Moonday Musings Week of 12/11-12/17: One Last New Moon & A Mercury Retrograde

Better make it count! This week's Sagittarius New Moon is the last one of 2023, and it is followed by a Mercury Retrograde cycle that will take us allll the way to 2024. With the energy this time of year, the expectations vs the reality, the pressure to perform and do it all with a big smile on your face- it turns most of us either into hyper overdrive or into a total freeze state. 

 →  Listen to today’s episode for a walk-thru on how to “check your chart” if you’re just starting out! Then head over to @thatwitch.nextdoor on Instagram to follow & save this Mercury Retrograde's mental prep guide ✨

In this episode I mention:
That Witch Podcast's A Guide to Mirror Magick previous episode.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

I don't know what's more confusing Learning astrology or just being a human. Monday Musings is here to help with that A weekly, no bullshit guide for the upcoming cosmic forecast and how you can actually use this in your real life. It's Monday. It's Monday. It's Monday. It's Monday, neighbor hello, happy Monday, happy Monday. And, of course, welcome to another episode of Monday Musings. If this is your very first Monday here at that witch podcast, let me be the first to welcome you to our magical neighborhood. I'm Deanne, I'm that witch next door.

Speaker 1: 0:43

Monday Musings are a time for us to come together, ground and center our energy and open up to the messages and the lessons we're being shown right now in the cosmos. We are all about real magic for real life around here. So I don't like to just give you the forecast and pat you on the butt and send you away. Probably wouldn't pat you on the body the way. But I will give you some concrete steps you can take and on top of that, I will help you learn how to interpret this astrology for yourself in your own chart. You can channel and interpret your own horoscope. I promise you just take some practice and some dedication. So before we open up, before we get into the energy of this week. I want to talk about the energy of this week. It's so important that we do our self check-in, that we ground our energy, we cleanse our energy and we approach astrology with a grounded mind and an open heart. Okay, this is how it's best most effectively received on our end, and this is what helps us utilize astrology and work with it instead of having it work you, my friend.

Speaker 1: 2:23

So, wherever you're sitting, wherever you're standing, I invite you to kind of roll out your shoulders, your limbs, your wrists, your ankles, maybe stretch your legs or your arms, whatever is safe for whatever you're doing right now and whatever feels good for you. The idea is to just kind of move through and break through a little bit of stagnancy right now, waking everything up a little bit. When you're ready, if you feel called to do so, you are more than welcome to close your eyes, but you don't have to do that. You can definitely do this with us, even if you're like driving right now, but I want you to begin allowing anything else, all of that other stuff outside of you. Just take a beat for a second, take a seat just in the background right now and let's do some really nice cleansing breaths together and on every single inhale I want you to know that your connection to the universe, that magic, is filling you up and cleansing your energy and moving through and past and getting rid of anything that's not serving you right now. And on every single exhale I want you to know that you're letting all of that go and you're transmuting that energy so you can send it out. It can be used throughout the universe for its highest good.

Speaker 1: 4:02

Okay, so let's go ahead and take a nice big, deep inhale through the nose, really fill up your lungs all the way from the bottom At the top of the breath. You can hold for a moment or two and then open your mouth and begin to sigh and exhale and release and push all of that air out of your lungs and release and let go of anything that wasn't serving you anymore. And now another big breath in through the nose from the bottom of the lungs, really ballooning up, filling up your whole whole torso, feel so good. You can hold for a minute at the top of that inhale and open your mouth and exhale, release, completely deflate the balloon, let all of that air come out of you. And finally, our last one really make it count. A big, deep breath in through the nose, hold for a moment and open your mouth and exhale.

Speaker 1: 5:18

Here, in this space that we've now created for ourselves, we have a moment of stillness. Let the peace of this one moment really impact you right now. Let yourself become just excruciatingly aware of how simple it is to create a brief moment of stillness and breathe in that. Here, in this space, we are detaching, even if it's just temporarily, or detaching from any fears, any distraction, any insecurities that are keeping us from hearing and really receiving what it is we need most right now, whether those needs are coming from our physical body, from our mind and our mental field and our thoughts, or from our emotions and our feelings, our semantics. Wherever your needs are and whatever your needs are right now, you are gently, curiously, open to them.

