Taurus Full Moon - End of Scorpio Eclipse

Image by Zoltan Tasi

Taurus can be centering and grounding, but our need for comfort can make us feel anxious in such times as these.

I’ve been feeling dizzy sometimes when I rise, as if the material world we are in cannot stay, and cannot bear me away. How can I find my balance in between? Can the Earth still hold us?

We are still moving around the Sun, we are moving into the dark part of the year. We are waltzing gently towards whatever new world we are creating with our cumulative decisions.

As a teacher, I am more a part of society than I have ever been. I miss my free time and my ivory tower, but that no longer feels possible, as if my learning now means I must be more a part of this world. No more studying old manuscripts (I got my PhD in Switzerland studying one in 2016) or writing poems to the Moon. The kids need me. Or so part of me feels.

The World needs me, I hear on the wind. I do miss the time I used to have, but then, I wasn’t really conscious of it when I had it.

The old ones are dying, the trees once told me, pre-pandemic, and now this takes on new meaning. The trees were not only talking about the trees. What are we building to take the place of all that is dying? I ask myself.

The Moon early this morning was full in Taurus, where it was eclipsed by the Sun.
This Full Moon was a blood moon, did you see it slowly turn to red?
Here I was sleeping warm in my bed, and the sky was cloudy I think.
I didn’t rise to greet the Full Moon in red bloom. But I felt it there in the sky.

Today I’ve been working remotely and reading about eclipses and the change they bring, wondering, now that the Moon is in Gemini, at how the change came swiftly yesterday. I was in one of the high schools I teach at and I was ready to finish out the days before Thanksgiving break, when we got an urgent email followed by an announcement that we’d be closed for the next few days.

The COVID cases are as high as they have ever been in my small corner of Vermont and the elementary schools especially can’t cope with all the absences and the lack of staff. So here it is a Friday and I don’t have to teach at all next week. My students have been warned they may go remote, and as much as I am glad for this break, I realize, I will miss them.

Life is funny that way, isn’t it? The way you can be so fixated on what isn’t going right with your current situation, but then it changes and you miss the way it was. Well, I don’t think I will really miss the teaching full time so much next week. I am exhausted, and as I said above, unsure of even how to feel my feet, but I hope all the kids I won’t see will be okay.

End of Scorpio - the Sun moves to Libra soon, and I’ll be glad to move to balance from darkness. My darkness shows up as a holding near of what I am afraid to lose. I realized today that my jealousy often simply reflects fear from times when my open-hearted giving nature was not treated in kind. Ah. This brings a kind of relief, and if that’s the kind of realization and release this Full Moon brings, I will take it.

I realized recently that my rising sign was not Scorpio. This also softens how I observe my own shadow. I’m a Sagittarius rising now.

This Full Moon and Eclipse was not on my rising sign axis. The aspect wasn’t really touching anything in my chart, but I realize Scorpio is my 12th house, hence my feeling of darkness and endings at this time of year are not surprising, since the 12th house is the last house on the sky’s wheel. My sky is ending. But now, something begins. Something new, out of the darkness. Last weekend I planted garlic.

How was this lunation for you? Are you curious about it? I’d love to talk with you. Drop me a line for an astrological chat or a card reading. I offer a free call to discover plant coaching, tarot and astrology readings. I have a bit more time next week , especially Monday.

Friday night blessings.

May your strong love continue to reveal and heal your shadow.

Amy

Daffodils in the Snow: Opening Eyes and Heart with the New Moon in Taurus

It snowed yesterday, and I plunged back into Winter, and into a dark moon internal landscape that was challenging. Snow on daffodils, clumped together, seeing in the dark. My eyes hurt. It was Earth Day. I felt darkness and instability. But today the sun is shining, it is above freezing, and the daffodils have regained their aplomb. I admire them for their resilience and tenacity. I’ll be like them, and bounce right back from a freeze. I’ll open my eyes to perceive a blue sky and the humming of life, if not yet of the honey bee. I’ll feel my bulb in the ground and feel the green stirring in my heart. This is where I am supposed to be.

