Full Moon 18 Leo 7:2:12

Imbolc

Very pleased today that the recent cold weather has abated enough to do our Imbolc ritual in relative comfort! We've been doing this long enough now so that it no longer feels contrived and we have a genuine gladness for it.

     

We fill the bowl with things that represent all the things we want to grow in the coming season: seeds of root crops and salads, onions and fruits such as peppers, herbs, culinary and medicinal, beans and flowers and leafy greens;  The  peas represent gratitude for last year's harvest ~ there's also a pencil for writing and drawing and a sample of the lip balm I made with beeswax and honey. There is a heart shaped beach pebble for Steve and Me and a little gold heart I made  for all our loved ones,  and our internet friends ~ that's you!

A good blowy walk up Sancreed Beacon first, then quietly, past flocks of fieldfares down to the Holy Well.

Beautifully adorned for the celebration of new energies.

Down the seven steps into the womblike dripping darkness to light a candle and float

our thanks and dreams and blessings on the sacred waters..

Imbolc blessings to us all

Neptune's Home! (a dry land tale of the deep)

"Neptune moves into Pisces later today.." I said.
"Oh?, and what's that good for?" He asked..

" That's a bit of a mystery," I replied, "but do you

remember the story of Little Red Riding Hood?  That has lots of Neptune elements to it - compassion,
disguise,deception and escape for a start.:

 ~  Kind, sweet young female, with a glamorous red cloak

goes to take some tempting goodies to her elderly

grandmother who is sick in bed.

 As she goes through the dark forest, she is spotted by the

hungry wolf who wants to eat her all up! For this he needs

some privacy however, so he suggests that she pick her

grandmother some of the beautiful flowers that grow along the

path.  She's a suggestible soul and is soon completely

absorbed  in her task.                                             

    Meanwhile, the wolf has scurried off to Grandma's cottage

and entering under false pretences he soon gobbles up Grandma

and then disguised in her bed clothes, lies in wait for  Red 

Riding Hood.    She's suspicious, but deceived long enough to be

consumed as well.

  Of course there's a hero (it is a Neptune story after all) and along comes the brave hunter, just in time to kill the wolf and allow the still kicking girls to escape.   And not a dolphin in sight! ~

Neptune's at home in Pisces and this is his first visit here since 1847 - 1861. We don't know what to expect really, but there will most likely be an emphasis on the mutual qualities and rulerships of Neptune and Pisces : Inspiration and music, Glamour,delusion,illusion, meditation,deception, compassion, psychic experience,poetry,drugs, hallucinations, dreams, healing, addiction, spirituality and the spiritual nature of religion (as opposed to morality and the church - that's Jupiter and Sagittarius), sacrifice, the dissolving of ego, ritual and magic,film and photography,oil and gas and of course, the deep oceans. Dissolving boundaries of all kinds, Neptune forgives and forgets and if death is part of that process, so be it, dissolve, move on...always move on..
    This time, our oceans as well as our collective unconscious are rather full of things we'd rather forget as well as things we want to extract aren't they?
 Last time Neptune was here many uniting movements came into being. The Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels,Spiritualism, the new Empiricism of Darwin, throwing the established Christian Church into turmoil, The PreRaphaelite Brotherhood and the dawning of the Arts and Crafts movement. It was the period when people liked to 'take the waters' and hydrotherapy became popular and it was this era that finally led to the  American Civil War.
 Neptune in Pisces born children from this time included Bram Stoker, Annie Besant,  Tiffany, Gaugin, Waterhouse, de Maupassant and RL Stevenson. Gaudi, Van Gogh, George Eastman, Oscar Wilde and Paul Ehrlich, father of chemotherapy.  Sigmund Freud, Rider Haggard and George Bernard Shaw; Conrad, Elgar and AE Waite (originator of the Rider Waite tarot deck).Puccini, Conan Doyle and Kenneth Grahame; AE Housman, Seurat and Kaiser Wilhelm; Albeniz,, JM Barrie and Max Planck (originator of Quantum Theory). Chekhov, Mahler and Robert Baden Powell to name but a few.  Who will the new generation of Pisces Neptune children be? What will they be good for?

   Image from 'Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories' by VariousAuthors 1927 [Project Gutenberg]