Anyone else been feeling the big feels this week? Tomorrow’s Solar Eclipse at 12 Sagittarius (6:43pm AEDT) feels super-significant. As the final eclipse on the Gemini-Sagittarius axis, it feels especially profound as we release, let go and close-out a highly significant course of collective life-learning. It feels like the exam week leading up to graduation. Sagittarius is associated with higher learning and Gemini with the foundations of knowledge but with the North Node in Gemini since May 2020, we’ve been learning to refine our critical thinking faculties and become more conscious of the spaces between our perceptions and beliefs. The last 17 months may have intensified our anxieties but they’ve also midwived the mental shifts that have propelled us toward new dreams of the future. This emphasis on the Gemini North Node has helped us break down those expansive Sagittarian visions into the smaller achievable tasks that can be actioned and realised, and when the nodes shift into Taurus and Scorpio in January we begin growing the dream from seed.
Solar Eclipses are like super-charged New Moons. They initiate but they also deliver unexpected events that can powerfully alter the course of lives. And thus they also necessitate endings. The North Node marks the Moon’s ascent towards the ecliptic so it’s associated with increase, indicating topics that are likely to grow in prominence either consciously or unconsciously during that period. Since 2020, Gemini qualities of curiosity and non-judgemental consideration of data and information have expanded our understanding but we’ve also seen communities becoming increasingly polarised in relation to their beliefs (Sagittarius) about the facts (Gemini). The South Node is associated with decrease as it marks the Moon’s descent away from the ecliptic and similarly suggests that we benefit from interrogating the truth of our own fiercely held convictions whilst relinquishing old, inherited, outmoded beliefs that limit our possibilities or those of others.
Medieval astrologers actually considered the North Node exalted in Sagittarius and the South in Gemini, which is interesting given the extraordinarily challenging period we’ve been living through while they’ve been in their ‘fallen’ or ‘depressed’ positions. And yet the South Node is also associated in Vedic philosophy with the potential for our greatest spiritual growth. The nodes originate with Swarbhanu in Vedic mythology, the dragon who snuck into line with the gods to receive the nectar of immortality, the last of the gifts churned from the milk of oceans. When the Sun and Moon discovered Swarbhanu immediately after drinking they complained to Lord Vishnu who severed the dragon’s head. Its immortal disembodied head became the desirous North Node Rahu. The body, Ketu, the South Node, became associated with spiritual liberation. It makes sense given that our desires propel us forward whereas our losses facilitate deeper transformations.
Mercury, the magician and North Node ruler is currently combust within three degrees of the eclipse in the sign of its detriment, which suggests challenges, uncomfortable news and/or issues arising in relation to the stories we tell ourselves and/or others. But it’s also operating within its own terms, which brings greater clarity and perceptive insight to situations that have been constrained by ideologies, sweeping generalisations or closed-minded thinking. Mars, still in its rulership in deep-feeling Scorpio, is making simultaneous aspects: a sextile to Venus and Pluto, square to Jupiter and trine to Neptune, which fires up our feeling centres and complicates our desires whilst encouraging us to take action on the things that matter most. With the ruler of tomorrow’s Solar Eclipse, Jupiter, approaching its own temple in Pisces on December 30, there’s cause for long-term optimism. But for now, as we release the parts of our experience that are falling away, we may want to light candles. They’re symbolically associated with Sagittarius. As we honour the gifts of these experiences with tender feeling and gratitude we carve out psychic space for the new dreams to take root… 🌱🌿🌳
Much love dear friends 🫀🌑🌞🌙👁🕯♥️🌟
