Yes, I’m calling everyone Dolly instead of Doll this week. It’s part of my shivah for our dearly departed Lady D.

I went long on this week’s Ruby Report because there was so much to say and so much to learn. As dire and divisive as this moment in history feels, never underestimate the mountains that can be moved by a monoculture of care. That was the miracle modeled by Dolly’s life and perhaps it can be the legacy she leaves.

If you want to read more about Dolly’s legacy, here are two of the best pieces I found: Casey Caw on Dolly’s “outlaw Christianity” and Rebecca Solnit on Dolly’s brilliant ethos. Also here’s my tear-stained essay from earlier this week. Also also here’s more on the psychic shields I recommend.

At minute 21:38, you can find an extended ritual that was made for this lunar eclipse, but can be used anytime to ground yourself in more compassion for everyone including yourself. (I know: soooo earnest.) To filter through the downloads of this very intense summer, you also may wish to book a reading for yourself or a loved one, or try a Whether Report to answer shorter, more specific questions.

Finally, thank you for listening to this unusually extended episode. I’m feeling a little self-conscious as I press send, so if you can spare it, please extend me some Dolly grace. If you’d like to listen to this but can’t swing a paid subscription, let me know so I can extend you some Dolly grace too.

WWDD (What Would Dolly Do), indeed.

With waggling eyebrows, slow kitty blinks, and plenty of pink light,

Lisa Ruby

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Hi, Dolly. (Yes, you read that right. Calling everyone Dolly instead of Doll is part of my shivah right now.)

Today’s lunar eclipse isn’t exact until 6:12 pm ET, but we’ve been at the mercy of its magic since mid-August. Even if you’re not familiar with the concept, you may have sensed that we’ve been in kairos, when the flow of normal life is suspended and soul transitions (revelations, breakthroughs, and deaths) become business as usual.

All eclipse seasons are impactful, but this one has been a behemoth. So much so that this Ruby Report is also a bit of a behemoth.

Start here. Throughout this eclipse season, institutions that do not support the public good have experienced rare comeuppances. The Washington Post was ordered to reinstate opinion columnist Karen Attiah, whom they’d unjustly fired for her posts about Charlie Kirk’s death. Meta was ordered to pony up $18 billion to resolve claims that it had harmed children. Mild-mannered Canada pushed back against the tyranny of the U.S. kakistocracy.

Earlier this week I wrote:

In my work as an intuitive, I’ve observed that those who pass over during an eclipse season on the Pisces-Virgo axis are often the ones with the biggest hearts and smiles, as if their legacy of charisma and care is meant to inspire the rest of us as they pass.

Hayden Panettiere, Tim Curry, Yayoi Kusama. and, of course, Dolly Parton died over the last few weeks, the latter three over the last 48 hours. Four seemingly very disparate people who projected honesty, magmanity, and an enormous, paradigm-shifting merriment.

Some of you also are mourning profoundly painful personal losses as you read this. Please know you are not alone in your suffering. That doesn’t fix everything, but it does mean you are held by the collective.

For this moment is not just about me and it is not just about you. It is definitely not about the robber barons treating the 99 percent like human batteries. It is not even just about Dolly Parton, though her rosy afterglow is spotlighting a monoculture of care that, still, somehow, stubbornly flourishes in this harrowingly divided world.

This moment is about all of us.

Storms make trees take deeper roots.—Dolly Parton

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Tonight’s lunar eclipse is the wrap-up of a two-year cycle of eclipses on the Pisces-Virgo cusp, which means situations, emotions, and patterns you have been working with since September 2024 are peaking. If it feels like you are malingering in old sorrows or obstacles, know that the multiverse is handing you the final jigsaw pieces to a puzzle you’re only now ready to admire.

I consider closure to be a too-tidy concept wielded to sell self-help books, but if it is ever achievable, it’s now. Think of it as a re-integration, for every lunar eclipse asks us to work with the energy of two signs opposite each other on the zodiac circle.

In September 2024, I wrote:

Today’s lunar eclipse begins a cycle on the Pisces-Virgo axis—the axis of the empirical and ethereal. This is an era of concretized compassion. Both Virgo and Pisces are healers. Pisces is more of an energy worker, a mystic, a Jungian therapist. Virgo is more of a nurse practitioner, a country physician, a speech or physical therapist. Together, these two ensure goddess is in the details.

Two years later, we have a chance to evaluate the lessons of this schoolmarm of an axis. How have we balanced our needs with the needs of others? What accountability and grace have we achieved? What remains to be mastered?

Back then, DJT was running for president in his third campaign of cruel divisiveness. Now well into his second term, he is deploying the classic “bust out” strategy from the gangster playbook—exploiting our country for personal finanical gain to the point of utter insolvency, chaos, and destruction. At age 80, this nepo-baby nihilist is not concerned with the legacy he leaves so long as his name is slapped on everything and he dies outside of prison.

But there’s a different 80-year-old’s legacy to consider—not just of the delightful, game-changing Tim Curry, but that of Dolly Parton. I already wrote about Dolly this week, but there are more holy lessons to be gleaned from her life and eclipse-timed death.

Make sure you leave behind what you want people to know from your own self, from your own mouth, from your own heart—Dolly Parton

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Dolly was born January 19, 1946, under a waxing gibbous moon, the exact same lunar phase as the day she died. Appropriate for this eclipse’s axis, her moon was in Virgo.

Virgo moon or sun people are more about getting the job done right than getting credit for it. If they become famous—and this list includes Beyoncé, Amy Poehler, Keanu Reeves, and Adam Sandler—it is only so they can platform a new level of self-possession and matter-of-fact kindness. (Other Virgo claims to fame prove strangely ill-fated; witness the rise and fall of Charlie Sheen, born Sept. 3.)

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Indeed, Dolly was universally beloved because she universally loved, and she very consistently put her money where her heart was. The only reason she did not die a billionaire is because she gave so freely to the animals and humans and infrastructures of care that needed her support. Reports of her incredible generosity and virtuosity are surfacing everywhere, and we’ll learn a lot more in the months to come.

But this week, Dolly’s rosy glow is especially bright, and in trading stories of her ingenuity and service, we are being reminded of the transpersonal love we must expect of ourselves and each other. Just yesterday, a federal judge quoted her as he struck down a Texas ban on drag shows.

I’m keen to see what mountains she may move from the other side. I’m keen to see how her magic may move you, too.

