There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?” (David Foster Wallace, unfortunately a misogynist)

We’re not often encouraged to question the water one is swimming in.

It is what it is.

This is how we’ve always done it.

Most of the times, it’s not even as explicit as that. Our lives take place within social constructs, parameters and rules that we take for granted – until something happens to shake them up.

If the fish in the parable were to suddenly be yanked onto dry land, they’d immediately realise what water is.

But not all waters are good for all fish.

Some fish need freshwater, others seawater. Some are too massive to live in anything else but an ocean. Some are amphibious.

None of them should ever live in polluted waters.

But they do, just as we do.

The world we live in is not one that has been designed for all people. It is instead one that has been shaped by the preferences of the powerful, whoever they happened to be at a particular time or place. Patriarchal, colonial, capitalist, ableist, sexist, racist etc. forces have built and destroyed, elevated and suppressed, amplified and silenced aspects of the waters we swim in, however it best served those who had the formal and informal decision-making power. Worldviews and very real world structures have been disproportionately shaped by the will and whims of a minority of the human population.

As time went on, we were all forced, in overt or insidious ways, to accept the world that resulted as the only world that is possible. And to adopt what this world regards as worthy as the standard we should all aspire to.

It is what it is.

This is how we’ve always done it.

The concepts of work, career and meaningful contribution have not escaped this influence.

I was talking with a friend the other day who shared that she is not sure whether she is a philosopher, because her way of approaching philosophy is different from those of philosophy graduates she’s met; while they’re very intent on drilling into the precise meaning of a micro-detail in philosophy texts, she’s much more of a generalist and pragmatic in her approach to philosophical ideas.

My reply to this was (long, but at its core): maybe you’re a type of philosopher we haven’t seen yet. You need to remember that philosophy has been overwhelmingly shaped by men. Perhaps what you bring here is a more feminine approach to philosophy.

Now of course, that answer is structured by a framework of archetypal masculine/feminine polarity, which is a complex topic beyond the purposes of this article. It is however important to note that I don’t subscribe to anti-trans or trad wife bullshit.

And while this feminine/masculine framing does work to structure my own thinking, it is simply the water I swim in, and it doesn’t have to be the water that you swim in.

My point is that if you’re a minority (and I count women as minorities for the purposes of this conversation), and you feel that vocation-wise you can’t quite find your place in the world, the issue could be that you’re trying to fit into structures that were never designed for you.

And when that’s the case, the only thing that we are left with is to design our own structures, to create the space in the world for our talents, to demand it.

While this necessitates collective and systemic change, there are things we can do at an individual level to start to free ourselves from the shackles of paradigms that stifle our potential.

For my own vocation as an astrologer, it was absolutely necessary for me to change my paradigm from scientific materialism (which posits that all that exists are matter and its physical processes, and thus symbols and archetypes cannot be meaningful aspects of reality) to post-materialism and specifically a consciousness-first worldview, in which consciousness itself is a fundamental ‘material’ of reality and as such, opens the possibility that symbols and archetypes can be meaningful.

Without this, it would have been virtually impossible for me to become an astrologer.

Even if I were to feel drawn to it (which I was as a child/teenager, as I was regularly following horoscopes), my mind wouldn’t have let me anywhere near it, because of two interconnected reasons:

1. the attachment to being seen as a ‘smart person’

2. the belief that being a smart person means being a ‘science’-y person

So obviously, when everything around me told me that astrology was a pseudoscience, I wouldn’t touch it, because touching it would cause an identity-level crisis; i.e. what if I’m actually not a smart person?

It took many years of self-worth work (i.e. finding validation within myself as opposed to seeking it from other people), 6 years of specifically looking at the intersections of science and spirituality, and also having my birth chart read – and seeing that it really does reflect real themes in my life – in order to consider a course of action I never would have before:

Studying astrology.

At first for fun, but also to gather more evidence.

I was mentored by a professional astrologer with 20+ years of experience. After our first round of mentorship, she said I had a knack for it. I felt it too.

By now, enough things had shifted for another idea to enter my mind: could this actually be the work I’m meant to do?

