October’s 0 Scorpio Solar Eclipse (Pt. 2: that ‘Other’ eclipse)

The partial solar eclipse of March 29, 2006 (at 8 Aries) as photographed by Szczery

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Every time we get into ‘eclipse season’ we run through the stats on eclipse duration and such - the answer there being 3 years for solar eclipses and 3 months for lunar eclipses, give or take your having a birthday within five days of an eclipse event (in which case there will be thematic echoes of the eclipse throughout your ‘birthday year’).

And despite all the up-front drama which tends to cluster around eclipses (which I’m guessing we’ve all noticed this year)... with all the chaos and upheaval which sweeps through at the time of any eclipse, there are thousands of years of lore which say that in the long run (that being the operative and imperative term: long run) events of today will ultimately prove beneficial in the evolutionary sense - most of all to those who experience upheaval/s at this time.

Those changes - be they a change of heart or a new opportunity - will begin to occur or formulate somewhere around the two-and-a-half year mark after the original eclipse (our ‘Now’). And despite whatever we may think, we do NOT know what those changes will be except for the fact that whatever happens in the future can only happen because of what we’re going through now.

Just don’t connect the two. It’s natural to think that the two things might be connected - and indeed they may end up being ‘in theme’ as it were. Such ‘eventualities’ often show us precisely what we can gain because we have gone through some sort of giving up of something, whether that’s physical, financial, mental/theoretical or otherwise... and in that are probably part of our overall maturation as human beings, a process which teaches us both to try and to accept, stressing those lessons we need individually.

Not that we like them, of course. But in terms of what we need to learn in the whole of our lives...? Yes, they’re probably needed.

And therefore we get...’eclipsed.’

That said, eclipses - like most things celestial and astrological - have a certain rhythm. In the case of eclipses, we get two ‘eclipse seasons’ a year, which means they happen around every six (6) months.

And that means any given eclipse is really two processes, not just one mega-complicated test of gut, endurance and ability-vs.-inability to focus.  The first process is the one we talk about most often: the eclipse as a focal point in time which is evolutionary in that it represents something which both dismantles and regenerates our life or life around us - the former happening (astrologically) when the eclipse aspects our chart.

But the second process is just as important. It represents that which you’re coming to be aware of now which in some way you couldn’t have gotten to or arrived at if you were still who you were (or where you were) two-and-a-half years ago.

That’s right...that eclipses happen approximately six months apart means that the ‘twist’ on an eclipse already past occurs in tandem with current eclipse effects.

No wonder things get weird, right?

This varies a bit, as when you get down to the nitty versus gritty of it all as eclipses cycle backwards through the year - which makes technical/astrological sense when we remember that eclipses occur when a full or new moon occurs within fifteen degrees of the lunar nodes and they cycle backwards through the zodiac. Add to that the subtle but pervasive iffy quality of a calendar with months of various lengths and what you come out with (after a deal of sitting with eclipse tables) is how most such two-and-a-half-year marks will fall just after a current eclipse season - though I’m not willing to chisel that in concrete and this isn’t the moment to hand-check a hundred years of eclipse cycles.

Still, what this amounts to is an interesting concept: namely that the pre-(solar)-eclipse ‘breaking down’ period is about the current eclipse - meaning in this moment the eclipsing of 0 Scorpio and our ability or willingness to recognize that what life is ‘bringing home’ to us is meant to provoke deeply personal feelings and emotions of vulnerability not so that we can fight about it (or against it) but so that we can ask ourselves how we came to be who we are, and whether that’s valid or (quite possibly) the product of a different time, a time and perspective which is no longer valid.

Scorpio is never “about” them. It’s always about us. The reason we should understand this is simple: it’s our chart and our life.

As for that secondary eclipse, if that eclipse comes into the last half-cycle of its process (at the two-and-a-half-year point) in the wake of eclipse season, then the “opportunity” we associate with with an eclipse which is ‘aging out’ of its transit cycle is also something which buoys us through the natural period of vulnerability letting go of whatever it is being currently ‘eclipsed,’ be it a notion, a relationship, some course of action or conviction - whatever we have been under pressure from, about or because of over these past two months.

That becomes our opportunity - and a worthy explanation of why this 'turn' in any given tale of any eclipse ends up being, or focusing on something generally at a tangent to events which we began with. After all, now we're dealing with a Scorpio eclipse. But back then?

That eclipse...the one which occurred two-and-a-half years ago was at 0 Gemini. It occurred during May 2012 and the blog post (for those who care to traipse back in time) would be this one:

- link to post -

0 Gemini Solar Eclipse of May 20, 2012

Perhaps you’re looking at that ‘0 Gemini’ notion now and thinking... ‘Does it matter that the 2012 eclipse and this 2014 eclipse are both at zero degrees of respective signs?’

Answer: exactness always matters in astrology, mostly because degrees function like frequencies. So when any aspect (or transit) is exact, that’s like a radio station getting perfectly tuned in. It’s louder. It’s stronger! If you’re off the mark, there’s static - which in this case would be confusion, distraction, things being up in the air or unknown. And once you get the station tuned in, all becomes clear.

No, you may not like the song being played - but at least it’s clear while being clearly awful.

