How I Fell in Love with Istanbul | My World of Astrology #7

Foreign.

Hi, I'm Joni Petrie and welcome to my YouTube channel. Well, today I'm going to talk about my world of astrology.

This time I want to talk about my adventures around the world, about being invited to speak in other countries. It expanded beyond the conferences, the going to people's houses with the NCGR group. It expanded to the world and I think the first, the first conference that I was invited to.

Was in London, the Bhava conference. And Bava is the British astrological Vedic astrology. So Bava has all these amazing, I mean world class Vedic astrologers. To be perfectly honest with you, I was so nervous, but I was one of the keynote speakers. I guess they make the 4 in ones the keynote speakers. But I was, I had an all day workshop and I'll tell you, I was so nervous that, oh, you're going to love this. I stood up there nervous as could be and the Brits are quite stern with their look on their face. As a matter of fact, a guy on the very first row goes, you're the teacher. It was so insulting. I guess I didn't have the look of a professional Vedic astrologer. I guess wearing makeup and fixing my hair. I don't know, this is kind of what I'm trying to surmise why I couldn't look the part. But he immediately made me feel even more insecure. So everyone's very stern and I'm getting ready to talk and I mean.

It was nerve wracking. So first thing that popped in my head, I'm telling you what, there's divine guidance that always comes to us if we allow it. Before I said anything, it just popped in my mind to say this. I said, you know, just love London. I love the people in England. You know, the last time I was here I was walking in a mall and this girl, when I went up to buy some, I think it was clothing or makeup or something, she says, you know, I just love your accent. You know, you sound just like Ellie Mae Clampett from the Beverly Hillbillies. Everyone broke out in a roar of laughter because, you know, in England they love to watch all of our old, old reruns. Some of you may not even know what the Beverly Hillbillies show was. But those of you that do, I'm sure you're laughing right now. But it made everyone break out in a big hilarious laugh. Everyone had a smile on their face. And then I started my lecture. You know, when you can break the ice, when you can make people laugh, people open.

And Then you give them the information. They're open. So that was just the thing I needed. I don't know where that came from. The divine guidance kicked in right then and there, because I'm sure my voice was a little shaky right at first. But.

That broke the ice, and I was comfortable, and I delivered one of the best speeches, or I thought it was pretty good for me. As a matter of fact, Camilla Sutton came up to me afterwards and says, joni, you're a star. And that was like, wow, coming from her. I was like, okay, thank you. That was just amazing. So that was my first foreign conference.

And then I got invited to all sorts of places all around the world. And. And just to give you some, that came during the time of my biggest was, I went to the Birla center in Canada, and that is a palmistry center. Oh, my God, that was amazing. Gun Cham Burla had it at the time, and he has just passed on. He was just an amazing palmist and Vedic astrologer. The Canadians were so welcoming. It was so beautiful. They had it at this resort.

His book's about to come out. I'll let you guys know when it comes out. He's passed on, but his book was finished before he passed. And I am so honored. I can't even tell you guys, because they asked me to write the foreword, and I did. And nothing makes me happier because this place was one of the most special places of all. Talk about welcoming. And I gave everyone readings, and I did a whole workshop. The most hilarious thing is this. You know, this. This was in Montreal, outside of Montreal. And so most everyone spoke French. Well, my husband was with me, Daniel, and he's French, and he was born in France. He's, you know, he is a citizen of France, and he owned. They only spoke French in his household, so he fluent. So they said, why don't you have your husband translate? Talk about a mistake. Well, I would try to finish up, you know, after a sentence or two and let him translate. Well, there was a concept that I kind of went on a little longer, and I looked at him, waiting for the translation, and he looked at me. And in front of everyone, we both started laughing so hard.

It was embarrassing, really and truly, but it was funny at the same time. So after this class, I had. I had the second part the next day. They said, do you mind if we have someone else as the translator tomorrow? I said, no, definitely, because he didn't know any of the astrology. It was too funny. But that was the Birla center in Canada. That was just. I mean, this place was at a resort on. On a lake in Canada in the fall where everything was changing colors. I mean, it was just like something out of a dream, out of a book, a fairy book. It was incredible. Some of the opportunities and places I got to go to with my speaking is a dream. My life has been like a dream because of astrology. So I also had one of my client students from Austria invite me, Natalie. And she set it up where I went. She had a hotel where she teaches yoga. And she's an actress, beautiful actress. And she's. She's a graduate from my university now. And she, she had me to Austria. I had people from all over Europe. Every country you could think of were there. I think there was people from Ireland, from France, from Italy, from Poland, from.

