 What were you doing last April? How are the issues that were coming up then finding greater resolution? What are you relieved about? Regretful about? This is all good information about the eclipse season we’re in now. Eclipses put more force behind the full moons and new moons that they fall on as apexes of changes that have been building for the past three-six months. The first eclipse falls on the late night/early morning (depending on where you are) of October 8th and since it falls in Libra/Aries, keep in mind that there is no such thing as other people’s stuff.
It’s a wild card time in general, but with the grand trine in fire signs and mercury’s retrograde in Scorpio/Libra and Uranus and the Sun forming a lightening rod for cosmic energy, expect the unexpected. The grand trine in fire (now through the 8th) encourages us to use our creativity and spiritual aliveness to focus on all that warms our heart. It’s no surprise that San Francisco is being hit a heatwave. Monitor your energy levels for information about what brings vibrancy and go for more of that. Be careful of burnout though and remember to take refuge in the shade. A blow torch is more powerful than a bonfire or a burnt bridge though I can’t deny that we all don’t have some part of us that loves to watch it all burn. Burn candles, old sheets imbued with sex with an ex or old files that are dragging you down. What phoenix part of you might rise from those ashes? Know that while eclipses bring change and fire signs love spontaneity, due to mercury’s retrograde, caution is indicated especially around anything that you might not be able to back out of. Feel free to write those harsh emails, but don’t necessarily send them without a trusted advisor’s revision. Burn those letters and journal pages where you've purged your vitriol then perhaps you'll be able to write from a more effective place. Don’t overcommit yourself based on the intensity of the moment. If you’re even a little uncertain, breathe deep and expand your capacity to sit with the not knowing rather than forcing a resolution. When we’re seduced by the need to find closure, it’s almost always a sign that we're avoiding the work of sitting with our feelings. The solution is usually to put the phone down, come back to the present and know that the answer will come at the right time (if it hasn’t come, it’s not the right time). There’s nothing like astrology to give us a sense of right timing and nothing like tarot to get us through those moments of uncertainty. The only question that matters right now is “what wants to happen next.” Pull out the tarot if you’ve got too many options and/or are feeling overwhelmed. Pull a card for each option and see what feelings arise from there. Keep in mind that the cards are a reflection of your relationship to the option in that moment. It’s okay to say “no” right now and you become a “yes” later, when the time is right and more information has been revealed. If you don't have a deck or are away from it, this is a sweet online resource. Use this wild card time to lean on our wild, artful divinatory cards. As mercury's retrograde moves back into Libra, if you have trouble deciphering the message with all the taboo shit stirring that the Scorpionic energy brings, consult with another person. Take it all with a grain of salt because you’re the ultimate authority on your life, but there’s some clarity that can come only from sorting stuff out with another being. It will be much less about what’s being said and much more about what’s being felt. This is a great time to practice using feeling words in a non-blaming way (NVC anyone?). Good luck! The final eclipse of this cycle is on October 23rd in Scorpio. We enter the depths, letting go and sinking in to all that we’re here to learn about our psyches. I’m planning to spend that night making a collage honoring that “no” is a complete sentence. What small, often quiet voice in you do you hope pay extra attention to as the energy of the moment shifts? Have a blessed Samhain and happy new year to all the witches out there! For folks that have been wondering where my more regular postings can be found, for the past six months or so, I've been toying with Facebook so follow me there for more consistent & brief astrologically inspired nuggets of wisdom. It's not my favorite platform, but it does make it easy.
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 God is Change And in the end, God Prevails. But meanwhile... Kindness eases Change. Love quiets fear. And a sweet and powerful Positive obsession Blunts pain. Diverts rage, And engages each of us In the greatest, The most intense Of our chosen struggles. -Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents Photo Credit: Nathan Taylor I've got a penchant for apocalyptic mythos (Octavia Butler's Parables series is a favorite I've recently re-visited). I am especially fond of those that assure me that though transformation can be quite painful there is tremendous hope for shaping our breakdowns into breakthroughs. At the same time, I'm with Saul Williams in "calling all tarot readers and sparrow feeders to cancel the apocalypse." This dark moon in Aries (March 30th) I find myself steeped in both the fear of change and craving the promise of newness, of hope, of possibility born from destruction. Aries needs something to protect so all that fiery, fierceness has somewhere productive to go. This lunation allies with trickster Uranus and Juno, protector of the underdog invoking our unique inner hero's journeys to be allied with the greatest good of all. Use the unexpected to that advantage. Now is the time to ask yourself where you want lightning to strike in your life?
