Below still frequent heat, there is an undertone of coolness. The air almost seems to move differently. We are in the early shift of the season. We are nearing a completion here in the Northern Hemisphere. The landscape is green and the fields full, but growth has slowed. The sounds have shifted; the birds are quieter and the cicadas’ hum solemn. We are turning toward the final harvests.

The August 23rd new moon (exact at 2:07 am ET, time zone converter) astro-Tarot correspondences point us toward this theme of completion as we are invited to walk the path of the Hermit, Major Arcana number 9, the last single digit. This is actually the first of two new moons on the Hermit path. The Equinox-connected September 21st new moon will keep us walking this way. This extended time with the disciplined Hermit might inspired us to commit to completing a significant project over the next moonths or to a new or renewed soul tending practice.

Hermits turn from the demands of the everyday world and embrace solitude to seek the wisdom within. Paradoxically, this looking inward also tunes them into the wisdom that flows from natural cycles, the Greater Than, and all that is beyond themselves. They integrate their personal insights with the larger patterns to find an understanding of the Whole.

Once in touch with their Inner Wise One, Hermits are called to return and share their insight with others. The lantern that is so common in versions of this card signifies this responsibility. Their periods of solitude are not permanent but periodic. They are still called to serve the communities from which they come, to respond to the needs of the world in which they live.

Being numbered 9 is apt for this card because to embody the archetype of The Hermit is an achievement that marks a cycle of growth’s completion. We may not be as old in years as the elder figures shown on Hermit cards, but we still have aged our wisdom selves when we’ve embraced a Hermit time.

So, the path of the moonth calls us to completion, but there is still work to do before we are finished. Our passage of the moonth takes us through the 8 of Pentacles.

The call of this card is: Keep at your work. In the fields, we will only have enough for the winter if we do the harvest and prepare the stores now. For our spiritual life, faithfulness to our practice is what truly tends our soul. With our activism, the troubled times we live in show us a world in need of Justice’s cultivation if we want to enjoy its gifts.

In this 8 of Pentacles passage I hear the echo of Rachel Pollack’s message that came to us through her Raziel Moon card just after the US election in November: You are in a perilous situation in which you must stay on the path.

I had pulled the Moon card in response to the question: What can we do to still work toward liberation in this time of chaos? And Rachel’s counsel said to me that the work we were doing toward liberation before the election was the work to be sure to continue—despite the waves of chaos about to crest even higher. Now that we are 8 months into this administration is a good time to check in on how we are doing staying on the path.

How are you doing?

How am I doing? My first assessment is that I’m not sure.

I continue to write poetry but with more effort than with flow. I send you these missives but wonder if they meet the moment. My activism that I was already involved in has increased. It actually isn’t just another To Do on the list, but a nourishing, connective practice. I know that we can’t just plan abstractly for the world we want and on one day just enact it. But I have doubts: Are we doing the right thing?

But my doubt is not dangerous. I accept it as part of the process. In the midst of change—and when you are in the work of the Tarot 8s—we don’t know the outcome. We have to be with uncertainty and keep moving anyway. Our movement becomes a practice that we do without focus on the outcome. So, I think that’s what I am doing. So, I think I am doing OK. How’s that for an assessment for uncertain times 🙂

Still I will admit I am kinda tuckered out by my perception of the pace I think I should keep so it is a relief to see that the correspondences of the moonth call us to be the careful explorers and steady questers of the earth traditionally known as the Knight of Pentacles.

These exploring, questing Knights are devoted to their cause but move at their own pace. Cedar McCloud writes about the earth Explorer of the Numinous Tarot: “While, like the other Explorers, there is movement in this card, it’s much slower. [They] are someone who takes their time, never rushing or making any hasty decisions.”

In the Numinous Tarot this suit associated with the earth element is called Tomes and is filled with images of books. As an artist and writer, it is not surprising to see McCloud invoke books as symbols of what manifests out of a successful journey of steady and determined work. I often use this deck when I am looking for guidance for my writing projects.

