Personally, seeing FCEA-306 finally happening was a happy moment for me. I’d actually been waiting for it since March 6, 2019, which is a long time! That was the day that Catie, Jeff Parrett, and I committed to creating the school. Altruistically, my motivation in launching the FCEA was to make sure that this form of evolutionary astrology would outlive me, but I had a more personal motivation too. I felt that the best use of my remaining time on Earth lay in teaching more advanced forms of astrology to serious students. That meant master classes! I knew in order to make space in my life for that, I would need to cut back on teaching the basics over and over again. 

The dilemma was that in order to be in a position to have master classes, we needed some masters! People like that are not the products of weekend workshops. Astrological mastery comes with time and commitment. We had to wait about three years for the FCEA’s first wave of students to make their way through the foundational courses and get to the point where they were ready for me to work with them individually. 

Exactly how to do that was the problem. Ideally, each student would do a complete analysis of a birthchart, a transits-progressions situation, and a synastry. I would listen to all three and offer personal feedback and support. Multiply that by fifteen students and it was clear that time was going to be an insurmountable problem. Catie and I had to get creative. Seven classes of 90 minutes meant that we had a total of just over ten hours to work with. That meant about 40 minutes per student. How could we best use that time?

The plan we came up with seems to be working very well. Each week we assign a single chart to the class in advance. We encourage the students to study it as if they were preparing to do a consultation for the person – to be ready for anything, in other words. When the class meets, Catie and I take turns asking specific questions about the chart. For example, we might ask something technical – say, a prominent Venus-Uranus opposition. Or we might ask a more general, integrative question, such as how would you counsel this person about career? Then we roll the drums. I reach into a hat and pull out a random number. Each number corresponds to one of the students in the class. That student is then invited to take about ten minutes or so to respond to our question. I let them run with it for a while, then I coach them a little further, helping them polish their comments and insights. 

Once a person’s number has been pulled from the hat, we set it aside – that way, we’ll make sure that everyone has had a turn before anyone is called upon a second time.

In that first class, we worked with five students. I found that number very encouraging since it means that all the students are likely to get at least two or three opportunities to share their knowledge over the total of seven weeks in the class.

The first four of the weekly sessions will involve looking at a natal chart. Then two will be transits-progressions situations and one will be a synastry. We’ll use the same four natal charts for all seven sessions. The reason is simple: to do a good transits-progressions analysis or a synastry, you need to understand the natal charts thoroughly. That takes time, which is in short supply with only ten hours of class time. It seemed more efficient to build on the knowledge we had all gained from looking at those four natal charts earlier in the program. The first chart, in fact, was “Matthias Brown,” who had already made an appearance earlier in the curriculum.

Our four natal charts are fictional – there are no famous people or anyone we know personally. It’s pure astrology, in other words. Still, all astrologers are helped if they know a little bit about someone’s practical situation. That’s because there’s much that’s relevant to life but which cannot be seen in a chart – for instance, a person’s current relationship status, or some specific circumstance that overshadows everything, like maybe they’re fabulously wealthy or in a wheelchair or serving time in prison. We can always do helpful astrology while only knowing the date, time, and place of a person’s birth – but knowing a bit more helps us to speak more clearly. To help out, I constructed short biographies for each of our four fictional characters. Those are available to all of our FCEA306 students in advance too.

I mentioned that we had fifteen students signed up for the class and only fourteen present. Absent was our friend, Cezary Piscorz. He was a victim of our frustrating Time Zone problem. It is an absolute joy to me that our FCEA student body is so international, but it does create insoluble scheduling problems. Our class started at 5:00 pm-Pacific Time – which would have been the wee hours of a Tuesday morning for poor Cezary! (That time worked out all right for everyone else, although naturally it was easier for some than for others.) 

For Cezary, we’ve made a special arrangement. One of our seven classes will occur at 8:00 am-Pacific Time, which is late afternoon for him (and awkward for some other class members). On that day, we will suspend our usual process of pulling a number from a hat and just start with Cezary. He can catch the rest of the classes via recordings, but we’ll miss his lively presence at our meetings.

I want to thank Cezary for his patience and understanding. Meanwhile I want to applaud this first wave of FCEA master astrologers-in-the-making individually by name. Thank you, Cezary, Raine, Sophie Salanat, Lauren Neubauer, Karla Smith, Lelia Thell, Lidia Ranieri, Linda Walker, Barb McNemar, Paula Crall. Teema Loeffeholz, Alan Egge, Sharon Kruger, Kimberly Blanchette, and Jackie Johanasen. 

I’m proud of all of you!