it has taken some time to get this project going, but with Luna aligning with Sol as they transit passed the Vernal Equinox point, it was a perfect time to initiate a new project with the headstrong vigor and energy associated with this part of the sky, Aries. it was time to collect wishes and intentions for new beginnings.
i completed the wooden banner over a month after many setbacks and failures to innovate on the simple design. the black Luna that crowns the banner and the writing came together more easily, and can be replicated as needed with stencils i have produced. there was something satisfying in hand-painting the images and words, a meditative act to prepare me for the message i was to share with the world.
for some weeks i had settled on a way to get people to concretize their wish on the banner, by writing it on fabric strips they could tie to the edges as if they create a trim. as a proof of concept and to imbibe on my own medicine, i started with my own wish, minding the zodiacal month and where it falls in my chart, the ninth house of philosophy and the foreign
by fortunate coincidence, a friend with an Aries Sol by birth was visiting during the new moon weekend and volunteered to join me in costume and recruit participants. had she not initiated many of the first encounters with strangers, i doubt i would have had so many fortunate interactions. after a year of performing as a doomsayer, i had gotten used to the resistance of passersby and the melancholic interactions with those who exchanged thoughts on the sorry state of the world. thinking on fresh possibilities was a whole different basis of interaction that many were happy to take on, interrupted from their walk through the city by some strange folks walking around in shiny dress.
the vibe of the weekend aligned with the sentiment of starting fresh, perhaps buoyed by Venus’s escape from Saturn and Mars a few days prior. san francisco was seeing some of the first warm days of the year, and many were out to enjoy it. we met some artists selling work in the neighborhood who were excited by our project and its potential for forging community, a basis of belonging quite philosophical and foreign for me but something i hope to continue cultivating. the hackerspace i frequent had a weekend full of events, many members intrigued by my getup and happy to participate, though its astrological foundations were a turn off to some.
it didn’t take long to get burned out from the extroverting, the fiery approach of the days wearing on me pretty quickly, but a good deal was learned in the process.
with the quarter moon now waxing towards a fully illuminated Luna, i believing i am living up to the tentative intention for the month, going beyond my comfort zone to bring something new to a place i’ve just started calling home. i hope my newfound ability to invite strangers into conversation can continue with the costume off, and uninhibited expression can be maintained to some degree.
we’ll see what next week’s full moon in Libra brings, but the regularity of the sky offers some general hints: the Luna-Sol opposition has an applying square to Pluto that will likely make diplomatic balancing acts acrimonious, or at best able to reach and reconcile the essential core of issues at play. with Jupiter and Neptune conjoined and Venus not fair behind in Pisces, this vibrant and high-hope configuration may help the all-but-impossible manifest, even if it lacks a connection to the full moon. it may be best to fall into these rosy feelings and intuitions over hold on tightly to how we want differences to unite.