This mix of themes—creating books, dedication to path, and Hermits sharing light—guided my attention to Batool Abu Akleen, a young poet from Gaza, who has just released her first book, 48Kg. Reviewer Hilary Plum explains the book’s structure as a countdown of the poet’s body weight as she endures the bombardment, siege, and starvation from 2023 to the present of the Israeli war of genocidal impact on Gaza—made possible only because of US support, arms, and bombs.

In her review, Plum describes Abu Akleen’s struggle to write:

In her opening note Abu Akleen writes: “This book came after months of my refusing to write anything, believing that poetry wouldn’t change the world.” Conversations with friends persuaded her, she says, of the value of the work, not even for the world but for herself. We see the devastation of this insight in moments such as, “I was crying over you / & lamenting you in poems casual as your death,” at the end of one poem (a poem numbered as 22kg.—not, you might notice, a survivable weight). This line stunned me. Yes, poems, even when they take years to know how to write, are casual. Even when they travel through history toward us, that may be their limit, their charge.

Abu Akleen does not elevate poetry to a higher purpose, nor does she deny its power. She writes because the work has value for her despite being uncertain of its impact. She is Hermit-like in this way, choosing to tend her own light.

As she continues to create, Abu Akleen moves through the passage of the 8 of Pentacles, keeping at the writing persistently, as a practice, despite obstacles. She moves slowly like a Knight of Pentacles. I do not know if this is her natural rhythm; it is imposed upon her by a lack of food. She confronts a very physical reality: she is being starved even as food aid is just miles but blocked from entering Gaza. She will tell her story directly to you through her video diary post: How I work when I am dying of hunger

Abu Akleen is a person who deserves to be valued, who deserves to live not because she writes these poems, but just because she is a human being. She didn’t have to share the light of her poems with us gathered from the dark of her world, but because she has, we can receive them.

Having received her words, we are pulled into relationship with this young person so full of wisdom and her people. This relationship can inspire us to call legislators to tell them to demand relief organized by recognized humanitarian groups be let into Gaza and, those in the US, can call to tell them to sign on to Block the Bombs legislation (more legislators sign on every day, the latest is Rep. Jamie Raskin). We can support mutual aid projects led by people in Gaza who do have ways of procuring food (either from growing or paying exorbitant prices). I’ve supported the Gaza Soup Kitchen. We can read the poems and words of Palestinian writers. I’ve ordered 48kg. and Heaven Looks Like Us is a beautiful anthology to serve as a gateway to meeting poets in Palestine and in the diaspora.

During this moonth, we may not be certain of the impact of our actions. We may doubt. But we can move forward. Letting the movement, our practices, our action and creating be enough in and of itself. In this way we can be true to the path and practice walking it despite the perilous times we are in.

Reading of the Moonth

These questions are offered for reflection and to spark practice throughout the moonth. You may want to integrate them into the scenario practice above. 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.

COMPLETION: What to work to bring to completion during the Hermit moons?

PRACTICE: What practice will support me to do this?

HARVEST: What will I be able to harvest if I follow my practice toward completion?

I do offer this as an e-reading in my collaborative intuitive 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 August 23rd, it returns to the place on the astrological Wheel where it began its moonthly journey. The energy gathered through the lunation 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 Leo,  which corresponds to the Tarot’s Strength card. In the Dark Goddess Tarot Strength is Samovila, the Slavic Guardian of the Forest. Ellen Lorenzi-Prince, creator of the Dark Goddess Tarot, tells us about her:

She protects the living beings, red-blooded or green, in the woods of Eastern Europe. She guards the purity of its streams and the health of the whole. Often lively and playful, Samovila loves to dance. Her circle dances create the magical glades that are found in even the deepest tracks of the forest. Yet she is fierce in her defence of her home and takes revenge against trespassers who would harm her beloved ones. 

