Oh hey guys how are ya?
Happy new moon.
Let's just do inventory check,
Stock if you will.
And just take note what's going on.
What led you to push play.
Are you escaping?
Are you coming into yourself?
Are you making space for play?
Are you washing dishes?
Are you taking that moon bath of yours?
Those sacred rituals that we create to enable rhythm into our daily erratic lives.
Now whatever you're doing welcome.
You are so welcome here.
Welcome to this space,
This place,
This time,
This moment.
It's yours.
And I'll have your ear for a little time here to talk about the Sagittarius New Moon coming in hot Wednesday November 23rd 2022 and that's at 457 in the afternoon Central Standard Time.
If you're joining me from the Midwest,
No coast,
Third coast I welcome you.
Anyone beyond that space I'm so glad to have you here.
The work has just begun.
Resurrected we extract ourselves from the Scorpio seasons introspective depths.
Reborn,
Not in body perhaps not in speech but certainly in mind.
What space comes when winter asks us to rest our bones and we become restless and we've thanked our ancestors for their blessings.
We've cast our wishes upon stars and we aim our arrows towards the moon and towards Mars.
Our deepest urges surface chanting to us from the depths this pulse and guttural radiance must not only be voiced but shouted to the sky but set into work.
Conscious action to be done and we take that first step forward in the ropes.
The ropes are tied about our feet,
Our ankles,
Our legs.
There's a bungee cord and it's pulling us towards the stories that have shaped us.
How do we unravel the past?
One knot at a time your heart whispers.
Syncopated the will and your drive take directive steps.
We may not know where we're going but it's far away from here.
Better to leave this graveyard of futility.
Hope springs though cautiously as we make our way faithfully through the dark nights and short days.
These days they are the darkest points.
We have found the death of night the longest one yet to come but we remember we remember we can trust in the night as we have faith in the dawn.
We blur the lines between our thoughts and our reality casting spells mindfully or unconsciously.
What are you dreaming up?
What chant does your heart sing on repeat?
This is the Inspired Astrology podcast.
My name is Lauren Kay Hickman.
I'm your guide this evening,
This morning,
This moment,
Wherever you are in the woods,
In your car,
On your bed.
I'm an inspired astrologer and before I took that cloak from my mother dear who was an esoteric astrologer I have been a Reiki practitioner and now a teacher and I've been in very intensive studies for about 20 years.
So my path has been a long one reaching towards metaphysical teachings as a very very lost 15 year old looking for support for help to save myself from drowning in the abyss of my existential dread of living in this world of being human.
It seemed a lot at that age and I know that I tend to gather around people who know the darkness because they also know the greatest light and I hope that you're finding that light for yourself and integrating your shadow for what is shadow but unenlightened light.
And I hope you're doing right by yourself this season.
It's a strange one indeed.
You know we we move from the kind of ritualistic emotional depths of Scorpio season right in our physical world we celebrate the dead.
We bless our ancestors in some cultures.
Maybe we don't even think about that.
Maybe we just dress up and try to find some inner aspect of our identity that needs to be seen for an evening or a week.
Maybe you got to plant your garden or put it to bed.
Maybe you got to clean up all the leaves decaying composting and left some for the for the bugs to bundle down this cold winter to come.
We think about these these things these harbingers of the seasons.
A pumpkin right.
I saw a pumpkin just sitting on a stump in the woods today and I thought how perfect.
Someone just thought hey I have this spare pumpkin I'm gonna go set this here and create some wonder some magic in somebody else's life.
And to me that's what Sagittarius really offers is that when things are getting really dark that the wonder and mischievous and masterful and foolish activities of the Sagittarius start to surface where the silliness becomes purposeful where the gesture the jest becomes meaningful in supporting others right and in uplifting ourselves right because there's nothing that feels better than making somebody laugh or smile especially when they feel like shit right because you know what that feels like we all do.
So what is your heart chanting?
What song do you have repeat on repeat repeating inside of your your being?
What is what is calling to you?
I know that identity has been hugely thematic for me in the past couple weeks and you know I tend to start to feel into seasons before they quite arrive and it was interesting this weekend I went to the UWM,
The University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.
They have a planetarium it turns out which very exciting and they had constellations and it was just magnificent.
