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Summer 2023 Speaking Engagements

The season has already been off to a rich start full of travels, beginning with a research trip to Prague and the Rhine Valley, a constellation of inspiring astrological stars at NORWAC in Seattle, the enchanting Jung by the Sea conference in Cornwall, England, and attendance at the world’s largest psychedelic conference, with a total of 12,000 participants, at Psychedelic Science 2023 in Denver, Colorado.

Polhawn Fort, Cornwall

Recordings of the presentations I gave at NORWAC and Jung by the Sea are available for those who were unable to attend these events in person. At NORWAC, I gave two talks: “Permutations of Venus” and “Psychedelics and Astrology: A Symbiotic Relationship.” The latter talk offers a glimpse into some of the material I’ve been working with during this last year of research, for those who might be curious what I’ve been up to! At Jung by the Sea, I presented once again on “The Synchronicity of the Two Red Books: Jung, Tolkien, and the Imaginal Realm,” although there were some new elements of the talk particularly related to the exquisite setting on the cliffs of the Cornish coast, and I feel this was my best presentation of the work thus far. It was an extraordinary honor to present this material not only to this insightful Jungian audience, but especially to my fellow presenters, several of whom were major inspirations during my research into the two Red Books: Liz Greene, Tom Cheetham, and—the editor of Jung’s Red Book himself—Sonu Shamdasani.

As the summer progresses, I’ll be focusing almost entirely on writing—albeit with the delightful exception of three new talks I’ll be presenting to the astrological community. On Sunday, July 2, I’m returning to Adam Elenbaas’s Nightlight Astrology speaker series to present on “Jupiter-Uranus: The Creative Genius” in anticipation of the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction that is just beginning and will enliven our collective zeitgeist for the next 14 months.

A few weeks later on Saturday, July 22, I’ll be offering a presentation for NCGR San Francisco titled “The Compassionate Astrologer,” exploring practical guidance on how to create an ethical and therapeutic container in which the astrology client is empathically mirrored, while also being empowered to fall in love with their own birth chart. Although this presentation description refers to working with clients, the material is applicable for anyone who practices astrology, whether the seasoned professional or the novice astrology student.

Finally, on Saturday, August 5, I’ll be giving a class at Nadiya Shah’s Synchronicity University on “Creating a Thriving Transit Practice.” In the class, I’ll be giving step-by-step instructions on how to calculate your own transits using just your birth chart and an ephemeris. This is an extremely empowering and liberating skill to have for all astrology enthusiasts and will allow you to deepen your practice and enhance your relationship to the starry sky above you and its archetypal dynamics within you. This is one of the more practical classes I have offered, and I’m excited to enter into the technical details with a new group of astrology students. If you sign up before June 30, you can choose your own tuition rate for the entire summer series that Synchronicity University is offering—a rare opportunity to learn from five different female teachers over the course of a month.

Whether you decide to attend one talk or all of them, or go back to catch the recordings of those already past, I would be so delighted to know this material is reaching those who need to hear it at this time. May your summer months be resplendent with new adventures, wild awakenings, and timely insights!

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Lecture & Workshop for the Oregon Friends of C.G. Jung

On November 11 and 12, I will be bringing my lecture and workshop on The Red Books of C.G. Jung and J.R.R. Tolkien to the Oregon Friends of C.G. Jung in Portland, Oregon. 

This is the first workshop I have offered in person since 2019, so I’m inordinately excited about it! We’ll actually be able to hear one another laugh, sigh, and all the other wonderful sounds a live audience makes, and hopefully clap together at the end (if you like what you hear!). And in the workshop, I’ll be leading a guided practice of active imagination, and you’ll have the opportunity to make drawings of your experiences, discuss them in small groups, and share your reflections in a large circle all sitting together. Many things we used to take for granted, we can now celebrate in this workshop in a shared space.

For those who are in the area, I will be offering a lecture on Friday, November 11 at 7:00-9:00 pm on The Synchronicity of the Two Red Books: Jung, Tolkien, and the Imaginal Realm. The following day, on Saturday, November 12, I will be offering the workshop Jung’s Red Book and Active Imagination from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm.

To register for the lecture and/or workshop, please visit: https://ofj.org/shop/. I hope to see some of you there!

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Your Astrological Initiation

With Richard Tarnas & Becca Tarnas

Practical Guidance for Using Astrology to Best Serve Yourself, Others, and the World

“It is in the realm of the soul that we find the heavens that govern the skies.”
–  Rumi

“Astrology represents the sum of all the psychological knowledge of antiquity.”
– C. G. Jung

The Astrology Hub has created a beautiful opportunity for me and my father, Richard Tarnas, to offer a workshop together focusing on the skills it takes to be an excellent astrologer. “Your Astrological Initiation” offers insight on how to be an astrological ambassador to your community, whether you are a student new to astrology or a seasoned professional astrologer.

Purchase a Recording of the Workshop!

In the workshop, we will be speaking about the relationship between astrology and psychology, techniques for how to deepen your practice, how to frame an astrology reading or research project, the ethics of a compassionate consultation, the best ways to respond to skepticism, and a celebration of the profound astrological mystery into which the astrologer is initiated.

