In episode 278 astrologers Chris Brennan and Leisa Schaim look back at the astrology of the 2020 US presidential election, and reflect on what we learned as astrologers, now that the outcome is known. In the first part of the episode we discuss the much-anticipated Mercury retrograde period, which stationed direct on election day, and coincided with delays in determining the outcome of the election. Then we review some technical factors in the birth charts of the candidates that worked in showin...
Nov 12, 2020•2 hr 45 min
In episode 277 astrologers Kelly Surtees, Austin Coppock, and Chris Brennan look at the astrological forecast for November of 2020. The astrology of November features Mercury stationing direct on November 3, which happens to be election day in the US, plus Mars stationing direct in Aries mid-month, the final Jupiter-Pluto conjunction in Capricorn, and a lunar eclipse in Gemini. We spend a bit of time reviewing some of the things that have been happening in the news over the past with the Mercury...
Oct 29, 2020•2 hr 29 min
In episode 276 astrologer Jessica Lanyadoo joins the show to talk about Mercury retrograde and what it means in astrology. Mercury retrograde periods occur when the planet Mercury begins moving backwards in the zodiac for about three weeks every few months. Astrologers generally associate Mercury retrograde periods with miscommunication, delays, technological snafus, and other issues in the areas associated with Mercury. During the course of the show we talk about the significations of Mercury, ...
Oct 25, 2020•2 hr 34 min
In episode 275 astrologer Kirah Tabourn joins the show to talk about the concept of dividing groups into of people into generations astrologically, and looking at the different sub-generations of millennials based on their Saturn sign. At the start of discussion we talk about how modern astrologers divide different demographic cohorts based on what sign of the zodiac Pluto was in when they were born, such as the Baby Boomer generation that tended to coincide with Pluto in Leo. Later we focus on ...
Oct 18, 2020•2 hr 18 min
In episode 274 of the podcast Chris Brennan gives a detailed overview of the concept of sect in astrology, which is the difference between day and night birth charts. Sect is a fundamental concept that was used in Hellenistic astrology, but it has only been recovered by contemporary astrologers over the past 30 years through translations of ancient texts. The purpose of this talk is to give a broad introduction to sect, first by establishing how pervasive the concept is in ancient astrology, and...
Oct 14, 2020•3 hr 7 min
In episode 273 astrologers Leisa Schaim and Chris Brennan answer some questions about astrology that were submitted by listeners of the podcast. Some of the topics we covered in this episode include whether you should learn natal or horary astrology first, how to determine the sect of charts where the birth was close to sunrise or sunset, the ethics of reading the birth charts of children. We also discussed placements in the difficult houses, such as the 6th, 8th, or 12th house, as well as other...
Sep 28, 2020•2 hr 45 min
In episode 272 astrologers Kelly Surtees, Austin Coppock, and Chris Brennan look at the astrological forecast for October of 2020. The forecast for October features Mars retrograde in Aries squaring Saturn, Pluto, and Jupiter, as well as a Mercury retrograde station opposite Uranus, and a Full Moon conjunct Uranus. With all of the Uranus and Mercury retrograde signatures, our working title for this month is October Surprise. Later in the episode we talk about some ambivalence surrounding the Jup...
Sep 24, 2020•2 hr 19 min
In episode 271 astrologer Melanie Reinhart joins the show to talk about her pioneering work on the minor planet Chiron in astrology. Melanie is the author of the book Chiron and the Healing Journey, which was originally published in 1989, and is now in its fourth edition. Chiron was discovered on November 1, 1977, and Melanie was one of a number of astrologers who soon after began researching its astrological meaning. During the course of the interview we talk about Melanie's background in astro...
Sep 16, 2020•2 hr 11 min
In episode 270 astrologers Chris Brennan and Leisa Schaim discuss which techniques you can use in natal astrology to interpret a birth chart even when you don't have a birth time. Western astrology has focused very heavily on using timed birth charts since about the 1st century BCE, and there are many techniques in natal astrology that can only be employed if you know a person's exact time of birth. While in many western countries the birth time is usually recorded on a person's birth certificat...
Sep 08, 2020•1 hr 27 min
In episode 269 astrologers Kelly Surtees, Austin Coppock, and Chris Brennan look at the astrological forecast for September of 2020. September is one of the more crucial and tense months that we identified back in our year-ahead forecast, due to Mars stationing retrograde in Aries and squaring Saturn, Jupiter, and Pluto in Capricorn. This month will also see Jupiter and Saturn stationing direct in Capricorn, and beginning their final run through that sign between now and December. We spend the f...
