We are swiftly closing in on the second eclipse of this season’s pair: a partial solar eclipse with the Aries New Moon on Saturday, March 29. The eclipse peaks at 6:47 am EDT, with the New Moon exact at 6:57 am EDT. How is your “Eclipse Season” going so far?
Eclipses are disruptions in our perception of the typical, regularly scheduled New Moon and Full Moon experience. When we can see them, we can literally watch the disruption.
Symbolically, they represent potential energetic disruptions or intensifications: something out of the ordinary happening in our lives. When the unusual occurs — when circumstances are more intense or don’t make sense — we’re required to step up and step out of our typical responses. (See “life in the U.S.” for a massive example…*cough*)
Eclipses offer an enhanced opportunity to notice the flow of energy and events, assess how our own desires and intentions line up with them, and make adjustments to our approach. “Making adjustments” implies releasing attachment to one way of doing things so that a more appropriate, effective, or aligned action can be taken.
Releasing attachments is not always easy or comfortable.
Behind our choice of actions is the attitude from which we view the world, and view our personal experience within it. Releasing attachments to old attitudes is one of the simplest — and, I think, sometimes one of the hardest — parts of change.
I mention all of this because Saturday’s New Moon and partial solar eclipse is taking place at 9+ degrees Aries, officially known as the 10th degree of Aries. In his book An Astrological Mandala, Dane Rudhyar connects the following channeled symbol to this degree:
“A teacher gives new symbolic forms to traditional images.”
He adds the keyphrase, “Revision of attitude at the beginning of a new cycle of experience.”
And further into the expanded notes on the symbol, Rudhyar writes, “…there arises in the consciousness a desire to reformulate at a new level much that had been taken for granted because it indeed originally had been an evolutionary necessity.”
My understanding of what he means is that we naturally attach certain emotions to our experience, and we classify these emotions and experiences with specific meanings. These meanings serve us well for a time; they help us to move through our painful experiences as well as our joyful experiences in a way that makes sense to us. Indeed, it may have been the only way for us to continue thriving (or simply surviving) at that time.
Eventually, though, we may come to new insights about life, growth, healing, our role in shaping our experience and the roles of others, and the context of it all.
The “meaning” attached an experience may come into question, or may naturally evolve, as your insight and experience grows. The experience is still what it was, but what it symbolizes in the continually expanding story of your life may shift.
Saturday’s eclipse taking place at this particular degree of Aries feels like a call to action of a specific kind. It’s not simply a reminder to do what you love to do, or to “look where you want to be” like a surfer looking ahead through a barrel wave (both standard pieces of my guidance for any eclipse).
This eclipse is an opportunity to adjust and revise your attitude toward what you want — and let your actions follow from there as this new cycle begins.
As a reminder: Venus stationed retrograde on March 1 less than two degrees from where this eclipse is occurring. Mercury stationed retrograde on March 15 about half a degree from this eclipse (and the day after the first eclipse in this pair). These events are all connected, doing their best to focus our attention.
Mercury describes our mental focus and how we’re thinking; Venus describes our emotional-relational focus and how we’re feeling. How we think and how we feel essentially combine to become this thing we call “attitude.”
What are you being asked to remember, review, reconsider, and understand better about your thought processes and your emotional reactions? How about the way you communicate, or how you attract friends and maintain those friendships?
What sorts of “revision of attitude” are these retrogrades and this eclipse asking you to engage with at the start of this new cycle of experience?
If you’re having trouble identifying the trail, try considering what came into your attention on March 1 and March 14-15. You might also think back to the Oct. 2 eclipse this past fall, which occurred at 10+ Libra (opposite this weekend’s eclipse, and opposite this month’s Venus and Mercury retrograde stations), as it may offer a mirror of sorts.
Is there a detectable pattern or progression?
If not, don’t get hung up on it. Much could shift between now and the weekend.
The main idea is to notice what becomes prominent in your life, and to allow it some space so you can see it clearly. That will help inform you as you consider your intentions for the next six to twelve months and the ways you can put some energy toward them over the next several days. Even seemingly small actions can be meaningful during eclipses.
I’m hoping to touch on the other interesting facets of this eclipse chart in some brief form over the next few days. That said, I’ll be traveling, so…I may simply need to go with the flow and release my attachment to covering every detail. In the meantime, let me know what these eclipses are bringing up for you in the comments.
With love,
Amanda
P.S. If I can support you through the current changes and uncertainty with an astrological consultation or some soul work sessions, please get in touch. And if you enjoyed this article or found it helpful, you’re welcome to leave me a tip here as a form of energy exchange. Thank you for reading!
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