by Astrocreativa.com
Hellenistic & Mundane Astrologer
SJ Anderson is an astrologer known for blending Hellenistic astrology, mundane astrology, spiritual reflection, and contemporary cultural analysis. His work is grounded in traditional astrological structure while remaining open to modern questions about identity, history, technology, collective events, and meaning.
He is especially recognized for his thoughtful approach to world events, major planetary cycles, and the emotional-spiritual implications of astrology, making his work valuable not only for astrology students, but also for people trying to understand how astrology interacts with real life.
SJ’s voice stands out because he does not use astrology merely to predict events. He uses it as a tool for processing reality, making sense of turbulent times, and helping people navigate change with more awareness, seriousness, and spiritual depth.
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In this episode of Backstage Astrology, Mayra Medina sits down with SJ Anderson for a profound conversation about the astrological and collective landscape of 2026.
SJ shares why he believes we have already crossed a threshold into a new world, and why the first months of 2026 feel so defining. The conversation explores war, AI, Saturn-Neptune in Aries, Uranus in Gemini, cardinal ingresses, grief, identity, courage, collective revelation, and the role of technology in shaping the next chapter of human life.
But this episode is not only about predictions. It is also about how to live with astrology. SJ reflects on the ethical burden of speaking about difficult transits, how to communicate hard truths without fear-mongering, what people misunderstand about being an astrologer, and how astrology can become a powerful tool for meaning, action, and spiritual grounding.
This is one of those conversations that feels especially relevant for anyone trying to understand not just what is happening, but who we are becoming inside it.
SJ Anderson’s approach could be described as:
His astrology is not detached from the world. It is deeply engaged with it.
He honors the architecture of traditional astrology while also bringing in philosophical, spiritual, psychological, and cultural perspectives. In this episode, that shows up clearly in the way he speaks about war, suffering, identity, AI, collective change, Saturn, Chiron, and the need for wise action.
🎙️ Podcasts & Collaborations:
He is a frequent guest on high-level astrology programs, including:
Anderson is a Lifetime Member of the International Society of Astrological Research (ISAR). His insights and writing have appeared in several prestigious industry outlets:
SJ shares that astrology became more than an interest for him around a decade ago. What began as a deep pull gradually turned into a fully lived path. Over time, astrology became his main language, his vehicle of expression, and the lens through which he interprets life.
What stands out in his story is that he did not force it. He describes his astrological life as something that unfolded naturally, “like a flower,” rather than something he pushed into existence.
That organic unfolding is part of what gives his work depth. He has grown into astrology through study, lived experience, spiritual practice, public discourse, and the serious responsibility of consulting with clients during difficult transits and major life thresholds.
“We’ve kind of crossed into the new world, and here we are.”
“Astrology is a processing tool.”
“Go to God and pray right now for the healing of the world.”
This episode was more conversational than book-centered, but these were some of the main references and resources mentioned:
Mayra Medina, Your Host
Mayra is a Creative Consultant for Astrologers working at the intersection of communication, branding, and archetypal astrology. Mayra believes that what truly drives visibility and impact is a compelling story, strong visuals, clear purpose, and thoughtful strategy. Learn more about what she can do for you:
I have to be honest… this conversation hit differently.
Coming from an International Relations and Political background, I thought I understood conflict.
I thought I understood war: intellectually, historically, conceptually.
But nothing prepares you to experience it in 3D.
As I was sitting there, asking SJ these questions about cycles, about Aries, about war, about collective shifts… there were moments where missile sirens could go off at any time. And somehow, that reality was sitting right next to the astrology.
And in a strange way…
this conversation became an anchor for me.
Because what stayed with me is not only SJ’s intelligence,
it’s his seriousness. His willingness to not look away.
This episode reminded me that astrology is not always here to comfort us.
Sometimes, it’s here to help us face reality with more awareness.
And maybe that, too, is a form of grace.
I was especially moved by the tension that lives underneath everything we spoke about:
between fear and faith.
