Spiritual Fundamentals Part 1.
Welcome to the new getting started in spirituality series where we’ll cover how to get going in different areas of study. Giving you an easy and accessible place to step into new areas of practice. Learning from established and trusted sourced to get you off on the right foot.
Astrology can be a daunting topic. There are million books and opinions you could read. It really doesn’t need to be complicated though. Join Theres and I and we help you get started in a good way. We cover the importance of understanding zodiac signs, and the foundational elements of astrology, including the big three (sun, moon, and ascendant) and the significance of houses in a natal chart. Theresa shares her insights on how to approach learning astrology based on her vast teaching experience. This conversation is full of stories and easy to digest ideas to help you get started. After listening you’ll have a framework to help you bring this ancient practice into you modern life.
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Much love
Andrew
PS Theresa’s favourite late cretaceous animal is the Triceratops.
Parts of the conversation.
00:00 Introduction to Astrology and Tarot
04:30 Starting Your Astrology Journey
10:36 Understanding Zodiac Signs
12:15 Astrology as a Theory
14:16 The Importance of the Big Three
19:58 Exploring Houses in Astrology
23:22 Exploring House Systems in Astrology
25:56 Understanding the Significance of Houses
28:16 The Importance of Angles in Astrology
31:06 Navigating Challenges in Astrology
33:02 Living Astrology: Practical Applications
35:48 Astrological Red Flags and Pitfalls
Transcript
Andrew McGregor (00:00.618)
Hey folks, welcome to the first in the series of the Hermit’s Lamp Fundamental Podcasts. In this part of the series, I’m going to interview amazing people who are just wonderful at their art and craft about how we get into this. And today I have the pleasure of having Teresa Reed on the podcast. Teresa is an amazing tarot reader and I think an even more amazing astrologer.
And so I really wanted to chat with her about how do get into this if you’re looking to start learning some astrology, where do you begin? How do you get going? But let’s start with this. For the folks who might not know you, Teresa, who are you? Tell me a little bit about yourself.
Theresa Reed (00:48.75)
My name is Theresa Reed. I’m better known as the Tarot Lady. And even though I’m known for tarot, my gateway into tarot was astrology. So I was an astrologer first before a tarot reader. I am a Gemini Sun, Scorpio Moon, and Libra Rising. A very late Libra Rising, so I actually tend to identify more with the Scorpio things. But then again, I think I’m a wannabe Scorpio. I’ve written a ton of books, and the latest one is The Card You’re Dealt, How to Deal When Life Gets Real.
It’s a tarot guidebook for delivering compassionate readings when life gets really crummy.
Andrew McGregor (01:24.66)
Yeah, Teresa’s books are great as is all of the stuff she puts out so definitely go give her a follow in the places and keep up with what she’s doing. I first met Teresa at Reader’s Studio many years ago. I don’t remember what year that was now, 2016 maybe? Maybe earlier? Yeah, it’s been a minute and we immediately hit it off, know, just
Theresa Reed (01:46.931)
Maybe earlier, it’s been a minute.
Andrew McGregor (01:54.76)
to silly people who like to eat food. That’s basically the deal. And for the context of the astrology part of this podcast, let me share my astrology journey. I used to do a lot of ceremonial magic, did a lot of planetary magic. I was very, very heavily into all of that kind of stuff for a long time. And back in the early 2000s,
Maybe for about 10 years I used to do charts for people and I kind of got to the place where you get to with some of these kinds of things where the next step in the journey would involve a real high level of complexity and sort of a much deeper and broader set of studies and I thought, no, I don’t want to. Tarot is my magic, it’s my superpower and I’m going to put aside this astrology. And since then,
I often sort of mostly jokingly say, I don’t even believe in astrology anymore. And this came out of the fact that I practice and am a priest in Afro-Cuban religious tradition, commonly known as Centuria, I prefer to call it Lekumi. And within that tradition, we don’t have any astrology. And I found this sort of cognitive dissonance going on between the astrological stuff and
my personal readings and connection with those spirits. So I sort of decided to put away entirely astrology for many years. And you know, now I dabble and drift in and out of it. I mean, let’s be honest, who doesn’t like hearing about it themselves? So whenever I have the opportunity to, you know, have those kinds of conversations with folks, I’m always curious, but it’s definitely taken a much different place in my life.
So that’s kind of where I’m at, know, definitely not cynical, definitely not a non-believer, but kind of less interested and less engaged with it a lot of the time, even though I really do see its value and its importance. So I guess my first question for you, Theresa, and I’m a Sagittarius Sun, Gemini Moon, and Leo rising for folks who are tracking such things.
