Light and Shadow

We all know that light is real. We can see it. We can feel it. We can create devices that measure it. We can create devices that emit it. We can even slice matter with it.

When light is blocked, a shadow appears. We can see a shadow, but is it actually real?

In one view, it is not real. It is not a thing. It is the lack of a thing. We cannot create devices that emit darkness. Light is real, so when light is missing, we see darkness—the absence of light.

Yet, for all intents and purposes, shadows are real and darkness too. We experience darkness. It touches us and affects us. Illusory or not, darkness is scary.

Now, on to some Astrology terms, which may be a review:

• When the moon opposes the sun, we experience a full moon.
• When the moon conjuncts the sun, we have a new moon, which we cannot see.
• When the new moon or full moon conjuncts the lunar nodes, we experience a solar eclipse or lunar eclipse respectively.
• When a new moon or full moon conjuncts perigee, we experience a supermoon. The only supermoon we can actually see is during the full moon. The tides, however, are larger in both cases.

The other day, we experienced a full moon supermoon. The sun was at 18 Leo 2 and the moon was at 18 Aquarius 2. Perigees had occurred moments earlier when the moon was at approximately 17 Aquarius 50.

In Astrology, there is a point most don’t pay attention to. It is called the Dark Moon. It is also called Lilith or the Dark Moon Lilith. It more or less indicates apogee. On August 10^th, Lilith was at 17 Leo 50 or so.

So the supermoon occurs when the moon opposes the sun, and when the sun simultaneously conjuncts Lilith. And that is what happened the other night.

[You might be interested to note that all of this occurred almost exactly on my horizon, which is along 17 Leo/Aquarius 57.]

Lilith, they say, is called the Dark Moon because it represents shadow. It is sometimes called the anti-moon. The moon can represent mother, so Lilith can be the anti-mother.

Ever since the Universe dropped this information into my lap a couple of months ago, I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve been studying it. I’ve been analyzing its placement in my chart and others. It turns out to be in the single most significant degree in my whole chard (in my opinion).

So the Dark Moon relates to darkness: our shadow side or our shadow self—maybe our demons. I thought the shadow self was the part of us that we dislike…or even hate. Maybe it’s the part of us that we are ashamed of. Maybe it’s the part of us we hide from everyone else. Maybe it’s about our addictions or our unhealthy habits. Maybe it’s our evil twin—our Mr. Hyde—our alter ego.

But maybe the Dark Moon is not about the shadow. Maybe it is here to show us the thing that blocks the light, the thing that casts a shadow.

Many moons ago, the Universe was teaching me about manifestation. They said: when we ask for something, the Universe gives it to us…instantly. But we often don’t receive it (or see it) because something (a block of our own creation) is in the way. This is most likely a belief. So, what happens next is the Universe shines light on the block. It wants us to see the block, so we can let it go—so we can move around it. But, since we most likely don’t see the block right away, what we do see is the shadow.

Leo is the sign of fame. The sun-Lilith conjunction in Leo happened minutes before the exact full moon. Later that day, we lost one of our beloved stars. Robin Williams not only passed, but he likely took his own life.

This morning, I took a look at Robin’s natal chart. As it turns out, his mid-heaven is at 22 Leo 15. That means that the sun-Lilith conjunction was just degrees from the highest part of his chart. The full moon was thus near the lowest.

Around the time of his death, the sun sat directly on top of his Natal Pluto (and Lilith was just a degree behind). The moon, having moved into Pisces, approached his Natal moon. (His Pisces moon conjuncts his North node, so he was born a day or two before a lunar eclipse.)

[Edit Note: Another astrologer shows his mid-heaven at 7 Leo 10. This feels more accurate than what I saw earlier. The sun and Lilith thus transit his Pluto in the 10th house – a house of high visibility, which matches what is happening. Because of the nature of his death, his struggle is more visible than it would have been otherwise.]

Robin’s moon sits in his 4^th house, which gives it Cancer overtones. His sun is in Cancer, and his ascendant is Scorpio. That’s a lot of water: a lot of emotionality…a lot of feeling. Robin likely felt far more than he ever let on (given that his ascendant was Scorpio…fixed water).

Suicide is a shadow aspect of life. Death, by any means, is too. And death, like a shadow, is something that is not real (according to spirit), yet it is painfully real for those of us in human form.

I would like to now share an experience:

Some number of years ago, I had a bad day in July. That day, which happened to be July 4^th, I felt intensely depressed and distraught. It came out of nowhere.

The very next day, I found out that a friend of a friend had ended his life. I never met the man, but I knew of him; we had three friends in common.

Another day later, an odd thing happened. I was driving down the freeway and found myself writing a letter in my head—except in that letter I was apologizing for the pain that I caused when I took my own life. Clearly, I was not the one writing the letter. The thoughts were not mine.

This turned out to be my clearest medium experience to date. The man, from the other side, contacted me because I had the means to convey his message to our friends, and apparently I could hear him.

Now this is the part that everyone needs to hear: he was happy! He was filled with joy! He told me that he was not “in trouble” for what he did. He was not judged. Rather, he was welcomed with open arms by his loved ones. He was supported.

He also told me that from there he could see solutions to his problems, which he couldn’t see when he was alive. Clearly, he was still alive, just not in human form any longer.

Since then, I have been better able to accept spirit’s statement that death is an illusion, and that life goes on and on and on. We, in human form, experience loss, and they never deny that. But death is not an end to life, it is just an end to a phase of life…namely life in a specific physical body.

Some day, each of us will transition the boundary between this physical life and…the beyond. Only then we will truly know what’s on the other side. In the mean time, we can believe what we want to believe.

If you find yourself struggling with shadows, don’t forget to look for the blocks that cast the shadows. These, most often, are inside. These, most often, are self-deprecating and self-limiting beliefs.

Lilith crossing my ascendant is doing its part to bring things into my conscious mind from the shadows. We’ll see what comes of it.