By Amanda Painter
Due to an aspect happening concurrently with Saturday’s eclipse of the Moon in Libra, consider asking yourself what you are devoted to, and then act on it this weekend. Depending on how the eclipse chart overlays your natal chart, this might feel like the more tangible or pressing theme to you; even if it’s not, some sense of drawing back a veil on your ‘deeper self’ is a primary message of the eclipse.
Full Moon Rising behind the temple at Sounion, Greece, June 2010. Photo by Anthony Ayiomamitis.
This eclipse is the second eclipse of this spring’s pair: a total eclipse of the Moon in Libra with the Sun in Aries (i.e., a Full Moon). It’s exact at 8:06 am EDT Saturday, but the material that emerges will keep developing in the days, weeks and months afterward.
One way to get your bearings and begin focusing your awareness around this event is to think back to the March 20 solar eclipse and trace the development of any ideas or areas of your life that became prominent then, and in the 2-3 days immediately afterwards. Chances are you’ve been working on that material actively or in the background of your awareness for the past two weeks.
That means this Full Moon eclipse, which is a peak in the cycle begun by that solar eclipse and New Moon, may bring that issue to a head or present a way for you to ride its energy further than usual. In fact, eclipses tend to act as levers in that way, especially if you can tune in and use them consciously.
Much of how we experience eclipses depends on what we consciously bring to them. Personally, I’ve been tracking my thoughts and actions around the wakeup call regarding “what I was told I could not do” that I received just after the March 20 eclipse, and which you may have also received.
In my case (and possibly yours) this relates to Vesta in early Pisces square Saturn in early Sagittarius — which is sending a clear message about, as Eric put it last week in Planet Waves FM, “what I say I want to do over and over again.” He stated in that program that, “The promises you make to yourself are the promises to keep when Vesta is activated this beautifully.”
Even if you’re not sure how true that idea rings for you, it’s always good advice to do some of what you love on the days surrounding an eclipse, since that energy ripples out and develops over the long term. Take a soft approach to any resistance you may encounter — for example, allow yourself even just 15 minutes of whatever it is you keep saying you want to do but never seem to get to.
If part of the challenge is fitting this act of devotion in around your relationship, or even bringing it into a relationship with another, so much the better. A partner or friend can only support what matters most to you if you’re not hiding it away from them. The first step, of course, is not hiding it away from yourself.
Which brings me back to that idea of drawing back a veil on your deeper self and, indeed, on the life of your relationships.
The Sun (representing ego consciousness) and Moon (emotional/intuitive/inner awareness) are spanning the axis of “self” and “relationship” as represented by the signs Aries and Libra. While there, the Sun and Moon are also closely aligned with the Uranus-Pluto square: the Sun is conjunct Uranus, and the Moon and Sun are squaring Pluto from opposite sides of the zodiac.
Uranus and Pluto have been operating in the background of our lives for a few years now. As they’ve been shaping society around us in drastic (and sometimes surprising, sometimes violent) ways, we’ve gotten regular tastes of this process on a more personal level. This usually happens as the inner “personal” planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars) have interacted with them.
Saturday’s eclipse is one of these moments. As the shadow of Earth briefly blocks out the bright Full Moon, our metaphorical eyes of inner awareness get a look at what else is below the surface: Uranus and Pluto. What they may show you is something about bringing out and acknowledging the deeper, inner self that resides just below your ‘social persona’ — and what Eric Francis described recently as “the inner quest of the relationship.”
Whether you encounter insights this weekend about yourself in relationship or finally admit to and act on some promise you’ve made to yourself, be brave enough to look behind that veil as it’s drawn aside. After all, you’ll only be encountering you.
Amanda: Thank you for once again being the adroit celestial jeweler, skillfully placing all of us in the setting of the astrology so that each of us can better shine.
Also Amanda, with psyche conjunct the sun – is that hopeful for a culmination of psyche ‘never making progress’ histories?
