The Astrology of Family Karma and Relationships

Cosmic Conversations: Guest Astrologer Steven Forrest on Astrology & Astronomy

Alexander Mallon Season 2 Episode 6

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Alexander Mallon welcomes renowned Astrologer Steven Forrest for an illuminating conversation exploring the fascinating intersection between astronomy and astrology. Together they trace their parallel journeys, from childhood telescope enthusiasts to 'Spiritual Sky Watchers' who discovered deeper meaning in celestial observation.

• As cautious Capricorns, both Steven and Alexander began as astronomy enthusiasts who recognized something was "looking back" when observing planets and stars

• Both share a passion for integrating direct observation with astrological interpretation

• As Steven describes, the astronomical sky itself is "the original ephemeris", and provides insights that technical astrology sometimes misses

• Forrest's School of Evolutionary Astrology views birth charts as reflections of the soul's journey across multiple lifetimes

• The Neptune archetype represents the boundary between ego and cosmic consciousness - "the window through which we look into deep space"


• Birth charts simultaneously describe this incarnation's potential and the accumulated karma from previous lifetimes


• Evolutionary astrology focuses on growth opportunities rather than rigid predictions



Learn more about Stephen Forrest's work at:

 ForrestAstrology.Center.com 


Find out about YOUR important chart placements !

~Alexander can be contacted for Consultation and Coaching sessions. You may contact him via his email: info@astrologyspirit.com or website: https://www.astrologyspirit.com/

You can view his offerings and book directly here: https://www.astrologyspirit.com/book-online

Thank you for listening!
Alexander & Sheila

Speaker 1:

Okay, well, welcome again to the Astrology of Family, Karma and Relationships podcast. I'm your host, Alexander Mallon, and today we have a special guest who really needs no introduction, someone who has really become a foundation of modern Western astrology Stephen Forrest. Thank you so much, Stephen, for coming and sharing with us today.

Speaker 2:

I'm happy to be here, Alexander.

Speaker 1:

So nice to have you, so I've got a couple of slides for those people who are watching on our YouTube channel. Today our talking is kind of loose. I think Stephen and I were chatting before hitting the record button and we're really kind of going to just rap about astrology and astronomy, since I I know that steven and I share passions in both areas, so maybe our title, steven, could be astrology and astronomy unified, you know, sort of a general chat. I do want to also say, for those people who are watching and listening, that steven uh forest is a, an american astrologer, author of well over a dozen books, I think about 16 or 17 books.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, 17 books now.

Speaker 1:

Good, gracious, amazing and the founder of the School of Evolutionary Astrology. So by all means, if you feel inclined, please tell us about yourself or anything you want to share, maybe your recent publication, Well gee where to start.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'll talk about where I actually started with astrology, and it was with astronomy. My first memory, or very close to my first memory, is a child was asking Santa Claus to bring me a telescope, and what I had in mind was the Mont Palomar Observatory. What my parents, who represented Santa Claus, understood was I wanted like a little spyglass, and so that's what I got. I was pretty disappointed, but shortly after that I got myself a little 60 millimeter refractor, the old 2.4 inch refractor telescope, you know that long and you know, began to just observe the heavens.

Speaker 2:

And you know this is the 1950s, early 60s, and the world was still pretty conservative in those days and I was being raised conventionally. So I was like kind of a science kid. I was doing science, you know, looking for the telescope, and those are not dirty words to me, even today. But I intuitively began to get this feeling that when I'm looking at planets, when I'm looking at galaxies, that it's like something was looking back at me. And I'm not thinking of the little green man all voices, but they're out there too.

Speaker 2:

But somehow I was looking at conscious things, which is blasphemy, you know, from a 20th century science point of view, but of course an ancient idea. You know the Gaia hypothesis that the cosmos is a living being, the cosmos is a consciousness. And looking through telescopes with your heart open, you know that perception, which is the heart of astrology, really the wellspring of astrology. It just flooded into my consciousness and changed me forever. That's why I didn't turn out to be a scientist.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, I love that because you know my rap is that when I was eight and a half, my dad, a military guy, had his pair of binoculars and a bird feeder and I was fascinated and I memorized the Eastern Bird Guide in about three or four weeks. Eventually my dad got us into the Audubon Society, of course, but from there, you know, I built a microscope and then started building telescopes when I was in my very early teens. I didn't grind optics, but I did climb the creaky stairs to A Jaeger's optical supply house and had quite a fun encounter with the German guys who were quite German back then. They were very rigorous in their work. So I too started with as a Capricorn myself as well.

Speaker 1:

I started studying astrology because as a backyard astronomer, a telescope builder, people would say, oh, you're an astrologer, and I'd say no, no, no, no, I'm an amateur backyard astronomer. I thought, well, I better study this astrology business so I can kind of get people thinking straight here, get their thinking scientifically accurate. And within two weeks I thought wait a second. This is an incredible experience. This astrology is way more than I knew that it could possibly be. So that was, you know, five decades ago. But yeah, similarly that passion for the night sky.

