Q: I have been on a long journey of healing pre-birth trauma, specifically the loss of a twin brother and twin sister in the womb. The question is, does an astrological perspective (i.e. taking into consideration my natal chart) offer insights into that which occurred before I was born – even though the chart was not then activated? What might such an interpretation look like (and offer) to forward healing as well as unity in weaving this life-marking event into my life’s work.
A: The birth chart indeed has a lot to offer, and say, about the in-utero journey. Astrologer Tad Mann of “The Round Art” fame, publicly pioneered a system whereby the in-utero journey is represented by (and described from) the 9th house cusp, all the way through to the birth point at the Ascendant. He proposed the 9th house cusp as the conception point in the chart and created quite an elaborate logarithmic mathematical way of tracking occurrences during the in-utero journey through those last four houses.
My own work in this area (a lot of which came from simultaneously starting astrology while doing a primal therapy training) has extended this perspective to include the 8th house. In working practice, I found individuals’ journey through in-utero experiences (particularly around implantation, attempted abortions or threatened miscarriages) were clearly represented astrologically in the 8th house. This suggested that the conception point may be much earlier than Tad Mann proposed. This extended view of the chart forms the basis of my answer to your question.
The focal point is your Moon/ Neptune conjunction, which although technically in your seventh house is close enough to be conjunct the 8thhouse cusp. This manifests potently as an opposition between your Gemini Sun conjunct Persephone and your Sagittarius Moon conjunct Neptune. Now, it is synchronistic that you were born in the sign of the twins obviously – it is not always this literal though.
Evidence suggests that one in seven of us are in fact surviving twins, so the incidence of being a twin is far higher than most of us know. Many of us actually lost in-utero an incredibly close being who might feel like a twin soul / twin flame to ourselves. There is deep pain in losing something or someone so profoundly and intimately connected to us and perhaps leads to a part of self feeling disconnected from very, very early on.
Persephone, conjunct your Gemini Sun, often talks about the significance of loss in your world in general and particularly losses connected to actual death and/or deathlike experiences that then lead to deeper, personal transformations. In oppositions such as yours, what can often happen is that we identify with one end of the opposition and project out the other. This is particularly in the case of the 7th house, the house of long term relationships as well. So there is a direct relationship between the loss of your siblings and your relationship dynamics. Here we are seeing relationships from a very broad perspective – any intimate emotional relationship, which includes partners.
I have to say straight away that this is incredibly painful territory – particularly as your Moon/Neptune conjunction describes you as being extraordinarily sensitive. This sensitivity can be both exquisite and excruciating at times. Here your Moon (your personal emotional self) is connected to the massive opening tendencies of Neptune, who dissolves personal boundaries to allow you to tune into and feel everything that is around you particularly in the early stages of your life.
So there is this image of you having a profound psychic and spiritual soul connection, which makes pain of the separation so much deeper in many ways. This is such significant territory for you, because here we are describing your own personal Moon. In terms of potency, the Moon is an equal to the Sun. It is as if your Moon can produce, or exaggerate, a longing for that reunification which is not just about the souls of your brother and sister , but with a massive part of your own personal intimate emotional self.
I have seen this in people’s charts where the pervasive sense of something missing that’s elusive, and yet the yearning for it can be so powerful – it almost haunts them. They seek to fulfil that through their relationships, through the pursuit of connection. This then is an extention what exists in everybody if they’re sensitive enough to feel it; a longing inside each of us to bond with another on the deepest soul levels. Alongside the pain there is also a deep, early experience of that bonding, and the memory of it.
Now, having said that, this can dovetail with part of the dynamics of having a 7th house Moon. As I have said, we tend to project out anything in this house and unconsciously seek the part of self in others, at least initially until it is fully re-owned. So for anybody with their Moon with this position, one of their life tasks is to own the fullness of their own Moon energy. In doing this they come to realise that they don’t need anybody else to complete them. With the Moon/Neptune, this statement also includes owning fully, your psychic and spiritual sensitivities and being a very, very astute caretaker of the extreme vulnerability and sensitivity that is represented here.
Some people with this position will identify more with the Sun energy. They therefore get very active out there in the world, and to a certain extent in a woman’s life can lead to a more masculinise expression of self; whereas the Moon/Neptune is profoundly feminine. One way the projection can work is being attracted to very sensitive, vulnerable, spiritually open individuals, who in essence are a reflection of what is not fully owned within oneself. So having the lost siblings in this mix, deepens and exaggerates both the challenges, but also the gifts of this sensitivity.
Now, one shadow side of the Moon/Neptune, or at least our survival mechanism, is the anaesthetisation of early pain that was too great to feel. So, we can be fairly certain, that one of the automatic responses to the loss was to reduce, somehow numb out, or minimise your own sensitivity, which includes your psychic and spiritual giftedness. This happened because it was simply too painful to stay with that experience of loss. So this points us to some good potential outlets for healing.
