Rose's Astro Academy | An Astrology Podcast

E01 Introduction, Leo New Moon, and Peeling Back the Layers of Astrology

August 04, 2024 • Rose Potts • Episode 1

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In this very special first episode, I begin by talking about my intention for this podcast and what I want this show to be about. Then, I share a bit about myself and my journey with astrology. Next, we discuss the Leo New Moon and I give you a real life example of how astrology works by highlighting how this New Moon is impacting my chart (and the launch of this podcast!). 

Finally, we'll get into our topic for this episode, which is An Introduction into the Different Layers of Astrology. I take you all the way back to the perspective of the ancient peoples who developed this system, and what they would have seen as they gazed up at the stars night after night. I introduce how each planet came to represent an archetype, and then I show you how the archetypal meanings of the planets are layered together with the archetypal meanings of signs, aspects and houses to form interpretations. For a beginner to astrology, it may sound like a lot, but I put a lot of intention into introducing each layer in an easy to understand way.

This podcast has been a long time in the making, and I'm very excited to finally be making the transition from student to teacher of this fascinating subject. If you have feedback, questions, or suggestions for future astrology topics, you can send all of those to rosesastroacademy@gmail.com.

Website: rosesastroacademy.com

Book a reading: rosesastroacademy.com/readings

Podcast Transcripts: rosesastroacademy.buzzsprout.com

Contact: rosesastroacademy@gmail.com

Instagram: @rosesastroacademy (just changed from @astro.hooper)


Rose Potts:

Hello and welcome to Rose's Astro Academy, where I demystify the system of astrology piece by piece. Each episode, we discuss a transit for the week and then I guide you through an exploration of a new layer of this fascinating system. In this very special first episode, I want to start by talking more about my intention for this podcast. Then I'll share a bit about myself and my journey with astrology. Next I have a special segment about the new moon in Leo, which happens today. Then we'll get into our topic for this episode, which is an introduction into the different layers of astrology. In the description, I've timestamped the different sections for you, so, if you wish, you can skip ahead to the parts that you want to listen to. So let's dive in and start with the very important piece around what this podcast is all about.

Rose Potts:

My intention with releasing this weekly show is to create a space where people can learn about the nature of astrology beyond the surface level. As I touched on, each week we will talk about a transit, which is what the planets are doing currently in the sky, but more so, this is a place to learn about astrology as a whole. In future episodes we will talk about the history of astrology, the different forms of astrology, the different pieces that make up astrology. We will break down the meanings of each of the planets, signs and houses and discuss how to combine these to form interpretations. We will talk about birth charts, how to read them and how to compare current transits with birth charts. We'll also look at how to read transits on their own and how to interpret big astrological events like eclipses. Furthermore, we'll read passages from ancient astrologers and modern astrological authors modern astrological authors. We'll also look at a variety of ancient timing techniques and discuss the philosophical ideas that underpin the system of astrology. My intention for this podcast is to create a container where I can slowly, layer by layer, reveal to you the true nature of astrology and share with you the beauty and magic of its true essence. Now, all of that might sound a bit overwhelming and truly learning astrology can be a lot, but it's my intention to break it down as simply as possible. This podcast does not need to be listened to in order. A beginner in astrology should be able to listen to any one episode and be able to follow along. In its essence, this podcast is a counter-movement to the modern-day overhyped and watered-down versions of astrology that many of us are inundated with online, I feel like astrology is misunderstood and gets a bad rep in large part because of these watered-down versions of it, and so with this podcast, in some small way, I want to contribute to changing that perception for people by helping to reveal the beautiful depth that astrology has and was always meant to have. So now that we've gotten that intention piece out of the way, I want to turn to sharing a bit about myself, who I am and my journey with astrology.

Rose Potts:

My name is Rose Potts. I was born and raised in rural southern Ontario. I was blessed to grow up in a 200-year-old farmhouse with a massive acreage of forest as my backyard. As a kid, I spent a lot of my time playing outside. I was one of those daydreamy kids who was often lost in my imagination. Mind you, this was the time before smartphones.

