This was such a fun conversation!
Today, I had the chance to livestream with famed astrologers Steven Forrest and the Astro Twins, along with Heisman Trophy winner and former NFL star Ricky Williams about their collaboration on the new relationship app, LILA. Hear how they are preparing for their go-to-market launch and seed stage fundraising. Let's see what's in store for their future and yours!
Riff Transcript:
Angel Gambino:
Hello. We're into January, we're into 2021. There were a lot of people who were hoping to get out of 2020 as quickly as possible.
But 2021 also has a lot of uncertainties, and certainly kind of rocky start. There are a lot of people who are looking to anything they can, to give them some indicators as to how to plan, and prepare for the rest of this year.
Some people who maybe thought astrology was a little woo woo, or just didn't really know much about it, are starting to look at astrology as a tool to at least help prepare, and plan, and engage with the world, in a more positive way this year.
Today, we have some amazing guests that I'm super, super excited about, on a personal level, and on a professional level. Who are going to talk to us about astrology, and relationship building through astrology. And how to build a relationship-based business, where the heart of it is really around building deeper connections through astrology.
This business is at a very, very early stage. We'll get to hear a little bit about the journey of the team in building this new experience, so that we can all connect and form deeper relationships. I will bring our guests on just now. I'll let each one of them introduce themselves.
But I think what I would like to do first is give you an idea of kind of where these people come from, and where we're all going as a team. Jamie, I think we should share Ricky's story. Look at this guy, talk about badass, this guy means business. This is Ricky Williams, former NFL star, and is here with us today. Because his journey is, I would say even more powerful than that image conveys, which says a lot.
Ricky, can you tell us a little bit about what you're up to now? Then we'll have Steven and Ophi introduce themselves, and then we'll kind of get into what astrology is, and what it means.
Ricky Williams:
It's interesting you shared that picture. At the time, I was playing in Miami, and Sports Illustrated sent their best photographer, because they wanted to do an issue, really about the NFL. I was very fortunate that they chose my face on from that afternoon to show the world what the NFL was all about.
It's also interesting that when most people think about astrology, they tend not to think of NFL football players. But here we are. 99% of what I'm doing on a daily basis has something to do with astrology, whether it's working on the app that we're building LILA, or it's doing personal readings for my own recreation. I really enjoy reading astrology, mainly Steven's books.
It really speaks to what astrology can offer. For me it's like, I grew up as an African American in Southern California, and I could run really fast. The environment helped define who I was, and I attracted, and I was the best. I won the Heisman Trophy winner.
But I started to reflect on my life, and realized there's actually something deeper brewing inside. I looked everywhere to find something to help me speak to or get in touch with what was going on inside, and I couldn't find anything. I didn't find anything until I found astrology. It gave me a way to understand the deeper parts of myself that I didn't see acknowledged by the environment around me.
I was at a time in my life when I found astrology that I was really looking for something. I really just soaked it up.
It's become a passion to help share what I know with people, to help them get a clearer sense of what's going on with themselves.
Angel Gambino:
When we introduce you, and I would love for you to tell the story of you stalking Steven. That's the way I'll characterize it.
Ricky Williams:
It was. I won't get into too much astrology, but I'm a Virgo rising. I'm part of Virgo. Is really about learning, and we see that if we can find a teacher, someone who's been there before us, a mentor, the learning process is much easier. So much so with astrology, it's such a vast subject.
I was at a point in my life where I really was ready to take my study seriously, and I realized, "I need to find a teacher." I kind of racked my mind in my favorite books, I always came back to Steven Forrest books. I went online and to see if I could find him, and I saw he was presenting at an astrological conference on my birthday.
As a gift to myself, I said, I'm going to, and again, I'm a football player, going to this astrological conference, where all these weirdos, sorry. I was scared to death, but I did it. I sat in Steven's presentation, and after he kind of walked to the back room, and I rushed over to get in line to say something to him.
I remember I asked him a question about an aspect between Mars and my ascendant. But the first thing he said to me as I approached him, and again, I'm a big football player, he looked at me, and he said, "Don't hurt me." I got such a chuckle out of it, because the truth is, when people meet me, that's what they're thinking. For someone to actually put words to, it lightened the mood, and really was a great first meeting between us.
Angel Gambino:
Steven, for people who aren't familiar with your incredible work, can you tell us a little bit about you and your work?
Steven Forrest:
I'd be happy to. Before I do that, I do want to do my side of the story.
Angel Gambino:
Yes. Go for it.
Steven Forrest:
misunderstand it. But I was afraid of Ricky. Here's this big, black football player. Actually, our eyes met, and he was my friend. I liked him right away. His sun falls in my house of marriage, a little preview of LILA, it doesn't mean we'll get married. But there was an instant simpatico between us.
I just totally got it that here's a guy with a big, deep spiritual heart, and everybody looks at him and says, "Please don't hurt me." I wanted to sort of mock that, and I think it worked. Because we, it took us about nine tenths of a second to become good friends. Fair enough, Ricky?
Ricky Williams:
It was quick, very quick.
Steven Forrest:
Really quick. My story, I'm 72, so I don't want to take up the whole show with my story. [inaudible 00:08:04]. I was a product of my environment, just like Ricky was. Born in 1949, I was a smart kid, not very athletic, so immediately I'm on the science track. I got into amateur astronomy, built telescopes, and that kind of thing. I'm 12 years old, New York City, looking through the telescope in the roof of my apartment through the muck in the atmosphere.
There was a sense of magic, not just science, but the magic. The sense that I was looking at living things when I was looking at galaxies. It's like, "Is the universal alive? Is it a great mind? Is it communicating with me somehow?"
That totally unscientific attitude just wouldn't go away. It took root in me, and it sort of fused with astrology by the time I was in my late teens. I was making my living as an astrologer by my middle 20s, I had a contract with Bantam Books to write my first book, The Inner Sky when I was in my early 30s.
I've never really had to worry about a career. I came to a turning point where the way I like to say it, this may be a little bit unfair to Justin Bieber, but [inaudible 00:09:28]. Do I want to be Carl Jung or do I want to be Justin Bieber? I had some opportunities to be kind of more popular, but I decided I wanted to do the deep teaching of serious astrology.
I began to self-publish, because the mainstream publishers would not, they weren't open to the kind of deeper material that I wanted to write. The last thing I knew I was in my early 30s, and now here I am 72. I haven't had a breath since then.
Angel Gambino:
You are one of the busiest men in astrology for sure.
Steven Forrest:
Amen.
Angel Gambino:
Thank you for that, Steven. Then Ophi, I have to share our story, just because I love it so much. Then I'd like you to let people know more about you, and Astro Twins. Well, working with Ricky and Steven, and Matt and Fred and the team, we were really excited about our potential partnership, and bringing you into the business.
I had remembered that, and I follow your stuff daily and weekly. I think I bought every product that you've ever probably [crosstalk 00:10:44] market. Yes. Over, I don't know, years.
I had remembered you guys saying at some point that you're talking about your father, and being from Michigan, and I was like, "Oh, that's so cool." [inaudible 00:11:00], I just felt connected a bit. Then when we talked, then it turns out that you went to high school with my brother and sister in Michigan.
[crosstalk 00:11:11] are these astrologers that I love, that I've been following religiously, based in New York. Then I find out that you went to high school with my brother and sister. I feel like we were meant to be family.
Ophi:
So meant to be. We're both Sagittarians, right?
Angel Gambino:
I know. I love it.
Ophi :
Isn't that wild?
Angel Gambino:
Tell us a little bit about Astro Twins.
Ophi:
Well, I'm Ophi Edut, one half of the Astro Twins. My twin is not feeling well today, so I'm going to holographically bring her in through me or whatever.
I have been doing astrology for about 30 years, I did end up going the Justin Bieber route, but I came from more of a Carl Jung background. At the University of Michigan, my sister and I started a magazine called Hughes, which was for women of all cultures, and sizes, and identities. This was in the early 90s, was bit ahead of its time.
We found that the one unifying topic, we were dealing with identity politics, which is everybody knows nowadays can be very polarizing. But the one thing that everybody could come together on and feel joyful about was astrology. That was sort of a background passion, I worked for Gloria Steinem when she organized some female investors to buy back Ms. Magazine. I was their youngest editor in, I guess 1999.
Angel Gambino:
I love that, I didn't know that!
Ophi:
But, I would creep into the copy editing room and chat with the ladies there, and I saved one of their relationship. She was a Cancer, about to break up with her Leo boyfriend that night. I ended up intervening cosmically, and they're still married to this day with three kids.
She ended up giving us our first column at Teen People Magazine. That's why it was, it was actually Britney Spears, Justin Bieber was probably twinkle in his father's [inaudible 00:13:09]. But like Steven, we haven't really stopped. We now write for Elle magazine for 11 years, we've written multiple books. We also self-publish our yearly guide.
Steven and I both have Jupiter at 11 degrees Capricorn, that only happens every 12 years. Ricky and I are opposite signs. It's all astro family here.
Angel Gambino:
I love it. I think, you guys are all deeply rooted in astrology. I'm a huge follower, but by no means an expert. I love the journey of learning that I'm on, and all three of you are so helpful in my journey.
But for people who don't really know what astrology is, or maybe they think it's a little woo woo, or they're a bit cynical about it. What is astrology to you and in what ways can it be helpful to people?
Ophi:
I think Steven should answer that one.
Angel Gambino:
How would you define [inaudible 00:14:25]? Because as Ricky says, it's so vast and multi-layered.
Steven Forrest:
Well, first thing I'd like to do is say what it isn't just very simply. At least the way we do it. It's not fortune telling, we do not feel that you're a marionette, and the planets have you by your strings, and we can predict everything that you will do. That's a common notion about astrology.
It puts a lot of people off. I don't blame them, if that's astrology, I don't want anything to do with it. It robs humanity of dignity, of freewill, of the whole notion of personal responsibility. That's a sermon I often make.
What astrology is, positively, I go back to some notions that are literally pre historical. The idea that God or gods, and goddesses, or spirits that are invisible to the naked eye are interested in us, and speak to us, and guide us, and inspire us. That there is a benign quality in the universe that wants to help us. This is a almost universal idea in at least historic cultures. [inaudible 00:15:43] a few challenges in the last 100 years, in this materialistic, existentialist context that we're living in now.
But the notion is that in astrology, we assume that the gods, and the spirits, and so on, actually speak to us. Offer us guidance, help and assistance through the motions of the planets. That astrology is the bridge language between the invisible, benign realms that care about us, and our confused labyrinthine lives here on the earth. We let the gods speak to us through the motions of the planets. That's it as far as I'm concerned. It's a sacred art.
Angel Gambino:
I love that. Ophi, does that kind of capture your thoughts around what astrology is?
Ophi:
I knew he could say it 1000 times better than [crosstalk 00:16:41]. So yeah, absolutely. I think it's the instruction manual that they say that human beings don't come with.
Ricky Williams:
When I was a kid, and my mom would get upset with us, and she'd make a mistake in her parenting. She would always remind us, "You guys don't come with instruction manuals." Actually, we do. [crosstalk 00:17:08].
What Steven said, to reiterate it, this idea, for me, it makes perfect sense. As we're living our lives, especially now, there's so many chaotic things going on, and a lot of times, we haven't been given the proper words or perspective to really understand.
One of the things, so it seems chaotic, but as we look up into the skies, and astronomers and scientists have done for millennia, they notice that there is some harmony. There's some order when we can predict where the planets are going to be, at certain points in time.
To superimpose the order that we notice in the cosmos to the chaos that we experience in our lives, it helps us find meaning, and dare I say, a sense of order. I'll use my first experience with astrology. It reminds me of 2020. Soon as COVID hit, I flashback to when I first found astrology. It was a time in my life where I invested my whole life in becoming the best football player I could be.
It started to dawn on me that maybe I'm here to do something else. It was an extremely frightening thought. Because I invested everything I was into this one dream. As it started to melt away, I was utterly confused about what is going on.
I had a sense, but utter confusion. I met this Vietnamese woman who was a Swami, and someone told her I was a football player. She was into astrology, and she walks up to me, and she says, "Where's your Mars?" I looked at her, and I was like, "I don't really know what you're talking about." She just said, "Come talk to me later."
I gave her my birth information, and she started talking to me about my chart. It might seem simple, but the simple insight she pointed out is that something in my chart pointed to the fact that I tended to attract stressful situations to myself.
Anyone who looked at my life, it was plainly obvious, professional football player, so it's a stressful environment. But it never occurred to me, it never occurred to me. She pointed it out to me, and something just clicked. At that moment, I realized that yes, the choices I have made, a lot of them unwittingly, but the choices I have made, have created my life is a pile of shit.
I was in a position that I could do something about it. As I started to really dive in into learning more about myself, mainly through astrology, I was empowered to the choices that I could make to make a difference.
A simple astrological example, my chart says, for me to be vibrant, and for me to be myself, I need to travel, I need to experience so many different things. Again, at this time in my life, I gave up this huge football career in order to travel and experience the world. I felt affirmed, I felt seen, and the proof is in the pudding. Since that point in my life, I feel like I've truly come alive, and I truly lived. In my experience is, this is what astrology can offer us.
Angel Gambino:
I love that. That's incredibly profound. I think you mentioned at the beginning about whether are these kind of instructional manuals, and how your mom was like, "You don't come with an instruction."
I remember when I was a teenager, and having boy troubles with one of the boys I was dating. As almost always certainly happens at some stage. She talked to me about it a bit, and she gave me Linda Goodman's, is it Love Signs or Sun Signs?
Both. She said, "Well, maybe you should get to know a little bit about him through this other lens, through this other context." It was fascinating, because there was so much truth in there, and I thought, "Oh, my God."
Some of the behaviors I was interpreting, and filtering through my own way of being, and my own values, very differently than what they were intended. It really, in that particular situation, opened up my eyes to astrology. But also having almost an instructional guide, at least a framework that I could start to relate to somebody, and be more open to things that I wasn't necessarily interpreting in the way that they were intended.
Which made me kind of think, a lot of people know about their sun signs, but astrology is much more than that. What can you guys share about sun signs versus all the other aspects?
Ophi:
Got 10 hours?
Angel Gambino:
I know.
Ophi:
No. I'm Just kidding.
Angel Gambino:
When we were preparing for this, I was like, "We're going to give people such a small snippet. They're not even going to get the full." But as long as there's enough to tease people into learning more, I think it's great.
Ophi:
I can speak to that briefly. I always knew I was a Sagittarius. I had a paper route, I'd read my horoscope in the paper. But when I was 21, my college boyfriend got my chart done for me as a gift. I didn't even know what a chart was, and I found out I had four planets in Scorpio, and Capricorn rising. There's this whole other dimension of myself that was suddenly explained by this piece of paper.
Some people go looking for astrology, but for most of us, like you, Angel, it finds us in those critical moments where like, "Oh my God, nothing makes sense." Astrology made sense of these things that didn't make sense for me. Parts of myself, like you said, Ricky, too.
You can't deny it. I think it's really good to be skeptical, but a skeptic and a cynic are two different things. A cynic dismisses things outright. Most people saying they're skeptical about astrology are just not giving it a chance.
Be a skeptic, try it on, suspend judgment. If it doesn't work for you, great. There's plenty of people it does, I got no attachment. But if it does give you this other language and instruction manual to yourself, then great. Find out your moon sign, your rising sign.
We have this primal triad in our project. I don't know if one of you guys want to talk about that, Ricky or Steven?
Angel Gambino:
Ricky or Steven, you should share about the primal triad.
Ricky Williams:
Sun sign astrology, I think even really serious astrologers, we have a lot, we have a debt to pay. Because I don't think astrology would have survived to this day with as much vibrancy, if it wasn't for sun sign astrology.
It's interesting, because the way we understand ourselves, we call it the primal triad generator. It's the sun, the moon, and what we call the rising sign or the ascendant. These are really probably the three most profound symbols in astrology. They represent probably parts of ourselves that I would say are the most easily identifiable.
I think the sun and where the sun is placed, it really, like the sun and the solar system. Everything revolves around the sun, and it's a source of vitality. In our charts, that's what it represents, with the sun, the values. Values that if we're true to those values, we will remain vibrant and alive.