Andrew McGregor (04:23.178)
Where do we start? For folks who are just getting into this, what’s the beginning for them?
Theresa Reed (04:30.702)
Well, it’s going to be different for everybody. The first thing I will say, astrology is a huge topic. It is a, there’s so many rabbit holes you can go down in astrology. And I think a lot of folks find that it’s overwhelming when they first begin. Where do I start? Who do I listen to? What’s right? What’s wrong? What’s bogus? There’s a lot of questions you’re going to have when you first begin. And I mean, my own journey.
My own journey happened when I got an astrology reading when I was 15 years old. And I became instantly fascinated and obsessed. I do have an obsessive quality to my nature when I’m into something. I’m really into it. That’s that Scorpio stuff. And so my first mode of studying was actually through books. I did not have a teacher. I did not have a mentor. I still have the book I started with, too, to this day. And I had to learn the hard way because there was no internet.
We’re talking like over 40 years ago and the books were very dry. There wasn’t a lot of fun stuff out there. So I had to start figuring everything out by that book. I actually got the book right here because I always keep it handy. The Astrologer’s Handbook by Sakoian and Acker. It’s still in print too. It’s an oldie but a goodie. It’s very, very dry. Yeah, total. And so for me, I just started by, of course, doing my chart.
Andrew McGregor (05:43.124)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew McGregor (05:48.084)
Classic.
Theresa Reed (05:55.048)
I always recommend for everybody you should start by just doing your chart. Start there because first of all who knows you better than you? Number one. And number two it is a great way to understand yourself and the perfect way to learn astrology. You know one of the things that I found over the years is I like to say that I use myself as a petri dish. Like I’ll test out all my astrology theories and stuff by you know using it with my chart.
And so that’s how I really got to understand it back in the day. I would say for most people, you want to just start with the zodiac signs and learn them thoroughly. Learn about Aries. What element is Aries? What quality is Aries? How does Aries express themselves in the world? If you start with that, I think that is the best foundation. We can almost build then into the planets, the houses, and then the aspects.
Anytime I teach astrology, that is always the pattern that I use, because once you know those fundamentals, then everything else will start to make sense.
Andrew McGregor (07:01.002)
And you know with the signs themselves, there’s so many things that we could read about and look at. What are the kind of top pieces that you think are important? You mentioned the elements, but what else are you looking for?
Theresa Reed (07:19.864)
So, know, there’s, first of all, I always like to say that whoever invented astrology has got to be a Virgo. Because, you know, there’s a lot of details to astrology and everything is actually highly organized. And so when you start really working with astrology, it’s nothing but patterns. Everything is patterns. And once you understand how those patterns work, boom, you’re in. You’re in the door. And so let’s use your sign as an example. You’re Sagittarius.
So the first thing we know Sagittarius is the archer. And the archer is all about truth. And the archer is also a centaur. I mean, we can start going into mythology there. You can really go down a rabbit hole about the mythology. Then we also discover Sagittarius is a fire sign. Well, what do we know about fire signs? All fire signs are enthusiastic. They’re passionate. They’re driven. You know, so they’ve got that fiery energy.
Okay, once you study that, what’s next? The quality. The qualities are the modalities. That’s what they’re also called. And you’re either cardinal, you’re mutable, or you’re fixed. Sagittarius is mutable. And so what does that mean? Mutable people are at the end of the season. And so they are all about change and they’re adaptable. And that comes very naturally for them because they are at the, again, the end of the season. Once we understand that, then we can start putting all of this together.
to see, well, what does that mean for Sagittarius? So we know that Sagittarius shoots for the truth, Archer. They’re passionate people, and they’re also very changeable, so this gives them a restless nature. Unlike the other fire signs, which are Aries and Leo, they’re restless. They wanna wander the world. They wanna see what’s out there. They wanna broaden their horizons. Okay, great. Well, what planet rules Sagittarius? That’s the next thing to go to, because the planets also…
Each sign is ruled by a different planet. Okay, Jupiter is the planet that is ruling over Sagittarius. Jupiter is the biggest planet in the zodiac. Jupiter is all about expansion and growth. And again, when you throw that into the Sagittarius mix, then it’s like, okay, well, they’re not just restless. They want to broaden their horizons. They want to know about everything. They are seekers. And so that’s how you begin putting it together.
Theresa Reed (09:41.834)
And then again, we can go down a million other rabbit holes when we start looking at the chart, but just in general with the zodiac, and I’ve done this, I’ve condensed this into a very small sound bite, but all these little elements go into making up what the Sagittarius personality is like. And it shows how Sagittarius is different from example, other fire signs, but also other mutable signs. I’m a Gemini. I’m a mutable sign too. Geminis love change.
