Sometimes it’s good to be wrong. I used to get up on my high horse about the spiritual emptiness of Zoom events. My favorite line was that human relationships could not be reduced to an audio track and a video track – that if all we have are those two channels, something precious and intangible was missing. I still believe that there is truth in that attitude, but I’ll admit I’ve had to eat my words. Through my work with my online school, various podcasts, and some other collaborations, I now feel close in a genuinely soulful way with some people I have never actually met, at least not in the flesh. 

The surprise for me is that despite my initial attitude, those sweet psychic tendrils of human connection seem capable of heart-to-heart piggybacking over computer screens. I was wrong and I admit it.

Still, there is much to be said for a hug. There’s much to be said for eye-contact. There’s much to be said for idle chit chat and just getting to know each other in a human  way. Vibes come through with a lot more multidimensional punch when two people are in the same room. I do miss all of that primeval bonding. 

My old apprenticeship groups were very tribal. Lasting friendships formed. There were affairs. A marriage or two happened. There were conflicts, along with some inappropriate behavior that had to be handled. There were tragedies and there were deaths – and even those kinds of sorrows bond people together. That’s all part of how we create community. I believe that every one of us learned a lot from those human experiences, especially when we all peered at them together through the lens of astrology – and maybe sat around later over a glass of wine yacking and gossiping about them. 

Another dimension of all of this is that when we meet a teacher with whom we have a natural resonance, a kind of transmission can happen. Maybe there’s an author whose work you love. Maybe you’ve read all of her books. You hear that she is coming to town to offer a lecture. You attend. You’re blown away by her talk. You feel as if you have gained new insights and understandings. Later, you exult about her presentation to a friend who asks you if you actually learned anything new – anything that wasn’t already in her books. 

Well, not really – but it was still amazing. 

That X-factor is what I mean by transmission. It’s real. Something real passed from that author’s energy-body straight into yours. Maybe she was fifty feet away from you at the podium in a crowded lecture hall. Maybe she made two seconds of direct eye contact with you. You were zapped. Suddenly you understood her work at a whole new level. Our culture has a lot of blindspots about this ancient human reality. That doesn’t mean it isn’t real.

There are entire spiritual traditions that are built around this phenomenon. (Astrologically I relate them all to the 6th house – check out chapter 13 of my book, The Endless Sky if you’re interested in pursuing this idea.) These spiritual traditions are the ones that emphasize the importance of a personal relationship with a teacher or spiritual counselor. At the extreme end of the spectrum, we have gurus, saints, and true masters. But the other 99% of the time, we are talking about something far more normal. We’re talking about precious, life-changing time spent with our wise friends, our “aunts and uncles,” and our worthy counselors. Find such a relationship, and suddenly you are burning evolutionary rocket fuel.

I do now believe that some of that magical quality of soul-transmission can make it through the “audio-visual” filters of Zoomland – but only some of it. Ultimately, for the full spectrum experience, there is no substitute for a direct “in person” connection.

Watch me seem to change the subject without changing it at all.

FREQUENTLY FLYING

Before Covid, I was already cutting back on traveling to teach. Forty years on the road felt like enough for anyone. Covid, along with the ever worsening airline experience, seemed to clinch that decision. But since then I have found travel creeping back into my life. I’ve recently done several events here in the USA. Last year, I made it back to China for the first time since the pandemic. Later this month, I’ll be in Athens (https://forrestastrology.center/Greece2025). I’ve also agreed to speak at the next United Astrology Conference in Chicago in September 2026 (https://uacastrology.com).

Why am I doing this to myself? Easy – it’s for the transmission. It’s actually a two-way street. When I teach – when I meet you – I get something out of it too. And as much as I have opened my heart to Zoom, I miss that magical, human X-factor that only comes from us being together in the same room.

RELATIONSHIPS

Almost everything I have said so far is about relationships, one way or another. These human connections are pretty close to being the actual fabric of our reality. Astrology can be enormously helpful in sorting them out too – keeping those channels of transmission clear and open. 

