Hello again, all you ghosts riding meat-covered-skeletons-made-of-stardust!
Happy full moon in Libra.
Today’s somatic practice video is a seated breathing and humming sequence to bring energy within ourselves as Aries season brings us outward. With this practice, I hope to help you bring your body to a sensation of calm and self love as we embrace this first full moon of Spring.
This full moon in the sign of the scales, calling us to see where we are in harmony and where we are out of balance with ourselves and the world around us. I felt like it was a good time to bring some harmonic vibrations inward to the body’s center, filling us up so that we can radiate goodness back outward to the people and situations in our lives.
The practice is about 15 minutes long, and can be done anywhere you can sit cross-legged. I hope you enjoy!
Inhale…. Hummmmmm….
The winds of change are a-gusting
40-mph winds are chopping up the air around my house here in the high desert today, increasing both the pollen count and the positive ions in the air, making me feel all kinds of agitated. On the news, the con-artist formerly known as “he who shall not be named” has been arrested - and his minions are getting agitated too, comparing him to Jesus and Nelson Mandela and riling up their base for the next election. Beyond the front page, the question that now perpetually lingers in the back of our heads has quickly become: “So… how much time do we have before the AI robot overlords take over?”
I’ve been having a lot of conversations with friends lately about the state of the world, and also the states of our inner worlds. The collective sentiments I’ve noticed are:
Time seems to be speeding up, and changes are coming at us way too fast to comprehend.
The collective “energy”- the felt sense of what it means to be a human- has shifted quite recently, from despair and apathy to something new, something different, something hard to put a finger on.
This overwhelm/optimism ping-pong is making many of us feel rapid oscillations between deep glimmers of actionable, communal hope and extreme exhaustion.
Personally, I feel like I’m on the edge of a cliff, staring out at a beautiful valley before a series of verdant mountain ranges that fade into the deep beyond. Looking out, I notice that there are lots of us standing on cliff edges, all around the sides of the valley. Lots of us, ready to move, to climb the peaks, to meet life’s changing winds with our own agency, our own stories for the future.
I feel power emanating around me, even though I can’t quite tell exactly where it is coming from. Maybe because it’s emanating from all around, all the individual nodes of creative power that are on the brink of inheriting this changing world.
It’s a palpable power, simmering under the surface. But as soon as I’m ready to get moving and take a step toward this more beautiful world we all know is possible, a deep, all-encompassing tired comes over me. I think, “Maybe I’ll just crawl back down the way I came up and rest for a little bit”.
The winds are getting stronger and more blustery, mixing warm air with cold as the atmosphere tries to decide what season it wants to land on. It feels like the sky is fighting with itself. Today I slept in later than I have in years, and then proceeded to stay in bed all day, working from bed, eating from bed, taking refuge in the comfort of my fluffy comforter. My daughter is with her dad this week, and so the dogs and I got in some overdue cuddle time. My brain was ready to go go go, but my body said slow slow… slow.
I think Aries season can often feel like this. The Ram on the rocky cliffside is rarely standing completely still; he is shifting and moving his weight to keep balance as he takes his bold steps that defy gravity. This constant shifting is not an unusual feeling for the current season, but still, the fits and starts of action make it difficult to feel anything but unsettled.
The Aries Sun (and Chiron) Opposing the Libra Moon: Balanced, Authentic Interdependence
Today is the first full moon of the astrological year, as the Aries sun shines her bright light across the elliptic to the moon in Libra. The opposing notions of self vs. other, ascending vs. descending, alone vs. together, self-assertion vs. compromise, and me vs. we may be feeling highlighted for you right now.
All full moons give us the opportunity to see the the axis of similarity between two seemingly opposing signs. The commonality I see between Aries and Libra is balance in relationship. Aries and Libra are both signs of the equinoxes, so harmony and balance are naturally in the air around these times. But the type of balance represented by each sign is quite different.
