The Maze of Astrological Forecasting
My astrology teaching has been focused a lot on forecasting lately - I gave a seminar, I’m giving some workshops, and I’ll be co-teaching a masterclass on interpretation which includes forecasting at Summer School. Not to mention the usual classes teaching and preparing chart readings for clients which always include a look at the current forecast. It’s fair to say I might be getting a bit obsessed. And what obsesses me about forecasting is not just a happy geeking out over the technicalities (although I can’t deny there’s that too…) but the best way to bring all the data together. In my forecasts, I use transits and progressions, and solar return charts, and solar arc directions. That’s a lot of information, even for, say, a six month forecast. It’s easy to get overwhelmed, to lose track of what’s most important, to get tangled up in a knot of progressed moon and minor aspect transits and solar arc directed aspects to natal planets and and and…
So I thought I would share some of my strategies for finding a way through the maze, for clearing a path through the tangle. For cutting through the overwhelm and the information overload. I’m hoping this will be a series here on the blog and will help folk working with their own charts as well as students of astrology. As with so much in astrology, creating a container or structure for the information we gather can be a powerful way of awakening our intuition. Going through the process of collecting the forecast data and finding the resonant symbolism gives us a sense of the story playing out around the chart right now, the way that this particular natal chart is showing up at this particular moment in time.
There’s a truism that when we look at a natal chart, finding similar symbolism showing up at least 3 times proves that we’re on to something, that this is an important theme in the chart owner’s life. Gemini rising, a strong third house, and Mercury at home in Virgo for example - here is someone deeply concerned with the development and sharing of ideas. The same goes for forecasting - Pluto transiting our Sun, the progressed Moon moving into Scorpio, and Pluto prominent in our solar return chart tells us we are on an underworld journey or undergoing a phase of deep transformation.
In fact to backtrack just a little, a good forecast always starts with the natal chart. If we’re not familiar with the main themes and key factors which are most prominent in a natal chart, it’s hard to know what will be most prominent in our forecast. What’s most important in a particular chart varies - whilst the Ascendant, Sun, and Moon, for example, will always be prominent, every chart is unique. A planet that is involved in one or even more aspect patterns, a planet close to an angle, a planet in dignity or debility - all of these will be more visible and the symbolism they carry will be an important part of our developing journey. So it follows that these prominent planets will be more prominent in our forecast, even if they are not at the top of our “standard” list of what is prominent in the natal chart.
In the next article, I’ll have a look at some of the main forecasting techniques and the information each brings us. And where to start figuring out what might be most important!