From Pisces New Moon to Aries New Moon 2023: a time for reflection as a New World Order emerges…

Introduction – the Old Order: on the way out…

How are you feeling these days? I have been – unusually for me – pretty lackadaisical, unmotivated. Left field unpredictability, some of it welcome, some not, has been a distinct theme. Inability to make firm plans, experiencing even tentative plans having to change…sharing with fellow humans both locally in my small nation of Scotland, nationally in the UK, and internationally a general feeling that the world is falling to bits, the Old Order is no longer sustaining us and somehow has to change… Does any of this sound familiar?

Well – the good news is that astrological perspectives may not provide a solution, but they DO enable us to set a meaningful context to the current turmoil both personally and collectively. We can then use this perspective, should we so choose, to decide the best – or the least worst – way forward in these turbulent times.

I have written a number of articles and essays in recent times concerning the changing world order which is upon us, with Some Notes on Cycles in a Time of Crisis (i) being one of the first, and Waxing and Waning Crescents: Windows to the Future being the most recent (ii) Readers wishing to reflect in some detail on the Big Picture context to our current turmoil in order to understand it better from a symbolic viewpoint, will hopefully find these writings helpful. There is also a whole section on Cycles in my latest book “Postcards to the Future”– an acclaimed collection of 60 internationally published essays, articles and columns.

Where are we now, as the zodiacal year 2022/3 ends?

In this essay I am reflecting on the here-and-now of our lives: where we all are, right NOW, moving through what I have come to regard as possibly the most potent (although least commented upon) concluding phase of the zodiacal year: those four weeks, that twelfth house time from Pisces New Moon to Aries New Moon 2023: a time for reflection, for waiting…

The twelfth house, the final sector, is the least graspable, possibly most misunderstood and misrepresented of all the twelve houses of an individual’s horoscope: a place of mystery and mysticism, otherworldliness, dreams – a place of ‘sacred’ rather than ‘ordinary’ time, where human experience, personal and collective, dissolves into collective memory AND – where the seeds of the future lie. Being a person with either five or six planets in the twelfth house, depending on which house system one chooses, I have written extensively on this mysterious ‘place in space’ over the years. (iii)

Having survived pretty well into my (hopefully useful!) Elder years and led an interesting, at times tempestuous, but productive life well-tempered by many challenges is, I hope, positive testimony for younger twelfth house folks coming after me that it doesn’t have to be the doom-laden place of sackcloth and ashes that some writers seem to think it is!

Waning and Waxing crescents: collective life phases

Moondark/twelfth house phase is the hidden 2-3 day period in any month when the fragile, waning crescent Moon dies into the darkness from which the next New Moon is born. As such, it is a liminal time, a threshold time. It is the time of withdrawal and dissolution of energy – think of wintertime, the stripped trees, the cold, barren earth – a time of dark power in which the old order dies at a number of different levels, so that fertile energy can emerge from the womb of the night.

Moving from considering personal to reflecting on collective life, one can usefully map the waning crescent/Moondark/twelfth house phase at the end of the familiar 29.5 day cycle of the Sun and Moon, onto any cycle, large or small.

In those terms, the period of 2000 to 2020 (does that year ring any bells?) can be seen as the waning crescent/Moondark/twelfth house phase of a whole period, beginning in 1803, when the epoch-defining Jupiter/Saturn cycles did their 20-year dance through the Earth element. Their first flirtation with Air began in the 1980s with the conjunction taking place in Libra before returning briefly to Earth for one final cycle. On the Winter Solstice of 2020 (who chose that date?!) these two planets then met at 0 Aquarius, symbolically announcing the full beginning of a new Air era which will be the backdrop to life on this planet until 2199.

Continuing with this analogy, the period 2020-3 can be seen as the opening crescent of a new twenty year Jupiter/Saturn developmental cycle. We are still recovering from the worst ravages of the pandemic. However, in keeping with the pattern of new energies gradually taking shape and manifesting – think the first 2-3 days of the monthly lunar cycle which are good times to begin new projects – 2023 feels especially dynamic, turbulent, challenging…profound change is in the air.

