an energy separate from me

“My work is not me, not an extension of me, but its own separate energetic entity with its own spirit and desires and identity.” - Yumi Sakugawa

This afternoon I had the urge to check out the birth chart for my conchas. It’s understandable to me if that sentence sounds absurd but today is just another Thursday in my life. To do this I used the time and date that I received a text from the chef at the pop up I helped out at a few weekends ago asking if I wanted to sell my conchas at their events as a kind of “birthdate.” June 7, 2021 at 8:14PM — making the decision to offer my conchas to the public and therefore a new creative project a Gemini sun, Taurus moon, and Sagittarius rising.

The ascendent ruler (the direction the project’s life is steered) is Jupiter in Pisces, which also happens to be “Jupiter’s home”, in the 4th house dealing with “parents, home and foundation.” I got all of this information from the birth chart feature on Chani Nicholas’ website.

Already this brought up a lot of emotion since the entire reason I even thought about conchas in the first place early on in 2021 was simply as a way to show my grandpa that I can make them. Also in the sign of Pisces are the concha’s Neptune (“how you use your imagination and transcend boundaries”), and a point/node called the Imum Coeli, abbreviated as “IC”, which is supposed to represent the inner life. I make mention of Pisces because I launched this blog when I did with the guidance and advice of an astrological friend for very specific reasons, namely that my grandmother — one of the biggest sources of positivity, love, and protection in perpetuity in my life — is also a Pisces.

My relationship with my grandparents, frankly, saved me from the hurt I experienced in my childhood. I can remember being very young, probably seven or eight, and being so mad at my mom that I begun to pack my clothes into suitcases so I could go live with my grandparents. Their house was a balm of safety from a mom in over her head with three small children. At grandma and grandpa’s house there was always enough — food, TV channels, snacks, coloring crayons, general playfulness. I was allowed to be a kid at my grandparent’s house and without their and my aunt’s deep, inherent love for me, I can truthfully say I’m not sure I would be here today, nearly 37 years old, and alive. And not just alive, but finally understanding one of the purposes of my life.

When I started this blog I knew that I wanted to show that I can both cook and bake. This isn’t me being full of myself or thinking I’m better than anyone else, it was simply a decision to showcase all I can do. And on an internet where there are loads of good cooks and bakers and people like myself who know how to find a dish’s angle in pictures, I had to set myself apart in whatever way I could if I wanted to have eyes on my work. And I do want eyes on my work, but that’s no longer one of the big motivations for me. I used to think “when people make and post my recipes on a regular basis, that is how I will know I’m successful.” Writing and sharing recipes is still something I want to do, but my definition of success has expanded in a lot of ways and in such a way that I feel less of the pressure I’ve put on myself. It just hit me this morning that I can cook and I can bake very well but at my heart, I am a panadera. It felt like finally I understood. Like I had listened to my own intuition, my ancestors, the cosmos well enough to understand what was being said to me, being urged of me.

I think back to childhood and how Americanized me, my siblings, and cousins all were. How we didn’t care for conchas and how grandpa never even bothered to buy us treats like Gansitos and went straight for the Hostess cakes instead. I have to wonder if that secretly bummed him out.

In the last month my Virgo sun grandfather has been in the hospital twice: once in May for chest pains and again in the last few days after having an electric saw accident and needing hand surgery. He will be fine but using an electric saw used to be second nature to him and having evidence that he, along with my grandma, are aging puts a knot in my throat. Of course they are aging — this is as natural as anything on earth — it just hurts to witness. The reminder that they won’t always be here is obvious and a fact of life, but I’m allowed to be bummed about obvious facts of life.

If the conchas I make have an energy that exists outside of myself, that feels right to me. If I can nurture and put work into that energy to make the best conchas I can with the best local-to-Georgia ingredients I can, that feels right to me. That my grandmother’s astrological energy can be found in the concha’s birth chart feels right to me; that I carry my grandfather’s influence within me everywhere I go is only natural to me.