Welcome back to another episode of STARGAZER: a podcast about astrology, alchemy and magic.

My guest on this episode is astrologer Gray Crawford, who stopped by to talk about how to better understand planets when they are in their fall—like how Jupiter is in Capricorn right now.

This is an episode you do not want to miss.

Gray Crawford is an independent teacher and scholar of astrology and mythology. His writing is always poetic, insightful and incredibly well researched. When I was a child, I wished that school could just be one long story-time, meandering journeys into ancient history and mythology, with poetry thrown in for musical effect. And that is exactly what Gray Crawford’s writing is like. 

I have been an avid reader of his work for many years. But at the end of 2019, I was feeling the pile up of planets in Capricorn really heavily. I became super depressed and totally at a loss to write about the ingress of Jupiter into Capricorn. This is Jupiter in its place of fall, well known to bring about a time of depression, austerity and deprivation. 

But I found inspiration in Gray Crawford’s article on the subject, where he associated Jupiter’s transit through Capricorn as being the return of Pan, the ancient Greek god of the wilderness. 

Pan symbolizes the awesome power of nature’s fertility as well as the trembling fear of the wild unknown.  As someone with a natal placement of Jupiter in Capricorn, I resonated with this chthonian imagery. I’ve always loved the archetype of Pan. I have read all the original myths and later discovered that Pan’s famous seven-reed flute was correlated to the seven planets. Pan as the spirit of nature plays this flute, symbolizing how nature makes use of the music of the spheres to enact changes in the world of matter. 

After the lockdown began in March, I realized that Gray’s assessment of Jupiter in Capricorn as being evocative of Pan had really hit the nail on the head. Pan had returned in the form of widespread panic and pandemonium.

I was very happy when Gray agreed to talk to me during this time. We had a nice conversation about how we began studying astrology and the hidden value of planets in their signs of fall.

If you would like to learn more about Gray’s work, please visit www.graycrawford.net where you can read his articles and stay informed about his upcoming classes and events.

You can register for Planets in Fall and the Spirit of the Depths with Gray Crawford, a free talk Gray is giving at Nightlight Astrology on May 16th, by clicking here.

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