141 How To Deep-Dive Astrology

I’m talking to YOU, budding astrologer: the one who’s really dedicated to learning how to read charts and maybe even use readings in your business or career. Today I'm giving you all my tips and resources for aspiring or new astrologers who have already jumped down the rabbit hole.
 
In this episode I mention:
That Witch School
 The Neighborhood Library master link list
Magic of I. Planner
Honeycomb Almanac
You Were Born For This by Chani Nicholas
Astrology for Yourself by Demetra George & Douglas Bloch
Llewellyn's Book of Correspondences by Sandra Kynes

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|| T H E  N E I G H B O R H O O D ||
YouTube: That Witch Next Door
Instagram: @thatwitch.nextdoor
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Pinterest: @thatwitchdani
Twitter: @danithatwitch
Contact: thatwitchnextdoor.com/conjurethatwitch

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, do you want to come over and make a pot of tea? Bring your favorite crystals. You know we could talk about our birth charts, spirits, the latest house spells we've been doing. Welcome to the neighborhood. I'm that witch next door. ["witch Next Door"]. Hello, hello, hello neighbor. Welcome back to that Witch podcast. I'm Dianne, I'm that witch next door.

Speaker 1: 0:33

And today is kind of a part two of two of a couple of what I hope are some helpful episodes of using astrology in your daily life, depending on how deep and how far you want to go. So on part one, we covered what I call light astrology For those of us who want to use astrological information, because this stuff definitely resonates and we are finding it helpful and we are having connections made, but maybe we're not necessarily wanting to learn the whole chart and the aspects and how many planets go around. You know, I totally get that and it's very valid and the beautiful part about astrology is that you can practice it in so many different ways on so many different levels and it's still incredibly helpful to you. This is a helpful guidance tool. That's how it should be used. Today's episode is for those of us who cannot get enough. We are like nope, this is my language, this is, these are my people. I figured it out Like this is like ringing every single bell, lighting every light bulb, like any analogy that Danny can come up with. This is for my folks that want to really, truly know how to read an astrological chart, whether it's a birth chart or a sinistry chart or a transit chart, or you want to start looking at perfection, years and progressionary chart, like there's so far that you can go in astrology. There's truly no limit.

Speaker 1: 2:23

Honestly, it's an infinite study in practice, which, for somebody like me, I love that. It keeps me interested. It keeps me excited knowing that I could spend my entire life, from the moment I was born, if that was possible, purposefully studying astrology till the day I die, and I would still have so far to go. I love that so much, and this is for you, my friends. I want to offer you some tips and advice and guidance on how to go about doing that, because so many people are like where on earth do I even get started? I want to make sure I'm setting myself up for success, but I'm definitely kind of already feeling overwhelmed by the practice. How can I make this a sustainable practice in my life. Look no further. As somebody who has burnt themselves out over and over again with astrology, I think that I've finally come up with the most effective ways to let yourself deep dive and really commit to this study and practice while maintaining your real life, while not feeling like I don't know. You just went back to college, unless you want it to feel that way, because that sounds fun. So let's get right the fuck into it here.

Speaker 1: 4:06

The first thing that you need similar to where we started, actually part one of this is you need a physical tool of some kind for notating and tracking and taking any generic thoughts down or connections that come to you, or making note of any symbols anything like that at all. You need a physical place. That physical place can be your phone or your computer. It's really fine if it's a digital document, but I mean something that where you physically have to go input information somewhere. That can also be pen and paper, via a notebook or a planner of some kind. I love Magic of Eye and full transparency. I am an affiliate partner for Magic of Eye products, but this is because I love their company and I love their products so much. It's exactly why I reached out and asked about working together because I have been recommending their products for a very, very long time. The Magic of Eye planner is a wildly helpful tool to the astrological student. This was a game changer for me in really taking astrology kind of from what we talked about in part one into a real lifestyle and how this was really an integral part of how I made the transition.

