The Rochelle Christiane Podcast
Welcome to the Rochelle Christiane Podcast! This is the space where spirituality meets self-discovery and personal growth. I’m your host, Rochelle Christiane—your guide to holistic health, emotional regulation, embodiment and soulful alignment. This space is all about helping you reconnect with your body’s wisdom, master your emotions, and align with your unique energy using tools like astrology, Human Design, and holistic wellness practices. Each week, I’ll share transformative conversations and practical guidance to help you heal, embody your truth, and create deeper alignment in your life. This is your invitation to step into your power, trust yourself, and master your emotions. Let’s dive in!
Are you ready to connect deeply with your body, align with your energy, and unlock your fullest potential? Through my Wholistic Human Design Academy and one-on-one coaching, I help women like you embrace their intuition, understand their astrology and Human Design charts, and cultivate confidence in their unique energy. Together, we’ll create the alignment you’ve been seeking—whether it’s deconditioning limiting beliefs, attracting abundance, or finding peace within.
The Rochelle Christiane Podcast
294. Astrology For The New Human with Astrologer Jim Sher
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This week on the podcast I speak with astrologer and author, Jim Sher, about his new book Astrology as a Spiritual Path.
In this episode, Jim and I talk about:
- Jim’s journey with astrology
- How astrology became a spiritual path
- Transits for growth vs predictive
- Self awareness and what it actually means
- Transpersonal astrology & the outer planets
- Positive qualities of the outer planets
- Discovering your beliefs systems and ego
- New paradigm in the world
- The feminine being asked to play a bigger role
- The importance of working with Saturn
- A shift of consciousness and a new way of being
Jim’s Book: Astrology as a Spiritual Path
Wholistic Human Design Academy
Where you can find Jim:
Where you can find Rochelle:
Email: info@rochellechristiane.com
Where you can find Rochelle:
Instagram, TikTok, Website, YouTube
Welcome And Full Moon Frame
SPEAKER_04Welcome to the Rochelle Christian podcast. I'm Rochelle, your host. I'm here to help you come back to your body, take charge of your emotions, and live life on your terms. This podcast is a space for raw, real conversations about what it means to trust yourself, lean into your power, and create a life that feels aligned and alive. We'll explore human design, astrology, and other tools to help you understand your unique energy. More importantly, though, we're going to talk about what it means to actually live and embody these aspects. So each week I'm going to share stories, lessons, guidance to help you navigate life's challenges and really own your magic. So if you're ready to step up, take control, and show up as the most authentic version of you, let's begin. Welcome back to another episode on the podcast. This week I'm talking to Jim Scherer, who is an astrologer and founder of the Scher Institute of Astrology and Metaphysics, which is a mystery school for spiritual transformation. He recently wrote a book called Astrology as a Spiritual Path: Birth of the New Human. And we talk all about it in this episode and really what it means to birth a new human, what the new human looks like, what it feels like, what it embodies, and how we can each in our own way begin to move towards this new human. This episode was phenomenal. I know that I'm gonna listen to this multiple times over because there was just so much wisdom, so much like aha moments and so much depth. And depth is something I'm always seeking and craving in my life, in my conversations, in my pursuit of astrology, in everything that I learn about and everything that I consume. So I'm really, really excited to share this one. Make sure to grab his book, Astrology as a Spiritual Path. I'm going to link it down below. You can also head to his website, shareastrology.com. That's s-h-rastrology.com. And make sure to grab a copy of his book. If you're into astrology, if you're learning about astrology, this book is going to be such a beautiful addition to your bookshelf. It's not so much a your sunside means this, your house means this. It's really a kind of a deep exploration of how we can actually use astrology in our day-to-day lives to expand and awaken our consciousness. It's phenomenal. I can't, I can't say enough good things about this book. I'm recording this today on the full moon, actually, this little introduction on the full moon in Libra. And I have been feeling so energized. Like I went to the gym. I was just like, I had so much energy in my body. And this full moon is Venus rolled. And I've really been leaning into my Venus for 2026. Kind of my word of the year has been vibrant. And that really to me means feeling vibrant inside and out, which translates to beauty, which translates to energy and money and relationships and kind of like all of those things. I am a Taurus Sun, a Mercury, yeah, Taurus Sun, Taurus Mercury, and Taurus Tenth House and Midheaven. So this is so such a big part of my life and a piece of myself that I never quite fully allowed myself to lean into. So it's been a really interesting exploration over the last, I mean, while my entire life, but really intentionally, uh, 2026 this year. So and this book has really helped me kind of lean into that a little bit and understand how I can expand myself. And I pulled so many quotes from this conversation uh for social media. So again, like I clearly you can tell I'm excited to share this episode. Um so I'm not gonna take up too much time here. I hope that this full moon was supportive for you. We have literally this entire week in the astrology is very Venus-led. So Venus moved into Taurus on Monday. We have our full moon in Libra today, and then on Friday, Venus is square to Pluto, which could feel a little bit of an little intense. But it's a really great time to ask ourselves where we're tending to ourselves or where we're not, where we're putting others before ourselves. So any polarity and astrology really holds deep lessons for each other. And so you have Aries and Libra. Aries is the I am, it's the very first start of the zodiac. And Libra is sort of the bridge to the other, right? Libra is very relationship focused. It wants balance, it wants harmony, it wants peace and justice and all these beautiful things, and it's art and it's sociable and it's refined, and it's kind of this very uh different version or different qualities of Venus than Venus uh in Taurus has. But they really hold a lesson for each other. I think it's really coming through in this full moon. You know, Aries needs the reminder that there are other people other than itself, and Libra needs the reminder that there is the self within the dynamic of other people. So again, just noticing where this is in your chart, where Libra is, where Aries is, how you're feeling, what's going on, and really coming into your body. You know, a lot of my work is the somatic practices because astrology and human design, they're tools, but you are the magic. Like you are the thing. And when we come into our body and really feel and sense how all of these aspects and how these planets show up for us and how we feel them and how we experience the transits is really where the magic is. And so I just, yeah, spend, you know, offer you to spend some time, whether it's in meditation. Jim at the end of this episode shares kind of how he just kind of comes into the moment. I think that's a theme for, you know, every time I kind of ask this question around what is your practice, a lot of people, it's really, really just presence. And I think when you're present, you really notice, right? Like how you're feeling, your sensations, all the things. So again, check out um Jim's website, shareastrology.com, grab the book, follow him on Substack. Everything you need to know is in the show notes. You can just click the link, follow me at rochelle.christian on all the social socials. That's R O C H E L L E dot C H R I S T I A N E. And enjoy the episode. Welcome