Between the Moon - Ep 24: Meeting the Moment with Bronwyn Simons

Episode Date: November 9, 2024

On today’s episode Bronwyn and I discuss how astrology can help us become more focused and grounded in our body and spirit to meet the moment. We look at how working with the moon can help us emotionally prepare for some of the more dramatic shifts coming next year.Some things that are happening right now may feel way too big to take in all at once, like the election and the uncertainty of what that hold for the climate, women’s rights, immigration, and international relations.Why this matters? From now through next year the generational planets including Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are all changing signs. Working with astrology can help us see where the arc of our own lives touches the greater arc of history. Bronwyn goes into specifics about this in the episode so definitely listen to the end!In our conversation we discuss the incredible value of lunar tracking and being present with our hearts, emotionally prepared, and clear about our role during these pivot points. There is a layering effect that happens in the personal and the collective.This episode is a little taste of what we will share on our community call on Tuesday Nov 12th: Distilling 2024 and Reviewing the Transits and Moon Cycles of the Year. Join us here: https://astrologygoddess.mykajabi.com/offers/SpzpwaQH/checkoutYou can join us for FREE! If you purchased the New Moon Calendar Journal last year or have pre-ordered yours for 2025 just send me your order number and I’ll give you the code to register us at not cost.This is a supportive way to digest and integrate some of the changes from this year to feel more fortified to meet the challenges for next year.All of the planetary changes will create a big shift in the cycles and the energy that is present. Especially moving from Pisces to Aries.It’s the most extreme transition in the zodiac to go from the ending to the beginning.From the dream realm and land of spirit to direct action.For example: Saturn will finish his journey through the whole zodiac and move from Pisces into Aries. As Bronwyn shares in the episode:What we hope to distill from any planets transit through Pisces is the spiritual fortitude and structures to then move wisely into the action and initiative that is required in Aries.We're taking the spiritual and creative structures that we've been nurturing over the last couple of years and distill and carry those forward into action taking and Aries style structures that we will be creating for the next two and a half years, starting midyear next year. So the Saturn and Pisces question: How can I create more spiritual integrity in my life … becomes: How can I take that integrity into action and initiative?Thank you so much for listening - looking forward to seeing you this Tuesday!Warmly,AprilCalendar pre-sales will begin shipping in the next couple weeks!!! Use code: LUNARFLOW for 10% off when you purchase your copy of the New Moon Calendar Journal in the shop: https://themoonismycalendar.com/new-productsImage of sun and moon trees from Manuscript by Franciscan friar and alchemist Jean de Roquetaillade in 1350. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themoonismycalendar.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome, dear listener, to Lunar Currents, a special feature on the Between the Moon podcast with myself, April McMurtry and predictive astrologer Bronwyn-Simon-Simonds. Lunar currents is a moonly conversation about embodying the living sky, exploring how astrology helps us enter into the mythic nature of our life story, and musing on our relationship with time, creativity, intuition, and many other magical connections. In today's episode, Bronman and I discuss how astrology helps us become more focused and grounded in our body and our spirit in order to be able to meet the moment. There's things that are happening right now in the world and have been ongoing that may feel

too big to take in all at once. This conversation is us exploring some of how it is that we connect with the planetary, the pivot points, the shifting in the big cycles, and how we can bring that down to a level that we're actually able to take it in to digest, to integrate the energies and how it is we are responding to them. So there's some great specifics and tools and insights that Bronwyn and I share. And there's also an invitation to join us this Tuesday. At 3 p.m. Pacific, there's a community call for distilling the year, the 2024, some of the transits, and looking ahead at what's to come, to be able to be awake, alert, centered, and anchored in spiritual practice in our hearts.

and to be able to take action from this place in a way that's aligned with even just how it is our birth chart tells us where this is happening in our life and so responding in a place that is in alignment with that. Okay, thanks so much for being here. Let's dive in. Hi, Bronwyn. I'm a predictive astrologer here on beautiful Vancouver Island. And like so many of us, this week has been really, really, really hard. And April and I have been talking for a couple of hours ahead of making this recording,

just trying to think about what is the most useful approach, talking to you about the living sky and connecting with cycles at a time when what we are witnessing is the reality of the trough of a cycle. And as beautiful as living in tune with the cycles is, it also means being aware and present for raw realities when the big cycles shift and having the eyes to see and the heart of courage to live into without, I guess part of what we've been talking about is how do we talk about these really? monstrously difficult realities without bypassing, without sugar coating, but still offering sustenance. Because I think for both of us, that's our mandate. We want to offer nourishment and sustenance through the connection with cycles. So what do we do when those cycles are bringing us to a really difficult place? 2025 is a big deal because four outer planets are all changing signs. So this isn't just one big cycle turning. It's four big cycles turning.

