New Moon Solar Eclipse in Sagittarius: REGENERATION

It’s the last New Moon of 2021,

AND the final solar eclipse

of a sequence that started in May of 2020.

It’s an especially good time to pause,

to take stock of what’s changed

and how we’ve changed with it.

To remember that we’re all co-creating.

Will you join me in reflecting?

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Mentioned:

Money mindset mentor and author Denise Duffield-Thomas.

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Transcript: New Moon Eclipse in Sagittarius

Natalie Miller: Welcome to Mind Witchery. I’m your host, Natalie Miller, and I’m so glad you’re here. 

Hi there. Welcome. Welcome to the last New Moon episode of 2021, here for the New Moon / solar eclipse in Sagittarius. As always, I have a little bit of exposition [laugh], astrological exposition. Today, I’ll talk about Sagittarius and about eclipses.

And I will also give you a lot of self-reflections because while New Moons are always a great time to self-reflect, and to do so with all of the evocative metaphors that astrology offers us, eclipses are especially good times to pause, to take stock, to appreciate what’s changed and how what has changed has asked us to change. They are just perfect moments to pause and to remember that we are all in this together, that we are all cocreating, and just to marvel at that. 

OK. So, for starters, eclipses—eclipses happen when the orbital path of the Moon crosses the ecliptic, or the path that the Earth is tracing around the Sun. So, I’d love for you to visualize for a moment two bangle bracelets on a wrist, and imagine that one bangle bracelet is crossed over the other bangle bracelet, so they almost look like an X. Those two points where the bangles are touching on either side, those are analogous to the nodes, the lunar nodes. The lunar nodes are where the bangle bracelet circle of the Moon’s orbit crosses the bangle bracelet circle of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun.

In so doing, we get eclipses because when the Sun and the Moon cross paths when they are conjunct in the sky, the Moon passes in front of the Sun. From our perspective, it blots out the Sun. And, hopefully, you’ve had an opportunity to see this happen. It really is quite extraordinary. It is this moment that reminds us, oh, we are on a planet, and that planet is orbiting [laugh] a star, and we have a little, tiny planet—the Moon—that’s orbiting around us. It’s just—it awakens us to that reality. 

This New Moon solar eclipse is, as I mentioned, the final one in a sequence of eclipses that has happened over the axis of the signs Sagittarius and Gemini. So, that is to say that the lunar nodes, they are at any given time across the zodiac, across the sky from one another. The two bangle bracelet crossings are—right now, one of them is in Sagittarius, the south node, and one of them is in Gemini, the north node. 

The eclipses have been happening across this axis since May of 2020, and astrologers often say it’s wise to expand a little bit the purview, the impact of an eclipse. And, so, we really could say that these eclipses across the Gemini-Sagittarius axis have been happening since lockdown, since mid-spring of 2020. 

And I don’t have to tell you so much has changed for us globally, personally, professionally, technologically, spiritually. We have seen so much change in that time. And, you know, that might be expected. Both Sagittarius and Gemini are mutable signs. We talked about this before. Signs have one of three modalities. They’re cardinal, which is initiating energy. The cardinal signs are Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn. That’s the energy of initiation, of beginning.

There are fixed signs. The fixed signs are Taurus and Leo and Scorpio and Aquarius, and the fixed signs are all about sustaining and keeping things going. And then there are the mutable signs, and the mutable signs are Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces. And the mutable signs are about changing and adapting and transforming. 

So, it is not surprising that when we have our lunar nodes in a mutable axis, we are experiencing on planet Earth a lot of change. Let me tell you a tiny bit about the two nodes. There’s the north node and the south node. The description of the two nodes that I find most compelling is actually based in Vedic astrology, which says that the north node is the head of the dragon, and the south node is the tail of the dragon, and this dragon is going round and round and round and round, chasing its own tail.

The north node, or the head, is forever hungry. It wants. It consumes. It’s about increase. It’s about more. It’s about expansion. Right? That’s the head. It’s like it’s hungry, consuming, expanding, and desiring. We get more and more.

Over the past 18 months, with the head of the dragon in the sign of Gemini, what we’ve found is more and more and more communication, haven’t we, especially technologically. Gemini is mutable air, and we have, really, all of us taken to the airwaves, or perhaps we’ll say the cyber waves, the internet waves, in an entirely new way, right. We are connecting more than ever via social media, via technological platforms like Zoom and Facetime. We’ve seen an increase there.

