I don’t feel dead inside. Do you feel dead inside? I’m thinking about how I’m writing, working on, this new book, and I spent a year writing three chapters, off and on, and I keep searching for some of the feelings I had, the intensity and passion and pain and… I have to get back to that place or the book won’t make it. The book will die.

Let’s talk astrology. I did a little Mercury Retrograde podcast episode here.

We’re in Libra Season. Mercury Retrograde season. I feel like I’m wrapping up my life. You know what I mean. The eclipses are coming in November/December. Before that, multiple planets go direct. There’s the possibility of NEW STUFF. That’s you, too, wrapping up your life. But do you feel this lull? It feels weird. Is it just me? So it’s not the dead inside feeling but it might be the “we’re on the verge of eclipse season feeling” and everyone is talking about yay fall or yay halloween or yay I don’t know what, but writers, we need to bleed on the page. It’s not very YAY FALL. I need a room to scream in.

So. Libra Season. So. Mercury is retrograde. So we have all these retrograde planets and I’m thinking we shouldn’t lose faith (faith in what?) even though things are slow or you feel the lull these days. As I often say to clients: you’re right on time. And the one card? QUEEN OF SWORDS. What message is this? Let’s ask the guides. Hold on.

Sometimes you have to chop off your own head, she says. This reminds me of something one of my poetry instructions a zillion years would say: murder your darlings i.e. you might need to be ruthless. Those beloved lines of verse you love so much… you might need to axe them. I always think of this queen as strict and cold but maybe I’m wrong about that. Maybe she’s just… Saturn in a dress. Maybe she’s just teaching us. In the deck I’m using she’s holding up the sword and it’s tilted, pointing at her crown. Thought to myself: okay let’s get one more to support her and what do I see? Yeah. Figures. THE DEATH CARD.

I don’t know what we’re preparing for. I don’t even know if we’re preparing but I think you should turn the music up loud right about now (headphones on of course) and force that faith as though through a tube, something you can press on and squeeze out. Faith in what? In you ability to reinvent yourself but that word isn’t bloody enough. There’s a war inside you. I know it. You know it. And right now we have the lull, the Death card lull, the process.

After therapy, I always journal, sometimes furiously, sometimes not so many words, and last week I wrote to myself: I don’t know what’s on the other side of this. The other side of all these insights and connections and understandings. I don’t know what I’m building/tearing down/building/tearing down, but I do know the smoothness of the Death card’s skeleton skull. I know his bony fingers. His jaw. I know his ribs. I know every inch of him. I’ve kissed it. We’ve all been here before. We’re just older now. Some of you have been reading me since 2011.

Libra Season. Mercury retrograde in Libra. Mars in Libra too. Venus in Scorpio.

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and Chiron — all retrograde.

Stop trying to feel good is my main advice for right now. Too much pressure. Just ride that death beast on out until we get to the next minute. That next minute is gonna have all those outer planets go direct, one by one, slow as they want to go, fast as they want to go. And that’s it. What’s on the other side? One of the Knights. Not gonna tell you which one 😉 Just remember that ALL the Knights move. They move on.

Okay. Talk to you later-

xx