We clutch onto people, places, and patterns that no longer belong to us, all ghosts of who we used to be. We press ourselves back into old molds, even as they splinter beneath the tide of our becoming. Growth is tidal: an ebb, a flow, an erosion against the rock of denial. Eventually, the waves carve us new, and the mirror demands we face the truth.

This summer, the skies called us inward. Mercury retrograde in Leo illuminated where we’ve abandoned our own hearts, urging us to pour devotion back into ourselves, especially wherever Leo is in our charts. With both my Mars and Ascendant in Leo, the lesson cut deep: I had long believed I was undeserving of living in my desires and authenticity. I realized that for so long, I had strangled my own larynx shut; it felt so normal to silence truths that begged to be spoken. When I finally let the words pour out, it felt obscene at first; how dare I have the audacity to stand in how I felt? Yet the moment I cracked open and formed the words that had been eating away at me, it was so intoxicatingly freeing. I could never return to the false peace of people-pleasing, because what peace is there in sacrificing myself at the altar of others? Why did I ever believe I had to be the offering? The hunger for honesty became an orgiastic desire; an offering I vowed to forever lay at my own threshold.

Why do we degrade and abandon ourselves so easily for others, when we are the only ones who will always remain? Why stick around to be martyred with nothing in return? Sometimes the only sacred act we can offer ourselves is selfishness. Sometimes survival is choosing your own favor, without caring for the judgment of others.

On August 8th, the Lionsgate portal cracked open, inviting us to plant the seeds of who we long to become. And then came the eclipses: a lunar eclipse in Pisces, dissolving the illusions we once clung to, and most recently a solar eclipse in Virgo, demanding practical devotion to the life ahead. All of which forced me to look inward and evaluate if I truly understood my growth and whether I was ready to stand fully in who I am becoming.

And thus, by honoring my voice as the siren I am, I shed the skin of who I once was and rose wholly my own.

Eclipses, Transits & The Pursuit of Letting Go