Transcript: Episode 025 | The Retrograde Parade!
May 11, 2020
Show notes for this episode available here
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 May 11th, 2020. And of course, here to help us sort out the skies, is my dear friend, astrologer April Elliott Kent. Happy Moonday, April!
April: And happy Moonday to you as well, Jen!
Jen: How’s your week going?
April: I mean it’s a little early to tell. I slept in a little bit.
Jen: Great.
April: And I had a lot of work to finish up this morning as I often do on Mondays. For people who listen to the podcast – who are also on my mailing list – they know they get a mailing from me on Monday morning with my weekly column.
Jen: Of course.
April: So I was doing that, I was up kind of late last night finishing up stuff for the podcast episode that came out today. And then all the stuff from my weekly business.
But this is a big week because we have a Full Moon, which we talked about in our last episode. So it’s going to be a busy week and it’s a busy week on our show sheet as well. We have a ton of stuff to talk to people about today.
Jen: We do have a ton of stuff.
April: Yes.
Jen: Should we get right into it this week?
April: Yes. Let’s just get right into it.
Jen: Let’s just dive in! Why don’t we?
April: Okay. Well it begins – as it always does these days – with Mercury.
Jen: Of course it begins with Mercury. How else could it begin? I honestly can’t imagine at this point it beginning any other way.
April: Mercury is just floating right along. And this week Mercury enters his own sign of Gemini on May 11th, on Monday at 2:57 PM Pacific.
Jen: And when you say his own sign, it’s the sign he rules.
April: Exactly.
Jen: And I will link the rulerships sheet in the show notes.
April: Oh, thank you.
Jen: Yes.
April: Yes, we do have that. Mercury is one of the planets that rules more than one sign, so rules Gemini and Virgo. So when a transiting planet enters a sign that it rules, we consider it picks up extra strength and focus and it’s more or less working in its own environment.
Jen: It’s like Mercury is putting on his superhero cape.
April: I guess he kind of is in a way. Although Gemini would never see himself in those terms. He’s putting out his jester costume, I guess.
Jen:
April: Because Mercury is really good at taking the Mickey out of people and helping us not take ourselves too seriously. Mercury in Gemini is a little different than Mercury in Virgo, even though Mercury rules both signs because they have in common that quickness and the ability to put together disparate elements and concepts. But Gemini is in love with language and loves just saying things because they’re funny or because they’re interesting or clever. So that’s the way we will tend to want to communicate or be communicated to while Mercury is going through Gemini, which is through May 28.
Jen: And does your Gemini Moon love that?
April: Oh my God, so much. So much. Because if you have things in Gemini, and I think I probably said this before, even on the podcast: If you’re given a choice between being truthful and being witty, you’ll go with witty.
Jen: I see. Okay.
April: You have to go with the good joke.
Jen: Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.
April: Exactly. Or a good turn of phrase. And I’ll say things to friends or to even my husband – who has Gemini rising, so he gets it – and I’ll say, “I’m going to say something and you’ve got to know I don’t mean it. But this is such a great line.” And so, I’ll say the mean thing that’s very clever and he laughs.
Jen: How perfect.
April: Because I’ve set it up properly, and because he understands with Gemini rising. It’s the love of language and playing with it and getting different effects with it. Like putting a prism in a Sunny window and you get the colors all over the room, you know, in these little pockets.
Jen: I like that image.
April: Yes, I do too. Gemini is a very fun, sparkly sign. And having Mercury there, going very quickly through the sign… it’ll only be there for a couple of weeks. And Mercury is going really fast right now – then it will be making a retrograde when it gets into Cancer, the next sign.
Jen: Okay.
April: So, it’s going pretty fast and then it’ll start slowing down as we get closer to it going into Cancer
Jen: Yes. And Mercury goes retrograde in water signs this year. I remember we talked about that.
April: Yes. We had quite a discussion about that. Mercury, as you pointed out to me… you’re right on top of this stuff… I’m not noticing this out-of-bounds stuff and the way you are.
Jen: Hey, I’m your producer, so I’m trying to keep things interesting around here!
April: You’re trying to produce, you’re doing a heck of a job.
Mercury goes out-of-bounds on May 16th. And we talked quite a lot. Which episode was it?