Speaker 1:

When I was four and a half, I wanted a trampoline never got one, and I wanted a telescope. We couldn't possibly afford it, but as I got older I started building them. So, yeah, the same thing I do, stephen. Still, I honestly think between you and I when I go to astronomy star parties, which I do three or four times a year, I think a lot of those amateur astronomers who are, by and large, almost always not into astrology I think they're experiencing that sense of Gaia, that mystery. I think that they're experiencing that sense of Gaia, that mystery. I think that they're actually getting more of a sort of a humane and human download from their backyard observing, than they might know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think so. The world is changing. For astrology it's just, you know, I'm 76 and I've watched us go from marginalized to sort of objects of interest and curiosity, you know, not exactly acceptance, but I've been encountering much more open mindedness, you know, among kind of mainstream people, which is wonderful. It's the result of the hard work that we've all been doing.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. There's been a radical shift and of course I don't know if you agree, but astrologically, a lot of the well. Indeed, the Pluto-Neptune-Uranian cycles that we're having in the US chart, for example, are kind of replications of big turning points, and big turning points in the 60s.

Speaker 2:

by all means, so we're kind of having that.

Speaker 1:

I haven't seen the bell bottoms come back yet, but astrology seems to be making a sort of 60s comeback, you know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, definitely, we can see interesting things in the US chart. Fair enough, that's quite accurate. But I would also point out that this is not a US phenomenon. You know, this is international, this is global.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely by all means. That's a sort of fundamental, I think, because of course I'm, like so many Americans, ameri-centric and most of my clients are here in the US, the great majority that. The last few years I've been really looking at the US chart with their chart a great deal. It's almost as a matter of norm now where for decades and decades there was a sense of US autonomy that if you wanted to become an astrologer or whatever, you could follow your passion. But we're having cycles now that I think are kind of superseding or overarching, as we have had in different chapters. So I oftentimes will have my client's chart and a US chart as well to discuss these larger cycles as you just alluded to.

Speaker 2:

My work has become quite international. My books are translated a lot. I travel to other countries fairly often to teach my clients. I don't do a statistical analysis here but I would say 35-40% of my clients are not from the United States at this point and I appreciate that. You know it's easy, as in America I mean we're cancer, you know, and surrounded by oceans and you know, et cetera and it's easy to become very insular as an American and I'm happy that life has kind of disabused me of that.

Speaker 1:

Well, good for you, absolutely. I've only kind of have a taste of that in my life and in my practice. So wonderful for you to be sure to clarify that this wonderful unified world is really where we are. I kind of always think of it, as you know, connected to this gizmo.

Speaker 2:

And I connected to this gizmo in my back pocket Exactly. And when I first started traveling internationally I was worried that maybe my values and my experience and so on were so conditioned by being an American hippie essentially. You know, that's kind of my roots and that's a very specific worldview and I was afraid that when I got to Istanbul or something or Shanghai they would have no idea what I was talking about and delightfully I found that wasn't true. You know that this language is so universal that no matter what culture a person is in, they get it. I've learned to try to sound a little less American. You know like inside American jokes that aren't going to work in Istanbul or Shanghai but it's not too hard to edit those out.

Speaker 2:

And the basic human stuff of you know, work and love. You know the two things that everybody's driven by and concerned about. You know there's different cultural angles but the astrological language cuts through that and right to the heart of the matter. Tears in their eyes. You know, as I talk about this stuff pretty much no matter what country I'm in, it's encouraging. You know, one world, one people. That was the dedication of my first book.

Speaker 1:

Well, I love that. I love that and you know that partly prompted my reaching out to you to join me today was listening to a number of podcasts, like with Chris Brennan and so forth, that you've done Over the years. Of course, I've seen you at conferences and had the luck to hear you speak and share. Seen you at conferences and had the luck to hear you speak and share. But I do see some important parallels and things that I really identify with and appreciate in your work. So maybe at this point, before we go any further, could you share a little bit about your School of Evolutionary Astrology and what's sort of behind those ideas.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, yeah, it's real exciting. We kind of started putting it together during the COVID time and it's an online school. We've got a couple hundred active students at any given moment, a large staff of tutors, forest with two R's, forestastrologycenter, you know. As the website can learn all about it, I'll put your data on the program notes. By the way, basically, my drive to start the school is me being aware of where I am in the life cycle. I'm getting older and so eventually I'm not here anymore.

Speaker 2:

And to keep the flame burning of this kind of astrology, I don't use asteroids that much, but they're interesting and I have Vesta, the sacred flame, right on my ascendant. And when I first discovered that, yeah, it's aysical, spiritually oriented kind of astrology, that's what puts the sacred in it, you know. So you're a Gemini, you talk too much. You're a Virgo, you're picky and critical. There's nothing sacred about that and often nothing very accurate about that kind of astrology either. So evolutionary astrology is very much its own thing, and often nothing very accurate about that kind of astrology either. So evolutionary astrology is very much its own thing and I've devoted my life to it.

Speaker 1:

So I have the impression that what drives the construct of evolutionary astrology centers around not only this incarnation, this sense of selfness in this being, this journey, but the idea of as many cultures I always say kind of tongue-in-cheek but two-thirds of the world believes in reincarnation. I think even in Christian mysticism there was a belief and references to the soul journey, to the soul journey. So what you're referring to also is that a birth chart is not only, I think, a typical Western kind of a construct, a roadmap for the soul, a roadmap of the soul, but it's literally describing the soul, is what you're saying.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, exactly, reincarnation. The belief and acceptance of reincarnation are really the cornerstone of evolutionary astrology. You're totally right about that. But often, in presenting the idea to people, to other astrologers, that's not where I like to begin. Here's where I like to begin. There's a question I like to ask. It makes almost everybody laugh and smile, except a few really defensive people. And so here it is. I hope you enjoyed this question.

