Transcript: Episode 026 | Gemini New Moon and Six Months In!
May 18, 2020
Show notes and links hereJen: Welcome to the Big Sky Astrology podcast, with April Elliott Kent and me, producer and co-host Jen Braun. Hey friends, Jen here. Today is May 18th, 2020, we’re on our 26th episode. And of course, here with me for half a year is my good friend, astrologer April Elliott Kent. April, 26 episodes!
April: Can you believe it?
Jen: I can’t believe it. No.
April: A half a year. Yes.
Jen: Half a year.
April: Because it does not seem like it possibly be six months of doing this week in week out. But I listened to a couple of our first episodes last night.
Jen: You did?
April: Yes, in advance of talking to you today. And one thing that really struck me was your introductions used to be very low key. And now you just are Ms. Personality when you come on here! And one of the things that I have really grown to love of these episodes is I never know how you’re going to introduce me and it always cracks me up and it’s just one of those little pleasures of doing this.
Jen: That’s great.
April: Yes.
Jen: How funny. I remember being really nervous that first episode.
April: Oh, I think we both were! I thought it actually held up pretty well. I was happy to listen back to those. But you do see quite an evolution as you always do in these kinds of shows of the tempo of it and how we approach things. And we cover a lot of ground in our episodes. And in those first episodes, I don’t know, it felt like maybe either we weren’t covering quite as much or at a different pace or something. It definitely sounds different. But some of the things that are consistent over time, we have that beautiful introduction that you do at the beginning and that beautiful ending with that song we love so much.
Jen: Aww. Yes.
April: Sorry to my friend Natori who didn’t love that song quite as much, but I love that too.
Jen: I never get sick of it.
April: I don’t either. It sounds very Sag to me, just very open and big sky-ish. I really like it.
Jen: Yes.
April: So, what are some of your favorite moments that you’re remembering?
Jen: It depends what we’re talking about because if we’re talking about just flat out laughing, I have a couple that I really love. And one is the fifth episode which was “Unboxing Eclipses.” Where we start talking about your fancy Murphy bed. And I think that was the first episode where we really just got on a laughing streak.
April: Yes. We did. Our hilarity got the best of us.
Jen: Oh gosh. So that really cracks me up. And then Episode Eight, “Saturn and Pluto Need A Party.” Where you talk about Bob Ross. you said…
April: Was that that episode?
Jen: You said, “Have I ever told you about my love for Bob Ross?”
April: And you lost it.
Jen: And that was so delightfully unexpected. I just lost it. Yes.
April: You lost it. We had a lot of fun with that. With the episode artwork and our social media lady, Emily, did such a beautiful little gif for us on that. Oh, I forgot that was in that episode.
Jen: Yes.
April: And of course the one before that, “Saturn and Pluto Go to The Repair Shop.” And I was so in love with that Repair Shop show, which I still am and Netflix still refuses to give us more seasons of it.
Jen: You can always watch “Queer Eye.” That’s the Repair Shop for people.
April: Right, you keep telling me about that. I keep forgetting. I’ve got to add that to my queue.
Jen: Watch season one episode one and see what you think. Because I remember really loving that.
April: Well, I have learned to heed your recommendations and people will have heard many fine recommendations from, I think, both of us over 26 weeks, talking about our great love of various Netflix shows especially what we’re watching. So, I will put that in the queue.
Jen: I would like to plug Episode 21 right now.
April: Which one was that?
Jen: “Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable Signs a la Modalities.” Because in that episode, I randomly asked you about the modalities and you did the most beautiful job describing the modalities. And if anybody’s listening who hasn’t heard Episode 21, you really need to go back and listen. Because it gave me a new understanding for the way the Zodiac works.
April: Awesome. Thank you.
Jen: Thank you.
April: I’m really glad. And I know we did a little cheat sheet on that. We have a few cheat sheets that we’ve offered over the 26 episodes.
Jen: Yes.
April: So we were talking about some of the titles that we liked. The best of our episodes.
April: Well, the all-time favorite for me is “Mercury Retrograde: Where Are My Pants?” which you have to really, you have to listen to that whole episode, because it comes at the very end… It really, it was a cheat. It really had nothing to do with the episode, but it was a great line. So, of course that had to be the name. And there was the one of the Cazimi mind or hearts or something. What is that title?
Jen: “Retrograde Minds, Cazimi Hearts, Can’t Lose.”
April: Excellent.
Jen: Episode 14.
April: Yes, yes, our tribute to… Oh I should watch “Friday Night Lights” again.
