How Do You Mend a Broken Heart?
This Astroscope is going to be a little different. A little more personal.
My articles can be personal, but some things don't get brought out into the light of day, because they're just that: personal. In an age of share-everything, I didn't grow up that way, and I think that's a good thing. Not every tear that's shed needs to be witnessed in front of a camera. Not every fit of anger needs an audience. And not every heartbreak needs the whole world to know.
But Venus turns direct on Friday the 13th, and I can't write around her.
The Song That Won't Stop Playing
We all have our own way of hearing from Great Spirit, God, Source, whatever your word is. I have several, and one of them is song.
Songs come into my head out of nowhere and they don't leave. I don't hear them on the radio; I mostly listen to classical, ambient and instrumentals. They just arrive, and they're carrying a message. When I get the message, the song stops playing.
When one moves in, I have a practice. I let it play for a while and listen for which part keeps repeating, because that's never random. Then I go look up the full written lyrics and read them, slowly, the way you'd read a letter someone left for you.
For weeks now it's been the Bee Gees. Or maybe it's Al Green; I'm not sure which version I'm getting. How Can You Mend a Broken Heart. And, how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down? How can you stop the sun from shining? What makes the world go 'round? And how can you mend this broken man? How can a loser ever win?
It's a song made almost entirely of questions, ending with the biggest one: how do you live again?
It's a beautiful song. But when a song keeps coming back, I haven't gotten all of the message yet. It came back again this morning. Maybe the message is to share the message.
"This Is the Time for Taurus"
Right now astrologers everywhere are saying it: Venus is coming out from behind, and this is the time for Taurus.
I'm a Taurus. Ruled by Venus. So let me tell you what that actually means from the inside, because it isn't only luck and abundance and pretty things.
Venus gets sold to us as beauty and luxury. She is that. But that's the smallest part of her. The Sumerians knew her as Inanna, goddess of love and of war, and the one who walked into the underworld. Venus rules the heart, and the heart is not a decoration. It's the strongest muscle you have.
She throws you into the underworld. At every gate she strips you: your crown, your garments, your jewels, your security. She bashes your heart against the wall and says, okay, now get back out there.
And it doesn't happen once in a lifetime. Venus goes retrograde about every 18 months, vanishing as the evening star and returning as the morning star. Every 8 years she goes under in nearly the same part of the sky, tracing a five-petaled rose around the Earth. This descent began October 3rd in Scorpio and backed into Libra (tropical), Libra back into Virgo (sidereal). The last time she made this same descent was the fall of 2018. Eight years ago.
If the last seven or eight years have blown your mind, there's your rhythm.
So here is what it is to walk the path, layer by layer. I think many of you have walked it too.
Layer One: The Vacuum
In my search for how to mend a broken heart, I stumbled on a passage that stopped me cold. It opens like this:
"The attack on the shaman is a mandatory phase of the evolutionary alchemy."
It goes on to say you can't cultivate true planetary consciousness in a vacuum.
And I had built myself a beautiful vacuum. I went to the farmers market, I sold my potions, I made my potions, I rode my bike, I communed with nature. I lived in what they call the Ojai pink bubble. It wasn't a perfect little town. I found its quirkiness delightful and its local politics ridiculous. But most of it didnt touch me personally. I was in my vacuum.
Most of us had one. We just didn't know it was a vacuum until it broke.
Layer Two: The Lightning
The shaman, the passage says, must act as a lightning rod.
And here's what most of us don't know about lightning: it doesn't only come down from the sky. As a charge reaches down from the clouds, the earth reaches up to meet it. Streamers rise from the trees, the rooftops, the ground itself. When they touch, the brightest flash, the one we actually see, races upward, from earth back into the sky.
Lightning is heaven and earth meeting. And the lightning rod is the place where they meet.
In the body, that place is the heart. It sits in the middle of the seven chakras, three below rooted in the earth, three above reaching toward heaven. When the heart is struck, it isn't only being hit from above. It's the meeting point of everything that runs between the earth and the sky, passing through you.
I was struck by lightning. Not literally, but there was a moment of heartbreak so shattering it was as if I'd been cracked open , and i was .
