A Diamond in the Desert
Aries Full Moon: September 29, 2023
Chapter 120
A Diamond
in the Desert
Sept 29 – Oct 13
The capsule barreled towards the earth at 27,650 miles per hour. It moved so quickly it became enveloped in a ball of fire.
Hot, hot, hot — the scientists had to let it cool on the surface of the earth before they dared to touch it.
Inside, they expected to find approximately 8.8 ounces of primordial matter — rocks and dust 4.5 billion years old, once loosely held against the surface of the asteroid Bennu but now held here, in Utah’s desert dirt.
They lifted the capsule from the sand and placed it in a clean room, filled it with nitrogen gas, and secured it on a plane to Texas. There, it was cleaned once more before being safely delivered to a lab in Building 31.
Throughout Building 31, in carefully constructed drawers and canisters, there are rocks from the moon and other materials collected from space. Astromaterials, they call them. All the while never forgetting that we too are made of star stuff. Our bodies, this screen, the desert sand all came from the same primordial matter — so they believe — as whatever rocks are held inside the capsule. And the rocks, they think, just may hold the secret to the origins of life on Earth, the origins of…us.
Slowly, carefully, the capsule is opened, and what was collected is revealed.
☆
My head was screaming, throbbing. I had to lie down.
The date: July 12, 2020.
The time: 11:42 a.m.
It was 1,683,313 minutes before the capsule was scheduled to land, and while the scientists were already expecting its arrival, I knew nothing of its existence. All I knew was that my head was pounding, that outside, the coronavirus moved freely through the streets of New York, and inside, my husband was working from the couch, my cat was curled up beside him, and I had to lie down.
I closed my eyes, my body cushioned by the quilt atop our queen-sized mattress.
Here, my mind became a portal to everything happening where my feet couldn’t go. It saw farther, it traveled farther. From the confines of my 750 square-foot apartment, I journeyed that day — to space.
I didn’t mean to go. I hadn’t booked a ticket on a rocket ship. I hadn’t marked my calendar or packed my bags. All I did was get a headache — an excruciating headache — and decide to lie down.
With eyes closed, I soared above the surface of the earth. I flew higher and higher, out beyond the Kármán line, into the black void of space. There, I floated above the earth. I raised my arm and placed my palm against the dark, open space.
When I lowered my arm back to my side, I was surprised to see a large golden diamond now hovering where my hand had been. It was radiating, active, spewing golden dust from its golden surface. The dust curved out into space and fell down to Earth, coating the surface of the Earth in its golden glow.
“This is the start of a new golden age.”
I heard the words and perhaps they should have startled me, made my eyes flash open and wonder: Where did that voice come from? Who was that?
But instead, I just stayed in bed, eyes closed, resting and watching and listening to the world outside, far beyond the confines of my city apartment.
Slowly, eventually, my eyes fluttered opened and my headache was gone.
☆
Approximately 141,120 minutes later, fall had arrived. It was October 18, 2020. The virus was still swarming outside, and I was still staying mostly inside, my feet contained within the thirteen walls of my apartment.
“Times They Are A-Changin’” was playing through the living room speakers as I stepped out of the shower.
Come writers and prophets
who prophesize with your pen
I felt pulled towards a small pink journal — four by six — tucked inside my nightstand drawer. I unraveled the braided tassel wrapped around its cover and thumbed through the pages until I found my entry from July 12, 2020 — the day I saw the diamond in the sky.
As I read the words, I felt as though something was pulling on my stomach — at the top, by my solar plexus, just beneath my sternum and beside my heart. I felt as though I was being pulled back, back to space, back to the diamond in the sky.
And keep your eyes wide
the chance won’t come again
I fell back on my bed, the journal loose in my hand. And just like that, I returned. I saw the golden diamond there — out beyond the earth but not too far. And I found myself chanting before it. Almost as if I was praying at its feet, and there, at the feet of the golden diamond, I chanted for prosperity, for abundance, for joy.
Two days later and approximately 200 million miles away, the spaceship OSIRIS-REx approached the asteroid Bennu. It gently touched down on its surface, collected a small sample of rocks and dust, and placed it securely in a capsule aboard the ship.
