There’s a new moon in Libra arriving this Wednesday. The precise moment this will occur will be 7:05 a.m. EDT. Being a new moon, it means the sun and moon are ‘conjunct’ or lined up exactly with each other from our perspective here on Earth. And the sun recently entered Libra at the equinox on September 22nd.
There’s a lot going on in the cosmos this Wednesday, and I find it fascinating that there are some extremely important and potentially provocative deadlines scheduled to take place that day vis-à-vis Congressional investigation into the January 6th insurrection. Is there a will to truly get to the bottom of who and what organizations were behind this attempted coup?
I’m guessing we’re at least going to see this week whether we’re actually represented by people who honestly want to figure out what happened and how we can protect ourselves from another such appalling attack on our democracy in the future. I dare say we know what it feels like to be represented by people who pay lip service to democracy.
October Looks Intense
As I’ve mentioned before, an astrologer who’s been around for a while whom I respect is Rick Levine. He recently gave an analysis of the transits that will be affecting the entire planet during October in a podcast hosted by Astrology Hub. Here’s the link.
There are a lot of uncomfortable aspects nudging and needling us to make some major changes. It also feels like a huge new beginning, a powerful opportunity to effect real transformation in our structures and beliefs is approaching. Yes, we’ve been asked to embrace these structural shifts all year. But we’re really getting to the point where those of us who resist these changes can no longer hold it back.
What does that mean to each of us as individuals?
And perhaps even more provocatively, what does that mean to us as a country? (That question can legitimately be asked in several countries across the globe…)
There’s a lot of astrological activity occurring this week that you’re probably already feeling on one level or another. I know I am. Perhaps most significant in my mind is the fact that Saturn went retrograde on Sunday, Venus went retrograde on Tuesday, and Jupiter is going retrograde tomorrow (Thursday, May 14th).
I’m pretty sure I’ve provided an elementary explanation of what it means for a planet to station and then go retrograde. It’s all in our perspective which, when you think about it, is so true of practically everything in life. In this case, though, a planet going retrograde means that, from our perspective on Earth, it looks like a planet is stopping in its orbit around us (stationing) and then appears to be moving backwards.
As I say, this is all an optical illusion based on our perspective from here on Earth. It all has to do with the length and pace of a planet’s orbit around the sun vis-à-vis the Earth’s orbit.
Different Influences
Nevertheless, as we are complex creatures influenced by a myriad of factors that we often aren’t consciously aware of, including the moon, sun, and planets, it can be a deeply powerful time of reflection and change when they go retrograde.
Most people have heard one thing or another about Mercury going retrograde. Because Mercury is closest to the sun and is the planet that moves most rapidly in its orbit, it’s the one that’s discussed most often. When Mercury goes retrograde, an occurrence that happens four times a year, I believe, the length of time it is appearing to move backward is about three weeks.
When the larger planets go retrograde, their periods in that state happen less frequently and are longer in duration, although they vary. The thought is that the influence of the larger planets is generally more profound and long-lasting.
As I’ve written about a number of times over the past year and a half, the planet Mercury is associated with communication and electronics, to name two of the most common factors influenced by that planet. Obviously, then, when Mercury goes retrograde, there are certain activities that are enhanced during that time, such as editing and going over details with a fine-toothed comb.
Not Mercury
When Saturn, Venus, and Jupiter go retrograde this week (joining Pluto, which went retrograde at the end of April), we are called upon to stop our relentless efforts at moving forward or maintaining the status quo. Instead, we’re asked to take time to reflect upon and really take stock of those aspects of our lives (or the life of the society we live in, or the country, etc.) that are associated with that particular planet. We’re asked to decide what is working for us in those areas – and what we need to release or surrender.
For instance, Venus has to do with our values, our ways of earning a living, what we hold dear, the things or aspects of our lives that mean most to us. When Venus goes retrograde, we’re called upon to reflect on just exactly what we value most. What we can live with losing. Who we are if we lose what we value.
As you know, I enjoy the work of Kaypacha and I like to listen to his weekly Pele Reports. He knows his astrology – particularly evolutionary astrology – and he translates it into information I can apply to my own life. I recommend you give this week’s Pele Report (for May 13th) a listen. The interplay of each of these planets going retrograde and what and how they influence us is fascinating. And the application of these influences to what the world is experiencing right now is fascinating and provides an abundance of food for thought.
