Steady Cruising Between Fate and Freewill

By Denise Roco- De Leon

After coming across Resti’s Medieval Astro-Clock at the ECHOstore in BGC, I immediately texted him and wanted to meet him (being the action-oriented fire sign – Aries sun, Leo moon that I am). He invited me to an Astrology Friends Philippines gathering sometime in December 2012 and I dragged my then bf (JC De Leon) to the event. Resti had our natal charts printed out and I was stunned by what I had learned. It turns out that Sun signs are just the tip of the iceberg in astrology! Like most people, I was introduced to astrology through the horoscope section tucked in the comic section of the Manila Bulletin as soon as I could read in the late ‘80s. Little did I know that true blue astrologers quite scoff at the commercial propagation of the Sun sign as the end all and be all of astrology, in the same way that music connoisseurs shudder at the thought of pop music.

I pestered Resti about the career path best suited for my bf who was then unhappy in his corporate job. Resti suggested the best was for JC to be a teacher/ instructor in something physical, particularly yoga. When I told my bf, he reacted appallingly as though it was something too ridiculous to consider. I reminded him that this was his dream! He told me if he could, he just wants to practice yoga. The stars and planets are actually aligned to what his deepest desires are. He shrugged it off. Four years later he became a full-time certified yoga teacher! He teaches Ashtanga, Vinyasa and Yin. Occasionally, he also teaches stick and knife fighting. JC’s never been happier. And I’ve been much happier when I started navigating my life and the lives of those around me through astrology.

On a lazy afternoon, my first natal chart was read by Resti at a coffee shop sometime in June 2013. With zero expectations, and a hundred and one questions. I fired away and even recorded over an hour’s worth of our conversation. I was 30 years young undergoing my Saturn Return. Resti shook things that were already shaken up. Prior to meeting Resti, I was restlessly searching for a step up in the ladder of my career as a lifestyle writer. Having held the position of senior writer for a high-end glossy magazine for nearly three years and ditching it for the experience of a tough corporate job at Rustan’s handling events and PR, was a chance I couldn’t pass on. Was it better to have a small pocket yet travel the world and be pampered with luxuries and gifts, or would it be more fulfilling to have more than enough in your pocket to spend as you please? I realized being a full-time writer with its hardships was already the dream job. But what I was taught at Rustan’s was golden. It was enough to stir big changes in my next job a job I thoroughly dreaded and considered a last resort.

PeopleAsia magazine let me return home to them for half a year for a special project, after I resigned from Rustan’s. After that I was out of work for an entire month. I told my father if by the end of May I can’t find work in the field of fine arts, I would join him in the family business he had built from scratch. June 1 was my first day as a sales officer in Raroco Insurance Brokers, and I made it pretty darn clear that this whole insurance gig was as transient as a bed spacer could be. I asked (more of told) Resti, “This is crazy! Four years of college education out the window to land here? Look at my chart, there ought to be a better career path for me, right?” Resti replied, “It looks like your father will have a major influence on you at the moment. (He didn’t know I was working already under my dad). And you’ll be in that business for as long as possibly 10 years.” I reacted, “No way! You must be nuts. That’s not going to happen!” Resti responds with something like, “I’m reading you what your chart says. I’m telling you what you need to know. I’m not here to give you what you want to happen.” Defiantly I said, “Well, what if I don’t want to follow. What if I just look for another job?” He answers, “You can, but you’ll have a hard time.” So here I am, four years later still working with my father in the insurance business. It’s been the longest job I’ve held so far and I couldn’t be happier! I still get to write, do events and PR, teach kundalini yoga and help improve our family business. Armed with my previous corporate knowledge, the weeds from the soil were pulled, the company’s old unstable foundation removed to be replaced by a new one made for a sturdier future. I have my cake and I’m eating it too. I did step up in my career. Just not in the way I had planned.

Resti introduced in my life electional astrology. How to make the most of what is set in stone (fate) and how to work around it (freewill). It’s easy to get discombobulated. Is there fate? If there’s fate, then how can we have freewill? Can these two concepts coexist? As a matter of fact, yes. For instance, one time in 2014, Resti told me that somewhere by end of the year I would transfer to a different residence. I was okay with this move, as long as I had full control of where and what house this would be. I planned it. I looked at available units for rent or for sale. There were some potential locations, but I didn’t feel the 100% certainty of the options at my feet. Then, Ateneo grade school informed me that my son’s performance at school was not out of intentional delinquency. He was recommended to transfer to a progressive school. Like his mother, he marches to the beat of his own drum too. I visited several schools in the north, being a northerner all 32 years of my life. But I decided to travel the distance to Acacia Waldorf School in the deep south, which is Sta. Rosa, Laguna. I fell in love with the school and so did my son. Where could we live? Conveniently, we ended up moving in with JC in his childhood home at Susana Heights in Muntinlupa by early 2015. Of course, the Universe had it all prepared! I kept planning the where, what and how, always hogging the steering wheel when I could never even hold the steering wheel any way. In a world where the steering wheel is an illusion, sometimes, it’s wiser to follow the wind.

So that’s not an accurate example of navigating between fate and freewill. But you see it’s like being told that you’re going to Boracay within three months (fate). Do you want to take the roro, the airplane or a jet? How you react to that news or how you’ll get there is your exercise of freewill. I’ll tell you how JC and I began to seriously talk about marriage. In mid-2015, Resti interpreted that someone of significance would depart from my life before the year ended. I assumed most likely my grandmother. I was wrong. It was JC’s mother. We were crushed by the same sentiment, that she would not be present at our wedding. Struck by the shock of death, we didn’t want to take things for granted and wanted to marry as soon as possible. I called Resti sometime December 2015 and the soonest most  auspicious date he could give was June 26, 2017. He explained how Venus and Mars were opposing. It wasn’t beneficial. I forced the issue of another sooner date. Resti looked at our charts at all angles and there wasn’t any. I’m the type who likes to do things intensely, passionately, swiftly and thoroughly. “Now” is my daily mantra. This deal of waiting nearly two years was just too long. Though in hindsight, it was perfect. The year after my mom-in-law’s death was difficult. Grief was a cloud hovering wherever we went and whatever we did. The waiting period provided ample time to recover and for me to be the meticulous event manager and event organizer of THE perfect wedding. On the morning of our wedding, a big brown majestic moth (the family moth) clung to the screen of my window at Sonya’s Garden. The moth couldn’t have been any more beautiful. That was Beauty, my mother-in-law. My son had nicknamed her so when he was about 5 years old. She had always carried herself like an earth-bound goddess walking amongst mere mortals.

When a person moves you so deeply, you want to be with them more and more. You may even want to spend your entire lifetime with them. In the case of my mother and father, who overlooked the fact that the church and state were separated, realized in their senior years that they needed to be married legally. The church papers weren’t enough. Before they booked the judge, I told them both to hold their horsies. Resti would be the bearer of good dates. If not, the best dates. I must say that since December 8, 2016, my parents have been living happily ever after. Not to say that they weren’t living together before the official legal marriage, but the “happily” part could’ve used some fine-tuning. Now, it’s just so fun to watch how cute my mom and pops are together. Is it coincidence or is it sheer divine astrological timing? I don’t know. What I do know is that the stars and planets don’t lie.