Big Changes, New Cycles..

For all of us, the year has brought change. At the beginning of this year, I was completing a new collection of poems, which I’d been working on for a couple of years. I completed it around the time I turned forty in March. I don’t typically read anything I’ve written for several months after completion and then I feel I can objectively edit it and determine what I like, etc. not based on attachment for any reason. I love that collection and some of those poems will start showing up here on December 21, 2020. The reason I chose that date is because it’s the Winter Solstice, and I’ve always seen this collection ( I don’t know why) as a winter collection of poems. It also brings in another aspect/element that 2020 has brought to me astrology and astronomy. During lockdown, I began to study both of these things heavily. I. have to give 2020 credit, because had it not come, I would not have connected with, what has become, this very important part of me. 2020 really showed me the power and the magic of the cosmos. I watched and read before the year started as astrologers predicted ‘this was going to be a powerful year.’ I learned throughout the year reading and studying the history of this ancient science and wisdom, that ‘astrology is not really about predicting things,’ as much as it is about ‘meeting the energy ahead with as much awareness as possible,’ which when I started to build that awareness, was surprised to find, there were indicators of the energy ahead. Astrology and astronomy, which used to sort of be one, have only in recent times really become so separated. Astrology is not the horoscope you read in the newspaper. There’s so much more involved. Along with understanding the energy forces at play, astrology is such an ancient ‘science,’ it’s influenced so much of the world we know today from the way cities are laid out, to government structures, to the Christmas traditions so many of us know today, and many other holiday traditions. It is fascinating when you learn the stories, the history. The stories alone are poetry. The book I’m working on now is heavily influenced by this. On December 21, 2020, the winter solstice. Solstice means ‘to stop,’ as the sun literally stops and gives the northern hemisphere the least amount of daylight and the Southern Hemisphere the most amount of daylight, this year we also have the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. These two planets meet in the sky every twenty years or so. The fact that it is happening on the solstice is unique; however, these two planets (for the most part) have met in Earth signs of the zodiac for the last two hundred years. They will meet in the portion of the zodiac or sky in Aquarius. This change is ‘big’ because Aquarius is an ‘air sign.’ For the next two hundred years or so, we will see these planets meeting (every twenty years) in only ‘air signs.’ Jupiter and Saturn conjunctions are big on their own, one can see this by viewing the twenty year cycles they typically bring in, which often correspond to the ‘sign they meet up in.’ I won’t go into heavy details about ‘all the meaning,’ but we’re entering into a ‘new energy.’ We also will have a solar eclipse right before this on December 14, 2020. Eclipses are all about ‘letting go and releasing,’ and doing so in a way that we let go and ‘give thanks,’ for what we’ve learned or are losing/letting go. I decided to release my first poem for my new book on the day Saturday and Jupiter meet to ‘greet the new energy.’ I do believe that one of the things that will be part of this new Jupiter/Saturn meeting and this Aquarian energy is a renaissance of art and how we experience art. We can see it even beginning to happen now, as the pandemic has had us go to the theater from our homes, museums and art galleries are online… The way we interact with art will develop in this new energy, and I feel it’s a great time to release a new piece of art that I’ve shared with no one on that date. I attended a great discussion last night on ‘the astrological year ahead (2021) and it was so fun to look at and discuss ‘the new energy,’ that will ‘just be taking off.’ This is the first full year of a totally new cycle! We might not see huge changes as things don’t move that fast, but we’ll start to notice things. It just gave me a lot of hope for things ahead. I ended up just writing this little bit at the end of it, which I’m going to share this morning. It was just a free write of all the hope that I got just from joining a community discussion and ‘becoming more aware of of the energy that will be coming and preparing myself to meet it as much awareness as possible.

The What

What is this body? What’s this strawberry? What is this laughter spilling water from my eyes, shaking my tummy? What is this nature all around me? These cosmos, that bee, that photon entering light? What is this science? This birth channel I’m traveling through? These hours, these minutes, these goosebumps, I get in moments so close to you? The bag of marbles can be my fall, can be a game, can be a crystal ball to see through a future where I have some insight into my destiny, my fate. This smile, that idea, that feeling that dangles before my hungered eyes, inviting me to take a bite, what is that thing that keeps knocking at my door? What’s the invitation that I won’t let get lost in a pile of junk mail? What is here? What is now? This slipper that makes the world bigger if I actually try it on? This language, these poems, the punctuation in prose, that causes me to know when to really pause and breathe in this world. Why all this asking of ‘why’s and ‘what’s?’ To keep us alert, to be awoken to all the dreamy things that are the Holly and the Ivy Kings, the dawn and the dusk, the old and the new, the ending and beginning of cycles of light and dark from which we evolve and continue to grow through.