The Cosmic Story: Leo SuperMoon Lunar Eclipse 2018

The Cosmic Story: Leo SuperMoon Lunar Eclipse 2018

Imbolc 2018: Brigid’s Fire of Creative Vision is Love

Total Lunar Eclipse

This week is still all about change. On Wednesday morning there’s a SuperMoon Lunar Eclipse and then on Friday, we turn the Wheel of the Year once more to see that we’ve arrived at Imbolc – the festival of returning light. Or as we commemorate it, Groundhog Day.

While the lunar eclipse comes first in time, let’s jump ahead to Imbolc for a minute to set the tone of this season’s eclipses, because there is also a solar eclipse on February 15^th.

Imbolc: St. Brighid’s Day: Candlemas

The second gateway of the Wheel of the Year is called Imbolc in the Celtic tradition. It means 'ewe's milk' because this is the time when spring lambs are born and the mother ewe's milk comes in. The lamb's birth promises returning life and light to the world, despite the snow and frost that still linger in the land. It is also called Candlemas by Christians, who get their candles blessed for the coming year. 

Helena Nelson Reed

 

Imbolc or St. Brighid’s Day is an important holiday because its message is "hold on, there is hope...the bitter days of winter are near their end." It marks the midway point between Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, a time when hope begins to stir with a longing for the return of spring. It is one of the 4 Celtic Fire Festivals on the cross-quarter holidays between the Solstices and Equinoxes.

The first signs of spring's approach can be seen, if only we look closely. Our Groundhog Day come from the Scottish celebration of this tradition for Candlemas. The tradition is if any animal comes out from their underground hibernation on this day and sees his shadow, there will be 6 more weeks of winter—they even call it the second winter. And you’ll notice the days getting longer more quickly now as the Sun starts to rise up from the southern hemisphere, getting closer to the equator.

St. Brighid was a Celtic Sun Goddess and while the Catholic Church made her a saint because the Irish wouldn’t give her up, she is still honored and remembered as a goddess. It is said that she has two sisters who are also named Brighid. Together, they were called the 'Three Mothers', 'Three Sisters', or simply the Goddess Brighid.

Three Brighids ~ Patricia Banker

Brighid, the 'Fire of Inspiration', is the muse of poetry, song, history and the protector of all cultural learning.

Brighid, the 'Fire of the Hearth', is the goddess of fertility, family, childbirth and healing.

Brighid, the '"Fire of the Forge', is like the Greek goddess Athena, a patroness of the crafts (especially weaving, embroidery, and metalsmithing), and a goddess who was concerned with justice and law and order.

We honor Brighid as the goddess of poetry, healing waters and smithcraft. She is a goddess of Fire and Water. As Rumi says, “Love is the Water of Life. And a Lover is a Soul of Fire. The Universe turns differently when Fire Loves Water.” Brighid brings this different perspective to her creativity. We have to love to truly create.

Creativity and vision are the primary gifts of this season. Like the groundhog or snake, it’s time to come out of our hibernation and look to the future – what do we want to manifest this year. We journey into the imagination to see what our souls are ready to manifest. We bring back that vision and start to work it, like a smith or a poet, seeing where we need to heal ourselves, to acknowledge our gifts so we can get on with the life that’s coming as spring and summer approach. This is a time of preparation, a time to plant seeds that will sprout and grow in the coming months and years.

It’s important for women to discover these ancient powers that the Divine Feminine energizes. As we pull away from our identification with all things masculine, we get to reclaim our ancient feminine powers and use them to better our personal as well as our collective lives. 

Emily Balivet ~ Brigit of the Fires

 

This is the time of the return of the Goddess, for it is the divine Feminine spirit which births a new age. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing around the world. The second Women’s March, along with Oprah’s Golden Globe speech, along with all the other ‘metoo#’ movements, are a sign of the time – women are on the rise and we will change the world for the better.

So this Brighid’s Day, light a candle and visualize what you intend to create this coming year. Or even better, gather your community and create a ritual that will energize the seeds you’re planting for this year and the coming 3 years while Saturn travels through Capricorn.