I mentioned, my sun is in Gemini, and so feeding my curiosity, taking in information, learning, keeps me happy. Keeps me happy that I wake up in the morning.
As a young athlete, people could identify, they would say, "You're very articulate for an athlete." They're able to notice something about myself that shines, some sort of intelligence.
But they would always say, "I don't understand, you seem so sensitive. You seem so sensitive for a football player, you're so soft spoken." Or even people would say, they say, "Wow, I'm so shocked. You're this big football player, but you seem so humble, and reserved, and shy."
The primal triad, my sun, this Gemini energy shines, my moon. The moon is our inner nature, the part of ourselves that we tend to hide from showing people, until we feel more comfortable, and then it naturally comes out. My moon is in Cancer, which is probably one of the most sensitive signs. It's really about sensitivity of being aware of what's going on for other people, and caring about what's going on for other people, and doing what you can help them feel better.
As a big black guy, having this Cancer moon, I got picked on as a kid. As I started to understand astrology more, I started to understand that part of myself, and then my rising sign. The rising sign is, you can think of it as the mask we wear. We're complex beings, and when we go out into the world, we have to put together a social identity that interacts with the world.
The rising sign can give us information about how to best do that. My rising sign is Virgo, and Virgo has a lot to do with, I think Virgo is the craftsperson. Someone that takes pride in the details, and takes pride in doing a really good job.
As a football player, I had a way to express that Virgo rising sign, because every day, I was charged to get better at becoming a football player. I think what made me such a good football player, I'm fast, and I'm strong, and I can do all of these things. But really, it was my attention to detail, and I approached the game as a craftsperson would approach their craft. Always watching film, and looking to see what I can do better and better.
If I only had the sun sign information about myself, I would lose the information. I would lose these instructions on how to become more of a holistic, more of a full, three dimensional person.
There's eight other planets, and a whole bunch of other things we could talk about. But even looking at ourselves, is there's three separate parts of ourselves that are learning to work together. It could be so helpful for people, and help them to see themselves, and the people in their lives, more three dimensionally.
Ophi:
You're so good at explaining
Ricky Williams:
I had a good teacher. For me, I feel like my life, so I grew up in a very religious household. What we were told in church is, you show people that you're a Christian by the way you live your life, by your actions, by your kindness.
I feel like with astrology, it's really opened my mind so much, and been such a guide for me in life, that I feel like I live it. That's the expression of it.
This project of LILA, for me, it really, it's a lot of things. LILA is the project that I'm working on with Ophi, with Steven, and the rest of our team. It's taking this astrology, and making it actionable, making it applicable.
I started studying astrology way back, 2004. I mentioned that story. It was me, with my computer, and a bunch of books, sitting in my library, just reading all of these things. Watching my friends to see how it works. But it wasn't until I got into a relationship with someone who also was interested in astrology. We took a class, my wife, Lenae, and I took a class with Steven.
I had been studying astrology for 15 years, but this was the first time that I really dove into relationship astrology, and understanding how to use astrology in relationships. It completely blew my mind. A couple of reasons. I think the first reason I talked about, our world is being chaotic. For me, I've experienced the most chaos in my life in intimate relationships. It's something that [crosstalk 00:29:43]-
Ophi:
It's in his chart.
Ricky Williams:
Well said. It's something that all of us, we're interacting with people in relationships, all of us on a daily basis. My idea was, with this profound information that astrology offers us, relationships are the perfect field or playing ground to really interact with these things.
To me, I wanted to merge these two things because on one level, it's definitely going to help people understand themselves, and the people in their lives better. With more consciousness, with more awareness, we're going to make better decisions.
But also, astrology helps us understand ourselves and others, and more profoundly, helps us understand the world around us. I think, big picture of this, if we do a good job with LILA, people are going to understand themselves, they're going to have better relationships. But also the world is going to make more sense to them.
Angel Gambino:
I love that. I think we all need that right now. Ricky, why don't you share with people a little bit more specifically about where you're at with LILA, and what it is? What is it going to offer people along the lines of making more sense to the world, and relating better with with other people.
Ricky Williams:
I'll go back to the kind of moment where this was all born. Again, Lenae, my wife and I were taking synastry, relationship astrology class with Steven. What Steven does in his class, is the first three days he'll teach the philosophy, and he'll teach the technique.
Then on the last day, he draws a name out of the hat, and he demonstrates the technique. The story ends up on my birthday, again, my 40th birthday. It's the last day of the workshop, Steven pulls a name out of my hat, and it's my name.
He spends the whole day demonstrating the technique of how to use astrology to help people in relationships, on me and Lenae. At the time, I was about a year out of a marriage, and about a year into a new relationship. I was at this prime moment in my life, where I was reflecting on the past, and looking at, "How can I take what I learned from my failed relationship, and use it to build a relationship that felt better?"
The information that Steven delivered, it blew my mind, and Lenae and I were married a month later. It's that powerful.
Because when you go into this relationship of meeting someone, there's these emotions that pull you in there, and you get entangled. Steven says this in his class, "Getting out of a relationship is so much more difficult than getting in."
This is a touchy subject, but it's for most adults, we've had the experience of the difficulties of relationship. The truth is, what astrology teaches us, we can learn from life, but we take more bumps and bruises when we learn that way. This information can help us make better decisions.
With this insight, I just thought, we have to find a way to get this information into people's hands, because they need it. We approached Steven, after the morning of that class, and we said, "Would you be willing to work with us on creating this app?" He said, yes, thank goodness.
Really the foundation of my goal here, my vision here is to build the app as a extension of Steven's book, Skymates, his book on relationship. Because the way that Steven teaches, it's wonderful, because he allows you to take this vast subject, and break it down into a way that you can actually use it.
For instance, as he was reading my chart and Lenae's chart, the first thing he started with was each of us as an individual. Who is this person, and who is this person? Before we can think of two people together, we have to understand two individuals.
In our app, we call it the ultimate relationship app. Our first step is self-discovery, is before you can really get the most out of a relationship, you got to take care of the relationship with yourself first.
We use astrological insights to help people understand themselves, and more specifically, their own relationship needs. Because the relationship that works for me is not necessarily going to be the relationship that works for someone else.
Our next step, the next dimension of relationship that we're helping people with is social discovery. It's a social discovery feed, you'll have access to looking at other profiles. This part is really creating a marketplace for people that are wanting to understand themselves, and live a more conscious life, and then to meet each other.
My favorite section of the app, and I think this is really what differentiates us, is that once you make a connection to someone or if you're already in a relationship, is the relationship building module. This is where we use astrology to help people manage the things that show up in relationships.
There's so many tools that astrology offers to help people navigate through these three dimensions. Our task as a team is using what we know and our experiences, to help translate astrological information into ways that people can take actionable steps to improve the quality of their relationships, and the quality of their lives.
Angel Gambino:
Why don't you let people know where you're at with it? Can they get it now? Can they download it now? Can they sign up? Where are things at?
Ricky Williams:
We're getting close. We're getting very close. We were planning to launch in the app store this month, but we're going to do some more testing.
Angel Gambino:
... yes. Exactly. Steven, the astrology of ... so before we segueway Steven on that question. Ricky, people can go to LILA on Instagram and to the website?
Ricky Williams:
Right. Now, where people can go to start connecting with us is the website, and it's heylila.com.
Angel Gambino:
You're also going to be embarking on fundraising as well, right?
Ricky Williams:
Yeah.
Angel Gambino:
there are investors, they can also reach out via the website?
Ricky Williams:
Yes. There's a link for investors. Even a link to check out our deck on the website.
Angel Gambino:
Great. Steven, what are your thoughts about the astrology of a business?
Steven Forrest:
Well, anything that comes into existence, in a sense is born, and anything that is born has a chart. You can set up a chart for the the initial public offering, for example of a publicly traded company. Usually that's born in New York City at 9:30 AM on a Monday morning, for example.
There's astrologers who've made quite a lot of money just looking at businesses, and here's a business that's, here's the holy grail. One of these guys was drinking beer and told me a little bit more than he probably should have, how he's made most of his money. You look for a business that's about to have a big Saturn time, followed by a big Jupiter time. [inaudible 00:37:29] motions of the planets in the sky.
The Saturn, it may not destroy the business, but it's going to shrink it a little bit. Or maybe they have to invest in capital improvements or something, so the dividends are down. That's when you buy, right in the peak of the Saturn stuff. Then Jupiter comes along, and the business goes through the roof, and you sell it, of course right at the top.
Businesses, ideas, human beings, your cat, your dog, your new car. Anything that is born, not only dies, but also has a chart.
Angel Gambino:
I love that. I'm going to have to factor that into my investments and launch dates.
Ophi, you've got, Astro Twins has something now catering to kind of Astro [inaudible 00:38:24], I think?
Ophi:
Yeah. Well, that was a name we came up with. Because, when people start to learn about themselves, some people find that an endlessly fascinating topic. Other people are like, "Great. Now that I know how I'm wired, what do I do with this? How can I make an impact in the world? How can I do something that I love that fits who I am, and my calling?" Which you can find in the chart? We designed ... and I guess we lost Ricky, hope he comes back.
Angel Gambino:
I know. I hope he comes back.
Angel Gambino:
Ricky, we miss you.
Ophi:
But we'll chat until he comes back. But yes, so we, and over the years, I've been starting businesses, and have learned how to not just be an astrologer, but a business owner. I thought, why not use the tools of astrology to teach people how to pick those dates? Like Steven said. Or what is the best use of their talents?
I read somewhere that the average person makes 38,000 decisions a day. That's a lot. We can get stuck in analysis paralysis, and never move forward on our dreams. But astrology can get you unstuck, it can help. It's like a lovely decision making metric, where you feel a little bit of confidence. Change your mindset or focal point. It helps you move forward and stay in action.
Like Ricky said, we like action-driven, actionable astrology. I like to use it, I say as a tool instead of a rule, and it's very practical. [inaudible 00:40:06]. Do you think so too, Steven? Do you find astrology's practical?
Steven Forrest:
Oh, absolutely. A quick comment. This is more about the sun. But start off with a simple statement, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal. There are certain moral principles that we should all live by, don't vote for a fascist. [inaudible 00:40:28] one size fits all.
But then beyond that, there's a second tier of decisions, should a person move to Ecuador? What a stupid question, because we don't know who we're talking about, and astrology helps us answer questions at that secondary level of values.
It's a word Ricky used earlier, the sun is particularly connected to that. When you're making your 38,000 decisions per day, what kind of overriding, overarching values will serve you best in the long run? If you happen to be a Sagittarian, for example, when in doubt, roll the dice.
Ophi:
knowing that, yes.
Steven Forrest:
If you're a cancer, much of your work is inside of yourself, and you don't need your life to be chaotic. You need peace for your inner work. Don't roll the dice, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, would be a value that would help.
These are simple illustrations, but they really emphasize how, when we get past prediction, and just describing people, and let astrology counsel us, how it becomes active. Take it one step further in terms of LILA, and relationships. How much passion do you want in your relationship? Teenagers will say, "A lot." But when you get a little bit older, and it's like passion, it's not just about sex. Passion is about process, and complexity, and ripping each other to shreds, and forgiving each other. If you're a Scorpio is, "Oh, bring it on."
Ophi:
Bring it on.
Angel Gambino:
I was engaged to a Scorpio.
Steven Forrest:
I'm sorry, say that, again, Angel, I missed you.
Angel Gambino:
I was engaged to a Scorpio.
Steven Forrest:
Oh, so you know?
Angel Gambino:
Oh, yeah.
Steven Forrest:
We all have one
Self knowledge, that allow you to make better decisions about relationships. So you're not just going for beauty, or glamor, or money or something. But something that is more connected to who you are, and what your journey is.
That's what LILA is all about. It just spells that out for you personally, and gives you an understanding of the other person in the light of all that.
One of my favorite promotional points for LILA, is the idea that you can learn in one session with LILA, what it might take you three months or six months to learn in an actual relationship. Why not bypass all that learning, and just get it right away?
Is this a relationship you really want to pursue? Or would you be better off just, "You take your path, and I'll take mine, and we'll look elsewhere?"
Ophi:
I love that you said that, because I think a lot of people are doing the wrong thing with the right person, or the right thing with the wrong person. Astrology in the way that it's designed, in LILA, I came in later, but I just really loved what they were doing, and I love their philosophies.
As a Sagg of course I got on board. But when you know that you can be with any sign, there is no right or wrong man, it's just what's right for you at this time in your life.
Steven Forrest:
Exactly.
Ophi:
At least I think.
Angel Gambino:
We're glad you're back with us, Ricky. For 2021, what can you guys share about either specific signs or generally about relationships? Also, we were just talking about business. On the career front, what are some of the things that the different signs can anticipate or hopefully look forward to?
Ophi:
I can answer that, unless anyone else wants to? But, since I'm writing daily, weekly, monthly horoscopes and steeped in the transits all the time, not that you guys aren't, but.
Angel Gambino:
By the way, I have to tell you, Ophi. You guys said something for Saggs the other day, for yesterday. I can't remember exactly what the words were, but I knew that I had to be more aware when I was driving. Because I haven't been driving…
Yes. Sure enough, power of suggestion or just your prediction was right on, I avoided a major accident.
Ophi:
Oh, my God.
Angel Gambino:
Yes. I swear I was extra vigilant, because I had read that, and I was like, "I got to be aware." Thank you for that.
Ophi:
Oh my God, I'm glad.
Angel Gambino:
What collisions can the other side bring?
Ophi:
Well, that is what happens sometimes when a planet has been retrograde, we're not going to get into the mechanics of that. But when it does, it's about face and corrects course. It's almost like this whiplash, when a subway or a bus stops, and you're like, you go flying forward a little bit.
There are moments, in addition to learning about how you tick and how you're wired, there are times when our charts never change. You are this map, this sort of screenshot of the solar system at your time of birth, that's your chart. When the planets are always moving and forming relationships to your chart, and activating different energies, and opportunities. That's what astrology can help you map that out.
In 2020, if you base it on people's sun signs or Zodiac signs, most of us were really out of character. We were all having to explore energies that were not natural for us. The fire signs, Aries, Leo and Sagg, were very work-driven and structured. All I did was work last year.
The earth signs who are very practical, were free-spirited, and going all over the place, trying all these big ideas. The air signs who are kind of like to keep it casual, went deep and got into their feelings. Then the water signs, who are usually in their feelings were very social.
That's a very top level not based on someone's individual chart. Sometimes just the top notes are true for us. We all learned about a new dimension of ourselves that hadn't been explored. I think in 2021, I feel that we'll be more back in character. The fire signs are going to be more out there, marketing ourselves, or connecting, spreading a message.
The earth signs back to their sort of structured ways. The air signs more in there kind of social relationship building groove. The water signs will be home watching Netflix and crying or something.
But that's kind of the bigger picture of it. But I think it's, I hope that we don't, just like 2020 was a shit show of a year, if I might, we all learned something new about ourselves. I feel like the astrology was that too. I hope we don't forget what we learned from 2020, even if we don't want to do it again, anytime soon. Cosmically, as well.
That's how I see it. I don't know if anyone else has an opinion they want to share, but that's what I see is ahead.
Angel Gambino:
Ricky, what about relationships and the different signs in 2021? Because with the focus, with this whole team, and people behind the scenes, LILA, what are some of the things that people can look forward to in building relationships?
Because right now, thank God LILA is coming out, because it's really difficult to build new relationships, when people are social distancing. Your app is, I think coming around at a perfect time, because people need to be able to meet new people.
Even if things open up in the next quarter, I think people are still hesitant about going out, and meeting new people, and being very close in proximity. I feel like one of the things that I've noticed with my own behavior, is that it's kind of allowed me almost like in the 1900s, when people would get to know each other over a longer period of time. Rather than the Tinder, let's have sex, [inaudible 00:49:21] want to see each other again.
With LILA, what are some of the things that, new ways that people will be able to relate in 2021? Not the specific functions of the app, because those you'll share with the announcement with the launch coming up soon. But what are some of the things that [inaudible 00:49:45] can look forward to in 2021 [inaudible 00:49:48] being [inaudible 00:49:49] relationship?
