The Grand Conjunction – 21st December

A once-in-a-lifetime Great Conjunction is afoot: Lady Saturn, the Dark Goddess of initiation and restriction meets Lord Jupiter the optimistic God of abundance and expansion in a frisson of union. The Witch of the dark woods with all her wild wisdom dances with the virile god of growth Pan in the sacred groves of worship, and they give birth to something entirely new that brings a restored way of balance.

As astrologers are reporting across the world, “On the night of December 21, the winter solstice, Jupiter and Saturn will appear so closely aligned in our sky that they will look like a double planet. This close approach is called a conjunction.”

After a year of separation, isolation, and distance – what does this bring to us?

The Dark Lady and her lover are “coming together”. Conjunction (n.) is a word for sexual union, coming together or “to yoke” (root of tantra). The dictionary refers to it as “a joining or meeting of individuals or distinct things,” originally of planets or stars “meeting” in the same part of the sky, from Old French conjonction “union, joining, sexual intercourse” (12c.) … an assimilated form of com “with, together” + iugare “to join,” from iugum “yoke” or “to join” (the essence of Sacred Union).

In Kabbalah, on the Tree of Life, Lady Saturn (who is visioned as a male energy in these times) is expressed as Gevurah, and is known as the Dark Goddess of restriction, boundaries, judgement and severity. She is the one who “whips” us into shape with her initiations that feel like being squeezed tightly inside a dark birth canal. But without this journey of restriction, we cannot birth ourselves outwards.

Likewise, on the Tree of Life, Lord Jupiter is expressed as Chesed – the outpouring flow of compassion, love, mercy and redemptive energy. This is where we are blessed with good fortune, grace, miracles and “quantum leaps” in our evolution, and give birth to the highest version of ourselves and our world, on a huge “flow.”

In metaphysical lore, when these two energies come together a perfect balance – or zero point – is reached, which impregnates reality with a new potential of union and harmony. Mother Earth herself is preparing for a pregnancy with a daughter, a New Earth. We are on the “conception” point of a new era. Earth is carrying forward all her wisdom and ancient treasures, but rooting it into a new future.

In scientific terms, the earth is resonating at a new pitch or frequency. She is singing a new song – reflected in changes to the Schumann resonance, the electro- magnetic “heartbeat” of the earth, the frequency pulsing in our Mother’s womb.

Lady Saturn – Lineage of the Witch

On a personal level I have been journeying with Lady Saturn for a while, and in many ways she was the taskmistress for the Magdalene Mysteries book released this year, at the height of the first lockdown, when even Amazon had declared that it might cease from posting books out. Oh Saturn. That’s my girl, I thought.

If Mary Magdalene had a cosmic alter ego, from my experience, it wouldn’t be a lovely angelic light being with pretty glitter. It would be Saturn, in her full glory.

I recognized her signature perfume a mile off – restrictions, restraints, obstacles. With a flick of her astrological tall pointy black hat, on the Saturn-Pluto conjunction back in January 2020, we were sent spinning down into the black hole of transformation that Lady Saturn rules over; a dark place of death and rebirth.

Now as the Solstice conjunction looms before us, she is ushering us through the portal, with our hair tangled up, mud on our faces, facing a world wrong-side up.

I deepened my acquaintance with Saturn at the start of 2018. This astrological archetype presides over all our grand transformations, and was waiting for me. In fact, it was my “Saturn Return” that hit me like a hard-black stiletto at age 28, and led me onto the path of feminine wisdom, personal healing and womb awakening.

This time, Saturn appeared in a dream the night before an abdominal surgery to remove a large fibroid from my womb, so I would be able to conceive. I had asked Spirit for a dream. I thought I needed something inspiring, illuminating and maybe a bit spiritually fancy. Instead the Queen of the Underworld greeted me with a smirk and led me down into her realm in the earth womb, throbbing in blackness.

She was sexy, magnificent, darkly humorous, vast, tricksy, astounding; she was the purity of life force throbbing at the heart of creation with a wildly purring power.

In exchange for a baby, my heart’s desire, I had to let go of everything, she told me. It was like a fairytale, and I was walking with the Witch of the Dark Woods, who was picking me apart, bone by bone, boiling me up in her great cauldron stew.

