You are about to enter another dimension. You ingress tomorrow to emerge on April 4. It will be a dimension not only of Sun and Moon, light and dark, but of mind. You are moving toward a portal of unprecedented potential, limited only by your imagination, resilience and will. This will be a journey to which you were born — through The Eclipse Zone.

Cue the tinkly music, that’s the facts. Going back more than three centuries, no solar eclipse (much less a total solar eclipse) has taken place in the last degree of the zodiac – the final degree of Pisces. Tomorrow, it happens at 5:36 am EDT (09:36 UTC).

The two closest such occasions during the past 300+ years were in 1765 and 2007. On March 18 or 19 of 2007 (depending on your time zone) there was a partial solar eclipse at 28+ Pisces, precisely square Pluto at 28+ Sagittarius.

On March 21, 1765, there was a partial eclipse at 1+ Aries, during the last time Pluto was in Capricorn. Interestingly, Uranus was in Aries at the time as well. Tomorrow, however, will implicitly be an entirely different dimension from any experienced by anybody else for centuries.

So relax if you will, and get yourself ready to both refresh your recent experience and transcend time with this guide to your impending journey.

Eclipses usually take place in pairs. The solar eclipse always occurs during a New Moon (Sun and Moon in the same degree of the same sign) that is in the vicinity of a lunar node, either following or preceding a lunar eclipse by about two weeks. Whichever eclipse (solar or lunar) takes place first can be considered an entrance. The second eclipse of the pair can be considered an exit.

In between, it’s a zone. Each time it’s different. Nonetheless some generalities are always applicable.

Between the opening and closing eclipses, one big general rule applies: the more you participate with conscious awareness, the more probable a desirable outcome.

As regards to influencing the outcome of a journey through any eclipse zone, you can generally expect at least three things. To begin with, it is probable that there will be some loss. The more consciously and actively you participate, the more likely you will lose what you want to get rid of anyway. Choose what you lose, and the chance of feeling loss as a hardship will be lessened.

Next, patterns are likely to begin and/or end. Once again, your awareness will allow you to be more the changer in charge. If you leave things to chance, the patterns you emerge with may not be such a good fit for your frame of mind.

Finally, between entering and emerging from an eclipse zone, you can expect to travel farther (literally or figuratively) and experience a more eventful life than would normally transpire for you during two weeks. Therefore, have an itinerary in mind and make up your mind to get off it periodically for rest.

So, what makes this pending eclipse zone different? First, it begins tomorrow with the only solar eclipse in centuries to take place within 24 hours of a Vernal Equinox. Implicitly, that unprecedented synchronicity gives you a chance to try or accomplish as never attempted or done before in recent history. The same applies for entities (such as the USA) that have been around less than 300 years.

Another very unique thing about this eclipse zone you are about to enter is that it begins and ends with total eclipses. A total solar eclipse tomorrow (visible from the east side of the North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean), and a total lunar eclipse (the fourth of four in a row) on April 4. Hence, think total. Jump in with both feet. Give your all. Be all you can be. Do all you can do. Or, as a viable alternative, totally recover, recreate and revive yourself.

Those are the basics. That should be all you need for your impending journey. It will be best to pack light, and before you depart to consider carefully your good fortune to be alive now.

Consider if you will a fortunate individual. That individual being you, about to enter another dimension. Not an realm of fate, but a milieu of choice. Not an impending doom, but an anticipated dawn on a new horizon. A tableau mediated by both light and mystery. This fortunate individual is about to go where none have gone for a very long time — on an unprecedented journey into The Eclipse Zone.

Offered In Service

Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.

By Amanda Painter

No matter what the weatherman may be saying where you live, we’re on the verge of a new season: the Sun ingresses Aries Friday, heralding spring in the Northern Hemisphere (and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere). But this is no ordinary equinox, with its equal day and night; an eclipse is ushering the Sun into its new sign. The astrology right now is suggesting you dream big — but do so with a strategy.

Land snail in El Yunque National Rainforest, Puerto Rico. Photo by Amanda Painter.

About 13 hours before the Sun enters Aries at 6:45 pm EDT (22:45 UTC), we have a New Moon at 5:36 am EDT (9:36 UTC) in Pisces. That’s a conjunction of the Sun and Moon in the last degree of the last sign of the zodiac. It also happens to be a total solar eclipse (not visible here, sadly, but still big news astrologically).

There is much I could write about this rather amazing astrological event. So I’m going to home in on just one facet of it, and leave some of the other avenues of discussion to my colleagues.

Squaring the Pisces New Moon and eclipse are a pair of minor planets in late Sagittarius: asteroid Pallas and centaur object Pholus. These two planets are, in turn, conjunct the center of our galaxy.

The message of the Galactic Center is about “the big picture.” You can think of it as that sensation you get when you know something is important or has meaning, but can’t quite put your finger on it, or can’t pull back far enough to see it all with any perspective. You just know it matters, in some truly deep or elevated way.

