My Love Letter to Astrology
If I told you that learning astrology literally transformed how I relate to my loved ones, would you believe me?
If I told you it was also the key to unlocking decades of struggle with depression and anger, would you believe me?
Astrology was the window into my soul… like throwing open dark, heavy curtains to find the morning sunshine pouring in through the window.
To me, astrology isn’t about predicting the future, but rather it shows us how to create the future we want by learning to be better humans in the here and now.
I will freely admit, aside from reading the entertainment horoscopes in magazines when I was growing up, I didn’t give astrology much credit because it never seemed to fit what was going on in my life. However, I did internalize the cliches about my sign, that I am bossy, stubborn, hardworking, and frankly boring.
Fast forward a few decades and I’ve just birthed my second baby. Everything about him from the moment of his conception felt different than his older sister. The very energy of who he was, was clearly different in every way from his sister that had nothing to do with my parenting or my healing journey.
As the days sped by, it was clear that parenting him would be very different, because he perceived and interacted with the world differently than his sister did. For one thing, as a baby, he always happened to know where to find the moon, even in the daytime!
His older sister, was an incredibly intense baby, she was always very clear on what she wanted to do and had zero hesitation to let me know she preferred to be in charge.
She also hated being still or restrained in a car seat/stroller and self-entertaining was not a thing, so she kept me on my toes trying to keep up with her. Sometimes she felt like an adult pissed off to be stuck in the limited body of a toddler.
As the days turned into weeks and months, I was being humbled and relieved at how much more intuitive it was for me to parent my son, but it also made me ask lots of questions to try to figure out how they could be so different.
This questioning also kicked off my own spiritual awakening to understand why parenting had been so utterly painful and challenging for me with his sister when by all external accounts she was a healthy, happy, bright child. Which pointed the finger back at me.
I kept feeling like I was failing her. So I started digging to understand why certain behaviors or reactions I had just wouldn’t shift, even after 20 years of counseling and obsessive self study about psychology and personality.
Until one day, a friend recommended a new astrology book and I was willing to try anything. And as I read the chapter about my sign, it hit me - I had been shamed for who I actually was, to the point that I hated myself and my innate energy — that when skillfully used - can be powerfully healing.
“Bossy, stubborn, Type-A, Know-it-all, Overachiever, Judgmental, Aloof…” Yep, they all had their own sting.
Until the moment I realized those were all the ways earthy, Capricorn energy is expressed when not being used skillfully.
The healthy flip site of those qualities were also me too, and I was repressing all of it - the bad and the good: grounded, determined, decisive leadership, strategic, thorough, persistent… these were actually the core qualities of who I was, and I had spent my life actively repressing them because no one bothered to teach me how to be a skillful leader as a kid.
No wonder I was so damn angry and frustrated all the time, I was actively fighting against the essence of who I was born to be.
I was repressing:
the decisive leader who can stay calm in a tense situation;
the grounded healer who holds steady safe space for people to release or say what they’ve held onto in shame;
the patient teacher who knows how to take something really complex and break it down into pieces that make it relatable for others to learn.
As I dug into learning the very basics of what each sign meant and the different core energies we are born with (sun, rising, and moon signs), I had a huge epiphany about who my kids were and how to manage their health.
My fiery, assertive daughter was an Aries, which I had been told was just shorthand for “stubborn”, so I wrote it off that it was so hard to parent her because we were just butting heads over who could be in control.
But the more I read about Aries, I realized it’s the pioneering, initiation energy of new beginnings and discovery. It’s that literal spark of new life, which is why it’s the beginning of the zodiac, starting with the Spring Equinox.
She was born to constantly be exploring and pushing the edges to create life anew. And understanding that she was a fire sign helped me understand why she was easily emotionally overheated/angry and frequently ran fevers as a baby.
Suddenly, I realized I wasn’t stuck in a wrestling match for control with her, I just needed to find a better way to work with the fiery energy, to channel it into a healthy outlet so she can learn to use it skillfully as she grows. This perspective shift was huge, helping me to stop taking everything as a personal parenting failure.
I now understand that all the parenting formulas didn’t work on her because she’s meant to break the mold. She’s here to forge her own path and will find it by instinct, so it’s my job to help her tune into knowing what’s right for her, while also being mindful of the consequences of her actions.
And in my process of learning to understand my daughter, she taught me to feel my own instinct as a parent and to break free of the modern parenting formulas to find what works for my own family.
While on the other hand, my son is an earthy Virgo, with a lot of similarities to my own energy, which is why my instinctive response to him tends to work (and why I frequently felt confused by my daughter’s fiery energy).
Astrology has taught me how to understand what his emotional and mental needs are, so I know when to let him dive deep into something, and when he needs a push because he’s stuck. It’s also helped me translate for his teachers how to best work with him, because he’ll shut down when forced to do something he’s not sure he’ll master right away.
Learning to be his mother has taught me how to tenaciously trust myself and my kids’ own growing sense of themselves over what any external expert or book might tell me I am “supposed” to do.
Ultimately, astrology is most powerful when we use it as a tool for personal reflection and insight into our own needs, challenges, and gifts.
Seeing ourselves more clearly can help us see the unhealthy patterns that might get in the way of healthy relationships so we can be responsible for how we show up in the world.
It also means we can understand which of our needs are most essential to our ability to thrive… and which habits may have been tactics our ego was using to control the world around us to feel safe.
When we own and tend our most essential needs, that’s when we truly begin to thrive.
And when we’re skilled enough to see and help honor those needs in others too, then we’ll see our world transform and flourish around us.
Has this kindled something within you?
Here are some ways you can continue your learning journey:
Curious to learn more about Astrology? Then I invite you to head over to my “Roots of Seasonal Astrology” article! Or you can join a Seasonal Astrology class!
Would you like to unravel a frustrating pattern that’s coming up in your life (including an important relationship in your life - partnerships, parenting, animal companion, etc)?*
You can book an Insight Session for us to dig into a pattern that’s going on in your life (or a close relationship). We’ll work with astrology, holistic counseling practices, somatic inquiry, and energy work to help illuminate what’s going on and find a path for moving forward.
Want to learn how you are wired to thrive?*
I invite you to check out my Natal Astrology sessions to help you orient to your inner compass and reflect on your essential needs, challenges, and talents.
You can also join a Seasonal Catalyst Circle to dive into the energy of each season to develop personalized tools and practices that support your unique astrology for thriving!
Are you a soulprenuer (heart-driven soloprenuer) struggling with your work-life balance, burnout, or direction of your work?*
I offer Insight Sessions for soulprenuers (heart-driven soloprenuers) to troubleshoot challenges in your work-life balance so we can design a lifestyle that creates harmony and flow in your work and personal life.
We’ll work with astrology, holistic counseling practices, somatic inquiry, and energy work to help illuminate what’s going on and find a path for moving forward.
You can find your Sun, Ascendant, and Moon placements for FREE here.
* If you want to see your full Natal Chart, you will need to know your birth date, time, and place. If you only have your birthdate and place I can work with that too!
