Like the cosmic serpent or oroboros, the Scorpio lunar eclipse on 5 May 2023 is likely to bring many things full circle.
In addition to closing out the six month cycle begun at the solar eclipse in October 2022, it may also have thematic links to the Scorpio lunar eclipses of May 2022, and April 2005.
Taking place in Hexagram 1, which is symbolised by the shape-shifter energy of the cerulean dragon, a Chinese constellation representing the primal cosmic forces of creativity and strength, this eclipse is about releasing the charge of any past burdens that may be weighing you down, and returning to states of psychological innocence.
Reconnecting to your ‘why’ – your sense of purpose, cultivating beginner’s mind, & making contact with your inner child, are all likely to be strong themes over the next three to six months.
The work begins with the prima materia: "[T]he serpent of Hermes or the Agathodaimon, the Nous that animates the cold part of nature—that is, the unconscious—is enclosed in the spherical vessel of diaphanous glass which represents the world and the soul."
This snake-like "damp-fiery cold Spirit" is the spirit of alchemy which Christianity regarded as demonic and which therefore found no acclaim except in the realm of the magical arts and sciences.
It should not be identified outright with evil; it merely has the uncomfortable quality of being beyond good and evil.'
This serpent must be...transformed as in alchemy, and this metamorphosis "must be understood as an overcoming of unconsciousness and, at the same time, of the attitude of the son who unconsciously hangs onto his mother."
"It starts underground. Twofold, really, the growing of the onion and the making of good steel. Both come from the earth and both are elemental transformations. The act of smelting and the act of cooking are humanly transformation, divinely inspired. It was cooking that led us to alchemy." —Matthew Medendorp for Joyland