By Amanda Moreno

It’s been one of those weeks when clients are echoing very similar sentiments over and over again. One overarching theme that keeps appearing, regardless of how differently each session begins, is that of self-forgiveness.

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

It’s so easy to talk about the idea that forgiveness of ourselves is a primary step in moving forward in life.

We can receive the forgiveness of others over and over again (or extend it to them), but it is the forgiveness of self that allows us to move through guilt and shame, two of the most complex and seemingly impenetrable emotions.

But how is self-forgiveness accomplished? What the heck does it look like in action?

I often talk about going into our own suffering, about reaching out for those parts of ourselves that have done the wrong thing or that are stuck at a younger age, having internalized the criticisms and painful conditioning of parents or society. Maybe that takes place through imagining conversations or actions, or maybe it’s through psychodrama or letter writing or something else. Being with ourselves through our suffering, holding space, and loving the heck out of ourselves through the good and the bad seems to have a place here. It’s a journey of feeling, blessing and releasing the parts of ourselves we might rather ignore.

By going into our own suffering and loving ourselves through it we are able to experience the redemptive qualities of unconditional love that are best known by extending unconditional love to another. It seems in so many ways to be easier to create a container of unconditional love for our children or lovers — why is it so difficult to do the same for ourselves?

By aiming that love within, to the person we are the most intimate with, we develop compassion for ourselves that can then be extended out to others at even deeper and more universal levels.

As Saturn’s tour through Scorpio draws to a close, it seems that for many people the passage between the Plutonian underworld and our emotional bodies is having contractions at an increasing rate, urging us to participate in what is being birthed. We’re beginning to take responsibility for whatever it is still lurking in the shadows of our psyches.

Venus’ retrograde through Leo seems to be conspiring to ask: now that our emotional bodies have been restructured, what do we value? How are we creatively self-actualizing? What emotions have been or are being distorted? In what areas do we need to work on unconditional self-love — or forgiveness?

I decided to look up the Sabian Symbol for 29 Scorpio, where Saturn has been sitting for some time now. (The Sabian Symbols are a system images applied to each sign of the zodiac; Dane Rhudyar’s version is the most well known.) It reads:

Phase 240 (Scorpio 29): An Indian squaw pleading to the chief for the lives of her children.

Keynote: Love as a principle of redemption.

Here the soul is presented as a mother whose sons (i.e. her active energies) have become disruptive forces in the collective life of the tribe. She seeks to counteract the karma of their misdeeds through her love and implorations. The soul is responsive to the experience of unity (the spiritual king or chief) but the energies of human nature often follow their self-seeking, divisive tendencies.)

I thought that was a nice little bookend to several days spent with a focus on pondering the symbolism of the skies, charting Saturn’s slow movement through that degree where it stationed and is therefore spending an abnormally long time. Once again, a lovely synchronicity to see the endpoint of so many client hours embodied within a relevant Sabian Symbol.

So perhaps regardless of whether you are feeling challenged, exhausted, anxious, elated or maybe even just fine, you might find some time to send some loving-kindness energy towards the parts of you that have been disruptive forces within that inner tribe we call the psyche. Give yourself a break for a minute or five. It would appear as if the heavens have your back, and the constructive energy of Saturn is emphasizing the profoundly healing redemptive qualities of love.

By Amanda Moreno

The first week of Venus retrograde is just about done. I have noticed that the body seems to be front and center for many people in my life. At a class I taught about the retrograde period the other night, I encouraged participants to really tune in to the wisdom of their bodies this week.

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

Venus spending an unusually long time in the first degree of Virgo seems like an opportunity to prepare what I’m framing — in typical dramatic Leo fashion — as an underworld type of journey. My understanding of this retrograde phase is that Venus as goddess of love and war will be showing all of her faces.

Just about the time Venus went retrograde, I pretty much went all out with dietary changes and a big-time focus on self-care. It wasn’t planned to coincide with the transit. I’ve been experiencing gastrointestinal problems off and on since a bad bout of food poisoning last summer, and I finally just hit my breaking point.

I’m no stranger to elimination diets and whatnot. I’m one of those people who thrives on the challenge and finds it fascinating to spend a few weeks really tuning in to how my body is working, giving it a break from alcohol, sugar, grains and other common allergens. This time around, however, everything but non-starchy veggies, some organic meats, hazelnuts and seeds are all that’s on the menu. And you know… a week in I have to say it’s been shockingly easy. Thank you, Virgo.