Jen: Oh, “Friday night lights,” which is where that title comes from.
April: Yes. Well, I mean that’s almost apropos again because we’re going to go into Mercury retrograde season next month.
Jen: Yes.
April: But, oh that cameo from your parents.
Jen: Oh yes.
April: That was a highlight.
Jen: Well, of course I love that.
April: And that’s been pretty recent. But I don’t even have your bias and I found it one of the most delightful highlights of the entire podcast to date. So that was one of them.
Jen: That’s such a sweet thing to say.
April: No, I really felt that it was lovely to hear them and everything your mom had to say. But of course I did love our little harp way-back machine sound, which I’ve heard on podcasts through the years and always got a chuckle out of it. So I was so excited to introduce that. We’re getting fancy with our sound effects, Jen.
Jen: Yes. Super fancy. And then I use the “way-back time machine” in the essay that I wrote for The Big Sky Astrology website because the “way-back time machine” is just such a great name.
April: It really is.
Jen: I just like that.
April: And if anybody didn’t catch Jen’s essay that we had on the website at the Full Moon in Scorpio, definitely go into my website, bigskyastrology.com and find it. Because it was lovely and it really talked about your personal journey with your injury and so forth, but in a way that really illustrated important things about the Scorpio Full Moon. I know people really enjoyed it and it was just wonderful to have you on the website.
Jen: Thank you April. It was an honor. Because I know you have not ever had anyone else writing on your website.
April: No, I really don’t think I have.
Jen: It was very nice of you to have me on there.
April: No, that was my pleasure. In fact, we’re coming up on the 20th birthday of bigskyastrology.com
Jen: Wow.
April: Yes. Because I started the website in 1999 but I didn’t register the domain name until June, I think it was June 10th of 2000.
Jen: Aww.
April: Yes. So I’ll be doing a bit of a retrospective about the website.
Jen: That’s fantastic.
April: I know, 20 years, that’s crazy.
Jen: It’s a long time.
April: It’s long enough to grow a full adult person.
Jen: It is.
April: So in all that time, I think you were the only guest author on bigskyastrology.com
Jen: What an honor. Thank you.
April: It was my pleasure to share your lovely essay with the people.
Jen: Our people.
April: So if you have all been listening to The Big Sky Astrology Podcast, I hear from so many of you, it’s so wonderful when I have readings with people or people email me about anything. And inevitably the coda is, “I’m loving the podcast.” It’s wonderful to know that you’re all out there, that people actually are listening to us week after week. And if you feel moved to do so, please consider leaving a review on iTunes. And I know we mention this every week, but there’s a really good reason for it. It’s not just vanity, although of course it tickles all my Leo planets. You want to see lovely feedback there, but it’s really for a very important reason, which is things that are more highly rated on iTunes that have reviews do tend to get moved up in visibility on iTunes.
And when people are looking for astrology podcasts, we want every way that we can find to have people find us.
Jen: Absolutely.
April: So when you do that, it’s helpful.
Jen: And it’s free, so it doesn’t cost anything. It’s a way that you can support the podcast without having to dig into your wallet.
April: Yes. And we would appreciate it. And I just love your comments that you’re leaving on the blog. The emails I get, just let us know you’re out there. We love having names to put with the statistics that we see from our podcast every week. So thank you.
Jen: We wouldn’t have a podcast if we didn’t have listeners, so we’re grateful for you.
April: We definitely are. Well. Should we talk about astrology do you think?
Jen: I think we should talk about astrology because that’s really why we’re here after all.
April: Well Jen, we are officially going to be entering Gemini season.
Jen: Gemini season. Yay!
April: I love that sign. As you know, I’ve got the Moon there and when we say Gemini Season, we’re really talking about the Sun moving into the sign of Gemini on May 20th at 6:49 AM Pacific Time. It joins other planets there. Mercury is already there. Venus is already there. The North Node is already there. That’s a lot of Gemini energy.
Jen: And the Moon’s going to be there very soon.
April: Yes, we will have the New Moon there which we’ll talk about in a couple of minutes. So it definitely is the season of Gemini. And we’ve gone from a few weeks ago we were talking about how there was nothing in air signs in the sky and it was all earth and it felt a little bit heavy. And now we’re moving into quite a few things in air, because we’re getting quite a cavalcade of planets in Gemini. We’ll end up with five planets and points there along with Saturn still in Aquarius for a minute or two, so we’re actually getting quite a lot of air in the sky. Which speaks of a lighter energy, a more communicative and it’s an easier atmosphere I think for sharing ideas and talking about things and it’s a little ungrounded. We’re a little weak in the fire element at the moment. Not a lot going on there.
