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A few announcements before we get into the latest batch of questions from the astrology for writers Discord!
First, there are only 8 writing routine birth chart reading slots left for the year (all in late August/early Sept). Jump on it!
Second! I am (finally) offering my electional astrology services to the public. Electional astrology is simply using astrology to find the best time(s) for both important and mundane life events. Folks come to me to elect things like weddings, going out on submission with their book, launching a business, and more. It’s literally my favorite thing to do with astrology, mostly because I’ve seen it work time and time again (and one of today’s questions is essentially an electional question). Here’s what some clients have had to say:
This literally changed the trajectory of my career! We chatted about submission dates for my new book proposal and selected Feb 22nd. The proposal went out as planned and we had an offer within an hour. The book later went to auction and I landed with one of my dream publishers. Planning that date with Jeanna gave me so much motivation and confidence to push forward when I doubted the writing, and I'm so grateful for it. — Nikki S.
Jeanna helped my girlfriend and I set the date for our June wedding. We both have a lot of air energy in our chart and got engaged in Gemini season, and we asked her to help us find a date with lots of light energy. We settled on a date with a party vibe Leo moon and, for the next day, a lazy void-of-course moon. She also helped us avoid a heavy Venus-Saturn square. She explained everything so easily, it really helped us make an annoying decision very simple. The wedding itself was transcendent, with so much presence bursting out of our hearts, and shared by all. We did three costume changes. Thank you Leo moon, thank you Jeanna, thank you life, thank you love. — Natalie
If you’re interested in using an astrologer’s services to plan your next major life event, learn more here.
Read on for today’s questions, which have to do with using transits for genre experimentation as well as natal retrograde planets.
Any recommendations for using transits to experiment with new forms/genres?
Before we proceed, if you don’t know what a transit is, read this (for the answer to “what is a transit?”) first.
Being real, anytime you want to experiment with new forms and genres is the correct time to do so. Inasmuch as planetary transits are always working us over, most every transit is going to connect to your creative process, or your ability to access confidence when moving in that process.
That said. There are some especially helpful aspects specifically to look out for, inasmuch as they might serve as helpful lightning rods to channel new insight and otherwise break through the rut of the familiar. Because of your emphasis on experimentation, I’ve prioritized planets having to do with art as well as sudden movement.
Mercury/Uranus
The lightbulb moment, the breakthrough discovery, the call that changes everything: this is Mercury/Uranus. Mercury is the planet that rules writers, communication, and our thought process, and Uranus is the planet that brings sudden insights, surprising changes, and the occasional world-shattering earthquake. The reporter gets a break on their story; a character you’ve been having trouble with suddenly speaks clearly. You can see how these two planets getting together could facilitate swift and sudden shifts in the wind regarding your thinking and intellectual resources around projects.
Venus/Uranus
Makeover montage: hello. When it comes to experimentation that is tied to shifts in your overall relationship to art, we look at how Uranus is shaking up Venus, the artist-lover who rules all things culture and beauty. Venus-Uranus moments signal shifts in what we are attracted to, what art we’re interested in, and our overall aesthetic preferences. These also often signal shifts in our personal style or sense of expression.
Since Uranus is in Taurus, these moments with Mercury and Venus happen when those respective planets are in the following: Taurus (the conjunction), Cancer and Pisces (the sextile), Scorpio (the opposition), Leo and Aquarius (the square), and Virgo and Capricorn (the trine).
Something I’ve been wondering about for a while: what is the significance of retrograde planets in the birth chart? The book I’m currently reading suggests that they can be unnecessarily given too much weight. This came up when I was looking at my partner’s chart. They have 6! planets in retrograde while I have none.
I don’t know what book you were reading, but I agree with it, at least in this regard. At the risk of being too much of a modernist, I often think of natal retrograde (rx) planets like I think of tarot reversals: I don’t really interpret them that differently, because the story is already there. It usually doesn’t make that much of a difference if the card is right-side up or down, if the planet is direct or Rx. This is a very common client concern, and I think that, in a natal chart, the emphasis on Rx planets working “differently” is often very, very overblown.
That said: as in the way that some tarot readings do intuitively call for honoring reversals, I do pay attention when someone has a retrograde Mercury, Venus, and/or Mars — aka the personal planets. I definitely have natal Mercury Rx clients who are more comfortable actually doing their writing during Mercury Rx periods; for some of them, this particular retrograde placement seems to have an Opposite Day kind of function, where they struggle more under Mercury direct conditions. To switch planetary focus, since Venus Rx is a transit many of us associate with underworld descent, I may ask Venus Rx clients about their relationship to and journey with desire. And so on.
Outside of that. The sun and moon are obviously never retrograde (remember, planets don’t actually move backwards — they just appear to, hence the symbolic interpretations). And the outer planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto — are retrograde for roughly half the year, every year. *shrug* I truly cannot emphasize enough how common it is to have a number of retrograde planets in the chart, especially the outers (not to mention the nodes and Chiron). It’s just a part of how their orbits appear. (And we can’t even see the three most outer planets in the night sky, so I genuinely don’t pay them much attention from an interpretive standpoint.)
I know that plenty of astrologers out there do work more heavily with retrograde natal planets, and my opinion here isn’t necessarily popular. Go research! Talk to other people! As ever, I am not the end all be all.
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