On January 29th the new moon arrives (exact at 7:36 am ET, time zone converter) to remind us that renewal is possible. This new moon also ushers in the two-week period of the Lunar New Year which is celebrated by a quarter of the earth’s population, especially throughout Asia. This is the year of the Snake, which in Chinese mythology is generally an auspicious creature that symbolizes transformation and rebirth.

So it is fitting that at this time of year, we are invited to walk the soul shaping path of The Star (due to the astro-Tarot correspondences of Aquarius to the Tarot’s Star card).

From The Next World Tarot by Cristy C. Road

Path of the Moonth: The Star

The Star exists alongside Death, the Devil, and the Tower, the fearsome three of the Tarot pantheon, through which we die to our old lives, confront the shadows we can no longer hide from, and experience the structures we counted on crumble. Through this process, we are stripped down to our essential self, find ourselves as open as the Star figure. We may feel alone, but the Star reminds us that we are held within a vast and beautiful Cosmos, which constantly pours its gifts upon us.

Passage and Practice To Help Us Move Through: 5 of Swords and Connecting to Groups

This year The Star’s path takes us through the passage of the Five of Swords.

In the iconic Rider Waite Smith Tarot’s Five of Swords, a large, orange-haired figure in the foreground stands confidently holding three swords while two empty-handed figures in the background walk away. The furthest figure appears to be holding their face in their hands, their shoulders are slumped. A third figure stands between and seems to be looking at the one holding their face. Jagged clouds in the background whip along above the rippling ocean.

a 1909 card scanned by Holly Voley and retrieved from Sacred Texts. Deck available from US Games

The foregrounded figure seems to have won the battle, which could give this card a meaning of victory, vindication, or success. But a traditional name for this card is the Lord of Defeat. This name shifts our orientation to those who have lost their swords and seemingly their fight.

Placing these figures at the center of the card’s story calls us to contemplate not victory but themes such as harm experienced and inflicted, being wronged, being a bystander to harm, and abuse of power.

Nearly a century before scholars and activists popularized the triangle of victim/survivor, bystander, and perpetrator, Pixie Smith created an image to show this web of relationships—inviting we who receive this image to step into the soul work of repairing harm.

Our commitment to moving through this passage connects us to what the poet Kathleen Aguero calls “the hard work of hope.” Because the hope that heals is actively engaged with the most difficult challenges of our times. This is the hope we are called to cultivate when we encounter the Five of Swords passage.

How do we cultivate this hope? By becoming stars for each other. Stars who interrupt the triangle of the triangle of victim/survivor, bystander, and perpetrator.

One way to interrupt the triangle is through bystander interventions that center the victim/survivor. Activists working against sexual violence and racist, homophobic and transphobic actions and comments have developed trainings to prepare us to act in immediate situations.

Since the U.S. government is now overtly a perpetrator of violence with both messages of hate and executive orders, legislative and direct action is a systemic bystander response.

Organizations of particularly targeted groups—for example: legal immigrants and our neighbors who live here without documentation as well as the trans community—can guide you in finding a way to be a star instead of a bystander. Find a list of national, regional, and local groups working on immigration issues on Detention Watch’s website. The Pink Haven Coalition supports mutual aid, relocation to safer states, and access to gender-affirming care for the trans and non-binary community.

I am writing these words the morning after the federal funding freeze caused great confusion and blocked funds flowing to programs that serve an untold number of people in every state in the country. Yesterday I received a message about the possible impacts connected to the workplace of someone within our Soul Path Sanctuary community, wondered how this would impact grant funding for climate resilience at my job, and heard from my mayor that she was looking into the impact on my city’s finances.

We may not be in groups that are specifically called out, but this situation—Choose Democracy, an excellent source for analysis, calls it an administrative coup—shows us how we are all impacted. (Afternoon update: I am hearing from Choose Democracy that the order is rescinded because of the public outcry. Sign up for their list and you will get good new, too!)

We may start out taking action we believe to be for others but find ourselves being the ones defended.

Posture to Take on the Path: King of Swords

To walk this path of being stars for each other, the Tarot offers us the King of Swords as one to emulate.

From Tarot Roots of Asia (unfortunately out of print)

The King is a master of the mind and uses their intellect to serve the good of the Whole.

To be like this King, we assess rather than block feelings, and we do not allow ourselves to be controlled by them. Once the emotions are acknowledged, we can look at current reality analytically, assess options from a larger perspective, and identify how our personal choices might impact others.

