“…..we have been blessed with an unexpected gift as a result of our constrained confinement. 

It is a time for the emergence of a new spiritual quality, which is a more interior time. This inner time, which is specific to our species, invites sharing and otherness among all. Imagination and poetry find their place in the luxury of this “regained time.”

“The seat of the soul is where the inner world and the outer world meet,” writes Novalis. In this crisis of the outer world questioning so many parameters, including some of the most profound ones affecting our human condition and the awareness we have of ourselves, shall we regain a soul?”

Jean-Michel Geneste – March 2020,

who wrote the above in response to Chauvet Cave, the 35 thousand year old paintings which the ancestors left there and the inspiration these bring to our times.

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I came across this quote shortly after finishing the penultimate draft of this post. It echoes themes which found their way into the writing, even though I had not set off to write about them – this was in fact supposed to be a brief report on the current lunations; it turned into something else, out of necessity as, working with the full Scorpio Moon, I was pulled ever more deeply into the inner realms of our current situation, much of which points directly towards what Jean-Michel Geneste speaks of so eloquently. As a result, the article before you has now been separated into three parts, each of a more digestible size, of which this is the first. It attempts to translate something of this shift, this re-emergence, sourced in the celestial and imaginative realms, in terms of the present context. In spirit with its core theme, it begins with a deceptively immaterial yet imminently potent recent astrological event…..

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A shift in signs of the Moon’s nodal axis on May 5th now sees the north node transiting Gemini, the south node now in Sagittarius. This subtle change in the zodiacal region in which the Moon’s orbit crosses the Sun’s apparent path in the sky may not be headline news, certainly in these times, but it is far from insignificant.

Eclipses in June, July and December 2020 which represent turning points, points of resolve and the actions that follow, will not only be qualitatively different under this nodal pull, but what works for us in the coming months will rest on our being truly cognisant of what ‘needs’ to happen and commit to acting on this intel, a direct reflection of the nodal axis’ new focus.

This represents a development in thinking rather than emotion based decision making.  We have had a year and a half of exploring the relationship between expressions of worldly power and the emotional body’s integrity. Now, analysis and perception become especially important. But, so does our relationship with the immaterial worlds.

When working with the nodes we bring immaterial senses into play, senses that inform the soul, facilitate communication between the seen and unseen aspects of life. The relationship between power and emotion seen through the lens of cardinal earth and water highlights the strengths and weaknesses of these senses within these realms.

Now, we are drawn into the mutable elements of fire and air to explore more deeply the ways in which our soul translates experience and communicates between the dense and subtle realms via the lens of Gemini and Sagittarius.

Understanding and our relationship to information and knowledge via the agency of awareness,  intelligent sentience and resonance have a greater bearing on how we experience the world with this axial shift.

This in turn informs our overview, and our philosophical outlook shifts in accordance. We can live life differently according to these communications and understandings, this awareness.

This shift is characteristic of the emergent realm of enhanced coherence, and in this realm the world is illuminated as a conscious living entity. This is the world we come back to when we find our own inner light illuminating and integrated with consciousness. It is all one light, in fact.

It can be deeply divine to experience, but, it can also be humble and practical.

When eclipses in the signs of Gemini and Sagittarius occur, they bring opportunities for clarifying our minds and changing the way we think about things, for putting clear thinking into action and for bringing meaningful actions to bear where they are most needed.

We can utilise eclipses as opportunities to discard the redundant and propagate our potential; in the midst of current circumstances this offers some hope, but, ‘the buck stops here’ and self-responsibility is also being very strongly highlighted in these times, as will become apparent.

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The first of those coming eclipses will be a penumbral lunar eclipse in Sagittarius on June 5th which opens the doorway to the next 2 years of eclipse cycles on the Gemini/Sagittarius axis.

