The Grand Finale of 2020
This is a long blog. It has sections.
1. Intro
What can be said about 2020? It contains multitudes.
The drama has been non-stop. New challenges arose to expose the intolerable festering of our oldest collective issues like “How do we care for one another?” and “Who gets to be included in ‘we’?”
And now, for the curtain call. The astrological action in December is extraordinary, starting with the lunar eclipse on the final night of November, moving through a total solar eclipse, a once-in-a-millenia conjunction and a stormy full moon to close out the year.
This article attempts summarize these events from a variety of angles in such a way as to convey the interconnected web of intensity they create for we humble humans here on Earth.
These are truly transformative days. Even the most steadfast ostriches among us can no longer ignore the fact that we are in the midst of what eco-philosophers and activists like Joanna Macy call “The Great Turning.“
As such, this moment requires what Thomas Berry dubbed “The Great Work.” Berry says, “The next transition, from the dominant scientific-technological period to the ecological period, is turbulent indeed.
Meanwhile: “The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth,” says Joanna, “Is not that we are on the way to destroying the world — we've actually been on the way for quite a while. It is that we are beginning to wake up, as from a millennia-long sleep, to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves and each other.”
Thank you, dear human, for being here on Earth with me in this precious, precarious, sacred time of tumultuous transition. May our individual trials generate greater collective camaraderie. May the fierceness of this strange phase demonstrate the true tenderness of our hearts.
Life is delicate. And, it is the most powerful force possible. It incessantly arises in spite of unimaginable challenges. Think of the microbes surviving for eons under the Antarctic ice; think of the mycelial spores surviving the journey through deep space to land on this planet. Life is resilient beyond imagination. And: it hangs in the balance, promising nothing from one moment to the next.
2. Eclipses
Total Solar Eclipse
Monday, December 14, 2020
9:16am Denver / 4:16pm Lisbon / 3:16am Tuesday in Tasmania
First, watch this brilliant presentation by Freedom Cole about what creates an eclipse. It is the most lucid explanation I’ve ever seen.
As Freedom shows, there are four types of eclipses from a Vedic perspective, which I have represented in this graph:
The Lunar eclipse of November 29/30 was a full Moon in Taurus joined with Rahu. Therefore it offered an opportunity to focus on external manifestations — outgoing actions to influence the outside world.
The total Solar eclipse at 28 degrees of Scorpio on Monday, December 14, 2020 is a new Moon joining Ketu. This indicates that it is time for a deep dive within. What is the inner work we need to do for our own soul growth? This eclipse is not about anyone else. It is not about the society or your role in it. It is strictly between you and your psyche.
Scorpio is the feminine expression of the warrior Mars. It is the sign of fixed (or stable) water. Water is the element most directly associated with the emotional body, so Scorpio is often understood to be the emotional warrior — the one with the courage to experience the full spectrum of feelings.
The image of ‘fixed water’ makes me think of the bottom of the ocean, where it is very still, very dark, where monsters lurk and where shipwrecks settle with all their treasure. It requires great courage to brave the depths and the threats to explore this mysterious realm. The promise, of course, is the possibility of retrieving a precious jewel lost for centuries, and return to the surface to share this forgotten gem with the world.
That is all just a big metaphor for the psyche, of course. This Solar eclipse represents an excellent opportunity to strap on your scuba gear and go treasure hunting in the shadowy depths of your sub- and unconscious mind.
The less preferable tendency in this case would be to escape and avoid the fearful mission assigned by the cosmos. Scorpio is also a place associated with drugs and addiction, representing a distorted form of the exploration of mysterious realms.
When the emotions overwhelm, it is only human to seek relief through some form of numbing agent. Alcohol is the most common strategy for this, followed closely by opiates.
28 (out of 30) degrees Scorpio is within the range known as gandanta — the joint between a water and a fire sign, where the boundary of two nakshatras coincide with the boundary of two signs. There are three of these points in the zodiac, and this one (between Scorpio and Sagittarius) is perhaps the most intense.
Scorpio is the sign where we learn about impermanence — everything changes, everything dies. Having learned this fact, often through shocking losses that liberate us from our delusional sense of material stability, Sagittarius arrives to enlighten us to the Truth that transcends the ever-shifting realm of name and form. It is in this area of the sky that we see the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
DO
Meditate
Chant mantra
Sing inspiring songs
Fast (from meat and alcohol; from grains and pulses; from food altogether; from sex; etc)
Journal your thoughts, feelings and dreams. They are likely to contain important messages from your subconscious right now.
DON’T
Look at the eclipse (only visible in Patagonia, Chile and Argentina)
Make any major decisions — don’t quit your job or end your relationship right now. Just wait, let this energy pass. The bubble of pressure will burst.
Travel long distances
Conduct important business
Get into quarrels — just let it go until later in the week.
Eat leftover food that sat through the eclipse. All its prana is gone.
For more detailed analysis, enjoy this video of Sam Geppi analyzing the eclipse for all 12 signs:
3. I Ching
The I Ching is an ancient Chinese divination system based on hexagrams. A hexagram is a stack of six lines, each of which can either be a full line or a broken line. There are 64 possible combinations of this binary code, each corresponding to a specific energetic signature. These signatures provide profound insight in the form of elemental metaphor, evocative imagery and cryptically specific phrases such as “One must see the great man. An advance to the South is fortunate.”
To generate a hexagram and obtain the sought-after oracular information, one would traditionally engage in a laborious process of sorting yarrow stalks. Modern practitioners commonly use a system of tossing three coins. Given that I am currently traveling and do not have my treasured workbook with me, I now use an app when seeking guidance from this honored source.
Recently I was asking for information pertaining to this Scorpio Solar eclipse and, by means of this “random” process, was directed to read hexagram #36 — Darkening of the Light.