The Pledge: On My Mystical Marriage to Jesus
Aquarius New Moon: January 21, 2023
peaking at 3:53 P.M. EST
happening at 1°33’ Aquarius
click links above for timezone converter & to check the placement in your chart
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I was sitting still, but my body was moving at sixty miles per hour, held inside a black SUV. The truck in front of me was white. It had eighteen wheels and a number printed on its back. The number was stamped twice in huge black letters - one on each door - 352, 352. And even as the truck fell below the speed limit, I found myself staying right behind it, almost like I was unable to switch lanes, like the numbers were magnetized, keeping me close.
And so it was on a summer morning that I drove, staring at the numbers on the back of a white freight truck and somehow knowing: those numbers are important. I repeated them in my mind - 352, 352, 352 - so I wouldn’t forget.
When I got home, I entered number 352 into my planetary mapping software, and I saw that on the day that I was born, the asteroid numbered 352 was aligned in the sky at fifteen degrees Gemini. And I saw that on today of all days, it was back in the exact same spot: at 15 degrees Gemini. And knowing the rates and paces of planetary movements, I knew that this was rare, and it felt special, like a sign - like a literal, physical sign that was placed in front of my face on the highway - and I wondered: What does it mean?
Prior to then, I’d never even heard of asteroid 352, but now I found myself diving deep into its name, its etymology, and any message it might have for me.
I learned that asteroid 352 is named Gisela.
A name that means pledge, as in to pledge, to make a solemn promise.
And as I read those words, I looked down at the ring on my right ring finger, and I noticed that my skin was flaking, dry around the solid gold band.
It was summer, and the air was full of water, and my skin wasn’t dry anywhere else, but right there - around the ring - my skin was so dry and irritated that it was a gross, flaking mess. Like it was tired or struggling or stressed.
And as I looked at the ring, I remembered how it got there, and I remembered the promise I made, the one I was struggling to keep - because it was scary, because I didn’t know exactly what to do with it, because…it didn’t really matter the reason. The point is that that day I was being reminded: You made a promise. You have to keep it.
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Close your eyes,
take a slow, deep breath,
count to three,
let it all go.
Okay,
let’s continue.
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The ring was forged sometime in the early 1800s. Its gold band was engraved with wild roses that seem to be rising up towards the center, holding a stone that at times appears black and at others, dark red, and when the sun hits it just right, it cast an amber glow.
I don’t know all the fingers on which the ring’s been worn, but I know that in 1939, after my great-grandfather’s death, his daughter gave the ring to my grandma, and in 2015, when my grandma died, her daughters gave the ring to me.
It arrived at my apartment in Brooklyn, and I placed it on a marble table and said a little prayer over it, trusting that now, when I slipped it on my finger, it would always protect me.
It only fit on one finger - my left ring finger - so that’s where I wore it.
For years, I wore the ring every day, only taking it off to shower. Then, one morning, three years later, I stepped out of the shower, and when I went to put the ring back on my left ring finger, I couldn’t get it past my knuckle. That day - for the first day in years - I didn’t wear the ring. A few hours later, my boyfriend knelt down before me and opened a red ring box. Inside was a diamond engagement ring, and when I said yes, I placed this new ring on my left ring finger and smiled at the fact that my hand had seemed to somehow know to make space for it.
Afterwards, my family ring - the gold ring, which was unable to fit on any other finger - stayed safe inside my jewelry box.
A year passed before I finally had the ring resized. A jeweler stretched the band as much as he could, and when he was done, I could finally wear it again. However, I wasn’t ready.
I had just gotten married, and I was still adjusting to the weight of the two rings now on my left hand. I was adjusting to the commitment, the promise, the pledge they represented: to practice loving my husband every day for the rest of my life. Because that’s what marriage is: not a fix, not a salve, not a snapshot of being in love, but a commitment to open your heart to the perpetual becoming of not just yourself but of another person. More than that, it’s a vow to open your heart to the evolution of your commingled becoming, like two trees, each growing in their own direction but connected deep in the earth by a complex fungal system, secretly passing information between their roots.
I think maybe with people - rather than a fungal system - what connects us is a bright, loving light. A light that is almost always invisible but there nonetheless, secretly passing information about where I am and where you are and where we can go, together. And it was this light that was shining during my marriage ceremony - caught on camera as I spoke my vows - and it was this light I was processing for months after the wedding, as it made its way through my body and his, and together, we became one.
And this is why, I think, that even after my family ring was resized, I didn’t wear it.
It took time to process the light, to process the ceremony.
And it took time for me to be ready to accept even more light, to make space for yet another ceremony. This time, wholly unexpected. There was no proposal, no year of planning. There was simply what happened one year and forty nights after my wedding.
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I awoke at 4:44 in the morning.
I awoke to a whispering echo, a voice repeating: Your coronation is coming.
It felt powerful, but otherwise, I didn’t think anything of it. I accepted it for whatever it meant and closed my eyes and tried to fall back asleep.
That’s when, in my mind’s eye and I think, also in my energetic body / my astral body / my soul body / whatever you want to call it: I was transported.
