Welcome to the February 2020 Cosmic Weather Forecast, celebrating the Leo Full Super Moon and Aquarius Solar Festival on February 9, 2020. Warm greetings from your co-editors, Curtis Lang and Jane Sherry.
Winston-Salem Skyline at Night
Courtesy of: Winston-Salem Convention & Visitors Bureau The copyright holder permits the use of this image
for any purpose provided the copyright holder is credited. (Wikimedia Commons)
Jane and I are moving to Winston-Salem, North Carolina and the move is happening much faster than we had anticipated. We had planned in our minds to find a new home in the spring and then move after that, but our inner guidance warned us a couple of months ago that we would be moving so fast our heads would spin. That guidance has proved to be completely correct.
The Crystal store will close Sunday February 10 at 5 pm Eastern Time, as Jane and I devote full time to packing for our move to North Carolina. We will arrive in Winston in mid March but it will take us a little while to unpack. We will send an email announcing the re-opening of the store as soon as we are able, and we will be sending out an April Cosmic Weather Forecast.
Until Sunday at 5 pm, we are offering 20% off in the Crystal Store, except for our already heavily discounted Vogel wands. Newsletter subscribers are invited to use the coupon code XTRA5 and receive a full 25% discount. Feel free to share the coupon code with your crystal loving friends!
February is a month for community celebrations of fertility, abundance and sexual love and also a month for purification in preparation for the coming spring season, which for astrologers, Goddess worshipers and pagan cultures represents the true New Year.
Mardi Gras and Valentine's Day, celebrated on February 14 are examples of modern, secular variations of ancient fertility festivals.
Mardi Gras time in New Orleans 2009 by Karen Apricot
Karen Apricot [CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)]
In ancient Rome, February 13 was the feast of the fertility god Faunus and February 15 was the Feast of Lupercalia, dedicated to another fertility god, Lupercus. The priests of Pan Lyceus would perform purification ceremonies designed to promote fertility among Roman women.
As a side note, the intertwined themes of fertility festival and purification are continued to this day in New Orleans, where Mardi Gras marks the culmination of a month long fertility festival, and the following day, Ash Wednesday, marks the beginning of the season of Lent, when traditional Catholics practice abstinence and fasting in pursuit of pre-Easter purification.
The origins of Valentine's Day may be found in 12th century southern France, where Valentine Clubs appeared, which constituted a more playful, chivalric, and Christianized version of the ancient Roman fertility festivals.
Knights and Ladies Dancing the Carolle in the Garden of Love
(From a manuscript illustration for "Roman de la Rose" -- late 15th century)
As we celebrate today’s secular version of Valentine’s Day, let us all meditate upon the origins of the Feast, and celebrate the mysteries of Love and Life that are the traditional domain of the Goddess and the traditional rewards to those gallant gentle men whose spiritual veneration of the female principle provided entire medieval communities with the blessings of courtly love and chivalric romance.
The Valentine Clubs, and chivalric romance in general served as a potent Goddess-centric counterweight to the patriarchal, martial values of the feudal society, structured and stratified according to bloodline, personal battle skills and the ability to field a force of loyal soldiers in the quest for ever more lands to govern and control.
Read more about Valentine's Day in our article entitled Valentine's Day Celebration of the Divine Lovers.
Cosmic Weather Forecast
This month the Full Moon occurs on Sunday, February 9 at 2:33 am at 20° Leo, with Sun at 20° Aquarius. The Moon will be as close to the Earth as it gets during its orbit around our blue-green planet, and so this SuperMoon will appear larger and brighter to observers on Earth than full moons occurring at other times during the moon's orbital cycle.
The Leo Full Moon will form a weak, co-operative trine with Mars in Sagittarius, and this fiery pair of planets will work together to strengthen our will forces, exaggerate emotional dramatics in our personal and collective lives, and help us to focus our minds so we can visualize our goals for the new year and obtain a clear view of the path we must follow in pursuit of our awakening dreams. This fiery energy will also help us to shift from the passive mode of visualization into a more active mode, which will impel us to take the first steps along the pathways that will lead us toward our spiritual and material goals.
