✨ One-Paragraph Summary ✨

• After more than a decade living on five potent astrocartography lines in Vermont — Mars, Venus, Chiron (Ascendant), Uranus and Pluto (Descendant), plus a Venus–Pluto paran — I’ve come to the end of an era. 
• This land stretched me, exposed me, and shaped me: through divorce, healing, business building, erotic awakening, and deep love. Vermont mirrored my natal themes of worth, identity, and relational rebirth in profoundly challenging and catalytic ways. 
• And now, I feel complete. I’m moving toward a softer chapter — one that nourishes more than it scorches — but I will always bow to the mountain medicine that helped me re-member who I am.
• If you feel the pull to understand your own story through the lens of place, soul timing, and planetary initiation — I’d be honored to walk that path with you.

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Closing the Vermont Chapter: A Story of Soul-Stretching Astrocartography

We’re closing the book on our Vermont chapter. After more than 13 years in this forested cradle of challenge and transformation, we’re preparing to begin what I’m calling Michigan 2.0 — a return to my family roots, Midwestern ground, and a new chapter of life.

This piece is a love letter, a retrospective, and a kind of spiritual map — showing how Vermont mirrored, magnified, and molded me through the language of astrocartography. It’s a story of how place activates purpose.

This story also asks for my continued self-forgiveness and courage as I revisit some chaotic and messy times of my life and my family. I used to strive for perfection as a human — but that contains the false root programs of a want for control, a want for safety and security, and a want for love and approval. 

As beloved souls of God, we can BE these aspects without seeking to gain them externally. Our souls are safe, the Divine is masterfully in control for our freedom and expansion, and we ARE LOVE.

Back to the story…

I tell this story to share what kind of journey our souls can orchestrate for us to shed old ways of being, put us on the path of our authentic journey, and guide us away from “erroneous thinking of ego into the softened, awakened, relaxed, gracious way of Spirit.” (Alana Fairchild) 

The Move That Changed Everything

Over 16 years ago, our family of six left Michigan in a February blizzard. My (then) husband drove the moving truck with two of our kids; I followed in our stuffed Volvo, driving through the snow with two more kids and a very unhappy cat. We carried everything we owned, along with a few invisible things — heartbreak, idealism, and the raw edges of our evolving marriage.

We landed first in New Haven, CT for a brief stint, then sold everything to travel the country in an Airstream for a year. Eventually, we chose the natural beauty of Vermont as the place to root and raise our children. I had no idea the kind of spiritual composting and soul-turnover this land had in store for me.

Vermont cracked me open and helped me re-mem-ber — not just who I was, but who I was becoming. Here’s how that unfolded through the lens of astrocartography.

Astrocartography 101 (Quick Primer)

• As you move through the world, your birth chart moves too. Each place activates different aspects of your natal promise. This is called the Relocated Chart.
• When a planet becomes Angular (conjunct the Ascendant/Self and Body, Descendant/Relationships, Midheaven/Public life and vocation, or IC/Home and Roots), it’s as if that planet’s voice is turned up — louder and more visible.
• Paran Lines are intersections of planetary energies — think of them as energetic crossroads with double the impact.
• Your natal chart condition (day vs. night chart, planetary dignities, aspects, etc.) determines how these energies will express in each place.

The Astrocartography of Vermont

Vermont sits close to several potent lines for me — Mars, Venus, and Chiron all on the Ascendant; Uranus and Pluto on the Descendant; and a Venus–Pluto Paran Line less than 10 miles from my home.

Mars Ascendant Line: Fire and Form

Mars is my chart ruler and the “lesser malefic” in a night chart (I have a night chart) — which gives him more constructive potential. Still, my Mars is in detriment (in Taurus), meaning he often struggles to express directly. In Vermont, this Mars is on the Ascendant — no longer hidden, but embodied.

Themes of boldness, protection, confrontation, and proving worth through effort became daily realities. Vermont forced me to act, initiate, build, and burn — sometimes too hot, sometimes just hot enough.

Venus Ascendant Line: The Feminine Journey

Venus rules my Taurus and sits in her domicile in my natal chart — she thrives here. In Vermont, she rose to the Ascendant, bringing heightened themes of self-worth, beauty, pleasure, magnetism, and relational intimacy.

But in many ways, I was numb to my feminine body and my womb gnosis. 

Venus was present — but she had to fight her way into my awareness. Eventually, she softened me. Helped me reclaim eros magnetism. Taught me to receive and be, not just strive.

Chiron Ascendant Line: Wounding as Healing

Chiron’s presence here has been undeniable. I’ve lived a visible healing — one where my deepest wounds (around worth, femininity, relationship, and identity) became part of my face, part of how others saw me.

Chiron on the Ascendant doesn’t let you hide. He says: heal in public. Heal through your body. Heal through saying the truth out loud.

Uranus Descendant Line: Relational Upheaval

Vermont also sits on my Uranus Descendant Line — the line of unpredictable, karmic, and electrifying relationships.

This showed up as:

• Marital challenges that jolted me awake
• Encounters that catalyzed wild change
• Multiple moves and nervous system upheaval
• The realization that enmeshment is not love — freedom is

Uranus relationships aren’t comforting — but they’re awakening.

Pluto Descendant Line: The Underworld of Intimacy

Then there was Pluto, also sitting on the Descendant. This line brings partnerships that strip all the surface-level defenses. Think themes of obsession, shadow work, betrayal, examining loss of personal power and freedom … and nothing short of soul rebirth if you’re willing to meet it fully.