Speaker 2:

Just think of how dumb you were 10 years ago. And you know, occasionally somebody is really brittle and they get peeved about that. But you know it's actually a compliment. You know, because you've got something to show for 10 years. You're wiser now than you were 10 years ago and I've never met anybody who, at least when we talk about it a little bit, can't relate to that idea. And the notion is we are evolving beings. We don't need to think in terms of reincarnation to recognize that. We can think about it in terms of our own lives. Now I'll go micro and then macro on that. Here's a question that probably has an answer, although nobody can answer it. Think how dumb you were six nanoseconds ago. You know it's too subtle for us to grasp, but it's like this sort of quantum notion, that if we're wiser after 10 years, it's incremental, step by step and each nanosecond. You know we're evolving and that's kind of the micro end and then we get into the macro territory.

Speaker 2:

So why do you have the chart that you have? Why were you born, you know, with that particular birth chart? There's two ways of answering that question that are both rational. One random chance you know I don't believe that, but that's a rational position. And the second is something made you have that chart. You know it's either random or it's not. And if something made, you have that chart, if there is a cause behind your chart that predates your birth, that doesn't prove reincarnation, but it's certainly consistent with it that wheels were turning.

Speaker 2:

Somehow A baby is born. Look into that kid's eyes. There's somebody home. You know how did that person get in there? And again, I would never present these as proofs of reincarnation, but the language of reincarnation fits smoothly into those observations. And so you are born, me, everybody, in a certain karmic predicament. We've got certain strengths and certain blind spots and they're all reflected in the chart. And the chart is the good part. The chart tells you how to get on with it. You know what your next steps are what you're learning, what your path of evolution is.

Speaker 1:

I love what you're sharing so much. So you know, of course, the title not that it's the only thing I focus on in my practice etc. Obviously there are layers for all of us, but the title of my podcast is kind of a giveaway to the central thrust of my fifth house, stellium in my Capricorn case, which is the astrology of family, karma and really how we therefore relate. So meaning, really, I think it's parallel to what you're saying, that number one how dumb was I 10 nanoseconds ago? How dumb was I compared to now, 10 years ago?

Speaker 1:

Or this idea that I share with my clients often that I think most of us subliminally, culturally, interculturally, aspire that when we're 20 or 30, we think, or 30, we think, when I'm older, when I'm 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, I will possess wisdom, I will be a bearer of wisdom. And I always say what is that being a bearer of wisdom? It eventually is more and more the ability to be out, sort of I think of Ram Dass here to be outside our body to watch our movie, to watch ourselves. I always say to my clients, very commonly I'll say, even during our session, I'm kind of practiced with intent, with intention of consciousness, to watch Alexander. Do Alexander's trip to watch Alexander. Do Alexander's trip right now with Stephen, to have the ability to watch self while being self. And there's kind of a metaphor for the chart a person's birth chart, the astronomical sky when we're born, as one of your book titles the Inner Sky, I believe.

Speaker 2:

That sky above the sky inside.

Speaker 1:

is there a difference? There is no difference. If you're born during a blizzard, if you're a Capricorn born during a blizzard, proverbial blizzard, that's one reality for mom and dad and for the infant that's arriving. If you're born I always use Bill Clinton if you're born as a Leo, during, if you're born during a Leo pool party or maybe a Bill Clinton, leo margarita party, you know, you're imprinted with that too.

Speaker 1:

So I feel like there's a couple of different layers. So I feel like there's a couple of different layers. One is this material, spiritual plane where we are experiencing this beingness, but, as you say, inherent in that moment, that chart, that moment that nine months and 12 hours of labor brings us through mom's body into this spiritual place, this physical, spiritual, Inherent in that is that time-space which you know from an astronomy standpoint, time-space. That's why I think you know a birth chart we see as a circular wheel, but really it's like a cylinder in time and space. You know, it's sort of a snapshot of a moment of that soul's journey and therefore, the chart shows everything the chart shows in medical diagnostic astrology.

Speaker 1:

It shows those genetic predispositions and potentials and at the same time it's all that immediate moment of the doing. So I think I'm hearing, in what you're sharing and some of what I think I've read about your work, this idea that, yes, we bring forward, even genetically, our soul comes to these people that have a storyline that mirrors the vibration of our soul, perhaps our soul journey. But every moment is a new moment, as you say, year by year, day by day, nanosecond by nanosecond, this consciousness piece. So I'm kind of riffing a little more than I thought I would, but that's my Mercury-Jupiter conjunction.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's working. Sorry what you're saying, what it sort of triggers creatively in me. It's a memory of what it sort of triggers creatively in me. It's a memory of a panel I was on once at some big astrology conference, a UAC or something like that. On the panel I think the basic subject was where is God in the chart? It was kind of a spiritual subject. Many of the astrologers were giving answers that made sense technically in the sort of Pisces, neptune, 12th house vein. You know the mystical symbols. But my answer was a little bit different. I said you know, visualize a birth chart.

Speaker 2:

Although the planet's a familiar look, the space outside the space outside the chart, the blank paper you know that's God. You know that's like the solar system is an analog for the human personality, in a sense the ego I'm not using that word negatively, but you know our sense of identity and then it's like what's beyond it and an adjunct to this, a big hoorah, of course, when Pluto got demoted. You know Pluto's a dwarf planet and astrologers are all peeved about that and of course we use Pluto as a planet. There's no doubt about that. But there's something I liked about it If we let Neptune be the last planet.

