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Through a Golden Tunnel,
Into a Golden World. _________________ TABLE OF DATES Dec 1 :: MERCURY IN SAGITTARIUS
Dec 14 :: SAGITTARIUS NEW MOON
TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE
(at 23°08’ Sagittarius, 11:16 AM EST)
Dec 15 :: VENUS IN SAGITTARIUS + CHIRON DIRECT IN ARIES Dec 17 :: SATURN IN AQUARIUS Dec 19 :: JUPITER IN AQUARIUS Dec 20 :: MERCURY IN CAPRICORN Dec 21 :: SUN IN CAPRICORN
+ WINTER SOLSTICE Dec 29 :: CANCER FULL MOON (at 8°53’ Cancer, 10:28 PM EST) _________________
THE STORY
The water came rushing in, as expected, on November 9th. Literal water, covering the bathroom floor. Water from the next door neighbor - every time they flushed the toilet or turned on the sink. We used towels, a mop, a metal bowl to sop it up, to stop the flow, to catch the water - still flowing - from the pipe. “Seriously, all I want you to do is rest...and pay attention to the water...Attune yourself to the flow of the water,” I wrote in July, wrote for the Cancer new moon ritual that connects to the full moon arriving at the end of this month, on December 29th. The full moon to wrap up all of this year’s eclipses, all of this year. We will end the year like this: in the flow of grace. “The highest good is like water... FEEL THE WATER FLOW…entering your body every time you take a sip...Feel the water running over your hands as you wash them. Feel the water hitting your body as you shower, the water then running down the drain. Where does it go? Into the great water management system, out into the rivers and oceans, into the birds and fish and animals, up into the sky in the shape of clouds, circling through the world again and again.” The water flowed from their home - the apartment next to ours - and into our home. All the concrete walls and rubber washers and metal pipes could not stop it. Until the plumbers arrived the next morning, pulled the towel from the hole in the wall - the one we’d shoved there to absorb the water, to stop the flood. They pulled out the towel - now covered in black sludge, soaking wet - reaffixed the metal pipe, ensuring this time that it was fitted properly, that all the component parts created to direct the flow of water were working as intended. They left, and I breathed a deep sigh of relief. Threw the towel in the trash, scrubbed the bathroom floors three times - would it ever be enough? To feel clean again? To feel in control? Let the water flow. ☆ Let the water flow, and GIVE THEM GRACE. “GRACE is total allowing. Complete acceptance and forgiveness. Grace relieves us of our shame. Give yourself the gift of grace. This lays the foundation for your harvest, your abundance.” I wrote these words in September, for the start of Harvest Season. This Harvest Season of 2020 - extended, expanded, like our own rebirth. Our collective rebirth, the one we’ve been unraveling for at least a year now. Resisting, accepting, resisting, accepting. Expanding, contracting, expanding, contracting. Like the towel in the hole in the wall - trying to slow the rush of water. Like the rubber washer, trying to direct it, control it. Like the flood itself - terrifying in its complete uncontrollability, unreliability, total chaos. Can you find comfort in chaos now? Can you give it grace? Can you allow it? For even in chaos - perhaps chaos is all there is - there is order. For chaos is simply a perspective on events. A perspective of not knowing, not understanding, not seeing how all of these component pieces fit together to form something beyond your comprehension. Providence. What was shared in July: “No fight, no blame” The knowing that “we are all held - and all of these events - are held in the protective care of God.” ☆ These were the messages of this summer: Grace and Forgiveneness and Providence and Flow. Trust. The total acceptance of chaos. This July, I wrote about all of these things as we moved through three eclipses and the rare event of not one but two Cancer new moons. The first of which - the Cancer new moon ritual for June 21st - was about birthing a whole new you: “The new moon is here to bring you a big blessing - the birth of your whole self, plus something more solid and tangible here on the earthly plane.” The message of this rebirth - your rebirth - showed up again last month. And it’s coming in now to remind you that what started this summer - the blessing of your rebirth, your ability to flow with Grace - is coming full circle now: in December, the end of December really. You will see this more fully with the full moon on December 29th, and it is this - A WHOLE NEW YOU - that will usher you and us into a brand new year. This is what this Eclipse Season is leading us to. The eclipses happening now - starting with the Gemini full moon eclipse on November 30th and continuing this month with the total solar eclipse in Sagittarius on December 14th. These eclipses are creating the necessary shifts to your foundation to help you rise. Reborn. ☆ On December 1st - the day after the Gemini full moon eclipse - Mercury leaves Scorpio and enters Sagittarius. Mercury, which ended its powerful retrograde cycle in November, is ready to MOVE ON. As in, your thoughts are ready to MOVE ON. Whatever you’ve been stuck with, whatever decision(s) you’ve been leaving undecided, you are ready to make your final decisions now. You are ready to change your mind and see the world differently. As Mercury moves through Sagittarius (now through December 20th), you are gifted with a whole new perspective, especially on whatever area of your chart (whichever house and planets) Sagittarius rules. (Learn how to check this here.) ☆ Sagittarius is the archer, personified by Chiron - the wise centaur in Greek mythology who was a healer, his wisdom forming a bridge between Heaven and Earth. The bow in his hand, shooting toward the sky, curving up to the heavens before returning to Earth and landing - always - on its target. His aim is true, supported, guided. This is what Sagittarius Season offers us: perfect aim. A divinely guided, unswerving course rooted in the part of you that is your own healer. That’s the only way any “healing” ever happens - because you heal it for yourself, because you return to yourself, to God, to Earth by allowing the experience of your life to exist as a bridge between Heaven and Earth. YOU ARE THE BRIDGE. Like Chiron - the centaur whose story of being the wounded healer who ultimately has to heal himself, always reminds me of the Rumi quote I mentioned in October: “‘The wound is the place where the light enters you.’ The wound is the place where the light enters you, AND it’s also the place where your light gets out! The wound frees you. It strips you of your armor and leaves you exposed, transparent, so that all that can be seen in those places where you’ve been cut open is ALL YOUR LIGHT.” Your wounding - a.k.a. the great forgetting and denial of who you are - has propelled your rebirth, for it’s only in forgetting that you can remember. If you’d never forgotten, the world would just look like this: commonplace, ho-hum, boring, just the way things are, nothing special, just God, nothing much to look at here. Don’t you see? By forgetting your divine grandeur, you were given the opportunity to SEE IT with fresh eyes. By forgetting your divinity, you have created the space to HONOR it. You’re honoring it now, in December. ☆ It’s not a coincidence that the day after the Sagittarius new moon eclipse, the asteroid named Chiron goes direct in Aries after being retrograde since July 11th. In other words, Chiron went retrograde during this summer’s Eclipse Season, and now, it’s going direct during the winter Eclipse Season. In other other words, the last six months and the eclipses that bookend them have been helping us all to heal (Chiron) our sense of self (Aries) by accepting our wounds. By embracing the light with the dark. By letting go of our desire to resist so damn much, our desire to try to control, we have given ourselves grace and relaxed into the reality that you are perfectly held, in providence. Heaven was always here, on Earth. Listen to this song: Heaven’s here on Earth. And this is how 2020 was birthing a whole new world. Not just through global pandemics and national elections and material crises and confinement, but through forcing us inside ourselves to SEE. The power of our minds The power of our creation The power of Providence. “I” wrote this in December, for the January Guide. The overarching message for 2020: “There is an innocence and connectivity to Spirit that can only come when you are first born in this world and have yet to have all of the rigid rules and ideas drilled into you. 2020 is a year of releasing the rigid ideas and being born again in the youthful light of childlike spirit. This reminds me of a passage from The Bible. And I don’t personally know The Bible all that well, but I just happened to read this passage the other day in another book, and I’m so glad I did because it is the energy of 2020! It's in Matthew 18:3 when Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’ We are becoming like little children this year, preparing to enter Heaven on Earth.” That is what moved through me in December 2019. Before there was a global pandemic. Before The Bible started coming in more and more and my mother mailed me a copy. To be clear - to this day - I do not ascribe to any organized religion, and if you read this, you know that I reference all ideas and beliefs held in the collective unconscious from different religions to history to mythologies to science, philosophy, and more, but my point is this: This was the message that laid the foundation for 2020. And as the year unfolded, I mostly forgot about this message. Every month, I clear my mind, making it like a clean slate upon which to channel these words to you. And every month, on that clean slate, the same messages have only grown and built upon each other, echoing echoing echoing: REBIRTH, BORN AGAIN, WHOLE, BEGINNER’S MIND, LIKE A CHILD, A GOLDEN ERA, A GOLDEN EARTH, HEAVEN HERE ON EARTH. Inside of you. Inside your mind. In the way you were pushed and prodded this year to release everything you clung to that made you *maybe* feel safe and godly and protected. All your creature comforts and securities. Your sense of material security - your health, your safety, your money, your home, etc. - challenged. A great release of ideas. For ideas can corrupt. I’m seeing now (somewhat hilariously) an essay I wrote when I was 19. My goodness, so long ago now. 15 years ago, and it would be another 7 years before I was introduced to meditation by someone here on Earth. But somehow, I found myself at age 19 - never calling what I was doing meditation. I don’t think I even knew the word, don’t think I’d ever been introduced to the concept. I’d certainly never heard the phrase “beginner’s mind” (discussed in the August Guide), and I wouldn’t hear it for another 9 years - but when I was 19, I found myself looking at the world around me and intentionally, consciously striving to see it devoid of all the boundaries my mind had constructed as a result of all the things I had been taught. Because I had the deep inner knowing that illusion surrounded me, that my mind was its source, and I strived to see the world as it truly was. I set this intention. I practiced it. I wrote about it: “As you get older, you see less and less because you become accustomed to objects and standards and restrictions, and the worst part is that for the most part, no one realizes how much knowledge and language can stifle one’s experiences through preventing one’s ability to take in what is perceived by the senses as just that, nothing more...I’ve been trying to regain my sight, to teach myself how I must have seen before my eyes were tainted by nouns and adjectives and verbs. I practice my eye exercises, so I don’t forget how to see because we do forget what blue colliding randomly with shades of green looks like and how beautiful that is when all we see are trees and sky. We do forget what flakes of red and brown encircling a shiny silver surface look like, for that rusty pipe is beautiful if you’ve never been taught the word rust or pipe.” Remember, remember, remember. That is my only wish. Heaven here on Earth. ☆ When the karmic nodes of the moon moved from Capricorn and Cancer to Sagittarius and Gemini on May 5th, this paved the way for the Sagittarius/Gemini eclipse cycle. The eclipse cycle that started on June 5, 2020. The one we are currently in. In this cycle, we are expanding towards Gemini energy (curiosity, open mindedness, an exploration of ideas, and a recognition of our separation and division through ideas), and we are expelling any and all Sagittarius energy that is no longer serving us (delusions, egoism, unfounded optimism, rigid beliefs in things untrue). A cycle like this - an expansion towards Gemini (north node in Gemini) and an expansion away from Sagittarius (south node in Sagittarius) - last happened from October 13, 2001 - November 23, 2003. Reflect back on that time period and what happened in the world then. Know that while what is happening now has a similar karmic arc, it is not the same. Much has happened since then and many other factors are at play. What happens now does more to BUILD ON what happened then than to repeat it. Here is the overall arc of the Sagittarius/Gemini eclipse cycle: June 5, 2020: Sagittarius Full Moon Eclipse November 30, 2020: Gemini Full Moon Eclipse December 14, 2020: Sagittarius New Moon Eclipse May 25, 2021: Sagittarius Full Moon Eclipse June 10, 2021: Gemini New Moon Eclipse November 19, 2021: Taurus Full Moon Eclipse (a wink to the karmic nodes shifting signs again on 1/4/2022) December 3, 2021: Sagittarius New Moon Eclipse We are in this Sagittarius/Gemini eclipse cycle through the end of next year, and after this month’s eclipse (December 14th), we will be halfway through the cycle. 