Speaker 1: 5:39

This and my honeycomb almanac this is a personalized almanac that gives natal and current transits for the collective. I'm not gonna go into the honeycomb almanac today because that is a whole, entire subject and episode in and of itself. I've actually taught a lesson with it in that witch school called how to Work with Transits, where we did a big, deep dive on a honeycomb, and maybe one day we'll do it on the podcast if you reach out and let me know that's what you wanna do. But this Magic of Eye it spans so many more levels of astrology students. Honeycomb almanac we're getting pretty intermediate. I'm not gonna recommend somebody get a personalized almanac with the planetary transits on them for their natal chart and the collective until this is somebody that clearly is showing signs or communicating to me that this is a practice that they are already and wanting to continue using in their daily life and their show, and they're using it so often that opening up their app is starting to feel slow and clunky. Like this is when you would really love a honeycomb almanac, because you can just flip through and you can start reading and understanding all the symbols.

Speaker 1: 7:09

What's beautiful about the Magic of Eye planner is we do have the transits in here, which is beautiful. So there are all of the planetary symbols that we're talking about. You're gonna find that in here, which is awesome. So if you are an intermediate or advanced student of astrology, you're still gonna love this. But it also speaks volumes to my beginners and that's why it was so game-changing for me, because I was getting this visual of the days and the dates on the calendar, with the planetary transits, with the moon phases, with the moon signs, so, so, so helpful. The Magic of Eye automatically comes in Pacific time zone, just to throw that out there. So as someone who lives in the Eastern time zone, I just automatically add three hours onto these times in here to apply it to my location here.

Speaker 1: 8:08

It also has just so much helpful information. Every month it shows you the theme, like the astrological or cosmic themes that inspired by the cosmos for that month and the energy and forecast for that month. It tells you the dates and times of the full moons, the new moons there's always an affirmation for the full moon and the new moon. You get all your important major astrological transits listed out here. You also get the full month view, like I showed you. But you also have these excellent pages for goal mapping and planning and scheduling out your month, including listing your intentions as well, which I really love writing my goals and my intentions separately like that and then you have your standard weekly view that has space for planning out your day-to-day life, but it has the transits and this is so helpful when you're trying to deep dive astrology. This is so helpful when you're trying to deep dive astrology because sometimes, when you get so far into your studies that just writing down the moon and the sun and the signs that they're in is no longer enough and you're like but I also wanted to know what Mercury was in today. I wanted to know that Mars was moving into Libra today, when you are finding yourself adding more and more and more symbols every time you write down the date, which was our tip in our last episode.

Speaker 1: 9:45

Something like this, like the magic of eye planner that lists that out neat and tidy for you. Now you have a calendar that already has the astrological information You're looking up anyways, you're writing down your regular life and you can automatically do this beautiful in real-time reflection. It's one of the easiest ways to start looking at the cosmic energy the more you're starting to understand it, while you're learning it and attaching it to or applying it to what you're doing that day. That's why astrology planners are so helpful. Now, if all of that wasn't enough in and of itself, that's actually not the reason I fell in love with the magic of eye planner and you got to be going like what, how? It's actually the reference pages at the entire beginning of the planner that that just changed everything. Everything else I just showed you I love and I use to this day. But when I was just starting out, it was and this is why I recommend it to my students so often it was these pages and pages and pages of charts and references and information.

Speaker 1: 11:06

There's a moon cycle tracking calendar. There are. There's a whole section here on the planetary movements and retrogrades, the moons and its phases, planetary correspondences, our astrological bodies, what signs and planets are associated with what parts of the body, planetary days and hours, what days of the week and what hours of the day are associated with each planet? When you're planning and tracking your life based on astrology, or if you're interpreting events that have occurred in your life based on astrology, it can be really helpful looking back if you know the time something happened and going. I know that that time is associated with Mercury. That makes so much sense. I could go on and on. It's insane. It's in.

Speaker 1: 11:53

There's so much information packed into this very reasonably sized planner. It's why I love magic of eyes so much. So, yes, if you order your copy using our link in the show notes below, we are so grateful because a portion of your purchase does go to support that witch podcast. But, honestly, I have been recommending them long before I applied to be an affiliate for them, because this is so helpful, especially for anybody that is really wanting to transcend from that light astrology to the deep dive end, because it is a lot of information and if you try to do what I suggested in part one for all of the planets every day you are definitely gonna bog yourself down. You are definitely going to feel overwhelmed and burnt out right away. Get something that has that information for you, and even if it's not the magic of eye planner, like that's okay.

