Sunday’s Solar Eclipse (4:54pm PDT) illuminates what has been hidden, repressed or denied. The Moon — the subconscious — passes between Earth and Sun, eclipsing the light as the shadow takes center stage.
A Solar Eclipse is an especially potent New Moon that both sets into motion a major new beginning, and signifies a death or ending. We entered Eclipse Season — a period of heightened emotions and accelerated change — two weeks ago at the Scorpio Full Moon, and we can expect the intensity to escalate as we move into the most dramatic astrology of 2012.
Eclipses stir up the past, revealing what wants to be healed, resolved or brought to completion. On a more micro level, we revisit themes from the previous set of Eclipses, about six months ago — the Sagittarius Solar Eclipse on November 24 and the Gemini Lunar Eclipse on December 10. In the bigger picture, Eclipses reoccur at the same degree of the zodiac every 19 years, and it can be helpful to reflect on what was going on in your life in 1993.
In Gemini — the sign of the mind — the Solar Eclipse presents an opportunity to become more aware of what’s happening on a mental level, and to let go of ideas, perceptions and thought patterns that are not serving us. Other Gemini themes include communication, connection, education, relationships with siblings and neighbors, and how we fit into our everyday environment.
Infusing this Eclipse with a dreamy, sleepy, imaginative, super-sensitive, and potentially confusing tone, the Sun and Moon form a close square (90-degree angle of tension) to Neptune in Pisces. Neptune opens the doors of perception, increasing access to and connection with the invisible realms of magic and mystery — the Dreamtime. Meditation, prayer and ritual are extra-potent.
On the world stage, scandals typically erupt around Eclipses — what the culture has banished to the Underworld wants to come out into the light. Information (Gemini) about the ocean (Neptune) is particularly ripe for revelation. While the Deepwater Horizon disaster has disappeared from the headlines, the gruesome impact of the oil “spill,” and the subsequent dumping of the neurotoxin Corexit (which is ongoing), is only beginning to surface. (See Robert Phoenix’s Two-Year Nightmare of the Gulf Revisited)
I also associate Neptune in Pisces with radiation — it’s invisible, undetectable by the five senses, uncontainable, and doesn’t respect boundaries or borders — a harsh teacher of the Neptunian lesson that we are all one. Evidence is now emerging that there’s been “a deliberate, global cover-up of the true severity of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster” (see “Plume-gate”), and my hope for this Eclipse Season is that there will be a mass awakening out of denial and into a mature response to the severe global threat of radiation.
In a cultural environment that promotes denial, delusion and deception (shadow Neptune), it’s up to us to take responsibility for freeing our minds. Mercury, Gemini’s ruling planet, is now in peaceful, grounded Taurus — the intelligence of the body and of the Earth. With awareness, we can use Eclipses as portals, opportunities to reset consciousness. A quiet, focused mind, unplugged from distractions, grounded to the center of the planet, and tuned into the infinite is a key to accessing the power of Sunday’s Solar Eclipse.
For deeper insight into what this Eclipse means for you, find the house in your birth chart that contains zero degree of Gemini. The areas of life signified by that house are where you’re invited to: release the past to clear space for a new beginning; transform old patterns of thought and open your mind to liberating new perceptions; set your intentions and plant seeds for a project that will emerge over the next 19 years.
- Emily Trinkaus
dear friends — As of May 15, Venus is Retrograde, and in case you missed it, you’ll want to read all about it on my other blog, Reviving Venus. And, my Venus Retro talk, Renewing Love and Pleasure, is now available here.
