That Witch Podcast
A show for modern witches and mystics of all levels and backgrounds! Learn about witchcraft, astrology, and spirituality in a FUN, casual atmosphere, and how to actually apply it to your life, career, relationships, and personal growth. This is real magick for real life.
That Witch Podcast
140 How To Dabble in Lite Astrology
In the vast and complex world of astrology, it is so easy to get overwhelmed by all the different tools, methods, and various ways to incorporate it in your real life. And, what if you really love astrology, but you’re not necessarily looking to become a full blown astrologer? What if you’re not really called to tracking all the different haps with the planets and transits, but you also don’t want to completely abandon the zodiac altogether?
That is exactly what this episode of That Witch Podcast is for, my friend.
In this episode I mention one of my absolute favorite tools for astrology of any level: The Magic of I. Astrological Planner. And, when you order through my affiliate link, a portion of your purchase helps support That Witch Podcast!
★
|| S I S T E R Y A R R O W ||
Sister Yarrow is one of my most favorite places to get all of my witchy accessories and home decor! These are absolutely my favorite pieces of jewelry to wear and gift others because of all the incredible intention put into every single product, and how badass you look+feel wearing them 🔥🔥🔥
Support small business and start your holiday shopping now with gifts for all the magickal baddies in your life:
Take 15% off your entire purchase with code THATWITCH15 on sisteryarrow.com!
★
|| T H E N E I G H B O R H O O D ||
YouTube: That Witch Next Door
Instagram: @thatwitch.nextdoor
TikTok: @thatwitch.nextdoor
Pinterest: @thatwitchdani
Twitter: @danithatwitch
Contact: thatwitchnextdoor.com/conjurethatwitch
Hey, do you want to come over and make a pot of tea? Bring your favorite crystals. You know we could talk about our birth charts, spirits, the latest house spells we've been doing. Welcome to the neighborhood. I'm that witch next door. ["witch Next Door"]. Hi neighbor, hi friend, welcome back to another episode of that Witch Podcast. If this is your first time here in our neighborhood, hey, I'm Danny and I'm that witch next door, and I am thrilled to be bringing you a couple of what I hope to be very helpful episodes, because most of you that stick around and really eat up the content that we put out here in the neighborhood are students of astrology.
Speaker 1:Most of my listeners, my audience members, all of my neighbors we all overlap in these different ways. We have these different connections and things that we're interested in and practices that resonate with us and that we're learning. And one of the biggest common threads for all of us here is astrology. And, because I am a witch, I like teaching you how to use astrology and witchcraft in your regular daily life, because I believe that these practices can honestly transform your life and give you a kind of accountability, self-acceptance and authenticity and just overall, in general alignment of this crazy complex life and existence we lead here on earth. I know how helpful these practices are and how much they've given me, and I like teaching you how to do that for yourself by providing you with helpful tools. That's what we're all about around here, and I was speaking recently with my wonderful VA and colleague and friend, andrea of Dream Life Connection, your virtual alchemist, and we were having a conversation about astrology and specifically tracking the cosmos, and I was letting her know that to get the benefits of astrology, you don't actually have to dive all the way in if you don't want to, if you don't feel called to, even if you do resonate with it. I really honestly believe that this is a practice that can be used in so many different kinds of ways on so many different levels, and it is so fluid and so flexible that you should customize the living hell out of it for yourself. And so if you feel called to every nook and cranny to explore every single corner of your chart, my friend, you're in the right place. Don't get me, we're one and the same, but If you are someone that really resonates with their horoscope and the astrological information that they hear on social media or day-to-day life, or pop culture and what they read, and they want to learn more about it so they can use it a little bit more intentionally.
Speaker 1:But they don't necessarily feel any kind of call or pull to like learn the actual birth chart and what all the aspects are in every single planet and their orbital pattern. They don't want to dive all the way in, but this information is helpful for them, it resonates deeply and it's providing them with transformational work, so they do want to use it in a purposeful, practical way. I realized through this wonderful conversation with Andrea that I think some episodes that would be really really helpful for everybody is this little two-parter that we're going to do, which is light what I'm calling light astrology and following and tracking the luminaries and what we're going to call deep diving astrology. And one episode is going to be really helpful if you're looking for, just using bits and pieces that work for you, what are some consistent things that I can follow and I can use, that are going to resonate with me and is not going to make me feel totally overwhelmed. That's what we're going to talk about today In our part two of this little double series.
