A New Moon in Sagittarius and Notes From the Post-Eclipse Underground

Breaking my radio silence from my new bolt-hole in San Miguel, after quite a rough eclipse passage here. Bask in the benevolence of this lunation (and Jupiter direct) -- I'm certain you've earned it.

“The Sun is Passing the Sign of Sagittarius” by Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis (1906)

There’s something almost miraculous about this New Moon in Sagittarius, which dawned in the first decan of the archer a few hours ago. This is the decan ruled over by the Eight of Wands — the minor arcana vibration of the Wheel of Fortune. A card that is sometimes called the arrows of love and brings swift endings, resolution. In the Thoth, The Lord of Swiftness: “light wands turned into electric rays”.  

Indeed, it feels like the eclipse curse has finally been lifted by this moon, as the turgid black bile we’ve all been struggling through for weeks is replaced by curious winds, fire, speed, and haste. The Scorpion’s spring-loaded preservation trap is now eating the dust of galloping centaurs, swift fletchings, and high-speed chariots. 

I was also struck by the timing of Jupiter stationing direct only five minutes after the lunation — the greater benefic ruling this New Moon of course. This is the kind of astrology to make wishes on. The time to shoot your shot, as the kids would say. The San Miguel sunset was especially exquisite last night: angels larping as foil-edged cirrus clouds, bearing our eclipse woes away in a steady flotilla over the highlands. 

Jupiter will be lagooned in his water domicile of Pisces for a few weeks longer, a transit we’ve experienced only in tantalizing dips. What a blessing to see this stellium answering to an empowered benefic — fertile, transcendent, and radiating faith (when we need it most). Before that, our endless funeral procession of planets through Scorpio, taking orders from a retrograde Mars constantly on the verge of a psychotic break. A Mars concerned with surreal performance art and Loki-maxxing at best, but mostly manifesting as torturous mind-labyrinths. Stabbing sprees. Twitter chaos.  

There’s something about the South Node in Scorpio too that intensifies the entropy of this placement: Mongolian sheep in a death spiral, the horror of Brueghel-esque crowd crushes, a woman in Indonesia cut out of the stomach of a python on the actual day of the eclipse. 

To say that our other benefic, Venus, has been ran through these past few weeks — abused, degraded, rode hard and put away wet — is an understatement. First she was brutally dispatched from her own party in the temple of the Sun, fresh off her glitzy cazimi in Libra that kicked off a new 100-year Venusian epoch on October 22nd. Feted in the airy halls of her domicile, to a sudden exile in the sign of her fall, Scorpio — I think we’re all still feeling the whiplash.  

Scrabbling through the maze-like tunnels beneath her castle, to escape the bloodthirsty mob, she walked straight into a trap: the mouth of the eclipse dragon. She’s been crawling naked through its intestines and grottoes of bile since October 24th, spat out, struck by lighting, then swallowed again for round two. 

A bit like Odysseus trapped between the Scylla and Charybdis — the two immortal sea monsters that skulked opposite ends of the Strait of Messina — Venus has been between a proverbial rock and a hard place. The South Node’s tar pit on one side and Saturn’s scythe on the other. Here I am stuck in the middle with you. (One of my favourite poems, “Bog Queen”, by Seamus Heaney captures the alchemical crucible of this past eclipse season).

This all played out rather too literally for me during my move to Mexico over Halloween. A glitch in my hotel booking in Mexico City left me stranded at 1am in the hinterlands of the metropolis. I was close to asking to sleep in the hotel lobby, but decided to take a night bus to San Miguel de Allende instead.  At this point I was dragon-holed for real, as the hacking and sneezing of several nearby passengers forced me to hide out in one of the bus bathrooms. A solar eclipse in the 6th house of health — I was not taking my chances. 

In my sleep-deprived delirium I made the calculation that breathing in piss fumes was preferable to contracting covid in Mexico, or succumbing to a misophonia-induced panic attack from all the snoring. Between the devil and the deep blue sea, indeed. The longest four hours of my life, easily, and I arrived in San Miguel having been awake for more than a day. The solar eclipse squared my Leo Sun by the way (in the third house of planes, trains and automobiles, lol), so I was very much within firing range of those baleful rays.  

