Shake It Out!
It’s Hard to Dance with a Devil on Your Back
“Regrets collect like old friends
Here to relive your darkest moments
I can see no way, I can see no way
And all of the ghouls come out to play
And every demon wants his pound of flesh
But I like to keep some things to myself
I’d like to keep my issues drawn
It’s always darkest before the dawn”
I Turned 51 on 8/11 and Didn’t Listen to My Own Advice on 8/12.
Fifty-one arrived with a lot less “drama” than fifty did.
Firstly, I wasn’t picking up the shattered pieces of a project that my life had revolved around for over a year while rebounding by conceiving another one without properly grieving the loss — because sometimes that’s what people with a majority of their placements in a masculine modality do. Secondly, my solar return involved a moon gently treading her way through the dark into a total solar eclipse — and that brings a deafening kind of quiet — the kind of quiet at four in the morning when you’re sneaking in after a walk of shame, carrying your heels, and reeking smells both ungodly and intoxicating.
The next day was the total solar eclipse at 20° Leo — the second in the Aquarius/Leo cycle. The first after all of the outer planets were locked into masculine signs until next July 27, 2027.
Leading up to this, I did what I always do: Text my retainer clients a list of “Solar Eclipse Do’s and Don’t’s” (these also work for Lunar Eclipses).
DO:
Clean your house and throw away at least ONE item associated with an old identity you’re leaving behind or feels like it’s blocking you from being seen accurately;
Propitiate Lord Ganesha (if you need a deity to personify the South Node eclipse energy) by listening (if you aren’t initiated) to Om Gam Ganapataye Namaha at least 108 times;
Check the times that the eclipse begins and ends and if it’s visible in your location; and
Meditate on what has been blocking you from shining the light you recognize as wanting to come out of you — often times despite yourself because it’s a pain in the ass.
FFS, DO NOT:
Expose yourself to the baleful rays! Even if that’s simply looking at the bloody eclipse pictures on socials;
Initiate important projects, launches, tasks — unless you think you’ve got Taergaryean blood and can ride a damn dragon; AND
MOST IMPORTANTLY, do NOT practice magic — even if that magic is simply your monthly new moon intention setting!
Then, I follow my own damn advice … but this time I didn’t. I did magic.
Why? WHY?!? I know what happens when you do magic at eclipse time! (Ask me how I know on your own time. Lol.)
Because It’s Hard to Dance with a Devil on Your Back
When you’re dealing with fixed placements (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius), that word says it all: It takes a cataclysm like an eclipse to get them to change. And there are times in one’s life when, try as you might, shifting the status quo feels like you’re encased in snow after an avalanche, attempting to breathe, knowing you have a finite period to create a pocket of air big enough to give your rescuers the time to find you alive.
So, any change — even a volatile one with an unknown cost — seems reasonable.
And I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one who, especially since Uranus rocked up into Taurus in 2018, is sitting with her demolition pile sorting through what can be recycled, re-purposed, and turned into what it was meant to be. With Chiron giving us a taste of what it’s healing in this same area of our lives (finance, food, stability, resources needed to THRIVE) through 2034, you’re damn sure I was going to use a super charged portal to get the Devil off my back.
Bury That Horse in the Ground
Next week we get the penultimate eclipse of the Pisces/Virgo cycle on August 27th/28th (depending on where you are).
This eclipse brings you the revelation of the “new plan” that will finally click into place the systems that you’ve been looking for to finally remove the dis-ease that the Universe has been attempting to clear from your actual lived and practical life since September 2024.
Between now and then, please do, if you haven’t already felt the internal prompt to: GET ORGANIZED.
FFS — even if it’s one area of your life — the one house in your chart overlaid by Virgo (if you don’t know what that is reply to this email) so that the Full Moon in Pisces doesn’t have to read you to filth and send a Marie Kondo into your world with no option to say no to pry that shit you’ve been hoarding for the last 18 years and lugging around while saying “Oh, I want to be healed and be my best self” or whatever you’ve been saying that you want to give your life a shape in your day-to-day while still “dragging that horse around”.
PLEASE, if there is one thing I’m begging you to do — tidy that shit up or this eclipse in Pisces may send a flood and wash it away … and, if you, like me, have found that you know old you is dead but their rigor mortis is such that you need a flood to wash that thing away? Practice your magic and intention setting with full acknowledgement that you don’t know the terms and conditions — and you aren’t gonna bellyache when the “Law of Surprise” (if you watch the Witcher series, you know what I’m talking about) delivers a magical creature you’re meant to steward into your care.
Instant Miracles
Otherwise, we’ll see. I spent 8/12 methodically working through my after action review of my previous birthday quarter and year and carefully crafted every intention to surrender myself to the person I need to be to have the life I want. It wasn’t woo woo at all … and the best part was that for the first time, whilst at home, I didn’t open my laptop or look at a screen for almost 24 hours.
A small miracle, but an instant miracle nonetheless.
Books are open!
KEY TAKEAWAY
The time between eclipses is a liminal space between two worlds and two identities. You have no place in the old one and will have to surrender to enter the new you.