Moving Into a New World
Our 2023 Faculty Open Day was held at Mary Ward House in Bloomsbury, a coming together of the astrological community to celebrate and connect. Once again, we enjoyed gathering in community with students, tutors, Diploma holders and friends all contributing to buzzing conversation and a lively atmosphere.
The Faculty turns 75 years old this year, marked with a display of past exam papers going back to the first Certificate and Diploma exams in the early 1950s. Once again, the Astrological Association were on hand to welcome new members and Roy Gillett had Solar Fire showing on the big screen.
In the morning two of our new Diploma holders presented on the theme Moving into a New World. Stefano Stracuzzi started us off with a fascinating look at The Great Initiation, looking at the astrology of recent years in absorbing detail.
Mercedes Simón’s talk was titled Into the Invisible Power of the Air and the Spirit and took us on a journey through recent and future astrological shifts. Both talks were insightful and complimented each other beautifully.
To end the morning session, Faculty tutors, Dragana Van de moortel-Ilić and Kim Farley, and guest tutor Darby Costello, led a discussion panel, sharing their thoughts and insights into the current astrological picture. Once again their insights were inspiring and the conversation could have continued all day!
After lunchtime spent catching with friends old and new, our President Cat Cox opened the afternoon session with an overview of the Faculty’s achievements and plans in the last year, including successful in person events as well as a thriving online community.
The highlight of the day came next; the reason we had gathered as a Faculty family and astrological community. Mónica Teixeira, the Faculty’s Head of Exams, introduced the Awards ceremony, honouring and celebrating the achievements of 34 new Certificate holders and an impressive 4 new Diploma holders. Many of our award winners were able to attend in person to receive their Certificates and Diplomas. The Faculty is a global community and more of our award winners were able to join us via Zoom, allowing us to acknowledge their achievement with a round of applause sent across cyberspace. The award winners attending in person were congratulated by our guest speaker Dr Nick Campion.
After some time for coffee and more catching up, the day was rounded off perfectly with a lecture from Dr Nick Campion entitled “The Entangled Universe”, considering conceptions of astrology both ancient and modern.
The next Faculty Open Day will be on 23rd March 2024 and we’d love you to join us for this annual celebration.
