New Moon Solar Eclipse in Sagittarius

Tonight at 11:43 PM Pacific Time, we have a New Moon at 12° 22’ of Sagittarius, the final one in a series that began back in May 2020. This is a Total Solar Eclipse, with the path of totality visible only in Antarctica and partial phases visible from the southernmost tips of South America, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.

To celebrate the nature of the quincunx (~150° angle) that this Eclipse is forming with Uranus in Taurus, I’ll awkwardly just launch into talking about koalas for a minute … we’ll wrap back around to the Eclipse, so hang in there. 

The gestation period of a koala is only 35 days (!!), after which she births a single joey.  This tiny little jelly bean (literally the size of a jelly bean) uses their sense of smell, tiny claws, strong forelimbs, and innate sense of direction (again, at 35 days old!) to actually climb themself up into the pouch, where they stay for the next six months before emerging into the world for the first time. At around 22 to 30 weeks, in addition to milk, the joey feeds on a substance called “pap” from a juncture in their mother’s small and large intestines, inoculating their own system with the necessary bacteria to eat a diet of eucalyptus. Then they spend another six to twelve months riding on the mother’s back.  By one year old, the joey is weaned onto eucalyptus leaves and explores a home range, overlapping with their mother.  Between two and three years, they establish their own range beyond their original territory.  

Koalas live in eucalyptus forests and eat over a pound of leaves a day.  Again — eucalyptus is toxic, but the bacteria in the koala’s digestive system help to break it down and gain nutrition.  Also, their keen sense of smell helps them to detect toxin levels. Koalas tend to sleep nearly all day (20 hours) in tree branches.

Now, I’m going to say something kind of obvious — 

It is easy for us to see and accept this developmental cycle and behavioral expression of koalas, because we see and accept that koalas are koalas. In other words, there is no other expectation that we’re placing upon them. We don’t need them to be anything different but what they are.

We don’t look at a koala and think: You really shouldn’t be sleeping so much.

And we don’t look at a koala baby and think: You’ve technically been out of the womb for five months, you should be hitting these developmental markers.

We think — Oh this is a koala. They need to sleep because it takes a lot of energy to break down toxins in eucalyptus leaves. And that little joey in the pouch is not a fully developed baby yet. It follows this really amazing, unique gestation and developmental process of a marsupial. It is an example of diversity in the animal kingdom. 

Similarly, within us humans, there is SO MUCH diversity in our human developmental, neurological, energetic mechanics, processes, forms, expressions, and systems — and yet we carry so many stories about how it should all look, just across the board. 

We might look at our children and think: “UH OH, is my kid behind?”

We might look at ourselves and think: “Ugh, I’m so behind!"

But, for the past couple of years, the painfully awkward//incredibly creative quincunx between South Node in Sagittarius and Uranus in Taurus opened up a new possibility for this relationship to our development processes, neurological and beyond.

There is a possibility now to look at ourselves (and then to each other) and think:

“WOW, what an astonishing creature I am, unfolding, becoming, and expressing in this unique way ..

What an astonishing creature that YOU are, unfolding, becoming, and expressing in your unique way …

How might you support me in being myself, while being yourself?

How can I support you in being yourself, while being myself?

What if the same instinctive intelligence that guided the development of our coping strategies that helped us survive childhood, is still here, within us … guiding a process for releasing and healing the patterns in a way and timing that is unique and correct for us?

—

Remember that Sagittarius is less about the landing than The Leap. 

It’s less about — Am I gonna get there?? And more about: what is guiding my leap? What goal is framing my situation and determining how I digest the “As Is”? What intention am I orienting to? Where are my instincts guiding me? What extraordinary creature arises from the two? 

Sending Love & Eclipse Blessings,

Nicole