Eclipse, Star of David, Coven

The Star Logic of Eclipse Cycles

Originally written in 2003, here is an Update for the 2006 Eclipses: The 19 year eclipse cycle means that this year's Eclipses occur in the same area of the sky as those of 1987. 1987 was the year of the Harmonic Convergence, the first 'world-wide' organized peace meditation, and the first year of the 26 year Mayan End Date Cycle, which completes in 2012. That is, themes of preparatory change for the new 26,000 year Great Year were introduced, in terms of doing the hard work (Virgo) which allows us to achieve our ideals (Pisces). This year we're being asked to 'take our stand' as co-creators of the future. The Lunar Eclipse with Moon in mid-Pisces, Sun in Virgo of Sept 7 temporarily eclipses or deletes the past - we can focus on creating the future in terms of specific tasks to be undertaken. Then the Solar Eclipse of Sept 22 returns us to the past, asking us to do the emotional and spiritual repair work which is required to allow a new outcome and not a repetition of past patterns. - Remember that eclipses return in 2 week, 1 month, 3 month, 6 month and 1 year reflections. That is, the issues we deal with this month will keep returning all year.

2003

Some of you may have noticed your email boxes filling with articles about last weekend's Lunar Eclipse (Nov. 9, 2003), set against the stellar background of a 'Star of David' - an event billed by some as 'Harmonic Concordance'. First, let's look at what happens on geometric and energetic levels with an eclipse. Think of the Earth as 'Tao' (our path); then the Sun becomes Yang (initiating energy) and the Moon Yin (absorbing and consolidating energy). On some level we can say the Sun represents creating the future, while the Moon holds patterns of the past as the context in which change can occur. When the Moon is eclipsed, the past is momentarily eliminated, or 'blocked out'. It is a kind of 'get out of jail free' card. We have an opportunity to start over in some fundamental way.

Eclipses occur in 19-year cycles, at the same point in the sky (and the same point in your Natal Chart) as the previous year's Full Moon. Which means that every 19th year a set of themes, represented by the Full Moon, is either concluded or sent spinning in a new direction. Take a lot at what was happening for you in late 1984: to what extent have you brought those themes to completion? to what extent is it time to start something new?

While the Lunar eclipse temporarily frees us from the past, the companion Solar Eclipse (November 23) temporarily frees us from our striving, from our future. It allows us to return to the depths of the past to complete the incomplete emotional patterns (Moon) which have guided development to the present. To have a Lunar Eclipse before a Solar eclipse thus 'turns things backward' by placing the future in front of the past. First, look to the future, to what you can create. Then, look back to see what must be completed to allow that future to manifest. This is the pattern of the two eclipses, taken together.

Eclipses also set up harmonics which bring themes back at intervals of two weeks, 1 month, three months, six months, 1 year, and beyond. These are times of integration and progression of the themes which have been triggered.

So what about the Star of David? A lunar eclipse takes place at a Full Moon. As this particular Lunar Eclipse occured the Sun lay at (or very close to) a 60° relationship to Jupiter (Expanding Possiblitiles) on one side, Chiron (Healing Wounds) on the other; while the Moon lay in a similar embrace between Mars (Aggression) and Saturn (Restraint). Together dividing the sky into six equal parts - a 'Star of David'. This balancing of themes (past-future; restraint-aggression; healing-expansion) thus presents a picture of a world (the world as a whole; but also our individual worlds) balanced on the edge of fundamental change. This six-pointed star can also be drawn as two interpenetrating triangles (Moon-Chiron-Jupiter and Sun-Mars-Saturn). Thus the picture of Yang and Yin interpenetrating to make Tao. That the six-pointed star is also the symbol of the religion parent to two other major world religions, all of which are struggling to choose between peace and war in a way which will necessarily involve the world as a whole, is still another picture of what is being represented here.

And now on to Covens.

Let me illustrate with a story from our recent Friday Group, the day before the Lunar Eclipse. As I waited for people to arrive, I chose at random (from one of six divination decks) a single card to represent the energy of the group as a whole. The card which turned over in my hand was the Tarot representation of Death/Rebirth. As each person entered, I asked them to choose a card to guide their own experience for the evening. We began with 12 people present, but I somehow intuitively felt it should be 13, a coven. Then the 13th person arrived. I asked her to take her card. She chose a different deck to draw from, but picked the same card: Death/Rebirth. The theme was clear. We had met at a time of power.

But why a coven? A lunar eclipse is a Full Moon event, and though dividing a year into 12 months to represent the 12 moons seems rational enough, approximately every third year there is a 13th 'Moon'. In some 'pre-historic' or 'time-out-of-time', before our present split (of dark-light, male-female, spirit-matter), there was also no split between political and spiritual leadership. A 'Tribal Council of 13' was composed of 13 elders, each of whom took responsibility during one 'Moon' for focusing the integration of the life of the tribe with that of other tribes: human, animal, and devic or spiritual. When the split occured, these representatives of the 'olde way' were persecuted (as in the witch burnings) and 13 indeed became an 'unlucky number'. I chose to interpret the Friday Group spontaneously coming together as a 'Council of 13' or 'Coven' against the backdrop of the Star of David and the Eclipse, and thus pointing the direction of reconciliation. The past (the 'war' between spiritual perspectives) at least temporarily did not exist. And by our cooperation with each other we could begin to create a future where it would not exist.

Here is another representation of the way Star of David and Council of 13 are reconciled. When a pattern of planets (or stars) exists in the sky, then a similar energetic pattern exists within the earth. Take the Six Pointed Star as an example. Imagine it as a revolving wheel of energies in the sky. Then imagine its mirror image with six focal points rotating in the opposite direction inside the earth. These two counter-rotating vortices (one pointing down, the other up) are like two cones which meet at a central focus point. And that conscious central point is each one of us. We are each the '13th Star' (or 13th Moon) of the 'council' which integrates wisdom or story of sky with wisdom or story of earth. The more consciously we attend these meetings, the more fruitful our lives become.

To add a personal note, when during my own meditation I asked to go back 19 years, I remembered that was the period I began receiving my 'medicine dreams' or 'shaman dreams' which since then have guided my activity. The very first of those dreams involved standing on an empty plane and looking up into the sky, seeing a star which sent out a beam of light and pulled me in. As I then stood in the center of the star, it sent out six points of light (asking me to choose one, to make my commitment to a path). My very own Star of David.