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A
In this webinar, I want to talk about the birth chart as your life story and as your fate or life narrative and how it describes those things in a broad, overarching context. So ancient astrologers conceptualized astrology as the study of fate. And that's actually why the subtitle of my book is Hellenistic the Study of Fate and Fortune. Fate itself was conceptualized as an ordered sequence of events that was arranged in accordance with a divine plan or purpose. So the second century astrologer Vettius Valens used an analogy actually, where he said that each person is like an actor that's in a play and in a Stoic context. He said that each of us must play our part the best we can, whatever our role is in life to, because each of us has different roles in the overall grand scheme of things. So in this context, the birth chart becomes sort of like a map or a guide to understanding what your life narrative is. And it asks or helps to answer, what am I doing here? Or what makes my life unique compared to other people? So while the chart itself, you know, you can use a lot of highly technical techniques to look into minute details in the chart through paying attention to, like, smaller measurements or different timing techniques. Sometimes I find it really useful to zoom out and to look at the life as a whole and look at the big picture of the birth chart and what it says about, you know, what is the overall narrative arc of a person's life? What areas of the life are a major focus compared to other people? What are the areas in a person's chart or a person's life where they experience luck or good fortune versus what are the areas in a person's life where they experience challenges or even misfortunes or bad fortune? How do different timing techniques indicate when certain events in the person's life will unfold? These are the big picture questions that interest me the most in astrology. When you pull up either a celebrity chart and you can kind of get a big picture overview of the overall narrative of the person's life and the things that are known about that person publicly, or even just looking at individual charts, when you can talk with a client or talk with another person about their birth chart and truly start to hear the person's life narrative come alive in this really unique way through the lens of the birth chart. Every time I look at a chart, I love doing it because I love learning about the life story of an individual. And there's something about that which is something we all get through, let's say. Those of us who enjoy reading a biography about a person, or even a famous person, a celebrity, there's something inherently interesting in learning about something, somebody's life that you're interested in. But doing that through the lens of astrology opens up this whole other context in helping to truly understand the person's life narrative and their fate. So within this context, today, I'm going to do a series of birth chart readings with patrons of the Astrology podcast who signed up through my page on Patreon. And I've asked them to write out one to two sentences and as a synopsis about what makes their life story distinctive or unique in some way. And then I'm just gonna go through and do some little mini consultations, talking to people about their chart and their life and asking them questions about their life story in order to understand how the birth chart itself matches up in different ways or describes their actual lived experience. And so I just want to do that today because I genuinely enjoy talking to people about their lives, and also because I learn a lot every time I read a new chart. You learn something in the process of doing that. And I've always told people when I teach astrology that that's one of the big secrets, is like an astrologer learns something new every chart they look at. Even if the chart has placements that they know how to interpret or placements that they've seen before in the past, there's always something unique about the specific manifestation of a person's life. And I find that really interesting each time to see and actually hear the unique manifestation of specific placements in the chart. So these live webinars, if you're watching this later on YouTube, are one of the benefits of signing up through my page on Patreon. So if you'd like to get access to attending one of these in the future and get your chart read, then you can sign up@patreon patreon.com TheAstrologyPodcast it's actually patreon.com AstrologyPodcast yeah, so why don't we just jump into it then? And then I'll sort of expand on some of these themes and add some commentary later as we go. All right, so let's go ahead and talk to the first patron that I was gonna talk to, whose name is Charlene. Hey, thanks for joining me.
B
Hi, Chris. Thanks for having me today.
A
Yeah, thanks for being a guest. So you already gave me your birth data, so I'll put up the chart. You were born September 6, 1979.
C
Right?
B
Yes.
A
Okay, so let me share the chart and then let me know if this looks correct. You have three degrees of Pisces rising.
B
Yes.
A
Okay, awesome. And in your synopsis you said that you were adopted by extended family as your birth parents were 14 and 13 years old at the time of birth and you were gifted and attended college at 16. Your parents thought you'd be a lawyer, but you wanted to be a musician and you ended up in admin ops. So, yeah, let's talk about it, I guess. First let's set up the things with the chart itself. You have Pisces rising. The ruler of the Ascendant is Mercury. It's in Virgo, in the seventh whole sign house. In the place of relationships and partnership, you have a whole stellium of planets there, including the north node, the sun and Saturn and Venus. So that's a lot of concentration in the seventh house of relationships. This is a day chart. So I would expect your most positive planet would be Jupiter, which is in the sixth house of work and health and also subordinates. And then the most challenging planet is Mars, which is in the fifth house, which is usually the place of children, creativity to some extent, leisure activities and other things like that. Oh, yeah. The last thing is your moon is opposite your sun and the sun is near the nodes. So you're actually born the day of a lunar eclipse in Pisces. So you are a. I was a lunar eclipse birth, which is pretty, pretty
B
cool, I think so. My 13 year old daughter says that I have lore in regards to just my life in general and all the things that I, I guess all the stories that I tell are just about being me.
A
Yeah. So you got a lot of stories. I mean, you know, having eclipse birth means that eclipses would be particularly important for you. And probably some of the most important events in your life have happened within seven days of an eclipse during an eclipse season. So that's something we can get into. But why don't we start at the beginning with, I guess your primary unique thing at the beginning was just that you were adopted by extended family at birth, right?
B
Yes, my great aunt and uncle. I'm sorry, my great grand aunt and uncle. So by blood, my dad and my great grandmother are brother and sister by blood.
A
Okay.
B
And they had me since I was four days old and they legally adopted me at two years old. And I remember like the entire thing.
A
You remember the process of, of them adopting you.
B
I remember adoption day. I was in a plaid skirt with a black vest and, and a little bow blouse. I remember riding the glass elevator up the stairs. I remember being in the courtroom. People's Court was really popular back then and I was going take it to court, which was like the little slogan from People's Court from the commercials. And it was getting a chuckle out of like the courtroom. So I always like to get a chuckle from a crowd. And even at that age I remember that feeling of everybody laughing with me, going, take it to court. But I. I have memories going back to whenever I was a baby, before I could even speak. I remember feeling things that I could not describe. I graduated high school at 16. I went to college at 16. I have been known for basically like my intellect. And my parents always viewed me as like this big gun that really didn't quite go off because they thought that I was going to be like a senator or an attorney. Somebody that really liked the talk. If you can't tell, I'm still talking. But I got bit by the music bug at 12 and did a hard pivot into the arts and music and went to school as a trumpet major and then switched to being an opera major. So I have a degree in opera.
A
Okay, that's what you meant. Is that what you meant at the end by admin ops?
B
Um, admin ops is me not using my degree. I'm an administrative person, basically an operational administrative person. So I've been managing or managering in an administrative capacity, operational admin. So things behind a computer. I worked in finance for 22 years and actually now I'm in manufacturing. But it still is a position that is behind a computer, administratively running the background of my plant.
A
Got it. Okay, so the Virgo stellium is definitely coming out with Mercury in its own sign in Virgo, along with that whole stellium and just Mercury being the strongest planet in that stellium and therefore the intellectual abilities as well as the detail oriented abilities of Mercury and Virgo really excelling there.
B
Yes, it seems that way. That's how I get paid. That's my profession. But I still do music stuff. I'm in a band, I'm a vocalist and I've. I've continued to do music things, you know, since I've left college and graduated college. But it never was a paid kind of gig. It was just a little bit of money, if any money at all. It's something that I do as a hobby more than my career. I'm. I'm an administrative person that's in my career probably forever.
A
Got it. Okay, so you work then for a company or for Somebody else in most context or have most of your career?
B
Yes. I've never been anything entrepreneurial y or had any kind of gig work. I've always worked for somebody else, and I prefer it that way.
A
Got it. Yeah, that makes sense. I think I misspoke. And I said the ruler of your ascendant was in the seventh at the beginning, but it's not because your ascendant is Pisces. So the ruler is Jupiter, which is in Leo in the sixth house, which is usually, like I said, the place of work and service. And that's actually your most positive planet. So it's like the signature of almost somebody that works in that capacity for somebody else, but in that area, does well or excels or actually has enjoyment and good fortune in doing that.
B
It seems like it. And all of my Jupiter returns, which will be happening again this summer when Jupiter goes back into Leo, have signified some sort of leveling up in my career or my job at the time. And currently it looks like it's happening again.
A
Okay. Yeah. At the very beginning, you said that when you were 12, that was when you made the switch from the initial aspiration to doing music. And 12, of course, would have been a Jupiter return, which is relevant for you and your overall life direction, since Jupiter is both the ruler of the 10th House of Career and life direction, as well as the ascendant in the first house.
B
Yes. And when I got to studying astrology and one of the cycles that I studied at first was the Jupiter cycle, it was very tied into my career. And I could take it back even all the way to the age of 12, where I made a hard pivot of wanting to be an attorney up until that point and to write into the arts. Going into music that year, it was a very hard pivot, and it was shocking. It was shocking to me, honestly, and it was shocking to my parents as well.
A
Yeah, it's interesting how you have Neptune as one of your more angular planets, like right on the midheaven. I mean, aside from Mercury in the seventh, Neptune is your most angular planet, with your midheaven at 15 sag and your Neptune at 17. So it's interesting that when Jupiter, the ruler of that got activated, that you had this impulse to go in more of an artistic direction as. As opposed to the more analytical, argumentative direction of the Virgo placements.
B
Yeah, I still never lost that analytical, argumentative piece of me, but I just didn't want to make a career out of it.
A
Okay. So in terms of big picture stuff, though, why Are so many planets in your seventh house? And what is the role of relationships in your life or partnership or one on one interactions with other people? That sort of accounts for having so many planets in the seventh house at this point.
B
This was one of the things that actually drew me to astrology because I feel like my ultimate role is as a connector. A connector to people that I need to make heavy, deep connections with almost everybody that I befriend. And then I continue to stay friends with these people for an extended period of time. I have a lot of friends still from grade school. My internal clique has been with me for like 35 years. And we just hold on to these relationships. And once I befriend you, then you're just a part of my community. And there is a connection that is established that almost cannot be broken. It's almost like whenever you become my friend, you're like my family. And then there is a support that comes from that that I'm willing to provide you. And I like to kind of like collect people, like almost like Pokemon, you know, like different. A different cast of characters and different kinds of people, eccentric personalities and things like that. Each person serves a different person purpose for me. They are. They're all very different, but they all serve a purpose. And I. I stick with those relationships for a long time. But like, that connection that I have with people seems like it is a driving force just in my life. In totality.
A
Yeah. Of connecting with people individually and that being really crucial to you and also making them almost like family to you. I thought it was interesting how you described that just because you have the ruler of the fourth house of family and home and living situation placed there, that Mercury in the seventh house creating a connection. And that you would describe it like that is interesting.
C
Yeah.
B
And I tend to make a lot of friends through work. And there's something about the 17 connection, how it staircases from. You know, I have Venus at 17 and Pluto at 17 and Uranus and Neptune at 17. The way that it staircases up the. Up the wheel of the chart. I befriend people at work and they become my family. And it intersects to the tenth house as well. And it's like all one big flow. How I. I typically make friends at work and I keep them for a very long time. I have friends from my first job when I was 15 years old that I still keep in contact with today and work, close contact. But I. I tend to make a lot of my friends at work and I like to have a really good time at work. I'm a silly goose.
A
Nice. I love that. Yeah. That Jupiter placement in the sixth house in a day chart as your most positive planet is really shining through there as just an area that goes really well for you as opposed to. We could think about hypothetically a scenario where somebody has their most challenging planet in the sixth house and work is not an area of enjoyment for them or where maybe they don't get along with people at work or they feel isolated or what have you. You really have the opposite end of the spectrum. There's.
B
Yeah, I have a good time at work. I don't, I don't necessarily think that my work is very meaningful and I wish that it was. But what has a lot of meaning are the connections that I've made personally with the people that I work with. I feel like that I'm able to guide them not only like at their job and their function, but throughout their life. I, I'm guiding, giving them probably unsolicited advice and guidance as they just chit chat with me. But I have developed close relationships with all of the people that I work at at my current job and I kind of mentor them throughout their life, moments that they're dealing with.