Between the headlines and the soul.
Between the chaos of the collective… and the private responsibility each of us has not to add more fire to the fire.
SJ speaks about war, grief, identity, activism, AI, and collective rupture…
but what I kept hearing, underneath all of it, was something quieter. Almost like a whisper:
Stay awake.
Stay ethical.
Stay spiritually anchored.
Because in a year like 2026…
courage may not always look loud or heroic.
Sometimes courage looks like pausing.
Sometimes it looks like not reacting.
Sometimes it looks like prayer.
Sometimes it looks like choosing not to lose yourself.
Sometimes it looks like staying human…
in a world that is changing faster than our nervous systems can process.
And I think that’s the real gift of this episode.
It doesn’t just interpret the sky.
It gently, and sometimes uncomfortably, asks us:
Who are you becoming… while living through it?
Welcome back to another Backstage Astrology episode. My name is Mayra Medina and I am thrilled to be here with
SJ Anderson, astrologer. SJ, are you a Hellenistic astrologer, a mundane astrologer? You do a lot of things.
Please introduce yourself. Tell people about your amazing work so they can know what you’re doing.
Yes, thank you. Great to be with you, Mayra. Thanks for having me on today. Yeah, I mean, Hellenistic astrologer, I like that label.
You know, I think that there’s a whole conversation to be had about these labels and contemporary practice and what that functionally means.
We can come back to that if you want, but I certainly am grounded in some of the basic structure of Hellenistic astrology and how Hellenistic astrology sees the chart, or creates a chart, or structures a chart.
I do like to think about my practice as being also maybe new age. I kind of like that label.
A lot of people are not liking that, but I try to incorporate a lot of contemporary and modern spiritual concepts and just how I view the world, and that’s very important to how I delineate charts and how I think about astrology and life.
So, you know, spiritual Hellenistic or something contemporary, spiritual, Hellenistic, mundane. Yeah, it’s been an interest of mine.
As a news junkie growing up, always just obsessed with the news and the world, it’s hard not to want to be a mundane astrologer once you start seeing some of the cycles and how accurate they’ve been to describe reality.
So, yeah, I like those two labels.
Yeah, I love that. I mean, the reason why I wanted to invite you here is because the new astrological year is here.
You’ve done some amazing contributions to mundane astrology by yourself and also with others, and so I wanted you to share with us your perspective.
I think we are done with the first three months of 2026.
[snorts]
What’s your impression? I just want to know what do you think about everything that has happened?
Well, we’ve kicked off these new worlds. I think it’s undeniable that we’ve stepped through the looking glass, or we’ve stepped through the threshold now, and we’re on the other side of what is our new reality.
Whether you time that to last summer, when we had a preview with a lot of planetary shifts that had happened last summer…
Let me just get specific. We’ve got these outer planets: Neptune, Uranus, the outer planet Pluto, the dwarf planet Pluto. Those are all changing signs in a compressed period in our reality here in the middle of the 2020s.
Last summer, they had all entered their new signs together for a brief period and then they came back. Neptune went back to Pisces, Uranus back to Taurus.
But as we sit here in February 2026, Neptune and then Saturn, which was also in Aries last year, has reentered Aries, and that all happened in February.
And then of course in the outer world, all of this new stuff has happened. But we’ve now kind of crossed the threshold, is how I’m thinking about 2026.
We’re into this new container, this new set of facts, this new context from which our world will proceed. And of course, the astrology confirms that as these planets have all gotten new signs.
Now, this will continue to grow until July and then some next year, where these planets are all making these configurations in an applying way.
But that’s my sense: we’ve kind of crossed into the new world, and here we are, for the good, for the bad, for all of it. It’s terrifying. It’s exciting. It’s everything. It’s the new.
So, if we could summarize these first three months in one sentence, how would you summarize what has happened from January to pretty much April right now?
Yeah, I would say the one word is war. That’s the one word that I think most encapsulates what has happened.
