Hello Friends:

This week has that cosmic stop–start quality, the kind of astrology that asks us to allow for plenty of time, practice patience, and recalibrate before charging ahead. Mars wants to go, but Saturn is making sure our footing and foundation are steady.

Since the Scorpio New Moon and the Mercury Cazimi that happened on November 20th, I'm about 20 days in or, 67% of the lunar cycle and 17% of the Mercury Cycle of working on my new business venture. Just in time for the natural resistance to set in. If you've been doing this with me, I wonder how the energies have been influencing your research, experiments, and building.

In this newsletter I hope to give you some tools to help you stay motivated and excited about your project and the coming year. My hope is that I provide value here because I know your time and attention are precious.

Cosmic Weather

Dec 8 — Fiery Mars square stoic Saturn​
A moment of friction. If something stalls or slides backward, pause, reroute, and conserve energy.

Dec 10 — Visionary Neptune direct in watery Pisces​
Creative clarity returns. Your imagination comes back online. Revive that one dream you actually want to build.

Dec 10 — Mercury opposite disruptive Uranus​
Expect surprises. Tech, communication, and plans may zigzag. Stay adaptable and curious for the breakthrough.

Dec 10 — Venus square the Nodes​
Relationship crossroads. Something wants to grow. Let the connections that feel alive reshape themselves.

Dec 11 — Communicative Mercury trine imaginative Neptune​
A soft channel opens. Write freely, voice memo, wander. Insight arrives when the mind loosens its grip.

Dec 11 — Mercury enters adventurous Sagittarius​
Your ideas want room to roam. Share boldly. Don’t worry about perfect wording. Share your enthusiasm.

Dec 13 — Mercury sextile transformative Pluto​
Name what’s true. Say the honest thing the room won't. Clean communication clears the path.

Dec 14 — Action Mars square flowing Neptune​
Low batteries are not a moral failing. Rest. Let the waters settle before you take your next step.

Dec 14 — Mars enters its exaltation in Capricorn​
Focus returns. Over the next few weeks, steady action wins. Try tiny experiments towards your hypotheses.

Smoke Art & Sigils

At our lunation ceremony last Thursday where the full moon was in Gemini, conjunct the royal star Antares, the "heart of the scorpion," and in the grand water trine, we played with fire and air. The moon in Gemini is the air element while the sun was opposing in Sagittarius, the fire element.

After a guided visualization and meditation where we connected with our own wise guides, everyone was given two sheets of paper. They waved the larger paper over a flame, which created scorch marks beneath. Once they felt complete with their intention over fire and air, they turned the paper over to gaze at the grey and brown shapes. Eventually an image appears if you don't force it, if you allow it.

With various art supplies scattered about, most chose to use watercolors, even though they are difficult to apply over burn marks. Hello, grand water trine :)

As the images began to emerge with the help of our hands, I asked the artists to pull out any symbols that felt meaningful in order to create their own sigil. A sigil is a symbol with a hidden meaning that can be used in spell work. Sigils can be created in various ways, such as from an affirmation with vowels removed or through intuitive drawing. Once created, the sigil is charged by focusing intention, using music, oils, sunlight, or moonlight. Sigils can be used discreetly or hidden in plain sight, and they represent the caster's intention, working in ways that may not be directly witnessed but felt. Sigil magic appears simple but has vast applications and is like a doodle that hums quietly towards your wish, intention, or desire.

Above is what appeared for me in my smoke shapes. The spiral symbol is prevalent in my life, including being the logo of Tendril, and in my sigil, it is part of the Venus glyph. The circles are oneness, the cross is matter and the 4 angles are softened by curves, almost moon-shaped. I especially love how the spiral also looks like a lollipop as a reminder to enjoy the process. It is the symbol of my land project, infused with my intention to collaborate with nature and those who have a similar vision and heart desire to serve.

The drawing or sigil can be placed on an alter for daily contemplation and journaling, allowing the symbols to unfold without defining them. They can also be burned, buried in the ground, or placed in a potted plant, and so on, depending on what you feel is the way to release its energy.

I plan to record the meditation, instructions, and how to do this for yourself just for readers of this newsletter. If you'd like to receive it when it becomes available, reply to this email and I'll put you on the list to make sure you get it.

7-Part Framework For a Clear Message

This is a favorite framework I use for clients, who feel stymied by how to succinctly say what they do. It's based off of Donald Miller's Storybrand framework and those of similar brand experts. I hope this helps you clarify with this week's cosmic energies.

One thing to note is that entrepreneurs often try to solve something that is uniquely relevant to their own conundrum. "The wound is the way," "write from what you know," blah, blah, blah. We are able to guide others who are two steps behind what we just experienced and overcame.

When I hear my clients say they want to create a health coaching business with an emphasis on food and nutrition, it's because they've been struggling with their own body, diet, safety, or security. Taurus and Virgo themes. If they say they want others to overcome people-pleasing and to be seen as leaders, it's because they are challenged with the Venus themes of relationship dynamics, self-worth, and financial illiteracy. If they have a methodology that helps with anxiety and confidence, these are Mercury themes of mind and the nervous system. If they are championing parenting or children, those are 5th house themes.

Look for your Chiron. That might help you determine the wound you are trying to heal in others, while you heal it in yourself. This can help inform the problem you solve.

When talking about your business or offering, make sure it is in the framework of a story.

