All Aboard

The week begins with the first solar eclipse in Scorpio, opening a tunnel we’ll travel for weeks to come.  The following day a retrograde Mercury retreats into Scorpio, bringing thoughts and communications back toward the dirty heart of the present.  Not long after, small Chiron stations direct, squeezing a tear into the waters of the river we’ve been taken by.   Come Friday, Mars enters Capricorn, the stern sign the red planet will spend the next 6 weeks within.  Finally, on Saturday, the Sun, Mercury and the North Node all conjoin, offering a little clarity on the shifting state of things.

Solar Eclipse in Scorpio:  One Way Ticket

You’ve been in the Pasture Green for some time, cheering and lamenting what the river and the sky brought your way.   It’s been harder the last couple years.  Toxic run off from rusting factories upstream, odd weather.  The cattle began to starve, and the goats just stared at them.  The nature spirits awakened, too, but they were anything but friendly.    You knew you should leave, but where could you go?

One day not too long ago, a coffin washed up on the banks of the lazy river.  Air tight, empty and beautifully lacquered, you knew it was for you, but shuddered to think for what.  Then the daylight sky went dark, the Sun became a hole, and you saw that river bend, writhe, and stretch up to meet and enter  that spherical abyss in the sky.  A dark road had opened, and you understood then that the coffin was a vehicle, your ticket out of there.

The daylight sky goes dark over the Pacific on the 13th. The first solar eclipse in Scorpio opens a dark portal from which the silhouette of the future leaks.  This is the first eclipse in the  North Node in Scorpio- South Node in Taurus series that will run for the next year and a half.  As such, it delivers the first obvious, visible installment of a process we’ll be engaged in for some time.

The essence of this cycle is the embrace of slow, ongoing and necessary transformations.  To engage in these, it will become necessary to accept the rigors that change involves.   The river between places can be a rough place, one without the comforts or stability of home.  But neither is it haunted with the ghosts of broken relationships, nor hunted by a foreclosure.

One of the qualities specific to this cycle is that half of the eclipses occur right next to Saturn.  This adds Saturn’s themes to the karmic re-balancing the eclipses enact.  This journey will take discipline, focus and accountability.  There is also the danger of getting distracted along the way, caught up in cycles of tit-for-tat vengeance, fruitless lust and saloon brawls.   You’ll need to remember where you’re going, no matter what strange poisons you imbibe in those shady river-town bars.

The river you’ll be taking that coffin down is a tributary of the Tao, and if you make it to the big port city in time, you might be able to catch one of the big steamers Cap’n Rahu is rumored to pilot down the big river.  They say it’s a floating casino, with all night gambling, handsome men and dangerous women.

All aboard.

Mercury Re-Enters Scorpio: Regression

Mercury spends the early part of the week in a tight square with recently stationed Neptune in Pisces, an aspect the messenger completes within hours of the solar eclipse.  This square is excellent for visionary states of mind, imaginative escapes and journeys.  It is not excellent for clear-eyed analysis.  For many people, finding the right facts and putting them in the right words will be an uphill battle.

On Wednesday, the day after the eclipse, a retrograde Mercury abandons Sagittarius for Scorpio, hot on the trail of the recently eclipsed Sun.   This regress into Scorpio changes the tone of thinking, pulling it back from post-election heights of joy and despair and back into a more appropriately pragmatic, even suspicious mode.   The thoughts wind inward, toward questions of necessary  adaptation and change.

Mercury conjoins both the Sun and the North Node in Scorpio on Saturday.  This intense line-up helps clarify the nonverbal directives issued on the Solar Eclipse earlier in the wee.  Currents reify into the words necessary to make them thinkable, speakable.  Motions can be tracked on a map, trajectories plotted.

Chiron Stations Direct: A Single Tear

In the midst of all of this, Chiron stations direct (14th).  The Centaur adds to this rather intense mess the lingering need to integrate our spiritual and religious experiences with the concrete decisions afoot.  More than that, it points to the disconnects between religious forms and the needs of a changing world.  Chiron in Pisces asks that we connect our conceptions of the finite and infinite.

Mars Enters Capricorn: Command and Control

On the 16th, Mars enters Capricorn, beginning his 6 week stay in the sign.  Mars is considered to be in his exaltation in Capricorn, where he pushes towards patient, strategic and pragmatic approaches to work and war.

Mars’ time in Capricorn this year will be an eventful one.   The red planet spends the entire time in mutual reception with Saturn in Scorpio.  This puts the two planets in a tight, coordinated feedback loop which smiles coldly on works which require industrial strength discipline.

Although Mars in Capricorn will be helpful for pushing projects forward, the red planet will have to face down a square to Uranus and a conjunction with Pluto as it crosses through the unstable rays of the Uranus-Pluto square.  There are some harsh stories waiting to be told here, but you won’t hear them from me until next week.  Enjoy the eclipse.