I say that from a mundane perspective as one of the most important events of this year. The war that has kicked off.
And there are other wars, right, that we’ve brought into 2026 in Russia and Ukraine.
So this is going to define the year, I think, and it’s fitting that you have Aries being the sign that is the big sign, or one of the major signs, of the year, Saturn and Neptune there. They met on February 20th.
The second word could be AI. I think AI is really accelerating, and we’re rushing headlong into this new AI reality as well.
I say that sadly. I’m not happy about these wars at all. But they’re here, and it’s just undeniable.
I wish I had a better answer. I wish I could say something like human connection and celebration and all of this stuff.
But I think that will eventually come.
Do you think all these wars we’re having and all these conflicts are part of that? I don’t want to say new reality, but maybe in order to actually get there, do you think this needs to happen?
Yeah, I do. I think we get to a philosophic question here about what is reality, and you really need to think about that in my view.
Astrology is interacting with reality. I don’t think it causes. It’s just part of the totality, and it can confirm, it can symbolically express, but it’s not causing.
It’s just another layer of how we can reflect on reality using astrology.
When you look at the astrology, setting aside any of the facts on the ground, there are a lot of ways into saying this astrology would indicate new realities and new worlds.
As these outer planets enter new signs, all of the new signs they’re entering are so-called masculine signs in the ancient way we look at the signs.
That alone tells us we’re in a major new focus, that the outer reality is where all the action is happening in 2026.
Saturn is in Aries, the first sign of the zodiac, a cardinal sign. This is initiating change. Anytime these planets hit cardinal signs, they create new things.
Is the astrology representing it? Yes. Is it symbolically interacting with it? Yes, 100%.
I think the great potential of astrology is that it’s a processing tool. We can hopefully look at the astrology to help us grapple with these realities so that it’s easier to live with them.
This is just part of the symbolic matrix triggering what needs to be triggered. So in that sense, I think a certain amount of it is inevitable.
Other astrologers have said previously that sometimes war is a projection of the unconscious collective. When I think of that, I’m just like, man, we’re really messed up. What do you think about that, actually?
Yeah. I go back to religious systems or beliefs about the world that religions can give us.
Buddhism has a concept of the first noble truth, meaning that suffering is part of reality. It’s part of the realm.
Christian traditions have the concept of original sin or sin. This is a sin realm.
I do think that something fundamental in this place that we’ve incarnated into is this idea of separation, or pain, or suffering, and that then does get externalized.
One thing I’m thinking about for myself this year is that I want to heal spiritually on deeper levels. I want to treat my own pain.
One of my mantras lately has been: no stress, no anger. I’m just trying to calm myself.
The non-negotiable is that my emotional and mental states need to be calm and no anger, and then we can proceed from there.
Humans have a root suffering, and then we externalize in these collective events.
Talking about reality and realities, because I guess everyone is trying to build their own realities, and then we look at the collective and we see these very sad scenarios.
Maybe now that we are in Aries season with these transpersonal planets doing their stuff, maybe we need to start creating our own reality from within, at home.
Actually, where are you personally in your life right now as an astrologer?
Well, I am fully in. I’ve been an astrologer, kind of dye in the wool, as we say in Texas.
I’ve been completely given over to astrology as an identity and a way of life for a number of years, and lucky that that’s still true for me today in 2026.
I work with it all the time. It’s my main vehicle of expression. My whole life gets filtered through it.
Ten years ago was when the bug bit me, and overnight I became, I mark it as becoming an astrologer. But it took me a year of serious study to really grow, and I’m still growing with it.
Ten years in, I’m happy, and I feel good about it.
If I had to say where do I feel some problems with astrology or where am I concerned with astrology, I think social media would be part of that.
We have to be careful and mature and ethical and wise.
I want to be as wise and as useful as I can with my astrology in terms of everything: how I engage it, how I communicate it, both to my clients and to the wider world.
