Understanding Eclipses

By ERIC FRANCIS

"Just a few short years ago, we turned another century, and many of us were poised to enter that as global neighbours, looking for win/win situations that would build bridges between nations while respecting cultural differences. Where are the cooperative, optimistic voices now?"

- Jude, Political Waves list moderator

IF YOU LOOK UP ECLIPSES in the Dictionary of Astrology by Alan Leo, it's a little like reading the Book of Revelations. They are associated with pestilences, earthquakes, toil on the king, hard times for animals, earthquakes, floods, running out of coffee on a Monday morning and everything else gone wrong. One gets the impression that eclipses are a good time to be away from the Solar System.

In actual fact, decent astrologers all learn respect for eclipses. Some learn it the easy way, some learn it the hard way, but upon commencing the study of astrology, eclipses soon reveal their power. We learn to respect them like small children who grow up by the ocean are taught to respect waves and water. Swallow a few good gulps of salt or get knocked into an undertow and the sea becomes a god one treats tentatively. To my thinking, astrology is as basic as a sea captain or navigator learning the respect for weather, tides and magnetic forces that guides a safe passage. Few people would argue with a hurricane. Eclipses are natural events with natural results, and, as it happens, we are moving through their neighbourhood right at the moment.

Eclipses work on three levels, broadly speaking. The first is personal. The second is collective. The third is where the personal and the collective intersect.

In personal terms, modern astrologers have begun to see the light on eclipses, if you ask me. In newspaper horoscope columns, they are generally described as moments of opportunity, times of peak intensity and critical juncture points. All this is true, though one could argue it's a matter of perception. Do you congratulate someone when they lose their job, because they get to discover who they are, collecting unemployment for a year? What do you say when a horrid relationship 'suddenly' falls apart? What do you say to a tidal wave?

The perception of an astrologer can be a significant influence on the lives of people who encounter their interpretations. Even if it goes no further than self-fulfilling prophesy, astrologers owe it to the world to rise above fears and superstitions and allow faith and reason to carry their work.

And I see it happening. The more consciously eclipses are handled, the less they are inclined to do damage and the more they are inclined to give us a push in the right direction. Eclipses visiting one's own sign would certainly have been regarded as a curse, and still is in some astrological systems. Writing about Monday's solar eclipse in Aries, Sally Brompton told Aries readers in TV Guide: "You're not the sort to doubt yourself, and Monday's solar eclipse in your sign will make you even less inclined to stop and think before you take action. That's good, because it's action that gets things done."

She could have just as easily looked at that chart, with its eclipse in the last degree of Aries, and said, "There's danger ahead; don't trust your own instincts." But really, does it do any good to tell that to an Aries? When one reaches the edge, one must leap or retreat, and Monday's event had No Turning Back written all over it. An enlightened astrologer will teach you to trust yourself and trust the events of your life. Even when Mercury is retrograde. Alternately, she will give voice to your intuition, and while Sally often gives the feeling she's shooting from the hip, you can measure her words with a micrometer.

Here's how Jonathan Cainer handled it, again, for Aries. He gets three times more words than does Sally and could flesh out the details a bit deeper:

"Trust your deepest instinct." It sounds easy, doesn't it? Fine advice that can't possibly fail from an astrologer who understands what you also know; that your intuition is excellent. And the problem? Your intuition IS impeccable; but only when you separate it from your fear and your dream. How can you tell which is your instinct and which is your inner fantasy? By looking hard at the thing you most desperately don't want to see! The eclipse is urging you to be honest. Then you can be clear, and success is assured.

While Sally and Jonathan have about the most different writing styles of any two astrologers you can pair up on one planet, note the similarity of themes: self-doubt and inner confusion meet clarity and action. In Jonathan's write-up I gather he was picking up the quintile relationship between the eclipse at 30 Aries and Neptune at 16 Aquarius -- "fear and your dream" blending in to one tone and needing to be sorted out.

With eclipses, the inner always does well to precede the outer. There is you, then there is your expression in the world. You move in your heart or soul, and you move on the physical plane. When eclipses work in reverse, when they make us catch up, when they remind us we've abandoned our evolution, it's not so pretty at all.

