Hi, I’m Linda. Thanks so much for checking out the Linda Be Learning newsletter. If you are just discovering me, I encourage you to check out my website and my YouTube channel to learn more about the work I do in the field of learning technology and innovation.

Welcome to May, aka, my birthday or solar return month, which I celebrate starting with Beltane right at the beginning of the month. This timing inspired the theme for this month’s newsletter -- astrology. Today is the start of Gemini season, and as you can see in my natal chart, I have quite a few key Gemini placements. My Saturn Return also begins during this Gemini season, and being in Aries, it is not surprising that the energy has been building toward what amounts to be a very significant life change in my near future.

Whether they are actually knowledgeable on the subject or not, many people have strong opinions about astrology, especially scientists and non-practitioners. Please consider this an opportunity to learn a different perspective from someone who is a trained scientist but also a person who understands that there are other valid systems of knowing besides quantitative scientific methods.

This month, we dive deep into the tech and the expert teachers in this space (pun intentional), and some critical insights about astrology and astronomy.

Let’s get into it!

Astrology Tech to Get Excited About

I am always discovering and exploring new tech. It’s usually:

• recent developments in tech I have worked on in the past,

• tech I am actively using myself for projects,

• tech I am researching for competitive analysis or other purposes, and/or

• my client’s tech.

There are literally TONS of astrology sites and apps available for you to choose from to learn more about astrology and use astrology for your own self-discovery. This month, I chose to highlight CHANI, one of the most beloved astrology apps, and the women behind it.

Chani Nicholas and the CHANI app

Chani Nicholas, president and co-founder of Chani.com and the CHANI app, is a New York Times best-selling author of You Were Born For This and counseling astrologer with more than 20 years’ experience and a community of over one million monthly readers. She strives to make astrology accessible and practical for your everyday life. In addition to her website and app, she also produces two podcasts: her weekly pod, Astrology of the Week Ahead; and Down to Astro, a monthly pod featuring fellow astrologers Thea Anderson and Eliza Robertson.

Astrology of the Week Ahead is exactly as it sounds, and I’ve included this week’s below, current as of today’s publication date.

In each episode of Down to Astro, Chani, Thea, and Eliza make sense of what’s happening here on Earth by looking to the sky. They go deep and bring listeners into the astrological group chat to talk through how recent astrology has been landing IRL, how upcoming transits could manifest in the collective, and how we can individually stay grounded amid the flurry. It is by far one of my personal favorite astrology pods, and I highly recommend it to folks who understand more than just the basics. If you need fundamentals, Chani has you covered there, too, with Astro 101.

Professional Astrology Programs

When I did group design research in labs, I used programs like SAS and SPSS to assist with the analysis of the experimental data, helping me report out my findings to my colleagues and the public at large. Similarly, professional astrologers use astrology programs and platforms to help them prepare for readings with their clients. These tools can be used to print out reports that can then be sold via a website or to clients through email or postal mail. Other platforms offer options such as setting up a shop, note taking, report writing, wheel design and databases indexing for thousands of charts.

If you are planning on getting into professional astrology, here are my top two recommendations, and a couple of honorable mentions.

Astrolabe’s Solar Fire Gold debuted in 1992 and is considered the pioneer in Windows-based astrology software. It is a comprehensive offering that includes forecasting, relationship analysis, electional astrology , relocation astrology, and rectification. It includes excellent reports by professional astrologers, ranging from basic birth chart reports to more esoteric astro intelligence reports, including: classical, medieval and horary, cosmobiology and Uranian, esoteric and prenatal, Vedic, Chinese, Huber, asteroids, fixed stars, eclipses, other astronomical cycles and declination, in mundo and off-the-ecliptic, harmonics, diurnals, and other advanced and cutting-edge calculations.

Kepler is another comprehensive program with every calculation imaginable that can be used by people with any level of experience, from novice to professional. Novices can stick to the basics and use Kepler’s Avalon lessons feature to get started. It includes a multmedia spoken interpretation of your chart and a graphics library.

Experts will enjoy using the advanced features. Kepler includes a complete atlas and has the usual assortment of biwheels, triwheels, quadwheels, progressions, and transits, but also classical western and Vedic features. It also includes excellent reports by professional astrologers, including: cosmo natal, cosmo compatibility, cosmo forecast, harmonic highlights, Vedic report, and the major life themes report. Some of these reports are provided in Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and other languages.

Other reports include: specialized natal, compatibility, forecast and progressions, returns, health, Chinese, past life, integrated, relocation, pets, asteroids, Vedic, talisman images, and horary.

Kepler also offers AstroSignature, research that compares groups of natal charts, with over 18,000 charts.

Jagannatha Hora is a popular free program utilized primarily by Vedic astrologers, but it can be customized to use different calculations/house systems that you would see in traditional Vedic, KP astrology, as well as tropical/sidereal western astrology.

Time Passages is perfect for beginners, but professional astrologers such as Rob Brezsny, Alan Oken, Antero Alli, Lyn Borsodi, and many others, use the Advanced Edition to do their astrological work.