Belgium, of course, Austria, Germany. And one girl. Well, there was one girl that came from California, but another one came from South Korea. Talk about an international crowd. And we all went out and ate afterwards and partied and laughed and talked astrology. That's the fun of conferences. I always say this. You learn more about astrology or when you're outside of the class, particularly in the restaurants, in the bars. It's hilarious, these conferences. I'm talking back from my 20s all the way on. We used to draw charts on napkins on. I'll never forget. It was just so much fun. But going to all these different places that I taught at around the world and had set up, set up, greet and meets all over the world. I did one in Australia, met amazing people, did one in London recently and Japan, Tokyo, met all the people that follow me on YouTube. It's a blast. And talk astrology. Whenever I have a meet and greet, I give away my books and sign them and I. And I have talks. Ask me questions, and if you can answer this question, you get a book. So it's just fun, fun. Bringing people together in the astrological world is priceless. But let me get to my best, best opportunity of all. And that was one day I got a call, or I think it was a email. Somebody from Turkey, Istanbul, Turkey. Asked me if I wanted to come teach. I was like, suspicious. What? Who in the world from Istanbul would. Is this some weirdo trying to get me over there or something? So you, you know, it's just like. But no, this was legit. And his name was Osman and he was from the big old.

Shem Spiritual center. And turned out I said, okay, I'm going to go meet this guy. I'm going to, I'm going to concede to do this, but I'm going to bring my husband just in case it's, you know, not legit.

I went. And here's the thing, here's the beauty of it. Back early, this was probably.

It was the year before Turkey and Istanbul had the big riots where they, they had a coup. I think that was like 2011 or 2012 or it was somewhere around 2012 or 14. That was. I first started going to Turkey. The first time I went, they have this magnificent center that is on the top of a building that overlooks Gezi park and on the other side the Bosphorus. And the room that they put me in was like an apartment. And it had all these giant windows that overlooked.

The Bosphorus. And of course it was like, you know, there was no televisions or anything for entertainment at night. And I remember I would go to sleep at night and I would look out that window and those beautiful bridges would turn colors all night. That was all I needed for entertainment. And then I got up the next morning, every morning and I would do a tarot card reading for myself with the tea and look out at the most beautiful scene you can imagine looking out at those bridges and the Bosphorus. Turkey, if you haven't been, is the most beautiful, interesting city on all accounts. The people are so warm and friendly and Osman took care of us. Oh my God, did he take care of me so much to the point that I went back to Turkey every year for 10 years.

And what I did there was amazing. I was there for almost three weeks. Sometimes I told them I could never go in the summer because I get too hot. Probably I'm different now, but I only went around January or February or. Or sometimes I would go in October. But I went every year. One, one time I went twice in a year. I got to know. I didn't get to know Turkish though. That language is so friggin hard. I could never catch on. Except for chuk chuk. Always everything was chuk chuk, which means, you know, big, big.

But.

You can't imagine where I taught.

It was in this classroom that one side of it. One side overlooked Gezi park, but the other side overlooked the Bosphorus. All these big windows. I remember standing up and looking out at the scenery and this class of beautiful people. And I thought, this is a dream. It doesn't get better than this. So beyond my expectations. But get this. I would have between eight and sometimes 10 readings in a day.

For three weeks straight. I think they gave me one day off if I ever got that. Yeah, because on that day off they go, are you sure you can't squeeze one more in? And I would have to do a few on the day off. But here's the thing. In a day's time, when one person's reading was finished, they would get up and leave and another one would come sit down. I'm telling you, that made me good at being quick, precise, and off the cuff with astrology. I didn't have time to prepare anything.

And most of the time they didn't know what time they were born. But I had to rectify a chart in five minutes and give them a reading.

I mean, this made me get on with it. I really, really perfected my skills then in that 10 years when I would go there, I remember way back in the day, before I really had my center anything, I would work at psychic fairs and working there. You know, I actually, back then I just had an ephemeris. They would give me their birthday and I would look it up in an ephemeris and give them some predictions based on where the trans were. And I had to do this without any preparation. And this got me to where the point where I never have to prepare for a chart. I remember one time one of my clients said, you mean you didn't study my chart for hours before you sat down to read it? I said, no, I wouldn't be a good astrologer if I had to do that. He got it. He understood. Once I said, I wouldn't be good if I had to do that. But anyway, it's true. So.