Ricky Williams:
This is a interesting question. Part of our task in getting this app out into the world, and getting people using it, is really changing people's ideas and opinions, and understanding, but mostly misunderstanding about what astrology is.
Behind anyone that has studied astrology, and behind any all of us, we have a certain kind of philosophy that expresses itself through astrology. Our philosophy with LILA is, this is evolutionary astrology. Which, and what we're saying is that, life happens for us, it doesn't happen to us.
Things that show up are showing up for a reason to help us grow, and to help us evolve. To me, I think of what's going on, Ophi talked about transits. What's going on with the planets right now, and how they're affecting us?
I think of that is the weather, kind of what's the astrological weather? What's it preparing us for? What's it attempting to teach us? We have to put this in the real world. We've just gone through 2020, and what effect has 2020 had on us?
The way I think about it generally, is we [inaudible 00:51:06] more time with the people that we're in relationship with. The opportunity right for us to get to know them and to get to know ourselves better. But also, part of that is the opportunity to realize, "What am I doing in this relationship?"
This is real. I think, 2020 has brought a lot of questions out for people in relationship. Whereas before 2020, most of us were so busy in life, that we weren't forced to look at these things, and to think more deeply. I think the timing of LILA coming out, is people are ready to wrestle with these more complicated, difficult questions. We're providing a way for people to do that.
This astrology, we kind of joke, this isn't your grandmother's astrology, this is, self-responsibility is at the core of what we're doing. It's about not in a relationship looking at what is wrong with the other person, why isn't this working? And starting looking at myself? Are my needs being met? Does this person even have the ability to meet my relationship needs?
What we're offering is an invitation for people to ask some of these deeper questions. Because as we can sink and form a deeper relationship with ourselves, that's going to manifest as deeper relationships with other people.
Really, the term, you mentioned it, the term that we used to use was courtship. This process of determining, does this relationship have the potential to become something more serious?
LILA is about all relationships, and really, all relationships have this courtship. Whether someone is going to be a romantic relationship, or they're going to be a mentor, or they're going to be a friend, there's this beginning part where people come together, and they're trying to figure out, "Is this going to work?"
I think this is where LILA will shine. Because we're going to give people information to help them in that process, so they're making more sound decisions. Again, relationships much more easy to get into, than they are to get out of.
How can people make more sound decisions as they enter a relationship? But I want to use an example. It's close to home, but it's real. I mentioned a year out of a relationship. My first wife, Kristin was our first friends and family investor in LILA, which is interesting in and of itself. But part of, because she was the first investor, I sent her some of the content we were working on. She has the planet that gives you information about your ideal partners, about relationship in the sign of Capricorn.
The advice usually is, the people that are going to work best for you in relationships are people that are responsible, that are serious, that are disciplined. I was seven years younger than her, and I have zero Capricorn in my chart.
This idea of, if we would have had this information beforehand, we would have approached things so much differently. Again, it's uncomfortable, but it's true. If we can empower people to improve the quality of their current relationships, and we can also empower people to make more conscious decisions in new relationships, then we're going to feel like we're doing our job.
Angel Gambino:
I think you mentioned something about your expectations, and whether or not you're going to be able to get something that you need in a relationship [inaudible 00:54:45] other person.
I remember one time I was in Detroit in the winter time, and I was having some frustrations in a relationship. Then I got into a conversation with somebody about, "Oh, this person owes me money, and they haven't paid me." I looked at the person, I said, "Look, we're both freezing out here. If you asked me for a glove or a mitten, I don't have one, so I can't give it to you. I would if I had it, but I don't have it."
I said, "It's the same thing. He doesn't have the money, so he can't pay you back. You either just have to suck it up, and decide whether or not you want to continue with that relationship or not."
Then as those words were coming out of my mouth, I was like, "We all do this. We all expect these other people to show up in ways that maybe [inaudible 00:55:41] who they are." Then you feel bad, because, and that person feels bad, because they can't give you what you want, either.
Ricky Williams:
You just described my first marriage. Thank you.
Angel Gambino:
You both want it to work. But, so I think that self-awareness that you're talking about in that first phase of LILA, about self-discovery. The more you learn about what you want, then you can hopefully attract and relate to other people that that comes naturally to. Those [crosstalk 00:56:19].
Ricky Williams:
I think most importantly, you can ask the right questions. If I have a sense of what's going to work for me in relationship, as I start getting to know someone, I have a sense of the questions that I can ask to get a sense of, "Can this person show up that way? Is it even fair to them to ask them to?"
Angel Gambino:
I've got one last question for you guys. I hate to wrap it up, because I can talk to you guys all day, every day. But we'll have to do that over drinks on Zoom. But, so the question is, is the rose, the bud, and the thorn. We'll do rose, and then thorn, and bud.
Rose is for you right now, what is something you're really grateful for? Something you're really enjoying? Something that's going really well? That's your rose. Your thorn is, anything that's challenging, anything you're struggling with, that's irritating. Your bud is something you're looking forward to, something you're excited about? [crosstalk 00:57:34].
Angel Gambino:
Hello. We're into January, we're into 2021. There were a lot of people who were hoping to get out of 2020 as quickly as possible.
But 2021 also has a lot of uncertainties, and certainly kind of rocky start. There are a lot of people who are looking to anything they can, to give them some indicators as to how to plan, and prepare for the rest of this year.
Some people who maybe thought astrology was a little woo woo, or just didn't really know much about it, are starting to look at astrology as a tool to at least help prepare, and plan, and engage with the world, in a more positive way this year.
Today, we have some amazing guests that I'm super, super excited about, on a personal level, and on a professional level. Who are going to talk to us about astrology, and relationship building through astrology. And how to build a relationship-based business, where the heart of it is really around building deeper connections through astrology.
This business is at a very, very early stage. We'll get to hear a little bit about the journey of the team in building this new experience, so that we can all connect and form deeper relationships. I will bring our guests on just now. I'll let each one of them introduce themselves.
But I think what I would like to do first is give you an idea of kind of where these people come from, and where we're all going as a team. Jamie, I think we should share Ricky's story. Look at this guy, talk about badass, this guy means business. This is Ricky Williams, former NFL star, and is here with us today. Because his journey is, I would say even more powerful than that image conveys, which says a lot.
Ricky, can you tell us a little bit about what you're up to now? Then we'll have Steven and Ophi introduce themselves, and then we'll kind of get into what astrology is, and what it means.
Ricky Williams:
It's interesting you shared that picture. At the time, I was playing in Miami, and Sports Illustrated sent their best photographer, because they wanted to do an issue, really about the NFL. I was very fortunate that they chose my face on from that afternoon to show the world what the NFL was all about.
It's also interesting that when most people think about astrology, they tend not to think of NFL football players. But here we are. 99% of what I'm doing on a daily basis has something to do with astrology, whether it's working on the app that we're building LILA, or it's doing personal readings for my own recreation. I really enjoy reading astrology, mainly Steven's books.
It really speaks to what astrology can offer. For me it's like, I grew up as an African American in Southern California, and I could run really fast. The environment helped define who I was, and I attracted, and I was the best. I won the Heisman Trophy winner.
But I started to reflect on my life, and realized there's actually something deeper brewing inside. I looked everywhere to find something to help me speak to or get in touch with what was going on inside, and I couldn't find anything. I didn't find anything until I found astrology. It gave me a way to understand the deeper parts of myself that I didn't see acknowledged by the environment around me.
I was at a time in my life when I found astrology that I was really looking for something. I really just soaked it up.
It's become a passion to help share what I know with people, to help them get a clearer sense of what's going on with themselves.
Angel Gambino:
When we introduce you, and I would love for you to tell the story of you stalking Steven. That's the way I'll characterize it.
Ricky Williams:
It was. I won't get into too much astrology, but I'm a Virgo rising. I'm part of Virgo. Is really about learning, and we see that if we can find a teacher, someone who's been there before us, a mentor, the learning process is much easier. So much so with astrology, it's such a vast subject.
I was at a point in my life where I really was ready to take my study seriously, and I realized, "I need to find a teacher." I kind of racked my mind in my favorite books, I always came back to Steven Forrest books. I went online and to see if I could find him, and I saw he was presenting at an astrological conference on my birthday.
As a gift to myself, I said, I'm going to, and again, I'm a football player, going to this astrological conference, where all these weirdos, sorry [inaudible 00:06:10]. I was scared to death, but I did it. I sat in Steven's presentation, and after he kind of walked to the back room, and I rushed over to get in line to say something to him.
I remember I asked him a question about an aspect between Mars and my ascendant. But the first thing he said to me as I approached him, and again, I'm a big football player, he looked at me, and he said, "Don't hurt me." I got such a chuckle out of it, because the truth is, when people meet me, that's what they're thinking. For someone to actually put words to, it lightened the mood, and really was a great first meeting between us.
Angel Gambino:
Steven, for people who aren't familiar with your incredible work, can you tell us a little bit about you and your work?
Steven Forrest:
I'd be happy to. Before I do that, I do want to do my side of the story.
Angel Gambino:
Yes. Go for it.
Steven Forrest:
[inaudible 00:07:09] misunderstand it. But I was afraid of Ricky. Here's this big, black football player. Actually, our eyes met, and he was my friend. I liked him right away. His sun falls in my house of marriage, a little preview of LILA, it doesn't mean we'll get married. But there was an instant simpatico between us.
I just totally got it that here's a guy with a big, deep spiritual heart, and everybody looks at him and says, "Please don't hurt me." I wanted to sort of mock that, and I think it worked. Because we, it took us about nine tenths of a second to become good friends. Fair enough, Ricky?
Ricky Williams:
It was quick, very quick.
Angel Gambino:
Hello. We're into January, we're into 2021. There were a lot of people who were hoping to get out of 2020 as quickly as possible.
But 2021 also has a lot of uncertainties, and certainly kind of rocky start. There are a lot of people who are looking to anything they can, to give them some indicators as to how to plan, and prepare for the rest of this year.
Some people who maybe thought astrology was a little woo woo, or just didn't really know much about it, are starting to look at astrology as a tool to at least help prepare, and plan, and engage with the world, in a more positive way this year.
Today, we have some amazing guests that I'm super, super excited about, on a personal level, and on a professional level. Who are going to talk to us about astrology, and relationship building through astrology. And how to build a relationship-based business, where the heart of it is really around building deeper connections through astrology.
This business is at a very, very early stage. We'll get to hear a little bit about the journey of the team in building this new experience, so that we can all connect and form deeper relationships. I will bring our guests on just now. I'll let each one of them introduce themselves.
But I think what I would like to do first is give you an idea of kind of where these people come from, and where we're all going as a team. Jamie, I think we should share Ricky's story. Look at this guy, talk about badass, this guy means business. This is Ricky Williams, former NFL star, and is here with us today. Because his journey is, I would say even more powerful than that image conveys, which says a lot.
Ricky, can you tell us a little bit about what you're up to now? Then we'll have Steven and Ophi introduce themselves, and then we'll kind of get into what astrology is, and what it means.
Ricky Williams:
It's interesting you shared that picture. At the time, I was playing in Miami, and Sports Illustrated sent their best photographer, because they wanted to do an issue, really about the NFL. I was very fortunate that they chose my face on from that afternoon to show the world what the NFL was all about.
It's also interesting that when most people think about astrology, they tend not to think of NFL football players. But here we are. 99% of what I'm doing on a daily basis has something to do with astrology, whether it's working on the app that we're building LILA, or it's doing personal readings for my own recreation. I really enjoy reading astrology, mainly Steven's books.
It really speaks to what astrology can offer. For me it's like, I grew up as an African American in Southern California, and I could run really fast. The environment helped define who I was, and I attracted, and I was the best. I won the Heisman Trophy winner.
But I started to reflect on my life, and realized there's actually something deeper brewing inside. I looked everywhere to find something to help me speak to or get in touch with what was going on inside, and I couldn't find anything. I didn't find anything until I found astrology. It gave me a way to understand the deeper parts of myself that I didn't see acknowledged by the environment around me.
I was at a time in my life when I found astrology that I was really looking for something. I really just soaked it up.
It's become a passion to help share what I know with people, to help them get a clearer sense of what's going on with themselves.
Angel Gambino:
When we introduce you, and I would love for you to tell the story of you stalking Steven. That's the way I'll characterize it.
Ricky Williams:
It was. I won't get into too much astrology, but I'm a Virgo rising. I'm part of Virgo. Is really about learning, and we see that if we can find a teacher, someone who's been there before us, a mentor, the learning process is much easier. So much so with astrology, it's such a vast subject.
I was at a point in my life where I really was ready to take my study seriously, and I realized, "I need to find a teacher." I kind of racked my mind in my favorite books, I always came back to Steven Forrest books. I went online and to see if I could find him, and I saw he was presenting at an astrological conference on my birthday.
As a gift to myself, I said, I'm going to, and again, I'm a football player, going to this astrological conference, where all these weirdos, sorry [inaudible 00:06:10]. I was scared to death, but I did it. I sat in Steven's presentation, and after he kind of walked to the back room, and I rushed over to get in line to say something to him.
I remember I asked him a question about an aspect between Mars and my ascendant. But the first thing he said to me as I approached him, and again, I'm a big football player, he looked at me, and he said, "Don't hurt me." I got such a chuckle out of it, because the truth is, when people meet me, that's what they're thinking. For someone to actually put words to, it lightened the mood, and really was a great first meeting between us.
Angel Gambino:
Steven, for people who aren't familiar with your incredible work, can you tell us a little bit about you and your work?
Steven Forrest:
I'd be happy to. Before I do that, I do want to do my side of the story.
Angel Gambino:
Yes. Go for it.
Steven Forrest:
[inaudible 00:07:09] misunderstand it. But I was afraid of Ricky. Here's this big, black football player. Actually, our eyes met, and he was my friend. I liked him right away. His sun falls in my house of marriage, a little preview of LILA, it doesn't mean we'll get married. But there was an instant simpatico between us.
I just totally got it that here's a guy with a big, deep spiritual heart, and everybody looks at him and says, "Please don't hurt me." I wanted to sort of mock that, and I think it worked. Because we, it took us about nine tenths of a second to become good friends. Fair enough, Ricky?
Ricky Williams:
It was quick, very quick.
Steven Forrest:
Really quick. My story, I'm 72, so I don't want to take up the whole show with my story. [inaudible 00:08:04]. I was a product of my environment, just like Ricky was. Born in 1949, I was a smart kid, not very athletic, so immediately I'm on the science track. I got into amateur astronomy, built telescopes, and that kind of thing. I'm 12 years old, New York City, looking through the telescope in the roof of my apartment through the muck in the atmosphere.
There was a sense of magic, not just science, but the magic. The sense that I was looking at living things when I was looking at galaxies. It's like, "Is the universal alive? Is it a great mind? Is it communicating with me somehow?"
That totally unscientific attitude just wouldn't go away. It took root in me, and it sort of fused with astrology by the time I was in my late teens. I was making my living as an astrologer by my middle 20s, I had a contract with Bantam Books to write my first book, The Inner Sky when I was in my early 30s.
I've never really had to worry about a career. I came to a turning point where the way I like to say it, this may be a little bit unfair to Justin Bieber, but [inaudible 00:09:28]. Do I want to be Carl Jung or do I want to be Justin Bieber? I had some opportunities to be kind of more popular, but I decided I wanted to do the deep teaching of serious astrology.
I began to self-publish, because the mainstream publishers would not, they weren't open to the kind of deeper material that I wanted to write. The last thing I knew I was in my early 30s, and now here I am 72. I haven't had a breath since then.
Angel Gambino:
You are one of the busiest men in astrology for sure.
Steven Forrest:
Amen.
Angel Gambino:
Thank you for that, Steven. Then Ophi, I have to share our story, just because I love it so much. Then I'd like you to let people know more about you, and Astro Twins. Well, working with Ricky and Steven, and Matt and Fred and the team, we were really excited about our potential partnership, and bringing you into the business.
