Kali Yantra

On Saturday 30^th April, a new moon solar eclipse heralds another threshold in our collective human journey; the new moon and the solar eclipse occur at almost exactly the same time (13 minutes difference) at 10° of Taurus. Eclipses are celestial events that bring about change and transformation, sometimes suddenly and with lasting consequences. This is the first eclipse of the year.

Solar eclipses occur during the new moon phase when the Sun and Moon position at the exact same degree within the same sign. Eclipses generally exert influence and power, appearing to speed things up and bring things to a head. If we have been blocked or are dragging our feet in relation to what on a deeper level we know needs to happen, eclipses have a way of bringing about the inevitable…ready or not.

The Sun/Moon conjunction at 10 ° Taurus is also conjunct Uranus (at 14 ° Taurus), planet of change, awakening and radical transformation- this serves to intensify the eclipse energy. I would not be surprised if collectively we experience a sudden shift in matters connected with Taurus, for example in the food chain, if not immediately then over the coming months perhaps culminating in the second eclipse season in November.

The lunar nodal axis in Taurus/ Scorpio suggest that previously hidden or unacknowledged factors may come to the fore… this is particularly likely as Pluto transits the last couple of degrees of Capricorn where we have seen a dismantling of top-down structures.

Prominent this new moon lunar eclipse is the Dark Goddess Hekate in an almost exact conjunction with the north node (by 9 arc minutes) at 23 ° Taurus.

Hekate is the keeper of the keys, dweller on the threshold, and one of the few gods who has access to all realms including the underworld. As the only one to witness the descent of Persephone into Hades, Hekate sees everything… there is nothing that escapes her.

With Pluto as the ruler of Scorpio where the south nodal currently sits, Hekate’s presence on the north node can bring up and draw out information from the depths making it conscious on the material/human level of consciousness.

Also of note on the new moon solar eclipse is asteroid Kaali conjunct Chiron at 14° Aries. Dark Mother Kali is both the destroyer and liberator; she destroys in order to liberate and cuts away what no longer serves. With her scimitar, sword, and trident, Kali cuts the cords that bind humanity in bondage and dances in the flames of purification.

Existing behind the veil of reality, similar to Hekate, Kali sees it all. Much of what we witness on the mundane level of day-to-day consciousness is only a fraction, a pale representation, of what goes on behind the scenes on the astral planes… the worldly word is to a large extent illusionary, a wall of veils that confuse distract, seduce, manipulate, and appease.

When the veils are lifted, as shocking as it may be, the truth is revealed and from there we are called to make informed choices and reclaim our Selves.  

Today happens to be Buddha’s birthday and this morning I found one of his sayings which I feel is apt in the context of our times when the veils of illusions are beginning to fall.

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.

The question is, do we want to know and are we ready for it? Are we ready for the Dark Mother?

These things do not come easy and should not be taken lightly. As Jung says in Symbols of Transformation-

No one should deny the danger of the descent, but it can be risked. No one need risk it, but it is certain that someone will. And let those who go down the sunset way do so with open eyes, for it is a sacrifice which daunts even the gods. Yet every descent is followed by an ascent; the vanishing shapes are shaped anew, and a truth is valid in the end only if it suffers change and bears new witness in new images, in new tongues, like a new wine that is put into new bottles.

In the descent the ego is dissolved and dismantled in order to give birth to a new experience- a new image; this is the power of the Dark Goddess who brings about the death of the old and midwifes the new-born consciousness. Deeply connected with the phases of the Moon, She is present through each stage of creation and dissolution, each out breath and in breath; She is privy to information from behind the veil not normally accessible to the conscious mind.

We feel Her through our instincts, dreams, feelings, and intuition; She asks us to challenge our beliefs and sometimes we are shaken to our core. 

In Eastern philosophy as in alchemy true transformational power lies in the is the union of opposites.

Jung specified his psychological understanding of tantric yoga as follows:

It sees the aim of human development as bringing about an approach to and connection between the specific nature of the non-ego and the conscious ego.

Dweller on the threshold, the Dark Goddess in her many manifestations is the connector between the conscious and unconscious mind however She has been largely demonised, feared and exiled leaving us vulnerable to an externalised authority which may or may not have the purest intentions. This handing over of power ultimately denies the possibility of awakening or return to Self, through ignorance and separation from truth.

The sabian symbol for the new moon eclipse speaks of the need to prepare the mind and cultivate the ego in a positive way-

PHASE 41 (TAURUS 11°): A WOMAN WATERING FLOWERS IN HER GARDEN.

KEYNOTE: Development of the powers of the mind on which ego-consciousness is based.

This is the first stage of the ninth sequence of phases, a sequence that basically refers to the overall situation related to the development of the ego.

The Keyword here is CULTIVATION.

In his journey through India Jung visited the many temples of Kali and was greatly affected by the experience leading him to conclude that evil is not negative but positive. For a man such as Jung who had been conditioned by the milieu of his time and was an esteemed figure in his privileged intellectual patriarchal culture, indoctrinated to an extent by Christian duality, this was a remarkable insight which paved the way for transpersonal and depth psychology that permeated the Western psyche in the decades to come.

During the Kundalini Seminars Jung’s travel companion, Fowler McCormick, made the following commentary-

As we would go through temples of Kali, which were numerous at almost every Hindu city, we saw the evidence of animal sacrifice: the places were filthy dirty—dried blood on the floor and lots of remains of red betelnut all around, so that the colour red was associated with destructiveness.

Concurrently in Calcutta Jung began to have a series of dreams in which the colour red was stressed.

It wasn’t long before dysentery overcame Dr. Jung and I had to take him to the English hospital at Calcutta. . .

A more lasting effect of this impression of the destructiveness of Kali was the emotional foundation it gave him for the conviction that evil was not a negative thing but a positive thing. The influence of that experience in India, to my mind, was very great on Jung in his later years.

~Fowler McCormick, Kundalini Seminars, Page xxviii.

What does it mean that Jung concluded that evil is not bad?

The union of opposites accepts that everything is part of the whole and nothing is separate. Kali the Great Mother is both the Destroyer and the Liberator; Hekate shows us three paths which may be taken- we have a choice; Persephone is liberated and empowered by her time in Pluto’s domain; Inanna frees her Dark sister Ereshkigal by acknowledging her suffering and enduring her own.

The Dark Goddess is the liberator because She leads us into the core of our being and the secrets of our soul encouraging us to be what we truly are… in our darkness and our light.

In shining a light on that which we fear as evil it no longer has power over us… and we are not separated from Source. It is only when we are asleep, unaware of what influences us and creates our worldly reality that we suffer through ignorance. The Dark Goddess is the slayer of demons, the destroyer of ignorance and the restorer of sovereignty.

This new moon solar eclipse, especially as She (the Dark Goddess) partners with our collective destiny (the north node), and our collective wound (Chiron) I feel She is inviting us to take a deep breath and take look at what lies beneath.