Listen here:

In this episode of the Astrology Hub Podcast, Astrologer Christopher Renstrom and Amanda ‘Pua’ Walsh discuss the energies coming our way as described by the astrology.

• • The reason Christopher chose “Finding, Meeting and Discovering” as this week’s theme.
  • The myth behind Mercury and its retrograde cycle.
  • What’s sets the outer planets apart from the inner planets.
  • How Water and Fire signs work with and against one another.
  • About Christopher’s upcoming course “The Cosmic Calendar” with Astrology Hub.

Chapters

0:00 Intro

0:55 Why did the show change

4:53 Week Overview

5:55 Neptune and the other outer planets

12:04 The meaning of Sagittarius and Pisces

15:35 Authority vs Mysticism

18:20 Mars in Sagittarius

22:25 The difference between fire and water signs

25:37 The Mercury Retrograde and where it comes from

45:40 The Benefits of Mercury Retrograde

50:26 Insights from Amanda

58:00 Summary

1:05:00 The Cosmic Calendar

1:06:00 Closing Thoughts

Get Your Weekly Horoscope at astrologyhub.com/horoscope

Transcript

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

00:00:00 [Amanda Pua Walsh] Well, hello everybody. And welcome to your weekly astrological weather. This is your place to get practical guidance for not only surviving the cosmic tides, but thriving with them. I’m your host, the founder of Astrology Hub, Amanda Pua Walsh. And I am so thrilled to be here today with author historian and astrologer, Christopher Renstrom and Christopher. We’re so happy to have you here.

00:00:27 Thank you so much for joining us. So delighted to be here.

00:00:30 [Christopher Renstrom] Thank you so much for inviting me. It’s been a privilege.

00:00:35 [Amanda] Well, you are the first astrologer that we are working with that is taking off our new format of this show, which I’ll be talking about in just a second. For those of you who are saying where’s Anne, I miss Anne,

00:00:46 where is she? I just wanted to point you back to episode 4 0 4. So episode 4 0 4, which we did at the end of November was our final weekly weather episode with Anne Ortelee. We talk about why we talk about what’s happening next. So you can check that out. I also wanted to send you in the direction for those of you who just love Anne,

00:01:08 and can’t get enough and want to stay in touch with her and you miss her. You can actually follow her on her own podcast and via her website. So if you go to Astrology, not Astrology Hub, if you go to anneortelee.com, you’ll find her podcast, you can sign up for her newsletter. You can sign up for upcoming courses and things that she’s doing.

00:01:30 And we are wishing and only the best and wishing her all kinds of success. And she’s now in Florida. So she’s in a whole new environment. And so just go to an orderly.com, check it out. And she does a weekly podcast on Sundays, a solo podcast. So you’ll be able to stay in touch with Anne and her weekly, whether yeah,

00:01:49 she’s been doing it for years. I mean, long before we did our weekly weather, right? Yes. Okay. And so today we are kicking off our new format where we will be a little bit more like the Astrology Hub vision, none a little bit more, but a lot more like the Astrology Hub vision, where we are going to be featuring different astrologers every week.

00:02:12 At some point we may actually get down to a core group of a few astrologers. So if we have astrologers that are featured over the next like couple months that you’re like, oh my gosh, yes, please bring this person back, but bring this person back. Please let us know in the chat. And so we will probably at some point have a core group of around five to six astrologers that we have on very regularly and then bring in some new voices here and there.

00:02:37 So this the next few weeks we’re going to have Christopher Renstrom today. Then we’re having Thomas Miller, who is a new astrologer on this platform. Do you know Thomas? Christopher?

00:02:49 [Christopher] He’s terrific.

00:02:51 [Amanda] He’s terrific. I love him so much. We’ve just recently discovered him. So Thomas Miller and then stormy grace will be after Thomas. Who’s got to What?

00:03:00 [Christopher] Who’s fabulous. Stormy stormy grace fan club. I’ve got like,

00:03:05 [Amanda] Yeah, we’re in the stormy grace fan club too. And she’s our inner circle guide right now. So she’s going to be our, after, after Thomas, then we have Scott to Jaron. Who’s also a new find and a new voice on Astrology Hub. Then Jen Zahrt who is fantastic. Yes.

00:03:22 And she’s also an inner circle guide coming up this year, divine harmony, another Astrology Hub favorite, and then we’ll have Christopher Renstrom and back again,

00:03:32 [Christopher] I feel like I’m auditioning for the host of jeopardy, but actually, you know, I like what you just described because it’s about different voices. And so you’re going to get different astrologers, different astrological,

00:03:46 perceptions, and, and ways of looking at, at the cosmos and how rich and, and how eclectic. It’s really wonderful. I apologize for this thing of sunlight, which is now like my face I’m I’m, I’m talking to you from salt lake city, Utah. This is the time of day when the sun goes overhead. And just like, you know,

00:04:08 [Amanda] We’ll get to watch like a shadow play, light and dark

00:04:13 [Christopher] As Mercury retrograde moves its way across.

00:04:17 [Amanda] I found that it normally underscores the message, like what you’re trying to say. It’s like we could find the symbolism in the light play on your face. So we’ll be doing A facial recognition. Exactly. All right. So let’s start with this week, the week ahead.

00:04:35 And if you can just walk us through the major points of the Astrology, and then we can have a little conversation about it.

00:04:42 [Christopher] Sure. It’s it’s it’s, to me, this is, this is pretty much a nice week with maybe one exception, you know, sort of thing, but, you know, and, and some people out there might be like,

00:04:53 nice week. There’s a mercury turning retrograde at the end of it, you know, and, and we’ll get into that in a moment, but I’m actually kind of a fan of mercury retrogrades. I think that if you really have the sort of right mental outlook going into them, that can actually become really quite enriching and, and, and really quite inventive.

00:05:14 So, so believe it or not, you know, and I’m saying it right now, this is before like, you know, I have to take my car in and where my cup, the coffee maker goes belly up or something like that, things that happen during a mercury retrograde. Okay. But, you know, and maybe I’m tempting fate here,

00:05:30 but I happen to, I happen to really enjoy them, but we’re kind of like one Headspace in the earlier part of the week. And then we move into a different one into the latter part. Nevertheless, there is a connecting theme that I am going to try to come back to and, and bring back up. So, so the big thing that we’re really dealing with at the start of this week and into the middle part of the week is Neptune.

00:05:53 All right. Neptune is playing a very, very strong role and, and Neptune is, is as opposite mercury as you could possibly get. Okay. It’s it’s Neptune is a modern planet. It was discovered in the 1840s and like all the modern planets, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, these planets represent realms, right? The, the classic or traditional planets,

00:06:21 like the sun, the moon mercury. Okay. We’ll talk about aspects of a personality. The sun is what you identify with the moon is how you feel mercury is the way that you think and communicate. But when we’re dealing with the moderns and the modern planets, the first one is discovered in 1781, that’s Uranus, and then it’s Neptune. And then it’s Pluto.