Leo Lunar Eclipse, January 31, 2018

This lunar eclipse is also a superMoon, meaning that the Moon is at its closest orbit to Earth, so it appears bigger. The news is calling it a ‘blue moon’ because it’s the 2^nd Full Moon in January (there won’t even be a full Moon in February this year). But as I’ve mentioned before, a true ‘blue Moon’ has nothing to do with our calendar but when there are two full Moons in an astrological sign, since it shifts the lunar cycle. There are also other ways to describe ‘blue moons’.

This Leo/Aquarius Lunar Eclipse occurs on January 31, 2018 at 5:27am PST/ 8:27am EST/1:27pm GMT. It will be visible in the western US through through the Pacific, Asia, India, eastern Africa, the Middle East and eastern Europe. 

 

The Sabian Symbol for the Moon at 12* Leo is: A dragon circling a fantastic tree from which a singe golden apple is hanging. I love this image! Dragons are protectors of wisdom and treasures – our inner skills and gifts. Fantastic trees make life amazing, since they are the axis between worlds. The golden apple is Love – and that’s what Aphrodite/Venus, as she starts her new cycle, wants to nourish us with. Let’s all eat the apple! A new Garden of Eden story, in which eating the golden apple might just get us back to the Garden. Let us taste divine knowledge and live. This symbol speaks to the incarnation of spirit in flesh. Like the solar eclipse symbol of a mermaid taking on human form. This is how we do it.

The Moon comes first because this is what we have to integrate. When we let go of our shadow Leo pride, our insecurities, our inability to let ourselves love, we open ourselves to the power to co-create our life. We get the golden apple and fly high with the dragons.

The Sabian Symbol for the Sun at 12* Aquarius is: Life’s broad stairway, each landing a new grade of life. This symbol speaks to us of the many levels we move through as we grow up and grow old, as we become conscious and then wise. It speaks of leadership, of bringing your talents into the world, of seeing the big picture. I also see Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing up and down this stairway to heaven, showing us how it’s done. Stay light on your feet, feel the rhythm and move!

While in ancient times, many cultures worshipped the Sun as feminine (Brighid, Sekhmet, etc.) and the Moon as masculine (Sin, the Man in the Moon) – today we honor the Sun as the divine masculine and the Moon as the divine feminine. An eclipse is a meeting of these two energies with the Earth as mediator. The Sun and Moon are furthest apart, and the Earth travels on their plane to show them how they affect us here on Earth. The Earth is the child of these two lights, and their blessings flow more easily during eclipses.

Usually eclipses accelerate things, helping us release old shadows and unconscious wounds and patterns that not longer serve us at the lunar eclipses and helping us birth new patterns at the solar eclipses.

These next two eclipses resonate with the eclipses from last August, 2017 when there was a partial lunar eclipse at 15*Aquarius/Leo and a total solar eclipse at 29* Leo. Thursday’s total lunar eclipse at 12* Leo/Aquarius is about finishing up old business that we didn’t release last August. On February 15^th, there is a partial solar eclipse at 28* Aquarius that is opposite the total solar eclipse of August 21^st, grounding in the new seeds we planted then, showing us our next steps.

Those eclipses helped us open to love in all its forms. Or shut off our hearts to those who need love and help. It looks like our leaders haven’t learned this lesson, but those of us in the Resistance are doing so. We are learning to face our own shadows, our sexism and racism and stuck beliefs and we are wrestling them into the Light.

Think back to what you felt and desired last August, and see if you are beginning to shift into a new heart/mindset that is based in your heart rather than in collective consciousness. It’s time to come back to our original blessings of life and love.

Both eclipse seasons invite us to discover our own unique heart skills which we can contribute to our collective culture. Love is supposed to lead the way for all of us. Women are especially called to add our voices and imaginations to help heal our cultural wounds, while men are called to defend what is true, beautiful and good in the world.

Our world is so out of balance that it has to descend into chaos to get remade. All honorable people want to re-make the world with a more balanced, life-giving energy, which gives equal value to the feminine gifts of imagination, emotional intelligence and compassion as well as the masculine gifts of clarity, reason and justice. We can remake our world in ways that will honor life rather than focus on death – as opposed to western capitalism, Judaic, Christian and Islamic fundamentalism and corporate globalism, which seem intent on death and domination.