And finally, Luna is AMAZING new cloud-based astro software worth checking out:

Astrology Technology: An Interview with Kelly Thompson

Last month I had the opportunity to sit down with my friend and colleague, Kelly Thompson, to discuss astrology and technology. In this interview, we discuss:

• How Kelly got started in astrology

• How she deepened her practice

• Some astrology apps that she used early on

• Schools of astrology (astrology disciplines)

• Astrologers Kelly follows

• Astronomy versus astrology

• Kelly's reading services

• The value and benefits of astrology

If you are interested in working with Kelly, visit her website or send her an email. For more astrology from Kelly, check out her Substack.

Other Recommended Astrologers

People often ask me which astrologers I follow. While I have learned from many astrologers over the years, I want to highlight just a few of them: Jeremy and Brad Spencer, Colin Bedell, and the incomparable Steven Forrest.

Jeremy and Brad Spencer

Jeremy and Brad are two of my favorite astrologers based out of Vancouver, BC, Canada, my home province. They built MoonReading.com to teach people about their moon sign and moon phase and what they reveal about their personality, hidden talents and potential for positive change.

Their video-based Moon Reading offers users a truly immersive astrological experience. They provide accurate and insightful guidance about your moon sign, moon phase and astrological chart, and how to use this new understanding to attract an abundance of love and prosperity. This information on your personal astrology is based on the most up-to-date and comprehensive astrological and lunar guidance.

Offering both free and for-fee products, their mission is to transform lives by providing deeply personalized astrological readings, content, products, and programs to help people understand their unique astrology and potential.

I also enjoy their Tarot and Moon Card daily readings, and include them as part of my daily morning ritual.

Colin Bedell

Colin Bedell is a bestselling author, speaker, and media expert on astrology and relationships. As the cofounder of QueerCosmos (a comparative Astrological resource for LGBTQIA+ folks), Colin is committed to updating ideas on identity, relationships, and spirituality that are inclusive to a wider range of racial, sexual, and gender diversity.

queercosmos

159K followers

View more on Instagram

Complementing his work with QueerCosmos, Colin writes weekly horoscopes for Cosmopolitan.com. Colin’s been featured on Good Morning America, New York Magazine, MTV, and TLC’s show Stargazing, and Colin is a season regular Astrologer on “Written In The Stars,” which premiered November 2022 on Discovery Plus.

Additionally, Colin is working towards certification by The Relational Life Therapy Institute to become a Couple’s Coach where he can integrate astrological approaches with leading theories, models, methods, and skills for healthy relationships.

Steven Forrest

Last but certainly not least is Steven Forrest, celebrated and internationally loved evolutionary astrologer and founder of Forrest Astrology. Steven has been working as an astrologer professionally for over 40 years, has written several classic best-selling astrology books, and travels around the world teaching his practical and transformative style of astrology. His first book, published in 1984, the classic The Inner Sky, is a personal favorite of mine and the first volume of the popular Sky trilogy. It is an excellent starting point for those new to astrology.

Gazing through astronomical telescopes in his early teens led Steven to begin exploring astrology. He received a B.A. in Religion in 1971 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and shortly thereafter began to establish his astrological practice.

Steven is committed to teaching and practicing his own style of responsible, inspiring, and choice-centered astrology. The Forrest Astrology website features Steven's teaching, including free articles and videos, as well as official study materials in the form of audio downloads, videos, books, and webinars.

Astrology versus Astronomy: Let’s Talk About It

Part of what inspired my deeper dive into astrology these past five years was the disparagement I heard from other scientists regarding the field. It got me to thinking, well how much does this person actually KNOW about astrology? Which led me to question, well, how much do YOU actually know about astrology.

When I was a kid, I read pretty much everything Isaac Asimov wrote. So I was disappointed, but not surprised, when I heard this 1988 interview and his position regarding science and astrology.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is another scientist who has publicly disparaged astrology, and as an astrophysicist, seems like he might be quite knowledgeable about the field.

But astrology and astronomy, as Kelly and I discussed in our conversation, are two separate fields. Both involve examining the sky, but not in nearly the same way. The fact that constellations are named after the zodiac only makes the matter more convoluted.

Neil deGrasse Tyson may be an expert in the field of astrophysics and an outspoken skeptic of astrology, but does he know that that makes him a CLASSIC Sagittarius rising? This conversation between him and professional astrologer Aliza Kelly highlights their similarities and differences in what they see in the stars.

Upcoming Learning Offerings

The very best of the astrology-based technologies and learning experiences I’ve designed over the course of my career involved branching as an instructional design approach. Designing Branching Scenarios is my next live learning session, scheduled for June 26, 2025, and I go deep in this one — the use cases, the design considerations, and the tools. I’ve been designing branching technologies literally since the late 1980s, and I have a lot of insight to offer on this topic.

Be sure to register to reserve your spot — I’ve kept this one limited to 50 participants.

That’s all for now. I hope this month’s edition has opened you up to the possibility of astrology and broadened your understanding of this fascinating, ancient way of knowing. With all the technology and learning experiences available to help you better understand astrology, it’s no longer acceptable to simply dismiss it as some kind of parlor game. Instead, consider it another path to self-knowledge and better understanding both yourself and your place in the universe.

See you next month!