I’m probably about to piss off some people in the spiritual community, and honestly, at this point, I’m okay with that. Because I have been thinking about writing this for a while, and after seeing more and more people questioning the whole Lion’s Gate Portal thing, I finally feel like I can say what I have been thinking for years. I am done with Lion’s Gate. There. I said it. And yes, before anyone gets their panties in a bunch, I have participated in it. I have written social media posts about it. I have talked about the energy surrounding it. I have entertained it because suddenly this thing became EVERYWHERE and, as an astrologer, I felt like I should acknowledge what everyone else was talking about. But the more I watched it evolve, the more it bothered me. It never really made sense to me astrologically, and the historical claims surrounding it have always felt a little too convenient. Then I started seeing respected astrologers questioning it publicly, including Yasmin Boland, who has discussed how controversial Lion’s Gate is within the astrology community. And I swear, I felt relieved. THANK YOU. Somebody finally said it.

So let’s talk about what the hell Lion’s Gate actually is.

First, let me make something very clear because I am NOT interested in throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Sirius is real. Ancient Egypt is real. The Egyptians absolutely observed Sirius. Sirius was important to their calendar, agriculture, and religious worldview. The heliacal rising of Sirius, the point when the star became visible again in the morning sky after being hidden by the Sun, was significant because of its relationship to the annual flooding of the Nile and the agricultural cycle. Ancient people were damn good at watching the sky, and we should absolutely give them credit for that. There is legitimate astronomical and historical information here that is fascinating all by itself.

But somewhere along the way, somebody took Sirius, Leo season, Orion’s Belt, the pyramids, numerology, manifestation culture, and a whole bunch of modern New Age language, threw them into a blender, hit high speed, and called the result The Lion’s Gate Portal. And THAT is where my bullshit meter starts screaming.

The modern story goes something like this: every year around August 8, the Sun is in Leo, Sirius becomes aligned with the Sun, Earth and Sirius line up with Orion’s Belt and the pyramids, a cosmic gateway opens, and the energetic frequency of the planet supposedly becomes supercharged for manifestation, abundance, spiritual awakening, DNA activation, higher consciousness, timeline shifts, and whatever else happens to be trending that year. It sounds absolutely fucking fantastic. It also makes for a hell of an Instagram graphic. But sounding magical and being historically or astrologically accurate are two very different things.

Even Astrology.com describes Lion’s Gate as a relatively new energetic phenomenon that combines astrology, ancient cosmology, and numerology. That’s a pretty important admission when the internet is simultaneously telling people this is an ancient Egyptian practice that has been happening for thousands of years.

Let’s talk about the first giant hole in the story: August 8.

August 8 is August 8 because we currently use the Gregorian calendar. The ancient Egyptians did NOT use our calendar. Their civil calendar consisted of 365 days without the leap-day correction we use today, which meant that their calendar gradually drifted against the solar year. The relationship between their calendar and astronomical events such as the heliacal rising of Sirius therefore changed over long periods of time. There is an entire concept called the Sothic cycle that deals with this relationship.

So when somebody tells you, “The Ancient Egyptians knew that August 8 was a powerful manifestation portal,” my first question is going to be, August 8 according to which fucking calendar?

Because that matters.

You cannot take a date from our modern calendar, attach it to an ancient civilization that wasn’t using that calendar, and then declare that civilization had been practicing the exact same thing on that exact date for thousands of years. That’s not historical research. That’s retrofitting.

And Sirius itself doesn’t cooperate with the neat little August 8 story either. Its heliacal rising depends on latitude, atmospheric conditions, and the observer’s location. It is not some universal event that happens everywhere on Earth on August 8 every single year. The ancient relationship between Sirius and the Egyptian calendar was much more complicated than the pretty little graphics circulating online would have you believe.

Then we get to the alleged alignment.

You’ve probably seen the graphic. The Sun. Sirius. Earth. Orion’s Belt. The Great Pyramids. Everything lined up beautifully as if the universe carefully arranged itself to open a giant celestial doorway on 8/8.

It’s a beautiful story.

But the actual astronomical relationships are considerably more complicated than that.

Yasmin Boland has specifically discussed the claim that the Sun, Sirius, Orion’s Belt, and Earth line up every August 8 and has presented Lion’s Gate as a controversial subject within the astrology community rather than an unquestioned astrological fact.

And honestly, this is where my astrologer brain really starts getting irritated.

Because astrology already has a system.

We have planets. We have signs. We have houses. We have degrees. We have aspects. We have retrogrades. We have eclipses. We have fixed stars. We have transits. We have centuries of astrological tradition and techniques to work with.

So why the hell do we need to manufacture an astrological event?

If August 8 has amazing astrology one year, then tell me about the amazing astrology. If August 8 has difficult astrology, then tell me about the difficult astrology. If Mars is squaring something uncomfortable, Uranus is throwing surprises, Saturn is restricting, Pluto is digging up some shit we didn’t want to look at, or Mercury is retrograde, I want to know about THAT.

I don’t want somebody telling me, “Don’t worry! It’s Lion’s Gate! Manifest your dream life!”

What?!

That’s not how astrology works.

I could look at somebody’s natal chart and see a brutal Saturn transit, a Pluto transit forcing transformation, and Mars stirring up conflict and then say, “Don’t worry about any of that because it’s 8/8.”

You would be right to fire me.

😂

The planets don’t give a shit what number we have written on the calendar.

And this is where I think we’ve created a weird disconnect between astrology and modern spiritual culture. People have blended astrology, numerology, ancient mythology, manifestation, energy healing, sacred geometry, astronomy, and whatever the latest spiritual influencer is selling into one giant spiritual soup. And then we call the whole thing astrology.