The current eclipse being (about to be) in Scorpio, Gemini is the eighth derivative sign from this eclipse, just as seen the other way around, Scorpio is the sixth derivative sign from Gemini.

Eighth sign derivations area always about transformations. They’re also intrinsically Scorpionic by nature, which by implication ‘doubles up’ on the potential to create/experience change now, whether that manifests through some effort to do something or your effectiveness/ability to get where you want to go in life, all of which we learn about through an intense course of effort and reflection.

Eighth sign also derivations speak of emotional ‘check points’ - meaning this eclipse season we’re in (the Aries lunar eclipse plus the Scorpio solar eclipse) may signal a challenge to something you have been working on or towards since May 2012. Or perhaps you now find yourself going (or needing to go) in more than one direction - a fact which tests you emotionally (which is to say through a test of self-confidence and self-determination emblematic of this October’s Scorpio solar eclipse) or mentally (referring to the 2012 Gemini eclipse).

The above is the eclipse map not for the 2014 solar eclipse at 0 Scorpio, but the solar

eclipse at 0 Gemini which occurred back in May, 2012. Unlike the eclipses for this year

(2014) this eclipse back in 2012 was a total eclipse and therefore has a central line of

totality (in red) which is different from the total expanse of the eclipse (marked off with

two vertical blue lines) where the eclipse would be visible in part, but not in its totality.

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That two eclipse signals would be in an exact one-hundred-fifty inconjunct signals various ‘adjustments’ and adjusting to realities which began being (Gemini) ‘thought/talked of’  back then and which is now being revealed to be something other, indicating the need to ‘adjust’ one’s thinking and/or manner of addressing issues (or others). Testing times and finding out about slips, cracks and soft spots in our own sense of ‘feeling secure’ - whether that has anything at all to do with the reality of personal security - would be common during a time like this. And some will, make no mistake, thrive on this energy even if that act of thriving gets them nowhere or undermines their own interest.

Yes, such are the gifts of eighth sign harmonics. And Scorpio, if truth be told.

Others will take it upon themselves to take their Self in knowing...or at least ‘willing to know’ hand. And let’s not be too unhappy here as there is much progress to be made now, even if some of it will take a while. Scorpio is a sign which never rushes. Or at least it does better when it stops to consider without solidifying on the spot. Like it’s polarity partner Taurus, Scorpio is fairly well known for digging in an resisting simply because something isn’t their idea - at least initially. That quality - that(Scorpio) ability-and-willingness to react in one direction then ‘adjust’ to another once all the reactions and feelings get sorted out - is part and parcel of this dynamic too. Scorpio energies always incite emotionality while challenging us to get past that emotion to an act or choice at least driven by thought and not emotion. 

Are we capable of getting past the pluses and minuses of our ego strengths?

Will we are able (and willing) to create alliances and grow opportunities which are not necessarily based on similarities with others but on the capacity to unite in terms of just the goal? Or because something which could be created would be a decided “total which is more than the sum of its parts”?

Some will, some won’t. Eighth sign dynamics always achieve their greatest gains through acting, not relying not on control, but its certainly not easy. After all, even when eighth harmonic energetics don’t indicate mortal threat they tend to stir up insecurities and floating questions which make us feel vulnerable even when we aren’t. Why? Because that’s another side of eighth sign harmonics. Wherever we see active inconjuncts we know there’s an ability... maybe even a propensity to make  emotional mountains out of molehills - sometimes all by ourselves with regards to our Self.

And that may or may not be part of the problem. Given how the gravity of the Sun - despite its massive size - is less ‘apparent’ to us here on Earth than that of our tide-producing Moon, it’s not surprising that the solar eclipse which metaphysically seems so ‘aimed’ at getting us to change our life begins through our more ‘fluid’ or emotional nature.

A lot of the walls have been torn down. We have a chance to be, become and change in response to our world, our times and (evidently rather importantly), our ability and willingness to use our (Gemini) ability to think, choose, organize and prioritize.

What we do with all that moving forward...? Well, that’s pretty much up to us. While Gemini is always about our world (life as we experience it in our mind), Scorpio is about the world - that which we share and which through creating, we ultimately bring upon our Self.
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Neptune Directions: Right vs Real

Ephiphanie

A triptychon by Hieronymus Bosch (1475-1499)

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Just about the time we feel like we’re going to move on and get past whatever we’ve been dealing with, suddenly life takes a turn.

No, you’re not so sure, life says. So are you sure you want to…(choice of one or more: let go of, start to do, look at, talk about, ignore, go about being)…that?

There are two sets of metaphysical concepts involved here…the first being all about our relationship to reality. Do we see only that part of life we want to see? If so, why would we do that?

Whatever your coping mechanism (and we all have one or two)(or three or four)…the ‘why’ behind why you even need to cope is the sort of discomfort with how you feel about life which is plainly and uniquely Piscean.

It’s also 12th house. And yes, sort of Neptunian.

In this triad, Neptune is the verb – the ‘to 12th house’ where the 12th house (of any chart) is where the sign on the cusp describes the situations we set up in life in order to test our own vulnerabilities.

Why would we do that?

