New Moon: 'The Soft Animal of Your Body'

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Mary Oliver

The New Moon on April 27, 2025, at 8 Taurus

beckons us to feel

the rhythms of the earth

so that we rediscover

what stabilizes our focus,

and nurtures inner peace

to settle us into

our soul's knowing. 

We are invited to give generous attention our body and our most basic needs: food, air, sleep, love… By finding the pathway to connect with the ‘soft animal of our body’ and come home to ourselves, we can then ground and create a viable plan for the the dreams and passion awakening within us. We can successfully move forward if we are connected, not disassociated from or in denial, of our body and humanity. Beauty comes if we can we slow down and be intentional about what we value, what we wish to grow and where we direct our attention.

Here, at the end of April 2025, we find ourselves in a space, much like a clearing in a forest, that lies between the recent weeks which are marked by intensity and change, and on the other side of the clearing,  a dynamic fast-moving fiery period that will soon appear later in May. We are afforded this window of time to integrate the journey that began last December as we contemplated aspects of our life ripe for change (three Pluto/Mars oppositions; the Mars, Venus and Mercury Retrogrades; and the recent March eclipses).  A lot is stirring in our mind, psyche and heart as we adjust and move with the intensity, adjustments, and new realities, as old ways of operating falling away.

New Moon Ruler: Venus conjunct Saturn, Neptune, North Node sextile Uranus

Alpha Stars: Schedar and Hamal conjoin the New Moon

Mars oppose Pluto in waning square to the New Moon

The Invitation

Oh do you have time

to linger

for just a little while

out of your busy

and very important day

for the goldfinches

that have gathered

in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,

to see who can sing

the highest note,

or the lowest,

or the most expressive of mirth,

or the most tender?

Their strong, blunt beaks

drink the air

as they strive

melodiously

not for your sake

and not for mine

and not for the sake of winning

but for sheer delight and gratitude—

believe us, they say,

it is a serious thing

just to be alive

on this fresh morning

in this broken world.

I beg of you,

do not walk by

without pausing

to attend to this

rather ridiculous performance.

It could mean something.

It could mean everything.

It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:

You must change your life.

Mary Oliver

The New Moon is the optimal time each month to set an intention for what we want to manifest over the next month. There is 24-hour window after the exact moment of the New Moon when the Moon is still dark and not visible in the night sky. This is the time to plant the seed that we will nurture and grow in the weeks that follow. The annual Taurus New Moon is an optimal time to ground the dreams and enthusiasm that has been stirring in recent months and create concrete actions to bring realize what we want to create this year. This year, there is an added invitation to connect with nature, our body, the ground and the sensual experience of earthly life.

Taurus follows Aries. Earth signs follow Fire signs, affording us the opportunity to stabilize and give form to the enthusiasm and inspiration of what the fire time sparked.  The Taurus New Moon marks a shift where the fires of spring calm down and rather than continuing the energy of rapid growth, we look at how to slow down and manage sustainable growth. With fire, we capitalize on the enthusiasm of the moment, but with earth we take a long-term view and look to defining goals and the commitment it will take to meet them. We are now encouraged to realistically assess where we are, acknowledge what we have learned in recent months, and create intentionality for how we will approach rest of the year. There are new things we want to develop or create. By dedicating ourselves to the values and definitions of what we we wish to grow, we strengthen our capacity for patience, tenacity and steadfastness to see our dream realized.

Taurus is an Earth Sign and in the Taurus season (April 22 to May 22) the pace of life slows down as we look to ground ourselves and what we are wanting to create  The value for stability and security take hold in our psyche. We want to move forward with plans, but we don’t want to miss the pleasure of the journey to get where we imagine we are going. We look to savor the touch of another or the feel of soft material against our skin, to revel in the sound of the music or in the leaves rustling through the breeze, to be visually stimulated by the beauty of nature, by candlelight or great art, and to take our time to enjoy the flavors of the food we elect to eat.  We wish to honor and tend to the physical – this includes our bodies, our material wellbeing, and the stability of the life we have or are creating for ourselves.