Speaker 1: 6:49

And in this moment, I want you to offer yourself some kind of validation, some kind of acknowledgement for whatever your unique experience is right now, at this moment, because in doing this entire grounding, centering and, very honestly, self-awareness, practice and exercise we're doing now and that we do at the top of every Monday episode, this is going to help us receive information from our cosmic partners and teammates up in the sky who are really just like a big celestial TV show that they allow us to watch and track their patterns, because they reflect what's happening here on Earth. They're not controlling us, they're not dictating what happens. We're the ones moving and thinking and speaking. You can think of them as our reflections in a mirror Always have been, always will be kind of a thing right In our great big universe where we're all connected here. So here, from this space, it's very similar to literally looking in a mirror. I'll link the Mirror Magic episode actually it's in the show notes for you Because, honestly, if you approach astrology and the practice of it and the study of it with the same principles of mirror magic, you're going to get a hell of a lot more out of it.

Speaker 1: 8:30

Think about when you approach a mirror and how impacted you are, how, what you see, how impacted that is by your attitude, your thoughts and the energy that you bring to the mirror. The same goes for astrology, and when we show up in a really fearful and demanding place, we're not going to really like what we see. Honestly, on the opposite end of the spectrum, the same thing goes If we show up and expect perfection. This is going to be perfect, crystal clear and happy. No, it's not. And no, it's not. It's probably not going to be either of those things. It is going to be really informative, though, and that in and of itself, can be very, very inspiring if you're open to it. So let's dive into what is going on this week in particular.

Speaker 1: 9:36

Right now, monday December 11th, the moon has just moved into Sagittarius. Depending on when you've listened to this episode, the moon moves into Sagittarius at 610 am Eastern time, and I released this episode at 6 am Eastern time. So that is fresh right into a new moon chapter. Okay, and we're literally into a new moon. New moon chapter, because tomorrow, on Tuesday, the 12th, at 6.32 pm Eastern time, is our new moon in Sagittarius. So while you're listening to this, the new moon portal is officially open, and it will stay open until the moon moves into Capricorn on Wednesday, the 13th, at 1031 am Eastern time. Then the moon will stay in Capricorn until Friday, the 15th, in the afternoon, when it moves into Aquarius. And finally, the moon will move out of Aquarius and into Pisces on Sunday afternoon. So, on Wednesday, we're moving from Sagittarius into Capricorn, into Aquarius, into Pisces and rounding out the very end of our weekend with the moon in Pisces and we're beginning this week with a new moon.

Speaker 1: 11:15

First and foremost, if you have not already listened to the Sagittarius new moon shadow chats with Ashley, michelle of Starseed Shadows and myself, that just dropped this most recent Friday. So even though I went from weekly Friday episodes and now I'm releasing Friday episodes biweekly, you can still count on your shadow chats episode. Okay, we love shadow chats around here. That's not going anywhere If you haven't already checked that out. I will be honest, especially for everywhere I'm going today and everything that I'm going to give all of you on Instagram this week to really put into practice the astrology of this week, I highly highly recommend listening to that episode because it's going to provide a lot of really helpful context. I'm so inspired by that conversation that Ashley and I had. I was like we honestly just need to keep this going and run with it, because this new moon takes the day before Mercury stations retrograde in Capricorn and Mercury is not going to station direct until January 1, which is so cosmically on purpose that we have that that Mercury direct station happening on the first day of the new calendar year. Alright, neighbors, let's take a brief moment to thank today's small business and episode sponsor.

Speaker 1: 12:54

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Speaker 1: 13:35

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Speaker 1: 14:53

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Speaker 1: 15:48

So if this is your first time listening to the podcast, to Moonday Musings or to retro grades in general here in my neck of the woods, let me just be the first to tell you that I'm very anti-fear-mongering in all of astrology, which is honestly why this podcast is called that witch podcast and not that astrology podcast. I guess, sir, I don't know, even though we do so much astrology and it is my language and a language that I love teaching and that's why we do so much of it I am a witch through and through and through and I am very, very anti-the fear-mongering that can come very strongly in the astrological communities. So retro grades are a time of reviewing, reevaluating, reflecting, recalibrating, recycling. This is sure a time where we can feel really, really tested and in a lot of ways, that's not wrong. That's not totally inaccurate. We are here on Earth School given the opportunity to show all of our constant learning and given this ability to continue gaining wisdom, continue healing, continue growing, continuing leveling up through our actions, through what we decide to do and what we decide to actually implement with our learned experience, and a retro grade, in a very large sense, is a representation of exactly that. So, yes, I'm definitely not promising you that it is a time that comes without frustration, annoyance, irritability, even aggravation and conflict.