Speaker 2:

It's like the window through which we're looking into deep space. And we look into deep space, first thing we might see is Pluto. You know some scary stuff. But the idea of Neptune as the window which leads me to kind of a Zen question which is the windows in your house? Are they inside your house or outside your house? And of course one can make both cases and Neptune is that part of us, that part of the ego. See, there's the startling line. Neptune is part of the ego that is aware of the space outside the ego, that is aware of our spiritual natures, the unconscious mind, god, the spirit realm, the dharmakaya, you know whatever name we want to call it. But Neptune as that interface, that's the model that really makes the most sense to me.

Speaker 1:

I'm in concert with that. I think it's of course it's real. I mean it's scientifically factual. It's scientifically factual and observationally reasonable too, like in terms of a backyard astronomer, standpoint Number one, when I look through my C14 14-inch diameter telescope or my 16, but the 14's a better planetary scope really. So when I look through my C14 at Neptune, for me it really is otherworldly. It's almost sort of like Shakti hitting me. It's almost like a mini Shakti kind of experience, realizing I'm seeing this planet and its moon Triton in real time, three billion miles away. Three billion, I always have to remind myself. The moon is 230,000 miles from us. 3 billion is unfathomable. I'm making contact with this experience, this Neptune. So there's that experiential piece, that real-time piece. It's real. Pluto is just beyond the reach, in a way of being seen astronomically. I'm kind of really earthing this stuff. You know, simultaneously there's that coincidence of Neptune's discovery, I think 1843. What arose in man's experience collectively when we discover any of these planets?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's so synchronistic.

Speaker 1:

Right, that Jungian synchronicity, the coincidence, I say, of Neptune. What is Neptune to us? It's all those things that were happening in the 1800s the development of film, emulsion, the invention of chemicals and chemical states, compounds, chemical compounds and pharmacology that had never been invented before, not of nature but created of nature but synthesized. So Neptune is coincident, as we all, astrologers, give it these, we hang these sort of ideas on what Neptune is. It's about what it is for us in our experience. It's about what it is for us and our experience. So it is that liminal and subliminal crossover place.

Speaker 2:

It's an interesting thing. You're saying yeah, yeah, absolutely. And the discovery of Neptune in 1848, I believe it was exactly the rise of spiritualism, you know, in North America and Europe, the communion with the dead, you know, and Ouija boards and mediums and psychics and all of that. And you know, obviously there's some delusion and no shortage of charlatans, but there's also, you know, and no shortage of charlatans, but there's also objective reality in all of that. And the point simply is that as Neptune was discovered, as it was sort of activated in the collective mind, people began to recognize that I have this window inside myself. I can look through this window myself into the spirit realm and see spirit looking back at me. I don't need the priest to describe what he is seeing through the window and I just put money on the plate. You know that I can do this myself. And it's very difficult for us living today, in the 21st century, who take this for granted, to imagine what a revolution the discovery of Neptune represented in terms of human consciousness.

Speaker 1:

And even the well. So we know that Neptune's about altered states of consciousness, spiritual consciousness and altered awareness, or even sometimes delusional or not seen clearly or occluded or purposely occluded consciousness, as that Neptune-Saturn in 2024-25 is showing us themes about reality and unreality or was it fake news or alternative facts. But of course, neptune in that regard coincides with the human journey of not necessarily seeing things clearly or seeking to see them more clearly or understand through a different lens. And that's kind of part and parcel of, I think, when you talk about your school of evolutionary astrology, this idea of the soul's journey, I think you're saying that your work is particularly about the chart describing the soul's journey, not necessarily even this incarnate experience. In other words, I think you and I share correct me if I'm wrong I think we kind of you and I are similar in that we shy away from this idea of what I call the dirty P word, this idea of predictive astrology.

Speaker 2:

I think it's really a problematical.

Speaker 1:

It's really more rather than prediction. I call it problematical because it's set in motion a pre-construction that is not.

Speaker 2:

I don't think real.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, astrology is tied into synchronicity, of course, that essentially nothing is random. We can predict certain conditions that are likely to arise for a soul as that soul faces certain evolutionary opportunities. That sounds a little vague. Let me focus it, pardon me. If we're in a serious Mars time, you know, for example, from the evolutionary point of view, time to learn some courage, stand up for yourself, some assertiveness. It's about.

Speaker 2:

Courage Doesn't mean you will learn courage, it means you're supposed to. You know, and the opportunity to learn courage will arise and we can count on that, and implicit in that is a prediction that something scary is probably going to happen. You know because that's what it takes, you know, for us to learn courage, how we respond to that, who knows? But you know we can predict there'll be some stress, somebody's, you know abusive to you, mean to you at work. You know, maybe have an accident of some sort. We don't know exactly what it will be. Maybe we can focus it a bit with the symbols, but we'll never be terribly precise and so that's kind of my view of prediction. You know it's like I don't completely dismiss the word but I like to redefine it. You know that we'll predict the lessons that you're going to be afforded an opportunity to learn, and we can conjecture a bit about the conditions that will arise Beyond that. Who knows? It's up to you, free will.