The major collective challenges taking shape are the dangerous state of our climate as it grows more unstable, war once again in Europe which could escalate, increasing migration from beleaguered parts of the world to areas seen as safer and offering more opportunities, and the cost of living crises triggered especially by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and its knock-on effects across the globe in the year since the invasion took place. It’s also becoming increasingly evident that the power of AI is taking exponential leaps: reference the recent rise to prominence and availability of the controversial ChatGPT.

In twelfth house time: old patterns break down, dissolve…

So – here we all sit in the annual twelfth house space of the zodiac year which began with the New Moon at 11.31 Aries on 1st April 2022. The next Aries New Moon is on 21st of March, 17.14 GMT, at 0.50 Aries. Most of the people I know, whether family, friends, students, fellow astrologers, people who write to me in response to my work, the folks I know and chat to in my local environment, all say much the same things, echoing my opening paragraph: life feels turbulent, changeful, unpredictable, often difficult.

People are finding old patterns are no longer working, are changing them either voluntarily or having change forced upon them. There’s an increasing feeling that top-down systems of government are increasingly broken worldwide, that perhaps greater community co-operation and action is what’s developing. In my small local community, there’s brilliant work of this kind being done. Technological innovation is developing apace, with the usual shadow/light dynamic accompanying this.

Despite all the worldwide difficulties, there’s a sense of restlessness, an appetite for change. It’s not all bad.

Spring 2023 : an especially potent time

This particular Spring 2023 Moondark/twelfth house period is especially potent…why? As I said in an earlier paragraph, the twelfth house is ‘where the seeds of the future lie’. As we sit here, hopefully using the final sector of this zodiacal year to reflect on where we are and where we are headed, wondering how how we can cope with the daunting challenges of a fast-changing world without losing sight of our potential for being positive contributors, the astrology shaping up during this Spring truly is pointing to a different world in the years that lie before us.

The astro-world is currently alive with commentary. The introduction to my colleague Christina Rodenbeck’s March Horoscopes gives an excellent summary of upcoming energy shifts, including helpful historical perspectives. I do not propose in this overview essay to add much to what is already being said.

First off, Saturn enters watery Pisces on 7th March 2023 during this final crescent of the 2022/3 zodiacal year, hopefully signalling a cooling of the fractious divisions which have riven our collective and often our individual lives as traditionalist Saturn and future-oriented Uranus battled it out in recent years in an air/earth struggle where no-one seemed inclined to give ground. Hopefully with Saturn in Pisces gradually moving to a trine with Uranus in Taurus by 2024/5, a more co-operative spirit may emerge. Check out this emerging news ( 5.3.23) which fits the symbolism perfectly, announced the day after Mercury moved into Pisces! Mars’ entry into watery Cancer on 26 March after a long year’s traverse of disputatious and opinionated Gemini (sorry, Geminis, I know that’s not all there is to you guys!) should also help to cool things down somewhat.

And – in the opening crescent of the zodiacal year 2023/4, comes the BIGGIE that has been increasingly gripping the attention of the whole astrological world: Pluto’s shift into Aquarius on 23 March 2023 for the first time since the revolutionary 1770s, days into the New Moon in Aries. This shift will not be complete until 19th November 2024…very shortly after the next USA election, start date 5 November. Pluto’s crossing the first degree of Aquarius where the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction symbolically launched the new Air era on the Winter Solstice of 2020 could not be a more powerful indicator that the next two years truly are going to be revolutionary and world-changing.

As Pluto dips back to Capricorn from June 2023 to January 2024, then again from June until his 19 November 2024 forward motion through Aquarius, the Old Order will not let go easily. Here are just a few examples:

Big Oil will continue to fight the challenges posed by an increasing push toward developing sources of clean energy; most multi-billionaires will continue to hang onto their obscene wealth whilst a hugely increasing gap between richest and poorest continues to grow, feeding political instability and the spirit of political and social revolution worldwide; ageing, Earth-era dictator figures like Putin, Xi, dictator-lites like Trump and (in a minor way) UK’s deposed Prime Minister Johnston will hang on with varying degrees of success as the pressures of the new Air era bear down on them all; archaic, brutal, political systems run by the Taliban in Afghanistan and the mullahs in Iran, will also come under increasing threat as their people, mainly young women and men, continue their defiance even in the face of brutal oppression.

