"It Smells Like Astrology In Here."
says my son as he walked into the Astrology Shop in London
We were walking through the Theatre District in London last fall and I had a pin on my maps guiding us to this place. I saw the dark front of the shop and crossed Neal St with my son’s hand in mine. We were jet lagged from a red eye from New York and had already walked for ten hours+ around the city. It was our only full day here before taking the train up to
‘s shire the next morning. I wanted to at least step foot in the store as I’d seen pictures of it from other astrology fans. As soon as we walked through the threshold, my ten year old says“It smells like astrology in here.”
I beamed and laughed at the honesty, humor and deep truth that he spoke. He holds a 3rd House Libra Mercury in his nativity as a poetic badge of communication that is constantly entertaining to his parents. He has always shouted out observant one liners (most parents have a list of these out-of-the-mouths-of-babes) but this particular one hit deep, personally.
.
There’s a way that I practice astrology. It is a practice, a ritual, a rite, an honor. It isn’t just theory & airy words spoken aloud or written in a digital machine. Astrology is a real thing for me. Maybe it is a personal preference for the Moon and the embodiment that I learn from it. The Moon is a real thing and its affects are tangible. We often feel the Moon, her phases and affects, in our own bodies (whether we recognize it in the moment or not). My son taught me this through his own chart. He has an Aries Moon and Jupiter in Cancer and when the Moon would come home to Cancer, his body would react. 1) The moon was squaring his own but also 2) the moon would be in his 12H copresent with his natal Jupiter, both amplifying the square and 3) The additional square to his Mercury meant that he communicated tf out of his monthly discomfort. He would complain and loudly about this bodily discomfort right on cue with the moon in Cancer. It took time for me to even share this observation with my husband but eventually I did. I wanted to add to the observation and he was surprised to see the rhythm.
The Moon keeps the score.
I use this as an example to reflect that we embody our chart, for better or worse, and we can also integrate sensual connection to astrology through earthly materia. By only connecting with astrology in an intellectual space, we miss out on so much knowing if we don’t learn to connect to other organ systems in the body. Simply put: make astrology smell. have texture. carry melodies. share with others in a communal space.
Within the Christian faith, the sect that my family practiced was the most austere and lacking of anything smelly. It was white church, white walls, taupe chairs and zero art. It was a Calvinist Presbyterian church where we met three times a week (twice on Sundays and on Wednesdays) where the people were quiet, gentle and (mostly) kind. It was also devoid of spirit. My early memories of the building were my own finger. I was very young and when they poured the concrete for the front steps, they used my finger to carve “1984” into the wet cement marking the ceremonial opening of the building. I remember the charred trees surrounding the church due to an arsonist who burned the woods down while my parents were building it. I remember collecting the plastic communion cups off the floor under the chairs after monthly communion service. I’d take these home to build ice castles for my Strawberry Shortcake dolls. I was punished in Sunday School because I prayed to the Care Bears. Turning over logs in the charred woods to find hognose snakes and clipping brilliant blue hydrangeas were vivid, colorful memories that I still hold. The sensual connection to the woods surrounding the church, as the plants grew back out of ashes, is what I hold on to. What I resented was the hypocrisy that I witnessed, the cruel behavior of the church leaders and church ladies, the pettiness, the judgement, the lack of compassion…I held on to that for a long while. The way that they treated my mom when my sister rebelled, the way they talked about Catholics (yes, Catholics) and their silly rituals, it drew me towards the more ritualistic churches. Their bitter austerity drew me to the undulating incense and warm pipe organ sounds of other religions, other sects and lured me to braid my snakes+flowers with the Sacred.
The Sacred should smell. It does smell. It will smell.
Last night, I took a new moon bath with rose petals and I let the water dry onto my skin. I wanted to keep the sacred rose smell on my skin. I burned an herb bundle and blessed the corners of the home and the altars to purify the space but also to catch any spirit barnacles that were trying to hold on. You can see in the smoke, you know. Meditation with a beeswax, hand rolled candle watching the flame flicker is worth a thousand boring church services. It took me a long while to appreciate the lesson from my church, the one I was born into and it’s been a life journey to braid the embodied knowledge from many sacred practices into a daily rite. Having a son, being able to raise a child, has been a million blessings hand rolled into a flickering light of truth that makes me laugh, tells me deep truths and holds my hand crossing new paths. Into the smelly stores, we go.