KristaLyn Sofia died on an operating table when they were ten years old. That would turn out to be a major turning point in their development as a psychic medium, and, perhaps, the seed moment for their astrological career.

Aside from someone with a fascinating origin story, KristaLyn is a dear friend of mine. Their work and support over the years has been pivotal to my own development—personally and professionally.

For years, as some of you might remember, the two of us gathered on IG live every Monday to talk astrology for a series called Ask Me Astros. This conversation was originally meant as a casual check-in for YouTube after a long time apart.

I enjoyed it so much I decided to share it as a podcast.

After all those conversations with KristaLyn, this is the first time we’ve sat down to discuss their story—which is, as you’ll soon discover, quite exceptional.

[LISTEN TO THE PODCAST]

About KristaLyn

⁠KristaLyn⁠ combines ancient astrology with modern intuition and consulting skills to offer tangible guidance and help you align timing with intention. They ⁠walk you through your birth chart⁠ and connect the stars to your life in a clear and practical way to help you so you feel seen, validated, and empowered in your next steps. KristaLyn serves as the Vice President of ⁠NCGR⁠ and grows their own understanding through continued mentorship in astrology, folk magic, and religious studies with private teachers and the ⁠St. Andrew’s College Lifelong Learners Program⁠.

About Vivi

Vivi Henriette is an LA-based astrologer and tarot reader whose practice centers on storytelling, mythology, and collaborative divination. She creates a space for clients to reclaim their personal narratives through the lens of ancient archetypes. Vivi produces ⁠LA Astro Fest⁠, hosts the Los Angeles Astro Salon, serves as Secretary of ⁠NCGR⁠, and is the creator of the podcast ⁠TALKTALKTALK⁠. You can find her weekly writing on ritual and meaning right here on ⁠ART of the ZODIAC⁠.

Shelter From the Storm: Writing Through the Venus Retrograde

Together we’ll explore the Venus cycle through the Sumerian myth of Inanna and her journey to the Underworld, picking up other stories and poems of the descent along the way, the tarot’s among them, including the threads of our own mythology. Through writing prompts, group storytelling, and discussion, we’ll embark on our own journey of self-discovery and inspiration.

Two of the six sessions will be led by guest guides Larry Arrington and KristaLyn Sofia, whose expertise in astrology and mythology will add depth to the experience.

[JOIN THE COHORT]

More TALKTALKTALK

If you’re looking for a group of likeminded astro seekers, Club Astro is your place!

We meet weekly to explore the sky in real time and make sense of what is unfolding in our lives and in the collective. This is your chance to ask me questions about your chart, share stories, and connect with a cohort of fellow astrologers.

Club Astro members also get exclusive perks:

• Discounted astrological readings & mentorship

• Secret invites

• Discounted tickets to the Los Angeles Astro Salon and the LA Astro Fest.

[JOIN THE CLUB]

Venus retrograde is a good time for going inward — but not because our lives get more peaceful.

On October 3rd, the planet of love, beauty, and delight disappears from sight as she draws closer to Earth, stirring up all sorts of emotion and, sometimes, drama.

You may have already noticed Venus’s shift into Scorpio — the backward churn of deep-seated desires and Underworld drama. The last time she retrograded through this terrain was the fall of 2018.

Think back to the person you were then.

Venus Time Machine

Venus retrograde may not be uneventful, but it is, nonetheless, an opportunity to take stock of desires both active and forgotten. A time for getting in touch with the parts of yourself you’ve neglected for more urgent needs or rational dreams.

It’s also a time for active mourning — those you’ve loved, those you’ve stopped loving, and the parts of yourself that can be put to rest.

Heart-Shaped Container

For some of us, this season might feel easy. For others, this retrograde might bring a lot to the surface.

For me, creating a container to honor retrograde cycles is a way to give shape to, and measure, my growth.

This course is born from my desire to build a shrine to Venus and a support system for myself and those who join me on this journey.

Over the course of six weeks, we’ll explore the Venus cycle through the Sumerian myth of Inanna and her journey to the Underworld, crossing through time to pick up other stories and poems of the descent, including the tarot’s, and the threads of our own mythology.

Through writing prompts, group storytelling, and discussion, we’ll embark on our own journey of self-discovery and inspiration.

Guest Teachers

Two of the six sessions will be led by guest teachers: my brilliant colleague KristaLyn Sofia and a surprise guest. Both are expert astrologers with a love of mythology who will add depth to the experience.

The Work

At the beginning of the container, everyone will receive a digital workbook with key dates and definitions to work through during our time together. A few days before our first meeting, you’ll receive a full syllabus.

Meeting Dates

Wednesday, September 30th — 4pm PDT

Wednesday, October 7th — 4pm PDT

Wednesday, October 14th — 4pm PDT

Wednesday, October 21st — 4pm PDT

Wednesday, October 28th — 4pm PDT

Wednesday, November 4th — 4pm PDT

[SECURE YOUR SPOT]

If you’re looking for a group of likeminded astro seekers, Club Astro is your place!

We meet weekly to explore the sky in real time and make sense of what is unfolding in our lives and in the collective. This is your chance to ask me questions about your chart, share stories, and connect with a cohort of fellow astrologers.

Club Astro members also get exclusive perks:

• Discounted astrological readings & mentorship

• Secret invites

• Discounted tickets to the Los Angeles Astro Salon and the LA Astro Fest.

  ---

[JOIN THE CLUB]

MORE TALKTALKTALK

This week’s podcast guest is one of my all-time favorite astrologers and thinkers, . If you’re somehow not familiar with that name, surely you don’t spend time on the internet—and you’re in for a treat!

Our conversation was recorded over two years ago, on a sunny day in a backyard, a short drive outside of Los Angeles.

This conversation is timeless—what's missing is what's happened between now and then: advances in technology chief among it, AI especially.

I’m well overdue for another conversation with Rick.

[LISTEN NOW]

About Rick

A professional astrologer since 1976,⁠ Rick Levine⁠ has long been a respected leader in the global Astrology community. He is one of the most widely published horoscope authors, has made numerous radio, podcast, and television appearances, has spoken at professional events around the world, and runs his own astrological consulting business.

Rick presents Astrology as a tool for empowerment, understanding, and creativity. He was a Founding Trustee of⁠ Kepler College⁠ for Astrological Arts and Sciences and a two-term President of the⁠ Washington State Astrologers Association⁠ (’92–’94). Rick continues to serve the Astrology community through events and educational resources. He is also currently involved in multiple professional associations and provides personalized astrological consultations for individuals, corporations, institutions, and non-profits from his home near Seattle, Washington.

Connect with Rick:⁠ Website⁠ ·⁠ Facebook⁠ ·⁠ Instagram⁠ ·⁠ YouTube⁠ ·⁠ Patreon⁠

About Vivi

Vivi Henriette is an LA-based astrologer and tarot reader whose practice centers on storytelling, mythology, and collaborative divination. She creates a space for clients to reclaim their personal narratives through the lens of ancient archetypes. Vivi produces⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LA Astro Fest⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, hosts the Los Angeles Astro Salon, and is the creator of the podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TalkTalkTalk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. You can find her weekly writing on ritual and meaning right here on⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ART of the ZODIAC⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

If you’re looking for a group of likeminded astro seekers, Club Astro is your place!

We meet weekly to explore the sky in real time and make sense of what is unfolding in our lives and in the collective. This is your chance to ask me questions about your chart, share stories, and connect with a cohort of fellow astrologers.

Club Astro members also get exclusive perks:

• Discounted astrological readings & mentorship

• Secret invites

• Discounted tickets to the Los Angeles Astro Salon and the LA Astro Fest.

[JOIN THE CLUB]

More TALKTALKTALK

It’s Virgo season, and I miss home.

Not the home where I live in Los Angeles, but the home inside my bones.