Speaker 1:

Right, although you know, on the other hand, when in general I would lecture, speak, present to general audiences I'm sure you've done many of that in your earlier years, particularly as I did in my early years, building my practice People might inquire well, what is this? Why astrology? What are you doing? What do you think you're doing? Why a chart? What does a chart mean you think you're doing? Why a chart? What does a chart mean? So you know, maybe one of my little slides might be sort of applicable here, to just kind of talk about, literally, as a Capricorn myself, to ground it, to literally see it and ground it in some coincidence of my human experience, what I see in a chart. This goes back 30,000, 40,000 years Looking at the cycles. So when I look at a chart like the chart of the US, I use the Sibley chart. Of course I use it because of Pluto and Saturn, which I guess you would agree upon. That 9-11 chart was a pretty key thing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely, that pretty much proved it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you made a reference earlier that we are a Cancerian nation. So a person's birth chart I always tell a client it tells me what season you're born during. It's not that the planet Sun is moving in front of a group of stars per se, or, as I call it, an upside down Y the stars of cancer look nothing like a crab. It's really about that season. So the journey through the signs was an early calendrical experience of the season. So we're looking at two things. We're looking at the season of the person's experience and therefore what is impressing and imprinting that in a newborn. I also think the newborn is synaptically connecting super rapidly. As I said, the dog, the cat and the little kid are absorbing everything that that child is born into during that time. So it's not just that I, in my case January 7th, am born as a Capricorn. That is the fact, that is what I experienced. It's also what my mom and dad experienced and, as I say, if I were born in a more northerly climate, I might have come out during a Capricornian blizzard time, which would be the opposite of cancer.

Speaker 1:

The nation's chart we have. Opposite of Cancer, the nation's chart. We have a summertime sign. I look at our charts. These charts as describing the season and the time of day the season and the time of day. So astronomically, it is factual that we have arrived in this incarnation at a certain season, a certain time and that is imprinting us and we're imprinting it. I don't know that too many astrologers think about our chart as an event chart in mom and dad's life, but that's what it is. I always say having a human come out of your body has got to be not in this incarnation, but it's a pretty big deal for mom and that event of that child is coloring everything that that child and that parent dynamic is moving through.

Speaker 1:

So the birth chart is a mirror. It's a mirror of the material, spiritual and a mirror of those other planes. And I hear that you're doing. What many astrologers are afraid to do is to look at the chart in this kind of karmic, energetic way that everything in the chart is describing not only this immediate, but this immediate is interwoven with this synchronicity. Is that a fair way to word your ideas?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, quite accurate. It's all linked to synchronicity and of course, as you point out, your birth chart is your mother's transits, you know, at the time of the birth, and of course, your mother's energy, your mother's experience around the birth, has a profound effect on you, on the baby. Here we of course enter the realm of psychology, particularly of infant developmental psychology, which is powerful intrinsically, but when you mix it with astrology, that's when you really get the insights and the full power of it comes through.

Speaker 2:

I'm very enthusiastic about the marriage of psychology and astrology.

Speaker 1:

Likewise, I always say, in terms of Western astrology, which I think has a different ideology than, let's say, vedic or Tibetan astrology, for example, what's the central driving, what's the thing that really is juicy about American Western astrology? And I think it really is the coincidence of psychosynthesis, this Jungian kind of model that we're absorbing still that, as above so below, in other words, everything's interwoven.

Speaker 1:

You can't separate a child entering a marital moment, a marital exiting of mom's body. Those things are all coincident. The reason for astrology, I always say, is that's the inner and outer sky, it's the human experience. Whether you are Inuit or whether you are in Amazonia, the full moon is the full moon. It is the nature of nature. But those seasonal experiences are what our charts describe. So I always say, on the material plane, if I don't go to the karmic which oftentimes I don't because, as one of my earliest teachers said, many of us we have more than enough data for now than to necessarily go to the karmic. But those people who are able to watch self or sort of, have a bigger viewpoint. The chart, in other words, is a karmic chart. Everything in the chart describes your karmic journey specifically and now, as it's manifested in this incarnation, your chart describes your genetics. Your chart describes that moment, literally the season and the time of day that you came out of mom's body and all of those things are the same thing.

Speaker 1:

So when I go to astronomy conferences, in my mind I wish I could stand up and say excuse me all my fellow backyard astronomers, but as an astrologer I not only look to identify these cycles, but to interpret the human experience of them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yes, I was encouraged to hear you say that you're finding more acceptance among the backyard astronomers, as you confess that you're an astrologer.

Speaker 1:

I don't. I'm cautious to not rock their worldview and get into what might be for some turbulent waters. But yeah, it used to be 20, 30 years ago. I'd go to Stellafane or you know, Winter Star Party or other conferences that astronomers gather, and if it got around, you know there was kind of this sense of a cloud, more than that, hanging over me or about to surround me.

Speaker 1:

Now, if I dare bring it up or it comes up somehow, at 64, I'm now, I guess, suddenly a senior, which is kind of itself kind of a little freaky, weird.

Speaker 2:

It gives you a certain authority. I've been an amateur astronomer all my life really and I've never, never once, been to an astronomy conference. You mentioned Stella Fane. It's fascinating, but it's like I'm afraid to go, you know, because I feel like a black person in 1928 attending a Ku Klux Klan rally. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

We're not going to talk Dave Chappelle right now, but it's in the back of my mind, it's a famous.