The Swan

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?

Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air –

An armful of white blossoms,

A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned

into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,

Biting the air with its black beak?

Did you hear it, fluting and whistling

A shrill dark music – like the rain pelting the trees – like a waterfall

Knifing down the black ledges?

And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds –

A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet

Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?

And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?

And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?

And have you changed your life?

– Mary Oliver 

The poetry of Mary Oliver came to mind as I contemplated the Taurus New Moon. In many of her poems, she encounters the natural world and finds within it a reflection of something that reveals to her something about her own life and humanity. The Taurus New Moon reminds us that amid the intensity of the times we live in we ‘only have to let the soft animal of our body love what it loves.’

Every now and again I come upon or seek out Oliver’s poem, “Wild Geese” and each reading of it nourishes and reminds me of something I have forgotten in the whirl of life. I found myself seeking out this poem now while I mulled over what to write for the Taurus New Moon. As I reread this poem, I remembered a story from my life that illustrates the New Moon opportunity, and this story (retold below), reminded me of another of Oliver's poem’s: “The Swan.” As with many of her poems, there is an encounter nature told in exquisite detail. And then, just as I am drawn into the detail of the experience, she surprisingly and beautifully brings the encounter back to a realization about the human experience.

A Personal Story to Illuminate the New Moon Invitation

In the wake of September 11, 2001, I was at a retreat center a couple hours outside New York City. I was co-leading a creativity conference that had been planned a year before and promoted for more than six months. Coming into September, we had roughly 250 people registered, but in the week following 9/11 another 250 people signed up for the conference. They were all coming from New York, coming for a week where they could feel, grieve, create, possess, integrate and orient themselves to what had just taken place for them personally, had happened at the heart of their city and to their country.

The events of 9/11 had impacted everyone who came to the conference and many had stories of trauma and events that seemed implausible or surreal.  While the substance of what we engaged with each other was shaped and influenced by 9/11 and what the participants brought with them, how we had them engage with it was not altered by the circumstances or the intensity of emotions and trauma being presented. Those of us leading the conference had used creativity as  a tool for therapy, for expression, for discovering meaning and for creating a sense of personal wholeness. We believed in the power of making art and so we simply stood by our belief that creativity was an ample and worthy vehicle to provide the container and means to process and support the participants as they moved with and through the trauma.

The retreat center was located on several hundred acres of forest that sat high on a hill overlooking a lake that was surrounded by mountains on all sides. During a long lunch break, several days into the weeklong conference, I elected to step out in the welcoming landscape and take a long walk into the lush hills and vegetation of the Berkshires mountains. The walk gave me time to be by myself, have distance from people and and immerse myself in the beauty and harmony of nature.

Staring my walk, I was aware my body was still feeling the shock of what had happened in New York City compounded by the personal stories I had heard over the last days. One person had been trapped in a subway beneath the World Trade Center overnight. Another had walked out on her apartment balcony to see what was all the commotion happening blocks from her home, only to have body parts (fingers, toes, a piece of a scalp) rein down on her. Another had a friend who was in one of the airplanes that crashed into the building. Another who was downtown, found herself crawling on all fours towards the water, as she could not breathe the ash and dust that filled the air. I was staying in the home of a friend who had been in a building across from the Twin Towers when the airplanes crashed into them, and had hid inside his building for hours only to find himself walking shin deep in ash trying to find a subway or way out of the city. My psyche was having a difficult time absorbing and wrapping its head around all that had happened, the implications of what had happened, and the impact it had on me and my country.

Yet, as I walked amongst the birches and pines, the sycamores, butternut and beech trees, my breathing and mind began to soften. The beauty and stillness of the surrounding natural landscape was calming me. I began to relax into my body. I began to drink in the sapphire blue of the sky and feel the cool breeze gently caressing my face. The dirt path I walked was lined with a lush groundcover of ferns. I noticed a grasshopper resting on a green frond, and then listened to the distant sound of a woodpecker. The jumble of thoughts in my head was dissipating as I gave myself to what occurring directly in front of and around me. As I did this, my senses, my mind and my life came into focus, the focus of the current moment.

