Author: Alison Price   –   Published: July 2013   –   Revised: January 2024

Our Journey to 100 episodes

When you start your astrological journey, you never know where it will end up.

Sometimes you don’t even realize there is a journey at all.

It just seems like another day.

But it is a day with astrology in your life.

There was the day before astrology came into your life and then there is the day when astrology got you.

The day when you thirsted to learn more.

To understand the glyphs.

To discover other signs.

To explore areas of life that astrology represented for you.

And it just gets better.

The more you learn about astrology the more you realize you know nothing.

I mean, there are so many advanced topics to explore once you have got the hang of a basic chart interpretation.

Your Path

Your path is different to mine.

You will meander down new trails.

You may stay on the highways, but long to dally down a side road or lay by.

Your way will be the right one for you.

Learning

The order in which your astrology knowledge grows is different to everyone else’s.

There is no one size fits all.

Looking back, can you see the turning points in your astrology journey?

Can you say when you finally “got” astrology?

If you even have?

How we got here

I took my first astrology lesson in 1980.

It was just the beginning of a two-year diploma course.

Since then, I’ve attended countless other astrological conferences, events, gatherings, classes, courses and workshops.

I’ve had years to hone my craft.

And by the way, I believe this is a sixth house activity – to gain the skills you need to do the work you do.

I still seek out opportunities for professional development and I urge you to do so as well.

Take that class.

Go to that workshop.

Join that group.

Read that book.

Lean in.

Grow.

Evolution of Our Podcast

The most recent thing I’ve done astrologically, apart from getting this newsletter onto a regular cadence, is the Starzology podcast.

It wasn’t planned. It just evolved.

Let me tell you how.

Vancouver

When I first arrived in Vancouver in 2012, I did not know many people.

I began a Meetup group in my local coffee shop.

The topic was, of course, astrology and I think it the first meeting was a New Moon session.

3 People came. 

Not a great turnout.

Anyway, as the meeting broke up we said our goodbyes and I began walking home.

One woman was going my way, so we chatted a bit and walked together.

When I got to the front my high rise apartment building I halted and said, “This is me” and she said, “Me too!”

What was this serendipity?  

I’ve just moved into the same building as another astrologer in a city of six hundred and fifty thousand people!

What are the odd?

Clearly 1:650 000 or thereabouts.

That is how I met Arwynne.

She lives two floors above me. She is my upstairs neighbour if you will.

We met again the next month and further developed our connection.

The point is that you never know who you will meet and who will influence your astrology.

Even with a poor attendance, of just 3 people in that first meeting, I was able to make a fantastic connection with a likeminded astrologer whom I’ve now known for over 12 years.

Our First Podcast

A few months in, Arwynne said, “We should do a podcast.”

To which I replied, “What’s a podcast?”

Arwynne explained that in a podcast we record our astrology conversation and then put it out there.

Out where I wasn’t sure.

Her partner had a microphone and so we set a time to meet at her place for our first recording.

Axis Astrology

Back then we decided to call it Axis Astrology referring to the Ascendant and MC axes in every chart. Over the next two years we recorded episodes every week.

We had many interesting astrology guests like Nina Gryphon and Andrew Morton from the UK who flew in and recorded with us.

The Mountain Astrologer picked our show up and recommended our podcast to their readership. You can still listen to those early episodes here.

Over time Axis Astrology ran its course and we stopped recording. This was a before Spotify and Apple podcasts. Things were different then.

But we remained friends and would have social dinners with our partners together now and then.

I also invited Arwynne to speak at the Vancouver astrology group when I was running the show.

Seasonal Art Group

In 2022 I started a seasonal art group. You can see more about this here.

I knew Arwynne was an artist as she had designed astrology tarot cards and drew Badass Goddess artworks at a local studio in town.

I invited her and a couple of other art ladies and we got together for an art evening session. If you are interested, I do watercolour and acrylics.

We did the art group a few times.

In my spare time, I started to listen to podcasts on Apple podcast once I’d downloaded the app and after Norma began hers.

