Unraveling?
I’m shedding skin and can hardly keep up.
Unraveling, inside out. I’m shedding…my old skin now. These are the opening lyrics of the first song I wrote and recorded—Cocoon. I haven’t been writing or recording music for a while, as my creative energy has been resourced for stabilizing and creating a new life chapter on the West Coast. I suppose there is only so much of me to go around, which is something, as an artist, I lament often. If only I didn’t need sleep and could use the night to paint, play my guitar, write poetry, stare into the starlight for hours, and sing my heart out as lyrics run through me like water. If only.
Lunar New Year & New Moon in Aquarius
Today is a New Moon in Aquarius and the Lunar New Year of the Wood Snake. This moon cycle is hefty, walking us over a threshold of releasing all that has occurred this last month and year into a new change phase. For some, it will be a joyous experience; for many, it will be rigorous. I hope that regardless of how you process this last cycle, all of us can find some softness in the fertile ground of this moment.
Wood brings expansion, new growth, and beginnings to a year of radical renewal and transformation on every level. Aquarius is the sign of the moment, the beholder of the Plutonic cauldron until 2043, and the “one to watch.” If you’re an Aquarius reading this (or have an Aquarius Moon or Ascendent), then you catch my drift. Hosting Pluto in your sign is an undeniable privilege that rivals only the experience of actual birth or death.
Aquarius, or the 11th house, is a realm of collective vision—a composite participation of the artistry and self-expression birthed in the 5th house of Leo. Aquarius is the water vessel through which this creative magic materializes through friendships, groups, community, and society. As a fixed air sign, Aquarius rules technology and the upper regions of the intellect, stabilizing pathways where tech and the mind intersect. For better or worse, this weaving reveals a new future of symbiotic relations between organic and synthetic dimensions, tbd…
New Beginnings Are Here
This New Moon’s boon is a trine with Jupiter in Gemini. Jupiter is retrograde until March 11th and somehow offers permission for rest in the blessings of this moment. And…Pluto is within reach and infuses this cycle and new year with its unique shade of offering. The new is unfolding; this year has the energy of new beginnings. And with every new step, an old one is left behind. It has been an intense start to 2025, and the skin of the old has been shedding with fervor. Many families, and perhaps you reading this, have recently lost everything they’ve known in the fires in LA. I’ve shared tears with some of you and feel my heart wrung out within the immense impermanence of all things through your lived experience. Few words and much love emerge in times of significant loss, and the journey continues.
Worlds are born and destroyed by fire, and there is a symbolic quality within the flame that needs not to be spoken of or written to understand; it just is. I am thinking of you, Los Angeles, the City of Angels whose heartbeat is in sync with the creativity and self-expressive Leo 5th house currently supercharged by opposition from Pluto in Aquarius. How will these fires transform the message that beams from the city that creates our worlds of film and story? What new message is there for us to learn and grow from rather than continue to tire from with the perpetual violence and doomsday feature films of recent years? Is there a new perspective after living through such atrocities? I am curious as to how Hollywood will respond in time.
Inspiration, Change, Deep Reflection
I’m shedding skin and can hardly keep up with the formlessness of each moment. As the earth beneath me continues to move, expressing my inspirations, creations, or intentions has been challenging. Fortunately, I now feel grounded as I learn to surf and tread the earth element, which is a thick lava-like molasses in texture but still not water, not even close. It took me a minute to locate gravity in this recent transition and perhaps just in time to hold me as I will soon walk into more unfamiliar terrain in my spiritual journey in my upcoming quest.
Born in the year of the Fire Snake, I am excited to shed this past 12-year cycle and begin again, moving through my current death and rebirth cycle into something completely unfamiliar. I’m already in new territory as a creator, living the dual experience (Jupiter in Gemini) of having received inspiration to create, offer, share, and teach and then, in real-time, realizing that I cannot begin anything before I leave for Mexico at the end of this next New Moon Cycle and am initiated into a time of deep reflection upon the New Moon in Pisces, February 27th.
Shedding of Skin
I accept the cost of change and still observe myself wrestling with desires, commitments, and responsibilities from where and who I’ve been. Also, my approach feels so different from what I’ve experienced before, and I am somewhat realizing this as I write this journal. I have a strong relationship and process with my natal Mars, opposing my Sun/Venus. I am living a Pluto/Mars opposition in my natal chart as we are also experiencing this on a collective level. Slowly, I am starting to glimpse the silver lining that may prevail after the anguish of the internal battles I’m navigating and from this vantage point feel excited for what is possible on the other side for each of us. These transits are tough; whether you are going through them up close or through the broader collective lens, I wish you a beautiful shedding of the skin you no longer need.
All my best to you, and please receive the piece of my heart that lives inside these words,
Thank you for visiting my inner world. If you want to learn more about my work in the outer world, enjoy cielawynter.com and listen to Season 1 of my podcast here.
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We cannot change the world until we accept we are the world. This is the new conversation.