One of my favorite things in life is unexpected connections between people, genres, modalities, fields. This space on the edge of any field is my favorite place to be, to discover, and commune with others. I’ve spent years learning / teaching all sorts of things, from food and water systems in California, to rock climbing, to transgressive feminist literature, to basic meditation techniques. I’ve spent years as a legal aid and advocate for people who live in a women’s prison, which is another way of saying I learned about strength from people who truly embody it. I learned about the legislative system on a state level here in California that way, and watched how energy moves and doesn’t move in the capitol building in Sacramento. I learned a lot about the idea of ‘doing something’, and the reality of doing something, and the gap between these two things. I saw the resilience and perseverance and faith demonstrated by people who are doing something, to keep bridging that gap over and over. I’ve been publishing books and editing, creating events for collective listening, to the wind, trees, birds, and humans reading their writing, for 10 years. Through all of this, I’ve been giving astrology readings. Breathing and practicing breathing. Meditating, and seeking the overlaps between all of these fields - the healers who were prison activists, the students who were teachers, the artists who were healers.
I’m sharing all of this to continue to contextualize my offerings and teaching here. When I offer a class on Embracing Your Saturn Return, what are the world views and contexts in which I am sharing what I know? Why am I spending my time doing this, work which seems more personal and/or less political, especially at a time when things feel so horrible politically here in the USA? I assure you it is not less political for me, but instead another facet of essential transformation. I’m invested in being creative about bridging those gaps between what we view as personal work and what we view as ‘doing something’. And bringing ‘personal work’ into realms where that is chronically neglected (often in activist circles, because it’s not deemed important enough). And connecting our political orientation / involvement with our most intimate relations, because that is, in both cases, what is at stake.
I got so inspired last week when I talked with Shewolfe and Beatrix Gravesguard of Witch Radio. Because they are operating at the edge of many disciplines at once, which reminded me of what I love doing the most. I received their healing arts for two hours, meaning, they asked questions and listened with me.
Asking questions is healing arts.
Listening is healing arts.
We are capable of healing ourselves and others, together, today, right now, regardless of what discipline we work in on the daily. Many factors conspire to disconnect us from this truth. The label ‘facilitator’ resonates with me, perhaps more than ‘healer,’ because I think that the healing arts is simply about mirroring this truth, it’s about reminders. I’m asking you to sit down, or better yet lie down, take society’s / capitalism’s / family’s fingers out of your ears and listen to your body and to be brave in seeing what arises, trusting that your own information will lead you to your next step. And when I ask you this, I am also asking myself. Facilitating (healing) is saying hey, REMEMBER THIS THING YOU ALREADY KNOW BUT FORGOT! We underestimate how much we need this, every single day. It makes the difference in being able to continue, when we have access to this reminding.
While on Witch Radio, we only scratched the surface of a topic that is so important to me - a specific facet of the project I’ve referenced that I’m calling HEALING OUR INTERNET LIVES for now. It’s addressing a weight that so many people I know are trudging around with, this pressure to ‘be informed’ by consuming news media. I’m going to break this down more in future posts. For now I leave you with some questions about it.
What does ‘being informed’ mean?
What does it have to do with being a ‘good person’?
Who is informed about what?
What is the correlation between ‘being informed’ and ‘doing something’?
Who is doing the informing?
What might you be informed about if you weren’t consuming news media? In other words what are you choosing to not be informed about by consuming news media?
How do you feel when you are getting ‘informed’?
Where is ‘should’ in all this for you?
Where does the should of ‘being informed’ prevent you from experimenting?
ARIES | March 21-April 19
Question - What are you mirroring to others, and what are others mirroring to you?
Meditation - yellow - gold.
Assignment - Streaming light. It's all around you and it's warm and you're back lit - all you need to do is turn around. Turn around and mirror this yellow - gold. It's a color of rest and vibrancy. Turn around and face the sun this week. Don’t make it more complicated than that. You are a child of this very earth.
TAURUS | April 20-May 20
Question - What places in your body feel stuck?
Meditation - turquoise
Assignment - Imagine your body as a body of water, less solid than perhaps it feels or you imagine it regularly. Imagine the turquoise waters running through, moving out anything that you’re ready to let go of. Sit in the sun this week and imagine the sun reflecting all this brilliant color in your body, this water, flowing, flowing, without effort, as the body of water that you are.
GEMINI | May 21-June 20
Question - How do you release unconscious energy?
Meditation - light blue.
Assignment - I want you to yawn a lot this week. Don’t effort at it but just let yourself do it when the need arises, don’t hold back. It’s a way to release unconscious energy. When you release this unconscious energy, bring light blue into your field, letting it hold you, lighten your body, freshen everything. Over and over, yawning and bringing in light blue. Notice the effects. The path to self-love involves a million tiny gentle moves.
CANCER | June 21-July 22
Question - What needs to be recycled during your solar return?
Meditation - dark green.
