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Astrology and herbalism, Maeg tells us, more or less co-arose.
Working with plants — people have been doing that since prehistory. Paying attention to the stars and noticing patterns and seeing what it might mean about weather or agriculture or politics or eventually even individual people’s lives — that is also extremely, extremely old. The earliest written records of plant-star-planet combinations go back to around 400 BCE, though Maeg is sure it’s older. That’s just the record we have. Most people who were practicing medicine were practicing it with plants, like most of the global contemporary world does right now, and they were doing so alongside watching stellar omens.
So when Maeg got interested in both, what relief! I didn’t have to be a Mercurian Gemini person and like take two disparate things and put them together. They were already together.
The framework, drawn from a Neoplatonic cosmology and other traditions less canonized by white Western philosophy, is this: everything in the heavens cascades down into the earth. All of us are built out of things from the heavens. It’s a ladder of connection and affinity and relationship. The same way any of us are made up of our birth chart — Maeg is full of Mercury and Venus and Mars and different inflections — so are the plants. So are stones. So is the garbage on my street. So is a book. To different mixtures.
Which means if you’re trying to get to know one of the planets really well, you can go to a being or a thing that is very of that planet and ask it what it can tell you about the thing it’s mostly made out of.
About our guest
Maeg Keane is a writer, astrologer, and herbalist who runs Third Sister. In Maeg’s own words: I consort with the spirits of the stars and of the green world. Astrology and herbalism are two of the ways I listen to the sparkling fishnet of timespace that holds us, and of which we are a part.
Maeg specializes in the 5th house — a part of the birth chart that gathers stories about desire, pleasure, joy, and the part of us that wants to make things — and in the fixed stars, sort of getting the whole sky back versus just the ecliptic.
Website: third-sister.com
Book a reading: third-sister-dio.as.me
Substack — The Gleaming Feast: maegkeane.substack.com
Instagram: @maeg.thirdsister
Bluesky: @maegkeane.bsky.social
On the fifth house
The fifth house’s oldest association is actually with children. Not your childhood — literally the kids you’ll have. But it became about generativeness in general, the erotic in general. Not just children but the force of life that creates all kinds of things in your life besides other humans.
It’s Venus’s favorite house, no matter where she is in the chart or what sign coincides with that particular part of the chart. She loves it there. Joy. Pleasure. Playfulness. The creative. The place that makes you want to unfurl and make and reach out in some way to the world. I have so much life in me, it has to come out somehow.
What Maeg saw in client after client who hadn’t even come for a fifth house reading, was the surprising vulnerability of this place. It has all the best, I think, the best words that life has to offer. And yet people would say yeah, it is really, really hard when I can’t get to that place. And it’s really hard to be in that place.
Maeg cannot tell you the number of clients sat with who can’t make art — they can, but they’re not — because they’re still hearing their parents say don’t waste those art supplies, they’re really expensive. People who went to art school and it just killed their creative flow and process completely. People who’ve taken a long break, maybe even because of a fifth house reason, like pregnancy and early parenthood, who are coming back asking who am I now? What — am I going to write the same book I was writing before I had this kid? I have no idea. People who do creative work for a living, which is supposed to be the dream, but it totally changes their relationship to that work because of the money stuff and the visibility stuff and the reputation stuff and the pressure.
Maeg’s own fifth-house ruler is Saturn in Capricorn. Having Saturn as the guy who stewards your joy is a weird fit. That’s part of why this reading exists. There’s a version of: I give a reading because I’m masterful in this part of my life, like — good luck. And then there’s a version that’s like: I give a reading about this because I am in here with you. And that’s very much my approach. It’s a very Mercury, like, I’m alongside you, man. I get it.
A note for anyone with an empty fifth house: you’re fine, Maeg promises. Having an empty fifth house does not mean you are empty of joy or play or creation. The ruler of the fifth is really where it’s at. Everybody has one of those.
On remediation, more or less — and on a blackberry plant
When KP Kaszubowski asks about remediation, Maeg gently declines the word. I don’t explicitly offer what I think of as professional remediation, because I think of that as a really rigorous process that is studied for a long time and is most robust in the Jyotish tradition.
