Some thoughts on the power of eclipses – and a personal tale…

The Virgo/Pisces eclipse season began in mid-September 2015 with a partial solar eclipse at 20 degrees Virgo. It concludes at the end of February 2017, including four attendant lunar eclipses, with the last of four solar eclipses taking place at 8 degrees Pisces. The second solar eclipse of this season, a total solar eclipse at 19 degrees Pisces, takes place next week on 9th March 2016.

Excitement is already mounting, since eclipses tend to produce “power surges” and crises of various kinds in our collective life. For example, this preceding week we have two major threats building up: North Korea threatening a pre-emptive nuclear strike in response to provocation of an unspecified nature, and the threat in the USA of Donald Trump sweeping his way to success in the battle to be the Republican party’s nominee to fight the USA’s presidential election in November 2016.

And what of their impact on our personal lives? How does that work? What should we expect from the September 2015 – February 2017 season of eclipses?

Research Revelations

My major objective in conducting research into The Moon’s Nodes in Action was to put actual flesh on the bones of all the theoretical stuff I had been reading about the Moon’s Nodes and eclipses over a period of many years. I wanted to find out whether the theory stood up in practice, arriving at my research conclusions via detailed study of  six people’s lives.

Three of the participants were ‘ordinary’ citizens: Marc, Andrew and Anna, and three were famous: Mary Shelley in relation to  her authorship of  Frankenstein on her first Nodal Return; Princess Diana of the UK and her untimely death on her second Nodal Return; and astronaut John Glenn’s return to space, in his 70s, two whole Nodal Returns after his first space trip. Honouring the Sun/Moon link I chose three women and three men – viewed from planet Earth at solar eclipse times, the Sun and Moon are of equal size and complementary symbolic significance…

Drawing together all the research threads by way of conclusion, I had this to say about eclipses:

I’m quite clear now, as the Nodal axis regresses through the chart, identifying via the highlighted houses the overall territory up for change, that the transiting eclipses function as “battery chargers”, gradually building up the energies of the person’s life in preparation to receive major change.

An image comes to mind here from the female menstrual cycle, of the egg gradually being primed and prepared until it is at its maximum point of readiness to receive the male sperm, conceive and begin new life. I think the eclipses begin their work of charging-up as soon as the relevant eclipse season begins, which may be as long as eighteen months before the turning point in the person’s life appears. (i)

The Metonic cycle – and a personal tale

One of the many fascinations of the study of eclipses is the fact of their return cycle every nineteen years. The so-called Metonic cycle of 19-year intervals consists of an eclipse in approximately the same degree of the zodiac on the same date 19 years later. I am writing this article, you will be interested to hear, during the Virgo/Pisces eclipse season nineteen years after events described in the following account!

This personal tale took place during the Virgo/Pisces eclipse season of Spring 1997-Autumn 1998, during the second and third years of my commuting from Glasgow to London from 1995-8 to complete studies with Liz Geene and the late Charles Harvey at the Centre for Psychological Astrology. (As well as gaining the Diploma, I earned the title “The Flying Scot!)

In the Spring of 1997 I decided to hire an office away from home to create peace and space, mainly to write the Diploma thesis. The research topic, I had decided by then, was to be The Moon’s Nodes in Action. Having the North Node exactly conjunct my MC had led to fascination with this striking link, pretty early on in my astrological studies…

Anne W’s Horoscope

In my natal horoscope, the  Ascendant/Descendant axis is 9 degrees Virgo/Pisces. Urania, the asteroid of astrology, is at 19 degrees Virgo in the First House.

The Virgo/Pisces eclipse season started on 9 March 1997 with a total solar eclipse at 18.5 Pisces, opposite Urania, squaring Mary Shelley’s and Marc’s North Nodes at 19 and 21 Gemini respectively. It was at this time that I chose Marc as a main case study subject along with Mary Shelley.

On Friday 7 March 1997 I saw an  office which I decided on 10 March to rent, paying for it for a year in advance from an insurance policy I had taken out 18 years previously. At that time, I had a feeling I might need money for a future adventure of some kind – long before I knew anything about either astrology or the 18-year Nodal cycle. My bank manager, of course, thought then that I was mad….

The middle period of that eclipse season saw me well settled into the thesis writing as the 9 Virgo eclipse fell exactly on my Ascendant in the Autumn of 1997. The following year, the day before the total solar eclipse (7 deg 55 min Pisces) of February 26 1998 fell on the Sixth House side of my Descendant, I had a call from my landlords saying they needed to know by the next day whether I was going to renew my lease, which ran out on 9 May 1998, since the building was being sold. I decided to renew for 6 months and sent my rent cheque off just before the lunar eclipse on 13 March 1998 at 22 Virgo.

The lease ran out on 7 November 1998: the day I graduated with my Diploma from the Centre for Psychological Astrology!

General points to observe

Individual eclipses are important, and can be viewed as progressive stages of an unfolding process. However, my research and subsequent astrology practice as well as personal observation has demonstrated that one should take note of the whole eclipse season of eighteen months, applying this to whatever pair of houses the Moon’s Nodes and eclipses (both solar and lunar) are moving through by retrograde motion. You should also take careful note of those planets/Angles/asteroids (if you use them) which are being triggered.

It is also very valuable, in gaining perspective, to go back to the previous eclipse season nineteen years previously, to reflect on the changes brought then and how they may connect to what is coming up this time around.

The more planets Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and especially Pluto are involved in the eclipse dance, the more life-changing are the outcomes likely to be. As Alexander Ruperti wisely observed in his wonderful Cycles of Becoming:

“Eclipses simply measure intense confrontations with all those things in human nature which hinder spiritual progress by keeping one in a rut, albeit a comfortable and happy rut. They are opportunities to use the past and the present – all that one has previously acquired, as well as where he stands at a given moment – in order to build a more creative future. Since they always challenge an individual to discard all limiting influences and to start something new, they may be stressful times.”(ii)

As always, I am interested in your feedback from YOUR experiences. I have another striking eclipse story to tell…but tomorrow, as they say, is another day…

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ENDNOTES

(i) The Moon’s Nodes in Action by Anne Whitaker (Writing from the 12th House e-publication 2015) p 120

(ii) Cycles of Becoming by Alexander Ruperti,CRCS 2005, quoted in The Moon’s Nodes in Action, p 7

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I am offering this research study, featured in 2015 on www.astro.com, as a FREE download to any student or teacher of astrology who is interested in learning more about a fascinating topic.

Download The Moon’s Nodes in Action now [3.27 MB PDF]

e-publication by co-occurrence

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1300 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2016
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

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