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I write regularly at jessicashepherd.substack.com — soft, human words on healing, astrology & intuition:
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Gemini Full Moon: The Others
Perhaps you have a friend with whom you are completely at odds in values and choices, or a sibling that vexes you by being the opposite of you in every way. Or a lover who turns left when you say go right. Yes, you've met the confounding, maddening Other, before...We all have. It can be fun to have differences. Or not! I have a client who just had twins (Scorpios- double trouble!) enter her family. Twins get to spend their entire lives exploring the duality and similarity of their situation....
Saturn Squares Neptune: Reality is a Convincing Illusion
Saturn in Sagittarius is square Neptune in Pisces through November 2015 (this will be exact at 7 degrees 11/21-30, then again, June 2016 -12 degrees with Saturn and Neptune retrograde, and again, Sept 10 degrees, Neptune retrograde)*. As Saturn in Sag lines up for a square with Neptune in Pisces this month, there’s a conflict between our spiritual worldview, faith (Pisces) and our core beliefs about life (Sagittarius). As Neptunian glamour and illusion clashes with reality, we witness endless...
Scorpio New Moon: Shaman’s Moon
Pluto in Capricorn squaring my Aries Moon has brought a deep plunge into unconscious material I’ve been carrying around for years. It’s been gritty and tough and it has pushed me to acquire new healing tools. For the past 18 months or so, similar to a shaman, I have been regularly dipping into what we in the EFT (emotional freedom technique) universe call “The Matrix”, emotionally releasing highly charged trauma episodes and re-imprinting a new reality for my younger self by giving her the...
Taurus Full Moon: The Money Fountain
This summer’s Venus retrograde delivered much needed slow down time -to enjoy the bounty and beauty of summer, to get firmly reacquainted with pleasure again- which, for me, also coincided with diminished clients, and therefore less money. Like others who run their own business, I’ve learned to ride the cyclical nature of cash flow like a surfer waiting for the next wave. There’s no point in fighting it, falling into abject depression over lack, when the next wave will eventually come. I use...
Libra New Moon: Dynamic Balance
One of the very first big presents I gave my husband was a surfboard. He wanted one really badly. Surfing was a point of contention in his first marriage. I knew this because, more than several times during those first few years, he bristled with defensiveness at the possibility of anyone (me) encroaching on his Saturday morning surf time. I reassured him that I supported his independence, and the hobby that I knew symbolized so much more than a hobby for him, but no matter how many times I...
Aries Full Moon Lunar Eclipse: Warrior Intuition
Eclipses, with their otherworldly, wildcard natures, always attune me to the strange mysteries of the universe. For instance, the number 3. They say things -signs, omens, bad luck- happen in 3’s. You lose your keys, spill your coffee and are late for work. Or, a package you’ve long awaited for arrives, you find a twenty-dollar bill in the dryer, then you see a beautiful sunset. Numbers are magical that way. Three is also a number in pothole theory. Do you know it? One day I am walking down the...
How To Burn
This bubbled up during the last solar eclipse, which occurred in my twelfth house where my natal Pluto resides. It came out as a letter to my former selves. When I was 17, I lost everything and being stripped to my foundation radically shaped me. Pluto is the blowtorch-wielding hand of fate. I believe the recent wildfires of Northern California, those who lost everything, brought this up for me. I am sharing this with you because I think it is honest and ultimately encouraging. We can always...
5 Tips for Finessing Your Mercury Retrograde
1/5-1/24/16 Mercury moves retrograde from 1 degree Aquarius to 15 degrees Capricorn. The Facts Three times a year, for approximately three weeks time, Mercury slows down so that from the Earth's perspective it appears to move backwards. We call this Mercury retrograde. Mercury is associated with the zodiacal signs Gemini and Virgo. In mythology he is the messenger to the Gods, charging communication, commerce, ideas. First, the difficult news: As the fastest moving planet in the solar system,...
Virgo New Moon Eclipse: The Critic and the Crepe
This morning I tried my hand at a new skill: Making buckwheat crepes. Everything was going along smoothly. The sunshine was out, the birds singing, and I’m making…crepes! I fantasize about buckwheat crepes becoming the specialty I am known for. Friends invite me over for the weekend for my crepes. Working along with the recipe, I don’t accurately gage the batter pour. And so I learn lesson number one: Crepes are best consumed as extremely paper-thin, delicate wrappers meant to highlight the...
Pisces Full Moon: Dreamers and Believers
I sat at the feet of the venerable wise teacher Byron Katie last weekend at Spirit Rock, the meditation center down the road from where I live. She opened the class by saying, Raise your hand if you ate breakfast this morning. Hands went up. Then she asked, Is it true? Where’s your proof? Hundreds of us were now having breakfast in our imagination. I had the prickly sensation that all the enlightened beings that have passed through this space were now in this room, chuckling at the cosmic...
