Such a Perfect Day

Ten days ago I went to the Astrological Associations Annual Conference in Wybosten, near Cambridge and I thought I’d tell you a bit about it. The conference is a highpoint of any serious student or professional Astrologers year as it’s an opportunity to listen and learn from a selection of World Class Astrology speakers at one weekend long event. It is the crème de la crème of the Astrology world and I was wildly excited to be able to go along and learn from them!

My story begins with Friday night booking into the nearest Travelodge (although there is the opportunity to stay on-site for those with bigger budgets than my own). We checked in, sorted ourselves out after the drive (which took longer than google maps promised) doesn’t it always? and went into the nearby town of St Neotts to have some dinner. To our delight St Neotts is a charming little town and we got lucky with our choice of restaurant, the Chinese meal we had in the restaurant by the town square was first class! (highly recommended – Hong Kong Restaurant).

Saturday morning, my partner dropped me off at the conference in good time for the first speaker while he went off to spend some time with a friend in Cambridge. The venue is a beautiful modern hotel, set in its own grounds. I checked in at reception and was given a lanyard to show I was a day delegate and a professionally finished brochure for the weekend, listing the speakers, talks and floor plan of the building. I had been the year before so was familiar with the layout already and must say it’s one of the easiest buildings for a conference that I’ve ever encountered.

The Lounge area had two stations of complimentary teas and coffees and there was a selection of stalls in the area representation different astrological groups and organisations. The place was buzzing with chatter as old friends met up and the astrologers and speakers mingled together. A combination of excitement, nervousness and anticipation was all around and the air positively tingled! I walked out into the courtyard to take in some air before a day of sitting in conference rooms and was glad I did. I saw an amazing tree out there which I have yet to identify and met a lovely lady who was also pondering the tree and taking the fresh morning air. We chatted for a while and then set off for our chosen first session of the day.

There was a choice of four talks all day long apart from one plenary talk which was by Robert Hand and the ‘star turn’ of the day. As you can imagine it is pretty tough choosing between four brilliant speakers each of whom are talking about something that would interest you! But I had done my homework and already decided in the week before the conference as the AA kindly send out details of the timetable in advance – phew!

My first choice of the day was a talk by a Slovanian guy called Bern Jerecic about timing in solar return charts. He was a great speaker and even managed to crack funny jokes in his second language (which must be really hard!). I settled into the room next to two old friends from Bolton Astrological Society, John and June Peacock. It was so nice to see them! Bern gave a fascinating talk demonstrating his method for timing in solar returns and taking the technique into a whole new area for me. I was really pleased because I use solar returns in my astrological practice all the time and love how simple and straightforward they are (well Aries loves simple and straightforward!). It took a while for the audience to understand the technique but once we got our heads round it, it is pretty simple. The case studies he showed using this technique (which is his own, not copied from anyone else) were amazing, really interesting and convinced me to give this technique a try as soon as I got home. (I am currently researching it in more depth).

Then break-time (coffee and biscuits time for me) and into the next lecture… This was Mark Cullen a lovely Aquarian guy from Edinburgh talking about Magicians, Witches and Seers. I thought this would be a bit of a treat for me and not require too much concentration and I was right. Mark talked about a variety of well-known occultists and their lives in great depth and as this is an area I have read a lot about for my own pleasure, I could relax and enjoy him telling their tales. He talked about Aleister Crowley, The founders of the Golden Dawn, Gerald Gardner, Doreen Valiente, Sybil Leek and Cheiro the well-known palmist. He also wanted to fit in Helen Duncan but didn’t have enough time. He had done a really good job with his research and uncovered lots of interesting facts and theories. In his talk he mentioned a few astrological links and similarities between the occultists but it wasn’t primarily about the astrology, and I thought that the talk would be suitable for a pagan audience or a group of non-astrologers if they had an interest in these characters too. One point he made was that all the founding members of the Golden Dawn had Moon in Pisces apart from Mathers.

After this another break and into the third talk of the day – which turned out to be the highlight of the day for me. This talk was presented by Ewa Krajewska and was called ‘Venus in Fall and in Detriment’. She said in the programme brochure ‘Venus shows our material status, relationships, artistic talents and how we dress. Does a weak Venus bring financial issues, bad luck in love, failures in artistic projects or bad taste in fashion? I will explain how to use a ‘weak’ Venus to be successful’. I was intrigued! And as I was born with a ‘weak’ Venus thought I might benefit from some further information on the subject… It turns out the speaker herself also has a ‘weak’ Venus and so her theories were based upon a personal knowledge of how it feels and operates as well as research that she has done on her clients and students. Well to cut a long story short this talk was brilliant! Her slides, timing and style of teaching was superb and I admired her perfect timing and presentation skills very much. Inspirational to see such a speaker and the subject matter was fantastic. I decided there and then to follow up this subject and expand upon it with a workshop on all of the planets in Fall and Detriment so that students can come to understand and learn to use the energies that these planets offer in a positive way.

All this and now lunchtime, already I was beginning to flag! How people manage to think and remember stuff for a whole weekend or even long weekend I cannot begin to fathom. My brain was full already! Haha So anyway lunch was OK, but for me not amazing although to be fair I was more interested in the astrology than the food. However, sitting with 6 or 7 new astrologers was great and the chatter around the table so interesting! The hour and a quarter flew by like lightning and I hadn’t even had a look at the bookstalls yet!

After lunch I went to a talk by Ema Kurent called Eclipses in Personal Forecasting. Ema was a passionate speaker about this subject and showed us some great examples of how she has used Eclipses in her everyday practice as a consultant astrologer. She ran through the rules of interpretation, what is an isn’t allowed and stressed how if you follow the rules properly Eclipses tell you almost everything you need for a consultation! It was an enjoyable talk and she did a great job. So great in fact that I then left the conference to go check out my own pre-birth and after-birth eclipses and those of my children!

I chilled with some coffee and cake in the hotel bar for half an hour, had a quick look round the bookstalls which had new books for sale and a large collection of second hand books at reduced prices too. Then got a taxi back to the Travelodge. (low point of the day, the taxi driver ripped me off charging me £9.80 for a very short journey *sigh*)

Lectures continued until 6-45pm, followed by meetings, a grand dinner and dancing! But for me it was bath, Mcdonalds take away and dreaming over next year’s programme for the 60th birthday of the AA and 50th Astrology Conference. (It looks amazing!!) Then pondering astrology charts and the new techniques I’d learned back in the Travelodge till my eyes closed for the night!