The 52 Star Codes and Vedic Astrology

[00:00:00]

The Astrology and Massage Link

Fiona Marques: Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Vedic Astrology Podcast. My name is Fiona Marques and today I am joined by Karyn Chabot Martino to help me understand a little bit about the connection between Vedic Astrology and the 52 playing cards. Karyn's going to open up a mundane item that you might've grown up with in childhood. And yet here it is as a holder of knowledge hidden in plain sight. Karyn and I haven't met each other, so I want to dive right into just welcoming you, Karyn. It's so lovely to, to meet you and have you on the show.

Karyn Chabot Martino: Thank you. I am honored to be here. This will be fun.

Fiona Marques: Now, Karyn, I'm going to start our questions, we've got so much knowledge to cover, but I'm going to start our questions a little bit further back in both of our histories, because you're a friend of Ryan's. I'm a student of Ryan's. I noticed when I was researching you that you've been a massage therapist. I know Ryan's been a massage therapist. I was a massage therapist. I know Ernst [00:01:00] was other Astrologers that I've had on the show. Tell me, I want to hear about your journey towards where you are now with the Star Codes, but could you tell me how it is that you also have a background in massage? And why do you think so many of us Astrologers have a background in massage?

Karyn Chabot Martino: That's an interesting question. I'm guessing it's because the word mystic implies healers and visionaries. So I'm guessing that word came about because somebody knew that if you are a true healer belonging to the healer soul group, you probably also have the gift of vision and knowing, so those two, maybe they're on the same DNA. I don't know the genetics or the biology, but it appears that they do go hand in hand so we can call ourselves mystics, and know that we have the gift in our hands, which is really the same epithelial tissue as the mind. Our hands are printouts of our minds, right? 

Fiona Marques: Sometimes when I was massaging, I used to feel [00:02:00] like my hands were like antenna.

Karyn Chabot Martino: Yes.

Fiona Marques: You're really, and it was such an honor that someone, would be so trusting to surrender their their body, their energy field, and they come lie on your table. And that first move that I would make, it would feel like those antenna, like you're saying the same tissue, going out there into the energy and the physical field. It's a glorious profession being a massage therapist. And it's lovely to be joined by another message therapist, but what is the connection with Astrology and now the Star Codes? Tell us a little bit about your journey, Karyn.

Karyn Chabot Martino: I've always been interested in Astrology but never ever thought that it would be my career. I always felt that I was a healer first, using my hands first, my gifts are in my hands, that was my inner dialogue. And then as I was going along in my 40s, I'm realizing, this is a short lived profession just like a dancer or an athlete, we can't keep going. And [00:03:00] my, elbows were starting to give out and my thumbs and I thought, "Oh let me continue this profession teaching." Because I'm a natural teacher. And I opened the Newport Massage School. And it was the first private state approved school in Rhode Island. And I had it as an Ayurvedic Massage School. So it was very special. And I had a lot of enrollment. And I loved it. But it became too much for me. I was running it by myself and I hit a wall with some health issues and I realized it was me or the school. So I wasn't going to go down with the ship and I decided I'm just going to say "Thank you for those five years, a great experience and move on". 

So I went back into the massage industry, one-on-one with clients and I developed some energy medicine techniques. But all along I was compelled with Ayurveda, because I'm an Ayurvedic practitioner and I studied, at Maharishi University and so many places with Dr. Lad, and I have my Master's degree in [00:04:00] Ayurveda. So I remember that Jyotish was part of Ayurveda. So I was always intrigued with the Jyotish piece, and I always kept it as a hobby all along while I'm doing all my hands on therapy. Never did I think that I was going to be a Jyotish. 

So it just happened, and it happened in a way that I was seeing clients and they were talking, as as a massage therapist yourself. They tell you everything. It's a very vulnerable place to be when you're on the massage table and you have no clothes on and you have to trust who is massaging you. So in that trust, people would just divulge and I realized, really, I'm a counselor. I'm not giving advice, but I'm a great listener. So the active listening is one of the highest platforms for healing. So people felt heard, they felt healed. 