The south node, or the tail of the dragon, is at the other end. It is not hungry like the mouth, the head. It is eliminating, right? It’s the tail. That’s where the poop comes out. It is not going for and pursuing and expanding. It is ending things. It’s sorting through things. It’s deciding what to keep, and deciding what to release, and it’s very interested in releasing. The south node’s job is to clear and to release.

And, so, with the south node in Sagittarius over these last 18 months, perhaps we have noticed some releasing around Sagittarian topics, one of which is travel. That’s kind of astounding, isn’t it? Like, no one is really doing any extraneous travel. We’ve really released a lot of the need to get together or to have meetings or conferences. We’re staying put, yeah? So, while New Moons are certainly new beginnings, a New Moon solar eclipse happening at the south node feels like more of an ending. It feels like more of a final clearing out. 

Oh, my gosh, I just had this image of—you know when you’re moving out of a home or an apartment, and you’ve cleared out all the big stuff, and in the end, it’s just all that little crap that’s left? [laugh] It’s like the hair tie you brushed out from under the radiator, and the lamp you found crammed in the back of the closet. It’s all of the little stuff at the end that you sort of just want to shove into a box and like just put it out in the trash. That’s the image I just got for the final south node eclipse in an eclipse cycle.

So, it’s a wonderful time for reflecting. It’s a wonderful time for a last pass-through, sort of like what have I cleared out, and what’s left to clear out? It’s a wonderful time to celebrate that when we move forward, we really are moving forward with what matters. We’re moving forward, having endured and maybe even having worked with a series of shifts and changes and evolutions. 

So, it’s not so much a time to set an intention, and to do what we often do with the New Moons, which is like, all right, what do I want to manifest, but more a time to complete the clearing out in order to move into the next phase with more clarity and better energy. So, that’s what my approach to the New Moon solar eclipse in Sagittarius is going to be all about today. 

All right. So, let me talk a little bit about Sagittarius energy because I am going to use that actually in the metaphor to help us conjure up some really evocative questions to reflect on this particular New Moon solar eclipse. So, I told you Sagittarius is mutable energy. It is transformative. It is evolutionary. 

Sagittarius is mutable fire—mutable fire. Fire comes in cardinal form in the sign of Aries, fixed form in the sign of Leo, and mutable form in the sign of Sagittarius. Cardinal fire, we can say, is sort of like a match. It initiates. It gives the spark that creates the fire. Fixed fire, we could say, is like a kiln. It’s like an oven. It’s like a campfire. It is—it’s like the Sun itself, the Sun that rules Leo. Leo is the sign of fixed fire. 

And Sagittarius, mutable fire, I’m going to say today is like a wildfire. It’s like a wildfire. And I want to pause here to acknowledge and honor that, of late, thanks to climate change, thanks to the way we humans are on the Earth, fires have caused a lot of suffering and a lot of destruction. And in this episode, I want to think of wildfire in its natural and beneficial form, but I don’t want to do that without acknowledging that fires cause so much destruction and so much trauma. And I know it might be a really big request for some of you to think about fire in its beneficial form. 

And I do want to do that because I find the metaphor super evocative and helpful in thinking about what it is actually that we have been through, collectively and personally, in these last two years, and how we can think about it in a most helpful way. All right. So, I actually did a little research, and I looked at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to inquire about the benefits of wildfire. And I’d love to tell you a little bit about them because they were foundational for me in conjuring up the self-reflection questions to help us make the most of this eclipse energy.

So, I learned that wildfire is a naturally occurring phenomenon. OK. It is exacerbated by humans but it’s a naturally occurring phenomenon with many benefits for forests. So, one thing that wildfire does is it cleans the forest floor. I found this fascinating. Like, a fire will move through, and it will clear out heavy brush. It will clear out invasive species. It will, in the end, reallocate the resources of the forest, the available light, the water supply, the available nutrients in the soil, such that the whole thing is healthier. 

I was interested to find out that more trees die from diseases and insect infestations than die from fire. And, in fact, fire helps to eradicate disease, and to kill infestations of insects that destroy trees. Finally—this is fascinating—because fire and forests have co-evolved, there are certain kinds of trees that require fire in order to reproduce. So, fire does actually create regeneration of the forest. There are certain seeds that are covered in pitch, and that pitch has to be melted off in order for the seeds to be able to germinate, for instance.