In a highly illustrative example from my own small nation, Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, a politically dominant Scottish Nationalist figure for the whole Pluto in Capricorn era from 2007/8 right through to 2023, and our First Minister for the last eight years, resigned unexpectedly on 15 February. Her successor, who will be a member of the younger generation of politicians, is due to be declared by 27 March: days after Pluto shifts into Aquarius.

Shifts between world eras have always been difficult and turbulent; as with tectonic plates grinding against each other, earthquakes both literal and metaphorical are the result. However, as master astrologer Robert Hand vividly commented some years ago, we are in a time in which ‘…the past has minimum hold upon the present, but the present has a maximum hold on the future…’(iv)

The New Air Era is indeed on its way: Pluto’s transit through Aquarius until the 2040s powerfully emphasises that Era’s radical quality. By its end in 2199, the next “Great Mutation” will occur, when Jupiter and Saturn begin consecutive 20 year conjunction cycles in water signs. Humanity, if we are still here, will by then be inhabiting an unimaginably different world.

Meantime, how do we mere mortals cope?!

It is no accident that I am writing this essay in what I have described as the most significant annual Moondark/twelfth house period for a very long time. Thoughts have been buzzing around my head on this topic for weeks. I’ve been ascribing my non-ability to get down to recording them, to the usual writerly inertia and procrastination. But no – I am being reminded that there is a right time for everything…and this is a time for reflection…

So – what are we mere mortals to do, as we sit in 2023’s twelfth house, contemplating whatever chip of the prevailing energy of dissolution, disruption and ( hopefully, eventually) re-emergence we have been handed that we cannot give back?

I’ve decided to end on a very personal note. I would not presume to tell anyone what they should do in these deeply uncertain times, especially since there is so much dreadful suffering of all kinds and degrees going on at present. But I can tell you what I’m doing. Maybe it will help…

I am using the varying perspectives provided by my knowledge of astrological symbolism, especially the longer-term historical cycles, to remind myself that life on this planet has always been a turbulent and tempestuous business, with periods of relative calm always interspersed by upheavals of varying kinds. Being able to detect and understand symbolic, meaningful patterns, comforts me deeply by providing a sense that life is meaningful, no matter how hard it can be at times. We are not butterflies pinned to the board of Fate. We have agency, even if only to choose what our response is to grim circumstances coming our way.
The 2020-3 period described had been truly life-changing for me. On 12.01.2020, five hours into the new Saturn/Pluto cycle in Capricorn, my husband and soulmate Ian (we married in 1982 in the last year of the Saturn/Pluto cycle in Libra) was felled by a stroke. So I had to begin a different life – just weeks before lockdown. The stunning timing of his death, which brutally emphasised the dominance of the Saturn/Pluto cycle in shaping my whole life (I have Sun, Moon, Venus and Mercury conjunct Saturn/Pluto in the twelfth house – fortunately all square Jupiter in the third house!) actually provided me with bleak comfort. It felt as though we had been allocated a particular Venus-ruled Saturn/Pluto time together, and when the Saturn-ruled Saturn/Pluto cycle began, our time was up. So I set about aligning myself with Saturn’s demands, by becoming what I hope is a useful Elder in my various communities.
Like everyone else at present, I have my times of bleakness as I look out at the world and realise how many things are wrong. But many things are right, and I practise gratitude on a daily basis for my home, my supportive family, friends and neighbours, my special astro-colleagues (you know who you are!) and for being part of a world-wide community of astrologers. Like every other community world-wide at present, sadly we have a divided, fractious dimension. That should not stop us from feeling grateful that we share something amazing: knowledge that helps us to see that we each have a meaningful part to play, however small, in the unfolding of a vast, ultimately mysterious Cosmos.
Lastly, here is my mantra. It centres and supports me, especially when I am feeling a bit sorry for myself/the state of the world: ‘Start where you are, do what you can, use what you have –and just get on with it!!’

Endnotes

I’m pleased to say that this essay was published on Astrodienst in the Understanding Astrology section, on 8.3.2023.

(i) Astrodienst, 2019

(ii) The Mountain Astrologer Magazine December 2020/January 2021

(iii) quote from Contemplating the Twelfth House, first published in The Mountain Astrologer Magazine, Aug./Sept. 2014, then Astrodienst/The Astrological Journal 2015, and included in my recent book Postcards to the Future pp353-364

(iv) From “The Astrology of Crisis” Llewellyn Publications 1993, p116

******

2500 words

©anne whitaker 2023

Waiting – in Moondark – for the Aries New Moon

From the depths of antiquity right through until the general advent of electric light in the early part of the twentieth century, humans have been powerfully influenced by the 29.5 day cycle of the Sun and Moon.

