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Full Moon Partial Eclipse in Pisces Tarot Spread
A tarot spread for the Full Moon in Pisces and partial eclipse on September 17. Eclipses happen when the sun and moon find themselves occulted, covered up, as they pass through earth's shadow. This September, the dreamy full moon in Pisces will find herself partially eclipsed as her orbit finds her brushing shoulders with the head of the dragon, Rahu, the North Node. The head of the dragon has a voracious appetite; it may upend some plans on its quest to satiate its hunger. Sudden acquisitions, changes of course, and previously unseen variables will tend to make themselves known as the dust settles from a North Node eclipse. This one, taking place just days before the Northern Hemisphere's Autumnal equinox, has something to say about the future and the collective. Pisces, ruled by Jupiter, seeks to expand and understand, particularly in terms of consciousness and connection with the divine whole. Neptune, co-present with the Moon for this eclipse, brings a dissolution of boundaries. This is a moment to tap into the guidance that exists beyond the physical world - your intuition, your ancestors, your guides, and your God. You may find that your destiny is becoming more clear to you, your dreams are feeling closer to being realized, or that the North Node is helping you work to manifest the life you desire and the life you deserve with little regard for the limits you have been imposing on yourself. You may experience life as only one person, but you are a part of the divine collective.
Find a quiet place to download your intuition's messages. Spray perfume or light incense that connects with your earliest memories to call down the spirits of your ancestors. Like the ancient blueprints of deep ocean origins in today's swimming fishes, your ancestors' lives, choices, and experiences are resonating through time in the form of you - your skin, cells, and memory. Epigenetics tells us that the experiences of the collective (more specifically, our ancestors) shape us. We hold them with our own memories, in our bodies, as we continue to weave the great web of human experience with our thoughts, words, and choices. Allow this full moon, ruled by expansive Jupiter, to help you swell your soul enough to hold the limitless possibilities of this enchanted life. Soak up the experiences life gives you with the surrender of an ocean sponge. Learn to trust the wisdom of the divine plan and maintain your serene swimming below the surface, just as the fish do. Eclipses can be times of turmoil - unexpected change, significant world events, and obstructed sources of light. Trust that what the North Node is bringing you is somehow destined to be. Find peace in your beating heart, your filling lungs, the sound of water. You have everything you need.
Tarot is a means of leveraging synchronicity to divine wisdom from the deepest parts of yourself, your guides, and the powerful life force that flows through us all. I always encourage journaling your spreads, using a trusted book to help you meditate on what to take away from the cards.
Full Moon Blessings.
Love & Light,
Lauren
New Moon in Virgo Tarot Spread
A tarot spread for the upcoming new moon in Virgo. New moon symbolism is all about setting intentions for the harvests you hope to reap. As a mutable sign, Virgo's sacred work involves ushering in the changing seasons. She is changeable, and she brings change with her. The transition from buzzing summer to subdued, rustling fall is one of practical preparation and revision.
A tarot spread for the upcoming new moon in Virgo. New moon symbolism is all about setting intentions for the harvests you hope to reap. As a mutable sign, Virgo's sacred work involves ushering in the changing seasons. She is changeable, and she brings change with her. The transition from buzzing summer to subdued, rustling fall is one of practical preparation and revision. Animals are shifting gears, preparing the year's youths for the winter ahead. They make note of food sources and of hiding places where they might stow away themselves or their forages. Plants shift their focus after months of growing leaves and flowers with the help of the radiant sun. Many unfurl their last vibrant flowers and fruits, offerings to their animal neighbors. In turn, the animals' seasonal preparations spread seeds and nourish the soil with fallen organic matter. The natural world has learned this dance across millennia, a response to regional changes associated with the progression of the seasons. Virgo's energy wants to move in the direction of efficiency - it make notes of what has served life in winters past and of what could use pruning. It reminds the living things of the colder days to come, even when they feel unfathomable after the blistering heat of Leo's summer months. Virgo does not appear to dampen Leo's shining parade, though - its practical, disciplined, earthy energy is what is needed at this time.
As the moon retreats from sight to begin her preparations in Virgo, take a moment to connect with the ways in which you can best redirect your energy for the month to come. Reflect with gratitude on the summertime memories, the experiences that came to you as teachers during this last season. Acknowledge the moments of frustration, pain, or stress that may have come and release them from your jaw and shoulders. Virgo's ruler, Mercury, stations direct on 8/28 after weeks of revisiting, reviewing, and rearranging. Retrograde gets a bad reputation, but the experience of reexamining our processes and decisions serves to hone our discernment. Mercury's station direct (the end of retrograde) happens in Leo, where the last new moon took place. What have you been learning over this last cycle? How can you apply it in the coming month? Are you setting yourself up for the kind of self-assured success that will carry you through any winter?
