I’ve waited on making this post because it reflects experiments I had begun with the eclipses of January, and continued on with the July eclipse in Cancer. I began this experiment after having several brainstorms. I knew the eclipses were coming up this year, and they’re hitting pretty sensitive places in my chart. Indeed, I have been paying enough attention to what was going on in my life and in my head while also noticing how the heavens were moving above, and I decided I wanted to be proactive in leaning into the eclipse seasons.

Several things came together for me. Kaitlin Coppock had been sharing her eclipse remediation tech, which I’ve pointed to often. Austin Coppock had been speaking of eclipses in terms of the “demimonde,” and the shadow world beyond. Eclipses, he said, open portals into that shadow world, and possibilities and new things can emerge through those portals, even as things from our lives can pass out into the shadow. In particular, this cyclical intersection of the demimonde and our reality is regulated by the lunar nodes, the Dragon’s Head and Tail, or Lords Rahu and Ketu. In Vedic systems, they are “shadow” “planets,” known mathematically and procedurally, yet not any less real. We can best notice them directly when the Sun and Moon conjoin or oppose each other when close enough to the nodes—that is, during solar and lunar eclipses. This idea of portals and shadow worlds caught my attention.

I had also heard T. Susan Chang’s appearance on Rune Soup last year, when she and Gordon White reminded me about what you can do when the 10 of Swords clanks down on a reading: go get 10 needles, knives, or something Swords-like, and put them somewhere with intention. The idea is that you give bad fortune a place to land, a way to express itself that’s not so much catastrophe. It’s a similar idea to remediating Mercury Retrogrades by doing activities that resonate well with MercRet: returning to old Mercurial projects, history, working with the dead and ancestors, and so on.

Remediation as Enchantment

And it’s maybe not even that you’ll escape these events, but that you can vent some of the pressure and catastrophe into other, safer channels, or even to guide the currents in question through channels that you provide, leading to hopefully preferred ends. I feel as if I should stress that this is perhaps less “magic” than “enchantment” in the Tolkien sense of the terms. I would say that I am trying to weave my life so as to incorporate those conditions fortunate and less fortunate in order to turn them away from catastrophe and adversity, or to do what we’ve often done with art: to transform catastrophe into something else. In doing so in mythic terms, we can enchant towards more mythic ends. I don’t want the banal ends more banal terms would offer.

I digress into the “mythic terms” because, partly, I’m writing about enchanting one’s life through eclipse cycles, but also because many people have talked about art as a transformation of catastrophe for ages. However, the closer we get to the present day, more artists have tended to flatten this enterprise into a kind of banal personal disaster porn: so many novels written by writers about writers trying to write while having trouble paying the rent and having anxiety about being middle class, white, and male. That’s not the enchantment I’m after, and not particularly interesting to me.

However, mythic terms or not, remediation and enchantment do not negate the need to do what you should be doing already. Enchantment often includes long-term personal therapy between yourself and the universe, coming to terms with yourself and the universe, and that involves you still figuring out how to pay bills and feed yourself and not be a mess of a human being. It involves learning to rein in your emotions, not so you avoid them, but so you are not misled in what you do because you’re experiencing them. I’ll say it that way rather than “don’t be ruled by your emotions” because, while probably still a valid way to make that point, it’s easy to go down the wrong paths with that phrasing. Feel what you feel, but note that you’re feeling, and try to remember that you are also more than those very powerful feelings even as they are also you, and run deeply, too.

Enchantment is not necessarily going to cause some kind of “magical” “presto-chango” result. It can, usually in the sense that probabilities will line up in your favor. If you’re doing it right, then you’re leaning into the cycles around you and are bringing those cycles into your life in intentional and (hopefully) adept manners.

I often think about the scenes in The Lord of the Rings where you encounter or hear about elves in processions in the countryside at night, under the stars, singing hymns to Elbereth, the Queen of the Stars:

Snow-white! Snow-white! O Lady clear!
O Queen beyond the Western Seas!
O Light to us that wander here
Amid the world of woven trees!

Gilthoniel [star-kindler]! O Elbereth [star-queen]!
Clear are thy eyes and bright thy breath!
Snow-white! Snow-white! We sing to thee
In a far land beyond the Sea.

