The Dark Night of the Planetary Soul
This Saturday, December 10 at 6:36 am (PST), or 9:36 am (EST), we celebrate the Sagittarius Solar Festival and the Full Moon at 19° Gemini, which takes place during a simultaneous Total Lunar Selenelion Eclipse.
The Gemini Full Moon Total Lunar Selenelion Eclipse
This rare total lunar Selenelion Eclipse will be easily visible in large parts of Asia, Alaska, Hawaii, and the West Coast of America, but only a partial eclipse will be visible on the East Coast.
As the moon enters the southern part of the Earth's shadow, the lunar eclipse begins with a partial phase at 4:45 am PST (7:45 am EST) and extends through the total eclipse, winding down into another partial eclipse phase which ends at 8:18 am PST (11:18 am EST). The period of the total lunar eclipse begins at 6:06 a.m. PST or 9:06 am (EST) and lasts 51 minutes.
According to a report by Joe Rao on Space.com, during this full moon you will be able to observe this rare celestial phenomenon known as the Selenelion eclipse. “There will be a short window of roughly 1-to-6 minutes (depending on your location) when you may be able to simultaneously spot the sun rising in the east-southeast and the eclipsed full moon setting in the west-northwest,” according to Rao.
At the time of a lunar eclipse, the Sun, Earth and moon are pretty much exactly aligned, with the Earth in the middle. During a lunar eclipse, the Earth blocks the Sun’s rays from striking the moon.
However because of refraction of light through Earth’s atmosphere, objects near the horizon appear higher in the sky than their true position as measured by astronomers -- and larger as well, which is why the full moon near the horizon often looks so huge to us.
So when the eclipse occurs near sunrise, as it does this month, the Sun and the eclipsed Full Moon are visible simultaneously just above the horizon at opposite points in the sky. That’s the magic of the Selenelion Total Lunar Eclipse.
Mental Purification During the Full Moon Selenelion Eclipse
What on Earth does it mean symbolically? How can we work with conscious intention at the time of this auspicious Cosmic event to promote the greatest good for ourselves and our communities?
One esoteric meaning of this unusual celestial event is that the darkest time is just at the time of the dawn! So if recent events have left you feeling you’re on a bit of a roller-coaster emotionally, financially, professionally, or mentally, that’s par for the course. It is after all a Gemini Full Moon, and Gemini is notorious for living in two worlds -- or more -- at once.
And Gemini is the sign of the mutable mind.
So it’s a good thing for us all to reflect upon our mental hygiene. We can take a moment to observe our habits, preferences, attractions and aversions and to make a conscious effort to release that which no longer serves us.
It is time to reflect upon our typical reactions to stress, fear, turmoil, and global chaos and to really get into Being the Witness to our own ingrained self-defeating patterns of behavior, habitual thought-patterns, conventional wisdom and other mistaken mental maps of the world.
If we identify with temporary negative emotions and states of being, or situations, we feel even more exhausted, tired, emotionally drained, and overwhelmed.
It can be exhausting to deal with avalanches of fear, anger and feelings of overwhelm as we are faced with the daily deluge of “stuff”, whether it’s news from the “outer world” that impacts our lives directly, second-hand emotions from viewing or hearing about the suffering of others, problems that our friends and families have with finances, environmental problems, personal problems, and general emotional or physical stuff.
Lightworkers can be exposed to even more “stuff” than many other folks, especially if they interact with the general public as healers, therapists, ministers, or volunteers of some sort.
So in a time of turbulence and over-stimulation, a time of forced civilizational transformation, all of humanity is stressed to the max.
And we are just entering the gateway to the years of most intense transformation. We all need all the help we can get in protecting ourselves during this amazing and transformative time.
Jane has written an essential Guide to Psychic Self-Defense that all Lightworkers can use to help ward off unwanted energies, banish negative collective thought-forms, and release intense emotional states of all kinds.
You’ll find a huge tool-kit of psychological and spiritual exercises, meditation techniques, hygiene and nutritional tips, a set of practical ways you can cleanse yourself of unwanted energies.