Aug 30, 2020•2 hr 31 min
In episode 268 of the podcast Dr. Martin Gansten joins the show to talk about his new translation of a 17th century Sanskrit text on Tajika astrology, which focuses on annual predictive techniques derived from medieval Arabic sources. Martin is a historian of religion as well as a Sanskrit scholar, who specializes in the study of the history and transmission of ancient astrology. Earlier this month he published The Jewel of Annual Astrology: A Parallel Sanskrit-English Critical Edition of Balabh...
Aug 23, 2020•2 hr 50 min
In episode 267 astrologer and scholar Levente László joins the show to talk about his new translation project for ancient Greek astrological texts, and to discuss some of the translations he has completed so far. Levente is classical philologist from Hungary, and he recently launched the Horoi Project, which is a crowdfunding project to translate ancient astrological texts that survive from the Hellenistic and Byzantine astrological traditions: https://www.patreon.com/horoiproject/ During the co...
Aug 13, 2020•2 hr 33 min
In episode 266 astrologer Carole Taylor joins the show to talk about aspect patterns in astrology, such as the T-square, grand trine, and yod. Aspect patterns occur when three or more planets are aligned with each other in a chart through close geometrical configurations. Carole is the author of my new favorite introduction to astrology book, titled Astrology: Using the Wisdom of the Stars in Your Everyday Life, which contains a brief chapter on aspect patterns. We spent the first 30 minutes of ...
Aug 05, 2020•2 hr 23 min
In episode 265 astrologers Kelly Surtees, Austin Coppock, and Chris Brennan look at the astrological forecast for August of 2020, as well as the birth chart of Walter Mercado. The astrology of August features Mars moving into its shadow and making the first of three sets of squares to Jupiter, Pluto, and Saturn, as well as a Full Moon in Aquarius square Uranus, and Mercury and Venus finally moving out of their long trips through Cancer and Gemini. We start of with the forecast for August right a...
Jul 30, 2020•2 hr 17 min
In episode 264 of the podcast Chris Brennan and Benjamin Dykes discuss the origins of the concept of detriment in ancient Hellenistic and Medieval astrology. Years ago I noted that that the origins of the concept of detriment are somewhat mysterious, because it is mentioned infrequently by the Hellenistic astrologers, and not usually defined along with the other classical "essential dignities" of domicile, exaltation, and fall. Then suddenly in the work of Rhetorius of Egypt, the last major Hell...
Jul 28, 2020•2 hr 4 min
In episode 263 astrologer Bear Ryver joins the show to talk about intersectionality as a framework for approaching astrology, working with clients, and the astrological community. Intersectionality is a term that was first coined in a legal context by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, to explain the way in which people can experience multiple overlapping forms of discrimination at the same time. The term has since been expanded in order to understand how the intersection of race, class, gender, and oth...
Jul 17, 2020•1 hr 59 min
Episode 262 features an interview with astrologers Basil Fearrington and Kathy Rose about the life and work of the astrologer Noel Tyl. Noel Tyl was one of the most prolific astrologers of the late 20th and early 21st century, having authored around 30 books. He passed away last year, on December 31, 2019, the day he turned 83 years old. I almost did an interview with him last fall, but it didn't come together, and I regretted having missed the opportunity. In order to make up for it I decided t...
Jul 11, 2020•2 hr 32 min
Episode 261 features astrologers Kelly Surtees, Austin Coppock, and Chris Brennan giving an overview of the astrological forecast for July of 2020. The astrology of July features Mars starting its long transit through Aries, Saturn moving back into Capricorn, a lunar eclipse in Capricorn, and Mercury squaring Mars most of the month. We begin the episode by reviewing the astrology of the second quarter of the year, focusing on Saturn's ingress into Aquarius where it began squaring Uranus, which s...
Jun 30, 2020•2 hr 46 min
In episode 260 astrologers Leisa Schaim and Chris Brennan discuss the first steps you should take when trying to interpret a birth chart, and which astrological factors you should focus on in natal astrology. New students of astrology often learn a number of different techniques, but they are often unsure of the order and priority that you should give to different factors when you are first looking at a new chart. Since there are many different approaches to astrology, astrologers will tend to d...