Rose Potts:

When I was a teen, my family moved to a mid-sized city in the greater Toronto area, and when I was 21, I moved across the country to attend university in Vancouver, british Columbia. I studied psychology and creative writing, and I had the honor of graduating six months before the onset of the COVID pandemic. This threw my intended career trajectory for a loop and I decided to carve out a different path for myself. It was then that I decided to take up the study of astrology. I spent a lot of time during COVID deep diving into the subject, and have since completed six courses in astrology with three different teachers. My main focus is Hellenistic astrology, which was developed over 2,000 years ago in the Mediterranean region. Given my background in psychology, I also like to weave modern archetypal and psychological astrology into my practice. In 2022, I spent a year living in Guatemala and Peru, and it was this year that I stepped into being a practicing astrologer. Since then, I've moved back to Ontario, returning to my roots. Outside of my work as an astrologer, I love to write fiction my genre being mostly futuristic, dystopian meets fantasy elements and I love to hula hoop, which is why my Instagram is astrohooper because why not combine the two things that I love?

Rose Potts:

Now let's turn to talking about the new moon in Leo, which is happening the day that I'm releasing this first episode, and I want to do things a little differently here than giving you a routine interpretation of this new moon. Instead, I want to take this opportunity to show you how astrology transits work when they're combined with someone's birth chart. Specifically, I want to share how this new moon is impacting my birth chart. New moons are essentially about new beginnings, the planting of a seed all the things we've heard a hundred times, but each new moon hits us differently, based on our birth chart. For my birth chart, leo is in my ninth house, which is the house of higher learning, philosophy, wisdom, systems, and it's even the house that represents astrology. Leo, as an archetype, is all about taking pride in what we're doing, being a leader and stepping into the spotlight. Essentially, leo is about becoming the center around which others can orbit and building a community around ourselves.

Rose Potts:

In this way, when we combine these Leo qualities with a new moon being about new beginnings, and we see how this lands in my ninth house, representing astrology, it's no surprise that I chose to launch my podcast on the day of the new moon in Leo. I had picked about five other dates prior to this that just did not work out and finally I was like okay, I'm going to announce a date publicly so that I have to launch on that date. You know, set a deadline for myself and it was almost at random and without thought that I chose the next new moon and then, only after I announced it, I began to reflect on the meaning of Leo and the meaning of it being in my ninth house, and I realized the symbolic perfection of this new moon in Leo for my birth chart specifically. For me, it's such a great example of astrology working in my life. Now, one could argue there's a Leo new moon every year, so why was it this year that I launched the podcast? Or, they could say, why isn't everyone with Leo in the ninth house launching an astrology podcast? And those are really valid points.

Rose Potts:

And this is where we have to be careful about a reductionist lens and where I really advocate a holistic approach to astrology, meaning that we're taking many factors into consideration at once. I only touched here on how one transit is impacting one house in my chart, but at any given time there's a whole host of other transits impacting our charts, as well as historical transits that have been leading up to this moment or specific event. I won't spend our time digging into all of that, but in the future I would like to do case study episodes where we look at celebrity charts and we see how we can use transits and other timing techniques to pinpoint certain events in their lives and also to pinpoint the unfolding of those events or the leading up to those events. So let's dive into our topic for today's episode, which is an introduction into the different layers of astrology. When I say layers, what I mean is I'm going to break down how we combine the meanings of planets, signs, aspects and houses in order to form interpretations in astrology, houses in order to form interpretations in astrology. So, to peel back these layers, I want us to begin by thinking back to the ancient people who developed this system.

Rose Potts:

Many, if not all, ancient cultures have developed their own system of astrology, so today we'll be focusing on the form of astrology that I know and love, which is Hellenistic astrology. Hellenistic astrology has its roots in ancient Egypt, babylon and Mesopotamia. The Hellenistic system of astrological chart readings was developed around 500 BCE, but the beginnings of this system, where meaning is attributed to the positions of the planets in the sky, dates back thousands of years prior to this. Humans have always been drawn to the beauty of the night sky, and back in those times, due to the lack of light pollution, the sky would have shone much more brilliantly than most of us are used to seeing it today, not to mention that they didn't have smartphones and screens to distract them at night. So at nighttime, beholding the night sky was probably one of the most incredible things that one could see.

Rose Potts:

There would have been a cast of ancient people, the wisdom keepers of their kind, who looked up at the stars diligently night after night. These wise ones would have noticed that the night sky was made up of a backdrop of thousands of stars which remained more or less static. But then there were these seven curious stars which moved against the backdrop of the rest. These are the seven core planets Venus, mercury, mars, jupiter and Saturn, and the moon and sun, which they gave meaning to as planets or as celestial bodies. As these wisdom keepers continued to gaze up at the sky night after night, they began to notice that these stars moved in predictable ways. It's easiest to see this with the sun and moon in their daily and monthly cycles. But they began to notice that these other stars which moved against the backdrop of the rest also had their own predictable patterns in the sky. They began to assign meaning to these stars. Mars, who shone red, was assigned Ares, the god of war. Venus, who shines brilliantly in the sky like a jewel, was assigned Aphrodite. In the sky like a jewel was assigned Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. Saturn, who is the farthest out and dimmest, was assigned Kronos and ruled things that were ancient. In this way, a system of meaning began.

