Lunarium News

Issue #135, August 15, 2022

Daily Forecasts on Lunarium

Since recently, we are publishing daily (or so) forecasts based on what's going on in the sky. The forecasts are being written by my colleague Alina Aster who is writing them for a few publishers but has kindly agreed to have them in addition published in English if I'll take on myself the burden of translation. Admittedly, my translations are not perfect, but I hope they are readable.

The lifecycle of forecasts goes like this: once the text is ready, I post it on Lunarium News Telegram channel (https://t.me/lunarium_news). Then I send the text to my designer who finds an appropriate image and formats it for Instagram and Facebook posts, then makes the posts. This additional work introduces a delay, but ultimately the forecast becomes available on Lunarium Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/lunariumuk) and @neolunarium Instagram account (https://www.instagram.com/neolunarium/).

So if you are interested in the forecasts and have access to any of the mentioned platforms — welcome! And if you like the forecasts, do not hesitate to spread the word about them.

The Return of Micro-Lessons and the Foundational Astrology Course

A few years ago I sent to my subscribers a couple of so-called "micro-lessons" of astrology, to demonstrate the approach to teaching I was designing then. The idea is to discuss in each lesson only a single topic, but to do that in such a way that everyone could understand the point. And then give the students an opportunity to practice the knowledge of the lesson in one or another way. If such lessons will be published regularly and without significant delay between them, over the time any complex topic or system of knowledge can be taught, with students retaining the majority of presented information. This idea was met by my subscribers with enthusiasm but at that time I did not go ahead with it as I didn't see a good platform for the lessons. I saw how email system was deteriorating further and further every year and didn't want many of my lessons to end up in spam folders or disappear without a trace.

Now I found a platform that looks near perfect, it's YouTube. On my existing YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/LunariumUkPage). I created a playlist 'Astrology Lessons', and it will appear in the content of the channel once I publish the first lesson before the end of this week. To accompany and complement the lessons, there are also 'Software' and 'Astro Stories' playlists, the former will be offering tutorials showing how to solve certain astrological problems with the help of various software packages and services, and the latter sharing examples and ideas.

The plan is to have a lesson added every week, and perhaps some complementary video or two as well.

And what is the course? — I hear you asking. Many students were and are requesting me to create a foundational course on general astrology, and this is exactly what I am going to present on my channel. We'll start from natal chart, how to read and understand it, then move on to methods of forecasting, astrology of relationships and other popular topics. Sky is the limit!

Why I believe I will manage to deliver such a course? First of all, I started teaching astrology over 30 years ago. Second, I have a whole bookshelf of my published books, unfortunately only a few of them are in English. My 'Teach Yourself Astrology' book was originally published in 2001, so many current practicing astrologers consider me their first teacher. This book is still in print, and some bookstores have it in their lists of bestsellers. In the last few years I've published more of substantial books, for example a guide on the astrology of relationships in two volumes. It is a pity, of course, that none of my important books were translated into English, but these days we have other, more effective ways of teaching. I am planning to use video lessons to deliver my knowledge and experience to English-language students.

Here is a link to the channel again: https://www.youtube.com/c/LunariumUkPage. Please subscribe there, in order not to miss any of the coming lessons and other videos.

My Master Class at the Coming AA Conference

Last year at the AA Conference (an annual conference of the Astrological Association of Great Britain) in Wyboston Lakes (it was 'hybrid' — both in-person and online) I've delivered two talks, one of them was on declination and out-of-bounds planets. Both talks were well met, and when a couple of months later I suggested an article on declination and OOB planets to ISAR International Astrologer, it was accepted with enthusiasm. The article was published in the magazine in April 2022, and you can now download a PDF copy of it.

This year the AA Conference will be online only. I had a talk on heliocentric astrology scheduled there when the organizers of the conference, after seeing my article published in the ISAR magazine, contacted me and offered to conduct a 2.5-hour master class on declination and OOB planets. Of course I agreed, and now I have both a master class and a regular talk at the conference. You can see the itinerary here

iLuna Updates

I am now working on a new version of my flagship app iLuna. Here you can see which new elements of information are coming in this version:

1. There is an information on the periods of retrograde Mercury, so that you could always know, when the next of them is approaching.
2. The last aspect before every void-of-course period of the Moon is now displayed. Not many people know about these last aspects, but they are important. I might say more on this in the app's help system.
3. Those New and Full Moons that are eclipses will be clearly marked as such.

Other additions include possibility to choose which elements of information you want to see in the app. For example if you'll decide that retrograde Mercury isn't for you, you'll be able to switch off its display in the app. Also notifications will be shown only for those elements that you chose to display.

If you are using iLuna and have some suggestions, I'd be happy to hear from you. You can simply respond to this email.

Development is taking more time that usual because for this app I am using the latest native technologies from Apple, and I need to learn them in parallel with development. The positive side here is that the app will be more future-proof.

And of course you will ask me: how about the new version of iLuna for Android, which was left behind in terms of functionality offered? The answer is: as soon as the new iLuna for iPhone will be published, my very next project will be to create its functional copy for Android, again using the latest native technologies.

Planets' Keywords at the Planetary Hours Calculator

The new online Planetary Hours Calculator came with some important new features. However, one of the users complained bitterly that it doesn't display common keywords for planets anymore.

I added back the keywords, and you can see them by clicking on a planet's symbol. This however only works on a proper computer, not on a mobile device. Does anybody using mobile devices would wish to see the keywords? if yes, please let me know and I'll try to figure out how to do that.