My head and body were draped in white fabric, and my face was aglow. I stood at the center of a mystical throne room, and before me, I saw Jesus, and that night, he guided me through a ceremony - a healing - and he placed a gold ring on my right ring finger.
It wasn’t quite time, he told me, but it was coming. Soon.
And it’s maybe worth mentioning at this point that when this happened, I had never heard of the throne room of heaven. I had no idea that this was an image referenced in the Bible and in other mystical accounts. It was simply…what I saw.
Soon, he’d told me.
And then, seventeen days later, I experienced the ceremony, the healing yet again, but this time, it wasn’t just a vision in my mind. It was a full body experience that hit me like a bolt of loving lightning.
It was the middle of the afternoon. I was wide awake, performing an Aquarius full moon ritual that quickly, intuitively became a physical expression of this ceremony, and during, I was tossed into the throes of a bliss so profound that I felt it through my entire being. And during this ceremony - my “coronation” as he called it - I was guided to use the family ring as the gold ring that was placed on my right ring finger.
That was on August 3, 2020, and the full moon that day fell ten degrees from where this Aquarius new moon is falling now in January 2023.
And now, I wear this gold ring not just as a symbol of protection, but of something more. For me, it represents the promise I made that day to myself and to Jesus and to everyone in that throne room and to God. And my god, those are words I never thought I would say.
Unlike my earthly marriage, this spiritual marriage is not something I spent time consciously thinking about, preparing for, or considering. It just…happened.
In hindsight, I can see how my experiences had been building to it and foreshadowing it for years, but it wasn’t something I consciously sought. It was simply offered to me, and it felt like a privilege, a gift. I didn’t for a moment question it. I just agreed. Like, sign me up! Let’s see where this goes.
And over the last two plus years, it’s taken me to beautiful places and challenging places, and it’s very much been like a marriage. Except, it’s one that for the most part, I have not been comfortable talking about. I’ve shared bits and pieces of it, but mostly, I have wanted to keep the light of this marriage a secret. Mostly because it’s been a big light to process, and it’s taken me years.
My spiritual marriage to Jesus is something I experienced with no prior knowledge about the long history of these experiences, and it’s often just felt really big and a little crazy, and I haven’t always known what to do with it.
I’ve honestly had a lot of resistance around it - not in my heart, but in my intellectual, logic-loving mind.
I’m not a Christian. I wasn’t raised Christian. I have a lot of feelings about Christianity that aren’t particularly positive, and the reality is that I don’t even experience Jesus as being Christian. Everything I’ve ever experienced with him has simply felt like an expression of some holy absolute versus any single belief system.
That said, in my intellectual mind, it’s been very easy to get stuck on the Jesus of it all, and at times, that’s been confusing, and it’s led me to ask a lot of questions of myself and of God and of science and of religion, and the resistance has sometimes been so strong that the skin around my ring has become dry and flaky, like part of me was physically rejecting this marriage.
It took me a year of seeing Jesus and having this ring on my finger before I even reached out to someone in the Christian community to see what they may know about experiences like these, and it was only then that I learned that bridal mysticism is totally a thing. Apparently, a number of female saints hundreds of years ago reported these experiences, and learning this definitely helped me feel a little less crazy and a little less alone, and the person who taught me about bridal mysticism recommended a book for me to read. I ordered it right away and then…I didn’t read it.
Behold, the resistance!
Then, last week, almost exactly a year from when I bought the book, it started calling me close, like it was magnetized, like the numbers on the back of the truck. So, I started reading it, and I have to tell you, this book is blowing my mind.
Every page is full of wild synchronicities, and it’s like someone is describing so much of what I’ve experienced but through different words and an educated understanding that’s steeped not just in experience but in traditions going back…hundreds? Thousands of years?
And as I was making my way through the beginning of this book, my hands were just…so dry, constantly dry, painfully dry.
It’s winter. It makes sense. I don’t think my dry hands are some spiritual manifestation. However, a strange thing kept happening with my dry hands that has led me to share all of this with you now.
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Last week, during the Cancer full moon time, I kept casually removing my weddings rings - the one to my husband and the one to God - and I’d slather my hands with lotion. Then, without even thinking about it, I’d put my rings back on my fingers and continue doing whatever I was doing only to look down moments later and realize that I’d switched my rings. I’d mistakenly put my husband’s ring on my right hand and God’s ring on my left. And this kept happening, again and again, for multiple days in a row, and every time I noticed, I’d gasp, like “Ah! It’s not supposed to be like that.” And I’d switch ‘em back.
This swapping of the rings felt like another big message because for year, I have been removing these rings - to take a shower, to put on some lotion - and I have never made this mistake before. But last week, it just kept happening. Day after day. Like I was being reminded of my commitments, especially my commitment to God, which I’ve often tried to hide for fear of judgment but mostly, from lack of conviction, an unwillingness to cross the line towards full acceptance and belief. But what became clear last week was that, I can’t keep hiding this and just how big it is in my life and in my work.
I can’t keep pretending that I haven’t made this commitment.
