Energy Astrology: December 2007

Lassoing the Stars for a Better Life

By Cyndi Dale

The Gift of The Stars:
This Month: The Harold Angels

When growing up, my favorite Christmas song was “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” which I had memorized by age five. I couldn’t spell, but if I could, I would have altered the spelling of “Herald” to “Harold.”

It’s a ploy I recommend.

One of my favorite books was about Harold and the Purple Crayon, in which an over-imaginative boy draws realities—which he can then enter—with a purple crayon. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to color myself out of my world or just color a new one, but I instinctively felt like change would be for the best. At any rate, my interpretation of the Harold song was that there were a whole bunch of Harold Angels and that if I sung really loud, one of them would give me a purple crayon for Christmas and I could make my universe at least a little different.

As most of you know, Christmas is really a disguise for the Winter Solstice, an attempt by Christianity to subvert the pagan ritual marking the standing-still of the sun. Instead of remarking on the rising sun—the rising “son.” Scientifically, the Solstice occurs when, because of the earth’s tilt, your hemisphere leans farthest from the sun. Because of this, daylight is at its shortest and the sun has its lowest arc in the sky. We don’t so much celebrate the shortest day of the year as the emerging sunlight. The long, slow fall of darkness is over. With the return of the light, the auspicious “heralding” of renewed dreams and wishes. Time to check for those “Harold Angels” and their purple crayons.

If God—the Great Spirit, the Mother, the Creator, the All—were to actually hand you a purple crayon equivalent or its equivalent (the crystal ball, magic wand, magic wishing glass sort of thing), what do you think you would do with it?

Would you sketch a new house, one with a few more floors, a plush carpet, maybe a few maids lurking in corners to clean up every spilled drop?

Would you pen a snazzy car or a few more defined muscles in your arms? Maybe you’d just be content with money, freshly minted ala Harold’s Angels.

Or maybe.

You’d create a better world.

This December, specifically on December 22nd, it’s your choice.

The Season’s Solstice
Throughout the centuries, different cultures have marked the solstice in a variety of ways. Many societies constructed elaborate systems in order to detect the solstices, forging tombs, temples, cairns, and observatories to study the planets and movements of the earth around the sun. Stonehenge, for instance, serves as a stone calendar for this purpose, as does Newgrange, a megalithic site in Ireland—estimated to be 5,000 years old. Here, at dawn, a shaft of sunlight penetrates deep into its central chamber, to shine upon solar discs, spirals, carvings of eyes, and other geometric forms. Other sites are flung across the world, including North and South America, Indonesia, the Middle East, the sub-Saharan desert, northern Africa, Asia, and even Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. As well, many medieval Catholic churches referenced astronomy with decorative figures and zodiac signs. Easter was one of the important solstices observed; a beam of sunlight would enter the roof of the church, creating a path or meridian line.

In general, there were two attitudes toward the Winter Solstice: negative and positive. One idea was that the Solstice might create an irrevocable loss of the light. Unless humans atoned for their sins or intervened with ritual, the sun might never return. The other perception was that this was a time for wishing, divination, and day dreaming, resulting in a joyful celebration.

December is the culmination of the year’s planetary progressions through the sky. Over the months, you’ve been blessed with astrological occurrences inviting choice. Did you break through instead of break down? Did you deal with your inner issues or avoid them? Did you learn from your life trials are sack the lesson for yet another crisis? Even more important, did you embrace your divinity—and therefore, your right to a new type of divination—or did you decide to continue to ignore your own greatness?

Whether or not you made wise or ahem, bad decisions, you can still merge into the stream of love this season. The magic of the solstice can be used as a wishing wand, a purple crayon for designing a more comfortable life path. Or. It can be assessed for the service it—and you as a conduit—can provide.

Picking Up the Purple Crayon
My son believes in the Tooth Fairy—even when it’s not practical to do so. Even after mom procured the lost tooth after the football game in her Jean’s pocket. Having promised eternal safety, she then washed said-pants, lost the tooth to the suds, and watched as said-son wrote a long note to the Tooth Fairy, assigning the appropriate blame. Son, when going to bed, suggested that the Tooth Fairy now owes extra money because mom had so inconvenienced them all. For some reason, the Tooth Fairy agreed, to the sum of ten extra dollars.

I don’t know if it’s a Solstice Fairy, a Harold Angel, Santa Claus, or some other figure of light that breezes around the world on the solstice, but it is the perfect time for making wishes. The upcoming year, however, is akin to assuming our places in the world—to own full responsibility for our actions and ourselves so as the light the world with magic for all. That’s why I believe that the enchantment ascribed this Solstice isn’t limited to one day or night: It’s more similar to a long-lasting purple crayon than an overnight thrill.

In Iran, families observe a solstice celebration called the Yalda, burning fires through the night to help the sun overwhelm darkness-- to strengthen the fight of good against evil. What if this year, the fires were to conjure a purple crayon—a piece of mystery that can color goodness into the world.

What if this solstice you would decide to take up such a challenge? To seize your power and use it for good? On the solstice, spend some time in meditation or prayer. Ask to see your place in the world; the destiny you agreed to before you were born. And then imagine yourself with the powers to help not only yourself—but also others. And then, begin to draw. Draw a world of peace. Crayon a world of connection. Call upon the Harold Angels, and see what you are called to do—not just what can be done for you.

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"Shall we liken Christmas to the web in a loom? There are many weavers, who work into the pattern the experience of their lives. When one generation goes, another comes to take up the weft where it has been dropped. The pattern changes as the mind changes, yet never begins quite anew. At first, we are not sure that we discern the pattern, but at last we see that, unknown to the weavers themselves, something has taken shape before our eyes, and that they have made something very beautiful, something which compels our understanding."
--Earl W. Count, 4,000 Years of Christmas

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© 2007 Cyndi Dale. Please contact us if you wish to syndicate this column.