A Day in the Life of a Bad Cancerian

I lost the plot yesterday.

To those who know me well, perhaps this comes as a complete surprise as I'm so normally so calm, cool and collected.

OK, you can stop the giggling and listen to this little astrological tale.

For the past year or so, Jupiter has been my friend, my pal, my bosom buddy. Lately this friend has been totally broadsided by Pluto--you know, God of the Underworld. To make matters worse, my other buddy Mercury has been stationing on Pluto. 

Before we go any further, I just need to point out I really dislike it when people start blaming retrograde Mercury for everything from lost post to internet disruption to getting lost on the way to a party: Mercury doesn't cause that--people who aren't paying attention do. It's become an excuse: "oh I got stuck in traffic and it's all because Mercury is retrograde" as if traffic jams, delayed messages and dodgy internet connections never happen when Mercury is in forward motion. It's just ridiculous. Throw some empirical evidence in and the data nerd might pay attention.

Anyway, this story is different because Mercury was stationing (getting ready to change to forward direction again) on Pluto with a personal connection to my natal Jupiter.

So this past week, I've travelled across a continent (a big one at that) to be at a conference in India. I've have spent the past week pretty much under hot lights, getting my photo taken, getting bossed around, eating on schedule and getting lost in a 5 star hotel. Things are a little different to the way I like them to be, i.e. drinking tea all morning while I write, eating when I feel like and admiring sunsets.

Yesterday I just could not cope anymore. I was physically exhausted and rendered mentally incompetent. Decision making? Forget it! To top it all off, I had a splitting headache (I cannot even remember the last time I had a headache). In other words, I felt like shit. Really.

What had happened was I had booked some hotels to go to after the conference. These were online bookings with booking.com which has never let me down. Ever. But this is India. There are so many addresses no one knows where anything is. And I've been so busy with the conference I hadn't been able to sort out a sim card. I really didn't even know what that meant or why it was so important: until I needed to book a flight to Varanasi. Despite my best efforts, I just couldn't book a flight and suddenly felt very alone and helpless on this great big heaving continent full of people, horns, pollution and different languages. I also ended up losing--and paying for--my hotel bookings.

So I had a meltdown.

Nothing made sense to me anymore. Nothing! It took 3 people to talk me down (thank you Victor, Gopal and Julian) plus Michelle, Richard and Nick to assure me they had my back. I was totally ready to head back to the UK and get back to teaching until I was old enough to retire. My cats! My duvet! Yah, that's how freaked out I was. Get me back to where everything is familiar.

It was at that point I realised that perhaps I'm not such a bad Cancerian after all. All my life, I have denied being a Cancerian because I'm not even a little home-loving and shy. Or so I thought. Put me under (a lot) of stress and I just want my mommy (OK things never got that bad).

So these are a few things I learned about myself when I experience extreme conditions:

1. I hate packing
2. My hearing goes funny when I'm stressed
3. My decision making process, dodgy at the best of times, goes tits up
4. I have some damn good friends.
5. I really need to remember all this

First the Ocean, Now the Sky

I've woken up this morning with the distinct feeling that the universe cracked while I was sleeping. And maybe it did. Yesterday the Moon-Venus opposition was on my nodal axis and the midpoint of transiting Mercury and Pluto were on my natal Jupiter.

I knew something profound was about to happen yesterday at 1:22pm (astrologers always take note of these things). I had been contemplating going to the beach but I had this uneasiness about what the ocean had to say. It wasn't a fear, it was just an uncertainty about how much change one person can tolerate in such a short space of time.

As I was thinking this, a small feather floated from the sky--and I kid you not--landed near my feet. My first thought was of my grandmother. So I picked up the feather and thanked my ancestors. Like a good Ojibwa. And then I was overcome with such intense homesickness--the first bout I've had since being away for so long--that tears sprang to my eyes.

Home. Where is that, I wondered.

I'm such a bad Cancerian (or so I thought) that I couldn't even answer that question. I've been wrestling with a certain terror that I've managed to scatter the people I love all over the globe and the only way I can communicate with them is via Facebook. I felt ashamed. What the hell am I doing? I need to go home.

And then the sky spoke. This feather, this feather that floated from the sky from the wing of some unseen  bird, reminded me that I am home. This is it. Home. I am home. Wherever I lay my hat.