And, so, I want to think about fire with these various perspectives and lenses. Think about wildfire as something that can help us to reallocate our resources, that can help us to clear away what’s not helpful, to clear away what’s not, maybe in the end, viable. I love to think about fire as applying a kind of pressure that helps us to tap into potency and power. 

When I think about my own life, when I think about my friends’ and families’ lives, when I think about so many clients that I work with, these last 18 months have given us opportunities to do just this. You know, we are always having eclipse seasons. The nodes of the Moon don’t go away after this one. [laugh] They just shift. They shift toward the axis of Scorpio and Taurus.

But, my goodness, this last cycle with the south node in Sagittarius, with the south node of clearing, of releasing, of letting go, in the sign of wildfire that moves through, also interested in clearing out, in provoking a very different experience, and that is also what Sagittarius is about. Sagittarius is ruled by Jupiter, and Jupiter is a generous, growth-oriented, wisdom-oriented planet. This particular series of eclipses has just been extraordinarily transformative. 

All right, my friend, so let’s get into the questions. As always, I have collected all of these questions on a free worksheet. You can grab that in the Show Notes. And once you’re signed up for the New Moon list, I will just deliver this worksheet straight to your inbox whenever a New Moon episode comes about. 

OK. So, question one is really just a take a moment to take stock kind of question. What are the life changes, the losses and gains, the challenges, the blessings that I’ve experienced since March 2020? I think sometimes it is actually difficult to account for them [laugh], to give ourselves the time to really sit and reckon with all we’ve done, all we’ve lost, all we’ve gained. So, take a moment to do that very first.

Right, next question: what has become more important to me? So, through those losses and gains, the challenges, the blessings, the complete disruption of everyday life, not to mention everything else that’s been happening over the last 18 months—I mean, you name the sector, it has shifted dramatically. From social justice movements to education to medicine, our economy, the way that we work, the way that we live, everything has changed so much. There have been so many challenges, I mean, falling dominoes of challenges. Of course, we will come through a clearing, an experience like that, having different priorities; maybe even having clarified values. What is really important to me?

OK. So, that’s on the more macro level, and Jupiter likes to be on the more macro level, right, and Jupiter does rule Sagittarius. But let’s look at the micro level as well. What is different in my everyday life today compared to February 2020? And I chose February 2020 because it’s outside the eclipse window, and it’s really kind of the last little inklings of pre-pandemic life. What’s different? 

And then let’s look a little more closely at that. What ways of being are really restorative? What are self-sustaining for me? What helped to sustain me? And how can I nurture them? So, are there practices or habits, are there things you’re doing now that are sustaining you? Maybe you picked these up as a way of coping with the challenges that you faced during the pandemic, alleviating them? Or maybe you just finally had time to do some of these things, but what are they? What are they?

So, what ways of being are restorative, are helping to sustain you, and how can you continue to nurture them? I mean, one of mine really is cooking. I cook so much more now than I cooked two years ago. And I’ve always enjoyed it but now I just place a new and different value on eating well and sustaining myself and my family through food. So, that’s an example.

All right. Let’s look at the other end of the spectrum, the clearing end. What ways of being—so, what habits, what practices, what tendencies—are draining, and why do I want to release them? So, again, I want to give you an example. Something that I find really draining is overuse of social media. I actually like social media for a lot of things, and I find that, for me, if it becomes numbing or compulsive—which it can very easily become both of those things—it’s using my precious, precious time. 

And, so, I might say in an answer to this question, OK, I know that mindlessly scrolling social media is draining, but why do I want to release that? Because I have more restorative ways to spend my precious time. Because, it turns out, time is extraordinarily precious—more so I know that now than I have maybe ever known it. Why do I want to release that? Because it makes me feel dull and sticky. I don’t know if you know that feeling but I have this feeling after I finally pry my eyes away from the scroll of just a sticky dullness. I don’t like it. 

So, I get really clear on why do I want to release it, and that’s a reorienting toward what is viable? What is viable? What is actually healthy, right? What’s the crap I want to burn away in my life so that I can invest more of my resources in the tall, healthy trees of my work, of my mothering, of my partnering, of my learning, of literature, and my houseplants, and playing piano, and caring for my body. Those are the trees in the forest of my life. 

