You might remember Diana Rose Harper from her first piece, Digital Covencrafting for POC Mystics. Creating real and conceptual homes is as important to her as it is for us, and starting now, she’s offering a monthly musing on what home means to her, to people, and to the world. Expect to see anecdotes, words of wisdom, and tidbits of witchy knowledge peppered throughout.
In the past seven years, I’ve lived in seven neighborhoods, two countries, and eight apartments. To say that finding a forever-home has been difficult is an understatement; it seemed that no matter how much potential a new living situation had, at some point, some disruption or another would have me searching, yet again, for a place to set up my bookshelf.
Over those same 7 years, I went through the post-college version of the “what the fuck am I even doing with my life; who the fuck am I; do I even believe in anything” infinite question-loop. Struggling for a conceptual home coincided with each box I packed and repacked and repacked again.
The “who even am I” question came to a head earlier this year -- in March, I found out that my official birth time and the birth time my mom estimated were different enough to shift my entire natal chart. With that shift came a few of the answers I’d been seeking -- not just about who I am and why I’m here, but why I moved around so damn much: Uranus had been pulling tricks in my 4th house the whole time.
Some background for those who are less saturated with astrology: Uranus is one of the outer planets, discovered by William Herschel in 1781 with the help of a telescope. As a planetary archetype, Uranus is the Prometheus of the solar system: he brings revolutionary change, technological progress, and sudden shifts to how the world works via radical insight and inarguable paradigm shifts -- Uranus demands innovation and integrity in equal measure. Uranus spends about 7 years creating generative chaos in each sign of the zodiac, finishing its orbit in 84 years.
Everyone’s natal chart is divided into 12 houses, with each house ruling a particular domain of life. There are 12 zodiac signs, so each house will have an assigned zodiacal sign; which sign belongs to which house depends on your ascendant, or which sign was on the horizon whenever you were born.
My birth time revelation moved my ascendant into the next sign of the zodiac, effectively moving all of the signs one house over. This shift put Uranus’s recently-ended transit through Aries (March 2011 - May 2018) into my 4th house; the 4th house rules our physical home, our ancestral roots, and that special interior realm where we understand where we come from and where we belong.
So, obviously, Uranus had a very real impact on my physical living space during his time in my 4th house. But Uranus is also an outer planet; we can’t see Uranus in the sky without the technological help of a telescope, and we didn’t even know it existed until the telescope was invented. Along with Neptune and Pluto, Uranus more naturally rules over things we cannot see clearly without intentional focus: our minds, our emotions, our souls, our beliefs, our sense of self, our sense of Self.
Concurrent with my becoming really good at loading a U-Haul, Uranus was providing me with the space, insights, and upheavals required for me to build an invisible home within myself. This interior home lives in the heart: the 4th energy center of the body, an unexpected mirroring of the astrological 4th house. And with my natal Uranus/Ascendant conjunction, this interior home is far more important and far more enduring than any exterior, physical home I might occupy.
An external home will always have an expiration date; at some point, that itchy restlessness to get up and go will strike again. But an internal home? The home I build with enough space for all my loves and fascinations and shadowy wounds? I carry that with me; I can remodel it whenever I need to make room for all of my growth.
Interested in learning more about Diana? Find her on Instagram at @ddamascenaa and on her website at ddamascenaa.com. Look out for more of her writing next month.
