Reckoning
"Now I'm awake to the world. I was asleep before. That's how we let it happen."
– Margaret Atwood
It's possible that the last couple of weeks since the full moon lunar eclipse have caused you to see something in your life or in the larger world with new understanding. Eclipses are wake-up calls. When one celestial body blocks the light of another, new realizations take place.
Today, during the wee hours here in the US, a partial solar eclipse occurred as the Sun, Moon, and Earth lined up at 29 degrees of Virgo, with the Moon briefly blocking a portion of the Sun's light. The final degree of any sign is the 29th degree – as each of the 12 zodiac signs presides over 30 degrees of Earth's orbital path around the Sun. Even without an eclipse to underscore it, the 29th degree of any sign can be a little intense. A time of reckoning.
Virgo's distinctive superpower is discernment: the ability to sift through information and "judge well." If we think about the zodiac signs as symbolic representations of cyclical aspects of our collective human toolkit, Virgo's discernment is the perfect lead-in to Libra season. To understand something of the essence of Libra, consider its visual symbol – the scales.
Virgo enables us to see things as they are. We've had two new moons in this sign this month, giving us an extra dose of Virgo's particular astral medicine. This second one is also an eclipse and, coupled with the lunar eclipse two weeks ago, it bookends a transformational portal. If you've been struggling to distinguish reality from illusion, you now know where things stand – or soon will in the coming weeks.
Saturn, the planet of structure and lessons, is positioned directly opposite the Sun and Moon in the sign of Pisces. Some consider Saturn a stern taskmaster, but it may be more helpful to think of Saturn's energy as the internal backbone we need to take appropriate action and move forward in our lives. What kind of people are we? How do we want to show up in our lives? Who do we want to be?
In royal courts throughout the world during the Middle Ages, and extending into more recent history, court jesters – skilled performers who used wit and words to amuse and critique nobles and monarchs – were uniquely positioned to speak truth to power. They were the late-night comedians of the past. It was a jester’s job to expose hypocrisy in authority, from religion and law to personal vanity and royal excess. And they were granted admirable freedom to do so. But sometimes they went too far.
In one instance, detailed in a 19th-century source and also recounted in Leonie Francis' Francis I: Maker of Modern France, a 16th-century jester known as Triboulet (derived from an archaic word for punching bag) slapped the king's backside to the amusement of the assembled nobles. Angered, the king threatened to have him executed but later said he would accept an apology that was more insulting than the slap. Triboulet responded, "I'm so sorry, your majesty, that I didn't recognize you! I mistook you for the queen!" Enraged, the king rescinded his pardon, instead offering Triboulet his choice of death. Triboulet famously responded, "Good sire, for Saint Nitouche’s and Saint Pansard’s sake, patrons of insanity, I choose to die from old age." Remarkably, the king banished him, allowing him to live.
Like the jester, this eclipse season asks us to see clearly, speak truth, and reckon with the structures of power – in our personal lives, and in the world around us. With discernment and backbone, we are called not only to wake up, but to act on what we see.
