If you knew letting go of something once deeply (and emotionally) meaningful meant you could move forward – free and clear – would you let it go?

I ask because the Lunar Eclipse/Full Moon/Winter Solstice that takes place tonight and tomorrow (an event that brings with it the opportunity to move forward in purposefully living in our business, no less!) is both potent and rare.

Potent because it brings with it the opportunity – if you know how to make it really go to work for you – to move forward in big ways in life and in purposepreneurship.

Rare but this triune of influences hasn’t happened in almost 400 years.

Inside this triple alignment is a great big, fat invitation – from us to us – to complete a chapter of our life consciously so we’re free to move forward, wiser and more peacefully open, to the best our 2011 has to offer.

Question is, are you willing to really let go if it means freeing yourself to live your life’s purposeful best?

If you are, give this special seasonal bonus audio a good listen. In it I share an uber-simple but remarkably powerful ritual that’ll help you do exactly that!

P.S. You might want to have paper and a pen handy as you listen. And please remember to extinguish artificial light when performing this ritual!

P.S. to the P.S. If you’re interested in knowing more about when all this actually takes place relative to where you are – or about how rare this event actually is – scroll down and give the information below a looksee (thanks to Caroline Casey for her help with much of this).

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From NASA (author Tony Phillips): Dec. 21st, the first day of northern winter, when the full Moon passes almost dead-center through Earth’s shadow. For 72 minutes of eerie totality, an amber light will play across the snows of North America, throwing landscapes into an unusual state of ruddy shadow.

The eclipse begins on Tuesday morning, Dec. 21st, at 1:33 am EST (Monday, Dec. 20th, at 10:33 pm PST). At that time, Earth’s shadow will appear as a dark-red bite at the edge of the lunar disk. It takes about an hour for the “bite” to expand and swallow the entire Moon. Totality commences at 02:41 am EST (11:41 pm PST) and lasts for 72 minutes.

If you’re planning to dash out for only one quick look -­ it is December, after all -­ choose this moment: 03:17 am EST (17 minutes past midnight PST). That’s when the Moon will be in deepest shadow, displaying the most fantastic shades of coppery red.

Why red?

A quick trip to the Moon provides the answer: Imagine yourself standing on a dusty lunar plain looking up at the sky. Overhead hangs Earth, night-side down, completely hiding the sun behind it. The eclipse is underway. You might expect Earth seen in this way to be utterly dark, but it’s not. The rim of the planet is on fire! As you scan your eye around Earth’s circumference, you’re seeing every sunrise and every sunset in the world, all of them, all at once. This incredible light beams into the heart of Earth’s shadow, filling it with a coppery glow and transforming the Moon into a great red orb.

Back on Earth, the shadowed Moon paints newly fallen snow with unfamiliar colors–not much luster, but lots of beauty.

Enjoy the show.”

(UPDATED): This lunar eclipse falls on the date of the northern winter solstice. How rare is that? Total lunar eclipses in northern winter are fairly common. There have been three of them in the past ten years alone. A lunar eclipse smack-dab on the date of the solstice, however, is unusual.

Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory inspected a list of eclipses going back 2000 years. “Since Year 1, I can only find one previous instance of an eclipse matching the same calendar date as the solstice, and that is 1638 DEC 21,” says Chester. “Fortunately we won’t have to wait 372 years for the next one…that will be on 2094 DEC 21.”

***If you feel called to use this potent time to make requests***
on behalf of us all, you can use this simple devotional statement.

“As the Moon is eclipsed,
so may (fill in the blank) be eclipsed by (fill in the blank).”

Example:
As the Moon is eclipsed, so may greed and short-sightedness be eclipsed
by the spaciousness recognition of true sufficiency.

While studying astrology I have applied it to concrete cases many times….While astrology is flourishing as never before, it is still most unsatisfactorily explored despite very frequent use. It is not mere superstition but contains some psychological facts which are of considerable importance.

C.G. Jung, in letters to Robert L. Kroom & L.Oswald.

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Like a lot of people, I hadn’t a clue the illustrious Carl Jung – revolutionary father of Jungian psychotherapy, and originator of concepts like ‘the collective unconscious’ and ’synchronicity’ – had anything to do with astrology.

I’d just lumped it in with parlor tricks and fun thing to do on a lark provided it wasn’t taken too seriously.

Turns out that during the later half of his career, Dr. Jung preferred not to see new clients ‘til he’d had a chance to thoroughly study their astrological chart, produced by his astrologer daughter, Bette.

A good many of his more ‘risqué’ – and ultimately successful – working theories were a by-product of what he saw in his practice as he applied astrology, among other things.

I remember hearing this during my first ‘reading’ (a celebratory ‘lark’ on my 40th birthday – ha ha!) from the woman who ended up becoming my teacher, someone who also happens to be licenced psychotherapist and talk-radio personality.

A big ole light-bulb went on…

Given that Jung was very publically taken to the professional mat by his own mentor, Sigmund Freud (he’d cautioned Jung against the risk of professional hazing dabbing in the ’occult’ might mean) it’s not hard to understand why so many people still think of astrology as I once did – or keep their use of it quiet.

Thank God Jung tapped into the audacious temerity to out himself as he developed his work: there might still be a lot of us in the closet if he hadn’t dared to live his life’s larger purpose.