A few hours later and I'm on the beach with two South African Sangomas watching the first sunset of the Summer Solstice. One of the sangomas had not worn shoes in over 20 years and he made me wonder what it would be like to feel the earth under one's feet for so long without the barrier of shoes. He also had long, uncut hair. I asked him if it was in his tradition to cut hair in grief as it for the Ojibwas. My own hair was pretty much down to my waist when I lost relatives and cut my hair very short. I wore my grief and was reminded of it every time I went to pull my non existent hair from my collar. My hair is just starting to grow back but I still remember my grief when I look in the mirror. The sangoma told me that he last shaved his head when his father died. Then we both laughed at our good fortune to have growing hair. How fleeting life is and how long is the recovery from grief. But now we can laugh because we understand what it means to regrow from loss. 

The sangomas had brought me to a place to watch the sunset. It felt like the edge of the world. Behind us were "The Twelve Apostles" hills and before us was the ocean. There was a very light mist as the light of the dying sun turned the atmosphere to lavender. When it was getting dark, I took my shoes off so I could feel the rocks beneath my feet.

And I knew I was home.

And I also knew that wherever life takes me I am home. Here. Now. I am safe, balanced and far heartier than I had thought.

And the other thing I know is that I too am a sangoma. It might be known by a different name in different languages but by the Great Goddess, I now know I am--and have always been--a sangoma. I had just forgotten.

And it's great to be home.

I know this because a seemingly insignificant feather floated down from the sky and landed at my feet.

On the Nature of True Intentions

So as I'm on a writing frenzy, I've been spending a lot of time at the charming Cape to Cuba restaurant near to the Hemingway Bar (and no, I don't tend to drink during the day!). My line of thinking was that being in a place named after one of my favourite (and I have so many) writers was going to be good for the creative thinking process.

After spending so much time sorting through heaps of my writing and realising that most of it is useable, I'm now pretty much convinced that I am indeed a writer.

I used to be very reluctant to call myself a writer but I remembered this week that the first time I called myself as such was a year or so ago as a I sat in a beautician's chair waiting to get my hair cut.  I hate getting my hair cut: I hate the expense, I hate the process and I hate the small talk with strangers who have the power to transform my appearance into something I'm going to love or hate for the next several months. For many years, I had avoided hairdressers and had let my hair grow long enough to almost sit on. But in the Ojibwa tradition, hair represents your life and its growth. It's only cut to demonstrate grief. I had been having a pretty awful year. I was in grief--I had lost a beloved aunt and uncle with weeks of each other--and I was so unhappy in my job. When the inevitable question of "What do you do for a living?" came up, I blurted out: "I'm a writer" to avoid saying I was a teacher (I almost never tell strangers I'm an astrologer--but that's a story for another day). I then thought: "Blimey, I had better make a note of the time for that!" 

I had always resisted any temptation to call myself a writer. It just seemed so pretentious. But when one declares something--whether it is planned (elected in astrological terms) or it just happens, it is an important moment. And often very, very revealing.

This is the chart of that moment with today's transits along the outer circle in green:

Now there were several things I knew about the astrology of the moment without looking up anything. I knew that Jupiter had just finished its final return to its natal position in my chart a few weeks before when I had felt so antagonised that I walked out of my job. And I vaguely knew Jupiter was transiting my natal Moon but that's pretty much it. I had absolutely no idea that the asc/des axis was at 0 Libra, nor did I realise the Moon was in Virgo in the 12th house and ruling the MC! And look at the Sun in Gemini in the 9th!! Jupiter in Cancer in the 10th!! Mercury in Aries in the 7th! A dignified Venus!  I don't think I could have elected a better chart for a writer. I could have done without Saturn in the 2nd opposing said Venus but hey ho, all charts have to have Mr Misery Guts somewhere (like Prince Charles who has it in his second too). 

Transit wise, Jupiter, ruling the 3rd, is on that Moon in Virgo, about to cross the ascendant. It's a Mars conjunction picking up that cardinal T square I had been warning everyone about a couple of days ago. Good old Uranus--bang on my natal part of self (told you I was a stroppy cow) with the god of writing, Mercury transiting. Saturn is transiting the 3rd house--what a great place for a hard working writer. Pluto in the 4th I have natally as well but it is opposite my natal Jupiter. And look at Neptune in the 6th!! The writer loses herself in her work.

