It’s time for another peek at the school’s chart. A long hard look at your own transits and progressions can help keep you honest, and it’s the same for the entity we call the FCEA. That’s how we walk our talk – we listen when the planets shine a light on our path.

Most of us have seen the school’s chart before – here it is again in case you’re newly part of the family. This time I’m showing it with the current progressions in the middle ring and the current transits in the outer one. As usual, for clarity’s sake, I’m not progressing the outer planets – they’re too slow to be of much practical use. I’m also only using the transits of Jupiter through Pluto – they’re the ones that have time enough to pack the symbolic punch of deep developmental meaning. Everything is set for July 14th. There’s nothing special about that date – it’s just when I happened to be writing this essay. All of these bodies move slowly enough that nothing significant will have changed by the time you’re reading this.  

One glance at the basic natal chart of the school and you can easily see astrology at work. We’ve obviously got a massive 11th house. That’s because we’re a tribe – a group of people who have come together for a common purpose. There’s lots of Pisces energy too – after all, we’re a spiritual tribe. Our path is one of education – there’s the Gemini Ascendant and the big 9th house. None of that tells us anything we didn’t know already, but it demonstrates a good reality check if you’re using an “event” chart like this one – if it’s not true in “obvious” ways, that’s a sign that the chart itself might be flawed. Births are pretty objective things. Not so the “births” of ideas, relationships, or businesses. If the chart doesn’t echo reality in a crystal-clear “duh” sort of way, you’ve probably got a problem. No worry, we’re definitely good to go in this case – the school’s chart represents our reality very well.

Look at all those transits and progressions! As usual, one glance is enough to make you feel like you’re juggling a few too many balls. Birthcharts are complicated enough, but adding transits and progressions can be overwhelming. Much of the art of our work lies in knowing how to edit the clutter – that’s always our first step. Diving in willy-nilly without a plan is invariably a recipe for catastrophe. Those of you who are currently in (or beyond) FCEA201 know that our basic tool here is what we call The Four Nets. If you’re just beginning our program, you can read all about them in The Changing Sky. Basically they are simply a rough method of sorting through a slew of transits, progressions, and solar arcs with an eye on thinking in terms of first things first.

In no particular order (yet), here are what seem to me to be the biggest things currently going on in the school’s chart.

• Transiting Pluto is squaring the school’s Uranus.
• Transiting Uranus will hit the Ascendant in two years
• Solar Arc Saturn is conjunct the school’s Pluto
• Transiting Saturn is sweeping through Pisces, hitting all of those Piscean planets
• Transiting Neptune is conjuncting Mercury 
• The Progressed Moon is in the 12th house heading for the Ascendant
• Transiting Jupiter will soon be squaring our Sun and Moon
• Transiting Jupiter will trine the Sun and Moon in two years

Got all that? The heart boggles in the face of it all. We need a way of getting a handle on the complexity. The Four Nets to the rescue! Be warned though – they’re flawed. I wrote them so I should know! By all means, use them, but only as a starting point. The trouble with the Four Nets is that they suffer from the same limitations we find with the orbs of aspects. What orb should we use for Mercury? The right answer varies with Mercury’s strength and centrality in the chart. If Gemini is rising and the person’s Sun is in the 3rd house, you’ll want to use wider orbs with Mercury – that’s because of that person’s enhanced sensitivity to those areas of life. It’s exactly the same with the Four Nets – a progressed Mercury, say, trining natal Neptune would rise higher in the Nets for people who have that same kind of enhanced Mercurial natal sensitivity – and it would sink in importance if they didn’t!

Remember: use the Four Nets as your launching pad, but not as your crutch!

Let’s apply the Four Nets to the current astrological situation of the school. As we sort through our list of configurations while letting the Nets set our priorities, here’s what we see. (By the way, the numbered lines I quote in italics here are taken directly from the Four Nets handout in FCEA201. They’re also pretty close to what you’ll find in The Changing Sky where I first published them back in 1986.)

First Net

Our transiting Saturn is sweeping through Pisces, hitting all of those Piscean planets

4. Transiting Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto making a conjunction or hard aspect to the natal Sun, Moon, Angles, or nodal axis.

Our Progressed Moon is in the 12th house heading for the Ascendant 

2. The progressed Moon passing over the Ascendant or Descendant.

Our transiting Uranus will hit the Ascendant in two years

4. Transiting Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto making a conjunction or hard aspect to the natal Sun, Moon, Angles, or nodal axis.

Second Net

Our transiting Pluto square Uranus

4. Transiting Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto conjunct, square or opposed to any sensitive point other than Sun, Moon, Angles, or nodal axis.

Our transiting Neptune conjunct Mercury

4. Transiting Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto conjunct, square or opposed to any sensitive point other than Sun, Moon, Angles, or nodal axis.

Our Solar Arc Saturn conjunct Pluto

8. Any solar arc planet making a hard aspect or conjunction to any natal planet or point, or changing sign or house.

Our transiting Jupiter square the Sun and Moon

5. Transiting Jupiter conjunct, square, or opposed to the natal Sun, Moon, Angles, or nodal axis.

Third Net

Our transiting Jupiter trine the Sun and Moon

3. Any aspects made by transiting Jupiter not already covered.

What follows is probably the most important thing I’m going to say in this little essay: if you only looked at those First Net configurations and you did an in-depth job of understanding them and integrating them with each other, you would have been of enormous help to anyone who had been lucky enough to turn to you for counsel.

Never forget – we’re working for our clients, not to win some kind of award offered by a team of censorious techno-astrologers.

The bottom line is always to go as far with the Nets as you possibly can, but stopping just before your intuitive sense of the wholeness starts to get swallowed up in a lather of intellectual anxiety.

So what does it all mean? What can we learn about the school’s current evolutionary possibilities?

I’m going to be brief here since a thorough job of interpretation would require quite a lot of time and would be a lot easier to deliver orally rather than in writing. As you’re probably figuring out by now, I actually have two aims in writing this short essay. Obviously, one is to think about the school and our collective journey. The second one is to offer some guidance and encouragement about how to navigate the potentially-overwhelming labyrinths that the astrological symbols always create. Interpretively, this will be a simple strategic overview rather than a detailed analysis, in other words.