Collective Grief

The New Moon in Taurus, almost conjunct Uranus and square Saturn, was last night at 10:30 EST. By that time, I had sufficiently attended to my own despondency to realize several things. One is that there is a lot of grief to feel, so I can chalk up my dark moon difficulties to the collective energies as well. A lot of souls are leaving us at this time. A lot of people are hurting more than usual. The Earth had her day, her 50th official Earth Day, and the forecast is grim. We have so far not responded adequately to an ecological crisis that we are witnessing and have been witnessing for as long as I have been alive, and even longer. I feel like a little girl who, born with a certain optimism about the world, does not understand the stupidity of her elders. The world is not as I want it to be and as I know it can be, personally, socially or societally. It’s not the choices I’ve made, it’s not personal despondency, it’s just a feeling we are not where we are supposed to be. Why have we not acted yet? What are we waiting for?

Another World is Possible

Well, apparently we were waiting for the corona virus which seems to be doing the job for us. The Earth is breathing a little easier. It’s still not the world I dream of though, the world of interconnection between all life, the world of listening and careful attention, with humanity safely back in its place in the larger scheme of things, but I’m starting to see my dream of another world reflected more widely around me. We are all slowing down. We are all taking the time to be a little more conscious now that we aren’t speeding around. This is encouraging to me.

The Work That Reconnects

But to get back to the New Moon and the grief I felt with it, there is a lot of grief to feel right now and we need to feel it to move forward. Joanna Macy, inventor of a method to reconnect us to the Earth and each other, The Way That Reconnects, speaks to this, and I know that in feeling some grief, in processing and letting go during the dark moon of just a little of the pain of the Earth and what we have done to her, even if I feel it in a personal way, even as it is pain that relates specifically to my story (especially as a woman), I am doing my part to heal her. I will keep healing her. Reconnecting means reconnecting to the pain that I have avoided, to the wounded parts of myself as well as to the pain reflected around me in the world, in others and in the plants and animals I see.

Uranian Energies for the New

Sparks are flying from all the healing we are doing, collectively and individually too. With the New Moon almost conjunct Uranus in Taurus, we can feel a special spark of desire for new beginnings of all kinds. Uranus has revolutionary tendencies, and we may set intentions at this time that are beyond our usual frame of reference. You may want to totally reinvent yourself. I know I do. And luckily, there is lots of energy there to help us do so. Can you imagine yourself shiny and new, emerging into the world to change it? This is what this New Moon asks of you. The square to Saturn reminds us that this will not be easy work. We need to strive and establish routines. We need diligence, not just passion.

Courting the Wild Twin

As I drove in my car through blushing pink yet still leafless Vermont mountains today, I listened to a beautiful new book by one of my favorite teachers, Martin Shaw. He talks about exactly this, the happy medium between the red and the white, the fire of passion and the goodness of routine. He writes of tempering, an old word that describes the appropriate mixing of the humors and I am reminded of medieval lessons on love. The heart needs to experience both the light and the dark in order to be forged into a diamond, to become the true lover. He tells two stories of the wild twin which tell the tale of this alchemical working, The Lindworm and Tatterhood. I realized that they are the perfect narratives to help me along on the shadow work journey I’ve been on for a while, a journey which asks me to embrace all the remnants of the neglected and exiled parts of myself, the bits of passions denied because they didn’t fit in or were too dark, and I’m starting to get the hang of it. My large and scary serpent, a gift of my rising sign in Scorpio, is no longer as threatening. When I’ve worked with Martin Shaw in person, he always ask us to consider where we are in a given story, as this can open up perspectives on our own lives. In the Lindworm, I’m the naked white worm getting scrubbed before becoming beautiful and whole. In Tatterhood, I am not sure, but I think my head is no longer hanging on a rusty nail in the witches’ long house. It’s a process in any case, and I am glad to have the company of these tales. I made myself a beautiful personal flower essence blend too, and the flowers help me tell my story in a new way, kissing old wounds away. Click here to find your way to your own soothing flower friend or make an appointment with me here to talk and listen in for a special blend for you.