Compared to Libra season, when the warmth of summer is fading into fall, the pendulating balancing act of spring can feel quite compensatory, lurching, and awkward. It feels like taking a step out the front door after being inside for a long winter, and then jolting back inside with discomfort at the unfamiliar rays of the sun.
With a seed’s growth this time of year, the root always sprouts downward first, and then, after that is secured, a sprout shoots upward into the world. Balancing and rooting first into the darkness, then venturing out into the light. Acknowledging the soft power of yin and winter and the underworld to balance the energy needed to burst upward out of the ground. Aries season reminds us of the importance of cultivating internal strength before rushing to meet the other. Of taking time to rest when it’s blustery, even though our to-do lists are waiting for us.
Even once we decide to come out and carpe diem, climbing up a craggy cliff to greet the sunrise, this season often feels like having to scramble and grab as we loose footing and almost fall. The bold independence of the Aries new moon 2 weeks ago is met with the reminder from the Libra moon that we are always in relationship. Libra mirrors to us that it’s impossible to be completely self-sufficient. The sooner we realize our interdependence (with the earth, the air, the elements, the beings who we share this world with) - and the sooner we show mutual respect to those that we are in relationship with -the more we will be cared for with reciprocal, harmonic magnetism. Interdependence requires navigating the balance between self and other, ensuring that both are receiving enough attention and care.
During this full moon, the sun in Aries is exactly conjunct Chiron, the wounded-healer asteroid that orbits between Saturn and Uranus, in what is called a cazimi. During a cazimi, the sun is said empower the planet or asteroid that it is conjunct with, bringing extra strength to it’s archetypical power. In the sign of Aries, Chiron symbolizes a deep awareness of healing our sense of self-worth, and thus our ability to enter into true interdependence with others. This full moon in Libra opposite Chiron/Sun in Aries can help release the idea that giving up independence in relationships has to lead to codependency. It can also help us release the opposite idea that creating boundaries in relationships has to lead to lack of connection.
Chiron and the sun in Aries opposite the moon in Libra show us that the middle ground between independence and codependency- interdependence- involves both sovereignty with boundaries and showing up with vulnerability. It starts with actively showing love and care to yourself so that your cup can naturally spill over and extend the same care and love to others.
We’re all in this together: Pluto in Aquarius and Saturn in Pisces
These current Aries-Libra vibes of me vs. we that are being highlighted during this full moon are being paralleled by the apparently contradictory nature of the placements of many outer planets right now.
I think that some of the walking-on-a-tightrope vibes of the current moment can also be attributed to the fact that two of the outer planets (Saturn and Pluto) have just changed signs, and we are getting a sample of what the future may have in store, collectively experiencing very different energies on a societal level. At thus time of such massive change, I’ve found it helpful to think about how to harmonize these binary energies as we move forward into the future.
Saturn in Pisces: Flow requires boundaries
Saturn takes 29.5 years to make a revolution around the Zodiac, and about 2.5 years to transit through each sign. In early March, Saturn left Aquarius, where he had been since early 2020, and moved into Pisces, where he will be until 2026.
Saturn = Structure. Discipline. Boundaries. Responsibility.
in Aquarius (2020-2023) = Society and humanity at large. The Collective. People Power. The Atmosphere. Technology. The Future.
With Saturn in Aquarius, an air sign, we were met with an airborne pandemic, leading to the attempted structuring of the air we breathe, boundaries imparted on society at large to control this virus, a rapid restructuring of the technologies we use as we shifted en masse to remote work, and a new appreciation for the collective of essential workers who helped us survive.
in Pisces (2023-2026) = Spirituality. Water. The place after death and before birth. Empathy. The dream world. Illusion.
With Saturn now in Pisces, a water sign, we can expect increased structure of our spirituality and our belief systems, greater personal boundaries leading to more empathy for others, issues surrounding water and the infrastructure that contains it, and discipline being needed to live out our dreams.