to the podcast. Today I'm really excited to have Jim Scher on the podcast. He's an astrologer and author of the book Astrology as a Spiritual Path and founder of the Scherer Institute of Astrology and Metaphysics, a ministry school for this for spiritual transformation. And I was just telling Jim offline that I got his book in January, um, and I completely devoured the book like so quickly. And I realized, like as I was reading it, I feel like my path with astrology was a spiritual path, but I didn't have the words for it. I didn't understand that that's what it was. It was like when I discovered astrology, it was like this piece of my soul that just recognized it. Um, if you're familiar with human design, I kind of started in human design, which is kind of feels a little bit more like logical, like more like brain-oriented, where it's like you can kind of make sense of things, but then astrology came in and I just like I felt it in my body. Um, and so yeah, I'm always seeking like understanding and depth. And I think that your book really provides that in such a beautiful way. Um, so I'd love to start with you sharing your background. And I know, you know, in the beginning of the book, you talk a lot about your background, um, just to show like the path so we can understand how we can kind of you know find our own path and weigh in this. Um, so yeah, I would love to just if you're, you know, however much you want to share with the listeners, and then we can kind of take it from there.
SPEAKER_00Sure. Well, for me, um I was uh a counselor, a therapist before I started studying astrology. And so when I did begin to study astrology, I was constantly applying the principles of astrology to the people that I was working with. So immediately astrology became more alive to me than it would have otherwise. I wasn't doing readings per se. I was literally using the charts that I saw to help me counsel the people that I was meeting. In addition, you know, astrology uses transits. I could see transits happening in a client's life as opportunities for them to discover something new that they need to understand, that they need to help them grow. And so astrology was side by side uh in helping me um work with people. Therefore, I didn't use it as a predictive device per se. I looked at it for opportunities for growth, opportunities for more free will, more free will choices. And this led me to the conclusion that the more our consciousness grows, to put it that way, the more free will we have. The more we understand, you might say, our program, the limitations of our program, and see it as a program, we begin to have the free will choices, opportunities. Uh it's like when you see something it's operating as a program, you now it's it is very much like the matrix. You begin to have an element of free will that you didn't have before. Not everything is on automatic, so to speak. Does that make make sense?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. And that's um something I thought about with astrology too. And um, you know, when you create awareness of you know, these things, like something I've been thinking about a lot lately too, is that I feel like so often there's always a piece of us, whether it's you know, from parents or society that we really suppressed in childhood, right? And it's always this like when you look at astrology or when we kind of come to this information, it's like this big piece of like who you we are, right? Which is why I think it feels so uncomfortable because we've repressed it, we've suppressed it. Um, but then I think once you start to create awareness of it, right? Then you begin to see it and kind of what you're saying that we it we're not on autopilot once we see the pattern, right? It kind of like allows us to maybe step out of that. Um, but yeah, it's really interesting that I and I don't know what that is, why there's always it feels like this core essence of like who we are that we suppress.
SPEAKER_00I think the key comes from understanding the term self-awareness. Again, originally I was a therapist, and I early on in my career I understood how little self-awareness most people had, and how powerful it could be if they gained self-awareness, but that can be scary for a person to you might say see themselves. And it's something I think we take take for granted.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
Outer Planets As Growth Engines
SPEAKER_00Well, astrology is a tool for self-awareness. Um it's not saying this is how you are, it also is an indication of potentials. This is okay. The other thing I want to mention is that the focus of my book is basically connected to transpersonal astrology, which is how astrology can be used to increase self-awareness and to help a person grow in their consciousness. One of the keys for me is how to use the outer planets, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, as opportunities for transcendence of one's consciousness. Whereas a lot of the books have pretty negative views of the definitions of the outer planets. Um, well, they can be used. And so when I'm working with students and and and friends or whatever, I'm focused on on that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_04So when you're looking at like the outer planets and creating self-awareness in, let's say like transits, I know there's so much going on right now, and we have this configuration with all three of these outer planets. How do you see them coming together in maybe like not a negative way? Because it's it would be easy to look at it right now and look around the world and be like, oh my gosh, if we're like applying astrology to it, you know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. Well, let me summarize briefly the thing, the positive nature of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. To me, Uranus is a separating force from Sun through Saturn program. By that I mean the rule set of our lives, of our physical body, our mental structure, and so on can be revealed a lot by just looking at the chart of Sun through Saturn, Sun, Moon, Mercury, and so on. It is operating whether we know about astrology or not. We don't have to be aware of the chart. Most people are living their chart, obviously, without being aware of it. Uranus represents a movement toward awareness of this, potentially, that therefore is separating you from the program through what I'll call impartial observation. The more you see the chart, the more you become self-aware, and that changes one's consciousness. Toward what? Neptune represents the principle to me of connectedness. That we're all connected to each other, to the world, and so we have this paradox of Iranian individuality and uniqueness with all of the aspects of universal consciousness also within us. So part of the process of transformation is holding this paradox. And the more you come up become aware of your chart as both your own and as part of a cosmos or archetypal set of archetypal principles that are unique to you, the more you have to hold this paradox. And part of the classes that I, you know, is to help a person begin to see this and to understand these archetypal principles as universal, which is to me life-changing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah, it's it's really been kind of recently for me in my own studies that I've really like deepened my knowledge or like kind of dove more into those outer planets and what they could mean like on a personal level. Um, I'm I personally have my my moon is square Pluto and my moon is on my ascendant. So I've always been through this cycle of just like really intense emotional experiences. And it can be really hard to separate yourself from that, right? Or, or because it's like painting the way that like I perceive life, you know. So I think for me on a personal level, which is why I love astrology, is that it's helped me, you know, like we said, like creating awareness of like when I'm going through that, it's not to like, I don't want to say blame it, not to blame it on the astrology or not to outsource it to astrology, but just to have a personal understanding, right, of why it feels so intensely for me.