How much did I want it? She asked me. And what was I prepared to let go of, in order to bring through a new birth that I had been dreaming on for so many years?

When I woke up, I remembered an old picture of Mae West, wearing a shiny, tight black dress and bat wings (pictured on the cover), and this became the image to guide me. When everyone else was looking up to the light, I was down in the dark, rummaging through the rubble of my life, letting go of everything so I could keep my side of the bargain. It made sense; a fibroid is something that doesn’t belong in our wombs, and prevents us conceiving and birthing our desires. It just has to go.

Although she drives a hard bargain, Lady Saturn is true to her word. In 2019, I gave birth to my beautiful daughter. A double Scorpio faerie of the Underworld.

I sense these times have a similar flavor. Lady Saturn is asking us to let go of what is no longer working, in order to restore the fertility to conceive something new. She is asking us to listen to that new tune, a new birth, pulsing in the earth womb.

Lady Saturn is the darkness of Wisdom, of Sophia, she is the grand cosmic Witch.

Prophecy of the Cathars

“The largest group of people to believe that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were in a sexual relationship were the Cathars, a heretical Christian sect that flourished in the south of France and Bulgaria around the eleventh century—and who many believe were barely Christian by orthodox standards—and instead worshipped the feminine divinity of the Holy Spirit. They openly taught and wrote that Jesus was in a sexual relationship with Mary Magdalene, and described her as a consort or concubine.” Magdalene Mysteries

We are living through exceptional times, and we can feel this unique intensity.

For the energetically sensitive, this Solstice Grand Conjunction has us at boiling point. Our nerves are frazzled. There is something strangely familiar about this confluence, as if we are tap dancing across many timelines, as old memories stir.

“Alignments between these two planets are rather rare, but this conjunction is exceptionally rare because of how close the planets will appear to one another,” says Rice University astronomer and professor of physics and astronomy Patrick Hartigan. “You’d have to go all the way back to just before dawn on March 4, 1226, to see a closer alignment between these objects visible in the night sky.”

For followers of Western Alchemy, and the path of Sophia, this brings up a fascinating synchronicity. Roughly the last time this conjunction happened was the timeframe of the persecution of the Cathars – mystical Christians – ending the Golden Age of the Church of Love, and sending Magdalene devotees underground.

The last time Lady Saturn and Lord Jupiter had such a close rendezvous, in 1226, a second crusade was incited against the Cathars by the Pope and King Louis VIII – and where the first crusade failed, this one succeeded. By 1229 the Cathars were overcome and the culture of the Occitan lands of Languedoc had surrendered.

In the aftermath of this persecution, the burning of the last Cathars at Montsegur in southern France in 1244 marked the end of their world. The gentle heretics who worshipped the Divine Feminine in her form of Sophia or Holy Spirit, and whose coded symbols and art became what we now know as the Tarot, retreated to the shadows and the deep dark caves, continuing their lineage in secrecy, reputed to be carrying the Holy Grail, rumored to be a Book of Love written by Magdalene.

For those of us who feel connected to the Cathar legacy, perhaps through ancestral threads or spiritual resonance, these times can bring up the dredges of old terror. And once more it feels like the adversarial forces are dead-set on destroying the birth-light that the cosmic conjunction of sacred union could bring to our world. We feel that dreaded shadow of the “inquisitor” with his stories of sin upon us.

Yet hope still comes, shining through the fears of a future digital dystopia and non- consensual threats to our bodies and souls by man-made systems of greed. As the Cathars predicted in their own cosmic portal time, the “bough would green again”

– and they would return once again to Earth to live and teach the Way of Love. That time, almost 700 years later is right now. The Cathars walk amongst us again.

Al cap dels sèt cent ans, verdejara lo laurèl. ‘The laurel will flourish again in 700 years.” Thirteenth century Cathar prophecy

Their oracles and troubadours predicted that these would be safer times for a feminine cosmology of love, life and compassion to finally lay down her roots.