Speaker 1: 18:26

I find that, especially when Mercury stations retrograde in the signs that struggle the most with perfectionism. This is the theme. This is a large, large theme that really veils and shrouds the entire, that particular retrograde cycle, and that's a lot of what you're testing on is your perfectionism, like typos, glitches, incorrect dates and times and accidental double bookings and all of those things that we feel like and we do work so hard to avoid, and they are a real, normal, necessary part of our experience. Honestly, in a lot of ways, I believe, to keep us humble, I really do. I think it really helps catch us in our fucking God complex and helps us sit down and go. That's right. I'm human. I'm not a machine. I'm not perfect. I'm not this shining pillar of whatever I have deemed perfection to be, because, honestly, that, as much as our minds may want to tell us that would be just amazing and that would solve every problem we ever had, is if we could just be perfect, the truth is is that is exhausting, that is exhausting.

Speaker 1: 20:04

So a lot of what Ash and I talked about on Friday was exactly this idea and the help from Sagittarius to not take ourselves so seriously and to enter into a Mercury retrograde that is stationing retrograde in Capricorn. By the time Mercury stations direct again, it will have gone all the way back into Sagittarius. So there's a good chunk of themes to explore for yourself here, and I'm going to walk you through how to locate this in your chart. This is something that I want to help you do most to every episode. I really want to help you learn how to locate this in your chart and, on top of that, get really comfortable being able to do it. Bear in mind this is going to depend slightly on the app or the program or the software that you use to generate your actual birth chart. So I'm not talking about the table, the little list of planets that you have. That's not your birth chart. Your birth chart is the full snapshot of the entire surrounding solar system, with Earth at its center point. That's what the center part of that entire chart represents is Earth and our point of view. Then it looks 2D because it's on a printed or on a digital generated 2D image, but really that's a 3D image. It's spherical. When you're looking at the chart, you can pause this if you need to, to pull it up when you're looking at your chart.

Speaker 1: 22:09

The first thing I want you to do is locate the zodiac symbols, not the planetary symbols, not the numbers of the houses the zodiac symbols, if you need help knowing what those are. First of all, if you're in that which school even on my next door neighbor enrollment level, which is just $5 a month you have access to all of our astrology resources. Everybody in that which school has access to our full library of astrology tools and resources, which includes an entire reference sheet, or cheat sheet, of the zodiac names and their symbols, what they represent, what planet they're ruled by, etc. So you can get that on my site if you are enrolled in that which school. If not, your app that you're using very well could already have that information on it. It's also super quick Google search away.

Speaker 1: 23:10

First, locate the zodiac symbols. You can always start where you want. You can start with where I'm talking about in the first place. So, starting at Sagittarius and Capricorn and locating those two signs first, you could also. What might help is a lot of people. Even when you're still learning the symbols, you are very familiar usually, very often, with your some signs zodiac symbol. That can be an excellent, excellent home base. If you know you're a Scorpioson, if you know you're a Tauruson or Virgo, whatever it is, and you know what that zodiac symbol looks like, that's an excellent place to start. Use whatever reference you need to use to now locate Sagittarius and Capricorn On almost any chart, even regardless of the software or the app or whatever they're going to.

Speaker 1: 24:10

Usually show the zodiac signs on the outer part of the wheel, okay, and very often they're color coded or they are represented by like bands or lines showing the full span of that zodiac sign. Okay, so that when you look further into the chart at the pie piece that spans that zodiac sign, you can see everything that falls within that sign in your chart From there. That's where we can start to lose it a little bit. You can start to feel a little bit overwhelmed. Is now we start venturing into the symbols of all of the planets, which, again, same exact thing. I have a list of those symbols and what they mean and who they rule and all of that stuff on my website for everybody in that witch school. Otherwise, you can jump on Google or your app might already have those symbols of each planet listed out for you so that you can see.