Very recently I’ve had occasion to wonder aloud about specific experiences or recollections associated with particular dates. (Let me say right here that I apologize profusely for that sentence. It’s a stinker. And I’ve tried fifteen ways from Sunday to rewrite it but it refuses to improve, no matter what I do to it.)
Instead of resting on that outrageous conglomeration of words, let me give you three examples:
You may recall that I mentioned in my post about the Eclipse Season we’re right now in the thick of experiencing, that this particular configuration has not occurred since 2001-ish. And I mentioned that this is a time of major, dramatic change for many people.
It’s often instructive to go back in our memories and look for ourselves to see what, if anything, we were experiencing when a major aspect is heading toward us in the present. Well, that can sound great, but I don’t know about you, but quite honestly, I have a hard time remembering much of anything with specificity from last month, much less 18 years ago.
Cue the Fanfare For Keeping a Journal
Because I keep one, I was able to go back and recall my greatest concerns and challenges of that time. It’s a little wild to recall that I published my book; was by my father’s side when he passed away; and took a new job in a brand new field (development) while uncovering my ‘inner activist,’ whom I’m astonished had kept herself hidden even from me for basically the first 40 years of my life. Not to mention, this was all leading up to my trip to Tuva (Siberia) in ’03 which completely changed the course of my life.
I guarantee, I would not have realized and ‘put together’ all of those life events as having taken place in such a short span of time if I could not read it in black and white. (OK, in my case, it’s written in blue, black, and purple, predominantly, but you get my point.)
Second Situation
The second situation that occurred recently was a question someone asked me about a session they had with me 13 years ago. As anyone whose had a session with me in the past, oh, 11 or 12 years knows, I write a comprehensive ‘follow-up’ email to every client, usually the day after our session. These often take me at least two hours to write up precisely because they are so detailed. Interestingly, I often end up going into a ‘zone’ while I write my follow-ups that sometimes yields additional information or helps me remember even more detail than I might have said out loud the day before, in the session.
The Value of Follow-Ups
But when I first began offering sessions 15 years ago, I did not know enough to offer a written follow-up. I had no idea how valuable keeping track of all of the details I would glean in a session could be to a client. It was only through realizing for myself just how much information I was conveying did I conclude that, if it were me, I’d love a comprehensive record to look back upon of the salient aspects of what took place in my session.
Thus, when my client contacted me and asked what I could remember of a situation that took place back in 2006 (actually, we weren’t even sure at first when the session happened, so fuzzy were our memories) my initial thought was to check my emails. There was no follow up written to her. There were, though, a few emails that referenced the session, which actually enabled us to figure out the exactdate of our work together.
Given that this was still early in my ‘career’ as a shamanic practitioner, I realized I might have written about the experience in my journal, for each and every session was a really big deal to me. (Not that they aren’t now, too – believe me. It’s just that I am more disciplined now with the follow-ups.)
Chock full of life’s details – Photo: L. Weikel
Once Again, Cue the Fanfare For Keeping a Journal.
Yes. Pictured with this post is my journal from October 3, 2005 – May 28, 2006. As you can see, it’s chock full of all sorts of stuff, not least being an amazing amount of detail from the session my client was seeking information about. As a result? I was able to write a startlingly comprehensive follow-up report to my client 13 years after the fact. Needless to say, we were both delighted.
Finally, on a perhaps lesser monumental but nevertheless impressive scale, just today I was able to reference back four months and give someone specific details I’d recorded about a message from Spirit that had come from a most unexpected source. Even more astonishing was the fact that the person I was speaking with today had received a dream the very next night, which directly correlated with the information I’d been given by Spirit.
I Will Aways, Always Cue the Fanfare For Keeping a Journal
I cannot emphasize enough the value of keeping track of the details of our lives. It is because I keep such detailed journals that I am able to write my books. But even beyond that, it’s because I track the details of the amazing occurrences that happen in my life that I’m able to see the connections; I’m able to appreciate the magic Spirit brings into my life – and how it happens on an astonishingly frequent basis.