You get this is very elaborate, this metaphor. But those are the trees I want to nurture. Instagram scrolling? I just—I don’t want to be available for that anymore. So, a south node eclipse is really interesting in letting go of what drains you so that what remains is only that which sustains you. Right? So, you can kind of take that [0:29:49 Johnnie Cochradish?] mantra [laugh] with you through this eclipse. Like, let me release what drains me, and invest in what sustains me. 

OK. So, the next question then is, what do I need to believe about myself to do more of what sustains me, and less of what drains me? Because you and I both know that what drains you is not always as simple as too much time on Facebook. Sometimes, it’s overusing substances. Sometimes, it is worrying chronically, constantly. Sometimes, what drains you is saying yes to relationships or situations that you know are a drag on your energetic economy.

So, spend a moment really thinking, what do I need to believe about myself in order to do more of what sustains me, and less of what drains me? If you are seeking beliefs to help you with that, may I recommend this podcast. [laugh] So much of my work is intended for people with big dreams and big hearts; people who want to use their power and energy to thrive, personally, collectively in this world, and yet find themselves—we find ourselves—I’m in this with you—in a world, a cultural world that is not really built for human beings. And, so, we are constantly doing witchery to extricate ourselves from draining paradigms and situations and expectations in order to reorient toward more self-sustaining and world-changing ways of being, right.

So, for example, one of my favorite things to believe when I need to do more of what sustains me and less of what drains me is something I learned from Denise Duffield-Thomas. I am the golden goose. It’s me. In order for me to be able to be generous, in order for me to be able to parent well and coach well and create this podcast well, I must take care of me. Those golden eggs come through me. So, that’s an example of a belief that helps me to do more of what sustains, and less of what drains.

OK. So, let’s tap in now to that awesome idea that wildfires release seeds; that the intensity and heat of them makes regeneration possible. I loved learning that. So, what power and potential has the intensity of the last 18 months revealed or birthed in me, that is, what is the potency, what is the power that you have accessed through the intensity of this eclipse cycle? And then what do I want to generate or to regenerate with that potency?

So, OK, I have remembered or discovered that I have this power. What do I want to do with it? Where do I want to invest it? How can I nurture it? OK. The seed came forth, the seed of autonomy, of sovereignty, the seed of resilience, it came out. And now what do I want to grow with it in my life? That’s this set of questions.

And then another belief question: what do I need to believe about myself and my life in order to make that happen? And, again, I’m threading these belief questions in (a) because the show is called Mind Witchery, but (b) because Mercury is co-present with the Sun and Moon here. Mercury is right here in the mix, and Sagittarius is a sign that has to do with philosophies, with ways of understanding, with ways of seeing the world. And, so, it’s a good time to tap in, and to ask ourselves, what do we want to believe? What are the beliefs we want to invest in?

OK. I have just a couple more questions, and these are coming from another metaphor. Listen, you know, I love the metaphors, and the wildfire metaphor I found delicious and fun. But there’s one more that I love associating with the sign of Sagittarius, and it will also help me to talk about this other aspect of eclipses that I haven’t yet really talked about. 

So, I have said a lot about how eclipses at the south node are clearing. They’re about releasing, clearing, letting go of what is no longer serving. What I haven’t said is that that is all in service of us living to our fullest potential or, as many astrologers would say, living out our destiny. 

Now, I don’t know how you feel about destiny. And, to be honest, I don’t know how I feel about destiny. [laugh] But I do see lots of ways that the things that have happened in my life, especially in the part of my astrological chart that is represented by Sagittarius, things that were shocking, things that were disruptive, things that absolutely felt like wildfires tearing through, and that that was in the service of me, of my potential, of my purpose, of what I’m here to do.

So, that’s to say there were certain things in this eclipse cycle that left my life, and those things, those relationships, those associations leaving my life made it possible for me to get back on track where my own purpose is concerned. So, this second metaphor that I wanted to offer you with Sagittarius is the metaphor of a road trip. I don’t remember who told me this. But someone said, “Oh, yeah, Sagittarius is like the road trip sign. Sagittarius is kind of sprawling, and it’s passionate but in an easy-going kind of a wide-ranging way. It is up for an adventure. It is up for new experiences, for a journey, for learning, for gaining wisdom, for discovering more and more about the truth of the world.”

