Q & A for Speaker Pallas Augustine

A family friend read my chart when I was a young child and growing up in the flatlands
and big skies of western Canada, I was already astronomy obsessed, so being told my
favourite myths, stories, magic, and animals also lived in the constellations and planets I
love so much just really brought my world together. I wrote so many stories as a
kid—still do—and astrology and the “natural” world have always been a part of my
writing life.

After that, I wound my way through any astrology and occult books I could find in my
family home, smalltown libraries and used bookstores, casting charts with the tables in
the back half of Woolfolk’s The Only Astrology Book You’ll Ever Need, devouring Rob
Brezsny’s horoscopes in the weekly queer paper whenever we went to the city, then
learning from Astrodienst—Liz Greene and Robert Hand—once the internet came
around. When Neptune entered Pisces, I got more serious about my skills, and began
seeing a professional astrologer Julia Wawrzyniak-Beyer in Toronto to fill in the gaps in
my education. I attended my first NORWAC in 2016 on an AFAN scholarship, excited to
study in-person with Demetra George and Robert Hand. In 2019, I attended Mark
Jones’ masterclass in Wales and the Faculty of Astrological Studies’ Astrology of
Ancestral Healing track at Summer School in Oxford with Lynn Bell and Melanie
Reinhart. Volunteering and speaking in the astrology conference world, I’ve had the
privilege of sharing company with and learning from some of the world’s best
astrologers practicing in relational and magical modes, honour the many living teachers
and ancestors of vocation who have contributed to my learning, and the many more-
than-human spirits and creatures who continue to teach me about celestial-terrestrial
connections.

Being a devoted child of astrology raised in multiple schools of practice—particularly
psychological, humanistic/transpersonal, and Hellenistic/Medieval revivals—my
specialty seems to lie in grounding our many ideas of the celestial in our living terrestrial

experience. My scholarly background is in environment, culture, and literature, so the
history and transmission of ideas/practices is always a lens through which I do my
research. My new book, The IC: An Astrology of Coming Home, published through Idola
Stellarum, is the culmination of years of direct client research and creative practice
focused on the Imum Coeli, ancestors, the land, creativity, ecology, and magic. The IC
isn’t exactly something you can focus on—it moves and shapeshifts when you try to
look at it too directly, which is kind of the joke of it being my specialty—but I have
definitely spent a lot of time down there with other people and myself!

What are your top 3 favorite astrology books?

I’ve always been inspired by how visionary magician and author-teacher Josephine
McCarthy speaks of “tides,” as the waves of power and change that flow through and
over humanity and the Earth over long periods of time, and how as magicians we are
right in the middle of preparing and responding to these tides. As astrologers, we relate
to them and their kin as the astrological ages, Great Conjunctions, synodic cycles, and
outer planet movements we live within and study. I’ve been thinking about how Pluto’s
Aquarius ingress overlaps with the last Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in Aquarius that
cemented us in the New Age of Air, these tides coming together in a unified Aquarian
chorus at a time when the technical differences between “traditional” and “modern”
astrologies take a backseat to a growing sense of potential congruence between the

history and future of our beloved craft, witnessing the permutations that adapt as
culture, politics, and the Earth change too.

Are there any additional comments you would like to make about your lecture?

I’m aiming this lecture to be relevant to consulting astrologers and intermediate to
advanced astrology enthusiasts to reflect on their own charts and also leave with some
ways to consider the charts of those you serve and are in relationship with. This will be
the first time I have publicly zoomed in on the relationship of the IC to the MC and all the
unexpected rooting to be found—the kind of conversation that happens all the time in
private sessions—so I’m excited to see you there!