Post-Election Eclipse Rebirth, Scorpio-Style

11.12.12


The New Moon this coming Tuesday (Nov 13) is, in fact, a total solar eclipse in Scorpio, which will be followed a couple weeks later (on Nov 28) by a corresponding full-moon lunar eclipse in Gemini.

As anyone who follows the astro-happenings is well aware, eclipse periods (roughly the few weeks surrounding, on either side, these super-lunations) bring particularly concentrated climaxes in the ongoing narrative development of our lives… which is why I've come to view them as 'chapter markers', points at which our story dramatically flips to its next episode.

From the collective-news desk, at least one thing is clear: The chapter entitled 'Election Madness' is now blessedly over, and nobody seems very sure what happens next.

Mercury retrograde—which has been in effect since this past Tuesday (Nov 6) and remains so through Nov 26—has indeed had its way with us again. In this case, we astrologers are definitely a group who, by and large, were done in by the Trickster's dodgy deeds. I was certainly not alone in predicting a heightened likelihood of Election Day malfunctions, misdoings and mistakes; I assumed we'd be in for a long long night (and maybe even several weeks) of contested numbers, recounts, and accusations of fraud. Instead, the results came in clear and fast… and we didn't even have to rely on Florida's typically swampy returns to make a decisive determination. Trickster's Trick Number One, check.

Election-watchers on 'both sides' (as if our ideological differences can be reduced to a simply binary this or that) met these developing events nearly unable to believe what they were seeing.

Those who were pleased with the results had to keep pinching themselves. Having expected the worst from a near-bottomless waterfall of corrupting financial contributions (because, as we're coming to learn, if you can buy enough media space, you can essentially purchase a dominant stream of political discourse and all the tools of its implementation), they came to doubt both the polls which forecast their victory and the very efficacy of the democratic vote itself. When reassuring numbers came rapidly pouring in, it felt like a dream.

And those who were displeased? They had to confront the shock of losing a contest they felt fairly certain of winning, due both to the enthusiasms they'd been witnessing all around them (for, another thing we've come to learn, our populace is increasingly surrounding itself with only those viewpoints that essentially confirm one's own worldview) and official 'information'-sources that'd been willfully ignoring the cold hard objective information. When their candidates went down to a surprisingly distinct defeat, it felt like a nightmare.

No matter which side of the proverbial aisle one falls to, this dreamlike quality to the latest headlines coincides with Mercury's three squares to agent-of-intangibility Neptune during its full retrograde process. During this retrograde and its Neptune squares, Mercury is in Sagittarius (though it'll slip back into Scorpio on Wed Nov 14 for about four weeks), a sign of its detriment due to how brashly and bluntly and directly it delivers its black-and-white truths. When Mercury's at his supposed best (i.e., not in detriment), we appreciate his ability to consider facts and details and alternative possibilities before reaching his most rational conclusions. Yet, in this case, the 'truth'—of the actual election results, of the quality of scientific polling vs. ideologically motivated news-sources, of a country's changing demographic influences—was actually more cut-and-dry than many had anticipated. We were so caught up by our delusions, fueled by unreasonable hope or just-as-unreasonable fear, we actually clouded our own vision with elaborately confusing conceptual concoctions.

Trickster's Trick Number Two: Sometimes, a situation is far more obvious than our self-deceiving brains allow us to accept. (We prognosticating astrologers especially must remember this.) Mercury in Sagittarius, meet your comrade Occam's razor: Simpler explanations are, other things being equal, generally better than more complex ones.

Now, to the relevance of next week's Scorpio eclipse amidst all this…

Tuesday's eclipse unites the Sun and Moon with the lunar North Node in Scorpio, indicating a movement towards cathartic confrontation with whatever's really going on inside our psyches. As it occurs while retrograde Mercury exactly forms its second of three Neptune squares, I believe the eclipse instructs us to slice through those complicated belief-systems we construct for ourselves, as philosophic defense against having to face whatever personal pains or dissatisfactions are subconsciously driving a wedge in our ability to compassionately embrace others.

