Catalyst Courage: Standing for Truth When It Costs Everything

Some truths cost more than others.

They are not whispered in safe corners or shared only with the willing - they are declared in the open, knowing the price will be exile, chains, or death.

And yet, they are the truths that shift the axis of the world.

Every age remembers its threshold keepers - those who stepped back across the line when they could have turned back.

Stephen before the Sanhedrin.

A philosopher in the streets of Alexandria.

A god-king on the banks of the Nile.

A queen at the gates of the underworld.

They chose to stand, to descend, to face the stones - and in doing so, they set ripples in motion that would outlive empires.

Catalyst courage does not look like safety.

It looks like loss, like endings, like standing alone on the edge of everything you’ve known.

But when the ground shakes beneath you, it is not the end of the road- it is the opening of the path.

Stephen & Paul: The First Catalyst of the Church

In the Bible, in the book of Acts, Stephen becomes the first Christian martyr.

Falsely accused of blasphemy by the Sandedrin, he does not hedge his words or soften them to keep his place in the community. Or, even to save his own life.

But instead, he boldly spoke the truth.

He recounts the story of Israel and points to Jesus, who they had just crucified, as the fulfillment of prophecy, knowing full well that truth would not be received gently.

As the stones fly, Stephen looks up and sees something no one else in scripture has recorded:

Jesus, standing at the right hand of God.

In every other recording, He is seated - but here, He rises as if to honor Stephen’s courage. A symbolic standing ovation.

On the sidelines stands a young Saul, an intern at the time - holding the coats of the executioners. Have you ever wondered why this obscure detail is included?

Saul is a Jew, a Pharisee, and a Roman citizen - a triple threat whose background gives him unparalleled influence.

That day, he is a witness to what truth can cost.

It plants a seed in him that will crack open on the Damascus road, transforming him into Paul, the missionary who will carry the gospel across the Mediterranean and, ultimately, through generations, to us.

Stephen’s courage became the seed of a mission that reshaped history.

Esoteric & Pagan Parallels

This same archetype - the courageous stand that becomes a transformational seed catalyst - appears in many traditions.

Hypatia of Alexandria: The Light Keeper

In 5th century Alexandria - a city where pagan philosophy, Jewish tradition, and Christian theology met in both dialogue and conflict - Hypatia stood as one of the last great teachers of the classical world. A neoplatonist philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer, she taught that the study of the cosmos was a pathway to the divine.

When political and religious tensions rose, Hypatia could have retreated into private life. She could have softened her teachings to appease the rising tide of orthodoxy. Instead, she continued to teach openly, drawing students of all faiths.

Her public murder by a Christian mob was meant to silence her voice - but it became a symbol of resistance. Her name was carried like a banner by Renaissance humanists, Theosophists, and modern mystics.

Her courage preserved a lineage of sacred knowledge that would inspire seekers for centuries.

Her lesson reminds us that standing for wisdom when the world demands silence plants seeds of truth that will long outlast the walls built to contain them.

Osiris: The God Who Would Not Stay Dead

In the Egyptian Mysteries, Osiris ruled as a just and noble king until his brother Set, driven by jealousy, murdered and dismembered him, scattering the pieces across the land. The act was meant to erase him from both throne and memory.

But Isis, his devoted queen, refused to let his story end.

She searched the Nile and desert, gathering each fragment, reassembling him through sacred rites, and breathing life into him long enough to conceive their son, Horus.

Osiris’s death became the initiatory myth of Egypt - a pattern of death, dismemberment, and resurrection that every initiate symbolically walked.

In the temples, initiates “died” to the old self and were reborn into divine kingship, mirroring Osiris’s journey.

This myth reminds us that even when the world tears you apart, what is sacred can be gathered, restored, and reborn stronger than before.

Inanna: The Queen Who Descended

Inanna, the Sumerian Queen of Heaven, chose to descend into the underworld - not as punishment, but by her own will.

At each of the seven gates, she surrendered a piece of herself: her crown, her necklace, her rings.

By the time she stood before her sister Ereshkigal, she was stripped bare, without status or protection.

Ereshkigal struck her dead and hung her on a hook.

For three days, the world above languished.

Through divine intervention and careful bargaining, Inanna was revived and returned to the living world - but not unchanged.

She emerged with deeper sovereignty and wisdom, knowing the cost and gift of her descent.

Inanna’s story became the archetype of sacred initiation: surrender what you think defines you, endure the underworld, and rise with a truth that no one can take from you.

Her lesson reminds us that sometimes the path to your highest power leads straight through the gates of loss.

The Modern Thread

Catalyst moments are not confined to history or myth.

One day, I too stood at a crossroads: remain silent and stay inside a circle, or speak the truth I could no longer swallow - knowing it would cost me belonging and community that I had come to value.

I chose to stand. And to honor truth.

The loss was real, but so was the abundance: clarity that cut through illusion, freedom from the weight of compromise, opening of my gifts, and mission that could only be born on the other side of that decision.

The pain of these crossroads moments is not something to bypass or brush aside.

Loss is real. Grief is real. There is an ache in walking away from what was familiar and comfortable, even if it was no longer aligned.

Allow yourself to feel it fully - because bypassing unacknowledged grief only hides in the shadows and slows your growth.

But do not let it be the place you pitch your tent.

The void it leaves is not meant to remain empty - it is the fertile ground where new relationships, new opportunities, and a deeper self take root.

Honor what you’ve lost, but keep your eyes on the horizon of what’s being born.

The Quiet Courage of the Crossroads

The stories of Stephen, Hypatia, Osiris, and Inanna are dramatic, visible, and often violent turning points.

But life does not always hand us a stage and an audience when it asks us to be brave.

Sometimes, the catalyst comes in the form of a private conversation that shatters an illusion.

A job you can no longer ethically remain in.

A relationship you know you must release.

A truth that burns in your bones but would cost you connection if you spoke it.

These moments will not be recorded in scripture or myth, but they are no less sacred.

The ripple effects of a single act of integrity - even unseen - can shift the landscape of your life and the lives of those around you.

Here’s the Invitation:

When you find yourself at such a crossroads- whether it’s the kind history remembers or the kind only you and a handful of others will ever witness - pause and look deeper.

Ask yourself:

• What courage is being asked of me right now?

• What would standing in truth look like here?

• How might this decision ripple far beyond what I can see?

Because even the smallest acts of courage plant seeds.

And though you may never see their full bloom, they have the power to change the course of lives, lineages, and futures.

When the choice comes - whether in a public square or in the quiet of your own heart - take the step.

Not because it is easy, but because it is the only way to walk into the life that is truly yours.

Sovereign Path Series: Part 7. The Real Work Begins: Sovereignty as a Lived Practice

The moment the illusion breaks is not the moment you feel free.

It's the moment you realize how much of your life was shaped inside someone else’s frame.

You saw through the manipulation. You named the false leader. You broke the pattern - quietly, bravely, without applause.

But now you’re standing in the echo - and it’s not liberation you always feel at first.

It’s disorientation. It’s grief.

You begin to realize - if the version of you that sought safety in dysfunction is gone - what rises in its place?

This isn’t the “empowerment moment” everyone talks about.

This is the invisible rebuild.

The quiet, often painful process of learning to live without the emotional scaffolding that once told you who you were, how to belong, and what to believe.

And this is where sovereignty begins.

Not in the rupture, but in the rebuild.

Not in the anger, but in the choices you make after it cools.

Not in theory, but in the small, lived decisions you make every day - when no one is watching.

This final chapter of The Sovereign Path isn’t here to inspire you.

It’s here to help ground you in what truth actually requires.

It’s here to walk with you as you meet the question:

Can I trust myself enough to be the authority now?

What No One Tells You About The “After”

Once you’ve seen through the illusion, the power games, or the manipulative group dynamic, you expect to feel powerful. Lighter. Stronger. Clearer.

But, instead, most people feel:

• Wobbly: stripped of the emotional anchors that once kept you upright

• Hyperaware: watching for betrayal in every room

• Cynical or jaded

• Exhausted: grieving time, energy, trust lost

• Ashamed: for not seeing it sooner

• Tempted: to soften the truth in exchange for belonging again

• Uncertain: about who or what to trust - including themselves

Comfort becomes seductive.

Doubt becomes soothing.

And it’s easier to gaslight yourself than to face what your intuition already knew.

That’s not failure. It isn’t regression.

That’s withdrawal.

You’ve just unplugged from something that regulated your nervous system, even if it harmed you and distorted your perception of love, truth, or power.

The Science of Sovereignty: A Nervous System Perspective

When we’ve been in high-control environments - spiritual or otherwise - we become wired to external cues.

Over time, our sense of “safety” attaches, and becomes outsourced, to:

• Approval

• Certainty

• Belonging

• Authority figures, “elders”, or “guides” who seem to “know better”

• Familiar patterns that help us feel in control

When that system collapses, it’s not just emotional-its somatic. Your body doesn’t yet know it’s safe. This is why people often go back - to the group, the teacher, the “maybe it wasn’t that bad”.

Not because they are weak or naive.

Because they haven’t yet learned to re-anchor in themselves. Their system is still frozen in fear, loyalty, or the illusion of comfort.

The work now isn’t just emotional.

Its physiological.

And it’s sacred.

Living Sovereignty in Real Life - What Embodied Sovereignty Actually Looks Like

Here’s what real sovereignty looks like - not as a concept, but in motion:

It’s not dramatic.

Its consistent.

And often invisible.

• Choosing honesty over comfort.

• Saying “I need space” when urgency pressures you

• Listening to your body’s cues instead of overriding them for approval

• Asking: “Is this true for me?” before accepting something blindly as wisdom

It’s noticing when you want to give your power away - even subtly.

It’s witnessing yourself in old patterns without shame - and choosing differently.

It’s leading yourself, when no one else is guiding you.

In Conversation:

• You pause before agreeing.

• You notice if your body tightens when someone speaks with authority and how you feel in conversations with people.

• You say “I’m going to sit with that”, instead of reflexively nodding. You listen to your gut. Your discernment. Your instinct.

• You notice if you are choosing comfort, familiarity, and acceptance over what truly aligns with your soul and feeds your vitality, goals, and dreams. Because glamour and manipulative tactics will dull your vitality - true life alignment will fuel it.

In Decision-Making:

• You don’t ask five people what they’d do.

• You weigh your values.

• You ask, “What outcome feels most honest to me, even if it’s uncomfortable?”

In Relationships:

• You no longer mistake intensity for intimacy.

• You stop confusing being needed with being loved.

• You speak your needs without demanding others meet them.

The Temptation to Return to False Safety

This is where many fall back asleep.

When faced with the pain of truth, people often bargain with the past.

• “Maybe they didn’t mean harm.”

• “It wasn’t that bad.”

• “They helped me too.”

• “This is part of my life path.”

• “Maybe I misunderstood.”

• “Who am I to judge?”

And if the community still offers warmth, acceptance, routine, identity?

It can be very tempting to return.

But, this is where you need to be brutally honest with yourself:

• Are you choosing truth - or comfort?

• Alignment - or appeasement?

• Are you fueling your vitality and growth - or self sabotaging, avoiding, and sitting in denial?

• Are you feeding cycles of confusion - or seeking deep truth within yourself?

Sometimes the most dangerous manipulation is the one you gaslight yourself into staying in - because leaving would mean facing your own complicity.

That is where ego steps out of balance and pride becomes your greatest adversary.

Sovereignty asks you to feel the shame, the regret, the grief…

and still not hand your power back.

The Slow Rebuild: A Different Kind of Strength

You can’t rebuild on false ground.

This part of the journey isn’t about doing more.

It’s about doing differently.

• Reconnecting with your body as a compass

• Rebuilding emotional safety from the inside out

• Learning to hold complexity without collapsing

You don’t need a new group.

You need to build trust with yourself again.

And yes, it will feel lonely at first.

But you’re not abandoned.

You’re in between.

And that’s where your integrity roots itself for real.

Integration Tools for the New Foundation: Building Your Sovereignty Muscle

1.The Daily Truth Audit: Reclaiming Inner Authority

This isn’t just reflection. It’s self-leadership in real time; in micro-moments.

Each evening - or whenever you feel your energy was pulled off center - ask yourself:

Where did I override my inner knowing today?

Did I say yes when I meant no? Did I stay silent when I wanted to speak?

Where did I follow someone else’s voice instead of my own?

Was I trying to please, prove, or belong? Did I shrink to avoid discomfort? Am I still seeking external validation or approval?

Where did I hold my ground, even when it was hard?

Celebrate it. Mark it. This is you rebuilding self-trust.

What part of me needed support, clarity , or safety - and how can I offer it now?

This is not about judgement. It’s about self-nurturing, reparenting, and tending to your inner child.

Repeat this for 3 weeks. Patterns will emerge. You’ll begin to see, not just what pulls you off path - but what strengthens your center.

Sovereignty isn’t found in big declarations. It’s found in these micro-moments of honesty with yourself. Its found in the silent celebration of choosing yourself over and over, each and every day.

2. Embodied Reanchoring Practice: Teaching Your Nervous System You’re Safe Without Control

When you’ve lived inside distorted power dynamics - spiritual or relational - your body learns to associate certainty with safety. When illusion breaks, your nervous system often stays in fight/flight long after the threat is gone.

This practice helps rewire that response, so you stop chasing authority outside yourself.

Do this daily, especially after emotional activation:

1. Sit or lie down. Uncross your limbs. Breathe slowly into your belly.

2. Place one hand on your heart, one on your lower abdomen.

3. Say aloud:

   I’m here now.

   I am safe and I am loved.

   I choose my pace.

   I don’t need to know everything to be safe.

4. Scan your body for tension. Notice any urge to seek answers or fix a feeling.

   Let the urge come.

   Don’t follow it.

5. End with this statement:

   I trust myself to lead, even in the unknown.

This rewires the loop that says “safety = control” and replaces it with “safety = presence”. Ultimately, it will help you to replace your need for control with presence.

You become your own anchor. Not the next method. Not the next mentor. You.

3. The Discernment Inventory: Clearing the Residue of Influence

When you’ve been shaped by systems that distorted truth in the name of love, light, power, or authority, discernment isn’t automatic. It must be rebuilt - carefully, intentionally, and with self-compassion.

This tool helps you check for lingering energetic or psychological residue - and teaches you how to recognize alignment from fear-driven loyalty.

Ask yourself regularly (weekly or when entering new spaces):

1. When someone inspires me, do I feel more connected to myself - or more dependent on them?

Do I leave their space with clarity - or with a desire to chase approval?

2. Does this person/path invite me deeper into personal responsibility or deeper into performance?

Are they creating mirrors - or contracts of silence?

3. What unspoken agreements am I making to stay connected here?

Am I betraying any truth to stay included?

4. Is this relationship helping me trust myself more - or trust myself less?

This is the litmus test.

Discernment doesn’t mean paranoia - it means presence. The goal isn’t to fear influence, but to recognize it before it becomes entanglement.

4. The Boundary Repatterning Practice: Saying No Without Explaining Yourself

One of the deepest wounds after spiritual distortion or people-pleasing systems is the belief that you must justify your clarity. That you must soften your no. Or earn your space.

This tool helps you reclaim boundaries as an act of self-trust, not defense. Reclaiming your “no” without guilt.

Practice this boundary repatterining once per day:

1.Say no to something low-stakes but automatic.

• Decline a text conversation you don’t have energy for.

• Don’t offer advice when you feel pressured to respond.

• Postpone a task you are not emotionally available for.

2. Notice what rises.

Guilt? Fear of being misunderstood? Pressure to explain?

3. Breathe into the tension. Say silently (or aloud):

• I am not responsible for managing someone else’s perception of my limits.

• My boundary is not a betrayal.

4. Reflect with curiosity, not critique:

What part of me believes it must be liked or accepted to be valid?

This is nervous system work. Identity work. Integrity work. And it takes repetition to rewire. Start with the smallest no - and keep building from there.

The New Devotion: Self-Loyalty Over External Validation

Eventually, your choices no longer stem from fear.

They’re born from clarity.

Not from proving.

But from alignment.

Sovereignty doesn’t mean doing it alone.

It means not collapsing your truth to keep the peace and stay connected.

It means being able to:

• Receive support without dependency or losing center

• Love without self-abandonment

• Speak without self-censorship

• Connect without shape-shifting

This is the Path Now

You’re not looking for a new savior.

You’re not asking someone to hold what you’re fully capable of carrying.

You’re done choosing comfort over clarity.

You’re done gaslighting your gut and your future for someone else’s convenience.

You’re done bypassing what your body already knows.

Because now, you’ve remembered something ancient and immovable:

You are the authority you were waiting for.

You are the truth-teller now.

You are the one who sees clearly - and lives accordingly.

And you are recommitting to yourself, your future, and your highest good.

You’re no longer living for acceptance, answers, or permission.

You’re living in response to your own wisdom - however slowly it speaks, however inconvenient it feels.

This is sovereignty in practice:

• Unpolished

• Unapologetic

• Unshakably yours

This isn’t about being perfect.

It’s about being honest enough to no longer betray yourself.

Because sovereignty isn’t just something you claim.

It’s something you build - moment by moment:

One choice at a time.

One boundary at a time.

One reclamation at a time.

And sometimes, one day at a time.

That is sovereignty.

And that is everything.

And if you’re still shaking while you walk it - you’re not alone.

Most of us are still learning to trust our own feet again.

But every honest step is sacred.

And you’re already further than you think.

Sovereign Path Series: Part 6. Final Initiation - Reclaiming Inner Authority

How I stopped searching for the missing piece - because I remembered it was me.

There is a moment after the spell breaks,
after the cords are cut,
after the teacher is unmasked and the temple falls.

And in that silence —
where the glamour has lifted but the grief still hums —
you realize:

Naming the distortion isn’t the finale.
It’s the threshold.

Because the truth is, it was never just about them.

It was about the parts of you that still believed you needed to be led.
It was about the buried desire to be seen, to belong.

That’s what gets used.

And that’s what you’re here to reclaim.

I wasn’t weak.
I wasn’t co-dependent.

I was wired for sacred connection.

In Human Design, about half of us have something called split definition —
a design where your energy flows in two distinct circuits, without an internal bridge.

And when you carry this but aren’t aware, it can create a subtle but persistent longing for coherence.

You may feel mostly whole, mostly clear, mostly aligned —
but something’s always a little…separate.
Like two inner voices speaking slightly out of rhythm.

As if your inner knowing whispers instead of roars.
A chronic sense of incompleteness you just can’t name.

But when you meet someone whose energy bridges that internal divide?

Suddenly there’s clarity. Ease. Relief.

You feel radiant. Empowered. At home.

Your knowing sharpens. Your voice strengthens.

It feels like recognition — as if you’re finally whole and seen.
It can even feel like soul truth.

It can feel like coming home.

That’s the beauty of split definition: we are built for resonance.

Designed for synergy.
For mutual reflection.
For sacred circuitry with others.

And when it’s healthy — mutual, conscious, and clean — it’s almost magickal.

You expand in another’s presence not because they complete you,
but because they meet you —
and your energy finds a rhythm it couldn’t access alone.

That kind of bonding isn’t weakness.
It’s sacred architecture.

But that same beauty that makes us magnetic…
also makes us vulnerable.

Because when we don’t understand how our system works,
we start chasing bridges.

We seek that feeling of wholeness in others —
especially those who appear powerful, illuminated, spiritually aligned.

And sometimes this chase comes at the cost of our own truth.

Because it is our softest longings that can be most easily exploited.

This isn’t hypothetical.
And it wasn’t random.

It was engineered.

The person who manipulated me — and many others — pulled our Human Design charts early on.

She knew who had emotional centers.
She knew who had undefined egos.
She knew who had split definitions.

And she used it.

Not always consciously, perhaps —
but instinctively.

She targeted the seekers who were more likely to doubt themselves.

The sensitives. The empaths.
The ones craving resonance, answers, clarity.

She knew where the open doors were — because she had the map.

And this is how energetic manipulation works.

There are people who study energetic systems like Human Design, Astrology, Gene Keys, and subtle body mechanics —
not to liberate, but to control.

They observe what soothes your system.
They track what sharpens your knowing.
And then they mimic it.

They reflect your language, your gifts, your longings —
and use it to craft a false resonance.

Sometimes they even mimic the energetic bridge you’ve experienced with someone else —
a partner, a friend, a guide —
so your nervous system anchors into a familiarity that feels like soul truth.

But this isn’t the real thing.

And on some level, it always feels off —
incomplete, subtly dissonant.

But, it is familiar enough that you start to doubt your real connections.
And fall for the ones wearing a mirror as a mask.

You think: I feel whole again.

But what’s actually happening is energetic co-opting.



What is Energetic Co-opting?

It’s a form of spiritual manipulation where someone uses your own energy to:
• Build their authority
• Create dependency
• Sustain your attachment to them

In other words: this isn’t mutual.

They aren’t offering you their wholeness.
They’re reflecting yours — and performing it back to you like a costume.

And it works. Because it feels good.

It feels like clarity. Like safety. Like home.

But underneath?

It’s glamour.
It’s a performance.
It’s borrowed light.