O stars that in the Sunless Year
With shining hand by her were sown,
In windy fields now bright and clear
We see your silver blossom blown!

O Elbereth! Gilthoniel!
We still remember, we who dwell
In this far land beneath the trees,
Thy starlight on the Western Seas.

In hymning Elbereth as they travel by night, these elves are doing travel enchantment, and I might compare what they’re doing to pilgrims singing hymns to Mary as Queen of Heaven and Mother of God as they travel so that, in a sense, Mary is with them, paying attention from the heavens above. So, too, I imagine, the elves journey with Elbereth guiding and watching them. They weave their journey so that that’s the story of their journey, and not a mere caravan trip and not the story of a group of would-be victims to bandits. Of course, most elves are hundreds of years old with mastery of as many skills as they’d want to cultivate in those times, so they’ve also done the work to protect themselves in more banal terms. But the hymn, under the stars of Elbereth, weaves their journey with hers.

With astrological remediation as enchantment, I think that you are trying to incorporate benefics and malefics in intentional, apt, and, hopefully, beneficial ways into the enchantment that is your life. Create and guide channels for the Sun in its strength to move through your life, or Jupiter, or even Saturn. So, too, with the eclipses and the nodes.

To be clear, these forces are already in your life, but if you’re ignorant of them or stumble along through your life, then you wind up living far more on their terms. They’re not enemies. We all have enemies, of course, but Saturn is just doing what Saturn does. Rahu and Ketu, even if shadow beings, are within Creation and are doing what they do. There’s an offices perspective of the spirit world I’m gesturing at here. However, unlike, say, Bune, who you might have to cajole/threaten/etc. into doing you a solid because Bune’s office isn’t necessarily something to do with you, the planets and luminaries and nodes have offices with deeply personal significance for our lives. We always have standing to press our suits with the heavens. Remediation and enchantment seek to relate with these forces and others on (one hopes) far more advantageous and intentional terms. They are parts of the universe doing their jobs, but you can co-create your life, your world, along with them.

What are these “channels” we can use for enchantment and remediation, or what can they include? Really, we’re talking about archetypal motifs and their expressions. Consider a Jupiter remediation shrine.

This is the one I usually create for Thursdays while Jupiter is in Sagittarius. I have the Jupiter magic square, some valerian, a piece of lightning blasted oak, some rum, frankincense, glyphs and symbols associated with Jupiterian beings, tarot cards that depict Jupiterian motifs, some Jupiterian stones, and so forth and so on. I have four pieces of amethyst and four candles: even the number four has Jupiterian associations. Such a shrine includes Jupiterian things, and you might think of them as “surfaces” (mirrors, windows, doors, symbols, and so on) through which Jupiterian presence can aptly flow.

This is where all that cliched chaos magic experimentation might inform approaches to this. To borrow an oft cited example from Gordon White, can you do a solar working with Superman? Sure. He’s powered by sunlight. He’s got solar qualities, and so on. But the archetypal sun far more easily, readily, and with fewer issues with the lens and filter, will flow through more deeply embedded solar motifs, such as the sun in the sky, sunlight, images of the sun, and images/symbols/things that have ontological inertia of sun-ness for whatever reasons.

To use the channel metaphor again, Superman might be a solar channel, but he’s far less deep than others. If sun-ness were a powerful spring of water, and the Sun above a deep riverbed allowing the spring to flow easily, and images of the Sun and beings like Apollo might be streambeds leading off from the river, then Superman might be a narrow line you tried to make from the river using a stick. You might get some splash. You might have some mud. Sun mud. Or you could just go to the river or streams.

Let me also say that these channels can include words, names, actions, movements, sounds, music, rituals or ritual components, scents, and more. In a 4+-dimensional world, surfaces can be 2-dimensional, 3-dimensional, and so on. And I would hazard that our engagement with higher dimensions will often be accessible through imaginal means. In Flat Land, Up can only be imagined until it’s somehow experienced with the intervention of a 3D being.

Let me also say that I’m not arguing for unthinking rigidity in assembling or using motifs for remediation and enchantment purposes. Lyrical thinking and the ability to aptly and elegantly manipulate motifs—weaving, making art—are the ways to approach fashioning such enterprises.