Her special animal companion is a bear. Shown as peaceful in the presence of Samovila, a mother bear is also famous for her fierceness in defending her cubs. Bears standing upright like humans show us a mirror of our animal self, wild and powerful, willing to protect what is most important to us.

Although she is a Slavic wisdom figure, I hear her calling us on these darkening nights to see the fire lighting up the forests of Canada and the Iberian Peninsula. Last year about this same time, I was writing about her seeing the US West Coast burning and the year before that the Amazon. She comes around again to help us hear the same message. We need to listen The resulting deforestation will accelerate the advance of climate change so although fires may be happening near or far to any one of us the whole world will feel the ripple impacts. 

Samovila knows she is connected to the living beings of blood and leaf and invites us to feel the feel the connection, too. The emotions that arise might be strong, might be dissonant. But the dark moon nights can hold their intensity. They invite us to make some space for what is bigger than our personal or everyday concerns. 

We often focus our dark moon releases on our personal reality, but we can also let the challenges of the collective pass through us. Through this symbolic and magical work, we can make a contribution to releasing for, and healing of, the whole. This work compliments our action in the rational and physical to do such things as change policy and direct action. 

From 7:17 pm ET on Wednesday, August 20 through 1:24 am ET on Saturday, the 23rd (time zone converter), the dark moon returns to Leo / Strength and is especially potent for supporting your integration and transformation (but any time before the new moon’s arrival when you can fit it in is good). 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.

Dark Moon Release Ritual

This moonth’s ritual is inspired by Ellen Lorenzi-Prince’s connection of Samovila to dance and Jennifer Lucero-Earle’s ArcanaDance that allows us to meet the wisdom of the Tarot in our bodies through movement. Visit her website to find out more and this series of articles and sample video we prepared ahead of a class we taught together at Readers Studio. 

This is an example of a flow that you should modify to fit your own needs. Do what is within your comfort zone and get support as needed. You may want to pick out a piece of music to play during this ritual time that helps you connect with your wild self. 

Enter sacred space by leaving behind your everyday concerns. Closing a door so you have privacy can help. Playing special music can help. After tuning into your body, imagine that you are ringed with a circle of protection.

You can invite Samovila and/or the face of Greater Than that you have been serving this moonth to be with you, protect you, and aid you in this dark moon release. Spend as much time as you need connecting with Them.

If you are able, you can physically do the following actions. You can also imagine yourself doing them:

Crouch on your hands and knees. Imagine you are a mother bear. Feel your weight and power. Maybe you growl. Maybe you move about the room in some way. 

Bring to mind a world problem that concerns you. It could be the fires, climate change, or another challenge you are focused on.

As this problem comes into your consciousness, tune into what happens in your animal body. Let the instinct of you bodily reaction to this problem guide your movement. You may swing about. You may stand up. You may claw against trespassers. You may pace or stomp. Stay with this for a while. 

After moving for some moments, bring to mind your guide, Samovila or another, ask them to take, punish, transform this problem. Let yourself feel their power working on the problem. Let yourself feel how you are working together. Let this guide a shift in your movements. 

When you are ready, feel your way back down to the floor or to a chair. Let yourself sit and be. Let your imaginal mind see the problem flowing away. Then let your own emotions about the problem flow away after it. If there is anything personal from the moonth that you want to release, let it got now. (Your rational mind may want to remind you that the problem can’t change that fast. That’s fine. You can remind this part of you that you are working in the imaginal realm right now where the seeds of the new and next are gestated.)

Take some time to rest in the emptiness.  

Tune into your body again, feeling it lighter and energized. Re-center yourself by connecting with earth below you and the sky above you. Feel their energy mix in your heart. Be open to a blessing coming to you from Samovila and/or your face of the Greater Than. Be sure to offer Them gratitude for their support.

Be gentle with yourself after this process. Things may keep shifting within for a while. 

