Starting back in 1986, every few years the various astrological organizations come together to produce the massive tribal gathering called UAC (say: YOU-Ack) – the United Astrology Conference. This year, it will be happening in Chicago from September 3-9 at the Chicago Marriott Downtown. I’ll be there, showing the flag for our branch on astrology’s tree. So will our Dean, Catie Cadge – she’ll be commanding an FCEA table at the huge Trade Show, sharing it with our very own Lisa Jones, who’ll be there promoting her wonderful astrological odysseys to Greece. 

If you want more details or think that you might want to attend the conference, the website is uacastrology.com.

I’ve spoken at every UAC except for the first one in 1986, which was held in San Diego, California. My second book had actually just come out around then, but I still wasn’t a known quantity in the world of astrology, so I wasn’t invited to present any talks. In fact, I don’t think I even knew the event was happening. Back then, I was deep into astrology, but I knew zip about the organizations and actually cared less – I believe at that point in my life, I hadn’t even met another professional astrologer.

By the time the second UAC rolled around in New Orleans in 1989, I’d made a bit of a splash in the community and so I was invited to speak. That’s when I actually began to meet some other figures in the profession. Amazingly, while there I also met my future partner, Michelle Kondos. Much to my embarrassment (and her amusement) I don’t remember anything about it. She apparently approached me and asked me for a reading, but as the fates would have it I was already booked up. Another Jupiter-cycle passed before we actually met in a way that I remember – and yet another cycle before we became a couple.

Since then, UACs have rolled by like milestones on a long highway – Washington D.C. in 1992, Monterey, California in 1995, 1998 in Atlanta, Georgia, then 2002 in Orlando, Florida. Six years passed as various political alliances formed and collapsed, then there was UAC #7 which happened in Denver, Colorado in 2008. In 2012, UAC returned to New Orleans. 2018 brought it to Chicago, and now, after an eight-year pause, we are heading back to Chicago for a second time. 

I’ll admit it – I have mixed feelings about these events, mostly because they are exhausting for me. I sort of both look forward to them and dread them too. Being in the spotlight for five or six days is overwhelming. Because of my work, I’ve gotten to be at least casual friends with several famous people. I’ve learned not to envy them, at least not in any simple way. It’s often stressful for them to stick their noses outside their own homes for fear of being mobbed. Thankfully, I am nowhere near that well-known. Only rarely have I been “recognized” in public – except at astrology conferences. At those events, I can’t take two steps without signing a book, someone asking for a selfie, or me having to listen to somebody’s windy theories about quincunxes versus sesquiquadrates. 

Still, there is something glorious about being in a vibrant crowd of three or four thousand mostly highly intelligent people, all of whom understand the power of astrology – and at least some of whom seem sincere in wanting to thank me for my life’s work. I sincerely appreciate that blessing! It’s good to be appreciated and I am grateful for it.

Bottom line, if you’re there in Chicago in September, if you can’t find me in the lobby or at one of my talks, I am probably hiding under my bed in my hotel room trying to catch my breath. But don’t worry – I’ll emerge soon.

MY TALKS

In case you’re interested, at this upcoming UAC I will be presenting two short talks, plus one longer “post-con” workshop. I’ll also be presenting the Regulus Award for Education at the big banquet – I won it last time, and tradition dictates that the previous winner presents it to the next one.

On Friday, September 4th, I’ll offer a talk called The Ascendant and the Journey Of A Thousand Miles.  Here’s a description of it:

When a planet hits the Ascendant, you’re at a crossroads.The trouble is that you don’t really know what you are doing. Maybe you move to a new city. Maybe you get married. How can you really know what lies ahead? Making your first step the right one requires boldness, faith, and intuition. Your wisest move? Make an ally of the planet that’s triggering this new beginning – Neptune has different plans for you than Mars or Jupiter! 

On Sunday, the 6th, I’ll do one about the cycle of the planet Uranus as it relates to the human lifetime. 

With its 84 year orbit, Uranus mirrors the human lifespan. At age 21, roughly a quarter of the way around: leaving home. At 42, halfway: welcome to midlife, At around age 63 we enter elderhood. Each turning point presents minefields and opportunities. The stakes are high too – every really cool old person you’ve ever met got each step right. Ditto, only backwards, for the tedious old folks you want to avoid. 

Finally, on Wednesday, September 9th, I’ll present a longer program entitled, The Skillful Synthesis of Planets, Signs, and Houses. Here’s what to expect there:

We can talk theoretically all day long about Mercury or Venus, but they only take on living human meaning in the context of their signs and houses. The heart of the craft of astrology lies in blending these three levels of astrological symbolism. A 3rd house Venus in Libra is a different beast entirely than a 12th house Venus in Aries. Join Steven Forrest for a step-by-step analysis of this critical integrative process.

WHY ATTEND?

All of the UACs are like a living, breathing Who’s Who in the world of astrology. They provide an unparalleled opportunity to learn directly from various teachers who’ve made their mark in all of astrology’s multifarious traditions. For someone just getting started, I can’t think of a better way to get a taste of the whole spectrum of astrological practice in order to help you decide which one feels right for you personally.

If you’re already more settled in your approach, you’ll have a chance to take your learning to the next level by studying with the best teachers in your particular branch of the field. Of course you can also do that by reading books or watching teachers on YouTube. Still, there is something magical about the “direct transmission” you get in a live setting. I don’t fully understand why that is true, but it has always been vividly real for me.

Last but far from least, you can count on having a lot of mind-blowing random conversations with other attendees. You’ll meet people who are as passionate as you are about this craft we practice. Many would be fully capable of presenting lectures of their own, but their lives have just gone down different roads so they don’t check the “famous” box quite as clearly as some of the more popular speakers. That certainly doesn’t mean that they have nothing to say or teach . . . in fact, come to think of it, we could probably say the same thing about you as a student in the FCEA! There might be someone at UAC whose life you are going to touch with a word or two based on your own learning and experience.

If you feel moved to attend, UAC could open some doors inside of you that you didn’t even know you had.

See you there? See how you feel.

Fate versus Free Will – it’s the oldest argument in astrology. The fact that it’s still being debated after all these centuries proves that there must be some truth on both sides. It’s not like fussing about whether two plus two equals four or equals five. That question was settled long ago simply because it’s “settleable.” We can do the math. In my opinion, fate versus free will is a different beast entirely – it’s not settleable at all. To me, the most obvious parallel lies in physics, where you can prove two things. First, that light is a wave and that it could not possibly be a particle. And second, that light is a particle and it could not possibly be a wave. (By the way, if you want that idea spelled out in lucidly clear language, the best book I could recommend would be The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav.) 

The more deeply we come to understand the universe, the more it appears to be ruled by paradox. Maybe the universe is itself a Libra, reflexively saying “on one hand, but then on the other hand.” 

Paradox, paradox, paradox . . . it’s built into the very fabric of reality. For one obvious parallel, I think that there’s a deep interdependency between kindness and truthfulness. Neither has any real meaning without the other. And I believe the same thing is true for fate and free will.

So much for philosophy.

ENTER THE COUNSELING ROOM

The bell has rung and it’s time for us to exit our Philosophy 101 classroom and move on to Psychology 101. There, my client says, “Of course I can’t shut up – I’m a Gemini. I know I drive everyone crazy by being such a motormouth, but you’ve seen my chart. I can’t help it.”

Steve: Gemini is about communication and that’s as much about listening as it is about talking.

Client: But . . .

Steve: You can choose to listen more. You have that power. You can become a better Gemini.

Maybe the client accepts that guidance, maybe not. We can’t control anyone. But clearly in that short exchange, we see a necessary underlying counseling room emphasis on the exercise of  free will – the idea that we are capable of taking responsibility for our own choices. By contrast, imagine how uselessly destructive it would be for an astrologer to agree with a Gemini client that they have no power over their own mouths. That kind of hopeless, resigned passivity has never once made anyone’s life any better. Astrological fatalism actually damages people. In that area, I believe that we are not debating technique, we’re debating ethics.

In my case for free will, let’s call that Exhibit A. 

Here’s Exhibit B: There are in fact yackety-yack Gemini people who improve. They learn to listen. They become more effective communicators. Why? Because they chose to. They exercised their free will. They recognized that they have some degree of agency in their own lives. This is an observed reality and it must be factored into our efforts as we attempt to zero in on the truth.

Here in our Psychology 101 classroom, we recognize that in the context of any kind of counseling, astrological or otherwise, the assumption of free will – and its close cousin, personal responsibility – is absolutely necessary. Failing that, we find ourselves adding an astrological seal of inescapable doom to whatever vices or stuck places a client presents. Our job is to aim people at the higher ground, not to tell them that it’s impossible to reach it. We need to leave them with a map for getting there, along with an empowered feeling that they can in fact succeed. Any kind of fatalism is antithetical to all of that. 

Fate versus free will – as counselors, we embrace freedom as a practical truth that lies at the foundation of everything good that we do. But what is the ultimate truth – the one that embraces both sides of the paradox? 

We graduated from Philosophy 101. Let’s head for Philosophy 102.

IT’S YOUR FATE TO FACE CERTAIN QUESTIONS . . .

Many of my readings for clients open with those exact words. Specifically, I say, “It’s your fate to face certain questions and certain possibilities in this life. How you answer those questions or respond to those possibilities is up to you.” 

To me, those words nicely straddle both sides of the paradox. 

In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo complains to the wizard Gandalf about the burden he is fated to carry. He’s wishing the One Ring had never come to him. Gandalf replies, “So do I, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.“

There, straight from the wizard’s mouth, is exactly the same principle that I’m espousing here. It’s a middle path between fate and free will – a path that leaves room for both, while ignoring neither of them. “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.“

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

Why do you have the chart that you have? Evolutionary astrology is perhaps the only form of our craft in which we attempt to answer that question. The answer is always karmic – the chart you have today is the direct result of actions you’ve taken in prior lifetimes, for good or for ill. As the Tibetan saint, Padma Sambhava put it, “If you want to know your past lives, consider your present circumstances.”

Those past-life actions are done. They’re water under the bridge. Their results, which are evident in your present life, are therefore foreordained and inevitable. All that is clearly “in the hands of fate.” But exactly how do you go about navigating those labyrinths today? What do you do with the time that is given to you? That’s in your own hands. You can respond habitually, repeating old patterns. That’s pure karma: the repetition compulsion. Or you can respond creatively and more wisely – and that’s your evolutionary path. That’s the road to the higher ground.

ENTER THE ASTROLOGICAL HOUSES 

Astrology is really three symbol systems woven into one. We have planets, signs, and houses.

Of the three, “the hand of fate” is most obviously evident in the houses. The reason is simple: houses are linked directly to the kinds of specific circumstances that life presents to us, often whether we like them or not. Meanwhile, signs are more motivational and psychological. They correlate more with a person’s energy than with his or her behavior. Try this: “Jane works ten or twelve hours a day six days a week. Is she an introvert or an extrovert? Notice how you can’t answer? That’s because we gave you “house information” – that is to say, comments about Jane’s behavior – then we asked a sign question.

As we saw, houses represent the circumstances that life thrusts upon us – and circumstances, by their very nature, are obvious. In evolutionary terms, we might make a case that the twelve astrological houses are like classrooms where we are offered the opportunity to learn the lessons for which we’ve signed up in this incarnation. They’re “required courses” too, so we don’t have much choice about skipping them. 

