Please click the audio bar below to begin listening to the meditation.
Welcome to the New Moon Solar Eclipse in Virgo guided imagery meditation. I’m Michelle Gregg, Counseling Astrologer. Please join me for a few minutes of quiet, relaxation, and beautiful imagery, so that we can align together with this powerful lunation, this brand new beginning, and raise the vibration of this energy for the world.
The New Moon Solar Eclipse occurred on Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016 at 5:03 AM Eastern time. The energy of this event is potent and compelling and will be felt for months to come. The energy of an eclipse generally unfolds over time. Feel free to do this meditation whenever you choose over the next year.
The New Moon is the time to retreat into the darkness to reflect, to restore your soul, and to set intentions. An eclipse is the time to consciously let something go that no longer serves you – the beginning of a new cycle.
Ideally, come to the meditation with your New Moon intentions to hand. You could even imagine that you have placed them in a sheaf of wheat… and as your intentions change, re-align them in a new sheaf of wheat and revisit the meditation.
For those who may not be able to access the audio file above, here is the entire meditation in written format:
“Welcome to the New Moon Solar Eclipse in Virgo guided imagery meditation. I’m Michelle Gregg, Counseling Astrologer. Please join me for a few minutes of quiet, relaxation, and beautiful imagery, so that we can align together with this powerful lunation, this brand new beginning. The New Moon Solar Eclipse occurred on Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016 at 5:03 AM Eastern time. The energy of this event is potent and compelling and will be felt for months to come. The energy of an eclipse generally unfolds over time. Feel free to do this meditation whenever you choose over the next year.
The New Moon is the time to retreat into the darkness to reflect, to restore your soul, and to set intentions. An eclipse is the time to consciously let something go that no longer serves you – the beginning of a new cycle.
Find a place that’s quiet and restful, away from your daily routine, and preferably in the dark. Sit comfortably in any position that feels good to you. Gently close your eyes. Breathe deeply. Begin relaxing your body. Breathe slowly. Relax your feet, ankles and legs. Breathe deeply. Relax your hips and belly. Breathe slowly. Relax your solar plexus and ribs and breathe deeply. Relax your back and your chest and breathe slowly. Relax your hands, your wrists, and your arms and breathe deeply. Relax your shoulders – let them be loose, and breathe slowly. Relax your neck. Relax your chin, and now your face. Breathe slowly. Relax your eyes and your brow, and now the top of your head. Breathe deeply………………. Breathe slowly.
Now, see yourself on a very dark night, no moonlight at all, standing on a beach, with the ocean rolling in, wave after glorious wave, bringing the sea closer with each moment. Beside you is Virgo, the Goddess of the Grain, holding aloft a sheaf of wheat, both hands raised to the sky. You realize as you look at her face and her arms raised high that there a millions of stars above you, constellations clearly visible, and the Milky Way is enormous, filling the darkness with hues of pink, blue, gold, and green, breathtaking in its glorious diaphanous beauty as it descends toward the water.
The Goddess is offering her wheat, the staff of her physical, tangible life, and the bearer of her intentions, to the glory of the sky and the power of the sea – to the Universe, to Source, to the Divine. She turns to look at you, and you instinctively know that it’s your turn to raise your wheat high, lifting your arms in a promise to serve yourself, to serve others, and to serve the Divine with the purpose of your life, with your new intentions, with discernment, with competence, and with the gifts that only you possess. You promise, with a whisper to the winds and the roar of the ocean, to live your life from the spark of your own inner divinity, and to serve life from a place of perfect love.
Now, you realize that there are many others all around, standing on the beach to either side of you as far as you can see. Each one is holding aloft their sheaf of wheat – offering their lives, their intentions, in service to the glories of the Earth, to the wonders of the Divine, to themselves and to all. Now, as the Goddess lays down her wheat in the wet sand, everyone follows suit, bringing their sheaves to create an enormous cairn. As the offering is being built, one sheaf at a time, the waves of the ocean become bigger, and louder, and closer, until a mighty figure appears far out in the ocean. He is enormous and powerful, with seaweed hair and beard streaming all about his face. He is holding up a trident – and with a sharp communal intake of breath everyone present recognizes Neptune, God of the Sea. He comes closer and closer to land, very close to where you all stand, and as he does, you see that his face is creased with lines of kindness, his eyes shine with love and compassion, and his gaze seems to encompass everyone at once, leaving each of you with the feeling of acceptance, just as you are.