Speaker 2:

Dave.

Speaker 1:

Chappelle gig that he did kind of similar. Yeah right, you know. Well, that was the truth it has been since I'm a very, very, very passionate amateur astronomer. It has been a very challenging theme but as the decades have rolled by, less and less so. So when I have the discussion of astrology with what might be someone who's younger typically now, you know, 40-year-olds or something that are attending the Star their response typically, stephen, is oh, astrologer, huh, well, that's interesting, well, for you to be here and know the sky the way you do, well, well, so tell me about that. How how is that? What's tell me about that? In decades past, it was, it was inflaming, uh, it was, it was tantamount to my, you know, being some kind of horrific, uh, social criminal or something yeah, yeah, yes, it's interesting to to.

Speaker 2:

Here's a question to which I I really don't know the answer. There's among astronomers. You know the more conventional ones. You know there's no scientific evidence for astrology. You know which is not exactly true, but you know that's often their argument. But you know this will step on some toes, but there's not a whole lot of scientific basis to modern psychology. You know there's a lot of folklore and it's helpful. I don't mean that as a put down. There's zero scientific evidence for the usefulness of basket weaving. You know there's a lot of stuff in human experience that isn't in the science category but doesn't trigger a vitriolic response among scientists. But there's something about astrology that just really triggers these people, and why.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, A great parallel would be that medical science certainly is science. You know so, even though I'm, you know, fairly skilled for a non-pro medical practitioner. You know medical diagnostic, astrology and such is such an amazing art form and tool in its own right. But similarly, actually, you know, medical science is medical science, but the human experience is not fully mechanistic. You don't necessarily add one and one and get two in medical science. It is not always a perfect, scientifically repeatable science A lot of intuition in it.

Speaker 1:

A lot of intuition, a lot of variabilities of the body and form, etc. Etc. But what is it about astrology that triggers astronomers Is that they have these projections of what they think we do. They don't know what we do. That's one reason I am cautious about astrologers now, particularly those who are, I think, brought in particularly in the Hellenistic school, where they're very focused on what? The Hellenistic school, where they're very focused on what I call the dirty P, where they're focused on prediction.

Speaker 1:

I think it's kind of a challenging issue here, because for scientists, they look at the four forces of physics. Even though we may have dark energy and dark matter now, in other words, we have quantum and we have a different construct happening, and I think astrology falls perfectly in alignment with those, as probably you do too they still will hold us to the rigor of the four forces. So they look at astrology as what's the causal? How is astrology causal? And I think that even amongst astrologers this is where I was wondering if you and I might wrap, since we're both into astronomy and astrology- and this idea of you experience.

Speaker 1:

I don't necessarily have to prove the forces of the emotional human experience of being born during a blizzard. More like one of my clients years ago who was born as another fellow Capricorn, he was born during the Blitz, during a Blitz bombing literally. He was born during the Blitz, during a Blitz bombing literally. And one could take that information therapists do and extrapolate from there the chart. Of course we know mirrors. He was born during a Blitz bombing. You can see that in his chart and you can see that in some of what's percolated. So they're not different. But the idea that there are astrological forces although you may know Dr Percy Seymour back in the 80s did a few books about astrology and talking about it was really kind of sucked up by the astrology community but the idea that it's not so much about magnetism or gravity but it's really more synchrony, it's more sort of resonance.

Speaker 1:

He talked about resonance being which of course?

Speaker 1:

now we're looking at solar cycles and such and resonance. But, yeah, you're right, astrology and astronomy, astronomers are still pretty far away from being willing to even engage. The idea that if you're born in the winter, aka the sun's moving in a certain place in the sky, that, in other words, is coincident above the equator with winter, that, yeah, it generates a certain social model that you're born into and that's what astrology mirrors to me. Of course, I think there is more to it when we talk eclipses and retrograde mercuries and so forth.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. A line I like to say is that astrology is quite inconsistent with 19th century physics. You know the four forces and action at a distance, etc. Etc. You know, in the 21st century where we are scientifically talking about quantum entanglement, you know, for example, you know atoms on opposite sides of the galaxy. You know reacting to each other instantaneously, in real time.

Speaker 2:

And for me to say, astrology works because of quantum entanglement. If I say that to an audience, probably a lot of people are going to think well, this guy's really smart. I bet he's onto something. I don't know what I'm talking about and it may have nothing to do with that. I can't really explain quantum entanglement beyond three or four sentences of a fairly descriptive or superficial nature. Maybe it has something to do with how astrology works, but I'm inclined to go with the synchronicity argument because here's really the heart of the matter.

Speaker 2:

There are financial astrologers who have made a lot of money looking at the initial public offering charts of publicly traded companies. You can buy the stock 9.30 am Monday morning, new York City. It's pretty easy to get accurate charts on these things and it's just a fact. And objectively, they make money and these charts work. Now, the reason I say that is that so many of the attempts to bridge scientific language with astrological language depend on some interaction of geomagnetic forces or whatever, usually with the Earth's field. And then to the child, whose electromagnetic relationship with the environment shifts when the child is no longer being energy conducted through the amniotic fluid, and blah blah, quack, quack, quack. It can sort of go on like this and make a sort of plausible scientific argument.

