The moon passed 10deg sagittarius, the next point of the septile, 3deg off my natal neptune. After listening to that minor aspect discussion, I'm waffling on if it counts or if it's just too far out of orb. I think I lean on the side of not-counting just because I don't want to artificially inflate what the pattern is to myself, or anyone else. But this whole ... thing I'm doing is so neptunian that I couldn't not play music for neptune for this point. So I played Neptune from Holst's The Planets suite, just because it is my favorite part of the suite since I was little (I wasn't allowed to listen to "secular" music). With the spooky choir at the end? It's the best. And I played When The Man Comes Around by Johnny Cash. Neptune is a planet for rock stars and priests. The highs and lows of emotion, the mass experience of music and religion, the addiction and the adulation and the ocean that we all drown in. The Man Comes Around has such interesting dreamlike imagery. The older I get, the more I like neptune. Probably the most underrated planet/object in astrology. Pluto and Uranus get all the hot outer planet buzz, but neptune is the planet for artists of all stripes. The mystic. Probably why it doesn't get much attention, because I think it's hard for our modern brains to grasp what that means in dum-dum transactional terms. Oh we've got TONS of fake mystics, peddling that "law of attraction" crap and telling us how we can be prayer warriors and how to cure everything with essential oils. Tons of fake astrologers, fake yogis, fake prophets, fake witches, selling whatever you want to hear to optimize your life experience. But REAL mystics? Nobody knows what they are. Sure, Jesus was great, but how many figures did he make a year? What social media platform did he post on? Did he sell any merch?

Monday the moon passed the next point at 1deg aquarius. It is an empty point. I have no natal planets in aquarius, which is such a bummer. I think aquarius is my favorite zodiac sign - seems like all the most interesting people have a birthday in late jan/early feb. Perhaps if I am lucky in my next life, I'll get more aquarian influence. Uranus rules aquarius in modern astrology. (Saturn in traditional astrology.) Uranus is called the higher octave of mercury, the planet of the mind and communication. So I played Landscape by Florence and the Machine. She strikes me as a very uranian sort of artist. Perhaps not as revolutionary as others, but the quality of her voice just seems very aquarian/uranian to me. Put me in a room with nothing but Florence and the Machine playing and I get weird and feisty.

I have been taking very small, fractional doses of the grey project when the moon transits a point (once every 4 days). I barely feel it kick in, like a half glass of wine (it's slightly too much - I will make the capsules with less next time). Just a pleasantly relaxed and more emotionally open feeling, but still functional to do chores and run errands. Not even spouse would pick up that I am "on something". Monday I felt unexpectedly tired when it kicked in. I took a nap and it was fantastic, the double chocolate cake of naps, and the sleep I got was ridiculously good, deep sleep. I woke up in a cheerful mood, ready to get out of bed. When you get crap sleep most of the time, the difference is startling. It feels like I've been at a spa getting massages - the tight muscles in my neck and shoulders that made me feel like I haven't had full range of motion have eased up. The constant tension and pressure in my skull has eased up. Right now, I feel as good as I've ever felt in months or years. Maybe back before the Calamity, before mentor started being a dick, when I felt like things were going right and I was optimistic about the day ahead of me. It's very nice. Feels like I have a thick cushion of goodwill to absorb whatever stress comes my way. Is it the grey project or am I just having a good day? I guess time will tell, but right now I feel great and I can really really use it.

Hadn't mentioned it but I have been taking lion's mane for a couple months. Supposedly lion's mane can help regrow neurons. Haven't noticed a big difference, to be frank. Brain function might be slightly better, but probably not in any way that could be measured. The premade capsules are not cheap, even the store brand I got from the good health food store. Now I am getting the loose powder and making my own capsules. I got a capsule making machine at the vitamin shoppe (the only place locally I could find one). Instead of paying $15 for 60 capsules, I pay $20 for a bag of powder that makes 200 - much better! Now I can make my own turmeric capsules if I want, I could use the potassium powder, get other vitamin powders, etc. Making the capsules is fiddly but I think it is a good tool to have. It's already paid for itself.

I've known about nootropics for a while but I mostly give them the side-eye. I feel like it can be a form of body dysmorphic disorder for the smartypants STEM set. Instead of getting tons of plastic surgery, they chase different exotic substances to enhance brain function - same compulsion, different focus. I've tried bottles of this-and-that over the years, trying to fix my headaches and mood and nothing made a significant difference for me. Taking all that stuff trying to wring out your best mental performance just seems like you are begging for unexpected consequences down the road, imho. I don't want to take a ton of supplements constantly for months on end. Same issue with psychiatric drugs, really. Any drugs, any substance. I am a big fat square at the core. I didn't even feel okay drinking alcohol until I was in my 30s. My grandpa was an abusive alcoholic and I guess I was worried about being genetically predisposed to addiction, like a couple of beers would flip a switch and send me off the rails. It's a control issue. I didn't trust the people around me, or trust myself to be in a more vulnerable state. So the fact that I can enjoy an adult beverage is something I am proud of, because I trust myself to know my limits. The grey project is a huge shift for me, an experience I never would have found attractive at any other point in my life. It does say something about how desperate I am, but it also marks a lot of personal growth. Not to get too dark or anything, but I became suicidal at about age 12, and with that comes a creeping terror that if you don't have your safety guardrails firmly in place that you will murder yourself if it's convenient. You know how close it is. So I kept very sober all through my 20s. No drinks on my 21st, nothing. Just the fact that I can do the grey project means that I am in a better place and I trust myself. That's not to say that I don't have struggles and bad days, but self-murder, at least, is off the table. I am proud of that.