It isn’t.

And that doesn’t mean any of those other practices are bad.

I actually love numerology. I love symbolism. I love ritual. I love manifestation work. I love looking at the sky and feeling connected to something bigger than myself. I believe there is tremendous value in creating intentional moments where we stop, reflect, journal, meditate, and decide what we want to create in our lives.

But you don’t have to call something astrology to make it meaningful.

That’s the distinction I think we’ve lost.

If August 8 is personally meaningful to you, USE IT. Meditate. Journal. Set intentions. Light your candles. Make your vision board. Go outside and stare at Sirius. Do whatever the hell makes you feel connected and inspired.

Just don’t tell me the Ancient Egyptians were doing a modern manifestation ritual on August 8 because Sirius was important to them.

Those are not the same thing.

And then there is the other thing that really makes me roll my eyes: the explosion of portal days.

Suddenly every repeating number is a portal.

8/8.

9/9.

10/10.

11/11.

12/12.

3/3.

4/4.

5/5.

7/7.

At this rate, I’m expecting someone to announce that Tuesday the 17th is a rare cosmic gateway because there are three planets in retrograde and the number 17 reduces to 8.

And of course, every portal comes with a list of things you MUST do before the energy disappears. Manifest this. Release that. Raise your vibration. Activate your DNA. Call in abundance. Buy this crystal. Download this guide. Join this workshop. Book this coaching session.

Do you see the problem?

I’m not saying every person talking about these things is intentionally lying. Some genuinely believe what they’re teaching. Some have built spiritual practices around these dates that are meaningful to them. That’s fine.

But somewhere along the way, marketing got mixed into spirituality, and suddenly people are being convinced that they will miss their cosmic opportunity if they don’t participate on one very specific date.

And THAT is something I will always push back against.

Because you don’t need a portal to change your life.

You don’t need August 8 to manifest.

You don’t need November 11 to make a decision.

You don’t need December 12 to release something.

And you don’t need a random person on TikTok to tell you that the Universe has opened a 24-hour gateway and you better get your shit together before it closes.

You already have agency.

This is actually one of the reasons I love astrology so much. Astrology can give us language. It can give us timing. It can show us patterns and potential. It can help us understand why certain seasons of life feel heavier, more expansive, more challenging, or more transformational.

But astrology does not remove free will.

The planets don’t do the work for you.

And no portal is going to save you from making the decisions you keep avoiding.

If you want to change your life, change something.

If you want a different relationship, make different choices.

If you want a different career, start looking.

If you want to heal, do the work.

If you want more abundance, figure out what needs to change in your relationship with money, work, value, and opportunity.

That’s manifestation I can get behind.

And here’s where I have to own my part in all of this.

I have participated in Lion’s Gate content.

I have posted about it.

I have entertained it.

I have gone along with it because it became so prevalent that NOT talking about it almost felt strange for an astrologer.

But eventually I had to ask myself a question:

Do I actually believe this?

And the honest answer was no.

It never made sense to me.

I couldn’t reconcile the historical claims with the calendar.

I couldn’t reconcile the supposed ancient practice with the fact that I remembered absolutely NOTHING about Lion’s Gate being a thing when I first started studying astrology.

And I couldn’t reconcile calling August 8 a universally powerful manifestation day when the actual astrology of August 8 can sometimes be anything BUT supportive.

So when I saw respected astrologers like Yasmin Boland publicly questioning it, I felt relieved. Not because I needed someone else to validate what I thought, but because it confirmed that I wasn’t the only astrologer sitting there thinking, “Wait…what the hell are we doing here?”

And maybe that is actually the biggest lesson I want to leave you with.

Discernment is part of being spiritually awake.

You are allowed to question things.

You are allowed to change your mind.

You are allowed to say, “I used to believe this, but I’ve learned more and I don’t anymore.”

You are allowed to love a spiritual practice without believing every historical claim attached to it.

You are allowed to look at something popular and say, “Show me the evidence.”

In fact, I think you SHOULD.

Because spirituality should not require you to turn your brain off.

And neither should astrology.

So no, I’m not here to tell you that August 8 is meaningless. If you want to make it meaningful, make it meaningful. Use it as a personal checkpoint. Sit with yourself. Journal. Meditate. Set intentions. Get outside. Look at the stars. Decide what you want your next chapter to look like.

Just understand the difference between something you personally choose to make meaningful and something being presented as an ancient astrological fact.

Those are not the same thing.

And as for me?

I’m going back to what I actually know.

I’m going to look at the planets.

I’m going to look at the aspects.

I’m going to look at the degrees.

I’m going to look at YOUR chart.

I’m going to tell you when the astrology is beautiful.

I’m going to tell you when it’s challenging.

I’m going to tell you when something is asking you to grow, release, begin, stop, change, or get your shit together.

I’m not going to slap “PORTAL” on a date because it gets clicks.

Because I don’t need to manufacture magic.

The actual sky is already fucking magical.

And if that makes me the boring astrologer because I refuse to tell you that the universe opened a magical gateway on August 8, so be it.

I’ll take boring and honest over mystical bullshit any damn day.

Question everything.

Question the influencers.

Question the trends.

Question me.

And most importantly, question yourself when something doesn’t make sense.

Because sometimes the most spiritually evolved thing you can do is stop believing something simply because everyone else does.

And as for Lion’s Gate?

I’m closing the damn portal.

Not because I believe it ever opened.

But because I’m finally done pretending it did.