Renegotiating your sacred contract: solar eclipse in Cancer

Arlo, ready to march. Photo by Chelsea Bottinelli.

Today is Thursday, June 30, 2011. The Moon enters Cancer at 12:11 pm EDT. This puts the Moon in the same sign as the Sun and the solar eclipse of tomorrow. In the Vedic mythology concerning eclipses, the gods and demons together churned the ocean of milk in order to create an elixir of immortality.

Earth & water - photo by Eric.

This idea of immortality is a theme which is worth exploring today and tomorrow. Eclipses happen when there is a New or Full Moon near the lunar nodes. These are the intersection points of the path of the Moon and the path of the Sun, where the Sun and Moon are perfectly aligned in three dimensions. Evolutionary astrologers believe these nodes represent something akin to what Caroline Myss calls your “sacred contract.” This means the nodes say something about your soul’s intentions for incarnating.

Let’s assume for a moment that this is true, that the lunar nodes represent a sort of portal through which souls with similar intentions come into the material plane for certain kinds of experiences. What this means is that a particular kind of contract is being activated at any given time. Since the Sun and Moon align with the nodes at an eclipse, it seems like a moment when these contracts get activated as agreements. This means right now thousands of souls are getting their marching orders for incarnation over the next six months, or at least setting their intentions consciously.

What does this have to do with you? Well, what if you can re-negotiate your contract? What if, like the souls who’ve been waiting for incarnation, you can now get the stamp of approval for a change in your own marching orders? What if now is the prefect opportunity to shift your life’s focus from repeating your karma to embracing your dharma?

I would put it to you that it doesn’t matter at all if any of this is true. What I am asking you is a version of what coaches, therapists and counselors call “the miracle question.” It is an aid to help you envision how the future will be different when any particular problem is no longer present. Also, it helps to establish goals.

So, today imagine that this is true. Imagine that you can re-negotiate your sacred contract. Not only that, but imagine that it works so well you get the stamp of approval to change your contract in a way that would eliminate any problem in your life.

When you wake up the next morning, how are you going to start discovering that the miracle happened? What else are you going to notice? What else?

Gary Caton with Amanda Painter

12 thoughts on “Renegotiating your sacred contract: solar eclipse in Cancer”

  1. Be – good catch. Gary – read Phil’s Cosmic Blip piece today of course. Thank you for making the crossroad. Interesting indeed to be taken back to this moment – re-reading my comments here has me knowing for certain there are forces at work beyond traditional understanding.
    Thx all.

  2. Gary,

    This is supposed to be the last day of the Mayan calendar by some accounts and the fact that you attached Mr. Sedgwick’s blip to this piece from 4 months ago, just above a response that I wrote when in a much different mood than now, all seem to be forcing me to look beyond the moment of now. . to look back and look forward. . on tiptoes. These nodes of today, so close to the GA and so close to where Venus will be next year . . about the same time of year when you wrote the original piece. . give weight to the notion that time is not linear except in the 3rd dimension. It is all happening in the ‘now’ and frankly, it gives me a pretty wierd feeling. My own nodes have been empacted by the recent New Moon + Atlantis and my heart of hearts tells me I (and maybe all of us) stand at a crossroad. Your timely and mysteriously placed message of today is giving me an expanded perspective for which I owe you my gratitude.
    be

  3. “Over the next days the Lunar North Node comes to align with the enigmatic Great Attractor. This amazing “thing” is one of the most powerful pulling influences in deep space. It radiates in every energy spectrum and is one of the most gravitationally potent objects in the Universe. It’s gravitational effects actually bend light around the Great Attractor such that it can be seen behind. The symbolic imagery is when one stands on tip toes wanting to know what looms over the next horizon…The Node to the Great Attractor refreshes life mission statements.”
    ~Philip Sedgwick Cosmic Blip ~ 28 Oct 2011

  4. Hazel1, How Divine!

    Amanda, you seem to be accessing it pretty well from my point of view. My second choice would be Virgo north node, or maybe ascendant next time around.

    aword, perhaps the all-knowing mind doen’t remember, but the feelings. . . they remember. It WAS a fun day wasn’t it?
    be

  5. Ah! I LIKE this! I was told two nights ago in dreaming what I was here to “do” – of course it was one of those dreams moments that I impressed upon my sleeping self to remember when morning came – and of course, I do not. I DO remember laughing! Perhaps, however, the point of the dream was actually the same as the theme of today’s post — questioning what/who/how going forward; finding the dharma, using the karma.

    Be – you made me smile! Haha! This will be a fun day!

    xo and thanks!

  6. yay hazel!!!

    patti.t — thanks for modeling a literal illustration of this sort of renegotiation! very cool to know someone is making a concrete, conscious go of it. when i read gary’s first draft for this one, i knew it felt right. good luck!

    be — happy solar return in advance! it never occurred to me (at least, not consciously in this lifetime) to contemplate negotiating my next north node placement. as someone who currently has a sagg north node, i guess it is pretty cool. but the tricky part is definitely learning how to access it; my south node in gemini is not bad in itself, but is conjunct a point in my chart and one in my mom’s that have conspired to require some *really* serious digging to release. i have a feeling i’ve only just begun…

    🙂

  7. Yay! Tomorrow I start a job where I actually get to use the gemology degree I got in 2004. And it’s full time. And, it’s THREE DOLLARS MORE AN HOUR than my old job that the animal shelter fired me from in February! Ha! Now I’ll work at this cool store that’s like an old Indian Trading post, with lots of beautiful jewelry and history and I get to meet the people who make the stuff, very cool. Ha!

  8. Gary and Amanda,

    Hope you are right Gary about little Arlo’s life path. For several years I’ve heard or read about folks who remember signing their contracts (wow) or, like Patti.t, intuit them and even restructure them. I don’t remember anything before the age of 4 myself, but thanks to the study of astrology, I’m pretty sure I’ve got the gist of mine. As I approach the age of 72 this weekend, it seems to me that most of the hard learning in my contract (with the exception of 2013) has been done already, so now’s probably not the time to change directions. Even so, it’s kind of fun to think about the next contract negotations. If I’m now at a point I really like this path, what’s next? Hmm. . .probably I’d like to try Sagittarius for the north node; those Sun-signers seem to have so much fun!
    be

  9. hey, i’m not a professional palmist, and I don’t even know if anyone actually reads feet -but I can clearly see a 5 pointed star on mr arlo’s left tootsie! perhaps he is marching to the tune of venus 🙂

  10. Gary & Amanda, this is beautifully supportive. Perfectly stated; how can we miss?! Sometimes we need the external pointer to show us where to look. Sharing your knowledge gives that little extra nudge to get me out of the swirling eddy and back flowing down the river. A copy, paste, and post moment. Thanks!

  11. Very apt Amanda and Gary – thank you. About little over a month ago (so coinciding with the beginning of the eclipse season) I had a moment of clarity when I saw some of my own sacred contracts/secret agreements and how they have repeated in my life. I began to write out a new contract, a kind of declaration of independence – essentially a renegotiated contract with life, the universe and others known and unknown – that undoes all those harmful agreements. It’s a very powerful undertaking, holding up a mirror to one’s self like that. I’ve tried to review regularly over this period to remind myself to honour this commitment to myself. Sounds corny I guess, but these ‘contracts’ we make run very deep. I really appreciated waking up to your summary of the wider astro-context providing encouragement to step out of old patterns and envision something better and more fulfilling.

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