Sagittarius Full Moon Reflections
Beloved Goddesses,
For this Sagittarius Full Moon, I did something a little different.
Before I shuffled the cards, I invited my beloved ancestors into the reading.
But this time, not only the ancestors whose names I know.
Not only the ones whose stories have been passed down through photographs and family memories.
But the unknown ones, too.
The ones whose names have been forgotten.
The ones whose sacrifices made my life possible.
The ones whose dreams, gifts, and unfinished prayers still move quietly through the family tree.
Then I shuffled.
The card underneath the deck was Father of Knives.
Immediately, I thought of my father.
Because throughout the years, regardless of the deck, the Father of Knives has always carried my father's energy for me.
A brilliant man.
An Aquarius.
A man who earned three degrees without having a roadmap laid out before him.
At the time, I thought I was doing a Sagittarius Full Moon reading.
I didn't realize I was about to spend the evening with my ancestors.
Here is the spread exactly as it appeared.
The Hoodoo Tarot by Tayannah Lee McQuillar/Artwork by Katelan V. Foisy
And the message that arrived with the Father of Knives was surprisingly simple:
Look at the evidence.
Not what fear predicts.
Not the stories I have carried.
Not the narratives I inherited.
The evidence.
Look at the life already built.
Look at the people already impacted.
Look at what is actually true.
What struck me most was how unexpected the reading became.
Sagittarius is often associated with higher education, philosophy, publishing, teaching, belief systems, and the search for meaning. As someone with both a Sagittarius Moon and North Node, I expected this Full Moon to pull my attention toward the future.
Toward what I was becoming.
Toward the next horizon.
Instead, the reading kept leading me backward.
Toward my father.
Toward my paternal grandmother.
Toward inherited beliefs about beauty, money, worth, teaching, and possibility.
And perhaps that was the deeper lesson of this Full Moon.
Sometimes our beliefs about the future cannot expand until we examine the stories we inherited about the past.
As the reading unfolded, I realized something else.
The cards never left the family tree.
Every card seemed to point me back toward inheritance.
Not simply financial inheritance.
But emotional inheritance.
Spiritual inheritance.
Creative inheritance.
The inheritance of beauty.
The inheritance of teaching.
The inheritance of resilience.
The inheritance of becoming.
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Beauty Is Part of My Inheritance
One of the unexpected gifts of this Full Moon was remembering my paternal grandmother.
Her name was Mabel Williams.
The photograph below is the only image I have of her.
As I sat with this reading, I found myself wondering what it meant for a Black woman from rural North Carolina to choose a portrait like this.
To intentionally preserve an image of herself.
To be witnessed.
To leave evidence that she was here.
Perhaps that is part of why I return to this photograph so often.
As I reflected on that image, I realized something.
For much of my life, I associated beauty with extravagance.
Something optional.Something unnecessary.Something to justify.
Yet as I sat with this reading and this image, memories surfaced.
It was my father who took my sister and I school shopping for clothes.
It was my father who cared that we looked nice before leaving the house.
It was my paternal grandmother who chose to leave behind this photograph.
The only image I have of her
And suddenly I found myself wondering:
What if beauty is not separate from my inheritance?
What if beauty is part of my inheritance?
Over the last few years, I have slowly reclaimed pieces of that inheritance.
Getting my nails done.
Keeping my hair maintained.
Learning about fashion, and especially high fashion.
Studying beauty not as vanity, but as communication.
As emotional language.
Perhaps it is another branch of the family tree.
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Releasing the Scarcity Story
The Five of Baskets appeared under the question:
What story about myself is ready to be released?
The answer arrived immediately.
Scarcity.
Not only financial scarcity.
Emotional scarcity.
Creative scarcity.
Beauty scarcity.
Possibility scarcity.
Reciprocity scarcity.
For decades, I heard some version of:
That's expensive.
That's too much.
Why would anyone spend money on that?
Hearing those messages repeatedly, it becomes part of the emotional atmosphere we breathe.
Eventually, we stop hearing them as someone else's beliefs and begin experiencing them as our own.
This Full Moon invited me to consider another possibility:
What if some of the limitations I have inherited are not mine to carry?
What if I can honor where I come from without carrying every belief I inherited about what is possible?
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The Teacher My Ancestors Already Recognize
One of the most powerful cards in the reading was the Son of Coins.
In the Hoodoo Tarot, he stood before an astrological wheel with an open book.
Teaching.
The question was:
What have my ancestors already witnessed me become that I have not fully claimed?