If your understanding of the divine makes you kinder, more empathetic, and impels you to express sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this is good theology. But if it makes you unkind, belligerent, cruel, or self-righteous, it is bad theology.― Karen Armstrong

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For this whole two-year eclipse cycle has emphasized the difference between magical thinking, which is the manipulation of reality to appease the ego, and true magic, which is the alignment of personal imagination with the highest good.

Magical thinking is MAGA bullshit, even if it appears in the form of a groovy manifestation moon circle or Instagram affirmation or wellness initiative. True magic is the kind of miracle that elevates an illiterate sharecropper’s daughter raised in a two-room Tennessee cabin without running water and electricity to the level of international stardom that changes the color of everything when she dies, including the Empire State Building, Chicago’s Willis TowerW, the Santa Monica Pier ferris wheel, the Hoan Bridge in Milwaukee, Dallas’s Reunion Tower, all the bridges of Boston; Caesar’s Superdome in New Orleans, which also held an impromptu city parade, and Nashville’s KVB Bridge. Everything in Nashville, actually.

Hell, on the night Dolly died, the Buckingham Palace band played “9 to 5.”

I don’t mean to play an alienating broken record, but in too much of today’s spirituality and religion, altruism is dangerously overlooked. Many only acknowledge the divine when they need or want something, not to say thanks or wow. We get mad about inequities, we cancel, but the actual sharing of resources—including resources of time, skill, grace, and good will— isn’t valued nearly enough.

Dolly Parton’s brand of spirituality was borne of this sort of gratitude and devotion. That rare multi-millionare who did not mistake her wealth for proof that she mattered more than everyone else, she was driven by a powerful desire to improve herself and her world. As she often said: I imagined it, I dreamed it, I worked for it, and God was good enough to let me have it.

She also said: I count my blessings more than I count my money.

If enough people are inspired to uphold her spiritual legacy, Dolly’s death could prove culturally transformative when we most need it to be. I think that would tickle her pink.

Metaphysician, Heal Thyself

Thirty minutes after I learned Dolly had died, the only entrance to the coffee shop in which I was working suddenly swelled shut. Nobody inside could get out, and nobody outside could get in. Finally, local firemen arrived to break down the old window-paned door. Pulling a child away from the shower of glass shards, I reinjured the wrist tendons only recently healed from my hiking accident on last year’s eclipse on this axis.

Then yesterday, walking to fetch my car at the mechanic’s, I dropped an envelope of cash (he prefers under-the-table payments) and didn’t realize it for three blocks. Hastening back, I found the now-empty envelope flapping on the sidewalk, my signature red-lipstick blot downgraded to a kiss-off. Fuming at the thievery and my own carelessness, especially as I’ve been struggling with a lot of unexpected expenses this year, I felt like a Job in a blond bob with a bum wrist.

In a flash, I thought: What would Dolly do with this eclipse-inflected kerfuckery? WWDD?

Immediately I could hear her saying in those lilting cadences that “some silly old wrist pain” would have been a small price to pay for saving a child from far worse injury. That she would have forgiven herself and the person who had taken the money, because they must’ve really needed it. She would have prayed for that cash to help them in their struggles, and bought herself a new purse rather than punish herself further. (The one I was using had a hole in the lining.)

I softened then, though I still felt annoyed that the thief had added littering to their list of malfeasances. Taking more cash out of the ATM, I suddenly felt so grateful to have any money whatsoever in my accounts, not to mention any clients, any readers, any loved ones, any days left in my life. WWDD, indeed.

It’s a perfect motto for us all.

Rituals, Not Rules

During lunar eclipses, what normally would take months to shift takes minutes. This is hard on the body and mind, and you may be feeling dehydrated, dizzy, headachy, nauseous, moody, miserable, and mean. Ruptures in your immediate environment—accidents and disasters (see above!)—also are more likely. Go slowly and gently. Drink more water and less of everything else.

Pisces reminds us that we are each drops in an infinite sea of love. Virgo reminds us that structure and routine holds space for the sacred. To align most effectively with the magic of this lunar eclipse, you must both ground and go with the flow.

You may wish to wish to listen to this next part on the podcast for paid subscribers, so I can talk you through the following ritual. (Message me if you are in need of free access.)

First, work with the water element:

Over the next few weeks of Virgo season, we’re going to receive plenty more bulletins from the collective unconscious about how to practically care for each other. To filter through these messages, book a reading for yourself or a loved one. Or try a Whether Report to answer shorter, more specific questions.

Finally, thank you for reading this Ruby Report in its entirety. This is a major moment, and I wanted to meet it properly. If you found it to be of use, I’d be grateful if you shared, liked, let me know.

With waggling eyebrows, slow kitty blinks, and plenty of pink light,

Lisa Ruby

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Hi, doll.

Or should I say Dolly? Yes, let’s all call each other Dolly today. Let’s spread that love.

For Dolly Parton has died, and this one hurts really, really badly. She was the brightest, rosiest light, a girl child of the Great Smoky Mountains who was born with so little and who gave us so much. She had all the very best traits— honesty, resourcefulness, hilarity, creativity, brilliance, generosity, a commitment to social justice, kindness, industry, amazing bazoombas, and of course so much beauty, so much talent, such an endless capacity for delight.

I used to joke she was the one person every American loved.

Know this: We would not have the Moderna vaccine without her. We would not have feminism with lipstick without her. Her home state would not have its literacy levels without her. So many non-profits, hospitals, and schools would not have their funding, since she gave amply and ceaselessly without making it public knowledge. Not to mention we would not have some of the sweetest songs to ever grace the sound waves. Even her movies were great!

Years ago, my friend Andrea and I went to see Dolly at Tanglewood. She was already in her 70s so we had no idea what to expect. Well, honey, she sang like a lipsticked angel for three hours straight through a thunderstorm, playing at least 15 instruments (including the piccolo!), chortling with great glee all the while. I’ve never seen a group of New Englanders smile so guilelessly in my life.

I always said the coolest thing about me was that Dolly and I were born the same day (January 19), so next year our shared birthday will be a little gloomier, just as this world will be gloomier without her grin. But as bereft as I am, I am thinking about how, in one of her memoirs, the singer-songwriter-actress-entrepreneur-producer-author* said that when she was a girl she built her own little make-shift chapel in those Appalachian hills—not to disrespect the church, but because she wanted to connect to the divine on her own terms.

When we saw her play at Tanglewood, I remember she shone so brightly that all our phone cameras could catch were bursts of pale pink light. (Above, see video Andrea shot from that night.) It was like Dolly was divine energy in her own right.

Maybe now she is. Goddess knows I’d be happy to bask in her radiance forever.