And then I thought "I know a little bit about their birthday". I threw a little bit of Jyotish in. And then I started going to the Ashram in [00:05:00] Pennsylvania, studying with Penny Farrow, who was a student of Hart deFouw. And I spent five years going to the Ashram in Pennsylvania. And I would just spend maybe, 6 weekends, 7 weekends a year, and just immersing myself with that. But I had previously studied it in Fairfield, Iowa, with David Hawthorne, who was a Jyotish there, and is still a Jyotish there, and he was systems approach, so it was a different version of Jyotish. And Penny would call it an off Broadway version because she was very much about the straight and narrow path of Hart deFouw. So I used a little bit of what I learned from David Hawthorne and blended it with Penny. And then there was another guy that was teaching Ancient Ayurveda. He would use the planets as a way to determine Prakruti and Vikruti, which are your constitution, versus your current state of health. And he would assign one planet that would govern the physiology. And that [00:06:00] would be, according to a Jaimini, like the Dharakaraka, which would be the planet that governs the physiology and your marriage and your mate. So it's similar to that. So I really started with him, and his name was Gandharva, so I'm grateful to Gandharva for teaching me Ancient Ayurveda. 

 I let the Newport Massage School go and really immersed in Jyotish because my clients were coming and wanting to know about their Astrology. At the end of every session, I would do a little bit of Astrology, just tell them "Well your Ascendant is this and you have, a little affliction here and maybe that's why your shoulder hurts because you have Rahu in your 3rd house. So we'll, let's work on this". And so they all started becoming like students in a way and wanting to understand why their pain was there. And I could explain it through the eyes of Jyotish. 

And then I learned about this 52 Star Code system. First introduction was in [00:07:00] the 1990s from a woman named Bethala, who ran the yoga department at the Ayurvedic Institute. She gave me a Jyotish reading, because she was a Jyotish. First a Western Astrologer, then a Jyotish. And she gave me this beautiful reading. And she told me I was a 4 of Hearts. So you're an Aries Ascendant and a 4 of Hearts. And I said, "Wow, she's doing this interesting card thing". And she was very accurate in her reading. 

And so that stimulated me to want to read the book on the cards. So I started doing that and then I went to Costa Rica and trained a staff at Puerto Vida in Ayurvedic massage. And I met this wonderful friend named Katya, who was immersed in this card system and loved all these books and showed me the books and taught me about the system more than I could have ever I learned by reading the books myself. She gave me her history and her stories, and we always learn best by stories.

She had first hand stories of how accurate the system was, so [00:08:00] I started blending that in. And then my clients would ask me, "Can you just do five minutes of the cards?" at the end of the session. 

 So I started just doing 30 minute massages and 30 minute cards. 

So people would start booking whole hour sessions, me doing cards and also combining the Jyotish.

Fiona Marques: Life has a way of guiding us to the things that we're supposed to be doing at the right time. 

Karyn Chabot Martino: It was so much fun and it was so accurate. I was really helping people. Andit's so rewarding to help people and feel like you made a difference and that you have a purpose and that was so fulfilling that I could bring them peace of mind as well as in their body.

Fiona Marques: So wonderful. All right. 

Cards - the nature of the Suits

Fiona Marques: So for those of us then who have no exposure to cards, like maybe we've been massage therapists and maybe we're Vedic Astrologers or have an interest in Vedic Astrology, but if you haven't heard about it before, it's mind blowing that there's a connection between what we think about as playing cards [00:09:00] and Astrology or Vedic Astrology. But in researching our episode, I'm just going to read for everyone to put our minds in the, in, in the spontaneity of this connection. 

So there are 52 weeks in the year and there are 52 cards in the deck. There are two colors, Red and Black, representing the dualities, whether we want to think about Night and Day, Masculine and Feminine, all those Earth based dualities. Four seasons and 4 suits. 12 months and 12 Court cards, 13 cards in each suit, 13 weeks in each season and 13 Lunar cycles a year. And if you add all of the Star Codes together, there's 364 and plus a joker, you can get your 365. So this is just on Karyn's website. I still know nothing, but I saw that and I was like, "Wow, there is such a connection here between the Earth, the ecliptic, the universe that we're in, all represented in these, [00:10:00] what seems like a mundane everyday item". Tell us, for people who don't know anything about cards, how do they link with Astrology?

Karyn Chabot Martino: These cards are basically codes. Yes. They are assigned a numerical value. If we start with the Ace of Hearts, for example, that would be number 1, and then 2 of Hearts, number 2, 3 of Hearts, all the way up, and then, ending with the King of Hearts, then you move into the Club Suit. And this order is very specific. The Clubs are after the Hearts, and then the Diamonds are after the Clubs, and then the Spades are after the Diamonds. 