Expansion and Abundance

The two words I got last night during a group ritual for the New Moon with another one of my teachers, Aeolian Heart, were expansion and abundance. The New Moon is traditionally a time of expansion, for the planting of seeds and the growing of dreams. Taurus reminds me of abundance and the earthy pleasures of this sign, which even if they are tinged with revolutionary fervor by Uranus, remain tried and true and stable. How am I taking care of myself at this time? How can I continue to do so? I pulled the Four of Coins tarot card for this week so I am asking myself what I am holding on to. This card is earthy too, and not always in a positive way, but this week I see it as a reminder to not give too much of myself away. To stabilize my own abundance before offering myself and my energies to others. This seems like a potent lesson at this time when we are being asked to look inwards and tend to our inner fires, however small or neglected they are. May yours move into blooming this Taurus season, and as the moon waxes, may you find ways to celebrate your own expansion into new aspects of you.

The Warmth Will Come

Shadow work expands your heart too. Maybe that is what the daffodils do all winter in the dark; they focus on their hearts, so that in the spring they can burst out into seeing the world with love, however cold it might be at first. The warmth will come, the warmth will come.

Blessings of reinvention and Spring abundance to you!

P.S. Make a free appointment with me here if you would like some guidance with your creative journey. Integrating our shadows unleashes enormous amounts of creative energy and I’d be happy to talk about this process with you.

The Full Moon in Taurus and White Pine: Sensual and Bare

This morning’s Full Moon in Taurus held beautiful energy, and this evening I finished the article I have been writing for the last few weeks. I got so absorbed in it, in my notes and books, in ideas I’ve been thinking about for a long time, that I couldn’t focus on anything else. It was hard to get my ideas out, and hard to share. All of my insecurities came up. I missed my New Moon post, and I can’t even find my notes of what I wanted to share with you. But today I managed finish my that overdue article, right with the Full Moon. Full Moons are about completion, so this felt right, and Mercury was transiting the Sun, giving my ideas words and my words power. Did you bring something to completion? How do you handle those tasks that make you feel most vulnerable and bare?

It is very cold, dark and snowy out, and I’m sitting in my little house tending the fire. This morning I did ritual to honor the Full Moon, with a focus on pleasure, since that is what Taurus likes. While meditating with the Moon, the words sensual and bare came to me, and that fit well. With Scorpio season, things fall away, the trees get bare and I feel I come into the skeleton of myself. I become aware of things I don’t usually see, as if I’m lifting veils. The veils are thin, and I think about death. The leaves have fallen and the trees are naked. The once full forests are transparent. Now the snow is there, a layer, but a clear cover, a layer that reveals. A layer to interpret. Integumentum. I am bare to myself. What veils have lifted on your vision of yourself?

I have remembered these last few weeks that, though I don’t currently work at a university, I am a scholar. I love languages and learning. I love the struggle to find the right words. I love to spend time with books. I love to learn and I love to share learning. I feel a burning to follow this, to persist, as other women in the past have, as my grandmothers and great grandmothers couldn’t. I have been especially aware lately that I am doing it for them. Listening in, I hear them proud of me and I do carry their devotion with me. I do it for them. I’m not sure where it is leading to, and for the moment I don’t get paid for it, but the world needs more heart-centered scholars and I will continue to do it as I can. I think the challenge of it is also something that is positive for me. Though it was a struggle to face the ways that I don’t feel good enough to do that work, it was good to see my struggles clearly these last weeks and to push through, to decide, everyday, this is the work I have to do. This is the work I want to do, though it isn’t as easy as other things I could do. It felt potent, like being in a cauldron. I stirred myself.

So now that we are bare, let us be sensual. The life of the mind can feel so separate from the body, but I think I am also here to bring them back together. The time of that separation is coming to an end. I can be in my mind in an embodied way. I can be embodied and use my mind. Medieval people were more whole and connected, though they talked about the split and in many ways orchestrated it for us down the line. One of the things I love in medieval literature is how, in metaphor, writers combine the body and the mind. Augustine explains how it is that a tongue can be a pen, how many languages can make a single truth that you carry in your heart. I feel inspired by the way medieval people wrote about being human. I want to do that too. We are not body and mind, but whole organisms, universes even, complex and beautiful. So the mind can be sensual and the body can be intellectual, and we can mix it all up, as we do.

