#ritual

Full Lunar Eclipse in Leo: forged in your own fire

Claire Burgess

Jan 20, 2019
3 min

Full Lunar Eclipse in Leo: forged in your own fire

Tonight’s total lunar eclipse in Leo caps off the last of the Leo-Aquarius eclipses that began back in 2016. Leo moons always have a full-hearted feel to them, but this one is extra celebratory as it marks the fulfillment of the growth cycle that we’ve been on in the last two-plus years, one characterized by individual self-actualization (Leo) and revolutionizing the collective consciousness (Aquarius). As such, this is prime time to consider how your sense of self has grown

New Moon in Sagittarius: Don’t Fear the Dark.

Claire Burgess

Dec 6, 2018
3 min

New Moon in Sagittarius: Don’t Fear the Dark.

Tonight, the moon is new in Sagittarius and Mercury is direct, and finally it feels like we can breathe. This new moon comes only ten hours after Mercury’s station, with which all three personal planets (Merc, Venus, Mars) are direct for the first time in months. With expansive Jupiter lending its benevolence to its home sign of Sag, this new moon feels like the first sunny day after a season of fog. Sagittarius’s buoyant, optimistic, adventurous energy, which has been dampen

Claire Burgess

Oct 24, 2018
3 min

Full Moon in Taurus: Spirit Made Flesh

Taurus moons are usually pretty chill. Earthy and grounded, steady and sensual, not easily flustered. But today, Taurus’s chill is threatened. Conjunct to Uranus Rx, the planet of awakenings, and opposite Venus Rx in Scorpio, guide to our individual Underworlds, this moon has the potential to shake our foundations, crack fissures in our identities, temporarily crumble our sense of security. The good news—the GREAT news—is that Taurus doesn’t need any of that. The greatest med

Autumn Equinox (Mabon): seeds of the harvest

Claire Burgess

Sep 22, 2018
3 min

Autumn Equinox (Mabon): seeds of the harvest

Happy equinox, friends! Today, the hours of day and night are balanced. The northern and southern hemispheres receive equal sunlight as the Sun traces directly over the equator, perpendicular to the Earth. This is a time of balance, of the harmony of light and dark, Sun and Moon, outer and inner. (There’s a reason that the Sun enters Libra, the cosmic equalizer, at the September equinox every year!) After today, the days will lengthen in the southern hemisphere, giving way to

New Moon Solar Eclipse in Leo: Remember Who the Fuck You Are.

Claire Burgess

Aug 10, 2018
3 min

New Moon Solar Eclipse in Leo: Remember Who the Fuck You Are.

How are you feeling, friends? Worn out? Overwhelmed? Frustrated? Dog-fucking-tired? Me too. This summer of retrogrades and eclipses has taken the wind out of all of us. Pause. Take a deep breath. It’s going to get easier soon. And when it does, all that we’ve learned from the obstacles and challenges of the last three months will come to light. Things will start to make sense again. The raw data we’ve collected during the retrogrades will synthesize into the kind of hard-earn

Full Lunar Eclipse in Aquarius: Showing Up for Collective Healing

Claire Burgess

Jul 26, 2018
4 min

Full Lunar Eclipse in Aquarius: Showing Up for Collective Healing

Friends, total eclipses are always potent, but this Friday’s full lunar eclipse has the potential to open a portal to a new way of being, as individuals and as a collective. Today, we are invited to review how we are showing up for ourselves and for the global community. We are asked to release the hold of oppressive systems, harmful modes of thought, and blocks to progress and healing. We are called to step into the Earth’s shadow—our own shadow—as it is cast on the Moon and

New Moon Solar Eclipse in Cancer: Cracking the Shell

Claire Burgess

Jul 12, 2018
4 min

New Moon Solar Eclipse in Cancer: Cracking the Shell

This Cancer new moon teaches us about security and vulnerability. It teaches us about holding and withholding, sharing and protecting. Here, we learn about the cosmic crab that carries its house on its back. We learn about the shell that keeps us safe, impenetrable, hidden. We learn about the soft, emotional insides beneath that shell and all the truths, needs, and wounds that we guard so fiercely there. This partial solar eclipse is going to crack that shell, friends. It’s g

Full Moon in Capricorn: Take Care of Yourself First

Claire Burgess

Jun 27, 2018
3 min

Full Moon in Capricorn: Take Care of Yourself First

I don’t know about you guys, but right now is A LOT. Life, the news, this country, the world . . . it’s enough to make you crawl into your protective Cancer crab shell for good. On top of that, Mars just stationed retrograde on Tuesday, joining Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Pluto, which are all already spinning backward through the skies (with Mercury coming soon). We also have three eclipses this summer: two in July and one in August. But when the horrors and injustices keep

