Act III Page 85
Find the Solution!
“Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.”
Save the Cat
Back in 2005, Blake Snyder published one of the definitive books on screenplay structure called Save the Cat (no, that is not an affiliate link — I wish!). The fifteen beats Snyder identifies guide a protagonist from the moment right before they’re called upon to embark on a virtually impossible heroic quest to the moment after the impossible has been achieved and the protagonist and the world forever changed.
Meditating on the closing action of the Taurus North Node/Scorpio South Node eclipses that started on November 19, 2021 and that we’ll see the backside of on October 28, 2023 as well as the opening action of the Aries/Libra eclipses, it struck me like a proverbial lightning bolt — the story of the transiting nodes very much follows Snyder’s framework — with the eclipses serving as the fulcrums of the story line.
This is the perfect time, during the time between eclipses, to do this exercise.
The Logline
What has this Taurus/Scorpio eclipse story been about for you? Can you sum it up in one sentence that will both fully tell the story while being teasing enough to intrigue someone to watch?
Amidst the chaos of a global pandemic and humanity’s climate and economic existential crisis, [insert your name here] thinks it’s just another day of pretending the “new normal” is doable when, without warning, a quest to “create stability and abundance” lands on their doorstep as the dark night of the soul threatens to close in.
Or maybe my own (as an example)?
Amidst the pandemonium of a world trying to collapse to make way for a new order, Anak unexpectedly finds herself the adult on deck to navigate both ends of the circle of life, seeking safe harbor in an ocean hellbent on swallowing her little family alive.
Act I | The Situation
THE SET UP
In a screenplay, the first ten pages set up the story
On page 1, we get the “Opening Image” of the world before the Taurus/Scorpio Eclipse story begins. This is the one that you were forced to leave because something dear is taken away from you, and there is no going back home.
What was your “normal world” before November 19, 2021?
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What was the baseline of reality especially regarding the Taurus parts of your life — which tend to be the ones you see as bedrock, immutable sources of assumption and security that (although dealing with the tilling Uranus has been subjecting them to since 2019) should be sources of abundance, beauty, embodiment, stability? This is as much about what you thought they should be as the actual reality.
Get specific about this…walk yourself through every step of what a day in that life was. Feel the tone, mood, and scope of it.
Half way through the set up, by page 5, the November 19, 2021, partial Lunar Eclipse at 27 Taurus revealed the theme of the story the transiting nodes pulled you into —
to respond by building security, clarity, and solidity from a sense of joy, abundance, embodiment vs. to react by destroying, obfuscating, and liquidating from a place of trauma, paranoia, and fear of being pulled into the undertow of a river of tears.
Depending on the proximity of the eclipse to natal planets, this may have just been a blip — something inconvenient happening, a small tremor rattling the house in an almost imperceptible way. The hairline crack that’s lurking between the plaster on the wall could’ve gone by unnoticed. Or this may have been an unmistakable shot across the bow — an issue that you’ve ignored for between 9 to 18 years (the last time there were eclipses in this part of town) must now be looked at straight in the face.
THE CATALYST
About 6 months later, you encountered the CATALYST, the partial Solar Eclipse at 10 Taurus on on April 30, 2022.
Now, you can’t ignore what’s going on. Something has unexpectedly come to an end and opened a portal for the very real the nightmares that plagued you about losing the solidity of these Taurean areas of life.
THE DEBATE
But, in life as in film, it doesn’t do to see the protagonist react on instinct — since it often creates more of the same. Eclipse cycles change the fabric of life — bringing the soul experiences it has never grappled with in this particular house/sign and, in the opposite sign/house, forcing it to release what locks one into samsara, the endless cycle of re-birth even if we’re just talking about repeating cycles of dysfunction in this lifetime.
Enter the DEBATE.
For the next 12-25 pages, aka the two weeks between eclipse pairs, we vibrate in this limbo: Should I really be worried? Is it worth it to do the brave thing? How can I even do this thing? Maybe I’m just imagining this and it’ll go away if I don’t pour any energy into it? Is it really my problem?
Act II
THE RISING ACTION
Then, the total Lunar Eclipse at 25 Scorpio on May 16, 2022.
Sudden transformations, secrets revealed against your will, debts called into collection unexpectedly, LOSS OF CONTROL.
Eve bit into the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and Eden is shattered.
Our eyes were opened to this new world into which we must decide to bravely step.
Interestingly, it’s at this point when a “B Story” is introduced as we become acquainted with the promise of the premise. It’s as if the Universe gave us a release valve. Whether this was a new friendship, romance, it’s a very human, palpable, and comforting connection to this new world that will provide somewhere to “cut to” between mid-May 2022 through the rest of the story to the end of October 2023.
Through this “B Story”, the protagonist further explores the theme of this Taurus/Scorpio journey but without the high stakes — and maybe some humor.
Think back to last Spring. Did you meet someone new after whatever happened during eclipse season? Maybe deepen an acquaintance into a friendship because of sharing similar circumstances? It could even have been a new hobby, course of study, or even a new dietary or fitness routine — someone and/or an outlet that enables you to get grounded.