What she didn’t count on was this:

We would learn to read our own maps, too.

And once we did,
we could lock every door she once walked through.



Because understanding your vulnerability is not weakness.

It’s your weapon.

Here’s what no one tells you:

You don’t overcome manipulation by hardening.
You overcome it by becoming more intimate with your own design
than any predator could ever be.

You learn your patterns.
You name your longings.
You witness the exact moments when you’re most likely to give your power away.

And then you bless those parts.
You hold them close.
You let them speak.

That is how you reclaim yourself.



It’s Not Just Split Definitions At Risk.

Open centers. Undefined egos. Sensitive emotional systems.

These are places of deep brilliance — but also permeability.

If you don’t know where you’re energetically open,
someone else can learn it before you do —
and slip in like they belong there.

That’s how it happens:

You mistake relief for truth.
You mistake intensity for intimacy.
You mistake energy that feels good for energy that is good.

And once someone is using your own system to bind you to them,
it becomes harder and harder to leave.

Because leaving feels like losing the bridge all over again.



Here’s the Truth That Breaks the Spell:

You don’t need anyone to complete your circuit.
You don’t need a bridge to be whole.
You don’t need to be mirrored to trust your reflection.

And once I understood that — truly embodied it — everything changed.

I stopped handing over my clarity for confirmation.
I stopped waiting for someone to validate what I already knew.

I stopped outsourcing my wholeness — because it was never lost.
I had just scattered it into people I hadn’t learned to trust myself without.

I became present. Rooted.
I tapped back into my own rhythm.

And I took my power back.



This Isn’t About Self-Containment.

It’s about self-intimacy.

Whether you’re split or single definition,
defined or open —
the message is the same:

Know yourself more deeply than anyone else ever could.

Know your gifts.
Know your thresholds.
Know how your body says yes.
And how it contracts into no.

Because when you understand your own energy this intimately,
no one can mimic it convincingly again.

No voice, no glamour, no illusion can override your inner signal.



We all have soft spots.
But soft doesn’t mean unprotected.

It means sacred.

And when you tend those places with reverence,
they stop being weaknesses.

They become your crown.

Because you stop seeking completion in others,
and start honoring the radiant complexity already within you.

So the next time?

You’ll feel the mismatch before the mask even settles.
You’ll sense the performance before the betrayal.
You’ll walk away before the spell can land.

You won’t have to fight.
You won’t need proof.
You’ll just know.

This isn’t mine.

And that will be enough.



Tips:
• Look up your Human Design definition. Learn how your system processes energy in relationships.
• Ask: Who makes me feel clear or sure? Is that clarity mine, or is it borrowed?
• When you feel uncertain, sit with your body. Ask: What part of me wants to hand over my knowing right now? And what does she need instead?
Then speak it aloud — even if no one hears. Especially then.



Journal Reflections:
• What part of me still hopes someone else can “make it make sense”?
• Where do I hand over my knowing for external clarity?
• When have I mistaken energetic relief for true resonance?
• What does it feel like to anchor into clarity without needing to be mirrored?



And here it is:

You were never broken.
You were never meant to be completed.
You were designed to respond to others —
but not to dissolve inside them.

You were made to be amplified —
not absorbed.

So yes, honor your sensitivity.
Celebrate your openness.
Reclaim your circuitry.

But do it on your own terms.

Because you are the origin.

You hold your own bridge now.

And anyone who tries to use your light without permission?

Will find it unreachable.



This is the final initiation.

The moment you stop giving your power away —
because you remember:

It was always yours.

You are already whole.
You always were.

And that’s what they didn’t count on.

And that’s why they lost.

Sovereign Path Series: Part 5. Discernment Is the Gateway to Sovereignty

There’s a moment on the healing path - one that feels less like liberation and more like psychic surgery - where you realize:

Not everything that glitters is gold.

Not everyone who holds space is clean.

And not every woman in your circle is your sister.

Discernment is the fire that rises when the soul says:

No more pretending not to see.

Discernment Isn’t Judgement. It’s Protection.

Let’s clear something up:

We’ve been conditioned - especially as spiritual women - to blur the lines between discernment and judgement.

Having a boundary is being called “closed”, “pushy”, or “b$tchy”.

To notice and call out a distortion is seen as “projecting”.

To walk away from someone misusing power is labeled as “unhealed”.

But here is the truth:

Discernment is your body knowing before your mind does.

It’s the quiet voice inside you saying “this doesn’t feel right” before the betrayal fully reveals itself.

It is your innate gift - and the most underdeveloped tool in many spiritual circles because of groupthink, sisterhood glamours, childhood conditioning & conservative stereotypes, and bypass culture, that teach us to override it.

How I Lost & Reclaimed My Discernment

I once sat in circle with women I loved - women I learned, shared, and felt community with.

I felt the power. I felt the connection.

But somewhere along the way, I started to doubt what I felt in my gut.

I overrode the red flags in favor of spiritual ideals, community belonging, and a sense of being “relatable” and “kind”.

I called it “giving grace”, giving the “benefit of the doubt”, being “nonjudgemental”. I called it “unconditional sisterly love”.

I called it many things.

But deep down? I was really just abandoning myself.

And when the veil dropped - when I saw the manipulation, the subtle power plays, the very real maliciousness that lie underneath the sweet exterior and smile, and the cloaked control -

I realized I wasn’t crazy.

I was trained to suppress and dismiss my discernment in order to belong.

That is not sisterhood. It is not community. That’s spiritual submission.

And, like it or not, some people exploit and prey upon this sisterhood wound, because it is far more common than you’d like to think.

5 Discernment Keys for the Sovereign Path

If you are building sovereignty for yourself - a path for yourself rooted in truth, clarity, and sacred leadership - you need to hear this.

Here are the five keys I’ve learned through the fire:

1. Watch the Energy, Not the Words

   Spiritual distortion is often dressed in poetic language and polished “light”.

   It tells you want you want to hear - but leaves your body feeling tight, drained, or confused.

   Discernment isn’t about doubting what is said - it’s about reading what’s underneath.

   The energy never lies. Learn to trust what you feel.

2. Your Body is the Oracle

   Tension in your gut? Heart constriction? Throat tingling or tightening? Head fog around someone?

   That sudden headache after a Zoom circle?

   The nervous system spike when they compliment you?

   The subtle withdrawal that you feel when they enter a room?

   These are just a few of the somatic signals your body may send you to pay attention to a dissonance in energy.

   It is not your trauma speaking. It is not paranoia.

   It’s perception.

   Or in other words, it is your discernment radar lighting up. And it is screaming for your attention.

   Your body is the most accurate lie detector you will ever meet - if you’re willing to stop overriding it.

   You may hear this a thousand times, but it’s worth bears hearing again - the more you yield to listening to your body - taking that sacred pause to get really present with yourself and attune to it’s message - to really learn to trust yourself - the more this gift will strengthen and surprise you. It is like a muscle - the more you use it and learn to rely upon it, the stronger and more reliable it becomes.

3. What Happens When You Say No?

   Healthy people honor boundaries. Distorted ones punish them.

   If someone shifts when you say no - pouts, withdraws, criticizes, or reframes your truth as a “shadow”. Or, in any other way violates or tries to push back a strong boundary you hold in your life - you’re being shown something.

   Discernment asks: Is this dynamic safe and honoring for my no? In my gut, am I truly okay with this?

   If not - it’s not sovereign.

4. Look for Emotional Transactionalism

   Does support only come when you’re useful?

   Do you feel obligated to offer energy just to be seen or stay “in” the group?

   Are you giving more than you’re receiving - energetically or emotionally; or even in your time, services, and generosity - but gaslit into calling it “service”?

   Is generosity always repaid in visibility, loyalty, or gossip protection?

   That’s not love. That’s energetic debt disguised as “community”.

   Check the scales - and don’t dismiss them. Truth and true healthy relationship are balanced and reciprocal.

   Sovereign bonds don’t require emotional payments to stay valid.

5. If It Can’t Withstand Truth, It Wasn’t Real

   Can you ask hard questions without being shamed or dismissed?

   Can you name what you feel without being flipped into the role of the wounded one?

   Can you speak your truth without someone rushing to silence you in the name of “unity” or some other covert cause?

   Are criticism or questions met with victimhood or truth?

   If a bond only works when you stay small, silent, or continue to self-sacrifice -

   you’re not in sacred space - you’re in a controlled one.

   Discernment reveals the difference between true sisterhood and community - and energetic submission.

   And while you may think this is radically obvious - it can often be much more subtle on the surface than you might think.

   Discernment will help you spot this no matter how small the dissonant frequency is.

Discernment isn’t a weapon.

It is the boundary your soul sets to protect your becoming.

If someone calls that a threat,

they were never aligned with your truth -

only your compliance.

Let this be a gift you protect, honor, and stay highly attuned with. How others receive you and honor this part of you back, speaks volumes energetically.

Inner Reflection:

Take a breath and ask yourself:

• Where am I still betraying my body’s knowing in exchange for connection?

• What truths am I avoiding because I’m afraid of what they’ll cost me?

• Where do I rely on my intellect and logic instead of my own inner knowing?

• Where do I let my ego hold me back or override my intuition and discernment? Am I okay with acknowledging I may be wrong? If not, what lies underneath that?

• What would it mean - what would it really look like - to let discernment lead in my life?

• How can I better honor more pause, presence, and discernment in my life and allow this gift to strengthen?

These aren’t easy questions - but they are the ones that will set you free.

How To Rewire Your System To Feel Truth Again After Spiritual Betrayal

Most people teach discernment like it’s a checklist or a mental muscle.

But if you’ve ever said, “I knew something was off - but I stayed anyway.”

then you’ve already discovered the truth no one tells you:

Your ability to discern truth has nothing to do with your mind.

It isn’t intellectual - It’s energetic. Its cellular.

And it lives in your nervous system, your trauma imprints, your ancestral memory, your fascia, and your subtle body.

And, when you’ve been glamoured, gaslit, or groomed in a spiritual space, your frequency gets hijacked. Your field gets crosswired. Your body begins to associate control with safety…and sometimes, safety with love.

Here are 5 steps that will help heal your instrument so that you can get your signal back - so you can feel what’s true again and learn to trust yourself.

Not in theory. Not intellectually. But, in your body - your gut, your breath, and your bones.

Step 1: Understand How Energetic Hijacking Works

When you join a group or teacher with manipulative structures, several things often happen:

• You get slowly conditioned to override your instincts: you abandon your no to stay included, you confuse intensity with intimacy, you mistake nervous system regulation for truth.

• You disconnect from gut-level knowing (HPA axis and vagus nerve dysregulation)

• You begin deferring to external cues (mirroring the group, fawning, over-attuning)

• Your energy field contracts or expands incoherently (a key insight of glamour or charisma abuse)

• Your subtle body becomes confused. Your energetic body starts mistaking nervous system regulation for safety- and safety for love. But these are not interchangeable. This confusion is how illusion enters. In other words, when trauma patterns are reinforced, your system may confuse calm for truth, control for safety, and approval for love.

Your discernment didn’t vanish. It was just overwritten.

Your signal became scrambled.

Step 2: Regulate to Reconnect; Regulation is the Portal, Not The Proof

You can’t discern truth in a dysregulated state. Your body has to feel safe enough to access truth.

Most people are trying to “tune in” while dissociated, anxious, or over-attuned to predators.

But here’s the catch: you can feel calm and still be in danger.

It’s possible to feel held and harmed at the same time. Many systems offer a sense of regulation - but if it’s paired with disempowerment or distortion, that “peace” is a performance:

• Trauma bonded dynamics often regulate your nervous system just enough to keep you hooked - while bypassing the deeper dissonance in your soul. It feels calm, but it costs you clarity.

• Some spiritual spaces soothe the parts of you that crave belonging….while subtly asking you to betray the parts of you that carry truth. That betrayal isn’t loud - its slow erosion.

• Some spaces offer you comfort - but only if you abandon your core self to receive it. The nervous system calms while the soul withers. That’s not safety. That’s seduction. That’s often how cultic spaces work.

Real discernment begins when your nervous system no longer needs to belong in order to survive.

Step 3. Detox the Energetic Bond That’s Not Yours

Even after leaving a spiritual group, remnants often linger:

• Cord entanglements

• Thoughtforms looping in your head

• Guilt tied to breaking silent contracts

• Chakra distortion or entanglement (especially crown, solar plexus, and sacral)

• Somatic patterning of fawning or compliance

Ground yourself daily. Call back your energy. Cord cut - as often as needed.

Step 4: Rebuild Self-Trust (Your Inner Oracle) with Pattern Recognition

Betrayal often installs shame: How did I not see it?

Most people understand the need to “trust themselves” again after betrayal and try to do so - but trust isn’t a decision. It is a pattern recognition system.

The antidote isn’t hypervigilance - it’s pattern tracking over time. So that next time you understand what to look for and help prep your body to wire to the clues.

Tool: The Pattern Map Journal

Track the moments when you:

• Overrode your gut (that constriction you felt) and said yes….and why

• Betrayed your knowing to stay included

• Silenced yourself to be “spiritual”

• Ignored body signals in favor of approval

• Places where you confused resonance with recognition of an old wound

And then, write the reversal:

Next time I feel ______ I will ______.

You’re not shaming yourself - you’re updating your system.

You’re training your field to follow truth instead of trauma.

Step 5: Energetic Discernment Is Devotion - Not Division

One of the most damaging distortions is the idea of discernment becoming weaponized in some spiritual spaces:

• You’re projecting.

• You’re not trusting.

• You’re in ego.

• That’s just your trauma talking.

This is spiritual gaslighting.

Because here’s the truth:

Judgement divides. Discernment refines. And refinement is a sacred act of devotion to truth.

And truth is the goal. The real medicine is learning that discernment is sacred.

It’s the root of spiritual maturity.

It’s not about deciding who is “bad”.

It’s about tending to the truth within you like a holy fire. And learning to tune and protect your field and body so that you are not able to be glamoured again.

It’s about never ever again self-abandoning.

You don’t need to judge others.

You need to become the clearest frequency in the room. Boldy yet humbly confident and certain of yourself.

You were never meant to follow.

You were meant to feel.

And once you trust your own frequency again, you become unglamourable.

Every time you choose truth over performance, clarity over charisma, soul over any tether to belonging - you reclaim your inner temple.

The teacher you were seeking? The one you thought abandoned you?

She has always been there. Curled up inside your chest and waiting for you to return.

The Gift Of Aligning With Discernment

Discernment is sacred. It is not cold. It is not cruel. It is not too pushy.

It is a flame.

And the more you feed it, the more your field

becomes a temple

that only truth may enter.

And if you choose to align your life - your deepest inner self - with truth,

you will see abundance, joy, and fulfillment in levels. you could only dream of for yourself.

If you’ve ever doubted yourself - I see you.

If you’ve been gaslit in the name of spiritual “hierarchy” - I believe you.

And, if you’re walking away from a situation or community that is tough to say goodbye to, to honor your own discernment - know, that I see and honor your self-love and courage.

Let this be your line in the sand.

This Is the Sovereign Path

To walk the Sovereign Path is to choose truth over comfort.

It is to stop outsourcing your own inner knowing to teachers, lovers, friends, or groups.

It is to reclaim the original oath you made with your own soul - that you would never abandon her again.

Sovereignty means you are the final authority in your own field.

It means your no is sacred, your yes is embodied, and your silence is never for someone else’s comfort.

This post is part of my Sovereign Path Series - a collection of posts to support those waking up from distortion and stepping into clean power.

If you have ever doubted your intuition or stayed too long in a space that drained you - this is your permission to burn the script and begin again.

More empowered. More Attuned.

More in alignment than ever before to claim the path before you that was always yours, waiting and ready for you to finally walk away from all the distractions and wounds that held you back- and embrace your future ahead with clarity, courage, and sovereignty.

With So Much Love,

Seraph

The Four Ordeals of the Soul: Why Your Mind Might Be The Cage

Series Intro: Unbinding the Mental Tethers That Keep You From Your Evolution

Most people aren’t stuck because they’re lazy - they’re stuck because they’re mentally entangled in stories that no longer serve their soul.

They don’t realize their greatest attachment isn’t to a person or a dream….its to an idea of who they think they’re supposed to be.

And that attachment - subtle, mental, socially reinforced - is one of the biggest blocks to evolution.

Quick Primer: The Four Ordeals

In Western mystery traditions - initiation isn’t merely ceremonial. It unfolds through four elemental “ordeals” which we all experience in life. Each designed to strip you of a different illusion and help you grow along your evolutionary soul path. Earth confronts attachment to security and the material plane; Air exposes mental constructs and identity narratives; Water drowns false emotional dependencies and fantasy; Fire incinerates ego-will and unaligned desire. Together, these ordeals create a step-by-step initiation - each one burning away the layers of who you thought you had to be, so your true self can rise in its place. Once reserved for ritual and dreamwork, their deeper truth is this: life itself becomes the ritual once you choose to grow.

Each ordeal tests you on a fundamental level:

• Earth tests your attachment to safety, structure, survival.

• Water tests your emotional truth and capacity to feel without drowning.

• Air tests your mind: your thoughts, narratives, and your need to know.

• Fire tests your will: your ego, anger, and fear of dissolving all control.

And if you’re reading this?

You’re probably standing in the middle of the Ordeal of Air.

The Ordeal of Air: When Understanding Becomes the Addiction

This ordeal doesn’t always look like trauma. It often looks like clarity seeking, self-regulation, attachment to someone or something, or spiritual insight. But it can easily become a cage.

Here a few ways it can show up:

• Replaying conversations to figure out “what you did wrong”

• Overanalyzing a betrayal instead of grieving it

• Using spiritual language to bypass emotional truth

• Silencing yourself to preserve someone' else’s image of you

• Trying to explain yourself into worthiness

• Stalling a decision until every possible outcome has been predicted and analyzed

• Identity performance.- clinging to a role (“the wise one”, the “understanding one”, the “peaceful one”, etc) so much that you lose your ability to feel anger or set healthy boundaries

• Staying in the mind to avoid the body - thinking becomes a safe escape from embodiment.

• Chasing closure that doesn’t exist - can you let the story end without fully understanding why?

• Mentally locked in justice logic - the soul doesn’t speak in fairness, it speaks in truth. And, sometimes the truth is unfair but freeing.

Air is the realm of the mind, and it will convince you that if you just understand enough, you’ll finally be safe.

It is seductive because it mimics safety.

If you can understand it, name it, explain it - then surely you can control it.

But here is the truth - evolution doesn’t live in your mind.

It lives in the rupture.

In the death of the story.

In the moment you stop analyzing and start embodying.

In the moment you consciously stop a pattern that has held you back, reframe how you are seeing things, and choose differently.

When you finally release the need to be seen, and choose to be real.

This is the lesson of Pluto in the air signs - and for those of us generationally with Pluto in Libra (like me), this isn’t just conceptual spiritual theory.

This is soul initiation.

It’s personal.

It’s karmic.

It’s now.

Why This Series Now?

Because we are collectively being thrown into the Ordeal of Air as Pluto moves through Aquarius (an air sign) from 2023-2043.

We’re actively watching ideologies fracture, belief systems collapse, mental identities unravel.

And, we’re being asked to contemplate:

• Can you release the story and still trust your soul?

• Can you breathe through the ego death of being misunderstood, unseen, or wrong?

Pluto doesn’t politely ask.

It rips the mental tether free and dares you to fly.

It doesn’t consider intention or feelings. It simply wants you to strip away any tether that binds your soul from becoming its freest, most embodied, authentic, aligned, and alive self.

And, it will do so whether you are ready for it to or not.

This series is for those of you:

• Who are breaking free from relational enmeshment and identity loops.

• Who have used over-preparing and understanding as a safety mechanism (I know I certainly am guilty of this!).

• Who are being asked to think less and feel more.

• Who are ready to finally stop performing and start embodying.

What You’ll Learn In This Series

In the weeks ahead, we’ll walk through:

• The hidden ways your mind keeps you bound (even in healing spaces).

• Why your “need for clarity” might actually be a trauma loop.

• The karmic soul contracts of Air: Pluto in Libra and Aquarius and why you’re feeling it now.

• Breaking mental tethers and psychic attachments that aren’t serving your evolution.

• Reclaiming your power when being midunderstood - and embracing how this is part of your path.

• Initiatory breath work, ritual ideas, and thought deconstruction practices for mental liberation.

• How Pluto through the 4 elements (Capricorn —> Aquarius —> Pisces —> Aries) is burning through the collective soul story.

Each post will include both insights from an esoteric and evolutionary perspective as well as useful tips and invitations to help unbind yourself.

This is not about being more healed, more right, or more enlightened.

This is about becoming more authentic….more you.

The Invitation

You’ve tried being wise.

You’ve tried being palatable.

You’ve tried being so understandable, so well-spoken, so spiritually “together” and relatable that no one could possibly misunderstand you.

And still - your soul aches.

Because the truth is…

You can’t think your way into transformation.

And trying to explain yourself into worthiness will never set you free.

This series isn’t here to validate your story.

It’s here to help you unwrite it - so something deeper - more meaningful, aligned, and authentic to you - can finally take root.