And on this particular road trip through Sagittarius, with the south node in Sagittarius, what we have encountered is bumps in the road, and detours appearing in front of us that maybe were initially alarming or scary or disappointing, but they never were detours. They were actually getting us back on track. They were actually sending us in the right direction.

So, to circle all the way back to the beginning here, eclipses remind us we are all cocreating this existence, and sometimes moments that feel fated, moments that feel really out of our control, moments where the lights go out in life—because that’s what happens in an eclipse, right, the lights go out—actually end up helping us more fully to be who we are, to reorient in the right direction. 

So, here are your questions that are road tripped inspired. Where in my life did the happenings of the last 18 months require me to course-correct? That is, here you were, you were on a path, and then over the last 18 months, things happened for you that obstructed that pathway, and got you moving in a direction that actually ended up being truer to you and your evolution. So, where was that? Where did that happen?

If you happen to know the house where Sagittarius resides in your chart—for me, it’s the 10th house of career. I had huge shifts and changes in my career. They felt completely out of my control and, yet, it all happened for me 100%. It was for me. I’m so grateful.

So, maybe you can look at where Sagittarius falls in your chart. You can see, OK, what are the concerns of that house? And if all of that is like what? Don’t worry about it. Just reflect on the question. Where did you course-correct? Where did your path change? And at first, it felt like you were going the wrong way or out of the way. But it turned out that that was exactly the right way to go.

And then, again, because we’re in Sagittarius, what do I need to remember about myself, about my values, about the nature of life—I know that sounds so lofty but I mean that—about the nature of life in order to stay on track? That is, eclipses have a way of bumping us back on to our path, of reorienting us toward our fullest self-expression. 

So, looking back now at that course correction, how did you start? Like, why did you need bumping back on to the right path? [laugh] Where did you start to stray? What did you forget? Or how did you, like, misallocate your resources? What did you forget about you and about the nature of life? Because that’s exactly what you want to remember in order to stay on track.

OK, my friend, I know it’s a lot to think through. But it’s the end of a cycle, and it’s the end of a year. It’s the end almost of Jupiter’s stay in Aquarius. There are a lot of wrappings up that are happening at this time, and so it’s really perfect for pausing for an extended self-reflection, and I hope that these questions are helpful for you in that way.

So, the very end of this worksheet is always a way of thinking about the bigger picture, like distilling, I guess, distilling your answers into a simpler form. You’ll complete these two sentences. This New Moon solar eclipse in Sagittarius, I am releasing. And you can look through your worksheet. What are the ways of being you’re releasing, the stuff that drains you? What are the old beliefs you’re releasing? What are you letting go of?

And then this New Moon solar eclipse in Sagittarius, I am clearing the way for—OK, I’m going to let this clear the last of the brambles and brush and shrubbery and all this crap that’s in my way. I’m going to let it go so that I can move forward into the next cycle, oriented toward what is sustaining for me but then also for the collective, what is restorative for me and also for our world, the world we share, that is generative of something better. 

I hope that’s inspiring for you. To be super frank, to me, it’s inspiring but, also, I’m tired. Are you tired? I’m tired. In my soul, I’m tired. So, please take your time with these questions. They don’t have to be done like a final exam [laugh], not by any means. You can sit with them. You can—one listener told me that she keeps the worksheet in her journal, and then she just kind of works on it bit by bit like. 

Please know that because the eclipse cycles are much longer and more extended, so are the effects, and so is the time within which to work with eclipses. So, take your time with these. But I do hope you’ll engage them because I think it will set you up to move into 2022 with so much more clarity and access to your resources. 

All right, my friend, thank you so much for listening. Please take your time with these questions, and be extra generous and kind with yourself as we navigate together these final eclipses of 2021 and of this Gemini-Sag cycle. Take good care. Bye for now.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Mind Witchery. To catch all the magic I’m offering, please subscribe to the show, or if you want a little bit of weekly witchiness in your inbox, sign up for my Sunday Letter at mindwitchery.com. If today’s episode made you think of a friend or loved one, your sister, your neighbor, please tell them about it. We need more magic-makers in this troubled world. 

Like all good things, this podcast is cocreated by stellar people. Our music is by fabulous DJ, artist, and producer, Shammy Dee. Our gorgeous art is by the sorcerers at New Moon Creative. Mind Witchery is produced in conjunction with Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, executive producer. And I am Natalie Miller. Till next time. 

End of recording