SHF Podcast, Season 2, Episode 5- Messages of the Starry Heavens with Frank Salzano

In this episode, astrologer Frank Salzano of "Medicine of the Starry Heavens" discusses the unprecedented astrological patterns marking our current era as a pivotal moment in human history. He explains how the 2020s opened a doorway of transformation through rare planetary alignments, including the 2020 conjunction in Capricorn that historically correlates with civilizational shifts, and the "Great Mutation" that shifted an 800-year cycle from earth to air signs, indicating the decentralization of hierarchical institutions. Looking ahead to 2025-2026, Salzano describes an completely unprecedented alignment where all outer planets are entering new signs simultaneously, culminating in the Saturn-Neptune conjunction at the first degree of the zodiac in February 2026 - representing ultimate endings and new beginnings.

Salzano emphasizes astrology's role as both a therapeutic healing art and practical guidance system, helping people remember their soul's purpose during times of collective amnesia and transformation. He shares personal stories demonstrating how planetary energies manifest in daily life, including a breakthrough moment with a client whose Mars in Cancer placement revealed deep relationship safety issues, and a synchronistic encounter with a Venus-embodied stranger during his own Jupiter transit. For navigating these turbulent times, he offers four key recommendations: avoid seeking power and control, get out of the hustle mentality, expand capacity for grief as everything changes, and use the "aesthetics of the heart" rather than dogmatic ideologies as a moral compass. He warns of multiple astrological war cycles converging but encourages people not to "take the bait" of blame and conflict, instead focusing on inner work, regular nature retreats, and honoring the profound mystery of our unprecedented moment in history.

Find more about Frank at https://medicineofthestarryheavens.com/

You can find Miriah Feehery at https://www.wholebeingcounseling.com/ and Katherine at https://sovereignheartcoaching.com/ 

Transcript

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Welcome to the Sovereign Heart Frequency Podcast. I'm Katherine Finley with Sovereign Heart Coaching and I'm here with my co host Miriah Feehery of Whole Being Counseling. We recognize that we're living through an intense time on our planet. There seems to be more polarization and division and less connected communication than ever before. We are here to change that. We intention to hold conversations in a container of love and authenticity. We believe that when humans come together from a heart centered place, we can not only understand one another, but we can get creative together, solving problems we couldn't solve alone. It's time to reimagine and rebirth a new world in which everyone's authentic voice is included in the harmonic orchestra of human voices, to create a world that works for all of us. Thank you for being part of this conversation, we're excited to have you. Hi everybody. Welcome back to the Sovereign Heart Frequency Podcast. I'm your host, Miriah Feehery, here with my cohost Katherine Finley. And today we have a very special guest, a good friend, Frank Salzano, who has a really wonderful astrology practice that he calls Medicine of the Starry Heavens, which I love that name.'cause astrology really has been a medicine for me in, in times of, big transition or just big feelings. And, he also has a school of celestial illuminations where he offers courses and, and community events, based on. Ancestral ethno astronomy and myth and cultural astronomy, as well as some modern twists. And really focuses on embodied, animate relationships to the celestial heavens. And he is an amazing storyteller. I can speak from experience and I really hope to get to one of his astrology storytelling events sometime soon. So welcome, Frank. I'm so glad to have you on our show today. Is there anything else you wanna add about the work you do for our listeners? Um, hey, thanks for, thanks for having me on. It's sweet to be here. Um, yeah, no, I think that covers it. I mean, I call my storytelling events stories from Stardust and, I've been going on tour more lately and, and doing some shows outside of Asheville. I have my monthly storytelling in Asheville in this beautiful spot where we get like a pretty sweet 360 view from a high meadow that's right near my house. And and that's kind of the third kind of leg of how I see my body of work. One is, the astrology practice. Other one is kind of like the school tying astrology to cultural astronomy and then the storytelling, which really tries to get into star lore. And yeah, just like a really expansive container for mythology and cosmology really. Um, and trying to do it in real life out, you know, under the stars around the fire. So it just kind of adds on that layer of embodied practice. Uh, you know, felt sense, experience to it. I love that. Yeah. The elements have their own part to play in, in that type of experience. So, since we have the, the wonderful opportunity of having you on our show, maybe you can share with us and our listeners some of what's going on with the, the planets and all the other heavenly bodies that might be influencing us today in what we are all well aware of as a deeply transitional time, and kind of chaotic and kind of unsettling and what you're seeing from your perspective that could maybe help people, you know, ground and orient to get through this sort of eye of the needle that we're going through right now. Mm-hmm. Yeah, good question. So it's no secret, I mean, you can hop on YouTube or, or you know, read on the internet. I mean, the astrology community is pretty fine honed to the cycles of time that we're in and how we're kind of at this like, origin point or like ground zero point. We're at this place where, there's a lot of endings happening and a lot of beginnings and origins being seated right now. So, so the 2020s particularly have kind of like opened up a certain doorway. You know, I kind of call it like the astrology of the great turning, you know, just to borrow like. I think that's Joanna Macy's turn, or, maybe it's, Brian Swim Cosmologist. But, um, but yeah, you know, we're in this sort of paradigm shift and the 2020s has been like a very clear doorway opening. You know, without going, without getting too lost in the astrology just to name some of the placements that feel like a really big deal. We did have the alignment at the beginning of COVID that had Jupiter, Pluto, Saturn, Mars, and the south note of the moon all line up and in Capricorn. And that, that was a really unique particular placement. And the only thing in like, the history of in recorded history that was like, that was. The end of classical antiquity and the shift of classical antiquity into the middle ages. And so, so that was, and that was very much correlated with plague astrology too, you know, and we had our share of the plague and the pandemic. Um, so that, that opened up, you know, honestly