Pisces: connection + boundaries

Pisces is the zodiac symbolized by two fish swimming in opposite directions. This image reminds us that two things can be true at once, drawing on the mysticism and the vast unknown associated with Pisces.

Pisces navigates the spectrum of boundaries, moving from boundlessness that leaves us with nothing to connect to and boundaries that create healthy and sustainable connection. It describes how vulnerable we become to losing ourselves to substances, experiences, and relationships without boundaries. On the other hand it represents the boundaries that endorse healthy connection and inspire a love solid enough to hold onto.

It is the mutable, meaning flexible and changeable, water sign and the last archetype in the zodiac marking the death and rebirth of cycles. In many traditions and certainly Tropical Astrology, water signifies emotional and intuitive powers. Combine the mutable mode of adaptation and responsiveness with the sensitive and emotive properties of water and we have the highly intuitive, creative escape artist that is the sign of Pisces.

Pisces is poetry, the lyrical reality, the liminal space where dreams materialize and riddles are the best questions to ask. This archetype is as much blessed as it is cursed by porosity, a lack of boundaries that leave this narrative plenty of opportunities for martyrdom and sacrifice. Perhaps the most ‘spiritual’ of the signs, Pisces offers lessons in allegory and symbolism. It is best described in metaphor if we hope to capture the mythical siren that is Pisces.

The nature of Pisces is mystical, dreamy, and highly changeable which can lead us down tangential paths when trying to capture the meaning of this elusive archetype. I often find myself struggling to put the Piscean archetype into words, instead becoming distracted or losing my train of thought as the phantasm of this archetype blurs definitions. Pisces is associated with illusion and delusion and often teaches lessons of faith by demonstrating what is not real and what cannot be proven, requiring us to discern for ourselves the meaning and pathway that inspires us.

The ancient ruler of the sign of Pisces was Jupiter. This affinity describes the faith-based lessons of Pisces through the expansion and ascendance articulated by Jupiter. In 1846 the planet Neptune was discovered and then identified as the ruler of this aquatic sign. This era was marked by a number of archetypally relevant discoveries including significant developments in pharmaceuticals and photography. Both pharmaceuticals and photography are fraught with complex layers of illusion and delusion. Both fields hold mysterious narratives such as ghosts captured on film during the early days of photography that were actually the photographer passing through the image while the very low sensitivity of the film required the subject to stand still for a while to allow the image to develop on film. This would create a blurry image of the “ghost” while the subjects believed they had been visited by a deceased ancestor while holding very still for the portrait. The use of photography in court can also offer some concerns for deception as so much faith is put in what we see when in reality, much can be manipulated or mutated to create an illusion our eyes can easily believe. Meanwhile, pharmaceuticals and the industry that has manipulated and contorted the art of pharmacology and herbalism has created a complex narrative of illusion in response to diagnoses of delusions. Pharmaceutical treatment of mental health produced innumerable opportunities for distortions of reality which mirrors the fantastical and hallucinogenic properties of Pisces seamlessly. Corresponding with the chemical sensitivity, the emotional manipulation, and the discrepancies in perception of reality the Pisces archetype and natives navigate narratives of addiction, escapism, and the vast subconscious.

The connection between Pisces and mental health goes deeper than pharmacology as it reflects the unseen, the emotional, and the subconscious areas that are explored and ideally integrated in mental health practices. The porosity of this archetype makes lessons of boundaries a key theme in the Pisces narrative. Whether they are boundaries of abstinence or discernment, limited access to resources or relational, boundaries are the balm to the sacrificial nature of Pisces.

Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus (c. 1484–1486)

The planet Venus is exalted in Pisces, an alignment best articulated by the enlightenment of compassion, the highest form of love. The love Venus brings to a Piscean landscape has the opportunity to spread with the boundlessness of the kind of love we associate with spiritual leaders like the Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed. It is the ideal love, without restriction or regulation. It is the fantastical love of fairy tales and our wildest dreams. The sensitive and flexible environment that is Pisces, provides the perfect context for the subconscious to come to the surface and intuition to be explored. This same context can induce the urge to escape and dissociate. Where feelings are expressed with vulnerability and fantasy can be articulated without shame, that is where love thrives, where Venus flourishes.