A
Got it. Okay, that makes sense. So this is a thing I talk about with the ruler of the Ascendant, which is that whatever the planet is, that's the ruler of the Ascendant, the person will tend to become the avatar of that in their life. And if it's a challenging planet, sometimes they can bring about some of the difficulties in that area of the life on their own. Whereas in your case, since it's a positive planet, it's like part of your fate or your narrative or your life story is that you bring about positive experiences for other people in your workplace and you act as a positive influence basically for other people that are there. Because you're literally represented by Jupiter, the most positive planet in your chart, which is the ruler of your Ascendant in the sixth house of work. And that's actually a crucial, important role that you're playing in the world in some way and bringing about good things in the workplace.
B
That's a perfect kind of way to describe it.
A
Nice. Okay, I like that. What's the deal with the Mars in the fifth house as being a challenging area for you or how has that arisen for you at this point, if at all?
B
You know, I'm not really sure. I notice it more in transit more than I have in as a natal placement. When Mars Comes around every two years to kind of intercept my Virgo stellium. I always have some sort of calamity. I had my. My bestie from college pass from an overdose. I had my mom pass from als. I had my work dad pass of a heart attack. And this is all when Mars comes around and intercepts that Virgo stellium, like, every two years or so. There's always a big, like, meltdown crisis of something whenever the transit happens. But Natalie, a little bit hard to kind of tell being like. Like a relationship house. Well, I was single on purpose until I met my husband, until I was about 27 years old. I had a boyfriend early on in high school, and again, I was kind of like a brainiac and excelled at music and turned down some big scholarships to go to the same college as my boyfriend at that time. And then we ended up breaking up before I attended college. Didn't have any other scholarship opportunities at that point, so had to go ahead and go to the school where he was. And from that moment On, I was 16 years old. I was single until I was 27, the way that I wanted it. So no, real.
A
From the ages of what?
B
From the age of 16 to 27.
A
Okay. So that's a pretty big gap. So it's like, this is Mars. So I wouldn't normally think of that with Mars, but I've seen other people with Saturn in the fifth house or sometimes voluntarily celibate for a period of time, for example. And I don't know, that's almost sort of similar in some way because you're like, not okay, maybe I should totally gonna declare it.
B
I wasn't celibate. All right? I just was single. Okay. I just was single. And. And I liked it that way. That was a fun time. You know, I had a stable of people that I could pick and choose who I wanted to actually hang around. And that was a fun way for a young person to live that had the vitality that I had back then. I'm 46 now, but back then, that was a fun way and a choice to live like that. And maybe I could attribute that a little bit to Mars being in the first house. Just kind of like cutting up little connections that I made where I thought something would last. And then, you know, not. It wasn't going to last. So I just went ahead and continued with the stable life.
A
So maybe there was. I mean, were there other people during that time that maybe would have been in a relationship with you, but you chose to cut and move on?
B
Yes. For sure, for sure.
A
Got it. That makes sense. And then did you say it was 27 when you met your partner?
B
Yeah, I was 27 years old when we met.
A
Okay, so that was the start of your Saturn return in your seventh house.
B
Yes, yes, yes.
A
Okay, that's pretty cool. And is that ongoing?
B
Yeah, we're still married. We've been married for 15 years. And we were actually married. You had asked for some degree examples in a previous webinar. And we were married on a. My Venus sextiling, my north node exactly 8 degrees during a Venus retrograde in Las Vegas.
A
Venus sextiling your north node exactly the day you were married?
B
Yes.
A
Nice. Okay, so that's pretty cool. Was Venus in Cancer or was it on the other side in Scorpio?
B
Scorpio.
A
Scorpio. Okay. Why don't we look at the date? Just out of curiosity dynamic. Let me animate by wheel. Do you know the date offhand?
B
Yeah, it is October 23, 2010.
A
Okay, so this should be up. So October 23, 2010.
B
Yes. And it was in Las Vegas, Nevada at 1:00pm
A
okay, I'll just approximate it here. So, yeah, we see Venus was retrograde at 8 degrees of Scorpio and it was sextile, your north node in the seventh house at 8 Virgo. And also heading towards it was also applying within a degree of sextile to the ruler of your seventh house, Mercury. It's at late seven degrees of Virgo. So that's pretty cool. This is just post Saturn return. So it's like you met at the beginning of your Saturn return, went through the initial two to three years of the relationship, and then decided to make it official once Saturn had shifted into your eighth.
B
That's about right. And this is right at the end of my husband's Saturn return. He is two years younger than me, and he's also a Pisces Rising and Virgo sun.
A
Wow. Okay. Is he also Saturn in Virgo
D
or
A
is it in Leo?
B
I think he is. And I can just check for you very quickly. I think he's Leo.
A
Yeah, it's kind of borderline. It might be late. Leo
B
is Saturn.
A
I mean, I can look it up. What's heterostate?
B
Oh, wait, it's actually library. His Saturn's in Libra. He is a Libra stellium.
A
So meeting him was your Saturn return and then getting married was his Saturn return.
B
Yes, got it.
A
Okay. And that actually brings up that recently you're just getting out of. You've just completed your Saturn opposition. Saturn's been going through Your first house the past few years, which can sometimes be a tough transit for body and sometimes mind, but sometimes it's a period of not great health. And you're also still wrapping up eclipses, bouncing back and forth between your first house of self and your seventh house of relationships, which is usually a period of major beginnings and endings and ending one chapter and beginning another. When it comes to your sense of self and who you are versus your sense of relationships and the people that you're with. And with that activating your entire Virgo stellium. I was just wondering what's been going on the past few years with the Saturn transit and the eclipses.
B
Man, my health has been just ridiculously bad. It started off with a rheumatic muscle disorder diagnosis that hasn't really stuck with my rheumatologist, so some sort of ongoing rheumatic issue. And I also tore my meniscus in my knee. I got Lyme disease the summer of 24. And like, that's an ongoing thing. Like so many things have happened with my health during my Saturn opposition in the first house that I was just so stoked to see him go to Aries. Like, goodbye. And hopefully, hopefully he. My money won't be too crazy this time. But definitely my health was going downhill, but my marriage continues to stay solid. Married in Venus, retrograde and all. Like, it's probably the most like, positive, foundational part of my life is the relationship that I have with my husband.
A
Nice. Have there been any significant changes in his life lately? Like there was the eclipse in September in Virgo, for example, which would have been in your seventh house. And then there was another eclipse that just happened in March that was in your seventh house. And sometimes it's not always like changes happening in our life, but sometimes when we're having seventh house stuff, there's important changes or beginnings or endings going on with our partners around those times?
B
No, not really. I mean, he would probably say that the changes are going on with me. And I think that this probably started. There was an eclipse in 2023 and I can't remember which one of the houses of mine that it hit, but lots of things, just about the way that I thought about the world in general at large started to change with me in 2023. I was very much a scientific minded, kind of like materialist and like, I still am, but I. That kind of marks the, the spot of when I really got into astrology and I, I started to go down the wormhole of that and it really has intensified over the past year. So if you talk to my husband, he'll tell you that I just personally am vastly different than I was three years ago because I have made astrology such an important part of my outside of work activities as a hobby.
A
Got it? Yeah. 2023 was, I remember was the eclipses that were happening in. In Scorpio, which would be your ninth house of beliefs, but also astrology and world outlook and philosophy. But also Uranus was opposing your natal Uranus in the ninth house at that time. So your Uranus opposition had to do with beliefs and philosophy, and even sometimes the ninth house is religion. So at that time, that transit for you and the major beginnings and endings was getting into astrology and how that changed compared to your worldview up to that point.
B
Yeah, again, just, you know, very much materialist, but just not that way anymore. My husband calls me woo woo, you know, and. And I lean into that a little bit because I think that it's cute and it's funny, but I just have my mind more expanded. I am more willing to hear people's thoughts about just the way that everything is that my belief system has completely been altered, like thrown upside down completely since the 2023 eclipses that happened in my ninth house.
A
Got it. Okay. Well, that's the tension, because sometimes when a partner goes through a deep change like that, it can be a little tough for the other partner who still is the previous way.
B
Yeah, yeah. It's hard for him to get used to.
A
So that's been an area of tension for you, as over the past three years, you've gotten heavy into astrology and that's changed your worldview. Whereas he's not necessarily on board with that and still has more of a skeptical sort of orientation towards that.
B
Less skeptical. He's coming along because astrology continues to prove itself every day. But he was skeptical at the beginning, and he's sliding down more my way of thinking every day just. Just because of current events and paradigm shifting. I think, you know, Saturn, Neptune probably has a lot to do with this too. Like what is real and what isn't. These kind of determinations that we're all thinking every day. It's not necessarily a point of tension, but it is something very different that he has to get used to about me.
A
Yeah, I mean, that can be. I've seen different versions of that just because it's the ninth house. So that can be astrology in this particular instance. But I've seen other instances of that where one partner goes through a religious conversion and Then that can be really tough for the other partner and to have a partner go through this transformation of their worldview. And I think thinking about that from the other perspective, if I wasn't an astrologer, I could see how that could be tough for the other partner if they didn't resonate with that or if it wasn't something they were fully on board with. So that kind of makes sense in terms of seeing the trigger for you, which was your Uranus opposition. Which is funny because Uranus is oftentimes the thing that you don't expect. It's something that comes out of left field. It's a curveball. And it's also something different and unique and innovative, but also can be weird or eccentric. And that's really funny that for you, that Uranus opposition where sometimes that's the midlife transit that happens in the early 40s and sometimes that's the person runs off and buys a red sports car thing. But for you it was person gets into astrology and it really has deep change on their, their worldview. Basically.
C
Yeah.
B
I mean that's exactly what happened. And you know, I have been trying to kind of like think back to like, what is the transit that sparked all of this? It's that, it's the, it's the Uranus opposition in the ninth that like lit me up and out of the blue. No one would have expected scientific Charlene. All right. To go down this woo woo lane. Like, there's just no way that if I would have Talked to myself 10 years ago and said that, hey, you're going to be a baby astrologer here in about 10 years, I would have laughed and laughed and laughed. I would have never ever thought that that would have been a path that I would have gone down. And neither would have anybody that has known me either. No one would have expected that. But that's it, right?
A
That's really funny. Yeah, that's brilliant. But so then I'm looking at like, for example, there was an eclipse in May of 2023 that was in Scorpio. And I'm wondering if that wasn't. Do you know when you said 2023 and you mentioned eclipses? So that was the one I immediately thought of. But do you know what the timeframe was in 2023 when you got into astrology?
B
It was about. Okay, so the job that I'm working at right now, I started in April of 2023 and before I started this job, I was laid off. I had a dream about two months before I started this job and being laid off, that I was looking at a piece of paper, and someone was saying, the rail is coming in from Wilmerding. And I could see this black and white piece of paper in my dream. And when I woke up, I told my husband immediately that I had the strangest dream, that I was looking at some paper, and they were talking about a rail coming in from Wilmerding. And I was like, where is Wilmerding? What does this mean? I was. It was so vivid and whatever. So three months later, I'm at a new job, a new, completely different field. I went from finance to manufacturing. And the plant that I work at has fluids coming in via rail on the train. And our second plant is in Wilmerding. All right. We're located in a place called Ambridge. My second plant is in a place called Wilmerding, and we receive fluids coming in from a rail. And I'm looking at the piece of paper that I saw in my dream. All right? So I started that job April of 23, right before the eclipse. And now the Jupiter return is about to happen, and it looks like I'm about to be promoted. And, like, as I've worked this job, I've had so many experiences of. I've done this before. This is what you're supposed to be doing. Especially as I help people in their personal life, outside of work, because I have befriended all of the people that I work with at this job, like, all of them. And I help them, you know, whatever they need, whether it be work or something personal. And it. It just seems like this is what I'm supposed to be doing.
A
Nice. I love that the eclipse that happened in April, when you got the job was in your second house in Aries, and then the next eclipse was in your ninth house. And then that sort of began. The series of eclipses that would bounce back and forth between your ninth and your third or had been happening a little bit, but would for a little bit longer after that. And that's really cool about the dream. I used to be skeptical of that, but I've had instances like that as well. Like last fall, I had a dream about my websites getting hacked, and it was about a month before that actually happened. And I thought that was bizarre at the time, but it's made me more open to things like that because I've had things like that periodically as well. But it's something. Until you experience it firsthand, you wouldn't think that that's an actual thing.
