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I write regularly at jessicashepherd.substack.com — soft, human words on healing, astrology & intuition:
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Saturday’s Full Moon Offers Strange Illusion
...from Yahoo!News This weekend's full moon hangs lower in the sky than any other full moon of 2007, according to NASA, and it's a good time to be fooled. When low on the horizon, the Moon can appear to be larger than when it's higher in the sky. It's all an illusion, scientists say, and it does not involve any enlarging effects of the atmosphere. Rather, it's all in your mind. Here's how it works: Our brains think things on the horizon are farther away than stuff overhead, because we're...
Little Altars of Faith
Sometimes we don’t know why we need to follow the impulse to go where we’re called...we just go. This is the nudge I felt toward visiting Todos Santos, Baja California. My husband wanted to take a surf trip down to Baja last year and I recalled a client of mine talking about this funky, hippy oasis in Baja a couple of years prior. She and her husband had been thinking about moving here and through astrocartography -the study a person’s natal planetary lines through place- I discouraged...
Good Dad, Bad Dad
Dads. Everyones got one. Theres a good dad, bad dad and everything in between dad. I'm pondering, of course, Fathers Day and wondering why the bleep this Cancer country finds it necessary to have a national holiday for Dads. Not everyone is blessed with a good dad - in fact I'll even generously split it right down the middle and say 50/50 you've had a good dad. I say generous because experience tells me a different story, because I've known far more girlfriends with bad dads than good dads....
Article Review – The Age of Dissonance; Blame the Messenger
THE AGE OF DISSONANCE; Blame the Messenger by Bob Morris Published The New York Times 4/18/04, available at nytimes.com/archives This article solicits feedback about the phenomena of Mercury retrograde, which happens several times a year in 3 week periods. Mercury Retrograde defined: Mercury was named after the Roman messenger God and occasionally his orbit gets so slow that he appears to move backward in the sky. As the author tries to decide whether to take any of it seriously, he discovers...
Talk, Talk Gemini New Moon. Stop.
Well did I tell you before When l was up Anxiety was bringing me down l'm tired of listening to you Talking in rhymes Twisting round to think You're straight down the line All you do to me is talk talk – Talk Talk by Talk Talk Love your neighbor as yourself. - Jesus I’ve spent this Gemini New Moon morning at a sixth grade graduation for my stepdaughter, Sarah. I even saw Twins while I was thinking about writing you, two toddlers in pink dresses whooping it up in the Sun. As the awards were...
Coquettish Mercury in Cancer moves backwards 6/15 – 7/09
Mercury, the bugger we love to love and love to hate. It’s an ambiguous relationship, as ambiguous as Silver Toes his self, err her self. Whatever. You love your computer right? Maybe you hate it today? See my point? When everything’s going smoothly and it works we love, love, love Mercury. Like a fickle lover we’ve grown comfortable with, we take he/she/it for granted. We just don’t think about how grand it is to have email (that works!), a cell phone, a land line, internet service...
Neptune’s Colors
I was taking a walk on this fine Pisces Moon day and saw an artist friend who lives down the road. "Hey there," I said, "what are you doing on the upside of this mountain?" "Ah, good to see you! I've been working so hard I needed a break so I walked up to the lake." "Lake?" I asked. "Yeah, the lake up over the hill, right after the ranch." Ooooh, I didn't know we had a lake nearby. I thanked him for the new piece of information. It struck me that other artists might be feeling the same need...
Not all who wander are lost…the Sagittarian journey through Budapest continues
After currency exchange is accomplished, chaos ensues – that kind of disorientation that every Sagittarius sun sign experiences via their favorite pastime and hobby – the culture shock of travel. This is not a completely voluntary phenomenon. Sagittarius often travels because they feel like they were born of a different age, era or tribe. It’s the sense of being a stranger in a strange land that compels them to wander the globe to find their people or place. Many find their true tribe...
Venus enters Leo, beautifully, boldly
When you stop putting yourself on the line, and you don't touch your own heart, how do you expect to touch other people? Tori Amos, Venus in Leo Diva People are emboldened in heart affairs during Venus in Leo's passage. Dramatic gestures of love and appreciation fan the flames of passion and romance - and isn't that what we're all after? Courtship is more than a first date, or the honeymoon period of a romance, it's the love of a lifetime. We want that in-love feeling all the time (Leos are...
Cancer of Compassion
Dalai Lama: 6 July 1935 Cancer's identity centers on home and family, so it must be terribly painful for His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso to be exiled from his home country, Tibet since 1950. Nobel Peace Prize winner and Spiritual leader, His Holiness was recognized as a reincarnation of the XII Dalai Lama at age two (this story is beautifully told in the movie Kundun). In Buddhism, Dalai Lamas are enlightened beings choosing reincarnation to compassionately serve others. While...