A version of you exists on the other side of identity loops, overthinking spirals, and the performance of healing.

She doesn’t need to be understood.

She needs to be remembered.

So if you’re done trading truth for clarity…

If you’re ready to stop contorting yourself to be seen…

Then step into this fire.

Let the wind tear the words from your mouth.

Let the breath return to your body.

Let your soul speak - not to be understood, but to be unbound.

Your evolution doesn’t need your explanation to anyone else.

It needs your yes.

Next Week In the Series:

The Mind as a Cage: Why Understanding Isn’t the Same as Healing

I’m excited to explore and unpack these with you!

Wishing you much love along your journey - this week and always,

Seraph

The Sovereign Path - Part 4. Beneath the Glamour: Black Magick - The Invisible Hand That Binds

In full disclaimer, I do not practice black magick. Until a few weeks ago, I couldn’t tell you the first thing about it. But, what has unfolded in the past few weeks has forced me into a very steep education and I’ve been shown about various elements at play. This post is written to cast a light on what was hidden - and through truth and awareness, offer a path back to your power and purpose.

Black magick doesn’t always wear a hooded cloak or cackle in the dark. Sometimes it smiles sweetly and tells you it’s here to help. Sometimes it builds community. Sometimes it hands you a mirror, only to hijack what you see in it.

This post is for anyone who has ever felt “off”, foggy, disoriented, or disempowered in a spiritual space that they once trusted. If you’ve ever questioned your instincts, ignored red flags, or felt bound to a person or teacher beyond reason - you’re not crazy. You may have been caught in an energetic web of manipulation.

If that’s you - this post is your lifeline.

Because I see you.

I’ve been you.

And its time to break the spell.

Why This Matters

The spiritual world is full of beauty and healing - but as with anything, duality is also at play, and it is also full of shadow.

Not because spirituality in itself is dangerous, but because anything powerful can be inverted.

Light attracts moths and predators.

And, if you’ve ever felt spiritually hijacked - bound to someone or something in the distorted name of “love” or “truth” - you know exactly what I’m taking about.

This post is not intended to scare you.

It’s to educate you, protect you, and ultimately help you reclaim your soul authority.

This is the post you didn’t know you needed - the one that makes you whisper “OMG, this is what happened to me”, and then helps you rise out of it, sovereign and whole.

What is Black Magick- Really?

At its core, black magick is the willful manipulation of energy, perception, or spiritual laws in order to bypass free will, control another’s path, or extract power for personal gain. It operates through distortion. Through coercion. Through theft of sovereignty.

It thrives in ambiguity, false compassion, and spiritual bypassing.

It may masquerade as guidance or healing. It may wear the mask of a teacher, It may speak the language of love, awakening, or truth.

But, at its root, black magick is inversion. Inversion is the act of turning something sacred inside out and using it as a tool of control:

• Truth becomes gaslighting

• Love becomes control

• Devotion becomes enslavement

• Initiation becomes trauma bonding

• Reflection becomes projection

• Service becomes sacrifice

It ultimately uses your goodness against you. Your empathy becomes a leash. Your desire to grow becomes entrapment. Your silence becomes consent.

It is not karmic. It is not shadow work. It is domination, carefully crafted manipulation, and it is a dangerous, parasitic theft.

And in my opinion, it’s critical to name it for what it is. Because trying to rationalize everything as “neutral” or part of the lesson” helps no one.

Black magick will never be neutralized with neutrality. Its goal is not healing. Its goal is dominion.

This is not the path of healing or shadow integration - it is the unhealed shadow acting through you, driven by the desire to possess and control.

Qlipothic Distortion & Misuse of Shadow

Let me be clear:

The Qlipoth itself is not evil.

The Qlipoth - also called the Tree of Death or the Shadow Tree - is a real, profound mystical system.

It’s a symbolic map of the psyche’s descent - into shadow, fragmentation, and the exiled parts the self.

When approached with reverence and integrity, it can lead to profound healing, transformation, and power reclamation.

A way to integrate what was once denied.

To reclaim personal sovereignty - not to steal anyone else’s.

But like any potent system, it can be distorted.

And when it is no longer used for self-integration- but instead for manipulation - that is how it gets twisted into a tool of control. And why it is so often found woven throughout black magick.

Examples - How This Plays Out In Practice

• Qlipothic Chains - a tethering system of invisible energetic links designed to bind people into energetic submission; creating subtle but powerful compliance loops

• Mantras -repeated phrases that layer intention into the field, bypassing logic and embedding control; not used for empowerment, but to override will and implant spiritual agreements.

• Astral whispers in dream space or meditation - subtle energetic suggestions that sounded like intuition but instead create longing, craving, or guilt

• Energetic architecture that mirrored Qlipothic descent - not as a personal rite but as a group mechanism to extract devotion, compliance, and psychic access.

I was shown these through visceral, embodied experiences. I could feel the energetic “chains” tightening in the field after being shown a ritual. I watched others become disoriented, hyper-attached, or psychically fogged, convinced it was their shadow coming up - when in truth, it was spell architecture being reinforced.

How Black Magick Distorts Spiritual Law

Black magick doesn’t operate in chaos - it thrives on inverting spiritual law - by subtly warping what is sacred.

Examples:

• Sacred law of consent is replaced with illusion - You’re led to believe you’ve agreed - through mantras, soul contract language, or “remembering” - but there was no real choice. Only energetic coercion masked as destiny.

• Sacred timing is replaced with entrapment cycles - Instead of trusting organic evolution, you’re looped into rituals or energetic bindings that keep you “working the process” indefinitely - never quite free, never quite whole, but always promised you’re almost there.

• Law of Reflection is replaced with gaslighting - Your intuition is reframed as “ego”, your boundaries as resistance or “wounding”, and your clarity as “projection” - so that you doubt yourself and default to their version of truth.

• Divine Will is replaced with manufactured fate - Instead of surrendering to Source, you’re funneled into a scripted path - crafted by someone else’s agenda but masked as your soul’s mission. Free will is bypassed under the illusion of sacred inevitability.

• Initiation is replaced with control - what is presented as a rite of transformation is actually a rite of binding - designed to siphon your energy or block you, not awaken your power.

Why It Hooks So Deeply

Because it mirrors real shadow work just enough to confuse you.

You think you’re facing your shadow.

You think you’re healing.

You think this discomfort means you’re being initiated.

But in reality?

You’re being energetically manipulated.

You’re being spiritually tethered under the guise of transformation.

You’re giving consent without knowing it - because the architecture is designed that way.

And once you’re inside it, you begin to override your instincts.

You start to doubt yourself in the name of growth.

That’s not healing.

That’s spellwork that feeds on confusion, craving, and shame.

Let’s Name It Clearly

This isn’t the sacred descent into shadow or Qlipoth.

This is the strategic use of spiritual mechanics to entrap.

It’s not about owning your darkness.

It’s about someone else controlling the terrain of your soul - while convincing you it’s your own path.

The Qlipoth, like any archetypal map, can be approached with clarity, devotion, and consent.

But when its weaponized?

It becomes a psychic prison disguised as a temple.

The Core Distinction: Consent & Sovereignty

The true line between light and dark magick is consent. Light magick honors your will. It may challenge you. It may bring you to your knees with growth - but it never overrides your sovereignty. It moves with divine timing - not force.

Black magick however, overrides your will. It operates off of fear, seduction, confusion, glamour, or authority to coerce alignment. It bends reality to the will of the practitioner, regardless of the soul contract or true consent of the other.

In other words light magick liberates. Dark magick entraps.

Black magick is willful violation of spiritual law - especially the law of consent. And no matter how beautiful, enticing, or promising it may seem, if it binds you instead of freeing you, it is never light.

It often works much more subtly than you might expect through tactics such as:

• Energetic tethering (cords, bindings, glamour)

• Astral manipulation (dream invasion, watchers, etheric interference)

• Sexual energy siphoning (often masked as intimacy or healing)

• False soul contracts (initiations, vows, pacts made under duress or illusion, often without full conscious awareness)

• Trauma bonding (bonding through shared wound or crisis, then controlling access to safety or love)

• Mirror mimicry (reflecting your gifts or wounds back to you, then weaponizing them)

• Power inversion (you’re told your instincts are ego; your clarity is projection)

It Works Because It Hooks The Wound

Black magick feeds on unhealed pain:

• Your longing to belong

• Your hunger to be chosen

• Your desire to serve

• Your fear of abandonment

• Your rejection trauma

• Your self-doubt

• Your dreams of success

A skilled manipulator doesn’t create the wound - they simply exploit it. Light magick heals the inner child. Dark magick hooks it.

How to Know You’ve Been Touched By It

You might feel:

• Emotionally fused to someone, even if you consciously know they are harming you

• Fearful of “leaving” a group or teacher, as if you’ll spiritually regress or be cursed

• Psychically fogged, disconnected from your own inner knowing

• Drained or confused after interactions

• Addicted to approval or “love” that comes with strings

• Spiritually unsafe in your own space, dreams, or altar

If you in any way feel split from your own truth, or not in touch with your normally astute intuition, this may be why.

Tools of the Trade - How It All Works

1. Astral Work, Astral Tagging, Energetic Tethering, & Watchers: The Unseen Surveillance State

This layer rarely gets named but is critical:

Shadow magick workers often access your field during sleep or meditation, watching, planting, siphoning energy, and influencing your dreams.

Watchers are astral entities sent to observe or influence - not protect. This isn’t simply “checking in” and monitoring you - it is energetic trespassing, often disguised as connection, protection, or spiritual authority. These are cords that you never consented to - often created through group work, shared “healing” rituals, sex magick, trauma bonding, soul contract invocations, or emotional fusion. They create a feedback loop where your energy can be accessed, especially when you’re vulnerable.

Examples of How This May Be Used:

• Ideas, images, or feelings may be implanted in your dreams to create doubt or longing; whatever suits the narrative they want to see in the physical

• Your energy may be monitored for ‘weak spots’ - especially after trauma, expansion, or vulnerable sharing sessions

• They may insert themselves during ritual you perform for yourself, feeding off your focus and spiritual openness

Spirits, familiars, or servitors may be assigned to “watch over” or even “police” your energy. You may notice:

• Feeling “watched” during sacred work

• Candles flickering with no draft

• Sudden emotional shifts that are not your own

• Erotic dreams with the wrong energetic feel

• Feeling “tugged” back into connection after cutting cords

• Disorientation

• Flickering lights or a cold breeze when meditating, doing any ritual or divination work, etc.

• Physical discomfort - energetically drained, sexually confused, brain fog, agitation or anxiety, upset stomach or other obscure somatic changes

• You may feel like you “see” things - energetic eyes watching you, an observer in your dream space, forms or shadows peripherally, etc.

• Interference with your intuitive clarity or sudden dread before speaking truth

These watchers aren’t protective of you - they are enforcers of an invisible energetic contract created to control you.

They keep you on the hook - through guilt, confusion, craving, or psychic interference. It is also a way to monitor your energy for shifts or keep tabs on you - always attempting to be one step ahead and strengthening spellwork if their grasp is slipping, etc. At the end of the day, this is a form of astral vampirism- feasting on your energy while whispering that they are helping you grow.

2. Glamour Magick & False Persona - The Illusion You Didn’t Consent To

Glamour magick is not about beauty - its about projection.

It doesn’t actually make someone more divine it simply makes you see them as such through a filter of intentionally crafted illusion. It makes you look like what someone else is desperate to see - a healer, a lover, a savior, a god.

Here’s how it works:

It reflects your deepest desires - what you truly want most (safety, love, purpose) - back to you like a mirror….creating spiritual seduction.

It energetically creates a sense of divine familiarity: “We’ve known each other for lifetimes….” “This is your soulmate, your guru, your destiny”

It loops your nervous system into dependency (fawn/freeze cycles) by giving you a hit of belonging and then threatening withdrawal if you pull away. “I can’t leave them - I owe them everything.”

You feel chosen. Safe. Seen.

“They see me. They know me. This connected must be fated.”

But in truth?

You’re falling in love with your own essence - just mirrored back to you through their mask.

3. Pacts & Ritual Coercion - The Silent Agreements That Bind

You don’t need to sign a document to be under a pact.

Pacts are formed when you unconsciously agree to believe, obey, or belong.

Even silently thinking:

“She knows more than me.”

“I’ll lose everything if I leave.”

“This is my soul contract.”

These thoughts, combined with energetic reinforcement (often ritual or astral work), bind you.

Even well-meaning group meditations, healing circles, and rituals can be manipulated to embed cords and control.

And, once you’re in…you own subconscious will keep you bound, even as your soul screams to get out.

You may not even realize what you agreed to until your life starts unraveling - or you try to walk away and feel psychically pulled back.

How You Might See This Play Out:

• Creating a “shared mission” that becomes an unspoken soul pact

• Channeling message that position them as your spiritual gatekeeper or interpreter

• Using group rituals to anchor cords - without participants fully knowing what they are agreeing to.

You likely didn’t sign a physical contract - but your energetic consent was manipulated through language like:

“We’re soul family”

“This is part of your purpose”

“I’m helping you remember”

4. Sex Magick & Energetic Seduction- The Unexpected Energy Drain

Sexual energy is sacred. It is life force itself.

But in dark hands, it becomes a weapon.

In sacred tradition, it can heal, bond, awaken, and align,

In distorted form, it can bind, seduce, confuse, and control.

Because sexual energy bypasses logic and speaks directly to the subconscious, it becomes a gateway for manipulation.

During heightened arousal or emotional vulnerability, we become:

• More open

• More suggestible

• More psychically porous

And that makes us prime for:

• Cord creation

• Energetic suggestion

• False bonding

• Soul mimicry

Here’s how it may be used in distorted form:

• Used to tether you through sacral cords; or hook through shame, desire, or unhealed longing

• Used to cast, amplify, and feed the practitioner’s glamour field so others fall under their spell and they appear more desirable, magnetic, and irresistable

• Used to loop your heart and root so that your sense of safety, desire, and love become externally controlled

• Creating psychic dependence - so your nervous system learns to seek approval from the creator

• Bind someone to a group or teacher through nervous system oxytocin/dopamine loops

• Implant beliefs or dependencies during vulnerable or altered states

• Send sensual dream energy to fabricate a soul bond or mimic a connection; creating illusionary intimacy

• Feed off arousal or confusion creating a feedback loop that tethers, disempowers, and weakens clarity

This is misuse of the sacred feminine in distorted form.

It is manipulated seduction.

It is spiritual abuse.

And no one is talking about it.

And here is the important part to understand if you are new to all of this - you do not need to have any physical contact or romantic intention for this to work.

It can all be done energetically, remotely, and very subtly - catching you off guard.

It happened to me.

I watched this play out energetically in myself and others within the group. The seduction was disguised as safety. The person leading it knew how to identify and prey upon trauma patterns - especially those involving abandonment, invisibility, and the desire for connection.

What they don’t tell you about distorted sexual energy:

• It bypasses the logic. It lowers the guard of your conscious mind and directly transmits emotion and intention to the subconscious. You can feel connected to someone harming you and confuse it for love, karma, or fate.

• It creates obsession chemistry - emotional highs followed by lows, guilt, confusion. Also mimicking trauma chemistry.

• It rewires your nervous system to equate abuse with attachment.

• It strengthens energetic bonds through dopamine, oxytocin, and psychic imprinting.

• Because many people have wounding, longing, or repression tied to sex - it becomes a highly charged, easily exploitable force.

And, for a narcissist or manipulator, this cycle of intensity and depletion is exactly what they crave and thrive off of.

Red flags you may be bound through seduction:

• You feel drained, confused, or even ashamed after interactions - even though they seem nurturing or “loving”

• You second guess yourself constantly around them

• You feel a sexual or romantic pull towards someone you don’t actually want - but you can’t stop thinking about them.

• You’ve been told they are your “twin flame” or soul teacher, but it feels twisted or one sided.

• They may use spiritual language like “divine feminine”, “tantric embodiment”, “kundalini activation” - but the energy feels off, heavy, overly intimate, or invasive.

• In women this energy can actually show up as disempowerment in your own sacral or womb space - you may question your desirability, intuition, or magick.

5. Mirror Hijacking, Energetic Mimicry - Identity Theft

This tactic creates false resonance. They don’t actually embody your energy- they mimic it just enough to appear familiar.

It’s both glamour and theft.

Here’s how it works:

• You begin to notice your words or tone “echoed” publicly by them - your insights, style, even your cadence reflected back at you.

• If you’re empathic or psychically sensitive, you may feel them trying to access your field.

• They may energetically mimic someone you trust - a person you’re bonded to, a soul connection - so they can trick your intuition into letting them in.

This is particularly dangerous because:

• It can cause confusion in your intuitive signals

• It can create emotional or psychic misfires, making you question your true connections

• It may be used to replace or discredit your spiritual allies by impersonating them in dream space, energetic work, or spiritual downloads.

In short?

It’s not real connection.

It is a hijack of your energetic signature - twisted to suit their agenda.

6. False Oracle/Divination Manipulation

This form of manipulation builds trust while undermining you.

It looks like accurate messages, spiritual guidance, or psychic insight - but its all laced with control.

They may:

• Deliver messages that feel true, but subtly push fear, guilt, or dependency

• Use their spiritual authority to implant limiting beliefs and control narratives (ie. “This pain is karmic”, “You’re not ready to leave yet” etc)

• Tap into your field without consent during readings - then reflect it back as if its divine guidance, when in fact it’s your own energy being distorted

This erodes trust in your own channel.

It trains you to look to them instead of your own inner knowing.

If your “spiritual guidance” ever becomes wrapped in fear, disempowerment, or the idea that you “can’t” do something without them - it’s not guidance. it’s manipulation.

If This Resonates

If reading any of this was disturbing to you, know you are not alone. These realizations not only shocked me, but they stirred deep grief, betrayal, rage, and brokenness.

But, once I began to understand the patterns, the spell broke.

That is exactly how black magick is dismantled:

Through clarity.

Through language.

Through seeing what was hidden.

Because unless you want to live at the mercy of someone else’s shadow, sick game, or soul agenda, you must reclaim your conscious will.

You are not here to be enslaved.

You are not here to be confused, coerced, or fed upon.

You are here to live autonomously, awake, and sovereign.

And let there be no doubt -

If you do not confront this,

you will become complicit in your own energetic imprisonment.

The longer you stay under this kind of magick:

• The deeper the cords root

• The more your own truth erodes

• The duller your intuition becomes

• The heavier your self-doubt grows

• The more your identity is distorted - & reshaped by someone' else’s shadow

Eventually, your nervous system wires itself to believe:

Real love = danger

Safety = complacency

Belonging = surrendering your power

That is not safety.

It is theft, betrayal, and lies.

And it will lead to a silent death of your soul.

The Antidote Is Not More Protection Spells - It’s Embodied Sovereignty

Protection rituals have their place - but they cannot save you from what you continue to energetically permit.

You break black magick through:

• Embodied clarity

• Naming what’s happening

• Exercising your will

• Speaking the truth

• Establishing energetic and relational boundaries

• Reconnecting to your inner compass - your intuition

You don’t need to be perfect.

You need to be present and awake.

And you need to trust yourself again.

Because your clarity will dismantle the illusion.

My Story. My Turning Point.

Everything I’ve shared, I experienced or witnessed in the group I was once a part of. These are just a few of the black magick tactics I have identified. I am sure there are likely others beyond what I’ve described here, that were at play.

And to be clear - it was covert. Cloaked.

I didn’t know this person was practicing anything dark. Had I known, I would have never studied with her.

She is highly trained in astral and energetic work. Which made this much harder to spot - and even harder to untangle.

But now? I see clearly.

What she took from me can be reclaimed.

She holds no power over me.

Because now, my eyes are wide open. My field is sealed. My truth is alive.

Compassion With Boundaries

There is a very real part of me that holds deep compassion for this person. I see the wounded inner child behind her mask. I see the walls of protection she has built from these shadows. And I sense all of the false promises of greatness, healing, and fulfillment she has been sold to persuade her along this path.

And these are the parts I can hold with love. To genuinely wish her healing.

For the love she never received and so greatly deserves.

For the truth - the inner knowing that all the power and worth she seeks outside herself is already held within her.

For the reflection in recognizing she is wildly gifted and beautiful on her own, inherent merit.

I see the desire for love, safety, and validation that are twisted into manipulation and control.

She deserves wholeness, true love, and joy in her life -and, with every bone in my body, I truly do hope that she finds them.

But this is no longer mine to carry.

For too long this has been my pattern - to over-give, over-fix, and over-help. To carry responsibility that was never mine to shoulder.

Compassion does not require sacrifice.

Empathy does not mean enabling.

I can love from afar - within the container it belongs.

Not as something I carry.

As something I witness and release.

You Can Too

If you have ever been caught in something like this, I want you to know.

You can heal.

You can reclaim what was lost.

You can walk forward more sovereign than ever before.

But, you must choose.

Because if you don’t - if you let this fester - if you let the shame win, if you let the fear sit unchallenged, or give power to the tiny part of you still holding out for the hope this wasn’t illusion, you’re not just abandoning yourself.

You are empowering the very person who has already taken too much.

Reclaim your radiance.

