Where Soul Meets Body: March 2018 Tarot Cast

I love March-time! Tree leaves twinkle in the morning, from the sunrise & icy dew. Flowers. Bees humming. Hummingbirds flying. Trés jolie.

Also, March is my birthday month! ♈️

These past few months, I’ve focused on staying in my integrity. With Jupiter in Scorpio & Saturn in Capricorn, I've been organically purging my unconscious of old fixtures while tightening up brass tacks. Squeezing out the moldering psychic gristle, so that core power can flow like a fountain.

So, I decided a Feng Shui Spread to be the perfect Tarot Cast for my 31st birthday, at a time where I feel quite ready for a mind-body-soul reboot. I’m lining up new posts about sorcerous forms of personal transformation & my best practices for maintaining a steady current of holy creative energy in your space / body, so stay tuned for that!

Keep reading to learn more about creating a Feng Shui-inspired Tarot spread & what the heart of the spread, The Hierophant card, means for me. 

MARCH 2018 TAROT CAST: THE FENG SHUI SPREAD

Feng Shui is the art of maximizing (& optimizing) the flow of energy in a space or body. In interior decorating, Feng Shui is used for arranging spaces in relation to the 4 cardinal directions. (North, South, East, West.) You also have to consider where the room’s entryway lines up on a Bagua Map, which is like a template for the 9 realms of life that add to (or pull from) your life force.

In the Feng Shui Tarot Spread, you can assign a card to a specific aspect of your life, in order to encourage changes, or you can pull cards at random to help you read more deeply into what’s going on. This spread is ideal if you’re pleased with certain areas of your life more than others, & want to gain an overview of how your goals relate to what you already have.. 

The Feng Shui spread is definitely the kind of Tarot you do on a rainy night when you’re home alone, drinking kombucha & waiting for a mud mask to harden. Like the Celtic Cross spread (11 cards!), it’s a bit of a process to work through, at least for ponderous babes like me who must deeply handle each & every card. 

TAROT FOR FLOW: HOW TO DO A FENGSHUI TAROT SPREAD 

A Feng Shui Tarot Spread pulls 9 cards to represent 9 aspects of life on the Bagua Map. You can draw 9 cards face-down, face-up, or a mix of both. 

For example, if you want to Divine a message about your life’s direction, your True North, you would pull a facedown card at random from the deck. You would put in the North quadrant of spread. (Which doesn’t actually have to be facing north, unless you’re very thorough.) You meditate on how this card relates or doesn’t relate to this area of life. 

But if you know without a doubt that the High Priestess symbolizes how you see yourself & interpret your life path, you simply separate out the High Priestess & stick her in the North. That’s kosher.

(It’s all kosher.) 

For every card pulled, enter at least 3 keywords into a diary or grimoire, based on what you see in the card & what you remember about its formal meaning. If you’re still memorizing card definitions, you could also look up each card on Tarot Wikipedia (on top of checking a guidebook), to compare / contrast definitions & deepen your intuition of each card. 

Because 9 cards are too many to analyze in this post, I’ll break down the 9th card of my March-time Feng Shui spread. This is the card that goes in the middle of your Tarot Bagua Map, which is the 5th position in my interpretation. This card is labeled “Health” & is the heart of the spread. 

I go by this Google Image as a template for the Bagua Map. You might find a better one, or count out your spread’s positions differently. You might prefer to Divine the center of your Feng Shui, whereas I intentionally placed The Hierophant at the center of the spread.

I selected The Hierophant for the center because, right now, I’m focused on self-healing. I’m working with Jupiter’s transit through Scorpio & Saturn’s transit through Capricorn, which has turned into a very structured journey of purging shadow drama & relaying practical foundations. 

I’m consciously aware that I’m in a process of waking up. I’m at a juncture of my journey where there’s no turning back & everything is about to change. I’m aware of this as a breakthrough phase where challenges (& challengers) are actually gateways into my sacred strength, where I'm making direct contact with my core strength. It's tough, but it's the only way to access the strongest part of me. And you.

That’s what I’m all about right now.

