There’s a mighty cultural and celestial convergence headed our way next week, and it goes like this:
It’s Lunar New Year in China and throughout Asia; it’s Ramadan in the Islamic world; and it’s the onset of Lent in the Christian world. All of this is aligned to the New Moon on Tuesday, February 17th that will cause an annular solar eclipse, followed by Saturn and Neptune making their once-every-36-years meeting at the Equinox point, which has its own monopoly on being a point of convergence. Dante described it as the place where the three crosses four the circles bind.
The Chinese New Year of the Horse begins at New Moon on Tuesday and culminates two weeks later with the Lantern Festival, at the time of Full Moon. This two weeks is a time for honoring ancestors and deities and for reunions. Tradition includes sweeping out the old, ill fortune, and making way for incoming good luck.
Ramadan, in the Islamic culture, is the ninth month in the Islamic calendar, which precesses through the year because it aligns to the Moon. Ramadan is a month of a time of prayer and fasting, honoring the time when the Quran was revealed to Muhammad.
The Lenten season in the Christian tradition is also a time of prayer and fasting, in preparation for the Mystery of the Christ at Easter.
And all of this is happening in February, which comes from the word februa and means to purge.
So that’s the cultural convergence.
Then there’s the celestial convergence. When the Moon comes to New Phase on Tuesday, it will cause an annular eclipse, which means it is too far away to block the entire solar disc, so it will appear as though the black disc of Moon is embraced by a ring of solar fire. This eclipse will only be visible Antarctica, but it’s like an exclamation point on the New Moon that it’s worth paying attention to. That will be at 7 am ET on Tuesday.
On Thursday, February 19, Mercury will swing as far wide of the Sun as it can, sweeping the old of the way through the gate of dreams, then the very next day, Saturn and Neptune align, just a few minutes before noon eastern time. In astronomical speak, these two meet in Right Ascension on Sunday, February 15, and then in ecliptic longitude on the 20th.
Their meeting at the equinox point is regarded as being astrologically epic. In Dante, when the Sun comes to the Equinox point, it is here it begins its happiest course, where all of creation begins. Dante describes it as a gracious spot, made for humankind, a place where virtue resides. And now, Saturn, Father Time, meets Neptune there, long associated with dreams and idealism. Which begs the question: Can our dreams stand up to reality? Or will hope crumble under the weight of our responsibilities? I like to think that we’ve come far enough, we’ve had enough experience to know the reality of a greater world, and now is the time to act out of this knowing, which is only ever enhanced by truth, goodness, and beauty, no matter one’s religion, race, creed, gender, nation, age. No matter.
It is not a time for buckling our seat belts. It’s a time for joining hearts and hands, that good may become.
There’s a pretty popular poem by Dawna Markova that I like for the mood of this moment:
I will not die an unlived life
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
~Mary
Hear this episode of The Storyteller’s Night Sky on podcast here, and wherever you listen. And drop me a line, to let me know you’re there!