The 4-hour workshop takes place on Wednesday, September 21 at 2:00–6:00 pm Pacific time, with a follow-up 2-hour live Q&A on Tuesday, September 27 at 2:00 pm Pacific time. Both events will be recorded and participants will have lifetime access to the recordings, plus there will be an opportunity to submit questions before the Q&A.

We’ve never before offered a workshop together of this kind and I think it will be a rich opportunity for everyone who participates!

To read a full description of the workshop, and view all the bonus offerings, please visit: astrologyhub.com/yourinitiation.

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The Jupiter & Neptune Jubilee

A Premium Panel Event & Guided Community Experience So You Can Manifest Your Dream with the Auspicious Pisces Conjunction 

To celebrate the Jupiter-Neptune conjunction in Pisces that is rapidly approaching exact alignment, I will be participating in a beautiful 120-minute live panel hosted by the Astrology Hub this Thursday, April 7 at 4:00 pm Pacific time.

Joining me on the panel will be astrologers Linda Byrd and Divine Harmony, and Amanda ‘Pua’ Walsh, the founder of the Astrology Hub, will be hosting the event! The panel is meant to give participants a broader understanding of the Jupiter-Neptune conjunction in Pisces, letting you know what this alignment means for you and how you can participate in its energies. Participants will also be submitting questions for a Q&A portion of the panel which will happen after the presentations.

Register for the Event!

In the spirit of Jupiter-Neptune, this is a “give as you wish” event that you can attend for free, or give to support the speakers and the organization if you are able.

We look forward to seeing you tomorrow to celebrate this grandiose and idealistic alignment of Jupiter and Neptune!

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Spring Equinox Announcement

Blessings upon the Spring Equinox and the growing daylight in the Northern Hemisphere! 

For the last seven years, and especially the last four years since I completed my doctorate, I’ve been dividing my attention amongst many different projects, as I’ve been developing new courses, giving public presentations, recording podcasts, writing articles and transit updates, making forecast videos, and of course, giving astrology readings. I am so grateful for all of these experiences, but I’ve reached the stage in which I need to weave all my energies together and focus on a single, large project. 

My primary focus will now be on writing a book! I’ll continue my graduate school teaching, but I’ll be concentrating most of my energies on the research and writing of a book in a genre I have never undertaken before. I’m going to hold back on sharing the subject and title of the book until it is a little further along, but I’ll just say that it is such an honor to have been asked to write this book. 

Because of this new focus I will be spending less time on social media, and will be less likely to respond to messages and emails. This shift also means I am no longer taking new astrology clients. If I am unable to respond to you, please do not take it personally but know I am keeping focused on the task at hand. 

I wish you all the best in your own burgeoning springtime endeavors! May we all learn how to cultivate creativity, even—and especially—in times of upheaval, challenge, and uncertainty. Perhaps these are the moments when the soil is most fertile for growth. 

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Archetypes, Synchronicity, and Magic

On Tuesday, March 8 at 11:00–12:30 pm Pacific time, 7:00–8:30 pm UK time, I will be offering an online presentation titled “Archetypes, Synchronicity, and Magic” for the Centre for Myth, Cosmology, and the Sacred.

Register for the Event!

Lecture Description
In recent years, astrology and magic have caught the collective imagination and are enjoying an unexpected renaissance through new social platforms. Astrology and magic have ancient roots and have persisted across the centuries through multiple evolving world views before being disavowed by the modern, scientific mind. As these disciplines re-emerge, what does it mean to practice astrological magic in the contemporary world? To do so requires reconciling different cosmologies and paradigms, synthesizing ancient and medieval spiritual and religious perspectives with modern philosophy and psychology in order to bring forward language and concepts that can speak to our place in an evolving cosmos. In light of such a synthesis, this presentation will explore archetypal theory and the concept of synchronicity—a term coined by the depth psychologist C. G. Jung—to illuminate a contemporary understanding of astrological correlations and magical praxis.  

For those who cannot attend live, there will be a recording available after the session has taken place. Simply book a ticket via the button above, and the recording link will be sent with the joining instructions. 

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Women’s Spiritual Leadership for the 21st Century

Please join me for the Women’s Spiritual Leadership for the 21st Century conference!

March 4–6, 2022
9:00 am–1:00 pm Pacific time

I will be speaking on a panel with other women leaders on Saturday, March 5 at 11:00 am, and again on Sunday, March 6 at 12:00 pm with a forecast on the current astrological transits.

This is a free event, and everyone is welcome. Men are encouraged to attend!  
(Traducción al español ofrecida)

Register for the Conference! 

Conference Description
Women spiritual leaders are emerging more prominently than ever before across the major religions and spiritual traditions of the world. This auspicious trend is gradually eroding long-standing oppression of women’s spiritual leadership, and simultaneously uplifting the feminine aspects of the Divine in diverse religious and spiritual traditions.

