You Were Born for This

by Chani Nicholas

  Now it is time to choose your own adventure. Look back at the list of aspects to your Moon that you wrote down here and read the sections that apply. Then skip ahead to the reflection questions at the end of this chapter.

  Gifts

  SEXTILES

  The sextile is a 60-degree angle that is friendly and mild but helpful and encouraging. A sextile from any planet to your Moon will be beneficial, even if subtle.

  A sextile from your Moon to . . .

  Sun tells us that there is mutual support between the two lights in your chart, and your life’s purpose gets unpacked and lived out in a more harmonious way.

  Mercury lends a connectivity to your communications, making you naturally perceptive and relatable. A parent or caregiver may have had these same traits.

  Venus lends a sweetness and an ability to form bonds that can be of great assistance to you. Venus can also help to beautify your body and home. A parent may have been beautiful and handed down their charm or artistic talent to you.

  Mars lends courage and drive to the way you live out your life. A parent or caregiver may have been a role model for a positive kind of protection.

  Jupiter lends you a sense of abundance and faith in the way life unfolds, helping you to create and enjoy material and emotional comforts. A parent or caregiver may have been especially buoyant, optimistic, or spiritual.

  Saturn creates an aptitude for structure, stability, and discipline to be incorporated in your daily life in ways that feel supportive to your material and emotional well-being. A parent or caregiver may have been good at being a fair authority figure.

  Uranus lends innovative insights, a need to shake things up, and a quirky sensibility. With this aspect you might need your days to be diverse, exciting, and always changing. A parent or caregiver may have been eccentric or unusual in a way that was inspiring.

  Neptune lends you a vivid imagination and a need to experience emotional closeness. This aspect can heighten your intuition and ability to connect with a wide variety of folks. A parent or caregiver may have been creative or ideal in some way.

  Pluto lends you emotional depth, a desire to have cathartic experiences or relate to people in ways that feel transformative. A parent may have been powerful or influential.

  TRINES

  Harmonious and helpful, trines (a 120-degree angle) to the Moon will assist it in ways that support your emotional and physical needs with greater ease. The trine is stronger than the sextile and therefore brings more powerful blessings.

  A trine from your Moon to . . .

  Sun creates reciprocity between your life’s purpose and your way of living it out.

  Mercury creates a talent for connecting with people in an emotional way. A parent or caregiver may have been a good communicator or able to express emotions well.

  Venus is exceptionally helpful and lends a lot of beauty, likability, charm, and ease to the Moon, helping it to live out life with great style and grace. A parent or caregiver may have been, or may be, attractive, accommodating to others, or at ease in social settings, garnering attention and admiration.

  Mars helps you to feel comfortable in a leadership role, taking initiative, going your own way, and supplying yourself with what you need. A parent or caregiver may have been independent, inspiring you to be so as well.

  Jupiter is incredibly helpful and lends your Moon a special protection, abundance, optimism, spiritual nature, generosity, and faith in life and getting your needs met. A parent or caregiver may have been generous, optimistic, and able to offer you abundance on the material plane.

  Saturn lends you authority in a way that doesn’t feel overbearing to others. People may instill trust in you and your integrity. A parent or caregiver may have held an important position or was able to demonstrate how to be mature in ways that didn’t feel oppressive.

  Uranus helps you to be unconventional in ways that others accept, enjoy, or appreciate. A parent or caregiver may have been experimental, inventive, and creative in their approach to life.

  Neptune creates a very intuitive kind of creativity and imagination and may need nourishment that comes from images, sounds, and colors. A parent or caregiver may have been especially intuitive, receptive, or giving.

  Pluto can create an emotional intensity, power, and influence that others respond to. A parent or caregiver may have been powerful in their impact on you or on the world around them, connecting you to material blessings.

  Challenges

  SQUARES

  Squares (90 degrees) that the Moon makes to other planets point to places where we might have been, or felt, unsafe physically, emotionally, or materially. Difficult aspects made to the Moon can also speak to inherited or historical trauma as the Moon represents the body and the lineage we come from.

  A square from your Moon to . . .

  Sun speaks to friction between your life’s purpose and living it out. This can mean that your Sun and Moon, two of the key planets in your chart, express themselves in ways that are so different they cause friction in your life, but they also cause you to take action. Paradoxes in your personality are never boring.

  Mercury can create a challenge when communicating your feelings. This aspect may also speak to a difficulty that your parent or caregiver had with their communication style, which may or may not have impacted you negatively. A square from Mercury is not an aspect that is too concerning in and of itself, unless Mercury is sitting with Saturn or Mars.