A New Moon in Pisces is already about visualizing a new start; square the Galactic Center, you might feel a push to make your vision count on a big-picture scale. Yet you can’t just leave it to happenstance that you’ll be able to manifest what you visualize in life.

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Simply being aware of astrology may be more or less all you need now. So, simply take it in and roll with it. As of this writing, Uranus has just started moving away from a final trial with Pluto, and Venus has just entered Taurus. Friday, you enter the portal of a total solar eclipse, not to emerge until April 4 with a total lunar eclipse.

Those are just highlights, and you are aware of them. How lucky you are! Think of all the people who are unaware of the monumental astrology going on. Contemplate how billions are unconscious to all but the most obvious cycles of Sun and Moon in the sky.

Yet, most of those billions manage well enough. Does that make astrology moot? Probably not. It’s very possible that most people can pick up some cosmic information in the moment, on a level other than that of conscious awareness. That information in the sky, usually corresponding to Earthly cycles and trends of which astrology is both an indicator and a part, is often more or less perceived at any given moment in intuitive and instinctual ways.

But what a difference to be consciously aware! Instead of improvising in the moment, you can appreciate how any given moment fits into your whole life. You can take in information in advance using the timeframes astrology provides. Astrology allows you to roll with every moment’s unique opportunity as the residue of your conscious preparation.

One timeframe, opened in 2012, is closing. An extraordinary series of seven square aspects (separations of 90 degrees on the zodiac and in the sky), from Uranus in Aries to Pluto in Capricorn, is behind us. Nobody will see the like for a long time. Probably not children living today, and possibly not even their children will be able to take in what you have spent the last three years (more or less) rolling through.

Take it in. Roll with how you were (and are) among those aware of Earth’s orientation to Uranus and Pluto. Count yourself as one who consciously correlated Earthly events in context. Let your act of knowledge be part of what you remember, and how you are remembered as the years roll on.

Another much shorter timeframe opened earlier today. Venus entered Taurus shortly before 6:15 am EST (10:15 UTC). Taurus is one of the two signs Venus rules, along with Libra.

Given that Taurus is a fixed earth sign, bright Venus as its ruler confers a natural correspondence with matter made animate — such as is the case with your living body. The more-or-less annual tour Venus takes of its Taurus domicile is an indicator to do your best to take into your body only what you can trust to make you brighter and more lively. It’s also a good time to trust that whatever experience you take in will be retained in the physical center of consciousness your body represents.

Venus will remain in Taurus until April 11, and during the entire time it will continue to rise higher and higher above twilight at the end of each day, dwelling ever longer in the night sky. As weather permits, go out after sundown and look for the steady brilliance of Venus in the West. Take it in. Roll with it. Let it be part of all you now are, and all you are aware of.

Viewing the steady climb of Venus as an evening beacon will serve you well as you enter new and multiple timeframes more or less simultaneously on Friday. The first timeframe begins with a New Moon in Pisces, which will open up a month (more or less) known as a lunation — until the next New Moon in Aries on April 18.

Because the Sun and Moon will conjoin in the last degree of Pisces on Friday, the New Moon will also be more-or-less concurrent with the Vernal Equinox, which will precipitate when the Sun enters Aries hours later. Since the Aries equinox represents the beginning of a season for all of us (and the start of a new year for some of us) a longer time frame will open at essentially the same time as the Pisces lunation.

Finally, Friday’s New Moon will also be a total solar eclipse. Because of this, a potentially much longer timeframe (as much as two decades) will open with the lunation, with the new season, and with the new astrological year.

That’s because the lunar nodes take nearly 20 years to make a complete cycle of the 12 signs. The lunar nodes are two opposing points on the zodiac and in the sky where, more or less, the Sun and Moon must conjoin or oppose to make eclipses happen.

So take it in this week as you stand on the threshold of one era, symbolized by Uranus and Pluto in a prolonged separating square aspect, plausibly beginning its end. Take it in as another ostensible set of timeframes are only now starting to open, like a fruit, wrapped in a flower, inside of a bud.

Let your awareness record this time in your conscious correlations. Allow your consciousness to observe this time in your body. Permit your natural proficiency as a child of the universe to prevail, and trust yourself to discover somehow your reason for being here now.

In spite of all that might trouble even the most blithe spirit, astrology indicates that now is an exceptional time to be alive. Simply show that you have taken that in and are rolling with it, and history will surely and somehow be made by you in this life.

Offered In Service

Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.

By Amanda Moreno

Today I found myself in a familiar headspace: restless and looking once again at PhD programs at California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). Attending is a pipe dream, being as I’d likely need to take on more debt than is legally possible as I already have quite a bit from my master’s degree. But still, that school is doing incredible work in the realms of philosophy, cosmology and consciousness studies, among other things. When I began my graduate work, it was with the intention of then going to complete an extended academic career at CIIS, and specifically to work with Richard Tarnas.

