Even though I’ve been home nearly two weeks from the United Astrology Conference (UAC) that was just held in Chicago, I feel like I’m still metabolizing the whole experience. UAC followed so closely on the heels of the buzzy, Aug. 28 Pisces Full Moon and lunar eclipse (“enlivened,” as it was, by its close contact with Uranus) that the two weeks between that eclipse and the Virgo New Moon on Sept. 10 felt like being shot out of a cannon.
In a good way!
But still: my Taurean metabolism isn’t used to moving that quickly, lol. A light head cold kicking in as soon as I got home served to slow me back down. But it also made it harder to feel energized enough to work in a focused, intentional way with all the new material — astrological and intellectual, social and emotional, spiritual and intuitive — that my psyche was trying to process.
On top of that, this astrology conference — my first since 2010, back when I first started working at the astrology website Planet Waves — was a massive crucible of community. As such, it has been manifesting its own challenges related to the intense astrology and social re-ordering we’re all living through.
I have found it a little curious to connect with the wider astrology community in such a direct and immersive way (after being largely apart from it for so long) at a time when the community itself is in the throes of apparent growth pains. Then again, I suppose it makes a certain sense for my own experience to share echoes with the conference zeitgeist, even if I have not put all those pieces together yet.
The Aug. 28 eclipse Moon was closely conjunct my chart’s midheaven and the two goddess asteroids I have clustered there, connecting that sensitive line symbolizing vocation, career, goals, and purpose with the Virgo Sun’s life-giving light entering my zone of home and security, my roots and parental imprinting.
Uranus in Gemini, currently transiting the most hidden part of my chart, seemed to zap those two areas of my life and psyche like the startling ring of an alarm clock when one is immersed in the dreams of deep sleep.
And just like how that sort of sudden awakening from deep sleep can feel stressful, disorienting, or activating, so too can the focused electric current of Uranus when it makes contact in certain ways. Both Uranus and the alarm clock create tension between the pull back into the comfort of sleep via the snooze button, and the discomfort of pushing ourselves out from the warmth of our bed and into a new day of (often uncertain, never guaranteed) action.
Even though we all know that succumbing to the comfort of the snooze button is illusory, merely stalling the inevitable.
UAC 2026 in some ways functioned as both the push and the comfort: a very active, very stimulating opportunity to explore new professional contexts and connections, to learn and (how Uranian!) experiment; and also a very comfortable context in which to allow its structure, novelty, and energizing social environment to carry me through several days of “not my daily life” — which, from one perspective, could be a little like hitting the “snooze” button for a short while on what I’ve been asked to awaken to in my life.
To be sure, I encountered some astrological techniques I am excited to practice in the context of client sessions! Also, my urge to more frequently merge some of the visualization and inner spatial work I use in Soul Work sessions with astrology has been affirmed.
Yet I also find myself struggling to move through my days toward these things in any kind of clear way.
I question whether the last two weeks were simply a natural and necessary slowing down to fight off a cold virus, or a kind of dopamine crash/sinkhole after my ADHD+perimenopause brain was so hyper-stimulated (suggesting that I therefore need to ask those close to me for extra support in re-implementing helpful structures and tools).
Or has a sort of spiritual and energetic recovery been necessary to integrate the eclipses and the conference?
Or am I simply failing to act on the signals, signs, and suggestions I have encountered, because taking new action can be hard or because I question whether I understood my eclipse messages and conference synchronicities clearly?
Very likely, all of that is involved to some degree or another. Also, September is the middle month of a three-month string where my routines and rhythms are being disrupted for a week (or more!) at a time each month.
To be fair, I have not been completely stalled: I did take the leap of using a conference discount to get new astrology software for my new-since-December laptop, and last weekend finally ordered a new monitor so I can use said laptop in a way that is ergonomically sustainable for daily use. (God, I am such a Taurus sometimes!)
But I can feel myself needing to connect with some peers and co-conspirators, to seek new mentors, to reach for the social and professional support and connections I know I need if I am to fully metabolize and use all that I have noticed, felt, gathered, and am carrying in the back of my mind, in my body, and in the wing-space just beyond the stage of full consciousness.
I also remind myself that from the perspective of soul and Spirit, each of us is always right on time. That is very, very easy to lose sight of, even for an astrologer.
I plan to be back soon with some thoughts on October’s astrology and the equinox. In the meantime, I’d be curious to hear what your eclipse journey was like, and what you find yourself harvesting, analyzing, second-guessing, or learning and teaching as summer and September wind down.
With love,
Amanda
If I can support you through however your life is changing during these wild times with an astrological consultation or some soul work sessions, please get in touch. And if you enjoyed this, please consider leaving me a tip here. I offer this writing as a gift, but it does take time and energy. Thank you!
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