Not Just Blood: What We Inherit, What We Heal

Recently, I watched Ryan Coogler’s film Sinners. The film stirred something deep within me. It reminded me that as Black Americans, we inherit far more than blood—we inherit sorrow, silence, gifts, and burdens. Our healing journey is layered, complicated, and urgent. Watching Sinners made me reflect even more on how many of us are living out unhealed stories written long before we were born. Stories we sometimes carry without understanding, stories we sometimes repeat without realizing why. It reminded me why astrology has been such an anchor for me—not for entertainment, but for survival. Astrology gave me a way to trace these stories back through time, to find not only the root of the wound but also the root of the medicine.

I didn’t choose this path. It chose me. And the more I studied my chart, the more I realized that healing wasn’t a passion—it was a contract, signed long before I incarnated. One of the clearest examples in my own chart is my Saturn placement. I often use my chart not to project it onto others, but to show how these codes can reveal themselves if we’re willing to look. My Saturn sits at home in Capricorn in the 2nd house—a placement that speaks volumes about ancestral survival, land, ownership, money, dignity, and self-worth. As a Black person born in North America, I understand that my bloodline carries the memory of systemic theft—of land stripped away, of wealth denied, of bodily autonomy stolen. That survival coding runs deep. It often shows up as a fear of not having enough, or a subconscious urge to constantly prove that I deserve to exist, to belong, to have.

But Saturn doesn’t only bring hardship—it brings sacred responsibility. Saturn asks me to reclaim sovereignty over my body, my time, my talents, and my resources. Every time I choose myself—when I honor my gifts, when I refuse to let oppression or scarcity thinking define my value—I am liberating my bloodline. Saturn in Capricorn in the 2nd house is not just about material success; it is about becoming the root my ancestors prayed for. It is about remembering that survival was their wealth—but thriving can be ours. Healing this placement means breaking the generational curse that says our worth is tied to how much we can endure. It asks me to build lasting foundations rooted not just in wealth, but in dignity.

There’s a kind of alchemy that unfolds when life drops us into the deep end—a spiritual molting that feels like chaos but is really just truth rising to the surface. Over the past month, under the weight of eclipses, retrogrades, and collective energetic upgrades, I felt that chaos deeply. But instead of letting it break me, I accepted its invitation to become. This post is not written from a place of arrival, but from within the process itself. It’s a love note to anyone navigating heavy placements in their chart, ancestral karma in their lineage, or cycles of self-rejection that echo louder during seasons of growth.

Like many of you, this most recent wave of transits cracked me open—and not gently. When I finally loosened my grip on parts of myself that had long expired, I found clarity. During the Libra Full Moon, I metaphorically opened my hands and realized how bruised and bloodied they were from holding onto pain that wasn’t mine. And while environment and relationships played their part, I had to face the deeper truth: I was the one saying "yes" to spaces and versions of myself I had already outgrown. I'm not sharing this for pity or performance; I'm sharing it to reflect something real—the uncomfortable, invisible work that many spiritual spaces don’t always show. It’s not all love and light.

The rainstorms? They've been helping my roots grow deeper.

Over the last few years, I’ve turned to my natal chart more consistently—not for aesthetics, not for trends, but as a tool for navigating real-life spiritual storms. And what I’ve learned is that the hard aspects don’t just warn us—they prepare us. They are sacred mirrors, often showing us the very work we’ve been avoiding. They are portals to evolution, if we’re willing to stop looking away. Astrology, at its deepest, is not a prediction tool. It’s a mirror that says: you already know. You’ve always known. Now live like it.

This season forced me to realize that even with all my spiritual tools—meditation, rituals, cleansings—I was still bypassing. I was trying to sit still in the fire without realizing that I had the power to step out of it. When I finally did, I could clearly see how much I had been overextending myself. Some people only reached out to make sure they still had access to me—not because they cared how I was. And I had to be honest: I didn’t have much left to give. And that was okay.

My romantic relationship acted as a catalyst for this revelation. It exposed every leak—emotionally, spiritually, energetically. And when I went back to my chart, the alignments were undeniable. The transits weren’t just happening to me—they were activating me. Placements like my Pisces Moon in the 4th house, my North Node in Aquarius in the 3rd, and Pluto’s entrance into Aquarius were all pointing to the same truth: it was time to release, to elevate, to trust that what was crumbling was not meant to be rebuilt in its old form.

