• Waiting outside in the 90-degree heat for 12 hours in a mountain village in Mallorca.

• Finding a sidewalk with a clear view of the ocean and tuning in to the human dramas – townspeople getting ready for a neighbor’s retirement party on a terrace, a man threatening to cut down his neighbor’s hedges for a better view, teens bouncing from one house to the next looking for a party, a cat sleeping in the shade.

• Putting on our eclipse glasses and watching the Moon slowly take bigger and bigger bites from the Sun over the course of an hour.

• The sun looked two-dimensional through my eclipse glasses, but every time I remembered the negative space was the Moon, I felt queasy.

• Feeling the burning August sun turn soft on our skin, gentle as winter light through a layer of cloud.

• Watching our shadows disappear.

• Hearing the birds scream.

• Hearing the people scream.

• Hearing the music from the retirement party shut off.

• Birds totally silent.

• People totally silent.

• I see nothing, so I remove my eclipse glasses to see

• A darkened lavender-green sky. Otherworldly color. The Sun an empty glowing ring.

  

• The bottom of an exhale, a minute long.

  𖧹𖧹𖧹

• A brilliant pinprick of light spills out from behind the bottom-right corner of the Sun/Moon.

• Illuminating bats flitting across the horizon, confused.

• Birds, singing again.

• Me, gasping again.

• Dawn light at sunset, how?

• A brand-new day at dusk, how?

• Tears streaming down my face, how?

• Everything feels changed, different, but how?

  ⚬⚬⚬

• Sunset light, golden hour.

  

• Someone at the retirement party takes control of the aux cord and plays “Love Is in the Air” at full volume.

• Incredulous laughter, hugging, kissing.

• But wait, there’s more.

• Massive red crescent sun, still partially obscured by the Moon.

  

• Crescent Sun sinks below the horizon, looking like a fin or a sail.

  

• Watch it sink, make a wish, like my tía Leo taught me as a kid.

• Walk up the mountain towards the car. Sky is dark now, stars are out.

• Biggest meteor I’ve ever seen streaks across the sky. It’s so close I hear it shimmer.

• Three more shooting stars. Jamie sees a fourth.

• A drive home through winding mountain roads.

• Another car with an 888 license plate, and then another, and then another.

• Clothes so sweaty and covered in dirt, we joke we should burn them.

• Struggle to sleep. Still thinking, how?!

And here’s a long rambling voice note I sent to my sister the next day while it was fresh:

☽☽☽

Sending love between eclipses. If you’d like to book a reading to talk about how this eclipse and the next one are impacting you astrologically, reach out at soto.natasha@gmail.com.

Still processing what I saw.

<3,

Natasha

Here are some images from the cozy reading corner at the League of Stars Exhibition at Halo Studio Lab in Berlin.

We listened to the readings sitting cross-legged on the floor, like in grade school. It was a nostalgic feeling, which made me remember how much I love reading aloud and being read to 💛

This coming week, I’ll be traveling to Berlin for my first group exhibition in years, where I will be sharing my new poetry chapbook and reading from it. I was reflecting with a friend, an artist who is also participating in the exhibit, on how we both found the final act of completing our work the most harrowing and confronting bit of all.

For context, I spent over six months writing the poems, editing them, getting feedback, laying them out, creating illustrations, choosing fonts, and procuring paper. I dragged my feet for weeks on the last step — actually printing the book. After all of that work, the fear, perfectionism, and avoidance crept in and stopped me in my tracks. It reminded me of this quote about procrastination from Miranda July:

“The funny thing about my procrastination was that I was almost done with the screenplay. I was like a person who had fought dragons and lost limbs and crawled through swamps and now, finally, the castle was visible. I could see tiny children waving flags on the balcony; all I had to do was walk across a field to get to them. But all of a sudden I was very, very sleepy. And the children couldn't believe their eyes as I folded down to my knees and fell to the ground face-first, with my eyes open. Motionless, I watched ants hurry in and out of a hole and I knew that standing up again would be a thousand times harder than the dragon or the swamp...”

— Miranda July, It Chooses You

I stayed on the ground for a long while before I recognized my own fear and had to drag myself out of it. I figured out the final layout, printed it, then measured, cut, and stapled many pages together. It took many, many hours of concentration, labor, and love. And I am so thrilled with how it turned out. I feel lighter and relieved now that it’s all ready to go. I’ll share the full-text version with you once the digital component of the exhibition is up, and do get in touch if you’d like to buy a physical copy.

The Gemini of it all

I want to tell you

about how I have lived

at the speed of light

to live

as deeply as I could

— lines from my forthcoming chapbook, A Capella

The booklet I have written is about a star, Capella, but I am now thinking about how relevant it is to this moment — Gemini season and tonight’s Gemini New Moon.

Gemini, ruled by Mercury, the planet of communication, is all about connection and curiosity. I feel like this season has pulled me back into the fold of life — connecting with new and old friends, watching foreign films in new (to me) film houses, running 5ks, and just expanding my world in all sorts of directions in a way that feels so much faster and buzzier than life was a few months ago. Mercury, the messenger between Heaven and Earth, is all about speed and exchanging information (sometimes symbolized by buzzing bees, like this one that I had to shepherd out of my apartment)

People associate Gemini with lightness, but this season has introduced me to its depth. As my friend Amy reminded me, the myth behind the constellation of Gemini is about the “twins” Castor and Pollux. Castor was mortal, Pollux was divine. And because they loved each other, when Castor was killed, Pollux agreed to share his immortality with Pollux. So they spend half of their time in the underworld, and half of their time on Mount Olympus. She described them as passing each other every day and meeting in the middle to share their notes from the other side.

That’s kind of how writing this missive to you feels: emerging from the underworld (sickness, recovery, creation caves) with my fieldnotes. Spending time in the land of the living, celebrating my short time here with my fellow mortals. I get why this part of the year can feel like a party. Let’s enjoy it!

Love, Love, Love,

Natasha

Dear readers,

I write to you now, still a little loopy from pain medicine post-surgery, but ready for another New Moon dispatch. I had imagined entering the lighter months of Spring renewed, refreshed, and reborn, but life had other plans. On the heels of Jamie’s recovery from his surgery, I ended up needing a major surgery of my own. I’m now in recovery mode, eating all the Venusian sore-throat-friendly desserts. These include:

• homemade hibiscus and honey jello

• cold strawberries

• a British custard called “ambrosia” that I learned about in the hospital

The living astrology:

Remember the Aries planetary lineup that we had in April? All of it hit my own natal planetary stellium in my 6th house of health. Mars, the ruler of Aries, also rules things that puncture and excise — and it was a month full of scalpels, needles, and all things surgical, for me and a few of my loved ones.

I got a throat surgery this week, and in astrology, Taurus rules the neck, throat, vocal cords, thyroid gland, and tonsils. Ruled by Venus, Taurus is a sign that is deeply associated with having a soothing speaking or singing voice. It’s interesting to me that this Taurus season has brought such a focus to this area of my body and on my own voice.

Taurus is an earth sign all about growth, about making something real and lasting. But this growth that I’m experiencing is so slow and subtle, taking me right down to the basics. It looks like baby steps, remembering to take care of myself, and confronting the vulnerability of receiving help.

To me, this super new moon in Taurus feels like a seismic, subterranean shift. It wants us to sing an entirely new song. And it feels gently supportive, giving us the stability to prune back what needs to go, so that we can regrow stronger.

Horoscopes for the New Moon in Taurus

Below you’ll find the area of your life that is asking for a re-commitment under this lunation. I recommend picking a goal related to this area of your life and committing to the smallest, practical action that you can return to, ideally every day, over the next 6 months.

Aries rising: money/self-worth/feeling resourced

Taurus rising: yourself/your identity/your body

Gemini rising: your rest/spirituality/seclusion

Cancer rising: your communities/social networks/wider groups

Leo rising: your career/public roles/how you shine

Virgo rising: foreign travel/studies/belief systems

Libra rising: intimacy/financial mergers/mental health & the unseen

Scorpio rising: marriage/committed relationships/one-on-ones

Sagittarius rising: routines/work/health

Capricorn rising: creativity/joys/the children in your life

Aquarius rising: family of origin/ancestral roots/home life

Pisces rising: communications/your neighborhood/immediate surroundings

Work With Me

I have opened up my books for natal chart readings in May & beyond.

I like to interpret the symbols in your birth chart as an archetypal story of your life, for a wider perspective. Here’s what a recent client had to say about their experience:

If you are interested, book here.

And if you are a paid subscriber to this newsletter, book here with a 20% discount — subscribers on the free trial are eligible for this discount.

Wishing you all the best from my repose. I hope my next dispatch finds us all stronger and steadier 🐂.

Love,

Natasha

Tomorrow, I turn 33 years old. Three has always been my favorite number (hence “the grand trine”), and I’ve been looking forward to turning 33 since I was a little kid 😂

The excitement remains. I am almost, finally, 33.