It’s got me to thinking quite a bit about the inner side of Venus (the Taurean side) and body love. I have been blessed with an overweight body probably since the age of six, round about the time my dad died. I’ve also been blessed with the ability to love my body, regardless of what it looks like. When it comes to being naked in front of lovers, for example, I figure — hey, they chose to be here, why hide? Swimsuit season…eh, who cares? People might judge, they might not, but I wanna feel as much water on bare skin as possible.

Body love in our culture is something that is praised on the one hand, and then shunned on the other. Wouldn’t want to be too confident or arrogant, after all. I’ve often felt extremely uncomfortable in situations with female friends who are picking their bodies apart and shaming themselves together. It’s as if that act has become some kind of social bonding ritual.

That’s not to say I don’t believe there is a time and place for discussing or confessing our insecurities about our bodies, which is just as important as confessing our love for our bodies when and if it arises. I’ve just never known quite what to do while amongst friends, usually all of whom are a good 50-100 pounds lighter than me, who are lamenting their bulges. It can be awkward, sad and somewhat confusing and frustrating.

Recently, as I work with my own body holding patterns, I’ve been reviewing and releasing several patterns that crept up on me somewhat unexpectedly. The first is the way I have internalized quite literally the guidance I was given from a young age to “suck it in,” referring of course to my belly.

I had no idea what the actual size of my belly was until last fall when I had my first cranio-sacral massage session. Several hours later, I was standing in my bedroom, and felt all of my abdominal muscles relax — and there it was: a bulging belly. I was horrified and concerned that there was something wrong with me. Thus began an emphasized period of being unable to hold it all in.

As I move through a phase in my life where the predominant theme seems to be one of ‘letting go’, I’m fascinated by just how literally my body has been trained to hold it all in, with so much pressure surrounding those abdominal organs. As I learn to release and relax those muscles, while still paying attention to what posture feels strong to me, I’m also releasing the emotions stored in the “I have to hold it all in” complex and in those organs.

The personal revelations coming from such a pronounced focus on my stomach, the energetic interplay between my sacral, solar plexus and heart chakras, my emotional body and the foods I eat have all kind of come together this week. As this Venus in Virgo energy really seems to be demonstrating to me the inner side of Venus, associated with Venus in Taurus and themes of self-worth, self-esteem, values and resources, I have been brought to a new level of body love. I am cherishing taking care of my body right now. Even as I carry on with lots of client work and grant writing, putting my physical health first has been a full-time job — and it feels like a worthwhile investment.

I am finding patience with myself that I never knew I had. I am listening to my instincts surrounding what I should be putting in my body, and I am loving every extra moment of self care I can find, from detox baths to slowing down my walking speed to feeling the way movement is flowing. For someone who has been learning how to self-parent at the emotional level for a while now, really being able to bring the body to the mix gives me a sense of grounded presence that I can’t say I’ve ever really experienced before. Full-fledged parenting.

Another theme that has arisen is that of truly committing to being here, in this body and on this Earth, and loving all of me enough to figure out how to make the physical vessel that is Amanda a place that is comfortable, strong, healthy and capable of doing whatever it is I’m supposed to be doing to follow my path. I was somewhat shocked when that theme came to the surface, as I’ve always considered myself someone who loves life. But there it was — a little part that is still quite resistant to being earthbound, who feels like being stuck in a body is the worst fate of all. There can be so much pain associated with being in the body.

But then the sense of really, truly realizing what I’m worth, which is a lot, while at the same time realizing that I am my greatest resource, that I am the only one who can save myself — with support from others, of course. Committing to myself, to being fully embodied in this life, feels pretty monumental, even at the same time as it feels obvious and understated.

Part of the reason it feels monumental is because I never fully realized that explicit commitment was a step I apparently needed to take. But I wrote that, and then this article by Margaret Atwood , titled “It’s Not Climate Change, It’s Everything Change,” graced my inbox via a dear Planet Waves colleague.

I then remembered: committing to being here and now, present and alert in a physical body, might actually be a very difficult thing to do. Balancing the fact that there is so much good in the world with the fact that it is an incredibly fucked-up place to be alive and alert is a daunting task. Choosing to keep our eyes open and pay attention to what is going on in the world is something that likely very much triggers the parts that are holding it all in, trying to keep it all together. For me it also triggers the part that is pretty convinced that if she lets go, the rug will get pulled out from under her once again — and avoidance of that level of physical and emotional pain can be fairly hard-core.

