Hades Moon – Part 1 and 2
Part One
Judy Hall’s book Hades Moon is an important, powerful and validating book for me. I continue to lend my copy out to grateful friends who then keep it, and I am back to being without a copy. She defines a Hades Moon as being in aspect to Pluto, a Scorpio Moon, and possibly (I consider it), Moon in the 8th house. Even with an 8 degree out of sign conjunction of my Moon to Pluto, this aspect has been huge in my life. This series of blogs is dedicated to all men and women with the courage to allow their feminine aspect to visit, embrace and transmute the dark shadows of Hades into Truth and Love.
For many years, I have been steeped in the metaphysical and spiritual study of the importance of the feminine connecting with the dark shadow during this transition time and so I was struck by the significance of Eris and Ceres joining Pluto as dwarf planets. Eris is new for me, but I have identified with and used Ceres in my readings for over a decade. All three dwarf planets are intense. Eris is the Greek Goddess of strife, war, discord and suggesting creation through chaos. Pluto is the release or letting go of anything preventing the process of death and rebirth. And Ceres experiences a quintessential Hades Moon experience when she must release her child into the hands of her nemesis Pluto for 6 months of the year into the underworld. There is no option for revenge, and her rage turns to deep grief when the lands she governs “die” in the winter season of Persephone’s absence. There is nothing she can do. The abduction is not negotiable.
Kelly Lee Phipps points out in a recent article “Ceres and the Urge to Belong” that wherever Ceres lands in your chart is the theme of surrendering to the loss and return. Eris asks us to be with the chaos. Pluto asks us to dive into the fire, enter Hades, and not shy from dark nights of the soul. It is all about transmutation at the highest level.
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Part Two
Judy Hall has a chapter in her book called “the Karmic Moon”. She opens with “No matter what the aspect, the Hades Moon shows us some of the more deeply entrenched karmic issues we have carried from incarnation to incarnation over a vast period of time.”
This implies the reality of reincarnation, which I can personally resonate with and use extensively in my client readings. However, the idea of reincarnation may also just be a good way of explaining something beyond our actual literal understanding in this very limited third dimensional reality. It doesn’t matter. The frame is a valid one, and correlates also to one’s prenatal and early life experience. Karma can be defined as a neutral universal principle that essentially has to do with cause and effect.
Metaphorically, Pluto can be looked at as the “evolutionary” intent of the soul as carried in from past incarnations. Pluto is also very tied into genetics, and we know that the information we inherit in our DNA goes far beyond physical characteristics. We inherit our ancestors’ lineages on spiritual, geographical, and psychological levels. We continue the work that is not completely our own. It’s all very mysterious stuff!
My father has a Scorpio Moon, with a close Pluto / Sun conjunction in Cancer, and my mother has a Pisces Moon trine a close Pluto / Venus conjunction in Cancer. It is not surprising that I would be born with a Hades Moon, and at least two of my four siblings as well. My ex-husband and father of my two daughters does not have any Moon / Pluto connection, and neither do my daughters. My son, however, was born under the canopy of a close stellium with Chiron / Pluto / Moon (Sagittarius in the 7th house) and his father has a Moon / Pluto square.
The strong connection to the past can have the intention of clearing both personal and collective karma. Pluto transmutes and the Moon is not just mothering and emotions, but our lineage. It is also the past. And with Pluto, evil (or the darker side if you wish) is never far away, either operating from within or without.
A stranger example of past lineage connection is my son Damian’s “story”. His father was not interested in being involved (we had split up before I realized I was pregnant) and that was fine with me. The relatively short lived relationship was a lustful nightmare. He changed his mind when his mother’s guru and self proclaimed identifier of incarnating masters, saw Damian as Chogyam Trungpa. The Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche is an important teacher in the Buddhist Kagyu lineage who barely escaped the Chinese invasion of Tibet, fleeing first to India at the age of 20, then moving to Scotland, England, and finally the United States, landing in Boulder, where I live. He established not only several meditation centers, but the Naropa University here in Boulder. He is well known for his book “Crazy Wisdom” among others. Trungpa died in April of 1987.
I did not take this seriously because it smacked too strongly of “specialness” (a most potent trap) which had me running in the opposite direction, while his father took the bait and started running in our direction. That’s another blog. The guru whose mission to identify these souls, traveled from Texas to visit me when I was pregnant. I did not like her, but gratefully took the check for $800 which she gave me. I also chuckled to myself, because by that time I had intuited that Damian had Down Syndrome and wondered what would happen with that revelation. I had chosen not to have any tests. She told me that I could expect a visit from Pema Chödrön, a well known Buddhist teacher and Trungpa disciple…I’m still waiting.
During his first year I couldn’t go anywhere without someone stopping me to tell me I had a “special” child, and they weren’t just talking about his DS. Mind you, he also has Neptune / South Node / Uranus on his Midheaven. Most of these people were middle-aged wise-women working in the healing arts and looking like modern day witches. One day while I was shopping at one of our 7 (soon to be 8) natural food stores, a slick, well dressed stranger with an arrogant air, come up and asked if I would like a “reading”. Why not? As it turns out, he was Rennie Davis of the infamous Chicago Seven (originally eight) which also included Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale, and others, charged with conspiracy in the 60’s related to the Vietnam War protests. Now it seems he is a venture capitalist and lecturer on meditation and self awareness. He said that he was there to inform me that Damian had a special destiny and that I was chosen as his mother because of the completely unconditional space which I held for him. At least my life isn’t boring.
The early intensity with this issue has died down, but Damian is quite well known in Boulder.