B
I mean, it definitely sounds like some bs. Like, if this. If somebody was telling me this story, but, like, it really did happen. And, like, I was asking my husband, like, where is Wilmerding? Like, I heard of that place, but, like, where is it? And, like, he didn't know and I didn't know. And it was just strange to be. Then, like, a few months later, like, literally holding the paper in my hand that I dreamt about, I dropped it. Like, I. But I. When I realized, like, that was the paper from my dream, I. I physically dropped the paper and it was like, oh, I guess I am supposed to be here. And that was it.
A
That's beautiful. Yeah. I mean, I think things like that happen probably because I don't know what the mechanism is, but that if astrology exists and fate exists and there's some form of our lives being mapped out ahead of time, then it just seems like occasionally people have a dream where they get insight into that future for some reason or a glimpse into that, and it's probably tapping into something similar to whatever the underlying system of fate or something is that's underlying astrology to begin with. And I don't know what that is, but those two things might be related in some way.
B
Definitely. I remember seeing Sylvia Brown on Montel Williams back when I was in high school, and she was talking about deja vu and kind of like precognitive dreams. And I liked her explanation of that's a marker on a roadmap. It's a little, like just a little wink to you, letting you know that you're on the right path. Like, if you were going down the road and you saw a sign that said, you know, Pittsburgh, 22 miles. You know that you're on the right path. That's what deja vu and precognitive dreams are. It's just a little wink to let you know that you're on the right path. It resonated with me. So I just kind of, like, continue to believe that I like that.
A
All right, let me see. So back to the chart. The last thing was just. Because that's one of the interesting things. So there was some. When I originally asked, was there any tensions or was there anything going on with your partner? And you were like, no, not necessarily, but this has been a big change for you. That started at the beginning of Saturn going through your first house, and then you're now on the other side of that. So it's probably started to calm down somewhat now that Saturn's no longer opposing your seventh house, Saturn. But there were some tensions or Things going back and forth as you were defining yourself and this new sense of identity that you have in some ways through some of these new beliefs versus how that impacts your relationship and your partner. But it's not something initially when I asked the question that you sort of recognized as, as something that was a big issue or something that's been happening.
B
Right, right. I mean, just like talking about it to you kind of unpacked that and made me realize, oh wait, that is a thing, you know.
A
Right.
B
That, you know, that we not only like went through, but like continue to kind of go through as like he adjust to the change too. But he's on board now.
A
Yeah, well, I think that's part of the purpose of the function of astrology for me is when I can sit down here as an objective observer of a person's life and I know nothing about you. This is like the first day we've ever met or talked. I have your birth chart and I know a little bit about your transits, your recent ones, the slow moving outer planet ones and the eclipses. So I have some clues about some things I would think should be going on. But then through the dialogue, we're able to uncover that together, sort of like the sequence and the unfolding of things that's been happening for you not just throughout your life, but especially over the past few years. And we go through a process together, through the dialogue of clarifying and understanding it better together as we go. The further we talk and the more we look into and start to understand it better through the context of what you know about your life and what I know about the astrology. And that's the dialogue essentially about a person's fate or whatever you want to call it. That, yeah, I think is really the purpose of astrology and it's one of the things I really like about it. And that's why I like having these conversations.
B
Yeah, it was really cool. Let me add one more thing too. That was an occurrence that happened and I don't know if this was actually around an eclipse, but again, I'm adopted and I'm adopted by family, but I never knew who my birth father was. I had very vague details about it. But I did find out who my birth father was in June of 2025. Like I took a DNA test, like one of those online DNA tests, and they upload the results. And that was back in like 2017ish, 2016ish. Let the results hang out there. Over the years, people have contacted me, but it was actually for the part of my family that I had a connection to. And then out of the blue, somebody contacted me that was actually from my birth side, my. My father's birth side. And with a conversation with her and a little bit of, like, moderate genealogy, just through public sources, we got it, confirmed who he was. I even got a picture. I do still have, like, a connection to my biological mom. So I hit her up just to confirm if the picture that I had was the right person. And she said that it was. So I found out who my birth father was in June of 2025, which was that. That was like, a big deal for me. Not that I ever wanted to have a relationship with him or anything like that, But I definitely wanted his medical history because I was going through so many health problems at the time. And I found out that he actually passed of cancer in 20, in the year 2000. In 2000, at the age of 40, he died of lung cancer. I quit smoking that next day. But I did find out his information in June of this past year, and I don't remember if that was around an eclipse or not.
A
Do you happen to know the date
B
or approximately of when I found out of who he was? Yeah, I can probably tell you here in a second. It was. I thought it was June, but it was May 22nd of 2025.
A
May 22nd. Okay. So. Trying to remember what else was going on in May of 2025. But here's the transits. So the south node's going through your seventh still. The eclipses were already starting to happen there. Jupiter's transiting through your fourth house, and then it sextiles your natal Jupiter almost exactly in the ruler of your ascendant. Like they're in the sixth house, and the sun is just ingressed into your fourth house as well. Yeah, it might have been. I'm trying to think if there was anything more significant going on than just having that Jupiter transit going on. What's the chat say? Not sure. So you found out then? How did you know? So you knew your biological mother and who she was, but you didn't know who your biological father was until this point?
B
Yes, because I was adopted by family, so they still maintained a relationship with my biological mother.
A
Okay, got it. Well, that's just interesting in terms of the sun, Saturn conjunction there, that you have natally as part of your virgo stellium, as well as how that's squaring Neptune and just that there was some lack of clarity surrounding that and that he was somebody that was just like A question mark for most of your life up until this point, when you're already in your 40s at this point, by the time you finally learn who he was and you learn about that side of things. Do you happen to know when he passed away? Because you mentioned 2000, and I know there was stuff that was shifting from Taurus into Gemini around that point, especially Saturn the following year, I think in 2001.
B
Not offhand. I want to say that it was November, but I don't know the exact date.
A
Okay. I was just curious in terms of. Yeah, sometimes we have transits that are happening in our chart. For example, Jupiter in that year was transiting through your fourth house. But also Saturn was in the process of going through your fourth. And sometimes we have transits and something important happens in our life or to the people around us in our lives who affected our lives, but we don't always know about it until later on. And that's one of the most fascinating phenomenon for me in astrology is sometimes when you do find out about something, looking up the transits at that time to see what was going on. So, yeah, whenever it was in 2000, it's just interesting that you were having a Jupiter transit through your fourth house around then. And then when you actually found out who he was. Yeah, Jupiter was back there again, I think.
B
So Jupiter in the fourth house was noticeable for me. And then as you started doing webinars about reoccurrence transits, I thought about the Saturn sun conjunction that was happening then. That's really the only thing that came to mind when I noticed the date.
A
Yeah, sure. All right. I'm trying to think of any other questions I have, but we've covered a lot. This has been actually really interesting. Is there anything worth mentioning as parting thing before we wrap up?
B
No, I'm an open book. If you ever have any more questions, though.
A
Yeah, well, I would love to hear how, you know, we still got some further eclipses going on through the. Actually, let me just put that back to where the transits are today. Yeah, just like continued eclipses as you wrap up that eclipse series in your first house and your seventh house and continuing to negotiate that difference between your emerging sense of self and identity and who you are versus how you are in relationships and the room that that makes for partnership. And what I usually see is people seesaw back and forth for a few years during that time, sometimes giving more weight to developing their own identity and their own needs and wants versus other times trying to make more room for their partner or trying to be accommodating or do the things that are necessary to maintain a healthy relationship. And that'll probably be a continuing, ongoing theme for you a little bit as you finish up that Eclipse series in your first and seventh house. Although it's nice that with Saturn out of your first that some of the heaviness of that has finally lifted, and hopefully some of the health things that you've been dealing with for the past three years will lighten up at this time as well.
B
Yep. I'm hoping so, too. Fingers crossed.
A
Yeah. Awesome. Cool. Well, thanks so much for sharing your story with us. I really appreciate it.
B
Yeah, glad to do it. Anytime.
A
Okay, awesome. Take care.
B
All right, you too.
A
All right, so we'll just turn off your audio and video and we'll leave it in the panel. That way you can stay in the meeting. But. All right. That was awesome. That was a really good example. We learned a lot of stuff, and, yeah, that brought up a lot of different points that we could have spent the entire time on. We could have gone into more. But it was nice seeing some of the different things we did. And, yeah, talking about and identifying through the course of that, different things about how the chart matched the life story. Yeah, it really was an episode unto itself. Okay, I'm gonna get another drink because I drank all my coffee, and then I'll come back and we'll do the next one. So, Jennifer, you were the next that had the three siblings. Let me know if you're still here. And if you're up for joining me to share your chart right now, let me know in the live chat. Thanks for joining me. I think you've got to hit the mute button just to unmute it.
C
There we go. Can you hear me now?
A
Yeah. Thanks for joining me.
C
Okay. All right. Thanks for having me.
A
All right, what's your birth data?
C
8 hours, 28 minutes and 73 seconds.
A
Okay, so here's the chart. And in your description, you said that you discovered three siblings you didn't know you had on Ancestry.com, and one was a full sibling. And now you've become close to the full sibling, correct?
C
Yeah, just started a couple years ago back in February of 24 4. One of the siblings, daughters, reached out to me, and through that year, I had another sibling reach out to me. And then they got me in contact with someone who I thought was just another half sibling. And I actually thought I knew who this half sibling's father was, and it turned out to be mine. She ended up coming back to me on ancestry and saying, we're a full sibling. We're full matches.
A
Wow. Okay.
C
Yeah.
A
All right. So for the audio listeners, for the chart, we're looking at a chart with Leo rising and the ruler of the ascendant is the sun, which is in Virgo in the second house, along with the moon. You were born the day of a new moon in Virgo. And then since we're talking about siblings, we're automatically looking at the third house. And your third whole sign house is Libra, where we find Venus in her own sign, along with Pluto and Uranus. And then they have a square from Saturn, which is in cancer, in the 12th house in a night chart. So there's some challenges going on there. And then we're also obviously, by extension, thinking about the fourth house as well, of parents. And we see your IC is in Scorpio in the fourth whole sign house. And the ruler is Mars, which is in taurus in the 10th in the sign opposite to its domicile. So what was the setup growing up wise or what was the baseline of how you grew up or what your parents were situation was before this situation happened?
C
Yeah. The irony, I guess, through all of this growing up, it was just my brother and I. So I just. To my dad, I had one other sibling who's two years younger, but my
A
dad, I remember in that relationship, it's like you have Venus. Yeah. So Venus is in the third house in the night chart. And I expect that, you know, there to be some good things there. So you had a good relationship growing up with your one sibling, right?
C
Yeah, we did. And the home life was tumultuous, for sure. Parents divorced. They should have. And. But my dad, I remember making jokes that if my mom thought about getting pregnant, she would get pregnant, which never really made sense to me because there was only two of us. But there were different things that were mentioned sort of throughout growing up. Grandparents talking about them living in sin, making a huge deal out of them living together before they were married, and just all sorts of little things that would crop up. So as time went on, my mom actually did tell me that she had given up two siblings for adoption. And at one point, she told me that one of them was a full sibling, but I didn't believe her at all. I don't speak to her anymore. Very toxic. And so shortly after that, I did the ancestry DNA thing. And.
A
And that was in 2020.
C
Did you say this was in. So I did it In December of 23 was when I took the test. And Then the results, I started getting hit up February of 24, basically by one by one sibling, and then May of 24 and then June of 24. So by that summer. So from, you know, February through the end of June of 24, I had connected with all three of them at that point.
A
Got it. Okay. I'm just looking to see what was going on. We can see that the nodes are going through your third house. The south node's going through your third house. So you start having eclipses there, basically. Yeah, because that, that means that Libra eclipse, famously in like October of 2020
C
or not October, which would have been when I ordered the test.
A
So you ordered the test?
C
Yeah, I ordered it because it took a while to get there and then actually do it and then get the result.
A
So the eclipse I was talking about was in October of 2023 in Libra, in your third house. Are you saying it was that early or.
C
Yeah, that's when I would have started the process to take the test for ancestry.
