 

All right. Well, take care! 

R: Thank you! 

CB: All right. Awesome.

All right, I think that’s it for today. That was amazing. We only got through three. I’d like to keep going, but I think I’ve hit a wall in terms of, you know, as much as I can talk today because I wanna be present and alert for every consultation. But this was amazing, and I think – I hope it’s clearer now what I was talking about at the beginning of this workshop. And part of the purpose of this is I wanted to talk about this in the context of your fate is the sequence and the narrative of your life. And part of what we’re doing is with astrology is we’re trying to understand our life narrative and our life story. And our life narrative and our life story is working out the sequence of events that brought us to where we are today, and why certain things happened at different points in our life, and how that set us up and brought us to where we are today as well as where we’re headed into the future. And one of the things that’s great about astrology is it can help tell us about on the one hand, the birth chart and some of the inherent signatures that we have and the things about our fate and about our future that are coming up that are kind of laying there sometimes dormant or latent in the birth chart. But then also through different timing techniques, we can see important turning points in the life where the things that were promised by the birth chart will be delivered at certain points. And I think this has to do with, again, just this notion of fate being the unfolding a sequence of events in accordance with some sort of plan or some sort of purpose. And I think there’s different ways to contextualize that, because that can be – one can either view that in a spiritual or religious context as a sort of like, providential ordering of events. And in some ways, that in the ancient world I think that’s how the ancient Stoic astrologers viewed it, because they viewed everything ordered according to a plan or a purpose. And I think there’s like, that version of it; there’s probably other ways we conceptualize it, like in modern times there’s probably a version of that according to what is the name of that like, modern version of things being coded? Of like, not a virtual world, but there’s like, a specific phrase like that that’s trending lately about – yeah, simulation theory. So there’s like, modern ideas about simulation theory and whether we’re living in a sort of like, simulation of some sort. And there’s something interesting about that from that perspective where what we could be seeing through astrology is the code that’s kind of like, underlying reality in some sense, and is indicating things in the future because there are some things that are kind of like, coded into our lives. And there’s a modern version where we could probably conceptualize things in that way in some interesting way. And different people can kind of like, approach that from different philosophical or religious or metaphysical frameworks, depending on what your background is. But for me, this is part of what I’ve been trying to revive and understand is the ancient notions of fate and why ancient astrologers conceptualized astrology as the study of fate, and I think it has to do with the things that we were seeing here today and the way that astrology is able to access and describe something that’s otherwise not accessible to us, which is this underlying ordering of events according to a sequence, and according to a purpose or a narrative that can help to clue us in into what the story or what the narrative is underlying our lives, and the role or the part that we play in the world. And we all play different parts in the world, or different roles, but part of what we’re doing with astrology is trying to figure out what our role is and what our purpose is in the world and where things are headed. 

So yeah. So this is my approach, and I love taking the approach that I’ve developed through this blend of ancient Hellenistic astrology and modern astrology and kind of blending those together. That’s basically if you wanna learn more about that and more about my approach, that’s what I teach in my book Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune, as well as in my Hellenistic astrology course where I do webinars just like this one every month and I teach people how to read birth charts with this approach so that you can kind of apply it systematically to each different individual that you meet to try to understand what their life narrative is. 

So I hope this has been interesting and useful, both from a technical standpoint to show some of my approach of doing chart readings, but also philosophically to give some insight into the underlying philosophy that I kind of approach things with in viewing astrology more through this lens of fate and understanding the sequence and the narrative of our lives. And I think there’s more that we could explore there and go into, but I think that leaves things – I hope that gives some insight into that approach, and I hope it clarifies things. And I hope that people can take that approach and continue to develop it further, because I think there’s a lot more that we learned even just today. Like I said, every time we look at a new chart, I learn something new, because there’s always a unique manifestation of how certain chart placements play out, depending on the context of the life. And today we learned some things about how, you know, a consultation is a dialogue between two people, or at least that’s the best way that a consultation has always been done as a dialogue between two people, because then you’re both taking the things that you know and through that exchange, you uncover things about the person’s fate and life story and narrative through the dialogue of the client or the person who’s having the reading knowing about their own life, and the astrologer who just has the chart and is approaching it based on what they know about the astrology. But they’re learning a lot about the person’s life in the process, and it’s this reciprocal back-and-froth that creates something that’s unique and special as part of the consultation. 

