The Cosmic Calendar w/ Christopher Renstrom

Listen here:

Watch here:

Using Astrology to Plan Your Life

In this episode of the Astrology Hub Podcast, Astrologer  Christopher Renstrom and Amanda ‘Pua’ Walsh discuss ” Your Cosmic Calendar…”

You’ll learn…

• • About Christopher’s upcoming course with The Astrology Hub: The Cosmic Calendar
  • How cultures have used Astrological Calendars to plan their lives for centuries
  • The ways in which Julius Ceasar changed how we view keep time
  • About the Saturn Return and Uranus opposition

✨ Time Stamps

0:00 The Cosmic Calendar

4:06 Your Chart as a Calendar

16:00 The Chinese Lunar Calendar

26:04 Julius Ceasar’s Influence on the Western Calendar

33:18 The Importance of the Sun vs the Moon in Antiquity

34:34 Saturn Return

46:32 Uranus Opposition

51:10 On the Temporary Nature of Life

1:02:54 Closing Thoughts

Transcript

This transcript is automatically generated. Some miswording might be present.

Amanda Pua Walsh 0:00
Well hello everybody and welcome to the astrology hub podcast. My name is Amanda Pua Walsh, I’m the founder of astrology hub. I am here today with astrologer and historian and astrology hub, favorite, Christopher Renstrom. Yay, are now officially less than one week away from the cosmic calendar course, which we’re going to talk about here in just a second. Today, we’re covering a lot of different things, some really cool topics. So we’re going to be talking about the Chinese New Year celebration at the Olympics. We’re going to be talking about Julius Caesar and the cosmic calendar. Yeah, yeah. And we’re gonna be talking about lifetime transits, including the Saturn Return and the Uranus opposition, and what those mean, and how to work with them. So we kind of have a modge podge of topics, but they’re all going to be excellent as always. Right, Christopher? I feel

Christopher Renstrom 0:55
like Snoopy and the peanuts, who says and I bring it all together again in chapter two.

Amanda Pua Walsh 1:01
Awesome. Okay. So I see some of our friends joining us right now. Hello to all of you. Thanks for joining us. And let’s just go through real quick, the cosmic calendar course it’s starting next Thursday. If you haven’t enrolled yet, you can go to astrologyhub.com/cosmiccalendar and check it out. It’s based on Christopher’s book, and it’s designed to help you understand the seasons of your life very personal to your chart, and how it maps with the movement of the stars. And it’s designed to enable you to have another data source. As you’re planning your life. You’re making big decisions, you’re trying to time things, when’s the right time to do this, or that when’s not the right time. And so it’s very practical hands on application and study of how your chart maps with the movement of the skies. What would you like to add to that, Christopher?

Christopher Renstrom 1:57
What I love about having developed the cosmic calendar, which came out of, I guess they sound like years of practice, but actually came out of years of practice. But what I like about it is that, you know, as an astrologer, you learned so much from people that you read for, you know, I mean, for me reading for clients is just as valuable, maybe even more valuable than reading up on you know, all the all the astrological lore, which you have to remember, it’s like 2500 plus years of astrology. So there’s a lot of astrological logorrhea, sort of catch up on but reading for clients is just so informative, it’s so educational, and it’s also so gratifying. And it’s so fulfilling. But one of the things that I was noticing is that there is this kind of feeling like, you know, you have the, you have the birth horoscope. And so it’s always this feeling of like, well, is that all there is, this is where the planet show up in my horoscope and I can’t do anything about it. I’m like, stuck with that for life, you know, sort of thing. And and, and so you’ll bring in this idea of like, transits, you know, of, you know, these planets are moving through. And transit is just what you think when you talk about taking city transit, it means crossing, okay, and so they’re these planets that are in constant motion, you might have a screenshot of the sky at the time of your birth, which is the natal chart, but the planets are in constant motion, but there was still this feeling like planets by their transit were happening at you, you know, that you’re just kind of like this person with this chart, and you’re sort of holding it up, and you’re looking up at the sky above you or whatever, and these planets are going to, like, you know, sort of, sort of sale you or influence you or shake you up, or whatever. And so there’s this feeling of like, you know, type of thing. And what I began to notice is that each chart had its own personal sense of timing, okay, it had its own timing that’s actually really unique to the chart, or regardless of what transits are taking place.

Christopher Renstrom 4:06
And in fact, the more that I kind of, like worked with this idea, I found that if you were working with your own personal sense of timing, then you weren’t being thrown off or taken a surprise or knocked over as quickly or suddenly or surprisingly, I a transit and that you can actually sort of use your chart, and your own personal timing, to chart your own course, as you go through life and not feel so much like you’re navigating the Scylla and corruptness or, or all these sorts of things. So this was really personally enlightening and something that I brought into my work over the years and I found it to be really helpful and really effective. And so that’s why I was so grateful Amanda when you invited me to teach a course on this.

Amanda Pua Walsh 4:56
So you one time described it to me As we are actually, the clock is in us and outside of us. Right?

Christopher Renstrom 5:07
Right, Richard neighbor, which is we live in time, he had this beautiful quote, Richard niver was a 20th century theologian and ethicist. And he has this wonderful quote, which is, we live in time. But time also lives within us. You know, and so so this idea of like, living in time, we all live in time, you’re born into the world, you live your life, and, you know, and etc, but also time lives inside myself, which at first is kind of like, okay, is that like a biological clock thing or whatever. But actually, it’s, it’s more psychic, and it’s more spiritual, that that there is this feeling of time living within you, yourself. And the chart is actually a reflection of that. And, and that’s something that I found to be very helpful, and also kind of empowering in a way, you know, this, this idea of like, time is living within me. And so I need to discover what my own sense of time is, because my sense of time is not going to be the same as Amanda’s or as Jamie. So or as anyone else, you know, you might be, you know, you might peak early in your life, or you might be a late bloomer in your life, you might go through long plateaus in your life, or you might have things happen very staccato, and very quickly. And so, you know, I think we’re all sort of used to the idea of like, having a nocturnal personality, like I come to life at night, or I’m more of a daytime person. But there’s also sort of seasonal, there is absolutely a seasonal quality to that. And again, we’re used to thinking of the four seasons of the year, but that adjusts per person, you know, that notion of when I’m in season out of season, these are things that you’ll be learning in, in the course, and I think they really help to complement and supplement the astrological chart.

