Author: fugitiveumbrellas

Do You Want Specialized Help? Hire an Astrologer!

astrology

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Lately, I’ve been getting odd complaints that my free articles aren’t gentle or encouraging enough, and that my work should be tailored to helping people feel good about themselves.

But if you want something tailored to you, to help you, what you actually need is an astrology reading or astrological analysis.

There’s a lot of stuff on the Internet on Western astrology, and some of it even comes from real astrologers. I’ve thought about creating a page of shame where I post links to bad or inaccurate articles on websites that largely kiss ass to get people to buy products but don’t even attempt to offer real astrological insight.

But generally speaking, astrology isn’t a New Age form of divination: it precedes, by thousands of years, the feel-good movement. Most of the classical texts are objective, fatalistic, and harsh. They would make many modern astrology fans roll into a fetal position and cry.

Considering that for much of the history of modern astrology, daring to practice or write about astrology was considered to be engaging in witchcraft which could get you killed, it could have been better for them if they had simply appealed to the egos of the people who could keep astrologers’ heads attached to their bodies. However, in the Middle Ages, when it was used for medicine, and before that, when it was used to predict the future, it was approached as a science. Astrology developed dispassionately; it’s really only been lately that it’s been a feel-good thing, and that’s weird, because the patterns of the seasons and the changes on Earth are dispassionate and don’t stop or start at someone else’s convenience.

Astrology becomes human centered when humans get involved and interact with each other. Aspects don’t know how to solve problems, and ruling planets have no idea what job you’d be good at in the 21st century. People, however, do.

So…if you want to see my nice side, hire me.

 

 

 

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Loneliness, Isolation, and Emotional Walls: Saturn in Aspect to the Moon or Ascendant

astrology

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One of the bittersweet things about astrology coming back into vogue is that it’s been seized by the more emotion-centered side of “woo”; that now, people that astrology is meant to make them feel good. I get complaints about another article I wrote on Saturn, chiefly because I’m not whipping out my tit and nursing my readers. Am I fearless warrior? Probably not, but I ain’t Captain Save-a-Ho either, and astrology isn’t necessarily for making people feel good about themselves. I never want to get myself involved in something that would require so much emotional labor, but it seems that this is demanded of astrologers now.

I will not do this. It’s just not the kind of astrologer I am in my own space, in my own voice. I try sometimes, but I just can’t mother other adults.

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All of Our Winter Holidays

astrology

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It’s Christmas day according to the Gregorian calendar, and I am taking part of the day off from work. I work a lot now – seven days a week – and probably will for a while now. Saturn is in my 10th house, leaving it’s long transit over my mid-heaven and now conjunct Venus. Incidentally, I’m also having my Venus return on Christmas Day.

Lately, I have been far more concerned with the state of my home, primarily in my ability to entertain. I do love to cook and cook for people, and I would like to host more, but this would mean making more meaningful social connections, and those take time, which I don’t have because I work so much. Perhaps 2018 will bring reprieve.

But moreover, my love affair with the winter season as gotten…hot. I love winter, and the older I get, the more I like it. Strange? I like wintery things. I like to cook. I like the fireplace, and I like the cold air. I like snow. I like being bundled up. I like the lack of bugs, the way people slow down, the way we focus on the important. I am in love with the thick, enveloping silence that falls even on Chicago streets as the snow falls, the heavy blankets on my bed that I share with someone I love, the heavy blanket of untouched snow on everything. I love eating soup and home-baked bread for dinner. I love the feeling of dry warmth from a fire place, the smell of fir trees, the feeling of snowflakes kissing my face when they fall from a lavender twilight sky.

I’ll miss winter when it’s gone. Sure: the last stand that is February will make me long for spring, and I haven’t had to deal with a Northeastern blizzard in years, but I like winter.

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We are celebrating Christmas in America now. We have just had Hanukkah, and the day after was the the winter solstice/Yule. Kwanzaa will begin tomorrow. Our horrible president is bragging on Twitter that Americans are saying “Merry Christmas” again, as if they ever stopped. They never did — the only place where anyone actually thought that was in the imagination of those who work for conservative media.

When I was a child in the Fingerlakes, there was no one to not say “Merry Christmas” to, as in, there was no one who wasn’t Christian or was adamant that they be told to have a good time in some other fashion. I suppose if you had told me then that there was a war on Christmas, I would believe it, but the supposed “war on Christmas” didn’t begin until I  had lived in New York and then Seoul; apparently, it still rages on while I live in Chicago, where there is no sign of war. This is surprising, because I keep hearing from people outside of Chicago that Chi-raq is a nightmare, and someday, my horrible liberal snowflake ass will get shot in a drive by or something.