some pretty existential, grim realities for people, and it was kind of, you know, a reality check of just how fragile in some ways our civilization is and you know, like what we're experiencing on planned earth right now. So, so we had that and you know, that also happened, something that not a lot of people talk about, but some people do, is that placement happened on the south node of Pluto and Saturn, and those are really slow moving. So if you think about what Pluto and Saturn mean and the pseudo, the Saturn Pluto cycles, it's kind of like the ancestral collective karma of humanity that you have to work off. Some of it Saturn and some of it just kind of gets burned off and the alchemical fires Pluto. Um, and so all of those things kind of hit in 2020. And then the other thing about 2020 was that we entered into the great mutation, and that was, that was the Jupiter Saturn cycle, which if you were in a slog in the ancient world, that would've been the most big picture cycle. You'd be paying attention to the cycles of Jupiter and Saturn, the last two plants we see with the naked eye. And so those two met up and shifted basically an 800 year cycle. And that 800 year cycle always correlates with a. Like it's, what happens is they meet up in earth signs for 200 years and then they shift to meeting up in air signs. And that happened on winter solstice of 2020. And that correlates with a, usually a decentralization of human culture, a decentralization of socioeconomic institutions. So one Lens, you could look at it, it's like through the lens of hierarchical institutions or empires. It's like the collapse of the system. You know, another lens, if you're looking at it from the margins or from the outside of the hierarchical dominator system, then what it is, it's kind of like a liberating experience where those really hierarchical, coercive institutions start releasing their hold on, on people. And so there's kind of this emergence of more grassroots culture and decentralized culture. And so that. 800 year cycle, you could trace all the way back to the, the late bronze Age collapse, you know, it's ancient Babylon in Egypt. And that kicked in in 2022. So then the astrology of the rest of the 2020s, I remember when it was, I remember in 2020 looking at the rest of the astrology for the 2020s and all the way up to the 2050s. And I remember it was really obvious that the next kind of big portal or doorway was going to come in 2025 and 2026. And that's because there's this alignment where all of the outer planets are emerging into a new sign. So you have Pluto and Aquarius and you have Neptune entering into Aries, you Saturn entering into Aries. You have Uranus entering into Gemini. And this also, like what happened in 2020 was it's an alignment that there's not really any, it's completely unprecedented. Like there's some, there's really good astrologers and researchers out there who have gone through, you know, as far back as our computers will allow us to with accuracy, you know, 10,000 plus years. And there isn't just like, there was never a time where Pluto and Saturn met up on the south node of Pluto and Saturn. There's never been a time where all of those planets are in exact aspects to each other in every other sign. And emerging into a new sign at the same time. So, and then particularly within that, the biggie is Saturn and Neptune. And, what you wanna think about with Saturn, Neptune is that they are the two planets. Both kind of mark endings, like Saturn is the last planet we see with a naked eye. So for, you know, thousands and thousands of years, tens of thousands of years, Saturn was representative of all things final and ending and massive cycles of time and karma coming to its concluding points. And then Neptune, of course, with modern astronomy. Now we have an understanding of the solar system where it doesn't end with Saturn. We have four rock planets between the sun and the asteroid belt, right? Mercury, Venus, earth and Mars. We have the asteroid belt, then we have four gas giants, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. And so the Neptune is the end of the gas giants. You know, there's Pluto, but Pluto is really its own thing. And the Kuper belt and kind of like the. The extended asteroid belt at the very end of the solar system. And, but as far as like the heavyweights go, Neptune is like the last planet. And so Neptune has its own way of completion and finality. And you know, if Saturn is the concretization of, of cycles of time, Neptune is this quality of, you know, kind of entering back into the dream time and entering back into transcendent space. That there's even something beyond Saturn and Saturnian karmic laws of how life operates on planet Earth. And that's Neptune. So what we're having happen, we're getting a taste of right now. It's just starting, it's gonna complete itself. We go exact in early 2026, I think in February, and it's the conjunction of Saturn and Neptune at the first degree of the zodiac. So this is like really far out the first degree of the Zodiac, you know, like where the whole cycle ends and begins and restarts over. And we have the two planets that represent endings and finality and the emergence of the next great cycles of time. So, you know, you can talk to a grocery store clerk in any grocery store in North America right now and say, gosh, you know, doesn't it feel like there's something big going down? Doesn't it feel like this is a crazy unprecedented change, you know? And you know, pretty much any human being, if you, you'd have said that, 15, 20 years ago to most people, just living their normal, mundane, daily lives. It'd be kinda like, oh, what are you, like a conspiracy theorist or something, you know? And now you can pretty much say that to anyone on planet Earth. And it's like, whoa. Yeah, there's something really unprecedented. Crazy going down. And the Last thing I'll say about this is I think the container to put it in, and this is really important for astrologers and people interested in astrology to remember this. Like, I started my storytelling events this year with an event on courting mystery. And I think about this a lot because this is the interface we're at is we're at the mystery point and we like to make these systems and maps to try to understand what's going on, you know? And that's completely understandable. And at the same time, certainty can kill a certain type of the imagination, you know? And knowing can be a form of grabbing and hunger and, even a trauma response, or like a, a greedy type of experience to have, and, and we have to remember that consciousness emerges out of mystery and it all eventually melts back into mystery, you know? And so we're in the mystery right now in a way that. Arguably no generation of human being on planet Earth has ever really been in. And it's exciting and it's, it's scary, you know, but it's, it's real. And the, the courting of mystery and the honoring of mystery, I think right now is kind of like, it's the starting point. And it's the thing we always wanna remember to drop back