I miss the cold that anxiously straddles the crisp air. The darkening sunsets in places where we dread winter. Detroit. New York. Chicago — the city from which I write.

It’s a downcast morning, and I’m listening to Philip Glass, thinking of Frank O’Hara.

Forget the Vestal Virgins. If you want to understand the sign of Virgo, retreat to a place of solitude and read Lunch Poems aloud to the ghosts in the room.

I don’t care for much poetry, but Frank O’Hara is everything.

Now the Virgo moon draws the eclipse season, and one set of stories, to a close.

When the moon escapes from the Sun, I’ll be sharing a Venus retrograde offering—an opportunity to write, share mythologies and study the sky together.

In the meantime, I wish you warmth and inspired contemplation —

Xoxo Vivi

If you’re looking for a group of likeminded astro seekers, Club Astro is your place!

We meet weekly to explore the sky in real time and make sense of what is unfolding in our lives and in the collective. This is your chance to ask me questions about your chart, share stories, and connect with a cohort of fellow astrologers.

Club Astro members also get exclusive perks:

• Discounted astrological readings & mentorship

• Secret invites

• Discounted tickets to the Los Angeles Astro Salon and the LA Astro Fest.

Join the Club

More TALKTALKTALK

I can’t believe I’m writing this from Chicago, hours away from checking into the United Astrology Conference and spending a week with over 1,500 astrologers in one building.

I can’t believe my new pal Catie McQ made time to speak with me before her lecture at the aforementioned conference.

I can’t believe the world keeps moving even after flinging my headphones over the airport ledge — then sprinting down two flights to retrieve them, breaking my charger in the process, all while somehow not missing my Lyft or disturbing the gentle soul praying inches from my rogue device.

And I can definitely believe, although I wish it weren’t so, that the charger on my Delta flight didn’t work, and that over half the electric sockets at O’Hare are busted — and that they just leave all those fancy chairs with outlets unplugged.

But here we are, so close to the other side of Mars square Saturn that I can feel myself growing less frustrated and angry.

Where Is This Going?

This week’s podcast is with Catie McQ, which means it’s as loud and frenetic as the genius of Catie — and also the grounding I needed during an equally dynamic eclipse season many of us will look back on in years to come with big feelings and the clarity that comes only with time.

We also get into the upcoming retrogrades: Venus, Mars, and Mercury.

And then, because it’s Catie, she wraps it all up in a sweet bow of big outer planet movements, which means you can listen to this episode five, ten, twenty years from now and still have something to take away. Even if only a reflection on the zeitgeist and something about the nature of eclipses and retrogrades.

Which is a lot, because as far as I can tell, those cycles aren’t going away. Ever.

[ LISTEN NOW ]

About Catie McQ

Catie McQ is an astrologer, writer, and researcher whose work sits at the intersection of the personal and the collective. Through her platform Celestial Healing, she brings psychological depth and cultural curiosity to the birth chart, connecting the stars to history, community, and the larger story we’re all living through together.

About Vivi Henriette

Vivi Henriette is an LA-based astrologer and tarot reader whose practice centers on storytelling, mythology, and collaborative divination. She creates a space for clients to reclaim their personal narratives through the lens of ancient archetypes. Vivi produces⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LA Astro Fest⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, hosts the Los Angeles Astro Salon, and is the creator of the podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TalkTalkTalk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. You can find her weekly writing on ritual and meaning right here on⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ART of the ZODIAC⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

If you’re looking for a group of likeminded astro seekers, Club Astro is your place!

We meet weekly to explore the sky in real time and make sense of what is unfolding in our lives and in the collective. This is your chance to ask me questions about your chart, share stories, and connect with a cohort of fellow astrologers.

Club Astro members also get exclusive perks:

• Discounted astrological readings & mentorship

• Secret invites

• Discounted tickets to the Los Angeles Astro Salon and the LA Astro Fest.

Join the Club

More TALKTALKTALK

In the middle of an ayahuasca ceremony in the Peruvian jungle, during one of the most gut-wrenching and pivotal moments of my life, I received some advice: “If you want to keep up with this work in the States,” I was told, “see Alan.”

I had no idea who Alan was.

I mean, I did. But I didn’t really.

Detroit

is a multi-hyphenate artist, teacher, and purveyor of applied consciousness. He is also, apparently, a human omen, though I wouldn’t figure that out for another decade or so.

My first memory of him is this distinct, slowed-down movie moment: locking eyes as he came in through my backdoor during a house party in Detroit. At the time I had no idea what I was doing with my life. The only thing that gave me meaning was throwing these “art-ins” that, in hindsight, served as a portal to everything else: organizing more parties, opening a restaurant with friends, LA Astro Fest.

This would be a more interesting story if we were star-crossed lovers. We were not. Over the years we’ve known each other, we’ve had a handful of conversations at most. I doubt he even remembers that first meeting, but every time we do talk, that image flashes across my mind.

When you roll back the tape, he’s always around for the important parts. Painting a wall, sipping tea, whatever other banal activities human omens do.

The Amazon

So when his name surfaced in the jungle, I reached out. I considered joining a ceremony at the now defunct CAID. Nothing transpired.

In the meantime, I followed him on socials, bought his records, admired his work and travels, and, like most things in my life, otherwise forgot he existed.

Culver City

The next time he popped into my consciousness I was crashing at a friend’s place in Culver City, alone in a strange city, nursing my wounds from a business fallout, and scrolling Facebook, because that was still a thing people did.

Alan had posted a glowing review of an astrology reading. It wasn’t anything profound, but I was intrigued enough and desperate for a distraction, so I checked out the astrologer’s YouTube channel. Within a week I was signed up for a year-long Hellenistic astrology course. For context, I was so new to the practice I didn’t even know what a “transit” was.

Long story shorter: I wouldn’t be an astrologer without Alan.

He still had no idea.

Los Angeles

Shortly after moving to Los Angeles in 2024, I finally had the opportunity to sit in ceremony with him, four times, actually. It was as potent and life-changing as my time in Peru, and fodder for an essay of its own.

As I write this, I’m realizing it’s the nodal return of our first meeting in Detroit. Eighteen plus years later, I’m starting to understand the omen: not a trail pointing toward a single question, but a series of them, one that led to our most robust conversation to date, and our first podcast recording together.

Alan’s the real deal. Sometimes his ideas fly past my head, but his existence alone is proof enough that life works in mysterious ways.

If you’re new to him and his work, it’s an honor to be your guide.

Listen to the Podcast

If you’re looking for a group of likeminded astro seekers, Club Astro is your place!

We meet weekly to explore the sky in real time and make sense of what is unfolding in our lives and in the collective. This is your chance to ask me questions about your chart, share stories, and connect with a cohort of fellow astrologers.

Club Astro members also get exclusive perks:

• Discounted astrological readings & mentorship

• Secret invites

• Discounted tickets to the Los Angeles Astro Salon and the LA Astro Fest.

Join the Club

More TALKTALKTALK

Enrique Enriquez says there’s magic in mimicry.

To that end, every conversation I host is a spell cast in the hopes that I will one day learn to speak.

If recording a podcast has taught me anything, it’s that speaking is really hard, and editing is even harder, because it means having to listen back to all my dumb questions. The payoff is getting to hear all the brilliant answers that come through, despite me.

This is especially true of my conversation with Enrique Enriquez, a poet who lives in New York and has made a name for himself listening to birds and appearing in strangers’ dreams.

Talking to him felt like getting to spend an hour sitting with the Oracle — I’m still struggling to describe the experience in complete sentences, but I know I’ll be thinking about it for years to come—or it will be working on me for years to come.

I wish the same for you.

Listen to the Podcast

See Enrique Enriquez in Los Angeles

If you're in Los Angeles, there are a handful of tickets left to see Enrique Enriquez tomorrow at the PRS library for his talk, How to Enter the Garden — a rare opportunity to slow down and learn to hear the world, a "voice that speaks not to human ears, but to our very presence."

