Aries and Scorpio Eclipses 2023 feat. Corina Dross
Eclipses loom LARGE on the astrological calendar,
and we’ve got a solar AND lunar eclipse coming up in the next few weeks.
If that sounds scary, I’ve got the best news for you!
We’ve got Corina Dross, one of my favorite new voices in astrology,
here to help us look past the stereotypes around eclipses
and embrace the opportunity they present for change and growth.
Subscribe! Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pandora | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn | YouTube
Mentioned:
Corina Dross is a consulting astrologer, artist, writer, and teacher. Corina sees clients all over the world and has taught astrology for over a decade, including as a regular guest instructor for the Portland School of Astrology. https://pdxastro.org/
Follow Corina on Instagram @corinadross and sign up for their newsletter at www.flaxandgold.com to be the first to hear their about upcoming oracle deck.
Cauldron is my evolutionary, feminist blend of group, 1:1, and self-coaching. https://mindwitchery.com/cauldron
Make Magic:
As you tackle hard things during this eclipse season, ask yourself.
What is it that helps you move into a place of readiness for truth and healing?
What readies you, helps you feel motivated, but also safe enough to take that courageous journey?
Offer yourself the kind of comfort you might not have received in the past,
but have always, always deserved.
Transcript: Aries and Scorpio Eclipses 2023 feat. Corina Dross
Corina Dross: How can we keep staying critically engaged and be curious about the meaning-making that we're doing, the meaning-making that we find, and push past places where we might get stuck in a story that comes out of some old oppressive tendencies in the culture, or a story that just leaves us feeling anxious and helpless, rather than moving towards stories that help us connect to our agency and to our uniqueness?
Natalie Miller: Yeah. Well, stories as like, oh, here's the story someone told about me, because I'm a Scorpio, versus I have my own authority. I'm an author. These are the various elements that make me me, and here's how my Scorpio-ness helps me to understand and express that.
[Music]
Natalie Miller: Welcome to Mind Witchery. I'm your host, Natalie Miller, and I'm so glad you're here.
Hello, my friend. So now that January 2023 has long passed, can you believe it is April and [laugh] it is eclipse season? And so today I have a really exciting special guest here to talk about the solar eclipse in Aries, and the lunar eclipse in Scorpio. And their name is Corina Dross. Hi, Corina, it's so nice to have you here on Mind Witchery.
Corina Dross: Hello. It's such a pleasure. Thank you for the invite.
Natalie Miller: Yay. Yeah. So, Corina, TBH, I found you on the internet.
Corina Dross: [laugh]
Natalie Miller: I was googling around, it was like "new voices in astrology," because it is such a creative evolutionary space right now, astrology, with all of the new kind of voices coming. And I was like, I'm going to go find some people. And I found you. You were like featured in some article or something. I came and I looked at your Instagram. I fell madly in love, and I was like, all right, we have to get this person on the podcast. So would you like to introduce yourself, beyond [laugh] my compelling "I found them on the internet, and it was so exciting"?
Corina Dross: Yes. [laugh] I am findable on the internet is the main thing to know about me. I am a consulting astrologer. I'm also an artist and a writer, and my astrology practice is really informed by embodied healing practices, Earth-based spirituality, and in orientation towards collective liberation. I have been a teacher of astrology classes for over a decade now, both through my own website and personal practice, and as a guest teacher at the Portland School of Astrology. And if you know my name and don't know why [laugh], you may know of me as the artist behind the talisman deck Portable Fortitude, or you may know me as the horoscope writer for the queer website autostraddle.com.
Natalie Miller: Yeah. I love on your Insta bio, you're like queer scopes at—
Corina Dross: [laugh]
Natalie Miller: —and it's beautiful. OK. So, Corina, none of my astrologer friends wanted to talk eclipses. [laugh]
Corina Dross: [laugh] Yeah, I can see why.
Natalie Miller: You can see why, so let's like tell our listener what is the "hmm, no thanks" around eclipses. [laugh]
Corina Dross: [laugh] Yes. OK. So I want to begin by saying that eclipses are common. We have eclipse seasons twice a year, every year. And I want to start by just normalizing eclipses because when we get into the astrology of them, it's easy for people to start to feel anxious because they are designed to be somewhat disruptive to our rhythms. So if you think about the normal waxing and waning of light that maybe you don't think about much if you live in a city where there is electrical light all the time, there are a few rhythms that we're aware of all the time.
