Rising
Full Moon in Taurus and the eclipses in Sagittarius/Gemini
This is not the time for small ideas. This is the time to dream big. Maybe it's high time you abandoned the way you usually do things to take up some brand new habits, projects, or ways of thinking. The New Moon on November 24th (Thanksgiving Day in the U.S.) is a Solar Eclipse as well, providing us with a handy and powerful portal to begin the work of transformation that will propel us into 2012. To prepare for this, start asking yourself now what you want to be doing for the next 20 years.
There is a powerful signature of "masculinity at the crossroads" in the New Moon chart. Lately, I've been thinking more about the need to mentor boys and young men so that they can be fully embodied, fully feeling, fully powerful human beings sharing this planet with their sisters. Dance, theater, mindfulness practices, exercise – we need all of us to be in our bodies again! (I do not use exclamation points lightly.)
The worlds created by the intellect have been breath-taking indeed, if not outright terrifying at times, but it is time now to reach back down to the Earth, to touch base with our essential nature as humans. If we didn't have bodies we wouldn't be here, would we? Our bodies hold our sense of personal security, our emotional and physical health; our bodies are our homes on this planet.
So it is time to get into yours. Make peace with incarnation. Make peace with feelings that you can't control. Make peace with the messy, complicated, uncomfortable, irrepressible parts of life. Listen to your body. I mean really listen. What stories does it have to tell you? Can you write them down, dance them, paint them, or just stretch your own sweet, powerful body in the ways that it tells you it wants to be stretched? Your body is a gift. Your body is living proof of peace on Earth. Open to its secrets and its wisdom.
A trine in the Earth signs between Mars, Jupiter and Pluto shows us that deep physical healing is available right now on a personal and planetary scale, turning our deepest darkness into precious jewels. I see the positive actions of so many Veterans for Peace, who have often been at the forefront of the Occupy movement, as evidence of this shift. The masculine principle wants action, but it also wants healing and change.
Mars enters the sign of Virgo on November 10th, the day of the Full Moon in Taurus, and it will remain there for 8 months. Virgo is known for its critique and discernment, seeking perfection as it performs its duties. As the sign of service and devotion, perhaps Mars' extended stay with the High Priestess of Virgo will awaken the Sacred Servant archetype in the Masculine consciousness of the planet.
So many men are questioning how they have been taught to use their strength and power. There is a cognitive dissonance happening in how we perceive and relate to masculinity. This place of discomfort will intensify as the old falls away before the new fully forms. We can't get impatient with the changes, but must strive to stay brave as we face this together. What does it mean to be a man today? What is masculinity? How does the warrior, the knight, the builder within us want to be acknowledged now?
A lot of old ways are dying (quick profits, quick plunders, quick fucks, and alienation from our bodies and emotions) and the really old ways are coming back, infused with what we have learned on our way to becoming human. What has been kept underground must rise. We have been doing this literally by pulling up oil, rock, and mineral from the depths – unaware of the psychic and physical consequences. Now we have to undertake this as a mythic journey, pulling up our own darkness, our own passion, our own fear and insecurity, because it is there in the hidden depths of the underground that we retrieve our golden hearts and diamond minds.
Also noteworthy in this sea of very compelling astrological omens, is the upcoming Mercury retrograde period (Nov. 23-Dec. 13). Both Mercury and Jupiter are the rulers of the eclipses in Sagittarius and Gemini, and they'll both be retrograde when the eclipses happen. The next six weeks should be incredibly surprising - take nothing at face value, look beyond appearances to uncover the hidden meaning. Both these planets can put up masks in order to deceive. Even if there are several supposedly good reasons to skate around the truth, we need the truth and less smokescreen, even if it hurts. Hiding the truth from ourselves of others will only bring more of it crashing down around us. When you feel confused, take that as a signal to slow down instead of speeding up to get past the discomfort.
This can be a time that we dream up a new ethics or philosophy to live by, turning old beliefs on their heads like the Hanged One in Tarot. I see the next few weeks as a very real collective initiation process. How we deal with issues that come up – whether in our homes or in the streets – will be part of the foundation for the next phase in our evolution. Eclipse seasons are always filled with unplanned for events and unintended consequences, and these features will be heightened with the retrograde effects. A sense of humor, a song, a pause before action – these tools will help us in this transition.
Check out the links below for more information about how to magically tune into the eclipses for personal and planetary healing. More to come with the Gemini Full Moon-Lunar Eclipse on December 10th.
General reminders for eclipse season: Includes a cookbook of what the eclipses mean in your chart. Find out which houses hold 2 degrees Sagittarius and 18 degrees Gemini. If you're not sure how to do that, just Email Rhea to ask.
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Re-visioning Masculinity
The creation story of the Feri tradition in witchcraft gives us three forms of masculinity as represented by the three faces of the god. Perhaps these beings can show us all new ways to create a whole, embodied, healthy masculinity.
Alone. Awesome. Complete within herself, the Goddess, She whose name cannot be spoken, floated in the abyss of the outer darkness, before the beginning of all things. As she looked into the curved mirror of black space, she saw by her own light her radiant reflection, and fell in love with it. She drew it forth by the power that was in her and made love to herself, and called Her Miria, the wonderful.
Their ecstasy burst forth in the single song of all that is, was, or ever shall be, and with the song came motion, waves that poured outward and became all the spheres and circles of the worlds. The Goddess became filled with love, swollen with love, and she gave birth to a rain of bright spirits that filled the worlds and became all beings.
But in that great movement, Miria was swept away, and as She moved out from the Goddess She became more masculine. First she became the Blue God, the gentle, laughing god of love. Then she became the Green One, vine-covered, rooted in the earth, the spirit of all growing things. At last She became the Horned God, the Hunter whose face is the ruddy sun and yet dark as Death. But always desire draws him back toward the Goddess, so that He circles her eternally, seeking to return in love.
All began in love; all seeks to return to love. Love is the law, the teacher of wisdom, and the great revealer of mysteries.
This version of the original Feri Creation Myth was written down by Starhawk in The Spiral Dance.
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The Blue God is Dian Y Glas, the gentle, laughing god of love. Think Krishna with the pretty eyes and beautiful men and women following him around all the time, singing.
The Green God is vine-covered, rooted in the earth, the spirit of all growing things. Think abundance in wisdom, laughter, and fertility. Maybe a bearded guy with a mug of mead in his hand. (There's a lot of that in Portland anyway.)
The Horned God is the Hunter whose face is the ruddy sun and yet dark as Death. Think King of the Wild Animal spirit within all of us. Remember Pan from Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins? Enough with the invisibility already, which is just another word for repression. Your body is calling you back.
The story tells us that the Divine Masculine's desire always "draws him back toward the Goddess, so that He circles her eternally, seeking to return in love," to be in service to the energy of the Divine Feminine. What if the "goal" of our own lives was to eternally circle the vital source of all life in the spirit of love? That might change our cultural orientation just a bit, wouldn't you say? The part of each of us that is the Divine Feminine would like to feel reverenced by the part of us that is the Divine Masculine. Forgive my binary gender system for a moment, and let me just say that our inner-man needs to adore and honor our inner-woman for her fantastic life-giving, sustaining, and empowering capabilities on a regular basis. Which god - blue, green, horned - is calling to you right now?
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