Venus’s exaltation in Pisces also ties together the connection to Neptune. The Greek counterpart to Venus, [the origin of Roman Venus appears to be missing] Aphrodite, was born of the sea, Neptune’s domain.

The Aquarius Archetype: Understanding The Water Bearer

Why is Aquarius the water bearer but an air sign?

Does understanding this peculiarity illuminate how we understand the Aquarian archetype? Let’s find out.

I was pondering this matter in preparation for Aquarius season and in honor of my husband who is born right at the very beginning of Aquarius season. Suddenly something clicked when I considered Mark Solms’ latest discoveries in neuropsychology. I highly recommend watching the linked video but the abridged version is, neuroscience has long considered the cerebral cortex to be the seat of our consciousness, however, new evidence suggests it is the brain stem, the emotional and primal locus in our brain, that is the seat of our consciousness.

It is not, as Descartes would have us believe “I think therefore I am.” But instead, it is I feel therefore I am.

Consciousness and what it is, where it is, and how we define it, is a great debate, one that has been discussed since the forums of ancient times.

Since modern science has long considered consciousness to reside in the cerebral cortex, the distinctly human part of the brain, it could be argued that this line of thinking has contributed to the human propensity for exceptionalism and even elitism. This line of thinking has been used to perpetuate eugenics and other racist theories along with distancing human beings from the rest of the animal species that occupy our Earthly habitats. In my undergraduate thesis, I posit that it is in part this exceptionalism and the language that has developed around this construct that has cost especially white folks, particularly those in America, their sustainable relationship with the environment. In an effort to distinguish white folks and whiteness from the Other and from animals, religious and political voices promoted exceptionalism and distinction from the Earth and the natural world. Today it has proven to be a convoluted challenge for white folks and many Americans to take responsibility for their impact on the environment and practices of sustainability.

In this vain, I often ask, how conscientious is the animal that destroys its own habitat?

So what if we consider Solms’ findings? What if we assume his discovery of consciousness as residing in the brain stem is correct? First, we must recognize that many many other species share this part of the brain, and next, we must consider the nature of the impulses that emanate from our brain stem. It is an emotional, instinctive core, and dare I say, an intuitive center. Suddenly it is not our intellectualism that proves our consciousness but our emotionality, our intuitive nature that confirms our consciousness. “Raw feelings are the fundamental form of consciousness,” says Solms, later explaining that this is a survival tactic. The ability to feel allows us to react appropriately to danger. If we were unable to feel suffocation, we would fail to at least attempt to remove ourselves from a burning building, for example. We do not intentionally process the notion that we are gasping for air, we feel the urgency and need to escape danger and return to the kind of breathing that requires none of our attention.

Consciousness is often associated with presence and awareness. With this and Solms’ findings in mind, I agree that feelings and our emotional experiences are our most conscious states.

It is a presence described by our responsiveness to the current moment.

Now let’s consider the elements of water and air along with their archetypes. Water represents an emotional, intuitive, and feeling archetype. Air is a cognitive, intellectual, and communicative archetype. Aquarius is an air sign, and the zodiac that is archetypally associated with systems of ideas, higher consciousness, and collective communications. For Aquarius to be a water bearer but an air sign, is, as we have established, somewhat curious if not mystifying.

So what if we consider Aquarius the water bearer, the archetype of intellectual innovation, systemic psychology, and collective understanding, the structure by which consciousness, Solms’ emotionally defined consciousness, can be contained? Without a vessel, consciousness is another ingredient in the primordial soup. But with the vessel of the Aquarian, the emotional consciousness can be carried, contained, and sustained. It is not at all that the Aquarian is an emotional archetype but instead that it is the one that offers a container for emotionality, thus giving space and form to our collective consciousness.

As a symbol of consciousness, of communal understanding, and mass communication, Aquarius forms the vessel, to bear the water of emotions, of consciousness.

Higher Power + Natal Charts

A professor of genetics once taught me that evolution does not behave linearly.