Secure Your Spot

If you’re looking for a group of likeminded astro seekers, Club Astro is your place!

We meet weekly to explore the sky in real time and make sense of what is unfolding in our lives and in the collective. This is your chance to ask me questions about your chart, share stories, and connect with a cohort of fellow astrologers.

Club Astro members also get exclusive perks:

• Discounted astrological readings & mentorship

• Secret invites

• Discounted tickets to the Los Angeles Astro Salon and the LA Astro Fest.

Join the Club

More TALKTALKTALK!

The influencer is dying.

This was the accidental theme of last week’s Club Astro Office Hours. The individual who named this feeling for all of us then continued to list examples of recently fallen internet celebs.

We had been thick in a discussion looking back at the eclipse cycle of 2017/18, when the North Node, or the dragon’s head, was pushing through Leo, as the South Node, or the dragon’s tail, gave a deep cleaning to the terrain of Aquarius.

This was, in some ways, a moment of kings — perhaps most exemplified by the rise to power of Donald Trump, the president who made a name for himself rawdogging the total solar eclipse.

Now, let’s talk about looking at the eclipse.

It’s true that staring at the sun without protection can have very real damaging effects on your eyes. The reason, however, that we hide from the baleful rays, as my forever mentor Larry Arrington recently pointed out, is reverence.

Taking shelter from the eclipse is an act of humility, it’s a pact with the belief that there are forces out there greater than all of us. To stare straight into the sun, symbolically speaking, is as close as most of us will get to flying too close to the sun.

The danger with influencers is the same as with kings: drunk on their own power, they become tyrants and ruin life for the rest of us with their Ponzi crypto schemes, empty promises, and overpriced golden merch.

This conversation prompted some research, and I discovered that TikTok entered the US market in August of 2018, during this same hungry-for-attention eclipse cycle.

Which means, in eclipse terms, TikTok and its inflated idols are facing their first nodal reckoning.

This comes at the same time that Myspace has announced plans to return as an algorithm-free social network, though no launch date has been confirmed yet.

Is this the beginning of a new era?

Let’s Think About That

On October 3rd, Venus, planet of love, desire, and social grace, makes an about-face and disappears from the sky. Situated in the watery underworld of Scorpio, she will trace her way back through the zodiac to her airy home of Libra. The last time she made this journey was October 2018, a period nestled, once again, between the Leo and Aquarius eclipses.

Before you get carried away with timelines, stay with me.

Think about where you were in the fall of 2018. Hold onto that.

The Good Stuff

If you follow astrology at all, which, since you’re reading this, I’m assuming you do, you’ve heard all sorts of things about Venus retrogrades. Most of them, very likely, have been scary.

This is the time of breakups, bad haircuts, general misunderstandings, and misfortunes in love.

Perhaps.

And it’s also an opportunity to strengthen bonds, to sever unnecessary ties, to remember what you love and commit yourself to that passion, that person, that desire, in whatever form it takes, with new zest and commitment.

For 40 days and some change, we have an opportunity to step away from our mundane lives to reflect and dream bigger than we generally give ourselves time for.

But what does this have to do with the sun?

The thing about royalty and influencers is they only have power because we the people give it to them.

We can look at this eclipse season as an opportunity for a shift, but if that shift is not rooted in deeply held beliefs and desires, its impacts will only be fleeting.

The Influencer May Be Dead But Capitalism Is Still Thriving

Let’s take this Venus Retrograde journey together.

Starting on Sunday, September 27th, we’ll explore the Venus cycle through the Sumerian myth of Inanna and her journey to the Underworld, crossing through time to pick up other stories and poems of the descent — the tarot’s among them, including the threads of our own mythology.

Through writing prompts, group storytelling, and discussion, we’ll embark on our own six-week journey of self-discovery and inspiration.

Are you in?

Join Club Astro for first access and a discounted rate on our Venus Rx portal.

If you’re looking for a group of likeminded astro seekers, Club Astro is your place!

We meet weekly to explore the sky in real time and make sense of what is unfolding in our lives and in the collective. This is your chance to ask me questions about your chart, share stories, and connect with a cohort of fellow astrologers.

Club Astro members also get exclusive perks:

• Discounted astrological readings & mentorship

• Secret invites

• Discounted tickets to the Los Angeles Astro Salon and the LA Astro Fest.

Join the Club

More Venus!

Shortly after reading Gary Lachman’s book, Dreaming Ahead of Time, I became obsessed with recording my dreams — and, as the book suggested might happen — time started getting weird.

Most memorably, I remember waking from a dream where I was bitten by a little white lamb. I was shook. Later that day, at a party, I went to pet the host’s little white dog with matted lamb-like fur, and it bit me, drawing blood.

Transfixed by the sight of my bloody finger, the image from my dream surfaced, like a warning I failed to heed.

When I first reached out to Gary it was in the hopes of discussing the magic of dreaming and this book, which has had such a profound effect on both my waking and dreaming life.

In the time between that first request and our interview, however, the focus shifted.

For those of you who have been following my work, you might have noticed that the city of Los Angeles, my adopted home, its people and stories, have been surfacing throughout my conversations.

Most notably in my most requested interviews with Ronnie Pontiac and Edward O.

One of the places that has stepped into view is the Bodhi Tree, a metaphysical bookstore that was a hub for the New Age movement in Los Angeles from its opening in 1970 to its closure in 2012. Its legacy still reverberates through many great thinkers of this city.

For years, Gary worked at the Bodhi Tree while pursuing a degree in Philosophy. He talks about this in his memoir, Touched by the Presence.

This place and this period in time was the spark for our discussion, but as conversations do, this one took on a life of its own.

His time with Blondie, 70s New York, killer robots, Crowley, Blavatsky, and of course the Bodhi Tree Bookstore — all of these characters and places making their way into our talk.

This one is just too special not to listen to.

Listen to the full Interview

If you’re looking for a group of likeminded astro seekers, Club Astro is your place!

We meet weekly to explore the sky in real time and make sense of what is unfolding in our lives and in the collective. This is your chance to ask me questions about your chart, share stories, and connect with a cohort of fellow astrologers.

Club Astro members also get exclusive perks:

• Discounted astrological readings & mentorship

• Secret invites

• Discounted tickets to the Los Angeles Astro Salon and the LA Astro Fest.

Join the Club

More TALKTALKTALK

Last week, a discarded SpaceX rocket booster collided with the moon. We know because the dusty aftermath was caught on camera: a hit and run of galactic proportions, except everyone saw it coming.

To quote another astrologer:

“A phallus crashing onto the feminine moon. Tracks.”

And they’re not wrong. But that also feels too easy.

A Quick Astro Review

In the symbolic language of astrology, the Sun is our lifeforce, a vital wellspring of outward energy and light that drives us to go and do and reach.

The moon, conversely, is a reflective body. It’s where we seek emotional comfort. The moon’s light waxes and wanes. Its light at full blast draws shadows. Its absence requires our intuition to see in the dark.

But you know that.

What About This Exists Within Me

As I pulled apart this image of endless potential crashing into our astrological symbol for comfort during yoga class—because my brain does not shut off—a story cracked open within me.

I saw my own reckless ambition and the ways I struggle to sit still long enough to enjoy anything, to be present with the people around me.

I thought of my own mother and her crippling anxiety—the chronic neurosis that drove her to drink to escape a flood of emotions and an overthinking that turned her attempts at care into criticism and coldness.

Shortly after her death, I found myself screaming at my stepfather, “I could never do anything to make her proud.”

And he, in one of the tritest scenes of my life, responded, “She didn’t want you to do anything. She just wanted you around.”

While I disagree with that statement, I can still recognize my own shortcomings.

