This week we dive deep into the realm of astrocartography, a powerful tool that allows us to explore the impact of celestial bodies on all aspects of our lives in different locations. Our guest, Elizabeth Smith, is a master astrologer and astrocartographer who has helped thousands of clients find their ideal locations for love, wealth, health, career success, public recognition, spiritual development and more! Discover how the alignment of planets and asteroids influences our destinies and how this ancient practice has evolved in the modern age.
Highlights:
What’s the difference between astocartography and astrology?
When was the modern version of astrocartography developed and by whom?
How does astrocartography help us to better utilize our time on Earth to fulfill our purpose?
Can this tool be used to gain insights into business ventures, such as choosing a location for a new business?
How does astrocartography provide valuable information for travel and relocation decisions?
What are some of the mystical and spiritual experiences that have shaped Elizabeth's understanding of astrology?
How does the integration of data and intuition contribute to a deeper understanding of astrocartography as a mystical science?
What are its potential benefits in terms of personal and spiritual growth?
How has Elizabeth's personal journey and spiritual development influenced her approach to astrology?
What is the consequence of the increased availability but reduced quality of astrology due to the internet?
How are many millenials who grew up with astrology taking it to the next level?
Which planets and celestial bodies are the main focus of astrocartography and are asteroids of interest and ongoing research?
How is astrocartography, a computer age tool, evolving and advancing with new programs and discoveries?
With more than 40 years experience, master astrologer and astrocartography expert, ELIZABETH SMITH has offered thousands of readings where she shares her passion for facilitating liberation with this life-changing knowledge. Through an integrated understanding of people and planets, her proven skills, intuitive abilities and wisdom centered approach invoke inspiration, clarity and healing of mind, body and spirit for clients and students from around the globe who seek to improve quality of life through the power of location astrology. www.elizabethsmithastro.com
TIANNA ROSER is an Usui Reiki Master Teacher, Soul Plan Practitioner and Certified Clinical Hypnotist specializing in Past Life Regression, Life Between Lives Regression and Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique (QHHT). She uses tools and processes to help people experience their true self, the source of real healing and growth. Learn more at www.AwakeningTransformation.com. Tianna is the author of the book, “Awakening Transformation: A Beginner’s Guide to Becoming Your Higher Self.” Her book is filled with practices to lighten your spiritual journey and accelerate growth, available on Amazon.
TIM HOWE has always been interested in unusual and strange phenomena and considers himself to be a consciousness explorer. He was born and raised in Table Rock Village, Wyoming, which happens to no longer exist. He currently makes his home in Austin, Texas where he is constantly surrounded by beautiful females (wife, daughter and cat).
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Tianna: I think that a great place to start would be just defining or kind of explaining what astrocartography is, maybe for people who've never heard of it, in layman's terms.
Elizabeth: Sure. Well, at the moment that we're born, there is a download that occurs, one might say, from the whatever astrological influences, stars, planets, are surrounding you from whichever direction they're coming from, and we receive that energy into our bodies and our minds through the head top, the chakra system, the endocrine glands, In western terms, and the chemistry is born.The personality is born the whole all the energetic patterns kind of take form. And when we look at a traditional astrology chart, which is a round map of the sky at the moment that a person took their first breath. What we see is the download as it appears, or as we perceive it from the place where we're located where we're born. So it's a localized view of the astrological program, you might say, and we carry that throughout life. However, we're now in this mobile society and throughout history, people have been able to look at the astrology of other places. But they would have to know what the place was so that they could pull up one of these traditional round maps of the sky because location is one of the things that's required.
Elizabeth: And today, as we know, we've got so much choice. I feel that nature brought in this technology and made us able to do it on a computer so that we don't need to know the place ahead of time. there's a profound intelligence that's operating. I think every time things are developed and we think of ourselves as being the inventors of things, the originators of new things. But if you look at the history of human civilization and when inventions and, you know, big changes in society have come forth. What you see is that there are all correlated with astrological occurrences. So there's a big plan and what we can now do as a result of this movement into the Aquarian age, which happened somewhere around the 1960s, give or take, you know, no one knows for sure the exact moment because it's a 2000, over a 2000 year period, is that a gentleman named Jim Lewis, Who was a computer genius and an astrological master found a way to create a program so that what used to take an astrologer traditionally about six months I have read to do it on paper to do a world map on paper where you could see how your astrology would change from place to place anywhere in the world. You can now do very quickly with a computer. Astrocartography- cartography means mapping. So astro cartography is a mapping onto a map of the earth of the astrological changes that are occurring in the sky when you move through space on the earth.
Tianna: Oh, there's so many cool things about what you just said. I was thinking about that. I'm a past life regressionist and I guide people into past lives. And yeah, , as we're aware, but it's still so profound when you go through it, so in many of our past lives, we weren't very mobile. We didn't have an opportunity. We didn't have planes and it was only for a small percentage of the population that you could go on a boat and travel to another continent. And the opportunities that we have now to do that. It's really phenomenal, yeah, I could see how even if this method was available a long time ago, it doesn't have the use or application that it has now where we could use this art or science, however, you look at it to really, create certain opportunities for ourself in different areas of our life and how exciting that is. It's weird, like being on the spiritual path for a while, but only recently astrocartography has been coming up a lot lately and just different circles. And so I was thinking that, like you said, in this Aquarian age, people are really starting to want, as part of their spiritual path, maybe to utilize all of these tools available to really fulfill what their soul came in to fulfill or their purpose. I's such an exciting, tool. I'm really happy to have you here to hear more about.
