Alfi Lyavua – Four Ways to the Lord

ALFIE LAVIO — FOUR PATHS TO THE LORD

The reason I named my report this way is as follows. If we learn to pray, if we recognize this path to the Lord, we will understand what prayer truly is. The idea of the report is oriented toward aspects and harmonics. When I first began studying astrology, there were so many aspects and energies whose meanings I could not grasp. I never tire of saying: to be a good astrologer, you must thoroughly know and understand what planets, houses, and aspects are. These are the three foundations of astrology, and if you master them well, you can become a skilled practicing astrologer.

In my research, I discovered that the fourth path to the Lord may be the 8th harmonic, that is, the square and the semi-square. You know that in astrology these aspects are considered bad, difficult. However, they do not operate on the same level as squares, oppositions, and conjunctions. These aspects are less oriented toward the physical plane.

I could not understand why the semi-square does not join the group of oppositions, squares, and conjunctions until I met a professor who gave me the book “Magic Numbers,” dedicated to enneagrams. This theory dates back thousands of years, possibly around 2000 years. It is very similar to Kabbalistic numerology. Today in America, the enneagram is used to identify different personality types in one way or another.

In the enneagram, numbers from 1 to 9 are used, and I will roughly show you so you get an idea of what I mean. Here is a diagram of the enneagram. We start at 1, then descend to 4, then move to 2, then to 8, 5, 7, and return to 1. Why is 142857 called a magic number? Because if you take this number and multiply it by any number from 1 to 8, the result will be a number with the same set of digits. It is like a pattern that contains your being.

Before moving to the numerological explanation of this pattern, let us talk a little about aspects. Without them, astrology would be nothing. Yesterday I told you that if, for example, Mars is in square to the Sun, trine, or conjunction—it does not matter—all these aspects describe the interaction of two planets, and a person must learn to combine the energies of these planets. Suppose Mars is an American or an English speaker, and the Sun is Russian. The aspect shows how the English speaker and the Russian will communicate. In a trine, they will have no problems and become good friends; in a conjunction, sometimes they will get along very well, other times their communication will bring no satisfaction at all—it all depends on the topic of conversation. A conjunction can be a very positive aspect or, conversely, negative.

If it is a square, problems are unavoidable because you simply will not be able to agree and will have to resort to gestures or something else. All this is so close to us because it is inside our being. Even people with squares believe they are right and know how to communicate.

If a person has Mars in square to the Sun and you tell them they are too aggressive or hot-tempered, that they have too much anger—they will not believe you because it seems to them they have a trine. Aspects describe your inner state, what happens in your soul; they are what connects and binds together various energies. We can call this the path of unification, and each aspect has its own path.

Those who know me well and are familiar with my astrological works would say this lecture is unlike my usual ones because I usually share astrological techniques. In today’s topic, there are not many technical details; today I will try to do something different—offer you a completely different understanding of aspects, one you may not have encountered before.

There are many astrologers who deal with past lives and can tell you who you were in a previous incarnation. I believe you can talk about it, but you can never prove it, so I do not waste time discussing past lives. It always sounds beautiful, but there may be no truth in it at all. I have always thought—and still think—that the only way to live our lives is to focus on the present. Even if you were a bad person in a past life, do not bring it up now, and no one will ever know. Try to be good now because the past is distant from what is happening now.

I will speak about urgent issues, yet despite this, my lecture will not be technical. Let us look at aspects. In astrology, we primarily use five aspects. We have two difficult aspects, two harmonious ones, and one that can be either. There is balance here, so their use is fair. I do not work with the quincunx. If we add the semi-square and sesquiquadrate, we already have five difficult aspects and only two harmonious ones, and astrologers begin to focus on the negative, finding too much negativity in a chart—yet there is simply not that much.

The most commonly used harmonics in a chart are the 8th and 6th. Let us clarify right away: what are harmonics? Harmonics are very easy to calculate. All you need to do is take the harmonic number and divide 360° by it. If I take the 3rd harmonic, that is 120° (trine); the 5th is 72° (quintile). In most cases, I think harmonically because it is easy to imagine all of astrology as a whole.

You might say the 6th harmonic is an easy, harmonious aspect, while the 8th is tense, so you will think about how to resolve the conflict. How do you think ancient astrologers concluded that conjunctions, oppositions, and squares belong to one group, that they are one family like cousins? Let us divide aspects into two groups: tense and harmonious, then:

360° / 1 = 360° — conjunction
360° / 2 = 180° — opposition
360° / 3 = 120° — trine
360° / 4 = 90° — square
360° / 6 = 60° — sextile

Harmonics mean that these energies obey a single rhythm. Their vibrations can be represented by a curve, the same cycle. Here, as in electricity, we know the wavelength, can speak about oscillation frequency, and expect a certain effect. For example, take the conjunction—1; then 1 x 2 = 2; x 2 = 4; x 2 = 8; x 2 = 16; x 2 = 32; x 2 = 64… This means I am setting a rhythm. Thus, I obtain aspects whose energy is harmonized. The closest to the beginning harmonic will be stronger; it starts to weaken as the number increases.

Regarding aspects, this means we should allow larger orbs for a conjunction than, for example, for a semi-square (8th harmonic), because the aspect’s strength is weaker, and thus the orb should be smaller. This is a constant topic of debate among astrologers, and I believe it has existed since the dawn of astrology. Many astrologers argue that for a conjunction, the orb should be 7°, while others say a certain orb should be used for fast-moving planets and another for slow ones.

Dane Rudhyar and Michael Munkasey use a 17° orb for any aspect between the Sun and the Moon, and many astrologers go crazy over such a large orb, yet for the Sun and Saturn they use a 5° orb. The energy of orbs and the topic of orbs in general require further study.

I think there are certain planetary pairs for which we should use larger orbs. In astrology, there are always pairs of planets that interact well with each other regardless of the aspect between them, while other planetary pairs interact poorly. J. Harvey wrote a book on this topic. I also believe there are pairs of planets for which the orb can be larger than usual. One such pair is undoubtedly the Moon and Saturn. A larger orb can be used for them.

I am speaking now about natal charts because in forecasting, when working with secondary progressions and solar arcs, the orb should be less than 10′ and even 5′. In transits, it can be 1°. If it is not a stationary planet, for a planet changing its motion from direct to retrograde exactly on your planet, you can take an orb up to 2°, and it will work because at that moment the planet’s energy is more intense.

I gave you an example showing what retrograde motion provides. Let us take the aspect of a transiting Saturn to the Sun.Usually an aspect is active for up to two weeks, and when it comes to retrograde planets — up to two months. When the time of the aspect arrives, it begins to act. I can feel it for two weeks, but after two months — “there will be a hole in my palm.” That is why aspects of retrograde planets are so difficult: they hover over us for a long time and do not leave us quickly.

You have probably heard of one of the methods of Chinese torture. A drop of water fell on the same spot on the victim’s head, day after day. On the first day it is not bad, but after six months…

Let me explain my view on harmonics. Regardless of which aspect is operating, the two planets are in a state of stress, obviously at different levels. The strongest are the initial harmonics, then a gradual decrease. When we approach the harmonic, we may no longer feel anything unless we have some extrasensory abilities.

In traditional astrology we use from the 1st to the 8th harmonic, and we stop there. Often I work only up to the 4th. There is a technique called Uranian astrology or cosmobiology, which came to us from Germany. Astrologers use 16 harmonics and even 32, but they do not use the good aspects (trines, sextiles) at all — only the tense ones. What is good or bad is determined by the different energies of the planets, and this is truly fair.

For example, in my chart Jupiter is in square to some planet, and I am ready to accept this aspect because Jupiter is always good, no matter what tense aspect it makes. The square only says that in many cases you lose the chance, because you look for lucky opportunities in the wrong direction; you look ahead, but they are behind. Yet the power is always there, because it is still Jupiter.

But let us recall that in the group of tense aspects there are many varieties, and the higher the harmonic, the weaker the aspect’s influence.

Now let us consider the group of positive aspects. It is very small. As I have already said, astrologers love tense aspects more and tend to overlook the good ones. So, the positive aspects are: conjunction, trine, sextile, semi-sextile, and so on.A conjunction in a natal chart is any harmonic; an aspect belongs to all groups, and that is precisely why a conjunction is so powerful. In practice, we usually deal with aspects up to the 12th harmonic (semi-sextile, quincunx), and no more. The 1st is much stronger than the 12th. I do not understand those astrologers who use quincunxes in their practice but ignore semi-sextiles, since they carry the same weight, the same influence. Such a one-sided approach makes no sense at all. Two weeks ago, in California, one astrologer asked me whether I use quincunxes. I answered no. In response, I heard that I could not be a good astrologer because I do not use quincunxes in my practice. Then I asked him: does he use semi-sextiles? He said no. I drew him a diagram of harmonics. He said, “Oh, I’ve never looked at aspects from this perspective!” Sometimes we have to perform such mathematical analysis because mathematics is the root of everything.

Let us now examine other groups of aspects that are used less frequently. Astrologers work with the 5th harmonic (quintile). This is a rather small group: 72° and 144°, sometimes the biquintile 36°, but this aspect is very weak. The 72° is the strongest aspect, the 144° is less strong. Another group is the 7th harmonic (51° — septile, 102° — bi-septile, 25.5° — semi-septile). The next group is the 9th harmonic (40° — novile, 20° — semi-novile, 80° — bi-novile). It is the 9th harmonic on which I will base my entire argument in the subsequent lecture. The 9th harmonic is used very intensively by Vedic astrologers. They believe that a 9th harmonic chart indicates what a person needs to tune into in this life in order to move from the point where they currently stand into another dimension. They also believe that if a person does not use their 9th harmonic and knows nothing about it, they are locked into the same level and will always repeat the same lesson. I fully believe this, because in numerology the number 9 represents transformation, a transition to another dimension. You begin from 1 to 9. If a double digit appears, we reduce it to a single digit, so the entire life experience is from 1 to 9. When we reach 9, a new phase begins; we start everything anew. I have conducted sufficient research to show that all this works. In numerology, when we approach the 9th year, it is a year of release. The 9th year means that if you have not learned your lesson in the first 8 years, the 9th year will be very difficult and challenging for you.