I was just so happy to have these these constellations of Sagittarius played out by an astronomer somebody who speaks a similar language to mine but in a much more in-depth much more scientific much more I want to say didactic but it's like evidential based right and like from that information that astronomers gather that is where the poetry and the metaphor the psychology come in for the astrologer right they are separate but the same but not the same and you know just just looking through this beautiful astrolabe the night sky that they projected and and all the constellations that we can recognize in the winter sky the Pleiades Orion's belt Pegasus just brought wonder back to me like the way that when you're a kid and someone takes you to a science museum for the first time and some some person in the dark with a red laser is pointing towards these galaxies and telling you stories about who named the sky and it's so funny how humans have always tried to box up God to put a label on everything and I think Sagittarius season is really where we get an opportunity to let all of that go we can just drop the labels we can stop so I'm working on a book on seasonal archetypal with one of my mentors Ryan Evans and Ryan was a flower farmer for 30 years which drew me to this book and I'm really excited to be able to read it and I've been working on it for 30 years which truly truly shaped his identity as an astrologer because we don't talk about mythology we talk about the sky we talk about the seasons and nature and natural happenings that kind of indicate where and what is happening on earth and how that is happening and in this model Capricorn is the first sign of the zodiac which would make Sagittarius the last sign of the zodiac it's a cycle in my opinion and I will stand next to this forever and ever that there is no beginning of the year but in the cycle of a year the solstice in December coming up here after Sag season marks the beginning of Capricorn it is the new moon in the cycle of the year if there was a lunar cycle for the year the solstice would represent that and then cancer season would be the season where everything's fecund and hot and dripping with goo and berries are everywhere and you're able to gather and nurture right and Capricorn is the season of hunkering down the darkness the new beginning and as Ryan always asks me is the seed a plant when it's in the ground or when it bursts through the surface and even as an Aries I'm not going to take I'm not going to take that space in between the earth and the sky there's definitely something much deeper in the surface I think there's definitely something much deeper beneath so when we look at the end of the cycle we look at Sagittarius and we think of the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy Just this year,
Earlier this year,
2022,
Astronomers from all over the world collected satellite data using their instruments of gargantuan viewing perspective.
And were able to collect enough data to present an image of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.
And this was presented to me this weekend at the planetarium and I thought,
Wow.
That's unbelievable.
The center of our galaxy.
And that is where Sagittarius' arrows are shooting at my people.
Yes.
So the idea that we're going to enter that black hole,
That void,
That darkness of the solstice,
The darkest,
Longest day of the year,
Right?
Or shortest day,
Longest night of the year.
And we have to consider what's on the other side.
So the word resurrection came to me again and again as I was writing this piece.
Thinking about,
It's almost like watching someone crawl up from a grave,
Crawl up from underneath the soil,
Right?
Not a zombie per se.
Sagittarians are not zombies.
Someone's going to make a meme out of that one,
I'm pretty sure.
But it's this idea that we've like,
We've made peace with death in Scorpio season.
We've made peace.
So how do we make peace with the unknown?
How do we leap into faith and into trust with abandon?
And,
You know,
It's funny that Capricorn is kind of considered the control freak of the zodiac.
And I think that everybody has control issues because we live in a very chaotic and unpredictable world,
Save for the seasons and for the sunrise and sunset and the stars in the sky.
Right?
So there are some things that we can count on,
Right?
The gravitational pull of the earth.
There are some simple,
Basic things,
Laws of nature that have been pretty sturdy and steady and tried and true.
But to think that Capricorn is the beginning of the zodiac,
Right?
It's like trying to control the world,
Right?
And that's maybe an uninvolved imagination of how things work,
That if you can control the domain,
If you can stand on top of your mountain and survey and be mindful of everything,
If your mind is full,
Then you've got control.
Right?
But then what does control bring?
Anxiety,
Tension,
Overthinking,
Distrust,
Right?
Paranoia,
Suspicion.
Unless you are just like filled with faith,
Right?
And if it's not as sagittary as being the end of the zodiac,
Maybe that is the process of when we leap into the unknown,
When we leap into the abyss and we trust that everything is working out exactly as it should.
You know,
In therapy today,
I sat down with my person and I spoke a lot about all the different ways that my life could have turned out.
And yet here I am in social work school,
Living in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin,
Of all places,
Totally unexpected.
You know,
But this is the way that it worked out and this is where I am and I'm not fighting it.
It's just sort of a curious circumstance to be in.
So how do you make peace with the past?
How do you unravel all those knots and start to find comfort in the story that has been woven,
The one that you're existing in?
