Release & Recognition
Full Moon Lunar Eclipse in Aquarius

What do you love, my loves?

If you close your eyes and think of those things and people that you love…if you allow images or the sense of them to kinda cluster together in your mind’s eye, what arises?

White Tara

Ok, now let those images and senses drop. Down into your heart. Just intend it to be so. How does it feel to have all those things you love as heart imagery rather than head imagery? What are you aware of?

Now, let them switch back again. Up into the head. Play with it. What’s different? What’s the same?

We’re tapping into the Leo/Aquarius flux here. The head and the heart. The cooling power of insight and the mind. The fiery fierceness of compassion.

Today’s Full Moon Lunar eclipse brings this theme front and center. But it’s so much more than that. Lunar eclipses are Full Moons magnified and amped up. The tides are strong, the pressure intensifies. This is true for any Full Moon eclipse.

But it’s so much more than that. This lunar eclipse brings in Martial energy. The Moon in Aquarius is conjunct a retrograde Mars in the middle of its cycle. Energy that likes to flow outward, be impulsive and direct, achieve and attain turned in. A reconciliation and revision of desires. A review of trauma and fragmentation. A reminder of our place in a society, a collective, a tribe. An increase in edginess, especially in the places we tend to try to vent out, project and escape. An invitation to reclaim our desires, for better or worse. To release what is not serving, for better or worse.

But it’s really even a lot more than that.  Eclipses occur when the Sun and the Moon are in conjunction (that’s a New Moon) or opposition (that’s a Full Moon) near the lunar nodes. For today’s celebration of Aqua-Leo principles, the Moon is next to the south node. It’s a releasing moment. Karmic releasing. The purging of patterns that have been with us for years. Decades. Centuries. Eons.

Are we done revisiting the same cycles of history over and over again yet?

Humans, especially within cultures as centered around ego identity as ours, don’t tend to like letting go of patterns or identities or beliefs. We hate being wrong. We also just flat out hate change. Oftentimes we’d rather suffer or see others suffer rather than admit the need to change. Oftentimes we admit the need for change but still carry on…until it hurts enough.

Ouch.

But…it’s really more than that, too. Uranus is squaring all those bodies. Sun and Moon. Mars. The Nodes. In evolutionary astrology, we think of this aspect as representing the edge of karmic growth, but also something that trips us up or prevents us from moving forward. The story with this particular dynamic is asking us to review the ways that sudden shock and trauma have forced us out of our hearts and into fragmentation and dissociation, and how we’ve come to default to that pattern in anticipation of that shock.

Uranus has been in Taurus since May after seven years in Aries. It’s helping us to understand our fixations when it comes to security and survival needs. The long term aim of this energy is to help us liberate ourselves from places we’re stuck when it comes to money, value, our relationship to our bodies and therefore the earth, our resources.

Sometimes we can see astrology playing out in our day to day lives. But it’s always helpful to zoom out and see how the themes are playing out in the collective. We can see Uranus in Taurus in financial aid being given to farmers to avoid the crisis stemming from our [government’s] choice to place tariffs on the farmers exports. We see it in our refusal to change the multitude of human-made systems that are not working in resonance with natural law and earth systems, destroying the very things beings need in order to exist on this earth.

We see it in the increasing understanding of just how much privilege money buys, and the injustices of having an entire value system that tells us that those who have money deserve food and water, and those who don’t do not.

We can see it in increasing effects of climate change. We see it in lava flows and earthquakes. The unpredictability of the Earth and the ways it pays no heed to the demands and developments of modern life.

What’s being asked of us now is to maintain the Leo-Aquarius polarity by uniting our head and our heart. To zoom out to a more objective place while still embodying compassion.

What’s at stake for us now? What are the long term repercussions of the ways we use the land? Or the ways we ascribe ultimate value to money? What’s at stake when we prioritize convenience over long term sustainability?

What are the long term repercussions of denying the fact that just as thousands of children were imprisoned in the United States, resulting in the potential for generations of trauma carried forward as those children grow and reproduce, there are millions of children all over the earth who have been going through the same and worse for hundreds of years? Trauma without support and healing perpetuates trauma.

Part of the wisdom we have largely lost as we’ve shifted into a consumeristic culture is still alive today in the indigenous traditions that have survived. Cultures that remember their ancestors, and that take future generations — whole groups of beings as well as the entire Earth ecosystem — into consideration when making plans and reviewing systems and traditions.

Eclipse windows (this one closes in two weeks, but echoes for months to come just as it resonates back with the eclipses of August 2017) tend to have lots of wildcards as it is. This window, however, underscores the potential for unpredictability. As such, it asks the question: how do we maintain emotional objectivity in times of upheaval, when the shocks seem to be coming from all sides all the time? How do we zoom out and get perspective while staying in the heart? How do we slow down and tune into and tend the body, of ourselves and of the earth, during times of change?

We have an opportunity in the next two weeks to let go of patterns that have been keeping us out of the heart through insight and compassion, and through owning our own shit. Aquarian energy helps us to get real. Leo energy helps us to bring love and celebration. This is a vital combination when we put it to work in the art of holding space and witnessing. The Aquarian-Moon combination invites us to recognize and truly see what is going on. So that we can change it rather than go into denial and avoidance.

One thing keeps popping into my mind as I write this, and so I’ll put it as a reminder here: shining the light of conscious awareness — the light of the Sun — onto ourselves and the world is a glorious thing. It can, however be scary and produce lots of anxiety. That’s because as the light shines brighter, the shadows get darker. The contrast between light and dark becomes more pronounced. We can easily welcome in the light parts, but the dark…well, it has a gravity to it, and once we start shining those lights, the shadows demand recognition and transformation. They have to be faced.

Let me break that down. There is good news here! The light is getting brighter! We’re uncovering more! We’re seeing more clearly! That’s so great!

But part of that process involves seeing the bad stuff more clearly, too. So that it can be worked with and shifted and healed.

We face our shadows at the personal level in hopes of not having to face them in more overblown ways as pathologies and wars that play out in the collective.

So today, and during this eclipse window, remember those things you love. Remember how they make your heart feel, and let those feelings be a grounding and soothing container for you as you move forward now. See the good in your life right alongside the bad. Take a deep breath and exhale. Let something go that you’ve been hanging onto but that is potentially causing harm.

I’ll leave you with a video from one the most inspirational humans I know of — Ms. Joanna Macy in her retelling of the myth of the Shambhala Warrior (who uses the tools of insight and compassion to undo what has been made by the human mind).

Video: https://vimeo.com/191169785

Written: http://www.awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=236

Full Moon Lunar Eclipse exact at 1:20pm PDT on July 27; 4 degrees 45 minutes Aquarius

Other Resources:

New Moon in Cancer 7/12: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cancer-new-moon-19927757

The current Mercury Retrograde: https://www.patreon.com/posts/merc-ret-luv-20316026

Uranus in Taurus: https://www.patreon.com/posts/uranus-in-taurus-18983168

~*~* If you like what you read here and would like to support it while also learning more about yourself and astrology, please subscribe to my Patreon campaign, with options starting at $3/month. This month, folks subscribed at the $10+ levels received New Moon ritual guidance, a 25 minute recording about Mercury Retrograde in Leo and a guided meditation for today’s Full Moon.*~*~

Thursday, July 12 at 7:28pm Pacific Time

I almost always, despite intentions otherwise, wait until the last minute to write New and Full Moon articles. Part of that is my procrastinatory nature. But another part of it is that I’m a feeler by nature. I often have to feel things in order to process them, and when it comes to writing about lunations, it’s pretty helpful for me to wait until I’m in the energy of a given lunation to write about it. Then it flows. Writing when it flows is, for me at least,  infinitely better than writing when it’s an act of logic.

The world shifts and turns so much in a 24 hour period, and I have this idea that relevance is best served by writing in the moment.

So, leading up to writing this piece, I knew I was going to have to write it about a week in advance, as I won’t have access to the internet from July 8-15.

