This partial Scorpio Solar eclipse of the Sun, on 23rd October 2014 at 9.58 pm GMT, has the capacity to open new pathways and field of consciousness. Eclipses have the power to breakdown or, if we metamorphose this energy, breakthrough our old out-worn identities to reveal new emerging wholeness. But since new moons are messengers of new beginnings, and Mercury is also at the potent end of its retrograde period and conjuncting the Libra North Node, we have dynamic potential all around us.
Scorpio signals a time when we need to trust in the process of releasing and burying old patterns to make way for the birth of the new. The old must give way to the new, if we can’t allow this space to open from the letting go, then the new will not enter into our world and we become stuck and stagnant. Pluto, the ruler of Scorpio, knows that human beings have a tendency to cling and resist change, he often needs to painfully prize our old, familiar world away from us for us to embark on new paths of discovery. Often its only when we have no choice do we take the leap of faith.
This solar eclipse occurs as the Sun and Venus conjoin in something called a cazimi which makes Venus and all it rules is extra potent. At the same time, they change signs into Scorpio, meaning that we have this eclipse at 0 degrees Scorpio. It is an intense and dramatic time with so many things happening at once.
The following day the Sun and Venus meet Pallas which invites a different feel to the beginning of this Scorpio filled month. The Goddess warrior, Pallas Athene was born into this world out of her father’s head with a coat of armour and spear – more than a little prepared for this male world. We have here a woman in a man’s world, and patriarchy themes of strategy, logic and rationalism – left brained activities – in a steely wise feminine archetype. If this touches your chart personally, you might notice these wise warrior qualities emerge in your relationships or your approach to a project. Perhaps there’s something that requires some strategy and planning over the forthcoming weeks.
As the new week beckons, there’s some lovely Neptune trining energy to this cluster, supporting us to feel love, compassion and the inherent goodness and spiritual connection that permeates our world. The weeks beginning is a perfect time to focus on spiritual practises – effects should be amped up a few notches.
How you approach the end of this week, where you are placing your energy and focus will be up for review and reopening sooner than you think. After Thursday, with the significant changes in planetary energy and the dynamic eclipse, things will feel and appear different. As the energy portals close, we might be dealing with closure, but remember that where there’s closure there’s also opening and beginning – this is a new moon after all so look also to where you are going. Scorpio is the rebirth sign so as things end things begin.
Right now we’ve straddling between a need to keep things open and flexible to fit in with Mercury still being retrograde, and feeling our passion and energy for new starts. As the passions of this moon return to a simmer, you might want to draw from some of that rational, logical Pallas energy to make your decisions. But no major decisions until after 25th.
Mercury stations direct on 25th (Saturday) after its retrograde period ends. Communication issues should now begin to smooth and settle out after the customary confusion and challenge of Mercury retrograde. Nothing is easily discernible during Mercury retrograde and dividend comes to those that can wait it out, waiting for Mercury’s direction to flow again in our favour. The time of quickening is near, but wait until after 26th to push things forward, as anything that you commit to generally before that time will turn out differently to expected. Often if you bide your time, future delays will be bypassed so what appears like time wasting is actually time saving.
Up to 25th, listen carefully and closely to your dreams or those difficult, conflicted wakeful moments as Mercury, through its conjunction to the North Node, is trying to be the messenger. This communication could provide you with a missing link, detail that makes everything make senses.
The emphasis on the North Node in Libra at this eclipse time is showing us the path of heart, which is the deeper orientation of what unites and organises us. We are being asked to remember our non-local, non-ordinary reality as well as consensus existence. In the west we identify with empowering the individual, while indigenous and shamanic cultures are interested in experiencing life as part of the web of life, as part of everything.
The path of heart is not always easy, as it restructures our identity in its own timing, whether you are aligned with it or not. We forget that we are not the ones that organise our own success, it’s the path of heart that does that this – Nature, the Tao that moves through us – it gives you your energy and life force. It’s what connects us to everything, it’s not the ego self.
I think this is what this Libra North Node is craving for, a way that we can reconfigure our individual (Aries) identity to include all with total inclusion and no exclusion and marginalisation. If we were to live from this place, a place that Arnold Mindell calls deep democracy, then we need courage for this path. As spiritual explorers and seekers that want to transform ourselves and the world around, we need pick up the spiritual warrior within us (Aries South Node), along with some discipline and strong clear values (Libra).
A spiritual warrior intent on walking her path of heart takes responsibility for her community and the whole field, as everything is her, it’s not outside of her, even if it appears that way. At times she will be the one doing the shooting and at other times she will be in the line of fire, the one that’s attacked; that’s just part and parcel of being a spiritual warrior. But if you have learned to die, many times before, then you know it is not just you that is being attacked and you don’t take it personally. The way of the warrior is to learn to die before they try and shoot you. In terms of the planets, don’t wait for Pluto to hit your Sun and knock you down, do it yourself, dare to dive into the internal and external conflict and grapple with it, get to know it and trust the warrior within, rather than shirk it, as it will bring you closer to your path of heart.