Amanda Pua Walsh 7:05
It’s interesting because what it sounds to me is that this will give us permission to really surrender and embrace the quote unquote season that we’re in. Because so our our society or culture, it’s basically you always need to be in summer, like you always need to be or spring you know, you always need to be fertile and producing and, and energized. And it’s hard to surrender to winter, or fall and really embrace those for the gifts that they offer, which they offer gifts, they’re just very different than the gifts you get in those other seasons. So this sounds like it’s we’re getting permission to actually really use the gifts of each of the phases of our lives and, and be okay, being in those phases to just embracing them. Yeah,

Christopher Renstrom 7:56
you might be a winter person. So what do you do in the summer, you might be a summer person, what happens to you in the winter, it’s, it’s that it’s not particular to to each chart, you know, and it gets into, you know, we’ll begin to describe not only just the timing, but also the temperament, the point of view, you know, how do you relate if you’re a winter person and you’re moving into a spring season, when spring for you, when you’re a winter person, spring isn’t at the same time as spring in the calendar of your winter person. And so it gets into all these particular things, which is why, in the first part, I really wanted to introduce all of these different different types of calendars. I mean, to me, astrology isn’t a science and astrology isn’t a religion. What astrology is, is a calendar, which is why every major civilization or not so major civilization, society, culture on this planet, created some form of astrology, it was in order to tell time, so it wasn’t about you know, genuflecting to the gods or appeasing you know, invisible fates and spirits. It was about telling time and you told Time by the moon and by the sun, and by the position of the planets as they moved around, but how those planets were catalogued how those planets were understood, is very different for all the different societies. I mean, we’re used to, for instance, the Middle East, Indian, there’s, there’s a gorgeous Chinese astrology, um, Mesoamerican, we’re used to these sort of civilizations that had set up observatories, and and but Stonehenge, you know, out there and in England somewhere, you know, all these other places, but it wasn’t just exclusive to that. We’ve found evidence of, of telling time, with different monuments and things like that in the Sahara, you know, down in Latin America down in Australia, maybe not all of them them became well known, maybe not all of them survived. You know, and maybe there are excavations that are waiting to be done, and, and writings or carvings that are waiting to be interpreted. I mean, we really cannot assume that we know everything about astrology in the history of astrology. And what’s kind of exciting about some of recent archaeological discoveries is that we’re seeing that different societies were timing things. Well, if they were timing things, they were probably also assigning their idea of properties to, you know, the planets or the different types of seasons and what that would, what that would mean. And so I think we need to be open and actually rather excited about that, and what might emerge, what’s yet to emerge.

Amanda Pua Walsh 10:50
A question for you, Christopher, from awakened eyes, wondering, will this help guide will this help guide us even if we don’t know how to read our chart, but are aware of the houses what they mean? And where our planets set just get lost in conjunctions and aspects?

Christopher Renstrom 11:07
Right? This is designed I mean, I, I have a personal mission in life, okay, which is to make astrology accessible. Okay. I love astrology. Everyone I meet loves astrology. I mean, and we’ve all had that experience of the astrological conversation where it’s like, Okay, tell me about Gemini, you’re so like that. And so, you know, you’re talking about Gemini and things like this. But then sometimes astrologers will go sort of into the weeds a little bit with it’s like, well, and then there’s mercury, Mercury’s forming a conjunction to this. And, and you know, there’s a hard angle here, and maybe it’s sesquiquadrate, to whatever. And you can just watch the eyes glaze over. Okay? Person like, sorry, I asked, and how do I back out of this section. And astrologers will go on and on and lay it on thick. It’s almost like Baroque architectures. Isn’t the person’s like, feeling smaller and smaller? And like, sorry, I asked her. I’m Betty. Hi.

Amanda Pua Walsh 12:11
Okay, welcome there. Yes, either on the receiving side or the giving side?

Christopher Renstrom 12:15
Right, exactly. When you’re like, Oh, my God, I’m sounding like, and and so, you know, one of the challenges I’ve I make to myself is to always talk as if you’re talking for the first time make it as simple and, and as accessible as possible. And I think that what you may find or took a long time to answer your question, I apologize. I think what you may find is that the way that for instance, modes, Cardinal fixed immutable, and elements, water, earth, air fire, they are actually woven into the calendar itself. Okay. And so I think once you get that thinking, you know, into a calendar, you know, what’s a spring sign a summer sign of fall, sign a winter sign, all of a sudden, a, you can remember the signs in their order, it’s really easy, you just follow the months in the calendar. But you also begin to sort of see the logic to, you know, or you begin to see it to weave in where the modes go with the elements and things like that. And then that sort of really sort of sets down your your your calendar, and your horoscope, getting your horse, looking at your horoscope as a calendar, I think really grounds it, and actually make some of those obscure points in astrology a lot more understandable.

Amanda Pua Walsh 13:34
So if you have basic understanding of your chart, you’re going to be able to get a lot out of the class. If you have advanced knowledge, or you’ve been studying for a long time, do you also still think that those people will get a lot out of the class?

Christopher Renstrom 13:54
I daresay what you’re going to discover is Oh, that’s why these go together. Okay, it’s like, oh, that’s where all these pieces fit. Wow. Okay, like, like I get it, I get what the thinking was behind this. And, you know, I and I have a tendency to you know, beat points until they’re like dead on the ground or whatever. But, but the thing is, by returning to this idea of a calendar, you’re going to see the logic and the thinking that was going on behind all of this. And, and I think it’s something that you’re that you’re really going to appreciate on one. The other thing is I excuse me for clearing my throat so much.

Christopher Renstrom 14:34
The other thing is that I think you’ll also enjoy the techniques, you know, that the techniques that I use these techniques when I do my daily horoscope forecasting and my weekly horoscope forecasting, and, you know, monthly and nearly if I ever picked those back up again, there’s so many days, there’s so many months, but anyway, you know, I use it for all of that and I think you’ll begin to see like, oh, how this clicks in. It’s not going to be so true. transit paste, you know, you’re going to start being like, oh, transit works with this season in my chart. And I can see how this, how this, how this ties in together. So it’s always like bringing in the transits and weaving them into a narrative, which is your own astrological chart. Okay. And I think that that’s something that’s going to make the transits more decipherable and more understanding and also, on a practical level, okay, maybe the next couple of weeks aren’t so great because of this, but you know, what I’m looking forward to what occurs after that, because I know that the season will shift or change.

