Fire in the madhouse

Virgo Full Moon Deep Dive

“This is what it's like when a species prepares to depart for the stars. You don't depart for the stars under calm and orderly conditions; it's a fire in a madhouse, and that's what we have, the fire in the madhouse at the end of time. This is what it's like when a species prepares to move on to the next dimension. The entire destiny of all life on the planet is tied up in this; we are not acting for ourselves, or from ourselves; we happen to be the point species on a transformation that will affect every living organism on this planet at its conclusion." -Terence McKenna

Things on planet earth are about to get very weird.

And I know what you’re thinking: aren't things already at peak weird? Didn’t I just see an elaborate conspiracy theory about Taylor Swift, Satanism, MK Ultra and the NFL? Didn’t scientists just create a mini black hole in a hyper-collider in Switzerland literally for shits and giggles? Isn't the U.S. bombing, like, everybody all of a sudden? And didn’t someone just throw a can of soup at the Mona Lisa?

I mean, aren’t we all already going totally fucking nuts?

Yes.

And yet, all shamanic signs point to even higher levels of looming strangeness on the horizon.

In fact, the last four years might just be the opening salvo to a cosmic symphony of spiritual, social and existential decoherence, marked by a notable— and bizarre— temporal expansion. The Schumann Resonance— which measures the collective energies of the earth— looks like a heart monitor strapped to a crackhead running an ultra-marathon. Every psychic I know has a serious case of the “bends”, unable to gain their footing or figure out if they’re awake or dreaming or what god damned day it is. I even had a recent visit from an ancient Sumerian bad guy, and we all know how that works out, courtesy of the 1984 documentary film Ghostbusters:

This year just might be the proverbial spiritual match strike hitting the gasoline-soaked pyre. Explosion in the corner penthouse of spook central? Maybe. Bonfire of the vanities? Sure. But fire at the madhouse? Certainly.

You might be wondering, “But what exactly is happening underneath all of this confusing and esoteric Woo parlance? What does it mean that Mercury is in asparagus?!? Should I build an underground bunker?”

And, while the short answer is “I don’t know”, the longer answer is “I kind of know but it’s nebulous and complicated and meanders into precarious shamanic territory in which language loses all power and function.”

Luckily, this February 24th’s Virgo Full Moon offers us the perfect opportunity to stick the ontological landing and figure out what the hell is actually going on— and what, if anything, we can do about it.

At least, for the moment.

The three-faced goddess

So many see the sign of Virgo as a simple, 2D, pastel watercolor rendition of an earth goddess, and posts about the upcoming Virgo Full Moon seem to be following in suit, featuring banal recommendations to use this lunation to detox, adjust our diets, plant a garden, gift a houseplant or clean out our closets.

Lame sauce.

I mean, nice as they are these recommendations aren’t exactly going to help us hold on as the very fabric of our reality starts to fray at the edges.

To orient ourselves in this chaos, we need to look at the sign of Virgo a little differently. For starters, Virgo is ruled by Mercury— a strange planetary choice for an earth sign. I mean, there’s really nothing earthy about Mercury, whether we’re talking about the element, the planet, or the ancient Roman god of the same name. If anything, it’s an energy of shapeshifting, mischief, and travel throughout various realms and dimensions— not of wearing an apron and baking organic muffins.

As for the earth goddess Virgo archetype, I see her as a less static Mother Earth and more of dynamic, three-dimensional (and three-faced) goddess like Hecate. And, as it turns out, this intuitive hypothesis was born out when Hecate recently paid me a visit during a foggy, nighttime walk. Worth noting: this is literally the only time I’ve ever seen anything resembling fog in Austin, TX, and it was thicker than anything I’d ever experienced in San Francisco or on the lakefront in Chicago. Strange indeed.

During this very foggy walk, I was contemplating the collective rapid-onset decoherence in our world and attempting to get a grip on the disorienting waves of energy that had been bombarding me for the last few weeks. Just then, a goddess popped into my head with a pithy bit of dialogue from the show Westworld, “What humans define as sane is a narrow range of behaviors. Most states of consciousness are insane.” And yes, I did immediately wonder if I was quickly joining the ranks of the insane myself. Or having another stroke. But then I got the image of Hecate, clear as glass, in my mind’s eye.