When the new moon arrives on Saturday, you may want to make wishes for your renewed energy can create for you personally and for the world in the next lunation. Be sure to write them down to revisit at the end of the moonth. 

The height of this moonth’s cycle comes with the full moon arriving on Saturday, August 9th (exact at 3:54 am ET, time zone converter), and offers a revelation about how the lunar energies initiated on the July 24 new moon are developing. The new moon, guided by its association with Strength, Five of Wands, and King of Wands invited us to be leaders who bring together groups across difference. Out of the full moon revelation about this developing energy, we are issued an invitation to return a gift to the world in the final weeks of the lunar cycle.

The exact moment of the moon’s fullness comes in the sign of Aquarius. Although the symbol for this sign looks like ocean waves, it is actually associated with the element of air. The working of wind upon water points to the sign’s power. Mental clarity, shift in consciousness, and/or communication across different groups inspired by the Aquarian archetype can work positively upon people to create change, even in difficult circumstances. Aquarian energy feels like the sun emerging from storm clouds while the wind still blows and brings a wave of light that flows over dark depths of pond or lake or ocean. The shimmer emerges from nowhere to delight the eye.

The Star is the Tarot card that corresponds to Aquarius, and this celestial light, too, can seem to emerge from nowhere with an offer of comfort in times of tension, turmoil, and trouble.

The Star’s message is hope and renewal. But the Star itself does not fix us, does not take away our wounds. Instead we and all our broken places are bathed in a gentle light. This light opens our eyes to perceive what exists in new ways.

What our eyes look upon these days is disturbing. Masked agents of the state abduct people from the streets of the US. Wildfires rage across the forests of the Northern Hemisphere turning the sun lunar silver and the moon sunset salmon. Drones drop bombs on apartments in Kiev killing families. Children are starved in Gaza while the food they need is but miles away. Is it too dramatic to say that we are in apocalyptic times? Not for those beings facing death.

Apocalypse in the ancient Greek literally means “uncovering.” The disturbing times in which we live call for an uncovering of what has brought us to this point. The great spotlights of larger institutions would rather not shine on and expose what is at their foundation. So, to shine that light is left to all the little stars scattered through the dark.

We are the ones scattered in the dark. Our eyes become the stars when we dare to look at what waits to be uncovered. Individually, we don’t have enough light to raise the truth, but gathered in groups our light expands. The more that participate, the greater the light.

Gatherings of stars are called constellations and these star patterns were the first guidance systems of our ancestors. They used the stars to navigate in fair weather and foul. When thrown off course in their journeys, the stars assisted them to chart their course anew.

This moon cycle began stamped with the energy of Strength and encourages us to move forward together despite our differences. To harness the collective power of us, even as sparks of energetic tension that seem to show us in opposition fly. Now The Star Full Moon invites us to reconnect with what we know when we look at the night sky: We can only offer the map of the way forward together.

We need a whole constellation of stars to find our way through the uncoverings of our times.

Can we do it?

I’ll say yes because there is a hidden message in the meeting of Strength, Major Arcana 8, and Star, Major Arcana 17. These cards combined show us to The Chariot (8+17=25/7), the vehicle for forward movement … when we harness what seem to be opposing forces. There is an echoing of message here. The hidden Chariot offers us a future we can believe in: one where we pull together toward what serves the Whole.

These themes bring to mind a poem by the prophetic poet Lucille Clifton that I offer as a close to these musings.

blessing the boats

may the tide

that is entering even now

the lip of our understanding

carry you out

beyond the face of fear

may you kiss

the wind then turn from it

certain that it will

love your back may you

open your eyes to water

water waving forever

and may you in your innocence

sail through this to that

[Source: Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000 (BOA Editions Ltd., 2000)]

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 change 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 Strength and Star 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 can I work to uncover, to bring to light? Who shall I constellate with to gather the light? What is my highest/deepest dream for our future? Who to work with to make it real? 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 August 20th. offer your gift to the world.