Though the eclipse dust is finally starting to settle, I think we’re all still feeling quite raw. Pissy, even. You may have felt like a peristalsis, quite outside your control, has been forcing you through the bowels of your deepest core-programming when it comes to love, connection, safety — even your intrinsic value as a human. Your lovability. It’s been an incredibly tender time.

And with Scorpio there’s always an immense fear of vulnerability. A horror of being exposed. The Scorpion itself is a walking steel-trap: a latex tank with its own built-in “kill button”. The Scorpion will strike if cornered, but will poison itself too in the killing blow. Between vulnerability and death, the Scorpion chooses death. “It’s in my nature.”  

Almost every person with prominent Scorpio I know is driven by world-building: the creation of an elaborate but secret metaphysics that functions as a sort of ersatz camouflage. They are the work but they are also not the work. Every flying buttress, fragment of stained glass in their cathedral of the self is deeply personal — but it’s also misdirection. Dazzled by the part, you cannot perceive the whole. 

All of this is to say, if you’ve wanted to crawl into a hole since late October and the atmos has felt relentlessly prickly, claustrophobic — even dangerously septic— know that you’re not the only one. Eclipses do not care for your petitions. Your plans. Your prostrations. This eclipse series (particularly the South Node sidewinding of the dragon’s tail) has had a stripping, corrosive quality: patterns no longer serving us in love, creativity, and getting the bag have all but bottomed out. Tower moment after tower moment if you’ve been within firing range of the dragon’s breath.

As the eclipse dust starts to settle, know that you’re through the worst of the gauntlet. You survived the two hardest weeks of 2022. Though Venus has no special dignity in Sagittarius, I think we can all appreciate this breather. A bit of philosophical distance from everything the eclipses dredged up. 

And I do feel like I’m coming to Mexico at the perfect time. Cracked open, my reception to beauty is sharper. Every morning I watch the hummingbirds dip their styluses into the balcony jasmine, resting between sessions to preen in our courtyard’s pomegranate tree. I’ve never smelled jasmine quite like it: there’s a toasty, almost gingerbread-like note and its wafts into the apartment if I keep the door open. My balcony overlooks the old town and the highlands beyond, the mountains lapsing into the blue of middle distance. 

West facing, the sunsets themselves feel like 7th house remediation.  Every evening when the Sun’s molten alloy is swallowed by the mountains — beginning its descent to the belly of the IC — I’m overwhelmed by a feeling of loss, threaded with a wire of eros.  I’m on a Uranus line in San Miguel, which means my descendant is also activated here. Astrology, above all else, is the erotics of shadow and light — a language of chiaroscuro. And San Miguel is a place where one is often struck dumb by the lively, almost sentient, haecceity of its light. There’s a reason why this region has long attracted painters (not to mention mystics, card slingers, and astrologers).

I think I’m trying to undo some of the damage of Saturn in Aquarius here — the greatest minds of my generation MK ultraed by Chinese malware. I’m imagining this time in San Miguel as a total sensual reboot, following the Taurus eclipse. I’m trying to relearn the slow courting of dopamine through a deep watchfulness of my small corner of this city. I have no idea where my next hitching post will be, but I do know that I’m meant to be here for this last skinny-dip of Jupiter in Pisces. The hummingbird oasis, as I’ve been calling my sublet, is the holding vessel (and healing) I’ve needed through some pretty hardcore astrology. 

Along with the eclipses ripping me a new one, Mars has been grinding over my Ascendant-Chiron for weeks, and Saturn just made its third and final pass over my Midheaven. Quite the malefic sandwich and no safe-words as far as I can tell. In any case, I couldn’t be more grateful for the grace and absolution of this New Moon and the presence of its attendant angels. 

How about the heady longing of Soda Stereo? They’re a favorite at my local dive bar, where the people-watching, margaritas, and ceviche are all excellent. And I promise more regular transmissions here as the malefics cut me a break. Language is finally returning to me again — in shards and splinters. Thank you so much for your patience. xoxo