Jen: The Gemini energy reminding us to be clever and curious and adapt to change. Right? Go with the flow.
April: I think adapting to change is something I would really take away from what you just said, and say, that is a key concept for Gemini.
Jen: Okay.
April: For all of the mutable signs. Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces, adaptability is their watch word. These are times that are really asking a lot of us asking us to improvise and find new ways of staying in communication with each other for instance, which is something Gemini really likes. And ways to find variety in our day, which is getting hard. We’re recording this as of May 11th and the quarantine is still at least where I’m at in California, still going pretty strong. And getting a variety of experiences can get a little bit challenging currently. Our Gemini planets might be feeling a little bit frustrated, let’s say.
Jen: Right.
April: After entering Gemini on the 20th and a couple of days later on the 22nd, the Sun makes a trine to Saturn in Aquarius. And the Sun will be at near enough to 2° of Gemini, which happens to fall on my seventh house cusp. The Sabian symbol for this degree took me by surprise because I thought I had gone through my chart really thoroughly and looked at all the Sabian symbols, but I’d kind of missed this one. And it’s “Santa Claus Filling Stockings Furtively.” It’s the first of two Christmas-oriented Sabian symbols we’ll look at this week, which I think is kind of fun. Santa Claus filling stockings. I think we could just take on the surface as meaning ‘Good things coming our way.’ And we associate that with trines as well, and it’s the Sun trine Saturn.
Jen: It could be unknown gifts.
April: It could be the gifts that are coming to us as a consequence of being in these circumstances that we might not have really fully appreciated until now.
Jen: Oh, that’s really great. Now that you know that this is on your descendant, how do you see this playing out in your life?
April: Well, I am married to somebody who has been very, very giving and supportive of my career. Yes, “Santa Claus filling stockings” suits, I think, my partner at least. Yes. It was kind of fun to notice that I hadn’t really paid attention to that before.
Jen: Yes, that’s great. After all these years to find something new in your chart.
April: I like him. We are coming up on our 27th wedding anniversary.
Jen: Wow.
April: On May 30th.
Jen: Okay.
April: So much for those who say Gemini is flighty and flaky and won’t last. Because my descendant, which represents marriage and partnerships, is in Gemini and we just keep chugging along.
Jen: Yes.
April: So Venus is of course in Gemini.
Jen: Yes she is.
April: Which we talked about quite a bit in the last couple of episodes on the podcast. And it will make its second square to Neptune. We talked about the first one which happened on May 3rd. I think it was Episode 23 “Talking Taurus and the Void-of-Course Moon”?
Jen: Correct.
April: And we went into some detail about what we could expect from the three squares between Venus and Neptune. The first one was on May 3rd, then we have this one on May 20th and the last one will be on July 7th. We talked about this for several episodes, right? Because we talked about it a bit in Episode 21, “The Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable,” which you talked about.
Jen: We set it up in that episode.
April: And on Episode 22, we talked about that as well as Venus being out of bounds, which is an interesting concept, so people want to hear more about that. You can go back to Episode 22 which is “The Taurus New Moon and Venus Gone Wild.” We’ve kind of been talking about this combination of planets for a while. So we’re not going to go into a lot of detail about it today, other than just to note it is happening on May 20th at 4:02 PM Pacific Time. And if you want to stick a pin in May 3rd and just go back a couple of weeks and think “What was happening?” Especially with relationships and money, what were the things that were standing out to you?
Jen: Yes. It’s a series of events or themes playing out across a timeline like so many things in astrology are.
April: So this is the latest installment in an ongoing epic series of Venus and Neptune of trying to get some clarity, trying to see things for what they are, and it’s especially about Venus things, relationships of all kinds, so not just romantic relationships. Relationships with friends. A lot of relationships are really changing in interesting ways during the quarantine because we’re having to make more of a concerted effort to connect with people, which is probably a good thing. We’re having to adapted to different environments like Zoom calls or whatever it is. And we can’t rely on some of our old routines and patterns with people because so much has been changed up. It is an opportunity and a way to take a fresh approach to how we’re relating to the people closest to in our lives, I think.
Jen: We just have to see through the pea soup right now.
April: Oh, gosh, it is very foggy. Well, you know what time it is?
Jen: What time is it?
April: It’s Moonwatch!
Jen: Should I play it?