An image I get for Saturn in Pisces is that of a fast-flowing river. Saturn represents how having solid banks leads to a more powerful flow of water- more energy moving actively toward our dreams, spirituality, connection. If the banks are not defined, the river becomes a floodplain, leading to a need for dams and barriers that could stop the flow entirely.
A takeaway or the next 3 years of Saturn in Pisces:
Creating and maintaining well-defined boundaries helps increase the flow of energy toward our most aligned dreams and spiritual awakenings.
Pluto in Aquarius: Power in softness
Pluto takes 248 years to revolve around the Zodiac. Due to the elliptical nature of her orbit, she takes between 14-30 years to transit through each sign. In late March, Pluto left Capricorn, where she had been since 2008, and entered Aquarius. Pluto will stay at 0 degrees Aquarius until June, then retrograde back into Capricorn until December 2023, before she heads into Aquarius for the next 19 years.
Pluto = Transformative Power. The Journey to the underworld and back. Meeting our Shadow. Composting and stripping down to our essence.
in Capricorn (2008-2023) = Ambition. Fortitude. Hierarchy. Ascending from the sea to the mountain peak. Kings, Queens, and Presidents.
Right when Pluto entered Capricorn in 2008, we experienced the collapse of American banking institutions, the financial crisis, and the Great Recession. This was immediate fallout from the period before, when Pluto had been in optimistic Saggitarius and banks were deemed “too big to fail”. From 2008-2023, we have collectively journeyed to the underworld of Capricorn themes by witnessing the depth of corruption that exists within both government and corporate hierarchies.
in Aquarius (2023-2044) = Society and humanity at large. The Collective. People Power. The Atmosphere. Technology. The Future.
The last time Pluto was in Aquarius was between 1762 and 1777- the time of the French, American, Hatian, and Industrial Revolutions. As Pluto settles into the house of the humanitarian water-bearer this go-around, we will have no choice but to journey to the underworld of our deep reliance on technology. We’re already getting a big taste of this with ChatGPT, the AI race and the various attempts to pause it. Pluto in Aquarius can represent power-to-the people, where we may see a deepening into the use of technology by the people for social connection, outside of the realms of the Kings, Presidents, and CEOs.
Pluto represents Power. A beautiful definition of true power is “Power-with”: the ability to harmonize a situation. Rather than the common notion of leveraging forceful “Power-over” someone or something, Power-with is different. Power-over emerges from a sense of lack, a sense of Power being finite - not enough to go around. Power-with, cultivated through a constantly moving balance of fluidity into stability and back again does not have limits. True power comes from stepping into pace with a larger rhythm that is out of our egos control. This type of Power is sourced from the infinite, and because of that, it feels contagious. It’s the type of power that, when you feel it spilling out from within another person, inspires power within you, and generates more, rather than evoking jealousy or lack.
Takeaway for the next 20 years of Pluto in Aquarius:
It’s time to take action in helping to redefine Power. The nature of power is transforming- from competitive power (power-over) to infinite power (power-with). The more you own your power, the more others will be able to, as well.
Inhale, Hummmm….. Inhale, Sigh.
As this full moon wanes and we enter the potentially volatile eclipse season ahead, please feel free to use this inhale- humming practice as often as you like to bring that feeling of soft power into yourself. Switch to inhale-sighing when you’re feeling like extending some of that power out into the world. Let your roommates and neighbors hear you… soft power is contagious.
Thank you for visiting and supporting this project. It’s amazing how having a container to put my thoughts has led to an entirely different experience of the world in a few short months. Consciously tracking the external world of the transiting planets alongside my internal world of transiting emotions and thoughts has started to feel natural, rather than philosophical or experimental. Like… maybe people have been doing this for a really long time. Thanks for giving me an opportunity to spend time with this scale of thinking, in both my head-brain and my gut-brain. It’s truly a gift, and it’s just the beginning.
Until next new moon,
Alison
