This week includes the first of two March full moons. The full moon of Virgo opposite Sun in Pisces. The opposites in the zodiac can be described as the six conversations in astrology. Pisces and Virgo are in conversation, and this is another aspect of the phenomena of the Full Moon. When the Moon is full, it's opposite the Sun. Pisces opposite Virgo is formlessness opposite form, vast intuition in conversation with minute details of what is tangible, spiritual inclusion talking with critical discernment. So the full moon is a chance to engage with these opposites, and your own opposites.
Opposites are two sides of something that only exist with each other. Form life on earth is this way - opposites create each other - they dependently co-arise.
We can think of them as polarities to balance in the middle of, or we can think of them as modalities to employ discerningly depending on what is needed in the moment. Astrology is a language for energy, and language helps direct our attention.
What we attend to grows.
What do you attend to?
What do you want to attend to?
Is there a gap between those two?
What needs to be done to close this gap?
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
Question - When do you let yourself take a break from initiating?
Meditation - Tiny breaks.
Assignment - Aries is the beginner of things, so often! Loving the beginnings, loving to initiate projects of all sorts. The support this week lies in letting the project itself be taking a break from the project. Even if it's tiny, the tiniest. We tell ourselves we don't have time, we don't have time to take breaks. But I've noticed that time works paradoxically - try it out - when you take a tiny break and don't miss your life during that tiny break, the time you have to complete tasks blooms from within. Experiment with this. Initiate breaks.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
Question - When was the last time you were touched?
Meditation - Touch as vital force.
Assignment - Many people have a need to be touched, but especially Taurus. You live in the senses, life is constituted through the senses. Give yourself the gift of asking for touch this week. Risk that vulnerability if it doesn't happen regularly. When it does happen, pay attention, drink the vital force of it in. If no one is around to touch you, TOUCH YOURSELF, exactly the way you want to be touched. This is very important. This is not to be underestimated.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20)
Question - How often do you attend to your feet?
Meditation - Your feet connect you to life.
Assignment - I think to remind Gemini of feet a lot, because there's an Air tendency to stay up close to the clouds. In the spirit of balance, there really can't be too much attention given to the feet. They do endless amounts of work for us, and they are the direct conduit we have to the earth which literally physically sustains our lives moment by moment. Connecting to this fact feels good, brings us back to our bodies, and offers a dose of the ground for your Airy loveliness.
CANCER (June 21-July 22)
Question - What role does color play in your life?
Meditation - Color as cue toward the divine.
Assignment - What colors are you regularly surrounded by? How does this affect your vitality? What colors do you wear? Take note of colors, give yourself permission to bring in color as cues for what is in resonance with you. Colors can remind us of things we already know, they can serve as direct access to feelings we want to cultivate. You can curate colors but you can also just pay attention to colors. A white wall is actually not white, it's full of so many colors. It's our attention and our brushing over that tells us we've already seen what it is. This kind of attention to color just feels good, helps us not miss life.
LEO (July 23-August 22)
Question - When do you breathe filling all of your lung capacity?
Meditation - Breathing as actualizing.
Assignment - Hey! This might sound obvious but I've taken it on as my job to point out the underrated obvious in life. When you breathe, remember that you're breathing. This is never not the assignment. But also, lean back in your chair or wherever you are so that your ribs expand. Then breathe. Feel the front of your body open. Do this five times a day this week. Do it as often as you remember. Remind yourself that breathing oxygen is a great accomplishment. Anything else is a bonus.
VIRGO (August 23-September 22)
Question - How often do you track the moon?
Meditation - FEELING THE FULL MOON.
Assignment - Let yourself connect to the Full Moon in your sign this week. Feel the conversation between Pisces and Virgo, the opposites I mentioned in the introduction. Feel the feelings of the Full Moon - in other words practice being a Pisces. You can lament the sensitivity that washes over us at the Full Moon, or you can embrace it. I recommend embracing it. Your tendency is to tell yourself that your emotional life is not practical. Tell yourself a new story about what is practical, and include space and time for feelings to flow freely through you. This will contribute to more vitality, less stagnancy.
LIBRA (September 23-October 22)
Question - How often do you get in water?
Meditation - Get in water.
Assignment - Get in water. Take a shower. Take a bath. Do actual, physical things to your body as a way to attend to your inner life. Especially water this week. If you can get in a bigger body of water than a shower or bath, do that. Turn down that mind with the support of the Emotional Opening Opportunity that is the Full Moon.
SCORPIO (October 23-November 21)
Question - What practices in your life offer you faith in yourself?
Meditation - Faith in yourself.
Assignment - Hey! Jupiter is in Scorpio this year. Did you know that? From last October through the beginning of November, 2018. Jupiter brings a sense of possibility and change, new access to faith, to possibility! So, at some point this year, (likely a few times) Jupiter will conjunct your sun (meaning sit on / pass over). This is a good access point to connecting to faith in your process. At times this can mean an infusion of change and possibility, at times it can be a chance for travel, at times it can produce a sense of overwhelm at the bigness of life itself or sudden changes. Go with it - cultivate possibility, expansion and faith in regards to your identity and life force - by asking yourself what practices help you access this feeling, and then following through on doing them regularly.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21)
Question - Where are your outlets for sharing your philosophical side?
Meditation - Letting philosophy be present!
Assignment - You might have a need for sharing your philosophical approach, or way of making sense of things. Does this have an outlet? Sagittarius has a strong need to express, and this need can be distorted into oversharing if it is neglected. Care for yourself by asking yourself if this need is present, and then finding regular outlets for this expression. When you don't deny your need to take up space, you can connect to your own thriving more regularly. Here's some inspiration for taking up space / expressing this need. Also, watch The Artist Is Present this week!
CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19)
Question - What body practices do you sustain?
Meditation - Practicing being in a body.