And we are going to be hosting a community call to, this is just a little bit of a preview of, to help you to distill your experiences of 2024, to release, maybe to grieve. I know a lot of us are in brief right now. And to just have a really well-informed by the cycles and by your own spirit and by the companionship of others, a well-informed entry into 2025 through really distilling our experiences of the last year. So this call is part of what both April and I are offering for 2025. April, of course, is offering her calendar. The Moon is my calendar as a tracking and self-study support as we go into the new year. And I'm offering, as always, in December, my year ahead forecast and retreat.

So this is a preview of a preview of a thing. Thank you, Bronwyn, for the intro and bringing us into that layering effect already, the layering effect of past, present, future. And so when we look to the sky and the living sky and we're in relationship with that, it can help to give us things to make meaning and make sense of a moment. And some of, you know, what we're going to share is maybe not just like one exact moment, but the planets that have longer cycles, things can be so spread out that the plot can be lost or that thread can be lost.

And that's part of the lunar tracking and the tracking on the New Moon Calendar Journal or something that gives a space and a container then to follow various threads, which can be hard to do when you're like doing all of the routine stuff just to keep life going, like the wheels of life going, to be able to pause and step back and kind of zoom out and look at a bigger picture of how did I get here, what has my experience been up until now, and how am I regrouping or, you know, re-charting a course or re-fortifying myself to move forward. And for me, my work in what I'm like fortifying myself with as a reminder of, no matter what, do not let the creative spark go out,

tend to that creative life that brings beauty into the world, that brings form and gives expression to things that may not feel or look beautiful, but is a way of connecting with that inner, inner world, inner reality and bringing that out. So the outer planets, as you were saying, April, take a really long time to move through the zodiac, right? We don't use them in astrology in the same way that we use the personal planets to kind of help us to chart our daily life.

Where we connect with the outer planets is through those more historic, and generational forces because that's how they function in the sky. It takes 150-some years for Neptune to go all the way through the zodiac. That's the work that the moon does in a month. It takes, Pluto takes over 250 years to go through the whole zodiac. These are planets that can take 20 years to navigate one sign. So when the outer planets, Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, and we can include Saturn in that change signs. It is an unusual and rare event. Sometimes happens only once every 20 years. When they change signs, it's a pivot point in the story of the human family. And when they change signs, we can look for those points in time as being those moments where our personal life

meets the bigger story of a human family. So we do find ourselves doing that layering that April was talking about, where we are witnessing big events that are totally outside of our control and expansive beyond the length and scope of our own lives. We are going through whatever it is that we're going through personally that may or may not relate to those big historic changes. and we are dealing with what we deal with in our immediate environment, our family, our community. And what we can expect in 2025 is that those three worlds will intersect more closely than they usually do in a normal year.

And I think part of what many of us are struggling with right now, and I mean not to speak for you, but I know April and I were talking about this this morning, struggling with knowing how to be of use and what this means for our world. work. If that describes how you're feeling right now to astrology can help you, because looking to the houses in your chart where these big planets are shifting will give you your mandate. It will show you your work. It will show you where your personal life intersects with historical forces. And hopefully, you know, even if that doesn't bring you hope, it brings you something to do.

and something to do can be it doesn't have to be grand in fact i think in these moments it often isn't it's like the simple acts of nourishment that we do through our art or literally through cooking for community or being in prayer or any of those things that if you're feeling like you don't know what to do you actually do know what to do and the astrology can help you to figure out where you can be of the greatest use to yourself and to your community. But we'll do more of a deep dive into that in my year I had, looking at what it means to have these big outer planet ingresses landing in your personal chart, what that means for you personally and your kind of your generational mandate. But what I just wanted to share that idea with you

today that astrology actually can be a support to you right now and kind of guiding you and how in how to manage being what can feel like a small and helpless person in the face of pretty momentous historical tides, that those tides are reflected in the movement of the planets, and the planets can act as a guide for where in your own life you can be of use. I also want to say that it's always a good idea to connect with the moon. In ancient astrology, there's this idea of the moon translating the light. the moon takes those bigger forces of the planets and brings that energy into our lives as she moves around and touches each of those planets once a month and has those conversations.

