E143: Astrology, Self-Awareness, and Conscious Leadership

Simone: The more we learn to speak astrology, or at least to understand our own chart, the more of a sense of rightness and a sense of being on track that we're going to have.

Janet Aioli: You're not here for the same old, same old. You're not here for just tips. You're here because something in you knows it's time to change. Not just how you lead, but how you live. I'm Janet Aioli, and this is the Inner Edge, a podcast about leadership, self motivation, mastery, resilience, and reinvention for a new world era. Real life, whole self. Let's go there. Welcome to the Inner Edge. So, Simone, I'm really excited to have you on the show today. This is a topic that I've been really wanting to explore a little bit further. Uh, I am such a big fan of Carl Jung and the unconscious. And, uh, you know, I've talked on this podcast many Times that about 95% of our behavior and our actions are unconscious. And I fact checked that one because I thought, how could that be? That means we're 95% of the time, we're not even conscious of what we're doing. And one of the areas that Carl Jung, I've read him extensively because I think, you know, he was almost like a prophet in terms of understanding human dynamics and human behavior. One of the things that he explored in detail was the whole area of astrology. And, you know, he talked a lot about symbols and symbolism and how astrology mirrored a lot of our human behavior. And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on the show for a lot of other reasons that I mentioned earlier. But talk a little bit about your thoughts about astrology because, you know, it's been around for thousands of years and people dismiss it immediately. Not all people, but a lot of people dismiss it immediately. So talk a little bit about this Jung connection and some of your thoughts.

Simone: Yeah, well, I adore Jung. I always have. And do you know he actually was an astrologer.

Janet Aioli: I did not know that.

Simone: He cast a chart for each of his, um, clients.

Janet Aioli: Oh, my God.

Simone: Because it gave him additional insight into their nature and what cycles are going on for them and how he might best help them. But his major precepts, like the collective unconscious, synchronicity, these things are pure astrology. Synchronicity is as above, so below. And that's the guiding maxim of astrology and always has been from day one, back when, you know, the, the Greeks and Romans were practicing it, even BCE as above, so below. Is, in other words, we are reflected in the movements of the heavens. And probably we're reflecting, uh, they're reflecting us, we're reflecting them. It's mutual, you know, because we're all part of this great consciousness on the planet. And not everybody grasps that concept, especially science. I know scientists have been, um, highly judgmental, many of them of, you know, astrology and psychic things. And not that I equate those two, but they're often lumped together. Yeah.

Janet Aioli: And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to have this conversation. Simone. Okay, so you know, I navigate different worlds, right? So I, I am in academia, you know, I'm getting a PhD. I, you know, use scientific principles to do research, et cetera. And one of the thing I've learned, one of the things I've learned over the years is that while science is really important and it helps us, it also limits us. And so, because what happens, I think, in any endeavor is that we get, our mind gets closed and we forget that we're part of a larger universe and there are so many things that we can't explain. And so everybody tries to get their little piece of what that means. And what I always encourage people is to remain curious and to learn about things. And one of the things that really dismayed me, and I'll. I'm asking you a question in a minute, but I think this conversation is important, is that organizational psychologist Adam Grant, who I've, uh, read his books, I've followed him for years, wrote in one of his blogs that astrology has no scientific basis and that people who believe in it or who follow it lack critical thinking. And I was a little, not only offended by that, but I was surprised because I think that is against the curiosity of science, because science is about being curious about your environment, what's around you, et cetera. What do you think that he and others might be missing?

Simone: Well, that's a, uh, totally left brained approach, isn't it? It's like if you can't see it, it doesn't exist. If you cannot prove it scientifically and replicate it, then it's of no value. But astrology is more of a right brained type of approach. It has to do with seeing the correlations between things, seeing where things resonate or you know, mirror each other. Like how, like I was saying about as above and so below. And there's no room for that in the current scientific paradigm, although possibly quantum physics maybe had been in that direction, which probably this guy you're mentioning is not coming from that perspective. He probably has a strong Saturn in his chart.

Janet Aioli: We should check it out. Hey. Hey. Adam Grant. Well, we are offering you, uh, a reading, uh, with Simone here to check out your chart and see what you are not understanding or missing here.

Simone: That's the whole value of astrology, is it's like a snapshot of the moment that you were born, that you took your first breath, and we can actually look at the chart for that of where all the planets were in the heavens. And if we have a time of birth that's within five or 10 minutes of accuracy, then we have your ascendant, also known as the rising sign, which is extremely important, possibly as important, the ancients certainly thought so, as the sun sign. Now, sun signs have become really popular since, what, Linda goodman in the 1970s, because it was easy. Everybody knows their sun sign.