Jen: Episode 22, “Taurus New Moon and Venus Gone Wild.”
April: Right. That’s where we talked quite a lot about Venus being out-of-bounds. It’s worth revisiting that episode if you’re not familiar with out-of-bounds planets. And if you miss that episode, we explained the concept of out-of-bounds quite a lot on that and specifically what it meant for Venus to be in that zone.
The idea of out-of-bounds is that a planet is somewhat unsupervised is the way I’ll say it. Mercury being out-of-bounds means it’s a good time for coming up with innovative solutions to things. It’s a time when you’re particularly apt to be able to take a lot of little pieces of information and put them together in an interesting way.
Jen: I see.
April: Anytime something is out-of-bounds, we’re not so confined by the rules that we usually have to follow with the things ruled by that planet. Conventional thinking is something that we’re not quite so enslaved to at this time with Mercury out-of-bounds.
Jen: Okay.
April: Did you have other thoughts about Mercury out-of-bounds?
Jen: Will Mercury be telling tall tales while out-of-bounds?
April: Well, tall tales is the province of Sagittarius and Jupiter.
Jen: Okay.
April: Gemini doesn’t require that a tale be tall. It requires that it be funny or witty or clever in some way.
This is the cleverness element of it that I actually really like at this time. It’s probably a pretty good time to be a writer because even the way you’re used to thinking about writing is open to interpretation.
Jen: Well, you’ll have to let us know.
April: I will because boy, it’s not working that way so far. I will say for me, I’m really kind of stuck. So this will only be helpful with Mercury going into a sign where it’s really witty and it’s really strong… going out-of-bounds so that you’re not hidebound by your old ideas of how to think, how to put ideas together, even how to communicate. It sounds fun to me and it will go all too quickly.
Jen: Yeah.
April: That is our friend Mercury. Before he goes into Gemini, he will make a square to Mars on the 11th in the wee hours, just after midnight Pacific Time. It means that Mercury ends his sojourn through Taurus on kind of a fractious note.
Jen: I see.
April: So he enters Gemini actually with a little bit more propulsion. It’s like it’s being kind of spit into the next sign in a way.
Jen: From chewing grass in Taurus to been propelled into Gemini!
April: Exactly. So that is our friend Mercury for this week.
Jen: Alright. We will bid adieu to Mercury for this week and move on to Mars, who is moving into Pisces. He’s also switching signs this week.
April: Indeed.
Jen: What does that mean when Mars moves into Pisces, April?
April: Boy, Isn’t that a good question? We were talking about it before we started recording and it’s one of those combinations that sounds like a contradiction in terms. Mars is very direct and very assertive and forward moving and doesn’t pull any punches. A little bit inclined to disagreements or conflict generally speaking. It kind of thrives on that, Mars does.
Jen: Yes.
April: So what happens when you put it into a sign like Pisces, which is very gentle and moves in an indirect way as we’ve talked about a lot over the last few months as a lot of things have been in Pisces? I guess the way into it is to think the sign that Mars goes into also says that, “These are the things we will fight for or about while Mars is in the sign.”
Jen: Okay.
April: While Mars is in Pisces, it enters on May 12th through the 27th of June. We know that the things we will be inclined to want to fight for or about are of the nature of Pisces. For instance, people who have Mars in Pisces in their birth charts often have jobs or careers or just general interests in helping the downtrodden, in helping people that are disadvantaged. That’s where that kindly Pisces empathy comes in.
Jen: Maybe there’s a higher number of people working in the nonprofit world with Mars in Pisces.
April: It would not surprise me in the least. Mars in Pisces will be interesting. We go from Aquarius, which has been… I’ve seen a lot of people disagreeing politically, during the time that Mars has been in Aquarius. A lot of stuff about the pandemic and the quarantine has been really politicized, for instance.
Jen: It sure has.
April: Yes. Because Aquarius is a very political sign, but Pisces is collective in the same way that Aquarius is, but it has less of a political- or rule- or legislative-based energy about it. So Mars going into Pisces would be more about, “Okay, putting aside our disagreements about how things should be done… What are we going to do to help people that are in trouble that are really suffering?”