00:06:41 When you’re dealing with moderns, you’re dealing with realms. All right. This is part of the reason why they were called the transpersonal planets in the seventies and the eighties. And so with Uranus, the realm that you’re literally dealing with, what we would call is outer space. Okay. But, but where it was understood to the astrologist at the time,

00:07:00 Uranus ruled over eternity. Okay. When you remember the Greek myth and, and, and I hope all of you enjoy Greek myths. I strongly encourage that you go out and read them because we draw so much of our archetypal symbolism and interpretation from the Greek Greek myths, which themselves are a hodgepodge of earlier myths. So there’s, it’s not even like a staunchly Greek thing.

00:07:27 There’s already elements from other cultures that, that appear in that mythology. But, you know, Saturn in which we regard as the planet of time and Astrology at the beginning of the world, Saturn is the planet is the child of Uranus who separates earth from heaven. Okay. So literally time separates earth mortality from heaven, eternity. And so this is kind of where we’re getting into.

00:07:54 When we get into the notion of Uranus, Uranus rules, over things like ideals, eternal principles, things that have yet to be discovered or imagined, but that they exist in eternity. They exist outside of time. I don’t know if there’s a weird, strange feedback going on or whatever, but I’m going to carry on through. Okay. So, so the realm of Uranus is,

00:08:16 is eternity. It’s outside of time, the realm of Neptune, okay. Equally, exotic and far away and not part of our day to day experiences, the realm of the ocean. Okay. So Neptune is the Roman title of the great God Poseidon. The ocean means so much to us at chorus that covers three quarters of the planet, you know,

00:08:39 but yet if you go to a beach and look out over the ocean, you can see the Verizon, you can see the surface of the water, but you can’t see underneath it. Okay. And, and unless you’ve got, you know, a scuba gear or submarines or something like that, you can’t exist in the ocean either. Okay. You can dive into it,

00:08:58 but you can’t, you know, freely live and exist there. So, so what was being set up here by the astrologers, with the discover, the modern planets or these remote realms, you know, we can’t exist in space. We can’t exist in the ocean. And then finally, Pluto, which is discovered in 1930 is underground. It’s the underworld does everything.

00:09:16 That’s underneath the surface of the earth itself. So it’s not on the surface. So it’s not like, oh, there’s a field, there’s an apartment house. There’s a, whatever, it’s everything that’s underneath. So it ruled over bodies, corpses, decay seeds, but also Pluto, which gives us the root word for the four plutocracy, which means wealth or money class also ruled over gold,

00:09:39 silver, precious metals, oil, you know, things like that. So, so whenever we’re dealing with Uranus, whenever we’re dealing with Neptune, whenever we’re dealing with Pluto, by transit, we’re really dealing with planets that open up a realms, okay. To our psyches, they’re bigger than what we can understand or absorb. It’s also part of the reason of why they take so long to go through one Zodiac side.

00:10:05 So you really get that message, you know, of, of, of the modern planet. And so this is where they get the sun who’s now going over. Like, but, but this is where you get their sort of transpersonal quality. They’re not personable like a mercury or Venus. You know, there’s a kind of remote, there’s a realm that,

00:10:25 that is in to themselves. And so when we’re dealing with Neptune, which can be the ocean and underwater and things like that, what we’re actually really dealing with Neptune in terms of understanding it in, in, in terms of an astrological chart is the invisible world of the spirit that we all know is there, but we can’t really, you know, explain so Neptune at its root is mystery.

00:10:55 Okay. It’s, it’s the things that are inexplicably. Now this isn’t an Agatha Christie mystery where it’s like, you, you solve the riddle and it’s, you know, Colonel mustard with the candle stick in the living room is the culprit. You know, it’s not a riddle to be solved now, Neptune isn’t that Neptune is a mystery. It’s a phenomenon that,

00:11:14 that cannot be explained. Okay. And it also rules over if you’re familiar with Carl Young, the collective unconscious, and other words, the dreaming of the world itself. All right. So, so it’s not just your own personal dream, which would be the moon. You know, it’s the dreaming of the world itself. It’s the collective dreaming, the collective unconscious,

00:11:37 the collective imagination, all streams or rivers or whatever eventually will flow into the ocean, which is, which is, which is Neptune. So it’s oceanic in its, in its scope. So it just to sort of also unpack that a little bit more the, between, let’s talk a little bit here about the difference between Sagittarius and Pisces. All right.

00:12:00 And you can sort of relate this to the houses that they’re associated with. The ninth houses is often associated with Sagittarius and the Twelfth House is associated with Pisces. Well, in traditional Astrology, older astrology up until the sixties to star. No, actually it’s up. Yeah. Up until the sixties to start, the Ninth House is pretty much institutionalized religion.

00:12:23 Okay. Its, its its religion as its practice of in a church and a temple and a shrine in a mosque, you know, in, in a house of worship. Okay. So the Ninth House with its associated Sagittarius was always associated to the church or house of worship. Okay. So it’s something that is codified, something that is scriptural something that’s going to lend itself to laws and to moral codes.

00:12:51 Okay. Things that are enshrined. Okay. In, in, in, in this way, they’re known as being sacred and this is something that you, you believe it. Okay. When you’re dealing with the Twelfth House, which is also ruled by Jupiter or, or Sagittarius were associated to the ninth, Pisces were associated into the 12th, both Jupiter ruled,

00:13:12 you’re dealing with the mystic. Okay. So you’re dealing with a sear. You’re dealing with someone who nowadays we would call it like a shaman okay. Someone who is sensitive to the invisible forces at play and interacts with them and comes back with some kind of message or vision. Okay. Now, if you’re talking about Europe, that was basically sites back in the day,

00:13:34 like in the middle ages and they would have these ecstatic visions of Christ or whatever and, and, and people would flock to them and they would be full of this inspiration. And this is something that really moved them. Now, mystics were a mixed bag as far as the church was concerned in the middle ages in Europe. Okay. On one hand you needed a mystic because it was proof positive of God active in this world.

00:14:02 Okay. Whether it was through miracles or through vision. Okay. A mystic spoke to people. We have to remember that the church back then is in Latin, not everyone understands Latin. They’re going to church, they’re sitting through like a Latin mass that they’re not getting, you know? And so a mystic would be like, this is what the scripture from the Bible means,

00:14:21 or ahead a vision of Christ. Or I had this, this vision here and people would be like, oh, they’ve been touched. And this is special. This is proof of God active in the world. Okay. And so on. And so this is why you have during certain centuries, this influx of saints, many of them, women who weren’t allowed any sort of post to speak in a church.

00:14:42 Okay. But you know, like a Catherine of Sienna or a Saint Teresa of Avila, you know, they could, they, they could speak or produce these, these visions. And people all struck him. And this was proof, proof of God majesty and God present in our world right now. But then the mystics could also get a little bit too wild and crazy.

