Re-Storying the World: The Sun and Spring Equinox

 

Re-Storying the World: Spring Equinox

The Sun’s Powerful Presence

“Here comes the sun do, do, do

Here comes the sun

And I say it's all right

Here comes the sun

And I say it's all right

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter

Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here.”

Spring Equinox is right around the corner. The sunlight grows everyday and after the March 20^th Equinox (at least here in the north) the days will continue to grow lighter and longer. While our friends in the southern hemisphere will be dropping into Autumn and Winter, we will expand into Spring and Summer.

Spring Equinox begins here in the northern hemisphere when the Sun rises above the Equator on its journey back North. In some ways, it is the birthday of the Sun. Spring Equinox is when the length of our days and nights become equal once again.

The Spring Equinox begins the astrological New Year and we say that the Sun is exalted (its most powerful) in Aries. Because it brings back Nature’s life force. 

 

 

I have a new appreciation of the Sun rising over the horizon/Equator. My older brother recently died from Covid related issues. He was born just at sunrise and if you look at his birth chart, you see the Sun just rising above his ascendant. And this image fits exactly who he was. He’d walk into a room and shine. He was warm, kind, funny and charismatic. He could charm you with a story and leave you laughing from a joke.

This is what the Sun feels like when it’s newly risen, both at sunrise and at Spring Equinox. Everything has the potential for new life. It’s light spreads joy!

Re-Storying the Sun at Spring Equinox

“The Sun is a mass of incandescent gas

A thermo-nuclear explosion.”

 

 

I can still sing that little ditty from 45 years ago when my daughter came home from kindergarten with that scientific fact! And yet it is so much more.

The Sun gives us light and warmth – the source of Life itself. Without it, Mother Earth wouldn’t have been able to create this beautiful garden planet.

You can read about the Sun, it’s history and composition at Space.com

The Sun is Earth’s star. Even at a distance of 150 million kilometers (93 million miles), its gravitational pull holds all the planets in our solar system in orbit. It radiates light and heat, or solar energy, making life possible on Earth.

Plants need sunlight to grow. Animals, including humans, need plants for food and the oxygen they produce. Without heat from the sun, Earth would freeze. There would be no winds, ocean currents, or clouds to transport water.

The Spring Sun coaxes life out of the ‘dead’ winter ground. As its light warms Mother Earth, trees and plants awaken and grow. It is the most dramatic instance of the power of the Sun to change our lives.

Every Spring we can see how the Sun is the source of Life developing here on Earth.

The Spring Equinox 2021 Chart

Spring Equinox occurs on March 20, 2021 at 1:40 am Alaska time/ 2:40 am PDT/ 7:40 EDT/ 11:40 am GMT.

 

Spring Equinox Chart 2021

This is a time of Balance, when the Light and the Dark hold equal sway.  It's a great time to re-balance yourself as well. 

This year, as the Sun enters Aries, the Moon is in Gemini, the sign of the Twins. This year, with the Moon in the sign of the Mind, it will get help from Mars in Gemini.  Mars will energize our search for information and new ways to communicate. This in turn will energize the new Aries fire with ideas and possibilities that the Aquarian planets are sending its way. It is an especially open Moon since it’s close to the North Node in Gemini. So our assignment for the New Year is to continue to search for knowledge that will help us prosper and grow, individually and collectively.

Symbolic Meaning of the Sun

 

In the Tarot, the Sun card is a big YES to life. Under this Sun card, everything becomes joyful and simple, a feeling state we lived in as children. We become children of the Sun, full of joy and Light. It’s as if we see Life again as pure and whole, blissful and full of wonder and delight.

 

 

The Sun, as it travels across the sky everyday, sees everything, and so it symbolizes knowledge and consciousness. The Sun sparks enlightenment, which is an experience that happens to us, that we awaken to. We suddenly know that life is full of Spirit and grace and that we are meant to feel fulfillment.

Psychologically, the Sun symbolizes the masculine left brain consciousness of rational thought. It symbolizes our modern ego consciousness, which is so dependent on the rational side of life. The left hemisphere is predominantly involved with analytical, logical thinking, whose method of operation is primarily linear and sequential. We associate clarity, light, day, time, action, will, focus and the masculine with solar consciousness.

