The 2020 Winter Solstice and Grand Conjunction
The winter solstice is “special” this year and here is how it may affect you…
For some people, the two equinoxes and solstices are part of everyday life. For others, it’s just a date on the calendar and that’s pretty much it. Indigenous and pagan people around the world understand the deeper meaning of such times. It is a physical manifestation in that Mother Earth has reached a point in her own yearly lifecycle where a change of season occurs. If you look at these as times of energy shifts, they are one quarter of our life in a year. Cycles are tied to patterns. Patterns, when seen and understood, are like having a miraculous GPS in hand to guide us through our life.
Each season is very unique in and of itself. First, it is a time of change. There are people who resist change and don’t like it at all. There are others who eagerly shift energies because it is their nature and they probably have low boredom point, to boot, and look forward to the changes to come.
There’s a lot written adjectively, as well as with adverbially, to define each of our seasons. If a person can see the pattern of say, spring, it is a time when the seed awakens and pokes its head above ground and begins to grow. Taking that fact, we can turn it toward ourselves: each spring is a time of some new seed within ourselves that is ready to open and push upward to burst into the world above. Maybe that ‘seed’ is an idea you’ve held secret a long time, but spring has that birthing energy to bring it to life. Instead of hiding in the soil of your dreams, you can act upon it. You get the idea.
This year we are having the grand conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, which will occur on the winter solstice, 12.21.2020. It has been roughly eight hundred years since they have been this close, degree and minute-wise, to one another. Jupiter will be at 0 Aquarius 19 and Saturn will be at 0 Aquarius 24 on the winter solstice. The next day, December 22nd, they will continue this mating of energies within one minute of each other; a perfect conjunction, melding and becoming one from two.
This amazing once in our lifetime event has a global energy pattern behind it. But it is also embraced and held within the power of the winter solstice. It is the shortest amount of day light in our present year, 2020. The darkness is the longest for all of us. Animals have instincts to know this shift of light and dark is cyclical and natural. Humans, unless attuned consciously to this pattern, may find it an inconvenience. I always liken this shift of energy to the hibernation of a bear. As the light wanes, Mama Bear knows to find a den and then allow the body to put it into a light hibernation. I call this the bear dreaming season. Of course, in us imperfect human beings, darkness isn’t always seen as positive, but rather, something scary or something to be suppressed or repressed within ourselves—our personal bogey man, if you will. Shadow and Light. We live through these just about daily, to a minimal or maximal degree, depending upon the person and their unique circumstance.
I think about the hibernating mother bear who gives birth as she sleeps, and has two, three or four cubs. This is birth coming out of the darkness of the female’s womb and into the darkness after birthing. Yet, the cubs, who are blind at this stage, find nourishing and fattening milk, warmth, and protection from their mother. I always ask myself: what am I birthing within myself during this winter season? I pay attention to synchronistic events and my dreams around the 21st of December. Inevitably, there has been something brewing, growing inside me, or a “birth” of an idea—perhaps, a yearning to strike out in a new direction and become it.
I look forward to the days that are more dark than light because it gives me the quiet time to explore myself deeply without interruption from the outside world: where am I at? Am I happy there? Or not? What do I want to change? Where is my yearning taking me? Is something wrong? Am I not happy? What can I do to fix that within myself? What attitude do I need to change, whittle away or enhance? What do I want to do in the next year? To accomplish? Learn? Teach? Give away? Exchange for something else? Write your own questions down and then gently explore the inner heart and soul of yourself to receive the answers and/or direction. Dreams are potent during the entire winter season. Give them the credence they deserve: it is the message your soul is trying to give you. Dreams are symbols. Symbols have meaning. Look at all of it in many different ways and perspectives.
With Jupiter conjuncts Saturn this is a time when karma comes due. But so does the goodness, dharma. What you have sown, you will now reap with this new moon solar eclipse. It may not come right now, but there is a 3-month long energy pattern to this moment when we either get coal in our sock or a cosmic paycheck, instead. No one can judge you except the cosmos. I would say the week of December 6-13 is the “run-up” week to the eclipse which takes place on December 14th, Monday. There will be some people who will receive their reward or lump of coal in this week. Others will get it on the day of the eclipse, and others, a week or so later.
Whatever the gifts or lumps of coal that you are handed? Take it or them deeply inside yourself and feel your way through it all. This is an eclipse about our past and how we’ve handled ourselves and how we have behaved toward others. Whatever karma or dharma this conjunction lays at your feet? It is going to be earthquake powerful because it has happened on the winter solstice. Those who are self-aware will utilize this time well. Those who are “asleep” won’t, but rather will feel victimized by the winds of Fate.
If we do our due diligence from December 13-21st, internalize it all, seek to see the pattern that has emerged from our past year, and turn it into something worthwhile and filled with faith/hope. A dream will begin to emerge. Like the mother bear in hibernation, gently and lovingly hold this wisp of a dream and allow it to birth and gel within you. Care for it and yourself. Don’t give up. Don’t quit. Be common sensed and practical as to how you can manifest it in the world for yourself. This conjunction took eight-hundred years to reach out at this pregnant moment of possibility. Feed it. Love it. Protect it. A new pattern is arising in all of those who are ready to take it on. Trust yourself, trust your heart, your true GPS, and then slowly but surely, work toward it. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And it’s yours for the taking. Be there to receive it.