I knew that deciding to be an astrologer would inevitably raise some eyebrows, especially coming from a scientific/research background! But all the years of personal development + exploring science and spirituality were finally paying off: I had built myself a very solid foundation which could now withstand the inevitable skepticism or mocking:

• I reached a point where my own validation of my smarts was more valuable than that of other people’s

• I abandoned the belief that the only smart people are ‘science’-y people

• I knew enough feminist theory to know that women’s ways of being and thinking have been devalued for thousands of years, which made me wonder if that’s what I might be experiencing too

• I saw enough scientific evidence of the reality of parapsychological (psi) phenomena to make me believe there is more weirdness to reality than scientific materialism can explain: “The evidence for psi is comparable to that for established phenomena in psychology and other disciplines, although there is no consensual understanding of them.” (Cardeña, 2018)

I needed the validation of scientific evidence to show me that I was not crazy for having ‘paranormal’ experiences and seeing validity in practices like astrology.

But once I felt solid that there’s enough scientific evidence out there that supports or at least allows for the reality of my extraordinary experiences, I could now leave behind the need for scientific validation at each step, and put more trust in my own experiences, perceptions and pattern-recognition.

I could now trust the evidence of my own eyes and senses.

For groups that have been historically oppressed, this in itself is a revolutionary act: it centers our experience in a world that has consistently pushed it to the sidelines.

Something I wrote a few years back is fitting here:

We’ll continue this topic in the next article with the examples of two scientists, both women, who were seen as weird and told their approaches were wrong, but ended up revolutionising their fields because they dared to be a type of scientist that no one had seen yet.

🌱

If something in this resonated, a vocational astrology reading might be your next step.

Many of us are feeling the call to bring a new type of contribution to the world, one that feels truer to who we are, yet may look very different to what we’ve done before, or what we’ve been taught is ‘sensible’, ‘allowed’ or ‘worthwhile’.

Through my vocational astrology readings, I can help amplify the volume of that call so that you can hear it clearly and act on it with confidence.

£77 • 60 minutes • recording included • book here

Until next time,

Cristina

All my work/Work with me

Not just that, but how entitled they feel to making unsolicited comments on women’s bodies, most of which rude.

The audacity struck me like never before.

As women, we’re conditioned to believe that society scrutinising the shit out of us at every single opportunity is normal and expected.

And no matter how hard we try to live up to whatever is seen as ‘good enough’, we somehow always seem to fall short.

Except, we were good enough to start with.

Everything else is just a lie of the patriarchy, for whom a woman can only be good if she is beautiful, sweet, soft and above all – submissive.

Step out of these ‘goodness’ parameters, all hell breaks loose.

Or so it’d have us believe.

And of course, we’re not stupid. Even as little girls, we quickly figure out the pattern. We know we’re being monitored from all sides, and rather than waiting for someone else to spot our ‘mistakes’ and punish us, we take on the job ourselves.

We become our own worst critic, all to avoid punishment.

At its core, it’s an intelligent self-defence mechanism. An efficient survival tactic.

It kept us alive.

But as patriarchy lies on its deathbed (I believe that’s exactly why it’s throwing its nastiest tantrum now), we need to take our shot and move from survival into thriving.

😱 “But what will people say?” 😱

We all know this fear intimately.

We’ve heard it before: humans are social animals. If you don’t play by the rules, you get kicked out of the tribe → DEAD → GAME OVER.

But for women, the story is a little bit more complicated.

The line between ‘stepping out of line’ and ‘getting kicked out of the tribe’ is very, very fine.

A man fucks up, it’s just another Tuesday. For better or worse, he dusts himself off, keeps going, and probably never mentions it again unless it’s in a LinkedIn post as an anecdote of perseverance, resilience and pioneering spirit.

A woman or other minority fucks up, and they suddenly lose all credibility.

It’s all of a sudden ‘Ha! Told you women can’t lead!’ or some such nonsense, and all its resulting consequences.

The problem therefore becomes: in order to pursue one’s vocation, particularly if that vocation is outside current social norms, you must accept that you will be judged, and that as a woman (or feminine-coded individual), it will likely happen much easier and faster than for a man (or masculine-coded individual).

