Hey friends,
Welcome to this space. How are y’all doing out there?
This past week has been filled with processing grief, on a collective, political, and personal level. I, like many of us right now, am in a portal of grief.
Last week the sun was transiting through the Gate of Skills and Enthusiasm, and as I meditated on the gate as I do each week, on the surface those words felt diametrically opposed to the frequently hollow sensation of grief, the sensation that makes you want to shut down. In my mind, the word enthusiasm feels like a rainbow, while the word grief feels slate grey.
But as I sat with it longer, and dug deeper into the meaning of enthusiasm, it started to feel like a beautiful word to include in the processing of grief. The word Enthusiasm is derived from the Greek root “Entheos”, which translate to “The God Within”. Enthusiasm then means “to be possessed by the breath of god”. This feels more appropriate for how grief wants to show itself, to me.
I believe we have a limited definition of grief, in our modern, western culture. A limited allowance to even be able to grieve. Grief, in modern Euro-American culture, is private. Quiet. Behind closed doors. Hushed. Rushed past. Not dwelled on. Rationalized. Held inside.
Because we don’t have spaces or places for mourning, for grief, for death, for transition, it often feels uncomfortable, unfamiliar, unstable. It can be hard to know what to do with it sometimes so we often turn inward, upon ourselves. But we are not meant to bear the weight silently, or alone.
My dear friend Olivia Firefly Walter passed away recently. She was a beautiful musician and she left us all this song, that made the grief I’m feeling feel more akin to that flow state, that enthusiasm, that praise that we spoke about with the Gate of Skills and enthusiasm.
Grief is praise is the name of her song. And praise is enthusiasm. While we may never feel ‘skilled’ at grief, what we can do is allow ourselves to immerse ourselves in it, to feel it, to share it, to let it erupt out of us, to let us inform us and help us tell new stories. Somewhere deep down, I know that grief, too, can be enthusiastic, revealing, erupting, and praising to the world the love that we hold. Revealing the truths of the God within us.
This week, amidst all the grief, all we can continue to do is love, enthusiastically. To allow grief, and praise, to change us, to gather us together. This week the sun is transiting through the gate of Change and the gate of the Gatherer. It’s a perfect time to tell new stories, to let the wisdom of our bodies lead us emergently toward new beginnings, and to gather together.
-Alison
This week’s highlights:
Today, June 3: Planetary Lineup! Jupiter, Mercury, Uranus, Mars, Neptune and Saturn will be aligned in the sky before dawn.
New Moon in Gemini (conjunct Venus)
Human Design/I’Ching:
June 1-7 : the Sun is in Gate 35, the Gate of Change
This Friday the 7th through next Wednesday, the sun will enter Gate 45, the Gate of the Gatherer.
This week’s themes:
Adventure and experimentation
Change, like the wind
Act now
New beginnings in the way we communicate in relationships
Our Place in the Wheel of the Year
Medicine Wheel Direction: South (Fire, Youth)
Wuxing Cycle Element: Fire
Pagan Season: Beltane
Zodiac Season: Gemini (May 20-June 20)
Moon Phase: New Moon in Gemini
I Ching Hexagram/Human Design Gates: 35 (Mon-Fri) into 45 (Sat & Sun)
35 = Fire over Earth (Jin “Flourishing”) or The Gate of CHANGE
45 = Lake over Earth (Cui: “Gathering Together”) or The Gate of THE GATHERER
The New Moon in Gemini conjunct Venus
On Thursday, July 6, the Moon, Sun, and Venus are all in Gemini, creating new-moon-new-beginning energy that is flavored with love, beauty, and sensuality. These 3 planets are within the Gate of Change in the Human Design I’Ching wheel, so this is also an active new moon, filled with a bit of insatiability when it comes time to what we desire.
New moons are perfect times for planting seeds, literally and figuratively, and this new moon in Gemini conjunct Venus encourages us to reimagine how we communicate and actively co-create shared values, in relationships and in community.
The new moon, sun and Venus are all making a square to Saturn in Pisces, which offers us a great opportunity to look at where we are limiting ourselves in our relationships and not speaking our truths.
Look to the house in your chart that contains Gemini for clues to how this new moon energy will affect you personally!
Gate 35: The Gate of Change
Gate 35 is the Gate of Change. The new moon falls in this gate this week, the sun will be transiting here from June 1-7th, and Venus is currently here as well.
In the I’Ching, Hexagram 35 is known as “Flourishing” or “Progress”. It is made up of two trigrams, Fire over Earth. I visualize a fiery sunrise over the horizon of the earth, beckoning us toward the future and all the exciting changes that are necessary to get there.