3 of 6 Sagittarius/Gemini eclipses will be behind us. So, as we enter the second eclipse of this Eclipse Season on December 14, 2020, please take a moment to reflect on all that has happened for you since the first eclipse of this season (November 30th) and then go back even further, reflect on everything that’s happened since the eclipse cycle started (June 5th). How are you expanding towards curiosity and open mindedness and releasing rigidity? How are you becoming like a curious child? How are these themes showing up in the circumstances you find yourself in? After this month, reflect again on what major lessons these eclipses have gifted you. Because when you accept that you are in providence, that a rusty pipe is not inherently gross and ugly and dangerous, and that all is truly well and you are held through it all, you will see that it is all a gift. It is all a gift. It is all a gift. ☆ The November 30th eclipse MAGNETIZED YOU, aligning your physical body with your consciousness. A consciousness that has been polished and refined throughout the course of this year, throughout your life. Now, the Sagittarius new moon TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE is here - on December 14th - to ROCK YOUR WORLD. ☆ On December 14, 2020, there is a total solar eclipse. This means that the new moon aligns itself between the sun and the earth in such a way that the moon’s shadow completely covers the sun’s disc - turning day to night - and leaving just the sun’s corona (its crown) shining and visible from Earth. The last total solar eclipse was on July 2, 2019 (at 10 degrees Cancer). This total solar eclipse will fall at 23 degrees Sagittarius. In other words, this is a very special new moon. Not just a new moon, not just an eclipse, but a TOTAL eclipse. Most of us won’t experience the dramatic visual of day to night. This total eclipse will only be visible on Earth in parts of South America, but still, like so many things, just because you can’t see them, doesn’t mean that they aren’t happening, doesn’t mean that they aren’t affecting and shaping us all. This total solar eclipse brings the great crowning that has been alluded to in The Magic Guide since October. A crowning that I’ve been receiving explicit messages about since July with the last eclipse season. A crowning that when I look back, I realize has actually been showing up again and again ever since the Scorpio New Moon that fell on my birthday on November 18, 2017. Where were you then? What happened for you from November 18, 2017 - April 30, 2018? The flower starting to bloom. ☆ In 2017, I was walking in Williamsburg, collecting yellow flowers and fluffy amber-colored fronds for a new moon circle I was hosting at a local wellness shop. I then found myself in a boutique, holding a gold headband covered in gold roses. I’d never felt any connection to roses before, but as I held the gold headband in my hands, placed it on my head, it felt like a crown. It felt like my crown. I looked at the price tag and decided against it. It was metal, real gold. Way too expensive, I told myself. But I couldn’t get it out of my head. For days, I just kept seeing the image - in my mind - of the golden crown. So the day before my birthday, I went back to the shop and bought the headband. A birthday gift, I told myself. For my new moon birthday rebirth. Flash forward two years to August 2019: After the Aquarius full moon, I threw white petals from a white rose into the East River. As I was walking back home, I saw a weeping willow branch lying in the grass, strewn by the wind. I don’t know what came over me, but moments later, I picked it up, tied its ends together in the shape of a circle, and placed it on my head. I was practically prancing, wearing my willow crown and smiling all the way home. The crown, in the shape of a circle, like an ouroboros with no beginning, no ending, just infinity. Two months later - October 2019 - I stood in the Lotos Club on East 66th Street, wearing a black cocktail dress and drinking red wine, sifting through an assortment of props on a white table - oversized sunglasses, fake mustaches, feather boas, rhinestone crowns - all for use in the photo booth where people were gathering, making funny faces, holding signs with silly phrases, arrows pointed at each other. I chose the crown, of course, and handed one to everyone around me until there weren’t any left on the table: We should all be wearing crowns! We smiled for the camera. We laughed. We cried. ☆ Definitions of crown (noun) 1: a reward of victory 2: a royal or imperial headdress or cap of sovereignty 3: the region of a seed plant at which stem and root merge The Crown - the region where stem and root merge. Stem, the growth, the offshoot. Root, the source, the anchor. When you become rooted to your own source - that which grounds and connects you to all things - when you merge with this source, you have uncovered your own sovereignty. The way in which you, like all beings - all offshoots - are divine, are like God, are God themselves. The victory comes - Victoria - when you have so fully merged with this understanding that your divinity need not even be named. When God needs no name because you see that it is redundant. That crowns in many ways are redundant. That victory lives in all things everywhere all the time. “Love has already won.” I placed this picture above my altar in July. Still, I am constantly forgetting. Every time I sit to channel this for you, I am reminded. Every time a message magically comes in through a synchronicity - which is multiple times a day, every day - I am reminded. But still, in between, I am constantly forgetting. Even if just for a moment or ten minutes or an hour, I forget, I forget, I forget. I come here to remember. We join each other here to remember, to keep remembering. Here. Heaven’s here on Earth. The human mind in many ways is built to forget, to forget in order to remember. Because you can only remember upon forgetting. And every time you remember? You see the world for what it is. You are filled with awe, wonder, enchantment. YOU GET TO SEE IT. Because when you’re just living in it - without a name - your crown firmly affixed to the top of your head - you forget in another way. The forgetting that happens when you’re in a constant state of remembering your own divinity is different than the forgetting that happens when you’re just going about your day, vacuuming the carpet, making breakfast, responding to emails. When you’re just living your earthly life and you forget: I am God. This is all God. That kind of forgetting is different than this. For when you are in a constant state of knowing your own divinity, you forget you are divine because you lose the words. You lose words completely. You return to the great black void where all things come from, overlaid with a golden pool of light in which you’re living, but you don’t see it as gold or black. You don’t see things at all. You just are. You just