Elizabeth: Well, it's really interesting from the research that I've done , in astrological history, which you can imagine the range of things that are out there. But it seems that astrocartography, because it took months for an astrologer to draw up one of these maps for someone, it was pretty much, well, it wasn't called astrocartography, right? It's just good old location astrology. And, but apparently it was confined to royalty , people who could afford to hire an astrologer to do their bidding exclusively for six months or whatever. And of course it was much slower. But I totally agree. I think that, I don't think it's an accident that suddenly , the Aquarian age has brought in the speeding up of activity and mental activity as well as physical activity and all the technology to physically move us around and who knows, we may be like beaming up right from one place to another in 100 years. You just never know. But, I believe that nature is benevolent and intelligent when it's in balance, when the powers are understood, when there's a high frequency consciousness to work with it, as we can see with things like sustainable gardening versus chemical farming, right?
Elizabeth: That if you know what you're doing and you work with the balance that already exists, things can be much improved in human life. So with astrology, the alternative, if you're going to travel or certainly if you're going to relocate, if you don't have Something like astrocartography is trial and error, right? You go there and you feel what's going on in the place and you decide and then you read about it on, , you do your YouTube research or whatever you do the best you can. And then you take a chance and you go there. But what most people in our culture don't realize is that when we go to a place physically, especially if we say, stay there for less than maybe a few weeks, what we're feeling predominantly is what in Asia is called the earth feng shui, right?
Elizabeth: The earth look, we're feeling the energetic patterns on the ground, which create the culture and the weather. And, the economic. atmosphere and the things that we're looking at to see if we feel good there, right? But the download that's received in the heavenly feng shui, which is our connection with the influences that are individual to us via the astrology of the place on our map, that information has been pretty much unknown. So now you can anticipate and you can save yourself this trial and error pain, and if you think about it, it's just so much more efficient of a way to utilize, like you say, to utilize the time that we have on earth to fulfill our purpose, to make our journey, however you want to think about it, in a way where we can accomplish the most in terms of evolution, and it's important to nature, I believe, yeah.
Elizabeth: Because I believe that nature is, I believe that evolution is the primary impulse of the higher intelligence, right? There's constant change happening and we can devolve. Which means we just have to keep going over and over again in circles for a while until we get up the upper rung on the ladder, I suppose you could say, but we're moving in one direction or another at all times. And this helps us to evolve and to learn more, more quickly, make wiser choices, and then, grow into the light. Hopefully without so much stress and, school of hard knocks kind of thing. So, that's why I love it because it's such a leg up for humanity. And, I can't wait until it's a household word and everybody knows about it.
Tim: Yeah, it's so fascinating. So I have a question. . Is it kind of a combination of location and time itself too, because from what I'm gathering here is that like, say you have some health issue that you want to heal and you want to find, balance in, in your body. So is there like a specific time and a place that this person would want to be at for that to be like the most I guess efficient way to to make their healing process go by or or how does that work
Elizabeth: Great question. Well astrology always addresses the phenomena of both time and space. So if you look at transit astrology, which is seeing what's happening in the sky right now, and then looking at how that lines up, and that's going to affect the whole collective, right? Everybody in society or all beings are going to be affected by the transit in planets. And it's also going to have a personal effect on you at that moment, because it's lining up in a certain place in your personal chart that you inherited at birth. And we can see how our lives change looking at those transits, meaning what's happening above. Then there's also in astrology, something called progressions, which also help us to measure the movement through time. And that's a slightly, well it's a very different system. And what that does is, if you advance and if you look at your chart at the day and time and moment you were born, and then if you advance it, say nine days, and you look at the sky at that same place and time, nine days later, what you actually get, that's your progression for your ninth year of life. It actually forms and gives us the picture of a prototype of what the ninth year of life would be like. If you look at the sky 20 days after you're born, you're going to see the patterns of what you'll experience the 20th year of your life. So progressions are also a way of seeing how movement occurs in our lives, how change occurs through time.
Elizabeth: So, and as I've mentioned here with astrocartography, we see How things change when we move through space right when we when we drive and fly around the world, etc. So, if you want to time something like, or you want to be most effective in doing something like improving a health condition. Ideally, you want to consider
both of those factors, time and space, by going to, now you can wait, you can stay wherever you are, and you can hope for the best that things, that either what you were born with there is, is conducive to healing, because they are very specific planetary downloads that will improve healing or the opposite or make you sicker. So you can hope that where you are, that a transit will go by or, you know, things will progress in your chart and it'll be better timing. Or you can go to a place on the astro cartography map, which is conducive to it pretty much all the time.
Elizabeth: And then if a helpful transit or progression, the timing occurs that's favorable for healing. Then you've got two factors on your side, and it's even more likely that your goal will be met. Now, we have to remember that astrology is as complicated as life itself is, and we all know how complicated life is. So there may be countering forces. That will do the opposite, there's no place to go where you can just shut out everything and just get the thing you want going on which is what we all want really when we approach astro cartography in the beginning, everybody, we're privileged people as history goes. And so people think I'm going to go to a place that all my problems are going to go away. We still have challenging planets, but we can work with these factors by being informed about them in a way that makes it much more likely for certain outcomes to occur. And like, for instance, the sun. a location with the sun. The sun is renowned for being very helpful with health. Why? Because it's the primary source of our chi. It makes logical sense because we have a direct relationship with the sun, right? Unlike some of the planets we don't see. But it'll improve the constitution if it's in the ascendant, which is the first house, which is directly affecting health through the state of mind that it, that it very much influences.