Virgo walks into the shallow waves to meet him – earthy, grounded, beauty meets the mystical, boundary-less transcendent. As they embrace, calm and gentle waves roll in at your feet, and begin to disperse the alter of wheat. Each intention, each promise being carried into the sea to become one with all that is.
As you watch the sheaves being taken away you feel a sense of calm and deliberation flow through you. Your intuition is powerful. You know your course. You feel as though this magical experience has imbued you with fearlessness and has ignited the passion of right action, and a practical plan to begin to realize your intentions. You are strong in your sense of self-worth. You course with authority over your own life, even as you stand in your certainty of service to others.
As you turn to leave this wondrous beach, you are strengthened with the wisdom that moves in you, knowing that when the time is right, when the Moon wanes her gibbous light and Mercury moves forward again, you will rise to your new course of action. All is well.
PAUSE
Now, impress those images you’ve just experienced into your memory, so that later they will return with ease. Continue to breathe deeply and slowly for a few moments more… and now, when you’re ready, open your eyes. Begin to feel at one with your body again. Stretch each limb and muscle, pulling the Virgo energy of the physical into your being.
Thank you for sharing this moment with me.
Go into your daily life and bring balance between the real and the sublime, with beautiful intentions, and practical service.
And so it is.”
Second, this Full Moon in Sagittarius at the critical 29th degree seems to be highlighting relationships pretty “loudly.” With this fiery Moon in opposition to Venus, the planet of all things “love” and the ways of being that go with it, there’s an immediate understanding that this lunar event impacts us where we relate to others. Add to that a square to Chiron, our friendly karmic relationship indicator, as well as a trine to Juno, who wears the crown of symbolizing relationship from a karmic commitment perspective, and we have a relationship karmic cocktail. Juno, amazingly, is also at that 29th degree – of Libra in her case – which just happens to be the sign of, you guessed it, relationship. That critical 29th degree carries the energy of taking a new direction, sometimes in a completely unexpected way that belies our past ruminations and carefully laid plans. (And don’t get me wrong, I’m thinking positive here!) Degree 29 can carry a fated quality to it, and sometimes has us feeling a bit out of control. So there can be questions around our commitments, or, and better, opportunities to refresh them!
Fourthly (and I’m about to get political) I like to think of Sagittarius as being “the citizen of the world.” That’s the phrase that Banzhaf & Haebler use in the book Key Words for Astrology as the by-line for Sagittarius. “The citizen of the world.” That’s always stuck in my mind. In the past 30 days we’ve been sandwiched between two culminating points – two Full Moons in the sign Sagittarius – highlighting who we are as citizens of the world. And with the deadliest mass shooting in the history of our country just behind us, we are left pondering – at least I hope we are – how we go about being better citizens of our world. Perhaps that’s the reason we’ve had two Sagittarius Full Moons in a row… so that we must use this emotionally charged energy to become wiser citizens of the world – to become righteous about gun control despite previous blocks preventing that effort, to become higher minded around, and more tolerant of, those who have different lifestyles. The 15-hour gun control filibuster on the the Senate floor this past Thursday, led by Senator Chris Murphy, is a perfect example of Sagittarius energy “having enough” and “stump thumping” to make a point of justice. And sadly, the horrific actions of the shooter are also an example of the lowest possible vibration of Sagittarius at work – being so self-righteous and filled with the fervor of your cause that you take life, feeling somehow justified in your actions. The shooting and the filibuster occurred between 2 Sagittarius Full Moons, the second one at the critical 29th degree – meaning we’ve reached a critical turning point, and while we may not follow any plans we’ve previously put in place, and we may be feeling overwhelmed – we know we must go in a new direction. Fate is in play here, and that new direction must have greater meaning and a higher purpose, and point us toward freedom and justice – for everyone – as we move forward. All Sagittarian qualities. (An interesting point: the 1:58 AM chart for the Orlando shooting, when the first gunfire was heard, has THE SAME DEGREE – 29 degrees Sagittarius – on the MC – the most elevated point in the chart, which is the angle that shows how we see that moment in the greater world. Blows my mind.)
Astrology with Michelle Gregg 