Everywhere I’ve gone today in Brooklyn, people have been playing her songs, singing her praises, voicing their disbelief. Already I’ve been hearing amazing stories about strangers hugging on the streets in their shared sorrow and gratitude. Already online everyone has a story of her sunnily plainspoken service, joy, virtuosity. Driving just now, I was listening to Shelley Wade’s Mindful Moment on Hot 97, NYC’s premier hip hop radio station, and wouldn’t you know she was giving Dolly Parton such beautiful flowers that I cried all the way home.

Truly, Dolly loved everybody and everybody loved her. She didn’t suffer fools and she always spoke her truth, but she beamed such authentic benevolence that she could defang the very worst demons despite themselves.

Over the next few days you’ll receive a Ruby Report about Thursday night’s big-mama lunar eclipse on the Pisces-Virgo axis, what I always call the axis of public compassion. For now I just want to say that, in my work as an intuitive, I’ve observed that those who die during an eclipse season on this axis are often the ones with the biggest hearts and smiles, as if their legacy of charisma and care is meant to inspire the rest of us as they pass. (May the recently deceased Hayden Panettiere also find peace.)

Certainly this moment, this week, this whole freaking summer has been offering us a crash course in how we are meant to love and support each other, and who modeled this better than Dolly Parton? So for the rest of this eclipse season, let’s shine her light through the darkness that has been colonizing this country and world.

As Dolly always said: “If you see someone without a smile, give them yours.”

With waggling eyebrows and slow kitty blinks,

Lisa Ruby

*Dolly Parton was such an accomplished hyphenate that I’m likely omitting many of her richly earned titles.

Though today’s solar eclipse in Leo is officially over, it will continue to affect us all week, mostly by closing the gap between the roles we play and who we really are. Also it will render us very spacey and very, very thirsty.

This may sound grueling (especially the thirsty part), but eclipse season can prove gloriously liberating. In this episode, I get into how you can lean into this magic, and how it’s already platforming my inner flaneuzy. AKA I talk a lot about red lipstick. A lot.

Anyway, here are written instructions for the solar eclipse ritual (available only to paid subscribers), and an essay about my messy breakup during the last solar eclipse in Leo.

Let me know how these nutty astral action hits you. Eclipse season support societies should be a thing.

With waggling eyebrows and slow kitty blinks,

Lisa Ruby

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Hi, doll.

Today the Lion’s Gate portal slides shut, just as a solar eclipse takes over the skies.

All through the readings I gave while this year’s Lion’s Gate was open (July 28-August 12), people’s resistance surfaced with a rare ferocity. Tears were shed. Tantrums were thrown.

I wouldn’t be worth my salt as an intuitive if I took shadow work personally, but at first I couldn’t understand what was causing the tumult. After all, this was one of the luckiest portals I’d witnessed since formalizing my Ruby practice.

Then I realized that the prospect of finally getting what we really, really want—the thing that we may have given up on achieving—was causing old issues to rear their heads in a misguided effort to keep us secure.

August’s gotten orange,/it will drop on the edge of the world like a worm-eaten sun./The trees are taking off their leaves. So the purity of the streets is coming.—Frank O’Hara

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A solar eclipse occurs when a new moon falls between the Earth and the sun, blocking light from swaths of our planet. When this occurs, expect volcanic initiations and actions—revelations, bright beginnings, tremendous surges of energy. Most new moons don’t clear obstacles so much as begin cycles, but all eclipses dispel whatever has worn out its welcome to make way for a powerful fresh start.

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This eclipse is in Leo, and it’s the first Leo solar eclipse since the August 2018. It’s worth thinking back to what you were doing then because drama from that period is likely to resurge over the next few weeks. (I was going through one of the messiest breakups of my life.) Illusions, especially self-illusions, are going to get knocked out of the park.

Ruled by the sun, Leo is about what is being shined into the world. It’s the stage we all step onto, often seeking applause, approval, and acceptance.

Today’s solar eclipse exposes the gap between the roles we play and who we really are.

It highlights what we do for an audience, and how we betray ourselves and others to keep up appearances and boost our self-esteem. It’s expunging attitudes and identities that no longer fit. False heroes will be exposed. (Already a recent transpo switchup is under unusual scrutiny.) Influencer and celebrity culture may get a big shakeup. Ego injuries are par for the course.

Nothing can dim the light that shines from within.—Maya Angelou

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All month, I’ve been feeling this tug. I’ve been letting go of the last of my ingenue identity, what Jung referred to as the puella. Though I’ve long been a maven of dowager chic, this shift is grueling in a society hell-bent on shaming any woman who acts or looks like she’s over 25 (aka any grown woman). Also PBS has for all practical purposes lost its funding for the review show I’ve appeared on regularly for the last 15 years. Most contemporary film has bored me for years, but the social status conferred by being an on-air movie critic is hard to give up.

If I’m being honest, I’ve been in the dumps about all this upheaval.

But something that’s occurred to me while I’ve been moping about is: Can we really love ourselves and others while not being who we really are? Until we shed outdated or false identities, how can we authentically feel or express anything? How can we authentically connect?

The amount of vulnerability required for this sort of shedding is daunting, which is why most of us—me included—tend to avoid it. Today’s solar eclipse forces the issue, and we’ll be better for it.

Rituals, not Rules

To align with your best future self and fine-tune rituals and tools, book a reading for yourself or a loved one. Or try a Whether Report to answer specific questions about how this astrology is intersecting with your personal path. (I’m so pleased more of you have been sampling these Reports lately. They really stabilize wobbly moments.)

If you find this newsletter or my readings to be of use, please share, like, subscribe. Leo season is all about spreading the love, and my work only works because I feel such love for you.

With waggling eyebrows and slow kitty blinks,

Lisa Ruby

Every once in a while the fact that I am a Capricorn intuitive becomes abundantly clear, and this podcast captures one of those moments. As in: Leave it to me to serve tough love along with with a host of groovy manifestation rituals, which can be found at minute 10:35.

At the end of the day, I honestly just want everyone to be happy and have everything they need. I just believe that abundance should not preclude anyone else’s well-being, and that enough should include ample resources for rest, play, and joy for all.

Hey, socialist democrats are coming back in style, so cut me some slack.

No matter what, the next few weeks are ideal for closing the gap between manifestation and desire, and it’s my honor to facilitate that process. Set up an intuitive reading for yourself or a loved one to intuit ideal paths and activate practical magic and rituals. Book a Whether Report to identify the optimal time for releases and rites. Or just say hi in the comments or drop a like below. (I loooooooove confirmations that I’m not typing into the void, speaking of Leo season.)