• What that all boils down to is that “fate” will constantly present us with situations that are reflected in the emphasized houses in our natal charts. Our “freedom” lies in how we respond to those situations.

A FEW EXAMPLES

Oprah Winfrey was born in 1954 in Mississippi to an unwed teenage mother. Poverty was obviously a big part of that situation. Nowadays she’s said to be worth three billion dollars. Mercury, Venus, and the Sun are all in her 2nd house. That means that the gods and the goddesses put her in a classroom called “Let’s Think Some Deep Thoughts About Money.” That house focus doesn’t always spell vast wealth – poverty can be a teacher too, as it actually was at first for Oprah. One “fatalistic” statement we can make with good reliability whenever we see a strong 2nd house is that the person’s relationship with money will usually involve many changes, many ups and downs. That’s because the universe wants us to keep thinking about money, what to do with it, and how much to concern ourselves with it. Dealing with those kinds of questions was part of Oprah’s “fate.” She’s faced it pretty much in a “both sides now” fashion.

Actor Timothee Chalamet has Sun, Mars, Mercury, Neptune, and Uranus all in his 5th house, all in Capricorn. The “fates” beckoned him to a 5th house life of disciplined performance and creativity. How? His mother “happened” to have been a Broadway dancer, so he grew up around that kind of energy. Living in New York City, he was able to attend a nearby performing arts high school and make useful connections there. During high school, he actually dated Madonna’s daughter for a year.

Was he “forced” to become an actor? No – but “the fates” certainly beckoned him in that direction through his circumstances.

One traditional meaning of the 5th house is children – and often people with strong 5th houses find themselves interacting with kids whether or not they are parents. We’ll see how that works out for Mr. Chalamet as the years go by, but we certainly already see the way “the fates” led him to become the artist that he is today.

Running parallel to Timothee Chalamet is the life of seminal singer-songwriter, Bob Dylan, whom Chalamet portrayed so brilliantly in the 2024 film, A Complete Unknown. Dylan himself has four planets in his 5th house – Saturn, Moon, Uranus, and Jupiter, all in Taurus. His “fate” involved creativity too. And Dylan has fathered six children.

Princess Diana had a Sun-Mercury conjunction in Cancer in her 7th house. Anyone who knows anything about her tragic life can feel the “hand of fate” operating upon her in terms of the life-shaping power of marriage and relationships.

A 1st house stellium is almost the antithesis of fate in that it puts enormous focus on self-generated, independent decisions – often ones made in isolation or even loneliness. Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast in history, is a fine illustration of that principle. She was born with Venus, the Sun, Mercury, the south node, and Saturn all in her 1st house. At birth, her mother was unable to care for her and quickly put her up for foster care and eventually adoption – her 1st house lessons started early. Perhaps Simone Biles’ clearest demonstration of independent self-mastery happened in 2021 when she shocked everyone by withdrawing from Olympic competition. She said, “I say put mental health first.” Biles could have let herself be railroaded by social pressure and other people’s expectations. In 1st house fashion, she simply made her own decision and said no. Was that choice  “fated?” I don’t think so – but the fact that she found herself in that position was. 

Ram Dass had a Sun/Uranus conjunction in Aries in his 10th house. His Midheaven is in Pisces. Who would have thought that the fates would eventually summon the son of an upwardly mobile Jewish lawyer from Boston to become a semi-Hindu rebel spiritual teacher and role model for hundreds of thousands of young people during a cultural revolution? The gods and goddesses had a different – and very Uranian – plan for his public life.

As a final example, let’s consider Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez – a waitress from the Bronx in New York City who won a shock election and became a U.S. congressional representative. The call of the fates, anyone? “AOC” has a Sun-Mars conjunction in her 10th house and, just like Ram Dass, the Divine Hand had a very public plan for her too.

A FINAL WORD

None of these examples feel even slightly forced. The truth just leaps out from the shape of bare biographical facts, and in it we can sense higher forces working in these people’s lives. It would be fair to call these forces “the hand of fate.” 

Still, the trouble with that kind of language is that a temptation arises to imagine that all of these outcomes were foreordained and inevitable. Don’t succumb to it. Each of these seven human beings co-created their “fates.” They were not mechanically “fated” at all, at least not in any inescapable sense. Each one of them could have slept through the opportunities that life presented them. They could have let fear make their decisions – or the love of money, or status, or sex, or addiction. Or simple laziness. That they did not do that is an expression of their innate freedom. I, for one, would never want to rob them of that dignity. I say that not simply out of respect for them, but for a deeper reason. I say it out of respect for the free will in each one of us and how it dances with whatever doorways the Divine Hand opens before us all – and how it closes them just as quickly if we don’t seize the moment.

Fate versus free will? It’s time to delete “versus” and replace it with an endless interplay of cooperation, mutual potentiation, and interdependency operating between ourselves and forces that are embedded deeply in the mysteries of the universe – forces that call us and guide us, but which do not ultimately control us. As astrologers we should strive to never forget how in our negotiations with those synchronistic energies, we are far from powerless.

Let’s say you get up at dawn on May 21. The Sun is rising. It’s in the first degree of Gemini, so that means that Gemini is rising too. Around noon, the Sun is as high in the sky as it can be – and therefore so is Gemini, right on the Midheaven along with the Sun. Sunset? Gemini is on the Descendant. 

No surprises in any of that. It’s just Earth turning on its axis. In the course of twenty-four hours, each sign rises once.

Switching gears, how do we define progressions? Again, this is very elementary astrology. Days become years. If you want to know where your progressed Venus is located on your fortieth birthday, count forty days after you were born. Where was Venus then? That’s its progressed position.

• In a single day, each sign rises once. Following the strict logic of progressions, one day turns into one year – and therefore in the course of one single year, each sign should rise once by progression. In other words, you should have a brand new progressed Ascendant every month or so.

Technically, this very pure method of progressing the Angles is called Daily Houses. In my experience, nobody uses it very much. In terms of actual impact, this form of progressing the Angles works very much like the equally fast transits of the Sun, Mercury, and Venus. Like them, it triggers events, but it doesn’t reveal big developmental patterns. Daily Houses are miles away from true “First Net” material.

• The key point for our purposes here is that the Daily Houses method is actually the only logically consistent application of progressions theory to the four Angles of the chart – days become years, period. It’s totally straightforward. Meanwhile, all of the other methods of progressing the Angles have to dance around a variety of rationalizations.

Before we get into the weeds with all of this – you can call me Mister Capricorn, but let me just say that I’m not comfortable with rationalizations or lapses in logic. I do get my own joke – I believe that the universe is a lot more comfy with those kinds of things than I am! But still, here’s what works for me: when it comes to progressed Angles, I use straight solar arcs. However far your Sun has progressed since the day you were born, I add that same number of degrees to everything else, including the Ascendant, Descendant, Midheaven, and the astrological nadir. That’s all straightforward solar arc theory, so, unlike with the other forms of progression for the Angles, no complications are swept under the carpet. 

Technically, by the way, that 4th house cusp is called the Imum Coeli, which is Latin for “bottom of the sky.” Its most common pronunciation is IMM-um CHAY-lee. Often in practice, astrologers simply refer to it as the “IC.”

WHAT ACTUALLY WORKS?

I do have to say that I’ve often gotten pretty good results with other methods for progressing the Angles, but in the interest of not overwhelming myself by trying to use too many versions of astrology all at once, in practice I limit myself to solar arcs. That’s a personal choice, and I wouldn’t discourage anyone from working with other methods – just make sure that you don’t suffocate your intuition by trying to juggle too many balls at once.

Just quickly, here are three of my own personal experiences with solar arc Angles. They really do work! Often they are uncannily accurate in terms of the timing of events. 

• My Midheaven squared my natal Uranus just a few months before I graduated from college. I decided to focus on astrology rather than going to graduate school – a choice which everyone around me viewed as “Uranian,” to put it politely. 

• By solar arc, my Ascendant formed a conjunction with my natal Venus within one month of starting my full-time astrological counseling practice – I emphasize “counseling” for the obvious Venus connection. 

• By solar arc, the Midheaven squared my Jupiter the very month that my first book was published – nicely precise in timing, and also illustrating the idea that squares are not always bad news.

ONWARD INTO THE WEEDS

I’ve always felt that there’s something good to be said for astrologers understanding the astronomical basis of our craft. I do believe in that principle, but in all honesty if I were pressed to defend it, I’m not sure that I would be very convincing. Certainly there are many fine astrological counselors who can’t tell a Vertex from the Celestial Equator. One happy bottom line: there are no “points off” for any of you in the FCEA community who skip the rest of this edition of Master’s Musings! None of it is particularly relevant when you’re sitting with charts and people with tears in their eyes. 

Matrix’s Winstar software – which is the program I’ve used for most of my career – has a method of progressing the Angles which they call Secondary MC. Years ago, I asked co-founder Stephen Erlewine how these Matrix calculations were made. Here’s what he told me.

“The first attempt was to duplicate what most astrologers were doing by hand at that time, and we call it Secondary MC. The Sun’s position is calculated for the progressed date using one-day-equals 365.25 days, then the solar arc is calculated from that position and that arc is added to the natal MC and the houses derived. But instead of using the arc along the ecliptic as in the solar arc method, it is added along the celestial equator since that more closely approximates the Midheaven that our customers were used to using, and, of course, the Right Ascension of the Midheaven is the basis of any house system.” 

Confused? See below for some definitions. This diagram might help you visualize everything we’re about to explore.

Astrology, as we practice it in the FCEA, is based on the familiar twelve signs, which are defined by the Equinoxes and the Solstices. That’s the zodiac – although astronomers call it the ecliptic. It is simply the apparent yearly path of the Sun as it travels against the starry background. The ecliptic is one “line in the sky.” There’s another: we can also project Earth’s equator out onto space – and, no surprise, that line is called the celestial equator. 

The plane of the ecliptic is tilted about twenty-three and a half degrees relative to the plane of the equator, as you can see in the diagram.

Declination is a measurement based on the celestial equator. It corresponds to what we call latitude on Earth – that is to say it represents a planet’s elevation north or south of the equator. Mincing the words a bit, you might say that Norway has a “higher declination” than Spain.

Meanwhile, right ascension (to which Stephen Erlewine referred) corresponds to earthly  longitude, which is to say that it is based on the celestial equator. Arbitrarily, we start counting longitude on Earth from the Greenwich meridian near London. Similarly, the 0° longitude point of right ascension is the position of the Vernal Equinox on the celestial equator. 

Ready for more weeds? Right from the start of this essay, the issue we’re exploring is that all of the methods for progressing the Angles depend on some rationalization and improvisation. As we saw, the only method that is absolutely consistent logically is the “Daily Houses” approach, with each month bringing you a new progressed Ascendant and Midheaven. A little while ago, I confessed that in my own practice I simply apply the standard solar arc approach to the Angles. In the other methods, some astrological theorists – most of whom are far better astronomers than myself – have actually had a similar instinct about using solar arcs, but they’ve applied them in more technical ways. Still, it’s a helpful perspective to remember that they all use some variation on solar arcs. 