THE HEART OF MY FENG SHUI SPREAD: THE HIEROPHANT

The Hierophant is the card of gurus, mentors, & royal viziers. Often, our best teachers present us with our biggest challenges. They counter-weigh our true beliefs. The Hierophant symbolizes the conventional attitude with teachings & principles that task us to understand why the world is the way it is.

At number 5 in the Major Arcana, The Hierophant numerologically corresponds to a pivotal point of our spiritual journey: a personal reformation instigated by challenging circumstances... like a confrontation with the status quo or a "losing my religion" moment. 

My life-path number is also 5: the life-path of the teacher, challenger, & Awakened survivor. I talk more about Five-ness (& also how it pointed me towards my Patron Goddess) in this post. This just means the general project of my life exactly corresponds with the process of challenge & Awakening symbolized by The Hierophant.

In this Tarot Key, shadow work & reality checking goes hand in hand. Before you can change anything in your life, you need to understand why it is the way it is. You have to be willing to know the truth of the situation, even if it could potentially dismantle reality as you know it. 

Because The Hierophant lies at the heart of my Feng Shui spread, I’m committed to this directive: what I find, I must heal. 

The Hierophant is not like the Hanged Man, who would advise you surrender to your predicament & wait on Divine insight to guide your next steps. With The Hierophant, you consciously seek opposition to what you think (& feel) about the world. To really be able to use this Tarot key, you have to be willing to learn as you go. To get pragmatic. 

So, at the heart of my life right now is a learning quest for rebuilding my integrity. I want to advance beyond the ability to talk pedantically about my childhood. Where the memory symbolizes an old version of my journey, but no longer tangibly lives the present. It’s a reference point, like a node on a map I’m drawing as I go.

Which means waking up. Getting constructive. Humbling myself. Finding masters. And making myself useful.

So, shadow work. 

Also, reality checking. 

(Check out this post & this post for more about that.)

some inspiration for your own fast approaching spring-time awakening… 🦋✨

💫 What to do after you have a breakthrough. This Danielle LaPorte post is a good little soul-snack to get you through it.

💫 And this Katy Perry interview totally speaks to where I’m at right now. “Now I want to touch the stars, which has to do with the heart.”

💫 Btw, it’s an ideal time for some soul-healing! For the Virgo Full Moon (March 1st), adopt a new self-care ritual, like meditation (I’m obsessed with this kit) or therapy or juice fasting. I’m wading into the detox plan outlined in Dr. Kelly Brogan’s book A Mind Of Your Own. (Catch Marie’s interview with Dr. Brogan--it changed my life.)

💫 My March-time essential combinations: Lavender, Vanilla, Orange, Rose. (Mostly NOW). I love diffusing oils & opening up a couple windows, so the fragrance really circulates. When I have oils diffusing, it's like Heaven on Earth.

💫 Remember: Venus is still in Pisces for the next 6 days, so keep playing with your senses & accessorizing your imagination. This is how you set a beautiful tone to springtime! (Read more about what I'm doing while Venus -> ♓️ over here.)

So, what’s at the heart of your life right now? Tweet or email me about it! 

All Tarot images via The Starchild Tarot by Danielle Noel.

What to Do While Venus Transits Pisces: A Venus Magic Primer for Beautiful Dreamers 🌸♓️✨

Welcome to your Venus in Pisces transit… also known as, the season of the Mystic Swoon!

Every year, roughly starting around when the Sun enters Pisces (February 19th), Venus—the planetary agent of attraction ‘n aesthetic—will also enter and transit Pisces, the Sign of imagination & misty dreamscapes. ☁️✨

While Venus is cruising Pisces, the world tends to take on a dew-glimmery-dream gloss….

…and I thought this would be an excellent excuse for flexing our astrological magic, a.k.a. planetary-zodiac-based personal rituals. 🌙🔮✨

OR BASICALLY, Venus in Pisces is the perfect time of year for waking up your senses & beautifying your inner universe!

In fact, that’s what Venus Magic is all about ~ working with desire & the sublime to make beautiful things happen; for healing emotional wounds holding you back from loving yourself; for melting into someone else's gaze; for spiritual rapture through the senses.