I had remembered that, and I follow your stuff daily and weekly. I think I bought every product that you've ever probably [crosstalk 00:10:44] market. Yes. Over, I don't know, years.
I had remembered you guys saying at some point that you're talking about your father, and being from Michigan, and I was like, "Oh, that's so cool." [inaudible 00:11:00], I just felt connected a bit. Then when we talked, then it turns out that you went to high school with my brother and sister in Michigan.
[crosstalk 00:11:11] are these astrologers that I love, that I've been following religiously, based in New York. Then I find out that you went to high school with my brother and sister. I feel like we were meant to be family.
Ophi:
So meant to be. We're both Sagittarians, right?
Angel Gambino:
I know. I love it.
Ophi :
Isn't that wild?
Angel Gambino:
Tell us a little bit about Astro Twins.
Ophi:
Well, I'm Ophi Edut, one half of the Astro Twins. My twin is not feeling well today, so I'm going to holographically bring her in through me or whatever.
I have been doing astrology for about 30 years, I did end up going the Justin Bieber route, but I came from more of a Carl Jung background. At the University of Michigan, my sister and I started a magazine called Hughes, which was for women of all cultures, and sizes, and identities. This was in the early 90s, was bit ahead of its time.
We found that the one unifying topic, we were dealing with identity politics, which is everybody knows nowadays can be very polarizing. But the one thing that everybody could come together on and feel joyful about was astrology. That was sort of a background passion, I worked for Gloria Steinem when she organized some female investors to buy back Ms. Magazine. I was their youngest editor in, I guess 1999.
Angel Gambino:
I love that, I didn't know that!
Ophi:
But, I would creep into the copy editing room and chat with the ladies there, and I saved one of their relationship. She was a Cancer, about to break up with her Leo boyfriend that night. I ended up intervening cosmically, and they're still married to this day with three kids.
She ended up giving us our first column at Teen People Magazine. That's why it was, it was actually Britney Spears, Justin Bieber was probably twinkle in his father's [inaudible 00:13:09]. But like Steven, we haven't really stopped. We now write for Elle magazine for 11 years, we've written multiple books. We also self-publish our yearly guide.
Steven and I both have Jupiter at 11 degrees Capricorn, that only happens every 12 years. Ricky and I are opposite signs. It's all astro family here.
Angel Gambino:
I love it. I think, you guys are all deeply rooted in astrology. I'm a huge follower, but by no means an expert. I love the journey of learning that I'm on, and all three of you are so helpful in my journey.
But for people who don't really know what astrology is, or maybe they think it's a little woo woo, or they're a bit cynical about it. What is astrology to you and in what ways can it be helpful to people?
Ophi:
I think Steven should answer that one.
Angel Gambino:
How would you define [inaudible 00:14:25]? Because as Ricky says, it's so vast and multi-layered.
Steven Forrest:
Well, first thing I'd like to do is say what it isn't just very simply. At least the way we do it. It's not fortune telling, we do not feel that you're a marionette, and the planets have you by your strings, and we can predict everything that you will do. That's a common notion about astrology.
It puts a lot of people off. I don't blame them, if that's astrology, I don't want anything to do with it. It robs humanity of dignity, of freewill, of the whole notion of personal responsibility. That's a sermon I often make.
What astrology is, positively, I go back to some notions that are literally pre historical. The idea that God or gods, and goddesses, or spirits that are invisible to the naked eye are interested in us, and speak to us, and guide us, and inspire us. That there is a benign quality in the universe that wants to help us. This is a almost universal idea in at least historic cultures. [inaudible 00:15:43] a few challenges in the last 100 years, in this materialistic, existentialist context that we're living in now.
But the notion is that in astrology, we assume that the gods, and the spirits, and so on, actually speak to us. Offer us guidance, help and assistance through the motions of the planets. That astrology is the bridge language between the invisible, benign realms that care about us, and our confused labyrinthine lives here on the earth. We let the gods speak to us through the motions of the planets. That's it as far as I'm concerned. It's a sacred art.
Angel Gambino:
I love that. Ophi, does that kind of capture your thoughts around what astrology is?
Ophi:
I knew he could say it 1000 times better than [crosstalk 00:16:41]. So yeah, absolutely. I think it's the instruction manual that they say that human beings don't come with.
Ricky Williams:
When I was a kid, and my mom would get upset with us, and she'd make a mistake in her parenting. She would always remind us, "You guys don't come with instruction manuals." Actually, we do. [crosstalk 00:17:08].
What Steven said, to reiterate it, this idea, for me, it makes perfect sense. As we're living our lives, especially now, there's so many chaotic things going on, and a lot of times, we haven't been given the proper words or perspective to really understand.
One of the things, so it seems chaotic, but as we look up into the skies, and astronomers and scientists have done for millennia, they notice that there is some harmony. There's some order when we can predict where the planets are going to be, at certain points in time.
To superimpose the order that we notice in the cosmos to the chaos that we experience in our lives, it helps us find meaning, and dare I say, a sense of order. I'll use my first experience with astrology. It reminds me of 2020. Soon as COVID hit, I flashback to when I first found astrology. It was a time in my life where I invested my whole life in becoming the best football player I could be.
It started to dawn on me that maybe I'm here to do something else. It was an extremely frightening thought. Because I invested everything I was into this one dream. As it started to melt away, I was utterly confused about what is going on.
I had a sense, but utter confusion. I met this Vietnamese woman who was a Swami, and someone told her I was a football player. She was into astrology, and she walks up to me, and she says, "Where's your Mars?" I looked at her, and I was like, "I don't really know what you're talking about." She just said, "Come talk to me later."
I gave her my birth information, and she started talking to me about my chart. It might seem simple, but the simple insight she pointed out is that something in my chart pointed to the fact that I tended to attract stressful situations to myself.
Anyone who looked at my life, it was plainly obvious, [crosstalk 00:19:19] professional football player, so it's a stressful environment. But it never occurred to me, it never occurred to me. She pointed it out to me, and something just clicked. At that moment, I realized that yes, the choices I have made, a lot of them unwittingly, but the choices I have made, have created my life is a pile of shit.
I was in a position that I could do something about it. As I started to really dive in into learning more about myself, mainly through astrology, I was empowered to the choices that I could make to make a difference.
A simple astrological example, my chart says, for me to be vibrant, and for me to be myself, I need to travel, I need to experience so many different things. Again, at this time in my life, I gave up this huge football career in order to travel and experience the world. I felt affirmed, I felt seen, and the proof is in the pudding. Since that point in my life, I feel like I've truly come alive, and I truly lived. In my experience is, this is what astrology can offer us.
Angel Gambino:
I love that. That's incredibly profound. I think you mentioned at the beginning about whether are these kind of instructional manuals, and how your mom was like, "You don't come with an instruction."
I remember when I was a teenager, and having boy troubles with one of the boys I was dating. As almost always certainly happens at some stage. She talked to me about it a bit, and she gave me Linda Goodman's, is it Love Signs or Sun Signs?
Both. She said, "Well, maybe you should get to know a little bit about him through this other lens, through this other context." It was fascinating, because there was so much truth in there, and I thought, "Oh, my God."
Some of the behaviors I was interpreting, and filtering through my own way of being, and my own values, very differently than what they were intended. It really, in that particular situation, opened up my eyes to astrology. But also having almost an instructional guide, at least a framework that I could start to relate to somebody, and be more open to things that I wasn't necessarily interpreting in the way that they were intended.
Which made me kind of think, a lot of people know about their sun signs, but astrology is much more than that. What can you guys share about sun signs versus all the other aspects?
Ophi:
Got 10 hours?
Angel Gambino:
I know.
Ophi:
No. I'm Just kidding.
Angel Gambino:
When we were preparing for this, I was like, "We're going to give people such a small snippet. They're not even going to get the full." But as long as there's enough to tease people into learning more, I think it's great.
Ophi:
I can speak to that briefly. I always knew I was a Sagittarius. I had a paper route, I'd read my horoscope in the paper. But when I was 21, my college boyfriend got my chart done for me as a gift. I didn't even know what a chart was, and I found out I had four planets in Scorpio, and Capricorn rising. There's this whole other dimension of myself that was suddenly explained by this piece of paper.
Some people go looking for astrology, but for most of us, like you, Angel, it finds us in those critical moments where like, "Oh my God, nothing makes sense." Astrology made sense of these things that didn't make sense for me. Parts of myself, like you said, Ricky, too.
You can't deny it. I think it's really good to be skeptical, but a skeptic and a cynic are two different things. A cynic dismisses things outright. Most people saying they're skeptical about astrology are just not giving it a chance.
Be a skeptic, try it on, suspend judgment. If it doesn't work for you, great. There's plenty of people it does, I got no attachment. But if it does give you this other language and instruction manual to yourself, then great. Find out your moon sign, your rising sign.
We have this primal triad in our project. I don't know if one of you guys want to talk about that, Ricky or Steven?
Angel Gambino:
Ricky or Steven, you should share about the primal triad.
Ricky Williams:
Sun sign astrology, I think even really serious astrologers, we have a lot, we have a debt to pay. Because I don't think astrology would have survived to this day with as much vibrancy, if it wasn't for sun sign astrology.
It's interesting, because the way we understand ourselves, we call it the primal triad generator. It's the sun, the moon, and what we call the rising sign or the ascendant. These are really probably the three most profound symbols in astrology. They represent probably parts of ourselves that I would say are the most easily identifiable.
I think the sun and where the sun is placed, it really, like the sun and the solar system. Everything revolves around the sun, and it's a source of vitality. In our charts, that's what it represents, with the sun, the values. Values that if we're true to those values, we will remain vibrant and alive.
I mentioned, my sun is in Gemini, and so feeding my curiosity, taking in information, learning, keeps me happy. Keeps me happy that I wake up in the morning.
As a young athlete, people could identify, they would say, "You're very articulate for an athlete." They're able to notice something about myself that shines, some sort of intelligence.
But they would always say, "I don't understand, you seem so sensitive. You seem so sensitive for a football player, you're so soft spoken." Or even people would say, they say, "Wow, I'm so shocked. You're this big football player, but you seem so humble, and reserved, and shy."
The primal triad, my sun, this Gemini energy shines, my moon. The moon is our inner nature, the part of ourselves that we tend to hide from showing people, until we feel more comfortable, and then it naturally comes out. My moon is in Cancer, which is probably one of the most sensitive signs. It's really about sensitivity of being aware of what's going on for other people, and caring about what's going on for other people, and doing what you can help them feel better.
As a big black guy, having this Cancer moon, I got picked on as a kid. As I started to understand astrology more, I started to understand that part of myself, and then my rising sign. The rising sign is, you can think of it as the mask we wear. We're complex beings, and when we go out into the world, we have to put together a social identity that interacts with the world.
The rising sign can give us information about how to best do that. My rising sign is Virgo, and Virgo has a lot to do with, I think Virgo is the craftsperson. Someone that takes pride in the details, and takes pride in doing a really good job.
As a football player, I had a way to express that Virgo rising sign, because every day, I was charged to get better at becoming a football player. I think what made me such a good football player, I'm fast, and I'm strong, and I can do all of these things. But really, it was my attention to detail, and I approached the game as a craftsperson would approach their craft. Always watching film, and looking to see what I can do better and better.
If I only had the sun sign information about myself, I would lose the information. I would lose these instructions on how to become more of a holistic, more of a full, three dimensional person.
There's eight other planets, and a whole bunch of other things we could talk about. But even looking at ourselves, is there's three separate parts of ourselves that are learning to work together. It could be so helpful for people, and help them to see themselves, and the people in their lives, more three dimensionally.
Ophi:
You're so good at explaining
Ricky Williams:
I had a good teacher. For me, I feel like my life, so I grew up in a very religious household. What we were told in church is, you show people that you're a Christian by the way you live your life, by your actions, by your kindness.
I feel like with astrology, it's really opened my mind so much, and been such a guide for me in life, that I feel like I live it. That's the expression of it.
This project of LILA, for me, it really, it's a lot of things. LILA is the project that I'm working on with Ophi, with Steven, and the rest of our team. It's taking this astrology, and making it actionable, making it applicable.
I started studying astrology way back, 2004. I mentioned that story. It was me, with my computer, and a bunch of books, sitting in my library, just reading all of these things. Watching my friends to see how it works. But it wasn't until I got into a relationship with someone who also was interested in astrology. We took a class, my wife, Lenae, and I took a class with Steven.
I had been studying astrology for 15 years, but this was the first time that I really dove into relationship astrology, and understanding how to use astrology in relationships. It completely blew my mind. A couple of reasons. I think the first reason I talked about, our world is being chaotic. For me, I've experienced the most chaos in my life in intimate relationships. It's something that [crosstalk 00:29:43]-
Ophi:
It's in his chart.
Ricky Williams:
Well said. It's something that all of us, we're interacting with people in relationships, all of us on a daily basis. My idea was, with this profound information that astrology offers us, relationships are the perfect field or playing ground to really interact with these things.
To me, I wanted to merge these two things because on one level, it's definitely going to help people understand themselves, and the people in their lives better. With more consciousness, with more awareness, we're going to make better decisions.
But also, astrology helps us understand ourselves and others, and more profoundly, helps us understand the world around us. I think, big picture of this, if we do a good job with LILA, people are going to understand themselves, they're going to have better relationships. But also the world is going to make more sense to them.
Angel Gambino:
I love that. I think we all need that right now. Ricky, why don't you share with people a little bit more specifically about where you're at with LILA, and what it is? What is it going to offer people along the lines of making more sense to the world, and relating better with with other people.
Ricky Williams:
I'll go back to the kind of moment where this was all born. Again, Lenae, my wife and I were taking synastry, relationship astrology class with Steven. What Steven does in his class, is the first three days he'll teach the philosophy, and he'll teach the technique.
Then on the last day, he draws a name out of the hat, and he demonstrates the technique. The story ends up on my birthday, again, my 40th birthday. It's the last day of the workshop, Steven pulls a name out of my hat, and it's my name.
He spends the whole day demonstrating the technique of how to use astrology to help people in relationships, on me and Lenae. At the time, I was about a year out of a marriage, and about a year into a new relationship. I was at this prime moment in my life, where I was reflecting on the past, and looking at, "How can I take what I learned from my failed relationship, and use it to build a relationship that felt better?"
The information that Steven delivered, it blew my mind, and Lenae and I were married a month later. It's that powerful.
Because when you go into this relationship of meeting someone, there's these emotions that pull you in there, and you get entangled. Steven says this in his class, "Getting out of a relationship is so much more difficult than getting in."
This is a touchy subject, but it's for most adults, we've had the experience of the difficulties of relationship. The truth is, what astrology teaches us, we can learn from life, but we take more bumps and bruises when we learn that way. This information can help us make better decisions.
With this insight, I just thought, we have to find a way to get this information into people's hands, because they need it. We approached Steven, after the morning of that class, and we said, "Would you be willing to work with us on creating this app?" He said, yes, thank goodness.
Really the foundation of my goal here, my vision here is to build the app as a extension of Steven's book, Skymates, his book on relationship. Because the way that Steven teaches, it's wonderful, because he allows you to take this vast subject, and break it down into a way that you can actually use it.
For instance, as he was reading my chart and Lenae's chart, the first thing he started with was each of us as an individual. Who is this person, and who is this person? Before we can think of two people together, we have to understand two individuals.
In our app, we call it the ultimate relationship app. Our first step is self-discovery, is before you can really get the most out of a relationship, you got to take care of the relationship with yourself first.
We use astrological insights to help people understand themselves, and more specifically, their own relationship needs. Because the relationship that works for me is not necessarily going to be the relationship that works for someone else.
Our next step, the next dimension of relationship that we're helping people with is social discovery. It's a social discovery feed, you'll have access to looking at other profiles. This part is really creating a marketplace for people that are wanting to understand themselves, and live a more conscious life, and then to meet each other.
My favorite section of the app, and I think this is really what differentiates us, is that once you make a connection to someone or if you're already in a relationship, is the relationship building module. This is where we use astrology to help people manage the things that show up in relationships.
There's so many tools that astrology offers to help people navigate through these three dimensions. Our task as a team is using what we know and our experiences, to help translate astrological information into ways that people can take actionable steps to improve the quality of their relationships, and the quality of their lives.
