December Advent Week One / Two

December 1-14: Determination Nation

Well then.

Last week was apparently the first week I’ve missed a NWiM update since I started this Substack in December 1st, of 2022.

A two-year run broken and I’m fully blaming Mercury Retrograde (and myself, obviously). Despite having completed the post below, I somehow didn’t complete the publishing process.

I’m reworking and expanding the post (a lot has changed in a week). My apologies for leaving you all hanging…

Site Status Update

First, www.circlethrice.com is undergoing underwent some important technical maintenance last week.

Yes, during a Mercury retrograde, which aligns with the fact that some of the issues I was dealing with were due to previous decisions I’ve made and that dealing with them ended up being a reset. Sometimes you don’t get to choose when you deal with things.

The good news is that the site is back up and has had a bit of a face lift!

Plans for this Month

I seem to have acquired some new subs lately (welcome!) and wanted to point to the fact that the newsletters this month are going to have a little more marketing-type content than usual. As has become a tradition, Circle Thrice is rolling updates for the New Year, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t share them with you. Starting in January, we’ll be back to our usual ratio of useful free content / marketing.

From now until the end of the year, I’m going to be doing a bit of an advent celebration. Each week I’ll be pointing to some resources on my site that you may have not seen before (useful posts, free resources) as well as sharing news on what I’ll be launching in 2025.

Next This Week in Magic (Dec 1-7)

This week is the start of the last full lunation of 2024. December has a general theme of Jupiter workings around strategy, oversight, wealth, and growth — really nice timing for the end of the year.

This also suggests to me that there will be a need of those things moving forward. As I create and work the planner year over year, I’ve noticed that the astro-magical conditions often give us opportunities to develop the very characteristics we’ll need for future astrological conditions.

It’s subtle and it’s taken me a while to get an instinct for seeing these trends. But basically, when we are given opportunities to improve or strengthen ourselves, our households, and our communities, we should take them. Am I saying that we’re all going to need strength, and determination in the new year? Yeah, I think I am. So better get busy.

Next Week in Magic (Dec 8-14) - Big Daddy Energy

Sunday and Thursday both have a Jupitarian feel this week. On Sunday, you should get your money mojo working to do some wealthy magic. On Thursday, it’s better to do Jupiter remediation work, particularly around the father figures in your life or your patrilineal line.

One of my favorite Jupiter workings uses this ritual framework from S+S along with an altar featuring the Hierophant / High Priest tarot card.

Advent Week One

If you are considering making some big changes in 2025, the following may be of help for you:

• Resolution Now! Originally written at the end of 2020, the content might be even more relevant today. This post also contains a link to a free short course on making, and keeping, new year’s resolutions.

• Grundwerden - Your Reason for Becoming Again, an old blog post that I kept recommending to clients and members, until I finally turned it into a free PDF booklet.

• The Inner Circle Membership The content I share here week after week (until last week - arrgh!) comes from my magical planner, which is available to Inner Circle members on my site. This substack post talks more about the planner in general. There are some exciting new offerings launching for 2025, but you can still get the quarterly, monthly, and weekly planners (plus digital monthly and transits to go right into your calendar app) for only $10 a month. And the first month is always free.
  

  In 2025, I’m surfacing two new alignments that I’ve been playing with for the past year and a half or so…

  
  Both of these center on the moon, and that’s for a very good reason. In addition to being a power and a luminary of its own, the moon is a lens through which other powers manifest into our reality. This is why lunar enchantment is so common (it’s the gateway drug to astro-magic for a lot of people). While I’ve been tracking and experimenting with these alignments for some time now, this year I’m exposing them in both the planner and my suggestions:

  • Lunar conjunctions with planets / nodes: During times when the moon is conjoin other bodies, those bodies are more easily manifest in the magician’s life. This can be negative or positive depending on the state of the bodies in question. A lunar conjunction with an unhappy Saturn, for example, might be a time to mitigate against manifesting Saturnian energy in your life. While a conjunction with a happy Venus is perfect for magic for manifesting Venusian energies.

  • Lunar conjunctions with select stars: I chose lunar conjunctions rather than heliacal rising because the latter is highly location specific. The asterisms are specifically based on the availability of Sphere+Sundry materia, including: Algol, Aldebaran, Regulus, Spica (Venus’ Aerial Delight), Antares, Fomalhaut, and Deneb Algedi. These make for a nice stellar tool kit and I’ve had great results with these workings (I have a whole separate stellar witchcraft practice that’s been a good platform for experimentation but you can approach these powers in a number of different ways).