1. A Character​
   Your customer is the hero. They want something specific. You are not the hero. Spend most time talking about them.
2. Has a Problem​
   Something stands in their way: an external, internal, or philosophical problem. If there's no problem, there's no customer.
3. And Meets a Guide​
   That’s you. You demonstrate empathy and authority.
4. Who Gives Them a Plan​
   A simple 2–3 step plan that shows how to work with you or how you’ll help them.
5. And Calls Them to Action​
   Clear next steps—book a session, join, register, start now.
6. That Helps Them Avoid Failure​
   What they lose if they do nothing. (Not fear-mongering; simply honest stakes.)
7. And Ends in Success​
   Paint the picture of their transformation and what life looks like after working with you.

Simple. Focused. These are all found in your birth chart and Human Design if you can't identify one. Let me know what your 7-step story is.

Random Things

At our Ensign Fleet 30 Annual Meeting and Holiday Party last Saturday, I was designated fleet poet!! Well, James, my co-skipper of our boat Moondance(r), nominated me after I had been squealing about the fact that I wanted to be a fleet poet. So now former poor-poet Chuck Wielchowski and I are co-poets of the newly formed Sail Racing Poets Society for the Ensign Fleet 30 and I couldn't be more thrilled. Chuck has been a geoscientist for oil and gas research for over 40 years and has traveled the world with his bride Linda of 57 years. They're on the far right of the photo above me in the pink sweater and the grey cap. I've been invited to crew on his boat The Other Ranger while Moondance(r) is drying out on land and being maintained. I'm eager to learn from this skilled skipper and poet. Boats and belonging. There's nothing better.

Here's my poem to be featured in the next Austin Yacht Club's "Telltales" :)

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WINDS OF WINTER

By Monica Paredes

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What does the winter ask of us

Mariners in an intemperate state?

To check our lines and lifts

For the coming gusts of bitter cold.

While the docks are less bustling 

With races and gatherings of crews,

We remember our neighbors with food.

Each fleet in bittersweet celebration

Of a full lake, grace and abundance. 

Marking the end of an extra-ordinary year,

Toasting to fair winds and following seas

Knowing tomorrow can also be warmer.

A Happy Accident

I have been making mini-journals, which I'll be selling at the Witches Market on December 20th at the Brewtorium along with Astro-Tarot readings and travel altars. I received some gorgeous suede only to cut them the wrong size! So I added rivets and sewed up the sides to make spell pockets for love notes, sigils, and crystals. So the SPELLBOUND collection is made up of mini-journals and pockets. Sheesh.

When busy-ness is your drug, rest feels like stress.

I've been trying to "rest," but my creativity and compulsion to make things have been off the charts. So much for reading and sipping tea in my comfy chair this winter.

The One Question

Registration for my January Strategy Retreat "Compass of Devotion" on January 9-11, 2026, is available as a weekend immersion or a single-day deep dive for anyone who wants to enter 2026 with clarity, structure, and a renewed sense of purpose.

You can register and find out the schedule at the button above. If you are unable to attend, I offer this one question, which will inform all other decisions you make next year. It will clear out clutter and noise. It will ask you to commit (Saturn).

"What do you want to feel next year?"

If you answer: healthy, active, alive, adventurous, studious, innovative and so on, you are on track for the Fire & Air themes of 2026. You can see how that informs your activities, goals, and time and energy allocation, right? Look on your natal chart or your Human Design to understand your moon progression or motivators (Sun & Mars).

Readings Shmeadings

As always, you can book a reading to help plan out your year or understand a mental puzzle you've been wrestling with. The goal is forever to return you to your own wisdom, unshakable, impermeable to outside influence and illusory practices that Neptune will usher in when it enters Gemini.

The proliferation of AI has already seeped into the metaphysical and self development spaces with astounding agents and apps generated by experts like Seth Godin and Mark Manson. Costar, The Pattern, and now Starpath have made astrology more accessible without having to understand calculations, philosophy, history, psychology or spiritual and mythological context. They tell you what you want to know.

Chat, Perplexity, and Gemini are now "free" therapists, coaches, and sometimes "besties." We are leaving the humans out of human wisdom systems.

I have been an early adopter of AI for decades, even building a software company based on symbolic AI way before Chat and Claude. I understand its benefits. I don't discount that it is preparing us to meet the extraterrestrial we will soon encounter. I struggle with knowing that as I use it, I'm contributing to the water and energy resources it uses and depletes from life forms and the earth.

It's the human connections that will integrate spirit, nature, and wonder in this collaborative practice of approaching the sacred oracles with reverence. Not just a scroll and a click.

If you book a human-centric reading, I'm adding 30 additional minutes of any modality to any reading booked by December 31, 2025.

Sundays Are For Surrender

Rest up this season on Sundays at 6 p.m. at The Yoga Common. I'm incorporating a multi-layered approach of neuro and vestibular movements with gentle Kripalu yoga for better balance and brain health. We end each class with a soothing sound bath of integration for a nervous system reset.

Save the Date

I will be hosting a Winter Solstice event on December 20th beginning at 4 p.m. here on Hudson Bend. We'll be making meditation and intention tools using sacred geometry, crystals, and elemental objects. More details to come in next week's newsletter.

A Jungian Holiday Playlist

I thought you might enjoy this "Help! It's the Holidays!" 2025 playlist from This Jungian Life. For fans of depth psychology and Jung's work, you may love Lisa, Deb, and Joseph's podcast medley specifically for this season.

Thank you for reading this far. If there's anything you'd like me to cover that would make opening this newsletter even more delightful, please let me know.

I'm so grateful for your presence in my life and your support of my work.

Take it easy this week.

Fair winds and following seas.

Peace, love, and planets,

Monica

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