For YEARS, Venus in Pisces transits have been my favorite time of year for meditative afternoon walks for & middle-of-the-night bubble-bath prayer sessions… for casually assembling the ingredients, circumstances, and people who are able to help me reach out and touch surfaces of reality that ordinarily only twinkle or glimmer on the periphery of my waking life.

So, that’s what this post is going to help you do: show you how to discover your astrological Venus, and use the details as inspo for your astrologically-magical rituals du jour! 🤩

This is going to be useful not just for weird occult reasons, but also because analyzing your Venus can help you explore your personal taste, flirt style, pleasures—all the Venusian delights that are particular to us, but possibly out of sync with what the rest of the world delights in (says Venus in Aquarius over here, holla ✨).

…so, if you also struggle to feel good generally, let me tell you how your Venus Sign (found on your birth chart ✨) can point you towards the aesthetics that are actually medicine for your soul!

OKAY, BUT BEFORE WE GET INTO IT… let’s set the mood. 🎧

VENUS MAGIC: WHAT’S IT GOOD FOR?

Venus Magic helps us manifest our Ideals about Love, Beauty, & Desire. Ideals, like dreams, are ethereal. We have a sense about them, but putting them into words never captures the whole picture. This ethereal realm corresponds with the Outer Planets, like Neptune, which overlords Pisces. 

And Pisces exalts Venus! Each Sign showcases Venus in a special way (some ways debilitating her natural powers), & Venus will transit them all in about 225 days, but Pisces is her favorite part of the voyage, where she can surrender to soul-gasmic splendor. 

In Pisces, Venus energy has a quality of being both super blown out, like light rays dissolving in a watery atmosphere. Memory overlaps imagination, & you can’t tell whether you’re on the inside or the outside of experience.

For a gal coming into this with a huge mind-body disconnect, imagistic, interdimensional Pisces was the perfect entry-point to working magically with the Morningstar Goddess, & bridging the gap between what I think should be happening compared to what is happening. 

So, obviously, Venus transiting Pisces is the perfect occasion for using the Imaginal Realm to create space, relationships, & perceptions for satisfying your heart’s desires. Venus Magic for Pisces season is all about stirring up the very waters of imagination, where you put together your intentions, emphasizing playtime, whimsy, & gaining new perspective, more than trying to make an intention work. 

Before I link to you references for building a Venus ritual (which you don’t even need--you can freeplay any ritual, but having certain materials helps me trust the process more), let me describe the principles (my principles) that I’ve picked up along the way!

In Venus Magic, feeling good is your modus operandi. The “work” is about subtracting the noise throwing static on good vibes, which are natural & easy come, easy go. To start, you have to start with taking responsibility for your experience, which means getting out of your head--abandoning your shoulds. 

This should feel like this… It ought to go like this… 

Fuck that noise. 

💠 first principle of venus magic: pleasure is power.

In Venus Magic, your sweet spot is your power position. That state where you feel most at ease, in your element, in your domain. Venus Magic helps you charm yourself into feeling good; for fully engaging with your senses, thoughts, & feelings. 

But you have to know what feels good, for you, mind, body, & soul. 

Do you know what feels good to you? 

While Venus transits Pisces, we have the opportunity for getting to the hot, glow-y core of our pleasure power. And once you know that power, you are responsible for it. You can’t unknow what makes you feel good, dreamy, & cool.

💠 second principle of venus magic (these are make believe, btw): sensation is the root of spiritual rapture. 

Totally not the prevailing dogma, right? 

Oh, but girls, we already knew this. The dogma is in your mind, which keeps your mind from fully collaborating, reaching into, & fully connecting with your body.

Your pleasure-power is knitted to your immediate environment, which is what your 5 senses are accessing right this moment. Sense awareness is an aspect of human intelligence, devalued because awareness doesn’t produce. Awareness is the access point to higher dimensions.

What are you sensing? 

The neighbor’s kids giggling; flowers sweating their fragrance through the open window; candle wax pooling on your altar. Maybe it’s the cathedral-like silence of the library’s quiet-study area. Maybe it’s overhearing your adored roommate gabbing on the phone, the glitter in her voice as she talks about her favorite class, or it’s the memory of your sunrise run on the beach, the creamsicle colors of the sky & the zen-like emptiness of breaking through exhaustion. 

