The 🔥 Sacred Darkness: The Gift of Paradox
The solar eclipse is quite possibly the most transformative and powerful astral portal that the celestial stewards offer us here on the glorious face of Gaia.
And, as with all extremely powerful and transformative portals…
…it’s quite dangerous and has the potential to be…uhhh….uncomfortable.
As many of you know, a little over a month ago my husband, Matthew Merlin, and I fled Pittsburgh to Bali, the Island of the Gods.
This flight from the States is in large part a spiritual pilgrimage to learn at the feet of a native people who have wisely and powerfully lived in harmony with their gods above and nature spirits below for thousands of years with little to no interruption.
This trip felt like a wise move as we prepared for the eclipse in Aries which is on Matthew’s Ascendent (1st house) and my Descendant (7th house).
As I discussed in my email two weeks ago, in traditional astrology eclipses are always malefic.
However, I’d like to add a little detail to that point to help you prepare for your own unique eclipse experience.
My understanding of the nature of the solar eclipse was profoundly deepened after receiving some life-affirming spiritual teachings from a dear friend here in Bali, whom I have the great honor to now call my brother.
You may have had some conflicting or paradoxical teachings on the nature of eclipses.
Do they magnify or do they take away?
Are they magical portals or are they injections of poison?
Should I go to a ceremony or should I stay indoors and hide?
The simple answer here is: Yes.
Eclipses happen on the Nodes, which increase or decrease by their nature…
…in a bad way.
The nodes are malefic, which means that they teach us by means of things that we don’t like.
The North Node signifies increasing “karma” or sticky energetic patterns in this particular embodiment/lifetime.
While the South Node represents diminishing “karma” or sticky energetic patterns in this particular embodiment/lifetime.
This solar eclipse will happen on the North Node.
The only way to get around this don’t-like aspect of the increasing nature of the North Node is spiritual practice.
Spiritual practice is the only way to get around the malefic/don’t-like nature of anything in our lives.
In the Western tradition, the nodes are referred to as the mouth and the tail of the dragon respectively.
In the Balinese Hindu tradition, eclipses are caused by a demon, or a nature-spirit of the earth below attempting to eat the sun or moon deity of the above.
Eclipses are naturally stark and frightening. Imagine in a world without electricity the disappearances of your primary source of light.
Astrologically and Hermetically, when eclipses occur something is sharply removed from our world below.
As above, so below.
Solar eclipses were so feared in Babylonian times that an elaborate ritual would take place wherein the king would be removed from the throne and hidden in the days before.
A temporary king would be placed on the throne and executed as a sacrifice as the eclipse occurred.
This is an ancient and extreme form of astrological remediation for the disappearance of the king of the sky.
I suggested in my email a couple of weeks ago, which you can read here, that you perform a similar, if less extreme form of remediation—
giving over to the eclipse that which you wish to sacrifice rather than what it could take according to your “karma”/sticky energetic patterns.
However, I’d like to encourage you to see that what the eclipse will naturally take away is often to the benefit of your soul’s path.
The magnification work of the North Node during the eclipse can be seen as a drawing agent, precisely like those we use in herbal medicine to pull toxins or poisons from a wound or infected tissues.
The darkness/demon of the eclipse then consumes it.
But in consuming the toxin, the demon takes it into the spirit world where it can become instead a source of nourishment.
On a spiritual pilgrimage to Mt. Batur, a sacred and active volcano here in Bali, my friend/teacher made a casual remark that helped to shift and integrate my perspective on these paradoxical cross-world teachings.
He was describing to us the spiritual map of the Balinese Hindu people:
the nature of the directions, the divine trinity, the three worlds, and the light and dark.
He then looked at me and said, “I think, you like me, prefer the dark. We are spiritual people.”
That is not a statement that a new-age spiritual practitioner would receive as a given…particularly the off-hand way that my friend stated it.
It got me thinking about how misunderstood the nature of darkness remains in Western culture.
It is in the darkness where the most intense prayers and ceremonies occur in the Balinese tradition
…which is also the case in many indigenous traditions that I’ve worked with in North and South America.
We must be bold enough to enter the darkness,
to become one with the void, and create with our will, our intention, and the wisdom of our spirits.
We must be bold enough to face what is most terrifying in this material world,
if we are to make contact with the angelic spirits that they are on the other side.
This is not work for the faint of heart.
There are many “scary” temples in Bali. Ritual sacrifices are still regularly made there—cows, pigs, chickens, alongside the abundant daily offerings to the gentle folk and the altars to the gods.
The walls of these temples have terrifying images of beings in hell realms and cows being brought to sacrifice through flames.
What sacrifice will you make to the terrors in your life?
Are you willing to walk into the flames through to the darkness this eclipse season?
What poison is being drawn?
Can you honor it?
Can you sing to it?
Can you march it into the heart of the sun’s fires?
We need all of us on board now as we collectively seek to shift the powers of creation back into the hands and hearts of the many…back into the hands of the “least of us”.
It’s time we draw out the cowardice that has kept us chained and march out of this eclipse towards sovereignty and respect for the only true governing body that humanity has ever known: the earth mother, Gaia herself.