Newsletter 30th July
In my last newsletter I wrote about the latter stages of my Saturn Return and yesterday I wrote about rock bottom on Instagram. It got me thinking about learning to FEEL the rock bottom.
Saturn moved into Scorpio in October 2012 and it was November 2012 that I was left at rock bottom. I’ve been reading my old diaries after discussing them on my podcast recording with Tamara AKA Wolf Sister.
“I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want to think about it.” There was nothing to say - EVEN in my diary - that is most unlike me all I wanted to do was to go to yoga.
I remember knowing “I need to go to yoga” and off I went, over and over and over again. An inner knowing that the remedy I needed was yogic. Three or four times a week I trundled down to Fitness on Fire in Old Street with my trusty green mat and I rustily moved through some yoga in the hope that I’d get in the zone and perhaps have a 10 seconds break from thinking.
When I moved to Battersea (as discussed in my last newsletter) I walked past Union Station and joined a trial there. I had been dealing with bursitis in my right shoulder and had a steroid injection in May 2015, it was constantly painful so I had to be selective the yoga classes I attended (bad times!) Especially as yoga had been "keeping me sane" AKA "keeping me from going totally insane" for the past 3 years!!
At the end of a class in the August I walked out early due to shoulder aches and found two teachers in conversation. One of them asked if I was open minded (!) and suggested I read a book called “Healing Back Pain - The Mind Body Connection.”
Within a week of reading that book the pain I had endured for over a year went away. I strongly recommend that book for anyone with unexplained, persistent, body aches and pains.
Now that the pain had gone from my shoulder I could sign up to Union Station Yoga’s 30 Day Challenge and I began to practice yoga every single day. LIFE CHANGING MAGIC!
INCIDENTALLY a few weeks later I stumbled upon a talk with Skip Archimedes at Wilderness Festival and signed up for his free weekender in West London. Not my first coaching weekender, not my last, but on Saturday the 14th of September 2015 I attended that talk and became vegetarian on the spot. I still don’t know how it happened! (For most of 2015 Pluto was conjunct my natal Jupiter and my beliefs were being revolutionised.) It was an electric year and my health bloomed.
Saturn is in my 6th house so the discipline of daily yoga, vegetarianism and better sleep was the culmination of my Saturn Return in 2015. I didn’t read this in my chart at the time, my subconscious led me down that path, we live our astrology whether we read our charts or not!
I remember learning in yoga that it is a good idea to “throw a pity party” and be low when I felt low. The electricity of some of my older diaries was my optimism at all costs approach, manifested as anxiety and shoulder pain! (Suneet and I discussed this in our "Podcast yesterday.")
This behaviour was a function of my fiery and angular Sagittarius Sun dominating my life because my Moon in the 12th was tucked away and I didn’t know how to listen to her.
It was like flicking a switch. I remember Adrianna telling me that she had read that an emotion will only stay in your body for 60 seconds if you feel as soon as it arrives and that sounded like a good reason to be present and feel or as the #spiritual people say “show up.”
The GLORY of being rock bottom is that you are finally on firm ground, a decisive point where you have to take action, to find your footing and move on up. If Saturn is involved then it can be slow and obviously Saturn left Scorpio to complete my Saturn Return but he immediately moved to my descendent and Sun so the work continued, but this was my time to cut my teeth on astrology and eventually deliver the utter joy that means sitting here telling these stories forms part of my "work!"
Saturn’s transit through Sagittarius was when I read and read and read books, charts, people and put in the work that is blooming here and now with you. External relationships were blocked, severed, delayed; they were pruned. Giving me the time (Saturn) to define myself. Including traveling alone, building a business alone and going to several courses alone (all very Sagittarius things - Saturn adds the alone factor!)
Saturn eventually left Sagittarius and moved to Capricorn and within a month I had a new relationship!! Another lesson. Ha!
Saturn is currently transiting my Venus / MC and perhaps that is why I’m telling you all this. I could feel that I have some authority (Saturn) on relationships (Venus) or I am keen to learn about the rock bottom (Saturn) of our feelings (Venus). It’s another turning point that will become all the more clear in December after some eclipses and Saturn’s move into Aquarius.
AS I WAS TYPING THIS on Sunday morning, Pixie Lott was talking about Saturn on the telly! Her Saturn is bang on my Venus. Isn't it just WILD!?
Saturn times perfectly and let's wait to Christmas to see the new lessons he brings.
IF you would like to learn more astrology and are a quick learner with a hungry mind you might LOVE this course! I'm so excited to deliver it!
Talk to you soon,
Francesca xx