I want to treat it seriously and give it the kind of gravity that it deserves.
In the social media landscape that we’re in today, there is an instantaneousness that can sometimes be what we’re expected to do with our discourse.
I do my best to keep it honest and sincere and real as much as I can.
I’m not really afraid for astrology. I think the real stuff is going to emerge. Astrology is just one component of something else, and that something else you might say is truth, God, divinity, wisdom.
I don’t really mind the Instagram instantaneous stuff or the sign-based astrology or astrological memes. I think that’s all fun and can be useful, and a lot of people resonate with that.
But social media is huge for where we’re at, even in 2026. There is so much more short-form video and there are so many voices right now, and I think that’s healthy.
But I wonder how much it becomes too much, or we get overwhelmed, or we get burnt out with a continual stream of astrological discourse.
How do you still hold the deeper truth, or the jewel of it, and make sure that’s being represented and honored against the backdrop of the craziness?
Even with this year 2026 and the war predictions, these are not predictions that have been recent. People have been talking about war this decade for a long time because the cycles are so evocative.
I guess I’m a little concerned that everybody’s saying war, war, we’re going to war. I think we might want to say things like: okay, yeah, it’s in the cycles, but let’s maybe figure out how we can avoid that or mitigate it.
I hope some positivity can be added in with what we’re experiencing this decade: ways to actualize peace to the extent we might have power to do that.
We know the astrology was right about war, but what does that do for us psychically, emotionally, and spiritually?
It’s important to know because social media can be overwhelming. It’s great that every time we have more and more astrologers, but I think in this AI age and social media, sometimes the only thing we have left is trust.
In the end, I believe with the amount of astrologers and information that’s out there, people are going to stay because they vibe with you or because they trust you.
Moving on to the upcoming months, we are now having a party in Aries. We have like six or seven planets in Aries. From what I understood, this is something that rarely happens. What’s your perspective and what’s your advice to navigate this Aries, Martian energy?
Yeah, it’s really cool. It’s really awesome, I think, at one level.
Let’s set aside for a second the global events. We are deepening into this Aries moment. Mars enters Aries on April 9, Mercury enters on April 15, and we have a New Moon there on April 17.
It really is almost a culmination, in a way, of the Aries activations that we’ve been living through this year, which started with Neptune entering Aries on January 26 and Saturn joining on February 14.
Just keep that in mind with these global events. We may get some peaks here with the war locally, and maybe there’ll be some resolution.
But let’s set all that aside for a second, because Aries, ruled by Mars, planet of war, and Saturn, the planet of the foundations of our world, being filtered through war… there you go.
But a nice segue from there is that Aries is the first sign of the zodiac. It’s the birth, the beginning, the steps. It’s actually being born and then being in the new place.
I’ve been analogizing it to The Truman Show movie. Aries is everything after the movie. The movie ends, he bows, and then he leaves. Pisces is the fake world. Aries is what happens when he enters reality.
So for all of us, I want to encourage us to step into what’s new for you this year.
I think April, with that New Moon, will be a beautiful time to feel into your new worlds. Love them, hate them, I’m sure there’s pluses and minuses for everyone, but there’s probably some real new stuff that’s here for you this year.
Take the bull by the horns. Just go with this energy.
Mercury turned direct on March 20, the same day the Sun entered Aries, and Mercury will then station retrograde on June 29. So we actually have this spring where Mercury is direct the whole season.
You have Venus in Taurus. You have Venus in Cancer with Jupiter. This is the best three months of the year, in my view, in one way to look at it, for forward movement and embracing the new.
It really is a chance for these three months, I think, for a lot of people to step into their new worlds actively and excitedly.
Aries can be very courageous, but it also can be very impulsive. What do you think the collective is being asked to learn about courage right now?
I want to come back to 2020 for a second, because one thing about this year is that medieval and even some Hellenistic astrologers looked at the moment the Sun enters the cardinal axis, the equinoxes and solstices.