Yesterday I spoke about the 8th house — the house of Scorpio, in connection with the Saturn cycle. I said that at the Ascendant, there begins a descent to the Nadir, and then a rise again to the 8th house cusp. If you climb a mountain and reach its peak, life tells you: “You already have enough experience, so get rid of unnecessary baggage, discard extra ‘hammers,’ ‘bundles,’ ‘ropes,’ ‘food supplies’ — and keep only what is absolutely necessary — the bare minimum! Throw away that extra weight so it does not drag you into the abyss instead of lifting you higher!” As we remember, the 8th house is the house of Scorpio, and the 9th house is the house of Sagittarius, the house of FAITH. I am Catholic; I do not know what faith you follow, but I will say that in Catholicism, if you die with minor sins, you go to purgatory and suffer there. You cleanse yourself of your sins, experiencing a fire similar to that of hell, but only after passing through the fire of purification are you allowed to ascend to heaven. This is the house of Scorpio — the house of purification from anything and everything, which is why it governs all transmissions, poisons, and if you do not produce an antidote, you will die. The 8th house is the house of death, not only physical but of any other kind. It can be the death of a relationship, as you assess its value. If you reach the point where you believe these relationships are no longer worth continuing because they contain too much poison, they die.

If we compare each group of aspects to a family, we can say they share the same genes but have different chromosomes. Take, for example, the square and the opposition. They vibrate on the same frequency, symbolize the same energy, yet they are still somewhat different from each other. Perhaps in the family of tense aspects, all the “bad guys” are alike: one carries a knife behind his back, and the other a gun, but both actively use their weapons; they simply employ different tactics, their own approach to life. And I want you to remember one important rule: when we work with harmonics and construct charts, all members of one family, such as 1, 2, 4, 8, are connected within the horoscope. If they are within orb of aspect, in a harmonious chart they will be in combination, because family members hold onto one another. The same applies to trines, sextiles, and semi-sextiles.

Harmonics are very easy to calculate: take the absolute longitude of a planet — my Sun, for example, is at 14° Libra, which is 194°, and the 2nd harmonic is 388° or 28° Aries. Once you understand this, you can do excellent work.

So, the enneagram. As you may have noticed, the number 142857 is at the bottom; we will arrive at it starting from any number in the enneagram. When I first looked at the diagram, it struck me as interesting. Let us take the numbers and convert them into aspects or harmonics; then the relationships between the numbers will reveal the wholeness to us. We start with 1 — that is a conjunction, 2 — opposition, and so on up to 9. Now let us look at it from another angle. At the top of the enneagram is 9, the number of completion, of perfection. We all strive to reach 9 in this life. If you construct a harmonic chart, it will tell you about the main lessons you must learn in this life.

Look at the enneagram: the lines connect 4 and 5 = 9,6 and 3 = 9, 2 and 7 = 9, 1 and 8 = 9. What does this mean? I call this the four paths to God. Each of us has 4 Paths, 4 different paths to the Lord. All of us, all people on Earth, are on one of these paths. Why are there 4 paths to God? I want to dwell on this for a moment. I am a Catholic, and when we studied the Bible, the number 40 appears often: “…it rained for 40 days and 40 nights…, Christ fasted in the desert for 40 days…, Christ ascended to heaven 40 days after his death…” This is a spiritual number, and the vibrations of the number 40 are very important. Lent consists of 40 days. You must fast and pray. For 40 days, you must go to church every day. If you made a wish on the first day and on the 40th day you continue to pray and ask for the same thing, the Lord will grant your request. But this is too long a time if you want everything—blessings for everything. Let’s return to the theory of harmonics. Take a circle, divide it into 40, and you get 9. Does this tell me that 40 and 9 are the same energy?! The Church knew this; perhaps there were astrologers among them, the Pope or someone else who studied astrology, because even before the 18th century it was known that you needed to pray for 40 days for your prayers to be answered. And only at the First Vatican Council in the early 19th century did the Pope allow prayers to be said for 9 days. Catholics, it seems, understood that modern people are becoming increasingly lazy and no one actually prays for 40 days, so they decided that at least they would pray for 9 days. Now, as a Catholic, you must go to church and pray for 9 consecutive days to obtain what you desire. This is called a novena, and it is the same energy. If you are a true Christian, you pray for 40 days or you can pray in the shortened version—for 9 days. The Church perfectly understood the number 9; it is a magical number. Let’s return to the enneagram. Remember that each of us is on one of the 4 paths, and if we can work through our path in this life and reach the 9, we will receive our enneagram, wholeness. We will complete our life path, and if you believe in the transmigration of souls, we will carry nothing into the next life; our task will be complete.

When I began to study the enneagram, it seemed very interesting to me because there are 4 Paths and 4 Evangelists in the Bible, and each of them tells their own story about Christ, about what Christ did on Earth. And what is interesting is that all of them converge roughly on the same story, the same ending of their narratives, yet each story is very different from the others. There are 4 Gospels, and as you know, each Evangelist offers their own way of describing Heavenly Bliss. We can imagine this as 4 Paths or 4 Evangelists. Many of us do not know which Path we are on, so we listen to all 4, and this usually does not work. Of course, as astrologers, you will be able to tell your client where they are now. Examining harmonics, you will be able to see the soul of the client, but you will never see this in an astrological chart, no matter which chart you look at. Let’s dwell on this in more detail.

If you divide a circle into two halves, on the right side are the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 (conjunction, opposition, trine, square)—this is the physical side of the individual. You may have noticed that when we deal with aspects between planets, we are concerned only with what is happening here and now. We always focus on what we touch, on what works for us. There is no process of thought here; we are not connected to it in any way because even in the case of a trine, people may simply walk over others if they see something they truly want. People who have many trines do not think about those they offend; all they want is the good that lies ahead, and they believe it is their right.

All these aspects on the right side speak of our animal nature. I have two small chow-chow dogs. They perfectly sense all these aspects but do not go beyond them. They embody, as it were, one side of life. Let’s look at the other half of the circle—the left side: 5, 6, 7, 8 (quintile, sextile, septile, semi-square). This is the mental half, the subtle plane. The aspects seem to sit in our heads. There is no connection to the earth, no spark; you might say this is the part of our soul that we do not know.

Remember, when I began to study astrology, I did not understand why the 8th harmonic is similar to the 2nd. It seemed to me that a square is all our hardships and limitations in life, everything that hinders us, the energy we constantly resist. A square is difficult to perceive. You approach and look around the corner, but there is nothing there; you go to the next corner—again nothing. You go around in circles, seeing nothing, while life always outpaces you! You try with all your might to look at your life, but all you see is something insignificant. The 8th harmonic (semi-square and sesquiquadrate) are difficult aspects, tense ones. If you have many such aspects in your chart, you will go mad; you will not be able to do anything to fix the situation. I am a person of the 8th harmonic, and if I speak about something and someone contradicts me or says something that makes no sense to me, I can offend that person. When something unjust happens, I go crazy, I get worked up instantly and start shouting. But in this way, I do not solve a single problem!

My little wife, Carroll—she is a person of the 5th harmonic; I will explain a little later why she entered my life, why she was exactly what I needed. A person of the 8th harmonic is as full of stress as a person of the 2nd harmonic, but they do not see any way out. The problem torments them from within and finds no resolution.

Let’s return to the diagram. Each of us has a physical part or a part of pure action where there is no thought at all, and there is a part that lives in our heads—it is entirely mental. This part has nothing to do with what is manifested in life. What do the four paths to God tell us? To reach the 9, I must find my partner, my opposite. Take me, for example—I am a harmonic person, I live in my thoughts, and I need the 1st harmonic. I lack the 1st in my life, so when I have a problem, I have the opportunity to connect with the earth. And if I can somehow find, cultivate the 1st, create balance (8 and 1), then I can use this to change my life. You can change your life only through the 9. As you remember, I spoke earlier about how many planets in astrology cause crises and changes. Almost any planet in aspect can do this. But there is one important planet—Pluto. It constantly causes changes because when Pluto changes you, it is a total change. Pluto belongs to the 9. We each have only one negative transit aspect of Pluto (conjunction, opposition, square) to any planet in one lifetime. If it makes, for example, a square to the Sun, it will never make an opposition or conjunction to the Sun. No person can withstand two Plutonian transits. Even one will leave you feeling battered. I am sure that anyone in this room who has experienced a Pluto transit knows what I am talking about!

When Pluto was in Libra, where my Sun, Moon, Venus, and Jupiter are, radical changes occurred in my life. I divorced my wife, lost a house worth about $1 million, a car, and hit rock bottom. Pluto completely changed my life. So the 9 is a very important number, a powerful one! If we understand which of these paths we are on, we can solve the problem. Remember that each person can be on only one of the paths. A little later, I will show you how to calculate which one it is. Perhaps in your chart, the 1st harmonic is very strong and the 3rd is almost as strong. My small studies have shown that people in whose charts, at first glance, all 4 paths seem developed usually end their lives in a psychiatric hospital or a similar institution.

A few years ago in America, there was a man named Richard Speck. In one night, he killed 14 nurses in a hospital. When we looked at his natal chart, we would never have said this man was a murderer; he looked more like a lover.But when we carefully examined his harmonics — they all had the same wavelength. I am not saying now that if all your harmonics are roughly of equal strength, you will end up in a psychiatric hospital, I just want to say that it will be much harder for you to control the processes that occur inside you, in your consciousness.

Let us look again at our enneagram. If you are in harmonics 1, 2, 3, 4 — you will be more realistic, you will see things as they are, you will try to do something yourself rather than force others, because your life is in you (I, I, I…). I will do this and that because it means something to me or, at least, it will mean that I will receive some results on the physical plane.

People who are on the mental side — 5, 6, 7, 8 — have no idea what “I” is. In reality, they identify through someone else. They need a means to hide behind, so they can feel the authenticity of their life. This is easy to see in the example of the 5th harmonic. The quintile — an aspect of creative people, inventors. An artist paints a picture because this is his only way to connect with the earth. He gives himself entirely to his creativity; he feels that without all these paintings, without art, he will be nobody. That is why he locks himself in the studio for years and paints, then exhibits them and thus builds his connection with the earth. He hides behind his paintings: “Without paintings — the artist thinks — no one, ever, will notice me!”

Having a large number of 5th harmonics in your chart, you will work hiding behind the fruits of your labor. Thus, the 5th harmonic is the artist, dancer, actor. Actors play roles; they hide behind the masks of the characters they play, they become other beings in time because they cannot find themselves, cannot find a relationship with humanity relying solely on themselves, without play. If you have many quintiles in your chart, you hide behind the fruits of your own inventions, fantasies, and thus feel in the game, but in doing so you fall into a trap. The only way out for you is the 4th harmonic. The square signifies the ability to accept criticism (“My work is not good!”), the ability to let people judge your work, accept it or reject it. Suppose I am an artist. I painted my most beautiful picture and brought it to you, and you say, “It’s awful!” If I believe you, I will never paint again or throw this picture away and paint another one. After all, none of you may understand art, so why should you judge my painting?! But with a connection to the 4th (square), I can feel whether I am accepted by life as a whole.