Assignment - Are you dancing? Are you practicing any movement? When does body movement happen for you? How does this connect to your emotional wellbeing? If you're out of practice, return to one. Find one. The senses of the body are how you make sense of the world which means they must be tuned as instruments of information-perceiving. This is a responsible act. This is a life-giving act.
AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18)
Question - When do you feel the comfort of space around you?
Meditation - Spaciousness.
Assignment - Give yourself a lot of space. Listen to the space. Listen to what the space tells you. Connect your feet to the ground while you do this.
PISCES (February 19 to March 20)
Question - When do you practice discernment?
Meditation - Discernment as self-protection.
Assignment - Pisces can think (feel, really) the best of people and so sometimes be labeled as 'naive'. The principle of Virgo as mentioned in the introduction can be so helpful to stay in conversation with, for Pisces people. When both signs are in their default unconscious mode, Virgos see Pisces are being naive, not 'practical', and Pisces see Virgos as being petty, or not visionary enough. These signs in opposition ask each other to come into balance. Discernment is a key capacity of Virgo. Pisces you can learn from this. Find Virgos to study, and explore what your own version of discernment looks like. Are you chronically overworking? Are you chronically overestimating what you can do in a day? Ask Virgo questions about time! This can help you practice balance.
So now it is Pisces time, Water time, with the Sun plus Mercury plus Venus plus Neptune in Pisces! Pisces connects us to another world, the unseen world, On an earth level it's the water of the unconscious, an emotional desire for merging with an other, a deep desire for escape or for boundless love. And on a spirit level Pisces is about connecting to the other through a vast ocean of feeling. The Earth plane often feels too concrete and crude for Pisces. But this fluidity is also what Pisces can offer - an intuitive understanding and expression of our interconnectivity.
Neptune, the planet that rules Pisces, is now square Mars, the planet of direct action and will. A potential cultural confusion around what to do. This confusion can be hard for doers, and the USA is a country of doers! Neptune asks us to be present with our divine discontent by foregrounding it, so that we don't run from it. When it's square Mars this question of the relationship of our deepest spiritual longings and how we enact them comes forward.
Water's influence offers us a chance to feel a break from gravity, a chance to float. It also offers us storms, massive waves that pummel, temperature changes. It's just so powerful, and yet paradoxically doesn't even have its own shape! It requires a container, but if it doesn't have one, it will make one, slowly, over thousands of years, carving away a river bed, for example.
When we let water into our lives, and don't 'tax our lives with forethought of grief,' but just let ourselves feel what we need to feel, then water doesn't get stopped up or stagnant in our bodies! We let it flow. Emotions work like this. Spiritual longing works like this. Our job is to let it run through us, to treat it as sacred information! To let it do its powerful transformative work, even when it feels a bit unnatural or awkward.
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
Question - When do you let water in?
Meditation - water behind you, buoying you.
Assignment - Pisces is the last sign in the zodiac, right behind you, Aries, the first sign in the zodiac. Connect with endings this week as Pisces moves into the forefront. What do endings mean in your life? When do you pay attention to them, when do you ignore them? Write about your relationship with endings, take note of the ways you might not want to focus on them, ask about what endings can teach you.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
Question - How often do you initiate?
Meditation - Initiation as power.
Assignment - Earth signs like you are good at working consistently over time, but when do you begin things? What does beginning feel like? Contemplate the beginningness of every moment, and how being the initiator of beginnings can infuse your process with another kind of energy. Begin!
GEMINI (May 21-June 20)
Question - Where does faith arise for you?
Meditation - Faith as subterranean.
Assignment - Gemini likes to be on the surface, in highly aerated space. Gemini is all about mental movement. So the assignment this week is to ask yourself about where your faith resides. In many ways faith happens in the spaces of ourselves that are not mental, pre-mental, or lower in the body. Where does faith live in your body? When do you feel disconnected from faith? When do you feel faith present? Write about this. Notice faith.
CANCER (June 21-July 22)
Question - Where and how do you connect to air?
Meditation - Air it out.
Assignment - There's a big emphasis on Water in the stars right now, and you're a Water sign too. I encourage a noticing of air this week, which sees things through the medium of ideas, which are lighter than emotions. Let all the emotions be there, but notice where ideas live and how they arise, practice existing with them. What would it feel like to exist more in idea land? Breathe the air and feel the breath as connection to air. Just a light intention is all. Infuse some of the water with some clouds and wind.
LEO (July 23-August 22)
Question - When do you give yourself permission to be noticed?
Meditation - Being seen as vital.
Assignment - Leo is known for liking attention, but the assignment this week is actually giving yourself permission to be noticed, and not shying away from this. Thinking of the signs as access points to divine needs, and a need of Leo is being noticed. This can be viewed as the mirroring reciprocity of relationship, not as self-indulgent. When a need is neglected, it distorts into something large and scary. Attending to our needs is a divine act, one of the things we came to earth to do!
VIRGO (August 23-September 22)
Question - When was the last time you laughed?
Meditation - Humor as divine.
Assignment - Virgo can be so funny! That quick wit of the most mental of Earth signs. Remember to use humor this week. Make it your assignment to laugh. Return to this daily. Laughing laughing laughing. Make it your job in a good free light way. Humor loves you, it wants you to say yes to it.
LIBRA (September 23-October 22)
Question - How is the music you are listening to affecting you?
Meditation - Music as news.
Assignment - What music do you listen to? What does it do to your body? If you already listen to music, pay attention to what it does for you. If you don't, try listening to some, and take note of your body when you do. How can music soothe, how does it connect you to your own knowing, when does it disconnect you? Let yourself listen to what feels good. Often struggle is overrated.
SCORPIO (October 23-November 21)
Question - How much are you storing outdated information in your body?
