Penumbral Lunar Eclipse in Gemini: The North Node Calling

 

'The Magician' by Graciela Bello

Penumbral Lunar Eclipse in Gemini:  The North Node Calling

Moon opposite Sun - 11/30/2020 @ 3:29am CST

 

At this Full Moon in Gemini, our Moon is close enough to her North Node that the penumbral shadow of our Earth reveals itself upon Lady Luna’s face.  This shadow may be subtle, but it carries a long history and a hint of where we are headed as a collective. 

There is often some kind of world crisis involved within the lessons of Eclipse Season.  Depending on how each eclipse interacts with your own natal makeup, the personal crisis can also be apparent to varying degrees.  When we navigate through crisis, we are being invited to respond with necessary change and transformation.  Crisis has taken on a rather negative connotation…because there is an edge to it, a transition from known to unknown…where faith can either falter or become our strongest ally.  When we come to these critical turning points in our year, we are faced with what of the past can no longer continue as it was…and faced with potential choices we want to dream into our future. 

There is great opportunity within crises, and much experiential wisdom born from them.  Yet such rewards cannot be reached without entering through that Eclipse Portal and crossing beyond that shadowy threshold.  You are certainly not alone if you are being faced with your fears, the roots of your insecurities, and many of the untruths that have clouded your own truth.  This year, the eclipses have held the added imperative of Neptune squaring the Lunar Nodes.  All these transformations feel a bit hazier and indescribable this year…like we can’t quite put our finger on any of it, really.  And yet, we are inspired to create a new dream within this mystical haze.  We are challenged to take those leaps of faith, not knowing where we will land.  And we are drawn to integrate all the disparate parts of our Collective Soul into wholeness…all without the definition and clear guidelines of ‘How’.

The strongest opportunity we are blessed with during this time, which is still rather subtle, is from Mercury (the Messenger planet and the guide of this Gemini lunation) in harmonious rapport with our social planets, Jupiter and Saturn in Capricorn.  Both Jupiter and Saturn are now in the last leg of their journey through Cardinal Earth, where they have been joining with Pluto all year for the massive renovations of our societal structures.  On December Solstice, they meet in the 1^st degree of Aquarius for their Great Conjunction…ushering in an era of elemental air conjunctions after a long stretch of earth focus.  But we’re not quite in the Era of Air just yet.  The Mercury sextile provides us with some useful information from the depths of Scorpio waters.  Something that has been hidden in the subconscious realms of our Collective Mind is coming to the surface to be worked out before we move on from these Capricorn lessons.  A helpful way to tap into this sextile is to communicate your observations with others.  Also, the Capricorn-Scorpio sextile can be helpful in moving one step at a time with a thought or idea.  In a Neptunian fog, this can be very useful.

Another subtle sextile opportunity arising at this time is that Mars in Aries is inspiring us to move forward again.  Because this is an applying sextile and trine to the Lunar Nodes, our inspiration to work with the Collective Soul’s needs will grow over the next couple weeks.  In this Full Moon, we may catch a glimpse of what we are building toward. 

The harmonious sextile and trine from Chiron Rx to the luminaries is also a helpful healing influence during this eclipse.  The Chiron aspects to the luminaries are fleeting, and already on the wane, but are still accessible in the Full Moon opening of this Eclipse Portal.  Wounding from the past may find healing in the future if its cast into the eclipse cauldron to transform. 

But aside from the very apparent dynamic of Neptune’s mystification, and the subtle harmonies offering opportunity for relief, there is also a waning Venus-Uranus Rx opposition still working seemingly unrelated and strange magic behind the scenes during this eclipse.  And though we may not currently see how the inconjunct aspects to our luminaries apply to this aperture of Eclipse magic, their Strangelove vibration is part of the integration of these lessons.  The exaction of this Venus-Uranus Rx opposition was a few days ago…and whatever new, out-of-the-box observation about love or finances came up this past week will want to be integrated (however uncomfortable, it brings unexpected growth).