April moves us into eclipse season (4/15 & 4/29) and a grand cross in the cardinal signs (exact on 4/23). I adore when the gregorian calendar and the astrological match up and a tax day lunar eclipse is no exception. Practicing war tax resistance has made me conscious of war nearly every day. It's a small way to resist, to ensure that the nearly half of my tax dollars that go to war do not go there easily. It feels right, good and terrifying. I remind myself all the time that it's nothing compared to the terrors of war or the acts of resistance by folks like Chelsea Manning, and it's something that I can do. The feelings we have about our struggles get highlighted especially in relationship to others. The solar eclipse that follows brings shifts in our bodies and beings toward greater wholeness in the cognitive dissonance. The grand cross brings us to this moment's crossroad. Dynamic tensions invite shifts that have probably been brewing for a while. It's our work to find integration and wholeness in the shifting possibilities. Uranus in Aries asks us to find deeper liberation of the self and courage in creating change. Jupiter in Cancer asks us to give and receive deep nourishment to our families of origin and those with whom we have chosen kinship. Mars (retrograde) in Libra asks us to return to familiar territory in relating so we can take action differently the next time around (and the next, and then next...). Pluto in Capricorn is asking us to let go of the illusion of control so that real power can come through in service to deep, lasting transformations that serve us through difficult times as well as through bliss. What is your sweet and powerful Positive obsession to guide you through this month? As Julie Simmons says of this dark new moon time "Step inside the cardinal cross. Bring your friends. There is actually no other place to be. Imagine yourself at the center where the four directions meet. You are the keeper of the directions of your life and today or tomorrow you must make your intentions clear. You want change, you need to feed and nourish your people, you must be a leader but not a dominator and you must have extreme courage to face the fear that there is simply not enough. Whether this is true or not, is not for you to know. What is known is that there is great fear which will require great courage."  I'd be lying if I told you that this Solstice season brings with it an easy astrology. With Uranus moving forward now, we do seem to be regaining a sense of clarity about who we really are and how the past months have inevitably led to this moment. This sense of ourselves is in creative tension on Xmas day. It meets with other people's expectations of what we do with our energy and how (Mars in Libra). See "there is no such thing as other people's stuff" for clues on how to practice emotional intelligence in this tussle.
Most importantly, check your expectations. Most folks are anxious, irritable and trying to mold reality to conform to a fantasy script of the holiday season. If you figure out how to make that work, please let me know. In the meantime, be someone who can smile at the chaos and breathe through the crazy. Hope this helps:
Know that it is possible to get through the holydaze with peace, joy and grace this year as long as we center ourselves in a willingness to do the work & make the effort towards accepting what is. Photo credit: Nathan Taylor  "The best political, social, and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw the projection of our shadow onto others." -Carl Jung
On this healing path, I've worked a lot on "not taking on other people's stuff." This is a phrase we speak often in bay area healing circles. While I've benefitted immeasurably from the meditations where I've given people back their stuff, envisioned myself surrounded by a protective orb of energy and all that powerful woo, I'm feeling more and more like it's a lie that reveals the truth rather than the truth itself. This Friday, October 18th the full moon brings us a lunar eclipse in Aries/Libra. So much of the Aries/Libra story is about self and other. Over the next year or so, our job is to learn as much as we can about how we relate and how we act as individuals in those relations. Now is a moment where we're probably getting a lot of information about that. I keep thinking about an old neighbor who was struggling with addiction. He was abusive, acting out in all sorts of ways and destroyed my garden more than once. Nothing I did got him to act more sane until I stopped trying to get him to do anything, hung up some mirrors on the front door and in the garden and started wishing him well. Even then, not much changed with him, but I did. Years later, in retrospect, as the child of an alcoholic, I can't deny that me learning how to live with addiction is completely my stuff. It's so easy to get caught up in feeling wronged, feeling that if other people would just do what we think is best then we could finally relax and life would get better, we get distracted from what we actually can change: ourselves. The