00:15:00 Okay. They could get a little bit too radical. That could be like, you know, the Pope is the antichrist or, you know, you have to get rid of this corruption or, you know, they’re taking lots of money away from you for indulgences and things like that. And that’s when the church would be like, okay, you’re getting a little out of hand and they would come down and they would start,

00:15:17 they would have things like inquiries in positions or they would have which burdens. So you could literally be a Saint and a century and a witch in the next okay. Decide depending on the disposition of the church itself. Okay. So everyone’s probably like great history lesson. Where are we going with? Okay. Where we are going with this is that you may notice that there is this clash in our society between,

00:15:45 you know, revered authorities who are supposed to be, you know, speaking. And I’m just using this as a word. Right. Cause, cause scripturally, okay. They’re, they’re supposed to be speaking law. Okay. And, and everyone’s supposed to be a bang this in a, in a doctrinal fashion. And then you have another part of society,

00:16:04 which is very mystic. It’s very like, you know, I have this vision or idea Neptune also rules, things like conspiracy theories. Okay. So it can be like, here’s an alternative way of looking at it. This is what’s really going on. This is, this is the truth. That’s, that’s, that’s been relegated to the margins. This is the truth.

00:16:22 That’s been excised from the text. This is stuff that you really, really need to know about. And so this is something that, because Neptune is now in Pisces, if you work with modern rulerships Neptune is the co-ruler, the co-parent of the Zodiac sign of Pisces. You have more and more this, you know, mystical, alternative way of looking at it.

00:16:46 This is the real truth. The truth that there, that they’ll burn you at the stake, if you believe this. Okay. And so this is what the planets are sort of mapping out here in the sky. And this is something that we definitely experienced during the last year and a half when we had the eclipses in Gemini and Sagittarius, which were triggering the Neptune.

00:17:06 Okay. Neptune is that idea of like something’s in the water? You know, is it a delusion, is an illusion like why all of a sudden do people believe all of these crazy irrational things. This is the realm of Neptune. And Neptune is very comfortable here because the Neptune is the ocean. I get to be irrational. If you want to call it irrational,

00:17:25 you can call it that other people might call it miraculous. Other people might call it psychic. Other people might call it, you know, the truth that is not being spoken or as being covered up in some sort of way. So you have this, you literally have this clash between, this is a doctrinaire truth. Okay. What you should believe.

00:17:48 And this is what they’re telling you is fiction. Okay. And so there are certain times where this gets flared up. Okay. You can almost think of it as, as a fever or something like that at all. It gets flared up and this week it gets flared up. Why does it get stirred up this week? It gets flared up this week because we have a Mars in Sagittarius forming a square to Neptune in Pisces.

00:18:12 Okay. Both, both in those signs that I was just sort of walking you through now, Mars and Sagittarius, Mars and horoscope. Okay. Is always going to make sure that you get what you want. All right. That’s Mars. His job is to go on out there and get what you want. And you might get what you want through fight,

00:18:33 or you might get what you want through flight. Okay. So, so Mars rules, both directions, not everything is confrontational. There are 12 Zodiac signs. So there are 12 ways that you can express Mars in an astrological chart. Okay. It’s not just like fighting and locking horns. It does it in 12, very different ways. With 12,

00:18:52 very different dispositions. Mars inside the terrace is what I sort of often refer to as there is no Switzerland. Okay. So, so with Mars and Sagittarius, you’re you’re on one side or you are on the other. Okay. It’s it’s, it’s that, you know, it definitely picks sides. There’s nothing Mars and Libra impartial, or, you know,

00:19:15 Mars and Aquarius objective, you know, there’s nothing like that here. Okay. It’s a Mars and Sagittarius. It’s like, you’re on the side or you’re on the outside, you know, type of thing. So, so Mars and Sagittarius and Sagittarius is a sign that I like to use the word evangelical with. Okay. I know that that might strike people as like a strange word,

00:19:33 but evangelical in terms of like, you know, this is what the truth is about and I’m going to Rouse up the spirits and this is what we’re going to believe it. I mean, this is, this is what makes Sagittarius Sagittarius. This is what makes it different from a Leo. This is what makes it different from an Aries. Okay. Is the call to spiritual action.

00:19:52 Okay. Or spiritual enthusiasm or belief in faith are the cornerstone words of Sagittarius. Okay. It’s stupid. A ruled. So Mars in Sagittarius can be like, this is absolutely it. That these are my convictions. These are my beliefs. This is what they’re telling you. This is what I’m telling you, you know? So, so it can get very in your face and rousing up of,

00:20:14 of the spirits. There’s going to be no gray area here. Okay. So, so if you are a Sagittarius, you’re going to be feeling this very strongly. If you are a Gemini, you’re going to be like having to deal with this really strongly. And if you’re a Virgo or a Pisces, you’re trying to figure out some way to work with this.

00:20:32 Although it changed a little bit with Pisces, we’ll get to that in a moment with Neptune. So what it’s kind of like getting up on the pulpit, you know, or, or the high horse. Okay. That’s probably a very easy way of understanding Mars in Sagittarius. These are my convictions, this is my faith. This is my belief. And,

00:20:51 and, and it’s mine and you can’t cross it. You can’t argue with it. You know, I’m not open to argument or discussion. Okay. And a lot of times when we think about faith belief in conviction, you know, we kind of think that the opposite side of that is doubt. Okay. And so that can make someone get even more hyperbolic or,

00:21:09 or louder or more puffish, you know, more, but another thing that can work with that can work against faith or belief. Okay. Is a susceptibility. Okay. Which is a Neptune word. Okay. Neptune. We, we often like to use the word sensitive, but there’s a susceptibility now I don’t mean gold ability or right. Because it’s often susceptible as moved into the gullible,

00:21:37 you know, you fell for it, you know, column. Okay. Well, what I’m talking about here is being susceptible or sensitive or, or reactive to, okay. So when you have this Neptune forming the square to the Mars, Neptune is beginning to introduce other ways of looking at it. You know, like, how do you maybe it’s that maybe it’s this,

00:21:59 maybe it’s a truth. That’s not being discussed. Maybe it’s a truth. That’s been moved to the margins. Maybe it’s the, you know, it’s, it’s playing the role of the mystic, which is, which is what Neptune in Pisces very much, much is. And so what this could create as a clash between these truths that I hold to be self-evident and this kind of like mystic attunement to something that is not easily explained,

00:22:25 fire signs want things revealed, okay. Fire signs, Aries, Leo Sagittarius, or into the big reveal. All right. Water signs are into the mystery. Okay. They, they, they, they appreciate, they value the things that are not spoken about that cannot be easily explained that can only be shown or represented in symbol or through, or,

00:22:48 or through some sort of insight that you get by meditating or contemplating it. So water signs really value secrecy and, and secrecy is privacy. Okay. So it’s not like secret, I’m ready to deceive you. But secret as in this is my private space, or this is who I am when I’m away from the public. Okay. So water signs really put a very high value on that secrecy.

00:23:16 Okay. That’s, that’s very important. So, so, you know, you may feel, you know, in, in general you may feel like beliefs are being questioned or they’re being challenged in some way. And if you find yourself starting to get louder about it, you know, like this is absolutely what it is. I would strongly advise entrepreneurial check okay.

00:23:38 With that, because you may be under the sway of not Neptune, but this Neptune Mars square. Okay. Because oftentimes astrologers will talk about the influence of the planets, but we sort of leave out the influence of the aspect okay. That the planets are having this influence because it is signature to the aspect that they’re forming. Okay. They won’t, it won’t always hold sway this influence because the square will not always be there.

