SOLAR ARC VENUS CONJUNCTS THE MIDHEAVEN ON JANUARY 16, 2023

Given that planets only move about one degree per year by solar arc, it’s fair to say that Venus is already conjuncting the FCEA Midheaven. Being nominated for the Favorite Astrology School in the awards ceremony at the big ISAR conference in Denver in late August certainly gave us a taste of it! Since our school hadn’t even been open for two years yet, Catie and I were surprised to see us in the running. We didn’t win, but it was still a victory – not to mention good publicity! If we were a movie, it was like being “nominated for Best Picture.” You don’t always need to win for it to be a feather in your cap.

As evolutionary astrologers, we do more than revel in “astrology working.” It always works, at least once we understand how to decipher its messages. You get used to it “working” and you begin to focus on higher concerns. Astrology’s real aim is to help guide people in making better choices – aligning their lives with their higher purposes. That kind of thinking applies to the school too. In this case, with solar arc Venus on the MC in the mix, might it mean that the FCEA will be cooperating with other schools or programs before long? While we certainly will not be “merging” with any other institutions, Venus in the MC suggests that allies will be appearing.

Here’s another part of that Venus/Midheaven event: we are working hard on expanding and publicizing “Community Membership,” welcoming a wider, more diverse world to our tribe.  Maybe some of you have seen the new video I made about it?

Community Membership is an outreach program aimed at providing an inexpensive way for people to become involved with the school without actually enrolling as students. That’s because some people just don’t have the time or the money. Others might just want a taste of the school before committing to being students. For US$99 per year, Community Members get four two-hour Q&A sessions each year, plus access to the video recordings of all the previous ones. It’s a good deal, and with solar arc Venus on our Midheaven, it’s a good time for us to bang the drums about it. What could be more “Venus-on-the-Midheaven” than putting out a welcome mat to the world?

JUPITER IS STILL BUSY

The FCEA is about as Piscean as Pisces can go, and Jupiter passing through that sign has been really good for us. It first entered Pisces on May 13, 2021, so those positive Jovial winds have been on our backs for a while now.

Jupiter crossed into Aries on May 10 of this year, but really soon – on October 27 – it retrogrades back into Pisces for one final seven-week stand. It’ll remain there until December 20th, giving us another evolutionary opportunity to “never underestimate ourselves” and generally to “keep the faith” – something we’ve been doing all along with good results!

I’m no fortune-teller, but I do suspect that keeping the faith will be easier now that the Moon has progressed into Taurus. This final pulse of Jupiter energy coincides with us expanding our team of tutors by 50% – and, Jupiter-fashion, the school has grown enough that we need them. A big welcome to Aubrey, Patty, and Ricky! I’d say more about them myself, except that Dean Cadge will introduce them in her report in this same newsletter. We’re so lucky to have all three of them on the team!

THE TRANSITING NORTH NODE CONJUNCTS MARS ON OCTOBER 27, 2022

Remember how Jupiter returns to Pisces on October 27? On exactly that same day, the transiting north node of the Moon makes a conjunction with Mars. The two events are linked in time – and that means that because of the laws of synchronicity, they are linked in meaning as well. “Keeping the faith,” Jupiter’s specialty, will be tied to a need to ally our evolutionary intentions with some spunky Mars energy.

The school’s natal Mars is a gentle one, being in Taurus and the 12th house. We’re not fundamentally a competitive entity. Our courage is directed more at inward challenges than at outward ones, as befits a Piscean creature. Still, with our natal north node in Cancer and the 3rd house, we’re on a healing-and-teaching mission in this world, and boldly exercising that commitment is what this nodal transit is all about. Since Mars and Aries are so intertwined, we can say that we’re done with the progressed Moon’s long passage through Aries, but during October and November, we seem to be faced with a bit of a “final exam.”

One challenging bottom line is that the school has a lot of mouths to feed now, especially with our three new tutors coming on board. We’ve got a big monthly “nut to crack,” and so far, so good. But we do need to grow a little bit more in order to have some Taurean breathing room. I think the financial stress was soul-food for us during the Aries time, but now that we’re in Taurus, our souls are better served with an easier situation – one where we can take a longer view of things. To that end, we’d love to have another ten or twenty students, and we’re really wanting to expand our Community Membership too.

So if you happen to know anyone … you know the rest.

Thanks for hanging in there with us, and for helping us make a bit of astrological history.

At a technical astronomical level, the basic bones of the system we use in our school emerged gradually in recent centuries, mostly in Europe and the Americas. One very obvious practical point is that before our kind of astrology could develop, we needed clocks. There were crude ones as early as the 14th century, but the widespread knowledge of what time it was came much later. It would be hard to put a date on it; the widespread use of clocks and watches sort of drifted into the zeitgeist – and made our style of astrology, with its carefully-timed Ascendant, Midheaven, and house cusps, possible.

Still, even under the banner of “modern western astrology,” there are many techniques that we don’t use in the FCEA. We do use day-for-year progressions – technically called secondary progressions. There are “primary” ones too, but it’s an awkward technique and I’ve never used it in my practice. Slight errors in birth times make a mess of it. Then there are tertiary progressions and converse progressions . . . vertexes and antiscia . . . and on and on. You get the picture – “modern western astrology” is a grab-bag of techniques, most of which we ignore. 

