Shadow Work, or How to Stay Believing in the Possibility of Peace

New moon solar eclipse at 21° of Libra

Saturday, October 14th at 10:55am PST, the moon eclipses the sun at 21° of Libra. This one is an annular solar eclipse - not a total one - so the eclipse will not darken the sky completely, but the moon will appear slightly smaller than the sun while eclipsing it, giving the effect of a “ring of fire” in the sky. Eclipses are energetically unstable, like power outages or surges. They stir things up, bring unexpected eruptions from the unconscious, and seem to arrange fate-like events. Eclipses come twice a year, usually two-in-a-row, sometimes three, and an “eclipse season” is said to last from the week before the first eclipse, to the week after the final one. They create these two transformational vortexes each year that illuminate what is always true: we are not fully in control. We are at the mercy of forces that are larger than us.

Many of those forces are outer—the cultures and social economic systems we live in, our collective history, the actions of empires. And some of those forces are within us—our own unconscious, unintegrated selves, our past experiences, our ancestors, anything forgotten or pressed down. Jung warned: “When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate.” He meant that outer situations and challenges arise that call our attention to exactly what inner work it’s time to face. This is unsettling, even terrifying, to the part of us we call the ego, whose favorite tasks include defining the self, defining reality, staying safe, and feeling all-powerful within zones of comfort and competence. But shadow work, and the creation of consciousness the comes from it, is necessary for the realization of wholeness.

Libra has been hosting the descending or south lunar node since July. South node eclipses are the ones that clear the way for endings, and tend to release, cleanse, and send back out into the world. Libra is primarily about relationships. It’s ruled by Venus, who wants those relationships to be beautiful, loving, harmonious, and, most importantly, just. Libra is chasing that incredible feeling when everything’s all good and everyone’s getting their needs met; that calm buzz of peace and belonging. It’s a master at smoothing the social field, and it’s very sensitive to even slightly-off conditions. While that social sensitivity is a profound gift, it creates a tendency to avoid conflict just to preserve the peace, a preference for flight over fight, which, overtime, makes that peace more and more fragile. No real justice, no real peace. Some conflicts need to be had. Some deeper realities need to be called out. Relationships and entire societies can only thrive when harmful behaviors, injustices, or even just misattunements and misunderstandings, are able to be openly addressed.

If you’ve have been feeling this eclipse brewing personally, you’ve likely noticed some shadowy relationship issues and wounds surfacing, maybe even from relationships long past and, you thought, forgotten. Situations might be drawing your attention to unhealthy dynamics and inequities, and your part in creating or allowing them. You may also notice some of these situations resolving and releasing in novel ways; others just starting to really cook and get uncomfortable. Sometimes a south node release is more of a revealing; in this case, it could be like a sudden awareness of which parts of our personality are just old relational trauma responses—survival states that got activated so often and for so long they hardened into traits; adaptations that involved us swallowing knowledge of our own needs and desires, and chasing other’s approval. Am I really this jealous, or nice? Is this anger my own, or my father’s? Why is my jaw so tight? Why don’t I know what I really want?

The house in your chart that Libra leads is where this is constellating for you, and might provide some additional insight into what this 18-month transit of the south node in Libra and north node in Aries is trying to bring about. Like where in your life you could most benefit from this release of the negative traits of Libra (co-dependency, conflict avoidance, fear of independence, indecision), and this increasing integration of the positive traits of Libra (easy friendliness, gift for diplomacy, sense of fairness and justice, instinct to collaborate and cooperate) with more of the positive traits of Aries (boldness, assertiveness, decisiveness, self-starting, independence). We are still in the opening months of the transit, however, and south node clearings can be somewhat unconscious, so it’s effects on you personally may be subtle—or not.

Collectively, this eclipse season is finding us being split open by fresh war. I’ve been tracking my own moves in and out of numbness and horror, fury and sorrow. The darkest energies of Aries and Mars have broken out, murderous rage and sickening violence, the deadening of mercy. Libra’s insistence on justice and balance in relationships is like a bright sword, reflecting the flaws in any simple righteousness. It wants us to turn toward empathy, and ask it the hardest questions. If all life is sacred, if all human beings are worthy of dignity, how do we hold this? How do we respond proactively, defensively, to the realities of the destructive side of our nature, without trying to destroy it, without becoming it? How do we stay believing in the possibility of peace?

It feels like both personally and collectively, Libra is delivering us right to the limits of its territory of knowledge, and asking us to just hold any tension we experience there without dissociating, or running away. 21° of Libra is a degree of surrendering self-importance, of leaning into prioritizing the group, to essentially “live and let live,” and enjoy camaraderie and friendliness, and expressing ourselves freely, and allowing others to express themselves freely. Yes, Libra, that is the fucking dream. But how do we realize it when we carry such deep relationship wounds, and such profound collective historical trauma? When there is this deeply embedded hierarchy in our root system, declaring in land and resources, if not in conscious sentiment, that some lives are more valuable than others? How do we outgrow that? How do we outgrow this conflict between autonomy of the individual, or of any one group, and the needs of others, and of the collective?

I know, I’m almost entirely questions right now. Eclipses are times, again, to pause all forceful, ego-agenda-driven effort, to let go of attempts to know the answers. Notice what is evolving or resolving, what’s emerging in the outer world and in your inner life, what’s interrupting the default mode. Notice what emotions are surfacing, which ones are yours and which ones are not, which ones you are open to feeling. Jung taught that there is a natural, non-rational, psychological process—he called it the transcendent function—that springs from the tension caused by the confrontation of opposites, and manifests in the union of those opposites. This is his translation of ancient Gnostic teachings. Somehow the conscious and unconscious collaborate and spontaneously produce this new attitude, a way of attaining liberation. But this unification or transcendent third arrives only after we have properly suffered from holding this tension. And it can only arrive if we privilege the imagination, and intuition and feeling and dreaming, as much as we privilege the rational mind. The ability to work with what emerges from the imaginal, our symbolic intelligence, to allow the rational and irrational, the unconscious and the conscious, to collaborate on meaning; that’s the philosopher’s stone.

The image I posted at the top of this letter was taken by a photographer who calls herself GirlChill on Instagram, a Libra callsign if there was one. It’s of a rainbow somehow breaking through these opposing fronts of dark storm clouds—some light streaking through the water they are releasing into the atmosphere. Rainbows are numinous symbols to me. They have mysteriously catalyzed some of my biggest healings and breakthroughs, introducing me to self-forgiveness and wholeheartedness and the joy that makes the impossible task possible. I’m just going to be over here working with this rainbow, this specific rainbow, and doing my version of praying. Asking it to teach me. Making offerings to the spirits of peace. Looking for opportunities to show up for my loved ones, fight the good fight, and honor and resolve conflict in my own small sphere of influence. And generally trying to live as if I will have to come back here and face all my karma, all our karma.

Here’s to the forces of love surrounding all those who are hurting. Here’s to everyone and everything keeping the road open.

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Prompts

(Disclaimer: Prompts are suggestions, not instructions. Play with what sounds good to you, ignore what’s doesn’t. Adapt in any way you see fit.)

*There will be no ritual prompts for this eclipse and the next one. Instead I am sharing practices for encountering the unconscious/engaging the shadow through journaling questions, arts-based methods, and dream work. And, of course, the regularly scheduled, moon-dipped, vibe-influenced creative writing prompt.