By Amanda Moreno

We have once again entered what I fondly refer to as Pisces Dream Season. Usually, about a week before the Sun shifts into the sign of dreams and the abyss, my dreams kick it up a notch, becoming more vivid and intricate. I also tend to remember them more. This is not to say it’s the only time of year when dream activity increases, but it is the most predictable. So, let’s talk about dreams.

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

My background is in depth psychology, which at this point predominantly refers to forms of psychology that orient themselves around the ways the unconscious speaks to us, including the study of dreams.

In the depth psychological approach, we’re looking to understand the ways the unconscious speaks to us so that we can learn about the parts of ourselves that are hidden from view. We can learn how to heal the soul, that ambiguous and mysterious connector between the world of the mind and the realities of the body that gives heart and meaning to experience.

I find this approach to be significant for many reasons. Among them, depth psychology is a genuine science of the soul. The word ‘psychology’ actually means “logos (knowledge or account of) the soul.” Unfortunately, much of our psychologies have been stripped of soul and dried up into a science of the brain. I believe that as we transition worldviews during this time of monumental change, we are also being tasked with healing the soul — and how do we heal the soul in a world seen as soulless, one that refuses in so many ways to acknowledge the mystery of human experience as well as our innate thirst for meaning and connection?

Depth psychology and astrology go hand in hand, really. They both speak the language of the soul, using archetypes as the basic structure. Depth psychology needs astrology to give it cosmological context, and astrology can access depth psychology to stay relevant and personal, and to avoid being strictly a mental exercise.

One of those methods of personalization is dream work, be that by observing and potentially acting on correlations between astrological transits and shifts in dream activity, or seeking to understand the ways the archetypes come alive through each of us in the images our psyches — our souls — offer in the dream time. Heck, a few times in life I’ve been fumbling through the dream time only to have my psyche throw up a big ol’ astrological chart as if to say, “Here! Can I make it more clear for you?!” Unfortunately, much of the time my response is “Well, that doesn’t make it that much clearer — now I have to decipher the chart!” Ah, the longing for absolute, direct and concise communication that the psyche rarely provides.

There are some fairly easy, although at times time-intensive, things you can do to get more out of your own dreams. I do not recommend cookbook definitions of dream images, although sometimes they can be a good place to look if you get stuck or are curious. The reason is that each dream image is intensely personal. It is a robust attempt by your unconscious mind to deliver a whole universe of information.

This is why I refer to it as dream tending or dream work rather than interpretation. The psyche is multi-dimensional and dreams are alive! Water in my dream last night might have been clear, blue, calm and viewed from a precipice off of which I was about to jump. For you, it might have been rolling waves on a moonlit night viewed just as they were covering up your head. The images and intent of the element are quite different in each.

So, what are some ideas for making the most of Pisces Dream Season? Here are a few, although I highly recommend Stephen Aizenstat’s book, Robert Moss, or Robert Johnson’s Inner Work, which can be found at your local bookseller or online.

First, having a dream journal by your bed is the most important step. It should be at minimum a journal that is dedicated solely to recording dreams, set with a pen used only for that purpose as well. If you’re into it, have fun with it! Spend an evening decorating the outside of the journal with images you’re drawn to. This lets your unconscious know you’re ready and paying attention. It’s definitely best to write the dreams down as soon as you wake up, even if it’s in the middle of the night, as they tend to be quite slippery. Some people find a voice recorder more useful.

When you write the dream down, write it in present time as an invitation for the dream to come alive again, and refrain from adding in extra details or thoughts about what has happened. After doing this, you can reflect on emotional states upon waking or tangential thoughts.

As you keep a dream journal, over time you will notice repetition of images, recurring themes, and just generally get a feel for the way your psyche communicates, opening the door for more fluid understanding.

Free association can be a really easy tool for connecting the dots. Take an image from your dream, write it down and circle it, and then free associate out to other images or ideas. Always go back to the original image after each association. When you have 10-12, see which two or three (or just one!) have the most zing, and then free associate from them outward. See what memories, thoughts and realizations arise. It can also be helpful to then amplify the dream some way, perhaps through diving into myths that seem to connect or old photo albums from the time of the associated memories.

Interacting with dream images from a waking state can be a really insightful tool. In a quiet space, bring your attention to your breathing and then bring the dream back to life from start to finish. Imagine re-running it. Notice the landscape, textures, images and emotions.

After you have re-animated a dream, you can do several things. Perhaps you’d like to talk to a specific character or image. Perhaps you’d like to re-run it with a different ending. Perhaps you’d like to see where it goes after its official ‘stopping’ point. The imaginal realms are quite endless!

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Finally, it can be really helpful and meaningful to bring the dream into waking life by honoring it through artistic expression or meaningful acts of service.

This can mean drawing, painting or otherwise creating an image and then keeping it somewhere with your other dream creations. It could mean purchasing a tiny fetish of a dream-time animal. It could mean making a commitment to walking around the block thinking about the dream once a day for a week.

I myself have been incredibly lax with my dream work over the past few years, but can say that diving into them is richly rewarding — and totally fascinating — work. My psyche has been speaking up in some very loud ways through the dream time lately, even giving me a few rarely acquired but much appreciated phrases to work with.

There are so many ways to work with dreams, and there is something magical about unraveling the mystery of their language. I’ve found a lot of usefulness in simply telling my dreams (in present tense) to a willing listener who will then project onto my dream by saying “If it were my dream…”

So, Happy Dreaming Season! Please feel free to share resources, ideas, questions or dreams themselves in this space if you so desire.

So, we’ve entered the shadow phase of the Mars retrograde that kicks off in mid-April. For some reason this Mars retrograde really has my attention. This is at least partially because I haven’t been tracking transits as an astrologer for an incredibly long time, so every time I get to consciously navigate a transit I get pretty excited for the layers of experiential learning in store (so superior to learning from books!).