Everything about me feels competitive. I started an astrology festival to show my mother, and everyone around me, that I’m capable of big things even when these big things leave me feeling resentful and depleted.

In short, I thought of the damage my own unmitigated drive has caused me and the people I love. And I started crying during hot yin.

Which is actually a great place to break down because it’s dark and tears just mix with the sweat.

Eclipse Season Kickoff

I’m not going to tell you to sit with your own desires and ambitions because that feels heavy-handed.

But if you were to, this upcoming eclipse might be a good time to do so.

If you’re looking for a group of likeminded astro seekers, Club Astro is your place!

We meet weekly to explore the sky in real time and make sense of what is unfolding in our lives and in the collective. This is your chance to ask me questions about your chart, share stories, and connect with a cohort of fellow astrologers.

Club Astro members also get exclusive perks:

• Discounted astrological readings & mentorship

• Secret invites

• Discounted tickets to the Los Angeles Astro Salon and the LA Astro Fest.

Join Club Astro

Further Reading

I recently sat down with Hawk, a human who needs only one name because they’re that brilliant and magical. They, along with Josh Proto and Adira Osland, are the organizers behind North Star Camp Out — a multiday gathering of astrologers and magicians taking place on farmland in the Pacific Northwest at the end of this month, August 20-23.

Listen to the Podcast

The following except is taken from our recorded conversation. All quotes below are taken from Hawk and have been edited and condensed to fit this space.

Reactively Atheist

I got really into it because I was really into consciousness and LSD culture, and I was like, what’s going on with the brain? Why am I a thinking thing? What’s going on here? No one can tell me. I was pretty much an atheist till I was 18 or 19, and then I was like, damn. I was reactively atheist in a way that only an Aquarius sun can be.

I See the One

I was 18 years old, and all the right ingredients just came together. The Milky Way was visible, and my brain was melting under the influences of various forces. I tried to walk up a hill and I just had to lay down, and my friend emergency attuned me to Reiki one. Somewhere in the middle of that, I was just like, wow, I see the one, I get it.

Thank God I Don’t Have to Write It Down

My response to encountering actual religion was, wow, thank fucking God I don’t have to write all this down. Which is such an 18-year-old thought — you have this first spiritual experience and you’re just like, oh my God, I have to tell the others. The Indra’s Net Wikipedia page saved me from feeling like I had to write a book. Someone’s seen that thing, the cosmic web.

I Invented It From First Principles

After making a really big deal about how I didn’t want to go to college, I was just like, wait, fuck. If only there was a place one could go where there were experts on a subject, and it was their job to teach you about it. Which is, again, me with religion. It’s like I invented it from first principles. God is fake. They should invent a human life that has meaning.

Finger Dowsing at the Grocery Store

The visionary element of Aquarius is — okay, but what does this do? How can I care about daily life using this information? I’m not trying to figure out how to talk to aliens. I’m finger dowsing at the grocery store to find the ideal laundry detergent. I mean, I would also talk to an alien if one wanted to talk to me.

A Community Service

I used to go to a lot of festivals, so bringing the whole living room is actually a fucking community service. If you rolled out your entire coffee table and couch setup somewhere and put that in the forest, I would give you a North Star Medal of Honor.

Stop Making It Hard

It’s really part of our devotion this year to it being a more Venus-focused event versus Jupiter. So much of what she’s been coming through to tell all of us is, this needs to be easier. Stop making it hard.

All Your Friends Are Your Neighbors

Going to a place where all your friends are your neighbors for a second is so fucking restorative to my constitution, and it reorients my life. I’m like, whoa, this is actually what matters. It matters to me that I see people I care about regularly, and that those people can connect with me on the things that connect me to God.

If Indra’s Net Were a Hammock

Our bio right now says, if Indra’s net were a hammock, it would be this event. You’re just sitting in it, taking it all in — all the reflective jewels of each individual nexus of space and time. We’re just chilling with each other.

The Oracle for the Omen Sphere

I’m the oracle for people who are thinking about the omen sphere and wanna talk about how deity is speaking in their life, through the lens of astrology and magical practice. There’s a reorienting thing that happens when you can make actual contact with people who think that you make perfect sense.

About Hawk

Hawk Grubb is a diarist, omen seer, astrologer & magical mentor living in the Pacific Northwest.

Their magical interests include the holy guardian angel & abramelin operation, wresting ceremonial magic from the hands of stodgy misogynists, the four elements, and natural omen seeing as a foundational spiritual practice/ lifelong navigation tool.
They’re focused on placemaking, firetending, and third housing with their friends, neighbors and spirits.

If you’re looking for a group of likeminded astro seekers, Club Astro is your place!

We meet weekly to explore the sky in real time and make sense of what is unfolding in our lives and in the collective. This is your chance to ask me questions about your chart, share stories, and connect with a cohort of fellow astrologers.

Club Astro members also get exclusive perks:

• Discounted astrological readings & mentorship

• Secret invites

• Discounted tickets to the Los Angeles Astro Salon and the LA Astro Fest.

Join us every Thursday for office hours at 7pm EDT / 4pm PDT.

Join the Club

Further Reading

It was the second time in six months I woke up to a bang-bang-banging in the middle of the night that shook my whole house.

My home being a Quonset hut—which if you’re unfamiliar is basically a greenhouse with more steel and less glass. From a practical standpoint, one could describe it as a stylish sardine can. It was mostly helpless against the elements—letting in rain, snow, and all sorts of bugs.

One need only sneeze to shake it. This pounding threatened to take it down.

Outside, the dark of night lit up by the brights of a car blasting techno. The knocking continued. It was my seamstress — drunk. I buried my head further under the covers.

After a few minutes, a couple more pounds and the sound of something heavy being dropped, the car drove off.

In the morning, as I opened my door to leave for the day, I discovered a large wooden dragon resting against my house.

The Fire Dragon

By our best estimates, this dragon is a few hundred years old. Before finding a home in the bar of our restaurant, it lived what we can only assume was a colorful life. Dragons like this were built to perch on the corners of buildings as guardians—in places far away from Detroit, Michigan.

My former business partner picked this one up from a rare antiques dealer in San Diego, along with a canoe we planned to hang from the ceiling. We never did.

I never thought much about the dragon before the disaster — and, honestly, I didn’t think about him much after. Until he showed up at my door with the second set of banging.

The first time was six months earlier. Our sous chef came to wake me in the far too early hours of the morning. The restaurant was on fire — it was all over the news.

The Portal Finds You

Seamstress was my term of endearment for a loose acquaintance who was, in fact, my seamstress — but also my favorite source of town gossip, my interior design consultant, and the woman who once showed up at my house with a yoni steamer after I complained about a regrettable night.

In the wake of our restaurant burning, the construction workers had thrown all of the furniture outside. The dragon, despite surviving an explosion that melted our stereo equipment, sustained very few injuries.

Someone from the apartment building next door picked up our guy and placed him in the lobby. My seamstress, at the time sleeping with a fellow who lived in this building, became obsessed with returning the dragon to its rightful owner — me.

No Going Back

It wasn’t until years later, having given my life to the study of astrology, that I realized this very real dragon had found me in the middle of eclipse season, as the metaphorical severed dragon of shadow and light was sprawled across the body of my birth chart.

During this time of my life, I didn’t have a map to tell me that I would be ok after leaving the business I had devoted years of blood, sweat and tears to build.

I didn’t have astrology to hint at the future as I stumbled blindly through one of the darkest nights of my soul.

A Future Pause

Depending on your calculations, the nodes have either entered or are about to enter the Leo/Aquarius axis of our charts, the same place they occupied from May 2017 to November 2018.

Eclipses have been described as portals, ushering us into new timelines.

For me, looking at the mouth of this portal nine years later, I see someone who is unrecognizable to me now.

