Happy Birthday FCEA!

Happy Birthday FCEA

March 6 marked the second anniversary of the birth of the FCEA. On that day in 2019, at around 10:00 in the morning, Catie Cadge and I sat down with Jeff Parrett at his kitchen table in Pleasanton, California and began the conversation that started the wheels turning. 
As is so often the case, practical considerations rather than astrology dictated the moment for the birth of the school. The previous afternoon, I had finished teaching my “Sex, Death, and the Occult” class in Petaluma with the old northern California Apprenticeship Program. The three of us drove back to Jeff’s place that evening, but we were all too tired to do anything. By 10:00 the next morning, our teeth were brushed, our coffee and tea were made, and we were ready to start talking about the possibility of creating our school. 
Amazingly, we managed to time that conversation almost exactly with the moment of a Piscean New Moon, which had occurred just a couple of hours earlier. (More about that in a minute.) Without knowing it, we also hit an early Gemini Ascendant – no surprise since we were there to talk about teaching.

“Do we choose the birthcart or does it choose us?“

Astrologers are often hired to “pick a date” for a wedding or the opening of a business. That branch of our craft – called “electional” astrology – is a powerful, helpful technique. You’ll learn about it later in the FCEA program. The reality is that this birthchart for the school “elected us” rather than the other way around. And that is actually the way the universe usually works – every moment has an astrological personality, and everything “born” in that moment reflects it. No one has to believe in astrology for that to be true. Every breath you take has an astrological signature – although I’d be quick to add you can go crazy thinking about that too much.
 
The FCEA could hardly be more Piscean. Obviously having both the Sun and the Moon there guarantees that. But with Gemini rising, Mercury becomes the ruler of the chart – and it too lies in Pisces. Then there’s Neptune, the modern ruler of Pisces. It’s conjunct both Sun and Moon by a fraction of a degree, further pressing the school in that “fishy” symbolic direction.
 
All of those Pisces energies are operating in the 11th house. On the surface, there is a very simple, obvious truth in that symbolism – we are, after all, an organization. Many of us have come together united by a common purpose in classic 11th house fashion. We are all “friends” in that 11th house sense too – although words such as teammates or allies are often more accurate. 
 
Once again, we see how in this “random” choice of a moment for Jeff, Catie, and me to sit down and start talking, the astrological signatures of what was actually being born were all there. 
 
To be true to ourselves and genuinely glad to be alive, we all need to be true to our Suns, Moons, and Ascendants, as well as to the rest of our charts. With all that Piscean energy, for the FCEA, doing that means that we need to remain true to our mystical heart. Add that collective 11th house energy, and the full picture emerges: we are a mystery school. 
 
A full analysis of this “birthday” chart is a bit beyond the scope of my musings here. Let me just add a few more points as simply as I can. Pisces is the 12th sign, always resonant with the 12th house – where we find two more planets: Uranus and Mars. That adds another log or two to the mystical fires. That rebel Uranus also rules the Midheaven, so our public destiny reflects the “troublemaker” role of a mystery school in the context of our fundamentally materialistic society.
The 9th house is interesting too. Venus is there in Aquarius, but we also see that Capricorn south node, ruled by Saturn and conjunct it, with Pluto only a degree and a half from the node. The karma of the FCEA could be seen as that of “a university,” given the “higher education” significance of the 9th house. But of course, with Pluto in the mix, this nodal structure looks pretty heavy! It also feels extremely solitary – there’s the fingerprint of Saturn and Capricorn. 
My first thought is that historically many mystery schools needed to keep their existence secret in order to avoid persecution. I suspect that is what we are looking at here.
The Cancer north node is in the 3rd house – teaching leaps out again, but this time it has a warmer, gentler quality. Ruled by that Piscean Moon in the 11th house, there is a feeling of sweetness, outreach, and public transparency about the dharma of the FCEA, as opposed to its battle-weary “secret handshake” karma. 
I could say more, but I’m out of space. Let me plant one more seed though. Each one of you is part of our tribe and your presence is potentially a very specific gift to the rest of us. If, for example, you have a lot of sensitivity to around 6 degrees of Aquarius, you may help us “do our Venus.” Maybe you’re tuned into the middle of Pisces. If so, please remind us of our mystical heart, especially if we ever start letting “the world be too much with us.”
Meanwhile, my own Sun is in the middle of Capricorn, very close to that Saturn. I guess my job is to be Gandalf or Dumbledore – or maybe just grandpa. Finally for those who like that whole mystery school vibe, the logo for the FCEA is derived from the aspects in its birthchart!