And I recognized that bitch.

I had previously met Hecate in two incredible shamanic journeying meditations back in the early days of my shamanic studies. In one, I was in a large, empty and very modern penthouse with floor to ceiling windows. There was no visibility out of these windows but for a dark, smokey grey fog. Then I noticed one painting, hanging on one wall: it was a two-toned, grey-colored riff on a midcentury modern Rothko. I immediately understood that Hecate was showing me the most apt “description” of her energy, and somehow I instantly knew that she was a goddess of the spaces between life and death, our world and the other worlds, and all of the other liminal spaces in between paradigms.

Yes, Hecate is a goddess of crossroads. Yes, she’s the Maiden, Mother and Crone, governing the life stages— and events— associated specifically with womanhood: puberty, menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, menopause and death. But she is also perhaps the cosmic mid-wife of our rebirthing as a species, overseeing our transition to something else entirely. If so, her presence here and now is an undeniable marker in our potential movement from gestational phase godlings to something we have never experienced before— and could never imagine.

In this framing, our “fire in the madhouse” could be seen as the screams and pain and panic that come as the contractions get closer together during our collective self-labor.

Labor pains

Now, I’m always reluctant to get into “ascension talk”. It’s the official, esoteric packaged product of bullshit artists, cult leaders, and Youtube LARPers. It’s often accompanied by nonsensical “light language” (aka gibberish), claims of communicating with “blue chicken people” (I wish I was making that part up) and, yes, the inevitable paywall to get to the good content that will, like, change your DNA or help you travel to the Pleiades or whatever. You know. For a price.

Because that’s what the Galactic Federation of god-angel-aliens would want: your $333.33 to secure your spot in the virtual ascension conference.

BUT…underneath all of this noise, there may actually be a signal worth listening to.

In plain English, the concept of ascension is one of spiritual evolution— and even a kind of earned “graduation” from the human condition. Famous figures like the Buddha, Jesus, and many saints and monks are what’s called “ascended beings”, having transcended their human condition to achieve enlightenment, all while simultaneously releasing the hold material reality has on their bodies and psyches.

Yah, I’ve met people that literally introduce themselves as “ascended being(s)” while ordering a cocktail at Soho House. Call me crazy, but I don’t think a truly ascended being would need rounds of ketamine therapy after screaming at their book agent about a shitty advance.

But, then again, maybe I’m just old fashioned.

All that said, I do think something pretty major might actually be going on just outside of the margins— and just out of the reach of such false prophets.

At first blush, I may have dismissed my own “ascension symptoms” as new levels of the standard shaman stuff I tend to get bombarded with in a normal week. But, because of the unique nature of what I do for a living, I started to notice that my personal experiences were correlating with the spiritual metadata across hundreds of clients and collaborators, all of whom seemed to be in the midst of these strange “labor pains”.

And, while these symptoms seem to vary from person to person, they do all seem to hinge on an expansion of typical temporal and liminal sensory capabilities. Said another way? Time-space seems increasingly fluid and fungible and psychic abilities of various spots and stripes seem to be blossoming en masse. The most tangible side effect? Words are hard, and folks that are super smart and quite erudite are finding themselves tongue-tied when they least expect it.

Oh, and there’s the physical stuff. Just this morning, I awoke to mystery bruises and a very bloody nose. My dog, famous for astral traveling to visit TOTEM clients, has a serious limp. And all of this happened when we were asleep, in our respective beds. Now, I had about 30 rapid fire REM cycles last night, astral traveled as an owl to other dimensions, and started to see a pulsing yellow light when I first closed my eyes, but I’m sure that’s all totally normal.

Right?

Other key manifestations clients are experiencing (and reporting) include:

Synchronicity on steroids

Synchronicity is defined as: “incidents of spiritual significance that ask us to momentarily dampen our self-obsession and consider the possibility of the divine.”

In other words, a synchronicity is a statistically improbable (if not impossible) coincidence that acts almost like a wink from the world of spirit.

