It's a huge week of energetic pivoting.
Jupiter / Tzedek entered Aries on 12/20, where he'll be enlarging, magnifying, and super-sizing all things Aries-related, through mid-May of 2023. Today he is square to the Sun, which is just entering Capricorn.
Mars / Ma'adim, the planetary ruler of Aries, is in Gemini through the 3rd of Chodesh Nissan! So the "War" (Mars/Aries) will be focused on Gemini things - thoughts, ideas, words, and ways of communicating.
The last several years have seen an enormous level of distortion, deceit, “fake news”, alternative “realities” and false “facts” becoming mainstream ways of thinking (Gemini) and believing (Sagittarius). The uptick of this phenomenon began during the Gemini/Sagittarius Lunar Axis season (May 2020 thru mid-January 2022). Prior to this, those who followed the cults of Qanon, conspiracy theories, etc., were thought to be outside of the mainstream. During the Gemini/Sagittarius Lunar Axis transit, what was thought to be outside was revealed to be on the inside. The square of Neptune/Rahav in Pisces squaring the Lunar Nodes along the way did everything to enhance both the glamour and the distortion.
The polarization between camps was firmly established during the Taurus/Scorpio Lunar Axis season (Mid-January 2022 thru mid-July 2023). The Fixed Earth (Taurus) and Fixed Water (Scorpio) polarity dug their heels into respective extremes and information became politicized and weaponized in a whole new and deadly way. The coming pivot to the Cardinal-ruled Aries/Libra Lunar Axis transit (mid-July 2023 thru mid-January 2025) , with the aid of Saturn / Shabbtai entering Pisces in March 2023, should bring a snap-back into realism. Those entrenched in dogmas and ideologies will be asked by the proverbial schoolmaster (Saturn) to “show their work”. Distortions and falsities will be exposed and instead of being accepted and believed on face value, will have to prove their worth to remain in the marketplace of ideas. Those who stick to the cults will be further and further isolated. The doors to mainstreaming the beliefs of outliers will be closed to anyone without credentials.
Tekufah Tevet, the Winter Solstice, happens on 12/21. The shortest day of the year and the turning of the seasonal quadrant. Back in the days of the Talmud, the Tekufot (the Solstices and Equinoxes) were viewed as a dangerous time, so much so that the sages advised folks not to drink uncovered liquids during the hours of the Tekufot, lest some wicked spirit inhabit that uncovered liquid & make its way into one’s body, G*d forbid.
The truth is that the Tekufot are liminal time periods - the seasonal “shkiyah” during which time moves from one thing to another. All liminal times, places, and things (think of crossroads! Think of childbirth! Think of Erev Shabbos after candle-lighting but before 3 stars!) are viewed by the sages as potentially dangerous because they’re so open to every kind of spiritual force.
Working with liminal energies is not for amateurs, thus the sages tried to build fences around those experiences. In our post-post modern thought, none of us believe ourselves to be amateurs. The ready availability of texts, teachings, and trainings gives us resources our ancestors could only dream of. What they had, which we lack, is patience for spiritual development.
This is illustrated through the story of the great Sage Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, who was known as "the young man who became gray overnight, and looked like seventy." Though he was a spiritual child prodigy whose wisdom was a Divine gift from a very early age, and chosen to succeed Rabbi Gamliel as head of the academy at Yavne, the idea that one so young could command the respect of a revered elder was so outrageous that a miracle was required: he grew a full, long, gray beard overnight, so that all the Sages of the academy saw him as a hoary and venerable Sage.
Are you a child prodigy on the level of Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah? Or do you just want to skip all the hard work and go from being a neophyte to an expert overnight? They have hair dye now for your beards, you don't need a miracle. But the truth is - there are no miracles of spiritual development. It's all based on your own work. There is no shortcut. Example: You can't "scan the Zohar" without even knowing the Hebrew alphabet and somehow "absorb" the Zohar's deep spiritual teachings.
For those concerned with the timing of such things, Tekufah Tevet happens at 13:48 Pacific time, 16:48 Eastern time, and 23:48 Israel time on 12/21. If you're not an expert in navigating liminal spaces and you feel you want to insure your body/soul/mind is not being invaded by negative forces, prepare for conscious connection to that subtle but powerful boundary-spanning hour today.
The New Moon in Capricorn comes on Friday 12/23, and Rosh Chodesh Tevet (two days) is Shabbos Mikeitz and Sunday.
Sunday evening 12/25 we light the 8th light of Chanukah, that's Zot Chanukah, the climax of the spiritual season which began all the way back in Chodesh Elul! That's right folks, by Zot Chanukah if you haven't done Tashlich yet, this is your final, final chance for 5783.
The time period between Zot Chanukah and Tu b'Shevat is analogous to the time between Shavuot and Tu b'Av. Both those time spans are "given over to Esav", with the hope and expectation that if we've been doing the work, we've accumulated enough spiritual oxygen to get ourselves through from one end to the other.
So fill up your spiritual oxygen tanks, my friends. Fill them up to the max and seal them well, because you're going to be living off those fumes until Tu b'Shevat (evening of Feb. 6 - evening of Feb 7, 2023), when the whole process of rebuilding our spiritual bodies begins again, on the other side of the Jewish Year.
Wishing you harmony with the spiritual rhythms & tides of the Cycle of Sacred Time!