April: Yes. Play it!
April: Well, that of course is another thing that has just given us such pleasure. From the very beginning, we knew that Moonwatch needed to be cornerstone of our podcasting content and we felt that it needed something in the way of an exciting introduction. So at first, we improvised verbally.
Jen: Indeed.
April: And it was always such fun to see that come back from the transcriptionist who transcribes our episodes.
Jen: A few people have said to me that they used to enjoy when we would make our own drumbeats and whatnot because they would sing along with us or hum along or do the drumbeats with us. So that’s kind of cute.
April: Well now they can giggle along. This is because we giggle and…
Jen: We giggle through the whole process.
April: Yes, every single time we play the Moonwatch theme. So this week, it is a New Moon.
Jen: And I would like to give a shout out to my uncle who is going to be having a birthday on the same day as the New Moon. My cousin contacted me to say it would be his birthday. So you know who you are, my dear uncle, I love you and happy birthday.
April: Aww, happy birthday. And isn’t that an auspicious birthday to have on a New Moon?
Jen: Yes, indeed.
April: It really gives a fresh new energy, a year of new beginnings and I love it. Exciting.
Jen: Yes, it’s awesome. I have a lot of great Gemini people in my life and he is one of them.
April: Yes. They stay young even as they age. And they are delightful.
Jen: That would describe him well. Yes.
April: So this New Moon is at just over 2° of Gemini on May 22nd, 10:39 AM. So, it’s just a few hours after that Sun trine Saturn.
Jen: Yes.
April: We’ve come full circle Jen, because we started at a New Moon in Sagittarius.
Jen: I know. And here we are, New Moon in Gemini.
April: I know.
Jen: Wow.
April: The Sabian symbol for this New Moon is 3° of Gemini, which is “The Garden of The Tuileries,” in Paris. And it’s another symbol we talked last week at the Last Quarter Moon. I think we had two Sabian symbols that really spoke of beautiful, open spaces…
Jen: In nature.
April: Yes. And here is another one. There’s much more, I’m sure, that we can say about the Tuileries. That’s a really, really fascinating garden and park with a very interesting history, but we’re not really going to go into that a whole lot today. I was telling you before we started recording that Lynda Hill, who’s a colleague of mine who really has made the Sabian symbols her life’s work – she is fascinated by them. She writes really eloquently about them and she visited us, gosh a decade ago or something, and stayed with us for a little while. And I remember her saying this was one of her favorite symbols, “The Garden of The Tuileries.” And when she saw that coming up in somebody’s chart, she always felt really happy for them.
Jen: Aww.
April: Because it spoke of a time coming of some beauty and leisure and it might actually literally be a time to get a garden going. I know a lot of people are talking about doing that. I think having the quarantine and suddenly everybody had that shock of, “Oh, you know, can I get the food that I need?” And that seems to have pretty much sorted itself out now. But I think it has revived people’s interest in being a little more self-sufficient in what they’re eating. I know Jonny has just built a fancy new compost system, this little box, and he’s going to have a couple or three different boxes where you sort of transfer them from one box to another. He’s got a whole system.
Jen: Oh.
April: He’s got a whole thing going out there with this Taurus Moon.
Jen: The gophers will enjoy that.
April: Oh gosh. The gophers! This is another thing that has been an ongoing theme over the last six months of this podcast and they have not gone away. However, he has a plan for encouraging them to find greener pastures.
Jen: Okay.
April: Other Tuileries where they can hang out…
Jen: It sounds like a whole other story.
April: It is. But the nice thing about this compost heap is it’s got a solid bottom. It’s like a plank of wood.
Jen: So the city doesn’t pick up your compost?
April: No. You’re thinking of San Francisco, they do all that stuff up there.
Jen: Oh, Minneapolis picks up our compost.
April: What?!
Jen: Oh yes. If you lived in Minneapolis, April…
April: I knew it was coming.
Jen: You know…
April: There it is.
Jen: …you could have your compost picked up right here in the alley.
April: Yet another running gag of our six months together. Yes, that is true.
Jen: I’m sorry. So Jonny’s making one out of boards, you were saying?
April: Yes. Just old wood that he had lying around and we had an old folding door that he cut down to size and put on the top to use as a lid. It’s like one of those accordion doors for…
Jen: How clever.
April: …closets. It was very clever. And it’s going to be wonderful and he’s determined to get a good garden going this year, gophers or no gophers, so this is part of that plan.
Jen: Good luck Jonny.