are. And it’s beautiful and wonderful inside this nothingness where you don’t know a single thing. For in knowing everything, you know nothing. In always remembering, you forget. But there is a way to remember - to wake from this divine forgetting - and it is to become human. Your humanity and its forgetfulness is a blessing. It is a gift. The gift of experience, adventure, consciousness. The gift of going about your life only to constantly rediscover that you’re wearing a freaking crown on your head! Like you’re outside, raking the leaves, just moving all these leaves around and cleaning things up when all of the sudden you are laughing out loud because you remember that you’re wearing a crown and you had totally forgotten that it was there! What joy, what delight - every time you remember! ☆ With this new moon, total solar eclipse, you are moving into a more permanent condition of remembrance. Does this mean you won’t still be human and forgetful? No. And thank God! Forgetting is a gift. But this eclipse marks a deeper rooting of your memory. The memory that has been dug up and reset and reorganized throughout 2020. Your memory has been rearranged now, so you’re able to hold the memory for longer. You’re even maybe able to hold the memory always in one part of yourself while another part of you goes on living and forgetting and laughing. Well, all of you is laughing. All the time, joyous laughter. If you listen, you’ll hear it. ☆ This new moon conjuncts the south karmic node of the moon and Mercury. That means that the sun, moon, and Mercury are basically in the same spot on the zodiac wheel as the karmic node that holds your past, OUR past. Collective memory sweeps through your being, old memories sweep through your being - from childhood, from past lives, from ALL OF IT. This new moon PURGES AND RELEASES the Sun and Moon and Mercury, creating a clean slate of being. This is the total rebirth of your Self, forged in fire. Your Sense of Self (your identity, your ego, your boundaries) - a.k.a. The Sun - is RESET. Your Emotions (the waves of energy that move through you and feel) - a.k.a. The Moon - are RESET. Your Thoughts (the words that weave themselves through your mind and out your mouth) - a.k.a. Mercury - are RESET. Three of the planets that have the most dominant influence on your experience are being recalibrated and reborn on this new moon. This may not feel good. You may need to be extra gentle with yourself right now. Things are changing! And as people, we don’t always handle change all that well. We forget that it’s just literally what’s always happening. Ha-ha-ha. In the week following the new moon, the sun and Mercury also cross the Galactic Center, helping to smooth and clean up the new moon energy. Giving it a final polish. Like these energies are given the final push through the birth canal, getting ready to be reborn on the Cancer full moon at the end of the month. In other words, the Sagittarius new moon - for a time - brings the second kind of forgetting that I mentioned. The kind that is actually such a deep remembering that you forget all that you thought you knew because in many ways, it ceases to be true. This new moon affixes the crown on your head so you can’t take it off anymore and mistake it as being outside of you. Because this is also often what happens: You remember that the crown is there but you don’t see it as being on your head. You see it as being on the shelf, the mantle, or on someone else’s head. You forget that when you’re looking at the crown in all of these other places, you’re actually seeing your own crown reflected there. This moon may bring temporary confusion and leave you feeling disoriented as you acclimate, but after you process this new moon, every time you remember the divine, you’ll remember that the crown is ON YOU. ☆ While the sun, moon, Mercury, and the south node are conjunct in Sagittarius, another major conjunction contributes to the energy of this rebirth. Venus, Juno, Victoria, Klio, Urania, and Ariadne are all conjunct around 25 degrees Scorpio (check your chart to see what’s happening around 25 degrees Scorpio for you). This conjunction is an incredibly powerful concentration of energy all falling around this single area (basically spanning 22 to 28 degrees Scorpio). Venus rules LOVE, and all giving and receiving in your life. Juno rules MARRIAGE and UNION. Victoria rules VICTORY. Klio rules HISTORY. Urania rules THE STARS. And Ariadne represents GUIDANCE that helps you safely navigate THE LABYRINTH OF LIFE. When you bring all of these together in Scorpio - the sign of magic, mystery, emotional depth, and TRANSFORMATION - you experience a historic rebirth of union. This new moon brings a historic rebirth of love and marriage and INTERNAL UNION. The internal victory of inner divinity described last month. A victory that allows you to navigate the world around you - all of the cosmos and the stars, to which you are always connected - with greater ease and security. By affixing the crown on your head, by anchoring your trust in providence, this new moon helps you TRUST IN LIFE and it ALIGNS YOU with safe passage through time. A great divergence is manifesting - a splitting of timelines, a splitting of worlds, a splitting of minds. (More about this in this month’s Surprise.) The more you trust - trust yourself, trust the world, release your shame, and trust in your internal bliss - the more you secure your position in the experience of Heaven Here on Earth. Heaven is a place inside your soul. Trust is the key that opens the door. The door is never closed forever. The key is never thrown away. You just have to choose to use it. ☆ In the great womb of the cosmic mother (first mentioned in September), all things are born and all things return. There is a trail of light in this dark womb that leads you, like Ariadne’s red thread, through the labyrinth of the dark unknown and towards an experience that feels - to you - like home. This light will shoot you up towards the sky that is not a sky but simply more darkness, more unknown, more of the mysterious void where all things are created. The light will shoot you up through creation to create from this dark space that is the origin of all creation and that is also…the underworld. These are the same. The underworld is the cosmic mother. ☆ The day after the Sagittarius new moon eclipse, Chiron goes direct in Aries, and Venus enters Sagittarius. Chiron going direct helps clarify our healing. Helps make the murky waters run clear in the river that is healing your SELF, the river of memory. This is deeply supportive as the sun and Mercury move through Sagittarius and experience their huge reset. Chiron, the healer, the archer: “The way of heaven
is like drawing a bow:
The high is lowered,
the low is raised.” The underworld is the cosmic mother. “The way of heaven
is like drawing a bow:
The high is lowered,
the low is raised. When it is surplus, it reduces;
When it is deficient, it increases.
