Snapeshifter: The Woman who was Snape: January 2020

January 14th is when a lot of us remember and honor the genius of Alan Rickman, who brought Severus Snape magnificently to life. I found out on the 16th, and lamented that I would never hear his incredible silken voice in any new features.

R.I.P. Mr. Rickman, and thank you. For the dreams realized, the entertainment . . . and, no doubt, for turning quite a few of us into potion brewers --- or, in my case, inspiring us to once again take up the "subtle science" at which we un-self-consciously excelled as children. One never loses the old skills!

"I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses."

Quote from Severus Snape, "Harry Potter." (JK Rowling). Above: Watercolor and graphite illustration of Snape, by Rovina Cai.

We have a beautiful full moon tonight for Snape's birthday!
Of all unfortunate things: I had to work tonight, and I may lack the energy to brew a potion. On a positive note? I got to witness the moon directly overhead as I walked home from the bus-stop.

The year, and decade, has finally come: 2020.
Exciting, and rather alarming, things are in the celestial sphere right now as Saturn (Snape's planet of rules, endings and limits) and transformational underworld Pluto approach their perfect conjunction on the 12th, which only happens every 34 years or so.
Lately, Australia still reels from its nationwide bout with bush wildfires; people globally are gearing up to protest a USA war with Iran, letting our childish president know we don't wish innocent lives to be sacrificed to his idiot whims (at least Voldemort was smart!); and I, still settling in after yet another move, am giving serious thought to starting a book on magick of the shadowy underworld variety.
Massive transformation, and choosing to speak from our deepest truth, it seems is on the horizon. It is time to shed the lies and false self-depreciations, and speak.
There is also an eclipse, though it isn't visible from here. Only a beautiful round moon, shining through a soft gray blanket of winter cloud.

Astrologers of all stripes are emphasizing the importance of this time, each with a flavor of interpretation all their own, but Whole Woman has these useful words on the picture:

"It's a big weekend and the first major line up is the first Eclipse of 2020. It's a Penumbral Lunar Eclipse at 20 Cancer emerging at 19.21GMT tonight. This is a big shift eclipse with Goddess of Discord Eris station direct at 01.21GMT at 23 Aries & Awakener Uranus station direct also at 01.48GMT 11 January at 2 Taurus.
This weekend's theme is karmic endings and beginnings. Time to move on and fully let go of the old self stories, to step up in self-mastery, commitment, response-ability. This might be an inner surrender to a new way of being or an external move where you have been holding back necessary change, or the timing simply hasn't been right. It's likely to involve both. We've been feeling these energies for months and certainly since the Solar Eclipse overnight GMT on 25/26 December. The Sun conjunct Wise Elder Saturn & Lord of the Underworld Pluto, with Messenger Mercury & Earth Mother Ceres in Capricorn is an evolutionary demand. Where we're not listening, or feeling and perhaps energising resistance, events and experience this weekend in particular, will point the way to what's needed. The Moon in Cancer suggests its time to let go of any security blanket and nurture the new into being.
One of the major themes of this eclipse is integrity. One could say it's about 'owning it'. Capricorn is the sign of self-mastery so on some level this is a reclaiming. Wise Elder Saturn is a gate-keeper between personal and transpersonal frequencies. He's the great teacher through what may feel like an unavoidable responsibility or even limitation, self-doubt and fear yet actually he teaches us to discern what is real and what is not, and to move with maturity towards what has integrity despite its seeming challenge. Awakener Uranus at station direct in earthy Taurus supports the movement beyond what's familiar or habitual. Eris energises that. There may be a few surprises in store to help the shift along.
Key focus this weekend: Where might you need to grow up? Step up? Accept a challenge? Be bold and grounded in moving beyond? Yet also to do it with love and acceptance rather than judgment. A sextile from the Moon to Mystic Neptune says 'Be kind". It's about being bold yet mature, self-accepting yet not compromising and making wise soul-full choices from the depth of Being."
Cassandra Eve~Whole Woman

Tonight I hadn't time nor energy for much (i.e. "Oh I need to dig out my fifty thousand crystals to put under the moon, and brew this potion, and do this ritual, and- and- and. . . ."), but I dug out my hanging portrait of Snape and a candle, which I lit after I lit Gaia's and Aliria-Naphtha's candles: The latter indisputably Goddess and forces of Nature, but the former a meaningful archetype and energy of protection that has inspired and sustained me in tough times. I blessed my new little room with smudges of fir, palo santo, and rose petal. My own moon is just now ending, so I burned some of that too, offering my old cycles as fuel for the fire of rebirth and empowerment. Then I annointed with my oils, made to amplify the celestial energy.

I'll end this little blerb with a moon poem by Walter de la Mare, posted in turn by Mary Medlicott on storyworks.org.uk --- all while knowing as I do what a fine line it is between poems and spells:

Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch:
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws, and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.