Creative News

I am currently preparing work for the League of Stars Exhibition in Berlin. In this exhibit, artists from around the world will respond to cultural astronomical research on their chosen fixed star.

I chose Capella, a dazzling binary star system, the third-brightest star in the northern hemisphere. This star has been known under many different names by different cultures for millennia. In astrology, being born under this star is meant to highlight themes of freedom and speed. In my natal chart, it sits with my Sun.

So some questions this project is grappling with are: How can we move freely toward what feels alive? What does it mean to be born under a star with many names, many versions of itself in the same sky? How do the myths of this star live in and through me, as the daughter of people who have migrated, who has now migrated herself? What are the parallels between a star that migrates across the sky and those who migrate across waters and borders? (shout out to my poetry teacher, Patrick Rosal, for guidance on this).

In line with these themes, I wanted to share a link to donate to the Safe Passage Project, which supports immigrant children in my hometown of New York.

This project has also pointed me toward the fun and freedom of creation. For example, yesterday I felt the fugitive glee of being an ex-office worker who now makes art in an ex-office building. I was able to spend the afternoon in my studio assembling pages of the booklet (or zine? or chapbook? we will evade labels as long as we can), figuring out the physical puzzle of page layouts with my beloved new printer. Here is a video of the first “dummy” book I constructed:

and here’s my little library of zine inspiration. Each of these tiny art books has inspired me in terms of shape/binding/imagery/technique:

Other things:

• Since my last Substack missive, my short story The Honey Bear was published in the Spring Equinox issue of A Curious Moon. It’s about, among other things, the feeling of exiting a long winter. Welcome to Spring 🌸

• I am taking part in another writing challenge with the Women Who Write in Edinburgh. I’ve been working on a longer work of fiction, and my goal is to reach 40,000 words by May.

• I am currently reading the book Colony by Annika Norlin. It’s about people trying, in their way, to escape the alienation of modern life. I’m hooked.

Astrology News ❤️‍🔥

Friday is the New Moon in Aries! And, as you may have seen, tomorrow (on my birthday) there will be SEVEN planetary bodies in Aries — the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars, Saturn, Neptune, and Chiron. I have never lived through anything like this, but I can tell you what it’s been feeling like for me so far this Aries season: like pressing the gas and the brakes at the same time. All systems go, even if they cancel each other and cause chaos.

Three of my loved ones have or will have undergone necessary surgical procedures this Aries season (and I myself am scheduled for a medical surgery during this time). Knives and needles are associated with Mars, Aries’ planetary ruler. So the health stuff has been a major STOP, but the creativity stuff has been a major GO, a confusing configuration that I am only just finding space in. This means I’ve felt a little bit like a farmer this week out of necessity: waking up early to tend to my body with movement and healthy food, then tending to my crops (my work), then tending to my relationships, then doing some more yoga and tending to my home, then heading to bed early in the evening — leaving gas in the tank for the next day.

Slowly adding more kindling to a controlled fire and knowing when to dampen it down is the only way I can possibly survive all this Aries fire without getting burned (again). So this New Moon, I am making all the intentions to tend to the fire as responsibly as I can.

Here are the areas of life where things might be feeling a little full-on for you:

Aries rising: yourself/your identity/your body

Taurus rising: your rest/spirituality/seclusion

Gemini rising: your communities/social networks/wider groups

Cancer rising: your career/public roles/how you shine

Leo rising: foreign travel/studies/belief systems

Virgo rising: intimacy/financial mergers/mental health & the unseen

Libra rising: marriage/committed relationships/one-on-ones

Scorpio rising: routines/work/health (hence my desire to live like a farmer)

Sagittarius rising: creativity/joys/the children in your life

Capricorn rising: family of origin/ancestral roots/home life

Aquarius rising: communications/your neighborhood/immediate surroundings

Pisces rising: money/self-worth/feeling resourced

Work with me

I am open for astrological readings if you’d like to go deeper with your birth chart. If you’re interested, email me at soto.natasha@gmail.com.

Here is a recent testimonial from someone I had the honor of reading for recently:

Thank you so much for reading this week. Sending all the fiery Aries love.

<3,

Natasha

Other ways to support: share ✷ like ✷ comment

Pisces is all about dream work. It is the vision that comes out of the mists. It is the dissolution of the self into the collective unconscious. It is the end of the astrological calendar, the great undoing before we remake ourselves in the Spring. I hope this week, and this newsletter, help your wildest dreams take root as we turn the corner from Winter to Spring 🌸

This week’s astrology

✷ New Moon in Pisces on Wednesday, the 18th of March (horoscopes below!)

✷ Spring Equinox & the Start of Aries Season on Friday, the 20th of March

✷ Mercury Stations Direct on Friday, the 20th of March

Stargazer’s Guide to March

In March, Capella — the third brightest star in the northern hemisphere — will appear high in our night sky. To find it, face west (the direction where the Sun sets) under the darkening sky, and follow the arc of sky overhead. Capella is the most prominent star in a constellation known as Auriga, which is shaped like a pentagon. It was a very important star in many cultures’ cosmologies, and it once served as Earth’s pole star due to our planet’s slow axial tilt.

I am choosing to spotlight Capella because she is known as a she-goat who sits on the shoulder of a Charioteer. In the mythology, she provides both sustenance in the form of milk and has a wild thirst for adventure. Her qualities of both compassion and speed feel like the bridge between Pisces and Aries energies to me. And this week, we are moving from Pisces’ connected waters to Aries’ passionate fire, so she’s the perfect star to gaze at as we enter this new chapter.

Horoscopes for the New Moon in Pisces

These are best read for your rising sign, if you know it, but you can read both your Sun + Rising.

Aries

This new moon marks the end of the astrological calendar. Endings tend to require both reflection and acceptance of where we have been before we can move forward with more clarity. So take stock of where you are now and rest more than you think you need to. Retreat into your dreams, meditation pillows, and cozy corners — that’s where the wisdom is over the next few days for you. Because come Friday, it’s your time to shine ✺

Taurus

What is your vision for the most compassionate, interdependent community life possible for yourself? When you imagine yourself supported and supporting others in a web, what do you see? Who is there? What would you like to be working towards together, and how? Now’s the time to trace the vision for your ideal community and call it in.

Gemini

Use this new moon for dream work related to how you want to show up in the world. Allow your mind to wander beyond limits — if you could do anything in your career, what would it be? If you could be known for anything, what would you do? Get curious about your desires, and let them surprise you. Allow yourself to get swept away in the current. It could reveal something that sets you on a new course for the astrological year to come.

Cancer

This New Moon is a starlit ocean, and you are on a great sailboat off on your wild adventures. Where would you like to steer? This lunation invites you to chart a course toward what inspires, expands, and enlightens you. Whether that’s foreign travel, higher learning, or a spiritual rabbit hole, let yourself dream and scheme. If it lights up your heart and your mind, you’re on the right track.

Leo

This New Moon is activating the part of your life that others don’t typically get to see. That is, how you trust and merge with others, your inner life, and your emotional healing. If something feels extra tender today, this is a wonderful night for shadow work. Light your favorite candle, pull out your journal, or set up a call with a trusted confidant. If an old hurt is tugging at your sleeve, set an intention to tend to it over the next few months.

Virgo

Pisces rules your 7th house of committed partnerships, marriage, and relationships. This New Moon is helping you refine your visions, hopes, and dreams for this area of your life. There is so much societal noise and static of what our relationships should look like, but under the darkness of this New Moon, see if you can tune into your own station. How would you like to show up in your relationships? And how would you like to experience them over the next six months? Get your beloved on board.

Libra

Use your daily life as a site of dreaming. Especially over the next six months. Think about what routines you can implement that offer you more flow, ease, and even space for poetry and beauty. This New Moon offers a void space, a fallow field in which to plant your visions for your ideal daily life rhythms. Your life is your art — and you get to make it beautiful.

Scorpio

Your creative visions are ready for you to take form. Tonight, you just need to recommit to them. Allow yourself to dream big regarding your creative life and pleasure pursuits. This New Moon is a fertile field ready to be seeded. Like the new buds of Spring, you’ll be surprised by how much your creations will grow over the next six months if you set them in motion now.

Sagittarius

You’re the sign that would benefit the most from a deep Spring cleaning right now, Sagittarius. That’s because this New Moon is readying you for big developments in your family, roots, and home life. So take stock of what you’d like to change or add to this area of your life. Tending to your roots now will help you bloom over the next six months.

Capricorn

Record your dreams. Pay attention to the words that find you. Become a sponge to the poetry of your neighborhood and immediate surroundings. This New Moon invites you into the vast ocean of human connectivity for inspiration in your writing practice, communications projects, and the ways you show up and chat with others. Over the next six months, the words will come to you. What would you like them to be?

Aquarius

It’s time to plant money trees! Hehe, but actually, this New Moon is occurring in your second house of money, resources (internal and external), and self-esteem. In astrology, these are all related, so how can you expand your capacity to receive in the next six months? What can you do to create a new, abundant narrative around your worth? Pisces rules this area of your chart, so tonight, under the cover of darkness, allow yourself to dream.