But here’s a little secret to you, a Christmas gift: Chicago is only bad in the imagination of our president and his fan club. I live in the inner city. I’m a white woman living in a pre-dominately black and latino neighborhood, and you know what? It’s fine. Yes, a few block to the south or a few blocks to the west, it gets dicey, but that pretty much describes any neighborhood in Chicago, or any large city, for that matter. There are some pretty bad places on the South Side. There are some bad places on the West Side. There are some bad places on the North Side. There are no bad places on the East Side, so let us raise a glass. 😉

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Saturn has come home to roost in Capricorn, and I’m a little relieved. After Saturn transited into my 9th house, then over my Sun, then Neptune, then Midheaven, it’s finally letting go. It’s only conjunct Venus and squaring my Moon. At some point, I’m going to write an article about Saturn-Moon and Saturn-Venus contacts (alienation, loneliness), but I just haven’t had time recently, and when I sit down to write, I just don’t want to do anything but things like this. So I don’t blog much.

But what I have noticed so far is with the Sun, Venus, Saturn, and Pluto in Capricorn in my 10th house is that I really, really want to focus on home decor. Like, I’m really, really obsessed with it. I have a theory that Sagittarians don’t care about furniture much so long as not breakable, doesn’t require dusting, and is mainly just couches to crash on. However, at 38, I really want to have a house that reflects who I am: my taste, my personality. I’ve never had that. I have either lived in someone else’s home where I can’t control the atmosphere, or in a furnished apartment. When I was married the first time, my husband was such a control freak that he couldn’t deal with anything but the plainest decor or some shit his mother would pick out. During our divorce, I left most of it in the storage space when I moved, or I gave it away. None of the things in my marriage home – the furniture, the decor, the linens – ever felt as if they were mine, so why bother schlepping it around?

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This is one of the coldest winters in recent United States’ history. Though I’m no longer in the Northeast and thus no longer in danger of blizzards or horrid wind chills, I am still in the North, and I am still bracing for a cold New Year. I work from home, and I cook and clean when I don’t have to work. It’s like one prolonged holiday: away from the world, the house full of the smells of baking and cooking, a fireplace burning, the world moving by and me living with so much unstructured time, keeping warm and keeping fed.

There are twelve days of Christmas: the Epiphany is on January 6th, the day reserved to celebrate when the wise men appeared to the baby Jesus to worship him. Three (or more?) magi/astrologers followed a star that lead them to the king predicted to bring people out of their misery, and when they found a baby in a barn with a teenage mother, they kept faith and gave their gifts. Of course, the king would be a poor baby in a no-name town. What’s more Saturnian than that?

Saturn Transits in Sagittarius, or Why I Haven’t Updated This Blog in a Few Months

astrology, learning astrology, natal astrology, saturn, transits

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Saturn is the silver linings planet, and I will always be kinder to Saturn in that sense, because I have a lot of Saturn influence in my chart. Not such a bad thing, though. People who don’t have a lot of Saturn influence in their charts tend to just coast through life unto death, meaning nothing, doing nothing, being nothing.

It’s not bad to have your mettle tested.

Saturn does three things: tests, gives consolation prizes, and boomerangs back. It is a planet of karma. And when I write that it gives consolation prizes, I don’t mean that these are second-rate or gag gifts. Sometimes — perhaps much of the time — they’re way better than what you thought you wanted. And the boomerang doesn’t always come back to you. Either you catch, or it hits you, or it hits someone else.

My winter break from school is almost over. Wasn’t much of a break, even though I didn’t have to go to classes. My partner is now temporarily disabled, so in mid-November, around the time Saturn started passing over my natal Neptune and chart ruler, I found out, quite suddenly, that in order to make ends meet that month and the next, I had to find another $2000 out of nowhere in four weeks, legally and ethically.

I got the money, legally and ethically. No loans, no family, no gifts. Just hustling and working, on top of trying to finish law school for the semester. Yes, I was exhausted. Yes, I was resentful. I had so many plans for this break — finish my book, redo my website, start another side business, catching up on Game of Thrones — and instead, I was simply trying to keep a roof over our heads, the bills paid, and food on the table. Of course, this is how most of America lives, and I knew there was an end in sight, even if it didn’t feel that way.