As I started leaning into the energy of this eclipse — leaning in from without, as it were — I started thinking a lot about time. How its tendrils get discussed by us as if they were linear, straight, solid lines. We’re born, we grow, we die. Or, in American culture, we’re born, we’re supposed to get an education, graduate, get a job, marry, buy a house, have kids, raise them, play golf…and then die.

Many traditions of the world, typically the esoteric kinds, view time very differently. They see time as something more like a sphere, as something happening all at once rippling out into an infinite number of possibilities all occuring at once. Everywhere. Forever.

That concept is one that can be very difficult to comprehend, especially from within a paradigm so solidly structured around time. The calendar we use is a solar one, but we’ve had to manipulate it to adjust to idiosyncrasies of the universe, still holding on the notion that we can control such a thing as time.

Time in this sense gives us boundaries, restrictions, limits. Helps us to structure. To track. We call this chronos time — Saturnian time. Again — how Capricorn.

Cancer is the opposite of Capricorn. It is tuned into the cycles of the Moon. The cycles of emotions. It takes the moon about two and a half days to move through a sign, or an emotional filter. Always changing, always shifting. Like the tides. And as above, so below — so are we constantly shifting.

Cancer has to do with longer-reaching time as well, though. With ancestral time. Through its connection with the womb and genetics, with family mythology and identity, and through its trine to Pisces, it is where we understand the realms of the ghosts that haunt our family lines (perhaps translated today into traumas, fears, strengths and gifts that carry down in our genes), and the ways we’re shaped by forces that are largely unseen.

As I wrote in last year’s Cancer New Moon article:

“Cancer, the sign of home and tribe and unconditional love, is also the sign of being thrown back in on ourselves. For it is through that process of being forced inward that emotional self-reliance and responsibility are born. There we meet Cancer’s polarity — Capricorn. Nurturance is tempered with boundaries. Not to say Capricorn is any less tender than Cancer, but it has mature awareness of timing and cycles — and how to make use of them.

It takes a long time to learn about those cycles. Think of our oceans etching away at rocks turning to sand, slowly over time. Here we can understand Cancer’s association with ancestral lineage. Standing behind us, the ones who came before, sending their teachings down through language, yes, but also through our genes…strengths and weaknesses, health and disease, phobias and favorites…it takes a very long time for patterns to become ingrained. And then to change again.”

This New Moon supports our ability to recognize and shift patterns that have been rippling through our ancestry for eons. It might come in the form of fears or suddenly enforced limitations, but this lunation feels strong to me. It feels like a new beginning for emotional self reliance.

This New Moon is supported by a grand earth trine. Here, we see Uranus, Saturn and Venus all working together to help us ground our values in new, liberating ways. Venus is conjunct earth mother Ceres in Leo, bring the fierce flames of the heart and all its creativity along for the ride, lighting up the degree of last year’s solar eclipse in Leo. What emotional remnants from that time are surfacing now to be loved and re-formed?

Pluto in Capricorn opposing this lunation brings a question of repression and denial to the table. At this point in Pluto’s journey through Capricorn, we’re oh so familiar with the ways our entrenched power structures and systems are still making huge grabs for long-term power in horrifying ways, but they’re out in the open now. No longer hiding. Bigger and badder than many of us dreamed.

In that sense, part of what we’re being asked to confront here is the ways we have been confined by the conditioning and expectations of our family systems, in particular the ways they have imprinted detrimental and destructive social norms into the behaviors of our everyday lives. These come through most clearly as expectations placed upon us by our parents that inform our identities into our adult lives. It can be very difficult to break out of the “We Smiths always…” mythology. But we have to do it when those mythologies aren’t serving us.

Cancer as an archetype also has to do with nationalism and nationalistic tendencies because its an energy that corresponds with where and when we first form our ego identities. We cling on, sometimes blindly, to pride and patriotism. We are so afraid of what comes when the mythology that backs up our personal identity gets destroyed because it uncovers a feeling of insecurity.

Cancer corresponds to the time in our development when we first become aware of our separation from source, be that mother and womb or god or love. In an effort to hide from our dismay at that separation and the deep sense of emotional insecurity it brings, we cling to a family ethos that provides a healing salve for that insecurity. Or, more consciously, we feel good when we belong to and are enclosed in something safe. Family membership provides that emotional security.

We then, through the polarity of Capricorn, attempt to codify that ethos into legal and social systems that form the foundations of society.

Nationalistic societies are no good, y’all. They are full of blind, rigid adherence to ideology that has the fuel and venom of fear and radical insecurity supporting it.

They are full of folks willing to participate the imprisonment of children. And of folks willing to look past it, ignore it, downplay it and distract from it. When the superiority complexes that spawn from nationalism allow people to downplay the traumatizing of children (which happens all over the world all the time and keeps getting worse), we have to reevaluate our social structure.

We cannot move forward in dismantling systems that continually reinforce nationalistic tendencies until we each individually address and question our own adherence to patterns and practices that were instilled in us by our families and early surroundings, especially those that have been with us for a long time.

And all of that starts with our willingness to face and transform the areas where we sustain and avoid feelings of radical emotional insecurity.

It also starts with good, old-fashioned tender loving care. Because, you see, sometimes ethos gets things right, and when it comes to recognizing the need for sanctuary, the need for tenderness and that opening spaces for acceptance paves the way for vulnerability and healing… well, we need so much more of that now. Spaces where folks can step in, express their most complex emotions including shame and guilt, and feel held through the process.

So it’s time to plant seeds for bringing care, nurturing and acceptance back into the patriarchy so that we can heal it from within. We make soup for ourselves, we feed our kindreds… and for now, we do all we can to make sure children in prison are taken care of. I wish that was just a metaphorical statement. In today’s world we are addressing this theme metaphorically but also very, very literally.

On Thursday, July 12 we have a New Moon partial solar eclipse in the sign of Cancer that can support all of these efforts. This New Moon eclipse is the start of a set of three eclipses, and is relatively ‘weak’ as these things go. The two that follow — a total lunar eclipse with the Full Moon in Aquarius on July 27, and then a partial solar eclipse with the New Moon in Leo on August 11 — are perhaps more potent in the eclipse category, and are continuing the story spun last August during the “great American eclipse,” which also highlighted the Leo-Aquarius axis.

Solar eclipses tend to have outer-world impact, and lunar eclipses tend to be more emotional. The Full Moon lunar eclipse on July 27 is a total eclipse, meaning it’s super powerful, and it involves Mars retrograde AND Uranus in Taurus. Of the three eclipses in this set, I anticipate this one speaking the loudest. More on that in a future article.

This New Moon in Cancer on the 12th is perhaps giving us a bit of foreshadowing about what’s to come as the eclipse cycle moves more fully into the Cancer-Capricorn story next winter. I said earlier that it’s fairly weak as far as eclipses go, but it is potentially loaded as far as emotional moments in time go. Here we have yet another potent moment for transformation, as it is exactly opposite Pluto, and within orb of an opposition to Black Moon Lilith. The potential for transforming and healing repressed anger is definitely here.

Eclipse windows can be trying because they tend to require us to release and adjust more than we’d like. They also contain somewhat of a wild card element to them, and so because it’s hard to predict what will happen, sometimes the best wisdom is to just accept that big changes might be in order (particularly if you have planets or angles near the degrees of the eclipses), and then when they happen to breathe and…well, let go.

Keeping it simple, this New Moon is a good time to revisit and review ancestral patterns. What patterns flow through you. Do you want them to keep flowing forward in time, rippling to effect not only any blood kin you might have, but those around you in your day to day life in general?

Stepping it up a notch, intentions that surround hearth and home, emotional transformation from a place of grounded self-reliance, and recognizing the ways time ripples out in all directions are all supported here.

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Full Moon in Capricorn/Mars Retrograde

Sometimes, when I think of Full Moons, I like to imagine being outside naked at nighttime, dancing or running freely in the full moonlight. Hair whipping, arms twirling, hips undulating, hands caressing neck and breasts and hips… The freedom of wildness and fruition. And power.

