Dancing with Darkness has its costs – especially if you’ve been dragged into it kicking and screaming as so many were with the Uranus-Pluto squares and Saturn in Scorpio. After a while we steeled ourselves for the inevitable, the unthinkable, the absolute – except that it came at us day, after day, without respite, one challenge more daunting than the next. And after a while we forgot what ‘normalcy’ felt like before it all kicked up, three years ago.
Many forgot the comfort of silence, the pleasure of a gentle breeze on a mild day when they didn’t have to push as hard, when they didn’t have to struggle and grapple our way through growth spurts and deep transformations on a near-daily basis. Many forgot that being in One’s Presence isn’t this do-all-or-die mantra that has to be repeated so we don’t go down with a sinking ship. Many forgot to simply sit, smile and take the long view of the road ahead with a tall cool glass of lemonade, sitting in the shade of the midday sun. Many would have felt such luxuries impossible in the heat of battle within.
What a road that has been..
The descent into Darkness has ended. Many are now ‘out of the cave’ with fresh eyes that haven’t quite accustomed to the sunlight and open air. There is a sense of alienness, as a new perspective – no, a new expression of Self – begins to take in its surroundings.
No longer this mad rush to transform, to die, to come back as the raging Phoenix burning in the flames of I AM. No longer pushed by some kind of existential urgency for something a lot gentler, cooler, detached – and oh yes – pleasant has begun breezing through.
I felt the change in the skies as it was happening, furiously ploughing through the last pages of Gone With the Wind. And when I finished, I looked at the charts and saw that the shift had happened. The Sun was now in Libra, and with it welcomed the Equinox.
The tenseness that I, and so many others were feeling, has somehow quite simply disappeared. Even yesterday, all that energy felt as though it were rushing to a terrible crescendo which, once reached, simply opened to a far vaster, wider, calmer space. A space that could somehow contain all, accept all, and remain with a good-natured smile about the whole thing.
It almost seems like an anticlimax in many ways, after such intense transformations and awakenings. Parts of us may still be on ‘survival mode’, indeed, some may still be finishing their lessons from Saturn-in-Scorpio. Personally, for those of you looking for dates – I’d set the first week of November as a marker to recognize, truly, the end of such an intense collective experience. There’ll be other key moments in this time, such as the Lunar Eclipse in Aries (described below), the North Node’s shift into Virgo (early October), and so on.
But why early November? Because it’s when Saturn returns to 4 Sagittarius ’56, the degree at which it began its retrograde that ultimately brought back Saturn in Scorpio with a vengeance! If there’s any use in holding onto an idea of ‘normalcy’, some sense of what that might look like will emerge for us all by then.
But don’t forget, the seeds which were set during the intense Uranus-Pluto squares (2012-2015) take time to reveal themselves, years in fact. So … yes, ‘normal’ is yet to be determined.
But still… still…The intensity to which we’ve become acclimatized has somehow begun to change. It’s still powerful, it’s still transformative, but it’s giving way to something new. Something that doesn’t feel like a mad, desperate rush to transform, die, be reborn and emerging fighting fit as the resurrected Phoenix ready to breathe fire into its enemies!
Enter the cool breeze that is Libra, the Cardinal Wind Sign, heralded by the Equinox.
The Equinox represents a time in which the length of day is equal to that of night. The Northern Hemisphere welcomes the Autumnal Equinox, whereas the Southern Hemisphere welcomes the Vernal Equinox.
Pagans (and those who share similar beliefs) celebrate Mabon in the North and Ostara in the South. Mabon is the mid-harvest festival, celebrated at the peak of the season. Celebrants give thanks to the Earth for a bountiful harvest. Conversely, Ostara welcomes the fertility of the land and the bounty it is to yield – it is a time in which seeds are blessed before they are planted, in the middle part of spring. Either way, both festivals/equinoxes represent powerful beginnings and endings. What one sows in Ostara, one reaps at Mabon, and the cycle continues thusly, in the middle or peak intensity of each season or turn of the wheel.
In astrological terms, this corresponds well to a Aries New Moon in March/April and a Aries Full Moon in September/October. Both ask us to balance our notions of Self-and-Other and how the two dance in Partnership. This year, it began with the Aries New Moon on April 18, a powerful time for setting the seeds of the Self to emerge – even more so as the New Moon was trined the Galactic Center at 27 Sagittarius! We shall see those seeds emerge during the Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse (Full Moon) in Aries on September 28.
We’ve begun the build-up process to the Eclipse a week ago, as its energies intensify gradually, but certainly, in the skies. This Full Moon is especially potent as it involves The Sun, North Node, Juno and Black Moon Lilith in Libra opposing Vesta Retrograde (The Goddess Asteroid of Priestessing), the South Node and the Moon in Aries.
But rather than the volcanic explosion that one might think an Aries Full Moon to be, this one feels a lot more powerful in less noticeable way. Something is to be sacrificed, and no it’s not the kind of thing you see in B-rate films about Goddess Kali. It’s a sacrifice of an old Self, a release of an attachment, the freeing of hold of the past onto the present being. It’s a sacrifice that leads you more completely into devotion, dedication and service – within Partnership.
The burning fires of the Self, having raged fiercely in the belly of the Underworld, no longer have to rage quite as hard. In fact, they can finally calm in the light of day as we decide just what we’re going to do with all this knowledge, experience and new realizations. The same rules no longer apply. One does not light and warm a home with the same intensity of fire that one uses to burn through the shackles of the subconscious.
But this death? Vesta’s (The Priestess’) sacrifice in Aries, doesn’t that sound like more of the same Saturn-in-Scorpio stuff we’ve had to deal with the past few years? I don’t quite see it that way.
I feel the winds of Libra breezing about us now, and contrary to what we’ve felt with Saturn-in-Scorpio, this ‘death’ and release doesn’t have the same quality. It seems to be unshackling us even more, and allowing to find a greater sense of completion and Balance in our lives. And depending on where this occurs in your chart, an understanding of what wholeness looks like and feels like.
I feel that much of this detachment and release will come swifter as we turn to the power of the mind and use its gifts, as we simply say the words that will free us into flying free – though not necessarily solo 😉
I’m sure everyone won’t be feeling it in quite the same way, as we individuate our interpretation of spiritual experiences and astrological movements. But this is my sharing, and I invite you to explore or express the same as you see fit. Be aware that older layers of the self simply have to be shed, if you haven’t already – and you might have a tougher time of things holding onto to things that no longer serve.
The Lunar Eclipse takes place at 4 Aries ’40 ”23 at 02:50 am on September 28th 2015 (UTC time, GM).
Time to see if the baby phoenix has begun to poke through its precious egg yet,
Time to see if that old self (dare I say it) has .. gone with the wind?
Stay Tuned!
Dr. Bairavee Balasubramaniam PhD: The Sky Priestess 