13 - Real Talk: Station Stories

How do you learn astrology? By observing it out in the wild! In today’s episode, listeners share what really happened during Mercury retrograde, eclipse season, and the recent stations of Jupiter and Pluto. 

• 03:32 Mercury retrograde and eclipse stories
• 13:28 Stationary planet refresher
• 15:44 Jupiter station retrograde stories
• 21:49 Pluto station direct stories

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Transcript

​Hi, I'm Claire Gallagher, and this is Third House Gossip, where we spill the astrological tea. So pour something delicious, and let's chat. This is a community driven show documenting how real astrology affects real lives. To share an astrology story or ask your burning cosmic questions, head to astrology with claire dot com slash gossip. That's astrology with C-L-A-I-R-E dot com slash gossip 

Hey, Astro Lover, welcome to another episode of Third House Gossip. I'm really excited about today's show because it features Y O U. I asked and I have received. Thank you so much to all of you who wrote in or called in with your astrology experiences. They are all going into the show today. So today we have a real talk episode where real listeners of the show have submitted real stories about how astrology affects their real lives. Lots of real. 

So we have a smash up of some Mercury retrograde recaps, some eclipse stories, but mostly we have some station stories. So if you remember a couple weeks ago in episode 11, I challenged us as a community to observe the day that Jupiter stationed retrograde and to observe the day that Pluto stationed direct and to write your observations down and submit them to the show. And we have some of those to share. So I am pumped to compare and contrast all of our experiences because that's how we learn and because it's just fun.

But before we dive into that, I want to let you know about a couple things that I have going on that you might love. First of all, I have decided to reopen my very popular mini session called Cup O Cosmos. This is a 30 minute astrology reading. It's a really great opportunity to ask a specific question to get some quick clarity or to have a taste of what it's like to work with me one on one.

 The other thing that I've got going on is fresh and it is called planet co channeling And this is an automatic writing session where together we will sit down and attune to a planet, pose it some questions that you have, and then we will both channel the answers into our journals and then share.

Yes, very cool. Automatic writing is something I've been doing for a really long time and I have a unique astrological spin on the practice that I would love to share with you and teach you. It's a really accessible way to get cosmic insight without needing to see an astrologer. So, yes, I'm trying to put myself out of a job with this practice. I do automatic writing every morning as soon as I wake up when it's still dark, and I receive so much guidance that way. I rely on it actually more than I do on my astrology chart. I know that's, is that dangerous for me to say as an astrologer, but my belief is that you have so much wisdom within you and this is one way to access that.

So if you're intrigued, I would love to see you, even if you have no experience or you don't feel like you're intuitive or you feel like you're blocked or whatever, you do not need any psychic ability to do this practice. You just need to be curious and open to receive, and I will show you how. So you can book all of those appointments with me and more at astrologywithclaire. com slash appointments.

Okay, let's dive into today's Real Talk episode. Tracy is going to kick us off with a little Mercury Retrograde recap and some Eclipse shenanigans.

Hi Claire, it's Tracy. I am going to try and be as succinct and concise as possible because I actually do have a few different astrological transits that I am going to talk about. And part of the reason why I couldn't contribute my Mercury retrograde experience is because I was dealing with having COVID for the first time.

And that is actually a huge part of my eclipse season experience. So why I wanted to talk about Mercury retrograde, or at least why I think it's important and how it impacted me is because it was transiting, um, as we know, it was going through Leo and Virgo. So, When it was in Leo, it was in my sixth house.

And through one of your podcasts, that house is titled the house at bad fortune. And that's what it felt like. So I don't know if this kicked things off for me, but essentially I got COVID on Friday, August 30th, and it had stationed direct in Leo. On the 28th, so not sure. However, I don't know. Feels like it could be related.

So essentially, um, whole month of September dealing with COVID, uh, couldn't shake it. In between the Pisces eclipse and the Libra eclipse, my symptoms took a different direction. Uh, should have been getting better. But I started having symptoms of vertigo, um, low grade fevers, sinus headache, uh, this feeling of fullness and, um, like ringing in my ear.