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

Then, in the spring of 2012, I was shown by the powers that be (in the imaginal realms, that is) that at this point in my life that path would be a way of bypassing the emotional body and that I was to do one-on-one ‘healing’ work with people.

I came out of that session feeling completely detached from a dream I had been passionate about for years. Strange, but I accepted it with the understanding that there might still be time for it later.

About an hour after staring at curriculums and tuition costs and fees this morning, I got an email from an astrologer inviting readers to reflect on what’s happened in their lives since the first of the exact Uranus-Pluto squares on June 24, 2012. It occurred to me that the day before that, on June 23, I had been presenting my graduate work to 30 or so people just before my graduation.

My graduate work more or less focused on the Uranus-Pluto square. I’d gone into the program knowing I wanted to use depth psychology and Richard Tarnas’s work with archetypal astrology and collective movements, and emerged with a familiarity with two additional paradigms: evolutionary astrology (including the form of cathartic regression work I practice) and Joanna Macy’s work with The Great Turning; Ms. Macy also happens to be adjunct faculty at CIIS.

Bear with me here.

My thesis, entitled “Astrological Ritual and the Apocalyptic Imagination,” used three main concepts oriented under the umbrella of depth psychology. First was the image of the mushroom cloud as a primary metaphor for our current apocalyptic rite of passage. Second was ritual as a means of creating containers strong enough to hold and transform our grief and despair for what’s happening to the world. Third, it examined astrology as a paradigm that is universal and yet diverse enough to inform those rituals and help each of us navigate our paths meaningfully in an increasingly individualistic culture.

Since then I’ve done so much frickin’ work with my emotional body. The thing has been uncovered and is alive and writhing and there are so many times when I have no idea what to do with it. I’ve begun to build a ‘private’ practice. I’ve been teaching classes that are very much grounded in Joanna Macy’s work and the philosophies of emotional evolution that I associate with evolutionary astrology and depth psychology.

Today, as I once again looked longingly at the curriculum for a CIIS program, I wondered: is it time? Or am I just avoiding? I’ve been getting hints of avoidance lately, but it’s all quite confusing, as I’ve been getting hints of lots of things, actually. I don’t quite know which way is up and so I’m trying to engage the ways forward that are emerging in my client work: Let’s not create new stories just yet; the old ones are still so close and we need some time to just be and finalize the letting-go process.

Now, I’m well aware that the Uranus-Pluto square doesn’t end with that last exact square on March 16. The planets are in orb essentially through the decade, no longer waffling between waxing and waning squares. The effects will take a while to integrate. The lightning bolts have struck, and now we get to catch up. Hopefully that catching up will involve implementing constructive solutions for sustainable change rather than avoidance. The words of Dave Matthews come to mind here: “We gotta do much more than believe if we really want to change things.”

Lately, I’ve felt a new layer of an old wound coming forward. Let’s just say it has to do with that defining moment when one steps away from the herd and accepts the call of the soul. It’s triggering all kinds of things that I honestly thought I’d dealt with. It feels as if I’m saying goodbye in so many ways, although to what specifically I’m not sure. I’ve never really wanted marriage, career, home ownership and children. But right now those things seem so…comfortable. Even if they also reek of soul annihilation.

Let me rephrase that, though — it feels as if I’m being faced with the option to say goodbye. There’s a finality to it. Although I’ve been anticipating this moment for a long time, my heart is full of apprehension and grief, at least I think it would be if I wasn’t avoiding and feeling a sense of aversion.

Am I avoiding because I’ve done so much emotional-body work and need a break? Is it possible to take a break? Am I avoiding because I’m just not cut out for the work of a healer or peacemaker or person who diverges from a horrendously destructive paradigm? Am I avoiding because I don’t know how to reconcile building an alternative lifestyle while paying rent in a city where rent is skyrocketing? Is the idea that the paradigm is destructive just a false construct of my own beliefs? Or is it because I’m actually standing at a precipice…

I don’t know that I can get answers to these questions (at least not before Saturn goes back into Scorpio…urgh), and for once I’m not really seeking outside for answers. It seems I’ve found myself enmeshed in so many alternative lifestyles all at once that finding counsel that I feel can hold all of it is unlikely. Although I’m keeping this process to myself for the most part, I figure these questions are relative to the collective, and so hopefully they’re relevant to you.

Let’s go ahead and bring it to the objective level. We’ve been through so much, not just in the past few years but in our entire history. Ancient wisdom tells us that everything is inherently connected, that we are an interconnected system and that therefore all that revolution, chaos and upheaval is flowing through you and me as much as it is through any being more acutely and directly affected. But then, so are all the love, hope and compassion, even if compassion needs insight in order to prevent burn out.

What a long, strange trip it’s been. One thing feels clear: of all the paradigms I’ve brought together for my own journey during the Uranus-Pluto square, the ideas of Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects are the ones that bring me the deepest sense of being grounded and effective time after time. At the “beginning” of this phase, I was linked into that paradigm, and now I feel like I’m coming home to it once again. Perhaps it’s time to pay attention to that.