Let’s start with those three First Net configurations. They are our foundation. Beginning anywhere else could easily put the cart before the horse. The first thing I see is that while one of these First Net events is currently active, the other two crest in the near future and are thus less active right now. Let’s start with those two:

• Number one, the progressed Moon hits the school’s Ascendant on March 3, 2025.

• Number two, transiting Uranus soon follows, hitting the Ascendant in August 2025, retrograding over it that October, and making a final direct hit in January 2026.

• Finally, Saturn’s current sweep through Pisces – number three – can thus be understood as preparation for the new beginnings the other two First Net events are prophesying.

See how that simple insight based on the relative timing of these three events gives us an initial interpretive structure? We’ll start with Saturn, and try to see how it can prepare us for those Moon and Uranus developments. Saturn entered Pisces in March 2023, but it will be crisscrossing our Sun and Moon between April 2024 and January 2025 – and note that Saturn’s finish in January 2025 comes just a few weeks before the progressed Moon hits the Ascendant and a few months before Uranus joins the Moon there.

We’ve hit upon a developmental sequence – and recognizing a pattern like that is pure gold in our craft.

Again, these configurations are vast subjects, but in essence with the Saturn transit through Pisces, we see the school in its current situation, which is that we are maturing. Reflecting that idea in material terms, we’ll probably be graduating our first class of master-level FCEA astrologers early in 2024 – there’s a very concrete (Saturn!) maturational milestone! Given Saturn’s nature, we’ll probably also be facing various (surmountable) obstacles – that’s usually part of Saturn’s signature too. The process of navigating those obstacles is often what actually matures anyone, the school included. Saturn usually also demands some hard negotiations, some compromises, and some sacrifices.

As one quick illustration of how this Saturn transit has already been at work, think of the big school Zoom Q & A calls that we do. From my point of view, the last two or three of them have been the smoothest ones ever. That’s because – live and learn, Saturn-fashion – we’ve created a format that really works: an hour on the submitted questions, half an hour or so on a chart reading, and the rest of the time for spontaneous discussion. We learned from our experience and improved things. We matured – and that’s pure Saturn.

With those two other big First Net events heading for our Ascendant, we’re focusing on building a vision for the future, but succeeding there requires some reflection  and patience. Building that “vision” is the message of the progressed Moon’s current position in the 12th house. Once that vision is “cooked,” the Moon hitting the school’s Ascendant in 2025 will be something of a “Grand Opening” – and with Uranus hitting the Ascendant at about the same time, we can safely “expect the unexpected.” We will also very probably take off in some novel or surprising directions.

That’s the message of the First Net.

Those novel and surprising directions are echoed further as we move into the realm of the Second Net. There we see Uranus in the spotlight once again, but this time because transiting Pluto is squaring it. That’s happening throughout all of 2024. Meanwhile, transiting Neptune is back and forth over our Mercury between May 2024 and January 2026. That transit echoes the “vision quest” elements we saw in that First Net progression of the Moon through the 12th house. Together these two Second Net transits caution us against the kind of unrealism (Neptune) that could lead to a real mess – something that Pluto squaring a 12th house Uranus warns us about as well. Right now, Saturn is teaching us to keep our feet on the ground. Our job is to remember that!

Solar Arc Saturn made a conjunction with Pluto in July, and that energy is still very active and represents more of the same. There are bumps in the road – delays and maybe a few minefields as well. We acknowledge all that, but we keep perspective – these are Second Net events, not First Net ones. We counsel alertness and caution, but not fear.

Moving on in the Second Net, transiting Jupiter squares the Sun and Moon between August 2024 and April 2025. That warns us specifically against over-extension – and it further focuses the cautionary notes we just struck. Concretely, the chart might be counseling us, for example, against taking on too many new students or new tutors, or simply spending too much money.

A little further down the road, transiting Jupiter moves beyond those squares to the Sun and Moon and slides into trine aspects with them. That happens between August 2025 and April 2026. By then, the progressed Moon is in the 1st house and Uranus is snicker-snacking back and forth across our Ascendant. If we’re careful, if we do the hard Saturn work, and if we let ourselves gradually feel our way into a new vision, we will have built the foundation for that new beginning, and I suspect we’ll be smiling gratefully at what we’ve created – there’s the message of Jupiter trining our Sun and Moon, probably bringing luck and opportunity.

Remember how you felt back at the beginning of this essay when I first listed the eight biggest events that were impacting the FCEA chart? Eight were enough to be overwhelming – and that was just the top eight! What if I’d added a bunch of Net Three events as well? Or Net Four? It’s simply too much for the mind to digest. But think about what happened to your attitude when we passed those eight configurations through the Nets.

• The First Net reduced them to the three most important ones – and with just three events, we could begin to get a handle on the message. Our “overwhelm” was greatly reduced.

• Even better, because they were First Net events we could reassure ourselves that we were keeping perspective and tuning into the big picture.

• Then we noticed a pattern in those three events. We reflected on their timing and we saw how one of them was currently setting the stage for the other two.

A strategic approach like that is how we go from confusion to a story we feel in our bones and which we can tell with confidence. Once we have the First Net figured out, we just plug some Net Two and maybe some Net Three insights into the basic “big picture.” Always, our sense of the integrated wholeness of things that Net One generates for us is our foundation.

Beyond that, we embellish it with lesser configurations until our brows start to wrinkle – or our clients start to look glassy-eyed.

With experience, we improve even further – we sense when that dreaded glassy-eyed moment is about to arrive and we say Amen just before we get there. 

The next thing you know, you’re a professional astrologer and an FCEA graduate.

We’re proud of what we’ve created here at the FCEA in the four years since we first conceived it back in March 2019. We’re also delighted by the expressions of support, enthusiasm, and appreciation we often hear from our students and Community Members. New businesses are famously shaky and many of them quickly fail. Not us! All in all, we’re doing OK and that’s thanks to all of you.

Naturally we hear grumbles from time to time. Keep them coming! We’re good, but we know we can get better and that’s our aim. Your feedback is helpful, even if we can’t always make everything fit everyone’s individual needs.