Angel Gambino:
Why don't you let people know where you're at with it? Can they get it now? Can they download it now? Can they sign up? Where are things at?
Ricky Williams:
We're getting close. We're getting very close. We were planning to launch in the app store this month, but we're going to do some more testing.
Angel Gambino:
... yes. Exactly. Steven, the astrology of ... so before we segueway Steven on that question. Ricky, people can go to LILA on Instagram and to the website?
Ricky Williams:
Right. Now, where people can go to start connecting with us is the website, and it's heylila.com.
Angel Gambino:
You're also going to be embarking on fundraising as well, right?
Ricky Williams:
Yeah.
Angel Gambino:
there are investors, they can also reach out via the website?
Ricky Williams:
Yes. There's a link for investors. Even a link to check out our deck on the website.
Angel Gambino:
Great. Steven, what are your thoughts about the astrology of a business?
Steven Forrest:
Well, anything that comes into existence, in a sense is born, and anything that is born has a chart. You can set up a chart for the the initial public offering, for example of a publicly traded company. Usually that's born in New York City at 9:30 AM on a Monday morning, for example.
There's astrologers who've made quite a lot of money just looking at businesses, and here's a business that's, here's the holy grail. One of these guys was drinking beer and told me a little bit more than he probably should have, how he's made most of his money. You look for a business that's about to have a big Saturn time, followed by a big Jupiter time. [inaudible 00:37:29] motions of the planets in the sky.
The Saturn, it may not destroy the business, but it's going to shrink it a little bit. Or maybe they have to invest in capital improvements or something, so the dividends are down. That's when you buy, right in the peak of the Saturn stuff. Then Jupiter comes along, and the business goes through the roof, and you sell it, of course right at the top.
Businesses, ideas, human beings, your cat, your dog, your new car. Anything that is born, not only dies, but also has a chart.
Angel Gambino:
I love that. I'm going to have to factor that into my investments and launch dates.
Ophi, you've got, Astro Twins has something now catering to kind of Astro [inaudible 00:38:24], I think?
Ophi:
Yeah. Well, that was a name we came up with. Because, when people start to learn about themselves, some people find that an endlessly fascinating topic. Other people are like, "Great. Now that I know how I'm wired, what do I do with this? How can I make an impact in the world? How can I do something that I love that fits who I am, and my calling?" Which you can find in the chart? We designed ... and I guess we lost Ricky, hope he comes back.
Angel Gambino:
I know. I hope he comes back.
Angel Gambino:
Ricky, we miss you.
Ophi:
But we'll chat until he comes back. But yes, so we, and over the years, I've been starting businesses, and have learned how to not just be an astrologer, but a business owner. I thought, why not use the tools of astrology to teach people how to pick those dates? Like Steven said. Or what is the best use of their talents?
I read somewhere that the average person makes 38,000 decisions a day. That's a lot. We can get stuck in analysis paralysis, and never move forward on our dreams. But astrology can get you unstuck, it can help. It's like a lovely decision making metric, where you feel a little bit of confidence. Change your mindset or focal point. It helps you move forward and stay in action.
Like Ricky said, we like action-driven, actionable astrology. I like to use it, I say as a tool instead of a rule, and it's very practical. [inaudible 00:40:06]. Do you think so too, Steven? Do you find astrology's practical?
Steven Forrest:
Oh, absolutely. A quick comment. This is more about the sun. But start off with a simple statement, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal. There are certain moral principles that we should all live by, don't vote for a fascist. [inaudible 00:40:28] one size fits all.
But then beyond that, there's a second tier of decisions, should a person move to Ecuador? What a stupid question, because we don't know who we're talking about, and astrology helps us answer questions at that secondary level of values.
It's a word Ricky used earlier, the sun is particularly connected to that. When you're making your 38,000 decisions per day, what kind of overriding, overarching values will serve you best in the long run? If you happen to be a Sagittarian, for example, when in doubt, roll the dice.
Ophi:
knowing that, yes.
Steven Forrest:
If you're a cancer, much of your work is inside of yourself, and you don't need your life to be chaotic. You need peace for your inner work. Don't roll the dice, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, would be a value that would help.
These are simple illustrations, but they really emphasize how, when we get past prediction, and just describing people, and let astrology counsel us, how it becomes active. Take it one step further in terms of LILA, and relationships. How much passion do you want in your relationship? Teenagers will say, "A lot." But when you get a little bit older, and it's like passion, it's not just about sex. Passion is about process, and complexity, and ripping each other to shreds, and forgiving each other. If you're a Scorpio is, "Oh, bring it on."
Ophi:
Bring it on.
Angel Gambino:
I was engaged to a Scorpio.
Steven Forrest:
I'm sorry, say that, again, Angel, I missed you.
Angel Gambino:
I was engaged to a Scorpio.
Steven Forrest:
Oh, so you know?
Angel Gambino:
Oh, yeah.
Steven Forrest:
We all have one
Self knowledge, that allow you to make better decisions about relationships. So you're not just going for beauty, or glamor, or money or something. But something that is more connected to who you are, and what your journey is.
That's what LILA is all about. It just spells that out for you personally, and gives you an understanding of the other person in the light of all that.
One of my favorite promotional points for LILA, is the idea that you can learn in one session with LILA, what it might take you three months or six months to learn in an actual relationship. Why not bypass all that learning, and just get it right away?
Is this a relationship you really want to pursue? Or would you be better off just, "You take your path, and I'll take mine, and we'll look elsewhere?"
Ophi:
I love that you said that, because I think a lot of people are doing the wrong thing with the right person, or the right thing with the wrong person. Astrology in the way that it's designed, in LILA, I came in later, but I just really loved what they were doing, and I love their philosophies.
As a Sagg of course I got on board. But when you know that you can be with any sign, there is no right or wrong man, it's just what's right for you at this time in your life.
Steven Forrest:
Exactly.
Ophi:
At least I think.
Angel Gambino:
We're glad you're back with us, Ricky. For 2021, what can you guys share about either specific signs or generally about relationships? Also, we were just talking about business. On the career front, what are some of the things that the different signs can anticipate or hopefully look forward to?
Ophi:
I can answer that, unless anyone else wants to? But, since I'm writing daily, weekly, monthly horoscopes and steeped in the transits all the time, not that you guys aren't, but.
Angel Gambino:
By the way, I have to tell you, Ophi. You guys said something for Saggs the other day, for yesterday. I can't remember exactly what the words were, but I knew that I had to be more aware when I was driving. Because I haven't been driving…
Yes. Sure enough, power of suggestion or just your prediction was right on, I avoided a major accident.
Ophi:
Oh, my God.
Angel Gambino:
Yes. I swear I was extra vigilant, because I had read that, and I was like, "I got to be aware." Thank you for that.
Ophi:
Oh my God, I'm glad.
Angel Gambino:
What collisions can the other side bring?
Ophi:
Well, that is what happens sometimes when a planet has been retrograde, we're not going to get into the mechanics of that. But when it does, it's about face and corrects course. It's almost like this whiplash, when a subway or a bus stops, and you're like, you go flying forward a little bit.
There are moments, in addition to learning about how you tick and how you're wired, there are times when our charts never change. You are this map, this sort of screenshot of the solar system at your time of birth, that's your chart. When the planets are always moving and forming relationships to your chart, and activating different energies, and opportunities. That's what astrology can help you map that out.
In 2020, if you base it on people's sun signs or Zodiac signs, most of us were really out of character. We were all having to explore energies that were not natural for us. The fire signs, Aries, Leo and Sagg, were very work-driven and structured. All I did was work last year.
The earth signs who are very practical, were free-spirited, and going all over the place, trying all these big ideas. The air signs who are kind of like to keep it casual, went deep and got into their feelings. Then the water signs, who are usually in their feelings were very social.
That's a very top level not based on someone's individual chart. Sometimes just the top notes are true for us. We all learned about a new dimension of ourselves that hadn't been explored. I think in 2021, I feel that we'll be more back in character. The fire signs are going to be more out there, marketing ourselves, or connecting, spreading a message.
The earth signs back to their sort of structured ways. The air signs more in there kind of social relationship building groove. The water signs will be home watching Netflix and crying or something.
But that's kind of the bigger picture of it. But I think it's, I hope that we don't, just like 2020 was a shit show of a year, if I might, we all learned something new about ourselves. I feel like the astrology was that too. I hope we don't forget what we learned from 2020, even if we don't want to do it again, anytime soon. Cosmically, as well.
That's how I see it. I don't know if anyone else has an opinion they want to share, but that's what I see is ahead.
Angel Gambino:
Ricky, what about relationships and the different signs in 2021? Because with the focus, with this whole team, and people behind the scenes, LILA, what are some of the things that people can look forward to in building relationships?
Because right now, thank God LILA is coming out, because it's really difficult to build new relationships, when people are social distancing. Your app is, I think coming around at a perfect time, because people need to be able to meet new people.
Even if things open up in the next quarter, I think people are still hesitant about going out, and meeting new people, and being very close in proximity. I feel like one of the things that I've noticed with my own behavior, is that it's kind of allowed me almost like in the 1900s, when people would get to know each other over a longer period of time. Rather than the Tinder, let's have sex, [inaudible 00:49:21] want to see each other again.
With LILA, what are some of the things that, new ways that people will be able to relate in 2021? Not the specific functions of the app, because those you'll share with the announcement with the launch coming up soon. But what are some of the things that [inaudible 00:49:45] can look forward to in 2021 [inaudible 00:49:48] being [inaudible 00:49:49] relationship?
Ricky Williams:
This is a interesting question. Part of our task in getting this app out into the world, and getting people using it, is really changing people's ideas and opinions, and understanding, but mostly misunderstanding about what astrology is.
Behind anyone that has studied astrology, and behind any all of us, we have a certain kind of philosophy that expresses itself through astrology. Our philosophy with LILA is, this is evolutionary astrology. Which, and what we're saying is that, life happens for us, it doesn't happen to us.
Things that show up are showing up for a reason to help us grow, and to help us evolve. To me, I think of what's going on, Ophi talked about transits. What's going on with the planets right now, and how they're affecting us?
I think of that is the weather, kind of what's the astrological weather? What's it preparing us for? What's it attempting to teach us? We have to put this in the real world. We've just gone through 2020, and what effect has 2020 had on us?
The way I think about it generally, is we [inaudible 00:51:06] more time with the people that we're in relationship with. The opportunity right for us to get to know them and to get to know ourselves better. But also, part of that is the opportunity to realize, "What am I doing in this relationship?"
This is real. I think, 2020 has brought a lot of questions out for people in relationship. Whereas before 2020, most of us were so busy in life, that we weren't forced to look at these things, and to think more deeply. I think the timing of LILA coming out, is people are ready to wrestle with these more complicated, difficult questions. We're providing a way for people to do that.
This astrology, we kind of joke, this isn't your grandmother's astrology, this is, self-responsibility is at the core of what we're doing. It's about not in a relationship looking at what is wrong with the other person, why isn't this working? And starting looking at myself? Are my needs being met? Does this person even have the ability to meet my relationship needs?
What we're offering is an invitation for people to ask some of these deeper questions. Because as we can sink and form a deeper relationship with ourselves, that's going to manifest as deeper relationships with other people.
Really, the term, you mentioned it, the term that we used to use was courtship. This process of determining, does this relationship have the potential to become something more serious?
LILA is about all relationships, and really, all relationships have this courtship. Whether someone is going to be a romantic relationship, or they're going to be a mentor, or they're going to be a friend, there's this beginning part where people come together, and they're trying to figure out, "Is this going to work?"
I think this is where LILA will shine. Because we're going to give people information to help them in that process, so they're making more sound decisions. Again, relationships much more easy to get into, than they are to get out of.
How can people make more sound decisions as they enter a relationship? But I want to use an example. It's close to home, but it's real. I mentioned a year out of a relationship. My first wife, Kristin was our first friends and family investor in LILA, which is interesting in and of itself. But part of, because she was the first investor, I sent her some of the content we were working on. She has the planet that gives you information about your ideal partners, about relationship in the sign of Capricorn.
The advice usually is, the people that are going to work best for you in relationships are people that are responsible, that are serious, that are disciplined. I was seven years younger than her, and I have zero Capricorn in my chart.
This idea of, if we would have had this information beforehand, we would have approached things so much differently. Again, it's uncomfortable, but it's true. If we can empower people to improve the quality of their current relationships, and we can also empower people to make more conscious decisions in new relationships, then we're going to feel like we're doing our job.
Angel Gambino:
I think you mentioned something about your expectations, and whether or not you're going to be able to get something that you need in a relationship [inaudible 00:54:45] other person.
I remember one time I was in Detroit in the winter time, and I was having some frustrations in a relationship. Then I got into a conversation with somebody about, "Oh, this person owes me money, and they haven't paid me." I looked at the person, I said, "Look, we're both freezing out here. If you asked me for a glove or a mitten, I don't have one, so I can't give it to you. I would if I had it, but I don't have it."
I said, "It's the same thing. He doesn't have the money, so he can't pay you back. You either just have to suck it up, and decide whether or not you want to continue with that relationship or not."
Then as those words were coming out of my mouth, I was like, "We all do this. We all expect these other people to show up in ways that maybe [inaudible 00:55:41] who they are." Then you feel bad, because, and that person feels bad, because they can't give you what you want, either.
Ricky Williams:
You just described my first marriage. Thank you.
Angel Gambino:
You both want it to work. But, so I think that self-awareness that you're talking about in that first phase of LILA, about self-discovery. The more you learn about what you want, then you can hopefully attract and relate to other people that that comes naturally to. Those [crosstalk 00:56:19].
Ricky Williams:
I think most importantly, you can ask the right questions. If I have a sense of what's going to work for me in relationship, as I start getting to know someone, I have a sense of the questions that I can ask to get a sense of, "Can this person show up that way? Is it even fair to them to ask them to?"
Angel Gambino:
I've got one last question for you guys. I hate to wrap it up, because I can talk to you guys all day, every day. But we'll have to do that over drinks on Zoom. But, so the question is, is the rose, the bud, and the thorn. We'll do rose, and then thorn, and bud.
Rose is for you right now, what is something you're really grateful for? Something you're really enjoying? Something that's going really well? That's your rose. Your thorn is, anything that's challenging, anything you're struggling with, that's irritating. Your bud is something you're looking forward to, something you're excited about? [crosstalk 00:57:34].
Ricky Williams:
I'll go first, and I'll keep it in astrological framework.
I'm a Gemini. The rose really has been so much activity going on in my life right now. There's so many things that I'm constantly stimulated with, with new information and new challenges, and that's great. The thorn is kind of the dark side of that. I'm starting to feel a little bit overwhelmed. I kind of have to organize things a little bit better to make sure that I can stay as efficient, and as effective.
Because of my bud, and that's this LILA project we're working on, is really exciting for me. I think this conversation is indicative of it, is coming from my background as a football player in understanding the importance of a team. But always kind of feeling like an outsider, is I feel like the team that we're putting together here is an all pro, all star team. I just feel seen, and heard, and so appreciative of everyone's contribution, that this is really exciting.
Angel Gambino:
I agree. Thank you for allowing us to be a part of it. What about you, Steven?
Steven Forrest:
Well, let's see. The rose for sure is that I have, all my life my focus has been on achieving a kind of excellence in the counseling craft of astrology, and working with serious students. I've not really been particularly driven by fame, it's really been the work, and happy to be a [inaudible 00:59:10] figure.
But the rose is suddenly seeing this powerful team of people come together, this LILA team. Who really get what I'm doing, and know how to bridge it to the larger world. It's just an incredible gift, as I come into the later years of my life.
I was laughing when Ricky said his rose have a lot happening, and "I'm really busy." I was thinking, "Well, that's my thorn." I'm grossly overextended, the Forrest Center for Evolutionary Astrology, a very serious online school. I've got another team kind of thing going on, building that. I'm sort of doing to team things.
