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I write regularly at jessicashepherd.substack.com — soft, human words on healing, astrology & intuition:
Blog
2013: Just The Essentials
Around New Year’s I like to plan some yearly goals. This is less about resolve, more like focusing and clarifying my mind on what I’d like to accomplish in the coming year. This year, I'm going extra gentle on my "worldly ambitions" and instead going for the feelings I'd like to possess (vitality, serenity, peace, fulfillment) and mapping out how to get those. Like Janus, the Roman Saturn who stands at the threshold of new beginnings and new years (January), to have an effective plan, it helps...
Uranus Direct: Surrender The SuperEgo
Welcome Uranus Direct! Uranus retrograde has allowed us to get real familiar with how our SuperEgo limits our person-hood. Our SuperEgo is that part of us that is chock full of shoulds, judgment about being too out- there, different, weird, and whenever we experience an authentic call from the Self, SuperEgo has plenty of advice about what we cannot and definitely should not, do. Uranus is like that status quo figure, The Heirophant, in the Tarot, or the person in your life who will always...
The Upside of Chiron
It’s easy to think of Chiron as the asteroid that always hurts. Maybe that’s true; maybe it is the arrow that will always find you, the hurt that will never entirely heal. If you have Chiron strong in your chart you likely identify with this. Chiron feels very Plutonian in that it is a wound. But it is different from Pluto, and I can always observe the difference during a client or personal transit. Unlike a Pluto transit, where we are a lone and sole dustmote in the galaxy wrestling with our...
New Moon Sagittarius: Spirit In the Air
The Sagittarius New Moon on 12/13/12 falls at 21'45' Sagittarius. Each Sun sign season presents its own opportunity to renew and revitalize the energetic principles the Zodiac represents. Sagittarius expansively pushes at the bound emotions of Scorpio Sun season and into the realm of possibility through the renewal of faith-- and right before the longest night of the year. It’s no coincidence that we have our holiday parties and gatherings at this time of year, my friend remarked as I drove...
Gemini Lunar Eclipse: Thinking, Believing, Knowing
“The world is not a problem; the problem is your unawareness”-Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh “The moment you say 'I know everything' is the end of your growth.”- Sharon Lee "If you're not confused, you're not paying attention." -Tom Peters "There is no freedom like seeing myself as I am and not losing heart."- Elizabeth J. Canham “If we put everything into the hands of experts and if we say that as intelligent outsiders we are not qualified to look over the should of anybody, then we’re in some kind...
Scorpio Solar Eclipse: Light To The Darkness
"We must bring our own light to the darkness." -unknown Scorpio season is often one of my more creatively prolific times. I look forward to Scorpio all year. But this year is different. Saturn is in Scorpio. All around, emotions are more intensely felt, as is what's bugging us. Whether we consciously realize it or not, many are fed up with something – politics, untruths, our depression, our illness, our Self. That’s Saturn in Scorpio. I don’t generally feel this way about the Sun’s yearly...
Eclipses By House & Sign
Eclipses carry the signature of change. They may shake us up, turn us around, and they may ask us to adapt to changing conditions. The house an eclipse falls in show us the area(s) of life in which we will be asked to grow beyond what we've previously known. The astrological house has become too small, cramped, tight. You're ready to experience a rapid infusion of...
Eclipse Pointers
Hey folks...eclipse season is here. To gracefully move through eclipse season, read on. Eclipses happen in pairs, within two weeks of one another, usually twice a year (but not always and sometimes we experience three eclipses in a row). Eclipses occur when new a new or full moon falls near the lunar nodes. A solar eclipse always occurs at the new moon; likewise, a lunar eclipse can only occur when the moon is full. Eclipse season can be emotionally bumpy, and in that vein here are some...
Taurus Full Moon: Slow & Easy
One of the more profound commitments to myself that I’ve made this year is to slow down. Why? I realised I was no longer enjoying myself. It wasn’t for lack of opportunity for fun, but that the pace I thought was natural for me, busy, striving, accomplishing, wasn't, and it wasn't conducive to pleasure, either. Give me a day to myself and I’d pack so much into it that I’d forget to enjoy myself. The problem with this way of being is, the better part of pleasure and happiness is relaxation, and...
Libra New Moon: A Little Too Polite
Catching up with my good friend and fellow astrologer, Jonathan Pearl, we checked in on each other's relationships. He’s in a great one, and so am I. But things had been hard for a couple of years, and JP recently heard about this for the first time. When he asked me what had changed in retrospect, I started in on my usual five-minute monologue. House renovations, step-parenting… the love drug of five romantic years would have to give way eventually. Being absorbed into the lives of five other...