Being like Kings, we remember that hope is fed by action and we all have a role to play in the work of renewal. We don’t do this work alone. Kings exist within collectives. The collective is what carries the action forward. So while we live full lives and might only have 5 minutes a day or 15 minutes a week, these moments of taking star action can make a difference when joined with others.

In these chaotic times, it may seem foolish to believe that change can happen.

Time to be Fools

And if it seems foolish to dare to believe we can repair, the Tarot supports us to be that Fool. In fact, using the correspondences of astrology and Tarot, we find that The Fool, through its association with the planet of innovation Uranus, is said to rule The Star. To be Star beings we must follow The Fool.

I know some Fools. They are working on reparations for African Americans in the Valley where I live. They are members of the Nipmuc Nation who are leading the push to have a state-owned farm rematriated to their care. They are Palestinians returning to their homes and pitching their tents on the rubble to send a message that this land is theirs. They are poets like Muriel Rukyser who wrote in Speed of Darkness during the Vietnam war:

 VIII

Ends of the earth join tonight
with blazing stars upon their meeting.
These sons,    	these sons
fall burning into Asia.


                               IX

Time comes into it.
Say it.    	Say it.
The universe is made of stories,
not of atoms.


                             XIII

My night awake
staring at the broad rough jewel
the copper roof across the way
thinking of the poet
yet unborn in this dark
who will be the throat of these hours.
No.    	Of those hours.
Who will speak these days,
if not I,
if not you?

The work is continuous—as continuous as the stars’ appearance in the night sky. The ancient Egyptians were close observers of stars, like the Pole Star, that did not set. Called the Imperishable Stars, they served as an image of eternity and a reminder of the constant presence of the Gods and Goddess in the people’s lives. The Tarot’s Star, too, reminds us of this Divine accompaniment, both when we are aware of Her presence and even when we doubt it. She holds us within Her embrace as we rest, and in the resting are reshaped. From here we will emerge into a new wholeness made from our broken parts.

Reading of the Moonth

These questions are offered for reflection and to spark practice throughout the moonth. Pulling Tarot and oracle cards in connection to these questions is appropriate, but not absolutely necessary. You might carry a question with you on a walk for example and observe what is happening in the natural world as a way to find insight into the answer to the question.

REPAIR: What work of repair does Five of Swords passage call me to this moonth?

ACTION: How can I engage in the repair work this moonth?

RENEW: How will I be contributing to the renewal of the Whole when I commit to this work?

I do offer this as an e-reading in my collaborative initiative format for $32. Sign up with Pay Pal or contact me about sending a check. When I receive notification, I’ll be in touch to let you know about when to expect to receive your reading by email. I generally have openings to do these readings on Mondays and Saturdays.

Before the moon is made new on January 29th (exact at 7:35 am pm ET, time zone converter), it returns to the place on the astrological Wheel where it began its moonthly journey. The energy gathered through the moonth now flows away into moonless nights. What will you send with this energy to be transformed in the dark?

The moonth we are concluding began and now ends in Capricorn which corresponds to the Tarot’s Devil card. In the Dark Goddess Tarot, the Devil is Tlazolteotl, Aztec Goddess of Filth and Purification (XV, Corruption). Ellen Lorenzi-Prince, creator of the Dark Goddess Tarot, description of Her includes:

She is called the Sin Eater, the Mother of Midnight, Death by Lust, and She of Two Faces. She is the contrary-natured Aztec and Toltec Goddess of filth and purification, of fertility and disease, of prostitutes and midwives. In one hand she holds a cob of maize for the powers of life, in the other a rattle, symbolic of the scourge of illness.

The Goddess is vomiting out what she can no longer stand to have within. The expulsion of the disease will then be the pathway to renewal. She invites us to similar practices of purification. 

From 8;43 am ET on Sunday, January 26th through 2:31 pm ET on Tuesday, January 28th, the dark moon returning to Capricorn/The Devil is especially potent for supporting your transformation (but any time before the new moon’s arrival when you can fit it in is helpful). You are invited to engage in reflection and ritual to celebrate achievements of the moonth passing and release what you do not want to carry into the next lunation. 

The ritual’s most important element is your clear intention about what you want to release so begin with reflection and finding your focus guided by Tlazolteotl and your own desires. Writing down your intention is a helpful practice to support clarity.