The Tao of mankind is the opposite:
It reduces the deficiency in order to add to the surplus.
It strips the needy to serve those who have too much. Only the one who has the Tao offers
His surplus to others.
What man has more than enough
And gives it to the world?
Only the man of the Tao. The master can keep giving
Because there is no end to his wealth.
He acts without expectation,
Succeeds without taking credit,
And does not think that he is better
Than anyone else.” The 77th Verse
Tao Te Ching I’m laughing that the Tao is coming up again now, as it did in July, with the end of the eclipses then. Laughing because it all connects, in a circle, in a loop, that never ends. Laughing because I don’t do this on purpose. Laughing because of how it all connects and makes sense in time. Laughing because this is the verse that I just happened to open to, when I felt called to get the book. Laughing at how apt it is. Heaven. The archer’s bow. Giving and receiving. The massive Venus conjunction with the new moon, which will change all of our exchanges. To be like this. To be like this. What I channeled last month: “Venus in Scorpio delivers abundance through abundance. Wealth begets wealth. Being one with all that is connects you to all that is. Simple, simple.” The Tao is simple. Seems simpler now. After the new moon, now that Chiron is direct. Now that Venus too is in Sagittarius, the sign of the archer. “The way of heaven
is like drawing a bow:
The high is lowered,
the low is raised.” There is no low. There is no high. We are just here. All is just here. Right here. Yin and yang. Dark and light. Everything. Nothing. Remembering. Forgetting. Forgetting. Forgetting. Only to remember again. ☆ Again, the sun moves. Around the zodiac wheel, from our perspective here on Earth. For so long, this is what we thought: the sun must be moving around us. WE ARE IN THE CENTER OF THINGS. It took God-knows-how-long-really (because what did those early people really think? 200,000 years ago? We don’t know. We don’t know.), but it wasn’t until 477 years ago that Copernicus published his big idea: We revolve around the sun. Again, we move. The sun shining high, appearing now - to us, from Earth - to reside in the constellation of Capricorn. Capricorn Season arrives with the Winter Solstice on December 21st, but first: we celebrate. ☆ On December 17th, Saturn enters the sign of Aquarius, enters to stay through March 7, 2023. For the last 2.5 years, it’s been moving through Capricorn, teaching us everything we needed to know (for now) about rigid material systemic institutional ideas and structures. Through seeing so much about how all of these structures aren’t supporting most of us, we were actually internally strategizing how to change these structures. Changes that began when Saturn - for three months - popped into Aquarius earlier this year (March 21 - July 1st) before retrograding back into Capricorn. That three month window was like a dress rehearsal of the Saturn in Aquarius cycle that we enter now. Reflect on that time in your life now. For me, I was experiencing New York City’s hospitals being overrun by Covid patients, temporary outdoor hospitals being set up in Central Park, people being forced to evaluate all of the systems they’d been living within as they compared their lives at home in quarantine with their lives before, and on top of all of this, I watched courageous displays of righteous anger as so many of my fellow citizens took to the streets to protest the wrongful deaths of black Americans. People killed as a result of old ideas and structures that are built to harm and oppress. To elevate some by lowering others. “The way of heaven
is like drawing a bow:
The high is lowered,
the low is raised.” When I look at those three months in terms of what I was watching within the collective, I’m like “good thing that was just a dress rehearsal!” But also, what I see is: mass evaluation of our systems and a strong desire to change them. I see Aquarius energy and its drive to innovate. To create new ways of doing things, new ways of relating. As Saturn moved back into Capricorn for the rest of the year, all of those ideas and that big push for change were in many ways swept back into the fold of old structures as we witnessed a push to make old systems work and to return to the way things were. But we cannot forget: we do not want to return to the way things were before. And as Saturn moves into Aquarius for its first long term visit since 1993, we are given a much longer runway for launching our grand innovations. A runway for CREATING SOMETHING NEW. The underworld is the cosmic mother. Saturn stays in Aquarius through March 2023. OSIRIS-REx returns to Earth, bringing Bennu’s golden dust for our Golden Age, in 2023. The golden age does not arrive overnight. The golden age is birthed from us as we, as individuals, wake to our interconnected divinity. It *starts* now. This has long been planned. Saturn moves into Aquarius on December 17th, on Saturnalia - the ancient holiday celebrating the god Saturn and his Golden Age. When Saturn ruled, people learned to settle their disagreements with words instead of violence, and there was more than enough to go around. People realized they lived in a world of plenty. Plenty, from the Middle English for fullness, perfection. Plenty, another word for abundance. “The way of heaven
is like drawing a bow:
The high is lowered,
the low is raised.” ☆ While at a party on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut asked Joseph Heller: “How does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel Catch-22 has earned in its entire history?” And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.” And Kurt said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?” And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.” Abundance is not an overwhelming access to resources, wealth that overshadows other wealth. Abundance is enoughness. Abundance is plenty. ☆ Two days after Saturn moves into Aquarius and Saturnalia celebrates the coming Golden Age, on December 19th, Jupiter - the planet of abundance - joins Saturn in Aquarius. Jupiter in Aquarius delivers an expansion of IDEAS and CELESTIAL WISDOM. Aquarius energy is all about reaching out into the cosmos, finding something that exists that has yet to be materialized here on Earth, and bringing it down for everyone on Earth to see. Saturn in Aquarius teaches us through these new ideas, which sometimes feel good and other times challenge us. Jupiter helps us expand and grow as these new ideas come through. For all of 2021, Jupiter and Saturn will be working together