August 2018

Dive into this month’s medicine for your sign with our Numinous Tarotscopes August 2018, cast by Melinda Lee Holm. Art: The Moonchild Tarot

LEO // LEO RISING
Three of Swords

Happy Solar Return, Leo! Now, I realize that if you’re familiar with the most popular image of this card (three swords piercing a red heart against a background of gray rainclouds) you are side eyeing me really hard right now. Stay with me. Three is the number of collaboration. Swords are the suit of Air, intellect and communication. Collboration in thinking and communicating is not an inherently bad thing. In fact, it’s generally quite positive. Bringing together different and even differing points of view can lead to some amazing breakthroughs for us as individuals and for our communities. The main things to remember are try not to take things personally and to check your ego – deeply related pursuits!  With Mercury retrograde for the first part of the month, it could be easy to fall into patterns of feeling slighted or misunderstood.

This month, I want to invite you to invite some new conversation partners into your sphere. Big bonus points for folks with inherently different points of view – people who come from different backgrounds, have different levels of work experience and education, prioritize their lives differently than you do. As you branch out, you’ll find that your internal thoughts and communications start to shift around a bit as well. The collaboration that began externally makes its way inward and you have new patterns of thought to play with and to hold your beliefs up against. Your greatest birthday gift just might end up being a brand new view of your place in the world.

Leo stone for August: Selenite. Selenite purifies the energy of all that surrounds it by flooding it with bright Divine light and Universal wisdom. It never requires cleansing and clears other stones.

///

VIRGO // VIRGO RISING 
Seven of Wands

My dear Virgo, August is beckoning you to put that gorgeous Strength you integrated last month to work! And following the eclipse at the end of last month, you should have a much clearer idea of what projects and pursuits are worth the energy and which aren’t. If there was any emotional fallout from the revelations of that eclipse, spend the first part of the month running damage repair. Use the Fire energy of the Wands to intuit the most productive route back to your healthy self, then set your sights on creating. Communication with co-creators will need extra care until Mercury stations direct on the 18th. Allow more time that you think you need for all aspects of life outside of staying home and eating takeout in pajamas.

By the end of the month, you should really feel the Fire to fight for your place in the world. What is it that you’ve been longing to stake a claim on? Where do you feel you’ve not yet been recognized like you should be? What part of your life are you ready to push to the next level? Get ready to leave behind any doubt you’ve felt in the past about what you deserve, how your work is received, or the level of your abilities – especially your ability to lead. You had a great lesson last month in embodying Strength. Now you have the opportunity to prove to yourself how powerful you are when you choose to show it.

Virgo stone for August: Bloodstone. Bloodstone is a powerful ally for purification and health of the physical body and infusing all levels of being with grounded vitality and strength.

///

LIBRA // LIBRA RISING
The Emperor

Well, Libra, your reign of awesome continues this month! Your string of powerful manifesting energies is so enviable that I keep re-checking my chart for more planets in your sign (still rocking only Pluto and the North Node).  You are moving through the greatest hits of power brokers of the Tarot and this one is the all time master of executing a precise vision. I hope the last couple months got you VERY in touch with your inherent connection to the Earth and the Heavens and to the awesome power of Love to move mountains. You’re going to need that altruism to balance the laser focus and drive The Emperor brings to your door in August. The insensity of this energy burns so hot that I’m not even worried about any potential retrograde hazards. You’ll see them coming a mile away and adjust accordingly.

So, what’s it gonna be, Libra? Which hot topic gets your attention this month? Choose wisely. The Emperor brings a ferocious appetite for construction, but his focus is narrow. Pick one big thing and let the rest sit on the back burner for a minute. If you have trouble knowing what this is or which one you should choose, think back over the past few months and try to remember what you were dreaming about the most, what themes came in, which areas of your life they dealt with. The Emperor is great for work, but the energy is just as useful for other areas of your life.

Libra stone for August: Orange Calcite. Orange Calcite opens our inner fountain of playful creativity, allowing joyful productivity and problem solving to burst forth without judgment.