A
Nice. Okay. And this was a solar eclipse in Libra, and It was at 21 degrees of Libra, which is actually conjunct your Uranus in the third house, the planet of unexpected things, of curveballs. In the last chart example, we were talking about Uranus in the ninth house and how that brought an unexpected change and shift in terms of a person's beliefs and getting into astrology. And here we have an activation also with eclipses. Hers was in the ninth house. Yours was in the third house. And it's like you start the process of doing ancestry and discover that you have siblings that you didn't know about, which was completely unexpected.
C
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I knew I had two, but I really wasn't expecting. Expecting much. I, I. And I just really didn't fully believe. Kind of with the stories that I don't know, things just didn't match up. So I, that's when I took that. Yeah.
A
What was your. So what was your motivation for doing it? Just that you wanted to sort out some of the things.
C
Yeah, I wanted some clarification. I felt that there was a lot of deception growing up just with regard, with regards to family situations and the stories. Some things just didn't line up. I just had a feeling, and it was just crazy how rapidly the results and the, the cascade of events that took over that next year. And it was really emotional. Yeah, it was a lot to process, honestly, you know, feeling lied to by my dad, you know, feeling like just all kinds of things.
A
Yeah. Yeah. So we had this first eclipse, which is in Libra, and that's you starting the process. But then I remember that one because then there was another eclipse in Taurus at the very end of that month. So that's in your 10th house, but it was at 5 degrees of Taurus, I believe, which would have been right on top of your Mars, which is the ruler of the fourth house of parents. So that's interesting how you know, part of the,
C
a lot of displayed anger over some of it, to be honest.
A
Okay. Yeah. You were pissed off once you found out what the truth.
C
Yeah, like just feeling. Because I, I specifically asked my dad point blank if the sibling that had been given up that my mom said was his, was his. And he said no, that it was not, that he would never do that. And he's already passed away. He had, he had already passed away by this point. So I could not confront or ask him or anything. I've since made peace with it. But the initial shock was a lot.
A
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, one of the things interesting about these two eclipses though is this is happening as you're beginning this process and eclipses last, they have like a six month window of sort of impacting things. But you couldn't have known at this stage. You're just in the early stages as those eclipses are happening. And that's one of the things I always note about eclipses, how sometimes it's like a small beginning that you don't always know that it's going to be a major beginning until later on because something is planted at the time that'll grow and develop for a while in the future. So you begin the process in October and then what happens in December?
C
So December was when I took the test. So I, I, I started the process like ordering and all that stuff, took the test, got the results back, and then started getting contacted by my siblings.
A
Starting. Starting when? What happened after December?
C
February, February 28th of 2024 was the very first contact. And that would have been with the first sibling, first half sibling, through my mom.
A
February 28th. Okay, so February 28th and you were contacted by the first half sibling through your mom.
B
Yeah, yeah, got it.
A
Okay, so this is just a little bit before the next eclipse season will begin. And that was late February. And then when is the second one?
C
And then May 20th was when I found out I had a half sibling on my dad's side as well through my dad.
A
What was the impact of the first one, if any?
C
The first one was it was his daughter. He actually did not Want to have really any relationship. She was doing it to try and figure out her family tree. And I found out, like, they had actually met with my mom and it didn't go well.
A
Okay.
C
So it was. It was just kind of like there was just a lot of sort of validation of who my mom is as a person that I was sort of coming to terms with as well, that she just was not a good mom,
A
so. And she hadn't told you about that, that they had already met?
C
No, no, not at all. She told me that she had just given up kids. Like, she's never met him. She had no idea where they were or how they existed, you know, or anything about them. And come to find out, she met both. Yeah. And like a while.
A
A while before this.
C
Yeah, yeah. Like a good five, five and seven years prior to this. Like, flew back to where they were to meet them. Yeah.
A
Okay. I mean, there's probably some interesting transits there that were happening at the time, but we'll skip over that for now. In March, it's like we get the second set of eclipses. I believe this is a lunar eclipse in Libra in your third house, conjunct Pluto, not long after the contact with the first sibling happens. And then you said it was June, that you talked to the other two.
C
Yeah. So. And then I think so in between that time, that one niece was. She thought she knew who the other sibling was from my mom's side. So she had her take an ancestry test. And then that's when, in June, she got the results back and reached out to me. So sometime between February and June, that other sibling had taken the test. And it takes like six weeks to actually take it, send it off, get the results back, all that stuff.
A
Okay.
C
And then she told me that. That we were in fact full siblings. She was born five years prior to me.
A
Got it. Okay. And I'm seeing Uranus is stationing all over your midheaven and opposing your ic. So this is some of the upsetting, surprising parent stuff that you're finding out.
C
Yeah, Uranus ran roughshod over me.
A
Yeah. And then you have a Mars return in June. So Mars is conjoining your natal Mars, which is the ruler of your fourth house. And then we see even the south node is now moving over your Venus at this time. Okay, so this was a big deal. And this was almost two years ago now. I'm trying to think of, are there any more short term things that are important that happened? Or can I ask long term things?
C
It took about a Year, I think for all of us to sort of process what we had all discovered and found out. And so just to kind of Fast forward to 2025. So a year later we ended up moving out of state and I ended up on the way here, stopped and met one of the half siblings. So the one with my dad, she lives in Dallas, I'm now in Houston. And so I stopped and met her and we talk every couple of weeks or month or whatever. Everything's good. And the my full sibling, my sister, still weird to say, is still in St. Louis where I was born and making a trip to go back and see her in a couple of months when I'm back from my nieces graduation, high school graduation. So it went from just like out of the blue, a lot of crazy and a lot of emotion for all of us to really kind of settling in and over, you know, 2025, you know, now we're talking about maybe doing like a sister's trip later this year, so.
A
Nice.
C
Yeah. So you and weirdly. And my brother wants nothing to do with any of it. Like he accepts the information, but then he's done. Like he just has zero interest. But I'm now I'm happy that it all came out.
A
Your brother that you grew up with doesn't have any interest?
C
No, none at all. None at all.
A
Versus the three new siblings or are they all women?
C
Right. No, the one, the one male half sibling through my mom, he doesn't want anything to do with it either. And really they're both Scorpios.
A
Got it. Okay, so but the two half siblings, right?
C
No, my full sibling and the half sibling on my dad's side, I'm both are girls and both sisters in very good relationships with now.
A
Got it. Okay, so you've been able to basically develop or cultivate like a pretty good relationship with the two new sibling, two of the new siblings that you discovered?
D
Yeah. Yeah.
A
Nice. That's beautiful.
C
Yeah.
A
Okay, so where are we at then in that case? So what happened then? Or what's the timeline in terms of what was the implication of that for what was happening with your parents marriage? Does that mean so you're born and then was he having children secretly outside of the marriage or was this before the marriage?
C
So what happened was. So he had. So my mom had given up a child at 16 and then one at 18. My dad had given one up at 18. Okay, so yeah, 16.
A
And. And then they had you.
C
Sorry. So she gave up 16, my dad gave one up at 18, then they gave up my four full sibling when my mom was 20 and my dad was 2020 or my dad was 25 and then they had me when they were 25 and 30. So she was my full sibling, was born five years before me. So what happened, what, what now I understand though is my, the. My grandparents who were all about them living in sin and all the stuff like all the stuff that kept coming up because my mom got pregnant and they moved in together, she had the baby, they gave the baby up for adoption, continued to live together, got married and had me. So it was, it was just. Which I still don't understand why they were just two red flags together. They should have never. But I guess that's. That that was sort of what was interesting because the way that I always understood it was, you know, they met, it was great. They moved in. Yes, they lived together for a year before they, you know, got married and had me. But that was just not the story at all. Like they had been together, she got pregnant, they moved in together, lived together for five years and then you know, gave up a child. And you know all, all of this, which makes so much more sense by both of their parents were really leery of them and, and everything. So it was just. You kind of like realize or I appreciated more the world that I came into and understood that so much of the, the chaos and ill will that was already there just had nothing to do with me. And so that was a really important part of this journey. Right, because
A
is part of the implication that your grandparents that there was pressure from the grandparents on the parents and that's part of why they were giving up because they didn't approve of them having out of. Out of wedlock.
C
One side was very Catholic and the other side was very Southern Baptist. And so there was a lot, a lot of pressure on them. You know this would have been in 1968 when they got pregnant with her before marriage. So
A
got it. I was trying to understand the. Because we can see why this is a prominent part of your chart. The midheaven is in taurus in the 10th house and the ruler is Venus which is in Libra in the third house of siblings. And Venus though is co present or sign based conjunction with Uranus. And there's an unexpected or weird component of things. But then Pluto's there as well. And that Pluto is really closely square. Saturn in the 12th house and the 12th house can have to do with secrets or things that are hidden or sometimes loss. And Saturn is squaring that Pluto really tightly in the third house of siblings. But the third house can also have to do with. If the fourth house is parents, the third house can sometimes have to do with grandparents. And I'm wondering how much with that Saturn, Pluto scroll where a lot of the stuff that happened with your siblings wasn't due to the tensions with the grandparents and the parents that, you know,
C
my grandparents played a very big role in my life as well. So. Okay, yeah, they were. My dad's parents were always present, and my mom's parents just played a significant role more behind the scenes. But they were all four very present, good, bad, and ugly growing up.
A
Okay, got it. All right, well, I think that makes sense, then, in terms of all of that. And that's great that, again, we had eclipses Activating that house in your chart, and then that began this process of discovering that you had siblings that you didn't know about and then eventually building relationships with them. And then hopefully that continued to just be a positive thing in terms of building positive familial relationships with people that you didn't know up to this point, but doing it later in life. And it reminds me of. I used an example in the third house episode of Jack Nicholson, who had the ruler of the third house was retrograde, and he grew up thinking that the person that was his biological mother was his sister. And then later in life, they discovered that that wasn't the case at all, that who he thought was his sister was actually his mother, due to similar dynamics in terms of early societal pressures on families that have children outside of marriage being different decades ago than they are today, especially in a religious context. But it's interesting that the eclipses brought to light something that was previously hidden, which is an interesting thing in terms of that being part of something that was built into your chart, but something that you wouldn't discover until much later on.
C
Yeah. Yeah. And just on a little side note, I had met with an astrologer a few years prior to all of this going on, and she had noted that I was born on a new moon, and she was kind of gathering some data, and she asked if there was any. Any secrets in my. In my family. And I'm like, no, we're, you know, pretty standard. Like, nothing. No big secrets. I. I, you know, sorry, I can't, you know, nothing for your data or whatever. And then it was like, three years later, all of this came out, and
B
I was like, oh, right.
A
Well, it's like the sun and the moon in your chart are both square. Neptune pretty closely. And I Don't know if that's what she was picking up on. But having both of the significators, so the mother and the father both having a hard aspect with the planet that can indicate illusions or deceptions or things that seem one way but are actually another. But that's so funny that you had that experience with that reading, because I have to say that's one of the worst experiences as a consulting astrologer is like, you say something that seems pretty straightforward in the chart, but the person's just like, no, there's nothing that doesn't land. And it's because either it hasn't happened yet or the person doesn't know about it. And that's one of the biggest, trickiest things with doing astrological research, because obviously there's a third scenario which is that just. The answer is no, that they made a statement that wasn't true about the person's life, and that interpretation just doesn't land at all. But those other two scenarios are the ones we always have to be careful about because sometimes. Yeah, that's part of it, is it may not be evident yet, or especially if you're doing consultations with somebody that's younger. There's so much of their life that just hasn't unfolded yet, even though the birth chart's saying there's something important there.
C
Yeah. From being in astrology when I was a teenager and I think about having a reading then as opposed to now, in my 50s. And. Yeah. Just so many things that wouldn't have played out or would have hit differently. And I think it's all wonderful. But definitely there's something to be said for having a few more years and seeing your chart sort of play out in different ways and how different transits hit differently.
B
Yeah.
C
Because I would have never seen this coming in a million years.
A
Right. Yeah. That's really funny. Well, yeah, I think that's a great example, and we learn a lot from that, just from your experience. So thanks for sharing that with us. I appreciate it.
C
Absolutely. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
A
Cool. All right, take care.
C
All right, have a good day.
A
Awesome. That was really great. That was really great. Let me take a look at the chat. Okay. Ray, are you still here? Yours was the original one that I was going to do next. Yeah. Okay. Hey, thanks for joining me.
D
How you doing?
A
Doing all right. Yeah. All right. What is your birth data?
