through the portal
what i'm thinking about in the wake of the eclipses and the surprising sweetness of the last few weeks
Friends - Happy Libra season and welcome to fall. We have officially made it through the eclipses. Congratulations.
Last week, prior to the Virgo new moon and partial solar eclipse we had on Sunday, I tried to sit down and write this newsletter with advice for it and I couldn’t organize my thoughts.
A lot of what I was trying to say was some version of: Don’t let anyone fearmonger to you about eclipse season, and try not to anticipate what is going to happen with this particular eclipse — just go out in the world and be present and curious and honest and brave.
And yet in writing it, I realized I was doing exactly what I was trying to advise against. I was feeling fearful and anxious and doing a lot of worst case scenario thinking, so I walked away from the computer and took my own advice: I went to New Mexico with my boyfriend (hi baby) and had some crazy conversations and saw some beautiful things and spent time in nature and ate yummy food and cried and encountered chaos and was served all sorts of eclipse-y revelations: There is freedom in discipline. There is love in fear. There is safety in the unknown.
For so long, so much of my approach to astrology was as a sort of defense mechanism: I learned about the stars in an effort to anticipate what was to come and to at least think I was in turn developing some sense of control over it.
I saw the worst in every astrological possibility and kept myself up at night anxious; I was sure that every even vaguely eerie astrological omen guaranteed breakups and fuckups and disaster and my book deal falling apart. And the truth is that sometimes some version of whatever I feared is what happened when the eerie astrology hit — but for a while there, I think I was too convinced that astrology happens only out there and all I could do in here was be anxious about it.
One lesson of this eclipse season for me has been the reminder that astrology, like so much else about reality, really happens in here, and sometimes what eclipses and other astrological omens point to is actually transformations in the way we think and relate to ourselves. And in that way, in a big way, part of what this season asked of me was to reckon with part of me that’s always so sure everything is going to fall apart — the part of me that’s convinced the worst case scenario is always going to manifest, the part of me that’s always sure I haven’t locked the door and the house is going to burn down.
And while it has certainly felt like eclipse season out there — unstable and weird and chaotic and scary — this season on a personal level, in here, has really been sweet to me, and I think that’s part of what the stars have been asking of me lately: Can I hold the reality of both? Can any part of me believe life will be sweeter than I anticipate? Can I meet whatever comes with a sweetness of my own?
Lately I’ve been experimenting with the idea that everything doesn’t happen for a reason. It just happens. It just is. And to live a spiritual life isn’t to believe in some perfect divine plan, but rather to bravely and earnestly face everything that happens with love and curiosity and use it to become more conscious, more generous, more aware and more connected.
That’s at least part of how the astrology of this eclipse season has manifested in here, for me, and now I feel like I need time to let it settle in. Thankfully, eclipse season has a long tail. Some astrologers say it lasts for a week after the last eclipse, some say what we experience will reverberate for six weeks after, some say up to six months — which is to say we still have time to do the work of this season in here.
I think it’s a good time, in the days after the eclipse, to sit down and make note of any revelations you’ve had in the last few days and weeks. What stories are you telling about yourself? Are those stories serving you? What new stories could you tell? What would change if you did?
With the south node in Virgo and Saturn in play here, it’s also a good time to think about our perfectionist instincts and the value of structure. Where are you being too hard on yourself? Where are you making unrealistic demands? Where do you need to build more support? How can you aim for optimalism? Where do you need clearer boundaries? How can you move with more love?
You don’t need to have all the answers right now. I don’t! But if we’re willing to sit with these questions and meet whatever they bring up within us with sweetness, I think we’ll find some really good stuff.
And Libra season will buoy us. It’s a season where the themes of justice and balance and beauty come to the forefront, where gossip and good lighting and lovers abound. I think it will be fun. As ever: Stay present and don’t miss it.
I love you all. Let me know how it’s going.
A
I’m starting to come up for air and open to taking a small handful of astrological clients again. Reach out to me for options, info and pricing. XO