It’s interesting that the god Apollo became the Sun god after Helios and his father Hyperion, the Titan Sun god. The two older gods symbolized the power of the Sun to bring light and warmth and life to the world.

 

Helios

Apollo was different from these earlier Sun gods because he was also the god of music, of healing/disease and of prophecy. As the god of Light, he brought light to many dark or unconscious aspects of life. When he killed the Python at the oracle of Delphi, he took over the guardianship of the role of prophecy in Greek life.

You can see that the ancient Greeks, just like our modern society, wanted to do away with the dark mysteries of the Feminine, of the Unconscious, of intuitive prophetic wisdom. They wanted to control the Feminine energies rather than listen to them and work with them for greater clarity.

Sometimes the Sun brings death and plague, especially at the height of summer, when its heat overwhelms us. It happens too when we use our rational thinking to negate what our heart is telling us. It take the sword of reason and cuts out our heart.

 But if we balance the light of consciousness with the mysteries of the unconscious, we discover the Wisdom of life.

Spring Equinox: The Return of Persephone

 

 Persephone Awakening

On of the myths associated with the Spring Equinox is the return of Persephone from the Underworld.

In ancient Greece, Demeter was a Mother Goddess, specifically the goddess of the harvest, grains and the fertility of the earth. She had a daughter whose name was Kore – which meant The Maiden. One day as Kore was out in the fields, gathering flowers with her friends, the god Hades, Lord of the Underworld, came up through the Earth and ravished her away. You see, he had her father Zeus’ permission to take her without her Mother’s knowledge.

Demeter was devastated by her loss. Nobody except for the goddess Hecate saw Kore taken, and when Demeter found out that Zeus had allowed Hades to abduct her daughter, she was furious. In her mourning, everything stopped growing. No births occurred. The land became a wasteland. And so the gods agreed that Kore must be returned to her mother.

But while she was in the Underworld, Kore ate the seeds of a pomegranate and discovered her name – Persephone. And since she had eaten those seeds, she had to return there part of the year.

So in the Spring, Persephone returned to her mother and all of Nature blossomed again. The Spring Maiden had returned. But in the Autumn, Persephone returned to her husband and once again became Queen of the Underworld, helping her husband welcome and gather in the dead.

 

This myth of the Mother and Daughter who bring Life to Nature describes not only the seasonal changes but also became the central focus of the Eleusinian Mysteries, a 2000 year old secret mystery cult which promised its initiates a passage to a blessed afterlife.

 It's also a psychological story about the development of the feminine. Mothers and daughters share a history, a biology and connection that is really a blossoming of a new form of being out of the old.  A new birth.  When Persephone comes back from the underworld, she is New. She has her own name. She cannot just be a replica of her mother.  She is the next incarnation of her mother -- old and new all at once.  As we all emerge out of the underworld of 2020, we are also called to be the next stage, the next incarnation of ourselves.  The same but different.  Changed by our underworld journey.

This mythic story of the soul’s eternal life is also important to us now, just as it was in ancient Greece. As we face so much death in our world with COVID and environmental deterioration, it helps us to understand that our souls are eternal, that this lifetime is not our only chance to live in the human state. That when we die, we will be reborn.

Just as the Sun is reborn every morning. Just as the Sun is birthed every Spring Equinox!

Once we truly know that death holds no fear for us, we become free to live our soul’s purpose. Which is to live a meaningful life here on Earth.

And so we can rejoice at Spring Equinox, knowing that Persephone is returning to bring life back to us after the darkness of Winter.

May we all rediscover and embrace the joy of Life this Spring.

Re-Storying the World: The Days of the Week

 

Re-Storying the World: The Days of the Week 

 

 Days of the Week and Hours of the Day

Have you ever thought about the days of the week? Why are there 7 days and not 10 in a week? How did they get their names? Does each day have a flavor, an energy, a unique frequency that shapes it? Have you ever paid attention to what Monday feels like, every week of every year?

Don’t think I’m strange for wondering. To re-story the world, we need to look at everything as if for the first time. Childlike curiosity and wonder is a must. Because what kid doesn’t love a story. An explanation of the weird world we ended up in.

So, I was thinking about those 7 days and I envisioned them in a straight line heading off into the sunset. Then I saw them in a circle, endlessly repeating themselves, over and over again. Finally I saw them as a combination of that line and circle. I saw them spiraling into the future, like an image I once saw of our solar system speeding and spiraling around as the galaxy turned.