This Full Moon Selenelion Eclipse in Gemini is the ideal time to perform any and all kinds of purifications and exercises or practices designed to let go of that which we no longer wish to hold onto mentally, and to empower us with new energy to visualize and create new ways of being in the world that will better reflect the Higher Mind and the compassionate Unity of heart and mind that Higher Self comprises.
So this weekend, when we have identified that which we wish to release, we can perform a ritual or do a meditation or a trance-state Spirit releasement, or a self-Reiki emotional and mental healing session at the time of the Selenelion Eclipse and we can be certain that the Cosmic Currents of Energy and the Celestial Climate set by the stars are fully supportive of our spiritual practices. We can expect much better than average results doing any releasing work of this kind over the weekend.
Selenelion Lunar Eclipse a Magical Moment for Lovers
Another deep meaning of this December 2011 Selenelion Eclipse in Gemini concerns the Cosmic balance between masculine and feminine, Sun and Moon.
Gemini is the sign of the Twins, and sometimes the symbol is interpreted as “The Lovers”. Gemini is a great sign for lovers. And this Full Moon in Gemini when the Sun and Eclipse Moon share the sky at dawn is a time of Balance between The Divine Lovers. This weekend needless to say should be very good for lovers.
This Selenelion Eclipse occurring just prior to the pivotal year 2012 appears as a gateway leading toward greater understanding between the sexes, equal rights for men and women, and an equal appreciation for masculine and feminine qualities, everywhere in the world.
So any spiritual practices involving relationships are extremely well aspected during this Selenelion Eclipse weekend.
Any shared spiritual practices you enjoy with your loved one will provide additional benefits to both of you.
Any romantic involvements attract beneficial influences at this time, so this is a great time to enjoy increased intimacy with your loved one.
For anyone who is currently seeking a loving relationship, the Selenelion Full Moon Lunar Eclipse is the time to perform rituals, meditations, prayers, and visualizations affirming your choice, filling your heart with love, and asking the Universe to guide you to the perfect partner. If possible visualize the Star Goddess and ask her to set your foot upon the path of Synchronicity, which leads always to the Source of Love. Then watch for meaningful coincidences and full-blown synchronicities to lead you to the relationship adventure of a lifetime!
For those who would like to explore the many flavors of love, including self-love, Platonic love, romantic love, partnership, and the archetype of the Divine Lovers, we offer our free e-book, Back to the Garden: Cultivating Love in our Lives.
Here we explore the spiritual laws of love, the laws of resonance and attraction, the karmic origins of love, techniques to release the karmic bonds that bind us all, paths leading to the transformation of the egoistic personality into the faithful vehicle of the Higher Self, and practical advice and techniques to help you along many of the infinitely varied, winding ways of love.
Selenelion Eclipse: Doorway to Higher Mind
Looking at the Selenelion Full Moon Eclipse in Gemini with a view toward our own inner spiritual development, the fact that the sunrise and total lunar eclipse will be visible simultaneously indicates that the Higher Self symbolized by the Sun becomes visible at the moment of the eclipse of the Egoistic Personality, symbolized by the moon.
In the awakened Seeker, the personality remains as devoted servant to the Higher Self, it does not disappear.
Needless to say, this weekend all spiritual practices designed to forge the bridge between the personality and the Higher Self are spectacularly well aspected. You can expect better results than normal when performing rituals, meditations, shamanic practices, prayers, and other spiritual practices.
In all cases, attempt to connect with the energy of the Selenelion Total Full Moon Eclipse. Visualize the rising sun and the setting moon in eclipse, in the sky simultaneously, and put yourself in sync with the magical energies of this weekend through the power of your intent.
Imagine the rosy glow of the rising sun in the east-southeast of the sky, and see the shadowed moon setting in the west-northwest quadrant of the sky -- at the same time.
This will accelerate your progress along the path toward the final goal -- the moment when the bridge between personality and Higher Self becomes so strong and well-developed that the Higher Self becomes the dominant Source of expression through the physical vehicle. That is the moment of the Golden Dawn.