Amanda Pua Walsh 15:39
I’m so happy you did that hand movement, that folding in the transits into your chart, instead of us getting batted around by the write in, and then allowing them to inform our path without, like, knocking us off in around our path.

Christopher Renstrom 16:00
Right. And this is, this is the beautiful thing about calendars. I mean, nowadays, we look at calendars, you know, to find the day of the week and month and, you know, plan ahead and, and and cosmic calendar is not an agenda, okay? It’s not like, you know, Oh, I’m getting an agenda, you know, to write down my goodness, it’s not that it’s kind of like getting you connected to your own personal calendar. Something I wanted to share really quick if I if I might, if it’s all right. Um, is, is this. I was just like, blown away. Okay, I don’t know how many of everyone out there watch the Winter Olympics, the 2022 Winter Olympics, but I was really blown away by actually the Olympics. Okay. But in addition to I was really blown away by the opening ceremony, by the, for the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing. And what was so fascinating is that is a theme that they had chosen for the opening ceremony. And the theme that they had chosen was the Chinese Lunar New Year, which is really intriguing, but we don’t always understand or, or get, or at least I, I don’t, or didn’t before this. Now, in a Chinese lunar year, there are 24 Solar terms. So we’re where you live in a solar calendar. So it’s 12 months. But in a Chinese year, there are 2424, what they call terms, okay, important things that take place, not time to the lunations. But it’s the two times of month, you know, one honoring a New Moon and the other one honoring honoring a Full Moon, it’s not to that day, because that would just be insane. But, but it honors it in terms of of setting up these terms.

Christopher Renstrom 17:42
And what the Chinese realized with this is that this was the 24th Olympics, right? And so they wanted to share their calendar of the 24th solar terms with this 24th Olympics. Okay, and so for them, they regarded this as a suspicious, which is why they chose February 4. As as the day to open to begin the Olympics. And yeah, and so you can hear the astrology already, right. But as far as I know, this wasn’t really set up with astrology, but it’s demonstrating astrology as a calendar, right. And so they opened on February 4, and, and in on February 4, that is the beginning of their year. But they call it the beginning of spring. Now everyone’s kind of like February 4, beginning of spring, I don’t get it. That’s like really cold and it’s really dark. Like, why would that be the beginning of spring? And, and for them, and this comes from the Han Dynasty. The idea was that it isn’t, it is in extreme winter, when the year is at its darkest and coldest that is when the call for newness is strongest. Okay? So it’s at that time of year when it’s darkest and cold is that the call for newness is strongest. And so every February 4 is the beginning of spring is the beginning of the Chinese New Year.

Christopher Renstrom 19:18
Okay, then it’s followed, and I’ll just sort of go through these divisions. I wanted to share them with you because it’s a different way of thinking of the calendar, but there’s also such a beautiful poetry to it, you know, so So February 4 is the beginning of spring, February 19, is called rainwater. Okay? Because that’s, that’s that’s a that’s a rain period. March 5, I love this one is called the awakening of insects. Okay. And March 5 is known as the awakening of insects because that’s when thunder begins. And hibernating. Insects wake up, you know, they just sort of like wake up okay. And so this is associated in March 5, march 20. They they recognized the equinoxes and Solstices on March 20, is spring equinox, which is equal day equal night, then April 4 is known as pure brightness. And this is the time of year when it’s clear and bright, and weather is starting to become warmer. April 19, is called grain rain. And this is when the early crops begin to show their roots.

Christopher Renstrom 20:22
If you sort of listen to this, you can almost hear the zodiac signs in the background, you know, beginning to emerge here. May 5, in the Chinese calendar is the beginning of summer, you know how how the beginning of spring begins almost like a month or whatever early the beginning of summer is almost a month early. That’s that’s in tribute to the lunar calendar. And so May May 5 is the beginning of summer, May 21 is grain buds. This is when the crops begin to become plump, but they aren’t yet ripe. You know, and I just love that it’s like it’s, it’s you beginning to see growth. It’s really but it’s not yet ripe. You don’t you don’t pick it yet. Okay, and that’s may 21. June 6 is called grain in ear, and that’s when the wheat becomes ripe. And summer planting starts June 21. Summer Solstice, that’s the longest day shortest night. July 7 is called minor heat. It’s the beginning of the hottest period, July 23 is major heat, that’s when the sun is strongest, the temperature is high, and rainfall is greatest with lots of thunderstorms. August 4, the beginning of autumn, August 23 is the end of heat, it’s the end of the hot summer. So you can sort of see how this is getting tied into the calendar. But there’s personality you can you can hear these poetic images, personalities that that are emerging that you can almost begin to ascribe to the zodiac signs themselves.

Christopher Renstrom 21:52
So and if he does August 23, September 7 is called light do that’s when the temperature drops sharply and autumn rains come. September 23 Is the autumnal equinox equal day equal day or night, October 8 is cold do that’s whether it’s cold enough to reach the dew point, October 23, frost descent it’s the beginning of frost. So we’re moving from, you know, for following it in our own minds. I hear we’re moving from Libra into Scorpio. Alright. November 7 In the Chinese calendars the beginning of winter, November 22 is minor snow snow begins to fall, December 7 major snow snows heavily for the first first time that’s December 7, December 22nd Is the winter solstice, shortest day, longest night. January 5 is minor cold weather rapidly reaches its coldest, January 20 is major cold that is the absolute coldest time of year. And then it begins again February 4 with the beginning of spring.

Christopher Renstrom 22:59
I wanted to share that with you not just for the poetry in the images. But it’s a calendar that’s very different from the one that we live under, you know, we can recognize aspects of ourselves in it. But but but it’s the way that it’s labeled even divided is different from the one that we’re used to. And that’s kind of what I really wanted to impart is that there’s no one calendar, okay, there’s no one telling of time, although different civilizations and cultures have told Time from their, from their different and unique perspectives over the centuries. And the same idea can be applied to your own personal horoscope. But what I liked about just sort of narrating that, and thank you for listening was just, you could hear the personalities of the seasons, you could hear the temperaments, like the temperatures changing, and astrology was so tied to this, we’re so accustomed with astrology to look at the stars, you know, to look up in the sky and and to follow that, but not always do we put equal emphasis on what’s happening in on earth below, literally, you know, and here with the character of the changing seasons, you could sort of see where the Psychological Types could emerge, like how spring could be very like buoyant to like, like, like early, early shoots, but I’m not quite ripe yet. You know, where summer can be very hot. You know where fall can be, you know, the beginning of chill, you know, and then winter is cold and dark. And when you think of the signs in terms of words that are collected into those seasons, you can really follow the story of their temperaments and then begin to not only identify the different temperaments, but also even to remember them.