Meditation - Attending to storage
Assignment - Give some attention to what you are storing and where this week. By storage I mean information, stories of the past, fears of the future, other people's thoughts of you, other people's emotional weights. I also mean physical storage, because the physical corresponds with some aspect of spirit. So look into storage internally and externally. Storage can be helpful - to save things we will need for later - but so often it just ends up being a pile of things we don't need that we're unnecessarily holding onto. Damn it feels good to give ourselves some levity, to give things back to the earth.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21)
Question - What do you think a tree's relationship to adventure is?
Meditation - Deepening a sense of adventure.
Assignment - I am staying with this adventure idea from last week because I think it's worth going deeper on for Sagittarius. What trees do you see regularly? How often do you notice them? Ask them questions about what adventure looks like. What if you were rooted like a tree? What would adventure look like? Perhaps visitors would take on a new significance, like for instance the visitor of sadness, the visitor of joy, the visitor of restlessness, all the visitors. Look for adventure in the things you perceive as limitations of your life. You're good at this.
CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19)
Question - When do you listen to water?
Meditation - The sound of water.
Assignment - Listen to the sounds of water this week. If you live by any water, go to it. Breathe next to it. Fortify this celestial Water influence as the gift that it is with some physical water, let water permeate your experience. Observe it moving, in your sink. carrying soil, lapping the sand. Ask it how it knows how to move so freely, how it knows how to shape shift. Learn from this.
AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18)
Question - What needs to be in place for you to make needed changes?
Meditation - The beginning of your year.
Assignment - The Sun moves from your Aquarius to Pisces today. The beginning of your year just happened with your birthday. Aquarius can be slow to change, even with its paradoxical quickness. So how can you gently nurture change by putting things in place for the beginning of this new lap around the sun? What simple gestures and rituals can you offer to the Multiverse to let it know you are ready for nature to make the changes needed, while remembering that you don't actually orchestrate the changes, you just make intentions toward them?
PISCES (February 19 to March 20)
Question - When do you let yourself fully embrace love?
Meditation - Self as Love.
Assignment - This is your time! Pisces has such an intuitive sense of interconnectivity, which shows up in your rooting for the underdog, always, for connecting deeply to who and what suffers. This love is inherent, it wants to fill you all the time. Let's be conscious of the stories we inherit from childhood about how that love needs to be kept at bay, or we need to harden in some way. You can actually give yourself permission to be as loving as you want. You don't have to hide from this or pretend it's another way, in fact it's actually where your power will come from, does come from.
The New Moon of Aquarius conjunct the Sun on the 15th. Hey - just in case you didn't know this - when the Moon is full, it's directly opposite the Sun, so it's in the zodiac sign that is opposite where the Sun is. For example our last Full Moon was in Leo, opposite the Sun in Aquarius. And now that the Moon is New, it's in Aquarius and 'conjunct' the Sun (hiding / dark, not illuminated by the Sun from our perspective on Earth). So when the Moon is illuminated / full, this attunes us to the unconscious, the shadow, the reactions, the mystery of the emotional world. When it's new we have an opportunity for new space, for things not being illuminated. Darkness can be a relief.
An opening.
What does the darkness of a New Moon make room for, in your life?
How can this space become a fruitful pause, a 'womb of transformation'?
Electricity of Aquarius.
Blasts of intuition.
Idea transfer / connection.
Make room for listening, make some silence for this.
Venus moves into Pisces - the universal, oceanic, expansive, boundary-dissolving water sign acting through the aesthetic, relational planet (The planets represent different aspects of our psyches). This Pisces energy is a great contemplation for the week where some people celebrate Eros.
Aquarius carries us to the soothing water at the end of the Zodiac (Pisces). You can invite in this Aquarius / Pisces love that knows forgiveness is as important as systemic justice!
--
PS I'm still in silence. How is your February? Where is the silence? When was the last time you attended to it, gave it room to breathe and work on you?
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
Question - When do you give yourself permission to be in the dark?
Meditation - Turning toward darkness.
Assignment - The New Moon as a cue toward embracing whatever darkness exists for you right now. Instead of trying to make something new, just practice being inside darkness. What are its qualities? What does it feel like? What does it offer? How does it change if you aren't afraid of it?
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
Question - When do you feel most soft?
Meditation - Softness.
Assignment - What is soft in your life? As in materials, as in conditions, as in relationships, as in food. Where do you fall this week on the spectrum of hard / soft? When does your thinking solidify into hardness / get compacted from not enough water, when do you let it be hydrated and therefore sustaining life. Contemplate these conditions / ways of operating this week. Let Venus's (your ruling planet) move into Pisces hydrate your thinking.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20)
Question - When do you let your ability to see all sides work for you?
Meditation - The twins / two sides.
Assignment - Gemini is depicted as twins, two sides, and often interested in everything, which can diffuse clarity and identity. But this week, notice how infused your thinking is with this seeing all sides, and let it be a strength. Gemini is a mutable sign, along with Virgo, Pisces, and Sagittarius. How does this changeability help you in your life? What changes might occur if you embraced it?
CANCER (June 21-July 22)
Question - When do you connect to eating as nourishment?
Meditation - Food as nourishment.
Assignment - Practice eating meals while not doing anything else this week. You understand all of the emotional, historical, interconnected elements of food intuitively, so give yourself the gift of connecting to this knowing in the practice of eating. Don't look at your phone, don't read, just know that eating, nourishing your body, is a worthy, and essential task, in itself. Share this with others. Read Thich Nhat Hanh's How To Eat for more on this.
LEO (July 23-August 22)
Question - When do you notice the sensations of drinking liquids?
Meditation - Throat / Throat chakra
Assignment - Connect to your throat this week. Stay mindful of what happens in this area of your body. What do you take in through your throat? What do you put out through your throat. This area deserves more attention. So much information passes through this space / perceptive organ. Give it attention and care, especially while the Sun is in Aquarius, opposite your Sun.
VIRGO (August 23-September 22)
Question - When do you let yourself learn from plants?
Meditation - Plants as holders of wisdom.
