My take on eclipses is not very popular.
I’m not going to tell you to light a black candle and manifest your hidden desire. And I’ve stepped away from advocating the specific use of that time for cleansing and banishing. We cleanse with light, not darkness. The ancients were rightfully wary of the eclipse, and the word has its ancillary definitions of blocking, overwhelming, or coming-between for a reason.
I stop spellcasting in the week leading up to a solar eclipse and do not recommence until a week after the lunar. (Or vice versa if the lunar precedes the solar.) The only magic I recommend during this time is protective magic.
In a lunar eclipse, the earth is coming between the sun and the moon, blocking significant light from reaching the moon. The moon’s energy is lessened at a time when we are trained to feel its fullest effects. The light that does reach the moon is reflected from our atmosphere, causing that beautiful red glow. The moon is still there as a gravitational force and tides are not affected in a noticeable way.
Light is one of the ways we perceive the world, and eclipses are associated with ignorance, unpredictability, and poor judgment. Frustrations run high before, during, and after an eclipse. Tempers explode, purposeful action is stymied. This is a time when your enemies can find themselves thwarted and their initiatives rebuffed, so there’s that welcome aspect.
What you can “do” during an eclipse (if you must do something) is observe yourself and others. You can learn a lot during this time. Remember the fourth dictate of the magician’s path: to keep silent. Wait out the time.
The most interesting thing for me about an eclipse is the changes it leaves in its wake. I’ve been hearing about problems in women’s lives that progressed to a zenith during the eclipse, paving the way for solutions beyond their expectations. Changes I have been hoping for began to manifest about a week following the eclipse. Interestingly enough, they were not connected directly to the obstacle I was doing magic to overcome. It may be that there is an indirect link.
I know that I’m being cryptic about the changes going on in my life, but I have become extremely circumspect about broadcasting good news before it solidifies. I’ll make an announcement in a few weeks.
David Craig shared this photo with me from the eclipse, taken with his telescopic camera. He said that the most spectacular view occurred some minutes after the moon began moving away from the place where the earth blocked the sun’s reflection, the height of the eclipse. He explained that the red light during totality was caused by atmospheric reflection of sunlight from the earth: without the earth’s atmosphere, the moon would have disappeared from view altogether. To me that suggests that the visual experience of lunar eclipses will differ from time to time or place to place, since atmospheric conditions on earth constantly change.
David’s blog, always interesting, is here:
Wasn’t that something? Pictures show the moon as darker than it was. Where I live, the sky is dark at night and the moon stayed fairly bright, with a strong red cast.
Usually I don’t do much spellwork until after the solar/lunar eclipse period is past, and I especially don’t try to manifest anything in that trough period between a solar and lunar eclipse. However, this month I chose to use this powerful eclipse for clearing obstacles. Hopefully I’ll be ready and willing to let go.
I realized the other day that life events are facilitating the knee surgery I’ve been putting off. My car died in October 2020, and the dearth of vehicles in the heart of COVID meant I had to replace it with an automatic transmission, though I usually prefer standard. Then I had to change insurance for another unrelated matter. I’m still looking for a place to live, and it occurred to me that I should make sure this time it’s a ground floor house or apartment. My spirit guides told me “surgery may be necessary,” so I’ve decided to try to consciously move in the direction things are going anyway. I’m really not enthused about going under the knife again.
We had a week of hot dry weather last week. The budding trees seemed ready to pop their leaves, and I was thinking that the forest would be shaded again the day after a rain. Saturday mid-afternoon we had a hard heavy rain, with hail coming down like navy beans, and I was shocked to see the leaves spring out in only a few hours.
Happy Spring. It’s truly here.
Spring is progressing more slowly and tentatively this year. Trees are starting to bud but no leaves yet. I saw a few Broad-Winged Hawks the other day.
I’ve been out hiking most days this week. You have to take advantage of the sunny days when they occur, because you can always count on rainy days to stay at home and write.
Still no luck on the housing situation. No luck on the job hunt. No luck on the search for an agent. I’m becoming very tense. Probably it’s the lunar eclipse. I tend to feel eclipse energy early. I don’t know whether it’s sensitivity from my four planets in Pisces or the Aries inclination to be first.
I have completed my series on Huwawa, and it will be on Return to Mago next week. I will post a link.
Moon is full in Aries through Friday, October 2nd. Aries is the feel good full Moon of the year, also called the Harvest Moon. People are outgoing, energetic, social, spontaneous. Like any other Moon only more so. Aries moon can also be headstrong and combative, but the Sun in Libra balances that somewhat.
Mars, ruler of Aries, is retrograde now in Aries, until mid-November. A retrograde in its own sign is felt more intensely. The inner planets retrograde (Mercury, Venus, Mars) shake things up. Mars represents energy more than anything else, so prudence, reflection, and calculated inaction may be appropriate now. Not the best time for moving forward.
Mars rules dentistry, so I’m wondering what my checkup this month will reveal. I keep putting off diagnostic x-rays, thinking it’s senseless to pay for information about a problem I can’t afford to fix right now. I promised to have them done this time. Should I?
