A sense of calling..

I just felt the need to come here and write for a bit.

Is already 12:31 AM and Im having trouble sleeping.

Im not sure exactly what is going on but I definitely feel charged with an extra amount of energy which I need dispelling..

Today was sort of a day off that I have given myself (even though I have worked a little on my blog) but now I am rolling in bed from one side to another having astrological ideas and mini insights.

I am currently reading James Hillman’s “The soul’s code – In search of character and calling” and can’t stop thinking about the idea of having a “daimon”. The author is basically defending the hypotheses that we are all born with an intrinsic call, a soul or spirit guidance, to become something.

He calls this “the acorn theory”, “which proposes that each life is formed by a particular image, an image that is the essence of that life and calls it to a destiny, just as the mighty oak’s destiny is written in the tiny acorn”.

I am thinking about that in relation to astrology, in one sense about how astrology can be helpful in finding the thread of our “destiny” (what we were born to be according to the archetypes in our charts), but also in the context of my life and my own calling.

Yesterday’s talk was truly refreshing and inspiring.

It felt like I belonged there in that place of sharing insight/knowledge/stories. It was like actualising something strong and deeper, something somehow bigger than just a desire to be a teacher.

Im not sure if I can convey in words that certainty, that feeling of somehow being back home and revelling in my element.

It felt great though.

Now, at this peculiar “insomnian” sleepless moment to me, I can’t help but have ideas for the next talk that I want to do….!

Laptop arrival..

Finally Im writing from my new laptop!

What a difference! 🙂

Im now getting myself ready to go to the Student Astrological Conference in London, is the second year on the row that I will be helping out at the book stall.

I am looking forward to be with other peer astrologers as I still do feel quite isolated around here in Bristol. I’ve heard that the astrological scenery is meant to be good here, but I just haven’t had much luck finding astrology groups to get myself involved with.

Mind you, I am thinking of gathering astrologers to perhaps create a new one. To get some flyers looking for young astrologers and put them up around the city is on my to do list.

I have been incredibly busy in the last week with clients (readings went pretty well and I’ve had very empowering feedbacks) and also printing out flyers for a little talk that I will be doing in a cafe in central Bristol.

Exciting stuff.

I just started reading “The development of the personality” by Liz Greene and Howard Sasportas and Im looking forward to it. I always have some real good insights from reading them both, specially Liz.

I better go now, it was a true pleasure to write my first blog post with my new laptop..

ahhh

Beginnings

It’s been couple of weeks since I made my decision to focus all of my energy into my astrology work.

I see the progress that I did not manage making before, when I had another job to distract me. There is also definitely the question of the rigth timing involved here.

We just can’t force things to happen.

With my new sense of commitment and seriousness about my profession, symbolically reflected by my progressed moon in Capricorn (which I’m truly enjoying at the moment), I’ve accomplished a few little things. There are some readings lined up for me to do, there are some that I already did, also finally got myself an insurance and a membership that will allow me to see my clients at the wellbeing centre in Hamilton House, and finally got 2 little talks on astrology lined up as well.

A lot of exciting things unfolding since my conscious decision followed by action taking.

And I’m loving the feeling of freedom to focus entirely on my passion..

I have even filled much of my spare time with reading my astrology books again as I want to perfect my practice and, by doing that, provide a much better service.

I’m loving it.

I recently went back to finish reading Geoffrey Cornelius “The moment of astrology” and the insights it is providing me are truly valuable right now. I’m finding his discussion on astrology as divination and the way he speaks about the nature of symbols fascinating and refreshing at the same time.

I feel that the path I was already naturally taking with my interpretation of the symbols, a much more fluid and intuitive one since Neptune opposed my natal Sun and Mercury, is strongly connected with Cornelius’s ideas discussed in his book.

His ideas are also almost like giving me “permission” to be creative and to flow with what I feel when seeing an horoscope. It is helping with my confidence and belief in what I do, something that I’ve been struggling with for a long time. (I have also been taking Larch for over 2 months now, the Bach flower remedy to help with confidence)

Geoffrey Cornelius speaks a lot about the intrinsic relationship between symbols and the act of interpreting it, and how important for us astrologers to be conscious of the “creative and participatory dimension of interpretation” (…)

Here is a few more words on that that I resonated strongly with:

“We should not imagine when we take up a line of interpretation that it is the bottom line, or the final and best interpretation. Rather, it is the interpretation that we have taken up in the light of a particular question that we are concerned with, in a particular context and at that moment in the client’s life. The best and truest interpretation is what the client needs to hear now.” (pp. 222)

Great stuff.

I’m also receiving my new laptop this week and I will then be more present around here with my writings.

Progressed Moon moves to Capricorn ..

I have made my decision.