Reclaim your voice.

Reclaim your soul.

A new chapter is waiting ahead for you.

And you are more ready than you think.

I can’t wait to watch this unfold for you,

Seraph

The Sovereign Path - Part 3: 11 Red Flags of a False Guide.

How to Spot Spiritual Manipulation Before You Get Hooked - Discernment Is Your Protection

Once you’ve been glamoured - once you’ve had your energy siphoned, your intuition manipulated, or your sacred wounds played like strings - your body remembers. But your mind? It may still be catching up.

You may still second-guess what happened.

You might still spiritualize their behavior:

• “Maybe it was a soul lesson.”

• “Maybe I wasn’t ready for their wisdom.”

• “Maybe I misunderstood things.”

No.

You didn’t misunderstand.

You were being manipulated under the guise of spiritual wisdom.

This post is your mirror.

Let’s break down the signs - not to breed fear, but to build discernment so you never hand your power over to someone again.

Because real teachers sharpen your clarity.

False ones feed on your confusion. They steal your time, your peace, and your sovereignty.

11 Red Flags of A False Guide

…..and what they are really doing underneath the surface

1. They claim to be your only access point to truth, healing, or Source

They don’t always say it outright. But their energy implies:

“Without me, you wouldn’t be this far.”

“Your success is because of me - my methods or my frequency.”

“You can’t trust other teachers - they’re not aligned like I am.”

What’s actually happening:

They’re positioning themselves as a spiritual gatekeeper - which instantly sets up a hierarchy and keeps you tethered. This breeds dependency. If you feel disoriented, confused, or unsafe considering other options, you’re already entangled.

2. They reframe your instincts as ego or projection.

You bring up a concern. They respond with:

“That’s your shadow talking.”

“You’re in resistance.”

“You’re just not calibrated to this frequency yet.”

“You don’t understand this yet.”

What’s actually happening:

They’re gaslighting you using spiritual language. This is not real shadow work - it’s a tactic to keep power unchallenged. The moment they convince you your intuition is a problem, they become the authority on your truth.

3. They isolate you from other support systems.

They will use triangulation, embedded thoughtforms, or they might say things like:

“Your friends are in a lower vibration.”

“They don’t understand.”

“You should take space from anyone who questions this work.”

“No one understands you like I do” “Don’t you remember our bond?”

What’s actually happening:

This is classic spiritual grooming. If they cut you off from outside mirrors, they become your only reality. It’s how people end up deeply embedded in high-control groups before they realize it.

4. They flood you with praise early - then use withdrawal to control you.

This is love bombing dressed as spiritual recognition and its a classic pattern with narcissists:

“You’re one of the rare ones.”

“I’ve never met someone with your raw potential before.”

“You're going to be famous one day.”

“You were called to be in this circle.”

But later, if you question something:

• You’re ignored, ghosted, or corrected publicly

• You feel exiled from the “inner circle”

• They talk about you indirectly through “downloads” or social media posts

• Something else is indirectly withheld from you or you are excluded in some way

What’s actually happening:

They’re exploiting your need for belonging. Praise becomes a tool of compliance. Your nervous system bonds to them through intermittent reinforcement - the same manipulation pattern found in narcissistic abuse cycles. In other words, it mirrors the trauma loop - you’re praised, then punished and your nervous system stays locked in survival mode. The hot-cold inconsistency conditions your nervous system to crave their approval, even when it harms you.

5. They frame your boundaries as a flaw instead of a sign of self-trust.

Often trying to gaslight you into believing that your boundary is ego instead of wisdom.

You may say: “I’m not available for this anymore.”

They respond with things like:

“That’s a trauma response.”

“You’re avoiding your next level.”

“You don’t see what I see here.”

What’s actually happening:

They’re crossing boundaries and calling it growth. This frames your self-protection as a problem they need to fix - which keeps you open to further manipulation.

6. They mine your vulnerability but stay emotionally opaque.

They encourage you to share deeply. Trauma. Sex. Past wounds. Shame you may have struggled with. Soul connections, relationships, and contracts. But when you ask them anything real about their journey or wounds?

Deflection. Mysticism. Vagueness.

Or worse - they spiritualize their lack of transparency:

“I’m not meant to be understood in this lifetime.”

They may also play on this emotional intimacy later implying things like “don’t you remember our bond” or trying to manipulate you through guilt or false loyalty/intimacy dynamics.

What’s actually happening:

They want access to your root system while remaining untouchable. It gives them leverage and maintains power imbalance. This is energetic vampirism. Or, in other words, they feed off your energy to feel more powerful, whole, or in control - often without your full awareness or conscious consent.

7. They weaponize money, power, and pricing.

You express hesitation around a high-ticket offer and suddenly:

“That’s your scarcity mindset.”

“If you were truly embodied in your feminine, you’d invest.”

“If you don’t say yes now, you’re signaling to the universe you’re not ready.”

What’s actually happening:

They’re using shame to bypass your inner authority and decision making process. Your body says no - but they use spiritual guilt to twist it into a growth opportunity. This is manipulative sales masquerading as spiritual work.

8. They build loyalty in the name of soul family.

The group becomes your main identity:

• Everyone speaks the same language

• Doubters are labeled as “misaligned”, “still in ego”, lost or “unwell”, or simply “they don’t understand”

• People who leave are spiritually diminished, ignored, talked or lied about behind closed doors. Sometimes they try to cast themselves as a victim or “energetically owed”. They may even “pray for” someone they outcast in public while relentlessly attacking them in private, to somehow appear as if they are providing a blessing or priestess-like guidance. It is a facade.

What’s actually happening:

You’re inside a high-control container. Loyalty replaces discernment. You learn that staying close to power is more important than staying close to truth. And you are groomed to have reward and reinforcement to stay in this loop.

9. They spiritualize their harmful behavior.

“I mirrored your wound so you could heal.”

“I’m triggering your shadow for your growth.”

“If you’re uncomfortable, it’s your ego resisting the truth.”

“You’re being tested.”

“I had to break you open to awaken you.”

“Your fear is blocking your breakthrough.”

“That’s just your trauma talking.”

“This is your destiny path” “We are soul bound to walk this together”

What’s actually happening:

They’re justifying harm. They want you to transmute their abuse instead of holding them accountable for it.

10. They “channel” messages about you that override your own knowing.

“Your guides told me you’re not ready".”

“In a past life, you betrayed me - and that’s why you’re afraid of me.”

“If you don’t work with me again, your timeline will collapse.”

What’s actually happening:

They’re hijacking your spiritual sovereignty. This is energetic coercion masked as guidance.

11. You leave their presence feeling unclear, anxious, or addicted.

You feel:

• Drained

• Disoriented

• Unsure if it was amazing…or manipulative

• Like you need them to feel whole again

What’s actually happening:

That’s the glamour effect. You were pulled out of your center and wired into their frequency. It’s not activation - it’s addiction. And your body knows the difference.

What a True Guide Actually Looks Like

Let’s name the opposite - so you remember what real power feels like.

A true guide:

• Sharpens your discernment

• Celebrates your no

• Doesn’t push boundaries or distance

• Wants you to outgrow them

• Anchors you back into your body, not into their orbit

• Can admit mistakes and take feedback

• Answers your questions fully and honestly to the best that they are able

• Celebrates your wins and encourages genuine community without gossip, backstabbing, ulterior motives, or competition and ego-based agendas

Closing Reflection

If you saw yourself in this list - not as the manipulator but as the one who’s walked through it - here’s what you need to hear:

You didn’t fail.

You didn’t fall behind.

You woke up.

You now have the eyes to see - and the spine to say:

I trust myself more than I trust your performance.

That’s what ends the cycle.

That’s what keeps your field sovereign.

That’s how we end glamour-based leadership - by refusing to follow it anymore.

Journal Prompts:

• Where did I feel “off” but silence myself to stay in someone’s good graces?

• What spiritual phrases made me doubt my instincts?

• What does real, grounded leadership feel like in my body?

Next week, we will pivot from breakdown to breakthrough guiding you to reclaim your discernment in:

The Sovereign Path - Part 5. Reclaiming Your Sovereignty: 7 Keys for Spiritual Discernment

But before, stay tuned for a post that woke me up last night to write. Where we will shine a light on dark magick and its distorted forms that played out in this.

Until then, wishing you peace, reflection, and much love,

Seraphina

The Sovereign Path - Part 2: Beyond the Glamour - Naming the Other Faces of Energetic Manipulation

Seeing the Unseen and Naming What Tried To Own You

There comes a moment on the path of spiritual manipulation discovery when something inside of you whispers:

This isn’t truth anymore.

At first, it may be quiet.

A low hum of uneasiness. A tug in your gut. A tension in your throat or chest. A flicker of dissonance you can’t quite name.

A sense that something just…doesn’t feel clean.

You try to override it.

You tell yourself you’re being too sensitive.

Too reactive. Too paranoid. Too ungrateful.

Too….much.

You silence your own knowing in the name of spiritual maturity. Or perhaps, just simply, to fit in or accept and “go with the flow”.

But your body knows. Your dreams know. Your soul knows.

And your body remembers what your mind has learned to rationalize.

And eventually - if you’re brave enough to listen - you can’t unknow it.

That moment?

It’s sacred.

Because its the beginning of your return.

When the Teacher Becomes the Test

We don’t talk enough about what happens when the very people or spaces that we go to heal or learn from - who perhaps helped to awaken us… become the very thing we must awaken from.

There’s a particular kind of grief that comes with realizing that someone you once trusted with your soul growth has been distorting your truth.

When the veil is finally torn and what once felt confusing, distorted, or “off” comes sharply into focus.

And what you thought was love, healing, or leadership…is suddenly revealed as something else entirely.

There are some wounds we don’t realize we carry until someone touches them.

There are also moments when the illusion shatters.

When the spell breaks.

When the truth pierces through the fog.

And in that moment, the betrayal hits.

The shock lands.

The grief arrives.

And, if you’re anything like me, you didn’t want to see it.

Because seeing it meant everything had to change.

But as painful as it is - the truth is also the medicine.

What Pluto in Aquarius Is Demanding of Us

This isn’t just personal. And it isn’t just my story.

Pluto in Aquarius is pulling back the curtain on every illusion baked into our collective systems - especially those that cloak control as community and ego as enlightenment.

As he begins his long journey through Aquarius, we are all entering a collective spiritual detox.

We’re being asked to shed the spiritual hierarchies that teach us to give our power away.

To name where we’ve outsourced our clarity in the name of harmony.

To stop confusing loyalty with silence.

The age of false teachers, polished personas, performative stature, and blind devotion is crumbling.

As the planet of death and rebirth moves through the sign of collective systems, higher vision, and future truth, it is burning through the glamour of spiritual elitism. It’s unraveling the teacher-student dynamic where power was hoarded, not shared. Where charisma was mistaken for wisdom. Where obedience was rewarded, and sovereignty was diminished. Where the spiritual gurus instead of community are celebrated.

Because Pluto could care less about appearances.

He’s asking us to learn to listen for truth not in the voice of a polished guide, but in the resonance within our own body.

He wants to help us unearth the real, gritty truth. To drop the mask and align with our most authentic self. And he will always find it, and strip us - bare to the root - to help get us there.

And while not always pleasant, he does so with the sole intention of helping to align us with our highest purpose and path.

Pluto in Aquarius is burning through:

• Toxic teacher-student dynamics

• Hierarchies disguised as healing

• Communities that spiritualize silence and shame

• Top-down hierarchal leadership and approach (as it builds on, and transitions us, from Capricorn)

• Practices that police your truth instead of holding it

• Spiritual containers where performance is valued over presence

And what’s rising in its place is embodied, reciprocal connection.

Not rejection of the sacred.

But, a reclamation of the real thing.

We are being invited to step into greater authenticity and learn to trust and lead ourselves.

To unlearn the pattern to bowing to those who only bless us when we obey or elevate them.

Energetic Manipulation Doesn’t Always Look Like You Think

When we think of spiritual manipulation, we tend to imagine dramatic cults or overtly abusive leaders.

But in reality?

It’s often far more subtle.

More seductive.

More confusing.

And in spiritual spaces, manipulation tends to wear a prettier face.

It can look like:

• Being love-bombed with affirmations right after expressing discomfort or doubt.

• Being told your resistance is a sign you’re not “in alignment”

• Watching a leader subtly pit followers against one another to maintain control

• Hearing that leaving the group means you’re abandoning your “highest path”

• Feeling your clarity eroded by feedback disguised as “mirroring” or “mentoring”

These aren’t just red flags.

They’re energetic bindings.

And if you’ve walked through them - especially if you’re only now unraveling from them - I want you to hear me.

You are not crazy. You are not broken.

You are not wrong.

You are waking up.

What I Didn’t Know To Name Until I Lived It

I was forced to face and deal with a kind of manipulation that I wasn’t even aware existed - because it wasn’t loud. It was subtle. Spiritual. Polished. It didn’t scream or demand. It came softly. Wrapped in praise. Dressed as “sisterhood”. Hidden in healing circles, Reiki containers, private DMs, mentoring sessions, or those seemingly innocent “check-ins” that left me questioning myself instead of feeling genuinely empowered and supported.

This post is for those of you who - like me - might not have had language for this. Who brushed off your intuition. Who dismissed or explained away the pings in your gut as insecurity, coincidence, fear, or confusion. Who kept giving the benefit of the doubt while your soul quietly begged you to pay attention.

It’s for those of you who have had their light seen - but not honored.

Their voice praised - but only when it served someone else’s narrative.

Their gifts used - but never truly received.

This is not a post to blame. It is a post to name.

Because if we can’t name what happened, we can’t reclaim our own power.

This is about healing what has been hidden in plain sight - so that we can walk forward in truth.

So let’s talk about the different energetic manipulation tactics that I mentioned in my last post. These are a few that I discovered were being used in a community I was once a part of.

Glamour Magick - The Mask of “Perfection”

What it is: Glamour magic is a technique that has been used for centuries to enhance beauty. It is a spell of perception - used consciously or unconsciously to cast an illusion. It alters how others see the caster. But, in its shadow form, it becomes a mask of perfection, power, or mirror of other idealism, that hides the true motives that lie underneath. It is the deliberate manipulation of perception to create an image so potent it draws people in like a moth to flame. The danger is that you don’t see the casting person clearly. You see the projection. The illusion. The mask that they want you to see.

How it was used: I watched a spiritual teacher present themselves as the exact embodiment of what other’s desired - a truth-speaker, a radiant muse of idealized love, a healer, a spiritual “authority”. But that image was carefully crafted and did not match the shadow behind the scenes. They used glamour to appear as a devoted spiritual authority, while behaving manipulatively. They masked envy, insecurity, greed, and competition behind performative support. And, they were able to maintain admiration and loyalty, even while intentionally harming and weakening others in the group.

Glamour doesn’t steal your energy directly - it seduces it. It makes you question your instincts. You know that something is off, but it appears so alluring on the surface that you dismiss your gut instincts and gaslight yourself into ignoring the deeper, not-quite-so-pleasant truth. And so ultimately, your discernment - the clearest expression of your intuitive voice - becomes foggy and silenced. Please see Part 1 where we go into more detail about how this cycle works.

Signs that might indicate you are under someone’s glamour:

• You feel confused around them and find yourself doubting your gut instincts and intuition

• You place them on a pedestal - they may appear like they can do no wrong or are the greatest X,Y,Z - without really knowing why

• You excuse behaviors in them that you would not tolerate in others

• Others around them appear overly loyal without solid reason

Energy Manipulation through Healing Arts, Such as Reiki

What it is: Energy healing is sacred. But, like any tool or practice, it can be misused. Duality is always present in life; just as there is light, there is dark, just as there is a highest potential of sign, placement, or healing art, there is a low potential or shadow that can equally exist if chosen. When someone connects to your energy field without consent, attaches to your aura during sessions or meditations, or decides to embed their own thought forms, programming, or energetic agenda while you are open and vulnerable during a healing session, it becomes invasive and misused. Energy healing without clear boundaries is, more accurately, psychic invasion. And lets be very clear, this is spiritual abuse.

How It was used: I trusted someone who worked with Reiki and spiritual energy. But I realized they were accessing my field (and others) without permission, trying to pull cords and influence my thoughts, destiny, timelines, and actions, and monitoring my inner world strategically. This wasn’t support. It was a way to stay tethered to my field and attempt to manipulate me. It was used to try to silence me and make me energetically disoriented. Others, had thought forms embedded which altered their energetic perceptions, reactions, and internal reality.

Signs that you might be experiencing energetic manipulation through Reiki or another healing art:

• You feel watched or emotionally influenced even when you are alone; you may feel this energetically, emotionally, or even somatically, but are unable to prove it

• You may feel confused, like your intuition is “off”

• You find yourself feeling drained after a conversation or session

• You notice sudden anxiety, grief, or other emotions that aren’t your own; you may feel emotionally confused or scrambled

• Your dreams change perhaps feeling hijacked or you notice your thought patterns subtly change

• You notice an atypical energetic shift - perhaps you become suddenly agitated or angry with someone or you find yourself looking at someone in a totally new way, out of the blue

• You may feel restless or ungrounded

• You doubt yourself

Triangulation - The Silent Divide

What it is: Triangulation is the subtle art of splitting. A psychological and energetic tactic where someone pits people against each other or positions themselves as the “chosen” one in the middle. It intentionally keeps people divided, mistrusting, and dependent on a central figure or intended narrative. It is designed to create confusion, loyalty tests, and often targets your voice, preventing you and others involved from speaking directly. In spiritual communities, it can look like someone who appears to “hold the group together” but is actually controlling the flow of truth by manipulating communication. Triangulation isolates you from your authentic expression. You become afraid to speak openly. You begin “checking” yourself. You stop trusting others, and ultimately even yourself. Your voice dims because you no longer know clearly who is safe. You were praised for silence and punished passively for honesty. You are afraid of being misquoted or gossiped about. It is akin to an energetic muzzle.

How it was used: I was encouraged to confide in private sessions, then subtly isolated from others in the group. Some of my, and other’s, most vulnerable shares, wounds, and trauma were used and exploited. Compliments were used as currency. Secrets and gossip were weaponized. In other cases they may have shared what others had said about a person - sometimes to flatter, sometimes to “warn” - but ultimately to manipulate loyalties and a sense of intimate, or “special” connection. In at least one conversation she simply made up past life stories to build a sense of connection that was never there organically, but when “glamoured” was an easier sell than it would have been normally. Very tactical things were said and done to keep each person orbiting the creator, and ultimately out of connection with each other. Severing or altering connections strategically to achieve a set agenda but meanwhile sacrificing connections that I valued. I noticed shifts in my friendships and unexplained tensions out of the blue. But to others, she always knew just the right thing to say to everyone to keep things under control. But here is the key, everyone thought she was only loyal to them.

Signs that you might be experiencing triangulation:

• You’re constantly “checking” what’s safe to say, or you find yourself afraid or uncertain of sharing your truth

• You feel closer to the manipulator than to others in the group; even if you hadn’t been that close to them previously and interpersonal dynamics with others you had been close to, and connected with, seem to subtly shift

• You find tension in relationships with others that used to feel easy

• You may learn others were told very different versions of events*

• Private information may be freely shared even if your relationship with the manipulator doesn’t support that level of intimate exchange or casual dynamic

• Your relationship with the manipulator, if in a position of authority, may change and become more casual or extend outside the lines of the professional rapport and exchange you once held

*This is a core tool often used. It keeps people disconnected from each other and makes it difficult to know who to trust. It is intended to confuse and create dependency. The manipulator controls the narrative and appears like a victim to one person and a hero to another, painting a target as“the problem” in a subtle, deniable way. When you realize someone else was told a different version of the same event it creates a cycle of self-doubt seeding confusion, shame, and silence and making the target easier to gaslight, discredit, and alienate. Ultimately, making it easier for the manipulator to appear “innocent” and control the narrative as you are encouraged to seek approval from them rather than tuning into your own truth. It discourages note checking, blocks healthy communication, and prevents unity between those who might otherwise see through the manipulator.

Energetic Vampirism - The Hidden Hunger Beneath

What it is: Energetic vampirism is when someone feeds on your light, love, ideas, presence, or attention to fuel themselves - without giving back in equal measure. It is one of the most misunderstood forms of manipulation in spiritual communities. Often they flatter or praise you to gain access to your energy, then slowly drain you. It can be conscious or unconscious. But the end result is the same: you feel emptied. They take your energy to maintain their own power, image, or sense of identity.

How it was used: In my experience, this kind of energetic entanglement didn’t look like overt manipulation at first - it was the most tricky to distinguish. It showed up as mirroring - my insights reflected back to me as if they had originated elsewhere. My content and ideas began showing up in other places, uncredited but unmistakably familiar. I saw this happen with others also. Certain people’s energy seemed to be used as a kind of energetic anchor - I saw this both in her energetically mimicking and also sometimes in the group dynamic, where it helped attract or hold attention. And, when I quietly left (for reasons I’ve shared elsewhere), there were very clear, unnecessary energetic manipulations and lies woven into a made-up narrative. It was disorienting and confusing at first - because the relationship had been framed as supportive and even sisterly. But the deeper I tuned in, the more I could feel: this wasn’t collaboration. It was extraction. Personal energy wasn’t being honored - it was being harvested for her personal benefit. If someone consistently takes more than they give, probes your field without permission, or relies on your gifts while subtly diminishing your voice - that is not mentorship. That is not healing. Even if it’s wrapped in spiritual language or cloaked in care. True support empowers your sovereignty. It doesn’t siphon your energy.