I do think of retrogrades of the inner planets as times when things get fixed. Mercury retrograde, especially, points to areas of life that have been neglected. Mercury, ruler of machines, health, and communication, is also retrograde starting the middle of October.
When both planets are direct again in late November, we can check back in and see if we’ve had twice the fun.
This is a sweet mystery published in Britain shortly after the second world war. The moon creates an emotional backdrop as a serial killer claims young female victims under its surreal brightness.
The full moon is celebrated by lovers, poets, and Witches for its divine beneficence, but in folklore it is known as a maleficence, inciting violence, insanity, disturbing dreams, emotional disturbance, and general bad luck. The novel captures the contradictory nature of lunar energy by telling the story through the eyes of two boys, juxtaposing the innocence of childhood with the evil nature of the killings.
Simon and Keith are orphans living with a married brother, and their life circumstances make them closer than most brothers, while ensuring they are less closely supervised than most boys their age. Brother Jack and his wife are viewed by the boys as interfering, authoritarian, and No Fun, though the couple are young themselves to be saddled with responsibility for boys of this age in addition to their new baby. Probably Simon and Keith’s own parents would have paid closer attention to their activities, but the story also evokes a bygone age that emerged around World War II and continued until the nineties, when most children spent large amounts of time outdoors unsupervised, unshackled by extra-curricular activities scheduled by conscientious parents or onerous duties in farms, households, or industries. The imaginative, marginally acceptable, and faintly dangerous escapades of the boys are charming. Seen from their perspective, a dirty canal becomes a mystical landscape; a jumble of rejected items becomes a treasure trove. While adults in the story are sickened and horrified by the murders, the boys see them as high adventure. They do much of their sleuthing in the daytime after school and on holidays, when no one seems to be keeping track of their whereabouts, but they also sneak outside under the full moon to frighten themselves with dangers real and imagined. Childhood cannot discriminate.
The narrator Simon is the older brother, and at thirteen (the lunar number!) he is on the cusp of adulthood. We can expect that solving this mystery will pull him to the other side and make him an adult. The loss of childhood is something that is universally mourned, despite its near-inevitability, but most of us either grow up or die young. The moon emerges out of fantasy and horror as catalyst of maturity.
Full moon eclipse in Gemini this week, and while a partial eclipse in this sign isn’t necessarily the most powerful, other astrological features are intensifying things. The longer-term square between Saturn and Uranus is magnified by retrograde Venus squaring Mars, inching up to a Venus-in-retrograde conjunction with the Sun.
The dominant social feature of the moment is protests against police homicides of Black people, sparked by the murder of George Floyd. Law enforcement has remained stuck in its abysmal patterns, racism being the pattern highlighted by the protests, and people of all races are sick of the willful refusal of this segment of society to change. This is a widespread issue, social in nature, not really about any one person (although it’s important that certain high profile people in the incendiary event be held accountable).
The trouble is that eclipses, even though wide ranging in effect, are personally felt. The moon is the quintessential personal planet, ruling and fueling emotions, and detachment in favor of the greater good is almost impossible. I have felt myself being drawn into my frustration with White people on the Left, particularly the “Right-on Lefty Dudes,” for the self-aggrandizing way they capitalize on other people’s pain. I’ve seen others become distracted over the stupidity of Trump’s comments in response to the protests or the clueless-as-usual way the elite journalist class tries to interpret the situation for us. Trump’s decision to involve the military should be roundly criticized, but the heart of the protests can be whitewashed by focusing on tangential issues. Troublesome moon energy demands attention to personal feelings, however inappropriate or inconvenient they appear to the intellect. I believe the best way to handle this is to recognize the myriad of personal issues surfacing and prioritize what belongs where and what is important now. The personal is political, but not every personal issue belongs in every political response.
Of course, other important things besides the demonstrations are happening on the planet. There’s still COVID-19. I’ve seen people complain that Americans can’t think about more than one issue at a time because the attention of the moment in the US has moved from the pandemic to homicidal racist police. Well, we get to decide where we put our attention. At the same time, a popular medical vlogger in England got pulled up by Americans for ignoring police brutality on his vlog about COVID-19! Did I mention this is a self-centered transit? Me-me-me. With a solar eclipse at the Solstice, and another lunar eclipse on July 5th, expect the emotionally intense self-absorbed energy to last until at least the July new Moon on the 20th. Remember: your emotions are valid; you only need to be mindful of how they’re directed.
This is Deer Brook Falls, a hike I’ve wanted to go on for weeks, and the trail was finally clear and passable. Photo doesn’t do it justice.
I notice that productivity at New Moon seems slow for me. It’s a time when blockages are cleared, hence it feels like things are stationary. This week I had a major water leak in my kitchen, which has been a distraction. Good thing I’m taking a break from writing.
I think it’s a good thing, working with New Moon energy, to be persistent. This can be a rewarding energy if you have the patience.
A new moon teaches gradualness
and deliberation and how one gives birth
to oneself slowly. Patience with small details
makes perfect a large work, like the universe.
~Rumi