Firstly, any therapeutic work that is emotionally based, that helps you reverse the anaesthetisation, and re-claim the fullness of your original emotional system will be useful. This can include emotionally based therapies and/or emotional expression therapies (after all this is a Sagittarian extravert energy).
Additionally, consider consciously (on a day-to-day level) what triggers take you out of your feelings and/or perpetuates the numbness or anaesthetisation. So on one hand this will require clear therapeutic support, but also it is about this day-to-day discipline of considering “what am I feeling?” “what is happening in my body?”. This can give yourself fuller permission to feel more fully.
The second obvious thing is to nurture your spirituality through spiritual practices such as meditation in both active and passive forms.
Additionally, you need to take risks in intimacy and vulnerability.
Thirdly, in reversing the anaesthetisations, with the assistance of life, transits and grace, you will eventually reach back into that place where you can grieve. You will feel the loss more fully and be able to truly, fully grieve. This final process inclines me to think that the deeper you go here, the likelihood of re-bonding with your siblings on a spirit level is high, very, very high.
There are other supports with in-utero trauma such as the primal therapy taught by the late Melbourne psychiatrist, Graham Farrant. He specialised in working with conception and the in utero journey and taught many contemporary primal therapists, including myself.
There is also a Buddhist womb conditioning meditation tradition. There are also meditations within the current spiritual movement based at theOneness University in India, which also has powerful in-utero meditations.
Now I love the last part of your question, about the weaving this life-marking event into this life’s work. Alongside the trauma, there are rich, rich veins. Pursuing the longing is about pursuing your own spiritual giftedness, including your gift for compassion, for empathy, for tuning in very deeply and accurately into the emotional lives of others and being able to touch people by your sheer psychic and spiritual openness.
Any wound that has to do, even indirectly, with the 8th house is a wound that takes you into such deep places through your own healing necessities, which draws on skills that can (and will) eventually be offered to others.
This is reflected in you chart by your Moon/Neptune in an extraordinary grand trine to both the priestess archetype Vesta in the house of groups in Aries, and the Black Moon in Leo in the 3rd house. The subtle giftedness of your Moon/Neptune is incorporated with a potent independent priestess archetype and the Kali-like Black Moon. As well as being in a grand trine, these latter two are also sextile your Gemini Sun/Persephone conjunction which then forms a kite arrangement.
There is then, an overriding sense that the loss of your brother and sister is part of a necessary wounding leading you to own your own depth, giftedness and power as a potential facilitator in these areas, as a group leader, and as a communicator for the sacred feminine. It also draws you naturally into the realms of secret women’s business, the realms of shamanic and spiritual midwifery, which specialise with working with these very deep mysteries of conception, in-utero life, birth and the necessary initiations that every woman goes through in the process of becoming maturely empowered individuals.
So you are spot on, in the sense that this cataclysmic early event was also the spark of the giftedness and power that you will bring to the world. By the sound of it, you are already tuning into that as part of the deal. So good luck with going down into the deeper realms – as you go deeper you access greater giftedness – particularly as you progressively clear these deeper layers of pain. This will thaw out major parts of your fire moon energy and there will indeed be more to celebrate, which is already true, but there is much more as a consequence of doing this journey.
Evidence suggests that one in seven of us are in fact surviving twins, so the incidence of being a twin is far higher than most of us know. Many of us actually lost in-utero an incredibly close being who might feel like a twin soul / twin flame to ourselves. There is deep pain in losing something or someone so profoundly and intimately connected to us and perhaps leads to a part of self feeling disconnected from very, very early on.
Persephone, conjunct your Gemini Sun, often talks about the significance of loss in your world in general and particularly losses connected to actual death and/or deathlike experiences that then lead to deeper, personal transformations. In oppositions such as yours, what can often happen is that we identify with one end of the opposition and project out the other. This is particularly in the case of the 7th house, the house of long term relationships as well. So there is a direct relationship between the loss of your siblings and your relationship dynamics. Here we are seeing relationships from a very broad perspective – any intimate emotional relationship, which includes partners.
I have to say straight away that this is incredibly painful territory – particularly as your Moon/Neptune conjunction describes you as being extraordinarily sensitive. This sensitivity can be both exquisite and excruciating at times. Here your Moon (your personal emotional self) is connected to the massive opening tendencies of Neptune, who dissolves personal boundaries to allow you to tune into and feel everything that is around you particularly in the early stages of your life.
So there is this image of you having a profound psychic and spiritual soul connection, which makes pain of the separation so much deeper in many ways. This is such significant territory for you, because here we are describing your own personal Moon. In terms of potency, the Moon is an equal to the Sun. It is as if your Moon can produce, or exaggerate, a longing for that reunification which is not just about the souls of your brother and sister , but with a massive part of your own personal intimate emotional self.
