welcome to new connection where you can tune in and grow i'm your host vicky thompson you may be familiar with new connection magazine for conscious living it's been enjoyed by readers in the pacific northwest for more than seventeen years now we're excited to bring new connection live into your home with our brand new talk show a new connection well welcome authors practitioners and visionaries to share new ideas for alternative health spirituality and personal growth today i'd like to welcome to new connection mar doated marc is a professional astrologer and intuitive counselor based here in portland as well as being an astrology columnist for a new connection magazine mark specializes in relocation astrology well thanks for inviting me today  was so excited to have you on the show today because you've been with new connection pretty much from the beginning really for a lot i can't even think how long you know it's been ten twelve years at this point and in coming onto new connection and as editor and publisher one of the first things i heard from people was how much they enjoyed astrology and how they would turn to your column each month to see what's going on in the world of astrology you know i love to hear that but it's also the pressure of what i'm sitting there writing the col god everybody's reading this and they're going to talk to me about it and will definitely people i think look to you in the community as an expert in astrology and so that's why i thought it was wonderful to have you on today to talk about what is astrology because i as we have records that it's at least forty five hundred years old and we know that because that's when the pirates charts were first found but we've even seen zodiac symbols on cave paint so it's probably much older than forty five hundred years and still people ask well hey what's going on for labor or gemini or whatever is always a big question and it course i'm always happy to answer that question and you know people have this sense that astrology is that column that you read in the funny papers every day and you know there's of that validity in that but there's so much more to astrology we say that there's actually ten planets and we call the sun and moon a planet just because it's easier in terminology but you need to know well not just what your sun sign is but what sun is your life force it's why you get out of bed it's what you go do if you're a virgo you're going out to be of service you want to be useful if you're sagittarius you're on the quest for the holy grail but it's also important to pay attention to where the moon is because the moon is so close to the earth it has just a gigantic effect the moon is emotions and you know the other question i always get even right with the tell me about my son scion it's am i compatible with and then whatever that other sign is and more do i need to know about astrology to really use it effectively in my life well in astrology we cast a chart which people look at it and go oh my god what is that complicated thing it really is nothing more than a snapshot of where the planets were in the sky when a person was born and just put onto a piece of paper and so you have to kind of get past all the symbols and things we use just like short and you know abbreviation but we cast chart we look at the relationship of the planets to each other and then we look where is the sun where is your life force operating in in a chart you have kind of looks like a pipe shaped thing with twelve segments and so if your son is in the tenth house we know you're going to put your energy into career and public image if it's in the seventh house you're going to be dealing with relationships and so we do that for the sun and the moon and mercury and all the planets and we look at their relationship to each other so willy astrology is nothing more than the study of cycles and how they affect us as individuals so when we talk about the different planets having an effect upon it's like people say i'm mercury records retrograde or venus is strong in my houses what does that mean and does the energy from the planet really come in affect you or is it more archetypes will you know we get together  astrology conferences and argue about that one all the time is that an art or is it a science and truly it's both and so when you look at it there there is a belief that there is archetypes associated with all the different types of energy and will assign venus you know love or real estate and will assign mars warrior action so there is an archetype example of that but there is also some scientific research of let's use jupiter and pluto there are two gigantic planets when they are in a ninety degree angle we call that a square in astrology which is a challenge where the nice new age word would be a motivator when they were in a ninety degree angle scientists say that there is a greater likelihood for us to have earthquakes here on planet earth so you could say that there's also a physical impact that those planets have but from the more psychological perspective yes we've assigned archetype all energies to the various planets in their cycles and of course we've got thousands and thousands of years of research on this i think that might be news to some people because i think sometimes with astrology you have it in women's magazines just sure that in the daily newspaper it's kind of a clich to say what's your sign but to know the history of it that it is definitely a real art and science one and the same they had a very special place in ancient society because they had the place up on the high tower where they watched the stars and measured them every night and your comment about well you know we see it in women's magazines and all that you know that's very true and i what did joke particularly with the other men around because the hardest thing about getting a man in to do an astrology reading is getting them in the door but once they're there and they see what it can do their heart and i i have an awful lot of clients who are focused in business and will look at business cycles will look at corporation charts and so it is very grounded daily application well beyond what you read in the back of a magazine so can you share some of the applications some of the ways that we can use astrology beyond just reading our daily horoscope sure well and of course when you have the chart before you you're looking at the whole picture of the whole person what we do in astrology is we look at what buttons are being pushed in a person's life that's the reason people come to an astrologer once a year it's kind of like having your car tuned up it's like oh is the energy working more in my relationship area or is it in more of a career area or in spiritual growth areas and so a person can say well i'm going to