My plant work lately has been working with the White Pine that fell behind my house, almost on my house. Each day I drink a tea of the needles and pungent branch ends and meditate on its lessons. I have been doing this for a week so far, and the messages have been about clarity and joy, support and safety. I put pine needles in my bath salts and in vinegar and I will make an oil, and the tree, split, stares at me from behind the house, covered in snow, wanting me to use it, an immense and abundant gift. I will go to stand by it and see, when the snow stops, what else it has to say to me. I will continue this journey with it. White Pine has been on my mind since earlier this year when I learned it was a tree sacred to the Abenaki who have lived longest on this land in Vermont. I wonder at the silence of the woods here, so wild and strange, and used to another type of human. I would like to be more of that type of human that it wants me to be. I will keep listening to see what that could be. Looking for a picture of White Pine, I just found this blog of someone sharing local native people’s land based wisdom. I think that’s another gift from White Pine.

It comes to me that White Pine is sensual and bare, standing there, giving me life. And I realize again what good models our plant friends are, if only we could follow in their stead. How giving they are, and supportive, and protective, and strong. I think, it is enough to learn from them. I feel connected to my ancestors in this way too. I know that my Scottish grandmothers read the land and heard the land and knew the ways to use the plants for health and wisdom. Sometimes I feel that I am only following in their footsteps too. Then I remember that the trees told me they are our ancestors too. So I am following in footsteps of footsteps. This feels good, and I feel less alone, and I can do the work I came here to do, whatever this is in the moment.

As you become bare to yourself, what do you see that you came here to do? Would you like more plant guidance? Book a free exploratory session with me and we can talk about the work we could do and what they might be wanting to say to you. Do you have a book to write or art to make or a song to sing? I am sure you do. I can help you establish the discipline to do it, through ritual and connection to your cycles and those of the Earth. I am taking on new clients for this deep soul work with the plants at this time, so don’t hesitate to ask me about it! I’d love to talk to you. You can schedule a time on my website under creative coaching.

My next projects feel many and varied. I have more writing promises to finish, my Patreon page to update, and a free gift for my patrons and for you coming soon! A Concise Guide to Plant Communication. We can practice while the roots are sleeping under white and the wind is blowing.

Blessings to you on this Beaver Moon and may we not be intimidated by all the work we were called here to do. My love to you.

Sensing into Autmn: Venus Retrograde, Full Moon in Taurus and Shadow Work

The leaves are falling, the flowers are sleeping in their seeds, and we are turning inwards again on the wheel of the year. I flew to Geneva again for some seasonal work, leaving behind the golden mountains of home, and jetlag has given me some strange productive hours. There are many things I want to share, for the first time in a while, and I will try to weave them all together here.

Shining Light on Our Darker Places

Yesterday the Sun moved into Scorpio, shining light on our darker places, the obsessions we'd rather not have and the pain we would rather bury sometimes. But I've been there for a while; Venus has been retrograde for a few weeks and she's been bringing me events from the past to survey, times when I didn't feel good enough or loved enough. Tonight, at the Full Moon in Taurus, Venus will cross paths with the sun, forming one of the points of her star shaped movement through the sky and reflecting back to us the beauty of our wounds. I've been working with my shadow for a while now, since she first went retrograde at the beginning of October, and this time around she's brought to me an even deeper compassion for my darker places.

Existential Kink

A gentle place to start exploring the shadow is through the book by Robert Johnson, a Jungian thinker and analyst, Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche (1991). He explains what the shadow is in a reassuring way, from the perspective of its Jungian source; we all have one, it's okay, we can represent it for ourselves in concrete ways in the material world and rise above it's tendency to bite us back when we are least expecting it. I didn't begin with a gentle exploration of the shadow though; I jumped right in a few years ago with a practice I learned from Carolyn Elliot, in her course INFLUENCE, which she has coined Existential Kink, EK for short. This practice basically entails allowing your body to find its ecstasy through the fulfillment of desires it usually refuses, in a completely safe way and on its own terms. It's based on the premise that having is a sign of wanting and it turns around our tendency to feel like the victims of our lives. Allowing the body to relax into and enjoy the painful events of the past is liberating in a way that is hard to explain - you have to try it! It's probably best to hear Carolyn herself talk about it:

https://www.dreamfreedombeauty.com/witch-carolyn-elliott-on-shame-the-heroines-story-why-not-to-be-careful-what-you-wish-for-episode-54/