That person standing in Detroit, mourning the loss of her business, could have never imagined the entirely new life I now inhabit in Los Angeles, filled with people and experiences more enriching than I could have ever dreamed.

So much of astrology is centered around prediction, of trying to pull at the threads of history to make a cohesive story.

We go back in time to pick up a narrative that we fear will haunt us — we look to the past to see the future.

But what if we all kicked off this eclipse season by acknowledging how far we’ve come?

Standing at the edge of another portal, I see that my own life is testament to the power of fate and dragons and that life can be so much wilder than we imagine.

If you’re looking for a group of likeminded astro seekers, Club Astro is your place!

We meet weekly to explore the sky in real time and make sense of what is unfolding in our lives and in the collective. This is your chance to ask me questions about your chart, share stories, and connect with a cohort of fellow astrologers.

Club Astro members also get exclusive perks:

• Discounted astrological readings & mentorship

• Secret invites

• Discounted tickets to the Los Angeles Astro Salon and the LA Astro Fest.

Join us every Thursday for office hours at 7pm EDT / 4pm PDT.

Join The Club

Further Reading

In the 1980s two lost twenty-somethings walked into a mysterious compound at the top of a hill and stayed for seven years.

Ronnie Pontiac and Tamra Lucid spent their formative years under the tutelage of a man many consider one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. It’s a story Tamra would go on to recall in her 2021 book, Making the Ordinary Extraordinary: My Seven Years in Occult Los Angeles with Manly Palmer Hall, a memoir documenting the time she and Ronnie spent at the .

It’s an experience that would mark both of their lives, with Ronnie and Tamra going on to shape the culture in their own ways, as musicians, filmmakers, and scholars.

Who Is Manly P. Hall?

Born in 1901 and standing well over six feet, Hall was a larger-than-life character who believed that philosophy, religion, science, and art weren’t separate things, and that wisdom doesn’t belong to one culture or one tradition. To that end, while still in his twenties, he traveled the world seeking knowledge and collecting books.

In 1928, at the age of 27, he published his findings as The Secret Teachings of All Ages—by far his best-known work, and one you’ll start seeing everywhere once you know to look. Its readers make a strange constellation: novelist Dan Brown cites it as a key source, Elvis Presley was a devoted reader, and Carl Jung drew on Hall’s rare-book collection while writing Psychology and Alchemy.

In 1934 Hall found a home for his collections and teachings when he founded PRS. Its Mayan Revival–style campus went up two years later, at the top of a hill overlooking the Los Angeles neighborhood of Los Feliz—this was long before there was much of a surrounding neighborhood to overlook. The neighborhood grew around PRS—just as, we could argue, the culture of Los Angeles grew around Manly P. Hall.

At PRS Hall would grow his library, publish his books and essays, and lecture regularly on a wide array of topics well into his 80s.

My Connection to PRS

I must admit to knowing almost nothing about Hall before moving to Los Angeles, but he has since come to occupy a little piece of my heart. PRS, the campus he built, is home to my in-person monthly event, the Los Angeles Astrology Salon, and in some ways has become the foundation and source of inspiration for my personal astrological practice.

I met Ronnie through a combination of chance, impulsivity, and — I have to assume — forces emanating from beyond the grave of Manly P. Hall.

In May of 2026, decades after stepping away from PRS, Ronnie joined me for a discussion on the Orphic Hymns in the classroom where Manly gave his Sunday lectures — the same classroom where Ronnie would go on to deliver his own Sunday lectures for years.

The interview turned into a solo performance, and while I don’t regret not recording that session — some things are meant to remain private — it was such a moving conversation that I wanted to share the experience with a larger audience.

Listen to the Full Podcast

The following is an excerpt from my podcast with Ronnie. The conversation explores a period when his life overlapped with Hall’s — a window into both their lives.

All quotes below are taken from Ronnie and have been edited and condensed to fit this space.

The Rational Soul of the World

As I opened it up, my mind was blown by reading the dedication to the rational soul of the world. And I just thought, whoa — like the rational soul of the world? Like the world has a soul, and the soul of the world is rational? Like, wow, what an idea.

He Looked Right at Me

During the lecture, he looks right at me and he says, “People who have an irrational fear of natural disasters because of their guilt about how they’ve been living their lives.” And I was just, “What the hell just happened?” And he looks at Tamra a few minutes later and he says people who are born in harsh circumstances, but like a weed that grows through a crack in the concrete, a beautiful flower comes up. I would find out later, when I worked for him, that he couldn’t really see us. His vision was very bad at that time, and we were just basically colorful blurs.

No One Knows

There was much discussion at PRS about what that was. Was he an adept who had secret knowledge of our inner souls? Was he just naturally psychic? Was he really a medium? Was he somebody that was so deeply in the Tao that the synchronicities just gathered around him and spilled from his lips? No one knows, but he definitely did that quite often.

The Last Resort

The people who wanted to meet with him were people who had had experiences that derailed their lives and they did not know what to do. They went to psychologists, they went to priests, they went everywhere they could to try to get help to undo what had been done, and they would always end up at Manly Hall’s office.

Come In and Make Yourself Miserable

He was sitting behind this beautifully carved Chinese desk, and he had these four elderly women who ran the place — the librarian, his secretary, the office manager, and the vice president of the society — all standing there around him looking at me like I was a criminal, and they were right. And he said, in this hilarious kind of W.C. Fields accent, “Come on in and make yourself miserable.”

Let My Enemies Write My Story

He told me not to write a biography of him. He said, “Let my enemies write my story.”

About Ronnie

Ronnie Pontiac was Manly Palmer Hall’s research assistant for seven years. Author of the books American Metaphysical Religion and The Rosicrucian Counterculture, he co-authored The Magic of the Orphic Hymns and The Unobstructed Way. He writes the weekly Star Weather Astrology Forecast on Substack as . He’s also produced award-winning documentaries and was guitarist for the riot grrrl band Lucid Nation.

If you’re looking for a group of likeminded astro seekers, Club Astro is your place!

We meet weekly to explore the sky in real time and make sense of what is unfolding in our lives and in the collective. This is your chance to ask me questions about your chart, share stories, and connect with a cohort of fellow astrologers.

Club Astro members also get exclusive perks:

• Discounted astrological readings & mentorship

• Secret invites

• Discounted tickets to the Los Angeles Astro Salon and the LA Astro Fest.

Join us every Thursday for office hours at 7pm EDT / 4pm PDT.

Join the Club

Further Reading

Speaking to Dolphins

Once upon a time, there was a scientist who dreamed of speaking to animals. His passion grew so big that NASA gave him money to buy a house in the Virgin Islands and study three dolphins: Peter, Pam, and Sissy.

In this house, he built a room that opened directly into the ocean and hired a woman named Margaret who had a natural talent for communicating with animals—and a special bond with young Peter, whom she described as “sexually coming of age and a bit naughty.”

Margaret was charged with teaching Peter to speak a language she could understand, giving herself to the task around the clock for ten weeks.

A desk hung from the ceiling of the watery room so she could transcribe her observations; at night, she slept on a mattress in a dry corner. The two grew so close that Hustler magazine eventually ran a sensationalist piece on their relationship.

Meanwhile, the scientist spent his days dropping government-sanctioned acid, floating in his invention—the sensory deprivation tank—and convening with the Earth Coincidence Control Office.

While Margaret tried to coax vowels out of Peter by questionable means, the man in charge was bobbing in Epsom salts and taking orders from extraterrestrial beings.

(Yes, if you’ve ever been to a float spa, you have our man to thank.)

Lest you think this is completely bonkers, let me point out that Carl Sagan, beloved host of the PBS show Cosmos, not only paid this man a visit, but the two were founding members of the Order of the Dolphin, a secret society of scientists investigating extraterrestrial intelligence.

In the mid-twentieth century, the future looked bright for talking to animals and befriending aliens.

