The Fawn at the Fence

Sookie, on leash, started jumping like she was on a pogo stick, trying to get a better view of and play with the baby. Curiously, the fawn looked at us from above, atop the concrete retaining wall separating us on the bike path that dipped below. I gently reached my hand up and toward the sweet being, who seemed completely unaffected by our presence. She leaned in toward me momentarily and then backed off as Sookie expressed her exuberance once more. She stood there and continued to watch us with her big, soft eyes, unblinking.

We were at LaBagh Woods, a newly discovered territory. I’d read about it more than once, and it was time to visit. We encountered this being as we were returning from our hike along the north branch of the Chicago River, which runs deep in the woods away from the structures and open grassy areas of the park and the highway just to the west.

I’ve returned to Chicago with a love of natural environments cultivated while living immersed in them—the redwoods, the Russian River, the beach and oceanfront, the mountains, the valleys, deserts, and all of California's natural beauty and wonder. I now seek them out in ways I never did when I was younger and identified as a city person. The dogs are also a driver of this, constantly desiring more activity in new and different spaces.

To be honest, I am outside on walks with them here much more than I was in California. To be enveloped by nature there, I only had to step outside my front door. Here, we have to actively seek it, heading into one of the many parks and forest preserves scattered throughout the city and beyond it.

We saw more babies earlier in the day, as we had first checked out Gompers Park, which offered a path around a beautiful lagoon right next to the main branch of the Chicago River. These young turtles, along with their parents, greeted us there.

I’ve got rebirth on my mind. Easter Sunday, April 20th, is the first of three second Saturn Returns moments I will experience over the next nine months due to Saturn moving into Aries on May 24th (huge collective shift, more about this in our event on April 24th), Saturn returning to Pisces on September 1st while in retrograde, going direct on November 28th while still in Pisces, and finally moving into Aries on February 14, 2026 where it will remain for the next two and a half years. I could make some resurrection jokes and metaphors here, but I won’t. Although Jon and I did have our first phone conversation on Easter in 1999, a two-plus-hour-long affair that, well, started this affair. So, Easter is significant for me, clearly.

I’m heading into the next nine months like the fawn at the fence, curious and unblinking, with a healthy dose of boundaries and caution in place, and, I hate to admit, some underlying anxiety.

“What exactly is a Saturn Return or a Second Saturn Return, and how can I either get one or avoid getting one?” you may be asking. You can look yours up here for free, and no, you can not avoid getting one.
https://horoscopes.astro-seek.com/saturn-return-astrology-calculator

Defining the event is simple: A Saturn Return is the moment when the planet Saturn returns to the same place in the sky as when each of us was born. This occurs approximately once every twenty-nine years.

What happens once Saturn returns is a bit of a lengthier share.

Saturn is the planet that helps us define the rules by which we identify ourselves and live our lives. It’s our blueprint. Every time Saturn returns, at approximately ages 29, 58, 87, etc., we either consciously, unconsciously, or subconsciously reexamine who we are, what our values are, and how we apply all of this to this reality, our rules, so to speak, while doing this within the container of the collective rules and reality.

The first Saturn Return is often dramatic with sweeping changes happening from living situations, to career paths, to relationships, to everything under the sun. During my first one, I expanded my sexual identity, started consciously channeling, changed careers, moved, and had a very dramatic shift in my consciousness, so pretty much everything about me. I also experienced this all, except for connecting with my guide for the first time, as things that happened to me, things over which I felt I had no say or control. My ex broke up with me. It was originally her apartment, so I had to leave. The restaurant I worked at for almost a decade closed. I did not get the big theatre job I had applied for, etc.

The rug was yanked so far out from under me that I could not even feel the floor beneath it for a time, and it took me a solid two years to find consistent footing. It was a lot, all at once.