Whatever you do, pamper yourself and the people you love. This is the portal for it, so make it happen, captain.

With waggling eyebrows and slow kitty blinks,

Lisa Ruby

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Hi, doll.

I’m spent as I sit down to write this, but grinning like a Shakespearean fool. In every reading I gave over these last busy four days, I could see how close my client was to experiencing boundless joy. no matter how they were struggling.

It was wonderful energy to visit.

Even for the decidedly destabilized 2020s, Summer 2026 has been a real roller coaster. June was a whirling dervish of busy-bee networking and happy breakthroughs (especially for New Yorkers). This month’s sun and retrograding Mercury in Cancer reintroduced us to our inside selves, those hard feelings we usually shove aside.

But there was a palpable vibe shift last Thursday (July 23), right when the sun slid into Leo and Mercury went direct. It was like our nervous systems collectively arrived at the same conclusion: We’re not gonna have the heart to save this burning world if we don’t find some easy joy.

All weekend, whenever I ducked outside in between sessions, I watched spines unfurl and smiles reappear. There even may have been some flirting, and not just among the young’uns. The heavens, dystopically orange-grey for days due to the Canadian wildfires, cleared.

Hope was visible on the horizon, sure as the sky was a brilliant blue.

For the next few weeks, the vibes only will get better, though they’ll entail a final catharsis before the sailing truly smooths. Tomorrow begins with an Aquarius full moon (exact at 10:35am ET) that coincides with a Jupiter cazimi in Leo (exact at 6:17am ET) that is such a powerful wish-granter that it’s the astrological equivalent of a genie in a bottle.

Already it’s amplifying our good will.

Both Leo and Aquarius are generous fixed signs that focus on self-expression, but Leo platforms the individual human while Aquarius platforms the human condition. Think of it this way: Leo uplifts the individual. Aquarius uplifts the collective. Together, they help us privilege others’ perspectives as highly as our own—a precious download that helps us distinguish between what we’re projecting and what we’re actually perceiving.

I call this aspect The Utopia Architect, and it puts an exclamation point on the long, run-on sentence that was this year’s Cancer Season—a handy reminder that the heavy burdens every person carries are lessened when we show each other compassion and support.

Because comeuppances are inevitable with an Aquarius full moon/Leo sun, we’ll all receive a crash course on the necessary distinction between self-possession, which simply entails loving yourself and practicing healthy boundaries, and selfishness, which prioritizes your personal ego needs above a greater good, even if that selfishness manifests as a martyrdom that appears selfless.

Think of it as loving yourself so unconditionally that you can tenderly parent the parts of yourself that have been held back. We all are works in progress, and self-care invariably entails a measure of self-reckoning, though that fact gets lost in the social media shuffle.

Trust that I prayed to release my own bitterness and scarcity bullshit in this morning’s river prayers.

The cazimi is an easier pill to swallow. Taking its name from the Arabic kaṣmīmī, which roughly translates to “in the heart of the sun,” a cazimi occurs when a planet’s powers are amplified by its close proximity to the sun. Jupiter is the planet of abundance, luck, and growth, so a Jupiter cazimi ushers in great fun and fortune, especially in the sign of Leo, which is already ruled by the sun and makes generosity its claim to fame.

Paired with the full moon, this astrological magic wand erases your illusion of separateness, clearing the runway for the biggest magic of the year to arrive over the next 10 days.

Because when you are imagining, you might as well imagine something worthwhile.― Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

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We have entered a splendid portal known as the Lion’s Gate, which materializes every year when the sun is in Leo, and Sirius, Orion’s Belt, and the Earth align. Because Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky, and heart-forward Leo is especially empowered by solar energy, the Lion’s Gate infuses our wishes with extra energy, closing the gap between expression and execution, transforming our words into spells.

The portal is open July 28-August 12, so already we are basking in its glow. On August 8th, it peaks.

Normally I’d point you to that old adage: “Be careful what you wish for.” But by permitting this week’s full moon and cazimi to clear old ego injuries and unnecessary self-protections, you can manifest with a purer heart.

These are the sort of hallways through which utopias enter.

Rituals, Not Rules

Everything you wish for is somewhere in space and time, and you get there through an open heart.—Santosh Kalwar

The next few weeks are ideal for closing the gap between manifestation and desire, and it’s my honor to facilitate that process. Set up an intuitive reading for yourself or a loved one to intuit ideal paths and activate practical magic and rituals. Book a Whether Report to identify the optimal time for releases and rites. Or just say hi in the comments or drop a like below. (I loooooooove confirmations that I’m not typing into the void, speaking of Leo season.)

Whatever you do, enjoy yourself. There’s been a lot of suffering in 2026. This is the good part, and you deserve it.

With waggling eyebrows and slow kitty blinks,

Lisa Ruby

Today a new moon joined the sun and a retrograding Mercury in the sign of the Cancer, so I’d be lying if I said the huge, deeply inconvenient emotions we’ve been experiencing this retrograde will abate this week. Cancer season is always a lot, and this one has been an outright mess.

Even as I record this episode, the retrograde almost gets the best of me. For sure I share more than I usually do about the personal adventures of your resident intuitive. Chalk it up to a reminder that we’re never really alone, no matter how much of an oddball we feel ourselves to be. And on that note, let me know how you’re bearing up, whether in a reading or just in the comments below.

With slow kitty blinks and deep, angsty sighs—

Lisa Ruby

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Hi, doll.

At the onset of every Mercury retrograde, I declare it a Not Very Big Deal. Then we’re walloped.

Chalk it up to my weird brand of optimism, but I forget that the first and last few days of a Mercury retrograde are downright bearish. I also forget that, despite the worthiness of MR’s enforced detoxes from instant gratification and communication, detoxes invariably feel very, very bad.

So far, the tagline of this Mercury retrograde in Cancer may as well be: We’re grounding you for your own good.

On its first day (June 29), every car on my Brooklyn block was towed because of an unannounced repaving project, then the city lost the record of where my car had been relocated.

What, was it written on a post-it? I asked the police officer dispatched to find my car. After a beat, she said: Honestly, it was.

I’d have been charmed—for once, Big Tech was not to blame—if my day earmarked for the beach hadn’t been devoted to tracking down Minerva, my only recently rehabilitated hatchback.

The Fourth of July weekend was riddled with such turbulent weather that flights and fireworks were cancelled across the country. Last week, structural damage in a swaying 42nd street skyscraper cleared out a section of NYC’s midtown, derailing traffic and preventing a swath of commuters from entering the city.

