and… break! full moon in capricorn + litha 2024

hey starstuff,

wow, i don’t usually have writer’s block when i come on here, but i’m sort of stuck with how to begin. it’s all been so much since i last touched in, 3 weeks ago. ironically, i’m primarily here to say that i’m going on an astrology readings break for the summer. so maybe that’s why i’m stuck for words. classic natal mercury retrograde… what’s interesting is that my mercury is exalted, which means that i have natural abilities or “soul gifts,” as i like to call them, in the mercurial realm. but the retrograde part means i didn’t know i had them for a really long time, and they come with several glitches (eg. i’m mildly dyslexic, and probably could be labelled ADHD by some psychiatrist somewhere).

alas, i am unplugging as much as i can this summer so i can both nurture my babes, and tend to my home. the house has gotten a wee bit out of hand this past year, and i’m feeling overwhelmed everyday because of it. adding a fourth person to the mix really frazzled my already sometimes scrambled brain when it comes to organization. and being a virgo sun, it’s really important for me to have a felt sense of calm in my environment. i’m also a sagittarius rising, and the two really don’t see eye to eye on the subject. my sag side doesn’t necessarily “enjoy” the mess, but it enjoys the busyness of it all. toys all over the places means fun is happening. stacks of papers and books on the desk, spilling over, represent my deep yearning and passion to be always studying and always exploring the alternative realms. jupiter is right there on my ascendant, making the sag side of me LOUD. and meanwhile, my virgo side, the orderly introvert, is dying a little bit (or a lot, depending on the day you ask her).

and thus, this full moon in capricorn, where my own moon resides, beamed me up to the next journey of life where i need to disconnect for a little while and get my bearings. but before i depart, i want to share with you some hints at where i’m headed in my practice and what’s to come.

so far, my readings have been strongly informed by 1) generational transits (eg. saturn return, chiron return, mid-life transits, etc.) and 2) evolutionary astrology where pluto and the north and south nodes are strongly emphasized with the concept that our soul is here to grow and the natal chart is a map indicating the path. 3) chiron. i love chiron. i live for chiron. chiron’s the key to the soul’s healing. learn and live your chiron.

and then i became a parent, and once my kid turned 2.5, i was thrilled to see aspects of his chart starting to slowly slowly slowly reveal themselves, and it has been nothing short of fascinating! i’m so excited to find out how his soul translates his chart into the real world. it’s an exciting life-long unveiling of a soul, right before my eyes, and i’m here for it. and amidst becoming a parent, i was launched into my own created parenting school because i had such unskilled and hurt parents growing up, i had to teach myself how to be a healthy parent. it has been a bumpy road. but, using my kid’s chart, as well as my own and my partner’s to navigate challenging times has been so informative for my parenting approach.

for example, my oldest went through a huge jupiter-uranus transit over his moon in may. uranus can only transits your sun once in your lifetime (except maybe for those who are born with their sun conjunct uranus). so to have that happen at 4 years old with jupiter expanding that energy to the extreme was a lot. what i witnessed was that he had a major shift in his belief system, as he acquired new information about a social construct that he didn’t previously have, that brought a lot of relief to a conundrum he’d been struggling with for a while. so while the information he received was somewhat radical, and it came out of left field, it was big news for his being to integrate and i’ve noticed a huge shift in him over the last 8 weeks… a maturing to a new level of understanding of himself and the world around him.

to learn about kids’ charts and how they can be helpful to parents, i’ve taken a handful of courses and seminars, and read several books, to learn more from the experts in the field. it’s a fairly new branch of astrology: parenting astrology. and i think it requires a strong sense of mindfulness on the part of the astrologer and the parents to be sure that the application of this information doesn’t interfere with the child’s unfolding of their soul. ethical concepts like transference and projection come to mind to be wary of. however, when applied with gentle curiosity and with the purest of intentions to do right by the child, it is a magnificent tool for parents.

in the same vein, i’m currently in the process of branching out to look at whole families, taking everyone’s chart into consideration, and how those charts interact (ie. the synastry). this too is with the intention to help parents in a deeper understanding of how their own soul map (ie. natal chart) weaves together with their child’s soul map. by looking at how the two interact, it can become clearer for parents on how to be a supportive and loving guardian for their child’s soul during this vulnerable time of their life cycle.

