Hi dear ones,
I hope you had a gorgeous week last week, as the sun transited through Gate 7, the leadership gate of the Role of the Self in collective leadership! I definitely noticed a lot of themes last week on the world stage related to our desire for democratic process and collective leadership, from the political arena to the Olympics. I don’t know if you’ve been watching, but one thing that struck me as very “Gate 7” was the gymnastics floor medal ceremony- after the incredibly talented Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade claimed the gold medal in the women's floor final, her two friendly rivals, Jordan Chiles and Simone Biles, showed their love on the podium by bowing down to her in the center.
This week is a big week, the sun is transiting through the last two Human Design gates of Leo season before Virgo season begins. Personally, my daughter is starting kindergarten, which feels like a huge milestone and transition from preschool- I’m getting pretty nostalgic and sentimental over here! I’m grateful to have gotten to squeeze the juice out of summer on adventures with some friends visiting from California- it’s made me ready to jump into the fall months with a nice tan and beautiful memories of wildflowers and rivers.
I got the opportunity to interview one of those friends for the Leo Season guest on the show, and today I’m so excited to welcome to Cycles of Time one of my oldest and dearest friends, the brilliant Justine Aurora Kahn. She and I met at the Smashing Pumpkins concert in Albuquerque in 7th grade, went separate ways for a good while, and then reconnected when we were living in San Francisco in our 20s. Justine, a Leo sun, shines her Leo light so brightly out into the world, and has so many gems of wisdom to share- I hope you enjoy our conversation!
Justine is the founder and CEO of the incredible company Botnia Skincare, and on the pod we chat about the magic of the botanical world, links between the ancient arts of herbalism and astrology, and how the archetype of Leo shows up in her life. Justine shares her passion for skincare as a form of self-love, encouraging us to embrace aging and the wisdom it brings. We also touch on cycles within the natural world, our bodies, and the universe, and the importance of slowing down to truly connect with these rhythms.
Justine’s Leo Gate: The Gate of Stimulation, Enrichment & Intoxication
Justine’s birthday was a few weeks ago, on July 23, so her natal sun falls in the first Human Design/I’Ching gate of Leo season, known as the Gate of Stimulation (Gate 56). Aligned with the gift of Enrichment and the siddhi of Intoxication, this is a gate that focuses on bringing joy and pleasure to people’s lives through sharing stories and heart-centered teachings, and intoxicating the world with the power of love.
In the I’Ching, hexagram 56 is “Fire over Mountain”, representing the potential for a rapid dissemination of ideas and passions across time and space. Through Justine’s adventurous and curious spirit, her therapeutic services as an esthetician at her spas in San Francisco and Sausalito, and her widespread education initiatives that bring the wisdom of plant-based skincare to skincare providers around the country, Justine truly embodies the gifts of this gate!
"Starting Botnia was about more than just creating skincare products; it was about forging a deeper connection to the cycles and rhythms of nature and sharing that with others through education."
- Justine Kahn, Botnia Skincare founder
Justine is truly a radiant soul, and her botanical creations for skin are life-changing- I’m truly obsessed. Every ingredient they use harnesses the natural nourishing power of plants. Her company’s tagline is “We Are Nature: Botnia, By Way of Earth”, a sentiment that has been surfacing in my heart a lot lately. We are nature! Finding our personal unity with the rhythms of the natural world is such a major theme here at Cycles of Time, and Botnia’s products align with our ethos of slowing down to notice the cycles and interconnections of nature. Botnia even views their innovative, artistic packaging as an ecosystem in itself- it’s recycled, recyclable, compostable, and reusable. Check out the inspiring world of Botnia Skincare out here and indulge in the gift of self-love for your skin as we wind down Leo season!
After a quick overview of the Gates that the sun is transiting of this week, we’ll dive into the conversation. (Click the player above or the Spotify link below and jump to 26:04 listen to our conversation now!)
Highlights for the week of August 12-18:
The last full week of Leo season - Virgo season begins next Thursday!
Human Design/I’Ching:
Yesterday (Sunday) -Friday: the Sun is in Gate 4, the Gate of Formulization
Sat & Sun: the sun is in Gate 29, the Gate of Perseverance, the LAST gate of LEO season!
