About

The name of the society is The Fraser Valley Astrological Guild.

The purpose of the society is to provide its members a forum for networking and sharing ideas. The society will also organize workshops and invite guest speakers in order to promote astrology; and provide education in areas directly related to astrology and its specialized areas; such as horary, medical, elective and so on, to both its members and the general public.

At dissolution or winding up, a Resolution for the disposal of the assets of the Society will be prepared and presented, by Directors in office at that time, to remaining membership for approval. A copy of the Resolution stating the manner of disposal of assets shall be forwarded to the Ministry of Finance. This provision is irrevokable.

The applicants for incorporation were Anne Massey (the founding President), Brenda Schauer (the founding Vice President), Tannis Morton (the founding Editor), Susan Harvey (the founding treasurer), Gerald Weeks (the founding secretary) and Moira Christoff as the witness.

Anne, Brenda, Tannis and Moira were the steering committee to found the society in 1991. Our society number is S28792. The submissions for society were signed January 15, 1992.

Looking Back

By Anne Massey

“The world is not moved only by the mighty shoves of the heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.”—Helen Keller

(This was written on 2008)

Early October, seventeen years ago I bought our cat Lizzie to keep me company while I was recovering from major surgery. I was picking up RSVPs from the mail box, wondering if we would have enough people to begin an astrology group…

With the eclipse of August 1990, our family moved to British Columbia. I naturally wanted to find an astrology group; I had been active at Riverside Astrologers in Memphis, Tennessee. I was living close to Phoenix Books in Surrey and through Sandy Hughes, who worked there found a small Tuesday lunch group, where astrological topics were discussed once a month. Elden Fairburn was one of the members of that group as was Brenda Schauer, Cheryl Sanderson, Moira Christoff and several more.

In January 1991, I presented an astrology talk at the Guildford Library and met Tannis Morton, who was involved with the Psychic Fairs held at the PNE, Norma Cowie was running the shows back then. Tannis was our first editor, the two of us burned midnight oil many a times to produce the Guild News. Tannis lives in Winnipeg now and is teaching astrology and actively involved with the CAAE (the Canadian Association for Astrological Education); www.thecaae.com. I also met Janice Brown March 1991 at the Psychic Fair; she edited our newsletter in the third year.

By January 1991, I had found that the Universal Search, a group that preceded the Guild had ended its operations, as had the Canadian Astrological Association. Yes, there was the luncheon group, but what about people who worked during the day…

In February 1991, Brenda Schauer and I were having lunch (by the way the Moon was void) and talked about how to go about getting a group set up. I think Brenda did a talk and a workshop earlier this decade, I haven’t run into her in ages. We ended up acquiring the membership list for Universal Search and began collecting addresses and phone numbers. I also connected with people at the Psychic Fair as I handed out flyers to all the astrologers working at the fair. The invitations went out for founding the group; we had chosen the ABC restaurant in Fleetwood as the meeting place.

The Guild was founded October 17, 1991 at 19:45 PDT at Fleetwood, Surrey (49°12’; 122°45’) by 29 astrologers, including the ones listed above. The chart shown with this article includes the Hellenistic parts, look for any point on this chart that is at the same degree as something in your own chart, this shows how you interact with the group and its members.

The parts are the ones within circles, the part of fortune is lot of the Moon, part of spirit is the lot of the Sun, part of Necessity is the lot of Mercury, etc. I will teach a few workshops on applying the tools from the Hellenistic era in 2009.

Electing a time to begin an organization can be challenging, I am the one that chose the date. The call went out for more experienced astrologers to do so, but …So, I was studying my eldest son’s solar return, and it looked wonderful for his 16th birthday. I wanted a group that would last and grow, I had hoped for a Taurus rising chart; however, to get 29 astrologers to agree to the formation of the group took longer than the 25 minutes I had allowed. We have early Gemini on the ASC. We are a Libra Sun group with a stellium in the 6th house in Scorpio and a Moon in Aquarius in the 10th house. Saturn is in Aquarius at our MC in the 9th house.

I had my surgery October 21, 1991, and four weeks later on a Thursday we had our first lecture, I cannot remember who gave it…I am under the impression it was Marilyn Waram, whom some of you know as Marelon Bjorkaes; she has lectured at the Guild many times over the years and authored the Book of Jupiter and the Book of Neptune. What I remember with certainty is that we have always had the pleasure of presenting excellent lecturers—only the best for members of a group, who are identified by Venus conjunct Jupiter in Virgo in the fourth house.

Our long-standing members, who have supported the Guild for at least half a Saturn cycle are Anne Massey (1), Gerry Weeks (5), Malonie Ryane (28), Dietmar Stoll (29), Rose Marcus (35), Kim Paterson (37), Janice Brown (42), and Marielle Croft (64); that number in the brackets is the membership number. The first five numbers were assigned to the members of the first executive and many of us were 30-somethings back then.

If your number is below about 140, you have been a member for a decade. Our first workshop was the ABC-workshop, which was presented by presented by Ed Cannell, Linda Frost and yours truly. We talked about Houses, Planets and Aspects. This was our first workshop at the ISA premises and we had well over twenty attendees. The other two workshops that year were presented by Marilyn Waram and by Tim Stephens. These were held at Tim’s Langley farm; Tim, incidentally, was our first book librarian, we inherited the initial library from Universal Search, with a condition that if we folded prior to year four we would return it.