Answer: so as to grow. There is a wellspring of spirit of life seeking to exist which animates our existence in this time and moment. And that quotient both knows that we can survive most of what we fear and that we need fears. Fears are what allow us to feel ourselves feeling our feelings and reacting in real time…and in highly memorable ways.

We learn a lot through reflecting on own own emotions. Good or bad, we learn.

Considering how Neptune is going direct so soon after the Scorpio solar eclipse, whatever else is happening in your life it is likely that ‘structures’ are now beginning to crumble or become (at some level) less viable. Or maybe less ‘strict’ by definition.

In fact, Neptune going direct about a week after Jupiter goes retrograde is somewhat akin to whatever process in life is melting (Neptune) away some of the barriers which have stood in your way.

And yet…at the same time, that very same Neptune-Jupiter relationship also recalls some of the ‘unveiling’ qualities which suggest we may (Jupiter retrograde) learn something worth thinking about… often through others.

Probably most tempting-taunting-beckoning of all, however is the fact that Neptune is going direct on November 13th with Mercury having gone direct on the 10th.

This sort of begs a personal question: are you on the verge of creating something magical? Or maybe you’re someone poised to experience several very personal-feeling days where you find out you’ve lied…most of all to yourself…about something.

Oh, the good and bad of life. How often they coincide.

(Augh.)

(Yes, I just had to slip that in.)

Mercury-Neptune connections are famous for illusions, delusions, lies and deceptions. But all is not lost here: Mercury-Neptune…especially as presented here in Scorpio (Mercury) and Pisces (Neptune) is equally a representation of deep, emotionally resonant,

And this is no entirely uncommon common water sign trine we’re talking about, neither. No…this one i s where both participants are at 2 degrees of respective signs.

So…whatever else happened between…well, between November 8th and 15th (taking both stations into account)…it would be likely for these days to just feel personal. Everything may feel like it’s a critique. Or maybe you’re feeling the tug (good or bad) of everybody needing you. Or maybe you’re behind on things you had wanted to get done by now.

Some of us will experience these days as frustration, others as a revelation. Some of us will go through these days just happy to be reasonably invisible. Neptune-Mercury effects can herald the terribly good day, the inordinately magical day, the utterly helpless-feeling time.

It all depends on where 2 Pisces (Neptune’s position) and 2 Scorpio (Mercury’s degree of station) fall in your personal chart. And where both planets are in said natal chart.

Beyond that, there is the matter that Neptune is also in opposition to Pallas going into this station – with Pallas having entered Virgo just as the eclipse moved through.

It would seem to be a time which is whispering to us about all and everything we need to be smarter about with regards to the ‘who it is’ we’re being.

And how important it is to be that person not superficially, but genuinely – at your core, no matter how difficult that feels like it is.

One way or another, we’re going to get there. With and within the uncertainty and illusory delights of a Neptune station so closely associated with the kind of human ties emotional…evocative…thought provoking…which we experience with-and-through our ties to others now, at this turn of a Mercurial tide…

It could be one or many things. You may become overly aware that your life is driven by one or many things…and how some of them are assumptions.

Or realities never dealt with properly as realities. Wherever we have kidded ourselves, particularly where that concerns relationships and what parts of our own psyche we are willing to experience through our relationships with others…maybe not the actual situation, but the feelings which remind you of ‘something else’ now echo again through life.

It’s a freshly bitter rain. There are times when we need to be strung along the ragged edges of our soul so that we can experience growing up through coping with trials and disappointments, whether big or small.

As represented by Ceres at 3 Libra, plans (Ceres) now reach a moment of (Neptunian) uncertainty. There are lots of questions you could ask yourself about your uncertainty, yes. I suggest putting ‘what can I learn which will help me going forward through not just the responses I get, but who I get them from?’ on the list.

The other way to see this is in the Neptune-to-Ceres (8th derivation) sort of way. There, all Neptune’s ‘dissolving’ qualities would seem to be highlighted in a (Pisces)water-on-air(Libra) sort of way.

Water, meaning emotion...plus air, meaning communication?

One wonders what will come of that. I could hope for plans on how to deal with feelings or feelings about things, but how many people are actually that constructive that often?

I can hope, yes.

And yet, having learned so painfully and completely that even someone with strikingly good intentions can fall off the face of their personal Earth when they least expect it…I wonder.

Mercury in Scorpio expresses a certain kind of strength, a certain kind of emotional strength with others and with ourselves. Theoretically, we are now capable of great achievements moving forward providing and to the degree that we are willing to get our Neptunian ego – including ego-driven fears for/about Self – under control.

Or better yet, released. You know, so we can fly away on our own wings, wings unencumbered by our own sense of the improbable reduced to impossible by our unwillingness to try. 

Though a graveyard is just another piece of land, the feelings about them and the

indescribable senses we get when walking through one are very real... and very Neptunian.

(photo credit: an Easton Maudit church yard by R. Neil Marshman, November 2005)

The thing hardly anyone talks about when they talk about Neptune is its relationship to Saturn. I wasn’t surprised when NASA (bless their chip-driven heart) released news that Neptune has rings. And I don’t have to do a bunch of fancy math, though you know me, I’m devilish.