D
January 2, 1970.
A
All right. Is your ascendant 29? Cancer.
D
Yeah, sorry. Very late. Late degree. I know that gets tricky.
A
Yeah. That is my worst Consultation.
D
Yeah, I know and I tell you it's the time on my birth certificate.
A
All right, so let's do animatechart. Okay, here we go. So here's the chart. So your birth time and the birth certificate is 6:12pm which is not around a time that's obviously a very specific time. The ascendant at that time at the beginning of that minute is 29 degrees and 14 minutes. Let me see how long.
D
So like four more minutes, it becomes a Leo rising.
A
Okay. Yeah. So it's not until 616 ish that it switches over to Leo rising. So we're probably safe treating it as a cancer rising chart.
D
It does read well in any other quadrant houses. And I tell you, I don't know, it keeps me kind of agitated that it's not just clear cut.
A
Yeah, well, I will normally, if this is a consultation and I had an hour to two hours, I would quickly, either quickly or throughout the course of talking to you, I would rectify the chart. And I may still do that in the back of my mind, but we're gonna approach it from a default of assuming it's cancer rising. And I'll approach it from that perspective, but I'll let you know if that changes wildly during the course of this. So let's see. So we've got a chart with 29 cancer rising for those listening to the audio version. And the sun is in Capricorn at 12 degrees. So you were born a bit after sunset. And this is firmly a night chart with Venus and Mercury also in the seventh whole sign house. And Venus is your most positive planet then because it's a night chart and the seventh house of relationships, your most challenging planet.
D
Saturn is the most difficult. I mean, you can watch it walk away around my chart. I mean just one thing leading devastation all the way through.
A
Yeah. So Saturn is your most challenging planet since the night chart. And it's up in taurus in the 11th whole sign house. And it's actually stationing on that day, which makes Saturn a little bit louder. Okay, so let me pull up the description. You had actually a very lovely written description that I'll just read really quickly where you said that you married your high school sweetheart at 17 and stepped into adulthood fast leaving school to support a growing family through years of poverty, multiple jobs, and even losing everything before eventually rebuilding and creating stability, all while remaining devoted to your wife of 38 years later, discovering your true parentage and suffering a life altering back injury in 2020 forced you to confront both identity and limitation, making A shift from a life defined by survival and responsibility to one shaped by reflection, resilience, and a search for deeper meaning. First off, I have to say you're an excellent writer and that is a great synopsis. When I asked people to write like a summary of their life, I was not expecting one to be as well done as that. So thanks for.
D
I wrote it before I saw your thing come to my email. So I hurried out and said I'm gonna try to get on there this time.
A
Nice.
D
Well, that's really worked on it for like an hour.
A
That's really good and really self reflective. Let me see. So the other thing. So cancer rising and the ruler of your ascendant is the moon, which is in Scorpio in the fifth whole sign house in the place of children. And you have three children. Okay. Yeah.
D
Coming from, I guess, a tough story. Teenage parents. I was 17, we quit school, we got married, we had my, you know, then we had three children. So very young parents. But I got. So you talk about, you know, luck there. That's. That was. I got three awesome kids and we had great relationships. All my kids are very successful. Coming from like an after school special, you know, you know, parents. It really worked that good.
A
Nice. I love that. Having the ruler of your ascendant in the fifth house. And usually you would delineate that as if there's something about your overall life direction where the topic of children or other fifth house themes would be central or very important to your overall life direction. And that's cool that you've had three children and that that's been an area of success and positive things for you.
D
Yes, absolutely.
A
And then the other area of success has been your marriage, that you met your partner in high school and fell in love. And just having the most positive planet in your chart, Venus in the seventh house of relationships. And that being again, an area where things have gone relatively well, it sounds like is another area of good fortune for you. We would say.
D
Yep. Through the good times and the bad, we've been together.
A
Got it. Okay. So I'm trying to think of where should we start or what should we get into first? Beyond those. I mean, I do have a question in terms of what's the Saturn doing in your 11th house? Then that's in the area of friends and groups. So I would assume that there's been some hardship or some loss or some challenges regarding friends and groups.
D
Yeah, I've always kind of thought of it. I'm not a joiner. I would say if there was you know, I've never been one to join the group, so I don't know if that's it.
A
I've met some people over the years where sometimes when they have Saturn in the 11th house, there can be some fears surrounding groups and friendships and things like that about putting themselves out there. And as a result of that, sometimes they deliberately kind of avoid going out into either social situations or forming friendships as a result of that. Is that something that's always been the case for you or is that something where there was an experience that led to that or where does that come from?
D
I don't know where the. I've always had like one friend at a time. So I've had, you know, then that friend would go away and I'd get another one friend and it would be, you know, just that. Never, never like a group of any. I didn't never belong to any kind of groups or anything like that. Well, one of the things I don't think just. Yeah, I guess you would say shy.
A
Shyness. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Well, one of the things that's nice is just that Venus at 6 degrees of Capricorn is trining your Saturn through a superior trine in a night chart. So that Venus.
D
Yeah, Mutual reception too.
A
Yeah. Because Saturn's in Venus's sign and Venus is in Saturn's sign. But those are two mitigating factors that makes the Saturn placement not as difficult as it would be otherwise. Which is both a positive thing in terms of some of the 11th House stuff, as well as Saturn ruling the seventh House of relationships. But it also nicely offsets a little bit the opposition that Saturn has to Jupiter and the moon, where the Moon is separating from Jupiter and Saturn and it's applying that sextile with Venus, which is probably a helpful offsetting factor in terms of the topic of children going relatively well for you. For example, I kind of thought that
D
because the moon in Scorpio, but it's like a benefic enclosure. Right. So between the Jupiter and the Venus, I mean. Yeah. Making it more positive, I think.
A
Right. Yeah, for sure. So where should we start, though? I'm sort of talking about it from a technical standpoint. But what are the parts of your life story maybe we haven't gotten into yet? You said there was an important turning point at one point in 20.
D
20. 2020 was when I fell off the cliff basically in my life. But yeah, that's right there during the, you know, when Covid. All the COVID stuff started.
A
Yeah, that was like a pile up in Capricorn.
D
Capricorn and Aquarius. Yeah. And when it March 13, like I said, you can watch Saturn starting from Saturn return in 98. Just as it walks around. You know, my grandmother died, my grandfather died, you know, we went bankrupt, my dad died. You know, just around the clock. Just like it works its way around to 2020.
A
Saturn return.
D
Yes. Starting at Saturn return in 98. The. Yeah. And then going around, like I said, when you get to 2020, I don't know where you want to start.
A
Well, I'm interested in that period you're talking about. So tell me about your Saturn return. It sounds like, yeah, Saturn return.
D
It was June 9th of 98. You can see Saturn's right there. That's when my grandmother died. And she was the first of. You know how you have certain people in your life. She was the first to pass. And then two months after that, in August, I end up kind of losing my mind. I feel like I've, I've had some psych issues, I guess through my life, but that was like the first time. And I ended up quitting like the best job I ever had or would ever have in August.
A
So part of it is with Saturn ruling the eighth house. Sometimes it can bring up issues of mortality when Saturn. You're having your Saturn return. So that makes sense. And then by August, it's like Saturn's heading towards opposing your moon and you're dealing with some mental health and maybe depression type issues.
D
Yes. And I end up like that job I quit. I had worked there for 10 years.
A
Okay.
D
Yeah. And I was a manager and I just. Couldn't. It seemed like I couldn't take it anymore, you know, And I end up quitting. And it kind of just changed my life. It was life changing.
A
It looks like Saturn stationed there in the middle of August at 3 degrees of Taurus. So right on top of your natal Saturn and opposing your Jupiter and your moon. And then what else happened during that period? Or was that the.
D
That was the biggie. Yeah, that was. Yeah. My grandmother died in June, quit that job in August. That was the big. But like I said, I guess the mental factor too, just kind of losing it a little bit.
A
So this might be a good opportunity then to demonstrate what I was saying in the last episode and I've said about Saturn Returns, which is that the Saturn, Saturn is the most intense when it goes exact to the degree which here this is you having it exact to the degree and you've lost a major person in your life and you're also dealing with the mental health issues and quitting a job as a result of that. So clearly that was the most intense part of your Saturn return. But then your Saturn return and the approach that I take wouldn't really be over until Saturn departed from Taurus. So there would be probably be lingering cleanup from that over the course of the next couple of years, I would guess is that.
D
Well, I guess, I guess the cleanup would be trying to start life over almost. You know, I had to find a job. Now, like I said, I'd always had multiple jobs, but that was the main job. And at the time my wife wasn't working. She had been with home with the kids. So I was working a couple jobs, but that was the main one. And I ended up quitting, so I had to try to. We ended up trying to start life over. Now the funny thing was, out of all that badness, you know, losing my grandmother and losing my job, we ended up buying a house later on on, I mean, within the next year. And how. And you say, I don't know what the bank looked at really to give me the loan, but we did, we bought a house and we kind of like started life over. I end up going to a grocery store and. Which I had worked at a grocery store when I was younger. So it wasn't, it wasn't new. Totally new to me. And I ended up being there for the next, next 20 years.
A
Okay, so you got a job with the grocery store in 99.
D
Yes, like in 90. It was. Yeah, not. Well, yeah, 99. Right in there.
A
Okay, 98.
D
99. I was like the, you know, so that was August of 98. I usually, I don't know the exact dates. I didn't start keeping track. So I started learning astrology. But you know, then. So it was like I usually put on my application back then. It was like I quit that in August 98 and I started another one in August 98. So it was like a. I went ahead and immediately looked into and find a job. So within probably the next month or so I had another job. But the fact is I kind of quit and left us with nothing. You know what I mean? And it was just financial, but like I said, it turned into something good.
A
How long would you say it took? Would you say it took a couple years for things to level out before you sort of came out of that period and were able to build things back up?
D
I don't know. I would say it wasn't long after that and I don't know the exact year we bought the house that we bought probably within another year or so, not exactly sure.
A
Okay, got it. Well, by 2000, for example, Saturn starts getting out of your 11th house out of Taurus completely and moving into your 12th. So that would be the official end of the sign based Saturn return. So I would expect, expect some of the, whatever the mental health issues were and some of the financial stuff that was most acute when your Saturn return was exact around the middle of 1998 through the end of that year would finally be alleviated and you'd be completed that chapter of your Life by around 2000. By mid 2000, yeah. Okay.
D
And then we started a period of just kind of cruising in. Everything seemed like was it, it was going okay, the wife was working, I was working, we had a house, the kids were doing great. It seemed okay. Everything seemed like it was going well. That, that went on until about 2000-2003. October 3, 2003. You can see where Saturn is there. My grandfather, first time.
A
Okay, so Saturn starts going through your first house. It opposes your sun, opposes my son.
D
And the guy I was named after, I was named after him. And he passed again, a very hard time.
A
Okay, yeah.
D
So
A
what else is going on? Well, there's a lot of stuff going on. I mean Saturn's opposing your sun, but it's also squaring your ices. See applying to that within three degrees and he passes away. And so that's a tough time. And is that tough on you mentally?
D
Then again, everything again yes, I went crazy again. Yes, very much so. And actually at that point I started, I guess it was around then I had really started into the men trying to get mental health. I had to go into a period of that trying to find, of course back then it was harder to find a, to get into mental health when you needed it. It wasn't like now where you can just go on a computer and get it. You had to, you know, set an appointment. It was always like six months wait time. So by the time it came around you were feeling better, but got it.
A
So was your partner helpful though in being helpful or supportive as much as she could while you're going through some of those periods of mental health issues?
D
Yes. Well, actually in that time too, she had lost her grandfather and the following October of the next year she loses her father. So it was a tough time for all of, for both of us. And I guess that's a lot of death. It was very hard, very hard. And then it gets even. I mean you keep on going to 2006.
A
So hold on just a sec. So one of the things I wanted to mention is just. It seems like one of the recurring themes is just with the Moon, Saturn, opposition, like issues of mental health issues coming up as a recurring theme. And that's more central for you because the moon's the ruler of the ascendant and because it's a night chart. But then it's like you have a great partner who's trying to be there for you and is helping to offset it to some extent. And that's probably one of the things that's helping to break that opposition so that it's like, imagine if you didn't have that, for example, that maybe it would have been harder with that opposition to. To get some of the help that you needed or to navigate some of those periods of difficult mental health.