Our bodies also are revealing structural damage. Autoimmune and other stress-exacerbated maladies are flaring. As I type this, last fall’s wrist injury is re-inflamed just as I race toward a writing deadline, dear friends are facing recurrences of more serious illnesses, and culturally key elders have died or are facing life-threatening illnesses. (I hesitate to offer links lest they read as schadenfreude.)

Then there is the omnipresent elephant in the room—the destabilization caused by the structural damage in the U.S. government. An outbreak of a Cyclospora parasite, which has caused severe diarrhea in more than 3,000 US denizens, is a direct result of RFK Jr.’s decision to no longer track infections caused by cyclospora and five other common parasites. And once again fully funded, ICE is newly emboldened, with literally lethal results.

All of this makes it a lot harder to feel safe in the country we call home.

How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses? In a rising wind the manic dust of my friends/those who fell along the way/bitterly stings my face.—Stanley Kunitz

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Emotionally we’re all in our cups. Long-lost lovers, friends, and family members are coming out of the woodwork, and misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and nervous system deregulation has been de rigueur.

I’d be lying if I said communication with my new suitor has flowed well since Mercury stopped doing the heavy lifting for us.

I’d also be lying if I said all this would be sorted this week. Tomorrow a new moon joins the sun and this retrograding Mercury in care-bear Cancer, which means we’ll continue to be mired in big feelings until the end of this month.

The good news is that this new moon affords everyone a reboot, in which we can tackle the issues this retrograde has revealed in metaphorical and literal homes—our physical bodies, support systems, living spaces, and emotional bodies. You know: the memories, conscious and unconscious, stored in our cells.

Think of this as a midyear breather tailor-made for health modifications, home repair and decluttering, and physical and electronic cleanses. Also for extra therapy sessions and (ahem) intuitive readings.

And, of course, the cure for everything is salt water. Go swimming! Backyard wading pools count. So do salt baths. Most of all, allow yourself to cry.

This is a period of clearing and healing, of treating early wounds and mourning the losses you haven’t fully metabolized until now. Lean into whatever feeling comes up, not in the spirit of wallowing, but to clear the path for the beautiful changes to come.

By July 23, this Mercury retrograde will end and it will be Leo season, the time to focus on how you’re adored and adorned. Until then, focus on making the softest space possible for what a dear friend calls the “inside you.”

Though I lack the art to decipher it, no doubt the next chapter in my book of transformations is already written. I am not done with my changes.—Stanley Kunitz

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Because linear time concerns are not at the forefront, Mercury retrogrades are ideal for intuitive work and activating personal magic. Book a reading for yourself or a loved one, get a Whether Report, and share this platform and practice with whomever it may help.

Most of all, let others know how this retrograde is finding you. No matter how unsupported you may feel, you are not alone.

You never really are.

With waggling eyebrows and slow kitty blinks,

Lisa Ruby

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This podcast was recorded by the light of a rising strawberry moon, and its effects may be evident. A lot is covered, including why I think our country embodies the worst the sign of Cancer has to offer, and why Mercury retrogrades actually can be kind of great. (You didn’t hear anyone complaining about them until we became overly dependent on technology and instant gratification.)

I’ll be conducting sessions throughout the July 4th weekend, and a few slots are still available. Because linear time concerns are not at the forefront, holiday weekends and Mercury retrogrades are ideal for activating your unique service and practical magic, intuiting soul paths, and reconnecting to highest selves. Book a reading for yourself or a loved one.

Sending love and solidarity and big cozy vibes. This is a good time to tuck in and go deep.

Huzzah to the multitudes within—

Lisa Ruby

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Hi, doll.

I’m writing this before today’s docket of intuitive readings. The sky is still dark, and even in Brooklyn the world is hushed and sweet.

Already the electricity in the air is palpable, though, like a lightning storm gathering on the horizon. A full moon is sliding into the heavens tonight, and Mercury goes retrograde at 1:35pm ET.

Catharsis is inevitable, as is a deep calm in its wake.

The last three weeks have been joyful mayhem—the busy-bee Gemini-solstice season I’d hope we’d experience—but at this point in human history, our overtaxed nervous systems register all mayhem, no matter joyful, as a threat.

Enter Cancer season, when we climb into our shells and go quiet. The school year is over, Pride and most sports championships are drawing to a close, and the crops are planted. The yahoos in the U.S. kakistocracy are still sowing harm and chaos but for now:

It’s time for rest and reflection.

This year, a retrograding Mercury joins the sun in the sign of the stay-at-home Crab, where it will remain with the sun until July 23, pretty much forcing us to abandon our whirling-dervishing for next three weeks.

I’ve gone on record many times about not getting worked up about Mercury retrogrades, which occur so frequently that we’re in their shadow as often as we’re not. It’s best to register these “service interruptions” as reminders to tune into the cosmos, not as assaults on our electronics and egos.

In this era of instant gratification and communication, Mercury retrogrades actually serve an important function. They yank us out of linear time so we can meditate on what really matters.

In Cancer, a Mercury retrograde also can re-link us to the emotional body—the sensations and memories, conscious and unconscious, that are stored in our cells.

I am large, I contain multitudes/I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.—Walt Whitman

In my work this year, I’ve been very focused on connecting us to our future conditional selves—those best-case versions of us that toss mystical bread crumbs so our present selves may find our way to them. These next three weeks reconnect us to our most private past selves—the emotions and experiences that have imprinted upon on us the most, though typically we visit them the least. (In most cases, only when a symptom or trauma hurtles us back through time.)

While the sun and a retrograding Mercury are in Cancer, we are being prompted to compassionately clear our fields so we may progress on surer ground.

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Usually we avoid these corners of our consciousness because we fear destabilization. But this next month invites us to rely on our senses and intuition to make a better distinction between feeling safe, which ultimately is an illusion, and feeling supported, which is always possible when we connect to something bigger than our waking selves.

Tonight’s full moon in Capricorn, also known as the strawberry moon, turbo-charges this journey into kairos, soul time. Like Cancer (which it rules), the Moon is always concerned with what dwells in the shadows, the ether, and the unconscious. Arguably the earthiest sign of them all, Capricorn wrangles with the challenges of incarnation—of stabilizing ourselves within the 3D limitations of such resources as time, money, and energy.

A full moon always releases the obstacles we harbor in the areas governed by the sign it is visiting.

So paired with the retrograde beginning today, this full moon in Cappie tests our support systems for cracks. On a literal level, it’s a wonderful time for nesting—home-improvement, home-cooking, you name it. More abstractly, this period encourages us to repossess our (many )selves.