In year three, 1993-94, we had as many members as we do now. Over the years we have brought in astrologers from USA, India, Australia, Eastern Canada and even China. We have presented Western Astrology, Vedic Astrology… It would take a few pages to list all the wonderful speakers, and days of trying to remember everyone.

When I think of the individuals who served the Guild members at length, I think of Ed Cannell, who served as the president for a year and about seven as the editor; Ed is a Sagittarius Sun, Aries Moon and Scorpio Ascendant. (Ed met his wife at the Guild) Dietmar is a Capricorn Sun, Virgo Ascendant and Libra Moon. Shauna Bisgaard looked after our treasury for seven years; she has four planets in Scorpio conjunct the Guild’s Scorpio stellium. (As do I). Sally Marcantonio, was our secretary for about seven years as well, Sally is a Pisces and her Libra Moon and a pair of planets in Leo, beautifully describe how she looked after refreshments and recording. Her own ASC is conjunct the Guild’s Venus conjunct Jupiter in Virgo.

I remember the first time Dawn was at the Guild; she presented a talk and had a hefty 50-page handout for all the attendees (I still have mine). It was about a decade ago. Dawn’s North Node is conjunct the Guild’s Moon and the Guild’s progressed Venus at 24°Virgo is conjunct Dawn’s natal Sun, it was actually conjunct it exactly three years ago, when she became our Vice President. Denise’s natal Moon is conjunct the Guild’s Moon. Elden Fairburn, whose birthday is the same day (different year) than Dawn’s was our VP for many, many years, has many similar synastry patterns as I see in Dawn’s and Denise’s charts.

I initially served as the president from 1991-1993 and then looked after the treasury from 1993-94.  In February 1997, I was asked to give a talk on astrology after a two year absence from Guild functions. I was shocked to have our meeting room filled to the brim. This reminded me how much I enjoyed the astrological events and the many wonderful people I have met at the Guild over the years. That year, I served on the Executive as the Treasurer. The Guild’s Sun progressed into Scorpio that year, and in February we had had a progressed Full Moon in Aries.  In 1998 I ended being the president again; the group was rather small at that time. From 1999-2002, I was also the treasurer. During these years 1998-2002 we were working hard to rebuild the group, which had less than 20 members. The Vancouver Society of Astrologers was founded around then, and we shared speakers and had associate members from that Group, Rebecca Garcia, Judy Cross, and Charlotte Greenwood came over from that group. When the VSA ended its operations, the Guild received the remaining funds from the group, we used these funds to subsidize the workshop by Demetra George, I think that was three years ago now.

At the time the group was founded my progressed Moon was in Leo, and incidentally Denise Grams and Dawn Muncaster currently have progressed Moon in Leo. The Guild’s IC is Leo. In the Guild’s progressed chart, the Moon is in Libra and in about a year, that PR Moon will conjunct the natal Sun. Our progressed Sun is at 11° Scorpio with Mars at 12°Scorpio, and in about 2.5 (Feb 2011) years the Guild will experience its first progressed New Moon at 13°Scorpio, which is likely to bring another wave of changes.

Today, we are the second oldest active astrological group in Canada; the Edmonton Astrological Association is the oldest. We are the biggest in terms of numbers. In the past decade, we have brought exceptional speakers from out of town and had equally exceptional local astrologers present a vast array of topics. We have had our members write exams toward certification, we held a counseling skills course last year and most of the teachers, who are members of the Guild bring their students to Guild events. Christine Linwood has agreed to help with refreshments in the upcoming year. She is a student of Dawn Muncaster’s and has successfully completed the level I exam through the CAAE. Seeing that her membership number is 200, I assume she joined the Guild over the past year or so.

Many of our teaching members encourage their students to support the Guild, and have volunteered on many occasions to lecture; up until a few years ago, we did not offer payment for lectures. It was Shauna who insisted that we pay an honorarium. The Guild isn’t about the efforts of one person, but how each of us has an impact.

I cannot write the story of each one of our members over the years, as I have often mentioned I have a couple of hundred of them in my memory banks. Our annual potluck in December became a custom when Rudy Mervin for whom it was Xmas suggested that we do it. Rudy passed away in a car accident probably about five-six years ago, his poems live on at our website, which was launched with the Venus direct station in 2001. Over the next year, I would like to see it turned into a blog, to allow posting without having to learn how to design web pages, etc.

A week ago, we buried the ashes of our cat Lizzie under a white Rose in our garden. For about two years I have been talking about stepping down as the president and taking on the role of a member; yes I will continue as founding and past president but in an advisory capacity only. Seventeen years is a long time, some of those members have ‘crossed over’, we have celebrated milestone birthdays, and many friendships have formed between our members. Members may stay away for many years, but always know that on the second Thursday of each month, the Guild will have a meeting and someone will be talking about something interesting. However, it is time for me to take a back seat, and encourage the continuation of our traditions, excellent astrology once a month and a few well-chosen workshops here and there.

Every one of our members contributes to what the Guild can offer, my initial need to have somewhere to discuss astrology, share ideas and learn from others back in 1991, is still what brings students of astrology (it’s a study for life) to the Guild. Happy solar returns, we know that the Guild has a life of its own as we launch our 18th year of operations. Our history is not about the Guild as much as it is about the people and experiences it has brought us, I feel blessed.

You can find me at most meetings, on my website www.astrologicallyspeaking.com, or call me at 604.574.9545, or email me at anne@astrologicallyspeaking.com  and look for an announcement of my blog, which is currently ‘behind my website’.

Our chart