Although it certainly doesn’t seem or feel that safe right now, maybe we can call upon these prophesies as a glimmer of light to hold onto? Lady Saturn, as Queen of the Underworld, carrying the archetypes of Lilith, Ereshkigal, and Helle, has presided over this year, where she plunged us into her realm, and stripped us of our illusions, so she could give us the gift of Wisdom that comes from darkness.

Now, as she conjugates with the light-bearer, she begins to rise up into her shimmering Queendom, and commands us to grow up from these dark roots into the brilliance of life. For the underworld soil is what makes us grow and flower. During the Grand Conjunction, we are also shifting from a 200-year cycle of Jupiter and Saturn housing in Capricorn (Earth sign) to Aquarius (Air sign). So, we move from the Goddess as the Womb of the Earth and rise into her visionary realms as the Queen of Heaven, where we begin to feel the Upperworld pouring down her brilliant love from the chalice of the Cosmic Womb, our true Creator.

This shift into Aquarian energy is a “switch code” that breaks open the dream seeds we have nursed inside us, so that they can begin their journey into the light.

Avalon & Uluru: Awakening of the Earth Grids

“We must engage in the process, like the birthing child, shifting to the right position, working with the mother’s body, but we must trust in the birth wisdom of the Mother. We must surrender to the dark tunnel and welcome the dazzling light. Mother Earth, incarnate Sophia, is asking us to listen to her, and be part of the birth. She is calling us to her side, as her most trusted midwives of a new consciousness. She who lovingly created our souls, who is with us always, is now in divine labor.” Magdalene Mysteries

In addition to these powerful shifts connected with this Grand Conjunction on December 21st, the elders of the Original peoples of Australia have been custodians of an ancient prophecy focused on this special date. According to their lore- keepers, a “magic box” planted at the root of the sacred site of Uluru by star ancestors will activate, potentially triggering a huge global awakening and healing.

Uluru is considered to be the sacral chakra of earth, making it a potent place for this womblike magical box to open and activate its birth templates for humanity.

Because sacred sites across earth, or Dragon Portals, are all interconnected, this opening will be a collective energy movement across the earth’s womb grids. In the western hemisphere, the sacred site of Avalon in Britain will experience a similar activation. This site has been preparing since 2012, and is calling on the Spirit Keepers of the ancient traditions of Sophia, Magdalene and the Goddess.

Avalon is considered to be the heart chakra of the world, creating a heart-womb conjunction between the sacred sites, and activating the Shakti of Mother earth.

For those who feel a special affinity to the lands of Avalon, in modern day Glastonbury, or who are active guardians, custodians and Spirit Keepers of this sacred site, you can pilgrimage with your inner sense to this landscape on the 21st. The Lady of the Avalon will be waiting for you with direct personal guidance.

Allow yourself to feel an infinity loop between your heart and your wombspace – feel the energy circulating, carrying the new codes of creation welling up from the earth’s core, and pouring down from the galactic center and the heart of the sun. Imagine that as your body is flowing with a new birth light, so is Mother Earth.

Avalon, like Uluru has been the keeper of prophecies of a mythic return that will herald a bright new future; although in Avalon’s prophecies the “magic box” is a silver chalice, otherwise known as the Holy Grail – a sacred feminine vessel.

The 5th century Melkin Oracle says that when the chalice is revealed, “thenceforth nor water nor the dew of heaven shall fail the dwellers on that ancient isle.” And the last of the Glastonbury monks, Austin Ringwode, also prophesied on his death bed: “The Abbey will one day be repaired and rebuilt for the like worship which has now ceased; and then peace and plenty will for a long time abound.”

The Abbey was originally built at a sacred spring dedicated to the Goddess, the Lady of Avalon, and later reconsecrated to the Virgin Mary (herself an incarnation of Isis). In Sophianic cosmology, the silver chalice containing the blood of Christ is not the death blood of a human man, but the birth blood of a cosmic goddess.

This future time of revelation, where the Holy Grail returns and the Abbey is restored, likely does not refer to an orthodox Christian revival, but the resurgence of the Holy Spirit of the Divine Mother, she who lives deep within all of creation.

Could this prophesy of Avalon also be activated in this Solstice portal?

