Category: Contemplations

Writings that are contemplative reflections on the astrological archetypes of the moment.

  • Sober assessments make kind hearts.

    Sober assessments make kind hearts.

    The full moon this weekend illuminated truths, and now there is a grounding support to take in those truths and feel what to do with them. In my upcoming book Slow Magic I speak of the full moon as being like a flower, the culmination of a cycle of growth that is beautiful and open to fertilization from outside of itself. It interacts with the world then closes again to become fruit, which is the waning phase.

    So in this time we’ve both revealed truth and received important truth to blend into something new. Today is a great day to not act. To let things settle and feel how it sits in you. From here it will get clearer what wants to come to fruition from this moment.

  • What you believe is who you love.

    What you believe is who you love.

    There is a reciprocity between heart and mind. Those whom we respect and admire are of greater influence to our thinking than those we dislike. And our principles may evolve, creating more distance from who we once admired and drawing us to connect with others.

    Lately I have been really noticing that there is a moral sense that it’s less important what is done and more to whom it is done. Every human and faction has undesirable elements that we’re more likely to excuse and overlook if we feel aligned with them, and the inverse is also true. I’m not saying this is the pinnacle of morality, only that it is a factor we may not be wholly admitting.

    This brings up some confronting possibilities about the stances we take. But also there are factions within factions. I may get along better with an ideological opponent that shares some similar values than people I largely agree with but who have strategies Ito which I am averse.

    Today Venus feels like she wants to show who she loves by taking a stance.

  • Be a hollow gourd that your thoughts may make a pleasing sound.

    Be a hollow gourd that your thoughts may make a pleasing sound.

    Some people believe in some kind of unitary self in which we have one perspective, one set of thoughts and desires, and that any kind of inner contradiction is a sign of moral weakness or mental illness.

    This makes no sense if you truly observe yourself or others. If you only had one true thought then why do you have inner conflict. If you experience self-hatred, how could that be possible? A pencil only has one point and cannot write upon itself, but we can turn the gaze backward and judge and scrutinize every action—that is a part of us scrutinizing other parts of us.

    Truly it is normal to have a multiplicity of thoughts and perspectives, a tangle of contradictory impulses and longings, and it is from the recognition and acceptance of that multiplicity that we come into a coherent inner consensus on who we are and what we stand for. Yet it is hard to appreciate this multiplicity, let alone allow it to make music rather than noise, when we’re fighting to make one part dominant and the other parts inferior or excluded.

    This morning the image of a rattler comes to mind, a hollow gourd filled with beans that we can shake to make music. Meditation is like becoming that gourd, allowing our thoughts and feelings to separate out from each other without needing any of them to justify their existence. You might wish to try on this image as you go about your day, being a hollow gourd in which your many thoughts and feelings rattle around, keeping rhythm and becoming music.

  • Carve a new pathway in old battles.

    Carve a new pathway in old battles.

    Today we can see a moment of synthesis in what otherwise looks like a war. Perhaps this is the broader culture war or something more personal to you. This week our aggressive tendencies are rethinking issues of ego and self-expression while our harmonizing tendencies focus on the collective good, a notable contrast that could make us feel in a tug of war.

    But today the intellect is seeing things in a different way, and for a moment could move past the extremism and scary facets of each side and see something earnest and beneficial to both. They are not truly in a war of dominance, they are exploring different facets of the same game, and if we didn’t feel the need to pick a side we could learn from each.

    Perhaps you are surprised or intrigued by a current of similar feeling across vastly different apparent ideologies. This is a moment to be curious about it and see where else those polarities connect. Doing so is not the same as agreeing with everything that is said or done. It is about holding multiplicity so a true synthesis emerges.

  • Being pinned opens the heart.

    Being pinned opens the heart.

    No one loves feeling trapped. And there’s not much to love about it. But it has much to teach us. We can exhaust ourselves in the efforts to pretend we’re not trapped or escape the trap we’re in, only to find we carry the mechanisms of the trap inside.

    Being humbled in defeat is a great gift. All the thrashing starts to settle when you finally experience what you most feared would happen. It turns out the trap was your unwillingness to experience pain, and that unwillingness made the pain into suffering.

    This is a season when the ego’s efforts to hold onto its fantasy of self are thwarted. You thought you were beloved when you were despised. You thought you were impervious but you had weakness. It could all be okay, not in the sense that things will work out the way you think it should, but that you can be okay even when hardship comes. And that okayness is the true warrior’s heart, to set aside how you think life should go and instead meet life as it is with courage.

  • Some hungers are clouded by illusion.

    Some hungers are clouded by illusion.

    Today the moon passes through a corridor of fantasy and compulsive action. She wants to act according to the brilliance of instinctive will toward destiny but her eyes are clouded with fantasy.