I return to this style of personal writing this week because it is what is flowing, but also because I hope some of you can relate. Within each of us lie so many paradoxes and complexities, steps forward and then steps back. All of that is quite beautiful, and I do so strongly believe that learning about the depths of our own beings, and loving ourselves through it unconditionally, is vital for us to be able to join hands and face all that is going on in our world.

Sometimes the focus needs to be at the personal level, and other times the focus moves out. Luckily, when one of us is focused in, we can be sure another is focused out so that nothing will be missed. That is somewhat along the lines of what Venus’ dual rulerships teach us, right? In Taurus, we learn how to hold ourselves and build a container of self-love through the act of realizing what we’re worth; in Libra we get to the extend from that foundation out to the other to see their side from a place of security.

As for Venus in Leo…well, I have no doubt our lovely community astrologers here will have much more to say about that, and I’ll keep you posted as well. What I will say for now is that as Venus ends her time as evening star, disappearing from the sky on Aug. 11, we can use the time to get in touch with our needs and wants and desires.

If you’re so inclined to pay attention to such things, what has your body been telling you? What needs and desires have been repressed? Let’s perhaps pave the way for some celebration of our bodies, shall we? Maybe that’s easier said than done for some of us, but if it feels right, why not?

Planet Waves is running a membership drive.
Read more in Solstice Fire and the Art of Service, by Eric Francis.

By Amanda Moreno

What a week — a potent New Moon and new images of Pluto, the lord of the underworld — or at least one of his masculine celestial representatives. While writing my column for last week, I had no idea Pluto and its surrounding themes, particularly the nuclear ones, would be making an appearance on the world stage. Now that I’m paying attention again, I’m delighted to see the underworld getting some airtime.

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

I shouldn’t be surprised, really, that something related to nuclear power made headlines this week. The detonation of the first nuclear bomb does, of course, coincide with the ‘discovery’ of Pluto, reflecting its themes of complete destruction, chaos and volcanic eruptions from down below — be that below place the underbelly of the Earth or the unconscious.

Of course we also have an invigorated thread about underworld themes. Although I’ve enjoyed looking at the various images of Pluto, nothing has sparked excitement within me quite as much as this article, which discusses the naming of many of Pluto’s newly discovered features for creatures related to underworld mythologies. I see in that the potential for some old mythologies to re-enter the collective consciousness.

My spirituality has evolved to embrace the mythological as vital to our culture’s ability to navigate a global rite of passage. Realizing that all of those underworld mythologies are being re-animated within collective consciousness during this time is exciting to me not just because it’s all so intellectually fascinating and gives us the opportunity to actually talk and think about death, but because those images and stories get the imagination pumping.

Juicy imaginations are the key to developing a new, sustainable, global mythology or mythologies. More than that, a hearty imagination is a key ingredient in scientific breakthrough, and something we need more of if we’re going to create sustainable options for things like clean energy.

According to Joseph Campbell, “myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation.” Underworld mythologies are particularly important because they place us in contact with the life/death/life cycle and therefore in contact with the organization of the universe.

Western culture has such a deep and profound fear of death. We constantly attempt to banish the reality of death, stripping our social, psychological and cosmological views of any recognition of this completely unavoidable facet of life. Instead of using mythology or even natural cycles to illustrate the regenerative and creative aspects of death, we act as if the death of a body is a definitive and concrete ending. It is my belief that this avoidance inhibits our ability to have healthy, transformative relationships at the soul level with other beings, with our food and surroundings, and with ourselves.

A teacher of mine often says that the human psyche is constantly throwing up seeds for a new global myth, marking the signs of spiritual revolution, and these are most often and obviously found in dreams. Dreams are the way that the psyche speaks to us, and in times of paradigm shift dream images can help us to understand how our personal unconscious speaks, elucidating our ever-shifting personal mythologies within the context of the collective.

It often seems like as we become capable of understanding our personal mythologies, whether by acknowledging past stories we’ve told ourselves, or recognizing frameworks we’re moving into, we have to encounter and experience them. We then add those stories to the deepening collective myth of the times we live in — even if we live in a culture that seems to think ‘myth’ is a synonym for ‘lie’. The beauty and the burden here lies in that as we shape these interwoven stories, we have the power to transform them.

