0:00 CHRIS BRENNAN: Hi, my name is Chris Brennan, and you’re listening to The Astrology Podcast. This is Episode 260, and in this episode, I’m going to be talking with Leisa Schaim about the first steps in reading a birth chart and some of the first things you should look at whenever any astrologer starts looking at a chart to get an overall sense and feel for it. So today’s date is--what is it, Sunday? LEISA SCHAIM: It’s June 21. CB: Okay, at 3:05 PM, in Denver, Colorado. And like I said, this is the 260th episode of the show. Welcome back. LS: Thank you. Thanks for having me. CB: Thank you for joining me today. LS: Of course. CB: Yeah, so what are we going to be talking about today? Let’s give a little thumbnail sketch before we do news and announcements and then we dive right into it. LS: Yeah, so we’re going to be talking about the first things that you might want to look at when
0:49 you first start looking at a birth chart. And we’ll go through what you might do for different purposes that might affect what you’re looking at in a birth chart and mention some of the replies that you got when you put out a social media post about questioning what people look at. CB: Yeah, so this was something I was thinking about recently, which is just what is the first thing you look at when you pull up a new chart that you haven’t seen before. Do astrologers have a system, or are there just things that are chart-specific that your eye sort of goes towards? And I think that’s a discussion that’s useful for new students of astrology especially. But also, what are some of the main things that you should try to look at in every single chart is something I think people often don’t know. What are the first steps you should take
1:34 when you’re trying to interpret any chart? LS: Mm-hmm. And then we’ll talk through some of the first things that we look at when we first look at charts, since that can be dependent on who you are and what kind of approach you’re taking to astrology. CB: Right. So like you said, I put out a Twitter thread on June 16 asking people what they look at when they first look at a chart. And I got a lot of answers that were very interesting, so we’ll bring some of that in as well. LS: Mm-hmm. CB: So before we get started, news and announcements. One of our sponsors for this episode is the Astrological Association of Great Britain, which is actually hosting a conference later this week, which is the 52nd annual conference of the Astrological Association, and the title of the conference is Serving the Future. So this is happening online. Because of everything going on, of course, this has switched from what is usually an in-person conference. I actually
2:23 spoke there and attended for the first time last year, one year ago in June. But they’ve switched it to an online conference, which is taking place June 26-28, 2020. And it’s a three-day Zoom conference that people can attend as webinars with six workshops, four plenary talks, and five different tracks of astrology lectures all going at the same time with different world-class speakers from around the world. LS: Yeah, it’s really unique this year that we can attend so many conferences that we wouldn’t necessarily get to travel to just from the comfort of our own home. CB: Right. LS: Sort of a silver lining of the virus situation. CB: Yeah. And just last month, we did the Northwest Astrology Conference, and that was amazing in-person online, and I’m sure this one will be great as well. I definitely
3:10 recommend people taking advantage of it because conferences are normally so expensive: you have to pay for a conference ticket; you have to fly all the way there; and you have to pay for... LS: Hotel. CB: ...your hotel and food and everything else. So this is actually kind of a rare opportunity where people can attend a conference of this caliber that’s not just a single webinar or a single class or something like that, but dozens of highly-skilled professional astrologers presenting lectures from around the world. And that’s part of what I liked about the Astrological Association Conference is that it’s much more international. LS: Yeah. CB: All right, so you can find out more information about that at AstrologicalAssociation.com. And I’ll put a link probably in the description below this video or on The Astrology Podcast website. LS: Sounds good. CB: Cool. All right, so let’s jump into our topic.
3:56 LS: Okay. CB: So our topic today is the first steps in reading a birth chart. When I was looking at the responses, I got a ton of responses from Twitter to this question. There were some overlapping similarities or overlapping answers that were the same for different people like, look at the Ascendant, look at the Sun or Moon, or other things like that. But there was also a lot of diversity, and I realized part of the reason for that was because it kind of depends on the context of what you’re looking for; it depends on the context of what your inquiry is when you’re looking at that birth chart. Because sometimes people are approaching it for differences like, what question do they have or why are they looking at the chart. LS: Right. So is this a chart that you’re looking at for a client consultation, for instance, where you are the professional astrologer,
4:43 and the client is coming to you to talk about specific topics? So that’s one context that comes up a lot, but certainly, not the only reason that people would be looking at charts. So it could also be more casual, like family or friend charts. A few people in the comments I think brought up love interest things; they’d look at Venus or Mars, or something if it was someone they were interested in. CB: Right. They were scoping out their precious charts. So they’re immediately zooming in on where is their Venus or Mars, or something like that. LS: Right. CB: Other people said that they would look at the Mercury placement to see how they might communicate with that person, which I thought was interesting. LS: Mm-hmm. CB: So depending on why you’re looking at the chart, obviously, you’re going to approach it in different ways, or you’re going to look for different things if you have a specific question. But we’ll sort of approach this more from not quite
5:32 a client standpoint--or maybe more of a client standpoint--but more of a standpoint of generic, neutral things you should look for in any birth chart, or some of the things that we specifically look for in charts when we first pull them up. LS: Mm-hmm. What are some of the core things to look at to understand a chart. CB: Right. All right, so one of the questions you have to ask is what is the purpose of a particular consultation, if this was a client thing. LS: Mm-hmm. CB: Do they have a specific inquiry about career or finances, or other things like that? Because that’s obviously going to shift your focus and make you focus on a specific area. But let’s say they come to you just saying they wanted a reading of their birth chart in general. LS: Yeah. And some people get those, and some people specifically set up their consultations that way where you have to
6:21 get a general birth chart reading, for instance, before you go into timing. And I think, for me, I look at a lot of the general things no matter what people are coming for, and then I also look at some other things depending on the specifics of what they’re wanting to talk about. CB: Right. So there are some things that you always check versus context-specific things that you would look at if somebody’s approaching you for a specific thing or a specific type of question. LS: Right. CB: One of the things is the distinction between “I think that’s important” versus what draws your eye. And I think there’s different astrologers that will have different things that draw their eye to different charts, or there’s different things that might be unique in certain charts that catch your eye right from the start versus what steps do you apply in every
7:13 chart across the board, no matter what. LS: Mm-hmm. So I kind of do both. I have at this point a set template of things I go through, as I’m preparing, before a consultation, core things to look at. But the very first thing I do--despite that being the mainstay of my preparation--I do just pull up the chart and look at it and see what I notice, and then I go through all the foundational steps more comprehensively. CB: Right. And that’s a little tricky because there’s certainly charts that are going to have major things that stand out. So let’s say somebody has a stellium--let’s say they have ten planets in one sign. That’s obviously going to focus your