Monthly Calls

Monthly Q&A Call

We had our first monthly Zoom call on January 26th. If you missed it, no worries – it’s recorded and you can easily access it. For existing students it is available on the Student Resources page and for Members it’s available on the Members Only page. If you want to join in, sign up for a course or become a member.

Our next Zoom call is set for February 22 at 8:00 AM PST – and, by the way, I’ll be getting my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine on the previous afternoon. I had no reaction to my first one, but I hear the second one can be harder. If I’m a little bleary in that call, that’s why. 

In this newsletter, I want to talk about how these calls will evolve as time goes by and also about some of the thinking that has gone into planning how we do them.

“No one left behind “

Many of these online meetings will take the same form as the first one – they’ll be driven by questions submitted by all of you, both FCEA students and community members. I will take about an hour and try to answer as many of them as I can. Realistically I probably will not be able to get to everything. That means that we will “curate” the questions, selecting the ones that promise to be most helpful to the most people. Going through the submissions in advance takes some time – that means that we need to receive them 36 hours before the call. 

Priority will always go to questions that have the most general relevance. That usually means that the ones which begin with “in my chart” won’t make the cut. Given that the FCEA has just been launched, for a while we will also leave out any questions that are ahead of the current learning curve – at this point, that means that we will not be looking at anything involving transits and progressions or any of our other more advanced topics. As the program matures and students advance, we will welcome more sophisticated material. Right now, we want to be careful that no one is left behind.      

With 75 or 100 people in the Zoom-room, these monthly programs need to be rather structured. Catie and Jeff will moderate, and we will run a fairly tight ship, limiting interruptions and comments. If that many people begin a free-form “chat,” chaos quickly ensues. Again, our aim is to provide the most benefit to the greatest number of people in that hour or so. We need to use the time efficiently, avoiding going down any rabbit holes.

Where the rubber meets the road in astrology is actually looking at charts. The trouble is that there are very few truly simple questions about any chart. Astrologically, everything is connected to everything else and so looking at a single chart on the shared screen could easily take up the entire hour. We’ll probably do exactly that! But not right away. At this point, we think briefer, more generalizable questions do more good for the majority of us. Don’t worry – if you are hungry for more integrated, in-depth chart analysis, there are also plenty of videos of me presenting complete interpretations a little further on in the FCEA curriculum. 

Down the road, we plan to create an index to the archives of these Zoom calls. Students and community members will be able, for example, to look up “house cusps” and go directly to the video recording of me discussing them on January 26. We anticipate this index becoming an increasingly valuable resource over the years as the calls accumulate.

With FCEA students spread over the globe, finding a convenient time for these Zoom events is pretty much an impossibility. What we have settled on is the idea of alternating them monthly between  8:00 AM and 5:00 PM-Pacific Time. That is not a perfect solution, but 8:00 o’clock in the morning at my house is around 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon in London and midnight in Beijing. When the clocks read 5:00 PM here, it is 1:00 in the morning in London and 9:00 AM in Beijing. “Convenient” might not be the first word that comes to mind, but perhaps “workable” does.

Compounding the time zone challenges, we are doing these calls on weekdays rather than weekends. That’s just me taking care of myself. I already have to work on some weekends. Sacrificing another weekend per month would not be a popular choice on the home front. 

Again, I repeat that all of these Zoom calls will be recorded and archived. That means that no one ever has to actually miss one. Since all the questions are submitted in advance, no one even misses the chance to ask questions. Sometimes, when time allows, there will be follow-up questions and comments. People watching later will only miss having a chance to participate in that part. Everything else is equally accessible to them.

