Eclipses are truly one of the more spectacular astronomical events. The interplay between sun, moon and planet earth has us turning our eyes skyward to watch a magnificent heavenly performance.
The interchange between these three players causes two types of eclipses: solar and lunar.
A solar eclipse occurs when the moon moves in front of our vision of the sun and in the case of a total solar eclipse; the sun becomes completely blocked from sight by the moon. At these times the countries, which fall in the path of the total solar eclipse, experience an eerie type of darkness during the middle of the day. It can be well understood why the ancients fled in terror when a total solar eclipse occurred unannounced – they could easily have believed it was the end of the world. In Hindu tradition, the theory was that the dragon head of Rahu would swallow the sun. It would then pass through his body and through to the other end when once again the sun became visible (to the great reliefof all watching).
Total solar eclipses, as seen from any one location on the planet, are a very rare occurrence. It can be expected that Melbourne Australia, for example, will only ever experience a total solar eclipse every four hundred years. Indeed in the past eighty years, there have only been three total solar eclipses visible anywhere in Australia. In 1974 the south west corner of Western Australia was in the path of a total solar eclipse. A large area of the southern half of Victoria witnessed a total solar eclipse in October 1976 and the last one was in December 2002 which covered just a twenty kilometre wide path over Ceduna in South Australia. The next total solar eclipse over our continent will occur in November 2012 over the top end of Queensland. But the truly “big one” that astronomers and astrologers are keenly awaiting is a total solar eclipse which will move right across Australia, starting in the Kimberleys in Western Australia going right through the centre of the continent and finally passing over Sydney. This will happen in July 2028.
Lunar eclipses happen when the earth’s shadow gets in the way of sun’s light shining on the full face of the moon. Unlike total solar eclipses, a total lunar eclipse can be seen from anywhere in the world provided the moon has risen above the horizon. So it ispossible that most of us will be able to view a number of total lunar eclipses in our lifetime but, if we are lucky, possibly only one total solar eclipse. This was the case for the ancients as well, and the reason why if they were in the path of a total solar eclipse, they assumed the end of the world had come. Whilst total lunar eclipses were more frequently able to be viewed, nevertheless for the ancients at least, the message was still dire. In the primeval cultures, the moon was the goddess of life. Her monthly cycles were revered and many rituals were determined by her phase. To witness the goddess slowly darkening was a sign that all was not well. The last two total lunar eclipses,visible from almost everywhere in Australia, were on28 August 2007 and 11 December 2011.
The astronomy of an eclipse can be explained this way. If we were to stand in outer space above our planet earth, we could watch the moon’s monthly orbit around our planet. At some point in that cycle we would see that the earth, moon and sun are all directly lined up. If you were then to go and stand somewhere in outer space and observe the moon’s monthly rotation from a side view, it would be noted that the line up is not always exact. The moon’s orbit around the earth is on an incline of approximately five degrees. Therefore one heavenly body would appear to be higher or lower than the others. It is only when the three are in line horizontally on the orbital path, that we have the beginnings of an eclipse. The other factor that needs to be in play for a solar eclipse is that the sun and moon are exactly together on the orbital path AND exactly on what is called the nodes of the moon. And for a lunar eclipse to occur, we need the sun on one of the nodes and the moon on the other.
So what are the nodes of the moon?
We are getting rather technical here, but the nodes of the moon are formed when the five degree incline of the moon’s orbital path crosses the more evenly flat lined orbital path of the earth around the sun. Even more technical, when the moon is travelling across earth’s orbital path and heading into a lower position than earth – we call that point of connection the south node. When the moon moves over the earth’s orbital path and heads up higher than earth’s orbital path, we call that the north node.
The lunar nodes have a cycle of their own. They are not static but move at an approximate rate of nineteen months highlighting one sign in the zodiac at a time. Therefore we can say that the south node might be in the area of the heavens ruled by Aries which would mean the north node would be in its opposite sign of Libra – as the south and north nodes are always opposing each other. One last technical note: the nodes of the moon by nature move in an anticlockwise direction meaning after the south node leaves the area of the heavens ruled by Aries it will move into the territory of Pisces.
Let’s put all this into the framework of 2013.
