Every emotion has a meaning. A reason for being. A need to be known by you. Every reaction has a root. A cause you’ve lost connection with. A truth you need to encounter.
Every family has a shadow. A side that hasn’t been made conscious. A dynamic that is determined, persistent, and pervasive. Every family has a person who tracks it, who feels what everyone else ignores. They are charged with the task of bringing in what has been left out in the cold. They have the job of no longer ignoring what is omnipresent.
This is a tremendous task.
When you are that family member, you will need to remember that you are feeling the grief, the loss, and the confusion that no one else will, can, or knows how to. You will need to be clear about what harm has been caused in the past so that you can interrupt it in the present. You will need to reclaim your energy from the patterns that have left you feeling futile, small, and alone. One small act of kindness at a time towards yourself brings about a clearer understanding of how the challenging moments of life are always connected to the parts of your past that define you.
The aspects of self that have been obscured by the family systems we grew up in linger in the shadows of our lives. They wait to be retrieved by us, want to be important enough to us, wish that one day we’d make the long and challenging journey of coming back to ourselves a top priority. There are no shortcuts in doing so. Quick fixes for the human conditions we find ourselves in are a fantasy, a fallacy, and a fool’s errand. We must learn to live, love, grieve, learn, and thrive through the mess of being human.
The solar eclipse in Capricorn arrives on December 25th at 9:13 PM PT. The last one of the decade, this eclipse brings into focus what is normally hiding in plain sight. In general, eclipses make a mockery of our attempts to deny our work. They refuse to go easy on us. They feel relentless at times, but when worked with can lead to relief, a shift in direction, and a pivotal moment of reclaiming our agency.
Eclipses tend to speed up the events of our lives that help us reach a conclusion about where to go next and what to disengage from.
Watch what arises during Eclipse Season (end of December to end of January). It will foretell something you’ll be working on for a long while to come. Take absolute ownership of your choices, you are setting the patterns you will be building your life within. Take no amount of growth for granted. Each and every inch we expand adds up to an extraordinary length in the end.
This eclipse is conjunct Jupiter and trine Uranus, making it one that encourages our expansion and our ability to break through the confines that have kept our potential hemmed in. But if we want to get to the bright light of living our best life we have to be willing to journey through the shadowlands of grief, growth, and getting real with ourselves and what our life needs from us.
The days in between the eclipses are filled with some beautiful astrological moments, ones that bring abundant blessings, helpful hints, and a light that can help to burn away some of the psychic cobwebs exposed. These are moments that encourage our growth and generosity, helping to bring about the realizations that are sure to move the needle of our lives towards what feels revolutionary for us. It’s an incredibly potent way to leave one decade and begin another, but if we aren’t all in in 2020, the next decade will be decided for us.
For an Eclipse Season reading and ritual specific to your sign, please join me for A Workshop for the Solar Eclipse in Capricorn, Lunar Eclipse in Cancer, and Astrology from Dec 21 – Jan 23.