But there’s plenty you can do that venerates the planets, which they really like. And you also can just get to know your planets better, which I do think is magic. I think that it actually makes an impact in your life to get to know the planet itself, just like as an inherent being.
You can do devotional work — light a candle on the day of the planet, because all the planets have days of the week. Leave out offerings. You basically treat them like you — lowercase-g gods. Because they kind of are. Hang out. Read hymns. Find poems that you think speak to them. It can feel really awkward and goofy. I feel awkward and goofy when I do it. But it’s also worth it.
Or — alongside that — plants are really good ambassadors of the planets. If you really want to get to know Jupiter, hang out with sage, a Jupiter plant. What can sage teach me about Jupiter? If Jupiter is lending his attributes to this plant, what can I learn about this plant’s stories? Its ecology, biology, how it collaborates with the human body? What is it like to grow it? Or do lemon balm. Sit under an oak tree. Have a feast: Jupiter loves fatty foods and an overladen table.
Maeg got to know Saturn through blackberry. Eating blackberries on Saturdays. Sitting with a blackberry plant for a while at a berry farm. Doing a lot of research about the folklore and different uses, especially through Maeg’s own ancestral lines — Irish stories about blackberry. That taught me a lot about that planet. That isn’t just like me reading Vettius Valens, which is also great, but it’s not the only way.
KP catches what’s structurally Saturnian about blackberry mid-conversation: it’s a sweet fruit, and it’s also a boundary plant. It’ll give you a little sting. It’ll hurt a little bit if you try to pass through it. You can’t go fast. You have to take the berries gently. You can’t just throw a hand in and grab. It’s a plant that tiny animals hide in. And in herbalism, one of its primary uses is for diarrhea — it tightens lax tissue. One of the things Saturn’s really good at is reforming loose structure in the body so that there’s a way to not sort of accidentally spill out and empty out.
On the wood betony moment
The first time Maeg ever communed with a plant deliberately — and it was sort of semi-deliberate — Maeg was supposed to be doing what’s very common in herb schools, a plant of the week or a plant of the month, where you pick a plant and you do everything you can possibly do with it. It’s your buddy.
Maeg sat down with a tea of wood betony and sipped it. Got the flavors, of course, and then also like sensations and images. And I was like, whoa. That was very new. I was very like — I’m going to be a scientific herbalist. I don’t get any of this woo stuff, you know? Like it was — and the plants were like, jokes on you.
That didn’t last very long.
On the plants Maeg keeps near
Strawberry. A whole summer of being completely insourceled by it. I wrote like a 37-page — Maeg could call it a zine, but no, people who make zines should get credit for what they do with zines. It’s a PDF. Strawberry just like took me everywhere. Othello. Strawberry farming. Stories from folklore. Queer theory. It just took me on such a beautiful ride and it kept just showing up at these like really precious and beautiful moments just like saying hello. Plants really like it when you like plants. And planets really like it when you give them attention. They will give you gifts for paying attention, for giving them visibility, in the spotlight, I’ve learned.
Ivy. A Saturn plant, with really strong ties to Dionysus and Ariadne. Maeg has not yet written the ivy monograph. Some plants Maeg has tried not to learn about, because I’m trying — like, it’s almost like one way for me to honor them is to learn all about them, everything that I possibly can. And some of them it’s like, I’ll be more present with you if I don’t do the academic deep-dive that I’m prone to doing.
(KP, separately, is in a strange standoff with the fixed star associated with ivy — having looked it up roughly three hundred times and being, somehow, not yet permitted to remember its name.)
Beach rose. Lining the coast where Maeg’s grandparents lived. Their thorns are like so sharp and many — like you can’t even touch the stalk. There’s no space. It’s all thorn. But it’s a five-petal, bright pink, with a burst of yellow in the middle. I love them so much. They’re not only there, but that’s where I know them from.
On the seventh-house mirror
Maeg ran a reading once called So You Think You Hate That Sign. Almost no one took her up on it. People love to hate other signs but they don’t actually want to talk about why that might be wrong. The pitch wasn’t great. But the idea was: whatever sign you feel the most uncomfortable with, for whatever reason — that’s still in your chart. Let’s re-complexify it.
