Hello Friends:

It's still dark outside at 6 a.m. Twinkly lights dot the marina and the shoreline across the lake. The silence is comforting and so is my warm Ashwangandha and Moringa tea. August was an emotional take-down and writing for the public has caused me so much painful resistance. So this morning, I am asking for help from my daimon, beloved guide, Kuan Yin, as I devote these keystrokes and ideas to share this part of the unfolding in hopes it ignites something in you somehow.

I'll begin with a story.

Shortly after I was born, I lived with my father's parents in the Philippines while my own parents were sent to Seattle and world's fairs as part of my mother's family enterprise named Ponce's Creations. They sold those big wooden spoons, bayong bags made of straw, and monkeys made of coconut, which were really popular in the 70s and even 80s. The bags are making a come-back.

I lived with my Tita Dina, who considered me her little sister, and my grandfather Lolo Brisciliano and grandmother Lola Barbara in a modest home in a province just outside Manila. Lolo worked as a public attorney and Lola was a celebrated nurse in the maternity ward of the hospital. My Tita Dina was studying to be a doctor. From the few cyan-tinted photos that I have, it looked like a happy, loving family life. My younger sister lived with my mother's parents in their family compound in Manila filled with cousins, nannies, and social happenings, and would be driven to where I lived to play. She loved coming to our house so much, she wouldn't want to leave and caused a big fuss each time that her visits became fewer.

Then, when I was 6-ish, we were taken from our families and flown to Seattle to be with our mother, whom we didn't really know. We had to speak a different language, go to school with strangers, and after school hang out at the warehouse (now the Trader Joe's headquarters in Queen Anne). I often wondered where Tita Dina, Lolo and Lola were and if at some point, were coming to get me. According to my Tita many decades later when she finally found me (before the internet), they had been looking and were also devastated. We stayed in touch through Facebook (she would try to stay connected), but I couldn't let her in.

She left the bonds of her body on August 2, 2026 and it affected me more than I imagined. In this season of transition, disorientation, dismantling, and reclamation, it brought up a great deal that I had built a life over and around. It was one of the missing pieces that surfaced in this time of de-romanticizing and disillusionment. I don't regret that I didn't foster a better relationship because it was as I was and what I had capacity for over those years. I'm grateful for my aunt's presence, absence, presence in my life--it has made me who I am. I do take the lessons now and work towards nurturing the relationships that are real and life affirming. They haven't always been.

This time was followed by the Total Solar Eclipse and Leo New Moon on August 12th at 20-degrees in my 8th house of intimacy, death, rebirth, transformation, and inheritance. This didn't predict her death, but allowed me deeper contemplation about her and my family's influence in my life.

On August 28th, the Lunar Eclipse and Pisces Full Moon was at 4 degrees. This lands in my 3rd house of short-distance travel, communication, education, ideas, siblings, and close neighbors. Earlier in the month I decided to finally get off of social media with a deadline of August 31st to archive all my content, move to private platforms, and log off everywhere. I was struggling with writing. The one thing I do to process my experiences and I couldn't do it. I created mandala meditations, danced, watercolored, sailed, and still nothing. So I decided to put myself in a different environment to feel and listen.

Lost Girls Farm & Co-op

I thought of returning to Wild Candy Farm where I felt a deep connection to the land, but feared I'd be tempted to volunteer on the farm again. I searched for remote, but close lodgings, and one listing kept coming up, so I booked it for the weekend. When I arrived at my cheery tiny cabin, I was greeted with a text that asked if I'd like some sourdough bread, which could be delivered to my door in a few hours. Yes!

Karin met me at the gate and offered me a tour of the 10-acre land behind the cabins. They have goats, chickens, a sweet horse, and a market garden. Karin is especially passionate about food waste reduction and has so much expertise and enthusiasm around the black soldier fly larvae in composting and was eager to show me. The owners are a group of women friends, who sold their city homes to live on the Dripping Springs farm. Some are full-time police officers and detectives, who hunt wild game and process their own meat. They only hunt for food and want to teach other women this essential skill. I told them about Soil to Soul Commons and what I was trying to build and we had such lively conversations that they invited me to their Sunday family meal. It was what my soul was craving. They also introduced me to their neighbors, Ghost Note Brewers, for possible collaboration for my farm stop, as well as their neighbors, who own the adjacent 12 acres to consider for my intentional community.

I had gone there hoping that a change of scenery would help me find words. Ironically, there wasn't even a desk in the cabin. After weeks of sitting with the guilt of not having let a family member in, I found myself being invited through a farm gate and into a family dinner. I gratefully accepted all the blessings.

The Re-Entry of September

I returned home without the writing I had gone there to find, but feeling somehow less alone. With my spirit revived, I wanted to participate in life again. I volunteered for Adventure Sail, hosted by Sail Strong, which introduces girls to sailing. Fellow Ensign-owner David Morley and I prepared his boat Abaco. The girls took turns at the helm and trimmed the jib. Afterwards they enjoyed cooling water gun fights with the other sailors. I love introducing young people to experiences that just might change their lives.

"You can't be what you can't see." - Marian Wright Edelman

Speaking of role models (the perfect theme for Virgo Season), on September 10th, I attended "Funded and Fearless," a gathering at Canva hosted by Ladies Who Launch, founded by Sarah Friar, current CFO of OpenAI, and Kelly McGonigle Squier of Mutiny. My friend and former cohort colleague, Kim Roxie of LAMIK Beauty served as a moderator of the "Getting Into the Right Rooms and On the Right Shelves" panel for CPG founders. Elena Gomez, President & CFO of Toast also spoke alongside leaders from Bank of America, PeopleFund, Whole Foods, Boundless Futures Foundation and more.

