The Cosmic Story: Virgo Full Moon, 2018

Channeling Our Soul’s Intention

Alex Grey ~ Super Consciousness

 

The January 31^st partial solar eclipse in Aquarius gave us the opportunity to upgrade our operating system, helping us think ‘outside the box’ about what we can do as human beings. We are changing, becoming more intuitive, more self-aware and better able to stand up for our beliefs. We’re uniting our inner masculine and feminine energies to become what psychologist Jean Houston calls ‘the possible human’.

This possible human leads with the heart rather than the head. Not in an unconscious display of emotions like our fearful leader does in his twitter rants, but rather coming from a compassionate awareness that we are all in this together. The human heart has a bigger magnetic field than any other organ in the body, even the brain. It is our third brain, the mystical brain of compassionate awareness. Our other brains deal with survival and our creative imagination.

When we lead from the heart, we only see unity. We see that we are all one family called humanity.

The old operating system only sees divisions. It’s based on the need to survive at all costs and gives rise to hierarchies of power. We are seeing the end game of that kind of system. It leads to death, because it refuses to die so it can be reborn again on a higher level. The old death machine is fighting back, because that’s all it knows how to do now.

While I write this newsletter, my computer screen keeps flashing pictures of my 2 ½ year old grandson. My heart overflows with love whenever I see his smiling face. Our children are so precious.

And then I flash to what happened to our children in Florida, and to all the children who have died in school shootings, and think, ‘why should my grandson be more precious than these children?’ Children who died to feed a ‘dead’ society that just doesn’t want to die – a true Zombie Apocalypse

 

And my heart told me the Truth.

Our American society, which we want to see as good and loving, helpful and brave, is showing its underbelly. We are the ultimate corporate state. Our companies use slave labor to make the clothes we buy and throw out. We waste energy and pollute the Earth for profit. We don’t take care of our people or our common good. Selfishness leads to greed. We are consumers rather than citizens. That’s what America has fallen to.

Plato, who imagined an ideal and just City, would weep for our loss. We are definitely not ‘the shining city on the hill’ of justice and peace that all people of good will long for. This is not freedom to create the world we want and need. This is freedom to have 60 choices of soap and cheap, throw-away clothes, and dead, poisoned food. And insipid, 24-hour TV shows which dull the imagination and fill our psyches with violence.

Some of our people think they still live in the ‘wild west’ and need their guns for courage, for who knows when someone will attack. It doesn’t matter that our children are dying for their fears – both abroad in our multiple wars (why don’t our leaders and their children go to war instead of sending our youngsters) and at home, in our cities and for a long time now, in our schools. Who kills children?

We are the most fearful nation. Why? Not because of outside attacks. We are vulnerable from inside our own nation. Like cancer, we are rotting from the inside out. The need to get a gun and kill people is just as prevalent in America as it is in the Middle East. We just don’t call ourselves terrorists. We say, ‘oh, they’re just crazy’.

And yet we don’t call out the very people who make these weapons of death and destruction. They are the truly crazy people for they amass fortunes through death.

Fundamentalists fear the Anti-Christ. Perhaps they are the Anti-Christ. For sure our culture is. For we are against (anti) spirit (Christ-consciousness).

People don’t ‘need’ guns. They’ve been trained to believe they do. And they seem to enjoy killing, if not people, then animals. If they just want to test their skills, why not take up archery or knife throwing? They are tools for killing as well but not as lethal. And they give the other guy a chance to strike back. It equals out the power. But then you’d have to have some courage to face an opponent head on rather than from behind a gun barrel.

We refuse to hold our government accountable for these deaths. Our leaders let our home-grown terrorists access guns without any checks and balances. Who would sell an automatic rifle to a kid? Are we any better than Boko Haran and Islamic State who kidnap kids and make them fight and kill their own people?

Our government officials are accountable. They are bribed by groups such as the NRA and corporate killers. They have blood on their hands. And they don’t care.

We are accountable by not participating in our government. Isn’t it time we did?

Our children have had enough and they are standing up to this death machine. I wondered where they found the courage and will to do this. And then I re-watched a Harry Potter film “The Order of the Phoenix”, where Hogwarts is taken over by a crazed woman who refuses to acknowledge EVIL. She refuses to let these young magicians learn how to defend themselves from Voldemort, and punishes them for even believing that this evil was abroad in the world. And so Harry teaches them.

Our kids grew up with this powerful story of a boy and his friends standing up to EVIL. And like all great myths, these stories make us better people. Perhaps they gave our kids the courage to face down the evils in our society.

