angstoic.com Astrologer, Ang Stoic
The equinoxes and solstices are particularly significant points in the solar cycle. Conceived throughout all indigenous cultures they determine the rhythms of natural growth and decay, polarities of a universal life-death process.
Solstices are determined by the Sun’s maximum shift from earth’s midpoint, when Sol’s path cuts the equator at an angle of 23½°. Solstices are points in the year of maximum inequality between the mysterious powers of day and night.
In the Northern Sphere, the Sun is shifting to the South, and the forces of the Moon and nighttime reign supreme as light and heat dissipate and the cold and darkness spread across the land.
In the South Hemisphere, our Sun’s creative and furtive potency is at its peak and the natural world basks under sweltering heat, exploding with flowers, blossoms and fruits.
Seasonal transitions also play intrinsic effects on the psychology of humans. In astrology, Sun and Moon correspond to the conscious and unconscious terrains of the mind. The peak of summer is traditionally a time to strip down and get active in the exterior world, while the height of winter is a time for huddled withdrawal into the home and reconnecting to one’s deeper inner nature. Our holidays, drawn from ancient Wiccan festivals (ie Beltane, Samhain, Yule, etc) are jubilant moments that mark significant turning points in nature.
But are we still connected to nature?
Today, researchers estimate that humans spend up to 90% of their lives indoors. This is likely to have increased further during the pandemic/lockdowns era. Our disconnection from nature has an adverse impact on our lives because we are missing out on the beneficial connection to nature’s rhythms, As a result, we are less attuned to raw instinctive processes; our significant rituals (like Xmas) mean less and less, and our responsibility to connect and protect our environment falls into neglect and disrepair.
In fact, over the past two years, one could argue that common sense and ordinary perceptual experience has become completely overthrown since we now almost exclusively take for granted the ideas pitched at us by the doctrinal luminaries on our daily news. We’ve ditched all intuitive Aristotelian notions of the natural world, we know the earth revolves around the Sun (not the other way around), and we accept that solid matter is composed of tiny particles.
Yes, the official science of today is a narrative beyond question, yet coupled with our restricted contact to nature, it seems counterintuitive, anxiety-provoking, and at odds with our ancestors’ embodied experience and ceremonial relationship to the world.
This divergence of clinical science from the intuitive sciences has caused a schism between an embodied human experience of the world and the learned (or dictated) descriptions of how the world works.
Today, at this important celestial turning point (Solstice), make sure you get outside for a bit. Observe how much of your life is now based on electronic representations of reality vs the real thing. Are you at risk of losing touch with nature altogether? We may be a technological species, but we also need a deep connection with nature in our lives. Get a few minutes of sunshine, you’ll see. Even in small doses, nature is a potent elixir.
Happy Solstice, friends both north and south xx
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