Chelsea names what’s underneath this in IFS terms: the U-turn. The You-Turn. When someone’s coming in — maybe you’re complaining about your partner, my gosh they didn’t do X, Y, and Z — we encourage that person to do a U-turn so you’re just looking back at yourself. How are you showing up? What’s this response or this reaction? What parts of you are having that reaction and response? And what’s underneath that? Probably some younger part of you that had some thing happen, that felt this way with your parents. When we get activated about other people, it’s always something about, you know, yourself.
Maeg picks it up: based on what you just said, it’s reminding me of the mess of the seventh house. This idea that the seventh is a place of the other. It’s the place of the other who’s beloved. It’s the place of the other who’s, like, abject and difficult or, like, triggering you for some reason or accusing you, but just by existing. The enemy in some way, which is also like often a projection of some kind. And it’s a complementary opposite of the first house — you. You can’t really disentangle them.
The IFS U-turn and the seventh-house mirror, doing the same work in different vocabularies. The chart was already saying it.
KP and Chelsea both have significant placements in the seventh. Both work one-on-one. It’s great to hold space for someone and also understand that you are receiving projections. You are also projecting. It’s full of dynamism, whether you’re aware of it in the moment or not.
On Chelsea, Tulsi, and a dream of Hawthorn
When Chelsea did her herbalism certification, what surprised her most weren’t the plants themselves but the tissue states — how my internal tissues and what different plants, how they’re helping. I’m so dry inside and I had no idea that there’s different things I can do to kind of balance that out. And the energetics. I knew it maybe intuitively, of course plants are alive and they have energy, but the variety and range of energetics that they can bring. I was just like — my god, this is like, we’re really blending the magic with science here.
That summer, Chelsea fell into a relationship with Tulsi. Took infusions every day, every day, every day, felt amazing. This is like, this is my plant. I really have a strong connection to Tulsi now.
But during the same stretch, a different plant came to her in a dream. She didn’t remember the context, just that Hawthorn arrived clearly and loudly and said work with me. Chelsea had not worked with Hawthorn at all, didn’t even know what it was. So she started. And learned like, it’s really great for the heart. And it’s just like a love. I think I needed that like love balm at the time. It was kind of a rough time relationship-wise. So I think that’s why Hawthorne came to me to help.
This is what Maeg keeps describing without quite saying directly: that the relationship runs both ways. You don’t only choose the plants. The plants come.
Hawthorn, Maeg notes, is tricky to pin to a single planet. Some traditions call it Mars for the thorns; some Venus for the flowers and the heart-medicine. It does have that heartache-protective quality while still being soft and supportive. It doesn’t keep things out. It’s just like — you can’t just grab at me. A Mars-and-Venus plant. A heart that won’t be grabbed at.
Chelsea ends the section already redesigning her own relationship to plants in real time: I’m inspired to do that now. Kitchen witchery — taking or to deepen the devotion of the plant and planet by having like a physical application to it. Whether it’s a food you’re creating using herbs, or making your own deodorant, or a tincture, or even just like room spray. However you can to incorporate or deepen the relationship to the herb and the planet.
On Alphecca, briefly (because Maeg could go for thirty minutes)
Alphecca is the alpha star in Corona Borealis — the crown of Ariadne, Dionysus’s wife. I really even — I mean, she’s famous for being Dionysus’s wife. She’s so much more than that. I love her so much. Currently projected to around 12° Scorpio.
It’s dance, mazes, flowers, perfume, parades — like not like a town parade, like a procession of people dancing, like Maenads. There’s a charm and an ability to move through social spaces that Alphecca confers on people. Sometimes associated with friendship. With being able to make friends.
Talismanic magic is really interesting, Maeg says, because the way that, if you make a talisman about a fixed star, it’s supposed to give you certain virtues or like nice things people want — but what people thought was valuable and virtuous and nice depends so much on the time period and the culture. One of the things people said the Alphecca talisman would give you was chastity, which is not my experience of her at all. She is a lust bucket and I love her for it. And she likes cake and treats. She’s a queen.