Assignment - As Venus moves into Pisces, opposite your Sun, connect to this essential conversation between Earth and Water. Plants embody this relationship so well! What plants are in your life on a regular basis? Do you take care of any plants? How often do you listen to them? How often do you ask them about what they can show you? Talk to them. I'm not joking. See what they tell you. There's a world of knowing that exists there, that you intuitively understand as a Virgo. But you have to let yourself get weird enough to listen.
LIBRA (September 23-October 22)
Question - When do you create stillness in your life?
Meditation - Stillness.
Assignment - Air signs by nature move, desire to make connections of all kinds, which is a particular type of Air activity. When are you still? How might stillness help facilitate connections? How might it facilitate ease? Be still sometimes this week. As in, see how long you can let your body be in the same position, and notice what moves.
SCORPIO (October 23-November 21)
Question - When do you ignore your intuition?
Meditation - Intuition as power.
Assignment - Scorpio's intuition is so present it can often be taken for granted. What are the cues you use to register when you are paying attention to your intuition, and when you are neglecting it? Thinking of it like a muscle can be helpful, something that thrives in being used! Pay attention to your body on a daily basis, even with something as simple as a question - how is my body feeling today? Even this gentle attention toward your body can help connect you to when you are attending to this gift of intuition you have. When you neglect it, your body sends you signals, but you have to pay attention enough to receive this information! It is sacred, give it permission to be sacred.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21)
Question - What feels like an adventure on a daily level?
Meditation - Connecting to adventure.
Assignment - Sagittarius loves adventure, and spontaneity, and there can be a tension here because in bodies, on Earth, we are subject to Earth rhythms, and so our bodies and practices need some level of consistency to thrive. So a question to attend to this week is, what are the adventures in the every day of your life? How can you infuse the daily with your own magic vitality by finding the adventure, by using your ability to see the adventure everywhere.
CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19)
Question - What do you believe in?
Meditation - Belief as fire.
Assignment - Write about what you believe in this week. Capricorn tends to be pragmatic and focused on existing conditions and purpose more than belief. Take some time to attend to belief, to notice what beliefs / assumptions are informing your behavior.
AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18)
Question - What do you carry that is yours, what do you carry that is others?
Meditation - carrying pleasure.
Assignment - Meditate this week. Reflect during your birthday month, on what is yours and what is other's. Update what you are carrying. (Aquarius is a fixed sign, along with Taurus, Scorpio, and Leo, which all tend toward resisting updating in some way.) Meditate on pleasure, and let it offer you cues about what to carry and what to put down. How does it feel to carry pleasure? What would that even mean? Meditate on discerning what is yours, give yourself permission to hold just that.
PISCES (February 19 to March 20)
Question - When do you make proclamations?
Meditation - proclaiming as power.
Assignment - It's not your tendency to proclaim, usually, but there is so much power here. You already have an intuitive sense of what feels 'right' to you, so speak it when necessary this week. Look for the opportunities for this kind of speech. Experiment with it even when it feels a bit awkward or not quite your typical way.
Mercury joined the Sun and Venus in Aquarius this week, so we move from the huge Capricorn influence a couple weeks ago to a significant Aquarius influence. This air sign is depicted as the water carrier. (The Air signs are the only zodiac signs depicted as human, the rest are depicted as animals.) Aquarius, this Air sign, carrying water, like the sky does. It changes like the weather, and yet always contains everything. Something is deeply constant in Aquarius (at times stubbornly fixed!) and yet can change as fast as the weather. So a question based on this -
What can help you cultivate a balance of constancy + openness to the lightning of inspiration and (social) change that Aquarius asks us to consider?
--
I am still in silence somewhere in the future right now. Here are some reasons I am still in silence, that I wrote before I was in silence. I’ll get back to you on if these reasons hold up after I return from the silence.
for grandmothers, mothers, family, ancestry
in faith in the future, that it will occur
to listen to the news that plants and weather have to report
to breathe with 100 strangers and see what happens
to resist becoming a compliant capitalist subject; to stay agile
to give it all back to the mystery
to hear what needs to be heard
to see as clearly as possible what is really there / here
to remind myself and be reminded that I am nature
because I used to think a retreat was self-indulgent and now I think we need as many people as possible who are willing and able to listen to the news from the silence
We need as many people as possible to listen to the grass, the turkeys, the oaks, the clouds, the electricity in the sky, the signs changing in the cosmos, the seasons changing on our planet. To listen to the sounds of 100 people sitting in silence, what that might make possible. To listen to space itself, to the news available when the internet news is turned off.
When was the last time you were in silence this week? In this definition of silence I’m including intake, not just output. When was the last time you were not receiving any information from a screen, or other people, just listening to a room, a building, the species living in the open air, or the sky and its water, wherever you are?
--
The thing that silence has taught me so far, that I offer here, is that silence is always available, moment by moment. It’s available in less than 10 seconds right now, when we remember that the earth, the actual earth, is supporting our bodies while reading this computer note. It’s available while breathing in and out in line at any store, while typing in your passcode somewhere, while making toast.
So I invite you to join me in any kind of silence available to you, in whatever way feels possible, this month, while washing your hair, folding clothes, archiving emails. I'll be asking what Aquarius season can teach me, what to pay attention to, attention being a form of love. I'll be thanking you for existing, like I'm doing right now.
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
Question - What is happening with your dreams lately?
Meditation - Dreams as news.
Assignment - It's not a matter of you having power - this is obvious - you do. It's committing long enough to wield it. Commit this week to something you've hesitated on. Even if it's your non-commitment! Do it whole-heartedly. And use your dreams as cues toward what to commit to.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
Question - How often do you find yourself wanting it to be easy?
Meditation - Expectation as a joy-robber.
Assignment - It's not that it can't be easy! It can be be. It's just that you trying to arrange it to be easy doesn't let it happen. The expectation of ease, (comfort - something Taurus loves) robs the ability to find the ease present. You know how to do ease, even when it's not easy. You can connect to your own root-vegetable quality, steadiness. Letting is different from arranging. Take note of this difference, practice more letting.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20)
Question - How often do you make room for poetry?