During this interlude, the question posed by the logline gets answered — what does the quest to “create stability and abundance” really entail? To whom or what do those footfalls embodying of the “dark night of the soul” chasing us through this world belong?
RAISE THE STAKES
Between May and August, there was a feeling of getting your feet under you as you set off toward paths to safety, to security. The wind felt it was taking you to safe harbor.
BUT THEN, in August, something drastic happened to change the course of your journey. Like a car hitting dark ice at full clip, circumstances spiraled out of control, the protagonist reduced to a passenger to circumstance — holding on for dear life and praying that there isn’t any oncoming traffic.
Defeat after disappointment after defeat. It’s as if agency completely disappeared in the face of overwhelming odds. The entropy wouldn’t coalesce back into chaos — especially since Mars went into Gemini for its extended stay, making it even more difficult to take the straight path towards a solution.
MIDPOINT - PAGE 55
Shit is now for real. It’s the partial Solar Eclipse at 2 Scorpio on October 25, 2022 — and something (or someone) has to die (proverbially or for real) or a bombshell gets dropped.
But, let’s pretend we’re in the editing booth and step back with 20/20 hindsight, what lesson is our protagonist being asked to learn?
That the only way to experience the kind of Venus that Taurus represents — safety, security, plenty, a garden of earthly delights — is to allow ourselves to drown in the detoxifying waters of Scorpio, releasing any illusory sense of control.
BAD GUYS CLOSE IN - PAGES 55-75
During the next two weeks, the protagonist is pulled into the undertow of that river of tears. One thing after the other crumbles into dust in the protagonist’s hands. They’re holding on to the cliff’s edge with the chasm licking its lips below.
ALL IS LOST - PAGE 75
Then the coup de grace seems to come on November 8, 2022 with the last total Lunar Eclipse for a decade at 16 Taurus.
Everything worth fighting and dying for is gone. The world is forever changed, because we are all that seems to remain.
All of those quaint ideas that we had during the first ten pages of this journey about what would make us feel safe, what our bedrock is, of having our feet planted below us are gone — smoke billowing away in the wind.
DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL - PAGES 75 - 85
Now, here we are, living through the “dark night of the soul” at the nadir of this six month voyage to another eclipse season.
Since November, we’ve had to come to terms with admitting defeat and learning humility — that the only way through is to LET GO.
May books are open!
It’s a great time before the next eclipse to check in and use this framework to unpack your personal eclipse story.
Scorpio South Node isn’t the “bad guy”. In every nodal transit, the lesson it dishes out is that freedom lies on the other side of fully experiencing the intuitive, sightless wisdom of the area of life in which the south node is transiting as well as accepting the fruits of the karma we sowed in this area of life.
When it comes to Scorpio, that’s learning to transmute what is perceived as weakness into vulnerability — and, in that brutal act of self knowledge, finding ourselves freed into the kind of strength no circumstance or relationship can part you from. In Scorpio, that’s recognizing that the only thing that is stable in life is the Self — that resisting change or attempting to be consistent — especially in defining the pillars of one’s life — is illusory and toxic.
To borrow an image from Christianity, this is the part of this voyage of the south node transiting Scorpio, in which one is held under the baptismal pool’s waters, and you don’t know how much longer you can hold your breath.
Act III | The Resolution
BREAK INTO THREE - PAGE 85
Well, now, here we are … finally caught up to the present. Waiting for the Penumbral Lunar Eclipse at 14 Scorpio on May 5, 2023. The beginning of the CLIMAX.
Since there is still breath in the protagonist’s body, clearly the Universe is still driving to answer the dramatic question.
So, with their newfound humility in hand, the protagonist must continue to seek out a solution — most likely with the aid of those who came into their lives in mid-May 2022.
If we look at this eclipse, like the Aries eclipse of April 19/20 (a whole other story that you can use this same framework to parse), this eclipse is punctuated by the mutual reception of the Moon in Scorpio with Mars in Cancer — but this time in a trine — the energy between them flowing.
Whenever Moon and Mars are linked, this signals some kind of drive to fecundity. With the square of the Aries eclipse, that was edgy, something of it harsh, forced, guided by a narrative of submitting to the process. Here, the trine promises the potential of a synthesis that comes from the deep recesses of one’s intuition and requires profound purity. The image that springs to mind is a primordial source of water finally bubbling through purifying volcanic rock into a stream that nourishes the whole countryside …
With Jupiter wrapping out its time in Aries, and about to bring its expansiveness into Taurus to meet the North Node, it’s this complete surrender to the purity of one’s understanding of self and reliance on other that will show the protagonist the solution that will enable Jupiter’s grace to bring a solution.
Check back in at on October 28, 2023, when we get to the final Taurus eclipse of this series.
THE TAKEAWAY
How can you surrender to the purity of your vulnerabilities and reliance on others so that grace can reveal the solution to your Taurus/Scorpio eclipse narrative?
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Lots of light,
Anak.
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