
Transcript: Episode 016 | Let’s Talk About Sextiles
March 9, 2020
Jen: Welcome to the Big Sky Astrology podcast, with April Elliott Kent and me, producer and cohost Jen Braun. Hey friends, Jen here! Today is March 9th, 2020. And setting aside time for you today… I guess we could say, saving time for you today, is my friend, astrologer April Elliott Kent. Hi, April!
April: Hello Jen! How are you?
Jen: I could see you laughing…
April: That is delightful. I thought, “What’s she going to say? How is she going to introduce me?” That’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re saving time today. Because of course, by the time you’re listening to this, you will be staggering around… because daylight saving time, at least in the United States began yesterday.
Jen: Yes.
April: And this is the infamous spring forward.
Jen: I love daylight savings time because it keeps things brighter here later. And in Minnesota in early March, that’s really nice.
April: Yes. Every little bit of sunlight helps.
Jen: I’ll take it.
April: Every minute of sunlight you can wring out of the sky.
Jen: Yes.
April: And I’m happy to give that to you as a gift, my friend. It is worth me being confused for the entire week.
Jen: You are not the only one.
April: Yes. Well, enjoy that. And before we get started, I wanted to make a clarification about something we talked about on Episode 14, “Retrograde Minds, Cazimi Hearts, Can’t Lose.”
Jen: Which is a Friday Night Lights reference for people that don’t know that.
April: Thank you. We were hoping some people would get that, because it’s one of our mutual favorite shows. I could resist getting it in there.
Jen: Yes. You know, “Clear minds…” How does it go?
April: Oh, “Clear minds, open hearts, can’t lose.” We don’t even know!
Jen: “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose!”
April: Aw. I just loved him.
Jen: Coach Taylor!
April: Everything I know about life and leadership, I learned from Coach Taylor. He was fantastic. Because it’s one of our favorite shows. I think people can safely assume if there is a show title they don’t understand and seems weird to them… it’s some TV show or movie that we like.
So, listener Dora left a comment on the website about that episode.
Jen: Yes.
April: She took our final dispositor idea to the test that we discussed at some length in that episode. And she had some issues with the chart she was working with.
Jen: And thank you, Dora, for your comment.
April: Yes, we appreciate it. It seems that I said that if you had one planet in its rulership and no mutual receptions, then the planet in its rulership would be the final dispositor, hard stop. And shockingly, with Mercury in Pisces in retrograde, it seems that I misspoke slightly. Because I should say that, if your chart has a final dispositor, it will meet those conditions. It’ll be the only planet in its rulership and there’ll be no mutual reception. But as Dora’s example showed, and you can read it on the website in comments…
April: Yes, you could actually get these little planetary loops that can result in not having a final dispositor. Even if you have one planet in rulership and no mutual receptions, it’s not a dead cert that that planet in its rulership is going to be your final dispositor.
So, we just wanted clear that up and if you’re interested in knowing more about that, go and read that comment thread because I did give sort of an extensive explanation.
Jen: April, you gave a very thoughtful, long comment. So go to www.bigskyastropod.com and click on Episode 14. And you can read those comments.
April: Yes. It’s wonderful, if you have questions or things that the episode gets you thinking about, please do respond in comments. Because it gives everybody a chance to jump in and we can have a discussion about it.
Jen: Which is a lot of fun. Cool.
April: Yes. So thanks for giving us a chance to clarify that.
Jen: Yes. Well, we have some exciting news this week for Moonwatch.
April: Yes?
Jen: We have a theme song! Let’s play it right now!
April: So, this week we have a Full Moon at 19 degrees, 37 minutes of Virgo on March 9th. So, we begin the week on a Full Moon. It’s just about 10:47 in the morning, Pacific Time, Pacific Daylight Time, I might add.
Jen: Correct.
April: So here we are at a Full Moon in Virgo. And a Full Moon is always about awareness and illumination and what we see. And I always think with Virgo, it’s about an awareness of what needs fixing in our lives, what we could tighten up.
Jen: Discernment.
April: Yes. What we can make more workable. And seeing ways also to be of better use, to be of better service to those around us, to the people we work with and so forth. And also some physical problems can come to light – I was telling you before we started recording about a physical thing I had that came up when I was out of town a couple of weeks ago. And I think that’s sort of fitting going into this Full Moon in Virgo season. Because if you have health problems around a Virgo time, it is usually because of habits that you formed that are not supportive of good health.
Jen: Oh, that makes sense. Because Virgo’s the sixth house and the sixth house is daily habits.
April: You’ve got it. There are lots of ways we can look at health in the chart, but the reason we do associate Virgo with that, I think, part of it, is because of this thing of: Are you living your life in a way that you have formed good, healthy habits? Healthy habits that support your financial situation, your physical health, the work that you do, your family alliances, and all of that can be traced back to Virgo and to the sixth house.
So, I think at this Full Moon, it makes sense that we are seeing… if you have been a little bit run down because you’re burning it at both ends and so forth, or if your life’s a little chaotic and not really in alignment with your higher goals, you might tend to see some interesting physical things that become illuminated at this time.
Jen: Yes. Make sense.
April: Yeah. I like the Sabian symbols for this Full Moon very much.
Jen: What are they?
April: The Sabian symbol for the Moon itself is 20 Virgo, “An automobile caravan.” I kind of like it. It speaks to me about moving ahead to common a destination. What do you think when you hear that?
Jen: It reminds me of my friends and I in high school and in college, we would travel to New York city to see theater.
April: Oh.
