The Old Feels Bigger than the New

Tomorrow, January 8, 2020, Jupiter conjuncts the South Node of the Moon. The old feels bigger than the new. The past feel better and brighter than the future. It could feel like we’re going in the wrong direction.

The South Node is akin to the September Equinox. On or around September 22^nd, the sun crosses the equator of the earth moving south. Summer ends for the North, and Spring begins for the South.

When the moon crosses the South Node, it too travels from the North to the South. However, it is not crossing the equator of the Earth; it is crossing the Ecliptic, the path the sun makes through the Zodiac.

As many of you know, the magic happens when the three meet or oppose. When the full moon or the new moon aligns with the Nodes of the moon, that is when eclipses occur. We are in between two of them now.

Jupiter has a 12-year cycle through the Zodiac prograde. The Nodes of the Moon have an 18-year cycle retrograde, but since each node opposes the other, they flip every 9 years.

Doing the math (well, I didn’t do the math) Jupiter crosses a node every 4 years—crosses the South Node every 8 years.

Even though we have begun a new year and a new decade, I feel the overwhelming weight of the past. It is like a very dense planet and its gravity keeps pulling me in. When the past feels so much bigger than the future, we can imagine it’s the beginning of the end.

The last time Jupiter crossed the South Node was in July of 2012. Do you remember how many people were claiming, “The end is near!” back then?!? In 2012, the South Node was in Gemini. It was all concept. It was simply ideas people were telling each other.

This time, the South Node and Jupiter are in Capricorn: practical, earthy, constantly moving forward Capricorn.

In this modern age, we are well aware that often, an old building must come down before a new one is erected. Sometimes Mother Nature takes down the old one first.

This year and decade starts with a Grand Conjunction. Grand is not a strong enough word. It is a profoundly intense conjunction, that’s what it is. Look at this chart:

We have Sun, Mercury, Saturn, and Pluto all occupying the same piece of sky. Jupiter and the South Node are right beside them. This is what it would look like in the sky:

It takes nearly 40 years for Saturn and Pluto to meet. (Last time was November 1982; next time will be June 2053.) How interesting that this time, it coincides with a conjunction with the Sun and Mercury and an Eclipse and nearly the South Node and Jupiter!

The December Solstice, the start of Capricorn, begins a new season. Some could call it the beginning of a year where the sun will travel all the way in one direction and then come all the way back. Capricorn, as a cardinal sign, is all about beginning.

We don’t take score at the beginning. Even if we keep score throughout the game, it always starts 0-0.

This Grand Conjunction is a grand beginning, but just the beginning. It may take some time to see what is actually being built here. It will be a while before it takes shape. It feels like it takes longer to dig and build the foundation than it does to erect the sky scraper.

As is typical in real life, our beginnings are also enmeshed with endings. Jupiter, rolling over the South Node, makes the old feel bigger than the new. It is pulling on our thoughts of/from the past. They were packed away nice and neat until he came along. Now they are strewn across the floor as if by an overactive 2-year-old. At some point, we need to pick ‘em all back up and put them away again. Some we’ll look at and say: “I haven’t thought about him/her/that in a long time!”

In some cases, we’ll realize how different we are now. The habitual feeling will flow in with the old memory, but then it will be quickly replaced with the very opposite current reality that we have created since then. Remind yourself that you don’t have to go back to that old painful feeling any longer and if you do visit it, you can quickly flow through it and move past it.

Sometimes, to properly clean out a closet, we need to pull everything out and take inventory. In the process, a mouse might jump out of a shoe and scare the bejesus out of us. Remember what mouse teaches us: if the details are too overwhelming, take a step back. Conversely, mouse says, if you can’t see the big picture just yet, focus on the single task at hand. The Universe is a hologram: you can find love, beauty, and perfection anywhere you look. It’s not in the scene, it’s in the eye.

Life is a spiral, not a circle. Yes, we go round and round, but we never end up in the same place we were because the whole system is moving forward.

Surrender to the thoughts and the feelings. Any effort to hold on to things that are moving away is actually more painful than just letting them go…tears included. We are trained to hold back the tears, but then they well up in our chest until we can’t breathe.

The enormity of emotion any of us feel will ebb. This Grand Conjunction is rearranging the pieces, but unlike a puzzle, there isn’t only one way they can be put back together. There are infinite ways. Let it unravel. It won’t come apart. It’s just making some room, shifting, and getting better.