All of this, this delicious sensory samsara, is the stuff of spiritual ecstasy. Imagine if you were dying, slowly, in this moment. (You are. Actually.) These sense details… they envelope you. Without a raging river of thoughts keeping all that data at bay, those smells, sounds, visuals, etc., would eventually melt all the way through your skin, each & every one of your cells sipping at the world’s sensational noise. 

What knocks us off the route: should, could, would. Any & every urgent abstract thought. 

Venus will transit Pisces from February 10th to March 6th, & the first quarter or full moon are perfect occasions for a little Venusian magic-making! If you're totally new to magic, read this post first, which describes the tools I use, why I use them, & when they come into play.

Remember, it's actually all play. You don't need to follow any procedure to a T--not unless you need to feel technically on-point before you start improvising. 

Also, here’s a complete list of Venus correspondences, with more info about the Venus archetype. You’ll find everything you need to craft a ritual that rings true for the Goddess Venus. 

And if you need a ritual outline, check out my post about creating new moon rituals, which includes a printable roadmap. Use it as a template!

But if you want a star-studded intuitive quest into the poet’s heart of Venus in Pisces, let me tell you about using your Venus sign for decoding the keys to pleasure-power, so you create a truly glimmering world of Beauty & Truth for yourself to live it.

YOUR VENUS SIGN: THE PLEASURE, DESIRE, & STYLE AESTHETIC MARKER OF YOUR BIRTH CHART

Your Venus sign is the short code to your tastes, pleasures, & flirt style. Your Venus sign can help you alight on the feelings & sensations that can transport you to your sweet spot in a snap. You can use this info to prime yourself for any situation, not just a ritual: job interviews, first dates, rainy Sunday afternoons. 

Last year, I wrote a post about discovering my Venus sign, which I used to help create the most sublime Aquarian full moon ritual. I used the info to trick out my ritual surroundings, which seeped into how I deck my space, spend my time, & respond to basic urges for food, water, & comfort.

According to the Astro Twins, with a Venus in Aquarius, I am sapiosexual: turned on by beautiful minds. 

TRUTH. Hellaaa truth. Elon Musk is my celebrity crush. I fantasize about our pillow talk: that I would inspire him to reinvest into the Earth, instead of colonizing dead planets. 

Also, I take great pleasure in speculation: I love people-watching. I love guessing at people’s thoughts & feelings in the fleeting moments I catch them.

Overall, my Venus sign gave me insight for up-leveling my life’s pleasure quotient, which has become core to what I’m doing with Venus Magic. If you want to deliberately practice shifting your mood into “sudden bliss” a.k.a. your sweet spot, your Venus sign is the keyhole you should be peeking through!

HOW TO FIND ‘N INTERPRET YOUR VENUS

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JUST FYI, BEAUTIFUL DREAMER…. 💕✨

I actually have a whole tutorial on full-tilt finding ‘n interpreting your astrological Venus, go here to read it (as well to up-level your astrology skillz). ✨

Also, if you’re kind of new to transit astrology—the kind of astrology where we track the current planets’ movements in relation to our birth charts—check out this tutorial, ‘n be on your way to becoming your own master personal astrologer (you’re welcome). ✨

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1. Get a copy of your natal chart in front of you. You can get one for free at astro.com or by signing up for the Astro Twins’ newsletter. You could also check where your birth date falls on this chart over at Star Sign Astrology.

2. When you have your chart, look for this symbol: ♀

3. Now look to the outer rim of the wheel. What’s Sign does your natal Venus fall in?  

4. When you know, Google “Venus + [its Sign]” to open up a treasure trove of info-tainment!

5. To jumpstart: read more about the Astro Twins’ Venus sign summaries, which are pithy, but speak volumes. 

Of course, you would get a much more cohesive, spooky-specific Venus sign interpretation from an astrologer. Here are my favorites, but just to summarize: Bess Matassa of The Star Parlor (formerly Mojave Rising) specializes in sense-specific natal chart readings (✨), while Kimberly at Star Sign Style focuses on natal chart-inspired style & beauty advice (✨✨). 