Speaker 2:

And it may even be true, it may even be real. I could go into more detail about that, but that's the general shape of it. And yet an IPO chart, an initial public offering chart. There's no body, it's nothing but a social agreement. It's a moment in time that people have assigned meaning to here's, this company, and so the fact that those charts work proves that astrology is operating outside the framework of push and shove physics and causality as we conventionally understand it. I point to those corporate charts, but a good horary astrology. You know where did I lose my wallet? They set up a chart and help you find the wallet. Again, there's no body, it's just a moment of time, and that each moment of time, well, you can see the universe in a grain of sand, so to speak, and each moment of time is such a grain of sand.

Speaker 1:

Kind of the Mandelbrot, sort of the Mandelbrot of the moment.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, well said, well said.

Speaker 1:

Right, right, the interweaving and that you know kind of full circle no pun intended about charts, but you know full circle, I think, is where, as a practitioner, I use super wide orbs. I look at, I think, one of my friends who was a Tillite. He was one of Noel's students for many years and he said, well, noel's idea, noel Till, noel's a very well-known astrologer. For those who don't know, noel Till's ideas were you know what's the proper orb for aspects? 360 degrees. So no, it's not so much what works, but but understanding that there's an interweaving of it all that. So, yeah, I again back to where we started before we went.

Speaker 1:

We went on on recording, um, ideas I have, like, what time are you are born? What time did you come in? What season were you born in? What time of day, you know, were you born in the, in the, in the nighttime quadrants or the daytime quadrants? That's not only what's imprinted on you, but where the event of you entering mom's body, exiting mom's body, entering the marital dynamic, if you will, of the childhood dynamic, your, your event in their lives is unconsciously molding them. So things like, you know, we have teachings that the ascendant, like Jung's, you know persona, that the ascendant describes your body or your sense of yourself.

Speaker 1:

But I also want to say the ascendant, your birth chart, as, let's say, a family event chart, a horary chart of that moment of this child born. Your ascendant describes mom and dad's construct, unconsciously, for this event as it's occurring in their lives and how they make sense of this baby in their field, in their sense of being, which is another way of saying what we were just discussing the inner sky, the outer sky, as above. So below this idea of interweaving, there is no separation. But astrologers have this two-dimensional page, this computer screen, and we don't see the sky, we don't understand it. In a reference point to the collective, the whole, we just look at it as longitudinal, zodiacal longitude, and that's the only part of our experience that we're really grokking from a two-dimensional wheel. But these are complex themes. We can go on about these themes and ideas, you know, for hours and hours.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and why not?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, why not? But they're important.

Speaker 1:

You know, I think, stephen, they're important ideas, I think it's a really important idea that our birth chart is not just a mirror of the moment of this person's physical, spiritual, physical, environmental existency. I agree wholeheartedly. As I may have shared in an email to you, one of my first lectures for the NCGR on Long Island, where I was born, was on karmic astrology and the nature of the soul in the chart and how it really. Every planetary placement and relationship describes that soul stepping into this incarnation and continuing onward.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly, the chart is the…. I'm just reacting to your comment about the chart is not just the moment. What I wanted to throw in is the chart is actually the summation of all the moments that led to this moment of birth.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think I know we got to close shortly, but in Vedic astrology, collectively I believe one thing I've taken I have not studied Vedic and I'm guessing you might know a lot more than I do.

Speaker 2:

I don't know much about it, yeah, but the moon I respect it.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, yeah, the moon collectively symbolizes the journey of the soul. Am I mistaken in that? I believe that's what I've heard from Vedic the moon is the repository of thinking about the soul's journey which, by the way, I believe the glyph, the semicircle, the Christian, judeo-christian mystical symbol, the semicircle of soul, joined to another semicircle of soul, the soul reflected upon itself, is the glyph. And so you know, the moon in Tibetan and Vedic astrology talk about the journey of the soul and its more recent incarnations. So that's their standpoint, that, as you say, it's all interwoven. There is no separation. So I'm kind of wondering yeah, closing thoughts, closing ideas and more about Stephen and the evolutionary school. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I'd like to throw in something. You were talking about aspects and orbs a little while ago, and then we went down various rabbit holes that were fun to explore, but I want to go down a rabbit hole connected with orbs. I love your reference to Noah Till and what a soul he was. The notion of…. First, the most boring thing in the world for me, astrologically, is somebody who quibbles about whether a sextile is five degrees or six degrees, you know, but this is a drum I like to beat. I'll start off with a very obvious statement that if you use generous orbs, if you use wide orbs, you've got more aspects. If you use generous orbs, if you use wide orbs, you've got more aspects. If you use less orbs, of course, or smaller orbs, fewer aspects. The logic is, of course, on a syllable there, and then I would add that, generally speaking, the more precise an aspect is, the more energetic it is, and so, by using narrow orbs, we filter for the most important aspects and we have fewer of them. Generous orbs more aspects, including less important ones, but they're still effective, and so all that's pretty obvious. None of that's brilliant insight, but here's why I'm saying it.

Speaker 2:

This is the drum I love to beat that, where we're talking here not about technical astrology but about the mind training of the astrologer. So there are some of us whose consciousness, whose intelligence, is wired in such a way that we're able to deal with a whole lot of different concepts at the same time and sort of intuit a pattern with them. Fine, use generous orbs if that's the kind of mind you have. Others work best if they can go deeply into major interactions among the most important points you know, without being distracted by detail. That's another form of intelligence. If you're that kind of person, use the narrow orbs. In other words, adjust your astrological technique to your consciousness, rather than letting somebody sit on the papal throne and announce that sextiles are five degrees, not six degrees. It's like consciousness interacting with astrology and it's like I love to talk about that because hardly anybody does you know the mind training of an astrologer and the personalizing of our relationship with the system.