Sometimes there is talk of “licensing” astrologers. Maybe it will happen someday. You need a license to practice medicine or law or to fly an airplane. Perhaps it’s not such a bad idea. But I cringe when I think of it. Who’s going to decide who’s qualified to be an astrologer? Imagine me going to India and telling all the astrologers there that they flunked the test because they were using the wrong zodiac! I’ve had successful students in my old Apprenticeship Programs fail the test for the American Federation of Astrologers even though I am sure they could dance astrological circles around most of the people testing them. I’d fail most of the tests devised by astrologers in other schools myself. 

The last time I had a professional astrological reading myself was with a Vedic astrologer named Swami Ambikananda. I choose her rather a western evolutionary astrologer just so my own ego wouldn’t get in the way. With techniques closer to my own turf, I would be busy “correcting” anyone who tried to explain my chart to me. But nobody would give me “an astrology license” in Mumbai or Benares, so I was safe. I could put my ego aside and just listen. What I heard was real and helpful.

I’ve often quoted this line from Robert Hand because it’s just so laser-like about getting to the heart of the matter. When asked about which kind of astrology was the right one, he responded,  “Which is truer, French or German?” That’s really how I feel about all of this. These astrologies are all just different languages. You can tell the truth in any of them, or lie in any of them. I respect all of them, at least when they are offered to their communities by wise, loving, non-destructive humans.

So why then would a student in the FCEA who even mentioned whole sign houses immediately be subjected to electro-convulsive shock? 

Well, that’s because we teach a very specific system here – the Steven Forrest Method. I admit I felt a little funny hearing it called that for the first time, but it’s right – that is what we are doing. We’re a Trade School, not a University. We teach my system, not anybody else’s. Emphatically, I would never say that there is only one way to do astrology. All I would say is that the way I have chosen to practice has been very successful. It has helped a lot of people, at least ones who are on a psychological and spiritual wavelength. It’s given me a good living and a meaningful and interesting life. That’s the gift we are trying to pass on in the FCEA. To receive it, we encourage you to start out by following in my footsteps – and we want to make sure that there are no other footsteps in the way to confuse you. And that is really the essence of what I am saying here – if you set out to master all of the various astrological traditions, you could maybe do it, but you would have to live to be about 178 years old. The good news is that maybe fifty years before that, the fog of confusion would begin to clear, and you’d be the wisest, most effective astrologer who had ever lived. Go for it, if you think you’ve got that kind of longevity in you! 

When I was young, I read astrology widely – and of course I became totally bedazzled by the differing perspectives. But the mass of contradictory techniques I had accumulated soon passed through the fire – and by that I mean the realities of the counseling room. Groundless theory expressed authoritatively before an academic audience often has an appallingly long lifespan. But such empty theory quickly collapses in the intimate presence of one glassy-eyed client yawning or saying “no, that’s not me at all.” 

Gradually, over the years, I carved out a system that worked for me and the people I served.  Some of that process involved creativity and innovation on my part, mostly in my efforts to integrate archetypal psychology and metaphysics into the system. The “Steven Forrest Method” would not be what it is without Carl Jung, Ram Dass, and my own root teacher, Marian Starnes. None of them, with the possible exception of Jung, were active astrologers, although they all knew of it and respected it. They, along with some Buddhism, gave me the philosophical foundation I needed. At the technical end, much of what I did was just “editing” – getting rid of techniques that seemed less meaningful, and concentrating on the ones that really delivered. In that process, I had just one guiding question: out of the wealth of techniques we’ve inherited from our astrological ancestors, which ones spoke to me?

So here it is in a nutshell.

The FCEA is designed to take you from zero to mastery as quickly and as efficiently as is humanly possible, without cutting any corners. By “mastery” we mean the ability to sit down with a stranger, even a skeptical one, and have an undeniable, helpful impact on that person. That’s all. We’re not about making any other forms of astrology wrong, but we’re not about teaching you those forms either. What we are about is transmitting one highly effective system of astrological counsel to you without distraction or confusion.

Once you’ve learned the Steven Forrest Method, blessings on your journey wherever it takes you – even if it’s into Jyotish, Cosmobiology, Hellenistic astrology or whatever. Astrology is always evolving, just like you and me. You’ll be part of that journey. I’d love to see what a marriage of Hellenistic astrology and our system might look like. Maybe one of you will someday pull them together.

Whatever you do, just please keep freedom and personal responsibility in the center of it – and, in every word you say, please keep one eye on the higher ground that lies beyond this crazy, tempting, terrifying, and eminently distracting world.

I read a lot of straight psychology during that period, trying to educate myself. Synchronistically, an opportunity arose for me to apprentice myself to a licensed psychotherapist. I’m sure we skirted many laws as I sat with her and a few of her clients, but I certainly learned a lot just by listening. Perhaps most importantly, I knew my limits – if someone’s problems seemed beyond my scope, verging into psychotic or borderline territory, I still had those referrals. I knew who to call and who to recommend. For example, I knew nothing about psychiatric medications – except an abiding belief that it is wrong to give them out like candy to anyone who reports the blues.