Festivals occurring at the mid-point of a fixed sign, like Aquarius, are traditionally feasts of prognostication. In pagan, Goddess worshiping traditions, the month of Aquarius is the month of the Rowan, tree of the quickening, and of prophetic visions. So plan on having a meditation moment this Full Moon and you may be surprised by what you envision! May the labyrinth of Earthly life, karmic connections and social relations be illuminated for you this Full Moon and may you find the path of Spirit clear and unobstructed at last! And may you channel the celestial fire, quickening your will forces, and taking swift action to achieve your spiritual and material goals!
On February 2 we celebrated the festival of Candlemas, also known as the feast of Imbolc or St. Bridgid. Imbolc, which occurs halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox and is one of the eight solar festivals of NeoPaganism known as cross-quarter days, which fall on sacred festival days of the ancient Celtic calendar.
Brigid, goddess of fire, hearth, fields, cows, craft, childbirth and poetry, is invited into each house and community and devotees ask her blessing during the season of quickening, as days become longer, and we prepare for the ascent of the forces of light, celebrated at the Spring Equinox.
Bleeding Hearts, Photo by Jane Sherry, upstate New York, 2008
For more on the feast of Candlemas, read Candlemas - In The Belly of Winter" by Jane Sherry, a poem inspired by our time in upstate New York in the depths of winter, along with Jane's commentary on this pivotal yearly celebration.
This Full Moon the opposition between the Aquarius Sun and Leo Moon is a yearly reminder of the need to harmonize individual desires with collective needs on every level of being.
Leo is all about Me. My Self. Self as Star, and the development of will forces within the personality. The quintessential egoistic personality.
Aquarius is all about Us. Our Group. Our Common Ground, and the development of Right Human Relations through the difficult practice of working in groups for common goals of vast importance.
Within individuals the Aquarian energy stream harmonizes with and activates the activity of Higher Mind and Higher Purpose, so that the limitations of the egoistic personality may be overcome and the deficiencies and bad habits of the egoistic self may be transformed.
The opposition of these two Cosmic Energy Signatures at the Full Moon this week prompts us to shine a spotlight on our own inner Lion and to simultaneously activate the Water-Bearer within.
Now is the time to re-examine how we harmonize our own needs, our own individual Higher Purpose, with the need to work with others on common goals.
Now is the time to look beyond our own narrow self-interest and understand how our own well-being is totally dependent upon right relations with others, and upon a host of collective thought-forms, emotions and actions that dwarf our own individualities. Those collective thought forms have a distinctly Aquarian character.
Examples of such collective energy fields include the hive mind of the stock markets; the ideological systems of political parties designed to induce conformity among their memberships; the ancestral blood karma that forms much of the collective consciousness of various races and ethnicities; the militant patriotism and incipient militarism exhibited by all types of nationalisms; the righteous intolerance and rigid moral systems inherited from antiquity typical of fundamentalist religious groups; the ingrained set of intellectual pre-conceptions and mental maps of the world formed by members of the highly segregated economic classes in our society; or the learned role playing that defines our gender and sexual identities at an early age.
Aquarian collective consciousness also includes groups working to find alternatives to the status quo in every area of life, including spiritual activists, environmental activists, organic farmers and gardeners, and groups organizing to transcend our current dying Fossil Fuel centric civilization using new technologies, slow economic growth policies and policies designed to foster social justice.
We are asked at this Full Moon Festival to meditate upon the Aquarian web of social connections that define our own identities, and to ask ourselves whether we are able to maintain our own authentic Leonine individuality within the social parameters defined by the social groupings with which we identify.
We are asked to meditate deeply upon these collective energy fields and thought-forms that shape our consciousness, our personalities, and our day-to-day activities in all areas of life.
We are asked to ponder whether we are best served by participating uncritically in these collective energy fields or whether we must perhaps begin to break free from these inherited traits and behaviors and pre-conceptions in order to best be of service to humanity as a whole.