Elizabeth: And then the health, the biography becomes the biology. So it affects your state of mind, which in turn affects your health. So if the sun is in the ascendant, if you're underneath that influence very strongly, then that's going to be, you're on the right track for health improvement, no matter what. But if you go there at a time when you're having a really health conducive timing going on with a transit, then it would be even more likely. And of course, there's other planets too that improve health. Jupiter can be very health improving. Mercury can be very health improving, depending on your constitution. If you move too fast, mercury can actually make things worse. if what you need is to have a sluggish immune system perked up, then mercury could be helpful. , everything is complex, so you can't just go to a planet, which is what a lot of people do when they see their map on their own. And they read something and they think, oh, I'll go there. You have to know the nuances. But if you look at all of these details, then yes, you can choose places and you can include timing for it for an even more helpful kind of environment for something specific as health improvement.
Tianna: Yeah, it seems very complex and detailed and that's why it makes sense to have somebody like you who's studied it for a really long time. So I was thinking about this as you were saying that because I have seen some astro cartography reading before. And it was like one of the places that had suggested for me is a place that I personally don't like. And I thought, Oh, would it make sense to go and be there for a while if it's going to have this positive benefit or with the fact that I really don't like that place personally kind of counteract that. How much does that play into it? In terms of whether my personality enjoys this place.
Elizabeth: Yeah. Well, you're wise to question that because the fact is that there's an interaction between us, , our energetic field, our perceptions and, the natural world, including the celestial bodies. So these things don't exist in a vacuum. If we look at a map and we read something or we're told something that's oversimplified, which is very common in astrocartography, because it's such a relatively new art, there aren't a lot of people who've really been digging as deeply as I have for as long as I have and the people of my time. So there are people trying to figure this all out and bring it into the culture. But my biggest pet peeve is that a lot of people come to me after having a reading or doing their own study and going to a place. And they experience what they read perhaps, but then all these other things happen.
Elizabeth: And I did that as a young woman too. I made the classic mistake, that because I had no one, I'm just doing it on my own and figuring it all out. But the fact is that,, whatever you have going on in the rest of your chart. Is what you need to look at and you're not going to be able to read about that right, in a paragraph or even in a
computerized personal astro cartography reading, which is what a lot of people are also relying on, because it doesn't consider the many many nuances of your personal chart. And you also bring up, Tianna, a very important point about the importance and the validity of intuition. My approach, as a woman, I really value communication and I worked early on with people who I found were almost lost. afraid to join in conversation or to interrupt me when I was reading.
Elizabeth: And I learned to encourage people and tell them, I really invite you if you have an intuition, tell me about it. Let's work together here as a team. Because what I found over the years is that highly intuitive people, they'll sometimes come to me with a list, especially before the pandemic when people like global nomads were everywhere. And there was really free travel and lots of global nomad people who were working online and going someplace for three months. And then the next place would come to me with a list. These are the places that I'm considering going. What do you think? And it was quite common that intuitive people would pick places just based on how they felt either into either without ever going there just in their gut or by having visited there briefly, where they got not so much that they liked what they saw on the ground, but they got this feeling.
Elizabeth: And I started to realize that the benevolent planets, the ones that make our lives easier in our terms that is, They often will call people. That's how I've come to describe it. It's like they're sitting on your shoulder and they're saying you really should go to New Zealand, , and then somebody comes along and says, I'm really interested in New Zealand and then you're in the bookstore and here's the synchronicity start to occur, right? So when you get multiple messages, or even if you have a continuing intuition, the difference between just a random thought and a real true intuition, I believe, is that if something's coming from your higher voice, your intuitive power, your guides, it's often repetitive. It won't go away.
Elizabeth: Sometimes it won't let you fall asleep at night until you get up and take action, or until you leave that relationship. It'll just keep nagging at you. And so , if people have these kind of repetitive intuitions about a certain place, sometimes they'll have it for a lifetime. And then we'll see why. I'll see a whole cluster of really helpful low stress influences in that place. So, that's what I've learned from doing this about and also like when I first started as a young woman. Well, actually, before I got into my passionate relationship with astrophotography like in my late teens when I first left home, I went to four different places in the country as the hippie days are just after them and everybody was on the move. And I went and lived for like six months in four different places. And when I discovered astrocartography a couple years later, I realized every one of them had a really dominant Jupiter, which is protective. Jupiter's the guardian angel realm. And my parents were so worried about me. I was like 17, 18.
Elizabeth: And I felt like, well, Jupiter watched out for this crazy kid and I wound up going to these places and then I saw on my map, oh my goodness, this was not an accident, these places that I was led to by my friends being there or whatever. So there's all these, divine synchronicities and timing and the guides really work through astro cartography, however you choose to frame the idea of higher powers that are helping us stumbling humans through life and stumbling beings. I'm sure that animals and plants have guides too, but it becomes really obvious because the map will reflect back to you on what happened. And you're like, Oh my goodness, this was very intentional on someone's part that I wind up here.