This is not that Full Moon.

This Full Moon feels restricted. Boundaried and bordered. In all honesty, there’s whispers of brutality there. The kind that knocks us out of ourselves, into shock and disbelief. The Moon in Capricorn can be a cold and hardened thing. With walls built around the heart. The vice grip of fear squeezing its tentacles around the very essence of our humanity, repressing, denying.

There’s so much in this world right now that seems brutal. Terrifying. Beyond words.

It is not my intention or place to bring focus to that reality to your detriment or mine, or to the exclusion of everything else. But it is my intention to hold our current moment in reverence, because it is complex. Terrifying. Shocking. Feeling incredibly dark — because it is. So please bear with me. There is a way through, there is hope, and there is medicine for this journey, but to jump straight to that point does a disservice to the stark reality of our situation on this planet.

The presence of Saturn brings cold hard realities to light during this lunation. It has the energies of depletion, of imprisonment, of criticism turned inward to regulate the emotional body, of manipulation and conditioning, and of the incredible tenacity of institutionalized oppression, racism and greed.

Combined with a recently-turned-retrograde Mars, we might be feeling flattened with exhaustion, as if our vital life force has decided to take a little vacation. Combine this further with the onslaught of bad — horrendous — news coming across the wire, and… well, please know you’re not alone if getting out of bed has become a task.

Mars in Aquarius. Electricity turned inward. Rewiring. Perhaps overloading your circuitry. Perhaps insisting that you take a break from your connection to the interwebs. Requiring us to look at our mental defenses, our anger, and the ways it all effects the wiring of our hearts and minds. Inviting us to look at the ways our personal power and drive to exist in the world connect with the larger picture.

Mars in Aquarius. Conjunct the South Node. Squaring Uranus. Triggers of violence. Fears of violence. Collective violence. Memories floating to the surface. Of all of those times we have been and continue to be tortured, executed and exiled in droves because of our skin, our beliefs, our otherness. Realizations that it is still happening all around the world, getting closer all the time. Survival fears. A crisis of values. Morality. Ethics.

This Full Moon ushers in two months of big time releasing. The next New Moon, on July 12, is also a solar eclipse. That means we have once again arrived at an eclipse season, which tends to be a window of release. Change. Shifting. Combined with the fact that this Mars Retrograde (in effect until August 27) will be conjunct the South Node of the Moon and square Uranus the entire time and we have in fact reached an entire season of letting go. This is not entirely Piscean letting go and surrender, however. Some of the work we have laid out for us will require conscious decision making as to who we are, what we stand for, and who and what must be released accordingly.

The Full Moon brings a dose of sobriety. Of grounding the situation in reality in ways that can feel harsh. Perhaps unbearably so. We are dealing with the polarity of Cancer and Capricorn, and so the themes of emotional self-reliance are up for review.

But let me tell you a few secrets.

First? Capricorn is just as sensitive as Cancer. It’s just that all that flowing water has been dammed up behind social codes and conditionings and “I shoulds” and “I should nots.” There’s a great deal of integrity in Capricornian processes, but also a great deal of repression and denial. Repression serves a function in our early lives, for as we begin to experience the world as it is — the cold, hard reality of it — we also begin to experience our emotional bodies. Because our egos have not fully developed, we are very easily overwhelmed sometimes by those experiences. And so in that sense, the Capricorn function of repression keeps us safe. And sane.

Repression gets distorted, though. It can become denial. Of who we are, of our vital life essence, of our own spark of genius.

It gets distorted into false equivalencies based on social norms and morality. For example: is refusing to bake a cake for a queer couple the moral equivalent of refusing service to someone who props up and defends a regime that incarcerates children? Do we want a moral code and system of laws that says that the former is uncivil and the latter is justified to be the law of the land?  

We get to decide.

Second? Yes, there is potential for collective triggers to be extremely activated as Mars conjuncts the South Node of the Moon and Squares Uranus for the next two months. One shadow side of Aquarius is dissociation and fragmentation. Our minds just…go somewhere else. You can bet that those in power are well aware of these processes and are using them as a form of psychological warfare. Be aware of that.

But be aware as well that Aquarius is also about detachment and observation and objectivity. With Mars moving retrograde, its vital function — that of initiative, impulse, and desire — gets rerouted inwards. So we have an opportunity here to not only observe our own desires and the ways we’re wired to participate in Aquarian realms (tribe, community, the collective), but to observe our triggers. To observe our relationship to anger and rage, especially as they connect with injustice. To re-empower our anger, own it and embody it and direct it towards humanitarian pursuits.

We can use this period and this energy to  develop a plan for moving forward again in ways that fuel our courage, that fortify our hearts, that make us fierce defenders of humanity as a whole. Always. So that we can stop looping in and out of cycles of atrocity.

This period gives us the opportunity to see where we have been, where we are now, and where we’re going. And then to course correct. The energy of Mars and Aquarius together is one we’re not entirely unfamiliar with, for we just emerged in May from a 7-year period of Uranus in Aries. Uranus rules Aquarius and Aries is ruled by Mars. We saw this archetypal combination behind the Occupy Movement, the revival of the revolutionary spirit, the beautiful emergence of queerness onto the main stage.

Mars retrograde is giving us a chance to review so that we can act. As it dips back into Capricorn in the final passage (August 12-September 10), we get to review our own desires as they’ve been shaped and conditioned by our society and get real with ourselves about how our personal power has been co-opted by systems that perpetually repress us.

Third? When we’re dealing with the nodes of the Moon, the South Node tells us about what is being released, yes. The patterns that are up for review, which we sometimes have to enter back into in order to course-correct. To get it right this time — or to at least do something different while bringing conscious awareness of our actions.

The North Node gives us insight into the medicine. The dharma. The path forward. With the North Node wrapping up its time in Leo, the medicine is heart. The medicine is creative self-actualization, the process of becoming who we were meant to be (whatever the fuck that means). It’s the process of tapping into whatever inspires us and feeds us and then letting that energy loose in the world in whatever way best flows through us.

Because Leo is ruled by the Sun, the current placement of the Sun guides us in this. So now, during Cancer season, take care. Nurture. Yourself and others. Make soup. Feed folks. Make your home and next cozy. Take refuge. Know that Cancer is where we come into the truth that our emotional landscapes are always shifting — THIS TOO shall fucking pass.

Then? Leo season, where we’ll see eclipses and the continuation of Mars Retrograde, and the start of Mercury Retrograde. Fight fascism with all of your joy and all of your love and your fierce, vibrant heart. Sing at the top of your lungs right up in their faces. Let your grief fuel your resolve to be part of ushering in a new paradigm, one where all life receives nurturing and safety. Find communities of outsiders and nestle yourself there. Plant flowers. Stand up for every single child you’ve ever been and ever known and has ever existed. Let your heart burst open, and seek support as you need it.

Finally, Virgo season. Harvest time. Mars Retrograde will end during Virgo season, and the it will be time to move forward with all we learn. About our desires, how they fit into what needs to happen next with our resistance, with our families, with our cities and with our country. Virgo knows how to get shit done, and how to shift from self-focus to other-focus.

The will of the people will prevail, but we each have some heavy lifting to do. And so in closing, I leave you with a poem that I found yesterday when I was looking for something to open my Mars Retrograde class with. I was looking for something fierce, and this was not what I expected to resonate. But it did. So here we are.

Wage Peace
by Judith Hill

Wage peace with your breath.

Breathe in firemen and rubble, breathe out whole buildings and flocks of redwing blackbirds
breathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children and freshly mown fields

Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees
Breathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact
Wage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud
Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers
Make soup. Play music, learn the word for thank you in three languages

Learn to knit, and make a hat
Think of chaos as dancing raspberries, imagine grief as the outbreath of beauty
or the gesture of fish
Swim for the other side
Wage peace
Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious
Have a cup of tea and rejoice. Act as if armistice has already arrived.
Don’t wait another minute.