I wonder sometimes whether we should be reworking old myths or going off on an entirely new path. It seems that in many ways, the obvious answer is that we are doing the latter, creating something completely different. Carl Jung believed that we would ultimately re-work and revitalize the Christian myth. In that sense, the nuclear myth, which seems to be the prevailing myth of our time, encompasses the Beast-Messiah complex quite nicely.

I don’t know, though. I wonder how our general cultural ambivalence towards mythology, and unconscious creation of overarching stories, increases our feelings of being acted upon by outside forces, and of being victims. I like to think we can move away from waiting for something from the outside to save us, or blaming something out there for our hurts and pains.

Perhaps all of this Pluto stuff will just fall away, with only a little ripple of collective awareness of underworld mythologies. It’s quite the dynamic, isn’t it? With the closing of the Uranus-Pluto square, I’m intrigued at the possibility of a cultural deepening. Not that I’m suggesting pictures from outer space will definitely trigger that. But I am aware that those Uranian lightning bolts and the mental trauma and liberation associated with them tend to register more quickly than the cavernous tumult of emotional Plutonian transformation. So we shall see, I suppose.

Planet Waves is running a membership drive.
Read more in Solstice Fire and the Art of Service, by Eric Francis.

By Amanda Moreno

I recently managed to procure a good amount of time off from all of my jobs, and having space to decompress and hit the reset button has been rad. The first few days were spent in revelry with friends in celebration of the last three Grateful Dead shows. Then, the shows were over, and just as I was wondering what reading materials would accompany me to my seven-day tour of Seattle’s glorious parks, I fell back into an old, glorious pattern: post-apocalyptic and dystopian young adult fiction and re-visiting all of the apocalyptic non-fiction from my grad school days.

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

Yes, this is how my mind decompresses.

Having spent three years studying the psychology of apocalyptic thinking in terms of images, I’m fascinated by the trends I see in pop culture that point to increasing consumption of these memes.

This past week, I’ve watched episodes of “The Last Ship,” “Between,” “The Strain” and “Ascension,” most of which deal with some kind of “the virus killed everyone but us” kind of plot line. I’ve also read three young adult books written in recent years that are basically the same thing.

The other day, while sedating myself with the white noise of waves at my favorite local sandy beach, I began flipping through my favorite book about apocalypse, Dreaming the End of the World: Apocalypse as Rite of Passage by Michael Ortiz. Ortiz’s basic idea is that the foundation for apocalyptic thinking has its roots in Mesopotamian culture, as urban reality became exalted above or against the wilderness.

We are currently in a phase of technological realization of these myths, characterized in Judeo-Christian mythology by the battle between the Messiah and the Beast, images of which moved from the mythic to the literal with the single, terrifying and — Ortiz would say — ecstatic image of the mushroom cloud. What began as mythology reflecting an inward process of descent, destruction and resurrection has been concretized in a mythic image imprinted in the collective imagination.

In that sense, Ortiz would say that apocalyptic initiation is about waking up from self-destructive imperatives. Sounds so neat in that little phrase, but this can be harrowing work.

I wonder a lot about the ways in which mass culture is saturated with apocalyptic imagery, and whether this facilitates our “waking up” or compounds the fears that are already being repressed. There is a mystery to the “dream at the end of the world,” and to the apocalyptic imagination, that can become addictive. Not only do we have access to TV shows, movies and books laying out fictional accounts of post-apocalyptic landscapes, we have real world correlates and the images to go with them as well.

We can see the effects of ecological degradation, including assuredly human-caused effects. We know that bioterrorism is real. And we spend vast amounts of energetic reserves ignoring the fact that Fukushima is still leaking, and that nuclear reactors are peppered across the landscape.

Apocalyptic imagery is majorly seductive, and Ortiz puts out a warning that we need to use caution because, as he says, “the myth of apocalypse seeks to enthrall us into an epic fiction with very real consequences. Beware the fascination with what is larger than life, this vulgar passion play that would crucify the world.”

Astrologically speaking, I’m fascinated by generational themes in terms of outer planet transits. I’m currently paying a lot of attention to my Pluto in Scorpio clients (born roughly 1983 to 1995), namely because they’re the ones who come to me the most often. Although dealing with the wounds of living in “apocalyptic” times isn’t unique to this generation, they are a group that is, from my point of view, here to heal some of the deepest, most shadowy places of the soul, and they are being asked (or have chosen) to do so as they are coming of age on shaky ground.