And it has some interesting ramifications for anything related to the virus itself because Pisces does have a connection through its modern ruler Neptune. Anything that has to do with infectious disease, viruses, things are transmitted from person-to-person are of the nature of Pisces or of Neptune. So we should see something interesting related to I think the virus itself.
Jen: Interesting.
April: We’ll see maybe some tests developed or something like that hopefully as Mars is in Pisces. It’s like “Where are we putting our energy as a people?” Because that’s Mars.
Jen: Yes. And Pisces is a boundary-less sign. We’ve talked about that. Which makes sense in terms of Mars being about what’s in the highest good for all people everywhere.
April: And you mean, while it’s in Pisces?
Jen: While it’s in Pisces. Yes.
April: Yes. And also about anything infectious and communicable. Because again, not a lot of boundaries. So to the extent that we have appropriate boundaries with whatever we’re doing to keep ourselves safe.
Jen: Can it be harder to get motivated when Mars is in Pisces?
April: Yes, it’s like running through quicksand, is a note I made to myself here. I remember reading one time about what you should do if you get caught in quicksand… which growing up we would have assumed would be a much more distinct possibility for us than it actually is in real life. I’ve never known anyone that’s gotten caught in quicksand, but especially when I was growing up… every TV show had somebody eventually end up in quicksand.
But apparently what you’re supposed to do is not struggle. Like the more you struggle, the more you get sucked down. So you have to relax and kind of let yourself float up to the surface. Which to me is one of the best metaphors I’ve ever seen for Mars connecting with Pisces or with Neptune. So don’t struggle. And again, the phrase that we’ve kept using over and over a things have been in Pisces is going with the flow and letting things be the way they are and following the path the way it naturally leads instead of trying to exert your will on it. Mars in Aries, which will come next and there’ll be some retrogrades and stuff to talk about… Mars in Aries will be much more putting down a highway so you can move as quickly and directly as possible. This is getting in a canoe and drifting down the river.
Jen: Meandering.
April: Meandering. So it’s hard to get motivated to do things that don’t let you take that kind of casual approach because it’s not really conducive to that. Makes sense?
Jen: Totally makes sense.
April: Good. Well, that takes us to Venus turning retrograde.
Jen: Venus is turning retrograde!
April: We have been alluding to it for a several weeks as Venus has gone into her retrograde shadow, has changed signs and now she’s actually doing it on May 12th.
Jen: Well, what does this mean now that we’re here? We’re here at the moment?
April: Well, isn’t that a good question? I think anything retrograde we attached the prefix “re” to it.
Jen: Yes.
April: Then it’s an easy way to think about what to do with the planet. Venus is very much about relationships, about money, about value and these kinds of things. So Venus’s retrograde, we will reevaluate things like relationships. It’s a good time to renegotiate loans. I know a lot of people are refinancing their houses right now because the interest rates are so low. Money might be delayed. Have you got your stimulus check yet? I have not got anything yet.
Jen: Oh, you haven’t?
April: No.
Jen: We have gotten ours.
April: But I’m getting closer. The little computer thing is giving me better news every time I look at it.
Jen: If you lived in Minneapolis, maybe you’d have yours by now…
April: Oh Jen! Oh, you haven’t made that…
Jen: It’s been in a while!
April: It has been awhile since you’ve lobbied me to move to Minneapolis!
April: So, Venus generally is about knowing what things are worth. And I read something Lynn Koiner wrote on her website. And she was talking about how it can be an advantageous time for real estate if you recognize a bargain that somebody else doesn’t recognize. Or if somebody else really needs to get out of their property and they’ll sell it really cheap. But you have to really know what you’re doing in those kind of situations. Or you just have an eye for value when you know that that property is going to be more valuable in the long run.
Jen: Okay.
April: Retrograde planets are inner driven. They call us to go into ourselves and find what the truth is rather than being told externally. But in general terms, retrograde times are not considered the best for moving forward with new enterprises of the nature of that planet.
Jen: Yes.
April: Although I didn’t have a lot of hard and fast rules when I was choosing wedding dates for people, Venus retrograde was the big no-no. And that came from looking at hundreds of charts and finding that those marriages were more likely to falter over time if they married when Venus was retrograde. Because as I think we talked about in a previous episode – is that you don’t have all the information and you don’t see real clearly . So that’s the danger of initiating new things with Venus retrograde.