Thus the Dawn of Enlightenment can and must take place at the same time as the symbolic eclipse of the personality. That moment of Enlightenment is what our current Cosmic Weather Pattern brings to us.
The Eclipse of Dreams and the Zombie Global Financial System
On the level of the collective consciousness of Lightworkers, this Full Moon Selenelion Eclipse indicates that we have integrated many of the lessons of the last few years of inner work and have also absorbed many of the tough new lessons we’ve been learning since the Financial Meltdown of 2007 about social inequalities and disequilibriums that are destroying the global middle classes, triggering destructive nationalistic war-mongering, destroying humanity’s habitat, and creating a new, parasitic class of super-wealthy individuals who have seceded from the human race, and repudiated all social responsibilities.
We are now well into a period of disillusionment, a period in which many dreams are being eclipsed and dying.
The American Dream is dying. In California, where the American Dream was born, immortalized on totally impermanent celluloid, and sold to billions around the world, the middle class is shrinking, according to today’s San Francisco Bay newspaper reports.
The dream of the Enlightenment -- the dream of continuous human progress resulting from the application of rational mind, logical thought and scientific methodology to any and all problems and issues that may arise in any sphere of human activity -- is likewise apparently dead. Science brought us the Industrial Revolution, which has brought us a planet warming to the point where humanity may lose its only habitat.
The dream of the one, true religion is perhaps also dying. Religions around the world have become more and more fundamentalist and belligerent. Religious warfare among Moslems, Christians, Hindus and Jews is considered normal and likely to increase in severity.
This last week in an article on The Huffington Post website the Dalai Lama said, “Today, however, any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal, and so will be inadequate. What we need today is an approach to ethics which makes no recourse to religion and can be equally acceptable to those with faith and those without: a secular ethics.”
The dream of unlimited resources, unlimited growth, and of essentially unlimited exploitation of people and countries possessing valuable natural resources, has become less and less credible to more and more people around the world the last few years -- for obvious reasons.
The dream of a world increasingly composed of peaceful democracies who would not war upon one another, predicted by neo-conservative theoretician Francis Fukuyama in his book The End of History, is coming to an end.
Instead, it appears that the existing democracies in Europe, North and South America and elsewhere in the world, are all in a state of advanced political decay, with a tremendous polarity between the government and the citizens that is increasing in intensity all the time.
That’s partly because the dream of the Euro is dying. The Euro is a currency based upon a fatally flawed multi-nation-state financial system, which has no institutional mandate or tools to deal with the scope of the current global financial crisis.
There is no European wide democratically elected government of any kind, just a central bank and a big bureaucracy. And the European central bank can do only one thing. Fight inflation. Even in the middle of a Depression. No matter what. Whether it works or not.
It is as if the Federal Reserve had no power to adjust monetary policy in order to deal with emergencies requiring the infusion of money into the financial system.
If the Fed had not bailed out big banks and investment firms in the US a few years ago, it is definitely possible that the resulting shock to the financial system would have destroyed confidence in the dollar. That is why there was such widespread agreement among politicians and financial elites about what to do.
However once the system was stabilized with trillions of dollars worth of taxpayer contributions, Washington failed to audit the banks and Wall Street firms, deliver a fair and open accounting, and mark assets to fair market value.
At that point, it would be possible to conduct meaningful investigations into the causes of the financial crisis, and the financial markets would force appropriate adjustments in value of stocks, bonds, derivatives and other assets owned and owed by and to banks and other investment firms.
None of this was done, or even contemplated as an option. As a reporter who covered the S&L crisis, I can tell you that approach worked to minimize losses and resulted in investigations of improprieties by several Senators and thousands of cases of financial fraud brought to court against S&L bankers, real estate developers, real estate brokers, appraisers, accountants, attornies and others.
Best of all it restored the markets to a new equilibrium with lowered valuations. At the same time a lot of debt obligations were wiped out. That is just part of the process of creating a viable financial equilibrium in the wake of financial crashes triggered by the collapse of financial and real estate bubbles fueled by excessive debt created by reckless bankers.
The current approach hides losses and creates a Zombie financial system in which those who created trillions of dollars in losses are not brought into court, but rather given trillions of dollars by taxpayers so they will suffer no interruption of their normal activities, free of oversight by the representatives of their new benefactors.
