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Their teachings thread through the affirmation, gratitude, and practice that follow — and you are invited to tap each card to reveal its full letter when you arrive below.
Today, softly, the body offers the tender first small celebrating — lighting a marigold-bright joy for the life she has been given, and for every life that has touched her own.
The sacred twenty-third morning is All Souls’ Day, and in Mexico and many other places the second day of the Día de los Muertos — the Day of the Dead, when families gather at graves and home altars with marigolds, candles, music, and the favorite foods of their beloved dead. It is a festival not of sorrow but of joyful remembrance. It is Monday, the Moon’s own day, and the waning crescent Moon glows in Leo, the sign of joy and the heart.
After yesterday’s forgiving comes the celebrating. Celebrating is not, faithfully, ignoring sorrow. She is the brave decision to honor life — ours and theirs — with color, music, laughter, and love. The affirmation names the practice: let joy be part of remembrance.
Today, I give thanks for the gift of being alive — for this breath, this morning, this body, and for every person, living or gone, whose love has made my life brighter.
Life is short and precious, and the ones we have lost remind us of that. The Day of the Dead teaches a beautiful lesson: remembering the dead with joy makes us cherish the living — and our own lives — even more. Today’s gratitude is simply for being here.
The chronic cultural pull is to save celebration for big occasions — and to treat ordinary days as something to get through. Today’s gratitude honors the older wisdom of the festival: every day of life is worth celebrating, with marigolds and music if we can.
Today’s Sun carries this exactly — the sacred first-sun-daughter riding bareback on a white horse beneath a radiant golden sun, her arms flung wide, a crown of marigolds in her hair, tall sunflowers nodding over the garden wall behind her, an orange banner streaming in the wind, a sprig of lavender woven among the marigolds. She does not wait for permission to rejoice. She simply rides out into the light.
The rare embodied capacity for tender feminine celebration — the body who can, softly, let herself feel joy without guilt, delight in being alive, and honor her beloved dead with color and laughter as well as tears.
The waning crescent Moon in Leo on her own Monday brings a particular invitation to the body: let yourself enjoy something. Leo is the sign of play, creativity, and the warm, open heart. Even as the Moon’s light shrinks toward the New Moon, Leo keeps a little flame of joy alive.
The waning crescent is usually a time for rest and quiet. But rest and joy are not opposites — a slow morning, a favorite song, a sweet treat shared with a friend can be both restful and celebratory. The Moon also forms a friendly sextile to Venus, retrograde in Libra, adding beauty, affection, and a love of small pleasures.
The newly-begun cycle carries, faithfully, its words so far: kindling → meeting → claiming → seeking → hoping → grounding → steadying → resolving → belonging → envisioning → intuiting → surrendering → renewing → standing → flourishing → savoring → sharing → reconnecting → choosing → homecoming → honoring → forgiving → celebrating. Yesterday’s forgiving lightens the heart, and the lightened heart can celebrate.
Today asks the body one small practice: allow one small celebrating. One small song sung. One small treat savored. One small toast raised to life — yours, and those you love.
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A card from the deck
Today the waning crescent Moon glows in Leo, the sign of joy and the heart, on her own Monday — All Souls’ Day and the Day of the Dead, when the departed are welcomed with marigolds, candles, and music. She sends a friendly sextile to Venus in Libra. A day for celebrating life, and the lives that shaped ours.
Today’s sacred framings: Sacred First-Celebrating · Sacred Moon-Day · Sacred Waning-Crescent-Moon · Sacred Moon-in-Leo · Sacred All-Souls · Sacred Moon-Sextile-Venus · Sacred Twenty-Third-Morning.
Waning Crescent Moon in Leo on Moon-dayand the sacred geometry of the body’s tender first small celebrating
The Moon, now a waning crescent around 40–48% illuminated, moves through the later degrees of Leo. The Sun rests at Scorpio 10°. She rises in the small hours after midnight and lingers in the morning sky, a shrinking bow of light.
