Two Relocation Astrology Charts Compared, Part 1

I'm in Maine right now, close to Canada, about 700 miles from my birthplace and 400 miles northeast of my current homeplace in the Berkshire Hills. This coastal village feels like home, too; we visit every year, so I'm comparing my two relocated astrology charts with my natal chart. Here's my first report on some of the most important differences I've found.

At my birthplace, my chart reads Leo rising, with both my sun and Mercury in my Virgo second house. When I was four years old, I was already weilding a watercolor paintbrush and had thoroughly imprinted on Ethel Merman singing the lead role in "Annie Got Your Gun". I sketched a lot --Virgo loves to use her hands to create beauty -- and also spent a number of teen years belting out songs from Broadway show tunes into an at-home fantasy microphone. (This was pre-kareoke.) Yet the values of my second-house Virgo played a huge role in my early choice to turn that drive toward theater and the arts into a BFA in sculpture with teaching certification.

In the Berkshires, I keep Leo as my rising sign, but my Virgo sun and Virgo Mercury both slip into my first house. Goodbye to teaching in a school system, hello to being one of the seven core members of an alternative health care and spiritual growth center. Hello to going public as an astrologer, using what I call "the art and science of compassion" in a public way as an act of service. Hello to going public with it, too, on the web.

Here on the Schoodic Peninsula, suddenly I have Virgo rising, with my sun and Mercury in the first house. Goodbye to any drive toward center stage, hello to nestling into simplicity. This morning at breakfast our friends Bob and Barry described someone's newly-built house as "almost austere in its simplicity".

"That sounds so wonderful," I heard myself say, though my style of decorating, as I'm familiar with it, normally includes unusual artifacts from a variety of world cultures displayed in and on an eclectic melange of cases and tables. And while my VIrgo Sun and Mercury see to it that the artifacts are beautiful, authentic and useful, "austere" is a word I'd never apply to my home place. At least, not yet. At least, maybe not unless I set up housekeeping here. Or someplace else with Virgo rising in my relocated chart.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this post!