///

SCORPIO // SCORPIO RISING
Seven of Cups

Oh, Scorpio, I’m so excited to see what you bring to this energy this month. The Seven of Cups asks us to clear away our doubts about what our heart truly wants, and with your incredible capacity for inward reflection, this could be a chance to open up to desires you never dreamed were hiding out inside you. Pay special attention to any messages that come through at the Solar Eclipse on the 11th. You may have gotten clues during the eclipses last month. Mercury in retrograde until the 18th is actually a huge boon to you – the planet of communication will be combing over the past 3 months for anything or anyone that requires your attention. Make sure you know whether it’s for reconnection or for closure.

Try to spend more time than usual this month in solitary self-reflection. Take inventory of situations, places, and people that bring you joy and contentment. Consider what they have in common and how they differ. This should feel good. If you start getting into a zone of judging yourself or falling into obsessing over what DOESN’T make you happy, gently pull your attention back to the project at hand and float gently on those sweet waves of love remembrance, peeling back the what and when and who to discover the why and the how. Keep an eye out for something shiny sparking way down deep beneath the surface. You’ll know when to take the dive and what to bring back up for keeps.

Scorpio stone for August: Peacock Ore. Peacock Ore balances all of the chakras, pulling them into alignment to provide a stable place for pure happiness and joy for life to grow and thrive.

///

SAGITTARIUS //SAGITTARIUS RISING
Page of Cups

Your work in July really paid off, Sagittarius! You shook off the shackles of doubt and are now ready to step forward into a month-long exercise in opening to new emotional experiences – both within and with others. The Pages invite us to forget everything we think we know about their element and to assess our surroundings and experiences with fresh perception. In the realm of Water, this often means letting go of the walls we’ve built up in reaction to past woundings so we can take people and situations for what they are, not for what we fear they might be. This doesn’t mean that we leave ourselves open to injury. Open hearts demand open eyes, unclouded by the past or the pressures of the present and future.

Find the power in vulnerability this month. Practice the art of radical self-acceptance and see how it changes your perspective of others and the power they hold. With Mercury retrograde until the 18th, I bet you’ll have plenty of opportunities to test out your new superpower with familiar faces from your past, back to hold up a newly polished energetic mirror to you. Let it be a game. Not in the sense of manipulation – I’d never suggest you “play games” with people in the colloquial sense – but in the sense of keeping it lighthearted. This work is about re-dedicating your heart to the service of bringing you joy and love. Self-judgment, dwelling in the past, and cold calculation have no place here.

Sagittarius stone for August: Rose Quartz. Rose Quartz opens and cleanses the heart to ease fear and blockages around both giving and receiving love from ourselves, others, and the Divine.

///

CAPRICORN // CAPRICORN RISING
Six of Swords

August has you feeling good enough about your patterns of thought and communication to settle in to some fine tuning, Capricorn, and it’s looking to be a great time for it. Between all the revelations that came to you last month with The Sun as your card, two eclipses bringing messages from the ether, and now Mercury dusting off your personal files from the past few months for review, there is a LOT to work with. Has it all been comfortable? Likely not. You don’t traditionally take well to change; eclipse season has been a bit nerve-wracking for most of us already and we’re not even finished. Start the month off with low-hanging fruit, tweaking patterns that are in obvious need of a slight adjustment, then move into more nuanced territory starting after the eclipse of the 11th and full on after Mercury stations direct on the 18th.

I’m using delicate language purposefully, Capricorn. The Sixes mark a moment of achievement, and with this achievement comes the opportunity to reflect and adjust. This is not the time for major overhauls. What you have been doing is serving you well. The project is to make it serve you a little better. Are there any statements you make to yourself or others on a regular basis that could be polished up to be just a little more open and supportive? Any mental frameworks that are just slightly obscuring your view of your full potential? Now is your time to polish them up and make them shine.

Capricorn stone for August: Moss Agate. Moss Agate is the stone of new beginnings. It inspires the strength needed to move forward with a clean slate, firmly grounded in the present, untethered from the past.

