Aquarius Solar Eclipse, February 6, 2008
A Solar Eclipse is a high power New Moon. What makes it an eclipse is the fact that the Sun and Moon come together in the sky near the Nodes of the Moon - the points in space where the Moon crosses the path of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. So Earth, Moon and Sun all line up – all these energies are on the same page, so to speak. During a solar eclipse, the Sun’s energy flows are disrupted, so old patterns dissolve and new ones form. Something new is born during a solar eclipse.
The Moon’s nodes have just moved from their year-long journey through Pisces/Virgo into Aquarius/Leo. This is the first eclipse to take place in these signs, with the last one occurring on February 9, 2009 as a Lunar eclipse. Long associated with dragons and serpents, the moon’s nodes symbolize the collective urge for transformation. The Aquarius/Leo nodes point to a new collective destiny, which calls us to leave behind our Leo self-interest, pride, passion and tendencies that insist on our own way, that want to grab the limelight, the power and the authority, and that create drama instead of life-giving love. The Aquarian North Node, the next lesson in our unfolding destiny, energizes objectivity, friendship, a willingness to share unconventional ideas, to champion humanitarian causes, to be aware of our uniqueness and to cherish our equality and freedom.
Does this astrological language sound familiar? Isn’t it time we stopped thinking that we (individually and collectively) have the right to dictate what others do and start acting like we are all one and equal, which means listening to all sides of the story? Like the Hollywood movies we watch, we keep repeating the same old story. As well as being boring, it is insulting to the rest of the world. Each of us has a story to tell, which is important for the health of our global story. That’s the Aquarian story.
The Sabian symbol for the North Node at 28º Aquarius:
A tree felled and sawed to ensure a supply of wood for the winter. This symbol speaks to the human capacity to prepare for the future and to use both physical strength and mental ingenuity to meet the hardships inherent in the natural world. It refers to the efficient use of natural resources for insuring humanity’s well being by using Intelligent Foresight. (Don’t you love how astrology really works!)
This North Node symbol will be a marker for the next few years. We all need to develop intelligent foresight, the gift of another figure who embodies Aquarian ideals – the Greek Titan Prometheus. (More on him below.)
This Solar Eclipse symbolizes the highly visible ‘Sacred Marriage’ between Sun and Moon, God and Goddess, Masculine and Feminine energies at play in the cosmos. Regular New Moons occur when the Sun and Moon are in the same degree in the sky, but not aligned with the Earth. Their ‘marriage’ is invisible and therefore unconscious to us, unless we have developed a sensitivity to subtle energies.
A Solar Eclipse, though, invites us to participate in the ‘Sacred Marriage’ occurring in our Heavens. We can participate in the new beginning that all New Moons represent. The Sacred Marriage replenishes the Land, as well as each of us. A Solar Eclipse asks us to become conscious of the shifting energies that are creating our future and co-create with them.
So what energies have been invited to witness this sacred marriage of the Sun and Moon (visible in the lower Southern hemisphere), and the new birth that takes place in the house of Aquarius? The invited guests are: The Centaur Chiron with his wisdom and his wound, Mercury/Hermes in his role of Guide of Souls, Neptune the Lord of the Collective Unconscious and the Imaginal world, and Vesta/Hestia the Lady of the Eternal Flame of Life.
The other guests - Venus, Jupiter, and Pluto in Capricorn; Mars in Gemini (finally moving forward); Saturn in Virgo and Uranus in Pisces - including ourselves, watch from beyond Aquarius’ house, adding their good wishes to the event. So let’s see what this Marriage portends.
Aquarius, the Water-Bearer, is the sign of our ‘collective’ consciousness. It is a fixed, idealistic Air sign (sorry, not a water sign) and it represents how we collectively think about what it means to be human and our connection to each other. Carl Jung said that the Water-Bearer pours out the archetypal contents of the Collective Unconscious, energizing us to live these instinctual patterns of behavior more consciously. The Water-Bearer image has also been associated with the Tarot Trump #14 – Temperance, symbolizing the Soul Guide who helps us find the balance of Wholeness.
While astrologers give the rulership of Aquarius to Saturn and Uranus, because individual freedom (Uranus) entails responsibility (Saturn), the Titan Prometheus embodies many of the Aquarian qualities. Prometheus, ‘the great cosmic social worker’, rebelled against the King of the Gods when he stole the creative Fire from the gods to give to humanity. This archetype embodies the spirit within us that isn’t content with just living instinctually (being GREEDY FOR MORE) but wants to grow and live more consciously (stopping when there's ENOUGH). Prometheus, whose name means ‘the one who foresees’ (having foresight), knew that Zeus would win the battle with his fellow Titans, and chose to side with Zeus – the new order. He assisted in the birth of the goddess Athena from Zeus’ head, and was said to have created humanity from clay and water in the likeness of the gods, and later taught them all the cultural arts. He is the archetypal energy of the Cultural impulse, the desire to become more civilized, more god-like and conscious. “All human skill and science was Prometheus’ gift.”(Aeschylos) This impulse of good will toward humanity is certainly a part of the Aquarian story.