The days of the week shape our lives. We live within them, don’t we?

We live within each day, unconsciously moving through our lives at the dictates of society. Doing what we’re ‘supposed’ to do. Monday we all head back to work, while on Friday we can’t wait to start the weekend off. Wednesday feels like the halfway point and it is, while Tuesday and Thursday sometimes get lost in the shuffle. Saturday and Sunday we get to pay attention to our own lives.

But with the pandemic keeping us at home, we have developed different habits. Our old habits no longer serve us, do they? Have you changed your habits this year? Or are you still stuck in the old weekly pattern? Consider this: what if we wrestled this energy away from our economic concerns, opening to and working with the energies available each day. At work or at play, we shape our own days. How would your days be different?

One way is to know the power of the name of the day, and the energy attributed to it. Do you remember that Tuesday is named as Mars’ Day? You can certainly tap into his active, assertive power if you imagine it. When you do, you actively work with the planetary power that shapes that day, in your work and most especially when you’re doing your own thing.

That’s what astrology does when we look at the transiting Moon sign as the Moon waxes and wanes or when planets aspect each other as they move through the sky. We pay attention to the energy of that astrological day.

Let’s say that astrologically, Saturn is aspecting Mars. We can say that Saturn restrains Mars’ actions, limiting them or perhaps shutting them down. Frustration ensues.

But what happens when you pay attention to the planetary energy that rules the name day? If Tuesday is Mars’ day, will his energy be available to us if we call on him and take action? Perhaps he’ll lend his strength to overcoming Saturn’s obstacles? Perhaps his energy can be used to re-organize or restructure things. Why not experiment and give it a try.

Do you remember this childhood rhyme? It suggests a meaning for each day of the week. And the meaning is closely related to the gods and goddesses who rule each day.

Monday's child is fair of face

Tuesday's child is full of grace

Wednesday's child is full of woe

Thursday's child has far to go,

Friday's child is loving and giving,

Saturday's child works hard for a living,

And the child that is born on the Sabbath day

Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

Re-Storying the world gives it meaning once again. If we can slow down and disengage from our technological prison, clean out our media-induces images and learn to find meaning again in the everyday, we can find a deep pleasure in living life to the fullest. There are many ways to begin to live more consciously connected to Mother Earth and our souls. And one of these ways is to ask the planetary energies that rule the days of the week for help.

All it takes is an openness to listening to your imagination.

So let’s look at the days of the week. There are 7 days in a week because of the Moon’s cycle – every 7 days the light changes by a quarter. The names of the week come from the 7 planetary gods that people knew about in ancient times. (The newer planets were discovered when telescopes were invented.) The names I provide as examples are French, just one of the romance languages, and then the Old English/Norse name.

 

La Luna

 

1. Monday (Lundi/Monandæg) starts our week off. Monday is Moon Day – the day of the Moon. Named after the Roman Moon goddess Luna – many of the words for Moon mean ‘light, brightness’ – it starts off our week with our emotional habits and expectations unconsciously steering us through the day. We all have issues with Monday. “Monday. Monday. Can’t trust that day.” ~ Mammas and the Pappas.

But if we attune ourselves to the Moon’s energy, which comes to us in dreams, visions, images, feelings, instincts and the rhythms in our bones, we make a connection to our Unconscious and give it a place at the table. Our unconscious moods often steer our days, trying to speak to us in the only language they know. If we would only listen.

The Moon is always re-balancing her relationship with the Sun by changing. The power to change will come easier to us if we learn it through our bodies. Monday is a great day to go slow, meditate, listen to your body and trust your instincts regarding what needs to get done.

Also, on each Monday the literal Moon is in a different phase of her cycle: New, Waxing Crescent, First Quarter, Waxing Gibbous, Full, Waning Gibbous, last Quarter, Waning Crescent. Each phase has a different feel to it. A different perspective. In the evening when you can see the Moon, you might weave this part into what you learned about yourself that day.

So on Mondays embrace your inner Lunar landscape. Meet it and dance with it. It will make the rest of the week flow. The Moon disperses the planets’ energies as they make aspects to each other over time. In many ways, the Moon births us each day out of our dreams. So keep a dream journal close by and start to speak with your Soul.