We're aware of the rhythm of the Sun rising and setting. And we may not know that we're aware of it, but some part of us is aware of the waxing and waning of the Moon, when it will be brighter at night, when it will be darker at night with the Full Moon and with the New Moon. And what an eclipse does is it disrupts that normal cycle, and so the part of us that we might not even be conscious of, our bodies, our feelings, there's a part of us that's used to things going in a certain way, and it is suddenly unsettled.
So I think about an eclipse sometimes as, you know, if you walk into a room, and you flip on the light switch, and instead of the light going on, there's this kind of burst, like, the light bulb kind of has that like flicker before it burns out. Well, older light bulbs did this; maybe not the newer ones. [laugh] But the filament light bulbs that you could get this burst of light and then darkness. And so if you think about that startle response in the body of walking into a room, turning on the light, and then being like, oh, I didn't expect that, right? [laugh] That's how eclipses can feel.
Natalie Miller: Yeah. And something I'm hearing in here and wanting to kind of highlight and underline is disruptions in cycles are part of cycles, right?
Corina Dross: Yes, exactly.
Natalie Miller: Like, in case we forgot that we live on planet Earth, where actually there's a lot of shit that's completely unpredictable, like, eclipses kind of remind us, oh [laugh] wait, the unpredictable does happen. There is a shift and a change, and it's interesting, right? I think as feminists, as anti-racists, as people who are side-eyeing late-stage capitalism, like, there are a lot of reasons that disruption is something we could welcome, and something we could befriend.
Corina Dross: Yes, definitely. Beautifully put. And when people reach for astrology from a place of anxiety already, there can be this desire. And you know what, I've done this. I've felt this. I think this is really common that you might be feeling anxious about your world or the future, and you might reach for astrology, secretly hoping in the back of your mind that the astrology is going to tell you it's all going to be OK. Don't worry. [laugh] Everything will be fine. The thing that you're planning will turn out perfectly. The thing you want to happen will happen, because the astrological conditions are right.
And if you're using astrology in that way from an anxiety place, you're going to be scared when you encounter something like the eclipses, which are essentially telling you, "Oh, you don't know what's going to happen, but it might be unexpected." Right? And so I think one of the best things we can do as we approach eclipses is honor and acknowledge the parts of ourselves that are coming to anything [laugh] about the future with a sense of anxiety, and to tend to that anxiety before we try to make sense of the astrology.
Natalie Miller: I love that phrase "reaching, when we reach for astrology". I know that I certainly reached for astrology in a moment where I just wanted bigger meaning, like, a bigger meaningfulness in my life than I could make with the tools I had available to me. I'm not a particularly religious person. I'm not a particularly like conventionally spiritual person either. And there was something about the language of astrology that was so rich that helped me to make new meaning and see things in new ways. I loved it so much for that, so thank you for putting it in that way. I think a lot of people who listen to the podcast, to Mind Witchery, are what I like to call astro-curious. Like, oftentimes, they come out of an episode like this. They're like, "I don't really know what the fuck you were saying"—
Corina Dross: [laugh]
Natalie Miller: —but [laugh] that one question you asked or that one thing really stood out to me." And so, yeah, if you are out there, and you too are like, "Yes, I want more tools for meaning-making," like, this is a great place to be.
Corina Dross: Yes. And astrology is really one of my favorite tools for meaning-making. And what I love so much about it is that the language itself, you know, we have these symbols. The Moon is a symbol, right? And because it's a symbolic language, you can associate meaning to that symbol in all sorts of creative ways, and really make it your own in the ways that are necessary and important for your life.
And that's a really different practice than reading a horoscope or reading something on an app, and then feeling your nervous system get a little bit like, "Uh-oh [laugh], you know, the app told me or the horoscope told me something that's making me a little alarmed." Right? So I do encourage people who are astro-curious to learn enough about it to start making their own meaning, and telling their own stories with it.
Natalie Miller: I love that so much. So two things. One [laugh], Alejo Lopez, who was on my last episode, he sort of made a reference. He's like, "You know, astrologers, like, we love to be dramatic." And I do think [laugh] that is something that we do, right? So your app is hyping things up like, one, because, you know, it's exciting, and we let ourselves get carried away sometimes, just as romantic humans.
And, you know, astrology and capitalism are interlaced, right? So, of course, we want you to be on the edge of your seat. We want you to keep tuning in, right? So I just want to be honest about that. But the second piece, actually, about learning to make our own meaning, and about proliferating the meaning of the symbols, that strikes me as really important in the project of queering astrology. And I wonder if you wouldn't mind just talking about that a tiny bit, Corina?