///

AQUARIUS // AQUARIUS RISING
Ten of Wands

No retrograde or eclipse is gonna hold you back this month, Aquarius! The flame of Elemental Fire is here to ignite your passion and push you to the limits of what you thought it was possible to accomplish. If you’ve been avoiding doing some heavy lifting, this is the time. With your newly found stability in this realm, you’ve got a ground to stand on to move forward with things you’ve put off for some time. In this sense, the astrology this month is absolutely perfect for you. See if you can put this blast of productivity behind something that’s been neglected that comes back up at the start of the month, rather than putting it toward a brand new endeavor. Make a list of tasks and get to work.

These need not be conventional “work” tasks. Remember, Fire brings us the Divine gift of intuition as well as action. It is deeply related to magic, conjuring, and purifying. Mastery of this element at this level is more flexible in its use than it may seem at first. Take care to tune in to where you need it most. If the Lunar Eclipse at the end of last month didn’t make it perfectly clear, the solar one at the top of this month should. The Universe urges us to go where we can best be of service, where our actions can be most beneficial to ourselves and the collective. Don’t be afraid to let your idealism shine. Keep your eyes and your heart open and heed the call.

Aquarius stone for August: Citrine. Citrine lights up the Sun Center for a burst of confidence, feelings of well-being, and creative impulses, illuminating the way forward on the path of manifestation.

///

PISCES // PISCES RISING 
Ace of Cups

You are being rewarded greatly this month, Pisces! You’ve had about a six month cycle of lessons around independence, loss, trust, and partnership here in the Tarotscopes, and your report card comes in the form of a big juicy A for Ace of Cups, the Divine gift of universal love. Take a deep breath, exhale the past, and step forward into a new relationship with your individual and the collective emotional body. This month, I want you to try to check in every day with how you are feeling. See if you can get underneath the judgment and analysis that so often permeate our experience of our emotions, and simply revel in the glorious human experience of the heart. It may not always be pleasant, but it is always sacred.

The Aces all have an element of luck built in. It’s considered “good fortune” to get them in a reading. What will you do with this emotional luck? How will you use it? What risks will you take that you’d normally shy away from? This is an excellent opportunity not only to freely express your love and devotion to yourself and others, but to open your heart up to some darker places within that you’ve stayed away from out of fear. You’re safe, Pisces. Go ahead and dive in. This celestial flood of elemental Water will keep any murky pools from clouding your vision for long. Know you are buoyant and take plenty of breaks to come up for air.

Pisces stone for August: Amethyst. 

///

ARIES // ARIES RISING 
King of Wands

Oh, Aries, I am truly so thrilled for you. To come out of the chaos of the Five and into the mastery of the King? Pure bliss. And in your native element of Fire! No matter where you live, August is cooking up to be a hot one and you’d do well to get all your ingredients prepped and your techniques sharpened early on so you’re ready to impress. With your natural leadership, having a team in place and knowing exactly how they can best support your visions is not a bad idea either. This is big time manifesting energy. And my guess is that there is something you were DYING to accomplish last month that was blocked by misfires at every attempt to move forward.

If all this has you a bit stressed about where exactly to put all this energy, take a deep breath and remember that Fire is the element of intuition as well as action. Clear your mind, listen to your gut instincts, and let the knowledge come to you. Intuiting your next moves may be your greatest achievement this month. If that’s the case, be sure to take some concrete steps toward making your goals reality, no matter how small. If you’re executing on a detailed project, pad your timelines and budgets to allow for any retrograde shenanigans. The cosmos has delivered an incredibly useful energy that is exceptionally well-suited to your natural inclinations right to your doorstep. Accept this gift graciously and show your gratitude by embodying it to your fullest potential.

Aries stone for August: Malachite. Malachite brings luck and good fortune, creating a general vibe of positivity and an awareness of and gratitude for the abundance existing in our lives.