Before we go any further, let’s add one more necessary complication. We speak of the Sun’s progressed speed – and thus the speed of all solar arcs – as “one degree per year.”  That figure is actually an approximation. Earth’s orbit around the Sun is elliptical, so we speed up and slow down in the course of a year. Earth is closest to the Sun – and thus moving at its fastest speed – every year around January 3rd. In practical terms, that means that if you were born during the colder months in the northern hemisphere, your progressed Sun – and thus your solar arcs – are moving a little faster than one degree per year. It’s vice versa if you were born during the warm months. 

The average annual speed of the progressed Sun is 59’ 08” – that’s actually just under one degree per year. But it varies about 1.6% from that figure over the course of twelve months.

Is your head spinning? I’d be the first to confess mine is spinning too. Like most of you in the FCEA, I’m a counselor, not an astronomer. 

With this next step, I’m definitely edging into “over my head” territory . . .

• The Midheaven – and thus the other three Angles – can be progressed by solar arc either along the ecliptic (that is, in celestial longitude) or along the celestial equator (that is, in right ascension). 

• Furthermore, it can be progressed by the actual measured solar arc – that is, taking into account the Sun’s annual variation in speed. Alternatively, it can be progressed in a constant fashion, using that average figure of 59’08” per year. That method is called Naibod, by the way. 

Let’s add that focussing on the Midheaven here is just shorthand. Naturally the IC would always be directly opposite it. Meanwhile, each Midheaven degree is linked to a specific Ascendant degree, which varies by latitude – and that of course determines the degree of the Descendant. 

So, deep in the weeds, here is the bottom line: we have the progressed Midheaven potentially advanced along the ecliptic by two forms of solar arc – that is, by its true speed or its average annual speed. We also have the progressed Midheaven advanced along the celestial equator by those same two forms of solar arc. 

Thus, we have four distinct methods of calculation, each with its adherents. 

Complicating the process of sorting out the best methods is the fact the results are often close together. 

In all honesty, the progressed Angles are among the most unsettled, and widely misunderstood, dimensions of our craft. I wouldn’t discourage anyone from experimenting with any or all of these techniques. As with all things in astrology, the proof of the pudding is the correspondence of any of these techniques with your own experience. 

Given the “trade school” values that underlie the Forrest Center for Evolutionary Astrology, in practice let’s focus on simply adding the actual arc of the progressed Sun to the positions of the four Angles. That straight solar arc method works well – and leaves some energy left over for thinking about everything else that’s going on in a chart.

Are your eyes getting glassy? Mine too. But if you’ve absorbed the basic ideas I’ve written about here, I can confidently guarantee that you now actually know more about the progressed Angles than most astrologers working today.

At The FCEA, we have been rolling out new 400 courses addressing advanced topics. One of our new classes is “402: Chart Rectification” Here’s what that speciality course is all about. As we all know, a person’s exact time of birth is mission-critical in astrology, but sometimes it’s impossible to find it. That’s especially true if someone was born at home and no record was kept. Generally it’s more of a problem with older people – years ago, it was more common not to bother with “an inconsequential detail” like that. People are pretty good about it nowadays.

The problem runs deeper. A birth listed “at noon” also naturally triggers suspicion. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Ditto for a birth registered exactly on the half or quarter hour. Naturally, it’s possible for someone to be born at 10:15, but the number smacks of being rounded off. Sometimes even a few minutes of error can make a big difference in a chart – it could change the Ascendant sign, for example. We need to be careful with “recorded” birth times like those.

More insidiously, even a seemingly accurate birth time can be off by a little. Maybe your client reports, “My birth certificate says that I was born at 11:07 PM.” That has the ring of real authority – but what do we actually mean by the moment of birth? Some of you female readers have had babies, and you know it’s not quite like, “Pop! Oooh, a baby! Quick – what time is it?” Are we talking about the first breath, the emergence of the child’s head, the final separation from the mother’s body, or the severing of the umbilical cord? There’s no clear agreement about any of that.

Over the years, I’ve noticed a pattern: it runs out that people are often born a little earlier than what’s recorded. It’s not a reliable principle, but it’s one worth considering. The reason is probably pretty simple: the medical staff is busy with the actual birthing process. When it’s over and the baby is safely delivered, someone looks at the clock and calls out the time. The actual birth occurred a bit earlier. I’m a good example of that. On my birth certificate, my time of birth is listed as 3:30 AM. I’ve come to believe that it is closer to 3:22 AM. That’s an eight minute difference – enough to make some significant changes in my chart.

Then there’s the final vexation: how accurate was the clock on the wall? As we all know, unless a clock is tied to the Internet, it can easily drift a minute or two away from reality. Typically no one notices it. 

• The bottom line is that there is always at least the suspicion of some uncertainty in anyone’s time of birth. Being mindful of that possibility is good astrological practice. Always consider it if a chart feels a bit “off.” Quite possibly, it is.

Applying that caution in practice brings us to the fascinating world of chart rectification.

WHAT IS CHART RECTIFICATION?

We all know that a person’s astrological chart correlates with the timing of life events. That’s an astrological staple; it’s the standard practice of transits, progressions, and solar arcs. What if we turn that process on its head? What if instead of predicting events from a chart, we use the timing of events to predict the chart? 

That, in a nut shell, is rectification.

Take for example the start of a significant relationship. Such a life-changing event is always heralded by relevant transits, progressions, or solar arcs. At such a time, progressed Venus might, for one illustration, form a conjunction with your natal Sun. That’s everyday astrology at work – but it won’t help us much in this case. Why? Because even if all we know is the day that someone was born, we already know the position of their Sun within about one degree of accuracy. That Venus progression doesn’t narrow down the time of birth at all. 

• What we are looking for is any transit, progression, or solar arc impacting any of the four Angles – the Ascendant, Descendant, Midheaven, and Astrological Nadir. Those are the time-sensitive points. They are what hold the secret of the actual moment of birth. They are the astrological clock on the wall.

Let’s say that when that significant relationship started, progressed Venus was entering your 7th house. Like Venus hitting the Sun, that would also be a textbook astrological correlate for someone important popping into your life. But to know the position of that house cusp, we would have to know the time of your birth within a few minutes. 

The next step is the critical one.

Say we don’t know a woman’s birth time, but we do know that she met her husband when her progressed Venus had reached 11 degrees of Capricorn. Let’s also say that she told us that years earlier when she met “Mister Wrong,” transiting Pluto was in the same position. And when solar arc Jupiter was there, she met her literary agent who opened publishing doors for her.

We don’t know the woman’s birth time, but we’re starting to see a pattern of relationship sensitivity around that Capricorn degree. Let’s add one more critical point: no planetary aspects are triggered there. So what’s happening? Why are her relationships sensitive to that degree? 

• Might the timing of those events reveal the position of her 7th house cusp? 

That’s how rectification works. When a birth time is unknown, the Angles reveal themselves through clusterings of astrological events that cannot otherwise be explained. In other words, we’re not interested in transits, progressions, or solar arcs making aspects to planets. We are only interested in their aspects to the four Angles of the chart. 

Essentially we work backwards through the timing of actual events in order to find the chart that would have predicted them. 

That’s rectification.

A FEW PRACTICAL GUIDELINES

In undertaking a rectification, I ask the client for a list of the dates of about ten “big events.” To prime the pump, I suggest physical moves, the beginnings or endings of relationships, illnesses or accidents, career developments, significant deaths, the births of children, and so forth.

I also add an important stricture: make sure these events are all separated by at least a couple of years. Otherwise we’ll get “false positives.” How far do the outer planets or the progressions go in a year? Not far! So if the dates are close together, meaningless clusterings are inevitable. One exception: with dates separated by two or three months, it’s okay to use the transits of the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars. They move fast enough that they spread out over time periods like that. Never use anything slower with dates that are close together!

If the client can give me exact dates – for example, “I got married on June 13, 2019” – that’s great news. That means I can use those quick transits of the Sun, Mercury, Venus, and Mars. That’s why events where people can recall exact dates are particularly useful: marriages, the births of children, and parental deaths come to mind. 

Often in practice the date won’t be so precise. Instead, you’ll hear something like, “I moved to Chicago in summer 2007.” That can be helpful too – but we have to sacrifice those fast planets. Over three months, they’ll cover wide arcs. The good news is that even with vague dates, you can still use all the slow-moving ones – the transits of Jupiter on out, plus all the solar arcs and progressions. With the possible exception of transiting Jupiter, they don’t move far in a single summer.

Sometimes people know that they were born “early in the morning” or that “dad had to rush mom to the hospital in the wee hours.” That’s not accurate enough for us to set up a chart, but it’s still a huge help because it considerably narrows down the possibilities. Before you start a rectification, always see if any hints like that are available.

We know that when a planet has moved within a couple degrees of an Angle, things tend to happen. The planet doesn’t have to be exactly on the Angle, in other words. In my earlier example where we saw events clustering in a woman’s life when planets got to “11 degrees of Capricorn,” I was oversimplifying. A more likely reality would be seeing a clustering of planets falling between, say, 9 and 13 degrees of Capricorn. You basically average it out – because of orbs, the truth will likely lie somewhere in the middle of the cluster.

The more events you have, the better. As I mentioned, I’ll initially ask for ten. That’s generally been enough in my experience. Sometimes you get unlucky though – maybe all those events make perfect astrological sense, but they’re all tied to planetary aspects, not aspects to the Angles. If you’re not getting anywhere with a rectification, ask for another batch of events.

There’s one more stricture: since this whole process depends on having the dates of many big events spread out over a long period of time, it follows that you really can’t do reliable rectification work for children.

FCEA 402

That’s our rectification class. It dives deeply into the nuts and bolts of this method in a lot more detail than I can cover in a brief newsletter. In framing 402, I used the chart of soul-singer James Brown as an example. No birth time was available for him. He was born in poverty. But in a live video of one of his performances, he made reference to having “Leo rising.” That narrowed his time of birth down to a couple of hours, and I took it from there. 

James Brown was of course a famous person, so it was easy to research the dates of various biographical events, both glorious and inglorious. 

In 402, we teach a strictly hands-on method of chart rectification. All you need is time and astrological knowledge. Nowadays, there are many computer-assisted rectification methods available as well. Sirius software and Astrolabe’s “Jigsaw” can help. In the past, I’ve often used the rectification module in Alphee Lavoie’s A.I.R. software program. I’m not sure if that’s still available at this point.

Tools such as those can be helpful and there’s no shame in using them. Still, they embody the same kinds of temptations and pitfalls that are built into Artificial Intelligence in general – rely on them too much, and pretty soon you’re letting the machine do your thinking for you, while you learn nothing at all. 

Rectification taught me an enormous amount about how transits, progressions, and solar arcs actually work. For one example, when I was a young astrologer, I was bamboozled into believing the standard line about “benefic” and “malefic” planets. Perhaps more than anything else, rectification disabused me of all that. I saw enough deaths heralded by Jupiter and enough loving relationships heralded by Saturn that I was compelled to think more deeply about everything.

Intuition definitely plays a role in astrological work. We do need to be careful of it though. Be wary if you find yourself saying something like, “I just know you must have Gemini rising.” It might turn out that the person has Cancer rising, but with Mercury conjunct the Ascendant. You sensed the energy correctly, but you mislabeled it – and naturally such an “intuitive” error would cascade into a wildly incorrect reading.