Sometimes “grumbles” isn’t the right word either – we also get lots of minor corrections and they’re always welcome. For one example, just this week a perspicacious student noticed that I’d made a typo in my handout about the discovery date of Eris. I had it down as January 25, 2005 when it was actually January 5 – obviously that mistake was not the end of the world, but it’s good to make things right! We fixed it right away. Someone else once pointed out an error in a birth time for one of our teaching charts – I can’t even remember which one, but we fixed that too. There have been a few more instances of little goofs on that kind of scale – not earth-shaking, but still important – and we wouldn’t have known about them without your help and sharp eyes, so thanks!

With the FCEA curriculum materials we can quickly fix things, but in my life as an author, I’ve had a futile ambition all along – it’s that someday I would publish a book without any typos at all. Still, even with a  dozen eyes, including my own, combing through the pages, that’s never happened. And once a book is in print, it’s graven in stone unless and until there’s a new edition. We can at least include a note about those kinds of errata in Moodle. We’ve done that – the bad charts for Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn in Skymates II come to mind.

In pursuit of ways that we can possibly improve, a few of our tutors have let me know about some frustrations they’re hearing from students. Four of these issues have come up with some consistency and I want to touch on them here. Two of them are biggies and two are fair to call “small potatoes.” I should say right away that none of them are completely fixable, at least in the present circumstances of the school. Mostly here I simply want to say “we hear you” and to take the opportunity to explain our position. One aim we’ll always have here in the FCEA is to be as transparent with everyone as we possibly can be.

FACE TIME

By far, the issue that comes up most often is the desire for more “live” interaction with the tutors and with myself. I have a lot to say about that, starting with a simple agreement: almost everyone agrees that more live interaction would be great! 

Let me first speak about the tutors, then I’ll speak about myself.

Our tutors are paid by the hour – not enough, not what they’re worth, but they are paid!.And there’s a lot of them and that gets expensive. Those hours mount up. The FCEA has no outside source of funding – even the loan Jeff Parrett gave us to start the school is being paid back with interest. You probably see where this is going. Financially, the school is usually “in the black,” but not by much. To afford more tutor hours, we’d have to raise our tuition rates. No one – including us – wants to do that.

Speaking for myself, I really do enjoy the many Zoom Q&A sessions we do. I like teaching. Beyond those, this (northern) autumn, we’ll finally reach FCEA 306 – that’s a course where I’ll be teaching “live” via Zoom in a small-class context. I look forward to that! Let me also add that  at the 300-level, students are advanced enough to begin working together with a tutor and their peers in live Zoom classes every week. Even better for many of you, we just started our 101Z and 102Z labs. They’re led by tutors on Zoom and students get live interaction every week there too.

One of my personal goals in framing the FCEA was for me to be able to do more teaching at a “master class” level. I felt that doing that would be a better use of my time than teaching the basics over and over again – hence the reason behind all the videos and handouts I’ve made for our curriculum, not to mention all my books. Those are where I teach the basics – although our Q&A sessions are actually often that too. And even there, we’re building our indexed reference library, which is also gradually becoming another resource in our basic curriculum. But a real motivator for me is to be able to teach at a higher level. As the first wave of FCEA students reaches the 306 level in a few months, we’ll finally arrive at that point.

There’s one more thing that’s sort of tangentially related – we’ll soon be implementing a platform called Circle (www.Circle.so). I honestly don’t know much about it yet, but we’re hoping it will facilitate an easier and more lively kind of social interaction among us.

Speaking of face-to-face interaction, let me add that it was a joy to finally meet some of you in person at the big ISAR conference in Denver last August and also at the NORWAC conference in Seattle just a few weeks ago. My upcoming event this August at Omega Institute in New York is promising to be a big one – last I heard, 107 people have signed up! I know many FCEA students are among them. (If you’re interested in possibly attending, here’s the link: https://www.eomega.org/search?query=Steven+Forrest). 

Then there’s Astro-Bash (https://www.astro-bash.com) starting on September 28th. Ralph MacIntrye, a former student in my old Apprenticeship Programs who happens to live in the same desert town as me, has put together a broad group of evolutionary astrologers as speakers. Our Dean, Catie, will be among them. I’ll do a keynote. Getting to Borrego Springs is not the easiest thing in the world, but for me it’s home sweet home. Maybe some of you can come too.

I’m writing about these in-person events because they’re part of how I want to address the whole question of more live teaching and “face time.” By the way, as I write these words, I’m aware of how unfair much of this must sound to our students who live in other countries. I’m sorry about that, but at least these events do provide another option for face-to-face work, at least for some of you. We still hope to create an actual FCEA conference at some point, but frankly we’re all just too busy running things day-to-day to even think much about it at this point.

Let me briefly belabor another obvious issue for a moment – like the rest of you, I have to make a living and there are only so many hours in the day. Most of how I support myself comes from work outside our school. That does put some constraints on my time. That’s of course true as well for our tutors, teachers, and staff.

THE CLONE WARS

There’s a second issue that’s come up from time to time. Let’s call it “the Clone Wars.” So, is the purpose of the FCEA to crank out dozens and dozens of robotic Steven Forrest clones? In response, I’d start by softening that language a bit, but basically let me admit that, yes, in a sense, that’s exactly what we’re doing. I don’t want to pretend otherwise. 

There’s something terribly unsettling about that kind of language! Cloning? What about respect for your own individualities? What about that core principle of any healthy kind of astrology, which is respect for human diversity?

Here’s our reasoning. Astrology is a wide world. I’ve often felt sorry for enthusiastic beginners attending their first astrology conference. If they listen to ten lectures, they’ll probably hear ten different takes on astrology. Many involve perspectives that would be very difficult to reconcile with each other, both practically and philosophically. There are helpful, impressive astrologers practicing in the Vedic traditions, along with many fine Hellenists, Uranians, and Cosmobiologists. There are good psychological astrologers – and in the FCEA we’re pretty close to them, but we’re not the same. Even in the mainstream forms of modern astrological practice, you have a dozen systems of house division to choose among. Should we use the Vertex? What about the Part of Fortune? What about planetary midpoints? What about harmonics? Black Moon Lilith anyone?

Again, I pity beginners as they try to pick their way through this whole smorgasbord of astrological possibilities. They often feel that to become good astrologers they need to understand it all. But no one can understand it all! There’s just too much. And on top of it, no client anywhere would have the patience, time, or attention span to listen to a session that applied all of those techniques at once.