7:58 attention on the sign and the house that those ten planets are in, as well as that that person might be the Antichrist or maybe Jesus, or something like that if they have ten planets in one sign. LS: Sure. Not that that happens very often. CB: Right. It’s like once or twice. LS: Yes, so there are different things that could draw your eye; stelliums certainly would be one of them. Even though it’s not the first thing I prioritize when I look through my list, that would certainly be the first thing visually you might notice if you pull up a chart like that. CB: Yeah. As the owner of stellium, I get that a lot, since I have four or five planets in Scorpio, depending on how you look at that. LS: Right. CB: That’s hard not to, then, with that much focus to have your eye drawn to that. And we actually had an example chart; I’ll see if I can bring it up. One chart that I used in my book--Hellenistic
8:49 Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune, available in fine book stores everywhere... LS: Everywhere. CB: ...literally everywhere--which you originally drew to my attention is the birth chart of Judy Blume. And she has a stellium of planets, of four planets, in one sign. LS: Yeah, that’d be a good one to look at later. CB: Okay, so we’ll put that off. So there are some things that naturally--depending on how the chart presents itself--are going to draw your attention as a unique situation more times than others. And then there’s other things that are regular steps that you need to look at in every single chart. LS: Yes. CB: Okay, so one of the things we have to say of course from the outset is some techniques are very tradition-specific. Depending on either the tradition of astrology, or the school of astrology, or, let’s say, a subset
9:40 of natal astrology that you follow, they’re going to have different approaches depending on what they emphasize. Because sometimes there’s different schools that emphasize some techniques more than others or that emphasize certain placements a lot more and make that the focal point of their system. LS: Mm-hmm. CB: So for example, even in modern astrology there’s different schools that follow certain teachers, that tend to emphasize different things, or have certain fixed approaches. LS: Right. CB: Evolutionary astrologers tend to focus on the nodes or Pluto, and so that will probably be the first thing that many of them look at in a chart. LS: Right. CB: What else is there? LS: There was a certain strain of modern astrology at one point that looked at chart patterns a lot. It was popular for a while. CB: Yeah. So that would include things like stelliums, but also, T-squares, or a yod,
10:30 or Grand Cross, or other things like that. LS: Right, or a bucket, or where they were aligned compared to each other. CB: Right. Also, there’s certain subsets like the Noel Tyl school. Actually I’m planning to do an episode on Noel Tyl next month with Basil Fearrington. And one of the things, for example, that Noel Tyl incorporated a lot--he just passed away in the past year--was the use of midpoints, which is some technique that some modern astrologers use and other modern astrologers don’t. So depending on how much of a focal point you make that specific technique, it may or may not be in your list of things that you go through. LS: Right. So this really does depend on where you’re coming from and what you think is most important in charts in general. CB: Right. All right, so I think that’s enough
11:21 remarks and provisos. We’re primarily going to focus on things and try to outline a system of things that we follow for the most part. And some of that’s going to be applicable to what other people do generally, as modern astrologers, and there’s going to be some overlap with other approaches, and then some of it might be specific to things that we do or things that we focus on or prioritize more. LS: Right. CB: Okay, so let’s say that we’ve cast a birth chart; there’s a few things actually we look at first. I mean, the first few things that I think you should look at--and I think most modern Western astrologers look at--is generally speaking, the so-called ‘Big 3’, which is what
12:11 it’s called in modern astrology, which is your Sun, your Moon, and your rising sign. LS: Yes. And I think some of these things I did mean say a moment ago--so I’m glad you said that--that are pretty core to most astrologies. CB: Yeah, I mean, the Big 3. Even though it wasn’t always called that, it was definitely something going back very far into 1st century Hellenistic astrology that they did pay attention to in different contexts, which is the Sun, the Moon, and the rising sign. LS: Right. CB: So one of the first things is looking at the rising sign, the Ascendant, is a good initial thing I think that astrologers focus on. LS: Mm-hmm. CB: And one thing that somebody mentioned in a comment that I thought was a good one is they’ll look at the Ascendant, and they’ll look at the degree, but they’ll also take a look at the
12:56 birth time. What is the birth time that you have for that chart? Does it look like an exact time, or does it look like a rounded time? And then to go along with that, also, is the Ascendant really early in the sign or really late in the sign? So if the birth time’s rounded, could the Ascendant have fallen back into the previous sign, or could it fall into the next sign? LS: Yeah, that’s really crucial. CB: So ambiguity, especially when you’re looking at it from a client standpoint. If you’re reading somebody’s chart for them, first thing’s first, you want to know that what you’re looking at is correct and that the data that you have is correct. LS: Yes, definitely. And depending on your house system--for instance, if you’re using whole sign houses like we do--that changes just about everything. I mean, it doesn’t change the sign placements of the planets typically,
13:42 but it could change all of the house placements. CB: Right. Maybe we could put up our electional chart for this episode. LS: Sure. And that would be a good example of it could have switched over very soon after. CB: When did I call it? When did we start officially? LS: I actually don’t know exactly what time we started, but I know it was late Libra rising. CB: Okay, so it’s 19 right now. I’ll say 3:15. LS: Sure. Yeah, so that can change things a lot. And you really want to actually take note of that even if the time doesn’t look rounded; I mean, especially so if it does. If it says 8:00 PM even,
14:28 then you definitely want to look at that. It says 8:15 even, or 8:30, that could still be rounded. If you do have an exact birth time from the birth certificate, I think it’s reasonable to assume that that is correct, but you have to think about what is going on in the delivery room when a baby is born. And usually there are many things that are prioritized before writing down that time, so it still could be a few minutes off, even if it does look like an exact time. So you want to be careful if it is really late or really early in the rising sign to make sure that it couldn’t be a different rising sign and switch all the house placements. CB: Yeah. So right here, for example, the Ascendant is at 28 degrees of Libra right now in Denver. So that is something where the Ascendant is going to change signs here in the
15:16 next few minutes. LS: Right. CB: For those watching the video version of this, I will just animate the chart and show you what happens if you move the chart forward just a few minutes. And the Ascendant moves from 28 to 29 Libra, and then very quickly moves into Scorpio; which as Leisa was saying, it changes all of the whole sign house placements because in whole sign houses, as soon as the Ascendant changes signs, then all of the other house placements change signs as well. LS: Mm-hmm. CB: Even if you’re not using whole sign houses, even if you’re using a quadrant house system like Placidus, having the Ascendant change signs is still a big deal because it changes the ruler of the Ascendant. LS: Definitely. Which is always a major placement in any birth chart.