April: So the garden of the Tuileries. Yes, thank you.
Jen: I say good luck to you.
April: His Moon in Taurus, trine Venus, Mars and Virgo.
Jen: He’s just very earthy.
April: Born composter. Yes. .
Jen:
April: So this New Moon also has the Sun and the Moon, the New Moon point is trine Jupiter and Saturn, which are relatively close together as well as Pluto and it’s also square Mars. Taking all of that together, I think that there is a nice combination of flow and conflict. If you have some squares in a chart, it gives you some energy, some motivation to get things going.
Jen: It gives you some character.
April: Yes, exactly. It gives you some grit. So the trine to Saturn is nice.
Jen: Yes.
April: We’ll get a trine between the transiting Sun and Saturn a couple of times each year and it’s just an opening in the Sun’s journey to build something and build something that is dear to our hearts, that’s meaningful to us because that’s the Sun.
Jen: Okay.
April: So having the Sun in a nice aspect with Saturn just says, “Yes, this is a good New Moon for planting seeds of intention for building something.” Particularly over say, the next six months. And since it is Gemini and since it’s Aquarius, it can be things of the mind. If you’ve been wanting to write a book, now’s the time to get started. If you’ve been wanting to plan a course, this is a good time to start doing that. If you’ve been wanting to learn something, a new language or a subject in school that you find interesting, astrology, it’s an excellent time to do it. Because things in the air element have the quality of being about the mind and about learning. So this is a good time to be doing that, I would say.
Jen: Very good.
April: The square to Mars in Pisces says it could be a little bit hard to settle down to just one thing that you want to work on. That’s why the trine between the New Moon and Saturn is helpful. It gives you a little more tenacity, a little more staying power. But the combination of that New Moon point with the Mars in Pisces is a little bit hard to buckle down.
Jen: I’m thinking of scaffolding, so Sun and Saturn is like your own personal scaffolding.
April: I like that.
Jen: And Mars comes along and can hang whatever you want on it.
April: Yes. Or drop something from a high scaffolding to far below. And yet you know Mars in Pisces, we talked about last episode, maybe, Mars going into Pisces?
Jen: It was the last episode.
April: Yes. And about the strengths of that as well, of finding ways to reach out and be helpful to people.
Jen: It has kind of a humanitarian bent to it.
April: Yes, so that part is nice. When we have an emphasis in the mutable signs, as we talked about back in episode 21, mutable signs like to do more than one thing at a time. The danger is of not doing any of them particularly well because your attention is too divided. That’s the possibility with this New Moon. But on the plus side it can just be knowing that, “Hey, it’s okay to do at least a couple of things, but just don’t get carried away.” And I think Saturn is a good friend to us in this New Moon chart.
Jen: Yes. It feels like a really positive New Moon and coming out of that heavy Scorpio Full Moon couple of weeks ago, feels lighter… freeing maybe.
April: I think so. I think that that was quite a hard Full Moon for a lot of people. There was a lot of toxic and painful stuff that was being released and a lot of us got caught in each other’s shrapnel too, of hard emotions that were trying to find release and finding some kind of productive direction to go.
So yes, I’m with you. I think this is nice, this air energy and it does feel lighter. Mercury is together in this chart with Venus. Of course, they’re both making the square to Neptune, which I think is a good thing. I mean, I’m biased because I have Mercury square Neptune in my birth chart. And I remember reading things about that when I was getting started in astrology and they never had anything good to say about it. The implication would be that I am a liar and that sort of stuff. And it’s like, well no, actually on the contrary, kind of honest to a fault. And I think that speaks of the square. The square between Mercury and Neptune, it’s like always… I get these impressions with squares to Neptune that you’re fighting your way through the fog, but you’re fighting, you’re trying, you’re really trying to get clarity. So I like seeing Mercury interacting with the Venus/Neptune square in this New Moon chart.
Because we’ve really hit an important moment in this whole Venus/Neptune journey where we go, “Oh. Yes.” We came into this not really knowing what we didn’t know about certain situations in our lives. And now with Mercury there’s like, “Oh, this is what I need to be looking closer at. And these are the areas in which I may not have been super clear. I might’ve been fooling myself.”
Jen: Well, I think that’s a great way to look at it and it really kind of bugs me when you read astrology stuff and it’s being written from only one point of view that it has to be this terribly bad thing. Of course anybody’s birth chart or any transits, with any of the signs, there’s always a whole range of possibilities of things that could happen. I look at a birth chart as everything that’s possible. And if you’re only taking a narrow view of it, that’s not helpful.