Rose Potts:

Each planet came to represent an archetype or a group of similar and related qualities. For example, venus, representing Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, came to represent love and romantic relationships, but also all manner of things that are beautiful, whether it be art forms, styles of dress, beautiful people, jewels and adornments. She also represents people who are charming. She represents friendships and sisters, just to name a few more. All of these separate things fall within the archetype of Venus.

Rose Potts:

The meanings of a planet's archetypal nature are greatly drawn from the god or goddess which the planet was said to embody. So, returning to this backdrop of static stars that these planets were seen to move across, this backdrop is made up of the 12 constellations, or the signs as we know them today. Each constellation or zodiacal sign was assigned its own archetypal qualities. In the tropical zodiac, which is used by Hellenistic and even modern Western astrology, the qualities of the signs are arrived at from the nature of the season in which the sun moves through that sign. This system was developed in an area with four distinct seasons spring, summer, fall and winter so it's much easier to understand the archetypal essence of the signs when living in an area that has these four seasons. So in Ontario, I'm very blessed that I can really feel the archetypal energy of the season as we're moving through it. For example, when the sun is in Aries, this is the beginning of spring and we can really feel that in the air Things start to come alive again after the long winter and there's a strong energy of renewal of beginnings and of starting over and quickly building momentum, like those little seedlings that shoot up out of nowhere and all of a sudden there are plants. These are all qualities that the sign of Aries embodies and those qualities come from the season of the year that the sun is in Aries.

Rose Potts:

So now that we have a basic understanding of the archetype of a planet and the archetype of a sign, essentially the secret of astrology is that it works by layering archetypal meanings together to form interpretations. For example, let's say, venus is currently in Aries. The planet representing love and beauty is in an action-oriented sign of renewal. So the topic, let's say, of romance is getting that fiery, passionate boost. It's no surprise that in Aries season animals are in their full mating swing. Love is in the air in Aries season, and specifically love. That feels like a new beginning. But let's take other Venus topics. Let's say you're an artist, venus rules art. So we could say maybe you're going in a new direction artistically, venus rules one sense of style. So maybe while Venus is in Aries, someone is dressing differently than they did before. They're recreating themselves aesthetically.

Rose Potts:

This is an example of how we can combine the archetypal natures of planets and signs. But astrology goes much deeper than this. The next layer is aspects. Aspects were thought of as a way that planets are in relationship with other planets. As planets make their journeys through the signs, they will occasionally meet up with other planets. From our perspective on earth, it looks like the two planets join together in the sky. This is called a conjunction.

Rose Potts:

We also have sextiles, which is when the planets occupy the same position or degree two signs away from one another. Then we have squares, which are three signs apart, trines, four signs apart, and oppositions, which are six signs apart. Each aspect has its own archetypal quality, but before you throw in the towel it's much easier to learn because each one takes after a planet. Sextiles are of the nature of Venus. Venus has harmonious and helpful qualities, so when two planets are in a sextile, they are in a harmonious connection, kind of like the two planets are extending a helping hand to each other. Squares, on the other hand, are of the nature of Mars. Remember, mars represents Ares, the god of war. So when planets form a square it's seen as a hostile connection. They are not seeing eye to eye and they are ruffling each other's feathers. Planets move through these aspects, essentially playing out a dance with one another.

Rose Potts:

At any given time, planets are making different aspects with one another in the sky and with planets in our birth charts, and the planets in our birth charts are also making aspects with one another. But let's put that aside for a moment. Let's say that Venus is squaring Mars in the sky. Let's break this down and see what interpretations we can arrive at. Venus is the planet of love, mars is the planet of war. Squares are of the nature of Mars, so we're getting a double Mars hit on Venus.

