Let there be Light!

Your go-to guide to Eclipse Season

For those of you who relish excitement and tumult, man are you built for these times we’re living in?! And what’s more; you’re in for a biannual treat because Eclipse Season is here!

Next week sees the start of a brand new series of eclipses on the Pisces / Virgo axis which set the tone for change and developments in our lives and the wider world over the next couple of years.

It’s helpful to think of eclipse ‘cycles’ - a series of eclipses in particular zodiac signs, like a new Netflix thriller - with next week the first episode in which we get an idea of the tone, themes, plot, and key characters.

Eclipses are fairly commonplace. They tend to happen around Spring and Autumn and broadly fall into two categories, a solar eclipse when the moon is conjunct or in front of the sun, and a lunar eclipse, when the earth’s shadow obscures the moon.

Ever since we first observed the heavens they have been seen as harbingers heralding, NEWS! Revelations! Cataclysms! And the rise and fall of kings and civilisations.

Just this summer, scholars studying 4000 year-old Babylonian texts deciphered the oldest recorded text known to us, carved on Cuneiform tablets housed at The British Museum, and revealed that they used eclipses to predict omens.

They happen several times a year, and *disclaimer* yours may well be quiet and uneventful if your chart is not particularly affected.

But even if you remain unscathed, you might often notice even more upheaval and shenanigans in the world around us than usual.

Eclipses bring:

• Unexpected changes / turning points

• Events that might force us to take action

• Unanticipated events demanding a swift change of direction.

On the 17^th or 18^th of September (depending on where you are in the world) we have an eclipse coinciding with the Full Supermoon at 25 degrees Pisces.

Full moons signal endings, culminations, peak experiences, and revelations.

Pisces / Virgo (opposite one another on the 6^th house / 12^th house axis) brings up themes of:

• Service (Virgo) and devotion (Pisces)

• Mind (Virgo) and Soul (Pisces)

• Focus (Virgo) and Oblivion (Pisces)

• Showing up (Virgo) vs drifting off (Pisces - yes you!)

Virgo and the 6th House deals with precise functions of day-to-day routine, physical health, attention to detail - leading us towards accomplishment and excellence.

Whereas Pisces is more concerned with spiritual health, the formless and infinite, and is less organised but allows us space to follow the muse and enter our creative flow.

Virgo creates order, Pisces dissolves it.

Like all polarities, they only make sense relative to the other.

Then what about the nature of the eclipse itself? Well, full moon eclipses (like this September one) tend to reveal what’s been hidden.

So prepare to deal with all that dirty laundry that’s been festering in the wash basket and hang it out to dry. (Just me?)

To see how this celestial event might affect you, as always, draw up a free chart online with the likes of these guys and check which number the Pisces and Virgo houses are in your chart.

Perhaps it’s in your 4^th house (home, family, mother) and 10^th house (career, reputation, father) Or is it your 1^st house (seff, ego, identity) and 7^th (relationship, partnership, marketplace?)  A full list of what all the houses represent can be found here.

Once you’ve pinpointed the houses and themes, think back to Nov 2015 – Mar  2017, the last time we had eclipses in these Pisces and Virgo. Were the same issues in focus then?

And if nothing exciting happens next week, remember their impact can be felt a month, six months even a year later. Also eclipses are like buses – there’s another one coming on October 2^nd. Hurrah!

This October event has more of an Aries / Libra flavour – the axis dealing with: Me and We, war and peace, Mars and Venus.

So why not check which houses in your chart are hosting Aries and Libra (they will be neighbouring houses to the Pisces / Virgo ones) and get some advance notice of the kind of stuff you might encounter.

“Nations like stars are entitled to eclipse. All is well provided the light returns and eclipse does not become endless night”

Victor Hugo

So, the Virgo / Pisces saga is a new one. We can guess what the themes might be, but it’s a whole new ballgame. The Aries / Libra storyline is an older one, having kicked off in April 2023 and developed further last October.

In keeping with the Aries / Libra motifs of conflict and harmony; we saw a huge escalation in conflict in the Middle East a week before the October eclipse of 2023.

Might October 2024 herald a new chapter in this Israel / Palestine tragedy, or even a resolution?

The State of Israel and its current leader Netanyahu are both Libran and both of their charts are highly activated over the coming weeks.

Side note: other Librans on the geopolitical stage include Vladimir Putin and Kamala Harris. Ali Khameni, leader of Iran is an Aries Sun and Moon and NATO has its Sun, Mercury, Venus and Mars in Aries.

One strange but grimly fascinating side plot from the ongoing catastrophe in the Holy Land is still in play. For those of you interested in the esoteric, theological, and all things batshit; you might fancy a wander down the rabbit hole signposted: ‘Red Heifers of the Apocalypse.’

No, they’re not an agricultural death metal band, I wish they were, and that that genre was even a thing.

But instead, the Heifers are unwitting bovine protagonists in a ritual foretold in the Old Testament.

The poor cows are currently being prepared for slaughter on the Temple Mount by a sect of Orthodox Jews, referred to as the Third Temple Movement, who are hoping to get the ball rolling for The End Times, build The Third Temple on the current site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and usher in the Messiah.

It’s not just this particular Jewish sect who are highly invested, Evangelical Christians in the USA are also bang into it (albeit for slightly different but also Messiah-related reasons.) It was in fact, a Texan Christian farmer who bred and supplied the Heifers in the first place. Thanks a bunch, pal!

This excellent video from Dan Waites of World Astrology Report will give you a detailed low down if you want to explore this further.

The Heifers story initially broke around this year’s April Aries / Libra eclipse and although the apocalyptic showstopper was originally anticipated to open in this year’s Passover season, the cow slaughtering ‘rehearsals’ are still ongoing.

“It was that fatal and perfidious bark. Built in th’ eclipse and rigg’d with curses dark”

John Milton

Also accented in this eclipse series is the USA. The previous 8^th April 2024 Solar Eclipse was visible over much of the country and its path of totality cleaved a line through the map, dividing it in two. Symbolism not lost on anyone aware of the current political climate.

Along with the Red Heifers, this eclipse was also getting a lot of Old Testament afficianados hot under the collar due to many strange numerological and symbolic coincidences with other prophesies detailed in the books of Genesis, Jonah, and Revelation. So already we can see recurrent themes repeating throughout this timeline.

What can we expect?

Ultimately eclipses shake things up and bring change. Some of it welcome, some not so much.

Although modern astrology is about self knowledge, empowerment, and ‘co-creation with the universe’ to paraphrase astrologer Robert Hand, eclipses can be said to bring wild, disruptive energy. Consequently, the advice is don’t actively try to manipulate this or make things happen. Instead, stand back, calmly observe, go with the flow, and mop up afterwards if necessary.

Although it’s tempting to focus on potential doomsday drama, there may in fact be much-needed energetic shifts and exciting things in store. Stuck, stale situations can now dissolve allowing us to take off in new, thrilling directions.

So buckle up, hold on to your hats and that cheery thought, and I will see you on the other side.

As the saying goes ‘It’s always darkest before the dawn’ - an eclipse quote if ever there was one.

Post Script:

I looked up the origin of that saying, expecting it to be Shakespeare, but found the source was an English theologian, Thomas Fuller, writing in 1650.

Fuller’s work was entitled “A Pisgah Sight of Palestine and the Confines Thereof, with the history of the Old and New Testament acted thereon.”

Not the snappiest of titles, Thomas! But a perfect synchronicity nonetheless.

Let’s hope that new, peaceful dawn arrives soon.