Dear Friend and Reader,
ERIC AND I have been noticing something about the way time has been flowing. On more than one occasion, we have stopped our work and looked up at the ceiling and exclaimed something like “God! It feels like it should be 2 in the morning!” It’s only 8 in the evening when this happens, but it’s been happening over and over. My partner has noticed too. We’ll be talking and he’ll kick back the last of a beer, his head tilted towards the ceiling, and he’ll say, “Wow! It feels like it should be later!” It’s only 9 at night when this happens. This is the magic of winter’s approach as the Sun edges its way towards Capricorn.
The strangest thing about it is when I feel like I’ve been awake way past my bedtime, it’s not because I’m exhausted. In fact, it feels like I am caught in a long, weird bout of insomnia. Midnight, 1, 2 in the morning, I am bolt upright in bed, clear sighted through the thick darkness. Outside is that winter stillness. Midway up the forested hills that cluster around my house, you can see farther than at any other time; the trees are bare and present the looker with an uncluttered view of drab umbers, tarnished silvers and the all around gloomy pallette of winter to come. This is my favorite time of year.
It’s like this: I imagine that the autumn riders come in the form of stark, freezing winds to chase away all trace of the summer before. All of the leaves and the cheerful birds, the flowers, fruits, colorful insects and serpents are all blown to other, safer corners. The world sinks into a pensive silence. The earth is covered in a mantle of snow like a blanket to cover a sleeping mother. The days grow shorter, the wind mournful. Even the waters of the streams flow sluggishly. It is said that the maiden of springtime, Kore, or Persephone, has gone down into the Underworld, and her mother has shrouded the world in her grief.
With no contact from her cherished daughter, she has no memory of youth and is stuck only with the reality of her own age. Time takes on strange dimensions. The darkness itself seems fertile. The longest night of the year approaches. It is the solstice. The Sun enters Capricorn. The world begins to change.
During the longest night of the year, the planet (we call the Sun a planet in astrology) of our power and will to be enters the sign associated with the bones. There is a shift towards solidity, of core rebirth. The days begin to grow longer at this point in time. The old self, the self which could look forward to nothing but more darkness, is spent. Through its experiences it passes on its knowledge and wisdom to the new self which begins to gestate in time for spring. This is Capricorn’s Saturnian essence — taking the experiences of times past and using them to build a more sure future.
It is slow work, but building is one of those things that should go that way. This particular solstice/ingress is special because of the New Moon that will occur within it. I’m looking at the chart for today and there are two houses that are packed — Capricorn and Aquarius. The past and the future, history and vision are full of promise. The Moon is in Libra — a request to seek out the balance in our own lives and in our perception of the world around us. Aquarian Venus is sitting next to Pholus and Chiron bringing to our awareness a sense of the tribal wound within our own selves, our own heritage and family circumstance. Perhaps we are all working to solve the same puzzle, even though at times we seem so alien to the person on the other side of the dinner table (or not). Just the same, we have a lot of work to do. The Moon and Sun say the same thing today: it is not in avoiding the process, but in weathering the forces that lead us to catharsis.
And of course, now that the Sun has crossed the line into this Cardinal sign, it begins to come to a conjunction with Pluto which will complete itself tomorrow and it squares the Aries Point. Now is the time when the changes that occur within, however subtle, may ripple into effecting the whole of society. Phil Sedgwick has suggested that Pluto in Capricorn engages us to make wiser choices in how we use our energy. I say with the Sun conjoining this potent ball of ice, the question becomes even more real: are we actively pursuing ways to use our energy in the most efficient and self-affirming manner? When was the last time you did something to feel your heart gallop like a horse in your chest to make you feel alive, rejuvenated and younger? Perhaps it is time.
Merry Solstice All!
Genevieve Sophia