Being Broken Open by Australia & Spain
My AstroCartography Experiences (Part 3)
This post is part of a mini-series on how traveling and living on various AstroCartography lines has helped me develop as a person. If you've not read part 1 & part 2, make sure to read those first, before diving into this segment.
We’re back with another segment of this mini-series!
In the first segment, I took to you my countries of origin and how living in both impacted my evolution as a person. And in the second, I took you to Paris and Kenya and shared how those trips helped me develop my confidence. The ACG lines we explored were the Saturn IC + Mercury AS lines, and then the Sun AS + Pluto AS lines.
Now we’re going to explore how my time in Australia crushed my confidence, whilst also providing me with some crucial spiritual breakthroughs. And how I revitalised and stabilised my inner world in Spain.
Attempt at a Move Abroad To Australia (Neptune MC + Uranus MC Lines)
After my previous two successes, my confidence was sky high.
I can do anything. I can achieve my wildest dreams with great fervour and without fear. I am invincible!
Oh boy.
This trip knocked the wind out of me and left me feeling very broken. My newly-earned confidence shattered into a million pieces.
To be fair, I was broken from way before this trip, but I didn't know how much and I wasn't fully acknowledging it yet. I was resolute in my adulthood being nothing like my childhood and I believed that I was 100% capable and responsible for creating the life I want. (I still believe this, but not in the ways that I did back then).
My dream at the time was to perform on Broadway. Lofty, I know. But I had been performing since I was seven, was a theatre major in high school, and… if I'm allowed to say… you know, I wasn't bad.
But, I wanted to be great. So my plan was to study abroad, gain experience, develop the skills and build a network to eventually start a career on the stage.
Because studying abroad is so expensive, I was looking for ways to be able to earn money abroad and save up. I couldn't find an option in the US, but I had come across the concept of working holiday visas and found the WHV and a job in Australia. On the complete other side of the world to Broadway, I know. But I wasn't being picky. I really just wanted to be abroad again, earn and save money so that I could one day study abroad, and if I had the opportunity to travel a bit too, then even better.
The thing is, my psyche was in pieces.
I had had some harrowing experiences that year, after an already difficult childhood. And unfortunately, other than meeting some truly amazing people in Oz, (my Aussie angels - even a decade later, I'm so grateful for them), this trip was just another traumatic life experience, added onto all the others I had.
The job that promised a soft landing into a new country and the launching pad for my dreams, proved to be a nightmare and wrong on every front. It wrecked me physically and emotionally; I was crying non-stop, before work, during work and after work; I was losing money rather than saving money; there was even a three week period where I didn't have a single. day. off.
After fighting unnecessarily hard to leave that job, I landed in Melbourne and stayed with the only contact I had in the country. But what was meant to be, in my mind, just a one week period so that I could find my bearings in this new city, became six weeks of being stuck in an unideal and uncomfortable limbo.
I couldn't find a job for the life of me.
And if I couldn't find a job, then I couldn't find my own room/place to rent. And that meant I was becoming a burden on who I was staying with, which I never want to be. Unfortunately, and understandably, the living situation quickly became toxic, further adding to my abysmal mental and physical health.
I was completely alone on the other side of the world, with no options, no car license, no safety net, no network, no safe space… Nothing.
My mental health was so bad, that I was still having multiple panic attacks a day, could only calm down after crying for a couple of hours to friends or family over Skype, and my old sparring partner of depression had returned. I even started becoming slightly agoraphobic, finding leaving the house too scary of a task. (Me? Afraid to leave the house?)
The only thing that kept me afloat, was writing on my relatively new travel blog. Despite my dire mental health, I was still having some interesting travel experiences that I wanted to document and it was in Australia where I got more serious with the blog. I actually bought a laptop, so that I could revamp my blog and take it to the next level, as well as job search.
If you’re familiar with Tarot, you’ll know of the card The Tower, which often signals a massive crumbling of your world, in unexpected and uncontrollable ways. I was in my tower moment - everything was crashing down and I was caught broken under the heavy rubble.
It was a nightmare of a situation, my attempted move abroad was a ‘failure’ and I had finally accepted that I needed to go home. But because it was Christmas time, I had to wait a few weeks until I could get the next available flight. It was during this period, when I was coming to terms with EVERYTHING (my Australian experience, my first year of adulthood, my childhood, my life-long issues, everything), that I was learning some tough spiritual lessons that I couldn’t ignore. I was receiving some life-saving and life-changing guidance from the universe, now that I was broken open enough to listen to what I needed to learn.
The AstroCartography…
I had bounced about various locations in Australia, but I spent a significant amount of time in Melbourne, close to my Neptune MC + Uranus MC lines.
The positive attributes to Neptune are that it’s quite dreamy, spiritual and creative, but some of the negative aspects of it, are that it can also be quite illusory, deceptive and ungrounded. Closely added to that is the Uranus energy, which can be innovate, revolutionary and technologically advanced, but also shocking and destabilising.
But when you have both of those lines close together and they are MC lines (profession, work, public image), no wonder I couldn’t find a job! The reality of the first job I had was much grimmer, than the fantasy I had for it (Neptune MC); and not being able to find a new job, left me feeling incredibly unstable and insecure of my place in the world (Uranus MC). But the spiritual (Neptune) breakthrough (Uranus) this situation caused was HUGE.
I find it interesting to note the positive development I had in Australia, of working on improving my blog. Because while my relocated Neptune + Uranus were in the 10th house (the MC house of career, work and public image), my natal Neptune + Uranus are in the 3rd house of writing and communication. Creating a space (Neptune) to write (3rd house) on the internet (Uranus), is in my natal chart and very fitting for what I was doing on those lines.
