I’m packing my bags in preparation of our FCEA Live Workshop with Steven Forrest, Exploring the Moon’s Sacred Power. It is just a few days before I leave for San Diego to help lead the event. I am so grateful to our staff, Ruby Glasspool and Paula Wansley, for working so hard on getting this event off the ground. They have demonstrated so much love and dedication! And I am extremely thankful to Penelope Love, our registrar and communications coordinator, who will keep the FCEA “ship” afloat while we are gathered in person in Southern California. I look forward to giving everyone who can join us a big hug! Such a wonderful chance to connect and be together as a community.
Steven will be teaching us “everything Moon,” a rich topic for us to feel through and absorb as a family, the FCEA family I mean. I’d like to share some personal reflections at this time about my own progressed Moon and where I am on, as Joni Mitchell would say, the “circle game.” There is a natural flow, an ebb and tide, of the progressed lunation cycle, a roughly thirty-year period of one’s life. If you have ever been on the beach and watched the ebb or receding tide, you probably have an inkling of how I feel at the moment. Let me give you a brief history that has led to this point in my life and in the trajectory of the FCEA’s growth and development. Please bear with me as I focus upon my own story. I feel it is worth sharing so folks can better understand how the FCEA came about, along with being a clear example of the sheer power of the progressed lunation cycle.
For a number of years, I regularly drove down from my home in Northern California twice a year to Alpine, California, not far from San Diego, to attend Steven’s live Apprenticeship Program. This was when I was in my 50s (I’m 62 now). It was a period of great change in my life (Pluto, anyone? I have a natal stellium in Capricorn) and just about every bedrock phenomenon in my soul’s journey was wiped clean. I was ready for something new and fresh in my life. Many of you probably guessed it: I was in the progressed New Moon phase and my progressed Sun was entering Pisces. A double whammy, you could say.
At the time, I met a wonderful woman, Teal Rowe, who became my closest friend and my perpetual “roomie” at AP events. Teal helped Steven, Jeff Parrett and I establish the FCEA by serving as one of our very first tutors. She is a very gifted evolutionary astrologer. During one particular AP session, in the spring of 2015, Teal and I were in our hotel room, discussing Steven’s program and I turned to her and said, “I’m going to help him with his teaching someday.” Arrogant I know! But something was being planted in my heart then that was beyond my full understanding, something, as Steven would say, like a whimsy inside.
Fast forward a few years to 2018, during my progressed lunar return at 55, my progressed Moon was now in the First Quarter phase. As Steven describes in The Book of the Moon, “the rubber met the road.” With my clients in my astrological practice, I use the image of a snowball, just a small bit of ice and snow in the beginning, rolling and picking up size and weight through the years until the seed we planted at the progressed New Moon becomes an actual “ball” we throw into action. Time to make it real. Steven, Jeff Parrett (our former business partner) and I signed the documents to bring the FCEA to life, to establish the school as a business.
More years flowed by. I followed Steven’s wisdom to a tee as my progressed Moon grew in light. I found allies and faced enemies, endured trials and challenges, and held onto my hopes and dreams. Our school, my progressed lunar “snowball,” has taken on a life of its own. In the fall of 2024, I began my progressed Full Moon phase. I’ve built karmic bonds with the school’s beloved staff and I tried my best to strengthen my commitment. Now I am also learning how to delegate work and projects to our wonderful staff. Just yesterday, as an FCEA team, we briefly discussed via email the possible development of a program in Spanish. Part of my progressed Full Moon’s “snowball”? Possibly. We all have to ask, why not? But for Catie to develop? No. There has to be some letting go, I feel, because the “snowball” is getting larger than I can handle!
So, our gathering in San Diego, Exploring the Moon’s Sacred Power, carries a particular poignancy for me. There is a Japanese Buddhist expression, mono no aware, life is fleeting. It captures the mood and emotions we all feel as beauty fades and we realize things dissolve away. But, no worries! The FCEA is here to stay. We have bright ideas for the growth of the school in the years ahead. We all need each other as part of this learning community. But the Moon’s sacred power speaks to me as I prepare for the waning phases of my progressed Moon in upcoming years. As the Moon wanes, we harvest what we have sowed. We maintain the course with maturity and reflection. We recognize everyone is riding through the “circle game.”
I can’t wait to see so many of you in San Diego! And for those who cannot attend, please know you are in our hearts and we miss you. Let’s revel in this lunar moment and love each other deeply.
