What Home Teaches Us About Leadership
Whenever I feel doubt or nihilism about my career, the future of the planet, the possibility of reversing climate change, making life affordable (for all), or having any real hope for my household or future, (sometimes) instead of doomscrolling I remind myself of my Leo IC in the fourth house. The IC is short for Imum Coeli, which tells you about the ways your inner self, means of belonging and home life moves in your life. The 10th house and Midheaven represents how you’re experienced in the world, in your work life, in the public. The IC represents what is going on underneath it all, at home - inside of yourself where you are the most, “you.”
I come from lineages of nomadic teachers. My parents valued travel and made local travel feel like we were traveling the world. They were both teachers, offering the younger generations what they wish they had access to at their age. Both of my great grandmothers chose to live how they wanted, when they wanted, regardless of the immigration barriers, rejection, or social punishment they faced. They were not invested in assimilation or placation. They wanted to feed their children, help the neighbors with theirs, and sit together telling stories or playing bingo. That was enough. I also think about the elders who’ve surrounded me throughout my life, many of them with radiant Leo placements, who encouraged me to explore my lineages, practices, and relationship to place more deeply than I ever imagined possible.
In astrology, there’s often a strong focus on the Midheaven as the way we show up publicly and professionally. That matters. And the IC is just as vital. It points to how we heal ancestral wounds, how we relate to home, and what we need to feel rooted or to remake home again and again over the course of our lives. One of the things I’ve grown to cherish about my Aquarius MC and Leo IC axis is that they are polar opposites. For almost a decade now, I’ve lived on land projects, sharing my home life with others who were aligned around a particular way of living. I’m coming up on closing out year eight of that chapter.
When I look back, I laugh at the goofy ways we lived. Expressing our emotions through spontaneous musicals about overused (and too often underused when it needed to be used) Slack channels. Grabbing fruit and singing about it. Making intentional space to cry, emote, and process together. Harvest dinners, bonfires, and game or movie nights. Redecorating shared spaces, shifting rooms seasonally, road-tripping so that home traveled with us. Creating agreements around healing, cleaning, and emotional hygiene. Finding ways to give gifts, build one another up, and collaborate on art and work. Choosing not to know. Staying curious. Resisting the urge to fix or interpret. Lots of presence and trust in the process. Promised imperfection, sustained belonging through the uncertainty of life. What amazes me is how much I love being known, connected, and clear in my home life. Fully visible. And yet, in the public realm, I’ve happily worked from behind the curtain, moving quietly through the world by word of mouth with aligned clients.
Trusting the flow of my life, even when I’ve felt insecure, taught me that my shame and guilt were unlikely allies. They helped me cultivate discernment and patience. I couldn’t have produced more. I couldn’t have been an influencer or public personality. I couldn’t have scaled what I couldn’t make livable. When I did share out what I had created that took 1-7 years, it was effortless because it was a practice I had build trust with to learn how to express myself in my home life. I’ve realized with my 10th house in Aqua lens the ways that other leaders have their own unique ways of birthing their gifts into the world also.
It has been one of the biggest icks of my life to meet heroes, artists, and people I admired when I was younger. I had the awareness to perceive SO much more than I could fully comprehend. I first realized they were comfortable not fully being who they claimed to be, all of the time. How freeing to realize they could protect their hearts, how scary to witness how the public would judge, bully and undermine them. It’s not harmful to compartmentalize. Boundaries are important. It’s hard to express that to a following who feels they know you and are entitled to all of you. I’m a Scorpio so I struggled to understand why public leaders didn’t share their truth alongside their product or offering in a more authentic way even amidst this chaos of public perception. Over time, I learned from each of them. They were protecting their humanity. They were making sure the didn’t flood nervous systems. They were allowing themselves to evolve in full nuance, in private. They were aware of what was for them and not for others. They didn’t care about narrative control, they cared about being present in their lives, on their terms.
For me, I exist to share my humanity that emerges from the overflow of my home life. Those examples helped me understand contrast and taught me that I can only fully share what I’ve actually integrated (in my home life). I can only use my Aquarius MC to offer what I have made home within myself. Astrology helped me see that nothing was wrong with others, but I also couldn’t live or lead from their model without abandoning my own “I.” Sometimes astrology offers a compass and a map, helping us understand the energies we are responsible for stewarding. In my own life, I’ve had to accept something I resisted for years: the ways I learned to shine and lead in my most intimate communities and personal life are now the very skills I can offer, in a more detached, focused, and spacious way, to clients, employers, and collaborators.
If you had asked me a decade ago what I was doing present day, I would imagine I would have said my future self was “selling out.” Now, I think about my great grandmother’s funeral and realize I am living her legacy. We are fully, related across time and space. At her funeral, we had to shut it down because people were lined out the door. They each were sharing stories of the one to three interactions they had with her that changed their lives, or naming the quiet, constant presence she had been for them. It made me see her in a new light. She was simply trying to love and be love in every way she knew how. I still can’t conceptualize how she was so present in so many lives, in so many ways. I do know I hope to have a similar legacy, it just feels true.
Serving those who need me in a devoted yet detached way (Aquarius tenth house), and receiving the support I need to sustain my home life within the realities of capitalism (Leo fourth house). It’s how I hope to leave this world. I giggle on the phone with my last living great grandmother as she prepares to transition due to Alzheimer’s. I cherish her stories of learning with friends and living on land, her first experience being led by the same group of people who later ran the first land project I lived on. I think about my barely free ancestors who had to hide their ability to read, write, love, preach, and organize. And I have glowed, in all the ways you’d expect from a Leo. Even though current times don’t want us all to be so proud or visible.
I am the embodiment of ways of being my ancestors had to hide. I am here to make a home of myself in those ways. Yes, even in these “unprecedented” times 🫠
I charge up from within myself, from within my home life, then move back into the world and keep work as light as possible. I offer detached, clear, and direct solutions that help others feel at home in themselves and in their work. Just enough support so they can do what they need to do, then return to what matters most: their personal lives, at home, where they are free to be and do what lights them up. All of my work comes back to safety and belonging in the simplest way:
What makes each person feel safe enough to belong, so that their work can offer the same lasting impact in the world?
That is the question I return to again and again, guiding anything I lead or collaborate on in any context.