Speaker 1: 12:54

You need to look for products and tools that resonate with you, which brings me to my next. Most like this is so important. This is just as important as having a physical place for your astrological information. You need a way to practice with charts, and that means that you need an app or a software or a website that can pull up a chart for you whenever you want to. And not only that when you look at the chart, it needs to not be the scariest thing you've ever seen. Now, when you're still learning how to read the chart, that feeling is kind of no matter what chart you're looking at, regardless of the website or whatever you're looking at it on. But every website, every single company that offers this capability of generating an astrological chart, every single company does it a little bit differently the way that they format it and use fonts and symbols and colors. Everybody does it in their way that they believe is most helpful, based on how they understand the chart.

Speaker 1: 14:02

This is why you need to expose yourself to as many of those as possible and you need to find what looks the most visually appealing to you. And again, I say that with a grain of salt because obviously when you're starting out it looks visually overwhelming no matter what. I totally validate that. But it is a huge reason why I love time passages. I like the way that that chart looks. It helps my brain, it makes sense to me. It's neat and tidy but still very accurate. I love time passages. Some people they swear by astrocom. They live by astrocom and the way that astrocom lays out their chart For some beginners, the way that astrocom lays out their chart is just incredibly overwhelming. So this is why it's good to expose yourself to different stuff, but go to what feels the most visually appealing and stick with it, because if you're constantly playing around with it it doesn't mean like you can't use other tools, but try to keep the majority. That's what I'd say.

Speaker 1: 15:08

Try to keep the majority of your charts that you're practicing with, like yours, your loved ones. If you look up any celebrities charts or certain events and moons and things like that, try to keep all that in one place because it's so much more convenient. Again, you're gonna burn yourself out if you have charts saved in a million different places. That was one of the first times I ever hit. Burnout was I had this ridiculous way of saving charts. To this day I don't know what the heck I was doing. But that's what I love about Time Passages is. I can just go on there and I have all of my charts on there. They're organized by category and it's for somebody like me who has like hundreds now, it's a game changer. You have to have one place. You need not only some kind of physical tool that helps track the planets and shows you the symbols and where all the major transits currently are occurring. You not only need a software or an app or a website that is some kind of main hub that holds all the charts that you're practicing with. I also recommend having one place, if at all possible, for your astrology notes.

Speaker 1: 16:21

If you don't already take notes and you're trying to deep dive astrology, I really, really think you should start taking notes. Don't just read stuff and think stuff. Something happens with our retention when we physically write something down or we speak it out loud. So if writing is really truly not your thing and you just are like I don't want to take notes, do any, then please take voice notes for yourself. Even if you don't go back and read your notes, even if you don't go back and listen to your voice notes, there is an extra step of retention. That is happening when you take what you're importing and you export it. I promise, I promise it's such a helpful tip.

Speaker 1: 17:05

So I have one notebook here that I love. This thing it's an old school five star by Meade and it's got tabs and I love this because you can move these tab pages around so I can put them in any section of the book that I want. But I have different sections in here. One has all of my tarot notes. So when I do a tarot reading, or I'm reading about my tarot card of the year, or I'm doing a section in a tarot workbook for myself anything to do with tarot and I'm writing a note that comes through, I put it in here. I also have a whole section for astrology study and reflection for myself and then a whole section for astrology study and reflection and exploration for the neighborhood, for that which next door, and then my final note section in here is for business planning, mapping, strategy, all that good stuff, and guess what is still running rampant through that section Astrology, astrological symbols, transits. That information is very, very helpful in the dates and the things that I plan and map and schedule in my business, absolutely so.

Speaker 1: 18:20

A notebook of some kind that holds everything in one place is. It probably seems like a no brainer, but I find that when I don't say it, I learn that people have their notes in a million different places. Oh, I have a bunch of post-its on my phone. Or I have a bunch of post-its floating around my room. Use all the post-its that you want. Keep them in the same place, whether it's on your phone or in your room or your notebook or whatever. Just try to keep everything in one place. I promise, I promise, I promise it's going to make everything less overwhelming. It's also much more likely you're going to form connections when different parts of your study exist and live in the same place, because eventually they'll cross over and you will have these mind-blowing connections that you never would have had before if your notes were scattered all over the place. All right.

