I felt like digging through the archives and pulling out this interview with CJ Wright (aka Auntie Moon) on the subject of combining astrology with numerology. I greatly enjoyed talking with CJ. I hope you enjoy the podcast.
Click on the link above to hear the interview.
It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to post articles on a regular basis. I’ve been writing an astrology book. It’s only taken me 5 years to get around to it, but it’s finally been written! (Thank you, Pluto.)
Now that I have a breather from that, I thought I’d post something in honor of Saturn in Libra, the planet trying to teach us all something about relationships. What follows is a planetary cheat sheet for relationships.
Here’s how to use it. Get out your chart and get out the chart of the person you’re interested in. That could be the chart of a love interest, best friend, spouse, child, boss, co-worker, etc. If you don’t know the birth time of the other person, use noon. You will need the day and date of birth. The place where the person was born is helpful too.
What you’re going to be looking for is the degree numbers in your chart that are close to or the same as the degree numbers in the other person’s chart. For example, I’m looking at my chart and a former boyfriend’s chart. I note that I have sun at 23 degrees of my zodiac sign and he has Neptune at 23 degrees of Libra. He has his sun at 14 degrees of his zodiac sign; I have Uranus at 13 degrees in its sign.
His Venus is at 1 degree; my Pluto is at 3 degrees. His Jupiter is at 12 degrees; my Venus is at 15 degrees. And so on, just looking for the aspects that are close in terms of degrees. Use an orb of maybe 5 degrees for this exercise.
For the moment, we’re not looking to see if the aspects are supposedly favorable (sextile, trine) or unfavorable (square, opposition). We’re not looking for what houses they fall into. We’re just looking for the planets that are activated by these aspects. (Don’t include planets that are one sign away from each other though, such as Aquarius and Pisces).
In my experience, here’s what the planets activated by aspect seem to correlate with in relationships:
Pluto: a powerful attraction or repulsion. Continuing feelings that don’t fade with time. ‘Karmic’ or important relationship with a purpose. Problems with outside circumstances.
Neptune: a romantic attraction. Tendency toward deception or a private inner life. Neptune person idealizing the other person. Infatuation, sometimes followed by disillusionment.
Uranus: instant attraction. On again, off again relationships. Emotional and mental stimulation. A need for space within the relationship.
Saturn: long-lasting relationship. An ability to solve problems in the relationship. Obstacles within the relationship. A practical ability to be able to coordinate the logistics of the relationship and get things done together.
Jupiter: compatibility. A point of easy contact and agreement between the two people. Shared sense of humor. An ability to get along regarding superficial issues.
Mars: sexual attraction. Ability to do things together. A point of friction that keeps the relationship interesting. Willingness to pursue a relationship.
Venus: a love connection. The ability to relax together. The feeling of being cared for. Physical attraction.
Mercury: the ability to communicate. Whether you find each other interesting. Understanding how the other person thinks. The ability to socialize with other people as a couple.
Moon: love. Emotional connection. Strong feelings for one another. Empathy.
Sun: compatibility. Ability to understand each other. Equality within the relationship. Long-lasting relationships.
This is a very superficial analysis and only the beginning of exploring the relationship through astrology (sometimes known as the study of synastry). But especially in the beginning of a relationship, it can be helpful to get a quick idea of what factors in each other’s charts are being activated. And let’s face it–inquiring minds want to know!
Here is a short video I did on the practical benefits of astrology, what you can expect from a reading, and how astrology contributes to wellness.
As a professional astrologer, I encounter a fair number of people who are trying to figure out what they want to be when they grow up. This is one of those common life dilemmas, and it doesn’t matter if you’re 56, or 63 and retired, or much, much younger. I thought I’d share a few observations on astrology and career choice based on my observation. So here are 5 Things To Know About Choosing the ‘Right’ Career.
1. Your intuition is probably right. I’m frequently amazed at the ingenious ways that people manage to choose occupations that are ‘astrologically correct.’ People find jobs doing all kinds of things I’ve never heard of, it turns out. And there are many ways to use your chart’s energy. If you have a strong intuition about the kind of career you’d like, listen to it. The chances are that you have an inner sense of what will make your chart (and you) happiest.