That is to say, while there is something to the concept of survival of the fittest, genetic mutations or the causes and effects within a sequence of genes are not exclusively ruled by this concept of survival of the fittest. Instead, there is a fifty percent chance that the fittest or ‘more favorable’ genetic outcome occurs and a fifty percent chance the outcome is random, something totally unexpected or even expected and feared. So it’s just as likely all goes according to a positivist evolutionary trajectory and as it is something beyond our understanding occurs, something seemingly random. This served to completely challenge my understanding of the matrix and all her processes. While I had once felt a type of certainty that there was a direction to it all, “an arc to the moral universe [... one that] bends toward justice” as Mart Luther King Jr. said, I was now forced to move my conceptualization of the Universe into a new dimension. I would later find it was not just a new dimension but more dimensions, that must be contended with in order to gain a satisfactory perspective on whatever the Universe is and what we’re all doing here. 

I don’t claim to have all the answers by any means. However, I have a take that allows me a sense of peace I have never accessed before.

In a small college dorm room, several hours into a psychedelic trip and sprawling on any surface that could support our languid and extraterrestrial bodies, I once asked a friend what his definition of God was. He answered more succinctly than I could have ever anticipated.

“God is omnipotent and omniscient.”

…I’ve been chewing on this premium definition ever since. 

If God is omnipotent and omniscient which I feel is the most all-encompassing definition of God and therefore the most appealing and accessible definition of god I have ever found… then God cannot be an entity but instead a process. The only way, at least according to my lil human mind, God could know everything and be everything is for God to be happening over time. Of course, time is one of those mystifying constructs that proves increasingly difficult to understand; linear or otherwise, from our human perspective, time certainly appears to be a process, to have a trajectory, to have some version of a direction even if that is in a multidimensional weblike context. God cannot be omnipotent and omniscient in a static or singular way, it must span time as well, stretching across all dimensions.

The God of the Hebrew Bible (the oldest definition of God I have a relationship with) is in everything, is of everything, and created all. This God is the creator of everything at the same time it is everything. We (Jews) owe our gratitude, awe, and respect to everything, from the smallest stone to the greatest mountain range, from the most brilliant invention to the most humble craft, because it is all God. These two definitions fit quite nicely together, in order for this God to be both omnipotent and omniscient, we must all be God, everything must be God. In fact, in order for God to know everything and be everything, we all must live out our experiences, embody our realities, and be ourselves. All entities from events to animal bodies, constructs to political movements, geological periods to ideas and equations, are God.

It was through this line of thinking that I came to consider natal charts as the most divine filing system, keeping track of every iteration of God. Everything, from a question to an entity, to an event, can have an astrological chart cast for it. Every entity, animal, mineral, and temporal, has a chart that marks its identity as well as trajectory. It’s like a map to that iteration of God; it is the responsibility of that entity to embody those lessons, that vantage point, those coordinates, characteristics, and context. Each natal chart is a depiction of a particular time and space in the galaxy that is interpreted through the multicultural archetypes that have developed over millennia.  A natal chart might just be our contract with the Universe to embody our context in order to participate in the multi-dimensional project that is God. Each of us and everything in between has a chart that acts as a key or blueprint to our nature, our highest self, and the lessons we must learn in our specific timescape.

As we embrace our most connected and aware selves, we contribute to the omniscience and omnipotence that is God.

Finally, to bring this concept into the realm of wellness and mental health. For me, this conceptualization of the Universe and God has allowed the kind of acceptance and humor I have often sought in my most embittered and disillusioned states. If we conceive of ourselves as a version of God, tasked with the lessons we must learn and opportunities that we must take in order for God to know what that reality is like, we may find some grace on our path. Not only are we divine in our own right, but we are living with the purpose of a sacred mission, as part of a numinous collective, not simply aware of a higher power but living as our most empowered and highest self.  

From my perspective, I am but a product of my context. I exist only as an expression of the heritage of causes and effects that have created this particular timespace. My joy, my trauma, my power, are all contained within the context that I occupy, and that context is perfectly articulated by my natal chart. I then have the opportunity to play with this context, test its bounds and challenge its assumptions, all in an effort to engage in the games of the Universe, in the omnipotence and omniscience of God.