So right before the Libra Eclipse, went to see my doctor, got diagnosed with sinus infection, fluid in the ear, um, took,

I also find it really interesting in this kind of relation to Pisces. So I'm a Pisces rising house of health. So I think that's also maybe why it hit me hard or why it kind of took this turn. Um, but I just, I think it's really interesting that my vertigo symptoms. Manifested like I was walking on water, not a circling kind of spinning vertigo, but feeling like I was on a boat.

And I'm still having some of the vertigo symptoms and hasn't quite gone away. The fluid in my ear is from the viral infection. And so, you know, all I could do really was surrender to this experience. There wasn't a lot I could do. Um, I had to cancel a lot of my plans. So it was really about like, okay, I'm tired.

I'm surrendering. Uh, trying to rest as best as I could. Interestingly enough, so here's my Jupiter and Pluto stationing, retrograde, and direct stories. Nothing really profound or honestly related to what you were saying we might experience, but I found it really interesting that in between these two planets, stationing, retrograde, and direct, so with Jupiter, the next day on Thursday, Thursday is when The aurora occurred here, at least in Maine.

I had a beautiful view of it, view of it. It had happened also in September. Um, but this time it was visible to the naked eye. It was like absolutely just It opened my heart. I really feel like I've been, uh, you know, just struggling on all the levels because of this COVID experience made me pretty depressed and, um, didn't really feel like sharing much of myself with anybody or the world or being seen.

And after this experience, I have felt more hope. I felt more optimistic. I've had, um, Just this feeling of return of something that I haven't been able to connect to. Just a piece of me that I feel like has kind of been, uh, hindered by everything that's been happening. So, I don't know if that was related, but it did feel very Jupitarian, if you will.

Um, I'm ruled by Jupiter as Pisces rising. So those are my experiences and that's that. Okay, thanks! 

Thank 

you so much, Tracy, for that wonderful submission. I love the grab bag. There's so much that I could comment on here. First of all, I just want to say that I'm so sorry that you were dealing with COVID and that it was so complex and confusing. I hope you're feeling a little bit better, a lot a bit better, actually.

So a couple things here. I just want to echo that yeah, mercury retrograde can definitely coincide with illness, especially if it's occurring in the sixth house. So the sixth house is the house of things that can go wrong in the body, whereas the first house is usually the house of where things can go right in the body.

That's a very black and white approach, but that's kind of how things tend to divvy up in those houses. So when mercury retrograde occurs in the sixth house, we can have a delay or a detour in health matters. So that usually means either catching a bug of some kind, in this case it was more than that, or something at work gets slowed down.

But regardless, there's a slowing down of motion and a having to pause for a particular reason and in this case it was a sixth house reason. So this is a really good lesson in the fact that mercury retrograde can mean a lot of different things for a lot of different people. It really depends on the house that it's occurring in for you.

I also think it's really fascinating, not fun, but fascinating that Tracy's symptoms swapped in the middle of her COVID experience and they swapped during the eclipse season. And if you recall from the Eclipse Essentials episode, eclipses are pattern interrupters. They are disruptors. And so something can be presenting one way or a quote normal way and an eclipse will happen and it will invert or present in a different way. And this is certainly what happened with these symptoms. And what Tracy was describing was super Piscean. So one of our eclipses was in Pisces, which is a water sign. And the description, well, vertigo period to me is a Pisces ailment, especially if it feels like you're walking on water or you're on a boat. Oh my goodness. Can we get any more Pisces than that?

And if you remember, this Pisces eclipse was conjunct Neptune, and Neptune is all about surrender. It's all about letting go. And that's exactly what Tracy had to do in terms of her body and her schedule during this time.

And I love the little story about seeing the Aurora in between Jupiter stationing retrograde and Pluto stationing direct, even though it may not seem directly related. What I'm making up about it is that in terms of a Jupiter retrograde experience, you were given an opportunity to pause with something beautiful, to pause with hope for a little bit, and reconnect with that.