Astrologically- a lot going on, including a Mars-Jupiter conjunction making a square to Saturn, so it’s a good week to live from the wisdom of your heart!
This week’s themes:
Forgiveness and Understanding, Incubation of innocence
Seeing patterns and finding new interpretations
Openness to possibility with a youthful attitude, being a humble student
Committing to the present moment and flowing life from a heart-centered place
Our Place in the Wheel of the Year
Medicine Wheel Direction: South (Fire, Youth) > West (Water, Adulthood)
Wuxing Cycle Element: Earth
Pagan Season: Lammas
Zodiac Season: Leo (July 22-Aug 21)
Moon Phase: Waxing
I Ching Hexagram/Human Design: Gate 4 (Sat-Fri), Gate 29 (Sat-Wed)
4 = =Mountain over Water (Meng: “Youthful Folly”) or The Gate of FORMULIZATION
29= Water over Water (Kan: “Dangerous Depths/Abyss”) or The Gate of PERSEVERANCE
Leo Season’s Unifying Theme: Heart-Centered Courage & Love
As we enter the last full week of Leo season this week, the sun is transiting through the Gate of Formulization (Gate 4, last Saturday through this Thursday) and the Gate of Perseverance (Gate 29, Friday through next Wednesday, when the sun enters Virgo). As I spoke to Justine this week about how she resonates with the Leo Archetype, she said, without hesitation:
“Ultimately, I do feel like the part of me that feels very Leo is the part of me that really believes that Love Is It on every level. That the whole point, the whole point is love.”
I loved this quote, because as I look at these last two Gates of Leo season and reflect back through the other micro-seasons of the past month, I’m struck by “Love is it” being the unifying thread throughout the season.
While the words of this week’s gates (“formalization” and “perseverance”) might not instantly scream “love” or evoke heart-eyed emojis, their origins in the I’Ching and contemplations through the lens of the Gene Keys both reflect loving, lionhearted cores.
The Gate of Formulization (Gate 4, now until Thursday)
The Gate of Formulization (Gate 4) is known in the I’Ching as Mountain over Water, “Youthful Folly”, or “Envelopment”. Closing our eyes and visualizing a mountain over water, water under a mountain, an image appears of a spring of water contained or enveloped within the rock of the mountainside. This hexagram is often associated with the process of incubation- the mountain protects and incubates the water underground until it is ready to spring outward into the world.
From the Iching:
Inexperience is a double edged sword. It leads one to make mistakes, but the mistakes are necessary in order to learn. Do not feign knowledge. Seek out experience and ask what you do not know. Over time, all gaps in knowledge will be filled.
The common name “Youthful Folly” refers to the idea of youth being inexperienced, and so trying to make up for that inexperience by using logic, formulization, and reason in the mind to gain control and feel capable in the outer world. In the Gene Keys, Gate 4’s energy at the shadow level is Intolerance and immaturity through clinging to logic through the mind alone. This gate is about the journey toward the wisdom that formulaic knowledge alone can never bring peace; only true understanding brings peace, because it involves the whole being, not only the mind.
But in its higher frequency, the Gift Level, Gate 4 is about true Understanding of others and of outer situations through using that lion’s heart instead of the mind alone, and through this heart-centered process, creating new formulas for existence.
The gift of understanding must come about through the exhaustion of your mind- when you look logically at all angles of any concept you begin to realize that nothing can be proved through logic because logic can be used to prove the opposite! When you finally see this, your whole being lightens, because you realize once and for all that the mind is of no use to resolve anything of any importance. This in turn releases up the mind to do what it does best: research and communicate and play.
When the 4th gift is freed from having to solve your existence, it finally comes into it’s real genius: to play with the patterns of existence and arrange them in new and original ways. When you have the feeling of visceral understanding deep in your belly, your mind is no longer hampered by the need to defend your own viewpoint. In fact, you realize that all logical formuli can be used to prove or disprove anything!