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

I recently sat down to read the written portion of Eric’s Vision Quest reading for Leo (my rising sign), and upon reading the first line, “Your charts this year vibrate with one theme: vulnerability,” I let out a dramatic whine and began to pout and whimper. No more vulnerability!

My initial response was to run away screaming in a bit of melodrama that I find so entertaining. Especially when I’m alone. Later on, I decided to ask another Leo friend about what vulnerability means to her.

She said the first thing that came to her mind was “exposure.” When I asked whether that was a good or a bad thing, we launched into a discussion about how it is something that feels desirable, but when it goes awry — when it is accompanied by betrayal or loss, for example — it can be hard to imagine ever going to that place again. Because vulnerability in this context often involves exposure of our softest parts to another person, the things that happen in those deep places have a bigger ripple into the rest of our lives. The choice to be vulnerable can represent a softening process, an opening up of the emotional body, and there can be insecurity there.

Many years ago I rushed heart-first into a journey to uncover my emotional body. I got what I wished for via Saturn’s transit through Scorpio and my natal Moon. The result was one of the most profound healing journeys I’ve been on. I also did in fact uncover my emotional body, and it was writhing and raw at the surface for a good long while. I had to figure out what to do with it. Now it seems to have integrated quite a bit. I’ve also had a break from intimate, committed relationships, so I’m feeling much, much better.

In many ways, I am quite good at vulnerability. I share lots of stuff here; I’m a pretty open book when it comes to many facets of my life as shared with friends; I often find myself sharing stories in the workshops I lead; and I know that that sharing and opening up is an important part of my path. So what’s the hang-up about vulnerability?

Last summer I was dating a gentleman who told me about something that he really enjoyed. We were in his car, holding hands while he was driving. As he went to shift gears, breaking our handhold, I just let my fingers trail down his arm, and then we went back to holding hands. He told me that something he really loved, and needed, was that level of really simple contact that came back even after he had to break away for a moment.

He then told me that it felt really vulnerable to share that with me — that asking for what he wanted or needed was something he wasn’t comfortable with. I had never thought of vulnerability that way. I recognized that sharing could be a vulnerable thing, but I’d never connected that asking for what I need could be. And yet…I’ve since realized that the act — the art, really — of sharing my needs and wants is something that can shake me to my core in an intimate relationship.

Over the past nine months or so I’ve taken a break from emotional intimacy. I needed to find my center again after so much change. I’ve felt the option for depth and emotional intimacy entering my field lately, though; and although I am aware that I want to cultivate those kinds of bonds, I am also aware of the fear that ripples through the desire, and through the mandate that I embrace the opportunity when worthy partners appear.

It dawned on me shortly after pondering the vulnerability thing that another reason I’m likely so drawn to this Mars retrograde period is that during the cycle, Mars will be re-visiting the same territory as Saturn’s retrograde through Scorpio last summer. There we go. Those last degrees of Scorpio are somewhat of a karmic hot spot for me personally, so — yippee! I get to revisit whatever unresolved morsels of goodness arise from that oh-so-fun period, and take the initiative to heal it.

The written readings for all 12 signs of Vision Quest are available for instant access, and so are the audio astrology and rune readings! Order all 12 signs here, or select individual signs here.

That last Saturn retrograde was also, however, a transit that coincided with Venus’ retrograde through Leo. Translation: many astrologers were touting it as an opportunity to really dig deep and get clear about themes of self-worth and value, particularly in the areas of sexuality, sex, emotional self-reliance and our individual expression of these themes. The personal is the collective, and our collective certainly has a lot of fucked up views about sex and sexuality — we’ve had some really powerful opportunities to heal.

I decided long ago that my highest priority in life is authenticity — striving to be true to the core of who I am, over and above relationships and anything else. That doesn’t mean I’ve forsaken relationship, but it does mean I prioritize those in which that focus of self-discovery is enhanced and enriched, and in which I can be the most myself, whatever that means. I suppose vulnerability is a pretty major part of authenticity. And perhaps the title of Eric’s Leo reading is applicable here: In Search of Surrender. Leaning into vulnerability. Letting go.

This upcoming Mars retrograde period invites us to connect our emotional bodies with our ego’s desires. Or you could say it has to do with taking care of, nurturing, or shepherding what needs to be defended or given a voice. I think that speaks to the importance of being in touch with our own vulnerability in order to take more effective action in the world, or to determine our most appropriate contributions, large and small. What that looks like for every individual will, of course, be different.

I write that and realize I’m applying to everyone something I took out of a personal astrological reading. Seems pretty typically Leo. Alas, there are some things that just seem to ring true as gems of insight for living an authentic life in general. And so I’ll leave it be and trust that you all continue to take from these pages what has heart and meaning for you.

By Amanda Moreno

Welcome to the year of the fire monkey. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Sounds like a lot of fun if you ask me, just going on the images that come to mind. Fun, jovial, free, swinging through trees, forward flips and back flips and excitement, hootin’ and hollerin’… what a spectacle! How dizzying! Maybe that fire monkey is going to need some reining in.

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

The New Moon that saw the birth of the new year for so many Eastern cultures throughout the world felt auspicious to me. Now, I’m extraordinarily biased, seeing as it took place directly conjunct the Sun and descendant in my natal chart. In fact, most of the planets in the New Moon chart significantly aspect most things in my natal chart.

After weeks of trying to put together a vision board for the year, and being stumped because I want to accomplish way more than I can distill into a small square of images, I took a look at the way this New Moon lit up my chart, and decided the vision board should just focus on ways I can keep my center as I apparently step into a year of weaving dharma.

