In this Sept. 16, 2005, selection from the Astrology Secrets Revealed archives on Jonathan Cainer’s site, Eric answers a reader who is nervous about her big once-in-a-lifetime trip coinciding with a solar eclipse. That Oct. 3, 2005, Libra eclipse was a New Moon annular eclipse similar to the one we’ll experience tomorrow. You can read that full 2005 edition of ASR here — Amanda P.

Hi Eric,

Thanks first of all for your enlightened writing; I find your insights VERY meaningful. I’m a little worried about the upcoming eclipse. The things I’ve been reading are making me nervous about my plans. My life has not been easy, but for the last year or so I’ve been trying to make as many positive changes as I can to try to make the rest of my life a happier experience. It’s been a pretty uphill struggle, going more slowly than I’d hoped, but I’m hanging in there.

Photo of the Oct. 3, 2005, annular solar eclipse taken from Spain. Photo by Sancho Panza/Flickr/Creative Commons.

I’ve never really traveled much, don’t usually go away on vacations, maybe three or four times in my whole life, so this year as a part of my positive change and a gift to myself for my 50th year, I saved my pennies (literally) and booked a week-long trip to Macchu Pichu and the Sacred Valley.

I’m a little nervous about it (altitude sickness, travel glitches, and especially leaving my cat with a friend), and now I keep reading about the October eclipse being eventful, and it’s making me more so. I’m leaving NYC at 11:30 pm 10/2, arriving in Cuzco 10:45 am on 10/3.

This may sound silly to some of your readers, but I spent all my savings to go on this trip, and I’m really hoping for the experience of a lifetime, but in a good way. Is there anything special I should worry about or look out for? Should I cancel altogether? Please help if you can, any advice you have to offer will be taken most seriously.

Thanks,
Sheila

Dear Sheila,
First, congratulations on pulling this together. The journey began when you really made the commitment to do it. Have you noticed that your life has changed along the way? Second, congratulations on your timing.

While I would be extremely unlikely ever to suggest that anyone cancel travel plans (as an astrologer, I would rather be involved in planning, if anything), it sounds to me like your plans are ideal. I can’t promise you everything is going to go as you imagined — and I suggest you give that up as soon as possible, because the emphasis on this journey is mystery. Your choice to go to this awesome part of the world during a New Moon and solar eclipse sounds pretty meaningful to me. You are flying into the eclipse and will be arriving pretty much as it happens.

I can assure you that you’re going somewhere that eclipses have been observed and celebrated over many thousands of years. The psychic environment and atmosphere of change and intensity that surrounds the event will add to the quality of the place, in such a way that may even be inseparable from the setting itself.

Eclipses are powerful moments of repatterning. They help us let go of old patterns and establish new ones. So, take that as you will; you have not traveled much and now you’re taking this mystical and exotic journey, sending a message to yourself and the cosmos that this is the new way you want to live.

Since you’re doing this for your 50th birthday, you’re quite close to your Chiron return and I suggest thinking of this trip as being associated with that. While it takes some investigation to uncover the deeper themes of the Chiron return, this transit represents movement between two major phases of your life.

I will leave it at that, and wish you the best on your journey.

Lovingly,
Eric Francis Coppolino