But we are ruled by Mercury. We live in our heads. We are in our head all the time. And Gemini is also an air sign. That is also very much in their head. So while Sagittarius is out exploring the world, Gemini’s got a million things going on in their minds. And they live through their heads. Everything is filtered through the mind. And I like to say it’s like there’s circus music in my head all the time. Very, very Gemini. So those are just some examples.
Andrew McGregor (10:33.386)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and I think one of the things that I really want to highlight for folks here too is I think that what I explain to people when they are learning tarot applies to this too. Go through and learn one thing about all of the signs of the zodiac. Be able to say one statement, Sagittarians are inclined to change. Great. Right? Now,
there’s a lot more to say, but we don’t need to know it all at once, right? And I think that really having that broad collection of ideas where it’s like, I can say something that’s going to be generally true about Sagittarius. And then I can add another one and a third one and a fourth one. And then, you know, then you’re ready to dig deeper and go into other things, Because, you know, especially,
Theresa Reed (11:10.295)
No.
Andrew McGregor (11:32.158)
I’m always amazed by how astrology has changed in the public sphere over years. And I’ve studied astrology. I consider myself fairly well versed in it, although I consider myself a solid, basic astrologer. The things people start talking about, I’m like, I don’t even know about that. I have no idea what that is. And that’s fine, right?
That is something that maybe you’ll get into, maybe you won’t, maybe it’s from a specific system, maybe it’s part of a particular approach or worldview, and you don’t need to know all of those things in order to benefit from it.
Theresa Reed (12:15.518)
Absolutely. And the other thing I do want to add about all this stuff, you know, you can know all the astrological facts and figures and whatnot, but what a lot of astrologers or even people who are studying astrology fail to realize is it’s a theory, ultimately. Astrology is theory. And so you really want to look at it like from a mathematical mind. We’re looking at patterns. However, your lived experience is also going to dictate how that actually shows up. And so people have to remember that.
Andrew McGregor (12:37.428)
Thank
Theresa Reed (12:45.422)
whatever your chart is, like let’s say you and I had the exact same charts. You can study both those charts till the end of time and assume then that you have a complete picture of that person. But depending on our lived experiences and some of the choices we make, the chart will still be accurate, but it’s going to manifest differently. And that’s what also makes astrology complex but also exciting. There’s a little bit of intuition that goes with it.
Andrew McGregor (13:10.1)
Mm-hmm.
Theresa Reed (13:12.322)
But learn one thing really well, I agree with that, and study the basics again and again and again and again. You need to go back to the basics constantly. If you want to get good at it, that stuff has to come automatic to you.
Andrew McGregor (13:23.666)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So we’ve got the signs, Leo, Sagittarius, so on. We’ve got some planets, right? Do you, because of my background in ceremonial magic and because a lot of it came out of Golden Dawn and Alistair Crowley’s work and so on, I was very focused on the inner planets, right? Like that’s the magical operative stuff of many things.
Theresa Reed (13:48.878)
Right.
Andrew McGregor (13:52.616)
and these outer planets were either not known or not worked with earlier on, are there planets that you, or things like that where you say, let’s not worry about that, let’s not bring in the asteroids, let’s not bring in this, that, or whatever, what would be a good foundational spectrum of planets to look at for folks?
Theresa Reed (14:16.462)
Well, first of all, your big three is also most important. The big three is what we expressed here. That is your sun, your moon, and your ascendant. Many astrologers feel that 80 % of what you need to know about a person starts right there. So that’s the place to really begin. If you are a new to astrology, your sun, because your sun is your basic personality, your moon is your emotional needs. There’s more to it than that, but it really is your emotions and how you express them. And then your ascendant is
really how you are out there in the world, how you appear to others. So these are the big three to start with. And when it comes to the planets, I think the personal planets, which by the way, for folks who are listening, that’s the sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars. Those are really, really important because again, it gives you so much feedback about your personality. Now, I am a fanatic about Saturn. I love Saturn. Saturn is the hard taskmaster and everyone hates Saturn.
So I’m into Saturn because I’m also a believer that when you look at the planets that are the most challenge, challenging so to speak, that’s where the magic lies because once you master that, now you can show up in the world as the best version of you. So Jupiter and Saturn are the social planets. I think they’re important too. And Uranus and Neptune and Pluto, those are more about generations. So, and in Hellenistic astrology, which by the way, there are different branches of astrology. They don’t even bother with those planets because they were discovered later.
But they really do talk a lot about generations. for those of us, and I’m one of those people who are really fascinated with historical astrology, that’s really interesting. But ultimately, sun, moon, and ascendant. Sun, moon, and ascendant. Mercury, Venus, and Mars, awesome. I love Jupiter, love Saturn, but Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, you can wait on that. When it comes to asteroids, now asteroids are not my jam. I kind of play around with them, but they’re not my thing.
