EPISODE 45 | Podathon Day 4: A Thor’s Day Last Quarter Moon
Read the show notes for this episode here.Jen: It’s Podathon week on The Big Sky AstroloPodcast with April Elliott Kent and me, producer and co-host, Jen Braun.
Hey Friends, Jen here. Today is September 10th, 2020. And here with me to bring you the fourth day in our five day Podathon series is my friend, Astrologer April Elliott Kent. Happy Jupiter’s day, April.
April: Oh, thank you Jen. And you too.
Jen: Thank you very much.
April: That’s a really good point. Some people don’t realize that our days of the week take their names from the planets.
Jen: Yes, they do.
April: And this is Thursday was Thor’s day, which is pretty much the equivalent of Jupiter, so we respectfully acknowledge Jupiter on each Thursday.
Jen: And Thor…
April: And Thor for that matter…
Jen: Whichever one is the same, I guess.
April: Well, my sister had a cat named Thor, so I’m always honoring Thor on Thursday. Yes. So it’s a great day to do Jupiter things like learn or teach or take a chance…
Jen: Or contribute to a podcast that you love maybe?
April: Contribute to a podcast… Look at how you did that. That was very smooth.
Jen: Thank you, April.
April: Well, as you said in the introduction, we are on the fourth day of our first Annual Big Sky Astrology Podathon. What we’re doing this week is instead of the one 30-minute episode which we normally would bring you on a Monday, this week, we’ve been bringing you five mini episodes of about 10 to 15 minutes. I mean, 15 minutes. Let’s be honest.
Jen: Yes. Let’s be honest.
April: This week…we’re both very Jupitarian, so it’s hard for us to keep it concise. One episode each day through tomorrow, September 11. And our hope was that this format would give us the opportunity to share some different kinds of content with you especially the daily Moon and things like the days of the week ruled by the planets, but we also have an ulterior motive as well.
Jen: We have a secret agenda. As regular listeners know, at the end of each episode, we normally do send out an appeal for donations to help us cover the costs of producing the podcast. And we so appreciate those of you who’ve helped along the way. And we also know that not everyone can contribute financially. And that’s okay. We love you just the same, don’t we April?
April: We do. But what we would love to do in the months ahead is to replace or at least augment that little appeal that we do at the end of each episode to give a hearty individual shout out and thank you to each and every one of you who decide to donate to the podcast this week. We would love to just get it all done in one week and spend the rest of the year giving thanks to you.
Jen: Absolutely. And to encourage your contributions, we are offering a few incentives. First of all, we’re inviting donors of $5 or more to a series of four special podcasts at the equinoxes and solstices. So that’ll be throughout the year. And then second, everyone who donates $25 or more and this includes our current monthly pod-pals, thank you to all of you, you will be automatically entered in a drawing to win some delightful prizes.
April: One grand prize winner will win a 90-minute personal reading with moi.
Jen: Yes.
April: A $225 value. And then another listener will slightly less lucky but still pretty darn lucky.
April: Will get a 60-minute personal astrology reading with me. And that’s a $175…
Jen: Half hour less lucky!
April: That’s right.
April: Somebody with Jupiter in its detriment or fall, I bet. And then we’re going to have three runners up who are going to receive their choice of these beautiful computer-generated reports that I sell in my online store. I’ve got reports by Stephen Forest, we have a “Sky Log Transits and Progressions Report” that he wrote. ‘Sky Within’ which was a natal report, Mary Shea “Solar Return report” and my own “Followed by a Moonshadow Eclipse report.”
So the way we’re going to choose the winner Is my little kitten Toby is going to get tossed into a bowl with scraps of paper.
Jen: Tobster!
April: The Tobster! Each of them will have a name of a contributor who has contributed at $25 or more, and he will choose the winners from the giant bowl.
Jen: Do you think he’ll crumple them up? Will he play with them?
April: Oh, I will be crumpling them.
Jen: Yes.
April: And he will play with them. I can guarantee this. The question will be whether Violet’s going to get in the mosh pit and help out? It’s going to be a scene, I will tell you. But we will video it so everybody can see what’s going on.
Jen: That’s excellent.
April: So those are our plans.
