This Tuesday, November 12th, we greet our November Full Moon in the sign of Taurus. When the Moon is Full, it is opposite the sun. At this Full Moon, the planet Mercury, currently retrograde, is also opposite the Moon. Here, we think about the benefits of getting distance. When we try to embody new stories, new truths, new openings, we often can’t be immersed in old places that take us back into old patterns. We cannot be intimately linked to folks who project incorrect identities onto us. When we attempt to communicate differently, that often can radically alter how we are seen, which in turn affects our self-image and self-regard.
The Moon is Full during the Dark Moon time of the year. This Full Moon will be a Full Moon of contrasts and illuminations. When conflict between your feelings and your thoughts come up, use distance, perspective, and compassion to help parse out any tension. When conflict between others’ behaviors and your values come up, recognize what you can control, and where your natural and beautiful power is being compromised.
For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, this is the time of year for reflection. Reflect on where your sources of power come from. Power needs to come from within, from deep within, creating a root system of support. Power is meant for sharing. True empowerment is when the energy of others, expectations, or influence does not affect your honest hearted expression.
Who or what are you giving your power away to?
This is a Full Moon around choosing and gaining perspective. When you look at photos of yourself as a child, you don’t blame yourself — you have compassion, you feel fondness for the little light you see. Can you give yourself the gift of perspective now? Can you give certain repeating patterns and scenarios, particularly ones that have to do with power plays, or cause you to give your power away, another perspective? Taking space from habits, patterns, or certain relationships that aren’t in alignment with where you are right now is recommended. Aligning yourself with activities, thoughts, or practices that reflect where you would like to derive generative power from is recommended.
This is a wonderful Full Moon to think about where you are headed in the early spring of 2020. First, recognize what isn’t working anymore. Pay attention. Your body will always let you know what isn’t working. Then: clear, declutter, rest. What are the most important opportunities surfacing for you right now? What version of yourself are you ready to step into?
The following are Tarotscopes, pulled for each sign in ritual. You may feel called to read for your Sun, Moon, Rising, or another planetary energy you are working with — such as Pluto or Venus. As always, check with your doctor and use your discernment before using any herbs or ingesting anything. Take what you’d like and leave the rest!
To purchase the 2020 Many Moons Lunar Planner, go here.
To sign up for Sarah's newsletter, go here.
Aries
Four of Wands
Aries, issues important to you at the moment are secure and valid places to plant your creativity. You want to know answers to really important questions about your life such as: what must I focus on, in order to fulfill my creative potential? What is the best use of my creative potential? What is my purpose? I’m not going to say that questioning is the wrong tactic, but I will offer that your work right now is less about needing to prove something to yourself, and more about letting your unique forms of creativity dance freely on the stage of your life.
In short, you need to be seen and valued; all of the parts of you need to be accepted and integrated. You want to be invited to the party. You want your gifts to be appreciated. First, you need to evaluate what those gifts are, what unique forms of creativity you possess. Then, you need to move towards the visions that bring you joy. You need to set up structures: scheduled time, groups, workshops, accountability buddies. Most importantly, you need to show the world what you’ve got. People must see what you are working with: all the fireworks of your heart that light up the room, casually. All the brilliant blossoms of interpretations of humanity that you are able to offer on the daily. At this time, you must settle into the idea that you can actually possess what it is that you want.
You’ve already got the goods. Now, you’ve got to implement the belief.
Suggested spell ingredients:a dinner party, a fire cider making party, any party — so long as it’s one you are able to show up exactly as yourself, blessing and charging a new magical journal for this Full Moon, honey calcite, cinnabar, and motherwort.
Taurus
Queen of Wands
This is a time to go hard on ease. Working smarter, not harder is the way for you to go. And when the Queen of Wands shows up, smarter means something different than you might think it does. This is about joy, fun, and connection. Your Full Moon cosmic ask is to bask in your beauty, sweet Taurus — the beauty that is all around you. Imagine your world as one where you get what you want by feeling good and having fun; not by toiling needlessly for those who won’t even remember your name in the near future.
Your suffering will not stop the suffering of others. It is part of your life’s path to make the most of every day. You shining bright, enjoying life, and focusing on what you love is not hurting anybody. Nor is it a waste of time. Spend time stretched out, allowed to relax completely. Find time to laugh so hard and so long that you don’t remember why you are laughing in the first place. Consciously creating pleasure for yourself and those who appreciate you is an important use of your time and energy right now.