This flavored the undercurrent of my first marriage unraveling — and the eventual emergence of my most honest, whole-hearted relationship yet. Vermont unraveled my former woman and facilitated rebirth through partnership.

The Venus–Pluto Paran Line: Love and Power at the Crossroads (within 10 miles of my VT home)

• Of all the lines influencing my Vermont experience, this may be the most potent — and the type of line most often overlooked by traditional astrocartographers.
• Paran lines form when two planetary energies rise, set, culminate, or anti-culminate at the same time — a celestial crossroad in space and time. They don’t follow the vertical paths of typical angular lines, so they’re easy to miss… but their influence is anything but subtle. My home in Vermont sits less than 10 miles from a Venus–Pluto paran, and I’ve lived the full spectrum of this line.

On the shadow end this can mean:

• Relationship breakdowns that can include obsession, manipulation, betrayal, and control
• Heightened sexual tension with nowhere to go but drama
• Unconscious power struggles
• Emotional entanglement that feels both magnetic and destructive
• These are the kinds of relational storms that leave you reeling, altered, and awake. Venus and Pluto together don’t dabble in polite discomfort — they dig deep, demand honesty, and will burn down what isn’t built in truth.

But on the high end — the transmuted end:

• Soulmate-level connection
• Body gnosis, emotional, and spiritual depth
• Loyalty forged through radical truth-telling
• Power couples built on mutual evolution
• Surrender, trust, love

This is where eros meets devotion and where love becomes a path of transformation, not comfort. The Venus–Pluto paran line brought me to a place of prostrate on the ground and then raised me back up — clearer, freer, in harmonious grace with my imperfections.

It’s not a line you live on lightly. But if you’re ready to evolve through a relationship and reclaim every fragment of your power in love, it’s one of the most alchemical alignments you can walk. 

The most important message I want to convey, before I get into the actual ending of my marriage, is that I betrayed, abandoned, and manipulated myself first — the external marriage simply came to be a reflection of the inner condition. Years of towing the line, manipulating myself for the perfect narrative, making excuses for a man and letting myself down. You could call it a mutual betrayal.

How It All Played Out (The Human Story)

From the start, Vermont challenged my first marriage. We were isolated, quickly out of financial runway, and building two businesses from scratch. I went from stay-at-home mom to Functional Nutritionist, then GAPS™ Practitioner, and online business owner (wearing all the hats). I hustled. I overcompensated. I disconnected from softness.

I became more masculine, more driven, less tender. Sex was consistent — I thought that meant we were “good.” But cracks widened. Resentments grew. Journal pages held more and more heartbreak, confusion, and strain. My husband’s unhappiness and my inner feminine gnosis that there was more, eventually collided.

In spring 2018, after a particularly difficult season — selling our Vermont home, wintering in Canada, and my husband undergoing intense trauma work overseas — things reached a breaking point. Sitting across the table from him in a restaurant, I presented my terms — the things I needed if we were to stay together. His response: “I wonder if I ever loved you.”

We separated.

Just before I left for a much-needed ‘clarity’ trip to Europe, he added something to the mix and shared something that had happened overseas. At the time, I didn’t fully register it — but my traveling companion called it clearly: it was cheating.

While in Europe, I realized with certainty that my marriage was done. Emotionally, I had crossed a threshold — and under that clarity, I reached out and connected with another man. It wasn’t physical, but it was an emotional affair, and I own that fully. I was hungry to be seen and held after years of quietly, desperately crumbling. I wanted something honest, even if it was too soon.

Looking back now, I can see that both of us were acting out the symptoms of something already unraveling — grasping for something while in a relationship that had already passed its threshold. How could it be otherwise?

When I returned home, my husband had shifted — suddenly certain he wanted to stay married. There were promises, pleas, and painful manipulations. I couldn’t withstand the pressure, and I agreed to try again. But it was built on shaky ground — lies, fear, and denial. Six months later, after much torment and body-truth surfacing, I ended the marriage for real.

A year later, just as my divorce was finalizing, I began dating the man who is now my husband — a relationship that continues to be the most easeful, growth-enhancing, and honest connection of my life.

Now I Know…

Vermont was never meant to be easy. It was meant to initiate.

It asked me to:

• Heal my wounds (Chiron)
• Feel my anger fully, and give it sacred function (Mars)
• Reclaim my inherent value and softness (Venus)
• Liberate my relational patterns and co-dependency (Uranus)
• Die and be reborn in love (Pluto)

And now? I feel complete in this part of the story. Vermont still offers transformation every time I return, but now I feel a deep-seated, embodied steadiness. The soil has given me all it had to offer.

I’m moving toward sweetness and nourishment — hello, Ceres Ascendant Line in Michigan — and into new chapters that will unfold through both land and stars.

Because let’s be honest… I’m not done transforming yet. 😉

🗺 What does this story look like on the map? 🪐 

For those who would like to see what this looks like in practice, on the not-so-benign Map of Things, I have included two images from my astrocartography map that illustrate the lines I am referring to. 

First, the Venus-Pluto paran line:

All the lines shown together:
Chiron (green), Mars (red), Uranus (blue), Pluto (brown), Venus (purple-pink).

Want to find your own powerful (or gentle 😅) lines?