Then, as I descended down the slope of a hill, the breadth of the green valley below came into view. My gaze rested on something in the valley that had me come to a full stop. It was like the whole world stopped, as I became arrested by something entirely unexpected.

In the center of the valley floor, a moose stood quietly munching on tall grass. The Moose's presence and demeanor was commanding and majestic. It was as if the entire mountain bowed low to this Moose. But while the presence of the Moose was remarkable, this was not what arrested by attention and had me come to a full stop – physically, mentally, emotionally. Time and movement ceased in the face of something I was struggling to process. 

The Moose emanated a deep sense of peace. At home in the valley, leisurely munching on grass, there was no sense of alarm - no sense that anything was out of place, out of sorts. And in a flash, it dawned on me that the Moose had no idea of what had happened 100 miles away in New York City, or the trauma being processed not far from that valley. Here, I was feeling how the whole world had been shook by the events of 9/11, but that world did not include the Moose. The Moose’s world lay untouched. As obvious as this may seem to some reading this, for me, at that time, it was shocking.

I became so immersed in the experience of the Moose, one could say I entered the dream of the Moose. I felt the world as the Moose feels the world. There was a feeling of wellbeing. Everything was in order and not only was everything okay in the world, the world was safe. There was a deep sense of peace and belonging. The world was his and he was part of the world. And I felt that the world was also mind and I was part o the world.

In the dream and mind of the Moose, the world gave me all I needed: air to breathe, water to drink, a field of grass to eat. The world was a place of abundance and ease. There was no need to strive, no need to look forward or behind me. The present moment held my attention and all I could ever need. In this dream, the events of the World Trade Center seemed distant, not connected to this moment, and were only a fraction, a very small part, of the fullness of my experience. What had occurred in New York City suddenly did not overwhelm and flood my awareness. It was no longer the whole of my experience. I suddenly had the means to hold it within the fullness of the whole of the world and with the perspective of my soul's knowing and connection to all that is.

Sleeping in the Forest

I thought the earth remembered me,

she took me back so tenderly,

arranging her dark skirts, her pockets

full of lichens and seeds.

I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,

nothing between me and the white fire of the stars

but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths

among the branches of the perfect trees.

All night I heard the small kingdoms

breathing around me, the insects,

and the birds who do their work in the darkness.

All night I rose and fell, as if in water,

grappling with a luminous doom. By morning

I had vanished at least a dozen times

into something better.

Mary Oliver

One after another person in the conference had a similar revelation while spending time in nature. I remember one New Yorker who had arrived with a heightened level of unrest and upset. Then one morning, several days in, I saw her smiling and for the first time interacting with others in a light and social way. At one point, she raised her hand and asked to share with everyone what had happened to her.

She said that she had only gotten one or two hours sleep on any given night since the World Trade Center fell. And so, the previous night, she decided to get out of bed, put some clothes on, and go lay on the lawn outside. Laying on the ground, she looked up at the stars. Over the time she lay there, she observed them slowly rotating towards the west. She became absorbed in the movements of the cosmos. Watching them it occurred to her that from the perspective of the solar system or the galaxy, our planet is but a speck, if visible at all. That what was happening in New York was not the whole universe. In fact, the universe may not even be aware of what is happening in that one small place on a small planet that revolved around what is perhaps a minor star. The universe is much more vast and encompassing than any one event occurring in one place in time.  And so, she opened to a larger perspective in which to view what she had experienced and was trying to process.  Its as if, by opening her view to the whole universe, the events that seemed so overwhelming, became something that could be held and were no longer larger than what she could process.  