☆
On the morning of October 21, 2020, the news was spreading quickly:
NASA’s OSIRIS-REX Mission Touches Bennu Asteroid
My husband, knowing my love for the stars, called me to the television. I sat in awe as I watched the celestial footage and heard the experts describe the asteroid:
The asteroid Bennu is shaped like a diamond, and unlike most of the asteroids in our solar system — which are located in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars — Bennu is close by, at times its even closer to us than the moon.
And the asteroid, scientists were learning, is not what they expected. It is not a hard, solid tiny planet-like thing. Rather, it is soft. Soft to the touch. And the moment OSIRIS-REx tapped its surface, some of the rocks comprising Bennu’s diamond-like shape suddenly flew off, out into space.
Scientists now know that not only is Bennu soft, but it is active, regularly spewing its dust into space. As it radiates, the dust curves through the air like this:
My eyes opened wider. The curved lines of this space diamond’s dust were just like those I saw in July, and I wondered: Why was it that three days ago, just before the spaceship touched down on Bennu, I was called back to that vision, called to return to space, to stand before the diamond and pray?
The experts continued:
Because of Bennu’s surprisingly soft surface, the mission to collect the sample was far more challenging than expected. It wasn’t what we prepared for. It wasn’t even what we built the ship for, so we weren’t sure it was going to work. The odds seemed stacked against us, but it worked!
The spacecraft will stay around Bennu, collecting footage before heading back to Earth. Then, in about three years, if all goes well, we’ll have the sample in the capsule to study.
☆
I could have chalked it up to coincidence. I could have assumed that all I had seen was just in my imagination and surely, it wasn’t connected to this very real, tangible thing. But…I didn’t do that. Instead, I splendored in the fact that I had seen a diamond in the sky, I observed how it was spewing dust, I sensed that it was sending its dust to us, and I returned to pray before it — all while, unbeknownst to me, this NASA mission was transpiring.
As I watched the news that morning, I felt sure that what I’d seen was somehow related to this. I looked at a map of the sky, and I saw that on that day, the sun was crossing the very same point in the sky where Bennu was when I was born. And…I started to believe: a golden age is coming.
The dust will fall to Earth.
Coating the surface of the earth.
Turning everything to gold.
☆
Years passed. The virus retreated to the realm of the manageable. I moved out of New York City and into a home in Ohio. I planted a rose in the garden. Two years later, I planted a basil sprout in the same spot. It grew as large as a tree, and the visions continued, building upon each other one after the next. All suggesting an influx of golden light spreading across the earth — the coming of a golden age — but on the news, there’s been war, floods, fires, fascism.
It’s a very weird time to be alive, my friend and I say practically in unison. He asks me for my insight and what I think is going to happen, noting that over the years, I’ve always seemed to know. But now I tell him honestly, I have no idea. The world feels like a spinning top, spinning out of control. I see visions of golden light and it ultimately all seems positive, but who the heck knows.
☆
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'
For the loser now
will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’
☆
On September 24, 2023, the capsule came roaring into the earth’s atmosphere, held inside a ball of fire.
In Utah, cheers rang through the desert.
In Ohio, I sat on the couch, watching Love at First Sight on Netflix.
The image of a clocktower catches my attention. I hit pause and snap a pic of the screen. It looks just like the clocktower on the cover of the ancestry publication my mom sent me in July 2020, five days before my vision of the golden diamond in the sky. But, it’s probably nothing. Doubt convinces me that I’m looking for meaning in a world spinning out of control.
The next day, I turn to a blank page and start writing this chapter. I start remembering the vision of the golden diamond. My email pings, and I see my mom has sent me something about the same ancestor who was featured in the July 2020 publication. And truthfully, I can’t remember the last time she sent me anything about him, but here she was, emailing me about him again, just like she did then.
In 2020, the clocktower led me to learn all about Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee (for that’s why the tower was built). And as I was recounting the vision of the golden diamond above, I wondered if maybe the message I heard then — the start of a new golden age — was all in my head. Maybe the word “golden” was simply on my mind because I’d recently been reading about the golden jubilee.
Then, I clicked on the word “astromaterials” hyperlinked in the article about the capsule landing in the desert. And when I click, another article opens, declaring in its title that “We may be in a ‘golden age’ of sample return space missions.”
The phrase “golden age” is emphasized by quotes. I feel the words reaching towards me, waving as if to say hello! you heard correctly! But having endured years of waiting, I keep my excitement at bay.