I’m one of those people is I’m not going to go out and teach a whole bunch of crap that I don’t know well. There are people who are into it. I feel that they can be helpful. They add nuances. I found out some interesting things about some asteroids that are impacting me directly. There are things like the lots. They’re interesting. I don’t put a lot of stock into that. That’s another rabbit hole you can go down. I mean, there are so many things again with astrology. It’s so huge.
Theresa Reed (16:40.856)
that you really don’t need to deliver an effective reading if you just start with the sun, moon, and ascendant. We’ve got a lot to work with right there.
Andrew McGregor (16:46.186)
For sure. Yeah, sometimes I do a lot of parties and corporate events and stuff like that. And sometimes they want something different than just cards or I have a friend who comes and does palms and stuff. Or they want like a third option. And I’ll do astrology for people. And basically they’ll sit down, they’ll tell me when they were born, and I will basically predominantly look at their sun, moon, ascendant and tell them some things about themselves.
Theresa Reed (17:06.99)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew McGregor (17:16.41)
And you know, people are always like, wow, how do you know me so well? And I’m like, well, I don’t know you so well, but I see your turn, right? Yeah.
Theresa Reed (17:24.802)
Yeah, we see this is giving us a map. You know, it’s really funny too. I’ve astrology. I’m one of those people, this is where you can see, I’m gonna talk a little astrobabble, my intercepted Capricorn. I use astrology. I live by astrology. I use it for everything. And I even use it for parenting. You know, I plan both my children by astrology. They just made their signs because they had other plans. But knowing their makeup.
Andrew McGregor (17:50.452)
Hahaha
Theresa Reed (17:53.74)
They’re both very, very different individuals. My daughter is a Leo, son, Taurus moon, and a Virgo ascended. Whereas my son is Aquarius, son, Gemini moon, Libra ascended. So two very, very different personalities. That allowed me to give them what they needed. And I remember my mother used to say, you treat them very differently. Like that was a bad thing. And I said, they’re very different individuals. They need different things.
Andrew McGregor (18:22.9)
Yeah, for sure.
Theresa Reed (18:23.638)
And astrology can help you with that because if you understand someone else’s makeup, I believe you could get along with anybody. Well, there’s certain people I probably would never get along with, but we’re not gonna mention those names. Right, if you really care to get along with somebody, you can look at their astrology chart and say, okay, this person has a moon in Gemini. They need to communicate, they need to talk, they need to have discussions that are deep and interesting. They need wit, they need humor.
Andrew McGregor (18:34.15)
anybody you care to get along with.
Theresa Reed (18:52.332)
When they’re mad, they need to feel safe enough talking it out with you. And, you know, so you can start there and make sure that you’re not pulling the silent treatment with someone like that. Which by the way, I do silent treatment. Moon and Scorpio. That’s, here’s me. As soon as I’m really angry, you get cut off. There’s no access. And you know, my kids, because I have a very challenging moon, they had to also learn that, mom sometimes needs time to cook.
Andrew McGregor (19:04.619)
yeah, there you go.
Theresa Reed (19:22.636)
So we’re just gonna let her cook. We’re gonna let her, and I’m not talking cook like baking. I’m talking like stew on my own juices for a while.
Andrew McGregor (19:30.782)
you are an excellent cook. All right, so we got some planets, we got some signs, we also have things called houses, right? And a house is a way in which we divide the sky based on your ascendant or your rising, which in my case is Leo, and it is the sign that’s just coming over the horizon at the moment you’re born, and that’s a constant rotation throughout the day, and…
Theresa Reed (19:32.288)
I am an excellent cook.
Theresa Reed (19:37.091)
Yeah.
Theresa Reed (19:41.155)
Yes.
Andrew McGregor (19:58.878)
that allocates 12 houses that line up with whatever signs and planets and so on they line up with. And each of those governs a variety of areas of life, right? So let’s start with this question. Because there are many different house systems, and I remember many heated debates with people. Which one do you like? Does it matter if people are starting? How do they make a decision about that?
Theresa Reed (20:28.522)
Well, I started with whole signs. Okay, that’s what I started with. And I found it was remarkably accurate. But then I discovered Placidus, which I ended up preferring because a lot of the timing for me, because I love predictive astrology, that’s my jam. In fact, I’m more interested in that than understanding your personality. No offense, folks. I’m more interested in timing, timing, timing. So I found that it was more accurate for me with the timing.
Andrew McGregor (20:45.13)
Thank
Andrew McGregor (20:57.886)
Mm-hmm.