16:03 CB: Right. Okay, so first thing’s first, check the time, check the data. If this is your own chart, if you can, it’s better to pull up your birth certificate if you can because that’s usually going to be more accurate than a parent’s memory. LS: Mm-hmm. CB: But generally speaking, the first thing I think both of us look at is the Ascendant, the rising sign. And for me, I look at whether it was a day chart or a night chart, whether the person was born during the day or whether they were born at night. And that’s pretty simple. You just have to see whether the Sun is in the top-half of the chart or if it’s in the bottom-half of the chart. So right here, for example, right now, it’s only 3:30 in the afternoon, so we know it’s a day
16:49 chart. And we can sort of tell from that or just by looking outside, but in this chart, we see the Sun up in the 9th whole sign house. So we know that with the Sun in the top part of the chart, it’s a day chart versus if the Sun was below the Ascendant/Descendant axis; it would be a night chart. LS: Right. And that is determined by that exact Ascendant/Descendant degree. So typically, unless you’re very, very close to that actual degree--if the Sun is right on the Descendant or right on the Ascendant--it’s usually otherwise pretty clear that it’s a day or a night chart. CB: Right. Okay, so is it a day or night chart. And that immediately starts bringing into focus and taking us back to the Big 3--which are your Ascendant, your Sun, and your Moon--because those are the three things we want to look at first.
17:40 The rising sign, what sign the Ascendant is located in. Then we want to look and see what sign the Sun is located in, which is classically speaking, just what people refer to as your ‘Sun sign’, or sometimes just your ‘sign’, for short, over the past century, since Sun sign astrology has become really popular. So the sign and the house placement, and perhaps even aspects to the Sun. And then, finally, looking at the other luminary, which is the Moon, and the sign placement of the Moon, what house it’s placed in, and what aspects the Moon has to it. LS: Right. Those are definitely some of the big ones that I look at early on; and particularly, the Sun, then you put even more weight. I think we put a little more weight on the Sun by house
18:27 placement, sign placement, if you’re born during the day, and similarly, the Moon for night, even though they’re both important regardless. CB: Right, so both luminaries are important regardless. But this is why I usually look to see if it’s a day chart or a night chart first because then I know which luminary--the Sun or the Moon--to put more emphasis on. You’re going to put more emphasis on the Sun if it’s a day chart and more emphasis on the Moon if it’s a night chart. LS: Exactly. CB: Okay, so those are three things that we’re definitely looking at first, pretty much no matter what. One of the other things that comes over more from traditional astrology and that was definitely more emphasized in the earlier traditions--less so recently in modern astrology, but it’s beginning to have a big comeback--is the ‘ruler of the Ascendant’.
19:14 LS: Yes, definitely. The ruler of the Ascendant being kind of your guide or your representative in where you’re going in life or a particular area of focus that your life is directed towards by sign and house placement. CB: Right. So what you want to do is figure out what sign of the zodiac your Ascendant is located in and then what planet rules that sign. So for example, if you have Taurus rising, then Venus is the ruler of your Ascendant, and you want to see what sign and house Venus is located in in your chart. And some modern astrologers refer to that as the ‘ruler of the chart’ or the overall ‘chart ruler’. In ancient astrology, there were other overall rulers of the chart, so we usually just refer to it as the ‘ruler of the Ascendant’. But it certainly is one of the
20:03 major rulers of the chart that has a dominant focus in the life or a dominant role to play in your chart in general. So something you’re going to look at in every chart, no matter what, is what is the ruler of the Ascendant, and especially what house is it located in. LS: Yeah, because that is going to be an area of disproportionate focus for you. And sometimes that’s clearer than others, or sometimes it becomes evident at different points in life than others, but it will always be an important area of life for you in some manner of speaking. CB: Right. So for example, if the ruler of the Ascendant in your chart is in the 7th house, then relationships may play a more dominant role in your life, since the 7th house is the sector of
20:50 the chart that pertains to relationships. If the ruler of your Ascendant is there, then that’s going to be a more major focus for you in your life compared to other people in some way. LS: Mm-hmm. CB: Or if the ruler of your Ascendant is in the 11th house of friendships, then somehow your attention and focus in life is going to be more on the area of friends and groups and alliances, and other 11th house topics than it might be for somebody else. LS: Mm-hmm. CB: So we’re paying attention to the ruler of the Ascendant as one of the first things that we look at in any chart because that’s going to tell us something about the overall focus of the native’s life, and some of the things that they’re going to tend to prioritize or be directed towards at different points. LS: Mm-hmm. And sometimes it’s a self-conscious thing, like the person understands that that’s an important priority for them, an important area of
21:37 life, and sometimes it’s more that they’re drawn there, even if they don’t want to be drawn there. So it can go different ways. It’s not always something that the person is fully conscious of, especially earlier in life, I would say. CB: Right. I mean, there’s all sorts of provisos; it’s not necessarily something that they like. Even if it’s something that they end up being focused on, it may not be their ideal thing that they wanted to focus on early in life. LS: Right. CB: Or it may not be until later that they really start to care about that topic after some change in them that occurs. There may be times in their life where certainly they have other things that they’re more focused on, but still for some reason, that one topic comes back to them in some major way. LS: Right. CB: A lot of this is also going to have to do with the condition of the planet. And that’s a whole thing that