It really is time for me to get my stuff "out there" so I'm going to open up the field a bit by posting some fiction here. It's a short story called A Cappella and is about a musician who finds her voice. "A Cappella" comes from the Italian for "in the manner of the chapel". It's unaccompanied or solo music. I like the way it fits in the Jupiter themes of my experience of life these days. And I think the story fits the transits.

The Writer's Life

I have FINALLY had the time to sort through my blogs (I have four) and website. And what a job it was--about two weeks worth of sorting. Dear God, I write a lot--and yesterday I did another 4,000 words on my upcoming book.

So this might lead you to ask: what on earth are you going to do with all that material?

Well I'm glad you asked.

About a year ago, I started writing daily horoscopes as an experiment. Up until that point, I had always been very snotty about Sun Sign astrology but once I saw what it did to my viewing stats, I had a change of heart. The results of my experiment are here. However the downside was that the daily column was clogging up my blog and Facebook page so I decided I was going to have a separate blog, twitter account and Facebook page for them. And then I got the grand idea that I was going to bring out 12 little year ahead books and I got as far as the New and Full Moons before life just took over. But it's all stuff I can still use but I decided to keep it free. You can pop in daily for updates using the links below. I aim for a short and punchy style.

Here are the links (and don't even get the idea into your head that I'll be doing this every day):
Aries featuring Susan Boyle
Taurus featuring Princess Charlotte
Gemini featuring the divine Barry Manilow
Cancer featuring Tom Hanks
Leo featuring Whitney Houston
Virgo featuring Buddy Holly
Libra featuring The Big Bopper
Scorpio featuring Margaret Mitchell
Sagittarius featuring Anna Nicole Smith
Capricorn featuring Mel Gibson
Aquarius featuring Paul Newman
Pisces featuring Steve Jobs

Then, frustrated with not being able to promote my book as much as I should at the same time I was teaching, I started a Growing Pains blog in June 2015. The idea was to write about Jupiter and Saturn using celebrity profiles, updating research on the peculiar and particular problems in adolescence and just generally spouting off about how brutal the teaching profession is. You know like questioning why some fool gets paid stupid money for kicking a ball from one end of a field to another while the female dominated careers of teaching and nursing are paid shit and the workers are treated like shit. Of course, like this blog, things got put on the back burner. But I've been updating daily as part of the book writing--and I'm working on three updates for Growing Pains: a teacher's edition, a pupil's edition and a parent's edition. They are coming out in March 2016. Note the optimism.

As I said, I write a lot. And this includes fiction. So I have another blog that I was using for the National Write a Novel in Month (NaNoWriMo) 2013. There's a full novel there that I wrote in a month. Yes a month. 2000 words that I did on a daily basis in November 2013. And there's a hell of a lot more fiction that I've yet to work out what to do with. Watch this space--I'm going to self publish some more stuff.

That leaves this blog. It started out with jokes about aspects and my "give me any aspect and I'll give you a joke" challenge with a few personal observations thrown in. I don't know--I looked down on Sun Sign columns but would tell corny jokes at the drop of a hat. Anyway, I've outgrown all that and this blog has evolved into something I'm glad to have the space to keep going. So this is my personal blog with updates about what I'm getting up to, where I am and where I'm going to. I was bowled over by how much material had accumulated in 7 years and by how much is actually quite recyclable. Saturn squares, eh?  They do challenge you to examine your work.

Work wise, I'm seeing clients, promoting myself (yeah, the Leo in me loves that) and I'm meeting the locals by doing tarot and palm readings. In other words, I've come full circle, back to the days when I did Psychic Fairs and the like. Back then I didn't have the confidence to make the leap of faith to actually make a living out of it but we'll just have to see how I get on. Thank you Transit Pluto opposite my natal Jupiter for the kick up the jacksy.

When I'm not living the writer's life hunched over my laptop, I'm in the ocean getting all salty, looking for dolphins under a backwards sky and a very hot Yuletide season. Cool eh? I'm not thinking about Saturn on my descendant (actually that is a lie).

So what writing have done today? I hear you ask breathlessly.