Jen: And at least one trip, and I want to say it was maybe two, we took a caravan of vans and drove out to New York City from the Milwaukee area and saw some theater. So that makes me think of that. And it’s a really warm memory that I love. And this sense of sort of community with others and traveling together to a common destination.
April: Yes, it’s like a wagon train.
Jen: Right!
April: Or even that thing of: You’ve all gone to dinner as friends because you’re going to go to a concert afterwards or something. And then you kind of follow each other on the freeway in your cars. It’s always this thing about going to a common destination with an automobile caravan. And then the symbol for 20 Pisces, which is where the Sun will be at the Full Moon, is, “A table set for an evening meal.” So again, this sense of a communal experience. And since it is in Virgo, I think of, again to use a word that we emphasized a couple of episodes ago, it’s about sitting together in fellowship. Do you like how I did that?
Jen: I like how you threw that in! Yes.
April: Your friend will enjoy that.. … for a common purpose and probably a helpful and service-oriented one. So rather than necessarily going to a concert or going to the theater or whatever, this would be more of the image of a lot of people going together to the say, a march, a protest march or something that brings everybody together in some kind of communal enterprise.
Jen: They’re both a sense of arrangement with others.
April: Yes. The planning that has to go into it, which Virgo likes planning those little details of getting the GPS in place and everybody’s in their little line going down the road.
Jen: Yes.
April: I just love, I mean, how can I not love a table set for an evening meal? That’s so lovely.
Jen: It’s a nice thought.
April: I love everything about that. That’s my ideal evening with friends, is sitting together at dinner and we love to have people over here to the house and candles all along the table and everybody chit chatting. It’s just lovely.
Jen: I love that too.
April: Yes. So that is our Full Moon in Virgo for this week.
Jen: So here’s my question for the Full Moon in Virgo this week. It’s probably making friendly aspects to all of those Capricorn planets, right?
April: It will, indeed. And to Venus in Taurus.
Jen: Oh, Venus in Taurus? Yes.
April: Yes. It’s kind of nice. I actually did not look at the chart for the Full Moon, but it’s actually pretty closely in opposition to Neptune. So the Sun will be together with Neptune and they’ll be opposed the Moon. So the Moon gets to say, “To the extent that you’ve been walking around in your little haze, this is the time Virgo cuts through with some clarity.”
I’ve been reading Marie Forleo’s book, which is called “Everything Is Figureoutable.” That sounds very Virgo to me. It’s like, yes, it all seems a little overwhelming and chaotic and fuzzy when it’s experienced in a Neptunian way, which is like this big cloud. But Virgo is expert at sitting down and parsing it out into little bite-sized bits that make sense. And if you just focus on those then you don’t get so overwhelmed.
Jen: One step at a time. Yes.
April: Yes.
Jen: And Mercury rules Virgo. I see on the show sheet here that Mercury’s turning direct, which means it’s stationing around the time of the Full Moon.
April: Right. Very good observation, Jen.
Jen: Thank you.
April: It’s sort of soups up, I think, that Full Moon in Virgo a little bit. Because Virgo’s ruler is very powerful on that day. Because it stations to turn direct at 8:48 PM Pacific Time at 28 degrees.
Jen: On March 9th, the same day.
April: Right.
Jen: Yes.
April: It does say that these are more powerful forces than it may appear at first glance. That there is more oomph behind it. That there’s more of a sense of finally turning around in this area of life. So if you look at, for instance, the house of your chart that has 19 degrees of Virgo in it – and there’s a blog post on my website that we’ll link to in the show notes that we’ve shared before about how to find this in your chart – you can say in that area of your life symbolized by that house… you’re suddenly able to move forward in a more productive way.
Jen: Because it’s Virgo.
April: So yes, Mercury’s turning direct. It’s been on this journey. It entered its shadow on February 3rd. Then it turned retrograde on February 16th. It entered Aquarius on its retrograde journey on March 4th. We talked about that in our last episode. And then it turns direct on March 9th and will leave its shadow as of March 30th. So at the end of it all, we will have ended up having two full months of a very Mercury-retrograde feeling time.
Jen: When you normally talk about an aspect happening, you always round up to the next degree. If a planet is moving backwards, do you go down to the degree below it or do you still round up?
April: I still round up.
Jen: You see why I would ask that, though?
April: I totally understand it.
Jen: It’s moving backwards towards the lesser degree…
April: Are you talking about rounding up with regard to the Sabian symbols?
Jen: I guess just in general. Even when people write things on blogs and stuff.
April: I can see why you would ask that.
Jen: Yes.
April: I don’t, though.
Jen: Because it’s moving in that direction. Not that direction. I’m pointing; nobody can see that except for April!
April: It means a lot to me though, Jen, so…
Jen: Thanks April.
April: Thank you. I’m digging that.
April: No, I don’t. And really, if we were being proper, we wouldn’t round at all.
Jen: Sure.
April: Other than with the Sabian symbols, we always round up.
Jen: Okay.
April: Yes, I don’t. Because a lot of people probably don’t really think too much about degrees and minutes. So we’re talking to a few people here.
Jen: And if folks would like an explanation of the shadow period, they can listen to Episode number 3, “Alexa, Play Love the One You’re With.”
April: That was one of my favorites! I liked that episode!
Jen: Was it?
April: Yes. Because we got sassy with Alexa, as I recall, towards the end of episode.
Jen: Well neither one of us trusted her.
April: No, we didn’t. But I think it was like Episode 3 or something.
Jen: Yes, it was Episode 3.
April: So, a lot of people who are listening to us now may not have had a chance to dig into our archives and enjoy that sassy little episode. So you might enjoy it.