22:25 we can’t fully get into here, but crucial in terms of describing this as well is what sign of the zodiac is that planet placed in. Is it a sign that it’s usually familiar with and calls ‘home’ or has some resonance with? Or is it a sign that is a little bit more challenging, or a little bit more opposite in terms of its significations in terms of what it would normally want to do in a chart or signify? LS: Right. Because the condition is going to kind of show how easily the person takes to that area of life, or how easily they express it, or different things like that. CB: Right. And so, it’s things like that,
23:10 like the sign placement. There’s also aspects from other planets. Does it have supportive aspects from benefic planets, like Venus and Jupiter, so that when it focuses on that area of life, it does so with relative ease or success, or without encountering major obstacles or hindrances? Or does it have more challenging aspects--like hard aspects, such as the square, the opposition, the conjunction--from the malefic planets, like Mars or Saturn? In which case it might encounter more obstacles or difficulty, or just resistance when it comes to focusing on that area of life, for one reason or another? LS: Definitely. So that’s the rising sign and the Ascendant ruler. I would add to the Sun and the Moon--particularly, the Sun during the day or the Moon at night--not only the house and sign placement, but also,
24:00 the house it rules. These are different layers... CB: The house that ‘what’ rules? LS: The house that the Sun during the day or the Moon at night, and both, to some extent, that they rule respectively because those are going to be important areas of life as well. So it depends on how many layers we want to get into, but these are some of the checklists that I go through when I’m preparing. CB: Okay. I think that does start to get a little too complicated at this stage. LS: Yeah, for the intermediate people listening. CB: Right. So Sun, Moon, rising, ruler of the Ascendant. Another one that you had mentioned that I thought was a really good one to mention that’s really important is planets in the rising sign, or planets in the 1st house. LS: Right. CB: Which, for us, since we’re using whole sign houses, the rising sign is the 1st house. But even
24:47 if you’re not using whole sign houses, or you’re using Placidus, I think people will certainly prioritize planets in the 1st house, especially the closer they are to the degree of the Ascendant LS: Yes. CB: Because those are going to be dominant players, especially in describing the character of the native and character traits and psychological traits, but also, sometimes physical traits or things pertaining to their physical bodies. The 1st house is the meeting place between the sky and the Earth, and so it tends to represent both things related to the native’s spirit, and their mind, and their intellect, as well as things related to their body, and their physicality, and their physical well-being. LS: Right. So you’ll find that planets placed in the 1st house really stand out notably in
25:35 terms of what kind of person this is upon first glance. When you first meet someone in particular, those should stand out to you. So for instance, with Mars in the 1st house, is this someone who’s really assertive or aggressive and takes the lead in things? Or is this someone with Jupiter in the 1st house who is potentially like a Santa Claus-type figure, sort of buoyant, and wanting to guide people, and happier than usual, and those sorts of things? Which of course depends on the specifics of the planetary placement beyond that, but those are, generally speaking, some things to look at. CB: Right. I’m thinking of other things, like Mars in the 1st house, the President’s chart. For example, Donald Trump has Mars in the 1st house, and astrologers often will immediately focus on that as being one of the things that characterizes
26:24 him. Whether you’re a supporter or not a supporter of him, some of the Martian traits, certain Martian things are more prominent in his personality as a result of that. LS: Definitely. CB: All right, so planets in the 1st house, especially the closer to the degree of the Ascendant, the more that’s going to stand out and be important. LS: Mm-hmm. CB: So should we move on to the next section in terms of the most positive or negative planet in the chart, or should we linger? We didn’t say much about the luminaries in terms of the analysis of the Big 3 and looking at the Moon or the Sun. LS: Right. I mean, we could for a couple more minutes, I would say. CB: Okay. So I guess people are
27:11 probably familiar with their Sun sign for the most part and understanding how that’s analyzed in terms of especially its sign placement, and the quality of that sign placement being more prominent in your life. I mean, there’s some issue there--especially people that have a day chart where the Sun is more important--if they were born during the day, then the Sun and some of the characteristics of zodiacal sign that it’s in is going to be more prominent for them. Also, if the Sun is in the 1st house--so if their rising sign is the same--or if their Sun is very angular in the chart, then that zodiacal sign might be even more prominent. So there are some people that really are going to resonate with that, whereas, there’s other people, especially if
27:59 they were born at night that might resonate more with their Moon sign and its zodiacal placement. LS: Right. And I think people usually resonate to some degree with all three of the placements, or four, you would say--rising sign, Ascendant ruler placement, Sun, Moon--it’s just a matter of degree, I think. And I think that’s one of the things that distinguishes actual full birth charts versus the stereotype of astrology as being somewhat simplistic. But there are actually all these different pieces of who you are, and also, other pieces of your life contained in the birth chart. CB: Yeah. So for the most part, nobody is going to be just one zodiacal sign. LS: Right. CB: Everybody’s going to be characterized by especially a mixture of those three,
28:45 which are the rising sign, the Sun sign, and the Moon sign. LS: And Ascendant ruler. CB: And also, modified significantly by the sign that the Ascendant ruler is located in. LS: Yes. CB: And then when we’re looking at the luminaries, we have to do the same thing we did with the ruler of the Ascendant in terms of looking at their house placement, but also, looking at aspects that the luminaries have to other planets. LS: Mm-hmm. CB: So do they have supportive, flowing aspects--like trines and sextiles--from Venus and Jupiter, or do they have more challenging aspects, especially hard aspects, from Mars or Saturn? That’s going to be indicating a little bit more trouble in some ways, or challenges sometimes in expressing those energies than in other situations.