But she does know how to show up a certain way, which might be some of that chastity as in belonging to oneself. Etiquette and decorum and knowing how to handle yourself. And also: she can totally party. She is married to the god of wine and ecstasy. And he picked her out when she was heartbroken and just showed up and was like — how about something different?
KP loves Ariadne for being one of the only female lowercase-g gods who is treated well in marriage and treats herself well too. Maeg agrees. Mistress of the labyrinth. So much of her mysteries have to do with going into spirit realms and coming out safely. Because she has the thread that pulls you back.
For anyone who wants more: Marcus Manilius has one of the most beautiful passages about Alphecca. It’s so good. When you’re ready, read it to yourself.
Also in this episode
Why Maeg sometimes refuses to research a plant on purpose
Taste as a primary mode of communing with plants — probably Taurus stuff, maybe
I assume that the plants are as complicated as we are and we have all the planets in us
If we’re trying to build everything based on just replicating with what the ancients did, I think we’re going to be missing what the ancients were doing. They were inventing in real time too.
Quotes
“I didn’t have to be a Mercurian Gemini person and like take two disparate things and put them together. They were already together.” — Maeg Keane
“All of us are built out of things from the heavens. It’s just like this ladder of connection and affinity and relationship. So are the plants, so are stones, so is the garbage on my street, so is a book — to different mixtures.” — Maeg Keane
"When we get activated about other people, it's always something about yourself. It's something you don't love about yourself, or you're still trying to heal." — Chelsea Owens, on the IFS U-turn
“If you really want to get to know Jupiter, you can go to a being or a thing that is very of that planet and be like — what can you tell me about the thing you’re mostly made out of?” — Maeg Keane
“I was very like — I’m going to be a scientific herbalist. I don’t get any of this woo stuff. And the plants were like, jokes on you. So that didn’t last very long.” — Maeg Keane
"We're really blending the magic with science here, and it's so beautiful." — Chelsea Owens, on tissue states and energetics in her herbalism certification
“Plants really like it when you like plants. And planets really like it when you give them attention. They will give you gifts for paying attention.” — Maeg Keane
“If you’re resonating with whatever you’re working with, then that’s the relationship. I want to have relationships. It’s more interesting.” — KP Kaszubowski
“She is a lust bucket and I love her for it. And she likes cake and treats. She’s a queen.” — Maeg Keane, on Alphecca
Work With Maeg
Book a reading: third-sister-dio.as.me
Strawberry zine (and other guidebooks, classes, workshops): third-sister.com/store
Maeg’s writing — The Gleaming Feast: maegkeane.substack.com
Mentioned in this episode:
Sarah Corbett of Rowan & Sage — rowanandsage.com
Diana Rose Harper (co-taught Celeste Natura, no longer running)
Vettius Valens — Anthologies
Marcus Manilius — Astronomica (the passage on Alphecca is in Book 5)
Work With Us
KP Kaszubowski — Hellenistic astrologer · Astro Parts Work · poet
KP has opened up Astro Parts Work sessions (https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=22372975&appointmentType=89789886) and is currently reviewing her Book Doula waitlist right now, taking on 1 - 2 more clients this year for people ready to finish that book for real this time. Waitlist link: https://forms.gle/3LwpmAinnBN2Q4aY8
Astrology for Makers ↗ kpkaszubowski.substack.com
Chelsea Owens — Licensed therapist · Certified IFS Level 3
Chelsea works with individuals using Internal Family Systems therapy — the same framework she brings to Parts & Charts. Now accepting new clients.
Book an IFS session: chelseaowenstherapy.com
Chelsea’s Substack ↗ chelseaowens.substack.com
Credits
Music “Vape Juice Dave’s Bistro” composed by Scott Cary (Wild Western Avenue) for the feature film RINGOLEVIO (2020) directed by KP Kaszubowski — performed by Scott Cary, Max Wikoff, Else Albeck Gasparka, and Sarah Luther.
Collage art used in this episode by Chelsea Owens