Tarot is a means of leveraging synchronicity to divine wisdom from the deepest parts of yourself, your guides, and the powerful life force that flows through us all. I always encourage journaling your spreads, using a trusted book to help you meditate on what to take away from the cards.
New moon blessings.
Love & Light,
Lauren
Full Moon in Aquarius Tarot Spread
A tarot spread for the upcoming Full Moon in Aquarius. The sun in Leo opposes the full Sturgeon Super Moon in Aquarius. As the air sign counterpart to fiery Leo, Aquarian energy also calls us to embrace authentic expression and step off the beaten path, but with a more collective leaning.
A tarot spread for the upcoming Full Moon in Aquarius. The sun in Leo opposes the full Sturgeon Super Moon in Aquarius. As the air sign counterpart to fiery Leo, Aquarian energy also calls us to embrace authentic expression and step off the beaten path, but with a more collective leaning. Aquarius encourages us to embrace our most far-out creative ideas and to dream big about the possibilities around technology and the future. Saturn, Aquarius's traditional ruler, asks us to think in terms of structures and what is real. How can we make our ideals into something that allows us to see a tangible difference in the world? The moon is often associated with mothers, and with bringing that which is ethereal into being. She is the closest to us on Earth, our most familiar connection to the sky. She teaches us about time and about cycles. Saturn, too, deals in time, although he works on a much larger scale. While the moon takes only 28 days to complete a cycle, Saturn can take 30 years. As the moon lights up Saturn's domain, ask yourself what these two nocturnal bodies are trying to help you manifest. What are you bringing into being? How are your long-term and short-term efforts, visions, or plans coming together?
Energies have been high these last two weeks as the moon has been building her light and momentum. You may be feeling it in your body, your mind, your dysregulated nervous system. Mercury's retrograde may have brought miscommunications, recalibrations, and a general feeling of discombobulation that can be overstimulating. I certainly have been feeling it. One way to ground yourself and refocus your perspective during a hectic time is to be of service to others. Serving the collective, and doing so in a way that serves your unique, individual needs and talents can be a healthy way to channel and express this full moon's energy. Seeing the reflection of divine light in the eyes of the souls around you often serves as a powerful reminder of the real consequences of your thoughts, words and actions, but it can require you to step out of your comfort zone and into the bustling, complicated world. There is powerful creative and kinetic energy afoot. Use it in pursuit of your highest ideals, in service to all. The seeds you have been planting can grow into towering trees, but you must nourish them through aligned thoughts, words, and actions. Like a skilled gardener, aim to balance the art of your craft with the science. You must understand the fertilizers and the water that nourish your efforts, but you must also listen to your heart and your guides about how to proceed.
Tarot is a means of leveraging synchronicity to divine wisdom from the deepest parts of yourself, your guides, and the powerful life force that flows through us all. I always encourage journaling your spreads, using a trusted book to help you meditate on what to take away from the cards.
Full moon blessings.
Love & Light,
Lauren
New Moon in Leo Tarot Spread
A tarot spread for the upcoming new moon in Leo. At the new moon, the two luminaries linger close together, and the moon has no distance with which to reflect the sun’s rays. Overshadowed in the sun’s domicile of fiery Leo, the moon rests and revolves quietly, building momentum for the coming lunar month, laying the groundwork for a new cycle.
A tarot spread for the upcoming new moon in Leo. At the new moon, the two luminaries linger close together, and the moon has no distance with which to reflect the sun’s rays. Overshadowed in the sun’s domicile of fiery Leo, the moon rests and revolves quietly, building momentum for the coming lunar month, laying the groundwork for a new cycle. In the Northern hemisphere, this new moon finds us deep in the balmy swells of summer, with communicative Mercury preparing to station retrograde in the sky. While this retrograde begins in Virgo, it will dip back into Leo on the 14th, just a few days from the next full moon. Mercury retrogrades are all about revisiting, reconsidering, rethinking, reworking, redesigning. Pay attention to the situations and relationships that present themselves - how can another review help produce the outcome you are hoping for?
