I promised a post about astrology and planning. This is a combination of ‘why might you care’ and ‘how I do this’
Astrology, huh? I’m a librarian, right? Supposed to be a rational person, wanting my world to be backed up by evidence. And astrology doesn’t fit into that at all, by modern scientific standards.
But part of me is fascinated by the way that astrology and astronomy were once one field. And how a lot of the essential principles – observation of patterns and testing them – stay the same. A lot of me is pretty comfortable with the idea that astrology is a good way to take a clear look at different areas of my life in a systemic way on a regular basis.
I don’t believe that’s what’s going on in the nearby universe is dictating what we do here on planet Earth. But I do believe that there are cycles in humanity (and that some of those match in interesting ways with planetary cycles). And I definitely believe that looking at the patterns over time helps me figure out what’s going in my life, and how I feel about that.
How do I use astrology?
(By which I mean, how do I use it in my productivity and planning.)
1) This year, some information is on my One Spreadsheet To Rule Them All (as I mentioned last post, I have known for a while that the lunar cycle has some impact on my sleep, but I’m curious about any other patterns, and that means collecting data.
2) Astrological events go into my to-do app (Todoist) so that they pop up on the appropriate day. On the average day there are anywhere from 3-10 different events (because I have a steady popup for the outer planets).
3) This year, I’m also adding a paper planner (in my case, Benebell Wen’s Metaphysician’s Planner for some specific things.
Spreadsheet
I’ve talked about the spreadsheet before, but I’ve made a couple of updates in the last fortnight.
I mentioned that I have a section for perceived experience of the day – for me, this is roughly ‘airy stuff’, ‘fire stuff’, ‘water stuff’ and ‘earth stuff’ or focus, energy, joy, and embodiment. Each gets a number on a five point scale, and higher averages give me another point on my point totals on the day too. This should help me track days that have less focus or the days I just can’t get stuff going or cope with having a physical body well. Then I have the moon phase, done with emoji symbols so it shows the state of the moon. (I use the fairly traditional method of having the full and new moon each last for three days, the actual date and the day on either side.)
The next set of columns are taken from Benebell Wen’s planner, specifically the monthly ephemeris. Each day has a notation for what the inner planets are doing (for astrology purposes, that’s the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.) Each has a column, in which the sign is represented by a two letter abbreviation (because getting astrological symbols into Google Sheets won’t work for what I want.)
Each of those signs is then automatically colour coded so I can see if it’s an air, fire, water, or earth sign (the background colour) and also cardinal, fixed, or mutable (by the colour of the text: cardinal is white, fixed is black, and mutable is gray.) This makes it really easy to see at a glance if there’s a lot going on in a particular sign, or if a lot of signs are in a particular element.
Retrogrades are noted by a black border and bold text, so they stand out a bit.
The next columns on the summary page list how many ritual things I did (zero to .. well, however many.)
Then there’s my regular morning practice of listening to a song from a playlist and drawing a Tarot card. The Tarot column also colour codes based on the suit (Majors are purple.)
Mansions of the moon are still pretty new to me (they’re a form of lunar astrology that was heavily used in the early medieaval period, and particularly in Arabic sources, and not so much after that.) Each of them is associated with particular actions to do or avoid. The Lunarium site will let you get calendars of when they fall (along with lunar days, sign of the moon, and so on).
Because I’m still learning them (and okay, there’s 28 of them, I probably won’t remember all their meanings for a long time to come!) there’s a note on each numbered cell with a summary of what that mansion focuses on (and the traditional name and image associated with each one.)
These can be used to plan magical work (especially in coordination with other timing approaches, like the day of the week or moon sign). Each also has an elemental association (and colour code).
If the mansion changes while I’m likely to be awake, I note the time of change, and the next sign. (If I’m likely to be asleep, I don’t bother.) In Google Sheets (which is what I use so my spreadsheet is available by web everywhere), you can copy the notes in.
Why are these all on the spreadsheeet? Because the spreadsheet is the easiest place to see (and track) the basic overlaps of what’s going on on a given day. I have it open every day (often all the time or multiple points during the day) and the info on it is persistent (unlike my todo list, where things disappear as I check them off.)
To do app
I put specific day information (and repeating days, like a retrograde or outer planet signs) into my ToDoist. I have a project specifically for astrology information (with several sub projects just so I can keep things straight.) These include:
Lunar: New and full moons, with questions from Briana Saussy’s AstroRx for the year. I mark the beginning of the entry with the emoji for the moon phase.
Zodiac: For each zodiac sign, marked with the sun (for the sun being in that sign). I put additional notes in the comment field (these are long, so I don’t want them taking up tons of space on my list all the time, but I do want them handy for review.)
Specific days: (marked with different emoji depending on what’s going on). Solar eclipse days and their questions from Bri’s guide, as well as particular conjunctions of note.
I also add entries each week based on Austin Coppock’s daily almanac (being a Patreon supporter gets you a file at the beginning of the zodiac sign for the coming month). I really like his day by day breakdown, but entering them every week (on Sunday for me, when I usually have a bit of time in the morning) works better for me than doing a whole month at once, and gives me a head’s up for anything coming that week I should be aware of.
Each day has the signs for the moon (one or two, depending on transits) so I can see at a glance where they are, and also this forces me to learn the symbols more reliably. (I’m in that place where I do actually know them, but I feel like I don’t quite.)
Longer periods: Long transits, retrogrades, etc. (I also put in a note to plan for Mercury retrograde a week ahead of time. Since I was putting them in anyway.)
All four of these get gathered up by a filter (I call it ‘planets’) that will pull all of the astrological data for the day, so I can read through it and get it out of the way of the rest of my to do list early on. I also have one called “upcoming astrology” which covers the next seven days so I can look ahead easily without hunting for things.
Planner
So the final question is ‘what goes in the planner’ and ‘why did I get one’. This is the piece I want to work out this year. Benebell Wen’s planner has a great deal of additional material, and I’m waiting on the print copy (via Lulu)
My plan is to write in the astrological information more specific to me on there, and then us it to keep ongoing notes over the year. I have been exploring keeping some of those notes in a Traveller’s Journal set up, and while I like the physical aspect of that a lot, I found that there was a lot of overlap (or I had to spend a chunk of time on a daily basis updating, in ways that were hard to fit into my schedule.)
So instead, I think I’ll be aiming at looking at different aspects and writing a few notes as I go. And I want to use it to track some future planning. (I anticipate getting some pretty washi tape to mark off dates for some long-term projects, but I haven’t figured out exactly what yet.)
What’s the goal here?
Worth coming back to – my goals here have three parts. I need a system that keeps track of what I need to do (and when – and some of my tasks are ‘in six months, come back to look at this thing’). That’s Todoist, for me. I want to learn more about astrology, so weaving the information in day by day will be a help.
If all of this seems overwhelming, I recommend Bri’s Planning by Starlight, which starts out with some really simple places to begin.
Finally, I want a place to keep track of notes and day to day patterns that are more qualitative (quantitative goes in the spreadsheet…) and the written planner will do that.
Resources
Both of these are great resources – go as deep into them as you feel comfortable with.