Now, if you look at the Spade Suit, it's basically upside down Hearts that are Black, you understand? So it's like a perfect you're like reincarnation kind of rebirth and death situation where the Hearts are the juicy butterball turkey babies that are watery. The Water element is there and Spring is associated. And then we go into the Winter of our lives, but we have to pass through all these [00:11:00] cycles in our lives. The Clubs are all cerebral, right? So it's very Pitta and very Fire, and then Summer season. And then we have the Diamonds where we start collecting money. We're actually able to accumulate and understand values. And so that's what Diamonds are, money and values. And then we end in the Winter of our lives represented by Space. Which in Ayurvedic medicine will also be represented by Vata. The Vata season, so the Vata stage of life happens in the Winter of our life or the Spade time in our lives. Hearts go upside down and we're getting ready for our next incarnation. We're getting all the wisdom accumulated and it is also represented by Saturn. Because the Spade suit is represented by Saturn. And the heart suit is represented by Venus. 

Wow, Karyn, there's so much there. It's beautifully rich and deep, this card system. Let's wind back a little for those of us Astrologers who are still grappling with, normally we're looking at a chart on a piece of paper. So talk us through [00:12:00] some of the ways that we might conceptually be able to link things up.

Fiona Marques: So I noticed before let's just get really simple. 

Duality - the Red and Black Cards

Fiona Marques: Can you go back to the colors, the Red and the Black? And the duality, is that a Masculine Feminine? Tell us about what the Red and the Black might represent.

Karyn Chabot Martino: I'm not even really sure it was originally Red or Black. I'm thinking the Red was really White.

So it was White and Black and just for the 3D and for us to be able to see them, the White would be invisible. So they had to choose a color. So it's a system is based on duality. It's a system actually that was developed by beings that had Unity consciousness, but they, and these beings were the Anunnaki. They knew that we had chosen to incarnate, and that we would need some kind of roadmap to, to learn how to navigate being on planet Earth and [00:13:00] agreeing to have the veil, Maya, and play the game and, are where we're all from One place, we're all One, and here we are in this Earth school in duality, two hands, two eyes, two feet. So yes, Red, Black, doesn't matter the color, but yes, everything has based on this duality so that we could make predictions and not be blindsided as we go along in life. So it is that we're inside of time here and Saturn represents time. So while we're inside of time in this duality, in our incarnation, agreeing to play this game, which is the Leela of life. And it's a lot of fun, but yes, it's a hard place. It's probably the hardest school of the entire galaxy, planet Earth. So these Anunnaki said, here's this un-bound tiny book. And these sacred symbols, the Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades, represent [00:14:00] planets and represent ideologies and things. The symbols were very sacred and meaningful and they have archetypal hidden secrets behind it.

And I really connect with what you're saying about when we talk about the Red and the Black or these dualities that it reminds me when I was first introduced to Vedic Astrology as a Westerner, you hear about some planets are Malefic and some planets are Benefic and you're "Oh, what does this mean?" and it's a little bit what you were describing there about these different suits that we can say Saturn and Mars are malefic planets. And that we certainly know everybody knows what that experience is when you put under pressure and you're challenged to deliver on something and the resources are just not there. And you're really, scraping to, to find it within yourself. We know what that feels like. But it's not necessarily going to lead to a bad outcome or whatever. It's the, how the passage is going to feel. And equally on that Benefic side, we can say, [00:15:00] Oh, Venus is this benefic planet, or, perhaps the moon or Mercury is benefic in your chart or in this transit. And, Oh, it's so wonderful to have benefits. And. And then we also know what can happen in Astrology. I don't know about cards, Benefics can overindulge us sometimes and just give us so much support that we do take our eye off, where we're really headed because things become so comfortable and and it feels really lovely.

Fiona Marques: So I do think it's very interesting, this whole relationship that we have with duality, as you said in, in the start of your answer, this illusion of duality, that's so important to play the game here. Often when I talk about it, I, because I live in Portugal, I think about it in terms of football, right? We can't play football unless we agree to be on two teams. It's just makes the game so much more fun. If you guys will be in the Red jerseys and we'll be in the Black jerseys and then we'll have more fun playing than if everybody was just all hogged around a ball. It's not. really as much 

Karyn Chabot Martino: Exactly.

Fiona Marques:

Ecliptic - the Signs and Houses

Fiona Marques: In other ways, coming with a background in [00:16:00] Astrology, how do the cards conceptually crossover in terms of can we see the ecliptic in the way that we see it on a birth chart? Is there a sense of 12 signs or is it's different from that? You don't see the ecliptic. I really don't know any of the answers to these questions, Karyn.

Karyn Chabot Martino: As far as the ecliptic, I don't know that they go into the ecliptic.I've never seen a mention of it in that, but the meaning of the ecliptic and what it stands for in our Astrology it's has the number 12, right? So it has 12 signs. And that's very similar to the 12 houses, and then how each house can be represented by the cards. Like King of Spades 12th house, the 10 of Spades would represent the 10th house, for example, or the 6 of Spades represents the 6th house. And all the 4s can represent the 4th House.

