Mercury's retrograde always proffers strange crossings. Tangling us in language and tech snafu that raises questions and hides easy answers. Changing course and altering propulsion so we move as if in a dream. Conjuring the past, breaching the surface glass we have cultivated to disguise our denizens of the deep. All in the service of a slow dance through our life to date, its revision calling wisdom to our own little boat.

Make no mistake about it darklings, this week reeks of rebirth as the past, present and future intermingle sans frontiers. Between Merc's planetary pinballing, his retrograde and cazimi and a whole new lunar year with the ultra Aquarian new moon, the end of this week won't remotely look or feel like its beginning.

Venus has made an elegant swan dive from the heady heights of Aquaria into Pisces, the water embracing its queen of stars like a lover. In doing so the stellium wanes and its rampant revolution cleaves to our deepest emotional currents in search of treasure.

Venus in her twin skin arrives at a crucial juncture in her retrograde today. Our lady of love is reborn through the heart of the sun in Gemini as our collective shadows finally catch the light. So may we eclipse our old ways and means in tandem with our lady of love as she transitions from evening star to morning star, bringing her significant blessing to new dawns everywhere.

A shout out and a salutation to my shadow dancers, old and new. I see you. Diving to unexplored outer reaches in search of buried treasure and fresh currents. Whose courage crackles and arcs even when the tides are strong and the crossing asks for confronting new medicine.

I see you. Your shadow lit from within and curling about you like a glittering shroud. Your eyes bright and clearer. Your bones shifted by the work. Your face taking a fresh shape.

Already we arrive by the sabbat, solitary witches turning things over in heavy heads and blessed empty rooms. Sifting and sorting and crafting fresh sense, as the wheel creaks and rolls over.

Pluto as first cab off the retrograde rank for his annual half year sojourn to the underworld is shadow o'clock. No matter what your idea of that means. Despite naysayers and bypassers and the love and light show, I remain devoted to the dark and to our shadows. Our soul's job here is not only to scarper higher, as much as to learn by digging down deeper into ourselves.

Though the past six months or more have given us cause to cultivate our resting WTF face, the past six weeks have really knocked it out of the park. Today brace yourself and your Mona Lisa smile for fresh shockwaves as two of our key planetary players invoke the kind of radical manoeuvres that engender more than just a ripple in the matrix.

Though the tidal pull has been deep and dark it has served its holy purpose, permitting us to scrub off the scourge of the old world and our uneasy place in it. Unsustainable living and PPE that ignored the greater good are so last year. The new moon in Taurus arrives as invitation and invocation alike. It is past time to break new ground as we each plant ourselves anew in a rebirthing earth.

As the dark descends, so too the peculiar melancholia. The swinging weight of this manic month drawling to a close. Neither our singular selves nor their many shadows desire the dance, as the dark moon draws the buried truth out into the barely there twilight. We stare blankly at its mass on the floor. The air is languid and heavily pregnant with transition, almost a day's labour away.

Most every dark moon I leave a photo of a dreamy bolthole here, a fantasy escape from the every day hustle and grind in which to rest and renew. But this is not life as we know it and the last lunar cycle has been one for the history books. Not one of us has escaped its impact, adjustment or shocking upset to our applecarts.

Taurus season always arrives like a balm, a field of belonging we can sink deeply into no matter which way our year and world has spun. That has never been more true than this ride around the sun. As he crosses the border from an incendiary Aries season that saw the old world burn, the earthy grounding of the little bull's playing field proffers welcome relief and good grounding.

There are three things that have always soothed my soul, no matter how my head is rolling or my heart is crooning. The first is the ocean. She is never the same girl twice. I love her wild storms as much as her glittering glassy calm. The second is birds and their signature songs. Winged creatures are my allies and friends. The final and always most effective at settling understanding into me is to write.

After a rather average week of challenging astrology, a global pandemic and isolation blues, I am in just the mood for a let loose with my witches!

Our inaugural coven cocktail party this Friday evening AEST will be a rollicking delight.