Seeing the Hermit's Mirror in My Birth Chart
This past month—really this whole year so far—has been a whirlwind as things fall into place or fall away. Things are starting to settle a bit, and since I plan to ramp up again in the next few weeks, I thought it would be a good time to revisit my natal chart. If I don’t do it now, I don’t know when I’ll revisit it in such a way. I’ll be too invested in where things are headed to look back at where it’s been.
As I discovered the weekend of the Full Moon in Virgo a month ago, the time that I had been using as my birth time was incorrect. In short, I was using AM instead of PM because I misinterpreted a marking in my documentation. I was alerted to this by a text from my mother who had just found the plastic bracelet I was tagged with at birth. Although birth time doesn’t matter to most people, and it doesn’t affect most planets to a discernible degree, it affects Houses and thus rising sign: a 12-hour difference will literally flip a chart on its head. Also, such a big difference in time can sometimes affect Moon sign, as it did for me.
If you care about astrology and use it to help you take advantage of auspicious dates and times or use it for other practical purposes, then having a new rising sign, let alone Moon sign, can be kind of a big deal.
That it happened during the Moon cycle between the New Moon in Aquarius, at the time in what I thought was my first House, and the Full Moon in Virgo, then in my actual first House, helps situate just how perfectly timed this natal chart rebirth was and what it means for my astrological identity.
I have only been studying astrology for a couple of years, but when I decided to use it, I dove in. Still, because there is so much to it and many of its features can blend together in a mush of Latin names and Greco-Roman mythology, it benefits from the layering of information and interpretation over time. (If it feels overwhelming to learn, just scale it back to one thing at a time. That’s what I did. It’s actually why I created my astrology-based divination challenges.) Interpreting my natal chart took time, and there were still aspects of it that, two years and a bit into really examining it, I still struggled to accommodate and accept and understand. My Moon sign was one of those sticking points.
Until a month ago, I was under the impression that my Moon sign was late in Leo, that it was in fact almost within a one-degree orb of the “king star” Regulus. That’s a powerful point in the sky that was just out of the range of natural blessings (and a teensy-weensy curse). I felt as if I was supposed to chase that point and my Leo Moon. I even considered briefly—this past November—rebranding my online persona and business as Leo Moon Rising. I even sketched out a logo (it was very reminiscent of the Thundercats). But I decided not to change. Part of that decision was laziness, part good advice from a friend, part a feeling that something with my Leo Moon wasn’t right, and part an analysis of the synastry between my chart and the chart for when Hermit’s Mirror was officially incorporated in Texas. (I mean, there was some serious synchronicity to those points, which was entirely outside of my awareness until late last year.) But I understood that an identification with Leo was important for me given my past in performing arts, my desire to inspire, and an unwavering confidence seen by others, even when I’m not trying to seem confident. It was a key part—the key part?—of my personality that wasn’t reflected anywhere else in my chart. Hell, the whole sign of Leo was intercepted in my seventh House, the House of others. Talk about needing to find healthy ways to integrate its energy.
Connecting to Leo energy has always been easy—my biggest vice is pride—but being comfortable with it has been a challenge. Pride has tied in to most of my shadow work since I learned what shadow work was (really, what problems don’t stem from pride?). And examining it as a key component in the way that I relate to others —seventh House, remember—has provided many opportunities to better understand the power and pitfalls (and responsibility) of Leo as a sign in communication with others.
So for those who have asked, yes, I think that my old natal chart was “right” in that it was the chart that I needed for the past two or three years. All told, if it weren’t for having the Moon position that I thought was mine, I wouldn’t have embraced that shadow work; I wouldn’t have stretched myself to be more visible online in the tarot community as a knowledgeable teacher; I wouldn’t have pushed myself to create more; I wouldn’t have invested more in the potential of Hermit’s Mirror; and I wouldn’t have finished my Life Line Tarot deck in time for the Full Moon in Leo (nearly conjunct my Moon), which was the critical deadline I needed to actually completing the deck. As for the rest of my “wrong” chart, I wouldn’t have understood the potential for productivity that lies within me if it weren’t for my Capricorn rising, and I wouldn’t have examined my own personal identity if Pluto hadn’t been running roughshod back and forth over what I thought was my ascendant for the past year (Saturn got real aggressive for a while too). I might not have accepted the call to expand my work into the realms of ancestors and past lives if it weren’t for my Jupiter conjunct midheaven in Scorpio and my Sun conjunct imum coeli in Taurus, and that would be a real loss for my spiritual experience. Would I have discovered those things or made those moves eventually? Maybe. Maybe not. I can’t say.
Also for those who have asked, yes, I think that my new natal chart is “right,” especially for where I am now. After all, my Moon is now in Virgo in the first House. For those who know the Golden Dawn tarot-astrology correspondences, you know that the Hermit represents Virgo. Because of my business name / online persona of Hermit’s Mirror, people have always assumed that I was a Virgo. No, I would always explain, it’s because I’m a Life Path & Destiny Number 9, and the Hermit is 9, and the Moon (the “Mirror” of the Sun) is 18, which reduces to 9. But it turns out that it also really does work on an astrological level because I’m a Virgo Moon. And with it in my first House, it’s really hard to fight the feeling that Hermit’s Mirror / my Virgo Moon serves as a real personal identity now. As I described above, I thought that it might not really be my identity even if it was the business’s name, that it didn’t really fit me because I’m not a hermity introvert (and I didn’t think I had anything in Virgo besides a House cusp). But boy, does it make sense a few months later. It’s almost as if my Virgo Moon / Hermit’s Mirror needed to be questioned but not rejected in order to reveal itself, a gift disguised as a liability.
As for the rest of my new chart, I’m happy with the Houses where a lot of planets have landed. I miss some of the aspects with my ascendant in late Capricorn, including a really juicy grand trine, but I can’t argue with a Sun late in the ninth House and conjunct my midheaven or with Chiron, Selena, and Mercury in my tenth House. And seeing Saturn and Jupiter in my third House makes a lot of sense, especially when paired with Mercury in the tenth. Uranus in the fourth and Neptune and Lilith in the fifth make much more sense than in the tenth and eleventh Houses, respectively, even if there is some messy boundary-crossing for me along those House axes. Oh, and all that Leo work? It didn’t go to waste. It turns out that Leo is my rising sign, so it’s a damned good thing I’m learning to embrace the power and responsibility that comes with that sign.
With such a shift and such important insights and lessons from both charts, it would be easy to interpret this as meaning that your natal chart doesn’t matter. That’s true on some level: be the person you aspire to be, whatever your chart says. But your natal chart can matter in the sense that natal charts can help you apply yourself to goals and set schedules that help you be that version of yourself. Loosely interpret the meanings of planets, signs, and Houses if you want, or even change your placements if it helps, as long as you use it to actually make change in your life. To me, that’s the point of the natal chart. It reveals patterns and opportunities, both for natural successes and challenging growth. It gives guidance when you need it, and it helps you make decisions or find creative solutions when you feel stuck. It isn’t a contract for your destiny or a limitation. It’s an invitation to work with its theories in order to make practical changes in your life. You don’t need astrology to do that. But it can be a helpful tool if you aren’t sure where to start.
I’ll be examining the signs, Houses, planets, and aspects of my correct chart more in depth through a revisit of my astrology-inspired divination challenges this year, so you can follow me with that on Instagram if you’re curious.