And that can definitely be something that Jupiter Retrograde offers us, is an opportunity to slow down, to stop, to pause, and reconnect with those things that uplift us and encourage us.

Okay, next up we have a written submission from Sarah, and this is a really great piggyback to what Tracy shared because it is all about the Pisces eclipse as well.

Sarah writes, The Pisces Eclipse took place in my sixth house. The week of the eclipse, my one year old cat, Willow, who has been healthy since we got her as a kitten, and three weeks before had just been in for her annual checkup, became suddenly very ill.

We were in and out of the vet numerous times, three different medications, One of which had to be specially made at a pet apothecary. Wow. Two different shots, hand syringe, giving her water, sitting in a steamy bathroom to help her breathe. It was scary and we weren't sure if she was going to be okay.

Thankfully, she's doing much better, but it was definitely a traumatic experience that came out of nowhere. That same week we received a water bill that was almost 1, 000 dollars because of a tub leak. So this eclipse hit me hard.

Oh my gosh, Sarah, I'm so glad your kitty cat is okay. Thank you for sharing. And a couple similarities here, mostly that this was a 6th house experience. This Pisces eclipse happened in the 6th and Sarah had an experience with illness. It wasn't necessarily hers, but it definitely was an experience of the 6th house nature.

I also hate but find it fascinating that you received a water bill for almost a thousand bucks because there was a leak. Neptune, which is the planet that this eclipse was conjunct, um, is a planet of leaks. It literally is a leaky faucet, okay? And so that makes a lot of sense and I'm sorry that that happened.

Okay, let's transition to our station stories. So first a little recap. If you want more information, head back to episode 11, which is all about stationary planets in the birth chart. Today, we're going to talk about stationary planets that are transiting in the real time sky and how they might affect us all in our life today. 

So first of all, what's a stationary planet? As a little refresher, it's when a planet stops to change directions. So when a planet goes retrograde, there's a period of time where it stops in the sky and prepares to move backwards. And when that retrograde is over, a planet will also stop in the sky and take its time turning around to prepare to go forwards again. So that pause, that stop where a planet just parks itself in the sky, that is the station.

And so some symbolism that we might equate with a station, whether it's stationing retrograde or stationing direct is a pause, a real slowing down of something or a complete stopping of something. Some other symbolism that we might, uh, equate with this is sticking with something, getting really into something, taking something very deep, focusing on something very deeply because a stationary planet stays at one degree of the zodiac for an extended period of time. So it really gets to know that spot of the sky. And that can correlate with us really getting to know some type of material or experience in life.

So that was the quick and dirty version. If you want the full version, again, listen to episode 11. So I have divided the submissions by planet. So we're going to talk about Jupiter stationing retrograde first, and then we'll talk about Pluto stationing direct. So the questions I posed the community were, what were you thinking about and what was the quality of your thoughts? What was your focus like? Were you focused on a certain thing? And how was your energy? I didn't even answer these questions properly myself. But, uh, what I did was I just wrote down on my notes app in my phone, what was happening on that particular day, and now I'm going to draw patterns from that. So I will go first.

Jupiter stationed retrograde on October 9th, and one of the things I was expecting to notice was a plan pause. So Jupiter is all about how we wanna grow and expand where we wanna go in the future. And sometimes when Jupiter pauses and especially stations retrograde with that pause, those plans for the future or that plan for growth, we might need to sit with it a little bit before we take action.

We might need to ask some questions and poke and prod it before we do anything. Another thing that any planet can correlate with when it stations retrograde is a review. So looking back over something. And that definitely was how it showed up for me.

So this is what I wrote down for the day Jupiter stationed retrograde. What was I actually focusing on and doing? I was refreshing my archive of blog posts. So I was looking at all of my old blog posts and I was updating them, reviewing them and making sure that I still wanted them up on my blog.

This took a lot of focus and a lot of time. I was really weeding through the words, but it's really important for my longterm growth as a business owner and my long term vision because I want to write more. So that is definitely a retrograde station sort of experience is refreshing and reviewing material and that's what I was doing.