Suggested spell ingredients:sunflower seeds, ashwagandha and carnelian for a charm bag, Good As Hell by Lizzo, outfits that make you feel your most special and show-stopping, a full social calendar, and practice with telling yourself and others exactly what you want and who you are.
Gemini
Two of Swords
The tension you are feeling is not an indicator of failure. You are in the in-between zone of two levels. You are rewiring, in a surgery room of your soul. Your intuition is flooding in from the future to tell you what you really want. Your heart is aching strongly for a time that is just within grasp, but not quite yet here. There is a part of you that is very ancient. This archaic part of yourself wants to sing into old wells at midnight, burrow into vintage velvet and satin, and trace drawings from pages of books hundreds of years old. Do all you can this month to connect to those ancient impulses from deep inside. There are answers found within the folds of other aspects of time.
One way to address this discomfort is to see nothing as a problem right now. The more you assign value statements to your life, the more your intuition flutters away — the more your heart closes up. Stop assigning judgement, and start figuring out how to make choices that will support your evolution. Figure out how to reclaim aspects of your life as your own, no matter what.
This is a time of new beginnings, this is a time of waking up even more. Who you are now is certainly not who you were at the beginning of the year: that’s a major accomplishment. Give yourself more credit. Believe it or not, you will go through at least one more shedding process before this year is over.
Let this Full Moon be a portal of assurances for you. So long as you have a hold on your intuition, your heart, you are absolutely where you need to be. As long as the parts of you that can never be bought and sold are intact, you’ve got all the resources you need.
Suggested spell ingredients:an altar to yourself: past, present and future, water, lapis lazuli, hematite, sea glass, breath magic, and rest.
To purchase the 2020 Many Moons Lunar Planner, go here.
To sign up for Sarah's newsletter, go here.
Cancer
King of Cups
Moonchild, this is a Full Moon about being loved and loving. This is a Full Moon to define what love looks like for you. What actions do you need to take for yourself, to show yourself that you are loved? If you were your very own best parent and friend, what would you whisper to yourself to assure you that you are completely deserving?
Notice who in your life isn’t able to give you the love you really need. These folks will end up falling into different categories: those who try, and those who don’t. Those who try are worth keeping around: it’s on you to then figure out what you need to do to believe, and then receive their love. Those who don’t try don’t need to be in your life anymore. Forgive them and move on. It isn’t cruel to cast out those who don’t understand what love needs to look like, act like, feel like, and be like. For your heart, your peace of mind, and your time: it is imperative to have folks around you that will give as much as they take — to have folks around you who will see you, really see you. Of course, first you need to really see your beautiful self.
Recognize what parts of your life need more love. What are the emotional patterns you throw yourself into that are simply habits, designed to keep you in repeat mode, away from intimacy? If you wish to up level as much as the universe is asking, it has to start with emotional mastery, because emotional mastery is vibrational mastery. Vibrational mastery is what witches call magic.
There isn’t anyone who can love you better than you. Discovering a consistent way to be in love with yourself, and be in love with your life, is the strongest magic there is right now.
Suggested spell ingredients:a heart opening meditation, green opal, rose hip infusion, self-massage with rose quartz infused oil, hip-opening stretches, a visit to places that remind you of the beauty of the world, your favorite Audre Lorde poem on repeat.
To sign up for the newsletter, go here.
Leo
2 of Pentacles
We humans tend to compartmentalize, yet so much of life isn’t easily stuffed into 9-5 linear time and the Gregorian Calendars. Right now, lovely Leo, your life is anything but easily compartmentalized. New ways of expressing your hard-won self worth, business opportunities, and radically different ways of operating are all available to you. These new ways will spill in when you should be sleeping, they will make their way into conversations, they will fly in as interesting impulses you wish you had space to follow. All around you is inspiration and affirmations that do not obey linear time.
Are you going to let your desires follow suit? Are you going to let your life get messier momentarily, so that more abundance ultimately makes its way to you? Are you going to open your hands out wider to catch any and all possibilities that this month is showing you are available, if only you could reimagine your relationship to time? Are you going to let your gorgeous, freaky self be seen by more people, in order to be accepted that much more, down the line?
Things are fine as they are right now. But if you allow for a few months of glorious messiness, if you allow for a bit more juggling, a bit more flexibility for all that is making its way into your world, your world will become much more technicolor.
Suggested spell ingredients:dance classes, speaking gigs, karaoke and other opportunities to use your voice, bumblebee jasper, squirrel animal guides, bibliomancy from Finnegan’s Wake or Braiding Sweetgrass, and fountains.
