What a month, amirite?

1.20.20

I love this pocket we call January*: it starts with a celebration of the new year even though the zodiac calendar is still going. It ends either with the lunar new year or with intense anticipation of it (depending on the lunar calendar, of course).

The first new moon of the year–aka the Lunar New Year–is in Aquarius, and it’s this coming Friday. For Kellen and me, this is about taking stock of the past year and looking ahead: what are our intentions for the next twelve moon cycles? Where do we hope to be in February 2021?

That sounds so lovely, right: let’s do some rituals around reflection and intention setting. But it’s a big deal: intending to reckon with the year past, and intending to set a tone for the year ahead? That’s not light and fluffy. To start these sort of massive emotional hauls, I always begin smaller, maybe looking back to the last full moon or to the sun’s last shift.

As the sun gets situated in Aquarius today, I think back to its move to Capricorn just a few weeks ago. The solstice was December 21st, the new moon in Capricorn brought a solar eclipse on the 26th, and the full moon in cancer brought a lunar eclipse on January 10th. No WONDER our sabbatical was so rigorous!

What I thought would be soft, soothing, weeks were more face-the-music-styles. We both had to grapple with the distinctions between nostalgia and reality, longing and satisfaction, past selves and current self. (Also, given that we were in Japan, gluttony and pleasure…I’ve been thoroughly reminded: gluttony does not yield pleasure.)

Eclipse season is often full of this kind of reckoning, so while I definitely feel like I’ve been thoroughly wrung out, I also feel no need for coddling. The wringing out was the coddling. (Is this how marathon runners feel after they pee themselves??)

As you begin to feel your revolutionary bones aching as Aquarius guides us to humanitarian transformation, make some space 

to reflect on your eclipse season, beginning back at the solstice:

  • What grappling were you called to do?
  • How did you do it? What more could you do to hash out what needs hashing? (Possibilities include: writing, chart-making, coloring, dancing in the snow, talking to an ancestor or guide on the other side, talking to a younger or older version of yourself)
  • How does this grappling change you/make space for new parts of you in the new year?

and to set the tone for the year ahead:

  • What have you left behind?
  • What will you fill that space with in the coming months?
  • What does 2021-you want current-you to know as you prepare to move forward?

Here we GO, people!

With love and newness,

Ellice and Kellen

*Google just told me Janus, for whom January is named, is the god of gateways and new beginnings. All right, Romans…