Venus Cycles And Star Points

Listening to Arielle Guttman on The Astrology Podcast inspired me to think deeper and investigate my own thoughts about Venus and what can be learned from her geometrically stunning orbital cycles. Like everything else that I have love for, I have critiques of the conversation but in an effort to embrace the Venusian virtue of harmony, I’ll save those for another day. (I think my Venus star point in Capricorn well describes this critical tendency toward what I love and value. It’s a constant, ‘yes and how can we improve this.) At the same time I offer these thoughts , I recognize I am a young and relatively new astrologer with all the gratitude and respect for Guttman and her work with Venus Star Points and its synodic cycle. 

I was taught that Venus speaks to what we value which is inherently connected to how we define our resources.

I love this signification because it makes room for the shifting of values that is practically guaranteed over time, but it also makes room for the sociopolitical and economic delineations of Venus. All while it still engages the most traditional significations of Venus as love, creativity, pleasure, and connection, all nearly universal cultural values. Though standards of beauty, love, and pleasure change based on time and place, they are perpetually valued by seemingly everybody.

So what of the economic significance of Venus? First, let’s myth-bust what economics really is. While it may seem like a hard science of money math, it’s much more aptly described as social science of values, production or creation, and exchange.

The term "economics" comes from the Greek words οἶκος [oikos], meaning "family, household, estate," and νόμος [nomos], or "custom, law," and hence literally means "household management" or "management of the state.

Economics is concerned with what and how qualities, goods, and services are valued and therefore their potential for exchange and cultural importance. Value is not simply based on use value or intrinsic value; the cultural values of that particular time and space are significant. Just think of how highly a Gucci belt is valued, how it costs so much more than the same materials fashioned into a belt of a different design. The value is in the status of the symbol on the buckle, in the signal to the community that this person is and values all the qualities that are culturally connected to that particular brand and item. If economics is exchange based on values as I believe it to be, it is best represented by both Mercury and Venus.

…Back to the podcast. Guttman, a scholar of Venus and her cycles, points to the economic significations of Venus though not in that terminology. In fact, I don’t think she ever used “value” as the signification of Venus on this specific podcast episode. She speaks of the Venus synodic cycle, a miraculously, faith-inducing orbital pattern, and delineates the sociocultural shifts mirrored in this cycle. Guttman explains that prior to the use of fossil fuels, the Venus cycle made its first star point, its cazimi (conjunction with the Sun) in the sign of Sagittarius. This coincides with a time when the economic systems of the world relied upon (valued) horses and humans working together as the means of production (creativity) that generates wealth (resources we value). That is to say, horse and human (can you see the Centaur of Sagittarius?!) were hugely valuable resources and the primary driver of economic development during this phase of the Venus synodic cycle. As this star point feature shifted into the sign of Scorpio, a sign of the underworld, of plumbing the depths, of digging up what is buried, of secrets, inheritance, other people’s money, of taxes; the global economies began to place value on fossil fuels, power drawn from the depths of the earth, an inheritance from the dinosaurs. Horses were no longer the valued resources as markets shifted to the dark power of oil and globally, economic structures completely reorganized around this substance drawn from the underworld. Guttman spells out how the Venus star points are now shifting into Libra, the sign of balance, of pairing and partnership, the cardinal air sign that is associated with justice and quality design. While Guttman related this to clean air, I thought of batteries, of the power generated by a current that is balancing positive and negative charges. We have already begun to see the shift toward batteries, even rechargeable batteries. Though not without their toxic heavy metals, these batteries do have the potential to drastically change our output of air pollution. 

Venus begins to make her star point journey in Libra on October 22nd. She will make one last cazimi (conjunction with the Sun) in Scorpio four years later, before continuing her star point journey through Libra for over two hundred and forty years. This coincides beautifully with the lengthy orbit of Pluto, returning now for the United States Sibley Chart, as well as a number of other cycles that are coming to a close as the American Empire faces its cosmic reckoning. As Venus makes this star point journey through Libra, where she is home and comfortable, we can engage this opportunity to negotiate our values around matters of reproductive sovereignty, economic and environmental justice, and identity politics.

As creativity faces devasting blows in our education system and feminine magic continues to provoke suspicion, we can look to the mythology and orbital patterns of Venus to inspire us as we embody liberatory values.