Pisces

This is your New Moon, sweet Pisces! Though the Pisces archetype can have a tendency to be compassionate towards others, this New Moon makes you the main character. How can you give yourself the same compassion? In what ways do you want to grow over the next six months? Set an intention to tend to yourself over the next six months, and watch yourself bloom.

Work with me

I am offering natal chart readings on a sliding scale basis to subscribers of this Substack. Reach out at soto.natasha@gmail.com if you’d like to delve deeper into your chart. Here is a recent testimonial:

“Natasha is very knowledgeable, and her passion for astrology is contagious. She was happy to take specific questions into consideration in doing my birth chart and delivered me a reading that was highly detailed, highly personalised, and highly illuminating. — Amelia”

Love ♡,

Natasha

As you can see in my drawing above, a Solar Eclipse is also a New Moon, because the dark side of the Moon is facing us. That’s why today’s New Moon Newsletter is so special; not only is the Moon’s light obscured from our sight, the Sun’s light is also eclipsed by the New Moon. It’s like a brief power outage, during which things are knocked over and rearranged. When the lights come back on, everything is different, and there’s no going back.

In astrology, Eclipses are fate accelerators. What begins today sets us up for years of growth and change. For example, the last Solar Eclipse in Aquarius we had was in February 2018 (with a lunar eclipse in 2017). So, I looked back at my Instagram Story archive to see what was going on in my life at that point. Interestingly, February 2018 was the first month I started to use the stories feature. Apparently, Instagram Stories were first introduced in 2016 but didn’t become popular until 2017/2018 — thank you, Aquarius eclipses! Aquarius oversees the collective, systems, and tech innovations that impact society at large. Since this eclipse is squaring Uranus, the planet of breakthroughs, sudden change, revolution, and innovation, I do wonder what collective shifts are rumbling right now that will change our collective reality as we know it.

Plus, today is also the Chinese New Year (the first New Moon of the Lunar Calendar), kicking off the year of the fire horse. Changes abound, my friends.

Though eclipses can be unpredictable, below you’ll find the area of your life that is being particularly impacted, so that you can ride the waves with a bit more clarity. Use your rising sign if you know it.

Aries and Aries Rising: Expect a reboot in your social networks, group affiliations, and collectives.

Taurus and Taurus Rising: Expect shakeups in your public roles, career, and how you lead.

Gemini and Gemini Rising: Expect changes from higher learning, wisdom quests, and foreign travel.

Cancer and Cancer Rising: Expect a reboot in your financial mergers, collaborations, and what is unseen in your life.

Leo and Leo Rising: Expect a reboot in your committed relationships and partnerships.

Virgo and Virgo Rising: Expect a reboot in how you organize your work, health, and daily routines.

Libra and Libra Rising: Expect sudden changes in your creativity, joy, and your children.

Scorpio and Scorpio Rising: Expect a reboot in your homelife, your family of origin, and your living space.

Sagittarius and Sagittarius Rising: Expect a reboot in your communications, social media, and writing projects.

Capricorn and Capricorn Rising: Expect a reboot in your personal values, resources, and material possessions.

Aquarius and Aquarius Rising: Expect change in yourself - your appearance, how you enter a room, and how you shake things up.

Pisces and Pisces Rising: Expect revelations from your behind-the-scenes life, your unconscious, and the dreamscape.

Announcements

I have some exciting news!

1. I will be teaching a pre-recorded workshop, Your Money Blueprint: Understanding Abundance through your Birth Chart, at The Wealth & Witchery Summit on February 25-27.

My talk will go live on February 25th and is meant to give you the tools for understanding your unique way of creating abundance for yourself, using the wisdom already present in your birth chart from the moment you were born.

Learn more and register for your free ticket here: https://c2qnk7jpqmlr.krtra.com/t/Clxv6Mc8yiYf

2. I am offering one more sliding scale birth chart reading before I launch these as a public offering :) If you are interested, get in touch at soto.natasha@gmail.com for details.

   Here’s a testimonial from a recent client:

   “My reading with Natasha was an absolutely joyful and supportive experience. She explained abstract concepts to me in an accessible way and provided practical ways to approach and interpret my chart. She has a deep understanding of the work, bringing in her research and own experiences to the session. What's more, I feel confident moving forward independently as I continue to work with my chart. Thank you, Natasha! - Marah”

   ---

Wishing you all the best as we wind through this eclipse portal together.

So much love ♡,

Natasha

I still don’t know why the sea called to me so strongly, but I suspect it had something to do with grounding myself more deeply in the new country where I live. Over the past month, I’ve been so grateful that I get to fall asleep to the sound of waves crashing and wake up to the salty sea air. Plus, the hypnotic view of the waves, the ever-changing light on the horizon, and the seals that rest on the rocks during low tide are pulling me deeper into a relationship with the land than I had access to while living in the center of the city. I’ve been using Elyse Well’s book, Sacred Wild: An Invitation to Connect with Spirits of the Land, as a framework for getting acquainted with my new surroundings.

From my living room window, during the first week after moving, I could see seals bobbing around in the water. During low tide, they would lie on the exposed Joppa Rocks. These rocks, considered a Regionally Important Geological Site (RIGS) are the elders where I live. They were born over 300 million years ago around the Equator. So these rocks have witnessed everything from Pangea to the salt panning industry in the 1700s to the building of my neighborhood, and now me scrambling around them to get a good view of the seals. They might not look like much if you’re just driving by, but I’ve come to really respect them as ancient and complex ecosystems housing tide pools and all sorts of life.

Using Elyse’s framework, the seals are the vassals of the land, the first group of animals to greet me when I moved in. Vassals oversee transitions, and interestingly, after the final box was unpacked (about a week in), they left the shore for weeks. I was really sad about this! I loved seeing them every day, and one day there were ten at once! But they came back during this Full Moon in Leo, which I thought was extremely magical. I will be monitoring their movements. I still occasionally see their heads bobbing at the surface of the water, but I miss seeing them bouncing across the land.

Seals are also an important part of Scottish folklore. The Scots word for seal is selkie, and seals are sometimes known as selkie folk. In the mythology of the northern islands of Scotland, selkies live as seals in the sea but can shed their skins and come ashore as women. Here’s a beautiful retelling of a northern myth about a selkie woman by Clarissa Pinkola Estés.

I encourage you to connect with the spirits of your land, wherever you are. And tell me, who are the elders of your land (the oldest geological feature)? Who are the animals that greet you each day? Are there any older myths associated with them? I’d love to know. Feel free to share in the comments.

Below the paywall, I’ve included the latest in my ongoing Art of Nature Oracle Card Deck, about (you guessed it!) seals :)

So much love (and happy Valentine’s day with an exalted Venus in Pisces!)

<3,

Natasha

Read more

I have never had such an intense January: major life changes, moving house, and a lot of work projects — all good things, but I feel like I am just catching my breath from the whirlwind start to the new year. Yet Capricorn, the sign of ambition, determination, and good old-fashioned hard work, says: keep going. And, like the mythical goat that rules this dogged sign, I feel like I am nearing the end of a very steep climb up a mountain. At the top awaits a potent rebirth: the New Moon in Capricorn.

This New Moon, coming at the end of Capricorn season, feels tired yet determined. It’s asking us to set down something heavy that we’ve been carrying, so that we may go forth unburdened into the next chapter. Also, it’s a cazimi moon (meaning it’s exactly conjunct the Sun), which is considered a rare point of intense empowerment, clarity, and initiation for a new cycle.

To find out how this New Moon, occurring on Sunday at 2:52 pm EST, will affect your sign, read your horoscope below ˘͈ᵕ˘͈⸝*

Aries & Aries Rising

Your public life, work, and professional roles are being lit up by the cosmos right now. Not only are there five planets currently in your 10th house of career, but the New Moon will occur here on Sunday. So, what needs to come to a close in this area of your life? And what are you ready to build here? There’s no rushing the pull towards your calling; this New Moon in Capricorn is all about steady devotion. So, commit.

Taurus & Taurus Rising

You’re ready to set down old belief systems that are no longer serving you in order to create the ones that will carry you far, Taurus. It’s okay to change your mind; the twists and turns are part of the journey. This New Moon is activating your 9th house of higher knowledge, personal expansion, and foreign travel. Trust that the path that is meant for you is unfurling, and what you set in motion now will be solid and lasting.

Gemini & Gemini Rising

This New Moon is calling you toward the shadowy edges of your life. If something tender from your origin story has been unearthed recently, it is so that it may be untangled and rewoven into a stronger and more beautiful tapestry. Think of this New Moon as a threshold: once you go through it, there is no going back, but right now you have what it takes to move forward with clarity and purpose.

Cancer & Cancer Rising

This New Moon is asking you to take your relationships seriously. If the balance of mutual effort feels skewed, or if a pesky relational pattern has been rearing its head, it’s for a reason. Under the darkness of this New Moon, something is shifting. Boundaries are being redrawn, the right collaborators are being called to you, and your ability to connect with more authenticity is shifting into focus. What you commit to now has the potential to go the distance.

