The Sword Eclipses The Castle

For the eclipse moment, yesterday, I took my (Leo rising) son to see The Odyssey. He was familiar with some of the characters thanks to Percy Jackson books but overall, this was a new tale for him. He’s a movie talker #leorising and so throughout the three hours of the film he’d ask questions, comment on the scenes or just generally want to share his reaction/laughter/disgust/confusion with his mom.

I loved sharing the time with him and would give him little clues as the scenes were beginning (“ooooh this place belongs to a sorceressssssss” when I saw the big cats along the path ) but I also loved it for myself. I will see it again on the big screen before it cycles away. This ancient tale has woven through my life both in reading the poem, make believe play in the swampy woods of my youth, carrying a worn copy of Edith Hamilton’s Greek Mythology in my backpack, traveling to the temple of Apollo in Greece with my sister and later as a professional astrologer in recent years.

Seeing the scenes dramatically filmed by an excellent director (Christopher Nolan, creator of one of my favorite movies: Inception & my son’s favorite movie, Interstellar) and one of the scenes stood out to connect a part of myself, back to myself.

This is a short note to reflect on the small connections that I have been making this summer. With the complexity and weight of being an astrologer for others, doing the work for myself is mostly done out of sight, alone, quiet reflection and integration. I am always noticing the symbols around me, connecting the synchronicities of “coincidences” of thought/radio songs/dialogue/chatter/animals/etc. A Decan Walk is a practice of noticing. My internal work is folded within the books I’m slowly reading, the moments of sunrise sitting on my front steps with a cup of coffee & enjoying being screen free; the planning of the events coming up in my professional field (UAC lecture next month!) and devising a new journey/process/firelighting of the Venus Retrograde all the while leading a decan walk, reading for clients, traveling to family across the southern states and running a brokerage (what was once my main gig is now a side gig, getting in the way).

But this movie brought me something deeply striking and I wanted to take a breather out of the summer waters to emerge with a token of symbolism, meaningful to me. Hopefully there have been some meaningful moments for you this summer.

This is the 6 of Swords in tarot representing the middle decan of Aquarius and is the place that my natal IC finds it’s home. The IC is a place you can find yourself rooted, the connecting thread to lineage, ancestors, knowledge of before and this decan+tarot card has always meant something to me, something familiar. Like the Magician card, the prominent person shown here is wielding a long staff pointing from the top left to the bottom right. The Magician also holds their arms in this position and they are associated with the god Hermes/Mercury. The 6 of Swords card is a Hermetic/Mercurial decan, channeling Mercury into this story.

The standing guide is able to see above the swords that are blocking the view of the two travelers sitting in the boat. They are also able to navigate the choppy waters on the right with the smooth waters on the left, wand in hand. They are guiding these souls from one shore to another, directing them from behind, memory as the compass; Mercury as the ferryman of the lost souls to the underworld, Mercury as the planet that retrogrades and crosses the Sun more than any other planet. Mercury as the psychopomp, the traveler between worlds, comfortable in liminal spaces, connecting lands and discovery.

In the Odyssey, an early scene of Odysseus facing the return home, he views a tidal landscape. The story weaves flashbacks & present states that reunite the movie from beginning to end and in this scene a shot of a tidal landscape appears before him. Is he voyaging to Troy or is he returning home? The longing and unknown is the same. Odysseus is both remembering the reason he left to fight for his king and also the desire to return home to his own kingdom. The pathway is the retrograde motion of the same route but being a different person each time he travels it.

The image of the small tributaries weaving towards the screen to the river that Odysseus sails spoke to me about my own journey and the Six of Swords.

A lifetime is spent remembering the future as we desire it, dragging ourselves towards something that feels inevitable and yet out of reach. A lifetime is a ladder along which we interact with our relationships, our environment, our allies and enemies…all as a reflection of our soul’s light in trying to weave itself in union from beginning to end.

photo by Synnatschke

The image of the waterways, of the tarot card, of my own chart was a simple reminder that all of life is a journey home. The landscape that I grew up on, the serpentine and changing silty waterways that ebbed out and flowed in, reflects my own rhythms. I am a child of this liminal space & so reflecting the landscape of my soul’s symbolic journey is what I find in tarot & astrology. I was born just before a new moon, a balsamic moon, a quiet moon that is composting towards renewal. This month’s New Moon, an eclipse, is a dark quiet time yet loud with symbolism. The images that are coming out of cameras parked in Portugal and Spain, those who witnessed the red corona of the sun shining behind the moon capture the spirit of a fiery Leo Moon intersecting with the domicile Leo Sun. The two lights crossing to reflect a third path.

And so what to make of this current passage in my current journey?

I pulled two cards from Kim Krans’ Archetypes deck to see what the two luminary energies are asking of me right now:

For reference, this Leo eclipse is happening extremely close to my MC, naturally opposing my IC (see tarot card above). These two archetypal cards are asking me to Make A Decision (The Sword) that addresses the Light/Dark of the Castle. What defenses have I created to protect me from the outside that may be creating torpor on the inside? What achievements have I sought, conquered, secured in bronze & hung on the castle walls? Are these things gathering dust from their old age? What decision is to be made to free myself from the very Castle that I have fought to defend? Is my materialism enchanting me into a dream that no longer serves my soul’s journey?

These two cards are activating the Aquarius/Leo axis of my IC/MC and this eclipse moment is challenging me to consider: Who Am I = Where Did I Travel From + What Am I Seeking + What Am I Leaving

“To use the Sword is to decide. The blade separates one reality from another. The choice is made, and all else falls away…Decisions shape our life, and The Sword is an infamous shaper of destiny.”

As I see a part of myself on the screen of The Odyssey, the rivulets that meander from an unknown spring towards a traveler on the water, I have some choices to make. Am I Odysseus traveling home to the Castle or do I have a Sword in hand to adventure further? Both routes are the same, yet the perspective and motivations are mirrored.

I’ll let you know what I find. The symbols are the ones that dislodge these questions, but they don’t just hand you the answers.

Spell it,

Christa