D
Yeah.
A
Would you say that's correct or is that.
D
I'd say that's correct.
A
Yeah.
D
Having her was definitely. She was the Rob.
A
Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so then you were talking about 2006.
D
Yeah, so then 2006, that's the first time I hurt my back or first major time I was out of work for. I don't know the exact date other than I would say it was early or. Yeah, 2000. Early 2006. And I don't know the exact date. But anyway, that was the first time I hurt my back. We ended up going bankrupt and lost the house.
A
Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, I see Saturn has just gone into your first house, or, sorry, into your second house of finances. And so it's opening up a period of difficult financial times.
D
We went bankrupt. I was out of work for a year. We lived on her income, had to move back in with my parents, which I had been gone since I was 17. So that was. I mean, we had to live there for a little while while we found another apartment that we could get, you know, just on her income.
A
And you're in your mid, mid-30s.
D
Yeah, and my. It was a back issue. And so I was out of work for a year at that point, and she. And we had. We ended up losing the house, lost everything, cars, house, everything. Ended up getting an apartment.
A
Okay, so that was the beginning of a really tough financial period for you in 2006. And that's like right after Saturn has gone into Leo. And it would be there for a couple of years because Saturn doesn't depart from Leo until 2008. Like the fall of 2008. Did that financial period start to alleviate by 2008?
D
Yes, I ended up 2000. Yeah, around that time I ended up getting a job back at the grocery store and I was back there again. So that was like at, you know, like midway of that, at 20 some years that I was there. Ended up, I went back to work at that same place.
A
Nice. Okay, so you've got regular employment again and then that. Is that the job then that you had for a while after that point?
D
Yep. Ended up same job. Yep. I ended up working there. We ended up buying another house and that's the house we still live in now.
A
What year was that?
D
2011.
A
Okay, 2011. Saturn's going through your fourth house. What caused you to get that house at that time? So you had lost a house and
D
you have to, you know, when you go bankrupt there's a, there's a so many amount of. So many years that they don't really give you any. You can't get no credit, basically. So it ends up. We went through the years, everything was fine. We ended up buying a car first. That was no problem. Ended up, kept buying the house because we had been living in the apartment and it was kind of, it was a kind of small apartment.
A
That's funny. Did you buy the car between 2008 and 2000?
D
Yes, we bought the car first. I would say that was between 2008 and 2010.
A
Saturn's transiting your third house.
D
Then we got. Yeah, that's funny, isn't it? I didn't think about that.
A
It is funny. I don't exactly know why it's tracking in terms of. Saturn's supposed to be your most difficult planet, but for some reason it's really tracking itself.
D
I kind of thought well too though, the debt. You know, sometimes I think of it, I don't know if Saturn can be thought of like that, you know, debt. Because I go into debt with the car, I go into debt with the house.
A
With the house. Okay.
D
You know.
B
Yeah.
A
You're taking out a huge amount.
D
I'll be paying for that house until I'm 70. You know what I mean?
A
Got it. Okay. Yeah. You're taking out a huge amount of responsibility and debt and making like long term contractual agreements.
D
Yes.
A
Which it's like you've had the experience. Right.
D
You know, I would rather be, you know, I would, I would rather not have that. You know, I say it all the time, let's just, let's move, you know, sell the house and let's go. You know, it's just me and her now. Just, just take off and go somewhere. But, but anyway, yes, we we have the house. So then you get to go ahead
A
and just to summarize what we just saw for the audio people, it's like, when Saturn was going through your second house, you suffered major financial setbacks and had to declare bankruptcy. When Saturn went through your third house, you're rebuilding and you were able to buy a car. And then when Saturn was going through your fourth house, you were able to buy a house and taking on more debt each time. So then what happens after that?
D
Okay, so then you get to 2013, and then my dad dies on July 3, 2013, and you can see, like, the sun is opposite my sun and Saturn's, like, right on the Moon or close to it.
A
July 3, 2013.
D
Yeah.
A
Saturn is on your. So Saturn's at 4 degrees of Scorpio, and it's conjoining your Jupiter and your Moon. And what was the other one you were pointing out?
D
The sun opposite my sun.
A
Yeah. Well, it's sun opposite Pluto. Also, like, Pluto's like. Even though it's 2 degrees off, Pluto's
D
at 10 degrees, right? Exactly.
A
10 degrees of Capricorn, and your sun is at 12. So, yeah, that's tough. I was gonna ask about that Pluto stuff because once Pluto got to Capricorn, it started transiting over your Venus and then your Sun. So having the loss of your father, was that. Actually, it looks like that. That's also your Uranus opposition. Uranus is up at, like, 12, and it's opposing your IC at 15 and opposing your Uranus at 8 degrees of Libra. So was that a big loss for you, or how did that impact you?
D
Oh, yeah. I mean, definitely, like I said, it was one of the. So if I were to say the three. When I talk about the three close people to me, to my life, both my grandparents, which we did everything with, and then my father, of course. Of course, we find out. I suppose they found out later that he wasn't my father, and we'll get to that. But you should do, like, an Ancestry episode, ancestry.com versus people's natal charts. Because it's. It's. It's crazy.
A
That's where you need to. I need to get sponsorship by Ancestry at this point because, like, I am. I am a great, obviously, like, proponent of that at this point with all the people finding out ancestry things. I should look into that.
D
Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah.
A
Okay. Were there any. Between 2013 and 2015, Saturn's going through Scorpio. Were there any issues that came up with the topic of children at this time?
D
Not that I recall. I can't recall any. So then if you put it to the quadrant house, that goes through my fourth house. So I don't know. You see the. You see, that's my. My same thing. And I go, you know, seems like Saturn touches it. It works it better in the quadrant than it does in the whole sign. But. But like I said, I had that late degree, and I'm not. I know you don't want. We're not talking about that. But we can keep moving. And so then we get to.
A
I mean, that's. That's a valid point to bring up in terms of, like, whether the quadrant house overlap. Because your fourth house would extend from 15 libra into what, somewhere in mid Scorpio, depending on what.
D
Mid Scorpio, Exactly. Yeah.
A
So it's 2013 through 2015. How old are your kids at this point? It's like eclipses are happening there as well. I see the nodes are halfway through that sign by 2013.
D
You know what? I. I'll be honest with you. I. I don't know. I don't know. I'm trying to think how old the kids were. So. 2013. I know. Or 20. Yeah, 2013.
A
Like, without giving their dates, do you know their birth years?
D
Yes, my kids, yes. Yeah. My. My oldest was 88. The second was 90, and the next one was 93.
A
Okay, so from like 90. So 2000, 2010 would be 20. So they're in their early to mid-20s, give or take. Around 2013, 2015.
D
Yeah. I still had at least one of them here, home here with me. My son.
A
Did they go off to college or did they stay?
D
Yes, at one point they did. And that might have been. I'm trying to think of what year they went. They. It was kind of like my son had left, and then we were by ourselves for the first time. And it was kind of weird, but I can't tell you what year it was. He was only gone for like a year, and he came back. They all finished college, but they lived home with us most of the time.
A
The ruler of the 5th is Mars, which is in the 9th. The 9th is the place of college and higher education. It's also the place of foreign travel in foreign countries, as well as the place of religion and beliefs. Have any of them developed either, let's say academic orientation or an interest in foreign countries and travel, or alternatively, a focus on religious or philosophical beliefs?
D
No, I wouldn't say any of the three.
A
How. How would you describe them then, in terms of.
D
Well, they've all went to college. So, like, you know, I have and Lee and my wife and I never did.
A
Okay, so it's like the first in their family to go to college.
D
Yeah. All three of them have graduated from college. Yes.
A
Did they just do their bachelor's or did they do.
D
My son is going to get his master's. My middle, she's a nurse practitioner. And in my oldest, she's got her bachelor's.
A
What did the other one get their master's in?
D
My son, he's a teacher.
A
Nice. Education teacher?
D
Yes.
A
Like higher. What level of education?
D
Which one? All of them.
A
The one that got the master's. Do they do K12 or they do college education?
D
No, the K through 12. Okay, well, my son, he's got. He's got. He's got his. In physical. In physical education. He's gearing get his masters in adaptive physical education.
A
Okay, so two of the handicap education. Yeah, so two of them went in a more like medical route, it sounds like.
D
Yes. My oldest. Yeah, well, actually my oldest daughter, she works for insurance. It's in doing some kind of medical auditing.
A
Got it. Okay. I was just trying to understand how that ruler of the fifth house was manifesting and if it was in any particular way that might clarify what was going on during that time period when they were all in their mid 20s. It sounds like if they're all in their mid 20s, then they would have been at different levels of going through college, basically. Okay, well, we'll leave that there. What was next on the timeline?
D
Okay, so keep moving. With Saturn kind of like in between there. It was a funny time. And I don't know if this would pop up in any way. I did something a little bit different. I ended up becoming a yoga teacher.
A
When?
D
2016.
A
Oh, wow. Okay.
D
And actually before that, though, it started like in 2015. For some reason. You know, I don't know if you understand Maryland, but there's an eastern shore and a western shore. It's like with the Chesapeake Bay in between. I went all the way across to walk to D.C. to, to take a yoga class and I ended up liking it so much that I ended up doing yoga teacher training there. So traveling, you know, a couple. A couple hour round trips to get to yoga teacher training.
A
Wow, that's really cool.
D
And I end up quitting eating. I don't eat meat either. And I'm a meat cutter at the grocery store.
A
And this was all happening during that same period. You also gave up meat?
D
Yep, gave up meat. 2015, stopped smoking, gave up eating meat, took yoga, became a yoga teacher. And yoga is still a big part of my life.
A
So this is during this like two or three year period when Saturn's going through your sixth house of health and illness. Were there. Was there a reason, Was there a health issue that came up that caused you to start wanting to take greater care of your health or what prompted it?
D
Actually when you were talking to the other person before about the Uranus opposition or whatever, and I was thinking maybe that was it something like that where it was just a really. Just a wild. Actually another thing was around that same time my wife and I took a trip. We went to Iceland. I know it's kind of odd. We've never been anywhere out of the country. And yes, 20. Yes. The beginning March of 2016, I think it was. We went to Iceland.
A
Okay. There was an eclipse in your 9th House of Foreign travel at that time.
D
Went to Iceland, like I said, ended up going to. And why we did that, I still don't really know. Loved it though. It's an awesome place.
A
Okay, well, that's interesting in terms of that. And then you're also taking classes. And also what was the motivation for becoming vegetarian at that time? Was it philosophical?
D
Yes. If I didn't, why. If I don't eat my dog, why would I eat a cow?
A
Was that influenced at all by some of the yoga and the Eastern philosophy that you're getting into?
D
Ahimsa. Yep. Nonviolence. Yeah, exactly.
A
So this is similar to the case we saw earlier in the first example, where there was like ninth house activations going on. And it indicated change in the person's beliefs basically, and philosophy and worldview, view and outlook. But also educational things at the same time, like starting to learn and open themselves up to new ways of viewing the world through education, which then were impacting their beliefs. So it's like that's happening with the eclipses taking place in your ninth house for a couple of years. But then also there's very tangible physical things happening where that same month you actually travel to a foreign country at the same time.
D
Yep.
A
Cool. All right. And that's impacting sixth house stuff with Saturn going through the sixth. And then what happens after that?
D
Okay, then you go up to the 2020. Well, actually before that, just before the 2020, if you go to 2019, early 2019, that's when I found out my father wasn't my father. So I don't know if that was that Saturn going over the sun. I'm not sure. I always kind of it was like, you know, we laugh about it now because it was kind of funny, me and my wife. Like I said, we've been together for, you know, 30, what, 38 years. And I've said the whole time that, you know, I don't think my father was my father. We used to laugh about it. I used to say, like, my father must be like John Lennon or something like that, you know, is just because we were really kind of different. But it ended up he wasn't. My father found out on ancestry.
A
Okay. So, yeah, this is the answer. So you. Why did you decide to look up ancestry?
D
I was very interested in. In my own. Just, you know, finding out your own, you know, heritage thing. And so I went on there. I still didn't know it until my sister joined ancestry. And actually she's the one that pointed out, she goes, why is Ray listed as a half?