Leo & Leo Rising

Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, the Lord of Time. And Saturn reminds us that, well, we have a limited amount of time. Have you been feeling a crunch in your daily life? If so, it’s been for a reason: a radical recalibration of your work and health routines. Aristotle once said, “You are what you repeatedly do,” and this New Moon is asking you, how can you refine your daily life so that it reflects who you actually are?

Virgo & Virgo Rising

What gets in the way of your ability to let loose, have fun, and feel alive? That’s what this New Moon in Capricorn is asking you to set down — for good. Luckily for you, this is a supportive New Moon in a fellow earth sign, so there’s plenty of support for finding ease in your creative and romantic life. It’s time to orient yourself towards what makes you feel like the shiniest version of yourself, then commit to it. Whether that’s a new hobby, an old love, or a passion project, follow your bliss.

Libra & Libra Rising

This New Moon in Capricorn is rearranging the foundations of your life, but gently. What old family stories or patterns need to be composted? Is something about your living situation coming to a close? What shifts are you noticing at home? Honor the layers that are ready to be shed and get clear on what you are seeking from your chosen family, the legacies you are a part of, and your living situation. This is the area of your life that’s ready to be reborn.

Scorpio & Scorpio Rising

This New Moon in Capricorn is pulling focus to your communications, so what are the stories you are telling yourself and others? What heavy tales need to be set down, and what would you like to write in their place? Your words hold weight now, so it’s important to set aside time, ideally during the New Moon cazimi, to journal, write, or speak your intentions, so that they can take root.

Sagittarius & Sagittarius Rising

This New Moon in Capricorn is highlighting your resources. Think particularly about your inner resources — your belief in yourself, your talents, and what you value. What has shifted here over the last few weeks, and what is ready to be welcomed into your worldview? The internal shifts will gradually appear in your material life, but first, you need to plant the seed.

Capricorn & Capricorn Rising

How are you doing, Capricorn? A major lineup of planets has been working away in your sign, ushering in major changes and shifts in your life. The final event of this Capricorn season is this New Moon in your sign, culminating all of this activity and change. On the other side of this threshold is the upleveled you: more capable, more confident, and more grounded in yourself.

Aquarius & Aquarius Rising

How have your dreams been, Aquarius? This Capricorn season, with its lineup of planets in your 12th house of dreams, behind-the-scenes life, and the collective unconscious, has pulled focus to this area of your life. What messages have you received about what needs to be shed here? And what messages have you received about the direction your psyche wants to travel? Keep a dream journal and pay attention to the messages that grab your attention in mysterious ways this weekend.

Pisces & Pisces Rising

There are seismic shifts going on in your 11th house of friends, networks, and collaborators, Pisces. Maybe this Capricorn season has shed light on the groups that drain you vs. the ones that inspire you. And now that you have this information, this New Moon is asking you to commit (or recommit) to the people who bring out your favorite version of you. If you’re still unclear about what you are looking for in your social life, take this opportunity to dream about it, then begin your search.

Special Announcement:

I am thrilled to announce that I’m presenting at The Oracle Within Summit!

This live virtual event will take place January 26-29, 2026. It’s totally free to attend and features an incredible lineup of witches, astrologers, and authors.

All of us will be sharing our diverse perspectives on how you can connect with your intuition and learn to trust yourself more deeply.

My presentation is called Writing as Channeling: Receiving wisdom from yourself and the planets. I’m excited to bridge my love of writing and astrology as tools for connecting with your inner knowing.

Other presentation topics include dreamwork, tarot, and embodied practices. You can grab your free ticket here. And if you buy an all-access pass, you get unlimited replays and access to many bonuses and tools.

I hope you enjoyed your horoscopes and are able to revel in the quiet confidence of this New Moon over the weekend. To stay connected and support this work, follow me on Instagram @the_grand_trine.

So much love ♡,

Natasha

I have been writing this newsletter for 19 months now. It began as a newsletter to document my journey, following a spark of inspiration through nature, creativity, and magic. Magical Meanderings was the perfect word for those early musings.

But now, I’m feeling a bit more settled in this space, and I want to create a container for this work that is both structured and flexible. Because of this, I have changed the title of this blog from Magical Meanderings to The Grand Trine.

Triangles are considered the most architecturally supportive shape, and three happens to be my favorite number. In astrology, a Grand Trine in a birth chart is considered a strength or a gift. It occurs when three planets form an equilateral triangle on the Earth’s ecliptic. When this happens, the energy between is said to flow in harmony, creating something bigger than the sum of its parts.

Inspired by this concept, and by a trine that appears in my own birth chart, this newsletter will now flow around the following three themes:

✺ Earth: Rituals around creativity and self-care grounded in seasonal cycles.

✺ Self: Experiments in creativity, magic-noticing, and living abroad.

✺ Sky: Where I’ll share my love, wonder, and study of astrology and astronomy.

I’ve also made a brand-new Instagram for The Grand Trine, and would love it if you could follow me there! Here’s the link: https://www.instagram.com/the_grand_trine/

And now, for our regularly scheduled content about the New Moon in Sagittarius 🏹

Since I was young, I decided I would make choices based on the following rule: go for the most expansive and generous option. I realize now that this is a very Sagittarian value system. This way of thinking, even if it has led me out of my comfort zone, has never led me astray. I find that when I make choices that go against my very Sagittarian values, I immediately feel bored and constricted. Like Amelia Aerhart once wrote, “I cannot bear the confinement of even an attractive cage.”

This Sagittarius season, I invite you to take a look at what it is you value. What is it that makes you feel alive, expansive, and tapped into the world’s generosity? What brings you closer to truth, adventure, and freedom? Under the darkness of this New Moon, aim for the stars.

Horoscopes

Read these for your rising sign, if you know it.

Aries & Aries Rising

What makes you feel connected to the big questions in life? Like, why are we here, where are we going, and what unifies us as a human species? Whether it’s through formal institutions of higher learning, traveling to different countries with an open mind, or simply expanding your horizons, big leaps of faith in pursuit of your curiosity will pay dividends over the next 6 months.

Taurus & Taurus Rising

How do you feel about sharing resources? And what can you do to tap into the feeling of goodwill and generosity with people that you are merged with intimately and financially? This is a good time to quell any ancient fears about betrayal or inadequacy. Then, you can reaffirm how the right collaborations create something bigger than the sum of their parts.

Gemini & Gemini Rising

What makes you feel most alive in your relationships? Gemini, your relationships are where you express your most adventurous, curious, and expansive side, and you attract playmates and partners who introduce you to new horizons and ways of thinking. Recommitting to adventure in this part of your life will remind you of how much fun your beloveds bring to your life. Think big & enjoy.

Cancer & Cancer Rising

What, in your everyday life, makes you feel most alive? It’s easy for the day-to-day to become routine, but for you, your work and health rituals are where you find purpose and meaning. So whether that’s learning or teaching something new or changing up your fitness routine, recommit to keeping things interesting and expansive.

Leo & Leo Rising

Your creativity is a great expander, connecting you to adventure, truth, and higher ideals. If inspiration has been hard to come by recently, this New Moon in Sagittarius is inviting you to dream big. There’s plenty to learn and see around the world, so seek inspiration far and wide in any way that you can. You’ll be making art that elevates us all in no time.

Virgo & Virgo Rising

Who are the ancestors — real and symbolic — who inspire you to live your biggest, boldest life? What are the ideas or experiences in your early life that make you feel like a global citizen, drawn to distant lands and philosophies? And what are the objects in your home that remind you of your most expansive possibilities? This New Moon in Sagittarius is inviting you to reconnect with the joy and optimism in your bloodline, your family, and your home.

Libra & Libra Rising

What in your daily communications and short-distance travels enlivens you? Maybe you explore worldly, philosophical ideas in your writing projects or you love speaking to people in your neighborhood who share new perspectives with you. Keep your senses attuned to what makes you feel most adventurous and optimistic in your daily life and share it freely. Doing so will keep the inspiration flowing.

Scorpio & Scorpio Rising

Orient yourself to what you value — whether that’s freedom, adventure, or learning from ancient philosophies in far-flung corners of the world. When you immerse yourself in what you actually love and not what society tells you to, you will find that your money expands, too. So dream big and be bold in the realm of your finances & values.

Sagittarius & Sagittarius Rising

This New Moon is reinvigorating you. Take the time to dream up your biggest, boldest self-expression. Others may already see you as an enthusiastic, freedom-loving personality, but under the darkness of this New Moon, take the time to refill your own cup with what truly inspires you. Lean into your luck.

Capricorn & Capricorn Rising

Your behind-the-scenes life is getting a reboot. Think: expansive dreams, encouraging messages from mysterious places, and enough quiet time to ponder your favorite philosophical themes. Indulge your spiritual exploration as much as you want over the next six months; doing so will bring you closer to your truth.

