Good Morning Astro Babes, it has been a minute since I’ve posted here, and phew, have the cosmos been moving! Astrologically, a lot has happened in the past month, and yet personally I’ve barely noticed. And that’s just the way it goes sometimes. Life happens. Death happens. Sometimes there is simply no time nor space for the stars. It can be hard enough to tend to yourself when in the throes of burnout, crisis, poverty or illness, let alone the planets. Like a dark cloud, grief can block the moon’s light, along with our best made intentions. It is hard to look up, when loss is weighing you down.
Recently, I went through a major loss. This past Taurus season, I said goodbye to my beloved furry soul companion. Despite anticipating the loss for years, and having had a long a fruitful life together, this loss still floored me. He was my closest confidant, my comfort, my joy, and my healer since I was 15 years old. His death was as poetic as his life had been, with the lilacs, poppies and cherry trees in bloom. After he passed peacefully in my arms, we kept him 3 days for a home funeral. We cleaned and adorned him and built an altar worthy of the 18.5 years we spent together. Initiating me into my first role as death doula was his most gracious parting gift.
His ashes returned home on the Taurus New Moon, and like any witch, I thought what a perfect day for ritual: a day to honor his new form and our mutual new beginnings. I had a baby spruce tree that I had been waiting for the right moment to plant. This was it. Beneath the New Moon, I took the tree up the mountain to a spruce grove with the intention to plant. To create a space to remember and honor my beloved, and to welcome the new page we were on. I sat, prayed and dug at the earth with my hands. I instantly hit a rock and lifted it up to see the most precious, sweetest little bee burrowed within the Earth. It moved so gently this overwintering bee, with a message so clear. NO!
This tree was not ready to be planted. Just like the bee I wasn’t ready for New Moon Intentions or New Beginnings. You can’t force new life. I needed to be in the Underworld, to burrow, retreat and sit with my heartache. As a Gemini Sun/Sag Rising, it’s easy for me to skip over my grief. I’ve done it most of my life. Now was/is the time to honor my Scorpio Moon, to surrender to the darkness and truly come undone. I gently placed the stone and earth back loosely atop the bee and have been overwintering in the spring ever since.
May this ‘bee’ your invitation to do the same. An invitation to meet yourself exactly where you are at, regardless of what the moon and planets are doing. A reminder that just because the world around you is blooming does not mean you need to. A reminder that at different altitudes, latitudes, and hemispheres the flowers are not yet blossoming, and the bees remain underground. A reminder that on this Earth, or out in space, there is always a space to mirror exactly where you are at. A space to meet you. A space to hold you. Find that space. Visualize it, and let it support you.
Currently I’m in a space where bit by bit I’m feeling less nostalgic about the past, and more hopeful about the future. I am in a space of exploration. A space of reviewing, reassessing, and reimagining (hello Gemini retrograde eclipse season). Beneath the recent Gemini Solar Eclipse, I pulled a Tarot Card as my “guide”. Of course, I pulled the card that is also my current guide for the entire year of 2021. A reminder, that here we are loves, halfway through the year, and with half the planets in retrograde now is the perfect time to reassess your visions and intentions for 2021. Where do you need to pivot and adapt? Are there goals you need to let go of? Are new dreams and visions calling you? We are constantly growing and evolving with the world around us, so too must our goals and visions.
For me personally one dream and vision I am currently reimagining is Radical Reclamation: this page, my blog and my astrology & tarot practice. ‘Radical Reclamation’ were words that came to me a few years ago on a Sag New Moon, and it was always meant to be so much more than astrology and tarot. The vision was a space to reclaim all parts of self, community, and society that have been lost due to colonization, capitalism and all systems of oppression. A collaborative space to reclaim what was stolen; our bodies; our joy; our lineage and ancestry; our Earth; our connection to magic and spirit; food sovereignty; plant medicine; death care and so much more. Moving forward this website and my practice will reflect this initial seed. It’s going to get a little more personal and a little less routine. Posts won’t be as regular, nor just astrology, as I explore a multitude of interests and capacities. It’s going to get a little more Gemini as I lean into, embrace, and love my solar essence.
Radical Reclamation 