April: No. And it’s a frustrating thing when you’re trying to write about astrology in a way that is specific enough to be useful, but intentionally vague enough to be applicable to a variety of situations. Because as you say, these things manifest in lots of different ways and it depends on the entire chart. It depends on the person’s biography. How were they raised? Where do we start out? And lots of different situations. And really a lot of it is to how you consciously decide to work with the energy that’s given to you. And knowing astrology is great because it at least gives you context and a way to focus on different parts of who you are. So you know where can improve if you’re willing to do some conscious work. And I think that’s astrology’s job is to help us do that. Not say, “Oh, you’re screwed because you’ve got Mercury square Neptune or the Moon in Capricorn or something in Virgo” or whatever it is.
Jen: Right on.
April: I think that astrologers are less apt to use that kind of limiting language in this day and age, or at least I hope they are…? You read a lot of astrology blogs and listen to a lot of podcasts….
Jen: Yes, but I drop the ones I don’t like, you know? If an astrologer is just taking one way of looking at something, I generally am not going to come back for another helping.
April: Yes. Fair enough. You had noted, and we talked about this a little earlier today about there being nothing in fire signs – in this chart, no planets. If we think about fire signs as being the energy of self-expression of the individual, it kind of makes sense that a lot of questions have been coming up in recent weeks around the shutdown and the pandemic and all of that of what is right for the individual as opposed to what is right for the collective? And I think that absence of planets in fire, which would be about the expression of the self, I know we talked before about when you have a lack of any planets in an element, sometimes that element actually gets accentuated in some way because you’re working so hard to access it, to find it. And fire can be a balance to air, and when you’ve got a lot of things in air signs, there’s naturally that element of fire that wants to emerge.
So I found that kind of interesting and thinking about it. And thinking, “Yes, where it is the self? Where does the individual get to express itself right now?” People who are in the performing arts right now, they’re really struggling to express themselves.
Jen: Yes, it’s been really hard for them.
April: They’re having to do it through video and this kind of thing. And I was listening to Marc Maron’s podcast this morning and he was talking about this and says, “Everything looks like an audition reel.” Because it’s very low-fi. The production quality is pretty low and things.
Jen: Yes. Even the late-night talk show hosts and stuff, doing everything from home and all of that.
April: And things like games and athletics and all of this stuff that we also associate with the fire signs. Ways in which we want to excel and compete and really distinguish ourselves. There just aren’t a lot of opportunities for that right now.
Jen: It’s being dampened right now.
April: It is. And it’s easy for me to think, “Oh no, there’s plenty of ways to express yourself.” But that’s because I have the Moon in an air sign. So the way I normally want to express myself is through words and language and thinking and writing and it’s very compatible with all of these planets that are in air signs.
Jen: I guess me too, with my Moon in Libra.
April: Right. Yes. I think it’s very frustrating though, maybe for people that are more aligned with those other areas of self-expression that we see in the fire signs… travel, with Sagittarius. That’s very frustrating. I’m kind of looking on Instagram and looking at the feeds of my friends who in the past constantly were traveling and it’s kind of poignant because I’m seeing them post pictures of their past trips and things like that and just trying to reclaim some of that. And the Leo people again who are, you know, can’t get up and perform. And the Aries people that can’t do the athletic things. And so, it’s kind of a hard New Moon for that.
Jen: April, do you have any suggestions or recommendations about how people can bring the energy of fire into their lives if they feel it’s missing right now? Wear red and be active.
April: There actually is something to that. Wear the colors of fire and burn candles – and you got to be safe with that and be careful with that. But I almost always have a candle going of some kind – fire magic is the magic for this time. And on the days that the Moon is in the fire signs – and again, you can subscribe to my mailing list and you get your lunar workbook, “Working with the Moon,” and that will tell you what days the Moon is in the fire signs. And on those days do a little extra something on your ritual space, just an extra yellow candle or whatever it is and just say, “I invoke the energy of fire and creative potential and this sort of thing.”
Jen: Yes. But be careful with fire, please, friends.
April: Oh, Yes. Absolutely. You have to.
Jen: Yes.
April: Oh my gosh. I have a story from last week.
Jen: What is that?
April: Well, I was making pot stickers on the stove and I was…
Jen: Oh, pot stickers. Okay.
April: Which were fantastic. But the oil kind of… because I was kind of flipping them around in the pan and a little bit of oil I think kind of fell out. We got quite an eruption…
Jen: Oh my gosh.
