Before the Internet: How I Traveled to Learn Astrology & Meet Legends! | My World of Astrology #6

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Hi, I'm Joni Petrie and welcome to my YouTube channel. Well, I want to continue on with some of my interesting stories about my search for astrology and what I'm calling this is my world of astrology. And remember I told the story how I went with the airlines because I wanted to be able to fly free to go study with some of the greats in astrology. And I definitely took advantage of that. So becoming a flight attendant and had so many advantages in my way of learning. And you have to remember, we didn't have the Internet back then. So the only way that we could really learn is to go in person. And you know what else you don't remember? Nobody does. But it used to be if you'd call somebody long distance on the phone, it cost a ton of money. It was very expensive. Expensive to talk on the phone. And I'm talking a phone that hooked up to the wall. It was very expensive. You didn't do that. But I could fly free and I would go study with the greats and I went to all the conferences and to really get known you. I mean, here's the thing. In astrology, there are these group of teachers that are at the top. Of course, they're the ones that have written all the books. You go to their classes. But it didn't change much. In other words, it was really hard to become one of those teachers. Let me tell you, it's so different today. It was like they never. They never moved out of town. In other words, it was always the same teachers. Of course, I respect and love them, but it was really hard for me to break into that. I wanted to be one of the teachers. Remember I got that moon in Leo, right. So I wanted to be one of the teachers. And really I had this fabulous advantage that I could travel for free. So there are these astrological organizations and I was a part of every single one, supported all of them. There was afan, there was.

Isar, of course, which, by the way, the abbreviation ISAR stands for. And this is the one that Ray Merriman began. International Society for Astrological Research. That's isar. And then there's another one that was called ncgr. And the NCGR stands for National Council of Geocosmic Research. These organizations have been around since my early days. And what's great about the NCGR is they have regional groups. They have groups that are set up in all the different cities around, really, the world. It's not just the United States, all over the world, but the ones in The United States were easiest to get to. And they would have speakers once a month. And of course they would have meetings. And the group in Fort Worth, I was actually on the panel. I was one of the. I think I was the secretary at one point. But we had presidents and we had meetings. And actually we even had that ridiculous hammer that you would hit like. Like in a courtroom to adjourn the meetings. I wonder if they still do that. Well, we did it, but I was part of Fort Worth group. And I remember every time we had a meeting or a special speaker, which I was frequently, this was the first step to get in. I was a speaker at the Fort Worth group. I remember all the fun people there. Donna Henson. Does anybody remember her? What a sweet woman. She was amazing. And talk about dedicated to astrology. We went to the conferences together, Donna and I and my best friend, Susie Patterson. Oh, my God, Susie, I hope you watch this. We had so much, so much fun. We always room together at all the conferences. And let me tell you, she was as fun and funny as I was. Actually, she was funnier. But we would laugh to the point where we got really scared one time at one of the conferences because we thought one of the teachers had a room next to us. And back in those days, you could hear what was going on in the next rooms. Oh, my God. I was so relieved the next day when I found out that he was not next to us because we laughed and giggled all night. We had so much fun, so much fun at those conferences. That was really a joy in life, thinking about being at those conferences and meeting all the greats and learning so much. But here's the thing. Because the NCGR had all these now, they had, you know, like once a year, a big conference that we would go to, but they had all these little regional groups in different cities. And my oldest son, all three of my sons are entrepreneurs, and they are all three really successful. My oldest son, I remember way back in the day, said, mom, you have to. Any place, anyone that asks you to speak, you go. I don't care how big or small it is. So I took his advice. But realizing that I could fly for free, I would put out to all the different NCGR groups around the country that I could come speak, you know, And I had my center at the time, so I had all sorts of classes. I was teaching at my center, so it was no problem to figure out what I was going to speak on. I could speak on aspects, I could speak on houses, I could speak on anything because I was already teaching, in a vast way, all of these subjects. And this was my way to get my foot in the door, to be able to speak at large conferences, to get my name out there, to get to be known, because otherwise it was impossible. So I could fly free. And, you know, I think I told them, I said, listen, I can fly there. And they said, are you sure? And what these groups would do, this was so amazing. When you would come, when you would be the speaker of the month, they would put you up at someone's home, another astrologer's house. You got to stay at their house. They'd pick you up from the airport, they take you to their house, and they would wine and dine you. It was so fun. You got to meet so many interesting people. And everyone was so warm and loving because, hey, they wanted to learn astrology as bad as I did. And you as a speaker, everyone wanted to get to know you because they could learn something from you. I'll never forget. Let me give you some of the places I went for the NCGR groups. It was remarkable. I've got to tell you, some of the cities that I spoke at, and this is for real in California and all ncgr, most of them were. I spoke. I love the San Francisco group. Why? Because this gave me an excuse to go to San Francisco. Most beautiful city in the United States. People say it's different now, but, hey, back then it was just heaven. Just heaven going to San Francisco. Also. I taught at. And so many welcoming people. I can't even tell you all the fun, beautiful people that I met in San Francisco. Yeah. And Orange County. I gotta say, that was incredible. Laura let me stay at her place.