Our kids need us to stand up with them – which our parents didn’t do for us in the 60-70s when Uranus and Pluto started a new cycle of evolution and revolution. As the potent square between Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn wanes, we are called to transform our society. And the children are leading the way.

Virgo—Pisces Full Moon, 2018

The Virgo Full Moon occurs on March 1^st at 4:51pm PST/ 7:51pm EST and on March 2^nd at 12:51am GMT. 

 

The Sabian symbol for the Moon at 12* Virgo is: After the wedding, the groom lifts the veil away from his bride’s face. This is a time to unveil the mysteries of life. Interestingly, apocalypse means an unveiling. In mystical traditions, the groom is the Divine Spirit. The bride is the Soul. It’s time to marry our soul to spirit and live out its intention.

The Sabian symbol for the Sun at 12* Pisces is: In The Sanctuary Of An Occult Brotherhood, Newly Initiated Members Are Being Examined And Their Character Tested. Are we passing our initiation? Have we learned the lessons of our past? Can we go on to become newly awakened Possible Humans?

The Sabian symbol for Neptune at 14* Pisces is: A Lady Wrapped In A Large Stole Of Fox Fur. This is a feminine energy attuned to natural instincts. The Celts see foxes as wise guides, especially when confronted by obstacles and tricky situations. Fox is mentally and physically cunning and knows how to traverse the dark places as well as the dream world.

Combined with the Pisces Sun symbol, our spiritual consciousness has to be attuned to our instinctual wisdom. And the Virgo Moon wants to incarnate both.

Neptune is the spiritual energy of the creative imagination and it comes to us in vision, dreams and inspiration. But if left unconscious, it can drain our energies and confuse our ego. With four planets and two asteroids in Pisces, it’s time to let go of our ego agendas and let Spirit take us into the flow.

The Virgo Moon draws upon the Piscean energies of not only the Sun and Neptune, but also Venus, Mercury and Chiron in Pisces, bringing all that watery energy down to earth in a practical way to heal and purify us. Grounded in the here and now details of life, we can begin to discern the treasures of the creative imagination from our collective delusions and ‘fake news’.

We have entered a time very much like the early 70s, when there were protests and civic disruption. Our leaders were caught off-guard then, but you have only to turn on the news to see that our corporate elites have prepared for this round of revolution. They are trying to take away our 1^st Amendment ‘right to protest’ just as they are determined to stop any curtailment of the 2^nd Amendment ‘right to bear arms’. So it’s okay to kill people (especially children) but not okay to protest against a government that no longer serves the common good.

We will need the cunning of the fox to help us stand up for our values and beliefs. That’s where the ARTS come in. Pisces is very much connected to Art, for it is the sign not only of spirit but of imagination, which uses the vehicle of the Arts to express itself.

Alex Grey ~ Painting

The Republicans have eroded any government support for the ARTS, especially since it was our artists (think John Lennon) and musicians who led the way in the 70s for our cultural revolution. Now we once again need our artists to help change the collective tides. Art speaks to the heart and so I ask, where are our musicians, our Bards, our artists, our dancers? Where are they telling the story of NOW, of what it means to take a stand at these most dangerous and beautiful times of cultural transformation?

Mercury, Venus and Chiron are conjunct in late Pisces, giving voice to healing visions. With a strong trine from Jupiter in Scorpio, just before Jupiter turns retrograde on March 8^th, we have the ability to dig deep into the soul, facing the wounds of this lifetime and many previous ones. What better way to express what we discover than through Art?

Art is one of the blessings of Pisces. And as we leave the Piscean Age, we need to take our Artists seriously. And they need to take themselves seriously and tell us the story of our times. That will begin a great healing of our collective psyche.

It’s time to bring more healthy nourishment into our collective lives, and that begins in our own lives. Don’t forget that we are all artists, so dance and sing, play music, create art and story and share it with your communities.

With Saturn in Capricorn and Pallas in Taurus forming a grand earth trine with this Virgo Moon, we have the energies to strategize and manage how to bring our dreams into manifestation. Just remember. Take it slow. Saturn wants to build solid foundations and so we have to be patient and let things develop in their own time and place. That means, we have to get off of patriarchal time and step into cosmic flow.

With Mars and Vesta in Sagittarius squaring the Venus, Mercury, Chiron conjunction, we have to know when and how to speak our truths, otherwise, they will go unheard.