During this year there will be an annular solar eclipse, meaning that strictly speaking we have a total eclipse but because of the moon’s distance from the earth, we will see considerable sunlight surrounding the moon’s shadow. This will happen on 10 May, 2013. The path for this particular solar eclipse will begin in outback Australia and gain intensity once it has passed the Solomon Islands. Nauru is the closest island to the epicentre of the eclipse; otherwise the actual eclipse point is well into the Pacific Ocean. Again it will hardly register on the Australian landmass.
Eclipses come in pairs. Because the moon moves faster than the sun, it will reach the opposite node on the orbital path before the sun has had time to move away from its nodal position. So in the case of the annular solar eclipse on 10 May we will actually see two related lunar eclipses. These occur on 25 April and 25 May – neither are total eclipses.
Our second set of eclipses for the year sees another partial lunar eclipse on 18 October followed by a total solar eclipse on 3 November. This time the total solar eclipse will be highly visible from the northern Atlantic Ocean east of Florida, crossing the Atlantic and then onto Africa, being visible south of Ivory Coast and Ghana.
In effect, we have two eclipse seasons in 2013 – the first from mid April to end May and the second from mid October to mid November. Physically speaking none of the eclipses for 2013 will be visible in any real way in Australia. But that is physically speaking. Eclipses are not just heavenly light shows. As with the premise “as above, so below” – eclipses can definitely have an effect on the human psyche – emotionally and/or spiritually.
So in the words of Professional Julius Sumner Miller: “how is it so?” Let’s go back to the concept of the nodes of the moon, which are essentially involved in any eclipse.
From an astrological point of view, the moon represents human personality traits as mothering, nurturing, protection, empathy and sensitivity. Deeper than that though, she represents our emotional needs and the means by which we find emotional security. Evolutionary astrologers will go so far as to say that the moon, rather than the sun, represents our ego, for without a good solid emotional basea person cannot go on and live out their life’s vocation. Significantly, the moon also represents the past. Those who are ruled by the moon spend much of their time longing for the past or are rooted in the past and find it difficult to move forward;in some cases these people are unable to envisage a future for themselves.
When we talk of the past in relation to the moon, we don’t only mean the most recent past, as in this lifetime’s days gone by, but rather the past of many lifetimes. At this point we go further and introduce the concept of reincarnation and with that the added concept of karma. This is not necessarily a leap forward in thinking but again closely tied in with the moon and its nodes. Steven Forrest, author of “Yesterday’s Sky”,writes of the south node:
“What survives the trauma of death and rebirth is not our factual memory – not our ‘Mercury memory’ so to speak – it is our emotional memory: the ‘Moon memory’. We carry forward an underlying mood or attitude from the past. Beyond that, at best we recall only fragmentary impressions of names, details, history. The Moon carries the emotional memory intact, as perfect as a butterfly encased in glass. The heart’s memory is stronger than death, the mind’s memory is not.
The south node primarily represents unresolved wounds, tragedies, limitations, and failures from the past that potentially interfere with our ability to fulfil our soul-contract in this lifetime”
Reincarnation can also be viewed as a personally intrinsic habitual pattern of expression unique to each of us. For the most part we are not aware of these “habits”, they are so ingrained in our psyche or subconscious that we simply ‘are” these habits. For example, you may know someone is petrified of spiders or someone who has a need to play dare-devil and try out every conceivable death defying feat. These personality traits are part of the person’s makeup. Some karmic habits are less obvious, we may not even beaware of some of our fears except at times when they are activated and then we become surprised by our lack of action due to a hesitancy, which we have no understanding of the origin.
Eclipses, which as we have already noted are directly tied into the moon’s nodes, are one of those times when our subconscious fears are aroused. The sun and moon in unison at a new moon or solar eclipse or in opposition at a lunar eclipse, causes a stirring in the psyche and in Steven’s words “unresolved wounds, tragedies, limitations, and failures from the past” seem to come to the forefront of consciousness.
Looking forward to the eclipse seasons for 2013, we see that the period of time in which our subconscious unresolved fears might become more dominant in our everyday thoughts will be around mid April to end May and from mid October to mid November. This will be more particular for some than others.