Like we were saying recently just watching an animation of the moon going back and forth, like she's such a busy body. She's got everybody's numbers. She's talking to everything all the time month after month. And she can really help us to digest the. those big archetypal forces. Whereas if we just look at what Neptune is doing or the Saturn Neptune conjunction or what's happening in the world, it's too big for us to take in. The moon helps us to digest and assimilate what's coming in. She does that in so many ways. Yeah.

And returning to that lunar tracking is always returning to comfort and returning to comfort and returning to those simple ways of being of use and the simple ways of coping emotionally and psychologically, the simple ways that really aren't so simple. She's always and ever our guide in that. And she can be our guide in using those bigger forces or what's the word I'm looking for, digesting, metabolizing. And even perhaps like, connecting with or getting a smaller dose of when a bigger planet has like to connect with Pluto like that feels so well you don't want to anyway you don't want to anyway um in the way that the moon can bring a a smaller dose or a taste of something like a homeopathic version of Pluto yeah right

um and we just had yesterday we're recording on Friday. November 8th. Okay, this is the first quarter moon, Friday, November 8th. And just yesterday, the moon met up with Pluto and Capricorn for the last time in our lifetime for 200 years. And so for me, at least, there's a feeling of, wow, something very unique is happening, perhaps in the moment. This is why I think hindsight and tracts. can help to not necessarily know, but perhaps actually being able to feel in the moment that little micro dose of what is the energy of Pluto that I feel like what I've been saying

is dragging his feet through these, you know, if Capricorn is that mountain and there's some peak, it's like that peak has already been reached and it's coming down to like then actually lay down and collapse. There's a at least for me a feeling of exhaustion there. But because the moon was touching base with Pluto and this can be, as you were saying, with any

of the planets every single month, we can gain insight into what is going on with that particular planet by feeling into where the moon is at. Yeah, I love the analogy of microdosing

because it allows us to take something into our system that might be too big and too disruptive to take in whole. In fact, we're not really designed to do that. And the moon does that with those bigger archetypes. And that ability to use the moon in that way as an ally is going to serve us well over the next year because we will continue to have to digest and take in and metabolism. these really big energies and changes around this. I don't want to glamorize this.

We are going into a really difficult historical period. There's no doubt. I mean, those of us who have been watching 2025 coming astrologically, if I can part the curtains a little bit, this is like what we talk about amongst ourselves, astrologers amongst ourselves are sometimes a little bit more pessimistic than what we show to our clients. But it's going to be a tough year.

but we have what it takes to survive through this and be of use. And something like lunar tracking or watching the sky is not frivolous. This is when the oracles and magic and connection to nature and cycles becomes a true tool for revolution. Like these are tools that we have always used at times when things got rough in the human family. It's not extra. It's if we take this into our hearts and use it in a very real way in our lives, it is a powerful tool. Yeah.

And when I look at where these changes are landing in my own chart, it's in the 11th House of Community and the 10th House of work. So I'm here for that. I think I'm here to be a little bit more of a stoic and elder guide, Saturn returned now even than I was before. So I'm here for you guys if you want to get really serious about using astrology as a tool to deal with difficult times. Yeah. And even if that just means as it does for now, like what are we doing in the moment emotionally just to manage how we may be feeling. And that's, you know, I know that was big talk, but what we really want to focus on in the call coming up next Tuesday, November 12th is just being here, being present, and how we can look back on what we've experienced this year and distill it into something that we can carry forward into

2025 and help us to distill the, I mean, if you're feeling, anything like me, there's an array of emotions. You're having lots of different feelings. And with this wisdom, we can distill those emotions into something more useful. So we'll give you a couple of tools to help you to do that, just to feel a little bit more focused and grounded in your body and spirit as just a small example of what it's possible to use this sacred science for. Yeah. It's a beautiful. reminder because it can feel like additional or not as important as other things. Yeah.

In even just considering, like who has time to consider what's going on with the moon. But when we're considering, we're connecting into the understanding of cycles, the understanding of the stars having a path and a pattern. and when we, you know, you said this to me earlier and I wrote it down, that arc of our own life, when that is touching the greater arc of history in meeting a moment. And even if that just is, things that we have cultivated up to this point, being able to have the kinds of practices that may be able to hold space for others so that the time, when we do need to fall apart, there's those in our communities, in our connection,

and our networks that have the capacity to hold that space. Because holding it together all the time and just keeping it all in, it's going to need that either, whether it's an outlet or just a space for that release and that letting go, letting it out. all of this to me is speaking of something that those structures and looking to the planet of Saturn of the things that are what is it that holds us and what have we been cultivating as a spiritual practice where we have some amount of maturity within that and I feel that being challenged very strongly in this moment when I want to just lash out if I'm lashing out like if I'm feeling

like lashing out, there's this check and this check-in that when I can go to and checking in with what is the work of Saturn that's been transmitting or offering the opportunity for spiritual maturity, maturing to not forget that. And so part of what also what Bronne and I were talking about is how those themes have been there. And when we get an office, opportunity to really distill. We can have something that does feel like feeling more fortified by the work that's already been done and put in place to connect in with and tap into as that shifts in the next, in the coming year and years.