And, right now, they’re everywhere. All day, everyday.

Mandela Effect

The Mandela Effect is an observed phenomenon in which a large segment of the population misremembers a significant event or shares a memory of an event that did not actually occur….or did it?

Now, I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out: in quantum mechanics and, more specifically, parallel worlds theory, it’s more than feasible that we humans can exist in multiple realities at one time. If this is the case, there may be some dimensional drift, or slippage between realities. And, if so, this would explain the lived experience of so many of us Mandela Effect “experiencers”.

The Mandela Effect is popping up everywhere in conversations with clients and collaborators, and seems to have a particularly disorienting effect at the present.

Strange pulses of light

Like the pulses of golden light I saw when closing my eyes before bed last night, many people seem to be experiencing new— and rather psychedelic forms of light: blue, pink and white auras exploding in their line of sight; strange, mesmerizing plays on sunlight and shadow; and veritable light shows when eyes are closed.

My non-scientific theory? Our pineal glands might be releasing more of our endogenous DMT, giving us some of the same effects one experiences with consuming plant medicines and, yes, even acid.

Telepathic communication and clairsentience

Many of my clients are reporting exponential explosions in their telepathic capabilities, with many claiming to be suddenly capable of clairsentience— aka “clear knowing”. These are not people that have ever considered themselves psychic, and they’re finding the spontaneous connections to others’ thoughts a bit destabilizing to their psyche.

Remember: it’s a good sign if you’re wondering if you’re going a bit batty;)

Sensitivity to the energy of the sun and earth

The Schumann Resonance— which measures the collective energies of the earth— has been getting wild lately, and with it many of us have been feeling like we’re on an energetic rollercoaster ride. Solar flares and solar storms seem to be hitting hard, too.

After I posted a particularly unusual snapshot of The Schumann Resonance here on Substack, a client (who is literally an earth scientist) shared perhaps the funniest reply I’ve ever seen:

“This makes sense... I couldn’t put my finger on what the trigger was... It was the ding dang EARF!”

Truth is stranger than fiction

This may all seem (and feel) more than a little strange, confusing and yes, even apocalyptic, but it’s worth remembering that the etymological root of the word apocalypse means “great revealing of information”. The apocalypse of the Bible or the ancient Mayans or even the Sumerian cuneiform tablets doesn’t mean the end of the world. Quite literally, it means the end of illusion, delusion, and the mass hypnosis/ psychosis we witness everyday.

I think the wrestling match over “the truth” across all forms of media is really the beginning of the outward manifestations of this great revealing, mirroring our own internal experience of the shifting nature of our reality.

Sure, there’s going to be decoherence and anger and cognitive dissonance, not to mention 5th generation information warfare, but I think challenging the official liturgies handed down from centralized sources on high will, ultimately, prove to be a very good thing for humanity. Likewise, allowing the new spiritual data that comes in to challenge our existing, personal paradigms will be crucial to this evolutionary process.

Besides: I’m not sure it’s a choice. If this dream or illusion or simulacra (or whatever you want to call it) is collapsing, we humans are likely not going to be the ones in charge. This will likely not be *our* controlled demolition. And what appears to us to be unmitigated chaos will very likely take hold for a short window of time.

But, as the Joker once pointed out, “That’s the thing about chaos. It’s fair.”

There will only be so much we can do, but I’ve compiled a very short and very simple list to aid in navigating this shifting whirlwind:

• Open your mind: this revolutionary time will likely result in the wholesale subversion and inversion of closely-held ideologies. Having an open mind and posture of non-attachment to tribal accoutrement will do you wonders. Stay curious and see what happens.

• Individuals > groups: as individuals, human often surprise us in good, life-affirming ways. As groups, human often make us want to put a flame-thrower to society. Approach and address people as individuals and not members of some tribal group, and you’ll have a much easier go of things this year.

• Turn off the news: mainstream media is going to be even more of a shit show during these undulations, so if you can manage to look away and focus on real life in your real, local community, all the better. I expect that fifth generation warfare (i.e. information warfare) is going to hit fever pitch in this year.

