Eclipsing Out Our Evil

The Solar Eclipse in Libra and the fragility of our humanity

Photo by Klim Musalimov on Unsplash

Writing something coherent, no less helpful, about the atrocities of Saturday and the unfolding genocide feels nearly impossible, but I will try. When I told you in my October forecast “this month, the malefics will have their way” and warned you that a crucible of potential violence would open on the 7th and continue through the 16th, I spoke of it in interpersonal terms, secretly thinking about war, but I could not have imagined the shape of the horrors to come. I sit here at my desk now, still reeling, still mourning, and wondering what will be next. Being an astrologer doesn’t always give us the exact map of human events, and that map becomes even more blurry when people that you love are on it.

It seems important that I share this, because we all have to identify our background and biases lest we be accused of larping for one side or the other. I am on the side of humanity, but I am also Jewish. I am on the side of humanity, but I am also against the occupation and have been since the 1990s, the first time I visited Israel. I am on the side of humanity, but the extremist right-wing government of Israel is responsible for what happened to their own people. I am on the side of humanity, but what happened on Saturday was a vicious, vile pogrom that Hamas inflicted on people JUST BECAUSE THEY WERE JEWISH. I am on the side of humanity, but collective punishment against the people of Gaza SHOULD NOT HAPPEN.

I am on the side of humanity, but humanity shouldn’t have to announce what side it is on when human rights are being violated so wantonly and egregiously.

People may have stopped reading by now, because any one of the identities and stances I took may have made them hate or reject me. That’s where we are now, where people cannot hold two thoughts in their head at one time, like I tried to do in a tweet on Sunday:

You can be anticolonialist and opposed to settler violence (I want ALL Israeli settlements dismantled) without giving your stamp of approval to the kind of slaughter we saw yesterday. Hamas are not the freedom fighters some of you believe they are, and you should learn about it

I’m awash in these searing, seeming contradictions as we enter the energetic window of Saturday’s Solar Eclipse at 21 degrees of Libra, activating the polarity with Aries. My rising sign versus my Sun sign here, pulling me raw and taut between the poles of my existence on this planet. The poles of my Jewish soul and body and my 30 years as an activist on the left and far left, especially in circles opposed to the occupation. I feel torn asunder but I’m safe in an apartment in New York City, where there are no bombs. I did feel compelled to request help from my super in removing the mezuzah from my door, lest I be targeted by someone who comes into my building.

I know I am relatively safe. I am not visibly Jewish and I’m mostly secular, so for now, as long as this doesn’t escalate into something worse (your Jewish friends are worried about this, check on them) I will be ok. But that generational trauma is real: the blood of my ancestors runs through me and I am the type who scans every new room I enter, making sure that I know where the exit is, in case I have to flee. The nightmares about the massacre are getting worse, knowing now the rumors of the beheaded babies are confirmed, thinking of how the 260 murdered at the peace rave went from ecstatic joy to panicked dread in an instant, thinking about how all those souls may never rest as the faces of the barbarians that killed them are the last thing they saw.

I am not a Black or brown person walking through the world always with the fear of being targeted by the violence of white supremacy. I am not a Palestinean child searching in rubble for my parent or pet, crushed by the bombardment of Israeli bombs. I think about this all the time, awareness of my privilege is a constant. The people in real danger are the people fleeing missiles, fleeing crushed buildings and hospitals, and burying the people they love, all because the leaders of Palestine and Israel couldn’t give a shit about the welfare of their own citizens. FUCK THEM ALL.

Secretary Blinken said earlier, “It’s just depravity in the most unimaginable way” of Hamas’ pogrom. Astrology tells us “as above, so below” which is another way of saying “as within, so without” — asking us to face the darkness of our own hearts. Right now, as the Solar Eclipse gets closer, examining our shadows in stark relief, the places in our subconscious where depravity lives — where we think it’s okay for one kind of person to be massacred but another kind of person not to be — we need to look at that with clear eyes.

All of this, while hardcore Christian Zionists and assorted Christofascists and evangelicals (not all of these people are bad, it’s a general term) are SALIVATING about all the death and carnage, thinking it will bring them one step closer to the rapture their churches have been ranting about their whole lives. Their prophecy demands that all the Jews of the world go to Jerusalem to die, and that’s what will bring Jesus back to earth. This is real, folks, they’re TWEETING ABOUT IT.