Let us consider the 7th harmonic (septile). This, of course, is the spiritual aspect. People who have it in their chart are always in the clouds; their mind is always somewhere else. For such people, there are never any mistakes, in anything, they leave everything to God’s will, which is why this is a spiritual aspect. But you cannot hide behind the Church! You cannot hide behind the back of God, because Christ said, “God helps those who help themselves!” And I remember a priest telling me, “Go and pray, and God will give you what you ask for!” So as a child, I prayed every day, but nothing happened. I realized that I had to go out and achieve and obtain what I wanted. My prayers helped me. God helped me understand, see the opportunity of how I could do it. Is this an opposition?! (2nd) You understand that if you are in the 7th harmonic, you think all your ideas are wonderful and everything is so good. The 2nd harmonic — opposition — signifies the ability to see from the other side, it is an aspect of consciousness. You need to understand that if there is a wall in front of you, you cannot walk through it, but you can see that to the right there is a door through which you can pass. People of the 7th harmonic are like Taureans; they walk through walls, going straight without looking at the path. Blind people, as a rule, have excellent hearing. Such a person has the 7th harmonic. He could say, “Oh God! I am blind, I cannot do anything!” but using his 2nd harmonic — opposition — he replaces his sight with hearing and thus is able to perceive things that we cannot see.

My wife’s father is blind. Once we were sitting in the house, and he said to me, “Do you hear what is happening there?” He heard someone opening the door on the other side of the house, while I did not, because he had learned to use his other abilities. This is the balance of the 7th and 2nd. If I have protection, if I am effective in action, then I need the ability to change (2nd harmonic), instead of saying, “God wants me to be like this and that!” (7th harmonic).

Let me give you a good example. I told you earlier that I am the 8th harmonic. I am 62 years old, and only about a year ago did I figure out how to use my 8th harmonic. I am slow-witted. People of the 8th harmonic are very stubborn. For many years I created astrological software and always called it AIR Software. For 15 years, people associated the name with air. I have been teaching for about 25 years, holding at least 30 weekend seminars a year, traveling all over the world. Even after 15 years of distributing my software, people did not know that I was the one behind “AIR Software.” Was this helpful to me? I hid behind my software, so no one suspected that “AIR Software” was Alphee Lavoie! My wife told me this for many years: “Alphie! You are known all over the world; name your software ‘Alphee Software.'” I would say to her, “No, that’s just inflated ego.” I am not that vain, but of course, I try to be, because for me, it’s a number. I do not want my ego to seem too large. Nevertheless, my wife met with our two marketing agents to discuss how best to promote my software. And at that meeting, one person made a remark to me: “People know you! You are AIR Software!” No one had recognized me like that before. Simply because I had not balanced the 1st and 8th harmonics properly, I could not implement the release of my software in the right way.

The faster we find balance between the numbers, the better the situations will work in our favor.

Let us find the key words for the aspects. The lesson I need to learn is concentration on my processes of repression. Being an 8th harmonic, if something goes wrong in my life, I need to focus on this phenomenon and find the reasons why it is happening incorrectly. Instead of whining, complaining, or doing nothing, I need to concentrate: “Where do these problems begin? Where does the repression begin?”

Let us consider the next path: 7 and 2. 7 is spirituality, and 2 is consciousness. If you are on this path, you need to be aware of your spiritual component. Let us recall what the 7th and 2nd are. This is a very psychological path. God literally whispers in your ear. The problem here lies in the 7th: what God tells me must be realized through the 2nd — I must know how to apply what is said in life. This is the ability to use the knowledge received from the Lord on the material plane.

If you remember, at the center of the enneagram is emptiness.

Now let us turn our attention to the paths of 6 and 3. The sextile — an aspect of opportunity, and the trine — an aspect of ease. My lesson in life is to realize what comes easily to me. Let us pause here for a moment and look at the sextile and trine. Studying astrology, we realized that these two aspects are of luck. And indeed, that is the case. Either success accompaniesYou have good taste, or you love life and work tirelessly to achieve the best of everything. You have Faith that makes the impossible possible. A trine (3rd harmonic) is a Jupiterian aspect of opportunity. A sextile (6th harmonic) has almost the same strength, but it is a mental aspect, so it is not very good for achieving results on the physical plane—it is an aspect that simply stays in your head. When it forms in the sky or in forecasts, we see something good and say, “Here, good things await us.” However, this is mental vision; we just think through all possibilities in different variations, play them out in our minds, try to imagine what the limits and constraints might be, but we need to adapt to reality. And when we are ready to act, in 9 out of 10 cases, it is already too late, so the sextile does not work in your favor. You could say that a trine is Jupiter, and a sextile is Neptune. Neptune is truly the planet of knowing the truth, while Jupiter thinks it knows but actually does not, because it is a preacher, a priest, and Neptune is God. So, the sextile truly knows the truth, but again, a strong Neptune does not recognize well what is happening in reality, and by the time the truth descends to Earth, a certain amount of mixing has occurred.

If a chart has many sextiles, it will be a contemplative person. The sextile relates to the life of the soul, which is constantly tied to fear: the fear of not having enough time, the fear of not achieving success in life. A person with trines has many enemies because they charge ahead, not noticing those in their path. It does not bother them who crosses their path, as they receive much good. You know the saying: “The early bird catches the worm.” That is about the trine. For the sextile, all the blessings are already taken, simply because one line is lower than the other. However, this does not mean you are farther from your perfection. There is no difference in how these paths are laid out. And I will explain further how you can understand which path you are on.

When I first started working with this technique (I do not know how I can tell you the way I discovered it), the rest of the astrologers considered me a zealous mathematician in astrology, yet I saw this technique in a dream. And I receive a lot of astrological knowledge in my dreams. Even in early childhood, when I was two years old, I was acquainted with a woman (you could call her an angel); she would fly in and visit me every night and talk to me. I call her Elvuis. When I was very little and went to bed, I would wrap myself up in a blanket, then slightly lower it and see this woman standing by my bed. Sometimes I would get scared, cry, and run to my mother’s bed. When I grew up, my mother said, “You will no longer sleep with me.” I was about 14, and my little sister was about three, and I would ask her, “Please go to my room and see—is this woman there?” She would go into my room and then tell me, “No!” I would ask, “Did you check all the corners of the bed?” She would run back into the room and, after looking, say, “No, she is not there!” Only then would I go into the bedroom and meet this woman again. Often, I would return to my sister and hit her for lying. It was from this woman that I received this technique. Now I use it in my work with clients, explaining where they are and where they have stopped. Many say this is the information they have been searching for for many years.

Yesterday, I spoke about how each of us is tied to one of these numbers, and the number that belongs to us is the one by which we are closed off in this life, and we need the opposite to escape the trap. Each number is a harmonic. Let’s talk a little about this, and then I will show you how you can find which harmonic you belong to. For example, if your natal chart has a large number of 4th harmonics, it means you are more focused on the physical, dense side of life. You take life too seriously and are too materialistic, so for you, one problem will follow another, and you will constantly think, “Where is the way out of these constant problems?” Your way out is to be able to find the path to the 5th harmonic, because the 5th harmonic says, “If you do not like the world as it is now, paint another picture, create something new.” Have you ever encountered the works of abstract artists? When you look at them, they seem ugly, but when you see the ugly, you are between the 4th and 5th. You need to take something ugly and create something so that you can find beauty in it, to transform the space of life, “to create beauty.”

The 4th and 5th are builders; they structure events so that it is clear what is happening. People of these harmonics take abstract ideas from their minds and make them practical and accessible. If you are a builder and do not have a clear plan of the house in your mind, you will never build the house you are thinking of. Every builder needs an architect (5th harmonic), who can develop a plan where every step of how to build is laid out. Then the 4th, the builder, can use this plan and construct the real material structure. Remember, we said that the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th live in the realm of ideas, in the mind, so they need a connection to the external world to embody their ideas.

If we consider the 6th and 7th, people of these harmonics are even more dreamers and are even farther from reality than those of the 5th, because the 5th has only slightly detached itself from reality. It is like an intermediate link. People of the 5th always have an idea of what they cannot realize on the physical plane. So, if you are an artist and not very successful, you will have to accept any criticism, any opinions from society. As soon as you become able to accept criticism, you will be able to give your art to the world. The key phrase for this level is: to bring your talent into real life or to allow reality into your talent, to your abilities.

Let’s look at the 3rd and 6th. People of the 3rd harmonic are born to achieve success and, in essence, are the hardest workers of all humanity, working day and night. But they feel attention and love only through possession. In childhood, parents would say, “You must get good grades in school; you must do everything flawlessly.” They are used to someone always criticizing them, always evaluating them, so as adults, they buy love. What do they do? They strive to possess a lot of money and believe that people will love them for what they have. This is the American way of development. Everyone in America thinks this way because America’s chart is the 3rd harmonic; the way out is in the realization of the 6th harmonic. The 6th forces you to stop, think, and choose what truly brings results; the 6th harmonic forces you to plan your actions. So, the 3rd is somewhat similar to the 4th in this respect. People of the 3rd harmonic have many friends; they charge ahead. Once they set a goal, they achieve it no matter what, not caring if they offend someone along the way, and this is how they make enemies for themselves.

But people of the 6th harmonic have their own problem. If people of the 3rd are hard workers, then people of the 6th, as the saying goes, are all talk and no action. People of the 6th harmonic convince others that they do a lot. They talk so much about their work that others consider them truly hardworking. The 6th and 7th are good salespeople, good commercial agents. They can sell you anything; they are very persuasive, yet they are closed off and can fall into the trap of their own visions. Imagine I am a person of the 6th harmonic. I see a good idea in some image, but that is all I see, and it no longer matters to me whether it works in reality or not; I just try to sell it to you. I start talking and talking, but you look at me and what I am saying and ask, “Yes, but how can I use this?” and I cannot answer. So, people of the 6th always have ideas and a huge amount of optimism. They need to direct all their optimism toward things that can be real, useful to people, and then they will have to work as hard as people of the 3rd harmonic to bring the idea to fruition.People with strong 3rd and 6th harmonics work twice as hard and expend enormous energy to achieve something. Yet when they finally succeed, it turns out to be completely unnecessary and not what they truly wanted. The balance between 3 and 6 lies in the 6th’s ability to see not just what they can imagine or invent, but what will actually work and be useful. In astrology, the sextile is called the aspect of possibility—but possibilities bring you nothing until you act on them. You must do something. This is the core issue of the entire mental side. They always say, “I know how to do this and why should I bother doing anything else?” It’s like a baby watching their sister and thinking, “I see how she walks, so I can walk too!” But if we don’t engage the physical side of the cycle, we’ll never learn to walk. We’ll just think we can. So, 5 and 4 can create something, while 3 and 6 can sell it successfully.