The power of the Sun/Moon cycle

They hunted in daylight, made long journeys by the light offered by the Moon as it moved to full illumination of the night sky 14-15 days into the cycle. They timed their most powerful magical/religious rituals to coincide with the Full Moon. Ancient peoples gradually came to understand, as the age of agriculture took root and developed, that the time to plant their crops was when the Moon was waxing in the early part of the 29.5 day cycle, and in the Spring, or waxing, part of the year.

Out of those practical observations of the heavenly bodies, so fundamental to survival in humanity’s early days, came the realisation so beautifully put in the Bible:

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…” (i)

The planetary cycles, from the tiny 29.5 day Sun/Moon cycle to that powerful regulator of human affairs, the 20 year Jupiter/Saturn cycle, were recognised in antiquity as weaving all life including that of human beings into an observable rhythm which brought a context of order, structure, and some comforting predictability to the patterns of life on Earth.

But whether the cycle is huge, like the Neptune/Pluto 500 year one which was not known in antiquity, or small, like the monthly Sun/Moon one, the same basic stages apply: seeding, germinating, sprouting, flowering, ripening, harvesting, dying back in preparation for the new.

All cycles’ 12th House phase

Moondark describes the end of any cycle – the 12th House phase – whether we are contemplating the monthly Sun/Moon one or the epoch-defining Neptune/Pluto cycle. It is the time of withdrawal and dissolution of energy – think of wintertime, the stripped trees, the cold, barren earth – a time of dark power in which the old order dies at a number of different levels, so that fertile energy can emerge from the womb of the night: indeed, a time of “dying back in preparation for the new.” Thus, every year, the time from the New Moon in Pisces to the New Moon in Aries can be seen as the 12th House phase, the Moondark time, of the entire zodiacal year.

Moondark has fascinated me for a long time. I may first have encountered the concept in my twenties, through the agency of Marion Bradley’s magnificent novel “The Mists of Avalon”, set in the time of druidical Britain in the era when Christianity was sweeping through the Roman Empire and the Old Religion of the Druids was being violently challenged as a result.

The legendary King Arthur, disregarding the advice of his Druid priests, married Guinevere in a Christian ceremony – at Moondark, the very end of the Sun/Moon monthly cycle.Since Arthur was a king, getting the symbolism of his marriage right was much more important than it would be for us ordinary mortals! “Woe, woe, no good will come of this!” was the view taken by the Druids. They were right. The marriage was childless; moreover, Guinevere spent much of it in love with Lancelot, one of the knights of King Arthur’s fabled Round Table.

Each year’s Moondark

We tend to think of the annual 20th March equinox, the day that the Sun enters the sign of Aries, as the symbolic beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. But you could argue that the true beginning of spring is when a New Moon takes place in the sign of Aries. In 2022, that celestial event occurs tomorrow on 1st April, both Sun and Moon meeting at 11.5 degrees of Aries, the fiery first sign of the zodiac. The degree of their meeting varies from year to year: in 2021, it was 22.5 degrees Aries; in 2020, 4 degrees Aries; in 2019 15 degrees Aries; in 2018, 26 degrees Aries.

I find it illuminating and helpful to think of each year in those terms. Thus – as we wait for the fresh energy upsurge of the Aries New Moon tomorrow, we are symbolically waiting in Moondark. This year’s Moondark has been especially potent; it has run from the 12 degrees Pisces New Moon on the 2nd March 2022, making a conjunction with Jupiter at 16 degrees Pisces which is already approaching its powerful conjunction with Neptune, due on 12 April 2022 at 24 degrees Pisces. Much is already being written and discussed across the Web regarding the implications of this planetary duo.(ii)

Events of a collective and personal nature have been powerful, dark and traumatic this Moondark: the Pisces New Moon’s conjunction with Jupiter, as that planet approaches conjunction with Neptune, has certainly brought Ukraine experiences of symbolic crucifixion (iii) via the sweep of war at Russia’s instigation, and its attendant suffering as millions flee their homeland in search of whatever kind of safety can be found. Along with a world-wide Pisces/Neptune response of compassionate desire to help, manifesting in donations of clothing and other supplies, and money pouring in to various charities, there is a general mood of disgust, shock, world-weariness and exhaustion.