Eclipse Remediation

Firstly, I’ll point you to the Eclipse Remediation series at Sphere and Sundry (which Kaitlin Coppock links from this North Node specific page), especially so you can have some context for Rahu and Ketu. I think you will find that having a sense for the Dragon’s Head and Tail, their motifs, and roles will be helpful.

I won’t go into the details why, but when Austin Coppock described the eclipses as opening doors into the “demimonde” and the shadow world of possibilities that are not yet in our world except as shadows[1], I started thinking about what has been separated from me into that shadow world. Eclipses help things from that shadow world emerge into our visible world, and my own “shadow work” was very much on my mind.

I pondered how to approach the Dragon’s Head and Tail in order to help me do this cosmological shadow work—I needed means to move them in my favor. Three beings came into alignment with the experiment I decided to undertake. The Coppocks’ approach is very much informed by the Jyotish contexts that they’ve been participating in, and as I’ve noted, I don’t have nearly as solid a context or engagement in the Vedic cosmological approaches as I do elsewhere. Accordingly, I didn’t feel it appropriate to approach Durga or others.

Nevertheless, three beings came into focus and alignment for me. During my early experiments with the PGM (via the PGM Course at Rune Soup), I discovered the transcendental mode of Agathos Daimon, who presents to me in trans-cosmic, Aion-ic, serpent mode, and “Snek” struck me very much as a bigger serpent, or as a deeper expression of the same serpent archetype that the nodes express. You’ll see some specifics in this regard when I get to the rituals themselves. Furthermore, I had follow-up experiences from my PGM experiments that pointed to the Agathos Daimon as a good match for my experiments.

I had also gotten the attention of Saint Catherine of Alexandria a while back, like intensely so the first time: I couldn’t really get any sleep that night. And as I pondered the “wheel” of my nativity, I pondered Catherine’s motifs, including very poignantly her wheel. The idea, the image, of Catherine taking hold of the celestial wheel very much came to mind.

Finally, Saint Martha of Bethany also occurred to me, and her taming of the serpent/dragon/Tarasque, turning it to her side and her favor, seemed a natural match for approaching the nodes. I didn’t have a pre-existing relationship with Martha, but I figured I had to get her onboard. I approached her ahead of time with a candle, some incense, some water, and she seemed quite eager. If nothing else, she is an example of the Queen of Beasts archetype that also expresses through Durga. I have found myself very much resonating with this archetype, but I resisted equating Durga with beings I already was in relationship with, nor did I presume that my spirits who are expressions of that archetype would be suitable for the ends I had in mind. The saints, at least, are in the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Kingdom is at hand and above.

I decided to petition the Saints to mediate the eclipse season hijinks, to temper the worst outflows, as it were, and to help bring the best stuff to the fore. During the eclipses themselves, I would have them intercede on my behalf with the celestial wheel and with the Dragon with the aim of having my foul fortune pass through the door into shadow while bringing my best destiny out of the shadow and into the light. I also had the ancient Egyptian idea of coming down into any sky on my mind, too.

During eclipse season, I will typically do either Rahu’s or Ketu’s mantra 108 times a day in the days leading up to and after each eclipse. I got this tech from the Coppocks. Otherwise, for my original version of my saintly, eclipse season remediation, I prepared and printed an image of the Dragon with the sun and moon. In the current version of this practice, I am using this image underneath the wheel of the heavens I produced with the signs, the planets in their exaltations, the nakshatras, and the decanal characters with Saint Catherine’s Cross in the very middle. I also anointed two tall glass candles for the saints, had some incense on hand, along with the Saints’ images.

Take a sea salt shower/bath, or I used some Florida water most recently, spritzing my head and hands. Be reasonably clean, so preferably be showered and wear clean clothes. Set up the shrine with some frankincense on hand and a small glass of water in the center of the wheel of the heavens (or otherwise positioned in a way that makes sense). The water I recently added, not as an offering per se, but as a motif to blunt some potential blow back during the eclipse season. Keep the cup reasonably full.

