Steven Forrest Evolutionary Astrology Podcast

The nodes of the Moon play a pivotal role in evolutionary astrology. We couldn’t do the magic we do without them. But should you use the Mean node or the True one? In practical terms, that might not seem like an important question since the difference between them is generally small – their maximum possible separation is only 1 degree 45 minutes and it’s usually a lot less. On top of that, the nee...

The fabled Age of Aquarius – does it mean anything at all? Ever since the musical Hair was first performed back in 1967, there has been a vague sense that the Aquarian Age had something to do with hippies or free love or world peace or . . . something. Anyway, from that Boomer point of view, the Age of Aquarius probably ended about fifty years ago . . . that is, unless you bring up the subject amo...

After spending eight years in the sign Aries, on June 19 Chiron finally dipped its toes into Taurus – but it will only be there for about twelve weeks before returning to Aries on September 17. We’ll have to wait until mid-April 2027 before Chiron settles in for its seven year passage through the sign of the Bull. It first touches Gemini in July 2033, but soon returns to Taurus, and only arrives s...

That title got your attention right away, didn’t it? Many people would rather talk about anything if it meant that they could avoid a true heart-to-heart discussion about death. Even astrologers aren’t immune. We learn in our early days of study that death is the domain of the 8th house, but discussions about that house often quickly veer off into the safer territory of symbolic deaths – endings m...

Back in 2020 when Covid ruled the earth, Michelle and I adopted a kitten named Benny. We only knew the approximate date of his birth, but naturally we wanted to come up with a chart for him. What astrologer could resist that temptation?  Normally when astrologers lack a time of birth for someone, they employ the technique called rectification – a technical process which involves working backward t...

My online school, The Forrest Center for Evolutionary Astrology, is blessed to have Mister Sagittarius himself, Ryan Evans, as one of our tutors. True to his Sun Sign, Ryan is an ace at asking the really big questions. A few months ago, I got the following email from him. In it, he raised an issue that could not possibly lie any closer to the heart of evolutionary astrology: I have a question rega...

Since early 2025, Steven Forrest has been at work composing and recording an astrological song-cycle. You can find it where you stream music, including Apple Music or Spotify by searching for “Ten Planets, Ten Songs”. Astrology sometimes gets a little top-heavy intellectually, and yet it’s as much about the seasons of the human heart as it is about insights and theories. Steven's books speak to yo...

Which astrological house represents your aunts and uncles? The traditional answer is the 6th house. The reasoning behind that idea is a classic illustration of the theory behind  derived houses. It goes as follows.   Your home – and thus your parents – is represented by the 4th house. The 3rd house refers to siblings. Who are your aunt and uncles? They’re your parents’ brothers and sisters. Thus y...

A reader named Clarissa invited me to write about a subject I’ve not explored here before – the Part of Fortune. Let me start off by saying that it’s a technique that’s fallen out of my arsenal over the years. That’s not because I found it ineffective – with some modern tweaks, I think it’s a useful astrological tool. In essence, I stopped using it because I found I was getting to pretty much the...

How did an early Christian martyr's feast day morph into a celebration of romantic love? The route was circuitous. Look it up if you’re interested, but that’s not what I want to write about in this newsletter. What I want to write about is affectionate life-partnerships, the kinds that endure through the years.  Perspective: you might find yourself at a wedding. Even if you’re full of bright hopes...

Artificial intelligence – does it spell evil hyper-intelligent machines deciding that humanity’s messy days on Earth need to come to an end? Or will it give us the cure for cancer, effective environmental solutions, and warp drive to carry us to the stars? I don’t know, you don’t know – and neither do the legions of boosters and doomsayers who claim that they know.  Here’s a far smaller question:...

So there I was, just twenty-three months old and the King of the World. I had a pair of doting giants trained to meet my every need. One whimper and I instantly became the center of the universe. But trouble was brewing in paradise and I knew it. My mother had entered her second trimester, pregnant with The Interloper: my sister Jan was on the way and my kingdom would soon be ripped in half.    Ri...

“As above, so below” – those four familiar words are really the heart of astrology. What happens above us in the sky is mirrored here on earth below. That’s true both in terms of events and also in terms of the seasons of our own minds and hearts. We astrologers normally apply that principle in practical terms by watching the planets dance with each other as they flow through through the twelve zo...