All those reactions are typical Pisces/Neptune responses from all of us world-wide who have been through years of acute political upheaval and turmoil, increasing awareness of the climate emergency we now face – then two years of a pandemic, not yet over, which has upended our whole way of life.

All that most of us wish is peace. We are now having to find ways of being creative, constructive and hopeful in a world in turmoil and transition from an old materialist world order clearly long past its sell-by date…

The uses of Moondark

Moondark is at its best a contemplative time: a time to take stock both collectively and personally. We live in an increasingly frenetic 24/7 society where ‘time out’ is increasingly hard to find, and is not supported by the culture as a whole. Those of us who wish and need to retreat regularly to preserve our balance and well-being tend to be regarded as odd by mainstream society.

But humans have always benefited from times of quiet contemplation, in whatever way suits them best: listening to music, doing yoga/meditation, praying to whatever Higher Power sustains them, making or contemplating art, walking in Nature –especially by the sea, that great universal symbol of dissolution and emergence.

Even half an hour a day of retreat time on a regular basis is nourishing for the spirit. In ancient times, women used to retreat together monthly during menstruation time which was seen as a period of potency, and hidden power – a liminal time to link through dreams and ritual to worlds unseen.

It would be good if individually we could get into the habit of using the time from the Pisces New Moon each year to find some retreat space in whatever way suited us: to take stock of the year that was coming to an end, ponder our successes and our failures, and set some realistic intentions to pursue for the zodiacal year ahead. In a time of unprecedented turmoil, taking retreat time to work out how to cope best with the world we now inhabit, seems more important than ever…

Have you been taking stock ? I certainly have…and your thoughts on what has emerged for you, would be most welcome as we emerge from Moondark and begin a new zodiacal year.

Endnotes:

i) {Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 King James Version (KJV)}

ii)Astrology University features a helpful teaching by Steven Forrest on this topic: https://www.astrologyuniversity.com/shop/search-by-astrologer/steven-forrest/jupiter-neptune-2022/?stamped_r_id=66928356

iii) the six-week Christian season of Lent, with its Piscean themes of prayer, reaching out to the Divine, compassion, renunciation and sacrifice, runs this year from the day of the Pisces New Moon on 2nd March, right through to 14th April, just before the first Full Moon of the new astrological year

1300 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2022
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

‘At the still point’: awaiting the Aries New Moon…

We tend to think of the annual 20th March equinox, the day the Sun enters Aries, as the symbolic beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere. But you could argue that its true beginning takes place with the New Moon in Aries: this year, that does not happen until the 24th March 2020, when the Sun and Moon meet at 4 degrees 12 minutes of Aries.

You could further argue that the period from the Pisces New Moon, this year having fallen just three days ago on 23rd February at 4 degrees 29 minutes of Pisces, represents the Moondark, or balsamic period, or end phase of the whole astrological year – which began with the 15 degrees 17 minutes Aries New Moon on the 5th of April 2019.

Today thus finds us at the new crescent phase beginning the whole zodiacal year’s Moondark. It also finds us on Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent in the Christian calendar, a six week period of contemplation leading to Easter Sunday which falls each year close to the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox.

So – how does that profound, doubly symbolic invitation to withdraw and reflect on the year that’s gone, sit with you?

For a very long time, I have been happy and grateful to draw spiritual inspiration from writers of all religious and spiritual traditions – or none. What I seek is grounded wisdom and perspective, wherever it comes from, to guide my life. I also love the comforting, ancient power of ritual. One of my personal Ash Wednesday rituals is to read to myself sections of T S Eliot’s great poem sequence Ash Wednesday. Here is the quote which on this Ash Wednesday has most moved me,:

‘…this is the time of tension between dying and birth/ The place of solitude where three dreams cross…’ (i)

I am in a deeply withdrawn, sensitive, pensive state in this year’s Moondark just beginning, feeling very open to our collective vulnerability and suffering as fragile creatures on a tiny planet.