Speaker 1:Here I'm going to give you a more step-by-step guide how to deep dive, where to begin, where to go from there. Based on my own experience learning astrology for myself, based on now helping to teach other students of astrology how to learn their birth chart and read other charts from the inside out, I'm going to help give you a little guide and a little step map for yourself so that it doesn't feel so like there's so much I don't even know where to go and now I'm just overwhelmed trying to study. So, without further ado, today let's talk about light astrology. I love this a lot because I honestly, there are times in my life where I, on a personal level, use astrology in the way that we're going to talk about today, in this little light dabbling way.
Speaker 1:There are times in my life where events and experiences going on around me are consuming so much of my attention that the only astrology I do is this very intentional specific Monday Musings episode with all of you, and that's it. And the microphone turns off and astrology has to turn off. And it doesn't turn off in a, because for me, I use astrology like a lens, like a filter, like I understand and interpret so much of the world through it. It's much more like a language and a tool of interpretation of the language of life for me. But as far as tracking the current transits and looking at how those are going in my chart and how I can really intentionally work with those, that kind of work has to take a backseat for me.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I am a work at home, mother, entrepreneur, I'm there and I have I'm neurodivergent and I have a new home and we just moved and family and marriage and trying to cultivate and create like local community and make friends, like there's all these things that take up my time and space. And I say all of that to help validate you and help you feel seen, because I know how busy you are and I know that there are times that astrology and tracking the cosmos is just like, like that's just not realistic. And that's why this episode is actually for everybody. Even if you are one of our deep divers that is really trying to fully, fully involve themselves in the practice and study of astrology, this episode and what we're going to talk about today is still going to be really helpful for you because, just like we've talked about on the show, it's okay to take breaks from your spiritual practices, from your inner work, from your personal development work. There are just going to be areas of your life that take up your attention and take up your energy, and so let's dial the chart back a lot and look at some ways that we can practice still using astrology In this case.
Speaker 1:When I say practice, I especially mean like in, literally like practicing, flexing those astrological muscles. If you are somebody who is learning astrology and is trying to give yourself some consistent practice, this is an excellent way to do that while not overwhelming yourself with tracking. So you are going to want some kind of physical tool here that might come in the form of like an astrological planner, a journal. It could honestly be a notebook. You would be, I don't know, maybe you wouldn't be that surprised now that I'm thinking about it, but every single notebook that I have is filled with astrology and astrological symbols. Simply because of this first tip for you is probably the most helpful. Quite possibly it's transformational. If you just implement this one thing, you will take your learning, you will create an astrological track, like habit of tracking, and create this consistency for yourself.
Speaker 1:Just start noting. Just start noting one planetary aspect. If you are already writing down the date somewhere, if you're already writing down the date, make some kind of astrological notation. So I do this in a few ways, quite honestly, it depends on the journal or the planner or the notebook, because it depends on my intention. For my journal, for example, something that I do deep self reflection in, I write the date, I write the time and I always, always, write both the moon phase and the sign that the moon is in. In the last probably three years, maybe two years, I also started writing the day of the lunar cycle, like if it's day 11 of the current lunar cycle. I do this.
Speaker 1:The first question that you're going to have is how? What, danny? What do you recommend for an app or whatever? Let me, let me just get this recommendation underway. First of all, you can go to that which next doorcom. Right now. You go to resources and when you go to the neighborhood library, this is a master link list that lives for free on that which next doorcom and it has all of these. If you're looking for book recommendations, tarot deck and Oracle deck recommendations, astrology apps and software and all the, it's probably already on the master link list. And if you ever hear me share something that you see is not on the link list, please always reach out and let me know and I'll be happy to make sure that we have it added on there and updated. So go to that which next doorcom, click on resources. Go to neighborhood library. It's the master link list. It's free.