👁️ The Price Of Being Seen 👁️

Becoming ok with being judged is not simply a matter of just needing to ‘get over your fear’.

That’s patronising AF.

To become ok with being judged is actually a really tall order, and particularly so for women: nothing less than overriding a very intelligent and very well-entrenched survival strategy.

As a woman, being truly seen in your authenticity – particularly when inconvenient or downright deadly to patriarchy – necessarily entails accepting that you will be ‘cast out of the tribe’ in some sense.

Whatever you pursue authentically will inevitably break a social norm at some point, because the social norms are vetted by the woman- and feminine-hating patriarchal program running rampant in our collective and individual consciousness.

It may be that you piss off your family, lose friends, need to re-establish boundaries and expectations with your partner, get a nasty comment – online or offline, or are perceived as losing status or credibility.

That’s the price to pay for entry.

There is no way around it.

Are you willing to pay the price to be seen as who you truly are?

The trick is, the price doesn’t have to be as steep as we’ve been led to believe.

There are ways to work with our mind, body, spirit, so that we sustainably decondition from patriarchal programming and the survival strategies that kept us safe, but which won’t let us thrive and grow into our true potential. I’ll go more into that in the next emails.

Until then, if we are to understand our unique relationship to visibility, we need to look at the Sun’s placement in our birth charts.

☀️ Our Sun – God’s Light Through Us ☀️

Our natal Sun is an important clue for our potential.

Even people who know or care very little about astrology tend to know their Sun sign.

You know you ‘are’ a Gemini, Libra, Capricorn etc.

And you may or may not recognise yourself in it.

The sign of our Sun is just one aspect of our Sun’s story, and just one element of our chart.

We hear the Sun referred to as our ‘life force energy’.

I have come to think of the Sun as nothing less than God’s light shining brightly through us as individuals, through the complex, multifaceted prism of our chart.

A primordial divine ray splitting into gorgeous coloured lights of unspeakable beauty.

In other words, you.

Your Sun holds important clues for both who you are, and who you are yet to be.

What, in nature, contains everything it needs to be its full self, and is not yet what it will be at its full potential?

Of course, a seed.

Say you were born as an acorn. Not an oak tree just yet, yet holding the potential of one. 🌳

You’ll of course look different at each stage of your life, but the essence of an oak tree is always there, in some way, shape or form.

My own Sun is in Capricorn, in the 10th house of career, public image, reputation, public contribution, legacy. Conjunct both my Sagittarius Midheaven AND my Capricorn North node.

This configuration screams visibility, and not just for its own sake, but as part of my soul’s growth. Even when kicking and screaming, life throws me into the arena of visibility, and in stern Capricorn fashion, tells me to toughen up and learn to handle it. Then teach others how to handle it too.

This Sun placement also means that my identity and career are jointly shaped through a Sagittarian-Capricornian blend of influences and manifestations:

Growing up surrounded by religious and spiritual people and books – I was attending Bible readings from a well-known (and quite strict) Christian denomination before I even started school.

Studious, ambitious pupil, who knew as early as 14 that she will study abroad.

Attended an international high school known for its focus on academic performance, followed by 6 years of higher education in psychology and educational studies at top universities abroad: one bearing the name of an apostle, and the other a catholic research university. Both founded in the 15th century.

Immigrated to my third country, hit unemployment stigma. The job market nightmare so many experience now? I lived that in 2016.

My sun may have flickered, but its light never died.

Fallen 7 times, stood up 8. A new way of applying my research skills. Climbing the wrong mountain, pushed too hard, over-prioritised my Capricorn North Node and near-completely neglected my Cancer South Node.

“It doesn’t matter how I feel, it matters only what others think”

“What is the point in feeling good?” – yes I literally said that one out loud.

Pushed harder. Depression. More stigma.

Who am I living for?

Tough calls. Exploring in the dark, yet with optimism.

One day, an idea lands.

I execute. That sort of worked.

I execute again. That didn’t quite work.

Wait, this might work.

It did!!

And then it didn’t, again.

And then it did, again.

Entrepreneurship.