New Moon in Gemini: Reflecting Self-Worth

Claire Burgess

Jun 12, 2018
4 min

New Moon in Gemini: Reflecting Self-Worth

On this new moon in Gemini, we burn off the mental fog. We clear the air by verbalizing our needs. We honor our contradictions. We take a look in the mirror, see past the distortions, and love what we find reflected back at us. Or, if we have a hard time loving what we see, we at least try. Gemini moons can usually be counted on for a lighter vibe, but Gemini’s ruling planet Mercury has just entered the emotional water sign of Cancer on Tuesday, giving this air moon a humidit

Full Moon in Sagittarius: Harmonizing the Duality

Claire Burgess

May 29, 2018
4 min

Full Moon in Sagittarius: Harmonizing the Duality

This full moon, we perform alchemy on ourselves. We blend our dichotomous parts to achieve higher truths, synthesize our polarities to enact deep healing, and free ourselves from limiting mindsets that make us doubt our expansive possibilities. With the sun in Gemini, this Sagittarius moon is heavily about the mind. It’s about our ways of thinking and our search for knowing. Sagittarius and Gemini oppose each other on the wheel of the zodiac, but they also complement each oth

Full Moon in Scorpio: Healing through Transformation

Claire Burgess

Apr 28, 2018
3 min

Full Moon in Scorpio: Healing through Transformation

Scorpio is transformation. It’s the snake shedding its skin. It’s shadow work and breaking negative cycles. It’s healing, such profound healing, and not in the soft, slow, nurturing way. Other water signs give you hot soup and cough syrup when you’re sick. Scorpio gives you ipecac. This healing is the PURGE, friends. These are the sobs so deep they leave muscle aches. This is gagging on your tears. This is the toxin being forced from the body. This is retching until you feel

Tarot Spread for New Moon in Aries + Mercury Direct in Aries

Claire Burgess

Apr 14, 2018
2 min

Tarot Spread for New Moon in Aries + Mercury Direct in Aries

Tomorrow, April 15th, is big. We have the new moon in Aries, which, with Aries as the first sign of the zodiac and new moons being the start of a new lunar cycle, marks the beginning of the astrological new year for those who track by the moon. Tomorrow, Mercury also stations direct in Aries after being retrograde since March 22nd. Mercury going direct is nothing remarkable in and of itself (it happens 3-4 times a year, after all), but Mercury stationing direct in Aries so cl

Claire Burgess

Mar 31, 2018
2 min

Full Moon in Libra Tarot Spread

Libra is the cosmic balancer, ruler of the tarot card Justice. It brings harmony, fairness, equality, diplomacy. And if you’re riding my energy wave this month (this year, this lifetime), you’re feeling allll sorts of unbalanced right now. Shit’s been real recently, with the cosmos throwing things at us right and left so we can shed the bullshit and rise into alignment with our higher selves. That sounds great, but man is it hard sometimes, y’all. Thank goddess we have Libra

Tarot spread for Ostara (Spring Equinox)

Claire Burgess

Mar 20, 2018
2 min

Tarot spread for Ostara (Spring Equinox)

Happy equinox, friends! Today, the light and the dark stand in equal balance, in cosmic harmony. The sun rises directly due East and sets due West. The sun appears to travel across the sky in a straight line rather than a curve. The Earth’s poles point neither towards nor away from the sun. Today is the tipping point when the hours of day begin to rule over the hours of night. From now until the Summer Solstice, the light will grow ever longer and the dark will recede, all pa

Claire Burgess

Dec 30, 2017
4 min

Year Ahead Tarot Spread

It’s almost New Year’s Eve, and you know what that means! Time to stay up late, drink something fizzy, and dive deep into an intuitive exploration of the energies and soul work coming at ya in 2018. As January 1st approaches, some readers like to pull a theme card for the year ahead and a card (or cards) for each month. That doesn’t really jive with me, though. As tempting as it is to pull a blueprint for the twelve months ahead, that model is too restrictive for my tastes. (

Claire Burgess

Dec 23, 2017
8 min

Winter Solstice Spread

Happy Winter Solstice, friends and witches! On this darkest day of the year, when the night rules the northern hemisphere, we light fires in hearths and wrap cold hands around warm mugs and take comfort in the closeness of loved ones. But tonight we are asked to not fear the night and instead to welcome it, to thrill in its secrets, to swim in the depths of intuition, to listen to what stirs in our dark places and perhaps asks to be brought into the light. This is also the tu