 |
| Fear by Nathan O'nions, CCL |
I open with a confession- I am terrified.
This is a Lunar Eclipse, at the Moon’s closest approach to the Earth. On this day, above all else, I promise that you will feel. And that, above all else, scares me to death.
I am not a brave or strong man. I am a man who, long ago, figured out how to shut off his own emotional response to just about any situation. It enables me to survive, on nothing but pure bloody-mindedness and refusal to quit, long after I should have fallen. That will not work today. Today, I must face the rotting, necrotic corpse of what I once was. Today I must face the creature that I helped to survive. It is not me, not anymore. What I once was is dead, and I must move on with what is by facing the shattering of the fantasy. The day I am forced to feel again, I fear that the cumulative emotion will tear me to shreds, like the proverbial dam breaking and unleashing a torrent.
You will all face this in one way or another. This one will slip through the cracks in your armor, not matter how tightly you have wrapped it around yourself. You cannot run, you cannot negotiate or talk your way out of it, and you sure as hell cannot fight it. What you CAN do is dive in, and let it envelop and permeate everything that you are. You can give in to it. Stop resisting it and let it do its work. You must jump into the black abyss that holds everything that you fear and everything you want. You may die, alone and scared as you run out of oxygen. You may face terrible creatures, the stuff of nightmares that mankind has never seen; black and terrible things, hell-bent on making you their lunch. Or, you may swim like your life depends on it, giving it everything you have and just a little bit more, and you may emerge into a chamber filled with light, and sweet, sweet oxygen. You may find a reason to live when you hit the bottom and things look their bleakest.
The Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Pluto- Yes, you’re reading that right. It’s insane. This is highly concentrated energy, and it can easily crush you if you let it. It’s mammoth, gargantuan, and overwhelming. But know this- This is the paradigm. It’s set now. In the cardinal crisis, things could and did shift monumentally in the blink of a moment. For better or for worse, this is what you have to work with. This is forward motion; unfortunately it’s all uphill. Good for the calves though- Leg day and all. This is all set against the backdrop of the Nodes, as all eclipses are… *editors note- from here its just me rambling. I tried to edit it but it didnt make any sense. Skip to Venus if you want pure astro* Huh. I just realized, mid-sentence why eclipses are so feared- The nodes are massive channels of pure, formless potential energy. Their symbol in the charts looks like gateways. When the sun/moon combines with them, the gate is opened and the energy is released, for better or for worse. Think of it like Ghostbusters (the original, when they open the fridge to the other dimension). It’s up to us to shape what comes through the gate, just like Gozer could not choose its own form- It needed a human for that. Which brings us to Saturn (not that I can even follow my own train of thought on this, but trust me it’s there) Saturn is the one holding this shit together, as he almost always does. He will help bring form to whatever you put your energy into (Mars), bringing it out of the potential and into the real (Mercury-Neptune). Even though it doesn’t seem like it, YOU are the one in command of this energy (Jupiter). Wield it or be destroyed by it (Pluto).
If you will indulge me another reference, I will explain in terms of a really good story. In one of my favorite super nerdy book series, Shannara (There are about 30 or so books so far, and it’s going to be a series on MTV!) There exist objects called Elfstones (coincidentally, the name of the book they are starting the MTV series with!) which all have different properties. Blue for Seeking, Red for Destruction, White for Protection, and so on, but each one comes with a cost, as magic is never free. There are three of each set, one stone for Head, Heart, and Body. All three need to be present and in tune to work. This is true for all but one stone, the Black Elfstone. It is self-contained and surpasses anything that any of the others can do. Upon its first use, it destroys all in its path at the cost of its user’s life, sacrificing himself for his friends and his mission. Another time it was used as a means of deterrent and ended up turning both users into monsters, warped beyond all former semblance of what they used to be. On its final use, it is used to take on magic that was deadly to any other person- The user was able to take the magic into himself, and upon doing so found both power, wisdom, and a new mission, not to mention a personal catharsis and coming to terms with the use of his own magic that he continually rejected. He suffered a death of sorts, and came out the other side, healed in ways that he was unaware could be healed. He embraced the challenge before him, and refused to allow his own limits, rage and fears stop him from doing what must be done, even if it meant becoming the very thing he hated. Once the crisis was over, he was able to move on and accept what was, by facing it head on. He never looked back, and was better for it.
Venus, Chiron and Uranus- See, this is the shit that scares me. The rest of you are still freaking about the other nonsense that I barely explained. This is dam-breaking Astro if I’ve ever seen it. The catastrophe that you have been trying to hold at bay, the worst case scenario that has kept you up at night, maybe for years, will come to pass. It will be sudden, and all your plans won’t amount to shit. It will be bad. You will need to face it and will not be able to run from it. But no matter how the chips fall, they will fall. This is a good thing, because it is taking so much energy to fear this thing happening, that even if the worst happens, then it will be a relief to no longer have it hanging over your head. It is a brave new world out there, and you can’t take this old fear with you. Your deepest weaknesses and insecurities will be exposed, and you will be vulnerable. You may find yourself all alone. But it’s not the end. In fact, your load just got much lighter, and you can move on to the next stage in your story.