Speaker 1: 19:15

Also so important, you need an instructor, mentor, whoever you are learning your astrology from which, by the way, should be a lot of different people. These people and the information they're sharing needs to resonate with you. That doesn't even have to be me. If this is the first time that you're listening and the way that I teach astrology here just is not making sense and it doesn't resonate with you, that's okay. That's okay. Every single one of us again, just like we were talking about with the makers of chart software everybody teaches astrology in the way that makes sense to them, in a way that they would have found the most helpful when they were learning these things and when they were just starting out.

Speaker 1: 20:04

We all have so many different styles for a reason. It doesn't make any of them invalid or better or worse than each other. It just means that you have more people to choose from and you should also diversify the amount of places that you get information, the amount of resources that you expose yourself to. This is going to give you a much, much more well-rounded interpretation of the zodiac signs, the planets, their transits and aspects, horoscopes. You are going to have a much broader and more solid understanding and therefore that's going to be reflected in your interpretation, the more diverse your pool of resources is for astrological information. If I'm one of your favorite places, I love you and I'm so happy to be here with you and I want you to listen to other people and not just me. It's so easy to just get stuck onto one teacher and it's okay if you're trying not to overwhelm yourself with a bunch of sources, but what you can do, for example, is if you listen to something that I'm teaching about a certain planet in retrograde or a specific zodiac sign or a specific part of the chart, you should also go listen to that same area or part of the chart through a couple of different sources. Skim through a couple articles, look up another couple of podcast episodes, watch a couple of different YouTube videos, look stuff up on Instagram and Pinterest. That's another really, really helpful one. So just diversify the same information from a multitude of sources so that you have a really well rounded interpretation and solid understanding of the information that you're learning.

Speaker 1: 21:58

You also need astropals. You need an astrological community. My friend, I used to kind of talk about this like it was an option and I'm afraid that it's. You're always, always going to hit a certain boundary, a certain glass ceiling, if you don't open yourself up to being part of the astrological community. That can be as involved as you want it to be, and you don't have to have this big giant platform that you get on and share all of your learnings and findings with. It doesn't have to be this big thing where you feel like I don't want to share. It doesn't have to be that way. It can be as private as you want.

Speaker 1: 22:49

Your community, your astro-pal community, can be as tight-knit or as widespread as you want it, and that is like the beauty of the internet, isn't it? Places like that witch school and groups on Facebook and social media and these different memberships that you can join these are wonderful places to begin, because it doesn't matter where you live in the world. There is this group of people that are also resonating with astrology and learning it and wanting to practice it and understand it better for themselves too, and they feel shy too. They're nervous too to start sharing their interpretations. They're scared they're going to get it wrong too. Spoiler alert you're not going to get it wrong. You're doing a great job, I promise. And the only way you're going to break past that barrier is by being part of or creating your own astro-community, even if it's just as simple as having a couple of friends or internet pals that also study and work with astrology, that you guys practice reading charts for each other or you send little astro memes to each other and talk about your planets and your placements and stuff. It will make a tremendous difference in your learning and your understanding and it just opens up your entire world. Without it, you will limit yourself. You will Alright, neighbors, let's take a brief moment to thank today's small business and episode sponsor.