Jen: And just so folks know there is something in each episode that would be good to learn. So you can always go back…
April: Yes, the show sheets are pretty good at delineating everything that’s in the episode. So even if you’re no longer interested in knowing exactly what happened the week of December 23rd – to pick a random example – it still is worth looking at at least the episode description on the website and seeing what else is in there.
Jen: December 23rd would have been Episode 5, “Unboxing Eclipses.”
April: how do you know that? Or are you looking it up?
Jen: No, I’m not looking it up! I just know it…
April: Jen! Ladies and gentlemen, the incredible, Jen!
Jen: I’ll be here all week!
April: Don’t forget to tip your waitress!
Jen: Okay. So, before you move on, April, I have one more question about Mercury turning direct.
April: Okay.
Jen: Which is: If folks have been putting off a decision on purchasing something, the station is also not a good time to make final decisions and final purchases. If it can wait. Right? Wait a couple days and then move forward with that?
April: All things being equal.
Jen: Sure. All things being equal.
April: Yes. The day that a planet is stationing just speaks of instability. If it’s neither here nor there, it’s in kind of a limbo period.
Jen: Oh, I like that.
April: Yes. Things are trying to resolve, but they’re shifting from one state to another. So yes, if you have the chance to wait a couple of days before signing that contract or buying that new car, that new laptop or whatever you’re doing, then by all means wait.
Jen: Mercury’s in purgatory!
April: That’s fantastic!
Jen:
April: He is in one of the rings of hell. Poor Mercury!
Jen: Oh good. Okay. Moving on…
April: We’re very Catholic, aren’t we?
Jen: So Catholic…
April: There are a flurry of other aspects this week. There are a few sextile aspects, and I’m just going to touch on them very briefly.
Jen: Awesome.
April: The Sun will sextile Jupiter on March 11th which brings together the energy of the Sun – our core of creativity and sense of self and all of that – in a helpful relationship with Jupiter, which is very life affirming, very joyful, tends to want to expand. So, it says “Be more creative, be more yourself.” And that will usually come to a good end when you have a sextile.
Jen: Yes.
April: The Sun will sextile Pluto on March 14th, which says the same messages, but it’s around empowerment. So to the extent that you are yourself and own who you are and put your creative energy out, that will empower you, in fact.
Jen: Okay.
April: And Mars sextile Neptune on March 14th. Which is a little about letting intuition guide our forward motion. So, if you’re working on a particular project, this would be a good day to tap into more intuitive parts of your thinking instead of strictly a really logical one. And it’s probably a really creative day.
And then Venus, finally, sextile the North Node on March 9th, the same day as the Full Moon and Mercury turning direct. So it’s probably going to get lost in a lot of that noise, to be honest with you.
Jen: Sure.
April: You know, since Venus is going through Taurus and asking us to enjoy the simple things in life that are available to us, that don’t cost anything, that are just wonderful… going out into nature or whatever it might be. This says: To the extent that you’re able to do that, that can move you further into the direction of something you’ve been wanting to accomplish because that’s the energy of the North Node. And it’s the North Node in Cancer. So maybe it’s about reaching out and being more in community with others.
Jen: Lovely.
April: I didn’t really want to spend a lot of time on each one of those aspects this week, but I thought it would be a great opportunity just give a little mini-lesson on the sextile aspect.
Jen: Please do.
April: So, let’s talk about sextiles…
Jen: No…
April: You don’t want us to have an explicit rating?
Jen: Sextiles.
April: Sextiles refer to the relationship between planets that are separated by 60 degrees. So we have a 360 degree wheel and we give that an orb of about five degrees either way… between 55 and 65 degrees, near enough.
Jen: So it would be basically two signs away on the wheel?
April: Yes.
Jen: And can you explain for folks what an orb is?
April: An orb is how much “scoosh room” you’re going to give.
Jen: “Scoosh room.” Nice.
April: So the exact aspect is 60 degrees. But very often it’s really close. If it’s within a couple of degrees, you’re still going to experience this aspect.
Jen: Yes.
April: People fight about orbs. Astrologers one of the things we really like to argue about is orbs. The one that I settled on for sextiles is about five degrees. I’ve been known to go to six degrees if it’s the Sun or the Moon or Jupiter that’s involved.
Jen: Okay. And what made you settle on that?
April: Felt right, looked right, worked right…
Jen: In your experience, it was working that way?
April: Yes, it was kind of working that way. And I mean this varies from person to person as well. I’ve really found that people experience orbs differently. Some people will experience a transit in advance more than after. And other people really feel it on its way out. So it can be very individual from chart to chart. But use your common sense. If it’s Venus and it’s very strong by sign, as Venus is right now in Taurus and it’s sextiling something, we might give it a little bit more of an orb because we think she’s a little more powerful at the moment.
Jen: Interesting.
April: Yes. So the name sextile is because the aspect of a sextile splits the 360 degree wheel into six equal parts. That’s where the “sex” part of it comes from. We’re not talking explicitly here, we’re talking astrologically.
Jen: That’s right.
April: And the key words that I associate with a sextile are opportunity always. It’s one of the biggest ones. Attraction, friendship, expression, a kind of a spark – a kinetic spark – between the two planets. They are kind of of the nature of Gemini and Aquarius, sextiles are. They’re communicative and they’re friendly. They speak of communication between the planets, and it’s a friendly aspect. Because it’s usually happening between planets that are in signs of complimentary element. And this takes us back to our discussion about elements a couple of episodes ago.
Jen: Which I can link in the show notes.
April: And we talked about how fire is very complimentary with air, and earth with water.
Jen: Yes.