Desjardins. Beautiful. And when you stayed at people's places, you really got to know them. I mean, we became best friends. And they take you to shopping. I remember when I went to Phoenix, the woman picked me up. We went to go have our nails and toenails done. She took me there. I'm just. Just amazing how they entertained you and made you dinner. I'll never forget the couple, though, in Arizona. This was in Phoenix, Harry and Bonnie. Oh, my God, they were. This precious older couple, picked me up from the airport, took me to their beautiful home. And they had cocktail hour, by the way, and they had. What was it? Gibsons or gimlets. I think it was a gimlet. Anyway, whatever. Whatever people did, I was game. Take me wherever you. Wherever you go Feed me whatever you eat I'll do whatever you do. So in the evenings this was in. They were in their 70s, you know, here I am approaching that age. But they were in their. They were in their 70s, maybe going on 80. Seriously. They took me into their home, we had cocktail hour and then went in the hot tub.

And talked astrology. And the thing that broke my heart is the very next year Bonnie got sick and she actually passed away within a year and a half after that. Broke my heart. These most precious people in the world. They even had Sunday dinner where they had their family come visit. Oh my God. Bake this beautiful Sunday dinner and even served a little champagne. I mean, this was the kind of fun I had going to these. These to go speak at places. So that was in. That was my fun in Phoenix. But going back to California, I went to Orange county where Laura had me and.

The LA group. Then I went down to San Diego and taught. Then I went up to Roseville and Sacramento and talk. This is all different times in Florida. Florida was probably one of my tops too, I gotta say. That was Mimi. You really took care of me and Mimi Alonso. That's who it was. Yes, the South Florida group. They were amazing. And here's another thing I did the whole time, every time I went there because of course I could, I could travel for free. Florida actually paid for my airfare to make sure I got there. Because, you know, when you've traveled non rev, there's a chance the flight may be full, you don't make it. Even though I could ride the jump seat, being an employee. But sometimes there was a chance you didn't make it. But I, yeah, always did. And.

And when I went to Florida, I met so many people. But here's how I really made my money. When I went to these places, I would be there for the whole weekend. I would Talk for a 2 for 1 or maybe all day on a Saturday, but I'd be there all day Sunday. I would do readings the whole time. The whole day I would squeeze in all these readings. And that was how I made my money. Going to these groups.

But talk about meeting fabulous people. So also in Florida, one time I went to go visit Nalini Kantadas. His name is really Tom Hopke, but such a beautiful. And his wife, oh my God, his wife was beautiful. They were Hare Krishnas. And I went and talked at his conference in Gainesville with Chakrapani Ual and Dennis Harness and.

David Gold Goldstein, I think. And I know there was somebody else, but it was very, very small and it was so intimate. Got to know so many people so well. The other places I went to go speak were Austin, of course, Houston. I went to go speak, went to Baltimore, and then I went across the next day and taught in Annapolis. Beautiful, beautiful places. Such wonderful people I met. Also I went to Ohio. Ina Stanley had me to her place, her center. That was so much fun. Ina, I hope you see, see me talking about you. I hope you hear this. She was amazing. Just so much fun meeting all these people. And I would go talk to the NCGR groups there as well. I also went to Seattle and.