I’m also curious about the psyche-Sun-Uranus conjunction…
And Vesta conjunct Nessus in Pisces… Perhaps a commitment to healing abusive situations or traumas?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl3vxEudif8
I’ve used the Eclipses to devote myself to my relationship with my girlfriend. I’ve mentioned in comments past how I’ve put on hold having sex outside the relationship for the sake of tending the flame of the sacred relationship that we have created over the past 3 years. It has been quite the journey, dealing with desire, yet not acting on it, all the while keeping the dialogue going between us about the issue. I’ve never done this before, I used to just cheat, or destroy my relationships with girlfriends in semi-conscious ways. My actions now are having a positive ripple effect on all of my relationships.
Beautiful, Amanda. Thank you.
pam and Christina — excellent question about Psyche. I’d say that you both sound like you’re on the right track with that line of thinking! My initial thought is that Sun-Psyche-Uranus looks like some kind of new, unexpected awareness around “the thing you thought you could not heal,” which, if we link it back to the themes of last week, may very well be any message that wormed its way in about “that thing you were told you could not do” (Mercury-Chiron).
Dovetailing with some of Eric’s thoughts about the eclipse/Uranus-Pluto pattern as he expressed them in PW FM, I’m wondering if Pluto’s role, square that triple conjunction, is about pushing us to dig in below the surface — not only of those inner scripts/psychic wounds, but also below any shiny, “glamorous”, personality-level “fixes” we might think we’ve found? That is, if this stuff is deep, we need to go deep with our awareness to root it out and evolve it. Affirmations taped to the bathroom mirror might not quite do the trick.
Like I said, just some initial thoughts… I’d love to hear what others are seeing in that configuration.
Today I will keep BOLD in my thoughts the quoted parts from your article and work to realize that extreme potential and power for unveiling.
i’m sharing a Hafiz poem which presented itself in sync with reading your article, and it echos the later parts of Eric’s (raw and daring) last Planet Waves FM show.
April 2
In The Midnight Of Thy Tresses
Who can fully renounce a day? Who can conceive
of forgiving a whole life, granting all in it a pardon,
unless at midnight you let us enter your tresses,
know your scent, become as intimate with your
light as anyone ever has.
All images are shadows you did cast. They will
gladly surrender their identity and reveal their
potential the way a piece of paper would if it ever
made love to a great flame.
Hafiz translated by Ladinsky
from “A Year With Hafiz”
You are definitely on to something Amanda when you say that the full moon eclipse presents a way to ride the energy of the New Moon solar eclipse even further than usual. The solar eclipse was at 29+ Pisces, so technically it was still under the umbrella of the Winter Solstice, even though it ( the Pisces solar eclipse) happened on the same day as the Spring Equinox, March 20th.
The Winter Solstice energy included the sextile between Chiron at 13+ Pisces and Venus at 14+ Cap-conjunct-Pluto at 12+ Cap. By the time of the March 20th Solar Eclipse (at the end of the Winter Solstice period) transiting Jupiter had retrograded his way back to 13+ Leo to position himself as the focal point (apex) of a yod with the earlier Winter Solstice sextile between Chiron and Venus/Pluto. What I’m trying to say is that the solar eclipse energy you speak of is itself a continuation of the previous winter solstice energy, or put another way, the Pisces eclipsed Sun was a kind of bridge (Chiron symbolism) between the two seasons as pictured in the solstice and equinox charts.
With Jupiter as the point of release of yod energy, and symbolizing Understanding, among other things, then we can understanding that what you love (Venus) may have been thwarted (revealed by Chiron’s association with pain and healing) and now was to be transformed (Venus conjunct Pluto). It requires going back even further (as much as 3 months even) than the solar eclipse of March 20th to understand the process going on here since, at the time of the December 21,2014 solstice, Jupiter at 22+ Leo was trine Ceres (parents?) at 22+ Sagittarius and Eris (discord) at 22+ Aries.
Venus was doing something else in that December solstice chart; she was in a septile (51+ degrees) with Neptune. This aspect, referred to by some astrologers as a fork in the road of destiny (fate), is a division of the circle by 7, an irrational number. It can produce irrational behavior, and with Venus involved with Neptune (Venus’ higher octave) one might have been moved to do something in the name of love considered irrational by others.