    Fantasies are not bad or wrong but they are unrealistic by nature, living in our minds unencumbered by the burden to respond to real limitations. Fantasy shows a great longing and drive within, something’ deeply wanted, yet the fantasy shows that want satisfied or thwarted in unlikely ways.

    Today is a day to take action but with a clear mind and open heart. Let action bring the light that burns the fog of illusion. The lover in your fantasies may look like a real person in your life, and you may decide to ask them out, but do so knowing you are going to get to know someone real now. The person in fantasy is not the person you’d date. This is a good thing to grasp. Sometimes action breaks the spell of an illusion that won’t relent.

  • Look to the darkness within.

    Look to the darkness within.

    There is a state of moral development in which a person is inclined to condemn not so much what is done but to whom it is done. We are horrified by this when we see it directed against the peoples that we value—how can you celebrate the harm done to them? And we find ways to soften or overlook this when we direct it against enemies or people for whom we do not care.

    Am I endorsing that? No. Is it shocking? Yes, sometimes. Are you the one person who has never felt joy when someone you hate suffers? I doubt it, but if that is so, life may give you an opportunity yet.

    There is also a stage of moral development in which we condemn what is done no matter to whom it is done. It is righteous and fraught with opportunities to make exceptions. Indeed it goes hand in hand with the other stage. Murder is wrong, but in some cases we carve out an exception and do not call it murder because we socially empowered a group of people to be able to do it, ideally under constraint.

    For more than a year now I’ve been baffled by the exception-making, people who condemn one group for war crimes and minimize or even celebrate another for the same actions but the opposing cause. We could tell a story that this is social decline but I think it is only a revelation of the truth in our souls. We are not intrinsically evil, but the problem of evil may be studied within one’s own heart for the courageous.

  • A year of radical love.

    A year of radical love.

    The next few days inaugurates a cycle of Venus’s transformation of the gifts of Pluto in its new vibe in Aquarius. The two very different energies come together to challenge each other and seed growth that will come to fruition around early 2026 when they conjoin again.

    Pluto wants us to accept our humanity. Whatever we think is disgusting, revolting, beneath us, or—alternately—whatever we think we are beneath and incapable of because of its goodness—Pluto will bring to our attention. We can become inflamed by denial or we could allow the knowledge of even our most disturbing qualities to humble us. Venus wants to create beauty, harmony, connection, and value wherever she goes. Both are meeting in the land of radical change, disruptive innovation, and community over self-interest.

    Together they invite questions to unpack this coming year. When is community mindedness lacking in love? When is love naive to the workings of necessary power to compel needed change? What am I performing to give the appearance of belonging? Does that inauthenticity serve my community? Overall, can I breathe in more space and perspective, and dedicate my deep conflicting animal drives toward the higher ideals I admire?

    If you walk the path of love, beauty, and art, the next few days offer important seeds of your work to come.

  • Unfortunately, you must be patient and stay in the tension.

    Unfortunately, you must be patient and stay in the tension.

    Of course you don’t have to do anything and you’re free to disregard this. And this is a time when everything feels off, and thinking you’ll be ten minutes late ends up being thirty.

    Wisdom continues to say to listen to the multiplicity and sift for truth. If you want to judge and dismiss others’ perspectives, you are free to do so, but those perspectives may still affect your life in important ways. Other people exist and their feelings and actions matter. We can only boundary ourselves but there is a portion of life that happens regardless of your consent. Whether you allow yourself to be informed about such things or shut them out is up to you. But it feels like patience is what leads to wisdom.

  • Carve out moments of depth.

    Carve out moments of depth.

    Today’s contemplation had me confronting that life rarely affords moments of quiet contemplation for deep thinking, especially if you want a life with family, friends, career. Some call this a world of distractions and there’s truth to that, but some of these things aren’t “distractions.” They’re life. Your partner wants to connect with you or update you on important information. Your kids need something. Your coworkers are messaging to ask for help.

    And a mind constantly being pulled in so many directions loses its center, depth, and calm to meet life with presence. Sometimes we do need to protect our time, if only a few moments, to check inside on what we think or believe so we’re not just reacting.

    As I started this I remembered this wisdom from the Hagakure: “When your mind is going hither and thither, discrimination will never be brought to a conclusion. With an intense, fresh and undelaying spirit, one will make his judgments within the space of seven breaths. It is a matter of being determined and having the spirit to break right through to the other side.”

    Seven deep and slow breaths seems too little for immense decisions but it’s actually quite a lot of time. It’s enough breath to still the body and soothe the mind so our deeper wisdom can emerge. It’s also not so much time that everyone around us loses patience. It’s easier to ask for. “I need a moment to think and I’m going to take seven breaths.”