Let’s look at 7 and 2. The 7th harmonic person is another good salesperson, similar to the 6th, but their mental level is slightly higher because the 6th is a kind of practical dreamer, more grounded. The 7th flies in the clouds—this harmonic governs all religions and faith in God. Of all the mental numbers, 7 is the most persistent. People with strong 7th harmonics often work for large corporations or governments. Again, we can use the image of a police officer—he has power and authority, he can do anything. 7th harmonic people like large groups and organizations because within them they wield power and strength. They are more family-oriented and understand that when people unite, they gain great power. The balance is the 2nd harmonic. Every coin has two sides, but the 7th doesn’t see it that way. They know they’re right and there’s no other opinion. If someone joins their group, they must conform—or leave. Do you remember Jim Jones? He organized a religious sect in America, gathered about 500 people from his group, and they all went to New Guinea, where they committed mass suicide. That’s a 7th harmonic trait—they look to and listen only to their leader. Everything he said was truth to them.

The 2nd harmonic person needs to see both sides of the world. These people know the difference between good and bad, right and wrong, what works and what doesn’t, and recognize a person as a whole. For the 7th, the group is a great, unified whole—no one can stand out or differ, while the 2nd always sees the other side of the coin. People with strong 2nd harmonics are highly focused and need someone whose opinion will force a decision or action. For example, I’m a good Libra, so I married a Scorpio—she makes all my decisions for me because I always say, “This or that.” The principle of the 2nd is that you always need someone who knows everything or claims to know everything. That’s my wife Carol. If you’re a 2nd, you need someone who can pull you out of the endless cycle of doing things, because the 2nd is always at a crossroads, always facing a choice. That’s why the 2nd is the physical plane—someone with a strong 2nd harmonic will see obstacles everywhere. They look left and see something wrong, look right and see a multitude of problems, so they need the 7th. The 7th closes their eyes and says, “Fine, God, I’ll do whatever You tell me!” The 2nd needs to learn to trust someone, because the 2nd trusts no one—it always acts alone and never asks for help.

The 10th harmonic person believes that asking for help means giving someone else the right to make decisions, so they avoid help. The balance here is to see both sides of the coin—no number can be entirely right because no one person can know everything.

Let’s look at 8 and 1. The 8th harmonic person is filled with inner conflicts, while the 4th and 2nd harmonics’ conflicts lie in what they see around them. The 8th’s conflicts are always imagined. These people constantly think about what others will say. Let me give you an example of how an 8th acts. I had to be an 8th, so I know exactly how it works. Imagine I got angry at some woman—she really did something I didn’t like. I’d sit in my chair and think, “Next time I see her, I’ll tell her everything I think.” I’d imagine the whole scenario in detail, getting more and more worked up for ten minutes. The next day, I meet her on the street, say “Hi,” and don’t dare say another word. The battle rages inside me. When I focus, that woman and I become one, and I can resolve the issue. Again, I repeat—I’m married to a Scorpio. Whenever I get angry at a friend and start badmouthing him in front of my wife, Carol picks up the phone, dials his number, and says, “Tell him yourself! Why are you telling me all this?” If I speak up, I’m no longer angry, and everything settles. So Carol listens to all my frustrations.

That’s how the 8th lives—it always fights itself, not others. If you were born with one dominant harmonic, you’re so focused on yourself that the whole world becomes you. You’re an egoist, constantly asking, “Why? Why? Why doesn’t this work? Why does this always happen to me?” You need the 8th. You must learn to dive into yourself and find within the causes of what angers you, what hinders you, what you don’t like. You need to learn to differentiate: I like this to some extent, but I like that much less—because the 1st harmonic doesn’t understand what it loves or hates. There’s no criterion; it sees everything happening as bright spots, all problems merged together. If a person wants to understand their life, they must break the whole into parts. That’s what the 8th does—it gets angry, constantly divides and destroys within itself.

The 1st harmonic person lives life directly before their eyes, always bumping into the same walls they never see because they’re too close. The 8th harmonic smashes everything in its path. I call this concentration on frustrations. The 1st must realize why the same thing keeps happening to them, find the cause—but until they analyze what’s happening, they’ll never find the answer. I could talk about this all day—it’s very important.

Once you determine which harmonic is strongest in you, you’ll gain a new perspective on yourself and see much more meaning in it.

This is my chart. As you can see, I calculated all the harmonics. Remember, I said a harmonic works when planets are together in the same sign. Here, Venus, Moon, and Sun are conjunct in the 1st harmonic in the natal chart. What I do is look for planets in square or opposition. I have Mercury and Jupiter in opposition to Uranus—that’s the 2nd harmonic. The Lunar Node is in square to Jupiter, Mercury, and Uranus—also the 2nd harmonic. Mars is in opposition to Saturn at the Midheaven—that’s the 2nd harmonic. The total number of squares and oppositions is seven. I constructed the 2nd harmonic chart and counted the squares and oppositions again—there are nine. I perform the same operation for each harmonic from 1 to 8.

You’ve probably noticed that in the 3rd and 4th harmonics, I have a fairly high number of aspects. That’s why I married Carol—she has the 5th harmonic. Very often, our friends, spouses, children, or people we interact with closely in life carry the other side, the other number. I have an incredibly strong 4th, and Carol has a 5th. Now let’s look at the 8th harmonic—it has 15 squares and oppositions, 12 in the 4th harmonic, so I can say I’m an 8th harmonic person, but I can also call myself a 4th. I have four lessons to learn in life: 6 and 8, 7 and 9. All the other numbers are lower, of course.I am used to squares and oppositions because they create tension, they create action and movement, because a square forces events to happen, it brings them into life. So you count harmonics and look at the number of aspects, you count the total number of squares and oppositions. It is the very harmonic where they are the most that will become yours. I told you that Jim Jones was a seven. It seems to me that all world leaders have a strong 7. Sometimes these are priests and teachers. Seven is very stubborn, very persistent harmonic, it governs spirituality. Let me remind you that there are over 1,000 religious movements worldwide and each one thinks that it is their group that is going straight to heaven. For example, I am Catholic and I know that only Catholics will go to paradise (7). But of course, that is nonsense. The current Catholic Pope John is an eight. And he is the only Pope in my memory who is criticized by the Catholic Church because he actively plays an external role. He openly expresses what is inside him and he does not care how it is reflected in the world. This is eight.

I am one of the directors, representatives of the NCGR section. You know how the board members call me? — crazy, because I always argue with them. Every time I feel something is going wrong, I speak out about it aloud. In the absence of the first, I talk too much, all my thoughts fly out in one volley and become a big atomic bomb. I start to make a scandal, and then I shake everyone’s hand because I have already poured out all my anger and I am in a good mood again. That is eight.

When I first discovered the enneagram law, we found out with Carol that she was a five. I was curious how she felt about it. When we met, Carol was an actress and performed on Broadway. For 8 years she participated in a TV show, tried her hand at painting, wrote pictures, but she never had a sense that she had achieved success — that is a wonderful five. She made “architectural” plans, changed them one after another, but she could never “build the building.” Carol is not the kind of woman who accepts constructive criticism. Of course, she is a Scorpio and if you tell her something she does not like — she will poison you. This is a 4 and 5 relationship.

In the end I want to say. If this is the path to perfection, transformation and we have 4 Paths to the Lord, 4 Evangelists — we can learn to pray. How? You remember I said that in the Catholic Church it was customary to pray for 40 days, now it is allowed for 9 days. We call this a novena. If we need to pray for 9 days, why not follow this path using the scheme: 1 4 2 8 5 7 and finally 3 6 9.

Let us very quickly consider this. On the first day of prayer you focus on what you want, but do not follow the first one that mixes everything into one whole and does not know what it really wants, but try to single out one goal, one desire. After planting the seed, you need to be sure, you need to be confident that you want exactly this. Let us remember that where we have a conjunction — that is the beginning, we plant the seed.

On the second day of prayer we are in the 4th harmonic. Here you carefully look at what might be wrong with you, if your prayer is answered, what difficulties may arise, what limitations of reality may stop you and not allow the prayer to be realized.

On the third day we move to the second. There are always two possibilities. You can imagine what will happen if it happens and what will happen if it does not. This is a balance between right and wrong, between good and bad for you.

On the fourth day — the 8th harmonic. By this time we have carefully looked at the physical world, at what is happening in it, we have simply focused on what is. In order to move to the mental side and be able to raise the level of consciousness, you must free yourself from all your dissatisfactions, from all your aggression. When we learn to meditate, the first thing we do is take in more air to free ourselves, relax, let go of all your stress and anger.

Now, having raised consciousness, we come to the 5th harmonic. On the fifth day of prayer you create your dreams, your prayer, you embody in the image what you want from God, what He has to give. You build plans, draw your imaginary pictures in the colors you think are necessary.

When you reach seven you are already very close to God, because seven knows everything. God falls under this concept, because God is the only one who really knows everything. People with a 7 harmonic hear God’s words very closely, God literally whispers to them right in the ear. But 7s do not listen to how it is right, they think they all know well themselves.

On the sixth day of prayer you listen to God and you have a wonderful connection with God.

When you have completed the first part of the novena you move to the next, which consists of 9 6. This is a trinity, this is power. Any engineer knows that a triangle is the most powerful structure. Based on a triangle, you can build a tower that will reach the heavens. The next two days you try to balance 6 and 3. You say: “Lord, I need this and that.” You focus and try to understand what the exact time of realization is, then on the third day your prayers must be realized.

Nine is your gratitude for what has happened, what has been realized. I use this method even when I meditate. I start with 1, after 5 minutes I move to 4, then after 5 minutes to 2, and so on. I meditate every day for an hour. About 45 minutes into the meditation — I am at the level of 3 and 6. At that moment I feel that I have no attachments to this world, I feel renewed. Try it!