Yet even as what you might call a natural destructive force, eclipses tend to cleanse the beaches, scrub the riverbeds and replenish the fresh water supply. As when a hurricane passes, not everyone survives or survives the current round of the game, but those of us who do are stronger and wiser -- as are those who don't.

Nuts, Bolts, Planets

The physics of eclipses is easy enough to visualise. Most people learned it in grade school (not grad school) and promptly forgot. (Astrologers are gluttons for homework and get reacquainted with lots of that kind of primary school stuff to no end whatsoever. The chart becomes part Roman mythology diorama, part Science Fair project, and part proof that the cosmos is always talking to you, if you have half an imagination.)

Basically, eclipses are studies in shadows, and they reveal what was not so obvious yesterday. About twice a year, the Earth moves directly between the Sun and Moon and the Full Moon appears to go out for a while. Two weeks earlier or later (it varies from year to year), the Moon gets exactly between the Sun and the Earth and the Sun appears to go out for a while. Astrology being a vast study in light, and the Sun and Moon being what astrologers call "The Lights," the lights going out for a few minutes or an hour is a big deal.

It's a little like when a blackout happens in New York City. Everybody gets a chance to remember something obvious. You can see the stars and planets above the skyscrapers. Nature descends on the busiest place on Earth. People meet one another, especially the ones who only have an electric can opener. I propose turning the power off for one night every summer. But nature has figured this one out already, and twice a year, we get to go trough the ritual of eclipses.

What they didn't mention in grade school was the lunar nodes, words which will be familiar to the astrology students who have spent the last ten years trying to figure out what they are. Without getting into the technical minutiae, when the Sun gets near either of the lunar nodes, there is an eclipse on the horizon. This is true in ANY kind of chart you have. The nodes themselves have a great deal in common with eclipses whether the Sun is there or not, and planets that happen to be on the nodes can act as if they are under the effects of an eclipse: there is a concentration of power, there is acceleration of events, and there is an enhanced sense of fate.

Further, the exact degree of an eclipse can send messages for years. This works because planets can show up in that degree in earlier or later charts that in theory have nothing to do with the eclipse itself, but the themes carry from one chart to another. But this you must see to believe.

The Current Pair

To sum up current events, a partial solar eclipse occurred Monday, April 19 in the last (30th) degree of Aries. All solar eclipses occur at the time of the New Moon. This was the second Aries New Moon within a month. The first occurred on the Vernal Equinox on March 21, in the first degree of Aries. Because the first degree of Aries is the beginning of the zodiac, a lunation in this degree can have the full force of an eclipse, doing many of the same things -- in particular, reaching into the lives of many people, being associated with meaningful beginnings, and bringing glaringly noticeable turning points.

The March 21 New Moon made an exact square to the June 21, 2001 total solar eclipse that preceded the Sept. 11 attacks. There was a connection. Squares set off chains of events and we are certainly deeply involved in several chains of events surrounding Sept. 11. (This is a vivid example of an eclipse degree being active for years.)

On May 4th, we experience a total eclipse of the Moon in the middle of Taurus. This, too, is no ordinary time of year or region of the horoscope. When the Sun reaches the middle of the fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius) we have what are known as the "cross-quarter days" -- the high sabbats (holidays) of the Celtic calendar. We're all familiar with the modern expressions of these natural holidays. For example, Mayday, also called Beltane, arrives in the early part of May and is celebrated through much of the world. Samhain, also called All Soul's Night, New Year's Eve (in many cultures) or Halloween is celebrated with the Sun in the middle degrees of Scorpio. This coincides with the "Days of the Dead" and similar holidays going back to ancient Egypt.

The May 4th eclipse of the Moon occurs on Beltane. Ladies and gentlemen, this is juicy. Beltane is juicy: it is the holiday with the theme "sex equals abundance." It is a holiday devoted to fucking. There is a tradition of fucking people other than your espoused mate; it was traditionally a day when the normal rules of sex were suspended and the natural forces of attraction and reproduction could have their way. The children born of these pairings had a special place in the community.

