angstoic.com Astrologer, Ang Stoic
And so that was Christmas…
Another year over, and a new one just about to begin.
We are now in the lapsing final moments between the end of another week, month, year, decade… and the beginning of a whole new one.
Congrats! You made it this far. Though many may argue that 2019 was a challenging year, it’s best to enjoy what’s left of it. Cherish it, knowing you will soon reflect upon its innocence with a fondness. For not only will your whole world (both inner and outer) be completely different by this time next year, but thanks to the profound shifts ahead of us you will neither see the past in quite the same way nor feel in any way nostalgic about it.
We are awakening, rapidly, and yet for many, this may feel like it may be too late. Don’t worry. – it’s not. It’s never too late to wake up – provided you don’t try to just go back to sleep. That won’t work for you anyway. The pressure is mounting…
In the awkward, often uncomfortable MID-ECLIPSE period, an alienating feeling of embittered loss begins to surface: Feelings of past betrayal and abandonment; old memories of misfortune and destruction; of being left hopeless, bankrupt and forlorn; of feeling cheated, lied to and cruelly admonished. We suffer wounds and grieve continually with the pain as we struggle to make any sense of it all.
Both the Sun and Mercury conjunct Jupiter at the South Node this week. Yet the usual joy we might expect from Jupiter transits seems severely diminished here.
Jupiter at his utmost worst in Capricorn. He can’t get away with any of his ‘big talking jive’ because Capricorn is far too cautious and cynical. Plus, the drag from the South Node means nobody’s picking up what he’s putting out there.
Hence, Jupiter’s usual optimism can’t easily get us off the ground. If not fully embodied, our enthusiasm quickly digresses into a maudlin mess of pessimism. Our faith easily turns to doubt and mistrust, and there’s a sense that opportunities are either missed, wasted or outright denied. Even the chances we do take turn into acerbic lessons in what we must not assume.
The disconnect we feel because of all this South Node activity can be desolating. None of us are immune. None who claim any real connection with their own feelings, nature or family, or those nearest to us. We all have much healing work to do in this regard.
The South Node is the place from which we may have once spawned, our connection with folks or places from our past. Some may say ‘past lives’, but for the sake of credulity, let’s not get too carried away with stories of reincarnation and the time when you was ‘Cleopatra’ or even ‘Jesus’ himself.
‘Past lives’ here can simply refer to our past years or phases of our personal history and the people we left behind but who sometimes recur into our present. Like memories of the old house you once lived in when you were a kid; or chums from the old schooldays; or from an old job; a lover; ex-marriage; friend; some long-forgotten contact from deeper, darker decade, thought long forgotten but now somehow resurfaced to check in on your spiritual progress.
As the Sun and Mercury reach this point, the mind and spirit is drawn to people and instances where connections with the ‘adolescent self’ (Mercury) and ‘authority-figures’ (Sun) need to be balanced in this life. Often unresolved past tensions, accumulated when the father-figure has been either severely neglectful or far too strict resurface, causing tremendous conflict.
Massive arguments about who was right, whose will was more important, what should and should never have happened can rise up and out of nowhere. Regardless of one’s current level of wisdom and their grandiloquence of social standing, there is a touch of hypocrisy, monomania and mere self-deception that present itself here.
Any egocentric motivations reveal an attempt at self-enhancement and self-interest, cleverly disguised, even from the ‘esteemed authority’ from whom it is coming from. Naturally, things come undone at the South Node. They need to be released because they no longer serve us.
As Ram Dass said: “You think you’re enlightened, go spend the holidays with your family.”
When we physically revisit the old family turf, or any zone which reconnects us with our past, all the old ills quickly resurface and the spiritual growth we’ve been working on pretty much goes out the window. That old familiar ‘tribal’ dynamic sucks us back into its dysfunction vortex.
This is because our family – especially our parents – have not experienced secondary change. They remain the same people who dished out the rules and ultimatums, who failed to listen to us and allow us to express our feelings and innermost desires.
By Friday’s First Quarter, the Aries Moon rams fiercely against the grizzly goat. In order to grow and learn, we must buck a strong ego. At times like these, this may not be easy to avoid.
Fortunately, with Mercury trine Uranus and Mars trine Chiron, there are a few release valves here. However, it’s going to take some courage to make a change. Obviously we can not change anyone else, and that must never be our intent. But the entire dynamic of the family, regardless of how toxic it still is, can change if just one member has the courage to be the bigger person and be the change.
What if that bigger person was you?
What if you were the one who was to go against the pull to get sucked back into the petty family squabbles?
What if you were the one who was to defy the pull of that familiar vortex of dysfunction?
By practising active listening, being metacognitive (aware of your own awareness), not reacting, drawing boundaries, and most importantly, not getting involved in third-party squabbles and politics, you can resist the South Node pull into past-life disrepair and unhealed grief and despair.
Remember, we are about to enter the Saturn/Pluto rinse cycle and almost the entire load of cosmic laundry seems clumped-up around the Capricorn South Node.
That much imbalance is set to cause the 2020 machine to rumble violently.
Heavy, toxic, deeply soiled articles from our past, with stains almost impossible to remove will soon start spinning around and around, creating such awful turbulence that the entire wash-house could come quaking down in a crumbling heap.
Our only hope is that the Moon, now heading over to her domicile in Cancer (Jan 10) might provide some counterbalance.
In the meantime, don’t engage. Lead by example. Show your family and those who may resurface from your past that you are different now, that you have grown. You have evolved into a higher being.
Of course, there will be resistance. Others may get upset with you. But you must hold your higher ground. Like the mountain goat, the firmer your stance, the more your family dynamic will change. The more you keep chocking your spiritual position, the less chance of regression. I know its difficult with Jupiter in his sign of utter fall. But there is a faint opportunity that with enough awareness you can break the cycle of tradition here.
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
Bertrand Russell
As we come to the end of a decade, you have the opportunity to make this moment about more than just you and your journey. It’s about igniting the spark of change in others. Giving, not taking. You may feel like you are lost and seemingly insignificant in your dramas with your parents (or your kids), but you affect them more than you can consciously understand.
It’s really time to try a different approach this year: For once, be the change you want to see in your family. This breakthrough shift: giving them the present tense, evolved you – not more of the “past you” – will give them the greatest gift you’ve ever given them, an opportunity at growth.
Season’s blessings, and have an amazing New Year xx
Have you read your empowering horoscope message for this period?