Then I started to listen to people like Andrew Huberman and lots of others. I became a podcast listener.

In April 2023 I had the idea to launch my own podcast.

The very next day I had my Buzzsprout account opened, threw some money at it and voila my first episode was recorded and live.

That week I messaged Arwynne, who I had not seen for a couple of months, and simply said, “How about it?”

She agreed and we got the second episode in the bag by the following week.

I started out publishing episodes fortnightly as I honestly did not know what I was doing.

Within weeks is was obvious that we had enough content to go weekly.

Gulp!

Could I keep it up?

Was the commitment too much?

Would anyone listen?

Wednesday

We pushed on doing weekly shows for around four months and then added the Wednesday midweek minisodes, little episodes, as well.

We wanted to keep the Sundays for solid astrology and meaningful conversations.

We added the midweek ones with a lighter tone and more variety.

The vision was that we could chat about things other than mainstream topics.

There was a place on the Wednesday edition for a little more individual personality and both Arwynne and I have lots of that.

We’ve since gone on to interview people independently, but we always come back to the main editions.

In a way, it has given us a flexibility to allow our creative output to flourish.

There has been talk of slotting in an odd Friday quickie as well, but we’ll have to see about that.

Who Knew?

The point is that 24 months ago I did not know I would be an astrology podcaster.

It has been a way for myself, and Arwynne, to express our love of astrology and share it with you.

For myself, I believe the Uranus ingress into my 11th house was the spark. And as Jupiter entered as well it could grow and the broadcast improved.

To grow (Jupiter) my tribe (11th house) through astrology (Uranus).

What About You?

What will you be doing astrologically in 2 years time? That’s one Mars return and a great time period to get something started, launched and nurtured.

What will you do

Don’t answer now.

I have some specific questions for you in the “Extend Yourself” section below.

Thanks to You

Our podcast would not be where it is today without you.

I want to thank you for supporting our podcast and the astrology conversations we love to provide you.

As this week we publish our 100th episode, our centennial episode if you will, we are grateful.

Grateful that you came.

Grateful to you for listening and sharing in our astrology journey.

The Next 100 Episodes

I’d like to share with you what it takes to wrestle each episode to the mat.

Podcast Episodes

The Plan

We painstakingly plan the content.

We look for a variety and balance of astro topics and levels of complexity.

We need more basic than advanced stuff as that is our audience.

Sunday Content

Our Sunday episode is usually the main one for the week.

It includes upcoming transits and or other solid astrology information about planets, signs, houses and aspects.

Wednesday Content

Our Wednesday episodes tend to be slightly more beginner topics presented by Arwynne and her guests.

I pop in mid-week when we’re doing an high level chart reading for one of our listeners.

These episodes are examples of where to start with readings.

Additionally, I may present some solo topics and astrology ideas that I want to float and explore.

The midweek show can be a mix.

Studio Recording

We schedule the recording sessions for every other Monday evening.

I spend at least one hour setting up the podcast studio.

This generally means tiding up, sorting some lighting and sound organization.

I rearrange the furniture because the podcast studio, although it sounds fancy, is actually set up at my dining table.

There are microphones, candles, an iPad with the charts for the night on Astro Gold, a laptop computer and pens and notepad at the ready.

I also a prepare Audacity, which is our audio recording platform, for the two particular episodes which we will discuss that night.

Often I draw the chart in question on my freestanding whiteboard so we can discuss it on the go.

I’ll also list things that we must mention that evening. It’s like a checklist.

Arwynne arrives at my place around 6pm.

She has her computer and copious reference notes (did I say she is a research astrologer?) and usually a book or two.

We do a sound check and then get straight into the two recordings.

Voice

When recording, its important to save your voice and not talk much earlier in the day so you don’t sound raspy at the end of the day.

I do this by trying not to talk much beforehand. This is not always easy to achieve, but now I avoid teaching classes, coaching, having general Zoom chats and Astro consulting on “podcast day”.