More objectively speaking, several friends and clients have noted a loosening, a brightening, a return to self that seems to have happened over the past week or so.

Maybe it’s the energy of Imbolc, the cross-quarter day that signals the immanent return of spring and the need to finish off the winter stores and clean out the nooks and crannies, in preparation for the first planting just around the corner. Maybe it’s just a local thing — we had a few days of warm-ish, sunny weather here in Seattle. Regardless, some themes have come to mind.

There’s something about the Sabian symbol for the degree of the New Moon at 20 degrees Aquarius that provides a basic framework for discussing these themes:

Symbol: A Large White Dove Bearing A Message

Keynote: The answer of spiritual agencies to thorough, sustained and victorious individual efforts. … The individual who has gone courageously and with indomitable spirit through his crucial crisis receives, as it were, a deep spiritual blessing from the Soul-realm: “Mission accomplished. Peace be with you.” And in this blessing a secret prophecy of what is yet to come may be seen by the perspicacious and spiritually sensitive mind of the recipient. Every real spiritual step a man takes in his development is the result of a victory over forces of inertia or destruction. The Divine is totally “present” in the heart of all true victories.

That symbol speaks very loudly to what I’ve been feeling, which is something akin to going through a long dark night of the soul, emerging, and then having some space and finally regaining a sense of buoyancy that doesn’t get shattered with the slightest tap. The spark has returned — the monkey is ready to swing through the trees again.

The symbol also speaks to the importance of staying in touch with cycles and phases. There is something inherently helpful about knowing that it’s all a process. We can slog through difficulty knowing it won’t always be that way. We embrace the joyful times knowing that it won’t always be that way, stocking up on sunshine and gratitude to be held like a beacon of hope when the darkness descends again.

That’s not to say that there aren’t some of us who, for whatever reason, go through years and years of painful transformation. I recognize there comes a point where mind, soul and body are exhausted and memory of the spark goes out, and we just don’t care anymore that it is a process.

It is said that the Jungian approach to psychology has a teleological orientation. Rather than delving into the past to find the root cause of a symptom or pathology or pattern, Jung’s psychology was concerned with the present, as it produces future development. That is, inherent in this is the notion that all processes are working towards a specific goal or outcome.

In the case of psychology this can be seen as a symptom that develops not because of our history, but to express unconscious processes or purposes. So we can say: what is this symptom doing or what is it for? Translating that into astrolo-gese, we can ask what a given transit or aspect is evoking or asking, and what is the long-term goal of that. Jung argued that a psychological complex or habit was not only serving to regulate the function of the psyche, but was re-organizing the future.

The written readings for all 12 signs of Vision Quest are available for instant access, and so are the audio astrology and rune readings! Order all 12 signs here, or select individual signs here.

A teleological orientation, then, embraces a view of the soul in which there is some central orienting principle (Jung called it the Self) that contains an image of wholeness, and that is ultimately striving towards that wholeness and the transformations that progression requires. I suppose, then, that this orientation invites us to view the images of the soul — its memories, emotions, body reactions — as “a secret prophecy of what is yet to come.”

I wonder what the message of the Aquarian New Moon is. For me, it seems to fall somewhere in between the image of a white dove and a monkey swinging through the trees. I have a sense of calm euphoria and grounded idealism. I’ve been celebrating and feeling that monkey energy swing through, noticing how much I adore the sense of freedom while having a suspicion that it could flail out of control and into debaucherous over-indulgence.

Astrologer Austin Coppock makes a prescient point in his latest astrological writing:

Monkey is both heroic and selfish, and in many ways encapsulates human nature more accurately than his many human companions. Indeed, we are all the rascally Monkey Kings (and Queens) of our lives. He is constantly tempted by food, power and a general inclination toward naughtiness, but is eventually redeemed by a lengthy Buddhist pilgrimage. It is only through subduing his powerful but often destructive nature to the Dharma that he comes to find his rightful place.

That last line in particular seems key. What is it we are going through in any given moment? In what ways are our psychological complexes or life events or transits trying to show us our current framework, unconscious impulses or patterns in order to propel us on the path to wholeness? What is being destroyed so that something new can be born? How can we integrate the Aquarius-Leo axis in terms of prioritizing authenticity and creative self-actualization, while still remembering to step out of the subjective and consider the collective?

Where we are going, or whatever the end goal might be is, of course, a mystery. But there are times when I feel a striking sense of knowing that being able to consciously participate in that mystery is a gift I get to unwrap over and over again. Keeping the magic of that knowing alive is a flame worth tending.

By Amanda Moreno

A week or two ago I attended an afternoon workshop with the Queer Astrology Roadshow — a traveling show of astrological fun that “aims to intervene on western cultural soul-sickness, and foreground the potentials of queers and astrologers to thrive as healers.”

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

I attended for many reasons, the most applicable of which are that while I know “queer” to be a fairly undefinable term, these queer astrologer folks are using embodied practices and trying to re-create and re-imagine myths of gender, sexuality and relationship. I whole-heartedly support this way of integrating and making heady concepts real.

I came across a concrete description of queer astrology in the compiled transcripts from the first Queer Astrology Conference. In summary: “Queer indicates broadly anyone who does not conform to traditional patterns and norms.”

More lengthily, astrologer Rhea Wolf describes ‘queer’ as, “anyone committed to knowing who they are in all their parts without relying on stereotypical, pre-assigned, or socially acceptable notions of gender, sexuality, relationships, time, and space. To be queer is to be open to the moment… to be queer is to focus on the process of creating a life rather than on producing labels, constructing ideologies or manufacturing stability.”

Oh, god. That quote is so good. I have to read it again.