Speaker 1: 24:28

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Speaker 1: 25:09

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Speaker 1: 26:29

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Speaker 1: 27:27

Now this leads me into actual learning materials. So there is no one right place. I know that you wish that there was. Wouldn't it be so easy if there was? Obviously, here's a shameless plug for my astrology course, which is a four level online self-paced course that literally teaches you how to teach a chart, and it's exactly for people like you that are feeling overwhelmed by all of the different resources out there and you don't know where to start and what order to learn everything in and what they all mean and how all these pieces fit together. I took all of that overwhelm and all of that challenge and I designed a course to address all those things and walk you through the chart so that you do understand. And no, this isn't like an hour course promising to teach you your entire chart. Astrology takes a lot longer than that. This is over seven hours of video. This is PowerPoint presentations, workbooks, so that you are following along step by step with me. I'm also going along with you in the course, reminding you where to pause, where to stop, where to take a break, where to go practice, some ideas for how to practice. This is my way of helping you find and encourage your own natural, self-paced learning style. It's what I call guided self-paced, so you really are in charge, but you're getting some tips and guidance from me along the way. This course is not just going to be a list of the planets and the signs. I mean we are really doing an examination and dissection of the chart. This is for people that want to understand it, learn how to read it for themselves. For other people, I recommend it because it's why I designed it Now, that being said, I absolutely love so many different books, podcasts and resources online for astrology.

Speaker 1: 29:29

Every single one of those is listed in our neighborhood library master link list on that whichnextdoorcom. So when you go to my site, that whichnextdoorcom, you just click on resources and you go to the neighborhood library and it is this entire link list, for free, of exactly all of these things that I recommend books, podcasts, different people on social media that you can learn from and work with. The different apps and software that you can use that I've used or students and clients of mine have used and have recommended as well. It is an ongoing and growing list, so I actually recommend bookmarking it, but this is a great place to start. Some of my favorite books that you'll find linked on that page is you Are Born For this by Chani Nicholas Absolutely groundbreaking book. Anybody who cares about astrology in any level should honestly read that book. Astrology for Yourself by Demetra George and Douglas Block Absolutely pivotal learning tool, Incredible For ritualizing astrology and using the different objects and colors and symbols associated with astrology in your witchcraft and your ritual practice.

Speaker 1: 30:54

I highly recommend Lou Ellen's book of correspondences by Sandra Kynes. It's not literally an all-inclusive book, because I think that book, if it existed, would be the biggest thing in the entire world, but it's a wonderful, wonderful starting point and it has tons of magical correspondences Again the color symbols, days of the week, crystals, plants, tarot cards, all these different things that are associated with each planet or each zodiac sign, each house in astrology, each moon phase, and it is an excellent resource for Danny. I'm trying to really embody more mercury energy in my life. Or, danny, I'm really really trying to ritualize my astrology and honor this energy in my witchcraft practice. You need Lou Ellen's book of correspondences, my friend. So I just want to say I am excited for you on this journey of learning astrology. It really is transformative. It is so powerful. You're being called to it for a reason. I'm so excited for you and proud of you. I hope that today gives you a little bit of a roadmap of some of the things that you need to set yourself up for success, for sustainable learning in the long run. Coming from somebody who's made their career out of this, if there's any help that you need or anything that I can provide that you're really struggling to break through and understand better, please feel free to reach out to me. You can always go to that witchnextdoorcom slash, conjure that witch and send me a message and I'm happy to help in any way that I can. Thank you, neighbor, for your time today and every day. It's always always a pleasure having you here in the neighborhood. I hope that you get to have an amazing weekend. Make sure you get to have some fun, stay safe, everyone and, of course, stay magical out there.

Speaker 1: 32:49

What is that witch school?

Speaker 1: 32:53

Well, it's kind of my twist on Patreon.

Speaker 1: 32:57

See, for as little as $5 a month you can get instant access for an entire back catalog of incredible bonus content, like bonus episodes, witchy lessons, a ton of astrology resources, guest teachings and so much more. But I didn't want to just keep the magic going in between episodes with bonus content. I wanted to keep the learning going. I wanted to keep the community going, so I also offered tiers that opened up opportunity for continued intentional, magical academic learning, as well as opportunity for creating community with like minded witchy individuals. For just $30 a month, you can get full, complete access to everything inside that witch school, including our exclusive members only social media platform on Lighting Networks, where, right now, witches and energy practitioners and students just like you are all learning, working together, sharing together and supporting each other week in and week out. We talk about the show, we share dreams that we've had, we share each other's tarot readings and ultimately, we support each other as magical beings in a very anti-magical world. You can join us today at thatwitchnextdoorcom. Slash enroll to learn more and start your enrollment today.