Meditation - Poetry as mental vitality.
Assignment - Poetry! Make it happen. Read it. Write it. Say it out loud. This week: NOW. Poetry!
CANCER (June 21-July 22)
Question - What is your connection to land?
Meditation - Land as lover.
Assignment - Cancer is connected to place as a holder of memory. This connection is so vital! Notice your land relationships, on a micro level this week. The land underneath your house, the land you travel to and from daily activities. Take note of its connection to your vitality.
LEO (July 23-August 22)
Question - What is the relationship between sex and creativity?
Meditation - Erotic as creative.
Assignment - Tend to your erotic self this week, like creativity you nurture. Don't neglect it. Let it come into the light like all the other essential parts of being. Practice the erotic like you practice creating.
VIRGO (August 23-September 22)
Question - What is there room for when purpose isn't present?
Meditation - Purposelessness.
Assignment - Let there be more purposelessness, even for a few minutes a day this week. Text someone about this. See what happens in the space without purpose. You don't need to give it up; it's a vital part of life. Just try out moments without it, notice how doable that feels, notice how not-doable it seems, see what happens.
LIBRA (September 23-October 22)
Question - What is happening with your money?
Meditation - Money exchange as spiritual exchange.
Assignment - How conscious are you with how you use money? Do you spend impulsively and hoard alternatively? Are these tendencies reactions to an imbalance or lack of willingness to look bravely at your finances? Money isn't you, so you can practice depersonalizing it, but pay attention! Just like with the observer effect in science, which states that you can't look at something and not change it, here too, just notice, and by noticing, it will change. Whatever is unconscious will come into the light, when you turn the light of your attention on it.
SCORPIO (October 23-November 21)
Question - When are you fully relaxed?
Meditation - Relaxation.
Assignment - You don't have to stay on alert anymore. You can relax. You don't have to worry about being unconscious. You can let yourself relax. All of your considerable investigative and bullshit-detector capacities will not disappear. They will always help you when you need them. But you can ask yourself if they are needed right now, and if not, take a tiny break. Relaxation is just reminding yourself that rest is another facet of divine expression.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21)
Question - Who do you admire who is quiet?
Meditation - Quiet as regal.
Assignment - Find someone who is quiet to admire this week. Find whatever external quiet is available, without needing to arrange this. Then go to the internal. Find harmony in quiet and rest.
CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19)
Question - When are you warm? When are you cold?
Meditation - You can let yourself be warm.
Assignment - You can be warmer. You can be as warm as you want. You don't have to wait for it to come from the outside. You can bring it in, right now, with the breath, with color, with all living beings around you. Take it as a practice this week.
AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18)
Question - When do you yell?
Meditation - It's time to yell.
Assignment - What you want. With conviction. It's your month. Like this Aquarius light.
PISCES (February 19 to March 20)
Question - When do you access fire?
Meditation - fire!
Assignment - Light candles this week! It seems simple but it's underrated. Fire. Bring it into your life. It's a reminder for how to take up space!
This week will include a full moon, a blue moon, a super moon, a full lunar eclipse at 5:30am on the 31st if you live in the western part of the USA. SENSITIVE MOON TIMES!
Full moon of Leo. Embrace creative energy! Embrace drama energy! Embrace the self, heart, vitality, warmth, self-worth!
Right now, I am in silence, on some land in California. I will be in silence until the end of February. I’m telling you this because even though you are probably not in silence for a month if you are reading this, I want to include you in this silence.
Since I was very young I had a sense of an inner life. And so I was drawn to people and ideas that referenced and encouraged this internal world. Years ago, when I learned that people spent long periods of time in silence - not just monks but everyday people - I immediately knew it was something I wanted to do. But from the perspective of the activism I was immersed in at the time, it was an incredibly selfish thing to do and I wasn’t interested in “being selfish.” So I told myself I couldn’t spend a lot of time in silence, because then I wouldn’t be contributing in a useful way, and I definitely wanted to do that. Somehow I decided that spending some time in silence was not a way to contribute and be useful.
I continued to spend some years working with other activists to change the nightmare that is the prison system in California and the USA. And the longer I did this, the more I saw people burn out in this attempt to transform the injustice of this system. Including myself. I noticed that this burnout seemed to have a lot to do with ideas about what was selfish and what wasn’t. That there was a lot of judgment about what was selfish and what wasn’t. As my burn out increased, I started to question my own ideas about this very thing, and on a whim a few years ago I signed up for a silent retreat.
I still can’t explain the transformation that happened for me during that time - how much it changed my ideas about almost everything, specifically around what is selfish. What does labeling something 'selfish' do to it? In what ways do you prohibit your own movement and keep certain things off limits when you call them 'selfish'?
These days I actually don’t know what is selfish and what is not. The truth feels more moment to moment, person to person than it used to. Our paths involve so much complexity, and everyone’s story and offerings are different.
Lately I try to think less about whether something is selfish or not, and more about whether it feels expansive or contracting in my body. Most of the effects of what I do are out of my control. I consider it my job to listen as deeply as I can, and respond to what I hear. I mean this in an esoteric way, in terms of listening to my ‘inner voice’ and I also mean it in a literal way, in terms of listening to the people I love, my own physical body, my surroundings, people I don’t love. If we’re lucky we’ll live a while longer, and in the context of living a while longer a month in silence isn’t that long. It doesn’t mean I’ll stop doing all of the things that are about directly, tangibly offering what I can to change things. It means that I will spend a concentrated amount of time refining my ability to listen, so that I can respond to what I hear when I’m back to interacting in a noisier kind of way.
Feel free to book astrology readings with me and/or write to me - I will respond as soon as I get back in the end of February. I thank you in advance for your patience.