Watching politics play out, watching the hidden hatreds, religious hypocrisy and greed finally being unmasked is a harsh way to learn, but it’s necessary. Americans and the West have bullied the rest of the world over the years rather then stepping up in true leadership. My image of entitled America comes from the Disney movie, Pinocchio. It’s the scene where Pinocchio goes with the bully boys to pleasure island – a playground where they can have anything they want. Unfortunately, this turns them into asses. And that’s what our culture is doing to us. We need to escape and dive into the belly of the whale to rediscover our freedom.

The Moon and Ceres join with the North Node in Leo, which is a collective directive to each of us to express our unique creativity. The Moon and Ceres, the Roman fertility and mother goddess, are both energies that help us access our unconscious (Moon) feelings of being un-loved (Ceres). We all deserve to be loved just for ourselves and so many of us weren’t loved in that way. Ceres asks us to let her mother us, to let ourselves be and feel loved. The Moon mother shows us our old beliefs about our worthiness and helps us release those old ‘sins’. Like Matthew Fox says, it’s time to consider our original blessings instead of our ‘original sins’.

Who would we have become if we were allowed to follow our soul’s longings in life? Would we even have an economy which wants to be our center rather than being just a tool for living? Who would we be if we knew we all came into this world to create it together? Who would we be if we all felt, down in our bones, that we are worthy of love? Not because we have money or are smart or good at our jobs, but just because we are alive?

If we can think these kinds of thoughts, and open our hearts to our original blessings and hopes, what would we do? Who would we be? What would our world look like?

The South Node in Aquarius is our collective directive to stop being part of a mob mentality, stuck in unreasonable rationality and start seeing that it is our heart’s hope that we must contribute to our collective consciousness. We have to stop protecting our hearts – there’s nothing ever wrong with loving. We have to release old ideals about love and community and goals that separate us. We are all in this together, aren’t we?

The Sun, Venus and Juno, the goddess of relationships, are conjunct the South Node in Aquarius. It’s time to renew our ideals about Venus’ love – that there are no boundaries to love. We have to renew our ideals about Juno’s partnerships – all of us are equal and deserve to be heard, respected and loved. We have to reset our Sun’s identities to realise we are all interconnected rather than individuals who have to fight to survive. We are all in this together! It’s time to Evolve!

Jupiter in Scorpio squares the Nodes, accelerating our ability to face our shadows and our fears of rejection, abandonment and loneliness.

This eclipse can expose our distortions – our personal ‘fake news’ – so we have to work at accessing our imaginations (Neptune in Pisces) consciously and stop using it in negative ways, such as worry, which is the negative use of the imagination.

Let’s use these energies to start a new story based in Love. Imagine!

Walk with the Earth, dance with the Sun, Moon and Stars,

Cathy

(The Revised Sabian Symbols, Steven D. Eardley)

WELCOMING LOVE
Gather together my loves,
at Hestia’s Hearth where I tend to the Soul Fire, the Inner Sun of my Radiant Self.

I am here now.

This intention, attention and action,
spirals, illuminates and activates,
ALL THAT IS around me
in this reciprocal dance of call and response.

Back to the basics of Sacred Practices,
tuning into the celestial-terrestrial rhythms,
surrendering into what is asking to emerge
through me, this perfectly imperfect container
of universes of possibilities.

I am co-creating from my center
and playing with the shifting coastline of the known and unknown.

I am improvising and liberating myself from
the trances of survival-conditioned responses
for the revival of my spirit.

As storyteller and storymaker,
as the shaper and the shaped,
my Response-ability is to nurture
the soil of my stories with the waters
of Love, Compassion, Wonder and Delight.

Everything breathes together.
Everything is moving and changing.
I am holding sacred space.
I am being held in sacred hands.
I behold circles, spirals and fractals,
as I walk in faith, trust and joy,
hand in hand with the Great Mystery.

I bless the space between us,
healing any hurts, bridging any separation.
Welcoming Love,
let us proclaim our rebirth
into Love, from Love, as Love.

We are here now.

Tee Ming Ooi