When I come across individuals who recognize the urgent importance of shrugging off labels, living presently and supporting others who are attempting to do the same, my heart flutters. I feel empowered and energized. When I come together with people in spaces where conversations about these concepts are going on alongside embodied practices, I enter a space of active hope — in those moments I know that the world can and is changing for the better and that I am not alone in striving to create that world.

Before I get on a soapbox about the fundamental need we have to break down stereotypes within the astrological community, specifically in terms of gender, sexuality and relationship — trust me, I’ll be coming back to that one in the coming weeks — let me focus on why I believe that focusing on embodied practices within the astrological community is so important.

The summary is: we learn best through experience, and the trauma of the patriarchy combined with the modern paradigm’s over-emphasis on mind have taken us out of our bodies.

More lengthily stated: Our bodies have suffered immensely through the Judeo-Christian paradigm. If we contextualize this in terms of the Age of Pisces and the Virgo-Pisces axis, we see the themes of sado-masochism (self-flagellation both literal and metaphoric), self-sacrifice (to be a good mom I have to sacrifice all of my needs; it’s romantic when we give up everything for each other), and the inherent dirtiness and sinfulness of the flesh.

We can also just take a look at historical trends towards genocide, mass violence, the crusades, the holocaust, and all the other atrocities committed in the name of ‘God.’ These are complex, intersecting themes that play out not only in the way we regard our bodies, but in our mistreatment of and neglect of the physical planet we reside in.

When we view this through a reincarnational lens, these traumas travel with us through lifetimes, lodging in our energy bodies, in our institutions, in our hearts and minds. Regardless of our experiences with violence in this life, we have all been marked by the violence of our system.

About a year ago, when I was in the thick of my own Saturn-in-Scorpio underworld journey, I came face to face with a part of myself I had no idea existed. My energy healer dude was leading me through some kind of letting go, and asked me to lean into mother Earth, into Gaia, telling me to let her help me shoulder the burden, asking me to feel the safety of being in her arms.

My whole body recoiled. There it was: despite my outer persona’s general enthusiasm of dancing upon this Earth, some deep part of me was absolutely terrified of being here. This part knew there was no safety here; even if the land-loving people were peaceful and free, the Earth can shake and move and purge at any time, stealing happiness and leaving grief and doubt. This part of me knew that to think there is safety here is a ruse, and it clenched at my lower spine, my solar plexus and my heart with a stubborn fierceness that brought a somber awareness of just how resistant I am to being here, in this physical body.

It makes sense, of course. I think about my own work in past-life regressions and the number of times my soul has experienced torture, painful and lonely death, and Earth cataclysm — many of which have been in the context of serving as part of one spiritual lineage or another. My soul has experienced the ecstasy of pure faith and belief in god/goddess followed by absolute betrayal of that faith over and over again.

I offer that as a way to connect the dots: we have experienced those kinds of betrayals over and over again under the reign of Christianity — and under the reign of the patriarchy in general. That many words just to say: our bodies don’t necessarily feel safe. There can be a lot of suffering here. We have been categorized, labeled, chained, accused and other-ized into submission time and time again. Add to that our participation in this drama as victim, hero and perpetrator, and the complexity intensifies.

But alas, I do believe we are here to fully inhabit and make use of these flesh suits — these vessels of joy and wonder — and so any time I come across tools that speak to that I pay attention, especially when they involve astrology or depth psychology.

Yesterday I was having another session with aforementioned energy healer dude. I was describing some back spasms I’ve been having as well as my reaction, which has been to freeze and try to stretch it out. His suggestion was that I try leaning into it. Instead of stretching or moving away from the pain, what if I just leaned into it. Just to see what happened, whether it was a release of the muscle, a memory, or an emotion.

The written readings for all 12 signs of Vision Quest are available for instant access, and so are the audio astrology and rune readings! Order all 12 signs here, or select individual signs here.

The next time it seized up, I leaned in. The release was immediate. Seems a fitting metaphor for something — what if we try leaning into our bodies, our experiences and our lives, whether they fit the mold or not?

So, what does ‘queering’ astrology look like? Well, the options are endless, really. In many of the workshops I teach it has to do with spending time at the beginning in some kind of embodiment exercise, be it walking meditation while focusing on a color or element, or just breathing. We sniff essential oils that are reflective of the theme — maybe some black pepper, orange and clove for the optimism of Sagittarius, or some sandalwood and rose for the grounded sensuality of Taurus and Venus.

We talk about relationships in all kinds of forms, rather than just as a hetero-normative binary of “man finds woman; they get lost in each other’s eyes and are bound together forever.” I mean, trust me, I’ve come across those kinds of forever bonds and vows in past lives as well, and they’re not always the best thing.

We also celebrate ourselves as sparks of the divine flowing into and out of manifestation, coming together in community to face the complexities of our current era. Perhaps that’s part of the key to transitioning out of the Age of Pisces and into the Age of Aquarius. There is a way to ease up on the self-sacrifice that honors both the individual and the collective. There is a way to see beyond labels. And there is a way, I hope, of being gentle with ourselves when and if we decide to fully commit to being here, on the Earth, in these weird flesh suits we call the body.

By Amanda Moreno

That might have been my favorite Mercury retrograde period ever. Not that I tend to track them too closely. Aside from a basic knowledge that watery Mercury retrogrades mess with me more than others, I tend to stick with an awareness that they’re happening so I can make decisions and evaluations accordingly, and reflect as the need arises.

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

During this retrograde period, which spanned my 6th house of health and service, I have been startlingly productive. One of the things I have done was to recommit to weekly, if not daily, time spent learning astrology — be it via podcast, in-person lectures and workshops, reading, researching or teaching.

In the past three weeks I have done plenty of all of these. This means I have approximately 17,000 different interesting things to discuss here. So maybe someday soon I’ll get to that item on my checklist that says “Create a stockpile of articles for Planet Waves.”