ASTROLOGICAL CONSULTING. We will touch on all the problems of consulting, talk about different types of consultations, discuss in detail how to start consulting and how to work as a consultant. We will also talk about some models characteristic of the horoscope, about some traits of transit planets and pay special attention to Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, because it seems to me that the younger generation that is growing up now feels these planets much more strongly than we do, they are much more attuned to the energy of the higher planets. Now life is moving at such a fast pace, and it is only increasing, we all feel it, and that is why we must pay more attention to the slow-moving planets to find with their help answers to all the questions that life puts before us.

I have already said before, if you work with clients — the first rule is you take their money or at least a piece of bread, the second rule is you try to be brief. Let me give you some advice. I have been doing astrological consulting for 37 years and I can say for sure: long conversations never help anyone, ever, because when you talk to a client, when you work with them, you open in their soul some source of energy and the person needs to digest the information received before they are able to perceive anything new. One hour of conversation is enough, after which say: “Go home and come back in a week, we will talk again.” The third rule — if it is at all possible, record the consultation on a tape recorder. This is necessary for many reasons: as soon as the client leaves the threshold of your office, they will immediately forget half of what you told them. Every time you tell them about a certain planetary energy and afterWhen he hears something new from you, he must digest it and think: “Is this about me?”, that’s why tape recordings help. These are the three main rules. Consulting can be built into several different sessions. Depending on the topic of conversation or the client’s age, the approach to them should be appropriate. For example, you are conducting a session with a teenager and your attitude to the conversation will be different from that with an adult. If you are talking about family relationships or with the client’s relatives, this is already a different approach, if about a career, also a different approach. There is a type of consultation that we call an annual appeal. This means a forecast of events for the year. You must clearly separate each type of consultation in yourself and relate to them differently. So, a conversation with a natal chart. In such cases, I do not touch on any forecasts at all. Another case is synastry charts, which reflect people’s relationships. I constantly devote myself only to these issues and do not mix anything else into it. To the problem of relationships, I approach it in the following way. First, I never consider a synastry chart if only one person comes to the consultation, because they can tell their partner a lot of things that I didn’t say at all. There must always be two people. First, I will look at the man’s chart and explain to both of them how he sees love, how he communicates in a pair, I can tell him what makes him angry. I do the same with the woman’s chart. Remember that in relationships, one of the pair will always be the side that feels guilty or apologizes. One of them must be God, and relationships must be built on this principle, the couple must know about it. And if one fights with their partner for this place, if people quarrel, you must know how to reconcile them or guide them on the path to reconciliation. At this stage, I consider individual charts. The next step I take is to look at synastries. For example, one person’s Sun is in a trine to the other’s Moon. Synastry tells us about the constant exchange of energy between two people, about how much glue there is in a relationship. Let’s say that in the man’s chart, Venus is in a trine to the woman’s Uranus and in a sextile to Mars. It’s clear that when these two people met, they immediately felt an electric shock, an electric vibration in relation to each other. However, this force is not enough to maintain a strong marriage over many years, as this energy is depleted over time. You can advise the couple to divorce and check if this energy has been preserved after several years of separation. Many relationships end at this point because they do not go beyond the physical plane. To keep a marriage going for many years, you need a lot of Saturn’s energy and connections through the Lunar Nodes. It is these indicators that hold the marriage together. Remember, Venus is not the planet of love, it’s the planet of happiness. But we associate Venus with love because every time we love, we are happy, although in reality Venus has nothing to do with true heart love. Let’s see why. Taurus sign (physical level). “She loves because he gives her beautiful gifts, loves because she likes to feel him, likes to touch his nice skin”. This is actually not love at all, it’s just that the person likes it, that’s why they feel good. The sign of Libra (mental level). All relationships occur only in the head: “I like it only because I like it. When I think about him, I feel good”. As we remember, Libras are not good lovers at all. They usually think that the best love isWhen he sits in one room and his wife in another, he knows she is nearby, and if he wants closeness or touch, he will go to her. Librans do not need physical closeness or touch; it is enough for them to know they are in love. I repeat once again that Venus is not the planet of love. But what is love? As we know, love exists in different dimensions. If we love only through Venusian energy, in about five years we will be ready to kill each other, because love has more than one dimension. Undoubtedly, love has a Venusian dimension — “I like how she looks, I like feeling her, hugging her, I feel good!” But you can also like your dog! At least there is some connection here.

The next level of love, which is higher, is lunar love. At this level, I feel that she cares for me, I feel her pain, and I can help her when she feels depressed. People care for each other, feel each other. Here, the maternal principle is expressed — again, it is about caring for another. “I love her because she is attractive, she interests me — that is Venus. I like pouring her a glass of wine, rubbing her back…” — and that is already the Moon.

There is yet another, even higher level of love — Neptune. This is selfless love, sacrificial love. If you enter into a relationship and your Neptune is weak, such a relationship will never be strong, because Neptune is the planet of forgiveness. If I have a strong Neptune, my beloved can irritate me, shout at me, scold me, and the next day I forget everything and see how beautiful she is! I think, “He still loves me.” Neptune can sometimes bring confusion, as it is the planet of dissolution.

If I have a good aspect to my partner’s Moon but a difficult one to Venus and Neptune, I may not fully understand why she is always crying, forget sometimes that something hurts him, yet I still love her — I forgive everything — that is Neptune.

The Moon shows the inner relationships of partners, how they feel about each other, how they care for one another. Often in astrology, great importance is given to Venus and Mars in relationships. Of course, that is true. If you sleep together, you need these aspects, but you can live without them, because what matters most is what you consider the main thing in your relationship — what brought you together.

For women, it is often aspects to the Sun, Mars, and Uranus. The three most important types of relationships are Venus, the Moon, and Neptune. We know that perhaps the strongest bond that can exist in a relationship is one tied to the Moon’s Nodes to the Moon, Venus, Neptune, and the Sun. The better the aspect of the Nodes in the relationship chart, the longer these relationships will last, and the stronger the aspect of Saturn to the Ascendant, Midheaven, or any planet, the longer the marriage will endure. Saturn speaks of the strength of relationships. I have analyzed 600 marriages, which confirms my words.

Another thing I use when examining relationships is relationship charts: the composite and the midpoint chart. Robert Hand devoted a book to composite charts. What do we do in the composite? We calculate the midpoint between two Suns and obtain the degree of a third, and we do the same with the Moons and other planets. I do not think this works, but as I have already said, you do what you think is right; I am just telling you that in my experience, it does not work. I prefer the midpoint chart (Davidson’s technique), because it is a real chart. We calculate the midpoint between two birth dates, two birth times, and birth places, taking latitude and longitude into account. What I like about this type of chart is that if you have the birth time and place, that is all you need — it is like a natal chart, real and you can do anything with it. You can look at progressions, solar arcs, transits, because it is a real chart and it works.

If you do not believe me, next time you come to an astrological conference, I will prove it to you. For example, I see a young woman, I approach her and say, “Hello, my name is Elfi! Can you tell me your birth time and date?” Then I go to the computer, build a Davidson midpoint chart. More often than not, you will find that the transiting Moon falls on the Ascendant or Midheaven of the midpoint chart or aspects the Sun. You can even look at progressions or solar arcs, and you will always find an exact aspect, so it seems to me that such charts work.

Very often, people come for a consultation with marital problems. You look at the woman’s chart, then the man’s chart, and you see stress and conflict in both charts. The Davidson midpoint chart will tell you how to approach this stress and how to resolve the problem. Often, by looking at each chart separately, you would never say that these relationships could break up or that the marriage could be destroyed, but from the Davidson chart, you can say for sure — and that is very pleasant.

According to the Davidson chart, if you see that transiting Uranus, Pluto, or Saturn aspect one of the main planets and problems arise at that time, there is a high probability that the marriage will be dissolved. Let’s look at two charts. You know that problems in the marriage are reflected in both. One partner has Uranus conjunct Venus. This aspect may not destroy the marriage; it may only “undermine” the relationship, but you cannot make a definitive prediction. However, if two people are sitting in front of you, and they have marital problems and such an aspect in the Davidson chart, it means the marriage will end.

Each person can control their natal chart, but we cannot control the Davidson chart, because it reflects two consciousnesses intertwined with each other, not just one. So what I want may not please my partner — and that is very important.

When I see truly serious problems in a relationship, I never discuss them without first making the Davidson chart. I believe astrology is very good in cases where it is necessary to determine how strong a relationship is. How often does a person, upon meeting someone else, exclaim, “Oh! This is what I need!” But you look at his chart and see nothing indicating that a new, truly effective and interesting relationship could form. And you wonder: why? Look at the progressions. I call them hiddenFears. Let’s look at the progressed Moon. Suppose it is in conjunction with Mars in the 5th house. A person meets someone, and a relationship forms at a purely physical, bodily level. A month or two later, this Moon will change its position in the natal chart, and the relationship may change or even end. It seems to me that transits carry more energy because, as you remember, yesterday I spoke about how transits are more closely tied to the emotional plane—every time transits occur, our inner computer recharges and launches a different program. In life, we call this maturity. In the case of progressed planets or planets in solar arcs, the experience we gain is not an experience of maturity; it is an inner mood. It carries a message, an idea, but this idea is not as significant as the one that comes through transits. Because when transits occur, your thoughts on something will be tested. These can be transits of the Moon, but we notice them little and quickly get used to them, so the transits of slow planets will be more significant for us.

Let’s now turn to the issue of counseling children. I believe parents should definitely visit astrologers and ask for their child’s chart to be interpreted. Such counseling is very common in India. The goal can vary. For me, for example, it doesn’t matter whether my daughter gets married or spends her whole life living off me. I think what’s important is to look at the child’s chart and try to describe their behavior, because there are countless ways to help a child in their relationships with their parents using astrology. We react to tense, stressful aspects between our charts and our children’s charts, and as parents, we often do many things unconsciously, which is often very difficult for the child.

For example, you were born with any aspect between the Moon and Mars, and you are a small child. This means you will always provoke your mother. Every time you open your big mouth, your mother starts yelling at you. Your sister doesn’t have this aspect, and you don’t understand why Mom always yells at you and never yells at your sister. If you ask your mother, she’ll say, “She doesn’t provoke me and behaves as she should!” If we turn to aspects, the Moon-Mars aspect means that every time I try to express my feelings about someone I truly love, Mom starts yelling at me. It’s not the child’s fault; it’s the mother’s fault, and the mother never admits this. If you could turn to the mother and tell her: if you continue like this, your child will grow up very angry, withdrawn, always needing to defend themselves because they’re used to being yelled at when they express their feelings. As a result, this person will grow up with major problems in everything related to emotions.