Another critical point in the conversation between Arielle Guttman and Chris Brennan was the parallel of these Venus star points with sociopolitical change and historical events. The terms civil rights and human rights kept coming up and are often associated with the warrior side of the goddess Venus. Again I turned to the concept of values. What are rights if not a direct expression of values, of who and what is considered worthy? Certainly, in countries that value women’s right to reproductive sovereignty, this cultural value is reflected in their legislation. Certainly, in nations that value increased financial revenue above all else, this value is demonstrated in the workplace. Certainly, in states where guns are more valued than lives, this value is exhibited in access to weapons over access to healthcare. What we value is demonstrated by what we protect, what we provide access to, and what we invest in.

The Autumnal Equinox And Libra

The Autumn Equinox began with the mythological moment that Persephone was abducted from a fruitful field by Hades and taken to the Underworld. With the abduction of her daughter, Demeter, the goddess of fertility and agriculture, was brokenhearted and plunged into depression. The grieving Goddess brought an end to the fruitful season and it was not till her daughter, Persephone, returned from the underworld that the soil became fertile again and the warmth of Spring returned. By eating the fruit of the Underworld, Persephone had condemned herself to return to Hades every year. In the Northern Hemisphere, we experience this descent into the darkness of winter and less fertile fields at the Autumnal Equinox. 

This equinox marks the beginning of Libra season, offering yet another reason it is the perfect time to negotiate balance.

The balance between restful and wakeful activities, the balance between your needs and others’, and the balancing out of injustices. (Elections are just around the corner!) The scales of Libra also conjure the image of carefully balancing the abundance of growth and fruit gathered from the seasons before and how to measure them, consider their value, and carefully apportion them in an even and sustainable way. A way that is intended to create harmony, fairness, and beauty in its evenness and symmetry.     

Libra is a Cardinal Air sign; it is an initiator of communication and cooperation. This sign is the only one in the Zodiac that is symbolized by an inanimate object, the scales. Libra’s lessons are marked by measurement; to engage in cooperation requires great intention and attention to the ‘give-and-take’ of relationships, the equal exchange of energy.

The art of communication is illuminated by a balance of listening and speaking or orienting to the other’s needs and perspective.

A beautiful reminder of the power of balance and counterbalance appears in the art of photography. Through this medium, we can easily observe the significance of light and dark values and of the power of contrast. The most beautiful black and white photographs are considered to be those that contain the full spectrum of white to black tones. It is deeply pleasing to our eyes to experience the richest black tones, the ethereal white, and every shade of grey in between. At an even deeper level, we simply cannot see one tone without the other. We require dark to perceive light, and like so many other polarities, it is as if the two distinct entities rely on one another, hold one another in orbit, balance one another.

A Devotional Love: Virgo

Virgo is often associated with a virgin, but that word means something very different now than when ancients named the constellations.

The muses of this constellation were the women that tended the sacred fire of Rome, using their flexible and intuitive magic to keep the fire burning as long as the Roman Empire held power (for better or worse). These women were considered to ‘belong to themselves,’ they were not owned or partnered and held sovereign dignity over their own abilities and bodies. They were called the Vestal Virgins and it is this archetype of earthly mutability that describes Virgo. 

Mutable signs adapt and use flexibility to respond to the world and life. They are called to lessons of transmitting and transmuting, of alchemical transformation. The Vestal Virgins of Rome were called to adapt and accommodate every gust of wind, every storm, every fuel shortage, and every elemental reality on Earth as they fulfilled their sacred duty. They act in service to a greater cause, they perform their devotion consistently and with close attention to the soil, to reality, to the Earth. This is the magic of Virgo, to act in service with intention and devotion to the community. 

It takes a discerning eye, a conscious mind, and a tasteful palette to embody the Virgo magic; and while these qualities can make for remarkable designers, care practitioners, and chefs, the very same discernment can make for a master of criticism, perfectionism, and even narrow-mindedness. A great deal of care must be taken, a balance of awe and open-heartedness is needed with this shrewdness. As the archetype of service, the magic lays in the dignity and honor of the devotion of care, and the downfall appears in the form of enslavement and victimhood. We all know what happens when we act in service, expecting gratitude and recognition only to receive nothing in response. Resentment forms a callous over the generosity of devotion and a bitter taste comes to the mouth. After days, maybe weeks of bending over backward to accommodate someone's needs, without the selflessness of caregiving we are sure to feel burnt out and taken advantage of, even victimized. If instead, we consider that our rituals of care are as much for us as they are for the other, a serenely spiritual quality comes over the mess of changing a diaper, or cooking and cleaning. It is also kind to remind ourselves that if we offer ourselves those same acts of care, we may find more ease in offering them to others.