We are asked to question whether we are sufficiently aware of the needs of the Group, of Humanity as a whole, as we pursue our own personal path of Spirit and our own Higher Purpose, as best as we know how.
We are asked to remember the importance of manifesting the energy of Right Human Relations. Right Human Relations depend upon creation and maintenance of a dynamic balance between the Leonine impulses and the Aquarian social networks that inform and structure our social interactions.
More than ever before in human history a Balance must be restored; between the rich and the poor; between male and female; between East and West; between North and South; between Christian, Moslem, Jew and Hindu; between humanity and the Realms of Nature.
My Inner Guides and Teachers have asked me to ask you all to meditate upon these concepts during this Full Moon weekend. They assure me that if any one of us asks to be given vivid examples, pictures, and demonstrations of these important Wisdom Teachings being energized by the Cosmic Energies of this month's Full Moon, the Universe stands ready to oblige.
This month, powerful outer planet aspects create ripples of energy that impact humanity's collective consciousness, affecting entire generations, nations, religious groups and political parties in ways that will reverberate for months and years to come.
The Pluto/Saturn conjunction in Capricorn remains in force through late March. The energy dissipates after that for a while, and the two power planets reunite in mid July. Their combined energy, whether channeled for good or ill, remains extremely potent through the end of the year.
This planetary aspect can manifest as a clash of Plutonic, hidden powers with the Saturnine limitations that society and the environment place upon those powers. Think of how Pluto-crats with unfathomable wealth can wield power, hidden from public view, and shape political parties, digital social networks, media narratives, and, hence, collective consciousness for their own benefit. This year Pluto-crats will increasingly be confronted by the limits to their power, but they are very unlikely to accept those limits gracefully.
Pluto, lord of the Underworld, king of the land of the dead and of hidden treasures, is the perfect symbol for the modern Lords of oil and gas companies who penetrate the depths of earth and seas to capture millions of years worth of stored sunlight to power our fossil fuel driven civilization, and incidentally, to power the military machines that dominate life on 21st century planet Earth.
In Greco-Roman mythology, Pluto captured the Earth Mother's daughter, Persephone, and forced her to live in his underworld kingdom, causing the Earth Mother, Demeter, to disrupt the seasonal cycles on planet Earth, creating havoc among peoples everywhere, who could not raise crops or count on benign, stable climate conditions conducive to human civilization.
Today's Plutonic Lords of Oil and Gas have captured the underground riches of Mother Earth by sheer brute force and disrupted the Earth's seasonal cycles and stable climate, threatening human civilization in its entirety. These Plutonic Fossil Fuel Lords will be met with increasing opposition everywhere in the world this year, and this opposition will continue to build in the years to come. The current Saturn/Pluto cycle will trigger the beginning of an epochal conflict between the Oil and Gas Pluto-crats and the rest of humanity.
When the dynamic energy of the Pluto/Saturn conjunction is channeled in a positive direction, unimpeded by greed and egoism, this potent planetary aspect provides tremendous support for spiritual practices, and has been called by some astrologers the aspect of the magician.
From the viewpoint of Esoteric Astrology, Pluto represents the power of the subconscious and the superconscious, or of collective consciousness from the standpoint of Jungian psychology. These are the realms that correspond to the astral, mental and causal realms of reality which are the natural home of the initiate. The energies residing in these realms supply the raw materials and the structure for the manifestation of a desired reality, according to the laws of resonance and attraction.
From a magical point of view, positive Saturn energy represents long term vision and the discriminating power of the awakened mind to separate that which is essential from that which is not. Saturn also represents focused awareness, steadfast determination and right use of power.
When Saturn's disciplined, step by step process is combined with Pluto's unlimited powers of personal transformation, virtually any magical operation can be completed successfully, virtually any spiritual and material goal can be achieved, provided that egoistic desire and lust of result can be avoided, and all activities are conducted in harmony with the web of life for the best and highest good of all humanity.