SPEAKER_00Sure.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Part of the when I was starting out, I was focused on my clients and so on. But about 30 years ago, I came into contact with the works of Dane Rudyar, who is by definition a transpersonal astrologer. And he really changed and helped me understand um the nature of astrology. We are, you might say we are the our charts, we are living it. Or it's living us. So the whole notion of ego, this individual self, can be seen as an illusion while we experience these things through our own lens. Now, when you have astrology, you also know that you have a an ascendant and a descendant, how you relate to others, self and other, which tells us a lot about the kind of people we meet, how we approach others, how they approach us, and we see that most people don't see us very well. We don't see others very well. For me, when I realized how little I understood others automatically, it made me want to reach out to people when I had the opportunity to have a more honest relationship. Meaning I was stopped stopping assuming that I knew anything about the other or about their reality. So when a person started asking questions and sharing their reality with another, their world changes because they no longer feel so isolated. They feel a part of something bigger than themselves. Um that's that's a challenge, but it's also for me a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And was it primarily astrology that had you shift that perspective, or was it like the therapy, like being a therapist and counseling, or like combination?
SPEAKER_00It was a combination. But astrology helped me understand that each person has a psych has a psychological archetypal map, which can be thought of as a rule set. A unique rule set that's composed of universal principles. Once it's understood as a kind of rule set, then the person can start to open up to alternatives. Let me give you an example. I have Mercury in Virgo, which is the mind is analytical and orderly, and so on. And so as I observed my nature and the way I operate when I write, and so on, I could see it as truthful. So what happens, like right now, we have Mercury retrograde in Pisces. I don't have Mercury in Pisces, but I can feel it, and I can feel it through others. So here's this orderly Mercury and Virgo of me in a world right now that's very fluid, very open, and at times confusing, where people are not understanding each other, and what's going on, what's going on? That's on the macro level of the planet as well as our personal lives, and so it helped me relate and understand what I'm dealing with, but also what others are dealing with. Like my first question of you is how are you experiencing Mercury and Pisces right now?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I've I've been working closely with it to just kind of create awareness of where my thoughts are. Um, I have Pisces in my eighth house, so I know that you know, a lot of my like addictions or tendencies, you know, subconscious kind of things, I've been trying to work with it in that way. Uh, so it's yeah, it's been a really interesting process to yeah, be aware of what's happening and to take that like pause to watch it.
SPEAKER_00Well, see, once you're looking at the eighth house and you're looking at the program and you're looking at the limitations, you're looking at so-called addictions and so on, you're really looking at attachments. Part of the nature of the transformational process of the eighth house is by looking and recognizing impartially attachments without guilt, just realizing, okay, this is what I'm attached to. Let's look at that. Because it deepens us. You cannot possibly see your own attachments if you don't also see other people and how attached they are to their belief systems, if nothing else. One of the biggest things that I think that people have is a lack of awareness of the belief systems that are operating in them all the time. Whether it be through religion, parental, uh, or so on and so forth. As we free ourselves from belief systems, the world becomes much more open to us. We see a bigger picture, we see a bigger framework for the reality itself.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. When I think like knowing astrology and using astrology in that sense of being able to see maybe how other people are programmed as well. And like you said, not seeing their own belief systems, because a lot of people just think that, yeah, what they believe is it's like law. That's it. You know, if you don't believe in it, if you think anything differently, they're so quick to cut you out, cut you off. And so I think that being able to use this and understand to see that people are operating in a certain way. And it's not anything, you know, most people I don't think are malicious, right? They're just kind of operating on that autopilot, essentially, right?
SPEAKER_00From their you have you have just defined my definition of ego. Ego would be the ego structure of the belief systems that are running an individual. Most of the time without their awareness. But I've struggled to get an operating definition of the term ego, and that's what I've kind. Up with so the moment you begin to discover your own belief systems or see your own ego, something happens in you. But that's we resist this. You just you just said why. People do not want to look at themselves, they do not want to reflect. Yeah, their belief systems are concrete, set in stone, as truth, as fact. When we have a world that are up is operating in this way, we have a very troubled, conflict-oriented world.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00This is why things are the way they are.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. That was immediately what I thought of. It's like that's what I feel like if so many more of us were having conversations around this or just being open to hearing a viewpoint that wasn't theirs to understand, you know. And and I was thinking, I think it was like last week or the week before. It's just, I think the hardest part from you know, looking around the world at all this is how easily we dehumanize each other.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You know, especially in you know, in conflict and war. And I know that a lot of people are trained to be that way because they have to be, but I think that's always the hardest part for my mind. It's like, how can we just dehumanize people so easily?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I don't know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, now you know exactly what needs to happen in our world. And those of us who understand that have to use, you might say, our own destiny, our own way of introducing people um to an alternative way of being, an alternative way of looking at each other. Which I assume you're doing with your podcast.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I feel like I see it more and more often, just even out and about, and you know, you know, at the gym, I'll be in the sauna and I'll hear like businessmen talking about business, but then they'll talk about wanting more freedom, or they'll talk about meditation, or these different ways that are opening them up. And it's so interesting to see people open up to that, or even astrology. I feel like even a few years ago, you know, maybe you know, five or six, and I'm beyond that, but it was wasn't so accepted by everyone. Now you talk about astrology or human design, and people are like, Oh, yeah, I've heard of that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And it's yeah, that the when people don't believe in astrology or they try and poke holes in it, I just it it just makes me giggle. So I'm like, there's just so much depth to it that I feel like, and I what I really loved about your book too is that it wasn't just astrology, right? You weave in like philosophy and spirituality and all these different, and to me, that's just like always made sense, right? I think people look at astrology as just, oh, my star sign is just telling me how to be, and it's like there's so much more.
