The New Moon in the last degree of Cancer is a total solar eclipse, the second of the three eclipses of the summer. This is the longest solar eclipse of the 21st century, lasting as long as 6 minutes and 39 seconds in some places. This is possible because Earth happens to be near its farthest point from the Sun. At the same time, the Moon will be near its closest point to Earth.

A solar eclipse can occur only on a New Moon and when the luminaries are in conjunction at or near either of the lunar nodes. The Moon is aligned between the Sun and Earth and blocks the Sun’s rays.

In Norse mythology, Sol is the goddess of the Sun, who rides through the sky on her chariot, pulled by two horses. She is chased during the daytime by the wolf Skoll, who tries to devour her, just like her brother Mani is chased at night by the wolf Hati. It was believed that during solar eclipses the Sun was in danger of being eaten by Skoll.

At Ragnarök, “the final destiny of the gods”, Sol will be swallowed by the wolf, but her daughter, no less lovely than herself, will follow the same path as her mother. The light appears again after the dark. The Norse believed firmly that a new world will emerge even after the greatest of destruction.

Eclipses are intense. “They tend to speed up the process of life, shake the tree of fate, and propel us from one reality into the next,” has Eric said. We can use eclipses as times to make necessary changes.

Dagaz/Dag is a rune of change and unlimited possibilities. Nigel Pennick writes:

“It is the sort of change studied in catastrophe theory, where one apparently stable state ‘flips over’ suddenly into another, quite different, yet steady, state. …The physical form of the Dag rune mirrors the balance between the polarities, especially light and darkness.”

References:

NASA Science News, Longest Solar Eclipse of the 21st Century

Encyclopedia Mythica, Sol

Eric Francis, Eclipses

Nigel Pennick, Runic Astrology, Capall Bann Publishing, 1995

Wikipedia, Dagaz

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 21st, 2009 at 6:19 pm and is filed under Eclipses, New Moon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.