When your world is lit up with squares and oppositions, sleeping through sextiles happens almost automatically. With hard aspects, your foot is in the fire. You’re highly motivated to act, in other words. Softer aspects aren’t nearly as pressing. You can think of them more as opportunities than as demands.  Still, missed opportunities are actually huge events. It’s just that they are often disguis...

“I always do what the voices in my head tell me what to do.” That’s become a familiar gag line. I don’t want to recommend psychosis as a lifestyle, but recently while rereading Carl Jung’s biography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, I was struck by how much emphasis he puts on trusting cues from the unconscious mind even when they don’t seem to make any rational sense. There’s one such cue that has...

Astrologers sometimes get carried away and say that every chart is totally unique. That’s not really true. Obviously it’s possible for two people to be born at the same place and time – or at least close enough that there’s no real practical difference between their charts. Even people born a few days apart, but with the same degrees on their Ascendants, will have extremely similar charts. Their M...

Jupiter entered Cancer on June 9 and it will remain there until it enters Leo on June 29, 2026. In keeping with the planet’s benign reputation, its twelve-year orbit conveniently gives it about one year in each sign.  Traditionally, Jupiter brings luck, and there’s some truth in that notion – with a few provisos. First, what exactly do we mean by luck? During a big Jupiter transit, maybe someone w...

Want to have Steven Forrest in your pocket? That’s how many early adopters have described LILA (say: LEE-la), our astrological mobile app for iPhones and Androids. To spread the word about it, we’re giving away a free four-month subscription to anyone who wants one, no strings attached. Just hit this link and it’s all yours. https://link.lilaverse.app/Steven120 Please give it a try. There are some...

My #1 Nightmare: We’re getting married on Saturday! Is that a good time? What can I possibly say?  Here, we are entering the realm of electional astrology – the art of choosing the right time to take an action. Astrologically, time weaves an ever-shifting labyrinth of red lights and green lights, but the lights are more often red than green. Bottom line, the odds are long against the happy couple...

Sometimes it’s good to be wrong. I used to get up on my high horse about the spiritual emptiness of Zoom events. My favorite line was that human relationships could not be reduced to an audio track and a video track – that if all we have are those two channels, something precious and intangible was missing. I still believe that there is truth in that attitude, but I’ll admit I’ve had to eat my wor...

The lunar nodes shifting into a new pair of signs is always a big deal. It happens every year and a half or so, and it impacts everybody, both personally and in the world’s headlines. A few weeks back, on January 28, the Moon’s (Mean) north node crossed the line and entered Pisces, where it will remain until it transitions into Aquarius on August 18, 2026. (The south node entered the opposite sign...

Pluto, the “Lord of the Underworld,” was discovered on February 18, 1930 and announced publicly on March 13 of that year. While the exact dates are of limited importance in our work, Pluto’s discovery itself was momentous. From the astrological perspective, it marks nothing less than the collective human discovery of the unconscious mind. In essence, with the discovery of Pluto, we are talking abo...

I cringe whenever I hear an astrologer call Mars a “malefic” planet. Mars can bring us so many gifts, starting with the courage to stand up for ourselves. It's got a dark side though – so do all the planets. Where Mars lies in your chart, you’ll definitely need some of that courage. That’s because Mars usually marks a place in your life where you’ll face some serious stress. Nobody enjoys that, ev...

How many books on your astrology shelf contain a phrase like this one: If your Mercury is in Gemini or the 3rd House . . .? With two cents’ worth of logic, the conclusion is inescapable: the author is telling you that the two configurations mean the same thing. If A equals both B and C, then B equals C and there’s not a single scrap of wiggle room about that anywhere. The trouble is that in this c...

The 2:14 PM time of birth I use here for mystery writer Agatha Christie is new information. When I wrote about her in Yesterday’s Sky in early 2008, I used her then-current birth time of 4:00 AM, which I found on seemingly good authority. Later, it emerged that "a midwife named Mrs. Shelton-Price who, according to her bill, had charged one crown and two shillings to deliver Agatha Mary Clarissa Mi...