SPEAKER_00Well, let me talk a little bit about the you asked earlier about Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, what's going on right now? Because I think it's very significant. Uranus is going to move into Gemini. It was there for a little while and backed up. Pluto's in Aquarius, and Neptune is in Pisces. They are in a sextile, sextile, trine relationship, and they will be for about a year in early uh degrees. For me, this signifies a new uh paradigm coming into the world that is, I think, connected to what we were just talking about for the last few minutes. It is affecting everybody, whether they know it or not. They're talking about it, but it hasn't it's like still one's personal opinion. It hasn't been understood as part of a consciousness movement. It's my hope that that will begin as more and more people talk about it as a consciousness movement. And not in a trivial way, but in a deeper way. Because it's real. Um we are more than first of all, to be blunt, we're more than just bodies. Most of us senses. Um one person, Tom Campbell, called it units of consciousness. Individuated units of consciousness that is part of universal consciousness or the divine. So we need paradigms and terminology that allows us to understand our place in a bigger universal picture. And to me, that's part of our job through astrology, but not just astrology alone. Um when we talk about meditation, uh I think we're just beginning to understand its value because the biggest value to me of imp is is impartial observ observation, not trying to quiet the mind. Krishna Murdy emphasizes this over and over and over again. We're not using meditation to use force to quiet the mind. If a person simply observes, accepts, sees it as a program, that's all you can do. That's all you need to do. And in that moment, something in your consciousness shifts. So he more than anybody emphasized do not use force to try to change anything in the mind. Observation is what you can do. Same is true of your chart. If a person can see the chart operating, something shifts. In my book, I wrote about different levels of how the planets and the signs and the houses can function, but it's not static. So the more you observe, the more able you will be to reach the high levels of uh how to actualize the higher potentials of one's chart. You automatically fall into these new ways of being that are part of the higher promise of your chart, to put it that way.
Moon Phases And Collective Cycles
SPEAKER_04You talk about to kind of go back to uh, you know, these Uranus, Neptune, Pluto right now, in in your book, you talked about the eight phases of the moon and how we can use that applied to like, you know, Jupiter, how long it takes to circle the sun, or can that also be applied to just, you know, like let's say Neptune, since all of these planets have just moved into a sign, can we break it down into each sign? And I guess like the question is would this be considered like the new moon phase of each of these signs? Yes, the planets.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Exactly. You got it.
SPEAKER_04I'm reading um Mysteries of the Dark Moon by Dimitra George. And so I think that whole she talks about you know the feminine and the dark moon and the dark parts of the feminine and how it comes about like in that phase right before that new moon, right? And I can't help but to think about right now as we're experiencing that, if we're applying that to these planets moving into these new signs or going through this phase.
SPEAKER_00How do you think that's operating right now politically in our political environment?
SPEAKER_04I mean, I think there's a lot that I mean, I don't I don't watch the news, but I obviously know what's happening in the world, right? And I think yeah, exactly. You go on social media, everybody's talking about it. So I feel like, you know, the darker parts of the world are coming out in politics, in in war, and you know, specifically we're, you know, applying it to, you know, I think that something I'm learning too is, you know, whether we're talking about, I'm gonna just apply it to the feminine because that's kind of primarily what that book is about, right? That dark moon phase of the feminine. But there is a there is a dark part of the feminine, right? It's not just fluid and flowy and like, you know, that kind of energy. There is this other like suppressed part. And I think my perspective of it is everything that's happening, is that we're just kind of realizing all the things that have either been suppressed or not named or not talked about, right? It's just this like cauldron of all this stuff that's coming out right now, right? And I think that Uranus is forcing us a little bit to see, right? Especially with this like last little part through Taurus. I feel like it's like, you know, material finances, the body, health, right? Like, I think that's been a big theme for a long time, too.
Pluto Return And The Feminine
SPEAKER_00Well, um the more, first of all, I'm to me, our world, especially the United States, is requiring that the feminine take a more active part. To me, uh Donald Trump is the epitome of male idiocy, imbalance, stupidity. I'm satisfying, so I tend not to you know I tend to speak openly. Um we are in the midst of a Pluto return for the United States. Pluto's at uh 27. Oh. In the natal chart, where where's Pluto?