Reading these aspects is one thing. Living through them is another. Transits activate natal placements in ways that shake loose everything we’ve been gripping out of fear. Some collapse. Some awaken. I did a little of both. The truth hurt. But it also set the groundwork for radical self-love, for better boundaries, for a more authentic way of living and loving.

My Chiron wounds, my parent wounds, my overgiving, my deep attachment to proving my worth—they all came up for review. Pluto wasn’t letting me hide behind spiritual language or good intentions anymore. I realized I wasn’t alone—so many of us were being confronted by the same archetypal forces, just through different stories. The wounded healer had come for all of us. And I understood that none of it was punishment. It was preparation.

For me, salvation came through my North Node—a placement that points to purpose. In Aquarius, sitting in my 3rd house, it asked me to speak, to teach, to show up in community with clarity and authenticity. It also asked me to reconnect to my Imum Coeli (IC)—the root of my chart—which holds the emotional origin story I was born to transmute. Together, these placements reminded me of my ability to alchemize pain into purpose. As a Virgo Mercury in a more evolved position, my words can be my medicine. My storytelling is my healing.

And so, I did what I know how to do. I researched, I studied, I reflected. We cannot change our natal charts. But we can evolve them. We can alchemize what we were given.

Sometimes, when you read your chart, it takes real courage to sit with what’s there. To look at your Saturn and see your great-grandfather’s shame. To see your Chiron and recognize your mother’s grief. It can feel like being exposed. But that’s where compassion blooms. Because the truth is, some of these wounds were never ours to begin with. We inherited them. But we were also chosen to heal them.

Someone once told me a story of her receiving a past life regression, where she discovered she was an enslaved person in her bloodline who had jumped into the sea to avoid the horrors ahead. Her soul never touched American soil. But generations later, she returned—still carrying the water trauma. She couldn’t swim. She feared deep water. No trauma in this lifetime explained it. Her body remembered what her mind could not.

We often think reincarnation happens immediately. But it can take decades, even centuries, depending on the soul’s readiness. Sometimes, the soul must sit in the school of ancestors until it’s prepared to return. Earth, as I often joke, is like signing a Bad Boy Records deal—you might get a couple smooth lifetimes, but you better read the fine print.

Healing doesn’t begin with perfection. It begins with remembrance.

Our charts aren’t just about traits and talents. They are sacred maps—guiding us through the soul contracts we made long before we ever arrived here. And when we truly start remembering who we are—and where we come from—we don’t just heal ourselves. We heal them. All of them. And we prepare the soil for the ones yet to come.

Ten Challenging Natal Chart Placements Leading to Transformation

1. Moon-Saturn Hard Aspects (Conjunction, Square, Opposition) These aspects can lead to emotional suppression and feelings of isolation, often rooted in early life experiences. However, they also cultivate resilience and emotional maturity.

= Ex. Pisces Moon in the 4th house already carries weight — emotional hypersensitivity paired with a deep connection to home, ancestry, and emotional roots. This often echoes Moon-Saturn themes of emotional heaviness, ancestral grief, and a tendency to retreat or suppress emotions until it becomes too much to carry.

2. Mercury-Uranus Hard Aspects (Conjunction, Square, Opposition) This combination may result in erratic thought patterns and communication difficulties, but it also fosters innovative thinking and unique perspectives.

3. Neptune-Mercury Hard Aspects (Conjunction, Square, Opposition) Such aspects can blur the lines between reality and illusion, potentially leading to confusion or escapism. Yet, they also enhance imagination and spiritual insight.

4. 12th House Stellium Multiple planets in the 12th house can indicate hidden strengths and subconscious challenges, often pointing to karmic lessons and the need for solitude and introspection.

5. Chiron in Cancer, 4th or 12th House This placement often signifies deep-seated wounds related to family or past lives, offering opportunities for profound healing and empathy.

6. Pluto in the 4th or 12th House Indicates transformative experiences within the family dynamic, often involving power struggles or deep emotional undercurrents.