Having been born in Moondark in the very last hours of the monthly Sun/Moon cycle, I am very aware of the need periodically to retreat, contemplate, take stock – a fundamental aspect of human experience which is being squeezed out by the 24/7 freneticism of contemporary living, to the increasing detriment of our collective mental and physical wellbeing.

Will this new year soon arising bring more brutality towards the vulnerable and the innocent, orchestrated by those currently in power whose humanity has in many cases become increasingly debased? Or will it signify a new generation arising, whose values are not rooted in accumulation of wealth and power at the expense of our Mother planet, ready to challenge the structures of old order?

Thankfully, we are seeing strong evidence of the latter option arising already, as the new Saturn/Pluto cycle slowly begins and we move towards a new Jupiter/Saturn cycle at 0 degrees Aquarius, beginning at the winter solstice 2020. We need radical change, and we are going to have it over the next few years, one way or another…

The Big Why?

In contemplative moments such as this, poised in the stillness of a whole year’s Moondark, being temperamentally inclined to brood on questions most sensible folk prefer to avoid much of the time, I tend to return to The Big Why, and its attendant questions: Why are we here at all? What does it all mean? What am I to do with my small life?

It would appear from numerous surveys one tends to come across both in print and social media, that despite conventional religions losing ground, most people are just as inclined as they have ever been toward some sort of faith, some belief that despite its painful, turbulent dimensions life has meaning.

In times of suffering and turbulence, one of the great offerings of astrological knowledge, despite its being a double-edged gift with just as much capacity to scare us as to offer enlightenment, is a pointing through its symbols to something both collectively and personally meaningful going on. Looking through an astrological lens reveals patterns, not randomness.

Astrology is not a religion or a belief system – but it offers a clear lens through which to look out at the vastness of Mystery in which we exist, inviting us toward some form of belief that there is a bigger picture of which we are all part, however small.

Personally, I have found that lens to have been a vitally important tool on my own journey toward a deep faith that we are all part of the One; even the dreadful things in life which afflict us both collectively and individually are woven into a tapestry of meaning, at some level which we are too ill-equipped to comprehend.

I find it supportive and comforting to centre myself in that faith when times are tough for the world – as they certainly are right now – and for those to whom I am personally connected with bonds of friendship and of love.

And for myself. My dear Aquarian husband Ian died peacefully on 13th January, having been felled with shocking suddenness by a cerebral haemorrhage on 12th January 2020: the very day of the ending of the most recent Saturn/Pluto cycle in Libra under which we were married in 1982, and the beginning of this new one now taking shape. Apart from the shock and grief of his dying, I am awestruck by the fated power for us of that brutal timing.

For those of you who have been wondering why I have not posted here since 10th January, that is the explanation.

The uses of Moondark

Moondark at its best is a contemplative time: time to take stock both collectively and personally.

Humans have always benefited from times of quiet contemplation, in whatever way suits them best: listening to music, doing yoga/meditation, praying to whatever Higher Power sustains them, making or contemplating art, walking in Nature –especially by the sea, that great universal symbol of dissolution and emergence.

It would be good if individually we could get into the habit of using the time from the Pisces New Moon each year to find some retreat space in whatever way suited us: to take stock of the year that was coming to an end, ponder our successes and our failures, our joys and our sorrows, and set some realistic intentions to pursue for the zodiacal year ahead.

Will you be taking stock? I certainly shall…

Endnotes

i) from ‘The Complete Poems and Plays of T S Eliot’, Faber and Faber Ltd 1969, p 98

Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see About Page

New Moon on the Winter Solstice

“The rising of the Sun on the Winter Solstice, out of the darkest day of the year, echoes the birth of the light from the dark void on the first day of creation.”

Winter Solstice 2014 carries a layer of enigma: it occurs at 23.04 on 21st December 2014, just before the New Moon at 0 degrees 06 minutes of Capricorn on 22nd December at 01.37. (UK time)

This year’s Solstice thus takes place at the very end of Moondark, the hidden 2-3 day period each month when the fragile, waning crescent Moon dies into the darkness from which the next New Moon is born.

Moondark in ancient times was a time of retreat, of reflection. People avoided travel at those times since there was no light to guide their footsteps, making the nighttime world even more dangerous than usual.

This seems to be appropriate to the atmosphere world-wide as a particularly grim year comes to an end amid a welter of extremist violence, with especial reference to the ‘massacre of the innocents’ which took place in Peshawar, Pakistan only this week.