My personal North Star has always been aimed at meeting the needs of those clients. Over the years, sitting with many, many thousands of them, I’ve honed my arsenal of techniques down to the few that have consistently seemed to work the best, at least for me and my clients. I’ve also only pursued techniques that answer the kinds of questions that I personally find most compelling – basically the ones around how our psychological processes relate to the growth of our souls. I find it more exciting to wrestle with those particular angels and devils than to try to pick the stock whose value is about to rise or the candidate who’s most likely to win the election.

The distillation of all that I have learned – and unlearned, and forgotten, and discarded – is the Steven Forrest Method. And that efficient, accurate, stripped-down package is what we teach in the FCEA. That’s what we’re “cloning.” The point is not that we reject all the other traditions and techniques – the point is that we want to chart the most efficient course from A to Z for our students, where A is a blank slate and Z is the ability to sit down confidently with an astrologically naive client and actually know what words to say. So we teach one method – again, call it “cloning me” if you want – and if you want to explore other methods, go for it! Just please do it outside the framework of our school. 

Learning this FCEA methodology is, as you know, a serious commitment. Even stripped down like this, it still takes three or four years of hard work to get on top of it enough to reach a professional level of competence. It’s sort of like going to medical school. The bottom line is that in the FCEA, our aim is to get everyone to “Z” as efficiently as possible, so we limit our attention to specific practices, while we discourage anyone from muddying the waters for the other students by wondering about what this chart would say in Porphyry houses or in Whole Sign House format. That’s not because those systems are wrong, but rather because they’re confusing to anyone who’s trying to keep their eyes on the prize as we’ve defined it. 

Once you’ve learned the Steven Forrest Method, you can take it anywhere you want. In fact, even now as active students in our school, if you want to check out other approaches or other teachers, go for it – just please support the other students by staying focused on our core curriculum.

There are a couple more areas where a few concerns have been expressed. They’re both comparatively minor, but I’d like to clear the air about them as best I can.

INCONSISTENCIES ABOUT ASPECT ORBS

I’ll own it! In the videos and handouts that comprise the FCEA curriculum, sometimes you see me suggesting an orb of 2.5 degrees for a certain aspect, then elsewhere I might suggest 5 degrees. I’m all over the map about orbs and I admit it’s probably confusing. 

Some of that is simply my own inconsistency – and that’s further exacerbated by the fact that, for example, The Inner Sky and The Changing Sky both date back to the 1980s, while much school material is practically current by comparison. So you’re looking at over three decades of my own learning curve. As an evolutionary astrologer, I am proud to say that I am not “the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow!”

There’s a deeper issue. Universally, astrologers of all schools use wider aspectual orbs for the Sun than they do for Neptune. But what if that Neptune is in Pisces or on the Ascendant? Then maybe we stretch the orbs a bit further because the planet is a little stronger in that particular chart. What if a planet is in its own sign? What if it rules the Ascendant? What if two planets in a wide hard aspect to each other are also in mutual reception? That softens their tension. Do we still get any benefit from thinking of them as “in opposition?”

It goes further – what if we have a planet in the first degree of Aries and one in the last degree of Gemini? Geometrically, that’s a tight square – but the basic harmony of Aries and Gemini makes itself felt too. Clearly that square isn’t quite the same as one between Aries and Cancer. Now widen the angle between them a bit – at what point do you stop thinking of it as a square? It’s hard to be rigid about any of this, but clearly in practice that Aries/Gemini square would break down sooner than an Aries/Cancer one.

The point is that, beyond the exact geometrical angle between the planets, orbs are influenced by many factors. For that reason, only a (hilariously) inexperienced astrologer would formally pronounce that “the proper orb for sextiles is five degrees – not four, and not not six.” 

The inconsistencies you’ll encounter about aspect orbs through the FCEA curriculum materials fall somewhere between a happy mistake and a bit of a “time capsule” study of my own evolution as an astrologer over the years. Personally, I’m actually glad they are there – that’s because if I were consistent about them you might start to think that they were consistent themselves. They’re not!

REPEATING CHARTS

The further into your FCEA studies you go, the more charts you will see. Catie and I are really happy with the diverse spectrum of “case studies” the school presents. We’ve got mostly famous people, a few made-up charts, and the occasional client example – that, plus tons of “mystery charts,” which are mostly famous people supplied with false names. 

Basically, the more charts you look at, the smarter you get. That’s why, as an FCEA student, you’re subjected to such a flood of them. The only limit we’ve set is that we’ve mostly steered away from very contemporary examples, mostly because “the verdict isn’t in on them yet.” I’m profoundly grateful, for example, that when I was writing The Inner Sky in the early 1980s, I used John Lennon for my example. Imagine the mess I’d have been in today if I had used Bill Cosby – or that bon vivant and then-rising star of commercial New York real estate, Donald Trump. When it comes to analyzing a life, it’s often helpful to have the whole story.

One or two students have grumbled about seeing a particular chart used more than once. Why not switch to someone new? I believe the issue was around the chart of Muhammed Ali, although I believe Lily Tomlin comes up more than once in the curriculum as well, and there are others – Amy Tan and Jane Goodall, for example. They mostly occur at the 100-level where students are first building their confidence and we think a longer look at a single chart is probably most beneficial to them.

Our reasoning here is actually very simple, at least with Muhammed Ali. To understand anyone in the context of transits, progressions, and solar arcs – or for that matter, in a synastry framework, it is essential to understand the core birthchart. As you know, analyzing a birthchart is a big undertaking. It requires time. For that reason, Catie and I just decided that it made sense to introduce Muhammed Ali’s natal chart in the FCEA 100 courses, and then to build efficiently on that foundation when we got to the FCEA 202 Practicum and it was time to look at his transits. Why redo 101 material with a new person when we were ready to work with transits and progressions and everyone already had a strong foundation with Muhammed Ali?

In general, don’t worry – in our school, you won’t often see the same chart used more than once!

Those are the four areas I wanted to address in this newsletter. Once again, we always welcome constructive criticism and helpful suggestions, so please keep them coming. We won’t be able to make you happy every time, but we’ll do our best. 

Even better, do let us know when you’re simply feeling good about the school. Running it is a lot of hard work and positive feedback is what keeps us going, so thanks for that too!

