Therapeutic Astrology Podcast

Evolutionary astrologer Redwood Naragon joins me to talk about the collective planetary nodes, a speciality he has develop into over many years, inspired by Jeffrey Wolfgreen and the EA School. Here you will hear Redwoods take on what the nodes say about the evolutionary direction of humanity as a whole. We start with the nodes of Pluto, to align with the EA Pluto Paradigm.
From there Redwood alo goes into Venus–Uranus nodal conjunction, which carries the long arc of literacy, trade, technology and travel, and alongside it the recurring experience of social alienation, cultural outcast patterns, and migration.
TAP in with us as we look into:
-Honoring the original teachings while expanding them
-The meaning of the cancer archetype, to be full of care for one
-Individuating souls who no longer feel at home in their own land
-How the nodes of planet work and how Plutos point to a certain crisis
-The exact conjunction of the 1330s bringing shipbuilding and the plague
-The arc of Venus-Uranus-Gemini for connecting and instant messaging and social disruption 
-Nodes of Uranus into sag -gemini leading to spiritual traditions in written form 
-The risk of climate displacement- the risk of becoming a refugee 
-The extreme of unequal exchange
In the end I felt we spoke so much astrology, that I'd rather know about Redwood's own life philosophy !!
This is a conversation to be continued...Meanwhile, check the links:
LINKS:
Check Redwood here: 
https://www.redwoodnaragon.com/
 
the messageboard thread we mention: https://eaforum.schoolofevolutionaryastrology.com/index.php/topic,6.15.html
 
 
Mannah:
https://www.therapeuticastrologer.com/
 
youtube link:
https://youtu.be/zmKw-xnGCpI

"The further we step outside the constructs of monogamy, the more we inevitably come to see our relationships through new eyes, and sometimes we may not like what we see. Whether you are brand new to CNM, or have been living some form of it for years, the changes that come as you or your partner develop new relationships can radically alter your life in unpredictable ways. For many, the changes that CNM can bring act like a pressure cooker, heating things up and bringing to the surface all kinds of feelings, issues, and dynamics that you were potentially never aware of, such as unprocessed trauma, unresolved ruptures, power imbalances, lingering resentments, poor communication habits, codependency, or even deal-breaking incompatibilities. As CNM forces us to confront some of the exposed cracks in the foundation of our relationships, it can be helpful to remember they are not necessarily the result of personal shortcomings on our part, but often the remnants of relational dynamics that were most likely masked by the closed container of monogamy, or the ostensible security of more hierarchical polyamory." Quote from Polywise, 2023, written by my guests today. Jessica Fern is a psychotherapist and Certified Clinical Trauma Professional, and the author of "Polysecure" from 2020. David Cooley is a restorative justice facilitator and the creator of the Restorative Relationship Conversation Process. Together they wrote "Polywise" in 2023 and "Transforming the Shame Triangle" in 2026
I feel this interview about different factors in consensual non-monogamy (CNM) is so important, because I personally think we are living through a major relational shift due to the ways we can now connect, and in the ways we are now able to see beyond what's considered normal and accept more diversity. This is about how we live with each other, and how we are able to love within different structures. And I'm telling you: as a Pluto in Scorpio gen, it is so refreshing to hear information that dismantles the marriage ideal I was never able to live up to, and yet for any gen it is "a painful process of releasing your attachment to a relationship that can no longer give you either what you need or what they want and what they need".. That's me personally, referring to PolyWise - what about you? I hope you enjoy this one as we speak of:
How we are swimming in the paradigm of monogamy
Love is infinite. And yet, attachment isn't !!!
Attachment as a choice rather than an accident
The many shapes of CNM could be hierarchical and non-hierarchical polyamory, solo polyamory, swinging, and Life partners where you are formerly married, now sharing a home - how does a new partner fit into that??
For who does it in monogamy "feel like they're dying"?
Legislation making polyamorous people a protected class
Relational intelligence !!
Quite a bit more!!!
In this episode we basically go from the books PolySecure & PolyWise to Transforming the Shame Triangle.
As we learn throughout there are several links from the work with parts to CNM, in Polywise Jessica Fern also uses the parts-work approach to explore why CNM can activate such strong emotional reactions. Parts that react on CNM may be:
a child part afraid of being abandoned or having its needs unmet
a hurt part carrying experiences of betrayal or infidelity
a competitive part afraid of being replaced
a "princess" part wanting to be the only special person
a critical part that distrusts non-monogamy altogether
insecure parts that fear not being enough
The parts are trying to protect important needs for safety, attachment, love, recognition, choice, and belonging.
Now in Jessica and Davids latest book: "Transforming the Shame Triangle: From Shame to Love Using Parts Work" this way of relating to yourself is even further explained, and giving voice to shame and the possible transformation process, which we also touch on in this interview. 
Let's continue the conversation on alternative relating!! Many of us have embraced this multiplicity of the mind as it works wonders therapeutically - but then what about in our interpersonal relationships, could open relationship help us heal? 
-Mannah
LINKS:
view it on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbGEXLDdjzE
The books are:
PolySecure: https://a.co/d/08mEr2lH
PolyWise: https://a.co/d/06EHS7uh
Shame Triangle: https://a.co/d/032uTtej
Websites:
Jessica Fern: https://www.jessicafern.com/
David Cooley: https://www.restorativerelationship.com/
Mannah: https://www.therapeuticastrologer.com/
 