 

Tyr -- Norse God of Justice, Law and War

2. Tuesday is Mars’ Day (Mardi/Tysdagr). The English word is named for the Norse god 'Tyr', the god of war and law. Tyr wasn’t just a warrior god, he was willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good – he bound the giant wolf Fenris by sacrificing his arm to capture him. Protection and courage are his gifts. In ancient times, to be a warrior required dedication and skill, discipline and concentration. Imagine a master martial artist/warrior.

Tuesdays can be filled with activity and energy when you call on the Warrior god’s strength and determination. Instead of going to battle on Tuesdays, try focusing your energy, with Tai Chi or Qi Gong or breathing, and then get going. You can make Tuesday a day dedicated to accomplishing your goals for the week. The Roman Mars was originally a god who grappled with things. Use Tuesdays to call up your spiritual warrior: first ground and center (you don’t need wild Mars energy causing trouble), and then organize your week and get some real work done.

 

 Alchemical Hermes

3. Wednesday is Mercury’s Day (Mercredi/Wodensday) – or Woden/Odin’s day. While Odin was the Norse king of the gods, he was also the wandering god, who disguised himself to visit humans. He freely chose to hang on the World Tree for 9 days, and to sacrifice his eye to learn to read the runes of prophecy. He had two ravens called Memory and Thought.

Astrological Mercury rules our Mind and mythologically, he is the Messenger god, as well as the god of business, boundaries, commerce and travellers. This idea of being able to cross boundaries also went along with his role as a psychopomp, a guide of souls. And like the Greek Hermes, he is the god of alchemy – of transformation. For how we use our minds can change our lives for the better or keep it stuck in the worse hell.

Wednesdays are a good time to make sure your plans are moving forward. This is the day things can change for you. Make contact with those you need to do business with, with family and friends. Pay attention to the news. Spend some time praying for those who have passed on. And move around!

 

 Jupiter with Thunderbolt

 

4. Thursday is Jove or Jupiter’s Days (Jeudi/Thunor). Thunor or Thor was the Norse god of thunder and battle like Jupiter. Jupiter/Zeus, though, was king of the gods and a source of spiritual vitality and power as well. His thunder brings the fertilizing rain.

Astrological Jupiter brings luck and expansion of possibilities, as well as helping you connect with foreign places.

This is a good day to think of new possibilities for your business or your personal life. Get inspired by imaging you’re visiting a foreign country. Or doing something outside your comfort zone. Or try your luck and buy a lottery ticket.

This is a great day to express gratitude (although it’s good everyday). Jupiter as the source of luck and blessings deserves a little thank you for all the good things you really do have in life.

On Thursdays, step into your inner CEO and open to power if you need to – even if it entails throwing a thunderbolt into things. The work week is almost over and you have to finish up what you started. This is the day to get yourself and others moving towards that goal. 

 

 Aphrodite's Bath

5. Friday is Venus’ Day (Vendredi/ Frigedæg), named for the goddess of Love, Venus/Aphrodite, as well as the Norse goddesses Frigg or Freya, the wife of Odin.

Aphrodite’s birth in the primordial waters, fertilized by the heavens, gave us the cosmic gift of connection and attraction. This attraction connects us to the Other and new life comes of it. The power of attraction manifests as love and caring, sympathy and compassion. This heavenly love infuses our body and soul. And we know love.

All of us can honor Venus/Aphrodite/ Frigg/Freya on Fridays by taking some time for self-care and connecting with others. After COVID, everyone should Fridays off so we can reconnect with each other!

That’s why Friday is date night. Venus rules beauty, love, sexuality, artistry, fashion, compassion and wisdom – as well as money or things you value. On Friday, you get your paycheck. It’s also the time to plan your two days off so you can relax and enjoy life. It was always considered a great time for sacred love-making. So if you have a partner, make delicious love to each other.

We have one day a week that honors Love and Beauty, as well as honoring the female body. Let’s take this day back!

 

 

6. Saturday is Saturn’s Day (Samedi/ Sæternesdæg). Saturn was a god of agriculture and was associated with a ‘golden age’ as well as with the Titan Chronos, Time. Saturn is often depicted as ‘Father Time’ with his threshing scythe. In old Norse, it was called Laugardagr, meaning ‘wash day’ – whether it meant it was time to take a bath or do the wash is up for grabs.