2. Your intuition is probably right. Yes, I’m saying it again. Often people want a consultation when they are doing work they know is not right. But they have a desire, an aspiration to do something else. They’re just pretty terrified that they’ll never get the chance to do it, that it’s a pipe dream, that they will suffer terrible humiliation if they ever reveal their secret ambitions. This happens all the time. Almost every time, the chart indicates that the secret and embarrassing aspiration is perfectly appropriate astrologically. Yes, the person has the right motivations and talents to be a nurse. Yes, the person has the intellectual ability to get a teaching degree. Yes, the person has the right kind of caring and patience to be a youth counselor. At least, the astrological chart indicates the person does. Just as I am amazed at how resourceful people are in finding the ‘right’ kind of work, I am equally amazed at the normal human terror so many of us have of sharing our gifts. Sometimes I think there must be a vast nationwide conspiracy convincing people that they are not going to be allowed to do what they like and are good at.
3. Timing’s important. The aspiration may be exquisitely valid, astrologically speaking, but the timing may be terrible–again, astrologically speaking. Sometimes a woman with two kids, no husband, inadequate health insurance, and a whole lot of bills is not realistically going to be able to pursue that degree in education right now. It doesn’t mean that she won’t be able to later. But there are steps that will need to be taken first. When I do consultations, my first priority is to try to hear the person’s own intuitive sense of how their chart works for them. My second priority is to validate people when they need validation and encouragement to be themselves. But my third priority is to give people a realistic sense of timing. If a person wanted to be a doctor, it would not serve her to expect to make the decision and then start practicing medicine the next day. It takes a long time to acquire the necessary education and credentials. Charts are often constructed with their own ‘long-term’ processes. Sometimes it takes a lot of life experience and maturing to be an effective entrepreneur or youth counselor or even artist. When a chart says ‘not right now,’ to a dream, it does not mean ‘never, you arrogant fool.’ It means ‘not right now.’ Part of my job is giving a person a sense of when ‘yes, right now’ can be expected to occur, when opportunities will open up.
4. Confusion works. Many, many people start down a career path and end up dissatisfied at some point. And with the dissatisfaction comes confusion. Confusion is a good thing. It is not a pleasant thing; I personally hate it. I would abolish it from the astrological lexicon if I could, but I can’t and thank goodness. Confusion is incredibly effective, and often a signal that a major career upgrade/breakthrough is in the offing. Confusion and stuckness are two of mankind’s greatest friends, which kinda makes you wonder why we need enemies. If you come to me for a career consultation, you will probably want me to make the confusion vanish instantly. And I won’t. But I can tell you how long the confusion needs to last, how to make the confusion productive, and I can help you understand why the confusion is so valuable. Basically, it means your chart is working on something big, and you’ll gain from cooperating. You just need to know how.
5. Honesty works, too. Honesty is often painful for us humans, and strangely it is often acutely painful when it comes to what we want out of work. I don’t know how or why so many of us seem to end up in environments that tell us that we ought to value things that we don’t, but somehow we do. A woman with a chart that wants to make money and be a powerful business owner somehow is raised in an environment that wants her to be an altruistic homemaker. She wants to rule the world of plumbing supplies and yet she’s told that only greedy people make money and she should teach inner city schoolchildren. A man who doesn’t care if he ever makes enough money to support a family, who would be happy traveling the world as a folk singer, is told he needs to be the accountant in a family business. A natural freelancer is encouraged to get a steady job. A woman who wants nothing more than to be an administrative assistant with a satisfying family life is told she needs to get a law degree and make partner. I see this all the time. The first step to finding one’s ‘right livelihood’ is often admitting that you don’t want to save the world, make a mint, be poor, dress for success, get a job with good benefits, plan for the future, or whatever other truly admirable thing your parents have told you that you must want but you just don’t.
Given our conditioning, it’s not surprising that it’s often hard to figure out how to make our talents work with the world around us. Coming to terms with our true vocational natures is not always easy. But boy does it feel good when you get up the courage to do it.
5 More Things to Know About Choosing the ‘Right’ Career.
6. It’s Not the Right Career, It’s the Career for Right Now. As a kid, I internalized the idea that when you grew up you became something (like a baseball team manager or a writer) and then you stayed that thing forever. As boomers have experienced, this is no longer the cultural ideal for a lot of reasons. And it never really was the ‘natural’ human pattern. Baseball managers start as baseball players. Movie stars become directors. Businesspeople become politicians. Teachers open dry cleaning businesses. Nightclub owners become journalists. People’s lives and careers change over time. They’re meant to. I’ve read non-astrological sources more than once that talk about apparent ‘internal clocks’ that prompt people to change careers or jobs every so often. I see a handy guidebook to those internal clocks in a person’s chart. They’re important.