Speaker 1:The app that I use I'm an Android user, let's not fight, I use. Oh, there we go. There we go. First of all, I have a little folder on my phone. I don't know how you organize your phone or not, but one thing that really helps me is keeping like my spiritual and astrology stuff in one folder because it, when I'm having good boundaries around, like my social media use, and I'm trying to be really intentional with my phone use, I find that having folders really helps me use my phone time a lot more mindfully than just like opening up and scrolling to the first app that I see, because 90% of the time I'm just gonna click on fucking Instagram. So in this case, I go to my little folder that has a little moon on it and my app for Android that I use is called the moon and it's literally just a little nighttime icon with a big full moon on it and there are recommendations for other apps that are also iOS friendly in the neighborhood library master link list, so please go there. There's also a link in the show notes below to get there even faster. So I use a moon app because I open it and Bada Bing.
Speaker 1:I'm recording this on the full moon, by the way, so it looks extra pretty for the camera. But because it's the full moon, it's day 15 of the current lunar cycle. Right now. It shows the zodiac sign that the moon is in, the percentage of how full the moon currently is, and it also has a calendar feature that I really like. So it shows a month's view and you can tap back and forth between seeing the lunar phase picture and the zodiac signs, and it just shows you on September 29th, which is what I'm showing you right now, even though you're gonna listen to this a lot later. Today's the full moon in Aries and I can see that, in comparison to what signs the moon has been in all month long, this is awesome. If you don't already have a moon app and you listen to moon day musings about to blow your mind, you're gonna love so much All of my visual learning friends, you are gonna love this so much when we talk about the moon scope and you can actually see the progression of the moon through the zodiac like this and the actual phases themselves. It really it's just awesome thing if you're visual. So the moon app is where I get that information.
Speaker 1:I also use, as you probably know by now, time passages by AstroGraph. That's my personal favorite app and software for astrology. I also love astro-seekcom and I also love astrocom. Those are probably all of my favorite, most frequently used. But again, we have lots of recommendations in the neighborhood library master link list. So on time passages, this is another place I can get any current astrological information that I need with the symbol.
Speaker 1:So if you are learning and still trying to remember which symbols in astrology go with what planet or what zodiac sign, this is why this is so incredibly helpful, because I can open up time passages. I can click on current chart and it just automatically pulls up the chart for my time and location right now in the world and it shows you all the planets in the current aspects. And don't worry, because this is light astrology, right? You're like Danny. You said I did not have to read a chart. Don't worry, because you can ignore this whole entire thing if you like and you can go right to planets at the bottom and it will open up that handy list for you that just shows you sun is in Libra, moon is in Aries, mercury's in Virgo. Okay, this is here's the astrology for today, everyone. It also gives you a list of aspects, but, again, this is light astrology, so you don't have to worry about that. It's just very versatile app. So I'm just throwing that out there. If you are studying aspects and that is a helpful feature to you, it's here on time passages. It's not sponsored at all. I just love them so much.
Speaker 1:So I really like this and I recommend this to my students all the time, because I also make note of another way that I write down. I use this tip or this technique is if I'm dating anything especially, I do this with recording notes for the podcast. I do this in a different notebook. I do this in my planner, or I make note of it or circle it in my planner. I can open this up. I do this in my content calendar for everything we do in the school. I can write down next to the day of the week, the quick symbols for, like Libra season or Mercury station retrograde, or Mars into Aries or whatever it is. I just can write down the symbols, so it's extremely quick. This is a very, very quick extra step and I promise that, because you're doing it every time, you have to write down the date you're gonna learn these symbols so much faster and this process is going to become so, so, so much faster.
Speaker 1:Since this is light astrology, what I'd probably recommend doing is either making note of the sign of the moon is in the sign, the phase, possibly, that the moon is also in. If you wanna go the extra mile, I would make note of the current solar season that we are in, so writing down what sign the sun is currently in. The sun and the moon are the two luminaries in our chart. They're the two celestial beings in our solar system that illuminate the night sky or the daytime sky. They illuminate our experience and existence here on Earth. We can physically see, but also on that higher level, so we can see. They both do this in their own unique way, just like in our physical world, something being lit up by sunlight and something being illuminated by moonlight. These are two very different looking illuminations, but they are two illuminations in and of themselves, absolutely regardless of how different they are, even in the darkest night of the month at the new moon. This is still a different kind of illumination the moon offers us and this is something that has been believed in practice by our ancient ancestors for very, very, very thousands and thousands and thousands of years, probably much longer than that and this is the idea that when we actually remove that which we can see, we are then truly shown. There is a whole different kind of illumination that can take place in the night and in the dark, and the moon teaches us that. So think of the sun and think of the moon as these luminaries that shine their light and show us various truths and messages and signs about our existence and our experience here on Earth.
