My Little Fairy GodChild Jerome!
The Sagittarius New Moon was exact early this morning, Saturday, November 22. The 3-day window for ceremony completes Sunday evening with the tiny visible crescent Moon. This special New Moon arrives on the heels of two of the most potent months of Underworld activity, providing a glimmer of much-needed light and illumination.
The Moon catches up with Venus in Sagittarius later this evening, at about 8:00 pm MST, so we receive a download from the Goddess, to support our journey from the Underworld and into greater spiritual awareness and higher comprehension of all that has happened during our descent into the dark places within and without.
This New Moon takes place at 0 Sagittarius, a follow up to last month’s 0 Scorpio New Moon. Until Venus and Saturn exit the Underworld and appear as Evening and Morning Stars respectively near December 4, 2014, we remain in the Underworld.
We have been like caterpillars in the chrysalis since mid-September, and we remain in this experience of deep transformation until December 4th when we begin the slow, steady process of extricating ourselves from the shells of our old lives, our old ways of being—and we prepare to unfurl our still-tender new wings.
Know that none of us will emerge in these coming months unchanged from this initiation. Because our current Venus Cycle is in the sign of Capricorn (much like Saturn) and Saturn has been such an integral part of its journey with the Sun, this Venus cycle is more powerful for ALL of us, and experienced across the entire human community as a Death Rebirth initiation.
Enduring Burning to Make Light
As we set our Sagittarius New Moon intentions, we do well to ask that the flame of eternal hope and possibility might light our way as we begin our exit from the chrysalis, from the Birth Canal over the completing months of this Venus Cycle through summer of 2015.
My Mars is in Scorpio and my Venus is in Sagittarius so I’ve often meditated on the relationship between these two energies. What I picture often is the capacity to carry a bright torch into the darkest depths. This is the possibility for how we might traverse these coming two weeks of the Underworld experience. We can light the dark passageways—with love, with intuitive knowing, and with a fierce hope for the future, even when we have no reason for hope.
Victor Frankl, author of Man’s Search For Meaning, had a Sagittarius Moon and Scorpio Mars, a perfect example of this combination. This book, where he shares his experience as a Jew interred in a Nazi concentration camp and practices he used to maintain his vision and humanity in the depths of this darkness has inspired millions. His words: “what is to give light is to endure burning” remind us that we can choose to craft our darkest life experiences into beauty and a deepened capacity for love.
Understanding the Intensity of This Past Month
This past month, following on the heels of the eclipse season intensity has been steeped in literal and symbolic Death and Rebirth events for MANY with the Scorpio New Moon, Venus in Scorpio the Underworld and Saturn in Scorpio in the Underworld—the ancient astrologers saw the planets as being “In the Underworld” when they are so close to the Sun (with Great Mystery or Source) so that you cannot see them in the morning or evening sky.
Also, Chiron has been activated an astonishing number of times through November, as it has been slowing in the sky preparing to station direct tomorrow, Sunday, November 24. For weeks on either side of a planet/asteroid’s station we can feel it much more intensively.
So all we have been experiencing through the month of November can act as a catalyst for healing our hearts, our souls. Chironic healing is often not about physical outcomes. It is just as much about the healing that happens to a heart closed by routine and patterns of isolation, when facing death of a loved one as it is about the physical healing of wounds or the miraculous cure.
Chiron initiations deepen us into becoming truly human. They break open our hearts into compassion. They crack open our defenses so that finally we must feel the pain and suffering of being alive, yet also remember that this makes us part of the human family. Chiron initiations can help us remember that we are surrounded at all times by love and to open to receive that love.
Birth and Death as Twins
I find myself poised in this moment on the very literal threshold between Birth and Death, seeing clearly how deeply similar these two processes truly are. I am in Missouri spending a precious week with my newborn nephew Jerome, who is also my godchild or “Fairy Godchild” as this suits me better.
On my first day I experienced the miracle of two full hours holding this miraculous young being in my arms, an experience I have not had since childhood with my little sisters. I felt like the Grinch when his heart grows so many sizes, a softening that nothing else could have possibly created for me.
I see how my sister and brother in law’s hearts and lives have suddenly been altered beyond measure. They thought they knew what they were doing when they chose, after many years of building a strong partnership, to have a baby. Yet nothing could have prepared them for the reality of this tiny human being, now in their care. It takes my breath away, thinking about it.
Beautiful Chalotte and her magical son Orion
This very same night, after a day with my godchild, I received a message from my partner Tom that our dear friend, beloved sister in our Albuquerque community, had died suddenly due to complications early in pregnancy. It seemed impossible. Chalotte, bright, vibrant, light-filled woman, who I’d seen, happy and perfectly healthy, just two weeks before.
My heart broke open again, and again, as I saw all the shared grief, love and support pour in for her husband and small son, from her extended community, as I wavered from disbelief to understanding that I will never see Chalotte again in her physical manifestation, that I will not be given more opportunity to know her more deeply in this incarnation, to nourish our friendship, to learn what only she knows.
Chalotte’s death has impacted me most deeply, yet she was one of three in the past few days for me. Just three days ago, Wednesday morning when Saturn and the Sun were conjunct, Tom’s office mate had also died unexpectedly the morning before in his sleep. Yesterday another good friend’s father was taken off life support.
I know I and my community are not alone in these losses. And there have been many miraculous births as well over these past two months, babies who survived in dire conditions.
And for many others the births and deaths have been occurring on the inside, yet they are also deeply transformational. The death of a relationship, the tender birth of a new relationship. The death of an old pattern of relating, the birth of a new capacity for love and intimacy.
We are all invited to enter into our lives as deeply as possible at this time, to enter the depths, and allow ourselves to be healed by life, by our loved ones.
In this moment what I am most acutely aware of is the preciousness of now. In losing Chalotte I see the opportunities I missed while she was alive to let her know how I loved her, how I appreciated her, to take the time to know her better.
And as I sit and type today I am also aware that time is passing and so are my limited days to be with Jerome, to breath him in, to connect to his soul, and enjoy this time with my sister and brother and law in this sacred passage of parenthood.
I wish for all of you, my readers, that in your places of pain you are surrounded by love and that you can receive it. That in your places of birth and awakening, that you tend these spaces with gratitude and presence as well.
A fund has been set up to support Chalotte’s husband Lonn, and son, Orion, in their path forward. Anyone who would like to support can do so here.
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