Tianna: Yeah, I wanted to ask since you brought up intuition, does intuition play a part in your role as the reader as well, because you talked about the Aquarian age and you've got like this AI now that can make all these calculations and I'm sure, it can learn all of these calculations, but will it be missing a piece still? Because you, as the reader, use your own intuition and weave something in there that AI can never have? Or is it just purely science and it can learn all of these calculations and then spit out the results as it develops in the coming years?
Elizabeth: Yeah, really important point. So my feeling is that a truly qualified astrologer, whether they specialize in astro cryptography or transits or whatever. One of the things to look for, if that's something that you're looking for, is someone who is operating in both right and left brain capacity. Yin and yang, right? Because they have very
different functions. And they represent this, this polarity of life. So what you see if you're out there in the internet ocean, is you see a lot of astrologers who are data geniuses.They have so much information about this because it's an overwhelming amount if you're an astrologer, you never stop learning because there's always something new because it's the cosmos, and it's the complexity of the phenomenal world that's captured in this system.
Elizabeth: And there are people who are just geniuses at that you kind of have to have some level of really, really high intelligence just to even begin to be. A qualified astrologer, but oftentimes those same people will lack intuitive powers because the mind I feel it's because the mind is so busy, having meditated a lot in my youth, when the mind is always containing and juggling information. That's beautiful. If you're a scientist and or a technician, but you need to have space to receive information that's not in the human realm for you to be fed. There's information that we call intuition that's coming from another dimension. So an astrologer also needs very much to have an intuitive intelligence you know the right and the left brain have to both be turned on , if you really want to do justice to the vehicle that you're channeling.
Elizabeth: I'm a Virgo mercurial person, my thinking left brain is pretty sharp. I'm great with the data. But my intuition is equally developed, because I've also done spiritual work. I was born with four Neptune influences, which is the planet of mysticism and spirituality. So I was having mystical experiences as a young child. And I just, I've cultivated it, in the eighties and seventies with all of the teachers that came in to the New York area where I'm from and was able to meet with masters and did the hard work of the disciplines that they brought from other cultures where you had to sit for a month in meditation all day. I practiced qigong since I'm 18 every day, like clockwork, and I put in many, many, many hours. So my intuition naturally developed, and I had an intuitive opening in my 40s when I was living out in nature, where my third eye, I guess is what you would call it in the Hindu tradition, opened, and I have an inner voice.
Elizabeth: And that's when it became clear to me that I really needed to start to share with other people, but I came from the old school where I didn't just jump in because I like this and kind of learn along the way I studied it and I lived it for decades. And I did it for free for people while I was working as a medical manager, but then my spirit really called me and I started to receive all kinds of downloads and guidance, like, really vividly. I have an inner voice, everybody's got different senses that awaken and, basically , I don't ever think about what I'm going to say ahead of time because that often muddles it up, used to do that as a young woman, if I had to be speak in public or teach a big group or or be interviewed.
Elizabeth: But I learned that my intuitive brain, which is tied to my higher power was probably going to do a better job if I just let it be and the data will come, it'll come when you need to answer the question or whatever or you need to give a client advice, they merge together, but I really feel like just doesn't work when people have, some people are really great intuitives, but they really don't have the capacity intellectually for the data in astrology. And so they're working, and both usually have very good hearts. I don't want to be critical of people. But if you're going to study this, if you're a student in this, or you're looking for someone who's done it, it's really important to have both. That's when this art, and I think of it as a mystical science. I think that that's the term that I use rather than a spiritual path versus a science or a technology when it's a mystical science. That's when we can really utilize it at its highest potential.
Tim: Yes, that was a wonderful answer. One of the best I've ever heard actually on this podcast. Thank you for that. As you were speaking and kind of describing how this works, I suddenly remembered that I have always been like called to this place and it's kind of near where I grew up. And, it's not exactly where I grew up though, it's kind of in the middle of nowhere. But this place has been on my mind literally for at least five years. I have no idea why this place comes into my mind on a pretty regular basis. Like, I'm always thinking, I'm called to this area and there's nothing there. It's in the middle of nowhere. And, , I'm just wondering, if someone has, , an experience like that and they go to you...Is that something that your clients come to you with? Do you kind of help them figure out like what that's all about? And in a reading with you and in a session with you?
Elizabeth: Sure. Yeah, that's one of many, many, many things that motivate people to come for astro cartography. The first thing that I would do with someone in your situation is satisfy your curiosity. Look at both your natal, your birth map, which is a permanent Program, but also your progression map, which shows these changing moving time sensitive energies that come into different places for a few years at a time and then move on and new ones come. So I'd look at both of your maps very thoroughly.And there's multiple levels of information on a map. A lot of it you don't even see when you look at a natural photography map, you have to. You have to click on it if it's on the computer or have the additional information on the side things called parents crossings and aspects and things don't show up on just the main line map.
Elizabeth: So I'd look at the deepest level, and chances are, we would see something that lit up for you. The other thing that can happen is that I have found correlations with people's ancestry, like, for example, sometimes. People will come to me and they may be, , an American and they maybe never left North America, but they have this feeling about a country in Africa, for example. And we look there and we see planets like the person I'm thinking of. We saw planets, we saw that Saturn and Pluto was there, both of which are associated with. On their darkest sides with slavery and abuse, and she went back and she did some and ancestry. com or, she did some research. I'm not sure how she found it, but she was able to trace the blood lineage.