Saint Catherine Petition

Gracious and loving God, we give You thanks for the tradition and example of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. O Saint Catherine, give us grace to pursue your love of purity, to strive for your strength and courage, to adhere to your abhorrence of the world’s temptations and sinful desires, and to follow your faithfulness. Empower us to break the wheel of worldly suffering and allow the Logos to radiate through our lives, so that the Son’s glory may shine ever more brightly.

O St. Catherine of Alexandria, I bless and consecrate [light, on subsequent lightings] this candle for you: may it be a beacon of your light and your presence in my life. Intercede for me, St. Catherine: aid me in my quest to turn these eclipses in Capricorn and Cancer into fonts of good fortune. Place your hand upon the stellar wheels of the Zodiac and the nakshatras, of the planets and stars, so that the Eclipses prove doors to my best future and my future, best, most exalted destiny, so that destiny stride forth into the light of the Kingdom.

All this we pray through Jesus Christ, our servant leader, who is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

St. Martha Petition

O glorious Saint Martha, I have recourse to your protection and aid, And as proof of my affection and faith, I bless and consecrate [light, on subsequent lightings] this candle for you: May it be a beacon of your light and your presence in my life. Comfort me in my difficulties And intercede for my family With your intimate friend, our savior, That we may always hold God in our hearts And be provided for in our necessities. I beg your supplications Especially in behalf of the favor I ask of you: in this time of the eclipses in Cancer and Capricorn, tame the Dragon’s Head and Tail, St. Martha, Lord Rahu and Lord Ketu, so that these eclipses prove fonts of good fortune. Place your feet upon the Dragon’s Head and Tail, upon Lord Rahu and Lord Ketu, to turn them to our favor, so that the eclipses prove doors to my best future and my future, best, most exalted destiny, so that destiny stride forth into the light of the Kingdom.

I ask you, Saint Martha, By your intercession to help me In overcoming all my difficulties And to teach me to become great In the Kingdom of Heaven By becoming as humble as you In this world. Amen.

I found that as remediation buddies, Sts. Catherine and Martha performed very well. I actually wish I had started a little earlier with this tech for the Cancer eclipse, but I had held off on having the candles on hand until a little later than I would have liked. I would light the candles during the days, with a quick callout to the Saints as I lit them, and I’d put them out before heading to bed for the night.

Eclipse Ritual

Here’s the part I found most ambitious, audacious, and both exciting and a bit worrisome. These are the rituals I began with the eclipses in January, not really sure what to expect, and given that eclipses can take until the next eclipse for their effects to unfurl, I held off on saying much about them. I joked I was waiting to see if I would suffer total protonic reversal.

Along the way, I kept meditating and kept working on other enchantments and, well, just doing the work I had to do in my everyday life. This work also included the personal, soul, and shadow work that builds out of and in relationship with these particular rituals. I noted how experiences I had related to others, and I paid attention to the synchronicities and persons that flooded into my life over the last six months.

Now, on to the ritual. I timed them to reach their climaxes at the times of maximum eclipse, and I began about 10 minutes prior to those points.

Opening with the Agathos Daimon

I opened with these adaptations of the hymns/spells from the PGM. In theory, appropriately Aionic or transcendental appeals should also work. I might consider an adapted Heptagram rite, for example, though I might not go with the saints in such a case. The transcendent being described in the following invocations points to the “god above god,” and Sts. Catherine and Martha seemed down with it.

The invocations are partly a “success spell” and partly a “cover my ass spell,” but they’re also an assertion of authority on the magician’s part: I’m acting both on my own and with the Agathos Daimon: they’re legit, and so am I by extension.

As is my habit here, I leave off the barbarous names. Light your incense before beginning.

Come to me, you from the four winds, god, ruler of all, who have breathed spirits into persons for life, master of the good things in the world. Hear me, lord, whose hidden name is ineffable. The daimons, hearing it, are terrified—the name…—and of it the sun, of it the earth, hearing, rolls over; Hades, hearing, is shaken; rivers, sea, lakes, springs, hearing, are frozen; rocks, hearing it, are split. Heaven is your head; ether, body; earth, feet; and the water around you, ocean, O Agathos Daimon. You are lord, the begetter and nourisher and increaser of all.