Fiona Marques: The whole numerology side of Vedic Astrology is obviously resonating here with the cards as well. [00:17:00] Okay. So let me ask you just another ecliptic question that I have in my mind is that as the card is based on birthday in, in some way, birthdays are a little movement of the Sun through the 365 days, aren't they? As the Sun goes through the ecliptic in the card system it's allocated a different value, a card code for each birthday, so the 360 degrees of the ecliptic and the 365 days that people can be born, in some ways. There's something about the Sun's movement, isn't there, in this allocation of the numbers of the cards.

Karyn Chabot Martino: Yes.

Fiona Marques: Is there a pattern to the allocation of those numbers, and can we see how it's related to the movement of the Sun, or not really?

Karyn Chabot Martino: It is based on Tropical. What I'm doing and what I was taught by Robert Camp and his software is Tropical, which is based on the Sun. Sun Signs. And if we look at the [00:18:00] formulas that were cognized to actually determine every birthday and what card is assigned, that might help you. 

Fiona Marques: You just know this formula, then you can know what card is that birthday.

Karyn Chabot Martino: So here's the formula and that formula might help you understand. And there's another duality principle to this formula as well. Just reiterating that in order to get the right card on the right day of 365, there was a double that's applied in this formula. So it, maybe the formula would be different if we lived on another planet that was unity consciousness.

Fiona Marques: Of course.

Karyn Chabot Martino: But the Anunnaki knew that this Earth was duality. So what they said is take your month. I'll take mine for an example, November and it's 11, the 11th month, right? So 11 plus 11. So that's 22, right? Okay. Now we have 22. We've got that number as part of the formula. Now we take the day. The day was the 29th day of November. So we [00:19:00] add 29 to 22, and we get 51. That's right. And then we subtract. Okay, from, so if we take that's going to be a negative four, which is really the 4 of Hearts. So that assigns November 29th to the 4 of Hearts. And the formula is a giveaway. The actual sequence of the formula and how they chose one month, doubled it to create duality. And then added the day, and then you subtract 55, which is another duality, two fives is very significant number. And a lot of my students say, but why not 52? Why 55? I don't know. I think it's specific to the Earth.

Fiona Marques: Exactly. I was just studying with my daughter. She's doing physics and if you want to work out the mass of something, what it's going to weigh on planet Earth, you have to times it by the gravitational force of planet Earth, right? Because it, it would weigh something different on the [00:20:00] Moon and something different in space and something different on Venus, this same object. Because of this constant that relates. So maybe yes, 55 is our constant. 

Okay. So as you do that formula it, the Sun is moving through each each day of its ecliptic journey. And a different number is being allocated based on this formula. And that's how particular days get a resonant energy that we would get from looking at the chart itself from, I guess if we did it by birthdays, then the Sun is the really obvious place to, to look for that.

Planets

Fiona Marques: All right. But then planets do then get mapped onto the cards. Is that correct? That's where there is a bit more of a direct something that we still talk about Saturn or we still talk about Mars. How do planets get mapped onto to cards?

Karyn Chabot Martino: It started with the Spirit spread. So this template, or spread, you could use them interchangeably. This template is [00:21:00] very specific regarding where the planets are. At the very top line, we begin with the Ace of Hearts. It's very coherent, consistent, and cohesive. It's not mumble jumbo. It's just Ace of Hearts, 2 of Hearts, 3 of Hearts, 4, it goes in that order, and it's 7 in the first row, and that first row is Mercury.

That is, all those planets, those 7 planets in the Spirit Spread, Heaven Spread, are Mercurial. Then we go to the next level, and we always count in Hebrew or Arabic, from right to left. So it's an order that's very important. 

And then, in this template, we go to the next level, which is governed by Venus. And Venus, the 7 cards, so if we get to the 7 of Hearts at the end.

And then we jump back down to the 8 of Hearts, 8 of Hearts, 9 of Hearts, 10 of Hearts, all the way down so that, that would be the Venus row, and then we go to the Mars row, and then we go all the way down to [00:22:00] Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. And these are the planets, how these cards are associated, these planets, and it's a horizontal and a vertical spread. So even at the bottom of the spread, we still have Mercury, and in the order Venus, Mars, and Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, so that order in that direction from right to left at the bottom, which we, when we're counting, we call it the horizontal spread.