I have seen this in people’s charts where the pervasive sense of something missing that’s elusive, and yet the yearning for it can be so powerful – it almost haunts them. They seek to fulfil that through their relationships, through the pursuit of connection. This then is an extention what exists in everybody if they’re sensitive enough to feel it; a longing inside each of us to bond with another on the deepest soul levels. Alongside the pain there is also a deep, early experience of that bonding, and the memory of it.
Now, having said that, this can dovetail with part of the dynamics of having a 7th house Moon. As I have said, we tend to project out anything in this house and unconsciously seek the part of self in others, at least initially until it is fully re-owned. So for anybody with their Moon with this position, one of their life tasks is to own the fullness of their own Moon energy. In doing this they come to realise that they don’t need anybody else to complete them. With the Moon/Neptune, this statement also includes owning fully, your psychic and spiritual sensitivities and being a very, very astute caretaker of the extreme vulnerability and sensitivity that is represented here.
Some people with this position will identify more with the Sun energy. They therefore get very active out there in the world, and to a certain extent in a woman’s life can lead to a more masculinise expression of self; whereas the Moon/Neptune is profoundly feminine. One way the projection can work is being attracted to very sensitive, vulnerable, spiritually open individuals, who in essence are a reflection of what is not fully owned within oneself. So having the lost siblings in this mix, deepens and exaggerates both the challenges, but also the gifts of this sensitivity.
Now, one shadow side of the Moon/Neptune, or at least our survival mechanism, is the anaesthetisation of early pain that was too great to feel. So, we can be fairly certain, that one of the automatic responses to the loss was to reduce, somehow numb out, or minimise your own sensitivity, which includes your psychic and spiritual giftedness. This happened because it was simply too painful to stay with that experience of loss. So this points us to some good potential outlets for healing.
Firstly, any therapeutic work that is emotionally based, that helps you reverse the anaesthetisation, and re-claim the fullness of your original emotional system will be useful. This can include emotionally based therapies and/or emotional expression therapies (after all this is a Sagittarian extravert energy).
Additionally, consider consciously (on a day-to-day level) what triggers take you out of your feelings and/or perpetuates the numbness or anaesthetisation. So on one hand this will require clear therapeutic support, but also it is about this day-to-day discipline of considering “what am I feeling?” “what is happening in my body?”. This can give yourself fuller permission to feel more fully.
The second obvious thing is to nurture your spirituality through spiritual practices such as meditation in both active and passive forms.
Additionally, you need to take risks in intimacy and vulnerability.
Thirdly, in reversing the anaesthetisations, with the assistance of life, transits and grace, you will eventually reach back into that place where you can grieve. You will feel the loss more fully and be able to truly, fully grieve. This final process inclines me to think that the deeper you go here, the likelihood of re-bonding with your siblings on a spirit level is high, very, very high.
There are other supports with in-utero trauma such as the primal therapy taught by the late Melbourne psychiatrist, Graham Farrant. He specialised in working with conception and the in utero journey and taught many contemporary primal therapists, including myself.
There is also a Buddhist womb conditioning meditation tradition. There are also meditations within the current spiritual movement based at theOneness University in India, which also has powerful in-utero meditations.
Now I love the last part of your question, about the weaving this life-marking event into this life’s work. Alongside the trauma, there are rich, rich veins. Pursuing the longing is about pursuing your own spiritual giftedness, including your gift for compassion, for empathy, for tuning in very deeply and accurately into the emotional lives of others and being able to touch people by your sheer psychic and spiritual openness.
Any wound that has to do, even indirectly, with the 8th house is a wound that takes you into such deep places through your own healing necessities, which draws on skills that can (and will) eventually be offered to others.
This is reflected in you chart by your Moon/Neptune in an extraordinary grand trine to both the priestess archetype Vesta in the house of groups in Aries, and the Black Moon in Leo in the 3rd house. The subtle giftedness of your Moon/Neptune is incorporated with a potent independent priestess archetype and the Kali-like Black Moon. As well as being in a grand trine, these latter two are also sextile your Gemini Sun/Persephone conjunction which then forms a kite arrangement.
There is then, an overriding sense that the loss of your brother and sister is part of a necessary wounding leading you to own your own depth, giftedness and power as a potential facilitator in these areas, as a group leader, and as a communicator for the sacred feminine. It also draws you naturally into the realms of secret women’s business, the realms of shamanic and spiritual midwifery, which specialise with working with these very deep mysteries of conception, in-utero life, birth and the necessary initiations that every woman goes through in the process of becoming maturely empowered individuals.
So you are spot on, in the sense that this cataclysmic early event was also the spark of the giftedness and power that you will bring to the world. By the sound of it, you are already tuning into that as part of the deal. So good luck with going down into the deeper realms – as you go deeper you access greater giftedness – particularly as you progressively clear these deeper layers of pain. This will thaw out major parts of your fire moon energy and there will indeed be more to celebrate, which is already true, but there is much more as a consequence of doing this journey.