Help me turn writing into a career, not just something I do on the side. Your paid subscription helps me carve out real time for essays — the deeper, slower pieces that I can take my time to write whilst I sip my Oolong in the morning.
Paid subscribers get early (and full) access to new essays, occasional behind-the-scenes notes on what I’m working through & monthly live guest speaker interviews. I hope you enjoy this article.
Big love,
SB x
This past week (ever since the new moon and full solar eclipse) has been incredibly dark for me.
Eclipses are times where we are meant to sink into uncertainty, where things that were previously “known” start to dissolve. A time for being in the void. A time for letting ourselves and our lives rearrange themselves.
For me, this eclipse has been a particularly big one, as it fell at 20degrees of Leo and my South Node sits at 21 degrees, in conjunction with my Ascendant at 23 degrees Leo. Not only that, but it was squaring my Sun-Pluto-Mercury conjunction at 17 degrees of Scorpio.
Leo, ruled by the sun, rules our vitality and life force energy. With the sun being eclipsed in it’s own sign, it means that our vitality has been dampened. If you too have placements around that 20degree mark of Leo (17degrees-23degrees) or any of the other fixed signs in those degrees, it may have impacted your physical health and wellbeing too.
The fixed cross in Astrology (Leo — Aquarius, Scorpio — Taurus) is the cross of Alchemy. The tetramorph maps directly onto this — Lion, Eagle (Scorpio's higher octave), Man, Bull are Ezekiel's four living creatures, later absorbed into the four evangelists, and they sit at the four fixed points of the zodiacal wheel. In alchemical iconography this same grouping often surrounds the philosopher's stone or the completed Work — the four elements stabilized around a center, no longer transmuting but holding. That's the difference between the Cardinal Cross (initiation, ignition) and the Fixed Cross: Cardinal is the volatile phase, Fixed is coagulation. Sulfur and Salt both belong more naturally here than Mercury does — Leo carries something of Sulfur's solar, combustible soul-principle, Taurus carries Salt's inert, crystallized body-principle.
Fixation can mean mastery or it can mean rigidity, and the fixed signs carry both — the stone that holds power and the stone that refuses to move. With the South node eclipsing 20degrees Leo, we are having a powerful force eclipse the centre of our hearts — the seat of our Soul. So this eclipse is a Soul initiation in many senses.
But also, the sun has gone dark. Meaning that we have been asked to steer away from the light and into the caves of our being, to let parts of the soul decompost and resettle into something new.
My particular astrological chart is nearly entirely fixed, and so this past week, parts of me that have been immovable for a long time, have let go.
When I go into the dark, I really descend.
Just yesterday, everything felt incredibly bleak in my life. I often descend into suicidal ideation when things get really dark and I cannot find any source of spark of light inside of me. This morning, as I drink tea from bed, I feel inspired to share with you how I move through these journeys and layers of my psyche when I am in this space.
I don’t fight the darkness, I create space for it. Space to rest. Space to be in my “cave”. I rest. I dream. I sleep. I collapse. I cry. I give myself the space to go into what is present for me.
When I start to dip into the program of “I don’t want to live”, I always ask myself which part of myself is dying. Usually, it is a part of my personality that is losing grip of itself and is dying. I don’t intellectualise this enquiry, I just sit with it and I get curious about it.
I ask myself, what part of my life is outdated? For me, right now, it is my isolation program. My tendency to retreat and do everything alone. This winter has been a long, arduous descent and I have had to admit to myself that I am fucking lonely. It is comfortable, but it is lonely. And I am responsible for changing that.
I drink high quality, medicinal tea, like Liu Bao or Sheng pu-erh every morning in silent ritual and I ask my body to heal and clear itself. Coffee first thing in the morning is minerally depleting, bad for the gut and it floods the body with cortisol within minutes — it hijacks the adrenal glands, borrows energy from tomorrow to spend today. It primes the nervous system for output, for doing, for pushing through. Tea works on a slower current. The L-theanine in aged tea leaves works alongside the caffeine, not against it, producing a steadier, calmer alertness rather than a spike. My mornings are not for pushing. They are for asking my body what it needs, and tea lets me stay in that question instead of rushing past it.
I make sure I am nurtuting my body. Yesteryday I got bodywork and moved some of the deeper layers of tension. The day before I sat in my local mineral spa and gave myself permission to stare endlessly into the woods. Esoterically we say that the body-mind are one. So when we release tension from the body, we are simultaneously working on our mind layers.
I work with plant allie supports to help me lift my spirit and see things from a higher perspective… or see the things I cannot quite see for myself — for me, these past few days, it has been Blue Lotus and Microdosing small amounts of psylocibin. Not to escape, not to numb — but to loosen the grip of my own perspective just enough to let something wider in. Allies, not substances. There is a difference there — maybe you can feel it in the wording.
Normally I would also say, time in nature… moving the body in nature. Moving the body in whatever way feels good. For me, currently, that is nearly impossible as I have some kind of flu, paired with exhaustion and a broken toe. So it has been missed pilates classes and small, 100m walks to my tolerance, in the forest for me… but normally, this is one of my main remedies. Bare feet on the earth, breathing her through my body. Endorphin and endocannabinoids releases through a strong physical practise (not to mention the other myriad of natural antidepressants exercise modulates, like serotonin for example).
Hugs. Contact Dance. Oxytocin through touch. Human connection (if and when that feels right… sometimes I find connection to be distracting, if someone cannot meet me in the silence and the darkness… which is a rare quality to possess). I personally know that often when I am moving through something so old and ancient, like I am right now, that I just need to be held. I need a silent loving space of connection. I need to be nurtured. Cooked for. Looked after. I have a handful of people I know I can call upon for this kind of connection.
Prayer. Asking for spirit to descend and hold me through the darkness. Ask for it to show me my blindspots. Ask for grace to return.
Remembering this too shall pass. Everything is always moving, changing. Nothing stagnating unless we hold on too tightly. Keep breathing, keep letting your body move to the beat of change. You will move through this.
I am still very much so in the grips of this darkness, but I am slowly moving through it one breath at a time.
And if you are journeying through something similar — I know many of you are at this time — I hope this helps. Eclipses are dark. They are designed that way. We are in the portal for another week.
Breathe.
Warm love,
SB. X