Virgo
Ace of Swords
There’s the story, then there’s the story about the story — the reviews, the games of telephone, the spirals of recounting — and then, there’s the truth. You’ll never know what the truth is exactly, but you can get closer with the practice of detachment. This Full Moon wants you to take a step or two back, in order to get another perspective.
Your stories matter, but they aren’t helpful when they derail you. Your words have meaning, your words carry weight. Your thoughts are powerful, your thoughts predict your future. Both are vessels for the way you spend your days, the way you stay in alignment. If you need more help, here it is. ABRACADABRA, in Hebrew translates to: “It came to pass as it was spoken.” In Aramaic, it translates to: “I create as I speak.”
At this Full Moon, pick a phrase, pick a different way to interact with your stories that empower you to heal some past hurts, and create some new futures.
Suggested spell ingredients:clear quartz, Hawthorne berries, hyssop, Solange’s When I Get Home, words that describe your dreams, and the slow, sacred pause.
Libra
10 of Pentacles
This is a Full Moon about investments. This is a Full Moon about homecomings. Last but not least, Libra, this is a Full Moon about the wonders that can be found in the everyday. Look around you: what is proof that you are supported? Where can you find your truest self reflected back at you? If this is hard for you at first, name your literal unique existence as such. Over time, practice sinking into the trust that you are seen. Allow rewards.
One way to get your prayers answered is to pray. You can define what that looks like for you. Praying to love, praying to the spirit of the earth, praying for courage; writing songs and poems and short stories and crying and dreaming are all forms of prayer.
You are being asked to invest in yourself like never before, as a way to solidify the journey of homecoming you’ve been on. That can bring up ancestral pain, as well as fear from past situations you’ve been in that have eroded your trust. This is a different time, lovely Libra. You’ve done so much work in your life this year to be surrounded by what you really need, and who you really must hold close.
Your whole life is asking you take all you’ve learned and all you’ve prepared for and take the next steps. Breathe all of this into your body, all the way down your belly into your hips and the energetic roots you possess. Lean into all the proof that is around you that you are safe and supported in your next stage of being.
Suggested spell ingredients:blisters by serpentwithfeet, petrified wood, lemon balm tonic, an altar made from items you’ve found and items you already own, a daily prayer practice, and one or two solid ways to invest in your future self.
To purchase the 2020 Many Moons Lunar Planner, go here.
To sign up for Sarah's newsletter, go here.
Scorpio
Queen of Swords
Your pain hasn’t made you who you are. Your pain is the way you’ve been able to cut yourself loose from self-doubt, from fears, from false stories that distort who you really are. You’ve been able to make art in spite of the demons that threaten to take you down. You’ve been able to rise to your best self, again and again, despite betrayal, despite the general state of the world. It is gorgeous how resilient you are. However, please don’t confuse suffering for an identity, especially now.
At this Full Moon, you are being given an opportunity to create and recreate yourself from a different perspective. It is no longer going to be about revenge, resilience, and spinning trash into gold.
Under the Full Moon, picture yourself soaring, on a spacious different level: high above the clouds, able to see a field of generative topics and concepts and ideas and ways of being that will keep you occupied and sustained for a long, long time. Dive deep into that place. It is a field of burnt orange poppies underneath a brilliant azure sky. It is a midnight meditation in the crevice of a jade cave. It is branch with the best vantage point from the oldest, gnarled tree in the forest. It is glorious gold threads that ripple out from the whispers of who you truly are when you are resourced by the truth.
Suggested spell ingredients:Living My Life by Grace Jones, ocean jasper, elderflower tonic, a new writing project, a cord cutting ritual, and a new word that supports your new, joyful identity.
Sagittarius
King of Swords
This is a Full Moon that is highlighting the power of your mind. Define what alignment feels like and looks like, in your actual behavior. Conjure the rituals you need that place you in a mindset of clarity. This will help you in not reacting. (You will have many opportunities to respond, not react!) This spaciousness will help you let the innovations you’ve been focusing on, in your everyday life, fly out into the energy of the collective.
Last Full Moon, you got the Queen of Swords. The themes she presents of communication, of letting new healthy neuron pathways fire, of creating platforms of strong communication, is still coming through strong now. You’ve been collecting, you’ve been resonating, you’ve been communicating the boundaries you’ve been building, you’ve been gaining insights and telling new stories. Next steps call for new practices in your world. Small, large, it doesn’t matter what you do — it just matters that you do it. It is time to take action.