Theresa Reed (20:58.046)
And also it gave me intercepted houses, which I think of as a superpower. So, so an intercepted house, you only will get that in like, like the Placida system, for example. Each house is like 30 degrees, you know, but in the Placida system, sometimes those houses get stretched. And so you might have on the cusp of like, for example, I’ll use my chart, you’ll, you’ll see like,
Andrew McGregor (21:03.176)
And tell us what that is.
Theresa Reed (21:26.1)
around the the edges of the houses we have our signs they always go in order like Gemini, Cancer, Leo but sometimes in a chart like a Placidus chart you’ll see a sign that it seems to be in the middle of a house kind of like it’s in no man’s land and so like for me I have on my third house cusp Sagittarius my fourth house cusp is Aquarius. So where is Capricorn? Well it is
intercepted in between in the third house in between Sag and Aquarius. And so intercepted houses really show where you have like something hidden. Something that maybe people don’t expect about you. Sometimes it comes out in crises but oftentimes I see it as a superpower. It’s like that hidden power. If you have a sign in or a planet in that sign it’s called an intercepted planet. That is also going to give you a lot of information.
about again what’s secret here. Now so for my chart as a really brief example I have Capricorn Intercepted. So Sagittarius is on the third house because the third house is my mind. That means I’m very philosophical. I’m always seeking knowledge but that Capricorn Intercepted means I’m all business. I’m a very practical thinker. If I can’t use it I don’t care about it. I’ve got very a lot of organization and discipline mentally when I’m into something.
So I’m not as free-spirited as you think I am. And if you go right across there to my ninth house, so the ninth house means cancer is intercepted in my ninth house and my venus is in cancer. And so what does that mean? Well, because Gemini is on the cusp of my ninth house, this is someone who loves to travel, loves to write, but cancer, venus and cancer means my heart is in my home. And I’m an absolute homebody. I love living the recluse life.
I can travel, but as soon as I’m traveling, I want to get home. And I just want to burrow down and try not to go anywhere. So that’s an intercepted house and planet in a nutshell. But you can still, you don’t need that to have an accurate reading. The thing that happens when you switch house systems is oftentimes that a lot of things will shift to a different house. And sometimes people will pick a house system because it’s more flattering.
Theresa Reed (23:50.776)
to have one system than the other. I think ultimately you have to kind of experiment with it and see which works for you. I get readings from astrologers all the time and some use Placidus, some use whole signs and you know they both end up working out for me but the energy is going to be different because in a whole signs a lot of my stuff shifts over into different houses which I don’t like. It’s not as flattering.
Andrew McGregor (24:13.866)
Well, I kind of think of it like if you go see different tarot readers, they’re probably going to use different decks and different decks divide the universe in different ways and emphasize or de-emphasize certain things. But the messages will all be relative or related to you and to what’s going on. And they will use, they might use different metaphor or different stories.
Theresa Reed (24:23.757)
Yes.
Theresa Reed (24:42.946)
Yes.
Andrew McGregor (24:43.464)
or even a different element of a different card to get there, but they should all sort of point in similar or the same directions, you know? And I think that that’s what we’re talking about here.
Theresa Reed (24:51.416)
They always do remarkably. So some of my favorite astrologers, I get a reading every year from Sam Reynolds. I adore Sam. He uses whole signs. I also like to get a reading from Liam Sophia’s who is a Hellenistic astrologer, which is a very different kettle of fish, very interesting. He’s quite skilled. And then I love getting readings from Ann Ortoli. Ann Ortoli uses asteroids and she uses Placidus. And Liam uses whole signs.
So I will work with those different astrologers and I get different things from them, but it ultimately leads me towards the same goal.
Andrew McGregor (25:27.678)
Right? And so with houses, what we’re looking at are things like your day-to-day life, your career, your home life, your relationship stuff, your community stuff, spirituality, relationships to different aspects of being alive and so on. Each of those finds their way into a house and then you can look at what you know about the given sign that rules it.
Theresa Reed (25:34.882)
Yes.
Andrew McGregor (25:56.722)
and those things and then also whatever you’ve already learned about planets and so on to add those things,
Theresa Reed (26:03.862)
Yeah, and it’s also laid out very neatly and it’s laid out again. Whoever did this is a Virgo. I mean, really, seriously. I mean, so when you start looking at it, I mean, ultimately Aries is the ruler of the first house. Now, if your ascendant is Aries, you have a natural chart. If your ascendant is, I have a Libra ascended, then that means Venus is the ruler of my chart. However, that house has always got that Aries vibe. What are some of the Aries qualities? Aries,
their keywords are I am. So the first house is a lot about yourself. Second house we go to is the house of money. It’s ultimately ruled by Taurus. The keywords are I have. So it’s about money. It’s about our resources, our material possessions. Now if you go across the chart, and let’s say your first house, again that’s yourself, across the chart we come to the seventh house. And what is the seventh house about? Your relationships.