The tension of having that apocalyptic consciousness blooming inside of you while at the same time trying to “be an adult,” settle into a career, get married and have children can be intense, even more so when one is individuating and actively trying to seek out the soul’s calling. The constant bombardment of images and articles at every turn can leave us in a state of perpetual numbness or overwhelm that makes it very difficult to do soul work at the level that is probably necessary.

Although many individuals have clearly existed in recent history who have done great things to steer the course of humanity away from the concretized apocalyptic myth, this is a generation that gets to attempt to individuate away from the self-destructive imperative. In that sense, I think that the glut of apocalyptic media can be a helpful outlet for coping and releasing some of the inner mayhem, so long as its seductive qualities don’t take over.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about this last cycle of Saturn in Scorpio, as I’ve mentioned twenty thousand times. It feels to me as if this transit has been asking us to take responsibility for a lot of psychic, and often physical, deep cleaning. I often think that this transit is doing some of the legwork for Pluto’s entry into Aquarius in the not-entirely distant future, an event that happens round about the same time Saturn is in Aquarius. Whatever was birthed or surfaced during Pluto’s time in Scorpio in the ‘80s reaches a crisis point, or first quarter square, in Aquarius. Perhaps Saturn is offering us an opportunity to re-work culturally ingrained apocalyptic thinking patterns.

What would that look like? Well, Ortiz speaks of the apocalyptic rite of passage as being about the awakening of compassion in a dark time. As apocalyptic mythology collided with and helped to sculpt Judeo-Christian myths, those who did not believe in the “One True Word” of god were cast into the role of the other — as someone who does not exist, has no rights, and is not quite human until they convert, saving their soul from eternal damnation.

What does a conversion to compassion for oneself and all others look like? What comes to mind for me is what I often speak of when I see Pluto in the 12th house of a chart, with the 12th house’s resonance with Pisces pointing towards a kind of culmination point for the journey of the soul, which is represented by Pluto.

Pluto in the 12th house to me speaks of a deep need for forgiveness. It reminds me of the need to go into our own suffering, to face the places where we are the most wounded and offer compassion to ourselves first, right there in the face of the shame, guilt and fear that might arise. From that place of internal compassion and unconditional love of self we can extend the same to others.

Of course, we have to watch for compulsive tendencies, as Pluto can represent compulsion, and the Pisces/12th archetypes can speak to martyrdom and self-sacrifice. But there is something about facing those deepest, apocalyptic-feeling fears, and then going to dance it out — say, at a friend’s house for the last three Grateful Dead shows — that is cathartic, and more importantly, regenerative. The creativity that comes from regeneration seems to be exactly what is being called for now.

Planet Waves is running a membership drive.
Read more in Solstice Fire and the Art of Service, by Eric Francis.

By Amanda Moreno

Two topics are competing for my attention this week as I glance at the world stage at the same time as I retreat into a much-needed 12-day staycation. The first is that of hierarchy and the process of ‘othering’ that I see going on around me at all levels. The second is that of simple reflection as we reach the mid-point of the year. And what a year it has been.

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

I glanced at my journal to see what I had written at the winter solstice. Not much is there, but my column that week clues me in a bit.

Themes of prioritizing inner work have definitely — always! — remained front and center, even as I decided to take a break from regression and soul retrieval work to try to spend some time integrating. Truth be told, it turns out I no longer need the container of retreats and regression work to dive deep — this year has seen so many plummets to the depths that it is no wonder I am giddily grateful for the grace of having a stretch of time off right now. It feels life saving.

I’m also amused that one of the few things I did write down at the winter solstice was something that recognized an increasing focus on the process of coming into my body. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m someone who avoids being in her body, but several years ago I began to somaticize everything. Stress would show its first symptoms in tension, and for a while there, sickness.

Regression work taught me how to track — or shall I say, feel — the way emotions are held in my body and how to release them. I’d honestly hoped that the whole ‘I somaticize everything’ trend was just an unfortunate side effect of grueling graduate work, but three years after graduation the trend has continued. So here I am — coming into my body.

2015 has not been my favorite year. I type that and then realize that there is a pretty high probability that when I look back on it from some far-off place in the future, I’ll likely recognize it as one of the most profoundly transformative times in my life, and we all know I love transformation. In fact, when I mentally list the events that have taken place, including a slew of really intense consecutive New Moon rituals that activated specific points in my chart within a degree, I am in awe of the ways it does seem the universe is conspiring to help. Even if it makes me want to throw a temper tantrum sometimes.

