Distillation of a season.
Third quarter moon in Pisces.
This final quarter of this Gemini lunar cycle calls to mind the process of distillation, in which material is boiled to extract its essence and then discarded. A couple years ago, I learned how to use this process to make hydrosol, which merely captures the steam released from boiling plant matter. This steam, cooled into a spray, carries with it the gentlest aroma of the flowers it once was, but I find it gentler than essential oils or incense, which can feel too heavy or noxious for people sensitive to scents and chemicals.
The moon in Pisces, squaring the sun in Gemini, are both in the latter degrees of their respective signs, which are the dissolving and distilling signs of their elements. What was useful about spring is distilled and captured so it can carry us into summer, while what is no longer necessary may be discarded into the compost heap.
What a wonderful practice that would be worth bringing into the public life. We carry so many stories and grievances that prevent us from learning and moving into the next moment. But also this lunar cycle has featured an upwelling of dissent and disagreement in the public square, in the United States, along with the escalation of war in other parts of the world. What looked like tyranny now looks like weakness, but a weak leader may still cause great harm, as a toddler with a firearm could cause great harm.
Looking at this moment, it feels like not much is happening, but truly the ground is softening for the next thing to happen. The seasons are shifting and one cannot hold onto the shift because it is becoming a new thing. Jupiter is fresh and invigorated in the sign of exaltation, bringing abundant attention to issues of our homes and homelands. Uranus is in the degree of distillation in its own journey through Taurus, where it initiated disruptive changes in our relationship to work, money, pleasure, and art with the foregrounding of what we’re calling AI and the upheavals to the world order of trade and commerce thanks to tariffs and the confoundingly inescapable cryptocurrency market.
What I suspect is that this Gemini cycle has laid out the conditions that Uranus will be further disrupting. It is distilling all the issues Jupiter has brought forward in its journey, and now we must make changes. Questions about: how to tell good from bad information? What sources of information are trustworthy? What are the products of bad information? How do I tend my communication streams? Is truth real or is it all a matter of competing narratives?