Janet Aioli: You read the paper and you see, oh, okay. So everybody that was born in this between this amount of time is going to have the same thing happen, right?

Simone: But for a long time, people didn't realize they were more than just their sun sign. But now, especially with, you know, the advent of the Internet and, uh, social media, I mean, there's a whole younger generation of people now that are becoming quite savvy to astrology. They've got these apps on their phones. They meet some, uh, she meets a guy she's interested in, she gets his birth data and boom, boom, and, you know, to see how their planets connect.

Janet Aioli: Okay, you're gonna laugh. I'm gonna. I've gotta tell you this story. And those of you who are listening, you know me well, so you probably don't know this about me, but when I met my husband and I, um, you know, when was going out on a date with him, I actually had his chart drawn up online. Just online. And I brought it with me to one of our dates, and I said, hey, you know, let's. Let's talk about this. And he continued to date me after that. Um, which, you know, if you look at it astrologically, it makes sense. But it wasn't because I'm a fanatic or I'm crazy or because, you know, I have this woo woo thing. It's because I think what you said, Simone, is so important. Astrology to me is like a snapshot of the universe's energy at the moment you're born. Because if, in fact, we are all energy, we are encompassing whatever energy is going on or is happening in that moment. And so that energy has an impact on how we show up. So can you talk more about that? Because I think that's a really important piece that people don't understand.

Simone: Exactly. And astrology presupposes the fact that we have lived before. So reincarnation is a very real thing in astrology, and that we choose to reincarnate at a specific time, somehow our souls detect when the planets are in the best alignment.

Janet Aioli: I didn't know that.

Simone: Yeah, uh, when the planets are in the best alignment to describe what we want to accomplish in this life, what we're learning. Because basically that's what life is. It's a school of sorts where we're trying on different things to see how they fit. We're going down paths that maybe in previous lifetimes we were unaccustomed to. So we're, we're developing ourselves. And the, uh, the more we reincarnate, the more we learn, the more we develop, you know, so that's, that's one of the great values of astrology, is we can see. See not, you know, who you were in a past life per se, but we can see what you've already accomplished and where you might get stuck in this life if you stay in that place. That's a point called the south node, especially that shows what we've already done. And its opposite point, the north node, is what we're trying to learn, what's new to us, what might be a struggle for us, but is necessary there.

Janet Aioli: Wow. See, that's interesting to me because I didn't really understand that until you just described it. And my, My mind is always, like, curious. So I'm curious as you, as you talk. When we're looking at astrology and we're looking at, you know, somebody's chart, what does it do for us in terms of understanding our own nature? And you, uh, said that Carl Jung was actually giving this to his. Giving charts to his clients so he could understand them better. And what is it? How does it help us understand ourselves better?

Simone: I'm not sure that he shared that information with us.

Janet Aioli: He just did it for himself. Right.

Simone: I think it was mainly for him to understand them. Maybe he did if they were, you know, if they asked him or they were interested. But. Well, we can choose to go down one path rather than another path. You know, I was thinking today of a young woman that I met recently who had come, uh, the daughter of one of my clients who had sent her for a reading when she was about to graduate high school. And she had, like, two different career paths that she was contemplating, and she was really torn between the two and ah, her main question was which one should I pick based on my chart? So you know, it was, it became evident as we looked at all the different placements and things, um, and things she had already learned and what she was wanting to learn as a soul. Uh, this particular. It had, it was in the medical field, uh, path seemed really the better choice. And so then I ran into her, I don't know, five or seven years later and she thanked me so profoundly. She was so happy she had gone down that path and she was working in that field and it was abs, I'm getting chills talking about this. And it was just the, it was the best choice. And she was so grateful that astrology and you know, my understanding of it had helped her to choose that.

Janet Aioli: Yeah. So let's break this down because I think people are confused a little bit about what astrology really is and does. Uh, most people think of it it's like some woo woo fortune telling. So talk to me. Let's do basic astrology 101 in a really quick uh, tutorial. So talk to me a little bit about what exactly a birth chart is and what it can tell people.

Simone: Well, there's different forms of astrology. There's the natal astrology, which is the map of the heavens on the day you were born and the interpretation of that. And from that you can understand more about who you are, why you came here, you know, what career paths might be best for you, what kind of partners might be best for you. That's natal astrology.