The Deets:
Full Moon exact June 27, 2018 @ 9:53PM Pacific Time @ 6 Degrees Capricorn/Cancer
Mars Retrograde June 26 – August 27 (from 9 degrees Aquarius – 28 degrees Capricorn)
(Affirmations based on house placement will be available to $10+ Patreons shortly)

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New Moon Gemini 2018
Exact June 13 @ 12:43pm PDT

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Hello, New Moon in Gemini. You feel so fun to me. Light. Not drenched in sorrow. Curious. Yes.

It’s true that this New Moon exists largely unaffected by the other planets — if we can ever see anything as unaffected by anything else. OH, but that’s such a philosophical statement! More the realms of Gemini’s polarity, Sagittarius. Where Sagittarius has synthesized and arrived at wisdom and truth, Gemini is learning. Mapping. Skimming the surface with excitement for the diversities of the human experience and the ways those experiences shape the mind and consciousness.

This New Moon might not be linked in to other planetary alignments in any major way, but the lunar cycle itself, from its mostly unaspected start to its very consequential finish with a solar eclipse at the next New Moon (which happens July 12 in Cancer) contains multitudes, including:

• Planets switching signs, including the Sun’s ingress into Cancer, otherwise known as Summer Solstice;
• Neptune stationing retrograde
• the beginning of Mars retrograde happening on June 26, which will challenge us to own our desires and the power we give them in light of what’s going on with the collective — a journey into our path of becoming who we’re meant to be while dealing with the anger and frustration that can come from not feeling seen;
• several key oppositions that give us the opportunity — or perhaps force us — to seek balance and integration…

Summer is looking like it has the potential for some turbulence. So how do we use this New Moon as a staging ground for that potentiality?

Gemini is constantly mapping experience. We’ve come through the courage and impulse to exist, to be born (that’s Aries); we’ve established what our resources are, whether or not we’re safe to exist, and how to be self-reliant (that’s Taurus). And now? Conscious awareness emerges. We start to understand categories. Colors. Sounds. Shapes. We begin to link our perceptions and thoughts together to form speech. In Gemini our eyes are open to those multitudes, and we want to learn all about every single thing.

The thing is that you, too, contain multitudes. This is an important thing to remember. Your inner world is vast and worthy of exploration — and is in fact a microcosm of the macrocosm (well, hello as above, so below!). At the New Moon, you can simply choose to learn a little more about your inner world and how it is reflected in your outer world and vice versa. There’s an option for you there.

But let’s take that up a notch. Gemini is also associated with communication. With the love of speaking about what we discover, labeling our experience. It’s associated with storytelling. Our personal narratives, and the predominant mythologies of our culture help us to orient to our experience. They help us to form a solid ego identity through Cancer and Leo, the preceding signs of the zodiac.

So this lunar cycle can be a fantastic opportunity to let go of the narratives and stories that aren’t servicing you anymore, and to perhaps play around with new ones. Or just play around with storytelling in general, with an eye to the fact that sometimes Gemini is also associated with lies and deceit. The lies we tell others, and the lies we tell ourselves.

With this lunar cycle, we can build on our communication skills in all kinds of ways. Communication is vital to healthy relationships of all kinds, and it can be an incredible foundation for processing your experience in healthy ways. We need that tool now

Here’s another thing, though, that’s come to my attention several times in the days leading up to this New Moon. It has to do with the stories we tell ourselves about relationships, and particularly what we want in them. It has to do with the stories our culture has taught us about ideal relationships.

In the tarot, the Geminian correspondence with the Twins is expressed through the card most often known as The Lovers. The dark and light coming together. Two parts seeking each other.

I’ve come across several articles in the past week referring to the quest for the ‘Twin Flame.’ One’s other half. Rather than dissect what an overblown and potentially harmful overlying mythos we seem to have there, not because it’s inherently untrue but because it endorses an already rampant tendency to externalize our power and happiness,  what I’ll remind you of is this: what would it be like to imagine that perhaps you are your own Twin Flame? You contain multitudes, after all.

That’s not to say embracing that notion or even just examining it means you have to do everything alone. But let’s take a look at some other expressions of the Lovers just to get the full picture — or day I say story.

In one deck I’ve worked with, the Intuitive Tarot, The Lovers is depicted with the usual three figures, but the two cast in the role of “lovers” look pained and agonized. You see, their torsos have begun to fuse together, as the third figure — usually depicted as an angel, but dark and formidable here — looks on.

In Gemini there is danger of fusing with ideas. Of not being discerning (that’s the square to Virgo). Of becoming the stories we tell ourselves, but to our detriment.

Taking it a step further, The Lovers card is often seen as an internal expression of union. Puzzle pieces fitting together in order to form epiphany. Some kind of synthesis before an idea is displayed to the world as ego identity in The Chariot/Cancer.

The outward expression of that union, then doesn’t come until later. Until we get to The Devil.

No joke.

And The Devil in this context represents our fears. Our shadow material. What we are chained to, what binds us. Perhaps where we’ve chosen social norms or stories that we thought were right and then solidified them in ways that are challenging.

Now, The Devil definitely gets a bad reputation. It can also represent the material world we’ve created and get to play in. But still, the attachment component remains: When you put too much emphasis on any one idea or part (even if the emphasis is an incessant demand for more ideas — that’s shadow Gemini for you, and…well, social media addiction is a pretty good example of that), you become chained to it. It gets gravity and takes over.  There’s the Devil’s association with Capricorn for ya!

So!

For this New Moon… what are the stories you tell yourself? What narratives need some revising or dumping? How do you communicate? Is it time to start a journal? Take a nonviolent communication class?

Gemini is about consciousness and curiosity. So put those things together and enjoy! Get some new ideas! Learn! Grow!

…and I’ll see you in a few weeks with some preparation for the upcoming eclipse window. But for now, a little hint with that: It’s OK to work through feelings first and then communicate.

Loves!

Uranus in Taurus: The Roots of Change

Birth. Growth. Death. Decay. Birth. Growth. Death. Decay. Rinse. Repeat.

This is the natural order. Literal, metaphorical, however you wanna slice it. These are the natural laws of our planet, implicit or not, that have governed all life. Carbon to oxygen. Sunlight to energy. We humans have given these processes and components words and qualities, but it’s true with or without our categorical language: we die, become compost, food for worms…

(Well, unless our bodies are placed in boxes after being filled with formaldehyde. Nothing wants to eat that.)

But I digress.

On May 15, 2018, change-maker Uranus shifted into the sign of Taurus, an energy that prefers its change on the long, drawn out side (if it wants change at all). The lord of lightning bolts meets the bull. That which is solid, stubborn and potentially furious staring down that which is unpredictable and unexpected. Well hello, tension.

We cannot know what exactly will happen at the material level during this seven-year transit. Changes to the Taurean realms of existence, sure — money, values, bodies, the earth herself — but we cannot predict the concrete forms those changes will take, only that they will likely come on suddenly, from out of nowhere. Or so it will seem.

This is why context is important. Few things come from out of nowhere. We can understand at least one layer of our current world situation by thinking about where Uranus has been for the past seven years. What the energy has been up to during its time in Aries, and what astrology reveals about what is being asked of us now.

On March 11, 2011, Uranus shifted from Pisces into Aries kicking off the era of the Uranus-Pluto square. The earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear meltdowns that hit Japan that day are the perfect metaphors for the energies of this dynamic alignment which was technically in direct effect through 2015. We are still dealing with the aftermath now.

You can reflect on the changes that have occurred in your own life since 2011 to get a feel for the shifts I’m talking about. You are, after all, the microcosm existing in the macrocosm. As above, so below.

On the collective level, Uranus in Aries sparked revolution, collective movements, attempts at breaking down the powers and structures that be. The occupy movement and Arab spring were the kickstarters. Black Lives Matter, Me Too…

We also had technological innovations that have been hard to track because they’ve moved so quickly. I didn’t even have an inkling of wanting to own a smartphone in 2011. Now, I can’t imagine living my life without one (although I oftentimes want to).