Its an element of thorn as well, in that, all my life, I've been teaching and writing. But basically the lion's share of my income and my work has been personal astrology. Just working with clients every day, country doctor of astrology. I'm having to cut that back, and to make time for these other things that feel more pressingly important now.
That's a bit of a thorn. I'm disappointing people I've worked with for decades, and I just have to do it, and it sucks, it hurts. I feel like I'm failing people, and yet I don't see a way around it.
The bud, well the bud is, I anticipate LILA becoming a very big success. I hope for a few dollars in that bud, obviously would free me up. There's a bud [inaudible 01:00:58]. But also the idea that this kind of intelligent, choice-centered astrology is going to be able to reach out to a much larger audience than it ever had before.
There's a bud, it hasn't happened yet, but I think it will happen, and I'm really excited about that. One more tiny thing in the bud, my hope that among the millions of people probably who are impacted by LILA, there will be a few of them who decide they want to really pursue astrology seriously. [inaudible 01:01:34] to serve their communities in this most excellent and helpful way. That's in my bud too.
Angel Gambino:
Well, Rachele Downes from Michigan, who is also a follower Ophi, says, "Steven might be preparing for his Bieber moment with LILA."
Angel Gambino:
Marley says, "Hi Dad," by the way.
Steven Forrest:
Hi Marley. I like Marley.
Ricky Williams:
Marley's taking a class with Steven.
Angel Gambino:
Oh, cool. We've got another Michigander, Mike Jbara here.
Angel Gambino:
Ophi, what about yours? Thanks for joining us, Mike, by the way.
Ophi:
My rose is that since I've been doing astrology now for a couple decades, that I have been able to turn it into a business. To the point where I can now help other people who want to do either astrology or something healing and wellness. Actually create sustainable businesses. Where they don't have to side hustle forever and struggle.
I can't tell you how many websites I built on the side on this path, and all the other odd jobs. I just feel so grateful that I can intersect the two things I love, entrepreneurship and astrology, and help people live their dreams, and make money from them.
The thorn for me as a social Sagg, is just not getting to actually hang out with people in person, missing that oxytocin hit of bonding, and going to karaoke booths, and dinners, and talking about astrology Of course, while we do it. Then the bud, I'd say that LILA is definitely one of the buds.
When I told Gloria Steinem, I was leaving Feminism to be a professional astrologer, she was very gracious about it, as she always was. But she said to me, she's like, "The one thing about astrology is that it's so genderized. I wish it wasn't so genderized. It's just in the back of these women's magazines."
I just love that here, I'm working with a diverse, just like it's astrology for everyone. The team of LILA shows that. I do have a lot of women in my audience, but working with two men, and just, it's so fun, and it shows the world of astrology is not like the birdcage line on a back of a women's magazine from the 1980s.
Angel Gambino:
But anyone who looks at the charts, I feel like you've got to be a mathematician, an astrophysicists where Steven started off, to really understand that stuff. It's very sophisticated science behind it, in astronomy. It's incredible, in addition to the spiritual, [inaudible 01:04:47] energetic elements.
Ophi:
It's just such a great combination of our passions for changing people's lives, and having them, allowing them to have happy, healthy relationships, using technology and this ancient timeless tool together. It's just super cool to me.
Angel Gambino:
I think, Gloria was on something there, because it has been very genderized. But I think relationships are not in the sense that all human beings want to be in relationship, right?
Ophi:
Yeah.
Angel Gambino:
This is just another tool, LILA's another way to help people improve the quality of their relationships. Whether they're work colleagues or romantic, friendships. Then I think that that appeals to all of humanity, not just girls wanting to date.
Ophi:
She is such an Aries. I was kind of like, "Gloria, let me do your chart. We'll get past this real fast."
Angel Gambino:
I'm a big fan of hers.
Well, thank you so much for being generous with your time today, all of you. I'm excited about embarking on this journey. I think people want to engage in the work that Steven offers or Astro Twins. Then please [inaudible 01:06:23] comments in the [inaudible 01:06:24], and Google away.
If you want to find out more about LILA, please go to the website. We've got it up here. We can also make introductions where necessary. I hope everyone has an amazing 2021. I know that there's lots of good things in store for all signs, and hopefully this will be the year of community and relationship, and LILA will help make that happen. Thank you all for participating today.
Ricky Williams:
Thanks for having us.
Angel Gambino:
All right. Bye for now.
Ricky Williams:
All right. Bye.
Ophi:
Bye.
Really quick. My story, I'm 72, so I don't want to take up the whole show with my story. [inaudible 00:08:04]. I was a product of my environment, just like Ricky was. Born in 1949, I was a smart kid, not very athletic, so immediately I'm on the science track. I got into amateur astronomy, built telescopes, and that kind of thing. I'm 12 years old, New York City, looking through the telescope in the roof of my apartment through the muck in the atmosphere.
There was a sense of magic, not just science, but the magic. The sense that I was looking at living things when I was looking at galaxies. It's like, "Is the universal alive? Is it a great mind? Is it communicating with me somehow?"
That totally unscientific attitude just wouldn't go away. It took root in me, and it sort of fused with astrology by the time I was in my late teens. I was making my living as an astrologer by my middle 20s, I had a contract with Bantam Books to write my first book, The Inner Sky when I was in my early 30s.
I've never really had to worry about a career. I came to a turning point where the way I like to say it, this may be a little bit unfair to Justin Bieber, but [inaudible 00:09:28]. Do I want to be Carl Jung or do I want to be Justin Bieber? I had some opportunities to be kind of more popular, but I decided I wanted to do the deep teaching of serious astrology.
I began to self-publish, because the mainstream publishers would not, they weren't open to the kind of deeper material that I wanted to write. The last thing I knew I was in my early 30s, and now here I am 72. I haven't had a breath since then.
Angel Gambino:
You are one of the busiest men in astrology for sure.
Steven Forrest:
Amen.
Angel Gambino:
Thank you for that, Steven. Then Ophi, I have to share our story, just because I love it so much. Then I'd like you to let people know more about you, and Astro Twins. Well, working with Ricky and Steven, and Matt and Fred and the team, we were really excited about our potential partnership, and bringing you into the business.
I had remembered that, and I follow your stuff daily and weekly. I think I bought every product that you've ever probably [crosstalk 00:10:44] market. Yes. Over, I don't know, years.
I had remembered you guys saying at some point that you're talking about your father, and being from Michigan, and I was like, "Oh, that's so cool." [inaudible 00:11:00], I just felt connected a bit. Then when we talked, then it turns out that you went to high school with my brother and sister in Michigan.
[crosstalk 00:11:11] are these astrologers that I love, that I've been following religiously, based in New York. Then I find out that you went to high school with my brother and sister. I feel like we were meant to be family.
Ophi:
So meant to be. We're both Sagittarians, right?
Angel Gambino:
I know. I love it.
Ophi :
Isn't that wild?
Angel Gambino:
Tell us a little bit about Astro Twins.
Ophi:
Well, I'm Ophi Edut, one half of the Astro Twins. My twin is not feeling well today, so I'm going to holographically bring her in through me or whatever.
I have been doing astrology for about 30 years, I did end up going the Justin Bieber route, but I came from more of a Carl Jung background. At the University of Michigan, my sister and I started a magazine called Hughes, which was for women of all cultures, and sizes, and identities. This was in the early 90s, was bit ahead of its time.
We found that the one unifying topic, we were dealing with identity politics, which is everybody knows nowadays can be very polarizing. But the one thing that everybody could come together on and feel joyful about was astrology. That was sort of a background passion, I worked for Gloria Steinem when she organized some female investors to buy back Ms. Magazine. I was their youngest editor in, I guess 1999.
Angel Gambino:
I love that, I didn't know that!
Ophi:
But, I would creep into the copy editing room and chat with the ladies there, and I saved one of their relationship. She was a Cancer, about to break up with her Leo boyfriend that night. I ended up intervening cosmically, and they're still married to this day with three kids.
She ended up giving us our first column at Teen People Magazine. That's why it was, it was actually Britney Spears, Justin Bieber was probably twinkle in his father's [inaudible 00:13:09]. But like Steven, we haven't really stopped. We now write for Elle magazine for 11 years, we've written multiple books. We also self-publish our yearly guide.
Steven and I both have Jupiter at 11 degrees Capricorn, that only happens every 12 years. Ricky and I are opposite signs. It's all astro family here.
Angel Gambino:
I love it. I think, you guys are all deeply rooted in astrology. I'm a huge follower, but by no means an expert. I love the journey of learning that I'm on, and all three of you are so helpful in my journey.
But for people who don't really know what astrology is, or maybe they think it's a little woo woo, or they're a bit cynical about it. What is astrology to you and in what ways can it be helpful to people?
Ophi:
I think Steven should answer that one.
Angel Gambino:
How would you define [inaudible 00:14:25]? Because as Ricky says, it's so vast and multi-layered.
Steven Forrest:
Well, first thing I'd like to do is say what it isn't just very simply. At least the way we do it. It's not fortune telling, we do not feel that you're a marionette, and the planets have you by your strings, and we can predict everything that you will do. That's a common notion about astrology.
It puts a lot of people off. I don't blame them, if that's astrology, I don't want anything to do with it. It robs humanity of dignity, of freewill, of the whole notion of personal responsibility. That's a sermon I often make.
What astrology is, positively, I go back to some notions that are literally pre historical. The idea that God or gods, and goddesses, or spirits that are invisible to the naked eye are interested in us, and speak to us, and guide us, and inspire us. That there is a benign quality in the universe that wants to help us. This is a almost universal idea in at least historic cultures. [inaudible 00:15:43] a few challenges in the last 100 years, in this materialistic, existentialist context that we're living in now.
But the notion is that in astrology, we assume that the gods, and the spirits, and so on, actually speak to us. Offer us guidance, help and assistance through the motions of the planets. That astrology is the bridge language between the invisible, benign realms that care about us, and our confused labyrinthine lives here on the earth. We let the gods speak to us through the motions of the planets. That's it as far as I'm concerned. It's a sacred art.
Angel Gambino:
I love that. Ophi, does that kind of capture your thoughts around what astrology is?
Ophi:
I knew he could say it 1000 times better than [crosstalk 00:16:41]. So yeah, absolutely. I think it's the instruction manual that they say that human beings don't come with.
Ricky Williams:
When I was a kid, and my mom would get upset with us, and she'd make a mistake in her parenting. She would always remind us, "You guys don't come with instruction manuals." Actually, we do. [crosstalk 00:17:08].
What Steven said, to reiterate it, this idea, for me, it makes perfect sense. As we're living our lives, especially now, there's so many chaotic things going on, and a lot of times, we haven't been given the proper words or perspective to really understand.
One of the things, so it seems chaotic, but as we look up into the skies, and astronomers and scientists have done for millennia, they notice that there is some harmony. There's some order when we can predict where the planets are going to be, at certain points in time.
To superimpose the order that we notice in the cosmos to the chaos that we experience in our lives, it helps us find meaning, and dare I say, a sense of order. I'll use my first experience with astrology. It reminds me of 2020. Soon as COVID hit, I flashback to when I first found astrology. It was a time in my life where I invested my whole life in becoming the best football player I could be.
It started to dawn on me that maybe I'm here to do something else. It was an extremely frightening thought. Because I invested everything I was into this one dream. As it started to melt away, I was utterly confused about what is going on.
I had a sense, but utter confusion. I met this Vietnamese woman who was a Swami, and someone told her I was a football player. She was into astrology, and she walks up to me, and she says, "Where's your Mars?" I looked at her, and I was like, "I don't really know what you're talking about." She just said, "Come talk to me later."
I gave her my birth information, and she started talking to me about my chart. It might seem simple, but the simple insight she pointed out is that something in my chart pointed to the fact that I tended to attract stressful situations to myself.
Anyone who looked at my life, it was plainly obvious, [crosstalk 00:19:19] professional football player, so it's a stressful environment. But it never occurred to me, it never occurred to me. She pointed it out to me, and something just clicked. At that moment, I realized that yes, the choices I have made, a lot of them unwittingly, but the choices I have made, have created my life is a pile of shit.
I was in a position that I could do something about it. As I started to really dive in into learning more about myself, mainly through astrology, I was empowered to the choices that I could make to make a difference.
A simple astrological example, my chart says, for me to be vibrant, and for me to be myself, I need to travel, I need to experience so many different things. Again, at this time in my life, I gave up this huge football career in order to travel and experience the world. I felt affirmed, I felt seen, and the proof is in the pudding. Since that point in my life, I feel like I've truly come alive, and I truly lived. In my experience is, this is what astrology can offer us.
Angel Gambino:
I love that. That's incredibly profound. I think you mentioned at the beginning about whether are these kind of instructional manuals, and how your mom was like, "You don't come with an instruction."
I remember when I was a teenager, and having boy troubles with one of the boys I was dating. As almost always certainly happens at some stage. She talked to me about it a bit, and she gave me Linda Goodman's, is it Love Signs or Sun Signs?
Both. She said, "Well, maybe you should get to know a little bit about him through this other lens, through this other context." It was fascinating, because there was so much truth in there, and I thought, "Oh, my God."
Some of the behaviors I was interpreting, and filtering through my own way of being, and my own values, very differently than what they were intended. It really, in that particular situation, opened up my eyes to astrology. But also having almost an instructional guide, at least a framework that I could start to relate to somebody, and be more open to things that I wasn't necessarily interpreting in the way that they were intended.
Which made me kind of think, a lot of people know about their sun signs, but astrology is much more than that. What can you guys share about sun signs versus all the other aspects?
Ophi:
Got 10 hours?
Angel Gambino:
I know.
Ophi:
No. I'm Just kidding.
Angel Gambino:
When we were preparing for this, I was like, "We're going to give people such a small snippet. They're not even going to get the full." But as long as there's enough to tease people into learning more, I think it's great.
Ophi:
I can speak to that briefly. I always knew I was a Sagittarius. I had a paper route, I'd read my horoscope in the paper. But when I was 21, my college boyfriend got my chart done for me as a gift. I didn't even know what a chart was, and I found out I had four planets in Scorpio, and Capricorn rising. There's this whole other dimension of myself that was suddenly explained by this piece of paper.
Some people go looking for astrology, but for most of us, like you, Angel, it finds us in those critical moments where like, "Oh my God, nothing makes sense." Astrology made sense of these things that didn't make sense for me. Parts of myself, like you said, Ricky, too.
You can't deny it. I think it's really good to be skeptical, but a skeptic and a cynic are two different things. A cynic dismisses things outright. Most people saying they're skeptical about astrology are just not giving it a chance.
Be a skeptic, try it on, suspend judgment. If it doesn't work for you, great. There's plenty of people it does, I got no attachment. But if it does give you this other language and instruction manual to yourself, then great. Find out your moon sign, your rising sign.
We have this primal triad in our project. I don't know if one of you guys want to talk about that, Ricky or Steven?
Angel Gambino:
Ricky or Steven, you should share about the primal triad.
Ricky Williams:
Sun sign astrology, I think even really serious astrologers, we have a lot, we have a debt to pay. Because I don't think astrology would have survived to this day with as much vibrancy, if it wasn't for sun sign astrology.
It's interesting, because the way we understand ourselves, we call it the primal triad generator. It's the sun, the moon, and what we call the rising sign or the ascendant. These are really probably the three most profound symbols in astrology. They represent probably parts of ourselves that I would say are the most easily identifiable.
I think the sun and where the sun is placed, it really, like the sun and the solar system. Everything revolves around the sun, and it's a source of vitality. In our charts, that's what it represents, with the sun, the values. Values that if we're true to those values, we will remain vibrant and alive.
I mentioned, my sun is in Gemini, and so feeding my curiosity, taking in information, learning, keeps me happy. Keeps me happy that I wake up in the morning.
As a young athlete, people could identify, they would say, "You're very articulate for an athlete." They're able to notice something about myself that shines, some sort of intelligence.
But they would always say, "I don't understand, you seem so sensitive. You seem so sensitive for a football player, you're so soft spoken." Or even people would say, they say, "Wow, I'm so shocked. You're this big football player, but you seem so humble, and reserved, and shy."