Maybe my favorite portrayal of the Devil ever to grace the silver screen, the above photo is Elizabeth Hurley as the satanic one in the Warner Bros/Regency film

'Bedazzled.' I'm pretty sure every woman has wanted to be her kind of

Devil at some point!

I like a fair slosh of math here and again, just to wallow in the glory of universal communication. (But I do know – generally – that that’s just me. I’m muy geeky. About my only question there is whether I’m a nerdy geek or a geeky nerd.)

Back to the metaphysical point, a point maybe best illustrated by a question I fielded years ago (and yes, I still remember it) about the ‘allowing yourself not to know’ quality which is so very and innately Neptunian.

Question: can’t we ever know anything Neptunian?

Answer: No. Once we can identify it, it’s no longer a Neptunian precept – it’s Saturnine. Neptune is ‘non-reality’ and Saturn represents reality and all you ‘know’ as real…right down to the realities of life created through how well or how badly aligned we are with others in relationship/s (….which would be why Saturn is exalted in Libra and the “LIbran” 7th).

This is the concept which defines this time as a time when nothing is really….defined. It’s all in flux. 
Everything is up for being…redefined.

And that’s just the thing – this is a time about the flexing and the fluctuating, the eternally knowing that you’re about to know how to make ‘it’ work…with only the barest sparkle of humor most painful at the thought that in you dedication you may also be seeding, building and carefully tending to that which will blossom into your very worst friend.

You just don’t know. None of us knows – that’s the Neptune issue. So long as we are focusing on our Self (or that which will benefit that Self) Neptune becomes the soggy mass of self-tying rope which has just planted itself around our feet.

So maybe you really want everything to not only just be right and run right and go right and feel right (and all that)…but that doesn’t look to be the undercurrent of most of what life is likely to handle us in this next little while.

Yes, for some of us this station will represent the sure and final finish to some process which has (probably) been dragging on and causing much angst. Maybe even just more burden to your schedule – whatever. I have one friend who got a languishing, lingering, really unhappy-making court matter settle as Mercury went into retrograde and the paperwork will now be settling out. The issue which brought about that lawsuit is finally over. As soon as the last envelope finds its file, the entire matter begins to melt away into memory.

That’s the sort of ‘before’ which dissolves now, leaving room for…

….well, that’s up to you. Once Neptune goes direct, our lives can become however much more we want them to be. They can grow and blossom and expand to include vistas only before suspected until now.

For that to happen, all we have to do is learn to tolerate more of life than we deal with now. We have to be willing to experience it and then (as if that’s not enough) also be willing to think it through and learn something, from which we release our boundaries on what can or “should” be.
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Mercury in Scorpio

The Perseus Nebula is about 1043 light years from Earth.

(photo credit: Spitzer Space Telescope - NASA JPL, Caltech,

L Cieza/University of Texas, Austin, October 2006)

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When Mercury enters Scorpio on September 29th at 11:29 in the morning (UT/+0 time) it will be adding what we might think of as another ‘layer’ to the intensity and complexity of everything which is already going on in life. We’re all doing some ‘testing of the waters’ and we’re all experiencing some form of being tested.

Venus is already in Scorpio – and Venus will remain in Scorpio until October 7th. That means our desire quotient is more insistent than usual and now our thoughts are coming to bear on how we can have what we want…or…wait, is that really what I want?

This is the inward-versus-outward sort of effect this Venus/Mercury combination can truly have. And as we feel ourselves moving back and forth and back and forth between our personal yes-no-yes-no of wanting and realizing no, maybe I don’t want that, we’re all going to get a bit dizzied. Or maybe confused. And yes, certainly frustrated. After all, with the current Sun in Libra there’s some underlying sense that we should be able to make this work…and when it doesn’t work – or if someone disagrees with us or even causes us to feel like we’re being frowned upon, we’re likely to get all out of hand.

We think it’s them. It’s not. The weeks…no, actually the months ahead of Mercury in Scorpio are NOT about them. They’re about us. They’re about our ability to understand why we want what we want and why it’s so hard to change what we want even when it doesn’t work for us.

Even when it’s bad for us.

Even when it’s self destructive to want it or go after it.

Before I go any farther, I want to explain what I said back in that last paragraph about Mercury’s lengthy stay in Scorpio, because this is going to be a doozie of a traverse. Mercury enters Scorpio on the 29th, as stated. Then on October 1st, Mercury will cross the “invisible line” into the shadow of it’s upcoming retrograde. 

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Yes, you heard me…Mercury is going to go retrograde in Scorpio. By the time it gets to doing that, it will have moved all the way up into Scorpio’s high ‘teen degrees – which is the most intense of this seriously fixed water sign.

Call it intensity intensified, and you just about have it. Just remember we’re talking about our mental attributes, our focus…and in particular, the emotionality we bring to any subject.

This is high stakes mentality we’re talking about. And let’s not forget that by nature Scorpio is an interactive sign – and that applies whether you’re interacting, or whether you’re totally anti-interactive. All signs have polarities and hardly anything is thought of as more polarizing than Scorpio, a sign which represents everything which can scare us out of out of our wits not necessarily because the thing itself is scary, but because the feelings we bring to the situation, to the transaction, to the event, to that moment when we face the music (so to speak) are scary to us because they mean so much to us.