  Venus can sometimes have difficulty getting its needs met, since pleasing people is the biggest problem for this planet. There may be a conflict around a parent or caregiver’s need for attention and the kind of nourishment that you received as a child. Your parent or caregiver’s beauty or charm may have been more present than their ability to take care of your needs. Squares from Venus aren’t harmful, but can speak to a discord or disconnect related to beauty or being liked.

  Mars can be especially painful, since it has a tendency to be cruel and piercing. This may indicate a parent who had difficulty controlling their anger and may say something about how that kind of behavior impacted you as a child. This aspect needs an outlet for its anger, energy, and drive, and benefits from activities that are cooling and anti-inflammatory for the body, mind, and spirit.

  Jupiter can create a need for abundance, overindulgence, and an appetite for emotional experiences. Sometimes a parent was larger than life, exaggerative (emotionally or otherwise), or had a big personality that dominated their child’s experience.

  Saturn can create stiffness, heaviness, and lethargy in the body or in the emotional system. Depression is a common side effect of a difficult Saturn/Moon aspect. The parent or caregiver of a person with this aspect may have been overly burdened or unable to give nourishment. You can work with this aspect by being disciplined and finding ways to be kind and compassionate with yourself.

  Uranus disrupts the foundations of our lives. Often people with this placement feel that their childhood bonds and nurturing were disrupted in ways that felt unsafe. You need to create some source of consistency in your life through building and nurturing bonds.

  Neptune creates a tendency to escape life’s demands. This setup may speak to a parent or caregiver who had issues with addiction or was not able to be present, was disassociated, or was checked out in ways that made you anxious. You need to learn how to ground yourself and hold your emotional responses without checking out.

  Pluto creates very intense emotional reactions to anything that feels unsafe to you. This may have created power struggles with your parent or caregiver such that your own autonomy was threatened. You may feel devoured by your parent’s emotional needs. Finding ways to work through and honor your own emotional responses and understanding the intelligence that is inherent in you is both helpful and healing.

  OPPOSITIONS

  When the Moon is in an opposition (180 degrees) to another planet, it can speak to a split that we have between our emotions and another part of our
selves. It points to something that might have felt like a threat to your security or well-being when young.

  An opposition from your Moon to . . .

  Sun means that you were born just before, during, or right after a Full Moon and there is a need to integrate the opposing natures of your Sun and Moon signs and placements.

  Mercury may find it helpful to balance the needs of the body and mind, may vacillate between head and heart, and may tend to overthink instead of feeling. This placement may also speak to a relationship with a parent or caregiver where balancing rational and emotional interactions is challenging.

  Venus may make it difficult to integrate and balance your own needs within relationships. You may feel like your parent or caregiver chose their erotic self or life over your needs. You may need to bring these different aspects of self into balance to welcome and honor both.

  Mars punctuates the heat and harm that your body may have experienced. With this placement there is often an adversarial dynamic with others. You need to learn how to protect yourself and may need to channel combative energy into fighting for something noble. A parent or caregiver may have trespassed your boundaries, caused you harm, or perhaps was harmed in a way that impacted your sense of security.

  Jupiter has the tendency to exaggerate, over-give, and overdo things in relation to the body, emotions, and connections with others. This is not a “challenging” aspect but requires that you find balance, emotionally and physically. Boundaries may be your biggest learning curve. Over-giving or overestimating what you are physically and emotionally able to offer and then overcompensating in the other direction to come into balance may be a pattern to watch out for. A parent or caregiver may have been larger than life, someone whose personality or needs dominated your world, or someone whose exuberance was exhilarating but not necessarily realistic.

  Saturn is the most challenging of all oppositions from the Moon. Having Saturn opposing your Moon may create situations where it is difficult to access comfort, compassion, and the care you need. Saturn opposing the Moon brings up feelings of inadequacy. Reaching out for help may be challenging. You may have had a parent who was very withholding or emotionally unavailable. With this placement you need to give yourself permission to make mistakes, to learn from them, and to be open to constructive feedback.

  Uranus may speak to the inconsistencies of your early years, parents, and the traumas of your childhood. This aspect may create a desire to leave what feels stable and change what is familiar, as well as make it hard to build and maintain connections. You may have experienced a parent or caregiver as exciting, erratic, extreme, and experimental in ways that compromised your security.

  Neptune may create anxiety due to a lack of grounding in your life. You may find it hard to be emotionally consistent. You may be vulnerable to being fooled by others and have a hard time reading the intentions of those who wish to use or take advantage of you. You may have experienced a parent or caregiver as emotionally draining, or unable to hold their own boundaries, service their own needs, or show up for you with consistency. Being discerningly attentive to, instead of duped by, the displays of need around you will be important for developing your emotional maturity.