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
Question - When was the last time you cried?
Meditation - Freely emoting.
Assignment - Full moon - a great opportunity to feel it all. This week say yes to feeling. Let it be big.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
Question - What do you believe in?
Meditation - Believing in __________
Assignment - What does belief give a person? What are positive examples of belief around you? What do you believe in? Make a list of the things. Let this full moon connect you to the feeling of belief and let belief help you, even when it's not your first instinct.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20)
Question - How often do you contemplate history?
Meditation - History as memory.
Assignment - Include history, contemplate it. Long slow time. Here's a poem piece in the name of history, to be with this week: "Feelings arise / we have no names for--terror / and awe, a wilderness contraction, the history of the world / in a mysterious heartbreak, / and you feel yourself saying yes / to all of it." -David Bailey, from Journeywork
CANCER (June 21-July 22)
Question - How do you know when you are maintaining useful boundaries?
Meditation - The movement of water.
Assignment - Meditate on the movement of water, it doesn't concern itself with a plan. It only pledges allegiance to gravity. And yet there is no question that water is water when you see it. How can your water move, freely, holding onto nothing. This is when water is in its power! Not by trying to make it go straight or fix it in one point. Boundaries are not about rigidity; they're about agility.
LEO (July 23-August 22)
Question - How can melodrama and bigness of emotion be helpful?!
Meditation - Melodrama!
Assignment - The big full moon in Leo! Let the full moon work on you. Attend to ceremony on the day of. Do something out of the routine on this day, in a ritualized way. Or ritualize and formalize something you do daily - infuse it with the sacredness of your big, childlike divinity!
VIRGO (August 23-September 22)
Question - When do you practice dropping it?
Meditation - Drop it like it's hot.
Assignment - Make your practice just dropping it this week, under the heat of the full moon in Leo. Anything you notice your mind circling around - take kind note of its pull, its orbit, this habitual analysis and thinking. And then, like magic, drop it! Use an exclamation point in your mind when you do it! Like telling a child to move away from a hot stove! Treat your thought habit cycles like something hot to drop. (And whatever you can't drop, be kind to.)
LIBRA (September 23-October 22)
Question - When do you embrace darkness, yours and other people's?
Meditation - darkness.
Assignment - Become a host to your own darkness, in the generous way you know how to host and harmonize with others. Think of your darkness as a friend, think of the abject as your favorite beautiful friend. Regard the scariest part of yourself as worthy of love. What might this change about some of your day to day actions? How might it change your relationship with others?
SCORPIO (October 23-November 21)
Question - Under what conditions do you forget you are breathing?
Meditation - breathing as exchange of suffering and bliss.
Assignment - Use breathing to embrace the light and the dark, as two sides of life. Breathe in the suffering, breathe out ease, brightness, warmth. Let yourself be the energy worker you are, here and now, in your own life, with your own body, suffering in, transforming with the alchemy of your Scorpio wizardry, and out into warmth.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21)
Question - Where is symbiosis present in your life?
Meditation - Symbiosis.
Assignment - In California, the ground squirrel is in symbiosis with the burrowing owl. The owl uses tunnels made by squirrels to nest in, and helps the squirrel keep look out for dangers. This is mutuality. You are used to being independent. Look for the relationships of symbiosis in your life, cherish them, write them down. Say thank you internally and out loud for these relationships.
CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19)
Question - When do you hold back in saying what you really want to?
Meditation - loudness!
Assignment - Choose a loud figure to worship or admire this week. Someone you know or don't know. Try on loudness where you feel moved to. Let the full moon give you access to howling. The inner one who is already old and wise, waiting for the outer you to catch up and just speak it.
AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18)
Question - When does your individual nature get neglected?
Meditation - the pull of the moon.
Assignment - You're always tapped into what is just for the group, and this is an excellent thing. But the Full Moon of Leo, opposite your sun this week, is a great opportunity to take cues from Leo (a heightened personalness / attention to identity and individualness) See what you can learn from this bigness, personality, melodrama. When does a focus on the group evolution (Aquarius) contribute to a neglect of your individual development? When Leo and Aquarius are in conversation, both happen together! These moments where Leo appears in your life are good times to reflect on your own identity.
PISCES (February 19 to March 20)
Question - How does being in less populated (by humans) spaces affect you?
Meditation - being surrounded by nonhuman life
Assignment - "What I felt when I tried to take in the skyline--and instead was taken in by it--was a fullness indistinguishable from being emptied, my personality dissolving into a personhood so abstract that every atom belonging to me as good belonged to her... discovering you are not identical with yourself even in the most disturbing and painful way still contains the glimmer, however refracted, of the world to come..." This quote by Ben Lerner embodies the beauty of porous Pisces identity, and the redemption possible in it. It can be hard being a Pisces because when your identity is very fluid, that means information about others is also very fluid - everything is porous. Find a time to surround yourself by nonhumans for a bit this week. Because the information from humans is too much sometimes! You need regeneration. You need to be aware of your intake! Schedule breaks from environments that overwhelm you. This is essential for your health.
This week the sun moves from Capricorn to Aquarius. The practical and tangible and slow moving and pragmatic to the lightning speed unconventional connective forces between ideas. The slowness of manifesting to the quickness and electricity of Aquarius. How can awareness of the planets moving through the signs help you to orient, to flow downstream instead of fighting upstream. It’s kind of like a more subtle seasonal shift, developing an attunement to these changes can help us make sense of our experiences and take cues from nature for how to regard our own nature!
The self-esteem practice I offer this week is in this spirit of gathering information and utilizing ideas (Aquarius) to help ourselves and it comes from the Buddhists.