The Aries ingress is especially important historically and astrologically as the beginning of the year.
In this Aries ingress, Jupiter and Saturn, the two great planets in the ancient world, are both in cardinal signs, Cancer and Aries.
The last time they were both in cardinal signs during the Aries ingress was 2020, when they were both in Capricorn together.
I want us to go back to 2020. Think about all the newness you had to maneuver with in your world.
You probably had to work from home or couldn’t travel or couldn’t go outside. We had all these new realities to live with and maneuver through.
I just think we’ve got to be prepared in 2026 to adapt, to change plans midstream, to navigate a world that is probably going to be quite chaotic and things we may have never seen.
We may see things like oil shortages or any number of other things that could come online.
Get ready for your world to be radically new. And that takes courage.
It can be fearful to have to step into a situation where it’s unresolved, unknown. You’re just doing the best you can day to day, week to week, month to month.
This sense of walking into the unknown and the new requires courage. I think that is certainly an Aries theme this year.
Maybe there will be new ways of even being courageous. Thanks for that.
In April, the New Moon in Aries is forming a tense configuration with Pluto and Chiron. That can feel like a powerful emotional trigger point. What do you sense this lunation might activate collectively?
Well, grief, sadness. I think we’re in it now, frankly.
Sadness that the world has gotten chaotic. Sadness for the headlines we’re seeing with the wars. Sadness and grief that what we thought the world could be, we’re actually having to cross into a threshold where it’s going to be something else.
That’s part of Saturn and Neptune and their conjunction. They often bring new worlds. They set up whole new realities geopolitically and technologically.
The Chiron side of it may be some of that sadness or loss, but one thing goes so a new thing can replace it.
I think that could be some of both: Saturn in Aries with the New Moon, Chiron the wounded healer, and maybe having to get in touch with the wounded part of what’s being born.
Birth is painful. Talk to any mother: going through giving birth is very difficult. I think that’s what we’re in.
At the same time, some of Saturn in Aries is that we might not have time. It’s very fast moving as the changes happen.
We may need to be prepared to move fast and maneuver with speed. Grieve when we can, go inward a little bit when we can, but remember these are all outer-world signs.
Hopefully people can grieve when they get a chance to. The day of that New Moon, try to take some time away and feel into your sense of woundedness or sadness or grief that you’re going through.
Just to remind people, this is happening April 17: New Moon at 27 Aries.
Do you feel this moment could be asking us to confront something we’ve been avoiding collectively?
Yeah. I don’t want to bring up topics that are too controversial, but in America we’ve had these Epstein files released, and some of my friends think that’s all about Saturn-Neptune.
My view is that the Epstein material has been around for a long time, depending on where you’ve been on the internet, but it’s an example of seeing the power structure or seeing the darker nooks and crannies of our reality.
That could be an example of having to confront a collective energy that has been hidden and is now kind of revealed.
War itself brings all of this out, because what happens during a war? People get drafted. Troops die. Innocent citizens die.
That can expose whatever tensions are in the body politic because people aren’t happy about that, right?
As Uranus comes into Gemini, this has often been about American war or fighting in America, and I think we’re set to see some of that split in the body politic potentially around the war or other revelations.
There may be some kind of collective boiling over that could erupt here. Maybe that New Moon will be a trigger moment.
Anytime you have Aries, it is a very active, some people say violent, energy. Mars is riots, anger, violence, breakage.
Coming back to what we talked about earlier, owning the shadow and trying not to externalize in harmful ways would be useful to keep in mind.
But in the collective, it’s often not able to do that. So protests, anger, expressions in the streets, sadness about people dying, resistance to war—things like this seem to be in the cards.
It saddens me when I see people buying into it and putting more fire into the fire, and instead of remaining grounded.
What advice can you give us in order to navigate this Aries fire now for the next months?
That raises questions like: what is a wise way to engage your world? I think a lot of us have different callings around that.