As we self-integrate, we become more complete unto ourselves, and our relationships and resourcing can begin to evolve from transactional to reciprocal. (Sorry, Jerry Maguire.)

The past and present wilt—I have fill’d them, emptied them./And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.—Walt Whitman

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This shift clears the way for the kind of compassionate service and achievement that leaders like NYC Mayor Mamdani are modeling for the collective. As my friend Sarene Leeds writes in her Substack The Critical Commentator, “Progressive democrats are the wave of the future.”

Which brings me to that red, white, and blue elephant in the room: Independence Day (and I use the term loosely).

For many people, July 4th doesn’t feel like cause for celebration so much as mourning and massive uprising. As our country turns 250, the truth grows ever more evident that the independence this holiday commemorates was intended only for the appallingly small percentage of us deemed fully human by the Founding Fathers.

That the United States of America was born under the sign of Cancer is very telling.

At its best, Cancer prioritizes everyone’s well-being, which is what a government should do. But the shadow expression of this sign is dangerous, even lethal.

When Cancer’s impulse for protection is imbalanced, it can invoke a victim mindset that sacrifices others at the altar of its own welfare. Often, the worst bullies perceive themselves as the greatest victims. Just look at our sitting U.S. President, for whom accusation doubles as (latent) confession.

Past is prologue, sure, but if we are to move forward and upward, “we must go back and rediscover those precious values, that all reality hinges on moral foundations," as Martin Luther King Jr said in a 1954 sermon. In other words, we must reclaim our Founders’ utopian visions of social justice and public compassion, and shed the toxic hypocrisies that rotted them.

Who has done his day’s work? who will soonest be through with his supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?—Walt Whitman

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Because linear time concerns are not at the forefront, holiday weekends and Mercury retrogrades are ideal for activating your unique service and practical magic, intuiting soul paths, and reconnecting to highest selves.

My office hours are open throughout the July 4th weekend. Book a reading for yourself or a loved one, and share this newsletter with whomever it may help.

So long as we’re embodied on this planet, it’s not too late to build a better future. But to evolve as a collective, we must express and expose our hearts in the name of collective healing. It’s time to celebrate our individual needs for care as gorgeously interconnected.

Huzzah to these multitudes—

Lisa Ruby

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I was such a midsummer blur today that I didn’t get a chance to record a podcast version of the summer solstice post until the sun had already disappeared. The delay gave me a chance to share the magic I experienced, though, so I’m not super sorry.

Herein lie some tips for harnessing midsummer magic, and some stories about my day and Alice May, my grandmother and greatest guide. I feel her most on summer solstice and most especially as I recorded these words. You know: “Part of her pours out of me in these lines from time to time…”

Also also also, you are so welcome to harness the sun medicine of this season in a Whether Report or a session for yourself or a loved one. Or maybe just by sitting quietly in a field or a park, reading a book or listening to the birds.

Sending green and gold love—

Lisa Ruby

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Hi, doll.

Tomorrow is summer solstice, the most pixie-dusted and powerfully positive day of the year. It is the lightest moment in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. It also is the festival of Litha, the Celtic goddess of abundance, and the first day of Cancer, the sign in which these Allegedly United States of America were birthed.

Doors fly open tomorrow, as do hearts and minds.

Many of us already have been registering this midsummer magic, especially in New York City. Tomorrow it will peak.

There is so little night on summer solstice that dreams and spirits, embodied and otherwise, dance through our waking hours. Past is future is present. The ancestors surge. Our own higher spirits boogie through the day, and we greet all versions of the self, from every portal in the multiverse.

We laugh more freely. We weep more freely (a good thing, since the cure for everything is salt water). We are more free.

Tomorrow is a day to heal shadows and celebrate light. A day to close the gap between desire and manifestation, the seen and unseen. On summer solstice, we transcend all binaries and rejoice.

Most years, I send out a post on the solstice itself. This year, I’m sending it a day early to encourage you to embrace this magnificence.

Because solstice is a time of growth, it activates joy, deepens powers, illuminates callings, and connects us with loved ones on both sides of the veil.

Summon this sun medicine in a Whether Report or a session for yourself or a loved one. Or summon it with some rituals of your own.

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Apologies for sending this podcast out a day after the new moon. It’s not an excuse exactly, but it does strike me that the more these Ruby Reports stray from astrological territory, the less urgent the timing is.

Lately, in my practice and personal life, I’m most interested in healing the future self.

I’m all for healing the past, of course. But the longer I work as an intuitive, the more I understand that both the future and the past are more elastic than we realized. It’s never too late to heal the hurt children we carry inside ourselves, nor the futures we fear.

Along those lines, make time to talk with your future conditional self in these magical days leading up to summer solstice. With the support of the midsummer spirits on the horizon, it would be my great honor to help you do that—via sessions, Whether Reports, and on this platform.

With waggling eyebrows and slow kitty blinks,

Lisa Ruby

P.S. A passage, with apologies, from The Portal of Self-Invention, my latest Flaneuzy essay:

What I desire most is to be pulled toward a future conditional me whom I can’t quite envision yet. Someone who is stronger, smarter, easier in her skin and skills, and fundamentally more set up. Chrono-nomadism as auto-nomination: I’m seeking the self who’s figured out what stymies me still, and is reaching back to make herself come true.

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Hi, doll.

I had to put off writing today’s post until I knew whether the Knicks would won the NBA Championship. When they did, I ran into the streets and boogied into the early hours of this morning along with nonillions of other New Yorkers. I cannot begin to tell you how many strangers this introvert hugged.

My eyes are burning as I write this, but it doesn’t detract from my holistic glee. If anything, it heightens it. The whole city has a joy hangover this morning, and it’s freaking glorious.

I know you don’t seek my services because of a great passion for basketball, but spiritual downloads don’t always arrive on a lotus pillow or in a monastery. Sometimes they arrive in a sweaty bar packed with chanting Knicks fans.

Think about it. The few bright lights of 2026 USA have been beamed by the likes of Benito “Bad Bunny” Ocasio at the Super Bowl, Congresswrangler Alexandria “AOC” Ocasio-Cortez, Knicks captain Jalen Brunson, and NYC Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani. Young, hard workers who sow beautiful change generously, brilliantly, and methodically. Who drown out detractors and bad odds not with bullying and boasts, but with eyes on the prize, feet on the ground, big brains that never block anything out, and huge hearts that pave the way for the rest of us.

As Brunson put it: “It’s all about the habits that we create and practice, and it starts with the mentality of it. Just giving it all, knowing that you can be down 29 and claw all the way back.”

Or, to paraphrase the late, great Adrienne Rich: “A wild patience has taken us this far.”