Who molded the forms of the beasts of the Zodiac? Who found their routes? Who was the begetter of fruits? Who raises up the mountains? Who commanded the winds to hold to their annual tasks? What Aion nourishing an Aion rules the Aions? One deathless god. You are the begetter of all and assign souls to all and control all, king of the Aions and lord, before whom mountains and plains together tremble, springs and streams of rivers, and valleys of earth, and spirits, and all things that are. High shining heaven trembles before you, and every sea, lord, ruler of all, holy one, and master of all. By your power the elements exist and all things come into being, the route of sun and moon, of night and dawn—all things in air and earth and water and the breath of fire. Yours is the eternal processional way of heaven, in which your seven-lettered name is established for the harmony of the seven sounds of the planets which utter their voices according to the 28 forms of the moon in the 27 mansions. Yours are the beneficent effluxes of the stars, daimons and fortunes and fates. You give wealth, good old age, good children, strength, food.

You, lord of life, ruling the upper and the lower realm, whose justice is not thwarted, whose glorious name the angels hymn, who have truth that never lies, hear me and complete for me this operation so that I may wear this power in every place, in every time, without being smitten or afflicted, so as to be preserved intact from every danger while I wear this power. Yea, lord, for to you, the god in heaven, all things are subject, and none of the daimons or spirits will oppose me because I have called on your great name for the consecration of this rite. And again I call upon you, according to Egyptians…; according to Jews…; according to Greeks, “the king of all, ruling alone”; according to the high priests, “hidden, invisible, overseer of all“; according to Parthians, “…master of all.” Amen.

Rejoice with us, you who are set over the four winds and the world, for whom all the gods serve as bodyguards at your good hour and on your good day, you who are the Agathos Daimon of the world, the crown of the inhabited world, you who rise from the abyss, yours is the eternal processional way of heaven… We beg you, lord, do not allow us to be overthrown, do not allow us to be plotted against, do not allow us to receive dangerous drugs, do not allow us to go into exile, do not allow us to fall upon hard times. Rather, we ask to obtain and receive from you life, health, reputation, wealth, influence, strength, success, charm, favor with all men and all women, victory over all men and all women. Yes, lord…accomplish the matter which we want, by means of your power. Amen.

Prayer to St. Catherine of Alexandria

This petition and St. Martha’s should be adapted to the eclipse in question. I will say that the first time I did this part, I was actually startled to hear something that sounded like Catherine reaching up and yanking on the heavens, even as she was doing so in spirit vision, too. The startlement has abated some by the third instance.

Gracious and loving God, we give You thanks for the tradition and example of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. O Saint Catherine, give us grace to pursue your love of purity, to strive for your strength and courage, to adhere to your abhorrence of the world’s temptations and sinful desires, and to follow your faithfulness. Empower us to break the wheel of worldly suffering and allow the Logos to radiate through our lives, so that the Son’s glory may shine ever more brightly.

O St. Catherine of Alexandria, I light this candle for you [light the candle now]: may it be a beacon of your light and your presence in my life. Intercede for me, St. Catherine: aid me in my quest to turn this eclipse into a font of good fortune. Place your hand upon the stellar wheels of the Zodiac and the nakshatras, of the planets and stars, so that the Eclipse proves a door to my best future and my future, best, most exalted destiny and so that destiny stride forth into the light of the Kingdom.

All this we pray through Jesus Christ, our servant leader, who is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Prayer to St. Martha

O glorious Saint Martha, I have recourse to your protection and aid, And as proof of my affection and faith, I light this candle for you [light the candle now]: May it be a beacon of your light and your presence in my life. Comfort me in my difficulties And intercede for my family With your intimate friend, our savior, That we may always hold God in our hearts And be provided for in our necessities. I beg your supplications Especially in behalf of the favor I ask of you: in this time of the eclipse, tame the Dragon’s Head, St. Martha, Rahu, so that this eclipse prove a font of good fortune. Place your feet upon the Dragon’s Head, upon Lord Rahu, to turn him to our favor, so that the eclipse prove a door to my best future and my future, best, most exalted destiny, and so that destiny strides forth into the light of the Kingdom.

I ask you, Saint Martha, By your intercession to help me In overcoming all my difficulties And to teach me to become great In the Kingdom of Heaven By becoming as humble as you In this world. Amen.