In short, the lord of lightning bolts had an extended period of facing off with the lord of the underworld, and the scorch marks and crevasses that resulted felt like traumatic shock to many. Opportunities to move forward with innovations in our society — particularly those that have attempted to stop and reverse the incredible destruction we’ve brought to the earth — have been largely foiled by the Pluto in Capricorn powers that be. They have not only clung to and gained power, but they’ve stepped out into the light as if to say, “yes the evil empire has arrived, and there is no longer any need to hide that fact.”

What is the most potent antidote to the evil empire? Communities of creatively self-actualizing humans who are moving out of trauma and dissociation and into their hearts to roar forth like lions, claiming their individual callings for the sake of the tribe. Humans living from the solid ground of the heart. That’s what the Leo-Aquarius nodal axis has been trying to evoke since May 2017. Healing collective trauma and karma.

But we’re still working on that solid foundation thing. The internal, true power of the individual. That’s where Taurus comes in.

More About Taurus

As the second sign of the Zodiac, Taurus represents self-worth, values and resources. Through Taurus we internalize a sense of being held after flailing out of the womb as a young spark of life (that’s Aries), all impulsive and fiery.

Through our senses, we begin to perceive our surroundings and create a basic imprint of the world around us: is it safe? Am I held? Am I getting what I need to survive? How does it feel to be here?

Ideally speaking, we internalize a sense of safety. Of having our survival needs met. Through this process, as we mature, this translates into self-worth. Values. An understanding of resources, both internal and external. When we know what we have and love what we are and align the two through a sense of values, creative self actualization is a natural part of our evolution. The Leonian heart can expand and give warmth and light, to others, to tribe. That’s the ideal.

Sometimes tribe is a problematic thing, however. Sometimes the Other does not respond well to our individual spark of genius, especially in a society that has to create constructs that are put in place to keep natural urges down.  A culture where we have been taught that the body is sinful, that life is only worthwhile when it has laid claim to property and green paper.

All the more important, then, that that sense of self-worth and self-reliance is bold and strong within us.

Uranus: Liberation, Individuation & Trauma

The archetype of Uranus (which goes hand in hand with Aquarius and therefore has similar qualities) is associated with tribe, yes. Our existence within and membership to tribes, sure. But also the archetypes of the exile, the outsider, the humanitarian, the [mad] scientist. Uranus is the force that pushes us into processes of deconditioning. It strives to help us strip away what we’ve accepted as truth without pitting it against our experience, and old structures and forms that are not serving our paths.

Uranus is the force of individuation. It is the process where we hear the call of our own individual genius, that which would bring us into creative self actualization in order to serve the betterment of humanity. Through this process, the Leo-Aquarius axis gets its fuel.

Hearing the call of one’s own soul is a potent and powerful thing, for sure. In fact, we romanticize the heck out of it in our culture. And for good reason — this planet needs more folks who are listening to and actualizing what it is they’re here to do on the earth. It also gets confused with individualism, which is not the same. Individualism inflates narcissistic bubbles and robs us each of our opportunity to step out of our wounds. Instead we, and all others around us, become distorted objects of another person’s obsessive self-reflection.

Individuation is, again, tuning into an inner knowing of who we are supposed to be in the world, and following that path. Because we understand the importance of fulfilling that goal for the sake of bettering the community.

But here’s the thing: stepping into one’s own process of individuation also involves embracing difference. And in the past 10,000 years or so, difference has not been such a great thing. It’s what gets you killed. Burned at the stake, chased out of your home, ridiculed, exiled. Tortured.

We need connection. We do not like being cast out. And so, we strive to belong, oftentimes to the detriment of our soul path. Trading in one discomfort for another.

Therefore Uranus is also associated with trauma.

What is Trauma?

A basic definition of trauma tells us that it refers to an overwhelming experience that the psyche can’t integrate fully. It’s a physical, emotional, mental or spiritual experience that makes it so that a person isn’t able to continue on as they were.

Symptoms or indications of trauma usually include some combination of dissociation (often chronic), anxiety, phobias, paranoia, avoidance, enhanced or suppressed emotional responses, or numbness. The most common expression of traumatic response in the moment is what we refer to as fight, flight or freeze.

Uranus is considered a marker of a trauma signature in an individual’s chart. This doesn’t mean that a Uranian passage will bring great trauma. The symbolism is to vast for that kind of narrow interpretation. It does usually, however, indicate at least the potential for moving through and healing karma related to whatever it’s impacting.

And that’s not just trauma from this lifetime. Uranus is also related to deep memory and the subtle energies that travel with us from many lifetimes. Unresolved traumas from our soul’s journey. Uranus is long-term memory and as such oftentimes points the way towards unconscious contents.

Blending Taurus and Uranus

So how do we bring this all together to help us understand, yes, what themes to potentially expect from Uranus’ transit through Taurus, but more importantly how we can grab onto this edge for growth and do the required work with more awareness? Let’s take a look at what Taurus represents in its more shadowy manifestations. Then we’ll bring the positive back in, cuz Taurean medicine is good, good stuff and can help us keep perspective here.

We’ve talked a bit about stubbornness, and really all of the fixed signs have that quality. But Taurus…well, Taurus can be the epitome of stubbornness. It can be stuck and it doesn’t like change and oftentimes with Taurus everything is black and white.

Taurus is associated with our survival needs, as we’ve discussed. Because of this link, Taurus is how we do (or do not) feel safe in our bodies, on this earth. Taurean karmic complexes involve survival fears, isolation, self-worth and value, the ways we collapse in on ourselves and suppress our emotions, the ways we shut down (often, at least in the karmic past, to survive), possessiveness, stuckness…

…and body memory.

As I’ve leaned into Uranus in Taurus, body memory is what has come to the forefront a lot. The body’s memories of trauma. The ways it holds those imprints in the first, thin layer of energy directly around our physical beings. This, the etheric body, is where imprints from past life and early current life traumas live.

Trauma of the body. There’s one selection of keywords for Uranus in Taurus for ya.

A Digression

A few weeks ago, as I was bouncing around ideas for a webinar I was gonna do for this subject, I found myself walking down the road listening to music. It was an April day, just after a moody mid-afternoon storm, and the sky was half dark clouds and half blue with white billows.

I looked at a meadow on my right, grass surrounded by tall trees, daisies, and everything looked so…happy. Stable. Solid. Ecstatic.

The Earth is reclaiming herself, a voice said in my head. Strong. Clear. It’s so rare I hear things in that way. But there it was. Taurean earth communicating through Uranian flash of insight.

I didn’t feel fear. I felt strength. Stability. Ecstacy. Solid, grounded truth. And relief.

I also tuned into the song that had been playing for about a minute*:

A man of solid oak and his fine new bride
Found themselves a farm by the river side
Everything has changed yeah it’s all come undone
All they have now are their hand and the light from the sun
The wind it came for days and days
And the earth did try to shake away our kind
But they held on tight and a few survived
And they light their fires on the cold, cold, cold, cold night
But the earth is still tryin’ to shake em down

/End Digression

Earthquakes are a great metaphor for Uranus in Taurus. And in fact, in the days preceeding the shift I saw an article entitled: Volcanoes. Geysers. Earthquakes. Mother Earth is doing all kinds of scary stuff in the US right now.

Ah, yup.

I don’t know whether it’s helpful to view the earth as a being or entity that is out to get us, just as I don’t know whether it’s helpful to view the earth as a benevolent or nurturing energy. The fact of the matter is that in my personal worldview, it’s all connected and earth is indeed a mama to me — she’s nurtured life for quite some time, although not without help from others. In my bones, I feel a deep resonance with the idea that the wisdom of the earth — and the universe that houses her — just might in fact respond when human values exclude the protection of the ultimate human home — which IS the earth. The universe. And within both of those, our bodies.

If I take the personification out of it, I can just put it in different terms: When we disregard the fact that humans require abundant clean, fresh water, food that does not contain chemicals, shelter from the elements and touch… well, our systems will collapse. The big ones and the little ones. Or evolve into something that reflects values of rape, aggression and domination. When we poison our bodies — any of them — we will get sick. Of mind, body and emotions. Because we cannot separate them. This is simple cause and effect, even if the effects occur too slowly for anyone living day-to-day and not tracking cycles to observe.