And then when we are counting in this direction, vertical, where we can see it started with Mercury up here going down with, each of the 7 rows, the 7 planets. So it's a grid and you read horizontal and vertical. Now that's the spirit spread. It's not dynamic. It's static. . It is what is, this whole thing is based on. 

And then cut the deck in a certain way, with a lot of the numbers of 4, 4 this, 4 that, and then you do this, and it's a sequence, and then you lay them [00:23:00] out according to that sequence, and that sequence is the Life or the Earth template and that again is static, not changeable.

Okay, so now we have the Heaven spread, cohesive, coherent. Then we have the Earth spread that apparently looks like mumbo jumbo, can't find any rhyme or reason. Although I found some really interesting things in it which is what helped me write my book series. I found Stargates in there that are quite like Eclipses. These Stargates are powerful days to be born on. And there are 18 of them in the 365 days. And we know that there are 18 months in every transit for Rahu and Ketu, which are the reasons why we have Eclipses, so that's why there are actually 9 Stargates comprised of 18 cards, and that's all in the Earth template.

So anyways, those two are the foundation. And then from there, there are 45 Templates, or we call Quadrations. And they're all the same. [00:24:00] Starting age 1, 2, age 3, up to age 45, then it repeats, up to 90.

And that is how, before there was software, the great Magi, or the people that cognized this, were able to make predictions based on the Quadrations, because all these cards are in procession. They're always moving, except for three. Three cards are Dridh, fixed. And they're the anchors of the system 

for the rest of the cards to butterfly around and to move in procession. And these processions, the movement in these 45 Quadrations are how we make these predictions. Forward and backwards.

Fiona Marques: And the planets get allocated in that process, the planets attached to a card for a particular birth day.

Karyn Chabot Martino: Yes, by looking at the vertical and the grid and the horizontal where you see these planets on, if you look at the chart you see them, the 7 rows are dictated by a planet on [00:25:00] the vertical and same thing on the bottom. So the planets are involved in the 52 Star Codes, 100 percent. And they do act like the same as you would learn in any Astrology program, some are Benefic, some are Malefic. 

And are some birth cards more common and some more rare or they're all equally ...

No, that's a very interesting question. For example, I'm born on the 4 of Hearts day, there are only three birthdays for the 4 of Hearts day. Okay. For, say, the King of Clubs, it's a very popular birthday. I don't remember exactly, but I think there are 18, or 19, I forget how many exactly, but there's a lot of King of Clubs out there.

And there's only one for the King of Spades January 1st for the external natal card. And then there are only two for the Jack of Spades, January 2nd and February 1st. And then the Ace of Hearts is just one, and that's December 30th. And then the Joker is the 31st, but the Joker, half the day belongs to the Ace of Hearts, the other half of the day belongs to the King of Spades. [00:26:00] It's very cuspy and a very kind of eclipsy day. 

Fiona Marques: Then can you see we're just talking about planets. Can you see conjunctions or Avasthas or like interrelationships between the planets?

Karyn Chabot Martino: If I looked at their Astrology chart, I might find that they have, one, two, three, four planets all in the same sign, for example. I'm just wondering if that shows up. Or I might find a very strong relationship between two planets. Maybe they're opposite each other in a birth chart, or, they're in a trinal relationship. Can you see those kinds of relationships between planets allocated two cards in a spread?

Yes. For example, somebody has an exalted Venus, we'll say, right? And they're going to have Hearts somewhere. And if they don't have Hearts, like a Queen of Hearts, would be ideal. You'd get an exalted Venus with a person born on a Queen of Hearts day in one of their layers, the external layer, internal layer, or an imprint [00:27:00] layer.

 And sometimes I'll see, as Venus plays out, we know it's governing art and beauty. There is, the Black 3 Stargate, the 3 of Clubs, 3 of Spades, is the artist Stargate. So I would notice that, okay, they have an exalted Venus and they're born on a 3, Black 3 Stargate day. And then our first question is, so what kind of art do you do? Immediately, because it's, it always fits. You don't see an exalted Venus, for example, without something in the cards reflecting that back, where it either is the Queen of Hearts, which is the ultimate Venus card, the goddess. Or it is the Stargate, the Black Three Stargate, which is the artist Stargate, or possibly they have, a Jack of Spades in there, which is also highly creative, very creative.

Fiona Marques: So we've talked about some of the ways thatthere's some conceptual links for those of us who already got a template of a chart and an ecliptic and these planetary placements. "How can we match it [00:28:00] over?" So we've talked a little bit about that. 

And you've told us a little bit about the origin of this, which, is possibly beyond human or, it's a little bit lost in the eons of time.