In order to clear my head today before sitting down to write, I decided to take a walk around my favorite park. As I was walking, I felt a tightness in my chest, and a memory stirred. I remembered being 14 or 15 in Physical Education (PE) class at school. We were being told/forced to run “stadiums,” which meant we had to run up and down the steps in the aisles of the stadium, run around the track, and then do it again.

I was never a fit kid. I was always overweight. Running up and down huge steps in the Arizona sun was pretty much a fate worse than death for me. Or at least it felt like death. I remember feeling like I couldn’t breathe, like I was swallowing blood, like I couldn’t make my legs lift any more. There were always time limits on these things, and I never met those ‘goals.’

This memory linked to others. It wasn’t the only time I had the taste of blood in my mouth alongside an inability to breathe. There were relay races and ‘track and field days’, where we ‘got’ to do sprints and timed mile races and long jumps. I know that I hated it all, but when I think back on these memories I’m startled at how quiet I was. How much I held it all in — whatever I was feeling, which I’m sure was a blend of humiliation, dread and pain.

A few weeks ago a similar memory stirred: PE class again, but this time it was in second grade during the gymnastics part of our curriculum. We were supposed to do cartwheels down the gymnastic mats. I’d never done one before and on my first try I fell.

The girls in back of me laughed and pointed. My mom later learned what had happened and called to talk to my teacher about it. I remember that teacher, who taught me throughout elementary school and into middle school, perhaps making a blanket statement to the class about how we shouldn’t laugh at people. But now that I think back on it, I also remember that despite her ‘niceness’, that teacher always had an air of ‘this poor girl’ when she interacted with me. I began coming up with reasons to ask my mom to write me a note excusing me from the class. Later on, I forged my mom’s signature on notes I wrote myself.

As this part of me came up, I was flooded with compassion and love alongside a hearty dose of tenderness directed towards that part of me who was so quiet and shy, and whose body was not capable of running a mile in seven minutes — or in twelve, for that matter. I was always incredibly healthy. I was never fit, and no one ever spoke to the ways in which physical education might be different based on my own interests and health needs.

The written readings for all 12 signs of Vision Quest are available for instant access, and Eric is working on the audio astrology and rune readings! Order all 12 signs here, or select individual signs here.

Sometimes I’m in awe of the ways I held it all in from a young age, stoically acting like none of it bothered me. I found myself in present day envisioning a big hug to my younger self, assuring her those days are over and that she doesn’t have to go through it again.

I was also flooded with relief that even though the notion of getting physical activity was so strongly tainted by these early interactions, in my adult life I’ve developed what I would consider to be a healthy relationship with physical activity — on my terms. More importantly, perhaps, my body image is pretty damned positive. I love the exercise that I choose — long walks in the woods, urban hiking, dance parties in my underwear in the morning, walking on the treadmill in my basement when it’s too rainy, sex…

My own research and many of the 2016 readings I’ve read or listened to this year seem to point to an overarching and recurring theme of physical health and the way we take care of and love this physical vessel we’re in. Our social conditioning in terms of health and wellness is so many different layers of fucked, as is many people’s ability to obtain healthy food — let alone find time for movement or exercise. With all three (actually, four!) Mercury retrogrades this year taking place at least primarily in the earth signs, perhaps we’d be ahead of the game to re-evaluate our relationships with our bodies and our health — our physical education, if you will.

It’s not that it’s rare to have three Mercury retrogrades in earth signs. This is something that happens fairly regularly. In the context of the Saturn-Neptune square, however, with its focus on bringing the dream into physical manifestation, it seems like a helpful and timely little nudge from the universe to give our physical vessels some extra love and attention, doesn’t it?

By Amanda Moreno

In the past few weeks I have somehow been more productive than at any other time in my history. Ok, that’s probably not entirely true, but my ability to focus and complete concrete tasks has been surreal. Concrete tasks and surreality? Is that the Saturn-Neptune square I hear?

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

Bringing the vision into reality seems to be the order of the day — or of the year, during the course of the transit — and it’s something I’ve taken to heart. The weird part is that the vision feels somewhat nebulous and floaty. I can’t quite pin anything down, but I’m working towards it anyway.

Many of my clients are reporting feeling discombobulated or needing time to integrate whatever the heck happened in 2015 and before. At the same time, they’re feeling like they need to take action immediately. In general, I’ve been advising a little bit of practical planning while the integration period continues through the first two thirds of the year, allowing the new dream to take shape and then acting on it when the astrological forecast turns to more initiating cardinal energy around September. Now is a good time to dream and begin to do little tests, placing stepping-stones that will lead to the dream.

But what are we working for? The Neptune-Saturn square seems to demand that we not tune out from worldly issues, but instead engage our compassion, our presence and our abilities to imagine and then implement ways of healing the world. No pressure.

I’ve been thinking lately about our lack of role models. These thoughts run alongside my regular thoughts about our lack of a coherent mythology. Last week I came across a copy of National Geographic with an image of the Virgin Mary on the cover. Talk about an image of compassion and presence — idol and role model for millions. The headline dubs her “The Most Powerful Woman in the World.” I was curious as to whether that finally meant her darker aspects would be brought out in a mainstream forum — the acknowledgement of the Black Madonna and her reunion with the lighter form at last!

Short version: No, that didn’t happen. Not at all. Except for one caption for an image that depicted a group who worships the Black Madonna.

Longer version: I read the article twice because I knew that my initial read-through was colored by my disdain for the ways the qualities of chastity, purity and selflessness are held as the epitome of the valued, ideal woman, and how much my sadness at what that has come to mean oozes through my pores sometimes. I start to think about the ways those values have been entrenched and have led to such painful and deep repression of the feminine — and of humans — and I get a bit resentful.