Corina Dross: Oh yes, very dear to my heart. And I love that you used the word "proliferating." "Proliferating" is one of my favorite words to use when I'm talking about astrological translation because when we're talking about queering anything, you know, this is a term that has come out of queer theory, and queer theory wants us to look at stories, situations, all the sort of conventional understanding of the world, through a slant lens, through this understanding that anything that we assume can be questioned, and that when we bring a spirit of inquiry, and let the answers get stranger, that that's a form of healing. That's a form of liberation for us, for the world.
And so queer astrology, which is a movement I'm definitely part of, has this orientation towards astrology, which is how can we keep staying critically engaged and be curious about the meaning-making that we're doing, the meaning-making that we find, and push past places where we might get stuck in a story that comes out of some old oppressive tendencies in the culture, or a story that just leaves us feeling anxious and helpless, rather than moving towards stories that help us connect to our agency and to our uniqueness?
Natalie Miller: Yeah. Well, stories as like, oh, here's the story someone told about me, because I'm a Scorpio, versus I have my own authority. I'm an author. These are the various elements that make me me, and here's how my Scorpio-ness helps me to understand and express that.
Corina Dross: Exactly, and this is a conversation I have with my clients all the time. Clients will come to me, and say, "I am a queer, and some other queer [laugh] told me that I was this way because of my sign, or I saw an astrologer once who told me this thing about me, and it's haunted me ever since." And I feel a lot of my work as a queer astrologer is to undo the harm of astrological stereotypes as they're floating out in the culture.
Natalie Miller: I love it. Well, let us dive into the symbols of this eclipse season, these upcoming eclipses, if you don't mind. So maybe the first thing to say here is that this is the second New Moon in Aries in 2023. So the first one was at the very, very, very beginning, and this one is at the very, very, very end of the sign. And what do you make that mean, Corina, when that happens?
Corina Dross: When we are talking about eclipses, we're talking about disruption, and this one is like exponentially disruptive [laugh] because it's also disrupting our ordinary cycle of we move from a New Moon in Aries to a New Moon in Taurus, and then Gemini, and so on. It's kind of a do-over. I think of this second Aries New Moon as whatever we didn't get right the first time [laugh], we have this opportunity to be with this energy again.
And Aries' New Moon is also the beginning of the astrological new year, right? Aries is the first sign in the Zodiac. It has to do with that energy of initiation. And for many of us right now, the [laugh] opportunity to initiate again can bring up either excitement or anxiety, depending on your energy level, your sense of overwhelm, your feeling that you were doing things well up until now, or your feeling that you maybe do want a second chance. So I want to make room for this being potentially exciting and potentially anxiety-provoking; maybe a little bit of both.
Natalie Miller: Yeah. Not for nothing, Mercury is stationed at this [laugh] eclipse. So Mercury, as everyone knows, Mercury goes into the microwave three [laugh] times a year—
Corina Dross: [laugh]
Natalie Miller: —Mercury retrograde, I mean. Talk about a stereotyped thing that happens astrologically. So Mercury retrograde is happening like the next day, which means that Mercury is basically apparently standing still in the sky at this moment. And so I'm just thinking that kind of layers in another [laugh], like, there's another layer of do-over energy, not-quite-yet energy, "wait a minute, what did you forget?" energy here.
Corina Dross: Yes, exactly. And, you know, the elephant in the room is also this Pluto square that's happening. So Pluto has just moved into zero degrees of Aquarius, and it will be making a square, which is a challenge, a challenging relationship to the Sun and the Moon at 29 degrees of Aries during this place. And Pluto is the planet that asks us to look at the harder, scarier things in life. It asks us to summon up our courage, and do some deep investigation into what needs healing and releasing. So I understand, I just want to say, I understand why so many other astrologers didn't want to talk about this lunation [laugh]
Natalie Miller: [laugh] I know.
Corina Dross: —because my entire goal in coming here to talk about this is to help people not go into a state of panic or go into a state of overwhelm. And it can be so easy if you are astro-curious or a little bit astro-literate to hear all these pieces of, oh no, eclipse, and Pluto square, and another Aries New Moon, and Mercury retrograde about to happen, and to just have this laundry list of things you might want to hide under the bed from. And what I would like to do is reframe that. This is a New Moon with tremendous healing potential, and there are ways to tap into that that can be deeply nourishing and meaningful for you.
Natalie Miller: I love it. You know, when I think of Pluto, I think about how Pluto defies our attempts to contain it. [laugh]
Corina Dross: [laugh]
Natalie Miller: It's like—or even to contain anything, right? When we think about it, like, Pluto, we discovered much later than the other outer planets, and so Pluto is sort of like, "Yeah, fuck your understanding of the solar system," right?