Yes, Scorpio is the sign of war and conception and death. But Scorpio is as much a sign about reclamation as it is about destruction – so why do we all get the jitters when something Scorpio comes up?

Answer: because Scorpio anything is about letting go of control. Yes, you can try to control things – you can pick the finest surgery for the operation, you can build the very best weapons and supply the largest army the world has ever seen. You can discuss an investment and read up on market theory and prospectuses on the company and on and on and on.

But when it comes to Scorpio, there is a moment when you have to let go…or when by the very nature of the act or situation, things become unpredictable. They may go exactly as you predict. Then again, they may not. And it’s that exact Scorpio quality which gives us the queasiness, the nervous twitch, the moment of ‘what if’ which is so very, very Scorpio.

Mind you, Scorpio is also very tough. This is a sign about survival so while the prep and wariness goes on you will also feel yourself prepared to endure no matter what. In spite of anything. Scorpio fires our survival instincts like nobody’s business and that’s all well and good.

And that’s pretty much the point: the fear, the positioning, the shyness, the lust, the desire to win, the craving to control or not to have to be in control…all those Scorpio things are good OR bad depending on where we are with ourselves on our ability to survive.

Sometimes yes, this is physical survival. But most of the time, transits of Scorpio are about emotional survival, the making ourselves make it through no matter what comes along.

And let’s be real – there’s a lot of Scorpio action already in progress. We discussed Venus and that’s one part of the puzzle. But Saturn is also transiting Scorpio, and that’s a sure-fired signal that there’s a lot of important growth going on. There’s a lot to be done, and as much as our inner twinge might get to us, we know there are responsibilities we really have to be dealing with.

So in light of that…how much risk will we take?

The Nodes are counting down through Saturn’s first decanate degrees like some sort of space launch countdown. As Mercury enters Scorpio the North Node is at 8, and 8 Scorpio is a degree known for emotional glitches and our ability to outsmart ourselves through our very cleverness. Since the North Node is about relationships and how we need to pay attention, we can hope that the first few days of Mercury in Scorpio will have us focused on those areas where our attentiveness can do us the most good.

I just wouldn’t count on it. Yes, we can insist of ourselves that we do the right thing and in particular, do that Scorpio Thing and not assume we know what’s best for everyone without asking. Scorpio is a sign where we would like to impose our will simply because our emotionality is so strong it feels like invalidation to have to change.

Within a day of Mercury entering its shadow, the Nodes will move back a degree into 7 Scorpio – a degree noted for an indescribable and mysterious strength which appears either as charismatic...or an “alternative”…or even a "rebellious" form. With the North Node resting in this degree for the rest of October, the balance of Mercury’s transit of Scorpio (which is mysterious enough!) is going to like as not be an ocean of wanting to know what is best, wanting to know which is the right choice and wanting to both seize our power and not have to be in charge perhaps at all.

Once Venus moves in Sagittarius on October 7th the sense of what we just might be able to do lightens and brightens. We may not understand everything yet…but we’re likely to find the right questions to ask – and quite possibly the right person to pose those questions to. Providing we don’t get overly pushing about things, there’s good progress to be made in the week or so before Mercury reaches its station/retrograde point (on October 21st) but that ‘don’t push’ is going to push us – and our “buttons” pretty hard!

Pragmatism settles in as Mars hits Virgo on October 15th, at which point one of several things is highly like to be true. Some of us will be in the ‘slow and steady wins the race’ mode. But others of us are definitely going to be feeling stymied and stuck. You may not have the answer or enough information yet (which is very common just prior to a Mercury station)…or you may just not have the courage to decide something – most likely because you know your decision either means you’re ‘risking’ something…or because you out-and-out know that to decide in ‘this’ direction means ‘that’ will happen, but deciding in favor of ‘that’ means something else will happen.

Yes, this would be one of those ‘can’t I have my cake and eat it too?’ sorts of moments. And there is some chance that you might be able to have and eat cake, but you’ll never know unless you commit to one thing or another. And there is that pesky niggling point about how if you thought you were in trouble and it turns out you were simply driving yourself nuts, that’s a whole other brand of being wrong.

In other words…why DID you get so cornfuzzled? What in your psyche caused you to be fear driven? Where did you learn – and through what did you learn – to be so scared of being wrong about anything that dealing with that fact can freeze you in your tracks and lead to even more consequential results?

Ah yes…our mental life is such fun, isn’t it? And with a quick ‘don’t throw anything at me, please…’ the next item up for grabs is a Lunar Eclipse – this one being at 25 Aries on October 18th.

Can you say “wild card”? This is definitely a celestial wild card…with the emphasis on the ‘wild’ side. The nuances of the eclipse itself will be discussed a bit down the road, but just the fact that it is occurring with the Sun in the sign ‘behind’ that Mercury is in puts the Moon (our feeling self and sense of ‘how things are at the moment) in an 8th sign harmonic TO Mercury (below, in yellow) and a 6th sign harmonic FROM Mercury (below, in red).

And that makes the period going into and around the time of Mercury October 21st station/retrograde point a power struggle. Many of us will experience our struggles with something which has to do with what we’re working towards (i.e., that which will afford us the ability or power to move forward in our lives) while others of us struggle with someone…as still others of us struggle with our Self, trying to understand or become better aligned to being the person we know we need to be but have some problem with being.