In our Member Call on May 11, Cliff Passen asked a good question, but time ran out and we never got to it. Here it is: Considerations of Dignity, Debility, Exaltation and Fall seem not to have made the cut in FCEA. Could you please speak about the decision not to include these perspectives?

Thanks, Cliff – this issue is important enough that I want to dedicate this newsletter to responding to it. Before I dive in, I do want to express gratitude to everyone who submitted questions for that call. We had quite a lot of them this time, and they were all interesting. I knew that one hour was not going to be long enough to get through them all. We’ll save many – but not all – of them for next time. Always our aim is to use our Zoom time in a way that seems to be of most benefit to the greatest number of students and members. The least general benefit comes from questions that basically involve “putting a chart up on the screen” – except doing it by listing most of its configurations verbally. That kind of litany is hard for audience members to follow – it’s hard for me too! (But I’m lucky – I get to see all the questions in advance. I actually make a little sketch of the chart so I can follow.)  Deep chart analysis is what our “Chart Winner” segment is for – and we’ll always do an actual chart analysis as the second part of these online sessions.

Bottom line: I won’t say that we’ll never accept questions like those personal, chart-specific ones again, but they’ll generally have a lower priority. Much will depend on how many questions get submitted. Asking about a specific configuration is fine – for example, “please talk about my Venus in the 3rd house opposite Saturn.” That’s short enough that everyone can digest it in “spoken word” format.

Onward to Cliff’s question.

He wonders about our decision not to include dignity, debility, exaltation and fall in the FCEA curriculum. Let me begin with a minor quibble – the reality is that we do include them, at least  functionally. What we exclude is that specific language. The reality is that each planet is naturally more comfortable with certain signs, while feeling less comfortable with others. We acknowledge that fact, and that’s basically what those four words that Cliff mentioned are all about.

Here’s the heart of the matter. The focus of our school is the development of “clinical” skills – we’re all about astrological counseling, in other words. Succeeding there of course depends on mastering astrological theory – but theoretical knowledge alone does not make a person an astrological counselor. We also have to think about how we present astrology to our clients, most of whom are not versed in the technicalities. That means that we always have to think carefully about the impact of our words. Maintaining rapport with the client is mission-critical.

Imagine I’m a first-time client and I know nothing about astrology. I hear that my Venus is “in detriment” or that my Jupiter is “in the sign of its fall.” How do those words land on my ears? Not well! The word “debility” is perhaps the most dangerous one of all – even if we don’t exactly say “your chart suffers from many debilities,” that is the baleful news that the client is likely to hear.

You can probably already see where this is going. Clearly, detriment, fall, and debility are not words that leave people feeling encouraged. They imply that there is something wrong with their chart, and by extension, that there is something fundamentally wrong – or simply doomed – with them. Those are not feelings that we want to trigger in our clients! The language itself is damaging. Perhaps worse, it is also simply incorrect. Everyone’s chart is perfect – they all fit the needs and conditions of the soul like the proverbial glove. 

Technical astrologers having a technical discussion out of earshot of any clients can use words like dignity, debility, exaltation and fall as an effective shorthand in their conversations with each other – no problem there, so long as those astrologers know what they’re talking about. The trouble is that often they don’t. Astrologers themselves have often fallen prey to the misleading implications of those words, imagining for one example that it’s “bad” to have Mars in Libra – the sign of its detriment.

Let’s think specifically about Mars in Libra as a way of approaching the general heart of the matter. That Mars “rules” Aries makes perfect sense – their natures are very similar. That’s why traditional astrologers say that Mars is “dignified” in that sign. But Mars in Libra? No “dignity” there at all! Mars is the god of war and Libra is about peace, reconciliation, tolerance, and seeing the other person’s point of view. Clearly poor Mars is confused and “debilitated” when we invite it to learn those kinds of lessons – it’s like asking a lion to be a vegetarian. But ask yourself: is learning those kinds of lessons actually bad for Mars? Or might the god of war benefit from a little dose of peace, love, and understanding?

Truly understanding fall and detriment really hinges on those kinds of questions. Paradox, ambiguity, and complexity are not “debilitated” conditions – they’re just tricky to think about.

Can we ever fight for peace? Think about John Lennon, with his Mars in Libra. In the back of my head, I’m hearing him militantly leading the chorus in the anti-war song Give Peace A Chance.

Mars also rules Scorpio and thus is said to be in “detriment” in Taurus, the opposite sign. Both Libra and Taurus are ruled by Venus, so peace is quite fundamental to our understanding of the evolutionary aims of both signs. So once again, can we fight for peace? Ask that famous “peacenik,” Thich Nhat Han – he had Mars in Taurus, and more than a thing or two in common with John Lennon.

Planets in detriment or fall are learning to deal with paradoxes. There is something intellectually sophisticated about them, something full of nuances and subtleties. Meanwhile, it’s important to remember that the straight ahead quality of Mars in Aries is not automatically a good thing – it can potentially be violent, intolerant, and crude. Why? Because, unlike planets in detriment or fall, it lacks any reflective perspective on itself. 

I don’t want to make it sound as if a planet being in the sign it rules is a bad thing! Or that fall and detriment are automatically good. Nothing in astrology works that way. Everything comes down to understanding the evolutionary lessons implicit in the configuration and getting those ideas across to the client in a cogent, convincing, and encouraging way.

In our FCEA course work, the specific idea of rulership actually does come up frequently. We tend not to label it a “dignity,” but otherwise it’s pretty much everywhere in our work. We put great emphasis on the planet that rules the Ascendant, for one example. As any of you who’ve been through FCEA 102 know, we simply could not do evolutionary astrology without recognizing the power of the planet or planets that rule the sign of the lunar south node.

Rulership basically means resonance – and astrology hums because of the way Mars and Aries are always energetically linked in a chart no matter what their specific configurations may be. Ditto of course for Mercury and Gemini, Jupiter and Sagittarius, and so on. From the counseling perspective, I would also add that a client hearing that “Neptune rules your chart” is not likely to be frightened or damaged by those words. That sentence simply does not carry the same linguistic baggage that comes with telling a client that his or her Saturn is in detriment or fall.

By not using the words “fall” and “detriment” in our FCEA courses, we bypass the pitfall of having them creep into the language we use with our clients – or sneaking into our own heads with that judgmental tone.