Suggested spell ingredients: the music of Hildegard of Bingen, the artwork of Corita Kent, ametrine, citrine, brahmi root tonic, and a spell that consists of many symbolic actions.
Capricorn
9 of Wands
You can try to make the feelings that have been surfacing all about everyone else, and it wouldn’t be wrong. People are difficult, especially when they aren’t playing by your rules. The feelings that are coming up at this Full Moon aren’t really about anyone else, though. This discomfort is all about you. The walls you’ve been putting up that are not serving you. The excuses you’ve made, about yourself, and about what you are capable of, as a way to sell yourself short.
The bigger picture to observe is the different ways you’ve set yourself up for failure as a way to evade intimacy. Over the years, it could be that failure, that perfectionism has been a way to stay safe: A defense mechanism of sorts. If you are never totally perfect you never get to be yourself, to yourself. If no one is perfect, then they aren’t allowed inside. Over time, you might have projected ideas about failure onto others as walls: as a way that nothing, and no one, could actually hurt you. But intimacy is literally the opposite of perfect. It is radical acceptance: loving yourself in all your very normal, very natural messiness. Intimacy is loving yourself because of your imperfections.
I predict that if you conduct a Full Moon spell celebrating your vulnerabilities, that some floodgate will open for you in some other area that has been closed off to you. Be brave in your quest to circle around new emotional territory. Keep going.
Suggested spell ingredients:Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach, dalmatian stone, angel aura quartz, calendula essence, a couple hours in public spent doing something you are really bad at, and actually taking your own advice.
To purchase the 2020 Many Moons Lunar Planner, go here.
To sign up for Sarah's newsletter, go here.
Aquarius
10 of Wands
It is ok to want to burn it all down, Aquarius. Sometimes, life really does get like that! This Full Moon is urging you take any stress, any old patterns, any needless overextension, and recycle them. Energy is never created nor destroyed, it is only transformed. You are in the midst of ending a sweeping cycle around spiritual patterns, relationship patterns, and all the things you take on that leave you resentful and overwhelmed, isolated and at feeling your least powerful. These impulses have been draining your precious energy. The good news is that when you consciously decide to end them then you will have space, you will have time, you will have yourself back.
At this Full Moon, name everything that has been needing to go, and create a ritual where you burn them over a candle or a bonfire. On the 3-D plane, take the next two to three weeks wrap up what you need to wrap up. Practice saying no thank you, and I can’t right now. Fight against all the impulses you have to people please and control-freak it all out. Whatever the shadow part of you makes you self-sabotage with your energy and work as the sacrifice needs to go. On the astral plane, reacquaint yourself with the shining light that you are.
You are golden just as you are. The less encumbered you are with shoulds and toxic expectations, the more you’ll be able to serve your wildest dreams.
Suggested spell ingredients:fire, drumming, recordings of horses galloping, citrine, kunzite, yarrow, conscious releases, boundaries, and nettle.
Pisces
The Devil
Eat the apple. Bake the pie. Give yourself all the desires you crave, in all the huge and in all the small ways. Who was it that told you to keep yourself separate from all that you want? Who was it that told you that in order to be safe, you had to be deprived? I’m not asking you to harbor anger at them, but I am encouraging you to give them the middle finger as you chomp down on the life you now need. The reality that exists outside of restrictions, outside of conditional love.
As you make your way more and more into existing fully in freedom, there will be resistance. Your knees might knock and your hands may shake. Resistance is a sign that you are working through some really meaningful shifts. This isn’t just for you, it is for all the people in your bloodline who couldn’t. This isn’t just for you, this is for people you haven’t even met yet: future lovers, future besties, future collaborations, future humans that want to open the door to a version of you that is sexy, self-satisfied, and ready to create a world that exists first and foremost on your own delicious terms.
Suggested spell ingredients: Lucifer Rising by Kenneth Anger, pomegranates, astragalus, obsidian, ruby, sex magic, and manicures.
Written by Sarah Faith Gottesdiener
To purchase the 2020 Many Moons Lunar Planner, go here.
To sign up for Sarah's newsletter, go here.
--
Sarah Faith Gottesdiener lives and works in Los Angeles. Sarah is an artist, designer, writer, teacher and Tarot Reader. Sarah’s artwork and designs are based in the spiritual, feminist, and mystical. You can shop her intersectional feminist line of clothing, accessories, art and paper goods through her store, Modern Women or on the HausWitch site here.