Well I resurrected a blog about the Titanic as Kate Winslet is saying how difficult filming was as Saturn is on her Neptune. I'm always pleased when the transits are so satisfying: astrology has never let me down. I also did a chapter on the Trudeau family--originally because Justin is so hot but then because it made such a great story on family dynamics and astrology.

I'm also maintaining the other Twitter and Facebook pages, Don't Sweat It, Planet and Growing Pains so do pop in and give me a like and a share.

And of course, I'm gearing up for India next month and Australia mid February. I'm back in London to collect my FAS diploma for the Equinox. I think I'll be teaching for the summer term so I want to be sure I have an established routine of writing and posting. I'm hoping to get to the FAS Summer School in August again and the Astrological Association's conference. Then I'm off to the US for the ISAR conference in October and hopefully SOTA in November. I'm going to be speaking at the Breaking Down the Borders on-line astrology event (also in November,) heading to Florida in January 2017 to speak at the Kepler Conference and then to Portugal for their International Astrology event February 2017.

So keep up, eh?

Seriously, all is well

If you know me at all, then you know how much I love social media (especially Facebook). Most people comment on how quick I am to respond to private messages--and how chatty I can be. So this is a quick (and maybe slightly lazy) way of letting you know all is well.

Lately I've been a little bit behind on social media. And it's because I've been DELUGED with questions about whether or not I'm actually OK. Convos go a bit like this:

friend: OK, Alex, are you OK?

me: of course, it's going really well here in cape town

friend: no REALLY

me: yes, really, I'm fine

Seriously, I'm fine. I've had my head down a bit as I frantically re-organise my various articles (both completed and in progress). Sheesh. . .I write a lot. I have enough for a little something every day which I'll be posting from my Growing Pains blog. I'm also trying to get back to the daily horoscopes on the Don't Sweat It Planet blog. As I've said, I don't particularly find them edifying but it drives traffic to my website. So I'm back to using this as my personal astrological blog (as opposed to putting everything up here) I'm also working on a couple of new books--and at long last, I think I've made my website a much happier place. Check it out at www.alextrenoweth.com

In short, yes, I REALLY am OK. I am doing stuff I've meant to do for a very long time and I'm doing a very slow switch from being a full-time teacher to a full-time astrologer. I've been recruited by a couple of magazines to write for them, my 2017 calendar is filling up nicely and I'm contentedly busy with other new projects. It takes time to complete a career switch and I'm just very grateful I've been given space to get stuff together.

Seriously, I'm good. I mean just look at this blissed out face:

 That's the face of someone who is really good.

Thanks for asking xx

Full Moon in Gemini

“And ye shall know The Truth. And The Truth shall set you free.”--John 8:32

As a consulting astrologer, I am used to working with clients who, for whatever reasons, have shunned traditional therapies. Some time ago, I met a client who had been involved in (she so hates the word ‘victim’) a very violent crime.

Be warned: This is a description of a violent sexual crime and its impact on the client. It is not an entire transcript and is published at the request of and with full consent of the client.

Both the astrologer and client post this recount as a testament to the power of astrology—not only as a predictive tool but one to allow deeper insight into and facilitation of the healing process. Both also felt the timing was appropriate for the journey of the Moon from its New Moon phase in Scorpio to its Full Moon in Gemini opposite Sun in Sagittarius.

 

Event Chart

The client reports she has been living with a terrible secret and is now ready to discuss the event which up to now she has refused to do in any detail. Upon discussion with the astrologer, she agrees to decline public disclosure of natal details because “the chart speaks for itself”. Transit Pluto’s opposition to the Chiron of the event suggests a wound that needs to healed: indeed the client describes feeling as if “shrapnel were making its way to the surface.”

The client begins her story by describing the effect the crime has had on her: self-loathing, bouts of self-harm, debilitating panic attacks and an overall feeling of a lack of safety. With the Moon opposite to Uranus, both square to Mars in the event chart, it is apparent—without natal details—that the event was a traumatisng one and perhaps one that makes the client, in her own words “very, very angry”. The symptoms became fewer and further apart in time but would not lessen in intensity, periodically returning as if the crime had only recently happened. What might startle the average person could lead to a full blown panic attack for the client. Over time, the client was able to manage symptoms with self administered cognitive behaviour therapy but was still—and is still--vulnerable to severe anxiety and what the client now recognises as acts of self-hatred.

