What if you could schedule a meeting to discuss a raise with your boss on a day when you knew your communication skills would be top-notch and others would be receptive to everything you had to say? In other words, a day when the stars and planets aligned with your natal chart? If you’re thinking you need a professional astrologer to help you do this, I’d agree with you if you’re scheduling something major such as a wedding or a product launch. But for the day-to-day decisions you’ll most often make, a 2024 astrological calendar — The Personal Astrological Almanac by Honeycomb Collective — may be the very thing you need.
How the Almanac can help with planning
Every year, one of my traditions is to buy the Llewellyn Astrological Calendar. This year I have a new favorite to add to my metaphysical shopping list: The Personal Astrological Almanac by Honeycomb Collective.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned about astrology is that it’s more effective if you are aware of transits before they happen. Looking up and realizing the moon is void is useless information if you’ve already committed yourself to preparing a major proposal for work at that time. When you know what’s coming, or can spot the best days to perform certain tasks, you’re applying astrological knowledge and winning. The Personal Astrological Almanac makes it easier to do just that.
The Almanac can make it easier to track retrogrades and shadow periods
I try to track planet retrograde periods (not just when Mercury goes into retrograde), but one thing I rarely catch is shadow periods.
Shadow periods are the days leading up to and right after a retrograde period. The shadow starts before the official retrograde period when the planet reaches the degree that it is eventually going to come back to once the retrograde period starts. Say Mercury was going to be in retrograde from October 13 through November 2. On October 13 Mercury would station retrograde at the 4th degree of Scorpio and start moving backward until it reached the 13th degree of Libra where it would station direct. To determine when the shadow period starts, you would find out when Mercury was going to reach the 13th degree of Libra before the planet went into retrograde. You might look it up and find that Mercury would initially reach the 13th degree of Libra on September 20. In this example, September 20 would be the beginning of the shadow period.
The shadow period ends when the the planet is out of the official retrograde period and moves past the degree where it was when the retrograde began. In this example, the shadow period would end when Mercury reached and surpassed the 4th degree of Scorpio on November 16. While the official retrograde is between October 13 and November 2, you really need to pay attention to its effects from September 20 through November 16. During the shadow periods you may feel some of the same effects you experienced during the retrograde period but to a lesser degree.
When I don’t look up shadow periods in advance, by the time the planet is in retrograde, I’ll have gone weeks without realizing that the shadow period was influencing part of my life. The Personal Astrological Almanac allows me to track the shadow periods so that I can sometimes get a hint about what the actual retrograde period will bring and how I can prepare for it.
A helpful tool for moon magic
I love performing new moon and full moon rituals. That’s why I always depend on an astrological calendar to help me track the moon’s movements. However, the rituals I do reflect the moon’s mundane transits as well as their affect on my natal chart. This product helps me to see both in advance so I have time to come up with a ritual, buy the supplies and bring the idea to life.
With the Almanac I can also identify those pesky periods when the moon is void so I can try to schedule accordingly. If I can’t drop work completely at those times, I try to schedule routine tasks that I can do in my sleep and hold off on efforts requiring a lot of creativity or energy.
The Almanac tracks the inner and outer planets’ transits to my natal chart so I can easily see which planets are affecting me on a given day or for longer periods of time.
In addition to using astrology to guide me in my life, I’m fascinated by mundane astrology and using it to look at current worldly events. I’m a self-professed news junkie so seeing how global events and transits link up gives me a different perspective when watching major news stories unfold. The Personal Astrological Almanac shows mundane transits, as well as my native transits so if a major news event occurs, I can easily look to the Almanac to see if there were any planetary influences. I remember the day the war broke out between Israel and Hamas. Mars was squaring Pluto — a transit that is often associated with violence.
Checking the astrological weather every day
The calendar portion of the Almanac shows every mundane and natal transit for each day. Mundane transits are highlighted in black; natal transits are highlighted in blue. So at the beginning of each month, I can see in a glance which days are the best ones for making business moves, socializing with friends or shutting the world out and hibernating until the astrological weather improves. You can see a monthly calendar view or zero in on particular days and write notes for yourself, such as how those days actually turned out. (If you’re a student of astrology, this can be particularly helpful as you can go back and see first-hand how the different transits actually impact your life).
You can buy different versions of the almanac. A digital PDF is the most economical, but if you’re going to write notes and use the almanac as a learning tool I think it’s worth it to spend the extra money on the printed versions. In fact, I first purchased the PDF version but realized pretty quickly that I was going to fork over the extra cash to buy the printed version. Sure, I could have printed it out myself but since it was 187 pages, why would I want to? Plus, the opportunity to write notes about my day appealed to me since that would let me learn even more about how certain transits affect me — or the world at large. If you buy the printed version, you’ll receive a free copy of the PDF as well so you get the best of both worlds.
You’ll need to input your birthdate, birth time and birth place so the almanac can be adapted to your natal chart. I received the PDF version a couple of hours after I entered the information and purchased the product.
The PDF costs $10 to $20 depending on whether you buy the 6-month or 12-month version (why would you want the 6-month version?). The printed copy starts at $27. The company also offers a Personal Astrological Wall Calendar if you would prefer to get the information that way.
Who this isn’t for
If you aren’t a student of astrology or don’t have any astrological background this product probably isn’t for you. It doesn’t offer explanations on what transits might mean so if you depend heavily on an app to explain to you what it means, say, when Jupiter is conjunct your natal sun, you won’t find that guidance here.
Bottom line: The Personal Astrological Almanac is better than your average astrological calendar. Most calendars simply track mundane transits. You can see what the global astrological weather is like, but you don’t know how it is affecting you personally. This almanac and calendar literally tell you how the planet’s positions are affecting you personally each and every day.