  Pluto may desire to control emotions, so much so that it is difficult to feel safe enough to be vulnerable, relaxed, and open with others. The opposite can also be true, and you may feel controlled, or overtaken by the whims, desires, and demands of others. You may need significant time processing emotions before you understand them; if not they can erupt like a volcano. A parent or caregiver may have had a personality that was overwhelming, controlling, intense, or draining to your system. In order to separate from them you may have had to go through a process of complete transformation and reinvention.

  Mergers

  CONJUNCTIONS

  Since the Moon is so impressionable, the nature of any planet that is in the same sign as it can influence the style of the Moon greatly.

  Your Moon conjunct . . .

  Sun brings the two lights of the chart together, signifying that the life’s purpose and the way it gets lived out are done in the same style. When the Sun and Moon are together, it speaks to being born either at the end or the beginning of a lunar cycle, depending on the degrees of both.

  Mercury merges the need for comfort with communication. You may process feelings verbally, find comfort through communications that create bonds, or seek out those who think like you do. You may have had a parent or caregiver who was exceptionally chatty, witty, or good at sales.

  Venus is an auspicious aspect that signifies something of ease for you. You may be able to create bonds by being approachable and friendly, or beautiful and alluring, to others. Venus can always offer the gift of beauty, and that privilege can sometimes bring material comforts. Sometimes this aspect signifies someone with a parent who was attractive, people-pleasing, graceful, and/or artistic.

  Mars by nature causes us to overheat and, when placed next to the Moon, can cause inflammation in the body or in the emotional system. You may have a hard time cooling down, slowing down, and creating or sustaining bonds. A parent might have had no regard for your boundaries, much like the square or opposition from the Moon to Mars. You can be emotionally defensive and defended, and you need to learn how to find safety in yourself so that you can respect the boundaries of your body, your life, and others.

  Jupiter is extreme in its needs: it requires a lot, wants to give a lot, and desires to create ever more connection. Jupiter is generous, generative, and abundant, making this is a very auspicious signature, if not sometimes overwhelming. A parent may have had a larger-than-life persona that encouraged you to take up space or that dominated your environment, leaving little room for you.

  Saturn is going to be one of the more difficult conjunctions as the Moon and Saturn are so different. The Moon wants bonding, protections, safety, and nourishment, and Saturn is austere, creates boundaries and structures, and rejects what it is offered. Saturn tends to trick the Moon into feeling unworthy of sustenance. You may need to learn how to develop strong boundaries that allow for love and connection. You may have had a parent or caregiver who was remote, unavailable, successful, depressive, excessively productive, or felt like an oppressive force in your life.

  Uranus can have erratic relationships, often bouncing between needing comfort and needing space. People with this placement often come from a fragmented or eccentric family or may need to break from family tradition by creating their own. The individual may also need to create a home and family in a unique or different way. You may have experienced a parent or caregiver who was in circumstances that forced them to be erratic in their ability to show up for you. They may have been a very different kind of caregiver, or you may have not had enough consistent nurturing to ever feel satiated, emotionally or otherwise. Learning to give yourself what you need, every day, will go a long way toward your healing.

  Neptune merges with others creating a wealth of sensitivity, empathy, and compassion. However, you may have a hard time maintaining boundaries and need to learn how to differentiate yourself from others. You may have felt that a parent or caregiver didn’t see you as a separate person and needed you to take care of them, especially if addiction or illness was a part of the relationship.

  Pluto creates an intense emotional life. You merge with others in powerful ways that can be exhausting or all-consuming. You might have obsessive feelings or have a parent or caregiver who did. You are most likely someone whom others are always coming to with their problems. You have an emotionally charismatic, even a little scary, air about you, and you exude power, affecting others in deep and perhaps unconscious ways. Your parent or caregiver may have had experiences where they felt consumed by a situation or another person, and as a result, you may not have felt seen or cared for. Your parent may have tried to overtake your personal boundaries, energy, and space, or that may have been their experience of their own life. Personal power and the use of it become loom
ing themes in these dynamics.

  Reflection Questions

  Which planets are helping your Moon? Do you feel their good graces? Do you ever downplay these gifts or take them for granted? How can you support yourself in making the most of this ease in your chart to live out your full potential?

  Which planets are impeding or challenging your Moon? Is it validating to learn this about your chart? How can you support yourself in understanding these challenges as growth edges, not immovable obstacles?

  What has been validated about your physical and emotional needs?

  How can you support yourself in making sure that you are nourished in the ways you need to be?