Candlemas, Venus Year & Diamonds in the Dark

"The more powerful the vision,

the more powerful the work that results."

Roderick MacIver (Heron Dance 335)

Each year, I write about the Candlemas cross-quarter celebration, called by different names in various traditions. You'll find previous entries at my Sophia's Children blog.

Candlemas, or Imbolc, 2010 offers unique, rich opportunities for clearing, visioning, and setting or empowering our intentions. Why? Because it follows a powerful lunar and solar eclipse cycle, and occurs in what Steve Nelson, author of Mythic Times, calls a 'Venus Year' -- a time in which "all things Venusian prosper."

Let's look at the symbolism, in which we can ground ourselves for rich inspiration as we look into this Venus Year, 2010.

Candlemas is a cross-quarter time -- midway between the Solstice and Equinox, or vice versa. Traditionally celebrated in the first several days of February, it's 'exact' when the Sun reaches the mid-point of Aquarius. So in 2010, Candlemas is February 1-4.

Candlemas symbolizes the beginning of the new cycle, the 'diamonds' of light that we birth in the darkness of inner Wisdom and externalize in new expression and inspired action. The seeds of Spring have already begun their journey upward through the frozen soil of Winter, ending the season of fallowness with new life ready to bloom.

Candlemas has also been a traditional time of purification -- releasing that which no longer serves, including old thought-forms, patterns, habits and beliefs -- and planting those 'vision seeds' that will grow in the new cycle that follows.

Traditionally, Candlemas rituals include those elements: water for purification, an intention to release what no longer serves, fire (candles) for inspiration and transformation, and those vision-seeds that come as diamonds from within, ready to illuminate your path forward and shine through new expression.

That Candlemas in 2010 follows a powerful eclipse cycle is considered to magnify the potentials and energies. Steve Nelson calls eclipses 'Mother Nature's re-set button' because, energetically and psychically, 'the old' is eclipsed, and we get a re-boot to allow for something new to take root, or take shape.

Nelson writes, "When an eclipse occurs there is much greater possibility for eliminating patterns of thought and behavior that have troubled the world. This is an opportune time to clear away what stands in way of our dreams being realized. The more old patterns are eliminated, the more energy is freed for a new creation."

Add to this the idea of 2010 being a Venus Year (sign on to Steve Nelson's newsletter for more on this in coming weeks), and we have a Motherlode of inspiration and beautiful potential with which to fortify our vision-seeds.

Venus, in addition to being related to the Great Goddess and a symbol for the Feminine, also stands for -- as fiercely as it takes -- beauty, harmony, prosperity, love. Wonderful characteristics and energies to weave through your intentions and visions.

Astrologer Kelley Hunter, in her early January musing, reminded us that Venus, like Pandora and other Feminine images, is often shown with a mirror, along with other symbols of beauty, wisdom, and abundance.

Traditionally, through a Patriarchal lens that has misunderstood, feared (or envied), and thus exiled the Feminine, the mirror has been thought to symbolize vanity. And perhaps this is one perspective -- the dangers of allowing ourselves to be guided by our shallower ego-mind.

Yet when I reflected on this, what arose within me was another possible perspective: That Venus with her mirror is signaling to us that all that we see is but a reflection of what's within us. We look around and see in that 'mirror' a reflection of ourselves, our own Divine essence, our thoughts and projections. With this wise reflection, we're able to make inner-adjustments, so that what we're projecting and experiencing is more beautiful, harmonious, loving, and abundant.

As within, so without. These are the inner Mysteries of the Feminine which nourish, inspire, and wisely guide the conscious Masculine -- wise, inspired 'doing' begins within.

Grounding ourselves in these celebrations throughout the year allows us to center ourselves as time and events around us seem to accelerate and magnify themselves. If we ground ourselves in 'clock time' and to-do lists, in the context of news headlines, we can easily find ourselves overwhelmed.

The antidote to that more myopic view and its understandable overwhelm is an expanded vision, and rooting ourselves in -- or devoting ourselves to -- something greater than ourselves, greater than any detail or circumstance. Then our more detailed manifestations and 'doings' reflect those greater, deeper values of love, harmony, consciousness, beauty, and abundance.

Happy Candlemas. Happy Venus Year. Happy Venusian Visioning!