We need to go back to being technical for a moment to pinpoint those who might be more susceptible to these inner stirrings. The first lunar eclipse of 25 April 2013 will fall across the Taurus/Scorpio axis(sun in Taurus and moon in Scorpio) at five degrees and forty six minutes. Those who have planets or natal chart angles around those degrees will be under the spotlight around the time of this first eclipse of this season. The solar eclipse of 10 May falls in Taurus (sun moon conjunction) at nineteen degrees and thirty-one minutes. And the third eclipse of this season, another lunar version will occur on 25 May this time across the Gemini/Sagittarius axis (sun in Gemini and moon in Sagittarius) at four degrees and eight minutes. That’s the technical take on the situation.
For those less interested in the precise details, what you really need to know is: if you have anything sitting in your natal chart around 6° and or 20° Taurus, Leo, Scorpio or Aquarius OR anything around the early degrees of Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius or Pisces – then the first eclipse season of the year will be activating your subconscious so that you may be influenced in your thinking or decision making bythose hidden fears or wounds or failures.
In the second eclipse season, we have a lunar eclipse on 18 October across the Aries/Libra axis (moon in Aries and sun in Libra) at twenty five degrees and forty five minutes and then on 3 November we have a total solar eclipse at eleven degrees and sixteen minutes of Scorpio. Again if you have any planets around 26° of Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn OR any planets or angles at 11° of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio or Aquarius then you will once again be under the spotlight. From the above we can see that our “fixed” signs of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius are particularly predisposed to the influences of the 2013 eclipses.
There is one other thing we need to take into consideration here: the influence of an eclipse doesn’t always start and stop on the day of the actual event. The energies of an eclipse can linger for some time. Some astrologers will look to the transits of Mars over the eclipse degrees as an “activator” (Mars being the planet of action) for eclipse responses. For those under the influence of the first lunar eclipse of 25 April: look to 7 September. The solar eclipse of 10 May maybe activated on 29 September. The lunar eclipse of 25 May might be stirred up shortly afterwards on 7 June. Moving onto the second season: the lunar eclipse of 18 October will not really come into effect until the second week of February 2014 and the total solar eclipse of 3 November will play out around 15 August. From these dates you can see that eclipses are not events that make an impact immediately in your life. What we are really dealing with here is a date when the subconscious is initially stirred and then a period of time when its messages filter through to the conscious so we might hear those messages and work with them.
The next question you might be asking, especially if you do have planets and or angles at any of the eclipse degrees, is what sorts of fears, wounds, failures or past life memories will arise. Well that will all depend on what planet or angle is triggered. The strongest reactions will be if your moon or Pluto is affected. This is because the moon holds our past life memories (as we have already discussed) and Pluto because it is the indicator of our soul’s intent for this lifetime. If either of these two are in the way of the eclipses for you in 2013then it is on the cards that the triggers will come from the subconscious, meaning there will be niggling doubts or questions over something or someone. You won’t be able to put your finger on it specifically but you will feel uncomfortable until such time as you “sit with it” long enough to understand what your psyche is saying. At the time of the Mars transit, the subconscious will work with the physical world to bring about an event that will show you specifically what the issue was and what to do about it.
After the moon and Pluto, the remaining personal planets (sun, Mercury, Venus and Mars) and the angles of the chart are the more potent trigger points. Say for instance that one of the eclipses for 2013 falls on your sun,then you might expect that issues around your sense of self - who you think you are - might arise. You may be challenged in a particular way that you have not experienced before and you find you don’t have the capacity to withstand the challenge, as a result you are left feeling a little disheartened; your ego may suffer. Depending on the strength of the challenge, you may even start questioning yourself on a range of issues. Should Mercury be triggered then you question your level of intelligence, should Venus be challenged then you look at what brings you joy and happiness or more specifically does your present relationship bring you joy and happiness? If Mars is under the spotlight by the eclipse thenthe suggestion is usually that you take up some sort of physical activity to release the build up of energy that comes with such a meeting point. The other effect of Mars being provoked by an eclipse is that you find yourself with a new sense of courage or adventure that will see you take risks, do something you would previously have been too frightened to tackle.
There is, of course, the possibility that nothing will happen. Effects from any activation to natal planets or angles are always dependant on you. If you are not “ready”, as in your life’s journey is not at a point where the upcoming lessons can be understood or be of benefit, then the triggering to your birth chart will simply pass by.
On the other hand if you find yourself weighed down heavily by the effects, the advice is always to seek out a professional, qualified therapist to help you work through the issues. Remember many of these issues could be confusing because they won’t always stem from known facts. It is the subconscious that is roused by the transit of an eclipse over your birth chart.