Aquarius & Aquarius Rising

Which friend groups and collectives inspire you to expand and explore with optimism? And how can you call in your tribe of truth-seekers and wanderlust enthusiasts? Under the darkness of this New Moon, set your intentions for the kinds of adventures and knowledge you’d like to experience with and from your collectives.

Pisces & Pisces Rising

Your career is where you find the most spiritual and philosophical growth in your life, so how can you nourish it now so it continues to inspire you and others? How can you show up publicly in a way that expands what’s possible for yourself and those around you? You were meant to dream big in this arena, so don’t hold back as you set those intentions.

I hope you enjoyed your horoscopes, let me know how they landed for you in the comments and what you think about the rebrand! Support this work by following along on Instagram @ The_Grand_Trine .

Thank you so much for a wonderful 2025. I am wishing you all the holiday cheer and looking forward to 2026, which is already full of so much adventure that I will fill you in on in January.

So much love ♥︎,

Natasha

I have just turned in my final assignment for astrology school this term, and I’m reflecting on how much I’ve learned in such a short amount of time. More parts of my own chart and the charts of others have come alive for me, including aspect patterns created between planets, the angles that form the cross of matter, the nodal axis, and the natal lunar phases (which I’m including as a fun little bonus at the end of this newsletter for self-reflection).

One thing that has been especially challenging and rewarding this term has been learning how to calculate different points in the birth chart by hand. This means being able to draw up a person’s natal chart using nothing but the birth time and place, a physical ephemeris, and a calculator. Of course, these days, we plug the information into an online program and have a beautiful chart drawn up in seconds, but learning the analog process has humbled and stretched me in all sorts of ways.

For one, I was never fond of math growing up; I struggled to understand it as a language that undergirds our physical reality, and instead saw it as a chore of small calculations. But math, as I’ve come to use it, is such an effective way to keep track of the planets and angles as they move, as well as orient us in time and space. There are so many variables in different systems to keep track of when we study astrology. This includes the Earth’s tilt, the seasons, the movement of the planets, calculating between time zones, and understanding the difference between sidereal time (the Earth’s rotation relative to the stars) and tropical time (the Earth’s rotation relative to the Sun). So, the process grounds me in the physical reality of how the planets move together as a system, and gets me thinking about the night sky more intimately.

Second, it has connected me to the long line of inquiry that makes up the framework of astrology and astronomy. While the tools don’t have to be complex, the ideas certainly are, as they have been built incrementally over millennia. For example, the ancient Greek mathematician Eratosthenes of Cyrene accurately calculated the Earth’s circumference using sticks in 240 BCE! Sticks, can you imagine?

Separately, below the paywall, I’ll also share some of what I learned about the lunar phases and psychological astrology this term. This comes from a lesson that was adapted from Dane Rudyar’s book The Lunation Cycle and examines how the lunar phase that one was born under colors the birth chart with a specific mood or goal. I thought it was interesting, so I am sharing it for fun and reflection.

Stay tuned for next week’s New Moon Newsletter/Winter Solstice post.

So much love ♥︎,

Natasha

P.S. - I am now offering natal chart readings on a pay-what-you-can basis. If you are interested, email me at soto.natasha@gmail.com

Read more

During a recent visit to the National Gallery in Scotland, I saw one of my favorite paintings by Remedios Varo. It depicts a woman opening up a box and seeing herself in it. The energy she receives from uncovering her “self” is shown in the rush of water that flows from the box, bringing color back to her faint blue dress. It suggests a revelation so profound and internal that it changes the figure’s outer appearance. And there are more boxes on the wall, which means that the potential transformations are endless.

May we all encounter this kind of life-giving truth under the introspective darkness of this New Moon, infusing our transformations with that hard-won Scorpionic power. And may we wield that power in the wisest of ways.

Enjoy your horoscopes for this New Moon in Scorpio, below.

Horoscopes for the New Moon in Scorpio

Use your rising sign, if you know it.

Aries

Dear Aries, you’ve been experiencing a transformation in an area of your life that occurs in the shadows. That is, how you deal with crisis, shared money matters, intimacy, your psyche, and even the occult. Over the past six months, you’ve likely learned a lot about your capacity to dive deep into life’s shadowy terrain. Under the darkness of this New Moon, take a pause to reorient yourself. Like the queen of the underworld, you will eventually emerge with the power gained from all of the lessons you learned.

Taurus

Dear Taurus, you are undergoing a profound transformation in the part of your chart that relates to those closest to you — your partner, best friend, or even your therapist. This Scorpio New Moon invites you to usher in more vulnerability, bravery, and depth into your one-on-ones, turning them into sites of discovery and renewal.

Gemini

Dear Gemini, where can you find pockets of profundity and transformation in your everyday life? Over the past six months, you’ve been shedding an old routine and way of doing things, and over the next six months, you might find yourself growing into an entirely different structure. And that’s ok, because this is part of the process of growing into greater alignment and authenticity. Let service be your guiding light.

Cancer

Dear Cancer, this Scorpio New Moon asks you to take your creativity and pleasure to new depths. This isn’t the time to skim the surface with your art and your loves. Instead, let your creations and romantic entanglements reach cathartic, transformative heights. Step into the fire and allow it to change you over the next six months.

Leo

Dear Leo, this Scorpio New Moon is zeroing in on your family, roots, and home life. Scorpio season may have asked you to shed old stories and old patterns around your ancestry and family dynamics. And today, you might be feeling a little raw about it all. But Scorpio reminds us that life is change. What new sense of belonging would you like to usher in on the other side?

Virgo

Dear Virgo, the Scorpio New Moon is inviting in transformation around your local community, communications, and writing projects. The old ways of showing up are being scrubbed away and replaced with the new. This moment is the hinge between the two. So pause and consider what you’d like to say next.

Libra

Dear Libra, the Scorpio New Moon is occurring in your second house of resources and what you value. So, if you’ve been feeling like you no longer gel with a particular worldview, know that now is an ideal time to compost it in favor of something better and more aligned with what you really believe in. Then, let it take root.

Scorpio

Dear Scorpio, this is your New Moon! Today is the ultimate rebirth for you because this New Moon is related to your identity and how the world sees you. If it feels like you’ve been metaphorically unraveling a sweater that doesn’t suit you, have faith that you are on your way to finding — or creating — your ideal fit.

Sagittarius

Dear Sagittarius, this New Moon in Scorpio brings transformation to your behind-the-scenes life of spirituality and the subconscious. Prepare to feel your way through this dark night. You’ll find renewed faith in your own intuition and inner knowing when all is said and done.

Capricorn

Dear Capricorn, this New Moon is occurring in your 11th house of friendships and social networks — both online and IRL. Your social roles and ideals are undergoing a radical rebirth. Now is a good time to consider how you would like to show up for your community, and perhaps even transform something in the collective, over the next six months.

Aquarius

Dear Aquarius, this New Moon is occurring in your 10th house of public roles, achievement, and recognition. Now is the time to get clear on how you’d like to show up and what you’d like to be noticed for — bonus points for wielding your newfound power with integrity and truth.

Pisces

Dear Pisces, with the New Moon highlighting your 9th house of wonder and growth, your leaps of faith might seem too out-there and transformative for others. But remember to ignore any naysayers and choose your next adventure from a place of inner truth and excitement. Prepare to set sail.

I hope you enjoyed your horoscopes, and let me know how this New Moon is landing for you in the comments.

So much love ♥︎,

Natasha

P.S. ☀︎ I’m now offering natal chart readings on a pay-what-you-can basis. If you feel called to explore your chart, reach out at soto.natasha@gmail.com ☀︎

I’ve also asked my friends and family to share some images of their own cozy spaces, the rituals they’ve been incorporating into their days, and their thoughts on what they love most about this season.

1. Let there be light

My friend Amelia, who is from Finland and therefore knows a thing or two about surviving winter, recommended fairy lights, books, and hanging plants to make a space feel cozier.

My sister has invited the sunlight to dance along the ceiling of her apartment with disco balls and rainbow makers.

I’ve added candles and mood lighting around my desk for evening writing.

Angelica made a sweet and wintry kitchen scene ❄️.

2. Add Foliage

As per Amelia’s suggestion, I made a macramé plant holder using this tutorial to add some visual interest to my reading nook.

My sister is drying flowers by hanging them upside down in her closet because “they last longer this way.”

Zsuzsanna has this colorful bouquet of flowers on her coffee table, and praises autumn flowers for being so hardy.

3. Indoor Hobbies

Some crocheted coasters and other projects I’ve made (Scotland 🤝 fiber arts), Jamie brought us a puzzle from a thrift store, and my sister is perfecting her sourdough skills.

4. Kitchen Witchery

In the thick of Virgo Season, I worked on two things that I’m still enjoying to this day and hope will see me through the darkest of the dark months.