Jen: We should probably mention, April, that we do have a deadline. Please do get your contribution in by Sunday, September 13th at 11:59 PM Pacific Time. And April will take care of them paper-crumbling mosh pit with her kitties.
April:
Jen: She’ll videotape it. It’ll all work out.
April: Yes, yes. And then we will send an email to everybody just to let you know if you’re a winner or if you’re just going to be joining us on our special episode for the equinox. And you should be getting that mailing on September 15th. We’ll also announce the winners on our regular podcast episode on the 24th, I think it is.
Jen: 21st.
April: 21st. We’re always a week off from everything. You should have seen us trying to work out the logistics of this Podathon. We don’t know what day it is.
Jen: It’s Jupiter’s day, April. It’s Jupiter’s day.
April: It’s Jupiter’s day. So how can I turn out badly?
Jen: Exactly.
April: Well now for today’s astrological highlights. And we begin today with Moonwatch…
Jen: Moonwatch…
April: Ooh, that was so haunting in its execution, Jen.
Jen:
April: Play it! Okay, well, that wasn’t terribly smooth, but we’re getting a little punchy at this point. Well today, we have a Last Quarter Moon at 18°8’ Gemini. That occurs at 02:26 AM Pacific Time on the Sabian symbol 19 Gemini, “A Large Archaic Volume.”
Jen: Ooh. I like that.
April: It sounds sort of erudite.
Jen: Pictured in a yellowed tome with…
April: It is a tome.
Jen: Feathery, papery delicate pages.
April: A little bit of gold flocking on the edge of the pages.
Jen: That’s Jupiter. Isn’t that Jupiter, gold?
April: I tend to think of that as Leo.
Jen: Okay.
April: Leo…
Jen: Leo…
April: Hey, I’m sure Jupiter take it.
Jen: Why not?
April: And I could be easily overlooking something. Well, this speaks to us of course of ancient knowledge, of knowledge that’s been passed down. And I always love the idea as an author myself of one of my books one day, being in a moldering old bookstore and some young astrological neophyte wandering along and picking it off a shelf and reading my words from way back when.
Jen: Oh, that’s so great. And I liked how excited you got because you were making hand motions and stuff. I just want people to know that because they can’t see.
April: Because they don’t have the benefit of watching this pageantry that we’re doing.
Jen: That’s right.
April: So I love the idea of that. It’s a pretty interesting Last Quarter Moon. Always at the Last Quarter, we have a square between the Sun and the Moon, because that’s sort of the definition of the Last Quarter. But we also have the Sun in an opposition to Neptune and they are both square the Moon. So we have a T-square configuration.
Jen: The Moon is in the middle?
April: Yes. And the opposite point to the Moon then would be the release point at that about 18° of Sagittarius. So we’ve also referred to it as the missing leg of the table, the spot that is kind of putting it off balance and needs to be filled. So what we will tend to fill that point with is Sagittarian energy. Which appropriate, we’re talking about that of course on Thor’s Day.
Jen: Absolutely.
April: And the Sabian symbol is “The Large Archaic Volume” so it’s all coming together. We talked a couple of weeks ago about phase families that our reader Celeste told us about,
Jen: Right. And I will link that in the show notes.
April: This is the conclusion of a phase family, the Last Quarter of a phase family that began in June of 2018. The First Quarter in that phase was March 14th 2019. The full Moon was December 11th 2019. So this is the final quarter of this phase family. We’ve talked about the Last Quarter before of being the finishing up time, the time of reflection, the time to decide what has gone well, and what has not gone so well.
Jen: And to bring people up to speed April, so the Moon phase from June of 2018 that started then was the beginning of a two-and-a-half year cycle that is now at its conclusion. That’s what you’re saying. Right?
April: Exactly. It began with that New Moon and June of 2018 at 22.44 of Gemini. And then every nine months, you get another major phase in this phase family.
Jen: Which is around the same degree?
April: Correct.
Jen: That’s fascinating.
