Daily Schedule 

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9:00 am - 12:30 pm - Morning Session

10:15 am - 10:45 - Coffee/Tea Break

12:30 - 2:00 pm - Lunch

2:00 pm - 5:30 pm - Afternoon Session

3:30 - 4:00 pm - Coffee/Tea Break​

 

​A Vegetarian Lunch is included Saturday through Thursday. Please let us know ahead of time if you have any medically based dietary requirements.

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Workshop Schedule

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Friday Evening, February 27
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” ~ Socrates
5:00 - 7:00 pm

 We will make our introductions, go over some logistical and practical issues, leaving us free to launch right into the astrology the next morning.

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• Opening the circle

• Overview of the retreat: What is to be learnt?

• Creating intention

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Day 1 - Saturday, February 28 - The First Step: Introducing the Magic of the Natal Chart
What can the natal chart reveal? What can’t it reveal? What can we use it for? Initial considerations of astrology. Introduction to the basic elements of horoscopic analysis. Learn to identify the main components of a chart. The day’s study will include an exploration of the astrological planets, signs and houses.

Objectives/Lecture/Discussion Topics:

• What is a natal chart? Why do people look to astrology?

• Components of a natal chart: planets, signs, houses, and aspects

• Planetary Archetypes: Personal to Cosmic

• The Zodiac: Elements, Modalities, and Polarities

• The Houses: The Realms of Life

• The players and their places: The Planets and Signs

• How to read a basic chart

 

Activities/Homework:

• Distribute natal charts to each participant for individual review

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Day 2 - Sunday, March 1 - A Deeper Dive into the Zodiac Signs & Planets

We will delve further into the language of astrology as we work our way through the planets to understand the material and spiritual components of each. We will explore what practices we can employ to use each planet on our practical and spiritual journey through life. We’ll start with the most obvious: the Sun and the Moon… and then work our way through the planets from Mercury to Pluto as the key to understanding the basic keys to the astrological archetypes

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Objectives/Lecture/Discussion Topics:

• A Journey Around the Zodiac

• The 12 Zodiac Signs and their meanings

• Overview of the planets and their significance in a natal chart

• Planetary and sign qualities (rulership, modes, elements)

• The Sun & the Moon: Exercises in expression and reflection

• Mercury: Making Mischief -- It takes two to tangle

• Venus: On beyond words     

• Mars: Let’s get physical

• Jupiter and Saturn: Working with the ebb and flow of the Cosmic Tides

• The Transpersonal Planets: Exploring the Mysteries

• The Planets Within and The Planets in Your Pocket

• Connecting planets to signs and their influence

 

Activities/Homework:

• Considering the zodiac sign of your Sun and Moon, write about how you see their influence on any aspect of your character, personality, or general life path.

• Add Mercury, Venus, and Mars to your description of self.

 
Day 3  - Monday, March 2 - The Houses and Their Roles

We will deepen our understanding of chart interpretation by exploring the relationship between the planets and the horizon in a horoscope. We will learn about the 12 houses as different areas of our lives that are impacted by our horoscopes. Once we have established the basics of planets, signs, and houses, we will begin to look at our own charts to see how these concepts actually work in real time. As a group, we will practice interpreting our own planets in houses, moving toward the first steps in chart integration and synthesis.

 

Objectives/Lecture/Discussion Topics:

• Detailed explanation of the 12 houses

• The Ascendant and Midheaven

• How each house influences a different area of life

• House triplicities: Angular, Succedent, and Cadent

• Interpreting planets in houses

• First steps in chart integration and synthesis

• Practice interpreting planet-house placements

 

Activities/Homework:

• Group exercise: Interpret a simple chart focusing on house placements

• Write about your own chart focusing on house placements

 
Day 4 - Tuesday, March 3 -  Planetary Combinations: Aspects and Their Meanings

Aspects unfold the next layer of exploration of natal chart,: interpretation where astrology begins to come alive. The individual energy of the planets combines in geometric patterns to weave a tapestry of meaning into a chart and into our lives. We will explore how planets combine their energies and how to locate and work with the various aspects.

Objectives/Lecture/Discussion Topics:

• What are aspects? (conjunction, opposition, square, trine, sextile)

• How aspects show planetary relationships

• Interpreting aspects in a chart

• Physical and Metaphysical Aspects

• Basic Aspects: Conjunction, Square, Opposition, Trine, Sextile

• Harmonic Aspects: Quintiles, Septiles

• The significance of aspect patterns

• Working with aspects in our charts

 

Activities/Homework:

• Role-playing: Interpret relationships between two planets

• Write a brief interpretation of the most significant aspects in your chart

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Day 5 - Wednesday, March 4 - Timing is Everything: An Introduction to Transits

We each possess a chart that is an imprint of the moment of our birth. But the natal chart is just a jumping off point, for the planets continue to move on their appointed rounds. The relationship between the planetary movement and a natal chart is how we understand the nature of unfolding events and their timing. We will learn a basic technique for analyzing transits and will explore strategies to handle our own transits.

 

Objectives/Lecture/Discussion Topics:

• Identifying current transits

• Life transits like Saturn returns and Uranus oppositions

• Birthdays as Solar returns

• Developmental cycles of Jupiter and Saturn

• The shocks of outer planet transits: Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto

• Integrating the impact of multiple simultaneous transits

 

Activities/Homework:

• Step-by-step walkthrough: reading a complete chart

• Create a bullet-point summary of your birth chart