We use a thing called a calendar to overlap with each other in time and space. It's an incredible feat of collaboration that we do this all over the world! But the calendar is also just a concept. It’s one we use to interact, but it's not a solid fixed thing on its own. (A calendar that so many of us feel subject to in an overwhelming or negative way.) Today happens to be a day we've decided means something new, New Year’s Day. And this is a great concept to utilize symbolically, to leave behind and invite anew. But it doesn't actually correspond with anything in nature! So we can hold it lightly. And remember the actual truth which is that any day, any moment, can be a death of something, it can be a new life for something. In each moment a life, a birth, and a death are contained.
We have these magical and terrible things called minds with which we can use concepts which help us or concepts which hurt us (usually some of both all the time). The concept of the 1st of January can be a new beginning to the extent that it’s helpful. And we can remember we have agency to make any moment a new beginning, to re-commit to an intention. This is how I also think about astrology - we can see what are typically described as challenging transits, for example, as hard and impossible, and ‘just get through it’, or we can see them as another cycle, nature’s way of giving us opportunities to learn in Earth School. We can be brave and take these opportunities, even when they don’t feel like opportunities.
The physical, natural phenomenon was a little while ago - the winter solstice - where the days now have started to get longer. We can connect to this happening. The light is always in transition, and this can serve as a reminder that we always are too!
To be living in a body on the earth is to be living in transition, to be living in uncertainty.
Today is the full moon, in Cancer. A big watery full moon. The Moon rules Cancer and so is in its home place in Cancer. This moon invites us to find a home wherever we are, in This Now, this first day of something. What is this your first day of, your first moment of?
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
Question - What kind of fire are you accessing / channeling?
Meditation - The fire that sustains.
Assignment - Aries is in square with Cancer in the zodiac, where the moon is full right now. Squares often create a sense of tension, some urge for something to be worked out / worked through. Become more conscious of the types of fire and heat you are capable of. There is fire that burns up, there is fire that keeps warm, there is fire that forges material goods, there is fire caused by tetonic plates moving, fire caused by radioactive materials. What kind of fire do you want to access in yourself?
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
Question - When are you dragging your feet out of habit?
Meditation - Wispy clouds.
Assignment - Gemini, as the sign that comes after you in the zodiac, is a reaction to the earthy slowness of Taurus. It's all air, light and flight. Contemplate clouds and how they move into new forms constantly, without resistance. Practice being a cloud.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20)
Question - When do you move fast and when do you move slow?
Meditation - Earthworms.
Assignment - Reflect on your past this week, investigate times when things went much more slowly than you wanted them to. Find the ways the slowness contributed positively. What does a slower speed allow you to see? Moving through air versus moving through soil.
CANCER (June 21-July 22)
Question - How often are you judging yourself for feeling?
Meditation - The scientific method.
Assignment - Do not be afraid of the big watery moon. Feeling is your birth right; feeling guides you. Utilize any aspect of the scientific method that resonates with you in a practice of letting yourself feel exactly what you feel this week. A true scientist doesn’t judge or try to make reality different, she simply takes note of what is happening! Practice letting it be exactly as it is. Practice letting emotion itself flow in, through and out of the body freely, as the water that it is.
LEO (July 23-August 22)
Question - What do you want your future self to be?
Meditation - Seeds containing life.
Assignment - Certain types of conifer seeds only open and reproduce when touched by heat. They need fire to unlock their openness to life! What seeds are contained in you right now for the future that need fire - life force, the energy contained in heat - to open. These seeds are protected by pitch which holds them together until it’s time to grow and bloom. Your future self is already contained in everything that has happened up until now. It’s your job to apply the heat to these seeds so that they can open to all the life forces that allow them to reproduce. Seeds can’t become trees unless they contact soil, sunlight, and water. Be quiet this week so you can listen to the call for what is needed to activate all the latent energy contained in the seeds of your life.
VIRGO (August 23-September 22)
Question - Where is your mind when you are walking?
Meditation - Walking (movement in the body) as divine act.
Assignment - For those of us able to walk, walking is an activity that we do sometimes for pleasure but most often for utility, without thinking about it much. Walking to the bathroom. Walking to the car. Walking to the kitchen. Walking from the stove to the sink in the kitchen. Whatever types of movement your body is capable of, take note of how often your mind is present in the act of the movement as it’s happening. How often are you noticing that your body is moving when it is moving? When you are walking to the bathroom, have you already gone to the bathroom in your mind? Are you onto something a few weeks out in your future mind calendar? Are you thinking of what you will say when you get out of the bathroom? Just take note, don’t judge. And then take note of the miracle of all the forces that have aligned for you to be in a body that can move from one room to another! This is happiness. A recognition of the miracle of WHAT IS.
LIBRA (September 23-October 22)
Question - Is there any tension between your work life and your relationships?
Meditation - Your own life force energy.
Assignment - What is the relationship between your work and the significant people in your life? Does your energy feel dispersed or pulled between these? How do you manage this, if there is a tension? Libra is square Capricorn in the zodiac, and three planets just moved into Capricorn, so you might feel an increase in this tension. Is there an aspect of your work / creative life that you aren’t letting live fully because of what feels like obligations? Look into the relationship between these two places in your life, and be as kind as possible as you look. Take note of what you see, give yourself permission to just see it for now. So much of healing is seeing.
SCORPIO (October 23-November 21)
Question - How does the erotic live in your body?
Meditation - Erotic energy as life-giving force
Assignment - Take note of your own erotic energy this week. When does it arise, when does it subside? Are you letting it be there, are you trusting that this is a part of your power, are you giving it room to breathe and live? This erotic energy is available no matter if you have a sexual partner or not. Notice your attunement to the sexual in life. Attend to this erotic force this week. Give yourself permission for it, and remember that just this simple attending to the erotic can be a politically transgressive act.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21)
Question - What comes from the inside and what comes from the outside?
Meditation - Inner and outer co-arising.
Assignment - What is your experience of inner life? What is your experience of outer life? Does it feel like these conflict? Does this feel like there is a gap between the inner and outer, does it feel like there is a block in expressing something inner? Just ask these questions and take note of the answers, no need to make an assignment about it. In fact the assignment this week is to ask questions, and not make an assignment out of the answers.
CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19)
Question - When do you leave your body?
Meditation - The body as a miracle of nature.
Assignment - Investigate your sense of being in your body or out of it. When are you ‘in’ it? When are you ‘gone’ from it? How does it feel right now? What does it know that you might ignore? What is happening inside it right now? Listen to what it is telling you.
AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18)
Question - How does your adolescence affect you now?
Meditation - Individuation.
Assignment - Look back on your adolescence and ask questions about how it is informing your current life. What individuation happened during that time? What individuation is still happening and or needs to happen? Aquarius can be very compelled by groups, systems and how ideas move. So asking questions about your individual experience can be a helpful balancing method.
PISCES (February 19 to March 20)
Question - When does your emotional awareness of others’ experience cover your own experience?
Meditation - The simplest option.
Assignment - This week just practice the simplest option. When decisions come up, try out the simplest answer, the simplest way to go. What does simple mean to you? Try it out. The ease of simplicity.