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I write regularly at jessicashepherd.substack.com — soft, human words on healing, astrology & intuition:
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Solar Eclipse Cancer New Moon: Hands to Heart
This week we cooked dinner for thirty people. I made the curry zucchinni soup and salad. John made the homemade spelt bread with goat milk and honey. The goal was to cook enough food for 30 people with a budget of 30 dollars, which sounds a bit insane in this economy. It is. But besides getting together once a week to share a meal cooked by one or a pair of the group members, they also have a gift circle - you ask for what you need and volunteer to give some resource you have. It sounded...
Capricorn Full Moon Lunar Eclipse: Holding the Tension
The southern and northernmost latitudes of the sky, Cancer-Capricorn contains our innermost soul seed (Cancer) as well as our need to be recognized in the world, for being our self (Capricorn). Cancer at the roots of the tree, and Capricorn the flowering leaves, these signs comprise an integral structure of the zodiacal wheel. This, the meridian of Cancer-Capricorn, together with the horizon line (Aries and Libra) form the great cross of our sky on which the entire zodiac hangs. In many...
Welcome to Eclipse Season…Watch for Shifting Baggage
Eclipses travel in sets of two or three, occur during full and new moon lunations, and always in pairs. Because the effects of eclipses can begin up to three weeks prior to the actual eclipse, eclipse 'season' can last as long as two months. To what purpose does this unsettling, exciting time serve? Eclipses move us along our evolutionary path, often with huge signposts, other times with a whisper - and always with an element of surprise. Imagine you've been focused on redecorating several...
Astrology of Travel, Saturn: Running With the Devil
Travel is stunningly synchronistic: our destinations choose us, for, wherever you go, there you are. Unsurprisingly one's travel agenda often brings along one's transits. Mine currently: Saturn and Pluto, not anyone's idea of a vacation. Foreknowledge may be forewarned, but nothing prepared me for... duh duh duh... a double Saturn line (and a Saturn lunation). Never have I so clearly experienced, as Liz Greene describes, Saturn as the Devil. My own little Gemini Saturn has been good to me, but...
Do You Speak My Language? Do You Have a Planet in the Seventh House?
If you speak the language of astrology, and you have a planet in the Seventh House, your story is WANTED for a research project. Your answers may be incorporated into a book. Here’s what I’m looking for: first-person narratives over sound bites, depth instead of breadth. The questions below will get you going, but there are no ‘rules’. You can answer all, reply to a single topic and go deep, or nix these questions altogether and write about your Seventh House experience. You don’t need a...
Jupiter Uranus Aries Conjunction: Be Dazzled
If you’re not jumping out of your skin yet, you must not be an Aries (or have planets at the early cardinal degrees). Jupiter and Uranus have together alighted on the celestial scene and it’s a creative emancipation for those of us who have felt our individuality held back, and a true opportunity to go on and get on with your most radical self of selves. This conjunction opposes my Pluto and falls smack on my Sixth House Mars. I don’t need any caffeine to greet my day; I am alert! Physical...
Gemini New Moon: Baby Mamas, Nixed Degrees & Double Lives
I went to a baby shower today. Observing the cooing & cawing among women, I felt strangely detached, a person who doesn't speak the ritual customs of the baby mama club. I mentioned to my girlfriend that I wanted a baby about as bad as I wanted my wisdom teeth pulled. Seeing my husband with his wisdom teeth pulled just this week, and being on nurse duty since, a baby just seems like another mouth to look after. I ponder this duality between mom & not mom, I make mental notes as I...
Sagittarius Full Moon: You’ll Never Make a Saint of Me
emini Sun season offers a chatterbox of opinions, irrelevant concerns and good ideas. Gemini is the archetype of mind, but as we all know, the mind can be a monkey, leading us in an unproductive line of thinking, or into a conversation that changes our entire perspective. The mind is a diverse and wily creature; the endpoint of Gemini is to gather data, exchange and compare notes with the other monkeys, but as a counterpoint, Sagittarius helps us to step back and connect the dots. Sagittarius helps the mind see itself, and the big picture. If we’re lost in the maze of our own life and minds at this full moon, we may need to give the tired stories a rest. To listen, instead of hear. At that point of inner listening, Sagittarius Full Moon can offer clarity, proportion and renewed vision. We need this vision; there are big changes afoot.
Taurus New Moon: The Good Life
I tend to look forward to the Taurus New Moon much in the same way I look forward to a good meal. I know if I take the time to enjoy it, it will be satisfying and rewarding beyond measure. Yet, if I gulp it down unthinkingly and in a hurry, all the pleasurable satisfaction it could give me, is lost somewhere between figuring out what to eat for dinner, rushing to the gym, rushing to the market to buy dinner, and getting the dishes done so I can go to bed on time. There’s a logic to the Taurus...
Help! My Venus Sign Doesn’t Describe Me At All
Hi Jessica, Is there any way I could have a different Venus placement than what astrology reports say? I've tried several different ones, and they all say I have Venus in Gemini. The problem is, I'm the total opposite of what a person with Venus in Gemini is supposed to be like. I'm very quiet and shy, I don't know how to flirt, and I like having a partner who is possessive of me. I believe that my natal chart is accurate in all other respects, and this one exception is troubling to me....