And now I feel guilty for taking it easy just before law school. Of course, looking back, I didn’t have the funds to do the things I wanted even if I had the time, so I just chilled and hoped nothing would happen in the future. In my partner is the grasshopper, and I am the ant.  Perhaps next semester will be the time to really put something of my own out there. Right now, I work for five different entrepreneurs while trying to find inspiration to do my own thing.

And yes, I am still in law school, but my hopes and dreams are a secret. No one in law school need know what I have up my sleeve, as if they would care.

Outside of law school, I’m a 37 year old woman with experience, insight, and capabilities. In law school, I’m treated like a precocious child. I’m claustrophobic, and there is nowhere to relax at our school. I need my breaks from law school because not being in law school helps me be who I am and remember what is actually important. Yes, law school is important, but it is not fortifying for the soul, and that is what I need to carve out time for, because I am lucky enough to not be K-JD and really know what it is like to have an identity forged from something other than college and law school.

But I learned something. I learned that when called to action, I can do what I have to do to make things happen. I can take on a lot, and when things need to get done, I can do it all by myself. I can also wait if I have to do it. I can do it sober. I can do it from start to finish. I can do it again if I must.

Now, I’m just waiting for the boomerang to come around so I can catch it.

What so many seem to miss about Saturn transits: what you learn, if you try, is what you can do all by yourself, and what bricks it can become and what mortar to you can make to fix them together. No one need remind you that you are powerful if you can prove it.

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I am Mars in Virgo: Narrative 3

astrology, just for fun, learning astrology, mars, natal astrology, natal chart, special issues in astrology

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This is the third installment of astrological narratives to illustrate certain astrological aspects.

I hate being reminded of my roots.

Why do I hate this? It is not embarrassment. It is pity, mixed with anger: there is nothing wrong or bad about understanding how the physical world works or mundane things, and there is nothing wrong or bad about being a man or woman who works with objects and uses his or her hands to make the structures we take for granted.

I had jury duty today in my trial practice class, and I was actually looking forward to it, because it was a breach of contract case concerning construction. Finally! Something related to my interests! I have taken architectural drafting and design. I was at the top of my class. My grandfather was a carpenter and my father is a facilities engineer. This is in my blood. I love making things. I like drafting. I know what they’re talking about when they’re talking about building structures. This is math and engineering. I get this!

But not once during the trial did either side actually show us the blueprints. I drew them for myself, based on what went on at trial, and I knew, based on what was said, that the plaintiff did not present sound and complete plans to the defendant.

And by the time we went into jury deliberations, no one cared about the actual facts. We finally got a copy of the actual blueprints, and they were amateur. The fact was that the contractor who drew up the blue prints had no idea how to draft correctly so his blueprints should not have been taken seriously. First: the walls in his blueprint had absolutely no support structure, even though by the time he met with the defendant, his frame was up.. Loadbearing or not, you simply cannot put up a wall that is nothing more that two layers of gypsum plasterboard sandwiches 6 inches of insulation. The wall will not stand, and your ceilings will collapse.  Duh.

Granted, class was running late and everyone wanted to leave and drink their sorrows away, but I didn’t think that was fair. After all, I had to sit through the same three hours of trial that they did and I felt it was only fair that I also get a say, although I am obviously the only one who has any background on the actual facts.

And two hours later, I am still annoyed at this. I can have an annoyance flare up at the drop of a hat.

The thing is, I am very good at putting little pieces together to create a whole. I understand objects, processes, and methods. I also believe that the physical world is still important even if I am in law school.

I have been shown, repeatedly, that people with spatial skills are a rare breed in law school. The good news is that, in reality, jury pools include people with spatial skills, and I know their language better than the average lawyer.

I took the ASVAB when I was 19 and thought I wanted to go into the military. I scored a 97 out of 99; I had a perfect score on the spatial tests. They wanted to put me in engineering. It was the first time I ever thought of something like that. Sure: I came from that background, but I also was into writing and art at the time. Of course, there was no MOS for artists per se in the Marines. It would be another ten years before I would consider engineering to be of interest to me.

I am McGuyver in my own life. I fix things all the time. Even though I have lived in apartments most of my adult life, I fix my own stuff. First, there is no telling who the hell they will send to your house. Second, you will be overcharged. Third, I can do it quickly myself. Fourth, I like the challenge of fixing my own HVAC system. Of course, I am still getting used to the idea that not everyone handles physical reality the same way I do.