Your ritual can be as elaborate or as simple as you’d like. You can even dedicate an action you planned to do anyway to meeting your intention. Physical action and work with the body are particularly aligned with this moonth’s connection to the earth sign of Capricorn. Here are some examples to inspire creation of a ritual that fits your unique needs and style:

• Pick a drawer or a closet or a shelf to clear out. Remove everything from there in a dramatic way: for example, take out the drawer and dump it on the floor. Sort out the items and remove what you don’t need. If you keep anything, put it in a place of honor as it represents something important to be retained. Then clean the empty space. It is now ready to receive the new coming in the next lunation.
• Steam yourself. This could be in a hot shower or by steaming your face over a pot of water with herbs mixed in. Let your intuition guide you to the herbs you need to meet your intention. For example, I’ve found myself using rosemary lately for facial steaming, and am now seeing that it is associated with purification.
• If you should actually be sick on the dark moon, tune into the illness’ beneficial side effects that could be slowing down, learning lessons of the body, or more time to sleep. Dedicate the illness to your intention. Of course, continue to take care of yourself as needed to move through the illness.
• Bring some of Tlazolteotl tools into your ritual. You could, for example, work with a rattle. Shaking it all around yourself as you observe with your imaginal eye that you are disrupting and dispelling negative energy, personal or collective limiting beliefs, or fears that keep us from evolving.

Once you have done your new moon ritual, rest. As much as you can, let your resting reach into the arrival of the new moon on January 29th, which travels the path of the Tarot’s Star. Imagine your dark moon release opening being filled with the gifts of the Star. As the moon is brand new, the offerings will be subtle, but because of your lunar attunement you can trust yourself to receive the new gifts arriving whether you receive them consciously or unconsciously.

The height of this moonth’s cycle comes with the full moon arriving on Monday, the 13th (exact at 5:27 pm ET, time zone converter), and offers a revelation about how the lunar energies initiated on the December 30th new moon are developing. The new moon, guided by its association with The Devil, Two of Pentacles, and Queen of Pentacles, invited us to meet the Guardian at the gateway of the year and have the strength to make magic. On the full moon we invite a revelation about how this energy is developing. As we integrate the revelation in the last weeks of the lunar cycle, we are issued an invitation to return a gift to the world.

The exact moment of the moon’s fullness comes in the sign of Cancer associated with the Tarot’s Chariot archetype. When The Devil meets up with The Chariot, a challenge is presented to align disparate—possibly conflicting, perhaps bedeviling—parts of ourselves. Once aligned, we can be propelled forward from where we’ve been stuck and enter new territory.

Key to the Chariot delivering you to the place of your soul’s calling is aligning with your deepest/highest values. What are the values you want to be guided by this moonth? Or as this full moon arrives so near to the new year you may want to create some space for reflecting on values you want to live by and uphold throughout 2025. Then these values can guide any planning you do for the year.

In the Minoan Tarot’s Chariot I find an invitation to keep Love at the center of our lives.

This is a favorite Chariot image of mine and I return to it as a touchstone each year during Soul Path Sanctuary’s January eRetreat, Tending the Returning Light. Deck creator Ellen Lorenzi-Prince describes the image:

On a painted stone sarcophagus from the New Palace Period, the Goddess drives a chariot drawn by griffins. With the body of a lion and head and wings of an eagle, the sovereign of beasts and the sovereign of birds together, griffins are especially powerful and majestic creatures, as they harness the powers of both Earth and Heaven. Yet the Goddess does not strain to hold the reins on the magical beasts. Her control is effortless.

In the overview booklet for Tending the Returning Light I reflect on the image and its meaning:

The rein we see the Goddess holding represents Her—and is a mirror of our— desires, longing, conscious control; this helps to set a direction for the Chariot.

But where is the second rein? We do not see one.

There is, however, another connection suggested. The Goddess extends her chest toward Her creatures. The heart lives in the chest. I believe Her heart is the second rein. This heart rein does not control so much as align. Her heart rein is curious about where the griffins might want to go. The heart rein is open to the journey as it unfolds. A heart rein invites new revelations.

Both reins are needed for us to move forward meaningfully through the challenges and delights of our lives.

The heart is the symbol of Love that is calling to us here at the start of the year.

When you engage Love, you may find its seeming opposites arise, especially during a Devil moonth:

Your love for another, could also raise in you great frustration for how they do not take care or even abuse themselves. As you allow that frustration to flow you may find it is just another facet of love.

Your love for the earth could turn to fear for its future, our human future, the future of so many species. As you allow that fear to flow you may find it is just another facet of love.

Your love for the dead could raise another wave of grief within you. As you allow that grief to flow you may find it is just another facet of love.

Your love for people you do not know but that you see are suffering because of the injustice of our systems may raise in you a rage. As you allow that rage to flow you may find it is just another facet of love.