Global Womb Awakening

There are many other sites activating during this time portal, connected into many lineages, as a global earth womb awakening ripples through the collective field of energy. Tune into any places on earth you can feel this awakening energy stirring.

And, of course, it is important to remember that we are a holographic fractal of Mother Earth, so the magic box and silver vessel of the Holy Grail, the primal womb of creative energy, is also awakening within us too. The more people connect to their inner wisdom deep within their womb or hara and root chakras, the more this energy ripple of earth womb kundalini can spiral out throughout the web.

On the Solstice portal, wherever you are, it is powerful to take at least fifteen minutes to sit out on the earth. Breathe into your body, and connect your energy to the deep black energy inside earth, as well as the fire inside earth. First raise the energy (black/yin, and fire/yang) up through your body into the cosmos, into the black hole at the center of the galaxy, and the sun that lights up our planet (cosmic yin/yang), then allow the energy to flow back down your body and back into earth.

Once you feel connected into the cosmic/earth axis, begin to circulate your energy between your heart and womb/hara in an infinity loop, as described earlier, feeling the life energy flowing and allowing the pulsing energy to move naturally.

Remember to share your appreciation for Mother Earth and all she gives afterwards, and to take a moment to tune into how much love and energy we receive from so many natural sources: the earth, the plants, the sun, and the stars, and how supported we are by all the ancestors – both from the past and the future.

Christmas Star: Heralding a New Birth

There is a powerful configuration of global prophecies coming together, from the Elders of the lands of Australia, to the prophecies of the Cathars and Avalon.

The magic box of the Holy Grail is resonating in our consciousness, just as we are collectively journeying through a dark night of the soul of astounding proportions.

Ancient people understood that astrology was a cosmic guiding force not only in our personal lives, but in the great collective cycles of our cultures and societies.

Wise men and women of the past studied these unusual cosmic events, knowing that civilizations were created and destroyed on big astrological waves.

This year, the Grand Conjunction of these two major planets creates a “Christmas star” – not unlike the one said to have heralded the birth of Christ 2,000 years ago.

The nativity story celebrated by Christians around the world over the Solstice birth-window (21st December to 25th December), tells us that Mother Mary gave birth in a stable, under the light of a bright star. This unusual astrological event was noted by the most powerful magicians and sages of the time, and the story tells us that three magi found their way to the birth-bed by following this great star.

According to Sheffield astronomer Professor David W. Hughes, author of The Star of Bethlehem, the stellar event that announced the birth of Christ happened in 7 BCE, and … drum roll … was created by an astounding conjunction of the planets Saturn and Jupiter, creating a “star” visible in the sky – just like the upcoming conjunction. Except that, as prophesized, this second coming is in Aquarius.

Astrologer and author Jessica Adams says, “the Magi, the three wise men, gave very specific astrological meaning to the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction. This was rare. A triple conjunction. An unusual alignment.” She also confirms that these Saturn-Jupiter alignments were portents of change, “As far back as the 15 century, it was thought that these celestial meetings between Jupiter and Saturn chimed with important historical events. The rise and fall of empires, the birth of religions.”

Christmas Reindeer Goddess – World Mother

Old lore also says that the Goddess Bride flew over from her seat in Iona (where female oracles once resided) to be a midwife, as did Befina the Italian strega-witch.

What this tells us is that grand conjunctions preside over grand events, and the feminine midwives, shamans and witches were key figures during these portals.

St Bride by John Duncan, 1913
“According to the legend of the Irish Saint Bride she was transported miraculously to Bethlehem to attend the nativity of Christ. Here two angels carry the white robed saint across the sea. The seascape reflects Duncan’s fascination with the Outer Hebrides and the Isle of Iona.” National Galleries Scotland.

In earlier beliefs of the pagan people who lived close to the land, it was thought that it was the body of Mother Earth herself who rebirthed the light on Solstice.

And, of course, the old festival of Saturnalia – in honor of Saturn – was held between December 17th – 23rd, over the Solstice period. It was surrounded by feasting, celebration, and the disruption of normal hierarchies. Even by Roman times this festival was visioned as being for a male god. But originally Saturn was a dark Goddess. A Womb Goddess. A Rebirther. Her womb was seen as a dark, restrictive, netherworld container, but whose primal mystery birthed the light.