Make no mistake: this is an intensely provocative moment. But what it’s intended to provoke is not some full scale war, but an awareness of what it means to be in interaction with other people. Or working with other people. Or just being on the planet with 7 billion-plus other people.

Once the Sun moves into Scorpio early on the 23rd (UT/+0 time) the reconciling of our mentality to reality (or to realities) begins in earnest. Life will present us with pressing situations which need negotiating in or carefully negotiating through and woe be to those of us who simply think we can stonewall life.

Yes, you may (MAY mind you!) be able to forestall effects for the moment. But not forever. And those who do evade, avoid or postpone the reality are going to earn what we might negative karmic points… which is a fancy way of saying dealing with whatever is not being owned now later on is going to cost you ever so much more.

And we ain’t just talking money here, buck-os!

So the solar eclipse rolls through on November 3rd, then Jupiter (still in Cancer) goes retrograde on November 7th, doing so at a degree which will trine Mercury’s station/retrograde point.

Not that Mercury will still be lurking there, no. But this should be taken as life’s way of ‘holding us to some point’ and making us mind whatever process is going on.

Or maybe we’ll just mind it a lot, if you take me.

Either way, that Jupiter trines Mercury’s station degree is sort of a la-dee-dah celestial way of saying ‘you thought this was going to be easy? Maybe not!’ which rather goes along with Mercury’s being in retrograde since hardly anything ever gets ‘settled’ under Mercury retrograde.

Then…at last…Mercury goes direct and by Wednesday November 27th, Mercury clears it’s shadow and goes toodling on about its Mercurial business just in time for retailers in the US to do  their boombox holiday business and for lots and lots of people to be traveling not just on Thanksgiving here in America, but throughout the world over the holidays as the Sun heads into Sagittarius on November 22nd (UT/+0 time) and life carries on.

But probably not as it was. Not quite. Between the Solar Eclipse in Scorpio and this rather long Mercury (aka Mercurial) transit of Scorpio, by the time December 5th rolls around and Mercury follows the Sun into Sagittarius, a lot of us will have found out a whole lot more about who we are – and in particular, how well our ‘who we are’ quotient functions when it comes to making decisions, creating alliances and…to paraphrase a well known line, how well we do unto others, since between the things which go into how we do unto them and how where we stand with ourselves determines who we do what unto…how well all of that is working.

Here’s to our recognizing our errant ways – and to the courage and fortitude it not only takes to change us, but to go back and make amends with whoever we might have treated rather badly along the way.

They say ‘to err is human…to forgive, divine.’ Too often we tend to think that’s about forgiving ourselves and just moving on. But where Scorpio is concerned…or I should say especially where Scorpio is concerned (not that anything is scot-free under any other sign) the interactive nature of the energetic requires that we purify ourselves and then connect (or reconnect) and purify that connection. 

Or the process of connecting.

If you’re familiar with Tantra, this is akin to Tantric liberation. Tantra is not just about sex, though many think of it that way. Tantra and Tantric processes are about harmonic alignments and the ‘fine tuning’ of our beings which, through the accessing of our energetics and the matching of what we might call a ‘vibrational frequencies’ allow us to dissolve barriers which lie within us - and between our Self and another (Tantric sex or intimate Tantric unity) - and between our Self and our world.

Seen in this light, the universality of Tantra is very much akin to the universality of the unbounded whole which is Pisces.

Thus because Scorpio as our depth of emotional experience is found as a 9th harmonic – the sign through which we learn or expand our horizons – from Pisces…it is through this that we come to understand that the ‘alliance’ which allows us to access or unlock our Tantric Self and our Tantric experiences with others (which would include our fullest expanse of Scorpio power and personal transformation and transformative experience) is initiated through a “Libran” pathway which requires openness of our Self and to our Self. It requires not the ‘appearance’ of beauty but the willingness to be beautiful in the integrity of our being…which coming from Pisces includes the admission of our fears, our flaws and our humanity.

Scorpio has always been seen as the sign of that power which allows us to understand and reclaim our inner sense of vibrant being. While Mercury is traversing Scorpio during these days of an unfolding solar eclipse cycle, we have a singular opportunity to see without and look within…and thus find that we need to know in order to empower our moving on into greater growth.
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A Sagittarius New Moon

"Earthrise" - a photo of Planet Earth taken by astronaut Bill Anders on December 24, 1968 revealing a sight apparently only visible from someone orbiting the Moon, not standing on its the surface.

(photo credit: NASA)

 
One of the things Sagittarius evokes in my astrological thoughts is the idea that anything Sagittarian is about being ‘on the road’ to somewhere or something.

So when it comes to a New Moon in Sagittarius (which occurs at 8:43 a.m. UT/+0 on Thursday, December 13th)...and since being ‘on the road’ is about learning new things, accepting the new and letting go of the old (at least as being ‘the only thing’…Sagittarius embodies qualities of wandering, wondering and maybe having a few regrets. For all we may gain, we may also leave something behind. We may triumph…then again, we may also make a few mistakes.

