Sunday’s eclipse New Moon is edgy. We’re at a threshold, but it’s tricky to figure out which way we’re facing.
Astrologer Chris Brennan speaks of eclipses as great beginnings and great endings. This time, we might not be clear which is which.
This is a New Moon, a time of beginnings. Each lunar month, we return to this dark Moon phase when seeds are planted and a new cycle begins.
Yet this New Moon is a solar eclipse, when the Moon becomes visible because she blocks the light of the Sun. Now our star’s light is diminished. The world looks weird, the quality of light mysterious and uncanny.
Although this eclipse will only be visible in the far south: Antarctica, New Zealand, Australia, and islands in the South Pacific, astrologically, it affects us all.
It’s a South Node eclipse, the Sun and Moon conjunct the Moon’s South Node. This is the tail of the dragon, the place we’re called to let go.
There are many ways to release things. We may complete something or decide something no longer serves us (whether it’s complete or not). We might share what we have, giving from abundance, or because we can help.
Sometimes, we lose something because its own process or time is complete. A place, a project, a companion, a person may reach the end of their time and leave us, whether we’re ready or not. These losses feel more difficult, especially in this modern world.
Modern life is very oriented to acquisition. Success means having more. Having it all. There’s a sense in contemporary life that holding on, sticking with, not letting go, are all better choices than what we call giving in or giving up.
But we can’t always have more. And the more we’re in a “wanting” place, the more uncomfortable this New Moon eclipse might feel.
The Nodes of the Moon are associated with our life path and our karma, which makes the South Node a place for working out karma, another form of release.
Here, it’s important to understand we in our individual lives have access to more than personal karma. We participate in, and sometimes have opportunities to release, karma associated with family lineages, or our societies and traditions (those we live in now and ancestral).
We also find ourselves at the end, the very end, of the sign of Virgo and the season of summer (in the Northern Hemisphere).
The last degree of any sign is an intense place. At the end of Virgo, we’re called to recognize and witness endings.
Virgo is the mutable Earth sign. Virgo focuses on the details of life that keep everything going. This is a realistic sign. Here we understand we’re here to nurture new growing things, but also need to let them go. Virgo understands cycles.
This New Moon eclipse at the end of Virgo is an inflection point of the year. This is the autumn equinox, the end of our seasons of growth, turning toward times for harvest and preparing for winter.
In fact, the equinox falls within this New Moon phase, on September 22, when the Sun enters Libra. This year, the Sun joins Mercury and the Moon, all three in Libra’s first decan.
First, the eclipse New Moon, though.
This New Moon is not alone. She is tightly woven into the big change energies driving this time we’re living in.
Check the charts I’ve included with my posts for this New Moon. Along with the Placidus and Whole Sign versions, there’s one showing only the aspects for the New Moon itself.
The New Moon eclipse is at the base of Kite pattern, in which we see an opposition to the New Moon, trines to the New Moon, and sextiles connecting the planets at the top of the Kite.
This is a dynamic balance, in which the polarity of the opposition is supported by the trines and sextiles around it. With the sign placements and the eclipse, we can see this pattern as one of dynamic change, or dynamic transition.
At any New Moon eclipse, there will be some kind of opposition to the Node on the other side of the eclipse. In this case, the opposition is a bit too wide to count (which is why this is a partial and not total eclipse).
The South Node in Virgo is in a sign-based conjunction with the New Moon, as the North Node in Pisces is in a sign-based opposition, not degree-based ones.
The Rising Moon Astrology Podcast is available on an expanding number of sites including Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Podbean, Castbox, TuneIn, Podtail, TuneIn and Pocket Casts. Listen in on your favorite and please leave a review.
You can always list here: Rising Moon RSS Feed
The powerful opposition is to Saturn and Neptune. The trines are to Pluto and Uranus. The sextiles link up the outer planet change agents. The connections here are complex and echo the ending/beginning threshold we’re sitting on.
Saturn and Neptune remain at the boundary between Pisces and Aries, the most dramatic and consequential threshold in the zodiac. Both Saturn and Neptune are retrograde.
Saturn has reentered Pisces and forms the tightest aspect to the New Moon. The end of Pisces is a place of complete dissolution and also union, a place where we encounter All that Is. Saturn, though, is the lord of boundaries, of saying no, not today, of asking for detailed plans before doing anything. This one placement is a confusing threshold all by itself.
Neptune remains in Aries, barely, and will be retrograding back into Pisces. Since Neptune loves Pisces, we might see this retrograde as an ocean goddess stepping onto Aries’ fiery shore and saying, ohhh, no, I don’t think so.
Yet we know Neptune must inevitably return to Aries. What will she explore as she dives back into the cosmic waters? Having seen the Aries shore, what will she bring back from her last visit?
This New Moon opposition to Saturn and Neptune deepens our sense that while we’re clearly at a threshold, we’re not certain, in this moment, which way we’re facing.
Pluto and Uranus are also both retrograde.
Pluto, at this point, is fully committed to Aquarius, to the cerebral heights of principle and idea and commitment that fixed Air represents. For Pluto, this is one of many retrogrades and represents more about Pluto’s depth of excavation and examination.
Pluto spends enough time retrograde to revisit every degree of the zodiac. When Pluto transits over planets and points in our birth charts, we feel intense scrutiny and sometimes pressure to change. The trine to the New Moon eclipse is a more supportive aspect, but still brings Plutonian focus.
Uranus’ retrograde is their first since their return to Gemini, making the eclipse a consequential time for this planet of dramatic change and revolution. They will revisit Taurus. Again, we see the theme of unfinished business.
All these aspects and planets and changes in direction make this an especially important and fruitful time to compare the eclipse chart with your birth chart. If the eclipse itself or any of the planets or points involved aspect important spots in your chart, you will feel this liminal energy more strongly.
Keep in mind eclipses are not good times for doing a thing. Eclipses are times to observe, explore, journal, reflect, and abide.
This is true for every eclipse, but is worth emphasizing now because the levels of uncertainty for this particular eclipse are likely to feel higher than usual, or if you prefer, deeper than usual, or foggier, or more confusing.
Uncertainty is not the most comfortable place for most of us, most of the time.
This eclipse invites us into a space where we can practice being with what is ending and what is beginning. We can embrace uncertainty as an important part of change. We can understand that letting go is equally as important as bringing in.
At this eclipse New Moon, we open our gaze, soften our focus, and stay with whatever shows up.
