Our "Aspirational" Planets Course
Dean’s Update, November 2022
Welcome to the holiday season, everyone! I must say I look with anticipation to the Sun’s ingress into Sagittarius. I can just hear the collective sigh, followed by a little excitement and release. It’s time to celebrate the closure of 2022, enjoy the company of old friends, mix and mingle and have some fun. Hopefully, we all have been doing our Saturn work, so let’s embrace Jupiter. The planet turns direct, November 23rd, right when we have a New Moon at one degree Sagittarius. Let’s be like the centaur and shoot an arrow of hope and joy to the stars!
As the year comes to an end, I mention two powerhouses, Jupiter and Saturn, what Steven and I call the “aspirational” planets. This is because we are fine-tuning our next 300-level course, focusing upon these very same planets. The advanced 300 series has been a mix of both Jupiter gumption, by rolling the dice in curricular experimentation, and Saturn hard work and discipline to take each challenge one step at a time. Steven is the master curriculum writer but we work together as a team, so I will share here some of my own work as co-writer in the FCEA journey. And we could not do this critical teaching without the blessing of feedback and support from our master 300-level tutors – Bryan Colter, Ryan Evans, and Marie O’Neill – who have been so patient with the ways I have experimented in course design. How best to create an upper-level curriculum that engages students in a deeper, more personal way, and still keep a handle on the size and scope of the course?
In our 300-level classes, I took some Jupiter chances by implementing creative solutions to the learning process and expanded what I hope were community-building strategies into each course. And they seem to have worked. Meanwhile, Saturn still beckons me to reassess and give structure to the courses yet to come.
Throughout this past year, I relied on student and tutor feedback to make adjustments, corrections and tweak each course format. Most importantly, our weekly tutor-student Zoom meetings at this higher level have opened up a whole new student-centered approach that seems to work well with our advanced community of learners. At this advanced Craftsperson level, student presentations offer each person a chance to share their talent and skills, while also letting peers and tutors develop a bond of love and community.
In other courses, I made sure to have discussions based upon students’ own charts or the charts of those they love, in addition to fictitious client charts, each a creative space for open dialog and loving support. At one point, I even went into FCEA 302 and added a discussion about “your Venus” by progression or solar arc, in light of popular demand! Who can study Venus without a chance for some Venusian heart-to-heart sharing?
FCEA 303, Aspirational Planets Jupiter and Saturn, opens the end of January, just a few weeks shy of my own 1st house Jupiter return. I am excited to expand and develop this course with some of these innovative methods once again, but I also know challenges need to be met and stubborn determination of the “great taskmaster” is a “course requirement.” This December, I will experience the third and final hit of my Second Saturn Return. And Saturn by transit continues to move in the 10th house of the FCEA birth chart. As Steven would tell us, on top of listening to my “inner child,” where do I need to listen to my inner Saturnian “tough old bird?”
I’ll end on a Jupiter note. With the jovial vibe of this celebratory season, I look forward to birthing the next step in our FCEA educational journey, FCEA 303, and I congratulate all of our hardworking students who clearly demonstrate the efforts needed of a Saturnian “great work” and a Jupiterian passion for learning. Our 2023 Course Catalog dates are now available on our website and I encourage you to take a look at what lies ahead in the coming year. I hope to see many of you on our Holiday Celebration and Community Q&A call, December 8th. Blessings for the start of a great festive season!