Corina Dross: [laugh]
Natalie Miller: And then a couple of years ago, we had the whole, like, maybe Pluto's not actually a planet. Pluto's like, "Yeah, fuck your understanding of planets, right?" For me, Pluto always gestures to all that we don't know, all that we don't understand. Maybe that is unknowable, like, you can't box this. [laugh] You can't put a label on it in a tight little box, and kind of put it away. And I'm curious, thinking about it in that way, like, Pluto as holding truth, deep truth, Pluto as ambassador of the unknowable, like, what's beyond human understanding, how is that integral to healing?
Corina Dross: Oh yeah, that's such a beautiful question. I come from a trauma-informed perspective as an astrologer, and one thing that I know about the impact of trauma is that it can close down our curiosity, and the part of our brain that is reaching out for information and making meaning from it. We get trapped in a trauma story, which becomes the only truth, the only possible story, and we project that story outward. If a bad thing happened to me in winter, then whenever it's winter, that bad thing is happening again. And whenever I think about winter, I am thinking about that bad thing that might happen again in winter. Right?
And what healing does is it opens up a space for us to encounter stories that we haven't yet written, and to encounter that sense of the unknown without fear, without a sense that the bad thing is already there waiting for me, and instead to be receptive to our lives as we live through them. And I think that Pluto is integral for doing this because Pluto is the planet that asks us to encounter all of it, to be living our lives aware of death, and to be living them anyway; to be choosing life every day with the awareness of death; to be choosing love every day with the awareness of loss. That's the wholeness that I think Pluto brings in that can be painful to look at but can also bring you into a deep sense of meaning and purpose and aliveness.
Natalie Miller: Yeah. And Pluto in Aquarius even so much more, right, because Aquarius is a place where it's like, well, what else is here? What else is possible? Who else is here? Aquarius is a place where there is an openness in fixed air. There is an openness to what else, what else? And, listen, I think with Pluto in the final degrees of Capricorn—
Corina Dross: [laugh]
Natalie Miller: —we really got [laugh] some very hard truth delivered to us, 2020, 2021, 2022. [laugh] And so moving into 2023, it strikes me that, you know, Pluto's shift is an important part of that; this kind of like, OK, we had some deep reckonings with some ugly truths on this planet—not that they weren't here before, but we were really required to see them in new ways. And it's like with Pluto in Aquarius, OK, so what are we going to do with this?
Corina Dross: Yeah, and we don't know yet. And I think it's OK to not know yet. You know, there can be a rush to understand immediately, but Pluto cycles are so slow that I think the best thing to do at these beginning degrees of Pluto in Aquarius is to ask a lot of questions. What do we know about Pluto? What do we know about Aquarius? What do we know about the world right now? How can these themes mash up against each other in interesting ways that can help us be attentive to what's unfolding?
Natalie Miller: Yeah. Besides the Mercury retrograde and the Pluto square, the other thing that interested me, probably just selfishly because I'm a native Mars in Cancer person—
Corina Dross: Me too.
Natalie Miller: Oh, there you go. [laugh] So, well, I'll have to try out my metaphor on you, Corina. I say that having Mars in Cancer makes me think of, you know, that part of the circulating of the Olympic torch where they give it to someone who's swimming.
Corina Dross: Oh.
Natalie Miller: I'm like that is Mars and cancer. You have it. [laugh] You have the torch.
Corina Dross: [laugh]
Natalie Miller: You're like hoisting it above the water, and you're swimming. [laugh]
Corina Dross: I love that. [laugh] Yes.
Natalie Miller: Because Cancer is not the most powerful place for Mars to be, and Mars in Cancer, of course, is the—as one of my friends Bonnie Gillespie says—the landlord.
Corina Dross: [laugh]
Natalie Miller: Mars in Cancer is the landlord for this New Moon. This New Moon is happening in Mars, in Mars territory, and so Mars in Cancer is there. And I'm curious, what does that conjure for you, questions wise?
Corina Dross: Yeah, so for me, Mars in Cancer, I love your metaphor, and I often think about Mars as the motivation to protect and defend, and Cancer is where we feel safe, especially emotional safety. And with Mars in Cancer as [laugh] ruler/landlord of this particular lunation, I think it's important to recognize what is it that helps us move into that place of readiness for the truths, for the healing. What readies us? What helps us feel motivated and excited—which is Mars—to be ready to do the Pluto work, right? So I'm thinking of a therapist's office. I'm thinking of like that box of Kleenex on the table next to the couch, all of the things that make a room where healing happens cozy and home-ish, and helping you feel held and safe enough to take that courageous journey.
Natalie Miller: Yeah, like a nest.
Corina Dross: Yeah.