A
Right. Because your mother's half and then the other is unknown.
D
Yes.
A
So this is interesting because it's like Saturn did go over your. It's doing several things, but it's transiting through in early 19, the first part of Capricorn. And your natal signature is you have Uranus in the fourth house widely conjunct the degree of the IC with Uranus at 8 degrees of Libra and the IC at 15 degree of Libra. And then the ruler of the fourth house of parents and father is the Venus, which is at 6 degrees of Capricorn, conjunct the sun at 12 degrees of Capricorn. And you had said that your father was a very positive influence in your life, and that's that benefic Venus. But then Saturn starts transiting over that and squares your Uranus conjoins your Venus and your sun. And then this test result comes back and you find out quite unexpectedly that he wasn't your biological father.
D
Right?
A
Yep.
D
So I mean, and the funny thing I guess too, though, like, you know, when I sit there and think about it, you know, our family, we weren't rich growing up by. By no means, but my father was very well known. He was like the chief of police in this small town. Right. That we live in. And. And it seems. And I was number two of five. So it wasn't like I was at the first one or the last one. I was the second one. So there was something happening there. You see what I mean?
A
So it's like maybe so your parents are together and do you know the status of your other siblings? Do they know for sure that they're. Was it the case is the scenario you're saying that then your mother and father that you grew up with, like had one child and then my brother.
D
Yeah. Which is their child. Yeah, theirs. And. Well, at least. How about that? You're right. My.
A
You don't know. I mean.
D
Yeah, there's two. Me and my sister, I guess are the only ones that done the ancestry. And my mother, and she claims that I'm the only one.
A
Okay, so. Oh, right, because your mom's still around so you're able to ask her about this.
D
Yeah, I asked her now, but. But you. And then maybe this is the Scorpio in me too. I don't really believe anything that she says now. That's a 50 year lie, you know, so.
A
So did she admit that there was someone else and that she had either. Had.
D
She has a full story of it. Her story? Yes, she has a story where my father and her were having. They had just got me married, you know, so my, my brother's two years older than me. So they got married, had him, and they was kind of like having a rough time. So mom's story is that they had split up. She hooked up with her old boyfriend prior to my father. Okay. And then that apparently she says is my father. Then they got my, my. The father that raised me. They got back together again and then she had me. So she. It was in that I was, you know, apparently I was born while they were back together. So I mean, whether or not possible.
A
I mean, yes.
D
And. But whether or not he knew, if he, if he's ever known that I am not his son, I don't know. She says he knows, but the story doesn't sit well. Sit right with me. So I feel like that's not the truth. Almost like she pulled a fast one. Maybe not. I don't know. I shouldn't say that.
A
Yeah. I mean, who knows? I can understand why you'd have those questions and stuff. But it's interesting just looking at this with. So I'm looking at the timing, but just switching it back to the chart itself. I think it's interesting that on the one hand we have Uranus in the fourth whole sign house not too far from the ice. See? And so this is like the previous chart we looked at where she had Uranus in the third house and there was something unexpected and shocking that she learned at some point later in her life about having other siblings that she didn't know about when that was activated. And for you, your chart is turned slightly so that Uranus is in the fourth house. And you learned similarly through ancestry, who again I need to get sponsorship from
D
from
A
that there was something unexpected or shocking that you learned at some point about your fourth house and that your father was different than what you thought. And in your case, I think it's interesting that the ruler of the fourth house in the IC is that Venus which is so close to the sun that it's combust. It's under the beams of the sun. And in the ancient texts in Rhetorius from the 6th century, he says that when a planet's under the beams, there's something secret or hidden about that planet. And he said that if the planet that signifies marriage is under the beams, then the marriage happens in secret. But for you it's like the planet that represents the parents and the father is under the beams and it represents there's something hidden about the father that later when Saturn is transiting over that would be revealed in this interesting way. So that's really interesting and really cool. Actually. Even just the fact that you have a Venus Uranus square. Something that's interesting and funny about that is sometimes when a person has a Venus Uranus heart aspect, it can indicate having many relationships or having something unique about relationships or not settling down basically. But it's actually been quite the opposite for you. You've had a long standing relationship for more than three decades. But the part about that signature that is true in your life is when you were born, if you think about that, what was happening with your mom and your father is that they had gone through a period of breaking up. She'd maybe been with somebody else and then you were born. And so it's like that's the signature is that it was tied in with your parents relationship and whatever had happened
D
there
A
in that formative part of your life. But it wasn't necessarily something that you yourself, you've had actually a pretty long and stable relationship.
D
Yes, of course. My wife says I'll never make another commitment. That was the big one. And I'm always like no more major, just like the house. Like I said, I don't want to really buy into your long term thing. It's kind of a funny thing.
A
But yeah, okay, that's funny. So yeah, that's pretty big. How did that hit you at the time with Saturn transiting over your stuff? When you found that out, was that hard or how did you take it?
D
Extremely hard. We had a really rough time and then it was kind of like a shock. It seemed like that's part of the reason why I Didn't really believe my mom's story. It seemed like a shock to her, too. And she knew I was on Ancestry, knew my sister was on, and she actually did Ancestry, so it was. It seemed like it was a. That's why I. I kind of, you know, it was a hard thing. And then she had to tell my other brothers and sisters and. And it was a kind of a big, you know, weird family thing.
A
Maybe she always had uncertainty surrounding which one it was just because the time frame was so close. Close.
D
Yeah.
A
Yeah. So maybe she didn't know until. Until then.
D
Till then. Right. And she kind of like maybe buried it in her mind. You know, it just, you know, it's 50 years. I mean, I was 50 years old.
A
Right. That's wild. Yeah. And then her charge, I mean, not that we're going to look at it, but do you have a time chart for her?
D
I don't have a time chart. She was born at home, and that's a weird deal. My grandfather delivered her at home, so it's kind of hard to get exact time.
A
Yeah. It would just be fascinating to see what that's like in her chart where maybe that Uranus is like in the fifth house or there's something going on there in terms of her experience and fate, basically in terms of the topic of children, as well as probably activation and transits that she was having. When you find this out. Out, that's always fascinating to me.
D
Yeah.
A
All right.
D
Well, and then the biggie, I fell off the cliff. I felt like just in March 13th. 2020. Yeah, 2020. March 13th. Yeah. Saturn,
A
a year later, you have a major accident.
D
Yeah, my. Right. When that covet broke out, when the store was going crazy, I ended up rupturing a disc in my back that
A
fell off a cliff.
D
Yeah, I felt like I fell off a cliff. And not really. I didn't really fall off the cliff. I said it felt like it. Yeah. Yeah. My disc ruptured and I ended up getting a. A drop foot out of it. So, like, I can't lift my. My foot. I had surgery, but that was all during COVID So the emergency surgery that I needed took like, like two months
A
to get right because of the lockdowns.
D
Yeah. It was crazy and it was hard to do. It's hard to get anything done. And so.
A
Go ahead.
D
So I ended up losing my job, ended up losing my health all in one fell swoop.
A
Oh, you lost your job as a result of this. Okay.
D
So, yeah, I end up on workman's comp. Why they did the surgery for the next six years. So just this past February, they finally resolved it. And now I. I received disability from workman's comp.
A
Okay.
D
But it's been. Never been contested. It was never, I mean, always understood. But for some reason, I just. They always had me on the. Just kind of like out in limbo, I guess, hoping to see if I would get better. And I never have. And actually it developed another illness. And that's a funny thing with that. Next. It's not really funny, but astrologically funny that I have. What's it called, crps, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. And it's in my feet. And you see that Mars in Pisces. I always say, now that that's the Mars and Pisces, that burn in feeling in my feet.
A
Okay. It feels like actual burning in your feet?
D
Yes, pretty much all the time. I have some kind of. Whether it's electrical or burning or whatever, it's just always constant pain from that.
C
Sure.
A
But in terms of this event, on March 13, 2020, we see that Saturn was at 29 degrees of Capricorn, and it was exactly conjoining your Mercury and opposing the degree of your ascendant. And then you have this really bad physical injury that actually affects your mobility, which is interesting, both because of Mercury as well as the ascendant degree. And Mercury is actually the ruler of the third house of local travel. And then shortly after this, there would have been a Mars Saturn conjunction in your 8th House, and Saturn dips into your 8th House for the first time and you lose your job at this point, yes.
D
Lose my job, which I had been working there, like I said, Total 20 years. But that in between time. So that had last, what was it, 10 years? 10 or 11 years I had worked there. Yeah. They end up letting me go. Now, the good thing is that one good thing is that I've still gotten paid. I've never lost money. So we didn't lose, like the other time when. At my back injury, that I lost money when Saturn was in my second. We didn't lose money this time. We kept getting paid.
A
But then you didn't get the disability until 2026.
D
Yeah, well, the. Yeah, so I still got paid through workman's comp. But the disability, when they finally come through with the. You have to go to court and go through all that, and the judge came back with permanent disability, and that wasn't declared until February. This past February, was there like a
A
reduction in your income at least, or. How would you describe it when Saturn.
D
It didn't feel like a reduction because you don't pay tax, so it seems it's a. It's a reduction in pay, but it's basically just the tax, I think it feels like. Okay, so we never really lost. I was lucky. I feel like we got lucky through that. Okay, so not like the other time where we lost everything. The house, everything. We didn't lose anything this day other than my job and my health.
A
Yeah.
D
But actually, too, it put me into astrology. So I think that that's an interesting day. So right at that same time, following, what, June, I started my first astrology class.
A
June of 2021.
D
2020.
A
June of 2020. Okay.
D
I think. Yeah. 2020.
A
What prompted that?
D
I was home. I knew the instructor from the yoga class was Adam Ellenboss. He does the nightlife astrology. Yeah, I took his class.
A
Nice.
D
I had taken. I was in his. Their yoga class was sky house yoga. That was the class I took in D.C. oh, that makes.
A
Yeah. On the East Coast. That makes sense.
D
That's how I knew him.
B
Yes.
A
Okay. Sort of trying to look and see what was going on in terms of that or what would indicate that Saturn's retrograding back over your Mercury. Right. Because Saturn retrograded back into Capricorn after dipping into Aquarius. And then Jupiter eventually would come up on that as well. Yeah. I don't know what the primary thing is for that. In terms of the indication for when you started studying astrology. I might just not be seeing it here. I see Neptune's going over your Mars and stuff and your north node in the ninth house.
D
Yeah, I'm not sure about that one. I just. I find it actually. So it became like an opportunity. You know what I mean? So for the last six years, I've got to study stuff.
A
Yeah. Just because you. Due to the lack of mobility, it's like there's not much else you can do.
D
Yep. Astrology. I've dipped into Egypt. You know, as soon as that. As soon as that Pluto goes over that descendant degree, I have dived deep into Egypt. The funerary text.
A
Okay.
D
Yes. I have this just majorly. I don't know what. Well, you know, what prompted. Was the Egyptian bounds. From there, it took me into Egypt.
A
And you said that was when Pluto reached 29 Capricorn.
D
Yes.
A
Okay. Conjoining your Mercury and your descendant. And you got really into the Egyptian funerary afterlife.
D
Yes. And investigative, you know, digging into the stuff. It was fascinating, but. And I still am.
A
Nice. That's cool. Yeah. And I mean, it's interesting that Saturn was moving out of your eighth and Pluto, when it's hitting your descendant, it's also moving into your eighth house.
D
And.
A
Yeah, that's really cool. So that brings us to today, to
D
2026, and I'm not anxious for my next Saturn return.
A
Yeah, I can't imagine you've been around the. You've got the hang of things at this point with Saturn, I was going
D
to say, but I don't know that that's going to be the truth. I hope it's the truth. Yeah, you're supposed to. You gain something from all the other years and you kind of have mastery. Right, or something like that.
A
Yeah. I mean, on the one hand, I think it's interesting with your chart, with having that stellium in Capricorn, how important Saturn has been in your life and how much its transits have tracked, especially through the houses, like those different phases of your life as we were seeing when it was going through your second house and financial issues, bankruptcy, and then the third house and then getting a car in the fourth house and buying a home. It's been interesting seeing how important. And then eventually Saturn going over your Venus, the ruler of Venus the fourth, and your son and finding out about your father. It's really tracked a lot of times and they haven't been super easy times. Oftentimes there's an obstacle or a setback or something challenging that comes up. But then it's also been periods in which you are sometimes, even though you take two steps back, you then take steps forward and there's forward progress, often through effort, like striving and movement and things like that. So it's not all, like, true.