We remember that the chart tells us what lessons we must learn in life. The people around us play out our problems. I don’t know how it is in Russia, but in America, it’s common to be married several times. If you look at people who marry for the fifth time, you’ll realize they don’t understand that all their wives are essentially the same. A friend of mine was married seven times. Once, we were drinking, and he asked me, “Elfi, explain to me astrologically: my first wife was tall and blonde, and after five years I couldn’t stand looking at her. My second wife was slender with dark hair, and after five years she behaved exactly like my first wife—she yelled just as much, even though when I first met her she was completely different. Is there some astrological explanation for this?”

Yes, of course. We choose a partner; they look at our Ascendant, and as we remember, our Ascendant shows people what we want from others and how we express ourselves, so the partner tries to analyze us. Every day, she tries to please me, and every day she changes, altering her personality. After five years, she looks the way you want her to. Could so many people really be to blame? Maybe it is my fault after all?”

You need to change your desires, and that’s very important!

Let’s consider another example. A child has the Ascendant in Capricorn or Saturn in the 1st house. Saturn in the 1st house in children or young people indicates that they are very afraid of making a mistake. When parents start saying something the children don’t want to do, the first thing they say is, “I can’t do this, no, I can’t, it won’t work!” So when you have a child with Saturn in the 1st house or Capricorn rising, you should tell the parents to talk to the child and say to them each time, “Just try! And if you can’t, I’ll help you!” In reality, parents feel this boundary and usually do one of two things: either they do everything for the child, and the child never grows up, or they let the child do whatever comes to mind, never supporting them, reasoning like this: “He can’t do anything; we’ll forgive him.” But the child always tries to please; tell them something is wrong, and they’ll shut down, fear will arise.

And here’s another aspect of this problem. If you have Saturn in the 1st house, you were born to take responsibility, to do things well and appropriately. But the fear of failure holds you back. Or, alternatively, a person, constantly acting on failures, may decide they no longer care and start jumping into everything without discrimination. People with Saturn in one house seem strong; they are like a rock. And if they organize themselves properly, they are capable of anything; they are strong.

Astrology helps people very well to sort out their life problems. A debilitated Sun in a child’s chart prevents them from doing something important. Such people don’t know what they truly want. Remember, the Sun in astrology means what you want in this life. You say to God, “This is what I want; this is the most important thing!” With a debilitated Sun, it’s like an illness: “It doesn’t matter how I achieve this, but I want it!”—this is like the Sun in Cancer. The Sun in Leo wants encouragement, wants to be on stage. In general, the Sun doesn’t tell you what a person will do in life; it tells you that “I need attention,” and the other planets will show us how you will gain that attention. We remember that the Sun represents the father in the chart. This may not always be significant for a person because the Sun places more emphasis on how you want to be called, like a title.

For example, I have my Sun in Libra. What title do I want? I don’t want to be seen as a fighter, even though I am one, but I want to be valued, compared. That’s the title that suits me, and all the other planets and their aspects will show how difficult or easy it will be for me to achieve this.

The Moon in a chart has nothing to do with people on the external level. The Moon becomes important when I already know a person well. And if someone says something against me, it will be significant to me, so their words can hurt me. For example, I’m walking down the street, and some passerby yells that I’m bad—I don’t know this person and may not react, but if my best friend said it, I’d be offended. Strong reactions are especially common in people with the Moon in the 1st house and in square to other planets, since the Moon is protection; the Moon protects against bad moods.

Mercury in a chart doesn’t indicate how intelligent you are; it’s not a measure of your intellectual development. It shows how you use your “computer” during the thinking process. For example, Mercury in square to Saturn. Old astrological books would say this isn’t a very intelligent person, but that’s not true. All this aspect indicates is that the person has an excellent memory, remembers everything precisely, but has difficulty assimilating information. My older daughter had this aspect.All my children were clever, but she struggled to learn, always surpassing others and receiving better grades. I would usually tell her: “Lindo! First read the topic, then close the book and retell it in your own words.” At first, she simply couldn’t do it because she believed she had to respond in class exactly as in the textbook, or the teacher wouldn’t approve. Such people memorize everything literally, and when asked, they close their eyes and start reading the book from memory. And then, for example, they forget one word, and that’s it! As soon as they forget one word, they forget everything! A person needs to tell themselves: “Everything is fine with me! All I need to do is read and retell in my own words what I’ve memorized.” In this case, they activate their mind, allowing it to work, breaking through internal blocks.

One could say a lot about people who have a Mercury–Saturn square. First and foremost, they are most prone to depression, overthink their problems, distrust themselves, and don’t understand. Through self-work, they achieve wonderful results. Another point is that those with this aspect in their birth chart may have some speech defects. She says: “Yes!” You have to try to understand— their mouth starts speaking while their mind says: “Stop!” Therefore, based on certain aspects in your children’s charts, you can help them overcome very significant issues.

Jupiter. In religion, there is an initiation rite tied to the Jupiter cycle, when boys over 12 were dedicated to God, and Jupiter is closely linked to God. We don’t perceive Saturn as if it were isolated from ourselves. Remember, in astrology, planets interact with one another in a specific way. So, if I have Mercury in square to Saturn, Mercury will never be able to do anything to Saturn—never. Saturn will always influence Mercury because slower-moving planets always control the situation. Mercury will never affect Mars, never force you to act, but Mars will provoke Mercury; Mars directs energy toward Mercury, which expresses that energy. Mercury is the mind, and the mind will never influence action. Your actions influence the mind, but the mind will not influence action.

So when you try to understand where someone’s problem lies, know that it begins with the slower planet (Saturn) and ends with the faster one (Mercury, Venus, Mars). If Venus is aspected by Saturn, it needs structure. When you have difficult relations with someone—will you love or hate them? Not at all; this aspect doesn’t say that I will love someone I struggle with or hate them. Venus requires processing. So during a consultation, you must explain to the client what this planet means and how to act better. A person doesn’t need to fully understand Saturn because it is Venus that needs help. If you talk at length about Saturn, you’re just wasting time—it’s pointless. But when you explain to the client what Venus is and ask: “If someone is cold toward you and you feel this and that”—they’ll answer: “Yes!” Now the person hears you.

We all know the Sun, Moon, and Ascendant are very important; I call them dad, mom, and child. When you start describing a client’s Sun—its sign, aspects, the house it’s in—the person feels and sees what you’re talking about. Generally, people grasp this easily because most of usis in good aspect to the Sun, which is the big picture of life. Now you come to describing the Moon and again describe the sign, the house it is in, the aspects it makes. At this moment, observe your client: he slightly leans forward, sitting on the chair starts to fidget, crossing one leg over the other, then the other leg over the other, and all because he generally feels quite uncomfortable, especially through the Moon. The Moon is the very energy you deal with every minute, every moment; with no other planet in the chart are you so closely connected. Perhaps also the Ascendant, but that is something else.

People do not like when you expose their Moon. For example, to a person with the Moon in square to Venus you say that such people, like him, strive to conquer the whole world with their desire, and every time they fail to fulfill their desire, they become unhappy, blaming others: “Well, you do nothing for me!” But that’s who they are! People do not like when their Moon is revealed, they do not at all object to the Sun being discussed. When you start talking about the Ascendant, they do not understand what you are talking about at all, because the Ascendant is the hidden part of our personality, it is purely the bodily part. And it is like an innocent child who did something and does not know whether it is right or not, it simply acted. Imagine you are sitting in a crowded place and no one is talking to you. You sit and start thinking to yourself, and suddenly you stop at the thought: “What am I doing?!” — that is your Ascendant. If, for example, you were born with Uranus on the Ascendant, you will constantly be twitching. Such people do not know that they are twitching, and even looking at themselves in the mirror, they do not see their twitching. If you tell them about it, they will not believe you, and that is the Ascendant.

It is very important for every person to know their rising sign. I, for example, Gemini. I am too tall, I talk too much and I perfectly know that I should sometimes keep quiet or let someone else speak. My wife constantly reminds me of this. She says, “Yesterday at the party you didn’t let anyone say a word!” and I reply, “What, Carol! They all talked more than I did!” to which she answers, “You didn’t give them a chance!” So, as a person with Ascendant Gemini, I need to know very well that I am a chatterbox, because “Listen, how tired I am of constant complaints!” and he, as a rule, answers: “I am not complaining at all!” And you ask: “Then what are you doing?” He does not know, but thinks he is not complaining. This is the sign of the Ascendant where we are talking about that wave of emotions we experience, but I call it an automatic connection.

will happen, for example, if you have the Sun in Aries in the 7th house. This is the type of person who needs aggression. The Sun is in the house whose motto is “After you!” and this brings the person quite a lot of problems. For some time you may be too aggressive because you are compensating for this need, and for some time too calm — it is very difficult to understand.

In charts where the western part (Virgo, Libra, Scorpio…) is on the Ascendant, the houses and planets must be very carefully explained to clients.

There are many other things that can be weak points in the chart. Some astrologers use concepts that, in my opinion, are false — these are accidental and essential dignities of planets. I do not believe in such things, for me studying this is a waste of time. Again, I am not saying you should not learn it, but you simply cannot use it, and therefore it clutters your mind for nothing.

My Sun is in Libra — in fall. This means the person lacks energy, has poor health because the Sun is weak — and this is complete nonsense! I was a professional hockey player and I slept only four hours a night, so my Sun is not weak, my Sun is very strong! Let’s see: it is in trine to my Ascendant, in conjunction with Jupiter, in trine to Saturn — that is what tells me whether my Sun is weak or not, not the fact that it is in Libra! So for me all these ideas about the dignities of planets remain delusion. Of course, it is a good topic for conversation, but you cannot use it in practice.

So what tells you whether the Sun is weak or not? It is not the sign in which the Sun is located, but the aspects it makes, because we are all born with a strong Sun; a trine only strengthens this power, and a square weakens it.

I admit to you that I do not really believe in signs, but I know that a sign can be interpreted by an inner planet, so if I have Mercury in Cancer — you can reconcile with that when considering the natal chart, but when I consult partners, I do not talk about Venus in Libra, I do not spend time on it, because the aspect is very important, the aspect draws attention and tells you whether you are riding in a “Mercedes” or a “Zaporozhets,” and not the sign.

Because look: Venus, by tradition, is associated with Venus in Libra. The person will be beautiful, peaceful, attractive and very honest. That is what the sign tells us. But what if Venus is in opposition to Mars, in square to Neptune and Saturn? Tell me how beautiful this person is? When he kills, he may just laugh, that’s all! That is why I say the sign lies!