Amanda Pua Walsh 24:45
God The other thing that is so clear in that calendar is how connected they are to nature. There’s this reverent observation that had to have taken place for them to get To that, to all those definitions and terms it’s it’s it’s it felt so reverent, it felt so honoring of the the natural cycle. And it’s just beautiful. Wow, I love it so much. Thank you for that. You’re always bringing us some amazing new things that I don’t know about you all, but I’ve never heard that before. So it was it’s delightful.

Amanda Pua Walsh 25:23
Okay, so we have that. First of all, if you’re interested in joining the course, I just want to make sure you know what the link is. It’s astrologyhub,com/cosmiccalendar. So we’re going to be exploring all these topics in for three weeks together with recorded modules and live q&a s and all kinds of really cool things for the students of this class. So check it out. And let’s talk about Julius Caesar and the cosmic calendar. My daughter has been talking about Caesar so much lately because they’re they’re doing that in their studies right now. So we’re talking about Julius Caesar all these amazing facts.

Christopher Renstrom 26:04
Julius Caesar was the first lover of Cleopatra and Augustus Caesar was the second okay and and and both gentlemen really had their lives turned around by their stay in Egypt. But where Julius Caesar was so important to us, as astrologers is that Western astrology really begins or is rooted in Julius Caesar. In 46 BC, Julius Caesar changed the world, not a little bit, and not incrementally just absolutely. He changed the world and he changed the world in 46 BC. How and why? Well, it’s not a battlefield. It’s not a great conquest. It’s not a great oratory or speech that he gives, He doesn’t predict that there’s going to be an eclipse and it takes place and he, you know, is bathed in light and glory or anything like that. Or shadow rather, because I brought up Eclipse but anyway, what it stems from is that he was invited to a dinner, but it stems from is that he was invited to a dinner party on Cleopatra’s barge, okay, and evidently Cleopatra’s barge, it’s kind of like a modern day yacht was a big deal in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. It’s described with great, great detail, this marvelous barge, and so she’s having this dinner party on a barge, and he finds himself sitting next to her court astronomer. So Sydney’s sausage and cheese, sausage, sausage bunnies, okay.

Christopher Renstrom 27:37
And, and he’s like a very wise man, and he’s like a court astronomer, actually, it would have been referred to at that time as being a chord astrologer. Anyway, the two of men get talking about calendars. And Julius Caesar get so engrossed in the conversation that it’s noted that it went through the night that there was no interrupting him like Cleopatra comes up, and, you know, Jules, it’s time for bed or whatever. And he’s like, he’s not listening. He’s He’s engrossed in this conversation about calendars. And what he’s sharing with suspicion is, is that the Roman calendar had been a mess. For decades. It was based on the moon so intercalary months needed to be added every eight years. For for a lunar calendar to line up with the seasons. You sort of heard it an example of that briefly before when we were talking about the Chinese lunar calendar. Now, lunar calendar is just so everybody knows were commonplace in the Mediterranean, everyone, everyone have a lunar calendar. However, the problem that Julius Caesar was having is that the Roman priests who were in charge of the calendar, were adding and subtracting months, according to the politicians that they favored who were in office, okay.

Christopher Renstrom 28:53
So if the Roman priests were being paid off by politicians, they would simply extend their their term, according to the calendar because no one else was keeping track of the calendar, it was in charge of the robbing priests, and therefore politicians were elected that they didn’t like that would be like, Oh, after a month, like your terms over maybe after eight months, your terms over and everyone believed it? And the guy was like, wait, no, I just, you know, sorry, over text. Okay. So so they were like playing around, you know, you not only did you have to add months for these eight year periods, but you had Roman priests who were playing who were playing around with it and getting away with murder. But what was also happening during this time is that it was wreaking havoc on shipping on commerce. And the thing that Julius Caesar was most absorbed in tax collection, okay, like like tax collection had been thrown completely off, and nobody really knew what what the Roman calendar year was.

Christopher Renstrom 29:57
Suspension is suggested in there dinner party. I’m switching over to the Egyptian calendar, which was solar based, okay. And Caesar was like, well tell me more about it and says the genies like, glad you asked. So he says, centuries earlier, we had calculated we have Egyptians had calculated that it took the sun 365 and a quarter days to return to where it was at the Spring Equinox. And that’s another thing for us to keep in mind. The the New Year in the Mediterranean at this period of time was associated with the spring equinox and not the winter Equinox, which is where we celebrate our New Years. At this time, New Year’s is the spring equinox. And so they had calculated that the sun takes 365 and a quarter days to come back to where it was at the Spring Equinox.

Christopher Renstrom 30:50
So Sydney’s demonstrated to Caesar that by dividing the year into 12 months, okay, one month of 30 days alternates with one month of 31 days, which alternates with one month, 30 days, 31, etc, okay, he could create a consistent year, up 366 days, then what you do is decision, he said, then what you do is that you reduce February by one more day to sink the calendar to the sun. That way, instead of adding or subtracting an entire month, every eight years, which is what the Roman prisons were doing, all Caesar had to do was add one day to February. once every four years, you might already recognize Leap Day and leap year there. So Caesar loved it, his eyes just loved it. And he’s like, we’re doing it tomorrow. Like, like, like, like, we’re going ahead with this. This is what we’re going to do. And so that was the origin not only the leap year, but it’s also the origin of the Julian calendar named after Julius Caesar, of course. And that’s the origin of the Julian calendar. And it became the standardized timekeeping throughout the Roman Empire, they all made the switch from a lunar to a solar based calendar. That’s why sundials and obelisks. Maybe you’ve seen obelisks around Washington, DC and museums and, and sundials and gardens, what sundials, and obelisks are both of Egyptian origin, okay, because they’re showing the shadowing of the sun. And so this became all the rage among Roman citizens. It’s almost kind of like the Apple Watch coming out. Like this.