I think she's writing a book about it, so hopefully more people will have access to this powerfully transformative way of dealing with trauma. The practice has felt especially healing for me lately, so this Venus retrograde in Scorpio period that I was apprehensive about has actually been extremely liberating. I feel more free and accepting of the past then I ever have before, which is helping me be less troubled by the troubling events of our present, if that makes sense. There is a breath in, a breath out, and a real reaping of my introspective work, which has often been heavy and daunting, lasting for days if not for months sometimes. Phew. Shadow work pays off.

Not Blindly Giving Our Power Away

On the plane over I read another Robert Johnson book, Inner Gold: Understanding Psychological Projection (2008). This short book was also very healing, and I learned again the importance of recognizing when we are putting our gold into someone else's lap, and the need to be conscious about drawing our soul light back, standing in our own light when we can, and not blindly giving our power away because we don't want to or are unable to hold it. In the sky, in the dark, I held my light in my lap and cried, one step closer to accepting myself and my life's learning journey. I wrote this poem a few months ago, but it expresses this current calling back to myself of my desires:

So I'm calling all my desires back to myself,
Every one wanted and then refused.
Every cell, blood red, that went out to gather
Vampire-like, ill-used, I call back to myself.
Every body touched and hurt
in darkness, every sun that shown
on my desired one, every wish fulfilled or spurned
every one, I call back to myself, as one.

I think it's a spell. I suppose I cast it back then, and now, here I am living it. I'm grateful, a step closer to feeling my wholeness, which I sometimes forget is there.

Embodied Earthiness

The sensuousness of these experiences are brought to you thanks to this Full Moon in Taurus, where she shines ample and worthy, embodied earthiness. See if you can feel into any of the discomfort she might illuminate. It might appear in the form of frustration, anger or animosity towards yourself or others. She is conjunct Uranus at the moment too, so our feelings may feel especially electric, new, or charged. As you sound them, see if you can use this energy to shine a light in the darkness and bring a playfulness to your story, however challenging it may be.

Lunar Wisdom

Enjoy her healing light tonight! Some lunar wisdom I've enjoyed reading that moves in the same direction as this and might bring you even more healing introspection are:

Sabrina Monarch, at Monarch Astrology
Mystic Mama, at http://www.mysticmamma.com/astrology-full-moon-in-taurus-october-24th-2018/
and Anandashree Astrology, for a soothing Vedic take https://www.anandastrology.com/blog/full-moon-soak-it-up-ashwini-vedic-astrology

If you want more of my writing on the shadow journey, as Persephone's choice, read https://badwitch.es/heroines-journey-persephones-choice-embracing-shadow-rewriting-myth/

A prose piece of mine, “Origins", which is largely the product of my own work with shadow and myth, was just published in Dark Mountain: Issue 14, TERRA, https://dark-mountain.net/product/dark-mountain-issue-14-terra/

I'll be writing more as the flowers are sleeping! I'm looking forward to sharing. Keep connecting! Our sparks in the dark.

(Originally published October 24th, 2018)

Healing into Taurus with Uranus: Wholeness, My Lyme, and a Desire to Define

Paul Manship: The Flight of Europa

It is still Taurus season and I'm still in Geneva, weathering the New Moon and Uranus entering the bull's sign rather well. It feels epic, actually. The change and me, all of it in relation to the Earth. I'm riding a bull into the horizon as the sun sets. I'm excited about it. It feels lush and perhaps chaotic, yes, but also genius and creative, productive and juicy, like a big, messy peach. I'm excited to see where it takes me.