into, especially when we're playing with powerful systems of, of knowing and figuring things out and meaning making and understanding, is like always honor mystery in the place. It has as kind of like the fertile soil of, of consciousness, really. Absolutely. The astrology allows us to peer into things that, Can be known about history and therefore speculated about the present and future based on these big cycles of time that you're pointing out. Astrology can track through its movements and see the patterns and the correlation, but yeah, we can lose some of our, ability to stay in the present moment and be tuned into our intuition if we are so obsessed with focusing on what's going to happen with the planet. So thank you for putting that word of caution and especially as an astrologer who, you know, spends, significant amount of your time. Charting the stars to, for you to remind us of that importance, to honor the mystery and cultivate comfort. Dwelling in mystery, I think speaks a lot to, the, the maturity and wisdom that you bring to the world of astrology. Yeah, I mean, I've been feeling curious about that because, for the typical person that feels this big change happening, that feels we're in this great turning, but doesn't, necessarily have a way to orient it can be quite scary. Right. And I'm wondering if, for you, and if you'd mind speaking about if astrology is actually a way to help you orient and. And feel okay in the great mystery or feel, some sense of trust. Does astrology serve you in that way? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean that's, that's definitely the heart of it, you know, I mean, I consider it to be a really, it's a therapeutic and a healing arts practice, you know, and I mean, it's many things. It's also like a mystical divination system, but particularly in the modern world, you know, it's not a coincidence that the young in depth psychologist therapy community is really make up the bulk of who kind of brought back astrology to popularity in the west because it is like a therapeutic and healing art in that way. And it's a counseling skill too. You know, I focus mostly on Vedic astrology, but you know, like in the Vedic lineages too, it's very specifically, you know, astrology's, the ninth house. It's teaching and it's counseling and it's advising. And so it really is a counseling art that does lend itself to two therapeutic modalities. You know, one way I like to think about it is you have a map and you have a compass. If you're on a journey, like if you're on a sojourn, that's what you need. You need a map and you need a compass. You need a vehicle. You know, traditionally, astrology comes from sailors, astrology comes from nomads. Astrology comes from people moving around for hundreds of thousands of years moving around planet earth and realizing that the sky is a mirror and the sky is a storehouse and a celestial navigation system. And as, and it's a way for people to know where they are and when they are. So it's a map and a clock in one. So we have this amazing mapping clocking system that's, that doesn't go away, you know, it's always there and it's, it's very mechanically understood. You know, as you move around earth, you can rely on it and there's a real science to it, you know, so that's the key metaphor. You know, you go to ancient Greek astrology, you talk about the word they used for the first house. It's the ship's helm, horoscopes, the ship's helm. Because that is, that's, the ideas of the metaphor is that here you are, Sojourner pilgrim, your soul has traveled here to earth and you're here to do certain work and have certain purpose in this life, and you have. You have help, you have a map, and you orient with your first house, the beginning of the chart, the, the eastern horizon where the sun emerges, where your light emerges and comes up to meet the world. And so that is, that is our orientation and it's a map. But then, keep in mind you also need a compass, and that's the other side of it, right? Like, like we have an inner compass. And you gotta remember, sometimes the map is not the terrain. The map is really useful. But then we also have to remember that sometimes we put the map down and we trust our inner compass. And so again, kind of like teasing that point out with mystery, that's kind of right in line with that, that it's really important to, to astrology can be a useful tool. It can become like anything else, you know, any other religious or spiritual tradition or practice, it can become an oversimplified or dogmatic or a way to box things in, and that's really the game to play with astrology is like, okay, so we're interfacing with the map and the compass. Someone sits down with you, you have a map, and they have their inner compass. You have your inner compass, and you two are looking at this map together in a way that is meaning making and possibly even culture making because that person is a cultural agent and a social agent, that person is someone who's, you know, they're showing up in society, in the real world with a family, with a job, with whatever, And so it's really this meaning making culture, making experience to have when you really get into it. I wanted To mention how a lot of the ancient mythology, I mean here's how deep this stuff goes. I just kind of wanna drop this'cause it really puts some context to what we're dealing with here with astrology. It is astrology and celestial omens is the, is the recent scion of tens of thousands of years of, of human mythology and cosmology. And so what that means is that people were sailing around the earth, having these metaphors looking up in the sky, placing their mythologies and their sacred images and their icons in the sky. Where they could, you know, revisit them seasonally and geographically as they moved around throughout space and time. And then people started forming these really deep mythologies and cosmologies that weren't just like an interesting part of culture or an intellectual experiment. They were the basis and foundation of human culture. So people would put their rites of passages, their initiations, their life ways, their relationships to ecology all in the sky. I mean, that's why we have a zodiac. It means zodiac. It's the circle of animals. So for, for, you know, a hundred thousand plus years human beings are in this animist culture, living with the animate, living cosmos. And part of that is understanding the whole entire world is alive, and they're in a relational process with the whole entire world. You know, and so then people are like, they're in this like great mythological, mytho poetic journey that is human culture and human cultural reality down here on earth. And then they start developing this divination system based on it, based on the relationship to the sky and the gods in the sky. And one of the ways that they thought about this, a really cross-cultural story, it's so cross-cultural. It's highly likely that it has its origins in Africa. So people that sailed out of Africa, people that walked out of Africa, people that stayed in Africa, like