Poets, Mavericks & Prophets

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ART & ALCHEMY

The Darkening

Notes On Alchemical Psychology is a series of texts dedicated to personal creative therapeutic work, merging the old ways & the new. Here I reflect on the astronomical phenomena fascinating mankind for millennia — the eclipses of the Sun and the Moon, the astro-psychological significance of the absence of light (on a personal and mundane level) & how to approach the deities of the Lunar Nodes, Rahu and Ketu, in right relation.

Eclipse season is upon us again. What does the sudden absence of a celestial luminary in the skies symbolise in our every-day existence? This shift in the presence of light, a descent into the shadow-bound landscape, leaving us navigating a world briefly gone dim. Maybe a time to glimpse a long-held secret, remember a forgotten promise? Follow a lost trail, utter words never spoken, uncover memories stored away to be forgotten? Decode hidden actions, face hereto obscured consequences? Or start something anew, without the burdens of the past?

Astrological schools differ in how they go about approaching the jagged edges of the periods of eclipses, as well as the time in-between (as they appear in pairs). Lunar nodes, North and South, are the two points where the Moon’s orbit intersects the Earth’s orbit. A lunar eclipse occurs when the full Moon is near one of the nodes, while the solar eclipse occurs when the new Moon is near the other. It takes roughly 19 years for the nodes to turn a full cycle, clockwise, and half of that to repeat the eclipses in the opposed zodiacal signs, albeit from different ends (e.g. the approaching August 2026 solar eclipse in Leo involves the South Node, while the lunar at the end the end of the month involves the North Node in Aquarius, and a full late-Pisces Moon). In August 2017, the total solar eclipse that was dubbed the “Great American Eclipse” involved the the North Node. The astrological imagery now is flipped.

Some voices in the astrological community are enthusiastic about the potency of these black vortexes for personal growth and important beginnings and endings, as the Dragon’s Head and the Dragon’s Tail symbolically align with power. Riding of the dragon, if you will. However, most mundane astrologers are definitely much less bubbly about these omens, as their lore across the globe has always been far from optimistic, announcing to the priestly classes the fall of empires, the death of kings, great cataclysms to befall the land which lay below their darkened path. As the nodal axis is a power grid of sorts, involving the Sun, the Moon, and a hidden mathematical point, its tilt effects mostly those that have worldly power, in the sense of obscuring or disclosing, rising and falling, and immortality vs. mortality.

Still, the effect of eclipses in personal lives and natal charts of us mere humans keeps up with their reputation. Astro lore points to more subtle shifts rather than the overtly dramatic mundane ones, but not necessarily less transformational. It depends on the way these points align with the individual placements in our charts. They could be a harbingers of a significant event, or series of events, ones that mirror the zodiacal houses (and signs) where the eclipses fall. If the bond between a draconic head or tail and a natal personal planet or angle is strong, shifts become inevitable. Yet, they often take time to unfold, they are not immediate. The workings of eclipses spread for months, and their consequences project onto years, decades, and perhaps lifetimes (they are equally connected to the concept of Karma).

In looking back on my own chart, and the times of significant hits, especially with the luminaries, as well as the rising and culminating degree, it took me by surprise just how much of a delayed punch this transit has — so unlike any other. While the eclipses are in full sway, I would feel them as surges of energy of an unfamiliar kind, almost an alien sort of vibration. If one is sensitive to celestial phenomena, these are times of a general weirdness in the air, disturbances in the psychosphere (shades of True Detective, Season 1, an eclipse-tinted piece of TV, par excellence). Maybe the sudden absence of light in nature does this to people and animals (and all other living organisms that follow the cycles). When these windows pass, I always experience relief. Then go about my business, and only a good while after would I see just how much that obscured point in time twisted my life path, and how long it took for the story of that particular configuration to play out (up to a year).