00:24:09 Mars being the faster moving planet we’ll move on. Okay. So, so, but remember, Mars is fever. Okay. Rules over fevers. So there may be this kind of like fever dream, you know, that that’s associated to the square where you need to. Okay. So, so, so hopefully I’m, I’m communicating to you like an immediacy and urgency.

00:24:30 And you know, if I’m feeling like I’m on shifting ground and going to become even more determined, you know, that that’s the thing to watch out for. Okay. That’s the thing to watch out for. And you might be dealing with someone this week who was really high on the high horse and puntificating, and, and the one finger is waived up to God or whatever down to engage them.

00:24:50 Okay. Take the Neptunian and route, which is okay, we’ll let the fire burn out. You know, water doesn’t need waters here. It’s three quarters of the planet. It recycles itself. It doesn’t need to make a point. Okay. And the square, the square between the Neptune and, and the Mars is, is going to subside.

00:25:09 So again, the Mars can get very boisterous and the Mars is kind of like almost feeling like it’s falling asleep because Neptune can water down the consciousness and the whatever that’s like, oh, I have to wake up and get louder. You know? So these are the things to be, to be sensitive to the second part of the week that I want to share with you is,

00:25:30 is the mercury retrograde. Okay. And, and it’s the mercury retrograde in an Aquarius. And I kind of made a decision here that I sort of wanted to tell you the story of where mercury retrograde comes from. Okay. And then we can weave it into the rest of this, this week’s horoscope or the rest of this week’s cosmic weather forecast, mercury is named after the Greek God Hermes.

00:26:01 Okay. And Hermes, by the way, is the root word for hermetic. Okay. Secret. Okay. So, so that idea of secret or an unspoken okay. Hermetic comes from Hermes. All right. And so in, in mythology, mercury is born in a cave in Arcadia and Arcadia greatness and Arcadia. Greece is a mountainous landlocked region of Greece with lots of shepherds,

00:26:29 goats and cows. Okay. This is the, so it’s not mean to supple. It’s not a city it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s out, you know, it’s a gray area. Okay. It’s, it’s not even agricultural roads. It’s where, where you’re going to, you know, have your flocks graze in art history and English literature. We know the term Arcadia.

00:26:47 Okay. And we’re not talking about this mountainous area in Greece necessarily, but Arcadia in art history and literature often refers to a place of rustic innocence and simple, quiet pleasures. It’s often portrayed as, as a, as a place where sheep and cattle gently graze. And maybe you throw in a few nymphs there, or, you know, shepherd women,

00:27:09 who’ve fallen asleep under the, you know, the, the rays of the sun, but it’s very, you know, maybe some garlands and, and things like that. So it’s something that’s very lovely. If you’re familiar with the landscape, the American landscape artists, he was born in Britain, but he does landscapes here in America. Thomas call. He does this series called the course of empire,

00:27:31 which I really strongly recommend that you, you can go online and see the pictures. They’re really, really lovely. It’s really the, the Dawn of civilization up to civilization. And then it’s fall. Well, Arcadia is when it’s still innocent. You know, you have Pythagoras drawing out his first Pythagorean symbols on the dirt and, you know, shepherd,

00:27:50 this is our delighting and children are learning Greek. And, but it’s done in this sort of rustic environment. Okay. So, so this is where mercury is bored. Okay. This is where he makes his first appearance on, on planet earth. Now, mercury mother. And I want you to keep in mind here, I’m going to go back,

00:28:08 calling him Hermes and mercury, mercury, and Hermes for the sake of Astrology. But I want you to keep in mind here, want to make a quick little note, mercury rules, two Zodiac signs. And those are the signs of Gemini and Virgo. Okay. Gemini is the sibling, right? It’s the twins. So Gemini rules over sibling relationships and Virgo is the single mother.

00:28:27 You’re going to see both of these themes come out in the myth of Hermes. So Mercury’s mother was Maya. She’s a daughter of Atlas. That’s the Titan. Who’s holding the earth on his, on his shoulders. I don’t know how he sired children in that position, but anyway, it’s great. So she’s the daughter of Atlas and she becomes the secret mistress of Zeus.

00:28:53 Now, now Atlas has a number of daughters. Maya becomes the secret mistress of Zeus Zeus. We know as Jupiter in astrology, and he’s the king of the gods here in Greek mythology. But because she becomes the secret mistress of Zeus, Maya Mercury’s mother is shunned by her sisters. And so she takes up residence in this cave, this cave tucked into the side of a mountain in Arcadia.

00:29:16 And that’s where she gives birth to her lo her illegitimate son, her an out of wedlock son, mercury and mercury moments after he’s born is immediately out and about and making mischief mischief. Okay. So he’s not like a kid who’s like, you know, in swaddling clothes, staying in the crate or whatever is out and like, you know, perky,

00:29:35 okay. Going out and looking for things to do and trouble to get into. Okay. And, and indeed in the, him to Hermes where, where we get the story of, of mercury, it is said born in the born in the day, you know, Hermes is born in the day by mid-day. Well, he harped. I want you to remember that by mid day.

00:29:57 Well, he harped and an evening stole the cattle of Apollo. Okay. So this is all done in the cycle of of a day. Hermes is first encounter. When he leaves the cave of his mother sneaks out of his cradle, he sees a tortoise and he looks at this tortoise, you know, and he says, ah, a friend of the feast.

00:30:18 Okay. And I want you to remember this, a friend of the feast he says to this tortoise and the tortoise kind of looks up at him, quizzically and mercury to immediately like strangles a tortoise and scoops out the meat to have just the shell, puts the shell by the side of the cave and leaves it there to dry. We’ll get back to that in a little bit.

00:30:38 Okay. But what I wanted to also underscore here for mercury is the idea of finding, meeting and discovering, finding, meeting, and discovering. These are all attributes of mercury and the astrological chart. Okay. Each planet rules over particular attributes. And this is what allows us as astrologers to do interpretations. Okay. So mercury, we think of him as the messenger planet and,

00:31:11 and, and, and, and how we analyze. But what I love about this myth, finding, meeting and discovering this is all mercury. Okay. And so is finding and thieving. Okay. These are also attributes of mercury in the myth, at least. Okay. So after he, you know, scoops out the turtle and puts the show up out of the cave to dry,

00:31:35 okay. Mercury immediately goes into, you know, a pastor, which is down the road and to the left. Okay. Which is Apollo’s pastor. And Apollo’s pasture. Apollo has cattle. Okay. In this pasture and the cattle are gently great grazing. What else do you do in Arcadia? Right. Okay. So Apollo is the God of the sun.

00:31:54 Okay. So, so the equivalent in astrology to Apollo is the sun sign is the sun itself. That’s Apollo. And if you look at the sun, when it rises and sets the planet, that is closest to it, that you can see three times out of the year, but not all the time as mercury the peek-a-boo planet. Okay.

00:32:12 So, so, so the sun and mercury are the closest in proximity and appear together and Astrology. This is why they take on these attributes in, in Hellenized Greece. So in the dark of night Hermes. Okay. And remember, he’s an infant, right. So it’s not like he’s like, you know, a tween or a young man or something like that.

