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November 17 through November 23, 2025

We’ll celebrate the Sun’s entry into Sagittarius on Friday, as well as a Scorpio new Moon on Thursday, marking a definite change of energy before the week is out. Monday’s Libra Moon continues to call on us to restore balance to our worlds, especially in regard to our personal relationships. Tuesday and Wednesday are all about spiritual pursuits as the Moon wades through Scorpio, so don’t worry if you can’t seem to get any traction regarding physical or work tasks. The Scorpio new Moon occurs early Wednesday morning, just before the Moon travels into Sagittarius, making Thursday a perfect day to make a wish, and then spend the next two weeks bringing it into reality. The Sun will enter Sagittarius on Friday, heralding in a four-week cycle that brings justice, restores our optimism, and encourages us to embrace the light-hearted season ahead. The mood will continue as the Moon spends the weekend in Sagittarius, adding to the fun!

The Complex Offerings of Grief: Changing the Legacy of Loss, by Elisa Donovan

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

We live in a society that is uncomfortable with discomfort. Technology and progress are geared towards efficiency. The focus is on making our lives faster and easier, making our consumption greater, eradicating any waiting. When it comes to grief, however, there are no shortcuts. There's no new gadget that allows us to bypass the suffering that comes with loss. There's no easy way out; there is only through. We have to sit with the ache. Grief teaches us that sometimes discomfort is a necessary part of progress.

When we're grieving, it can feel like we are shutting down. As if all parts of us are withdrawing, far away from the world that we'd previously inhabited; a world that made sense to us. And that may be true. But I think simultaneously, we are experiencing an opening. This withdrawal is also a removal of the interference and the distraction of everyday life. A distraction that often muffles our deeper connections and stifles the soul's voice. I believe in some way grief can allow us to get quiet and find a stillness where the whispers of spirit can come through. Where we are clear enough to hear them.

The first person I knew who died was my grandmother; I was 8 years old. Her favorite flowers were African violets, a fondness for which my mother acquired. My mom was never very good at keeping plants alive (I grew up with a lot of dead ferns hanging around), so when the African violet in our kitchen started to brown and wilt on the same day that Grandma died, I didn't think much of it. But then when we returned from her funeral a week later, miraculously, the flower was in full bloom again. As if it had been replaced by a new one. I remember my mom catching her breath when we walked into our kitchen to be greeted by this flower, now vibrant purple and thriving. Mom said simply, "Grandma’s here." I didn’t understand what she meant then. But I certainly do now.

To me, part of the reason these kinds of connections with our loved ones in spirit are so powerful is because there is no interference. That static has been removed. I look at them like direct, pure, unadulterated communications. In all of my experiences with this, as varied as the details may have been— the who, the what, the where, the when—there is always a consistency to the way it feels. Like a pure, all encompassing sensation that is more powerful than anything I've experienced in the physical world alone.

I've had lost loved ones reach out to me in varying ways. Through music, through other people, through psychics, through dreams, through random acts in the physical world. When I was writing my book Wake Me When You Leave, a memoir about losing my father to cancer, I felt the nudges from him constantly. Sometimes in small ways, like a brief sensation, a sense of ease or peace washing over me. And sometimes in very concrete and jarring ways, via otherwise inexplicable events.

One such event occurred when I was writing the chapter about a visitation dream I had with my father. The dream opens with a girl walking a horse on a sidewalk in a sort of idyllic suburban neighborhood. A horse on a sidewalk in the physical world is a somewhat unusual sight, but in the dream it was nothing out of the ordinary at all. At the time I was writing that chapter, we lived across the street from an elementary school in a flat in the Marina district of San Francisco. This part of the city has a sort of suburban feel— no traffic lights, only stop signs. Relatively quiet, wide, streets. I would write in our living room that had a big picture window overlooking the street outside. At this particular moment I was feeling discouraged about the whole project— the book and the film associated with it that I was trying to get off the ground. I remember shutting the computer and saying out loud, "This is just never going to happen. Horses on the sidewalk?! This is stupid and no one will get it. What am I thinking?!" Tears started to well up, when I heard a strange sound coming from outside on the street. I thought it sounded like… horses hooves on pavement. I couldn't and didn't believe my ears. Until the sound got louder and louder and I looked out that window and sure enough, there they were: Not one, but two policemen on horseback. One walking in the middle of the street and one on the sidewalk. Needless to say, there were never horses in our neighborhood (nor were there ever policemen for that matter). In fact I had never seen a horse anywhere in the city whatsoever. I jumped up, flabbergasted and mouth agape, as I watched them mosey on down the block like it was the most natural thing in the world. Clip clop, clip clop. I felt that all-encompassing sensation throughout my body, flushing through me. A heightened yet softened reality, and I sat back down with a reassurance. And kept writing.

