On Keeping Record
Thinking through the Full Moon in Virgo and Mercury in Pisces.
Embodiment is rooted in storytelling, and music is a storytelling technology that emerges from every culture. For as long as humans have been on this planet, we’ve found a way to carry on the resonance within the land and the heavens by making sounds through vocal and material experimentation. At the top of every newsletter, I share a song I’ve been listening to as an offering and ritual to express my gratitude for your presence here.
Dear relatives,
First, we have a song to set the vibe:
I’m seeing correlations and synchronicities everywhere. Recently, I’ve noticed the connection between story and ceremony. Given the times we live in, the heartbreak and cruelty of it all, we need systems of deep care. It’s not just that we are taking in so much at once, via news outlets, social media, podcasts, and more. We do not have the processes to hold and compost it all. This is why I think and talk about practice so often. It is important to the work of decolonizing the mind and body. Habits are the rituals that we perform with and through the body. In the absence of a way or a community with which to process, what becomes of us?
We have made it to Pisces season and soon the Vernal Equinox will crest, letting us know that Spring is here. It is because of our current location, nestled in the liminal space between Winter and Spring in the northern hemisphere, that we bear witness to a Full Moon in Virgo on February 24, 2024, at 7:30 AM EST. Where we are now, seasonally, is bringing awareness to the Virgo-Pisces axis, or the principle of service. Another way that we could think about this is the axis or principle of offering. Here we might ask, What are we transforming, and how? Through change, new data emerges and unfolds into a greater coherence, preparing us for the necessary work of creating right-story.
Virgo, ruled by Mercury, expresses itself as mutable Earth. This is Earth that transforms and adapts itself and its surroundings. Earth that mutates can do so because it also knows how to shift course when necessary. Virgo is a skillful organizer of the material and as the steward of digestion—the rotting and ripening of matter, be it food, information, etc.—they understand that a sound process is essential to maintain coherence within a decaying system.
Through an astute attention to detail, Virgo offers the applied wisdom of Mercury, the Messenger, to make improvements. Virgo is the masterful anthill and the glorious compost pile, the mindful architect and the busy beehive. Virgo works through the energetics of emergence, taking in materials and building something functional, and often beautiful, out of it.
The Mercurial nature of Virgo wants to bring order, and with Pisces (ruled by Jupiter, the planet of widening) the process can’t be rushed. The information will be there once we’ve gone to task with feeling first. In Pisces, matter wants to slip back into the ocean. What, then, is the relationship between the Messenger and water?
Interestingly, we also have Mercury in Pisces where it is currently conjunct with the Sun, and will soon conjunct with Saturn. Conjunctions concern the energetics of merging. With Mercury merging with the Sun, light is offered to our mental and communication processes. This week, I’ve noticed improved focus with writing; which is to say, my ability to process what I’ve been consuming. I have Mercury and Pisces.
Pisces reminds us that when there is too much to hold, with heaps to account for, we can let it give way to something less precise. Pisces is mutable water. This is water that adapts and moves powerfully. Pisces transforms feeling. Pisces knows that witnessing is also a way to keep a record.
Maybe Mercury in Pisces is here to remind us that witnessing is as important as accounting for every detail. There is no doubt that counting is essential to know who we’ve lost. We need to listen for what the land will make into lore through the process of all this decomposition. Let us count every single life lost to injustice. We count as a way to remember. Virgo sits with all that has been tallied and decides what to do with the information. Virgo hones in on the details even when they are festering and fragmented, brimming with harm, and yearning to be set free. Virgo sees it all as essential data.
Relatives, this Pisces season I invite you to bear witness to water, to feeling. Let it be messy and wild and borderless. Let it be mutable, and transform the water within you. This Full Moon in Virgo, may we allow space for full feelings, and then get on with figuring out a more functional and loving way.
Until we meet again at the New Moon in Pisces.
With gratitude,
C
P.S. Sharing a few tiny habits that I am practicing this month. I hope they are nourishing to you:
This Pisces season, I am giving myself space to be with the feelings that emerge when I bear witness to suffering.
This Full Moon in Virgo, I will honor my attention and take my time to carefully comb through the materials and details in front of me.
Just wanted to add a note as a non-spotifying having person, I am not able to access the music without a spotify account. So I have unable to enjoy the music you've added to your newsletter. Of course I can go to Youtube, but i just wanted to mention it since more often then not, I don't go looking for the song. If you could add a link to a youtube video to your posts, that would be wonderful!