The Mark of Destiny
Chapter 112
The Mark of Destiny
On Standing in Your Purpose &
Filling Yourself with Light
The story for the Aries new moon eclipse time:
April 20 - May 4, 2023
The words destiny and destination grew from the same root: destinare.
When broken into its component parts, destinare simply means “to stand completely.”
And that is what I did - at the end of August 2021, in the middle of the woods, on an island of small grey stones and mud.
It jutted into the middle of a creek, which widened into a river and was held in place by the trees of the forest.
The trees’ roots were visible, reaching down through the walls of dirt framing the water. Their leaves formed a thick canopy high above me, and there, all the world felt full - full of life, full of spirit, full of invisible beings that seemed to step out from between the trees and stand at the edge of the forest, looking down at me, standing there - on a miniature island in the valley of a creek.
I closed my eyes and felt both feet planted firmly on the earth. I tilted my head to the sky, opened my mouth, and screamed.
I screamed as loud as I could, and as the sound of my voice broke through the forest, it vibrated the invisible waves, the molecules of air, the neutrinos raining down through everything like pointless rays of light, and I remembered the words I’d written one month earlier: Your scream is the scream of resistance. Your scream is the scream of you standing strong. Your scream is the scream of you taking off. MAKE YOUR MARK.
Then, everything got quiet.
I slowly opened my eyes and wiggled my fingers. I took a deep breath and began to lift my foot to move, but it wouldn’t move. It was stuck in the mud, as if anchored to that spot on the earth, and so, with all the strength in my right leg, I lifted harder. I lifted until my right foot became unstuck, and I caught my balance with my left, and then I saw - on the spot on the earth where I had been - an imprint from the sole of my shoe.
It had marked the mud with little ovals - dot, dot, dot - reaching out as if from the center of a circle, as if they were petals radiating around a flower - a few falling from the bloom - and the mud itself, I realized, was shaped like a heart. A grey, muddy heart, marked by the weight of my sole, pressed into the surface of the earth.
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This is the year when everything changes. That’s what I heard nearly two years later, on April 17, 2023, as I reached forward with my left hand and opened the book of the world.
I was standing in a golden, cylindrical library. It curved round and round, reaching so high and low in both directions that it seemed to go on forever.
Here, in the library of my mind, lives every story that’s ever been told, every story that’s ever been lived, and every story that’s yet to happen but is now coming to fruition.
You can open any book you want. And I chose to open the book of the world, for the year 2023, and I heard, This is the year when everything changes.
In my mind, I saw a blueprint, like that for a building, fall to the surface of the earth and land on top of it as if the lines were marking the dirt like the ovals from the sole of my shoe, as if now is the time when the blueprint locks into place and all we have to do is follow its plan.
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To stand completely, to make firm, to establish.
Originally, the word “destination” wasn’t about arriving at a specific location - real or metaphorical. This understanding of the word evolved in the early 19th century, but before then, “destination” simply meant “the action of intending someone or something for a purpose.”
Over time, “purpose” became replaced with “place,” converting the notion of being destined for a purpose to being destined for a place. As if we are all headed towards some specific, identifiable location. As if the where is more important than the why, but - I think - your destiny is not a destination, as we now know the word, so much as it is the act of standing firmly in your purpose. A purpose that is only realized through standing so completely in your being that you are not looking behind or ahead for rules to follow, but instead, you are receiving the instructions as they arrive in each and every moment.
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How to Fulfill Your Destiny
a notion, a theory, a message
To be partnered, like divine twins, with the forces of nature themselves, you move through the world - in a dance, to a symphony - playing your part with such grace that you do not question what is being built, you simply trust in the harmony of creation itself.
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God is at the center of every book, I heard the words repeated in my mind.
They were spoken every time I lifted my right hand and placed a stone at the center of a book.
I saw it all like a movie playing behind my eyes: one book and then another and another and another, a stone pressed into the center of each one.
But I knew if I were to open my eyes and find those books and flip through their pages, I would not see a single stone. Instead, I would see that the stones had shifted shape, taking on the appearance of black ink on cream pages, words in various languages, blank spaces between lines.
God is like this, I think. Hidden everywhere, in everything.
Still, most of us struggle to find the fun in the ongoing play of hide and seek, and instead of patiently realizing our destiny, we try to create it for ourselves.
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Some great energy swooshes in,
and suddenly, it’s as if we’re standing at the edge of a tunnel. It’s spinning around like a vortex with such force that without hesitation or need for consent, it pulls us through and drops us out on the other side.
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It’s like we’ve arrived in a whole new land, and this Aries new moon eclipse period - from April 20th to May 4th - marks the start of our journey through its terrain.
Now is when we get to know this place. This world. This version of ourselves. We release all that we thought we were creating - including all that we thought we’d left behind - and instead, we embrace what we find. We uncover old scraps of paper that seem to have floated through the vortex with us - the parts of ourselves that survived the great teleportation - and we gleefully embrace all the novel things sprouting at our feet.
It’s like we’ve become time travelers, and we carry with us all the wisdom of the past, knowing that we can apply it as needed, but also realizing that certain ways of being simply no longer apply.
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While this new moon eclipse technically occurs just after midnight (12:12 EST) on April 20th, you will likely be feeling its effects for days. In fact, you’ve probably been feeling it ever since the first Aries new moon on March 21st, and everything that’s been changing shape between then and now has been leading to this moment - to the start of Eclipse Season and to the first Aries eclipse since September 27, 2015.
