A New Moon & Solar Return reflection

It feels so kismet to me that my birthday falls less than 24 hours before a New Moon in Pisces — so many pulls on endings and beginnings, starting and closing. We are finishing the astrological year, welcoming closure with a New Moon before eclipse season, and even personally, my own years are coming and going.

In many ways, I feel that I am standing on the threshold of something else entirely, a new lease or phase in my own life. I thought 30 would be a big year for me, and it was…but I know this year will be even more. I feel that time has been building up to what is unfolding before me, and I am simultaneously celebrating, grieving, and swimming in it all. Fitting as I am entering an 8th House profection with Saturn in Pisces as my transiting timelord, preparing to cross over my Sun this year. A call to reformation — reclamation.

I came up with a word that would encapsulate my feelings for the year ahead, and that was “emerging”. As I am now on the precipice of this year, and it is clear more than ever that I am doing just that…emerging. There is a momentary death and rebirth that is permeating the space that I inhabit in life, and as I intentionally rise from those ashes, only what matters can remain. If it is not solid in my spirit, it is not solid in my life.

Through the last 12 months in particular, I have had many “wins” and “successes”, for which I am incredibly grateful. However, I have not allowed myself to fully realize and recognize them, and more, sit with them. I have let each one pass by, diminishing their value — and my own in the process. I think this is a product of my roots and life focused on survival. Because to survive doesn’t mean to live, only to exist. I have had reminders to celebrate myself, from tarot to friends to ancestors to loved ones, all nudging me to look at myself with more grace, love, and admiration. But pride can be hard to come by when you feel like you don’t deserve it. As I walk into this new year, I refuse to allow that to be my reality going forward. I don’t want to kiss the passing years with little passion. I want to feel them running through my veins and moving in my bones. I want to feel confident enough to tell myself how truly proud I am to be here, alive, witnessing my dreams coming true — and even more, being active participant in those actualizations.

This year, I start over, start again, start anew. The World is my tarot theme, and as I culminate to the final moments of what was, I can sit in the present with the knowing that I have come so far. I no longer wish to exist. I wish to live. I wish to thrive — I wish for all of us to thrive.

Whatever closes is meant to create a world we have yet to see before us.

Poem inspired by the knight of pentacles

There’s a gentleness
In the journey that
I have long ignored.

When do I
Stop to
Smell the roses
And fill my body
With their love?

When do I
Speak moments
of gratitude into
Their petals?

When do I
Kiss their
Thorns and
Taste the
Iron and salt
On my tongue?

When do I
Put their hips
To my lips
And taste their
Sweetness, too?