08.23.26 Ask the SGs Weekly Reading: Something Old - Something New

This week starts with a very active 8th house in the SGs Community chart. It’s a “rumble in the jungle,” with the planets packing a real punch.

On August 23, Mercury in Leo is challenging the Community’s natal Uranus in Taurus. Mercury is moving through our 8th house of transformation and shared resources while Uranus sits in our 5th house of creativity and the inner child. Unexpected conversations or realizations about shared resources, trust, intimacy, children, creativity, or the freedom to make our own choices could come up this week.

Because this is a challenging connection, something may show us that the way we’ve been doing things simply isn’t working anymore. For some of us it could mean we finally realize that a relationship is over — or that the old way of relating to someone cannot be sustained anymore.

But it can also be much simpler. We may have to rethink a plan, change the way we do something we’ve always done, or find a new way to make something we love work in our lives.

For example, in my life, I’ve had to rethink the way I garden. I know what I want to do, and I know how I’ve always done it. But some of that involved kneeling on the ground, and that just isn’t something I can keep doing anymore. So gardening itself isn’t over. I still love it. But the way I garden has to change.

That’s exactly the kind of thing this square can bring up. Sometimes the message isn’t that something has to end. Sometimes it’s that the old way can’t continue, so we have to find a new way forward.

The Virgo Sun is making a similar challenge to our natal Uranus, so the urge to break out of an old pattern is strong. Something may feel too restrictive or too predictable. Like what used to work just doesn’t anymore.

At the same time, the Community’s natal Sun in the 10th house of public image is in an easy convo with the transiting North Node in the 3rd house of communication. The beginning of the week asks a very clear question:

Where the heck are we going?

The 3rd house is all about communication, decisions, conversations, and new ways of thinking, while the 10th house connects that to the direction we’re headed. A message or realization could help us see the next step more clearly.

The Virgo Sun moving through the sky in our 8th house is also supporting us through a sweet connection to the Community’s natal Sun in the 10th, and Jupiter in the 8th is making happy plans with our natal Venus in the 12th. So even if something feels unsettled, there is generosity, compassion, and spiritual support underneath al that deep work that’s going on right now.

Then we move toward the biggest astrology of the week.

That’s the August 28 Pisces Full Moon Partial Lunar Eclipse in Pisces, opposite the Sun in Virgo.

For the SGs Community, this eclipse falls across the 2nd house (personal worth and personal resources) and 8th house (shared resources and emotional entanglements) axis.

The Pisces Moon is in the 2nd house of self-worth, values, and the things we call our own. The Virgo Sun is in the 8th house, where we deal with what we share with other people — materially, emotionally, and energetically.

That makes this eclipse deeply personal. So now the question is this: Where have we given too much? Where have we confused love with sacrifice? Where have we allowed someone else’s needs, expectations, or interpretation of us to have too much influence over our own sense of worth?

In other words, where have we given our power away?

Pisces is compassionate and forgiving, but it can also get lost in emotion. It can absorb other people’s pain, hold onto guilt that does not belong to us, and stay emotionally connected to something long after it has stopped being healthy.

The Virgo Sun brings us back to the facts.

What is actually happening here?

What belongs to me?

What belongs to someone else?

What needs a boundary?

What am I ready to release?

Mercury is sitting right beside the Virgo Sun during this eclipse and almost exactly opposite the Pisces Moon. He will help us give a name to what’s going on. A memory or a buried truth could rise to the surface and help us see an old pattern more clearly. In Pisces, forgiveness may be part of that.

Forgiveness doesn’t always mean reconciliation though. And it definitely doesn’t mean we should pretend something didn’t hurt or that we should blindly go back into a situation that’s not good for us.

Sometimes forgiveness means releasing the emotional hold something or someone has had on us. Letting it go. Walking away. And what I’ve discovered is that sometimes forgiveness means having compassion for the person we used to be. The person who stayed too long and tried too damn hard hoping someone else would finally see our heart.