The client blames herself for the event, indicating she had verbally retaliated to a shoplifter who had been sexually suggestive as she worked alone on the night shift in a convenience store. Jupiter opposite to Saturn, both square to Mercury could possibly indicate the sense of false security the client felt as she stood up for herself as well as her decision to fail to immediately report the shoplifting crime as per company policy.

Venus and Pluto are both in Scorpio, trine to the Moon and Jupiter in Cancer, speak of the over-confidence in checking suspicious noises in the back of the store. The client had thought she would be chasing off raccoons, not the heavy-set, bearded customer she had chased out of the store hours before. She describes that he jumped on her out of nowhere and forced her to her knees.

“His weight and strength were overwhelming,” she says. As she struggled to push him away, she heard the unmistakable click of a trigger.

 The client stops talking for a minute as if gathering her thoughts.

“I knew exactly what was going to happen. I knew I didn’t stand a chance of getting away, that this guy was pissed off and was going to show me what happens to girls who run their mouths.” She recalls being angry with herself because she had forgotten to wear a belt with her uniform trousers. The whole shift she had been annoyed at having to keep pulling up waistband and now her forgetfulness was what made it so easy for him to rape her.

With her head pressed on the concrete floor, her arms and legs immobilised, she could do absolutely nothing as she heard him spit on himself. The client mutters that even as she was being raped, she couldn’t keep her mouth shut. Mercury conjunct Mars is the apex of the T square. Between gritted teeth she asked: “Is that all you got?”

For a second, she thought she had gotten to him and that it was all over. He withdrew from her, then roared. In the event chart, Mars in combust: the shock and shame of what had happened next ensured she would never speak of the crime to anyone.

He pulled her head back by her hair and bit her hard in the shoulder as he came. At some point he had dropped the gun (she had been terrified he would accidentally pull the trigger) but it remained out of her reach. He slapped her several times around the head and pushed her away as if he were the one who was disgusted by what had happened. He laughed at her as she dressed. He picked up the gun, kept it aimed at her the whole time, and told her repeatedly that if she told anyone he would be sure to tell the details of what had happened in a public courthouse. As if to punctuate his point, he stepped up to her quickly. The client shielded her face, thinking she could protect herself. His kick (with heavy boots) landed squarely between her legs and before he left, he promised her she “wouldn’t be able sit for months.” She didn’t doubt him.

On his way out, she heard he had simply hit the ‘no sale’ button on the register, emptied it and some seconds later the bell of the front door indicated he had left. He got away with around $50.

The client says she knew immediately that she had to cover up the sexual aspect of the crime. The movie “The Accused” had come out recently and she was well aware of how rape victims were treated. A medical exam would reveal the extent of her injuries. She did not want to have to give public testimony to what had happened and the thought of putting her parents through such an ordeal was what had gotten her to her feet, to the bathroom to clean up and partially wash away the evidence and later lie to the police about the full extent of the crime.

The Moon conjunct Jupiter trine to Venus should have indicated the client would find solace in women. Instead the client insists that she felt the women police officers had tried to psychologically bully her into admitting there had been a sexual assault. During the interview, the client remembered she had been on her period during the assault and was only reminded of this during a bout of severe cramping caused by the deeply wedged tampon. The women police officers had questioned why the client requested to use the bathroom, implying it was to perhaps wash away evidence. The client had stoically stayed in her seat even though it was—as the perpetrator tacitly promised—excruciatingly painful. As time went on, the client felt that telling her story would provide an opportunity for other women to judge her—this extended to her own mother with whom she had a very troubled relationship. At the time of the assault, the client had been having a sexual—and experimental--relationship with another woman. The client never spoke directly to her girlfriend again. She said for several years she was repulsed and frightened by other women, a feeling only alleviated after the birth of her first child which she describes as an “unquestionable commitment to the female sorority.”