When we apply values of love, sharing, giving, receiving, reverence and life, we ultimately create new systems and laws and structures and ways of being that reflect those values. We create methods of exchange that work within those values as law.

But that shift might be difficult. Because of tension. Because of grief and anger that have been locked away — suppressed or stuck in the Taurean sense out of survival fears or fears of overwhelm. Taurean shut down makes it so that energy gets stuck within. Uranus in Taurus provides the opportunity for that energy to move again and be freed up for use in innovating new ideas based in tribal values.

It’s also just a huge, fucking stretch to imagine how we’re going to get ourselves out of the mess we’re in. But what better challenge to confront.

That’s where the positive potentials for this transit come in.

Here’s a whole gaggle of key words for you to use for your imagining-the-best (and then bringing it down to earth) purposes:

Stable Revolution. Genius made practical. Stable shifting. Rooted Revolution. Liberating Self-reliance.  Agrarian Tribes. Body Freedom. Inventive Earth-Systems. Being/Embodying the Change. Earth Technology. Abundant Currency.  Innovative Agriculture. Values-Based Currency. Embodying the Change. Vision of a Sustainable Life. Grounding the Vision. Deconditioning from Outdated Values. Breaking through Avoidance & Discomfort. Freedom through Inner Resources.  Progressive Self-Worth. Embodied Individuation. Patient Individuation. Wise embodiment. Innovations in Food & agriculture.

OH the possibilities! What if, through community-based values of giving, sharing and inclusion we created systems where all basic needs were just covered? Where the fact that you were born guarantees you unlimited access to everything you need to live, just by the very virtue of your existing? Food, water, shelter… What if we lived in a world where touch was seen as vital to life, and where consent was taught from an early age and boundaries were gleefully respected?

Because, you know, touch is a vital part of human development.

What if we took the shake ups and awakenings of the past several years and used the insights provoked to create earth systems that respected rather than raped the earth and individual human bodies, as well as our place in a larger cosmological framework?

What if the heart was a safe space to dwell?

Practicality

So how do we work with all of this? Well, the specifics will vary from person to person. But generally speaking, I recommend a daily grounding practice. Daily gratitude. Grounding and gratitude for the abundances we have (that’s Taurus) create containers for transformation (that’s the Taurean polarity — Scorpio). When we cultivate these practices while out of crisis, they hold even better. As opposed to, say, waiting for the crisis and then grounding.

But there are other more tangible, practical preparations as well. As fears related to survival surface, it can be nice to know we have savings. Or a 3 month plan. Or an emergency backpack.

Or a network of friends.

Or a reminder that life does not end at death. And that the compost metaphor is great here: we can use the destroyed and decaying material of the society we’ve built to build a new one. One that values regeneration and creativity.

It might also be helpful, in the coming years, to spend some time getting to know your own triggers. To be able to name what they are, but also to be able to recognize what they feel like, how they ripple, and what we need when they’re occurring. The emphasis here is self-reliance, which does not mean you have to go through it alone, but that you are responsible for knowing what you need and advocating for yourself while having the maturity to accept other people’s limits and wishes.

Having humans around you who know your worth and who value you is a vital step in having a reliable support system. But you have to uncover and recognize it first.

The goal is internalizing power, not externalizing it. Because solid foundations arise amidst inner work supported by the outer world. And if there is some cataclysmic change upon us (it seems it’s been happening for a while, friends), best to face it with strength AND agility AND a commitment to returning to the heart.

Oh, and you know what’ll be real helpful? Astrology. Astrology is a Uranian discipline when used in it’s best ways (which, in my humble opinion, is in the pursuit of self-actualizing while relating to the greater picture) — and its “best ways” are through embodied, experiential practice.

There’s so much more to be said about these archetypes. The times we’re living in as framed by these energies and shifts. I’m sure it’ll come as the transit unfolds. For now, I leave you with some key dates and key questions to ponder. And even a few more suggestions.

Key Dates (a few!):

Uranus Moves into Taurus May 15, 2018

Uranus stations retrograde August 7, 2018

Uranus moves back into Aries for a final tour through the 27-30th degrees of the sign November 6, 2018

Uranus moves back into Taurus on March 6, 2019 and stays there until July 7, 2025

Uranus final (for 84 years) tour through Taurus is November 8, 2025 – April 26, 2026

Multimedia Understanding-ehnahcers

*Shook Twins “Shake” video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybbIZgUl0-c

“Little Earthquakes” by Tori Amos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC_3I34I8CA

Books: The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk; The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin (this is my favorite trilogy ever)

Scents: Sandalwood, Lemon, Geranium, Rose

Stones: Anything grounding

(Pro tip: when you’re all woo-tastic (or just, you know, a reasonable human who believes in working with ALL their tools) and wanting to work with things like essential oils or stones in conjunction with planetary or zodiacal archetypes, it’s not just a matter of googling “essential oils for Uranus” (ha!).

I mean, if you’re building an altar and wanna give offerings to Uranus (ha!), sure! Look into oils/stones that other people say are aligned with…it. Then you’re working towards creating resonance. That’s grand.

But if you’re trying to work with an energy or concept or deity or whatever, and want an oil or stone that will help with whatever affect you’re experiencing, don’t just google “Uranus” (ha!). Identify the affect. Anxious? Jittery? Sluggish? Then see what oils or stones help to remedy THAT. Get something grounding. Or energizing.

And as always, your intuition or what you drawn to is usually far more on point than anything a google search will tell you. Why? Cuz this shit’s FLUID and dependent on a whole host of intersecting factors. Kinda like life.)

~~My New and Improved Patron tiers are here! Lotsa bang for your buck, starting at $3/month. Help me help your revolutionize your consciousness and empower your soul. Seriously, y’all. If you life what you read here and wanna support the work for that reason, or if you want some really great incentives in exchange for your support, give it a try. ~~

Oh, hi 🙂

Just a heads up that a summer of experiential astro learning awaits you (if you live in the Seattle area).

Early bird registration for this 6-part class ends tomorrow. If you buy the full course, you’ll get:

• A recording of each session
• Printed charts and materials
• Email access to me for the duration of the course for all your question/processing needs
• FREE access to June and July AstroCircles
• And So. Much. More.

These classes will be opened up for individual purchase if there is still room June 1.

Click on the image for more info:

Taurus New Moon 2018
May 15, 2017; 4:47am Pacific Time @24˚ 36′ Taurus
Trine Pluto/Lilith; Uranus about to go into Taurus, Mars into Aquarius
(last time Mars shifted into Aquarius was just hours before the cheetoh won the election)

New Moon Collage by Amanda

We are always shifting. Changing. Always moving, even when we feel like we’re still. We are, after all, hurtling through space on a giant ball at millions of miles per hour (ish). Safety is but an illusion, and yet…we strive for it constantly. Perhaps because at our most unconscious levels, we understand how little control we have. Our cells remember times the earth has shaken or stormed and wiped us out without remorse or warning.

As consciousness evolves, as we understand the way the world works… as we grapple with the complexities of the human condition… we become more prone to fears of discomfort and instability.

Furthermore, we live in a system where the very fact of birth does not guarantee one’s basic survival needs will be met. We draw up arbitrary systems of value that say a person with more green paper than another has the right to life, dignity, health and happiness. Nevermind the fact that green paper isn’t backed up by anything of tangible value other than our belief in it.

What if we lived in a world where just the fact of being born — of being a soul that has chosen to take embodied form — guaranteed you unconditional access to healthy food, clean water, a safe space to sleep, touch…and a private, clean place to shit?

Because necessary conditions of life, and the natural functions of our animal body, should be supported because every human being has worth, shouldn’t they? What if we lived in a world where the necessary conditions of life were not contingent on whether we had enough money?