I also got really obsessed with a podcast and I listened to maybe six or eight episodes within a 24 hour period. That can also happen during a planet station. You can really get fixated on one thing and take it really deep. And so that's what I was doing in between, um, work, et cetera. I was also really interested in how I wanted to market myself and how I wanted to grow my business. I wasn't necessarily taking actions to do this, but I was thinking a lot about how I might want to do this in the future. And that is to me, definitely a Jupiter experience. Like thinking about how you're going to grow is a Jupiter station, not necessarily taking the actions to do it, but planning it out and thinking about it.

So let's see what y'all experienced, and our first submission is from Tabitha. Tabitha writes, I started feeling this on the 8th and full blown in it on the 10th when I'm writing this. What am I thinking about? Well, up until the retrograde occurred, I was full of ideas and made plans for creating so many new things for my work and my website. I was energized and felt full of inspiration and excited to share. What am I focusing on now? When the retrograde happened, I'm once again throwing hours and hours of work and notes out and just want to quit everything. I'm thinking and feeling like I really don't have anything of value to offer. How am I moving through the world? I'm moving through the day like some sort of death cleaning and my thoughts are towards wanting to just empty out all the cupboards and closets and people to scrub away this version of my life because it doesn't feel like there's a reason or purpose.

So perhaps this Jupiter retrograde is sort of an abandon all hope transit. There's probably more transits involved since I seem to have done this many times in my life with the things that I create or life situations I've lived.

I would definitely say that, and this is Claire talking now, not Tabitha, I would definitely say that there are some other transits mixed up in this experience because the experience sounds really really intense and quite emotional, but there are a few things that I'm picking out from Jupiter retrograde.

One is the momentum like came to a hard stop. So you said that up until the retrograde happened, you were full of ideas and plans, Jupiter, and you were creating so many new things and you were energized and full of inspiration. You wanted to share. And then all of a sudden it was like, nope, pause, stop, make sure. That's definitely a station experience.

I also find it interesting that even though this is a personal pattern that you have of throwing out old work etc and combing through that you did something similar to me where you were going through hours of work and hours of notes and throwing it out or keeping it. That's something I did with my blog post, and it sounds like that was kind of a similar experience here. This might also be bleeding into the Pluto stationing direct transit. When Pluto has a station, we can want to clean everything out and throw it all away. So you might be kind of combining the experiences here. And it's really hard to pick them apart when they're happening really close together.

I'm hoping that your hope starts to come back online when Jupiter actually starts moving again, even though it is moving backwards. So in my personal and professional experience, the station of a planet is way worse than the actual retrograde cycle. So let's see, is Jupiter still stationed? Let me get my ephemeris.

I'm recording this on the 18th. Jupiter is stationed retrograde, when was that? On the 9th. And Jupiter is still at the same degree as when it's stationed, so it's still stationary. So it's finally going to move a degree on the 24th, and See if things start to shift or change in terms of hopefulness and aspirations around that time.

Okay, I think those are all of my Jupiter retrograde stories. Hopefully I didn't miss anything. I'm a little disorganized today. I'm just trying to show up to the podcast as a free bird, you know, that'll make it more fun for me. So again, my outline is like a little bit messy for a Virgo. Anywho, let's move on to Pluto stationing direct and as a refresher, Pluto station direct on October 11th.

And some of the things that I posed we might experience are being fixated on something, having really intense focus, taking a deep dive on a particular area of life, or because it was stationing direct for the last time in Capricorn, processing and finishing up a really long term storyline. So, I'll go first.

What I noticed on this day was that I was pruning my email list. So I just talked a few minutes ago about Pluto being correlated with taking out the trash. Not that my email list is trash. I love my email list. But I decided that I needed to clean it up. And so I actually deleted thousands of people that were inactive from my email list.