While the moon rests and the sun pulls focus in his fiery home sign, examine the ways in which your creative, playful inner child manifests in your life. The sun does not fear shining, and in the same way Leo tends to have a gift for allow its natural expression. Working with this energy could look many different ways, but at the core it is about absorbing the sun’s light and lessons through Leo to allow yourself to shine more brightly in your own corner of the world. It is always beneficial to consider others and to ensure that your chosen forms of expression are not harmful to those around you, but remember that it is your own opinion of yourself that counts the most. It is okay to make choices that others do not understand, as long as you do so thoughtfully and your own inner compass is guiding you. Examine your intentions and create space for yourself to proceed in the way that makes the most sense for you. What are you trying to create in this world? How can your inner child help you on your path? Are your choices bringing you closer to the highest and most authentic embodiment of your spirit?
Tarot is a means of leveraging synchronicity to divine wisdom from the deepest parts of yourself, your guides, and the powerful life force that flows through us all. I always encourage journaling your spreads, using a trusted book to help you meditate on what to take away from the cards.
New moon blessings.
Love & Light,
Lauren
Full Moon in Capricorn Tarot Spread
A tarot spread for this weekend's full moon in Capricorn ♑️. The nurturing Moon shines in the domicile of disciplined and karmic Saturn, opposing the sun as he transits through her home sign of Cancer ♋️. This is a moment to reparent yourself, balance discipline and ambition with self care, examine the ripples you are sending out in to the world and how they are helping to create (or not create) the version of you that you most want to be.
Tarot is a means of leveraging synchronicity to divine wisdom from the deepest parts of yourself, your guides, and the powerful life force that flows through us all. I always encourage journaling your spreads, using a trusted book to help you meditate on what to take away from the cards.
Full moon blessings. 🌝
Love & Light,
Lauren
Beekeeping, failure, & community
In homesteading, you have to be willing to fail at things. It’s easy to forget that every successful gardener picked up their skill by failing - learning what did not work, then trying again until they figured out what does. Still, it’s our nature to want to be good at things we try. I’ve done my share of failing, but we’ve been relatively successful in our first few years of shifting our lifestyle as homesteaders. I’ve gone from no gardening knowledge to still not much, but enough to grow baskets full of food each year. Most of our birds are a few years old now, happy and healthy, and still producing more eggs than we can eat. Beekeeping was a totally different story.
This venture was a long time in the making. I first decided I wanted to keep bees while I was studying biology in undergrad, when mass die-offs of bees were a hot topic and I was educated for the first time about how important pollinators such as honeybees are for food production. I was in no position in 2014 to keep bees, I seemed to change apartments and roommates every 6 months, so I folded that dream up & tucked it away.
Last year at Christmas time, when my husband asked me what I wanted, I pulled it back out and told him I wanted a beehive. Seeing it sitting around the house, I thought, would be the push I needed to make it happen. He got me the beehive; he put it together and I was giddy at the sight of it under our tree.
Keeping honeybees is definitely the most complicated and high-stakes endeavor I have taken on thus far. There is so much to know, and even the most trusted books and speakers’ advice can let you down because, as they say, “the bees don’t read the books.” I did read the books, however, and the books all suggested finding a local association with which to get started. Serendipitously, around the same time in January, an acquaintance shared a Facebook post about a free beginners’ beekeeping class hosted by the local beekeeping supply store. When I called the number on the post, a friendly, chatty Southern man answered the phone. He was excited to talk about bees and signed me up for one of his upcoming classes. The class was maybe two hours long, and I remember it was a cold and windy day sitting behind the store with the older couple who picked the same day to take it. I took plenty of notes. At the end of the class, the host (who I now know is named Greg) invited us to attend the local beekeepers association meetings. He gave us the date and let us know we still had a few months before he would have nucs - small starter bee colonies. Another problem solved! I had not really been sure where to get bees or how to even know what you’re looking for.
My husband Esten and I attended our first beekeepers’ association meeting that month, and we continue to attend them monthly. I took more notes, and we joined the other association members for a hive inspection day out at Greg’s property. I ordered 2 nucs to be delivered in April, and the clock had started on our preparations. Esten spent many hours chopping and digging and clearing the corner of our property for the hives. I buried myself in bee books every night before bed, trying to make sense of all the new terminology.
On April 13th, it was time to pick up our colonies. We arrived at the rural property about 15 minutes north of ours just after dark and joined line of trucks that had formed waiting for their bees. It was such a novel experience for me, driving up to the pallets stacked high with nuc boxes, watching them be loaded one by one into truck beds by men in full bee suits. They took our tickets, loaded up our nucs, and wished us luck.