1) I made homemade pumpkin spice syrup using this recipe to drink with my afternoon decaf coffee as a sweet treat and for its Jupiterian properties

2) I went blueberry picking in Perthshire and gathered more blueberries than I’ve ever seen at once. I cleaned and froze them, and I am still eating them weekly in fresh juices, cobblers, jams, and pancakes. Superfood, indeed.

In Sum…

I’m still finding my own inner balance as we turn away from the sun for the second half of the astrological year, but these little rituals have been helping me recalibrate. Feel free to share in the comments what this time of year makes you feel, and let me know if you have any other tips I can incorporate to embrace the season.

Sending you the coziest late fall vibes 🍂

So much love ♥︎,

Natasha

P.S. ☀︎ I’m now offering natal chart readings on a pay-what-you-can basis as I deepen my astrological training. If you feel called to explore your chart, reach out at soto.natasha@gmail.com ☀︎

On being Mercurial

Rational Western thought prioritizes the mind above all other ways of knowing; but I like to think of the mind as simply a tool. Like AI, or social media, or even a knife, it must be used with intention and responsibility. It goes without saying that the mind can repeat unhelpful negative thoughts that can turn on us or cause all sorts of collective maladies.

In astrology, Mercury is the planet that rules the mind. It is related to behaviors such as thinking, speaking, and communicating. But it’s also known as a trickster. It can lie. I learned this weekend that the Italian and Spanish word for mind (mente) has the same root as the Italian and Spanish word for lie (mentir).

However, the interesting thing about Mercury in astrology is that it is the only non-gendered planet. It is a symbol of fluidity and neutrality. Its winged sandals remind us to hold our concepts with a light touch, with open hands, even with playfulness and pleasure. It reminds us that our minds are changeable and able to hold many possibilities at a time.

On the soul, the imaginal realms, and the unconscious

As a child, the unexplainable realms were my friends, as they likely were for you. I could spend hours on my own, chatting away to creatures only visible to me, gathering rocks and feathers that called to be collected at the edges of the playground, and chirpily exploring my imagination with no fear and no need to ask what it all “meant.”

As I entered school, my active mind excelled in subjects that required analysis — literary, psychological, historical, sociological etc. I still love investigating, and I love systems. Astrology, for example, is an ancient and complex system of meaning-making and analysis. Even so, I have learned the importance of leaving space for the mystery and letting the symbols and their stories speak for themselves. Otherwise, this sacred practice devolves into surface-level astro stereotypes.

Over many years, the imaginal, emotional part of myself was relegated to very small outlets — the dreamscape, invented magic rituals, romance, and creativity all offered pockets of possibility. But these were extracurricular activities, not valued by the cerebral institutions I had been trained in for decades, and so I practiced them underground for a while. It is no wonder that shamanic journeying feels so foreign to me. It’s like meeting a very old friend I was warned not to play with. Stop daydreaming, the rational part of myself scolds.

Circumventing the Mind

There’s a song called curandera I love, where the iLe, the singer, sings over percussion:

(My translation:)

I am the curandera, and i will heal you today,

I don’t need candles to light the way.

I fly to the future, the past, and the present,

I balance between life and death

I am the medicine that purifies you

…I look for simplicity when things get overcomplicated.

(Spanish:

Yo soy la curandera y hoy te voy a sanar,

no necesito velas pa poder alumbrar.

Vuelo hacia el futuro, el pasado y el presente,

me voy balanceando entre la vida y la muerte.

Soy la medicina que a ti te purifica,

busco la simpleza cuando se te complica.

That line, about the medicine being simplicity, reminded me of an exercise from the weekend. We learned about how for Aboriginal Australians, imagination is a way to access the Dreamtime, or the realm of the ancestors, creation, and the land. It’s a place where past, present, and future converge.

But in order to access our imaginations without our minds pulling us out of it, we must make ourselves invisible to the mind. To simplify. To enter a state of ourselves that is without form or shape, like water, so that the mind cannot discover us and override it all.

Me voy balanceando entre la vida y la muerte

And now we are in Scorpio Season, in the lead-up to so many global festivals of the dead, where the veil between life and death is known to be thinner than ever. Where my parents are from (the Dominican Republic and Ecuador), this is called Día de los Muertos. People hang out at graveyards, share food, light candles, and tell stories about their beloved dead.

In the land I inhabit now, it is Samhain, when the veil between worlds is thin, allowing spirits to cross over into the world of the living. This allows for both veneration of ancestors and the need to protect yourself from harmful spirits through guising, aka wearing costumes. This is the origin of Halloween traditions in the US. It’s only scary if your mind decides it is.

This is a time of great soul-remembering, veneration, and journeying through time and space to honor the gifts in our lineages. I wish you depth, connection, and the permission to trust what you know in your body and bones.

So, so much love ♥,

Natasha

P.S. ☀︎ I’m now offering natal chart readings on a pay-what-you-can basis as I deepen my astrological training. If you feel called to explore your chart, reach out at soto.natasha@gmail.com ☀︎

This week is full of major shifts. First, a New Moon in Libra offers us a blank slate for calling in beauty and harmony. Then, we move deeper into the darker months here in the Northern Hemisphere as we move from Libra Season into Scorpio Season.

Here’s the rundown: On Tuesday, there’s a New Moon in Libra — the first New Moon in two years in this sign that is not an eclipse. Due to the more straightforward nature of this lunation, we can finally plant seeds and set intentions in the part of our charts that contain Libra. Plus, this New Moon is conjunct Venus, also in Libra, so it’s extra sweet. On Wednesday, the Libran scales of justice make way for Scorpio Season, ushering in a new chapter of depth, connection to ancestry and the underworld, and all of that revelatory darkness that comes with this time of year.

Below, you’ll find your horoscopes for the New Moon as well as a little astronomy lesson at the end.

Horoscopes for the Libra New Moon

Use your rising sign for the horoscopes, if you know it.

Aries

Libra is the sign of your descendant — what you project onto and desire in others. You’re likely drawn to those who are diplomatic, socially graceful, and are able to bring lightness and beauty into your world. This New Moon is highlighting your committed partnerships. It’s a good time to recommit to or call in balance, beauty, and collaboration in your one-on-ones for the next six months.

Taurus

Libra is the sign of your 6th house of work and wellness routines. Work is service, to yourself and others, and it requires you to be well. Of course, all of these things exist in a tenuous balance that must be responsive to life’s changes, but that’s where this Libra New Moon’s medicine can offer you some support. Use this blank slate to dream up how you would like to show up for yourself and others in a routine way that centers balance, peace, and flow.

Gemini

Libra rules your 5th house of creativity, joy, and passion. So your hobbies, romances, and creations are all ready for you to breathe fresh air into them. Think about the next six months. How can you invite in more beauty, connection, and fun? Planting seeds fot this area of your life now will let all of the gifts of Libra season blossom in the months to come.

Cancer

Libra rules your fourth house of family, behind-the-scenes life, and home. You are likely someone who craves and is skilled at creating a beautiful and harmonious home. This New Moon is offering you the chance to bring your visions for your ideal living situation to life, to rewrite past narratives about your ancestry, or even to smooth over sticky dynamics with family members. Plant the seeds of intention now, and note how they blossom over the next six months.

Leo

Libra rules your third house of early education, your immediate neighborhood, and your writing and speaking. You may be hungry to learn something new, begin a new writing project, or share information with others. Since this is the Libra New Moon, bonus points if your new projects brings beauty and harmony to those you reach. Your words are magic spells right now. Wield them with intention.

Virgo

Libra rules your second house of inner and outer resources. This New Moon in Libra is a blank canvas for setting in stone your ideal narratives about your own self worth, money, and abundance. Use this time to make peace with where you are and where you want to be. Whether you write down your intentions, make a vision board, or just visualize what you want in this area of your life, the Libra Moon will appreciate if you make it aesthetic ;)

Libra

This is your new moon. As a Libra rising, you know a thing or two about putting an outfit together and making yourself look and feel amazing. Use this New Moon to set intentions about your self-expression and your personal goals. Consider this your own personal refresh. Watch how you bloom over the next six months.

Scorpio

This Libra New Moon is taking place in your 12th house of behind-the-scenes life, the unconscious, and spirituality. Use this time to retreat into your inner world and see what messages are waiting there for you. And also, remember to set intentions for how you will connect to this part of your life over the next six months, whether that’s creating an aesthetic little meditation corner or walking down a new spiritual path.

Sagittarius

Your friendships and networks are brimming with potential, connection, and opportunities under this New Moon in Libra. But you have to meet it halfway by envisioning ways to bring harmony and joy into your collectives over the next six months. Call in your tribe, nurture the connections you would like to bring forward with you, and revel in the beauty of your relationships.

Capricorn

Your tenth house of career and public life is getting a refresh under this Libra New Moon, so get ready to step out into the spotlight over the next six months. Consider what you’d like to be known for, and set your goals accordingly. Since we are talking about Libra, you get bonus points for projects that spread harmony, peace, and beauty (or, at least remember to wear a cute outfit to the awards ceremony).

