From a True Place

...On the final Venus/Uranus square & eclipse season

Just as we arrive at the outer reaches of the Venus shadow (post; Oct 7th; 28º Leo), a different kind of shadow begins to contemplate its formation.  With Friday's Full Moon, we will officially enter the Dragon Hole (eclipse season) and alongside it, the final Venus/Uranus square.  It's all the perfect light to assist us in seeing if we are acting from a true place.

In the woodcut above, we have a 16th-century depiction of an eclipse—and by the looks of it, a lunar one on the Summer Solstice. On the left we see an angel seemingly associated with the Sun which shines near a town or city; on the right, a giant with a shield pointing at some vegetal life while eclipsing the Moon with his other hand.  It seems to gesture to the spirit of the Sun—in an Apollonian sense—is what animates civilizations and the Moon as the soul of which courses through the natural world.  It's hard to tell exactly what is happening within the scope of the eclipse shadow, but it does appear to be a calamity for the civilization.

Until recently, eclipses were feared.  They still are by many, yet there seem to be many more who have been robbed of context to the meaning of eclipses and what they can produce. One popular example of an eclipse in a mundane sense was the Yellow Plague of 664 which festered in the British Isles for the better part of two decades. According to the Irish Annals of Tigernach, the plague was preceded by a solar eclipse on 1 May 664 (the path of the total eclipse on 1 May 664 started in the Pacific, crossed the Gulf of Mexico, swept along the eastern coast of North America crossed Ireland and Scotland and continued on into Central Europe).  Or you have Columbus on his 4th and final voyage using his trusty ephemeris to predict a disappearance of the Moon on March 1st of 1504 as leverage to get him and his men provisions so they wouldn’t die from the Indians in Jamaica.  And there are countless more stories of how eclipses change the course of history, but what of our own histories?

As I often say, eclipses welcome plot twists.  Without that ephemeris, could Columbus have pulled off his wicked "magic trick?" Without the plague of 664, would we be where we are today?  We can't know, yet it's a worthy thought experiment for the season.  The same goes for our lives.  Once we start paying attention to eclipses, we quickly begin to realize just how profound their effect can be.  We can study all the eclipses throughout our lives and have an entirely new layer of understanding of the story we find ourselves in.  The shadow play at work is miraculous.

Also, the poetics of the final square between Venus and Uranus (Leo/Taurus 22º) occurring as we pass under the last Full Moon before the big ol' Americun eclipse is intriguing to me.  The two have brought up themes pertaining to fame, celebrity, and the price it costs to compete in the world today; their grinding conflict has been between our authentic selves and what culture seems to be taunting us to be.  It's tricky.  It's depressing.  It's even—at times—depending on how we look at it— insane.  This final square will resonate with a related theme for all of us around what it means to be sharing ourselves with the world from a true place.

Combining the themes of twisting narrative structures (eclipses) and the existential angst we feel about what is required of us to be in this world (the square) will certainly produce a drop or two of potent medicine for our cups.  Naturally, we are going to want to find where it's all happening in our charts to gain a clearer understanding of this chapter we are in.  And so, I say: stand strong with the Sun, stand even stronger with the Moon, and change with the eclipses.

...the Angel, moving through city streets

is inspiration for some zeitgeist

A Giant, shielding seedlings

points at what must grow

 like our vegetal selves…

Oct 14th: Total Solar Eclipse; 21º Libra

Oct 28th; Partial Lunar Eclipse: 5º Taurus

• If you'd like to have a reading around these eclipses, I have a few openings still; you can sign up below

Eudaimonia,

Adam

to work with me:

...to adventure deeper into kosmos, mythos, and psyche

to learn Astrology:

....to support the creation of my writings/podcasts and be showered with gifts as well