This new moon, our collective cards are the
III of Pentacles + The Hermit
So here we are, strung between a healthy, structured, interdependent communal experience, and the isolated solitude that we seek for self-inquiry and enlightenment. But the question that kept coming through:
What do we have yet to learn in order to help build a new structure for our communities?
Not as quippy as other episodes have been. And now seems as good a time as anyway for a little pandemic content heads up.
I know my experience of COVID is not universal, but I hope that like me, you had a chance to find solace in community, hugs, maybe even an outdoor concert or two this summer.
I don't know what comes next for us, and I am wading through that every day. But if a next leg of hermitage is on the way, even in small, not-total-lockdown ways, I hope we can all find the stamina within ourselves to act on what we've learned so far: what tools have you discovered that help you deal? Write them down. I did.
I carry so much love for you all in my heart. Thank you for being "with" me.
Wanna hear more? Tune into the podcast on...
Episode Transcript:
New moon in Leo Text Only.mp3
Hello and welcome to the Ecstatic Rabbit podcast, a space for esoteric exploration, heartfelt insight and expansive curiosity. I'm your host and the founder of Ecstatic Rabbit Tarot and Coaching, Sarah Corbyn Woolf.
We are here today for our new moon in Leo, which falls smack between two full moons, both in Aquarius, which is a fun little thing. And leads me to my first point, I suppose, about this particular new moon. You might have been hearing on the social media spheres about the Lion's Gate Portal. I know it's been popping up on my TikTok a lot, a little bit on my Instagram. So I decided to give it a Google and figure out what this actually means. To sum it up truly to the extent of my ability, but also to keep it simple, because this is not an astrology podcast, we've got this thing going on with the Sun and Sirius rising. Sirius becomes visible over the eastern horizon. I'm reading this off of a Bustle article, which I always find to be shockingly helpful when it comes to astrology.
So this alignment between the Sun and Sirius, which is the brightest star in the sky after the sun, usually falls around August 8th and this year it also happens to be on the same day as the new moon. And that is why everyone's freaking out about it. So part of the idea of this Lion's Gate is that it's a really powerful time for manifestation, for spell work, for intention setting. There's this portal moment, a threshold, if you will, that we can walk through.
Now, I think every moment of every day of our lives is a threshold that we can walk through. And perhaps moments outside of our lives as well, before, after. But/and there is something to be said for astrology giving us a little boost, maybe lighting a fire under our asses, but also maybe just going, "Hey, this is a good time. If you've been looking for some inspiration, how about now?"
Which is kind of how I feel about the astrological seasons changing at all. I posted about this on my own Instagram recently that like maybe Leo's season has a certain number of characteristics, maybe not. But just the idea that every month we can sort of turn into a new energy, if that is helpful to us, I find a very grounding exercise. Especially because my anxiety, as I also posted on Instagram recently, tends to mean that my timeline and my sense of chronology, that perspective gets very smushy and wonky.
So this new moon in Leo, I want to talk about Rosh Hashanah. I am Jewish. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year, and this year it's early September, which is kind of a mindfuck, but it's always in autumn, it's always in the harvest season. And because of this, it has always, for me, aligned with the academic year. And so fall has always felt like the beginning of the year for me. Now, the beauty of a wheel, the beauty of cycle is that really there can be beginnings at any time. As we know, the year has so many options for new starts.
We've got the Gregorian calendar. We've got samhain as the witches' new year. We've got the beginning of the astrological wheel, so to speak, in Aries season. There are so many options. And this, I think, is why we get to pick. We get to choose what beginning feels right for you. The reason I'm talking about this is because for me, with autumn feeling like the beginning, that means that August is the end. August is kind of my December. And there's something to be said for the the celebration of the end of life cycle before we move into death cycle with fall and winter.
So this new moon in Leo to me really feels like the time to sort of sit with my New Year's resolutions, right? And this carries us right back to that Lion's Gate thing of, like, setting intention for the rest of the Gregorian year, setting intention for our fallow, hibernatory period of the fall and the winter. New moons are an intention setting time. And Leo has that fiery ability to light something and set it on its course.
I'm going into the season, this new moon, very much with the sense of taking stock of how the last year has been and what I want to-- I don't know if this is how gardening works, but like the bulbs I want to put in my garden to gestate or just kind of get comfortable over the winter in order to be ready to bloom next spring, next summer, and come to the end of their life cycle around this time next year. So off you go to your ad break and I will see you momentarily to pull our card.
OK, we had two cards come flying out. We've got the III of Pentacles and we've got The Hermit. I really like this combination because I think it gestures to a very healthy balance between communal experience and individual experience. The III of Pentacles is about having the structures in place very literally to build something together. Because we're working with the minors, that means that we could quite literally be talking about the workplace, teamwork, collaboration with others. And of course, because it's tarot, it can mean parts of yourself working together to build something bigger.
There's some whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts vibes. But there's also an interdependence to this card. In the traditional-- in the Rider-Waite-Smith, none of the individuals pictured can do their job without the assistance, aid, support, guidance, expertise of the other individuals. And then we have The Hermit who is really good at the independence thing as opposed to the interdependence thing.
However, there's also this potential for aid. There's this potential to provide support once the Hermit has gone and returned from their experience, right? Rachel Pollack offers the idea that the Hermit is pictured on their way back from spending their year in the forest or whatever it might be. And what it makes me think is that perhaps that Hermit is, like, gesturing to the expertise, that gained experience, that wisdom, that knowledge that allows each individual in the III of Pentacles to be of service to the others.
But I'm wondering if this is asking, what have we learned in the past year that has helped bring us to where we are? And what do we have this potential to go away and be with and learn about and absorb and integrate into ourselves in the coming year in order to then move back into community with that capability to then join in rebuilding or building something new?
This really has me thinking about the pandemic and how I feel a little teased by community this summer. I'm not surprised by the numbers and I don't know what they mean or what the implications are. But I do have a feeling that we are not done being hermits. Not quite. Many of us, I hope, have been able to restore and replenish in community.
If we had a little sabbatical from our hermitage, what can we go off and complete in our study of self that will allow us to come back into community and build better? And maybe that's community once we are in the clear, if. And maybe that's community, like, going back into whatever the next couple of months look like. To take the lessons we've learned and apply them to building a structure around ourselves and our physical, tangible, daily Pentacles lives that supports us, that gives us a haven, that gives us a structure to lean on. And whatever comes next. OK, I'm sad now. I'm in my feelings. That's cool, too. I'm going to go sit in some sunshine and feel some breeze on my skin.
A little housekeeping to close this out. One, yes, I did some research. Apparently you do plant bulbs in the fall, at least where I live. Two, this marks the beginning of a shift in the structures of my business and my offerings. From here into the foreseeable future, I will only be doing new moon card pulls on this podcast. I still have some interviews lined up, and things might pick back up in the new year. I'm not really sure yet. But for now, you're going to be getting new moon podcasts and new moon newsletters that go together hand in hand. I will probably have more space to pull more cards rather than doing one card per podcast. So we'll see what that looks like.
And three, in a complementary angle to the shift in the podcast, Moon Zooms will also be taking place only at the full moon now. However, full moon Moon Zooms will include an optional card pull before** we have our seven minutes. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out my website. I'll link to Moon Zooms in the show notes. So that'll now be a monthly deconstructed moon circle with an optional card pull if you want a hit of Ecstatic Rabbit Tarot guidance for your full moon. See you next time. Until then.
**Card pulls will actually be taking place after the seven minutes.
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