Today’s new moon—you knew I’d get to the astrology eventually—embodies this ethic. Joining the sun in social butterfly Gemini, its key words are connect and reconnect.

Already, you may have been feeling these rosy vibes. Last week’s Venus-Jupiter conjunction radiated the sort of empathic charm that can swing open sealed doors. These days leading up to June 21’s summer solstice can inspire fantastic networking and mental expansion.

Especially with a Mercury Retrograde shadow pulling us out of our normal rotation (it starts officially on June 29), expect the unexpected and embrace every accident, happy and otherwise. Odds are good you’ll run into friends and colleagues you haven’t seen in forever. Old bosses and beaus, just as they flash on your brain.

Don’t be afraid to talk to strangers at parties and coffee shops. Everyone’s more game to chat, and the bonds formed now are unusually rich. Ruled by Mercury the messenger, Gemini shifts perspectives, defines what defies definition, and heightens our ability to listen, look, and learn with compassion, clarity, and cleverness. Witty and flirty, she is fantastic for flaneuzying of all forms.

The bonds you form and reform now are invariably rich and joyful, and communication flows. Play—particularly wordplay—feels mandatory. New kindred spirits can be found, embodied and otherwise. New endeavors can really cook, especially if you put some sweat into them.

Which brings me back to this New York Knickerbockers win. The odds were not in the team’s favor, just like the odds were not initially in Mayor Mamdani’s favor. But they just kept plugging and plugging, and we New Yorkers just kept meeting them halfway. Cheering them on, grooving on their hard work and vision, coining new slogans, until we all were dancing in streets whose potholes had been newly repaired.

I never recommend projecting intentions, however earnest, upon the empty canvas of a new moon. But a lunar cycle initiated by a double dose of the twins and this kind of unlikely win promises to meet you more than halfway whenever you venture past your comfort zone.

So work the steps. Better yet: dance them! Indulge your curiosity, not your ego, listen as much as you talk, keep showing up, and offer a hand to anyone who is offering their own, especially if they need a leg up.

Synchronicity, solidarity, and tenacity are the names of this game.

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.—E.M. Forster

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Something new I’ve been working on in my practice and personal life is healing the future self.

I’m all for healing the past, of course. But in mediation after meditation, I’ve seen that, in addition to visiting painful old stories, we need to show our wounded inner children who they—and we!—could become. To quote Brunson once again: “You’re allowed to think about the worst-case scenario. but then you’ve got to do something about it.”

The lunar cycle beginning tonight is perfect for this kind of re/vision. It launches a mindset that recognizes challenges as opportunities to learn, not evidence of failure, and setbacks as part of the process, not proof that something is irrevocably broken. Best of all, it liberates you to move, step by step, past old mental patterns that have been running your life on autopilot.

To put it tarotically, this a Chariot card moment. Also Temperance card, not to mention Two of Pentacles.

So in addition to talking with everyone else, make time to talk with your future conditional self. With the support of the midsummer spirits on the horizon, it would be my great honor to help you do that—via sessions, Whether Reports, and on this platform.

Now I’m off for the kind of busy-bee day that this time of year makes not only possible but plausible: to the greenmarket, to screen The Muppet Movie with a bevy of NYC children, to Marsha P. with some long-lost pals, and to tune into what promises to be some very rich Ruby Intuition readings.

All along, I’m rooting for your magical selves, past, present and future.

With waggling eyebrows and slow kitty blinks,

Lisa Ruby

P.S. A passage, with apologies, from The Portal of Self-Invention, my latest Flaneuzy essay:

What I desire most is to be pulled toward a future conditional me whom I can’t quite envision yet. Someone who is stronger, smarter, easier in her skin and skills, and fundamentally more set up. Chrono-nomadism as auto-nomination: I’m seeking the self who’s figured out what stymies me still, and is reaching back to make herself come true.

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In today’s podcast, I talk about the problem with “manifestation culture” and the holiness of wonder. It’s no coincidence that this weekend’s blue moon, which emphasizes education and exploration, coincides with the feast of St Mary. She is the queen of radical receptivity, the cure for the toxic incuriosity that separates us from a kinder, more sustainable world.

If you’re interested in enhancing your intuitive abilities or peeking at your path, book an intuitive reading. I’ll tailor your guidance accordingly, just like my teachers did for me.

Sending blue light and slow kitty blinks—

Lisa Ruby

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Hi, doll.

Tomorrow’s full moon is simply not the aggressor we think of when we think of a full moon. Sure, it’s a blue moon— the second full moon in a calendar month—so it’s getting its fair share of press even in non-astrological circles. But it’s also a micro-moon.

Technically, this means the moon is at its farthest point from Earth, which makes it appear smaller and dimmer than it does any other time. Energetically, this means it’s not as dramatic as your standard full moon. Its revelations and releases are no less impactful, but the delivery systems are wonderfully subtle.

It helps that this moon is occurring in Sagittarius while the sun is in Chatty Cathy Gemini. Both signs love exploration, with Saggie zooming out to the big picture and Gemini zooming in on the details. When paired, you better believe we can download the whole story. Even better, we’re primed to delight in learning.

This moment is about tapping into your intuition from a place of curiosity rather than desperation or acquisition. It’s about wonder and wondering. Sitting quietly on a park bench, a porch, or in a meadow, and allowing yourself to go deep on questions you don’t normally take the time to ponder. You know: What are those birds communicating to each other? Why does blue occur so rarely in nature? Is humans consciousness more developed than that of other species, or simply different? And why do we find it acceptable to privilege our species above others?

Something I’ve been struggling with in my personal life and intuitive practice is what I call the “Trump trickle-down effect.” When those running a regime are so unapologetically, unreflectively self-aggrandizing and self-serving, it normalizes a sociopathy that infects all of our thoughts and actions. Even when we mean well, it’s harder to focus on “we” than “I”—to maintain healthy boundaries and to practice compassion—if only because we’re all so strung out.

Fundamentally, it’s harder to get over ourselves.

This translates into our spirituality. I’m not just talking about how profaned Christianity has been by many who ignore what a peace-loving socialist and humanist Christ himself was reported to be. I’m talking about manifestation culture, in which people only acknowledge the divine when asking it for something, whether in temple or, sorry, a full moon circle.

More and more, as a witch and a seer, I feel defeated by this sort of spiritual transactionalism. It strikes me as not only selfish but self-sabotaging to treat the divine as a yes-man. If we only look to the heavens with an a-priori agenda, we are blind to other miracles they are showing us.

