Our Seventeen-Year Love Story with Astrology

*Originally Published in 2020

Love. Love is a complicated subject to write about objectively. Every human being has an opinion or a feeling of what “love” is. We—Jennifer and Aaron—have been together for almost two decades. In love. We read books about love together and we read them apart. We listen to experts explaining “love” and specialists criticizing others’ advice. We watch movies in hopes of having a deeper understanding of how to love.

Isn’t this the way it is with love relationships? We all keep searching for what love is, what it means, and all the while, what we haven’t tapped into is the fact that we are all born with it—love has been here all along. We have just been lacking navigation skills—there’s been no map to follow.

On our journey together, we’ve developed a map. We’ve learned that the art of astrology, using mathematics and sciences, is a good way to measure “love”—and to plot a course to “love.” Although love is (by and large) unpredictable, we’ve discovered that you can anticipate when you’re going to be in love…and when you are not. It took us some time, but now we can calculate in advance periods (even entire months) when we may or may not be “in love.” Yes, moon astrology works like that. It’s that awesome.

Please do not mistake our words: We do not place astrology above God. We pray before we read our horoscopes, for example. But this is a love story—our love story—and everyone’s stories are ruled by the Stars. God created them to guide us.

What we’ve discovered through studying moon astrology is that our lifestyle—from our awesome first date to our most recent disagreement—have all been linked to the shifting phases of the moon and other celestial bodies: Our passion and pain can be blamed on the moon.

Sure, maybe that sounds like a copout. Anyone, when first introduced to stargazing, could believe that less-than-ideal astrological configurations are just good excuses for not “showing up” in a love relationship. But as we watch the phases of the moon; as we watch it rise and set and make its journey across the sky, we discover that moon astrology is easier to understand and accept than it is to disprove and reject. Simply look at the moon today, then wait a few days. Look at it again. It’s not the same moon ... nor are you the same ... as an individual or as a couple in love.

Two Crabs

Our love story has blossomed into a case study lasting seventeen years. Two Crabs, One Shell explores the links between the daily, changing moon phases and the ebb and flow of relationships. In this case, both of our study subjects—we, Jennifer and Aaron—are July-born Cancerians. What does this mean? Well, we’ll explain it all on this website, using a combination of planetary cycles, moon calendars, reference materials, professional interviews, and ancient wisdom.

I [Jennifer], was born in July under the Sun sign of Cancer, while the Moon was stationed in the same constellation: Pisces. I [Aaron], was born under the Sun sign of Cancer, while my Moon was stationed in Cancer. When we met each other way back in 2003, like most of you, we only knew our Sun signs. “How much of a difference could our Moon signs be?” we wondered. “How far is Pisces from Cancer?” and “Does distance even matter?” In fact, the TIME of your birth, the PLACE of your birth, and your DATE-STAMP all make up WHO you are. So yes, the distance between the time the moon was stationed in Cancer and the time it was stationed in Pisces may very well be all that matters.

Throughout our journey together, we have unlocked a key to a deeper understanding of ourselves, our life purpose, and our union of love. We’ve learned how to anticipate the upcoming events in our lives by mapping the transit of the moon and sharing our feelings openly with one another. Now, we are inspired to share this information with you. We know it can improve your love life in a positive way, just as it has done for us.

 We fell in love in the orb of the full moon one September night in 2003. Enchanted ever since, we have communicated with each other in the language of the stars. On that night, we discovered our shared love of astrology, and we have been documenting our romantic journey of shifting moods and moon phases ever since. In fact, we’ve been in love since we met “Tommy, the Turtle,” about whom you can read below on this website. Now, we are “two crabs, living in one shell.”

Tommy, the Turtle

The Full Moon: can be a magical time, when the spirit world seems close; a time of fruition and balance—or, in keeping with the capricious nature of the moon, it can be a time when things get a little out of control.

—Teresa Moorey, Secrets of Moon Astrology, 2006

September 2003, San Francisco: It was a hot summer Saturday night, in the orb of a Full Moon. We’d just met through friends at a karaoke bar. The following afternoon, Sunday, we had our first date. Still enjoying the heightened effects of the moon, we hopped in Jennifer’s Jeep and took a twenty-five-minute drive to one of her favourite beaches on the northern California coast, Pacifica, a place best known to wind surfers, parasailers, and watersport folks who live to love the ebb and flow of the waves and the tides. We were Cancerians, crabs, and we came to the beach to fall in love.