Right?
We have the opportunity to unravel things and we can rewrite the script in our own narrative should we wish to.
We can start to create a narrative for the future ahead.
And I love how the holidays are timed perfectly for this identity crisis,
Right?
Because we go in and all these traditions,
All of these expectations,
All these people looking at us like,
Huh?
You know,
Like you've changed or your hair has changed or you are exactly the same or I perceive you the same that you were when you were seven.
Right?
Or maybe you've already learned to branch off and create your own traditions and own experiences.
Just going to take a moment to reflect on the speech given by Wednesday Adams in Adams Family Values,
Which is the sequel to the Adams family movies that came out in the early 90s.
I'll see if I can get that recorded and post this to the podcast because I think that would be a funny addition.
But yeah,
We we are celebrating a holiday of genocide during a time in history where America is having a Pluto retrograde,
Which roughly translates to a reckoning of our violent,
Dark,
Control freak history,
Domineering,
Bloodthirsty,
Fearful,
Terrible,
Tragic,
Awful.
And there's there's not words to describe the worst.
And that was the worst.
I think those were the worst people.
And I like to imagine that on some other timeline and some other parallel dimension that hopefully will fold into.
Not that,
You know,
I don't want to have wishful thinking.
Right.
But I just,
You know,
I wish that we lived in a different world,
You know,
One where there was a synthesis rather than a diaspora,
Ethnic genocide,
Sadness,
Sadness,
Sadness,
Sadness.
So whatever you're doing with your day off,
Make some time to think about that.
Because if if you live in this country,
Part of our part of our work is to redirect,
Re-correct the course of the ship because it's sinking,
Bitches,
Is sinking.
Anyway,
Hope,
Right,
Faith,
Trust,
All of these words with Sagittarius season.
So interesting.
OK,
So the sun and moon are conjoined at the first degree of Sagittarius,
Kind of marking the new moon at the beginning of the cycle.
And it is creating a close trine to Jupiter,
Who is associated with Sagittarius.
So Jupiter is this protective planet of expansion and is currently in retrograde at the latter degrees of Pisces,
Which is the other traditional ruler of Jupiter.
So there is all this like feckin' yummy,
Fertile,
Wonderful energy coming in.
And what a breath of fresh air after such a long eclipse season,
Especially during Scorpio season,
All this unearthing and unearthing and unearthing and excavating.
And,
You know,
Pluto is making this sweet and soft aspect to both Jupiter and the new moon.
So Pluto,
Uncovering,
Power,
Suspicion,
Envy,
Jealousy,
Intenseness,
Manipulation.
There's like a lot of different faces to Pluto.
But I'm going to say because these are trines,
These are soft aspects,
I think this is more about looking inward.
And looking towards the structural beams that may be rotting beneath the surface and that desperately need replaced.
And what I think about for that is,
You know,
Think about that,
Like,
You know,
Going down into the basement of self or of country or of community or of family and starting to push on things,
Examining things,
Kind of pressing and seeing if there's rot.
Or even termites or even things cracking as you start to poke at them.
Because it doesn't mean that everything's broken.
It means that there just needs to be some work done.
Right.
You can replace those beams.
You can put something sturdier underneath there.
You can reinforce what's already existing until you're able to get those like steel girders that are going to support the house.
That is your conscious psyche or your family dynamic or whatever little grid or universe that you're existing in,
Coexisting in.
So what a sweet opportunity to do some more excavation after everything we've been through.
Right.
But maybe that's like once you stir up the mud and it starts to settle and sift,
You get a better idea of what needs to be dealt with first.
So if you're considering your foundation,
What is ready to purge?
Right.
This might be a good time for an EMDR session or brain spotting or journaling.
You know,
Maybe maybe just some contemplative time or walk in the woods may reveal some old constructs that are no longer serving in your in your little universe that you're trying to balance out.
Venus and Mercury in Sagittarius.
Love that they're conjoined and they are in Aspect,
Echiron and Aries.
So as I struggled to get this report done tonight,
I started working on it a few days ago,
As I do.
And it was just drama.
I had to take a shower.
I had to put my robe on.
I was just like,
Somebody take me to Mexico.
Get me out of here.
It's so dark.
It's cold.
And they're just like the drama of Venus and Sagittarius.
And then combined with Mercury,
It's like,
I just want things to be easy.
Will someone please take care of me?
