Well, we made it through most of the patch of bad astro-magical space weather. There are still some rocky days in the coming weeks, but we are slowly heading out of the “everything in fall or detriment” blues. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect and now that I’ve been through it, I can say that it’s felt more low energy and exhausting than anything.
There was a definite sense of not being able to move things forward and not feeling energetic about anything. And it wasn’t just me. Several of my friends also expressed similar things happening in their lives. Just a feeling of blah and an inability to make traction. Was this Mars retro in Cancer? Was this all the bad planetary placements? Was it just the February blues? In the end it doesn’t matter because the impact was the same.
Sometimes, despite our best efforts, our planning and projects get off track. Maybe we get sick and spend a week in bed. Maybe we have an external crisis that we have to deal with or step up for. Maybe we just go through a patch of really low energy space weather and our creative well dries up (don’t judge me!). Ice storms. Sad news. Sudden obligations. Migraines.
Let’s be honest, no matter how organized you are, shit happens! And it often happens in a way that throws a wrench into our carefully laid plans and goals. The key with a cyclical, agile approach to planning and magic is that, instead of trying to ignore or fight off a derailing moment or beating ourselves up over it, we acknowledge that this is not only not the end of the world, it’s actually NORMAL.
It’s normal for shit to happen. It’s normal for the wind to change. It’s normal for the chaos of the world to interfere with our carefully laid plans and projects. As a planning structure, cycle mapping is already designed to deal with chaos. Its short cycles and flexibility means you can adjust course as needed and flexibly respond to external factors. There’s also an opportunity every cycle to reset if you need to.
A reset is a gift you give yourself when things have been challenging. It’s a moment in time where you revisit your goals, realign your tasks, and reenergize your enchantments — all without blame or self recrimination. And this is the real difference between a planning framework that’s cyclical versus one that’s linear. When you are moving in a straight line, then there’s this feeling that you either fail or succeed. You take your shot and it’s a hit or a miss. If you derail in any way, well, you can try to get back on track, but you’ve missed. You are off course. You may have to ‘start again’ or ‘choose something else’ or ‘admit your failure.’
In a cyclical model, none of this applies. You are supposed to cycle back and revisit. You’re allowed, and in fact encouraged, to take another look at your plan and situation and assess how it’s been going. You get to say “huh, things really went sideways in the last few weeks, what did that look like?” and then adjust your plan based on it. And if you totally missed your target, well, you just make the loop and set a new one moving forward. Sure, it’s better to have a successful cycle than an unsuccessful one, but regardless the cycle happened and can be used to cycle forward again.
Because I knew that mid-February was going to be wonky (a combination of bad space weather, bad weather weather, and a general malaise that I personally tend to get this time of year) I didn’t have a lot of targets and tasks to miss out on. I gave myself a break, and I sure am glad I did. But even so, I find myself needing a reset. In the past couple of weeks I have been low on energy and creativity. I have had a bunch of migraines and my immune system has taken a hit. I find that I haven’t made nearly as much traction on my Q1 plans as I hoped.
So I am engaging in a reset for myself… here’s what that looks like:
First of all, I took a moment to forgive myself for having a rough time here. It happens. It happens to everyone… even people who make their living helping other people get more organized. Everyone has difficult times and it’s not the having them that’s the test, but what you do about them (“…so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” ―J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring.”).
Second, I revisited my mission, values, goals, and plans — top down — from my 2025 goal to my Q1 plan to what the hell I actually thought I’d accomplish this month and in the past few weeks. Doing this is both an inspiring reminder and a clear-eyed assessment of my progress. Again, not to beat myself up, but to reconnect to my heart and my WHY.
Third, I took an honest look at where things have been going well and where they’ve been not so great (in this case for the past two weeks) and determining the impacts to my plans. For the going well items, I give myself a little credit (go yoga!). And for the not so great ones, I’m being honest about where I can make changes (more veggies please) and where it’s more outside of my control (OK Mars, I get it, you hate being retrograde). And based on that I identify practical concrete things that I can do. This includes mundane things (salad!) and magical ones (Mars and Solar — my Mars is in Leo — remediation).
Finally, I define the “minimal definable feature set” for right now. What things I will do immediately that will give me the biggest ROI. For me, this includes getting back on some supplements that should help with the headaches while I sort out the care I need and doing the Jupiter Pisces Prosperity Rite (which is the February Rite for Inner Circle Members) and focusing on physical prosperity (energy, immune health, etc.).
So I had a bath using Golden Sol II bath salts (this materia is super well aligned to my chart and it’s like my favorite ever) and did the rite during Jupiter hour. I managed to make traction on my most important new project (which is right here if you want a sneak peak… a formal announcement is going out in coming days). And today I feel much better, more balanced and energetic, than I have in a fortnight. Project reset has been a success!
If you too have been having a bit of a challenging time, consider a reset.