And as you've been talking about it, I've just been thinking about how this deck was like a portable Astrology software that you could carry around with you wherever you went. And I imagine children watching adults using it for its proper purpose, as you just laid out all of this way to do the Spirit spread and the Earth spread and everything. And the kids are like, "Oh, let me play with that!" And we started inventing, Blackjack and Poker and Solitaire. And that's, what's remained is this playing with the, like we, like Solitaire is such a great example of a game that. Has this spread that you're trying to unravel and you're trying to put back in order and how can you shuffle things around to get things in order. So it's that lovely thing of when children don't understand what the cards were really for. The only thing that we remember [00:29:00] was people laying them out and playing with them and, And we've remembered it.

52 Star Codes and "Cards of Truth"

Fiona Marques: But tell us a little bit about the lineage that, that you've come from, you've mentioned. People who listen to our podcast, the Vedic Astrology Podcast, might be familiar with the Kala software that Ernst Wilhelm provides. And it comes with what he calls Cards of Truth, which, is shares a similar, we're all got a core trunk of a tree and there are various branches that are fruiting beautiful flowers and fruit. Is there an interface? How closely linked do you know are the 52 Star Codes that you're talking about today and what people might be familiar with as the Cards of Truth on Kala software?

Karyn Chabot Martino: I have that Kala software and I know Ernst and I respect him and really like him and I'm both Ryan and Ernst. 

He has it based on a different, what we can call Ayanamsa, for just lack of another word, but he starts it off at 6 a. m. Where if you were born at 6 a. m. and on in that day, Then you embody the [00:30:00] frequencies of that day from 6 on. Where you know there, There are many ways to interpret this. I've found my most accurate predictions are based on the midnight hour, and the midnight hour is quite amazing. Now, I'm going to say that anyone born an hour before midnight or an hour after midnight belong to a very special group of people. They're, I call cuspers, and they actually family together. They, it's genetic in a way, and they have a certain gift. 

Born at the midnight hour or somewhere between, an hour before, an hour after. 

Fiona Marques: 11PM and 1AM Yeah.

Karyn Chabot Martino: Yes, and so all of that, so whenever you're born in that time frame, you play two cards. You have one foot, on one side of midnight and you can embody that frequency and then the other foot on the other side of midnight. So this is where it gets a little sketchy, a little bit tricky because the system could be watered [00:31:00] down and dismissed or discredited because you're reading the wrong day for a cusper.

I started experimenting because I knew that these cards, this can't be good for and true and accurate for everybody except one or two. We're all humans. This has to be accurate. So it's in the math. So I started finding people around that time, hour after hour before, and started reading them for the other card. That's when I found the accuracy. Because they can choose, they have free will. One day or one year they play this side, and then one day they play that side. 

Because my own chart and everyone's own chart is like a Prashna, which is 

Fiona Marques: something that tells you what's going on right now.

Karyn Chabot Martino: in the moment.

Totally. Okay. So that was, that conversation was a little bit, the difference between the system that you were using and the Cards of Truth that people might be familiar with from the software. You were saying that system you're using uses midnight as the divider of the day and the Kala software, the Cards of Truth uses [00:32:00] sunrise.

Fiona Marques: Other differences that you're aware of between those two card systems?

 I respect what he's doing, and I also, I know that there are so many ways to divinate.

 I think this is one of the real challenges, isn't it, of the Western mind? Is that we have been indoctrinated to, to use that rational mind that things have to be repeatable and they have to have a cause and effect. And then when we come to something as rich as Astrology or cards, if we're too slavishly applying that we get all frustrated and confused because actually the messages that need to come will just come through and we can allocate them to, "Oh, it's because that card came up or it's because that was the transit that I saw or whatever it was". But actually the important information is coming through the system. And our limited. body mind that we have here sometimes we can get frustrated if we rigidly stick to [00:33:00] that. So it's a really interesting thing, I think being Being a Westerner and doing these kind of skills or tools is that allowing, like being, doing our training well, understanding our system well. So having that duty of care that we are skilled in what we're doing and we do understand what we're doing is important.

And then what's also important is that realization that there's a whole lot of information all the time that is. trying to be helpful and trying to give context to allow people to be in the present moment and make decisions. And maybe in some ways that's where it is great to be a massage therapist, isn't it? Because in massage therapy, we can learn all of our anatomy or we can learn, like you were talking about marma points or acupressure points. We can learn all of these maps and templates of the body. And it's really important to be a great massage therapist. It is really important. And, then as well as that, there's this connection and this trust and this being in the [00:34:00] moment that's really important to what you're doing. And then it doesn't necessarily matter if you're on that muscle or that energy line, you're just in the right place with the right pressure for the today, what that person needs. So maybe being a massage therapist is a great training for this, dual holding these two, both the the detail and the intuition. 