For me personally, I’m not much of an activist. I’m not a political organizer.
But there may be people out there for whom that is their profession, and I would defer to activists who really know how to navigate energies like that in ways that are healthy or constructive.
I think each of us will have our own task here.
The archetype of Aries is one about fighting, but fighting well and choosing to fight well.
You could also abstract it to a higher level, which is simply action. Aries is wise action.
The Sun is wisdom; it’s the exaltation lord of Aries. Mars is action; it’s the domicile lord of Aries. It’s trying to bring awareness and wisdom to the actions we’re taking.
I would encourage people to get active, stay active, whatever that means for you.
This is where your individual chart can help because you have Aries in a certain area of the chart.
For some people, this may have nothing to do with collective events in the world. It may show up through personal chart themes.
And for others, if they already are political activists, they may organize something for peace. That wouldn’t surprise me at all.
Jupiter enters Leo in late June and will make a fire trine with Saturn in Aries. This Aries theme is prominent. It’s here. It’s not going away.
The answers to these questions will be relevant all through 2027 and into 2028 as well.
Whenever we have Saturn-Neptune cycles, there is an ideology crisis, but also an identity crisis. I’ve seen many people defining their identity based on their ideology. What do you think of that?
My personal spiritual views definitely advocate deconstructing our identities that we hold dear. I think there is no self.
There’s a famous interview where David Lynch asks an actor, ‘What do you want to be remembered for?’ and he says, ‘Nothing. There’s no self.’
That, to me, is one higher archetypal expression of Neptune in Aries because Aries is the identities that we’re fighting for.
And it’s very charged energy. We love it for that. But the downsides are fighting to hold onto our egos or not even really knowing who we are.
My hope is that Neptune there can dissolve some of the identities. That’s a higher-octave expression.
The risk, as you wisely said, is that we fight for identity even more. Neptune can bring delusion around identity. There’s more fervor that we get lost in.
I encourage everybody: question your identities. You’re not who you think you are, very likely, and that needs constant questioning.
Whatever you’ve been told you are, you’re probably not that.
Later in the year we also have a total solar eclipse in Leo. Do you feel these energies could ignite something new in how people show up in the collective or creatively, publicly?
Yes, absolutely.
The best example I’ve been giving is 1967. The last time you had Saturn in Aries and Jupiter in Leo and that fire trine.
There was a famous concert event that was the first global simulcast concert, and artists from all over the world participated.
The Beatles were the UK’s participant and they sang ‘All You Need Is Love.’
That typifies what’s possible with this fire trine. I think we’ll be able to express our humanity.
Beautiful and essential expressions of human power and potential are possible.
What could that mean? Probably cool art on social media, music, cinema. I think the arts could be great.
In the face of challenges, maybe people will celebrate the good parts of humanity as much as we see the bad parts of humanity this year.
People might say, ‘Hey, we want some peace,’ and express that and celebrate humanity and the non-warlike parts of humanity.
So I’m looking for that this year: art and peace together.
We also have a new series of eclipses in Leo and Aquarius. What do you foresee with these eclipses and what lessons do you consider the most important?
The main thing I’ve been looking at so far with the North Node in Aquarius transit has been what’s called the Martyr cycle, and this is a financial astrological cycle.
It tends to correlate with economic turmoil. The last time was during the 2008 crash, and now we’ve got it coming back.
I think we may have some economic shock that we’ll have to all grow through and navigate.
In 2008, it cleared out structures of the economic system that weren’t serving. You clear out bad debts, bad deals, fraud, and then new structures emerge.
Then the collective system stabilizes and there are new opportunities, new investments, new areas to participate in.
I want to do more work on this. I haven’t done my deep dive yet.
With the eclipse on August 12 and Jupiter in Leo, I think we need to ask ourselves: what is the good stuff that human beings have and can give, and what makes us human?
I think this can be related to AI because AI is going to have us questioning our identity.
I use AI a lot. I can tell it to go research, and it comes back with really accurate and detailed reports.