Governmental bailouts of financial institutions should always require accountability on the part of those receiving the funds. Those who created the problem should lose their jobs, at the very least, and if individuals and institutions profited from fraudulent lending practices, they should be forced to disgorge those stolen profits and be brought to court to answer for these crimes.
To restart the stalled economy, Washington should tax the super-rich 1%, and the financial institutions receiving trillions of dollars from Washington should be forced to return the money with interest to taxpayers.
Instead Washington insists on balancing the now bloated budget by slashing Medicare, Social Security, and other social programs, banning unions, and essentially ripping the heart out of the government infrastructure that created and sustains America’s middle classes.
These are the same policies that in Europe have elevated unelected bankers with strong ties to Goldman Sachs to be the political leaders of Greece and Italy, and which have resulted in what appears to be a wave of deflation and monetary crisis spreading across Europe that threatens to throw the entire world’s financial engines into reverse. Growth has stopped in India and China shows signs of fatigue, and the worst of the Euro-crisis is yet to come.
The public in Europe objects strenuously to the current political consensus which locks political parties of all Euro-states and left-wing-right-wing identifications into identical policies of total capitulation to the demands of financial capital, which is determined to bankrupt the Euro-zone to protect its financial privileges and its ill-gotten profits.
Existing democracies around the world, in advanced countries, developing countries, and in poor countries, are all experiencing popular revolts against rule by entrenched elites who seem unresponsive in times of global financial crisis, unable to do anything except re-create the failed conservative policies of the 1930s that prolonged the Depression -- guaranteeing unlimited profits to financial sector players, and unlimited financial pain to the other 99% of the population.
This same program of forced austerity and social repression was imposed on debtor countries in Latin America in the 1980s. These countries had been targeted to be recipients of loans from the world’s biggest banks in the 1970s, because the banks were overflowing with recycled petro-dollars deposited by Middle Eastern Sheikhs who profited obscenely from the Oil Crisis of that decade.
Latin American countries happily took on more debt than they could really afford, just as happened in Europe in the last decade.
In Latin America in the 1980s the result of enforced austerity after the bursting of a credit-fueled financial bubble was popular revolt followed often by election of extremely left-wing elements, followed by military coups aided by the United States, and subsequent military dictatorship, and mass murder of political opponents.
Now of course, a few decades later, the left wing rules in Latin America and seem set to do so for the foreseeable future.
As we ponder the way international conferences of elected officials and unelected international bankers in Brussels are now imposing the same type of austerity program in Europe in the wake of the bursting of the global credit bubble, we can only hope that history does not repeat itself.
As we approach this Gemini Full Moon Eclipse people all over the world are far past the beginning stages of a painful awakening to a new reality -- a 21st century world which is unstable, characterized by recurring and increasingly severe financial and environmental crises. A world full of increasingly open conflicts between races, nations, religions, classes, and political systems.
These conflicts, which were brewing under the surface of things, were intensified by the abrupt collapse of the neo-liberal capitalist financial system in 2007-2008. As discussed above, the current financial system is now a Zombie financial system, being vivified only temporarily through constant infusions of trillions more of tax dollars, bonds and guarantees extracted by compliant governments in Washington and Brussels, from Americans and European taxpayers being hammered by austerity policies crafted for the benefit and ongoing bail-out of the financial industry that caused the original crisis.
Over the next few years the world will awaken to the fact that this Zombie financial system cannot continue. It does not serve anyone but those who control it directly through their ownership of the financial giants that constitute its highly networked and distributed global brain. The way that financial system is owned, controlled and structured will change.
Most change comes from human suffering. For myself, I will testify that my worst habits were totally intractable until they caused me so much pain I suddenly decided to simply change. Then anything was possible, even the change I had feared so much. And change was actually good.
As we meditate upon this magical Gemini Full Moon, we can ponder the idea that human suffering too is an essential part of the civilization wide transformation being triggered by the Long Term Cosmic Weather Pattern of the 2010s, which roughly began with the Economic Meltdown.
