expectation vs. reality isn’t always a disappointment. sometimes it’s a surprise.
in retrospect, I waited longer than I should have to shift from sign-based horoscope writing to making more room for my actual writing flow and desires. writing horoscopes has built the foundation of my entire practice, and I understand that kind of shift does not come easily. but there’s something about the relationship between my hesitancy and scarcity that is clearest to me now that I have decided.
part of what made deciding on this change difficult, and why I continued beyond the point I knew my body was resisting, was real and imagined scarcity. I am not yet in a place where it’s comfortable to risk losing income, and I didn’t know how my beloved readers would respond. asking for energetic exchange in the form of money comes with responsibility.
it wasn’t even just about the money (that’s rarely high on my priority list, despite my ongoing need for it lol). it is about my work, my brightest contribution, and whether that would be considered a worthwhile investment to others. I was afraid.
I had the catastrophic version of the consequences of this decision that my nervous system and experience of poverty offered up. I also had the vision of my integrity and freedom being generative, and the evidence to back it up. I chose to move deeper into praxis of my values, and wow, people meet me there over and over again.
what actually happened after I announced the change to my monthly offering was an outpouring of support, connection, encouragement, and appreciation for my work. what actually happened was not a financial decrease, but financial increase. what actually happened was the energetic space for clarity around so many future offerings that have been incubating, and the space to consider other collaborative possibilities.
Uranus, accelerator of change and unpredictability, is clearly present here. Uranus is in taurus, so there’s also the ongoing conversation about real and imagined scarcity of resources that is more often about distribution of power than actual materials. this is collective, but it’s also personal. I redistributed my power into a decision that confronted my fears around scarcity (and loss, scorpio whispers). Saturn in aquarius is present here, too. not just because they are squaring Uranus so that from the tension new structures can emerge, but because I am also in my Saturn return.
when the Sun in scorpio squared Saturn the last weekend of October, my awareness increased around where I restrict, limit, and expect more from myself than is sustainable or realistic. I felt my ancient resentments around being seen, being underestimated, being perceived by my age and not my embodied wisdom, and being so intentional about how I show up while others are out here being reckless and irresponsible. (the Sun square Saturn is angsty lol.)
but I was able to ask myself: is that actually happening? is that my only experience? is that the reality I am forced to operate in? is that all I know?
the answer is unmistakable. no.
resentment is the solidification of anger. at times I haven’t been seen. I have been underestimated. I have not been taken seriously. I have experienced ageism. I have shown up in my integrity and been betrayed or disappointed by those claiming to do the same. I have chosen the straight and narrow and been the lonelier for it.
but the reality of those angsty moments is that I am angry at myself. for all the times I underestimate myself, for not taking myself seriously, for thinking I’m not old enough or wise enough to share my embodiment, for minimizing the power and influence of my integrity based on the actions of others. in those moments, I am grieving my own inability to recognize and honor myself.
the parts of myself I have sometimes resented in the past are the same parts of myself that have you reading these words, that created an astrological practice that is nearing a decade, that enable me to pivot, that have brought me to this moment in miraculous ways.
the more I embody my clearest desires, the more room I make to be seen in the ways that are meaningful to me. but most importantly, the more I embody my clearest desires, the more I prophecy a future for myself that is rooted in the integrity of my pleasure, not loyalty to my pain.