a year to become myself (again)

A double Aquarian puts her feet on the ground

She looked at my necklace. It’s like Carrie Bradshaw’s nameplate except, instead of my name, it says Aquarius.

“When is your birthday?” she asked me.

“Today,” I said.

For the second year in a row, Tracy paid for a reading for me. Last year, it was a session with my favorite Youtube psychic. This year, it was a tarot reading (for both of us) at a pop-up Valentine event.

Even though a year had gone by in-between, a full twelve months of living, I couldn’t help but notice that some of the things that came up this time, came up last time. The delivery was different, but the heart of the message was the same.

There is this thing I am meant to do. It is at the center of my heart. I crave to do it. Now is the time for me to eliminate distractions, stop spreading my attention too thin, stop wasting time, do the thing.

Now has been the time for a long time. Now is always the time.

I always enjoy my birthday and I don’t stress about getting older, but some years hit with more fanfare than others. Twenty-seven was excruciating, for instance. I remember lying on the floor and crying in despair. (I didn’t know then about the Saturn Return.)

Forty was sexy and fun.

Eighteen was a heady mixture of sunshine and self-doubt.

Last year had a little extra pizazz, because there was a fun name for it - Double Nickels. Whenever I said the phrase, double nickels, I saw a logo in my head - pink and red cowgirl boots with roses, a flashing neon sign.

There was no logo for this year, just a six where there once was a five. But I couldn’t ask for a more fitting birthday adventure than getting a couple’s tarot reading at a pop-up Valentine event at a vintage shop. When she put down Death in the upright I felt a zing of recognition.

The Death card signals that one major phase in your life is ending, and a new one is going to start. You just need to close one door, so the new one will open. The past needs to be placed behind you, so you can focus your energy on what is ahead of you.

This is the year I’m going to do the thing.

I thought I would do the thing thirty years ago, but I didn’t. I thought I would do the thing last year, but I didn’t. I did, however, lay the groundwork for doing the thing. Fifty-six is the year when I will quietly, steadily, shirk off bindings of the past and step into the realization of not only what I’m here to do, but what I want to do.

Astrology is a guide, a mirror, a poetic way to understand ourselves. It provides a map; it’s a language. When I said to the tarot reader, “I’m a double Aquarius,” she understood something about me.

When she asked, “What’s your rising?” And I said, “Capricorn,” we both said at the same time, “Some earth to ground all that air.”

Astrology offers a blueprint. My North Node in Aries in the 3rd House, My South Node in Libra in the 9th, Neptune trining my North Node, Mercury in Aquarius in the 1st House…the placements speak to me about me and my place in the world.

My chart points me toward the vocabulary I need in order to express the tension between my intellectual side and my intuitive, creative nature. This is my ongoing interior battle and seeing it in my chart helps me make sense of it.

If there is a reason I have not done the thing I crave to do, it can be found in this tension. I can see it in my birth chart and I can see it when I look back through the archives of the life I’ve lived so far.

Sifting through the shoeboxes of old photographs and mementos, scanning back through evidence I’ve uploaded, I can point to the times when I was living and expressing as my true self and the times when I was not, the times when I was in soul flow and the times when I was wearing a mask born from a yearning to please.

So, I have shifted into fifty-six and shaken myself lightly the way a cat shakes her paw dipped in water before continuing on her way, droplets glistening in the air around her.

These are tense and, in many ways, horrible times, and yet I feel an ease entering my body, or perhaps it’s my body entering ease. My heart is open and I’m comfortable with myself - all versions of her - in a way I have never been before. It’s a surprise turn of events, an ease that rose unexpectedly out of turmoil and defeat.

“Be careful not to take on too much,” the reader said. “Don’t spread yourself so thin.”

In last year’s reading it was as expressed like this, “You waste a lot of time.”

“Engage with the project,” she said, “the one you want to complete. When you do, clarity will come. You’ll see.”

I should feel discouraged by the fact that I’m still here, still dealing with these same issues, still receiving these messages of a year ago, but I don’t. I feel fine.

I’m willing to accept that what has looked like delay and blockage and failure was actually divine timing. I’m willing to click the heels of my pink boots together and go home to myself again. With my birth chart written on my heart, I’m willing now to do the thing - finish the manuscript - because it’s all I know to do and it’s what I’m here to do and I am here. On this planet, in this body, during these times of death and transition. I am here with a five and six and my feet on the ground and my head in the stars.

What more could I need to know?

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Birthdays mark time, but they also remind us that time is ours to shape. We are always becoming. And if you, like me, are drawn to the work of becoming—of exploring the self, the unseen, the strange and the sacred—you might love the space I’m creating in The Cosmic Cafe. Subscribe to join me in the cafe and read my spiritual memoir Cosmic Heart.