SPEAKER_04In the US.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, in the US chart. Anyway, we're in a Pluto return. And for me, that represents an upsurge of the unconscious forces that have been operating in the United States from day one. The racism, the sexism, everything. So it can be purified, so it can be transformed. But with Pluto, things get a lot worse before they get better. Because the old structure that is operating unconsciously has to become conscious, has to become seen, has to become intensified. To me, Pluto is a principle of intensifying the unconscious so it can be seen. Everything that's repressed, everything that's been operating below the surface is popping into the consciousness of the world. Social media has allowed for this to amplify in ways that the rational mind cannot comprehend.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's overwhelming. So something big is happening, and I think this is related to what I'm talking about. And it has to do with the feminine.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00And the imbalance that I think Trump represents in every way.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like I've been seeing that a lot, you know, everywhere too, where it's, I mean, yeah, it requires a balance, but we've we've gone so far to this masculine way of doing things of life. And even, you know, I feel like work, right? In the traditional sense, like corporate America and things like that, right? It's been very like hyper masculine. Um, and I feel like, you know, kind of what you're saying with social media, that's where I feel like Neptune definitely comes in here too, because there is this element of just like like I think that a lot of people are seeing what's happening in the world and maybe they're surprised that it's like so explosive. But also I think maybe Neptune having just moved through Pisces was keeping it a little bit confusing or hidden from us in a way where we couldn't quite see it clearly. Um, and I think that yeah, like you said, these issues have been going on, and especially like you related it to the US chart. Like these issues have been going on for a long time. It's just kind of this. Um, I love the analogy of you know, the frog in the boiling pot. Like that's how I feel like Pluto. It's like the frog is in the pot and he doesn't realize it's boiling until it's you know, he's dead. And so it's like Pluto is just like all of these things have been like percolating, and then now it's like you can't not see it, you know.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Individuals can see things way before the collective.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00For me, I've been waiting for this time for a long time.
SPEAKER_04Like you saw it through the astrology, or just no, it's just me being me.
Change The Microcosm First
SPEAKER_00I I I was I was weird. I when I was a social worker in the University of Texas in Austin, I uh was not a therapist, I was a community organ organizer. I was trying to change the world. Yeah, I was going into uh the rural communities uh to organize the uh the citizens um to deal with various problems that the government was pushing on them. So I was very naive, very young, very much wanting to change the world. And um this allowed me to though to see the world better on one hand, but also to see my limitations, yeah, and to see how see the structure of whether you want to call it the corporations, the impersonal nature of life, to put it more clearly. And so individuals have to start start waking up to their own power to influence things, to participate in some way in the world, in their world, which means we have to take more responsibility. Um, starts with how we deal with our own loved ones, our families. The microcosm of our life becomes super important. The other thing I loved about astrology is it could help a person understand their role. Um Dane Rudyard called it the law of one's being, which is an interesting term, the law, that we have our own nature, we have our rule set that we must fulfill as part of a cosmic purpose. And when we do that, when we feel aligned with that, we've our life is full of meaning. We're participating in the world according to our own nature, not according to what the world thinks we should be doing, but from within. Become our own authority, so to speak, and then participate in the world in that way. That to me is the power of astrology to help us understand the law of our being as a reality.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I love that. I actually had written that I because I watched um an interview you had with someone else. I can't remember her name right now, but you had talked about the law of once being, and I had made a note in here to bring it up and you brought it up. But and just, you know, I of course it's easy to apply it to my chart and just the way that I I perceive that. But from my understanding, I think that to me that layers on, or I see that really strongly in my chart. So I have Saturn and Sagittarius in my fifth house, and I am a single mom of two kids, but I always when they were younger, there was a part of me that felt a lot of guilt and shame around feeling tied down by having children. Like I wasn't free to like go and you know, have be myself in life and or have fun or experience certain things. And I've come to realize, you know, like releasing that shame now that they're older, I have a I enjoy it more. Um, in a if I'm misunderstanding what the law of ones being is, but it's like that if I could have known at that time, you know, that there might have been a part of me that would have felt that way because of Saturn being in that placement. Does that make sense? Is that accurate or am I seeing Oh, it it does.
SPEAKER_00I think Saturn, how we deal with Saturn is really important because the more we deal with Saturn, the more the outer planets can come in. The way you were feeling a certain level of guilt is literally the process of Saturn helping us or forcing us to accept whatever rule set we've been given. Instead of trying to be something that we're not able to be at that time. We can be aspirational as hell. Sagittarius, by definition, is very aspirational, but that means the means through your aspirations through the limitations of your children in this particular case.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Instead of feeling held down, feeling like this is your ground for how you will launch into higher consciousness.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's that's tough. To accept Saturn fully is tough.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And yet that's that's the doorway.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. There was a moment when they were younger that I wanted to like travel somewhere, and in my head, I was like, I can't do it. I can't, and then something clicked, and I was like, wait, I can just take them with me. Like, why do I feel like I can't do these things? Why don't I just include them in it? Right. And it was like such a simple aha shift where I was like, oh, I don't have to like stop my life because of this, you know. But it was a it was a big like moment for me.
SPEAKER_00I can understand. Yeah. I understand.
Free Will And The Matrix Lens
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Um, I wanted to, so before we got on to uh we were talking about so kind of like going back to that free will a little bit. Uh, we were talking about the matrix. And there was that one quote in the matrix that I wrote down. Um, and I wanted to bring it to the conversation. So there was a point where uh Neo was sitting with the Oracle and she offered him a piece of candy. Um, and he was like, You already know that I'm gonna take it. And she responds and she's like, You didn't come here to make the choice, you've already made it. You're here to try and understand why you made the choice. And I love that and I felt like it really applied to this conversation. And I think bringing it into, you know, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and this idea of like free will and using astrology for self-awareness. I think a big question, you know, is as we're like navigating this times, kind of like you said before, it's like the individual can be aware before the collective is. And so I think it's really important now to create awareness within ourselves. And I think that sometimes we think that doing our own personal work doesn't have as much of an impact. But I believe that when you're doing your work, you are impacting those around you. Like, you know, you said your family and friends, like looking around at your loved ones, and even just, you know, in my own life, like looking at like my meditation or my spiritual practices, how you know, my family isn't very spiritual, but you see little ways that it trickles when you can stay in your in your lane and maybe you're not as reactive because there are certain family members that always trigger me. And now I'm just like breathe, right? Because then you see this way of seeing other people that I think is really beautiful. So I guess my question is how can we use this in our own life when we're looking at like transits like this to kind of whether it's be more embodied or just create self-awareness, or how can we even like like kind of pattern interrupt? Because I think sometimes we're so much in that programming of like response mode, you know?