So Tuesday I felt awesome. I had a good day and I slept well. I woke up early wednesday morning, felt great and I was ready for another good day, I made my coffee and had it in bed with the kitties ... and I got some annoying sinus pressure on the left side. I rested a bit to let it ease off, I took a hot shower, I took my vitamins - the damn thing wouldn't go away and just got worse and worse. Became like a railroad spike in the corner of my left eye. I could lay down with a pillow over my face and it would ease off in an hour or so, but then once I got up and tried to do anything it came back worse, bad enough it made me want to puke, and I'm laying there thinking, "maybe if I puke I'll feel better". 12 hours of this bullshit. Totally wasted my day. I think it's gone now, but my neck is all in knots. I guess it's better to get just 12 hours of pain than 3 days, but I am still pissed off. I hate playing the "what did I do wrong" game. Was it too much sugar over the weekend? Was it the glass of coke on saturday? Not enough water? Not enough potassium lately? Too much caffeine? Not enough caffeine? I'm on a break week on some of the supplements - was that a mistake, does this mean the combo works? Is this backlash for the grey project? Like, son of a bitch. It's not my lunar holiday. At least have the courtesy to stick to the damn schedule and don't clobber me out of nowhere. Rude.

Goodbye, wednesday. So this is Thursday, and now I have to catch up on what I wanted to do yesterday. I had planned to take a full P3 later this evening - last one before we move. But now I am peeved and it's not the mood I want to be in. We'll see how the day goes.

Got some fine drama happening in the north, revisiting family will be fun. Spouse's older brother's wife (the sister in law I don't care for - she seems okay we just don't jell) cheated on him while on a trip, came back and told him that they are separating. They have been together a year less than spouse and I, but they've been married for most of that time. 8 years, maybe? They have a whole brood together, three kids on each side from previous marriages. Some of the kids are old enough that it's not a big deal, but it's still enough to make you wince, thinking of the family unit and how they worked really hard to bring all the kids together. You can't judge anyone's relationship from the outside, but it just seems thoughtless to go and do that. She must really want out, for whatever reason, because from the outside it seemed like she had a pretty good thing.

Our niece (spouse's older sister's kid) has to get a restraining order against the father of her baby because he's a garden variety domestic abuser. We were so hoping the niece would break out on her own and make herself a good life. She had this plan about a year ago to buy some land and put up a dry cabin (no plumbing) and she asked spouse to cosign a loan because nobody else has good credit. She had a solid job at the time and she seemed to have put a lot of thought into it, and we wanted to give her a leg up. Well, about the same time the loan went through, she found out she was pregnant. She cancelled the loan, returned the money, and (I don't know exactly what happened with her job) ended up moving back with spouse's parents and her mom in the boonies. Then everybody in that house caught covid.

She made it through the pregnancy and had a daughter, but now the baby daddy is making noises about custody and apparently he is just an asshole. She named her daughter an odd spelling of a popular emoji. Good luck to that kid, I grew up with an uncommon name and it gets very old correcting every teacher/substitute/administrator/boss/you-name-it. All you can do is sigh. At least she didn't marry the guy, I guess. I'm trying to adopt the viewpoint of "everyone makes the best decisions for themselves at the time". Maybe a "wrong" choice leads to some needed lesson, or maybe the good outcomes are hidden under the surface. Maybe molding yourself into a good little capitalist cog isn't the shiny future everyone should pursue. But dang, it's hard to watch, especially now another human being is involved. A human being with the name of an emoji. (Selfishly, we probably dodged a bullet when the loan wasn't completed. We would have taken the risk for her, though, to give her a proper chance. I know she's capable of doing the dry cabin thing. Just not with a little baby. Maybe if the baby daddy had been a good, supportive person. But her picker is busted because her mom's picker was busted, and all the shit rolls downhill and now emoji-baby gets to inherit a tough burden before she even had a chance. Seems unfair.)

I think I am going to do the full P3 tonight. I feel like I shouldn't chicken out. It is a bit scary. It is a metaphorical death. I've been trying to make it safe for myself but the point is that it isn't. Maybe today is the day my old self dies - and that feels right, somehow. Perhaps this is just one of those transitional experiences a person needs to heal. Like a baptism for a christian. Tonight the moon will be transiting the seventh point with neptune in pisces. The last point since I started this on Jan 11. It's been a rainy, peaceful day. I got some good stuff done. I washed the sheets and made the bed. It could be a good day to die.