Much of what I’ve written about here so far is really about rulership and detriment. What about exaltation and fall? Let me begin by directing you to chapter four of The Endless Sky: Planetary Exaltations; Planetary Falls. I delve deeply into the topic there. (Chapter three of that book, by the way, is about rulerships and detriment – it covers ground similar to what I’ve explored so far  with you here.)

Here are a few lines from chapter four of The Endless Sky:

“With exaltation, the situation is a bit more subtle. In essence, the sign has the effect of underscoring some specific potential strength in the planet – or similarly, of correcting one of its blind spots. The planet is therefore uplifted – “exalted,” if you will.”

Meanwhile, Venus is exalted in Pisces – and so the spiritual and romantic qualities of human affection are underscored when Venus is in that sign.

Turn it around – a planet in the sign opposite its exaltation is said to be in fall. That means that the Moon is “in fall” in Scorpio – and that’s because we can tie ourselves in knots with too much “second-guessing, overthinking, and Scorpionic psychology,” and thus lose track of the “simple Taurean truth.” Meanwhile, Venus is “in fall” when it is in Virgo – and that’s because picky fault-finding doesn’t go well with romantic love.  

Let’s keep all of this honest though – a little psychological perspective on our gut feelings can be healthy, which means that the Moon doesn’t automatically become “bad” when it’s in Scorpio. A romantic bubble in which acknowledging a partner’s flaws becomes taboo doesn’t always contribute to long-term intimate happiness – so there’s real wisdom in Venus in Virgo. 

“Fall,” in other words, is no more an inherently bad thing than is “detriment.” Like detriment, it is ultimately about dealing with paradox and subtlety.

In my own practice, I don’t actually pay much attention to exaltation and fall. The effects are real enough, but for me they sort of disappear into the broader questions of figuring out the specifics of the dance that each planet does with each sign. Again, have a look at chapter four of The Endless Sky if you’d like to learn more about my take on that topic – it’s real, but it’s just not something that I have personally found useful.

Exaltation and fall are very much a part of traditional astrology and so the available interpretations tend to be steeped in the values of the past. Here’s a list of the traditional exaltations:

• The Sun is exalted in Aries – and has its fall in Libra

• The Moon is exalted in Taurus – and has its fall in Scorpio

• Mercury is exalted in Virgo – and has its fall in Pisces

           (Note: this is the same as its rulership/detriment)

• Venus is exalted in Pisces – and has its fall in Virgo

• Mars is exalted in Capricorn – and has its fall in Cancer

• Jupiter is exalted in Cancer – and has its fall in Capricorn

• Saturn is exalted in Libra – and has its fall in Aries

Note the absence of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto – that’s because, once again, these are ancient traditions, dating to a time before those planets were known. Modern traditionalists argue about whether those “new” planets should or should not be assigned exaltations and falls. Some say yes, some say no. Personally, I’ll just say that I don’t have a horse in that race.

Mercury being exalted in Virgo – the sign it also rules – does seem weird to me. Convincing arguments have been made for Mercury’s exaltation in Aquarius since Aquarius supports Mercury “thinking for itself.” I find that idea compelling – but lest I invoke the fury of the traditionalists, I’ll keep my mouth shut on that one too.

Back to Cliff’s question – for our purposes, in the FCEA we actually do use all of the basic concepts implicit in dignity, debility, exaltation and fall – we’ve just updated them, put them in evolutionary terms, and recognize that when it comes to dealing with clients, each of those words is a potential minefield of misunderstanding.

As ever, “first do no harm” is our guiding principle.

An “eclipse season” just passed and for some reason, the idea has been getting a lot of social media attention lately. The truth is that an eclipse season is actually a very common occurrence. Every half a year or so, you can draw a more-or-less straight line through the centers of the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun, with the Moon in the middle. When that happens, the Moon blocks out the Sun and – voila – we have a total solar eclipse visible somewhere on the Earth.

The Moon is small and relatively far away, so the shadow it casts on Earth is small too, and it races across the map as Earth rotates. That’s why, in order to see a solar eclipse, you probably have to travel – not to mention, pray for clear skies.

The Moon orbits Earth of course, and so, like clockwork, about two weeks after a solar eclipse, the alignment repeats, except with the order changed – now it’s Moon, Earth, Sun, with Earth in the middle this time. When that happens, Earth’s huge shadow covers the Moon and we have a lunar eclipse – and unlike solar eclipses, they are visible to anyone living on the side of the Earth that happens to be facing the Moon at the time.

Lunar Eclipse

People think solar eclipses are rare, while lunar eclipses are common, but that’s only “sort of” true. The reality is that there’s about an equal number of each, but half the world can see every lunar eclipse while to see a solar eclipse, you have to travel to specific, often out-of-the-way places.

Such a lunar eclipse is always paired with a previous solar one. Those periods of potential alignments of Sun, Moon, and Earth last on average 34.5 days. That’s an “eclipse season” – and once again, it’s no big deal since it happens a couple of times each year.

By the way, another way to describe that “straight arrow” alignment of Earth, Moon, and Sun is to say that the Sun and Moon are aligned with the lunar nodes – remember, the nodes are where the Moon’s orbit lines up with the ecliptic, and the bottom line is that such a nodal alignment has got to be present for the sign positions plus the declinations of the Sun and Moon to line up – otherwise, we get a simple Sun-Moon conjunction or opposition, and nobody gets too excited about it. That’s just a garden-variety New Moon or Full Moon – and when it comes to eclipses, that means close but no banana.

In our Student Q & A Call on April 27, the question of eclipses came up and I shared something that to me is a big astrological mystery – I generally don’t respond to eclipses very strongly myself.

What makes that so mysterious is that many astrologers whose work I respect practically do back flips when they see an eclipse coming. I can’t say I’ve never felt them, but I’m just not sure how to explain my relative immunity to them. In all that I teach, I like to make sure that what I say is honestly rooted in my own direct experience – if it hasn’t been helpful to me, I don’t want to burden any of you with it either. So I’m of two minds about eclipses – inclined to take them seriously because of the general astrological consensus, but suspicious of overreacting to them since my own experience suggests that doing so would be misleading.

You’ll surely get questions about upcoming eclipses from friends and clients. I want to prepare you to answer confidently and helpfully.