So I gave kind of a snippet of that here, because obviously I was doing shortened, condensed consultations that were also on the fly with no preparation. And I’m sure there were different things that I overlooked in terms of transits that were relevant or we didn’t get into other timing techniques like zodiacal releasing, for example, or secondary progressions or profections or other things like that that can help to specify some of the outcomes or to show different levels of the interworkings of fate and the different activations of the chart at different points in the person’s life. But even at this basic level of just looking at the birth chart and looking at transits and eclipses and outer planet transits and things like that, you can already see a lot. And it can help to clarify a lot about a person’s life. 

So I love doing that, so yeah. If you enjoyed this, let me know. Maybe I’ll do another one of these again soon with patrons. Thanks each of you who shared your story today; I appreciate you all three of you a lot. I’m sorry that we couldn’t get to more examples today, but I really wanted to like, sit with each of these and sort of like, let them breathe because the more you do, the more you start to understand and see and the more it sort of like, opens up, and I really love that process of hearing about a person’s life and seeing how well the chart matches and seeing it really come alive in that way. 

So yeah. This was great! So thanks everyone for joining me. If you have any questions, if you’re watching this on YouTube later, post them in the YouTube comments. If you wanna join this, then become a patron of The Astrology Podcast through my page on Patreon, and you’ll get access to these live workshops. And thanks to each of the patrons that support this work, and allow me to do this. I really appreciate you all. 

All right. I think that’s it. So thanks everyone for watching or listening to this episode of The Astrology Podcast, and I’ll see you again next time. 

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If you’re a fan of the podcast and you wanna get access to bonus content, then become a patron through my page on Patreon where you can get early access to new episodes, attend live recordings and webinars, access the monthly electional astrology podcast, The Secret Astrology Podcast that’s only available to patrons, or you can even get your name listed in the credits. Find out more at Patreon.com/AstrologyPodcast.

Special thanks to the patrons on our Producers tier, including patrons Kristi Moe, Ariana Amour, Mandi Rae, Angelic Nambo, Issa Sabah, Jeanne Marie Kaplan, Melissa DeLano, Sonny Bazbaz, Kwatsi Alibaruho, Annie Newman, Ginger Sadlier, Berlynn West, and Nicki Crawford.

If you’re looking for good dates to do things this year, then be sure to check out our 2026 Electional Astrology Report, which is a guide to the most fortunate dates in 2026. You can get it at TheAstrologyPodcast.com/2026Report. 

If you’re really looking to take your studies of astrology to the next level, then consider signing up for my Hellenistic Astrology course, which is an online course in ancient astrology where I take people from basic concepts up through intermediate and advanced techniques for reading birth charts. There’s over a hundred hours of video lectures, plus live webinars and Q&A sessions each month. And at the end of the course, you get a certificate of completion saying that you studied with me. Find out more information at TheAstrologySchool.com. 

If you’re looking to get an astrological consultation, then check out the new consultations page on the podcast website where I have a list of astrologers I recommend for birth chart readings and other types of consultations. You can find that at TheAstrologyPodcast.com/Consultations.

The astrology software we use and recommend here on the podcast is called Solar Fire for Windows, and you can get a 15% discount on it by using the promo code ‘AP15’ at the website Alabe.com. 

For Mac users, we recommend the program called Astro Gold for Mac OS, and you can use the promo code ‘ASTROPODCAST15’ to get a 15% discount at their website, which is AstroGold.io.

And shoutout to our sponsors for this episode, including the Northwest Astrology Conference, which is happening in Seattle and being livestreamed online May 21st through the 25th, 2026. Find out more information at NORWAC.net. As well as the United Astrology Conference, which is happening in Chicago this year September 3rd through the 9th, 2026. Find out more information about that at UACAstrology.com.