Dark matter is a favourite wonder of mine, believing as I do that all potency and potential waits patiently in the spaces between, poised and steady, already knowing when to leap into the light. Let these wondrous words (and there's plenty more from whence they came) carry you fearless and delighting into your shadows.

Both Pluto and Mars have turned retrograde, joining taskmaster Saturn and truth bomb Jupiter in reverse gear. And although it may well feel like the brakes have been slammed on, in truth this an invitation to enter the shadowlands prepared to spend some highly instructive and revealing time walking among our skeletons, the denizens of our dark.

After the spectacular whirlwind that has been the first quarter of this year - I'm still looking at you eclipse season - we're all more than ready for a hearty dose of slow mo. In the next month we will find ourselves having the pause button repeatedly pushed by three retrogrades as Mars, then Pluto and finally Mercury all haul themselves into reverse, joining long players Saturn and Jupiter.

If I met you reading tarot you will already know how much I love being able to reflect what's going on in your life back to you, as the cards whisper your story to me. It is a privilege to be invited into someone's world this way and one I honour in every reading I do. For years now I have read at markets and gatherings, parties and events and in cafés and healing havens and bookshops. I offer readings on Skype as well. And hand in hand with reading is writing, my first great love. You'll find it here most days as I interpret the moon and stars and the world around us.

The moon is nearly new in Aries, a chest thumping firestarter that marks the end of one era and the beginning of another. It is no surprise that there's almost a coven of dark goddesses with a magic hand in this tipping point.

Irritation is an Aries dark moon

Paddling in paradise

Evanescence
lifting the night air from the earth swirls
into cool air
thinner than my breath
undressing quickly I flew
to walk in the tendrils
between worlds seen and unsettled and the coming
of the new
shaking dreams from my night hair
tucking the stars in my eyes away
for another day

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly and directly and actually our thoughts create our immediate reality.

Today's dark moon dreaming is being magnified by this ephemeral Pisces moon. At once vague and visionary, she's pulling us deep below the surface twitter of birds and nodding sunflowers.

Musing on crucifixion and our unholy willingness to martyr ourselves on a cross that is often only ours to bear. Post eclipse mayhem seems to be hitting hard this cloudy day or have all the bunny chocolates and long weekenders gone straight to our heads?

Last night's full moon eclipse in Libra was the final in a series of eclipses on the Libra / Aries axis that have been running since 2012, taunting us with their potent blood moons and forcing us to consider one of the greatest balancing acts we try to master in our oh so busy lives: me vs you. Yep, that old chesnut.

With so much of this eclipse malarkey playing out in Piscean realms, you could be forgiven for feeling like you've been battling the biggest rip of your life. Fighting it only made us feel like we were drowning as our strength waned and panic set in. We were dragged out largely against our will into a daunting ocean whose beauty was quickly replaced by our terror as we tried not to think about what lurked in the depths. It was only when we surrendered to forces greater than ourselves and stopped struggling that we began to float.

The full moon in Libra has nearly risen and just before 11pm tonight Wollombi time the lunar eclipse takes place completing the astronomical process of eclipse season, even as this potent window will continue to exert its significant effect in our lives for weeks and months yet. This tipping point highlights the big question that has been ruminating for weeks now:

Are you ready to eclipse yourself?

Woman is the most superstitious animal beneath the moon. This is not meant to be an occult or mystic remark. The female body is a vessel, and the universe drops its secrets into her.

~ Edward Dahlberg

The movement of Mercury into Aries this morning is an antidote to nebulous communication but be careful what you wish for. Whilst the Neptunian delusionists and filthy liars alike are no longer as able to flourish under non fishy skies, Arien firepower can be dangerously bombastic in the wrong mouth.

And so the wheel has turned once more. Moments ago the sun wafted from the dreamy Piscean realm to the firebrand go-getter energy of Aries, hauling us from the watery depths into our baptism of fire as the astrological cycle begins anew.

There was a time when the movement of the planets above us and the earth below us alone marked the passage of time. Before clocks and calendars were invented to explain time, the Ancients walked in step with the world they inhabited, building ritual observations into a foundation stone of their lives.