There’s no substitute in other words for doing the rigorous work of rectification. Perhaps the biggest danger that arises if you simply let the software do it for you is that such laziness cancels out all the parts of your intuition that are actually helpful. By the time you’ve rectified a chart, your understanding of how the planets actually work in that person’s life is profound. Even better, maybe you get the feeling that a planet seems to be in the wrong house – rectification puts it in the 9th, but the 8th house feels like a more natural fit with the actual story of the person’s life. Then you realize that if he or she were born just one minute later, that planet would indeed land in the 8th house. 

Behind such a realization, here’s what’s going on technically. Remember how when we saw a cluster of planets hovering over a three or four degree area which we suspect is the position of an Angle, we just averaged it out and picked the middle? Because Angles have orbs, that’s just the way it all works in practice. The results are always slightly fuzzy – say, within a degree or so of error. And maybe because of that inherent imprecision, moving that suspect planet into the 8th house not only makes astrological sense, it’s also operating within the bounds of the small “quantum” uncertainties that underlie all rectification work. 

The point is that it was your precious intuition that sensed the error. If you had relied solely on computerized rectification, that intuitive insight would never have arisen. As with the best of modern astrological practice, we’re working in partnership with these mighty microchips, but we shouldn’t enslave ourselves to them.

Let me offer your intuition one final image: there’s an astrologer who sometimes simply gazes in awe at the starry night sky and there’s another one who never steps away from the computer screen. Which one do you want to trust with your soul? 

So roll up your sleeves, dive into the rectification process, and let your intelligence and your intuition learn to dance together. They’re stronger together than they are apart.

Some dimensions of this core principle of professional astrological conduct are too obvious to belabor. If a client shares with you that they have an improper relationship with a rubber duck, don’t post that information on Instagram. If you are a decent counselor of any sort – psychologist, astrologer, or tea-leaf reader – you will go to your grave with more juicy secrets than you can remember. That’s the deal. That’s what you signed up for. Most of your greatest victories, most of your brilliant moments – all are known only to you and one other person, bound for eternity under a seal of confidentiality. If you want applause from an audience larger than one person, try another career. 

That’s just a hundred words or so and I could probably have thrown away fifty of them – just keep your mouth shut about any private information that your clients share with you. It’s as simple as that. Everything here is clear as a bell . . . so far.

Some people – and some astrologers – prefer to keep their charts secret. Personally I prefer to be an open book, but that’s just me. God knows, you can learn a lot about a person from his or her birthchart! If someone doesn’t want that to be public information, that’s their business. So, along with personal secrets of the “rubber duck” nature, I also make a policy of never revealing anyone’s time of birth without their explicit permission. (The date and place are often public knowledge, so they’re a moot point.) Even the simple fact that someone has been a client of mine should never become public knowledge unless that person chooses to reveal our  relationship. The situation is improving, but in some circles there is still a stigma associated with anyone consulting an astrologer, so once again, that information needs to remain confidential.

There are no surprises or controversies in any of this: just keep mum about the details of a person’s life and birthchart. That’s an obvious ethical imperative. All of that’s easy to understand. What I actually want to explore in this essay are the gray areas. Once we get past what’s clearly right and wrong, the question of confidentiality collides with the real world in some tricky ways. Everything becomes more nuanced. 

As with much that happens in life, with questions of confidentiality good astrologers may come to different ethical conclusions. Let me say loudly and clearly that from now on all you read here are nothing but my own opinion – my suggestions, really. My aim is to reflect with you about the nature of right and wrong regarding confidentiality in more ambivalent circumstances. I’m mainly hoping to encourage some thought and some mindfulness, and maybe some dialog in the broader astrological community – and what I mean by that last comment will be clearer when we get to the final point that I want to explore in this essay.

SYNASTRY

A couple asks for astrological support as they work out their relationship. We set up their charts and off we go. This can be one of the most satisfying, straightforward dimensions of our craft – provided that both of the people have given their blessing to the process. What if one of them has not? What if, say, a wife asks you to explain her husband’s chart to her without telling him? Maybe he hates astrology. Maybe he has some religious reservations about it. Can we ethically share our interpretation of one person’s chart with another person without the absent person’s blessing? Is that right or wrong?

My first instinct here is to say no, we shouldn’t do that. I feel that I should have the other person’s approval before I explain their chart to anyone else. Note that this does not require that they “believe in astrology.” They can be dismissive of the whole thing. They can even say,”Go ahead, waste your money.” I have no problem with that. All that I needed to hear was that “go ahead.” 

In concrete terms, my only specific requirement is that my client assures me that their partner has given the green light to the process. To ask for a note seems silly – one could easily be faked. 

A gray area? Yes indeed – once again, this is simply how I personally have chosen to navigate this particular ethical quagmire.

Let’s have a look at some nuances and some exceptions.

ABUSE

A client is abused or even battered by a partner. Naturally they’re desperate and frightened. They ask me for help. Obviously under those circumstances the main astrological focus should be on their own chart, but in an extreme situation like that I might set up a bi-wheel with my client’s chart in the center and their partner’s planets in the outer wheel without the partner’s permission. What I am looking for is how the abusive partner impacts my client – how his (or her!) Pluto opposes my client’s Moon, for example. 

The focus is on understanding that interaspectual impact rather than understanding the nature and motives of the abusing partner. 

In setting up that bi-wheel, I’ve edged into ethically-questionable territory in terms of confidentiality, but in this situation that breach seems like the lesser of two evils.  If my client needed to ask her abusive partner’s permission for the session, she might face physical harm. It would clearly be wrong for me to put her in that position. And because her position is so dire, I want to pull out all the stops to help and empower her as much as I can. So I skate along the edge of an ethical abyss and I pray that I don’t fall into it.

Again, once we’re beyond the most obvious situations, confidentiality is a nuanced subject fraught with plenty of individual judgment calls.

CHILDREN

Kids, especially younger ones, are always a special case. A baby is born. The parents ask me for a reading of the child’s chart. I’m delighted to do it – and as soon as I open my mouth, I am flagrantly waiving the child’s right to confidentiality. Is that wrong? I don’t think so, but I’d be willing to take someone seriously who argued in the opposite direction. Children are human too. One could make a case that they have the same rights as any adult.

As the man said two thousand years ago, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” I wish my own parents had had the benefit of an understanding of my chart when they were raising me. That would have helped us all. Personally, I think the good that comes from parents understanding the specific needs and karmic situation of their child outweighs any issues of the kid’s right to confidentiality. Every culture and every legal system that has ever existed grasps the need to treat children differently than adults. To me, the “bad” of violating a child’s natural right to confidentiality is outweighed by the good of supporting the parents – and the child – by providing astrological perspective.

Maybe you feel differently? Other perspectives are of course possible.

What about teenagers? We’ve all been “them,” languishing in that twilight zone between childhood and adult life. Should we respect their confidentiality or share our understanding of their charts with their parents – with or without their permission?

Again I go back to “do unto others.” When I was, say, fourteen years old, how would I have felt about my parents “knowing my secrets?” Some stranger whom I did not know is talking about me to them behind my back? Forget about it! As a teen, I probably would not have wanted that, so for that reason I personally feel that I have no right to impose that violation on a teenager. 

Still, with a very troubled teen – for example, one with suicidal ideation – I’d probably make an exception. Nuances, nuances, nuances . . .

Generally starting around the age of puberty I avoid reading kids’ charts until they are old enough to absorb the work directly themselves. That “black out period” is not very long. I’ve had many fine astrological experiences sitting with bright, motivated sixteen year olds. In those sessions, there’s something sweet and intimate about us both understanding that everything we say is our secret – usually including a few private giggles about their parents.

All my work is recorded, so later on teens can share it – or not – with their parents. That’s up to them.

THE DEAD

At the other end of life’s trajectory we of course encounter relationships with people who are deceased. A client might come to me troubled by an unresolved relationship with her mother who’s just passed away. Without any hesitation, I would say “show me her chart.”  Once more, I’d be the first to admit that this is a judgement call. Someone might fairly criticize me for violating the privacy of the dead. Maybe I am wrong, but I feel that once someone is beyond any harm that this world can do to them that I have an open invitation to help those who are still here as they try to deal with whatever situations such a soul left in his or her wake.

In practice, I’ve not done much of that kind of post mortem astrology, but when I have, it’s been profound. I remember one instance particularly vividly. A woman came to me with pain about her father’s life-long emotional distance from her. She knew he loved her, but he always seemed to be withholding any expression of it. The man had a Cancer south node in the 12th house conjunct Saturn. As we speculated about his karma, we saw him as a celibate monk fasting in a cave somewhere and still scarred today by the wounds inflicted by that extreme austerity and isolation. Immediately the Holy Grail of informed compassion toward her father arose in my client’s heart. Through that astrological insight, she was able to feel more forgiveness towards him. I call that a good day.

Did I violate her father’s confidentiality even though he was currently in the Great Beyond? Yes, clearly so. Am I glad I did? Yes I am. It gave my client real comfort – and I suspect it gave her father some comfort too as he listened in from the Other Side.

CRIME

Client: Steve, I’m planning on murdering my wife. When’s the best time for me to do it? Naturally I’m hoping to get away with it.

Me: Ah, well, I see that next Tuesday after about 3:00 PM, the stars are aligned . . .

Perhaps you sense an ethical lapse here? As with my opening lines about generally not blabbing about our clients’ charts or their secrets, the ethics here are pretty obvious: don’t collude in a crime. 

What about reporting one? How does client confidentiality fit into the picture then? I’m using a terribly broad example here – a man planning to murder his wife. If you were an astrologer in that position and felt that the man was serious, should you inform the police? It would be a painful moment fraught with uncertainties, but I think the right answer is yes. You’ve broken confidentiality in a huge way, but in this case higher principles seem to supersede our normal ethical reflexes.

What about a client who mentions cheating on taxes? What about having run a stop sign or been guilty of littering? As we move down the criminal food chain from Murder One to relatively minor peccadillos, you’ll encounter gray areas where all you have is your own judgment and your own conscience. 

In a half-century of astrological practice, I am grateful to say that I’ve never had to report anything about a client to the authorities. People have confessed crimes to me, but none so horrendous that I felt obligated to violate the sanctity of the counseling room. Believe it or not, I actually once heard the following lament: “Do you have any idea how much money it costs to bribe the (bleeping) senator from Louisiana?” That really happened – and I’ll go to my grave with the specifics, even though the client who said those words is now deceased.

Am I what a prosecuting attorney might call “an accessory after the fact?” I guess so. Let’s hope I make it over the Mexico line before this essay hits the Internet. I’m optimistic. As I sit here writing these words, it’s only forty-five miles south of me . . .

THE ONE EXCEPTION TO ALL OF THIS . . .

. . . . Or is it? Or should it be? I am talking about the confidentiality of famous people. You can’t go to an astrological conference without some astrologer doing a lecture that uses the chart of a celebrity as an illustration, often going into intimate detail. I do it myself. We all do. And we never ask for permission. Is it right to do that? Is it ethical? Or are we violating the most primal ethical imperatives of any legitimate counselor? The FCEA curriculum, for one obvious example, is full of such charts.

This is one of those questions that the astrological community has collectively agreed to sweep under the carpet. 

The temptation to pepper our lectures or even our consultations with sexy references to famous people is ever-present. Go to Astrodatabank on Astro.com and you can get birth information for literally thousands of public figures – none of whom have explicitly given their permission for that information to be used in public. Go to Wikipedia or any other media source, and you can often get lots of salacious detail about their personal lives too – embarrassments and scandals included.