Natalie Miller: We're going to make ourselves a healing nest, yeah, that's beautiful. So what do you think, Corina? Shall we come up with some self-reflection questions for this lunation? I'm going to caveat, and I'm going to say [laugh] many astrologers will be like, "When the eclipse is happening, just hide under the covers and let it happen, and don't let the light of the eclipse touch your skin"—
Corina Dross: [laugh]
Natalie Miller: —and like all these kinds of things. I think you and I are on the same page of saying, "Hmm, that maybe seems like a bit much." [laugh]
Corina Dross: It's a little dramatic. I think if you are someone who does spiritual practices with the Moon, and you like to charge your crystals, or do a ritual in which you're using your power and leveraging the power of the Moon during this lunation, eclipses can be a little hypercharged. It can be like plugging your computer into an outlet that isn't grounded. So I would say be a little careful with that during an eclipse.
But I do think there are important things to do during an eclipse to work with this energy, and that they are mostly receptive and caring things to do, because, you know, you walk into a room where the light bulb suddenly explodes and burns out [laugh], you know, your first impulse physically might be to, you know, put your hands on your chest, to gasp, and then kind of laugh, and release, discharge the tension, right? And so I'm thinking of practices that can help you come back to a sense of laughing about it, or feeling safe in your body, as you encounter the unknown.
Natalie Miller: I love that as a little line of inquiry, sort of like, how can we care for ourselves? So that first one, how can I discharge this tension? Maybe even first, where do I feel the tension, and then how can I discharge it? Love that.
Corina Dross: And a question that I would ask too for eclipses might be something like if I notice a fear arising, what other story might be true? What can I do to dislodge that firm belief that my fear narrative is the true story?
Natalie Miller: I love that, especially since, as we said, the whole idea of disruption can be as freeing [laugh], as liberating as it can be disturbing, right? So, yeah, I love that. Like, what is a story that like you're ready to disrupt, a pattern that you're ready to shift? It's a good moment.
Corina Dross: Yeah, beautiful potential for doing that during this lunation.
Natalie Miller: Wonderful. So, two weeks later, we have a lunar eclipse in Scorpio. You know, I didn't even talk about dates for these, Corina, and this is probably my Piscean natures talking because I'm just always like, you know, around then. I'm not really a person who is like hard and fast about the exact time. But should you want to know the solar eclipse, the New Moon solar eclipse in Aries is on the 20th of April for most of us on this planet, and the lunar eclipse is on the 5th of May; 6th of May once you cross over into Asia and Australia. So, for this lunar eclipse, this is happening in Scorpio at 14 degrees.
Corina Dross: Yeah, the Sun is at 14 of Taurus, and the Moon is at 14 of Scorpio.
Natalie Miller: So solar eclipse versus lunar eclipse, how do you think of these two events differently?
Corina Dross: So a solar eclipse is a New Moon, and New Moon cycles generally last for six months. They are the initiation of an energy that will continue, you know, for about half a year. So anything that occurs for you during the solar eclipse seasons, so on or near April 20th of this year, you might find an urge or a need to change something in your life, and that change is something that will be unfolding for six months. So, I would say, don't stress about the urgency of trying to get it all done [laugh] around April 20th. And also know that you have time to live into that change if you're not quite sure what it needs to look like yet.
On the other hand, a lunar eclipse is a Full Moon, and so it's sort of ending a previous six-month cycle. And lunar eclipses have a little bit of a shorter valence for us, about a month. And so the big one to watch out for, I would say, is the Aries New Moon solar eclipse, if you're trying to encounter big, long-lasting changes in your life. And the next one is more like, yeah, this might be present for about a month. [laugh] And clearly, this is going to affect you most, the lunar eclipse in Scorpio and Taurus, if you have planets that are near the middle of fixed signs, which are Taurus, Scorpio, Aquarius, and Leo.
Natalie Miller: Mercury is full-on retrograde in this lunation, nice and deep [laugh] into the retrograde. And there are a couple of sextiles that are interesting too. But what stands out to you about this?
Corina Dross: What stands out to me about this is that we have Uranus still moving through Taurus, as it has been for many years now, and this, the Sun at 14 degrees, it's in a loose conjunction. Uranus is at 18 degrees, so it's about 4 degrees away, but it's present. Uranus is the planet that helps us wake up on a certain level and be not only willing but excited to entertain new ideas and new possibilities, the ruler of Aquarius, where Pluto has just moved.