We have a few snacks and a light drink.

Each session usually takes three hours to record two 30-minute episodes.

There are stops and starts and we may chop and change things up on the fly.

After the recording is finished we will take some time to brainstorm upcoming topics.   

Now we’ll also discuss anything else business wise about how we’re doing, what we’re doing, where we’re going and check our recent statistics.

Scheduling

We schedule in special time sensitive episodes like an eclipse piece for example.

Our recording schedule is entered into our joint calendar so we can both see it and add and move things around.

We schedule for about three months ahead.

Now and then some topics will jump the queue.

These queue-jumpers typically come from listeners like you sending in hot questions.

The evening concludes.

3 hours.

Edit

I start the editing of the audio files the next day.

It usually takes about one hour to edit each episode. This is high focus work.

Upload

The finished episode is uploaded to our podcast host Buzzsprout. Fingers crossed here.

Optimize

Now I add the title, authors, episode number, hashtags, description, referred links and link to the topic blog post.

I will pull that particular episodes audio link and add it to the blog post.

Sometimes the blog post goes live before the podcast episode is available on Apple or Spotify.

But once the link is on the blogpost anyone like you, ——- can listen as soon as it’s ready.

This is before the Sunday or Wednesday official launch of the podcast.

To be clear, some episodes are available early if you go to Starzology and visit the blog post.

The latest posts are in the sidebar.

Older posts that have been around for a while, like Mercury retrograde for example, but which do not yet have a podcast episode associated with them, will get the link straight to them.

Not every episode can be heard early.

Uploading to Buzzsprout and the associated tinkering and fiddling while Rome burns takes me about 30 minutes.

Artwork

Next, I create the four episode artworks:

The podcast episode icon that’s the square (1:1) with diagonal that details the episode.

The Pinterest pin for the blog post. This is the one that goes on Pinterest (2:3).

The Instagram post image for the episode (1:1) which is often different to the episode icon. And note at this stage I’m only posting to my Starzology Instagram grid on a Sunday. I plan to post the Wednesday episode to Instagram soon. It is just so much work and I haven’t got round to it yet.

The blog post image. This is typically something arty in blue and yellow our brand colors (3:2) and with more detail related to the specific topic. This artwork doubles as the image in this newsletter.

Social Content

Next I write the copy (words) that will go on the social posts.

So that is:

• One paragraph for Instagram with hashtags.
• One paragraph for Pinterest including hashtags.

These two then get uploaded and scheduled to go live on the same day as the podcast episode is officially released.

This all takes about half and hour.

So in all, getting each podcast episode out takes about 3.5 hours.

What am I telling you this?

Because it’s a labor of love.

We love what we do.

And from your response you do too.

Your Astro Journey

You don’t know where your astrology will take you.

And hey, maybe you can’t see the path just yet. That’s ok.

Giving it some thought could help.

Extend Yourself

If you bring your attention to bear on your astrology it can help focus your time and energy.

• What are your astrology dreams?
• Is your journey just starting out?
• Can you cast a chart?
• Can you read a natal chart?
• Can you forecast with transits? Secondary progressions?
• Which area of astrology do you need to focus on right now?
• What will you achieve?

Extend Yourself Further

Anyone can benefit from some forecasting. And as good astrologers, let’s lean into the planet’s cycles for some help.

• What is your next month (Moon) goal for astrology?
• What is your next quarter (seasonal/cardinal) goal for astrology?
• What is your next six-month (solstice) goal for astrology?
• What is your 12-month (Sun) goal for astrology?
• What is your 2-year (Mars) goal for astrology?

Too many questions?

Author Bio

Alison Price: Professional Astrologer

Alison helps you uncover your individual creativity and lead a fulfilling life using your own astrology. She shares her wisdom from the heart with a touch of humor. She offers Consultations for everyone and Coaching for Aspiring Astrologers.

If you’d like to get in touch with Alison, you can reach out to her via email at starzology@gmail.com.

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