to create an EXPLOSION OF NEW IDEAS and NEW SYSTEMS. Ideas and systems meant to deliver abundance to us all. What planets are in Aquarius in your chart? What houses? Check your chart to see what areas of your personal life will experience a boost during this period. Whenever Jupiter crosses through a sign, it basically acts as a cosmic benefactor, blessing everything in its path. I’m hearing, You get a gift! You get a gift! You get a gift! Jupiter in Aquarius basically means that we’re all sitting in the audience of the Oprah Winfrey Show on the very day she decides to give everyone a car. And Oprah, of course, is an Aquarius. Reminder: You don’t know what Golden looks like because you don’t live there yet. You may think it looks like having X and doing Y and having it all feel like Z, but you don’t know what you don’t know. Stay open to what all of this looks like, how all of it feels. The shape the gift takes is different for us all. ☆ As Saturn and Jupiter both shift from Capricorn to Aquarius, this brings massive change to the overall collective energy that we are moving through. Because these planets are so slow moving (Jupiter changing signs once a year, Saturn every 2.5 years), the energy really settles into a groove with wherever they’re positioned. We all got accustomed to BIG Capricorn energy in the last year plus. We’ve been working with it, moving through it, expanding it, opening it up, looking inside to see what it has to offer. Now, it’s time to move on. To learn something new. To grow in whole new ways. To ease the transition of un-anchoring two major planets from Capricorn energy, Mercury moves into Capricorn on December 20th and the sun follows the next day. This helps keep Capricorn energy temporarily front and center even as - big picture - we are moving away from it. Mercury in Capricorn makes us expert strategists, navigating the pre-existing conditions of our external world like master mavericks. Mavericks because now that Saturn and Jupiter have moved into Aquarius, we’re no longer wedded to our external conditions. We see them as the play things they are. We are ready to speak directly to our external conditions. To think around them in order to change them. Mercury in Capricorn gets stuff done, gets all of your earthly ducks in a row, so you can truly thrive and create from a materially secure place. Mercury stays in Capricorn through January 7th. ☆ December 21st brings the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. Unless you live in the southern hemisphere, in which case, you are experiencing the exact opposite - the summer solstice, the longest day of the year - the earth itself like a yin-yang symbol, light and dark, dark and light. The Winter Solstice connects us to the cosmic mother, the dark void of the unknown, a womb energy from which all things are birthed. Winter connects us to this, and while winter is often thought of as a time when things don’t grow, people stay inside, and animals hibernate - awaiting sunnier conditions - winter is a time of spectacular magic. Never underestimate the power of darkness. Never underestimate the power of slowing down, going inside. Never underestimate the perseverance of the plum tree, its red blossoms opening in the dead of winter. In January and February, while half the earth is cold and dormant and dead, the plum tree blooms a vivid red. Nothing is just one thing. And the Winter Solstice, a day offering the least amount of daylight all year, is not a time of fear and scarcity and darkness. It is a time when you feel the power of people. The power of creation. The power of all of the lights going on in the dark - candles and fireplaces lit, electric currents channeled through copper wires to light up strands of twinkling lights strung on lampposts and boughs. In the dark is when you witness and honor the power of your light to keep on shining. ☆ On the day of the Winter Solstice, December 21st, Capricorn Season officially begins. Capricorn, in many ways, as well as being the traditionalist and the expert strategist, is also the sign of perseverance. Its symbol - the sea goat - is reminiscent of Sedna. The land creature with the fish tail. The ability to evolve to any situation and survive. The ability to thrive on land and at sea. Capricorn, at its core, is a survivor. Prizing grit and material security above all else because if you don’t have your life, what’s the point of any of this? Says Capricorn. Capricorn energy helps you dig deep into your material reserves and find RESOURCES you didn’t know existed. Capricorn is a money maker. And the day the sun moves into Capricorn, on this Winter Solstice, Jupiter perfectly conjuncts Saturn in Aquarius (meaning, they are in the exact same spot). Now is when we LEARN AND GROW THROUGH INNOVATION, by drawing on resources and ideas in the cosmos that we hadn’t even considered before, that we didn’t even know were there to help us. Now is when things materialize and manifest in a powerful way. Now is when you truly see that everything is happening around you and you are truly taken care of - yes, because you take care of yourself, but also because there was so much more available to you than you even realized. ☆ After the Winter Solstice, the sun returns. Days growing longer and longer. Nights shorter and shorter. While the world will feel more wintry and cold for half the world over the next two plus months, the winter solstice actually marks the start of the end of winter. It marks the start of longer days and the coming of more light, more sun, more growth. And while Christians have been celebrating the birth of Christ on Christmas (December 25th) for nearly two thousand years, the truth is that people have been celebrating BIRTH during this time of year for much longer. For centuries before Jesus was born, people celebrated the RETURN OF THE SUN, the shifting from dark days to lighter days following the winter solstice. In fact, even Saturnalia (a celebration which often lasted an entire month) is tied to this tradition of celebrating this time of year at the end of December when the sunlight returns to brighten all our days. This is true of this time of year every single year, but I mention it this year especially because almost all year, I’ve been getting messages about how special this Christmas will be. I’ve been feeling Christmas in my bones like never before, smelling it in the morning when I wake (apparently, Christmas has a smell to me), seeing winks and synchronicities about Christmas all over the place, and of course, when researching The Mayflower last month, I saw that it was on Christmas (December 