April: So you see, for instance, the Sun in Pisces is in sextile with Jupiter in Capricorn… something in the water element with something in the earth element. Now, because of the magic of orbs, this isn’t always going to be the case. So for instance, you could have a planet at 28 degrees of Aries and it could be making a sextile aspect to something that is in the early degrees of Pisces, for instance. That’s why orbs become important.
Jen: Wait… If it’s an Aries, it wouldn’t be sextiling..? Oh! I see…
April: It’s almost in Taurus at that point.
Jen: Yes. Got it.
April: That’s what’s difficult. And we call those dissociate aspects. They’re out of sign. I actually have a blog post about that that we could link to as well.
Jen: Perfect.
April: The way it was explained to me is that, a sextile is like a cross between a trine and a square. A square happens at 90 degrees and trine and happens at 120 degrees. And you get the benefits of a trine if you do the work of a square. That’s how a sextile works.
Jen: Oh, I like that!
April: Yes.
Jen: Hold on… “You get the benefits of a trine if you do the work of a square.”
April: Right.
Jen: Lovely.
April: All it says is, this is an opportunity that exists to get something good, but you have to put some effort into it.
Jen: Got it.
April: You can have somebody offering you a free dinner at a local restaurant, a wonderful benefit. But you have to say “yes” and leave the house and go to the restaurant. So it’s something like that. They’re not bringing it to your house. It’s not a DoorDash thing.
Jen: There’s some effort involved
April: Yes. We say when planets are in sextile, there’s a compatibility, there’s a kinship, there’s a friendship between them. But it take some effort. You have to do something with them.
Jen: I want to back up for a second. You said, “It’s of the nature of Gemini and Aquarius.” Which I think is really interesting, because I’ve never heard sextiles described using the nature of a particular sign.
April: I got that from my friend Kelly O’Tillery. And she had read it in a book, and I cannot remember the author… I’ll find it, we’ll link it in the show notes.
Jen: Yes.
April: Because I thought it was a good idea too. So the idea again is, if you’re using say Aries as your reference point, that’s shorthand in astrology for “ground zero.” That’s a reference point from which we define everything else.
Jen: Right. It’s the front door.
April: Yes. So what are the signs that would be sextile Aries? On the backside it would be Aquarius and on the front side it would be Gemini. So that’s why they’re of the nature of those two signs.
Jen: Ah…! Thank you.
April: Yes.
Jen: Did you see my “aha moment” there?
April: Yes, I did! I can just see sparks are shooting out of your head as we speak!
Jen: That made a lot of sense!
April: And it’s a helpful way to understand aspects, I think. Because everybody understands signs.
Jen: Yes.
April: And this is the next step in understanding them.
Jen: Okay. So, then would we say a trine would be of the nature of…
April: What are the signs that are trine Aries?
Jen: Oh! So it would be of the nature of Leo… and Sagittarius?
April: Right!
Jen: Because you start at Aries and you go around the circle?
April: You got it!
Jen: Nice, April! Thanks!
April: Yes.
Jen: Thank you.
April: You’re welcome. We touched on that idea briefly when we were talking about quincunx at one point. Because I was saying they were kind of of the nature of Virgo and Scorpio. And it’s the same thing.
Jen: It all just sunk in on a whole new level!
April: Oh, I’m so delighted to hear that!
Jen: Sometimes we talk about things and they sink in at one level… and then a few weeks later we might talk about it again, and it just all comes in at a whole new level.
April: Or, we talk about it again and realize we were totally wrong the first time!
Jen: Because we talked about it when Mercury was retrograde and whatnot!
April: Well now, I would like to tie up this episode and bring it to a lovely conclusion by reminding everybody that this is the week that we have Pi day! Which we talked about way too much in our last episode. So we won’t belabor it here. But we want to remind you that on March 14th you should have a slice of pie and think of us.
Jen: And why is it called Pi day?
April: Oh, don’t make me talk about math! It’s a math thing! You talk about it…
Jen: Right! Pi… 3.14 is pi.
April: Yeah.
Jen: And “pie.” “P-I-E.”
April: Always add the “E.” It just makes it so much more enjoyable!
Jen: It’s as easy as pi.. “P-I.”
April: It really is. And I had another, fantastic piece of coconut cream pie – I must say – while I was away. Shout out to Apple Farms Restaurant in San Luis Obispo. Because this was some piece o’ pie! It was a whole little pie! It was a mini-pie.
Jen: That’s awesome!
April: Well, we really want to thank all of you for listening to the Big Sky Astrology Podcast.
Jen: And we wanted to put out an appeal to folks to please consider making a small contribution to help keep the show going. Maybe you can spare the price of a cup of coffee once a month. Maybe you can do more and cover one or two other listeners who aren’t able to contribute at this time. Just go to www.bigskyastropod.com, and you can even contribute as little as a dollar to help out. And we love that too!
April: We love it, we love it! And as always, look for our little avatars in the sidebar and that will link you directly to the place where you can make your donation.
Jen: Right!
April: Anyway, if it’s not possible for you to make a financial donation, we totally respect that. There are all kinds of ways you could help out in supporting the show that don’t cost anything, and we would really appreciate it as well.
Jen: Yes.
April: We are available in Apple, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, and all the places you would normally get your podcasts. And you can listen too at our website, www.bigskyastropod.com. Please subscribe in one of these podcatchers, and just take one second to give us a five-star review if your podcatcher offers that. And please tell a friend; that would be really great. You can read show notes and full transcripts of each episode and leave your comments, as Dora did, about each episode at our website, www.bigskyastropod.com.
So please join us again, bright and early next Monday. And until then, keep your feet on the ground…
Jen: …and your eyes on the stars!
