Can astrology help us find love?
by Emma Louise Boynton @emmalouiseboynton
How do you break relationship patterns that no longer serve you? Is it possible to break an anxious attachment style, and establish something better? How do you get over an ex?
We speak to host of the Saturn Returns podcast and author of Saturn Returns, Caggie Dunlop, and astrologist and esoteric researcher Noura Bourni.
Astrology is a buzzword thrown around a lot, so what do we actually mean when we're discussing it?
Noura: Astrology is the science of studying the celestial movements and how they affect our lives. From the moment we were born, from the moment we took our first breath, our karmic path was laid out, and our life path was laid out. This is not about everything being destined and us not having freewill. It's about our cosmic blueprint, or cosmic DNA, and how we can tap into that in pursuit of authenticity and happiness on Earth. The whole point of astrology is to help you bring life back to yourself and live a path that is authentic to you, without having to submit to society, or authorities or expectations.
Noura, you worked with Caggie on her book, Saturn Returns. Can you explain in a little more depth, what Saturn Returns is? Noura: A Saturn Return is your astrological coming of age. It's the push you need to enter true adulthood. Saturn demands that you take full and complete accountability for your choices. The big question, depending on where Saturn is sitting in your chart, is where have you been inauthentic? Where have you crossed your own boundaries? Where have you been betraying yourself? Where have you lost yourself and your own voice and your own vision, and ultimately, your own authenticity? And that happens roughly between 28 - 30 years old. We go through life-changing experiences, but also we tap into our initiation into maturity and adulthood.
“For most of my 20s, I was seeking external validation and through that process, moulded myself to a different person that felt very inauthentic. ”
For many, astrology can come across as Woo Woo. How can we use it as a tool to help us navigate our lives? Caggie: It was definitely over my own Saturn Return when I started to have big existential questions like “who am I, what am I supposed to be doing? And why does everything feel like it's turning upside down?" For most of my 20s, I was seeking external validation and through that process, moulded myself to a different person that felt very inauthentic. When you look up Saturn Return, it talks about a period where everything gets turned upside down. And whilst that might be true, it is really about pulling away everything that is inauthentic. This process is painful because you're having to let go but all these things that fall away, are falling away for your own good. That can feel very revealing, especially if you haven't been cultivating a life based on truth and you don't know who you are. It's within this time period that you will have big shifts of clarity. I used to be uncertain by nature, I lacked discipline, and was not responsible. I was very reckless throughout my 20s. I don't regret them at all but by the end of them, I felt ready to create an intentional life.
Noura, you note at the beginning of the book that you count a number of high-powered CEOs and influential business people amongst your clientele. What are they typically turning to astrology for? Noura: Wealth building and legacy building. I didn't meet these men as my initial clients. They were always the husbands, fathers or partners of my clients who were too cynical about my work, at first. Eventually, talking with them becomes easier, and you tell them the truth, and they recognise it. It's always about wealth. It's always about legacy, and sometimes about love - but very rarely.
Why do we have a tendency to lose ourselves in love? Caggie: We are sold the damsel in distress programming from a very young age. We go out into the world, looking for someone to save us (I refer to it as the Saviour complex, which I think is very present in both men and women). People often fall into this dance where the woman wants to be saved and taken care of; and the man wants to save her, probably so much so that it becomes imbalanced. Resentment builds up between both parties, because he feels responsible for her happiness and she believes he doesn't trust her to take care of herself. And so it creates an enmeshment that we romanticise rather than trusting we are able to be responsible for our own stuff. We should be going into relationships in a far more conscious way, to support each other in our healing without being held responsible for it. I think that that's a really important distinction to make.
There are also not many films around with the main character being complete and fulfilled on their own, and then meeting a lovely person and having a happy, conscious relationship. That narrative is just not as entertaining.
“Trust is everything. If we’re subjecting the most precious part of ourselves, and if we trust ourselves enough, and value ourselves enough and see ourselves as being precious, we would only want to open up with someone that we really trust.”
If you're going to feel the true depths of sexual pleasure, you have to feel connected to your body. What else can help us build that mind-body connection? Noura: Trust is everything. If we're subjecting the most precious part of ourselves, and if we trust ourselves enough, and value ourselves enough and see ourselves as being precious, we would only want to open up with someone that we really trust. And they would make us feel that way as well. They would want us to feel safe and vulnerable. So isn't there a conversation surrounding ‘who are we sharing ourselves with?’
Setting boundaries can be quite a difficult thing to do when we go into relationships with a scarcity mindset, feeling like we need to make this work because it is the best thing we are going to be able to get. Why is this mindset so prevalent? Caggie: A lot of us are educated around sex through pornography, which is just a big performance. We then go into sex wanting to present ourselves with a certain persona, which creates a tricky situation whereby the further along we do that, the harder it is to have a really honest, vulnerable, conversation because we are misrepresenting ourselves. For so many of us for so much of our lives, we don't even go into relationships or sex thinking, ‘is this person worthy of sharing my energy with? We go into it thinking ‘I want them to like me’. When we first have those sexual experiences, how much of them are because we're physically ready, and actually want it and how much of them are because we are feeling pressured or want boys to like us?
It’s important that we address endings. We put so much pressure on ourselves to try to stick them out, even when they're not making us happy. In your book, you talk about being able to leave a relationship with integrity. What did you mean by that? Caggie: It's from a book by Toko-pa Turner called Belonging. There is a chapter called Leaving Well. When a relationship ends, I think we are very quick to jump into two roles, the perpetrator and the victim. To leave a relationship with the same grace and love that you came into it with is a really beautiful practice, but it's not easy to do. In an ideal world, the other person can do it as well. I think we hold onto fragments of past relationships far longer than they should because we don't practise the art of leaving well.
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