there's certain stories like the great flood, that are so old that they show up everywhere in the world. And we know that we've been carrying those stories for a really long time. And, and one of those stories is the well of souls or the, the river of souls. And so it's the idea that. Our ancestors travel the star path to get here. Our ancestors travel the Milky Way to get here, and they hop off the Milky Way and they enter the solar system. And then when they do, they make agreements with the gods and goddesses of this world and of this plane of existence. And then we take embodiment. And, a lot of the mythologies have beautiful, poetic metaphors of how this happens. For example, the Sisters of Fate are singing the Planetary Orbits in motion, and the Weavers, and they're the daughters of necessity of the great spinner, and so literally the songs are woven into the manifestation and the embodiment of our souls as they land here on earth. And that's an ancestral experience, you know? And so then, we live our life here and What astrology is, is it's a map of that soul level purpose of what we're here to do and the work we have to do here, and the ways we get tested and the trials and tribulations and the karmas we have, and the way that we have to interface with fate and destiny. You know, and, and it's not fatalistic,, but there is some sort of agreement structure and karmic structure that we stepped into as we entered into this lifetime. And then we live our life here and then we die, and then we go through the process of ancestral and then we hop back on the Star River, we hop back on the Milky Way and we go to wherever, you know, different people say different things about where we go, where the soul journey's to and so all that to say that's how deep this is. This is Our souls sojourn and our purpose and the alchemy of our desires, and our work here in this lifetime. And sometimes some of that's really personal and sometimes it's really big and collective. And we're in a moment, we're both, everyone has their personal stuff and we all know we're in the big collective stuff, And what astrology does is it gives us a sense of cosmos. That map. It's not just a personal map, it's a map that's embedded into a whole bigger map of the history of human culture and cultural understanding. And so it's like a cosmology, you know what cosmology means? Cosmos is from the Greek that means adornment. It was the, it was the patterns on a woman's garment. And so, it's the beauty of the celestial weaver. The patterns that are woven into life on earth and the journey of life on earth. And so it's like we lose the threads, right? We get overwhelmed, modern culture, technology, trauma, addictions, pain, escape, all the stuff, you know, like all this stuff. And, and then we wind up numbing out or losing the threads or, or getting lost. I was just listening to a book about Dantes Inferno. We get lost in the dark wood, and, we're here to remember. That's what it is. It's a tool to help us remember who we really are and what we're really here for. And so that deep remembering process, there's a word essis. Essis, it's like the opposite of amnesia, so we go into a state of amnesia, and that's in the mythology too. So many cultures, when you're born up. You have to drink from the river of forgetting or you're born and there comes the angel, Layla and writers are coming out the birth canal. She shushes you and you forget everything. All around the world, human cultures have this understanding. We have these contracts with our ancestors, with the gods. Then we're born and we're born into amnesia, and then we have to remember who we are. It's part of what divination ISS for. It's part of what the elders were for doing divination to help us remember who we are and we're here for, and that's what astrology's for. So it's therapeutic in this way that is so deep. It's not just oh my gosh, I'm not having a mental health crisis. The modern world is spinning out. It's so deep and therapeutic. It's just like, whoa. I'm having this deep remembering of what my soul's purpose actually is and the healing journey I'm on so I can actually, I. Do that soul's purpose and all of these little cycles of time, of all the planets that are bringing up different things in different areas of life. Oh, this is the year I gotta work on my finances. This is the year, either we do the work where a relationship falls apart. This is the year where, I have that health thing coming up that I've been avoiding for 15 years. This is the year. You know, like, and it's all, it's all changing our patterns. Understanding the context and the meaning of changing our patterns, that are woven into us. So that way we do our work and we show up and we actually embody the deepest level of consciousness that we possibly can. And that is a remembering process. And it's, it's a response to amnesia, you know? Does this make sense? Yeah. I'm loving the way you're describing that and. I'm so aware too of, when we have meaning and a sense of purpose, how protective it is for our nervous systems going through difficult times, when we, we understand or have a sense or a calling to, help in a certain way or be in a certain way or live in a certain way. Mm-hmm. That it's connecting us to something so much bigger than the day-to-day stresses or what we're seeing on the news. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that in the way you did. Totally. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's expansive. Mm-hmm. Would you be willing to share, either a personal experience or an experience of your professional work with clients of how, you've been able to. Help wield the, the mystical codes of astrology into someone's personal life to create that kind of profound remembering, of, of what they're doing and why they're here at this specific moment in time. Sure. You know, just the very first thing that, the way you framed that question, the very first thing that jumps out at me was probably last summer. I mean, there's countless examples, but I remember just sitting there on my porch last summer and I am hanging out with a guy who, I can't remember his name, and he was a sweet guy, young man, and he, he was a cancer rising and he had Mars and cancer on his ascendant, and he was going through a, through a progression and. Mars was like retrograding over his ascendant. And I remember, I'm listening to him and he's trying his best to articulate what's going on with his relationship life and his living with his partner and, you know, and he's, and he's very guarded and protected. I can just tell, I'm just really making effort to feel into his heart and get really curious and compassionate. But I can feel his protective layers, and, I'm trying to tease out the images of the recent experiences he's had because, you know, we get heady and we make these big stories and it's all like analyzing other people. And really what we wanna do is get back to these felt sense moments, right? Just like in therapy, you know? You just get to these like felt sense moments that have emotional