I no longer do much of that kind of one-on-one counseling work. The reason is simple: in 2008, I moved to the desert, miles away from any population centers, and so the logistics of any ongoing counseling became impossible. Astrology began to call me more loudly too and in a different way. My “legacy work” began. I realized that I needed to write several more books and, of course, to help establish the Forrest Center for Evolutionary Astrology, which, I pray, will keep this holy flame burning after my own physical flame has burned out.

For those of you actively enrolled in our classes, down the road we will come to FCEA 401 – Sacred Counsel. That’s where we will learn to thread the labyrinth that connects evolutionary astrology to the array of human counseling skills that allow us to make a difference in the lives of people who entrust their souls to us, whether it’s for two hours or for a longer time.

We’ll learn about how psychology and astrology can complement each other – and how they also present some seemingly irreconcilable differences. It’s one of my favorite topics, and I think it has a whole lot to do with the future of all the helping professions. That material will essentially be the culmination of our Master Level program, as it should be.

Years ago, in my office in North Carolina, a woman came to sit with me for a birthchart analysis. She was from a very “blue blood” Southern family, held her nose high, and was probably the most argumentative person I’ve ever met in my life. I couldn’t say anything right. All her sentences – most of which were interruptions – started with the word “No.” I endured the misery  for maybe half an hour. Finally I told her that the process was obviously not working between us – that we were “on different wavelengths.” I invited her to leave and of course I mentioned that there would be no charge. It wasn’t like I was angrily “throwing her out of my office.” I was polite – just call me “Mister I’m OK, you’re OK.”

The result was a transformation. She became courteous and receptive. She urged me to continue. By the time our session was over, everything was fine between us. We hugged.

Two take-aways from that story.

Do you talk too much? That’s a Mercury problem. What’s the cure? Learn to listen better. That’s a higher response to Mercury. Everything in the chart is like that. Everything has a double meaning. Everything astrological is a problem and everything astrological is the solution to the problem. What evolutionary astrology does is to chart the path between the low, self-defeating response and the higher ground. Thus we use the ego – and clarify, purify, and strengthen it – in order that it stops hindering us and starts serving the evolutionary needs of the soul.

In the East, the great enemy of the soul’s growth is generally referred to as attachment. In the Western Judeo-Christian tradition, the First Commandment is “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Strip it of the Bronze Age language, and that commandment is about attachment too. It means don’t let anything become more important to you than surrendering to your own divinity. Keep your spirituality front and center – and don’t let any attachments get in the way.
But what are we attached to? Hint: it’s not always just money, power, and looking hot. What we are attached to are the less conscious responses to each configuration in our charts. We’re not that way out of some innate perversity either – once again, the chart simply holds a mirror before your karmic predicament. It reveals your attachments. There’s nothing to be ashamed of except complacency.

Say you have Mercury in Leo in the 3rd house. Again, let’s say you talk too much, just like that silly Internet astrologer might tell you that you do. What’s actually driving that behavior? A need for attention. What drives the need for attention? An underlying insecurity. There’s the attachment. You were born with it. Maybe through nodal analysis, we can even figure out why you were born with it. But either way, there it is. All your friends can see it. Maybe you can see it too – and if you can’t, maybe an evolutionary astrologer can help you become aware of it.

• Where conventional astrology can actually become an obstacle to spiritual growth is when it implies that you “will always talk too much” because that’s the meaning of that chart configuration. You were born with it, so you are stuck with it. But ask the evolutionary astrologer about the cure. Here’s what you will hear . . .

• Start with Leo – we suggest that you aim to cultivate the generosity of the good king or the good queen. That aspiration motivates you to listen to other people because it would be cheap of you not to grant them that attention – hey, you are the king, after all! You can afford it.

• Then you take the risk of expressing yourself creatively, which means being vulnerable and painstakingly real in what you say.

• That sense of risk generates compassion in you toward others who might be stepping out on the stage in the same risky way. That compassion makes you a better listener.

In all that I just wrote, note the basic fingerprint that distinguishes evolutionary astrology from all the other forms. We just described that 3rd house Leo Mercury as a path rather than as a “trait.” In one simple statement, we define what makes evolutionary astrology different from all the other forms.

• We underscored the fluidity of what we call the personality rather than reinforcing the illusion that it is fixed and stable.

• We turned an attachment into something entirely different – a yoga, or a spiritual discipline, what Buddhists would call a “skillful means.”

If anyone ever accuses you of reinforcing people’s egos with your work, this is where we make our stand. Your chart represents a path, not a personality profile. It’s a path that confronts you with your attachments and offers you a cure for them. And curing them is the essence of everyone’s spiritual journey.

In a nutshell, evolutionary astrology helps you know where to put your foot next on the spiritual path. And if you always have a good answer for that one, you’ll always be doing just fine, on track eventually for Enlightenment. It may be miles away, but at least you are heading in the right direction.

And the alternative to the spiritual path? Actually, there isn’t one.