I don’t have one voice. I have many voices. Sometimes it is soft, silky and seductive. Other times it is courageously bold. My voice can be wise, with wisdom beyond my years. My voice can be spiritual, moved by the field of connection unifying us all. Or it can be fiercely honest, calling bullshit on me, and on you. I may appear a white woman in her early 40’s but if I were a nineteen years old black man, or if I were in Bruce, nee’ Caitlyn, Jenner’s body, I would still be me. I contain multitudes within me. The multitudes move through me in dialects of moods, tone, emotion. My voice reflects the multi-dimensionality of my human and spiritual experience.

I am thinking about my voice. As a writer I always have something to say, but sometimes it goes eerily quiet. Something in me doesn’t want to speak. This bothers me because another wiser part of me knows I have books inside, waiting to be written (I have heard this so many times from so many: don’t we all?) I have my suspicions; I suspect I am hurt, angry. I think about the facts. I know I am angry at the magazine that won’t return my email for months. I complain to colleagues that they don’t have common courtesy, but secretly inside I am harboring a deep fear that they have rejected me for reasons I may never know. I recall a publication that had been in full support of my work, but earlier this year withdrew that support after I used a curse word that offended at least one of their readers. I imagine them meeting behind closed doors, deciding that my work does not fit with the politically correct image they want to project to their readership, more concerned with their image than the collaboration of feminine voices to which they are publicly dedicated. In my natal chart I have Pluto in image-conscious Libra in the secret twelfth house: death by political incorrectness, being voted off the island from behind closed doors, fits.  The PC movement has gone too far when it compromises freedom of speech, shooting down voices that use offensive words to communicate deeper truths… Am I being Pluto paranoid? Am I making this up? I only know they no longer follow my work.

I am thinking about the nodal “past life” reading* my mentor Steven Forrest gave me back in 2008, where he described a leader, a shepherd of many and dedicated to a cause, a compassionate woman horrifically betrayed because she didn’t have the 360 degree clairvoyance to see that one of the many people she had been caring for felt their liberty impinged upon, and in an act of revenge likely killed her, and everyone. And who, now reincarnated, carries lifelong solitude and gloominess and doubts the legitimacy of her voice.

I am thinking about my father, who claimed the singular voice of authority in our household, and whose deep sense of powerlessness and futility undermined those very words that landed like iron fists on those around him  (his Pluto oppose Mercury).  And of the child who felt these verbal fists silence her, verbal fists as violent to her emotional body as any physical ones (my Saturn in Gemini conjunct Cancer Sun).

I am thinking about women’s voices. How throughout his-story the liberty of speaking our minds came with repercussions from male counterparts.  I am thinking of my woman clients…so many dear ones… who, out of fear, out of a vague and vaguely remembered sense of invisibility to brothers, husbands, fathers and the subsequent erosion of selfhood, have doubted their right to speak, or exist.

I am thinking about a half-remembered captioned photo I saw on Facebook: Speak what sets off a revolution inside your heart.

I am thinking of Mercury and Neptune. Mercury is at a standstill, changing directions at 4 degrees Gemini on June 11 (in my eighth house of wounds and karmic legacies). So is Neptune, at 10 degrees Pisces (in my self- fifth house), in preparation for it’s bi-annual retrograde on June 12. Both planets rule consciousness: While Mercury lords over data, logic, facts, Neptune rules the insubstantial but not flimsy impressions that drift in from beyond time and space. Our psyches are porous, open, ready to make connections that may be both logical and illogical, half-true and absolutely true. Are we (am I?) making these things up? Does it matter?

I am thinking of building an altar. For those of us who struggle with self-expression or doubt our intelligence, for those who want to use our words effectively or who doubt the legitimacy of our voice, I am thinking that the time is right for building an altar to the Gods and Goddesses who are just waiting for us to simply ask… perhaps a space where we can ask to receive wisdom and healing from beyond, or perhaps a container for accruing power, authority and legitimacy on behalf of our own unique voice.  I am building an altar- with found objects, with symbolism personal to me. I know what I’m claiming: the right to use curse words, even offensive ones if it feels true, the right to be honest about my experience, the right to write, and the right to have my voice heard. Because that’s a liberty we all deserve.

image source: http://www.rebelology.com.au/

*The astrology: My ninth house Cancer Sun is conjunct Saturn in Gemini and Cancer South Node (opposed by Capricorn North Node in the third house). This configuration is squared by Mars in Aries in the sixth house opposing Pluto in Libra in the twelfth.