The answer made me laugh.
The teacher.
Not the future teacher.
Not the aspiring teacher.
The teacher.
The card reminded me of something I recently said in conversation:
"When the student is ready, I will be prepared."
Over the last few years, I have repeatedly created things before there was an audience for them.
A Social Work and Tarot course.
A research proposal exploring the impact of supervision.
Entire astrology course syllabi were built simply because I have fun creating course syllabi.
And then, a couple of years later, someone appears asking for the exact thing I had already created.
Recently, a former supervisee reached out asking if I would ever teach a Social Work and Tarot course.
The funny thing is that the course already existed.
I had built it two years earlier.
The same thing happened recently with a supervision research proposal.
The same thing is happening now with the astrology, tarot, supervision, and archetypal work I continue to develop.
Lately, I have begun noticing this pattern in several offerings I have been quietly building.
One is my Social Work and Tarot course, which explores the intersections of symbolism, meaning-making, ethics, and clinical practice.
Another is Saturn Meets the Moon, a reflective journey exploring emotional maturity, self-trust, and the wisdom that emerges when we stop running from our own inner landscape.
What strikes me now is that neither of these began as products.
They began as questions.
Questions I was living.
Questions I was studying.
Questions I was trying to understand for myself long before anyone asked me to teach them.
Perhaps that is what the Son of Coins was trying to show me.
Teaching is not only about standing in front of a room.
Sometimes it looks like preparing the lesson long before the students arrive.
If you're curious about either of these offerings, you can learn more here:
Social Work and Tarot – https://www.eventbrite.com/e/social-work-tarot-a-4-week-reflective-practice-course-tickets-1988528710904?aff=oddtdtcreator
Saturn Meets the Moon Workbook – If you'd like to learn more about this offering, reply to this email or reach out at [email protected]
This Full Moon reminded me that teaching is not something I hope to become.
It is something I already am.
Perhaps my ancestors have known that longer than I have been willing to see.
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What Wants To Be Lived
The Four of Sticks arrived with a message I did not expect.
At first, I thought it was a card about celebration.
And it is.
But it is also a card about partnership.
The image showed two people honoring a birth together.
And suddenly I realized:
I am tired of birthing things alone.
I have spent much of my life creating, carrying, nurturing, sustaining, and helping others keep their own dreams alive.
And while I am deeply grateful for that role, something inside me is ready for reciprocity.
Not validation.
Reciprocity.
Shared stewardship.
Shared joy.
Shared responsibility.
Someone standing beside me saying:
Look what we created.
Look what came into the world.
Look what deserves to be celebrated.
This card reminded me that I no longer want to be the only one carrying the vision.
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The Inheritance Was Larger Than I Knew
The final card was the Ten of Coins.
Generational wealth.
Legacy.
Transmission.
Continuation.
A family gathered around a table.
Ancestors in the background.
Future generations in front of them.
And suddenly the entire reading clicked into place.
The ancestors were not showing up simply to comfort me.
They were showing up to remind me that I am not building from nothing.
I am not starting from empty baskets.
I am not walking this path alone.
I am standing inside an inheritance that is larger than I knew.
An inheritance of beauty.
An inheritance of resilience.
An inheritance of teaching.
An inheritance of intuition.
An inheritance of faith.
And perhaps most importantly, an inheritance of possibility.
This Sagittarius Full Moon reminded me that the next chapter is not about survival.
The next chapter is about legacy.
With gratitude,
Renita
Reflection Questions for Your Own Full Moon Reading
If you'd like to explore this Sagittarius Full Moon for yourself, here are the questions I used for my own spread:
What ancestral wisdom is accompanying me through this Full Moon?
What truth am I finally ready to acknowledge?
What story about myself is ready to be released?
What have my ancestors already witnessed me become that I have not fully claimed?
What wants to be lived, not merely understood?
Where is my fortune already unfolding?
What blessing, message, or invitation wants to guide me into the next chapter?
If you pull cards for these questions, I'd love to hear what emerges for you. Feel free to reply and share your reflections.
If you pull cards for these questions, I'd love to hear what emerges for you. Feel free to reply and share your reflections.
I've been enjoying creating companion affirmation recordings for some of these pieces. If this Sagittarius Full Moon reflection speaks to you, I'll be recording a companion meditation and affirmation inspired by this reading and sharing it on Substack over the next few days.
If you'd like to receive future reflections, affirmations, stories, and offerings, I'd love to have you join me:
