New Moon @ 21 Taurus 18
May 11, 2021 @ 3:00pm EDT; 12:00pm PDT; 8:00pm BST;
May 12, @ 5:00am AEST
Some people call a New Moon ‘Black Moon’. Indeed, a new Moon is in its black phase, disappeared into the light of the Sun, invisible and black. Making this Moon even blacker, Black Moon Lilith is smack dab in the zone, deeply embedded its in Taurus earthiness with subtle, subsurface mycelium intelligence. Have you seen the documentary, ‘Fantastic Fungi’, about this amazing, fascinating, magical world? Highly recommended.
This Taurus New Moon culminates in a Total Lunar Eclipse on May 26 (at 5 Sagittarius) and wanes into a Ring of Fire Solar Eclipse on June 11 (19 Gemini). We need to be ready to jump through that fire hoop! This Moon cycle is an experience we won’t forget. One way or another, Black Moon Lilith may saturate our material existence with awe. Refer to your gut intelligence. Mercury and Venus in Gemini play frisbee with a kaleidoscope of options, ideas and information. Keep breathing to slow down the spinning merry-go-round.
Jupiter and Saturn Shift Gears
Two days after this New Moon, Jupiter enters Pisces on May 13, an incoming wave that flows with enhanced feeling and sensitivity. Blessings abound through July, giving us a taste of what will later unfold more fully. In late July Jupiter backs in to Aquarius, like a dolphin coming up for air— and perspective. We’ll need that. A second, stronger Jupiter in Pisces wave rolls in for New Year 2022.
Close to the Full Moon, Saturn turns retrograde @ 13 Aquarius on May 23, indicating a pause in the ground game. We have gotten as far as we are going to get in obvious progress. New information (Venus/Mercury in Gemini) and a new feeling tone (Jupiter into Pisces) will effect a major shift in our perception, our experience on all levels—spiritual, mental/emotional, physical. Saturn retrograde into mid-October gives us time to consolidate our gains, integrate and calibrate new input and the initial repercussions of strong May-June eclipses.
Plutonian Earth Connection
Just as I began writing this newsletter, the mail delivered a recommended book I had ordered: UnderLand: A Deep Time Journey (2019), by nature writer Robert MacFarlane. He talks of the mycelium realm a bit, and so much more: hidden sub-surfaces of place and mind, deep mysterious layers of geological and human history, what we have forgotten and what we don’t want to know.
For some time, I have been mentioning the outbreaks of unhealed history arising all over the world that remind us of where we have been and dark shadows that continue to haunt us. I attribute this to Pluto in Capricorn, the underworld emerging up to the surface to be brought to awareness and processed, so that we can renew and recreate. “The void migrates to the surface,” as MacFarlane quotes from Advances in Geophysics, 2016. Another phrase that caught my attention: “historical memory behaves like flowing water, disappearing without warning, only to resurge under new names in new places, with fresh force. Here in this topography of cavities and clandestine places, dark pasts get hidden, then brought to the light again.”
This New Moon is beautifully in alignment with Pluto in Capricorn, digging down like deep-rooted tree of Taurus, with (sometimes stubborn) patience and persistence over time, stabilizing the ground, interconnecting in a productive way and connecting Heaven with Earth.
Mythic Lilith lives in her tree, doing the same, sometimes, and certainly now. The Black Moon is present, shoulder-to-shoulder with this New Moon, with an unusual, focused, laserlight intensity, at 22+ Taurus.*
“It is as though the moon
threw down a black body upon earth
visible only to the subliminal senses,
which thereby became illuminated.”
—Peter Redgrove, The Black Goddess and the Unseen Real
And at 26+ Taurus we find the star Algol, which has been called Lilith. This star has a potent power of its own, marking the Eye of Medusa in the constellation Perseus. That paralyzing Eye, writes Jungian psychologist Sylvia Perera in Descent to the Goddess, looks right through you with
“with an objectivity like that of nature itself and our dreams, boring into the soul to find the naked truth, to see reality beneath all its myriad forms and the illusions and defenses it displays.”
We are not going to miss any of the major implications indicated for this New Moon cycle! With the current instability of geotectonic plates, high octane photon waves activating Earth’s electromagnetic field and the rumblings/tumblings of earthquakes/volcanos, much is migrating to the surface— into our earthly reality and into our mental/emotional landscape. Lilith/New Moon Taurus demonstrates this in a profoundly literal, experiential way that no doubting Thomas could argue with. Lilith doesn’t argue: “It is as It is,” and that’s that.
*[For those interested in the Black Moon, note that both positions,
mean and true, are at 22 degrees, just 10 minutes apart.
Also of note, Asteroid Lilith is conjunct Neptune and
Dark Moon Lilith closely squares the Nodes.
I am address this only indirectly in this newsletter.
For more about the different Liliths,
please request my introductory Lilith booket
or read Living Lilith: Four Dimensions of the Cosmic Feminine.
Lilith workshop series coming soon.]
Eclipses Coming, Mercury and Venus Prepare Us
Mercury in Gemini conjuncts the North Node, our collective leading edge of destiny. We’ve been going pretty deep into Earth; Gemini wants to light things up, especially with Venus tossing delight here and there like dandelion fluff and rose petals, golden coins and warm teasing smiles. The Goddess of Love is fine-tuning our mental apparatus, infusing it with honey-flavored emotional intelligence.
Can you keep your mind open, in a non-judgmental spaciousness to entertain different perspectives?
Mercury has its trickster side, especially in its own sign. It can elicit paradoxes as weighty as that of Hamlet—”To Be or Not to Be”— or light as a bird in flight. Mercury is asking a lot of questions, and this is a key one to get us through, not only this Moon cycle, but these shifting sands times.
Mercury and Venus on the North Node, one of the eclipse points, are preparing us and peppering us with things to think about. Along the lines of Buddhist inquiry, life poses questions and various viewpoints are proposed, entertained and considered. No snap judgments, except in an emergency.
Life is so fluid and nuanced these days that we can’t really take for granted that we perceive any situation clearly. Beliefs systems are being challenged along with all other conventional, societal and subliminal systems. Like a horse with blinders on to keep them moving straight along, we may automatically assume things are as they always have been or that we can retrace our steps. No way, ho say, the bridge has burned behind us. We are have entered a New Era. It behooves us to keep our minds open to new stimulation, new ideas and fresh options that might arise in The Moment of Now.
This is the opportunity of Mercury conjunct North Node in Gemini, though we may need to contend with wayward ambivalence that keeps us paralyzed (especially under the Eye of Medusa!), and misdirection from surrounding influences. We need clear sight and fresh insight to move us forward on this winding path, destination unseen. Keep breathing, listen to your heart beat and keep your vision targeted on what it is you want to move toward. Keep your Eye on the goal. Apply the quantum creative energy available now, more incoming. Can we enjoy the journey as if we have never been this way before? This is where we are, in an unprecedented moment.
From my book, Living Lilith: Four Dimensions of the Cosmic Feminine:
“This is the existential dilemma Perseus encountered in front of the primordial Eye of Medusa. ln his book, A Sense of the Cosmos: The Encounter of Modern Science and Ancient Truth, philosopher Jacob Needleman expresses the profound nature of this critical, sacred moment of reflection and self-questioning, ‘for there is nothing to guarantee that we will be able to remain long enough or deeply enough in front of the unknown.’ In such a moment of stillness, we are petrified in a state of internal transformation, of potential awakening. Needleman identifies the core question as an emotional one, facing us with the unknown and stripping away our illusions. The question to be answered is,
‘Do I fear the darkness more than I love the awakening?’"This is a question humanity as a whole faces in the throes of a paradigm shift such as we are experiencing now. We each have our personal moments of confronting fears of the unknown, the void, the fathomless gaze of Medusa."
Uranus the Awakener in Taurus
thunders our internal skies, inside Earth,
reverberating with radical patience, peace and pursuance.
Steady as she blows! sailors shout
when they see whales surface, rocking the boat.
Hug a tree, smell a rose, simmer some pine needle tea,
dig into your garden both food and flower,
appreciate the exquisite beauty of Nature,
the mirror of what is true and eternal.
Sailors
We stand on a large flat rock, Pounded concave, An ancient stone holding our feet firm While pools whirl around us. Where a willow bends to the earth, Healing us with its yielding grace, A waterfall rushes over its edge, Seeking the sea. We are cleansed in the falling force of it. Its electrical song sears our invisible bodies. A sword of water knights our souls. We are contained, Rooted and dancing on a live molten egg, Shell shimmering in stellar rays That curve through space And shower us with ash, Cosmic dust, The blessing that wounds, A vital death that sifts the sleeping core Of a seed suspended At the cliff of night. A shaft thrusts into the ground. A spring sprouts forth And rounds itself in motion seaward. The yearly circle sounds A series of knells As planets frequent the moon, Mirror to the earth’s star. These twin lights gather the sky, Penetrating the rhythm of our breath. Bonded they sail the tides, Moving us to and from the shore.
—1984
