August 12, 2026
Celestial shenanigans are foretold for the New Moon this month, including one thing that is not an internet rumor: a solar eclipse. Astrologers think of solar eclipses as a new start, and the New Moon’s energy is already like meeting up with your most excitable, curious friend, and being influenced by their latest enthusiasms.
I’d like to learn how to play Frisbee golf, you say to yourself later. It sounds pretty cool!
Take advantage of the next two weeks to dream up everything that sounds cool to you, and start taking note. What sparks your interest is a message from your subconscious, and messages are always worth decoding. Our cards to go along with this:
Uh, 8 of Swords.
That’s it. Because the other four are reversed and I was not expecting any of this, especially after this week’s weekly reading was so positive.
Not fun or exciting: 8 of Swords. How do we make two weeks’ worth of 8 of Swords energy life-expanding and uplifting? I honestly don’t know. 8 of Swords is, very simply, when you’ve talked yourself into a corner and don’t know how you got there.
The energy of 8 is being very, very good at something. So good, you could do it in your sleep. Sometimes this is fun, like when you flip an egg in a skillet without breaking the yolk, to the astonishment of your midnight supper guests after the party. Or they say, “I hate these stupid Rubik’s Cubes!” and you casually reach over, take it, and zip zip zip you wrassle that thing into perfect order.
People are dazzled, but you aren’t dazzled because the real truth is you’ve flipped so many eggs, and twisted so many Rubik’s Cubes, over a lifetime that these feats no longer bring you delight.
But they bring other people delight, so there’s your conundrum. You’re trapped.
In Swords, the trap is your mouth, as in “…why can’t you keep your big trap shut?” The 8 of Swords is the realization that you are penned in, and it’s your own words, pronouncements, declarations, and perhaps vows that have put you there.
So maybe that is the energy we look for, these two weeks: if I could get out of this and have a new start, what would it look like? If I could talk about something new, what would it be? If I chose another type of communication, how would I do that?
We find our own way out of the pen we neatly backed ourself into. The gate is not latched and the keeper is facing us in the mirror. You don’t have to stay here, says the New Moon. “You really don’t,” hollers the sun, just before the shadow crosses his face. He’ll come out on the other side and something in us, something very old and rattling like ancestor DNA, will heave a massive sigh of relief because we know we’ll come out of it, too.
Figure out how you might do something differently while the Moon is waxing. It’s your way out of a situation that no longer serves any purpose at all.
