You can begin this practice in any given month. Your starting point will be just before the new moon occurs. The four things you will need before getting started are:
- the time and place you were born
- a calendar with the moon phases, such as this one
- a notebook for keeping track of your progress
- the willingness to take time, at least once a week, to reflect upon your steps and your progress
The first thing to do as preparation, is to find your house positions right here. If your rising sign is Aries, then Aries is the sign of your first house, Taurus the second, Gemini the third and so on. If, for example, your rising sign is Libra, then your second house will be Scorpio, your third Sagittarius, your fourth Capricorn etcetera.
Each of the houses speaks to an area of your life. In this practice, you will look at these areas of life in the order in which they show up in your natal chart. If you are an Aries rising, you will look at the themes of the first house in Aries season. If you are a Libra rising, Aries season is when the themes of the seventh house come into focus.
Aries season starts when the sun enters the sign. In this practice however, we follow the lunar cycle. We start on the new moon, the moment when the moon is right between the earth and the sun. To us it seems as if there is no moon at all, but the part we cannot see is completely lit by the sun, soaking up its light and energy. As the moon is renewing itself, so do we. We set our intentions for the weeks ahead and see them come to fruition as the moon waxes.
So the second thing to do, is to find out when the next new moon occurs and in what sign it is. It might, for example, be the new moon on 1 April 2022, which is in Aries.
When you combine your house positions and the moon calendar, you will know which area of life to focus on when. If you are an Aries rising starting this practice on 1 April 2022, you will begin by exploring the themes of your first house. If you are a Libra rising, your practice commences by looking at the topics that the seventh house speaks to.
Once you have established when and where to start, there is no more astrology involved, unless you want to weave it into the practice. The actual practice itself is based on coaching principles and is all about taking small steps to create lasting change.
With each area of your life that comes into focus, the steps are the same:
- make an inventory
- make a starfish and draw up a schedule
- take actions and do regular check-ins
- reflect upon your progress
To help you with the inventory, I shall provide lists with questions relevant to all twelve houses soon. In my blog on the practice you will find my personal inventories, which I hope might serve as an example.
When you write the inventory, try looking at your own life from some distance. Be as objective as you possibly can. If, say, you are looking at the sixth house theme ‘health’, take the perspective of a doctor reviewing your health and lifestyle. What would they pay attention to? They will probably want to know if you sleep well, do any exercise, what your diet is like, if you have any health issues etcetera.
It is essential, and this might not always be easy, not to judge yourself and to keep emotions at bay as you are drawing up your inventory. Feelings can be useful in the next step, but you really don’t need them in the first.
Once you have completed your review, it is probably best to leave it for a day and then look at it again in a new session. Read over what you have written down and ask yourself: what about this list feels right and what are things I would rather change?
In order to structure your thoughts, I would recommend the starfish model. On a piece of paper you draw five lines, just like the arms of the sea creature. You then label the compartments: stop, less of, keep, more of and start. All you have to do is transfer the items of your inventory to these five compartments.
The next step is asking: what small steps can I take in order to achieve what I want? Going back to the example of your physical health: you might realise that you want to drink more water. What will you do and when to make sure that you actually achieve this? You might decide to put a jar on your desk and make sure it’s empty by the end of your work day. This is a simple action that you can start the very next working day.
Other actions might require more preparations or time. These are the ones you really need to plan. This is why you finish the starfish session with your calendar in hand and schedule your things-to-do. Always make sure they are small and realistic enough for you to actually do them. And, very important, also schedule a weekly check-in moment.
Reviewing different aspects of your life and taking small steps to shift and change things is not always easy. I am therefore collecting various support tools right here. These are tips and tricks to keep going. You may think of them as stars or lighthouses to navigate by.
The third step then, are the actions. Each week, until the next new moon occurs and you will review a new theme, you check-in with yourself to see if things are going as planned. Please remember that here is absolutely no need to judge yourself if they don’t.
As I write in my blog: this practice is meant to lighten the load, not to overburden yourself. It is designed to celebrate what is already wonderful and beautiful and further expand on that. We work from the premiss that you are always good enough. There is no need to change you. What you are looking at, are changes you might want to make in your life in order for the wonderful and beautiful person that you are to shine more brightly.
A guide on how to check-in can be found right here. This helps you with the fourth step, the reflection upon your process. Two set moments to reflect are: (1) right before you move on to the new theme – in my blog you can find these reflections as ‘in transit’ and (2) some five months later as the full moon occurs in the sign that had been in focus. So if you start this practice on the new moon in Aries on 1 April 2022, you will look back on 9 October 2022. Hopefully you will notice a lot more ease and light.
My rising sign 