2023 modified me. It rearranged and reconfigured me. I’ve a brand new title, and a brand new orientation to the world. I’m me, plus one other me.

Final 12 months, Sonya and I welcomed our first baby into the world. I’m nonetheless Chani, however I’m now additionally ima (mother in Hebrew). Largely this new mother or father me is gooey-er inside. I’m much less cynical and fewer desirous of holding grudges. I’m extra conscious of the fleeting nature of time, I’ve approach much less FOMO, I’m extra versatile (a brand new survival ability), I really feel extra gratitude for what I’ve, and I’m rather more prepared to disregard drama and get on with the immense privilege of having fun with my life. I keep in mind extra (about my previous) and neglect much more (in regards to the conferences I’m presently alleged to be in). Life is now a joyful chaos.

I didn’t know that Sonya and I shared a soulmate that we had but to fulfill till the little cutie obtained right here. We take a look at photos of our baby each night time as soon as they’ve gone to mattress. We watch movies of them from a few months in the past and cry about how a lot development has occurred. I present images of them to anybody who remains to be for lengthy sufficient. They’re each my lock display and my residence display. I’ve changed into that individual.

So, expensive reader, this new weekly publication comes at a time that finds me re-introducing myself to myself, to my complete life, and to you.

Additionally, I’m rusty. I haven’t printed something since January of 2022 — and even then, it had been six months since I had written to you. To say that it was difficult to place the writer-to-the-people a part of my identification on maintain at the moment can be an understatement. My profession, and this firm, have been constructed on the inspiration of that a part of my work. I wrote to you within the type of horoscopes and New and Full Moon musings for over a decade. You learn (a few of) it, I listened to (quite a lot of) the way it landed for you, and I discovered the way to specific myself, forgive myself, work diligently, articulate my ideas in regards to the extremely tough collective instances we lived by way of, and stumble by way of self-doubt and imposter syndrome, and thru all of it, we had one another. Human to human struggling by way of this difficult world and life collectively. It was one of the vital satisfying and fulfilling relationships of my maturity and one of many biggest items of my life.

After which it ended.

Properly, it’s extra that issues shifted. We launched the CHANI app and I had begun recording a lot for it that the time it took to put in writing to you was eaten up. That and I needed to learn to rent individuals, run an organization, and develop into all that required of me. It was a steep studying curve. I failed rather a lot. I discovered rather a lot. And I didn’t sleep rather a lot.

I considered explaining why my written work had vanished, however I didn’t know when or how I’d come again, so I wasn’t certain what to say. I felt ashamed that I had stopped. Like so many ladies who run firms, I felt like I ought to be capable of do all of it: launch an app; determine the way to run an organization; report weekly readings, podcasts, and meditations; write 1000’s of phrases to you every month; learn to get on the godforsaken TikTok practice; and so on.

In the long run, I needed to admit to myself that it was unattainable. I handed the horoscope and different astrological writings off to the extremely proficient staff of astrology writers that we’d employed and obtained on with issues. However I’ve missed you. I’ve missed us. Now, I’m excited to see how this new alternate will land and develop and evolve.

So, welcome to our new collection. In these Monday musings, we’ll be unpacking the astrology of the second (with rather a lot extra brevity than this — I promise), the way it’s touchdown on the earth, and the way we’d work with its potential. We’ll even be sharing issues we love — like what we’re studying, listening to, and dealing on.

A Full Moon in Leo reverse Pluto in Aquarius

For our first foray into this format, I’m supposed to put in writing in regards to the upcoming Full Moon in Leo, however I’d be remiss to not point out Pluto’s latest transfer into Aquarius as nicely. It’s mere game-changing, era-defining astrology, so this must be quick and candy. 

Whereas we’ve lined how Pluto in Aquarius will affect you personally in your Yr Forward readings, sign-specific Guidebooks, and Present Sky horoscopes, I wish to speak about what I feel it’s reflecting again to us on this second.

Pluto has been dancing between Capricorn and Aquarius for the final 10 months, with its first entrance into Aquarius in March 2023, so this re-entrance is a return to themes we’ve been launched to already. As a result of Pluto takes so lengthy to orbit the Solar (about 248 years, give or take), it spends an infinite period of time in every signal (wherever from a dozen or so to 3 decades-ish… it has a really eccentric orbit). Because of this its entrance into a brand new signal is a giant deal.

What’s Pluto and what does it imply when it’s in Aquarius?

Pluto is, above all, a planet that has come to represent the underworld journeys all of us should take, each personally and collectively. It additionally represents the features of life that go unchecked, develop into corrupt, and get obscured or denied. What’s subterranean is commonly laborious to take care of and terribly horrifying to our egos (and typically simply plain horrifying for good cause). However along with the creepy crawling issues that stay underground, there are worthwhile assets hidden below the earth.

There’s gold in these hills.

In all underworld myths, the protagonist should face lots of their fears with a view to attain a treasure — a gem or different worthwhile that represents their true nature. One ordeal after one other have to be received or overcome, rendering the principle character modified eternally. It’s the hell we should undergo to reclaim some forgotten or unintegrated side of self or life. It’s the lair of our private dragons, our shadow selves, and if we’re sensible sufficient to take this chance for what it’s, it’s a place that awakens us to our energy by way of a reunification of opposites inside.

