I have never seen anything like this!

Loxx Mason has written a full report on Midwest Astrology Conference and has generously given me permission to repost it here. If you have never been to a conference this is is a fantastic glimpse into what goes on. Enjoy!

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Loxx Mason writes:

I’m just back home from the Midwest Astrology Conference at the Double Tree Hotel in Independence, Ohio, near Cleveland. If you didn’t get a chance to go, well, here’s a rundown on my experience. This was my first time attending an astrology conference, yea, first time meeting another astrologer in the flesh. (This is after 9 years of studying in isolation and only talking with other astrologers by email or telephone.) I had a great time.

Opening ceremonies began at 9:00 AM on June 22 in Independence OH. The Moon was in Libra during the whole conference (excluding the Thurs. pre-conference and Mon. post-conference, that is). We started with some welcome remarks, announcements and a few minutes of meditation. Some attendees and faculty had not yet arrived; I’d say there were 25-30 people in the room for the opening. I would guess the total attendance was around 50-60.

Parallel session lectures began 10:30-11:45 with these three talks:

Pat Geisler: Trauma as a Learning Tool
Bon Rose Fine: Introduction to Moon Gardening
Julene Packer: Quick & Easy Secondary Progressions

I attended the first. It drew about 25 people. She opened by announcing that it was her birthday, so we sang “Happy Birthday” to her. Her abstract indicated that she was going to focus on 8th house issues, and I have 8th house Sun, so I wanted to check it out. She wanted to discuss those 8th house issues not related to sex, and her chart examples were Richard Pryor (1 Dec 1940, 1:02 PM, Peoria Heights IL), Christoper Reeve (25 Sep 1952, 3:12 AM, New York NY), Bill Clinton (19 Aug 1946, 8:51 AM, Hope AR), and Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (I didn’t catch the data for her).

She discussed the trauma in these natives’ lives, with an extended discussion of Richard Pryor, as she’d read three biographies of Pryor and obviously appreciated his movies and comedy.

I noticed something interesting in Christopher Reeve’s chart: Of course when violent accidents occur, the prime suspects are Mars and Uranus. Reeve has an exact Mars-Uranus quincunx, with Mars in his 5th house of sports and pastimes, in Sagittarius, associated with horses. Uranus is in the 12th, and according to William Lilly, “great beasts” such as horses and cattle fall under the 12th house … though I’ve never been able to understand why that might be.

Discussing Reeve, Pat mentioned her take on retrograde planets: “They promise more than they deliver. They can’t be counted on” to deliver what they might otherwise indicate. Reeve has Rx Jupiter in his 10th house, and so her interpretation was that he could not count on his career, and indeed his (original) career was cut short by his injury. But Jupiter opens doors, she said, and as a result of his trauma and the irrevocable change in his life which it brought, the doors of Congress opened to him when he came to testify and lobby.

Now on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, there were luncheon lectures, but I opted not to pay for those (i) to save some dough, and (ii) I kind of expected I’d need a mid-day break anyway. So … on Friday, after dining under the golden arches, I had these choices for the 1:45 talks:

Alphee Lavoie: Why Uranus, Neptune and Pluto Are So Important to Us in the 21st Century
Gloria Star: Darkness & Light - The Power of Eclipses
Bryan Trussler: Mother Moon

I went to the third; since the title gives little indication of the content, here’s the abstract: “Earth gave birth to the Moon and the Moon in return gave birth to the Earth. This lecture talks about the role of large-body collisions in planetary development and how the peculiar circumstances which gave birth to our Moon made life on Earth possible. This lecture will also cover other dwarf planets in our solar system and their astrological significance.”

Well, actually he didn’t have time for the last sentence there. But his discussion of the astronomical subject matter of solar system formation, and planetary formation, was just riveting. This is stuff that I didn’t know, have never really read up on, and he did an excellent job of explaining the astrophysics. He is obviously very knowledgeable on this, so this was all off-the-cuff; he explained it all very skillfully even without drawing many pictures, and he’s not an overly animated person but his lecturing ability is just fantastic. Again I say … I was spellbound.

Only three of us attended this talk. I and one of the others occasionally asked questions, and so I couldn’t tell if the third person was digging this as much as we were. But then at the end, I did hear her tell Bryan, “That was very interesting.” So we all appreciated it, and I had to think that if he’d drawn a large crowd, maybe most of the attendees wouldn’t have really found it to be their cup of tea.

Anyway, his objective (I think) was to impress upon us the vital role that the Moon has played in the formation and sustenance of Earthling life. To lay the foundation for this, he wanted us to understand how the Earth-Moon system has formed. He began with four major theories of “where the Moon came from” … for example, Is it a “captured” object that blundered along in space until it got drawn into orbit about the Earth? That’s one theory; he mentioned three others. And he asked us, “What do you think of these theories? Do you prefer any one over the others? Do any sound good to you? Do any sound bad?”

So I said, “Well … I don’t think I’d incline toward the ‘captured object’ theory because in that case I would expect the Moon to have a much more eccentric orbit.” He said, “Yes, and that is one problem with that theory. Another is that if the Moon were a captured object, we would expect its composition to be very different from Earth. But when we went to the Moon and brought back samples, it was determined that the Moon is made of the same stuff as the *crust* of the Earth. Not all of the Earth … just the crust. So remember that, because we’ll come back to that later.”