For an astrological teacher, welcome to paradise. From the perspective of astrological education, the benefits of this practice are enormous. Almost anywhere in the Western world, you can invoke “Elvis Presley” and virtually everyone knows who you’re talking about. Add a few moments of research and you’ll know that he basically died on a toilet seat of a drug overdose on August 16,1977 while transiting Neptune was conjunct his Ascendant. A teaching moment? For sure! 

Celebrities have become like modern versions of the Greek gods and goddesses. They now function as public property, holding mirrors before us all, like archetypes. Is that the price they have to pay for all the fairy dust in their lives? Maybe. If you need an illustration for sainthood, try Jane Goodall. A tragic beauty? Marilyn Monroe. Geniuses, devils, fools – they’re all there. Today the names of Taylor Swift or Timothee Chalamet create a far deeper human reaction in almost everyone than, say, Arachne or Poseidon. How many people anymore even know that the latter two are characters in Greek mythology?

Can we forgive astrologers for de-humanizing modern celebrities and thus robbing them of the ethical protections we feel that everyone else naturally deserves? Should we feel bad about using them as if they were cartoon illustrations in our lectures, books, and articles for The Mountain Astrologer? 

Should I forgive myself for doing it?

Discuss. 

One final point. I’ve done astrological work for a lot of famous people, mostly in show business. Once there’s a personal relationship like that, in my mind everything shifts into maximum, inviolable confidentiality. I know that a number of other astrologers are in the same position.

I live in horror of the day when someone asks me a question about the chart of a celebrity for whom I’ve done astrological work and who has not gone public about our relationship. What can I say? If I answer the question, I’ve broken the golden rule of keeping silence about clients. On the other hand, If I explain why I can’t answer, I’ve revealed that the person is a client – another no-no. 

What can I do? It’s a moral checkmate. So far, I’ve been lucky enough that the situation has never come up. I can only pray it never does! Like so much of this tricky territory, I have no clear answers – only an instinct to try to do a good job of balancing right and wrong. 

And in the end, that’s the essence of my suggestion to you.

Random Stranger: Steve, you are a total lunatic.

Steve: Why, thank you! What a nice thing to say!

That critical stranger perhaps had my belief in astrology in mind, although I can think of some other possibilities. For example: 

I believe that consciousness survives death. I believe that nothing in life is actually random. I believe in ghosts and spirits. I believe the dream-world is as real as this one – (and I believe there’s a great joke in that line too . . . how real actually is this world?) I believe that miracles happen. I believe in reincarnation. I believe that soulmates – or two feet or four – can find each other again across the seas of death and rebirth. I believe there are true psychics and mediums and that they are a blessing to any community lucky enough to shelter them. I believe that there are still saints among us. I believe in magic. I believe that certain shamans can journey into the astral worlds and impact the lives of people about whom they care or whom they hate. I believe in what we’ve traditionally called God. 

I have little to offer in the way of proof about any of those beliefs, at least not anything that would convince that random stranger. They are just things I know in my bones – and I am totally aware of how weak my argument of “just knowing” would sound to many “rational” people. They’d probably treat me like a mental patient who “just knows” that he is Jesus or Napoleon. But it works for me. And it comforts me. 

Astrologically much of my “lunacy” arises because I have a strongly-placed Moon. By the way, when we say “lunatic” today, we obviously mean a crazy person, but originally it was an adjective, not a noun – accent on the second syllable. And it didn’t mean “crazy.” It meant “lunar.”

Ask any group of astrologers what the Moon signifies and most of them will say “feelings.” That’s true – the Moon definitely resonates with your emotional body. When you’re sad or happy or proud or feeling tender, that’s Moon territory for sure. But when you meet someone and you “have a feeling” that you could become friends, that’s the Moon talking too. When a friend of yours starts seeing someone and you sense they are going to be together for a long time, that’s something you might say that you have a “feeling” about, even though it’s not exactly an emotion. 

In all of these situations, we use the word “feelings,” but it really has two meanings. Sometimes by “feelings” we mean emotions and sometimes we mean intuition or even psychic impressions. In any case, it’s all lunar territory – it’s just that the territory is a lot bigger and more mysterious than experiencing happiness when you get what you want and sadness when you don’t.

• To say it rigorously, the Moon represents a wavelength of perception on which you become aware of everything that slips through the nets of rational analysis.

Think of love. Most of us understand that love is a reality. But it is notoriously hard to measure or predict. It “slips through the nets of rational analysis.” Think of the idea that life is inherently meaningful. No one can prove it, yet many of us sense it. Again, meaningfulness itself “slips through the nets of rational analysis.” And what gives meaning to life? There’s more than one answer, but one that’s on everyone’s short list is love, so we’ve soon circled back to that “unmeasurable” reality.

I don’t want to attack academics or to sound anti-intellectual. I’m not really that way. But I think that it’s fair to say that among “highly educated, rational” people, often the dominant belief-system today is a kind of existentialist materialism. Ask them what happens when we die, and you’ll typically hear something with a hint of humor such as, “I guess I’ll find out” – that, or perhaps some variation on “everything fades to black.”

 . . . as if we actually were these fragile bodies. As if the brain and the mind meant the same thing.

That’s where materialism enters the equations. It’s not always about the pursuit of money. At an even deeper level, materialism is ultimately the belief that humans are only flesh, bone, and firing neurons, and death means “over and out.” Ask the Moon: we are more than that – but then ask the Moon to prove it, and the Moon just says, I know. 

Picture an old woman in a hospice. She’ s facing death. She’s led a good, loving life, but she’s not very lunar by nature. Perhaps she believed that life basically boiled down to what she saw on television. Naturally, death is a scary prospect for her. A “lunatic” friend comes to sit with her – someone who intuitively believes many of the things on that list I opened this essay with: life after death, and so on. This lunar person doesn’t preach to her dying friend. Perhaps they don’t even talk about the “elephant in the living room” – that this old woman is on death’s door. Perhaps they just sit quietly together. Maybe they talk about the weather or politics or some happy memories they share. It doesn’t matter what they say. Something precious is flowing from the friend’s soul into the heart of the dying woman. Let’s call that magical Moon-energy faith, but by that I don’t mean anything like religious dogma. 

Bruce Springsteen’s moving 2002 album, The Rising, had a song called Into The Fire. It was a tribute to the first responders on 9/11 when the Twin Towers were brought down and three thousand people lost their lives, including many of those brave firefighters. One simple line about those heroes still brings tears to my eyes: May their faith give us faith.

That’s a lyric about the Moon. That’s what is flowing from the visiting friend into the soul of that dying woman in the hospice. It’s not an idea. It’s not about words. It’s not about proving anything to anyone. It’s pure life-force, pure energy – something coming straight from the ancient Mother Goddess, through the lunar person, and into the hearts of anyone fortunate enough to be nearby.

If the Moon is a prominent part of your chart, your higher calling is to be a pipeline of this contagious faith – a faith in everything that slips through the nets of rational analysis – into the world. In any situation, your presence alone is half the magic.

Even with a prominent Moon, not everyone gets this right. Like everything else in astrology, we can respond to it weakly or well. A strong Moon can just be moody and whiny, obsessed with its own needs and fears. But it can be strengthened! It can evolve to a higher level! And even if the Moon does not play a big role in your astrological makeup, it too can be strengthened and begin to resonate on this higher wavelength. 

Everyone has a Moon, so how do we tune it up? How do we bring out the best in it? Your Moon occupies a certain sign and house. It makes certain aspects. It’s in a particular phase. At any given moment, it’s undergoing certain stimuli via transits, progressions, and solar arcs. It has a mysteriously symbiotic relationship with the south node – that’s of course the south node of the Moon, so the connection with the mysteries of karma and prior lives are intimately tied up with it. The point is simply that your chart contains a specific formula for how you personally can bring out the best in your Moon. Doing that is the secret of personal happiness, but it also strengthens your intuitive side. Do enough of that lunar empowerment and you soon find yourself seeing through the illusion of death as the end of everything. What a gift to give yourself! But there’s more: your very presence is a gift to everyone with whom you share time and space.

Want to know more? Please think about joining the rest of us lunatics at our Moon Retreat in San Diego in April. We will be exploring all of this lunar wisdom, and more. Click here for details: www.forrestastrology.center/moon

See you there, I hope – and if that’s not possible, we’ll all be feeling each other through the astral realms. That will be true whether or not our bodies are all there in San Diego. Tune into the Moon and you’ll know it too – you just won’t be able to prove it!

In November 2025, I published a newsletter about Mars Returns on my personal website,  forrestastrology.com. There, I invited readers to submit suggestions for future newsletter topics. There was enough response to keep me busy for a long time. Astrologer Jenny Yates offered a particularly interesting suggestion. Here are her slightly-edited words:

Self-awareness and sense of identity, as connected to the Ascendant and the Midheaven – which are more about the way people see you, and which are more about how you see yourself?

Let’s dive in and try to unpack this extremely slippery question. I say “slippery” because it’s  premised on assuming the duality of what’s inside us versus what’s outside, which is to say accepting that we are truly separate from everything else. Are we? That’s one of those eternal questions. As all astrologers know from their daily experience of synchronicity, there are mysterious links between what we are encountering deep inside ourselves and what we bump into “by chance” in our lives around the same time. To me, one of the most helpful concepts in Buddhism is that there are ultimate truths and relative truths – and I think believing in this inside/outside duality is a relative one. The great thing about relative truths is that they let us talk to each other, while the ultimate ones are always beyond the scope of language. 

So let’s talk! 

WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE

Let’s start with the shaky assumption that your skin marks a definitive boundary between your inner world and the world “out there.” Using that idea as our launching pad leads me to a basic insight about both the Ascendant and the Midheaven: 

• Each one of these “Angles” in the chart reveals what you look like from a distance. The only difference between the Ascendant and the Midheaven is how far away from you the person making the judgment is standing. 

Let me focus that idea a bit more clearly. The Ascendant reflects your personal style. It’s your affect, how you present yourself socially. Call it your vibes. Do you make eye contact? How do you dress? Are you easy to get to know or more elusive? The point is that in order to see those dimensions of anyone’s character, you need to be standing near them. You have to be in their physical presence – or, nowadays, at least Zooming.

The Midheaven, on the other hand, is about the hat you wear in the world. It’s what you look like to people who don’t really know you. The word “reputation” is tied to it. So is “status.” With the 10th house in general in modern practical astrology, we tend to focus on a person’s career. That’s valid – but if someone gets married, or gets single, we often also see Midheaven involvement via transits or progressions. Ditto with the birth of a first child. None of those developments are about anyone’s career per se, but they will certainly impact how people who don’t really know you file you away in their minds. 

Note that none of those life events or status questions imply anything specifically about a person’s vibes – Midheaven-fashion, they’re only about what we appear to be from a social distance.

• “Jane works seven days a week.” Is she an introvert or an extrovert? Feel how your mind freezes? We can’t answer. The problem is that we made a Midheaven statement, then asked an Ascendant question. 

• “Jason is a meticulous, cautious guy. Do you think he might have a future in politics?” That’s the same thing, only backwards – we gave Ascendant information, then asked a Midheaven question.

Maybe you meet a public figure – say, a star in the realm of film or sports. You arrive in their presence with an already-established sense of who they are and you are surprised to find that they are very different from what you expected. That’s not a rare experience. 

• Again, you know them through their Midheavens and you’re surprised when you meet their Ascendants. 