charge to them. And there's usually some sort of image or imagery, or somatic experience, in those moments, and, and we're, he's describing something that just recently happened, and then I look at him with Mars in cancer, retrograding over his ascendants, and I just say to him, gosh, you know, you just don't feel safe in your relationship, do you? And he, he stands up and is just like, whoa, whoa. What did you just say? Oh my gosh. Oh my God. He starts crying. He's like. You know, and to an astrologer, it's like so obvious, because we know Mars is about protection and boundaries and conflict and, and then we know cancer is about those really tender little spots, and what actually cultivates safety and care and reciprocity of care. And so, I'm just thinking about the dignity of Maoris and cancer and the way that ancients would talk about it and, what can be challenging about it, And I just kind of tapped into his, he just needed someone to validate it and see it outside of himself and be able to speak to it in simple terms to say, whoa, hey, you're not feeling safe right now, are you? You know, and he wasn't necessarily coming from some super emotionally savvy or sophisticated place in life,, but. He's a human being with a heart and knows what he feels. And just hearing someone reflect back to him with confidence and rapport, like, bro, this is what the map says. You resonate with this. And it's just completely opens up this whole new paradigm for him to really even think about, his relationship life and what he's here to figure out and learn and work on and what's going on in his life, mm-hmm. Yeah. The, the mirrors really can be so profound. So thank you for that reminder. And I've heard a lot of astrologers say that astrology doesn't make things happen. It's a mirror for what is happening. And so the mirrors are healing and profound when they're clear and accurate, and we're ready to see Totally. Do you wanna hear another kind of a similar thing, but an interesting story that's kind of like dipping into the, the mystical side of astrology? That's a fun story to hear. Yeah, sure. So, so two weeks ago, or no, sorry, two months ago, you know how Venus was retrograding in Pisces the end of this winter, and so I was doing, I was doing a storytelling event called, hoarding the Morning Star. And it was basically me wrapping about the mythology of Venus and just trying to spread wisdom about the way different cultures think about Venus and adding a lot of nuance, to like venu and things in life and, and some, I'm in Savannah, Georgia doing a storytelling event down there. And it's my last day there and I'm at the park in downtown Savannah at for Forsyth Park, and the azaleas are going off. And so the live oak trees and the azaleas and, and I'm like sitting in the park and I'm like, you know, I should go to the park and do some yoga and I should go, um, contemplate, Venus stuff for this upcoming storytelling event and see what I wanna send to this big live oak tree and see what comes, you know? And so I'm in the park and I just have this specific intention of, I'm just trying to drop in with Venus, and, and mind you, while this is happening, this is really interesting. While this is happening, Jupiter in the sky is exactly on my natal Venus. So Jupiter and Gemini was exactly on my natal Venus. And I'm like, huh? Damn it, Frank, if this doesn't give you some insight and depth of, a Jupiter download about Venus in your life, I don't know what will, like this is the once every 12 years, let's drop some wisdom on his Venus, and so, so I'm sitting there aware of this, but, not expecting anything but just trying to open up to the field. And so I'm like, you know, I'm just gonna go to the park and I'm going to gather up a bunch of the azalea petals from one of the nearby cemeteries, and go decorate this huge, it's the biggest live oak tree in Forseth Park that I always, I always go dance with and do yoga under and meditate under when I'm in town in Savannah and, and I'm there and I'm putting all these pedals under the tree. And, and I'm just kind of praying with them and just kind of decorating. I'm just decorating this big old tree and saying, thanks for being here. You know, then I sit down and I start writing and I start getting a bunch of insights and contemplations rolling in, and I'm thinking about, these different layers of mythology around Venus. And I'm, I'm writing to myself and I see someone in my peripheral vision walking up towards me and I'm kind of thinking, oh gosh, I'm in a park. I don't wanna be bothered right now. And, I look up right as the person that's obviously approaching me, and can't be ignored anymore, and I look up and it's this man, and he's a 46-year-old African American man, and his name's Walter. And he, he walks up to me and he gives me a fist bump. He's like, Hey, what's going on? And I'm like, oh, hey, what's up? And he goes, I shit you not, it was so, it was so clever and fun. He's just like, you know, I can see something that you're a genius. Like really? You in touch with your genie? I was like, I was like, okay, you got my attention. What's up? You know? And I'm like, I like this guy. And I'm like, what's up? And he's like, I know because I'm a genius too. And I know how to be in touch with my genie. And I'm like, okay, cool. What's, what's that about? And he starts telling me his life story and he starts telling me, when I was a kid, I was recognized in my school. As kind of like a gifted child, and, and child prodigy, I was just a smart kid, you know, and my family wasn't rich. But they took me in this program, some guidance counselors or whoever recognized me and they put me in this program that was the gifted, like Governor's academy, where all the smart kids and who are mostly of a higher socioeconomic status, mostly privileged kids, were in the fancy gifted Governor's Academy program thing, right? And he's like, they put me in there with these other kids and he's like, and so, you know, I did all the, had all these special classes, but what I liked most was art. And art was just always what I wanted to do. And so when I was in high school, the scad, the Savannah School of Art and Design, recruiters, you know, it's a famous art school in Savannah, like international art school. Really pricey, and he is like, so the SCAD recruiters found me and my art when I was in high school and they gave me a full scholarship to go to Scab, but it didn't cover, it covered the tuition, but it didn't cover the, room and board. And so my family didn't have the resources to pay for that first year where you have to live on campus and pay for room and board. And so I never got to go, Like, think of that, you know, that's so real, that is so real, how privilege works in our culture, and so even when you get the full scholarship, you still can't afford the five grand from, for room and board or whatever, and so he's telling me all this, and he's bringing tears to my eyes. I'm really feeling it. And I'm like, like thanks to this guy for rolling up and just sharing his life and being vulnerable