29:32 LS: Definitely. So all those three traits--the aspects, the sign placement, and the house placement--and I would throw in the house rulership, in terms of some of the core pieces of any given chart you start looking at. CB: Mm-hmm. I was talking about hard aspects with malefics, for example, and I think one of the delineations that is still relevant from modern astrology is about the Moon sometimes being how people express their emotions or the emotional state of a person just by default, and sometimes if there’s challenging aspects that indicating challenges with that: like hard aspects with Saturn to the Moon, for example, and somebody being more prone to depressives states sometimes,
30:24 if it’s an opposition or a square, especially in a night chart; or conversely, let’s say, with Mars that there’s a square or opposition to the Moon and being more prone to emotional outbursts or angry, emotional states. LS: Definitely. I would agree with that. Yeah, by aspect, and also, by sign. I like to talk about it as kind of like how you initially instinctually respond to things emotionally before you have time to think them through, which is kind of a longer way of saying your ‘default emotional state’, like you mentioned. But different people have sometimes strikingly different initial emotional reactions to things or the way that they process emotions.
31:11 And so, yeah, this is a more psychological thing, but it’s kind of an innate and basic piece of who we are as individual people. CB: Yeah. And it has a lot to say about how you will respond to other things, both in terms of when you get into relationships, like romantic relationships with other people, but also, when you deal with obstacles or things at work, in your career, or with friends or other things like that. What are some of the things that you have going for you that work in your favor and are helping you out as assets in your personality makeup? What are some things that are challenges that you either do or do not try to work on throughout the course of your life in order to improve? Or what are
31:56 some of the things that you perhaps struggle with and have to keep putting effort into in order for it not to be more of a problem? LS: Right. And I think lots of these planetary placements in our birth chart describe something about how we go through the world and how we react to different situations. But the Moon sign, in particular, can be this very individual, “I would never react that way. Why did you react that way?” And that can be in a workplace, that can be in a relationship or a family. It can be with friends, anything. CB: And some of this probably really also ties back to things like what are some of the inherited tendencies that you got from your family relationship growing up, especially because the Sun and Moon can sometimes be taken to represent symbolically the parents, like the mother and
32:44 father, or whatever the parental figures were that you grew up with. Whatever that represents in your life, sometimes the Sun and Moon can play a role in reflecting that and things that you learned very early on in your life; like how to process and respond to emotional stimuli, whether those were positive things or negative things. LS: Definitely. And that’s a whole other topic, but it can be fascinating to see how some of those sign qualities or even luminary aspects filter through family trees because that is kind of astrologically how that gets represented as it gets passed down. CB: Yeah. So for me, for example, I’m a Scorpio; a November 1, Sun sign Scorpio. And then my Mom’s birthday is two days later, so she’s the same
33:37 10-11 degree Sun sign Scorpio. And her father--so my grandfather--same birthday. So that’s like three generations of Scorpios with the Sun. But then, weirdly, my father was born not as close, but about a week later, also a Sun sign Scorpio. And then my brother was born a week earlier, just barely with the Sun in Scorpio as well. LS: That’s kind of intense. That’s a lot of Scorpio in one family. CB: I mean, I wasn’t going to put an interpretative spin on it. I was just pointing out that sometimes you’ll see generational stuff. And it isn’t always Sun sign stuff. Sometimes it’s rising signs, sometimes it’s Saturn sign stuff,
34:24 and other things like that, but you will see these repeating patterns in families that can be really interesting and really weird. And that’s one of the reasons why the initial Big 3 of your Sun, Moon, and rising matrix can be really important because it’s not just tied into inherent personality characteristics. There’s some of that in terms of inherent personality characteristics that you would have no matter what family you’re born into, that you just come into life with, but there’s also this other factor, which is probably the family matrix that you’re born into and what dynamics you inherit from different family members, for better or worse. LS: Definitely. CB: All right, so I think
35:13 that may be good. I mean, one of the things you do have to pay attention to with the Sun--so it’s Sun we’re looking at--is conjunctions. And not just conjunctions, but planets even in the same sign, or if the Sun is very early in the sign or very late in the sign. You can look at out-of-sign conjunctions if they’re relatively close. LS: Mm-hmm. CB: With the Moon, because it moves so fast, you’re definitely also looking at sign-based aspects, so any planets in the same sign. But also, especially planets within, I would say, in exact aspect with the Moon within 12 degrees are ones that I would pay attention to as being much more relevant than other aspects. LS: Right. Because the Moon moves so quickly and that’s about how much it will move during that day that you were born.
35:59 CB: Right. Okay, so Sun, Moon, rising, sign placement, house placement, aspects. Let’s move on. Other things that I pay attention to that are part of my approach to astrology--and that is a little unique--that I brought in from ancient astrology is at this point, I will use the technique or the concept known as ‘sect’, which is the distinction between day charts and nights, to identify according to sect the most positive planet in the chart and the most challenging or negative planet in the chart, for lack of a better phrase. LS: Right. CB: And the trick with this is basically that if you were born during the daytime, with a day chart, then the most positive planet is going to be Jupiter and the most negative planet or challenging planet is going to be Mars;
36:48 whereas if you’re born with a night chart, the most positive planet is going to be Venus and the most challenging planet is going to be Saturn. So what I’ll immediately do is look at especially the house placement of the most positive and negative planets in order to get some insight into what area of life the person’s going to tend to have greater ease, or benefits, or luck, or other types of positive circumstances versus what part of life is this person going to have greater challenges or obstacles to overcome, or other things of that nature. LS: Definitely. I definitely have that on my template to look at as well because it can be really important. And you can see at a quick glance if this is going to be an innate
37:38 talent--if it represents at least something connected to the person themselves--if it can represent something with regard to other people in their life or other topics in life, and what area is apt to go better that you can lean on to say this is an area that will probably beneficial for you or will go better than average, or things of that nature. And they might be, conversely, coming in to talk about the area that is harder for them or isn’t going as well, and that’s often connected to the malefic contrary-to-sect, Mars during the day or Saturn at night, wherever it’s placed or wherever it’s ruling. CB: Right. So to give some specific examples of that, let’s say they have a day chart, then we’d immediately look to Jupiter and what house
38:26 it’s placed in. And let’s say it’s placed in the 10th house. Then we would expect career matters to go relatively well for them, or that to be an area where they have some good fortune for some reason. LS: Mm-hmm. CB: If they have a day chart, we would look to Mars as the more challenging placement and what house it’s placed in. And then let’s say it’s located in the 11th house, the place of friends. Then we would expect the area of friends, and groups, and alliances to bring greater challenges in their life for some reason. LS: Right. And this is an important place to be looking at the different areas of life--the different houses in the chart representing different areas of life and not always the person themselves. And that’s an important distinction coming in with that topic of the benefic and malefic, the topics that are more
39:13 apt to go well versus have more challenges. Because while sometimes that can be connected to some actions that the person is taking that they could improve, sometimes it’s actually coming from outside of them; so for instance, their actual friends if Mars is in a day chart in the 11th house. Maybe there are things that they might be careful of, or learn to improve how they interact with friends or groups when they have Mars there, but ultimately, it might not be something that they are fully in control of because that could be representing actual, literal friends or literal groups that they belong to. CB: Yeah. I mean, sometimes it can go either way in terms of whether it’s something that’s within the person’s control or whether it’s something that’s outside of their control. So just sticking with--let’s do both. Let’s say, day chart,
40:03 Jupiter is in the 11th house. Let’s say Jupiter is the ruler of the Ascendant; when the planet is the ruler of the Ascendant that’s sometimes when the thing is something that the person is directly bringing into their life or is in control of in some way; they become the agent of that planet. So Jupiter in the 11th house, and maybe they have in a day chart good fortune in the area of friendship because they go out of their way to build alliances, and they have some sort of knack for organizing friends and groups and movements. So maybe they become the head of an organization or are very involved in community organizing, or something like that.
