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Regenerate – A Monthly Generative Poetry Workshop

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The Feed

Love and honor to Thích Nhất Hạnh, who has di Love and honor to Thích Nhất Hạnh, who has died and left the world of form. I had a dream once about him, he just said to me “God is boundaries,” and then I woke up. A proper zen koan 🙌🏼, it melted my mind and continues to sound in me like a gong. Your words and your transmission are still with us great teacher, your example of peace and love. Thank you thank you. Rest up.
Today the moon is a fat bright coin - the first fu Today the moon is a fat bright coin - the first full moon of the year peaks at 27° Cancer at 3:48pm pst. Cancer is an archetype of cosmic yin energy - the water mother, the compassionate care-giver - she is protective, sometimes intensely defensive, and always intuitive and nurturing and loving. She supports her vulnerable charges with great sensitivity, fostering deep trust and harmonious interconnections. Of all the water signs and all their oceans of emotion, Cancer’s feelings are the most easily available, the most easily given and received. Wherever Cancer is styling things in your chart, you likely have a gift for emotional labor, the thing that actually sustains all of us, amen. A full moon in Cancer is high tide. Like, high high tide. Emotions are likely to be peaking. Virus spread is likely to be peaking. Freaking out is likely to be peaking. Making food and calling to check in on people might also be peaking. Cancer teaches us that all becomes calm when turn our attention toward love. The name of the key that unlocks the door of the secret knowledge of how to fucking do all of this is Love. Love is not the thing we do, Love is what we are. When we remember we are a source of Love, and that really, that’s the point, it’s all we are here to do, we can start asking our hearts the important questions: what does Love know right now? How would Love approach this specific situation, this specific person, this specific suffering? How is Love moving me to act or be? Sometimes we are the ones most in need of our own Love. Sometimes we have more than enough to pour out to others. Wherever you’re at, bless you. Bless us. We are doing our best, even if it’s not enough, both things are true. I hope you have the energy today for some water ritualing - a tasty shower or bath, some holy dishes, a washing of surfaces of things. As you wash, say or sing or silently think some prayers of love and compassion for all sentient-and-therefore-suffering beings. Let memories of summer fill your heart. Release what it’s time to release, easily, with thanks. Moon art by Danielle Bhavya 🌕
Hi friends - Venus is in the second half of its re Hi friends - Venus is in the second half of its retrograde, Mercury retrograde is coming for us on Friday, and none of it really matters quite as much as this wave of Omicron ❤️ hi how are you? Are you ok? I got pcr test results last Tuesday that confirmed that covid is indeed what took me out at the last week of the year! My parting gift from 2021. Humble bow to the year the somehow outdid 2020. I am symptom-free now, but still sleeping extra deep at night and taking it easy as my fire & lifeforce returns. If you’re out there in thick of it, I’m so sorry you are going through this!! Please take exquisite care. Inflammation can take some time to recede, so even when you’re feeling a little better, keep supporting your body. Just to add to the chorus of advice out there, we did find something to be particularly helpful with the dry cough - a kind of homemade cough elixir. In a tea cup/mug, a tablespoon of marshmallow root infusion, a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, a teaspoon of honey and some hot water. Stir stir drink. Honestly profoundly helpful, we’ve been drinking like 4 a day for awhile. To make a marshmallow root infusion, fill a jar about a quarter of the way with the roots, fill the rest of the way with cold water, and put it in the fridge overnight. It will make a slippery, syrupy liquid - it’s a mucilaginous herb, and it soothes the irritated bronchioles and other tissues of the respiratory & digestive tracts. Licorice root is also a boss in these conditions, but it has strong sweet flavor and sometimes I just couldn’t! If you’re not sick, not a bad time to prepare to support yourself or others by stocking up on helpful herbs - even for a “mild” version of covid, the struggle is really real. That’s it. Sending love. Oh and love to @oliviaherrickdesign for the beautiful message 🙌🏼
Happy new year friends ✨ And happy new moon - th Happy new year friends ✨ And happy new moon - the moon renews herself this morning at 10:34am PST at 12° of Capricorn, the holy sea goat. Capricorn is cardinal earth, the forming mountain herself, and like all earth signs it teaches us something about the steady work that manifestation requires. Whichever house Capricorn styles in your chart, you may have access to a kind of seriousness of purpose and almost spiritual discipline about what matters, a clarity about what needs to get done and the endless will to do it. It feels like we all need more of this than we get, and maybe that’s it - it’s not something we just receive; it’s something we have to learn how to create with our own bare hands. Capricorn is, in short, adulthood energy; it isn’t easily thrown by harsh conditions or petty obstacles. If we let it, it will teach us how to be down for the hard climb and the deep dive and the house cleaning and the taxes, amen. A new moon here is really lovely astrological weather for facing this fresh year - this fresh chance to make something while we’re here. The sun in Capricorn has also been in an encouraging trine with Uranus in Taurus since yesterday, and we could take this as quiet sign that movement is underway for 2022 - gears are shifting. I gotta tell you all, I’ve been very sick, unclear with what yet, as tests and results are all taking longer right now. There was a whole underworld fever dream healing crisis vibe that closed out 2021 for me - I’m sure for a lot of us. I’m not fully recovered yet, or even celebrating the new year so much as gingerly stepping around the broken shards of the last year as I figure out where to even begin. If a reset is on offer, I need it, and I’m going to take it. However you are, I’m wishing you and yours protection and blessings in this new year - take exquisite care.
