solar eclipse

Reflecting on the ‘Total Eclipse of the Heartland’

This past week I had the privilege to travel to Tredara with my family and many other pagan (and pagan-adjacent) folks to experience the totality of the solar eclipse that stretched across the United States on April 8th.  “Tredara is a 22-acre facility owned and operated by druids of Stone Creed Grove. It features multiple nemetons, an Ancestor Mound, a shrine to the Nature Spirits, and many other sacred spots” (Stone Creed).  Every time I have visited Tredara has been amazing, especially because they always seem to have new shrines each year (this year was a lovely Hekate shrine), but it was especially wonderful this visit because experiencing Totality is absolutely awe-inspiring, and then to see it on sacred ground amongst my spiritual community was ineffable.   

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Solar Eclipse 2017 Sigil Work

I decided that for the solar eclipse in 2017, aka the “Great American Eclipse”, that I would be doing some sigil work.  As a quick primer of what sigil work is, the idea is you have a focus, often a phrase, that you convert into a symbol.  You then “charge” the symbol in some way before “firing” it.  The process is designed to move the focus of your work from your conscious mind into the collective unconscious so that it can activate and your focus can come to fruition.  In practice, this means you want your sigil to be simple enough to draw, but complex enough that you can’t draw it again from memory.  You’d have to reference the original to be able to do it.

 

So, I gave some thought on what kind of magic I wanted to do in relation to what the solar eclipse may already be empowering.  The Sun can represent what is easily known, the conscious mind, logic and reasoning.  The Moon can represent what is typically hidden, the unconscious, emotion and intuition.  So, in this case, my focus is allowing my intuitive brain to take precedence over my logical brain, specifically for the purpose of enhancing further magical work and devotional relationships that I may develop over the next 6 months.

 

My next step was to actually create my sigil.  I use a stylized letter elimination method for creating my sigils.  Because “sigils are monograms of thought” (Austin Osman Spare) I took my focus: “Allow my intuitive brain to take precedence over my logical brain, specifically for the purpose of enhancing further magical work and devotional relationships that I may develop over the next 6 months” and converted it to the simple phrase “Intuition over Logic.”  I then thought it would be cool to put Inituition in the Moon, and Logic in the Sun, and draw them overlapping.  literally Intuition over Logic.  Next was to remove repeat letters from each word, and stylize them into my symbols.

 

a stylized symbol that resembles the moon passing across the sun with symbols in each planetary body.

 

My symbol now created, now I needed to transfer it to a pinhole camera.  I transferred it to a piece of foil and punched out the design with a thumb tack.  When the eclipse happens later today I will be charging my sigil as the eclipse occurs, nearing totality.  (We’ll have 86% totality here).  At the point of max coverage I will fire my sigil off, releasing my focus into the unconscious so that it can manifest.

 

the sigil punched into a paper plate held out in the sun and projecting the image onto a piece of paper

 

If you desire to do similar work, you can either create your own sigil for your personal focus, or you are welcome to print off this design and use it as a template for punching out your own magical pinhole camera.