Virgo teaches us there is magic to the sharing of care, there is a special alchemy that comes from giving to the self as much as the other, and there is a spell cast by the call to flexibility in our everyday lives. 

Virgo Archetypal characters:

Chef

Gardener

Any Care Practitioner (Therapist, Nurse, etc.)

Data Analyst

Scientific Researcher

Alchemist

Hair Stylist

Designer

A Case For Astrology As A Therapeutic Tool

The broadest and perhaps the most useful definition of trauma that I have ever come across is any challenge for which we are not prepared. 

In the mental health world, being well-resourced is considered a crucial factor when assessing trauma and what we refer to as “protective factors.” Someone with many protective factors at their disposal is considered well-resourced, making them less vulnerable to being unprepared for challenges and therefore less likely to experience trauma. That is not to say they will not experience events that many would consider traumatic, it is instead to clarify that with the right resources comes preparedness. Challenging events may remain challenging rather than morph into traumatic events when someone has the resources, the capacity, to approach the event as a challenge rather than something for which they are not prepared. 

So what do resources look like and how can we protect ourselves against trauma?

Resources are an equally broad term as the above, trauma. Resources are most commonly thought of as the tangible, material goods that sustain us; money, food, clothing, housing, fuel etc. Beyond those basic resources lie even more socially complicated access to services, proximity to privilege, and abstract resources like educational/academic access, the skills to calm a reactive nervous system, ecological privilege, physiological and mental health, and the all-important supportive and caring community. I cannot stress enough, the value and importance of a supportive community. When all resources are accessible and sound, someone impacted by a recognizably traumatic event, a devastating hurricane, for example, will be less likely to internalize the experience as traumatic. They are, strangely enough, prepared for this event in that they have a toolbox that is stocked with resources for their protection. They have access to housing or financial resources to keep a roof over their head, they have access to health and healthy coping mechanisms, and they have a caring community to process the tragedy with, all which serve as protective factors that prevent a challenge from becoming trauma. 

Here’s where astrology comes in. 

If protective factors and preparedness are the difference between a challenge and trauma, using the wisdom of the cycles of life and the orbit of the planets as another tool to help prepare us for unforeseen challenges has the potential to protect us against trauma. When using astrology to understand potential or current challenges we can gain an archetypal understanding of what is to come and what we are facing now. With the extremely macro perspective of the planets, asteroids, and their respective orbits, we can implement a protective factor that operates on several levels at once. For one, the orbit of planets offers the promise that as the Persian adage goes,

“this too shall pass.”

Through the naturally orbital quality of life on Earth, we can have faith in the fact that nothing is static, everything will change, and there is something much much greater than us that is operating in the same cyclical format that we experience in our everyday lives. As Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk writes in The Body Keeps Score,

“Awareness that all experience is transitory changes your perspective on yourself.”

While the cosmos promises change, it also can be something we have faith in, we can put our trust in it to just keep spinning, to move in a predictable way as demonstrated in an ephemeris, a record of 9,000 years of planetary positions. As I’ve written about before, faith or trust is a crucial pillar of our mental well-being. To be able to trust despite the seeming chaos of our realities helps to calm the reactivity of such an unpredictable experience. Astrological awareness also serves to highlight the connectedness and archetypal patterns of the cosmos. For me, this offers confidence and trust in a system that is so vast it is beyond my complete understanding; only available to my mind where the universe allows me insight.

 It feels important to note that, as Richard Tarnas says, astrology is archetypally predictive. While some astrologers may be able to give exact predictions that come true in distinctly accurate ways, I find astrology most useful in its ability to make archetypal predictions that speak to the qualities and archetypes of the relevant celestial bodies and how they may offer important life lessons to the individual and the collective. To clarify, I believe some astrologers are deeply intuitive, myself included (hello! grand trine and six planets in water), and are therefore able to offer a look at the future that astrology doesn’t necessarily predict. With clients, and in my own life, I do not make predictions. For one, I am prone to paranoia, and telling myself something bad will happen at the transit of certain planets does nothing but challenge my sense of well-being. For another, the self-fulfilling nature of a predictive dynamic impedes self-determination and one’s sense of empowerment which could not be less aligned with my intentions as a practitioner.