April: Yes, it really is. It brings a whole other dimension. So we know the Last Quarter generally is about finishing up. It’s the time in the month where we reflect on what we started at the New Moon, the previous New Moon and saying, “Okay, how we coming along on a monthly level.” But we can also look back in the face family sequence and say, “Okay, we’re concluding something from June of 2018.” And that the energy of the Last Quarter Moon just in and of itself is about reflection. And it could be reflecting over the entirety of your life. If you have the ability to figure out where this 18° of Gemini falls in your birth chart…
And we do have a blog post that I wrote that we can link to in the show notes to help you with that process. Because I know it’s a little confusing when you’re getting used to looking at charts. But if you can identify where that point falls in your chart, you can really identify where this reflective process is going on and the areas of your life that you’re being invited to reflect upon and see how you’re coming on.
Jen: Got it.
April: On tomorrow’s episode, the Friday episode, we will be covering that Sun opposition to Neptune, because that’s the day that it will be exact. We’ll kind of go into that a little bit, but know that a little bit of the spirit of this Last Quarter Moon as well, that has a certain poignant quality to it often with Neptune. Also, it’s like a fog is lifting when the Sun is making this kind of aspect to Neptune.
Jen: I like that.
April: Today, the Moon is in Gemini all day long.
Jen: Alright. Tell us about the Gemini Moon and what aspects it’s making today.
April: I’m uniquely qualified to do so, being born with the Moon in Gemini.
Jen: You certainly are, my Gemini Moon friend.
April: This is my beat. The Moon in Gemini often gets a bad reputation as all the air sign Moons do of having no feelings. And the accusation is that we think more than we feel. And we’re two-faced and fickle and unfeeling and all of the rest of it.
Jen: Are you tossing me into that pot?
April: I am, because of the Libra Moon.
Jen: Yes.
April: The Libra Moon, as a Libra friend once pointed out to me, not you but another Libra friend, that it’s the only sign of the zodiac that’s symbolized by a machine.
Jen: Yes.
April: That was kind of that calibration and that could sound a little bloodless if you put it that way. And I don’t believe that that’s true. I think the sign that the Moon is in, whether it’s in your birth chart, or on a given day, like today, it talks about the things that you’ll feel very intuitive about and very emotional about. They are sensitive spots for you. And they also talk about how you process your feeling nature, your unconscious nature. An example I like to use with the Moon is if you come home after a long day of doing whatever you do… of course, now we’re all at home all day.
Jen: Right.
April: But in the before times, you would come home at the end of a long day, you’ve been working all day, you’ve been fighting traffic getting home, or whatever you’re doing. And you come home and what are the things that you do to settle down, to soothe yourself and to start to unwind? These are things that we will see in your Moon sign.
Jen: I like that description. And that putting it into concrete terms like that. Because everybody can think about what they like to do at the end of a long day.
April: So what sort of things do you like to do with your Libra Moon at the end of a long day?
Jen: It usually involves dogs, petting dogs.
April: well, yes, if you’re a pet owner, it obviously goes back to that. I imagined parents, it all comes back to your kids as well.
Jen: Sure, yes.
April: Well with my Gemini Moon, the thing that I would do is, I would come home and immediately I would be checking email while the TV is on. And maybe I’m listening to a little snippet of a podcast and and and. It’s a rush of information and sounds and that would help me relax a little bit and untangle. It’s funny with a Gemini Moon, we’re good multitaskers and we think better if we’re multitasking. Because, if we don’t have to give all our focus to one thing, we can pay attention to both of them a little better. So it’s a day – I think we might have said this yesterday. Wasn’t the Moon in Gemini yesterday when we were talking on our episode?
Jen: It was. Yes.
April: Yes. And that this is a day when the world is talking to us. When we are in dialogue with the world. Pay special attention to the sounds around you in nature. Listen to people in your household a little more carefully. If you can, catch up on your emails, return phone calls, all of the rest of it.
Jen: Nice.