Signs you may be being siphoned energetically:

• You feel tired, heavy, or “off” - without a known cause- after interactions

• Your ideas are repackaged or claimed (subtle energy harvesting; offered as collaboration but feels like depletion)

• You may sense someone “needs” you energetically in a way that feels sticky or unclear

• You leave a conversation and feel empty, not seen

• You begin to second guess the worth of your gifts

• You begin to feel gaslit into thinking the other person “made you” or “helped you”

• You may feel dependent upon them in a way you can’t directly explain

• Conversely, you may be told something privately, like “the group felt weird after you spoke”, intended to make you feel “psychically punished” for speaking; this is vampirism through emotional suppression and psychic control of group energy

• Trauma bond hooking; you are positioned as the only one who can help or “get them” and they siphon off your empathy. This may make you feel guilty or disloyal for pulling away or needing space

Community & Ritual Should be Safe. Not Silencing.

True sacred space doesn’t censor you.

It holds you.

It honors your unique voice.

It invites your full, embodied presence - even when that presence is trembling or messy.

Community should never demand your silence. Nor your conformity.

It should never require your self-erasure in the name of spiritual decorum.

We are in a collective reckoning.

A sacred breaking-open.

A rising tide of truth and reclamation.

And the false teacher archetype is being exposed - not only in my group, but elsewhere.

Many are awakening to how distorted systems of power-especially spiritual ones have manipulated doctrine, ritual, and truth for control.

But we are being invited to change. To break the silence and call out the distortions and abuse. And, to honor sacred leadership.

And, when you do so you are helping to midwife that change.

It’s okay to question what you were taught.

It’s okay to outgrow a “spiritual leader”.

You are allowed to listen to your inner oracle above all else.

Because a true spiritual leader doesn’t chain you to tradition - they help you open the sacred door within.

True spiritual connection never demands your silence, obedience, or sacrifice of self.

It recognizes you. Meets you. And liberates you.

If it asks you to shrink, it is not your mirror.

If You’re In The Rubble, You’re Not Alone

If you’re still untangling…

If your heart is broken and your voice is shaky…

If you’re afraid to speak because you still care for the people you are walking away from…

That is sacred, too.

This isn’t a call to burn it all down.

It’s a call to get honest about what is no longer true. To call out the distortions. And, most importantly to find and align with your inner truth - and honor it.

To stop gaslighting yourself for noticing what your body has been trying to say.

To reclaim your clarity - and begin again.

Because when you reclaim your voice,

You’re not just healing your story -

You’re helping someone else find the courage to start theirs.

Reclaiming Your Sovereignty - This Is The Work

I didn’t want to believe any of this was happening at first. I had ignored warning pings for months, and gaslit and dismissed my deeper intuition. This was my friend, I had invited this person and their family to my home for vacation. I told myself there was no way this could be true. But, my body and my intuition would not let go. And, finally I sat with it and realized there were deeper layers than met the eye. And this was the quiet, brutal moment when I realized I could either keep pretending I didn’t see….or walk away from a group I had grown to care for and risk being exiled for naming what was real.

The choice cracked me open. And I chose to walk away and speak my truth in my own way.

And while that hasn’t been easy, what I found on the other side of the silence was a deeper connection to myself.

Not a version molded, controlled, or limited by someone else’s system.

Not a seeker defined by someone else’s light.

But the wild, honest, messy, sovereign truth of my own becoming.

I’ve learned many valuable lessons in this experience. One of them, is the reminder that real healing includes the Sword of Truth. Radical honesty with yourself and the facts. The Swords (in Tarot) cut illusion - allowing us to more readily see the truth and bring back home all of the pieces. One important part of spiritual maturity is not bypassing the shadow - it’s naming it with love. And then choosing to step out of its grip. Even, when that choice is hard. Because choosing ourselves, choosing authenticity - it will always lead you to more wholeness.

If you are navigating a similar path, let this truth be your torch.

You were never meant to stay silent in a system that survives by your silence.

You were always meant to rise.

And you do this by stepping into alignment with yourself - your discernment and your own internal truth.

And as you do so, you are reclaiming yourself - piece by piece, truth by truth.

This journey isn’t about perfection. It’s about seeing clearly, choosing consciously, and rising with your integrity intact. You will emerge stronger, more confident, humbler, and more empowered than ever before.

Because you were never meant to stay asleep in someone else’s dream.

Your soul came here to remember, to rise, and to reclaim what was always yours.
Keep going - your truth is your liberation.

In Part 3 of the Sovereign Path, we’ll explore the red flags of false teachers - because naming the energy is only the beginning - next we learn to spot the ones who wield it so we never fall prey to this again.

Until next time.

With so much love and compassion as you continue on your journey,

Seraphina

When the Skin Speaks: Eczema, Mars in Leo, Saturn in Aries, & The Body’s Call To Move

Note: This post is a little more personal than usual, but I feel like this is an important part of my Chiron Return journey and I promised to share as I grow this year. If you are navigating skin or body issues, shame or frustration with slow healing, I hope this post brings you encouragement and grounding.

I find the whispers of our body to be an uncannily insightful gift in so many different ways.

But, I will be honest, I didn’t expect a small patch of eczema to become the random mouthpiece for my soul.

It showed up one morning out of the blue on my right calf - red, inflamed, and oddly fierce. Intense itching. At first, I treated it like a minor inconvenience. Baffled by what may have caused it but thought perhaps I had somehow brushed against poison oak and hadn’t realized it - and mentally brushed it off. A pattern I often do….subtly dismissing my body’s whispers. But, as the days passed and nothing seemed to calm it down, I began to soften, quiet my mind - and listen.

And what I finally heard changed everything.

The Body Always Speaks First

I’ve spent years unearthing my wounds. I know how to track trauma, decode patterns, map astrology, and follow the breadcrumbs of ancestral pain and wounding.

But this was different.

This time, my body was telling me the truth faster than I could process it.

Not gently. Not quietly.

It was itchy. Inflamed. Angry. Raw.

Like some part of me had finally had enough of being held back, silenced, polished, and composed.

This wasn’t just a first breakout of eczema.

This was a flare-up of suppressed fire.

The Astrology Behind the Flare

When the eczema first appeared, Mars had just entered Leo - my 1st house of identity, body, and selfhood. The house of physicality and raw self-expression.

Mars is movement, will, rage, and desire.

Leo is visibility, radiance, deep self love, and self-expression.

It was activating my Leo Rising - also a leg of my natal yod pattern - and, energetically speaking, it was lighting a match.

At the same time, Saturn was transiting over my natal Sun in Aries - opposing my natal Pluto and activating a square to my natal Saturn and Mars in Cancer in the 12th house. And, simultaneously, my Chiron Return was also beginning - square to that same Saturn. And square to my natal Moon in Capricorn.

If that all sounds intense- it was.

A grand cross of pressure.

A karmic reckoning.

A soul initiation coded in inflammation.

Because here’s the truth:

You can’t keep moving forward in your purpose if your body is still wired to believe it’s not safe to be seen.

Saturn was saying: Refine your identity. Mature your truth.

Mars was saying: Move. Burn. Become. Shed the patterns you have outgrown and hold you back.

And my nervous system? It was still holding onto decades of frozen, deeply embedded survival strategies.

That eczema patch was a flare-up of trapped fire, trying to escape.

Why My Body Reacted: The Ancestral Freeze Pattern

Eczema isn’t random. It’s heat without a home.

And it often appears where the soul is trying to evolve, but the body hasn’t caught up yet.

I carry a legacy of silence.

Of women who smiled instead of screamed.

Who braced instead of ran.

Who mothered, mended, and made do - while their own bodies slowly stiffened with unspoken pain. Lost dreams. Emotional suppression. Forgotten worth.

Mars and Saturn in Cancer in my 12th House = inherited emotional armor.

It taught me at a very young age to read a room - to hold it all together, protect everyone else, and to never make a scene.

But now? With Mars roaring through Leo and Chiron flaring in Aries?

My body broke rank.

It finally broke through and said: No more false safety. No survival-first any longer. No more silence or self-subjugation.

The skin opened. The truth escaped.

It forced me to stop and see the deeper message…and, the pattern.

The Calf & The Right Side: The Sacred Symbolism

Eczema on my right calf wasn’t random.

The right side of the body holds masculine energy: action, visibility, forward motion.

The calf is about momentum - it is one of the muscles that helps us to walk, run, move.

And the skin? It is our boundary - the line between inside and out, between self and the world. Not surprising, it is ruled by Saturn.

So when my soul said: Go.

My nervous system still sat in its protective armor and said: Wait. It’s not safe yet. I’m not ready to be seen; it still doesn’t feel safe.

My body said: This won’t work. There’s an energetic mismatch and you aren’t living in your full truth and purpose.

And, ultimately, it expressed the fire that desired to help push me forward on my path, somatically….and I developed eczema.

Not because my body is failing.

But because my body was the only one in the room telling the truth.

Putting it all together?

My body was saying: You want to move forward, but something inside you still feels unsafe to be seen.

You’re trying to shed your old identity, but you’re still wrapped in ancestral armor. It’s time to trust and surrender - heal and grow.

You would have to see my whole chart to see how very deeply this resonated with me at my core.

The Fire That Has No Place To Go

This was rage I hadn’t named.

Desire I hadn’t owned.

Visibility I hadn’t allowed.

It wasn’t mental. It was cellular.

My body had become a containment field for every time I had wanted to say:

• I’m not ok.

• This isn’t working.

• I want more.

• What legacy am I building towards?

Instead of screaming, I smiled. Instead of changing deep course, I simply worked harder.

Instead of moving, I continued to give to others. I managed. I accepted. I dissociated.

Ultimately, I did what I often do best - I ignored. I dismissed the many whispers that had come before this.

Until my skin couldn’t hold the contradiction anymore.

The Ritual That Changed Everything

I stopped running a few months ago - because of time, weather, and truthfully, a lack of prioritizing myself.

But when I pieced this all together, I heard the message very clearly:

You need to move. You need to burn clean. You need to reclaim motion as medicine.

So, I started running again - not as punishment, but as ritual.

Because the only way to clear - to truly move the element of fire - is to physically move the energy.

Each morning, I now:

• Touch my right calf and say: I hear you. I’m listening and I am ready.

• Run to mantras like “I am fire”, “I am free”, “I am safe to be fully me”

Each day I chose to run was a reclamation.

Not just of my health - but of my voice, my will, my radiance, and my right to be here in full, unapologetic flame.

A New Kind of Healing

After each run, I’d anoint my leg with a sacred oil blend that I made - blue tansy for soothing fire, rose for softness, frankincense for identity reclamation.

I’d breathe. I’d listen. I’d stop forcing.

And slowly…my body stopped bracing.

My skin began to soften.

The fire became less itchy. Less inflamed. More integrated. Until finally, it healed in full.

And the changes that stirred? Not only did the eczema soften, but so did my inner landscape.

I began to embody what my soul had been calling me towards.

Reflections: What I’ve Learned

• That my quick mental processing while a gift, also creates a subconscious disconnect allowing me to intellectually grasp things quickly while also bypassing the emotional embodiment of my experiences - subconsciously feeding into a deeply embedded and ancestral pattern of emotional suppression. Reminding me that quick understanding is not the same as deep embodiment.

• That my skin is not betraying me - it’s translating my truth; that my body is speaking to me. I simply have to be present and take intentional time each day, to listen to it.

• That movement, when rooted in presence, is sacred.

This healing journey isn’t about fixing a skin condition.

Or, about being concerned with another autoimmune disease.

This isn’t just about eczema.

This is about what happens when your body is finally safe enough to speak and be witnessed.

And it has tested me, subtly, to see if I am truly listening.

It’s ultimately a reminder about the importance of presence, embodiment, and listening to my body.

It’s about learning to trust the fire in my body again. To trust and honor my feelings -and my soul.

To learn to let Mars move through me - not burn beneath me.

Sometimes the healing begins not when you apply the cream, but when you stop apologizing for your fire.

Your Invitation

If you’ve been dealing with strange symptoms - skin flares, fatigue, emotional spikes, or other body blockages - ask yourself:

• Where am I holding back my truth?

• What truth is trying to surface?

• What motion have I stopped out of fear?

• What fire have I silenced?

Your body isn’t resisting you.

It’s speaking to you.

You are not broken.

You are just becoming too real to stay inside of the old armor.

You are being called to release and outgrow old patterns.

You are being asked to surrender, trust, and step into new growth.

And when you start moving from soul, and shifting out of survival -

You don’t just heal your skin.

You reclaim your radiance.

The Sovereign Path - Part 1: Spiritual Glamour & The Hidden Mechanics of Manipulation

Introduction: When Power Looks Like Light

There’s a kind of harm that doesn’t announce itself as danger.

It arrives as a light. It enters with praise, presence, and the illusion of sacred connection.

You feel seen. Recognized. Chosen.

And that is exactly what makes it so dangerous.

Because when later - when the spell breaks - you’re left in pieces, wondering what was real.

When you’re hurt by someone in spiritual authority - when someone you trust on a spiritual level uses their gifts - or the illusion of them - to control, distort, or spiritually seduce….

It doesn’t just shake your trust in them.

It shakes your trust in yourself.

This is spiritual glamour: when someone uses mysticism, charisma, or spiritual authority to distort your perception, override your intuition, and gain energetic access to your field.

It is not always intentional, but it’s always real.

And the effects are deeper than most people realize.

What Is Spiritual Glamour Really?

At its core, glamour is a psychic mirage - it manipulates image, energy, and influence.

It distorts truth - bending the light around someone to make them appear more enlightened, more trustworthy, more aligned than they really are.

Historically, the word glamour referred to a literal enchantment: a spell cast to cloud perception and produce illusion. And, it’s been around, and in use, for millennia. Today, it operates in new-age spaces in new, more subtle ways:

• Carefully curated personas of wisdom and light, designed to earn your trust and dependence

• Mystical gatekeeping (positioning as the “only one” who can access divine truth)

• Performative humility or vulnerability designed to disarm

• Psychic insight weaponized for control

• Charisma mistaken for credibility

• Unquestioned authority in group dynamics - this might show up as shutting down anyone who challenges them by calling it “ego” or “projection”. Disagreement is framed as “resistance to growth”, etc.

• Love-bombing as initiation - you join the group and are immediately praised: “you’re so intuitive”, “you are clearly meant to be here”, “you’re one of the gifted ones”

• Outsider fear narratives - people who walk away are spoken about as “spiritually lost or confused”, “struggling”, etc.

• Constant “initiation” cycles with no end - always enough praise to give you a sense that you’re almost there, but not quite; ie. “you’re not ready for that yet” - there is always a new offering, course, or mentoring session to take

The key isn’t in how it looks - but in how it makes you feel:

Enchanted. Confused. Dependent. Disoriented. Small.

Sadly, it is more common than you might think.

And it thrives where power meets unprocessed pain.

Why It Works: The Perfect Storm of Wound + Want

Glamour doesn’t just work on your mind.

It hooks on your wounds.

It works because it doesn’t target your logic - it targets your unmet needs.

It works on the part of you that:

• Was emotionally neglected and still seeks a wise caretaker

• Longs to feel special or “chosen”

• Hasn’t yet fully owned their own gifts, power, or discernment

• Lacks sovereign trust; believes others know better than you

• Craves a shortcut through suffering; your unconscious belief that someone else holds the keys to your healing

• Deeply desires to belong or fit into community or group family

• Longing to feel safe in a chaotic world

It’s almost always subconscious. And that is the most devastating part.

Some part of you agreed to this.

Not because you’re weak. Not because you’re broken. But because you were vulnerable - and someone recognized that. And instead of protecting that part of you, they exploited it. Instead of protecting your openness to what you most desired - them to be safe, guide you in healing and growth, and be who they said they were - they took advantage and used it.

That is the betrayal.

Let’s Name It Plainly: This is Predatory

People who glamour others don’t usually call it manipulation.

They call it magnetism. They call it teaching. They call it alignment.

But energetically - it’s an override. A hijack. A glamour cast through unspoken contracts that say:

“I will play the part you want me to be…as long as you stay small.”

“I will hold the mirror…but only if you reflect back what I want to see.”

“I will guide you…but only toward me.”

“I’ll see you - but only if you don’t outshine me.”

Energetically, it hijacks your nervous system through attention, intensity, and perceived spiritual authority. The person becomes a false source of light, and you subconsciously start outsourcing your discernment to stay close to it.

And the moment you question it?

The mask slips. The light flickers. And you’re suddenly cast as the problem.

Energetic Signs You’ve Been Glamoured:

• A sense of psychic fatigue or mental fog around the person

• You questioned your instincts, or dismissed them, but stayed anyway

• You gave more than felt safe or aligned - time, energy, money, access, etc.

• Anxiety about speaking up or challenging them

• Feeling like you are both magnetized and repelled at the same time

• Memories may feel distorted or unclear

• You downplay your gifts in their presence

• You feel deep grief, shame, fatigue, or otherwise depression in your field or energy

• Feeling ungrounded, off-center, or just an overall feeling of not being yourself when around them

• Overly optimistic or conversely pessimistic or confused about someone or something you previously thought you felt clarity with

• You walked away confused, ashamed, or unsure of what really happened

When Your Nervous System Is In Conflict With Your Soul

This experience leaves you fractured.

Your body senses something is off, but your mind spiritualizes, or tries to otherwise rationalize, it.

You tell yourself you’re being tested, initiated, asked to surrender.

You tell yourself it’s your karma. Your shadow.

You silence your instincts - you keep showing up, doubting your gut, shrinking your voice.

This is how glamour keeps you trapped- not by force - but by getting you to silence yourself. By doubting yourself. By dulling your own intuition.

The truth begins to return when you stop translating harm into spiritual lessons - and start listening to your body. That quiet tension in your chest. The nausea in your gut. The subtle “no” that has been whispering to you the whole time.

The Sovereignty Layer: Creatorhood & Consent

This is the hardest part to hold - but it is also your portal out.

It is the part that many spiritual teachings ignore - but is the key to your liberation:

Nothing enters your energetic field without some form of consent.

This doesn’t mean that you asked for harm. It means that on some deep level - often unconscious, often rooted in trauma, longing, or programming - you allowed the illusion in.

Maybe it was the desire to feel safe.

To be validated.

To be told what to do and be guided by someone who looked the part.

That isn’t shameful. That’s human.

But, this is where Creatorhood comes in.

Being a creator means you reclaim authorship over your energy. It means you recognize that your focus, your belief, and your boundaries are what give something shape in your reality.

Creatorhood says:

• Your field is sacred

• Every agreement you make -spoken or silent - shapes your energy field

• Energy follows permission - even the unspoken kind

• What you give power to owns space in your field - until you take it back

• What you allow, you co-create

Essentially, it reminds us that you don’t need to light a candle to cast a spell - just believing someone else over yourself is enough.

And, when you acknowledge and see this clearly, you stop asking:

Why did they do this to me?

And instead you start asking: What part of me believed they needed to?

This is where victimhood ends. And not because the abuse wasn’t real - but because you choose to become the one who protects your field, rewrites the story, and dissolves the illusion from the root. Because you have made the decision to reclaim your sovereignty and say no to giving it more power.

So How Do You Break The Spell?

The truth is - it’s not as complicated as it feels.

You don’t need an elaborate ritual or an outside healer to fix you.

You don’t need revenge, closure, or to make them admit what they did.

The spell breaks the moment you stop believing the lie.

Once you recognize glamour for what it is - an energetic illusion fed by your conscious agreement - you begin to cut the cord with presence alone.

Clarity is the disruption.

And your withdrawal of consent is the protection.

From there your healing work is simple but sacred:

• Detach your energy from the illusion

• Refuse to feed it with your energy, fear, or fixation

• Create & anchor into firm energetic and psychic boundaries

• Reclaim your own voice as the source of your truth - the only authority you allow in your field

• Lean into the deeper healing and shadow work around the original wound - the vulnerability that allowed access in the first place

This is what closes the portal.

No one can tether you again if there is nothing left to hook.

You don’t fight glamour - You see it with clarity for what it is. You starve it. You outgrow it. You walk away clean.

Your Pain Was the Portal - Not the Price

If you were glamoured, it doesn’t mean you were naive.

It means you were open. Trusting. Reaching for something sacred.

They didn’t steal your power.

They activated the part of you that hadn’t yet claimed it.

That is the real alchemy of betrayal - it carves out the space where your full self is invited back in.

And this, is where the real magic - and the gift of this - lies, once you claim it.

Somatic Clarity Returns When The Glamour Breaks

The moment you see it - the false light, the field manipulation, the hollow teachings - you feel it physically.

Your body exhales.

Your shoulders drop.

The dizziness stops.

You feel lighter. More yourself. Your voice returns.

