Daisy Forrest

I recently got a new tattoo, my second one. The first one is the word “swimming” on my right thigh. It’s a reference to Mac Miller’s album, which is all about resilience in the face of mental health issues, and turning pages on past self-destructive behaviors. It’s placed there, because that’s an area of my body that I used to harm. I made a promise to myself one day, somewhere along my healing journey, that I’d get a tattoo there and once I had it, I would never harm myself in that way again. I made that promise about a year before actually getting the tattoo, and didn’t break it while I was waiting for the tattoo to actually materialize. I haven’t since either.

The second one is the glyph (astrological symbol) for Pluto, the planet of death and rebirth, of witchcraft and transformation. Alchemization. Turning base metals into gold. I placed it on my Solar Plexus because that makes sense to me, from a chakral perspective.

I had it done by a friend who happens to be a tattoo artist. The first one was done by my ex, who is not a tattoo artist, while he was on acid. It looks terrible, predictably. I still love it for the personal meaning it holds for me, but it now also serves as a reminder that men that are only ever sober by accident aren’t a great life choice once you get past 25 and grow the f up. That’s why he only dates people under 25, I guess. He’s 34. The friend who did my second tattoo is the only one of my female friends who’s stayed friends with him since our breakup last spring – her boyfriend is also 34 and his friend. All three of them are only ever sober by accident, really. I spent 4 years with that group, I get it. Addicts hang out with other addicts for lots of reasons, mainly that no one else can stand their conversation which is 99% the drugs they’ve done recently, the people they’ve done them with and the places they’ve done them. I’d seen very little of her since moving out of Bordeaux full time this summer, and the times I’d been back to the city to visit my new partner since, I’d only ran into her briefly. I don’t know what I was expecting really, but she spent our tattoo session talking about my ex, the drugs he’s doing, the drugs she’s doing with him, the drugs they’ve done with other people, and how depressed they all are. It was pretty triggering. And frankly, boring, as well as depressing.

What’s working for me since choosing sobriety is choosing to not spend my time with the same people as before. It’s sad, but not all relationships are meant for every season. We’re currently in a Venus retrograde. Venus is the planet in astrology that rules love – your relationships, who you love, how you love them and even the things you love (your personal sense of aesthetics). A retrograde is the perceived motion of going backwards (from the Latin retro, backwards and gradis, to walk) – perceived because the first astrologers / astronomers, with the technology available to them, saw the planets as making a backwards movement through the sky. Today, we understand that the planet’s course merely slows down, instead of completely going backwards. The period it slows down for varies depending on the planet – for Venus it’s 6 weeks of retrograde every 18 months. This time it’s been retrograde from December 19 2021 to January 29 2022. Whenever a planet slows down its course during a retrograde, we are asked to slow down that area of our life, to take some time to reflect and evaluate. Astrologers talk about the rule of “re’s” for retrogrades : reevaluate, reconsider, review, etc. It’s a necessary period of checking in and choosing what to keep and what to throw, what’s working and what isn’t. When Venus retrogrades, we are being asked to apply that energy to our relationships. It is noted that exes tend to reappear during Venus retrogrades, giving you another opportunity to choose what is no longer in your life, and why. This Venus retrograde is happening in the sign of Capricorn, the last time this happened was late 2013 / early 2014. Are you noticing similar themes reemerge in your life as during that period ?

I’m planning to launch my upcoming podcast, Dear Daisy, in February or March. Listeners will be able to send in a question, as well as their birth details (place, date, time), anonymously or not, which I will answer with help from their astrological birth chart – like an astrology based agony aunt. I was inspired, format wise, by one of my favorite astrologer’s podcast, Jessica Lanyadoo’s Ghost of a Podcast. Listening to real life applications of astrology is a great way to learn more about it, and my friends are constantly asking which part of their chart is making them feel this way at the moment – may as well turn it into content for you lot. There will also be guest episodes with some amazing people from around the world, to talk astrology, tarot, witchcraft, mental health, self-care, and more !

https://www.instagram.com/daisy.forrest/