Those observations basically echo everything that we’ve been exploring all along, but let’s follow this trail of breadcrumbs a bit further into the deep dark forest of the human psyche . . . 

THE FIRST DATE

Say that you have a date with someone. You click right away. Your styles work well together. You feel easy and natural in each other’s presence. Your values are in harmony and you have similar senses of humor. Welcome to Ascendant heaven. Naturally you’re eager to see each other again. 

So far in this little dating episode, much is still primarily about people’s surfaces meeting. In any relationship, that’s how everything has to start. It’s pure Ascendant material. Still, as any relationship deepens we might begin to glimpse the Ascendant in a more sophisticated fashion. That’s because the Ascendant doesn’t really operate in a vacuum unless we’re talking about extremely formal, shallow social situations – those are typically all about surfaces. 

When it comes to the early stages of truly getting to know another human being, my favorite metaphor for the Ascendant is that it is like stained glass. That’s because the rest of the chart shines through it and is given a certain tint by it. Ultimately you can’t separate your planets from the Ascendant – like stained glass, it simply colors their expression as their energies are translated into actual social behavior. 

• Put a Cancer Ascendant on a Gemini and it’ll look very different than that same Cancer Ascendant on a Scorpio. 

With two people “getting to know each other,” that ancient process always starts with their Ascendants, but it soon pulls them toward deeper waters. In fact, right from the beginning, something in our vibes is already hinting at those deeper waters. They glimmer through the Ascendant, attracting and intriguing us.

Despite their auspicious first date, maybe things don’t work out for Jane and Jason. Maybe you’re pals with Jason. Maybe you hear him saying, “I feel like Jane just doesn’t really understand me.” This is far from the world’s most original relationship complaint, but it may be completely valid. There are parts of each one of us that are so deep that even we don’t understand them. And yet those core soul places inside us all are longing to be seen, acknowledged, and loved.

Put poor Jason’s romantic plight on the back burner for a few moments. We’ll soon get back to it.

Think of the point opposite the Midheaven: the astrological nadir, also known as the cusp of the 4th house. If the Midheaven is how we relate to the outer world, the astrological nadir is how we relate to the inner one. It’s where we keep our hearts. In introducing the 4th house to a client, here’s a line I’ll often use: “Sleep with someone in a spirit of loving affection for ten years or so and thus begin to get to know them.” This is where we keep our deepest personal essence. Naturally, it feels vulnerable and therefore, quite opposite the Ascendant or Midheaven, it’s cautious about revealing itself. 

The 4th house, along with the sign Cancer and the Moon that rules them both – these symbols represent the secret world that lives inside every one of us. Some of us are fortunate enough to find someone with whom we can share that inner realm. That’s the essence of true intimacy. In some ways, the 4th house is the true “house of marriage.”

To that list of lunar “inner realm” symbols, we can add the Pluto family (Scorpio; the 8th house) and the Neptune family (Pisces; the 12th house.) They also point our attention inward. If the Ascendant and the Midheaven are the north pole, welcome to Antarctica. These “Water family” symbols underlie everything we show to the world. To use Jenny Yates wording, they’re how we see ourselves, as opposed to how the world sees us. 

THE KEY TO HAPPINESS

One major key to happiness in life lies in figuring out good ways to express our deeper selves through our Ascendants. Remember Jason? He may be right that Jane doesn’t understand him, but quite possibly that might be more his fault than hers. His inner life, by definition, is invisible to her unless he expresses it. Sometimes that isn’t easy. 

Say Jason has Libra rising. Say his Mars squares it from Capricorn and the 4th house. Add that Jane, being human, has a habit or two that annoy him. Maybe his frustration about her behavior lurks undetected underneath the more conciliatory style implied by his Libran Ascendant. Behind his smiling face, he’s perhaps starting to go off the deep end: “Jane does that stuff just to annoy me. It’s micro-aggression. She’s got unresolved issues with her father and she’s projecting them onto me. She’s really not capable of intimacy . . .”

And yet if Jason had only said, “Dammit Jane, please quit doing that,” they might have lived happily ever after . . . or something like that. The point is that it is possible to integrate Mars energy with a Libran Ascendant. In plain English, you can let someone know that they’ve hurt you and that you are feeling angry with them about it without violating your basic sense of connection with them. In fact, such honesty actually enhances the connection.

In intimate situations – coupling love, healthy families, friendships – we want our souls to be seen and known. Conveying that information about our secret world clearly to our loved ones is the job of the Ascendant. It’s what stands between your inner world and the outer one. It’s the bridge. It’s the gatekeeper. It’s where consciousness and cosmos meet. To call it the “surface of the character” is only true up to a point, and if we leave it there, we’re in trouble. Once again, think of it as the bridge or the gatekeeper – or the translator.

A full understanding of how the Ascendant functions in a given person involves more than knowing what sign was rising when they were born. Are there planets in the 1st house? Where is the planet that rules the Ascendant? But everything else being equal, if you’ve got a Sagittarian Ascendant, you may have to work hard on learning how to express tenderness or personal insecurities in a way that really conveys those feelings to your loved ones. A Cancer Ascendant might present precisely the opposite challenges – Cancer doesn’t easily channel Sagittarian-style humor, bravado, and spunk, even though you might be feeling them strongly inside yourself.

No matter what your Ascendant, sometimes you’re going to feel like you’re hammering a nail with a fish or trying to set fire to a bucket of water. Still, you’ve got to try. The prize is your ability to feel truly, deeply, connected with anyone. It’s all about authentically translating the realities of your inner world into the language of actual human behavior.

WHAT ABOUT AT WORK?

With the Midheaven, it’s a somewhat different story. Do you really want your co-workers to know what you’re thinking? How about your boss? The Midheaven relates us to the larger community. Boundaries and some degree of distance are often appropriate there. That’s why most of us call our physician “doctor” rather than Doug or Camille. How wise is it to share your feelings about the speeding ticket with the cop who stopped you? There’s a certain comfort for everyone in playing their appropriate Midheaven roles. Not all relationships are meant to be intimate.

Still, ideally you want your job to have some connection with your soul’s purpose in the world. You want your lifestyle – which is another good Midheaven word – to have something to do with your actual nature and values. So once again, the great art here lies in aligning the Midheaven with the deeper, more interior, dimensions of your chart. How you look from a great social distance – Midheaven territory – should offer some clues about who you actually are in your core. There’s got to be some connection, otherwise life feels robotic and pointless.

As always, what we are aiming for in both astrological practice and in life is synthesis and integration. I began this essay with a brief bow in the general direction of a larger metaphysical framework. I referred to the understanding that ultimately, behind all the apparent fragmentation of life, there is a basic unity. Oneness is the highest truth. That’s the ultimate synthesis. 

Given a few lifetimes meditating in a Himalayan cave, we might actually begin to understand that. Meanwhile, we can make a good start by pressing toward a unity of our inner world and our outer one. We can accomplish that by helping mold our Ascendants and our Midheavens into clear windowpanes through which our souls can shine into the world with as little distortion as possible. 

Like any window, you’re inside looking out through them. Hopefully, people on the outside are looking in too, and seeing at least the silhouette of your soul.

“There’s nothing in my 7th house. Does that mean I will never get married?” I’d love to have a dollar for every time I’ve heard that question. As your own practice unfolds, I guarantee that you’ll hear it a lot too. If you sit with clients, empty houses are one of those issues that come up over and over again. That’s inevitable – for starters, unless we start flooding our charts with countless asteroids, everybody in the world has at least two of them. There are ten planets and twelve houses. You can do the math. 

So what do they mean? Are empty houses truly “dead zones” in a person’s life? That’s sort of true sometimes, but often not. The question is actually fairly complicated. Let’s explore it, starting with one stand-out fact:

AIN’T NO SUCH THING AS AN EMPTY HOUSE 

Planets definitely activate a house in a big way, but they are not the only astrological factor that can accomplish that feat. Signs represent energy too. Every house has a sign on its cusp. That sign sets the tone for our experience in that department of life even if there are no planets there. Lacking a planet, the house fades somewhat in importance, but it is still part of life. Everyone has all twelve houses and we can’t be fully human without some experience connected with each one of them. 

• Margot Robbie of Barbie fame has an empty 10th house, but her Midheaven is in Taurus, which is ruled by Venus in Gemini and the 11th house. Venus of course is the “goddess of the arts,” and so when it comes to career, a Venus path naturally opened up before her. She’s talented and beautiful, skilled with language (Gemini) and good at working in teams and joint projects – there’s the 11th house.

• Stormy Daniels was not famous for her chastity. One might expect her to have a highly activated 5th house, and yet it’s empty. Taurus to the rescue again – that’s the sign on her 5th house cusp, so once again we see the Venus rulership. Her Venus meanwhile is in Aquarius and squared by Uranus in Scorpio: lots of edgy, rule-breaking symbolism there, all related in clear ways to her 5th house experience. 

• Another person not famous for chastity but also born with an empty 5th house is Donald Trump. He’s got Sagittarius on the cusp and it’s ruled by his 2nd house Jupiter and squared by his 11th house Venus and Saturn, both in Cancer. I’m reminded of Oscar Wilde’s famous line: “I can resist anything except temptation.”

Obviously in each of these three cases, I’m not diving into a deep astrological analysis. The point is simply that I could – and you could too. The symbolism is all there to be read and from what we actually know of these people’s lives, it fits. These “empty houses” are activated in ways we can understand astrologically. In each case, we could even go deeper and offer them counsel about how to optimize their responses to each of these houses based solely on sign information.

Let me add two more points. Even if a house is empty in the natal chart, sooner or later its underlying pattern of sign energy will be triggered into activation by transits, progressions, or solar arcs. Then there’s love or any of its variations: if a partner’s planets fall in one of your “empty” houses, as long as you are together the experiences of that house will figure in your life. A classic example is what happens when a childless person falls in love with someone who has kids. Suddenly that childless person has kids too – and probably a partner who drops a planet into his or her 5th house. 

Once again, the takeaway is that there is really no such thing as a truly empty house. All twelve are energized at least to some extent in every one of us.

THREE WAYS TO SAY EVERYTHING

Astrology is really three interlocking symbol systems: planets, signs, and houses. For every plain-English concept that we use in our work, there is a planet, a sign, and a house to represent it. They are not exactly interchangeable, but they’re close. For example, how do we understand partnerships from an astrological perspective – do we use Venus, or Libra, or the 7th house? In practice, in any particular partnership situation, any one of those three symbols could be in the spotlight. 

This leads us to perhaps our most fundamental insight into “empty” houses – they might very well mislead us. What if you have nothing in your 7th house, but Venus is conjunct your Ascendant in Libra? Are relationships likely to be a low-energy issue in your life? All astrologers know better.

• When faced with an empty house, before diminishing the importance of that area of life,  remember to check for the condition of the corresponding sign and the ruling planet. For every issue in life, there are three astrological ways in which it can be activated. Houses are only one of them.

Let’s look at the chart of the late, great spiritual teacher, Ram Dass. December 22 marks the sixth anniversary of his passing, but he lives on in the hearts of many of us. My band Silkworm was scheduled to open for him in North Carolina back in the late 1970s. We were there in the auditorium doing our afternoon sound check when he walked in. I’ll always remember how utterly human and unpretentious he was – like any true spiritual teacher, he wasn’t busy impressing us with his wisdom, yet his presence itself was a blessing.