Christopher Renstrom 32:30
It’s like an obelisk, get a sundial put it in the garden. Okay, and so it standardized timekeeping for the first time throughout the entire Roman Republic. And you have to remember, the Roman Republic is stretching from Gaul or southern Britain to Turkey, and North Africa. It’s an it’s an enormous thing to do. But finally, the point that I really also want to underscore here is that the change of calendars from lunar to solar, this is what gave birth to Western astrology, which had been based astrology had been based on the moon since Babylon. And so from now on, from Julius Caesar, on Western astrology would come to be based on the Sun instead of the moon.

Amanda Pua Walsh 33:18
Fantastic. That is fascinating. In what, in terms of our interpretation, before was the moon more important in the chart and the sun secondary? Because now the sun seems to be more primary.

Christopher Renstrom 33:35
I don’t know if any, I mean, certainly in terms of timekeeping. Yes, I can answer that question. In terms of timekeeping. Yes, the moon becomes much more important. It’s the center of of, of the calendar. I’m sure that the sun was still important, but it was the moon. Well, the moon still holds on to its timing, capabilities. And something like ordinary astrology, right, because it’s the fastest moving planet. So it’s still it still retains that. But what happens here is, I think you can’t help but change your emphasis from lunar thinking to more solar, or at the very least Egyptian thinking, you know, because Egypt becomes all the rage. And then, you know, this goes on to become Hellenistic astrology, which is in basically, Roman occupied Egypt with very powerful Greek Greek influences, intellectually, and even culturally fascinating.

Amanda Pua Walsh 34:34
Okay, so we’re talking about different timing and calendars, and the way that they have changed. There’s another sort of biological calendar that we all seem to share. And that is some of these lifetime transits that are built into all of our charts and fairly predictable, right. So today we want to talk about the Saturn Return. And then also the Uranus opposition. So Saturn Return around age 29-30

Christopher Renstrom 35:07
It’s kind of between the 28 and 30 bracket.

Amanda Pua Walsh 35:10
28-30. Opposition Uranus opposition’s

Christopher Renstrom 35:15
That’s roughly about maybe 42 to 45. Okay, at the It’s been called the midlife crisis, right? Thing is the Uranus opposition, like you’re living into your, your your and and what’s kind of fascinating is that both of them are based on the number seven you know which is which is interesting because Uranus is the one who over Uranus, Saturn. Back up here Saturn is the one who overthrows Uranus. And so Saturn is famous for the number seven, you know, in in, in the days of the week, Saturn was associated to Shabbat, which was Saturday, which was the Jewish that for the Jewish people was about it was Sabbath.

Amanda Pua Walsh 35:58
Okay. And that was the seventh day.

Christopher Renstrom 36:01
And that was the seventh day, okay, and this is what made Jews in the ancient world, one of the things that made them so remarkable is that they would stop and not do work for one day out of a week. Okay? Now for us, it’s kind of like, whoa, sounds like a you know, hit the couch and watch Netflix or something like that. But in the ancient world, you didn’t eat unless you were out there like working the land and laboring and all these sorts of things. So for an entire people to take one day out of the week, and refuse to work because that’s the day that that God sleeps or God rests, and it’s an honor of God in slumber, you know, and this was the day actually, when you were closest to God, you know, the Jews, the Jewish people in the Roman Empire became associated with the planet Saturn, because of the number seven. Okay, so so so, Saturn is not only the seventh day of the week, but every seven years, Saturn will aspect every seven years as Saturn moves around the chart or the wheel Okay, that’s Christopher’s choreography. I apologize, you know, of like Saturn. Moving around, okay, the wheel, maybe we could just do this, okay.

Christopher Renstrom 37:16
Um, at age seven, Saturn will square itself. Okay, at age 14, Saturn will pose itself at age 21, Saturn will square itself again. And at age 28 to 29 Saturn comes back to where it was in the sky. This is why it’s called a Saturn Return. Right. And so you can almost think of the Saturn aspects before the Saturn Return. As I’m going to close the door here, I’ve got a dog in transit, you can almost think of the Saturn aspects before the Saturn Return as midterms. Okay, you you you take a midterm exam, I actually have to close this door because the dog has 125 pounds and it would like enter when it wants to Okay. So you can think of a Saturn square Saturn opposition Saturn, Saturn square coming back again, as a midterm. Okay, so that your Saturn Return 20 to 30 is your final okay, this is or, or for those of you, you know, your dissertation, okay? This is when it all gets added up under a line of summation. All right.

Christopher Renstrom 38:18
Now, the first Saturn Return in ancient society has a different importance than for us. Okay. And in the ancient world, you didn’t have long lifespans, you know, I mean, Noah did and Enoch and other people, but you know, you usually did not have a long lifespan, it was like maybe, you know, 30s to maybe early 40s. Okay. And so the Saturn Return was seen as, you know, you, you oldness you you being wisdom and old and experienced and these sorts of things. Nowadays, it’s seen more as a rite of passage, okay, that that the Saturn Return 20 to 30 is when you make the transition from a young adult to an adult, okay, and that takes place during the Saturn Return. And again, every seven years, particularly you can time this if Saturn is really prominent in your chart, every seven years, you would have come up against some sort of obstacle or test because that’s what Saturn is the planet of its obstacles, and tests, trials and tribulations. And these can be associated to different things that took place in your life and you can, if you’ve got Saturn really strong, you can honestly time it for those seven years.

Christopher Renstrom 39:35
So when Saturn comes back to the Saturn Return, you know, it’s spent sort of seven years like knocking the tires of the car and things like that. So when it completes its Saturn Return. More often than not what it will do is kind of raze everything to the ground and I’m using the word raze R.A.Z.E, it will level everything. And so it’s a collapse of all these things that I thought would last forever or what I would believe or You know, instead of this wonderful launch forward in the world, I’m like, experiencing a breakdown in relationships, job, crisis, economic crisis, things like this. And so and so this is where Saturn got its reputation for like, oh my god, you know, the bummer planet, the wet blanket planet, you know, spoiler ruins all my phone and, and things like that. But what Saturn is actually doing in its first Saturn Return? It’s asking a question. And the question that it’s asking is, what am I going to be when I grow up? That’s basically the question of the first Saturn Return. Right.