And let’s not just keep this in the realms of basic survival. We need food, water, shelter and touch to ensure we survive, yes. But what do we need to thrive? Knowledge. Communication skills. A sense of connection, sharing and inclusion. These are the natural laws we have forgotten.

What if we lived in a world where the values of giving, sharing, inclusion and respect for all life were the foundation?

Systems that commodify basic needs are fucked. Systems that see some humans as more worthy of food and water — or systems that see some humans as worthy of healthy food and water — are abhorrent. Systems that tell people it’s OK to say “to each their own” when it comes to rationalizing ways hungry children are acceptable will inevitably crash and crumble, even under the auspices of providing security and structure.

Life is not inherently stable. It is not balanced. We never know what’s right around the bend. How does that make you feel? Like you want to cry? Laugh? Puke? Ignore me? Hmmm? Life is vibrant and glistening all around you. Life is an incredible blessing at least partially because it is so woven with unknowns and unseens and unimaginables. It is magic.

Oh, this Taurus New Moon. The seed of embodied change and grounded abundance amidst such fire and chaos…

But remember. Taurus can also be understood through its sextile to/from Pisces. Bliss embodied. The divine embodied. Ultimately supported by the very fact of being a universal being. From the dispersed, undifferentiated matter of Pisces, we are birthed and come into form. Molecules experiencing the ecstacy of a container. What a gift.

When I lean into this lunar cycle, I keep seeing green. Grass rustling in a warm breeze. Sunshine so bright and golden that all colors look unbelievably sharp. Daisies. Dark green pines on either side of a meadow where I am sitting, listening to rustling and water, feeling sun on skin, lying back into the earth, supported. Loving. Laughing. Breathing deep.

Taurus as a fixed earth sign is associated with the middle of spring. The season is finally displaying itself, and we’re able to fully relax into the notion that we’ve made it through the winter. We water plants, we tend soil, we swap out rain boots for flip flops.

Simplicity. Calm. The joy that comes with each.

This Taurean New Moon has undertones of that kind of grounded, stable simplicity. But there’s so much rumbling as well. The New Moon takes place just hours before Uranus, lord of lightning bolts and sudden, surprising change shifts into Taurus. And Taurus doesn’t really like change.

As the tree grows roots, so it’s able to raise its arms, its roots to the sky, and withstand the storm. Most of the time. Until that one, random crack of lightning slices through. But even then, the tree stands, continuing the inevitable process of returning to the soil, to the earth, to feed life in new ways…

But there’s something else there. The tree metaphor only goes so far. We as humans dig down deep, yes. But we move forward with fire. We ground and center and then apply. We blend our primal natures with the fires of our imaginations and we move forward with the result: creativity in action. The vision manifests. We bloom.

For those looking for simple intention setting or ritual guidance then, this New Moon provides an opportunity to ground and center, and feel strong in our bodies. Think of it as sending a firm message that you are here for these times and that you are a self-reliant, strong and fully embodied vessel of love, health and abundance on the earth.

For those looking for a little meditation on the different energies of this New Moon, let’s start at the beginning…

I started contemplating this upcoming lunar cycle a few weeks ago, as it gets right to the heart of my own karmic story, therefore providing an opportunity to plant some new seeds for some very old patterns. This contemplation came as I thought about Uranus entering Taurus (I’m hosting a webinar on the topic Tuesday evening).

What I’ve come into is a very strong awareness that mama Earth is on the brink of reclaiming herself. On the brink, in process… and it feels amazing. At the risk of uber-anthropomorphizing, I’d say she as a body is very excited.

Just as we are being taught and encouraged taught to come into our own power as human beings, so is the body of Gaia herself, and the radiant love that is pouring forth from that shift is all at once tangible and ethereal.

Taurus is often associated with body and embodiment. But it is also associated with the etheric body – the energy body that exists in closest contact with our physical bodies. We can think of it as a layer of energy that connects us to the other subtle bodies. As such, it is where imprints come to us — spiritual, mental, emotional and physical. Physical traumas that occurred in past lifetimes stay in the etheric body, oftentimes re-imprinting as similar traumas occur. You can have that knife in the back or spear in the gut or noose around the neck in the metaphorical sense, but it’s often quite literal from the point of view of the etheric body.

We humans often live much of our lives in fear of physical pain, sickness and suffering. This is in some ways a fear of death, as death often involves suffering (even if just the suffering that comes from not knowing or understanding what comes after this life). But it’s more than that. The civilization that arose in the past 10,000 years has made it so that the physical body is often a very unpleasant place to live – and die.

But what about before that? What about 15,000 years ago? Or 20,000? We as a species have been around for hundreds of thousands of years. And yet it’s just in the past 10,000 that war and carnage and genocide have sprung to the surface. That’s not to say that existence in a physical body wasn’t without pain and suffering before the rise of agriculture, nor do I mean to romanticize the time before, cuz there’s a lot that’s come from the modern world that does indeed make life in a flesh suit better.

The time before, however, might have some secrets to teach us if we can continue figuring out how to learn them. Just remember… we are the divine embodied. There is such grace in that memory.

As I sink into recognition of what this Uranus in Taurus transit might bring — all changes that seek to liberate us from anything stuck or stubborn, outdated value systems, the ways we wreck and harvest the Earth — I think about what it might be like to experience earthquakes 10,000 years ago. Scary, I’m sure. Rumblings that we can’t control always are. But what about experiencing the earth quaking from a hut in the middle of a meadow or savannah? No fear of failed infrastructure, destruction of cities, being electrocuted by downed power lines… How much simpler that must be.

And yet we have to move forward with the wisdom of the old ways combining with the knowledge of the new ways, salvaging what has worth in a world that values life, and retaining only the lessons and not the practices of the rest.

For this New Moon, ground. Center. Commit to being the change, and allow your heart to feel the radiance of what actions you might take…and then allow them to solidify in your mind in the coming weeks.

For further and more specific ritual guidance, sign up as a Patron, cuz my Patrons get specific guidance every single month. This is also a great spot for your to support the work in whatever amount makes sense for you. (www.aquarianspirals.com/patreon)

This Full Moon…well…It’s a gateway, for sure.

So many gateways these days. Each precious, transformative. Sometimes rife with heartache, sometimes wide-eyed wonder. For me personally, it’s usually a good mix of both.

Art by Katy Paulson

Saturday’s Full Moon in Libra (exact at 5:36AM Pacific Time) puts us right in the heart of balance. Which is, of course, never a static process. We stand in the middle of two polarities, one with arms out, beaming heart love at the thought of freedom, autonomy and personal initiative — a genuine sunshiney care bear stare; the other with arms out extended towards the other, not for ecstatic hugs, but to calmly look them in the eye and say “I hear you. Your view is important. Let’s talk about it.”

Or perhaps we’re feeling like placing our arms across our heart, in a kind of protective stand-off. Ah, the many faces of the archetypes.

Full Moons always invite the tension of the opposites. They are times for revelry, for dancing naked in the woods, magic created with others. Sometimes the only way to work with that tension is to feel the ways it hums and beats through the body. Something has come to full power. Whatever seed was planted at the New Moon two weeks ago. Or, if we look at expanding cycles, whatever seed was planted in the lunar cycle six months ago, when the polarities were reversed (Full Moon in Aries).

By their very nature, each and every Full Moon is associated with the polarity of Libra and Aries. This is the natural opposition in the zodiac, and oppositions inherently have something to do with extending out to the other. Those born on or near a Full Moon have lifetimes that emphasize relationship-oriented activity.

One of the keys to relationship — if I might make yet another very oversimplified generalization — lies in balancing autonomy with connection.

There’s a crisis indicated with this lunation, however. A cardinal square between the both Sun and Moon with Mars and Saturn in Capricorn. An adjustment needs to be made between who we are in the world, how we feel, and what we’re building. Our emotional nature, indicated now by the Moon in Libra, and our solar nature, indicated by the Sun in Aries, are trying to reach balance between self and other. Mars-Saturn in Capricorn, however, are pushing our conditioning to the surface, forcing us to look at the structures of our lives, the way these structures and this conditioning distort and support the desires of our egos, and the ways we’re rushing into initiating things that need more time, support, or re-structuring.