I am dedicating all of my energy, not to find or apply to another job that I don’t want to be doing, but to become a full time astrologer.

And do you know what? It feels great. It feels right.

I think the time is ripe for me to start putting myself out there. I feel much more solid in myself and confident on my knowledge and experience.

My progressed moon has also recently just moved to Capricorn and I can totally feel the internal change of mood. My change of focus. Getting organised and investing my time and energy in my career feels great now.

I will be writing more from now on, and I will also work more on posts about astrology itself. (Laptop will be with me at the end of the month!)

 

Inner chaos

No, I didn’t get the job.

And from one moment to the next I am thrown back into the Pluto transiting second house, going back to square natal Moon, situation.

Anxious feelings about survival pervading me… an unpleasant sensation in my stomach and the absolute certainty that I do not want and will not go back to working in hospitality.

Even if that means giving up my life in Bristol and going back to Brasil.

There must be a way out from jobs that you don’t enjoy, jobs that crush your soul. I can’t go on like that anymore.

And at the same time..

The fear that I’m never gonna get out of this, no matter how much I want, how much I try, the fear of never accomplishing my purpose..

The fear of running out of cash like I did when I moved here in September last year.

On another hand I did do quite a few readings since I quit the cafe hell. Is just dealing with the insecurity of not working for someone else, which at the end of the day I don’t truly want anyways. So what is the trouble?! What’s wrong with me?!

Perhaps the last wave of infantile fears and inappropriate behaviour that is coming up to the surface for me to release them?

Pluto will be back at 16 degrees Capricorn by December, only one degree away from my natal Moon, and that does reflect that the transformation (connected with this symbolism in particular) still an ongoing process for me.

I did notice that I had a massive crisis at my cafe work, really wanting to leave, on the very same day that Pluto went retrograde.

It made me chuckle when I realised the synchronicity, and the thought of “no, it isn’t finished yet” came straight back into my mind.

There we go, here I am again, struggling to find a way of surviving in this society (Soulful survival). Getting extremely fed up with what prevents me from becoming myself.

What happens next? I don’t know, I just don’t know.

Uranic individual

 

Shifts that have no end.

In the life of someone who has a strong Uranus in the natal chart, shifts and changes can happen quite suddenly. (There are different ways of measuring if a planet is strong in your chart: by house, aspects or sign as well)

And I have quit my job at the cafe quite unexpectedly (even to myself!), ironically on 1st of May, the international workers day.

It was the first time that I left in the middle of service, and I have to say, it felt good! (Specially having  Mars conjunct Uranus in the first house, with Mars ruling the 6th house of job)

When we insist on doing something that doesn’t allow us to be ourselves Uranic energy can be a way out. We do have to be mindful not to “throw the baby with the bath water” but Uranus has also a connection with the process of individuation.

The process of becoming your authentic self by freeing yourself from conditioning and heading towards uniqueness.

I won’t be developing much more on that right now as I’m preparing for a job interview today.

Fingers crossed.

And I also have a reading to do later on.

Tying knots in the 2nd house..

The intensity of these month with the culmination of the last exact square from transiting Pluto to my natal Moon has been quite different from the previous ones.

The impression that I have is that things have been challenged to transform from within,  beginning with the deepest unconscious layers (still when Pluto was 2 degrees orbit away from the first exact square), and now perhaps hitting mostly the more gross parts that still need to be fined tuned.

In the last two months I haven’t had many internal breakdowns or many difficult emotions to deal with. During the first square in March 2015 I was overwhelmed by fear and sadness and emotions in general.

Now I feel a lot more stable and secure within myself.

What seems to be happening in this last stage is more connected with work and financial life and my values really (a lot of the matters connected with the 2nd house of the horoscope).

It was only in the last week that I consciously noticed how much I’m already feeling deflated and bored at work. I think I sort of came to the realisation that this is “just another job” again.

We aren’t really doing much to get involved in the local community, mainly the boss is focused on making money and a bit desperate because we are still not very busy. He is saving money on certain things that I disagree on like rubbish collection (we are not recycling yet!! I still can’t really believe that he doesn’t seem to care too much about that).

Then I also have noticed him at times behaving like a capitalist desperate boss, feeling agitated when he sees you sitting down for a bit (on a shift of 9 hours and and half standing on your feet) on a day that is extremely quiet and there isn’t much to do anyway.

(I’m not holding a grudge or anything, don’t get me wrong. I can see that he is trying his best and that he doesn’t have much experience.)

But my problem is that there seems to be more preoccupation with looking cool and forward thinking and ecological than actually truly caring about the environment for instance.

I understand that this is just the first month and chaos is all around. But he did get some extra money from the bank so there shouldn’t be an excuse for recycling and composting food  and coffee waste.