Mars in Cancer is also moving through the 7th house and making a connection to the Community’s natal Saturn in the 3rd. That right there gives us some real emotional backbone. We can take action in relationships and speak more clearly. We can set a boundary, or choose a stronger, more stable response without getting lost in the emotion of the moment.

This eclipse is showing us where compassion needs to remain, and where sacrifice needs to end.

So the question I would take into this Pisces Lunar Eclipse is: What am I ready to forgive — in someone else or in myself — so it no longer has this kind of hold on me?

This week's tarot card: The EMPRESS

We’ve spent a lot of time asking ourselves what needs to change, what needs a boundary, what we’re ready to forgive, and what no longer gets to have that kind of hold on us.

The Empress turns us around and asks: What are you going to do with the space you’ve just made?

The Empress is a card of creativity, growth, abundance, and birth. In this card, there’s even a baby sitting inside a pea pod. Something new has been growing, and now it’s getting ready to come into the world.

Of course, that doesn’t have to mean an actual baby. We give birth to things all the time. A new idea. A project. A different direction for our lives. A new way of doing something. Even a new version of ourselves.

And I love how this card follows the astrology we’ve been talking about.

The planets are showing us where the old way is no longer working. The Empress assures us that doesn’t mean everything is falling apart. It means that it’s time to make room so something new can be born.

Maybe you’re changing the way you work or the way you relate to someone. Maybe you’re changing the way you care for yourself. Maybe, like me with gardening, you’re finding a way to keep doing something you love because the old way is no longer practical.

The Empress also tells us not to stay stuck in the planning stage forever. We can nurture an idea for a while. We can think about it, prepare for it, and give it what it needs to develop.

But eventually, we have to birth the thing. Oh boy, can I relate to that!

We don’t have to know every detail before we move forward. Some of the answers will come while we’re in motion.

So, this week, after you ask yourself what needs to be released, ask another question:

What do I want to give birth to in the space I’ve just made?

What has been growing inside me?

What am I ready to bring into my life?

The old way may be ending. But that doesn’t mean the story is over. It simply means something new is ready to be born.

A Note from Faye:

This week I had a brief encounter with someone I once had a loving relationship with. I’m not going to share all the details because they belong to the two of us, not just me, but something happened that brought me face-to-face with a pattern that has existed in me for most of my life.

And this time, something changed.

I’m not trying to figure out what I need to say or do so someone will finally understand my heart. I’m not trying to change the interpretation someone else has of me. They actually have a right to their interpretation even if I don’t agree with it.

What’s changed is that now I’m finally finished putting my own needs last just to keep things okay between me and another person.

For much of my life, I thought loving someone meant bending, accommodating, and putting my own needs aside. I don’t believe that anymore. I have to respect myself first. From there, I can love and respect other people without disappearing inside what they need from me. I think the real me has been in there all along. I just spent a lot of years pushing her aside so everybody else could be okay. I’m not doing that anymore.

That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped loving this person. I haven’t. It means the old way of having this relationship cannot continue.

I’m still in the early stages of figuring out what that will look like. But I know what I need to do. If I am going to continue in this relationship, I’ll be doing that as the woman I am now, not the woman who spent decades trying to make everything okay.

And this is where forgiveness comes into the story for me. I have compassion for the Faye who tried so hard all those years. The one who bent and accommodated and kept hoping that if she just tried one more time, maybe things would finally be different. I’m not angry with her for taking so long to get here.

She loved fiercely. She tried like hell. She kept hoping. Now she gets to rest a little. The woman she became can take it from here. Maybe that’s part of what this Pisces eclipse is offering us.

Sometimes forgiveness isn’t only about forgiving the other person. Sometimes it’s about having compassion for the person we used to be, and allowing ourselves to do things differently.

I don’t know yet what will grow in the space I’m making. I guess that’s where the Empress comes in. I don’t have to know yet. I just know the old way is finished.

And something new is ready to be born.

I hope this week’s reading helped you see where something old may be ending — and where something new is beginning.

💞 Faye