The last time the South Node was in Libra and we had an eclipse at the same degree was October 14th, 2004. Here are just a few events I pulled from the history of that day from Wikipedia, just so you can see how everything comes back again if the karma has not been truly purged.

• Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

  • Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon accepts an Israeli Defence Force plan to begin withdrawing troops from Jabalia, Beit Lahiya, and Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip this weekend. (Haaretz)

  • About 100,000 Israelis in 100 cities march in a series of demonstrations across Israel opposing their government's proposal to withdraw Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.

  • Conflict in Iraq:

    • United States warplanes launch sustained air strikes against the rebel-held city of Fallujah, following a breakdown in peace talks between the Iraqi government and representatives of the city. (Reuters) Archived 2004-10-22 at archive.today

    • Iraqi insurgents carry out two bomb attacks within Baghdad's heavily fortified "Green Zone", which houses Iraqi government offices and U.S. military facilities. U.S. officials say that six Iraqis and four Americans were killed in the attacks. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad militant group later claims responsibility for the bombings. (BBC)

    • The Iraqi government warns of a possible increase in terrorist activity during the Muslim month of Ramadan (which starts tonight), and says the government is taking extra precautions. (Reuters)^{[permanent dead link]}

  • The Israeli government announces that it will not restrict the number of worshippers allowed to enter Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound (located in the area known as the Temple Mount in Judaism) during the Muslim month of Ramadan, despite concerns voiced by security officials that the site is dangerously structurally unstable and could collapse if too many people visit. The Israeli government had earlier suggested it would limit the number of visitors, with mosque officials accusing Israel of having "political reasons" to do so. (Haaretz) (Jerusalem Post)^{[permanent dead link]} (AFP)

We also need to face a grave reality of our era: that millions of keyboard warriors, many of them paid trolls, many of them low-information folks (putting it mildly, don’t want to use a slur to describe them) who just googled “zionist” for the first time and then began furiously writing about why all settler colonialists must die (but somehow not knowing anything about the actual history of the settlers in the West Bank), and others furiously googling “Hamas charter” and deciding that the vile antisemitism in that document applies to all Palestinians, including children. I wonder if anyone doing this ever stops to think about something I posted into the void on Threads over the weekend as I groped for a meaningful anchor:

At some point we need to have a conversation about how the Palestinian people and the Israeli people are both groups of humans with deep generational trauma and figure out how to heal that trauma without violence and the reenactment of the violence from centuries and decades ago.

The way that our inner world mirrors the world outside, especially in the crushing crucible of an eclipse, when we are all activated in a state of emergency, is not so different than the way that Hamas mirrors the extremist right-wing of Netanyahu’s government. Sit with this, with the idea of “do unto others” in all your relationships. Seeing the others in your life, right now, is seeing yourself.

I’ll finish this with a stream of thoughts from my journal yesterday and a series of pieces I’ve read in recent days that have made me feel momentarily more stable, allowed me to take a deeper breath, to put my feet on the ground and remember that the astrology of October doesn’t have to set us up for years more of trauma and pain. We can still change this course, in our lives, and in the world.

My journal entry:

I engage with all different kinds of people on a daily basis, personally and on social media. On day 4 of this nightmare, when all I can feel is that I need people to check in on me and tell me they still love me even though I’m Jewish, I am realizing that if I don’t pepper posts with certain keywords, certain people will ignore them or maybe even judge and block me.

If I don’t use the keyword “terrorist” to describe Hamas, I am deemed insufficiently “standing with Israel.” I’m also insufficient in this area because I don’t have an Israeli flag or banner in my socials.

If I don’t use the words “Zionist” or “apartheid” or “settler colonialist” and merely talk about being against the occupation, I am deemed insufficiently liberationist. I’m also insufficient in this area if I ever dare to say what happened to the Israelis was a massacre, or that I feel grief, without the caveat that Israel is to blame for Hamas’ barbarism because they have a more powerful army.

I want to help and heal people. I want to feel safe. I want my family to feel safe. I want the Palestinian and Israeli people to feel safe. I don’t want another single bomb to drop or child to die.

Here’s what I’ve been reading:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/10/a-left-that-refuses-to-condemn-mass-murder-is-doomed.html?utm_campaign=nym&utm_medium=s1&utm_source=insta 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/11/why-are-some-of-the-left-celebrating-the-killings-of-israeli-jews

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/opinion/columnists/israel-gaza-massacre-left.html

https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/have-we-learned-nothing/

Sending you love and care wherever you are,

Stefanie