So look at how that’s neatly divided. So the first house myself, seventh house relationships. Second house is my money and earned income. Eighth house is my joint finances, which is directly across. Everything is neatly divided and everything makes sense. It is a pattern and I just love that.
Andrew McGregor (27:21.962)
for sure. Well, and think that leads us to kind of the remaining thing to consider is we get into what are the relationships of the planets to each other in our chart, right? And this is the angles, and each of those angles defines a more positive or easier aspect, maybe.
or a more complicated or difficult aspect depending on which ones we’re talking about. And the angles were actually the thing that got me when I got to the point where I’m just like, all right, I know some basic ones and now we’re looking at these smaller and smaller differences between them and I’m like, that’s enough for me. So what are the angles that you encourage beginners to think about?
Theresa Reed (28:16.546)
the main angles. And so the main angles, and by the way, for folks who are listening, I was supposed to fail geometry. And it really is a lot of geometry is what astrology is. And so back in high school, my teacher told me, you know, you’re going to use one day. said, I’m never going to use this. And he actually passed me because my teacher was kind of strange, but that’s another story. And, you know, I was like really being cocky. And of course I got into astrology the next year and it’s nothing but geometry.
And so the angles that you want to pay attention to, the conjunction is the most important. That is when the planets are the same sign, zero degrees. My sun and moon are conjunct, they’re exact. It’s called cazimi when it’s exact, and that’s like a really big deal. So, you know, it really amplifies my Mercury, but that’s just an example. The next thing, the next one is sextile. And by the way, with conjunctions, they’re just really intense. And that can be good or bad. It depends on what you do with it.
So the sextiles when a planets are 60 degrees apart. So that would be, you know, like a fire sign would be 60 degrees apart from an air sign. So that’s an easy way to find that. And those are favorable aspects that shows, okay, there’s some opportunity here. The squares when the planets are 90 degrees apart, they form a right angle. And so I will say with the squares, it’s like you’re backed in a corner. It’s a challenge and you got to figure out how to fight your way out of that corner.
Then we have a trine. A trine is when the planets are 120 degrees apart. 120 degrees apart is the angle I call the big easy. This is where you have a lot of opportunity, a lot of room to move. And then we have oppositions. Oppositions occur when the planets are opposite each other. Like my son is in Gemini, your son is in Sagittarius. We are opposites. And so oppositions mean we have to figure out how to meet in the middle. They’re challenging like a square, but you can meet in the middle.
I feel the squares are the hardest, but again, once you figure out how to fight your way out of them, you could really make something of yourself. Some of the most successful people have charts that are loaded with squares.
Andrew McGregor (30:26.655)
I feel like the squares are where life grinds at us and if we can attend to that friction and work on it and you know do some psycho-emotional spiritual physiotherapy or learning or growth or whatever we want to call it then we can move to a place where that’s no longer an issue but if we don’t
Theresa Reed (30:52.194)
Yes.
Andrew McGregor (30:53.802)
you know, to keep it with a kind of body metaphor, it’s like that pain that starts in our knee that unattended leads to more and more mobility issues and impacts a broader and broader range of our life. And ultimately maybe our ability to walk, right? So.
Theresa Reed (31:06.58)
Absolutely. Absolutely. And like I said earlier, the hard stuff is what I really like. I don’t care about all the good stuff in your chart. It’s like, okay, whatever. You’re charming. You’re sexy. Yada, yada, yada. wait. You’ve got something messy going on here? Well, let’s fix that. Let’s fix that. And that’s the thing that I think when people start also learning astrology, they get discouraged because they see things that are not flattering.
They see things that are maybe really negative and some of these astrologers are so gloom and doom they’re awful. But again, my Capricorn Interception says, wait a minute, how do we work with this? And I think when people find those really messy things in their chart, that’s the rabbit hole to go down. That’s the place to heal. And when you heal that, my God, the things you’re gonna do, the places you’re gonna go and the things you will see. That’s where you really wanna dive into. Dive into the hard stuff.
Andrew McGregor (31:56.074)
for sure.
Theresa Reed (32:00.482)
The unflattering stuff. That’s the magic of astrology.