All day it’s like this: I see a sign, and I resist the urge to attach meaning. I explain it away as coincidence, as if years of living haven’t already taught me that there is no such thing.
Because truthfully, despite all the magic and synchronicity and visions and accurate knowings that have continued to flow nonstop over the last three years, the world, to me, has mostly felt like it’s been held in a swirl or uncertainty, as if resting between timelines and competing universes, or perhaps…I wonder now…it’s simply been held inside a tiny, airtight capsule aboard a spaceship that up until this point, has been flying millions of miles away.
☆
On September 29, 2023, the contents of the capsule will be under analysis as scientists prepare to release some preliminary results on October 11th.
I look to the sky, to where the rocks and dust once were. I see a full moon rising, peaking at 5:57 a.m est on the morning of September 29th. I see that the moon is falling at the same point in the sky (6° Aries) where it was on July 12, 2020, when I saw the golden diamond in my mind, and where it was years later, on February 5, 2022, when I looked up and saw the diamond again. But this time, it wasn’t in my mind. It was here, on Earth.
Like the capsule, the diamond arrived, hidden in a fiery blaze, but once the fire cooled, the image was clear — first came fire, then came gold:
☆
I look at the sun and see that on this full moon, it is aligned at the same point in the sky as the asteroids named Golden and Jubilee.*
Could it be real? I want to pinch myself, see what part of this swirl might stop spinning and anchor itself into place.
Then I see, all within five degrees of the sun, the other asteroids: Pallas Athena, Rosa, Io, Elpis, Destinn, and Porta Coeli.
Taken together, these full moon asteroids roughly translate to mean:
The genius rose flower of hope and destiny,
a portal to heaven, on this golden jubilee.
For on this harvest moon, the dust is received. Our celestial harvest is collected, and we are starting to see all it has to give.
And my, oh my! It’s so much more than we expected. Not just a sample of rocks and dust, 4.5 billion years old, collected from a soft spot in space. But really, there’s something glowing and golden there, preparing to coat the earth.
For this is the start of a new golden age.
This is when the impossible becomes possible.
☆
Harvest Moon
Reflection & Ritual
This Aries full moon connects back to the Aries new moon time from March 21–April 5. What arose in your life then? What intentions did you set? Reflect back on your calendar, your journal, wherever a record is kept and see what was happening in your life. Maybe even wait and do this reflection at the end of this full moon period (October 13). That way, you’ll be able to see all of the connections between then and now without fearing that you’re creating them.
For you are not alone. You are not creating in isolation. Time itself is beautifully woven. Our past influences our future and our future influences our past. And like the god Bennu for whom the asteroid is named, we are rising like a phoenix from the ashes, through the fire, becoming something golden.
You might also want to look and see what was happening for you around July 12, 2020, October 20, 2020, and February 5, 2022. (These were all big Bennu/Diamond message days for me.)
And, as always, you can go to the Library of Rituals, and use the divination video to choose your full moon ritual, or…you can do the ritual that has been flashing in my mind ever since I started writing this chapter: Genius Restored.
Enjoy! And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or desire a private session, I am here.
Until next time, when the moon passes between the earth and the sun, and a fiery, golden ring is seen in the sky.
As I type that now, I’m seeing this ring like the one on my finger…like, a wedding band.
Eclipses are coming.
☆
To be continued…
Long Story Short:
As we enter this harvest period (now through October 13), NASA is celebrating the successful capture of its harvest from the asteroid Bennu. A capsule containing its rocks and dust safely returned to Earth, and I don’t know what it will bring. All I know is that long before I ever heard of Bennu or knew anything about this NASA mission, I had visions of a golden diamond out in space. I saw its dust falling to earth, and I was told it would bring a new golden age, the start of our golden jubilee. What I saw very closely aligns with this mission, and I think…maybe, just maybe…this actually is the start of a whole new golden age. I won’t pretend to know exactly what that means, but that is what I’ve heard, and on this full moon? The sun just so happens to be conjunct the asteroids Golden and Jubilee…almost like it’s a sign, telling us something. Prepare to celebrate!
The Tip Jar
The Magic Guide is a calling I answer every time I sit to write. Every month, I spend countless hours creating it, and I couldn’t do it without you. If you enjoyed this story, please consider donating or becoming a member. Thank you.
*Well, Jubilatrix to be precise. Asteroid #652.