Weaving these elements together instead of setting them apart increases the power of the energy you have for moving forward in your life, toward your goals, into this new year.

To encourage a revelation on these themes as we journey through this moonthly cycle, you are invited to one, some, or all of these practices:

~ Moon bathe by sitting or lying under a window or outside on the ground. Let go of your thoughts and soak in the light.

~ Take out any reading or your reflections from the new moon and look at them in a new light. How does your understanding of the cards shift now that time has passed and light has shifted? (If you haven’t done a reading yet, no problem, just do it now under the light of the full moon. You can try the one from the new moon.)

~ Bring out your Devil and Chariot cards from your Tarot deck and connect them to your new moon reading / reflections. You could place/imagine these cards on either side of your reading or above and below, and then look at how they add meaning into the story your original cards offered you.

~ Reflect on questions such as: What is my heart’s desire? How can I be focused and directed in seeking my heart’s desire? How can I just go with the flow to seek my heart’s desire? Where can my love lead me? When I tap into my love what other emotions arise? How can I harness all that arises to move forward in my life? You could, of course, pull cards as responses to any of these questions.

You may want to engage in Visio Divina to find the layers of wisdom within the cards.

When you are done, remember to offer gratitude for what you have received. Consider what gift you now want to return to the world. Pulling a card for guidance on the gift is always a fine thing to do. In the coming weeks and before the moon returns to dark around January 26th. offer your gift to the world.

This moonth—arriving on Monday, the 30th (exact moment at 5:27 pm ET, time zone converter)—we are once again invited to walk the path of the Tarot’s Devil.

As you may remember, we started the year with a January 11th Devil moon which offered the message of: Protect what is most important. Then during two full moon appearances this summer the Lovers and Chariot had Devil encounters inviting revelations about how we renew love as well as exercise personal and collective power. As you reflect on the year past, you may want to look for these themes in the happenings and ah ha moments of your life in 2024. What wisdom did your Devil encounters offer? How will you integrate these insights? And now how will use this Devil energy that flowed through this year to push off into the next?

Path of the Moonth

Yes, The Devil is a guardian at the gateway of this transition time.

In Western culture, we like to make our Devils simple, to have them be the singular repository of evil.

But the image of the Devil – in the Tarot and elsewhere – is complex and made of many parts: curved horns, bats wings, chicken feet. When we unravel the Devil’s parts and take a few moments with each’s origins and inspirations, we find positive power and potential layered into this image.

a 1909 card scanned by Holly Voley and retrieved from Sacred Texts. Deck available from US Games

Horns are markers of vital deities across cultures. Hathor, the great Mother Goddess of ancient Egypt, is shown with cow horns that hold a symbol of the sun she is said to give birth to each day. The Greek God Pan sports horns as he makes music through field and groove. Cernunnos, the Celtic God of fertility, rules over the natural, animal, instinctual, and sexual forces of life. So, peel back our first fearful reaction to the Devil, and we find horns calling us to notice the feminine, playful, and natural powers – and to reclaim these powers from how they have been demeaned and demonized in our culture.

Bats are classified as unclean and detested in the Bible, perhaps leading to an association with the Devil. I had a bat encounter where I admit I was afraid as one flew right for my face before swerving. But in many cultures what scares or is strange is not categorized as evil. North American Native Peoples honored the interconnection of all and observed bat behavior to find the teaching offered. They realized that bats can travel easily in the dark through a connection made by sound to its surroundings; bat then becomes a guide to dreams, intuitions, and vision. Bat is also associated with the Greek Goddess Persephone who descends to the dark of the Underworld for part of each year so that the new can be gestated in the womb of the earth. Aware of these associations, the Devil’s bat wings guide us away from our fear of the dark and the Divine Feminine to find our way toward their gifts. (Hmm, yes, this is the second instance of the Divine Feminine hiding within what is deemed to be bad and waiting for us to connect with her true power.)

The chicken feet remind me of The Raziel Tarot’s Devil. Drawn from Jewish lore, mystical teachings, and traditional stories, the Raziel offers a Devil who is a trickster but has limited power. Deck creator Rachel Pollack enlightens us about the difference between the Jewish and Christian conceptions of the Devil: “Quite simply, the idea of an all-powerful Devil … does not exist in Judaism …. No great Devil holds the souls of all humanity in its grip.” Pollack relates the tale of the Devil displacing and then masquerading as the wise ruler King Solomon. But Solomon sneaks back to court disguised as a beggar, reveals the Devil’s chicken feet, and regains his throne. The Devil can be defeated by the humble human; time to stop giving the Devils in our lives so much of our own power.