put my energy into what's working it's just about being in harmony with the universe is really all it is if you're trying to work on your romance your love life but all the energy is really focused in your business or your career life you kind a leaking energy that could be more wisely used in the area that's being activated and so that's actually one of the reasons that people come to astrologers and we call it trance it's in progressions and that just honesty is so important to them that they can't work in a company that does grey area politics shall we say but the negative level is they can also go too far and become instead of being a minister they be can come the preacher who rams it down your throat or the person who's always off traveling on their quest for what is over the next hill that they don't stop and get grounded sometimes and so see a falls we knew about you was it you were said to terrorists all of that would be valid but then we need to bring in the things that where your emotions or where is your intellect or where is your enthusiasm you know all the various archetypes that we were talking about and so would you then  shoot to see that sure when a person calls for an appointment we get birthdate birth place birth time if they don't have their birth time we have ways of working around that but it's usually better to write off to some county records and be precise because it's just like the computer the the more precise the data you put in the better job the astrologer can do and so i get all of that data course these days we use computers we don't do it by hand anymore at least very few people do and we're able to cast a chart for where that was what was going on when the person was born and we also cast a chart for what's going on right now and you put those to get there and you measure angles it's but it's actually basic geometry is really what it is so if i were coming to you as a set of terrorists he would shoot at the moment of my birth yes and so and seeing where i'm at today would you then be able to advise do this or you shouldn't do that but what i would say is oh here for said to terrace we've got expansive energy you need to take a conservative risk on yourself and that is actually appropriate for a particular two thousand and eight we're all being called on some level regardless of our sign to take a conservative risk and you would say that the sagittarius and then your choice is i could tell you always is going on in your relationship house or your career house and then could work in those areas to get i like to call it you get the most bang for your buck when when you're working in harmony with your spirit the universe when all the forces are in alignment i kind of think of it like sailing i love sailing is the reason i use that as an example you've got the wind in the water and the teller all in perfect harmony you go faster well it's the same in astrology when you are in harmony with your spirit and with the way that the planets are working to serve you the energies that are available for you to draw upon you can go faster or push the speed button on your growth so it's understanding the cycles of the stars and it's understanding where you fit in with your heart in that moment and so if there was some good energy flowing around career you might that might be a good time to change or expand in some way and so we would talk to people about the talents or the challenges that are up for them and you have to be honest about the challenges just like you know you can't do obey to sky of oh you're going to fall in love or you're you know like  well but i love the fact that you can actually time it and measure it and then you can go back six months later and says was that astrologer right there was a full hooey you know and it's something that you can track  verify and that's what i love about it but i think it's also great with astrology hindsight we can look at where someone has banned by looking at their chart and so it would be great to work i know we're real world example where we could look at a celebrity who everyone knows absolutely someone like oprah who i think we're all very familiar with who's been out in the public eye so much recently and for many many years with oprah winfrey show so you brought a chart of oprah bottom half of the circle was the nighttime sky and everything that was in the top half of the circle was the daytime sky so it's not that it's not as complicated as it looks so if you look in the lower right hand corner of the circle what we would call the fifth house  the chart you'll see a red circle with a dog in it and that's our symbol for the sun and her son was in aquarius and right next to it is a blue symbol that's you know the feminine symbol that's venus she was born with sun and venus right next to each other and that's people who have magnetic attraction in their life and when you go and research movie stars having sun in venice in some relationship to each other is like those people who walk into a room and they lighted up and so that accounts for part of her fame and of course aquarius is a sign that rules the greater aspects of humanity and then to bring in more of the picture her moon her emotions was  philosophies so here you are with your son in said cherice in her moon isn't said to terri is your soul force would connect well with her emotional force if we were doing like when you interview oprah later on ok well you know but it's also a little bit more complicated because her mother is at the bottom of the chart in the planet jupiter which is expansion optimism is at the top and it becomes like this see saw that goes on and the way we're seeing that is her weight you know one day her weight is high in the next day it's low and it goes back and forth and back and forth and because it's directly related to her moon which is her emotions we know her weight that she puts on and off directly related to her emotional being and that sounds like that would really be key information to have as a person to know gosh that's partly because of you know my strategy where i was born in the time i was born it affects my wake and one way to look at that is say well if i know that that is an issue for me number one i will take better care of my emotional well being so that i can then manage my weight more easily lee but also number two is well because that's a part of my pattern in this chart which has made her very successful in the world it would also be saying well i don't need to judge myself because of it we can be more kind or self of oh if this is one of our natural patterns i'm aware of a work with it i'll attend to my emotional well being and healing i'll take my days off for go to the spa or whatever she needs to do for her emotional well being and then it would be easier to manage her