It has been a while since I've attended a women's entrepreneurial event because my nervous system hasn't been up for large group socializing. I'm glad I attended. Many of the talks centered around how statistically women greatly benefit the world with their innovations and businesses, but receive less opportunity to funding. In the startup rooms I often mentored in, the majority of founders were men. Most of my clients have been successful men and I was privy to how the C-suite put systems, private gatherings, and practices in place for their own support and thriving. I was inspired by this event to champion women entrepreneurs with some of these behind-the-scenes insights. More on this later, but let's look at the upcoming opportunities told in the sky and on earth.

Cosmic Weather

Although August felt like an intense dismantling and release with the second eclipse season, September doesn't require us to have it all figured out. The Equinox brings us briefly to the threshold of equal light and dark before we cross fully into autumn (or spring in the Southern Hemisphere).

September 22 — Autumn Equinox | Sun enters Libra​
We arrive at the threshold between seasons, a brief equilibrium of light and dark before the descent into autumn. Libra asks what needs rebalancing, and what we may need to release to restore it. Libra is about relationships ruled by Venus and values.

September 26 — Full Moon at 3°37′ Aries​
This Full Moon illuminates the tension between belonging (Libra) and autonomy (Aries), between accommodating what already is and following an instinct toward something not yet fully known. With Neptune nearby, we may have to move without the certainty we usually need.

September 27 — Mars enters Leo​
Mars brings some fire back after the emotional waters of Cancer. Rather than asking What is my next goal?, perhaps the better question is: What feels worthy of my energy and participation now?

September 30 — Mercury enters Scorpio​
Mercury begins a long journey through Scorpio, including a retrograde later this fall. Our attention dives beneath the surface: less public-facing, more inquiry; less certainty, more willingness to have the conversations that reveal what is actually true.

One longer cycle to watch: Venus begins her retrograde journey through Scorpio on October 3, eventually returning to Libra before stationing direct November 13. She has been in the retrograde shadow since August 31st, so you're already likely feeling this. Venus governs relationship, value, money, pleasure and beauty; her descent through Scorpio (ruled by Mars) invites us beneath appearances to reconsider what, and whom, we genuinely value. The myths of Inanna's descent, Kali, or Durga might be worthy explorations for this season.

Our Personal Seasons Of Change

This year my progressed chart is in Pisces, which means that I am likely to experience more emotional, boundless, spiritual themes in 2026 versus the structured drivenness of my natal Capricorn self. This has felt maddening at times because my discipline, systems and tools have not been working for me. But when I surrender to faith, creativity, and gain evidence of trust in the unknown, I am provided for. The right people and places appear without my trying to make things happen.

My lifelines these months have been two books. One is On Our Knees: Loving Life Even When You Hate What's Happening by Regina Thomashauer, best known for her movement-inciting book as Mama Gena in Pussy: A Reclamation. This is her honestly raw personal account that taught her surrender as strength, pleasure as healing, and how to embrace the darkness. This book spoke to my love of mapping the goddess myths into our modern circumstances, and it was so helpful to hear how another woman navigated her heroine's journey.

The second is David Epstein's Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better. My Capricorn insists on having a voice in all of this emotional wateriness. I have been deconstructing the idea of "goals," which don't feel great in this post-capitalist system. However, boundaries (very Saturn!) and constraints have been the key to my getting anything done.

Goal: I know where I'm going.

Constraint: I don't know where I'm going yet, but I know the conditions within which I'm willing to discover it.

My unbounded Pisces doesn't mind this because it feels like banks along a river.

There is the paradox of limitless freedom hindering creativity and the stories in the book are brilliant examples. This has saved me from spiraling when I have absolutely no idea what to do next. This episode titled: "Why the Smartest People I Know Set Constraints, Not Goals," is motivating.

The Invitation

I've been living through this liminal space between identities, the strange purgatory with a worrying, questionable end time. Astrology gives me the image of the North Node: movement toward unfamiliar territory where we haven't yet developed fluency. The South Node shows what is familiar--patterns, capacities, and ways of being we already know how to inhabit. The North Node pulls us toward development, which means there is necessarily a stretch of not knowing.

Maybe we need places of acceptance where we aren't required to know.

That's part of why I created The Clearing.

I've been creating immersive experiences for more than twenty years--from yoga and culinary retreats in Italy to wellness and creativity gatherings closer to home, alongside decades of producing large-scale events for corporations. I love what happens when we step outside our familiar surroundings long enough to encounter ourselves, and one another, a little differently.

But on November 6–8, I'm doing something different.

3 Days. 6 People. No performance, goals or becoming a better version of yourself.

Through a farm experience, movement, restoration, listening, creativity, nourishment, and solace, we return to ourselves. The trees, lake, trails, harvest, and paintbrush aren't asking you to figure anything out. Nothing here requires a breakthrough.

It is located at Wild Candy Farm in Wimberley, TX, the same place I apprenticed at in July to de-romanticize farm-living, gaining stamina, strength, healing, and confidence.

Each guest will be chosen with care—not only for what has brought you to this threshold, but for the quality of presence, curiosity, and generosity you may offer one another. It is a rare privilege to bring this particular group together, and I have a sense that the relationships formed here may extend well beyond our weekend at the farm. At least it's my hope.

Applications are now open. For those who feel ready to join us, the early invitation rate is available through October 19.

Thank you for reading this far. I know your time is valuable and I hope you have found something here that is helpful on your path.

As always, you can Book a session if you'd like some cosmic guidance or strategy. Past and recurring clients get 20% off all single sessions. Reply to this email for the code :)

Love, plants, & planets,

Monica