April: Now the Moon will not make uniformly smooth aspects today. And we know that because it’s the Last Quarter Moon day. So we know what the very least the Moon will be squaring the Sun, which it does at 02:26 AM Pacific. So our dream states might be a little bit restless since it’s happening early in the morning here in the United States, anyway. The Moon will be squaring Neptune at 05:17 AM. So those are its two squares, those are two kind of difficult aspects for the day. And all that means to me is you get the vision of fighting your way through a fog or shadowboxing. It’s like you’re engaged with some kind of nebulous forces. trying to fight your way out of it. It’s not a long aspect, it’s 05:17 AM maybe for a couple of hours. But it is not the best morning for tackling something that requires really clear thinking. So you don’t want to help hop out of bed and immediately start paying your bills or handling some really tricky transaction. So be careful if you’re driving to work with the Moon squaring Neptune.
But this Moon in Gemini ends on an up note. Its final aspect in the sign is a sextile to Mars and Aries at 9:48pm.
Jen: Okay. And sextiles are always opportunities?
April: Yes. And Mars is of course very slow right now. It just turned retrograde, and it is just sort of sitting still. And it’s like the Moon is coming along and, I don’t know, giving it a little kiss, I think, with that sextile. It’s got a really sweet image with it.
Jen: Yes.
April: It says, “It’s okay, buddy. I know that things are feeling hard and slow for you right now.” But the Moon in Gemini, nothing slows it down. It gets to maybe be the little emissary for Mars and carry some information before it from one place to another.
Jen: Could it be redo of an opportunity that was presented earlier that maybe you didn’t take advantage of. And now you can because Mars is retrograde and it’s coming back to you?
April: Possibly. With the Moon, it’s often a communication that comes. For instance, maybe you’re going through and sorting through your emails and you find something at the very bottom of your inbox that would have been a great opportunity, but you overlooked it or you thought, “Oh, I’ll get back to that.” So here’s an opportunity for that.
Jen: Okay.
April: Also just in your domestic life. Because the Moon as we said in an earlier episode does have to do with the public. And it also has to do with your domestic life and your domestic routine, and how smoothly that goes. On a day like this, there’s a little bit of confusion, maybe a little bit of miscommunication because this Moon in Gemini od squaring Neptune. But I like that it ends on the Moon sextile to Mars because it says within the family. there is an opportunity to resolve perhaps some disagreements which can be represented by Mars, or to come up with an idea of how to tackle something that you’ve been wanting to do as a family, because Mars is action oriented and we want to do this. Or, we’ve been talking about doing this for the longest time, then Mars goes retrograde, and we go, “Oh. Now maybe id the time to reconsider that.” Depending on where you live, and if things are opened or closed, or how you feel about being out and about or any of it.
Jen: That’s good information.
April: Thank you Jen. It is all still a little complicated, isn’t it?
Jen: As it usually is.
April: But it’s lucky Thursday.
Jen: Exactly.
April: And we’re ending the day on a sextile to Mars.
Jen: And just a quick note that if folks want to go back and listen to yesterday’s episode, Mercury’s episode that would have been on Wednesday, right, April? April, talk even more about the Moon in Gemini and you can hear more about that at that episode if you missed it.
April: How appropriate that we were doing that on Mercury’s day.
Jen: Yes. Very.
April: Yes. Alright. Well, that’s everything we have on our show sheet. We do want to thank you for listening to the podcast. And if you like what you’re hearing, we hope that you will subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. That seems to be the thing that makes the biggest difference in helping people find us and it’s totally free. You can leave us a rating or review and help us spread the word. Tell a friend about the podcast.
Jen: And this is the fourth day of our first Annual Podathon. Your kind donations will help us keep the podcast coming to you each week. To contribute, please go to bigskyastropod.com. Anyone who donates $5 or more will receive access to the special episodes. Anyone that gives $25 or more will be entered in the raffle that April talked about at the beginning.
We want to thank everyone on the air in the months to come. If you do not want us to mention your name, will you please email April. And her email’sapril@bigskyastrology.com and we’ll also mention it in a thank you email that you’ll have coming to you.
April: We want to respect our listeners with Scorpio planets.
Jen: Of course, your Scorpio rising co-host understands.
April: Yes. Alright. Well, thank you all so much. Join us again bright and early tomorrow morning for the last in our Podathon spree. 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 bigskyastrology.com or 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. You can follow Big Sky Astrology on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @bigskyastrology. Thanks again for joining us and we’ll catch you next time.
© 2020 by April Elliott Kent & Jennifer Braun