This Gate represents an active micro-season within Gemini season, a time to lean into whatever skills and passions you cultivated the week before and set out on a new adventure. I’ve heard this gate described as the Hero or Heroine, one who is guided by their intuition and inner compass to experience life to the fullest. Human Design writer Christie Inge describes it as the “Hungry Heart”, because it brings forth an insatiable hunger for learning, adventure, and new emotional experiences. This can be beneficial, but its shadow side is that it can bring impatience, restlessness, and boredom when nothing new is happening.
I think we can all agree that change is inevitable, and change from the status quo and old ways of doing things is needed more than ever. Oftentimes, when we realize that change is both necessary and inevitable, it can be all too easy to chomp at the bit, becoming incredibly impatient. So many songs that are written about change also include the lyric “Some things will never change”, and I think that shows the dualistic nature of wanting change and not quite believing it possible.
(Here’s a “Change” playlist I put together for ya… so many good songs!”
We do know that change requires action, taking one step into the unknown, with an open heart. It’s easy to deeply desire that something changes, but then get caught up in the fear of what we cannot see, we cannot possibly know, before it happens. This Gate and this new moon in Gemini encourage us to act, to move, to take those steps toward the unknown, while keeping the image of the sunrise alive in our imaginations. We are not stepping toward inevitable darkness. The sun always rises, and there is always a new dawn.
This gate, like last week’s gate of Skills and Enthusiasm, continues to evoke the adventurous Greek and Roman heroes Castor and Pollux, which I went into detail about last week.
Gate 45: The Gate of the Gatherer
The sun transits into Gate 45 on Friday, known as the Gate of the Gatherer, of Goodwill, of Benevolence. Christie Inge calls it the Money Steward.
She writes: “To Gate 45 money is power and it is a master at managing, using, and distributing material resources (especially money) in service to family, friends, and community. Gate 45 is fully aware of both the spiritual and mundane power that money holds and wields it with equity.
On the “negative” end of the spectrum, Human Design Gate 45 is the energy for hoarding money or resources. It may try to knock others down so that it may rise up. Or it might even unconsciously stay broke in an attempt to prove spiritual “worthiness.” “
At its best, Gate 45 is a gate of community leadership, an energy that brings together resources and people and oversees how they are distributed, ensuring fairness.
In the I’Ching, 45 is known as “Gathering Together”, represented by the hexagram Lake over Earth. Like streams of water flowing together to form a lake held by stable, nurturing earth, hexagram 45 represents uniting together with others. A person with this hexagram or gate in their birth chart naturally gathers resources without coercion. Like a lake gathers water by being the lowest point, this energy is all about thinking about the good of the whole.
This weekend through next week is a time to focus on teamwork and synergy, and not trying to do everything alone. Bring together those who share your goals and support your dreams, and venture out in your community or work with your family. It is also a time to "gather oneself together." This means concentrating on unifying forces within yourself. This is a time to be whole in yourself. An internal unity will translate into a solid team around you.
Personally, my north node is in gate 45, as well as my Unconscious sun. The north node in astrology and HD represents the part of life that we are hungry for (and that might take some work to achieve), and in Human Design the unconscious sun represents the energy we radiate but are not 100% conscious of, it’s more beneath the surface.
(Note: In the human design chart, we essentially have 2 birth charts. The first is the time we were born, which is the same as our astrological natal chart, and these are our “Conscious” or “Personality” planetary placements. The other chart is where the planets and luminaries were 88 degrees or days prior to our birth. In a normal 9-month gestation, this is the beginning of the 3rd trimester and also a full orbit of Mercury around the sun. The planetary placements on this chart represent our Unconscious.)
Having both a conscious hunger and a subconscious infusion of attributes surrounding Gate 45 strikes a chord with me. I feel that it is definitely my North Star to bring together ideas, resources and people, and to allocate them equitably. This has shown up in my work in the past- I founded a collaborative artist network called Artlarking in San Francisco, where the goal was to share resources- and audiences- in the process of showcasing art, dance, performance, music.
I will be chatting more about gate 45 with a special guest on next week’s episode, so be sure to tune in for that! Her birthday is in Gemini season in gate 45. She’s someone I admire greatly, and she definitely embodies the spirit of the benevolent gatherer!
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This week, I invite you to lean into contemplations on what change means to you, and what gathering together means to you. You can pull your human design chart here to see if gate 35 or gate 45 are activated for you, meaning that you had planets in this part of the sky when you were born.
If your birthday is this week, Happy Birthday! Let me know: How does the Gate of Change or the Gate of Gathering resonate with you?
Have a lovely week ahead y’all, and I’ll see you next week as we explore the Gate of Caution, the last full gate of Gemini Season before Cancer season comes in hot.
All my love,
Alison
A New Moon of Change: Weekly Forecast for June 3-9