This initial eclipse is by nature quite peripheral but it carries the sting of being a full Moon exactly square Mars in Pisces. And Mars in Pisces talks to one of the underlying themes of these times, namely the spiritual damage caused by intellectual and philosophical warfare and its tangible consequences. The emphasis here is on regulating the energies of mental and spiritual health, which falls in line with the nodal shift very clearly. Being mindful of burnout and emotional exhaustion is highlighted. Not getting caught up in the undertow of emotional tidal waves, or being infected by a pandemic of repurposed facts, information and beliefs.

This is a conflict that very much undermines peoples ability to know ‘truth’, and the erosion of cohesion with and connection to ‘source‘, factors which affect us both collectively and individually.

The second and third, a total solar eclipse on June 21st and the following penumbral eclipse on July 5th, by sign are both  still activating the Capricorn Cancer axis, and they will be the last to do so for a decade, so working with them centres on cleaning up essential business and detritus from the last ten years, and especially the last six months. That in itself is a major undertaking.

False philosophies must be identified. The mechanisms of generating consensus and manipulating thought and understanding made more deeply aware to us. This is a massively important process for our future.

Importantly for now though, working with these midyear eclipses will enable the Gemini/Sagittarius blueprint to be more clearly utilised and built upon, especially when we get to the end of the year when we’ll see another penumbral lunar eclipse, this time  in Gemini, and a following total solar eclipse in Sagittarius.

The immediate planetary matrix, however, sheds more light on this revision and ‘clean up’ operation and points the way to what’s coming later in the year.

In the second half of the current lunation three planets turn retrograde and, pulling the gravity of the full Moon further into the personal sphere, initiate this process by turning it inward and intensifying it.

If consciously worked with Saturn stationing retrograde on the 11th May, Venus stationing retrograde on the 13th, and Jupiter stationing retrograde on the May 15th, will not only encourage the internal changes necessary to take full advantage of the Gemini/Sagittarius axis via the nodes and eclipses towards the end of the year, but will lay the ground for the new Saturn Jupiter cycle which is initiated on the December solstice in the first degree of Aquarius, a truly momentous watershed.

Venus retrograde in Gemini stimulates the mental sphere and potentiates the nodal theme further, especially as Venus transits Uranus north node around the 13th degree of Gemini in the process. I would suggest contemplating your own values through the retrograde period in terms of how they inform the way you perceive the world, the higher values you apply to it. This is not simply about your opinions, beliefs and actions; these are reflexive in themselves – this is more about becoming aware of the processes which produce those reflexes, what informs them. It is also about evolving this inner faculty for perception and awareness in the process.

Venus can apply to many material values in this context, but, look to the more subtle inner forms that her energy highlights. These are the forms of intelligence that take on natural form, the mind of Nature. Get into natural places and listen, let Her speak to you.

Become aware of your relationship to beauty in the world, what it means, where you find its highest vibration, how that feels. Become aware of what threatens these manifestations of the ‘beautiful’. Is what you perceive to be beautiful carrying meaning that is inviolable? Notice what is at work within yourself as you experience these enquiries, an aesthetic appreciation of the world. How does the receptive nature of perception inform your inner world?

This latter aspect is important in balancing out the aggressive and assertive forms of perception and understanding which are so virulently at work in the world at this time. There is restorative value in this – it encourages emergence of the voice of the soul.

We’ll come to Saturn and Jupiter, especially Saturn, in part 2, but, as the year progresses all the remaining planets also enter retrograde periods, and this will aid us in bringing our inner world fully into conscious activation.

Link to part 2

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Saturn stations retrograde 11th May, 1°57′ Aquarius
Mercury enters Gemini 12th May
Mars enters Pisces May 13th
Venus stations retrograde 13th May, 21°50′ Gemini
Jupiter stations retrograde 15th May,  27°14′ Capricorn

Penumbral lunar eclipse June 5th, 15°34′ Sagittarius
Total solar eclipse June 21st, 0°21′ Cancer
Penumbral lunar eclipse July 5th, 13°38′ Capricorn
Penumbral lunar eclipse November 30th, 8°38′ Gemini
Total solar eclipse December, 23°08′ Sagittarius