Assignment - The trees are your ancestors too. Meditate in the forest this week and if you can’t get there imagine you are there. In the deepest green of the oldest forest. Let its wisdom breathe into you, as you inhale. Let it take all of the past and hold it for you. It already is! Anything you need to give back to the earth, let this forest take for you. The forest can recycle this without any extra effort, this is the relationship between trees and humans when we let them do their divine work, and let them live! They recycle the literal air, and recycle on many levels we can’t see. Take yourself to the forest IRL and the forest in your mind. In both places, this relationship is waiting for you.
LEO | July 23-August 22
Question - What do you already have that you might not see?
Meditation - rich brown.
Assignment - The rich brown of soil, the ever renewing resource of soil! Reconnect with the joy of resourcefulness, of making do with whatever you have right now! Not seeing what you don’t have as a lack, but as a way to bring your perennial creativity back into this moment. Soil is a great symbol for this activity - when humans act as stewards of land, they do a series of small actions to take care of soil, and what they get in return is a huge bounty of sustenance. This is what I am talking about. Look around your life, see what is there that you might not have noticed. Don’t look outside for more. Look for ways to nurture the soil of your life as a demonstration of the trust that you will receive what you need.
VIRGO | August 23-September 22
Question - What is bright and alive around you?
Meditation - bright orange.
Assignment - Use the question above this week as your assignment, to ask over and over, everywhere you look. What is bright and alive around you? What is bright and alive within you? What doesn’t need anymore work? What needs simple appreciation to become real? What needs the color and vibrancy only YOU can bring to it? You’re not likely prone to thinking of yourself as bringing color to others, to situations. Use bright orange as a symbol this week in experimenting with what you bring to any situation. Just because your mind tells you a story of inadequacy doesn’t mean that’s the true story. What is bright and alive within you, at this very moment?
LIBRA | September 23-October 23
Question - What is already transforming in you right now?
Meditation - silver.
Assignment - Watch the light change in your life, in the spaces you spend time this week. How ephemeral it is - how deeply you can know this truth in yourself, Libra, because you too are changeable - an air sign. Watch the silvers, chromes, golds, rose golds, all the glimmers of light. Let this simple noticing slow you down, and remind you of your ongoing transformation. Let it be a reminder to trust that nature itself, by nature, transforms, and you are a part of this, inexplicably, inherently, beautifully.
SCORPIO | October 23-November 21
Question - What are you absorbing unconsciously?
Meditation - red clay.
Assignment - Clay in it is not so absorbant, its boundaries make it beautiful. You can use this color this week as a symbol for reminding yourself that you don’t have to absorb everyone else’s feelings, and in fact, the way you will be effective in what you are trying to do is to not unconsciously absorb others’ feelings. Bringing in the loving boundary of right place. What is yours and what is anothers’? This is one of our essential jobs as humans, to discern this. Reconnect with your capacity to do this, experiment with new methods, try it out. You don’t have to worry about losing your emotional connection with others, in fact the more you discern what is yours and what is another’s, the more you will feel - and be - emotionally connected.
SAGITTARIUS | November 22-December 21
Question - What is bruised and what is healing?
Meditation - dark purple.
Assignment - What is bruised, and what is alive, like blood. How these two things can be the same color, can come from the same place, but feel so different. Where is your life most alive? Go toward this experience this week. Aliveness, and the sensation of being in your life, alive, doesn't always feel pleasant! It doesn’t always correspond with your philosophy of life! Just notice what is happening without being so certain that you know how it should go. Let all of the color of your life be present. Rest in that, even if it includes a lot of movement that you don't seem to be orchestrating. You weren't in the first place! But the more you notice this truth the more you allow joy into your life, no matter what the circumstances are.
CAPRICORN | December 22-January 19
Question - When and how are you aware of your subtle body?
Meditation - light pink.
Assignment - Bring your attention out from your earthy body toward your more external layers, the space about 8-10 inches surrounding your body. Notice what is happening on this level, all around you. Notice what permeates, what doesn't. Notice what is there that you don't want to be, and what is missing that you want to be there. Use light pink to move things around, bring in what's been missing, with a kind and playful touch. If this is vague and feels hard, effort less, let your eyes blur more on it, meditate with light pink, let it seep in and around and see what happens.
AQUARIUS | January 20 to February 18
Question - Where do you nurture and cultivate your rebellion spirit in your body?
Meditation - magenta.
Assignment - Call in the practices, people and influences that remind you that your individual experience is key in the context of the movement, the group. Call in the bright colors to rub up against, to cloak you in new waves, new ideas! You're good at this, you like this, but sometimes you get stuck and fixed, so your job is to use color and freeing influences to bring in the newness, not let yourself sink into rigidity out of what you imagine to be comfort.
PISCES | February 19 to March 20
Question - When do you let things be messy?
Meditation - spring green.
Assignment - Let all the things mix and flow this week, let all the new life in the garden come up for a while before you try to weed things out. Use your ability to flow and move fluidly to let a bit more chaos happen before you try to clean up. What is lost when cleaning up? What is gained by letting all the new life that wants to be there, just be for a while, and decide later what needs to go. Abundance of solstice right now, swim in it, with your cousin Cancer.