7. Know Your Own Job Expiration Date. This goes along with the idea of the internal clocks above. People will often sense in a visceral emotional way (often accompanied by great discontent) when their ability to do a certain job happily has expired. This is not a rational event (although it can be predicted astrologically); it just happens. When it does happen, you need to take action if you want to move to the next level. When I see people who have ended up spending a lot of time in jobs or careers they didn’t like, it often seems to be because they didn’t move when the ticking time bomb inside them said “MOVE!” The internal clock will only tick loudly for a certain period of time (often the length of an outer planet transit). If you don’t act when the time for action is ripe, eventually you and your chart will reconcile to your situation. This is absolutely fine if what you have decided that you want is security or steady employment in the same place for a long time. You can have that if you’re willing to endure these ‘move’ periods.
However, these days I do caution people that staying too long can actually be a career detriment in today’s market and lead to loss of opportunities for promotion and income growth. A person who sits out their discontent for too long can become seen as being difficult to retrain for a promotion, as unambitious, or as inflexible. This comment isn’t based on astrology by the way–just observation of the job market! At the least looking for ways to be promoted when your job clock expires is more prudent than doing nothing.
8. Frustration and Resistance Lead to Best Results. This rule isn’t ironclad but it seems to come into play about 80% of the time and it can be very comforting to know about when you’re trying to change jobs or careers. Briefly, it works like this. The best time to make a change is often during a difficult transit. These transits provide the desire for change, but they also provide obstacles to making the change quickly and easily. You have to work for it. Even a change initiated during an ‘easy’ transit often requires jumping through intimidating hoops. These hoops are a good sign! For example, you are given an opportunity, out of the blue, to design a website for a respected local firm. Since you want to be a website designer, this is great! The catch is that you have to spend money you barely have on a software package you’re not familiar with and produce mockups in 48 hours utilizing formats and conventions you’ve never used before. Panic time!
Panic time is good. Panic lets you know whether this is what you want or not. If you panic and produce the mock-ups, you’re on your way. Same thing applies for not getting the first 6 jobs you apply for, including the dream job you saw advertised. Rejection is painful but not a bad omen. On the other hand, occasionally it will seem like everything is just falling into place and you just scored a job that’s too good to be true, almost without effort. And then the company goes out of business in six months and you’re stuck without insurance, your last paycheck, or even unemployment benefits. Beware that which is too easy and do not fear that which seems to be too hard.
9. It’s Not in A Government Handbook. Conventional career counseling often attempts to match your skills and interests according to some test (or set of tests) to identifiable currently existing occupations, often those listed in government publications like the Occupational Outlook Handbook. To some degree, any type of career discussion has to take into account common careers that people are familiar with. But… in real life, when I see people who feel satisfied with their career paths, what they do isn’t exactly something listened in the OOH. They’re a chiropractor, yes, but a chiropractor in a group practice that specializes in health promotion publications, and they think of themselves as part of a team of ‘alternative health educators.’ You can’t find that niche in a government handbook, and being any old chiropractor doesn’t fit the needs of the chart.
The things that people actually do for a living never stop amazing me–so many of them I’ve never heard of, and I can’t imagine that a career interests to job matching service would be able to do as well as these people have done by allowing themselves to make the right choices as opportunities presented themselves. I’m not sure you can plan to be an international insurance product inventor (the perfect niche for one chart), but you can help yourself stumble into the right spot.
For one thing, lots of people today are working in jobs that didn’t exist 20 years ago, and by the same token, jobs that are lucrative today may be dead occupations in 15 or 30 years. I mean, no one worked for Google or MySpace or YouTube in 1992. And it’s possible that no one will work for some of these companies in 2024. So having a vision of what you want would feel like (something you can often generate by working with your astrological potentials) can be a better guide for successful decisions than you might think.
10. It’s Not Just What You’re Interested In. There are a lot of ways to identify the things you are interested in or have talents for. I wouldn’t discount any of them, including ways to assess your own skills. As far as I’m concerned, you might as well avail yourself of all the self-knowledge resources you can. But I’ll add the caveat that it often seems to me that in chart terms, it is not just what a person is interested in. Sometimes, it’s even what a person isn’t interested in.
Charts (or the lives of people with charts) often seem to gravitate with an invisible pull toward industries and sectors represented by certain sign or house energies, even if a person has no real awareness of an interest in that field. This phenomenon would take too long to explain in a post, but I’ll give the example of a person I knew who somehow or another always seemed end up working in a financial services field even though he didn’t care about financial services and his own jobs had nothing to do with them. The placement of Scorpio in his chart seemed to make financial services the industry in which he could most easily find a job doing the type of tasks he actually liked to do.
