The opening lecture and workshop of the 2016-2017 Washington Astrologers Association (WSAA) season was skillfully orchestrated by Kristin Fontana. Kristin’s speciality is evolutionary astrology (EA) which begins with the premise of reincarnation and an evolutionary journey of the soul. EA posits that issues not worked out in previous lives are the core themes in this life. I find it fascinating discovering other ways that we choose to make sense of our world and our lives.

The Thursday lecture was titled “Skipped Steps in Relationships” and focused on planets that formed a square with the nodal axis. What this essentially suggests is that a planet represents a core psychic issue that has not been previously resolved and will reoccur time and again until it has been. Think of the proverbial hamster on the wheel, “round and round and round it goes”, or a scratch in a vinyl record (you do remember them don’t you?) that gets caught in a groove replaying the same part of the song over and over and over again. Kristin demonstrated this technique using a number of charts with wonderfully colorful, and yet accurate, descriptions like: “Hiding Nature”, “Can’t Orgasm”, “Destined for Heart Break”, “Padded with Protection”, “Trauma”. From these titles you can easily guess what the charts revealed.

The lecture presentation easily transitioned into the topic for the Saturday “all day” workshop titled “So we meet again!”. The underlying assumption being that not only do we live many lives but we get to relive those lives with the same people to help evolve by tackling unresolved “karmic” issues. In the workshop we explored a bit deeper and broader in scope, from light to extremely dark cases. Some of the examples we explored were: “I can see clearly now”, “Hiding”, “I want mama”, “Same Soul”, “Mommy Dearest”, “S/M Work”, “Self-sufficient”, “Karmic Close”, “Mountain Scare”, “Stalker” and on.

Some of the topics we explored were the phasal relationship between a pair of planets in a chart. Kristin explained the main eight: New, Crescent, 1st Quarter, Gibbous, Full, Disseminating, Last Quarter, and Balsamic. This is a powerful concept revealing a dynamic process underlying it all. In fact it’s a concept I have been recently exploring to enrich my own astrological intuition and counseling. Krisitn specifically focused on the Mars/Venus phasal relationship since the topic was “relationship” oriented.

I think my favorite area, along with the chart synthesis, was exploring the relationship conditioning types. This broke down into the following 5 categories: Co-dependent, Counselor/Counselee, Student/Teacher, Sado-Masochistic and Self-sufficient. The goal, ideally, is to become self-sufficient to the point of not needing another person which then prepares one for attracting another self-sufficient person resulting in a deep and rewarding relationship. All in all it was a powerful learning experience.

May we say that Marcela and I had the pleasure of meeting, listening to, speaking with and learning from Kristin Fontana. We are looking forward to other opportunities in our future.