How did it contribute to my evolution?
I learned how desperately I needed professional help for my mental health struggles and I finally went to get it; after two decades of compound trauma and my first official year of adulthood ending in disaster. It was in therapy where I realised what I was really doing in Australia: running away. And you can never run away from yourself or the issues you’ve not yet dealt with, because it doesn't matter where you go or where you run to. Wherever you go - there you are. I had to finally confront my demons and re-evaluate my life goals. Take into consideration what I need, not just what I want.
This was the start of a decade of significant healing and crucial spiritual lessons were learned. We co-create with the universe, if you're not supposed to do something or be somewhere - you will know by how it feels (usually prolonged horridness) and the amount of limitations you repeatedly hit.
Taking my blog seriously from this point, helped me realise how much I love writing on the internet and how much I wanted to take it seriously. Having started to take it seriously, I started getting more traffic, attended events where I met very crucial people to my life, and even eventually got a pretty cool job offer.
Finding My Inner Sun in Andalusia, Spain (Sun AS + Saturn IC Lines)
I had come home a wreck and had even started developing a fear of travelling abroad, which I was NOT happy with.
How dare a traumatic experience abroad take away my love of travel!
Luckily, after 7 months of being back home and in therapy, I was ready to dip my feet back into international travel; in a way that would contribute to the healing journey I was now on.
Despite having barely done any yoga at that point, I decided to go on a yoga retreat. The retreat would provide necessary structure, while also facilitating my wellbeing journey. I decided I only wanted to be away for a week and to remain relatively close to my home country. Using those parameters and my intuition, I picked a yoga retreat in the Andalusian hills of Spain.
Absolutely every aspect of this retreat was perfect and nourishing. The supportive and attentive facilitators, the gorgeous retreat grounds, the pleasant warm weather, the nutritious and delicious organic meals, everything!
It truly was a treat. Days were filled with yoga and meditation sessions, leisure time which we used to rest, read or visit the local town, and meals that we enjoyed together as a group. I felt immensely safe, supported and cared for.
Towards the end of the retreat, I had a moment that perfectly encapsulates what this whole experience did for me.
We were meditating on our mats lying down, bundled up with pillows and blankets, facing upwards towards the clear, blue sky. Our instructor said that if we wanted to, we could stay for as long as we wanted, beyond the official end of the guided meditation. Which is what I did.
I was feeling so much inner peace and the feeling was so delicious in its simple sweetness, I didn't want it to end. The sensation was novel to me.
I had spent most of my life with an inner tornado wreaking havoc within - storms of self criticism and volatile emotions directed towards myself. But throughout the week, I felt like I had cultivated a consistent inner sun. A sense of inner peace and inner brightness that I didn't have before. A feeling of, “I’m okay”.
I didn't realise that this was something I could feel, in my inner world. It dawned on me that maybe I could feel like this, constantly. Carrying around my own permanent inner sun.
I returned home with a new, more positive self belief. I was capable of feeling good inside and I now had an example of what inner peace and content felt like.
The AstroCartography…
Feeling the joy, the brightness and hopefulness is without a doubt the Sun AS Line - the Sun being about joy and optimism, and the AS (ascendant) being about me and my experience.
However, it gets interesting when you pair it with the Saturn IC Line - that dreaded line I was born on and signalled a lot of my most difficult childhood experiences.
Saturn is lessons, limitations and hardships and the IC (Immum Coeli) is about the family, home, childhood and inner world. Usually that can mean hardships and difficulties in the home life or your inner world. But paired with the Sun AS, I (AS) was experiencing light, joy and healing (Sun), and bringing that to my inner world (IC) that was usually a dark place (Saturn). It was in the yoga retreat, that I was learning (Saturn) how to do that.
How did it contribute to my evolution?
My experience at this yoga retreat helped me cultivate my inner sun, teaching me that even I am capable of feeling inner peace and feeling good within myself. Teaching me how to do that.
Having learned this crucial skill of being my own light, I was ready to receive so many blessings the following year, that came in the form of new enlightening experiences, communities and friends.
After this experience, I was ready to create the adulthood I had always wanted.
I hope you enjoyed this segment of my mini-series “My Travel Experiences Told Through The Lens of My AstroCartography”!
In the next post, I'll be describing how I met one of my purposes in India, and clarified my work life goals (and changed my status to married!) while in Copenhagen.
If you want to check your own AstroCartography Map…
I recommend you check Astro.com - click the menu bar, click on “Free Horoscopes”, then “Locational Astrology” and finally on “AstroClick Travel”. It's free to use and you get accurate descriptions of the lines, when you click on a location. You just need to enter your birth details (date, location and time).
Conversely, if you want to learn more about AstroCartography from a professional (as I'm merely a passionate hobbyist), I'd recommend you check out Helena Woods, or Sandra Nelly who was trained by Helena and has her own Substack newsletter!
Once you do, come back here and let me know what you discovered about your map!
Has travel positively influenced you in any way? What significant lessons or spiritual growth did you experience while traveling abroad? Feel free to let me know in the comments!
Speak soon,
Love, Ella x
P.S. - Did you read part 1 + 2? In part 1, I talk about how living on my Saturn IC + Mercury AS lines in one country, and on no lines in another country, has shaped my development.
In part 2, I talk about how traveling to my Sun + Pluto AS lines in Paris gave me confidence, and how that confidence grew when I travelled to Kenya.
I highly recommend to catch up on the previous posts - they're fun to read!
love how you were able to use even the harder aspects and life lessons in a productive way <3