Let's take the political landscape out of this, because that's the easy part. Most of it didn't surprise me. Neither does how dark Hollywood turned out to be. Some of what's coming into the light is shocking, but it isn't mind-blowing.
My mind gets blown when it's personal. A personal attack. A betrayal. And betrayal comes in many forms: when a community isn't what you thought it was, when a person isn't who you thought they were, when a behavior comes out of nowhere and its vengeance lands on you.
And it wasn't only the town. I've written about that before, and it wasn't just gossip. It was lies, and lies do real damage.
It came from closer in, too. People I trusted with my heart. People who sat at my table, who I would have stood up for, and did. Turning on me, or simply walking away right when I needed them most.
And it all came at once. The town, the lies, the people closest to me. A perfect storm from every direction, and no shelter in any of them.
I won't tell those stories here. Some things stay personal. But that's where the real lightning struck.
Layer Three: The Fire
The shaman must be strong enough to take the full, violent weight of the collective's rejection: the whole system pushing back to keep things as they were.
When a town turns on you, it slanders you. And let's be clear about what slander is: it's lies. Then come the flying monkeys, spreading more lies and more attacks.
Here's what I didn't understand for most of my life. I thought that when you take a stance, people would be glad you did. I should have learned this years ago. I'd stand up for somebody, and they, or the people around them, would turn on me. Wait, what? I just stood up for you, and now you're turning on me?
Then you stand up for society in a bigger way, you say hey, this is in your best interest, and the same thing happens. Because most of the time we don't know what our best interest is. We move toward danger, not away from it. We walk right into the belly of the beast and don't know it until we've been swallowed whole. I have. Most of us have.
So how do you walk through the fire and not get burned?
It sounds so boring, but it starts with not taking it personally, even when it is very personal. What they throw at you is a reflection of them. That takes away a piece of the heartache. Not all of it. And when the arrows come from every angle, from the community and from people you love, there are layers to how you come back out.
What helped me most was this.
So much of the spiritual world teaches that if you were truly aligned, this wouldn't be happening to you. That hardship means you've done something wrong: bad karma, low vibration, a lesson you keep failing. And so we suffer twice. Once from the fire, and again from the shame of being in it.
But the fire is not the detour. The fire is the road.
Anyone who is truly walking the path will walk through it. Inanna walked through it. The shaman walks through it. Jesus walked through it. If you are in the fire right now, it isn't a sign you've gone wrong.
It's the sign you're on it.
We could say that's what Jesus was doing. He took the beating, literally, and was nailed to a cross. If that wasn't a satanic ritual, I don't know what is. Thank you, Romans and cohorts. I wasn't nailed to a cross. But it sure felt like I was being held on one.
Layer Four: The Misconception
I carried a big misconception for a long time: that the more I stood in my truth, in who I truly am, the more people would be drawn to me. Not that I was doing it to be liked. But I believed authenticity was a magnet.
It is, to a degree. But as an overall theme in life? No. It's the opposite.
Many of the greatest minds who stood in who they truly were lived very isolated lives. Whether they chose it, or it simply evolved that way, or people just stopped coming around, that's how it turned out. If you're being your most authentic self and there's a crowd of people around you, you're probably not.
I think of the performance of spirituality: the garb, the gathering, the look at us, aren't we amazing. That's not the path. Mary Magdalene wasn't running through the streets in white robes and crystals, anointing everybody. They were in hiding, for their lives.
So many of us are home alone right now. So many have pulled back from society or whittled their circle down to very, very few. Is two a circle? Is three? How many does it take to call it a circle?
Maybe a small circle isn't proof you've failed. Maybe it's proof you're on the path.
Some of us went very quiet. That's one of the reasons I started writing more. First came Aaurelia Gold Heart, and then I couldn't stop.
Layer Five: The Frequency
For years I felt so hurt and so victimized by these situations. What shifted it for me was this.
I am a frequency of a certain kind. That is what I'm here to be. And that frequency, which I've known for many years, is not for everybody. It's not even 50-50. It's for very few.
It holds to what is right, what is true. That doesn't mean I'm perfect or infallible. I make mistakes. But when you hold that frequency, you see through the mask of the narcissist. You see through those who want to live in their delusions and lies. And you just hold it.