Some of what I’ll write here is based on my own experience – and as I’ve mentioned, I do feel them, just not at the “decibel level” many astrologers would predict. Some of what follows is gleaned from the observations of other astrologers and some of it is based on my own experience.

Everybody knows that a total solar eclipse is a big deal. People travel at great expense across oceans just to stand for three or four minutes in that magical shadow that’s racing across the Earth. Meanwhile, everyone knows that a New Moon is commonplace – we get one of them each month. (That’s why we have months!) What a lot of people don’t understand is the thin line that separates a New Moon from a solar eclipse – each month the Sun and Moon line up, but with the Moon a little above the Sun or a little below it (declination!). And of course on top of everything, the Moon is completely washed out by blinding sunlight, so no one even notices it.

Spiritually, a New Moon is a powerful ritual time. The heart of the practice is to set intentions at “the Dark of the Moon” – and then, holding the faith, to expect them to come to fruition as the Moon waxes toward Full phase.

Probably any time we set an intention, we’ve invoked some holy mysteries – but if we do it at the New Moon, we’re aligning those intentions with the cosmic wind. A New Moon is, pretty obviously, a new beginning and all beginnings are energetically-impressionable times – that’s the heart of the matter metaphysically. And it works.

We might then think of a solar eclipse as a supercharged New Moon – a particularly terrific time for setting intentions, in other words. What supercharges it? We could speculate that the extra energy comes from the exact center-to-center alignment of Moon and Sun. There may be truth in that – but my personal guess as an evolutionary astrologer is that it has to do with something I mentioned a few paragraphs ago – at a solar eclipse, the lunar nodes are there too. That means there’s karma being activated (with all of its sandtraps) – plus we potentially have another counter-force involved: the forward momentum of the soul’s evolutionary enthusiasm. That’s the fingerprint of the north node.

At a solar eclipse, angelic forces have pulled their chairs up a little closer to the monitor, in other words. They’re watching you, and willing to pitch in with energetic “matching funds.”

By the way, some solar eclipses are aligned with the south node, others with the north node – either fits the celestial requirements.

Our next solar eclipse will occur on October 14, 2023. Sun, Moon, and the south node will all be in Libra. Any intentions you set then – be they low ones or lofty ones – have an extra charge of magic on them. The mindful path in this case would lie in renewing, purifying and deepening your relationship with Libran energy – the south node sign. Are you aware, for example, of any patterns that aren’t serving you well in your interactions with other humans? Visualize a better way – and if you need a hint about the exact nature of that better way, think of all the good qualities we associate with Aries – the north node sign. You might aim, for one example, to be more direct and more willing to risk conflict. Maybe you need to tilt the see-saw a little further in the direction of loving yourself rather than always feeling compelled to meet other people’s needs or expectations.

Libra isn’t just about relationships – perhaps at this next eclipse there’s a new creative beginning you need to make, or maybe it’s simply something about the basis of serenity in your life. Is there a source of trouble and stress that needs review? Maybe you need to deal with it in a more decisive Aries fashion.

Lunar eclipses, it is generally agreed, are not as big a deal as solar ones. Perhaps that’s because they don’t have that “magical intention” quality. They’re more about seeing the results of intentions – there’s that “put everything on the table” quality we observe with Full Moons. We’ll have a few more words about lunar eclipses in a moment.

Eclipses fit neatly into our general toolbox of astrological procedures. Start by thinking of Pluto transiting over your Sun – we know that will correlate with a Plutonian chapter of your life. But maybe Pluto is passing through a relatively dead zone of your chart. Then all’s quiet on the Pluto front. Eclipses work the same way – they’re a lot more impactful if they fall on a degree to which you’re sensitive.

The upcoming eclipse in October happens in a little over 21 degrees of Libra. Is that a hot spot for you? On April 8, 2024, a solar eclipse will sweep across North America, touching Mexico, the USA, and Canada. That one will happen in 19 degrees 23’ of Aries, with the north node nearby in Aries. Are you sensitive to that degree area?

You can Google upcoming solar eclipses and get a list of their dates. Set up a chart for that date, and the position of the Sun is the position of the eclipse. Most astrological calculation programs list them too.

Events that are planned for the ten days or so before a solar eclipse tend to be “eclipsed” by unexpected events – that’s an idea that I’ve seen attributed to astrologer Charles Jayne (1911-1985), and in my experience, it’s a principle worth noting. A classic illustration is the wedding of then-Prince Charles and Camilla. Their wedding was set for a few days before an eclipse, but the Pope died unexpectedly, and Charles needed to show the flag at the funeral, so the wedding was rescheduled. In my talk on April 27th, I mentioned me moving to California during the ten days before an eclipse – and things definitely not working out as I had expected.

Charles Jayne also stated that solar eclipses can have an effect up to three to six months before they occur and as long as a year afterward. I’m not sure what to make of that one. With that observation, I definitely move beyond the realm of my own strange relationship with eclipses.

There’s a lot of lore about how the degree in which the solar eclipse occurs becomes charged and can be triggered by later transits over it. Our immediately previous solar eclipse occurred in the final degree of Aries late on April 19 or early on April 20 of this year – the clock time depended on where you were on Earth. The idea is that the last degree of Aries now carries an extra charge and it awaits a transit to detonate it. We’ll soon have a chance to check that hypothesis because Jupiter will be transiting over that degree between May 12 and May 16.

Again, I emphasize that I’m mostly writing about an area where my own experience is limited. I’ll stand strongly by the efficacy of setting intentions at a solar eclipse, especially intentions that mindfully take into account the nodal tensions that give eclipses that extra charge of meaning. Beyond that, what I’ve just written is mostly speculation and the results of my reading rather than my own experience.

I have one final image to share with you. This one is, to me, incredibly beautiful and it’s as sound as a rock scientifically.

It’s about lunar eclipses. They all look different. Sometimes they involve the Moon getting so dark it nearly disappears (although it never fully does). Other times the Moon is clearly dimmed, but it’s still pretty bright. Most of the time it turns a kind of coppery red – those are the loveliest ones, I think. And there is a wide range of hues among them.

It’s those red lunar eclipses that I want to talk about. They can’t be predicted astrologically, by the way – you just have to go outside and look.