Speaker 1:Alright, neighbors, let's take a brief moment to thank today's small business and episode sponsor. Today's show is brought to you by one of my all time favorite witchy brands, cystriaro. Owned and operated by one of our fellow Earth witches, one of my very dear friends, madeline Greason, cystriaro offers freaking, amazing handmade jewelry, home goods, accessories for any style, any decor. I personally have many pieces from Cystriaro myself that I absolutely adore. I swear every single pair of earrings that I've gotten from Cystriaro goes with every outfit, every style that I wear. Everywhere I go, I'm stopped and I get compliments on my earrings or my necklaces, but my new favorite items have honestly become the sun catchers and the candles that they now offer. The sun catchers create these gorgeous dancing rainbows all throughout the room of my house that I have them hanging in and the candles listen. If you are a professional candle burner, like I am, you want these candles. They give that gorgeous scent so that you do walk into the room and you're like, oh my God, this smells amazing. But it's also not like crazy heavy, overpowering either, like a lot of candles can be and they have, I swear, the cleanest even burn, which is just the chef's kiss of candle burning. If you know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:I have bought my friends and family gifts from Cystriaro many, many times in the past and I actually already took advantage of their early Black Friday sale and I stocked up on gifts for my mom and sister and sister-in-law and my mother-in-law, and actually I'm now thinking I'm going to need to go back again for myself, probably because Cystriaro's newest Alta Luna collection is goddamn stunning. Y'all. I am so excited about these pieces and these items in the newest collection, you as a listener, as one of our neighbors here, of that Witch podcast, you get 15% off your entire purchase at Cystriarocom simply using the code ThatWitch15. All you need to do is go to Cystriarocom, enter code ThatWitch15 to receive 15% off your entire order. Make sure you subscribe to Cystriaro's email newsletter. They are always, always doing amazing exclusive discounts and announcements and early releases of their collections to the email subscribers. And don't forget to follow and show all of the love on social media. And, of course, that is Cystriarocom. Use code ThatWitch15 to get 15% off of your entire order. Thanks, and now back to today's show.
Speaker 1:So this is why writing down the sign that the moon and the sign that the sun are in this is such a beneficial practice, not just because you're getting that awesome, awesome practice with memorizing the symbols. It is the best way to practice the symbols If you make a point to write them down regularly, like that, you're just going to learn them faster than if you're trying to just read them and memorize them, read them and memorize them. But the other reason this is so helpful is because this is how we begin to use astrology to reflect on the events of our life in a different way, from a different angle, from an astrological angle. So what will happen is that at the very beginning of this practice, you don't have a lot of data collected yet. You are more than welcome to go back Most apps and softwares that you use. You can plug in a date in the past if you wanted to go that extra mile and go back in your journal and make note of any moon phases, moon signs or solar season. Again, you can do it for any planet at that time.
Speaker 1:But this is light astrology. So simply looking at the sun and the moon is going to illuminate and bring about connections for you that you had never seen before, and so if this is something you just start doing, you'll want to give yourself some time to build up some data a little bit and then make a point to simply notice or flip back a few pages. So, for example, sometimes I'm just paying attention and I notice. The last four times I journaled was on a Wednesday. One time I kept sitting down and writing at every quarter moon, and I wasn't doing these things on purpose. I just was notating what sign and what phase the moon was in and these patterns started to emerge, these little signs that I was like how interesting that I'm doing that right now or how interesting that that's what the astrology is saying right now while I'm experiencing this. Not only is this going to help you understand your life in a whole different way and help you reflect on your experiences in a whole new perspective, you're also learning astrology while you do this and I get so excited as a teacher because this is such an effective.
Speaker 1:It's like a two birds one stone. It's bang for your buck. Not only are you doing this great reflective practice for yourself, where maybe normally, whatever it is that you're writing the date on, you usually don't even think about that. You're only writing the date so that you know the date that you did that thing, but as long as it's not a legal document, you're not allowed to you know, or maybe it's for work or something, and other people don't need to see your little notations. You know what I mean. But, like any other time, if you're writing the date and it's just for you to know the date, make take a couple extra seconds Again at the beginning it might take I don't know 60 seconds to look for one second on your app. It takes me no time to open it up and go oh, sun and labor, moon and Aries boom. You don't even have to write the moon phase. If you don't want to, you can tell again, totally customize this to fit your needs and what sounds interesting to you.