SPEAKER_00Well, to finish the story that I started telling you when I was a community organizer.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00While I was trying to change the world, there was a point at which I realized that my personal life was a total mess. Marriage was a mess, my being a father was a mess. And it was a huge shock. Um, and that's when I began to realize that the only thing I really could do would be to build a better life for me within the microcosm of my life, my marriage, my parenthood, my relationship with other people. It was a complete reversal of how I'd been thinking. I suppose if an individual is called to be a politician or to be out there, that's fine if that's their destiny. But it has to start from the framework of our life that we're actually living in an everyday way. And that, as you said, is how we change the world. That's actually how it works. And I would argue that the more we do that, the more we are then led toward a higher participation, if that's part of our destiny, whatever that might look like, as a podcaster, as as whatever that's allowing you to learn about other people, to share what you're learning, and it grows and grows and grows and filters out into the cosmos and is changing the world.
Dropping Belief Systems Through Exposure
SPEAKER_04Yeah. That's always been part of my like philosophy with the podcast, is that I want to have obviously as many conversations as I can, but always being open to hearing other people and to having conversations that maybe are different from my own perspective. Because I think that, you know, I was raised overseas. And so I spent a lot of time of my life around other people who didn't think like me, believe like me. And I think that as challenging as that sometimes was as a kid, but like I love that that was my experience.
SPEAKER_00Where where were you?
SPEAKER_04So I grew up in Dubai, actually. Um, and yeah, I lived in Montreal, Italy, Spain. And then once I moved to the US, I moved, you know, kind of all over. But yeah, so I I was just fortunate to live a life like that, where I got to go a whole bunch of places. And I just try and take that experience, you know, to having conversations with people where, you know, like you said, we get so blinded, I think, by their own belief system. And I always Felt growing up where it's like, I don't know what my belief system is because everybody has a different one around me, and it's like, which one do I subscribe to? You know, it's like Americans, Arabs, like there were just so many Europeans, everybody was so different, and yeah, I can see you know how that was confusing, but also I got to taste everything and then decide what was mine.
SPEAKER_00Does it not help you ask the question, do I need a belief system?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Do we I what why do I need a belief system?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Why can't I just see all of these different viewpoints as selective limitations that actually prevent us from experiencing the world in a totally open, non-mental way?
SPEAKER_03Mm-hmm. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I feel like that's that's the biggest thing I learned is that through meditation or whatever, I don't need to have a belief system. The pressure to have a belief system is a belief system.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah. I think that was the shadow at the time, was because I was like I was hearing it all and seeing it all and listening to it all. But then people just, you know, that saying that um if you believe in everything, you'll fall for no, or if you believe in nothing, you fall for everything, right? And so I think there were a lot of people around me that I was perceiving myself as almost like weak because I wasn't just like, this is who I am and this is what I believe in, you know? And so I I think that was part of my shadow around all of that. Um, but you know, through time and and growth, I can see the benefits of experiencing all that, and even religiously, right? I was raised Roman Catholic, but I was raised in an Islamic country. There was Islam, there was Christianity, there was Hinduism, right? There was just a lot of varying religions. Yeah. So I always saw the through line from all of them, and I could never understand. I remember having that conversation with my dad a lot. I could never understand why people were going to war over religion. So I was like, they all believe the same thing at the end of the day. It's the same thing, and yet we're fighting over nuances and little details. And it I just never understood it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, what a life you've lived. This is amazing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, first of all, just so you know, I'm Sagittarius Rising with Jupiter and Sagittarius.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I love that.
SPEAKER_00I haven't traveled like you have. I have some for me, travel and I have four planets in the ninth house. Um, for me, it's been an immersion into philosophy. Um with religion being a subset of of a philosophy. Um I started out with an emphasis in psychology, but it it gradually looked at at how to approach thinking about all of these things. And one number one, the advantage you've had is because I've met people who have lived very small lives, who have nowhere near the exposure that you have had, and that that's led to them being very uh insular. You don't have that if you can't, you're not going to be able to be that way. But by the same token, how do you arrive at something that's truly your own? Your own so-called center or sense of internal being. Which to me is part of the purpose of transformation is to develop a sense of self that is not based on any belief systems or any particular structure, but it has something very real inside. Do you know it all what I mean?
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, even with, you know, talking about Sagittarius, like expanding or like uh travel even within your mind, right? Expanding yourself mentally, um definitely is a theme as well in there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I see you got some books around you.
SPEAKER_04Oh yeah. I have you I have way too many books in my house. I think that's yeah, that's definitely so. I I have my north note in the ninth house, and then Sagittarius is my fifth. But learning, I always say, like, I want to learn, like if I could learn everything, I would obviously it's not realistic, but I just I love to me learning conversations is just that's it to me. That's like all I want to do. I just want to travel and talk to people and just like learn people's minds and how they perceive life.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You know, it's fascinating. And I know there's a quote in your book. Um, let me see, I it was about, oh yeah, we don't see things the way we don't see things as they are, we see things as we are. And I think that ties into that, you know, what we've kind of been talking about. Um, but yeah, it's just it's it's fascinating to me.
SPEAKER_00Well, can we talk about the latter part of the book?
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Um where to me, everything uh astrology can help us along with just living our lives fully to a new way of being, to mutation, to put it in other people's terms. I'm always curious to know how people react to that, the severity of that term. Um by severe I mean they were talking about a complete shift of consciousness in a new way of being. Did you have any reaction to that?