• Meditate: meditation always gives me better access to accurate data than any external, fear-stimulating source. What’s more: it’s calming, affirming and empowering, so this is a great Full Moon to start your own daily meditation practice.

TOTEM Tarot Card: Hecate

Our TOTEM Tarot Deck version of the Final Judgement card is Hecate.

In the classic version of this tarot card, Jesus is shown rising from the grave along with the dead saints and martyrs of history. It’s an intense image that evokes the Biblical Book of Revelation: an apocalyptic divine prophecy that tells of a time when the evil doers will be punished and the good kids will be elevated.

You know: “And the meek shall inherit the earth.”

With our TOTEM Tarot Deck Hecate card, we pivot this focus to the concept of karmic debts, epochs in human civilization and, above all else, the power of the crossroads. Before you can pass through a stage gate to the next phase of existence, Hecate must first determine if you’ve learned your lessons and evolved in the requisite ways.

She is, after all, the midwife. She says when this metaphorical baby is ready to be born.

When Hecate appears in a reading, karmic debts are about to be paid in a major way. Either you must pay the bill or you’ll be the recipient of this payment— it all depends on how you conducted yourself via free will choices to date. If you have any open items or unresolved business, expect them to be resolved completely. There will be an apocalypse of information, a final release of data and energy, such that all loose ends are tied up.

Whatever dissipates now, let it go. Whatever new things come into being, embrace them.

And, yah…now that I’m looking at this tarot card’s art again, it doesn’t not have a kind of have a Gozer the Gozerian, art deco building with selenium girders on the Upper East Side kind of vibe:

TOTEM Flower Essence: Root Chakra Blend

Grounding during this is going to be tough, but it’s also going to be crucial.

So long as we have physical bodies and live in this material world, we’ll need to contend with the constrains, confines and unique demands of being a carbon-based life form on planet earth. We’ll also need a way to integrate any energetic or spiritual upgrades into the hardware of our respective human biocomputers— aka our bodies.

To help, we’ve made TOTEM Root Chakra Flower Essence, containing a blend of our Dead Grandma (marigold), Self-Defense (yarrow), and Spiritual Gangster (palo verde) flower essences to energetically support proper body care, ensuring that you’re eating, sleeping, and staying embodied during these turbulent times. This Flower Essence is available on our Etsy shop HERE— and is currently 50% off.

I’ve been struggling with the whole new software in an old model of the human iPhone thing myself lately, and am taking a break from booze for the month of February (if not longer). I know. If ever there was an actual sign of the apocalypse, this is it;)

Something new

When I was contemplating all of these intense shifts and changes around the energy of the Virgo Full Moon, I remembered a line from Gil Scott-Heron’s song I’m New Here: “I may be crazy, but I’m the closest thing I have to a voice of reason.”

I think this Virgo Full Moon will ask us to release our reliance on the constructs, experts, and collective “knowledge” that have gotten us to this point. And, even though we might be a little crazy (especially lately), our own voice is the closest thing we’ll have to a true voice of reason in this dynamic time.

After all: we’re changing, and with this change we need to tune into ourselves— and stop watching the god damned “news”!

The world is going to seem insane. Hell, we’re going to feel insane. But that doesn’t mean walking this thoroughfare through the cosmic crossroads is bad or wrong…or even unavoidable.

If nothing else, just remember Hecate’s pithy reminder: “What humans define as sane is a narrow range of behaviors. Most states of consciousness are insane.”

Something new is coming. And, in many ways, we are becoming that new thing.

And, if you feel called, please help us here on Substack by sharing our posts, notes and podcast episodes. This Full Moon Deep Dive is a taste of the content we create for our paid subscribers, but we’re always sharing something new and substantive for all subscribers!

I know what you’re thinking: why would you care about something as banal as Substack subscribers during such a consequential moment? Well, the short answer is that I’m eager to democratize shamanism as quickly and to as many people as I can— especially as the cosmic contractions get closer together.

If you want to learn more about me or TOTEM Readings, my spiritual practice, you can check out all of my links HERE. TOTEM is set up precisely to assist during times of spiritual transformation. So, you know. I’m around.

-Rachel