This is a Lunar Eclipse, at the Moon’s closest approach to the Earth. On this day, above all else, I promise that you will feel. And that, above all else, scares me to death.
I am not a brave or strong man. I am a man who, long ago, figured out how to shut off his own emotional response to just about any situation. It enables me to survive, on nothing but pure bloody-mindedness and refusal to quit, long after I should have fallen. That will not work today. Today, I must face the rotting, necrotic corpse of what I once was. Today I must face the creature that I helped to survive. It is not me, not anymore. What I once was is dead, and I must move on with what is by facing the shattering of the fantasy. The day I am forced to feel again, I fear that the cumulative emotion will tear me to shreds, like the proverbial dam breaking and unleashing a torrent.
You will all face this in one way or another. This one will slip through the cracks in your armor, not matter how tightly you have wrapped it around yourself. You cannot run, you cannot negotiate or talk your way out of it, and you sure as hell cannot fight it. What you CAN do is dive in, and let it envelop and permeate everything that you are. You can give in to it. Stop resisting it and let it do its work. You must jump into the black abyss that holds everything that you fear and everything you want. You may die, alone and scared as you run out of oxygen. You may face terrible creatures, the stuff of nightmares that mankind has never seen; black and terrible things, hell-bent on making you their lunch. Or, you may swim like your life depends on it, giving it everything you have and just a little bit more, and you may emerge into a chamber filled with light, and sweet, sweet oxygen. You may find a reason to live when you hit the bottom and things look their bleakest.
The Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Pluto- Yes, you’re reading that right. It’s insane. This is highly concentrated energy, and it can easily crush you if you let it. It’s mammoth, gargantuan, and overwhelming. But know this- This is the paradigm. It’s set now. In the cardinal crisis, things could and did shift monumentally in the blink of a moment. For better or for worse, this is what you have to work with. This is forward motion; unfortunately it’s all uphill. Good for the calves though- Leg day and all. This is all set against the backdrop of the Nodes, as all eclipses are… *editors note- from here its just me rambling. I tried to edit it but it didnt make any sense. Skip to Venus if you want pure astro* Huh. I just realized, mid-sentence why eclipses are so feared- The nodes are massive channels of pure, formless potential energy. Their symbol in the charts looks like gateways. When the sun/moon combines with them, the gate is opened and the energy is released, for better or for worse. Think of it like Ghostbusters (the original, when they open the fridge to the other dimension). It’s up to us to shape what comes through the gate, just like Gozer could not choose its own form- It needed a human for that. Which brings us to Saturn (not that I can even follow my own train of thought on this, but trust me it’s there) Saturn is the one holding this shit together, as he almost always does. He will help bring form to whatever you put your energy into (Mars), bringing it out of the potential and into the real (Mercury-Neptune). Even though it doesn’t seem like it, YOU are the one in command of this energy (Jupiter). Wield it or be destroyed by it (Pluto).
If you will indulge me another reference, I will explain in terms of a really good story. In one of my favorite super nerdy book series, Shannara (There are about 30 or so books so far, and it’s going to be a series on MTV!) There exist objects called Elfstones (coincidentally, the name of the book they are starting the MTV series with!) which all have different properties. Blue for Seeking, Red for Destruction, White for Protection, and so on, but each one comes with a cost, as magic is never free. There are three of each set, one stone for Head, Heart, and Body. All three need to be present and in tune to work. This is true for all but one stone, the Black Elfstone. It is self-contained and surpasses anything that any of the others can do. Upon its first use, it destroys all in its path at the cost of its user’s life, sacrificing himself for his friends and his mission. Another time it was used as a means of deterrent and ended up turning both users into monsters, warped beyond all former semblance of what they used to be. On its final use, it is used to take on magic that was deadly to any other person- The user was able to take the magic into himself, and upon doing so found both power, wisdom, and a new mission, not to mention a personal catharsis and coming to terms with the use of his own magic that he continually rejected. He suffered a death of sorts, and came out the other side, healed in ways that he was unaware could be healed. He embraced the challenge before him, and refused to allow his own limits, rage and fears stop him from doing what must be done, even if it meant becoming the very thing he hated. Once the crisis was over, he was able to move on and accept what was, by facing it head on. He never looked back, and was better for it.
Venus, Chiron and Uranus- See, this is the shit that scares me. The rest of you are still freaking about the other nonsense that I barely explained. This is dam-breaking Astro if I’ve ever seen it. The catastrophe that you have been trying to hold at bay, the worst case scenario that has kept you up at night, maybe for years, will come to pass. It will be sudden, and all your plans won’t amount to shit. It will be bad. You will need to face it and will not be able to run from it. But no matter how the chips fall, they will fall. This is a good thing, because it is taking so much energy to fear this thing happening, that even if the worst happens, then it will be a relief to no longer have it hanging over your head. It is a brave new world out there, and you can’t take this old fear with you. Your deepest weaknesses and insecurities will be exposed, and you will be vulnerable. You may find yourself all alone. But it’s not the end. In fact, your load just got much lighter, and you can move on to the next stage in your story.
