My Travel Experiences Told Through The Lens of My AstroCartography (Part 1)

...and the significance each trip held for my soul's evolution.

I LOVE travel.

I love exploring new cultures, meeting people that I would never have the chance to meet usually and getting to know what life is like in corners of the world that are different to my own.

I love needing to step outside of my comfort zone, trusting my own resourcefulness and instincts when something goes wrong, and being positively confronted with my biggest blocks and misconceptions about the world, in ways I couldn't be when in my regular routines.

I love how my view of the world expands, getting clearer and more nuanced. I love how I collect real experiences that contradict the narratives of the media, often remembering how much good there is in the world. And I love how I always return as a new and improved version of myself, often having learned big life lessons and gained crucial insights to my path and place in the world.

I also love astrology.

As a very sensitive and perceptive individual, I would often be able to perceive the hidden energies of people and places, without being able to give language to what I was perceiving. I could tell that there was more that was going on underneath the surface. Than what was obvious to the naked eye. Whether it was the rumblings and waves of the universe’s wishes; or hidden information and energies that would seep out of the locked closets of people's consciousness, often times without their knowledge.

What I love about astrology and other esoteric systems, is that they give me language and terminology to articulate what I'm already perceiving and why. Despite its image in certain circles to be superficial, generic and generally bogus (which the pop horoscopes definitely are, in my opinion), I have found astrology to be one of the most complex, specific and nuanced esoteric systems that exist.

It's so complex, that I was actually put off at first, because it was too complicated for me to understand. I wanted to be able to use it for myself, not depending on someone else’s interpretations. But once I learned the language, I was able to compare it to my perceptions, with the comparison often matching accurately.

So imagine my delight when I discovered that there was a specific branch of astrology that talked about the astrology of place - what kind of energies you specifically may experience in various locations around the world, based on your specific natal chart. Or in other words, AstroCartography.

An example of an astrocartography map. Each looks different based on your birth details.

Each AstroCartography map will look different, because it's dependant on your specific natal chart.

Seeing as I’m starting to get a few subscribers (hi there, to those of you who have already subscribed! Your subscription left my heart feeling all warm and fuzzy, so thanks 😊), I decided that I wanted to share with you more about the kind of journey I’ve been on in life. And one of the best ways to know me and the evolutional journey I’ve been on so far, is to share with you what I learned and how I evolved, as a result of my travels in the world, using my astrocartography as the language with which I tell you this story.

As a travel enthusiast and esoteric nerd - this truly is a great way to get to know me.

So let’s sit down and I’ll tell you the story of my life 😅

This isn't an exhaustive list of every place I’ve been in.

There were other places I spent time in, that I also enjoyed. But I didn't include these places, either because I spent very little time there or they simply weren't significant to my evolutional journey. Even though I enjoyed them.

This post is also broken up into multiple parts, because otherwise it’s way too long. So keep your eyes peeled for the next segment of this mini-series.

(And if you think that astrology is 100% bogus, I totally respect your opinion and I’m genuinely not bothered by it. I hope you may find this post interesting, regardless, just as a way to get to know me better. But you have been warned - you'll get quite a bit of this topic, as well as other mentions and deep dives of other esoteric systems on Wide Eyed Ella 😉)

So… Let’s begin!

Born & Living in Manchester, UK (Saturn IC + Mercury AS Lines)

Photo by Hala AlGhanim on Unsplash

This is not going to be fun for me to talk about and leaves me feeling very vulnerable, but here goes.

I was born in Manchester, UK to a British father and an Israeli mum. Our household was a very dysfunctional one, to say the least. Abuse in that household presented itself in a variety of different forms.

When people say that hell doesn’t exist, my response to that is, “On earth it does - because I (and my mum and sisters) lived it.” I won’t get into it too much, as I’m still uncovering pieces of my past and processing them (despite having healed a fucking great deal already, which I’m really proud of myself for). But I will give you the gist.

Home was harsh, cruel and cold. I experienced various forms of abuse from most of my authority figures, and there was no adult I trusted.

As a result of being stuck in a nightmare and believing that my existence had no value, other than to satisfy the needs of others - I was suicidal, up until aged 12, when my parents separated and a lot of truth about my family dynamics finally started coming out and answering my burning questions.

