The
Cosmic Story: Leo SuperMoon Lunar Eclipse 2018
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 15th.
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 2nd
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 15th,
there is a partial solar eclipse at
28* Aquarius
that is
opposite
the total solar eclipse of August 21st,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
healing any hurts, bridging any separation.
Welcoming Love,
let us proclaim our rebirth
into Love, from Love, as Love.
We
are here now.