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14-Sessions Taught by Jason Holley and Gray Crawford
Section 1: Thursdays, 5pm-7pm Pacific, Begins April 3 - Register Here - Thursdays
Section 2: Fridays, 9am-11am Pacific, Begins April 4 - Register Here - Fridays
Each section limited to 14 students
$645 before March 10, 2025; $675 after
This experiential astrology course is an in-depth exploration of three often-overlooked yet profound astrological bodies: Mercury, Chiron, and Ceres. In a small group setting, we engage the stories and images as they have been seen and shared across time, developing a multidimensional and comprehensive experience of each beyond ‘keywords’ and traits. We enter and participate in the stories directly through action methods including writing, movement, dreamwork, art-making, astrodrama; and we study them in the horoscopes and transits of participants through both technical delineation and facilitated imagination. You will come to understand these planets and the range of stories, feelings, sensations, desires, dreams, action urges, and relational orientations they carry; and also, be a part of a re-dreaming and re-weaving of the myths and stories we so need in contemporary times. As well, you will develop skills in astrological interpretation, working with symbolism and myth, and the arts of divination, healing, and initiation that these planets teach.
Why These Three Together: Twilight Consciousness
Ancient astrology offered an evocative way of understanding the planets and signs through a lens of Night and Day, suggesting that three of the seven visible planets — the Moon, Venus, and Mars — were followers of Night, and three others — the Sun, Jupiter, and Saturn — were followers of Day. Considered in terms of consciousness, Night followers orient to a sky of many stars, and are concerned with eros, chaos, relationality, multiplicity, irrationality. Day followers orient to a sky with one star, and are concerned with coherence, order, unity, clarity, rationality.
The seventh visible planet, Mercury, was said to move between Night and Day according to his fluctuating position as an evening or morning star. And this between-ness, this both-and-ness in the astrological tradition, was also reflected in Mercury’s situation both astronomically and mythologically. As a mythic figure, Hermes, friend of the traveler and god of the threshold, was the only one who moved between the upper, middle, and underworlds at will. As a planet, Mercury shifts direction most frequently and can be seen only at the twilight just before Dawn and just after Dusk.
Ceres (discovered in 1801) and Chiron (discovered in 1977) are the two most significant additional astronomical bodies in the planetary band from Sun through Pluto used by astrologers and have been used actively in astrology since the 1970s. Like Mercury they are betweeners both astronomically and mythically. Chiron is half-man, half-human, and even among the centaurs a liminal creature closest to human but not human. The astronomical body of Chiron crosses the orbits of Saturn and Uranus, the line of visibility/invisibility, and continues to defy classification as planet/asteroid/planetoid. The primary story of Ceres involves travel down from the upper to middle, and the middle to under, and back, and initiates the turning of seasons one to the next. The minor planet resides in the many-bodied asteroid belt between inner and outer planets.
What these planets seem to invite from their liminal, ‘in-between’ and world-crossing status are modes of consciousness which enable more creative participation in life. Their placements in our horoscopes and their transits and progressions invite us into twilight consciousness, where we can become capable of moving in multiple worlds and weaving the worlds together, becoming more skillful in symbolic process and divination, and transformative participation.
Their ancient stories and the contemporary stories of people connected to them through the horoscope point to the possibilities of bringing the moistening and relational possibilities of Night when too much Day becomes arid, stuck, and oppressive; and bringing the illuminative light of Day where Night has become overwhelming, chaotic, and over-involved.
Studying them, experiencing them through our bodies and minds, offers insight into the practice of astrology. Mercury was the ruler of astrologers and later of occultists and magicians; Chiron the healer and mentor of healers and heroes; and Ceres the giver of the greatest initiatory Mysteries in the ancient world for over 1,000 years. Of course like all forms of initiation, each can bring challenge and difficulty, and we will not shy away from this essential element.
Format
Each section will meet in 14 weekly two-hour sessions (except for two one-week breaks along the way). After two initial classes connecting with twilight conceptually and experientially, we will devote four classes to each planet, followed by a completion and closure class at the end.
For each planet, we’ll spend two full classes focused on exploring their myths and stories through experiential process and discussion; and two classes focused on exploring their placements in individual horoscopes and transits of class members through discussion and chart work alongside work with individual dreams and imagery, a sort of group consultation process in which we will practice ‘twilight consciousness’ by bringing together and pendulating between Night ways of immersion and feeling, and Day ways of perspective-taking and languaging.
Between class each week, we will provide 3-4 hours of required reading or video material, including both original-to-the-course and archival material by Jason and Gray, as well as stories and excerpts from the Greek epic and dramatic traditions, and supplemental interpretive writing from authors in the fields of Classical Studies, Hermeticism, Jungian/Archetypal Studies, and Queer Studies, and ancient, medieval, and contemporary astrology.