D
I mean, it is true like too, when, when, like we lost that house, the, you know, the first, you know, in 2006, you know, that house that we were living in, it needed a roof, it needed heat, it needed a connection to the street for a septic. All these major financial things that I couldn't afford at the time. So a lot of times we say, well, we got lucky again because, you know, even though we lost that house, we bought this house, you know, so many years later. And it feels like, you know, we, we're not under those same burdens that we had before. You know what I mean?
A
Yeah. Sometimes when there's a malefic transit, there can be a loss. This came up in the last webinar last weekend. There can be a loss in some area, but then it opens you up for an Opportunity later on. And even though that sounds like a cliche, sometimes you actually see that happening through the transits and through the astrology.
D
Yeah, I like that.
A
So we were seeing that last week in the context of the seventh house where there would be difficult transit and there would be like a relationship loss, but then it opened the person up to find somebody better later on. But for you, you're talking about instances where there was like losing a house but then opening you up to end up being on the path to eventually find what would be a more long term living situation that was better.
D
Yes. Yep.
A
Okay. I like that. I think that's really good. Yeah. And also part of your story has been developing things, working on things internally like you dealt with, especially when you were younger, some issues in terms of mental health. But then it sounds like there's been some points along the way where you focused more on both your physical health as well as your mental health. And that's something where you, you're probably in a better place today than you had been at other points earlier on, I would think.
D
Yes. With the yoga and actually so, I mean, you could think of it that way. Learning yoga, meditation has helped me with my illness, so it almost seems like the road was being paved. Fate has a place to get to, but they give me this tool, you know, and then the astrology. So my spiritual practice has just blossom, bloomed, whatever you want to say. Especially since the time of my back, you know, allowing me to go deeper, I guess, and then having astrology to back it up. Seeing your place in the cosmos, I mean, even through the hard times, if you know that, almost like someone's watching, you know what I mean? A higher power, or whatever you want to say. I'm not saying astrology, religion, or anything like that. I'm saying that your, your, your time here is being marked.
A
Right.
D
You know, and you can really see it just in this and this. I mean, this is not. You cannot, to me, you cannot doubt that there's something here. You can see a relationship between, you know, it went dark, but the stars and yourself.
A
Here, I'll reshare it. Give me a sec, if that helps for the lighting. There we go. Yeah, I mean, I think that's one of the important things that we've seen here is sometimes when you're going through good times or you're going through challenging times, that sometimes being able to externalize some of that to get some perspective on your life and how the timing lines up does provide some perspective. And there's something Reassuring about that. I feel like to see that it's part of a broader sequence plan.
D
Grand plan. Yeah, yeah.
A
And to help identify what your life narrative is. And even though some parts of our life narrative can be challenging, and that's not always good things, even just having some perspective on that can sometimes be inherently beneficial or inherently helpful.
D
Yes, definitely.
A
I love it. All right, awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining me for this, and thanks for sharing your story. I really appreciate it.
D
Thank you. Hey, and thank you for this astrology podcast. You know, it's. It's kind of, like, anchored Me, too. I'll be honest. I love it.
A
Good. I'm glad to hear it. I appreciate that. All right, well, take care.
B
Thank you.
A
All right. Awesome. All right, I think that's it for today. That was amazing. We only got through three. I'd like to keep going, but I think I've hit a wall in terms of, you know, as much as I can talk today, because I want to be present and alert for every consultation. But this is amazing, and I hope it's clear. Now, what I was talking about at the beginning of this workshop, and part of the purpose of this is I wanted to talk about this in the context of your fate, is the sequence and the narrative of your life. And part of what we're doing with astrology is we're trying to understand our life narrative and our life story and our life narrative and our life story is working out the sequence of events that brought us to where we are today and why certain things happened at different points in our life and how that set us up and brought us to. To where we are today, as well as where we're headed into the future. And one of the things that's great about astrology is it can help tell us about, on the one hand, the birth chart and some of the inherent signatures that we have and the things about our fate and about our future that are coming up that are kind of laying there sometimes dormant or latent in the birthday chart, but then also through different timing techniques, we can see important turning points in the life where the things that were promised by the birth chart will be delivered at certain points. And I think this has to do with, again, just this notion of fate being the unfolding of a sequence of events in accordance with some sort of plan or some sort of purpose. And I think there's different ways to contextualize that, because one can either view that in a spiritual or religious context as a sort of providential ordering of events, and in some ways, in the ancient world, I think that's how the ancient stoic astrologers viewed it, because they viewed everything ordered according to. According to a plan or a purpose. And I think there's that version of it. There's probably other ways we conceptualize it in modern times. There's probably a version of that, according to. What is the name of that modern version of things being coded? Not a virtual world, but there's a specific phrase of that, like that, that's trending lately about simulation theory. So there's modern ideas about simulation theory and whether we're living in a sort of simulation of some sort. And there's something interesting about that from that perspective, where what we could be seeing through astrology is the code that's kind of like underlying reality in some sense and is indicating things in the future, because there's some things that are kind of like, coded into our lives. And there's a modern version where we could probably conceptualize things in that way, in some interesting way. And different people can kind of approach that from different philosophical or religious or metaphysical frameworks, depending on what your background is. But for me, this is part of what I've been trying to revive and understand is the ancient notions of fate and why ancient astrologers conceptualized astrology as the study of fate. And I think it has to do with the things that we were seeing here today and the way that astrology is able to access and describe something that's otherwise not accessible to us, which is this underlying ordering of events according to a sequence and according to a purpose or a narrative that can help to clue us in, into what the story or what the narrative is underlying our lives and the role or the part that we play in the world. And we all play different parts in the world or different roles, but part of what we're doing with astrology is trying to figure out what our role is and what our purpose is in the world and where things are headed. Yeah. So this is my approach, and I love taking the approach that I've developed through this blend of ancient Hellenistic astrology and modern astrology, and kind of blending those together. If you want to learn more about that and more about my approach, that's what I teach in my book, Hellenistic the Study of Fate and Fortune, as well as in my Hellenistic Astrology Astrology course, where I do webinars just like this one every month. And I teach people how to read birth charts with this approach, so that you can kind of apply it systematically to each different individual that you meet. To try to understand what their life narrative is. So I hope this has been interesting and useful, both from a technical standpoint, to show some of my approach of doing chart readings, but also philosophically to give some insight into the underlying philosophy that I kind of approach things with in viewing astrology more through this lens of fate and understanding the sequence and the narrative of our lives. And I think there's more that we could explore there and go into. But I think that leaves things. I hope that gives some insight into that approach, and I hope it clarifies things, and I hope that people can take that approach and continue to develop it further, because I think there's a lot more that we learned even just today. Like I said, every time we look at a new chart, I learn something new, because there's always a unique manifestation of how certain chart placements play out, depending on the context of the life. And today we learn some things about how a consultation as a dialogue between two people, or at least that's the best way that a consultation has always been done as a dialogue between two people, because then you're both taking the things that you know, and through that exchange, you uncover things about the person's fate and life story and narrative through the dialogue of the client or the person who's having the reading, knowing about their own life, and the astrologer who just has the chart and is approaching it based on what they know about the astrology. But they're learning a lot about the person's life in the process. And it's this reciprocal back and forth that creates something that's unique and special as part of the consultation. So I gave kind of a snippet of that here, because obviously I was doing shortened, condensed consultations that were also on the floor fly with no preparation. And I'm sure there were different things that I overlooked in terms of transits that were relevant, or we didn't get into other timing techniques like zodiac releasing, for example, or secondary progressions or profections or other things like that that can help to specify some of the outcomes or to show different levels of the interworkings of fate and the different activations of the truth chart at different points in the person's life. But even at this basic level of just looking at the birth chart and looking at transits and eclipses and outer planet transits and things like that, you can already see a lot, and it can help to clarify a lot about a person's life. So I love doing that. So, yeah, if you enjoyed this, let me know, maybe I'll do another one of these again soon with patrons. Thanks to each of you who shared your your story today. I appreciate all three of you a lot. I'm sorry that we couldn't get to more examples today, but I really wanted to sit with each of these and sort of let them breathe because the more you do, the more you start to understand and see and the more it sort of opens up. And I really love that process of hearing about a person's life and seeing how well they've chart matches and seeing it really come alive in that way. So yeah, this was great. So thanks everyone for joining me. If you have any questions, if you're watching this on YouTube later, post them in the YouTube comments. If you want to join this then become a patron of the Astrology Podcast through my page on Patreon and you'll get access to these live workshops. And thanks to each of the patrons that support this work and and allow me to do this. I really appreciate you all. All right, I think that's it. So thanks everyone for watching or listening to this episode of the Astrology Podcast and I'll see you again next time. If you're a fan of the podcast and you want to get access to bonus content, then become a patron through my page on Patreon, where you can get early access to new episodes, attend live recordings and webinars, access the monthly Electional Astrology Podcast, the secret Astrology Podcast that's only available to patrons, or you can even get your name listed in the credits. Find out more@patreon.com AstroNYPodcast Special thanks to the patrons on our Producers tier, including patrons Kristi Moe, Ariana Amour, Mandi Rae, Angelic Nambo, Issa Sabah, Jeannie Marie Kaplan, Melissa Delano, Sunny Baz, Baz Kwatsi Alabarahu, Annie Newman, Ginger Sadlier, Berlin west, and Nikki Crawford. If you're looking for good dates to do things this year, then be sure to check out our 2026 electional astrology report, which is a guide to the most fortunate dates in 2026. You can get it at theastrologypodcast.com 2026report. If you're really looking to take your studies of astrology to the next level, then consider signing up for my Hellenistic Astrology Course, which is an online course in Angel Ancient Astrology, where I take people from basic concepts up through intermediate and advanced techniques for reading birth charts. There's over 100 hours of video lectures, plus live webinars and Q and a sessions each month and at the end of the course you get a certificate of completion saying that you studied with me. Find out more information@theastrologyschool.com if you're looking to get an astrological consultation, then check out the new Consultations page on the podcast website where I have a list of astrologers I recommend for birth chart readings and other types of consultations. You can find that@theastrologypodcast.com consultations. The astrology software we use and recommend here on the podcast is called Solar Fire for Windows and you can get a 15% discount on it by using the promo code AP15 at the website alabe.com for Mac users we recommend the program called astro gold for macOS and you can use the promo code astropodcast15 to get a 15% discount at their website, which is astrogold IO. And shout out to our sponsors for this episode, including the Northwest Astrology Conference, which is happening in Seattle and being livestreamed online May 21st through the 25th, 2026. Find out more information@norwac.net, as well as the United Astrology Conference, which is happening in Chicago Chicago this year September 3rd through the 9th, 2026. Find out more information about that at uacastrology.com.
Host: Chris Brennan
Date: April 12, 2026
In this episode, Chris Brennan explores the philosophical and technical dimensions of understanding the birth chart as a life narrative and an expression of fate—how our charts map out the thematic arcs, unique challenges, and transformative experiences of our lives. Drawing on ancient concepts of fate from Hellenistic astrology, Brennan illustrates these principles through in-depth mini-readings and dialogues with several patrons who share their life stories, focusing on moments where astrology and real-life events intersect in meaningful and surprising ways.
Chris Brennan sets the stage, referencing Vettius Valens’ analogy of life as a play with each person as an actor:
The episode balances philosophical depth with personal warmth, maintaining Brennan’s signature thoughtful, curious, and occasionally humorous style. It’s a dynamic blend of technical astrological insight and human storytelling, with moments of emotional resonance, mutual discovery, and a sense of awe at the intersection of fate, free will, and astrology.
Chris Brennan closes with thoughts on how the birth chart reveals the sequence and purpose of life events—interpreted through both ancient and modern frames of fate, providence, or even simulation theory. He emphasizes astrology’s power not only to predict, but to contextualize and illuminate the unique roles each person plays in the greater narrative of life.
For Further Study:
Engagement: Listeners are invited to reflect on their own life narrative through their chart, consider timing techniques, and perhaps join live sessions as podcast patrons for a chance at future readings.