Merry Solstice friends! The sun is setting here in Merry Solstice friends! The sun is setting here in Portland and the longest night begins. I really don’t know how, but every year I’ve lived here, the rain has stopped for winter solstice night, just long enough for a fire and some witchcraft. Nothing feels more magical than this one clear night. I wish you all good wishing tonight, and deep rest as the moon wanes and the year ends. I’ll be sleeping in and reading novels & poetry in my pajamas & lying down on the floor staring at the ceiling, daydreaming new worlds with less heartbreak. See you on the new moon.
My feed has been so full of honoring bell hooks, w My feed has been so full of honoring bell hooks, who has now joined the ancestors. The great writer philosopher / teacher leader was the architect of so many now-familiar concepts in intersectional feminism, it would be hard to overestimate her influence. She minted fresh critical language to describe and reveal the interrelational realities of oppression and in doing so, invoked new possibilities for transgression and freedom. It’s the most valuable kind of spellcraft. She gave us the gift of clarity and hope. One of her most important contributions was challenging the battles-with-monsters motif at the heart of the heroic journey, suggesting rather that the true heroic path is learning how to love. We need her fierce, loving example now more than ever. Venus retrograde begins today, in close proximity to Pluto, making the next six weeks a deep meditation on love and intimacy as it entangles with our personal and collective wounding. Because this is happening in Capricorn, there’s a connection here to structures and forms, laws and vows - the foundations of what we build in the world for real, for eachother. If bell hooks were teaching this six week class, she might ask us to inquire deeply into love - to imagine that our current understanding of love is limited, to get curious about love in all of its wild expressions. Love as anger and protection. Love as mercy and forgiveness. Love as attunement and adjustment. Love as radical acceptance and rest. Love as the great dissolver of blocks and impossibilities. Love as the truth teller, the trust inspirer. Love as the generous, endless source of clarity and life force. Love as the agent of transformation. I don’t know what challenges have arrived for you, or what you are carrying in this life, but I know how suffering makes Grinches of us all. Here’s to surrendering our defenses for awhile, because we must. Here’s to being soft and vulnerable and open, to trusting the heart, to letting it lead us trembling forward.
The moon is full at 27° of Gemini tonight, at 8:3 The moon is full at 27° of Gemini tonight, at 8:36 pm PST to be exact. Gemini is a mutable air sign associated with communication and ideas, the pollination of the mind. It is also represented by the lovers, the forever opposites, locked in an evolutionary dance of tension and separation and merging and creating new life. Wherever Gemini is influencing your chart, you may be blessed with its Mercurial gifts - an ability to move between worlds, create and express new thought forms, hold several opposing positions at once, embodying both complexity and simplicity. A full moon here brings a kind of peaking of mental and emotional energies, at a time when many of us are naturally feeling the call to review what the hell just happened. As this is the last full moon of 2021, it’s a good moment for ritual breath work. Take a deep breath and say “fuuuuuuuck” on the out-breath, until you have nothing left in you. Let the next breath happen automatically, and just pause and rest. At the close of this year, I cannot begin to adequately express my concern and my hope for all of us. This full moon is trining Jupiter so the overall vibe is generous and beneficent, but it may be hard to receive, on the eve of a Venus retrograde, initiating another(!) emotional underworld journey, in the midst of all those already underway. A few days back, during a short break in some big waves of difficult emotions of my own - my mom has been in the hospital - my boo and I walked to a donut shop. On the way out through the parking lot, an older man who was obviously living in his car, whose speech was rapid and slurring, ran up to us, insisting on giving us a ten dollar bill, so our “next box of donuts” would be on him. I took it with a slight bow - it would have been rude to refuse this man’s gift, he was overflowing with joy - and then within a few steps I started bawling. The kindness was too much, it tore right through me. So, an invitation - whatever elixir of love and connection and kindness is on offer right now, whenever it comes, accept it, put that shit in your pocket. For later. So much full moon love to you all 🌕 More moon art inspiration by @sumapano !