I can’t keep suggesting that I don’t believe or that that’s even an option for me.
I believe.
I don’t have facts or proof. I don’t have science. But I have faith.
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Jesus came to me, and he guided me through a ceremony, and he placed a gold ring on my right ring finger, and I made a promise then. It wasn’t phrased like a promise, but it was a promise, and it was quite simple. I promised that from that day forward what was in him would be in me and what was in me would be in him. And with that, I became married to this ongoing exchange and oneness between us - this ongoing sharing and learning and growing and being. Just like in any other marriage.
And while I learned about bridal mysticism about a year ago, I honestly still don’t know much about. I haven’t even really looked into it - because: lots of resistance - but I just looked it up now and was shocked to read this description: “The mystical marriage consists in a vision in which Christ tells a soul that he takes it for his bride, presenting it with the customary ring, and the apparition is accompanied by a ceremony.”
So, I am not alone. I even just saw in the Google search results all of these pieces of art depicting the mystical wedding between Jesus and St. Catherine of Alexandria, and as I saw the paintings I was like, Yeah, pretty much, that was it.
But even as I write this, my mind starts to qualify everything. Like, yes, it’s very strange that I had this experience that has been explicitly written about and portrayed, yet I knew nothing about it. But then, again, maybe I did. Maybe I was tapping into the collective unconscious around all of this or maybe I studied these things or experienced them in a past life or maybe…maybe…maybe…I could maybe every single spiritual experience to death. But what if instead…I don’t. What if, I just trust it. What if I just let myself believe.
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I’m telling you all this because I feel called to, but also because, I am not alone, and on this Aquarius new moon, we are all being guided to unite with something or someone larger than ourselves.
This is a marriage moon.
On this moon, the planet Jupiter and the asteroid Juno are conjunct. In mythology, Jupiter and Juno were husband and wife, and astrologically, Jupiter is all about expansion and blessings, and Juno is about marriage and loyalty and commitment.
Now is when our commitments are growing, and this could mean a lot of things. For some, it could show up as a new partnership or a strengthening of marital bonds. It could also show up as the end of any partnership that ultimately goes against a greater commitment you’ve made, a commitment to yourself. The point is: this moon is about a mass expansion of our loyalty to that which matters most to us.
Ultimately, this time is about your personal marriage to your capital-s Self. The self that is bigger than any single name or any single identity. This is the self that spreads like bright white light between all beings everywhere, and you may try to resist it or deny parts of it and parts of yourself, but now is when you can fearlessly break through that resistance and embrace the promises your soul has made for you.
We are all learning something really big about love during this time (as Uranus goes direct and Venus crosses Saturn).
We are being initiated into a great personal transformation that is fueled and shaped by love.
A love that binds us all. Like we are all married to each other.
And please, please, let this love be wild. Let your love be wild. Do not judge it. Do not shame it. Love what you love. Love whom you love, for love is always a gift, and it doesn’t have to make sense, and it doesn’t have to fit into your preconceived ideas about who you are or what you believe or even what you think is possible.
It simply is.
It will simply come to you with such purity and clarity that even when your mind presents a million reasons to reject it, your heart will just say yes.
Yes to more love.
Yes to soul callings.
Yes to the commitments you make with ease and grace and without hesitation because they are so true to your heart and to who you are that there is no other answer but yes.
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By the end of this cycle, you will be able to look back and think about this pledge you’re making now. Maybe it’s happening subconsciously as you read. Maybe it shows up in your new moon ritual. Maybe it happens later…with the full moon on February 5th.
Everything happening now is carrying us through February. Through the full moon when the marriage asteroid crosses Chiron and towards the Pisces new moon on February 20th, which I have already been getting so many messages about that I’m just like woah…okay. Something’s coming.
This new moon time stretches from January 21 through February 4, but the commitment you make now will stay with you, acutely through February, and leading to a big reveal with the Aquarius full moon in August. And that moon? It’s falling where the moon was on August 3, 2020, when I was filled with bliss and love and an unwavering commitment to just keep loving, to keep opening my heart to my own spiritual becoming and to God’s becoming even when it’s hard, even when I feel like we’re in a fight, even when it doesn’t all make sense.
So just keep opening your heart, like wild roses rising to hold the stone at the center of the ring, and you will find, I think, something strangely divine and precious right there, at the center of all things.
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To be continued…
Long Story Short:
This new moon is a MARRIAGE MOON! Woo! This is a celebration of some deep commitment, the commitment of all commitments: the one you’ve made to yourself. As this commitment deepens, it’s bound to rock and shake and change your pre-existing and new relationships. See: weddings, engagements, new romance, divorce, business pairings, friendship, all of the above. Now is when you are transformed - in your mind - and this allows you to expand through your heart. Just keep loving, keep honoring yourself, keep honoring the love that binds us all, and as you do, the things that matter most will rise to the top and the rest will fall away, and that is wonderful. That is how it should be. That is just God being God and all things flowing together towards the center point where everything seems to rest in complete harmony and stillness while simultaneously rapidly, always changing and moving forward. Amen.
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