I feel like I’m still going against my values, a bit like I was when living in London.

I don’t want to put my energy into egotistical purposes. I want to work for something that will improve the collective situation somehow.

Power to the people.

So this week I’m only working for 3 days and the idea that I could save up money to do a yoga teacher training in 3 months is gone.

Now I’m not sure anymore. All I know is that I have to invest more time and energy into my work as an astrologer and perhaps still live on a low budget for some time.

But I refuse to give my energy full time to something that I don’t believe in..

Plutonic Capricorn crisis..

I’m sitting down having breakfast on my own.

I just realised that the clock has changed in England and instead of 6:50 is actually 5:51 in the morning.

Having some issues at work and, with that, also having shadowy parts of my psyche popping up regularly.

Being an authority isn’t easy and yesterday, when I went to bed at 8pm feeling down, I was thinking about the reasons why I’ve never wanted to do that (be an authority figure in almost 7 years of experience in this industry).

I am a very good worker and pretty good at taking orders from superiors too (even though I have to respect the person in charge first). And I used to enjoy just being that, the excellent part time worker that comes 3 times a week.

In that way, without committing too much, I’ve managed to keep myself free from the inner critic and almost obsessive perfectionism, at least in these kind of odd jobs (the ones that aren’t really my true passion).

But is really hard to do that now.

I just cannot keep myself detached and make a commitment at the same time.

If I decide to do something, I’m doing it wholeheartedly. I put all of me in it. I am a Scorpio rising after all..

Yesterday when I was in bed really early, resting my exhausted legs and feet, it took me at least 3 good hours and a half to stop thinking about work. I was worried about the inconsistent way that we’ve been serving our coffee (we don’t have a barista), then I was worried that I’m getting my period soon and don’t want to be at work because of the pain (I refuse to take pain killers since my Saturn return and my journey of healing and reconnecting with my womb) but we are a tiny team for financial reasons and at the moment is hard to get someone to cover you..

Then I was worrying that I don’t want to commit myself that much, reasoning that I haven’t opened a cafe myself and that my real passion is astrology.

I want to focus my energy in reading and writing, these are one of my best skills and that’s what I most love doing.

And finally I had to calm myself down and remember that I just need to give him a hand for a little (I’m giving 3 months minimum) and save up some cash working full time, and then I will be free again.

I also can’t forget that Pluto is making the final exact square to my Moon for the whole month of November still.

Home life is pretty good, I’m enjoying it enormously. But what seems to be brought up now is the financial and lifelong (so it seems) crisis in my value system.

I’ve had moments in tears last night thinking about the business mentality of efficiency above human well being and how my ego is easily falling into that trap, for I am the manager now, even though I really don’t believe and don’t want to be a part of that system anymore.

And so I just kept quietly repeating to myself “only 3 months, only 3 months, only 3 months”.. until unconsciousness came to rescue me.

The cafe’s chart

We opened the cafe today!

I took a look at the exact time that we opened the doors as I really wanted to cast it’s astrological chart.

I’m not a hundred per cent sure on how to read it as I am more in tune with the psychological approach to interpreting astrological symbols, but I find it interesting nevertheless.

The rising sign is at 6 degrees Scorpio with both rulers together (Mars and Pluto at 15 Capricorn) in the 3rd house. I thought that perhaps this is the kind of signature of a survivor.

The third house makes me think that we should probably get actively involved with the local community and neighbourhood. Perhaps even promote or facilitate some kind of exchange of information between people?! The Moon is also in Gemini, which somehow speaks of connecting and being flexible?!

The MC is at 18 degrees Leo and the Sun, it’s ruler, in Libra in the 12th house. That sounds a little reclusive for a cafe?! I’m not sure. The Sun is also conjunct Mercury and both are opposing Uranus in the 6th house. Something about being quirk in some way?!

Moon in Gemini is applying to a trine with the Sun in Libra and I like the feel of it.

I specially like that Jupiter and Venus are in mutual reception (Jupiter in Libra, Venus in Sagittarius), Jupiter being the ruler of the 2nd house and Venus the natural ruler of that area. Also Venus is in the second house of the Cafe’s chart and it will eventually make a sextile to Jupiter in the 11th (again the idea of community?! Somehow engaging with groups of people more consciously? An ideal?).

Saturn is in the second house, but it is applying to a sextile with Jupiter also. Perhaps there will be a solid finacial build up?!

I’m feeling quite tired now, not used to doing this kind of work anymore.

It was a 12 hour shift today.

The cool side is that I’ve never worked as a manager before. The challenge of learning new things and taking more responsibility does excite me a bit.

At least for now.

And that’s how I spent the day with transiting Mars activating the Pluto transit to my Moon, working hard!