Out of suffering comes better understanding.
Now we understand that the 1% who got us into this mess and their enablers in governments and news media worldwide will not be the ones to find solutions to humanity’s most pressing problems.
In fact it is the economic and political leadership of the world’s advanced societies that constitute the biggest obstacle to effective engagement with these pressing problems of global warming, peak oil, the collapse of the current version of global capitalism and the crisis of democracy sweeping the world today.
Where people around the world have gone into the streets at great personal risk and sacrifice, to demand that balance and equity, democracy and fair play be restored to our political, economic and social systems, they have been met with tear gas, rubber bullets, firehoses, dogs, batons, and in some cases, live ammo and cold steel.
A strategy of arrogance relying upon the application of naked force in response to popular demands for freedom, financial democracy, political democracy, and fair play for all is evident throughout the Middle East; on the streets of Oakland and New York; in China; in Russia where fraudulent elections just robbed the communist party of a huge comeback win, and Mikhail Gorbachev has asked for an investigation; and in Europe, where the armies of NATO and the police who are armed like occupation forces of a foreign invader engage in violent confrontations with the forces of popular democracy in revolt against the theft of their savings and their national sovereignty by the Brussels-based financial-political elite that now govern Europe as if they were a new aristocracy of the financial markets, an unelected political ruling class operating without being subordinate to any wise Royal Sovereign or democratically elected Euro-President.
The world’s elites continue their Marie-Antoinette strategy of denial and repression, while the 99% continue to use this opportunity to look deeply within ourselves, to seek the truth, to connect with our spiritual and political family, and to prepare for the transformative changes coming our way like a moment of high historical tide -- the moment that will define the 21st Century as a time of accelerating darkness or a moment of accelerating dawn.
Or perhaps the 21st Century will be a time of paradox, when both darkness and light intensify around the world.
Perhaps the deeper truth is that during this time of amazing change, we are in a historical period that corresponds symbolically to the Selenelion Total Lunar Eclipse. The Total Lunar Eclipse is the moment of extreme cultural darkness, personal sacrifice, and spiritual transformation.
And this moment of extreme darkness is simultaneously the moment of the Dawn of a new understanding of the importance of Community, of Unity and of Spirit.
It just depends upon where you are standing on the face of the Earth whether this will be apparent to you or not.
Each of us has the power to create our own reality during this time of global human transformation. Each of us will certainly live in a reality we have chosen for ourselves to the extent that our choices are limited by our belief systems. And each of us has an amazing array of choices before us.
All things are possible at this moment of history on planet Earth. That is the lesson of this month’s Selenelion Total Full Moon Eclipse. Even that which the rational mind believes to be impossible!
Doesn’t it seem impossible that you could see the rising sun and a Full Moon Eclipse at the same time?
The impossible. That is what we must meditate upon this month, above all.
Human beings limit their own possibilities by mistaking their limiting mental maps of the world for the world that the maps represent. During this weekend of the Gemini Full Moon Selenelion Eclipse, it is fitting that we contemplate the activity of the rational mind, which is celebrated in the sign of Gemini, the twins, since the rational, logical mind is the Source of duality, and also the tool humans use to dissect and analyze all that exists in a spirit of scientific inquiry.
This month this long-term Cosmic Weather Pattern is triggering monumental, magical changes within us and those inner changes are impelling us on our various paths of Self-discovery. We are all being stretched by the program of accelerated spiritual progress the current Celestial Climate has initiated, and we are discovering new abilities within us, new strengths, new desires, new goals, new hopes and new clarity of vision.
Over the next six months, in the wake of the spiritual activation this Selenelion Eclipse triggers, new visions will begin to appear in our dreams, our meditations, and in our thoughts as we go about our daily lives. Soon we will be given opportunities to manifest those visions and dreams in our every day reality. Soon we can begin to take our part in implementing the changes in the outer world that will bring about a new, true balance between sexes, races, nations, and economic classes.
For now, during this December month of Festivals, we celebrate Saturnalia, the Winter Solstice, Hanukkah, Yule, Christmas and New Year’s Eve. This is