Christopher Renstrom 40:34
And, you know, at the time, when I was starting to practice astrology, what was happening a lot during those years of 20 to 30, is that this is the time when people were really marrying and starting families. Now, it seems to be a little bit later, I think, but that was something that was like, like a big kind of thing that was taking place, or they were, you know, going off on their own and really sort of hitting obstacles and delays and problems. What Saturn does, is that we have to always remember, Saturn is a teacher, and not a tyrant. Saturn is a builder, and not a destroyer. All right, but in order to teach Saturn has to get you to unlearn. Okay, things that aren’t working for you anymore. And if you’ve ever taught a class or group of people or whatever, you know, they like you for the first few days, okay, or whatever. And then after that is like, you know, it’s like it was my homework or get off my case, or, you know, I’m not getting this right, you know, you’re, you’re dealing with all the things that they’re bringing to learning, you know, which, which can be resisted. Sometimes you get, like, the happy students, like I can’t wait to learn. But a lot of times, it’s like, you know, you’re dragging them forward, and you’re dealing with, you’re dealing with actually real defensiveness about having to learn in a way that they’re used to learning. This is what Saturn, the experience of that first Saturn Return can be, you know, and so it has to almost like, teach you how to unlearn these bad habits, you know, I don’t necessarily call them bad habits, but unlearn ways of understanding that might not be serving you now, they’re not going to serve you as you go from a young adult into adult, okay.

Christopher Renstrom 42:14
And so. So there’s that unlearning period, which can be the first part of the sounder Saturn Return settings there for two, two and half years. And then the second part, the second year, let’s say that of the Saturn Return, is the beginning to get it. And learning type of thing. It’s just like that feeling of destruction. You know, in order for Saturn to build, it has to level everything. First out just to remove away the rotted wood, it has to clear out a foundation set up a foundation so that it can build on that. And so again, that Saturn Return can feel like I’m losing the things that really matter to me in life, and you may be losing the things that I went through a hellacious first Saturn Return. It was awful. I would never wish that on anyone, you know, especially myself, and I had to live through it. But you know, but but it was very, very difficult. And it can be unrelenting in its harshness, and in how difficult it can be. But what it’s doing is that is laying the groundwork for the next part of your life that you’re going to be building for yourself. It’s giving you an opportunity to get rid of the things that are no longer serving you, you know, might be like, Why was I carrying around that obligation to like, I lost this great love of my life, you know it, it clears it out, and it does it rather resolutely. And then it begins Of course, it’s next Saturn Return where every seven years it will aspect itself in some way. The second Saturn Return just to sort of finish off Saturn here. Second, first Saturn Return is what am I going to be when I grow up? Second, Saturn Return is now that I’m grown up, what am I? Who am I?

Christopher Renstrom 43:59
You know, and it’s a time of great reflection and realignment, because it’s like, well, I established these things. You know, I triumphed in these ways, or I’m accepting these failures and resignations. But you know, I’ve gotten to this place in my life. I am grown up, you know, my second Saturn Return is taking place between the ages of 38 and 60. And now that I’m here, who am I? Am I still me? Did I make bargains or trade offs? Or, or, or shortcuts or whatever along the way? You know, and for a lot of people in that second Saturn Return. It’s like, there’s some confusion. Am I going to try to reconnect to what was important for me before or, or was there something that was important before that? I couldn’t do that now suddenly, I can, you know, so So, so it’s not always this looking back and contemplating it can also be about timing. It could be like, you know, I always had an interest in But there was never a time or whatever. But now, now I can do this or, or, you know, who am I right now because all of a sudden, you know, there’s more mileage in the rearview mirror than in the road ahead. And this is about kind of claiming my life, you know, and claiming me here, you know, I’m claiming my life in a time when people are maybe giving me a second look, or, you know, I’m not like, you know, the Dazzler was a 23 years or something like that, but, but it’s centered in, in in me and myself.

Christopher Renstrom 45:31
And, you know, something that was interesting, you know, as you know, retirement follows the second Saturn Return and retirement is a bit of a dicey type of thing. I mean, it’s funny, I’ve been practicing Astrology enough years that the second most popular question I get, biggest question ever get asked is, you know, when am I going to fall in love? Right? Okay. The second one that I get asked nowadays is my husband’s retiring. What am I going to do? Okay, what am I gonna do with him like he’s retiring silent scream Oh. But but but and then that becomes its next stage. Like, okay, this is about claiming Reclaiming my life. Where am I with this? You know, and so that sort of addresses the to Saturn things. Uranus.

Christopher Renstrom 46:32
Everyone’s like, Yeah, what about Uranus good to tie in Uranus or Uranus takes seven years to go through one sign. Okay, so you have Saturn every seven years aspecting until it returns at 28 to 30. But every seven years, Uranus is in a sign for seven years, which I find fascinating because seven is seven is Saturn’s number. Okay. And Saturn is the one who overthrows Uranus. And it’s also kind of this honoring of Saturn, but also this I take longer than Saturn. I’m further out than than Saturn is okay, and, and so what’s kind of ironic if you follow the archetype or the story of astrology is that in Greek mythology, Saturn overthrows Uranus, but in the discovery of the planets. When Uranus is discovered, Uranus overthrows Saturn or he overthrows the traditional seven planet order, and establishes Uranus. You know, so there’s that. And there’s that constant back and forth of who’s overthrowing who that’s going on in the relationship between Saturn Uranus, so Uranus will spend seven years in a sign, okay, we regard Uranus is the planet of revolution and change. We’ve got planets of change, the moon changes constantly, no, no planet changes her appearance in the sky, as quickly and as dramatically as the moon does. Okay, so the fastest changing planet, the fastest planet and the planet that changes the most is the moon. Alright. And then after that, we have mercury who’s always associated to change, you know, changing my mind changing direction, changing what I’m going to do changing my clothes. Okay, so Mercury is always associated to change. With Uranus, you have slow change. Oh my god, I’m so sunny, like the Chinese lunar year you have early Cold. Like with the artists. With Uranus, you have no change,

Amanda Pua Walsh 48:35
slow change, yes, not quick change

Christopher Renstrom 48:37
Not quick change into dressing room change, you have slipped. And whenever Uranus enters a sign, you will see its mode that is at its most powerful when it enters the sign. It kind of cools out when it’s in the middle. And then as it begins to change signs, it picks up it’s in its Uranian revolutionary sense. A revolutionary character again. Okay. And so, um, and so Uranus is going to be what is it seven times six is 42. You know, that’s that’s where it’s going to be opposite where Uranus was, you know, in your chart, and this, you know, in the 80s and 90s. I don’t know if they still use this term nowadays, but in the 80s and 90s.