You could spend all 3 weeks of Venus’ transit through Pisces just learning about your natal Venus, which might awaken you to so much more about your connection to the world (& it’s delights!). 

But there’s plenty of general pleasures to drip into your life—as well as other magically-astrological micro-rituals / mini-ecstasies to deepen, widen your sense-awareness, so that maybe you can edge on rapture!

SWOONY THINGS TO DO WHILE VENUS TRANSITS PISCES

In her virtual workshop on Venus’s annual transit through Pisces, SUBLIME, Rachel explains how we can use ritual to align with this ethereal time of the year, for inspiration, healing, & (of course) decoding what makes us feel good. I planned a whole ritual & plugged reminders into my schedule during the workshop, so when it ended, I felt like I’d just worked out a problem I hadn’t even realized I was stuck on!

Btw, I fully endorse enrolling in workshops while you’re still saving up for a personal astrology consult. In a workshop, you’re basically given an actionable horoscope, which might not decode everything that’s going on with you personally, but still gives you enough material to figure stuff out on your own. Workshops are spaces to test your intention-setting & self-awareness. 

All of which brings my inner mystic minx to an edge. I mean, why not while away an afternoon wondering deeply about making my life feel better?

So, here are a few activities to help you get swept up in what Venus → Pisces is all about! 

💠 beautify your mind

“[Waits] told me, ‘I realized that, as a songwriter, the only thing I really do is make jewelry for the inside of other people’s minds.’ Music is nothing more than decoration for the imagination. That’s all it is. That realization, Waits said, seemed to open things up for him. Songwriting became less painful after that.”

-- Liz Gilbert, Big Magic (based on a past interview)

Decorate your imagination. Re-read your favorite stories & poems. Create playlists of all the music that transports you to other places. Visit art museums, set up your kid’s mini-planetarium in the living room, & pretty much cram your imagination with sparkling, glowy artifacts. 

This is also a great time to binge on astrology, the Tarot, & other symbolic languages… your dreamer-subsconscious loves symbolism & reading up on it can also help you decode & create with your dreams! 

If you’re already pretty aware of what’s in your chart & also pretty adept at the Tarot, consider enrolling in a class to uplevel your symbolic language I can’t fudging wait for DISCOVERY to open up--the astrology course offered by Rachel @ Aeolian Heart (can you tell I’ve got star fever…? 🥵🌟).

You could also consider Venus in Pisces the perfect occasion for a “thought-form makeover.” Do you have any habitual thoughts that make you feel shitty? How about any thoughts promoting beautiful words & actions…?

If you want to replace a few shitty thoughtforms, I love these Venus teachings I found on Universe of Symbolism: 

“Young girls, you are magic, born to experience something magical. Love every moment of being a girl. You make the stars laugh. 

Young women, you are Divine, born to manifest the Divine Feminine on earth. You are the magic of procreation. You make the stars shine.

Grown women, be beautiful, gentle, wise, elegant, & supportive. Remind every woman who she is with your smile & loving presence. You excite the stars & make them dance.”

💠 detox your senses

Venus in Pisces is the season for poets & mystics--aesthetes, in general. According to Evelyn Underhill in Practical Mysticism: A Little Book For Normal People, aesthetes are practical mystics. We are designed to live in a state of peak sense-awareness. 

Living as a true aesthete prioritizes self-purification. Regularly & vigorously cleansing the faculties of perception--the very fabric of our perception itself! 

The core of practical mysticism, according to Miss Evelyn: being immaculate in body & mind, so that the Truth may clearly impress itself upon your soul. 

Well, why not. I don’t agree with Miss Evelyn on all points, but I totally believe she was a swoon-y mystic. And she’s not wrong about our senses needing regular flushing to keep us sensitive to the exquisiteness of direct experience. 

Sensitivity & awareness are part-in-parcel to having penetrative, mystical insight into reality. Sense sensitivity is an ability; it means you naturally tune into the connective tissues beneath superficial reality, stuff most people block out. 

I know that if I want to get to level of practical mysticism, I’ve gotta clean up my act. I’ve got to get intentionally sensitive & learn how to protect that sensitivity. Quite frankly, my senses are pretty blunt.