So you can see why I am heading into this one with some trepidation. I am hopeful this time that I will remain more flexible than I did during my first Saturn return and experience this one more consciously, instead of the drama-filled menagerie that played out on and off from 1994 to 1998. I was still acting, so high drama was to be expected.

The two years preceding the Saturn return set the stage, and the next two years provide the climax and the denouement. So our unexpected return to Chicago happened in the runup, as did the sudden emergence of my writing. The climax and unfolding have yet to occur, and this time, I have the slow-release capsule version of a Saturn return due to Saturn moving retrograde and back into Pisces and then direct again while still in Pisces, meaning it’s going to return to where it was in my birth heavens three times over the next nine months. FUN!!!

I have much more self-awareness than when I was 27, I mean, I like to think that I do, so at least there’s that.

Speaking of returns, the US is about to experience its third Uranus return when it moves into Gemini on July 7th and will predominantly remain there until May of 2033. Uranus returns to each sign every 84 years or so, bringing us revolutionary energy, leading to more freedoms, self-expression, and advances in communication and technology when it lands in Gemini. The exact moment of this Uranus Return will be on July 6, 2027.

I’m not going to sugar coat this here. Uranus moved into Gemini in 1941, as the US entered WWII, and remained there through 1948. Before that, it was in Gemini from April 1859 to March 1871 during the American Civil War, and before that, from May 1767 to April 1779 during the American Revolution. We are already at war. It’s a different kind of war here at the moment, playing out in the hearts and minds of our citizenry with disinformation and distortions of fear manifesting as hate as the current weapons of choice. Whether this will escalate into something more physically recognizable as war on the ground is up to all of us. However it plays out, revolution is happening.

Neptune entered Aries on March 30th for the first time since 1875. It returns to each sign every 165 years, so the US did not exist as a nation during Neptune’s visit through Aries before that. Initiation of the dream of a new iteration of this country will commence, as the US was but a dream in 1695 and was still recovering and restructuring after the Civil War in 1875, dreaming of what it could become, when it last left Aries.

And then there is Pluto. The US experienced its first Pluto return in Capricorn from 2008 to 2023. The return was exact on February 22, 2022. The last time Pluto was in Capricorn was from 1762 to 1778, during the birth of this country and the American Revolution. Pluto then moved into Aquarius, as it is now, from 1778 to 1798. The US Constitution was written while Pluto was in Aquarius. This aspect also seeded the energies for the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the Age of Enlightenment, which challenged religious dogma, monarchies, and authority, and facilitated the acceleration of scientific pursuits and a humanistic approach. A superstitious and faith-based world view that reached an apex while Pluto was in Capricorn became balanced by science, reason, and logic, leading to the development of what we now call the scientific method.

I am reflecting on the many conspiracy theories that sprang up while Pluto was recently in Capricorn, triggering superstitions and outright denials of scientific understandings of our reality. May Pluto, now in Aquarius again, restore our critical thinking and logic, bringing balance to a world that has once again gone mad.

Vivla La Rebirth! - mine, the country’s, and the world’s.

I thought I was done with this piece when suddenly I recalled that one of the beings depicted in Brian Froud and Jessica Macbeth’s The Faeries’ Oracle is called The Faun. That I shared from their deck in Monday morning’s piece, saw the fawn above on Monday afternoon, and returned to their deck once more, reminded by the Fawn at the fence to find their Faun in the deck, is the magic that keeps me going. It is, in fact, a demonstration of exactly what The Faun shares below, and it is one of my favorite pieces of guidance The Faeries offer through that medium.

An excerpt of The Faun’s message from The Faeries’ Oracle:
“Natural magic is happening. When things flow almost effortlessly, that is a sign that natural magic is at work. Enjoy it! A very important part of natural magic is simply allowing the energy to flow through us. This means both giving and receiving freely. Let the energy flow - don’t push it, don’t try to control it, just dance with it. Trust it. And remember to keep returning to the source for inspiration and to keep your heart filled with light.”

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WTF????!!!! Redux
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