= Ex. Pluto in Scorpio in the 12th House – A generational placement common for those born in the late '80s and '90s. As we now witness Pluto shifting into Aquarius for the first time in our lives, this placement is lit up. It’s a mark of spiritual power — one that often awakens through isolation, spiritual warfare, or buried trauma. It says: break the ancestral chains or be buried by them. If you have this, you likely inherited shadow work from both your bloodline and your past lives — and still, you are the one who can clear it. Pluto here is the healer’s initiation, but it demands sacrifice, solitude, and deep integrity. This energy is rising now, as Pluto prepares to square itself in transit — intensifying your rebirth.

7. Saturn in the 8th House Challenges related to intimacy, shared resources, and transformation, encouraging deep personal growth and mastery over fears.

8. North Node in the 12th House Suggests a life path focused on spiritual growth, letting go of material attachments, and embracing the unknown. Now, this is a grey area as well because you can also find GREAT power and healing in this area. More on that later.

9. South Node in the 4th House Indicates past life attachments to home and family, urging the individual to move beyond comfort zones toward public life or career ambitions.

10. Venus-Pluto Hard Aspects (Conjunction, Square, Opposition) Can lead to intense and transformative relationships, teaching lessons about power, control, and deep emotional connections.

    
    

These placements, while challenging, often serve as catalysts for significant personal evolution and awakening.​

Natal Chart Placements Guiding Toward Awakening

Yes, we all carry “heavy” placements, but our charts also show us where the medicine is — the balms, the breakthroughs, the guidance. Here are the key placements and planets that often offer support, relief, or healing pathways for tough aspects in a natal chart:

1. Jupiter – The Great Benefic (Blessings, Expansion, Spiritual Protection)

• Role in healing: Jupiter brings optimism, divine protection, spiritual insight, and wisdom. It often shows where and how you can expand out of difficulty — even if it's squaring something tough.

• How to use it: Look to the house and sign Jupiter is in — this shows where life tends to offer grace. Even in a hard aspect, Jupiter can eventually turn tension into wisdom.

• Jupiter in Water houses (4th, 8th, 12th) = deep emotional and ancestral healing.

Jupiter is BIG energy. It’s where magic lives — but it activates when you believe. You can’t block what’s yours, but you can delay it. This is where you THINK BIG, BITCH. No matter the tension — activate it.

2. Chiron – The Wounded Healer

• Role in healing: It literally points to your deepest wound and the path to becoming a healer through that pain. Healing Chiron is never about removing the wound — it's about finding meaning and strength in it.

• How to use it: The house and sign placement show where your pain is most personal. Look to aspects to Chiron too — especially trines and sextiles — to see where support may already be flowing in.

This is your shadow work. If you’re stuck in therapy or running circles around a trauma — go here. Chiron (especially with Lilith) is the transcript you should bring to your therapist. There’s info here you haven’t fully unpacked. And yes — sometimes we lie to ourselves, so how can we be fully honest with a therapist? If you’re ready to break chains — start here.

3. North Node – Soul Evolution, The Healing Edge

• Role in healing: Following the North Node is like applying aloe to sunburn — it’s uncomfortable to start, but it’s where the soul is asking you to grow. It’s not comfortable, but it’s the future.

• How to use it: Healing comes when we consciously walk toward our North Node and slowly release the patterns of the South Node. Support comes through its ruler too — so check the planet that rules your NN sign.

I’m OBSESSED with the North Node. It’s the “what’s next?” of the soul. Sometimes, the activation comes with divine timing — you might need certain transits first. Aquarius North Nodes especially — your time is now. Your healing work lies in collective rebuilding, community work, local movements. Same if your NN is in the 11th house. EMPOWER and REBUILD.

LISTEN IF YOU HAVE ARIES NORTH NODE: BABY. This is your season. It’s time to choose yourself — lovingly, fiercely. Stop stalling your blessings to fix what isn’t yours. Clean your own plate first.

4. The IC (Imum Coeli / 4th House Cusp) – Your Root System

• Role in healing: The IC shows where we come from, what shaped us, and what kind of inner security we need to truly heal. This is the emotional core and where your inner child lives.

