The Self-Honoring Nature Of Rest
why the astrological season before your birthday is downtime for you
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Last week ended an eight-month period of high activity for me; I finished writing and then submitted a book proposal to several publishers. All the goals I’d been pursuing since last October have officially culminated! Wow! Now what happens? Waiting?, asks a friend. Exactamundo. Yes to waiting.
Also yes to: recovering, rehabilitating, resting. My mouse wrist has a strained muscle from too many “select all” commands which extends up my shoulder. My body feels swathed in cotton and as though there’s an extra layer of tired between me and the world. The daily energetic effort and structure this goal required, while totally in alignment with me, is not typical for me. Unlike working under a deadline (my own), a current typical day moves around what feels right to follow -testimony to how I’ve been living in intuitive flow!
Note: I’m not complaining about any of this. I’m feeling incredibly blessed.
All is truly occurring in Divine Timing and Divine Orchestration for me. I am also noting it is Gemini Sun season. Gemini is the zodiac sign that occurs the month before my Cancer birthday (on June 24)- and every year at this time, I’m typically feeling: A little foggy. A little lazy. Brain-mushy. Wrung out.
But here’s what I will complain about: How many years it took to give myself permission to honor my unique energetic ups and downs!!!!
Whereas Reality’s Rules (Often) Do Not Honor Your Authentic Needs…
When I was in school, I could never get with the clock. My body didn’t want to awaken till late morning. Since there were rules requiring I show up, I learned to abide. In so doing I also learned to override my True Nature. My female body’s menstrual cycle that required way more rest than society permits was something to override, too. Lots of physical/emotional overrides occurred during my teen years. My sensitive body took many hits.
A few things helped me to learn to finally honor myself - and my greater need for rest and moving at a slower, more reflective, gentler pace. First, my body broke down when I was young. It wouldn’t “go, go, go” at the pace of the world! That was formative, as you might imagine. When you are taken out of life - at likely the most intense time for belonging, fitting-in, and doing “what everyone else” is doing- you begin a journey that few people will ever make.
My differences set me apart in ways that I cannot ever satisfactorily put down into words. My unique journey used to be a burden I couldn’t escape. Yet, as Maya Angelou once said, “I wouldn’t take nothing for my journey now.”
Another thing happened, too. Astrology found me. And I found something to validate my unique design at a time when I needed that mirror. Not only did I finally see, on paper, that my journey was (and is) very different…I was also able to validate my inner knowing that there are cycles unique to each of us.
…Astrology (Typically) Validates And Honors Your Whole Experience.
Early in my astrological studies, I observed that I felt certain ways in certain astrological seasons. I digress. Let me first talk about the way I learned astrology, which was through my own observation and felt-experience. I recall sitting at my desk job and being aware of the exact moment the moon entered a sign, phase, or aspect (my Pocket Astrologer calendar went everywhere with me). Like clockwork, something around me would mirror the transit. Moon would enter Aries and I’d hear sirens. Moon would enter Leo and someone would invite me to a party. Moon would square Mercury and there’d be a head (Mercury) vs. heart (Moon) conversation. Stuff like that.
((I don’t know if the seamless magic would occur this way today. Not just because I live by a nursing home so ambulances are a reality for a natal Aries Moon! I feel the principle of synchronicity was at work back then. I was ready to learn astrology, so my guardians, teachers and magic-loving Soul obliged. As Carl Jung, and author Julia Cameron, would say: My inner world was ready to come alive as outer reality. This was how I learned astrology so well.))
Regarding my personal cycles, because I knew/know my chart like the back of my own hand, I also knew/know what was shifting for me at any given period of time. The Sun shifting into my ninth house, for instance, would feel like a breath of fresh air after a month spent in the eighth. Venus, about to cross over my Ascendant, would feel like I’d arrived: I was Venus… I’d feel beautiful, graceful, attractive, and comfortably in my element. Mars entering a cardinal sign still signals major discomfort in my life, today. I feel all of this because I easily perceive life through feeling. I feel into the full and new moons; I feel the transitions of planets onto the house cusps. I feel it all.
Eventually, I applied this feeling-knowledge to writing Sun-sign astrology reports, forecasts and horoscopes. I wrote for the now defunct websites of astrologydotcom, astrocenterdotcom, as well as a syndicated newspaper astrology column. Yes, I wrote newspaper horoscopes. Perhaps (?) I am one of the only astrologers left who feels that general Sun sign astrology actually “works”; I cannot say exactly why, but my lived experience says it does.
The Zodiacal Month Before Your Birthday May Feel Wonky & Off-Center
Which brings me to the topic of this moment: Why the astrological season prior to your birthday is best suited for a few specific things and not others.
For years, I noticed that when Gemini season (the end of May) rolled in, I was often run down and unmotivated. I also noticed that when I pushed through this feeling I got sick or things went sideways. Why was this? Ah, Gemini is the (solar) twelfth house of Cancer Sun born. In astrology, the twelfth house is associated with the cycle’s end. Honor your need for release, solitude, inwardness, inner listening and you will likely avoid the bite-you-in-the-butt reputation of this “house of self-undoing” aka you don’t listen to yourself.
When I used to delineate solar return charts (charts that track the themes occurring during your birthday year), I recall astrologer James Eshelman said the month before your birthday was “the end of the year mop up.” Or, a time where everything from the previous year must… resolve, play out, be let go of, and be fully released… because a whole new way of being begins on your birthday. I like the mop up phrase. It implies clearing, cleaning, finishing up.