Rose Potts:

Significations when this is happening in the sky, we could say that there could be more than the usual amount of lovers, quarrels or fights with friends. Mars also rules cutting and severing, so maybe we're seeing more breakups or the ending of friendships. But Mars also rules passion and the square can be a very dynamic energy, so a lot of romances may get sparked during Mars-Venus squares. There is no one way to view an archetype and as we layer these different archetypes together, the interpretations can grow more complex and in number of possibilities, so it can get a bit confusing. But this is the way in which astrology can speak to us individually. Where one transit Mars-Venus square can have a resonance for us on an individual level. For one person they might be sparking that seeming new romance, another's ending a relationship, another's working through a fight with a friend, another's working with that passionate and dynamic energy of the Mars square to kickstart a new artistic project. All different expressions, but all symbolized very beautifully by a Mars-Venus square.

Rose Potts:

But remember, venus and Mars are not just hanging out in the middle of nowhere. The planets are always occupying signs. So, for example, maybe Venus and Aries is squaring Mars and Capricorn. Each planet now is being toned by the sign that it's in, which will put a different spin on how the transit, which is the aspect between the two planets, plays out. On the other hand, venus and Pisces squaring Mars and Gemini has a very different look and feel to it and will have very different outcomes. So if you're new to astrology, this is a lot of information all at once. But if you're ready to come along with me, we have just one more layer to look at, and this is the layer of houses.

Rose Potts:

Our birth chart, which is a snapshot of the positions of the planets at the moment of our birth, has houses as well as planets and signs. What an astrologer does is we take the transit happening currently in the sky and we place them into the houses in someone's birth chart in order to see what topics or areas of life are being activated by the transit. There are 12 houses and 12 signs, and so there are 12 variations of which sign will fall into which house in your birth chart? As I said, the houses represent different topics or areas of your life. So, for example, the second house is your finances, the seventh house will speak to your relationships and the tenth shows your career. So let's return to our example of Venus and Aries squaring Mars and Capricorn. This transit will activate the houses that Aries and Capricorn occupy in your specific chart, which will tell us what areas of life that transit is going to play out in for you specifically.

Rose Potts:

And now remember when I mentioned all of those different variations for the Venus-Mars square, and how does an astrologer decide which expression is most likely? Well, which houses are being activated in a person's birth chart by the transit and which planets in their chart are being activated does a lot to narrow things down and help to tell the story. So remember how I talked about the new moon in Leo activating my ninth house. The new moon in Leo makes a lot more sense for how it's impacting me now that I've transported its symbolism into the ninth house and I see that ninth house symbolism of astrology, of wisdom systems, etc. Playing out with that new moon and Leo leadership energy. Now, when we include the houses, we can really start to understand the picture. So the houses allows us to get really specific and it's really important to remember and include the houses.

Rose Potts:

One more piece that I wanted to touch on is that I only spoke about two planet combinations today, but remember that we have seven core planets and 10 if we include Uranus, neptune and Pluto, and each of those planets in the sky are making transits to one another, but are also making transits to the 10 planet locations in our unique birth chart. So there's a lot taking place all at once, and a lot of practicing astrology is about learning to remove the static and focus in on what is speaking the loudest or what is speaking the most to the specific issue that the client is bringing to the session. This is why an astrology reading is necessarily a co-creative exchange between the astrologer and the client and why I choose to never do pre-recorded sessions that I send out to the client. It really has to be an in-the-moment exchange and dialogue with the client. There are also many techniques beyond transits that Hellenistic astrologers use to make interpretations, but transits are definitely one of the main methods In my practice, for example, I will also look at solar return charts, progressions and Sabian symbols, just to name a few. In this way, an astrologer can work with the chart as a holistic whole to get an idea from multiple angles of what the chart is saying and how it's speaking to a situation. There's a good rule that I like, which is the rule of three, and this is where, if we arrive at the same answer three times using different techniques, then we can feel really solid in that interpretation. So there we have it. For our topic today,

Rose Potts:

w e looked at the different pieces of astrology - planets, signs, aspects and houses and we looked at how we can layer those together to form interpretations. This topic may have been a bit confusing for some, and if you've stayed with me through it, thank you. My intention with this episode was to give you a glimpse into the complexity and beauty of the system, which necessitated a bit of a deep dive. I want this podcast to be a co-creative space, so if there's a topic in astrology that you would like me to talk about, please email it to rosesastroacademy" gmailcom.

Rose Potts:

New episodes air every Monday. If you want to book a reading with me, you can find out how to do that in the description or on my website, rosesastroacademycom, where you can also find transcripts of the podcast, and you can follow along on my Instagram, astrohooper, where I release fun hula hooping and astrology content. Finally, if you enjoyed this episode and want to see this little seedling grow, you can help out by leaving a review of the podcast or sharing it with your astrology-loving friends. Well, that's all I have for you. See you next week for a new episode.