Lily Ashwell is an intuitive artist, astrologer, spiritual mentor & an archaeologist of the soul. In 2018, a healing journey called her to the realm of her spirit where she spent 3 years channeling, studying & creating the Heavenly Bodies Astrology Deck.  Today, she remains devoted to the path of healing, with a mission to support others in their own process of "soul remembrance".  Who were you before the world told you who to be? 

"I saw the angel in the marble & I carved until I set her free" - Michelanglo

A Note From Lily:

When I began my deep dive into astrology, I was dealing with some major health issues due to Lyme Disease. Chronic illness was very much a physical deterioration of my health and vitality, but it also forced me to get cozy with long suppressed emotions and lifelong, toxic mental loops and habits. I had to reckon with how I relate to the people around me and life in general. It’s not to say the physicality of my illness wasn’t real, it was measurable by blood, but my healing journey had a curious way of pushing me into the deeper layers of my mental and emotional wiring to examine who I was. I came to understand my body as a part of an ecosystem, which included my mind, spirit, and the universe at large. It wasn’t until I approached my situation from this holistic perspective, that my stubborn physical ailments began to shift. 

 My interest in astrology was fueled by pain and frustration around my health. Lyme brought me to my knees and rattled my sense of faith. It stripped away everything I had previously relied upon for an identity – my career, relationships and very way of life. So many times, I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror both physically and emotionally. Who was this person looking back at me? I was attracted to the idea of my astrological birth chart being a spiritual blueprint which could answer this elusive question. 

 As uncomfortable as I was, I felt a small but mighty fire burning within, which at times, reminded me I was losing myself to find myself. That feeling was not tied up in a perfect bow, I lost connection to it countless times. But beneath the layers of grief, for the life I was mourning, and the fear I felt around what would become of me, lived an effervescent flicker of home, which I believed to be my spirit. It came in flashes but delivered a sense of peace and faith while everything around me crumbled. 

 Even if you’ve never struggled with chronic illness, I imagine you’ve felt similarly lost at one point or another. I think anyone who’s truly living is confronted with these questions at different stages of life. Who are any of us, really? What makes you, you?

So much of growing up is coming to terms with our separateness. I’m always moved by a newborn’s inability to distinguish itself as independent from The Mother and as I sink deeper into this truth, I realize life never stops asking us to dissociate. It begins with Mother and as the years go on, it becomes anything we use to give ourselves shape. Even our internal landscape becomes something to zoom in and out of. We can spend a lifetime, swimming formless within emotion, but the day we know ourselves as separate, even from our feelings, and deem their watery realm a filter, we see our self in pieces and recognize what’s truly ours and what isn’t. 

I say this because there’s a piece of me that’s always felt broken. It’s not something that happened, but a presence that’s been with me all my life. I’ve come to know this anonymous wound well. It resides in the deepest part of my being, interwoven with the very essence of who I am. My life has been shaped by trying to protect it, hide it, banish it and more recently, know and even love it. I have an intimate connection to it, yet I’ve come to realize it’s not mine at all. 

I was a shy kid - serious and skeptical of others. I remember feeling exposed, like a walking x-ray. The brokenness was very present, although I couldn’t name it. I felt vulnerable, with quietness my shield of protection. I was also strong-minded and independent. It was a confusing combination, to feel so terrifyingly delicate yet somehow confident. Only recently, have I siphoned these conflicting colors within and understood I’ve always had an anchor that I now call intuition. And that my strength isn’t, and never was, cancelled out by my sensitivity. 

Learning to read my own birth chart changed my life. Seeing the planets sprinkled on my chart as both heavenly bodies in the sky and fragmented energies within me, awakened me to my inherent wholeness (and holiness). A proof of wholeness not in spite of, but because of, the brokenness. I discovered a harmonious story, that included all my contradictions and inner conflicts. 

Where I once deemed aspects of myself “good” or “bad”, “gifts” or “curses”, astrology offered a more expansive, forgiving lens through which to view my life. And where I once compared myself to others, I discovered my entire existence was (and will always be) perfectly designed for my unique spiritual growth and evolution. 

I will be a lifelong student of the heavens. Each day, my studies reframe the way I see myself and the world around me. Today, I know we exist far beyond the confines of our birth and death. We’re on a soul journey, spanning countless lifetimes. And while this particular life is a flash in the pan, its brevity does not dilute significance. Through short sweet moments or long dark hours, our life is potent and abundant with potential. And as we unearth the boundless nature of the soul, we learn constraints, like time, don’t even exist.

“How much does a man live, after all? Does he live a thousand days, or one only? For a week, or for several centuries? How long does a man spend dying? What does it mean to say 'for ever'?" 

-Pablo Neruda