Be an aesthete. Merge with the moment. Dissolve into the world around you.

Do it. Do it do it do it.

💠 start dream journaling

A dream journal gives an eagle-eye view on an epic conversation you pick back up with the World Soul every night while you sleep. Dreams are a resource, a treasure trove, an elevated perspective on the content of your psyche. In a dream, new sensations storm your nervous system, remixing the levels, reshaping the topography of your soul, subliminally seeping into your waking mind.

If you can manage 3 keywords every day about your dreams for 2 weeks, your dreams will start noticeably amping up. If you focus on keywords (instead of trying to write out the whole dream as you remember it), you’ll be able to track the sun & moon easily.

For dream-journaling experts: document the positions of the sun & moon, which I track with the Deluxe Moon & Time Passages apps. 

What if you have trouble remembering your dreams? Start treating sleep like it’s basic hygiene. In fact, create a brand new, therapeutic bedtime routine. Go ahead, upgrade your bedsheets. Institute the bedroom as a no-phone zone. Drink a mugful of mugwort tea a couple hours before bed. (I’ve tried & liked this brand.)

💠 go to desire rehab

Venus Magic concentrates on manifesting essential power. This is power you don’t create, but create with. It’s power accessed when you’re plugged into your heart’s desire. When desire is thrown in, your instincts dial way up. You’ll be able to sniff out the right people, experiences, & products to make the journey truly your own.

But there’s a ton of social programming to break through before you can make the journey your’s.

If that’s the case for you: it’s time for desire rehab. Recommended reading: Danielle LaPorte’s The Desire Map. Last year, I wrote about my Desire Map experience, & I still go by the core desires unearthed in that process. 

Because of how grand a role desire plays in magic, you can’t afford to ignore it. 

💠 find communion

“Start seeing everything as God,

But keep it a secret.”

— HAFIZ

Go to a natural spot, like the mountains or the coast. Wear feathers in your hair & meditate on a giant rock. Carry your kicks in a bag & kiss the ground with your feet. Say a prayer & leave a feather with a piece of rose quartz somewhere in the wild. Even if nothing particularly thrilling happens while you’re in the great outdoors, keep the excursion secret. Don’t breathe a word about it.

If the idea of going out into nature makes you want to barf, steal away for a day in the city. Go window shopping & cafe crawling, take selfies & buy postcards. Find ways to document the city’s splendors: a camera phone, a journal, your Voice Memo app. Bring homemade jewelry or goody-bags to pass out to strangers.

Whether out in nature or in the city, find or invent an entry-point to merge with what’s happening around you. 

💠 explore the occult side of self-care

Venus in Pisces is the perfect occasion for booking an appointment with a masseuse or holistic esthetician; for splurging on a spa pedicure; for learning to meditate in the bathtub. It’s also a good time for experimenting with some whimsical magical effort, like drinking water infused with gemstones or carving glyphs onto your make-up brushes. 

Every mystic minx should have her own self-love ritual bath recipe--an elixir of fresh herbs, fruit juices, cream, & oils--with a tailored procedural to boot. I show you how to invent your own self-love bath ritual here!

💠 beautify your life

We talked about beautifying your inner life, but what about the outside?

This is the most obvious way to apply your Venus sign. But there’s still so much inspiration to take from other sublime-y places. I love everything Bess Matassa writes about star-inspired home design over at Apartment Therapy. 

And here are the Astro Twins’ home decor horoscopes as well, which points you towards star-satisfying design trends vibing with your own taste! 

In general, without knowing a thing about astrology, you could channel Venus into your home by filling it with squeezable textures, fragrant soy candles, fresh cut pink or peach roses, seashells, jade, quartz, & copper. And getting into the habit of playing ocean sounds on Spotify. Or buying a tiny plug-in water fountain. All of this stuff corresponds with Venus. Hella Venusian vibes. 

Also consider upgrading your wardrobe or getting a makeover. I’m forever indebted to Kimberly @ Star Sign Style for introducing me to the Aquarian Venus power of turquoise.

Visit this page to find Venus sign-inspired style & beauty advice! 

