One of the best astrology radio shows in the world is yours to download as a podcast from iTunes or listen to on your computer now. It’s called Astrology: The Theory of Everything and it’s hosted by Janey C. McCarthy, MEd and Mary Jo Wevers, PhD.
The talk show pulls in astrologers from around the world, like me (I’m talking about Sun Sign astrology in the July 2015 show) and other writers, lecturers and professional stargazers. Janey met Mary Jo in 2003 in Vermont and it was so astrologically significant they put the story into their very first show. Both are professional astrologers in their own right with a Jungian perspective. They have also had some intriguing guests, like Hank Friedman.
Janey, what did you learn about the interview with Hank Friedman?
Hank Friedman, “The Practical Psychic”, exemplifies the frequency in which Astrologers are discovering and incorporating their intuitive and psychic gifts into their practices.
Astrologers can be much more than number crunchers, data analyzers, and predictors of future events. Our clients need more from us than a description of WHAT’s going on. They want to understand WHY they are stuck in disharmonious patterns, and HOW they can be more effective change agents in their own lives.
We, as Astrologers, can provide those answers from their chart(s). What I also think is of critical importance is to actually help them manifest those changes, not merely leave them in a heightened state of awareness.
When my intuition and psychic gifts join the client session, I have deepened the conversation to include their soul. This is the collective ‘one-ness’ that partners with their soul’s co-creative presence. A more purposeful life story unfolds in their Collective Unconscious. ‘Listening’ becomes ‘Active Listening’ – they begin to ‘hear’ their soul’s compelling demand to change!
Maybe, they too are hearing ‘The Voice of God’ (Uranus) ?
Eric Francis and Christine Payne-Towler were also guests – what did you discover about the history of astrology that you didn’t know?
I was aware of the monumental impact Astrology had on the development and advancement of numerous sciences – astronomy, mathematics, botany, medicine, psychology. How the Mesopotamians, Egyptians and Greeks provided civilizations with thousands of years of observational data (Ephemeris), for navigational charting, and developing a universal method of notation.
Yet never had I heard the arena of “Politics” described as a “Priestly Art”. History explains, men who displayed a mathematical ability were drawn into this very exclusive (astrological) priesthood to learn celestial time tracking and the notational methodology used to advise kings, popes, and rulers, of future events. Christine Payne-Towler explained “All theocratic societies understood that politics was a means of manipulating…and magically controlling …how we see the future through understanding what’s happened in the (celestial) past.” She added that the poor man’s corollary to Astrology, Tarot, was designed to have the Emperor card, followed by the Hierophant (i.e. the Astrologer), as “the power behind the throne”.
Jung is important to both of you, I know. Why do you think he has such enduring appeal?
I believe the individual and collective pursuit of the psyche’s evolution, has never been better understood nor explained, in the history of our species, than by Carl Gustav Jung.
Mankind’s most persistent and enduring questions have ALL revolved around relatedness…to others, ourselves, and our environment.
Jung demonstrated the existence of a universal mind (Collective Unconscious) which unites us in time and space. His methodology, to identify our behavioral patterns and depersonalize our most personally challenging issues (Projection), initially directs us onto an externalized path of relationship analysis. How many of us would have the courage to look into the eyes of our own demons first?
Decoding dreams, to receive repressed and suppressed messages from our unconscious, provided access to current and prior life (karmic) themes, which once again, we might not have had the stomach to approach head on.
Lastly, his psyche-centric theory of ‘Individuation’, put front and center, the relationship he believed was of utmost importance. The relationship with OurSelves.
Did you elect the start date of the show, Mary Jo, on June 16th 2015?
Absolutely! We paid close attention to the planetary energies at hand.
We had been enjoying monthly phone conversations with each other on astrological topics for a couple years. Last October we began talking about ways to manifest Janey’s long standing dream of creating a platform to bring astrologers together, to promote the profession of astrology, and to expand our conversation with each other into a public discussion. I was growing dissatisfied with the classes and workshops I had been giving, and was searching for another avenue to engage with my three planets in Gemini (Mercury, Venus, Jupiter) in my 5th House of creativity and self-expression. I also wanted to challenge myself to take myself out into the world, to move beyond my old fears of keeping my astrology private and under wraps.
