#043: It's time to live life in a ceremonious way

Some thoughts after turning 29.

It’s already HOT SUMMER NIGHTS, MID-JULY and I haven’t written all month! I turned 29 earlier this month on a last-minute trip to Rome to celebrate my solar return in a ceremonious way. There’s nothing quite like turning the last year of your 20s to send you into a contemplative spiral of your fleeting youth and the consequences of an increasingly serious life. And it’s precisely why I decided to do something out of the ordinary and looked to the sun, the moon and the stars to figure out how I should celebrate this new year. I did what I believe to have been the most beautiful, self-honoring way to do so. I’m not woo woo but I realize that flying to Rome for 72 hours because of astrology and writing about it proves otherwise. Be kind!

I generally hate the word “manifesting” because it has taken a simple concept which I have known to work my entire life — the law of attraction — into a brand of TikTok content shared and consumed by individuals I hope to never interact with. A simple search of the word “manifest” in the TikTok search bar will grant you suggestions like, “how to manifest your crush to be obsessed with you” or “how to manifest your dream salary” without much substantive guidelines other than mirror talk and thinking you’re that bitch. (To be fair, we should always think we’re that bitch) And do NOT get me started on “lucky girl syndrome”. I get the sentiment, but really, some of us are more predisposed than others to reap the benefits of said syndrome. I won’t divulge on this further today.

Today, there is still this strong collective belief in the ability to bend magical forces in our favor to unlock the secrets of the world through stars and spells, superstitions and magic. And it has existed for as long as there have been humans on the planet. Apparently, 40% of people in the world believe in witchcraft and the global astrology market is estimated at a staggering $22.8 billion. (Career pivot, anyone?) These numbers scare me because I cannot and will not subscribe to this new consumerist and often harmful incarnation of “spirituality”. When looking at these numbers, the people making free TikTok videos actually appear more endearing and are far more benevolent than bros who claim to be a “specialist embracing technology in a big way” convincing you to spend your life’s savings on their interpretation of the metaphysical. What I’m trying to get at here is that there has to be more solitary reflection and personal introspection than throwing money at someone to make sense of your life. While I can wholly empathize with society’s collective desire to rebrand one’s life and achieve one’s dreams, none of it is possible without one’s own effort beyond the metaphysical powers that exist in your own little universe.

I’ve briefly written about both my solar return and my Saturn’s return on here (make no mistake, they are different!) and to this day, I can’t really decipher the meaning of my solar return chart on my own. Something something, Jupiter in my tenth house, something something. Basically, a solar return takes place at the moment the sun returns to exactly the same location in the sky where it was at the time of your birth. So why did I go to Rome? The thinking behind solar return traveling is that just as the place where you’re born has an impact on your birth chart — which supposedly reveals major themes in your life — so can the place you spend your solar return affect the year ahead. An astrologer will use your birth chart and then searches for the place where the stars and planets will be most ~auspicious~ at the moment of your solar return, and so you travel to that location to make the most of the auspicious placement. It’s like hacking your horoscope.

My solar return chart

For my 29th year, I’m buckling down on my career goals and maximizing the networks I’ve built up until this point. Rome, with its own unique position, was the ideal place for me to set my intentions for these career and financial goals. This is not to say I don’t feel immensely proud of what I’ve achieved thus far. I feel eternally grateful for all the major decisions I’ve made in my life to get me to where I am now: a full time writer, model and content creator living in New York City with a beautiful community of friends, family, chosen family. I get to work on my own schedule, be creatively fulfilled, see the most beautiful corners of the world and cultivate a life of discerning taste. My life is a culmination of luck, timing, output and desire, and it always will be.

But I yearn for more and that is okay. This desire to expand and grow set the tone for my trip.

The older I get, the more I realize that life has a funny way of making you feel the opposite of what you’re supposed to be feeling. Usually by virtue of contrasts: a feeling of safety and a need for independence, long-awaited vacation and existential dread, quiet reflection and unhinged spiraling… and now, for me specifically, growing older and feeling energetic. Settling down? I truly don’t know her.

I like to think that traveling to Rome was a way of honoring my life in a ceremonious way. Beyond affirmations and mAnIfEsTiNg, there is a real force out there that has an impact on the way things work out for us. And part of this force is actually just our own personal belief system that in and of itself is a powerful tool. Yes, there is a quantifiable science and methodology behind astrology no matter how much or how little you believe in it. But since that first astrology session that determined it will be Rome that I go to, I’ve shifted my focus more on how powerful our minds are when we set our goals with hearty intention. If you can believe it, you can achieve it. Some people talk to themselves in the mirror and make TikTok videos about it. Others travel thousands of miles and write about it. And you, you might just roll your eyes and continue to live your life but deep down, there is your own belief system that doesn’t involve the sun and the moon and the stars or the word “manifest”, but a quiet life of meaning and intentionality. My act of travel, more than anything, was a commitment to myself. My own little belief system.

I usually never celebrate my birthday in any big way. In fact, in the past, I largely avoided making a big deal out of my birthday out of anxiety that no one would show up to celebrate. My birthday is kind of in the perfect storm of a scenario in which no one would show up: it’s high summer, always straddles F*urth of July weekend and most people are out of town. But somehow, this year, the perfect storm of a flop birthday actually turned out to be the perfect storm of a beautiful one. I ran away to Rome for my actual birthday and then scheduled a birthday party with my friends the following week in which every single one of my friends (save for a few who no longer live in New York) happened to be in town. Call it fate, call it everyone now realizing that July in New York is actually quite nice.

As my birthday dinner was winding down, one friend asked, “Tell us what you learned in Rome” to which I responded, “Not much” and proceeded to laugh. There is no a-ha! moment with your solar return, and I don’t think there is supposed to be. In your quiet solitude, there is power in reflection.

We should always use events in our lives as a marker to check in with ourselves and ask how we want to live our life. This can come in the form of birthdays, or major life milestones, or even just a moment of contemplative brooding. How can we take something we passively experience and turn it into an act of intentionality? Life is meant to be beautiful and ceremonious. Moments of languor matched with jolts of energy. A little ceremony that synchronistically dances with other forces that shape our lives: luck, timing, output, desire. It is beautiful and one worth celebrating. I can’t wait to do it all again and again.