PLANETARY ENERGIES

In this issue:
The New Year Finally Begins!
Chinese/Tibetan New Year
Imbolc: Rituals and Significance
Celebrating Imbolc Today
Imbolc This Year
All Change in the Heavens
February Eclipses
The Planets February 2—March 21
Notes on Pluto in Capricorn: fashion, food, Cuba.

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THE NEW YEAR FINALLY BEGINS!

I find that the New Year doesn’t really get going energetically until early February, which is when Imbolc, the Celtic New Year, was traditionally celebrated. Sometimes astrological patterns wake the year up earlier, but not this year, with Mars retrograde all through January, holding matters back in general.

Perhaps it’s helpful to see the New Year as a phase rather than a moment: a period that runs from the Winter Solstice in late December right through to early February. In the UK tax returns are due at the end of January, which I find quite harmonious, as it means one deals with the old year in the first month of the new one. After clearing up paperwork, then creativity and fresh ideas for the future are free to emerge into the dawning light of the new year.

Early February has long been celebrated as a holiday in many cultures: in ancient Ireland it was Imbolc and Brigid’s Day, in the Mediterranean and later in all of Europe, it was Candlemas and St. Bridget’s Day. In the US Feb 2 is Groundhog Day, a celebration of the lengthening days causing small furry creatures to poke their noses out of their hibernation holes and sniff the warming air. The Chinese and Tibetan New Years also occur in this time period, usually falling somewhere in the late January, early February window.

At this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, the land, refreshed from the resting period of winter and purified by frosts, is getting ready for cultivation, for the renewal of the agricultural year. This is a moment of quickening, as the spark of life reappears, coming up from its deep underground slumber.

CHINESE/TIBETAN NEW YEAR

This year Chinese and Tibetan New Year fall on Feb 7. Both are calculated in the same fashion: it’s sometimes said that it’s the first new moon with the Sun in Aquarius, which, while it is usually the case, is not actually correct. I’m not going to go into the whole saga of the complex Chinese/Tibetan lunisolar calendar, but in brief, the New Year is the first New Moon in the Chinese/Tibetan Year. This year the New Moon in early February is also a Solar Eclipse, making this a particularly notable beginning to the year.

In Tibet this holiday is called Losar (literally—LO means year and SAR means new), and is a fifteen day festival, the biggest in the whole year. Before the festival begins, the last day of the old year is used for cleaning up, and the festival itself is marked by a variety of religious and secular ceremonies to usher in the new.

In China the New Year is a huge celebration. I was in Beijing once for New Year and it was like being in a war zone: the noise of the fireworks was deafening and went on all night.

2008 is the Year of the Rat, which is the first sign of the Chinese zodiac, making it a new beginning of the twelve-year long cycle, a kind of double New Year. In Western astrology we can also see an amplification of the New Year theme because we have so many planets changing signs and directions around now, a theme I’ll develop in more detail later on in the newsletter. Several of these changes involve a shift into Earth signs, and in another parallel, this year in Chinese astrology is the year of the Earth Rat (there are five elements, so the Earth Rat year occurs once every 60 years). Earth Rat years are considered to be good for practical matters and for getting ahead in life (Rats being ambitious and able), but also deliver surprises and reversals. The last Earth Rat year was 1948, a year of great global change and reorganization.

IMBOLC: RITUALS AND SIGNIFICANCE

The Celts celebrated the beginning of February with bonfires and feasts, believing that the year begins when the Sun reaches the halfway point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, (15 degrees of Aquarius), marking the return of warmth and light and fertility in the Northern Hemisphere. Although often cited as occurring on February 2, the exact time of Imbolc is a day or two later, and this year falls on February 4, just before noon GMT (4 am Pacific, 7 am Eastern).