Gosh, those places were amazing. Yes, the Seattle group is a big one. But you know, if I have to say my favorites just because I got to see the cities too, would have to be the Florida group in San Francisco. But the Phoenix group was incredible. Really, it was so large. Charlotte Benson, of course, was always the president half the time when I went there. So she always invited me and had me there with open arms. Such a sweet, adorable, hilarious woman. I mean, we have the most amazing people in astrology. My husband goes with me now, now that he's retired. He's going. I cannot believe the people you know, through astrology. They fun and so kind, but so much fun all at the same time. So, so what I did was going to all these NCGR groups. I would do one a month. That's how serious I got with this. So one week in a month, I would put it out there to all the NCGR groups and I would go to a different one each month and do readings, do lectures. I had to be up on what I was going to be speaking on. I really got good. That's another thing with making my speaking skills much, much better. And then from that, I started getting invited to the big conferences, the big ones. And I got invited to and still do conferences such as the ncgr.

Such as the ISAR UAC United Astrologers Conference, the biggest conference in the world. I mean, it's sort of like when you make it to uac, you made it. It's held once every four years and it's international and it's the biggest. It has thousands of people that attend because people come from all the different countries around the world. And it is such a great meeting. Let me tell you a little story about when I was speaking at UAC in 2008. I think it was. It was the year that Barack Obama was running for president for the first time. Yeah, it's 2008. And one of my clients worked on Obama's.

Where she would, where they would go do rallies for Obama One of my clients worked with somebody that worked one on one with Obama. Well, she said, I can get his birth time for you. I said, oh, my God, that would be. That would be it. So she did. She even sent me the birth Xerox, the copy of this, this form that had his birth information on it. And so here I am getting ready to speak at uac and I tell the people, I have Barack Obama's birth time. They're going to tell us, what is it? What is it? I said, nope, I'm not telling you. You have to bring me up on the stage at UAC and I will announce it to everyone all at the same time. What? Actually, to be honest with you, one of my friends told me to do that. They said, don't you just give it to anyone. I thought, you're right. So I got a little snippet of fame that night. It's still somewhere on the Internet. I saw it not that long ago where you see me come up and I go, drum roll. And I give his time, and everybody's writing it down and going wild with it. So that was my first claim to fame, I think, at UAC and just all these conferences. Then, of course, I got to be a speaker because I got to be really good friends because I brought them to my center to speak. Dennis Harness and Dennis Flaherty. And back in the day, they ran the whole conference in Sedona.

So I got to be a speaker at the Sedona conference. And this was after I took all my American Council of Vedic Astrology ACVA exams. I got to be one of the teachers. Our conferences were held in the most spectacular places you can imagine. Dennis Harness loves to travel about as much as I do, but he makes it his business to really travel and be in these places. So he has his conferences. He actually moved from California to Sedona because it's so spectacularly beautiful. And we had all of our conferences in Sedona except for two of them. And I was. Well, it was a lot of hard work, but I was the one that would plan the whole schedule and invite all the speakers to the Hawaii conference. And this Hawaii conference was held in Kauai, the most beautiful garden island. We had our conferences there. I was the planner. I invited all the speakers. And then from that point on, both dentists said, why don't we have a conference in Dallas? So I put that all on, put it all together. Let me tell you about this.

I've done my own conferences many times. This was a nightmare because, well, I was so busy in the planning. I really didn't look at where the planets were back then. I wasn't doing world predictions. I would do readings and I would go around and do workshops, but I wasn't doing world predictions because we all planned this conference in September of 2001.

And it was in the latter part of September, September 2001, that we had the Dallas conference planned.

And, oh, my gosh, it was called Eastern Astrology for Western Minds. I bet you can find that somewhere. That's the title of my first book, because Eastern Astrology for Western Minds. I wrote the book for the. For how we think, coming from Western astrology, coming from the west, the way we can interpret it and understand it. So we actually named the conference that. And it was my baby. But the dentist's were helping me.

I got to share with you. My mother lent me the money. Okay. It's expensive to advertise conferences back then. I remember I advertised in the Mountain of Strangers Astrologer magazine, and it cost a thousand dollars a page. Back then, you were. To me, a thousand dollars was like $10,000 today. It really was a lot of money to me. But my mother helped me. She always did. My parents were so generous, and we weren't getting the attendance. This is before September 11th happened. So back then, because there wasn't the Internet, you couldn't email everyone. I would, on my overnights as a flight attendant, sit in my hotel room on that really crummy phone that we. That the first, you know, iPhones. Well, it wasn't even an iPhone. It was just, you know, those crummy phones. You couldn't see anything on it or anything. But I would call people on that phone. And even though it cost me some money to call them, I called everyone I could think of and said, are you coming to my conference? That was how I was drumming up business. I was like a salesperson calling people, begging them to come to the conference. And it was getting really close to the conference. And back in the day, I think it's still this way. It's. No. I had a conference recently. It's not as bad, but you had to. You had to say how many rooms you were. You were reserving. And if you didn't fill them, you had to pay for them anyway. And I was looking at owing the hotel $10,000. That was almost like a million to me back then. I didn't sleep at night. I was worried sick. September 11th happened. Guess what.