Jen: And that brings up a good point, which is that with this pandemic, I’ve actually heard of two or three friends of friends that have had to postpone their wedding because of the pandemic. And maybe it’s for the best seeing that Venus retrograde is coming up.
April: Absolutely. And if I had still been choosing wedding dates for people during this year, I wouldn’t have had anything I could have recommended to them during the whole Venus retrograde, then Mars will be retrograde… which is also problematic for marriages, though less so. But still I would avoid it. So yes, I think they dodged a bullet, to be honest with you.
Jen: Yes.
April: The Sabian symbol for the point where Venus turns retrograde, I found delightful. It gave me a new way of looking at the Venus retrograde. And the Sabian symbol is, “a barn dance.” Have you ever done any square dancing?
Jen: Yes. Through school, maybe? I do remember doing it. How about you?
April: Yes, it was through school. And I don’t remember the whole story either, but I remember kind of liking it because I’m not a dancer but I like dances that have prescribed steps, because I’m not real kind of fluid and wiggly.
Jen: And you can keep a beat because you’re a musician.
April: Absolutely. I have the Mars-Saturn trine.
Jen: Which is key for a barn dance.
April: Yes, it’s fantastic. So I liked that Sabian symbol because it speaks to me of square dancing where there’s a lot of passing off to the next partner. And that’s very Venus in Gemini.
Jen: And it’s very fluid and very beautiful.
April: Yes. And it’s liking the variety of dancing with lots of different people. And also somebody pointed out, I think it was Blain Bovee on his site… He was talking about the awareness of what it’s like to be in another person’s shoes. It’s like where you are in a barn dance… one minute you’re in this position, the next moment you’re in another position that was previously held by another person… and it goes round and round and round.
Jen: Nice.
April: So I liked that as an image to initiate this Venus retrograde period because I’ve been thinking of it in such a negative terms. Because I don’t feel that way when the outer planets go retrograde necessarily. I don’t feel… it’s much easier for me to get into the mindset – and we’ll talk about that in a minute with Jupiter turning retrograde – of the value of being inner driven instead of letting the world tell you what things mean or what you should do. It’s nice to find that from within.
Jen: Yeah.
April: But it’s harder to do with Venus somehow for me. Maybe it’s because it’s a relational planet. And so the whole idea of relationship is being outwardly focused towards another person and making those connections.
Jen: Right.
April: It’ll be an interesting retrograde period. It will be retrograde through…I think it was like June 24th?
Jen: Yes, it is.
I have heard many astrologers say that it’s not a good time to redo your appearance or something related to your appearance. And I thought, “Oh, with things being shut down right now and barber shops aren’t open, and hairstylists aren’t open… people are naturally letting their roots grow out and having different hairstyles anyway.” So I just think it’s kind of ironic that now here comes Venus going retrograde.
April: Yes. We have to find a way to love ourselves the way we are. Don’t we?
April: I love that you have the story of your wife cutting your hair.
Jen: She was a dog groomer!
April: She was!
April: You’re best in show, Jen!
Jen: Thanks April!
April: You’re just looking fabulous with your hairdo!
Jen: Oh gosh! Best in show!
April: Oh, I’m missing my manicures. I’ll tell you, I am missing my manicures. And I was going to let my hair grow out gray anyway and I chose the exact right moment.
Jen: Way to go!
April: Because it’s just naturally doing its thing.
Jen: Yes.
April: Yes, I think with Venus retrograde, I have heard it said that it’s not the best time to get cosmetic surgery.
Jen: I have also heard that.
April: Which would makes sense. And that’s doubly so when Mars goes retrograde, any elective surgeries are probably best rescheduled, I would say, but that’s for another podcast.
Jen: Alright. You know, this is just a lot of Gemini, I’m realizing. With the North Node in Gemini, Mercury entering Gemini, Venus going retrograde in Gemini…
April: I’m not going to object. As we have established with my Moon in this fine sign… I enjoy Gemini. It’s light, it’s airy, it’s birds in the spring. It’s movement.
Jen: But it also speaks to a cosmic message to keep our minds open and keep learning.