The primal triad, my sun, this Gemini energy shines, my moon. The moon is our inner nature, the part of ourselves that we tend to hide from showing people, until we feel more comfortable, and then it naturally comes out. My moon is in Cancer, which is probably one of the most sensitive signs. It's really about sensitivity of being aware of what's going on for other people, and caring about what's going on for other people, and doing what you can help them feel better.
As a big black guy, having this Cancer moon, I got picked on as a kid. As I started to understand astrology more, I started to understand that part of myself, and then my rising sign. The rising sign is, you can think of it as the mask we wear. We're complex beings, and when we go out into the world, we have to put together a social identity that interacts with the world.
The rising sign can give us information about how to best do that. My rising sign is Virgo, and Virgo has a lot to do with, I think Virgo is the craftsperson. Someone that takes pride in the details, and takes pride in doing a really good job.
As a football player, I had a way to express that Virgo rising sign, because every day, I was charged to get better at becoming a football player. I think what made me such a good football player, I'm fast, and I'm strong, and I can do all of these things. But really, it was my attention to detail, and I approached the game as a craftsperson would approach their craft. Always watching film, and looking to see what I can do better and better.
If I only had the sun sign information about myself, I would lose the information. I would lose these instructions on how to become more of a holistic, more of a full, three dimensional person.
There's eight other planets, and a whole bunch of other things we could talk about. But even looking at ourselves, is there's three separate parts of ourselves that are learning to work together. It could be so helpful for people, and help them to see themselves, and the people in their lives, more three dimensionally.
Ophi:
You're so good at explaining
Ricky Williams:
I had a good teacher. For me, I feel like my life, so I grew up in a very religious household. What we were told in church is, you show people that you're a Christian by the way you live your life, by your actions, by your kindness.
I feel like with astrology, it's really opened my mind so much, and been such a guide for me in life, that I feel like I live it. That's the expression of it.
This project of LILA, for me, it really, it's a lot of things. LILA is the project that I'm working on with Ophi, with Steven, and the rest of our team. It's taking this astrology, and making it actionable, making it applicable.
I started studying astrology way back, 2004. I mentioned that story. It was me, with my computer, and a bunch of books, sitting in my library, just reading all of these things. Watching my friends to see how it works. But it wasn't until I got into a relationship with someone who also was interested in astrology. We took a class, my wife, Lenae, and I took a class with Steven.
I had been studying astrology for 15 years, but this was the first time that I really dove into relationship astrology, and understanding how to use astrology in relationships. It completely blew my mind. A couple of reasons. I think the first reason I talked about, our world is being chaotic. For me, I've experienced the most chaos in my life in intimate relationships. It's something that [crosstalk 00:29:43]-
Ophi:
It's in his chart.
Ricky Williams:
Well said. It's something that all of us, we're interacting with people in relationships, all of us on a daily basis. My idea was, with this profound information that astrology offers us, relationships are the perfect field or playing ground to really interact with these things.
To me, I wanted to merge these two things because on one level, it's definitely going to help people understand themselves, and the people in their lives better. With more consciousness, with more awareness, we're going to make better decisions.
But also, astrology helps us understand ourselves and others, and more profoundly, helps us understand the world around us. I think, big picture of this, if we do a good job with LILA, people are going to understand themselves, they're going to have better relationships. But also the world is going to make more sense to them.
Angel Gambino:
I love that. I think we all need that right now. Ricky, why don't you share with people a little bit more specifically about where you're at with LILA, and what it is? What is it going to offer people along the lines of making more sense to the world, and relating better with with other people.
Ricky Williams:
I'll go back to the kind of moment where this was all born. Again, Lenae, my wife and I were taking synastry, relationship astrology class with Steven. What Steven does in his class, is the first three days he'll teach the philosophy, and he'll teach the technique.
Then on the last day, he draws a name out of the hat, and he demonstrates the technique. The story ends up on my birthday, again, my 40th birthday. It's the last day of the workshop, Steven pulls a name out of my hat, and it's my name.
He spends the whole day demonstrating the technique of how to use astrology to help people in relationships, on me and Lenae. At the time, I was about a year out of a marriage, and about a year into a new relationship. I was at this prime moment in my life, where I was reflecting on the past, and looking at, "How can I take what I learned from my failed relationship, and use it to build a relationship that felt better?"
The information that Steven delivered, it blew my mind, and Lenae and I were married a month later. It's that powerful.
Because when you go into this relationship of meeting someone, there's these emotions that pull you in there, and you get entangled. Steven says this in his class, "Getting out of a relationship is so much more difficult than getting in."
This is a touchy subject, but it's for most adults, we've had the experience of the difficulties of relationship. The truth is, what astrology teaches us, we can learn from life, but we take more bumps and bruises when we learn that way. This information can help us make better decisions.
With this insight, I just thought, we have to find a way to get this information into people's hands, because they need it. We approached Steven, after the morning of that class, and we said, "Would you be willing to work with us on creating this app?" He said, yes, thank goodness.
Really the foundation of my goal here, my vision here is to build the app as a extension of Steven's book, Skymates, his book on relationship. Because the way that Steven teaches, it's wonderful, because he allows you to take this vast subject, and break it down into a way that you can actually use it.
For instance, as he was reading my chart and Lenae's chart, the first thing he started with was each of us as an individual. Who is this person, and who is this person? Before we can think of two people together, we have to understand two individuals.
In our app, we call it the ultimate relationship app. Our first step is self-discovery, is before you can really get the most out of a relationship, you got to take care of the relationship with yourself first.
We use astrological insights to help people understand themselves, and more specifically, their own relationship needs. Because the relationship that works for me is not necessarily going to be the relationship that works for someone else.
Our next step, the next dimension of relationship that we're helping people with is social discovery. It's a social discovery feed, you'll have access to looking at other profiles. This part is really creating a marketplace for people that are wanting to understand themselves, and live a more conscious life, and then to meet each other.
My favorite section of the app, and I think this is really what differentiates us, is that once you make a connection to someone or if you're already in a relationship, is the relationship building module. This is where we use astrology to help people manage the things that show up in relationships.
There's so many tools that astrology offers to help people navigate through these three dimensions. Our task as a team is using what we know and our experiences, to help translate astrological information into ways that people can take actionable steps to improve the quality of their relationships, and the quality of their lives.
Angel Gambino:
Why don't you let people know where you're at with it? Can they get it now? Can they download it now? Can they sign up? Where are things at?
Ricky Williams:
We're getting close. We're getting very close. We were planning to launch in the app store this month, but we're going to do some more testing.
Angel Gambino:
... yes. Exactly. Steven, the astrology of ... so before we segueway Steven on that question. Ricky, people can go to LILA on Instagram and to the website?
Ricky Williams:
Right. Now, where people can go to start connecting with us is the website, and it's heylila.com.
Angel Gambino:
You're also going to be embarking on fundraising as well, right?
Ricky Williams:
Yeah.
Angel Gambino:
there are investors, they can also reach out via the website?
Ricky Williams:
Yes. There's a link for investors. Even a link to check out our deck on the website.
Angel Gambino:
Great. Steven, what are your thoughts about the astrology of a business?
Steven Forrest:
Well, anything that comes into existence, in a sense is born, and anything that is born has a chart. You can set up a chart for the the initial public offering, for example of a publicly traded company. Usually that's born in New York City at 9:30 AM on a Monday morning, for example.
There's astrologers who've made quite a lot of money just looking at businesses, and here's a business that's, here's the holy grail. One of these guys was drinking beer and told me a little bit more than he probably should have, how he's made most of his money. You look for a business that's about to have a big Saturn time, followed by a big Jupiter time. [inaudible 00:37:29] motions of the planets in the sky.
The Saturn, it may not destroy the business, but it's going to shrink it a little bit. Or maybe they have to invest in capital improvements or something, so the dividends are down. That's when you buy, right in the peak of the Saturn stuff. Then Jupiter comes along, and the business goes through the roof, and you sell it, of course right at the top.
Businesses, ideas, human beings, your cat, your dog, your new car. Anything that is born, not only dies, but also has a chart.
Angel Gambino:
I love that. I'm going to have to factor that into my investments and launch dates.
Ophi, you've got, Astro Twins has something now catering to kind of Astro [inaudible 00:38:24], I think?
Ophi:
Yeah. Well, that was a name we came up with. Because, when people start to learn about themselves, some people find that an endlessly fascinating topic. Other people are like, "Great. Now that I know how I'm wired, what do I do with this? How can I make an impact in the world? How can I do something that I love that fits who I am, and my calling?" Which you can find in the chart? We designed ... and I guess we lost Ricky, hope he comes back.
Angel Gambino:
I know. I hope he comes back.
Angel Gambino:
Ricky, we miss you.
Ophi:
But we'll chat until he comes back. But yes, so we, and over the years, I've been starting businesses, and have learned how to not just be an astrologer, but a business owner. I thought, why not use the tools of astrology to teach people how to pick those dates? Like Steven said. Or what is the best use of their talents?
I read somewhere that the average person makes 38,000 decisions a day. That's a lot. We can get stuck in analysis paralysis, and never move forward on our dreams. But astrology can get you unstuck, it can help. It's like a lovely decision making metric, where you feel a little bit of confidence. Change your mindset or focal point. It helps you move forward and stay in action.
Like Ricky said, we like action-driven, actionable astrology. I like to use it, I say as a tool instead of a rule, and it's very practical. [inaudible 00:40:06]. Do you think so too, Steven? Do you find astrology's practical?
Steven Forrest:
Oh, absolutely. A quick comment. This is more about the sun. But start off with a simple statement, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal. There are certain moral principles that we should all live by, don't vote for a fascist. [inaudible 00:40:28] one size fits all.
But then beyond that, there's a second tier of decisions, should a person move to Ecuador? What a stupid question, because we don't know who we're talking about, and astrology helps us answer questions at that secondary level of values.
It's a word Ricky used earlier, the sun is particularly connected to that. When you're making your 38,000 decisions per day, what kind of overriding, overarching values will serve you best in the long run? If you happen to be a Sagittarian, for example, when in doubt, roll the dice.
Ophi:
knowing that, yes.
Steven Forrest:
If you're a cancer, much of your work is inside of yourself, and you don't need your life to be chaotic. You need peace for your inner work. Don't roll the dice, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, would be a value that would help.
These are simple illustrations, but they really emphasize how, when we get past prediction, and just describing people, and let astrology counsel us, how it becomes active. Take it one step further in terms of LILA, and relationships. How much passion do you want in your relationship? Teenagers will say, "A lot." But when you get a little bit older, and it's like passion, it's not just about sex. Passion is about process, and complexity, and ripping each other to shreds, and forgiving each other. If you're a Scorpio is, "Oh, bring it on."
Ophi:
Bring it on.
Angel Gambino:
I was engaged to a Scorpio.
Steven Forrest:
I'm sorry, say that, again, Angel, I missed you.
Angel Gambino:
I was engaged to a Scorpio.
Steven Forrest:
Oh, so you know?
Angel Gambino:
Oh, yeah.
Steven Forrest:
We all have one
Self knowledge, that allow you to make better decisions about relationships. So you're not just going for beauty, or glamor, or money or something. But something that is more connected to who you are, and what your journey is.
That's what LILA is all about. It just spells that out for you personally, and gives you an understanding of the other person in the light of all that.
One of my favorite promotional points for LILA, is the idea that you can learn in one session with LILA, what it might take you three months or six months to learn in an actual relationship. Why not bypass all that learning, and just get it right away?
Is this a relationship you really want to pursue? Or would you be better off just, "You take your path, and I'll take mine, and we'll look elsewhere?"
Ophi:
I love that you said that, because I think a lot of people are doing the wrong thing with the right person, or the right thing with the wrong person. Astrology in the way that it's designed, in LILA, I came in later, but I just really loved what they were doing, and I love their philosophies.
As a Sagg of course I got on board. But when you know that you can be with any sign, there is no right or wrong man, it's just what's right for you at this time in your life.
Steven Forrest:
Exactly.
Ophi:
At least I think.
Angel Gambino:
We're glad you're back with us, Ricky. For 2021, what can you guys share about either specific signs or generally about relationships? Also, we were just talking about business. On the career front, what are some of the things that the different signs can anticipate or hopefully look forward to?
Ophi:
I can answer that, unless anyone else wants to? But, since I'm writing daily, weekly, monthly horoscopes and steeped in the transits all the time, not that you guys aren't, but.
Angel Gambino:
By the way, I have to tell you, Ophi. You guys said something for Saggs the other day, for yesterday. I can't remember exactly what the words were, but I knew that I had to be more aware when I was driving. Because I haven't been driving…
Yes. Sure enough, power of suggestion or just your prediction was right on, I avoided a major accident.
Ophi:
Oh, my God.
Angel Gambino:
Yes. I swear I was extra vigilant, because I had read that, and I was like, "I got to be aware." Thank you for that.
Ophi:
Oh my God, I'm glad.
Angel Gambino:
What collisions can the other side bring?
Ophi:
Well, that is what happens sometimes when a planet has been retrograde, we're not going to get into the mechanics of that. But when it does, it's about face and corrects course. It's almost like this whiplash, when a subway or a bus stops, and you're like, you go flying forward a little bit.
There are moments, in addition to learning about how you tick and how you're wired, there are times when our charts never change. You are this map, this sort of screenshot of the solar system at your time of birth, that's your chart. When the planets are always moving and forming relationships to your chart, and activating different energies, and opportunities. That's what astrology can help you map that out.
In 2020, if you base it on people's sun signs or Zodiac signs, most of us were really out of character. We were all having to explore energies that were not natural for us. The fire signs, Aries, Leo and Sagg, were very work-driven and structured. All I did was work last year.
The earth signs who are very practical, were free-spirited, and going all over the place, trying all these big ideas. The air signs who are kind of like to keep it casual, went deep and got into their feelings. Then the water signs, who are usually in their feelings were very social.
That's a very top level not based on someone's individual chart. Sometimes just the top notes are true for us. We all learned about a new dimension of ourselves that hadn't been explored. I think in 2021, I feel that we'll be more back in character. The fire signs are going to be more out there, marketing ourselves, or connecting, spreading a message.
The earth signs back to their sort of structured ways. The air signs more in there kind of social relationship building groove. The water signs will be home watching Netflix and crying or something.
But that's kind of the bigger picture of it. But I think it's, I hope that we don't, just like 2020 was a shit show of a year, if I might, we all learned something new about ourselves. I feel like the astrology was that too. I hope we don't forget what we learned from 2020, even if we don't want to do it again, anytime soon. Cosmically, as well.
That's how I see it. I don't know if anyone else has an opinion they want to share, but that's what I see is ahead.
Angel Gambino:
Ricky, what about relationships and the different signs in 2021? Because with the focus, with this whole team, and people behind the scenes, LILA, what are some of the things that people can look forward to in building relationships?
Because right now, thank God LILA is coming out, because it's really difficult to build new relationships, when people are social distancing. Your app is, I think coming around at a perfect time, because people need to be able to meet new people.
Even if things open up in the next quarter, I think people are still hesitant about going out, and meeting new people, and being very close in proximity. I feel like one of the things that I've noticed with my own behavior, is that it's kind of allowed me almost like in the 1900s, when people would get to know each other over a longer period of time. Rather than the Tinder, let's have sex, [inaudible 00:49:21] want to see each other again.
With LILA, what are some of the things that, new ways that people will be able to relate in 2021? Not the specific functions of the app, because those you'll share with the announcement with the launch coming up soon. But what are some of the things that [inaudible 00:49:45] can look forward to in 2021 [inaudible 00:49:48] being [inaudible 00:49:49] relationship?
Ricky Williams:
This is a interesting question. Part of our task in getting this app out into the world, and getting people using it, is really changing people's ideas and opinions, and understanding, but mostly misunderstanding about what astrology is.
Behind anyone that has studied astrology, and behind any all of us, we have a certain kind of philosophy that expresses itself through astrology. Our philosophy with LILA is, this is evolutionary astrology. Which, and what we're saying is that, life happens for us, it doesn't happen to us.
Things that show up are showing up for a reason to help us grow, and to help us evolve. To me, I think of what's going on, Ophi talked about transits. What's going on with the planets right now, and how they're affecting us?