Esten had to work the next day, so I was on my own for the installation. I was nervous. Something I haven’t mentioned yet: I found out after already committing that both my dad and my half-brother are moderately allergic. Dr. Google says bee venom allergies are typically not hereditary. To bee on the safe side, I spoke with my doctor, who wrote me a prescription for a couple of epipens to keep on hand, just in case I or anyone else should need them.
We dealt with some challenges in our first few months. One of the hives was stronger than the other, and the weaker hive appeared to have lost its queen about six weeks after I installed them. They became extremely defensive, and we both received more than our fair share of stings during the couple of weeks they were queenless. During one inspection, I removed the top cover to be greeted by a thick cloud of angry bees, which came at me so aggressively that it took me a few minutes to be able to see well enough to walk into the woods and shake them off.
Greg had become our mentor, so we followed his advice to give them some time and let the bees work it out. When he and his wife Joan came to help inspect the hive, he said he had never seen bees act as aggressive as mine. They taught me that you can walk into the thick branches of red cedar trees to deter the bees and clear them off you more quickly. The hive raised themselves a new queen and got right back to work, drawing comb, collecting pollen and nectar, and making honey. At the same inspection where I found out the weaker hive had re-queened itself, the stronger hive had filled their first super (the shallow box used to collect honey) and were starting to work on their second. After that visit, we got about two weeks of nonstop rain, followed by about a six week drought with real-feel temperatures hovering between 100-110. It was way too hot to put on a bee suit, and my experience with defensive bees was enough to convince me not to risk going without. I tried to find the shadiest times of the day to do my inspections, but I went two or three weeks without going in the hive between the rain and high heat, and in that time things started to unravel.
It was around mid-July when I opened the first hive to find it had failed. Dead bees, wax moths, and small bugs and larvae had ruined what had been a booming and beautiful bee colony just a few weeks before. I was relieved when the association members surmised that the bees had absconded, or left - at least I didn’t kill them. Still, the failure stung and I was heartbroken over the loss of what had been my strongest hive. The second hive fell not long after. Nearly two full supers of honey were robbed completely dry over the course of a few days, apparently by my own bees who had scoped out a new home and then come back for their things. Insult, meet injury.
Beekeeping is not something you learn on your own. Like I said earlier, you can read all the books and know all the vocabulary words, but the bees are going to be bees. Regional differences in seasonal timing, local flora, pests, and weather patterns make it an intensely specific hobby, and being successful often depends on your willingness to engage with more experienced keepers in your area. As my hives were failing, I consulted with the community of beekeepers I had been welcomed into. Greg’s wife Joan gave me tons of good advice on how to try and save them, and how to move forward once it was clear both hives had gone. The other beekeepers encouraged me. They shared their stories of failure and told me not to give up, this was part of the process. I resolved to try again next year.
This story has a twist, though, and it has really gotten me thinking. Throughout the month of August, I worked to decontaminate the frames and render the wax I’d collected. In that funny way that often happens, for some reason I had been dragging my feet on this task, which meant I still had some frames full of drawn comb when Greg called me up one random Thursday evening. He had too many bees, he said, after an association member had given up and gifted him several hives. He asked if we wanted one. They were gentle bees, much different from what he had seen us dealing with on his last visit. He said he had seen how hard I tried to save our hives, that I was doing everything I could, and he did not want us to give up.
I was over the moon. I dropped everything to get our site ready for a second round of bees. I spent that Friday mowing, clearing, and putting down landscape fabric to deter pests and control weeds, something I had regretted not doing on the first try. Esten jumped in to help me as soon as he finished with work. We picked the box of bees up at eight o’clock the next evening. I had never planned on giving up, but I can’t overstate how much it meant to me that this more experienced beekeeper had seen me showing up, doing the work, and thought I deserved another chance. If I had not sought out this community, I most likely would have failed a lot faster and started next season with much less hope. Time will tell how this next attempt plays out for me. I hope to be successful, but I know the value of the whole experience outweighs any failures along the way.