///

TAURUS // TAURUS RISING 
Ace of Crystals

It’s a new era, Taurus! Like I said last month, your entire year has been spent in the Major Arcana and your native element of Earth, and now we’ve come to the root of it all.  Whenever I see so much work done in one area followed by an Ace, I get this wonderful expansive feeling like I’m looking out over a wide open landscape and can see for a thousand miles. This is your new base level. This is where you build from now. All of the work you’ve done has gotten you to a new level of understanding of your material world. The Aces come to us as gifts from the Universe. It’s our job to accept them with grace and use them to build a new path forward.

Where will your path take you, Taurus? What clues have come to you throughout the year so far? How have your teachers, family, and friends guided you? What have you already started building towards that you can now fully dedicate yourself to nurturing? Think big and think long-term. The stones you lay this month can lead to beauty you never dreamed possible if you ensure that the path you are building has the power to continue to light you up well into the future. The more care you put into it along the way, the more it will return to you by keeping the ground steady beneath your feet. Your future is stretched out before you and it all connects to now.

Taurus stone for August: Quartz Crystal. Quartz Crystal is the master crystal, working to amplify spiritual connection and the energies of all other stones. It is at once grounding and uplifting.

///

GEMINI // GEMINI RISING 
Nine of Swords

This month has a treasure of hard-won wisdom waiting for you, Gemini, and it’s all in your cozy zone of elemental Air! I am a big fan of the number nine. As the product of 3 x 3, it has major Divne lineage. I see the nines of the Tarot pips as symbolizing the highest level of wisdom of the suit (tens get to carry the mastery), one that only comes through lived experience. In the realm of Air, we get an earned wisdom around how we think and communicate, how we frame the world and conjure or banish possibilities from our lives with our thoughts and words. It’s powerful stuff! And with the planet of communication taking a little backwards stroll for the first part of the month, you’ll have the opportunity to do a nice deep review of how you’ve been operating.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (and again and again) – ALL WORDS ARE MAGIC WORDS. What do you tell yourself that is limiting your experience of your life? How could you switch it up to use your words to expand your world? Who are you taking advice from and what are the intentions and motivations behind it and behind your willingness to accept it? When is enough enough? This is “zero f#cks” territory, Gemini. All August, you are taking your power back through shifts that will be nearly imperceptible from the outside, but make a profound difference in the quality of your life. Start early and keep it steady.

Gemini stone for August: Black Obsidian. Black Obsidian assists in clearing energetic sludge and heaviness, particularly emotional heaviness and opens pathways of communication with the spirit realm.

///

CANCER // CANCER RISING 
Page of Crystals

Time to rebuild, dear Cancer! What, you didn’t know there was anything missing? Not surprising. You have a tendency to hyper-focus on your immediate surroundings, preferring the security of shoring up your personal boundaries to that of building out a fortress, but the time has come. Fortunately, you’re going to get to do it a little differently than everyone else. Forget everything you’ve been told about how to build grounded stability, a home. Forget common wisdom and colloquialisms and folk sayings. There are no rules. This is purely about you exploring ALL of the options to find what is exactly right for you right here and right now. And you can’t explore every option if you’re cutting out everything that someone older or wiser or richer or more successful has told you won’t work.

Sometimes it takes an outsider to move the needle forward in a significant way, in fact it usually does. Major shifts hardly ever come from an established expert. This month, you are that outsider. You have the gift of clear, wide open vision to see how you can stabalize your material world in a way that will serve you now and into the future. This can be through creating new streams of revenue, refurbishing or even completely changing your living situation, revamping your budget, or simply determining what makes you feel at home and making sure you get enough of it to feel secure. Feet on the ground and eyes to the sky, Cancer! This can be a very fruitful month if you put in the work.

Cancer stone for August: Chlorite Phantom Quartz. Chlorite Phantom Quartz provides a profound connection with the heart of the Earth, awakening our innate animal insticts and connection to our home planet.

///

The Moonchild Tarot by Danielle Noel will be published September 2018. Pre-order your copy HERE.