On the surface, the Devil is a mess, but below that strange puzzle of parts great powers waiting to emerge. And isn’t that frequently a reflection of each of us? We are an assortment of quirks and wounds, conflicting desires and internal voices, and addictions both small and large.

We may try to present a perfect face, but each of us is a part of the larger world, which, let’s admit it, is a mess. But if we dig into rather than fear these strange parts, we can move more fully into who we are. We can acknowledge the challenge of a part but instead of fighting it channel our energy toward developing the gift it contains. And as we do, the untapped power waiting within can emerge to support personal and even planetary healing. (FYI, we contemplate these themes in the first week of Tending the Returning Light, the second half of the Solstice-hinged retreat-in-everyday life that starts on Monday, the 30^th. Now, is a fine time to join us.)

So what is the part of you that seems ugliest, that you hide the most? During the moonth and the whole first half of the year, spend some time finding the gift in this part and encountering it as a tool for transformation.

Passage We May Encounter and Practice to Move Through

This moonth’s path takes us through the action of the Two of Pentacles. In the iconic Rider Waite Smith image, a figure stands – dances? hops? – on one foot while juggling two pentacles, the symbols of the suit of earth. This card offers up a mirror of us doing the busy juggle of our lives, often just barely balancing conflicting priorities but sometimes excited to find ourselves in the flow of task achievement.

a 1909 card scanned by Holly Voley and retrieved from Sacred Texts. Deck available from US Games

The Pentacles are connected by the lemniscate, a symbol of eternity also featured on the Rider Waite Smith Major Arcana cards of the Magician and Strength. The repetition of the symbol invites us to recognize a greater potential in the Two of Pentacles message. Perhaps our daily struggles that seem small are really part of something larger and more meaningful. Perhaps we just need the strength to recognize how we can make magic in the world with our daily actions. Then we can choose what actions to take and which priorities to focus on in alignment with the impact we would like to make on the world around us.

To cultivate that strength to make magic with your daily actions, you might begin your yearly planning or resolution-setting by focusing on what you most seek to serve – the Divine Feminine, Justice, increased civil discourse, greater creativity; these are just a few service examples – and then identify the action steps that support your focus. Pare away what does not serve your focus to avoid juggling too many things at once.

There is one final connection to make. In mathematics, the lemniscate can be called The Devil’s Curve. When we add the Devil into the mix, we can say that the Strength to make Magic comes from meeting and integrating all the strange parts of ourselves. This is no doubt a lifelong process. There is no ultimate state to reach because when we arrive at such a feeling the Devil will appear to show us something ugly that can help us grow.

Take your time with your focusing, integrating, and planning as we begin the year. In the Twos we practice discernment and patience. Remembering we are on the Devil’s path, we resist the critical/chaotic voices that want to keep us from grounding our actions in our inner wisdom and deep commitments. “Move at the pace of guidance” is a helpful adage I know from Joanna Powell Colbert.

Posture to Take on the Path

The Queen of Pentacles shows us that the place to manifest our strong magic is on the earth. This Queen sits amidst a lush garden; partnership with natural forces has brought forth abundance and beauty.

a 1909 card scanned by Holly Voley and retrieved from Sacred Texts. Deck available from US Games

Wearing red, the same color as the Magician’s cloak, the Queen of Pentacles’ loving gaze is directed toward the pentacle in a way similar to the gaze of Strength’s figure towards the lion. And the Queen’s crown is topped with … well, they rather look like horns!

When this Queen and us, too, when we follow this wisdom figure’s lead, unite these disparate energies within ourselves, the world blooms.

The Queen of Pentacles magic is elemental and manifest for the good of the Whole. We are invited into the same way of being.

Reading of the Moonth

These questions are offered for reflection and to spark practice throughout the moonth. Pulling Tarot and oracle cards in connection to these questions is appropriate, but not absolutely necessary. You might carry a question with you on a walk for example and observe what is happening in the natural world as a way to find insight into the answer to the question.

MAGIC: What magic is yours to make at this time?

STRENGTH: How can you cultivate the strength to bring forth this magic?

MANIFESTATION: What will you be able to make real?

I do offer this as an e-reading in my collaborative initiative format for $32. Sign up with Pay Pal or contact me about sending a check. When I receive notification, I’ll be in touch to let you know about when to expect to receive your reading by email. I generally have openings to do these readings on Mondays and Saturdays. I will be doing readings after January 1 as I take a few days off at the end of the year.