Just before Wake Me When You Leave went to the printer, I was in the midst of doing my final author proofread when dear friends of ours experienced an unimaginable tragedy—the violent loss of a 9-year-old son. As a parent myself, this is the unthinkable. I don't know that anyone has the proper words to articulate what that kind of loss does to you. I think of my friends—the boy's mother and her partner—and their loss daily, sometimes hourly. I long to help them. I so deeply long to have the magic salve that will relieve this mother of her grief, and to be able to comfort her partner who had planned to become the boy's stepfather. My logical mind tries to assemble the perfect concoction of words that will alleviate their pain. But every time I attempt to, I am stung by the harsh reminder that I cannot take away a mother's grief. I can't pick up the pieces of her shattered heart. And I can't remove the weight her partner feels supporting her, while simultaneously trying to process his own trauma. I see that it feels insurmountable for them both. So I do what I believe is the only thing I can do to assist them through this unfathomable time: I check in with them, I tell them I love them and am thinking of them. I listen. I am a witness to their pain and I acknowledge it, trying to reflect back the fierce love they have for that boy. Neither of their lives will ever be the same. But how they will be different remains to be seen, and is up to them.

I've been told that when a child that young is taken from their mother so tragically, that they will return back to her. My heart deeply hopes this will be true for my friend. It is still very recent and so fresh, but there have already been inklings that perhaps he might. Shauna, the owner of The Crystal Shrine in Los Angeles, helped me choose some crystals and stones for my friend. All I told Shauna was that I had friend going through unimaginable grief and loss, and I wanted her to have something she could carry with her to help process her grief. Without knowing me or my friend and the specifics of her situation, Shauna said, "Oh. Was he very young? A little boy with dark hair? He's letting me know it's him." She went on to say that sometimes the spirits will come through to her like that, but not always. Shauna's own husband had died suddenly and unexpectedly years earlier, and she believes that he often helps her with this kind of work.

Children also seem to be closer to these sorts of connections. My daughter, who is now 8, has always had a very tangible connection to the other side. I've been told that she met my own father over there, that he held her in his arms, before she was born to me in this life. And when she was 4, she knew that my father-in-law had passed before anyone else did. Then, coming out of the shower just the other night, she told me she had a "crazy dream" that we got all dressed up to go and meet our friends' new baby— the friends who recently lost the child. "Why would we get dressed up to meet a baby??" she laughed, as if that was the strange part, and not the fact that our friends had privately just told us that they are thinking about having a baby. They know that having a baby will not replace their loss, nor will it extinguish their grief, but if my daughter's dreams are any indication—perhaps the soul of that boy will indeed come back to them.

I often picture my father on the other side laughing with a kind of giddy glee. Like he's urging me to let go of my tedious frustrations and fly— to understand that there is so much more than this physical world we inhabit. I think our loved ones long to reach us to share with us the peace and clarity to which they've moved on. To help ease our struggles in this life and free us from the multitude of attachments that we cling to within it. And the companionship their spirits can provide us while we walk the path of this life is an unrivaled kind of support. They can help us to know we are being looked after. That we are okay. That we are enough. That we are free. Although there is a huge emptiness we feel when our loved ones die, I do not believe that it is really the end. In saying that, I do not mean to disregard the deep feelings of loss; sitting with the stages of grief is vital to moving through and beyond them. For me, going through that painful process is how I eventually came to give it, and consequently my whole life, greater meaning. So yes, that loss changed my life forever, but perhaps that's part of the point of this life. If we can reframe how we look at loss, maybe we can shift its legacy into something beautiful.

Sometimes it still makes me sad to think of all of the things that my dad has missed in my life. There has been so much joy and so many big moments in recent years… But then I remember that he probably hasn't missed anything at all. He's been with me the whole time.

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2021. All rights reserved.