Support me by listening to this on https://podimo.com/s/m8a0anov

"When our cries go unanswered, we find ourselves having to shout louder. It is easy to see how these attempts to be praised can be misread and labelled incorrectly as arrogance, misbehavior, or being a show-off. As a result, it may feel as if we are being told that our need for mirroring is in some way bad or wrong. In being misunderstood, our developmental needs can be misconstrued, and a distorted story may be told about who we are. Sadly, we often internalize these stories and labels and, in doing so, inadvertently deny and exile the vulnerability of our own needs. Misunderstandings of this nature occur not only during our development, but also in our daily lives." Just one of the MANY great quotes from my psychotherapist -guest today, Joe Pawson, from his book "Dependency and Denial: The Stories That Divide Us" (Karnac, 2026)
This became a deep conversation about how we NEED each other. And in a culture that idealizes self-sufficiency, our dependency, our need for others, becomes something we exile and DENY. Joe Pawson talks about how the stories we create protect us from pain, but also separate us, separation from each other and from ourselves. He is excellent with words (AND EMPATHY), so slow everything down and go into a reflective space with us as we talk about:
Why our connection to each other can be both the source of our wounds and part of the remedy

Anxious and avoidant attachment, and what may exist underneath the attachment styles themselves

How falling in love reactivates some of our earliest hopes, fears and developmental wounds

Denial as a way of creating maps and stories that make life, pain and trauma more manageable

How we can internalize the message that our needs are too much, silly, weak or unwanted

The moments in therapy where a client begins to become vulnerable and then suddenly interrupts, minimizes or dismisses their own experience - before the therapist does (?!) We have a long segment on denial in therapy setting-  and also we come to talk about the therapist's own vulnerability, the willingness wo be in the unknown 

How TRAGIC misunderstandings happen when we cannot see the vulnerability underneath another person's behavior

Projected vulnerability and what happens as when we see what is ours in other people

Buddhist ideas of interdependence, the illusion of a completely separate self and the difficulty of seeing beyond the maps through which we understand reality

The idea that the key to reconnecting with greater wholeness may lie precisely in the vulnerabilities we have abandoned

THEN I look at Joe's huge Cancer energy and in particular I say something about Mars in Cancer, and we explore Mars as the warrior who can protect vulnerability and tender places- It goes into his relationship to politics and ability to stay with the larger picture rather than concrete and limiting solutions.

-IN THE VERY END I challenge Joe to come up with a good not activating ending, as we talk about goodbyes in therapy. 
I hope you will love this! I have had the book with me all summer and have just enjoyed reading it slowly, taking in his beautifully put words and feeling into my own huge longing for more closeness in this world. PS another quote: "Breaking down can become breaking through when there is someone there to hold us - as we fall apart" !!
-Mannah
LINKS:
the book:
https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/dependency-and-denial-the-stories-that-divide-us/98431/
my guest:
https://www.jppsychotherapy.co.uk/
myself:
https://www.therapeuticastrologer.com/
 
youtube edition: https://youtu.be/S51zXfhXvU4
my preferred place to listen: https://podimo.com/s/m8a0anov

Sherrie Campbell, PhD, is a licensed psychologist who specializes in helping healthy people cut ties with toxic family members. She is a nationally recognized expert on family estrangement, an inspirational speaker, a social media influencer, and author of many books on the theme of toxic and abusive family and how to heal while navigating those biological relationships. In this episode of Therapeutic Astrology Podcast, we tap deeply into toxic family dynamics, emotional abuse, boundaries, family estrangement and healing of it!
Our conversation centers especially around Dr. Sherries latest published book, "You Are Home: Heal from Family Trauma, Establish Boundaries, and Find a Place of Peace and Safety" from 2026. Sherrie speaks not only as a psychologist, but as a survivor who has lived what she writes about! She describes her own journey of breaking free from a toxic family system, "turning predators into purpose," healing out loud, and moving toward redemption rather than revenge and in the book she gives a plan of how to rebuild yourself as your own home after emotionally abuse.
TAP in as we go into topics such has:
• Family estrangement and why going no contact still challenges such a powerful cultural taboo
• Why severing ties with family is rarely a sudden decision, but often the end of a very long history of trying, hoping and being hurt again
• Therapists can support clients exploring estrangement without imposing their own beliefs and judgements about family
• THE WHY of toxic parenting -why they  behave as they do don't matter
• Closure, maladaptive guilt, gaslighting and boundaries
• The central metaphor in the book, is that you are your own house! your own structure that belong to you
• We go through the floors, beginning with the basement and our "monsters" 
• I also ask Sherrie about the term "the bottom will fall out" 
• Boundaries as different levels of access: the porch, the yard, the fence and, when necessary, no contact
• The difference between imperfect parenting and emotional abuse touching on the importance of repair, accountability and making sure a child does not become responsible for a parent's emotions
• Emotional regulation as allowing yourself to fully feel rather than feeling less 
• The top floor of the house is your autonomy, and being able to reclaime your identity 
• Radical acceptance versus forgiveness
• Becoming your own greatest family and developing a rich inner world that does not depend entirely on other people
Toward the end, we move into astrology, exploring Sherrie's Aries and Libra signatures and her Sun–Chiron conjunction, and the spiritual support she has experienced during some of the darkest periods of her life, esepcially during her Neptune Square.
Hope you get much of this one - recommend it for someone who have had to cut ties with family
LINKS:
https://drsherriecampbell.com/
Sherries own podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sherapy-sessions-the-hows-of-healing-hidden-family-trauma/id1591691842
Mannah:
https://www.therapeuticastrologer.com/
support me on: https://podimo.com/s/m8a0anov
watch on youtube: https://youtu.be/qzwVh5ygK64