and feeling it, and, and, and I forget all about Venus, you know, and I'm just talking to him. And so then he, he's telling me this, other things about his life and he's asking me questions about my life, and we start talking about astrology, and he was asking me what I was doing and, and what I'm into. And, and so it's interesting though. So he says to me, he says, you know how I knew that you were in touch with your genius and your inner genie? And I was like, how? And he was like, because I saw you putting flowers on that tree over there, and I saw you recognizing that tree. And then I saw you come over and sit down and start writing and getting a bunch of ideas and thinking. And he's like, I know what's going on. You know, you're,. In a relationship with that tree, and you're getting downloads, you know? And I was just like, man, dude, you're awesome. You're observant. No one else is gonna notice that in the park, and I just kinda feel like a weirdo, and he's totally recognizing, and so, so then here's the cool thing is that then we're talking and I'm like, well, what do you do now? And he's like, oh, I paint still, but I don't paint fine art. Like my dream, what I do is I paint these houses and he's like these beautiful houses in downtown Savannah. I have a painting company with my friend and, and we just hang out and we paint these epically beautiful houses and we hang out in the, on scaffolding, in the canopy of these live oaks with the birds. And he was like, I love it. even though I didn't get to be a famous artist, I'm still loving my life and getting the paint and just being here and like in this place and. And even though he is in a city, still in this communing with nature in a very deep way. And so then I'm noticing right before he leaves, I noticed the whole time he's holding a bouquet of flowers. And I'm just like, what's with the flowers man? And he's like, well, you see that, little, archway over there in the park, like a little metal archway. And it was all covered in flowers and like in a big patch of azaleas. And he's like, you know what I like to do? Sometimes I come down here and I hang out in the park and I get flowers. I just pass'em out to people. I like to see couples walking through the park and I hand them, a bouquet of flowers and ask'em if I want, if they want me to take their picture under a live oak tree or under the archway of flowers, and he's like, I just sometimes come down here on a Sunday and spend a couple hours and. Hand out flowers, and so here I am sitting here with this guy who is connected to nature, is an artist in many ways, was a child art prodigy and who is hanging out at the park handing out flowers to people and to lovers, and it just dawns on me. Like the thought I have is like, oh, Venus, you clever little shapeshifter. You, you know, like, like, you know, like Walter is Venus, yeah. Could you imagine a deeper embodiment of Ian Energy than this guy strolling up interrupting me when I think I'm writing all my important notes down, you know? And, that's how it works. That's how real astrology is. And if you pay attention to all these cycles of time and what's going on in your chart, it's like. The planets literally come down and embody and show up in your life in all of these subtle, amazing, sophisticated, nuanced ways if you're paying attention, mm-hmm. That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that story. Yeah. It reminds me of that Bjork song, Venus as a Boy, he believes in a beauty like Walter is Venus as a boy. Totally. Yeah. I love that. How you can start to see the embodiments of these energies and people, and obviously people are very complex and we have all of the energies in us to some degree, so to see how, you know, the patterns, elicit different human behaviors and tendencies and, and approaches to life, is something I find really appealing about astrology. For sure. So, so zooming out a little bit, thank you for sharing those personal stories and I'd love to zoom back out and just look at this specific, snapshot of time that we're in right now and see if you have any advice for our listeners. Obviously not knowing their specific birth charts and, and everything, but just from a general collective perspective, what advice would you give from what you're glimping from the, the teachings of the patterns right now, to everybody and maybe as part of that, Frank mm-hmm. What you see, we're in this time of great mystery. But when you look at the astrology of the future, five years from now, 10 years from now. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What do you see and feel when you see that? Yeah. I mean, so I feel like, I think that because of the, what I call the trauma machine of civilization, that we get very stuck and contracted into certain ways that we think we have to survive and live. And, it's not totally in alignment with our evolutionary biology and just who we really are and our authenticity as both creature bodies and spiritual beings. And, you know, I'm just reading this book by Martha Beck, the Way of Integrity. She's like a famous Oprah book club kind of vibe, you know? And, she's all about I. Get out of the hustle. That contraction of time and space is the hustle, and it's the thing that keeps you in a trauma pattern and in, in a, a hypervigilant urgency and busyness that doesn't let you slow down to actually feel into what's really going on in your personal life and in the larger world. And I think that, I think what's happening, I think COVID was part of this. I think that the political reality that feels so unstable is part of this. I think the economic reality that feels so, you know, unstable or chaotic as part of this, I think that we are in completely uncharted waters and who really knows what's happening with artificial intelligence, or dare I say, extraterrestrials. Or, you know, avatars of spiritual beings, that are anchored into the earth, into certain, spiritual, emissaries and ambassadors. Um, like who really knows what's happening and how much these historical systems are changing like capitalism or civilized economics, gender, private property, the way human beings organize themselves, with categories of ethnicity. I just think we're at a time where pretty much anything's fair game and everything is getting turned inside out and upside down. And we are entering into, you know, it's a little bit of like the age of chaos, but when you study the great yugas and the great cycles of time and the great ages. And, all these things that are cosmologically and astrologically based. I mean, it's not just the Mayan 20 20, 20 12 calendar. There's all kind of calendar systems getting reset, in this century or in this decade. And I think when you really get into all of it, and then you just see what's emerging right now in the field of human consciousness and in, life on earth. We're gonna see all of the attachments to outdated patterns start to get, they're gonna break down and they're gonna get ripped away from us. And it's kind of like those old fairy tales when it's like, if you're gonna get tossed