Eclipse is A-comin'

www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/augustsolareclipse.jpg

Unless living in a cave or entirely off the grid in North America, you've seen scads of information on the solar eclipse coming in its totality to a region near you.

Amazon.com put out a recall on some suspect/useless eclipse glasses sold through their site. Anywhere on the path of near totality, remember to not look at the sun during the event without appropriate eye protection.

Many articles provide information from diverse sources, from NASA to religious views to channeled messages to advertising. It's a challenge to sift through them and decide what is accurate, what is opinion, what is bunk.

Some ancient peoples hid during the eclipse. There was fear that it was the end of the world as they knew it. Some traditions continue to support hiding or remaining indoors. Other ancients explored the event, allowing their curiosity free reign. Some experts believe one function of England's Stonehenge was to predict the coming of an eclipse.

Eclipses affect us whether we actually see them or not. They are major astral events and our system, our individual core selves, recognize that. There is a tremendous energy occurring around this one. Besides the solar eclipse itself, there is the Leo New Moon, Mercury in retrograde and visible during the eclipse along with Jupiter, Venus and Mars, AND all the people who are and will be traveling.

An event of this caliber creates a thinning of the veils between the worlds. Eclipses take us into the Dark at an untimely time. They also bring us out of that Dark and back into the Light. Though our minds may be prepared for it, our more subtle being experiences the strangeness of it. Even people who don't generally feel this can sense a push from every direction. For some, it feels like a weight or burden. Others express a weariness. Many feel a vague and inexplicable agitation.

This is a time to practice good self-care and self-awareness. Self-care may involve telling significant others what you're feeling, taking time to be alone, meditate, pray or do whatever spiritual practice you may have. Rituals ground us. Be gentle with yourself and with those you love.

What do you want to leave behind in the Dark? What do you want to see birthed into the Light? What is calling to be center stage in your life? How do you see your significant expression of who you are shifting?

Summer Solstice 2017

It is summer, it is the solstice
the crowd is
cheering, the crowd is laughing
in detail
permanently, seriously
without thought

~ William Carlos Williams

The crowd at the ball game

Summer days are often seen as days for play, for enjoying the sheer pleasure of being alive. The Summer Solstice is the epitome of that sensation. Long with light, hopeful with warmth and growth, it embraces us with its energy.

William Carlos Williams captures this wonderfully: the crowd is laughing in detail, permanently, seriously, without thought. What great language! I've never thought about laughing in detail. Have you? Laughter is without words and so seems without detail. Yet, on Solstice, in the high energy of sun and celebration, laughter itself becomes the detail, the expression of sheer joy.

Why is the Summer Solstice important? It's been marked by civilizations at least since Stonehenge was built over 5000 years ago. It's one of the four seasonal markers everyone recognizes throughout the year, and one of eight celebrated on the pagan calendar. It's been a marker of the cycles, as well as the passage, of time far longer than any printed calendar or designed timepiece.

Every civilization uncovered and studied by anthropologists shares one thing in common. Some anthropologists refer to it as the search for the Divine. Others simply call it a search for explanations and meaning. Yet each civilization left remnants and reminders of its expression of the Divine and its rites and rituals, generally through icons and images.

It's that continuity that brings Willliams' words to light and life: laughing in detail, permanently, seriously, without thought. No matter the what or how of the celebration, the energy of it seems to be ingrained into us, into our culture, into the fabric of who we are. In the midst of the energies bouncing around in the world today, finding ways to release ourselves from their bondage by reintegrating the ancient laughter is vital.

How will/do you celebrate the Summer Solstice? What is your earliest recall of acknowledging the energy of this day? How have people in your personal lineage celebrated it? in your cultural lineage? in the lineage of your heritage?

March Equinox

Equinox ~~

[from Latin, meaning 'equal night']

1: either of the two points on the celestial sphere where the celestial equator intersects the ecliptic
2: either of the two times each year (as about March 21 and September 23) when the sun crosses the equator and day and night are everywhere on earth of approximately equal length.

~ Merriam-Webster online dictionary 

The wheel of the year is divided into either four or eight segments, depending on how often you want to recognize, ritualize or otherwise celebrate the changing of the seasons. Since as far back as we can figure recorded time, humans have noticed and marked the passages we call the Equinox. Stonehenge, Chichen Itza, Angkor Wat and the Sphinx are all equinoctial markers.

Besides its delineation of daylight's increasing or decreasing, the Equinox is a balance point for the Earth's axis pointing neither toward nor away from the sun. For me, it is a spiritual time as well, revealing how everything finds balance on the eternal journey through the cosmos. My reflection on this Equinox is directly informed by the notion of balance.

At this time of season's change, poised astride a sliver of time where all rests balanced, I pause. In this place of balance, I dream of the direction the coming season will take. Allowing the dreamtime its intuitive flow, I breathe in the creative energy and breathe out what no longer serves. With my dreams and discoveries in heart, I adjust my movements into the season to come.

What does the Equinox mean to you? How do you define your balance point? How does it define you? What dreams are the Equinox presenting to you? How will you open to its creative change? What form is the new season taking for you? What support will you need as you move forward?

Winter Solstice 2014

Winter Solstice ~ the shortest day and longest night of the year. Many ancient civilizations created monuments aligned with the sun rising on the Winter Solstice morn. One of the most famous is Stonehenge in the England. Also, Newgrange in Ireland and Chichen Itza in Mexico. The oldest known is the Goseck Circle in Germany, circa 4900 BCE.

The one in the picture is the temple of Karnak in Luxor, Egypt. The massive stone walls rise to look like hands holding the sun in the sky. Quite an incredible feat to create!

Winter Solstice is one of the markers of the rhythm of the seasons. Although in our modern culture, we label it the beginning of winter, its alternate name is Midwinter. Celebrations filled with rejoicing in the return of the sun marked it as a central seasonal feast.

I love Winter Solstice, Midwinter. My very being recognizes the rhythm it marks. Despite all the modern ways to mark time, I feel the shift within as readily as I see the days afterward begin to lengthen. For many years, I marked this time with a week-long retreat, my personal time of hibernation, to reset my internal clock and prepare for the coming new year.

Do you feel the shift from darkening days to the beginnings of more light? What do you do to mark the Winter Solstice? How do you honor the shifting season?