Like the other cross-quarter days (the festivals that fall midway between the solstices and equinoxes), Imbolc was a fire festival and a major holyday in the Celtic calendar. It was the festival of the lactation of the ewes: the word Imbolc is Gaelic for “in the belly” and referred to the pregnant ewes. Sheep were crucial providers of both food and clothing and the arrival of lambs was a time for celebration. The specific areas of dedication at Imbolc, associated with Brigit, the Irish virgin goddess, were virgins, healing, and poets. Imbolc is a virginal time: everything is new, purified by winter and becoming ready for impregnation, the sowing of the seed. It’s not clear how the association with poetry fits in here, but one can surmise that it’s because poetry is the purest of the creative forms and needs no tools other than the voice. (Extemporaneous poetry was the most highly esteemed of the Bardic arts, requiring purity of mind and clarity of intent in order to allow the voice of the divine to enter through the channel of the poet.)

Brigid/Brigit, also known as Brighid, Bride, Brighde, or Bridget, was a major goddess in the ancient Celtic pantheon. She was adopted by the early Christian Church as St Bridget and frequently associated with the Virgin Mary. She was sometimes a midwife to Mary and at other times conflated with her, as in medieval Ireland where she was known as Mary of the Gael and revered as a muse to poets. The Christians adopted the holiday of St. Brigit’s Day/Imbolc and called it Candlemas, integrating the old practice of lighting new candles on this day as symbolic of the new light, the new year, the new impetus for creativity. It is still the day of the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, as February 2 is, forty days since December 25, the birthday of Jesus.

If you are ever in London, I recommend a visit to St. Bride’s Church in Fleet Street, one of the oldest churches in the city. There is an ancient crypt underground that one can visit and meditate in. Seven churches have been built on the site over the past two thousand years: this is an ancient place of worship, and has an palpable, deep, earth energy, very nourishing and feminine. Due to the proximity of the first printing press and the subsequent growth of the print trade, St Bride’s has long been associated with printing and journalism, and has a side-chapel with an altar dedicated to journalists imprisoned or killed in their line of work.

St Bride’s song

I long for a great lake of ale
I long for the meats of belief and pure piety
I long for flails of penance at my house
I long for them to have barrels full of peace
I long to give away jars full of love
I long for them to have cellars full or mercy
I long for cheerfulness to be in their drinking
I long for Jesus too to be there among them.

CELEBRATING IMBOLC TODAY

Simple things to do to honor Imbolc include lighting new candles throughout the house, wearing new clothes, and making lists of intentions for the coming season. If you want to have a feast, the dish of choice is roast lamb. But don’t forget that Imbolc is also a good time for a detox or fast, as the watchwords for this phase are purification and cleansing.

The purity of the Imbolc symbolism is very much part of the newness of the year. Life is refreshed by cleansing, by letting go. This is a time to release attachment to past pain, to let go of whatever out-dated stories about yourself and your life you are hanging onto, to allow the healing of forgiveness and acceptance to soothe old injuries of heart and soul.

It is an excellent time to review what has and has not already been achieved, and to assess which of your dreams you still want to pursue and which ones you might as well let go of.

It’s a potent time to clear away past disappointments, to let go of old ideas about yourself, and step fully into the present. And on the mundane and physical level, it’s a great time to clear out and give away all that stuff you no longer need.

IMBOLC THIS YEAR

Imbolc this year is followed almost immediately by a New Moon, which is also a Solar Eclipse. If you can, do all your clearing out and purifying before this New Moon, so you can really use the energy of the eclipse for a brand new start. This is a mega-new beginning, a doubled up New Year. At the eclipse both Sun and Moon are closely conjunct retrograde Mercury, and are moving towards the conjunction with Neptune, making this a strong period for spiritual work and healing. It’s also a great time to commune with the muse and write a song or poem. The New Moon is also exactly semi-sextile Venus, adding to the artistic nature of this period, and to possibilities for romance and romantic gestures.

We have a generous time period at Imbolc this year for noticing the opening of springtime within and without. From Imbolc (Feb 2-4) through to the New Moon and Eclipse on Feb 7 is a great time for eliminating and purifying, and the New Moon itself is an excellent window for meditating and asking for inspiration. Enjoy the gradual beginning of spring, and if you feel so moved, make some enlivening New Year resolutions!

With love,

Lara

February 1 2008