On Monday the 30th, we close out November with a Full Moon in Gemini, which happens to be a penumbral eclipse due to its proximity to the North Node. Because it’s 11 degrees away, the Moon will go into shadow, but not completely – just enough for us to see better in the dark. Full Moons are about illumination. Lunar eclipses tell us to look in the shadows.
I know I have harped on shadow work all year, and you are probably sick of hearing about it, especially now as we enter the holiday season. 2020 has been a rough year and we’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Who wants to turn around and look back into the darkness? But this is exactly what the Full Moon in Gemini is asking of us, with its penumbral eclipse. Many cycles are ending and new cycles about to begin. Do we really want to carry our baggage for another go-around?
Eclipses have cycles too. They are called Saros Series. Think back 19 years ago. Yes, this eclipse harkens back to the tragedy of 9/11 that shocked us out of our complacency and brought us glaringly into the 21st century. In addition, the long-anticipated Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn is coming up on the Winter Solstice. Their last conjunction was in Taurus in 2020, the final meeting in Earth signs for another 800 years. Winter Solstice is the time of greatest darkness in the northern hemisphere. The Sun appears to stand still and light slowly begins its return trip. So we have a 19-year cycle, a 20-year cycle and a 200-year cycle as Jupiter and Saturn begin conjunctions in air signs, where they haven’t been for 800 years.
Not only that but the old Pluto/Saturn cycle, that began 38 years ago, has ended and we are entering their next cycle of relationship. The same is true for Pluto and Jupiter. And if this isn’t impressive enough, we are entering a new age of 2160 years as well as a new Great Year of 26,000 years. I’ll share more about those events in mid-December. The point is that we are entering new territory. We are in that liminal space between endings and beginnings. It’s a great time to take stock.
Over the next two weeks we have a window of opportunity in which to make peace with our past, to release whatever burdens we have carried, whatever resentments, hostilities, wounds, dysfunctional behavioral patterns that have hardened our hearts and made life difficult. Gemini is about duality. It’s a fact of human existence. How do we want to hold duality in the future – as conflict, as separation, with judgment and hostility, with denial and suppression?
It’s time to bring our shadow side into the light of consciousness, to realize that we are made up of positive and negative energies, light and dark, good and bad. Those are the labels that create exclusion, separation, antagonism and pain.
The New Moon
For the USA the Sun is in the closing degrees of the 12th House. We are on the cusp of a solar rebirth and the rebuilding of our national character. Beautifully, it all begins with Sagittarius, the energy that concludes the sacred year with the emergence of a new vision, a new quest for truth, new dreams and hopes. This is when we take aim at the future.
So it is also the perfect time to assess the past, evaluate the choices we made, admit our mistakes and be grateful for the lesson learned. It’s a time of purification. Shiny dreams cannot radiate through smog. We need to release the shadows that haunt us – the relationship that opened a deep wound, the moments of chagrin that spelled failure, the disappointments that pinch the heart. Revisit them one last time and kiss them goodbye, bless them for the contribution they made to our growing wisdom. Weep if we must, or can, and feel the love flow in. With a full and peaceful heart, we can turn toward the light of the future we wish to live in.
2020 has been about assessing our values. We don’t all agree, but at least now we can quietly go about building a better world out of them. I hesitate to get dramatic, but the extraordinary astrology of 2020, and of the next seven years, is so ripe with potential that it’s easy to leap into hyperbole. Nevertheless, it is my belief that we have turned our backs on the darkness that engulfed our nation. There will still be challenges, and I intend to be here to report on them as, for instance, Jupiter and Saturn square Uranus, and Neptune square the Nodes in just the first six weeks of 2021. The new administration will hit the ground running. What will happen? Who knows, but it could be wonderfully exciting! With Uranus activated, all kinds of amazing things are possible. We’ll talk all about the opportunities and potentials next year.
The Sun is within four degrees of crossing the USA Ascendant. Who are we as a nation? What values of our forefathers do we share? What changes do we want to make? Who do we want to be?
Uranus
The Moon is conjunct the USA natal Uranus, the perfect ally, providing flashes of insight and unexpected synchronicities. Uranus is the planet of awakening. The first of the unseen planets, it opens us up to the unknown. Uranus brings change, and located in the USA 6th house, it means changes in health and healthcare, in our daily routines, in our work and our habits. The penumbral eclipse is asking us to take a look at these areas of our lives. What needs change? Uranus will make it obvious.
Neptune
The Nodes are closing in on a T-Square with Neptune. This watery planet will be another bright, though fuzzy, star in the next years. Remember the Nodes create an axis of evolution. We gather information and experience at the head or North Node. We digest it through our lives and release whatever has served its purpose at the South Node. All the stuff of lifetimes that we haven’t released lies in the South Node waiting room. All it needs is a good-bye kiss and a thank you.
Neptune is the great boundary dissolver. Think of tidal waves washing away the footprints on the beach. That’s the action of Neptune – rhythmic, constant – a powerful, deep presence in our psyches. Neptune breaks down rigidity. It washes away the barriers to spiritual awareness. All things spiritual are contained within Neptune’s jurisdiction. All it asks is surrender. The trick with Neptune is to find the perfect tightrope to walk.
Neptune finds us in the fog, in dreams, in reverie. It opens the doors to the mystical realms and seduces us to seek peak experiences. We want more, which is fine if we want more love, more wisdom, more compassion etc. Some of us become junkies and look for substitutes for the real thing – alcohol, drugs, escape of all kinds. A lot of that was going on this year and I cop to it myself.
What’s significant about Neptune approaching it’s fulcrum with the Nodes is that we have to find our balance and keep it. In fact the whole passage requires conscious awareness. We must take frequent reality checks. Am I on the right path? Is our nation? What is true? This is something we will be continually sorting out. Neptune rules Pisces which is opposite Virgo. When Neptune in Pisces is active, which it has been since February of 2012, we must fine-tune our Virgo discernment. Always look to the opposite sign when searching for solutions.
Pallas visits Pluto
Transiting Pallas Athena is at the same degree as the USA natal Pluto, the perfect set up for gaining wisdom from the transformational influence of Pluto through 2020. Give yourself the pre-holiday gift of some quiet, alone time. Get out your journal and write about 2020 – what challenges you faced, what emotions you had to deal with, what you had to endure. Then take a look at how you coped, how you accommodated to restricting influences. Notice how you had to learn patience, you had to get grounded, you had to face yourself, you had to get more creative. What longings came to the surface? What do you know about yourself now that you didn’t in January?
I believe that 2020 has equipped us for the job ahead. Our separation has brought up our need to be with one another, our hunger for sociability. Restricted boundaries forced our creativity, enabled new awareness, got us to see our lives under a microscope. Sadly, many of us have suffered deep grief, severe illness, heartbreaking, life-threatening loss. All this adversity brings out our hopes and dreams, our hunger for something better. This is exactly the context we need to cultivate for 2021 and beyond.
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