Inanna’s Descent Begins Again: Sleep

A few minutes after midnight on November 6th, a new cycle begins with Moon conjunct Venus in Libra.   After the interior solar conjunction that brought Venus closest to Earth, she now appears in the sky before sunrise.  As the Moon crosses over Venus in the days leading up to the Scorpio New Moon, this is the first gate of Inanna’s descent. The first gate represents the cleansing of the crown chakra, the receiver of human consciousness.  We set our new moon intentions to release whatever blockage or haze is obscuring the crown.  Moon and Venus are joined by Ceres, all at 27° Libra, exact opposite my natal Sun 27° Aries.

My soul’s authentic mission, at this current time, is to sleep.

A year and a half ago I wrote about hibernation and torpor, as my devotion to my occult craft clearly showed me that I had strayed from my authentic path to the point where I was not even truly living.  Shaking off the torpor, and reawakening to my real life mission was nothing short of devastating.  Anyone who is truly on a spiritual path has likely experienced something similar more than once.  Anything that you build when your mind-body-spirit is compromised, has to be torn down before you can come back into alignment.

For a long time, I was never truly awake, and I was never truly asleep either.  If our goal is to be truly awake, we need to learn how to truly sleep.

Sleep is a physiological process that science still considers a mystery- of course, this is due to the limits of the scientific method, which only takes into account that which can be measured, quantified.  Quality sleep is a subjective symphony of self care. It requires us to balance our perceptions of comfort, and our emotions, with our environment (symbolized by Venus, the Moon, and Ceres in Libra). Sleep is known to clear toxins from the brain- cerebrospinal fluid has been observed to flood into the brain in sleeping subjects, in far greater amounts than when awake.  Interestingly, the same increase in flow of cerebrospinal fluid can be achieved in deep meditation…

This is the cleansing of the crown.

image by Katherine Streeter for NPR

 

When the Moon crosses over Venus and Ceres, it forms the apex of a true yod from the sextile between Chiron and Sedna.  Chiron has re-entered Pisces in retrograde after his first steps into Aries, so we are near the end of this very long term aspect between the wounded healer and the ocean underworld goddess.  This yod perfectly captures the painful nature of awakening, and the quincunxes carry the pressure of alignment-fatigue that requires us to level-up our ability to rest.

There’s almost a type of mutual reception in this sextile: Chiron is working his healing magic in Sedna’s world of underwater darkness; Sedna is in Taurus, the realm of the body(where we wear our wounds and store trauma). Juno is retrograde, forming a second conjunction to Sedna, emphasizing the theme of boundaries.  Juno is often portrayed as the asteroid of marraige and relationships, but I think this glosses over her core purpose, which is to erect and defend boundaries.  She is a crucial factor whenever a line must be drawn in the gray area between any two polar opposites, not just “self” and “other”.

photo by Kawika Singson

A few hours after the Moon crosses Venus, it enters Scorpio, locking into a grand fixed square with the lunar nodes at Zero Leo/Aquarius, and Uranus at Zero Taurus.  A dedicated and passionate Moon meditation on clearing the crown chakra could lead to a life-changing realization this evening.  I am working towards a new awareness of sleep, beyond the physiological mystery, a true mind-body-spirit alignment where my individual consciousness will become unlimited in wakefulness as a direct result of my efforts to be uninhibited in rest.

 

Asteroid Athena joins this aspect pattern from Zero Libra, with a supportive trine to the south node (the past), and an electric sextile to the north node (the future).  In early 2019 Athena will station retrograde, extending her transit through Libra for ten months.  Over the next year Athena will be covering the same degrees as the 2014 Mars retrograde, which were also crossed by the synchronized retrogrades of Vesta and Ceres that made the Dawn Mission possible.

Stay tuned to Planetary Clarity for more on this week’s epic astrology featuring Uranus retrograde’s return to Aries; the Scorpio New Moon; and Jupiter entering Sagittarius.

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