25, 1620) 400 years ago this Christmas that they finally decided to settle on the land that became Plymouth, Massachusetts. Christmas is when they started building their new home. This Christmas will feel like coming home. ☆ The Return of the Sun. The great crowning that comes through alchemical magic when the sun merges with the moon. Because you cannot be all moon, just yin, receiving and receiving. You are also the sun. It is this story, told in the October Guide, about the internal alchemy that created the great awakening happening for so many of us this year, that connects to the DNA/MATERIAL shifts that happened in November, that paved the way for the AFFIXING OF THE CROWN on the total solar eclipse on December 14th, that laid the foundation for the Cancer full moon on December 29th. Eclipse Season ends with the Cancer full moon. The full moon connected to TWO Cancer new moons from this summer’s eclipses. The rare event of two new moons, coming together, to create the amplified impact of this full moon. The full moon that marks the end of 2020. The year of the Coronavirus. Corona meaning crown. The sun’s corona shining behind the shadow of the moon on December 14th. This great awakening, this collective rebirth, this Christmas, it is here. We’re no longer building to it. We are here. YOU are here. This December, you are reborn. ☆ At the end of October, as I was writing the November Magic Guide, I unexpectedly flashed back to December 2019, to the spontaneous stomach pains that had me curled up in the fetal position on the bathroom floor, naked, like a baby. I wrote about those then. Was guided to include a whole section about our collective rebirth. This grand internal awakening that’s been rippling throughout the collective. After channeling that section, I took a break. Set the Star Story aside to keep writing the next day. A couple of hours after writing about my stomach pains and our collective rebirth, my husband began writhing in pain. The pain in his stomach was so severe that at times, he was wailing. This went on for days. During which time I walked to and from the drugstore - collecting things that might ease his suffering. I heated up soup on the stove. I placed my hands on his stomach, made him tea. All the while feeling and knowing: this is not a coincidence. I looked at his chart. Saw how the October 16th Libra new moon was right on his Pluto, the planet of rebirth. Saw how the Halloween blue moon was going to fall right on his Chiron, the asteroid of wounding and healing. He doesn’t put too much stock in all of this. But he listens. Heard me when I told him, The pain will pass with the full moon. And from the bedroom, lying in bed, in pain, he told me how the name Artemis was coming up for him over and over again. So that’s a thing now, he told me, as we approached the Halloween Blue Moon. Artemis is the Goddess of the moon, the hunt, I recalled to him. (Artemis - a.k.a. Diana, another archer with her bow and arrow.) Later that day, I looked her up. Artemis, it turns out, is also a goddess of childbirth. How does that help me?! He asks, in pain, when I tell him. Maybe it can put the pain in perspective? I suggest. But he’s in too much pain for all that. He had two virtual doctor appointments, just to make sure that there wasn’t a serious problem, that he didn’t need medical attention. The doctor said it didn’t seem like any of the things that would be cause for concern. Told him to wait and see. Ultimately, Halloween came. The full moon rose, and the pain just went away. His pain was his of course. His to experience. I share this now because my stomach was not in pain on Halloween. I had my own experiences around this time (many written about in the November Guide). We’re all always having our own experiences. All of this shows up uniquely, the energy, as it moves through us as individuals. Your birthing may not look like my birthing. Or his. It will look like yours. We have all been going through this in one way or another - whether we are aware of it or not. For some of us, the pain has been too great to even try to see the bigger picture. For some of us, life is always this way - too painful to see - and that’s okay. It’s enough that you see. It’s enough that you see. As you reflect back on 2020, as we journey back through this summer’s Cancer new moons, remember to have compassion for your energetic pregnancy, your birthing pains. Compassion for all of those around you who were having their own experience with this. Compassion for the collective being that is All of Us because we have been writhing and contracting and expanding and pushing and birthing something new. Can you see it? Can you feel it? The way the whole body has been shifting? The pressure it has felt? Like a blanket, pulled from the bed, wadded into a ball, carried and tossed in the washing machine where it spins round and round, gets wet and dries. Then it’s carried again, held, before being shaken out. It billows in the wind, coming through the open window, as it’s spread back out, across the bed. Smoothed out now, tidied now, only to someday soon - after however many nights of slumber - go through the whole process all over again. ☆ The Sagittarius new moon eclipse lit the fire that burned the last vestige of what binds us to the pain of forgetting. And now, the Cancer full moon is bringing --- a single white feather floats up through the air, up towards the sky, passes in front of my face as I sit on my tenth floor balcony. ☆ The Cancer full moon delivers all that was set with the Cancer new moon on June 21st and the rare second Cancer new moon on July 20th. Reflect back on this time period: June 21 - August 2nd. What happened for you in and around this time? During the moons that planted the seeds for the final push of your rebirth - now complete, now completing, now celebrated in the Cancer full moon energy from December 29 - January 12, 2021. Cancer, the sign of the mother. The cancer full moon is bringing --- I see it now: a newborn baby cries there are babies crying all across the world. ☆ On December 29, 2020, a Cancer full moon at approximately 9 degrees Cancer welcomes new life to the world. New mindsets. New minds. New eyes. Fresh vision. You can see clearly now. DNA, the asteroid that rules DNA/the living material world, just finished moving past the south node of the moon, purging the old body, welcoming the new. You’re like a baby now. Born with all the unclouded wisdom that children have, but you’re still figuring out your new body. DNA will keep moving through Sagittarius following the full moon, crossing the Galactic Center, so don’t