The author Anne Lamott is not everyone’s cup of tea—she’s not always mine, though her writing advice is invaluable—but she says something interesting about prayer. To her, it can be distilled to help thanks wow, in which we not only petition for support, but offer gratitude and praise.

Lately, I find that “wow” to be my favorite part of prayer, a true saving grace. Awe is the highest form of praise, and wonder is the most joyful way to transcend our limitations and ego concerns. The act of wondering honors the divine mystery, and it’s to our detriment that it’s largely been stripped from our daily routine in this cortisol-spiked geopolitical moment. The more myopic we become, the less we live in harmony with nature, each other, and our highest selves.

A Sag full moon is always blurty, so this weekend it’s okay to let Lady Luna know what obstacles you need to release. Just also make time to simply ogle her. More than that, take some to learn about whatever delights you.

It’s no coincidence that this blue moon coincides with the feast of St Mary. She is the queen of radical receptivity, the cure for the toxic incuriosity that separates us from a kinder, more sustainable world.

In the light of this lovely full moon, there’s no such thing as too much information.

Old man’s advice to youth: Never lose a holy curiosity.—Albert Einstein

Lest there be any confusion, I am as keen as ever to intuit and unblock your paths in both readings and whether reports, and I’m so honored when you gift a reading to a loved one. Lately, I’ve had a hard time marketing my work, so I’d be especially honored if you spread the word about my practice and this newsletter if you are so inspired. (I’m also looking to build out a new website, if you have any tips or leads in that area!)

But I also am honored to offer greater perspective and tools, and to help you develop your own powers of perception and investigation. The grace granted by looking beyond our own circumstances is always available to us, no matter how much we are struggling.

It is a grace that unfailingly connects us to more grace.

With waggling eyebrows and slow kitty blinks,

Lisa Ruby

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Hi, doll.

Despite the extreme havoc wreaked by the human race, this really is the swooniest time of year. Mid-May is when nature matter-of-factly, miraculously coaxes out the beauty dormant in every living being, platforming its essence on its own terms and in its own time.

It all comes to a head today, when a new moon joins the sun in practical magician Taurus. Like Libra, this sign is ruled by Venus, but while Libra shines surfaces, Taurus works with the root of things—the deep alchemy of soil and sunlight, carbon and oxygen, energy and matter.

There are times when spring’s bounty can be alienating. So many natural blessings abound that it can feel like an ingratitude to ignore them. Yet all this sunshine can highlight painful shadows, losses, and upheaval—like emerging into blinding daylight after days in a darkened room.

Ironically, spring can heal this dissonance, by reminding us that only change doesn’t change, and that it is never all bad. Spring models the power of patience and slow growth—the gifts we receive for soldering through a long winter and for toiling earth for months before glimpsing the first fruit or flower, the regeneration that eventually follows decay. Even when we’ve experienced enormous setbacks, spring shows us with her magnificent blooms and myriad shades of green that there’s always a step forward.

Sometimes I think of these reminders as spiritual GPS. Even in a relentlessly urban environment, nature sends us bread crumbs—sunflowers in sidewalk cracks, doves on fire escapes, secret gardens—to reset our path.

The trick? “Notice what you notice,” as I say in sessions. Taurus highlights the power of radical receptivity, the faith that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This extra something-or-other (whether you call it God or the Multiverse or Allah or Oshun or anything else) threads us together with pollen and oceans and weather fronts and winds and coincidences-that-are-not-coincidences and light-that-is-both-wave-and-particle and jokes that make warring people break down and laugh.

Our five senses are extra-sensory, and we can obtain divine guidance by paying closer attention to what’s right around us.

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it. People think pleasing God is all God cares about. But any fool living in the world can see it is always trying to please us back.”—Alice Walker

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Recently I have received requests for personal-intuition development. This is instruction I am especially glad to offer. We each possess intuition, no matter how much technology and social pressure has tamped it down, and honing these skills connects us to our higher selves and a path to a more harmonious world.

If you’re interested in enhancing your intuitive abilities, simply book an intuitive reading and indicate your interest in the “notes” section of the intake form. I’ll tailor your guidance accordingly, just like my teachers did for me.

Of course, my door is open for any sort of deep-digging, and this time of year lends readings an extra enchantment. Book one for yourself or gift one to a loved one, or purchase a Whether Report for time-sensitive, hyper-specific questions. (If it’s a more over-arching question, I ask you to schedule a reading instead.)

In my practice as well as my personal path, I have observed that nature is always trying to course-correct us. The incentive she offers? The season’s embarrassment of riches.

With waggling eyebrows and slow kitty blinks,

Lisa Ruby

P.S. I was about to press send when a missive sailed in from Ruth Reichl, that grande dame of food writing, someone whose joy has always proved infectious. In it, she shares a story from her wonderful memoir Comfort Me With Apples about the day she introduced her partner of many years, journalist Michael Singer, to M.F.K. Fisher, arguably America’s grandest dame of food writing. Ruth tells Michael: “[Fisher’s work can] make you taste things just by writing about them, but that’s not the point. She actually makes you pay attention to your next meal, feel more alive because you’re doing that. When you read her, you understand that you need to respect yourself enough to focus on the little things of life. She celebrates the everyday by making it seem momentous.” The passage—and the whole story—encapsulates the god-is-in-the-details divination that I wrote about today. It’s all the bittersweeter for its prompt: Michael died last Wednesday. Sending green light to Ruth and everybody else—

In today’s podcast, I talk about how to embrace spring even when that new growth (and pollen) may feel hard to bear. A lot of it has to do with “noticing what you notice,” as I say in sessions. We all possess intuition, no matter how much technology and social pressure has tamped it down, and honing these skills connects us to our higher selves and a path to a more harmonious world.

If you’re interested in enhancing your intuitive abilities, book an intuitive reading and indicate your interest in the “notes” section of the intake form. I’ll tailor your guidance accordingly, just like my teachers did for me.

Lastly, here’s the food writer Ruth Reichl’s substack that I mention.

Sending you green light and slow kitty blinks—

Lisa Ruby

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A few notes: May is a wonderful window in which to clarify callings and deepen roots in Ruby Intuition readings and Whether Reports, which also make wonderful Mother’s Day gifts for the caregivers in your life, including yourself.

And under the heading of “metaphysician, heal thyself,” here is part 1 and part 2 of The Fresh Paint Portal, my long-brewing essay about a tesseract to 1980 Massachusetts with my silent-generation mother and sci-fi first love. Some might argue it deserves trigger warnings, but I assure you it is a labor of love.

Just like you.

Sending big butterfly kisses—

Lisa Ruby

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