Thursday overnight into Friday (depending on your time zone) there was a most interesting eclipse of the Sun, in the sign Cancer, opposite Pluto (read our coverage here). As mentioned previously, we’re in a series of three eclipses, all of them exciting and a bit unusual and distinct, even as eclipses go.

In this multiple exposure photograph, the phases of a partial solar eclipse are seen over the Gateway Arch in St. Louis on Aug. 21, 2017. Photo by Jeff Robertson.

The opposition between Thursday’s eclipse and Pluto has a sensation of finality to it, and also a push in a necessary direction.

Strong aspects to Pluto can have the feeling of what Patric Walker would call “enforced changes,” or what I would call compelling circumstances that guide us into making adjustments. For some, this was no doubt leaning more toward enforced than compelling. The opposition had a touch of do or die to it, whatever that means to you, depending on your personal conditions.

The next eclipse will be at 4:20 pm EDT on Friday, July 27. This is a total eclipse of the Moon in Aquarius. Like all lunar eclipses, it will be visible anywhere you can see the Moon, which happens to be nowhere in the United States, the UK or Western Europe. Points east may have a view, such as Russia and China.

What distinguishes this event is that it’s a South Node eclipse, conjunct retrograde Mars. All of the obvious pointers are to the past. This includes the Moon, which can represent a sponge of memory, personality patterns, and all of the above as relates to the public.

Mars retrograde in Aquarius is doing its best to rip open and expose what is underneath the mesh being imposed on us by the internet. I don’t mean to sound too violent here, though it is that kind of process. The mesh that currently surrounds us is a kind of psychic and psychoactive Kevlar that at times seems invisible and at other times seems impossible to shed.

The only way to cut ourselves free is to be aware of our thought patterns, and how those extend into the social interactions we swim in all day. Most emphasis on relationships is dyadic, meaning one-on-one; we need to think wider, and recognize the interplay between one-on-one partnerships and group dynamics, and vice versa.

Talking to Felix; 2006 photo by Eric Francis.

I’ve seen in my reading of natal charts that people with Mars on the South Node are working out some past tendencies involving a little too much Mars. When Mars is retrograde, these can seem intractable, though that’s more often because the tendencies are unconscious. Awareness and the power of decision are the solvents.

One important thing to remember about the south node is that it offers a degree of protection or immunity. For these reasons, it can also be a blind spot. So the key is to raise awareness and then work with what you become aware of.

Now let’s add the eclipse. There are several ways to think of a lunar eclipse. Alice Bailey described the Moon as a veil over another planet (she said Uranus). This is perhaps another discussion, though think of a lunar eclipse as drawing back that veil and revealing what is there: in this case, retrograde Mars in Aquarius.

If we could take a look at all of the aggression that’s encrypted in everyday language and transactions, we might have some incentive to let it go. This is not about guilt. It’s not about blame. Those are precisely the roots of the aggression. We could start by dialing it back just a little, and then paying attention to the inner feeling underlying any aggressions — and focus on considering that.

Remember that here in the Global Village (as the McLuhans pointed out 50 years ago), violence is often used as a primary means of establishing identity. This seems to be all too true today — particularly on the personal level, in a time when the internet casually strips away individuality, or it’s given up willingly.

Speaking from a slightly different angle, we could also interpret retrograde Mars as frustrated desire, involving some situation where the individual (Mars) is pitted (retrograde) against a larger collective (Aquarius).

For many, this has become a risky thing to say. Photo by Eric.

What if you could ask for what you want; that is, what you really want? Maybe if we could do that, we would be a lot less aggressive, angry and frustrated. Maybe we would find people willing to share, and willing to receive. You have plenty to offer others that would be no loss if you shared it.

Admitting what you want involves several risks, top among them taking a chance on rejection and denial; embarrassment; and facing the fear of being judged. However, it would seem that these are essential ingredients in self-actualization. If you don’t overcome these fears, how are you ever going to live your life?

Which leads to the Aug. 11 partial solar eclipse in Leo. I’ll have more to say about this as it approaches, though this eclipse marks an important anniversary — that of the grand cross/total solar eclipse of Aug. 11, 1999. I covered this eclipse in one of the very first Planet Waves articles (back in the days when this column was called Star-Navigator). That piece was called Thinking of You on Judgment Day.

The joke, by the way, comes from a set of greeting cards (never produced) that were polite little messages you could send people ahead of the end of the world (presumed to be Dec. 31, 1999).

This is a partial solar eclipse on the 19th anniversary of the impressive total solar eclipse that streaked across Europe in August 1999. Anything of this magnitude in Leo represents finding your place at the center of your world, and working from there. I’ll have more to say next week — and on tonight’s Planet Waves FM.