Will someone just like pet me and feed me and love me and let me watch television or go on an adventure?
Or how about I just abandon everything and like move into the woods?
And just depends on how how this hits you.
Right.
So Venus and Mercury,
This night,
It's a nice it's a nice combo because Venus,
Self-worth,
Mercury,
Our inner thoughts,
Our mental space.
And fusing those two worlds can be very helpful in sorting out desire issues,
Creative matters,
Communication matters with relational loved ones and so forth.
And then this aspect to Chiron and Aries creates the themes regarding identity.
Right.
And identity in all its aspects can surface during a cycle like this.
Who am I?
Who am I to my groups in my community?
Who am I at work?
Or rather,
Who am I if I am not working and I remove the work or doing things for other people?
Do I love myself enough to let go of the ideas of who I've been and how do I allow this rebirth to be painless?
This can go on for hours.
You know my brain.
If you're just if you're just joining us,
This is the Inspired Astrology podcast with Lauren K.
Hickman.
I am your weirdo in I am your weirdo astrologer just doing my residency here in your brain for for the time being.
Right.
So excavation,
Identity,
Trying to sort this stuff out.
And all this is connected to that idea of like unraveling the past and these stories that we tell ourselves about who and what we are.
Right.
Your cells remember.
Also,
Your cells recreate themselves every seven years.
So we are constantly going through rebirth.
So why does that scar stay there?
Why does that tattoo stay there?
I don't know.
Probably like the identity piece of it.
What are we attached to?
All right.
So let's talk about Gemini Mars and retrograde,
Because this cycle is going on for a few months and it can be very,
Very powerful as far as completing former projects,
Getting clear on what your priorities are as far as action and activities.
And being in Gemini,
It's certainly going to be related to community connection,
Siblings,
Speech,
Contact points,
Your neighbors,
Your schools,
An election.
So this retrograde cycle is a matter of like Mars kind of turning within.
That's how we do that metaphorically in astrology is this idea of like halting in your tracks,
Pause,
Identifying what's going on,
Maybe wrestling a little bit with that Martian energy of like,
Let's go,
Let's do it.
And it's like,
No,
No,
No,
Let's slow down.
And it's it's an aspect.
Right.
Like there's always a conversation happening between the planets.
And with with Gemini Mars retrograde aspecting Saturn and Aquarius,
Who is also aspecting Uranus and Taurus,
Which is in retrograde.
Right.
And if you haven't been kind of following some of these cycles,
The Saturn Uranus square.
Right.
Is just one part of a ongoing cycle between tradition and the future of evolution and what makes us feel comfortable,
The static and the friction.
Right.
And during a square season,
Which we've been going through since twenty twenty one,
It's just like the battle royale.
And it feels like it's never going to go away.
And a lot of astrologers of like kind of pop astrologers,
Things that are kind of in our you know,
I'm sure there's other people talking about this.
I'm not the only one.
But I'm not seeing that we need to acknowledge that this this is still happening,
That this tension is still there.
It is still like one degree off right now.
And when you have a square 90 degrees,
It is like I mean,
Think about a square.
It has that kind of aspect of tension and harshness and like a square wave versus a sine wave.
It creates a clash or dissonance.
Right.
There's a dissonance between these two energies.
And when you bring in Mars and Gemini,
There's going to be a high mental energy.
You combine that with Uranus and Saturn in this in this kind of it's not synergy,
It's tension.
Right.
Where are we going?
How can we do this better?
How can we melt all of this into an amazing pot of futuristic humanity?
Right.
How can we not live in a dystopic future and actually create one that is sustainable where there's enough for everyone?
And if you want to hear more about that,
Please go back to the last episode on the eclipse ending Scorpio season,
Because I talk very much on the Taurus full moon about about climate and sustainability and right use of resources.
So Mars and Gemini has a strong mental energy or quality to it.
And with Uranus,
You know,
Not an aspect to that,
But an aspect to Saturn.
It feels like there's like pew pew,
Like sort of this like,
You know,
Like laser beam shooting off of it.
And that's that there's like a lot of high ambition,
A lot of strong energy here.
So how do we sit with that discomfort?
Right.
Can you take time to reframe?
Can you regroup?
Can you sticky note?
Can you plan layout before jumping into spontaneous action?
And how can you like combine the formulaic and the impulsive to make traction on creative affairs?
Right.
Because you are a creative being born of a creative energy and force.