00:32:34 He’s, he’s a little baby. Okay. What he does is like, in the dark of night, he hops the fence okay. Into Apollo’spasture or Apollo, sacred cattle are grazing. Now this is another thing that the Greeks would have understood, but we don’t always understand. Cattle are the symbol of wealth in ancient civilization. Okay. Everyone sort of thinks,

00:32:57 oh, it’s Taurus. The Second House. That’s wealth. That’s money now. Cat a war wealth. Okay. So before you were mining coins, okay. Before you were digging up gold, before you were creating jewelry, you had cattle and how much cattle you had determined the wealth that you had. Okay. So when you’ve got cattle grazing and a pasture,

00:33:19 and you’re protecting your cattle, that’s like your bank account grazing and a pasture, and you’re protecting your bank account. Okay. So, so cattle means wealth. And so for Apollo to have 50 heads of cattle means it’s very, he’s very wealthy. So mercury is stealing and do his pasture. He or he’s actually got more than 50 mercury picks out 50 okay.

00:33:46 Of the cattle. So he’s got more than 50 mercury, immediately picks out the 50 best heads of cattle. And to keep Apollo from discovering, who had made away with his cattle and what, which direction the cattle had gone, mercury goes, and he wraps the, he wraps each cattle, each cows hoof or bull’s, okay. In arc to disguise their prints.

00:34:11 And then he ties brooms to each one of their tails. So as they wag their tails, you know, cattle are always, you know, wagging their tails or snapping a flyer or whatever. They’re actually erasing the tracks as the cattle walk. Okay. So this is part of the deploy and finally, to confuse Apollo even more. And this is the retrograde part.

00:34:32 Okay. Mercury, mercury Hermes drives the cattle out of Apollos, pasture backwards. All right. And Hermes also fashioned as bunches of sticks to put to his own little feet. And he also walks backwards in front of the cattle so that the overall impression that’s left after the cattle have exited the pasture is that some sort of giant creature entered Palos pasture. And that’s it like,

00:34:58 there’s no tracks of anyone having left. All of a sudden mysteriously, 50 head of cattle are, are, are missing. Okay. This is how bright this kid is. Okay. And, and again, inventiveness, cleverness, wildness. These are all the things. These are all the attributes of mercury and an astrological chart. And so, so basically it looks like a giant head Strode on,

00:35:22 in and stole cattle. And what happened up to that mercury Hermes hides the cat on a nearby cave. And he sacrifices two of them to the gods. Okay. He carves out of these two cows. He carves out 12 portions, one for each of, at this time, the 11 Olympian gods and one, a Twelfth for himself. Okay. So he carves out 11 portions for each of the current,

00:35:52 you know, register staff of Olympus upstairs. And one for himself. He also takes the entrails of the sacrificed cows seven. Okay. Cuts them, dries them and uses them as strings that when he returns to the tortoise shell, which is dried by the side of the cave, he then strings into the shell and he creates the first lyre or what we know of as a heart.

00:36:21 Okay. He creates the first harp, the lyre. Okay. He swiftly gets into his cradle, you know, cradle puts the lyre under his armpit, you know, sucks his thumb and goes to sleep well, his mother’s isn’t fooled for a moment. And she’s like, where have you been looking for you all day? Wherever you’ve been, what have you been up to?

00:36:44 And he’s like, what have I been up to mother is our future. And she’s like, what are you talking about? He’s like, we’re not going to stay in this cave forever. We’re moving on up. We’re moving on up stairs to Olympus. She’s like, okay. Okay. So in the morning, okay. First rays of sunrise and you have to remember is associated to the sun,

00:37:04 right? First rays of sunrise Apollos there in the cave. Okay. He’s there in the cave, looking down at the cradle at this little, this little Creek. Okay. This little baby. And he knows that this little kid has something to do with this missing. Okay. And he, he confronts her me. So he accuses him. He’s like cattle thief,

00:37:23 you know, what have you done with my cattle? And I want you to return them immediately. And Hermes plays the innocent. And he’s like, I’m doing a little, I was like, I have not believing this for a minute. He grabs her Hermes by his hair and he’s zips him on up to Olympus. And he throws a little baby down there in front of the other Olympians who are like,

00:37:43 what’s going on here, you know, and to whisper to themselves intrigue. And he, and he confronts him. He says, this, this is, you know, don’t believe the innocent act. This is a thief. This is a criminal. He stole my cattle and I want answers. And I want answers now. And so Hermes, who is known for crafty,

00:38:05 talk for craft, talk, wildly talk says, Apollo, what ungentle words have you spoken? And is it the cattle of the homestead that will seeks? You know, are you looking for your cattle? I saw them not hurt them. Not gave ear to no word of them. No task of this is mine. Here there too. I have other cares.

00:38:27 I have other cares, like sleep, mother’s milk. And about my shoulders, swaddling, bad swaddling bands and warmed bath. So other words like, why are you looking at me? All I care is sleep and mother’s milk. And like, you know, can I go back to my cradle? Okay. So at this point, all the gods laugh hysterically.

00:38:46 They think that this is the most hilarious thing that has ever happened because Apollo, just to sort of give you a backstory here, that whole idea of Greek beauty comes from Apollo. Okay. Apollo is the most beautiful male God in Greek mythology, he has the chiseled six pack abs you know, the beautiful long limbs with musculature, you know,

00:39:12 and he’s just golden, you know? So, so, and, and Apollo was also daddy’s boy. Okay. The Apollo knows the mind of Zeus. Okay. Because Apollo not only is the God of art. Okay. And the muses, he frolics with the muses all day and, and talks, astronomy and poetry and all these sorts of things,

00:39:32 you know, but he’s golden. Apollo can do no wrong he’s, you know, and, and he’s known also for his arrows that if you cross Apollo, he’ll take you out, you know, you know, with an arrow very, very quickly. So the gods are loving this. Mr. Righteous was like humiliated by this little kid that looks like it’s going to poop any minute.

00:39:52 Okay. You know, on the golden floor of, of liberals, but the greater humiliation that I really want to underscore here. And the triumph of mercury as Apollo is also the God of prophecy. Right. Okay. So he’s supposed to be able to see into the future. Well, what does it say when the God of prophecy can’t find his own cattle?

00:40:17 Not good. Okay. So they’re really big. They’re like, and the loudest one to laugh of course is okay. Who, as you know, is, is Hermes is illegitimate father. So, so Apollo is there, you know, having a hissy fit, like tell me where they are and mercury, you know, and Zeus intervene and Zeus steps down off his throne.

00:40:42 And Zeus has to be very wary here. Okay. Because his wife Hera is sitting on the chair next to his, and he recognizes that this isn’t an illegitimate kid and he doesn’t want to do time in the document’s with Hera. So he steps down off of his throat and he looks over the boy and he’s like, what do you want one? And it’s like,

00:41:03 what do you want? And he’s like, I don’t know. And so they strike up this deal. Okay. Because it was in his infinite wisdom recognizes it’s better to have Hermes with them than against them. Okay. And so he gives Hermes the role of Harold. Okay. You will be my messenger. You will be the person who communicates what’s going on down there in the mortal world to me.

00:41:28 And you will also be the guide of, of, of men and women, the companion of men and women, mercury was famously known as the companion demand. Other gods, you had to go to their temples, you know, and maybe see a statue. Mercury could show up behind you at the supermarket checkout, just hanging it out. Okay. Cause he was always running around the earth.