The Alchemist, by David Teniers de Jonge
David Teniers the Younger [Public domain]
The current Saturn/Pluto conjunction represents the moment at which new, visionary, creative, social relations, technologies, artistic creations, and magical workings can be initiated, although they may not manifest on the world stage for some time to come. Examples of this type of creativity would include all forms of green energy and green architecture that put the viability of our ecosystem above personal and corporate power and profit, and all new social movements that are demanding a more collective consciousness that puts the highest good of the highest number of people above the desires of the entitled few among us who cling to the commanding heights of our economy and our political systems.
Underneath the sordid surface of our fossil fuel driven civilization's business as usual status quo politics and day to day consumer-driven activities, seeds of new life are being planted by inspired spiritual activists, and they will appear in due course. Of that we can be sure.
During this momentous conjunction we are reminded that in the early years of the 21st century we are at a historical crossroads, a turning point, a global conflict between the negative and the positive aspects of Pluto and Saturn. We are asked to choose. Our choices over the next decade will determine, to a great extent, the future of humanity on Earth.
Will there be a Neo-Feudal Dark Age of Plutocratic Aristocracy or will there be a Neo-Renaissance Enlightenment of Social Democracy? Will there be a continuation of our current predatory Utopian Capitalist economy or a Green New Deal?
The struggle is real. The stakes are the highest they have ever been. The choices are ours to make. This Full Moon let us all ask for grace and guidance and for golden opportunities to be of maximum service to humanity and to the natural world.
We are indeed fortunate that during the stress and difficulties typical of the Pluto/Saturn conjunction, February also brings us a positive and uplifting long term outer planet aspect, as Jupiter at 17° Capricorn sextiles Neptune at 17° Pisces. This month these two planets align in the first of three positive configurations that persist throughout 2020.
Neptune and Jupiter both exalt Pisces, the sign of transpersonal consciousness and sacrificial spirituality, and this potent sextile triggers a search for meaning, a desire to be of service, a need to transcend our egoistic minds, and a vision quest for creative new ways of life in harmony with our Higher Purpose.
There is a background feeling of being in the (Piscean) flow during the months this sextile is energized. If we can tune ourselves to that flow, we can accept innovations into our daily lives and routines that will enable us to transcend many niggling problems that have bedeviled us for some time.
"Visit the Interior of the Earth and There You Will Find the Hidden Stone"
Rosicrucian wisdom and Esoteric Astrology inform us that a Jupiter/Neptune sextile brings out the most noble and spiritually exalted influences of both these powerful planets. Visionary experiences, transcendent spiritual awakenings, occult dreams and inspired creativity will be triggered in those whose consciousness is sufficiently developed to receive these ennobling influences. There is a distinct impulse toward participation in groups working toward spiritual, creative, occult goals designed to uplift all of humanity.
During the 2020 alignments of Jupiter and Neptune we are all being reminded that as individuals and as a collective, we are all in need of a spiritual rebirth and renewal. We are all being given a sign in the heavens, writ large and clear, that now is the time to seek that renewal and rebirth for ourselves. It all begins when we recognize the need, open ourselves to the Divine, and ask for grace and guidance. This Full Moon, we hope you'll join us as Jane and I meditate and pray for a new life, a new start, a new consciousness and a new influx of light, love, wisdom, courage and strength for ourselves, that we may share our abundance with others.
Much love and light to you all! Jane and I affirm that this Full Moon you all will receive the grace and guidance you need to achieve your deepest material and spiritual goals! We will be in touch from Winston-Salem!
Meditation Moment: Some Day
It happens all the time in heaven,
And some day
It will begin to happen
Again on earth
That men and women who are married,
And men and men who are
Lovers,
And women and women
Who give each other
Light,
Often will get down on their knees
And while so tenderly
Holding their lover’s hand,
With tears in their eyes,
Will sincerely speak, saying,
“My dear,
How can I be more loving to you?
How can I be more Kind?”
(By Hafiz, a Sufi Persian Mystic Poet)