Other than the famous words “Be Here Now” from the title of Ram Dass’s best-known book, perhaps his second-most quoted line is “love, serve, remember.” And he walked his talk – Ram Dass seemed to live to serve people. Yet his 6th house – the house of service – is empty. This absence is particularly striking because another dimension of the 6th house is mentoring and initiation. He was utterly devoted to Neem Karoli Baba, his guru – and of course he himself initiated and mentored many people in the course of his life, including me. 

So why no planets in his 6th house? What it symbolizes was clearly a huge area of his life. He was, after all, part of a lineage. 

Jupiter rules Ram Dass’s 6th house from the mystical 12th house. It’s in the nurturing sign, Cancer. All of that tells us something that’s relevant. But what is the sixth sign of the zodiac? Virgo is of course the answer, and there we find his Neptune in his 3rd house. He served (Virgo) by teaching (3rd house) spiritual matters (Neptune.) 

In practical astrology the word “work” can relate to either the 6th house or, more commonly, to the 10th. The two houses aren’t exactly interchangeable, but they do overlap a lot in practice. In simple terms, the 10th house is “the hat we wear in the world,” while the 6th house feels more like “Monday morning.” It’s where we actually develop and practice our craft. Ram Dass has a packed 10th house, so there’s no way we could do a meaningful interpretation of his chart without being pedal-to-the-metal about his mission in the world. And what sign lies on the cusp of his 10th house? Pisces – which, via rulership, brings us right back to that 3rd house Neptune in “6th sign” Virgo.

The point is that even though Ram Dass’s 6th house contains no planets, by the time we translate the related symbolism into English, we’ve pretty well covered the “6th house” base. That’s all because of the underlying principle that there is more than one way to say the same thing astrologically. Always, when you’re faced with an empty house, remember to look at the condition of the related sign and planet – and pay some attention to the sign on that house cusp and to the planet that rules it.

Again, empty houses are not as empty as they look.

WHAT IF ALL THREE SYMBOLS ARE QUIET?

Sometimes it happens that a house is devoid of planets, the corresponding sign is empty, and the related planets are hiding out in a corner. What do we do then? Start by remembering that there is always a sign on the cusp of that empty house. Based on it, you can always find something meaningful to say. 

• Keep perspective though – the message of the chart, at least from the evolutionary point of view, is that in this lifetime this particular area of life is of diminished importance for the person in question. That’s really the bottom line.

Imagine a person with an empty 7th house, nothing in Libra, and Venus not playing a very central role in the chart. It would still very likely be a major blunder to announce to that person that “relationships don’t mean anything to you.” Start with a little common sense – relationships are significant to basically everybody. Add the technical realities of astrology – as we have seen, people everywhere have Venus in their charts – and even if it’s a quiet one, it is still Venus. Everyone has some Libran energy even if there are no planets there. Everyone has a 7th house and it’s flavored with sign energy. 

No one’s chart contains zero relationship symbolism. That is simply not possible.

We also need to recognize that astrological symbolism speaks of relationships in a variety of ways. 4th house symbolism can indicate family. The 5th house can point to children or romances. The 6th can indicate mentoring relationships that are of enormous importance. The 8th house can point to the mysteries of coupling and sexual bonding. If those houses are activated, that’s the language we would use in talking about relationships – and, guaranteed, it would be meaningful to the client.

If all of those “arc of intimacy” houses are empty and the rest of the symbolism is quiet, in practice a working astrologer would focus on other areas of life. If the client were to ask about relationships, we could respond based on the techniques I’ve been describing – but we would also assure the client that from the deepest evolutionary perspective, in this incarnation they were not truly “majoring” in those intimate areas. Other developments were simply more pressing.

Whenever a part of life is relatively inactive in that sense, in my experience with clients, they often register a certain relief as they hear it. At some deep level, it rings true for them.

So these are my thoughts about empty houses: 

• First, there really aren’t any! 

• Second, the basic human ideas connected with houses that lack planets are often activated in other ways via related signs and rulerships. 

• Third, sometimes an entire area of life is de-emphasized in a person’s chart. If so, as astrologers, we should de-emphasize it too.

I was happy to learn that many students and community members in our school have discovered LILA (which is pronounced LEE-la, by the way.) In case you don’t know, it’s a cell phone based astrology app that I’ve been working on for almost eight years now. I’ve written most of the text and the astrological approach is mostly mine while I’ve depended on other people’s skills for the marketing and technical side of the project. The whole idea for LILA originated with two people who have become dear friends: Linnea Miron and Ricky Williams. (For those of you who follow NFL football, yes, it’s THAT Ricky Williams.)

Central to the app is the idea that everyone has “a strongest planet.” I’ve heard that questions are emerging in our FCEA community about how to integrate that concept into the astrological approach that we teach. That’s what I want to try to clarify in this edition of Master’s Musings. 

(In case you have no idea what I am talking about, go to the Apple Store or the Google Play store and enter “Lila Astrology.” Alternatively, check out our website at lilaverse.app. In the app stores, you can download a simple, stripped down version of LILA for free or pay $9.49 a month for the full version.)

THE BACK STORY

For most of my professional life, I’ve been my own boss. With the advent of the LILA project and our school, both happening in 2018, all that changed. Suddenly I was faced with something I’d never had to deal with before: teamwork! (Unsurprisingly, the Moon was progressing through my 11th house.) Mostly, that’s been a great experience for me. All of you know how lucky I am with our wise and wonderful FCEA team. The LILA tribe is extensive and it has been good to me too even though what we are doing is very different. 

Anyone who knows my work will recognize my voice and my approach to astrology throughout much of the writing in LILA – with one exception: the strongest planet. That was 100% Ricky’s idea. I didn’t disapprove of it, but it never would have crossed my mind to include it. As all of you know, I put a lot of emphasis on what I call the primal triad of Sun, Moon, and Ascendant. Now, in LILA, there’s reference to the primal quad, where we add the strongest planet to the mixture, pretty much as the fourth leg of the table. I know that’s confusing some of our FCEA students.

I have a lot of positive things to say about the strongest planet concept, and it’s definitely deep in LILA’s DNA. Still, at this point, we have no plans to integrate it into the FCEA curriculum. The system we teach works fine as it is, plus adding the strongest planet would involve completely re-doing all of our teaching materials from the ground up. As you know, we’ve never presented the FCEA approach as “everything in astrology.” Instead, the FCEA method is a lean machine that gets you as quickly and efficiently as possible to the heart of the matter with a client. Other approaches to astrology work too, but when we try to integrate them into our FCEA methodology, they only tend to muddy the water, create redundancies, or simply take up time that would be better spent going more deeply into the core material. 

Cutting to the chase, as I mentioned I’ve been learning a lot about teamwork. Some of that is about learning new things from different people. But naturally, a big part of that process lies in learning how to compromise. LILA’s strongest planet function covers both of those bases – it’s a powerful technique that I am still learning about, and it’s also a bit of a compromise on my part.

Let me tell you a little more about how the strongest planet works in LILA.

ASTRODYNES

The Church of Light was incorporated in Los Angeles on November 2, 1932. It was an extension of the Brotherhood of Light, which dates back to 1915. Its purpose was to preserve and promote the spiritually-oriented astrological work of C.C. Zain (a.k.a, Elbert Benjamine, a.k.a, Benjamin Parker Williams.) Zain created a weighted system for determining the relative strengths of the planets in a chart. He called the system astrodynes. Ricky got interested in Zain’s work and began his efforts to incorporate it into LILA – with mixed results, at least initially.

From my perspective, Zain’s astrodynes simply did not work reliably. For example, they gave Jupiter as my own strongest planet. That felt plausible to me – it’s conjunct my Sun, so it’s in a strong position and I do identify myself as a “Jupiter type.” But then there was my partner, Michelle, for whom the Moon emerged as her most powerful astrodyne. That didn’t feel right to either one of us – but for me the real corker was how the astrodyne system gave Venus as Michelle’s weakest planet. That was simply crazy. She’s been a successful professional painter all her professional life, plus she has a Libra Ascendent, which makes Venus the ruler of her chart! 

Like the rest of us, Michelle is a complicated human being, but anyone who knows her, along with knowing anything about astrology, is going to quickly think of Venus when they think of her. 

Ricky agrees. We both knew that there was something to astrodynes, but we also knew that we could do better. He and I have begun tweaking Zain’s original astrodyne algorithms, putting more emphasis on rulerships, which his system mysteriously ignores. Eventually we expect to have a system that works better than the original. I want to be clear that we are not there yet. I’m writing these words in late October 2025. I’ll be meeting with Ricky and Linnea again in a month in order to implement some major changes to C.C. Zain’s astrodynes for LILA purposes. I want to be clear that what’s currently “under the hood” in LILA is Zain’s system, not mine or Ricky’s. It works – but not for everybody all the time. 

At the outset of this little essay, I mentioned that I was learning a new skill: teamwork. In all honesty, I would not have implemented the strongest planet algorithm into the public version of LILA yet. I don’t feel that it’s ready for Prime Time. I think it will be soon. If your current alleged “strongest planet” doesn’t feel right to you, I can almost guarantee that you’re right. Check again in a few weeks, and it will probably have changed – and ring a lot more true for you.

Meanwhile, Ricky and I decided to add a pair of new dimensions to the system, something that apparently C.C. Zain never considered.

ADDING SIGNS AND HOUSES

Let’s go back for a moment to Michelle hearing that the Moon was her strongest planet. By most conventional lunar standards, that statement is a real dud – she’s never had kids, she’s not a moody person, plus I do most of the cooking! But when I add that her Moon is in Aquarius, everything lines up better with who she actually is. I’d still not call her “a Moon person,” but Aquarius at least rings many of the right bells. An Aquarian Moon is of course an entirely different beast than one in Cancer or Taurus. That led us to a critical insight. In LILA – once your strongest planet is determined, it’s helpful to remember what sign and house it’s in. It may still feel off to you, but it will make more sense that way.

Ricky and I have taken that idea one step further for LILA. Just as we can weigh the planets to see which ones are dominant for you, we can do the same with your signs and houses. In adding those two additional pieces to the puzzle, we’ve left the realm of traditional astrodynes behind. You might, for example, find that Saturn is your strongest planet, but what if we then put Saturn in your strongest sign? (That might not be the sign that it actually occupies in your chart.) What if we do the same with your strongest house – we put Saturn there too? What you’ll get is a planet-sign-house combo that works pretty well as a super-quick summary of your chart as a whole.

Adding the strongest sign and house to the mixture is fresh territory. With no preexisting C.C. Zain formulas to muddy the water, Ricky and I set out to determine the relative weights of each sign and house in your chart. That’s all implemented in the current version of LILA and we think it’s working really well.

EXAMPLE

LILA founder Linnea Miron currently has Mercury as her strongest planet, as you can see in this graphic LILA screen:

Notice how Linnea’s Moon is a close second. That’s worth noting too. It gives you a more nuanced sense of things. Her mental focus (Mercury) has a lot of feeling, caring energy (Moon) animating it. And of course, there’s the question of whether Mercury will remain as her strongest planet once we tweak the planetary algorithm.