On the one hand, I don’t really feel threatened because it would just take me a lot of time to do that myself.
At the same time, it’s changing how we work and maybe giving us powers to go farther, create more, extend more with our uniquely human powers.
I’ve been excited about that part of AI. A lot of people are afraid of it, and I’m not saying it’s all good. There are dystopian sides of it, certainly.
But we may be able to step into our human potential, having a tool that’s so powerful that it can extend the reach.
You go back to the 1960s and color television: a new way to project human potential and power with technology. I think a lot of that is going to happen with the Leo eclipse.
I remember you talking years ago about July 2026 and this basket, Barbault’s basket. You said it’s an opportunity to fill the basket with new stuff.
What would you like the world to look like with that new basket?
Technology. I come back to that because it is so potent in terms of what it can give us as humans.
Think about electricity, hot water, refrigeration, clean water, modern science, modern medicine. These are all technological revolutions that changed human life.
My sense is that technology is going to play a really big role.
I come back to AI, not because I’m an evangelist, but because it emerged right as Saturn and Neptune came together in Aries.
There are discussions now about whether advanced AI could already have some kind of sentient quality.
What could it mean if we had a really advanced intelligence available and working with us? We could have fairly distributed resources, medical breakthroughs, all kinds of new levels of sustaining humanity.
Go read what the futurists are saying about AI. That’s my main advice when I think about basket formation.
In 2027, there may be a second basket when Ceres comes back and all of the outer planets are applying again.
Maybe the wars will wake us up to what’s worth living for.
Often in the aftermath of wars, you get new worlds of stability and new institutions.
This seems like a really big one we’re in now, in terms of reworking the world, but there will be stability.
I think there’s a lot to look forward to. Technology could bring more abundance. That’s my hope.
Changing gears a little bit: has there ever been bad news that you saw in a chart and then you needed to communicate it in a way that is not scary?
Yeah, it comes up every day with the clients that I see. It’s part of the work of a consulting astrologer: we have to learn how to communicate the symbols in ways that can be uplifting and useful.
One of the people I learned from was Dennis Harness. He said the three Ds: never bring up divorce, disease, or death. You just don’t talk about it because it’s not really ethical or useful with a client.
I’ve learned when I can do that and when it’s appropriate, but often Saturn in the chart can show challenge, block, grief, sadness, restriction.
In difficult examples, what can Saturn give us that, but for it being there, we wouldn’t get? Things like deeper foundational restructuring.
You rebuild your world with Saturn to protect yourself and give yourself a more stable foundation going forward.
My favorite way to say it with Saturn is: take it seriously. Wherever it is, take those topics seriously.
Have endurance. Be prepared to kind of toughen up and work through problems over time.
The gifts Saturn gives can’t be taken. Saturn can be amazing in what it gives us.
You don’t want to be too prescriptive. You don’t want to pre-trigger some kind of negative thing. You want to let reality show itself and give it space to breathe.
That’s a great advice for Aries season. Saturn in Aries is like: no, not with me. Allow what wants to be revealed in our lives instead of trying to control it.
What is something about being an astrologer that people don’t usually see or understand?
I don’t think people understand how heavy and serious it is.
We’re not just having fun with sun signs.
We’re talking about the nature of human beings and war and collective pain and suffering. Astrology is the study of life, the full spectrum of experience, for good and for bad.
It can help us live well and deeply. It can help us create meaning in our lives. It’s one of the best tools for that.
It’s not simply, ‘Oh, my Sun is in Aries, so I’m angry.’ It goes well beyond that.
What has been the most challenging part of astrology becoming your business?
It happened really naturally for me. It unfolded in a real elegant way, like a flower. I didn’t need to force the blooming of that flower.
But what’s been tough is the work-life balance and the social media side.
These videos don’t make themselves. There are hours and hours of work: research, writing, recording, editing.
The more you produce, the more you’re rewarded. A lot of astrologers are overworked.