In Leo the Moon is warm, expressive, and generous, and she forms a friendly sextile to Venus, retrograde in Libra, bringing affection and a love of beauty. Mercury remains retrograde in Scorpio. Today is Monday, the Moon’s own day — a day traditionally linked with feeling, home, and the body’s rhythms. It is also All Souls’ Day and the Day of the Dead.
Somatically: Leo crescent days can bring a gentle, playful energy — less fiery than the full Leo Moon, but still warm. The small lift of a favorite song, the small spark of laughter at an old family joke, the small glow of a candle beside a marigold. Let the heart open to delight, even in the midst of memory.
The sacred art the body practices today: not forcing cheer, not avoiding grief, just warm celebrating. The Sun teaches this exactly — the sacred first-sun-daughter riding bareback on a white horse beneath a radiant golden sun, her arms flung wide, a crown of marigolds in her hair, tall sunflowers nodding over the garden wall behind her, an orange banner streaming in the wind, a sprig of lavender woven among the marigolds. She rides into the light, and the light rides with her.
The twelve currents today
Tap any sign for today's reading.
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light!
— Edna St. Vincent Millay, “First Fig”
Edna St. Vincent Millay — born in Rockland, Maine, in 1892, the eldest of three daughters raised by a mother who worked as a traveling nurse and filled their small house with books and music; who first won fame at nineteen with her poem “Renascence”; who lived boldly in Greenwich Village after college at Vassar; and who became, in 1923, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry — published “First Fig” in 1920, and it appeared in her collection A Few Figs from Thistles. She died in 1950.
My candle burns at both ends; it will not last the night; but ah, my foes, and oh, my friends — it gives a lovely light! In four short, playful lines, Millay celebrates a life lived brightly and fully, even knowing it cannot last forever. The poem became a motto for a whole generation of young women in the 1920s. It is a cheerful answer to the shortness of life: not fear, but radiance.
Today’s Sacred First-Celebrating lives in Millay’s lines directly. Life does not last forever — and that is exactly why its light is so lovely. On the Day of the Dead, the sun-daughter of The Sun rides out with marigolds in her hair, celebrating every candle, burning brightly while it may.
What does it look like for you to celebrate being alive — and how might you honor someone you have lost by living one small part of today with their joy?
Sometimes the tender first small celebrating does not open easily. Grief, tiredness, or a heavy season can make joy feel out of reach, or even wrong. The body’s soft first-celebrating may begin very quietly.
Three softer entry-points into today’s question, each honoring the body’s own faithful pace:
- Marigold door: list five small things that made you smile this week, however tiny.
- Altar door: name one person you have lost and one thing they loved. How could you enjoy that thing in their honor?
- Sun door: finish the sentence: “I feel most alive when…”
The tender first small celebrating of the sacred first-sun-daughter — five small acts of soft feminine joy and bright remembrance, honored as the whole holy work of this sacred twenty-third morning of the newly-begun cycle, All Souls’ Day, on the Moon’s own venerated Monday.
Today’s medicine begins with light. The Sun card shows a child riding beneath a radiant sun. Simply turning toward daylight and breathing reminds the body that it is alive, and that being alive is a gift.
On the Day of the Dead, families build ofrendas — altars full of marigolds, candles, photographs, and favorite foods. Bright color is not disrespectful; it is a way of welcoming the beloved with joy.
Music is at the heart of the Day of the Dead, and Leo loves self-expression. Millay’s line lives here: a candle burning brightly gives a lovely light.
The Moon sextile Venus blesses simple pleasures. Pan de muerto, the sweet bread of the season, is shared among the living in honor of the dead. Savoring something sweet is a way of saying thank you for life.
The closing whisper seals the practice. Nothing further is required today — the small first-celebrating allowed here is, faithfully, the whole practice, complete on its own tender terms, blessed by The Sun’s sun-daughter on the twenty-third morning, All Souls’ Day, as the waning crescent Moon glows in Leo.