Why I Chart the Moon

When I was in college, lost as lost could be, a conversation-in-passing changed my life. A friend of a friend mentioned that she spoke to an astrologer, and in a flash — remembering that my grandmother had once mentioned astrology — I just knew I needed to schedule a call with this person.

Sue was her name. She was in her 50s, from South Africa, living in Germany. How this friend of a friend at the University of Virginia had found her was beyond me — perhaps another conversation-in-passing at a party somewhere. But Sue spoke my language — a language I had never heard anyone else speak before.

On our first call, she began by talking about how the Earth is in a process of shifting from a masculine energy to a feminine one. That this shift would be happening over the next thirty years — and that it was an intense process. Nothing had ever made more sense to me: It went beyond the nitty-gritty of what was happening around me in my fraternity-dominated college environment; beyond what was happening on the news. This kind of energetic language stepped back, took some perspective, made everything make sense. She then read my birth chart to me. For the first time in my life, I felt truly seen. And so began my love affair with astrology.

I am not an astrologer — though I secretly aspire to be one. But I have sought enough astrological counsel to understand that there are cosmic forces moving around us, shaping the tides of our lives.

For those who need a scientific anchor, here’s one: if the moon did not exist to exert its gravitational pull on Earth, our planet would spin so quickly that our days would last only eight hours — and that velocity would create constant 100 mph winds.

The moon’s pull slows the Earth’s rotation and steadies its rhythm. It controls the tides of our oceans; as beings made mostly of water, how could we possibly be unaffected?

I chart the moon because it gives me a sense of grounding in something larger than myself — something feminine enough not to be fixed, controllable, or measurable. When I trace the moon’s slow dimming from full to new, and its waxing bright again, I remember that I am part of a larger story. That I too am dancing through the sky, showing myself to different stars. That time can be measured by something more mystical than alarm clocks and iPhones; and, in fact, should.

And, I love to do this in community — to gather with other women in circle on the full and new moons, to mark these moments in cosmic time that we are moving through together. To chart what is moving through me and each other woman in the circle as the moon pulls us in different ways; to be witnessed by each other in all of our phases.

That’s why I created the Temple — an online women’s container that is on pause right now but that will be back soon (you can sign up for the waitlist here).