Elizabeth: She was African American too. She found out that one of her parents. ancestors were taken from that country as slaves. So she was feeling this ancestral call to this dark energy. So her map correlated with what her ancestors went through in that place. So sometimes it's not Even, logical like, oh, we see great things and this land is calling you to that. It may be that you have some kind of a deep connection with that land or with the people, the clans or the tribal people that originally lived there, all kinds of, it's the spirit that gets called to places is what I've learned. As opposed to your rational mind your body in this lifetime.
Elizabeth: So sometimes it is just guidance like come here we can help you with your financial limitation the benevolent planets might say as I said when they're sitting on your shoulder it might be like a no brainer like Come here so that we can help you with this problem. And you haven't thought of that place before, but you look at your map and you see, oh, this would be a great place for me to improve my financial picture. And then it all starts to make sense. But sometimes it's deeper. Sometimes it's It's at another level of function, the calling, that's what I found when people are are drawn to places mysteriously. And then we dig in and we see what happens
Tianna: That brings up such an interesting point. And I have such a question about that. So, 1, I want to know , so what happened? Did she decide to go there? Because then, my perspective is that some of us lightworkers have come into certain ancestral lines because we've chosen to come in to heal and clear dysfunctional patterns in the lineage.And so, yeah, sometimes we'd be like, “Oh, I want to stay away from there.” Or is that an opportunity to come in and do some healing or clearing? Or do we always stay away from these Saturn and Pluto places because like, Oh, that's not going to end well, or does it depend on the person?
Elizabeth: Every planet has a dark and a light side, just like people, and I think that early on in a person's exposure to astrology, it's very easy to think dualistically, especially with astrocartography, , the promise of astrocartography, oh, this is my chance to go where everything goes, goes well, according to my definition, right? I've got money, I've got love, I've got good health, you know, et cetera, right? Those are the things that satisfy our need to thrive in society, right? Or as an ego, what I want and what'll make me okay in this physical world. But the planets are operating at a deeper level, especially the outer planets.
Elizabeth: The further out we get from the Sun in the planetary order, the more challenging they tend to become as a general rule. But what I've learned... Is that the darker side of any planet is more likely to come alive either when you're young and kind of a naturally full of yourself kind of person, you don't see beyond the egoic training and nature of humans until you go through the school of life. And you start to mature, which means expanding in your
consciousness beyond just the self. So either that, or when people are not evolving, no matter how old they are, when they're just doing the same thing over and over again, they're not learning from the lessons, they're not getting the message, the planets can stay very dark and difficult.
Elizabeth: But what I'm seeing as I mature I've had people that I've known for decades, and I've seen that the pattern in my life is repeated many times with people who are, as you say, lightworkers, healers, people who are more aware of the journey and its purpose is that they Begin to have planetary influences that change radically with the same planet, like, for instance, when I was young, I had strong Mars just to be very general and I would grew up in the New York area.
Elizabeth: So, I spent time in New York City as a teenager. And as a young woman, and I was a victim of conflict into the neighborhood that you're in. That's one example of many, many things it can do. What happened over time, I made more, better friends with my own Martian energy, which is raw masculine boldness and stamina. , masculine, whether you're male or female, we all have both. I made friends with that and fast forward to now. My Mars, I see, which is Mars active in the home family or community. I tend to have neighbors, usually on either side, no matter where I move. And I move every few years, just out of curiosity who have very strong Mars qualities, carpenters, engineers, dentists, people who use tools, people who are repairing things, these kind of Martian livelihoods.
Elizabeth: And so that's still Mars affecting my home family or community, but it's not in a way that feels hostile to me. So, and I see this with all the planets in my chart that they've softened as I've learned, and they then flip. And these Martian people have been very helpful to me. So the planet that maybe was really felt like it was brutalizing you in one form or another can turn over and can begin to really help and be a great friend. So it's a teacher that's, it's actually mirroring us to a great degree. They have their own nature. The planets are their natural deities. They are not, the end all be all, they're not pure God, like the classic view is that they were gods, but they were considered more in India, they're called demigods, right?
Elizabeth: In other words, they have power over us because their force fields are stronger, but we have the ability to evolve our consciousness. And just as we can co create in our manifest world, we can begin to change the way they interact with us. So we're not victims of astrology, and that's a really, really important point. And the more you have that understanding of the value of their teaching quality, when you need it, and then their ability to turn around and mirror that you have learned some valuable things, the less... The less one wants to just go where life is easy, and the more one embraces anything, like people, also people who've been through a lot of astrological or life evolution, people who've like been through hard, hard lives, which a lot of, of spiritually oriented people have been, most of them have been because , this is the PhD program, right?
Elizabeth: Life is more challenging the more you evolve. A lot of those people will come to me earlier in their life and want to do the classic human biological urge, which is go where it's easier because that's our biological intelligence trying to protect us and they'll go there for a couple of years and then they'll come back to me and they'll say, you know what, I really missed the challenges. I think I want to go back to a Pluto life, like what they were born under, or I want to hang out near Neptune again. And now they've got knowledge about Neptune. And they can bring that with them so that they're not going to be so easily made into a puppet on a string who's victimized by Neptune because they're all the planets are trying to wake us up.