00:41:48 I mean, Mercury’s the only great God who had access to heaven, earth and hell. And he could travel back up through those routes back again. Okay. So mercury was the one with the passwords, you know, who knew the ins and outs, who you flattered, who you play dumb with you, you know, berated. Okay. So,

00:42:07 so mercury could get in and out. This is what he does. This is what he does in an astrological chart as, as well. So ultimately, you know, Sue says, okay, now, you know, indulge your brother. Okay. And so Hermes leads Apollo to his cattle and to Sue the Palos ego, which has been heavily bruised during this entire,

00:42:28 you know, situation. Okay. He hands Apollo, the lyre. Okay. And Apollo plays the strings. Here’s the music and falls in love. Okay. And this is the thing that’s very important in Greece. You’ll see it in a lot of paintings. You’ll see a lot of flute players and flute players, you know, and, and you know,

00:42:51 they’re in, they’re in Arcadia. They’re out there with the shepherds flute player. If you play the flute, you couldn’t speak, you played a flute, you played music. Okay. If you played the lyre, you recited poetry or you sang a song. Okay. So the lyre has always been associated with civilization. Okay. Because you could, you could strum the heart and you could sing,

00:43:12 or you could recite poetry and speak. And so this show that you were a civilized person, the shows showed that you were in a worldly that you were learned. Okay. And if you’re familiar with art history, you know that the two emblems of Apollo are always the Laurel wreath, which is warned by poets. Dante famously wears one when he goes to inferno and paradisio,

00:43:37 but it’s the Laurel, but it’s also the lyre. It’s the heart. These are the two identifiers of Apollo. So Hermes mercury actually adds to Apollo. Okay. He makes Apollo greater than what he was before. So Apollo was very, very happy with his, with his gift of the heart. And as for Hermes, for told, when he first spotted the tortoise who sacrifices his shell to become the lyre,

00:44:08 that tortoise shell truly goes on to become friend of the feast because the person playing the lyre and reciting poetry or singing was the friend of the feast. They were the entertainment. Okay. So, so this idea of being able to discover of like, I know what I can do with this, or, you know, this might look like this now,

00:44:29 but with a little development play or fiddling around, we could turn it into, these are all the attributes of mercury. Okay. And, and, and it’s done through mercurial things, which is playing with, okay, scribbling out, playing with an idea, you know, fiddling with something. This is the way that mercury thinks and works out its information.

00:44:51 Okay. So it’s not just like standing there, like the scarecrow in wizard of Oz and, you know, reciting, you know, MCE equals whatever squared or actually that’s before Einstein. But anyway, you know, residing mathematical theorem, mercury fiddles, and it plays, and it puts together and it picks apart. Okay. And this is what mercury does.

00:45:10 It’s the, busy-ness the antsiness of mercury. Okay. And so what we have here is the transactional, transactional element of, of mercury heat. He gives Apollo the lyre and, and what he gets in return for, for this, with Apollo and, and for showing up in Olympus, what he gets in return is a place at the table. And that’s something that’s really important.

00:45:35 This is the only God who makes a place for himself at the table when all the places have been taken. Okay. So it’s that mercurial part of you, you know, when the doors shut or like you’re too late, or you can’t, if that mercurial part of you that can work out the alternative, the option, the other way to access that.

00:45:55 So it’s not just like analysis, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s thinking on your feet, it’s being shrewd. These are all the qualities of, of mercury. And just to sort of end our story here very quickly. There is a tradition in Arcadia, Greece, there is a tradition of cattle theft, okay. This, this comes out of what kids really do do.

00:46:18 Okay. And, and part of, you know, grow, you know, becoming a teenager or whatever was if you could steal the neighbor’s cattle successfully. Okay. We have this nowadays with frats okay. Where you steal the other frat houses, mascot, or something like that without getting found out, you know, and the whole point is to not get found out.

00:46:37 And in Arcadio, if you, if you stole someone’s cattle and you got found out, you were punished and you were punished rather severely, okay. But if you stole it and didn’t get found out, okay, then the person that you stole it from becomes kind of your mentor or becomes your sponsor, you know, you return it. And they’re like very amused that you did this.

00:46:59 And so as a reward, you then are recognized by that person that you took the cattle from is being a very clever person. You know? So the, so, so this is actually also what the myth comes out of as well. And I just wanted to sort of share that with everyone today, as we’re, as we’re looking forward to our,

00:47:19 to our upcoming mercury retrograde, what it means is we’re, we’re, we’re used to mercury, retrograde is being, you know, don’t buy anything, you know, merchandise is going to be bad, you know, all these sorts of things and it can do that. But during a period of time, mercury retrograde the things that we expect to happen in their orderly way,

00:47:39 don’t okay. It can be like adding up a list of numbers and getting a different answer every time. Okay. Now you can be frustrated and angry, like, oh, what is this? You know, just go to the calculator on my computer and do it okay. Or if you go back over what you did, you know, why do I keep making the same mistake by adding up these numbers?

00:47:58 You discover your misstep, you discover where you went wrong. And this is the lesson of a mercury retrograde. Okay, it’s going to take you back over the ground that you just traversed, you know, and your first reaction might be like, oh, I’ve already done this. I don’t have time with those, you know, but your other reaction might be like,

00:48:18 you know what? I discovered some, a technicality that I overlooked before. This could have been really dangerous. If this had gone forward, you know, this could have imperiled my transaction, or, you know what, I think I just found a better way of doing this than what I had originally. So there is it’s it’s because you don’t get what you want the first time,

00:48:40 and you’re forced to go back over it another, you know, or it can be mundane, like, you know what you really needed to replace that coffee maker a long time ago. So go out and buy a new one, but, you know, but the thing is it forces a double look a second look, and this second look might alert you to something that could have been perilous or this second look could show you a better way of doing what you had wanted to do before.

00:49:06 And that’s something that I would very much want you to keep in mind during the time that mercury is in retrograde, which is going to be from January 14th until February 4th. So it might be a nuisance, but it may also be the very thing that gets you to prevent something that could have gone south or to find a better way of doing it.

00:49:35 [Amanda] So good, Christopher, oh my goodness. You are just so delightful the storytelling. I think I’ve heard that story many times, but the way you just told it just completely brought it to life. And so many of the lessons I feel are actually going to stick, you know, the archetypal qualities and character of Hermes and that playfulness and the kind of Wiley thinking on his toes,

00:50:01 clever and, and then kind of playing dumb, like, like just me, like, I don’t know, I’m just a baby

00:50:09 [Christopher] And you can almost imagine him doing a little fart at the same time.

00:50:16 [Amanda] So from what I’m getting is we have, we almost have, it’s almost like we have two weeks in one week, at least energetically, there’s two very different things going on.

00:50:29 We’re starting the week with this Neptune, with the Mars square Neptune. So Mars and Sagittarius square Neptune in Pisces. And the, the main takeaway from that sort of that piece of energy in the beginning of the week is if we find ourselves staunchly holding onto a belief system and, and raising our voice or, or, or getting very emotionally charged around that idea,

00:51:02 right? Keep in mind that we are playing out a certain aspect of this square, right? And we’re playing out the Sagittarius, Mars and Sagittarius aspect of the square, and that there is another aspect happening right now. And that is the more uncovering the mysteries and the more mystical and the less obviously articulated, you know, some of those things that are meant to more intuitive based.

