Drought, women’s rights, and this week’s astrology have me pondering a curious connection
I read recently that the ancient Celtic people associated the goddess with all forms of water: streams, rivers, lakes, rain, the ocean, and more. This got me thinking about our current drought — and all the weirdness going on around women’s rights now.
Did you ever think our right to vote would come into question? I sure didn’t.
If I’ve learned anything these last many years, it’s that everything is always up for grabs. Nothing holds fast. We are constantly changing for the better or worse. Nowadays, we seem to be spinning backward at a rapid pace in pretty much every social area, women’s equality included.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I look at astrology, and really the world around us, as reflections of the energetic pool in which we’re all swimming. Given the drought, it seems to me more like a lack thereof.
Extreme weather, extreme views, extreme polarization — they’re all happening at once. When I learned that the earliest Celts associated water with the sacred feminine, I couldn’t help but notice the symbolism.
Here in the West, we’re way past dehydrated. Meanwhile, women’s roles are once again being debated, while the toxic manosphere tells us rape and sexual assault aren’t really that big a deal — or worse, that somehow, we’re to blame for the violence committed against us. They seem hell-bent on dragging us back, by our hair, into some delusional “glory” days when women knew our place and white men reigned supreme. Oh wait, has the latter evaporated at all?
The weather and women’s rights — coincidence? — probably, but connections don’t have to be causal to make me wonder.
If water represented the sacred feminine, what does it say that so much of our landscape is drying up at the same time we’re devaluing qualities traditionally associated with the feminine — inclusion, empathy, kindness, caring, intuition, receptivity?
Devaluing the feminine doesn’t just hurt women. It impoverishes men, women, and those who don’t identify as either. It debases our culture as a whole. We all need these qualities, and we all suffer when they dry up.
Maybe Mother Earth has simply had enough, which makes this week’s astrology especially interesting because the feminine is all over Thursday’s sky.
The moon meets the sun for the Virgo new moon, beginning our next monthly lunar cycle. Virgo is associated with the ancient priestess, or perhaps druid, since we’re getting all Celtic with it here. She focuses on the Earth as the goddess she serves. She sits in stillness, watching and attuning herself to the movements and cycles of the land. Virgo reminds us of the spiritual nature of the Earth, guiding us to honor our intuition and inner feminine.
What would happen if we did more of that? Instead of trying to dominate the earth and control one another, what if we got quiet enough to listen at this new moon?
Venus is also part of Thursday’s girl boss party. She enters Scorpio, a water sign of intense emotions, which thrives in the unconscious and what we hide from ourselves — trademark female realms.
Venus represents the divine feminine, the goddess herself. She’ll stay in Scorpio until January, with a dip back into Libra when she turns retrograde later this fall. This lengthy stay in one sign shows us we’re approaching the end of the current 19-month Venus cycle. Soon she’ll pass between the Earth and Sun and reappear in the morning sky in November.
Look for the last crescent moon and Venus meeting in the evening sky Friday and Saturday nights. The next time we’ll see them together, they’ll be greeting us from the early morning sky in December.
I know my curious little drought theory has holes. Some parts of the world have way too much water falling all at once. Maybe that’s part of the symbolism — too little here, too much there, a ****system that is wildly out of balance.
Also on Thursday, Uranus, the sidewinder planet of change, turns retrograde in Gemini. And Mercury, our planet of thinking, enters Libra, the sign focused on knowing oneself through relationships.
That’s a whole lot of energetic movement packed into one Thursday. Rather than trying to keep up with all of it, I think I’ll take my cue from the feminine: slow down, turn inward, pay attention to the earth beneath my feet, and listen — maybe even pray for rain, and soon, snow.
Sheridan
Moon Sisters Circle, Astrology for Real Life Coaching, and Astrologer