This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.
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Dear Sara,

I copied Canva’s last post, and noticed the “08” in the right corner, and remembered the subject I wrote you about last time.

How Pluto has been moving into Aquarius for the past 18 months or so, and since planets do this in retrogade fashion they move in and out of signs the whole time.
Thus far, it has been wiggling between Aquarius, where it is heading, and Capricorn, which has been its home since 2008.

On the 19th of November Pluto will move into Aquarius for the upcoming 14 years.
And the Capricorn cycle it started in 2008, and with it the cycle we humans started then, will end.

So when I copied the Canva and I encountered the 08 mark, although I didn’t change my mind about the subject I will be writing you about (which has little if anything to do with all the 2008 body resolutions of last post) I did think:
“Oh, let’s keep it in there. Just for fun, and you never know. Could be relevant to keep track of Pluto’s journey.”
Even when I have little to add to last post’s wisdom.

Because things have been rocky, but rocky in a mysterious, dark, I would say Scorpio Rising, sort of way.
Which is a nice side note I could very well elaborate on, now that it comes up. In particular since astrology seems to be a bit of a theme for me these months. And also because the Scorpio Rising story is more distinctly defined than the mysterious dark waters of my life in general.

So let’s discuss Scorpio Rising first;
Just like the Sigma Female personality, which I had been studying in the weeks prior to my previous post (and I ID-dropped being a Sigma Female in last post), in much the same way I have been starting to understand my ascendant, which is Scorpio Rising.
It was definitely one of those “managed to miss” things.
I mean, anyone even remotely interested in astrology will have encountered the significance of their rising sign. And in 2018 I had an astrologer telling me face-to-face, Scorpio is a sign that takes over a horoscope because it is so strong.

And yet I waited until 2024- and until the AI generated Sigma Female videos had made me so numb I feared I would lose the ability to write original content if I clicked one more of them-
That I thought: “Why not look for something new, like what that Scorpio Rising in my birth chart means?”

And not only was it an absolute epiphany, could have saved me the last five years of personal development work, it was also an area where AI wasn’t active.
Only genuine astrologers, real people.

Pluto, the planet who is moving us all into the Aquarius Age right now, is the ruler of Scorpio.
It is the Planet of death and rebirth, and it is no coincidence that the people who have Scorpio Rising, maybe even more so than the ones who are a Scorpio Sun Sign;
Are among the most intense you will ever meet.

Prince, the artist, was a Scorpio Rising.
I think I made my point right there, how this astrological information about who I am, could have explained for a lot…..

And in particular with its ruling planet moving us all into a new era, it is not that strange that I feel it is a poignant time for me.
That I should not f – up these last weeks, when we’re finishing up the 2008-2024 cycle.

And yet, the darkness I have been feeling is a different one. It is part new, and part old.

The new part is the Scorpio Woman part.
Because for the love of God, or less divine more diabolical beings, I think I have been making myself SICK, not owning the power that was given to me.

You know I have not been well the past six years, and that I felt like my life was taken from me.
Yes ultimately my health was taken, and still the medication requires temperance in many ways to be effective (Will I ever have my old life back?!), but the unhealthy shift, the feeling that what we call a Life (friends, job, identity, belonging);
That, was taken a very long time ago.
Way before physical health became an issue.

My power, was taken from me.

So the new part I found, is how me not being connected to my own Scorpio Rising-ness, despite having been made aware of its astrological significance in 2018, how that detail is such a powerful symbol for not being in touch with my power.

And as I started dabbling with that, toying with the idea of owning the power of a Scorpio Woman, an insight dropped that even at this moment of writing, has not dropped in completely.
I do not oversee its consequences, all I know is that I cannot afford to be messing with this anymore.

The wisdom that dropped was that the reason I have lost all these years and ultimately my physical health, was because I refused power.
I refused the power that was given to me.
I pretended to be someone who is safe, genuine, and a valuable, loving human because I know myself, I know my own pure heart.

When I am venom for all those, who in any shape or form, are not a match to me.
Those not ready to face their own darkness, or darkness of others.
Those with a more gentle agreeable energy.
Those with every right to stay unconscious of anything in themselves or in the world;

For those, and I know that is just a random and small list of what will no doubt be the majority;
For those I am far, further, the furthest, from safe.

So the Scorpio-managed to miss it, cost me 6 years – energy hit me like a rock, and it was/ is weird!
Although obviously less dramatic, it feels like the category finding out your parents are not your parents or something. 
It messes with your head.

But another older energy also resurfaced. And theme-wise, in retrospect, it is indeed a reminder of how as a teen, I did have access to this strong Scorpio energy.
Something which was long, long gone, by the time 2008 hit, and which therefor cannot be placed into the neat little “Oh let’s do this and this before November 2024” plan, I conjured up in my last blog.