Known sometimes as dogmatic, Sagittarius becomes demanding or resistant through an inability to consider new ideas. It’s also about our ability to miss out on success when we refuse to hear good sense or learn better.

Any New Moon is the beginning of a next life ‘vignette.’ I often think of a solar return and our ‘birthday year’ as a chapter in the book of our life. In that sense, the lunation is a scene, a scenario, one of the subsets with which and upon which we will build our future and, in learning more about who we are, gain perspective on our past.

It’s that perspective which gives us insight and the power to improve our future. So here’s at least to that!

This year’s Sagittarius New Moon falls at 21 Sagittarius, a degree which by “decanate definition” has us interacting with our world. But it’s also a degree which is about some sort of active struggle we’re having with ourselves…about something. Or maybe some things. The Sabian Symbol A CHINESE LAUNDRY implies (among other things) that we’re sorting things out and trying to ‘clean things up’ or sort them out. The reference to ‘Chinese’ would seem to imply something ‘foreign’ to, or about, or which is part of what we’re trying to sort through this month. At the same time, we’re trying to be practical. And because this symbol refers to a business which would be part of a community or city, this refers to us as someone in our world – and whatever ‘thing’ we’re working at as one ‘working function’ in a greater tapestry of life.

And that idea…the ‘one among many’ issue, that echoes the ongoing Pluto/Facies conjunction.

LINK TO PLUTO/FACIES BLOG

That this moment – and this lunar month – may be an emotional one is shown by this New Moon at 21 Sagittarius being conjunct fixed star Ras Alhague, square Pallas in Pisces, and in perfect trine to Eris (retrograde) in Aries.

There’s a humble and industrious quality to the idea of the Chinese Laundry...coupled to the fact that the phrase 'Chinese Laundry' as coined in the US in the early part of the 1900's really had to do with oppressive circumstances experienced by Chinese Americans unable to get an economic foothold in a country which they were having trouble integrating themselves into.

Ras Alhague upholds both sides of this idea in many ways. As a binary star (with an orbiting cycle of approximately 8.6 years) Ras Alhague describes situations which 'circle around themselves.' Thus the dualistic nature of the Chinese American at the time when the term 'Chinese Laundry' was coined refers both to a group of people wanting to be part of a greater culture and a group of people who were at that time still very involved in holding to their own 'old' ways. Thus the difficulties ("punishment") which is felt whenever and wherever we see Ras Alhague becomes one which comes both from without and from within, with no clear answer.

And that 'seeking the answer to the problem' idea - that is entirely Sagittarian.

Known as the ‘Astrologer’ (implication: one who seeks information leading to greater knowledge) in Chinese lore, the name given to it by Arab astrologers (Ras Alhague) evidently translates as the ‘head of the serpent,’ which is apt because the alternate name for Ras Alhague is Alpha Ophiuchus -  Ophiuchus being a constellation which from time to time is proposed as a ‘lost zodiac sign’...but which it isn’t.

To qualify as a zodiac sign, Ophiuchus would have to lie on or across the planet of the ecliptic (Earth’s path around the Sun). And it doesn’t. But this too echoes the 'wanting to be part of something while being apart' quality as noted above.

And the constellation doesn't suggest that situations are easy, either. The image of Ophiuchus is of a hunter (some say a warrior) wrestling with a serpent, which fits with the ‘wrestling with things’ theme posed by the New Moon being at 21 Sagittarius.

The image of constellation Ophiuchus as pictured in the Azophi (al Sufi) manuscript Suwar al-Kawakib (dating from around 1730) which itself is a copy of a lost manuscript prepared for Ulug Beg of Smarkand in 1417 

(courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington, DC)

 
Then we add the most prevalent themes which go with Ras Alhague, that of its representing situations which heal or hurt – even harm. If you saw the second in the recent series of Batman movies (‘The Dark Knight’) you may remember a character named Ras Alhague who asserted that the city of Gotham had to experience chaos and darkness in order to be purified. That idea is right in sync with the star and its lore, whether or not that was the intention of the character’s creators.

So there’s a definite ‘theme’ of difficulty and how we go about dealing with difficulties, whether they be past or present.

Because this is a New Moon, it may also be very helpful to think of the whole of the lunation (something I’ve been thinking about doing but hadn’t gotten to until now). The New Moon is at 21 Sagittarius, the First Quarter is at 28 Pisces, the Full Moon will be at 7 Cancer and the Last Quarter at 14 Libra.

Yes, the lunar cycle has 8 phases. But let’s start with the four ‘axial’ points. The first half of this lunation (the New and First Quarter phases) are in mutable signs, indicating a period where we learn as we go and will probably deal with a lot of adjusting of our plans, schedules and aims. Then the second half of the lunar cycle are in cardinal signs. So as we get to and pass through the Full Moon phase (which falls on December 28th), we will be moving from a reacting-to-things-as-we-go sort of mood-and-methodology into a more ‘get it done’ sort of mode.

Which makes sense, seeing as by December 28th the holidays are pretty much over.

(Yes, I know…there’s still New Years. But who doesn’t have their New Years plans in place by December 28th?)

Going back to the more astrological side of it all though, any lunation which begins in Sagittarius and comes to ‘full’ in Cancer is describing a couple of things.