April: Absolutely. And our ideas about how we value ourselves. Gemini is one of those signs that gets a bad reputation. People will say, “Oh, Gemini people are fickle and unstable.” And these kinds of things. I don’t think that that’s any more true of Gemini than any other sign. But it does have a freshness about it and keeps things lively and interesting. It very much is useful to think of birds and bees that are pollinating; and they’re flying around and it’s a beautiful day and they’re taking something from this flower and they’re taking it over here, it’s cross-pollination. It’s keeping ideas moving. And also it’s a wonderful networking sign. It connects people together. A Gemini person – I think I wrote in one of my books – is always the person that has “a guy.” It’s, “Oh, there’s something’s wrong with my printer.” And a Gemini person says, “Well, I have a guy that can deal with that.” It’s not their best friend, it’s their “guy.”
Jen: Yes.
April: They have a printer guy. So, yes I like Gemini.
Jen: I have heard that people with Gemini rising can have sort of two chances to do things. So you might have one life in one career for example. And then you might retire and have a whole other life in another career. So people with a lot of Gemini energy in their charts – because it’s the sign of the twins – have two chances to do things and like to do things twice.
April: That’s an interesting way to put it. I’ve always told my clients with any of the mutable signs prominent in their chart, and especially Gemini, they are better off if they do more than one thing at a time.
Jen: Ah, interesting.
April: So this is great for somebody who has a career but also has a side hustle. Because they like multitasking. They’re the kind of people that think better if they’re doing something else at the same time.
Jen: Nice.
April: Yes. Well you know what time it is?
Jen: What time is it?
April: It’s Moonwatch! Play it!
April: Moonwatch. oh, it delights us every time.
Jen: Moonwatch. What’s going on with the Moon this week, April?
April: Well, it’s time for Last Quarter Moon because we had our Full Moon last week.
Jen: Our intense Scorpio Full Moon.
April: So we have our Last Quarter Moon at 24° 13 minutes of Aquarius on May 14th at 07:02 AM Pacific Time. And as you very wisely pointed out, I had one of the Sabian symbols wrong for this, so thank you for correcting that.
Jen: Oh yes.
April: The Sabian symbol for the Moon itself at the Last Quarter is for 25 Aquarius, “A butterfly with the right wing more perfectly formed.” It speaks of minor imperfections, but I liked the wording of it because it says the right wing is more perfectly formed.
Jen: It’s not saying there’s something wrong with the left one.
April: No. They’re saying, “This one is really exquisite.”
Jen: I like that.
April: Yes.
Jen: It’s like seeing it through a lens as flawless. Like the left one’s perfectly fine too, but the right one is even more fine.
April: It’s super, super good. So it’s a funny little symbol, but it does speak first of all of a little bit of imbalance as we’re moving through time.
Let’s go back to the idea of what the Last Quarter Moon is about at this point in the cycle. It is about looking back and just looking back. We tend to think of the lunar phases and think they’re all referencing their own cycle, they’re all referencing the most recent New Moon. That’s not always the case. The Last Quarter Moon is the Moon for reflection, for thinking back, for taking stock and keeping score. And that can mean your whole life. It doesn’t have to be confined to just this lunar cycle.
So it is a time of the month when often we’ll go, “Oh, how am I doing with my life? Am I meeting my goals? Am I getting things done?” And at the time that we’re in, when a lot of people’s plans have really been thrown off course because of the pandemic and all of that, it’s a kind of a poignant time to have a Last Quarter Moon because we’re going, “Oh, I had all these plans at the beginning of the year to do this and this and this. Maybe I’m going to get there, but it’s looking like maybe I won’t.” When I look at this Sabian symbol, I think, “Well yes, but where you’re getting to is going to be perfectly fine and it might even be better. It might be more perfectly formed…
Jen: I like that.
April: …than the plan that you had at the beginning,
Jen: I really like that a lot. That’s lovely.
April: Yes. So the Sun at this Last Quarter Moon, because again the phases of the Moon are a dance between the Sun and the Moon. And the Sun is at 25° of Taurus, “A large well-kept public park,” which we know we have spoken about recently.
Jen: Ah, I know we have, I just can’t remember exactly when…
April: We’ll find what episode and we’ll put it in the show notes, as is our wont.
Jen: April I remember you talking about, “Is the public park well-kept because nobody’s in the park because of the pandemic?”