Using my researcher skills to help in the ways I wished I would’ve been helped. Benefitting the lives of women from various parts of the world.

You are worthy, you are enough, this is how you get noticed, this is how you get seen. You can get this job and here is exactly how. These are the gender biases to be aware of. This is how you navigate them. This is how you get to what you want.

This is how you climb the mountain. ⛰️

In parallel: spiritual awakening. Science & spirituality exploration. At first hidden, then public. Where is this going? This makes no sense. What is it that keeps calling to me? Wait, astrology is real??

Everything coming together.

Becoming a vocational astrologer empowering women.

Full circle.

The oak tree grew.

The essence was always there. It will always be there.

The oak tree continues to grow.

🌳

If something in this resonated, a vocational astrology reading might be your next step.

Many of us are feeling the call to bring a new type of contribution to the world, one that feels truer to who we are, yet may look very different to what we’ve done before, or what we’ve been taught is ‘sensible’, ‘allowed’ or ‘worthwhile’.

Through my vocational astrology readings, I can help amplify the volume of that call so that you can hear it clearly and act on it with confidence.

£77 • 60 minutes • recording included • book here

Until next time,

Cristina

All my work/Work with me

Depending on when you subscribed, you may have initially done so for job search advice, or later on, for reflections at the intersection of science and spirituality.

Well, let me just say that there have been some developments.

I won’t bury the lead.

I am now an astrologer. 💫

To be specific, I’m a vocational astrologer. You might also know us as career astrologers.

The last 7 years have taken me on a wild spiritual journey that has completely changed the way I see reality. Seven years of deep spiritual and scientific exploration led me to conclude that consciousness itself is a fundamental ‘material’ that reality is made of.

That’s why we have weird spiritual experiences. That’s why manifestation is a thing. And that’s why astrology works.

Because (at least in this model of the world, that is yet to fail me), symbols and archetypes are nothing less than building blocks of reality. Astrology is a valid framework for decoding these patterns.

Once I allowed myself to see that, the evidence became undeniable.

I began to see how we can use these patterns in practical, precise ways.

Chart after chart reflected women's experiences, my own included. Some of the most puzzling challenges in my life suddenly clarified. My researcher mind couldn't unsee it – and my heart couldn't un-feel its truth either.

It felt right to use this newfound tool in service of my larger feminist calling.

So I now focus on helping women pursue their soul’s calling using the clues in their birth charts.

And now for the question I’ve been getting for years: why just women? 🤔

For millennia – and especially when they challenge the status quo – women's experiences and ideas have been mocked, discredited, ignored, met with punishment or even death.

We clearly haven’t rid ourselves of that monster yet.

This is where relaunching this publication comes in.

I have been on a decade-long journey (including before creating Worthful Woman) of trying to find my vocation.

And I feel like I have finally arrived.

On some level, I think I always felt that my calling was somewhere outside conventionality.

In a woman-hating world, my sense is that women’s callings tend to indeed very often be outside of conventionality.

Why? Because conventionality has been defined by those in power, and in a patriarchal world, power tends to correlate with hating women.

This is why I believe that particularly as women, pursuing our callings and offering our most authentic contributions to the world is critical in order to advance our societies toward a post-patriarchal era.

The world doesn’t make it easy for women to break out of the script, but it’s so incredibly worth it, and my worldview of world-as-consciousness allowed me to see that it can actually be easier than most people think.

I’m an astrologer.

I’m a woman empowering other women.

I’m a human who opens up minds and hearts to the very real magic that surrounds us.

Via The Worthful Woman Way (this publication), I’ll share everything I know about how to find and pursue one’s vocation, particularly as a woman, straight to your inbox, for free.

PS: In case you’re wondering how the “Worthful” part of Worthful Woman connects to our vocations, have a look here.

Until next time!

All the best,

Cristina

All my work/Work with me

As long as you can engage respectfully, your thoughts and perspectives on these shares are very much welcomed and encouraged.

Can science explain everything, or are there truths beyond scientific understanding?

Frankly, I believe we still have a long way to go before we can answer this question. Although science has uncovered vast knowledge about our world, I believe a lot of its potential (even without expanding its current form) remains untapped.