And when we're talking about Taurus and Scorpio as an axis, as a polarity of signs, I usually think of that as the capacity to face and heal from the things that are urgent in Scorpio, and then the aftercare in Taurus. Scorpio is what gives us the capacity to pull out a splinter, let's say. And then Taurus is afterwards when we are, you know, wrapping it in a bandage and eating some ice cream [laugh], you know, and doing the things that help us come back to the sense that it is good to be alive, it is good to be in our bodies, and that pleasure is a way in, that pleasure is a way of celebrating our embodiment, not as a way of distracting from or pretending that we never have pain or injury or hard things happen but as a way of affirming that pleasure is just as important and that it is still good to be here and be alive.
So when I look at that polarity together and this Full Moon eclipse happening in Scorpio and Taurus, I think about in what ways will we need to be balancing the willingness to look at the hard things in ourselves and in the world with courage, with resilience, and how does Taurus give us that resilience? How does Taurus help us feel that it is well within us, you know, that it is good to be here? And the Uranus conjunction, even though it's loose, the Uranus conjunction to the Sun during this lunation, to me, is a really creative one. Taurus is a fixed earth sign. It is not the most flexible. [laugh] It's not the most adaptive. And as Uranus has been moving through it, we have been learning how can we approach the parts of ourselves that, you know, shadow side of Taurus can get a little stuck, can get a little stagnant.
How can we shake those loose a little bit, bring in some sunshine and some possibility? And this Uranus presence in the lunation I see as fairly encouraging for helping us re-map and re-envision how we handle both the moving outward toward encounter, toward urgency, towards healing, towards transformation, and then also the movement inward toward "and now I get to rest," "and now I am recovering," "and now I'm sleeping," you know, moving into the rest and digest nervous system, away from the activation of fight, flight, freeze, appease.
Natalie Miller: Yeah. It's a second lunation in a row ruled by Mars. [laugh]
Corina Dross: Wow. [laugh]
Natalie Miller: Yeah. So Mars still in Cancer, actually really chugging right along in Cancer, moving pretty swiftly through Cancer, Mars is still there in that place of—yeah, I like that—like, using its instinct to protect, defend in this place that is about safety, so that's really interesting. The sextile that I mentioned earlier is a yummy sextile. [laugh] It's Venus and Jupiter. Our friends Venus and Jupiter, they have just sextiled one another, just barely separating at the moment of this Moon. Venus and Jupiter are known as the great benefics, right? They are the shiny, and literally when you look into the sky to see them, they're very shiny. [laugh]
Corina Dross: That's right, yes.
Natalie Miller: So, I'm curious, Corina, what do you make that sextile mean here, especially in terms of what you were saying about it is a moment for connecting with what's good and for pleasure?
Corina Dross: Yes. Well, Venus is the ruler of Taurus as well. So the Sun is in this Venus-ruled sign, and Venus is having a party with Jupiter. What I see in this is the capacity to more easily move back to a place of pleasure and embodiment, not as a dissociation technique, not as something that keeps you from feeling your feelings, right? So if the Scorpio energy is activating you, there can be a tendency to just want to move away from it, and to say, "I'm not going to look at that part of my life. I'm not going to feel this hard feeling. Instead, I might—I don't know—watch some TV, go online and buy something, pick a fight with my partner." [laugh]
You know, there's all these ways of discharging the tension without actually feeling the feeling. And what this Venus-Jupiter sextile is offering to us, you know, Venus is in Gemini. You know, Venus is curious, investigating, engaged, communicative. There's this capacity to walk toward and through the thing in our lives that feels scary at this time, and then feel this sense of relief like walking through a waterfall, and just saying, "I was scared to get wet, I was scared it was going to be cold, and now I am surrounded by rainbows [laugh], and now I've done this thing that felt exhilarating and, on the other side, I'm happier." That's the kind of story I see as a potential in this lunation.
Natalie Miller: I love it.
Corina Dross: Not that it won't be alarming at times to walk through a cold sheet of water [laugh], right, but to think of it as something that is exciting and adventurous, and that on the other side will be joy, even if there's fear and grief along the way.
Natalie Miller: You know, something else that comes to mind that is a little—it's a little less sensational than walking—
Corina Dross: [laugh]
Natalie Miller: —through a waterfall, which, of course, I want to do tomorrow. No waterfalls near me—
Corina Dross: [laugh]
Natalie Miller: —so I'll have to figure this out. But I'm thinking about how, you know, once upon a time, when Uranus was moving into Taurus, conventionally, astrologers were like, "Oh, there's going to be developments of all these new food systems and like new, you know, new ways of farming and all this stuff." And perhaps that's happened, right? But, super interestingly, the other thing that's happened, especially in 2020, was a circling back, like a revolution [laugh], like a going back to gardening, and making sourdough bread, and quilting, and hand-lettering, and like engaging with materials in an old way, not a new way.