Structure and time. Why are you pushing things that are not ready for you just yet? Why are you trying to force something that is resisting? What are the power struggles you’re engaged in, and what are they unlocking for you? Are you projecting? Are you externalizing? Are you continuing to engage something that is causing you pain? Why?

None of those questions are to be posed with judgment or as challenges. There are no right answers here, just room for reflection and wondering. Bringing awareness.

We have to remember that Mercury is also retrograde now, right up near that Aries Sun. This means that some of the secrets might be unlocked as we review and reimagine the ways we initiate, how we uncover and act on our personal desires, what the place of anger is in the mix.

This is even more so because Black Moon Lilith (the Mean version, at least) is tied into this lunation as well. She’s sitting not too far off of Saturn and Mars, also in Capricorn. As Lilith is already linked to themes of repression — in this case, the repression and casting out of parts of ourselves we have learned to despise — this energy might be churning and throwing some wild cards into the mix.

Our repressed parts often get air even more often than the parts of ourselves we love. They control the show because they have the benefit of being unconscious. That shit’s powerful, y’all.

When Lilith wants attention, she is not subtle. She screeches and howls. She laughs maniacally when you attribute her deeds to something outside yourself. Because you are just missing the point. You’re contributing to an increase in ways the most primal and vital parts of you are being repressed and disowned to your own detriment. And that primal energy has been driven nearly insane by the ways we refuse to listen to its wisdom.

The power you cast out as being other is oftentimes actually your own.  For better or worse. In the coming days then, better to take note if not action to reclaim what you’re casting out, my loves. I’m so sorry we’ve all been through the restrictive and distorting paradigm of patriarchal rule. And yet… there are lessons to be learned in the reclaiming of Self… and Other. This Libra Full Moon allows us a glimpse into so many mirrors. What do we need to reclaim? What parts of ourselves have we disowned that we need to learn to be at peace with? To integrate?

We have to love the other as we love ourselves and vice versa because in the grand scheme of things, there is no difference. Because we often can’t know the difference between what we are projecting and what is external (and most of the time, there is a lot of overlap). Sometimes it seems like archetypal energies such as Lilith (or Eris or Kali) are fueled by their frustration at trying to hard to get us to listen to our own primal urges — only to have us disown them, or cast them out.

One more thing? Many folks have a lot on their plates right now, all of it clamoring around to be finished Right Now. Be realistic. Be disciplined. Try to prioritize, and recognize that you can’t do everything at once. Ah, yes. There we are again: Balance.

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**We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Astrology Reading for This Special Announcement**

Today marks the Sun’s movement into the zone of the sky we can “Aries” – and therefore the beginning of the astrological year! Know what that means? Specials and discounts abound just for you!

I love astrology. So much. I love the way it helps us tap into cycles and processes and allows us to gain perspective while also going into the depths. At this time in our collective evolution, tools like this can help to bring you into direct awareness of your purpose. Because, quite honestly, the world needs you now. And it is my purpose in life to help empower you to actualize your path.

In celebration of that fact, and in hopes of helping those who want it to get insight into their life purpose, path and ways they can rise up to become the most empowered, radiant version of themselves, I’m offering the specials you’ll see below. This includes a 15 minute Life Path MP3 reading that’s great for you OR as a gift.

All prices good for sessions booked and paid for by March 31.

Pretty straight forward, yeah? Click on the image to go to the scheduling site, choose an in person or skype/phone initial consult session, and then enter coupon code SPRING at checkout. BOOM! Done.

Accessibility is key. I like to keep that in mind. So for those who’d not otherwise be able to get a consult, this special’s for you. Take half off an initial astrology consult. Good for the first two people to book and pay for a session using coupon code: HEART. Just click on the image to go to the scheduling site. You can choose in person or Skype sessions

Want some high velocity, left brain meets right brain insight into your life purpose in a quick little burst? This reading, based on your chart, a tarot card I’ll pull and some intuitive wisdom, will give you just that in the form of a 15 minute MP3 emailed to you within four days of purchase. Email me with your birth date, place and time and I’ll send you an invoice for $20.

Well, THIS never happens. DMP is not a modality I tend to discount, mainly cuz it’s super fairly priced give that it’s very time/energy intensive. However, here we are. Take $20 off a DMP session, great for those who are working with deeply embedded and stuck-feeling complexes. This service is available to anyone who has had an initial astrological consult with me already. Email me to schedule.

And last but not least…schedule a transit update reading (to get insight into your current astrological transits) and get a 20 minute tarot reading thrown in for free. Go to my scheduling website, choose either an in person or Skype transit session, and I’ll adjust the time of the appointment accordingly

Welcome to the last New Moon of the astrological year. In it, the vision of a prism splitting light apart and arranging it into rainbows. Light and matter participating together flawlessly. Healing. Health. Wholeness. At the end of the zodiac, in Pisces, we are getting ready to begin again in deep acknowledgment that time and life are not linear paths but part of ever widening circles.

This New Moon can bring us fully into presence and flow. It is also, however, a powerful portal for transmuting, or perhaps just accepting and releasing, our pain.

There is some pain too deep to be accessed. Some pain too close to the surface to be buried. There are some wounds that are so much a part of us that we cannot heal them, but instead must learn to accept, embrace, reveal and subvert.

This New moon brings us in touch with what we are ready to release and surrender as well as what we are learning to accept. Sometimes it can be difficult to discern. But there can come a time when instead of continuing to dig and attempt to heal and process, transmute, transform…we just…say…mercy. We give in.

And we resist the temptation to become defined by this wound that just won’t go. But we nestle it within us, alongside all our other identities and constructs, using it as a tool, but not making it the center.

This New Moon speaks of endings. The endings of endings. It’s all kinds of waning, and releasing at multiple levels. And yet there it is: Chiron right there in the mix. Chiron teaches us that even the most masterful of healers have wounds that will not go. This does not make them victims, however. It does not make them toil and grovel — at least not in perpetuity. It becomes their strength. They learn to accept and say, “this is a way that I am different. A way that I will never be like the rest of you.

But yet… through my difference, I have learned a new way of doing things. I’ve learned about the blessing of the wound, its sacred nature, and the ways it brings me into greater health. I can no longer risk the harm it does to my soul to fight back against something so crucial to my nature.”

Chiron in Pisces has been teaching us about the deepest wounds we have: the wounds of separation. Not from lovers or family, necessarily. Wounds of separation from source. Which are essentially wounds of separation from ourselves. Because of lies we’ve been told that burrowed into our souls, impressing us with one fatal fallacy: that our bodies and flesh are sinful and wrong.

And that Spirit, in addition to being separate, is higher and better and that we are undeserving of it.

We then twist through lives in which we are seeking redemption and forgiveness, whether consciously or not, as a consequence for some really bad take on an age-old myth. Mythologies that speak of separation as a vital part of the cosmic dance are everywhere. Mythologies that fling the blame for this separation onto the shoulders of humans — typically female humans — are few and far between. And yet the latter rule our entire worldview, be we religious or not.

There is insanity here, in the Piscean void. We see madness when the veil is lifted. Just look around. There comes a point, however, when it all gets so senseless that we put down the sword, we stop the constant self-criticism, in a moment of re-awakening to love. However that happens, in whatever form that takes.

So for this New Moon, release. Surrender your patterns of hate, the ways they flow out and then in again. Bless those core wounds and feed them with eternal and unconditional love. Accept. Renew. Bask in the rainbow. Connect to source. Purify, float and imagine what true freedom would look like for you, and maybe for all of us…

…and make a wish…

Pisces New Moon at 26+ Degrees of Pisces
Saturday, March 17 at 6:11am

~*Part Two of this Pisces New Moon writing contains specific ritual guidance and is available to those who have subscribed to my Patreon Campaign at the $10+ levels. To support my ability to continue doing this work and gain valuable monthly insight, please visit this site.*~