It Never Ends Well

The problem with getting too excited about the future is that it always seems to end badly.

We do this a lot in astrology. This transit, this configuration, we say: this is the one that’s going to change EVERYTHING. Whether it’s a major alignment or a big outer-planet return, the future, we cry, is upon us. All we have to do is step into it.

For John C. Lilly and many of the brilliant thinkers of his time, that future meant connecting with life beyond our comprehension. Not a lot has changed in the sixty-some years since Lilly started his dolphin house experiments.

Lilly’s focus was on connecting with dolphins and a council of aliens. Today’s mad scientists have Claude and ChatGPT.

In the end, Lilly lost his funding and moved his dolphins into labs, where Peter famously took his own life.

The casualty of his vision was the very life form he aimed to connect with.

This isn’t so different from tech billionaires telling us AI is going to revolutionize humanity while recklessly designed data centers gobble up the Earth’s resources and threaten life for humans and animals alike.

A Nodal Connection

The lunar nodes have just returned to the Leo/Aquarius axis — the signs they inhabited at John C. Lilly’s birth.

The lunar nodes mark the places in the sky where eclipses occur, which, in turn, translate to pivotal shifts for the inhabitants of Earth.

To borrow from Vedic mythology, we can imagine these nodes as two severed parts of a dragon:

• Rahu (The North Node): The head—forever ravenous.

• Ketu (The South Node): The tail—forever letting go.

Right now, the head of the dragon sits in the Saturn-ruled air sign of Aquarius, while the tail of the dragon rests in the Sun-ruled fire sign of Leo.

To save you a full lecture on astrology, I’ll share a simple delineation: There is a hunger for the collective future so ravenous, so out of reach, that it threatens the life of the individual.

As the nodes navigate this territory of the sky, let us remember the story of the mad scientist and his dolphins.

May this be a message for each of us to claim our power to dream and build the future we actually want to inhabit—lest we inherit the blueprints handed down by out-of-body tech billionaires.

If you’re looking for a group of likeminded astro seekers, Club Astro is your place!

We meet weekly to explore the sky in real time and make sense of what is unfolding in our lives and in the collective. This is your chance to ask me questions about your chart, share stories, and connect with a cohort of fellow astrologers.

Club Astro members also get exclusive perks:

• Discounted astrological readings & mentorship

• Secret invites

• Discounted tickets to the Los Angeles Astro Salon and the LA Astro Fest.

Join us every Thursday for office hours at 7pm EDT / 4pm PDT.

Join The Club

Further Reading

I never thought I’d say this, but I’m so thankful for doomsday predictions and Barbault’s Basket nonsense for showing me who my people are! By some magical act of fate and algorithm, I stumbled upon the work of Catie McQ, and we quickly bonded over a shared enthusiasm for calling out bullshit.

Her work is what I aspire to.

Moving past the machine of time, Catie takes astrology into the messy act of living — equal parts intellectual rigor and compassion.

This recording started as a way to say hello, morphed into a Substack Live, and then, when Mercury had bigger plans for us, became a bonus podcast episode where we take on doomsday predictions, the trouble with manifesting, and why we should be talking about SJ’s Basket.

May this please be the first of many conversations!

Yours,

Vivi

About Catie

Catie McQ is a neoclassical professional astrologer and fluent translator of Time and the stars. The first diploma graduate of the 3 year Oraculos School of Astrology proficient in Hellenistic, medieval/Renaissance, predictive, horary, electional and Uranian /cosmobiology. Catie is also a performer and loves public speaking and spreading this beautiful and elegant language uplifting astrology to it’s rightful place in the world.

About Vivi

Vivi Henriette is an LA-based astrologer and tarot reader whose practice centers on storytelling, mythology, and collaborative divination. She creates a space for clients to reclaim their personal narratives through the lens of ancient archetypes. Vivi produces LA Astro Fest, hosts the Los Angeles Astro Salon, and is the creator of the podcast TALKTALKTALK. You can find her weekly writing on ritual and meaning at her Substack, ART of the ZODIAC.

If you’re looking for a group of likeminded astro seekers, Club Astro is your place!

We meet weekly to explore the sky in real time and make sense of what is unfolding in our lives and in the collective. This is your chance to ask me questions about your chart, share stories, and connect with a cohort of fellow astrologers.

Club Astro members also get exclusive perks:

• Discounted astrological readings & mentorship

• Secret invites

• Discounted tickets to the Los Angeles Astro Salon and the LA Astro Fest.

Join us every Thursday for office hours at 7pm EDT / 4pm PDT.

Join The Club

Further Reading

Catherine’s Substack

It's not a Basket. Its a Vessel. And the Vessel sings for the next 2 years.

We have been wrong about the Barbault basket — a…

Read more

2 months ago · 25 likes · 3 comments · The World Point

While many astrologers dream of being on television, Edward O stumbled into the spotlight while trying to get his brother — a doctor, newly arrived in the US — airtime on local TV stations.

Over the next few years he’d take on one TV astrology role after another, working a series of day jobs and spending his nights poring over astrology books at the famed ⁠Bodhi Tree Bookstore⁠ in West Hollywood.

In 2005 all that reading found an international audience: he was hired as cohost and astrologer for ⁠12 Corazones⁠, Telemundo’s astrological dating show. For a decade he was on a mission to show the world astrology is about more than sun signs — pulling, by his own estimate, some 41,000 charts along the way and creating a signature style of reading that expanded beyond astrology to include palmistry and graphology.

All of this rich, astrological history would be lost to me if Edward O hadn’t reached out after the ⁠LA Astro Fest⁠ Kick-Off party—and I’m so glad he did.

Fate works in mysterious ways indeed.

Listen the the Full Podcast

The following bonus interview features some of Edward O’s favorite dating tips, drawn from years of astrological matchmaking.

The Chart Signatures

Vivi Henriette: Tell us some of your favorite, tried and true dating tips.

Edward O: I would say a Venus-Mars trine and conjunction. The Sun-Moon conjunction or trine. And also the ascendant and the 7th house — if the Sun is falling or some important planets are falling in the partner’s 7th house.

Additionally, I would say three things:

Test One: The Kiss

How was the kiss? Did the saliva match? Sometimes you’re with a person and it just doesn’t flow. And then there is the one that you don’t feel the difference [with].

Test Two: The Eyes

When you look into each other’s eyes, was there a momentary eternity moment where you just connected and you knew that you knew each other?

Test Three: The Hands

How did it feel when you touched your hands? Was there electricity, or was it neutral?

The Nodes

I would also look at the North Node-South Node conjunctions, because the South Node is a past life, and North Node’s where we’re going. I met a lot of people from my South Node in the past. Now I say, “You know what? No thank you. Bye-bye.” We’ve done that already.

Timing It: Progressed Sun-Venus

When I do the progressed chart and there is a conjunction of Sun and Venus — whether it’s by transit or by natal or just simply because it is — that’s a moment when twin souls or soulmates are more likely to come into your life.

Vh: So if I have a progressed Sun in Taurus and Venus moves by transit into Taurus and touches my progressed Sun, that would be a good moment?

EO: Exactly. This is the moment where you don’t even have to open your eyes. Love is all around. Love is all there is. Love is all we need.

If you’re looking for a group of likeminded astro seekers, Club Astro is your place!

We meet weekly to explore the sky in real time and make sense of what is unfolding in our lives and in the collective. This is your chance to ask me questions about your chart, share stories, and connect with a cohort of fellow astrologers.

Club Astro members also get exclusive perks:

• Discounted astrological readings & mentorship

• Secret invites

• Discounted tickets to the Los Angeles Astro Salon and the LA Astro Fest.

Join us every Thursday for office hours at 7pm EDT / 4pm PDT.

Join The Club

Further Reading

For a time, we thought we could outshine the moon — and we did.