You. It was, of course, a nightmare because the speakers, all of A sudden pulled out. One of them said they had a sore throat and couldn't come. No, everybody was afraid to get on an airplane. I was still flying for the airlines then. And you would go work a flight and nobody was on it. People were scared to death to travel. So, matter of fact, I remember during that time, me and my flute flight crew members were flying to Las Vegas. And this guy in the back row, kind of quiet, I forgot. I think he was doing cards or something. And he called me over and he says, how many crew members are there on this flight? And I'm thinking, oh, my God, he's a terrorist. What? Why does he want to know that? So, you know, he looked kind of okay. And I thought, well, you know, he's by himself. I don't know. I said four. There was. Let me see. No, there was three of us. There were three crew members at the time. And you know what he did? He put one, two $300 bills out on his tray table. He says, here, thank you for working this flight, because it was empty.

That was, you know, that. That's the kind of stuff that we went through working on airplanes during those times. But here's the clincher that was. Saved my butt. The hotel had to let me. Let me off from that $10,000, which I thought I was going to have to borrow from my mother. And my mother would have made me pay for it emotionally for the rest of my life, you know. So.

I met. They took me off because all the hotels, because of 9 11, had to let everyone go because nobody was coming to the hotels. I was off the hook. Saved my butt. And wow, the things I've gone through for astrology, no one knows, but that was my first conference. You'd think I'd never have one again. Well, I've had many more in Dallas since then. As a matter of fact, the last one I had was really nice. Made it pretty small. That was about a year and a half ago. And it went well? It went well. People come together, My students, we get to meet in person. You know, it's wonderful that we have the Internet. We can come together on Zoom and all talk and see each other all around the world. But nothing's better than being with people. You gotta realize that. And that's what we had the capacity and the ability to do at these conferences. And by the way, I'm teaching at a couple of conferences coming up here. As a matter of fact, I will be if this comes out March 7th through the 9th. I'm going to be in Orlando, Florida. And I'm going to be teaching at cosmic patterns conference March 7th through the 9th. And the hotel is the Florida Hotel Convention Center. So if you want to attend that look up cosmic patterns.

Conference.Com come see me. I'm going to be delivering a fabulous talk about my world predictions in this book, World Predictions 2024-2042 with the focus on the year of this year 2025 and 2026. So.

You can probably get the recording of that if you're not able to attend. It's my lecture is Rahu and Ketu Lunar nodes and eclipses 2025 to 2026. And I'll be speaking with Dennis Harness in Sedona coming up here next August. So I'll keep you guys posted on that. So yeah, I will get you all that information. It's a very small conference too. They're my favorite. You get to know people better. So. And with that one, the attendance will be limited to a certain number. So when once this this information is out there and you're able to purchase it, get on it because it's going to fill up quick. Anyway, I thought I might give you an idea of what it took to be a speaker, to be able to speak at the big conferences. I had to go to all the little ones and every month I gave a lecture. For years I did this in another video I'm going to tell you about my big adventure to Istanbul, Turkey. It was amazing. So with that I think I'll close. Remember, if you want to learn Vedic astrology from me, join my university. Go to universityofvedicastrology.com and become my student. And remember, you should be getting my newsletter. It's free. Go to my website, Galactic Center.org and this will put you in the know of everything I'm doing and what's going on. Especially give you the predictions weekly of what's going on in the world. And do not forget about my galactic planner. My galactic planner is amazing. It does your chart and it gives you all your transits every day and it's uploaded into your personal calendar on your phone or computer. I personally think it's amazing. I've worked so hard. I wrote all of the transcriptions. This is no AI journal junk. And let me just say, AI is not good, right? Right now it I've read some of the stuff on AI. It's incorrect. This is the real deal. So go to GalacticPlanner.com and get your predictions daily. So with that, on to the next one. I hope you'll join me for the next My World of Astrology. Thank you.