It’s a never-ending task. There’s always another New Moon, always another transit.
How do you keep up and ground yourself?
Part of it is that I am still passionate about it. It excites me.
I’m still deeply fascinated by astrology. That makes it much easier.
I just keep going with it because that’s what I am. That’s what I do. That’s what I’m passionate about.
Given the rising interest in astrology as a full-time profession, what do you wish more aspiring astrologers understood before taking that leap?
There’s the money side. There are different ways people generate income in astrology.
There’s consulting. Not everybody likes that. You have to like people if you’re going to be a consulting astrologer.
There are courses and astrological education. That requires skills too: creating curriculum, communicating ideas.
There’s the advertising side, which now means social media. Are you prepared to make content?
If someone’s trying to make astrology into a business, these are the things I would ask them to grapple with.
If you’re going to consult, go study consulting skills in the therapeutic world. If you’re going to do social media, go learn from social media people, not necessarily astrologers. If you’re going to teach, go learn from online course experts.
Getting tools from non-astrologers in adjacent fields can really help you understand if you’re ready and can give you the skills to build the business.
Maybe also at least try. Try consultations, try teaching, try and see what resonates with you.
Whatever you’re going to do, do it ethically and with responsibility.
To end the conversation, I wanted to ask you: what’s the hardest lesson Saturn has ever taught you in life or practice?
I had my Saturn return in Libra in 2009 to 2010, and that’s when I quit all drugs and alcohol.
It was a huge personal change to become a sober person.
Sobriety would be a key word for Saturn.
It makes total sense in retrospect, and I’m glad it happened. Saturn brought me into a new way of life.
I also had Saturn in my fourth house during a time when I got to spend a lot of time with my grandmother, whom I really loved.
We got to connect deeply. The gifts Saturn gives can’t be taken.
We had the same Saturn and Jupiter cycle, and I always felt very close to her.
What’s your take on Chiron in Taurus?
I made a video about one component of it. Chiron in Taurus peaks this year for a short stint, and I think it’s 1929 symbolism.
We have to be aware that there could be renegotiations with our material attachments.
We might have to dig deep around what is actual pleasure, what is actually essential, and how can we find pleasure in ways that are different than we think.
If there’s no money, how do you get happy? How do you get comfort? How do you get safety? These are Taurus keywords.
That may be a big part of the task. We may have to rework our relationships with pleasure, comfort, and safety.
What we’ll learn could be amazing. People can learn to thrive with less, and that may be part of Chiron: the teacher, the healer, the magician.
What boundaries have you had to learn to hold as a professional astrologer?
People email you a lot and want to connect with you and talk to you, and I’ve had to learn what I’m available for and how much I can be available.
I’ve taken time off from coming on shows or podcasts at times because I’ve been too overextended.
Boundaries with my time have been some of the big lessons I’ve gotten to learn.
I’ve learned how to say no and how to professionally decline things.
When you’re publicly out there sharing and your email is public, people can contact you. If I sat and wrote everything back to people, I just wouldn’t have a lot of time.
I like to connect with people, but I’ve learned that I can only do what I can do.
Thank you so much for being here and for accepting the invitation.
I wanted people to know more about what’s behind being an astrologer and also what you foresee for the next six months.
Is there anything you want to close with? Any advice or message or quote?
My quote would be: go to God and pray right now for the healing of the world.
I think we need that, and I think there’s a great opportunity to have a spiritual view and call on the loving positive forces that do exist in this realm to help us get through this time of crisis, transition, and turmoil.
Whatever spiritual concept the audience might have, this would be a great time to rely on those forces and maybe grow closer to them.
God is the only thing that has kept me grounded these days. It has really helped me.
SJ, you are still giving consultations if I’m not mistaken, right?
Yes, I am.
Okay. So in the link below or in the pinned comment, you will find all the information about SJ. SJ, thank you so much.
You too. I repeat to you: thank you. Take care now.
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