April: …Of flames. And it was actually pretty scary. So yes, fortunately it just died down, but we’re both just kind of like deer caught in the headlights and trying to figure it out.
Jen: Oh, wow.
April: Yes. Yes. Sort of like…
Jen: It could have been bad.
April: It could have been really bad. So yes, you have to be a little careful with fire for sure.
Jen: Yes. Have your fire extinguisher handy if you’re going to be using candles or any of that.
April: We realized that we do own a fire extinguisher, but it’s probably, we’ve had it forever, so probably kind of…
Jen: It’s extinguished.
April: Yes. It’s extinguished. It’s passed its efficacy.
So you had noted quite rightly that we’re a scant two weeks away from our next eclipse on June 5th.
Jen: Indeed, I did note that. We are two weeks away from the June 5th eclipse and I thought maybe you could help prep us a little bit for that. If there’s anything that we should know right now.
April: Yes. Well, the eclipse is going to be at 15° of Sagittarius and so if you have anything in your chart, any planets or the Ascendant or Midheaven or nodes between say about 11 and 19 of the mutable signs….
Jen: Which are?
April: Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius or Pisces. This is an especially important eclipse for you. And Venus, as you said, is heading back toward that point.
Jen: Yes.
April: Very often when Venus is retrograde, we will hear from people from the past, for instance, or have some remembrance of them. It could be you’re going through an old box of papers and you run across a letter from somebody from long ago that elicits certain feelings in you. And since it’s Venus retrograde, it’s of the nature of: how do I feel about myself? How do I regard myself? Do I value myself? Am I surrounding myself with people in my life that appreciate me and show me respect?
The eclipse point, this is going to be the beginning of this new year and a half of eclipses in Gemini and Sagittarius. And that definitely is an eclipse cycle that brings us to a critical point, a crisis point around the issues of what you know and what it is you need to learn.
What will often happen during these eclipse cycles for people individually I find is the things that we talked about when we talked about the nodes going into Gemini and Sagittarius, which was what episode? A couple of episodes ago. That challenge of letting go of certainty and letting go of the fact that you know everything about everything and being willing to entertain new ideas. And this has to do with relationships as well.
If you have been telling yourself stories for a long time about what you deserve in relationship or what your fate is related to relationships, this is going to be a really important eclipse, I think. An eclipse summer because we’re going to have several eclipses in a row, especially here in the beginning as Venus will be retrograde to really ask those kinds of questions. What is it that I think I know about my worth and about the kinds of relationships I can have? And what’s the new story that I want to tell? And what do I need to learn to have the kinds of relationship with myself and with others that I really want to have?
Is that helpful in any way?
Jen: Absolutely. And the Episode was 24, “Scorpio, Full Moon and Lunar Nodes for Grasshoppers.”
April: Ah, of course. So I do have an eclipse report that I wanted to put in a plug for here.
Jen: Please do.
April: Yes. It’s called “Followed by A Moonshadow.” And you can find that at my website. Go to bigskyastrology.com and in the main menu there, there is an eclipses tab. Click on that and it’ll take you to, not only information about the report, which covers three years worth of eclipses, so it’s a lot of information. But also a lot of essays and articles and tutorials that I’ve done in the past about eclipses. So there’s a lot there.
Jen: And it’s a great report. It’s something that you can’t get anywhere else. April created this. It’s not something that other people are selling. So if it’s something that interests you, I really encourage you to go to the website and check it out because it’s reasonably priced and it’s something you get that will be useful for years.
April: I had a bit of a shock over the weekend. I was processing some of these reports for people and on the back page I was looking at the copyright information – and I originated this report in 1995.
April: So it’s changed over the years quite a lot, but I got a bit of a shock. I said, “Wow, 25 years.”
Jen: Wow.
April: Is my math right? Is that right?
Jen: That’s correct. Yes, 25.
April: How could that be?
Jen: Time just flies my friend.
April: Well, there was one more thing we wanted to talk about. That is a sextile between Mars and Uranus on May 24th at 11:48 AM Pacific Time.
Jen: Break it down for us.
April: Well, Mars and Uranus, we did a whole episode on sextile aspects as well. Well, not a whole episode, but we talked about them a lot. We will refer you back to that.
Jen: Episode 16, “Let’s Talk About Sextiles.”
April: Oh, you’re very good.
Jen: Thank you.