Perhaps this Moondark New Moon in the solemn sign of Capricorn symbolises a world-wide invitation to contemplation and retreat as the year turns: to reflect on where we are as a human community, and how we can find ways, somehow, to live more peacefully with one another regardless of race, culture or creed…

In the meantime, we humans in the Northern Hemisphere, beset by darkness and cold, need light and celebration to lift our spirits, no matter how much bleak world affairs or the pains of everyday life hold us down. At last year’s Winter Solstice, I published a wonderful poem by Susan Cooper which depicts the history and expression of this need with vivid beauty. Many of my readers have requested me to publish it again this year.

Enjoy the Solstice!

THE SHORTEST DAY BY SUSAN COOPER

So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive,
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us – Listen!!
All the long echoes sing the same delight,
This shortest day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, fest, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!!

******

500 words copyright Anne Whitaker/Susan Cooper 2014
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

Chilling out with Moondark ( ‘what’s that?!’)

As I sit writing this, tucked away quietly in our Quiet Room with some soothing Japanese incense burning, it is approaching the end of Moondark. ‘What on earth is that?’ I hear you say.

Moondark is the last three days of the 29.5 day Sun/Moon cycle. At Moondark, the Moon disappears. Full Moon is the high energy point of the cycle, fourteen days after the New Moon. A few month’s notetaking is sufficient to realise that life is more pressured and charged up at that time. Moondark is the low energy point. It is a time for rest and retreat, not a time to initiate new projects or demand great feats of one’s vitality.

“When I retire, I’m going to burn forty years of work diaries and run my life by the phases of the Moon!”

Yes, I said that, in a period of extreme work stress about twenty years ago. Friends laughed; but now in the post-career phase of my life, I’m working at just that. I find it comforting, helpful and useful to tune into the Moon’s cycle as far as possible in plotting the ebb and flow of my energies these days.

My long 2001-8 retreat taught me that regular and adequate periods of rest are essential. The bill for rest deprivation cannot be evaded by anyone.We cannot abandon technology which has brought our world community so many advantages, but can – if we choose – begin slowly to step aside from the destructive 24/7 ism which it fosters. People need to stop going to the supermarket at midnight and sending emails at 3 am if they want to have a proper life!

I find now that up to an hour’s retreat time daily, and careful planning to avoid taking on anything very demanding at Moondark, (not always possible!) has provided a rhythm of alternating activity and rest which is stabilising and supportive of well-being. But it is important to be patient, realistic and gradual in any attempts to introduce lifestyle changes. It would be silly to suggest otherwise.

I hardly think the bosses of the land would take kindly to staff’s announcing that all work from now on was going to be run by the phases of the Moon!

You don’t need special tables to work out when Moondark is. Most diaries indicate by a small black circle next to the day and date, when the New Moon falls.

For example, you will find this year (2014) that Monday 25 August indicates the day of the New Moon. I am writing this in the last couple of hours of Moondark. Wednesday 24 September is the next New Moon, and so on … Thus Moondark this month is 23,24 and part of 25 August. Next month, it is 21, 22 & 23 September.

It is easy, as I do at the start of a new year and a new diary, to go through the year putting a red line through the days when Moondark falls.

A pattern of daily rest and retreat time, and observing Moondark as much as I can each month, has given me a sound support structure from which I have now returned to a reconnected life. Observing Moondark is a regular reminder, also, that we belong to Mother Nature.

The New Moon in Virgo – in the UK time zone – begins at 15.14 today.Virgo is an earth sign, its energies strongly service oriented, practical, and good at managing detail. It is also extremely hard working, and analytical.So – the Virgo new moon would be an ideal time to start that blitz on your admin system which you’ve been putting off all year, or for putting special effort into re-organising and cleaning up the garden.

I’ve noticed that people with a strong emphasis on Virgo in their horoscopes or birth charts seem to be very fond of stationery shops, and of acquiring stationery. So, why not use this new moon to acquire next year’s diary, go through it and mark off Moondark each month? Or set your smartphone to send you a reminder of when Moondark begins?

Why don’t you try working with this lunar rhythm for a while, trying to chill out and wind down a little at Moondark ? Don’t forget to let me know how you get on!

700 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2014
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

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THE SHORTEST DAY BY SUSAN COOPER

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