Let me digress a bit here to divulge something I don’t really ever talk about, which is that I love the Virgin Mary and have an ongoing relationship with her. She has probably been the most powerful figure I have worked with because of the fact that her healing is so palpable and instantaneous. I have complicated relationships with my guides and the various goddess-types I’ve worked with. My relationship with Mary, however, has always been straightforward: I can feel her presence, I trust her insight; and when it comes down to it, I have asked for her help with physical healing, and the relief has been immediate. I feel a strong connection to that lineage, and she has been the most accessible and reliable figure to have entered my journeying and imaginal work.

The ways that the myth of the goddess got whitewashed and stripped of its complexity in the Judeo-Christian mythologies frustrates the hell out of me, however. One point of view is that the goddess was essentially split into the ‘lighter’ aspects as seen in Mary-as-Virgin, and the ‘darker’ aspects, which went to Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene carried the archetype of the sacred prostitute — and for the most part, despite the fact that the Vatican repealed her designation as prostitute years ago, that version of Mary has remained underground. The history of that split is more complex and started well before Christianity, but the Christian myth does a pretty good job of exemplifying it.

Mary Magdalene is there in my imaginal world as well (keeping in mind that, for me, ‘imaginal’ does not mean ‘unreal’ or ‘less real,’ but instead refers to a world where I am tapped into the images my psyche and unconscious are providing, in order to enhance my understanding). Sometimes Mary Magdalene is there as herself, whatever that means; but more often I sense her in the figures of Isis and Aphrodite, who I work with more often.

I’ll end that digression here. So back we go — to my second reading of the National Geographic article. Before reading, I set the intention to sink down into the deepest, truest parts of my being. I suppose this aligns with what others might refer to as linking up with their higher self. I also suppose this linking up was with the part of me who feels ‘whole unto myself’ — a description of Mary cited in the article.

I was struck by the power of the story, as the article focused mainly on the many sightings of Mary over the years, and the power of talismans and icons associated with her. I was in touch with the vastness of her influence and the energy that resonated throughout the article — an acute sense of being whole, centered, and somewhat detached from the world and therefore able to hold a space for love more effectively. It seems an inhuman thing, really — that level of detachment — at least in my experience so far.

Still, though, my concerns and doubts were there. The archetypes embodied and represented by Mary and Jesus, love them as I do (yes, I work with Jesus, too, and believe me it was a shocking day when he showed up as a guide…but, oh the feeling of blissful reunion!), have set the stage for the age of Pisces quite nicely.

We’re nearing the end of that age, however, and as we transition out, the shadows of the Virgo-Pisces dynamic are kickin’. Our call to heal the wounds of the Pisces paradigm seems to have begun to echo with Neptune’s entry to Pisces, and is now being amped with the nodal axis, as well as Saturn joining the fray. Time to release those shadow-Pisces patterns.

The Virgin Mary is a figure who is ‘whole unto herself.’ What a threat, really, in a world in which we’ve been conditioned to be utterly reliant on external validation. In that way, I can see how she is related to the other female goddesses. In a world where “You’re nobody til somebody loves you,” however, that wholeness needs to be tightly controlled. In this case, it is made into a supernatural quality, therefore placing it just out of a mere human’s grasp.

There are other distortions as well. We grapple with the paradox of being totally reliant on externalized value at the same time as many are told also to be whole unto ourselves — in this sense, meaning self-contained in a way that equates asking for help or showing emotion as weak. I think of the image of a woman in high society, who has to look put-together, perfect, untouched by life’s little surprises and sorrows. There is a coldness there that is resonant with the icy depths of the Neptunian ocean. I think of the pressure single moms face, a clear distortion of Virgo — look good, hold it all together, and feel guilty if you can’t.

What is the place of a woman who is ‘whole unto herself’ in the process of salvation — the end goal of all the world’s major religions — really? Religions that have set up the church as the mediator between human and heaven, between suffering and bliss. Well, as it stands currently, that woman is Mary — the epitome of selflessness whom we should all strive for. She is yet another figure from whom we can seek redemption and therefore be saved.

But perhaps instead we can internalize that myth. Becoming that wholeness, we can find the part of us that resonates with the power of being complete, whole, perfect and pure with all of our flaws and imperfections, in bodies that are temples of life and magic rather than sin and filth.

Someone in the National Geographic article is quoted as saying that so little is known about Mary from scripture, we can project whatever cultural values we have onto her. We currently project that of ‘the ideal woman’, which to us apparently means someone who is pious, clean, quiet, probably quite passive, and entirely selfless. Perhaps that was what was needed for a time, and there is still a place for it now.

My idea of the ideal feminine, however, espouses the values of strength born through courage — harnessing the power of the volcano, the earthquake, or gentle rain; questioning, wandering and finding home again. Finding that centeredness in times of chaos and understanding that life can be hard, emotions can be ugly, and that those truths must be experienced, embodied and learned from. My ideal also illuminates the ways in which each expression of the feminine is unique and fluid.

The written readings for all 12 signs of Vision Quest are available for instant access, and Eric is working on the audio astrology and rune readings! Order all 12 signs here, or select individual signs here.

In any case, I wonder what the face of Mary — our interpretation of her archetypal place as divine mother or sacred whore or both — will look like in the Age of Aquarius. Surely there will still be some component of ‘champion for all’, or perhaps we’ll just leave that to the Bodhisattvas. Better yet, maybe we’ll recognize the connection between them.

But perhaps the self-sacrificial components will relax. Perhaps the Leo polarity will come in, helping us to say that there is a divine way to be selfish; a way to nurture ourselves into authentic expressions of the divine sparks we are, within communities that have their eye on sustainability, etc.