April: Yes.
Jen: So it was recent.
April: Yes, it was. It might have even been a couple of weeks ago. And that’s what’s hard to know. But it’s well-kept, it’s for the public and it’s a place of leisure and a place to enjoy nature.
And it kind of really does fit in sort of nicely with that butterfly imagery as well. And it says, “Hey, when you get tough on yourself at this Last Quarter Moon as we’re apt to do… because you haven’t done this and you haven’t done that and you’re not being as productive with the downtime as you think some other people are being… And ‘Wow, this is the perfect time to finish my novel’ or whatever inner dialogue we have about what we should be doing with this extra time when we’re not commuting and all of that… Remember that there is a lot of value to leisure and it’s something that we don’t leave enough space for generally in our lives – at least in the United States. I haven’t had the pleasure of living in other countries to see how they’re doing it on a day-to-day basis. But we’re very driven here. You hear a lot of people here talk about being workaholics in a way I’m not sure is the case in a lot of other countries
Jen: Right.
April: So these images are lovely, slow, pretty images.
Jen: They speak of nature, which I like.
April: Yes. And of things being perfect the way they are and have open space for leisure, a public park.
Jen: Have you ever seen a butterfly take its first flight?
April: No. But I know that you guys do Monarch butterflies.
Jen: We have. It’s quite breathtaking.
April: I’ll bet it is. You know, here we are coming out of this Full Moon in Scorpio, which is coming out of that cocoon. That place we’re being formed into something new. And here at the Last Quarters the butterfly is fully formed. It’s taking off. It’s maybe flies a little bit weird, because the right wing is more perfectly formed than the left.
Jen: It’ll still make it up into the sky though.
April: Exactly so. Exactly so.
Jen: Yes.
April: Well, finally for this week we wanted to talk about Jupiter turning retrograde This is just the month where everything’s going to turn retrograde.
Jen: It’s the parade of retrogrades!
April: Really, it’s the retro parade!
April: So, here’s our friend Jupiter. We’ve already got Venus turning retrograde. We’re going to have Mercury retrograde.
Jen: Saturn turned retrograde.
April: Right. So now Jupiter decides to join the party on May 14th at 7:32 AM Pacific Time. And it will turn direct in September, on September 12th. So again, the outer planets, the larger planets, Jupiter through Pluto are retrograde a lot of the time.
Jen: Yes.
April: So we’re really going to notice them around the day that they turned retrograde or direct. So, we will be retrograde on the 14th when we already have a Last Quarter Moon and so forth going on. And always, again with the retrogrades, it’s about going within. And Jupiter is a planet that is about awareness and growth. I thought it seemed like a really apt time to be studying independently. And the nice thing about this quarantine time has been the many opportunities to study online.
Jen: Yes. And with Venus going retrograde too… maybe relearning things that you want to pick up again.
April: Yes. And in the case of Venus in Gemini, it is of the nature of things that are purely for pleasure probably, and also quick.
Jen: Okay.
April: Like a webinar instead of a course, for instance. Whereas Jupiter turning retrograde is much more about “What do I believe about the world?” So it’s asking the big questions. And I was telling you before we started recording that I was born with Jupiter retrograde. And the way that I’ve experienced this is from the time I was very, very small, I knew what I believed about the world. I knew that I believed in reincarnation before I knew of the word.
Jen: Wow.
April: I just had the sense. I think sometimes when you’re born with a planet retrograde, you come in with a lot of knowledge about it and it’s a question of tapping into that resource from the inside. So, it’s a good time to study important things and it’s probably a little better than Venus retrograde in Gemini for longer courses of study, but it does speak about self-guided studies… because that’s the retrograde part.
Jen: Got it.
April: Something inside you needs to guide you through the understanding of it.
Jen: Your inner compass.
April: Yes. So going back to the idea of rulerships, which we talked about some episodes ago, the Venus turning retrograde is going to be very significant for people with planets in Taurus or Libra because those are the signs ruled by Venus. And people who are born with lots of things in Sagittarius and Pisces will really feel this Jupiter turning retrograde because Jupiter is their ruling planet. So that is through September 12th.
Jen: So looking backwards and self-reflection. Is that how you see that?
