The Fourth Chakratic Method
Today's full moon in Leo models how Valentine's Day can serve transpersonal love.
Hi, doll.
Technically, Valentine’s Day is Friday, but this year it’s pretty much a three-day event kicking off with this morning’s full moon in Leo, the most expressive, romantic, and dramatic full moon of them all.
Cue hearts, flowers, fireworks; the whole schmear.
Sure, the Hallmark industrial complex has colonized V Day to capitalize on one-on-one romance. But before the Church erased it with a mythical Saint Valentine, February 14 marked the beginning of a three-day pagan festival worshipping Venus, Juno, Aphrodite, Eros, Cupid, and Pan. Perhaps not coincidentally, tonight and tomorrow is Tu BiShvat, the Jewish new year of the trees, which is often treated as a holiday to honor nature and advance ecological awareness.
My suggestion? Embrace this window as a celebration of desire, embodiment, and our sweetest selves.
Adorn yourself with bold pastels, silks, and velvets. Anoint yourself with fragrant oils. Eat and drink the most delicious ambrosia. (For me, this amounts to seltzer, steak, and lobster.) Hug trees. Thank the sea and soil for regenerating no matter how we abuse them. Go dancing. Buy seeds and plants. Fetch everyone coffee and yourself a bed toy, regardless of whether you have a bed friend.
The name of the game is accessible luxury.
Leo full moons liberate even the most reticent among us, so if you’re harboring love for someone, tell them. Your crush, sure. But also your friends. Your pets. Your family. Your partner of 50 years. Your bandmates and lab partners. Even your ex. (Love never goes away, it just changes form.)
Better yet, make something that does the talking for you. Write a song, bake a cake, knit a scarf. Whatever you hatch doesn’t have to be perfect, just perfectly heartfelt. A Leo full moon ratchets up your creativity, and gets into trouble without a healthy outlet.
Above all, trust the rhythms of your body and heart, express your appreciation, and focus on communion rather than comparison.
You're allowed to be happy. You are allowed to cultivate joy. In fact, you need to because our job is to build the world that we want.—Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Given the state of the union, you may find my advice glib or dissociative. Trust me: I get it.
The larceny of this new American kockistacrocy* is unprecedented. Authoritarianism is on the rise. The environment is literally in flames. Everyone is running on empty, with dangerously short fuses.
Astrologically, Mars retrograde is now in Cancer, rendering us hyper-reactive and more inclined to register our own hurts rather than how we’re hurting others. Though this retrograde ends February 23, it’s overlapping with the shadow of Venus retrograde, which officially begins March 1 and is already in foot-stamping Aries. All told, the planets of passion, drive, relationships, civility, and creativity are uncharacteristically blocked from repressing our worst impulses in the areas they govern.
So why not welcome these next three days as a reprieve from this barrage of chaos and cruelty?
While the conventional incarnation of Valentine’s Day can breed Venus envy—unrealistic, unhappy romantic expectations— let it instead remind you why life is worth living. When we honor love in all its gorgeous variations and vibrations, we are inspired to transcend and resist.
Leo full moons are always about the heart. They can be histrionic and tumultuous, but they are pleasure-seeking bombs that blow out our blocks around authentic joy and connection. How so? By illuminating anything that raises the heart’s vibration and releasing anything that doesn’t serve transpersonal compassion and delight.
It’s what I only half-jokingly call the Fourth Chakratic Method.
The fourth chakra, also known as the heart chakra, is located in the center of the chest and taps into an electromagnetic field that extends far beyond our physical body, connecting everyone and everything. Some call this electromagnetic field the divine or God or the universe. Lately I refer to it as the Multiverse.
When we consciously align with this field—whether through meditation; chest-opening stretches; ecstatic dance; or acts of kindness, creation, and loving resistance—we raise the collective energetically. Think of it as adjusting your radio dial to a frequency, then turning up the volume so everyone can hear.
Basically, the Fourth Chakratic Method is Lloyd Dobler playing that boombox for the whole world.
My heart is moved by all I cannot save/so much has been destroyed/I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world. -Adrienne Rich
As of Friday, the Ruby Intuition schedule is open again.
Though Valentine’s Day is already booked, slots are available as early as Monday and gifts of sessions still can be purchased for yourself and loved ones. As well, this year’s discounted packages are available until EOD February 14, and reflect the changes going into effect upon my return.
I used my sabbatical to refine this fourth chakratic method, and am agog to intuit the optimal paths of your heart.
May the next three days glow with your uniquely rosy sheen.
With waggling eyebrows and slow kitty blinks,
*kockistocracy—a portmanteau of kakistocracy, a government run by the least competent and most unscrupulous citizens of a state, and, well, you get it.