Once I took a trip to Santiago, Chile during my twelfth house mop-up season. Sure, I thought, why not travel to a foreign country just because my husband wants me to go with him… when I REALLY feel like cancelling this and all overseas trips because I no longer want to travel! Well, that bit me in the a**. I was exhausted. I got really, really sick. I didn’t enjoy myself at all.
Yet I learned much about listening to my intuition and being in alignment with myself. In fact, that birthday year I’d been awakening to all the ways I was continually betraying myself in order to not disappoint others. I’d been working on trusting my self-ish feelings and my intuition as my truest North. I went off the rails during my twelfth house season. I suffered for it.
That’s how the twelfth house season can go if you don’t honor the mop-up quality of it — the integration of learning and clearing that wants to occur.
((No, I don’t follow or believe in astrology. I live the astrology.))
Did you know the month prior to your birthday ->which will begin a new cycle of solar, or Ego, activity for you… is best used for rest, integration, and letting go of the past year? It is NOT a time suited to new beginnings. Your Sun, your solar battery, will recharge soon but at this time it is at its dimmest.
Honor Your Unique Nature By Reflecting On Your Seasonality
It may sound simple to honor your own inner nature but simple is by no means easy. We are conditioned out of this from an early age. In a world where productivity and ambition are worshipped like they are holy objects, breaking away from the status quo is so difficult to do. Honor your own unique need for rest and retreat? Take time away from daily obligations, roles, relationship, and clock punching to listen to what it is you most need and want? Ha! Honestly, as I said in my last book, in a world that doesn’t value inwardness- it takes nothing short of a revolution to claim what you need.
Nonetheless: awareness = power. I invite you to reflect on the times of year when you don’t feel your best; when you need more rest, feel uncertain, anxious, hazy, unmotivated and are perhaps vulnerable to unwise choices???
Chances are, one of those periods is around the zodiacal month prior to your birthday. This is one of the easiest astro-cycles to spot and feel into.
The seasonal month prior to your birthday is: Aries for Taurus born; Taurus for Gemini born; Gemini for Cancers; Cancer for Leos; Leo for Virgos; Virgo for Libras; Libra for Scorpios; Scorpio for Sagittarius; Sagittarius for Capricorns; Capricorn for Aquarians; Aquarius for Pisces; Pisces for Aries born)… and a twelfth house period of time. You can certainly look up the exact date your twelfth house zodiac season begins, but since the Sun shifts signs around days 19-23 of each month it’s easy to intuitively feel into these periods.
Things to do and not do during your solar twelfth house season:
o Do get more rest. Schedule in rest. Do less.
o Do plan on doing much less. Did I say that already? LOL
o You may feel frustrated about things not happening quickly enough, or have the feeling that nothing is going to plan. Work on Trust. Have Faith.
o Uncertainty about the future, wheel-spinning, are common feelings. Don’t give into fear. Just because you can’t see it yet doesn’t mean it’s not coming.
o Do become aware of your unconscious or conditioned habits, including NOT wanting to slow down. This is NOT the time to “be more productive”.
o Do spend time in Nature, one of the most satisfying things you can do now.
o Develop your intuition, Spirit channel, open to receive inner messages. Do give your energy to anything related to spiritual practice.
o You may find it hard to focus. Allow that “swiss cheese for brains” feeling to lead you to explore things you might’ve not otherwise explored. For instance, you may find you are walking, playing with art, listening to music more simply because you don’t want to do anything else. These synchronicities can be Soul-satisfying, so you look forward to this time of year.
Intuitively, this is also what I’ve found to be 100% true at this time of year:
o Listen to your YES. I find it’s extra extra important to be in self-alignment during this time. This means listening inward for my own joy and enthusiasm and only pursuing activities that are a full-on YES. I don’t follow my meh or lukewarm urges, as I don’t have the life force and resilience to bounce back from doing meh or lukewarm things. If I have a thimble full of life force now (as is often the case), why give it to anything less than a YESSSSSS!?
o Listen to your NO. Equally, if there’s a hard NO to any invitation or person I must heed it. My NO is a boundary. It alerts me to what will drain my energy, guaranteed, if I proceed in that direction: I will get sick, or I will absorb yuck external energy (as an empath/energy sensitive, this is a reality).
o Be Much More Inward. Much. More. Inward. I cannot emphasize this enough. Inwardness is a quality of turning your psychic antennae away from the world and onto yourself. For me this often looks like less time on social media, less time with people, and much more solitude, time with pets, gardening, and reading. Inward is not an activity but an energetic orientation. You can do the above and be “outward” or “inward” BUT if you’re playing with your cat, it’s highly unlikely your antennae are on anything else! lol. You simply need more time to process, integrate. As I’ve said, this is a value the world does NOT reward but your vitality and creativity will thank you for it.
o Listen inward, generally. There is a rich inner world available to you during any twelfth house time. Heightened experiences of flow, intuition, knowing, guidance can easily surface when you -the observer and witness- are finally present to and aware of the experiences that are always occurring. BUT, if you are too tired, you cannot spiritual bypass yourself out of fatigue. You may need to veg out if that’s your current baseline. Go with what you need.
P.S.: If you feel like the above applies to you ALL OF THE TIME, FOR ALL THE DAYS OF YOUR LIFE… you may be a twelfth house person! It happens.
Reader,
What’s your experience with seasonal cycles?
Are there times of year when you feel OFF? Or: ON?
Do you feel that you could better honor and protect your uniquely different and/or sensitive nature… and your need for rest?
Did you resonate with any aspects of this article?
If so, I would love it if you hit the HEART button and shared with a friend.
Great insight!
so correct ! I synchronize physically and energetic very much with each timing of the houses of my chart