When I first started studying astrology, I could not understand one thing. Of course, we all start with the elements: fire, earth, air, water, we study what exaltation is. My teacher told me that Venus in Pisces is exalted. I asked, “How can Venus in Pisces be exalted? How can there be excitement in Pisces? After all, Venus is such a physical indicator, it describes ‘I love you because you cook for me, you pack my suitcase, but if you leave me every night — I will no longer love you!’ Venus has to be aware of everything that happens on the physical plane. This is a very strong physical planet! How can Venus in Pisces possibly be aware of what is happening! It is very strange!”

In ancient Greece, they believed that Venus is the mother, and perhaps that was very true. But applying this concept in the 21st century — you will not get much love. That is what I am talking about! I am not against signs, I think it is very good to know what signs and planets are, but I do not spend a minute explaining to my client the meaning of the sign, it does not give me enough information.

Some astrologers explain: “You have Saturn in Aquarius, so you like this, this…” It turns out that all the children I studied with at school, two classes were the same — we all had Saturn in Aquarius. How can you explain that all people are the same! You cannot talk about this with a couple who came to you for a consultation, because the ages of the man and woman may be the same. If you explain, the client may reproach you: “But I am not like my husband!” So I do not care in which signs the planets, the Sun and the Moon are located — yes! Perhaps Mercury, Mars — no! I do not care at all in which sign you have Pluto, I do not build my interpretations on that.

When you compare charts, you consider the relationship of outer planets to inner ones. It is completely unimportant whether your Jupiter will be in trine to your partner’s Jupiter or Uranus in square to Saturn. All this means is that the person is older or younger than you. Whenever we deal with outer planets, they color the inner ones. For me, the signs in which the planets are located are just a means to find an aspect; in other cases, if it is not about an aspect, the sign is harder to understand.

I pay much more attention to houses and aspects; it is much more important to know that your Sun is in the 5th house than that your Sun is in Leo. Of course, you can draw an analogy, say that it is the same thing, but in reality it is not, because if your Sun is in the 5th house — you will be a creative person, you will be an actor, you will be a born salesperson. You truly have excellent opportunities for self-expression, because the 5th house is the house of self-expression. Practically none of the Leos have such qualities, so it is quite difficult to draw analogies between a sign and a house.

Let’s look at Mozart’s chart.He had the Sun, Mercury, and Saturn in conjunction in the 5th house, which makes it clear that Saturn and Mercury indicate that Mozart never trusted his own thoughts or his mind. He experienced rather long periods of depression, and in the end, it killed him. He wrote so much music that he burned out and fell ill. We can say that Mozart was an extremely creative person, he completely surpassed his time because in his chart there is a stellium in Aquarius, and if we have planets in Aquarius, we always outpace our time—even planets in the 11th house can speak to this. If Mozart had been my client, I would have talked to him about his Sun and Saturn—the fear of creation—and I wouldn’t even have mentioned that his Sun is in Aquarius because it’s not important, though I would take note of it, since an inventive sign in a creative house is very beneficial. Any air sign in a creative house is good. The 5th house is the house of creativity, and it is through this house that we produce and create children. A planet in the 5th house will tell you where to direct your creative energy and what needs to fulfill.

As you know, Mozart worked very hard; for himself, he was never good enough—this was Saturn forcing him to work. Most of Mozart’s legacy was discovered after his death. He hid his works because he considered them not good enough. And in fact, when Mozart was dying, he asked his Italian friend, companion, and creative partner to throw away the works he had written because they did not meet his standards. Instead, this person completed Mozart’s work.

From this configuration of the Sun, Mercury, and Saturn, we can say that as a child, Mozart constantly heard remarks that were not particularly helpful. Sometimes we don’t know in what kind of atmosphere a person’s childhood unfolded. In Mozart’s case, we can say that he was not emotionally supported much because Saturn is involved here. It is said that Mozart had a very close inner bond with his mother; his mother was everything to him—just look at the Moon in the 4th house. You see how much more the house tells us about how a planet operates than its sign does. Of course, we can interpret the sign of a planet, but first, I would say—yes, he was truly close to his mother because the Moon is in trine to Neptune, in square to Uranus, and in conjunction with Pluto. Notice the Moon and Pluto—with such people, mothers completely control their lives; mothers act like bosses, not allowing them to do anything without their will.

But why? He was born with the Moon in Sagittarius! Sagittarius means you should not, cannot, belong to a family! A child with the Moon in Sagittarius needs to experience life on their own terms, to gain their own life experience, because Sagittarius speaks of the fact that in this life, a person must reveal the truth, find their own truth. Therefore, parents, acting as patrons, say: “We do this and that, and you must do the same.” As the child grows up, they begin to understand that they cannot obey their parents because their experience does not help them and in some cases does not work.

As an adult, a person acts differently, no longer listens to their parents, and in reality begins to do what is needed. Sagittarius speaks of the fact that the Ten Commandments that work for you are not your mother’s commandments but your own, and you must listen only to your inner God. When we have a strong Sagittarius in the chart, for example, Ascendant, Sun, or Moon in Sagittarius, it means that in this life, a person must listen to the God within themselves, which is why Sagittarius is considered the happiest zodiac sign!

As you can understand, it was difficult for Mozart to listen to his inner voice rather than other people because he had the Moon in conjunction with Pluto. This means the power of the mother, which greatly restrained him. Any planet in the 4th house is unnecessary baggage from which a person must free themselves. And here there was hyper-control from the mother.

Let’s imagine he is a client, and you’ve just told him this. You have no idea how much you’ve helped this person or even if you’ve helped them at all, because a person with a conjunction of the Moon and Pluto will say: “I cannot live without my mother!” But deep inside, there is always a small quiet voice to which it is worth listening: “If you live by your mother’s rules, you will die.” And if a person allows that inner voice to strengthen, they will free their emotions from the subconscious.

Wherever we have Pluto in the chart, in the house or by aspect—that is the place where we are closed off, where our blocks are, where we are crucified. If we do not find a way out, then the situation will kill us or lock us away in a small black box. For example, you were born with the Moon in conjunction with Pluto. These are the kind of people who, through excessive maternal or paternal power, go through a certain life lesson (it can be either the father or the mother; a person always knows who it is, sensing their influence).

If you do not learn this lesson, do not free yourself from the pressure, then you will meet in your life a woman, or if you are a woman, a man, who will play the role of Pluto, because you need this, even if you don’t like it—you want it and consider it necessary. Throughout your life, you will experience conflicting feelings of love and hate toward the person you married or entered into a relationship with.

Many astrologers say: “Pluto in the 4th house is very bad,” and they spend 30 minutes trying to explain this to a client, but the client understands nothing because they have nothing to relate it to. But if you tie your explanations to a personal planet, then you will find a connection with the client. As I’ve already said, here Pluto is in conjunction with the Moon in the 4th house, and if we describe the planets by their position in the house and start with Pluto, the client won’t understand anything, but if we describe the planet that Pluto is affecting—the Moon—then the client will understand everything.

This is what distinguishes a good astrologer from a bad one. I want to tell you one thing. Let’s imagine that all good astrologers never looked at their own charts, and I ask you: “Where do you think your Jupiter is?”—you won’t have the slightest idea. Jupiter is here or there; you’ll never guess where. But if I ask: “Where is the Moon?”—you will be able to say whether it’s in this house or that one. Because you understand, feel what the Moon, Venus, or Mercury are, but you don’t understand Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus—you don’t pay attention to them.

Let’s look at an example. In your natal chart, Venus is in opposition to Uranus, and transiting Saturn is conjunct Uranus. How do you think this transit will affect Uranus?—Not at all!—Why? Saturn will tell Uranus: “You are not structured enough; you are too free!” And what does Uranus say to Saturn?—“Don’t you dare lecture me! Say all this to Venus!” Uranus asks Venus: “Well, what do you think about all this? Saturn told me I don’t have enough structure!” And Venus will reply: “Well then, let’s change the tune if that’s what you want.”

Of course, you can tell the client that Saturn is aspecting Venus and Uranus and can talk about this energy for an hour—the client won’t understand you! It’s better to tell the client that they were born with Venus in opposition to Uranus and focus on themes of love and happiness, for example: “…your views are too broad, you are not very responsible with the people you love, and now is the time to see how much you have already lost and to figure out—maybe you need more inner order?” Only Venus can answer this question, not Uranus, because he is always somewhere else; he is not at all interested in what is happening here.

And once again, I repeat: when you work with clients, you must know how to convey information in a way that makes sense to them, so they actually hear it!

I have Uranus in the 11th house—what does that mean for me?—I don’t know! I know it’s in opposition to Mercury, and now I know what that means for me—my mind is crazy, overly hyperactive. It means I easily lose interest in a subject. For example, if there are 10 beautiful girls in front of me, I won’t miss a single one; I’ll look at all of them at the same time.You can study any type of astrology, whatever you like, but we are all human, we are very closely tied to our animal nature and we respond to it immediately. This is the Sun, the Moon, Mars, the rest of the planets influence us, but we have no response to them, we don’t know why we can’t influence this energy. Suppose I was born with the Sun in square or opposition to Mars. This means I am angry, overly aggressive. I can’t tell Mars that I am too aggressive, Mars is uncontrollable, Mars is not Mars without its arrow, but I can tell my Sun: “When this guy pulls out his knife, do this…” Therefore, I must activate my Sun, gain education, I must study, because it is the Sun itself. It’s like the situation when you are driving a car and a policeman stops you for speeding. The policeman is Mars, and you are the Sun. You can shout and argue with the policeman, proving your case — it doesn’t matter to him, he won’t change, it is you who must change your Sun and apologize, otherwise you’ll end up in a cell. Next time you have a transit opposition of planets, for example, Jupiter to Pluto, try to find a connection with the inner planets and figure out what it means for you. This approach will give you much more understanding of what is really happening.

Transits of the outer planets. I am trying to give you small examples of how to read a transit chart without wasting time on long reflections about things that won’t lead to success. If a transit Saturn makes an aspect to the natal Uranus and you spend 15 minutes discussing what it means and the client then says it’s not so, that’s why your consultation takes 3 hours. I would never talk about a transit Saturn to Uranus, it means nothing to the client. What matters to me is how these planets interact, but much more I care about the aspect between Venus and Uranus, how they “dance together, isn’t it time for them to change the music?” And if I do this, then the client understands what I am talking about, he goes home with answers to his questions.