SPEAKER_04To so you're talking about transformation, like the word, is that what I'm understanding?
SPEAKER_00Yes, I used it. We use the word transformation all the time. I was arguing for the fact that mutation is bigger than transformation, it's a fundamental shift in one's consciousness, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That was you might say fundamental in some way, redefining of who we think we are.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Well, I think that, you know, as so much of this conversation has been around the importance of doing that in our own lives, right? I think for me, anytime the word, you know, like consciousness, or there's just like this this like knowing or this like tickling of I I don't, it's hard to like put it into words what I feel when I think about this like shift of you know, whether you want to use the word consciousness or like who we who we are becoming or remembering or using these tools for that. I think I think a lot of people are feeling it and maybe don't know. Um, I think I think we're on the way to that for more people to awaken to it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think we are using the term awakening, which includes the realization that we're not just bodies.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00To put it, use this term that we're consciousness itself in bodies or experiencing physical reality.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Which is a complete redefining of who we are. I guess what started for me was that I was at a very early age, I wanted to know who I was, which meant that I knew I didn't know who I was. And when I start first started having experiences, usually with some help from hallucinages, I realized that I was not a body. But I also realized that I was in a world where everybody believed that that's all they who really are.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00This was quite isolating. And um it still is, but I'm more comfortable with it than I was when I first experienced it. I expected everybody to say, oh, don't you get it? Yeah, you're you're spiritual beings, you're you're infinite, you're this and you're that, and people look at me so strange, like, what are you talking about? Well, I'm not the only one anymore. People are talking about it, but still an outlier, which is my definition, by the way, of Uranus. Uranus is pushing us toward being an outlier, truly uniquely ourselves.
Staying Present In Body Chaos
SPEAKER_04How do you reconcile the idea of, you know, and I think even to what you're saying, Uranus and Taurus is a good example of it, but we are spiritual beings, right? We're having this human experience and we are in the physical body. And so, you know, the body is a big piece of our reality and how we experience things. And I think, you know, even the last, let's just say month, right? With the eclipses and everything, I think a lot of people I've noticed are exhausted or they're getting sick, or there's just a lot of physical things. And I wonder if it's, you know, because we're consciously moving to a new place and our in our energy and all this is is shifting, but our body, it's like it has to catch up in a way, you know. And so how do we like merge these two? Um, because I feel like the body can be so loud, right? If it hurts, or you know, we have physical reactions, or we're nervous, or just like these, you know, everyday physical experiences. And then to also know that we're consciously like awakening. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Look, the this is tough. To be in the world, the more conscious we are to be in the world, the more we're aware of the kinds of things you just said. Yeah, it doesn't mean everything's gonna get easier and la la la. Uh-uh. No, it is everything you just said and going through it consciously, being present in it. And I think that somehow that creates a shift in our consciousness, but we're not trying to escape in any manner whatsoever. We're willing to live in it while we're here and um and fully fulfill, you might say, our our purpose, which we now are becoming aware of. Clearly, you're aware of a purpose that you have, this conversation being one. So that's clarifying, fulfilling, demanding, restrictive, and you gotta keep performing, you gotta keep doing your thing amidst all of the eclipses, amidst all of the things other people are going through, not just you. Yeah, the chaos of life. I would argue that part of our transformation is by staying, let's say, together, internally together, while there's all kinds of chaos around us. Um of the philosophers talk about it, lowering one's entropy, lowering one's internal chaos while we live amidst all the chaos around us. And developing an inner inner way of being that is above or outside, just being the effect of the chaos of outside us. Um, one person called it being in a state of love, divine love, which you might say is universal. And that's the force that allows us to stay together while we're amidst all the chaos. But I think the greater the stress, the greater the transformation.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. It's challenging.
SPEAKER_00It very much is.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Like you said, I think sometimes when I look at my path or, you know, the journey and awakening and spirituality and things like that, sometimes it's so I, you know, it would have been so much easier just to be, you know, drinking and just kind of in the monotony of life. But then I also am like, I was always a seeker too, where it was just like I knew there was something bigger out there. And so, like, my and it'll never end, right? But I actually, but I love being on this journey as hard and challenging, as confronting as it is. And I think that yeah, a lot of what I've been talking about recently has really been in nervous system regulation. Because, like you said, if you're not like internally able to sit in the chaos and not be like sucked into all of it, you know, then we're not able to yeah, impact, you know, family, friends that are around us. Like if I'm constantly in the chaos, like my kids are gonna be in the chaos too. And that's what am I teaching them? You know, and so it's it's so hard, but like, but yeah, it's so important to be there.
SPEAKER_00A long time ago, I read that the fastest way to true spiritual transformation is by immersing oneself in a tough reality.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, a lot of us came here for that right now, you know. I mean, I think there's something at every you know, stage in evolution, but I think so.
SPEAKER_00I think the ability to hold together under these levels of stress transforms us, but it also transforms everybody around us. But it's not number one, it's not automatic, obviously. It requires conscious effort, a lot of patience, letting go of perfection, you know, a high level of acceptance of where we are now and constantly coming back, coming back, coming back.
SPEAKER_01I think that's that's the pro that is the process. Yeah.