The truth re-enters like oxygen.

And it often comes with rage. Grief. Grief for the time lost. For the betrayal. For the way you stopped trusting yourself.

And that is sacred. Because that grief is the beginning of your freedom.

The Emotional Aftermath: Grief, Guilt, & Withdrawal

Let’s be honest - breaking the glamour isn’t the hardest part.

Its what comes after that guts you.

You’re not just walking away from manipulation.

You’re walking away from the hope that this person or path was true.

You’re grieving:

• The connection you thought it was

• The part of you that deeply trusted

• The identity or belonging that tied you to that space.

You may feel guilt for leaving. Shame for “falling for it”. Or even fear about what people will think.

When these thoughts surface, see them for what they are. These are trauma responses - not truth.

And the longer you stay focused on what you “should have seen”, the longer you delay the reclamation that’s trying to happen now.

So those gaslighting thoughts of shame?

That misplaced loyalty to the one who glamoured you?

The guilt for pulling away? The fear that naming it means you’re “not spiritual enough”?

Strip them down to what they really are:

Distractions. Delays. False roadblocks to your self-reclamation.

They are part of the spell - residue from an illusion that told you your worth was tied to someone' else’s validation.

Tear that shame out at the root.

Cut the guilt loose.

And see the fear for what it is: the final guardian at the gate of your power.

You owe no loyalty to the one who distorted your light.

The only reverence you’re required to give is to yourself - and the truth that has been waiting inside you all along.

And this…

This is not where you broke.

This is where your healing begins.

Not in their redemption.

But in your own return.

How to Break the Glamour & Reclaim Your Energy

This isn’t about revenge. It is about removal - from their field, their narrative, and from every ounce of their influence.

Here are some simple practices that may help:

1. Interrupt the Fantasy with Reality

Write it out:

• What they said vs. what they did

• What your gut actually felt that your mind overrode

• The moment you started disconnecting from yourself

This clarity will help break the cognitive dissonance that keeps you tethered.

2. Cut the Energetic Access

• Delete texts, photos, and any links that keep them psychically present

• Do a field clearing: sage, prayer, salt - whatever works for you

• Say aloud: “I revoke all consent. You no longer have access to me.”

It doesn’t have to be elaborate. It just needs to be done with intention and conviction.

3. Regulate Your Nervous System

Breathe. Move. Get outside. Touch the earth. Take a cold shower.

These actions help you re-embody and send the internal message: I’m here. I’m safe. I’m back in my own body.

Glamour works by disembodying you. Return to yourself through sensation and deep grounding.

4. Don’t Bypass the Grief

Let yourself feel the loss. You’re not just losing a person - you’re letting go of the illusion of what you wanted them to be. That’s a sacred ending. It deserves time and space to fully process.

5. Rebuild Self-Trust Slowly

Make new agreements with yourself:

I will honor my instincts - even if others don’t agree.

If someone demands I override my truth, that’s a red flag.

My clarity is more important than anyone’s approval.

I can trust again- and I will, slowly.

Self trust doesn’t come back through force. It returns through consistency and honesty.

The Integration Phase: What Now?

You don’t have to become “more healed” to be safe from glamour.

You just need to become more self-governed.

My biggest lesson? Energetic boundaries and never allowing my own discernment to be diminished or dulled.

Journal Prompts For Integration:

• What part of me wanted them to be the illusion that I believed in?

• Where did I override my gut to stay spiritually “loyal”?

• What was I hoping that they would give me that I wasn’t giving myself?

• What is my energy no longer available for?

Final Words: Walking Away Is Sacred Work

Walking away from spiritual manipulation isn’t just hard. It’s heroic. Its pulling out all the roots that want to keep you stuck and tethered, going against the grain, and ultimately, choosing yourself.

You’re reclaiming your time, your body, your energy, your voice.

There may be people who don’t understand why you left.

There may even be a part of you that still doubts yourself and wonders if you made it all up.

You didn’t.

You saw clearly.

You chose yourself.

You chose to walk in truth.

You are not broken.

You are not behind.

You have absolutely nothing to feel shame or guilt over.

You are simply no longer under a spell. You have broken free and chosen sovereignty.

And that is sacred.

Next up in The Sovereign Path Series:

Part 2 - Beyond the Glamour - Naming the Other Faces of Energetic Manipulation

Part 3 - 11 Red Flags of A False Guide

Because naming the pattern is how we stay sovereign.

Because seeing the truth isn’t just for healing - it is what empowers us.

When Spiritual Power Becomes Control: A Story Of Spellwork, Silencing, & Sovereignty

There is nothing more whole than a heart that has been broken open by truth. - Rumi

Let’s be clear.

This isn’t just about drama or hurt feelings.

This is about spiritual manipulation - the kind that hides in plain sight behind soothing words and performative wisdom.

The kind that wears the mask of mentorship but feeds on power and dependency.

Distorted leadership and twisted teachings that prey on trauma rather than truly heal it.

I discovered something I wasn’t intended to see on the Scorpio Full Moon.

Something that at first I thought couldn’t possibly be true.

Something that once I saw, I could not unsee.

My spiritual teacher deeply, intentionally manipulating others to rob, distort, and cast illusion for a false sense of power and control.

For a long time, I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing.

Because it meant acknowledging that someone I once trusted - that I sincerely believed was a friend and had even invited to vacation and stay with my family - was actively using their power to control, confuse, hurt, and divide.

And the damage? It ran deep.

A gross misuse of power. Betrayal. Creating opposition, energetic depletion, physical ailments, and deep wounding.

And, in some cases, altering life trajectories, gift expansion, and relationships.

The Pattern: Charm, Control, Collapse

She cloaked herself in goddess-like energy, but behind the scenes, it was all strategy:

• Find your vulnerability

• Mirror your pain

• Tether onto your deepest wounds and insecurities, masquerading as the “ideal” antidote

• Offering healing in exchange for loyalty

• And if you don’t comply?

  Erase. Smear. Attack. Distort. Discredit. Deplete.

This is narcissism in spiritual clothing - using divine language to disarm, then dominate.

People called it community and initially it truly felt that way.

But in reality, it was curated hierarchy,

And when someone shined too brightly - or threatened to step out of line in any meaningful way - the web tightened.

That’s what happened to me.

I was watched.

Talked about.

Lied to and lied about.

And when I started forming deeper connections that weren’t part of her plan - that somehow threatened her power and plans to misuse our gifts to grow her community- they were cut at the root through glamour magic, emotional triangulation, energetic manipulation through reiki and spellwork, and group manipulation behind the scenes.

Spiritual Warfare Is Real - and It Doesn’t Always Look Like What You Expect

This wasn’t just emotional.

This was energetic.

This was very real spellwork with intention - the kind that distorts perception, entangles clarity, and turns people against their own intuition.

I know what it feels like to be gaslit psychically.

To have your life path invaded.

To feel your own energy being used against you.

And what’s worse?

When others see the control, but say nothing because they are either afraid they will be next, fear rejection, or don’t want to be embroiled in the “drama”.

This is the dark side of spiritual communities that no one wants to talk about:

• Where “peace” is used to silence.

• Where “light” and distortion - that is intentionally crafted to play on your own wounds and insecurities - is used to blind.

• Where gaslighting and spiritual bypassing protects the abuser and shames the truth-teller.

What It Took To Leave

When I saw the truth in full - the manipulation and underlying magic - I couldn't unsee it.

At first, I wasn't sure how to move.

The fixer in me rose up. The protector. The sacred rage. The part of me who once believed that if I just showed enough care or clarity, people would understand.

I kept asking: How could I possibly walk away from friends I cared about, when I could see they were caught in something they couldn’t yet name?

But the deeper truth was: they had to see it on their own.

They were being called to reclaim that truth in a way only their soul could lead them to.

So I made a choice - one of the hardest spiritual decisions I’ve ever made or felt equipped to fully make.

To walk away in silence.

Not out of fear, or any inkling of not wanting to get involved, but ultimately out of respect.

Respect for each of our own sovereignty, life path, and individual discoveries and lessons.

To fully trust in the outcome I was shown and to stop pouring energy into a battle of distortion that wasn’t mine to fix.

I began quietly reducing engagement. I held energetic support for the truth and for each person in the group, excluding the triad of those involved at the top.

Twelve cord cuttings.

Not in anger - but in deep spiritual reverence.

Clearing entanglements. Releasing attachments. Weakening the dark magic that lie at the undercurrents of the spellwork and psychic spying being used.

Honoring connection without rescuing.

Then I erased every trace of my presence in the group and private text with the leader. Not to disappear, but to prevent my words, memories, and shares from being twisted and used.

That’s when the real attacks began.

Daily.

Sometimes multiple times a day.

Relentless.

It was my first real exposure to spiritual warfare - and I had a steep learning curve.

At one point, I faltered. I let emotion reopen a door I’d sealed shut. And I felt the energetic blowback immediately. That was the final lesson.

And so I left. Quietly. Completely.

Not with bitterness - but with a fierce trust in divine timing.

Knowing that the truth would reveal itself in the right way, at the right time, to all who needed to see it.

But even then, the smear campaign grew louder.

The lies and twisted truths multiplied.

I don’t know every word that was spoken - and honestly, I’m grateful.

But I know enough to say this with certainty:

This was unprovoked warfare.

And its roots were power. Control. Fear.

Fear of being exposed. Fear of losing image. Fear of losing control. Ultimately, fear of losing money.

And let’s be very clear -

This isn’t about one person being manipulated.

It is about a systemic pattern of spiritual abuse.

One I’m certain began long before I arrived in the group….and may very well continue unless truly seen and recognized for what it really is.

At the core of it?

Narcissism.

Unhealed Wounding.

Jealousy.

Spiritual bypassing.

The kind where charm masks control.

Where “healing” and the level of “teaching” you allow others becomes hierarchy.

Where power feeds on praise and insecurity and hollow praise becomes currency.

It’s a toxic loop.

And when it’s cloaked in spiritual language and a false sense of security within a teacher-student relationship, it is far more dangerous.

Because it seduces the seeker - and silences the truth-teller.

What This Really Is: A Return to Power

This isn’t just my story.

It is a collective wound resurfacing: the distortion of feminine power, cloaked in control, envy, and quiet manipulation.

It echoes the sisterhood wound.

The witch wound.

Where sacred circles fracture under the weight of shadow - and the distorted narrative is propelled at all costs - even if it means there is a scapegoat so that another can preserve her illusion of power.

This isn’t personal.

It’s ancestral.

And, it’s time we name it.

But something is shifting.

Truth is rising.

The spells are breaking - not because we fought back, but because we refused to stay silent.

There is a sacred kind of rage that purifies.

There is a clarity that cuts cords.

And there is a voice that, once claimed, can never be caged again.

Mine has returned.

Maybe yours is rising too.

And that is the unexpected gift that comes after the fire.

To Those Still Healing

I’m not here to convince anyone.

I’m not here to smear, point fingers, or cast blame.

I’m here to affirm what you already know deep in your bones:

• You can trust again

• You weren’t crazy

• You were never the problem

• You became a mirror too clear for someone still hiding from their own shadow

• You weren't difficult - you we're uncontainable, and that was never part of their plan

Truth doesn’t need approval.

True healing doesn't bypass shadow.

It walks straight through the darkest parts - torch in hand.

If these words stir something within you - whether that be grief, rage, or relief - you are not alone.

Truth is not always comfortable, but it is always clarifying.

May your body be a safe place for this knowing to live and land.

And to those of you who are still unsure, who feel something is off but can’t yet name it - I honor your journey.

Awakening is often not a lightening strike, but a slow, aching thaw.

May you trust the quiet wisdom in your gut.

May you know that when you are ready, truth will not abandon you.

This is my story. It is my truth. This was the wild, unexpected, initiatory event in my own Chiron Return.

I do not speak to be believed or validated. I speak to be free and to never forget what this lesson has taught me.

Truth, once voiced, becomes a lifeline - not just for me, but for anyone waking up from illusion.

Let this post be a flame. May it burn away illusion, and light the path back home - to truth, to integrity, to sacred remembrance - for us all.

Together, we rise - not in competition, but in reclamation.

For true feminine fire is bold.

She is radiant, unwavering, and unapologetically whole.

She does not chase. She does not shrink. She does not silence truth to soothe ego.

Let the full truth surface.

Let what was hidden be seen.

And may what is seen be fully healed - at last.

More soon.

The path forward has only just begun.

Chiron Return Activation: Notes from the Chiron Threshold

Every one of us carries a wound. The pain of which, runs so deep that some of us spend a lifetime running from it. Others- meet it head-on and alchemize it into something sacred.

I’ve just crossed into a major threshold in the world of astrology known as my Chiron Return. This mid-life cycle is something that none of us escape, and usually occurs between the ages of 49-51. It marks the time when Chiron, known as the archetype of the Wounded Healer, returns to the exact place in the sky that it was when we were born.

My Chiron is in Aries in the 9th house - the part of our chart that deals with truth, spiritual calling, teaching, and visibility. It sits tightly conjunct my Jupiter and directly squares my Saturn. Aries, the cardinal first energy of the zodiac, embodies the energy of "I AM” - our identity and speaks to our self-trust, courage, and the fire we hold inside ourselves to claim and fully own our own voice. But, Chiron, placed here, doesn’t roar - it hesitates. It fears being too much, or perhaps not enough. It is the stirring inside that knows it is created to lead but doubts deeply if you deserve to.

This wound has lived in me for a long time. I embody many of the characteristics of Aries as I hold a large stellium there - but I’ve often played small. I’ve often stayed silent. I’ve doubted deeply my own worth in many rooms and circles where my wisdom belonged. I’ve held back out of fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of misunderstanding. Fear of failure.

But now? Now, I am being asked to boldly step into this journey of self-discovery, ripping off the well worn and hidden band-aid to a deep wound I’d rather not face and not only look at it fully, but to turn that wound into medicine.

This return isn’t simply about healing - it is about actively embodying my role as a teacher, healer, guide, and mother. It is about building something that can hold others as they walk through their own initiations. A blog. A circle. A sacred offering I’ve yet to flesh out. A new way of showing up for myself and others.

I don’t know yet what all of this will become. But, I do know that I have made a commitment to say yes. To say yes to myself; to showing up, doing the work, and telling myself the truth and facing the parts of myself that perhaps I’d rather have stay hidden and protected. To saying yes to what I’m being called to build. And ultimately, to saying yes to the divine fire inside me that I have always held sacred - and while I may have allowed that light to dim at times, I have never let it go out.

Maybe you are feeling something stir in your own life too. Something old resurfacing, something deeper within you that is calling. It doesn’t have to be your Chiron wound. A soul longing, a calling, a whisper for change - these all come in different forms and packaging - but our soul recognizes them when they do stir. And, when they do, know that you are not alone. Know that thousands of us are walking this same path of self discovery with you. And this is just one of those stories - meant to encourage, inspire, and help shine a light you can carry along your way.

I’ll be sharing my journey with you here, as it unfolds. One truth. One wound at a time. I can’t promise that it won’t be messy, sprinkled with some unexpected drama (spoiler alert, the first 3 weeks of this transit have unfolded with far more wild, unexpected drama than I could have possibly ever predicted - and, perhaps the most intense spiritual initiation of my life!), or that it won’t be raw at times, but I can promise you that it will be real. And my hope is that it helps empower you. Letting you know you are seen and not alone on your own path.

With Love,

Seraphina Thorne

I walk with the ancestors. I rise with the stars.

Libra Full Moon: Rebalancing Love, Power, & Sacred Union

This moon invites us to contemplate our inner world of relationships and to honestly assess: which ones align with our highest life path - and which may be pulling us off course? Libra’s wisdom lies deep within. As the sign of the scales, it calls us to view life through the lens of balance. Life is a constant dance of energy that pulls and tips the scales; Libra asks whether we can stay centered through the dance or whether it is time to realign. Every person enters our life with purpose, but not every connection is meant to last forever. That truth can be tender - especially when it involves a long-term relationship. But growth sometimes requires space. This isn’t about discarding people as temporary; it is about honoring the sacred timing of soul contracts. Pay attention to whether you reach out to someone to genuinely connect, or out of habit or convenience.

The Aries- Libra Axis: A Sacred Mirror

The Libra-Aries axis reflects the dynamic polarity of self and other, war and peace, assertion and harmony, initiation and reflection. It governs the sacred dance between individual will and relational balance, encoded in the soul’s evolution from independence to sacred union. Aries is our inner “I am”. The ram of the zodiac represents our assertiveness, vitality, and personal fire. Libra is the “We are” - the initiator of connection, refinement, and the harmonization of dualities. It is the mirror through which the soul contemplates itself in relationship. This axis is also the axis of divine alchemy: Aries as the active, initiating musculine force, and Libra as the receptive chalice of the feminine - balancing strength with beauty, assertion with grace. Together, they speak of the union within and between souls. The lesson is to initiate with courage and negotiate with love. Let conflict become a sacred mirror. Let union sharpen your clarity.

Soul-Level Relationship Inquiry

Use this full moon to consider: how do you want your relationships to feel? Life is more fulfilling and magickal when we are surrounded by aligned, nourishing connections. While each relationship moves through seasons, the foundation of love, mutual respect, and shared growth should remain steady. Aries awakens our purpose and instincts, while Libra invites us into sacred stillness and reflection. One energizes our drive; the other, our grace. When balanced, they help us walk our path with strength, harmony, and connection. Libra reminds us we are wired for relationship. Authenticity and vulnerability are part of the fabric of deep intimacy - and vulnerability is the magic that allows us to be truly seen. True partnership requires courageous self-knowledge. It asks us to discern which parts of our worldview welcome compromise - and which of our truths are non-negotiable. When we know ourselves, we can remain loving and grounded, even while standing firm. We meet others from a place of respect, reverence, and love; not from reaction.

Shadow & Light: Working With The Axis

Understanding this axis helps us build high-vibrational, sovereign partnerships. It creates the sacred ground where boundaries are honored and gifts are celebrated - where both people are free to shine in their full essence. Libra’s shadow can show up as indecision, people-pleasing, or avoiding conflict. Without clarity or boundaries, we can fall into enmeshment, anxiety, or losing ourselves on someone else’s path. The remedy lies in sacred pause, honest reflection, and direct communication. Aries’ shadow resides in ego, reactivity, impulsivity, and steamrolling others to pursue our own desires. We may push forward without deeply listening, or filter the world only through our own lens. But beneath frustration often lies fear - a wound asking for healing. Get curious. Let emotions be messengers for deeper reflection, not masters that dictate your fate.

The Sky Above: Venus, Chiron, & The Moon’s Invitation

This Full Moon in Libra, also known as the Pink Moon, symbolizes a powerful opportunity of rebirth. It rises just after eclipse season and multiple retrogrades, helping you see who you are becoming. It invites integration. You’re not the same as you were when you began and this moon asks you to consider this and whether or not you are ready to step forward and embody your growth fully in the future.

Venus, Libra’s ruler, stations direct today after retrograding since March 1st. Her retrograde offered deep contemplation of relationships, values, and how we give and receive love. Now, she turns forward, empowered with insight. Venus conjunct Saturn and the North Node in Pisces opens a profound portal: Saturn calls us to maturity and integrity; the North Node points us towards our destiny. In Pisces, this stellium activates the heart and higher self, helping us craft spiritually aligned relationships. Saturn’s sextile to Uranus amplifies the urge to break free from restriction. Collectively, this energy is a call to build real foundations - ones that honor both our intuition and our liberation. Meanwhile, the Sun conjunct Chiron in Aries and the Moon in Libra illuminate our deepest relational and identity wounds. Chiron doesn’t wound to harm, it reveals to heal. The Sun and Moon square Mars in Cancer, creating emotional tension. Mars stirs our longing for security and asks: what do you truly need to feel safe, held, and loved? This is a time for reflection and courageous emotional truth.

The T-Square, Grand Cross, and Yod: Cosmic Activation

Mars also forms a T-Square with the Sun/Chiron/Eris in Aries and the Moon and Lilith in Libra/Scorpio. This opens a portal into shadow integration and personal sovereignty. The out-of-sign opposition to Pluto creates a grand cross pattern, challenging us to surrender control and open to transformation. What are you holding onto tightly that is keeping you small?

And, perhaps most powerfully, this moon forms a rare and sacred YOD formation, or Finger of God. With Venus and Saturn sextile Uranus and all quincunx the Moon, this configuration funnels massive spiritual insight into the apex: the Moon itself. The Moon here becomes the fulcrum of karmic redirection and soul activation. Conjunct Black Moon Lilith in early Scorpio, the Moon beckons us into our wild intuitive self - the raw feminine wisdom often silenced. This is the reclamation of your inner witch, your wildness, your unreduced power.

The Invitation: Rebirth through Relationship

So, as the Moon extends this powerful healing invitation, reflect honestly on your relationship patterns. What is ready to be released? What desires to be birthed? Venus and Aries offer courage. Chiron offers grace. This is the moment to see where you’ve doubted your worth, and step into a new embodiment of self-love. You may clearly witness the parts of yourself that have longed to be chosen, that sought validation or feared being “too much”. But Eris, the dark goddess and cosmic agitator, stands nearby demanding you take your power back. No more shrinking. No more shame. This Full Moon helps you anchor into your wholeness. You remember who you are, what you want, and what you came here to do.