Elizabeth: So depending where we are in our journey, it can actually flip because people begin to realize. It's like boredom, it's like, classically, somebody will fall in love with you , who just worships you at your feet and you're like, this isn't working for me. I'm not growing when there's no challenge. It's like that, with the planets. That you think you want this really easy thing, and you might go there, and you might discover that that other stuff was really helping you in a way that the easy stuff doesn't.
Tim: Yeah, usually it's, the advantage of hindsight to, when you get that perspective, , you look back and you're like, Oh wow, I actually was growing, even though it was so challenging and I didn't like it at the time, you realize like, Oh, I made a lot of progress during that period. Yeah, so I have a question for you. , so this is all really fascinating. I'm wondering if it can be applied on a larger scale, I'm kind of actually curious about what are your thoughts on, like, humanity in general, as a whole. Where are we in terms of, our evolution and our growth at this time? And I just want to know what your perspective is as far as your background goes and everything, what you think about the place that we are as humanity right now? Hmm.
Elizabeth: Big question, Well, because I have an astrologically informed perspective, I think a lot in terms of the shifting of the astrological age that we happen to be right on the cusp of with no owner's manual. So, if you look at the changes that have occurred in the value system, just in the last 60 years, which is kind of when Aquarius really started replacing the old age of Pisces, which was around for 200 to 2150 years, that's how long an age is about. You can see why culture has changed, why human values have changed, why families have changed, why genders change, , what technology has changed the world, you can see that without an astrological perspective or some higher perspective doesn't have to be astrology.
Elizabeth: It's easy to look at what's going on in the world now that we can see so much more through the lens of media and technology and think, Oh, this is just, , this is just going to heck in a handbasket. Right. This isn't going well. Well, it may be that when we were chased by saber tooth tigers people felt the same. But we only have the perspective of our own time and of what we know that's recorded in history, most of which may have been severely altered to suit the needs of the people at the time. So we really have a limited perspective on what life is supposed to look like. , but if you look at the world of nature, like in terms of gardening, which is one of my other favorite things to do because I think there's incredible wisdom when you, I like to look at the sky, the heavens and I like to look at the earth and I find that they reflect each other, and they reflect the intelligence of the universe.
Elizabeth: You know. Fertility doesn't happen in the soil so that we could have all these magnificent plants and foods and flowers and beauty and trees that doesn't happen unless it's fed by the bacteria in the soil that is the product of death. And the more dying, decaying things there are in the soil, , i.e. the, the dark stuff, right, , the decaying dark energy, the more there is of that, the more beauty that can follow in terms of what's born. And that's Pluto, Pluto Minerva encapsulated. Birth and death, creation, destruction, Kali. In Hindu thinking, we see that duality is actually merging as one.
Elizabeth: So when I get stressed, which we all do, if we're paying attention to what's going on in the world, , usually it's the micro of what happened that day or what's happening this year with this leader and this leader. Potential difficulty in the foolishness. When I get stressed like that, I have to sit back and I have to take a larger perspective. And when I do that, I trust that even though it might be difficult, what I personally have to go through that day or in that lifetime, I trust that it's serving the higher evolutionary impulse. Ultimately, and that brings me comfort, and also knowing, as I said before, that it's astrologically appropriate for the age that we are entering because it's all new.
Elizabeth: When a new astrological age starts, because it's such a long period of time that there's usually no way to reflect back. And read or know what the wisdom of the ancestors were 2000 years ago and you can look at certain major books , or whatever, or listening to oral traditions that have been passed on, but there's no way for the collective memory to retain total clarity that says, okay, when an astrological age changes, you do this, this, and this, right? So we have to keep reinventing the wheel is, is my supposition. And so, of course, when things are unknown, it tends to conjure fear in Homo sapiens. So it's easy to deflect to that because that fear has helped to keep us alive. It's our biological imperative to survive. We respond to what we're afraid of.
Elizabeth: We try to eliminate it. But when you can't eliminate it because it's planetary or perhaps universal, then taking the big picture perspective. And then taking action in whatever way you can to improve the situation to bring
in a higher frequency, , on the earth plane that's important to you don't want to just sit back and say okay you know let God do the worrying that's my dad used to say, you want to also align your actions. But it's ultimately, it's all that same cycle of , adding the manure and the old weeds to the garden so that they'll produce incredible vegetables for you in two months, it's all that. And you see it everywhere, whether you look to the earth or you look to the sky, you'll see that there's value in what we in our smaller dualistically driven incarnate minds see as very, very scary or very, very bad. Negative. Ultimately, nature knows exactly what she's doing is my feeling that brings me comfort.
Tianna: I love your balanced perspective and everything that we've been asking you. This might not be like a big deal. I just have this curiosity about, I noticed in astrology, over time and we have these instruments where we can discover, I guess, or just become aware of further out, different celestial bodies. And maybe other astrologers now are taking into account asteroids and these types of things. And as we become aware of them, does that affect, does that play into astrocartography as well? Or is it basically, there's like these certain planets that have been well established and these certain lines that have been well established and it stays that way?
Elizabeth: Well, nothing in nature is static, right? Everything is dynamic. On a relative plane, because astrocartography is the child of the computer age, right, this accessibility, and because the program known as astrocartography that Jim Lewis brought in has only been around since he cultivated it in the 1970s. And there's been so much to learn just about how to apply it, and it's still being misused or underutilized by many, many people who don't understand the depths of it because they haven't made that journey yet. But there's been so much energy being put into by those who really wanted to do the work into understanding what's right here.