Thank you for listening. To learn more about April Elliott Kent, please check out her website, www.BigSkyAstrology.com, where you can sign up for her newsletter, read her thought-provoking weekly essays, purchase her books, sign up for a personal astrology reading, and more.
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Transcript: Episode 016 | Let’s Talk About Sextiles
March 9, 2020
Jen: Welcome to the Big Sky Astrology podcast, with April Elliott Kent and me, producer and cohost Jen Braun. Hey friends, Jen here! Today is March 9th, 2020. And setting aside time for you today… I guess we could say, saving time for you today, is my friend, astrologer April Elliott Kent. Hi, April!
April: Hello Jen! How are you?
Jen: I could see you laughing…
April: That is delightful. I thought, “What’s she going to say? How is she going to introduce me?” That’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re saving time today. Because of course, by the time you’re listening to this, you will be staggering around… because daylight saving time, at least in the United States began yesterday.
Jen: Yes.
April: And this is the infamous spring forward.
Jen: I love daylight savings time because it keeps things brighter here later. And in Minnesota in early March, that’s really nice.
April: Yes. Every little bit of sunlight helps.
Jen: I’ll take it.
April: Every minute of sunlight you can wring out of the sky.
Jen: Yes.
April: And I’m happy to give that to you as a gift, my friend. It is worth me being confused for the entire week.
Jen: You are not the only one.
April: Yes. Well, enjoy that. And before we get started, I wanted to make a clarification about something we talked about on Episode 14, “Retrograde Minds, Cazimi Hearts, Can’t Lose.”
Jen: Which is a Friday Night Lights reference for people that don’t know that.
April: Thank you. We were hoping some people would get that, because it’s one of our mutual favorite shows. I could resist getting it in there.
Jen: Yes. You know, “Clear minds…” How does it go?
April: Oh, “Clear minds, open hearts, can’t lose.” We don’t even know!
Jen: “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose!”
April: Aw. I just loved him.
Jen: Coach Taylor!
April: Everything I know about life and leadership, I learned from Coach Taylor. He was fantastic. Because it’s one of our favorite shows. I think people can safely assume if there is a show title they don’t understand and seems weird to them… it’s some TV show or movie that we like.
So, listener Dora left a comment on the website about that episode.
Jen: Yes.
April: She took our final dispositor idea to the test that we discussed at some length in that episode. And she had some issues with the chart she was working with.
Jen: And thank you, Dora, for your comment.
April: Yes, we appreciate it. It seems that I said that if you had one planet in its rulership and no mutual receptions, then the planet in its rulership would be the final dispositor, hard stop. And shockingly, with Mercury in Pisces in retrograde, it seems that I misspoke slightly. Because I should say that, if your chart has a final dispositor, it will meet those conditions. It’ll be the only planet in its rulership and there’ll be no mutual reception. But as Dora’s example showed, and you can read it on the website in comments…
April: Yes, you could actually get these little planetary loops that can result in not having a final dispositor. Even if you have one planet in rulership and no mutual receptions, it’s not a dead cert that that planet in its rulership is going to be your final dispositor.
So, we just wanted clear that up and if you’re interested in knowing more about that, go and read that comment thread because I did give sort of an extensive explanation.
Jen: April, you gave a very thoughtful, long comment. So go to www.bigskyastropod.com and click on Episode 14. And you can read those comments.
April: Yes. It’s wonderful, if you have questions or things that the episode gets you thinking about, please do respond in comments. Because it gives everybody a chance to jump in and we can have a discussion about it.
Jen: Which is a lot of fun. Cool.
April: Yes. So thanks for giving us a chance to clarify that.
Jen: Yes. Well, we have some exciting news this week for Moonwatch.
April: Yes?
Jen: We have a theme song! Let’s play it right now!
April: So, this week we have a Full Moon at 19 degrees, 37 minutes of Virgo on March 9th. So, we begin the week on a Full Moon. It’s just about 10:47 in the morning, Pacific Time, Pacific Daylight Time, I might add.
Jen: Correct.
April: So here we are at a Full Moon in Virgo. And a Full Moon is always about awareness and illumination and what we see. And I always think with Virgo, it’s about an awareness of what needs fixing in our lives, what we could tighten up.
Jen: Discernment.
April: Yes. What we can make more workable. And seeing ways also to be of better use, to be of better service to those around us, to the people we work with and so forth. And also some physical problems can come to light – I was telling you before we started recording about a physical thing I had that came up when I was out of town a couple of weeks ago. And I think that’s sort of fitting going into this Full Moon in Virgo season. Because if you have health problems around a Virgo time, it is usually because of habits that you formed that are not supportive of good health.
Jen: Oh, that makes sense. Because Virgo’s the sixth house and the sixth house is daily habits.
April: You’ve got it. There are lots of ways we can look at health in the chart, but the reason we do associate Virgo with that, I think, part of it, is because of this thing of: Are you living your life in a way that you have formed good, healthy habits? Healthy habits that support your financial situation, your physical health, the work that you do, your family alliances, and all of that can be traced back to Virgo and to the sixth house.
So, I think at this Full Moon, it makes sense that we are seeing… if you have been a little bit run down because you’re burning it at both ends and so forth, or if your life’s a little chaotic and not really in alignment with your higher goals, you might tend to see some interesting physical things that become illuminated at this time.
Jen: Yes. Make sense.
April: Yeah. I like the Sabian symbols for this Full Moon very much.
Jen: What are they?
April: The Sabian symbol for the Moon itself is 20 Virgo, “An automobile caravan.” I kind of like it. It speaks to me about moving ahead to common a destination. What do you think when you hear that?