40:50 LS: Right. Or even more informally, they just are the person that you know to go to who collects people together. CB: Mm-hmm. They walk into a room and they’re the life of the party or something like that. LS: Right. CB: So that’s an example of it being within the person’s control. Other scenario--let’s say it’s Jupiter in a day chart in the 11th, but it’s outside of the person’s control. It could mean that they just have very good luck throughout their life at different points as a result of their friends. Let’s say a friend gets them a great job at a company that they wouldn’t have gotten otherwise just because they have that connection with a friend. LS: Right. CB: So I’ve delineated birth charts like that. One of the founders of Apple, for example--not Steve Jobs. But it was...
41:35 LS: Wozniak? CB: ...Steve Wozniak, who has a really good 11th house placement. And it was due to his friendship with Steve Jobs that they both became millionaires because of their working together as friends out of high school. LS: Right. So it can be external like that; it really depends on the specifics of the house connections. CB: Mm-hmm. The other scenario is challenging stuff. So Mars in the 11th house of friends, in a day chart. Let’s say it’s something in the person’s control that maybe they accidentally become the agent of and they get into fights with friends, or even deliberately cause problems in a friend’s life in some way
42:29 as a result of some action that they take. LS: Yeah. And that can be something where they’re actually, unbeknownst to themselves, being aggressive in friendships or in groups compared to average, or something like that, so they’re initiating the problem. Another scenario would be Mars in a day chart, in the 11th, where it’s not them, but when they get into groups of people--say, they join an organization--somehow there’s always conflict when they join groups. I’ve seen people who have that. CB: Sure. Or they have a friend that they have a falling out with, or a friend stabs them in the back. And it wasn’t something that was deserved on the native’s part, but they just happened to become friends with somebody
43:15 and then they had this major falling out at some point. I’ve had clients and different people with different variations of that. For example, I had one person who grew up and she only had one major friend. But then that friend died, and the person was kind of traumatized by that and never wanted to have any other friendships again. And I think that Mars was very tied in with her 11th house in a day chart. I knew somebody else that had Saturn I believe in the 11th in a night chart and that was his most difficult placement. and he had a real fear of groups and never wanted to go to any conferences or anything--even though it would be advantageous for him professionally--because he had awkwardness around social situations and
44:00 a real aversion to even forming friendships. LS: Right. And this is the kind of thing where I have some sympathy for both some of the psychological interpretations and some of the more traditional interpretations that are more concrete. Because you can see sometimes how these things become ingrained patterns in someone’s life, where maybe concrete things actually happen through no fault of their own--say, with the more challenging malefic, for instance--but then they come to expect that that’s how that area of life goes, and so they start to unconsciously reinforce it too. So it can be elements of both, I think. CB: Yeah. It’s really tricky because it can go either way, or sometimes it can be both, or sometimes it can be extremely one or extremely the other. LS: Right. CB: So we’re talking about the benefic and malefic and the house placement. We also look at that
44:50 because that’s going to be important; the aspects of that planet, of the most positive planet are generally speaking going to be the most supportive aspects of other planets. And that’s one of the reasons why we identify the most positive planet because it’s not just about its house placement; but also, the other planets that it aspects, it’s going to have a greater ability to support and strengthen and affirm or say ‘yes’ to in some way. LS: Right. CB: So if that planet is Jupiter in a day chart or Venus in a night chart, and it’s forming nice trines or conjunctions, or even other close aspects with other planets, then those are going to be supportive and affirming. Whereas if we’re looking at the most negative planet, it’s house placement, but also, other aspects--especially conjunctions,
45:38 squares, and oppositions--can be something that can negate or deny or say ‘no’ to what other planets in the chart want to signify; so it can import some of those difficulties over into other parts of the life. LS: Definitely. Yeah, that’s true. I start going off on a whole tangent when we start going there because it starts getting to be like a lot of subtopics. CB: Yeah. I guess I’m just mentioning some of it in passing because these are all things that I go into in larger lectures, either in my book or in my course that I have 10-hour lectures on. But I want to at least mention some of this stuff in passing to give people a glimpse into some of the more advanced things where you would go with some of these concepts. LS: Right. CB: Oh, yeah, I was going to pull up a first example chart because we haven’t been looking at
46:29 any charts yet. And I mentioned her chart earlier, but this might be a good time to look at it. LS: Yeah. CB: So this is the birth chart of the children’s book author, Judy Blume. And this is a timed birth chart. She’s an award-winning author. How many books has she written? LS: Oh, dozens. I’m not sure. CB: Dozens, so lots of books. LS: Yeah. CB: So here’s her birth chart, and I’ll describe it for those listening to the audio version; she has Libra rising. And one of the first things that our eye is drawn to in this chart immediately when we start looking at it is that she has a cluster of planets in one sign. LS: Mm-hmm. CB: So that’s one of the first things that always
47:15 catches my eye when I look at this chart is that she has that stellium of four planets in Aquarius, which consists of Mercury, Jupiter, the Sun, and Venus. And because she has Libra rising, Aquarius is the fifth sign relative to the Ascendant. So it’s the 5th whole sign house, and the 5th house traditionally is the house that has to do with children. LS: Mm-hmm. CB: So right away, we know she has a cluster of planets or a stellium in that sign, so that’s going to indicate greater emphasis on that house and the topics associated with it; so we would think that the topic of children is going to be more important in her life in some way. LS: Right. CB: Not only that, we noticed two other things. One, if we look at her rising sign, or her Ascendant, again, it’s Libra--and the planet that rules Libra, of course, is Venus--and Venus then