Like the mythological rape of Persephone, reflected by the event chart’s Venus-Pluto conjunction in Scorpio, the client was very aware that there was no going back to the way things had been before. The client is quick to point out that she had happily disposed of her virginity several years before the event and that sex had been a happy and even joyful activity with male friends. She had never felt uncomfortable or coerced and that she shared a bed with the men in her life in exactly the same manner she might share a beer or a laugh or a game of sport. The client was fascinated with the weakness men had when it came to sex and that she had never felt she understood a man until she experienced him in the throes of an orgasm. The “girlfriend phase” had been fairly platonic and more for the shock value than anything else. The client could not bear the thought that her girlfriend would be able to intuit what had really happened—hence the reason for the abandonment.

Neptune conjunct Saturn possibly explains the extent to which the client was prepared to deny she was having difficulties dealing with the aftermath of the ordeal. She began to drink heavily to quell the panic of being alone in small or enclosed areas. Sleep was intermittent and unsatisfactory. It was several weeks before the internal injuries had healed enough for the client to feel ready for further sexual encounters. She was keen to get a move on as a means of proving she had not been affected by the rape. One evening, fuelled by vodka, she publicly and crudely propositioned a former lover. This led to a loud and violent confrontation with a potential partner of her former lover, an arrest by campus police and a referral to the drugs and alcohol abuse centre. For the eight weeks of the compulsory outpatient treatment, the client refused to engage with counsellors, vigorously refused medical help for the frequent and severe anxiety attacks (which the client felt she was able to pass off as anger) and completely denied there were any problems.

Uranus opposite the Moon can mean emotional isolation and possibly the fear of emotional encounters.  The client says that she held everyone at an arm’s length away. When she wasn’t drinking, she was studying for her university diploma in open, public areas. Eventually she realised she had completely closed down emotionally and upon graduation, moved to a different city for a fresh start. The physical distance from the scene of the crime meant she could live even further in denial.

The client was uncertain about what to do with her story for some time. She felt it was far too sensational for publication and was concerned about burdening friends and family with her own emotional baggage. Yet she now feels that living with such a secret has allowed her to avoid facing up to this life changing event and that this in turn continues to give power to her attacker. There remains a very strong inherent issue of control: the client feels that any sign of pity would “severely piss her off”, does not want what she disparagingly calls “professional help” from conventional practitioners and is fairly preoccupied with not wanting to be seen as a victim.

“I feel enough time has passed that I can cope with what happened to me. It’s all a part of my story and has made me who I am. I survived it and I have lived to tell the tale. But I’m just not sure telling other people the tale serves any useful purpose other than to be something mildly scintillating to read.”

 Nevertheless, she felt the time was right for the truth to finally set her free.

About the Astrologer

Alex Trenoweth was voted Best International Astrologer, 2015 for her dynamic presentation on Astrology and Education. Her book, "Growing Pains" is an exciting development in astrology as it combines classroom teaching experience, sound research and the potential to have a positive impact on struggling adolescents, parents, teachers and those who have been labelled "at risk". For queries, consultations or syndications, please contact Alex via www.alextrenoweth.com or leave a message in the comment section.   

Zeus on the Loose

Well as I've literally turned my life upside down, I thought it might be fun to do my Mercury retrograde thing and reflect on how I came to this decision. 

It's as simple as this:

I invoked Jupiter and when he appeared, I took his hand. I didn't ask questions, I didn't try to get him to commit to staying with me and I didn't fasten my seatbelt. I let him take me wherever he wanted and I didn't worry about looking silly, being afraid or not having enough of anything. I threw my head back and laughed at his jokes. I looked him in the eye and told him I loved him, that I was grateful for our adventure and before we  even recovered from one dare, I let him know I'd be up for it all over again. I don't have a grand plan (I realised this morning) and I'm not going to make demands. I'm just enjoying being with Jupiter and when he decides he's tired of me, I will let him go with grace.

I never asked Jupiter to take me to India or South Africa but he took me.

I never asked for the love and respect of wonderful friends but he brought them to me.

I sure as hell never had the cheek to ask him to get Rob Hand to ask me to sign my book for him. And yet he delivered these gifts--and so many others--to me.

One doesn't "handle" Jupiter. One dances and laughs to his drumbeat. And one takes the leap of faith.

So here I am, all antipodean like. Dancing and laughing with Jupiter. . .and I even jumped on a trampoline with him.

I'm in a great space now and I want to share Zeus with you. . .Skype me on AstroAlex1984. That's not a demand or request, it's an offering.