Living an intentional life, with awareness of the gravitational pull of the planets and how certain archetypes may appear in our life is one more tool that we can use as a protective factor. Though we may not be able to see the future outside of its archetypal qualities, that knowledge alone may offer a great deal of support and validation. For example, nearly everyone who makes it to age 44 will experience an archetypally similar urge to liberate, to upset the norms in their life, to try something they have never tried before, perhaps buy a flashy car or end an important relationship; this urge coincides with what astrologers call the Uranus opposition. This astrological signature, defined by the planet Uranus, that is associated with upsetting the status quo, (violent and nonviolent) revolutions, and technological advancement, is called a Uranus opposition. It occurs approximately at age 44 and marks the period when the planet Uranus is positioned opposite the natal placement of Uranus. In American culture, this period is often referred to as a mid-life crisis. With this knowledge, someone around the age of their Uranus opposition has the awareness to respond to the upset of this dynamic with intention and preparedness. The readiness is possible for other transits including a Saturn return; not only is it validating and affirming to know you are in an age marked by challenging lessons but one can even prepare for the archetypal character of these challenges by locating the position of Saturn and drawing on the wisdom of generations of ancestral observers. 

There are many generations of communities that have built on the wisdom of astrology. These communities have spent thousands of years creating a kind of observational and archetypal database of the correlation between human life and the position of the planets. By drawing on this wisdom, we can gain a sense of our place and purpose in the cosmos, cultivate a sort of trust in the cycles of life, bask in the poetry of the universe, and increase our awareness and preparedness for what life has to offer on individual and collective levels. Again, drawing on the wisdom shared in The Body Keeps Score,

“Seeing novel connections is the cardinal feature of creativity; [...] it’s also essential to healing.”

Astrology is nothing if not the perfect opportunity to see new connections, create a new and viable narrative, and thus offer healing through the creative integration of the self, using archetypes that have been maintained through millennia. Though we may not be able to predict the future, it seems we may not even want to, for fear of giving up any semblance of agency and free will. Instead, we can gain an archetypal understanding of the challenges and ease the universe has to offer and approach them with a preparedness that can protect us and offer us greater opportunities for an intentional and present life.

The Meaning of Life

Y’all heard the new social media mantra? 

“What is the meaning of life? I’ll answer in five words. Enjoying the passage of time.” 

I believe the phrase went viral because of its truth and simplicity. It makes perhaps the most significantly confrontational question of life into an accessible, albeit challenging daily practice of devotion to the art of enjoyment and pleasure. It flies in the face of generations of living for the sake of production and labor.  

When I was traveling in Europe with my best friend, I spent a lot of time ‘waiting.’ There were lines and layovers that required a certain amount of patience I don’t relate to. In my frustration, I offered myself a reframe in the form of a promise. 

I promised myself I would never waste time in my life.

I devoted myself to a lifestyle of enjoying time spent, valuing it, and creating intentional presence. Practically, this just means I usually bring a book with me or read from my phone, I strike up conversations with strangers with the intention of learning from them, I complete little tasks when I have ‘time to kill’ and I consider taking a nap or watching a fun show a task I must complete. 

Everything on my to-do list on paper or in my head holds equal importance. Some things may be more urgent, more time-sensitive but no chore is more important than rest, no job is more important than play. By allowing everything to be equally valuable I can avoid the traps of finance capitalism's productivity-oriented version of success. I can orient myself toward the lifestyle I wish to lead which is governed by the premise that a successful life is one in which I have fully enjoyed the passage of time. 

A ritual in intentionality…

I often ask therapy clients to try a mindfulness technique. It’s a simple question with a big purpose. When passing time and not feeling the best, check-in with yourself and ask

“is this actually what I want to be doing?”

Feel into the question and answer honestly and without judgment.  The only correct answer is the truthful one. Proceed from this place if affirmation. You have not confirmed this is how you’d like to spend your time or empower yourself to change your dynamic.