…taken during thanksgiving dinner, generated by two former ministers – one a writer, an architect, a retired healthcare worker, and myself.

i’ve been mulling the concept of joy for years, trying to parse its parameters, definition, edges. So luring one end of a table into this philosophical discourse was like a balm for my brain. it’s not a great holiday until you have to take notes…)

I have such a long post about Scorpio season, which we just passed out of, and the move to Sagittarius season, but I find my devotion to personal essay is perpetually drained. I have so many essays sitting in ‘drafts.’ After so much ceaseless work to understand and repair, it seems like I have finally reached the end of looking and working inward to try and fix the whole machine.

And Scorpio season is gone, with its stings and realizations, true colors, and transformations, sharpened desires, hard feelings, clarities gained the tough way. Everyone is a bit banged up after, as we enter the season of mutable fire now. Sagittarius’ truth and clear aims, philosophy & knowledge-seeking, connecting, enthusiasm, curiosity, affinity for the natural world, and healthy, loving boundaries that support freedom, its bluntness, its need for adventure – both internally and externally (says your resident uber Sag 🏆).

Now that I’ve started studying astrology, my working theory is this: we manifest our (closest?) cusp signs more, the older we get. For instance, my Sidereal rising sign is Aries (pushing through, forward moving, fighter, focused, clever, fearless, leading) making my Tropical ascendent Taurus (calm, loyal, cautious, sensual, persistent). As I get older, I’ve watched myself manifesting more Taurus – increasing calm, passive up to a point, seeking comfort and the Aries becoming far more mellowed. So far, I see this as true for most, but I’ve only just started thinking about it. And of course, planetary aspects would heavily influence this theory. Maturation obviously happens, but I’m curious how maturation happens to the character… what blueprint it utilizes.

Neptune has finally come out of retrograde and gone direct. And as such, the dreaming has returned. In retrograde, it’s like losing a sense — so much less information and knowing presented. Dreaming has been barren for months, a dark, void box. But, now it’s populated again, like a switch was flipped and like losing your place in a book and then opening it too far ahead… nothing is where you left it. The dreams are so vulnerable.

Chani has some thoughts for this week… read your rising signs too, peeps! Mercury Retrograde and Full Moon Tropical Gemini / Sidereal Taurus

And timely: Sailor J released her take on Aries today… minus the judgy-ness, this is too real.  (I’ve probably watched this 12 times. All of these are perfect and you should watch them.)

 

 

Rest well, dear friend and mentor, N. Eugene Tester. It’s immeasurable how much better I am for having known you. I fear anything else I could or should convey now will only feel trite and thin, but I feel a need to try…

There is much to say about his work as an educator, as well as his positive impact on me, my life, and helping me to honor, sharpen, and utilize my inherent gifts and abilities. He taught me to dismantle the destructive behavior of anyone who tried to minimize or harm me or a community, via informed intelligence and truth. Rest well, good man. Thank you for reinforcing in me to always keep seeking knowledge and to never cease learning. Thank you for seeing everything everyone was trying to crush out of me and frame as wrong, for the intrinsic gifts they were. I wouldn’t be half the truth teller and perpetual student I am had I not met, been respected by, and learned from you.

What a full, and well-lived life.

Though you never believed it, we will met again.

 

 

 

(I tried to make an image only post, but this wordpress theme won’t post my image alone so here’s some text…)

It is 1:48 and I’m already back in bed, working from here. (I consider this a huge success.) When I was a child, I wished for bed cars… slow mph beds that you could just steer around so that you didn’t have to leave bed. And when Google and Tesla develop that in a few years, just remember whose mind was cutting that edge way back when.

Today I enthused all over the lady sampling and selling mushroom tinctures at the grocery store until she gave me Paul Stamets’ book of scientific mushroom studies for free (presumably) so that I would go away. Me: “Paul Stamets?! I LOVE HIS WORK. MUSHROOMS ARE GOING TO SAVE US.” Her: “…yes… here take this with you…” (It didn’t really go like that, but I did note that my enthusiasm for getting to talk about mushroom research, mid-day at a grocery store on a run of the mill Tuesday, was pretty vibrant.)

The thing about having this many points and planets in Sagittarius is that when there is no upheaval you are living through, you have all of this available, genuine enthusiasm just effusing all over the place. I feel sorry for people on the street with dogs… I’m going to stop and tell all of you how great they are. ALL OF YOU.

 

When the class you are attending emails the night before saying: “wear your most comfortable clothes.”

No one has ever been as qualified for a job as I am for this one.