Talk about grueling, though. 2015 has opened me up as a healer and as a human in ways I’d only conceptualized, has made me question my entire path, and has broken my heart. Perhaps I should own all of that a bit more — the year itself has not done those things, I have.

Of course, when a person who somaticizes to the extent that I can uses phrases like “it has broken my heart,” some prudence is probably needed. In the past few months, my body has registered all of the shock waves and depth, bringing on a whole new slew of fears for me to face. For the first time in my life, I am struggling with the cost of health care. Because, you see, the legal right to affordable health care is one of the arenas where I am very much an ‘other’.

This is not where I’d intended on leading into the ‘othering’ portion of our journey today. The murders in South Carolina or the acceptance of gay marriage under the guise of marriage ‘equality’ (there are still many of us who do not wish to be monogamously married) seemed more appropriate for that topic. But here we are. Our drive to be different can clash so harshly with our drive to be the same as. I’m fascinated by the ways in which we can be so desperate to belong and feel connected that we tend to exercise power over the other or emphasize our differences in order to achieve that goal, or rush head-first into the structures that were once used to oppress us.

I am an individual who is incredibly grateful for her life, who tries to be aware of the gobs of privilege I was born into and that I maintain to this day. I am also aware that I am part of a demographic that tends to be ignored — you know: the 30-something who has opted out of marriage, traditional relationships and bearing children; who is a [clearly selfish] non-white, fat female who has never been in a cohabitating relationship; who is also trying to make a living outside of an office job and pays careful attention to how she makes that work.

I tend to self-select ‘other’ on demographic forms as much as possible because categories rarely feel appropriate or accurate. I chose not to claim my Hispanic heritage on early college scholarship forms because I felt like there was always someone who would need that assistance more than I — and besides, what about the Lebanese and Swedish running equally strongly through my veins?

In the case of health care, I’m part of a demographic that is essentially being asked to foot the bill for everyone else’s insurance. I am someone who has always made check-ups and follow-ups and self-care a priority through buying into health care co-ops with low monthly fees and staying on top of preventative care.

Now that it is mandated that I get health insurance, I find myself left with high-price options with high deductibles that have essentially left me facing a legal mandate to pay an insurance company so that I can pay out of pocket for my health care. My monthly premium takes up what used to be spent on bodywork. I pay out of pocket for the therapist that I want because he is an astrologer too, and the container we’ve created is invaluable to me. That’s a choice I deal with.

It is incredibly frustrating to feel like I can no longer afford health care, even as I recognize the ‘greater good’ of the Affordable Care Act, which I am well aware has helped millions. However, the Vitamin D test that I used to pay $30 out of pocket for costs almost $300 when billed through insurance, and my insurance only pays for part of it.

My twice-yearly rounds of STD testing are not covered through the ACA. It has been deemed appropriate that insurance pay only for once-yearly HIV, syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia testing, never for HSV and rarely for HPV. Instead of spending $100 per year on testing now, I am looking at twice that, at least — unless, of course, I grow up and realize that what I really want is a monogamous relationship, or to just keep my legs closed like a good adult. Or even better yet, to just forgo testing all together.

Before I trigger any more alarm bells, I should say — the body symptoms that have been pressing on me and stressing me out have lifted almost entirely in the past week. A mix of Western medicine, dietary change, acupuncture, energy work, and reconciliation with an important person in my life seem to have done the trick. There’s also that lovely Venus-Jupiter conjunction, smack-dab on my ascendant, to thank for some much needed levity and brightness.

The July 4th weekend will be spent in a relative land o’ hippies as I gather with friends to live-stream the ‘last’ Grateful Dead shows for three nights in a row, and I could not be more ridiculously excited about it. I need some good ol’ fashioned free-lovin’. I mean, at least the kind that doesn’t lead to more STD tests, because those are just expensive.

But seriously — the heartbreak of the South Carolina murders has very much combined with my feelings about the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage (Which are, in summary: Yay! And also, it’s not marriage equality, it is monogamous marriage equality!), and with my own frustration with health insurance, to churn up a whole lot of wondering about where, when and how we can all just be seen and treated as worthwhile, precious humans.

