How To Have Lucid Dreams:
Updated: Jul 15, 2022
The Strength Card, & The New Moon in Leo
“Each man should frame life so that at some future hour, fact and his dreaming meet” -Victor Hugo
For this month's New Moon ritual, I want to invite you to join me in the practice of lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming means knowing you are dreaming while you are in your dream. Why for this New Moon? It came to me in a dream! There are a few things taking place today, August 8th. First, we will welcome August’s New Moon in Leo. This day is also known as the “Lion’s Gate” which marks the rising of the star Sirius to astrologers. According to numerology, this day is a very “lucky” day because the number eight aligns with success and transformation. I am neither an astrologer nor a numerologist, but these systems do come into play in the Tarot. The Major Arcana card Strength is the number 8, it is ruled by Leo, and this card also presents the infinity sign ∞ which is an 8.
As I was mentally working on this post, I knew that I wanted to explore Strength, the New Moon, Leo, the number eight, and Lion's Gate. But how?
If you are a client of mine, you may have heard me recount how someone once told me, “The locations of Burger Kings and McDonald's in relationship to the hospital you were born in, have more to do with the outcome of your life than your star sign.” I bring this up not to be dismissive, but because it is a humorous way to unpair the value of these symbols from any burdensome predictive aspects in astrology or numerology. If that sounds a little blasphemous to the Tarot community, so be it. I know, for me, that I feel connected to the Sun, the Moon, and the stars. I have less of a connection to the traits assigned to constellations visible only from the Northern Hemisphere by the ancient Greeks.
I do however see a connection to Leo season and the traits of August. Despite our modern lives, we are tied to nature and these symbols can support us as we transition from season to season. Similarly, I don't personally feel a strong connection to numerology. The creators of the Smith Rider-Waite did, and so their intentions can add nuance to interpretation; however, I'm not a big proponent of lucky numbers. I do welcome any opportunity to invite prosperity and good fortune, but I'm reluctant to assign good or bad luck to integers (or fractions!) Around the same time as I was considering how to explore these topics, a dear friend of mine and I were talking about lucid dreaming. We both agreed to try and practice. Sure enough, that night I dreamed about the Strength card and the "lucky" number 8.
In the dream, I was reviewing my past. I was able to consciously look at events from my childhood and adolescence as if they were on a conveyer belt. I kept looking at each event, some were very challenging, but because I was in the "driver's seat" of the dream, none were painful or triggering. I kept trying to apply the number 8, as if it were an actual tool, to each memory and I was suddenly flooded with the realization that each event since birth was lucky! I could actually feel my attachment to whatever story or hardship shift. My emotions toward these past occurrences were altered and I felt genuinely lucky to have had each one. In my waking life I would certainly intellectualize that, yes, every experience in life is a gift; however, I had never actually emotionally felt truly lucky and blessed for hardships in the past. As I stumbled awake(ish) to text myself what I had experienced, the feeling stayed with me and since that morning I have retained some of it. Having had this fantastic experience, I knew that there could be no better way to work with this New Moon and this entire lunar cycle than to continue and invite you to join in this lucid dream quest. Training yourself to have lucid dreams is a process. With that in mind, August's New Moon ritual is designed to be a practice for the entire month and beyond.