When Pluto pulls focus, prefer it does when it adjustments indicators, we all know that we’re going to be challenged by the complexities of the subterranean worlds we’ve been referred to as to enter — however we additionally know there’s a energy there to reclaim, and that’s our essential activity.

The horrors of abuse, abandonment, and neglect that we’ve skilled, been a part of, been complacent to, or been unaware of have to be met and witnessed, and their that means built-in if we would like the gold (non secular and psychological renewal) awaiting us within the underworld.

In Aquarius, Pluto displays the ability of the collective. It brings technological advances that affect us as a complete and alter the character of how we stay. If we rewind 248 years or so to the final time Pluto was in Aquarius, we discover a world in revolt and a groundswell of individuals demanding a brand new world order. The American and French Revolutions have been underway and the Industrial Revolution was in full swing. Social upheaval was the order of the day, as was a reckoning of who had energy and why.

Consider the indicators because the fashion inside which the planet does its job. Aquarius’ fashion is to be forward-thinking, modern, indifferent, and visionary. It’s a signal that’s targeted on the collective slightly than the person. Ever the mental, Aquarius likes to be the outsider, the anti-celebrity. It could slightly be on the margins than on the heart. Its energy lies in its skill to grasp the techniques of the world it inhabits. It’s a signal that has a distant and indifferent way of living. Gaining perspective from the problems it desires to grasp is its expertise.

The spiral of Pluto’s dance has introduced us again to the identical a part of the zodiac that it was in within the late 1700s, however we’re (hopefully) completely different. The world appears as soon as once more prepared for revolution, however whose revolution will or not it’s? Whereas lots of individuals have been a part of an rebellion that’s unwilling to just accept settler colonialism’s illogic and inhumane circumstances demanding (as a primary step) a ceasefire in Gaza, many too are rallying round a wannabe dictator right here in America.

The loss of life toll in Gaza continues to rise to unfathomable heights and consultants imagine that extra Palestinians will die from hunger and illness than airstrikes within the coming months. The dimensions of the humanitarian crises, not to mention the non secular and ethical deficit that this genocide will lead to, is untold.

As Pluto settles into Aquarius, these collective tensions will mount, little question. Not as a result of the planets make issues occur, however as a result of they mirror the a part of the story that we’re in. And whereas we don’t want the planets to inform us that we’re in an extremely necessary a part of our collective story, the context is one way or the other calming.

Enter the Full Moon in Leo.

Alongside Pluto’s re-entrance into Aquarius, let’s imagine that the Full Moon in Leo on January twenty fifth is an exceptionally minor astrological occasion. Nonetheless, it occurs a mere 5 days after Pluto’s shift, and within the signal reverse Aquarius. In some ways, this occasion (though momentary) provides us the opposite facet of the polarity. The place Aquarius dons the fashion of the freak on the periphery of society, Leo takes heart stage.

This Full Moon is in a detailed opposition to Pluto, that means the strain between the collective and the person is heightened, together with the necessity for the ego to serve one thing larger than itself and our must reckon with the truth that we stay in a world that promotes cycles of perpetual violence.

The sunshine of this Moon will highlight the depths of Pluto’s underworld, and with it, we’ll get a glimpse of how our particular person illumination can expose the ills that metastasize there.

How do we discover our approach by way of the labyrinth of all of the unintegrated features of the human psyche that litter the halls of energy? How will we shine our mild so it could expose the evils of this world — not solely how they manifest outwardly, but additionally how we too develop into part of their operate? How can we each condemn and interrupt what’s inhumane, but additionally restore the vitality spent again to a worthwhile state? Who or what could possibly be the bridge to a extra built-in, much less fragmented sense of who we’re as a collective of people?

Certainly taking part in or standing by and watching genocides happen isn’t who we aspire to be.

We can’t be naive to the work that this type of shift entails. It takes an extremely sturdy sense of self to take a look at the world’s hellscapes and refuse to dehumanize anybody inside it. No fragile personas can stand up to the stress cookers that this alchemy requires. No flimsy, hole sense of self can survive the humiliations that these life classes serve up. No love-and-light or hopes-and-prayers politics will get us there. After we stay shallowly, we buckle below societal stress. We blame and disgrace others as a result of we will’t deal with the truth that now we have inside us the potential to be all of it — a blessing and a curse to the remainder of the residing world.

A direct and everlasting ceasefire have to be enacted, help have to be delivered to the struggling, and Gaza have to be given the time, house, and assets to heal. And a lot extra. And there may be deeper work right here that many people should do with a view to truly finish all occupations, genocides, and apartheid states, bodily and psychologically. The transformation can’t be floor degree, it can’t stay a slogan, it can’t be optics, it can’t be a rebrand. The revolution we’d like needs to be inside in addition to exterior with a view to finish the devastation that every one techniques of supremacy lead us towards. 

That is the time to take significantly the cultural shifts we would like and have to be part of, and decide to the work of sticking with the method. It received’t be fairly or straightforward, it received’t be easy, neat, or concise, however it’s what the world wants from us now.

By no means miss a memo.

Join our publication and get Chani’s letters in your inbox.