March is shaping up to be a big month — astrologically speaking.
Mercury is in retrograde and so is Venus.
Monica, a Phoenix astrologer and creator of Noonlit Sage, joined The Show to talk about what that means and how she got into astrology.
Full conversation
MONICA: For me, astrology is a system of awareness of our cycles in nature and how we connect to nature. And this is something that happens whether or not you believe in astrology, right? Spring happens when the spring happens and summer, fall, winter, so forth, right? The lunar cycles happen, regardless of your belief about their impact on us, and on a physical level, they do. The tides shift, we are made of water. So, on a physical level, yes, there's some changes that happen.
But when you take astrology into account, you get to understand that there's themes that also reoccur, patterns that reoccur energetically. So astrology is the system that obviously has thousands of years in its history of connecting those dots energetically to the things that happen all around us in our environment.
And a phrase I really love to abide by is: “As above, so below.” So, when you connect to what's going on in the cosmos and you understand the representations of, let's say, these zodiac signs, the planets, what they're representing to us energetically, then you can kind of prepare like you would for the springtime or the summer and change and shift energetically with those currents in the cosmos.
GILGER: Interesting. OK, I've never heard it put that way. I like that. OK. This, I understand, is a big month in the world of astrology this coming March here. Tell us a little bit about why.
MONICA: Yeah, so there's a few uncommon transits that happen every so often, Venus retrograde is coming up. We're in it right now, actually, and that happens every 18 months or so. So it's a time period of specific energetic current that we go through, which I'll explain in a second here.
Then we also have Mercury retrograde on top of it. That's more common. It happens about three times a year for about three weeks each. Then we have eclipses that are happening at the same time.
So these are things that while we go through them every so often, they're all happening at the same time, so the energies are just magnified as far as their meaning and what we should prepare for.
GILGER: And your readings are probably getting complicated at this point, I'm guessing for your clients. OK, so I've heard the phrase, right, like Mercury is in retrograde, people blame things on that basically happening. What does it mean that Venus and Mercury are in retrograde?
MONICA: Sure, sure. So, let's start with what is a retrograde. A retrograde is a period of time when the energies are slowing down, and the purpose of that is to assess and reflect. So when we're busy and we're moving really fast, we don't get to really notice as much of what might be working, what might not be working for us, right?
So, in this time of slowing down, just like, let's say you would in the winter time, you get to restore your energy, you get to recharge your energy. So when you align with that, it helps you get into alignment for the next phase.
And so Mercury and Venus, the difference between that, they are planets that represent certain aspects of our lives and personalities. So with Mercury, this is something that's always going to be reflected of the communication we have. People usually tend to say things didn't work out, technology mishaps happen.
Just all the information and the data starts getting a little wonky because we're in a reverse mode, right? Mercury is very direct. It moves forward very fast, right? We're thinkers that figure things out pretty quickly here. But in retrograde, it does want you to reassess, “Wait a minute, was that really working for you?” Maybe you need a new software, right?
And then Venus is the planet that represents beauty and love and relationships. So I go further and say it's really about a time to reassess how we receive. When you have these retrogrades, we can go further and say, “Oh, they're in Aries and Pisces.” And what does that mean? What's the theme with that?
But in general, it is this major time of reflection so that we could start kind of shifting in a new direction.
GILGER: OK, new direction, I like it. What's the significance of these two eclipses we have happening all at the same time?
MONICA: Yes, so the eclipses are times when there's a chapter change in our lives, right? And they happen about two times a year, about 6 months apart. And so I look at it like these six-month chapters in our lives.
When we have the two eclipses they’re in pairs because one will be a solar eclipse and one will be a lunar eclipse, meaning that one will happen on the new moon and one will happen on the full moon. So it's kind of that connected cycle of the light inside of us is shifting and changing.
GILGER: Interesting. OK, so I wonder because you talked about working with specific clients, right? Like I'm sure their readings all look a little different. Does this kind of major astrological event affect people differently?
MONICA: Yes, absolutely. So, although this will all affect us on a general level, we'll all pretty much connect to some of these changes, some people will experience much more dramatic change than others because of the way their birth chart interacts with the current astrological weather.
So, there is more custom work to do sometimes when you think of these horoscopes and online gurus with astrology telling you, everyone's going to experience this. Actually, not everyone's going to quite experience it to the exact same level, which is kind of nice to know.
GILGER: So, OK, I have to ask, how did you get into this? Like, how did you become an astrologer?
MONICA: I have my background in psychology, actually. So I was always fascinated with understanding the self and wanted to help people heal within themselves, their traumas. I had growing up, a lot of things I needed to heal.
When I went to school, I wanted to become a therapist to help others heal, but then when I got to Phoenix, because of all that, I met an astrologer. I was curious to go deeper into this spiritual aspect of understanding the self. So when I had my chart read by this astrologer, everything just made 100% sense.
It really resonated with me, this deep inner truth that nothing else had quite come to that level for me to say, “This is the path for you.” And I just merged those two worlds for myself of healing, psychology and adding in astrology, which is just another system of representing our lives, our personality and our expression.
GILGER: Background as a psychologist, not the answer I expected. What do you say to folks, or do you ever encounter people who are clients, or thinking about it or are at one of the events that you go to or something, who would just say, “This is all crap."
MONICA: I say, “that's OK. That's OK that you feel that way.” I am not here to convince anybody, right? Everybody has their own journey, and I totally respect everyone's opinions on things. I don't, I don't think my energy is best served in trying to convince everybody to get on this astrology train and more so be there for those who are really wanting to be open.
GILGER: Super interesting. All right. Monica, the astrologer with Noonlit Sage, joining us to talk more about this astrological month. Monica, thank you so much. I appreciate it.
MONICA: Of course, my pleasure.