"The more sensitive someone is, the more crucial it is that they embody this other quality if their sensitivity is to inform their wholeness rather than disrupt it." & "If our sensitivities open us to the resonances of the world, it is another capacity that enables us to "gather" what is gleaned rather that being overwhelmed or knocked off balance by it: a capacity that enables us to be "collected"—to deepen into our wholeness and assimilate What Is. We might call this integrative quality 'groundedness'. (Radical Wholeness, 2017, Philip Shepherd - it makes even more sense when read in full context of the book, I just wanted to introduce you to his perspective a little when it comes to sensitivity) 
Welcome to the second part of my conversation with Philip Shepherd, who is an Embodiment expert, author and co-director of The Embodied Present Process. In this episode we continue to talk about his book RADICAL WHOLENESS, but this time with an emphasis on SENSITIVITY. Basically we learn how sensitivity is a form of intelligence!
I begin the interview by quoting him: "When your heart yearns to surrender to the freedom of your wholeness, the journey that beckons is one that has never been made before: no one has ever stepped into your wholeness, and no one can predict where it will take you. You are treading into the unknown. You are opening the body's sensitivities to the thriving wakefulness of the Present living through your being."
THEN here is some of the places we go:
-Sensitivity to hearing and understanding what you are here to do/your service
-Feeling the necessity rather than being pulled away by society
-Feel the earth to bring coherence to the sensitivity, and how we learned not to trust the earth and how that will help us join something larger than ourselves
-Sensitivity in the education system - I am here thinking of this quote: "Imagine, for a moment, how radically different an education system would be if 1) its aim were to foster intelligence rather than mere learning; 2) it understood intelligence to be 'grounded sensitivity'; and 3) it recognized that the attunement of each child's intelligence to the world is unique."
-Reward and punishment, is that the best education? or could we ignite students fire?
-Philip shares WHY he cares about sensitivity in the school system 
-This desensitized realm that seeks to dominate through a top-down relationship
-Some ideas on why more people are being diagnosed as autistic
-Can we trust the senses? Or the logic more?
-Walking in the woods can be while remaining in the head, rather than being in the present, we need to learn from nature
-Sexuality and the embodied present process 
-The wound is reinforced by the school system. Our being and thinking are in fact ONE
-Bodyworld,the unity of the self: I am inseparable from the world
-Responsebility over idependence 
-What happens when we shut down sensitivity 
-Being held by the Present
-Reality rather than over ideas about reality
-Rather than organizing ourselves and the bind of self-consciousness, we can be organized and guided by the present
-My body knows...there is a belonging
-Coming back to the body is coming back to sensitivity 
-A Surrender that EMPOWERS you
-Your fluidity 
-Question what has shaped you, so that you have a choice
-Philip - on a listeners request- shares a bit about his bike journey at 17 from England to Japan where he found the limitations of his own culture 
-HEAR THIS: I knew that if I stayed within my culture, my aliveness would be diminished!!! (Philip is so quotable!)
-The pelvic bowl...drop your center of your thinking there
-WHEN sensitivity gets dangerous! ...and when it can be SAFE to FEEL
Hope you love it. I'll keep reading Philip Shepherd, and I hope to speak with him more in the future. I feel he has some urgently important things to say to our time, and that his work can be therapeutic even through the way it is written, in a more poetic language that I feel engages more of me than usual. 
LINKS
find this episode on youtube: https://youtu.be/NCF4_wQJ458
Find Philip Shepherd here:
https://embodiedpresent.com/
the embodied practises: https://embodiedpresent.com/pages/embodiment-practices-for-uncertain-times
Philips books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B003VO31LC
Mannah:
https://www.therapeuticastrologer.com/