Janet Aioli: Let's stay there for a minute before we go on to the other one. So natal astrology, what does it do exactly? So how give me, give a layperson. I mean I know a lot more about astrology than a lot of the people listening. So if you can, and you definitely know like uh, a lot about astrology, but most people don't, so they won't understand exactly how that can help. So can you like in 101, tell me like I'm a third grader, what exactly?

Simone: There's different parts of the chart that relate to different aspects of living. The chart's divided into 12 houses. So for instance, the first house has to do with your personal self, your physical body, to understand if there's a particular planet in that house, what it means, whether maybe you might have difficulties potentially with your physical self and what you might do about that. Although I'm not a medical astrologer, so I don't give out that type of information. But, um, the second house, then, is your financial area of your life. And depending on what houses, what planets are there, and the ruler of that house, we can see either how you might deal with your money or how you might best make money. So each of the 12 houses is a different area of life.

Janet Aioli: So that's a chart. And so how is that plotted? So you have a chart. And so my chart is different than your chart. How do I know which planets are in my house? Like, how does that come about?

Simone: Well, that's the purpose of the reading is I tell you.

Janet Aioli: Right, you tell me. But how do you know? Like, what do you. What do you. How do you create a chart?

Simone: Oh, my software does it on, um, the, huh. Computer. So. And it's plotting. But.

Janet Aioli: But I guess, Simone, what I'm asking is what is it doing? It's plotting the, the time and place of your birth.

Simone: Yeah.

Janet Aioli: Chart in. In the, I guess the universe in terms of the planets and where they are located at that time. And then they were located at the

Simone: moment you were born.

Janet Aioli: Yeah. And then in that there are like grid lines of. Okay, where this was is your finances. Is that pretty much. Am I conveying that? Okay, so. And so that's why it's unique for everybody.

Simone: Yeah.

Janet Aioli: Right. Now, what about people who were born the same time I was or the same exact time?

Simone: Would they be the same exact day, time and place? Yeah, because the place matters too.

Janet Aioli: Yeah, that's true.

Simone: Well, I don't know. Do you know anybody?

Janet Aioli: No, I don't, but I'm sure that's what people ask, like, well, okay, so do I have a doppelganger twin soul somewhere that is exactly like me?

Simone: I mean, well, I don't know. Possibly. But then you gotta factor in genetics.

Janet Aioli: Yeah.

Simone: And also the type of, you know, home upbringing that, that you had. Maybe you were extremely poor, and the other person who was born at the same time, place, et cetera. As you grow up in a very rich household, you're going to have different life experiences, but it's still the same template.

Janet Aioli: Yeah. So it's the same energies, Billy, that, uh, that you're getting from the. Yeah, no, that makes sense to me. I'm just asking because I know people will ask that. And so if we set aside judgments, um, about, you know, whether this makes sense or not or whether we can grasp it. So if I understand the energies that were in place at my birth and that I carry within my physical body, how does that help me?

Simone: Well, how does it help you? Um, self understanding is the whole reason why we're here. I mean, once you understand yourself, you can make better decisions. You can attract perhaps different people into your life. You can make an effort to go in a certain direction that you might not have otherwise.

Janet Aioli: Uh, yeah, no. And you know, it's interesting because as you talk, Simone, I'm thinking about what you said at the very beginning, that so many people are turning towards astrology to understand themselves. Why do you think there is a need for people to understand themselves now more than ever?

Simone: Mhm. That's a good question. Well, I think consciousness is growing on this planet. I really do think that it is, despite all evidence to the contrary. Because some people, a certain area of life, uh, people are going, seem to be going backward, but overall I think that we're going forward. Our consciousness is raising. There's. And that's why there's such a kickback, um, blowback to that. Because some people want things to stay the same, you know, but it can't be changed. Consciousness is growing and the more people, um, learn about themselves and get in alignment with their soul's purpose, whatever that may be, I think that's, that's the direction we need to aim in. And rather than fitting in or going backward. Yeah, but the other I just wanted to finish with, what I was saying before is, um, after you get a sense of your natal chart, then we have, um, transits, progressions, solar returns, all these different ways of moving your chart forward to see where you are now and what kind of planetary influences are happening for you now. And so that's, um, you know, it's not predictive in the sense that, you know, oh, Saturn's coming, you better watch out, uh, or you're gonna die or something like that, you know. The ancient astrologers were a little more predictive than we modern astrologers are in that they forecast dire things that they saw coming and who knows whether they happened or not. But that's not what we do nowadays. But it's still useful to know if you're having a difficult Saturn transit because it's a relief. It tells you, oh, that's why I've been struggling. That's why things are kind of difficult. And this is how I can work with this. And this is when it's going to be over.