Mars and Vesta in Sagittarius trines Uranus and Black Moon Lilith in Aries as well as the Leo North Node. Once again, be inspired to bring up what has been wounded and rejected and know that we can burn the old off if we use the vision of the possible human to guide us.

These are some of the characteristics of this new order of being.

1, We have to form a new relationship with what we have called ‘God’ in the past. Instead of an institution or a set of rules about what is ‘good’ or ‘evil’, we have to form an individual connection within to Spirit and learn how to distinguish Its voice from our ego’s voice. Listen to Susan Vega singing Leonard Cohen’s Story of Isaac. We are going to have our individual connection to the Creative Spirit.

2. We all have to become Self-Aware. We need to know who we are and what our individual purpose is. It is definitely NOT about what job we have. Know Thyself was inscribed on Apollo’s temple at Delphi.

3. We have to learn that we are all in this together. We are facing the serious environmental consequences of our modern lifestyle. We can no longer think in terms of them or us. We are all us.

On this final full Moon before the Spring Equinox starts another new cycle of life here in the northern hemisphere, let us leave the old behind and step into the future.

Do it for and with the children.

Walk in peace and love,

Cathy

In Silence -- Thomas Merton

In Silence

Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
To speak your

Name.
Listen
To the living walls.
Who are you?
Who
Are you? Whose
Silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
Are you (as these stones
Are quiet). Do not
Think of what you are
Still less of
What you may one day be.
Rather
Be what you are (but who?) be
The unthinkable one
You do not know.

O be still, while
You are still alive,
And all things live around you
Speaking (I do not hear)
To your own being,
Speaking by the Unknown
That is in you and in themselves.

“I will try, like them
To be my own silence:
And this is difficult. The whole
World is secretly on fire. The stones
Burn, even the stones
They burn me. How can a man be still or
Listen to all things burning? How can he dare
To sit with them
When all their silence
Is on fire?”

~ Thomas Merton ~

(The Strange Islands: Poems by Thomas Merton)

The Cosmic Story: Aquarius New Moon Solar Eclipse 2018

The Cosmic Story: Aquarius Solar Eclipse, 2018

This could be the start of something BIG!

Solar eclipses are new beginnings, so if you find yourself cleaning out old spaces and attitudes, you know it's because something new is just around the corner. 

 

This partial solar eclipse in Aquarius occurs on the South Node of the Moon and can be seen in the lower southern hemisphere around Antarctica. Each eclipse is part of a series of eclipses and this partial (meaning it looks like a cookie with a bite in it!) solar eclipse is part of a relatively new series that began in 1729 and will end in 2991. Each eclipse series (called the Saros Series) tells an unfolding story, and so we need to go back to the beginning to see how it all starts.

The original eclipse in Saros Series 150 occurred on August 24, 1729 as a 2* Virgo New Moon, in the sign of service and mastery. The Sabian symbol is: A large white cross dominates the landscape. Dane Rudhyar states that it symbolizes the wisdom and compassion which only the experience of suffering and isolation can bring. The mystic path of Initiation always involves the suffering of the heart, our personal crucifixion, out of which arises from our inner depths this wisdom and compassion. Rudhar calls it a liberating ordeal.

 

Virgo's lesson is to learn to be of service to each other, the world and to our Higher Selves. “When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. Service rests on the basic premise that the nature of life is sacred, that life is a holy mystery that has an unknown purpose. When we serve, we know that we belong to life and to that purpose. From the perspective of service, we are all connected. All suffering is like my suffering and all joy is like my joy. The impulse to serve emerges naturally from these perceptions.” (Rachel Naomi Reme, MD. Helping, Fixing or Serving? Shambala Sun , September 1, 1999.)

So behind our present eclipse is the overriding story of this eclipse series: Our hearts have been tested and our task is to heal our hearts, think with our hearts and learn the lessons of the heart, It is interesting that this original eclipse had the North Node at 15* Aquarius/ South Node at 15* Leo. Exactly opposite where they are for this week's eclipse. The Sabian symbol for 15* Aquarius is: Two love birds singing and flying joyfully around each other. And for 15* Leo: A loud and colorful circus parade snakes through the city streets. Our original instructions were to get out of the delusional circus of life and fly free with love. Our new instructions bring us back to celebrate everyday life, but centered in that higher, spiritual love.

Originally this series invites us to learn to be more objective and discerning so we can look at things from an ideal, spiritual perspective. With this 2018 eclipse, we are called upon to take into consideration the promptings of our hearts and form new patterns of belief to live by that accord with our heart's hopes and values. And to celebrate life here on Earth. 