What about signs? Here are the relative strengths of all twelve signs in Linnea’s chart:

Pisces comes out on top, beating second place Capricorn by a wide margin. Now, putting two and two together, we’re thinking “Mercury in Pisces.” Let’s add the houses. Here‘s Linnea’s LILA screen:

With Linnea’s houses, we see it’s an almost three-way tie among the first, the second, and the tenth, with the first house “winning by a nose.” It’s helpful to take those second and third place symbols into account, but the bottom line is that LILA would summarize Linnea as “a Piscean Mercury in the first house.” 

And who is Linnea in real life? A leader in a spiritually-oriented information industry. 

WHAT ABOUT THE WEAKEST PLANET?

I’ve made no secret about my reservations regarding Lila’s strongest planet algorithm. In my opinion, it’s still a work in progress. As I mentioned at the beginning of this essay, what really triggered my biggest doubts was my Libra-rising artist-partner Michelle coming out with Venus as her weakest planet. To me, it was painfully obvious that by the simplest of astrological standards Lila was way off target there.

Here’s another example that makes the same point: me! Lila gives Mars as my weakest planet. Yet Mars co-rules my Scorpio Ascendant and is the dispositor of my Aries Moon! From the evolutionary point of view, it’s also the co-ruler of my Scorpio south node. My weakest planet? Give me a break, Lila!

There is a pattern underlying both of these examples: it’s the way Lila’s algorithm ignores the tremendous importance of planetary rulerships. There was a lot that was right in C.C. Zain’s thinking about astrodynes, but rulership was his blind spot.

As Ricky Williams and I meet to rework Lila’s strongest planet system, we’re hoping to correct that glaring problem. Once again, stay tuned – and if any of Lila’s pronouncements about your strongest or weakest planets feel wrong, trust your feelings!

THE BIG PICTURE

In doing astrology, we are constantly battling to stay on top of a massive flood of information. If we set out to describe “everything” in someone’s chart, we would have to stay wide-eyed and yacking for weeks. That obviously won’t work. Strategic simplification is an essential part of our craft. Faced with mountains of astrological complexity, the mind longs for core statements that spotlight a person’s essence. Those kinds of root insights keep us on track. They help us maintain perspective. The most familiar way for astrologers to do that is with Sun signs – “she’s a Gemini.” That’s lightyears away from full power astrology, but that reduction is actually its main advantage, not a liability. Sun signs focus our attention on something pretty close to the heart of the matter and they telegraph it to us in just a few syllables.

LILA’s strongest planet system does almost exactly the same thing – or it will, once we get the planet scales up to the same standards as the ones for signs and houses. Sun signs divide humanity into twelve types. The strongest planet system divides us into ten. They both make a stab at answering the same question: if you could only know one thing about this person, what would it be? 

In the “primal triad” system I first introduced in The Inner Sky, a Virgo with the Moon in Aries and Pisces rising could be called “the helper with the soul of a warrior wearing the mask of the mystic.” Once again, in that single sentence a whole lot of astrological information is conveyed simply and clearly. This time it’s much more granular than any Sun sign – there are 1728 possible combinations of Sun, Moon, and Ascendant.

If we place the strongest planet in the context of a person’s strongest sign and strongest house, we do something very similar – in this case, there are 1440 possible combinations.  By using all three astrological dimensions, we are making a vastly more individualized statement about a person than if we just say “her strongest planet is Uranus.”

When Ricky first proposed adding the strongest planet function to LILA, his argument was that currently most of the astrological “typing” of people was sign-based – you’re such a Scorpio! That language works fine, but why not try a planet-based system? You’re so Plutonian! That works too. 

• And that’s really the heart of the matter. A planet-centered astrological system can complement a sign-based system. Each just highlights a different dimension of a person’s character and destiny. Often they overlap considerably too.

HOW TO WORK WITH THE STRONGEST PLANET

I have a fantasy. I hop in my time machine and set the controls for 1963 when I was just fourteen years old. There was no Internet back then, so I print everything that LILA would say to me about my strongest planet, I leave it somewhere where young Steve will stumble across it, and I quickly head back to hide out in the 21st century. (That’s Jupiter in Capricorn and the 2nd house, by the way.)

When my fourteen-year-old self learns that I have a potential for embodying Jupiter’s “star quality,” I would have snorted in disbelief. I was a shy, misanthropic kid. I knew I was smart, but otherwise I had very little confidence in myself. But then I poke a little deeper into that LILA material and I learn that none of that alleged star quality pops up automatically without effort on my part. With Jupiter in the 2nd house, I was going to have to prove myself to myself in order to earn that kind of confidence and maybe generate a little charisma. With Capricorn in the formula, that process would take hard work. It would depend on self-discipline, on me keeping my eye on the prize. 

Via my strongest planet, LILA would have given me the formula that I needed in order to rise to that “star quality” that seemed so unreachable to me back then. That information would have helped me, and helping people is always the point.

I’ve often said that no one really needs astrology. That’s easily proven – plenty of people live good lives without it, end of story. Astrology assists us though! No one needs weather reports, but they’re helpful too. When I was fourteen, I got my teeth into astrology and I never let go. A couple of decades later, LILA’s prophecy came true: I became something like a “star” in the field. 

Even without LILA to guide me, I did what LILA would have suggested and it turned out as LILA would have predicted.

The deeper point is that at several forks in the road I nearly derailed my life in various ways, almost taking paths that were not really mine. I got lucky or angels saved me or something like that. Again, we can all live just fine without astrology – but we live better with it! I would have been more sure-footed in finding the path to my destiny if I had known about my strongest planet and let it guide me.

That’s true for us all. That’s why I am happy to see the strongest planet system built into LILA even though here in late 2025 it is still a work in progress. Like everything else in our field, it can help you become your best self. It can fill you in about the gift that you can offer your community and your loved ones. It reminds you of who you truly are. 

And that’s why we do what we do.

Ride the waves of your imagination back to Balboa Park in San Diego, California, one hundred years ago. The year is 1925. A woman sits in a parked car. She is engaged in an intense private conversation with a man. They are both in their thirties. He draws a 3” x 5” index card at random from a large stack and places it face down. On the card, and unseen by either one of them, is the notation “Aries 4.” An image forms in her mind. She says, two lovers are strolling through a secluded walk. He jots it down, shuffles the cards, and draws another, this one is for “Libra 13.” The woman says, Children blowing soap bubbles.

So it goes. Over several sessions, astrologer Marc Edmund Jones and psychic Elsie May Wheeler covered the entire zodiac. To each degree an evocative image was assigned. Thus began the long, complicated birth of what came eventually to be known as the Sabian Symbols. 

Elsie Wheeler passed away in 1938 at age fifty-one. She had spent her entire life in a wheelchair, suffering from crippling arthritis. As psychics and mediums go, astrologically she looks like the real deal. Here’s her A-rated chart. Note her Moon in the last degree of mystical Pisces along with Neptune conjunct her Ascendant. If anyone was in touch with the Spirit world, it was her.

I found a photo of her by searching online. It’s rights-protected so I can’t share it here without risking getting us into legal trouble. If you’re interested, you can Google it yourself. I don’t know how you will feel, but for me it was love at first sight. Her eyes go back forever. 

For all the usual sad reasons, when people speak of the Sabian Symbols, the name that is generally associated with them is that of astrologer Marc Edmund Jones. Meanwhile, poor Elsie May Wheeler is often forgotten. I want to celebrate her here, especially now that we have reached the one hundredth anniversary of the time she brought these images from the next world into this one. The Sabian Symbols would not exist without her.

None of this is meant to discredit Marc Edmund Jones. The symbols would not exist without him either. He was also one of the most productive and creative of the mid-20th century astrologers, probably best known for his work with aspect patterns – buckets, bowls, see-saws, and so on. 

Jones continued to work with the Sabian Symbols for years after Elsie Wheeler’s passing, changing a few of them, writing little paragraphs of explanation for each of them. He initially published them for his students in mimeographed form. Eventually, astrologer Dane Rudhyar became interested in them too. He published a modified version in his monumental 1936 work, The Astrology of Personality, thus ensuring their place in astrological history. Jones himself published The Sabian Symbols in Astrology in 1953. Twenty years later, Rudhyar devoted an entire book to them. It was called An Astrological Mandala. 

In 2004, Martin Goldsmith published a massive research project about the symbols and actually rejected some of Wheeler’s imagery, replacing it with fresh images that seemed to resonate better with the actual lives of people born with planets in those degrees. His book is titled, The Zodiac By Degrees. I suspect that purists frown on it because of his deletion of some of Wheeler’s images, but I found Goldsmith’s work impressive. For example, the original symbol for my own natal Sun’s position in 16 Capricorn is school grounds filled with boys and girls in gymnasium suits. I’m not an athlete. When I was growing up, gym was mostly about boredom and humiliation. It’s a stretch to make Wheeler’s original image for my Sun’s degree speak to me in a way that I can relate to. Meanwhile, here is Goldsmith’s new wording for that same mid-Capricorn degree: Turbaned guru explains a path to higher awareness, while his assistant walks among the meditating disciples and prods them into the correct posture. 

When I first read those words, I had to laugh out loud. I’m no guru, but obviously Goldsmith’s imagery relates much more obviously to the actual realities of my life than anything about a gymnasium. Reading it put a smile of recognition on my face – and as students and community members in the FCEA, I bet it put smiles on your faces too. I can’t help but think of our team of devoted tutors “prodding you into the correct posture.”   

Again, Martin Goldsmith derived these new images from meticulous biographical studies of the actual lives of people born with planets in these degrees. He only replaced Elsie Wheeler’s originals where it seemed appropriate and necessary.

• By the way, if you are drawn to work with the Sabian Symbols, here is a point that needs to be 100% clear. In working with them, the first degree of Aries starts at 0 Aries and ends at 1 degree of Aries. If, in other words, your natal Mars is in 0 Aries 38’, you read Aries 1, if it’s in 1 Aries 08’, you read Aries 2, and so on. 

WHAT TO MAKE OF THE SABIAN SYMBOLS

So here we are, having arrived at the Centennial of the birth of the Sabian Symbols. It seems appropriate to mark it. Unfortunately no exact date was recorded for when Jones and Wheeler sat together in that park in San Diego. All we know is that it happened over several days in 1925. 

In any case, a hundred years have passed, and all 360 of the symbols are still alive and kicking in one form or another in the world of contemporary astrology. At this point, they’ve been around far too long for anyone to dismiss them as a fad. Still, they’re not actually used very widely – saying that they have a “cult following” is closer to the truth. The sorts of highly intuitive astrologers who might also be drawn to Tarot cards or dream interpretation do well with them. Meanwhile, more linear thinkers tend to shrug their shoulders. But only a fool would reject them entirely. Like astrology itself, give them a chance and they will prove themselves to you.

Australian astrologer Lynda Hill is probably their most prominent current advocate. Her website is fun and impressive: https://sabiansymbols.com. Hit that link, ask a question, click the nebula, and – boom – a Sabian Symbol appears “at random,” often casting light on the question you asked. Obviously, that kind of divinatory process is more like Tarot cards or the I Ching than astrology – but those systems work too.

I’ve played with the Sabian Symbols myself for years. I find them intriguing and delightful. I mean, who can read rabbits in faultless human attire parade with dignity without smiling? That’s Cancer 8, by the way. In the early years of my astrological practice, I occasionally used them with clients, with mixed results. Once again, my more intuitive, Neptunian clients could relate to them more easily than my more “Earth-toned” ones. I no longer use the Sabian symbols in my practice. But I still find them fascinating.

Maybe you will too.