The purpose of this conference is to strengthen the role of women in spiritual leadership, and to build bridges of mutual support, collaboration, inspiration, and mentoring among women spiritual leaders and seekers across the major religions. The conference features celebrated and emerging women spiritual leaders from diverse world religions, all of whom have confronted and overcome formidable patriarchal barriers within their respective traditions.

www.DawnofInterSpirituality.org

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Archetypal Astrology: A Glimpse of 2022

To welcome in the New Year, I will be offering a presentation for the Institute of Psychedelic Therapy, the same organization involved in publishing the book Psychedelics and Psychotherapy: The Healing Potential of Expanded States, to which I contributed a chapter last year.

The presentation is titled Archetypal Astrology: A Glimpse of 2022, and will provide an overview of the planetary transits for the coming year. I would be delighted to see many of you there!

Register for the Event!

Archetypal astrology is the practice of studying correlations between the movements of the planets and the unfolding of human events on Earth, a celestial synchronization that intimates the deeply ensouled nature of the cosmos. This keynote presentation will explore the foundational principles of archetypal astrology, before taking a look ahead at the transits for 2022 to get a picture of what archetypal potentials may transpire. Such knowledge can help one navigate the collective zeitgeist with grace, integrating the challenges that may arise, the opportunities that may unfold, and the areas for growth that may be awakened.

This spectacular image of the Orion Nebula star-formation region was obtained from multiple exposures using the HAWK-I infrared camera on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile. This is the deepest view ever of this region and reveals more very faint planetary-mass objects than expected.
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Imagination as Birthright

Originally published in Imaginezine on October 9, 2021.

Close your eyes and turn your gaze inward. At first the image is dark, a soft warm glow behind the eyelids. But before long, a vision begins to take form.

The light increases and colors begin to differentiate: greens and yellows, deep browns and a hint of pale blue. The interplay of dappled light and shadow dances before your gaze. The edges clarify, crisp lines and measured dimensions extending in all directions around you. You look down and notice your feet nestled in cool grass. A meandering pathway stretches before you, winding around the roots of majestic trees, towering above you and filling the sky with their leafy branches. You take a step forward and hear water falling to your right. A short distance into these woods, a small stream begins to flow parallel to the grassy path you tread. It gathers in lilting pools, and the slim beams of sunlight that escape between the tree branches send dazzling sparkles across the surface of the swirling waters. As your focus on these glimmers of sun softens and blurs, the vision fades, and before you could mark the transition you find yourself seated back at your desk, physical eyes open, wondering where you just went.

This is the power of the imagination. The faculty of imagination has the ability to take our consciousness anywhere: to any time or place, from every region of the Earth to the farthest reaches of the evolving cosmos. We can visit the birth of time when the universe flared forth into being. We can enter into a yet unlived future, imagining a dystopian urban wasteland or an ecologically balanced utopia. We can cross the threshold into other worlds, whether Middle-earth, Narnia, Earthsea, or Wakanda.

In the modern era, the philosophical and scientific perspectives on imagination defined the products of this faculty as something unreal—simply made up, a mere fantasy. When speaking about imagination, the modern mind needs to use disparaging words to make clear that such expressions have no validity: it was “just your imagination,” “merely a fantasy,” “only a dream.” Such words rob the imagination of its power, or at least attempt to do so.

For without the imagination there would be no innovation, no scientific or technological breakthroughs, no great works of art, literature, and architecture. Civilization itself is built upon foundations of imagination, dreamed into being and imagined into reality.

The time has come to reclaim the imagination, to nurture its innate abilities in children and teach once again the techniques of its cultivation to adults. Imagination is inherent to humanity, and perhaps even to every species of the Earth community, a hidden property of the cosmos itself. Just as we need disciplines to hone our crafts and spiritual practices—from writing and painting, dance and carpentry, to meditation and prayer, yoga asanas and qi gong—so too we need disciplines to hone our ability to imagine: active imagination, lucid dreaming, visualization, intuitive art-making, and automatic writing.

So close your eyes and see where your inner vision and senses take you. The journey into the imaginal realm is your cosmic birthright.

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December Astrology Forecast 2021

A Venus Retrograde-y Christmas

A dream came true for me when I was invited to be a guest co-host on The Astrology Podcast for the December 2021 forecast with legendary astrologers Chris Brennan and Austin Coppock!

The astrology of December features Venus stationing retrograde in Capricorn conjunct Pluto, a Solar Eclipse in Sagittarius, and the third and final exact Saturn-Uranus square alignment (although Saturn and Uranus come within 1° square to each other in October 2022 and the transit stays in orb through 2023).

Jupiter also departs from Aquarius and moves into Pisces late in the month, while Neptune stations direct, there is a Full Moon in Gemini, and Mars ingresses into Sagittarius on the same day Mercury ingresses into Capricorn. At the beginning of the episode we review some stories that happened in the news which correlated with the astrology of November, and then dive into the astrology of December.

For those who haven’t yet seen my last appearance on The Astrology Podcast, I discussed the archetype of the planet Venus with Chris Brennan, which was such a pleasure and an honor to do!