In some northern cultures, it was said a Reindeer Mother rebirthed the world. And between Samhain, October 31st and Imbolc on 1st February, the world was considered to undergo a great mystery of rebirth and resurrection inside the dark womb of winter. Solstice is when the new light started to crown, but the birth

process wasn’t complete until Epiphany, known as the “women’s Christmas” and sacred to midwives (also the birthday of Mary Magdalene). It was believed that Mother Earth was then postpartum, resting on her birth-bed until Imbolc in February, marking out the sacred and liminal 40 days after a woman gives birth. Then in February Mother Earth brings the light of her new birth out into the world.

“We may have been conditioned to block out the sounds of powerful, benevolent, magical reindeer, but if we listen deep inside, buried in our archetypal DNA, we will hear the beat of their hooves calling us to remember, still guiding us along the Earth’s energy lines back home.” Womb Awakening

The Great Conjunction, The Great Portal

Wherever we are in the world, the events of 2020 have rocked us; and a fissure between timelines has been created. There is no going back, no normal to return to. Yet there is a striking knowing that we cannot live in the “new normal” that has been prescribed to us by the political-medical-industrial complex, who has replaced the function of the Inquisitorial authoritarian church of the Middle Ages.

In many ways there is a growing rift between the reality of nature, of our bodies, of earth, of the planet we live upon and who sustains us in a million ways, and the cosmos we live within, which also affects us in countless ways, and the man-made reality that is playing out like a nightmarish film on our computer and TV screens.

When we turn off our screens and head into nature (either outside or in our bodies), a new world unfolds, and we can sense this new birth-cycle that has been prophesized. It requires us to reconnect with what is most authentic and true.

Saturn brings us a fullness of knowing, a spherical wisdom that encompasses many nuances, not just a one-sided “goodness” taught to us by the cultural wasteland. Like the famous quote by Mae West, she teases us with paradox, quipping, “when I’m good, I’m very good, but when I’m bad I’m better.” She is deconstructing the man-made prison of the “good girl,” made to keep us small, tamed, and controlled.

She teaches us that life is many things: wild, primal, raw, cyclical, regenerative, pristine, majestic, but never “safe.” She disassembles our illusions, and reminds us that the harms enacted on earth are rarely done in the name of “evil,” but only ever in the name of “good.” In Saturn’s arms, the world is inside out. Reversed.

Our cosmic ecology is complex, beyond the thinking mind and its straightforward rules. We have to think from inside the nature that we are. We have to learn to see with the eyes of Sophia. When she is dark, she is wet and fertile and full of growth; when she rises and ascends, it is with a sumptuous, joyful, spontaneous flowering.

We all have this wild, primal knowing inside us; this is our inner Witchblood – our nous, our womb knowing, our gut instinct, our intuition that tells us the truth.

A new way is already forming, as our body wisdom leads the way, and our souls sing out. Look carefully and you will see the tendrils of new growth all around you. Life is speaking clearly, simply, loudly, in many different ways, guiding you.

This gives us an astounding, yet complex and challenging opportunity to begin again; and we know in our deep heart-wombs that the old world wasn’t working.

Enter Lady Saturn and Lord Jupiter to wise us up and give us the faith in the future. This is birth work; it requires the depth, diligence and love to create anew.

The Dark Lady is a tough mistress because birth is tough primal work; it can feel like it is splitting us in two, which in some ways it is, as a new creation emerges. It can also feel ecstatic, joyful, exhilarating, as our hearts reach out to love again.

We do not know what this astrological portal will bring us, but we must enter with full heart, with full hope, with our wisdom switched on and our courage set on fire.

In this grand drama, we are all the midwife, the mother, and the birthing babe.

“A new Seed is planted. A new Cycle is turning. A new Earth is birthing.”Womb Awakening

By Seren Bertrand,
Author of Womb Awakening & Magdalene Mysteries

www.serenbertrand.com
Illustrations by Helen Claira Burt, taken from Magdalene Mysteries