Saturday is the day to get your errands done – do the wash, clean the house, buy the food, get things fixed. Saturn is the planet of discipline, form, structure and limits, and so gives us the focus and energy for a busy Saturn Day.

 

 

7. Sunday is the Sun’s Day (Dia Solis/Sunnandæg) The romance languages called it The Lord’s Day so in French it’s Dimanche. This is our day of rest (oh sweet rest – to really remember how that feels!) or at least it was when I was a child. Everything was closed on Sundays and it was the day to spend time with your family. That has gone by the wayside.

This is the day to let your inner Goddess or God shine out. Who are we when we rest, when we stay in the silence and live in the center? While westerns see the Sun as masculine, in many ancient societies, the Sun was feminine. Perhaps that’s why we still see it as a day of rest and relaxation, family and friends, fun and food.

This is the day to recenter into your Self – know yourself and what you desire. Because the wheel of the weeks keeps turning and tomorrow you head back into Monday!

That’s our trip around the week. Let your imagination play!

Re-Storying the World: Valentine's Day

 

Valentine’s Day

I don’t know about you, but I’ll admit up front that Valentine’s Day has never been a favorite of mine. In grade school, we had to pass out cards to everyone, so yes, I got my share. But even when I was married, I never got into the whole experience of cards, flowers, romantic dinners or lots of sex. We had kids, which often put a damper on things.

And of course, it felt like a made up holiday, whose sole purpose was to sell schmaltzy cards and expensive flowers. We didn’t have enough money to waste on a Hallmark moment.

But later I discovered that this lovers day started back in the past – in the Roman past.

 

 Juno Februata

The original Valentine’s day occurred during the festival of Lupercalia, on the ides of February, from February 13 -15. February was sacred to Juno Februata, the Goddess of erotic love, the ‘fever’ (febris) of love. You can see how Cupid came to be associated with this festival of passionate lovers.

Originally, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus.

The festival began with the priests of Luperci gathering in the sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus were cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. There they sacrificed a goat for fertility and a dog for purification. Once they cut the goat’s hide into strips, they dipped them in the sacrificial blood and went out on the streets to slap women and the fields with the goat hide to ensure fertility.

Since that wasn’t an issue for us, that might have been a good reason not to celebrate Valentine's Day.

But there was more. After this bloody blessing, they held a sex lottery. The single women put their name in a jar and they would be paired off with single men and have wild sex. Supposedly the men were drunk and naked, so I hope the women got to play too. After the partying stopped, if they liked each other, they ended up getting married.

Of course, once the Catholic Church took control of things, they tried to stop the orgy, but people didn’t want to give up the fun. So they decided to name the day after a martyred priest or two who were executed on February 14^th. Both were named Valentinius, which is Latin for ‘worthy, strong or powerful’.

According to one legend, the imprisoned Valentine actually sent the first “valentine” greeting himself after he fell in love with a young girl—possibly his jailor’s daughter—who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, allegedly he wrote her a letter signed “From your Valentine,” an expression we still use today. As murky as these legends are, the stories all emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic and romantic figure. By the Middle Ages, Valentine became one of the most popular saints in England and France.

While Valentine greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages, it seems that the English poet Chaucer started the fashion of greeting cards when he wrote a poem called ‘Parliament of Foules’ where he links a tradition of courtly love with the celebration of St. Valentine’s Day. Back then, they celebrated February 14 as the day that birds (foules) came together to find a mate. And so, it seems, humans followed suit.

These customs continued through the centuries until we find ourselves here in the present, still engaging in this ancient ceremony of love and desire.

Now for that little trouble-maker Cupid. Before he became the mischievous, chubby child we see on Valentine’s cards, he was the Great God Eros, the god of love and desire. Some say he was the son of Nyx (Night) and her mate, Erebus (Darkness) who were Greek creation deities. Later he was named the son of Aphrodite and Zeus. Either way, he was a mighty god of divine love. If you want an interesting take on him, read C.S. Lewis’ story of Psyche and Eros called Til We Have Faces.

 

Whether Valentine’s Day is your thing or not, I’m actually happy that we retain a bit of mythic history regarding love and desire. This year, try some self-love as well as that higher love that can encompass the whole world. With 5 or 6 planets in Aquarius, what we send out into the world can spread. So send out a love virus this year. We need it.