We Are All Healers

My friend Mayumi just shared on her blog what she feels about healing and it created quite a response in me (since then she has erased this post but I still highly recommend you read her take on what it is like to be human - basically she said that none of us really need healing), so I thought I would share my thoughts about it too, especially since I call myself a plant spirit healer and I talk about healing journeys. It's true it's a trendy word, but I can't think of a better way to describe my life, a healing journey. I agree that healing is not something that can come from outside of me, but I have had a lot of help along the way. I like to use the word. I think we are all healers healing each other, but I agree that the impetus must come from our own souls wanting to stretch and grow again into the wholeness from which we came.

On Wholeness

On wholeness: After reading Mayumi, I went on a little research adventure to find out about the word ‘to heal'. It comes from the Proto-Germanic word hailjan, a word meaning ‘to make whole', which later was applied to Jesus' holy touch. In Old English he was haeland, a healer, one who makes whole. In French we don't have that word; we have guérir and soigner, which come from, respectively, words that meant “to protect" and “to worry about". But that's what we want to do when we love someone, and love makes whole, as Jesus taught.

Energy Healing

On the Energy Healing I am learning: it is very clear, when we do it, and as we learn to do it, that the person's soul is in charge of the healing that is happening. The healer is a conduit for Source which guides the soul in its healing. The only healing that happens is healing that the soul wants. But still, we need that impetus; our souls do sometimes need that guidance and help, which makes me think that healing is ultimately about connection, and love, even in its harshest and most invasive modern forms. Anytime I practice on someone, I also feel healed, so the healing is mutual.

Paul Manship: Dancer and Gazelles

I also wanted to write about my healing episode that happened just when Uranus entered Aries 7 years ago. I've been thinking about that period because according to an astrologer I like to read, it is the key to understanding the Uranian era that is ending and the one that is coming in. In early Spring, 2011, I got a swollen knee that turned out to be a rather extreme symptom of Lyme's Disease. I don't really remember what happened during the three months that I was healing from Lyme (I couldn't really walk and I slept a lot), but I did heal from it, and I'm wondering why. A lot of people don't. What I do remember is being completely preoccupied with listening to my body, with the healing process. I spoke to and meditated with my knee and my entire body. I took antibiotics which made me want to die. I stopped eating wheat and dairy. I ate six cloves of garlic a day and a lot of echinacea tincture. It was before I had met the flowers, so I wasn't working with them yet, but I wanted to try everything I could. I saw a rheumatologist and got to look at the liquid that he took out of my knee with a huge needle. I also had a lot of help from body workers, several kinds. I got lots of lymphatic massage and regular Grinberg Method sessions. I had a session with Avi Grinberg himself (who is also all about teaching others to heal themselves) who was so completely inappropriate with me, as a “healer" - he rather rudely told me I wanted to die - that I got incredibly angry, and I think maybe that cured me. Incidentally, he was right, I did want to die, profoundly, and it wasn't just the antibiotics, it was a general metaphysical approach to life and it wasn't working.

Learning from Lyme

I learned a lot from Lyme, which got me thinking that illness is a gift that comes to teach us something, whether or not it takes us away. And I did survive, through to this new Uranian cycle. I remember at the time feeling also that my Lyme, which I got from a field in Vermont where the deer roam (I remember the day it probably happened, the desire to walk barefoot out into the field, towards the forest, prime tick territory, in shorts!) was actually a gift from the deer, and they have always been one of my protective spirit animals.

Remembering Our Connection to Everything

The plants have taught me that healing happens only as I can open up to it in my own body with my mind. The plants help me open to it, and since I can speak to the plants, I can help the plants help other people open to it. That's why I call myself a plant spirit healer. But you can become one too, you just need to learn to listen. Maybe it was my Lyme that taught me how to listen. I suppose healing for me is basically about remembering our connection to everything, our wholeness, mending the separation we feel before we go to the place where there is no separation, where we are all going anyways, when the soul is ready to go. In the meantime, I think the soul enjoys learning, in the myriad ways that this manifests, through pain, joy, suffering, health, illness, fatigue, disease and ultimately death. At least that is how I think of it, my healing journey.

Gustave Moreau: Europa and the Bull

I made two new essences on Beltane: Speedwell and... Self-Heal! How appropriate. Descriptions will be up on my Flower Essences page soon.

May all your journeys be sweet and the darkness as complete as you need it to be to integrate your healing!

(Originally posted May 16th, 2018)