• How to use it: Reflect on how safe, seen, or supported you felt growing up — this is a clue to the healing you need now. Planets near the IC can show trauma, but also tools for inner sanctuary.

If you’re a generational cycle-breaker — look here. Seeing trauma written in the chart hits different. The IC reveals the diagnosis and the medicine.

5. Neptune – Spiritual Release + Higher Compassion

• Role in healing: Neptune dissolves. It helps us surrender control and egoic attachments. While it can also fog things up, its highest function is divine love, music, art, prayer, and unity.

• How to use it: Use Neptune for forgiveness practices, creative release, and spiritual connection. Its house placement shows how you naturally connect to the divine (or where you may need better energetic boundaries too).

Neptune has finally moved on from dreamy Pisces — a foggy era for all. Only Gen Alpha will truly live with Neptune in Pisces. If reality’s felt slippery, you’re not alone. Neptune is spiritual. What gifts are waiting in your chart?

6. Pluto – Death, Rebirth, and Raw Power

• Role in healing: Pluto burns things down so they can be reborn. It's not gentle, but it is thorough. Healing through Pluto means facing shadow, trauma, control issues, but coming out the other side utterly transformed.

• How to use it: Healing through Pluto is about facing, not avoiding. Look to Pluto transits or Pluto trines/sextiles in your chart — these can guide you through deep shadow work.

7. The 12th House – Ancestral + Subconscious Healing

• Role in healing: Planets here are hidden but powerful. This is where we carry karmic baggage, unconscious habits, and ancestral imprints. But also where we can release and transmute.

• How to use it: Look at your 12th house planets for clues about old wounds that want to be released through ritual, solitude, spiritual work, or therapy. This house is a key to soul-level healing.

8. Venus – Self-Worth + Softness

• Role in healing: Venus reminds us we are worthy of love, pleasure, and ease. When dealing with tough placements, Venus is your reminder that you don’t have to suffer alone — there is sweetness to be claimed.

• How to use it: Even Venus in hard aspect is an opportunity to reclaim softness. Look to the sign/house/aspects of your Venus to understand your love language and where healing is best accessed through beauty, art, or connection.

9. The Moon – Emotional Regulation + Inner Nurture

• Role in healing: The Moon shows how you self-soothe, what you need emotionally, and what you did or didn’t get growing up.

• How to use it: Tending to your Moon sign’s needs (like a ritual) every week — through food, home, touch, journaling — helps heal deeper wounds. Especially important if you have a Moon-Saturn or Moon-Pluto aspect.

10. Chart Ruler (Ruler of Your Rising Sign) – Personal Compass

• Role in healing: Your chart ruler acts like your life’s lens or compass. It colors how you approach life and can offer healing when aligned properly.

• How to use it: As an example, if you're Sagittarius rising, Jupiter is your chart ruler — making Jupiter's placement and transits extra important for healing, especially around purpose and faith. Your chart ruler is the planet that rules the sign on your rising sign.

Bonus: 🕊 Healing Trines + Sextiles

While the focus is often on “hard” aspects like squares and oppositions, don’t forget to look at the other aspects like the ones below:

• Trines (120°) – gifts and natural flow

• Sextiles (60°) – opportunities for growth through effort These aspects can act like soft landings and spiritual support — even when other areas feel chaotic.

These are the places I go when I feel lost, broken, or ready to give up. They don’t erase the pain, but they soften it. They show me that there’s a path through.

Why So Many Awakenings Lately?

We’re not imagining it. Something is shifting in the year of Mars. We are feeling the burn to release and rebuild whether in community or within ourselves. Rapid spiritual awakenings, deep ancestral purging, old friends falling away, new identities being born. So what’s going on?

1. Pluto in Aquarius (2023–2044)

Theme: Rebirth of the collective, radical transformation, ego restructuring

• Pluto in Aquarius (and out of Capricorn) Pluto is the planet of death, rebirth, and shadow — and it moved into Aquarius (for real this time) in November 2024, after teasing us throughout 2023.  is shaking collective structures and pushing us toward authentic evolution.

• Aquarius rules the collective, technology, innovation, and rebellion. Pluto in this sign is revolutionizing how we see ourselves in society, in community, and in systems of power.