For the woman who lay under the stars, she opened to the universe. For me, it was a moose. Either way, by engaging in the divine harmony and presence of nature, we both encountered the small animal of our body. We both realized that we are part of something larger than ourselves and all that we believe is overwhelming or so very important does not need to take over every corner of our being. Even in the midst of intensity, the beauty of the world only a step, a breath away. The eternal presence of the creational world can absorb and hold and not be diminished by whatever intensity or drama or fear or change happening within it. We can always find a flower blooming or a river flowing or a bird singing or the sun painting the sky red at sunset, or….The world is always here to hold us no matter what we are experiencing. And isn’t this remarkable!

The last evening together, the participants had time to share what they had created - a poem, a painting, a dance. They each had taken something chaotic and incomprehensible and turned it into art. I suppose it was a way of taking lemons and making lemonade. Or a way of taking something that made no sense and creating a way to lift it into something that had symmetry, design and carried a message. People began to find meaning, a perspective in which to hold what they had been through. Through the act of creating, they had come back themselves.

The final morning of the conference, the participants had arrived in the conference room early and were interacting with each other as in an intimate and playful way. They had been through and supported each other through much that week and had become a family with each other.

The leader of another conference happening elsewhere in the retreat center entered our room because in need of something housed in our room. I walked up to her asking how I could help her, but for the next moments she did not respond to me. She simply stood, her eyes fixated on the activity in the room much as I had stood fixated on the Moose.

She finally stated, "Everyone hear seems joyful." I nodded. She then said, "Its also the final morning of our program, and people are still in trauma. In our conference room, people are crying and holding each other, some are withdrawn. I am not sure how to end the program. Everyone is still an open wound. But I don't see the same intensity, the same fractured-ness with your participants. What happened? What did you do?" I responded, "We had them create." It was the act of creating that opened them to nature and their connection to something larger than themselves and their own personal experience.

So, being in nature is one way to integrate and come back to ourselves, but so is being able to express, to make art of what we are feeling and thinking. It may not seem productive, or translate into how bills will be paid, or what will directly further our career, but it will nurture our psyche, our soul and the small animal of our body. Being creative is different for each one of us. It can be gardening or cooking in the kitchen. It can be the creation of a poem or a painting, or it could be simply turning on music and dancing.

Don't Hesitate

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,

don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty

of lives and whole towns destroyed or about

to be. We are not wise, and not very often

kind. And much can never be redeemed.

Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this

is its way of fighting back, that sometimes

something happens better than all the riches

or power in the world. It could be anything,

but very likely you notice it in the instant

when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the

case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid

of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

Mary Olivier

Challenges and Changes

Yes, of course, there is intensity happening with the New Moon that we are to move with in a generative, not in a destructive way or in a way where we bury our head in the sand.  But, given the nature of this New Moon, I will speak to it briefly , but not delve into it.  Instead, I feel compelled to tell stories to quicken the connection to ourselves – to our inner child, to the small animal of our body and to the eternal nature of our soul. Stories are great for that!

With everything heating up in our life and in the life of the collective, we each need a little cooling, a little calming down. There is benefit over the next couple weeks to let all the worldly concerns and issues occasionally become like back noise - at least for a short time each day. Perhaps we can step away from the urgency and the attention the pressing issues demand of us, and find the way to encounter our body, the natural world. We can find ways to indulge and enjoy our senses. In doing this, we can discover a fresh perspective on how to meet and develop a plan for issues and goals that call for action.

As stated in multiple newsletters over recent months, we are in a year of significant endings and changes. We may be saying goodbye to people, activities, even dreams we had hoped would bear fruit (Saturn, Venus, North Node in Pisces). The end of April, we are just emerging from the eclipse season and a series of Retrogrades involving the personal planets. In many ways we are on overload with what we need to face and integrate, but before we move into an accelerated time of bold action and courageous declarations (Aries season which has Saturn Neptune, Venus and Mercury joining the Sun in Aries), lets find a way to relax into ourselves and feel ourselves part of the family of creation, where we can get our bearings, find our place, and better navigate the road ahead.  