The AstroCartography…

When reflecting on my early life, I often say that I was born into depression - I didn't know what inner joy and peace was, until much later.

This is without a doubt, my Saturn IC line talking. Saturn has many positive qualities, but some of its negative qualities is that it can be too strict, cold and demanding, and it causes a lot of hardships. With the purpose of learning lessons, but still. It's a very tough planet - especially if you have a night chart, like I do. With Saturn being on the IC (Imum Coeli), it affects my home life, inner world and childhood.

*Comedic note - Spotify chose for me to listen to “Revolting Children” from the Matilda the Musical soundtrack, while writing this section. If you know the song and musical, you can appreciate this moment. The amount of ugly tears I’ve cried, watching that musical and listening to the music, is unreal. it’s me in a musical and I’m so grateful for it.

As a desperate way to keep myself afloat and not ‘do the deed’, I clung to my love of music, literally for the life of me. I’m so grateful that one of the gifts I’ve been given is my singing voice. Actually, I’m grateful just for having been given such a deep and grand love for music and singing to begin with! But the fact that I actually can sing and it's not just something I love, but something I can do well - how freaking lucky am I?!

I would sing ALL THE TIME. It was (and still is) a soul need for me - to sing to my heart’s content. As I got older, I would also find other forms of expression and communication to be satisfying and would realise how crucial it is for me to express and communicate myself.

This is definitely the affect of having been born and living on a Mercury AS Line - mercury being the planet of intellect, but also communication and expression, and the AS (Ascendant), being about me, my identity and my experience of myself. Living on a Mercury AS Line also gave me a busy body and a busy mind, with lots of energy, as Mercury is very fast-moving and whizzes around a lot.

How did it contribute to my evolution?

I find it hard to say that my experiences here were “good for me”, if I'm looking at it from a very human perspective. No one should have to go through those things I went through in my early childhood. But being that I do often hold a spiritual perspective (and I have healed significantly), I have managed to find meaning in them.

This period definitely helped me develop resilience and get very serious (Saturn) about the kind of home life (IC) that I want for myself. I’m very strict about who’s allowed to enter my home, and I believe that has become a very good thing. My home life as a result, is now the best it’s ever been.

I also learned from a very young age what it was I wanted to do with my life and how crucial creativity and self-expression (Mercury) is for me (AS). My need and desire for creativity and self-expression, has contributed to my ability to self-heal and has been the source of some of my biggest blessings and developments as a person.

Moving To Ramat Gan, Israel (No ACG Lines)

I have the most to say in this section, because here is the country that I’ve spent the most time in, so I have A LOT of experience to pull from here.

After my parents finally divorced, we moved with my Israeli mum to the country and city she grew up in, a couple of months shy from my 14th birthday.

Moving countries as a teenager, is wild.

It's such an awkward time as it is, let alone having to deal with culture shock and the language barrier. It was tough! And it wasn't like I was moving to a country that I had no ties to or hadn't visited before.

That first year was both frustratingly difficult and fabulously interesting.

Difficult because I had to deal with culture shock, a language barrier and with the knowledge that all my hard work into improving my social life meant nothing here, as I was starting anew. But it was also interesting, because it satisfied my sense of adventure!

Every day, I would return home from school with a new story to tell. I had learned a new word; made an interesting observation about how basic things worked here; or realised the similarities and differences between both of my countries. It was incredibly interesting, and expanded my world view and understanding of what a culture consists of.

The amphitheatre of the ancient city of Caesaria - established in Judea around 13-25 BC, and about 40 minutes drive from Tel Aviv.

I have been here for 17 years in total and have had many difficult years whilst living in the country. But as time has gone on and I have been successfully healing and breaking my mental and emotional barriers, I have become more hopeful and optimistic. Able to enjoy life and gaining a much higher perspective about my life and life in general.

My innate spirituality has blossomed and developed deeper, allowing me to feel more connected to life and supported by the universe. It's here that I met other spiritual people and communities that I feel I belong with (which is huge, because I often don't feel like I belong anywhere).

It was also here when I started developing an obsession with travel and immersing myself in other cultures. I began to realise that there was no such thing as absolute normal, when it came to culture. The same attribute would be considered commonplace in one culture, while in another downright bizarre.

The AstroCartography…

Now, I don't have any ACG lines here. So when we don't have any lines, we can look to the relocation chart to glean insights.