Andrew McGregor (32:03.85)
Yeah, I think it’s really helpful and you know as you get further into it one of the things that I find super fruitful is when especially difficult things happen that are related to other difficult things and it’s like I see so this is a new manifestation of a pattern or an issue or you know whatever
something and when we can reflect on those sort of relationships between those things then it creates a wonderful opportunity to grow, to make a change, right? To say, I see I cleaned up 80 % of this but I missed this piece or I cleaned up all of it before but now the world’s different, my world’s different and now I need to attend to this new manifestation of this thing.
Theresa Reed (32:46.317)
Yes.
Theresa Reed (32:55.81)
Yes.
Theresa Reed (33:02.198)
your chart shows all of your potential and ironically I’m wearing a shirt today that says wasting my potential. But you know it shows all of your potential. All of your potential is held in that chart and what the planets are doing now at this moment, which by the way are called transits, that also can activate things in your chart. And so we always have opportunities to grow and to learn and to become better not bitter. And astrology can show you the way. One of the things I really also advise people to do
is to live astrology. Find out the time when the moon is in like Aries and really lean into that and play with that. When you are following the planets with your everyday you’re also going to see how the rhythm of life and the patterns of life move you and can help you to again live your very best life.
Andrew McGregor (33:53.084)
sure and so I also think that that you know leads into if you start asking people what is your sun your moon your ascendant or whatever and you want to be mindful not to pigeonhole people which is a big thing that I see a lot especially in beginners but you know ask yourself we go back to to Sagittarius so this is person who likes to expand and grow and experience new things how does that show up with Bob
Theresa Reed (34:08.268)
Right.
Andrew McGregor (34:21.652)
How does it show up differently with Betty? And if you think about those kinds of things, not as I now understand them because I know this is their motivating factor, but I understand that there is some element of this in them, then you can really start to sort of understand the planets, the signs, and all of those elements. And then you’ll just continue to grow more deeply with everything.
Theresa Reed (34:22.051)
Yes.
Theresa Reed (34:49.832)
Absolutely. And I gotta say also, like I said earlier, astrology is theory. It is theory and that is how you should treat it. You know, one of the ways that I love doing historical and political astrology, sometimes we have a theory on how something’s going to look and then it happens and you’re like, well was still accurate, but not the way I expected. And that’s the beauty of it because humans are still unpredictable. Things happen that we do not have control over.
And while astrology can show us where fate is or where our potential lies, things can still happen and we still have choices to make.
Andrew McGregor (35:25.642)
for sure. All right, well, as we drift towards the end here, let’s run over a couple, maybe be careful, avoid these things. What are some astrological red flags? What are some general warnings to help people get the most out of it without falling into pitfalls?
Theresa Reed (35:48.654)
Well, the first thing I would say, give yourself time to learn things. I’ve been studying astrology for over 40 years. I still learn something new every day. Don’t assume you know everything right away when you get good at it, because people are going to surprise you. Lived experience will have a lot to say about how the energy manifests. And study, study, study, study. You should be studying all the time. You don’t just read one book and you’re done. You’re not an astrologer now. You don’t take a six week course.
Andrew McGregor (36:03.05)
you
Theresa Reed (36:18.656)
and now you’re a professional astrologer. Don’t be that person on TikTok who read one book and think you should be giving astrological consultations. It takes time to learn it. You’re always learning with it. And I would say to keep an open mind also because if you don’t, astrology is going to kind of kick your ass a little bit.
Andrew McGregor (36:39.946)
Yeah, and I guess some of my red flags, I already kind of touched on one. Be very mindful about overly identifying with things. You you want to understand, but I remember I did a card reading for somebody and they were like, yep, it’s true, it’s true, it’s true, that’s absolutely right. They’re just like singing my praises about how accurately I was reading them and…
Theresa Reed (36:51.265)
Yes.
Andrew McGregor (37:08.446)
provided them with like things that would benefit them to adjust or consider to change their circumstances. And at the end of the session, they said to me, and I no longer remember what the aspect was, but I have blah, blah, blah in blah, blah, blah. I’ll never do any of that. And I was just like, fair enough.
Theresa Reed (37:28.694)
I call those astro excuses.
Andrew McGregor (37:30.62)
Right, exactly, so keep your astro excuses in check, right? Number two, we already touched on this, don’t pigeonhole your friends and family and whatever. You know, I mean, it’s good to know what you know, it’s good to have insights, but people’s charts are so much more complicated, as well as free will and other factors going on. And I think that one of the other ones that I would say is,
Theresa Reed (37:35.672)
Yep.
Andrew McGregor (37:59.998)
Don’t get discouraged by what you see on socials. There are folks out there who are so knowledgeable. It’s wonderful. And like I said, despite having quite a solid background in astrology, I often am like, have no idea what they’re talking about. I don’t know that. It’s cool, it’s interesting, right? But I don’t worry about.