Tonight at 11:44pm PST, the new moon will eclipse Tonight at 11:44pm PST, the new moon will eclipse the sun at 12° of Sagittarius. Sagittarius is mutable fire, transformative fire. In the north, it’s fierceness guides us through the final month of descent, taking us safely into the peak of the darkness. It’s symbol is the centaur archer, a truth-seeing philosopher healer, stoned on stars, big-picture-tripping, divining remedies and firing them into the future. In Sagittarius, the intellect is fully warmed and loosened by the heart; it’s wise with love. Wherever it leads in your chart, you might have a gift for inspiring optimism and generosity, for spreading high spirits, even when conditions are challenging. This is the last in this series of south node eclipses in Sagittarius that began in June 2020 - south node eclipses are clearing/releasing - so something that began unraveling a year and a half ago is getting a final push now. We might have had less access to some part of us, or had some previously unknown truth revealed that changed things. Our needs may have simply shifted, as pandemic conditions brought us personally and collectively into an ongoing healing crisis. The first phase of any transformation is the clearing, the dying away - we empty our cups of the old ways and the old beliefs. We release what it’s time to let go of, and in doing so, we make room for something new to happen. Whatever has been in the process of changing and ending for us, we might really be able to see it clearly now, at the close. As with all eclipses, there’s nothing we need to do to support or force what’s happening - we are just waves in this cosmic ocean, being moved. Whatever time it is, that’s what time it is. On the other side of healing from old patterns is not new, better patterns - it’s no pattern. It’s just presence. Open, curious, spontaneous, responding, evolving presence. You can have that now. And imagine that every time you say “no” or let something go, you are pulling back on your arrow, you are creating potential energy. When you know what you want or need next, what IS a full, wholehearted yes for you, your arrow will have the energy it needs when you fire it. You won’t miss. Art by @sumapano 🙌🏼
The partial lunar eclipse at 27° of Taurus is upo The partial lunar eclipse at 27° of Taurus is upon us, arriving at 12:58am PST in the early hours of Friday. During a lunar eclipse, the earth is between the moon and the sun, casting an earth shadow on the moon during the time when the moon is typically fully lit. This gives the moon a reddish cast, giving it the name “blood moon.” North node eclipses are said to initiate new desires and energy increases, and this is the first in a series of north node eclipses in Taurus over the next year and a half. We may have been getting the first hints (or very strong messages) for weeks already about where this is happening for us personally. In general, Taurus is about the root systems – all that anchors, stabilizes, and nourishes us. It’s ruled by Venus, goddess of love, so maybe it’s especially about the relationships and connections that resource us and have our backs and make it safe for us to reach. Taurus parties by slowing down and chilling hard, turning up the sensory pleasure and love beams. Wherever it is in our charts, we might have a gift for steady beauty, for deep nurturance, for long-game manifestation. An eclipse in this area is likely to shift what kind of nourishment or stability we make and seek - what kind of roots we need to put down to secure the success and sustainability of our next round of growth. Uranus is this moon’s back up choir – it’s been busy in Taurus for 3 years already, breaking down and composting old structures and dead forms, creating the raw material for evolution and new life. This eclipse is also happening on top of the fixed star Algol, associated with Medusa, the snake-headed guardian. Medusa’s myth is a trauma healing journey; she embodies the intense activation of the defenses after trauma. Things could get a little hot and spikey and fated; the whole vibe is very Queen of the Underworld. As with any eclipse, there is nothing we need to “do” ritually to capture the magic – this is a happening, we don’t need to bring it on, and we can’t control or direct it. Rest if you can, and take exquisite care. Some of your power is going to be available soon to reclaim. Art by @jamesturell, purple disco slime moulds by nature.
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