I had a successful Scorpio season: giving up desserts, changing my night habits, switching to an alkaline diet, staying in more and walking less, and now today, giving up caffeine.

I set guidelines for myself at the beginning of each year, month, week, and day. It helps me stay focused on my goals. I repeat them at intervals throughout the day to urge me to continue, to trigger my brain to remember why I am doing what I am doing. It’s Pavlovian. I am not just reading sentences, I am feeling the anguish of being controlled by food and daydream. The bigger picture is freedom. Freedom from rigidity, habit, old thinking, old parenting, authoritarian flagellation and years of poor self care mixed with periods of such intense rigid self care, I found no joy in existing.

Sagittarius is a mutable fire sign that doesn’t like the word ‘no,’ doesn’t like to be stuck in any one place and is always on the hunt, the archer, the rebel of our sky. My Sagittarius is in the fifth house of children and play (and Uranus), urging me to act out my oppositional tendencies with my inner child, finding comfort in breaking routine rather than staying in line. Schedules are important but they hinder. I am grateful to have a job that allows flexibility now so I can rest when I need to and can tweak routines without feeling like I am disrupting my entire life.

My Uranus in Sagittarius is restless, wanting to move, explore, chase ideas. It loves to be on the go, move, pace, meet people without commitment, exchange ideas and energy and keep going. I value this part of me and also know my body is craving rest, respite, a reset. I have found ways to sit and imagine, plot, let ideas trickle in and out of me without growing attached or without feeling like I have to write them down or chase them down the street in some sort of sudden flight response to my own creativity.  I take baths. I sit at altar. I sit on the couch or dining room and write. I sit. I seek while sitting. It is possible to explore worlds without moving.

This month I commit to living my liberation and seeking joy while stabilizing myself into a new, more flexible routine and giving my body the rest it so desperately deserves. And while I do plan to move back to Colorado, not yet. I plan to move to Spain. I have to work on my Spanish though.  I don’t think I can ever stay in one place too long and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. And even if I don’t, if I settle here, I have already made a list of everywhere  I want to travel and so begins the great journey inward.

We were not all made to live habitual lives.