The Star Inside the Apple: Balance for Body, Spirit & Bond

October 11, 2026
Owl Feather Farm, San Juan Island

A new moon in Libra arrived yesterday morning, and the farm seems to have noticed. The air smells of salt and woodsmoke, a ferry horn drifts over False Bay, and the orchard has dropped more fruit than any of us can eat. So the press comes out of the shed.

The press itself has a story. It’s about 40 years old and came to us from a retired couple in Oregon who wanted their grandparents’ machine to keep working. We look after it the way you’d look after a borrowed family heirloom.

The Star Inside the Apple: Balance for Body, Spirit & Bond
Nothing on Earth tastes as good as home-made apple cider

The Cider

The first cup of the season tastes like nothing you can buy in a store. It’s tart, deep, and a little wild, because our 22 trees grow old-style apples and not the candy-sweet kind that fill grocery bins. A single pressing takes roughly a hundred apples and yields about 3 gallons. Part goes in the fridge for the next couple of weeks, quarts go home with friends, and the rest is bottled and frozen for midwinter, when one sip brings back an October afternoon.

Here is what the orchard teaches about Libra. No single apple makes a great cider. One variety alone turns thin, or puckering, or flat. When we combine them, the cup suddenly has a shape. Libra season asks the same question of us: Where has life gotten too sweet, and where has it gotten too sharp?

Body

Pilates treats balance as work between opposites. The front of the body answers the back, the left side matches the right, and effort needs control to go with it. Single-leg footwork on the reformer shows this clearly. One leg presses while the other holds steady, and you quickly learn which side has been quiet. Side-lying leg work reveals the same thing in the hips.

Most of us lean on one hip, one shoulder, or one habit. You don’t have to fix that. Notice it, then offer the quieter side a turn.

Spirit

Libra is ruled by Venus, and its lesson is fairness, including fairness toward yourself. In energy work I often see people who give generously and receive poorly, or the reverse. Neither is wrong, but each leaves something unspent.

Cut an apple across its middle and the seeds form a five-pointed star. Old folklore ties that shape to Venus, whose path traces a five-pointed star across the sky over eight years. It’s a good reminder that something valuable can sit inside the ordinary, waiting for a knife and a curious hand.

There’s also the gathering itself. Pressing cider is not a one-person job. Someone rinses, someone slices, someone cranks the jack down, and someone keeps the yellowjackets at bay. Working side by side with people in warm autumn sun is one of the most reliable cures I know for a heavy heart. This fall we press four times, and each one ends with a harvest supper.

The Star Inside the Apple: Balance for Body, Spirit & Bond
An ancient tradition—22 apple trees, a 40-year-old press, a lovely autumn day

Bond

Bleu and Simon supervise every pressing from their own pasture. It has the best view on the farm, and from there they can see the orchard, the press, the crew, and everything in between. Bleu takes the high ground, upright and aristocratic, like a magistrate watching a trial. Simon settles in beside him, a good old boy keeping a loose eye on the proceedings, and he’ll sound off if anything looks out of order.

Next door, the horses are watching too, but from a different place. Their pasture sits right beside the dogs’, separated only by a fence. Lil’ CoCo Nut works his nose through the rails to check on things, while Cereus looks over and down from his greater height and takes in the whole scene. Same afternoon, same crew, and four animals each with their own view of it.

That is a lesson in balance too. None of them is at the center of the commotion, and none is hiding from it. Each stays close enough to know what’s happening and far enough to stay calm, and each one sees something the others miss. When I do animal communication work, the animals often ask for an even exchange: not more attention, but attention that listens back. These four seem to already know this.

Sometimes the best way to be part of something is to watch it with your whole heart.

Looking Ahead

Mercury entered its shadow period on October 4, and it turns retrograde on the 24th. I don’t treat that as a warning. I treat it as the cider settling in the jar: a time to slow down, check what you’re carrying, and let things clear before the next step.

Small Rituals for This Week

• Cut an apple crosswise and look at the star.

• Lie on your side for a few minutes, notice how each hip feels, then roll over and compare.

• Name one thing you could receive more gracefully.

• Share something with someone: a cup, a task, an hour.

• Find your own “dog pasture”: a spot with a wide view where you can sit for ten minutes and just observe, without needing to step in.

If you’d like help finding your own balance, I offer customized Pilates, intuitive animal communication, and energy healing through Owl Feather Healing, for you and for your animals, wherever you are.  

– Nicollé Lucas; .

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