Theresa Reed (38:06.496)
Yes. my God.
Andrew McGregor (38:29.506)
And when people are out there giving this opinion and giving that opinion and all these kinds of things, that’s cool. Sometimes I read it, sometimes I don’t. And same with tarot. Mostly I focus on my practice and my engagement with it and staying in what it is that I do and how I do that. And you’ll find your own astrological voice that will be a collection of what you know and your insights and your intuition and all of these kinds of things.
And that’s going to be amazing when that happens and as that happens. So don’t let other folks sort of discourage or dissuade you from what you’re up to, you know?
Theresa Reed (39:08.114)
I would also have to add something to that too. There are people out there who are very cocky. Very, very cocky. yeah. And you know they will go out there and make a prediction. And the prediction is wrong and they cannot admit when they’re wrong. They and I think that it’s really, really important to never get cocky because you’re going to be wrong sometime. You’re going to interpret something. You think but again I’m going go right back to what I said astrology is a theory.
Andrew McGregor (39:16.125)
On the internet?
Theresa Reed (39:37.898)
And if you make mistakes, there’s no shame in that. Go back to and look at your math, so to speak, do your homework, see how you came to your conclusion, but also try to maybe understand from those mistakes how you could have reached maybe the other conclusion. So there’s always opportunities to learn from the mistakes. And I say avoid those ones. I cannot stand the ones where like, this is the way it is and like, eh, okay.
Andrew McGregor (39:53.864)
you
Andrew McGregor (40:02.004)
Yeah, and I think that, you know, we talked about, you know, no need to get into the asteroids or whatever and other, you know, sort of like maybe more specialized elements of it. But I would say always be willing to reinterpret what you’re seeing because I ended up doing this workshop on Chiron with Rob Bresney many, many years ago and
When we were looking at it, I was like, parents divorce, car accident, couple other things. I’m like, there you go. In a significant position, affecting other things in a very clear way. And once I looked at that, I’m like, okay. There’s something interesting to explore with that. And I think that a way in which I sort of also think about astrology and really all the other systems these days,
is I’m always looking for something that fits or addresses what’s going on. So for example, I recently was talking to someone about human design and I took a look at it but never been especially interested in going too far into it. But when I mentioned what my…
thing was and you know my birthday was coming up and whatever and they’re like you’re going through this because of x, y, and z I’m like I am going through that. Alright let’s talk about that. Now am I going to be a human design person? I am not. Am I interested in it? Do I have more things that I might like to ask the person I got a reading from? Absolutely I think I will do some follow up because the metaphor or the alignment or the thing that they understand
Theresa Reed (41:35.746)
Yes.
Theresa Reed (41:39.598)
Ditto.
Andrew McGregor (41:52.7)
about this transition that’s impacting me feels really valuable and I want to have more language and more ideas to talk about it. I think astrology is another one of those things. You know, we can see those elements and they can give us metaphors, ideas, ways to understand ourselves and ways to adjust or reinforce what we’re doing if it’s working for us, right?
Theresa Reed (42:18.648)
Yes, the theory of yourself and your life. Once again, you’ve got to take that theory and you’ve got to decide what the ultimate equation is going to be.
Andrew McGregor (42:26.898)
And it’s never over.
Theresa Reed (42:28.506)
it’s never over. listen, i’ve been going through some astrological stuff this last two years and i’m like what the hell? i’m like okay well it’s astrology. let’s adjust. let’s learn. let’s grow. and many good things came but it came the hard way which often the best things come the hard way. hate it so much.
Andrew McGregor (42:46.526)
I hate that, yes. Hate it so much. All right, Teresa. Well, thank you so much for making time with me today. Folks should follow you. Folks should come and find you. Where are you hanging out these days that they could come be in your orbit?
Theresa Reed (43:03.672)
So of course my website, theterrolady.com is always the best place to find out what I’m up to. I’ve got a free newsletter. I do all of my teaching and I do teach astrology and tarot and business over on my Patreon account. You can find me there at The Tarot Lady. I’m all over social media. Generally my handle is The Tarot Lady. And for people who are very new to astrology, I wrote a book you might like. It’s called Astrology for Real Life, a No BS Guide for the Astrocurious.
it will break it all down and help you to make sense of it.
Andrew McGregor (43:34.42)
Yeah, awesome. Well, thank you so much. And if you’re listening to this, I’m at the Hermit’s Lamp and the podcast is at the Hermit’s Lamp everywhere. Please do me a favor and send it to those who you think would be interested and engaged in what’s going on here, because I’m always looking to build more connections with folks who are excited about these things. All right, thank you so much, Theresa. Talk to you soon.
Theresa Reed (44:01.25)
Thank you.