Before the moon is made new on Thursday, July 24th, it returns to the place on the astrological Wheel where it began its moonthly journey. The energy gathered through the lunation 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 Cancer  which corresponds to the Tarot’s Chariot card. In the Dark Goddess Tarot The Chariot is Ishtar, the Babylonian Goddess of Love and War. Ellen Lorenzi-Prince, creator of the Dark Goddess Tarot, tells us that she is worshiped as both a female and male deity. Ellen’s description of Her includes:

Her symbol of the eight-pointed star, two four-pointed stars crossing over one another, … is a symbol of the union between matter and spirit, as well as the balance between male and female. Ishtar has evolved over millennia into a goddess of contradictory aspects. She is fire and rain, both burning and quenching the land. She is nurturing and she is bloodthirsty. With Ishtar, one experiences the dynamic power that is generated through the ability to harness opposing forces. 

We began the moonth by daring to put our hands in the intense Fires of Now. This outreach offered an expansion of our hearts, an invitation to love as we journey. 

Now Ishtar comes to lead us in an examination of how we have tended this love. In this, she is nurturing and fierce. She demands the truth in all its complexities. And from this truthful examination can emerge an understanding of what we don’t need to carry into the next lunation. We can ask Ishtar to take it into the dark, to burn it with her fiery star. 

From 8:26 am ET on Tuesday, July 22 through 11:28 am ET on Thursday, the 24th (time zone converter), the dark moon returns to Cancer / The Chariot and is especially potent for supporting your integration and transformation (but any time before the new moon’s arrival when you can fit it in is good). 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.

Reflection

Think back on the moonth by looking over your calendar,  journal, or even photos taken to jog your memory about the past 28ish days. Then journal or draw from one to three cards in response to questions like these: 

What/who did you love this moonth? What joy did this love unleash? Where did you fall short in your love for others and/or yourself? 

What did you make war on this moonth? How did your war making protect joy for yourself and/or others?  How did you make war on your joy (i.e. attacking and diminishing it)? 

Sort the ideas that emerge into those to celebrate and those to release. You may be surprised to find the loving and waring responses mixed into both categories. 

Offer gratitude for those ideas and actions of yours to celebrate. You might include the image of the eight-pointed star in how you offer your gratitude by: drawing it over a written list, creating one by overlaying 2 squares and writing your list on to it, or doing a meditation and imagining it glowing above you as recite your list of ideas and actions to celebrate. 

Dark Moon Release Ritual

Use any of all of these ideas to create a ritual that works for you. 

You may want to bring a special/beautiful bowl or cup filled with some clear water into the ritual. 

Create sacred space by lighting a candle, imagining that you are ringed with a circle of protection, and/or your usual actions.

You can invite Ishtar and/or the face of Greater Than that you have been serving this moonth to be with you and aid you in this dark moon release. Spend as much time as you need connecting with Them.

Then use your imaginal mind to sense above you Ishtar’s eight-pointed star. Become aware of streams of energy flowing down from each point to you and over you. You can imagine the star light infusing the water in your bowl. Take some time to bask in the star light on this dark night.

Now bring to mind the first of your releases. You might associate it with a certain color. Imagine it falling into the bowl. Watch with your imaginal eyes as it is dissolves in the star-infused water until the color is totally dissipated and only clear water remains. 

Do this with each of your releases. 

When you are done with your releasing, open your eyes and gaze into the clear water in the bowl. Let yourself sense and feel gratitude for the transformation made possible by the water. You may want to drink some of the water.

Tune into your body, feeling it lighter and energized. Re-center yourself by connecting with earth below you and the sky above you. Feel their energy mix in your heart. Be open to a blessing coming to you from Ishtar and/or your face of the Greater Than. Be sure to offer Them gratitude for their support.

When the new moon arrives, you may want to make wishes for your renewed energy can create in the next lunation. Be sure to write them down to revisit at the end of the moonth.