Journal Reflections:

1. What throws you off balance most in relationships? What past story does that emotion tie into?

2. When you spiral into emotion, or rumination, what brings you back to center? Make a list of your personal regulation rituals.

3. How can you be more present in your connections? How can you attune more deeply to other’s subtle cues?

4. How do you receive feedback? Can you stay open-hearted without becoming defensive or shutting down?

5. What does it feel like to be truly seen and supported? How do you want to feel in your most aligned relationships?

6. Where have you betrayed your own needs in the name of keeping the peace? What were you afraid would happen if you honored your own truth instead?

7. Which relationships in your life feel truly reciprocal? Where are you giving more than you receive - or receiving without truly showing up?

8. What does sacred union mean to you - within both yourself and with another? Where are you still fragmented or hiding from full integration?

9. What have you learned about love through your most painful relationship experiences? What soul contract might have been playing out and now is complete?

10. What do you seek validation from others for that you haven’t yet given yourself? How can you begin to internalize this worth and offer it inwardly?

11. How do you respond to relational conflict? Do you lean into discomfort and communicate, or retreat into avoidance? What does this pattern teach you?

12. Where does fear of rejection or abandonment still shape your behavior? How would you act if you were fully anchored in self-love?

13. Which part of your relational identity is asking to be released, reclaimed, or rewritten? What story is ending and what new one do you feel ready to write ahead?

14. What boundaries have you set that truly nourish your relationships and where do you struggle to uphold them? What is the energetic cost of not honoring those boundaries?

15. What aspects of love, partnership, or connection do you still idealize? What would it look like to see relationship as a spiritual practice instead of a source of identity?

Virgo Full Moon Total Lunar Eclipse: A Sacred Purge & Portal Into The New

Where: Eclipse will occur at 23 Degrees Virgo

Ruler: Mercury (at 9 degrees Aries conjunct Venus Retrograde in Aries - and at the exact degree of where the New Moon Solar Eclipse will be on 3/29/25) and Chiron (at 21 degrees Aries square Mars in Cancer)

Aspects: Full Moon stands all alone with the South Node opposing the Sun, Neptune, Saturn, and the North Node in Pisces, trine Uranus in Taurus

Time of Occurrence: 11:57pm on Thursday, March 13, 2025 thru 6:00am on Friday, March 14, 2025. The total eclipse begins at 2:26am and continues through 3:31am

On March 14, 2025, a powerful gateway opens with the eclipse portal starting with the Virgo Full Moon Total Lunar Eclipse – A Blood Moon – ushering in a period of profound release, purification, and recalibration.  This eclipse is a turning point, a moment of karmic completion where we are asked to surrender all that no longer aligns with the future we are stepping into. 

Lunar eclipses are cosmic life Spring Cleaning events; offering us resets, dissolving outdated timelines and shifting us toward higher states of awareness.  A total eclipse, especially one in the sign of Virgo, is a potent initiatory event – one that calls us into sacred refining; clearing out the energetic and emotional clutter that keeps us tethered, and stagnant, to the past.

This eclipse isn’t just about letting go; it’s about creating the space for something better – something more aligned, more true, and more divinely orchestrated to take root.  And while endings can feel uncertain, the astrology surrounding this moment reminds us that we are stepping into something beautifully fated ahead. 

The Grand Cosmic Shift: Why This Eclipse Is So Important

March is one of the most pivotal months of 2025, both energetically and astrologically.  This Virgo Full Moon Eclipse marks the beginning of an evolutionary gateway that leads us into the Aries New Moon Solar Eclipse on March 29 and the monumental entrance of Neptune into Aries for the first time in 164 years.

This means we aren’t just shedding layers of our old selves – we are preparing for an entirely new way of being.  The universe is cleansing our inner and outer world in preparation for a fresh cycle of creation, one where we can move with greater clarity, self-trust, and alignment with our highest path.

Virgo & the South Node: Releasing the Old Programming

The Moon in 5 degree Virgo is deeply tied to the South Node in Libra, signifying the dissolution of old karmic patterns, outdated ways of operating, and ingrained conditioning that no longer serves us.

Virgo, at its highest expression, is a sign of purity, service, and discernment – it refines, organizes, and integrates wisdom into practical action.  But in shadow, Virgo energy can overanalyze, micromanage, and struggle with perfectionism, criticism, and self-doubt.

This eclipse is asking:

• Where am I still trying to control what is meant to be surrendered?

• What am I ready to purify, release, and clear to make space for my most aligned, highest self?

• How can I trust in divine order rather than forcing a rigid sense of structure?

With Virgo’s ruler, Mercury, sitting at the exact degree of the upcoming Aries Solar Eclipse, we are receiving precognitive insight into the new chapter that awaits us.  The shifts happening now are setting the stage for what will unfold at the Aries New Moon at the end of the month – a complete rebirth into our next evolutionary phase.

The Mercury-Venus Retrograde Dance: A Heart & Mind Reset 

A powerful undercurrent to this eclipse is the Mercury & Venus retrograde cycle, which will station the day after this Full Moon.  Both Mercury and Venus will be dancing between the first degrees of Aries and the final degrees of Pisces, retracing our mental and emotional pathways, clearing distortions, and rewiring our connection to self-trust, worthiness, and belief in our own inner authority.

This is a rare cosmic reset of our mind and heart – an opportunity to fully align our thoughts, beliefs, and values with the life we are meant to live.  It invites deep soul retrieval, a reclamation of fragmented parts of ourselves, and the closing of old soul contracts that no longer align with our evolution.

With Virgo energy at the helm, we are asked to be meticulous in what we keep and what we release.  Virgo teaches us that refinement is not about perfection, it is about purity, clarity, and truth. 

The Saturn Cazimi: Anchoring into Soulful Trust 

This eclipse is also infused with Saturn’s energy, as the Sun sits conjunct Saturn in Pisces – a rare “Saturn Cazimi” (exact conjunction of Saturn in the heart of the Sun) that asks us to establish a deeper trust in the unseen, the divine, and the mystical flow of life.

While Virgo energy may want certainty, control, and predictability, this Cazimi reminds us that true stability comes from surrendering to something greater.  We are being called to find faith in the unknown – to stop resisting the natural cycles of death and rebirth and instead move in harmony with them.

This may feel uncomfortable.  The unknown can trigger fears and insecurities.  But this eclipse is inviting us to let go of the false security that keeps us stuck and instead trust the unfolding of our divine timeframe.

Uranus & the Disruption of the Familiar 

Uranus, the planet of awakening, disruption, and liberation, is making its presence known during this eclipse, further reinforcing that change is inevitable.  Anything that is stagnant, misaligned, or no longer resonating with our soul’s purpose will be shaken loose.

Rather than resisting change, this eclipse teaches us how to work with it – to flow with the divine intelligence of the universe rather than against it. 

• Where are you holding on to something that needs to be released?

• What outdated roles, beliefs, or obligations are you still carrying?

• Where is your soul nudging you toward more freedom and growth?

This is a time to trust the great cosmic reorganization taking place.

This eclipse is a moment of release, purification, and profound reorientation.  It is not here to punish or take something away – it is here to liberate you from all that is holding you back.

You do not need to have all the answers right now.  You are not meant to know every next step.  You are simply meant to let go, surrender, and trust that what is falling away is creating space for something greater than you could ever imagine.  The universe is always conspiring for your highest good.  And this eclipse?  It is the doorway into your next evolution.  Are you ready to step through?

Sun Trine Mars: The Alchemical Awakening of Willpower and Purpose

Last night, the Sun formed a trine to Mars, a sacred turning point in the synodic cycle of Mars, marking a significant shift in the journey that began in November 2023. This moment is not just an astrological transit—it is an initiation, an emergence from the deep underworld of Mars’ recent retrograde. Though Mars stationed direct nearly a week ago, it has remained suspended in stillness, recalibrating in the liminal space between death and rebirth. But now, he awakens with a renewed vision as an evening star, ready to ascend with newfound purpose and direction.

Esoterically, the Sun represents the divine intelligence, the higher will that illuminates our path. It is the source of our creative vitality, the beacon that guides us toward our soul’s evolutionary journey. Mars, the embodiment of raw willpower and assertion, has undergone an initiatory descent, shedding layers of old conditioning, outdated ambitions, and unconscious patterns that no longer serve the evolving self. This trine acts as an alchemical spark—a merging of spiritual clarity (the Sun) with the purified desire nature (Mars). The question is: how will you direct your will moving forward?

This is a pivotal moment to listen deeply. What desires have reawakened in you? What call to action is arising now, unmistakable in its clarity? This moment is not about impulsive force but about conscious momentum—one that is attuned to your spiritual directive. The vision emerging now is the one you will carry forward until January 2026, when Mars begins its next synodic cycle.

Reflect on what has been evolving in your life since November 2023. Where have you been internally forging strength, resilience, and a new understanding of your own drive? With Mars in water, this shift is felt emotionally, offering renewed clarity, magnetism, and optimism. You may notice an energetic surge over the coming days, a sense of certainty returning after a period of uncertainty.

Honor this turning point. Let your will align with your higher vision. The fire of Mars now moves with purpose—let it guide you forward with courage, trust, and unwavering clarity.

Looking Back To Move Forward: The Wisdom Of Past Venus Retrograde Cycles

Venus retrograde is a potent time for working with one of the great benefics in the sky and manifesting long lasting changes in our life.  It is a time of deep reflection, an opportunity to slow down and reassess what truly matters.  But its lessons don’t emerge in isolation – each Venus retrograde we experience is a part of a larger story, weaving together past cycles into a greater tapestry of growth, love, and self-worth. 

Venus retrograde periods reflect a beautiful, repeating pattern of personal growth and transformation that quite literally mirrors the sky above with our life below, when we choose to accept the invitation to work with the cycle and engage in the transformative opportunity.  Its important to point out the reminder, that doing so truly empowers us to become co-creators of our reality and stories instead of victims and witnessing bystanders.

If you take some time to reflect and look back, you may notice familiar themes arising.  Patterns in relationships, self-esteem, finances, or creative pursuits often surface in these cycles, inviting us to finally see what we once overlooked or embrace what we were not ready to receive at the time.

Because Venus retrograde cycles only happen in 5 signs throughout our life and happen in repeatable 8-year cycle patterns, you can loosely predict what themes may show up for you, by looking at the prior cycle from 8 years ago.  This cycle of Venus retrograding in Aries & Pisces is a story pattern that repeats every 8 years.  The retrograde will shift the degrees that it impacts by 2 degrees each cycle, but it is otherwise similar in the houses and signs that it activates in your personal chart.  So, to glean a clue into what story you may see play out this cycle, again reflect back to the last cycle that occurred in March of 2017.  This will again repeat in 2033.  You will want to look at the houses that hold Aries and Pisces in your natal chart along with any personal planets included in the retrograde degrees (click here for a step-by-step).  Venus was last retrograde in Aries/Pisces March 25, 2017 for 40 days, retrograding from 13 degrees of Aries to 26 degrees of Pisces.  What patterns were alive for you then in terms of relationship, values, finances, or other Venusian topics relevant in the houses effected in your chart? 

Take a moment to reflect:

·      What was going on for you during the last Aries/Pisces Venus retrograde?  What emotions, challenges, or life events come to mind?

·      What desires were stirring in your heart?  Did you take action or did fear hold you back?

·      How have you grown since then?  What have you healed?  What still feels unresolved?

A significant relationship?  It may resurface in some way for you this time or themes surrounding that relationship may pop up for you in a new way, allowing you to re-evaluate those themes from a new perspective.  If it was a challenging experience, take a deep breath – in no way does this mean that the same challenge will re-present itself again.  You are now 8 years wiser and more equipped than you were then, to begin with.  Remember that you are the co-author of your story and get to shape how this will unfold for you.  

By revisiting the past, we gain clarity on what this Venus retrograde is here to refine, release, or realign.  Perhaps an old dream is ready to be reborn, or a past heartbreak has finally lost its grip.  Maybe a version of you that once felt small is now ready to step into their power and take up space.

Venus retrograde is not just about looking inward – its about reclaiming the wisdom that we have gathered along the way.  Let this be a time to honor your journey, trust in divine timing, and step into the next chapter of your life story with an open heart.

As an example, I will share a little insight into my own Venus retrograde story.  In 2017, after years of IUI and IVF I decided to take a break from the emotional and physical impact of daily trips to the fertility clinic for ultrasounds and bloodwork.  I had over a dozen miscarriages at this point in my life – all unexplained and this was 5+ years into my fertility journey.  I was exhausted mentally, emotionally, financially, and spiritually, and to be completely honest, I just needed a break.  My husband was not ready to cross the bridge into adoption yet and so I was at a standstill.  Yet, my heart deeply longed for a child.  So, I decided to open our home temporarily to fostering while I took some time to reset and renew.  I felt it was a great way to fill my internal desire for a child to share love with and that it would be a great distraction as well.  I completed the stack of paperwork, classes, inspections, and bought all the necessary furniture, clothing, toys, and other ancillary items, and embarked on the journey to become a licensed foster care parent and home in 2017.  Little did I know the profound impact that foster care would have on my life at the time.  Fast forward 8 years, over a dozen kids, later and I am wrapping up what will likely be my last 2 foster care cases (at least for now!).  Aries is in my 9th house of higher wisdom, philosophy, teaching, spirituality, and travel and Pisces is the sign of my natal Venus in my 8th house of shared resources, karmic ties, and deep transformation.  My natal Sun and Mercury sit directly in the window of the retrograde degrees both cycles.  This has been a profound chapter in my Venus life story; the love, energy, healing, and transformation that has taken place in this chapter of my life all align strongly with Venusian themes of values and connection.  It has deeply shaped my identity (Sun) and self-worth (largely a Venusian theme).  And, while it was never my original intention (as life so often humbles and teaches us), it ultimately has unfolded that all 4 of my children are (or soon will be) adopted from foster care.  The process, as well as helping neglected and traumatized children heal, has been the catalyst for deep spiritual awakening, growth, and healing in my own life.  And, it was ironically the desire to help young children who couldn’t fully express themselves heal, that initially led to me discovering and opening the door to astrology in my own life. It is really fascinating to see that story woven out in reverse.  What story can you find woven in your own life through these retrograde chapters?  What past Venus retrograde cycles have taught you the most?  Journal on these for deeper insight.  The answers you may be seeking may hold a clue, or already have been written, in your past.  Sometimes, we just have to take the time to reflect, integrate, and connect the dots, to see the bigger picture.

Read more about my personal Venus retrograde story in the 8th House here.

Venus Retrograde & The 8th House: A Foster Parent’s Reflection on Love, Loss, & Transformation

Eight years ago, under an entirely different Venus cycle, I opened my home to my first foster child.  I knew in my heart that I would undoubtedly love whatever child we were placed with, but I did not know then how much this journey would shape me as the children who passed through my doors.  Now, as Venus retrogrades through my 8th house again – the house of deep bonds, transformation, and shared resources – I find myself closing this chapter of my life with a full heart and a deeper understanding of love, loss, and the nature of true connection.

The 8th house is often associated with shared resources, but its meaning runs much deeper.  It governs the spaces in life where we merge with others – emotionally, spiritually, financially, and even karmically.  It is the house of deep bonds, transformation, and the things we give and receive that forever change us.  In many ways, foster care fits seamlessly into this symbolism.  It is not just a system of shared legal and financial responsibility, but a very real exchange of love, care, and emotional investment.  The children placed in my home were never just temporary guests; each one of them became a very real part of my heart, my energy, and my life in ways that far transcend the physical.  And, they always will be carried as part of my deeply treasured life story.  Love, loss, and healing all exist here in the 8th house, intertwined.  And perhaps nothing has shown me the power of love, surrender, and connection more than fostering.

Venus, the planet of love, relationships, and value, is now, yet again, retrograding through this house for me.  Retrogrades ask us to look back, reassess, and bring closure to significant chapters of our lives.  With Venus retrograde in my 8th house, I find myself revisiting the immense emotional depth that fostering required – the sacrifices, the love, and the inevitable process of letting go.  This isn’t just a logistical ending; it is a moment of reflection on what fostering has meant to me on a soul and evolutionary level.

Retrogrades also reveal where our understanding of love, connection, and reciprocity has shifted.  In 2017, when I first became a licensed foster care parent, my understanding of parenting, love, and the shared resource system of foster care, was radically different than it is today.  I saw love as something that I could share and pour into these children, hoping to give them stability and healing.  But now, eight years later, I see love as something far more complex and nuanced – something that can’t be always be measured by physical permanence but by the impact that we leave on each other’s hearts.  This Venus retrograde is allowing me a beautiful gateway to process that; to honor this transformation and to decide what I choose to carry forward from this journey. 

I have learned so many lessons on this path, but perhaps the most significant that stand out to me are the following:

The Transformative Power of Love

Loving a child who isn’t biologically yours, who arrives with their own history, their own fears, and their own story, teaches you something profound about love: it is not about possession, but presence.  Foster care stripped love down to its most essential form – meeting the basic emotional and physical needs of a child, being fully present, and choosing to love even when you know that it is temporary.  When you love with an open heart, expecting nothing in return, you become part of something far greater.

Each child who entered my home changed me in ways that I could never have predicted.  I had to learn to become selfless in ways I had never been asked to be before, to sit with my heartbreak, to hold very real space for tiny souls carrying invisible (and sometimes not so invisible!) burdens.  But, more than that, I learned deeply about transformation.  Love isn’t just something we give – it is something that when we allow ourselves to be open and truly vulnerable, has the power to deeply reshape us, soften us, and encourages us to grow into the best versions of ourselves. 

Letting Go 

One of the hardest lessons of fostering, was learning to let go – of expectations, of attachment, of the belief that love alone can fix everything.  When you work within the confines of a deeply flawed and imperfect system, you quickly realize that no amount of love, stability, or care can always guarantee the best outcome.  You learn that justice is not always served, that safety is not always ensured, and that some endings feel heartbreakingly incomplete. 

Losing a child you’ve cared for is a grief that few understand, yet foster parents navigate this heartbreak regularly.  It is a lesson in surrendering to the unknown, in trusting that love was enough – even if only for a short time, to make a positive impact.  Love in the 8th house asks us to accept that transformation often comes through loss.  It teaches us that just because something isn’t permanent doesn’t mean it wasn’t powerful.  And in that, there is a sliver of peace.

The Beauty of Connection

If there is one thing I’ve learned from the children that I’ve had the joy of having, it is that love is not about walls, bloodlines, or guarantees – it is about openness.  A baby does not care who you are or what you have; they do not question whether love is safe or conditional.  They simply trust.  They reach for you with tiny hands, rest their head on your shoulder, cry out when they are in need, trusting that you will respond instinctively, and love with an unguarded heart.

That kind of love is a gift.  It is raw, unfiltered, and pure in a way that few things in life are.  And when you allow yourself to love them back with the same level of openness, it changes you.  It teaches you that connection is the most beautiful, fragile, and life-altering thing that we have.  It strips away the cynicism, the fear, and the barriers we build around our hearts, reminding us that the most profound transformations happen when we allow ourselves to be fully seen, fully vulnerable, and fully present.

The Value of Love in Our Own Identity

Being a foster parent shattered so many of my old beliefs about love, worth, and identity.  Love, at its core, is not transactional.  It is not something we earn, nor is it something we are owed.  It simply exists and is a choice to give and to receive.  It is available to all of us, not because we have done anything to deserve it, but because we are here.

Fostering has shown me that the scars of our past do not have to define us.  Many of the children who entered my home carried deep wounds – some visible, some not.  Yet, they all thrived in some new way when given safety, consistency, good nutrition, time, and love.  It made me question: If they could heal, if they could grow despite all that they had been through, why couldn’t I?  The 8th house is a space of deep psychological transformation and through this experience, I’ve learned that healing is not only possible, but necessary. 

I’ve also learned that family is not defined by DNA, but by choice.  It is built in the quiet moments – bedtime stories, shared meals, inside jokes, and whispered reassurances in the dark.  Love is what makes a family, not paperwork, not names, not even time.  And yet, the world often struggles to see past labels.  I’ve witnessed firsthand the biases, the limitations imposed by ignorance- people who believed certain children weren’t investing in, saw them as broken, troublesome, less than in some way, or not worth the time to invest in connection.  The looks that were given if one child looked obviously unrelated, acted out when triggered by an invisible trauma they knew nothing of, or showed emotional immaturity far beneath their biological age due to stunted emotional growth from trauma or neglect.  Often, just the mention of “foster child” resulted in a change of demeanor and body language in other parents I interacted with – to the point that, with time, I stopped sharing my story openly to avoid the judgement and bias.  Every single child who walked through my door shattered these stigmas, time and time again.

This Venus retrograde is asking me to re-evaluate what love has taught me about myself, about others, and about what truly matters.  It is reminding me that love is the greatest resource we have to give, and the only one that multiples when shared.  It has taught me that the greatest transformation only happens when we meet another with an open, vulnerable heart, devoid of expectation or return.  And it has taught me deeply about the sacrificial and humble nature of true love and devotion.  Obviously, these lessons translate differently in different types of healthy relationships.  But, the essence of the lessons remains the same.  And the integration of them allows for a greater, deeper, and more transformed understanding of love in its purest forms.