In the myth, Prometheus runs into opposition from Zeus, the King of the Gods, who doesn’t want humanity to develop the consciousness reserved for the gods (very much like the God of Genesis in the Garden of Eden). This is the part of the story we appear to be in now, don’t you think? It is time for each individual to have freedom – “of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” – and the powers-that-be still want to control everyone and everything. We need to engage the Prometheus energy within us to defy the system and re-create it on a higher level. And like Prometheus, who was punished by Zeus until Chiron offered to take his place, many people, like Cindy Sheehan, have had to suffer for the greater good.
We have lived in an adversarial mind-set for millennia. But the Age of Aquarius, which is just around the corner, will be an age where we all know we are ONE BEING - the Human Being. Aquarius is the Global Village, the Round Table, The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. Aquarius urges us to look beyond our differences (thank goodness we are different, otherwise how boring the world would be!) to our similarities. Our DNA is 99% the same – and translated from chemical equations into Hebrew tells us, We are made in the image of God. Aquarius says, be inclusive, be inventive, be tolerant of individual freedom, fight for social justice, be responsible for and love your neighbor as yourself. Aquarius is the sign that demands that we look beyond our own personal dreams and start to dream for the world.
When the Sun and Moon join together in Aquarius, the energies of the collective consciousness are brought close up and personal to every one of us. We see ourselves as individuals in the human family. We can abandon our family as a lost cause, or we can work to make a better life for everyone. Our purpose (the Sun) and our personal needs (the Moon) are the same. I think we’re finally getting it – if we are to survive these trying times, we have to work together. We have to come together to create change, new systems, new visions of the possible.
Besides the Sun and Moon, Mercury retrograde, Neptune, Chiron and Vesta are all in Aquarius. Most of us know by now that when Mercury, the messenger of the gods, goes retrograde, our outer communications, travel and commerce slow down, or break down. It’s a time to re-think, revise, re-do etc. But Mercury was also known as Hermes and he was also the Guide to Souls, traveling between the three worlds, baring news, information and gossip. During Mercury’s retrograde, he definitely takes up his mantle of Guide, leading us into our own depths to seek the answers to our questions about life. Mercury wants us to pay attention; this energy lets us evaluate the particular circumstances we find ourselves in and then determines an appropriate course of action. Mercury energy alerts us to pay attention to what turns up in our immediate environment so that we can make use of it in the situation. In the ancient myths, the baby Hermes/Mercury must make amends to Apollo for stealing his cattle. As he crawls across the cave-mouth of his home, he finds a turtle and uses its shell to make the first lyre, which he gives to Apollo in payment for his mischief. Mercury – our objective mind – is a trickster, an inventor, a fact-finder, a magician, a thief, and a double-edged sword.
In inventive Aquarius, Mercury wants us to pay attention to our inner ‘mad scientist’, listen to our dreams and intuitions, and start thinking ‘outside the box’ to discover our soul’s mission and possibly solve some of our personal and collective problems. Mercury in Aquarius can connect us through mental telepathy or connect us through the Internet or networking with like-minded souls. This energy understands how systems work! So go out – or in – and meet up with your group to help plan the next stage of our revolution/evolution. Two minds (or more) are better than one!
Mercury is aligned with Chiron, the teacher and healer. These two energies encourage us to find the ways we can teach what we know and heal what we can. For those of us who have felt different or ahead of our time, this conjunction at the Solar Eclipse can be a time of healing, when we find the other ‘misfits’ in our soul group. And perhaps find that the times have finally caught up with us.
When we add to the mix Neptune, the embodiment of the Collective Unconscious and the Imaginal, archetypal world, we might be looking at the birth of radical, new, inventive ideas and stories which will bring about the real change that the politicians are just talking about.
The change we are going through will demand not just quick fixes for the economy, or even a different policy about the war. It will entail a radical new approach to the whole basis of our civilization. In the coming years, we the people will have to create a different environment for our children to grow in – one that enlivens their Spirit instead of deadening It. Why do children take drugs? No, the answer isn’t that the war on drugs isn’t going well. Our children are drugging themselves because they have come into a dead and deadening world and they want something more. While their adolescent bodies are exploding with change and energy, they are forced to sit in classrooms learning uninteresting facts with their minds instead of learning some trade that puts them into their bodies so they can understand and deal with what they are becoming. We need to change our views of education so that we teach our people how to be human before we teach them how to become workers.
And the list goes on and on for ways we can revolutionize our culture. Just because we can invent something doesn’t mean that it is good for us. In reality, it’s not about the Economy – it’s about our vision of a fulfilled life. Once we take the emphasis off the economy and put it on creating a fulfilling and responsible lifestyle, we might actually have the democracy that our Founding Fathers imagined.
The Sabian symbol for 18º Aquarius, the degree of the Eclipse: A man’s secret motives are being publicly unmasked. On the collective level, this might indicate that the truth behind the Bush administration’s machinations will finally be revealed in the waning months of his administration. But we already know most of what he’s done – and nothing is being done about it. On a personal level, this degree calls us to face the truth, speak our truth, live our truth and share our truth freely without fear. 2008 is shaping up to being an interesting year.
With the other planets in the eclipse chart sending good wishes, great energy and the power to ground in change for this ‘sacred marriage’, we can all sing “Imagine” together as we sit around the sacred and eternal fires of life. Our companions are all those, living and dead, who dare to dream big about the possibilities of life on our mother, Earth.