Personally, I know that my Sagittarian Venus squares my partner, Michelle’s, Venus in Virgo almost exactly. A lot of astrologers would point to trouble there. We actually get along splendidly and astrology has helped. How illuminating it is for me to realize that when she criticizes something I do, Virgo-fashion, she’s basically just trying to be helpful – and when I invite her to not sweat the small stuff, that’s me expressing Sagittarian faith in our ability to weather life’s various tempests in teapots. 

That’s an example of what I call informed compassion. Generating it in both partners is the heart of my approach to synastry. Transmission between souls is the heart of why “God made love.” Sometimes there’s “static on the line,” though – the connection is blocked by the usual array of interpersonal issues. Sometimes that problem simply cannot be remedied – but sometimes a bit of that astrological informed compassion going both directions can save the day. 

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO RECEIVE ALL THAT AS A TRANSMISSION?

I am delighted to be returning to Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, this summer. This will be my third year in a row there. This time the subject will be synastry – the astrology of relationships. And by “relationships,” I mean relationships of every kind – marriages and the bond between lovers, of course, but also family connections, friendships, even antagonists.

In synastry, there is a wide range of techniques and we’ll cover most of them, starting with a step that often gets skipped – that’s looking at each person as an individual. Some people need a lot of intensity; others prefer peace and harmony. Some people need sex to feel love, while others need love in order to feel sexual. Some need more time alone than others. What happens when two people who are very different in that department try to get together? One is a hermit, while the other is a party animal.

In synastry, we have to start with each person’s individual relationship profile.

Built into that individual relationship profile is a hidden dimension – one that can be pretty uncanny. Most people’s charts contain a description of their natural mate and in the case of looking at children’s charts, maybe that second person has not yet even been born. And yet, twenty-seven years later, they show up – their nature having been predicted from the first person’s chart before the second person’s chart existed. 

Astrology still sometimes gives me goosebumps.

At Omega, we will explore all of those strictly personal dimensions of how one’s relationship needs show up in an individual chart. In other words, no one has to be currently involved in a relationship to get something out of this course – plus, we are all in various kinds of relationships anyway. Friends? Kids? Parents? Basically, nobody is really alone in the world.

Then there are the ways one person’s chart impacts the other one’s. What if my Sun falls in your 7th house? What if it conjuncts your Saturn? Interaspects and house transpositions are the heart of synastry. We’ll explore both of those techniques too. 

Finally, the whole is always greater than the sum of the parts. Understanding a couple, for example, requires more than an understanding of each person. Two introverts might meet – and start throwing parties. Two extroverts might get together – and move to the wilds of Alaska. Astrology gets at that unpredictable element via the composite chart. Learning how to work with it will be a big part of our program.

LOGISTICS

The Omega program runs from Sunday, August 17, through Friday, August 22. (Sunday is actually just arrival and getting settled. We start class on Monday morning.) I’ll do some straight teaching, but much of our time will be focused on the practical application of the synastry principles. For that, we’ll be using the charts of volunteer class members. When we are looking at individual charts, that will be by random draw – names in a hat, then charts on a screen. 

Actual synastry analysis between two people is a bit too complicated to handle that way. I’ll need to prepare the charts in advance, so sometime prior to the beginning of the class, we’ll send out an email blast to all the people who’ve signed up inviting them to submit chart data on themselves and a loved one. I’ll put those names in a hat right here at home, draw a few and have them set up and ready to go for class.

Our last couple of classes at Omega were big events with over a hundred people each time. Still, despite the crowds, they were sweet experiences. I was especially happy to finally meet some of the students in my school, the Forrest Center for Evolutionary Astrology, along with some others I’ve only known via the Internet. Previously many of them had only been little talking thumbnails on my Zoom screen – and once again, even though I’ve been happy to discover that online relationships can feel real and human, it was lovely to add that intangible human track to the basic a/v connection while at Omega. 

To me, that two-way street of transmission is still the most precious thing in the world. 

Want to sign up for the class this August? Click here.

Whether we meet in person or just over a Zoom screen, thank you for energizing my life the way you do. I hope I can energize yours as well.

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