Yeah, where we see the, I think, the deep intelligence in the cycle, the embedded intelligence in that, even in the zodiacal cycle. We've been living with Saturn and Pisces for two years now. Saturn being the one that shows us our structures, shows us our work in the world. And the work of Pisces is to dissolve. It's a paradox of Saturn and Pisces where we're honoring the dissolving of structures. And we are creating flexi. open, spiritual, creative structures.

So your personal work with Saturn and Pisces is in whatever the Pisces house of your chart is. You've been, and here I actually would like to read from my workbook from last year. And the affirmation that I gave us for Saturn and Pisces, during this time, I will work towards greater integrity. I will learn to embrace impermanence. I will become more spiritually and or artistically dedicated. So that has been the work and continues to be the work until Saturn finishes the whole zodiac in the spring of next year and moves into Ares. And what we hope to distill from any planets transit through Pisces is the spiritual fortitude and structures to then move wisely into the action and initiative. that is required in Ares.

So we're hoping that we take the spiritual and creative structures that we've been nurturing over the last couple of years and distill and carry those forward into action-taking. And Ares-style structures that we will be creating for the next two and a half years, starting mid-year next year. So the Saturn and Pisces question, how can I create more spiritual integrity in my life becomes, how can I take that integrity into action and initiative?

And knowing that that energy shift is coming, I feel like that is one of the great gifts of astrology, but also just in how you're sharing that you're, you know, looking ahead, we don't know how events are going to understand. I think that is also being with this moment of a moment of uncertainty to interpret any of it. It's having the understanding that energy is going to shift. And so how do each of us want to apply ourselves in that shift? And like you said, when then we can turn to our birth chart to give us, to help us to, like,

navigate or pinpoint the area that that that shift and that dedication then can be directed towards otherwise it can just feel like I don't know flailing looking for a life raft like all all of that because of so much you know it's almost like what body of water am I swimming in and what is it How do I keep my head up above that? And to have a sense that, you know, Ares isn't like an earth sign or land, but there is like a, when fire comes in, it's any of that shifting from water to fire.

There's a focus. Pisces can be so challenging to navigate. And I know for many of us, these years of Saturn and Pisces have been, you have to hold that paradox. of structure plus impermanence. And in a way, even though Saturn isn't as comfortable in Ares, Saturn is actually in fall in Ares.

So that breaks its own challenges. But there's clarity and there's focus. I mean, Ares is nothing if not focused. It's the most extreme transition in the zodiac to go from the ending to the beginning, from mutable water to cardinal fire, it's a very, very dramatic ingress at any time with any planet. You can follow that with the moon.

Notice that day when the moon moves from Pisces into Ares. It's a big energetic shift. And yeah, as you were saying, we can't know, well, we don't usually know the exact forms that things are going to take, but we do have the advantage as astrologers of knowing what the energy is going to be. We can see that much. We may get it wrong about the form because I think that's where we start to impose

our own fears, hopes, all that stuff. But the planetary energies speak for themselves and history bears us up. We know what we're heading into. We don't know exactly what it's going to look like. But we know what it's going to feel like. So knowing your Pisces house and your Ares house and what that transition between those two houses looks like for you.

And is really maybe the most valuable information you can have going into this new year, letting go of this year and moving into the new year. If Pisces is your first house, you've been working really hard for two years to establish a new identity creatively and spiritually. And now you're going to be moving forward with action towards your true values with that as you move into the second house. if Pisces is your seventh house, it's been coming in the way that you collaborate with people and your partnerships and your intimate relationships.

You've been finding that spiritual, creative, and emotional center, finding ways to be in uncertainty. And you're going to be moving into some really deep work on old family stuff, on carrying ancestral wisdom as you take action in the eighth house. or maybe you're going to be helping us all out financially by taking some action around, you know, that part of our lives. But you get the idea. You can look at the themes of the houses involved from the Pisces House in your chart to the Ares House. I'm speaking whole sign houses now. This is the most, even if you don't want to use that normally for your natal chart, if you use quadrant systems, that's fine. I'm not going to argue with that.