Just in the last couple of days, two people shamed me for standing up. One told me, well, you just have to get along. So getting along is more important than what's true? The other was a full-on narcissist. And narcissists are expert shamers, because they never want your lens turned on them. They shame you first, to head you off at the pass, hoping it keeps you at a distance or shuts you down.
They may knock you down. But you can always get back up and go right back to what is true, and stand in it.
Layer Six: The Alchemy
I actually researched how to mend a broken heart. Part of me just wanted the song out of my head.
You can die of a broken heart. We've seen it in the movies: Kate Winslet's Marianne in Sense and Sensibility, nearly dying after Willoughby rejects her; Cathy and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, both wasting away for love. The heart shatters because the heart and mind so truly believed they were sitting in a space of real love with another being. When that being rejects you, betrays you or denies you, it shatters you completely.
Medicine has a name for it: takotsubo, broken heart syndrome, first described in Japan. A sudden emotional shock floods the heart, and the bottom of the left ventricle balloons out while the top keeps squeezing. On a scan, the heart takes the shape of a tako-tsubo, the clay pot Japanese fishermen use to trap octopus.
Think about that. The heart takes the shape of the trap that caught it.
And most of those hearts heal. Within weeks or months, the heart returns to its true shape.
The Japanese also have kintsugi, the art of mending a broken bowl with gold so the break becomes the most beautiful part. I love a gold heart. But that explanation didn't quite satisfy me. It wasn't the message.
Kintsugi puts gold on the cracks. The shaman's alchemy uses the break itself. The passage says you don't only refuse to fracture; you use the attack as a launch vehicle. I've always said a retrograde is the pulling back of a slingshot, going back so we can go forward. The attack is the pull. Surviving it is the release.
The broken heart heals the heartache.
I won't pretend it's finished. There are still cracks that need filling, still places where it gets sticky. But I know now what the fire is for.
Layer Seven: The Return
Friday, November 13th, Venus stations direct in Libra (tropical), Virgo (sidereal), in the evening here in California. Mercury turns direct the very same day, so heart and mind turn forward together, which doesn't happen often.
And look at the day she chose. Friday is Venus's day: vendredi, viernes. Thirteen is the old feminine count, the thirteen moons in a year and the thirteen signs of the sidereal sky. Friday the 13th has been given a dark reputation. This one is Venus coming home.
We are in an evolution and a revolution, and everything that was comfortable no longer exists. The world doesn't feel the way it did seven years ago. There's a feeling that's gone, and I can't quite describe it. I think many of you know exactly what I mean, and you know there's no going back to that bubble.
I can never go back to the vacuum. But I can create something new. Maybe it's more honest. More refined. It takes no prisoners, makes no excuses and doesn't compromise. And it's creative.
We've all heard it said: the heart gets cracked open so the light can get in.
No. The heart gets cracked open so the light can get out, and shine brighter.
The light was never missing. It was in there all along, held behind the walls we built to keep ourselves safe. The lightning doesn't bring the light to you. It breaks the vessel open so what you already are can finally pour through.
So if this is the time for Taurus, here's what I'd say to every one of us coming back out: you don't come out where you went in. You come out more whole. Whatever you begin on the other side of this Venus transit, begin it from the heart that broke, not the one you had before. That heart has been to the underworld. It knows the way back.
And maybe now the song can stop playing.
Healing the Heart to Gold
Somewhere in all of this, I finally understood why I wrote Aaurelia Gold Heart.
We are leaving a world run by the mind and walking, slowly, sometimes on our knees, into a world led by the heart. And no heart makes that crossing untouched. It gets stripped at the gates. It gets struck by lightning. It gets cracked open.
The old alchemists spent their lives trying to turn lead into gold. They were working in the wrong vessel. The real alchemy happens in the heart. The grief, the betrayal, the heartache, all the heavy lead of a life, slowly turned to gold. Not gold painted over the cracks. Gold all the way through.
We don't get our gold heart back. We were never meant to keep the heart we started with. We heal it into gold.
That's Aaurelia's journey. Even her name means golden. She isn't a wounded woman who runs. She's an awakened woman who keeps choosing her own path, straight through the fire, and comes out shining from the inside. I wrote her before I fully understood I'd be living her.