• Many people are waking up to how they’ve been unconsciously complicit in their own suppression — especially within structures like capitalism, family, identity roles, and traditional relationships.

• Pluto here demands the death of the old paradigm ego — the ego built on control, performance, perfectionism, or validation.

• Those who resist this transformation? They’re hitting walls. Those who surrender to the shadow work? They’re being initiated.

2. Saturn in Pisces (2023–2026)

Theme: Spiritual tests, emotional maturity, illusion vs. reality

• Saturn, the planet of karmic lessons and structure, is now in mystical, watery Pisces — a sign that rules dreams, illusions, the unconscious, and spirit.

• This combo is calling people to embody their spirituality, not just talk about it.

• It’s breaking down false light, bypassing, and escapist spirituality. Anything built on fantasy, delusion, or denial is dissolving.

• If you’ve been suppressing your emotions, abandoning your inner child, or building your identity on illusion? Saturn in Pisces is calling you all the way out and not fucking playin with you!

• It’s also returning many people to ritual, creativity, ancestral connection, and spiritual discipline.

• Saturn in Pisces is dissolving boundaries and forcing us to sit in the emotional soup of everything we’ve avoided.

3. Chiron in Aries (2019–2027)

Theme: Healing the wounded self / reclaiming personal power

• Chiron is the Wounded Healer, and in Aries, it’s spotlighting identity wounds — Who am I? Am I enough? Am I allowed to exist as I am?

• It’s forcing people to confront rejection, abandonment, and shame related to self-expression and self-trust. Chiron in Aries is making self-identity and wounding impossible to ignore.

• This is also why so many relationships are being challenged — when you start reclaiming your power, it changes the dynamics around you.

• Many are realizing: “I’ve been silencing myself for others. I’ve been shape-shifting for love. I don’t want to live like this anymore.”

4. North Node in Aries + South Node in Libra (2023–2025)

Theme: Individuation vs. people-pleasing / the courage to choose yourself

• The Nodes of Fate shifted into Aries–Libra in July 2023, where they’ll stay until early 2025.

• Aries North Node is about courage, boldness, and asserting the self — especially after years of shrinking or compromising in the name of peace.

• Libra South Node is calling us to release co-dependency, superficial harmony, and approval-seeking.

• This axis is literally pushing people into ego death if their ego was built on “being the good one,” the healer, the peacemaker, the supporter.

• It’s also why we’re seeing such a dramatic rise in breakups, friendship shifts, and boundary setting — the soul wants freedom.

5. Uranus in Taurus (2018–2026)

Theme: Revolution in values, embodiment, money, and self-worth

• Uranus is the awakener. It brings shocks, breakthroughs, and sudden liberation. In Taurus, it’s shaking the ground beneath anything we’ve clung to for comfort or stability.\n- For many, that’s looked like money breakdowns, body healing crises, or radical shifts in values.\n- Uranus is helping people break free from material attachments that keep them from evolving.

• Uranus in Taurus is reshaping how we relate to resources, values, and embodiment.

6. Eclipse Cycles (Oct 2023–April 2025)

Theme: Massive karmic endings + new beginnings

• The current eclipses in Aries-Libra are catalyzing deep identity resets — especially around relationships vs. self.

• Every time an eclipse hits a personal planet or point, it accelerates the timeline — and many are being forced into rapid endings, job changes, relocations, spiritual revelations.\n- The Libra Full Moon Eclipse on March 25, 2024 and the Aries Solar Eclipse on April 8, 2024 were particularly intense for identity shifts, breakups, and revelations.\n- Eclipses = spiritual contractions that birth a new self.

These aren’t just trends — they’re activations. We’re being asked to do what our some ancestors couldn’t.

And the astrology confirms it.

Your Chart Is Not a Curse

If you take anything from this, let it be this: your birth chart — no matter how “heavy” it looks — is a map, not a life sentence. You can grow beyond the more difficult parts. Think of it like an upgrade — your chart doesn’t change, it evolves. And that evolution? It’s your story to tell.

The hard aspects don’t mean you’re broken. They mean you’re being initiated. Somewhere in your chart, there’s also a balm — a Venus, a Jupiter, a North Node — ready to guide you through the fire. I hope you find that light. And when you do, I hope you let it in.