Perhaps we will continue to see a revitalization of the many different faces of the goddess, locating ourselves in more than one while we sculpt new ones. Perhaps our means of bringing the vision into reality will be sensitive to the ways humans distort concepts and ideals in our quest to make them tangible and real.

I am a fan of the notion that once an icon, idol, goddess or religion has lost its connection to the heart, it is time to move on. Clearly millions, myself included, are still whole-heartedly connected to the Virgin Mary, and I dare say those qualities of compassion and strength are helpful qualities to draw on. In that sense, perhaps we will look to role models — be they human or not, divine or ordinary — who know that sometimes a value or truth, a story or mythical figure, runs its course. At that point, it is up to us to see what new form it will take, remaining open to what might be revealed while we put down stepping-stones to get there in tangible and practical ways.

By Amanda Moreno

My normally quite introverted self has been surfing a wave of extroversion in the past two months, the likes of which I haven’t seen in years. I’ve been known to accuse extroverts of simply being avoidant — although the same could be said of introverts. In any case, I’ve felt a bit of avoidance, but I’ve also felt a lot of lust for life coming through.

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

Then I slowed down.

The other night my roommate was gone, and I had planned on having some people over for dinner. Instead, early in the day, I felt the call for silence. I was sitting in my office, working on a freelance-editing project I’m quite in love with.

And there it was — the need to just continue being in my own space, in the quiet, not interacting with anyone. I closed my eyes and was utterly aroused by the lack of sound, activity or anyone else’s presence in my home, and I wanted that lack of outside stimulation to continue. I even began a little Facebook and email fast. This alone time went through the night, and into the next morning and afternoon when it was interrupted by some obligations.

Here I am again today. I have more things planned out there in the world with people but I feel the exhaustion that comes with social burnout. I am sitting in my bedroom, waiting for some friends who live out of town to arrive, and it is crystal clear to me that my energy is burning its reserves and I should just stay in; but, alas…obligations. My therapist once informed me that I might have to get used to canceling plans when I’m experiencing a ‘deepening,’ and I’m usually quite all right with that. Sometimes it’s difficult, however.

And it is indeed a deepening. I’ve been learning so much; reading about Peter Novak’s “Division Theory” in his book The Division of Consciousness. On the one hand, the book rubs me the wrong way because it literalizes and concretizes things Jesus might have said. At this point I don’t even know that I believe that Jesus was a historical figure, although I do lean towards that interpretation. The book spends pages upon pages on the phrase “the son of God,” as opposed to “a son of God,” and it’s reminding me of how wary I’ve become of our culture’s tendency to try to make mythological language literal.

On the other hand, the writing is accessible and sophisticated and the synthesis is incredible. Novak’s theory speaks of a basic separation between soul (the feeling/irrational/heart aspects of ourselves) and spirit (mind/light/reason/intellect, rather than the ‘Divine Spirit’ sense of the word). His theory is that this separation is increased at death, suggesting the notion that we return to oneness when we die is untrue. This concept is one that truly rattled me when I first came across it. But the more time I spend midwifing people’s death processes in past-life regression work, the more sense it makes.

The book also speaks of the complications that occur when spirit and soul reunite, through the process of individuation, therapeutic work, or other processes. The spirit’s reunion with the repressed contents of the soul, which include multiple lifetimes, can be utterly uncomfortable, to put it mildly.

My psyche has been immersed in the archetype of imperialism lately as well, thanks to aforementioned editing project. I found it fascinating that although I was handed the project (which features MARS prominently in its title) in October during my Mars return, I didn’t take a look until this past week. The themes in my columns in the past few months are absolutely resonant with what I’ve read in this manuscript. I’ve also noticed an uptick in people acting with anger towards me since I began working on it, which is…not surprising, but also not that fun.

I’ve also been reading about inflammation and the body and food. I’m sure part of this exhaustion is due in part to holiday-style eating. Gotta get on rectifying that one.

***

I wrote the above about a week ago. I submit it to be posted because it was last minute and because my writing feels dense and negative right now, and I don’t really feel the need to share that. Now here it is New Years Eve, and although I did make it through this holiday season — and the whole month of December — without really getting scathed by the usual yuckiness that the holiday season provokes in me, I am going to be relieved when the season is over.

I feel as if any ability I have to look for the positive has been exhausted, my body feels restless and anxious, and I’m aware once again how easy it is to focus on what I do not have but want, and what I have wished for in the past and yet still do not have. This is not a tragedy, not something to be concerned about, nor a liability really — I’m happy to let phases pass, and am engaging the self-care thing, both of which are lessons of 2015 I’m very grateful for. Then I think about putting this writing out there for public consumption, and I dread the projection and interpretation.

I wish I had something more prolific or profound to say, but the fact of the matter is that I’ve also spent a bit of time reflecting on 2015, and my personal heartache and hardships of the year are making their psychic presence known. When I started the process of reflecting I was aware that even though I knew the first eight months of the year had been pretty awful, I felt a lot of distance from that. Perhaps dissociation from the shock of it, perhaps an instinct that I still need space before really dissecting just what it was that happened during that time.

I’ve since sunk into that a bit, however, and although I won’t dwell, I am aware that beginning in the fall of 2013 right up through August of this year I went through many of my deepest fears and am still without understanding of what I’m supposed to glean from all that. I have faith that understanding will come, but I can’t really think too much about this period because it still feels so unfinished, full of grief, and there is a hint of “yes, your fears can come true in all of those ways and more, and your conscious navigation doesn’t make any difference at all.”

When I shift my attention away from all of that, I’m reminded of two things. The first? Just how many people have come into my life in the past few years who have taught me the gift of presence. Why worry about the ‘thens’ or try to figure out the whys? Why not just be present here and now?