Jun 25, 2020•2 hr 4 min
On episode 259 of the podcast astrologer Sam Reynolds joins the show to discuss the issue of racism in America, and to talk about some related topics that have come up in the astrological community in the past two weeks. These discussions resulted from the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, and the resulting protests across the United States. In the first part of the show we discuss some of the underlying issues in the country related to systemic racism and police violence, while later we t...
Jun 10, 2020•2 hr 15 min
In episode 258 of the podcast astrologer Diana Rose Harper joins the show to talk about her work in using natal astrology as a form of radical-self care. This discussion was based on a talk that Diana gave at the Northwest Astrological Conference last month titled Fierce Compassion: Natal Astrology as Radical Self-Care. Radical self-care is a way of thinking about self-care that goes beyond the most surface level of self-care that most people think of when they hear that term today. The focus is...
Jun 09, 2020•1 hr 59 min
In episode 257 astrologers Kelly Surtees and Austin Coppock join the show to talk about the astrological alignments coming up in June of 2020. The month features the second half of the Venus retrograde in Gemini, as well as eclipses in Sagittarius and Cancer, Mercury stationing retrograde, the second of three Jupiter-Pluto conjunctions, and Mars entering Aries where it will stay for the next six months. This episode is available in both audio and video versions below. Timestamps The first 45 min...
May 31, 2020•2 hr 35 min
Episode 256 of the podcast features an interview with astrologers Laura Nalbanian and Nicholas Polimenakos about the recent Northwest Astrological Conference (NORWAC), which was moved online recently for the first time in its 36 year history due to the pandemic. NORWAC is normally an in-person conference that takes place in Seattle on Labor Day weekend at the end of May each year. It was originally founded in 1984 by Laura's mother, Maggie Nalbandian, who was profiled in episode 75 of The Astrol...
May 29, 2020•1 hr 51 min
In episode 255 of the podcast astrologers Chris Brennan and Benjamin Dykes unveil a new discovery about the origins of the exaltations, derived from a lost Hermetic text preserved by Abu Ma'shar. Last summer Keiji Yamamoto and Charles Burnett released their long-awaited translation of The Great Introduction to Astrology by the 9th century astrologer Abu Ma'shar. This was the first time this text has been translated into English in its entirety. I received my copy on July 30, 2019, and the most i...
May 16, 2020•2 hr 31 min
In episode 254 astrologers Chris Brennan and Leisa Schaim discuss a recent article in the New York Times that claimed that astrologers did not predict the recent worldwide crisis, and some of the related issues with coverage of astrology in the media, as well as the practice of mundane astrology. The starting point for this discussion was an article that was published in the New York Times on May 9, 2020 titled Will Coronavirus Kill Astrology? The author primarily focuses on the Sun-sign astrolo...
May 11, 2020•2 hr 29 min
In episode 253 astrologers Kelly Surtees and Austin Coppock join the show to talk about the astrological forecast for May of 2020. Most of the action this month happens in the second full week of May, when Saturn stations direct, Mars completes its conjunction with Saturn by moving out of Aquarius and into Pisces, Venus stations retrograde in Gemini, and Jupiter stations retrograde conjunct Pluto in Capricorn. At the top of the show we spend about an hour catching up and talking about news that ...
Apr 30, 2020•2 hr 49 min
In episode 252 astrologer Nina Gryphon joins the show to talk about question of what is the correct birth chart for the United States, and to review some of the different possible charts that are available. While this sounds like a simple question, there are actually a number of different birth dates and birth times that are possible candidates for the founding of the United States as country, and each of these options yield slightly or sometimes extremely different planetary placements. The pur...
Apr 29, 2020•1 hr 57 min
Episode 251 features an interview with astrologer Becca Tarnas where we talk about her work on the Red Book of Carl Jung, as well as the connection between outer planet cycles and recent world events. Becca practices archetypal astrology, and is the current editor of Archai: The Journal of Archetypal Cosmology, which recently released its seventh issue in January, titled Historical Roots and Current Flowerings. During the course of the interview we talk about her background in archetypal astrolo...
Apr 25, 2020•2 hr 24 min
Episode 250 features a lecture by the late astrologer Alan White on an introduction to Hellenistic astrology, followed by an audio interview with Alan about his life and work from 2010. Alan began studying astrology seriously in the 1980s, and then in the mid-1990s he discovered Project Hindsight and developed a deep interest in ancient astrology. He created an introductory lecture on Hellenistic astrology using a flip chart that he presented at a number of astrological meetings in the 2000s, an...
Apr 21, 2020•2 hr 49 min