While Beltane may seem like fun and games, honouring the natural forces was traditionally no joke. Sex in the fields ensured an abundance of food, and this abundance would have to last the whole year, including the harsh and often disease-ridden winter. Yet the celebratory aspect -- celebrating the arrival of spring and having survived winter -- was an obvious part of the ritual. This is the season of Taurus, the sign symbolised by the Sacred Cow: fertility, food, and assistance with the difficult labour of agriculture. Today we associate Taurus with large purchases in the Eddie Bauer Home catalogue.

In the Christian world, with its obsessive emphasis on purity and guilt, early May has become associated with labour and politics. (May 1 used to be Labour Day in the States, but thanks to the Communist overtones of this holiday, it was pushed back a month.) In the allegedly puritanical Western world, we don't usually mention the associations between life, abundance and sex, but in the alt.reality known as astrology, we certainly can.

A total eclipse of the Moon on Beltane surely emphasises the point of Beltane. I assure you: the days leading up to the eclipse and the day itself will be times to remember, full of wonder, growth, change and powerful developments, if we open ourselves up to these things.

Here is the chart:

http://planetwaves.net/aquasphere/norlnpgg/open/chart3.html

News of the World

One look at the condition of the world seems to belie these points. Every hour, the news on CNN.com becomes more grim. Every day, the condition in Iraq deteriorates as a vicious, artificial civil war engulfs the cradle of civilisation. The fact that Iraq is also called Mesopotamia or the Tigris and Euphrates Valley is entirely left out of the newspapers, as if it were some incidental point. Could it possibly be? Is it not deeply tragic that war has once again swallowed the spawning ground of modern civilisation?

As these eclipses have approached, the war has gained momentum. The endless stream of lies has, in the past month, also been documented by the Sept. 11 Commission, and revealed in books by Watergate journalist Bob Woodward and the former antiterrorism czar Richard Clarke. The news is out. The build-up to war was a fraud and the war itself was a vast distraction from the need to deal with terrorism. And now, everyone knows that Iraq has become the world's biggest breeding ground for the terrorism it was allegedly supposed to stop.

The "insurgency" -- really, the defenders -- of Iraq have gathered their forces and are a fighting force that is basically crippling the U.S. military effort. Supply lines are under siege; the defenders control most of the roads. This is the way of the future.

In the process, one thing is becoming clear to many: this war is bad, and war in general is stupid. In case we are inclined to forget, we will have a constant reminder for the next decade or three. Were I a conservative senator from Georgia, I would be even more incensed than I am as a liberal guy from the Northeast, and in fact, just about anyone actually tracking the events is realising the extent of the sham and the damage that it's doing.

The current eclipse season takes us right up to the November elections. Eclipses have effects that spread out in time; they can be active for years, but in any event, the next eclipses arrive about six months from now, and those happen to be in October. In addition to involving the Sun, the Moon and the Earth, The Moon can eclipse other bodies besides the Sun, and it turns out that in October and November, there are a total of nine eclipses if you include the Moon making what are called "occultations" or eclipses to planets. There are many of them concentrated in a short time.

Those promise to be interesting times, days and weeks when the façade of ignorance continues to crack. But because it's coming in the time of late Libra and Scorpio, there is likely to be an ominous feeling about whatever events emerge. But more than ominous: personally significant. News is a lot more meaningful when it's apparent without the need for TV or newspaper; when you can see it before your eyes, and when everyone is talking about it. These are the times for which we are headed, and which we will remember for a long, long time.

There is, in this era of history, a magnificent opportunity to take the world personally; to give up the paralysis and voluntary ignorance and marketing-induced self-images that keep us drunk with foolishness and apathy. I leave you with a question. If you could do one thing, no matter how small, to change your world, what would it be? And with one other: what is stopping you? ++

Eric Francis is a horoscope columnist, investigative journalist and counselling astrologer. His monthly and annual horoscopes are now free. If you don't want to wait a whole month, you can get his subscriber-only horoscopes and articles every Monday and Friday by subscribing here. As a subscriber you get horoscopes, astrology news and articles twice a week by email from Eric, plus the two monthly horoscopes, an in-depth annual edition, and access to our subscriber-only website. Full details are here.