be surprised if you feel some new and weird and maybe frightening things in your body. Your body is simply acclimating to its newfound unification. On this full moon, Juno (UNION) perfectly conjuncts Klio at 3 degrees Sagittarius. This is a historic unification. The one sparked by the new moon eclipse. It’s here with us now as the Capricorn sun conjuncts the asteroid Jubilatrix (JOY, jubilation) and the asteroid Bennu (that diamond in the sky, delivering our golden rebirth). If you want, you can read a lot more about Jubilatrix and Bennu and their significance in the November Magic Guide, but for now, remember this: You are being reborn in your BODY, on EARTH (Capricorn) in a state of JUBILATION. Jubilation as in joy, deep contentment, and also as in a jubilee celebration. A year when you are given a CLEAN SLATE. Rebirth. Reborn. Newborn baby. This is you, at the end of 2020. Let the whole world support you as you also support yourself. Nurture your newness. Honor it. Respect it. It’s okay if you don’t know what you’re doing. You’ve never done this before! The Cancer moon is here to MOTHER YOU. Let it. Yes, in this instance, in many ways, you are your own mother (regardless of sex), birthing this new version of yourself. But new moms also need nurturing and support, just as newborn babies do, and right now, you are both: Mother and Child. And really, you are Mother (moon), Father (sun), and Child (Mercury). Mercury in Capricorn sits just six degrees from the Capricorn sun on this full moon. In other words, the sun is conjunct Jubilatrix, Bennu...AND MERCURY. This is the rebirth of your mind, your internal reality, your words as you are imbued with joy. This Cancer full moon, the end of 2020, is a time of COMFORT AND JOY. CELEBRATION. You have experienced a massive internal victory and like all internal victories, it comes with external rewards. Your external circumstances are reborn as you are reborn. Yes because you see them differently, because your perspective has shifted. You are no longer in the center of the universe. You circle the sun. But also, you can expect real, tangible shifts to your world right now. Capricorn is an Earth sign. This has all been affecting our bodies and our material world. These changes are not just meant to be enjoyed in the solace of your soul. You are here for plenty - inside and out. And there is no shame in RECEIVING SUPPORT, allowing all of the resources to flow toward you and through you, to share with yourself, to share with the whole world. “The master can keep giving
Because there is no end to his wealth.” Wealth begets wealth. Abundance begets abundance. What flows in keeps flowing through and around and around in a circle until the end of time. No beginning. No ending. Just an incessant stream of beginnings and endings. When you let things flow to you but then you build a wall in your mind/your reality between those things and the rest of the world - trying to plug the hole in the wall, preventing the water from flowing where it will - you try to keep things from flowing out, but you also keep things from flowing in. You try to stop the circle, but you will always fail. There is no end to the circle. You see this now. I hear the song from The Lion King that I heard so much in March, when I entered isolation and New York City was shutdown in response to the virus: “There's far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
But the sun rolling high through the sapphire sky
Keeps great and small on the endless round
In the circle of life.” ☆ And after everything this year: the invisible virus that seemingly came out of nowhere and changed everything, the dreams and goals put on hold in a world that often felt more restrictive than ever before, the American election that bore witness to the collective’s dividing consciousness, the peace found in the quiet solitude of not being able to do so much, the internal journey permitted as we slowed down and traveled into the underworld and met our mother and maybe even learned that she is golden too - in all her scary darkness. After everything, it seems that what 2020 was really here to teach us was love. Abundance and love. The abundance of love. Can you trust in this? Can you feel this abundance all around you all the time? In every moment, we are given a choice. We are given the opportunity to trust and love. We are given the strength to go on. We are given the creative power to make something new from all of the pieces before us and inside us. You are given so much power. So much power. In every moment, you are blessed with this. So tell me, what are you going to do with it? ☆ I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life? from Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day”
listed as Poem 133 in the Library of Congress’ list of 180 poems. ☆ And I guess that’s the thing about immortality that always gets me. We are one, unending, constant stream of everything that ever was and ever will be. Wherever I am, wherever I go, you are there. And little you is there and future you and future me and whoever I was - long ago - she’s there too. He’s there. We’re all in this together, in every moment, all the time. But still, there’s this moment right now. There’s this precious perfect moment with you - exactly as you are - and me - exactly as I am. And while time stretches on forever and this moment is held in its perfection right here right now, you and I will only visit it once. And when my body changes and fades away, though my soul goes on and my life is forever held in the ocean of memory - there is no true returning to now. The body does die. Who I am now is not who I will be tomorrow. We are constantly dying. Constantly being born. Inside. And outside. And outside, what’s lost - when it’s lost - cannot be returned to us in that form ever again. This moment is forever, yes. And this moment is only now, precious. It is both. It is both. ☆ Now, close your eyes and breathe. Now, open your eyes. Look around. This is it. This is all there is. This life. Right now. Now, look at your hands. This is your body. This is you. Every single memory, every cell, every tiny piece of love and matter and memory that’s gone into your creation to make you who you are right now, just now. Honor her. Honor him. Honor them. Love yourself. Exactly as you are right now. Because you will never get to know this you - brand new, reborn, this you - ever again. Welcome. I think you’re extraordinary. ☆ Now, for the rituals to close out the year, to deliver you to what’s next, for there is always whatever’s next.
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