He went on to give an overview of the astrophysics behind the formation of the solar system and planets, along the way discussing compositions, cores, mantles, crusts, the ecliptic, Lagrange points in orbital systems, coalescence of matter, planetary axes, rotation, atmospheres, moons, terrestrial planets, Jovian planets, and on and on … and the material was so well organized in his mind for delivery to us that, as I say again, it was breathtaking. It was just soooo good. (What I’m saying is I liked this talk, lol.)

Anyway, the climax of the whole discussion was that (according to the ‘collision theory’) a planet-in-the-process-of-forming, called Theia, collided with Earth in such a way as to rip off a significant portion of the crust of “proto-Earth”, and resulting debris eventually coalesced to form the Moon. He then discussed how the aftermath of that event helped accelerate the evolution of life which subsequently formed on Earth, through (i) the very presence of the lunar debris and (ii) the post-collision composition of the Earth. He got into a very interesting discussion of tectonic plates and continental drift in the process.

This left zero time for him to discuss the astrological implications of all this. So … lol … oh, well. Didn’t matter to me.

At 3:15, we had these choices:

Lynn Koiner: The Psychological Vampire Astrologically Viewed
Rick Levine: Venus & Neptune - Love Is All There Is
Donna van Toen: Astrology, Numbers and Harmonics

I went to Lynn’s talk. In contrast to Bryan’s methodical, didactic style, Lynn is what you might call a “hoot”. lol. Her talk drew about 16 people; I was the only man. She mentioned her three Gemini planets by way of apologizing for her stream-of-consciousness style of presentation. She wasn’t disorganized; her Virgo Ascendant and Sun made sure of that: She had written notes to which to refer to keep herself on track. Er, well, to *try to* keep herself on track, lol. It was rapid-fire; it was funny; it was all over the map, but she regularly checked herself and reminded herself (out loud) to get back to her notes and return to the main path of the presentation. I found it amusing; since, due to her digressions, she would pretty much forget where she was going, she would look at her notes and read the sentences she’d prepared for herself. Then she’d extemporize until she felt it was time to get back to the notes. lol.

We each got a handout with eight charts on it. Some were “vampires” and some were their victims. What is a vampire? Someone who pretty much can’t function without sucking up the energy of the people around them. So she discussed the various charts and how they illustrated either the vampiric modus operandi, or the susceptibility to being victimized by a “vampire type.”

She mentioned a male vampire type she knew who preyed upon women in the New Age community, and he was overheard to say to a buddy of his, “Where else can you find so many needy women with low self-esteem” or something to that effect. This drew some gasps. She said, “There are men who target women like us, so beware ladies … I say ‘ladies’ because it’s all ladies here except for this poor guy.” We laughed. She had some other examples of males, so later she said, “Now of course there are female vampires as well, [and turning to me] so I don’t want to pick on you because you could have been the target of a female vampire.”

I had my laptop in front of me with Solar Fire running, so I said, “I have. Did you want me to pull up my ex-wife’s chart?” Chuckles all around.

One thing she mentioned in passing, in sort of an offhand way, but which stuck with me because I’ve never really thought about it, is this: 4th house Neptune people [e.g., me] absorb the energies of the environment in the location where they’re living. Therefore it’s important for them to find a good place to live … if there’s a lot of negativity in … their neighborhood, say, or their city … wherever they make their home, it will drain their energy, as they absorb the psychic sludge around them. This is why it helps to live near water, for in that case the water will absorb a lot of this stuff for them and help them to be more focused. Of course I’ve read delineations of 4th house Neptune that mention living near water, but her remark helped me make the connection, for the first time, as to why the native would be drawn to live near water. (Case in point: When I lived in Lexington, KY, I was fascinated with the Kentucky River and regularly took off in my car to explore as much of that valley as I could access. I’d lived in the area for nearly a decade when a house opened up for rent right on the river. I jumped on it. No hesitation at all; it was like I was finally gonna get to move to where I should have been living the whole time. Not because I wanted to do any boating or fishing or swimming or anything. I just liked being near the river.)

At 7:00 Friday night, there was a poolside reception. I met Bon Rose and Ed Fine and several friends of theirs from Michigan: two Nancys, a Pattie, and one Nancy’s husband whose name I didn’t catch. All nice people; we had a nice chat. Bryan Trussler joined us and I said, “I really liked your talk. I hope you weren’t discouraged that only three of us showed up.”

He said, “Well … I was hoping there would be a few more, but that’s OK. When I have a large audience, I tend to be more animated as I respond to whatever feedback I’m getting.” I think maybe this was a kind of apology and he felt as though he’d been somewhat dry and boring. “Also I intended to discuss more astrology but it turned out to be an astronomy talk.”

“Oh, that’s fine. Those of us who did come really appreciated it, I think. I’ll tell you that I thought it was riveting. It was mostly unfamiliar subject matter to me, and you did an excellent job of organizing it and presenting it in simple terms to the uninitiated. So … kudos.”

“Well, thank you.”

“And I think it’s probably good that you didn’t have a larger group, then, because it was exactly the right kind of talk for the audience you had.”

So that was the first day.

To be continued…

skip to day two

Email writer, Loxx Mason