We all share pieces of ourselves with others – through relationships, caregiving, mentorship, and love in its many forms.  What relationships or experiences in your life have shaped your understanding of love and shared responsibility?  Venus retrograde is the perfect time to reflect.  I’d love to hear your thoughts – drop a comment or share your own reflections on love, letting go, and transformation. 

Unlocking Your Venus Retrograde 2025 Lessons: A Natal Chart Guide

To look at the themes that will be best to work with and may be surfacing this transit, you will want to look at your natal chart.

1)    Locate Your Natal Venus Sign in Your Birth Chart

You can use a free site like Astro.com to cast your chart.  Natal Venus represents your inherent approach to love, relationships, aesthetics, and values. This will flavor how you experience Venus energy this retrograde and how this Aries Star Point (3/22/2025) will activate it.

 In simple terms, we will break this down by element:

·      Fire Venus (natal Venus in Aries, Leo, or Sagittarius): this Venus Star Point (VSP) will resonate strongly, pushing for new beginnings in relationship, finances, and self-worth

·      Earth Venus (natal Venus in Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn): may present a challenge to comfort zones, but also an opportunity to ground new manifestations (Earth carries extra magick for manifesting into the physical, tap into it!)

·      Air Venus (natal Venus in Gemini, Libra, Aquarius): you can expect intellectual or social shifts; your creativity and relationships may also take on a new direction.

·      Water Venus (natal Venus in Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces): may experience extra emotional and intuitive downloads, particularly in the areas of love and relationship, self-worth, and artistic expression.

2)    Look at your Natal Venus House Placement

Your natal house of Venus will show you where you express your Venusian energy and where this Aries Star Point will trigger new cycles for you this transit.  So, for example, Venus in the Gemini in the 9thHouse, is deeply connected to 9th house themes – higher knowledge and life philosophy, travel, teaching/publishing/writing.  You likely express Venusian themes, such as love and beauty, through the lens of Gemini – curiosity, communication, and mental stimulation.

3)    Identify Transit Venus – Aries & Pisces this Cycle - & the Houses Affected In Your Natal Chart

Each house represents a different area of life.  The houses where 10 degrees of Aries through 24 degrees of Pisces fall will show where you’ll be reassessing Venusian themes such as love, relationships, values, finances, and self worth this cycle.  Transiting Venus reflects the current cosmic energy influencing everyone.  The houses affected will reveal the life areas under review for you this cycle.

4)    Personal Planets Will Add Intensity

Look to see if there are any personal planets that are affected between the orb degrees of 0-13 degrees of Aries and 30-21 degrees of Pisces.   Any personal planet that will be conjunct transiting Venus will lend energy to your story also this cycle. 

5)    Look at any aspects between your Natal Venus & Transit Venus in Aries & apply Venus Rx in Aries & Pisces themes. 

This will add an additional layer of complexity and insight.  Any significant aspects (square, opposition) transiting Venus forms with your natal planets can intensify a retrograde effect, especially if Venus crosses over a natal planet multiple times during a retrograde cycle.   So, for Aries look to the other Cardinal Signs (Cancer, Libra, Capricorn) and for Pisces look to other Mutable Signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius).  If you have personal planets between 0-13 degrees of any Cardinal Sign or 30-21 degrees of any Mutable Sign this will be significant to note.

Example:

So, in the above example of natal Venus in Gemini, Venus in Aries will form a sextile (a 60 degree, favorable or opportunity aspect) creating a bridge between the themes of personal desires (Aries) and intellectual/expansive values (natal Gemini in 9th house placement).  In other words this transit may activate that person’s need to redefine what love, self-worth, and abundance mean in relation to their beliefs, education, and personal life philosophy.  Themes for reflection might be:

·      How does your identity influence your relationships? 

·      Do your relationships align with your personal and intellectual pursuits? 

·      Are your financial goals and values in alignment with your long term vision? 

·      How can you balance your desire for intellectual freedom with deep emotional connection? 

Gemini loves to learn, rules the 3rd house (writing), and the 9th house carries great themes of a teacher archetype. So if they have any passion or interest for taking a new class, teaching, or writing, this would be a great time to pursue these or any other passionate interests they may have.  This is a more complex layer to add in, if you are a beginner in astrology, don’t sweat this step and just look at your sign and house – it will give you a beautiful starting place for reflection!

6)    Reflect on the Past

Venus retrogrades through the same 5 signs in our natal chart in cycles that shift only 2 degrees every 8 years.  Think about Venus Retrograde cycles that last happened in Aries/Pisces in March 2017 and 2009.  What themes were happening for you during this time?  Similar themes may resurface for deeper healing, transformation, and reflection.

By understanding where Venus retrograde moves through your chart, you can align with its lessons – whether it’s about reclaiming your confidence, healing old wounds, or transforming your love and self-worth. 

People that will feel this transit most strongly:

·      Venus Return - If Venus retrogrades over your natal Venus, this is your Venus Return, marking a major period of self-alignment in love and values.

·      Big 3 – if Venus retrogrades over your Sun, Moon, Ascendant (aka Rising or AC), or your chart ruling planet, this will carry more significance.

·      Angles – if Venus retrogrades in your 1st, 7th, 4th, or 10th house

Venus Retrograde 2025: The Path of The Spiritual Warrior

Venus, the benefic planet of love, beauty, harmony, governs not only romance but the very essence of what we value – both within ourselves and the world around us.  When she retrogrades every 18 months, we are invited to step away from external distractions and deep dive internally, peeling back layers of conditioning and routine, to rediscover our authentic heart.

The Venus synodic cycle is an 8-year celestial dance between Venus and the Earth that traces a beautiful geometric pattern known as the Rose of Venus or the Pentagram of Venus.  As she orbits the sun, Venus’ position relative to Earth create a five-petaled flower shape (or pentagram, if you prefer), symbolizing the harmony and interconnectedness inherent in the cosmos.  Her cycle guides us through a deep and sacred journey of love, self-worth, and soulful embodiment.  And beautifully reminds us of the divine harmony and sacred geometry woven into the universe – and within ourselves – to guide us along our unfolding path.

This sacred geometry has been recognized by various cultures throughout history, reflecting the deep relationship between celestial movements and our own cycles of growth and transformation internally, as above, so below.  Each petal of the rose corresponds to a complete 8 year Venus cycle, inviting us to align with these natural rhythms and embrace the evolving journey of love, beauty, and self-discovery that our soul has been called to.

From an esoteric perspective, Venus is more than love and beauty; she is the bridge between the human heart and divine wisdom.  Her shifting phases from Morning Star Venus (bold, independent, initiatory) to Evening Star Venus (receptive, magnetic, reflective) mirror our own soul’s path – awakening, healing, and integrating the deepest truths of love and desire within us.

From an evolutionary lens, Venus’ retrogrades serve as powerful moments of re-evaluation, calling us to reflect and release outdated beliefs, patterns, and attachments that no longer align with our truth.  Each phase of her synodic cycle – her conjunction with the Sun, her first emergence in the sky, and her full radiance – offers a profound opportunity to realign with what truly matters in our hearts, values, and relationships.

Venus’ 8 year cycle is a sacred invitation to embrace both giving and receiving, action and surrender, self-love and connection with others.  She reminds us that love is not just something we seek- it’s something we become. 

With Venus descending into Aries and Pisces this cycle, we enter a soul-forging process – one that burns away false identities (Aries) and dissolves illusions of love and sacrifice (Pisces).  This transit is not simply about revisiting past relationships or reassessing desires; it is a spiritual rite of passage delving deep into the realms of desire, identity, and spiritual love.  This period is further enriched by a series of celestial aspects this retrograde transit, notably a sextile between retrograde Venus and Pluto in Aquarius, which offers profound opportunities for transformation and empowerment.

Aries and Pisces sit on opposite ends of the zodiac: Aries ignites the self while Pisces merges with the Divine.  Together, they form a sacred paradox – a journey from individualization to surrender, from ego to transcendence, and from passion to universal love. 

This retrograde is a mirror reflecting where we have either lost ourselves in our relationships or where we have walled ourselves off from connection.  The tension between these two states is where the deepest transformation will unfold. 

Venus in Aries: The Fire of Sovereignty (March 1-March 27)

Aries, ruled by Mars, is the warrior archetype of the zodiac, embodying raw will, instinct, and independence. When Venus retrogrades here, it challenges us to ask:

·      Do I truly know what I desire, or have I been chasing something out of habit or expectation?

·      Where have I sacrificed my identity in relationships?

·      Am I expressing my needs unapologetically, or am I waiting for permission to be seen?

·      Where do I mistake conquest for connection, passion for love?

This is a primal heart recalibration.  Venus in Aries asks us to stand in our full power, unafraid to claim what we truly want – but also willing to release what no longer fuels our soul.  Expect themes of personal empowerment, boundaries, and getting very clear about our raw, primal desires. 

Venus in Pisces: Dissolving Illusions, Returning to Divine Love (March 28-April 12)

As Venus drifts into Pisces, the warrior’s fire meets the ocean of universal love, compassion, and surrender.  Here, love is not a conquest – it is a remembering of something eternal. 

Venus is exalted in Pisces, meaning she expresses her most spiritual, poetic, and boundless qualities in this sign.  Yet, in retrograde she journeys internally to reflect, realign, and re-examine and asks:

·      Where have I lost myself in illusions of love?

·      Have I mistaken sacrifice for devotion?

·      Do I open my heart fully, or do I hide behind escapism and fantasy?

·      Where do I need to surrender control and trust divine timing?

·      Where do I need to reclaim my power and energetic boundaries?

This phase brings deep emotional healing, spiritual awakenings, and the release of karmic love stories.  It is a death and rebirth of the heart, dissolving old wounds so that we can love in a way that is pure, limitless, and free from distortion. 

Ultimately, Venus retrograde in Aries and Pisces is a magical time that initiates us into an internal journey of deep self-awareness, healing, and spiritual love.  It teaches us that true love is neither extreme of losing ourselves in another (Pisces) or demanding love through force (Aries), but rather about integrating sovereignty and surrender, passion and compassion, and self-responsibility and Divine trust. 

The Empowering Embrace of Venus and Pluto

A standout feature of this retrograde is the sextile aspect between Venus and Pluto, which we see her do within 2-3 degrees three times this cycle: Feb 7th (pre-shadow), March 21st, and May 6th (post-shadow).  These dates offer profound shifts around values, love, transformation, regeneration, catharsis, and rebirth that are heating up.  Ultimately, helping to guide us towards a more empowered an authentic expression of ourselves.  This harmonious alignment between Venus in Aries and Pluto in Aquarius serves as a catalyst for profound transformation:

·      Unveiling Authentic Desires: Pluto’s penetrating energy encourages us to confront hidden parts of our desires and relationships, foster a deeper understanding of our true needs.

·      Empowerment in Love: This aspect energy supports the release of outdated patterns we may be carrying, enabling us to embrace relationships that are both passionate and deeply empowering.

·      Creative Regeneration: The fusion of Venusian beauty with Plutonian depth can lead to an upstirring of artistic and creative endeavors, allowing for a creative outflow of expression that is both authentic and transformative.

Other Celestial Forces Unique to This Venus Retrograde

·      Venus Conjunct Mercury – March 11: We can expect enhanced communication, encouraging heartfelt dialogues, and the revisiting of past connections. 

·      Venus Conjunct Neptune – March 27: The energies of unconditional love, compassion, and spiritual connection are amplified, offering a time for healing and deep emotional release.

·      Venus Trine Mars – April 6: This stimulates balanced expressions of both passion and assertiveness, fostering harmony between feminine and masculine energies.

If we fully choose to participate in this deeply alchemical process, by the time Venus stations direct on April 12, we will have undergone a true inner transformation.  Love will no longer be something we chase or sacrifice for – it will be something we embody, from the inside out.

I release the love that binds me.  I reclaim the love that frees me.  I am desire and devotion, fire and ocean, warrior and mystic – whole unto myself.

New Moon In Pisces: Surrender, Soul Healing, & Sacred Renewal

This New Moon in Pisces is all about healing, emotional intimacy and relationship, and intuition and spiritual growth.  Pisces, is archetype of The Mystic, The Dreamer, & The Healer.  It is the ruler of Joy.  It is the energy of living truly in your heart space, and embodies love and deep connection.  Pisces will guide you to seek a spiritual path and search for the greater meaning of life.  It will encourage you to surrender and fully trust, have faith in the greater picture, and guide you to release any resistance to the flow of life as it unfolds.  It is a very dreamy, romantic energy, and revels in its never ending creative and imaginative gifts.  As the final sign of the zodiac, it carries the wisdom of all 12 signs, dissolving boundaries between the self and the cosmos and surrendering to the higher wisdom and power of the universal Divine.  Pisces carries an oceanic depth of emotions and feels everything deeply, absorbing the emotions of others like a sponge.  Its porous nature connects us all together and radiates its innate gifts of compassion, selfless love, and healing.  Like other water signs (Cancer and Scorpio), Pisces energy enables you to see deeply into the human psyche.  Highly intuitive, and aligned in close relationship with astral forces, Pisceans often feel things before they know them and their feelings are rarely wrong.  In its highest expression, Pisces is deeply creative, intuitive, and spiritually attuned; trusting the flow of life and surrendering to the mystery of existence.  It is a mutable sign; adaptable and able to easily shift its energy, when needed.  Pisces helps you find your soul purpose in life.  To trust and relax into divine timing and flow; knowing that when you trust and take a leap of faith in life, a higher power will always catch and lift you up.  And, that when you are aligned with your greater soul’s purpose, you will be filled with reassuring peace knowing that you are protected and doing exactly what you are meant to do.          

The symbol for Pisces, is two fish, and comes from Vesica Piscis (see above) which means “bladder of a fish”.  It is derived from the intersection of two circles and represents the joining of two worlds: the Divine & the human.  The symbol originally represented the Great Mother goddess.  It stands for the yoni, the entrance to the womb, which is also the entrance to the afterlife or spirit world. Pisces represents the waters from which life originated; the primordial Mother, the goddess of chaos, who births all beings into existence and then receives them home into eternity.   The two fish are symbolized as swimming in opposite directions, representing the paradox of being human: both spiritual and material, rational and irrational, victim and savior.  The cord binding them shows they are two opposites of one whole, forever bound together.  Pisces is where the human and divine intersect and the challenge is to find a way to unite them in a way that both includes and transcends; to be in the world, but not of it.

Pisces defies linear thinking.  It is the space where the mind cannot follow- the feminine space where meaning is found not in facts, but in feeling.  Pisces energy is art, music, dance, film, poetry, and symbolism – the ways we give shape to what cannot be explained but can be experienced best through the lens of evoking emotion.  Under this New Moon, logic is not the path forward.  Your emotions, your intuition, and your creativity are. 

The lesson of Pisces is in learning to ground in the material while allowing inspiration from spirit.  As part of the service axis with Virgo, Pisces represents the polarity of spiritual service where Virgo represents a more practical based service – improving, healing, and organizing the material world.  Pisces lean in deeply to hear other’s problems, feel their pain, and use emotion and intuition to empathically heal.  Where Pisces leans into intuition, Virgo’s go to is analysis.  Where Pisces merges into Oneness and self-acceptance, Virgo refines self-improvement.  And, where Pisces has an innate gift of surrender into the unseen and mystical, Virgo has a superpower of control and detailed refinement. Both are natural at helping others in need.  And both approach this through a different lens and skillset.  The challenge for all of us is to learn to embody the strengths of each axis of the zodiac wheel and live in balance along the spectrum.

This new moon, you may feel a heightened sense of empathy and a deep desire to explore your inner world.  It marks the final New Moon of the astrological year, symbolizing a period of closure and preparation for New Beginnings.  Particularly auspicious as it opens our upcoming eclipse portal.  Think of it as a cosmic reset for your intuition; the thinning of the veil between your conscious and subconscious and allowing us to tap deeply into our inner knowing.  Eclipses rewrite our fate, often in ways that we don’t anticipate.  They create moments of divine redirection, pulling us toward the path our soul was always meant to walk; even if we can’t yet see where it is leading.  Even if, our ego or attachment to what is familiar, resists it.  Ruling the feet, Pisces teaches us that we don’t need to see the full map before us, before we take the next step. 

Pisces, is also linked with the 12th house of the inner psyche, emphasizing the importance of acknowledging and addressing our emotions for healing.  This new moon offers us an opportunity to confront any hidden wounds or tough emotions that we may have been avoiding.  It is a perfect time to reflect on what aspects of our life are no longer serving us, and declutter and let them go, before the fresh start ahead begins in Aries Season.  In stark contrast to fire, the porous water sign of Pisces is not at all about force.  It is a time to trust, surrender, and manifest from the deep well within our soul.  Pisces is where we both surrender and create – for it is Pisces that reminds us that the visions that find us, the hopes that sing within our hearts, and the dreams that live within our minds – all come from the Divine.  They have floated from the ethers into our being because they choose us….because they are for us, on our path, part of our purpose, awaiting and creating with us.  This New Moon reminds us of the always present, mystical superpower that we all carry to co-create our own reality.

This New Moon is a call back to our soul, weaving Divine inspiration and offering deep healing and transformation in our life.  Allow yourself to dream and your mind to wander with wild, uninhibited imagination. Dig deep into your emotions and psyche.  Feel your visions coming to life as you see yourself living the life you truly want to live.  The New Moon in Pisces is the transitional period right before the Spring Equinox making this an excellent time to go deep before we dive into action with the astrological new year & Aries Season beginning next month. 

Technical Details:  New Moon is occurring on February 27, 2025 at 9 degrees, 52 minutes of Pisces at 4:44pm PST (an angel number signifying stability amidst change, a reminder that even when we don’t see the full path ahead, we are still supported).  Those with mutable energy placements between 4-14 degrees (Virgo, Pisces, Gemini, Sagittarius) will feel this New Moon energy most intensely. 

Other Aspects Involved In This New Moon:

·      Uranus in Taurus is sextile with this new moon, bringing unpredictable energy and a potential for emotional fluctuations.  Getting outdoors in nature to ground, as well as connecting to art, and music, will help with grounding and tap into Pisces energy.  This energetic alignment with this New Moon assists us with breaking through old patterns that obscure our progress and expansion, helping us transform with new potential insights or unexpected breakthroughs.

·      Square to Jupiter – Jupiter is the traditional ruler of Pisces.  It is an excellent time to explore meaning and dive into the greater search for purpose in life.  It is also a wonderful time to tap into the generosity and flow of abundance; where do you receive and give in constant flow and how can you invite more of that, in healthy balance, in your life?  What are you grateful for in life?  This is a New Moon that encourages growth and expansion of both your inner emotional and spiritual world.  Where do you see this showing up?

·      Forms a Grand Water Trine with a Trine to Mars in Cancer (who just stationed direct) & a Trine with Vesta & Hekate in Scorpio – this energy encourages a potent emotional and spiritual reset.  Mars’ energy fuels renewed emotional courage, while Vesta & Hekate illuminate hidden truths, ancestral wisdom, and the power of ritual to guide us through profound healing and soul alchemy.  Let the energy and power of this alignment help you to heal, tap into deeper intuition and sacred purpose, and ultimately transform.

Importance of Grounding & Self Care This New Moon: Pisces is ruled (in Modern astrology) by Neptune, the planet of dreams, imagination, illusion, creativity, psychic receptivity, spirituality, and confusion.  And while we do not witness a New Moon visually, we will always feel its energy.  Be sure to stay grounded with self-care routines and extra time to simply recharge.  As a water sign, this is deeply needed.  This New Moon is the perfect time to reflect, relax, and replenish. 

Journal Reflections: 

·      What dreams are ready to take shape and flow into your reality?  How can you channel your dreams, creativity, and/or emotions into something healing and meaningful?

·      How can you align with Divine timing instead of forcing, or trying to control, the outcome?

·      Where can you embrace more inspiration?  What makes you feel inspired or connected to your imagination?  What are some ways that your inspiration speaks to you?

·      What is your intuition pulling you towards?  How can you deepen your connection with divine guidance and trust your intuition more fully?

·      How do you decipher between your intuition and rational thoughts?

·      What do you feel has reached an ending or what cycles are you ready to bring to a close?

·      What people, habits, and activities help you better connect with hope and purpose?

·      What illusions or dreams are you ready to release in order to see your soul’s truth more clearly?

·      What ancestral or karmic wounds (Hekate in Scorpio) are ready for transformation and release under this New Moon?

·      Where are you being invited to trust the unseen and take a leap of faith in your soul’s journey?

·      What messages have been whispering to you through synchronicity, dreams, or inner knowing, and how can you act on them?

May this New Moon in Pisces guide you gently into the depths of your soul, where dreams, intuition, and divine wisdom merge, illuminating the path of surrender, healing, and sacred renewal in your life.  Making space and allowing for your deepest heart’s desires to be planted and emerge in the next six months ahead.