A relocation chart is how your natal chart looks like, if you were born in the place you’re now living in. The planets, signs and aspects stay the same, but the houses (read: areas of life) all switch.

Here's what's interesting to me about my relocated chart - I'm natally a Scorpio Ascendant, which means that my experience of myself is usually one of being deep and powerful, yet also intense and often battling my underworld. This is how I would come across, as well.

But here I become a relocated Sagittarius Ascendant, experiencing myself as adventurous, optimistic and spiritual. The ascendant is also about how you're seen, and I feel like I'm definitely seen more in this way.

How did it contribute to my evolution?

It immensely contributed to my evolution! It allowed me to begin the slow and arduous process of healing, eventually gaining more hope and optimism about my life and the world. I’ve had multiple spiritual awakenings and my understanding of what I’ve been able to perceive, all these years, has grown and solidified.

Ever since moving here, I have met so many people, communities and topics that have expanded my consciousness further and aided my development. And having developed an infatuation with travel and other cultures, I’ve gained much more knowledge about the world as I’ve actually stepped out to experience pockets of it.

Only Visit Back To Manchester, UK (Saturn IC + Mercury AS Lines)

Photo by Maxim Hopman on Unsplash

I wasn't going to include this trip initially, until I realised how crucial it actually was to my understanding of myself and my life. The only time we ever visited the UK was when I was 17 years old, after living in Israel for 3 years. We were there for 2 weeks, visiting old friends and my father's side of the family, and I have never been back since.

Being back was fascinating!

First of all, reverse culture shock is a thing. It had only been 3 years, but boy did it hit me in the funniest ways (“Of course you can also sit on a public bench that I'm sitting on - why are you apologising profusely?”).

It was actually awesome to see what changed and remained the same too. I had so many moments of “Oh, I remember that. And I remember that”, yet these places I once knew so well, seemed different too. It was like seeing something familiar, but with new eyes.

During my two weeks back in the UK, I had made two very clear observations about myself, in relation to being in the UK.

1. I noticed that all of my mental capacities came “back online”. My memory, my concentration, my attention, my analytical skills… all of that came back to me in full force. It wasn't that they had completely left, being out of the UK - but it was almost like they were now working at 80% instead of 100%. I had missed feeling the full capabilities of my weird brain.

2. I noticed that my mood and feelings were getting darker and heavier. It didn't happen straight away, but as I got to the end of those two weeks, I was very happy that we were soon leaving. I kept feeling that there is a mismatch between this environment and how I myself operate. So many arbitrary rules and formalities, often being on the receiving end of unfair judgements from strangers and no space to just be myself. Despite having been born there, I felt like a fish out of water - I couldn't breathe.

Those were my big takeaways from my only visit back to the UK. Obviously, the first point pertains to my Mercury AS Line and the second to my Saturn IC Line.

How did it contribute to my evolution?

I realised that although I will always be British and grateful for having spent many of my formative years there, I would never return to live there. I would definitely like to visit again, as I've never visited as an adult and I’d be eager to see what kind of insights I’d receive about myself and my life, when being back in the place I was born. It's just not my home or where I feel the most comfortable. It helped me realise that Israel is my home and this is where I'm meant to be. And my relocated ascendant in Sagittarius, also matches up with my north node (purpose, destiny) in Sagittarius, which is very nice and gives me the feeling that I'm meant to be here. (Although I certainly would like to try living abroad again, just for a bit).

It's also this experience that validated for me the legitimacy of AstroCartography, when I first learned about at 28. I couldn't believe that the very distinct and specific insights and observations I had from 11 years before, about how I felt in the UK as opposed to Israel, was so clear and on the nose, with what I had discovered in my AstroCartography Map.

I hope you enjoyed this first segment of my mini-series “My Travel Experiences Told Through The Lens of My AstroCartography”!

In the next post, I'll be describing how a family trip to Paris, a solo trip to Kenya and an attempted move abroad to Australia affected my personal development.

Although, I may actually break that post up into three parts, one for each trip. Because these posts get looooooong otherwise 😅 Let me know what you prefer!

If you want to check your own AstroCartography Map…

I recommend you check the 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!

What lines were you born on and how did they colour your experiences? Have you relocated to a new location and did you find the energies to be different? What kind of personal development have you had abroad?

Speak soon,

Love, Ella x