'Psyche Opening
the Golden Box'
by John William Waterhouse

It is good to keep in mind the way of Gemini in this Sagittarius Season, not just because this is a Gemini Full Moon (though that’s a very good reason) but also because her North Node has been and will continue to be in Gemini for many months to come.  North Node represents the Collective Soul’s evolutionary needs…what we are taking in for our growth though it is not what we’re used to.  The North Node journey through Gemini asks us to follow our curiosity and fascination.  We may be taking in a lot of new information (Gemini North Node) as we release some old reasons and beliefs (Sagittarius South Node).  As we do this, we feel drawn to communicate with fellow souls when our paths cross.  Because this Lunar Eclipse takes place near the North Node, what is calling us now is to allow Psyche to speak through curiosity.  The asteroid Psyche is conjunct the North Node and strengthening in influence right now.  Her Heroine’s Journey is guiding our Collective Soul Journey throughout this Eclipse Season. 

 

Love and Gratitude,

Felina Lune Kavi

New Moon in Scorpio: Entering the Charnel Grounds

 

New Moon in Scorpio:  Entering the Charnel Grounds

Moon conjunct Sun- 11/14/20 @ 11:07pm CST

 

“What you resist not only persists, but it will grow in size.” -Carl Jung

 

As we lead into another eclipse season, Moon conjoins Sun at perigee (where she is closer to Earth in her orbit).  Not only is she closer to us (and more intensely felt), but she is also in a sign that is counter-intuitive to her naturally protective and comforting emotional nature.  Scorpio is a path of complexity, intensity, and extremity.  What is safe, relaxing, and predictable is of little concern on this path.  Scorpio often pushes us to the edges of what we fear most…so that we may find the deeper truth of it and transform.  Along the Scorpio path, that which must die is brought to the charnel grounds to decompose.

Not a pretty picture to open with…but bear with me, I was born under a Scorpio Moon.  It’s almost impossible for me to unsee what is dying of our former lives still walking around and interacting as if it is immortal.  It will not ‘go gentle into that goodnight’…mostly because many of us have been conditioned to fear death as an absolute end.  We hold on to even that which hurts us or holds us back from truly living.  Scorpio teaches that death is necessary and leads to regeneration.

This Scorpio New Moon is in a sextile to Jupiter, Pallas Athene, and Pluto in Capricorn.  The sextile provides an opportunity to begin this lunar cycle with some wise insight about where we need to transform.  By now, as Saturn, Jupiter, and Pallas wrap up some of their last lessons of sustainability in Capricorn (eventually leaving Pluto to continue the transformation process in cardinal earth)…we have witnessed the bare bones of our societal structures being rattled and tested by the force of natural law.  It has been undeniable and unavoidable.  But on the personal level, each one of us is feeling our own necessity to change as well.  Step by step, we are transforming in our own ways.  Some have a harder time with this process than others.  But really, none of it is easy.  It involves so much letting go of what we have previously relied upon.  It requires a great deal of trust in the unknown, and as much patience as we can muster.

There is likely an inclination to fall back into suppression of our feelings so that we can power through all that is being asked of us now.  The feelings are so intense, many will fear they will only further complicate the process and bring us into states where all control is lost.  In Scorpio season, we tend to cling to a desire to control things.  And yet, Scorpio shows us our hidden power to transform when we let go of our desire to control.  That’s a scary lesson for most people to accept.

We often hear that what we resist persists.  But the other part of that quote from Jung, that what we resist also grows, is a large part of the theme of this New Moon sextile Jupiter.  Jupiter, the planet of expansion, amplifies things.  So if we’re trying to suppress our complicated feelings right now…they are bound to grow, eventually erupting from under the surface of that suppression.  Pallas Athene suggests the best strategy is to have a solid emotional outlet.

What might be most suppressed right now is what is coming from Eris in Aries, who squares the Capricorn planets and is in an uncomfortable quincunx with our luminaries in Scorpio.  Feeling unseen, unheard, and unappreciated…Eris, Goddess of Discord, is tapping the masses to sound the ‘Devil’s Tri-tone’ and unleash their chaotic fury.  This has been a recurring theme all year with Eris squared by the Capricorn Council, but the protests continue to evolve into new territories…some more chaotic than others.  Whether we act on it visibly or not, everyone’s feeling that chaos in some way in their own lives.  Eris’s call in Aries has really always been about integrity…but integrity is often challenged when pitted against established societal structures.  Even worse when we are conditioned to be pitted against each other so the establishment can maintain business as usual while we fight amongst ourselves.