April: Sextiles are always opportunities. They are an opportunity to get something positive if you’re willing to do a little bit of work. Mars being in Pisces and connecting with Uranus in Taurus says that it is the opportunity to take action because that’s Mars. And by doing that you get something that’s unexpected that you would probably not have thought to ask for. There is also an altruistic energy to this because Mars is in Pisces and wants to be helpful and kind and empathetic with people generally speaking, but wants to do something on behalf of people who are struggling.
Jen: Nice.
April: And that’s a lot of people right now. So if there is an opportunity you have to give to a cause or in some way assist in a cause that is important to you. This is not a bad week to do that because especially causes that are helping people or animals that are in need. I know a lot of shelters are really struggling because they either have too many animals because people don’t want to adopt right now or they actually are having a hard time “keeping them in stock,” we would say. Because a lot of people are willing to foster pets right now because they’re home. But when they go back to work, we are just going to have to see how that goes, whether they will end up with homes.
So I guess I’m just speaking from my point of view because animals are causes dear to my heart, so I’m looking at places that I can give a little bit of assistance financially or whatever. So that’s a possibility.
So this was where we saw the other Sabian symbol that had a Christmas theme.
Jen: Yes. How weird.
April: I know. And the Sabian symbol for Uranus this week is “A Christmas Tree.” And that just seems to go back to that Sun/Saturn degree that was about Santa Claus filling the stocking. So both of those, just without getting too deep about it, say, “Yes, this is a week to give. This is a week to reach out to other people that are not maybe doing as well as you are.” And also, it’s not a bad week to ask for help. If you’re needing help, if you’re struggling emotionally, if you are really worried financially about what’s going to be happening. If people care about you when they’re offering you help, getting past your pride and letting people give to you. That’s also, I think, in keeping with the Venus retrograde, letting people give to you and show you how much they care. But don’t be afraid to reach out because these are tough times and there are a lot of people out there that want to help.
Jen: For sure.
April: That’s what I will say about those lovely Christmas symbols.
Jen: I think that’s very kind and loving.
April: And you know, leave some cookies and milk out for somebody, I guess. Santa…
Jen: Said my friend over here with Venus in Cancer.
April: I know. I just want to bake for the whole world. What can I tell you?
All right, my friend. Well that’s everything on the show sheet. Have we done it?
Jen: 26 episodes. 26!
April: I’m proud of us, Jen. I’m proud of us!
Jen: Aww.
April: We had no idea how this was going to go when we…
Jen: No.
April: You had never heard of Audacity, which is the program we use to edit the podcast.
Jen: That’s right.
April: You had never heard of any of that.
Jen: I had never edited a thing.
April: No. And you just jumped right in with both feet. My goodness. I’m just so proud of you. I think you do such a beautiful job. I had somebody the other day who was commenting about the podcast and they really pointed out, I have to find this and send you the email, about how lovely the sound is, but it sounds really good and they love…
Jen: That’s so great.
April: A lot of people comment on how they like to listen to our voices.
Jen: Yes.
April: But you put a lot of work each week into the podcast. And I just want to salute you for that because you do a beautiful job.
Jen: Aww. Thanks April.
April: Because you have to sort through a lot of raw audio that we record and a ton of yukking it up, to make an episode. I just want people to know at the end of every episode we turn off the recorder and I say, “Is there an episode in there?” And we’re not sure, but darn it, you always come up with one. So I salute you my friend.
Jen: Oh, April, thanks. It’s podcast archeology.
April: It is.
Jen: I just dig around – my Scorpio planets love that…
April: They love it.
Jen: …I just dig around and find an episode.
April: Yes. Your Virgo planet love dusting it off and making it look good. So bless your heart.
Jen: My Libra planets love talking to you every week.
April: They do. Well, thank you. Well, we want 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 you don’t miss a single episode. You can read show notes and full transcripts for each episode and leave comments about each episode at our website, which is bigskyastropod.com, and we hope that you will help us spread the word about the podcast. Leave a rating or review in iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. Tell a friend about us, share it on social media, hire a skywriter, whatever is that you’d like to do. Get the word out.
Jen: To celebrate our half-birthday, my friends, if you’re able to, why don’t you take – and here I’ll suggest $26, that’s a dollar for each week – and give it to a good cause this week. Give it to an animal shelter. Give it to whatever you think. And that’ll create a ripple of love and good energy flowing out from the podcast out into the world. So that’s what I’m going to ask this week.
April: Aww, I love that Jen. Thank you so much. Well, join us again, bright and early next Monday as always. 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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© 2020 April Elliott Kent and Jennifer Braun
