September New Moon- Bacchus Conjunct the Sun: The Wild Gods.

September’s new moon on Saturday 28th at 7.26 GMT places the Sun & Moon at 5 degrees of Libra. The Sabian Symbol for this degree according to Dane Rudhyar is:

A MAN WATCHES HIS IDEALS TAKING A CONCRETE FORM BEFORE HIS INNER VISION.

KEYNOTE: The need to visualize clearly one’s dreams or ideals in order to make them truly effectual.

Given that the luminaries along with a stellium of other planets fall in the 6th house where spirit finds it full incarnation in the material world- this new moon opens a gateway to explore how we bring our dreams into vision. Not the dreams that we have constructed to fit a socially acceptable, safe and rational society, but dreams fueled by the passions and fires of our creative truth and primal energy.

This is about raw spirit incarnating on the material plain.

Also in 6th house Libra are Venus (17 degrees), Mercury 23 degrees), and Bacchus conjunct the Sun at 6 degrees. Dionysus is at 16 Libra.

In working with the energies of the ‘Wild Gods’, we (moon lodge participants) have been exploring how as modern women we may meet this energy in the outer projection of another who appears to possess Dionysian or Pan-like qualities as a force who sweeps us off our feet, turns our world inside-out, and takes us to the brink of madness. Dionysus is also known as the ‘Great Liberator’- the one who dismantles and dismembers the inner psyche, or the cultural order when it becomes too stultified, too rigid, patriarchal, controlling, or tight.

Dionysus is a god of the goddess and may well be a cultural icon for the reinstation of the sacred feminine.

In the myth of Dionysus, the stifling energy of patriarchal control is embodied by the King of Thebes, Pentheus who does not believe that Dionysus is a God. Unfortunately for him he meets a Dionysian- like shamanic death when he is torn limb from limb by the women of Thebes who under the frenzied spell of the God of ecstasy have retreated to the wild mountains to enjoy the rites of Bacchus. To make matters worse, Pentheus meets his gruesome death at the hands of his own mother who in her abandoned state has failed to recognize her own son.

In psychological terms this speaks of the dismantling of the old structures of the psyche that must be dissolved, sometimes chaotically and wildly so that the new, more authentic and natural expression can manifest.

Dionysus, like the great Hindu goddess Kali, takes no prisoners.

In the psyche, Pentheus and Dionysus are placed on a diametric axis representing the battle between the wild, ecstatic, and irrational aspects of ourselves pitted against the mortification of too much control and empty civility. In an embodied sense Dionysus may be the life force, prana, chi, or libido that seeks to find expression and be released from the body armoring that we have attempted to protect and control ourselves with.

On a collective level the systems we have created that does not allow life to flow freely is the cultural body armoring where the heart of the matter has been lost.

How do we meet the instinctual and irrational in ourselves? What access do we have to release this energy? If we do not find ways to honor this god, he will surely have his way with us by appointing an actor or an event onto the stage of our life to initiate this release for us. As Jung says, the unmet gods have become our diseases. When we don’t allow expression of our natural energy, we may fall sick. Or we meet it in another.

How many women have crawled from the dance with a Dionysian man, broken, stripped bare and on her knees… but stronger and more aware of her own wild power?

As we discovered in our moon lodge, Dionysus does not always manifest in the form of a wild god and many Dionysian women have also led one on a merry dance to their disintegration.

But we rise, and maybe now we can find a way to own that energy in ourselves so that we do not need someone to enact it for us. What does it mean in your life to own that wild power, and use the energy to bring your creative dreams to manifestation? How do you tap into your instinctual nature and your spirit’s calling?

This new moon is a portal into exploring what it is we are doing with our sacred energy. How we are using it to manifest and create in the world while honoring both the rational and irrational, male and female, and solar- lunar energy?

Saturn and Pluto up on the midheaven of this chart are preparing for their great meeting in January 2020 when this mighty merging will be expressed in the collective. Pluto is sometimes equated with Dionysus in the ancient world and when met with Saturn, the father of structure, rules and tradition, the showdown between the irrational and the rational will be under sway.

Here is the dance of Dionysus and Pentheus in the collective sphere.

What has become outmoded in the collective that needs a good Plutonian or Dionysian shake-up?

I recently watched the film Citizen 4 about Edward Snowdon, a whistleblower who leaked classified information from the NSA (National Security Agency) that implicated the U.S government in the unlawful spying on its citizens. I was intrigued by the force of conviction held by Snowden and his willingness to put himself in grave danger for the liberation of the American people. Snowden who was born on the summer solstice has a tight Pluto Saturn conjunction- Pluto at 26 Libra, Saturn at 27 Libra.

Here is an example of the person who will go to extreme lengths in defense of liberation which for him, is freedom to remain private from the spying eyes of the government.

Dionysus and the Maenads -the wild women who followed him- did not perform their rites in the Market Square for the amusement of all, they performed them in remote wild places ensuring total freedom and abandonment without danger of being co-opted or appropriated as so many ‘movements’ are. Watch out green ecology movement.

Untimely, Dionysus and Bacchus point to the need for the feminine in all her sacred and terrible aspects to be released from the bondage of a patriarchal sensibility that through fear has attempted to restrain the creative well spring of death and rebirth.

The laws of the Goddess- renewal and transformation- will always find expression both individually and collectively for it is the law of life and cannot be stopped anymore than summer turning to autumn.

If the great gods Pan, Dionysus or Bacchus, asks you to dance, I suggest you take your shoes off and head to the mountains.