I think of that is the weather, kind of what's the astrological weather? What's it preparing us for? What's it attempting to teach us? We have to put this in the real world. We've just gone through 2020, and what effect has 2020 had on us?
The way I think about it generally, is we [inaudible 00:51:06] more time with the people that we're in relationship with. The opportunity right for us to get to know them and to get to know ourselves better. But also, part of that is the opportunity to realize, "What am I doing in this relationship?"
This is real. I think, 2020 has brought a lot of questions out for people in relationship. Whereas before 2020, most of us were so busy in life, that we weren't forced to look at these things, and to think more deeply. I think the timing of LILA coming out, is people are ready to wrestle with these more complicated, difficult questions. We're providing a way for people to do that.
This astrology, we kind of joke, this isn't your grandmother's astrology, this is, self-responsibility is at the core of what we're doing. It's about not in a relationship looking at what is wrong with the other person, why isn't this working? And starting looking at myself? Are my needs being met? Does this person even have the ability to meet my relationship needs?
What we're offering is an invitation for people to ask some of these deeper questions. Because as we can sink and form a deeper relationship with ourselves, that's going to manifest as deeper relationships with other people.
Really, the term, you mentioned it, the term that we used to use was courtship. This process of determining, does this relationship have the potential to become something more serious?
LILA is about all relationships, and really, all relationships have this courtship. Whether someone is going to be a romantic relationship, or they're going to be a mentor, or they're going to be a friend, there's this beginning part where people come together, and they're trying to figure out, "Is this going to work?"
I think this is where LILA will shine. Because we're going to give people information to help them in that process, so they're making more sound decisions. Again, relationships much more easy to get into, than they are to get out of.
How can people make more sound decisions as they enter a relationship? But I want to use an example. It's close to home, but it's real. I mentioned a year out of a relationship. My first wife, Kristin was our first friends and family investor in LILA, which is interesting in and of itself. But part of, because she was the first investor, I sent her some of the content we were working on. She has the planet that gives you information about your ideal partners, about relationship in the sign of Capricorn.
The advice usually is, the people that are going to work best for you in relationships are people that are responsible, that are serious, that are disciplined. I was seven years younger than her, and I have zero Capricorn in my chart.
This idea of, if we would have had this information beforehand, we would have approached things so much differently. Again, it's uncomfortable, but it's true. If we can empower people to improve the quality of their current relationships, and we can also empower people to make more conscious decisions in new relationships, then we're going to feel like we're doing our job.
Angel Gambino:
I think you mentioned something about your expectations, and whether or not you're going to be able to get something that you need in a relationship [inaudible 00:54:45] other person.
I remember one time I was in Detroit in the winter time, and I was having some frustrations in a relationship. Then I got into a conversation with somebody about, "Oh, this person owes me money, and they haven't paid me." I looked at the person, I said, "Look, we're both freezing out here. If you asked me for a glove or a mitten, I don't have one, so I can't give it to you. I would if I had it, but I don't have it."
I said, "It's the same thing. He doesn't have the money, so he can't pay you back. You either just have to suck it up, and decide whether or not you want to continue with that relationship or not."
Then as those words were coming out of my mouth, I was like, "We all do this. We all expect these other people to show up in ways that maybe [inaudible 00:55:41] who they are." Then you feel bad, because, and that person feels bad, because they can't give you what you want, either.
Ricky Williams:
You just described my first marriage. Thank you.
Angel Gambino:
You both want it to work. But, so I think that self-awareness that you're talking about in that first phase of LILA, about self-discovery. The more you learn about what you want, then you can hopefully attract and relate to other people that that comes naturally to. Those [crosstalk 00:56:19].
Ricky Williams:
I think most importantly, you can ask the right questions. If I have a sense of what's going to work for me in relationship, as I start getting to know someone, I have a sense of the questions that I can ask to get a sense of, "Can this person show up that way? Is it even fair to them to ask them to?"
Angel Gambino:
I've got one last question for you guys. I hate to wrap it up, because I can talk to you guys all day, every day. But we'll have to do that over drinks on Zoom. But, so the question is, is the rose, the bud, and the thorn. We'll do rose, and then thorn, and bud.
Rose is for you right now, what is something you're really grateful for? Something you're really enjoying? Something that's going really well? That's your rose. Your thorn is, anything that's challenging, anything you're struggling with, that's irritating. Your bud is something you're looking forward to, something you're excited about? [crosstalk 00:57:34].
Ricky Williams:
I'll go first, and I'll keep it in astrological framework.
I'm a Gemini. The rose really has been so much activity going on in my life right now. There's so many things that I'm constantly stimulated with, with new information and new challenges, and that's great. The thorn is kind of the dark side of that. I'm starting to feel a little bit overwhelmed. I kind of have to organize things a little bit better to make sure that I can stay as efficient, and as effective.
Because of my bud, and that's this LILA project we're working on, is really exciting for me. I think this conversation is indicative of it, is coming from my background as a football player in understanding the importance of a team. But always kind of feeling like an outsider, is I feel like the team that we're putting together here is an all pro, all star team. I just feel seen, and heard, and so appreciative of everyone's contribution, that this is really exciting.
Angel Gambino:
I agree. Thank you for allowing us to be a part of it. What about you, Steven?
Steven Forrest:
Well, let's see. The rose for sure is that I have, all my life my focus has been on achieving a kind of excellence in the counseling craft of astrology, and working with serious students. I've not really been particularly driven by fame, it's really been the work, and happy to be a [inaudible 00:59:10] figure.
But the rose is suddenly seeing this powerful team of people come together, this LILA team. Who really get what I'm doing, and know how to bridge it to the larger world. It's just an incredible gift, as I come into the later years of my life.
I was laughing when Ricky said his rose have a lot happening, and "I'm really busy." I was thinking, "Well, that's my thorn." I'm grossly overextended, the Forrest Center for Evolutionary Astrology, a very serious online school. I've got another team kind of thing going on, building that. I'm sort of doing to team things.
Its an element of thorn as well, in that, all my life, I've been teaching and writing. But basically the lion's share of my income and my work has been personal astrology. Just working with clients every day, country doctor of astrology. I'm having to cut that back, and to make time for these other things that feel more pressingly important now.
That's a bit of a thorn. I'm disappointing people I've worked with for decades, and I just have to do it, and it sucks, it hurts. I feel like I'm failing people, and yet I don't see a way around it.
The bud, well the bud is, I anticipate LILA becoming a very big success. I hope for a few dollars in that bud, obviously would free me up. There's a bud [inaudible 01:00:58]. But also the idea that this kind of intelligent, choice-centered astrology is going to be able to reach out to a much larger audience than it ever had before.
There's a bud, it hasn't happened yet, but I think it will happen, and I'm really excited about that. One more tiny thing in the bud, my hope that among the millions of people probably who are impacted by LILA, there will be a few of them who decide they want to really pursue astrology seriously. [inaudible 01:01:34] to serve their communities in this most excellent and helpful way. That's in my bud too.
Angel Gambino:
Well, Rachele Downes from Michigan, who is also a follower Ophi, says, "Steven might be preparing for his Bieber moment with LILA."
Angel Gambino:
Marley says, "Hi Dad," by the way.
Steven Forrest:
Hi Marley. I like Marley.
Ricky Williams:
Marley's taking a class with Steven.
Angel Gambino:
Oh, cool. We've got another Michigander, Mike Jbara here.
Angel Gambino:
Ophi, what about yours? Thanks for joining us, Mike, by the way.
Ophi:
My rose is that since I've been doing astrology now for a couple decades, that I have been able to turn it into a business. To the point where I can now help other people who want to do either astrology or something healing and wellness. Actually create sustainable businesses. Where they don't have to side hustle forever and struggle.
I can't tell you how many websites I built on the side on this path, and all the other odd jobs. I just feel so grateful that I can intersect the two things I love, entrepreneurship and astrology, and help people live their dreams, and make money from them.
The thorn for me as a social Sagg, is just not getting to actually hang out with people in person, missing that oxytocin hit of bonding, and going to karaoke booths, and dinners, and talking about astrology Of course, while we do it. Then the bud, I'd say that LILA is definitely one of the buds.
When I told Gloria Steinem, I was leaving Feminism to be a professional astrologer, she was very gracious about it, as she always was. But she said to me, she's like, "The one thing about astrology is that it's so genderized. I wish it wasn't so genderized. It's just in the back of these women's magazines."
I just love that here, I'm working with a diverse, just like it's astrology for everyone. The team of LILA shows that. I do have a lot of women in my audience, but working with two men, and just, it's so fun, and it shows the world of astrology is not like the birdcage line on a back of a women's magazine from the 1980s.
Angel Gambino:
But anyone who looks at the charts, I feel like you've got to be a mathematician, an astrophysicists where Steven started off, to really understand that stuff. It's very sophisticated science behind it, in astronomy. It's incredible, in addition to the spiritual, [inaudible 01:04:47] energetic elements.
Ophi:
It's just such a great combination of our passions for changing people's lives, and having them, allowing them to have happy, healthy relationships, using technology and this ancient timeless tool together. It's just super cool to me.
Angel Gambino:
I think, Gloria was on something there, because it has been very genderized. But I think relationships are not in the sense that all human beings want to be in relationship, right?
Ophi:
Yeah.
Angel Gambino:
This is just another tool, LILA's another way to help people improve the quality of their relationships. Whether they're work colleagues or romantic, friendships. Then I think that that appeals to all of humanity, not just girls wanting to date.
Ophi:
She is such an Aries. I was kind of like, "Gloria, let me do your chart. We'll get past this real fast."
Angel Gambino:
I'm a big fan of hers.
Well, thank you so much for being generous with your time today, all of you. I'm excited about embarking on this journey. I think people want to engage in the work that Steven offers or Astro Twins. Then please [inaudible 01:06:23] comments in the [inaudible 01:06:24], and Google away.
If you want to find out more about LILA, please go to the website. We've got it up here. We can also make introductions where necessary. I hope everyone has an amazing 2021. I know that there's lots of good things in store for all signs, and hopefully this will be the year of community and relationship, and LILA will help make that happen. Thank you all for participating today.
Ricky Williams:
Thanks for having us.
Angel Gambino:
All right. Bye for now.
Ricky Williams:
All right. Bye.
Ophi:
Bye.
I'll go first, and I'll keep it in astrological framework.
I'm a Gemini. The rose really has been so much activity going on in my life right now. There's so many things that I'm constantly stimulated with, with new information and new challenges, and that's great. The thorn is kind of the dark side of that. I'm starting to feel a little bit overwhelmed. I kind of have to organize things a little bit better to make sure that I can stay as efficient, and as effective.
Because of my bud, and that's this LILA project we're working on, is really exciting for me. I think this conversation is indicative of it, is coming from my background as a football player in understanding the importance of a team. But always kind of feeling like an outsider, is I feel like the team that we're putting together here is an all pro, all star team. I just feel seen, and heard, and so appreciative of everyone's contribution, that this is really exciting.
Angel Gambino:
I agree. Thank you for allowing us to be a part of it. What about you, Steven?
Steven Forrest:
Well, let's see. The rose for sure is that I have, all my life my focus has been on achieving a kind of excellence in the counseling craft of astrology, and working with serious students. I've not really been particularly driven by fame, it's really been the work, and happy to be a [inaudible 00:59:10] figure.
But the rose is suddenly seeing this powerful team of people come together, this LILA team. Who really get what I'm doing, and know how to bridge it to the larger world. It's just an incredible gift, as I come into the later years of my life.
I was laughing when Ricky said his rose have a lot happening, and "I'm really busy." I was thinking, "Well, that's my thorn." I'm grossly overextended, the Forrest Center for Evolutionary Astrology, a very serious online school. I've got another team kind of thing going on, building that. I'm sort of doing to team things.
Its an element of thorn as well, in that, all my life, I've been teaching and writing. But basically the lion's share of my income and my work has been personal astrology. Just working with clients every day, country doctor of astrology. I'm having to cut that back, and to make time for these other things that feel more pressingly important now.
That's a bit of a thorn. I'm disappointing people I've worked with for decades, and I just have to do it, and it sucks, it hurts. I feel like I'm failing people, and yet I don't see a way around it.
The bud, well the bud is, I anticipate LILA becoming a very big success. I hope for a few dollars in that bud, obviously would free me up. There's a bud [inaudible 01:00:58]. But also the idea that this kind of intelligent, choice-centered astrology is going to be able to reach out to a much larger audience than it ever had before.
There's a bud, it hasn't happened yet, but I think it will happen, and I'm really excited about that. One more tiny thing in the bud, my hope that among the millions of people probably who are impacted by LILA, there will be a few of them who decide they want to really pursue astrology seriously. [inaudible 01:01:34] to serve their communities in this most excellent and helpful way. That's in my bud too.
Angel Gambino:
Well, Rachele Downes from Michigan, who is also a follower Ophi, says, "Steven might be preparing for his Bieber moment with LILA."
Angel Gambino:
Marley says, "Hi Dad," by the way.
Steven Forrest:
Hi Marley. I like Marley.
Ricky Williams:
Marley's taking a class with Steven.
Angel Gambino:
Oh, cool. We've got another Michigander, Mike Jbara here.
Angel Gambino:
Ophi, what about yours? Thanks for joining us, Mike, by the way.
Ophi:
My rose is that since I've been doing astrology now for a couple decades, that I have been able to turn it into a business. To the point where I can now help other people who want to do either astrology or something healing and wellness. Actually create sustainable businesses. Where they don't have to side hustle forever and struggle.
I can't tell you how many websites I built on the side on this path, and all the other odd jobs. I just feel so grateful that I can intersect the two things I love, entrepreneurship and astrology, and help people live their dreams, and make money from them.
The thorn for me as a social Sagg, is just not getting to actually hang out with people in person, missing that oxytocin hit of bonding, and going to karaoke booths, and dinners, and talking about astrology Of course, while we do it. Then the bud, I'd say that LILA is definitely one of the buds.
When I told Gloria Steinem, I was leaving Feminism to be a professional astrologer, she was very gracious about it, as she always was. But she said to me, she's like, "The one thing about astrology is that it's so genderized. I wish it wasn't so genderized. It's just in the back of these women's magazines."
I just love that here, I'm working with a diverse, just like it's astrology for everyone. The team of LILA shows that. I do have a lot of women in my audience, but working with two men, and just, it's so fun, and it shows the world of astrology is not like the birdcage line on a back of a women's magazine from the 1980s.
Angel Gambino:
But anyone who looks at the charts, I feel like you've got to be a mathematician, an astrophysicists where Steven started off, to really understand that stuff. It's very sophisticated science behind it, in astronomy. It's incredible, in addition to the spiritual, [inaudible 01:04:47] energetic elements.
Ophi:
It's just such a great combination of our passions for changing people's lives, and having them, allowing them to have happy, healthy relationships, using technology and this ancient timeless tool together. It's just super cool to me.
Angel Gambino:
I think, Gloria was on something there, because it has been very genderized. But I think relationships are not in the sense that all human beings want to be in relationship, right?
Ophi:
Yeah.
Angel Gambino:
This is just another tool, LILA's another way to help people improve the quality of their relationships. Whether they're work colleagues or romantic, friendships. Then I think that that appeals to all of humanity, not just girls wanting to date.
Ophi:
She is such an Aries. I was kind of like, "Gloria, let me do your chart. We'll get past this real fast."
Angel Gambino:
I'm a big fan of hers.
Well, thank you so much for being generous with your time today, all of you. I'm excited about embarking on this journey. I think people want to engage in the work that Steven offers or Astro Twins. Then please [inaudible 01:06:23] comments in the [inaudible 01:06:24], and Google away.
If you want to find out more about LILA, please go to the website. We've got it up here. We can also make introductions where necessary. I hope everyone has an amazing 2021. I know that there's lots of good things in store for all signs, and hopefully this will be the year of community and relationship, and LILA will help make that happen. Thank you all for participating today.
Ricky Williams:
Thanks for having us.
Angel Gambino:
All right. Bye for now.
Ricky Williams:
All right. Bye.
Ophi:
Bye.
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