That is definitely a Pluto experience where you're just cleaning things up, culling things, removing things so that they can grow back better later. I was also really obsessed, Pluto word, I was obsessed with finding the right email marketing provider. So I was like comparison shopping and spending hours looking and it was just a lot of focus. Definitely a station thing. 

And honestly, from an emotional and energetic standpoint, I felt a little frozen that day. I was kind of in a nervous system freeze reaction in response to something that had upset me and I was feeling a little bit down. And so sometimes when a planet stations, we can feel stuck in place and like we're not able to move. And that is kind of how I felt at the time.

All right, our first submission about Pluto Stationing Direct is from Sarah. And Sarah writes, Pluto Station Direct in my fourth house. Yesterday and today my thoughts have been focused around whether I'm raising my kids the way I had hoped, wanting to raise good humans that go out and put light into the world.

And all these thoughts tangled up and mixed into the challenging dynamic I've been navigating with a changing relationship with my parents. And this really started around the time I had my older daughter in 2010. How I was raised and how I break from those patterns, mindsets and beliefs that didn't serve and still don't serve me.

Setting boundaries is incredibly hard for me, but I did it with my parents today. Around difficulties my family has been going through these last almost two years. I would have resented not saying anything and felt remiss in my role as a mother if I didn't speak up. Glennon Doyle's quote has been running through my head the last two days, A woman becomes a responsible parent when she stops being an obedient daughter.

Wow, this is a really powerful submission, Sarah. Thank you so much for giving it to us and being vulnerable. A couple things come to mind. One is that I definitely think this is a Pluto story because it is all about wrapping something up and bringing to an end something that's been going on since 2010.

Pluto moved into Capricorn, I believe, in 2008, so this experience that Sarah has been having is really long and enduring, and it's coming to an end now with the setting of boundaries, a very Capricorn thing to do. Pluto is also moving through her fourth house of family, And she's having to, in a very Pluto way, uh, make cuts and decisions on where she's going to prune back some of those relationships in order for her family to grow stronger in the future.

On a station day, we can also sometimes have an intense emotional experience or emotional reaction where our thoughts are really tied up on one thing, and it sounds like that's definitely what Sarah was experiencing within those couple of days.

Tabitha also wrote in with a Pluto stationing direct experience and she writes, what am I thinking about? Not feeling necessarily hopeless, but more like a detachment of expecting any improvement of feeling hopeful. The heightened abandon all hope of Jupiter retrograde has dissipated into the whatever.

There's always this cycle of once again feeling and thinking of letting everything go. There's the urge to just empty the cupboards of my work and life and let it go down the drain. What am I focusing on now? I gotta do something, but I have little interest in anything. How am I moving through the world? Just doing whatever is on my living life chores and to dos. That's all I can muster.

Claire speaking now. I think it's really important to acknowledge that this Pluto station was happening on Tabitha's natal south node. So it was extra enhanced and extra obvious for her and what she shared about feeling the urge to just empty the cupboards of her life and let it all go down the quote drain is really spot on language for not just Pluto, but also for the South node. 

When a planet conjuncts the South node, it asks us often to remove, to prune, sometimes to purge things from our life that are outdated. And it sounds like you were having a really intense experience around this. And I hope you're starting to feel a little bit better as Pluto has moved a few minutes. It hasn't moved a degree, but it's moved a few minutes in the time since you submitted to the podcast.

And that's that, my loves. Those are all of our submissions. Thank you so much again to everyone who was brave enough to contribute. If you want to contribute to the podcast, I would love to hear from you. You just head to astrologywithclaire. com slash gossip. You can ask a question, you can submit an experience.

And right now I'm actually asking specifically for anyone with natal Mars in Cancer to tell us a little bit about how you experience motivation. What drives you to take action and also what happens when you get activated or irritated and how do you care for yourself in those times? And the reason I'm asking for that is because we are gearing down for a Mars retrograde in Cancer later in the fall. Basically winter and you're going to be our teacher. So we want to hear from you, head to astrologywithclaire. com slash gossip to contribute. And until next time, I'm sending you lots of love. Bye.