As I sit below a strawberry moon tonight after the longest day of the year I can't help but feel lucky.  It's a crazy time right now.  My head and heart have been awash with mixture of grief and fear over the events in Orlando last week.  I don't know how to generalize anything about this mess, but we live in a country where peoples ideas of what it means to be living in the land of the free and the home of the brave seem to be increasingly at odds with each other.  It really saddens me to think about the huge population of people that think that freedom means having the right to buy and own an automatic killing machine. 

When we started out making zodiac jewelry, we didn't really know much of anything about the different signs and what they represent.  We just thought the design was cool.  Over time we have picked up on some interesting coincidences.  Like how whenever someone comes to our shop, they seem to be innately drawn to pick up a piece of jewelry with the constellation of their own zodiac sign, even though it's not labeled and they have no idea what they're even looking at.  I'd say that this happens 9 times out of 10.   We've had our hearts broken too many times over the years, when we get a special order from someone requesting a custom zodiac constellation to commemorate the passing of a child.  It's really hard to get these requests.  There's usually a lot of crying around the studio on these days.  But they do make us feel connected to people we'll probably never get to meet in real life, in a profound way.  

So over the years we've gradually gotten more and more tuned in.  What's behind all of this?  Why were both of my children simultaneously crying and screaming themselves to sleep tonight?  Why have I felt completely crazy, intense, and panicked all day?  What the hell is going on here? 

I'll give over for a minute and talk about this very special day for our sun and moon.   The summer solstice has been celebrated since ancient times.   It's a new beginning, a fresh start. Today's summer solstice happens to coincide with a full moon.   This last happened in 1997 and it won't happen again until 2062.  They call tonight's moon a strawberry moon, because it traditionally signifies the time to start harvesting your strawberries.  Astrologers like to analyze the chart of the summer solstice, because they say it kind of sets the tone for the whole summer.  Astrologers seem to be pretty bugged out about the significance of this particular solstice/full moon party that we're having. Tonight the moon is in Sagittarius and the sun is in Gemini.  From what I can gather the celestial bodies are posted up in such a way right now as to create a furnace of stressful energy.  Everything that you've been ignoring and putting on the back burner is being thrown up in your face and you've either got to deal with it or let it die.   The heavenly bodies are trying to make you feel super overwhelmed, stressed out, and maybe even sad.  But that moon looks good tonight.  It's quite inspiring actually... even joyful. 

We're making a big move in 2 weeks.  We've sold our house and a lot of the possessions we've accumulated over the years.  We're saying goodbye to our friends here in Massachusetts and heading out into the unknown.   We're totally freaking out and we're wrapping up all the loose ends.   We're getting set to vibrate in a new time and space this summer.  Please wish us luck and we will will wish the best of luck to you and yours in this new dawn of the sun and moon.  Let's plow through this fire and find some joy together!