*To help you prepare for this new moon and the mutable grand cross, I’ve got personalized readings and ritual suggestions for each sign, ideas for building your altar, and a rundown of the most auspicious days to work with in my new moon course, The Mutable Grand Cross. This course will be available for purchase for one week (until Sunday June 5th).
Idealized. Exoticized. Misunderstood. Validated. Vindicated. Vilified. Victimized. Re-traumatized. Reframed. Taken out of context.
The stories that become our reality are shaped by the condition of the mind that tells them. The stories we have about “them”. The stories we have about “us”. The stories that keep us isolated, separated and set apart from the world at large.
The mind can be a terrifying place. Filled with anguish, upset, turmoil and fury, the mind makes meanings out of shadows and is too easily taught to fear what it does not know. The mind assumes what it cannot make out clearly. It’s a survival tactic. But it inhibits us from being open to learning. It inhibits us from being students of life.
We’d be well-served to sit our assumptions down.
A wise student shows up without anything to prove. A wise student comes to class willing to be taught. A wise student listens to those that can teach them what they do not know, without being defensive, without being draining to the teacher, without being basic in response to what they hear. A good student shows up curious and ready to unpack their privilege knapsack. Because whatever gets in the way of our learning should be reconsidered, if not set to the side entirely.
Learning how to unlearn and relearn unlocks our humanity.
This Saturday’s new moon would like to help us with that. Occurring at the 15th degree of Gemini at 7:59 PM PT on June 4th, this new moon is nothing short of many-sided.
Gemini is a mutable sign. Mutable signs, or double-bodied signs, are signs that fall in-between one season and another. Because they join two the seasons together, mutable signs have an uncanny ability to exist in contradiction. They are the definition of duality.
Ambidextrous, Gemini can hold many options, opinions and realities all at once. Ruling the shoulders, arms, hands and fingers, Gemini is especially talented at such juggling. Aptly governing the lungs and breath, Gemini is the communicator of the zodiac. Whether we speak through gestures using our hands, arms and fingers or through sounds facilitated by the breath, Gemini has us communicatively covered.
This new moon in Gemini activates a much broader overlay of the astrology of 2016. It falls in the middle of Gemini, at the 15th degree, conjunct Venus (attraction), opposing Saturn (austerity) in Sagittarius (spiritually seeking) and squaring Jupiter (optimizing) and the north node (increasing) in Virgo (skilled, detailed) as well as Neptune (sensitive, deceptive) and the south node (releasing) in Pisces (compassion and creativity). If you drew lines between how all the planets lined up, it would make a giant cross or square, a “Grand Cross” in modern western astrological terms.
A grand cross is a turbine of energy. Made up of two oppositions and four squares, there is little rest or settling, energetically speaking. There is a tremendous amount of movement, but there is also a tremendous tension with this configuration. As if we were pinned to each of the four corners, the grand cross does not let us off the cross, so to speak. We must address these four different domains of our lives. This might have us feeling energetically dispersed and pulled in multiple directions. It might have us overwhelmed and unable to find a way forward. It might have us reconsidering what is energy well-used and what has us chasing our tail. Not every invitation needs to be RSVP’d to. Not every call needs to be answered.
However there is also a great transformation or release if we do decide to address these issues. There is an opportunity for freedom through a deep commitment to learning and a resolve to not evade any leg of the experience.
There are always multiple sides to the story and since it is impossible to know every detail of every journey, acknowledging what we do not know is sometimes the only place to start from.
New moon blessings,
xoc