Some ride dragons better than others, perhaps due to experience, or because Karma compels them, especially if they have the Nodes prominent in their chart. But, with Rahu (North Node) and Ketu (South Node), major players in Vedic astrology, known as shadow planets (as they physically do not exist), problems arise due to their allegorical extremeness. Their gravitational and electromagnetic pull is not that easy to gauge. Rahu is an insatiable mouth, and Ketu an ascetic tail. Yet, the middle part of the dragon is missing. It has been slashed in two by Lord Vishnu, using a spinning disc, his divine weapon of choice. In a nutshell, it was the Sun and the Moon that had alerted Vishnu that the dragon (demon/asura Svarbhānu) had disguised himself as a god in order to drink of the elixir of immortality, the result of the churning of the cosmic ocean. He managed a taste, before he was beheaded by an appalled Vishnu. A perpetually hungry head, and a body detached from desire, both now immortal, and disconnected. Rahu would continue to cyclically attack the Sun and Moon, every so often, as an act of retribution (one assumes) — the North Node denoting insatiable material needs, and the South Node spiritual detachment from the world of the Maya (illusion).

Svarbhānu is, metaphorically, in its two aspects, the nemesis of the Lights. From two very different points of view. And as such, incredibly archetypally potent.

So what to expect?

In terms of world events, look to the zodiacal signs, Ketu in the final degrees of Leo and Rahu’s last lap in Pisces, at the beginning of the sign (as noted, the nodal axis, contrary to the rest of the zodiacal wheel, spins clockwise). Sun is the symbol of the king, the ruler, celebrity, nobility, individuality, and Ketu takes something away, it spiritualises it. The sign of Leo is the Sun’s dominion. It its home. And there is a stranger in the house (a wry spycraft code for enemy). Pisces is the sign of the collective unconscious, the Ocean, and Rahu in its realms, being the lord of excess, promises a metaphorical tidal wave, with the Moon, the symbol of the people of the land in mundane astrology, feeling its effects. Rahu is devouring, and in Vedic astrology, a malefic (Ketu is malefic-to-neutral). If Rahu hits a crucial point in a nation’s chart, the results should be paradigm-changing.

As for our own private lives, look to your own chart, see what the nodes are doing there, how they are interacting with natal planets. Trace the path of the nodal axis, right to the end of the sign of Leo, figure out what house this marks for you, and if it touches an important point. Equally, for the beginning of Pisces. Keeping in mind the different orientations of the two nodes, the North towards the world, grasping, the South going inwards, releasing. Also, think of beginnings with Leo (first in the series), and endings with Pisces (last in the series). Understand what lack of luminosity means when applied to these factors, the sudden disappearance of a source of light (Sun) or a reflection of light (Moon), and what it teaches us about that area of life in our charts. What is born in this darkness? What dies? Where do we turn for sustenance while in this obscured condition? What do we find while searching in the shadows? On good thing about the lack of light is that there is no one focus, but also no major distractions. That can be terrifying to the busy mind.

My own experience thought me to find solace in these moments of cosmic upheaval, and, if I can, anticipate their demands. Offer them something that I know is already on the table, before they take what they wish from my cupboard, so to speak. If you can somehow ritualise the window from one to the other, within the framework of your own beliefs, even better. The eclipses are enigmatic, eerie, potentially dangerous, symbolic and mythical, as are dragons from lore, but in a psychological sense they bring about things that are palpable to us, relating to our lives in small matters and large, and assist us in their mystery in finding the right roads that restore agency for us, while holding the awareness that power always costs a mortal, in some way.

So, buckle up. The darkening is no small thing.

AUTHOR: ©Milana Vujkov

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Disclaimer – These notes follow a personal journey, and are offered as philosophical & creative inspiration. Although I am a psychologist by education (and have studied astrology for over thirty-five years), the material within them is not therapy or substitute for therapy. However, they are dedicated as temenos for accessing the therapeutic numinous, in hope of being of good service to your soul in exploring the potentials of each moment in time.

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AUTHOR  ©MILANA VUJKOV

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