In your story (about what I was told I could not do) and the comments you received from both your posts suggests that tying this lunar eclipse to the solar eclipse it follows, and then tying that solar eclipse back to the winter solstice, . .
and how Jupiter, now about to station direct, has been making adjustments (being in quincunxes to Pluto et al) and breakthroughs (being in a trine to Uranus) after following a too easy current of energy between Eris and Ceres. . .
could complete an astrological picture of a continuing set of circumstances and provide a way to move forward (once Jupiter stations direct.) Works for me!
be
Wow, Barbara Koehler! Brilliant as always with the play-by-play..!
a_priori,
Speaking of play-by-play, John Kerry provides us with a stunning achievement in this game of nuclear brinkmanship. Today’s agreement framework with Iran is surely a gift of Kerry’s natal Vesta, Mars, Uranus in Gemini in his 6th house of service trine natal Juno in Aquarius (conjunct the U.S. Sibly south node) in his 2nd house of personal values, and his natal Pallas the negotiator, at 5+ Aries sextiling both natal Juno and natal Uranus (conjunct Mars and Vesta), and opposite natal Neptune on his MC in Libra. Kudos!
In fact, his whole chart with natal Sagittarius Sun opposite Gemini Moon across the ascendant-descendant line, his Scorpio Venus, trine his Cancer Ceres opposite Mercury in Capricorn (sextile Venus), all show his remarkable agility and flexibility in the negotiating game. The man’s got 2 hip replacements for Pete’s sake!
As transiting Chiron, now conjunct Borasisi, forms a T-square with Kerry’s Sun-Moon opposition and then sextiles Kerry’s natal Pholus in Capricorn we see the role of the centaurs playing out on the world stage. Who else could have pulled this one out of the fire but John Kerry?
Thank you transiting Sun trine Jupiter and thank you a_priori, you both made my day!
be
ps – John Kerry’s birth data is 12/11/43, 8:03 am (14:03 UT), Fitzsimons, CO, 104w48, 39n45
It’s very interesting to watch how the momentum picked up these past 2 weeks. They were all about different things. My mom needed some moral support on a couple of fronts, then my work became involved on multiple fronts, and this week saw more encounters with authority figures placing me in both tense/awkward and opportunistic circumstances.
Then this week, I had two problems on my new computer. One was simpler, but the other was my own mistake in downloading an HD media player that had malware and some trojan bundle wrapped in it. I spent a few hours reading how to effectively remove everything as my browser became infected. The thought of reinstalling everything after weeks of attention was a painful thought. I calmed down and visualized myself feeling guided to a solution. Thankfully, I came across a wonderful support post that helped me find the coding I missed. If you have a Mac, download AdwareMedic. It’s free. It saved my life. It saved the loud dog’s life who lives upstairs too……..
And so comes emerges a theme: how to consistently maintain a solution based mental framework. Everything needed a positive solution. Every bit of interaction was about moving one’s thoughts toward and feeling for the resolution, the clarity, and creating self-talk that steered me into support. And most importantly, keeping the focus away from the problem.
I did my best!
Hugging Scorpio — funny, I now know of a few of us who have had odd, Mercury-Rx type tech issues this week. I had to completely rebuild the email database I use for my PW email (Microsoft Entourage) on my Mac — which took ALL DAY Monday while I worked on non-email dependent tasks. I thought I was going to lose all my messages, but they all seem to be there. I just found out this morning that our lead proofreader, Jessica, had a similar thing happen to her with her Outlook email database (another Microsoft product; not sure what kind of computer she has). And now your download disaster — and solution.
I’m wondering if, after all that time in Aquarius moving back and forth, and then getting all wet in Pisces, Mercury kind of had a moment of “short circuit” when it met Aries’ fire? After all, Uranus is there (the cosmic light socket), albeit midway through the sign. But it’s the modern ruler of Aquarius… and there’s that trine from Saturn, retrograde in Sagittarius…
Hhmmmmm… Icarus and Phaethon are in early Aries, too… so something about flying too close to to the Sun (Icarus) or driving the Sun too close to Earth and getting stopped by a thunderbolt (Phaethon).
Yep: I think some of us were in prime position to get fried this week.
I wonder what the charts for Microsoft and the Mac have in common with this astrology?
I love your Mercury analogy! Haha!