Janet Aioli: Right, Right.

Simone: No, so.

Janet Aioli: And uh, it's funny you say that, because I'm picturing this as a metaphor in some ways, is that you're, you've got the snapshot of the universe's energy. I mean, we're trying what you're really saying is consciousness as an energy is all around us. We've got the snapshot, and then the universe is moving. And, um, those energies keep changing. And as they move and change, they're impacting the imprint that we have. And so that's really what you're saying. And so learning more about it helps you understand. Okay. You know, there's this sort of energy coming. This is how it impacts me.

Simone: And it can be often is a repeat of an energy that has already happened for you. Like, for instance, um, a lot of people have heard of the Saturn return. Anyone who knows astrology is either going to know about Mercury retrograde.

Janet Aioli: Everybody knows Mercury. A lot of people have Mercury retrograde.

Simone: Right. Three times a year for three weeks at a time, the planet of communication goes on holiday and everything kind of goes awry. But then Saturn return is another one a lot of people know. Around the age of 28, 29 is your first Saturn return, where Saturn returns all the way around to where it was when you were born. It's a major turning point for a lot of people. And then you have it again around the age of 58, 59. And if you live long enough, 28, 29 years after that, you have it for a third time. So it's kind of reassuring to know that we have these predictable cycles that are coming around because we can look back at the last one and the same for what we call mundane astrology, which is looking at countries and political, uh, leaders and things like that. For instance, right now we're having a lot of the same cycles that happened during the American Revolution. And so all this mayhem and breaking free and, you know, all that they went through in order to establish the U.S. that's all, that's all come full circle now. And over the next couple of years, we get to reassess where we're at as a country. We get to throw what doesn't work. We get to reaffirm what does work and take it to the next level, ideally.

Janet Aioli: Wow. So, I mean, so it's fascinating. It's not just the person individual, but it's also looking at the universal energy, the collective energy in the world, which is.

Simone: Oh, yeah.

Janet Aioli: Which is really fascinating. Okay, so I could talk to you all day, and we're just about out of time. But I wanted what my, my aim with this episode was really to expose people to the fact that, hey, you know, critical thinking takes different forms. And it's not just about, you know, having a scientific argument for something. There are things that we can't explain. And it was. It's what I believe is critical thinking is being open and curious about everything and trying to understand it before we judge it. And actually, I would say spending judgment, because even when we make judgments, we don't have enough information. Um, so if astrology isn't about fortune telling, but it's more about self awareness and connection, what wisdom does it hold now for how we live and lead in this world?

Simone: Well, I think, you know, really the word I would use for it is it's a language. M. It's a language that we're learning to speak. And the. And the more we learn to speak astrology, or at least to understand our own charts and maybe the charts of other people close to us in our lives, the more of a sense of rightness and a sense of being on track that we're going to have. And things are pretty unsteady right now. And so astrology is one of many ancient, um, systems of wisdom that have come back and that are here. Maybe you don't, you know, resonate with astrology. Maybe meditation is more your thing or, uh, yoga or some combination there, uh, thereof. But getting in touch with your body, your soul's wisdom, all of that can help you feel like no matter what the hell's going on in the world or outside, that you're on track. And if you're not on track, that you can get back on track. Uh, maybe you, uh, have an ancestor that you call on. I mean, there's a lot of things I do that are not astrological, but that are very, very helpful. And I often will recommend people, especially if someone has just passed on, to make an altar for that person and start asking for their help because they really do want to help us.

Janet Aioli: Yeah, no, this, this is very insightful. I appreciate you, Simone, coming on today and sharing a little bit of your wisdom around this area. I think, um, my provocation for people, this is called the inner edge, is that if you want to be using your inner edge, you need to be going inner. And, um, part of that is being open and understand. Try to understand the universe and all the things around us, rather than shutting things down and being fragmented in the way they look at things. So, um, I thought astrology was the perfect topic to discuss. Um, I will make sure in the show notes people have your information if they want to reach out to you themselves and learn more. Um, but I really appreciate you sharing your wisdom with us today.

Simone: Thank you so much for having me.

Janet Aioli: And always remember this, every truth you speak, every boundary you hold, every moment, you decide and act on what really matters at the core. That's your inner edge. See you next time.