So great. I just wanted to bring up the whole Ernst software because people might be more familiar with it. So just to introduce that there are different ways of linking the cards to the Astrology. There's not a right way or a wrong way. Often when I speak to people about Tropical and Sidereal, I talk about reading an x ray versus reading an MRI that they're both really important lenses. The x ray reveals certain things. The MRI reveals certain things. An x ray doesn't invalidate an MRI and an MRI doesn't invalidate an x ray, even though they might at face value look like they've taken the information and they've sorted it in a different way. And surely one of one of them is [00:35:00] right. And one of them's wrong. And that's just not the case where the subject that the person who's being examined is so rich that whether you look at them through an x ray or an ultrasound or an MRI, it's going to bring up information that's important. 

And what is great when you get one of those exams is that the technician who reads it for you is someone who usually looks at x rays or usually looks at MRIs, because that's where the expertise comes is from always using the same lens, then that information, it becomes more and more rich and you're able to interpret it better and better. 

So whether you see Karyn and look through the 52 Star Codes, or you use the Cards of Truth, or you use Vedic Astrology, just see someone who has, refined their understanding of that system, they've become in an exchange, in a conversation with that template, with that lens, then that's the most useful thing that you can do.

So, now I want to talk about so many other things, Karyn but our time is coming to a close as we knew that we [00:36:00] would. Tell us a little bit about how people can learn more about right now, they could access you've written books that can help people understand their Star Codes. Because when I was researching for this podcast, I also really picked up on some of the things that you were sharing around it's almost like DNA. It's almost this richness of of our DNA is these five basic chemical elements put together in unique ways and allowing us to dance here in a physical form. 

The Secret 52 Star Codes of Creation

Fiona Marques: And people, as they're listening, might be wanting to find out a bit more about this 52 Star Code system. So tell us about your books and maybe your upcoming school and online offerings that you have.

Karyn Chabot Martino: Sure. I wrote five books. I actually was writing one book and it was getting so big that I didn't want to, shrink it down. So I wanted to give what I wanted to give, the information. Then I realized that when I went to self [00:37:00] publish on Amazon with such a, like that big of a book that I was going to be penalized with exorbitant fees. I was outside of the box that Amazon didn't want to publish this. And if they did, it was massive price. So I had to and also the software for editing and formatting, the book wouldn't accept a large. So I kept hitting walls with this large book, so I broke it into five. And that is called the Secret 52 Star Codes of Creation. And that actually when you measure the letters of that title, I chose it specifically because each letter comes to, when you add it up and you subtract repeatedly 52, you get 27, which is my blessed card. So my blessed card is really myself magnified. So it's a larger version of me, and that's how I use the formula to find blessed cards for each birthday.

So when you're working in your blessed, more magnified self, your greatest self, then you can attract, that's like opening a portal in a way, [00:38:00] to the book, so that the book will bring you blessings. So I chose that title because it vibrates that Ace of Diamonds, my blessed card for anyone born onNovember 29th.

And that book, I'm eventually going to make a trilogy out of it where I'm going to take the Black suits and the Red suits and just combine them into one book and then the Guidebook, which is there now, I'm going to call it the Master Book. I probably won't make many changes to that Master Book or Guidebook that is part of the five book series is necessary because it was originally included in the big fat book. So you will need that book to, to interpret the suits. So the other four books are the Hearts, the Clubs, the Diamonds, and the Spades book.

So you can buy them now as they are a five, but I will eventually condense them, but that will take some time.

Fiona Marques: Fantastic. Okay. So people can buy the guidebook and then they might like to buy the suit of the, just to begin the suit of their birth card and then, and they might become addicted and buy the other ones as [00:39:00] well.

Karyn Chabot Martino: Yes.

Fiona Marques: And are you thinking of teaching Karyn?