Elizabeth: In the solar system in the main planets that we're aware of that there are new programs being created all the time, right? The program, meaning that the computer has replaced the astrologer digging in and creating a format for getting certain information on the chart. And like you say. Astrologers are digging deep, the millennials and those who follow them cut their teeth with astrology and in many cases being a normal part of life when they were kids, right? I have a lot of clients in their 30s who are in their 20s or 40s who tell me, Oh, my mother, my parents gave me an astrology reading for my 13th birthday, so. It's natural for people who've had it since then to want to take it to the next level, which we need. My job is so complex because of the thorough approach that I take, because I know that I should, that Chiron is the only asteroid slash minor planet that I look at, though when people ask me about other ones, I will look into that and get them the answer they want.
Elizabeth: But when you see how complicated it is. Just with the main planets and like I said when you look at a map, then you understand why it's important not to not to take on too much too soon, there are people who are doing that and they're going to add that to the great lexicon of astrological knowledge, and I trust that that's going to happen and this is going to just expand astrophotography and the technology that that enables it is just going to continue to expand over the generation just like astrology has. But I also meet with a lot of students who they're overwhelmed by the information they have and they have high quantity but low quality knowledge. So, my choice, I'm like the French, I've had a deep relationship with French culture and At Christmas time, if you celebrate Christmas in France, at least traditionally, it may be changing now that people will buy 1 fabulous gift for each other rather than 10 mediocre gifts.
Elizabeth: So I like to be really good at what I've got going on here and we can pull in other things as needed. And I'm trusting future generations of astrologers to embellish and to make it more and more accessible and integrate it more and more, but we have to really get a handle on the fundamentals. Before we take on too much too soon and , that's what I see a lot that people have a lot of, , kind of accessory knowledge, but they don't really understand a lot of the fundamentals and that can throw you when you're choosing a location to change your whole life that can really throw you off.
Elizabeth: And it's not a small mistake , when you move, everything can come tumbling down if you're not really careful. I take it very seriously because I work with many people who come to me for 2nd opinions because they
didn't have a good feeling about the 1st person or, people, like I said, who've done it on their own and moved and, and all kinds of things happen and they come to me and they say, what did I do wrong? Or, what are we missing here? And that's when the mysteries get solved, you know? So,
Tianna: yeah. I love all of your really big picture, macro answers. They're very deep. And I love all the wisdom that you bring, but then I also have this curiosity of all these little micro questions, which is, like say for my business, you can create a chart from when the day that I started my business. And then if I wanted to move the physical location, Of my business. I mean, I'm sure there's a certain radius where the energy doesn't change very much, but would you do the chart from the business incorporation or would that be more my own personal chart for career or something like that?
Elizabeth: Well, there are certain influences that the Midheaven, in your chart that will very much affect your relationship to business. And that would be the 1st thing to look at. And then, as you suggested, there are anything that we have birth data for a day, a time and a place that it's born, whether it's a person, a pet, an event. Or a company, you can create a chart and that chart has validity as well. So just like when I work with a couple where there's two different sets of charts and maps for two different entities, and we bring them together and we look to see how can we find a place where they'll both resonate.
Elizabeth: There may be compromises in certain areas of life that both have to make. They're going to be affected by one another in very profound ways that we discussed too. But I would, with something like that, when you know that you'd have to know the time that your business, like, officially began, not just the date and the place. If you know all that, then we look at both. We look at your info and we look at Your entities info, and we do the same as we would do with a family or a couple. We try to average things out or just see what's going to be a win win here as much as possible.
Tianna: Oh, yeah, totally. Super fascinating. I mean, it's such a fascinating topic. I could ask all of these, like, micro minutia type questions, but I love that. We covered the depth part of it, kind of the overview and even didn't even ask this, but you kind of covered a little bit of maybe the misconceptions that people come to astro cartography with. And that was one of the big questions that I had.
Elizabeth: Well, I like to share the big picture because that tends to be what's missing out in the media and a lot of people get misled. Astrocartography can be severely dumbed down. It can and it is. And part of my work and my calling is to help people understand you're dealing with a very powerful and profound tool here.
This should not be used lightly like some new toy, which is how a lot of people market it and how a lot of people wind up using it without even realizing there's an alternative. So I'm the voice of the powers that be that need to be reckoned with. Not that I'm the power of, you know what I mean, I'm the voice of warning or Of expansion like there's more to this than you realize, I guess, also because I do have so many people who come to me, having had some experience with it that that didn't go well. And so very aware of the misconceptions and the misleading and the misuse of this and , I like to act as a client advocate, as an advocate to the public to know that you need as in choosing any spiritual path or representative teacher or a healer, whatever. There's a lot of. Stuff out there that is not going to serve you because this is the first time in history that we know of where spirituality has been commodified.
Elizabeth: That's one of the big changes in the Aquarian Age too, as well as technology. , traditionally in any culture all over the world, I used to teach a university class about the religions and the cosmologies of the world. And one never charged money because it was too dangerous. For a healer or a spiritual teacher to charge money because it could corrupt them so you would give to those that you felt were ready for the knowledge and the village or whoever would take care of you. That's why if you go to a traditional Buddhist country, the Buddhist monks will come out with their begging bowls. And they're waiting for the people in the village to feed them because they
come from that old tradition, thousands of years where you have to protect the practitioner from corruption, which can come if there is a monetary reward.
