Luna is again half-illuminated as it returns to Sol and loses its light since leaving last week’s tight alignment of Luna, our earth, and Sol. a time that generally has emotional energies running high was symbolically blocked and shadows reigned. what normally could be released stayed blocked and festered, as if Luna journeying through Scorpio doesn’t suggest enough mucking about in the depths.
and that’s how the weekend felt for me.
the ritual started as it had the prior three times: on Jupiter/thurs-day or Venus/fri-day i made new stencils and painting a banner between chores, thinking lightly on when and where i could collect wishes for the weekend. then i tried.
often there’s been events i could glom on to, friends to join me, and the quantity of wishes has been going up. not this last week. my calendar was built around private events, and little time could be dedicated to wandering. emotions were high yet hindered as forecasted; hellos and goodbyes were at an emotional pitch, and even when they were flat, the low-affect was all encompassing. anxiety dominated on Sol-day when i had the most opportunity to collect wishes in the ol’ Dolores Park, and no self-assurance of past passersby’s interest could settle it. in the end, i got just two wishes; one from someone in the castro who recognized me from my Saturn-day outing, and one from someone who took buzzed interest early Sol-day at golden gate park.
several days on, a few key points come to mind. to start, i need to be more mindful as i enter into this practice. it is about opening a symbolic communion with Luna, yet i already treat it too much like a chore or task to accomplish, making it into an empty ritual. i am forgetting the point, perhaps, of offering a gift for self-reflection and helping weave community. it is about service, not success. i am therefore contemplating a more thoughtful approach to the creation and consecration of banners, and their storing away within a more thoughtful container. reading more books on modern approaches to magic have reminded me that playing with the unconscious is key, and in my pursuit to believe-but-not-too-much, i have left behind the fun. developing a mantra as i begin and end each outing may help my whole self enter the sacred process more fully. perhaps posting on social media can be a component of that, at least for establishing accountability.
second, i should get onto making a more elaborate spectacle of the process in order to both fall deeper into the role and to encourage more participation in alignment with the ritual’s particular purpose for the week. this requires completing a component of the ritual that was part of the early vision and held off. but it’s clearly time! more on that later.
third, i hope to begin a private a smaller Luna circle with the coming New Moon to truly dig deep into what this weekly ritual can do for a person in community. this is how my relationship with Luna began, and returning to this will hopefully be fruitful in unforeseeable ways.
anyways. with Luna waning another week, it is a good time to keep flexible as consequences of the eclipse are likely to continue popping up for a while yet.
with the coming new Luna in Gemini, little connection between Luminaries and Planets will take place — save for two. Mars will remain close to Jupiter after a pass the day before. this configuration brings energy to act on one’s high ambitions, especially in Mars’s home of Aries, a marked improvement from the weakened Mars in Pisces of the Lunar Eclipse. The Lunation’s ruler, Mercury, will continue its retrograde into a square with Saturn, putting extra strain and struggle around how we are connecting and exchanging information, finding blocks establishing solid ground or reputable buy-in for our ideas. perhaps leaning into Mercury’s soft sextile with Neptune will allow more success if we indulge it a little me-time to reflect away from worldly responsibilities.
Saturn has been a wet blanket for a while, so the other significations make me hopeful for a more fruitful start to the next Lunation cycle than the end of this one has been. but Luna moves on, and so can i.