April: Yes, definitely. And also the sense sometimes of going backwards and sometimes it can be frustrating. Sometimes it’s like, “Wow, I’m really trying to move forward along some particular path. And I keep having to backtrack because I forgot to do this part of it or I need to learn a little bit more about this before I can go on to that.”
So just knowing that your ruling planet is turning retrograde is a signal to you a couple of times a year when it goes retrograde and then when it goes direct, that your life works on this timetable of retreat and then going forward.
Jen: Sure.
April: And you’re just more susceptible to that. The Venus people… Venus is only retrograde every 18 months or so, so they don’t have it as often.
Jen: Therefore, people that are either Leo or Cancer… the Moon and the Sun – which rule those two signs – never go retrograde, so they might have that sensation less.
April: Because we’re fabulous!
Jen: Like April here wearing her Leo shirt.
April: I’m wearing my Leo-colored shirt and I’m making the upstretched fabulous arms.
Jen: If you all could see her right now!
April:
Jen: She’s throwing her arms into the air.
April: I am. We’re never retrograde. The Sun is always here for you, shining day in and day out.
April: Hey, I wanted to mention something really quickly.
Jen: Please do.
April: And it kind of connects to both Gemini and Jupiter in a very self-serving way.
Jen: Go for it.
April: My book Astrological Transits… somebody wrote to me over the weekend and said that on Amazon it’s showing as not available until like July 21st or something.
Jen: Oh geez.
April: And they wrote to say, “Oh, are they doing a new edition?” And they’re not. But I think that my publisher for that book, I know had some of their binding done in China. And I’m wondering if that’s part of the issue right now that maybe it’s harder to get copies of the book.
I just want to point out, it’s not a new edition. So if people can find used copies through Amazon Marketplace or something, that would work. And if they can’t find one anywhere… I have some copies. I have a few copies. So people can write to me and I’ll give it to you for my cost plus the cost of shipping and I’ll even autograph it for you.
Jen: Oh, what a deal!
April: I know! With my big purple sharpie that it is. That would be great fun. So I just wanted to mention that to people.
Jen: Not orange? Orange would be a Leo color.
April: Orange would be really fabulous. But purple… I don’t know, it just really pops!
Jen: Okay.
April: Alright my friend, that’s everything on the show sheet. Have we done it?
Jen: Once again, we have done it. You know what next week is, April?
April: No…?
Jen: How many episodes will we have done next week?
April: So it’ll be 26…
Jen: That’s half a year!
April: Holy cow! Well, how could that be? It’s just gone in the wink of an eye. Hasn’t it?
Jen: It sure has! Yes!
April: Oh my God. You see why I was always excited about 25, because it’s like our silver podcasting anniversary.
Jen: Oh, nice! I love that. Our silver retro parade!
April: People can send us aluminum foil if they liked to help us celebrate this momentous occasion. Well, it’s been a fabulous half a year with you, my pal
Jen: You too, April!
April: Well, thank you so much.
Jen: Absolutely.
April: Well, we would like to thank all of you for listening to the Big Sky Astrology Podcast. If you like what you’re hearing, be sure to subscribe so that you don’t miss a single episode. You could read show notes and full transcripts of each episode and leave your comments at our website, www.bigskyastropod.com. And we hope you’ll help us spread the word. Leave a rating and review in iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Tell a friend about the podcast, share it on social media, however you can. Help us get the word out, we really appreciate it.
Jen: We realize it’s tough times for a lot of folks financially. But if you’re someone out there listening, you enjoy our podcast, you get value from it and you’re able to toss a few dollars our way to help cover overhead costs… we sure would appreciate it. So go to www.bigskyastropod.com and toss us five bucks. Maybe toss us an extra five for a listener who can’t afford it this week. Thank you. We appreciate you all.
April: That’s a lovely idea. Thank you. And you will see our little avatars in the sidebar.
Jen: That’s April and I in our previous life.
April: Yes.
Jen: As pale sisters.
April: We were very wan and pale.
April: Well, 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.
That’s all for today. If you like what you’re listening to, please take a moment to rate and review this podcast and hit subscribe to stay current with new episodes.
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Thanks again for joining us, and we’ll catch you next time.
© 2020 by April Elliott Kent & Jennifer Braun