Elizabeth: So we have to reinvent that right because the village isn't going to feed me or you. And we're in the age of Aquarius where there's no more hierarchy and everything that level playing field is being established where everybody is kind of equal. And so, everybody is kind of doing everything in their own business. You don't have to hire somebody to do this and this and this. You can figure out on online and Google it and learn how to do it yourself. So that's happening with spiritual traditions too. People get a little bit of knowledge and they're like, okay, I can market this. That's happened to me several times.
Elizabeth: People that have come to me for a one hour reading, very fundamental, have no astrological background. And then they'll get in touch with me a year or six months later and said, I'm practicing astro cartography. So because it's fun and it's an alternative to sitting in a cubicle and they love it and they have good intentions. But it's dangerous to those they're informing because they just can't possibly know enough. At that point, they might read everything. But you have to cultivate a relationship in this case with the planets themselves, you have to apprentice yourself to the bodies, which takes time my primary teacher was the celestial bodies were the celestial bodies themselves through this intuitive thing, not that I want to say, Oh, you have to have the experience that I had.
Elizabeth: No nature teaches people in a million different ways, but you have to have some kind of purging. Of all the busyness and in the head and so that the voice that comes through in a reading is not just yours. Like a good intuitive, you have to channel something higher. Otherwise it's just you, it's probably not going to be very helpful other than just cheering the person up that day. So this is powerful, powerful work for anybody who really is going to channel the gifts that are given to astrologers., it's a profound calling and it's incredibly rewarding, but it also is an incredible commitment and the planets. Demand a certain level of training and dedication that might not be very glamorous. Everybody wants to be an astrologer now. So many people contacting me. Will you take on an apprentice? And you have to see, are you ready for this knowledge? Because it's going to demand back.
Tianna: I'm glad you brought that up. I do see that a lot in the spiritual community. And , on one hand, it's exciting that all these people are interested in this. On the other hand, we live in the day and age of fast food. We want everything now. And we don't have the kind of discipline that , in past times we had to be willing to work for something. And so there is that balancing that's needing to happen. And so those are really great words of wisdom.
Elizabeth: Thank you. Well, if you look at the spiritual traditions of cultures all over the world, like for instance, in, in the tradition of China, traditionally a student would they practice in the parks, right at dawn, they still do but traditionally, a student would have to show up in the park at 6 a.m. every day for a year before a teacher would show them the first move. , they have to display their sincerity and their humility and their commitment. Otherwise, the teacher, if it's a master, they're giving away these jewels to somebody who's going to fool around for a few months and then drop it.
Elizabeth: Or maybe just teach somebody and , they hardly know anything themselves and then actually lower the frequency of the art. So, when people did these grueling practices for years at a time, the same is true in Buddhism, you have to throw yourself on the ground 1000, 100, 000 prostrations, , there's practices where people have to have to show that they've got what it takes to Make proper use of this powerful knowledge and not just use it for their own gain. And we don't have that anymore. And I'm not saying, oh, I miss the good old days, right? Because I think it's wonderful how this, all these esoteric traditions have poured out of these places that they used to be held just in certain families or just among a certain lineage of monks or whatever.
Elizabeth: And those people got disenfranchised and the knowledge came to the West and the internet picked it up and now it's everywhere. That was meant to be. That's the Aquarian image of social justice, right? Equality for all. Instead of just, you have to be in a certain family in Asia in order to get this knowledge passed down to you and never anybody outside of the family gets that for 86 generations , things like that happen. So now we don't have that kind of limitation. But again, while we've increased the quantity of availability, we must realize that we've reduced the quality in many cases. And so the antidote in order to move forward with this new aquarium model is to be cautious.
Elizabeth: And to not assume that if something is spiritual or mystical or whatever, that it's just cool and you can do it too and anybody can do it and I'm going to take in whatever anybody tells me about my chart or whatever and believe them. I have got a lot of that too. People who've been told things like, oh, you'll never get married or, oh, you're going to get sick when you're 42 and you might die.People hear things from the old school of astrology that that's part of it, but you have to now realize, oh, you're dealing with people who You have no idea what kind of support they have. They might not have the big extended family at home who's going to make them feel grounded. They might be a single mom living in a New York City apartment struggling and you tell them that and that's like a curse, right?
Elizabeth: Because they may believe it and then the power of suggestion and then they'll feed that and It could happen even though it didn't have to happen because of the power of an influential person in your life. So that's, I think, another reason why in more traditional cultures. This knowledge is given out selectively to people who are going to prove their sincerity, as I said, that they want to serve. They want to serve the people that they share this information with rather than just make a fat living, and not have to sit in an office.
Tianna: I love talking to you. I still have a bunch of questions, but I have to prepare to teach a Reiki class in a few minutes. So I guess we should close things up for today.
Tim: Yeah. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. This was a great conversation. We really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us.
Elizabeth: Oh, it's my pleasure. You take good care. Thank you for your good work.
Tim: Do you want to real quick let our listeners know where they can find out more about you and your services?
Elizabeth: Sure. My website is www. elizabethsmithastro.com and you can reach me any time. Perfect. Thank you so much.
Tim: You're very welcome. Thank you so much again.