So many ‘synchronicities’ are happening all around us, all the time. But we need to pay attention and keep track if we’re going to ‘get the message’ – and do something with it.
For someone who is genuinely and enthusiastically gung-ho over listeningand acting upon the messages we receive, sometimes I can be as thick as two planks.
The frustrating truth is that it is nearly impossible for me to do for myself what I’m pretty good at doing for others: seeing things from a different perspective and intuiting the messages being presented so they can be implemented.
I try to exercise patience with myself, but I assure you, it’s not easy.
Waiting For Clarity
I’ve been on the receiving end of so many messages this year, it’s hard to keep track. But since the start of 2019 in particular, I’ve felt a major shift on my horizon. I’ve sort of been flailing about a little – guessing what some of the ‘signs’ might mean. But it’s also just not felt ‘right’ yet. Sort of like my life is like a brilliant orange-yoked egg sprung from a very happy, free-range hen. This glorious egg is sizzling in butter in a cast-iron pan – but still has a lot of slimy, only slightly opaque, ‘white’ groovin’ around its solar yolk.
It looks so enticing, but you either need to flip it quickly (making it ‘over easy’) or let it fry its course. Congeal a bit more. Don’t want to be too hasty in putting that baby on your plate.
(We had a delicious dinner tonight; I don’t know why I’m writing as if I’m starving and eating vicariously through my words.)
Anyway, my point is that the messages coming to me of impending change have come from all directions. Even son Karl, for whom I engage in this 1111 Devotionevery single night, has seen fit to muscle his way back into this Middle World to give me a good push.
Ravens Ravens Everywhere
Something new this year is that Ravens have made a nest high within the crook of a tall evergreen across the road from our house. These birds are incredibly noisy and gregarious. I’m pretty sure these grokking, midnight-feathered, winged ones are Ravens – either that or ‘Fish Crows.’ I know I should be able to tell by their tails, but they’re mostly hopping around a lot lately, building their nests and yakking at each other.
As I’ve written before, Ravens are all about ‘magic.’ I picked it reversed and squared today, which you’ll recall in the ‘Weikel Way’ means it was reversed and the card on the bottom of the deck was a blank. So – extra powerful.
Now this could have freaked me out, since choosing Raven reversed can portend that there’s been an abuse of power, a wishing of ill toward another that’s coming back to haunt the ‘wisher,’ or a general smoky confusion.
When I read my card this morning, I was pretty confident that I’d not been wishing ill on anyone or abusing my power. But I did feel it might in some way be related to my uncertainty how to proceed in the face of all this recent pushing for me to ‘change things up’ and, as another message Karl gave through the three messengersI mentioned the other day, ‘take things to the next level.’
I felt like I was ‘on the brink.’
On the Precipice of Making a Leap
And so it was as the sun started slipping below the horizon this evening that I found myself fleshing out in my own mind some big changes I’m going to implement in the way I’m going to approach my Work and my life.
I started writing out some specific ideas. Then Karl suggested we take a walk and I continued fleshing out my sense of when and how and why I was ready to make some major changes. The sense of excitement and perhaps even of a ‘breakthrough’ in consciousness was flirting with us both.
As we strode along the newer, longer leg of our path (in keeping with my desire to add more mileage to my daily walks), I stopped at one point to take some photos of the clouds that just seemed to resonate with this pervasive sense of delight (and relief).
While the clouds themselves did not so obviously reflect what’s pretty clearly depicted in the following photos, the perspective lent by the iPhone captured the joy and forward movement of a figure, arms raised, skipping happily into the future.
Clearing the Smoky Doubt
My conclusion is that in making the firm decision to move forward with some serious changes in my practice and my life, removing myself from a rut I’ve obviously been reveling in for some time, I cleared away the smoky doubt that Raven reversed was warning me about.
I know I’m being a bit coy about revealing the changes that are coming. But check out these photos. See if you don’t see the joy in the figure running across the sky, breaking free of old habits, mental blocks, and self-imposed doubt and restrictions.
I need to get some sleep. As I’ve been told before, there’s work to be done!
Joyfully running and leaping into the future – Photo: L. Weikel