In other words, you might as well be aware of the types of industry sectors your chart is pulled toward–even if that doesn’t mean you want a traditional job in that field. You may care a lot more about art than about construction, architecture, or the hotel industry. But someone has to figure out what art to put in hotels and new buildings. It’s often the ingenious combination of an interest with an industry sector that provides a satisfying niche. Sometimes finding that niche can mean a previously unattractive industry becomes attractive. Alternatively, knowing what type of sign, house or planetary energy your chart is attracted to can sometimes help you find a more enjoyable way to use it (e.g., using Scorpio energy for research instead of dealing with ‘other people’s money’). And astrology can help with that, too.
Another interesting topic, although not very astrological. I recently had an Ayurvedic consultation for a puzzling physical condition and wanted to share more about it. Ayruvedic medicine is a traditional medicine practice from India and is often used as a form of complementary medicine in the West for cancer patients and other people with chronic conditions. If you’ve ever heard of doshas or looked into Deepak Chopra’s writings, you’ve undoubtedly run across references to Ayurvedic principles.
My guest for this podcast is a recent graduate of an esteemed medical training program in India, and she talks about the ideas and practices behind this ancient wisdom. A great introduction to a fascinating topic. Click here to listen.
Earthquakes in Japan! Nuclear crisis! Revolution in Egypt! War in Libya! Capture of Osama bin Laden! Shootout in Tucson! Union protests in Wisconsin! Flooding Mississippi!
The past several months have seen more than their share of big news events. What is going on?
In this week’s podcast, we tackle some of the astrological symbolism behind world news today.
Some of the topics addressed include:
Can astrology predict earthquakes?
Why 2011 might be more rocky than the so-called doomsday year of 2012
Global structural reform
What does the Uranus square Pluto configuration mean to you?
Egypt, Libya & the Middle East
Union-busting in Wisconsin
The symbolism of the Japanese nuclear crisis
and more….
The guest is Scott Wolfram, an evolutionary astrologer and relocation specialist.
We’re living in interesting times. Learn a little bit more about them.
I get asked about past lives a lot. Clients or potential clients often say to me things like “Do you do past lives too?” or “I want to know if this person I am having troubles with was linked to me in past life,” or they want to know what their karma is and so on.
I’m not an expert in past lives. I know, as most mainstream astrologers do, that the south node is often considered to be an indicator of a person’s roles in past lives. But truthfully, I do most of my work with a person’s current life. I have more than enough (way more than enough sometimes) information to work with about a person’s current life. Plus, most of the people I know have their hands full with one life at a time, let alone delving into other ones!
But that doesn’t mean we aren’t all curious about past lives. Most of us are. I’ve had past life regression sessions a few times and I’ve even conducted a few. Since so many people have asked me to present more information on past lives, I decided to address them in a podcast as requested. I interviewed an expert in past life regression, a Board certified hypotherapist and member of the International Board for Regression Therapy, Marilyn Redmond.
Marilyn uses past life regression for therapeutic purposes, to help people uncover phobias, understand their psychological problems, and even fix practical situations in their own lives regarding health and relationships and so on. She talks about what happens in past life regression session and what kinds of lives she uncovers. If you’ve ever curious about what happens during past life regression, listen here.
The latest podcast is up. It features Atala Toy, president of Crystal Life Technologies. This company has a website that is a gem gazers dream. It has tons of items to browse and lots of information on the properties of various crystals, stones, and other tools. Even if you’re not in the mood to buy right now, it’s a wonderful place to window shop and learn about various natural healing technologies.
During the podcast, Atala covers a lot of information on crystals and how they work, how to choose stones for your needs, information on chakras and other fun stuff.
In honor of Neptune in Pisces, I’m posting a podcast on dreams and dream interpretation. We have an odd combination of influences in the coming era. One, Neptune in Pisces, is the ‘sleep, perchance to dream’ influence that opens up the collective consciousness to a greater understanding of the subconscious mind (a hot topic in scientific research these days, by the way). The other influence, Uranus in Aries, is the ‘wake-up call’ influence.
One use of that combination of energies is to take what’s learned from exploration of the subconscious and translate it into effective action on the conscious plane. Understanding your dreams can be a great way to learn from the subconscious, as I know from personal experience. I have used dreams in my own life to significant effect.
My guest on the podcast is Michele Avanti. She’s an astrologer, author, and also the creator of an accredited university course on dream interpretation, one that she taught for 16 years. She’ll give a handy explanation of how you can interpret your own dreams.
You can find out more about Michele at her websites: www.talesoftamoor.com and astrologyandmore.blogspot.com. Here’s a link to her Facebook page as well. Enjoy!