One: since Sag-to-Cancer is an 8th house harmonic, this says that whatever we’re trying to ‘do’ starting out (i.e., at the New Moon) is all about a “Scorpio/8th house” sort of effort. In other words, we’re a.) dealing in the interactive realm here, b.) things are emotional and/or emotionally based and c.) we’d really just like to be doing what we’d like to do (or do it in a fashion and on a schedule which suits our fancy) but there are others to consider in our equation.

As always when we talk Scorpio/8th house, that’s the real test. We go into this lunation thinking about ourselves and our aims. But if that’s all we think about during this lunation, we’re going to have a hard time. All things Scorpio and 8th house require that we think not just in terms of our own values and judgment, but that of those around us with the trick being not to try to control them…AND not to be controlled by them.

(Oh yeah…that.)

So we can’t pander and we can’t give in, but we also can’t be unfeeling, uncaring, demanding or pissy.

The weird thing is…in a situation like this, especially since we’re talking a cycle which is by its lunar nature all about money, feelings, family and the bonds which tie (and sometimes unravel us!) it’s our very desire which can get us off track.

Yes, well…desire IS a Scorpio/8th house word.

The answer is to think it through and to do what’s right for you to do, regardless of pressures from others – or from some guilt or shame or whatever on the inside.

But be forewarned: this is one of those situations where the more sensible you are, the more lacking in sense others may turn out to be.

And when you see that, your feeling about them will change…which sometimes is the hardest thing of all, but oh-so Scorpio. Scorpio isn’t about sex or power or money as some think it is. Scorpio and all 8th harmonics are about how we discover more about our innermost self.

The other thing which seems so notable about this New Moon being in Sagittarius – particularly where it’s positioned (with Ras Alhague and trine Eris) – with the Full Moon being in Cancer is that this would seem to be a lunation which ‘brings things home’ to us. That can be in the external and obvious sense, but then again, it may symbolize a time…a lunar cycle…which ends up revealing more about why you are as you are. Why you live and have built the (Cancer) life that you live…how it came out of  (Sagittarius) things you learned or learned to believe.

Such concepts may now work for you…or not.

Either way, with Eris in the mix, this is New Moon starts us along a path which is meant to get us to feel something we haven’t felt before. Or which we didn’t think we were capable of feeling. Or which we didn’t realize was so important. Or not important.

Eris generally works best when we’re fighting for others. The person who defends the helpless, the person who stands up for the rights of those who aren’t being heard, those are Eris people who earn respect, support and lasting positive regard. Those who don’t care about what happens to others or how what they do effects others are also ‘Eris figures’ but in time the compromise of their own mortality comes back to haunt them.

The Judgment of Paris by Anton Raphael Mengs (c.1757)

The famous story of Paris' judgment being tested is very much what Eris is all about. When Eris is in the astrological picture, things will happen which test us emotionally, seeing what we're really all about and what we're willing to stand for. Want more information on Eris? Here's a LINK to an article on dwarf planet Eris here on the blog.  

That the New Moon is a latter (3rd decanate/21 Sagittarius) degree and the Full Moon is at 7 Cancer and thus a 1st decanate degree which is about who we are ‘in the flesh’ and what we do is another way of saying that life is ‘bringing home to us’ not just what we are going about (Sagittarius) doing, but what that means we are or are going to end up (Cancer) being.

With Mercury having just gone into Sagittarius as this New Moon arrives and Venus about to do likewise (as of December 16th) we know this is a busy time which will tempt us to just do “whatever” in order to get something done.

About the time the Full Moon hits, some of us will simply exhale in gratitude. Others of us will wonder where to go, considering what they’ve already done. We have three more months to come (after this one) of New Moons at 21 of successive signs, so we know that life is still about how we handle ourselves in our more and most ‘public realm.’ As of next month however, the emphasis shifts from interactive to worldly and “big picture” concerns. That fits with December being all about friends, family and holidays and to some extent that’s yet another way of looking at the New Moon being at 21 Sagittarius and the Full Moon being at 7 Cancer as the major markers in this cycle. Sagittarius is about how things are going along the road through our life. That reflects now – in some ways – in terms of what you bring home and for many, what home they have to come home to.

There’s a physical home, there is that home we find with family and people we love and treasure. Those are important, yes. But ultimately, it’s being at home with your Self and inside your own skin which really counts.

December 13th is not just the date of the New Moon – it’s also the day when Uranus and asteroid Kassandra go direct and when asteroid Circe goes into retrograde. And this is also at the peak of the Geminid meteor shower, as got blogged about yesterday.

 A photo from a 1955 episode of "I Love Lucy" with (left to right) Lucy's real-life husband Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball, Vivian Vance as Ethel Murtz and William Frawley as Ethel's husband Fred in the middle of some ridiculous situation so typical of the show and all the other sit-com's of the1950s.

(photo in public domain)

On the old ‘I Love Lucy’ shows hubby Ricky Ricardo used to say to his life (Lucille Ball) ‘you got some ‘splaining to do!’ in his richly Cuban accent…and it would seem that we are in something of a like position. But that’s good. If we can enjoy the holidays and along the way through them experience and learn about ourselves, what better present can we have...or become to ourselves, others and this world?
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