The second is that it is possible that some anxiety stems from the goals I have set out for myself this next year. In some ways, it feels like I am on the precipice, about to jump and hope I make it to the ledge I can see across the way. I’m reminded daily about the urgency of the world situation at the same time as I remember that we each have to progress in our own time — and that that’s OK, too.

How’s that for a long and winding post? I’ll leave it here for now, will seek further inspiration for next week, and extend my genuine well-wishes and heart hugs to all of you here in the Planet Waves community. Here’s to 2016, and to engaging whatever comes from a place of helpful and healing union between spirit and the soul, mind and heart.

We are so lucky.

I mean, sometimes it doesn’t feel like that at all. But really, we live in a time of immense prosperity and luxury and you and I were born into a part of the world where we get to partake in that. And I’m not even referring to the ease with which we can get things like caviar and champagne, or even just bacon grilled cheeses and whiskey, but rather those taken-for-granted delights like indoor plumbing, trash collection and grocery stores. Lord Saturn does us well with his infrastructure and social codes.

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

I live in a part of the country where this time of year is particularly pronounced in terms of its darkness. I came out of a 90-minute massage today (talk about luxury!) at 4:00 and it was about 15 minutes away from sunset, the nuances of which couldn’t really be seen due to heavy cloud cover and rain. Translation: it was already dark.

My massage therapist expressed her inability to deal, and from my very out-of-it haze, I exclaimed — “But Solstice is Monday! The light is coming back!”

The six months since the summer Solstice have flown, and time seems more compressed than ever. I found myself typing the date today, a mundane task if not for the fact that I began to type “199…” before realizing that was in fact the last century. Easy to correct, yet being two decades off is not an insignificant glitch — one that perhaps has been compounded by how often I’ve been proclaiming that I’ve become un-tethered in time. I can’t seem to get my footing, even though I’m absolutely participating in daily life with gusto and practicality.

Still, the details of the past six months at the personal level remind me why time might seem to be compressing: six weeks of cleansing; the ending of a few lover-ly relationships and the beginning of several more; my first foray into facilitating at a regression training, and a seemingly out-of-the-blue expansion of my astrology practice; the suicide of a family member and then the scattering of his ashes along with my brother’s, who was also lost to suicide; and the remarkable exit from Saturn in Scorpio… I won’t even add in the events of the first half of the year, which took me through the ringer in ways I never really thought possible.

There is a separation I’ve remarked upon a few times. I observe world events and, sometimes, even events in my personal life, and sense a weightiness to them. There seems to be an invitation to get bogged down, or perhaps an impulse. It reminds me of some Barbara Hand-Clow something-or-other that I read once, which insisted that the fourth dimension is made of beings and emotions that would trap us here, in the third dimension. I find concepts such as those to be as problematic as I do what I refer to as “Headline Buddhism” — without a closer look, one could insist that adherence to the ideas gives permission to bypass the emotional.

I’ve come to realize, however, that it’s the getting stuck in the emotional that is the problem. Getting stuck in the fear, the grief, the sorrow prohibits growth. I’ve noticed lately, and I know I’m not alone in this, that I often feel like we are being manipulated into staying in those realms.

Whether there are fourth dimensional beings at the helm, conducting the whole experiment, or just a response in the primitive parts of our brain that is being stimulated over and over again is not really relevant to me — but there is a truth in those ideas that speak to my heart. Opportunities to be manipulated into fear and constant survival-mode are abundant. Detachment can in fact be healthy, whereas ignorance rarely is.

I’ve remarked here before on the disturbing trend of absolutely, over-the-top gratuitous violence on prime-time television. Of course, that’s been the case on the cable networks for a while now. But seeing someone’s brains blown out at close range on ABC or Fox seems to be commonplace these days.

I tend to read a lot of young adult fantasy-fiction. In my recent foray, Leigh Bardugo’s The Grisha Trilogy, I was taken with just how dark the themes were. In the stories, there are creatures called Volcra who are made of darkness and who are described in such detail that every time I came across them in the books my imagination would begin to run free, imagining all of the dark and awful deeds these creatures would be capable of, only to have it all described in detail in the books.

This past weekend, I was reading a book called Armageddon’s Children, and realized my body and psyche were screaming at me to stop — the story hit too close to home and was entirely too plausible. I pushed through it for a bit, and then relented. Why immerse myself when my instincts are telling me to stop?

Imagination is such a powerful — and vital — thing. It is the fundamental key to our survival as a species. It allows us to dream big, to envision where we want to go and how to get there, and then we get to use our will to manifest that. It seems at this point that our imaginations, brought to the surface in such fantastical ways by Neptune’s current transit through Pisces, are being filled with the dark, the violent and the apocalyptic in its modern form.

What I mean by that last bit is that the apocalyptic cycle is inherently a positive thing in that it brings us into the darkness and then out in the light with an infusion of creative energy, so that we can take what we learned in the dark and move forward, applying those lessons for the betterment of our community. But we no longer have a cohesive, connective mythology that speaks to us as a tribe, showing us the way out of the dark. Add to that the Neptunian/Piscean shadow of escapism and our addictions to social media and electronic gadgets, and the trajectory seems pretty abysmal.

At the same time, I am aware of how much groundbreaking work is being done that actively uses and embraces the powers of imagination, key aspects of sustainable culture and the knowledge that we have to act now. Planet Waves is one. Joanna Macy, Center for Planetary Culture and the Thriving Cities Initiative also come to mind.

The light is coming back; it’s getting brighter all the time. I have no idea what the last two weeks of 2015 will hold. My un-tethered-in-time self can’t seem to plan much past today. I hope it holds celebrations, though. I hope those who want to can band together with loved ones in whatever way is meaningful. I hope we get to indulge some small bit of luxury as we grapple with what it means to be alive in such challenging times.

Happy, merry, blessed Solstice everyone! See you on the other side.