Metta (loving-kindness) Meditation is a way to cultivate self-esteem and friendliness toward oneself and others. It involves you sitting in a way that’s as comfortable as possible. Then you think of someone for whom love comes very easily. It can be a person you know or don’t know, who has been influential, a pet, anyone. And you say phrases to them in your mind, wishing them well. The classic phrases are something like, May you be safe. May you be healthy. May you be free. But you can use any phrases that feel the most loving for you. The suggestion is to pick a few phrases that resonate and then just relax into using them for a while, so that you don’t have to decide every meditation. The idea is to be present each time you are saying the phrases, so it’s not just a mindless repetition, you’re connecting to the sentiment each time you say it. The meditation has most potency when it’s done consistently over time. Anyway you start with someone who you love easily and then move to yourself. Then to a stranger or acquaintance, who you don’t have a personal relationship with. Then to a ‘difficult’ person, someone who you have a challenging relationship with. And finally you send these Metta phrases to all beings. It’s important to know you can adapt this to your own needs - maybe you just practice it for yourself for a while, or just for a person for whom love comes easily. The Dalai Lama talks about how he wants to regard himself as just another person, no more, no less. This is one way to PRACTICE THIS FACT, THAT EVERYONE IS WORTHY OF BEING HERE, because we are here! Some phrases I’ve been using lately, which I say to you now -
May you give it all back to the mystery
May you hear what needs to be heard
May you know you are nature
May you be tender, tender
Often in these horoscopes I’m thinking about the tendencies of the signs and offering prompts and questions that will introduce a new perspective, something that might not be default to that sign’s way of thinking. But this week I’m offering horoscopes that are specifically designed to embrace a tendency that each sign is known for. This is part of the exploration on self-esteem - how can we fully embrace the needs of each sign as a destiny of expression, an aspect of nature, like a tree being a tree?
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
Question - What is the joy you get in starting new things?
Meditation - Newness.
Assignment - Take note of the pleasure you get in starting new things, and take note of where and how this happens in your life. How can you allow this need to flourish as an expression of your divinity?
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
Question - What is the joy you get in physical sensory experience?
Meditation - Sensory experience.
Assignment - Take note of the pleasure you get in the physical, in the sensory experiences like eating, sex, the aesthetics of your surroundings. What is this pleasure? When does it occur in your life? How can you cultivate this, celebrate it, give it life?
GEMINI (May 21-June 20)
Question - What is the joy you get in connecting with people and ideas?
Meditation - Connections.
Assignment - Take note of the joy you experience in connecting ideas, connecting people, seeing things from all sides. How can this be allowed to live fully in your life, so that you are living in harmony with this need instead of trying to be different? How can the two sides of things (as depicted in the symbol for Gemini, the twins) exist at once in your life?
CANCER (June 21-July 22)
Question - What is the joy you get in feeling the past, connecting to history, ancestry?
Meditation - Ancestry.
Assignment - Take note of the joy of remembering, the power of your own remembering. How can you celebrate your ability to remember, to emotionally hold familial and collective history?
LEO (July 23-August 22)
Question - What is the joy you feel in creative expression?
Meditation - Creation as expression of self.
Assignment - Take note of the joy in expressing an aspect of self through creativity. There’s a deep need to create for Leo, what way does this get expressed in your life? What way does it contribute to you being uniquely you? If there isn’t this expression, how can it be cultivated, given life?
VIRGO (August 23-September 22)
Question - What is the pleasure in being of service to others?
Meditation - Service.
Assignment - Take note of what is pleasurable in being of service. What is fulfilling about this? How can you attend to this need of being helpful and of service in your life? How can you celebrate it?
LIBRA (September 23-October 22)
Question - What is the joy you get in harmonizing with others and your environment?
Meditation - Harmony. Balance.
Assignment - Take note of what joy you find in harmonizing. Let this bloom, and exist, celebrate this need for harmony and balance.
SCORPIO (October 23-November 21)
Question - What joy do you find in intensity, in transformation?
Meditation - Transformation.
Assignment - Take note of when and how you thrive in intensity. This can be so helpful to cultivate an appreciation of this need so that it can be nourished, instead of denied. When our needs are denied we get them met in unconscious ways. Let’s meet them consciously, with joy! Scorpio has a need to contact the most real aspects of life, the intensity of existence. It has a need to transform! Cultivate this need, support it in your life.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21)
Question - What joy do you find in adventure or philosophical exploration?
Meditation - The search for meaning.
Assignment - Take note of the joy you experience in meaning making. And in adventure, in spontaneity. Sagittarius needs to be inspired to thrive, so where does the inspiration come from? How do you let it live fully?
CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19)
Question - What joy do you find in work?
Meditation - Work as divine act.
Assignment - Take note in the pleasure of purpose, of work. This is a deep need for Capricorn. When does this arise for you? How can you create conditions in which it gets to bloom fully?
AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18)
Question - What joy do you find in unconventional connections?
Meditation - Unconventional connections!
Assignment - What joy do you find in doing things your own way, in rebelling? What joy do you find in connecting ideas and people that might not be connected otherwise? How can you recognize this as a need to be cultivated and promoted?
PISCES (February 19 to March 20)
Question - What joy is present when you are feeling connected to something bigger than yourself?
Meditation - Vast emotional connection.
Assignment - Pisces needs to be emotionally connected to life to feel vibrant. Take note of the conditions that allow for this in your life and make moves to support this feeling! It is a key part of your vitality!
6 planets are in Capricorn right now FYI!! This is A LOT of earth energy. Capricorn can get things done and also can be so tuned into the rules, what one is ‘supposed to do’. There can be a sense of being subject to laws much bigger than us, which can be comforting but if there is any resistance to this (and there usually is, it seems to be a big part of how growth happens) it can be hard! So in the spirit of going with and not resisting, this continuing exploration of self-esteem (see last week's post) is accessing and utilizing a Capricorn approach, an Earth approach - which is focused on physicality, embodiment, manifesting and results.
It’s so important, I cannot emphasize this enough, for us to remember to include gentleness in our lives, with ourselves, especially right now. It has to be gentle, as in, that is the only way to transform the hardness of self-criticality, which is a major obstacle to self-esteem.
