The dark moon shroud has settlled deeply upon us. Even as we feel the weight of the rampaging Aries eclipse taking shape, we still have blessed hours left in the balsam of the dark. Here may we tie a final bow on much of the unholy madness and mayhem ready to be left behind.

The dark moon descends like a blanket thrown over us just in time. Drawing the shutters - if you will - on a rampaging last month that arrived with full notice of revolution and then knocked it into the stratosphere. The constant step ball change of retrograde mania. That full on full moon eclipse that tipped us all over its falls. Lifequake after truth bomb after rabid revelation. Tides and tempers peaked and rinsed on repeat. And all as own ready renovations and reckonings - or is that whole life edit - echo and churn.

An incendiary dark moon descends over us all now, its pull to rest and recalibrate at odds with broiling revolution. If you needed an omen for the eclipse season incoming, the days between now and the Pisces new moon will likely deliver it. Try not to baulk when it lands like a bomb, like a blast of past angst, or dripping in blood. The gloves have actually always been off.

Quietly now, below the braying noise of the world, the moon takes her leave. On soft silver she slips silently behind the veil that shepherds her transition. Her rebirth in Aquaria will deliver the next lunar year and fresh threshold in a brand new cycle full of them. Mythologies will glitch and shift as wings and fire breath give way to the itch of ill fitting skins and a promising gleam beyond the moult.

Dark moon, thy name is dissolution as we make our way through the liquidity of the far end of the zodiac. Cut off from the cult of knowing and planning by design. Released from the strict safety of hospital corners and known quantities. Floating on a sea of unlimited potential whose murky depths will demand a different kind of discipline.

Dark moon, thy name is respite and relief. Time to tend arrives now as the barely there crescent turns her face away and tucks back into herself. If you will let yourself linger long, this dark moon offers a wonderful scrying pool to craft uncommon sense from the fray.

Holding fast to hope in turbulent times is not an empty cup. It conjures far more from its enduring depths and places soft landing in our hands. Hope is not a wan promise, nor a weak vanity. It is a fierce courage that arises in response to troubling reality, holding us through and beyond it, planting seeds in our every footstep.

This dark moon is anything but restful, rippling with revelation in its starkest terms. The lunar ebb has been delivering a deluge that crams our wide eyes with scenes of devastation and despair, an inevitable tide that none can stem. We all know how we got here, to this existential tipping point of a world now in constant rolling crisis, whose powerbrokers remain only interested in saving themselves.

This week, in the stars and in the world, is crammed with aspects and perspectives that will draw a firm line between past and future. Between the old world still raging in its brutal efforts to survive through sheer force and the new world emerging from its smoke and ruins.

This month's dark moon bolthole is welcome refuge and scrying pool. A place to lay our world weary head away from the cumulative horror of the world of men and conjure an equal music of our own.

Every month in a row she calls us to temporary retirement. The beautiful moon hides her face, the stars blaze in her absence and the tides within us ebb. The bone tired exhaustion of all these modern gauntlets run on repeat catches up with us. We are world weary and craving retreat, rest and recalibration. The dark moon envelops us in her soft folds.

This week is a sweet surreal dream arriving as antidote and answer to the questions posed on repeat by this year in transition. Now may we surrender to Neptunia and the dark tides that precede the new moon in Pisces next weekend.

Make no mistake about it darklings, this week reeks of rebirth as the past, present and future intermingle sans frontiers. Between Merc's planetary pinballing, his retrograde and cazimi and a whole new lunar year with the ultra Aquarian new moon, the end of this week won't remotely look or feel like its beginning.

I'm going early to this month's dark moon bolthole. My nervous system needs a fucking break from the hypervigilance of daily tallies and sweeping new measures enacted way too late and this climate of panic.

Dark moon bolthole, anyone? You know by now darklings my penchant for the isolation and wonder of the dark moon. And its blessed bliss is now upon us in the midst of madness, mayhem and a solid first week Mercing.

One of my most brilliant teachers, a rakish afficionado of high school history, taught me two most important life lessons. The first was critical thinking: that it is crucial not to slavishly believe what you have had plopped in front of you. The second was to remember your history because as he proved to us ad infinitum: those who refuse to remember their history are condemned to repeat it.

Deep in the dark of the moon before our world quakes with change, we occupy a curious confounding space. It will not answer our constant questions or petitions for mercy and grace. It ignores our demands and discomfort. It offers little beyond its balming void. It is without boundaries, an unknowable abyss that asks only for our surrender.