In honor of my Venus transit, I’m posting a couple of podcasts and something that Venus just loves: jewelry and pretty things. This week’s podcast has a fascinating interview with Alicia Katz of wearyouruniverse.com who is a former astronomer turned astrology fan. That doesn’t happen too often! She makes astrologically correct jewelry. You can get an actual representation of your birth chart in the form of a necklace or bracelet. She also designs and sells a number of other astrology-themed baubles and adornments. Some of them can be used to up your manifestation mojo in a desired area.
Next week, we delve into Vedic gemology. Vedic astrology has a long tradition of using jewelry and gemstones to correct problems in a birth chart, enhance luck, overcome difficulties or bring about desired results. Our guest is a Vedic astrologer specializing in Vedic gemology, Alan Schoenfeld of vedicharmony.com. A former jeweler, he talks about the ins and outs of choosing Vedic gemstones, how to use them, how they relate to the colors of the spectrum and other fascinating stuff.
Gotta love the pretty rocks!
Ever wondered what those moon’s node thingies are doing in your chart? Or maybe you know a little bit about them but don’t know how to use them in transits or how to interpret aspects to them in your natal chart.
This week’s podcast has an interview with a woman who’s done years of research into the function and uses of the moon’s nodes in astrology, including checking the differences between the mean nodes and the true nodes. Her name is Donna Van Toen, and she’s even written a book on the nodes. She teaches many classes, including classes online and runs an astrology conference called State of the Art (SOTA). In 2011, it will be held in Niagra Falls, NY October 27-30 and will feature many international speakers.
You can take a look at www.donnavantoen.com for information on last year’s (SOTA) conference. Recordings of last year’s sessions are available. Contact Donna at dvantoen@rogers.com or through Facebook for more information. She’ll be happy to give you info, although be warned she gets a lot of requests, so it may take awhile–but she will respond to every one.
p.s. I found Donna through Donna Cunningham’s blog, one you should check out if you’re interested in learning more about astrology.
I also had a great time with Todd Bates on the Haunted Voices Radio Network the other night. We talked astrology for almost 2 hours and took questions. You can listen to it here: Haunted Voices Radio Network. My part begins about 20 minutes into the show. You can also check out the network and donate at hvrnc.com. Good stuff, please support them.
I said in this week’s podcast that the post-Christmas week would be pretty crazy and boy is it, at least for anyone traveling in the Northeast US. In fact, people all over the world have been stuck, stranded, inconvenienced and trapped by weather lately. Floods in Australia, chaos at Russian airports. Not to mention many parts of the US blizzardized and the western US soaked and mudslided. An amazing number of people have been affected.
I’m blaming Jupiter conjunct Uranus, not to mention eclipses and Mercury Rx adding to the general confusion. You may know that Jupiter is a patron planet of travel, but did you know that he is also associated with the weather?
Now that he’s hugging Uranus in a tight embrace into January 2010, he’s expressing himself in a number of weather related ways. Pisces is a water sign so he’s enlarging the general disruption (Uranus) that precipitation can bring. In Pisces, Jupiter also loves chaos, and I suppose travel chaos would be a specialty for him. Uranus is the crazy planet, and with Jupiter at his side, it’s just really crazy. True to Jupiter form, the wackiness hasn’t really been lethal, but it sure has been forcing people to slow down when they weren’t expecting to.
Knowing that this would be a week when we’d be forced to slow down, like it or not, this week’s podcast is all about The Art of Slowing Down. My guest, Edward Yu, wrote a book on that very topic and he describes a phenomenon wherein learning can be instantaneous when we slow down enough. Pretty darn intriguing. And very Jupiter/Uranus–because they’re all about insight and instantaneous learning–even if they have to disrupt our patterns to make it possible.
This week’s podcast features an interview with Hazel Dixon-Cooper (www.hazeldixoncooper.com), author of the very popular “Rotten Day” series of astrology books. In her books, Hazel takes a humorous look at the ‘rotten’ qualities of the sun signs in various settings. The first book, Born on a Rotten Day, was such a success that it spawned three more books and landed Hazel a job as the Bedside Astrologer columnist for Cosmpolitan magazine. She’s now the daily horoscope astrologer for cosmpolitan.com.
In the interview, Hazel talks about her most recent book, the timely Work on a Rotten Day. Hazel also gives us insight into what goes into those daily horoscopes you read in newspapers, magazines, or online. She gives some great advice on what it takes to succeed in your job or avocation as well as giving us her insights into the current retrograde/eclipse formation we have going on right now.
PLUS! Hazel generously offered to give away a free copy of Work on a Rotten Day to one lucky listener. Listen to the end of the podcast to find out the super-simple way to enter.
Hazel was a lot of fun to talk to; I hope you all enjoy this podcast. Click here to listen. It’s also available on iTunes.