Christopher Renstrom 49:24
When I was a wee astrologer coming up through the ranks, it was always referred to as the midlife crisis. You know, this was the thing that flipped your entire life. That all of a sudden, if you’re, you know, this responsible spouse and doing everything for whatever, all of a sudden you get a Harley motorcycle and all of a sudden you’re leaving your marriage and your kids and going to find yourself or let’s say, you’ve spent your entire life like you know, sort of like following this and following that and maybe tuning into this and tuning Out of that, and then all of a sudden, you know, at 42 It’s like, your corporate job or something like that, you know, there can be this radical flip that takes place, you know, and these are things that when people hear about them, they sound a little frightening, okay? It’s kind of like, hard times 28 to 30, you know, or my life is turned inside out or thrown upside down because of a Uranus Uranus opposition in my early 40s. Fear and trembling, you know, knocked knees like how do I live with this and and the beautiful thing about the cosmic calendar, the beautiful thing about your astrological chart and again, a lot of times we when we type our chart, we’re working with things like progressions, or solar arcs or, or these kind of techniques that are laid over the chart, you know, in a way, but if you’re working with your chart as a cosmic calendar, you’re already you already have this natural understanding of changes, according to your personal calendar, okay?

Christopher Renstrom 51:10
You already have this understanding of rainwater and awakening of insects, okay. And it’s and it’s a time of year, you know, it’s going on constantly, one of the things that it added to all of this, you know, I referenced having gone through a very painful, very difficult time, during my first Saturn Return. And I was seeing my, the woman who taught me astrology Carolyn, as name was also my therapist. And this was at a time when astrology and therapy were very much entwined with, with with one another, that was actually the practice, you know. And she would say to me, it’s not always going to be this bad, okay. And I was like, Well, I guess, you know, maybe one day it gets better or whatever. But right now, it’s like, you know, it’s a struggle, it’s very painful. It’s very, very, very hard. And she’s like, watch yourself during the day, you’re not like this, every moment of the day. Okay? Watch yourself during the week, you’re not like this throughout the entire week. You know, you might say, Well, this has been the story, my life, or I’ve been going through this for months, or whatever. But if you really break it down, you’ll notice that there are times of day or times of week, or times of month, when it’s not as bad, it’s not as pressured or you’re not being ground under the heel of what you’re going through. And that changed my perspective of time, because it was true. I mean, it wasn’t, I wasn’t, you know, 24/7.

Christopher Renstrom 52:50
I mean, there was some times where it where it actually lightened up, you know, and I began to sort of like, see things with like the sun, you know, you start with the moon, but then also the sun changing, but then there was almost a regularity to where the sun was. And I was like, this is kind of a rhythm that’s taking place within the chart itself. So I wanted to share that with you. I mean, another image that I want to share, it’s actually memory is that when I was starting out in New York, I was the king of basement apartments, like, like, if there was a basement apartment that hadn’t been lived in yet I found it, okay, it’s like, and my friends would always be like, Wow, darker than the previous was always like this.

Christopher Renstrom 53:35
And, and I got to, you know, places where I got some sign that that happened over time that this mountain goat did climb, okay, but, but there was a period of time where it was all dark basement apartments. But there was this one basement apartment, at two o’clock in the afternoon, like clockwork, almost, the sun would come down through the alleyway. And it would illuminate the apartment, okay, and it would illuminate the apartment for maybe 25 minutes to 40 minutes, okay? And you could just, you didn’t have to have lights on or whatever, and then the sun would pass. And it would it would it would recede, it was disappear, it would not be lit anymore. And it put me in mind of stained glass churches, you know, the way that stained glass is built around the cathedral so that it can reflect or is illuminated at the different times of day that the sun is, is moving, actually across the sky, it will illuminate different panels or different stories of, of the stay in class. And it got me thinking, you know, I think a chart works like that. You know, as the sun moves through the day or the sun moves through the month, or the sun moves through the year, the different almost like you could think of the houses or the signs as different stained glass panels that get illuminated or lit, you know, and it could be be in such a way to point the way or to show you things, or it could be in such a way as to alleviate certain, you know, if you’re going through a difficult time, or if you’re living with difficult aspects in your chart, you don’t have to wait for Bucharest planet to change that the sun because of the way that it moves through the year is going to change that

Amanda Pua Walsh 55:26
That’s a mic drop moment right there. We can just, we could just end like, we don’t really die. That’s it, goodbye. Wow, it’s so beautiful, the way that you just tied all that together, and the stained glass and the sun and the movement and the story of our life and the different things that are highlighted. And as we go from one story to the next, it’s almost like we can drop some of that other story too, as we’re focusing on new things. And when you were talking about how we don’t feel the same way all day, you know, your astrologer therapist pointed that out to you, which by the way, they really should get back together again to astrology and all the I think it’s like, married, yes, yeah, perfectly suited for each other. But it’s, that’s what I say to my daughters my 10 of my 13 year old, it’s like, it’s just, it’s a passing cloud, it’s a passing storm. You okay, just, it feels really intense right now, but it’s not going to always feel intense. And it’s a reminder for all of us all the time, both in our days, and our weeks, in our years, you said this to me personally, very recently, you said, it’s not always going to be like this, like, Thank you, just hearing that.

Christopher Renstrom 56:47
Well, and it’s something that, you know, I’ve also seen in the lives of people who are living with a terminal disease, or chronic condition, they don’t want to hand their life over to that. And just be that, you know, and so there’s this, like, you know, I had a good moment today, or I had a good couple of days, you know, so So, so it’s not just sort of like, it’s gonna get better eventually, or whatever, but even seeing in the heavy burden, or pain or whatever you’re enduring, that it doesn’t always stay at that same frequency, that is the nature of life to live, you know, and, and we may not be living with all of our, with our ideal situation, we may not be living with all the circumstances lined up just so we might not be living with all of our faculties or abilities or limbs or, or good health or finances that we had two years ago. Okay, but you’re alive, and is the nature of life to live. And it is the nature of astrology, to connect to that astrology connects to that life, you’re living, you know, and that’s extraordinary thing, we are living in creative collaboration with stars that were here before we showed up. And they’re going to be here long after we’ve left, you know, and so we get this special time with them, you know, which is our lives.