The 13-Sign Sidereal Astroscope: Venus Comes Home
Written for the true sky, the constellations as they actually sit, all 13 of them. Your sign may not be the one you've always been told.
Friday the 13th, two planets turn forward on the same day. Mercury in the morning, Venus in the evening. In the tropical sky they're in Scorpio and Libra. In the true sky, both are standing in Virgo, so mind and heart step out of the underworld together. Meanwhile Mars and Jupiter are burning forward in Leo, the constellation of the heart. Saturn is still walking backward through Pisces until mid-December.
The heart is where all of this is happening. Here's what it's asking of each of us, by ruling planet and gland.
Aries (Mars · adrenals): Your ruler is burning forward in Leo, side by side with Jupiter. Your adrenals have been on alert for years. This week, let fight-or-flight stand down. Not every fire needs you to run into it. Tend your own heart first: put a hand on your chest and let it slow before you answer anyone.
Taurus (Venus · thyroid): Your ruler comes home from the underworld Friday evening. This is your return. The throat has been holding what the heart couldn't say. Speak slowly, and what comes out will be true. Don't rush to rebuild the crown. Walk out first. Tend your heart like a garden: water it, weed it, and let it rest before you ask it to bloom again.
Gemini (Mercury · lungs): Your ruler turns forward Friday morning. You've been holding your breath since late October. Exhale all the way before you take in anything new. Your heart and lungs share one chest, so every slow breath is a way of tending your heart.
Cancer (Moon · mammary glands): Your ruler is a young crescent, growing. Feed yourself first. Your tenderness was never the weakness. It's where the light gets out. Tend your own heart the way you tend everyone else's: first, and without apology.
Leo (Sun · pancreas): Mars and Jupiter are both in your constellation, and yours is the heart's house. You are the lightning rod this week. The pancreas keeps the sweetness in balance. Let sweetness back into your life without having to earn it. Tend your heart by letting yourself be loved, not only by loving.
Virgo (Mercury · gut and its nerve network): Venus and Mercury both turn forward in your constellation on the same day. Your gut has been sorting everything: what was true, what was a lie, who was real. Trust what it already knows. The audit is over. Now tend the heart that's been carrying all that sorting, and be as gentle with it as you are exacting with everything else.
Libra (Venus · kidneys and adrenal cortex): The Sun is in your true-sky house as your ruler turns forward. The kidneys store fear. Let it go. Balance was never about keeping everyone comfortable. Getting along is not more important than what is true. Tend your heart by putting it on the scale too. Your peace counts.
Scorpio (Mars · reproductive glands): Your ruler is burning in the heart's house. Your creative fire is coming back. Make something out of what broke. That's the alchemy. Tend your heart by creating from it, not guarding it.
Ophiuchus (Jupiter · liver and blood): You're the healer, the sign that was erased, so you know rejection well. You've been filtering everyone else's poison. Rest the liver, hydrate, and let the blood carry the old out. The medicine is for you this time. Tend your own heart with the same care you've given every heart you've ever helped heal.
Sagittarius (Jupiter · pituitary): Your ruler is moving forward through the heart's house, and your vision is clear even when everyone else's is fogged. Say what you see, kindly. Just don't expect a crowd to cheer. Tend your heart by not needing the applause. The truth is enough.
Capricorn (Saturn · knees and joints): Your ruler is still walking backward through water until mid-December. The knees know. Bending is not breaking, and kneeling is not defeat. Something rigid has to soften before it can carry you again. Let your heart soften too. A heart that won't bend is the one that breaks.
Aquarius (Saturn · circulation): Your ruler is soaking in Pisces, and your circle has gotten small. Let what warmth you have circulate through the few who remain. Is two a circle? Yes. It is. Tend your heart by letting those few all the way in.
Pisces (Jupiter · pineal): Saturn is walking backward through your constellation, and your dreams are loud. The pineal is the gland that sees. You've been seeing through masks. Don't look away. Hold your frequency. And tend your heart by resting it. Seeing this much is tiring, and the heart restores in the dark and the quiet.
Don't know your 13-sign placement? Look it up. It might be the first time the stars finally sound like you.
| ◆ THE NOVEL |
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Aaurelia
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| ◆ THE GUIDED AUDIO |
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The Gold Heart
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