(This is a personal blog and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
It is said that we are just droplets in the vast ocean of humanity, the vast ocean of our collective consciousness. So, what is astrology? Most rationalists dismiss it as bunkum, but it is seen by many who believe in it, as a way to read currents and tides, to see where this metaphorical ‘sea’ will carry us. In that sense, every astrology chart is like a nautical chart, enabling us to align our voyage to our desires, to mingle in this sea, to where we would like to go.
Coming to Terms With Change
Just as some people do not understand astrology for what it is, some people also fear eclipses, because we subconsciously know that if there is an eclipse, we are due for radical change – and it is not negotiable. Like a surgical cut, something will be taken from our life. It will hurt and it will need time to heal, but it is necessary.
When we come to terms with change, we feel invigorated because a great weight is lifted from our shoulders.
Today, that is, 26 December, the last solar eclipse of the decade commenced at 8 AM, and is set to conclude at around 11:16 AM. This is not a total solar eclipse; it is an annular one, that is, when the moon is the farthest from the earth. So the moon essentially hides the sun's center, leaving the sun's outer edges exposed or visible, creating a ‘ring of fire’. This ‘ring’ makes this solar eclipse very special. The annular phase in today’s eclipse is supposed to begin at 9:04 AM as per reports.
Meeting of Saturn & Pluto in Capricorn: Challenges to Status Quo
In life and our astrological charts, there are safer courses and riskier ones, and we choose our course in life according to our personality type. Our collective sea is never still. Creation never stops. Like fractal growth pattern, planets paint the big picture in the sky, and our personalities follow the same energy shifts on a smaller scale. Planets are the forces behind the currents and tides in this ‘collective sea’ of ours. Most astrological events are just opportunities for us to change our personality, to adjust, to come closer to the realisation of our soul's desires. When the planet goes through your natal chart, it affects an area of your life.
It brings something new to the mix so you can change the course if you want. It is like a railroad switch.
Occasionally, maybe every few decades, on every coast there is a major tide that floods the coast a long way inland. It is so strong that one cannot oppose the change, the movement with the sea. That kind of tide is due on 12 January 2020, when Saturn and Pluto will meet in Capricorn. 38 years ago was the last time that Saturn and Pluto had met, and that meeting was in Libra. That last meeting made us reconsider questions of equality, gender, race, justice, and all kinds of relationship issues.
Why Do We Fear Solar Eclipses?
Our society is transitioning; we are not the same society or people we used to be. After that conjunction (meeting of two planets) the millennial generation was born. They carry this new energy in their personal setup, and they will now use it, working with this coming January conjunction in Capricorn, to bring forward the ideas of similar change, but in the areas of hierarchy and societal structures and power that depend on it.
This birthing of new societal structures will again take a few decades to fully flourish, but we will gain the first notion of this change with the solar eclipse on Thursday, 26 December.
Once again, why do we fear solar eclipses? It is because we love to romanticise and think of ourselves as ‘heroes’ – often as ‘tragic heroes’ – in our life story, unshakable in our principles and beliefs. The truth is that eclipses change both us and our environment in irreversible ways, and it mean that we have outgrown our circumstances. Solar eclipses bring forward what is hidden in our subconscious, self-destructive behaviour patterns and beliefs that we perpetuate as individuals and as a society.
26 December Solar Eclipse: How to ‘Deal With’ the Implications
The 26 December solar eclipse is in Capricorn and conjunct South Moon Node. It is all about dismantling the past: structures, hierarchies, value systems in our society. We as a society will meet our ‘shadow’, and see our destructive behaviours as such. We will begin to acknowledge the wisdom of millennials, and start to respect their philosophy and approach to feelings of security. It is not about disrespecting the old or revolution. It is about growth and evolution. Like a rosebush, we need to prune old wilted blooms that we have outgrown, so new ones can thrive.
For those in India, the 26 December spectacle will be visible in parts of the South. Those living along Mangalore or Madikeri in Karnataka; Telicherry, Calicut, Palghat in Kerala; Ooty, Coimbatore, Pollachi, Tiruppur, Palani, Dindugal, Karur, Erode, Trichy, Pudukottai, Karaikudi, Ammapattinam, Muttupettai in Tamil Nadu will be able to experience this phenomenon. A partial eclipse will be visible everywhere else in India.
With this eclipse, the best strategy is to try to relax as much as possible and swim with the current as fast as possible.
In this way, we will be able to harness the maximum benefits from this great energy surge. Perhaps we will be afraid or cautious at first because of the rapid and radical changes that the eclipse brings. But it is always for our greatest good, and we will emerge on the other side of this event – reinvigorated and rejuvenated – ready for new adventures and the building of a new world.
(Branka Tokic lives in Zagreb, Croatia, where she specialises in supply chain management at a company. That aside, her interests lie in spirituality, healing practices, and ‘reading the charts’, or rather, decoding astrology, and trying to make sense of the spiritual world and people’s spiritual beliefs.)
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