I Told You It's Big

11.3.03


As I toiled to get last week's article posted, I was stalled for over an hour by an unexpected power failure in my neighborhood. Once I discovered it wasn't all my computer equipment that blew some fuse, I waited patiently for the electricity to return. And shortly after it returned, I found news on the Internet about disturbances in the Earth's magnetic field, caused by an unprecedented storm of solar flares out of sync with usual peaks in solar activity, which could likely result in problems with the power grid.

I hadn't even finished my pre-eclipse words of warning while the Sun exploded with its own announcement of change in the air. I believe these unusual solar flares heralded the coming of this week's astrological super-event, an eclipse dubbed by astrologer John Mirehiel as the Harmonic Concordance. The name hearkens back to a 1987 event called the Harmonic Convergence, a moment marked by peace-and-love seekers worldwide to coincide with Mayan prophecies about the end of calendar time and entry into new dimensions.

This current event, the Concordance, is rooted more concretely in western astrology, and it came about as a result of research done years ago by Mirehiel. While using his software to scan a huge number of future chart configurations, he stopped on the one for Nov 8, 2003 because he saw something that struck him as unique and graceful—the arrangement of a six-pointed star (or Star of David), mapped out by the placement of six planets at 60-degree intervals from each other. Since then, he's mobilized a community who are marking this rare concentration of positive-flowing planets with rituals designed to symbolize ascension to a new level of consciousness, a moment for actively evolving our paradigm toward valuing our collective souls instead of the ongoing focus on materiality. That's a lot to pin on an astrological occurrence.

This Star of David configuration happens in conjunction with Saturday evening's lunar eclipse full moon—as if an eclipse, in its own right, isn't significant enough. Eclipses, as I've mentioned before, are super-powered new and full moons, coming every six months or so and usually in pairs. Lunar eclipses give us unique insight, as the extra-energized full moon shines its light into often-unseen areas of our lives, providing us a great opportunity to make peace with old garbage and release the outdated residue to make room for fresh growth and change. Solar eclipses, meanwhile, are the ultra-strength new moons, perfect occasions to concentrate our hopes and efforts on planting seeds for mindsets and projects to bloom over coming months.

I like to think of eclipse periods (starting about a week before the first eclipse and lasting until about a week after the final one) as chapter markers in the stories of our lives. Around eclipse time, familiar events of recent months reach a climax and then tip into something different. Other new and perhaps unrelated events crop up to start a narrative trajectory in a different direction.

While searching through the news for stories about the solar flares, I couldn't help but stumble across reports on the enormous California wildfires, an uncannily parallel instance of our own planet shooting off towers of flames in synchronicity with the Sun. I'm sure there are big fires all the time, not just in correlation with solar storms and harmonically concordant eclipses. But I felt this parallel in my body, as I felt heat pushing through my car windows while I drove with a friend on a record-breaking 90-degree October day.

This friend had just moved to the Bay Area, where we often experience a good heatwave in mid to late October. She asked me if this hot weather was normal. I told her it was, and that it usually changed rather quickly by Halloween, which I remember with California-childhood flashbacks of shivering in costume. Sure enough, within two days of this conversation, the mercury had dropped an astounding thirty to forty degrees. As I write now, I sit in Tahoe where only a few days ago it was in the 70s and now the ground is covered in snow, with more expected tonight. Something about this unbelievably quick and dramatic climate change resonates with these eclipses. Thankfully, it also appears to have assisted with putting out those dramatic fires.

The six-pointed star, comprising the main arrangement of the Harmonic Concordance, consists of two interlocking equilateral triangles, otherwise known in astrology as a grand trine. A trine is the easiest and most positively synergistic major aspect in astrology, occurring when two planets are located approximately 120 degrees in the sky from each other. When three planets all trine each other, that's considered a grand trine. Grand trines usually happen among three planets in signs of the same element. In the case of Saturday's eclipse, there is both a grand water trine and a grand earth trine—and these two trines make positive linking aspects with each other, ensuring that all six planets involved support and energize each other's expressions.

The grand water trine deploys the light of the Sun in Scorpio, which interacts in a serious but action-enhancing pair of trines with Mars in Pisces and Saturn in Cancer. When the Sun is in Scorpio, we unconsciously turn to psychologically serious affairs, matters of life and death that correlate to the decay of the autumnal season, a necessary step in the life cycle on the way to rebirth. Mars is just now emerging from the shadow of its lengthy retrograde and, in the sign of Pisces, acts a spiritual warrior on the tail end of a period of disorientation, pushing us compassionately ahead into the unknown, hopefully toward a communion with a higher sense of oneness among everything. Saturn in Cancer forces our sobered attention to the home front, toward disciplined construction of methods for caring for ourselves, for fostering unfettered emotional experience and richness, and for honoring our private unspeakable internal selves with nurturing quiet.

