Astrology is known for a lot of things. Sun sign horoscopes. Love & Romance. When to expect the big windfall... And it's true, the energy of love and money are found in the zodiac. Different archetypes speak to these events and realities of human living. However, Astrology is about so much more than the window dressings of life that pop culture so often associates it with. 

Astrology is about soul work. It's about learning who we are and what we need in the deep recesses of our psyches. Astrology is about coming home to ourselves, to each other and to this earth. Astrology is about healing.

Perhaps the greatest insight I have gained from Astrology is the subtle way that working with the archetypes and energies of the planets tunes me into deep awareness of my own shifting rhythms and emotional needs. We are not designed to feel the same thing every day. We are not designed to control our emotions with cognitively defined values of 'appropriate' or 'non appropriate'. We are not designed to smile and say, 'everything is fine,' when everything is not fine. We are designed, biologically and spiritually, to feel and to be connected to nature and natural rhythms. We are designed to change.

The combination of working with our own natal charts and with the on-going transits opens our body-psyches to the reality that energies shift and change. There are periods when we are not supposed to understand what is happening to us or to the world. There are times, like a Neptune transit, when a foggy state of being is perfectly normal. There are times when a sudden rush of inspiration for hard work and structure takes over just as there are times when deep relaxation and nestling into a sanctuary of home is required. 

To experience shifts of ebbing and flowing energy is natural and we will not all feel them in the same way or for the same amount of time. This is a truth that Astrology teaches us: we are not supposed to feel them in the same way. What I am here to work with in my lifetime is not the same as you. What you are here to grow with is not the same as her. What he is here to learn from is not the same as them. Yet we are all here in an interconnected web of life experiencing times of overlap and times of discord. This is how it is supposed to be.

Yet our normalized way of life, that which we are socialized to embody and devote our entire lives to, the narratives we see represented in all forms of popular media, they do not teach us to embody our own meaningful rhythms. These narratives and social norms, bred by capitalism-colonialism-patriarchy-white supremacy-imperialism teach us very limited ideas of an acceptable and successful life and personhood.  Contorting our bodies-psyches to these narratives of selfhood and success is enough to cause mental and emotional dis-ease. It causes violence to the self which undoubtedly ripples outward in violence to others and to the earth.

Astrology offers a paradigm that can be other than the social and normalized ways of life that have been stripped of their beating, pulsing rhythms of life. I say can, because astrology, like any other human used tool can absolutely be distorted, often unconsciously, to serve the colonial and patriarchal narratives of capitalism. This is indeed much of pop culture astrology. Yet, in its neutral system of meaning making, astrology offers a means of learning how we can embrace and love our individual lives and stories, interconnected as they are with family, ancestors, community & nature while always being part of a greater whole. It teaches us how to do this without numbing our deepest needs for emotional wellbeing by accepting who we are and who we are becoming.

A person with a strong Uranus signature in their chart is not meant to embody a straight and narrow path. A person with a strong Pluto energy is not meant to smile and act pretty because society tells them to. A strong Pisces soul is not here to perform in the system of capitalistic individualism. So much healing happens when we allow our innate self to develop in a way natural to ourselves.

When we become more in tune with our own rhythms and energies of personhood, we can, firstly, understand and care for ourselves so much more successfully. Secondly, we can learn to say no to the social norms that cause us harm, that we did not fit into as children and continue to suffer from as we contort ourselves to fit into them as adults. Thirdly, we can learn how to move forward (and sideways) along our paths in ways that let us thrive because we are moving with more joy and self love. From this thriving we can meet the demands of daily living with creativity and belief in the opportunity for growth and expansion.

This is not to say struggle goes away. This is not to invite a permanent bliss of butterflies and smiley faces- that is the stuff of pop astrology and of spiritual bypassing. 

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This is to understand how descending into depths of self doubt may be part of our path and that we are never deficient for those journeys. This is to claim our own perspective of healing and it is to lean into the areas of our personality and life that can support us and teach us that joy and beauty are available to us even when we are journeying through the dark. This is to learn that it is possible to see in the darkness and hear in the silence. This is to embrace a whole new paradigm of making meaning because it is not determined by a one-size fits all myth of normal that we can waste decades of our lives trying to materialize for no other reason than dominant culture told us it was the only way to belong. The truth is that we already belong. Astrology is such a help in learning this truth, deep in our bones. What healing & beauty emerge along the way.

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