Presence As The Only Practice
SPEAKER_04What has um like over your life? I guess, what has the process looked like just to sort of embody this? And you know, like you said, with Mercury and Virgo, it's very analytical, that's very logical, you know, and and coming to a place where you can open yourself up to like to spirituality and awakening. And um I guess my question is kind of rooted in just maybe the ego, right? Um I always like to ask people I, you know, on the podcasts that come on, it's like kind of like what are your day-to-day tools or practices, right, that keep you in your body or that um yeah, keep you centered, or or just been able to lean on these tools.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I understand your question. Um I think something happened to me that I find it very hard to explain to others that did away with the notion of using tools. Um I was uh years ago, I participated in these things called enlightenment intensives that um basically was meditation on steroids. And during those experiences, I had experiences of being me, the being. And number one, it's a peak experience at first, right? It's like taking a bunch of uh uh peyote or whatever, and you have this high-level experience of being more than more than what you thought you were. You come back into the world, and you're like, what do I do with that? And so those experiences that I had were profound enough and deep enough that I realized that I needed to constantly apply the challenges in my everyday life, or to to awaken is to be constantly returning to the awareness of who I am, and who I am is none of the things a person identifies with, it's beyond anything we identify with. Identification becomes a limitation and nothing more. So if there's a tool, it's to return to my this is to this awareness at every moment. It would be you could call it my meditation, except that I don't use the word that way anymore.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, but to do it right now with you, to answer your question from that viewpoint. And to be willing to. Um, I know this is an interview, but for me, it's a it's an exchange. So I kind of want to ask, what do you think of what I just said?
SPEAKER_04I think it's a good reminder to you know let go of that part of the mind that I think it's easy to sometimes in those moments, right, where you have those aha's or you have those like big experiences. I think I've had like two in my life where I was like taken out of my body and I was like, oh, this is it, like I get it, right? And then you come back to the day-to-day and you just somehow forget about it, or it becomes this distant thing. And I think that the mind has us like forgetting that it is in these simple, just coming into the moment and reminding yourself that you're beyond, like your soul is like beyond all of those things. And then um, you know, I I've only been on this only, I've been on the journey for like eight or nine years. And so I've in the big scheme of things, right? My my awakening is very, you know, small. Um, and I think sometimes I try and overcomplicate things in my mind, and then I'm reminded, like, no, it's it's not all that, it's literally just right here.
SPEAKER_00Well, which means that you're getting in touch with the nature of your mind. That is huge. That is the transformational process.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And it's hard because we are in a reality which we didn't make, but which we are immersed in. The moment we're born, we're immersed in the reality of the family, in the body, it's genetics, it's DNA, it's history, the the history of the body. There's no freedom there. We grow up, and we're usually completely unconscious of what I just said. That level of immersion isn't something you just get out of. The moment you have that awakening moment, it's the beginning of an awakening process that who knows how long that takes. But it's part of a journey that's rather exciting because the challenge is so great. And you can't go back. Once you realize you can't go back, you can't forget. That can be scary, but it's also helpful to know okay, I'm gonna keep going. Yeah, I'm gonna use my life in all of its complexities and all of its fear and all that. I'm gonna use it constantly to wake up, wake up, and to interact with others from love and um in all of our dealings, and when we don't, okay.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think it's sometimes, you know, it's this like knowing and feeling that I don't think that there really are words for. And we're always trying to exchange words to describe something that it's just has to be felt. But that's why, you know, as a teacher for yourself, I think that, you know, how do you then teach something like that? You know, I mean, and I mean, for me, having conversations like this, right, where people can hear this and and I think that they'll feel and and recognize moments in themselves, you know, wherever they are in their journey of when that shows up for them.
SPEAKER_00But well, that's the key, I think, is showing up to your life as it appears. I didn't invite myself here, you invited me, which is wonderful, but I didn't I didn't make it happen. It's just happening. And the the more I show up to my life, the more opportunities to share and experience others and This means I'm not thinking about things quite as much. I'm not worrying about things. I know that whatever I need to do will will appear. I just need to show up for it as best I can.
SPEAKER_04Well, I've loved this conversation. I think that people are gonna get so much out of it. And you know, I think one of the biggest takeaways is, you know to do what we can in our own in our world right now in amidst everything that's happening and and awaken and and uh yeah, is there anything that you want to bring to the table that maybe that you feel like maybe we haven't touched on?
SPEAKER_00I guess the only thing I would mention is that I would hope I would love for people to have a chance to read my book. And um if we could kind of mention that for a moment.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's what's what's the name of the book?
SPEAKER_04Astrology as a spiritual path. And like I said, it I read this so quickly. I and I'm it's a book I'm gonna read again. Uh it was so good. I definitely recommend it for anyone. Um, yeah, and what I love too about it is it's it's not so much like teaching astrology. You know, I think there's a lot of books that you can pick up, and it's like the sun means this, the moon means this. And you do talk about that in the book, you know, towards the end, but it's more of like, yeah, just how we can find ourselves within that.
SPEAKER_00That was my that was what I wanted to emphasize. This was not an teaching astrology book. And it was not saying you should be on a path, it was an expression of my path with an awareness that everyone has their own. And that when we do begin to be aware of that we're on a path of some sort, our our awareness of our life changes, we become vitalized by that awareness amidst, again, all the challenges of daily life for any, you know, with children, with money, all of that, amidst all of those trials and tribulations, this gives me a sense of meaning. If it's real, and that was my hope is this book would stimulate a person's awareness that this could be real.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And I think it allows us to dig deeper into our own, you know, because yeah, there are so many books that you can read again that are kind of the sun and the the houses and this, and then we're just kind of reading bits and pieces. It's almost um not repetitive, but kind of, right? Whereas this like has us look more into ourselves.
SPEAKER_00Obviously, hope.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and so I thought it's it was, like I said, such a beautiful book. I read it and I'm so excited that you're here and that you agreed to like come onto the podcast to talk about this because I said this is yeah, this definitely recommend everyone listening to grab a copy of the book.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much for showing. I really appreciate your work.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, thank you. And I'll have the link um down in the show notes so everybody can just go grab it and follow you. But yeah, thank you so much for being here and having this conversation.