Speaker 1: 25:12

Go one step at a time. Go one step at a time. I really, really love taking a screenshot and cropping the area that you're looking at. Once you've located the span of Capricorn and the span of Sagittarius, you can crop that and just work within that one area for now. That will give you plenty of information and, of course, the more you learn, the more you continue building your understanding. You'll be able to use the entire chart and see how other parts of the chart interact with and are activated by Sagittarius transits, for example. Ok, but for now, if you need to dial back any overwhelm, I highly recommend either zooming in or taking a screenshot and cropping out the outside other areas of the chart beyond where you are just focusing on. Ok, locate this area In Sagittarius is where the new moon is going to be taking place on again tomorrow, tuesday the 12th, at 20 degrees of Sagittarius.

Speaker 1: 26:22

That's how far into Sagittarius the moon and the sun will be when they merge all the way together, forming the new moon. This is going to take place at 6.32 pm Eastern time. If you want to convert that to your time zone and throw it in your app as well. You can also do that. You can also just pull up a chart for the new moon and just look at that, and you don't have to look at it within your birth chart or, if you're more advanced, can also just interpret and analyze the chart of the new moon. Then let yourself take a look at Capricorn. Okay, in Capricorn, on Wednesday, the 13th at Eastern time it's gonna be 2.09 am is when Mercury stations retrograde at eight degrees of Capricorn, not too far into Capricorn, almost a third of the way in. This is where we're primarily working All throughout this week.

Speaker 1: 27:22

I am going to be sharing in that which school we're gonna be doing some exercises and practicing together interpreting for ourselves, interpreting for each other, the energy of this new moon and retrograde and how each of us can lean into Mercury retrograde and what can we learn from this particular cycle. This is an excellent time to do this work during a new moon because this could really set the tone for future retrograde cycles. This could really really start to implement a beautiful sacred practice whenever a retrograde cycle comes by creating a sacred practice for it on a new moon like this, and then over on Instagram, I will be posting the exercises for all of you. If you're looking for that community engagement and really wanting to practice with people and share both in your struggles and your wins and the connections that you're making while you're learning your birth chart, we would love to have you in that which school? We have a private social community for full-time students only at this time. For $30 a month only, you get full, complete access to my entire library of content, all of my courses, including my revamped upcoming 12-month course program. I can read my astrology inside and out. All of that is included for full-time students and on top of that, you get that community support and interaction, which is key, absolutely key, if you're trying to truly learn how to interpret your birth chart and astrology for yourself. Excellent, excellent place to be. We would love to have you. You can get the link to enroll in the show notes below, but I still want to give all of you, no matter what, these prompts, these thought prompts, these ideas, these exercises, tips to help you again work with astrology, not have it work you. So make sure, if you're not already, that you are following me on Instagram.

Speaker 1: 29:51

I'm really, really excited about what we're going to be working together through this week. I think that this could be a really excellent time for dispelling a lot of our fear, but, honestly, our attitude just really dispersing a lot of our sassy attitude around Mercury retrograde so many of us. I'm like half the reason you had as hard of a time as you did is because you were freaking out about it and fearing it so much and so strongly before it happened Again, you let astrology work you over. In that case, let's go ahead and pull our tarot reading for the week. So I invite you to open up and receive this reading, but also join me, if you feel called to pull a card right now or do some kind of divination right alongside with me. Now is an excellent time to do so, because you've opened up your cosmic channel. You've opened your well first, you've grounded your mind and your heart and opened yourself up to receive this information to best fit you. Now you're starting to open up and look at this specifically through the lens of your soul journey, that is, your birth chart, and especially if you're somebody that struggles a little bit with making the connections on. Ok, but what does this mean? I understand what a new moon is. I'm starting to understand what Sagittarius is. What does that mean when it says it's here in my third house? I don't understand how this shows up.

Speaker 1: 31:37

One of the most helpful things that you can do right now is pull some cards or do some kind of archetypal divination practice. This is what I really like to do. Oh, excellent message for what we're talking about the card that I pulled. Wow, this is really really perfect. You have to understand that archetypes because they're universal archetypal practices go absolutely hand in hand with each other. So if you are still learning the archetypes and how to interpret them, as far as the chart in astrology goes, let tarot or oracle cards or some other form of divination that you do maybe feel more comfortable with, let that help you. And even if you're new at both even if you're new at both and you're armed with your tarot or oracle deck's guidebook and that interpretation and any references that you have for your chart and learning about the new moon and Sagittarius again, I really recommend listening to what Ashley and I talked about this new moon's energy. That will provide some very helpful context, I think, to enter into this. If you show up, even if you're new in both astrology and divination, and bring them together, they're still going to amplify each other and make it easier to learn and interpret both of them. For the card that I pulled for the whole neighborhood and our collective reading. My friends, I hope that you've already looked this up in your Cosmic Quickie email, ok, which is where I send all pictures of the card pull every single week. If you're not already on my email list is, of course, the five of cups, and I thought that this was so perfect for the little attitude I was just talking about that many of us adopt.