in the alchemical vessel. You better not go kicking and screaming and whining the whole time. You better take heart and get courage and go jump in the vessel, you know? Mm-hmm. And that's the test, and that's where we're at right now. It's like, okay, I know everything in my trauma body is contracting down once Oversimplified, stability wants the outdated systems to stick around because I can't imagine anything else. It's hard to, but it really is just kind of being open to, I think in midst the chaos is actually a deeper cosmology and being open to, let Siren Neptune work their way. You know, let Jupiter work its way, let Uranus in Gemini, do its thing we are entering into. Rapid technological change, and we're entering into, a radical change in socioeconomic arrangements. And I think that there's a few guaranteed things you can do. One, don't seek power and control, two, get out of the hustle. Three, expand your capacity for grief, because that's all it is. It's change. And if you're actually in love with the world, if you are in love with life, it's just grief because you're just witnessing change, and four, don't get lost in morality, and remember that real ethics. Is, is not a dogmatic system coming from a religion or any sort of fundamentalist political ideology or religious ideology. But it's actually, you know, James Hillman, the famous archetypal psychologist and protege, to Carl Young, would say this. It's the aesthetics of the heart. That's what Walter was tuned into, right? Walter was attuned. That's, that's Venus rules the heart chakra. It's the aesthetics of the heart. That's your compass. You just need to know what feels beautiful and what feels ugly, and don't get lost in the internet in conspiracy theories and ideologies. And remember to just always take it back to your heart and slow down enough to actually feel your heart and to actually feel, Hey, that feels ugly. Drop'em bombs on innocent children. Mm. I don't really need an ethical or political ideology to justify that or not. I just need to know. That's ugly. I'm not down with that, and I don't know necessarily what to do about it, but I'm also not gonna be afraid to feel into the grief of it, and, and all of us, whether we're talking big picture stuff of the human journey, or our personal lives and our relationship containers, and our families and all the stuff, and the natural disasters and we're just in it. So it's like brief integrity, aesthetics and the heart chakra. These are the things that we know, you know, quietness and stillness. These are the retreat, you know, pilgrimage. Take a walk, take many little pilgrimages throughout the week through the woods, near your house or through a city park. Take big pilgrimages if you can get the time off and. I'm gonna go next week and sit in a cave and meditate in the dark for a week. It's my birthday. I do it every year for my birthday. It always gives me a little,, it gives me a little kind of mystical recharge and a deeper attunement to understanding what my life is about and what's going on in the world. So that's a kind of extreme one to go sit literally in a cave in the dark with no food for a week. But that's how I like to do it. But some people just go to a VA pasta retreat, some people, you know, there's so many different types of ways to, to take pilgrimage and, and sanctuary and retreat and, and so make space for those things amidst paying the bills and, and growing the food. You know, beo, ku, this, this social theorist, he says things are all urgent and it's really important and moving fast. So it's time to slow down. You know, like that's it. Mm-hmm. The urgency is real and it's also kind of an illusion. So let's all slow down, hmm. Well said. Love that. Yeah. Yeah. Words of wisdom. Thank you for breaking it down like that. I think, I'm gonna take that to heart and those are all really good reminders. You know, there's one other thing I do wanna mention it's the heaviness and the gravity of the moment is that Aries is the god of war and Saturn and Neptune cycles. They can really be serious war cycles. I'm not gonna go into the history of it all right now, but you can find really skilled historian astrologers on YouTube talking about this, but we're entering, wasn't the American Revolutionary War during that cycle last It did. Well, well what, what's crazy is that there's the cycle of, yeah, there's Neptune going into Aries, but then there's also Uranus going into Gemini, which is a, a war cycle for American history. The War of Independence, the Civil War and World War II all happened during Uranus and Gemini. And that starts in two months or something, I think in June or July. So yeah, there's multiple cycles. Uranus is involved. Pluto and Aquarius correlates with the expansion of weapons technologies every 250 years, Pluto goes into Aquarius. It's crazy new innovative weapon technologies. Uranus in, in Gemini is the United States going to war Saturn and Neptune is serious wartime. So basically every single outer planet is lining itself up right now for potentially serious global conflict. And I'm not trying to sound all doom and gloom and we do live in unprecedented turf. So who knows what's gonna happen, but let's just be real here. You know, humanity's on edge and, and there's a lot of war cycles lining up. And so my advice is don't take the bait, don't take the bait. Anyone who is pointing fingers at anyone else with anger, that's just instant. I don't trust that. blame and shame and scapegoating and, anything that could lead to dysregulated conflict vibes that's not what we need right now. So. So remember that. Yeah. As you know, political leaders are doing their things and religious leaders are doing their things, and there's a lot of people feeling righteous indignation for very good reasons and upset and angry, but don't take the debate of the war machine. Right. And as you said before, each individual is a, is a culture maker, and we have a choice of how we work with those energies in ourselves. And I, I think a lot of the mainstream perspectives misconstrue astrology and saying that, it is your destiny, or it is your fate to have war when you're approaching a big war cycle. Or to have a divorce when you're, you know, relationship cycles and conflict or whatever. And I think it's actually the exact opposite. It's empowering the individual to know. How to approach those energies with conscious awareness of what they really want. Like I personally just left a really huge sort of relationship, radical change, upheaval cycle, and I was mm-hmm. Tracking the astrology very closely and seeing, okay, this is a high pressure situation. It can make or break my relationship. So I have to be super diligent about staying in my lane, looking out for all the booby traps of, like you said, blame, shame,, otherizing, projecting shadows and everything. And just really, focus on deep visualization of the low I want in my life. And hold that above all else and, and let go and just accept, you know, whatever may come as long as I am staying true to my vision of a pure love that I want in my life. And I'm still married, so I'm living proof that we can go through really intense conflict cycles, and, and be more peaceful and harmonious as a result if you, are willing to look inward and, and find your own personal responsibility in creating your reality. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I like the phrase, you choose the clean pain, don't do the dirty pain. Mm. It really helps you sit in the alchemical vessel of it and it really works you over and you do wind up in conflict with human beings and you do wind up. Pain and repair and forgiveness and, all these things that can forge stronger ties of intimacy and connection and interdependency, yeah, yeah. Well thanks for that insight and, and I definitely don't read the pattern that you illustrated about war as a, as a kind of death sentence for, you know, whoever might, be sucked into war. But I see it really as, as a strong call to, finding a new way, finding a new way to deal with conflict. And, we do have. Influence each individual has an influence on the collective. You know, I may not be able to control what the government does, no matter how many petitions I sign or rallies I attend, or letters I write to my senators. But, my intentions, my prayers, my, ability to walk in integrity in my life, is I believe contributing even greater than any bills that are signed by our Congress or president or whatever. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you again, Frank, for all that you shared today. I really appreciate your perspective on astrology and how we can use it wisely. Not to decide that we know everything that's about to happen, but to really be humbled by the, the mystery in the patterns, you know? And to go within ourselves to, to find those opportunities for showing up in a new way. Yeah, totally. Yeah. You know, something else that I was thinking about that would probably be good to share, that was just kind of like this idea that it's it's kind of back in line with the question of how it really helps to support us personally and, and therapeutically. And I Very explicitly think of the planets as essentially The primary psychosomatic parts of the psyche. And so all the parts work, inner family systems kind of stuff. I mean, I've spent I don't know really about, I've been thinking about this for about four years now. Pretty much every chart I look at, I look at through the lens of inner family systems and developmental trauma models and stuff, and, and it's really interesting when you start doing that, kind of taking the most cutting edge, psychology to it, which is what they did back in the sixties and seventies when they were like, really the west was kind of rediscovering and using Jungian psychology for, with astrology for the first time. You know? And, it's interesting because what it's really about more than anything is, is expanding identity. Opening up imagination and really that the power of what imagination really is. James Hillman, the father of archetypal psychology would rap about this a lot. And it's like there's all these ways that we reduce ourselves down and we limit ourselves and we create one dimensional or two dimensional ways of thinking and being in the world, You know, young would even use the phrase, feeling tone complexes, like these maladaptive emotional states we get all wound up in and lost in, and we over identify because, because basically, we get possessed and like, you know, the word raha in Sanskrit, which means planet. I mean, this is crazy. The word planet in Sanskrit means to grasp and possess. Because that's what winds up happening. When we get imbalanced and one planet takes over and we contract down our identity, and we rely too heavily on one part of our psyche, or one part of our consciousness is we basically get a Mars possession and you're lost in rage, or a Venus possession and you're lost in addiction or codependency, and so what astrology really does in a lot of ways is it helps you open up the map so you see you can expand your imagination and see all these different parts of you and realize that you're like a temple. You're like a whole pantheon inside yourself, you know? And the Game is balancing and maturing those energies inside yourself, so there's all these mystical. Illuminating, insightful, ways to work with it as a divination system. And then there's also really just the practical, oh, you got Mars in the 12th house. Okay, you're having trouble feeling motivated, and you're lost in frustration., What you need to do is get to the 12th house, go to nature, get out of mainstream society, go exercise, go run on a Forest service road. You know, that's Mars getting your heartbeat up. Training in the 12th house, way out in nature. You're jogging on a forest trail, and so there's these practical things to realize, oh, you're stuck. Oh, you're heat deficient. Oh, you can't handle your frustration in a good way. Go run in nature. It's in your chart. It's a part of your psyche. You're not honoring right now, you know? And so that's this whole part of it that's really fun to play with. That's really helpful too when we talk about just how astrology is useful is it's really practical, you know? Yeah. I, I love it as the mirror that can show you where your shadow and your gifts lie.'cause any kind of good divination is going to do that. It's gonna kinda show you the thing you already know, but it's hard to be consciously, in control over or claim. And then just like that example you gave of the person you were talking to about Mars and cancer on his ascendant, it was just that there can be these profound aha moments. So. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I love, the, the prescriptive side of astrology.'cause it can, it can be. So clear. It's like when you go to acupuncturist and they read your pulses and look at your tongue and they're just like, oh, this is going on for you. You're like, thank goodness I didn't have to spend$500 on lab work. You can just look at my tongue and read my pulses and no. Yeah. I love that. It's, it's a relief when, you can, you can glimpse into what's going on in yourself in ways that you're not consciously aware of so easily. For sure. Yeah. Well, thank you for, spending some of your precious time with us today. And I just wanna offer our listeners a chance to find you and the work you do on the interwebs. So if anybody was inspired by what you shared today, they can, they can make that connection. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, it's just medicine@starryheavens.com. So. Nice. Yeah. Well, we'll also type that out in our show notes so people can just have a link to that. But it's been wonderful, Frank and maybe we'll check back in with you in a little while when the, when the obvious effects of this big transition are upon us and we can maybe strategize where to take it from there. Yeah, totally. Sounds good. Yeah, thanks for having me. This was super fun. I appreciate y'all all right. Bye Frank. See you, my friend. Be well. Make sure you subscribe, like and share the video for more content!