Karyn Chabot Martino: Yes. I'm actually writing a student guidebook right now for students like you or people that are wanting to understand the formulas, how I came to all of what I said in the 52 Star Codes. Because that book was geared for the Joe Schmo, the regular guy that, It's for self discovery. It's not for how to learn the system. There's a little bit in there, because I'm a natural teacher, so I put some things in there that will be insightful, so it wouldn't be completely boring for people like you who have a mind of an Astrologer. But I have had some Astrologer friends who are also authors of Astrology books, really good Astrologers, get frustrated because they're like, "Wait a minute, I want to know why this is my Blessed card. How did you get the Stress card? What's the formula for the Healing card? Or what's the formula for your Sick card? And I kept going back to the Master Book, but there was no, [00:40:00] you're just saying that this is your card for Blessed and then leave it at that?" And I said, "I had to choose the audience because if I was to choose a demographic of all Astrologers, then I would lose the Joe Schmoes that don't know Astrology and they just want to know, Oh, what's my card of the day? What's my Birth card? What are my challenges, my lessons? Self discovery. Who am I? Who are my people? Who are my Stressed people? Who are my Blessed people?" 

They want to know that. That's fine. They can use that. That's very helpful knowledge, but that will not teach you how to be a reader or how to learn the language of the stars.

I'm writing a book now based on learning the formulas and for people who really want a deeper understanding of how to apply this, learn it, and even become Star Code readers.

I'm going to have two different schools. So if you look at my website, there's a school for those people who are already Astrologers or at least have a very [00:41:00] strong understanding of Astrology. And then there are going to be students or a class that I set up online for those who don't know anything about Astrology.

 I don't want to mix them because it's going to end up that I'll bore the people like you with, "What's the meaning of Mercury?" You already know. But these people don't, so I had to separate that. There will be two different schools. Two different levels. 

Fiona Marques: So we'll keep an eye on your website to find out more about that. And then why don't we wrap up by just sharing what do you think is the value for those of us who are Astrology enthusiasts who already have a good level of understanding maybe of the planets and planetary energy. What is the benefit for us to maybe dabble a little bit to understand the cards, cause it's pretty scary to take on a new system. But obviously there's a lot for us to gain too. So what do you think?

Karyn Chabot Martino: "How will it serve me if I'm using Astrology and already successful at it?" It's really nice for me when I see in the cards, [00:42:00] for example Ace of Hearts, beginning of new love, represents babies, puppies, kittens, and new beginnings, heart openings, in Venus. When you get the Ace of Hearts, in Venus, for your yearly cycle, you're going to be having a heart opening that year, 100%. Somewhere, somehow, maybe someone that you already know will deepen and you'll get engaged or move in or get married, or you meet someone entirely new. And when I want to validate that finding, I'll go to the Jyotish, and I'll look in the Yogini system. I use the Vimshottari, but the, if you can also use the Vimshottari and find Jupiter Venus. Because when Jupiter and Venus are coming together in the Vimshottari, that usually brings a husband, right? Or I'll look in the Yogini Dasha system for Rahu Venus. When Rahu and Venus are together as the, Maha Dasha, and then the Bhukti, when they're conjoined, then you know, there's going to be some kind of skin chemistry.

Someone is going to rock your world and you're going [00:43:00] to, fall in love. And that exact time frame of when, say, a Rahu Venus in the Yogini cycle starts will line up within, I'd say, one to two weeks of the Ace of Hearts in Venus. Then, there cannot be any doubt this person is going to meet someone.

Fiona Marques: So it's a great tool of confluence for an Astrologer.

Karyn Chabot Martino: Yes, confluence, it is really confluence. And we need that sometimes, and I know a lot of Astrologers, my friends, that studied with Penny, will use Prashna for confluence they'll do their research, all the findings on the transits, and Natal chart. And then they're still scratching their head, not real sure, so we'll open a Prashna for the beginning of The reading and see what the Prashna says as confluence.

You can do that too, but you can also look at the cards and look for, okay, they're going to lose their job. Saturn governs work and Uranus to some degree governs career. You can look at, is there a Black [00:44:00] hole? Is there an affliction? Is there a 9 of Spades? 

 I look at his 52 Star Code system, I see Saturn is afflicted.

Fiona Marques: Fantastic. Karyn, thank you for coming in, coming onto the show, The Vedic Astrology Podcast, answering all of my questions of feeling around in the dark and really not knowing what I'm asking. 

So I've had a joy learning a bit more about Star Codes with you. And I hope that we'll get another chance to catch up sometime in the future and maybe look at applying maybe we can work on a case study or something together to really show how to use these cards. 

Karyn Chabot Martino: A great idea. Yeah, stories and case studies really bring it down to earth.

Fiona Marques: And thanks everybody for listening as well. I hope that you will go to check out Karyn's website and maybe you're going to go ahead and purchase a book and find out a little bit more about it. So we'll look forward to catching up with you next time here on the Vedic Astrology Podcast.

Thanks everyone. Bye for now.

Karyn Chabot Martino: Bye.