weight so it you can use it as a tool in fact that's you should use that as a tool most definitely what would you attribute in opus chart to her outward success and  her she's such a philanthropist and she is just such a caring giving person are there keys in her chart that point well there are first that sun and venus in the sign aquarius rules the larger masses of humanity her it and those would be key parts and then there's another part of her chart which is a little more complicated to talk about but the planet mars which is her ambition it's male energy is in a challenging relationship to pluto and pluto is death and destruction let go and let god stepping into our power and actually rules great wealth in astrology so she is challenge to put her ambition into her wealth into her philosophy being philosophy but see the way it worked for her when she was a young girls this has a violent connotation to it and she had a very difficult youth with family stories and things like that so choose a person who's transcended her chart to go from being the abused person in her youth with this very challenging pattern into a philanthropist of humongous proportions and see in astrology that's we love that because when somebody comes and say oh i've got a terrible chart well you know everybody has challenges in their church and some people have more challenges than other but the key is how do we transcend woman in her ability to transform and also to share publicly with the world because she's also transformed others through her own journey and my suggestion is her path was to do it in a large in a creative than a generous way and so she overcame her challenges to do just that and you have another tool it's called relocation astrology where you take a map and astro cartography is a very popular name for it there's other names for it but basically it's the concept that we take your chart and what hermetic philosophers would call as above so below we take your chart in this isn't a technical explanation but we blow it up onto a global level and then we draw  power lines on the planet and so as an example we can look at oprah's map to do that but basically there are these powers zones on the planet and in the area of chicago which is where she chose to have her  production company she has a movie line and most rules women and it rules the public ok and then just a little to the east of chicago she has a jupiter line in jupiter is doing really big do it on an expanse of level so instead of picking new york or l a to do her production company she chose to go to a public women do it big philosophical line in chicago now also in amarillo texas just just a little bit to the west of amarillo in new mexico she has a mars line and mars is anger it's warrior energy and so we all know that she went to amarillo to do her beef battle she fought in court mars as a warrior she fought in court over her statements surrounding beef and in paris you know where she had some issues as well she has a mars line there too so she did battle both in paris and in amarillo under very similar lines and so a person can use these maps to think where is a good place for me to live or to travel or even if you never want to leave home you can do business in different parts of the country or different parts of the world using your personal power since so that would be if you were planning on going to mix it seems like a lot of people now are in transition they want to move to a new place you'd want to find your power soars right in what the question people oftentimes ask me that drives me a little crazy is i want that one place that's going to have love and money in and lighten menton everything ok and the truth of it is there are certain lines that are better for a relationship and certain lines or zones that are better for a career and it's rare that you find one place that has all of those things and so you have to talk to people about well what are your priorities in life and from the more pollyanna they just want to know just tell me that one place where i can go for everything and so it actually is a bit of a tool that says what we really want to life what is our intent and so you can actually use these maps  very therapeutic way as oh what is that i want at the next phase of my life so it's not just your birth chart it's looking at where you can live where you can do your work and i think you also have many other tools on your website as you know mark as to us and of course i've got the free to sign a contract or put a house on the market or get married and so a stroll of g is just as broad of a topic and it's been around for at least forty five hundred years it's it's it's so much larger than what you see in the paper and very powerful to thank you have a quote that you had shared with me earlier that i thought was just a wonderful quote that i love to share with our audience and it was about j p morgan yes very wealthy man from long time ago and he says millionaires don't use astrology billionaires use astrology i love that quote because it gives this this not just about the money or the prosperity because he was a wealthy powerful guy but it's about look how large it is what we can do with this it's not just something to amuse you over your starbucks coffee it's we can use this is a tool to help us be better people on life to better manage our energy is how we're going out into the world and i mean if somebody like j p morgan i mean he was the bill gates of his day if somebody like that sees the benefit in it even our country the united states of america you can go in historically and you'll find that you know many of our founding fathers were masons and you can go in historically in find that many of the cornerstones of the federal reserve buildings like that were astrology was used there are actually astrology charts in the smithsonian that said these guys started our country using  astrology and so it kind of boggles my mind when people say astrology is ridiculous or whatever and i see the united states used to strategy to set the cornerstones on the capitol building and the federal reserve building it's just amazing to me but i think also you spoke about benjamin franklin who had also talked about astrology and that there were no kings there were no one no one who did not use astrology to figure out where they were going in life you know prior to the times of  everybody used to stroll up gee the emperors they would not go to battle without checking with the astrologer the pope's of the catholic church used astrology because they had to figure out when easter was so everybody it in course in us on new connection and i'd like to encourage you all to visit market his website w w w dot astro mark dot us thanks emma see the next time a new connection where you can tune in and grow