A Place to Land

This is my tropical natal chart by the way, in Placidus (left) and whole signs (right). I don’t stick to one house system for myself nor in my readings for other people. The system I use depends on the day, the time, my mood, what applies and what doesn’t. I think it’s important to be able to understand myself in different lights. It allows for more flow, and less stagnancy and stuckness in my personal development.

I came on here because I started this blog and haven’t posted since, but have been consistently called back to writing, and thus myself.

On July 2nd, 2022, I went back to my hometown of Stockton, CA to see my mom in person and pick up the stuff I left after leaving to go to college. I was nervous and just didn’t know what to expect as my mom and I have a history of getting into arguments when we’re in person. But I hadn’t seen my mom, nor gone to Stockton in 3 years, and this wave of softness and nostalgia washed over me as I drove down the highway and witnessed the heat of the clear blue skies and the seemingly endless waves of monocrops.

I was filled with so much emotion that day. So much love for my mom and the remembrance of a life that I once lived. I said to myself, of course, I am experiencing all this feeling that lies in the deep metaphysical dirt beneath my feet when the Sun was in Cancer transiting my 3rd house, Venus in Gemini transiting my 2nd house, the moon in Leo transiting my 4th house.

The sign of Cancer and the 4th house are tied to our home, our womb space, our mother/mothering/femnine energy, our early childhood, how we establish a sense of belonging, and where we feel unwillingly soft. The 3rd house is about the familiar, what is right next door, and our neighbors. Gemini is associated with this house as well, and is ruled by the planet of Mercury. I characterize the sign of Gemini as being in orbit like a comet. They travel around, whether it be physically in the world or in their mind for periods of time, picking up bits and pieces of information and knowledge. When they’re intuitively ready, they reappear to their loved ones and the surface of the world, coming back to those places in their orbit to exchange even more information. The 2nd house constitutes material things, our values, what we’ve come into this life with, what we accumulate and hold for ourselves as precious and valuable. Do you get what I’m putting down? I hope so. If not, email me.

I carefully scavenged through each box, and upon coming across a journal from 4th grade, I stopped and had to read it. Here’s a page I found particularly endearing.

There was a paper from 4th grade entitled “All About Me” with my picture glued to it and a fill in the blank template for my favorite things. Ya know, one of those assignments you create for the classroom so students can establish a sense of belonging and identity as part of a unit. Where it says “My favorite subject in school is,” I wrote ‘art.’ Looking closely, I had first written ‘writing’ but had erased it. I flipped through my book of vignettes from 9th grade and lifted the huge writing portfolio of every major essay and poem I wrote in high school, internally crying and laughing at how precious young J was. I was reminded of how much I LOVE WRITING AND ALWAYS HAVE. THE SENSATION NEVER LEFT; I JUST BURIED IT AND CONTINUE TO BURY IT AND BURY IT AND BURY IT. THE CORE OF WHO I AM HAS ALWAYS BEEN THERE.

I’ve spent a lot of time doubting myself as a writer in my 20s. I’ve been stuck in the feeling of 17 year old me who was given low scores on my on-demand essays in AP Language and Composition because I couldn’t assemble my thoughts quickly and coherently enough to satisfy the rubric. When I looked back at my writing from that time, I understand now that my teacher was just trying to give me more structure. That I have brilliant ideas and thoughts; I just need to learn how to organize them. And while I commend her effort and genuine interest in my creative development, I do believe that the context and standards of AP testing is extremely limiting and colonial. Literally who cares about the commands of the eNgLiSh lAnGuAge if you’re able to understand what I’m saying? Tf.

On top of that, with the way the world has been unfolding, and the veils being lifted, and as the sinistry of it all is left uncovered, I too feel like viewers and consumers are looking for what is wrong in my work, and I tend to do that to others without even realizing it (yes, I bes a hater at times. I blame white men). This is all happening inside of my head, and involves this sociology term I learned in the one and only SOC class I took in college, but it was the best class. The term is reflected appraisals, and it’s the premise that humans internalize what we think people are thinking of us, and not what they actually are thinking of us, and it’s the assumptions and biases and ideas we form around that that inform our actions. So in order to counteract that, I’ve stopped myself from expressing.

We all don’t need to communicate the same, nor does my brain work in a way that is always communicable via words and structured essays in under 60 minutes. And that is perfect. Had I been given that understanding and the compassion to guide me into embracing my own unique style, maybe I wouldn’t have beat myself up so hard for so long. Even as I type this, I realize that I have been putting myself in a bubble of how to run this blog when I enjoy exploring multiple avenues of communication. I think this facet also helps me understand how to navigate the many planetary aspects I have to my fixed Leo Mercury. It trines my Moon and Pluto in Sagittarius, sextile Venus in Gemini, squares Saturn in Taurus, Chiron in Scorpio, and Ascendant in Taurus, and opposes Uranus and Neptune in Aquarius and Midheaven in Capricorn.

There’s a lot going on and therefore a lot to push through, especially with my Mercury being fixed so it’s a lot easier for me to remain stuck in a unilateral way of thinking. Despite this, I think it’s very freeing to see this as opportunity to utilize the multiple ways of responding and speaking and communicating and presenting I have been endowed with. I have options, and they present themselves in various settings.

Not only is this an important lesson for me, but for you, as the reader, especially if you have a fixed Mercury or fixed placements (Taurus, Scorpio, Leo, Aquarius). There is more than one way to respond, and if we are stuck, we always have the ability to find another way to say what we need to say.

With that being said, expect different formats other than just writing on here like audio, video, visual, and more. Whatever I can think of. I’m excited.

Now let’s get back into the dreamy –

On my way home from Stockton, I listened to episode 45 of The Institute of Black Imagination. Podcast with Luvvie Ajayi Jones: The Professional Troublemaker [linked below]. It was what comes after the colon that intrigued me most because I indeed identify as a professional troublemaker. A smooth chaotic whirlwind in the face of professionalism if you will. Turns out, Luvvie Ajayi Jones is an author, podcast host, and speaker who began her journey writing on a blog, and has learned to remain centered in who she is. Curious about her chart. Spirit flew right through my body to make me choose this episode as a method of affirmation and inspiration right when I needed it. She said a lot, but what struck me the most was that after experiencing how writing “opened doors for her that she didn’t know existed,” she realized that “this is THE job for [her]. So stop trying to quit it.”

I’ve been trying to quit the job of writing and media creation for quite some time, and with myself in a year with Capricorn Ascendant in my solar return chart, I think now is a perfect time to learn how to fully commit, devote myself to myself and the work I’ve been assigned in this life. We all have a divine mission.

I came back to myself that day in Stockton, and I never want to let go again.

So please, I beg of those that need to, return to yourself. Return to what makes you you. It’s really corny and overdone to say “return to your inner child,” but it’s because it’s not about just doing what you remember you used to do, but actively finding the footprints and paging through the tangible items from those times so that you have a real life physical reference. You’ll really feel the presence. I promise.

In times like these it feels somewhat useless and miniscule to ask this of others, and from a nihilistic perspective, it is. However, I have decided to lean into hope, and understanding that the smallest of actions in our individual and communal healing lead to greater impact over time. Life is about a series of steps, and that looks different for everybody. Time is also a concept thrown into the air — so what may seem tiny and insignificant now may be the catalyst for something much bigger than you can fathom later.

Trust the process.

Citations

The Institute of Black Imagination.with host Dario Calmese and guest Luvvie Ajayi Jones. “E45. Luvvie Ajayi Jones: The Professional Troublemaker.” April 24th, 2022.