Holding Space for the Darkness
Day 6 of 31
TRANSIT TO TRACK Neptune stations at 24 Pisces
A surprise visit from maintenance yesterday to fix a leaky pipe made for an eventful Tuesday. I thought I might be a frustrated mess as I moved into the busier half of my week: everything I’d planned to get done was interrupted and plans were scuttled. I don’t do well with disrupted expectations and even less so with surprise wake ups. I thought I would be a crabby bastard when I crawled out of bed today. Fortunately, I was wrong. I woke up fairly cheery, cracked right away on some work, and am handling some annoying tasks that have been lingering in the background. Whether it’s Neptune’s stationing or the lovely aspects from Mercury to the benefics and Saturn, I’m finding the unexpected emptiness of yesterday quite energizing today!
Both astrological transits echo a similar theme, one that’s important for our working as well. Mercury is the Planet of the Between, the one who pivots and shifts the many centers. Neptune is the Shadow of Possibility, the line between what is and what could be. Both are planets of mutable energy, of things that are and are not. Mercury is not a balanced planet. He is not between two things, neither stuck nor indecisive: he is the space between everything. In the way a line creates the circle, Mercury creates this and that by being whatever it is that divides them. Mercury is also what is shared between this and that, the apparent divide and the apparent unity of all things. Neptune is broader in her duplicity: she gives us dreams, madness, and inspiration. Neptune is the flash of brilliance that blinds you to everything else, she is the idealist starving amidst bounty, and she is the impossible dream that drives us through cold reality. Where Mercury stirs by virtue of his being, Neptune drives us by making the grass greener on the other side. She is “what if?” in its glory and horror.
For us today, that means a lot of “ah ha!” and “oh no!” moments. The mixture will depend on your particular chart and how deluded you’ve been during Neptune’s retrograde in Pisces. Everyone should expect to feel a bit like the cast of a Midsummer's Night waking up from the dream. Neptune began her retrograde on June 30th, yet another in Pisces where her ability to create illusions is near its peak. Some of us will have woken up today with many of those dream bubbles popping, leaving us with those few dreams that we can actually follow to something worthwhile. The rest will have the same scenario, but double down on the impossible while believing it to be revealed truth. With Pisces being my 3rd House, a text from my estranged sister and some clarity around my social needs sounds about right.
Mercury, for his part in this, has been in a loose aspect to Venus and Saturn for a while. He will be exactly trine Jupiter as we move through today into tomorrow, giving us a nice boost of positivity and optimism. In Capricorn trine the Taurus-bound Jupiter, this is a “reap what you sow” kind of aspect. Jupiter is retrograde and Mercury’s less than a week away from retrograding himself. There’s a bit of going back now, perhaps to see what Neptune’s delusions kept out of sight during her long wandering this summer and fall. Now in the depth of winter, with darkness swallowing us whole, the delusions of bright days will be a treasured a gift. To that end, I am often left wondering what the difference between a dream and a delusion is. The overlap is easy to identify but what divides them? Perhaps Mercury divides them along how the illusion affects us. The dream speaks to our better self while the delusion speaks to our lesser self. If that is the case, then today is the day we set aside delusions and focus on our dreams.
WORKING WITH THE STARS
Winter is a magical low point. The Sun is not just the source of energy for most of life on Earth, it’s also the most abundant source of magic in the world. A literal burning ball of creative power, the Sun is the closest star to our planet and thus the nearest source of positive energy. The soul contains positive energy as well and living things generate a small amount. Aside from those three sources, the Fires of Creation are all but exhausted in this world. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the fire that warms us is the farthest it gets and so that abundance of magic dries up. The heavy layers of snow building up over the ground help preserve life beneath the surface, but cuts off those of us living above from Earth’s energy in turn. With the Sun’s energy far away and the Earth’s flow iced beneath us, finding active energies during this season can be challenging. Even when the stars are aligned in exciting aspects, the cold in the air quickly saps the ecstasy if you’re used to working with the Light.
“...Neptune drives us by making the grass greener on the other side.”
The Darkness thrives in winter. Magicians of the Shadow and the Moon are used to using the void to create change. Most magic – especially the religion-backed versions – focus exclusively on using that positive flow of energy to cause effects. That is, you “manifest” it directly. “Negative” energy – or the Darkness as I prefer to call it – works in the opposite way, using an absence to create change. It’s like vacuum sealing or whipping cream to introduce trapped air so you can top desserts. Where positive energy is the active squeezing of your chest muscles to expel carbon dioxide, negative energy is the expanding of your chest cavity to force air into your lungs. This is part of why breathing is such a powerful energetic act: you are literally cycling between negative and positive energy flows within your physical, mental, and spiritual bodies all at once. The challenge before us in this Working and in our lives overall is to learn to love the inhale’s void, to recognize the bliss of emptying ourselves so we might be filled.
As Mercury meets with the benefics and gains the clearing power of Saturn, let’s lean in and carve a void within ourselves. Do not fill it with dreams or hopes or promises of self-improvement. This void does not exist for resolutions nor to heal. Carve the void because you do not know what will fill it. Cut into the earthen floor of your mind and let the Flow of Fate be what fills it in. First it will appear as the Shadow, the Darkness that exists in all things as a reminder of the Nothingness from which we originate and to which we will return. Shadows scare most people, so much so they never turn away from the light. As a witch, shadows are my friend. As a magician, shadows are a powerful tool. Now is not the season of ripe fields and massive projects. This is the season of drying bulbs and work done by candlelight. We should slow down and empty our stores, clear out the pantry and check off our to-do lists.
Set for yourself a clear goal: clear space and hold it. If you’re like me, that last part will be hard: don’t fill it with tasks, fun or productive. Hold the space and see what comes into it – let yourself be a vacuum to be filled. Be the inhale by forcing open a space in your life for something good to let itself in. Let this be an act of faith through surrender. The ritual we cast was something similar: we wish to become the nourishing air that fills someone else’s void. For that to happen, we must also be willing to be filled and receive from others too. That is the real magic of Good. It’s not about being the hero: it’s about seeing the heroics in everyone.