Speaker 1:But I do recommend incorporating the zodiac signs simply because, if astrology is resonating with you, at least having a basic, basic understanding in relationship with the zodiac signs and the energy of them I mean you you are going to be able to do a lot for yourself. You're going to be able to understand and interpret, just like I said, interpret life and your experience and the events around you in a totally different way. That helps you live more mindfully, more intentionally and bring alignment to all of these areas of your life that may right now feel a lot more chaotic or or combative with each other. I find that astrology is this glue that fills in the cracks and starts to make everything make sense. Those really, really hard days that I don't understand why it's so hard and what the fuck is happening and it like what is wrong with me? And you start going down that path.
Speaker 1:I, I look at my app, I take a look at the astrology, or I I write down the phase that the moon is in, and it always makes me go, oh, oh, this makes a lot of sense. It doesn't mean that I think that the planets are making these things happen to me. The planets provide a zoomed out perspective that I can look at our, our world from a even beyond a bird's eye view and go, oh, right now on my soul journey is a time of fill in the blank challenge, turmoil, whatever you know, change, transformation. But you know, I'm, I'm, I'm supposed to be working on this communication stuff, or it makes sense that I'm being tested in in this way in my relationships, like it, it's this validating practice that helps me live my life more mindfully. So I hope that not only does this help you, you know, find some easy ways to just start incorporating little pieces of astrology in just your, your regular, just existence.
Speaker 1:Whenever you're documenting, notating something, get in the habit of writing down the symbol or looking at the chart really quick, or looking at the moon app really quick and giving yourself, you know, 30 seconds to think about this from an astrological perspective. This is why, when people try and talk about if this is like a waste of time practice or it's nonsense, I'm like what? What on earth does it harm To give somebody a tool that helps them to take a fucking break, take a breath, zoom out and look at everything from a holistic perspective. Why on earth is that harmful? Sure, maybe somebody's saying that you can piss off a planet and it controls our life, and we're sure, maybe that's harmful, but that's certainly not what we do around here. So that's not the way we use astrology.
Speaker 1:So I'm not I want you to know that this is a valid, helpful practice. It's resonating with you for a reason and as somebody who very much lives on the entire spectrum of deep diving the hell out of astrology and using light astrology and making these quick little notes of the planets and the celestials and the signs that they're in to help better understand and have more patience and acceptance for myself and my journey, I'm telling you there is so much, so much magic to be tapped into here. So I hope that this is helpful and gives you some good jumping off points. I hope that you go check out that Neighborhood Library Master link list. Go take a look at all of our resources that we have on that witchnextdoorcom for just $5 a month you can unlock a ton ton of learning materials to incorporate in maybe light to medium astrology too, over in that witch school. So, whatever level astrology benefits you in your life, we are here to support you in that journey, my friend. So thank you for your time today. I hope that this was helpful and informative and maybe even a little inspiring for you today. I hope that you have an extremely magical weekend. Make sure that all of you stay safe. I hope that everyone gets to have a little bit of fun and, of course, stay magical out there. What is that which? Well, it's kind of my twist on patreon See, for as little as five dollars a month, you can get instant access for entire back catalog of of incredible bonus content, like bonus episodes, witchy lessons, a ton of astrology resources, guest teachings and so much more.
Speaker 1:I didn't want to just keep the magic going in between episodes with bonus content. I wanted to keep the learning going and I wanted to keep the community going. So I also offered tiers that opened up opportunity for for continued intentional, magical academic learning, as well as opportunity for creating community Like minded witchy individuals. For just 30 dollars a month, you can get full, complete access to everything inside at witch school, including our exclusive Members only social media platform on lighting networks. We're right now witches and energy practitioners and students just like you are all learning, working together, sharing together and supporting each other week in and week out. We talk about the show, we share dreams that we've had, we share each other's tarot readings and, ultimately, we support each other as magical beings in a very anti magical world. You can join us today at that witch next door, comm slash. Enroll to learn more and start your enrollment today.