Aquarius

Your life is about to expand over the next six months, and you get to choose the direction you’re headed in now. That’s because Libra rules your 9th house of international travel, higher learning, and spiritual exploration. So set your sights on what’s lighting you up now, and how you’d like to grow into these realms. It’s your adventure. Enjoy.

Pisces

Get ready for behind-the-scenes transformations in your intimacy, mental health journeys, and shared resources. Use the blank slate of this New Moon in Libra to determine what you want this area of your life to look like. This lunation is all about rebirth and renewal for you, whether you’re composting old beliefs about trust or you’re exploring new corridors of your own mind.

Astronomy Hour: A look into the night sky

The constellations of Libra and Scorpio are next to one another along the ecliptic — that ribbon of the heavens that marks the apparent path of the Sun around our Earth. The Ancient Greeks originally classified these two constellations together as one large scorpion, with the scales of Libra being its claws. In fact, the most prominent stars in Libra are still called Zubenelhakrab (the claws of the scorpion), Zubeneschamali (the northern claw) and Zubenelgenubi (the southern claw). These are Arabic names because all of this astronomical knowledge was recorded during the Islamic Golden Age where astronomical texts were translated and preserved. The Romans later reclassified the zodiac and separated it into 12 signs.

Here are some drawings I made, in case you want to try looking for them in the night sky, or at least visualize the scorpion with its claws-turned-scales.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed your horoscopes. As always, let me know how things are landing for you.

Love,

Natasha ˘͈ᵕ˘͈⸝*

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The Aries Full Moon this week seemed to burn through the notoriously dense layers of Scottish clouds. Looking extra bright and ringed with a rusty red halo, it seemed to exemplify the energy of Aries — direct, forceful, fiery, and boundaried.

But that light that you see reflecting off of the Moon? That’s originating from the Sun in the balanced and diplomatic constellation of Libra, which was shining from the opposite side of the world. I’ve been thinking about these energies: Libra, the peacemaker, and Aries, the warrior. They both have their shadows: Libra can overgive and people-please in the maintenance of a toxic peace, and Aries fire can burn too brightly for what it believes, severing relationships beyond repair in the process.

So this has kicked up all sorts of questions within, like: How do we exist in the balance between self and other? How do we relate in a way that acknowledges the other without sacrificing the self? And how do we assert our own will in a way that doesn’t sever our ability to relate with our “enemies” entirely?

There’s something in the image of the Aries Full Moon being the vessel for this Libra energy that seems to be speaking about a productive path forward. That is, using the Aries tools of directness, quickness, and bravery in the service of justice and fairness to the whole, even in tiny ways, even just to flex our muscles of loving assertiveness.

Back to Star School

Last week, I started the second module of the Foundations Course at the Faculty of Astrological Studies. I began studying there in 2023 while working at an astrology app, and took a pause last year to relocate to the UK. During this pause, I studied observational astronomy and astrology in Greece and engaged in extensive self-study through books and research for this Substack. I am grateful that I was able to take it slow, as it allowed many of the concepts I learned to integrate. Now, I feel ready (and hungry) for more knowledge.

My goal for this year is to complete my foundations certificate at the FAS so that I can feel confident doing natal chart readings by the end of the year. I already read charts for friends and family and for the love of the game, but the more I learn, the more I realize how much there is still to learn (the universe is immense, it turns out). This certification is meant to provide the framework and necessary techniques to offer birth chart readings publicly.

And so far, I feel so grateful I made this decision to return to school. Astrology is such a complex art/science that incorporates astronomy, culture, myth. It has existed for thousands of years, since our first ancestors told stories about the night sky, and has many different lineages and disciplines. Since the FAS teaches Modern psychological astrology, I’ll be learning through a lens of Jungian psychology, psychoanalysis, and archetypal parts work.

In just two weeks, we have already learned about the celestial sphere and the ecliptic, how to calculate the positions of planets, how to read a physical ephemeris, how the angles (Ascendant, Descendant, IC, MC) are calculated, how to determine their planetary rulerships, and how to analyze what all of this means clearly for a client reading.

There’s a lot of astronomy to learn, which means math and geometry are involved. It’s funny how the subjects I resisted in High School have somehow become a magical bridge between grounded science and the mystery. It feels so good to be learning new techniques, and I am excited to share my journey as I go :)

There’s also so much I want to share about what’s going on in my creative life recently, but I’ll save that for our next letter.

So much love ♥︎. ★⋆,

Natasha

Here are some snapshots of the journey:

Near the end of my walk, I approached St. Bernard’s Well, where I noticed a line of women who were just as drawn to it as I was. As it is one of the prettier parts of the famous walkway, I have noticed it before.

But for some reason, seeing the statue on Thursday sparked a profound curiosity in me and sent me down a rabbit hole of research and resonance. I think I was finally ready for its medicine.

The Goddess Hygiea

The goddess who stands within the Doric columns of the temple is Hygeia. She is holding a chalice of fresh water and is accompanied by a snake winding up a rod that represents renewal and healing. Today, this snake and rod is the symbol of medicine, aka the Rod of Asclepius.

It’s important to note that Hygeia’s name inspired the following word:

Hygiene (noun) conditions or practices conducive to maintaining health and preventing disease, especially through cleanliness.

I wanted to share that definition because it is so Virgoan. Health and disease prevention is a practice. And it was a practice I took part in as I walked — for exercise, for the fresh Autumn air in my lungs, and for the meditative effect of observing clean, flowing water.

Hygeia comes from a family of healer-gods. Her father, the doctor Asclepius, trained under Chiron, the wise and famous wounded healer. Her sisters are: Panacea (the goddess of universal remedy), Iaso (the goddess of recuperation), Aceso (the goddess of the healing process), and Aglaea (the goddess of vitality and beauty). Interestingly, the classical Hippocratic oath that doctors proclaimed began by invoking them in the following words: I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfill according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant…

Practical Magic

Virgo and Hygeia do not ask for grand, sweeping actions. They simply ask for healthy habits — like movement, nutrition, and sleep — that are non-negotiable. If you skip out, you become more susceptible to colds and diseases of the mind and body. Of course, there’s no need to overdo it; just practice every day. I recently read the following quote attributed to James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, that I think sums this idea up perfectly:

“Don’t do anything today that will keep you out of the gym tomorrow”

This is the most Hygeia quote I’ve ever read. In fact, I thought about it when I chose to go for a long walk rather than lift heavy weights (which I tend to overdo when I try).

I actually just looked it up and learned that James Clear has the asteroid Hygeia in his first house AND a Virgo Moon. So, it is no surprise that part of his life’s purpose is to remind us all about the power of the seemingly tiny habits that maintain our health (Hygeia) and move the needle towards our goals in a systematic way (Virgo).

The Virgo Eclipse

There will be a South Node Virgo Eclipse on Sunday, September 21st, which points to a flushing away of what no longer serves. As I mentioned in my Virgo New Moon Newsletter, Virgo is like a scythe that separates the wheat from the chaff. It will clarify what needs to go in order to move forward. At this moment, I’d like to offer up Hygeia’s medicine: cleansing, purifying, soothing, and helping to recalibrate our nervous systems during this potentially challenging moment.

Here is a list of where each rising sign will experience a purging/pruning/cleansing during this Partial Solar Eclipse in Virgo (which is also a New Moon):

Aries - Your 6th house of work and health routines

Taurus - Your 5th house of creativity, expression, and play

Gemini - Your 4th house of family, roots, and home

Cancer - Your 3rd house of daily life, neighborhood, and social media

Leo - Your 2nd house of material and inner resources

Virgo - Your 1st house, yourself!

Libra - Your 12th house of rest, the unconscious, and the dreamscape

Scorpio - Your 11th house of friends and social networks

Sagittarius - Your 10th house of career and public-facing life

Capricorn - Your 9th house of foreign travel, spirituality, and wisdom quests

Aquarius - Your 8th house of financial and energetic mergers

Pisces - Your 7th house of committed relationships

The Balance of The Autumn Equinox and Libra Season

The day after the Partial Solar Eclipse in Virgo is the Autumn Equinox, which kickstarts Libra Season. I am now thinking of Hygeia as an archetype that can stabilize our nervous system during the potentially chaotic eclipse times and remind us to find balance during the Autumn Equinox (the moment where the hours of light in the day = the hours of darkness at night in the northern hemisphere).

Libra Season is all about the energy of fairness, diplomacy, balance, and harmony. Finding our way there will be much easier when we remember the practical magic of Virgo Season.

Let me know how this is landing for you,

Love ♥︎,

Natasha

These days, we use the word weird to describe things that are strange or bizarre. I have also heard that the word “weird” was historically used to describe something supernatural, unearthly, eerie, or uncanny — like the weird sisters in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Today I learned an even older definition as listed in Oxford Languages:

weird

noun

2. archaic, connected with fate.

from the Scottish wyrd, meaning a person’s destiny.

The weird sisters in Macbeth were the ones who delivered prophesies, after all. Looking into their boiling cauldron, they revealed a person’s destiny.