 

What a wonderful thing to learn this Valentine's Day! With Venus' re-appearance as an Evening Star and with Juno, the asteroid of equal partnerships, conjunct this New Moon solar eclipse, we are called to implement a new balance between the head and heart, between masculine and feminine consciousness, between women and men. 

 

As patriarchy winds down, the rise of the Divine Feminine won't devalue masculine consciousness, but it will demand that we center ourselves in our hearts, in our imaginations and in our spiritual awareness. For She returns to us as Wisdom, Who among our leaders asks for an understanding heart like wise King Solomon? That leaves it up to us to be the leaders of our communities and our world. A true democracy.

The other interesting thing about this solar eclipse is that it not only occurs exactly opposite last August's Great American Eclipse, but it's also on the degree of the U.S. Moon in the 4^th of July chart. The Moon in a country's birth chart represents the people. This could, and should, be the giant wake-up call to the American people. It's time to awaken to the challenges of a true democracy, which is that we all have a stake in the world and our leaders are suppose to represent us, not their corporate masters. Our leaders are creating their own downfall. So it is up to each of us to create a new society based on that promise of wisdom and compassion.

 

Aquarius New Moon

This week's Aquarius Solar Eclipse occurs on Thursday, February 15^th at 1:05pm PST/ 4:05pm EST/ 9:05pm GMT.

The Sabian symbol for the Sun and Moon at 28* Aquarius is: A tree felled and sawed to ensure a supply of wood for the winter. This image speaks to preparedness, to the sacrifices we make in life (the tree's life) so we might survive and prosper in the future. It is time to integrate those past lessons which have kept us unconscious and bound to the limiting beliefs of patriarchy. What have we learned by trying to follow the road laid down for us by our capitalist, Christian society? Are we living the life we imagined and hoped for? Perhaps those beliefs were never the real deal. 

 

Aquarius is future-oriented, visionary and idealistic. Our current collective consciousness blueprint is outdated. We're running an old operating system more suited to the early 20^th Century. Aquarius can see patterns, for it is the realm of the Archetypes, our original Earth patterning. The archetypes can and do wear out their energies, becoming stereotypes of important, original patterns of life.

Our beliefs around God, capitalism, gender roles, justice, peace, relationships are all undergoing transformations. The basic patterns are there – we just need to renew them with different beliefs and new energies.

It's time to renew all the archetypal patterns of life. (I think this is going to happen while Uranus is in Taurus for the next 7 years.) We do this by understanding what we believe and then living those beliefs. The archetype of the King used to be focused on leaders as well as the dominant cultural mindsets, such as our religions or economic theories. But these energies no longer attract large numbers of people – our emotional bodies no longer seek what these old dominants have to offer. We don't want our leaders to be kings or queens, and we don't want priests to intervene with our connection to Spirit. Lots of us don't even like capitalism anymore – at least not the capitalism our corporations follow. (While they've achieved personhood under the law, they have no moral authority. Because they don't have a heart.)

Indra's Net

Aquarius gives us a larger perspective, one where we can see vast possibilities and interconnections that our everyday minds, tied to patriarchal beliefs, can't fathom. Lucky for us that Mercury, the archetypal energy of the Mind, joins the Sun during this eclipse, birthing a new mind, a beginner's mind, that can encompass and evaluate these emerging patterns. Mercury is receiving brilliant energies not only from Aquarius' co-ruler, Uranus in Aries, achieving a new balance between our higher mind and lower mind, but also from Jupiter in Scorpio, expanding our ability to see beneath the surface, face the Shadow and transform our values. 

 

 

I see this as the birth of Mercurius, the alchemical Mercury Mind. The Mind capable of transformation to higher levels of consciousness, the Mind that can turn lead into gold through understanding the lessons of life. Jupiter expands the Mind, while Uranus bestows great insight and intuition on us for seeing the future possibilities in new beginnings. Don't be surprised at the new ideas and connections you make as your higher Mind takes over and you step into a new perspective. This could be the start of something big!

This New Moon solar eclipse can energize us to let go of our habitual mindset, step out of our old behavior patterns and envision the re-birth of these archetypal powers of life. And since Aquarius rules our collective consciousness, this eclipse can re-set our collective mental blueprint of what makes life worth living. How can we not want that in the face of environmental destruction and the growing rift between the moneyed few and the struggling masses? 

