Sagittarius Full Moon

Wike a dweam wifin a dweam, the month of June was named after Juno, the Roman goddess of marriage. Considered to be a moon goddess herself, she was a light bringer and a champion of justice for women, something I think we could all use a little more of considering our bodily autonomy is being argued in a court of law right now. Hera to the Greek, it makes sense that June would be the traditional month for marriages. Juno married her brother Jupiter, the king of the gods, thus becoming the archetypal mother that symbolically gave birth to a new year. She measured the turn of the year via the changing lunar cycles, centering her around themes of youth, pregnancy, and child-rearing. Juno is the epitome of our feminine nature.

Sagittarius is ruled by the planet Jupiter, the god of the sky and lightening. He was Zeus to the Greek before the Romans stole all of their gods and renamed them in their own light. Funny enough, the more I learn about Christianity, the more I realize that most of the things we worship there were stolen from other religions and cultures. Just like us white folks, stealing shit from someone else and not coming up with them on our own. Cultural appropriation at it’s finest! At least in these older ideologies, women were more equal to men than our current Western society. They were goddesses in their own rights, and so are we really when you get down to it. You know? Underneath all the oppression.

Using Your Voice

Sagittarius is my rising sign and lands in my third house of socializing and hometown happenings. It’s the house that rules communication, something that I have found to be one of my personal struggles. I have a very difficult time standing up for myself. This stems from a childhood full of trauma and emotional neglect, not only at the hands of my caregivers, but also my teachers. I know the exact moment that part of me died for good, although it was a slow death. It was in high school, and I was cast into one of the leading roles of a one act play. I was already horrendously nervous about performing. I had sang once on stage, but mostly danced alongside a group. This was different. This involved talking.

It was the night of the school play, and I had just broken up with my first real long-term boyfriend. It was heartbreaking to say the least, but the show must go on as they say. I got myself together as best as any sixteen year old girl can, and in the final scene my mind went blank. I forgot my lines. Luckily enough the guy playing my opposite was an amazing actor who saved the day. I was so embarrassed, but it didn’t matter because not one person came to watch me perform. There was no one in the audience that day to cheer me on, nor to console me when I failed. At school the next week the drama teacher informed me that I “sucked at memorizing.” At this point I already felt awful for letting down the rest of the class, not really needing that extra gut punch from her. That was the last time I ever put myself up on a stage.

New Conversations

Sagittarius is the explorer in all of us, but that doesn’t necessarily correlate to travel. Sometimes what we are actually being called to do is to go spelunking into the caverns of our own hearts, so that we can bring to surface those hidden wounds. Uruz, the rune symbolized by a wild ox, when held in its reversed position gives us the strength we need in order to heal those past hurts. “When in deep water, become a diver” (The Book of Runes, Ralph Blum). You have to feel it in order to heal it, which means you have to lean into those uncomfortable emotions. That’s all they really are, troublesome and annoying at times, but not deadly as I once thought. They won’t kill you, but the things that we do to avoid them just might.

Shame and guilt come up a lot when you do this type of shadow work, as they call it. At least it does for me. It has taken me a long time to realize that those are things that other people have placed on me. Why should I feel shame about what other people did to me? That’s on them. Those are their expectations, not mine. Guilt is a whole other enemy; that one is personal. “You can hide from the Devil, but he’ll always find you” (Allen Iverson). Shame says I am bad, and guilt says I did something bad. Shame violates someone else’s code, while guilt goes against your own. When a person begins to act in accordance to their own value system, and makes decisions from that place, the guilt disappears. Shame? NMMFP. Not my mother fucking problem. That one’s on them, so just give that one back to whoever gave it to you. You don’t need that type of negativity in your life.

Mad love, Jenna