💠 build a venus altar

Place it in the eastern quadrant of your house (or wherever you want), on a vanity table (or whatever you want), then shower it with symbols, minerals, herbs, metals, & colors corresponding with Venus (or however you want to do it up). 

On Friday (Venus Day 🌸), leave a mug of deluxe hot cocoa as an offering. Set an intention while lighting a candle on your altar & journal about it. Write down the sun, moon, & date. Over time, you’ll gather enough data to help you set smarter intentions for bigger results. You’ll build rapport with Venus. 

Every morning, tidy your altar up & light incense. Meditate, draw Tarot cards, sing hymnals, or finger yourself. Whatever you do at your altar should be self-satisfying. Make your altar feed your particular need for Beauty, Love, & Desire. 

Whenever you notice your altar, you should wonder, What have I done today to make myself feel beautiful? What can I still do?

If the amount of stuff you could put on your altar is overwhelming, start with what you have & looks / feels good to you. Again, let your Venus sign guide you! 

However, regardless of your Venus sign’s bearing, your Venus altar definitely needs these LDR prayer candles.  ✨

To learn more about building a Goddess altar, visit this post. ✨

And to you in this season--I wish you plenty of sparkle & vertigo!

May you swoon your longings away & may your dreams froth over into your waking life! 

And may you find all the aesthetic-specific intel to help you finally become the flirt ‘n style supernova you’ve always known you were…

…and waiting for the right time to debut!!

Images via Pinterest. Help me credit the creators here.

Surrender To The Star-Fire: February Tarot Cast 2018

This month's Tarot Cast is all about cleansing our perception. Especially since February kicks off on the waning moon, when cleaning house is always a good idea, I want to go into this month without resistance. I want my mind to feel as free & clear as the North Pole. 

And I want to get swept up. I want to wonder. And just... feel. 

Later this month, the sun moves into Pisces, the house of Poet-Mystics! When the sun moves into Pisces, I get swoony. Faint-hearted, glittery-eyed. I feel trapped between fairy wings.  

Pisces season gets me thinking about meta-Love. Divine Love. Love that transcends & Love that softens your core. Divine Love.

And also, rapture. Like, where does spiritual rapture rank within Divine Love?

I want rapture. Because I trust rapture will mainline me into some extraterrestrial Love. Rapture obliterates Self-ness. Rapture is my aspiration. 

So every February, I think, read about, & stream all content swoon-y. I read William Blake, check my horoscope, & online shop for new lingerie. I make a point to take walks when it's breezy outside. 

If all this sounds rather sublime to you as well, keep reading to find out what's in this month's Cast, how to use it to in-form your Pisces New Moon Ritual, plus my tips for keeping a dream journal!

💠 The Moon.

Believe in better illusions.

The Moon corresponds with Pisces & Neptune, in the Great Beyond, which deals with illusions, dreams, extrasensory perception, & also shadow work. Life does get a bit surreal when you’re doing shadow work--especially if you ritualize it. You have your idea of what you want, but as the future overlaps the present, what you get was a mutant version, forged from the shoddy material in your psychic universe. You have to snake closed off canals of your mind. The dream flickers. But now you have a sense of reality.

No matter what bullshit fantasy you want to live in, make sure you know where it stands in wider reality.

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

— HENRY DAVID THOREAU

💠 The Star.

What’s your True North?

Hope. Guiding light. A beatific omen. All is well. 

Astrologically, The Star corresponds with Aquarius, where our sun still is. The Star is remote, but bright & attractive, much like Aquarians. The Star also corresponds with Uranus, an outer planet.

Detach. Take the long view of your life. Have you worked out the big picture of what you’re doing? For whom? Why? 

Innovate new ways to shift your perspective. Make it into a practice. How would a Zen Buddhist look at this? What would Gaga do?

💠 Perspective.

Move into new space.

Astrologically, the Perspective card corresponds with Neptune, one the outer planets. Neptune is the lucid dreamer of our cosmos, full of fairies, Divine messages, dreams, mirages, & star-spangly moments of ecstasy. 

What are my options right now? Am I working towards Love or am I working to avoid something? What am I not seeing that’s right in front of my face?