They would say, I'm born between one and three. They would always give me like about a three hour radius. And there would be two ascendants it could be. And I'd ask a few questions and I would figure out their ascendant and I would give them a reading. And the minute their reading ended, someone would get up and leave. Now, I had translators too. Now that made it easy, believe it or not, because this is how it worked. When you have a translator, you can only go for about one or two sentences, and then you stop and you wait for the translator to translate what you just said. During that time, I mean, this center was so lovely. They always gave me coffee, tea, made me breakfast and lunch, and then I would go out for dinner on my own. But during the times, oh, they had such lovely vegetarian. Oh my gosh, what was her name? That lovely, lovely old lady that made all the food there. Oh, I can't remember her name. She was so lovely and so sweet. Anyway, I think she was a Russian lady. So cute. Anyway.

I do remember Dena ran it and.

I remember Sarah being there. I mean, I just got to know these people, like my family, really. I did. But it really gave me a skill that you can't get from anywhere else through practice. And I remember one time, I mean, this happened twice because I had, well, what I was getting at. When the translator would be doing the translation, it gave me time to take a bite of my croissant in a sip of my coffee. And by the way, they're Turkish coffee. Wow, I really got to know that coffee. Doing 10 readings in a day.

They would bring me Turkish coffee all the time. Anyway, I would sip the coffee and. And by the time I had a sip of my coffee, then I'd go into the next two sentences and then wait for the translator. It was something else. One of my translators, Odelia, became one of my students and now writes for my magazine. And she is an accomplished Vedic astrology astrologer herself. Why? Because she sat there and listened when she translated and learned. And she was going, oh my God, this stuff works. I remember one day we were. Look, when she was translating for me, every single person was going through. Three people in a row were going through sati, sati, Saturn coming to the moon. And she caught on. She thought, oh my God, I can see what's going on here. And this is so amazing. It works. She became a student and learned. Here's something else. I would teach one a couple of times. I would teach this.

Four day workshop. Four or five day workshop. It was intensive.

And it was the basics. I covered everything that I do in my university and in this workshop, it was so intense. And there were like about.

30, 20 or 30 beautiful girls. I'm telling these Turkish women are knockouts. Really. They were all beautiful in this class and so sweet and beautiful women. They learned so well. They were so studious. And I was standing up there looking at the Bosphorus, they thinking, this is unbelievable. Where am I teaching these? And then it came to the last day and we shifted over into the room that was this old world room, like something from the Vatican. That's how this room looked, you know, all the paint and gold trim and it overlooked Guessie Park. And gosh, I'll never forget that. I can see it so vividly in my mind's eye and I'm looking out, it's the last day and all of the girls, since we went out to lunch together, you know, right there across from Guzi park, where all these beautiful restaurants and. And if you went down Istikle street, my favorite street, to go walk.

And gosh, that was. We would go to a place called the Kitchenette from lunch all the time. But we got to know each other like. I mean, like family. That last day of the class, I'm looking out at the girls, they all were sobbing and crying, these big crocodile tears coming down their eyes because it was the last day and I was gonna go home.

What a trip. What a trip. Oh, my God, that was just remarkable. And, you know, at night, after I finished my eight to 10 readings, I needed to go out and do something fun. Here I am in this beautiful foreign countries. It's late at night. Well, it's not that late, but it's dark. I would walk up Istikle street to the fish market, and I would go to my favorite, favorite restaurant in the fish market. These Turkish men took over.

They were always so excited to see me. I was by myself, but I was never alone there. They all came up and talked to me, took their pictures with me because I showed them my book. Oh, I had a book, by the way, translated into Turkish here, I'm going to show you that book. So in Turkey, they even translated one of my books into Turkish. So, of course, knowing the Turkish people like I do, of course, it was my money, my money book. It was this one, how to make money using astrology, Discovering your luck and fortune.

And here is how it looks in Turkish. There you go. So don't ask me to read it in Turkish. I can't. But this was my book, and they would bring me for book signings, and it was so much fun. They even had me this big conference in Turkey, huge conference that I went there and taught at. Up on a big stage, talking to so many people. And afterwards, I got to sign this book. And the new version of this book in English is this. This just came out, so it's been redone. Finding money, luck and good fortune using astrology. Anyway, that was a trip. They brought me back just for book signings and big conferences.

And going back to.

The fish market. What was the name of my favorite favorite? Oh, this was an amazing.

