Aries Moon Draw – Being Alive is Being

Last Quarter Moon – July 17th, 2025 
Aries 18º15′
LAST QUARTER – Harvest. Reap rewards (or karma). Sort, review. Mix new seeds with prize seeds 

Assess all you have done since the New Moon in Cancer, June 25th, 2025.

• What is the theme of this cycle?
• What are you harvesting?  What results are you reaping from actions you have taken over this time period?
• What is out of your control?
• What seeds are you sorting and keeping for a new cycle of growth?
• What were your wishes and actions for the collective?

Eight of Swords

“Everybody knows . . . “

“This how its always been . . . “

“I’d better believe the story I’ve been told about life so that I . . .  am accepted / am right / am in line with the status quo / look/sound smart / am safe / blend in . . .”

The creature in the Eight of Swords card reminds me of the elephant who won’t walk away because it has a dinky rope on its ankle. As a baby, it wasn’t strong enough to get away, but as an adult, it could easily break the rope. It doesn’t try because it is trained to think it can’t free itself from the rope. The entrapment is an idea, a perception.

We are surrounded by ideas, many of them limiting to our potential. Eight of Swords is calling for us to become empty, drop into deep meditation or a trance state. 

Letting go of mind-chatter, being in a state non-thought, of presence, lets in possibilities previously unimagined and/or perhaps previously dreamed of and dismissed. Our thoughts are not who we are.

Aries and Eight of Swords feels like anything is possible. Focus. Deep concentration. Imagination. Action.

• How does your Self free the dream of the collective?

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Lunar Gestation Cycle – Looking back

This Aries Last Quarter Moon is also connected to the longer lunar family cycle. Each lunar quarter phase happens every nine months. The New Moon of the Aries Lunar family happened 27 months ago. 

Aries New Moon energy was really big in 2023. The new moon was partially in Aries for both March and April 2023. Both Pisces and Taurus were tinged with Aries.

New Moon: March 21st, 2023 0º48′ (moving from Pisces for half a degree before officially moving into the waxing moon phase)
New Moon Solar Eclipse: April 20th, 2023 29º49′ (moving less than a degree and then into Taurus)

Look back and ask yourself:

• What is the theme of this cycle?
• What are you harvesting?  What results are you reaping from actions you have taken over this time period?
• What is out of your control?
• What seeds are you sorting and keeping for a new cycle of growth? (In terms of Lunar Families, the new cycle begins at the next Aries New Moon – April 17th, 2026. Aries 27º28′)
• What were your wishes and actions for the collective?

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Bonus: Looking back at the Aries Moon Gestation cycle, I found these videos I made during the Aries New Moon(s) in 2023

from March 22nd, 2023, in honor of Aries: Meeting the Child Self Meditation

From April 20th, 2023: Discussing New Moon Intentions and I am Divine Love Meditation

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This year – cosmic changes are big.

All the outer planets of our solar system are changing signs, and we are feeling it. The slower moving outer planets – especially Pluto, Neptune, and Uranus often portend cultural changes.

There is a saying – “How we perceive the world is how we receive the world.”

We have choice — we are not only shaped by our culture, we are also the builders of our culture.

Despite all the changes that are happening in the collective, we still have choice, and tarot can help us see our choices.

We are creators.

Tarot is a powerful tool in the creative process. Receiving a reading is a way of actively collaborating with the cards, the reader/interpreter, and universal energies.

We are co-creators of our reality. 

Book a tarot reading with me. All my readings are 25% off for the rest of 2025.

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I love Robert M Place’s tarot art. Learn more about him and his art at robertmplace.com.

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July 19th, 2025
Flagstaff, AZ

image: robert place’s 8 of swords on a rainbow  © holly troy 2025