“Sometimes looking at things from another angle or perspective can shift the energy of a challenging situation. ”

— THE STARCHILD TAROT: A LIGHTWORKER’S GUIDE.

Lighten your load. Look clearly at the furniture in your life. Vulnerability is core here, where sacrifices & putting yourself out on a limb will help you see more than holding fast to the spot you’ve already staked out. Move into new space, so you can re-evaluate.

New space like: Meditation. Lucid dreaming. Prayer.

In that new space, answer Qs like, What are my options right now? Am I working towards Love or am I working to avoid something? What am I not seeing that’s right in front of my face? 

HOW TO TAKE ACTION WITH THIS TAROT CAST: A PISCES NEW MOON RITUAL!  ♓️

February 16th is the Lunar New Year! What better way to ring it in than with a new moon ritual? You could set a magical intention for the whole lunar year, or just for this cycle! 

Use this month’s Cast to in-form your magical intention, build your sigil(s), or code your dreams with recognizable images! 

I’ve talked before about the Goddess Hera as a Patron for Pisces new moon. You can read about it & also get my tips / swag rec’s in that post. If want my New Moon Ritual Roadmap + guidelines, visit this post. 

START KEEPING A DREAM JOURNAL IN FEBRUARY… 📖☁️✨

“You told me all the myths, on after the other,

Night after night

My beautiful, brutal bedtime tales

As you spoke I closed my eyes & saw them come to life

The miniature figures acting out their parts

When we fall asleep

My dreams were more vivid than they had ever been

As if I were watching your dreams in my head—”

-- Francesca Lia Block, Psyche In A Dress

Witches already know: dreams be rich with data. Questions, answers, warnings, & eureka-moments abound in dreams. If you want fast, enlightening perspective on what’s going on, start looking at your life through your dreams!

I try to scribble down at least 3 keywords about my dreams within moments of waking up. I manage to do it about 50% of the time. I have to do it on pen & paper--I’ve noticed that logging dreams into my Notes app actually scrambles the image that’s already fading in my mind’s eye. I’ve resigned to using scratch paper, then logging the keywords (plus sun / moon zodiac info--I like this astrology app) into a grimoire. 

Also, I notice I’m only able to do this on mornings I wake up to an alarm. Some people find they can’t record their dreams on mornings after late nights or that they need to say their dreams aloud into a voice recorder, or else they’ll skip it. 

To kickstart your dream journal practice: start brewing mugwort tea in the evening before bed, which you can find in most metaphysical shops or online. Makeover your bedroom into a delicious, hedonistic space with candles, oils, pillows, twinkle lights, & melty-soft bed linens. Shut off the computer or TV at least an hour before bedtime & see how many nights you can go without bringing your cell phone to bed with you.

Put your cute new diary & heavy, business-like writing pen on the nightstand beside you. (Which you’ve tidied up.) Tell yourself, out loud even, “I am going to remember my dreams! I am going to sleep now to have my dreams! To sleep perchance to dream!” Whatever feels right. 

Wake up & scribble out 3 keywords. Or a doodle. Don’t even worry about logging astro info until later that day or that week.

Voila! You are now widening your perspective! 

WANT SOME OTHER LOVERLY THINGS TO DO IN FEBRUARY?

…HERE’S WHAT SOUNDS GOOD TO ME:

Go stargazing in the mountains--if undoable, set your phone / computer backgrounds with landscape photos, I love this one ✨ write Rumi quotes on index cards that you tape around your house ✨ find out your Love Language, then find out the Love Language of your husband, wife, BFF, & the team at work (learn more about using Love Languages in the workplace from this MarieTV episode) ✨ donate blood (find out when a blood drive will be happening near you) ✨ play recordings of ocean waves during the day (I love this playlist) ✨ diffuse lavender & frankincense oils in the early morning ✨ look for eagles, angles, & UFOS ✨ study astrology, so your dreams are full of the stars! (Here’s an eBook to start you off on your natal chart!) ✨ pray out loud ✨ re-read your favorite books about fairies (I Was A Teenage Fairy or The Blue Girl for me), but don't forget to also feel like a faerie

May your February be rapturous! May it sparkle with star-dust & shimmer with bokeh overlays!