Jen: It reminds me of my friends and I in high school and in college, we would travel to New York city to see theater.
April: Oh.
Jen: And at least one trip, and I want to say it was maybe two, we took a caravan of vans and drove out to New York City from the Milwaukee area and saw some theater. So that makes me think of that. And it’s a really warm memory that I love. And this sense of sort of community with others and traveling together to a common destination.
April: Yes, it’s like a wagon train.
Jen: Right!
April: Or even that thing of: You’ve all gone to dinner as friends because you’re going to go to a concert afterwards or something. And then you kind of follow each other on the freeway in your cars. It’s always this thing about going to a common destination with an automobile caravan. And then the symbol for 20 Pisces, which is where the Sun will be at the Full Moon, is, “A table set for an evening meal.” So again, this sense of a communal experience. And since it is in Virgo, I think of, again to use a word that we emphasized a couple of episodes ago, it’s about sitting together in fellowship. Do you like how I did that?
Jen: I like how you threw that in! Yes.
April: Your friend will enjoy that.. … for a common purpose and probably a helpful and service-oriented one. So rather than necessarily going to a concert or going to the theater or whatever, this would be more of the image of a lot of people going together to the say, a march, a protest march or something that brings everybody together in some kind of communal enterprise.
Jen: They’re both a sense of arrangement with others.
April: Yes. The planning that has to go into it, which Virgo likes planning those little details of getting the GPS in place and everybody’s in their little line going down the road.
Jen: Yes.
April: I just love, I mean, how can I not love a table set for an evening meal? That’s so lovely.
Jen: It’s a nice thought.
April: I love everything about that. That’s my ideal evening with friends, is sitting together at dinner and we love to have people over here to the house and candles all along the table and everybody chit chatting. It’s just lovely.
Jen: I love that too.
April: Yes. So that is our Full Moon in Virgo for this week.
Jen: So here’s my question for the Full Moon in Virgo this week. It’s probably making friendly aspects to all of those Capricorn planets, right?
April: It will, indeed. And to Venus in Taurus.
Jen: Oh, Venus in Taurus? Yes.
April: Yes. It’s kind of nice. I actually did not look at the chart for the Full Moon, but it’s actually pretty closely in opposition to Neptune. So the Sun will be together with Neptune and they’ll be opposed the Moon. So the Moon gets to say, “To the extent that you’ve been walking around in your little haze, this is the time Virgo cuts through with some clarity.”
I’ve been reading Marie Forleo’s book, which is called “Everything Is Figureoutable.” That sounds very Virgo to me. It’s like, yes, it all seems a little overwhelming and chaotic and fuzzy when it’s experienced in a Neptunian way, which is like this big cloud. But Virgo is expert at sitting down and parsing it out into little bite-sized bits that make sense. And if you just focus on those then you don’t get so overwhelmed.
Jen: One step at a time. Yes.
April: Yes.
Jen: And Mercury rules Virgo. I see on the show sheet here that Mercury’s turning direct, which means it’s stationing around the time of the Full Moon.
April: Right. Very good observation, Jen.
Jen: Thank you.
April: It’s sort of soups up, I think, that Full Moon in Virgo a little bit. Because Virgo’s ruler is very powerful on that day. Because it stations to turn direct at 8:48 PM Pacific Time at 28 degrees.
Jen: On March 9th, the same day.
April: Right.
Jen: Yes.
April: It does say that these are more powerful forces than it may appear at first glance. That there is more oomph behind it. That there’s more of a sense of finally turning around in this area of life. So if you look at, for instance, the house of your chart that has 19 degrees of Virgo in it – and there’s a blog post on my website that we’ll link to in the show notes that we’ve shared before about how to find this in your chart – you can say in that area of your life symbolized by that house… you’re suddenly able to move forward in a more productive way.
Jen: Because it’s Virgo.
April: So yes, Mercury’s turning direct. It’s been on this journey. It entered its shadow on February 3rd. Then it turned retrograde on February 16th. It entered Aquarius on its retrograde journey on March 4th. We talked about that in our last episode. And then it turns direct on March 9th and will leave its shadow as of March 30th. So at the end of it all, we will have ended up having two full months of a very Mercury-retrograde feeling time.
Jen: When you normally talk about an aspect happening, you always round up to the next degree. If a planet is moving backwards, do you go down to the degree below it or do you still round up?
April: I still round up.
Jen: You see why I would ask that, though?
April: I totally understand it.
Jen: It’s moving backwards towards the lesser degree…
April: Are you talking about rounding up with regard to the Sabian symbols?
Jen: I guess just in general. Even when people write things on blogs and stuff.
April: I can see why you would ask that.
Jen: Yes.
April: I don’t, though.
Jen: Because it’s moving in that direction. Not that direction. I’m pointing; nobody can see that except for April!
April: It means a lot to me though, Jen, so…
Jen: Thanks April.
April: Thank you. I’m digging that.
April: No, I don’t. And really, if we were being proper, we wouldn’t round at all.
Jen: Sure.
April: Other than with the Sabian symbols, we always round up.
Jen: Okay.
April: Yes, I don’t. Because a lot of people probably don’t really think too much about degrees and minutes. So we’re talking to a few people here.
Jen: And if folks would like an explanation of the shadow period, they can listen to Episode number 3, “Alexa, Play Love the One You’re With.”
April: That was one of my favorites! I liked that episode!
Jen: Was it?
April: Yes. Because we got sassy with Alexa, as I recall, towards the end of episode.
Jen: Well neither one of us trusted her.
April: No, we didn’t. But I think it was like Episode 3 or something.
Jen: Yes, it was Episode 3.
