There are four to seven eclipses of several varieties every year, and while each has their own meaning, they all share a sentiment in common…
They herald change.
Monday evening marked the beginning of a period from November 30th to December 14th during which two eclipses will come to pass.
The more we’ve retreated inwards, the less connected we’ve become to the cycles and events of the galaxy, the sky, and the great energy field that’s all around us.
Being able to connect to the expansive openness and huge, lumbering, and interconnected movements of the universe is like a muscle – and most of us are busy with practical matters, exercising our retirement-account-muscles and our meal-planning-with-three-children strength.
But let’s use this unique cascade of happenings, in what is certainly a year like no other, as a chance to reconnect with the world that houses us all and understand its cosmic rumblings.
Because it’s certainly trying to tell us something, and in a year as fraught with pain, miscommunication, and outright villainy, it’s our absolute responsibility to maintain our own spiritual hygiene.
Starting with what happened on Monday night…
The Penumbral Lunar Eclipse in Gemini
A lunar eclipse occurs when the Sun and the Moon are on exactly opposite sides of the Earth. The shadow of the Earth falls across the Moon, blocking illumination.
A penumbral lunar eclipse, which is harder to see than a partial or total lunar eclipse, means that it’s the outer rather than inner shadow of the Earth that’s blocking the Moon.
There are a few significant astrological moments involved in such a lunar eclipse…
The first is that all eclipses must occur during a full moon. A full moon marks the end of the lunar cycle, the rising action that culminates in climax, and the beginning of a new cycle. Although popular literature and cultural references tend to cast the full moon as a harbinger of all kinds of creepy goings-on, it is true that it’s connected to our spiritual cycles.
A full moon is a chance to reflect on who you were and how you showed up during the last cycle, and make a decision about what you’ll carry with you into the next lunar cycle.
We know that there is a full moon every 29.5 days. Just about once a month, our emotional journeys crescendo and are reborn.
When coupled with the resonance of change brought on by a penumbral lunar eclipse, which occurs with unmeasured infrequency at somewhere between 0 and 9 times ever 100 years, a sense of completion reverberates from this astrological event.
What kind of completion? Where are we looking to trim the fat off of our lives?
Well, that depends on which axis is being activated…
November 2020 – December 2020 Gemini-Sagittarius Axis
Lunar Nodes are places where the Moon crosses the Sun’s path. On May 5th of this year, the North Node moved into Gemini while the South Node moved into Sagittarius, and we’ll stay traveling on this axis until January of 2022.
This lunar eclipse is in Gemini – in two weeks, the solar eclipse will be in Sagittarius.
Think about the themes that Gemini and Sagittarius have in common – travel, education, wisdom, communication, language, adventure. When we moved into this axis in May, recall how many of those themes mutated and showed up differently than they had.
We became isolated, unable to travel, forced to revolutionize our learning systems, and we had to find new and efficient ways to communicate with people we’d never had to consider before – our bosses, coworkers, family members, distanced friends.
Because the moon governs the subconscious, and our subconscious is teeming with changes related to Gemini and Sagittarius threads, these two eclipses will close one loop and open another.
Around and after the lunar eclipse, you’ll likely find yourself beset by information. That the lunar eclipse is in Gemini suggests there will be finer details coming to light that you’ll have to choose how to handle.
This lunar eclipse will be about three times more charged with energy than the average, and so will require our careful deliberation about how we communicate and to what end.
Especially as regards letting go of things that have stymied us since the last lunar eclipse…
Try asking yourself…
What do you know now that you didn’t know then? What has held you back from reaching your goals this year that’s within your power to change? How can you improve the way you communicate your thoughts, ideas, and feelings?
The Solar Eclipse in Sagittarius
In the same way that lunar eclipses can only occur on a full moon, solar eclipses can only occur on a new moon.
On December 14th, there will be a solar eclipse on the new moon in Sagittarius.
That means you’ve got spiritual homework.
Between now and the solar eclipse, you’ll have to do some work in your life garden. What have you allowed to bloom this year? What have you fed? What’s withering? Where are your weeds cropping up?
What needs to be pulled out and trashed so that as the lunar eclipse harkens an ending, the solar eclipse beckons a beginning?
The New Year is upon us (somehow), and this is the perfect time to work on your spiritual hygiene.