 

As Mars, traditional ruler of both Aries and Scorpio, has been retrograding through Aries and recently slowed down to station direct…I have been pondering the Mars-Eris connection and what it has been bringing up lately.  In this New Moon, I feel it is an appropriate time to share my thoughts on this.  The following is something I’ve been writing about lately…

 

Eris, Uninvited

 

In a world gone mad, Discord makes herself known.  She’s not just lurking in dark corners…she is crashing every party that wasn’t expecting her.  Her reputation of stirring up chaos and strife precedes her…but there is much overlooked about the Goddess Eris.  It is when she is overlooked or ignored that she wreaks havoc on what we guarded as our comfort zone. 

In Astronomy and Astrology, we were introduced to Eris in 2005, though this celestial body wasn’t named after the Goddess of Strife and Discord until 2006.  Eris is well known in her mythological storyline for shaking up the order of things…and her discovery led to Pluto being ‘demoted’ to ‘dwarf planet’ status along with her.  Not only was she uninvited to the planetary party by Astronomers, the threat of her importance took Pluto down as well.  Neither Eris nor Pluto will be exiled without a fight, and this year has been one to remember as they square each other multiple times.

'Eris, Goddess of Chaos' by Emily Balivet

Since her discovery, we Astrologers have become more and more acquainted with Eris.  We see the beauty in her chaos…there is great purpose in it.  When we’re ignoring the integral things that seem too complicated to deal with, too outside of our comfort zone, too threatening to our complacency and convenience…Eris arrives to cut through the very fabric of falsity we enable.  In tatters after her blow, we can finally see our true self and what we are really meant to do.  Eris isn’t subtle, though she often creeps up on us unannounced.

And humanity was in a state of complacency before this rising state of emergency alerted us to what has been out of integrity all along.  No matter how many times we’ve gotten her message since Eris let herself be known to us…we still kept falling back into complacency after the dust would settle.  Rejection after rejection, Eris’s message has by now reached a fever pitch in 2020. 

Slow as her faraway orbit is, the vast majority of people alive today were born with Eris in the cardinal fire sign of Aries.  This is a sign ruled by Eris’s brother (Ares/Mars), whom she would join on the battlefield to ensure that justice was served.  She’s quite powerful here in Mars’s fire sign, and is acknowledged with respect as a fierce warrioress by her brother.  Perhaps this is part of why she spends more of her 560 year cycle in Aries than in any other sign.  Like Mars, she has a lot of agency in cardinal fire.

Mars has been enjoying an extended stay in his home sign this year too, retrograding through the last half of the Aries degrees lately.  From August through October, Mars has made conjunctions with Eris…calling upon her warrioress gifts to aid him in the battle this year.  This has strengthened Eris’s presence in our collective awareness along with discordant square aspects activating her from the Capricorn Council. 

And what interests me most, since I was born in 1982, is that this Mars Retrograde in Aries has been either doubly or triply activating the natal Eris of each person born in the last 38 years.  Really, for most of us under 80 years old…we’ve been at least twice within the orb of influence with Mars activating our natal Eris.  Mars stationed direct at 15 degrees of Aries on November 13^th, the very same degree Eris was in between 1982-1987.  When anything contacts our personal Eris degree, it stirs up whatever has been keeping us out of integrity with our purpose.  The discord becomes more pronounced internally so that we feel we have to do something about it. 

And at this Scorpio New Moon, which follows both the final Jupiter-Pluto conjunction in Capricorn and Mars’s direct station in Aries, all signs point to a big change toward greater integrity with our soul’s path.  Perhaps if we actually invite Eris to the party, rather than shunning her out of fear for what chaos might ensue, she’ll help us grow through our discomfort.

 

Love and Gratitude,

Felina Lune Kavi