Maya prophecy foretells the return of the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl at the 2012 Winter Solstice

Today and tomorrow are the days.  Important information is trying to reach you.  Today and tomorrow, Mercury moves through the Heart of the Serpent Eclipse Point, releasing what he learned while he vision quested through Scorpio from one power-packed eclipse to another.

This is the third and final time the Messenger will activate this degree. The first was on October 22-23, before his vision quest and after the second Uranus-Pluto square in September–an event that cracked the old, dead reality open a little further. 

The second time Mercury explored this degree was during his quest. That was on November 19-20, after the November 13 Heart of the Serpent Solar Eclipse and before the Lunar Eclipse with the Yod at its Heart on November 28. 

Revelation on the Path to the Solstice 

Mercury travels through the territory of his vision quest until December 20—the day before the Winter Solstice.   Day by day, as he moves through each degree, the Messenger releases insight about just what it was that happened last month, among us and also within us.  Nobody is in a better position to help us understand the profound energies we’ve experienced than Mercury. 

Not only is he the Cosmic Messenger, he was at the center of all the high-powered action.  At the time of the solar eclipse in the Heart of the Serpent, the Messenger was deep into his quest.  Less than 36 hours before the lunar eclipse that came last week, he’d concluded the quest and begun to head back into the future. 

As the rare and mighty yod formed around the Moon and Uranus at the lunar eclipse, Mercury had just turned direct.  The visionary euphoria known to questers from time immemorial was still clinging to him like mist.  He was still a bit disoriented in ordinary reality. No wonder we’re still trying to figure out exactly what happened, and exactly what it meant.

Messenger, Trickster, Guide of Souls 

Our Milky Way Galaxy. Photo credit: NASA

The Messenger is also the Guide of Souls.  In the heart of the eclipse territory, he’s giving us the guidance that we need .  It may be coming through your dreams or in your intuitions.  One way or another, Mercury is guiding you now.  Your message could come in the form of a dream, a strange coincidence, a serendipitous encounter, or an accident.  The form doesn’t really matter.  What you’re after is what the Messenger can help you see.

How Eclipse Energies Move Through Time

There’s a rule of thumb for calculating the length of a solar eclipse’s impact.  However, eclipses have a distinctly Uranian quality about them – quantum, nonlinear, and somewhat unpredictable.  That said, the rule is that for every minute that the eclipse lasts, its effects will last a year.  That equation tells us that the shedding that began on November 13 won’t end until mid-February, 2016.  We’re still 38 months from completely experiencing the vibrant aliveness of the new skin.

And even after that, whenever the eclipse point is triggered by the movement of another planet, its issues will come to life again.  Once an eclipse has occurred in a degree of the skies, it remains a “cosmic hot zone” forever.

Pointing the Way to the Evolutionary Direction

In a very real sense, we’re not even out of the eclipse’s energy field.  Mercury’s revelations today and tomorrow are a turning point.  And then just two days later, on December 7, Mercury conjuncts the North Node.  This point in the sky is one of the nodes in the Moons’ orbital axis, marking the point where it crosses the ecliptic, which is the path the Sun traces in the sky.   

Ancient astrologers referred to the North Node and its polar opposite, the South Node, as the “dragon’s head” and “dragon’s tail.”  For millennia their location in the birth chart has been examined for information about our karmic past (described by the “dragon’s tail”) and our evolutionary edge, the place where we tap our potential for growth and indeed, our purpose in this life (the “dragon’s head.”)

At any given point in time, the Nodes describe a similar energy for humanity.  The North Node points us towards the future.  When Mercury conjuncts the Node, its energy is available to our understanding in a particularly cogent way. 

We’ll understand more in a few days about what happened in November. More information will come next week, on December 11-12, Mercury will oppose the degree of the Lunar Eclipse, which he ruled.  Not until the day after the Winter Solstice, when Venus conjuncts the solar eclipse degree on December 22, will we be able to begin the process of fully receiving its meaning and understanding its true value. 

Beginnings Are Everything 

In astrology, beginnings carry the shape, pattern, and potency of all that is to come.  The energies they seed unfold through time.  The evolution they bring is a process.  A cosmic event rarely changes us in the blink of an eye.  More often, the transformations we undergo unfold in time. The critical events happen where all new life begins—in the dark, beneath the surface, invisible, and unstoppable.  This is why it is so important to be as conscious as possible as our own awareness unfolds.  Keep a journal. Record your dreams.  Read the I Ching, or the Tarot.

Think of this.  The Heart of the Serpent eclipse on November 13 is part of a series of eclipses that began in 1232.  That’s almost 900 years ago.   Last week’s Lunar Eclipse with the yod in its heart belongs to a series that began in 1832.  Three weeks have passed since we were drawn into the Heart of the Serpent—already a receding memory in the accelerated time sense of 2012.  Yet this powerful cosmic event is not over.  In a way, it’s just begun.  Stay present while it unfolds, and it will change your life.