My boyfriend likes to wax the floor. Unfortunately, he doesn’t clean the floor well enough before he waxes it, so before we move, I have to figure out how to sand down all the wax and lift all the stains now sealed into the floor.

He hates it when I diagnose myself and treat my own illnesses. I am probably the only non-Indian person who thinks that the best treatment for a sinus infection is curry. I am probably the only person outside of Korea who is certain that kimchi cures an acne flare-up.

I made my own kimchi when I was in Korea and I made it in the dead of winter. The ondol flooring was perfect for this: soak your cabbage in salt water, leave it on the floor, and let the floor warm it up. Then, make the kimchi and put it in your laundry room where the temperature is always about 50 degrees. I also used to make my own yogurt. The easiest thing to do is to cook the yogurt, wrap the pot in all your blankets, coats, and sweaters, and put it in the washing machine and leave it there to incubation. Perfection each time.

The ends justify the means. How is this weird?

There is nothing I cannot make or fix if I can find the tools or time, and even if I had a lot of money, I would still do this because there is nothing that makes me feel more focused and worthwhile than working with my hands.

Unfortunately, I don’t get to do this much anymore. I used to cook all my food, bake my own bread, even make my own cosmetics. I used to mend all my clothes. Now, I’m lucky if I get a chance to make anything by scratch. I haven’t touched a pottery wheel in four years, and how I miss it!

Which reminds me that I have to make pizza dough tonight, because there is not a single restaurant in Chicago that knows how to make a proper pizza, let alone a proper New York pizza, so once again: I have to do this myself.

 

 

 

 

I am Pisces Rising: Narrative 2

ascendant, astrologer, astrology, astrology lesson, beginner, just for fun, learning astrology, zodiac

soap-bubble-824558_1920Today I had a grilled cheese and jam sandwich for lunch and I sat down at a table outside the Daley Center. An older gentleman sat at my table. I have never met him before, but he seemed so kind and gentle; I probably invited him to sit down with my stare. That happens a lot.

This is why I like arriving to work early when I can, and why I like having no where to be at particular moments. The magic of being alive.

And I mean that he was genuinely kind and gentle, because that is the vibe he gave.

He had acromegaly and periodontal disease, but also the gentlest blue eyes. Some people are so beautiful in their being that it is a shame they must be encased in bodies.

He made chitchat, but I was about to head off to work. I felt bad walking away, but I genuinely had to go. I can tell when someone is good. Or when they are not. Or when they are hurting. It used to be that I wouldn’t trust myself, because other people only seem to see people with their eyes and hear them with their ears.

People like that just float to me, it seems. As do children, as do dogs and cats. People just either expect me to be gentle, or they think I’m a ghost. Or maybe they think I am a dog or a cat, or a child, or least something like a pet.

And sometimes, people are confused when they get to know me. No one knows my true motivation. Not even me.

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I am Sagittarius Sun: Narrative 1

astrologer, astrology, astrology lesson, horoscope, learning astrology, natal astrology, zodiac

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This is the first in an experiment to make astrology understood through narrative.

I hated school, but I loved college. I have been to five now, and now, in my mid-thirties, I am in graduate school studying to be a lawyer. I have studied literature, fine art, writing, ceramics, acting, psychology, math, and engineering. I like it all. I have only now ever committed to one, and largely because it allows me to read, to change rules, and to study a vast majority of things.

Even though this is my newest incarnation, I am still very much the same in some respects: I hate law school. I hate being in the same class with the same people every day. I hate the cultural homogeneity. I hate sitting in a room with people hiding behind their laptops, with one person telling us rule after rule after rule, with the expectation that we would simply absorb it without experiencing it. I hate the feeling that I am trapped. I hate schedules. I hate attendance requirements. I hate the sacred cows.

It is my fault, in a way: I chose perhaps the most culturally suburbanite law school in Chicago. Most of my classmates are white and middle class, many of them are K-JD, meaning that they haven’t taken a significant break between college and law school to do anything meaningful or interesting. Sure, many of them have been clerks or paralegals, but few have just done something to indulge curiosity. I fear that perhaps they have none, because they certainly hate hearing different points of view in class. I may be harsh; I am prone to thinking people are either this or that. But to fall in line, to sit silently behind a laptop in class all day, shopping and gossiping about people who are different from me: is this what a Jesuit education actually means, to be afraid to live?

