It me :3 as the Ascendant and Descendant point in my astrology birth chart as part of the Self in 4 Directions self-portrait workshop (with Embodied Astrology, taught by Gabz404)
The ascendant marks the point in the sky that was rising above the horizon when you were born. It represents the physical body. It was explained as being the first thing that people notice about you when you meet. Mine is either at the first degrees of Taurus, or the last degrees of Aries (Although I mostly assume Taurus) I decided to take a picture that had plants in it (for the Taurus part) and also sun rays (for the maybe Aries part).
The Descendant portrait was more challenging for me. The descendant marks the point in the sky that is setting, and it's opposite to the ascendant. If the ascendant is the physical body, than the opposite of that is the "other". It was explained that the descendant represents how you might experience relationships.
The plant I collaged into this photo is a Locust Berry - an endemic plant to South Florida. It produces oil as well as pollen, attracting specialist oil-collecting bees like the beautiful and also endemic Centris Errans (also called Wandering Centris. I love the name but I don't know why it's called that). The metaphor here is that, like plants attract certain bee species, we attract and are attracted to certain people.
This plant also "hosts" the endangered dusky-wing skipper butterfly, but butterfly-plant relationships are more parasitic and I figured that would be the wrong metaphor.
In both pics I have similar smile which is think connects the two images. Here they are side by side:
Below on the left is the first idea I tried out for the Descendant piece, referencing the "private" aspect of Scorpio, but I didn’t like it as much. On the right is the original Locust Berry painting that I used! (painted in 2018)
Here's my chart, showing the Ascendant point (circled in green) and Descendant point (circled in blue)
Check out the other pics from this series:
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