Really, I found both Catherine and Martha to be quite eager to step in and act on cosmic scales, their saintly motifs finding wonderful expression at scales and in avenues they probably hadn’t been asked to do before. I mean, I petition Catherine to keep the car working (wheels, don’t you know), and I petitioned Martha for help in keeping the rent from going up too much this year, but they seemed almost excited to go in at this level of hijinks.

Intention

I was born, NN, born of NN. Here in this time of the eclipse of the Sun in Cancer, turn back my foul fortune and bring me only good fortune. O St. Martha, O Dragon’s Head, open the door so my foul fate may pass into the gulf. O St. Catherine of Alexandria, O Dragon’s Head, help me turn this wheel so that my desired destiny may shine clear, so my best destiny may pass out of shadow and into the light of sun, moon, and stars. I ascend and move amongst the stars, my hands upon the fates and heavens, and with my sisters Sts. Martha and Catherine, we change my heavens, and I return to the Earth from above to new skies, to new heavens above me. Under these new heavens, I find good health, good fortune, good food, prosperity and blessed abundance, good love and friends, fortunate opportunities, strength, and happy days. Make my magic glorious, successful, and excellent.

Amen.

O Lord Rahu, I chant your praises: Om Rahave Namaha. [Do the mantra 108 times.]

At this point, chant the appropriate mantra for Rahu or Ketu. I like to do this part because it’s an acknowledgment of their place in the cosmos, and I would rather do this with their help. The mantra lets me make that acknowledgement in terms Rahu’s used to hearing.

Sit with the shrine for a bit, meditate, and see where your intuition goes. I found myself pulling down something from elsewhere and adding it to the shrine during this period, but only because of how my personal work had gone in the last six months and it motif-matched what I started seeing in the imaginal during the ritual.

Closing

Sit with the shrine for a time—I like to at least let it ride it until 10 minutes after eclipse maximum. Once I feel like I’m good to go, I will close:

I thank you holy saints, Catherine of Alexandria and Martha, and I ask you to continue your intercession on my behalf. Otherwise, stay if you will, go if you must, and may the peace of IAO SABAOTH and the Agathos Daimon be always between us. Amen.

I will continue lighting the candles under the Eclipse Remediation section throughout eclipse season, and it’s good to keep doing your usual practice and pay attention to the parts of your chart the eclipses landed in and what’s happening in your heart and life there—and in relation to them.

Closing Thoughts

I had a rather more specific intention for my first experiment, and I made it with an eye towards my chart, my circumstances, and my previous work. I also tried to make that intention align with the demimonde motifs Austin Coppock has discussed at length. That said, leave yourself and the universe room for the good things to flow into your life: avoid overdetermining how enchantment might manifest, especially this kind of enchantment with forces as potent as eclipses and the nodes.

I also divined about these experiments, throwing tarot and geomancy at the operations and at different elements of them. I also paid attention to the dreams and motifs that appeared in my life.

I started feeling the 2 July 2019 eclipse coming days beforehand, and I had an unexpected trigger that was very in keeping with the meat grinder in Cancer for the house that lands in for me. I remain glad that I meditate, for I recognized the trigger was a part of everything that was unfolding. The feelings were quite real, but I could also see that the feelings were resonant with what the heavens were doing. I also noted my old patterns and tried to avoid responding through those patterns. In the midst of this trigger, I decided to start the Catherine and Martha remediation, and it was like the cloud of my bullshit that the trigger had kicked up passed over. The immediate challenge of a Cancer eclipse passed, and like Galadriel, I passed my test. (I look forward to going into the west, thank you.) And as I did the full ritual during the eclipse, things that the cards had very very very pointedly told me—and which I had second-guessed because, while exciting, didn’t seem to make motif-sense—unfurled before me during that post-mantra sitting-with period.

I offer you these notes with no guarantees and no warranties. Magic will destroy your life. However, I didn’t explode. The remediation, I would say, works. And I think you can adapt what Kaitlin and I have offered to fit within your motif set, within the archetypal waters you find yourself swimming in. But the results will be your results, and the agenda will always extend into your daily life.

Featured Image: designwebjae | Pixabay

[1] It is interesting and fruitful to think with how we ordinarily experience such “shadows.”