I have been dating this guy for a year and a half now. He won't get into a serious committed relationship because 11 years ago, his girlfriend died suddenly in his arms. He has never overcome the loss. He has dated here and there, but I am the first woman he has dated for a long period of time. Since I have been seeing him, I have had bizarre incidents happening to me. When I get frustrated with the relationship and decide I'm going to move on, my cell phone acts up such that when I try calling my friends, my phone ends up calling him even though I can see my friend's name in the phone as the contact. This has happened numerous times. I got a new phone and the problem continues: every time I start planning to move on, my phone keeps dialing him. I also have had problems with meeting new guys; I keeping hitting road blocks. Every time I meet someone new and we set up a date to meet for the first time, they disappear. That has happened several times. (This never happened to me before I met him.) One last thing: this summer, he gave me a small music box that just sits on my dresser. I never touch it. Several weeks ago, I was going through a box on my floor next to my dresser when all of a sudden, this music box let out four little notes. It hasn't been touched since the summer. I'm a little confused as to what may be going on. I mentioned all of this to him. In my heart I feel it's his girlfriend trying to push me to him, yet he keeps pushing me away from anything too serious. He tells me he loves me but is afraid of loss. He tells me she was a very sweet, kind and warm person. I don't know if this is all coincidence or what to make of it. I don't know what to do. I feel she wants him to move on and be happy, but it's not me with the problem. Could this really be happening?

Sherri

Susyn:

Is your boyfriend working on his own to heal and resolve this trauma? It's easy for someone to cite all sorts of reasons they are not ready to make a commitment; it's another to use their fears as a wall to keep people at bay. If he is actively working on this issue through therapy or treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD), there there is hope for your future together.

I would not be at all surprised if his girlfriend's spirit is trying to push you two together, though as you say, you are not the one who is hesitating. I've had similar experiences with dialing one number and having it call someone else, which can seem quite maddening. However, each time it happened, I too felt that spirit was directing me to connect with the person that my phone ended up dialing.

I have a clock that once belonged to my ex-husband. Years after his death, I was remodeling and started to move the clock to a safe place when it began to chime. I felt strongly that this was his way of communicating that he approved of what I was doing. I also had a music box that belonged to my grandmother, and after years of silence, it began to play one day very briefly. I later realized that this had occurred on her birthday. For these reasons, I agree that these are signs from his last girlfriend, and that she is trying to get the two of you together.

Though it may be hard to pull away when his girlfriend's spirit keeps pushing you toward him, given your particular situation, I do recommend continuing to distance yourself from him. When you pull back your energy, if he truly loves you, he will break through his fears and find a way to move things to the next level. Often, fear of losing what we have can motivate us to overcome issues from the past.

My suggestion is that you continue to stand back from the relationship. If things happen that lead the two of you to discuss getting back together, let him know that you won't see him again until he seeks help for his issues and is ready to make a commitment.

Despite the constant signs that his girlfriend wants the two of you together, she will have to work her influence on him, not you. The next time an incident like this occurs, stop, call her name, and say, You need to send these signs to him. He is the one you need to convince. If these same unexplained incidents were to start happening to him, he might finally realize that it is time to move on and that even his late girlfriend agrees.

*****

Oceania:

Having a girlfriend die unexpectedly in his arms took an emotional toll on your boyfriend, and he has not yet fully healed from that traumatic experience. He now associates love with literal heart break and death. That being said, his past is not your fault, and you should not have to pay for it.

Your frustration is understandable, as is your wanting to move on to someone whole and healthy who is capable of commitment. One way or another, we eventually lose everyone we love, but when people have truly grieved, they have renewed faith in their ability to cope with the next loss to come. Ironically, by trying to avoid loss, your boyfriend is ensuring that he will lose you sooner rather than later.

Whenever you pull away, he tries to hang on and maintain the status quo. He is comfortable with the way things are because you're the one doing all the accommodating. His self-centered attitude is interfering with you phoning your friends, but I have news for you: He couldn't do that unless a part of you is colluding with him!

All of us feel victimized in relationships at one time or another, but the fact is that no one has any power over us unless a teensie part of us aligns with our oppressor's viewpoint. A small part of you is willing to stay under any circumstances, which is why you don't fully seize your freedom. Once you make peace with the fact that this relationship is too little and unacceptable to you, your phone will start working again, and your dates will stop disappearing. The notes from the music box were a manifestation of your boyfriend tugging on you, trying to entice you to stay, but four notes are not enough! You deserve an entire symphony.

You have been excusing your choice to linger in this dead-end relationship by attributing roadblocks to leaving it to your boyfriend's ex. As I don't see her in this picture, I beg to differ when you say, It's not me with the problem. You have your own fears of commitment and loss or you'd be long gone by now. You and your boyfriend share more than a birthday; you're both also willing to settle for a half-baked relationship in order to feel safe.

There may also be an element of you hoping to be his hero, his angel, the special one he has kept around longer than those who came before you, but that's just an ego trip and waste of your time. Only he can heal himself. You might tell him to look you up when he has done so. I invite you to affirm the following: I release all blocks between myself and complete love.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.