And that older energy came up when I was reading the Heroin Diaries from Nikki Sixx, and I recognized myself in so many things.
His messed up mid-80s junky life and mine.
Except one big difference of course; I have never touched drugs.

Yet for the past 6 years, it has been imploding, seemingly destroyed from the inside out by a malignant force over which I do not have any control and for which I would seek treatment if there existed such a thing!
But there is nothing there.

It’s like if you would tell a child there is no crocodile under the bed; Normally that is a great thing to do.

But I feel like in my bedroom for the past 6 years, we have blood on the walls and small mammals vanishing from the scene;
Maybe there isn’t a crocodile under the bed. But it would explain a hell of a lot, if there was.

Diving into Nikki Sixx’s life, if you could even call it that at the time because he was consumed by the darkness, for the first time I thought;
“If I had been living with an addiction for the last 6 years, it would explain more than what I can explain today.”

Don’t get me wrong, I am deeply grateful that I still have my health in general terms. Although I will be needing this year’s prescription drugs to restore in full, I do not have big physical issues.
And also financially, I do not have the damage I would have had if I had been using drugs.

But by the Gods or those of diabolical origin;
What a mess it has been.
Still is.
Sometimes I don’t know where to begin.
How will I ever recover?

Starting by explaining it with: “Well, Lauren was on drugs for 6 years, and she’s rebuilding her life,” would definitely offer way more of an explanation, than I could offer.
I have no idea why my life looks this way.

Other than my Scorpio Woman In Denial scenario I just shared with you, anyway. The idea that if I had understood what my power was, who I was, none of this would ever have happened.
It’s like complacency and playing small poisoned me.

So back to the 80s and Nikki Sixx. Because it was not just the way my life looks, and the similarities to his, that struck a chord.
It was also the way it is described what it is like to feel high, which resonated with me. That is how I used to feel ALL the time!
But on what?
Was it just when I was in love?
Was it really all the time, as I think it was?
My pain was numbed and I felt boundless pleasure for long periods of time. So long it felt like my natural state, I am sure of it.

But when was this?
And what was the, obviously internal, drug that caused this?

And then the third association that was triggered by this book, was that I used to read books about drug use, as a teen.
There were two, we had a Dutch book (Het Verrotte Leven Van Floortje Bloem, by Yvonne Keuls) that I don’t think ever got translated;
But my main fascination, as I will call it, was with the one translated to English as:
Zoo Station: The Story of Christiane F. 

I even had a clipping, which I sadly didn’t keep, about Christiane F. Late 80s, I think. I probably copied it from a folder at the library where they would keep folders with clippings on a variety of topics.
She had become such an enigmatic strong woman!
But that both books were about teen girls and neither one ended fatally, was the reason they felt important to me.

These girls were literally dancing with the devil, they were dealing with forces no one could contain, let alone a teenage girl;
And yet, they survived.

More than stories about addiction, to me, these were stories about girls who possessed power.
They were both teen prostitutes, but instead of seeing them as a warning I admired them for their tenacity and resourcefulness.
Their incredible strength and resilience.

This is a messy email, I think. It’s certainly not one where I knew beforehand how I was going to make sense of the past couple of weeks, nor how to tie it all together into a neat story.
But I think the gist of it is somewhere along the lines of that in the previous letter, my biggest insight into my personality was that I had started seeing myself through the lens of being a Sigma Female, and my goal was getting myself back to 2008 health and fitness levels, for the astrological purposes of Pluto moving into Aquarius in November.
And because I still need to fix the remaining damage these 6 years have done.

The Pluto in Aquarius time window, was a good opportunity to go all in for the final haul.

Whereas now, the biggest insight in my personality is that I am a Scorpio Rising sign, and that the reason my health and life have been imploding these last years, is the result of me not having been in my power for absolutely decades.

That the teen girl who read books about heroin addiction was in her power, she was familiar with evil and with darkness.
She knew what strength was, and what self-reliance looked like.
She didn’t read personal development books, she didn’t even know what that was.
Well, once: I got a Wayne Dyer book from the library, and started over several times before bringing it back, knowing this would never be for me.

I feel the last few weeks have been about getting in touch with my darker side, and that it is taking me back way further back than 2008.
That in the 90s, I was losing my strength in 1996, 1997, definitely 1998.
But in the 80s and earliest of 90s, I still had it.

Isn’t it strange to realize that all the years of maturing and personal development, all the yoga and the knowledge, you actually manage to miss you got it right the first time.

That technically, you do not even need to know where your birth chart has its rising sign;
Your intuition will tell you all the right things.

Just that I stopped listening.

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~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living