What shows up in our dreams, nightmarish or fantastical, is usually not literal data or prophecy. It's an archetypal drama that describes, in cinematic imagery, our most current unresolved psychic material. As I put interpretive words to a picture of outwardly political complications, the more productive ones to investigate are actually deeply emotional. Hateful rhetoric flying every which direction is merely a cover for our own unintegrated angst.

With Scorpio as the archetypal sign of death-and-rebirth, it is no wonder that so many on the 'losing' side of this collective political spectacle are experiencing this moment as if their cherished country has literally died, though nothing tangible at all indicates this. I honor their grief as I would anybody's mourning of a loved one who, though flawed or sometimes unkind, still meant a lot to them. This mournful interpretation is appropriate, of course, because this isn't the same nation many of us were born into. While those previously disenfranchised (who are just now beginning to glimpse a course-correction in support of their increasing rights and freedoms and opportunities) see this as a reassuring fact, those others who took prior peace-of-mind from the traditional way-of-being that's now coming to pass find it rather upsetting. Because there's no going back, we who are more delighted to kill off what we've long endured as tyranny must find it in our hearts to comfort the ones in pain and shock. It's our duty as healing shepherds of a new world.

Meanwhile, as this death/rebirth energy hovers in the ethers, those unable to claim personal responsibility for what isn't productively evolving in their own lives are likelier than ever to lash out with projected death-wish severity or barbarism. Once again, the voices advocating assassination and civil-war are chiming up in chorus, presuming the destruction of a supposed outer enemy will magically deliver them from the brutal reality of confronting difference. Its equally unflattering mirror-reflection is the haughty descent of the so-called 'winners' into schadenfreude (a German word for 'pleasure derived from the misfortune of others'). To laugh at those in despair over a loss is to essentially keep company with those ugly crusaders who happily picket funerals with their 'God Hates Fags' signs.

Due to its occurrence at the peak of our zeitgeist-imprinting Uranus-Pluto square, I believe the 2012 campaign will prove rather historic in hindsight, for reasons still somewhat unclear… but we must be presciently wise enough readers to see the wider correspondences in our individual life-stories. Hard as it may be to accept, there are no evil enemies outside us, seeking to destroy our successes or sabotage our progress—only a buildup of consequences to decisions long ago made, actions long ago taken, and/or knotty psychological complexes long ago inherited from those who came before, now intensifying in a way that doesn't afford us the luxury to continue entertaining defensive statements which blame everybody else.

Horrible things happen to wonderful people all the time. These events may or may not legitimately be our 'fault' (however pointless making such determinations ultimately is). Either way, it's on us to make something profound from our disappointment and hurt, or else it'll eternally color how we look at everything, casting the world in dark, unpleasant grays and blacks like a storm-cloud that never passes by.

New moons always provide our best celestial moments for intention-setting… and the added 'karmic' (for lack of a better term) potency brought by eclipses extends the importance of such intentions into wider ripples, arguably lasting months and even beyond. The 'chapter' initiated by this week's Scorpio eclipse just happens to be the final one of the legendary Mayan calendar, which comes to a close (and a new opening?) little over a month from now, auguring what some have referred to as The End of The World. (I shared my extensive thoughts on this matter in my ASTROBARRY'S 2012 e-book.) This 'world-ending' symbolism dovetails exquisitely with the death/rebirth qualities intrinsic to this ultra-Scorpio moment (for Saturn's also in Scorpio for the first time in nearly thirty years), giving us a clear indicator of what sorts of intentions to assert…

What must die, in order for us to be reborn? What world is now ending, whether we want it to or not? Will we descend into apocalyptic terror, and behave as in competition for the last shreds of illusory safety and security left in the land? Or will we flock together as the storm erupts, with a collective will not only to survive but to thrive by the opportunities such possible turmoil provides, and create the future's holy-city in our loving self-image? We must choose—and no matter our choice, there'll be nothing easy about it.