Together, these three active masculine planets join forces in water signs. Their message is for us to shift our usual aggressive, achievement-obsessed efforts toward building a sanctuary for personal feelings and spiritual beliefs. By treating these usually overlooked matters with more psychological attention and conscious action, we collectively raise their societal importance and respect.

Meanwhile, the grand earth trine involves the eclipsed Moon in Taurus, making supportive trines to Jupiter in Virgo and Chiron in Capricorn. A Moon in Taurus is the ultimate symbol of the "earth mama"—the defining maternal principle in astrology (Moon) connecting with the sign from which fertility and stability are born out of the realm of physicality (Taurus). Jupiter, traditionally a good-luck charm due to its expansive quality, eases up on the restrictive categorizations that Virgo uses to strive for perfection, broadening our vision to new but still practical ways for getting our requisite earthly work completed. And Chiron, a lesser-known planetoid with an eccentric orbit between Saturn and Uranus, raises our awareness of the ongoing misuse of authority as its wounded-healer archetype transits through Capricorn.

These three come together in earth signs, showing us that the key to healing comes from a close focus on the physical, our bodies and our planet. We must realize our actual physical situation, own the pain we have inflicted in this arena and take practical steps toward engaging with it, before we can expect to ascend to a more spiritual existence.

Chiron's presence among the six points of the star accentuates this Harmonic Concordance as a portal to help carry us from earthly to divine existence. Astronomers only discovered Chiron in 1977, and since then, many astrologers have grown to include it in their readings. Chiron is seen as the "rainbow bridge" between the inner and outer planets, linking our existing human-centered (i.e., self-centered) tradition with the alternative, a more mystical and evolutionary view of the bigger picture. With the outer planets missing from the Star of David configuration, Chiron is the furthest-out point of the six. Plus, those of us who usually don't include Chiron in our astrological analyses are persuaded to now, since, without considering Chiron, there is no sixth point. Thus, Chiron as the archetype for finding wholeness through healing painful earthly wounds is a perfect thematic fit for this Saturday's occurrence.

I could go on and on about more interesting astrological features of this Harmonic Concordance event, but I won't. Instead I want to raise the question that a friend asked me on the phone the other night—will this eclipse make something happen, or are we responsible for the making? I found to be a very insightful question, considering I'd been wondering the same thing myself.

Eclipses generally do bring some form of external change, evidenced by the fact that many of us can actually feel the associated amplification of energy in our bodies. We simply know that something is happening. And this eclipse is no exception. However, regarding the power of this six-pointed Harmonic Concordance star, I must admit I believe it's less likely to bring even more dramatic external events than it is to provide an unbelievably amazing atmosphere for us to consciously heal and bring forth exciting newness—if we choose to do so. The Star of David, with its two interlocking trines, is a beautiful symbol of synthesis and stability, but provides less of the actual pressurized challenge inherent to major moments of change. Sure, there are also a few significant squares (more challenging 90-degree angles) in the Concordance chart. But we astrologers often fall prey to interpreting charts that appear to announce huge things, only to have the day come and go with little activity of note. (I find this same phenomenon occurs when looking at people's birthcharts. Some of the most amazing people have relatively uninspired-looking charts, while the most dramatic birthchart configurations don't necessarily equate to dramatic people living them out.)

Sidenote: There's more of a chance of external "drama" actually happening to those with planets close to the eclipse degrees. People with birthdays May 4-9 and Nov. 6-11, this includes you!

That said, I still strongly encourage everyone to use the opportunity that an astrological event such as this brings. Committing your attention to difficult issues now, as opposed to at another time, could make all the difference between an effortless elevator ride up twenty stories or later traveling the same distance up the down escalator. Let the elevator, rather than your legs, do the extra work.

Things to meditate and act on for the Harmonic Concordance:

1. How have I blocked the expression of my true emotions by keeping in motion instead of pausing to actually feel? by doing or thinking what I'm "supposed to" instead of tapping into my intuition?

2. How have I done damage to my body or my planet? How can I focus on the pain, feel into it and through it, so I can spur healing?

3. How have my selfish desires kept me from feeling connectedness with others in my life—partners, lovers, friends, co-workers, strangers on the street? How can I reach out?

4. What unnecessaries can I shed on my way to a more holistically fulfilled, less fear-motivated lifestyle?

5. What new projects or commitments do I want to gear up for, so I can plant the seeds two weeks from now on the solar eclipse?

6. Keywords—wholeness, healing, transfiguration, ascension, conscious evolution.

Good luck with however you choose to use the Harmonic Concordance lunar eclipse. You may indeed feel the tingling energy in your body, as I do, encouraging you to do something big with it. I wouldn't pass this up. If there's only one day all year on which you opt for some meditative or spiritual activity, Saturday, Nov 8 is it.

For more information and insight, check out the Harmonic Concordance homepage, with lots of writings from other astrologers about how to commemorate this event.