00:51:29 And so these two things are really squaring off and we may find ourselves playing one or the other role. Right. And if we do find ourselves playing one of the other role, just to be aware of it, I think one of the main things that I just got from everything you just shared is the, the big picture awareness of these archetypes playing out is really going to enable us to actively choose like,

00:51:52 oh, whoa, I see myself falling into this trap. So where’s the opposing energy that I could open myself up to like, oh, if I’m super staunchly holding onto something, then maybe I could soften a little like the water and go, Hmm, well maybe this or maybe that, or, you know, it could be. And also this feeling that I have that I need to like really convince this person of my point of view,

00:52:20 it is transitory it’s, it’s actually gonna, I’m not going to feel this strongly about this sooner, So I can actually maybe just let it go right now, instead of blowing something up if I don’t need to. Right. Right.
00:52:34 [Christopher] I love the way you just put that instead of blowing something up when I don’t need to, I think that’s going to

00:52:41 [Amanda] Okay, awesome. So that’s, that’s the beginning of the week. So we have this, this thing happening, this square thing happening, and then the second part of the week, which we’re actually kind of in already, right. Because we’re in the shadow period of mercury mercury retrograde already.

00:52:54 [Christopher] Oh yeah. That shadow stuff.

00:52:56 [Amanda] Oh, you’re not into the shadow or we can have another conversation about that later.

00:52:59 [Christopher] I, I work with it, but for the, for the simplicity of understanding, the retrograde has sort of like,

00:53:08 [Amanda] you just Make it clear. Okay.

00:53:11 [Christopher] I just want everyone to understand the retro. It can be a little Shady when you bring in the shadow.

00:53:19 [Amanda] That’s right. Okay. So then we had this epic tale of Hermes and understand in order for us to understand the energy of Hermes and to see that in our own charts and to see that ability within each one of us to reassess situations,

00:53:35 to, to look at them from different perspectives to take it apart and put it back together again. And so instead of being frustrated, as things happened during mercury retrograde, it’s like, oh God, I have to go back and do that again. You know, I already did that. Why do I have to do that again? And why? And this is really going to slow me up.

00:53:53 This is going to exactly, instead of really getting caught up in that sort of mindset, because something, you said very early on, like jumped out at me, you said, if we have the right mental outlook, then mercury retrograde doesn’t have to be so bad. It doesn’t have to be this thing we fear because we can actually see it as a blessing.

00:54:16 It’s like, okay, this thing is not working the way I had planned. And maybe if it had gone the way I planned, it would have been disastrous that’s one. And maybe if I can come, go back to the drawing board and rethink this a little bit, maybe I can make it even better. Right. And so this is an opportunity.

00:54:41 And even though, again, like it’s, when it’s, it kind of reminds me of this Mars in Sagittarius energy when we’re so attached to something being a certain way, right? Like we think it needs to play out this specific way. That is when we feel the most frustration and energy drain and you know, all those things that just aren’t fun.

00:55:01 Right. But when we can sort of move with it a little bit and be like that hilarious baby, super clever and really Mean it. I love that. It’s like so conveniently innocent and, and clueless.

00:55:18 [Christopher] And that my dear is a beautiful way of putting mercury conveniently innocent

00:55:26 [Amanda] And, and clueless. Right. Like, I don’t know no idea what happened.

00:55:32 I’m just a baby. So cute. So, but if we can actually harness some of that energy and that storytelling, I feel will really help us like, okay, what would Hermes do? Right. What would mercury do right now? You know, this thing’s, this thing’s unraveling. This thing is a, is a mess, you know, whatever it is.

00:55:51 And what would Mercury do? How would Mercury approach this in his wiliness?

00:55:56 [Christopher] We could also even throw in if you want to, you know, pair potentially the Mars Neptune with the mercury is don’t be an Apollo. You know, in other words, you know, if that, if you’ve got that Mars, Neptune, you know, going through where it’s consistent and it’s like this,

00:56:15 and you know, you’re going to be duped by a mercury retrograde. Okay. So you may be, for instance, you’re signing something, making a big decision or whatever, maybe you’ve set up something and it has to go a certain way. And, and you’re full of urgency in the middle part of the week. You know, maybe the retrograde is saying,

00:56:35 you know, cool it, take another, look, take a couple of steps back because the retrograde leaves Aquarius and goes into a different sign and then it comes back into Aquarius again. So it’s already indicating a reworking of, of, of, of an original premise that’s already there. So, so don’t be my loud. Dog’s about to go into,

00:56:56 but don’t be in an Apollo looking for these cattle and like, where are they just like open yourself up to, as you were saying, different approaches or different ways of looking at it or different ways of solving that problem, you know, you can, you can be angry that there’s a problem, or it can open you to get more creative and resourceful and innovative with the problem or challenge.

00:57:23 [Amanda] So we can anticipate these kinds of things coming up as potential. And, and this, I like the, the terms two together, like a playful flexibility. Oh yeah. Right. Like, it’s like, okay, like, let’s play with this situation a little bit instead of taking so serious. Like when I think of Apollo and his, the way that you described him,

00:57:45 he’s so serious. And like everyone was so like, yes, we can bring in some of that playfulness and, and, and dance a little bit with these situations that are coming up in our lives. I love it. Christopher, if we had to give the week a theme, what would it be? There’s a lot going on. Like, there’s a lot of different kinds of things happening.

00:58:10 [Christopher] I, if we were to, wow, I give it a theme. I think it’s kind of like, there’s, there’s, you know, I dunno, don’t be an Apollo. So, so you know what we’re saying? When we say don’t be in an Apollo, You know, it’s like, don’t, you know, don’t be so subscribed.
00:58:35 Don’t be so subscribed to this one point of view that you’re missing out on alternatives that may save you from a situation or actually put you in a better standing with the situation.

00:58:49 [Amanda] Okay. Okay. Yes. Okay. So we’re, we’re being asked to really take that the flexible perspective

00:58:57 [Christopher] And experimental, I mean, experimental again, I love the words. Find,

00:59:02 meet, discover, you know, find, meet, discover, you know, that mercury only by encountering the tortoise begins to see the lyre, you know, you know, so, so really kind of take these it’s mercury. It’s very mercury to do things moment to moment, you know, and in those moments to find, meet and discover, be experimental,

00:59:25 be playful, don’t be so rigid in your, you know, in what your solution or your view is that you miss out on something that could have tripped you up or on a better way of doing it.

00:59:38 [Amanda] Absolutely. And Christopher, the other thing that mercury got for himself was a place at the table.

00:59:46 [Christopher] Where there wasn’t a place before and that’s what’s important.

00:59:50 [Amanda] Yes. He literally created an opportunity that didn’t even exist before that moment.