But for this particular work, it's really a useful lens to use the whole sign houses. when we're looking at mundane astrology, that is the astrology of the world and where you intersect with that. So we'll be doing a deep dive into that work in my year ahead retreat on December 1st. And we'll be diving a little bit deeper into it in our call on Tuesday. And April, do you want to share what you'll be guiding us through in the call on Tuesday? Yeah. So in addition to that distilling of some of the transits and where planets have been, both in what sign and also in our own chart, in our own experience,

I'll be offering a practice for distilling the moons. And to me, distilling the moons is something that I've shared in different forms. And one of those forms is being of naming the moon. and naming the lunar cycle. So many of us are familiar with the name of full moons that's used by the farmer's almanac, but it's kind of this hodgepodge of different full moon names given by different indigenous tribes in North America. In our own lunar practice, something that can bring even a more, a deeper connection,

both to cycles, to our bioregional experience of the place where we live on Earth, and also to that inner world, that inner landscape that at different times of the year, those lunar cycles, each one that may have a theme or a lesson or a name that then can create, almost like each chapter of a story. And when chapters have names for anybody who's written a book before, I'm yet to like aspire to actually put all of ideas to organize. Like even writing an essay for me, even just the paragraphs, it's like that work is such a challenge to organize sequentially ideas into sentences,

paragraphs, and then chapters. But somehow doing this work with cycles and organizing, not organizing, but just distilling and giving name to each lunar cycle as a chapter, then can help each of us make sense of our life, our lived experience, through the seasons, through the cycles, through all of these changes, through, you know, the moon connects us in with this inner landscape as we navigate our worlds, our life, our relationship, and that bigger, like you said, that, that bigger arc of this moment generationally, how we meet that can be supported by this practice of connecting with the moon

and really personalizing it in the way. So all that to say, it really opens itself to poetry of our own lived experience in a way that can help to transition to move into this next year of cycles. The poetry of our own lived experience. That's so beautiful. We hope you'll join us. Yeah. On the 12th, on Tuesday, the 12th, the moon will be in Aries.

So I love that invitation, Bronwyn, to look at the day surrounding that movement of the moon from the very last sign of the zodiac, of that surrender into Pisces, and then that jump start of like the alarm clock goes off. and ready or not, it's time to move into action, that each lunar cycle, there's an opportunity to kind of study that, that self-study of how do I go from one place to the next? Because especially as two of those outer planets are going to make those moves, and when we've had a little dose and that homeopathic experience of understanding the effect that it has on us, we can potentially be more prepared to meet.

We know what it's going to feel like in our bodies and in our emotions. And we know specifically how it might land in our lives. So that's such a beautiful and important part of your lunar tracking. Yay. So come and join us. This is an ongoing conversation. And to think of what's ahead, being meeting the energy of the moment and being prepared for that because the form that it's going to take. we'll probably ask a lot of us to rise to challenges within ourselves in finding that kind of the fortitude and the spiritual depth. And when we do that in community and we have support to do that,

my heart says that that bending towards love, that bending towards justice, that bending towards beauty, that bending, you know, that turning towards those things to keep in both the personal practices and seeing the ways that we can bring those out into them. world. Yeah. Yeah. So Tuesday, November 12th at 3 p.m. Pacific time or by replay. And I guess we'll drop a link into the show notes. And this is for anyone who is already joining Bronwyn for the year ahead, the forecast and the retreat, online retreat, although it would be so beautiful to me in person. One day. It's a bonus. It's a community call and bonus. And for those of you who've been lunar tracking and working with the new moon calendar and journal for this last year of

2024 or I've purchased your one for 2025. This is also a bonus for you. And if you haven't done either one of those, sign up, join us. Otherwise, the link will be there if you just want to come and check out this distilling of the year and distilling of the moons as a practice for reflect and release and gathering and regrouping before moving forward. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. Yes, me too. All right. Thank you, Bronwyn. Thank you so much. Thanks again for listening to

today's episode. Between the Moon is a listener-supported podcast. If you haven't already, please consider subscribing or writing a review. These are ways that help this work reach more people. And if you'd like to access all the episodes as well as bonus articles, head on over to Substack. That is Substack. That is substack.com backslash at Between the Moon to see ways that you can support this work. This is April and I'll be with you next time on Between the Moon.