Anyway, if you ever go to Turkey, give me a call or somehow find my name. I'll tell you that. That restaurant in the fish market, it was incredible. So the men always took care of me and I'd show them my book. They took pictures. They thought I Was famous with me, and they always took care of me. And people were like, are you kidding? You walk by yourself in Istanbul, down the streets to eat. It was so safe. I did all the time. It was just incredible. And every time I went to a restaurant, I never felt alone. People were so welcoming and they talked to you and it was a blast. But I felt like after 10 readings, I had to go out and treat myself. I did. Yes, I did. And, you know, they paid me really well. By the time I went back to the United States, I made decent money. It was amazing. One time when I went to Turkey, though, Adina sent me and bought my airplane tickets and everything. Sent me to two other places in Turkey, to two different metaphysical centers there in Turkey. And one place I went to was Ankara. And someone, of course, picked me up, housed me in their home just like they did in the United States. States. So nice. Did readings while I was there at the home and went to the center and taught. Beautiful, beautiful places. Ankara looked a little bit more desolate, I think, because it's drier. I'll tell you one thing, my hair looked good there. It was so dry. But then I went to Antalya, which is this coastal, beautiful resort town, and they took me in. I stayed at a lovely little hotel there, and I went to a center and taught and gave readings. And at night I walked to restaurants by myself and had beautiful Turkish dinners. Their food is fabulous. I have the most beautiful, incredible memories of Turkey. And while I was there. Here's another thing you're gonna love. My husband came with me many times, but after a while I went by myself. It was fine. It was like going home to a family. I knew everyone. They. They loved me. I loved them. And I stayed. Had, like, on my own apartment. It was just incredible. But this is. This is what's so funny. My husband came a couple of times and he would be in the adjacent room reading or doing something some of the time when my clients would come in and after a while, his draw dropped. These were some of the most beautiful women you have ever seen in your life. As a matter of fact, one was Miss Universe one year. Yes. She was from, I think, 2007 or it was, yeah, but she was Miss Universe and she was gorgeous. Some of these women and people that I read for while I was in Istanbul were the who's who of the country. As a matter of fact, one of them, their grandfather was the president of Turkey. And her and her mother took me into their home for dinner. My they. She made us Dinner. Her mother, who was a huge celebrity in Turkey, took me in, made us dinner. Didn't even have the maids do it, because she loved to cook. She wanted to put her touch on the food and invited us in. And at that time, my husband came and my son Austin was with us, and they made us dinner in their home. And let me tell you something else. After finished my readings, many, many of the times, some of the clients said, I will send my driver, pick you up and take you. Let's go to dinner tonight. That happened all the time. They wanted to be with an astrologer and pick my brain about the future. They loved it. They were so into.

Was incredible. Yeah. One woman said, I own this hotel down the way. I'll have my driver pick you up and we'll eat at the hotel. And we did it with unbelievable, beautiful place. That was the kind of experiences. I don't know if that could still happen today. I guess it could. That was just a whirlwind experience. And every time I went to Turkey, I read for the most phenomenal, amazing people. They were the who's who in Turkey, really. And I was on their show. I forgot about this. I was on the Oprah Winfrey daytime show. They put me on, too. And it was so interesting because this was how they drum up business at the center. I was at that. I was in town giving readings, but I was on this talk show. And they would put a little earpiece in my ear. And the woman. I mean, this woman was decked to the hilt. She was the Oprah of Turkey. So she was dressed and she would ask me questions in Turkish, but in the earpiece, the translator would tell me in English what she's saying, and I would answer in English. But over the television, they would put the Turkish of what I'm saying over. Or they would have somebody. No, they had somebody talk over me. They do that now. Whenever a foreign leader is talking on tv, you can barely hear the person talking, but they have the Turkish person's voice over my voice. But I was on numerous talk shows while I was there. I have all the photos. It was just amazing. Then when I would come and do my book signings, they would rent out these big places, bookstores and big crowds would come. I would sign my book.

Yeah, it was interesting. I was a celebrity in Turkey. And I'll tell you something else. As of. And I'll get into this in later videos. As of when the YouTube thing just started up, I could go places all over the world and people would recognize Me, actually. They actually recognized me more in foreign countries than they did in the US but that was. That Turkey trip was beyond my wildest dreams. And looking back at it right now, it does seem like a dream. But I learned so much. I gained so much. And they had other speakers the whole time. I learned so much from the other speakers. We all went out to dinner, we all went to lunch, we all talked. And I even went to a real whirling dervish in a church to see. See all of the spiritual practices and the things. Turkey is so much different. It's secular, you know, they're open. It's not like a lot of the Middle Eastern countries where they're closed off in beliefs. No, Turkey is open. Open to the world. And I've never met warmer, friendlier.

People in my life. And I look forward to returning to Turkey again. With that, I think I'll close. I think you got enough of my adventure in Turkey. I was there just last year. I was passing through. I had a night in Istanbul. All my friends came and met me. And I used to go back around my birthday in November, just a vacation. And I'd have a big lunch. All my students would show up, 25 people. I had one of my birthdays on top of the Intercontinental Hotel. They all showed. And Osman and I got to dance on the dance floor. Talk about a blast. What a life I've lived. My world of astrology is phenomenal. And I have more stories for you. But before I go, let me remind everyone.

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