“Once, Once, But Not Anymore”

“I know we’re not where I promised you we’d be by now
But maybe it’s a question of who’d want it anyhow?”

                                                         “The Rain” – The Swell Season

The Swell Season changed my life. Okay, that’s not really accurate. My life had already been changing. But they revisited me right when I needed them the most.

 

I know I’m not the only one around who discovers a song, feels connected to it somehow (or is obsessed with it), and then proceeds to listen to it in repeat. Yeah, that’s why some of the songs on my iTunes gets 200+ plays within mere weeks. In fact I could even figure out where I was in my journey by checking out what song I was obsessed about at the time. In fact, it goes something like this:

 

January: “Yellow” by Coldplay

February: “The Scientist” by Coldplay

March: “Secrets” by OneRepublic

 

April. Pluto went retrograde on Friday, April 12. That day I went on my artist date (for those of you who don’t know, this is part of creativity program called The Artist’s Way, created by Julia Cameron – I had started working on this in the beginning of March), which consisted of a morning wandering around downtown, and eventually winding up at a sheet music store that I had been to before. I’m not that far along in music, so I headed straight for the easy piano section. Right at the front was Easy Piano Selections from Once.

 

Now…I’d never seen Once. However, three years ago I’d gone to an open-air concert where Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova performed as The Swell Season. I knew nothing about them – I went with a close friend who was a fan. Here at the store, I remember I enjoyed the music, and I thought, ok…let’s get this.

 

“Falling Slowly” won an Oscar in 2008 for Best Original Song. I actually didn’t know this until I came back home and looked it up. And I started teaching myself this piece. The next day, I had my Venus Return. Pluto had just turned retrograde. I had plans to spend the day with a friend, and as luck would have it, he was a Glen Hansard fan, which I didn’t even know until that morning. That’s when I watched Once for the first time.

 

I learned how to play “Falling Slowly” within a week. And “The Hill” soon after that.

I kept on discovering new songs. The work of these singers-songwriters were beyond anything I’d encountered. Glen Hansard’s raw emotion. Marketa Irglova’s quiet determination. “The Rain” was my turning point. Around that time I went to my best friend’s public defense of her dissertation…and realized that my entire life I had prepared myself for getting into academia, but that dream no longer applied to me. I had changed, and I needed new goals and dreams to work towards. That quote at the beginning of the post? Yeah, I know this song is from a ‘break-up’ album. But this was a break-up for me – with my former self. “I know we’re not where I promised you we’d be by now” – I wasn’t in school. But, hell, did I want to be? I voluntarily gave it up a year ago. There we go.

 

New dreams. New goals. That brings to mind a conversation I had a few weeks ago, with a coworker:

Me: You know, as soon as I’m back from this trip [which, at the time of writing this blog post, starts tomorrow, and I’m procrastinating on packing by writing this], I’m thinking of getting seriously back to piano lessons.

Bored coworker: Great. Good for you.

Me: I’m also kinda thinking about voice lessons too. Don’t know if I can afford both of these things, but I would like to be able to sing. It might also help me write songs and stuff someday.

Coworker: Yeah. Go for it.

Me: You know what? I really want to learn how to play the guitar too! Maybe I can work on that one by myself.

Coworker: Uh-huh.

Me: And dude, I’ve always wanted to play the drums!

Coworker:…

Me: You know, I think I want to play in a band someday.

Coworker: Aparna. No. You don’t want to play in a band. You want to BE the band.

 

 

Well, I still want to play in a band and write music someday. How’s that for a new goal?

 

Progressed Lunar Returns…along with everything else.

So. Yeah, I think I’ve come to the point where I’ve realized that, nope, becoming a professional astrologer is not going to be my thing. 🙂 It’s a good discovery to make. I’ll probably still keep this blog around, just to make sense of progressions, transits, and whatever in my life – and if anyone else is reading, here’s some stuff that may help the interpretation process. I always find it helpful to know what’s going on in other people’s lives to understand astrological phenomena.

I still love learning about this stuff. Astrology, if anything, is an amazing tool for self-development, whether you’re trying to analyze yourself from your natal chart, figure out where you’re going in life (secondary progressions and solar arc directions), or you want to be prepared for the near future (transits, lunations, and planetary returns). And if you want to figure out how different people work together, there’s synastry. Am I missing anything? Probably. 🙂 That’s cool though – so much to explore!

 

Progressed Lunar Returns…that’s what I was getting at. So I’m not getting into what secondary progressions are (there are many awesome sites and books that describe this sort of thing –  and in fact, here is an awesome article on the subject of Progressed Lunar Returns and Saturn Returns:), but let it be enough to say that the Progressed Lunar Return happens for everyone at around 28, 56 and if one is particularly lucky, maybe, around 84. It could be sooner or later, depending on how fast the Moon is moving in the days after one’s birth. The Saturn Return follows the Progressed Lunar Return, usually a year or two afterward when one is younger, a few years apart as people grow older.

I’m about to have my Progressed Lunar Return, along with everyone else around my age (27). It’s a pretty important time, regardless of other astrological stuff going on – though if there are major things happening, a complete overhaul of one’s inner life can be expected. And that’s what I’m seeing in mine. The thing I want to get at is that, at 27, I think what happens is that you start figuring out who you are. By the time the Saturn Return rolls around, in a year or two, you start figuring out how to work with your outer circumstances. That…is what I’m getting from all the reading on the subject, at least about the Saturn Return.

In the past few months, I’ve been hit with a Pluto transit to my Sun (the second is in a week or so, and the last in December), a Uranus transit also to my Sun (two more of those coming up), some pretty heavy eclipses and lunations, and important progressions. And now this, the Progressed Lunar Return. I feel like I’m encountering the Shadow side of my personality (a very Plutonian thing to happen) and learning to accept it as it is. And I also now have a therapist to help me with this – yeah, I read somewhere that therapy is a good idea during a Pluto transit. Best. Decision. Ever. My therapist even has some knowledge of astrology – he knows what I mean when I talk about houses!

I don’t think I’ve ever gone through anything like this. A time when I am actively trying to find out who I am…and being cool with whatever I find out. And sure, there’s plenty of crap to work through, but can you imagine the sense of relief when you realize that you are who you are, and that you don’t need to fight it? It’s AMAZING.

I think this is the Progressed Lunar Return at work. And when my Saturn Return rolls around, two and a half years from now, I want to see where I am, with this newly accepted self. I know it won’t be easy, but it’ll be worth it.