“To go into the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is travelled by dark feet and dark wings.” Wendell Berry
“Though my soul may set in darkness,
It will rise in perfect light.
I have loved the stars too fondly
To be fearful of the night,
Fearful of the night.” Epitaph of Galileo
The Sun recently entered the sign of Sagittarius – the sign ruled by Jupiter which is associated with long journeys – both of the body and of the mind. It is the sign associated with travel and higher learning as well as philosophical systems and personal belief systems.
The Sun’s entry into Sagittarius indicates that we are approaching the Winter Solstice or the “darkest evening of the year” as Robert Frost referred to it. It is common in our time to associate light deprivation with the tendency towards depression and often there is a rush to cure or medicate it. But depression, like the darkness, has its own purpose and can very often be part of a cycle – the darkest hour before the dawn- before a sense of renewal or rebirth emerges. Depression or melancholia as they used to call it, creates the capacity for increased depth and a more profound understanding of life and its painful nature.
There is something about depression, though, that can keep perceptions frozen in time which results in living in the past.
David Tresemer the author of the anthroposophical book, Counseling as if Soul and Spirit Matter, has written, ” It is very important to realize that time is not something that is only flowing from the past into the present and into the future. There is a stream of time that flows from the future into the present. When we are really awake and aware of this stream coming from the future into the present we can then, with our own awareness, see the past differently. It is important to review and redefine the events of the past. How we attach meaning or do not attach meaning to our memories and experiences makes a lot of difference as to how we feel in the present and go forward in life.”
Pluto and Uranus – the duo reflecting the revolutionary times in which we are living, are moving closer to each other once again. This aspect has a long term evolutionary aspect to it and speaks of personal, collective and planetary change. The Aquarian Age we are now entering offers the opportunity to create a more compassionate, harmonious and just world through the visionary use of the mind – a mind unhindered by perceptions of the past which are, “set in stone.”