In her 2013 essay for The Atlantic, “Tower of Light: When Electricity Was New, People Used It to Mimic the Moon,” Megan Garber begins: “First they tried to make moons.”

It’s a story that’s haunted me ever since I read it.

In the late 19th century, when electricity was new and expensive, cities across the US erected moonlight towers. These monstrosities acted as supercharged full moons, flooding the land with light.

For the first time, humanity had conquered darkness to experience full brightness on any given night.

Garber writes:

“And so, for a brief and literally shining moment early in the days of human-harnessed electricity, the future of municipal lighting was glowing orbs suspended high above cities — towers, resembling oil derricks, capped with 4 to 6 arc lamps with a candlepower of 2,000 to 6,000 each. These manmade moons made the ultimate promise to the people below them: that they would never again be in the dark.”

The problems, of which there were many, soon surfaced.

Such a powerful, singular source of light creates shadows that are equally powerful and disorienting. These shadows became a great place for crime. The bigger issue, however, was that neither human nor animal was designed for nonstop light. As crime rates rose, people went mad under the brightness. Animals, denied the blanket of night, started dying off from sleep deprivation.

Eventually these moon-towers were replaced with the arguably more efficient and more pervasive lighting we have today. The only surviving towers now stand in Austin, Texas — monuments to the moment we thought we could outshine the moon without repercussion.

The Arc of the Ejaculate

As it goes in my world, I was thinking about the implications of these electric moons when I received a voice message from my mentor.

I’ll share the most relevant fragment here:

“When you’re in theater school or learning how to dramaturgically create good theater and performance, the rising action becomes really important. There’s this arc that gets repeated over and over and over again — one to two to three to four to five to six to seven to, whoa, climax!

And then it comes down. It’s this unilateral thrust of release…”

They go on to compare this thrust of release to false narratives of linear process, A-to-B thinking, concluding that “this kind of patriarchal ejaculation myth of Western modernity has corrupted all of our imaginations.”

Bringing Down the Moon

It’s easy to hear a story of electric moons and think we would never be so foolish, but this modern impulse for climax is pervasive in the way most of us think about our lives.

At the level of astrology, we talk about zodiacal release periods as centered around a peak, or we put so much emphasis on the progressed full moon or that really good transit that’s about to hit our charts.

In reality, our lives are not ever-expanding. Nor do we experience them in periods of boom or bust. We’re so much messier than that.

I may feel stifled in my career, but I have a life I enjoy living: full of people who love me and things I enjoy complaining about.

Have I peaked? Am I declining? Yes? Maybe? I don’t know. It’s complicated.

Like the moon, none of us were made to go full blast all the time.

Astrology, however, shows us that our lives are about so much more than the moon. Traditionally, there were five planets and two luminaries. These bodies are in an ever-shifting dance, creating multiple timelines for each of us.

So, the peak is real. It’s just not singular. And it’s definitely not meant to be sustained.

Work With Me

Looking to explore the messy terrain of your personal storylines? I have a few consultation spots open for July.

Book A Reading

Club Astro

If you’re looking for a group of likeminded astro seekers, Club Astro is your place!

We meet weekly to explore the sky in real time and make sense of what is unfolding in our lives and in the collective. This is your chance to ask me questions about your chart, share stories, and connect with a cohort of fellow astrologers.

Club Astro members also get exclusive perks:

• Discounted astrological readings & mentorship

• Secret invites

• Discounted tickets to the Los Angeles Astro Salon and the LA Astro Fest.

Join us every Thursday for office hours at 7pm EDT / 4pm PDT.

Join Club Astro

Further Reading

A while back I sat down for a conversation with astrologer and author Catherine Urban to discuss the idea of prediction in astrology. Not whether to predict, but what it means to predict in a world where one cannot escape prediction — think everything from intrusive algorithms to the pervasiveness of prediction markets.

It’s a question I’d been chewing on for some time when I approached her, and one I’d continue to mull over in the wake of our talk, until finally clearing it from my system after a clarifying interview with Dr. Ali A. Olomi.

Conversation is where I work things out, and I’m grateful for Catherine’s patience with me as I stumbled along searching for my thoughts. Along the way, she steers the talk beyond the ethics of prediction to deliver a mini lesson on the history of astrology.

When I approached Catherine, I had no idea she would be giving the keynote lecture at NORWAC a few weeks later on the very same topic! If you missed it, Prediction: Life or Death is now available for purchase on her website.

The following notes contain extracts of our conversation. I encourage you to listen to the podcast for the full experience.

LISTEN NOW

When Kings Kept Astrologers

The kings, the caliphs, the shahs — they employed astrologers. And so astrology was a political tool to try to understand: how do I maintain my power? How do I accrue more power? Astrology was used in battle strategies — when we attack, when we depart. Astrology was used to determine heirs, looking at the children’s charts. It was used for marriages, religious ceremonies… Those of us who are looking at it to gather some sense of control, some sense of being able to anticipate what’s around the corner — it’s always been used that way.

From the King’s Chart to Yours

Astrology was always used in a collective way. Looking at the king’s natal chart or the emperor’s natal chart, it had an impact on the collective. You had to be a very privileged person to have your birth recorded.

Coming into the modern context, astrology has become a tool of personal awareness, and more people are using natal astrology than ever.

Out of a Job by Morning

Those highbrow astrologers of the 9th century — they were employed by the kings, the caliphs, the emperors, and if they got something wrong, they’d be stripped of honors, out of a job… Imagine you have a client who comes to you for an hour reading. You tell them a lot. They come in the next day, book another hour: “Tell me more.” Imagine after day seven. No wonder they’re pulling dodecatemoria. No wonder they’re looking at the decans. You’re gonna run out of stuff to say to people.

Passed Down, Hand to Hand

Astrology has historically always been a student-teacher dynamic, and we see that in a lot of lineages. We see that in a yoga lineage… that’s how professions were mostly passed down over the years, parent-child, teacher-apprentice. If you’re serious about practicing astrology, and especially if you wanna teach it, you should definitely study with someone at least once. There’s just certain ways your brain is gonna take in and process information in a group setting versus reading a book.

Waiting for Magic to Be Real

I lived in New York, and to be fair, I was going through a crazy spiritual crisis at the time, but this lady stopped me, and she’s like, “Honey, come here. I see that you’re suffering.” And I was like, “Yes, I am.” And I was waiting for that magical experience… yearning for magic to be real, and someone to stop me and be like, “This is what you need, child.” And then she just kept asking for money. And I don’t think I gave her any, to be clear.

About Catherine

Catherine Urban (NCGR-PAA IV, ISAR-CAP) With over 17 years of astrological immersion, Catherine’s practice is steeped in classical, medieval, natal and horary technique, centering compassion for human experience. Specializing in forecasting, Catherine empowers her clients to become alchemists of their own charts while gaining confidence and clarity on their path. Catherine is an astrology teacher, a mama of two, and the author of Your Astrological Cookbook: The Perfect Recipe for Every Sign. Tune into her weekly forecasts on IG + YouTube @astrocatherine or book your year-ahead reading at www.CatherineUrban.com

If you’re looking for a group of likeminded astro seekers, Club Astro is your place!

We meet weekly to explore the sky in real time and make sense of what is unfolding in our lives and in the collective. This is your chance to ask me questions about your chart, share stories, and connect with a cohort of fellow astrologers.

Club Astro members also get exclusive perks:

• Discounted astrological readings & mentorship

• Secret invites

• Discounted tickets to the Los Angeles Astro Salon and the LA Astro Fest.

Join us every Thursday for office hours at 7pm EDT / 4pm PDT.

Join Club Astro

Further Reading

Traditionally, the water signs were considered mute, so Mercury in one of these signs was seen as prone to quietness — or even periods of not speaking at all.