Remember – to have a lunar eclipse, Earth must stand between the Moon and Sun. That blocks the sunlight that normally gives us our monthly big, bright Full Moon. But Earth has an atmosphere and it operates like a lens – the light that’s faintly illuminating the eclipsed Moon has been bent around the Earth, passing through our atmosphere. If at that moment you were an astronaut on the Moon and you looked back at Earth, you’d see a ring of light around it. And if you were back on Earth at the same moment, but standing right under that ring of light, it would be sunrise or sunset for you – that ring of light marks the boundary between night and day.

Now think of the most glorious sunrises and sunsets you’ve ever seen. Notice how red and orange tones play such an essential role in them?

The light that illuminates the Moon during a lunar eclipse is the sum total of all the sunrises and sunsets happening on the Earth in that moment of time.

That’s what you’re actually seeing. I find that both amazing and beautiful beyond words.

Next time we have a lunar eclipse, if you’re blessed with clear weather and being on the side of the planet where the Moon is in the sky, go out and marvel at what you’re seeing – all of the sunrises and sunsets happening on Earth in a single moment!

“Yes I’ve heard this word. I think sociopaths use it in an attempt to discredit the notion of empathy.”

– John Cleese on ‘Snowflakes’

One of our students wrote me an email praising my work and our school, but challenging me about some of the rougher language and metaphors I use – sexual imagery, street words, edgy  cliches, and so forth. I could tell it took a lot of courage for her to criticize me that way and I genuinely appreciated her openness. I responded to her privately, but I also realized that perhaps she’s not alone. The subject seemed appropriate for a newsletter, so here we go.

By the way, I’m not going to mention the student’s name. The area I’m about to explore is charged with strong emotions on both sides. While I suspect there are many who would agree with her, I also fear there would be those who might leap to my defense, which could potentially be hurtful to her if I named her. In the FCEA, we welcome diversity, but we also naturally value unity and mutual respect. That’s how we walk our talk.

Let me begin in a broad way. I teach astrological theory. That’s pretty obvious. But underlying my teaching is another set of theories – ones about teaching itself. As you’ll see, that’s really the heart of matter here.

Everyone is welcome in the school. People who are here for reasons of personal growth or even just interest are an important part of our community. But there’s a special place in my heart for the students who aim to become active evolutionary astrologers – that means counselors who support people in their communities as they try to thread their way through life’s emotional labyrinths. Being good at that work starts with knowing astrological techniques, but it’s about counseling work too – and deep astrology really pushes people’s emotional buttons. We have to be ready for that.

The astrological counseling room triggers a lot of very strong emotions, strongly expressed. For example, people who’ve been abandoned, used exploitatively, or victimized can understandably be extremely explosive as you create a space to explore those experiences authentically with them. They’ll sometimes say scary, extreme things. They’ll use language you wouldn’t want to explain to a child – you can fill in the blanks here, I’m sure. In a nutshell, in teaching my methods, I aim to desensitize my students to that kind of charged talk. For one example, in the heat of the moment, a client might use words like “bitch” or “bastard” to characterize someone who’s just broken their heart. Picture someone going through a Pluto transit to their Venus, for example – there’s perhaps an agonizing present-life event, but its tendrils reach down into prior life experiences too. They’ve been sitting on an emotional volcano, in other words, and it’s time for it to erupt. At that moment, if the astrologer’s body language conveys shock or judgment, it’s a catastrophe. As astrologers, we simply have to get used to that kind of situation.

If a socially-conservative person comes to you for a reading and uses a word like “girls” for women or characterizes a fight among females as a “catfight,” it’s the same situation – we may object to their language, but we can’t let that objection get in the way of our real aim, which is to help this soul make the best of whatever life has dished up for them in that moment. We should, in other words, never let our own personal values and opinions get in the way of maintaining that precious bridge of rapport with the client. It’s really hard sometimes! But as professional astrological counselors, we always have to be ready to truly embrace human diversity and the powerful emotions that go along with it – and to receive our clients into our hearts with unconditional positive regard no matter what they sound like.

That sounds good! I doubt there’s anyone in the school who would argue against it. But my point is that getting good at that kind of non judgmental emotional steadiness is not something we come out of our mothers knowing how to do. It’s one of the skills that counselors need to learn. And that’s why, in my teaching, my language and imagery can sometimes be edgy.

Referring to one of our question and answer Zoom sessions, the student who wrote to me felt uncomfortable when I spoke of a time, years ago, when a former Playboy centerfold model came to me for a reading. In that Q & A, I mentioned how I was nervous that I might find myself “staring at her breasts” instead of at her chart. That comment was apparently “triggering” for this student.

That session with the model actually went very well, and my fears about my own behavior fortunately proved to be unfounded. But I’m glad I knew myself well enough to be aware in advance of the legitimacy of those fears! Few of us are evolved enough to not be impacted by our own sexuality. We have to be mindful of that. Obviously, overt sexual expression has no place in the counseling room, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore those energies. I felt good about mentioning my own experience with that model. We have some younger heterosexual males in our program and I wanted to offer them some non-shaming support and guidance – and I hoped that with a modicum of imagination, our female and LGBTQ students could get some guidance there too.

Sexual energy in the counseling room is a big subject and one anecdote isn’t sufficient to address it – but I hope I made a start. I’ve been speaking of unconditional positive regard for our clients – let’s reserve some for ourselves too!

The subject of astrological counsel is a continent and in this newsletter we’ve barely put our feet on the shore. Going a little further up the beach, let me just say that some of the most intense moments of my life have been spent in the presence of people recovering from rape and war and other forms of violent intrusion. Talk about volcanic emotions! I’ve struggled personally with some extremely graphic revelations about unusual sexual conduct. Hearing about stomach-churning physical conditions is particularly hard for me, but it’s part of the work too.

Some of what I’ve explored here ranges beyond the issues that the student raised with me, but it’s all about the raw realities of astrological counseling. It’s about where our work inevitably overlaps with psychotherapy. And it all comes down to accepting people where they actually are.

In my mind, the FCEA is a fully professional school. To me, that means that I need to help my students be prepared for the world they’ll actually face as professionals. I feel it would be a terrible failure on my part if I didn’t do that. That means that I promise to sometimes “push your buttons” as my clients have pushed mine for the past fifty years.