I wanted to write a bit to give insight into why I made The Celestia Collection of jewels, the pieces based on the cosmos of astrology. Astrology is divisive. In the beginning, I had little interest in it myself beyond knowing my sun sign, reading a horoscope here and there, okay, and maybe seeing some of the magic that is supposed to await in a new love. Then a little deeper into the pool, I became interested in improving the ways I go about life from the perspective of learning the weaker points within my sun sign. When I looked back over the years of work, I saw it gave growth, and I thought that was cool, so I went even deeper with the time of my birth into planets and houses. I now regard astrology as an area I will always study. It is fascinating, enlightening, synchronistic, and in my experience, true. It is an old art.
Our moon has a profound impact on the water of the earth, and this extends to our inner cycles and moods, as we are mostly water. Its energy affects our cycles of fertility and creativity—it’s empowering when you realize this—our emotions and actions, our inner and outer life. If the moon, our sun, and our planet can affect us in myriad ways, why can’t our other planets and stars affect us too?
That’s what I asked myself and then I set out to feel astrology rather than read about it.
Clarence Hudson White, The Watcher, 1906
Nuevo tratado sobre astronomía, Raimundo Lulio, circa 1232-1316
My natal sun is in Cancer, the moon is my ruling body, so I really feel it doing its thing, I always have. It illuminates unknown things for me. It is our great reflector! When I have a question, if I go sit under the moon and listen, when I am done I find I have an answer—this is not to say that following the answer is always easy. I figured I would use this as a way to feel my way through the energies of our zodiac wheel, the constellations we travel through, as the moon sat within them. And then I would channel what I felt into a physical object, in this case the talismans!
Zodiac, Alphonse Mucha
It has been an amazing journey.
I began by reading from sources that seem to tune in with a stronger authenticity than others, listened to a few folks who have spent their lives studying these ideas, gathering what wisdom could be found. I didn’t go crazy researching, I wanted only enough knowledge to figure a way to feel into these energies myself and then explore and see what I found there. The moon helps me do that too:) I have not used someone else’s interpretation as the basis for the piece of jewelry. The final symbols are unique unto themselves, drawn as I sit in what I feel from their stars.
Feeling these different energies, settling into them, understanding them, using them to navigate surplus, lack, and establish balance, learning things they have to teach—it is another way acknowledgement and connection empowers us. This is what we can tap into when we accept our movement through cosmic energies as something that affects us. I began to feel the way our planet’s rotation propels us through a cycle. It can be likened to a wheel, circles upon circles, through repetition that offers this everlasting loop for learning—and growth. I could understand each period of time as, like the moon, one to listen to and honor in its own way.
I want the pieces of jewelry to serve their wearers in the ways that are needed, to help you answer your own astrological mysteries. I write about the energies I feel as I create a piece, and how they entwine with ancient beliefs we have passed down through time, the mythology of planets, gods, creation, life, death, rebirth, our detriments and exhaltations. This can be your stepping stone. I want to pass this all along to you as I can, the helpful things I find, in case you may be able to use it to shine and be your own sun!
Next, I will write a little about each sign and its place on this wheel I was feeling.
Blessings.