Speaker 1:

I think again you're speaking my language. I know we're well astronomically speaking. We're given these constructs I call it astrology 101, these constructs of what we do learn and what we may pass on to our students, as well as foundation points. Sometimes, you know, I approach it from sort of like I guess I want to say back ass words. You know, I approach it in a different way. I approach it from the phenomenological. I approach it from the phenomenological, so we might not have a conjunction or a super wide conjunction, like you know 15, 20 degrees, 25 degrees even what an astrologer typically call a conjunction. They all drum me out.

Speaker 1:

You know, alexander, he's way off on this one, but I always say, observationally, that's not the case, you know the roots of our astrology, astronomy profession and exploration go back 45, 50, 60, really maybe fire and stars to the earliest humanoid, you know the earliest, you know sort of pre-Lucy and so forth. Yeah, so we're really talking about the experience of it. What is the experience of those cycles? When we see a crescent moon at sunset and Jupiter or Venus somewhere near it, whether they're really astrologically conjoined or whether they're actually maybe 15 degrees, I always say one pinky, one degree at arm's length, 10 degrees, 15 degrees, when things are visually close to each other in terms of the 360 circle. For an observer, there's that Venus-Moon super conjunction. Wow, look at that apparition. For the astronomer, for the astrologer, oh no, they're too far apart to be conjunct. I say I don't see that. I see them as being a phenomenon.

Speaker 1:

That was A. We're looking at cycles lunar-Venus cycle, perhaps. We're looking at the cycles of astrology, but we're also having an experiential which again talks about other things in astrology the two-dimensional zodiacal longitude versus declination, or zodiacal latitude. They're things that astrologers don't ever consider. They don't ever consider what's the visual apparition of a chart, what's the most elevated planet in a chart If those proportional houses are off, if that zodiac's highest mid-haven is altered to the east or to the west slightly, you have a shift in the chart. Like the US chart, we think of Saturn being at the top of the US chart, but really, when you look at proportional houses, the astronomical sky, neptune is the planet that's the most elevated. That is the social cultural construct that the world experiences the US Hollywood Neptune.

Speaker 1:

We all know that, but I think again we're kind of on the same page here that this idea, I guess I want to say both are good, you know, to be really tight with orbs and simultaneously to be observant of the sky.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they're both true, they're both valid and I love you beating the drum of how important it is to actually look at the sky. You know, the original ephemeris has so much to teach us. Very, very impressive man and impressive presence, and he told a really sad story. He spoke of being featured at an astrology conference. This is one that I did not attend and he tells this story very straight-faced. He said I asked everybody at the conference if they would come outside and look at the sky with me and they said no, they're mosquitoes. And it was just you know, simple, exact words, virtually. And it was just such a sad moment that you know, astrologers were letting mosquitoes prevent them from actually looking at the original ephemeris, the direct experience of the sky.

Speaker 1:

I love that that might be—I know your time is precious too, so we'll close maybe on that note, but the original ephemeris, that is the ultimate and penultimate, both of my application of astrology.

Speaker 2:

That's how we both entered it.

Speaker 1:

Right, that's right, and it still is. It is what we do. I think most astrologers don't think about the sky, they don't think about the experience, they don't think about the experience. So I'll leave you with this, that when I see people with a fall or wintertime, I call it fall, wintertime sign, whether it's their sun or their moon or their Venus. As we know, one of those mysteries of astrology, having a sun sign, being born in a certain season, well, that's a social imprint, but how is it and why is it if our moon happens to be in a wintertime sign, it also carries that wintertime charge to it, but it does imply that nonetheless, as we know, and so that phenomenon of that experience of the seasons and the time of day, the seasons and the time of day are interwoven with the chart and how we read it and what that person experienced, what this birth in the family is inspiring or evoking. Those are other ways.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly Perfect.

Speaker 1:

Exactly Well, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, thank you too.

Speaker 1:

This has been fun. It's been really wonderful. It's great to be with a fellow astronomer, astrologer. And one day it'd be great to get you at an eyepiece, or vice versa, and do some sky touring.

Speaker 2:

I love that. I envy you that C-14. That looks like a wonderful instrument.

Speaker 1:

I'll leave you with this. It's the most incredible thing I've ever seen visually. It was at the Winter Star Party, where the upper atmosphere is super steady and there's no twinkle of stars. You have no mountains for a thousand miles. Uh, and one fellow had a 30 inch uh, f, uh, f2, f3 scope. So we're up at a 16 foot cherry picker ladder looking in the trapezium and that, uh, the night was so steady it was like sub-arc. Second seeing that night, planetary, seeing super, super amazing. We were seeing tendrils of the Orion Nebula, gas congeal and where there was a star like the Eagle Nebula at the very tip. You saw that star had ignited not long ago in history by human standards very long, but to see it in a level I can't describe. It was like an episode of Star Trek when we were kids. Anyway, stephen, you're delightful. Thank you so much for sharing this time with me. Thank you, I've enjoyed it too. Take good care.

Speaker 2:

God bless, thank you, blessings to you. Take care.

Speaker 1:

Bye-bye now.