 

There is so much more to life than wars, violence, domination, greed, competition and the pillaging of Mother Earth. That's what patriarchy has concentrated on. Many of us can see a world of respect for our Mother Earth, which can lead to peace, beauty and harmony, to cooperation and creativity, to community and shared resources. And balance once again between ourselves and all the rest of Mother Earth's children. 

 

We are each seeking to find our own inner king and queen. We are spiritual seekers who can't be contained in a religion. We are community-oriented rather than individualistic/egotistic. We know we are all connected – both energetically and literally on the Internet. We say we believe things that don't fit into the patriarchal paradigm. So why are we still living as if we do? 

 

These recent eclipses tell us it's time to take action. So let's see what our action energy, Mars, is up to. At this solar eclipse, Mars travels with Vesta, the priestess, in Sagittarius, discussing their spiritual beliefs, aiming their fiery arrows at the Leo North Node to bring those beliefs to the table to activate our heart's love for Spirit. Neptune in Pisces challenges them to imagine our old beliefs and values and how they impact life. Don't delude yourself. Are they serving you? Or serving the patriarchy? What new patterns of belief want to take form? Mars will pick up on what's needed and grapple with the issue until it's resolved. 

 

Neptune brings up an important issue for us. Our beliefs and values for the past 2000 years have been shaped by a patriarchal consciousness that wants to control all aspects of our lives. But most especially they took control of our souls. And since we need our souls to awaken and inform the most creative aspects of our lives, our spiritual nature must be the foundation of our new belief system. 

 

The growth of shamanism in the past 50 years is an example of these new spiritual perceptions we need to bring to our collective consciousness. Shamanism is an inherent talent we all have in our DNA – Jungians call it active imagination, shamanism calls it journeying. It is the innate ability to go within consciously and to connect to our soul and our creative imagination, which is the means to connect with the invisible dimensions of life. 

 

All ancient cultures valued this ability to communicate not just with higher spirits or the spirits of the dead, but with Earth herself. Mother Earth is the Anima Mundi, the World Soul or the Sophia, and she has her own consciousness, which Jung called the collective unconscious, mystical traditions called the Akashic Records, and the Hawaiian kahuna mystics call the great gathering of human oversouls.

 

We have the ability to connect to the vast treasure trove of Earth's collective wisdom as well as the wisdom of other dimensions. This is the great sin of the religions of the book – that they took control over our most sacred Light, the seed of Divinity within each of us. Now that we know that all great spiritual teachers had the same message – you all all sons and daughters of the God-force – it is time to incorporate that most important wisdom into our worldview.

We are all spiritual beings having a human experience.

We will treat ourselves and each other and Mother Earth and her children with respect and love when we really believe this. That's how the ancient peoples lived and prospered. In direct communication with Earth's bio-sphere and the higher intelligences that guard and protect our planet. And that's what we'll need to do as we transition to a new age. From the sounds of it, we will have to go through hard times as climate change takes it's toll and earth-changes become more common. These will be the liberating ordeals more people have to go through to awaken to their spiritual natures.

But if we've been doing our work all these years, we will lead the way to these changes, and that's why it is so important for each of us to go beyond our present cultural mindset and ego to objectively see, give meaning to and then let go of beliefs and values that no longer serve us. 

 

That's the promise of this solar eclipse in Aquarius. Once we release old mental structures and habits, a new operating system can be installed, one that is patterned on our awakened spiritual insights and understanding. What a different life we live when we actually know that all of life is sacred and meaningful. The plans we imagine, the decisions we make, the connections we feel, will be more attuned to our heart's values and therefore, they'll bring joy to our lives where before fear ran amok. 

 

I pulled an Earth Wisdom card for this solar eclipse and I got Transformation. It brings awareness and light to consciousness and understanding of one's higher purpose. This requires a re-arrangement of our world-view and practices that bring our actions in line with our ideals. 

 

Walk with the Light in Joy,

Cathy

Pleiades

The Giver of Stars

Hold your soul open for my welcoming.
Let the quiet of your spirit bathe me
With its clear and rippled coolness,
That, loose-limbed and weary, I find rest,
Outstretched upon your peace, as on a bed of ivory.

Let the flickering flame of your soul play all about me,
That into my limbs may come the keenness of fire,
The life and joy of tongues of flame,
And, going out from you, tightly strung and in tune,
I may rouse the blear-eyed world,
And pour into it the beauty which you have begotten.

~ Amy Lowell ~
(Sword Blades & Poppy Seeds)

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© Copyright 2018 ~CATHY PAGANO  All Rights Reserved

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