Eclipse Thoughts

Post date: Mar 20, 2015 8:8:12 AM

And so it’s Christmas. Not really, since we are in March. But the media-fuelled hype about today’s  Solar eclipse certainly makes it feel that way. Literally thousands of little articles, illustrations, animations, memes and what not have flooded the collective mind like an avalanche that started with a trickle a few months ago, gathered momentum over the last couple of weeks and will come to a crashing halt after the event. The dust will settle with thousands of pictures, videos, more little articles, and some office conversations. Have you seen it? Did you feel the eerie silence? My cat/dog had their hair on end, and so on.

Everybody and their brother felt called to give people sagely advice about how to ‘cope’ with the eclipse that mainly boiled down to ‘brace yourself for an emotional onslaught, go meditate and expect great revelations’. Really? Wouldn’t  I miss watching the eclipse? Some advocate a major initiation, while others warn not to start anything new. After reading and listening to a handful of gurus I stopped taking this stuff in, as it made me feel slightly nauseous. I can’t stand the positivistic, incense-smothered, honey-dripping half-truths put out to an audience that wants to be stroked the right way up. We’re still selfishly worried about our own little lives while the world is falling to pieces, and no amount of soothing ambience is going to change that in a hurry.

Okay, rant over. But what is really going on with this eclipse? By now, I won’t have to tell anybody that it’s just one of several celestial events taking place around this time. Much has been said about the Moon’s perigee, which by the way, was reached a week ago, on Friday, March 13th, when we had what is called a minor lunar standstill. But to the majority of us that won’t make much of a difference, since we wouldn’t notice it anyway, so we rather take the media’s word for it and believe that it was happening last night.

And then, a mere 13 hours after the eclipse, the freshly ‘re-born’ Sun will reach the equinox point and from now on our daylight hours will outweigh those of darkness, spring will have officially arrived. Now that’s nice, but an annual occurrence, so...

Well, back to the eclipse. Yes, it is happening in the last degree of Pisces, a so-called ‘critical’ degree, portending problems, or rather, ‘challenges’ in today’s astro-psycho-lingo. At the same time, this is the last degree of our zodiac, the point at which every expression has been made, every experience has been had and they all dissolve in a sea of endless possibilities; from here on onwards, anything goes.

But here the eclipse is also sitting on the fixed star Sheat, a star that speaks of floods and drowning, which can be taken literally and figuratively. Literally, it was activated during the tsunami that destroyed Fukushima in 2011, to name but one poignant example. Figuratively, well, look at the hype, the tsunami of media attention this event is receiving and at the flood of anxiety that may cause in an individual... So far, so not so good.

But then, there are redeeming factors as well. The Sun,  main protagonist in this event, is still engaged in a mutual reception - i.e. close cooperation- with Jupiter, the planet of plenty, as it has been for the last month. Solar eclipses are usually seen as a bad omen for leaders, be they kings or prime ministers, as the Moon, traditional significator of ‘the people’, occults the light of their power. But under this Jupiterian influence, this eclipse might even increase a leader’s power – if their individual charts are touched, that is. Keep a close eye on Westminster, Washington and the Vatican, I’d say.

The Moon, perpetrator in this plot, is in mutual reception with Venus, the lesser of the fortunes but a benefic nonetheless. With Venus currently in Taurus, there might be a sense of improved living standards, materially as well as psychologically or even spiritually – things are not as bad as we thought they were and all is well. However, beware of the deceptive side of Pisces and don’t be lulled into inappropriate complacency.

But hold on a minute! By the time the eclipse takes place, the Moon is already past the exact conjunction with the Sun. Technically speaking, it is what we astrologers call ‘void of course’. It has made its last connection with another celestial body before it moves into the next sign. This creates a vacuum during which the Moon can’t project the Sun’s light onto any other planet, thereby losing its forming power. In other words, whatever this eclipse may or may not stand for, it will all come to naught. It will be like a bit of wet fireworks, sizzling and smoking, but not really igniting at all.

You know what? I think I’ll go back to bed.