48:07 becomes the ruler of the Ascendant. And Venus is one of those planets that’s located in Aquarius in her 5th house as part of that stellium. It also happens to be a night chart, so Venus is also the most positive planet. And Venus is one of the benefics in the 5th house, and the other benefic, Jupiter, is also located there. LS: Mm-hmm. CB: So right away, we know she has a stellium in the 5th house of children, indicating a greater focus. We know she has the ruler of the Ascendant in the 5th house of children, which, again, shows a focus on that topic. And then we also know that both of the benefic or positive planets are located in that sign and in that house as well. LS: Right. CB: And so, how did that work out for her? LS: I mean, this is a really notable chart because, yeah, it matches up exactly with someone who wrote lots and lots
48:54 of children’s books and became famous for that and noteworthy and so forth. That’s her major role in life at this point. CB: Right. And she had children also. LS: She had children. CB: She had, I think, two children, and she started writing children’s books when they were... LS: When they were children. CB: ...both really, really young. So it’s like those planets are doing double-duty because, of course, on one hand, they’re talking about her children in particular. But then because there’s so much focus, it becomes a larger thing of she ends up writing books that millions of children have read at this point. And I think she was given one of the highest awards for writing children’s books in the world. LS: Yes. So it’s really interesting. Your eye is drawn for so many reasons to the 5th house. You have your Ascendant ruler there,
49:41 you have both benefics there, you have her Sun there--one of the--luminaries, and Mercury, which is the general significator of communication or things like writing. CB: Right. So the other thing about the chart, the other area that our eye is drawn to is she has both of the challenging planets--the two malefics, Mars and Saturn--in the 7th house; the 7th house is the place of relationships. And that’s one of the areas, relationships, that she had some of her greatest challenges with, or where things didn’t go as smoothly. LS: Yes. I’m forgetting the specifics now because it’s been a long time since I read that story, but I think it was like she was home with her children and wasn’t happy with her marriage and then was writing. CB: Okay. LS: Started writing because of that. CB: Yeah, I can’t remember all the specifics.
50:28 I just know that was an area that she noted as not going as well in her life, without getting too much into the details. LS: Right. CB: Since this is a night chart, since we see the Sun is in the 5th house--she was born at almost 10 o’clock at night, so we know it’s a night chart--then we would also want to pay attention to the Moon, which is up there in Leo in the 11th house. So that’s one other major area that’s probably very important for her, but it might be more important in terms of her personality or personality characteristics, since it’s the Moon and it’s in a night chart, and it’s sort of up there by itself. LS: It could be. Yeah, it’s interesting that the Moon, which is the luminary of sect at night, is ruling the 10th house of career and that ended
51:14 up being kind of a notable area of her life. CB: Yeah, definitely. And we can tell by this she was born at almost a Full Moon--about a day before a Full Moon--because the Moon is in the sign opposite from the Sun. And anytime the Sun and Moon are opposite each other that’s always going to be a Full Moon. LS: Mm-hmm. CB: That’s actually one of the things I’ll pay attention to as well. LS: Lunar phase? CB: Lunar phase--like what is the relationship between the Sun and the Moon. Because sometimes you can note things like if the person was born close to a New Moon or if they were born close to a Full Moon. And then, also, if you additionally pay attention to if they were born close to a New Moon or Full Moon, I will look to see where the nodes are placed. Because if the nodes are in the vicinity, let’s say, within 15 or 18 degrees,
52:01 then that will also have been an eclipse. LS: Yeah. There’s lots of other things you can tack on. CB: Right. All right, so that’s a good initial one, just outlining some of our basic principles in terms of looking at the Sun, Moon, and rising, the ruler of the Ascendant, and what house it’s place in; identifying the most positive and the most negative or challenging planets in the chart based on sect. And it’s already in an example like this, we’ve got some of the major themes or major topics in this person’s life. LS: True. CB: Okay, so where should we go from here? This is one that you mentioned that was a good one. It’s one I pay attention to as well and I include in my chart layout. LS: ‘Stationary planets’. CB: Stationary planets. LS: Yeah, so I look to see if there was a
52:52 planet that stationed within approximately a week either before or after when the person was born. And you don’t have to be absolutely strict if it’s within about a week, but if it’s like eight days or nine days, I still kind of pay attention to it. And basically, you want to do that because any stationary planets near when someone was born put an extra emphasis for life on that planet wherever it’s placed and wherever it rules. When a planet is stationing by transit, it’s a temporary emphasis, maybe that week or so, on that particular energy of whatever that planet signifies. But if it stations near when someone was born, it kind of ‘bakes’ that into your birth chart for your whole life. CB: Yeah. So basically, what you should do is look to see if you have a planet in your birth chart that within seven days of your birth either
53:45 went retrograde, turned retrograde, or either went from retrograde to turning direct. And if you do, then that will be like a planet that has an exclamation mark next to it in your chart for one reason or another. And that could be Mercury, for example, which goes retrograde three times a year; although the actual stations then are multiplied because it has two... LS: Like six. CB: ...stations during a retrograde cycle. So that means it stations retrograde or direct six times a year. See if Mercury stationed within seven days of your birth, but also, Venus, which goes retrograde every year-and-a-half. See if you were born very close to a Venus station or a Mars station, or even an outer planet,
54:31 like Jupiter or Saturn or what have you. LS: Mm-hmm. And sometimes that will just add additional information to a theme that was already showing up in the chart. But in other instances, it will actually provide a reason that wasn’t standing out yet for why this particular energy is important in this person’s life or expressing strongly in this person’s life. CB: Right. Yeah, there’s one chart that I always think of, of like why is this person so successful in what they do, and he, I believe, was born very close to a Jupiter station. That Jupiter doesn’t look like it’s super prominent in the chart, but when you realize that it’s stationing, and the way it’s configured to other planets, you realize why he’s had some of the success that he’s had. LS: Definitely. CB: It’s because that Jupiter is getting amped a little bit, and that station is indicating it’s more important than it should be otherwise.