I trace that back to the fact that throughout history, the social activity of science has partially blinded itself, by excluding the experiences and perspectives of people who lacked power: such as those of people belonging to certain racial and ethnic groups, and those of women.

In this article, I will focus on the historic exclusion of women from scientific education and activity.

Though we’re much closer today to equal opportunity and equal treatment in scientific careers across genders, the issue of sexism in science is not yet resolved. For specific cases of historical exclusion, as well as instances of sexual harassment enduring to this day, you can check out the “Skeletons In The Science Closet – Real Sexism & Fake Skepticism” podcast episode I recorded with Craig Weiler: Youtube and Spotify.

"Dee Dee! Get out of my laboratory!". But in real life.

Centuries of expressly forbidding women from studying science or working as scientists left lasting blind spots and, as a consequence, some poorly drawn (and even dangerous) conclusions across the sciences, lingering to this day.

Exhibit #1:

Traditionally, laboratory studies worked only with male lab rats. This was meant to give more standardised results, without scientists having to account for the hormonal life cycles of female rats.

That’s great for developing more predictable results. It’s not so great if you’re a female rat or, by extension, a female human being to whom lab results and field work are meant to apply. (source)

Exhibit #2:

It’s now widely acknowledged that countless women with heart disease have been misdiagnosed in emergency rooms and sent home, possibly to die from heart attacks, because for decades what we know now wasn’t known: that they can exhibit different symptoms from men for cardiovascular disease. (source)

Exhibit #3:

We landed the first person on the moon in 1969, but the anatomy and nerve pathways of the clitoris were only fully anatomically mapped in 1998 (by two women), with the full MRI of the clitoris only reported in 2005 (Kudos to one of my friends for pointing this out to me).

Oh dear.

As to the historic scientific stance on the clitoris?

“In 1545, when we still believed the sun revolved around the earth, a French physician dissected the clitoris. Titling it “membre honteux,” or “the shameful member”, he deemed its single use urination. Prior to this ~groundbreaking~ discovery, a 1486 guide to finding witches declared that clitoral tissue on a woman was the indication of a witch. In the 16th century, Vesalius, “father of modern anatomy”, claimed the clitoris didn’t exist in healthy women and was only found among hermaphrodites.” (source)

Yeah, it is.

These views may sound silly now, and in hindsight, clearly informed by “lazy, antiquated stereotypes about what men and women are” (source). Yet, what were the real-life consequences of asserting that “clitoral tissue on a woman [is] the indication of a witch”?

They didn't call it a clitoris. Medical examiners called it a "devil's teat" (…) The belief that the clitoris fed the devil continued into the sixteenth century. In 1593, Alice Samuel was accused of witchcraft, stripped naked, and examined for the devil's teat. Unfortunately, the witch hunters found her clitoris, and Alice was hanged for witchcraft. (source)

There is much to suggest that the witch-hunters were no less scientific than those who opposed the belief in the existence of witches (…) the witch-hunters were practising bad science (…) We argue that the reason they [the witch-hunters] should be judged irrational has less to do with the direct relationship between their evidence and their theories, and more to do with the ways in which emotions like fear and hatred provided the context within which they interpreted the evidence available. (source)

In 2022, fear and hatred continue to fuel horrible acts of violence towards women and girls worldwide:

Iranian women and girls.

American women and girls.

Hungarian women and girls.

Ukrainian women and girls.

When we fail to confront them, stereotypes linger. The fear and hate they inspire, fester: poisoning how we think, how we treat one another, what – and who – ends up mattering in our eyes.

Across their lifetime, 1 in 3 women, around 736 million, are subjected to physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner or sexual violence from a non-partner. (source)

Science has been developed against the backdrop of misogyny; misogyny which persists up to the 21st century.

This led to a crippled science. This tragic historical context is poisoning how we view the experiences of women and girls, what we perceive to be “normal” in the lives of women and girls, and what we envision to be possible for the lives of women and girls.