Speaker 1: 33:34

Heading into a Mercury retrograde period, this is already, in a lot of ways, a very pessimistic time of year. Ash and I talked about the excessive self-criticism that takes place this time of year. Part of that comes from within us, but a lot of it is also reflected outside of us, and a lot of messaging that we receive this time of year and this constant harping on the negative and what's wrong with you and what's wrong around you is a cycle that is feeding on itself and fueling itself and growing those flames and making it a Lot harder to see it any other way. This is a beautiful time. Like I said, this is very cosmically on purpose that we have new moon and Sagittarius, which is the last new moon of the calendar year, taking place the day before Mercury, stations retrograde in Capricorn, which Cares a lot about success and growth and things being done the right way and can have its own struggles with perfectionism, and it will be stationing direct Not until the first day of the new calendar year.

Speaker 1: 35:05

This sure seems like a time, especially punctuated by this five of cups, to be an opportunity. An opportunity to change right here and now not you, not you as a person To change your usual course of action, to pause, stop, sit back, take a breath and take a look, look around, because if you look at the imagery on the five of cups, isn't that what you just want? To kind of beg that person to do? Of course it's okay to be sad over the spilled cups. Of course it's valid to be disappointed at the emptiness of the spilled cups, but those two cups standing strong and full just behind the figure, well they're, they're screaming out at the viewer of the cards.

Speaker 1: 36:14

For a reason it makes you want to Grab this person by the shoulders and say turn around. If only you would just look around. I Want you to step outside of yourself. This new moon and Sagittarius outside of yourself this upcoming Mercury retrograde, despite however much fear Mongering you may endure again. That's valid. I'm not saying you're not gonna encounter it, and I still want you to step outside of it and be able to see yourself and envision yourself as the figure on this card and be able to lovingly grasp yourself by the shoulders and say look around, put, pick your head up, roll your shoulders back and look around. Don't bypass your own experience, but still give yourself all of the information, the full picture Of what you really are dealing with, because it's not five empty cups. He didn't lose everything.

Speaker 1: 37:18

So so much, so much coming up that I cannot wait to continue working on with you throughout this week. This is, ah, we got this. This is a beautiful Time and opportunity. That doesn't mean it's not going to come with its frustrations. That doesn't mean we're not going to have to validate some of our harder emotions and big feelings. Right, and there is serious opportunity abound. Remind yourself of that. When things feel as empty as they possibly can, take yourself by the shoulders, ask yourself to roll your shoulders back, look up, look around and take in and receive the full picture.

Speaker 1: 38:07

All right, my friends, thank you for being here with me today. Thank you for sharing a part of your journey, and both both physically and cosmically here with me on that witch podcast and moon day musings. It means so much to me, so much to me. I am so incredibly honored by all of the new students that have been joining that witch school. How many of you are expressing interest in the revamped I can read my astrology inside and out program Beginning in january. It is not very far at all.

Speaker 1: 38:43

Um, there's a lot of excitement and buzz around this already, for a reason. You do not want to miss out on this, my friend, so make sure you are subscribed to my email list If you've already been thinking about joining that witch school as a full-time student. Anyways, I promise you this is a Very good time to do that, my friend, we would love to have you. We got a lot coming up and, uh, it's definitely gonna pay. Gonna pay to be a full-time student, my friend.

Speaker 1: 39:12

So let me know if you have any questions on everything. Um, I hope that you have a beautiful week. I can't wait to continue working on all of this with you. Make sure, of course, that you stay safe out there. Everybody, let yourself have some damn fun and all this chaos and, of course, stay magical out there. Questions, comments, suggestions or just looking for that witch outside of that witch podcast. Make sure you're following me on social media over on instagram, tick tock, pinterest and twitter. You can find links to all of those in the show notes below. And make sure you're subscribed to my email newsletter by going to that witch next door comm and submitting your email on the home page.