
I’ve been pondering ideas and concepts such as “cross to bear’; “to bear one’s suffering”, and the alchemical crucible, a container that withstands extreme temperatures for the purpose of purification. During this Scorpio full Moon phase, the image of the cross as a temple is taking root in my psyche.
For me personally, this eclipse season was intense and the pressure has not let up. It’s a story with many layers but enough to say that I experienced a sudden and brutal bereavement which in turn unearthed a lot of silt and sludge (a polite way of saying it); an extreme and unsettling situation that forced me to leave my home; some unpleasant encounters with various “authorities”; selling, re-cycling, and giving away many of my personal belongings; moving more than a hundred miles away to a situation where the reality was not exactly what I had in mind. I could go on; it is a litany of what appears on the surface as misfortune and adversity and yet I know something else is at work. The symbol of the tower manifested in various ways before and during this time. I am still burning. I am still falling… and I am rising.
This has led me to seek a deeper meaning of these seismic tremors that can occur in life. The cross as the “temenos” upon which the personal resurrection is catalysed is one symbol that offers insight. Like the poison that kills or cures, the power inherent within our death is the same that gives rise to the resurrection that follows. That which brings us down is the same substance that permits ascension… the phoenix from the ashes. Our cross to bear is our personal temple, without it we would not be in the sacred embrace of the goddess, She who destroys and She who gives life. The Temple of the Cross is to bow before the feet of a wisdom that asks for our surrender. To loosen the ego’s grip on an illusionary self, or else to find humility and softening in the things we cannot control such as grief are the teachings of the Cross.
Today I sent this message to a friend, a fellow traveller who is in his own way is being forged in the crucible:
This time is sacred. It is a time when true transformation can happen, and rapid acceleration is possible. Not everyone gets- or takes- this chance. Many remain stuck carrying the cross. These crucibles of fire are not without peril – destruction can be so utter that nothing grows in the wasteland. Bitterness can set in causing the sweetness of life to curdle and sour. It takes a little madness and a little wildness to navigate this terrain.
In all these shifts I’ve not had much time to look at the astrology though this is what spoke to me when I looked at the full Moon Chart. It’s an image of my own experience and yet I sense that others are also going through their own Temple of the Cross.
Asteroid Kaali in Scorpio is in opposition to the Jupiter Uranus conjunction and will in the next day or two meet with the Moon.
As the goddess of time, creation, power, destruction, and pure primal Shakti energy, Kali is connected to the Muladhara chakra, the foundation of our being, our physical structure, emotional, physical, and mental bodies. It has to do with our familial and ancestral roots and governs how we operate in the physical world as well as how connected we are to the earth.
Our ‘cross to bear” often comes from our heritage and ancestral patterns. The family cross (or curse) is passed from one generation to another becoming heavier with each turn of the wheel until someone in the family field finally lays at the Temple of the Cross and transforms the dark matter, or Negredo, into gold. In the Christian mythos, Christ enters and conquers the realm of Hades, dies on the cross, is resurrected after 3 days and ascends to heaven after 40 days… a period between the demise of the old self and the rebirth of the true Self is needed- this has resonance with the Bardo in Tibetan Buddhism, or the “Dark Night of the Soul” as coined by John of the Cross in the Christian tradition.

Our very foundation may have been built on illusion, a set of beliefs, or a pattern of intergenerational trauma from which we forged a false and limited self. If we are lucky the divine spark within remains, waiting to become the fire of transformation that will release our essence. Until then we carry the cross. When the cross becomes a temple, all that is false must be sacrificed.
Kali as an archetypal power holds the key to this transformative process and though it can feel annihilating, it is born of a sacred love.
In the full Moon chart asteroid Kaali forms a Yod with Lilith (true) and Chiron, and also forms a Lucifer rectangle with Lilith (true), the Uranus Jupiter conjunction, and Mars… a potent mix.
Talking of Lucifer which is at 19° Taurus in the full Moon chart (conjunct Jupiter and Uranus) the challenge is to review what we deem to be our power- is it true power (the light bearer) or is it a false power created by the corrupted ego (Satan)?
If we have been living life through a false identity, chances are we are also disconnected from Source. This gives rise to finding our energy through negative means, either harming ourselves or others.
Kali, Lucifer, Lilith, and Mars dancing under a Scorpio Moon is surely testing us to grapple with the problematic of the hero or heroine’s journey. How attached are we to our personal castles, the seat of our ancestors, containing all that has been accumulated through generations of cross bearing? Though we may be prisoner in the castle we are also the Knight who is ready to fight through the thorns to find the Rose- the sleeping Princess as the symbol of the Soul.