The third and final Mars/Pluto opposition exact yesterday in a waning square the New Moon. We are feeling challenged to adjust to realizations and new developments. Life may feel like a pressure cooker and we may feel compelled to take bold action or respond to someone else's power play. But cultivating a calmness and slowing down the response time, can help us not react in the heat of the moment, but come from a centered, intentional place.

There, that is all I am going to say about challenges and changes facing us. There will be plenty of time the rest of the year to bring these themes front and center. Now...for more stories - for stories are the language of the soul.

Maybe you are searching for something that only exists in the roots. Rumi

Drawing on the Gifts of the Sacred Feminine & Sacred Masculine

Schedar and Cassiopeia Conjoin the New Moon

There are two 2nd magnitude Alpha stars highlighted at the New Moon. A 2nd magnitude star is can easily be spotted in the night sky (as long as we are not in a heavily lit area, like a city).  An alpha star is the the primary, often brightest, star within a constellation.

The New Moon features two very different alpha stars. One speaks of a feminine way of leading and approaching life. The other, the masculine. It is less about identifying with one over the other, and more about cultivating and drawing the strengths from both the feminine and masculine within our own nature.

Hamal: Heroic Action of the Sacred Masculine

Hamal, the Forehead of the Ram, is a forceful star of action and independence. Its presence encourages us to use a strength of will to exercise steadfastness, patience, and tenacity. We are to seize the moment, act and not wait to embrace opportunities that present themselves. It favors striking while the iron is hot. The presence of Hamal encourages us to be assertive and focused in setting the course to achieve our endeavors. 

Hamal, as an expression of the divine masculine, favors action to solve problems, inspiring the cultivation of strength and focus. If this energy is not harnessed and directed, it can become frustration or anger. Connected to the Taurus Moon, patience and for sustained, hard work is sought after. Hamal helps us to create the plans that result from the clarity and connections we make at this time.  In light of the New Moon, our plan is to incorporate the wisdom of how to forward at a pace that is sustainable and allows us to remain centered within ourselves - connected to our natural rhythms.

Schedar: Healing the Feminine Intuitive Wisdom of how we are all Connected

The fixed star Schedar is the Breast of the Queen. The alpha star in the constellation of Cassiopeia, the queen is seated on her throne. but seated upside down, tied to her chair. In Greek mythology she is being punished and humiliated for boasting that she was more beautiful than the water nymphs. Greek mythology emerged during the rise of patriarchy and male deities attaining dominance. As they assimilated the earlier goddess-centered traditions, they had a tendency to chain or swallow or subdue the divine feminine.

Yet, Cassiopeia carries within her whispers of an ancient nobility and feminine wisdom. She is imbued with a feminine leadership that incorporates intuition and mysticism. She imbues us with the power to pursue a noble cause, to exude dignity and exercise our power with the empathy and a value for treating others as we would wish to be treated. In reclaiming the sacred feminine, we remember that we are all part of the family of creation and that our actions are in service to something larger than ourselves. And just as Schedar is the goddess' breast, we are to identify with that noble cause that we look to nurture, protect and mother into its potential full bloom. And then with support of Hamal, the divine masculine, we can take clear and assertive action to ensure a successful outcome.

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Experiential Astrology

Saturday, May 17, 2025

1:00 - 4:00 pm

New Studio of Dance

20 Commerce Street, Asheville

$75

$60 (Early Bird Special extended to 4/30)

This in-person workshop will assist you in

• bringing your birth chart to life in your body, voice and heart.

• listening to and responding to the wisdom of your body

• moving in a beautiful way withing this time of transformative change

• gaining insight into how how the outer planets Saturn and Neptune are expressing themselves in your life as they change from Pisces to Aries.

 Healing Theatre techniques, developed by Liv Woodford will be used to help you embody and express elements of your birth chart.

 Class size will be limited to create an environment of support and participation.

Register Now!

For the early bird discount, enter Promo Code EMBODY

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