Are you aware the first ever online astrology conference, “Breaking Down The Borders” is taking place on November 19th, 20th, and 21st? It is being sponsored by the International Academy of Astrology. I found out about it through my distance learning studies which hosted a random draw for a student to attend for free. Sadly, I wasn’t the lucky one, but I went to the website www.astrologyconference.org to check out the details further.
Here is a conference you can attend from the comfort of your own home. You don’t have to travel long distance, pay for a hotel room, or worry about meals. The destination where everyone meets up is on the web.
Lectures are offered at specific times. For example: Lynn Bell is speaking at 2:00 p.m. EST, 7:00 p.m. GMT, and 6:00 a.m. AEDT (the following morning) on Saturday, November 20th. Her topic: “Vampires, Enablers and Transformers: A look at the 8th House.” Anyone from anywhere in the world can attend – if they have access to a computer and the internet.
Even if you register to attend a conference it’s impossible to experience everything. Often I find myself going over the schedule weeks in advance, circling the topics that interest me, which I plan to attend. And then I find myself sitting through totally different sessions when I’m there. Maybe I’m drawn by a new name, or there’s been a shift in my perspective. Maybe a friend of mine at the conference has pulled me into what she’s interested in…but there’s no drifting in and out of lectures online if you’re curious about what’s going on in another session. And instead of picking and choosing topics of interest at the time you attend, this conference asks you to sign up or register for the specific lectures you actually want to attend in advance.
Each 3 hour lecture is hosted in an audio-visual facility at GoToMeeting. You can log into a lecture (30 minutes in advance of the start time) via a special link with a username and password that is setup at the time of registration. If you think this sounds technically difficult, all you need is a broadband internet connection: cable, satellite or DSL. Sorry, but dial-up connections will not work. And the audio-visual facilities function on either a PC running Windows or a Mac. Logging in to GoToMeeting you might be asked to download and install a “plug-in” for your browser, but if you follow the instructions this should only take a few minutes.
Once in the lecture facility you will be able to see the presentation on your computer screen and hear it through your computer speakers. You might consider a headset if you’re at all concerned about interference such as humming. Headsets are relatively inexpensive and most will work. If you’re computer has a microphone you can ask questions in the Q&A period at the end of each session. But each lecture also has an online text chat facility so that you can ask questions and make comments even if you don’t have a microphone, or you choose not to use it.
Check out “How It Works” and “Technical Info” on the conference website for more information. Watch Chris Turner’s you-tube video to get an idea of what you might see and experience on your computer screen.
You can attend a maximum of 12 lectures for $450 U.S. dollars. That’s $37.50 for each lecture. But if you have other things going on that weekend, or you don’t want to spend it sitting in front of your computer, there are pricepoint breaks:
1-5 lectures: $50.00 US for each lecture
6-8 lectures: $47.50 US for each lecture
9-11 lectures: $44.00 US for each lecture
Suppose only 1-2 topics capture your interest; you can sign up for only those specific lectures and try out the online experience. But if you are really keen register for 6 or more lectures before November 7th and you’re eligible to enter a random draw to win the opportunity to attend even more lectures for free. Time is short!
Each day of the conference, four time periods offer 5 lectures in separate online audio-visual facilities. You can attend one of the lectures in each time period, as the start times are staggered to make more lectures conveniently available around the world.
Some of the 60 featured speakers include Lynn Bell, Donna Cunningham, Robert Hand, Deborah Houlding, Jeff Jawer, Lee Lehman, Chris Mcrae, Alan Oaken, Dorothy Oja, Julene Packer-Louis, Erin Sullivan and Kelly Surtees among many others. You can browse through the speakers, their bios and synopses about their presentations in the online schedule.
Here’s a handful of topics being presented: “Layering Transits & Progressions,” “The Saturn – Uranus cycle and The Real Estate Market,” “Family Heritage,” “Eclipse Paths in Personal Charts,” and “Right Time, Right Place – The Significance of Location Coordinated With Cycles.”
You receive a complimentary recording of any presentation that you attend, and all the presentations will be available for purchase with your registration.
So here’s the website again: www.astrologyconference.org in case you want to go browse.