And as you were talking about those novel experiences, I was also thinking about those reclaimable experiences, like remember what it was like to just let my feet dangle in the cold river like I did when I was a kid. Remember what it's like to smell the dough as you are kneading it, right? There are these other kind of ways we can get back into our bodies in a not so novel but rather almost a sentimental way. I'm loving that for this lunation too.
Corina Dross: Yes, I love everything you just said, 100% support. Taurus medicine is exactly what you're describing, this slow, sensual reconnection to things that make us feel good, and having that be a part of our larger story.
Natalie Miller: Yeah, it's so beautiful. And, happily, whichever hemisphere you're in, there's a seasonal change, and so we actually get an invitation to do that. Yeah? Like, we humans are embarking on a new season, and so we get invited into some of those, particularly spring or particularly fall kinds of activities. Yeah. So what are some good questions for this lunar eclipse?
Corina Dross: I think one question I would want to ask is if there's something that you know you need to look at that isn't the biggest, hardest, scariest thing, that is on the edge of being tolerable, and you've been putting it off, how can you, during this particular lunar eclipse, create a plan for yourself to face the hard thing, and then celebrate your courage afterward? When I think about the Moon, and I think about how we interact with lunations, I always think about how the Moon in astrology is our youngest self, the body we were born into that, from birth, we've been trying to learn how to regulate.
Our bodies are constantly shifting and fluctuating and telling us different needs and feelings and tensions and fears, and that one of the best ways we can encounter this is to be a really good parent to that part of ourselves. And so I would say treat the hard thing that you need to face during this time the way you would treat a child who needs to face a hard thing, and offer yourself the kind of comfort you might have wanted as a child afterward.
Natalie Miller: It's so fascinating. I have a group coaching program, it's called Cauldron. And in Cauldron a couple Moons ago, we were talking about how when we are facing something that is scary, I offered the metaphor of, like, imagine it is an amusement park full of scary rides, and the part of you that [laugh] doesn't really want to be here is this little kid. So what are you going to do? Like, how are you going to introduce this kid to the amusement park? You're not going to force them into line on the biggest, scariest roller coaster, right?
And as we talked using that metaphor, it was like, yeah, I think we'll just walk around, and look for a while, right? That could be part of the plan for you. It's like, you know what, there's this procedure, this surgical procedure I think I need to have. I've really been avoiding it. Maybe I'm just going to look. I'm just going to do a little bit of research, right? You know what, my marriage has been shit over the last many Moons. Maybe I'm just going to investigate some different kinds of help available for couples, right? Like, it could start there. Facing something does not mean grabbing it by the throat. [laugh]
Corina Dross: Yes. I'm so glad that you brought that up. If anyone out there listening has a lot of Scorpio energy in their chart, or a lot of Pluto aspects in their chart, I want to underline that advice for you as during this lunation, you might feel that it is the right choice for you to dive into the deep end of big transformation, big healing work, big change, and that can be reactivating and retraumatizing. There is no need to dive in the deep end. You can definitely stay at the shallow end of the pool, and dip your toes in, and come out again, and do the slow encountering of the change.
Natalie Miller: Yeah. You know, with that Jupiter in Aries really bolstering "I am, I am" energy, and then Venus in Gemini bolstering like, "Hey, guys" [laugh] energy, you know, "Hey, everyone, what's going on? What do you think? Do you like it? I don't"—right? So, with those two together, I think we do get a lovely balance of like, OK, I get to be myself, but who's with me? What ideas are with me? What modalities are with me? What people are with me? Like, I get to be myself, but I get to do it with the support of community. I love that aspect of that combination for this deep dive. It's like, OK, if you want to go deep diving, awesome, but can you have friends [laugh] and can you have some friends and maybe a bungee cord and—
Corina Dross: [laugh]
Natalie Miller: —[laugh] like, can we keep you tethered to the collective?
Corina Dross: Yeah, and not just to the collective, which at times can be, you know, stressful [laugh] or—
Natalie Miller: Right, or maybe exactly what you're trying to get the fuck away from. [laugh]
Corina Dross: [laugh] Right. But I love what you're saying because, you know, Venus in Gemini is a party. It's everyone laughing together. You know, I've been getting this very silly metaphor in my mind since you were talking of this particular eclipse being like, you know, having your best group of friends go to a haunted house together. And you walk through all the rooms, and you get scared, and then you're out on the other side, and you're giggling about it. Right? Like that kind of energy of we're going to face the hard things, we're going to have the release that we need, and then we're going to come back to a certain kind of joyousness together.