Why is it that we go through these periods of increasing witch-hunts? When do we get to move past categories and labels and recognize the inherent interconnection of our Earth and the wider universe? Why is it that your relationship is valid and worthy of legal recognition and benefits and mine are not? Why can’t we work together to figure out how each and every human can be cared for?

These are huge frickin’ questions, I know. Social conditioning exists, at least partially, to make our infrastructures more effective and orderly, and changing that is a process many would rather avoid. I’m not the avoidant type, however. So I suppose I say to myself, and to all of you, too, congratulations on navigating the first half of a weird, time-warpy, challenging and mind-bending year. Astro-land says that perhaps the second half will be ‘easier’. Here’s to not equating ease with complacency — and also to boogie-ing down this weekend.

*******

Dear readers,
It’s still membership drive time here at Planet Waves. Every time I read an article on this website, listen to a broadcast, or just tune in to the incredible community that responds on these pages I’m inspired to do what I can to keep the container going. If you haven’t invested in a core community membership or a reading, please consider doing so now. Your support is what keeps this place alive.

Thanks,
Amanda Moreno

Planet Waves is running a membership drive.
Read more in Solstice Fire and the Art of Service, by Eric Francis.

By Amanda Moreno

When I stumbled upon Planet Waves sometime in 2010 I realized I had essentially found my soul mate in a website. The fact that I could find intelligent, honest, sensitive and shrewd writing that covered current events (the ones that truly matter and that are often ignored), sex and relationships, and politics all ensconced in the astrological paradigm was kind of like a wet dream come true.

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

Since then, I’ve set out to follow my passion: healing myself and helping others to heal themselves through what I fondly refer to as “practical woo.” The gratitude and sense of incredible fortune I feel to be able to follow this path cannot be understated.

I also feel a great deal of frustration at how difficult it can be to be of service in this way, although I am careful not to sink into bitterness. There are times when it seems like our cultural infrastructures are not only impossible to work with when trying to establish oneself in a business model using a modality that is outside the norm, but that they are somehow actually trying to prevent it.

I feel quite strongly that apprenticeship and community work are important to the growth of a healer/therapist/social-service type. It’s an integral part of learning the craft as well as contributing to community. I struggled at first to ask for money for astrology readings and coaching services, and was reminded time and again that the exchange of value is an important part of spiritual services — and that that container is worth having, and that being compensated for it is necessary.

I worked through those blockages pretty quickly, but also felt the need to keep my services accessible to people who exist outside of the normal demographic that can afford something like an astrology reading. There is such value in astrology and I’m hard-pressed to contribute to a society where that knowledge is locked up in the middle and upper classes, especially as I increasingly find myself to be part of the lower class.

Just recently I reached out for help from a practitioner whose work I value greatly and learned that they could not see me because they did not have room for sliding scale clients. On the one hand I understand the business model, but on the other hand it’s frustrating to feel that desire for assistance, reach out for help, and know that you can’t have it because someone else can pay more. Ah well, these are the experiences that help us learn how to heal ourselves, right?

Balancing the desire to be of service and the desire to afford life can be tricky at times. Finding Planet Waves has not only provided me with an incomparable resource for growth and knowledge, it has helped me to understand the Art of Service, which very much has to do with finding that balance. Knowing that what goes on in these pages is accessible — memberships come at a variety of accessible and reasonable prices — is hugely important to me. Ensuring that the website remains sustainable is also hugely important to me.

I am consistently humbled by the dedication, loyalty and passion that flows through these pages — and how much I’ve come to rely on this forum for a dose of reality and a sense of stability and sanity in a world that feels increasingly chaotic and insane. Being able to participate in the form of a weekly offering is an honor and also brings me in close contact with the incredible effort it takes to keep this community going.

In the interest of full disclosure, it is perhaps important to note that my contributions here are part of my community work and are not monetarily compensated. But the value I receive from participating is huge, and as I say in this space so frequently — I truly believe that claiming responsibility for the wellbeing of our communities is vital to shifting our paradigm into something that supports life.

The kind of service provided by the folks at Planet Waves is truly an art form and one that tends to be undervalued in the ways that can keep it sustainable. So, if you’re able and haven’t done so already, please do consider one of the membership options here. In the true ethos of accessibility, Eric’s fantastic team is willing to work with you if you need the monthly fee to be lowered a bit, once again showing that the priority here is, in fact, service — but we all need to claim membership in order to keep it viable.