One monthly Zoom call does not seem like much “Steve time.” One or two students have expressed frustration that I am not more directly present and available in the program, even though you will see plenty of me on the instructional videos we have recorded. I’d like to address that issue directly here. My response comes in two parts.

First, at a personal level, one of my aims for the FCEA is to create a vehicle for this kind of astrology to continue to grow and to be taught after I am gone, or after my physical and mental capacities are reduced. I am eager to pass the torch onward to Jeff and Catie and to our wonderfully able crew of tutors-in-training. I have no plans to retire, but at age 72, I would like to have more free time to do some exploring of my inner and outer worlds. All of that dictates a smaller role for me in the day-to-day running of the school.

Secondly, as the FCEA moves forward, we plan to host various Craftsperson and Master level activities. I anticipate my interacting with our more advanced students in a much more direct way. Those plans have not jelled specifically yet, but we are committed to them. I really love “live” teaching with a small group, coaching people as they present their own interpretations. Post-Covid, we do anticipate holding some physical gatherings – classes, even conferences. Because of the international reach of the FCEA, I want to be fair to people who live far away, so there will be some online dimensions to these higher-level programs too.

Bottom line, I do anticipate being more actively involved in teaching for those of you who master our more foundational course work. Much of the actual shape of that teaching really depends on something imponderable – the angels’ plans for my physical body as I move deeper into my seventies. (My dad made it to 83 and mom almost to 96, so I’m optimistic.) 

Meanwhile, I look forward to seeing you every month.

Finally, I’d like to add one more point about our monthly Zoom calls. After the formal Q&A discussions, we always have some social time. One of the things I miss most about the old Apprenticeship Programs is the fun of just hanging out with interesting people, laughing and comparing notes. “Zoomland” is a new world of course. I have been happy to discover that it’s warmer and more human than I had feared. As we build the FCEA community, these social times play an important role. Because it is hard for fifty people to have a conversion, Jeff has been exploring Zoom “break out rooms,” where smaller groups can gather, or two people could even have a private conversation if they wanted. It’s something we’re making up as we go along, getting used to, making it human. Please join us for that part of the program as well.

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Steven Forrest Method

Steven Forrest Method:
The Path to Mastery

When does one “attain competency” as an evolutionary astrologer? That is a very slippery question. Here are some parallel questions – when did you grow up? When does a puppy become a dog? When did the modern period begin? We are, after all, talking about an evolutionary process. It flows rather than bursts full-flower into a brand new day.

In the Forrest Center for Evolutionary Astrology program, we arbitrarily define three developmental stages for the advancing student: the Apprentice, the Craftsperson, and finally the Master. 

An Apprentice has done the hard work of establishing the foundation of astrological understanding. The work done in the FCEA 100 series is actually the most important work of the whole program. Calling it “elementary astrology” really rings the wrong bell. Better to call it the core of everything. The Apprentice learns to speak the underlying vocabulary of the universe as it is reflected in human consciousness: signs, planets, houses, aspects, and the lunar nodes. Students who have completed the Apprentice level may not yet be ready to advertise themselves as a professional astrologers – but we can guarantee that, if such graduates were to sit with a friend in need, they could be of genuine help just by looking at that person’s birthchart and speaking out loud the material they’ve learned. And that effective helpfulness, bottom line, is what we would call astrological competency!

“There are many things we can say about the Forrest Center for Evolutionary Astrology, but probably the most fundamental one would be that it provides the missing catalyst to Steven’s existing work: structure. “

The Craftsperson has gone even further, mastering two more core astrological skills: astrological “prediction” and synastry, which is the astrology of human relationships. These are the topics covered in the FCEA 200 and 300 series. They build on the foundation of the 100-series – the language of the birthchart, in other words – and they constantly refer back to it. One who has graduated as an FCEA Craftsperson is ready to be a member of the ancient guild. He or she has all of the essential competencies of a working counseling astrologer. Add some practice and some experience, and nothing more would really be absolutely necessary in order for that person to be of real service to the community. But of course there is always more to learn . . .