crucial thing to remember in this eclipse heightened time is that whatever is coming up is a mirror. All the things, especially when we're obsessing about the outer world, are just reflections of our inner life. Often they are mirrors of your beauty. Sometimes though facebook, our friends, our family, our inbox, etc. are reflections of our unresolved stuff. The good news is we're being given the (sometimes) agonizing gift of greater resolution and healing, if we take the time to go inward. Two weeks from now on November 3rd, that inner work will help us rise to meet a solar eclipse in Scorpio. Along with mercury retrograde also in Scorpio (10/21-11/9), now is a time to look at that part of ourselves that keeps getting attracted to the same lessons, that keeps looking in the same mirrors (over and over and over again). Invite your psyche to tea and ask the bigger questions of what you are to learn from this shifting time. Let go of blame and heal what only you can heal. Halloween and Day of the Dead remind us that Scorpio's time is a one to sit with the reality of death. Somehow this unifying thread amongst us all, this promise of a returning to source, even just as compost, helped me to see that the more I embraced the mirrors in my life, the more clearly I could see myself. Yes, we are separate, embodied beings AND in this mystery of oneness, whatever Scorpionic sh*t you're called on to deal with now is yours to compost, even if it appears to be somebody else's. Perhaps it's as simple as there is no other? Perhaps it's all just a lie that reveals the truth? Either way, enjoy the reflections. Photo credit: Nathan Taylor  We're in Libra season folks and with the new moon (Oct. 4th) it's time to focus on what you're wanting to get out of yet another fucking growth opportunity. The themes this month are relating, releasing and figuring out how to do what feels genuinely good even in the midst of the hard. The sun and moon are caught up in the Uranus/Pluto square encouraging us to put the effort in against all odds (as Caroline Casey says, those are the odds that the divine likes).
A wise friend recently explained that she sometimes calls Libra energy "Liebra" because there's a tendency to sweep things under the rug, to sacrifice all conflict on the altar of harmony. As she said, shit still stinks even when it's swept under the rug. The good news is that Pluto and Uranus seems to be discouraging that expression. Whatever peace we're able to find will be because of our willingness to sit with the discomfort that often comes from growth and change. Is it a surprise that the US government has now shutdown over the right to affordable care? Not really. Am I hopeful that the good sense, decorum and kindness of Libra will woo the moment, indeed! The women, infants and children need it as do the places of great beauty, our national parks (amongst so many other ways we try, imperfectly, to protect our land, air, water and health). I wonder if we're all not feeling shutdown in some way or another, perhaps where this new moon is happening in your birth chart. Know that when we sacrifice ourselves and shutdown, the most creative parts of us suffer. We lose our sense of possibility and feel stuck. The question for me has been, where do I need to feel my feelings and where do I need to reach out for connection to spirit, to friends, to trusted advisors for help dealing with whatever I'm trying to avoid. We all need to infuse a commitment to affordable self and community care into our daily lives as one small way to ride the rising tides forward. These themes will only build as we enter eclipse season and mercury retrograde later this month. One of my most oft leaned on affordable care tools is comedy. Thank goodness for the truth telling court jesters Colbert, Stewart and their amazing teams in these trying times. I even dreamt about Louis CK this week. Louis CK is one of those brilliant people born in the late 1960s when Pluto and Uranus were presenting a more united revolutionary front. These blessed individuals get to bring that energy into this moment of more tense transformation. His sun is right next to Pluto/Uranus so his career as a creative person, after much Virgoan hard work and integration, has really taken off in this unique astro-ecology (I see a similar opening for a lot of clients born in the late '60s). His Saturn in Aries and Moon is Capricorn have been activated by Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn too. His career is what it is today because he's willing to break taboos about parenting, marriage/divorce, and society in ways that can give a sense of relief and liberation, of not being alone, of not having to sweep it under the rug anymore. He does this best by invoking the wiser, more connected parts of ourselves. We know that empathy, feeling our feelings and being uncompromising in our commitment to live whole lives even in a consumer society run amuck is more powerful than that deep sense of empty, loneliness that comes with being human. Photo credit: Nathan Taylor (my title: running from the sad) |