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I write regularly at jessicashepherd.substack.com — soft, human words on healing, astrology & intuition:
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Cancer Full Moon: The House of Belonging
As we turned the corners of the new year, I returned home after living in Stockholm, Sweden for four months. I am finally where I belong. Home. In Northern California where the air has an otherworldly perfume of damp peaty musk and fresh green. Home. As David Byrne of the Talking Heads once sang, “...where I want to be” And as poet David Whyte once wrote, “...where I want to love all the things it has taken me so long to learn to love.” Returning home has made me swoony with happiness, in love...
Love’s Reprieve: Venus Moves Retrograde
If there are periods when everyone's relationship and self-esteem issues are 'up', that time is now. And if you study astrology you'll know exactly why: Venus, aka Goddess of Love, is moving retrograde this solstice, December 21-January 31, in the sign of Capricorn. Lady Love's orbit has slowed so that she appears to be moving backwards from us Earthlings' perspective, making matters of the heart less straightforward. To avoid the pitfalls and take advantage of this period for re-strategising...
Gemini Full Moon: The Magic and Wonder
About a year ago, my husband hypothetically asked me whether I’d like to spend 4 months in Zimbabwe or Stockholm. That was a no-brainer. I answered: Stockholm, already knowing from my tourist experiences that travel’s difficulty and discomfort increases exponentially by number of miles travelled and cultures crossed. Now we are here. Yet immigrating to a new country for a period of time is different from tourist travel. When you travel as a tourist, the immediate convenience of a hotel, the...
Sagittarius New Moon: View From The Top
I live in a tree house that sits high above our small town, overlooking a canyon. From my living room window, I can see hawks circling the valley below looking for lunch while in the distance the sun shimmers on the ocean bay. Removed from the bustling town center and with a wide panorama view that Mother Nature reserves only for birds, this mountain-top home preaches the art of perspective. I love it for many reasons, but the consistent effect it seems to have on others and myself is a sense...
Taurus Full Moon: Pleasure
Every week since I’ve been in Stockholm, I’ve visited a European bathhouse. In the midst of a bustling city street, an old-timey sign appears advertising that you can “restore and relax like it’s 1904”. The facilities are modern enough -several warm pools, heated swimming pool, steam and dry saunas, all situated below ground and in this warm cavern you can’t help but slowly unwind. Afterwards, too rubbery legged and relaxed to begin my journey home, I take tea in the crisply bright artificial...
Scorpio New Moon Eclipse: The Animal Inside
In tune with Scorpio season, darkness is descending on Stockholm. As the Sun begins to set around 3 PM, and dark by 4PM, the sky will consecutively darken and by February the Sun will only make a 2-hour appearance. It is the perfect environment for skulking through the gorgeous graveyards inhabited by glamorous dead people like Greta Garbo, and for writing crime and mystery novels. Today is All Saint's Day (November 1) where candles are lit for ancestor's graveyards. Endless night, combined...
Checking In On The Uranus Pluto Square
There is a cosmic tone happening right now, and it will continue through 2015. Many people are questioning whether their life as it is, is truly sustainable. Individual circumstances vary but the feelings of unhappiness, despair are common and at core there is a deep inner knowing that what we have been doing for the last XX years is not supporting the future person we want to become. This is not only true for some of us individually, but as we are seeing, it is true for us collectively as a...
Aries Full Moon Lunar Eclipse: The I In We
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the fluke of me (what? huh? me??!!) living in Stockholm for these four months. Most often, I’ve been awestruck, amazed, overwhelmed with gratitude that my husband, soul mate and now Fulbright Scholar has given me the gift of this -- the biggest overseas experience we’ve had yet. Life is an experience, and this is one that I will remember forever. But on a few other occasions, the harder times, times when I’ve yearned for the comforts and friends of home, times...
Libra New Moon: A Balancing Act
The person we represent our self as being, is not often the person we are. Politicians present a straight-talking wholesome face to their constituents while behind the scenes they are making dirty, self-interested deals. Remember the first time you saw a woman without her makeup, and she became a whole different person? A well-crafted image is something we all create in relationship, too. We choose the right clothes, say the right thing or joke, omit certain bits of information about our self,...
The Neptune Square
The first time I tried to write this blog it disappeared. Typical Neptune. I had been writing it within another document and although the other piece remained, Neptune just vanished. Similar experiences have happened with Neptune involved: a married client talks about her ghost lover during a session, and my recording device on my computer times out leaving us with no evidence of the discussion. Neptune absconds with time, too, as if to prove that actions mark time, and that without actions...