The 4th siddhi is known as Forgiveness, where deep understanding overcomes mind-based knowledge occurring when a being makes a leap beyond understanding at a societal level. Forgiveness is more like cosmic warmth that transcends the game of infinite karmic debt. This siddhi could look like countries forgiving financial debts or individuals forgiving emotional debts to others.
Forgiveness and understanding are both actions that take many viewpoints into consideration, and require making decisions with the heart and whole body rather than the logical fallacies of the mind.
When I was born, Venus was in this gate, and it’s also my partner’s rising sign gate, so I’ve been contemplating it deeply over the past several days. I’ve known I have a Leo Venus for a while now, but learning about it through the specifics of this gate rang really true to my life so far.
Venus is the planet of what we value, and I do resonate with Gate 4 in that I value the process of trying to understand different perspectives so much. I do see the shadow side of intolerance and ‘youthful folly’ arising in myself when I try to justify my feelings away -like when I’m feeling sad or angry at someone, I can go overboard in my mind trying to form a logical story about why that is happening and it doesn’t end well.. But by taking in different perspectives of people and situations into my heart, instead of just my mind, I do also feel that I have a vast capacity for forgiveness, in that heart-centered way that Justine was talking about with Leo season.
Do you have Gate 4 in your chart? How does it show up for you?
The Gate of the Weekend: 29 > “Perseverance” (this Friday-next Thursday)
Gate 29, the Gate of Perseverance focuses on themes of commitment, determination, and the capacity to endure through challenges and obstacles. This gate emphasizes the importance of saying "yes" to experiences and commitments with discernment, recognizing that true strength lies not just in the ability to start but to persist with dedication until the end.
I feel like this last gate of Leo is symbolically very connected to a specific archetype of the Lion. When I googled images for this, I realized it was very connected to Christian/Biblical notions of the lion’s association with the godly Path of Perseverance, with lots of Bible quotes about never giving up, endurance, and steadfastness.
In the I’Ching, Hexagram 29 is Water over Water, known as “the Abysmal”. The water trigram is a solid (yang) line between two broken (yin) lines, and is an image of water flowing through, the fact that water flows uninterruptedly and with perseverance. “If you cannot change the direction of the wind, adjust your sails and let it guide you”.
Comparing the Biblical notions of perseverance to the Taoist notions, both are about continuing toward a goal and never giving up, but the Biblical sentiment is about active sacrifice in the way of pushing through and not growing weary, while the Taoist sentiment is more about embodying the nature of water and flowing through obstacles by remaining alert, taking heart, and continuing to move forward. A similarity between the two is the sentiment that we need to maintain faith in order to get through choppy waters.
I do see this last gate of Leo as a heart-focused gate in this way- that perseverance is all about maintaining courage in the face of danger and adversity- and the root of the word courage is cor, Latin for “heart”.
From the Divination Foundation: “Those who respond to dangerous conditions most effectively are those who can establish an inner bubble of calm in the midst of chaos. An emotionally stable center keeps one rooted in the moment, alert and focused. Courage at times like these springs from focused attention and a brave willingness to penetrate the moment of peril to its very core, to reshape and transform it.”
Expanding on this Leo heart-centered theme, the Gene Key interpretation for Gate 29 is also about the heart. The shadow of 29 is Half-Heartedness, encouraging us this weekend to ask ourselves: What in life am I doing in a half-hearted way? There is a lot of energy that leaks out when we do things half-heartedly! The Gift of this gate is Commitment, and the Siddhi is Devotion. Both of these carry the sentiment of living life from the heart by committing to the present moment, releasing our judgments and expectations, be devoted, and in doing so, freeing the love within our hearts to embrace all life has to offer.
With love and commitment to living with a full-heart, we can overcome any abyss or obstacle that life throws our way.
Thanks so very much for reading and/or listening!
The transcript of my conversation with Justine Kahn is available here, or you can click here and jump to Timestamp 26:03 to skip the forecast and listen now!
See you next Monday for the Full moon in Aquarius! As always, your likes, subscribes, shares and comments mean the world to me…. thanks so much for being here!
<3
Alison
Cycles of Life, Plants & Stars: In conversation with Justine Kahn of Botnia Skincare