00:59:56 [Christopher] But what else do you want from a God of thresholds and who gets you in through the door? You know, that, that Olympus with its 11 deities was a fixed exclusive club. Wow. There’s no place at the table. He figures out how to do the sacrifice, how to whatever he anticipates,

01:00:14 the strings that create the lyre. He he’s got something on his dad, which is, do you really want to confess in front of your wife here that, you know, you’re a legitimate kid. I mean, he’s, he’s played all these different angles so that what was a closed door, remember mercury goes in and out of places goes in and out of doors.

01:00:33 What was a closed club, a closed door. He makes a place for himself the table. And arguably probably becomes one of the most famous gods or deities of the Olympian Pantheon that, that, that there is

01:00:45 [Amanda] It’s re it’s reminded me of the word impossible. I am possible. Yeah. So we can, you know, those places where I know a lot of people are experiencing this feeling of,

01:00:58 of doors closing and you know, real, huge changes in their life. So where are those doors gonna open for you that, and where can you create? And the other thing about mercury is how strategic he was. I mean, he had this whole thing planned out from the very beginning

01:01:16 [Christopher] spontaneous and strategic. So he, he didn’t come up with a plan right at the start.

01:01:21 He’s curious, okay, when you spend tenuous, he’s like, oh, turtle, that could be a heart. You know? So, so the thing that you want to do with mercury, and this is why mercury rules, the two signs that are opposed, the two Jupiter signs, the Jupiter signs are going to be your worldview global. What’s going on in the world.

01:01:37 The big picture mercury is your moment to moment. It’s your day to day. Okay. So if you can drop into your moment to moment your day to day, and you can find those pivot points, you can find those entrees, you can work out where the loopholes on the exit strategy is. You’re living a mercury life. Okay. You’re, you’re,

01:02:00 you’re embodying your mercury. Okay. And, and, and, and mercury isn’t as recognizable when it’s retrograde, but in my opinion, that makes them doubly clever.

01:02:12 [Amanda] Hmm. You know, in order to do that, you have to be so present. And that is where the baby thing kind of comes in. Right? Like babies are so present in the moment.

01:02:23 They’re not worried about the future. They’re not thinking about the past they’re right In that present moment. And so for you to be able to, to move from moment to moment and, and find the opportunities in each moment, you have to be so present. And so one of the things I know a lot of people are dealing with as well as a lot of anxiety about the future.

01:02:43 So like let’s reign that in, stay as present as possible and find the opportunities in each given moment and really embody this Hermes mercurial energy. Do you find that when mercury retrograde, when mercury is retrograde we’re exp because mercury is closer to the earth, we’re actually experiencing the energy more intensely.

01:03:10 [Christopher] Yes, I do. Yeah. Okay. Yes, I do.

01:03:13 Because the big w I mean, where it’s at, I left for mercury, our curiosity and spontaneity. There are the, the judgments aren’t made ahead of time. Okay. It’s like, how could this play out? How could I work or play with this? You know, mercury is also the pebble that goes on the Herm, you know, that,

01:03:34 that, you know, like each traveler throws a pebble on a Herm and it shows like which of the two paths is the one most travel travel, you know, but be the pebble, be the pebble that causes the ripple effect. You know, you can get lost in the big picture and what’s going on in the world and these apocalyptic visions of the future.

01:03:54 And you can feel drained and empty doubt defeated and immobilized with pessimism. Okay. Or you can drop into your moment to moment, you know, you can discover, you can meet, you can find, you know, and this brings you back into the, the day to day shifts of our lives. And the day to day invites the day to day opportunities,

01:04:18 the day-to-day chances, all of these things that mercury is associated with. Mm. So good.

01:04:25 [Amanda] Christopher, thank you. This has been so wonderful. I just feel like we’ve got an incredible Greek mythology lesson, lots of astrology thrown in there. Incredible storytelling that is just riveting. And I love that too, because we need this lightness right now, like the lightness of stories and,

01:04:48 and just delighting in each other’s brilliance. And we just got to do that with you. So thank you so much for those of You Who love Christopher, we are going to be doing an incredible course with Christopher coming up in March. It is called the cosmic calendar. It’s based on his book, the cosmic calendar. And it’s going to be actually teaching you live a lot of the concepts in the book,

01:05:17 and then also how to take your chart and turn it into a calendar for the year. So you can really plan like, okay, when’s the time where I’m going to be creating and building. Where’s the time where I’m going to be more introspective. And, and this is going to be based directly on your chart and how its mapping with the Astrology of the year.

01:05:36 So that’s coming up in March. Registration is not open yet, but you can go to Astrology Hub dot com slash cosmic waitlist. Yeah, I know. I like that. AstrologyHub.com/cosmicwaitlist, get on the wait list. And you’ll be the first to know when registration opens again, that’s happening in March. And what else was I going to say to close this out?

01:06:01 Oh, I didn’t ask you the intensity scale. Oh, one to 10, one being not intense at all. And 10 being the most intense it could be. What is this week? I think most of the week is a three with maybe a flare up to a five or six ish on that Mars Neptune square, which is boy, I really have to like,

01:06:24 go look for it. The Mars Neptune square, which is tomorrow. Okay. There might be, there might be a flare up there. You know, somebody might go from a three-ish to, you know, a five or something like that. But then by the way, the 12th, if you’re doing transactions perfect day for transactions is the 12th. And then as we go into the rest of the week,

01:06:45 it’s, it’s, we’re getting ready for the mercury retrograde. So I think it’s going to be more three-ish, you know, it’s not going to be this isn’t, you know, don’t look up week or something, no asteroid, you know, coming towards us Really nice to hear that’s really, I haven’t seen that movie yet. Have, you Know,

01:07:04 things about it. I hear mixed Things as well. Yeah. But no, it’s really, really nice. And what I love that you said is that, you know, we get so caught up in the big stuff and it’s nice to drop into the little stuff because there’s a lot of important stuff that there’s a lot of profundity in what we think is small.

01:07:24 That’s that that’s a very important mercury work Well, and it’s the things we can actually do something about. Yeah. Mean those big ones. It’s like, w w what are we going to eat? Like, the only thing we can really do is the, is the thing in the moment in our lives, too. Yeah. Well, Christopher, this has been such a pleasure.

01:07:45 Thank you for helping us kick off our new format with so much fun and so much joy and so much learning really, really appreciate you. And I think all of you for being here as always, it’s so nice to be back with you. It felt like forever. I mean, we had the forecast event in the beginning of December, so we were very focused on that.

01:08:03 And then we decided to take a break as a company, which we haven’t done in six years. Wow. I know it was funny because the break got so filled with so much stuff. I need to take a break on really mellow astrology instead of taking a break on intense astrology, because it was just, yeah, there was, I will say that,

01:08:27 however, it was really nice to have the space to go through the things that needed to happen. And I just really appreciate all of you for coming back and picking up where we left off. And I look forward to an incredible year with all of you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being a part of our community. And thank you as always for making astrology a part of your life tomorrow,

01:08:48 I will be on with Thomas Miller. So if you don’t know, Thomas, you’ll get to meet him. We’ll be talking about 20, 22 and his, his read on the energies. And then next week he will be our weatherman for the astrological weather. Wow. Can’t wait. I know me too, Christopher. Okay. Thank you so much. And I can’t wait to see you soon.

01:09:09 Take care everybody. Bye.