All of this has been going on throughout the same period where I decided to revive my wire wrapping hobby and create this website, which brought me back into contact with another local business I had a long history with - the crystal shop downtown that always keeps the wire I like in stock. Returning to that familiar place after a few years away from the hobby took me right back to a different community I had found along my path. Similarly, I was not amazing at wire wrapping when I began, but the people in my life supported and encouraged my progress. I found friends with similar interests to keep me accountable and I got better. These experiences got me thinking, and the impact of community became obvious to me. It is easy for us humans to be hard on ourselves, to resent our failures and feel as though we are an island; community, though, is where skills are nurtured and success is born.
When you decide to do something different, some people love to tell you how hard it will be. It won’t make sense to everyone. It’s often true that it will be hard, but at the end of the day what do you want to say you did with your life? The things that are meaningful to you are never a waste of time. It is 100% okay if some, or even most of the people in your life don’t understand the journey you are on. I’ve found that a full and happy life often blossoms at the intersection of many different communities, sewn together by the unique thread of each individual person’s life path. Bees are an excellent lesson in community - they exist to support the survival of the hive, and an individual’s potential pales in comparison to the intricately constructed communities, teeming with life, that they belong to. Bees know how important it is to have a community you can depend on, and each of them works actively, every day, to make that community the best it can be. They show up with the same mission and they find a way to carry it through, reaping the sweet and golden rewards of effective collaboration. I hope I can learn from the bees, and I hope you can, too. If you are sitting on passions that you feel afraid to explore, I hope this story will encourage you to take the leap and find your people. I promise there are communities out there who want the same things as you and will help you along the way, you only have to be brave enough to seek them out. Before you know it, it will be your turn to invest in those who come after you and you will be proud of everything you learned, most of which will likely come from failure.
If you’ve read this far, thank you. There is so much more I could say about beekeeping, about the many blessings in my life and the wonderful people who have pushed and pulled me along the way to where I am now, but I think I’ve said more than enough for today. I’ll leave you with a quote I found:
“He is not worthy of the honey-comb
That shuns the hives because the bees have stings.”
Love & Light,
Lauren
Initium
Welcome, greetings and blessings. Thank you for lending me your attention; it is your most precious gift to give in this life and I am grateful to hold it for now - I hope you will find it valuably spent. If you are interested in homesteading, gardening, astrology, sustainability, synchronicity, esoteric learning… you may have found your space here. Make yourself comfortable as we get to know each other.
I learned long ago that marking the passing of time with ritual and gratitude is a way to keep myself centered. Along the way, there were many breadcrumbs I followed into the forest where I now dwell. Life has been an exercise in remembering and realizing. I can look back and clearly see the seeds of today's flowers planted in my early life. Maybe it is the same for you, maybe not. The beauty is we are all on our own journeys, shifting together in the kaleidoscope of creation.
Today, I am a 4th-year homesteader and 11th-year student of astrology. I am almost 30, fresh off my first Saturn return and in my 2nd year of graduate school. I am now studying education, but my undergraduate studies were in psychology and biology. I am a wife, a daughter, a leader, a creator, a human being! It can be a lot to keep up with, all the titles and labels. It can also be tricky - how do you know when it is okay to use a new one? Was I a homesteader when I made my first cleaning supplies, when I bought my land, when I started raising chickens, when I picked my first vegetables? I am in my 4th month of an apothecary fellowship - am I an herbalist? Who knows. What matters is I am showing up.
Many of us grew up with an awareness that our world needed help. As I got older, entered college, and began to really look around at the world, it became evident to me that I was not going to be able to save the world. Not by myself. There is very little I have control over as a woman of modest resources, but I can always control my choices, and I can use my choices to make things better. I have two eyes and two hands and a functioning brain, and I can make these faculties work for me in whatever way I want. So can you! Even if you feel limited, it is still possible to make an unimaginable difference. Perception is reality; if you believe you can help, you can.
I know it can be overwhelming. I'm here to share what I've learned in hopes that it can benefit you. Little by little, we can work to live in reciprocity with our mother Earth and to create systems in our life that make sense and do as little harm as possible. Most likely, you will not go from dreaming your dream to living it overnight. I sure didn't, and I'm still on my path, but I've come a long, long way and I am working towards it every day. I hope I can make you believe that you can do the same. You do not have to jump the chasm tomorrow, you just need to lay the first brick for your bridge! Going back to our roots and finding ways to live more sustainably, in harmony with life's cycles, is a love letter to creation. My words are my gift, and my intention is to allow them to weave good things into reality.
Something has brought you here, there are no accidents under the sun. May we learn and grow together to make this life a more harmonious experience for each of us.
Love & Light,
Lauren