Women and girls are being pathologised, discredited, mocked, humiliated, gaslit and then diagnosed as mentally ill. Women are being told that their psychiatric disorders are so incurable that they would be better off euthanised. All the while, the ‘end mental health stigma’ brigade fail to understand the history and context of psychiatry, or the systems of oppression they are supporting. (Dr. Jessica Taylor, source)

So, coming back to the original question this article kicked off with –

“Can science explain everything?”

I don’t think so, no. Not in its current form.

Historically, science has been seen – and promoted – as an impartial, objective activity.

That objectivity is an illusion – science is a human activity, and as all human activities, it’s vulnerable to biases and stereotypes, personal and societal.

So instead of pretending scientists are immune to biases and stereotypes, we need to address them head on. Something that can help dissolve stereotypes is exposure to diverse environments. Furthermore:

“Science is a collective effort, and it works best when scientific communities are diverse. The reason is simple: heterogeneous communities are more likely than homogeneous ones to be able to identify blind spots and correct them.” (source)

On the Worthful Woman podcast, I will share more on how failing to identify and correct these blind spots can lead to dogmatic thinking in science, and some of the implications this has had on understanding spiritual experiences through a scientific lens.

With love,

Cristina

Find more of my work at: www.worthfulwoman.com

Normal Is for Surviving, Abnormal Is for Thriving, and You Get To Have Both – A personal share about balancing science and spirituality in my own life.

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As long as you can engage respectfully, your thoughts and perspectives on these shares are very much welcomed and encouraged.

Attempting to balance my spirituality with my (what I believe to be) healthy skepticism is a big part of my life.

Simply put, I am looking to develop a way of understanding the world and of being in it that harmoniously blends both a spiritual and a scientific approach to life. 

But what does it even mean to have a spiritual, respectively a scientific approach to life?

"When I say I'm meditating, I'm just trying to figure out what the fork is happening. I think we might be in an alien zoo, or on a prank show." – The Good Place, s01e04

At this moment in time, I see spirituality as a sense that there’s fundamentally more to who we are and what reality is – a “more” I can’t quite put my finger on, but that feels important – paired with a longing for understanding this “more”.

As for science, I see it as a social activity (and as such shaped by human psychology, both for better and worse) which aims to gather accurate knowledge of reality and of ourselves, via the use of the scientific method. If you’re unfamiliar with the scientific method, here is a great explanation of it.

So far, so good: acknowledging that there is always “more” to be known, more unknown left to be explored, is compatible with both a spiritual and a scientific attitude to life.

So where does the supposed incompatibility between science and spirituality come from?

I believe it partly stems from disagreement over which ways of understanding this “more” – which methods – actually lead to an accurate understanding of reality.

Some people believe that science can explain everything; in other words, that we can explain everything about our reality through the scientific method.

This guy would probably agree.

Other people claim that there are truths beyond what the human mind can understand. Hence science has its limits, and this knowledge should be sought via different methods. For instance, take the following definitions of mystics:

“A person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or who believes in the spiritual apprehension of truths that are beyond the intellect.” (source)

“A person who claims to attain, or believes in the possibility of attaining, insight into mysteries transcending ordinary human knowledge, as by direct communication with the divine or immediate intuition in a state of spiritual ecstasy.” (source)

Reading these definitions, I can’t help but see a parallel between how scientists use the scientific method, and how mystics use the methods of contemplation and self-surrender, all in an attempt to gain accurate knowledge about reality.

What if scientists were to use contemplation as a research method? There are scientists who believe that science could be expanded via such introspective approaches, and who propose developing systematic methods to investigate reality via introspection. If you’re curious to learn more, the Galileo Commission Report details this proposal and the reasoning behind it.

Personally, I believe the scientific method is a brilliant way to learn about our reality. It enables us to step into the unknown aspects of our world and advance our knowledge in a systematic way – it is slow, but reliable.

While I think there could potentially be some limits to the knowledge we can acquire through science, I believe we still have a long way to go before we reach them.

And while I could see systematic introspection filling up quite a lot of that gap, there’s something even more fundamental that science has been missing.

Something that’s been staring us in the face all along.

Continued in part 2.

Find more of my work at: www.worthfulwoman.com

Sometimes, the Pragmatic Choice Is Living With the Mystery – A personal share about balancing science and spirituality in my own life.

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