This eclipse is a rare hybrid solar eclipse. Hybrid eclipses only happen a few times every century, accounting for approximately just 3% of all solar eclipses, and they are called hybrids because that is exactly what they are: a combination of both an annular eclipse and a total eclipse, transforming between the two different types of eclipses at different points along the eclipse path.
The last hybrid eclipse was on November 3, 2013. It arrived just weeks after an Aries eclipse that happened to fall near the exact place in the sky where this eclipse is falling now (at 29°50’ Aries), but chances are, if you’re reading this, you didn’t see that one and you probably won’t see this one either. Still, it will be out there, visible over large swaths of ocean on either side of the Timor Sea and marking the beginning of a series of Aries eclipses that will be happening between now and March 2025.
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The start of the Aries eclipses points to the fact that the karmic nodes of the moon are about to change signs.
This happens approximately every one and a half years, and each shift is thought to bring the start of a new karmic cycle.
The north and south nodes have been in Taurus and Scorpio respectively since January 2022, but on July 17, 2023, they are moving to Aries and Libra.
Legend goes: The north node of the moon is like the true north of a compass, pointing you in the direction of your destiny.
And during this new moon eclipse, the sun and the moon are aligning just four degrees from this compass point. When this happens, it’s as though - for a moment - the compass spins and spins, unable to find true north, but then, its magnetism is restored, and when this happens, it will be clearly, instantly pointing you towards your destiny.
The events of this new moon time (in combination with all that’s happened since March 21st) are telling you a story that acts as a map.
This is a story about your destiny, a destiny that you are being called not to move towards but to stand within, and by standing strong, you will simply be carried to all the places that are a part of your continual becoming, your ever-unfolding destiny.
You will take off.
All you have to do is listen.
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During this time, the sun, moon, Jupiter, Vesta, and the asteroid Amun are all aligned near the same point in the sky - the point that marks the intersection of the moon across the ecliptic, the point that marks our collective destiny.
Can you see us now? All connected? Held within the collective body of being?
And inside this gigantic body, holding all of us, can you see…a spark?
It’s there - a flame, a fire like that lit by the Vestal Virgins in the great temple in Rome - and during this new moon time, the light from that flame begins burning bright, brighter, even brighter. It’s like it’s being turned up all the way to its brightest setting, to the point that it’s filling the body completely - and filling you completely - helping to reveal every little corner where some truth remained hidden but is now exposed.
For by embracing every facet of that which lives inside us, we are able to more firmly stand in who we are. We are able to burn brightly in the direction of our collective destiny in every single moment. And you are able to see that your destiny is not a destination, nor is it something you accomplish and complete, but rather, it is something you are living throughout the entirety of your life, from the moment of conception to the birth of your body to the stumbles of childhood and the growing pains of adolescence all the way to the so-called prime of adulthood and the wisdom of being that often arrives - if we let it - in the middle years and even later as we become increasingly comfortable just letting the fire burn without feeling the need to tame and control the direction of the flame.
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Burn, burn, burn.
I tattooed the words on the nape of my neck so I would never forget.
The date was May 30, 2015, just months before the last Aries/Libra karmic cycle came to a close, but back then, the nodes were reversed, pointing us towards the sign of Libra, the message of partnership, balance, beauty, and harmony.
While there were Aries eclipses then, the destiny point hasn’t been in Aries since the end of 2004 and into the summer of 2006. What was happening in your life then? The last time the compass was pointing you towards the flame? What happens next won’t be identical, but it will be connected. An evolution of your being that has grown from the evolution that happened then.
But first, we make our way through the final stage of The Great Divide, the great anchoring of light and magic in the dirt of the earth.
We sweep our mind clean with The Golden Broom of Mercury, which turns retrograde on April 21st.
And we move towards the third and final Scorpio eclipse of the current karmic cycle, but most importantly, we just be be be, burning our way through the wormhole to a whole new land that will seem to rise from beneath our feet in the fall with the Harvest moon on September 29th.
Until then, let the fire burn. Let the light fill you up from the inside out. Stand completely where you are, knowing that that is all you need to do, that by being so completely true you will arrive at all the places you are “meant” to go, and you will be fulfilling your destiny not through a single act but through the immortal action of being that is your purpose.
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What’s your why?
To help answer that question, you may enjoy this new moon ritual, or simply visit the Library of Rituals, hit play on the divination video, and let the library choose the perfect ritual for you. And remember that sometimes, our why changes. Your why today may not be what it was yesterday, and so, we keep listening. We revisit the question again and again. We embrace not what we knew to be true but what we know now, and from there, we move forward.
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To be continued…
Long Story Short:
This rare new moon hybrid solar eclipse enters your life like a portal to a new world, the start of whole new karmic cycle - one that’s connected to everything that was but offers you the opportunity to build a new life in a new land. This is a destiny moon, helping you more clearly understand who you are now and where you are going. It may feel like a blur at the beginning, but just stick with the energy, the momentum, the thoughts, the feelings. Let this period from April 20th through May 4th be an adventure. Let it teach you things and confound you, and then, when you’re ready, open your eyes and take in the view from where you are now, from this new magical mode of being. This period connects to everything that’s happened since March 21st, and it harkens back to events from September 2018, but mostly, it prepares you to fully STAND in your purpose, leading you to a very exciting time, which is headed your way with the second eclipse on May 5th and with the Harvest full moon this fall.
The Tip Jar
The Magic Guide is a calling I answer every time I sit to write. Every month, I spend 100+ hours creating it, and I couldn’t do it without you. If you’re enjoying The Magic Guide, please help contribute to its continued creation. Thank you.