A Master has internalized the astrological fundamentals and has now, with the support of the FCEA community, begun to polish them, mature them, and deepen them. Some more advanced or specialized topics are presented, so our technical training does not come to an end. Steven will teach advanced interpretive programs which are only available to students who have reached this Masters level of competency. Perhaps more importantly, masters will teach each other. Some words you may have seen elsewhere in our website bear repetition here:

Astrological mastery, as defined by the Forrest Center for Evolutionary Astrology, means getting to a level of competence, confidence, and experience in which you can sit down with a stranger and the stranger’s chart and speak meaningfully and helpfully to that person for an hour or two, even if that stranger has chosen to share nothing personal with you until you have actually earned that kind of trust from him or her.

So You Want to be An Astrologer…

So You Want to be an Astrologer.

Good choice! It is a good life. But of course it is not the life for everyone. Just as it would be cruel to encourage a tone-deaf person to pursue a career as an opera singer, we need to recognize that certain inborn traits need to be present in anyone if he or she is going to find happiness, fulfillment, and prosperity as an evolutionary astrologer.

Let’s explore these qualities, in no particular order. If you’ve got these bases covered, welcome to the Forrest Center for Evolutionary Astrology. We can take you right to the finish line. If you lack any single one of them, making it as an astrological professional will be tough – but let’s underscore that anyone who is drawn to this work simply out of interest or for reasons purely of personal growth is very welcome to come along for the ride.

  • Intelligence. Learning to be a competent practitioner of evolutionary astrology is a serious commitment. It is analogous to attending medical school or becoming a trained mental health professional. Bring your brains – you will need them!
  • Self-discipline. Again, this study is a serious, long-term undertaking. Beyond that, a professional astrologer, like any other self-employed person, has to be a self-starter. If you need someone else to get you out of bed in the morning, this path is not for you.
  • Language skills. Some highly intelligent or very loving people are simply not very verbal. That’s a disaster if you are an astrologer – like trying to be a basketball player if you are notably short of stature. Astrology is a verbal art. That is how we build the bridge between the symbols and our clients. You’ve got to be a good talker – and a good listener too. 
  • Loving Kindness. People sense it, or its absence. They come to you for insight, but sometimes those insights are difficult to digest. Clients are in vulnerable positions. You’ve got to care about them. You’ve got to radiate interest, supportiveness, and faith in them. And you have got to do it day after day. Many truly good people simply cannot take the endless diet of pain,tragedy, and complaint that is the daily fare of any counselor.
  • A Thick Skin. This is becoming less and less relevant as astrology’s star rises, but an astrologer still oten encounters prejudice and judgment in the streets of the world. If you are desperate for universal approval, this is probably still the wrong field for you.
  • Wisdom. That one is hard to define and cannot be taught, only earned. Even though it is a slippery subject to pin down, the simple truth is that we all know it when we see it. The more wisdom you have, the better an astrologer you will be. Balancing all that is another reality: the wisest astrologer draws the wisest clients. The less-wise one draws less-wise clients. Astrologers and their clients seem to find each other. Call it synchronicity or call it magic, but there is an astrologer for everyone. You don’t have to be a saint to be successful in this field.
  • Sanity. If you were abused by a tyrannical father growing up, you are in danger of projecting the resultant anger onto any strong-willed or opinionated client. If you are sexually unsatisfied, sexually attractive clients are likely to be in some peril around you. 

“We are all a little crazy –  welcome to the planet Earth. But an ongoing commitment to working on yourself is mission-critical in any astrological practice.“

Those are the seven traits we would most like to see in anyone aspiring to become a professional astrologer. If you have them, even in some modicum, we hope that you will take the FCEA course right to their limit, and so become a spiritual lighthouse in your community.

Watch this 17-minute video Steven created emphasizing not only the joys, but also the practical viability, of pursuing astrology as a professional path.