Capricorn can take the form of a hardness of societal rules or laws, or it can take the form of the beautiful connectivity embedded in the laws of nature. The laws of nature keep us connected! We can access comfort in this earth principle of connectivity - the literal, physical reality of sharing air, sharing earth in the form of food and materials which make our shelters, the shelters of our bodies, the laws of day and night, etc.
SO then, when do you feel spacious?
When do you not notice yourself?
Not in a neglectful way, not with any effort, but when do you find yourself absorbed in life in such a way that self-consciousness is not present? In such a way that questions about self-esteem aren’t present? This is an approach I invite you to take with me, toward self-esteem and its development. Take time to ask yourself these questions and listen to the answers. What feels expansive, what feels contracting? This might not feel like a direct way to cultivate self-esteem, but mostly I think we need to bypass the intellect when it comes to developing this, because usually our minds have developed very deep runnels of exhausting and complicated and untrue thought around self-worth.
So once you identify things that feel expansive to you, practice them on a regular basis. This might be a way to practice self-esteem even when you don’t know how to get it, or feel like you don’t have enough of it.
Suggestions for practicing self-esteem:
STILL EVERYONE EAT ORANGES
also try out existing without a purpose for short periods of time
also try out not needing to justify your existence with "productivity"
also try out not using free time to ‘get things done’ (Magic doesn't usually happen on a to do list)
also try out spending time with a plant, ask the plant questions about its self-esteem
The horoscopes this week are all body based, in honor of this celestial Earth predominance. They are all body practices and herbs / foods that intuitively feel connected to the needs of the signs.
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
Question - What’s happening with your third eye right now? How open is it? How closed? What feels best?
Meditation - Intention.
Assignment - You can choose how open and closed your energy centers are. They are yours. It just involves intention. You have permission. Consume some lemon and hot water. Put your legs up the wall. Changing your mental and emotional state involves a series of unglamorous acts, and yet all the glamour and magic becomes available when you put faith in these unglamorous acts. It’s very simple.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
Question - What is constant even in movement?
Meditation - Skipping, jumping, bouncing!
Assignment - You tend to be rooted and slow to change, so practice body movements this week that help connect you to an experience of gravity. You can experience gravity when you move in a way that reveals it! Children experiment with this all the time - they’re super into gravity. Move your body in an unusual way. Then let yourself be comforted by the gravity you notice when you move! Eat light and flowy herbs, like parsley.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20)
Question - When do you notice the ground?
Meditation - Hey, the ground exists!
Assignment - Drink tea, dandelion root. Drink all the roots in fact! Lie on the ground. Get as much surface area of your body in contact with the ground as possible. This assignment will probably be part of your horoscope more than you want it to be. That’s the job of a horoscope sometimes you know?
CANCER (June 21-July 22)
Question - Where is the emotion held in your body?
Meditation - Floral foods and drinks and tinctures.
Assignment - Be with flowers. Consume Jasmine tea, and introduce flower scents into your daily life if they aren’t already. Especially in winter! Explore the relationship between smells and emotions and the past - a relationship that runs deep for Cancer.
LEO (July 23-August 22)
Question - Where does your body feel lubricated? Where does it feel dry?
Meditation - Hydration.
Assignment - Consume olive oil. Put oils on your body at the end of the shower. Hydrate with water, but also with the magic of plants! Especially on your feet. Touch your own feet. Put oils on your feet. Soak your feet.
VIRGO (August 23-September 22)
Question - What happens in your body when you consume different foods?
Meditation - Eating as nourishment.
Assignment - Take note of your digestion, what helps your body thrive and what contributes to it contracting this week. Try anise or other herbs and teas that contribute to digestive health. Rub your own belly, connect to the magnificent system that works for you every moment of every day to process nourishment.
LIBRA (September 23-October 22)
Question - How much time do you spend in psychically cleared spaces?
Meditation - plant smoke as a purifier.
Assignment - Use smells and incense like sage to attend to the spaces in your life. Clean out corners, psychically and physically. Be bold, just let yourself get weird and notice the effects when you give yourself permission to clear out the spaces you’re in.
SCORPIO (October 23-November 21)
Question - What’s happening in your lower legs?
Meditation - the joints of your body.
Assignment - Connect to your own joints, pay attention to them. Consume ginger often. Meditate on your joints every day this week, moving from your head down to your feet, thanking each joint for its work, its existence.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21)
Question - How does your spine feel right now?
Meditation - Your spine is supporting you.
Assignment - All the labor of the back. Its symbol as a connection between the head chakra and the root chakra - the spine! It’s a thing of magic. Attend to it. Breathe into it. Let it live. What gestures of care can you enact toward it this week? I want to tell you to consume cumin - the warming and energizing minerals, vitamins + more in this spice.
CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19)
Question - When do you remember your body is made of water?
Meditation - A body of water.
Assignment - Plants are also bodies of water. Borage is a home for bees, its flowers taste like cucumbers. It’s light and sturdy at the same time. Consume some borage. Drink some water. Connect to the water cycle as it occurs in a flow of water moving in and out of your own body.
AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18)
Question - When does your body feel rooted?
Meditation - pelvic bowl & root chakra.
Assignment - Drink turmeric. Eat it. Smell it. Connect to roots and your own body as rooted, not as defense or reactionary stubbornness, but as vitality. When you breathe, imagine that the air comes up through your feet and your pelvic bowl.
PISCES (February 19 to March 20)
Question - How often are you letting your belly be loose, available to fill with food and air?
Meditation - The belly as the center of life!
Assignment - Connect to your belly, the home of so much vitality. When you consume food and drink and air, let them fill your belly, and let them tell you the story of their nourishment of you. Put yourself close to lavender. Smell it, drink it, eat it. Sturdy herb flowers. Be in relationship with them, their smell, let your belly be soft and full of this energy of nourishment.