I said on my essay that I was raised Catholic. This is true. I was raised by an atheist and a person addicted to religion, and Catholicism was her spirit of choice. I have had a long road shedding the religion of origin; I always thought that if I were born a man, I would have become a priest. And then later defrocked for heresy or sex or hopefully both, but I would have gone to the seminary. I have finally shed the vestiges of the old religion. I have tried on others — so many others — and now, I am a church unto myself, a walking church, and this is the right thing to do. Every religious idea I have, whenever I have it, is the right thing to do or think.

I vaguely knew what I was jumping into when I first moved to Chicago, believing this to be the true American City. It is segregated. It is rife with suburbs. It is rife with alderman who run their neighborhoods like fiefdoms. But is is the center of trade for much of the country, the urban dead-center of it all, and so…American. So sickly American. So tragically American. So wonderfully American.

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Trying Something New: Astrology Through Narrative

astrology, astrology lesson, just for fun, special issues in astrology

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In a way, inspired by Fernanda, I’m going to try something new: I am going to teach astrology through memoir. First, my second year of law school is turning out to be a motherfucker of a year, and like most motherfuckers, it is an infuriating and exhilarating mix of stress, excitement, joy, and feeling inadequate. I am on a journal. I am taking a full course load. I am a law clerk for a nice, small law firm that covers everything and is run by partners who are not in law for the money. I have some side gigs, too. I have some nice personal developments. I am, however, short on time and discipline to indulge my creativity or do any writing, much less comedy, which I miss terribly. I am short on funds as a student, and from growing up poor, I knew that I could make up for that by giving up time, but I don’t have that either. I will not be baking my own bread or making my own soap any time soon.

Second, astrology is experienced by people, and it reflects experience. Of course, not everything that happens in one’s life is a pure expression of any astrological aspect or circumstance, but sometimes, some stories just seem to crystallize what I want to say, and could better convey the lesson than what I would normally write.

So I am going to try to illustrate astrology through memoir, and when I get comfortable, through fiction. While it can be difficult to write about a person in just one dimension, I think it is possible to create a story to illustrate one facet of their overall make up.

 

 

Insane Little Ways to Discover a Person’s Sun Sign

astrologer, astrology, astrology lesson, beginner, horoscope, just for fun, learning astrology

I usually don’t do gimmicky astrology on my site. The truth is that I’ve become more fond of it in my old age because I like the little ways that astrology applies. Yes, you can buy gifts by a person’s Venus sign, or make a person a superb dinner based on their Moon sign. Call me a Sagittarius, but I think that there is no point in studying anything if you must take it seriously all the time…much to my law professors’ collective chagrin.

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This is pretty much what I did in 1L.

 

But if you think about it, most astrologers are first introduced to the art through newspaper horoscopes and lighthearted articles. I think perhaps the best thing astrologers can do is to write well no matter what they write, because in the end, I’m really tired of looking at my Facebook feed and seeing pictures that list Capricorn as a hot and sensuous lover.

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Eight Reasons Why You Should Get Over Finding Your Soul Mate

astrology, not astrology, relationship astrology, synastry, transits

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The South Node is transiting my ascendant. When this transit occurs, one of the things that happens is that people from your past or whom you already know seek you out, and they can often be of great help, since this transit can be a struggle to move forward and not rely on old habits and ways of being.

You may also meet people from your past whom you haven’t actually met yet.

I think I met another soul mate recently. Wonder and awkward, as these things are. Actually, as a working astrologer, I notice that clients who come to me out of the blue have some sort of karmic connection to me, whether we knew each other in a past life, or were fated to become acquainted in this one. If someone asks me if they will ever meet their soul mate, I refrain from saying that they just did, though I know that this isn’t what they mean.

Well, you could do worse.

So, chances are, if you are here, and if you want astrology services, we are soul mates.

The problem with soul mates, fundamentally, is that they’re still people, and so are you. And you won’t get to fuck every soul mate you have. That is physically impossible — because there is no time, and even still, there are some you simply don’t want to be intimate with like that, like with say, siblings. You may not even want to be around soul mates because finished business should be left finished.

The problem with soul mates, for many, is that we tend to confuse meeting our soul mates with romance, because the feelings are similar enough, and we may be scared to meet soul mates because we don’t want to create a romantic connection. Thus, we think of people we are karmically connected to as romantic partners from the distant past. Many rely on a worn out idea that a soul mate is a dream lover whom we incarnate to find over and over again, fall in love with in a blaze of glory until we die and do the same damned thing again, because we always think that attraction must mean sexual attraction, or that all attraction ultimately express itself or culminate in sexual attraction.

Get over it. Hollywood lied to you.

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