For the latter, astrologers love to cite the example of Maya Angelou, who was born while Mercury in Pisces was traveling through the eighth house of the sky. In the aftermath of a severe trauma, she didn’t speak for five years.

I was born with this same Pisces placement, and while I experienced neither a trauma as severe nor a muteness as prolonged, I was known for not talking as a child. In fact, all the way through high school, many of my classmates and teachers considered me mute.

For someone who hosts a podcast called TalkTalkTalk, this is an admittedly surprising confession.

Anyway, here's the thing: I'm tired. All I want to do is take in my surroundings and spend time with my internal choir of voices, arguing over why this Barbault guy and his big basket talk bother us so much.

In lieu of another unhinged essay, I’m offering something that brings me much joy to consume in silence: photos from the Planets, Planets, Planets performance at this year’s LA Astro Fest by one of my favorite photographers, Victor Curtis.

Planets, Planets, Planets!!!

For the uninitiated, Planets, Planets, Planets is an alt-comedy troupe who performs the chart of the moment. Directed by astrologer and clown Blair Bogin, their shows are both wildly entertaining and uncomfortably personal, the way mushrooms start as a good time and end in existential tears.

Think Orphic mystery rite. But less mysterious. And less Orphic.

The Chart

The Performance

If you’re looking for a group of likeminded astro seekers, Club Astro is your place!

We meet weekly to explore the sky in real time and make sense of what is unfolding in our lives and in the collective. This is your chance to ask me questions about your chart, share stories, and connect with a cohort of fellow astrologers.

Club Astro members also get exclusive perks:

• Discounted astrological readings & mentorship

• Secret invites

• Discounted tickets to the Los Angeles Astro Salon and the LA Astro Fest.

Join us every Thursday for office hours at 7pm EDT / 4pm PDT.

join the club

Further Reading

My podcast recording with Cameron Allen was supposed to come out before his Astro Fest workshop on planetary days, but that wasn’t happening.

The good news is that I convinced him to answer a few more questions after the fest—and, thus, this bonus print interview.

If this is your first encounter with Cameron, he’s an herbalist and astrologer who sits at the crossroads of medical, traditional, and evolutionary astrology.

That last part’s lifted from his bio. To me, Cameron’s the astrologer you visit when you want to make astrology a living, embodied practice.

In the following interview, we learn a little about his practice and the discipline of medical astrology. It’s a companion piece to the podcast we recorded—where we go deeper into all of that.

Listen to the Podcast

If you missed his LA Astro Fest appearance, I’ll be adding recordings to the Club Astro library in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, enjoy the TalkTalkTalk…

Vivi Henriette: After your talk at LA Astro Fest, I realized the idea of medical astrology was new to some attendees. While I don’t expect a comprehensive historical breakdown, can you share your working definition of medical astrology?

Cameron Allen: Answer: Medical astrology is the science and art of understanding how celestial influences illuminate predispositions and influence one’s health throughout their lifetime. This is a very broad definition but I would invite people to go to my Substack as I am laying out the introduction to medical astrology there.

Vh: What attracted you to this area of study?

CA: I studied health and sports science in college as well as psychology. This has been my field of interest since then. I became an herbalist and a psychological astrologer and medical astrology aligned with my practice and pursuit of understanding the mind-body connection.

Vh: I’ve shared with you my fears about working with medical astrologers who lack medical training. Your perspective offered a counterpoint: that too often we give away authority over our bodies to medical professionals.

I say receive because I recognize that what we hear isn’t always what the other person said....

Could you speak to these thoughts?

CA: Yes. I think the emphasis for me is on HOW to think not what to think. Which is to say that we often are not taught a coherent system of understanding how to take care of ourselves on a basic level. Medical astrologers who work with integrity will be able to at minimum provide perspective on lifestyle choices that are very simple and practical in order for someone to have a clearer understanding on how to care for themselves on a unique level.

With that being said, I would invite people to continue to be discerning about going to a medical astrologer. But we also must be discerning when listening to “certified” practitioners as they often hold biases that do not have to be explored because they are made de facto experts on topics that they do not always fully understand from the perspective of being well.

Our contemporary medicine is very much what my teachers would call, “sick care.” They are revolutionary at emergency care and with life threatening illnesses but often fall short on understanding what traditional medicine systems have long understood.

My general advice would be to find a medical astrologer who has also been educated in a traditional or so called “alternative medicine system such as but not limited to; Ayurveda, TCM, Greco-Arabic medicine (Unani Tibb), naturopath, homeopathy, etc. Also would include branches of medicine that includes nutrition, herbalism, personal training, massage, and other healing modalities as they can offer complementary perspectives and techniques to aid in someone’s understanding and experience of wellness. Working with a medical astrologer is not usually isolated from working with contemporary medicine. Think of the medical astrologer as being a part of your team.

I would strongly advise people to reach out directly if they have concerns about health and want to explore it from a medical astrology lens. I will let them know immediately how confident I am in being able to support them. Also wanting people to know that I serve many people WITHOUT using astrology at all. So it’s just an added way of serving which is very valuable. This might have to be an article I write about in the future.

Vh: Can you share some simple astrological techniques people can use to get in touch with their bodies — or help their clients understand theirs?

CA: Yes. Learn each location of the body that is ruled by the signs. When the Moon travels through that sign, educate yourself or take care of the part of the body. If you do this for a year or 25 (lol) you will have a vast knowledge base that is simple and will allow you to care for yourself in a more robust manner.

Vh: You’re currently studying Unani-Tibb. Can you tell us more about this lineage?

CA: Unani Tibb is also called Greek medicine, Hippocratic medicine, Galenic medicine, Greco-Arabic medicine, Islamic medicine, and Humour medicine. It is a complete medicine system that compliments medical astrology. To most in the so called west, it is not familiar, but it addresses the human body from a holistic lens.

Unlike Ayurveda which is associated with India and TCM which is associated with China, it is a shared tradition. It was cultivated among countries in North Africa, southwest Asia, and Southern Europe. It might be better called, “mediterranean medicine,” as it was developed in many places.

In astrology people pull out the idea of temperament from a full and robust system of medicine which leaves the concept deeply impoverished and oftentimes difficult to implement beyond a historical context. This is why I have gone to school for it so that it can be restored to its rightful place. There’s so much more I can say but I will leave this overview here.

Vh: Are you taking new clients, and what can someone expect from a session with you?

CA: I am!!

It is not the easiest to say exactly what people should expect because I work with movement, herbs, diet, psychologically, and spiritually. I also help people in prevention and remediation so these all will create a context that will take the work in different directions. What I can say people should expect is a deeper understanding that breeds peace, practical and actionable solutions that move the needle, a new perspective that liberates one from the conditioned and captured way of thinking about what it means to be well. In that, people learn to work towards self understanding and self leadership in the process. Again, not so easy to say as working with someone who has a chronic illness vs someone who is simply wanting to understand and upgrade their wellness routine looks very different.

My areas that I thoroughly excel in and I would dare say in the most humble manner I am exceptional at is helping people with ailments that the general population tends to struggle with, hip, low back, knee issues as well as people who experience imbalances of melancholy (depression that is not necessarily clinic), and revealing the emotional and psychological connections to ailments.

Vh: What’s the best way for people to keep in touch?

CA: IG: @cadream6

Website: www.cadreamplanet.com

Substack:

If you’re looking for a group of likeminded astro seekers, Club Astro is your place!

We meet weekly to explore the sky in real time and make sense of what is unfolding in our lives and in the collective. This is your chance to ask me questions about your chart, share stories, and connect with a cohort of fellow astrologers.

Club Astro members also get exclusive perks:

• Discounted astrological readings & mentorship

• Secret invites

• Discounted tickets to the Los Angeles Astro Salon and the LA Astro Fest.

Join us every Thursday for office hours at 7pm EDT / 4pm PDT.

Join The Club

Further Reading