55:19 LS: Yeah. CB: Okay, so that’s one of the things is we’ll look for stationary planets. That can be hard to look up. The easiest way to do it is to pull out an ephemeris and look at the month that the person was born in the ephemeris and just see within about a week if there are any planets that station retrograde or direct. LS: Mm-hmm. CB: I have my Hellenistic chart layout, so here’s the animated chart. And down in the bottom-right corner, I have a little box that lists retrogrades and stations. LS: Most software, something you can click on is stations. CB: Like this one. We can see--down in the bottom-right corner--Mercury is listed as retrograde. It says its last station was at 14
56:08 Cancer and that was 3.7 days ago. So if this was a birth chart, we would know that Mercury recently stationed within a week, so that would be a more important planet. Then we keep going through the list. We notice that Venus is also retrograde, and its next station is happening in 3.4 days. So that means Venus is actually getting ready to station direct, so that would be another important planet in this chart as well. LS: Mm-hmm. I mean, I pay attention to either kind of stations because any station within about a week of birth is notable and is going to put an extra emphasis on that energy, but particularly, I pay attention to planets stationing direct even more so. CB: Yeah. Planets stationing direct are definitely going to be a bit more powerful or useful. Planets stationing retrograde
56:57 are not necessarily as good, but can still be useful and can still be notable in a person’s life. LS: Mm-hmm. CB: Okay, so stationary planets, notable patterns. So we’ve already kind of touched on this, but this is something that we’ll look at just because of chart patterns, which I’m hoping to do an episode on next month because I haven’t done an episode on the podcast yet. But that’s things like ‘stelliums’ that we’ve mentioned, if a person has three or four planets in the same sign. I always thought a stellium was four planets, but I realized a lot of people do three planets. Where do you fall on that? LS: I think that’s a recurring argument that I never care to get into, but I think it’s three or more. Because the point, to me,
57:42 anyway, isn’t a specific definition; it is that there’s an extra emphasis in that area of life. CB: Yeah. LS: And to me, an extra emphasis is like three, four, five--anything above two. And even two could be a little bit more emphasis, but particularly, three or more, I would say. CB: Yeah. Well, as somebody with a four-planet stellium, I guess I always looked at a ‘puny’, three-planet stellium as less impressive. LS: Yeah, I guess so. And I mean, in terms of statistically where the planets astronomically are placed, it would be more rare to have four in a sign versus three in a sign. CB: Yeah. Well, part of the issue is that the Sun and Mercury are always pretty close to each other, so it’s not that rare because Mercury only gets one sign away from the Sun. LS: Exactly. CB: If the Sun is in one sign,
58:31 there’s only, besides that sign, two other signs Mercury could be in. So two is pretty common or is pretty easy to find. Venus never gets more than two signs away from the Sun, so you will see sometimes things like that line up in terms of those three; the Sun, Mercury, and Venus can line up in the same sign. LS: Right. CB: But four is definitely when it gets kind of rare. But certainly, just having three planets in the same sign is already putting an emphasis on that part of the chart. LS: I agree. CB: Okay. People can chime in on the three- or four-planet stellium debate. LS: Yeah. CB: Okay, stelliums. That’s not the only planetary pattern. Other planetary patterns that people
59:19 look at could be things like a Grand Cross. LS: Or a ‘Grand Trine’, or a ‘T-square’, or even things as simple as most of the planets are in the top-half of the chart, things like that. CB: Right. So ‘hemisphere emphasis’ if all the planets are in the top of the chart, or if all the planets are in the bottom part of the chart, if all the planets are on the left side of the chart or the right side of the chart. LS: Yeah. CB: It’s hard not to have your eye drawn to things like that when you pull up a chart, especially if you have aspect lines drawn, which I usually do. Because if you’re paying attention to the aspect lines sometimes it just creates these patterns in the center of the chart. LS: Right. And I never want to overemphasize that--I think sometimes they have been overemphasized--and I would definitely start with the more foundational rising sign,
1:00:07 Ascendant ruler, Sun/Moon, by house placement, rulership, by sign, by aspect, all of those things. I would start with all of those first, but these are some of the ones that we might look at after that or consider after that. CB: Yeah, because part of the problem is that these are not going to be in everybody’s chart. LS: Right. CB: You want to have a system that you’re going to apply across the board to everyone’s chart, which is Sun/Moon/rising sign and other foundational stuff like that. But you want to have the ability to occasionally, if something pops up, and you see a planetary pattern, to be able to identify it and know how to start working with that. LS: Right. CB: I do think you have to be careful because there’s a tendency in modern astrology to overemphasize certain planetary patterns, like ‘yods’, and go way over the top in terms of thinking that it’s the most important thing, or that’s it’s the
1:00:54 only thing you should focus on, and that’s definitely taking it a little bit too far. LS: Yeah, that’s what I was trying to say as well because I know that’s the impression I got when I first got into astrology by reading some texts. CB: Right. Okay, so I’ll return to that maybe next month when I do the planetary patterns episode. LS: Mm-hmm. CB: Aside from that, planets conjunct the degree of the angles is one of the ones that I put on. We already touched on this briefly in terms of really focusing on planets conjunct the degree of the
…
