"Teachers need to be comfortable talking about feelings. This is part of teaching emotional literacy – a set of skills we can all develop, including the ability to read, understand, and respond appropriately to one’s own emotions and the emotions of others."—Daniel Goleman

This New Moon in Cancer brings a chart of deep emotion, with a strong undercurrent of power being used effectively in the material world. True power, like a sun, radiates outward from an inner core. Control that is seized or imposed is not power, though it is often mistaken for such. Control ties you to what you are controlling. Power lets you take action in freedom and create what you will.

We’ll see a lot of attempts at grabbing power this month, but hopefully we will also see people of wisdom stepping into their own power and making changes in the world. Like you, perhaps.

It has been a while since I have had a chance to sit down and write.  Too long in fact.  I have left yet another job and started another, more learning of things that in some ways just do not make sense.  Another job where I am the oldest and am teased about my "ways" of doing things.  Just today I was teased about how I always look at the good side of things.  Well, I'm a Reiki Master/Teacher, there's a reason why I am this way.  But I have had time to reflect.  I find that I am still trying to find the job that I am comfortable in, one that I feel comfortable in my own skin.  On June 30 I turned another year older (49), way too old and starting to sense the Wise Woman in me.  

One new aspect is that my middle daughter, Marie, has opened up to let me know that she is seeing and sensing spirits as well as energy from people around her.  My husband has recently asked me to cleanse our house (teenagers create and attract a lot of various types of energies).  Marie is going to learn this process.  I am going to take her under my wings and teach her.  This gives me two benefits.  First I know what she is learning and I can guide her towards more material.  She is curious and I want to encourage this curiosity.  Secondly, this gives me a chance to dust off my course books and various other books and binders and relearn some aspects of healing modalities that I have neglected.  I have a student!  But I need to remember that I live with this student and to not overwhelm her with information all the time.

“A life truly lived
burns away what is no longer relevant
gradually reveals our essence
until, at last, we are strong enough 
to stand in our naked truth”

May 6.2016

New Moon in Taurus
3:30 p.m.

Gather your soul at the hearthfire of winter

Hold the embers of last year’s dreams

“Thou know'st 'tis common;
all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.”

We come to this New Moon in Scorpio still within the tide of Samhain, All Hallows, Day of the Dead. There’s a reason all those holidays happen around the middle degrees of Scorpio — there is truly a thinning of the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead at this time of year (and don’t let anyone tell you the veil isn’t there at all — if it wasn’t, we’d all be dead).

Do you honor your ancestors as part of your spiritual practice? If not, this would be a good time to start. The New Moon in Scorpio always brings us to a time of introspection, a time to face our deepest needs and fears, commune with our beloved dead, and welcome deeply transformative experiences. I’ll tell you an experience I had with an African ancestral ritual a little later in this post, and why I think working with our ancestors is important. Meanwhile, back to the astrology…

Hail to the beauty of the Libran New Moon. Hail to the Maiden who restores and brings the mysteries of her healing bubbling up to her surface. Hail to She who is cloaked in the mystery of tears and laughter, She who fills my soul with longing for her embrace and She who reminds me that deep within the darkest of nights and radiance shines brightly and fully awaiting its revealing in the fullness of my understanding.