We are taught to be afraid of the dark. We are taught to be afraid of difference. We are taught to be afraid of each other. We are taught to be afraid. Period.
Difference is a construct. Difference separates us. Separation makes it possible to harm one another and feel justified in doing so. There are differences between us. That’s what makes us beautiful. Differences can be feared or respected; honored or betrayed. Difference is often used against the “different.”
What is powerful has been feared for thousands of years.
What is feared gets demonized. What is feared gets projected onto another; onto whole cultures, whole nations, whole orientations.
What we fear is complex. What we fear is collective. What we fear is also personal. Some fear their power, their greatness and their fate. Others fear their despicable, unsocialized, unsavory personality traits. Many fear abandonment, loss of control and pain. Most of us fear some combination of all of that plus a little extra thrown in for good personal measure.
Many can wield some part of institutionalized power to try to protect from such pain. Projecting our fears onto others can appear to momentarily save us from having to take a good long look in the mirror. But we all end up on a deathbed someday with nothing but those projections to keep us company. We all have to face the compilation of denial and dismissal that we participated in during our time here.
We can deal with it now or we can deal with it then, but deal with it we must.
The second of October’s eclipses occurs on Thursday, October 23rd at 5:56 pm EST. The sun, moon and Venus will all be perfectly aligned at zero plus degrees of Scorpio (Venus just a few hairs shy of being exactly conjunct the eclipse) with Pallas Athene just a degree away. This means that all three planets enter the sign mere hours before the eclipse. One planet changing signs is a big deal; three changing signs and then all being involved in an eclipse is something else entirely.
This is a solar eclipse. This is a new moon. This is Scorpio. This is Dark. Goddess. Goodness.
The dark phase of the moon, of the year and of any part of any cycle was seen for thousands of years to be a part of the healing process. There is no regeneration in the bright light of day. No embryo grows outside of the womb. Life begins in the dark.
The moon is said to be in her fall in Scorpio, Venus is said to be in her detriment there. Neither planet is happy-go-lucky in this sign. Both planets in our birth chart tell us about our experience with connection, with relating, with bonding and with creating.
The moon in Scorpio can have moods that swing wildly, intensely and passionately but our moon craves stability, security and stasis. Venus in Scorpio can be passionate, obsessive and vengeful which can obstruct Venus’s desire for peace, harmony and balance in relationships.
Those two simple descriptions are far from the full tale of these planets in this tremendously powerful and regenerative water sign of Scorpio but sufficed to say this is a combination that is sure to bring out our envy, our sexual appetites, our sorrows, our shadows and all the other bits that are desperate for transformation and healing. Yes, my loves. We are but puppets in this great cosmic play. Strings are pulled and destinies are fulfilled.
Pallas Athene is an asteroid, not ruled by any specific sign. Her presence here denotes a knowledge and a wisdom for us to awaken to. Her myth speaks to a politics of betrayal and a position of guardianship. Pallas Athene’s sister is Medusa. Medusa, once beautiful and desired by all is raped by Poseidon (she must have been asking for it with all that beauty). Instead of punishing him Athena punishes Medusa, turning her sister’s famously beautiful locks into a head full of snakes with a gaze that will turn any man to stone.
Eventually Athena helps Perseus behead Medusa, completing the betrayal. And yet, Athena places her sister’s head on her shield. All is not forgotten but it certainly is twisted. This is an old tale of standing by the patriarchy in order to gain power from it. We can see this happening everywhere as folks from all groups are cautiously being “let” into the system, succeeding and then being held up as examples used against the group from which they came as if to say, “why can’t you be a good example like your brother?” Exceptions are not the rule though. Not. At. All.
This puts us all in a precarious situation. Do we criticize our sisters, our brothers and our cousins that have made it within the system, against all odds? Do we blame the players or the owners, the conductors and the real benefactors? Do we blame? And if so are we also to blame?
These are the questions and the feelings that Scorpio brings to the surface.
We don’t need to look far to see how the raped aren’t protected and the rapists aren’t prosecuted. We don’t need to look very far to see women being blamed for the violence that men inflict. We do not need to look very far to see that we haven’t really come very far in many regards. Normalizing the abuse of women normalizes all other forms of abuse. These are old tales. These are old forms of warfare. It’s time to update the system. Way past time.
Our national, global, cultural and personal closets, full of shame, are bursting at the seams. This is Venus and the moon in Scorpio. A revealing about the realities of what it is to be a woman in this world. But Scorpio is about transformation.
So let the closets burst wide open. We need to acknowledge the harm done. We need responsibility taken and to take it ourselves. We need to give and receive reparations. We need healing on all levels.
On the personal front, healing will come via Venus’s involvement in the eclipse and her conjunction to the sun a couple days later. This movement of Venus is part of the story of Inanna’s descent into the underworld. The planet Venus was seen in the ancient world as the great Goddess of Heaven and Earth.
At the superior conjunction (happening on October 25th) Inanna has died at the hands of her sister, Erishkigal and is hung up on a meat hook in the underworld (so underworld journeys go). On the way down she has had to stop at seven gates (read chakras) and has had to remove an article of clothing at each one. She is naked, bare and is dead to her old self, about to be reunited with the source of all life, the sun, in order to be reborn.
Visually this is when we lose sight of Venus in the sky, hence the underworld motif (you may remember it from October 16th, when Mercury did the same thing) and she will reemerge as an evening star on December 4. For now She/We are in the great alchemical process that only an underworld journey can afford us; giving up false uses of our talents, powers and potentials. Rejecting outdated Cinderella stories of love and romance. Sacrificing unskillful uses of our mind via projecting our power, creativity and erotic energy onto another human being. Ending the betrayal of our sisters and being reborn to stand for each other. Turning away from drama and being reborn to truth. Inanna’s descent strips her bare and her ascent reinforces her powers as she comes back up through the seven gates regaining all she has lost but now with a greater awareness of her essential nature, her power and her abilities.
Mercury just so happens to station direct on the same day as Venus conjuncts the sun in the relationship oriented sign of Libra. Obviously we will have plenty of opportunity to take a look at how the fantasies of being in love don’t help us too much when it’s time to roll up our sleeves and get into the nitty gritty of being in union with others. Real love involves letting the fantasy of romantic love die of natural causes. Real love walks through heartache, loss, betrayal, survival, recovery, redundancies and many a revelation. Any relationship is only as good as its ability to go through the multitudes of mystical deaths, the many underworld journeys and all the forms we come into and grow out of during this life.
Eclipse well,
Chani