Amanda Pua Walsh 58:28
What you’re doing with the book, and with this course, is bringing me back to what we we talked about in the beginning with the Chinese Lunar terms and the different names, and how I said, Wow, they’re in such reverence, observation of nature. And what you’re allowing us to do is be in reverent observation of our own nature, and of our own shifting tides and seasons, and an ebbs and flows and all the different ways that we can name them. But that’s what it is. It’s, here’s here’s an awareness, here’s a tool to enable more awareness of your personal rhythm, you could even make we could even play and name them, like they do in the Chinese New Year. It’s name them and have our own phases and terms and poetry associated with them. It

Christopher Renstrom 59:22
would be a beautiful exercise, I mean, just to go through your personal year and come up with 24 terms. Okay. Signaling, you know, it doesn’t have to be time to a New Moon Full Moon but each signaling that you have a new and a full you know, and and just to go through and name your personal, you know, times of year that way, what would you call it?

Amanda Pua Walsh 59:43
Fun, that is astrology hub, we no longer have meetings that are just like meeting like team meeting, project meeting. It’s like the shabang or the bonanza or the you know, it just it changes the whole energy of the thing when you give it an Name that, yeah, it has a frequency.

Christopher Renstrom 1:00:04
It gets a character, right? It gets astrology comes from is like, you know, the naming of that season or that, that that temperature, you know, and then it lent itself to a character. You know, and yeah, I don’t think it came from the stars as much as it came from the seasons and life down down here, you know, the stars were named after, you know, the seasons as, as symbolized by around a bull, twins, you know, the, the crab, the lion in the heat, you know, lying on the line. Yes, followed by the Maiden and the crops and harvests which are very much connected to that time of year. So, so astrology is coming from, from from that and, and it’s why I wanted to share that that lunar calendar gets it back into Earth and life here, here on Earth, in conjunction with in conjunction with the stars, and it’s less about the stars, you know, bringing bad influence, but, you know, okay, we might be going through cold rain followed by hard this might be or something I was noticing, you know, earlier was Ecclesiastes, you know, I love Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes, by the way for everyone was one of Ernest Hemingway ways fav favorite things to read, and it really influenced his writing, but it talks about a time to sell a time to plant a time to cast away stones a time to gather them together again. And at first you just seem this list and then I was thinking, you know, if you start to put a Venus trine Saturn or a Mars square Saturn to these ideas at TIME to TIME TO A time to all of a sudden like again astrology comes to life, it goes from becoming this random list to actually what could be a description of behavior of your life during a year you know, so, so we can we can find these. These connections of seasons and human beings, I mean, you can find it in Ecclesiates and Hesiod’s Theogeny, and Georgics by Virgil. I mean, these actually also begin to include the gods and the energies and things like that. But I just wanted to share my bookshelf with you. But what it goes to say is that our civil it is a natural impulse to our civilization, to see these turning seasons as personalities and as characters and as affecting character. So obviously, someone born during this time of year would have these characteristics.

Amanda Pua Walsh 1:02:55
Brilliant, as always, Christopher, thank you so much. And I think I’ve been saying it wrong. I’ve been saying the Chinese New Year because you were talking about the Chinese New Year in the Olympics, but it’s the lunar

Christopher Renstrom 1:03:04
the Lunar New Year.

Amanda Pua Walsh 1:03:05
Yeah, Lunar New Year, it’s not just in China. So I excuse me for that. But Christopher, thank you so much. And for anybody interested in spending three weeks with Christopher on a deep dive into this so that you will get to learn how to do it with your chart like specifically for you. Join us for the cosmic calendar. It starts next week on Thursday, March 3, you can still join after March 3. But if you want to follow along in the timing of the course, it would be great for you to hop in now. And if you do come now, you will also get access to some of the bonuses that you can dive into before we even start class. And so if you would like to join, go to astrologyhub.com/cosmiccalendar to learn more. Who Thank you. You’re brilliant. It is so much fun your talk, always always. And if not signed up for Christopher’s weekly horoscope. That’s another thing you get it on Sunday instead of Monday, if you actually sign up for the horoscope highlights and he does that every single week and you get stories and amazing things come to life. That’s astrologyhub.com/horoscope. And you get a weekly video from Christopher with that too. So much for being here. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for being a part of our community. And thank you as always for making astrology a part of your life. And thanks for Thank you, Christopher for allowing us to make astrology even more a part of our life with these different tools and techniques and, and perspectives.

Christopher Renstrom 1:04:40
Oh, thank you, Amanda.

Amanda Pua Walsh 1:04:43
Your birth chart is a calendar. One that’s unique to you, because it’s a picture of the heavens at the moment of your birth. You can think of it as a screenshot of the sky, your sky, and this individualized Starmap will guide you throughout your entire In life, it tells you when you’re in season or out. And when it’s a good time to start a venture, or think better of it. It shows you grace periods where you can breeze right past obstacles. And it gives you a heads up on future rough patches, where you can expect resistance. And that was one of my favorite passages from Christopher Renstrom. His book, The cosmic calendar. The book outlines a way to turn your birth chart into a calendar that’s uniquely aligned with your natural flow and personal seasons. I couldn’t help but imagine how amazing it would be. If Christopher could teach an online course based on the content, providing an opportunity to teach the content live. answer your questions as you apply the ideas in your life. And hold your hand as you map out your personal cosmic calendar. I’m happy to announce that dream has come true. And registration for the cosmic calendar online course is now open. No more feeling like you’re swimming against the tide as you try to accomplish things before the time is right. Or missing windows of opportunity because you weren’t ready to take action. Now’s the time to experience having the full support of the universe behind you. Enrollment is now open class begins in March and you can go to astrology hub.com/cosmic calendar to reserve your spot today. And inner circle members be sure to check your membership portal for your discount code. Again, that’s astrology hub comm slash cosmic calendar. We can’t wait to see you in class.