April: So, a lot of people who are listening to us now may not have had a chance to dig into our archives and enjoy that sassy little episode. So you might enjoy it.
Jen: And just so folks know there is something in each episode that would be good to learn. So you can always go back…
April: Yes, the show sheets are pretty good at delineating everything that’s in the episode. So even if you’re no longer interested in knowing exactly what happened the week of December 23rd – to pick a random example – it still is worth looking at at least the episode description on the website and seeing what else is in there.
Jen: December 23rd would have been Episode 5, “Unboxing Eclipses.”
April: how do you know that? Or are you looking it up?
Jen: No, I’m not looking it up! I just know it…
April: Jen! Ladies and gentlemen, the incredible, Jen!
Jen: I’ll be here all week!
April: Don’t forget to tip your waitress!
Jen: Okay. So, before you move on, April, I have one more question about Mercury turning direct.
April: Okay.
Jen: Which is: If folks have been putting off a decision on purchasing something, the station is also not a good time to make final decisions and final purchases. If it can wait. Right? Wait a couple days and then move forward with that?
April: All things being equal.
Jen: Sure. All things being equal.
April: Yes. The day that a planet is stationing just speaks of instability. If it’s neither here nor there, it’s in kind of a limbo period.
Jen: Oh, I like that.
April: Yes. Things are trying to resolve, but they’re shifting from one state to another. So yes, if you have the chance to wait a couple of days before signing that contract or buying that new car, that new laptop or whatever you’re doing, then by all means wait.
Jen: Mercury’s in purgatory!
April: That’s fantastic!
Jen:
April: He is in one of the rings of hell. Poor Mercury!
Jen: Oh good. Okay. Moving on…
April: We’re very Catholic, aren’t we?
Jen: So Catholic…
April: There are a flurry of other aspects this week. There are a few sextile aspects, and I’m just going to touch on them very briefly.
Jen: Awesome.
April: The Sun will sextile Jupiter on March 11th which brings together the energy of the Sun – our core of creativity and sense of self and all of that – in a helpful relationship with Jupiter, which is very life affirming, very joyful, tends to want to expand. So, it says “Be more creative, be more yourself.” And that will usually come to a good end when you have a sextile.
Jen: Yes.
April: The Sun will sextile Pluto on March 14th, which says the same messages, but it’s around empowerment. So to the extent that you are yourself and own who you are and put your creative energy out, that will empower you, in fact.
Jen: Okay.
April: And Mars sextile Neptune on March 14th. Which is a little about letting intuition guide our forward motion. So, if you’re working on a particular project, this would be a good day to tap into more intuitive parts of your thinking instead of strictly a really logical one. And it’s probably a really creative day.
And then Venus, finally, sextile the North Node on March 9th, the same day as the Full Moon and Mercury turning direct. So it’s probably going to get lost in a lot of that noise, to be honest with you.
Jen: Sure.
April: You know, since Venus is going through Taurus and asking us to enjoy the simple things in life that are available to us, that don’t cost anything, that are just wonderful… going out into nature or whatever it might be. This says: To the extent that you’re able to do that, that can move you further into the direction of something you’ve been wanting to accomplish because that’s the energy of the North Node. And it’s the North Node in Cancer. So maybe it’s about reaching out and being more in community with others.
Jen: Lovely.
April: I didn’t really want to spend a lot of time on each one of those aspects this week, but I thought it would be a great opportunity just give a little mini-lesson on the sextile aspect.
Jen: Please do.
April: So, let’s talk about sextiles…
Jen: No…
April: You don’t want us to have an explicit rating?
Jen: Sextiles.
April: Sextiles refer to the relationship between planets that are separated by 60 degrees. So we have a 360 degree wheel and we give that an orb of about five degrees either way… between 55 and 65 degrees, near enough.
Jen: So it would be basically two signs away on the wheel?
April: Yes.
Jen: And can you explain for folks what an orb is?
April: An orb is how much “scoosh room” you’re going to give.
Jen: “Scoosh room.” Nice.
April: So the exact aspect is 60 degrees. But very often it’s really close. If it’s within a couple of degrees, you’re still going to experience this aspect.
Jen: Yes.
April: People fight about orbs. Astrologers one of the things we really like to argue about is orbs. The one that I settled on for sextiles is about five degrees. I’ve been known to go to six degrees if it’s the Sun or the Moon or Jupiter that’s involved.
Jen: Okay. And what made you settle on that?
April: Felt right, looked right, worked right…
Jen: In your experience, it was working that way?
April: Yes, it was kind of working that way. And I mean this varies from person to person as well. I’ve really found that people experience orbs differently. Some people will experience a transit in advance more than after. And other people really feel it on its way out. So it can be very individual from chart to chart. But use your common sense. If it’s Venus and it’s very strong by sign, as Venus is right now in Taurus and it’s sextiling something, we might give it a little bit more of an orb because we think she’s a little more powerful at the moment.
Jen: Interesting.
April: Yes. So the name sextile is because the aspect of a sextile splits the 360 degree wheel into six equal parts. That’s where the “sex” part of it comes from. We’re not talking explicitly here, we’re talking astrologically.
Jen: That’s right.
April: And the key words that I associate with a sextile are opportunity always. It’s one of the biggest ones. Attraction, friendship, expression, a kind of a spark – a kinetic spark – between the two planets. They are kind of of the nature of Gemini and Aquarius, sextiles are. They’re communicative and they’re friendly. They speak of communication between the planets, and it’s a friendly aspect. Because it’s usually happening between planets that are in signs of complimentary element. And this takes us back to our discussion about elements a couple of episodes ago.
Jen: Which I can link in the show notes.
