Program Details

As a result of completing this course, you will be able to:

• Read the fundamentals of your own astrological birth chart.
• Identify the 12 zodiacal signs and their most important characteristics.
• Identify the planets and other celestial bodies, and their major qualities.
• Understand the functions and main characteristics of the twelve astrological houses.
• Understand how these features indicate tendencies you may have in your personality, as both resources and challenges.
• Learn potential alternatives to these manifestations, opening yourself to a greater range of choices in your life.

Aside from the course overview and welcome, this self-study course has 12 modules, one for each sign of the zodiac.

We appreciate the challenge of balancing self-growth and busy schedules. So we’ve aimed to hit the sweet spot of fun and legitimate learning that doesn’t take a lot of time. Thus each module is designed so that it can be completed within two hours.

• Read the module content and listen to the corresponding video for each module (less than 1 hour)
• Study your chart, corresponding planets, houses and aspects (about 15 minutes per module).
• Do guided meditations on each component of the lessons (about 15 minutes per module).
• Reflect on and journal around how these characteristics and key words manifest in your life, both as resources and challenges (15 minutes and up, based on how deeply you would like to explore this).
• Participate in forum discussion (optional).
• Total approximate time per module: Two hours.

Catherine Pawasarat

Catherine Pawasarat has been studying and teaching astrology since the early 1990s, and for more than 20 years has had an intensive Buddhist apprenticeship––rare in the modern West––under the mentorship of Acariya Doug Duncan of Planet Dharma.

She is the Chief Visionary Officer and co-founder with Doug Duncan of the Clear Sky Retreat Center in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia.

She lived in Kyoto, Japan for 20+ years. Before she began her intensive Buddhist practice, she was a student of metaphysics and an ayahuascera, and helped establish Santo Daime in Japan.

In addition to Planet Dharma and Clear Sky, her website GionFestival.org shares her ground-breaking work on the spiritual traditions and sustainability of Kyoto’s 1100-year-old Gion Festival.

When does this course start?

This course is asynchronous, you can start at any time you like and you will have access to move freely through the materials whenever it is convenient.

How long will I have access to the course?

You will have access to the videos, lectures and courses material for one full year from the date of enrollment.

How does online learning work?

In this program, we open the entire curriculum to you immediately upon your registration. You can proceed with the course material one module each week or choose to move through at your own pace, whatever works best for your schedule. Once a module opens it is available 24/7 for the duration of the course so you can access the content as often as you like.

Each module builds on the previous one. Since human memory can be unreliable (we like the analogy of memory as an ever-changing compost heap), we strongly encourage you to design your own schedule before you begin the course.

One approach is to put appointments to do a module or part of a module – two hours a week, or an hour twice a week, or biweekly, whatever suits you – into your schedule. This helps you stay on track, tweaking the schedule as you figure out what works best for you and your learning style.

We’re here to support your journey and our team is ready to answer any questions you may have. Our goal is to help you feel fully comfortable with the experience.

This course is called “Intro.” Do you offer any more advanced courses on this topic?

This current course is the result of requests for an introductory AstroDharma course, when we offered an advanced level in 2014. Currently this is the only level we are offering.

If you’re interested in intermediate and advanced courses, please let us know. We listen to your feedback! If you’d like to be notified about such courses when they’re released, or other upcoming courses, we encourage you to join our mailing list at planetdharma.com.