Beautiful heirloom runner bean blossoms - Scarlet Emperor - will turn to magical, large purple-black beans in long hairy pods.
This New Moon in Virgo had me in quarantine. I got to go back for one afternoon to my garden, gather some squash, check on the blossoms and the beans before returning to my partner’s house where we were sheltering from the world in case we had the dreaded virus. I felt a little trapped. My own sovereign maiden of autumn did not feel resplendent in colorful leaves. She felt a bit imprisoned. The news came pouring in like so many gusts of ill-fated wind. I couldn’t do anything and I felt nervous at every unnecessary interaction. I found it hard to relax, though I had all the time in the world and all of my needs were being met.
On the day of the New Moon, I played the role of the grumpy maiden. I could not see clearly enough to write my lunar download, but I did take a bath and I did sit in some mists which ultimately lifted, or are lifting, on my way to composure and peace. How are you currently finding peace?
Mars Square Saturn and Pluto
Mars is currently retrograde, moving backwards towards ever closer squares with Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn. These aspects were trine the New Moon. A trine is a gentle aspect, and this one probably shed a gentle shadow on how the Mars Retrograde square might be affecting you. I hope you had the time to reflect on this and see behind the veil you may have felt with this New Moon. I have felt the Mars/Pluto square generally as a kind of ennui; j’en ai marre, you would say in French. A fed-upness with the way things are yet an inability and an unwillingness to take action. This has forced me to consider my own patterns of self-sabotage and unwillingness to seek help or take advice. I’ve focused on finding enjoyment in this feeling of stuckness. A few weeks ago, when the Mars/Pluto square was first exact, I made a Hollyhock flower essence which helps me see these patterns of resistance to positive action in myself and in others.
Hollyhock Flower Essence, made especially for the Mars/Pluto square, up in my shop soon.
How am I getting mired in shadow? What do I need to do to move forwards? How can I help others? As usual, the flower brings clarity when I take this flower essence - I’ve taken it as I write this! Let me know if you would like some to work with during this transit.
Heavier and Heavier
Mars square Saturn bares down on us heavily as well, maybe even more so since the planet Saturn is closer to our Sun. We will feel this pressure through October. It’s been a while since I’ve focused on my own Saturn work, necessary work I think for all those of us incarnated here in the material. Saturn represents Time and reminds us of our limits. We can work with him by developing a pattern to our activities. Lately though I have felt like I don’t want to be too strict with what I require of myself. Saturn stifles Mars’ natural energy for action. How can I work with my limitations in an encouraging way?
Inner Child Work
Lately a new friend in a tarot session suggested that I touch base more often with my inner child, to make sure she feels okay about the actions I am taking (the session was lovely! Thank you Holly! Find her on Instagram @rainbow.time.apothecary). Maybe I can temper a conflicted Saturn, who feels somewhat bound in Capricorn, with my childishness, with playfulness? Maybe I can add variety to my days, even if I am stuck at home or limited because I need to make money in certain ways. Maybe I can just approach my whole life more playfully, as a game I must play. I can follow the rules of course, one must, but I can also take pleasure when pleasure becomes available, or make my daily grind pleasurable by perceiving it that way.
Change Within Change
So much change reverberates right now through the world, and within this we find ourselves in a season of change. Summer cools and fades to Autumn. I recently learned that the colonizers of the “new world”, which we now call New England, renamed Autumn “Fall” because the leaves fall, and they do, dramatically. Currently they are just beginning to blush to red. Fire lights the trees. In the West, fires are still burning, in brighter colors, more alive, ushering in rapid change. This feels painful, like molting skins in a molten land. I think anyone who feels connected to the land feels this too. I want to trust the Earth and where we are all going, but I feel raw and stripped, with not much to hold on to. I think of the seeds that will grow, their hard casings released by fire, and know that this season fills a necessary role in our planetary evolution. We just have to tow the line. And harvest. We must harvest.
Harvesting Beans
As I sat down to write today, a day after the New Moon in Virgo when she is already waxing in Libra, I thought of the peas in their pods, of the purple pole beans that are still growing and swelling outside on their vines. They are still flowering, offering their small red cushions to the bees. I sit writing in a careful, protected space I made during these indoor days, a place to write and read and knit and meditate. We all need this kind of inner sanctum. I know how to build one no matter where I am because I built one in my own breast. Just like the beans that are still swelling in their envelopes, we need to build ourselves safe spaces in which our seeds may grow.
Inner Work, Inner Peace
Summer teaches us how express ourselves while winter teaches us how to move inside. From here, we can observe ourselves, our mental make up, our neuronal connections, and decide which ones to favor and which ones to lay aside. We can also play with them and change them! In June I joined an online community called WEALTH, run by Caroline Elliot and her husband. I learned an amazing and enjoyable form of shadow integration from Carolyn called Existential Kink. She has written a book on the topic and started this community for other thought leaders who want to work with inner alchemy to change themselves and ultimately the world. I highly recommend getting involved if you want a wonderful platform and new friends to play with. You can apply to join now. This kind of inner work, no matter the situation you may find yourself in, brings a sense of inner peace because it teaches you how to, step by step, embrace all your inner shadows, all the little complex beans and seeds that line your being. I can just do the work and watch them swell. I don’t need to stress about outcome, I just know that the more I plant myself, the stronger and more true to myself I will become.
If you enjoyed this essay and want to know more about my work, make a free appointment with me today. I help people who grieve their lost Earth connection find their creative flow again.
You can download my free guide to plant communication here.