April: And we talked about how fire is very complimentary with air, and earth with water.
Jen: Yes.
April: So you see, for instance, the Sun in Pisces is in sextile with Jupiter in Capricorn… something in the water element with something in the earth element. Now, because of the magic of orbs, this isn’t always going to be the case. So for instance, you could have a planet at 28 degrees of Aries and it could be making a sextile aspect to something that is in the early degrees of Pisces, for instance. That’s why orbs become important.
Jen: Wait… If it’s an Aries, it wouldn’t be sextiling..? Oh! I see…
April: It’s almost in Taurus at that point.
Jen: Yes. Got it.
April: That’s what’s difficult. And we call those dissociate aspects. They’re out of sign. I actually have a blog post about that that we could link to as well.
Jen: Perfect.
April: The way it was explained to me is that, a sextile is like a cross between a trine and a square. A square happens at 90 degrees and trine and happens at 120 degrees. And you get the benefits of a trine if you do the work of a square. That’s how a sextile works.
Jen: Oh, I like that!
April: Yes.
Jen: Hold on… “You get the benefits of a trine if you do the work of a square.”
April: Right.
Jen: Lovely.
April: All it says is, this is an opportunity that exists to get something good, but you have to put some effort into it.
Jen: Got it.
April: You can have somebody offering you a free dinner at a local restaurant, a wonderful benefit. But you have to say “yes” and leave the house and go to the restaurant. So it’s something like that. They’re not bringing it to your house. It’s not a DoorDash thing.
Jen: There’s some effort involved
April: Yes. We say when planets are in sextile, there’s a compatibility, there’s a kinship, there’s a friendship between them. But it take some effort. You have to do something with them.
Jen: I want to back up for a second. You said, “It’s of the nature of Gemini and Aquarius.” Which I think is really interesting, because I’ve never heard sextiles described using the nature of a particular sign.
April: I got that from my friend Kelly O’Tillery. And she had read it in a book, and I cannot remember the author… I’ll find it, we’ll link it in the show notes.
Jen: Yes.
April: Because I thought it was a good idea too. So the idea again is, if you’re using say Aries as your reference point, that’s shorthand in astrology for “ground zero.” That’s a reference point from which we define everything else.
Jen: Right. It’s the front door.
April: Yes. So what are the signs that would be sextile Aries? On the backside it would be Aquarius and on the front side it would be Gemini. So that’s why they’re of the nature of those two signs.
Jen: Ah…! Thank you.
April: Yes.
Jen: Did you see my “aha moment” there?
April: Yes, I did! I can just see sparks are shooting out of your head as we speak!
Jen: That made a lot of sense!
April: And it’s a helpful way to understand aspects, I think. Because everybody understands signs.
Jen: Yes.
April: And this is the next step in understanding them.
Jen: Okay. So, then would we say a trine would be of the nature of…
April: What are the signs that are trine Aries?
Jen: Oh! So it would be of the nature of Leo… and Sagittarius?
April: Right!
Jen: Because you start at Aries and you go around the circle?
April: You got it!
Jen: Nice, April! Thanks!
April: Yes.
Jen: Thank you.
April: You’re welcome. We touched on that idea briefly when we were talking about quincunx at one point. Because I was saying they were kind of of the nature of Virgo and Scorpio. And it’s the same thing.
Jen: It all just sunk in on a whole new level!
April: Oh, I’m so delighted to hear that!
Jen: Sometimes we talk about things and they sink in at one level… and then a few weeks later we might talk about it again, and it just all comes in at a whole new level.
April: Or, we talk about it again and realize we were totally wrong the first time!
Jen: Because we talked about it when Mercury was retrograde and whatnot!
April: Well now, I would like to tie up this episode and bring it to a lovely conclusion by reminding everybody that this is the week that we have Pi day! Which we talked about way too much in our last episode. So we won’t belabor it here. But we want to remind you that on March 14th you should have a slice of pie and think of us.
Jen: And why is it called Pi day?
April: Oh, don’t make me talk about math! It’s a math thing! You talk about it…
Jen: Right! Pi… 3.14 is pi.
April: Yeah.
Jen: And “pie.” “P-I-E.”
April: Always add the “E.” It just makes it so much more enjoyable!
Jen: It’s as easy as pi.. “P-I.”
April: It really is. And I had another, fantastic piece of coconut cream pie – I must say – while I was away. Shout out to Apple Farms Restaurant in San Luis Obispo. Because this was some piece o’ pie! It was a whole little pie! It was a mini-pie.
Jen: That’s awesome!
April: Well, we really want to thank all of you for listening to the Big Sky Astrology Podcast.
Jen: And we wanted to put out an appeal to folks to please consider making a small contribution to help keep the show going. Maybe you can spare the price of a cup of coffee once a month. Maybe you can do more and cover one or two other listeners who aren’t able to contribute at this time. Just go to www.bigskyastropod.com, and you can even contribute as little as a dollar to help out. And we love that too!
April: We love it, we love it! And as always, look for our little avatars in the sidebar and that will link you directly to the place where you can make your donation.
Jen: Right!
April: Anyway, if it’s not possible for you to make a financial donation, we totally respect that. There are all kinds of ways you could help out in supporting the show that don’t cost anything, and we would really appreciate it as well.
Jen: Yes.
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So please join us again, bright and early next Monday. And until then, keep your feet on the ground…
Jen: …and your eyes on the stars!
Thank you for listening. To learn more about April Elliott Kent, please check out her website, www.BigSkyAstrology.com, where you can sign up for her newsletter, read her thought-provoking weekly essays, purchase her books, sign up for a personal astrology reading, and more.
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