So take the transit of an outer planet in the chart and try to find which of the planets from the Sun to Mars it aspects, and it is this planet that must change. In this case, it must be Venus that changes, because Uranus will never change, no matter how much Saturn pushes it. But precisely because these two planets are bound together, they play the same game and the weakest planet must change especially. So there is no need to talk for 3 hours and clutter the client’s head with incomprehensible things. Every word you say, the client will understand with their heart.

I have Jupiter in the 5th house. So what does it do for me? — Nothing that I know, but I have the Sun and the Moon in the 5th house and I know exactly what that is. I know that Jupiter expands these planets, makes them bigger, and I can feel it. Don’t tell me I don’t understand certain things — I have Mercury conjunct Jupiter — I know everything! I know what Jupiter does, I think I am very intelligent, but that’s just what I think. Mercury knows, not Jupiter. I can use my Mercury-Jupiter conjunction however I want, I can convince all of you that I am extremely intelligent, but when I return to my room, the only one who will know whether I am truly intelligent is my Mercury. I can’t fool Mercury because I have to live with it, just as I do with the Sun, the Moon, Venus, and Mars. I can’t pay attention to my Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

When I stand before myself and think about what is worth looking at, who is this Alfie! I look at my goals — at the Sun, I look at the Moon — feelings of security, emotions, I look at my Mercury — do I know enough, do I convey to others what I want, I look at Venus — at the things I love or hate, at what I put into my life, whether I will keep fighting or I should cool down and rest. Have any of you ever tried to understand what your Uranus is? You don’t even have an idea how to do it! You won’t be able to, it’s just a futile exercise for your head. I have a Mercury-Uranus opposition and I know I can act, speak, and get upset very quickly, but it’s my Mercury, not Uranus. So when I try to imagine what my Uranus is and what it does, whether I have enough of it or whether I should change my perspective on it? — I won’t know where to start!

Many astrologers get too carried away with things that mean nothing to the client, it doesn’t help the client find themselves. If you have a problem, you won’t find a solution through Uranus or Saturn, Jupiter — you can find a solution through the inner planets. It is they that force you to move, stop, think, cry — to live! I am not saying you shouldn’t study what a transit Saturn to Jupiter is, a transit Uranus to Jupiter, of course you should know what it is, to have an idea of what energy is involved here. But to apply this knowledge in practice, you need to look at it differently.

So when we have a transit Sun making an aspect to the natal Mars, we don’t pay much attention to this transit or, for example, a transit Mercury conjunct Venus. So what! You don’t particularly care about it because you encounter this often and regularly. During such a transit, you might want to call someone, you might be more talkative than usual or get more things done — it’s just another day in your life! And the same goes for Mars. If it is in square to your Sun, you can, for example, tell your wife: “If you burn dinner one more time, I’ll find myself another cook!” You can argue and sleep in another room tonight, that’s it! You’ve had fights many times, you know exactly how to do it, but when it comes to Jupiter and Saturn, it’s a completely different matter, because Jupiter transits, if you are not an astrologer and don’t know where Jupiter is in your chart — you won’t feel anything at all.Transits. For some people, this is normal—they react very subtly to such transits and repeat the same pattern, while most people cannot feel them at all. However, it is good to know about the Jupiter transit. I have said many times before—Jupiter will never let you down! For me, when I act in accordance with Jupiter, I never regret it; it never lets me down. Jupiter is expansion, and Saturn is restriction. In essence, this is the same energy. How can you hate Saturn and love Jupiter if they are the same?!

Saturn is just as good for you as Jupiter because, without Saturn, you would never know when enough is enough. You would keep doing the same thing, get stuck in a loop, and never realize that it is long past time to stop. But then Saturn appears and says, “How many times do I have to push you before you finally stop!” Of course, we usually do not like this; we think we know what we are doing. Saturn tells you, “Enough of this marriage… enough of this job… This guy is just stealing your money—kick him out of the house!” Only Saturn will tell you this! So, if we look at Saturn more closely, we can say that it is just as much a success as Jupiter—Jupiter just speaks to you more politely. Saturn is not polite at all; we do not like the language it uses with us. Sometimes it sounds like, “Do this or…” But let us recall how we grew up. Saturn was our father, mother, schoolteacher, any authority figure. If all these people had not guided us and put us on the right track, who would we be now? When your father scolded you for speaking rudely to a neighbor, you resented him, thinking he was being unfair to you, but he taught you to speak kindly to the neighbor!

Thus, both planets are closely tied to consciousness—they are the structures by which we learn from anyone with greater authority than ourselves. For example, if you grew up in a family where your parents constantly shoplifted, you would grow up accustomed to theft, and it would not seem wrong to you. You would never suspect that something was amiss—this is Jupiter and Saturn working together, shaping your consciousness and defining what is good and what is bad.

Do you remember when we were children? When you worked hard, studied your lessons well, your mother would give you a glass of milk and a cookie—or something else tasty—and say, “If you are good, this is what you will get!” This is Jupiter and Saturn. God speaks to us in the same way. If a Saturn or Jupiter transit occurs in your chart, it means God is speaking to you—it means you are wrong here and will face punishment, or you are such a good person that you deserve a new house or a new car. God deals with us just like parents do! These two planets shape a child’s consciousness. During transits, what can be called spiritual consciousness is formed. I call them the bridge between the physical, material world (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars) and the distant planets (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto). This is everything we try to understand. That is why, since the three highest planets were discovered relatively recently, humanity has been ready to begin transforming certain souls. If we go back 300 years, people lived on Earth without any idea of Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto transits. Back then, people were not developed enough to be attuned to the energy of these planets. Now, we all feel the energy of the higher planets, and it brings truly complex problems because we have no idea what the planet is saying when it makes its transit. Clients can describe a difficult Mars transit or tell you how they experienced a favorable Jupiter or Saturn transit, but they will not be able to describe Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto transits because they do not even understand what is happening at such times. That is why they need an astrologer’s help.

When a transiting Uranus forms an aspect to any planet in the chart, it is like an explosion—everything in life loses its form, and fragments fly in all directions. I look at my life, and it is falling apart into tiny pieces. I say, “Oh! So, God, do I want this one or that one? I like this one better!” And I run back and forth until I lose everything! You do not know whether you want to save this piece or that one, which is most important to you, because life is being shaken from all sides in every possible way. All Uranus wants to tell you is that something in your life right now needs to change. It says, “We have new records for you—the old ones are broken!” The only problem is that the client does not know which area of life is subject to change, so you start asking, “Is this your child? Is this your marriage or your job?” They reply, “It’s all of it at once!” But it cannot all happen at once; the client simply cannot isolate that one small piece. God is not cruel enough to take everything from you simultaneously, and He knows we cannot handle that. So, if Uranus makes a transit aspect to other planets in the chart, you need to return to the physical plane associated with Saturn—whether it is aspecting a planet from the Sun to Mars—and then discuss that planet, as it is the one that needs change.

If a transiting Uranus aspects your natal Saturn, you will never change your Saturn—it is impossible! However, if Saturn is aspecting the Moon, then your home, your feelings, your emotions—this is what needs to change. Your natal chart shows that Saturn with the Moon is too structured, and Uranus simply says what needs to be done. As I have already said, the Moon cannot dictate to Saturn, but Saturn can dictate to the Moon. So, if a client has a similar situation, you talk to them about their home life, their emotional needs, their children, their friends, or any person who has become close to them. You tell them, “The problem is not your job; the issue is your emotions—put them in order!” and the client looks at you and says, “Yes, that sounds true!”

If you have a Neptune transit, unlike Uranus, which wants to change your life and then “stop taking the tram and start driving a car,” Neptune simply makes you forget everything and start over. Neptune is the planet of trust in God; it says, “Now I forgive everything, I am ready to let go of all past pain, insults, and difficulties because I am going to transform.” But on the physical plane, the material plane of life, Neptune can bring many troubles—misunderstandings of unconditional love. You can experience such love only when you have forgiven and forgotten, forgiven and forgotten.

A good example is the following story. Two years ago, I had a very serious operation. I was literally cut open from head to toe. Two weeks later, I came home and remembered nothing. I started to worry; I could not speak, I had lost my memory, and I called my doctor and said, “I don’t remember anything at all!” He said, “Well, that’s nothing. When you had the operation, we did it under anesthesia so that you would let go of the pain, forget it, otherwise you would carry it in your mind—it would stay in your brain!” I looked in the ephemeris and found that on the day of my operation, the transiting Sun was in exact opposition to my natal Neptune, which is why the medicine affected me more strongly than the doctors had anticipated.

When clients come to you with a Neptune transit in their chart, they are usually confused because they cannot distinguish truth from falsehood. They look at what they have given and what has been returned to them. It seems to them like an unequal exchange, and now they do not believe in anything or anyone. They do not believe in their children, their wife, their boss. Again, it is about some small part of their life, so you must draw their attention to it specifically.If Uranus forces me to look at things in another dimension, Neptune forces me to feel differently, gives another dimension to things, Pluto forces me to control what happens in another dimension. We remember that Pluto is the planet of healing; it governs surgery. In many doctors, Pluto is either in the 10th house or the 8th house, or in conjunction with the Sun, because they are healers. Pluto means that when it comes into your life, you allow everything possible to happen. The worst thing you can do during a Pluto transit is try to control the situation, as you are used to doing, as you want to. I will tell you a story.

In the Bible, there was a man named Saul. One day, God came to him and said, “Leave everything you own, take your two sons and your wife, and leave the city—I am going to burn it! But do not look back!” However, his wife turned around and turned into a pillar of salt. This is a story from the Bible, but it is a Pluto transit. It says, “Leave everything! Leave everything to the will of God, and your new life will begin; I will return everything to you someday!”

You lose nothing during a Pluto transit, and when Pluto comes and says, “I want this!”—the only thing left for us to say is, “Take it!” But sometimes it happens that Pluto demands something you are not ready to part with; you say, “God, take everything, but leave this with me!” and God answers, “No! You can keep everything, but I want this!” And then, when that something returns to you, it will have ten times more power than before. This means you allowed God to transform your own strength, your own power. Remember that Pluto is the planet of power and control. By sharing your power, by releasing control, you turn a small thing into a giant one.

I think Russians, like Americans, know very well what Pluto is. From a tiny atom, so small that it cannot even be seen without a special microscope, we squeeze out some enormous force, and it becomes an atomic bomb. Never before could we imagine that such a tiny particle could hold such immense power—and this is Pluto. You can turn a speck of dust into a monster, but you can also take that particle and force it to follow its own course; however, when it returns, you become the monster, with all the power and might!