As the dark descends, so too the peculiar melancholia. The swinging weight of this manic month drawling to a close. Neither our singular selves nor their many shadows desire the dance, as the dark moon draws the buried truth out into the barely there twilight. We stare blankly at its mass on the floor. The air is languid and heavily pregnant with transition, almost a day's labour away.

Most every dark moon I leave a photo of a dreamy bolthole here, a fantasy escape from the every day hustle and grind in which to rest and renew. But this is not life as we know it and the last lunar cycle has been one for the history books. Not one of us has escaped its impact, adjustment or shocking upset to our applecarts.

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.

The dark moon is upon us in full. This can feel heavy and despondent but don't shy away from the discomfort. It is your single best guide to what is twisting inside you that is ready to be relinquished.

Our cosmic players are taking their places for tomorrow's firestarter new moon, each adding their gravitas to the deep dark of the balsamic phase. Built as it is - every single month in a row - on letting go, crafting sense of the madness and plucking wisdom from its eyes. Lady Luna has just entered Aries cloaked in darkness. Here she waits for her impending rebirth just a day away.

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.

Dig in darklings for this is likely to be the deepest dark moon of the year. It is the deep breath in and the pause prior to the revolution. It is built on solitude and surrender and gently sifting through the detritus of the last eight years on a quest for uncommon wisdom.

Beware the Ides of March, they say. Gah. We have all been settling karmic debt and shadow dancing for weeks before that - and since. As we plunge into the sweet dark of the moon after a month or more in Meltdown City, the reckoning is here. When the moon makes new in Aries in a few short days, it will be dragging Chiron into its fiery imperative and kicking Mercury into forward gear. This will be a high impact transformation, the kind that we crave and quake.

Just checking in from my astrofuquery bolthole to see how the weekend is treating you, darklings. Venting, ranting and non specific shots across the bow welcome here. Better out than in and splattered in such a way as not to cause irreparable damage in real life, non?

The dark moon in Pisces before she emerges anew is a deep abyss in the cavernous ocean of the self. These are the closing moments of eclipsia, whose peculiar medicine has been as unsettling as it has been instructive. Holy mother of Neptune what a colossal catalyst she was. Here now we tread water in the closing degrees of the zodiac, a place built on drawing conclusion.

When it comes to spirit animals, Miss Piggy has a place in my pantheon. As she rightly articulated this week - and I respectfully paraphrase - we fight to hold on and oh my giddy aunt how hard we fight to simply let go. Held fast as we are in the syrupy thick of the dark moon, we are now painfully brutally aware of all that eclipse season has excised from our lives.

We have officially entered the balsamic phase or the deepest dark of the moon. How well you dance through your darkness is the scene setter (and greatest determinant, in this witch's opinion) of how effective your new moon will be. And this next new moon in a few days - a solar eclipse and the lunar new year - is a Very Big Deal and the mightiest this year.

Oh that bridge of sighs between eclipses. Herewith the pointy end of this mad season, as we round the final bend and descend into the dark of the moon. We are not there yet, not nearly. These dark days are the eclipse slingshot drawing back, taut and shaking.

This dark moon vortex is a strange cocktail best sipped carefully. Be done with unconscious sculling or mindless marination if you are to have any head for its revolution. The cosmos ripples and wrenches with interesting combinations whose taste will differ according to our palate, our mood and the glass we find ourselves drinking from. Muddling our many selves as they dissolve and reform in service of evolution.

This is a trigger warning, darklings. And not just your particular flavour when the gun is cocked, oh my word no. Today is an across the board recipe for blown tops, epic frustration and the kind of sandpaper niggling that shreds even the thickest of skins.

Still may we be, sitting through the spin cycle of les eclipses. In moments or minutes or more. Mars continues to throb away, testing the true nature of our firepower. The divine scramble is palpable, nostalgic and prophetic all at once.

The dark moon has slipped on its Aquarian coat and the heaviness of the agitation cycle is giving way to Neptune's call as visions now travel both ways down our personal highways.