Three Deep Lab

The planets in your natal chart don't just tell your story—they carry echoes of your parents’ and grandparents' lives and the imprint of powerful historical forces that have shaped your family ethos. In this lab for intermediate and advanced students, we will bring research, storytelling, and a bounty of techniques to the family tree.

As we learn to refocus our gaze when interpreting nativities, we become adept at seeing family fractals — the “strange attractors” that create and recreate profound, multigenerational stories that rival those of epic novels. We will also explore remediation methods for addressing tricky inheritances, tight fate patterns, unresolved tensions, and the role you play in your family system as it unfolds through deep time.

What will we learn?

During six two-hour sessions, you'll refine your own sophisticated approach to ancestral chart reading. We’ll quilt together theory with autobiography, test ancient and modern techniques for efficacy, and build astro-bonds in intimate breakout groups. At the lab’s end, you will be able to…

• Identify the most compelling patterns in a multigenerational group
• Use genealogical and historical research tools to build a complex portrait of family dynamics
• Track major mundane phase cycles that reveal the impact of collective events and upheavals on family members
• Work fruitfully with ancestors’ nativities, even in the absence of a birth time
• Efficiently assess synastry across generations
• Recognize how individual zodiacal degrees mark significant evolutionary points in family lineages as these points are repeatedly triggered
• Discover and test remedial approaches for addressing inherited patterns that no longer serve us

How is the lab structured?

Prior to Session 1: Start Your Astro-Genogram

Jenny will explain in a welcome video how to diagram your family-tree using a tool from 1970s family systems psychology. The genogram functions like an ultrasound, revealing striking patterns at various depths: behavior, health, cultural practices, socioeconomics, vocation and relationship dynamics. As the lab proceeds, we will enhance our symbol-driven family trees with our astrological findings.

Session 1: The Ancestor Syndrome: Modes of Repetition

After introductions and an opening ceremony, we will take a look at broad questions underpinning ancestral astrology. Family systems literature has long documented the inexplicable reiteration of themes within families—oftentimes, similar events will repeat on particular dates or at defined intervals. Can astrology help to explain this mysterious phenomenon? We will examine ancient and modern philosophical theories regarding how souls in family groups may be connected and begin to share our genograms in small breakout groups.

Session 2: Technique Meets the Genogram: Seeing Through Time

We will survey a wealth of family-related techniques from ancient, medieval, and modern primary sources. What actually works? We will consider planetary archetypes, lot formulae, house significations, derived houses, midpoints, and advanced predictive techniques including continuous profection and primary directions to track and anticipate events likely to trigger family motifs. Discuss with your breakout group which techniques you plan to test in your ancestral research.

Session 3: What Gets Passed Down? Unresolved Notes

In this session we will use advanced synastry techniques to see more deeply into family patterns. The compelling power of family secrets and unmetabolized personal and collective trauma will be addressed as well as the dynamics of family “homeostasis.” What archetypal roles do we play within larger constellations? How do we break free of others’ orbits in stories that began long before we were born? Remediation discussion begins. Share in breakout sessions.

Session 4: Generational Markers and Collective Upheaval

We will carefully assess our genograms in light of major mundane planetary configurations bearing on our family’s history. Do these repeat in nativities over time and do their phase cycles coincide with the evolution of the family story? We will consider our ancestors’ joy and wonder as well as the formative impact of migrations, wars, religious conflict, disease, and the disruption of lifeways on the astro-genogram. Further discussion of remediation, including ritual, active imagination, divination, and holotropic/psychedelic clearing. Discuss your own remediation ideas with your breakout group.

Session 5: Therapeutic Breathwork

Certified breathwork facilitator Leif Bjelland will lead us in a one-hour therapeutic breathwork session. Don your eyeshades and headphones, turn off your Zoom camera and mic, and enter into a deeply private non-ordinary state of consciousness. Propelled by intensely rhythmic musical selections, we will open space to process and release some of the family material we have worked hard to unearth. Sharing and integration after the breathwork session are welcome but not required.

Session 6: Presentations and Integration

Participants will share their major research findings and personal discoveries. We will end with a clearing and closing ceremony.

Who is this lab for?

This lab is designed for intermediate to advanced students of astrology who are comfortable with the basics of natal chart reading and predictive work. It will be especially valuable for:

• Professional astrologers seeking to expand their interpretive skills
• Anyone interested in revealing and healing family patterns
• Therapists, counselors, and healing practitioners who incorporate astrology in their work
• Anyone curious about the intersection of astrology, family systems, and ancestral remediation

This lab is for you if you…

• are fluent with free or commercial astrological software
• have a strong interest in exploring your genealogy
• are interested in testing traditional and modern techniques
• are comfortable presenting your research to the group

This lab is not for you if you…..

• can’t attend live classes regularly
• don’t have time to conduct research outside of class
• are excessively triggered by your family’s psychic material and don’t have a support system for processing what arises
• aren’t yet fluent in basic chart interpretation