and to top it all off, i’ve just begun a new course entitled “transgenerational astrology,” which is towards the branches of ancestral and karmic astrology. we’ll be looking at generational patterning that travels through the family trees, giving insight into the themes of what one’s lineage is working out. this is not in anyway to say that anyone “deserves” what happened to them in their childhood. i mean it from the place of objectivity of seeing the birth chart patterns that do, always, inevitably, repeat themselves down the line, and offer an possiblity to find meaning (if it resonates) in the aftermath of the trauma.

just like the body doesn’t know the difference between the personal stories of trauma, but it has physiological responses that are common across trauma survivors, the birth chart tends to have common patterns that get passed along in families. and so i’m currently taking a course to learn the ins and outs of what to look for, and how to uncover insights on what would be particularly supportive for the person i’m working with, given the generational patterning.

my initial specialty in this field will be in the trauma realm, because that’s my own generational patterning. i’ve been building skills along the path to this particular branch of astrology, all along. it started with, well, my childhood. i was a healer from the start. empathy came easily, i could listen until the cows came home. my granny was my first client. she was hit with a dark and deep depression when i was 7. that first episode lasted 2 years, as the story goes. i’d go spend weekends with her sometimes, to brighten her gruelling journey, i suppose. it helps that we were the best of friends. i think my gran was my very first true friend, to be honest. she taught me a lot about how to be a good friend. just letting people be who they are, with whatever they’re going through, and trying your best to be there for them, in whatever capacity you had to offer. sometimes that was holding their hand while they wept and told stories about the departed. sometimes that was helping them eat the whole carton of ice cream – butter brickle was her favourite. she also taught me how to have a relationship with the departed, but that’s for another day.

after my childhood, being a survivor of abuse, i instinctually went into the “helping” field, where at 18, i volunteered on the crisis line in the city where i grew up. that’s where the layers of paint on my “perfect” childhood began to crack and peel. i’d come home and (unethically – hello chiron in gemini trait) tell stories of calls i’d taken at the dinner table with my family, and they were met with scorn and sarcasm.

so what did i do? i worked my way up the organization for 7 years, ultimately becoming one of the supervisors of the crisis line. and i never talked about work with my family.

next i went into bodywork. bless my mother, she got me a Rolfer when i was 14 years old, and when i was 23, i lived in boulder, CO, on and off, for a couple of years to become a Rolfer (while still working at the crisis centre). little did i know, it was that work that helped me release decades of abuse in my tissues. bear in mind, i was completely dissociated and unaware of the abuse at this stage… and all the stages before this. without too many details, my clarity of the abuse i endured came to me during my saturn return at the end of my 20s. but it was there that my inner healer was ignited in a new way. i was learning that not only was i an empathetic listener, but i was a hand-on energy healer as well. and i learned so much about how the body processes and integrates trauma.

the final step towards my soul’s inner healer gifts (so far) arrived very early in my life (before i was 5, my paternal grandmother gifted me a virgo pendant; she was a virgo as well), but blossomed (and continues to blossom, 11 years in) at my saturn return when one solo medicinal night journey i was blatantly initiated by the stars and entrusted with the responsibility to become an “astrologer.” and it was through “living my chart” for several seasons and witnessed transits move through, and felt the transformation happening in my being, and my outer life mirroring the evolution… well, i was sold.

and so upon return from this glorious break, i will be opening my books to receive clients (in addition to anyone who simply wants one of my initial readings or follow-up) who are wishing to come along with me as i dive into the application of parenting and ancestral readings.

just a quick shout out of gratitude to this capricorn full moon that has set my sights so clearly on the next steps. what a relief with pluto generally plummeting me into the ground on the daily. part of thsi break is about trying to give my inner hermit a rest from the very busy social life i suddenly acquired with having a kid, and a fairly extroverted one at that.

how about you? did you feel her grab you by the shoulders and essentially shove you in a certain direction since friday? i’d love to hear.

ps. once again, i’ve been listening to just the hum of the baby monitor this whole time. and this post has been interjected a few times with a moderate argument between my partner and i, as well as hugs and loving words when we finally got through it. and that’s demonstrative of why i’m going to break: so i can adjust the environment to create more calm and ease for my little family, which will effectively create more space and time available to me when i’m ready to welcome this new unfolding in my astrology practice.

however. i found this lovely singer-songwriter today whose simple but nourishing lyrics and dynamic musicianship took me by surprise. i love the percussion on this one. she’s singing gratitude mantras, essentially. but she does it in a sort of funky moody manner. reminds me of dusty springfield at times. maybe others too… tori? kate? mid-90s alternative women folk. have a listen – you’ll see.

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