Nothing feels better than the first moments of connecting. It felt so easy. We were two July babies on a beach, in the sun, on a date, having fun, doing the things that lovers do. Like sand crabs, we approached love sideways—fishing for things we have in common, but never asking directly. Some crabs express their love in the things they do. Crabs enjoy beachcombing and while we were playing in the tide and shuffling along the shore, we saw a mound sticking up out of the sand. We both imagined instantly that it wasn’t a rock—no—it was a sea turtle, stuck in the sand. We both sprang into action (as if either of us had ever rescued a sea creature). Aaron came alive—not that his theatre-trained self wasn’t already vibrant. Stopping in mid-conversation, we dropped to our knees and started digging. We were laughing hysterically as we attempted “our turtle rescue.”

We had so much fun. We gathered seaweed and constructed four stubby turtle legs, a head, and a pointed tail. Aaron even dug out some turtle tracks, as if the ocean tide had thrown that imaginary turtle up out of the ocean and it had walked up the beach. We named him “Tommy.” Tommy, the Turtle. Tommy has been a theme of our union ever since: Wear your heart on your sleeve and you will be rewarded forever. Be yourself—100 percent yourself—so you can attract the right person at the right time. Every full moon there’s potential to find your soulmate, just as we did.

It was a magical first date, and by the time the moon was full on September 9, so were we. Completely full! The following morning I proclaimed to my eighty-year-old grandmother, “I just met the man I’m going to marry.” Three months later, Aaron proposed. I said “Yes.” Ten years later, to celebrate our anniversary, we returned to Pacifica beach to skip through the tides.

Just as the tides have a rhythm that is set to the phases of the moon, we can all learn to self-regulate using the phases of the moon. We can predict when we could have an emotional meltdown ... and schedule a day off instead. We can learn when and how to work with intense emotions by becoming aware of the energies that flow in and out of our bodies. Then, we can use moon phases to work with life, instead of against it. We can learn to live with the rhythms of life and flow with the love that imbues every cell of our bodies and permeates every moment of our lives. We were all born full of LOVE!

My Music, Your Art (MMYA)

My Music, Your Art was born out of an argument we had in 2009. We almost broke up. Much like the rest of North America, we were traveling through turbulent times. We all remember 2008, right? We suffered too and it almost ended the greatest love of all. Lucky for us, creative arts saved the day—Tommy the Turtle struck again! We were living in a one-bedroom apartment on Davie Street in Vancouver’s West End ... and we were fighting. The 2010 Olympics were coming, the city was changing, we were changing, and it seemed like we were going in different directions. The tension got so high, we decided we needed help. We got our hands on some self-help books, watched a few videos, and lined up some counsellors in case the words weren’t enough.

We began by reading Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus by Dr. John Gray. It was the recommended book at the time (we liked the cartoon cover especially). Wow, that book really spoke to our situation. By the third and fourth chapters we were back in love. We fell even deeper, letting go of some of the expectations ingrained from our cultural upbringings. A second book, The Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz, helped us to create space for each other to be who we were. Those two books helped us to create MMYA.

During the process of re-discovering our marriage through the lenses of authors and other couples, we discovered that, ultimately, we both needed space. We were creative, expressive souls: She a painter, not limited to a single canvas; He a musician and performing artist, needing time to “jam.” Living in a small one-bedroom apartment on the seventeenth floor of a high-rise building was stifling us. Even though we had no children, we were still lacking time—time for ourselves, to nurture who we were, both individually and as a couple.

We expressed our feelings in art and music. Aaron began writing a series of love songs for Jennifer—one after another. They were pouring out like tears. Around the same time, Jennifer was painting a series of works for Aaron. We expressed our emotions using the tools we knew best: His Music and Her Art. We created time for each other, space for each other, and space for each other’s hobby. Aaron had time to work on his music (in or out of his headphones) and Jennifer painted freely for hours (with or without headphones). We communicated new boundaries and created “me time.” MMYA, for the past decade, has been our saving grace through challenging times. (In fact, we are MMYA-ing like crazy during this pandemic.) Here on this page we share some of the works created during MMYA’s past and present.