Before I knew this definition, I must have said that the vibes felt weird a dozen times since Sunday’s Full Blood Moon Eclipse in Pisces. The moon blasted its high beams through our windows, making our space look like an old film photo’s creepy negative version of day. Jamie and I, freshly landed from a delayed and turbulent flight from New York City, were wired, jet-lagged, and hyper throughout the night. I couldn’t stop saying, “It feels like Halloween! I swear, it feels like Halloween!” There was something familiar in the chill of the Scottish night, but also everything felt charged. I could almost hear the celestial static among the barking dogs, as if the veil between this world and the others was so thin it was evaporating in the moon’s rays.

The night that followed the eclipse felt like a weird dream, and yet when I woke up in the morning, I found this little spider’s gift, facing Southeast, in the path of the Moon’s rise. I noticed more of them facing the same direction on my morning walk. Little confirmations of my personal Halloween.

The weirdness of fate

In many traditions of astrology, from Vedic to Hellenistic, the places on the Moon’s path that intersect with the Earth’s path around the sun have been imagined as the head and tail of a hungry dragon. This video shows how they appear in space if you are curious. Mythically speaking, this dragon has been imagined as the pathway to karma, past lives, destiny, and fate. One point (the head, or the north node) devours and amplifies, and the other (the tail, or the south node) excretes and sweeps away. And, like a powerful dragon, it does so without our intervention.

So, eclipses have been seen as moments that accelerate time, chiropractically clicking us into alignment with fate. They can feel disorienting, serendipitous, and very, very weird.

The mists of Pisces

This particular eclipse was a north node eclipse in Pisces, amplifying themes of idealism, imagination, and the unseen. It’s the river beyond the river, time beyond time, everything all at once whirling around in mists and smoke. It’s so easy to lose your way in these currents, to get swept up in emotion and noise, to declare a truth that later unravels in your hands, and to lose your discernment and center.

Yet eclipses come in twos along the same axis, and the next one on September 21st will occur in the very discerning sign of Virgo. So to reach some sort of homeostasis, we can use Pisces’ opposite as an antidote. This means the medicine of this moment is simple and grounded: routine, routine, routine. Keeping track of time (pomodoro method, anyone?), keeping track of your thoughts (like by journaling & practicing self observation without jumping to conclusions or doing anything rash), eating nourishing, grounding foods (root veggies!), and remembering not to numb with the dissociative technology of screens.

We are still in the thick of the eclipse portal, and I am trying not to force any conclusions or realisations onto anything at all (hard!). To just be with what is, knowing it’s all subject to change or reveal itself in an entirely new way in time.

I am so curious, how did you experience this first eclipse in your part of the world, and are you still feeling its effects?

Feel free to share below.

Sending love and grounding vibes for moving through this liminal time between seasons and eclipses,

Natasha ♡♥︎

PS. My Lunar Workbook 2.0 is on sale from now through the end of eclipse season. It has a new chapter on eclipses for some extra context on the moment and generally includes information on how to work with the Moon. Paid subscribers get an additional 50% off, just message me for the code.

And happy Virgo Season!

Wheat has been on my mind recently. For one, in Egyptian mythology, the Sun’s entry into the sign of Virgo marked the beginning of the wheat harvest. Also, my sister has recently gotten into making sourdough bread. Over the phone, she described the three-day process of creating a loaf of bread that includes many timed tasks like feeding the starter, making the dough, letting it rise, and finally baking it.

And even before her work begins, there is an entire complex process that had to occur for the flour to be ready for her use. This process was developed over millennia (the first breads were invented 30,000 years ago) and involves multiple groups of people preparing the soil, planting and growing the wheat, harvesting and storing it, and then processing, packaging, and selling it. Not to mention the thousands of years of humans living alongside wheat and learning how to work with it. Long ago, people looked at a tall grass and wondered how to eat it, and then, for countless generations, they selectively cultivated it, learning the exact techniques and seasonal moments for doing so.

When you think about all of the labor, machinery, and natural processes that are associated with the humble yet complex technology of bread, you realize just how many systems within systems have had to be planned and updated alongside one another in many tiny increments. It becomes clear why the sign of Virgo is associated with its qualities of refinement, detail, craftsmanship, precision, order, and even health and herbalism.

And yet, like all signs, Virgo has its shadow: perfectionism. Overplanning can stop us in our tracks, paralyzing us in the overwhelm of everything that still needs to get done. Or it can lead to judgment and criticism — of ourselves and others. The true Virgo magic is taking small, aligned actions. They don’t have to be perfect; you can always refine them later. But just taking action out of pleasure, need, or curiosity can result in incredible, even humanity-shifting, developments over time — like the invention of bread. Remember: slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

As you prepare your own soil for your New Moon intentions, consider what small and aligned actions will keep you moving, because these are ultimately what will lead to the greatest compounded results. Your horoscopes are below, but first, an announcement:

Lunar Workbook 2.0

Speaking of refining over time, I just added a new eclipse chapter to my Lunar Workbook and have re-released it as the Lunar Workbook 2.0. It’s on sale from now until the end of eclipse season, and paid subscribers get an additional 50% off (just DM me and I’ll send you the discount code).

Eclipses are fascinating astronomical/astrological moments full of symbolic meaning, and the next two lunations will be eclipses along the Virgo/Pisces axis. This new chapter was developed as a tool for using these moments for internal reflection, and the rest of the booklet includes everything from shadow work and manifestation to my favorite spells :)

Horoscopes for the New Moon in Virgo

As always, use your rising sign here if you know it, and I’ll go through the different houses where this Virgo New Moon is impacting each sign:

Aries - Your 6th house of work and health routines

Taurus - Your 5th house of creativity, expression, and play

Gemini - Your 4th house of family, roots, and home

Cancer - Your 3rd house of daily life, neighborhood, and social media

Leo - Your 2nd house of material and inner resources

Virgo - Your 1st house, yourself!

Libra - Your 12th house of rest, the unconscious, and the dreamscape

Scorpio - Your 11th house of friends and social networks

Sagittarius - Your 10th house of career and public-facing life

Capricorn - Your 9th house of foreign travel, spirituality, and wisdom quests

Aquarius - Your 8th house of financial and energetic mergers

Pisces - Your 7th house of committed relationships

So much love ♥︎,

Natasha

Let’s look up for a moment and observe the stars in the Leo constellation to discern why our ancestors might have come to associate this cluster of stars with the Leo-esque qualities of royalty, courage, and fame. This is a photo I took of the Leo constellation in May, when Mars was in it (as you can see on the bottom right, Mars is the red point of light).

Look closely at the bright blue point to the left of Mars. That is Regulus, the heart of the lion, one of the brightest stars in our night sky and one of the four royal stars of Persia (these were important markers of the cardinal directions during the time of the Persian Empire, 550 BCE-330 BCE, that had their own fascinating mythologies).

Regulus is so bright because it’s a multiple-star system made up of at least two stars — possibly more. It marks the bottom of a backwards question mark or sickle shape in the night sky. That is the mane of the lion. Behind this curve, you can find the lion’s back haunches, and behind that, its tail — another famous fixed star called Denebola.

Here’s an illustration of Leo with the stars connected to form the constellation as we know it. I see it as a lion proudly sitting up in a sphynx pose, but there are many interpretations of this shape.

So next time you are stargazing, look for the backwards question mark in the sky and notice Regulus, the bright heart of the lion.

Going inward, outwardly

I’ve been thinking about the interplay between this moment being the darkest and most internal time of the lunar cycle, and it happening in one of the most dazzling constellations in our sky during the brightest time of the year (Summer). Also, Mercury is currently retrograding through Leo, giving the impression that we are feeling through, or searching for, details in the dark, yet our struggle is being broadcast outward. It’s a bit of a disorienting and possibly unflattering time. Luckily, the heart serves as a kind of internal wayfinder.

Last night, as I was preparing to write this New Moon Newsletter, I pulled The Sun tarot card.

Curious to learn more, I turned to Jessica Dore’s write-up of this card in her book Tarot For Change. She writes about the old fairytale The Frog Prince, where a young princess’s beloved golden ball falls down a well and is retrieved by a frog in exchange for companionship.

The missing golden ball, cast down a dark well, feels so symbolic of this moment. We are in Leo season, but the frog (Mercury) is retrograding to retrieve something important. A part of us goes down into the murky darkness (the New Moon) to bring back something essential, yet obscured (the Sun). And there’s also the inner child waiting at the top of the well to be reunited with what it loves. And in the end, using the bright orb (the heart, the Sun) as a compass, all of the figures are reunited and integrated.

So, what do you love? And if it’s lost to you right now, how can you bring it back?

I normally mark New Moons by setting intentions in the part of my chart that contains the constellation the Moon is moving through, in this case, Leo. However, today, I will be asking myself those questions first, and being patient with the answers. Especially related to the part of my chart that contains Leo. I invite you to do the same, and I am so curious to hear your findings.

So much love ♥︎,

Natasha