Over the next few months, as Jupiter was moving retrograde in Leo, we explored options, but were not finding a good fit. I was approached in March of this year by VoiceAmerica to be one of their radio talk show hosts. At first my mind dismissed the idea, but something inside me really vibrated in a positive, happy way, and I immediately thought of Janey and our desire to create something together. I contacted VoiceAmerica, and Janey and I spend the rest of the Jupiter retrograde in discussion with our executive producer. Once we decided we wanted to go for it, I knew we needed to have our proposal to him when Jupiter stationed direct. We did, and he presented it to the VoiceAmerica team just as Jupiter stationed direct in early April. He was so excited with their enthusiastic reception of our proposal for our show, he called us right away and we got to work.
Our producer wanted to schedule the show’s launch date for late spring, early summer for marketing reasons. However I was concerned with starting a radio show during a Mercury Rx in Gemini, so we put off the first show until Mercury was moving direct. Our first show aired June 18, 2015.
From the beginning we wanted to have show topics align with the current Sun sign. However we wanted to begin this venture with more energy, excitement, and fun than we felt the sign of Cancer would provide, and so scheduled 5 weeks of “foundational” show topics before kicking off our monthly show topic format when the Sun entered Leo!
You have had some great guests – what did you find out about astronomy and astrology from Brett Joseph?
Brett Joseph has a very engaging way of telling myths and stories that invite listeners to look up into the sky, engage with the planets and stars, and then bring it down to earth in personally meaningful ways. He describes the relationship between astronomy and astrology in this way: “Astronomy is like a glove, and astrology is the living hand inside the glove. Mythology is the blood flowing through the hand.” I think this is a great metaphor for how the three are related, and together bring richness and meaning to our lives.
And about the profession of astrology, from Maurice Hernandez?
I was excited to learn from Maurice Hernandez how the profession of astrology has been changing. There are so many more resources now with the internet, for people to study astrology and connect with teachers, mentors, and schools, and to expand their studies in areas beyond astrology. I am also impressed with the generosity of spirit professional astrologers like Maurice have, sharing their personal path in astrology and supporting others in finding their own.
Mary Jo, I am intrigued by your work with ancestors and wonder what you look at in the horoscope regarding this and how you work with it.
Both Janey and I were trained as karmic astrologers. We see the natal horoscope not only as a map of our potential in this lifetime, but of our karmic past, and the issues our Soul or higher self would like us to work with in this lifetime. Some people use the phrase “past lives” to describe where our energy came from. Some prefer to call it their legacy, coming from their family line or ancestors. Either way, we view humans as spiritual beings having experienced, in some way, other life times. Energy created in our karmic past is carried forward into this lifetime for further development, resolution, or healing.
Janey and I have our Lunar Node placement in the same Houses in our natal chart, in the 6th and 12th houses. Our North Node soul mission is in the 12th House of karma, spirituality, self-undoing, and resolving our past. So I think it is natural we both gravitated to karmic astrology.
Some planets in the chart are referred to as “karmic” planets, notably Mars, Saturn, Neptune and Pluto. However, in my experience, any of the planets in a chart can have karmic overtones. We also look at House placement: Planets in the water houses (4th, 8th and 12th) as well as the 7th House of projections are viewed as potentially being karmic. Also intercepted signs and any planets in those signs. They indicate energy we are repressing in this lifetime, most likely because we have overdone them in our karmic past. And of course the Lunar Nodes are deemed most important, the South Node indicating our karmic past and the North Node our spiritual soul potential. Together with our client we explore these planets and placements in the chart, determine how the client is experiencing them in this lifetime, how they are working with them. Astrology is a wonderful tool for bringing these issues to our awareness, into consciousness.
You can listen to Janey and Mary Jo now on The Theory of Everything on Voice America.