And yeah,
It's it's good to be creative.
You know,
It's probably why you get frustrated with yourself.
It's not necessarily about productivity.
It's about where you're putting your energy at.
Or maybe I'm just a generator.
Who knows?
So thinking a lot about trust and faith,
I polled my audience on Instagram about what the difference between the two are.
And if we look into Middle English,
Old French,
Norse,
German,
All of it is trust.
All of its comfort and trust.
Confiding.
Right.
How do we confide in the universe?
How can we trust and lean into what has been done?
And that's that that faith point,
That leap,
That journey into the abyss that I've been talking about.
Jupiter is this protective shield of our galaxy associated with SAGE.
And Jupiter,
The failed sun,
Has a gravitational force field preventing asteroids from pummeling Earth and other fragile inner planets.
And,
You know,
The asteroid belt is fascinating.
A lot of astrologers are super into using the asteroids like Ceres and Vesta,
Etc.
Juno.
So if you're into that,
We can talk.
Right.
Sagittarius rules the ninth house associated with Jupiter.
It's this landscape of empathy building through real world contact.
These endeavors connecting with other humans.
And faith seems to be this connected word with Sagittarius and not in like a religious sense,
But maybe for some it is.
There's a lot of Sages that our ministers are involved in chaplainship or mentorship in some capacity because of this accommodation of knowledge.
And so they're inspired by the synthesis and this beautiful ability to kind of see from all directions and to consume and transmute like fire.
There is an indomitable spirit about Sagittarius and in its low form,
It can be pretty talkative,
Pretty self-absorbed,
Very much into its own journey.
You know,
In a good expression or a positive light form of that expression,
It can be very inspiring to others to have adventures,
To do things on your own,
To take risks,
Take leaps.
That's what fire signs do.
We're kind of fly by the seat of our pants.
So in Scorpio,
We acknowledge death and Sagittarius,
We acknowledge life after death,
Something in the beyond.
So as these days darken,
Knowing that the solstice will bring new birth and new light so soon.
It's with faith we are willing to explore the dark underbelly of our own natures,
To find frivolity in human curiosity and to share unabashedly our adventures,
To careen around campfires and merriment and abandon because whatever happens,
The sun will rise tomorrow.
We're blurry.
We are changeable.
I wish you all so well on your Sagittarius journey as we step into the season of fire,
Of changeable,
Mutable fire.
And I hope that you find meaningful connections and good boundaries wherever you may need them.
And this is Lauren K Hickman and you found the Inspired Astrology podcast.
I post these around the new moon and full moon as a heart offering.
I absolutely accept tips.
I really appreciate the monthly supporters.
There is a group of you that I just depend on you and I really,
Really appreciate the support.
I have a studio here in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin,
Studio Ursidae at the Lincoln Warehouse currently,
And it's a space for healing,
For unfolding,
For unraveling.
And the mirroring process that does come with counsel.
And I am a licensed clinical social worker in training while on my way to receiving licensure.
And with over 10 years of professional experience,
Working with individuals and in the community,
Offering astrological insight,
Using mirroring through cards,
The Shusta divination cards,
And just through the process of really active,
Compassionate listening.
A lot of magic happens through that.
And then with skilled hands,
With energy,
Intuitive work that I do in counsel,
You know,
The practice of Reiki has been commodified in this country just like anything else.
And it is a wisdom tradition that goes as far back and pervades all cultures throughout history.
Anyone who's willing to work with the universal life force that is the whisper beneath everything that exists.
And Reiki was the name that was given to it by the beautiful Japanese culture and this idea of naming something and understanding that God and its intuitive intellectual energy that it is,
Like that it is its own quality of consciousness that it knows better than us.
It's a trust process.
And so when we do Reiki I teach on the five principles of Reiki and go over the precepts.
I love creating long term sessions with people to do deep work.
So I look forward to hearing from you it's able to do that in person and online,
Or over the phone,
If you're not a zoom person.
Happy to record sessions I also do written reports for babies for teenagers for grownups for people getting married or who are married.
I do lots of intuitive writing for folks and it's such a such a gift to be able to do that.
So just be in touch or look up written reports on my website,
UrsaDay.
Us.
I appreciate every opportunity to be of service and appreciate you showing up this evening or daytime or whenever to listen to my musings about the sky and the wonders of being human and existing in such times.
So with deep gratitude I sign off.
I hope you stay inspired.