Natalie Miller: Yeah, and not for nothing that Plutonian influence at the very beginning of this little 30-day lunar—28-day lunar cycle, right, is all about, hey, the haunted house is an important aspect of all of this, right?
Corina Dross: Yes, exactly.
Natalie Miller: Like, you haven't lived until you've been through a couple haunted houses. [laugh] Pluto is not sorry; sorry not sorry, to say. [laugh]
Corina Dross: Yeah. And, you know, the Plutonian people that I talk to as clients, I would like them all to be in a club together almost, you know, because there's this way that you see the world when you have had to or when you've chosen to face the scary things that changes you forever on the other side, and not necessarily in bad ways. Not necessarily, you know, I am marked for life, and I shall be traumatized forever, but more like I know what's important to me now and I know who my people are.
Natalie Miller: Yeah. I'm curious, do you have a Pluto signature?
Corina Dross: Oh, of course I do. [laugh]
Natalie Miller: Oh yeah, so do I, of course I do. [laugh]
Corina Dross: [laugh] Yeah, I love talking about Pluto.
Natalie Miller: Yeah. So, for me, Pluto conjoins my North Node, and so that's part of what I'm here for. [laugh]
Corina Dross: Me too.
Natalie Miller: Oh my gosh.
Corina Dross: What year were you born?
Natalie Miller: 1977.
Corina Dross: Me too.
Natalie Miller: Oh! [laugh]
Corina Dross: We got Pluto and Libra.
Natalie Miller: Yeah, and I'm a Libra, you're a Virgo, so you're just a little bit older than I am.
Corina Dross: Mm-hmm, amazing.
Natalie Miller: Listen—
Corina Dross: And [0:45:08] we just found that out.
Natalie Miller: —do you know what I love is—this is the thing, everybody—I got on to Google, and I said, "new voices in astrology." And there were all kinds of articles, and I flipped through them, and I just—I kind of went with my spidey senses on. And I saw Corina's little tiny profile on some, you know, "Six Voices to Watch," or something like that—
Corina Dross: [laugh]
Natalie Miller: —"Six Astrologists to Watch," and I was just like, zing, that's the person. And then I went to your Instagram, I looked, and maybe this is a perfect place to end things, this episode, right, is that this world is so enormous [laugh] beyond our comprehension, as Pluto likes to say, right, like, "You don't know anything—
Corina Dross: [laugh]
Natalie Miller: —little humans, little Earthlings," right, and, at the same time, you totally know. You totally know. All you have to do is look and feel—look and feel. There it is. So how fun that I found you, kindred spirit—
Corina Dross: [laugh]
Natalie Miller: —[laugh] Corina. Thank you so much for your wisdom and your perspective on these lunations. Will you please tell my sweet listener where they can come find you?
Corina Dross: Yes, of course, and just thank you so much for reaching out also. It's been delightful having this conversation with you. You can find me at Corina Dross on Instagram. That's C-O-R-I-N-A D-R-O-S-S. And that is where you will hear about all the things that I'm up to as an artist and astrologer. And if you are interested in getting a reading with me, you want to hop on over to flaxandgold.com, F-L-A-X-A-N-D-G-O-L-D.com. And my books are open to all clients.
Natalie Miller: Super highly recommend a partner in meaning-making, whether you are astro-curious, if you are an astro ho like me—
Corina Dross: [laugh]
Natalie Miller: —coming and getting more new perspectives, more perspectives. It is just so nourishing and healing in and of itself, actually, to get to tell different stories about yourself. So, oh my gosh, Corina, thank you so much for being here. It was such a pleasure. I have a feeling you'll be back. This is my hope. This is my hope and guess. [laugh]
Corina Dross: Let's just plan on it. [laugh]
Natalie Miller: Awesome. OK. Thank you, my listeners, so much for being here. Take good, good care of yourselves. Remember to heed that advice about caring for your tender human body over this disruptive time. Thank you so much for listening. Bye for now.
[Music]
Thank you for listening to this episode of Mind Witchery. To catch all the magic I’m offering, please subscribe to the show, or if you want a little bit of weekly witchiness in your inbox, sign up for my Sunday Letter at mindwitchery.com. If today’s episode made you think of a friend or loved one, your sister, your neighbor, please tell them about it. We need more magic-makers in this troubled world.
Like all good things, this podcast is co-created by stellar people. Our music is by fabulous DJ, artist, and producer, Shammy Dee. Our gorgeous art is by the sorcerers at New Moon Creative. Mind Witchery is produced in conjunction with Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, executive producer. And I am Natalie Miller. Till next time.
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