There's a solar eclipse tonight in the sign Taurus. I was doing my Planet Waves FM webcast about the eclipse last night (which also includes a reading about the young women who escaped captivity in Cleveland Monday) and I started to wonder when was the last solar eclipse in Taurus.
Eclipses move in an approximately nine-year cycle, following these things called the lunar nodes. Solar eclipses should follow the nodes, but sometimes they skip signs. I've seen this twice before. By my reckoning (using this reliable tool programmed by my friend Tracy), when the lunar nodes (which travel as an axis) passed through Taurus and Scorpio in the early 2000s, there were no solar eclipses in Taurus.
Therefore, the most recent solar eclipse we experienced in Taurus was during the prior cycle, on April 29, 1995. There also was a solar eclipse in Taurus in the same degree as the one that happens later Thursday on May 10, 1994.
Gee, that was 19 years ago. Why is this delay significant? Eclipses represent an evolutionary process, helping us move from one place to another. They are the most dependable events for helping us shift to continuity, let go of past habits and attachments and enter new territory.
When a type of eclipse has skipped a sign, it suggests there's been a kind of delay or pause in the evolutionary process in the area of our lives that sign represents. It might mean "stuck" and it might mean "extra long gestation process" on a particular theme. Further, this suggests we have some catching up to do, with which we'll have some help from tonight's significantly potent Taurus New Moon eclipse (exact Thursday, May 9 at 8:28pm EDT).
This eclipse is conjunct two asteroids, to the degree: Pallas Athene and Lilith. Both Taurus and Pallas Athene are exemplary at maintaining appearances. They can create an exterior that's impeccable, and often necessary for many kinds of social situations. Lilith, the 'original woman' from Medieval mythology, is what exists beneath that appearance. I read Lilith as "the woman within", the one who won't be subjugated by expectations or social circumstances.
Opposite the eclipses is Psyche in Scorpio—another image of what is under the surface: deep motives, and an element of pain, which emerges from a crisis of faith. Psyche asks the questions about how we could be loved, and whether we're worthy of it. That's not a statement but rather a question to resolve.
To one side of the eclipses there are squares coming from Diana and Icarus. There's an element of protection (Diana, goddess of the hunt, who stands guard over young women) and an impulse to escape (Icarus, the guy caught in the maze who flew too close to the Sun).
To the other side of the eclipses is Dionysus, one of the most important mythological figures in all of ancient Greek lore. He's described as the god of the grape harvest, of wine and of ritual madness and ecstasy. He represents another side of the impulse to escape—from the bonds of rationality.
I think the core aspect among these asteroids is Dionysus square Pallas: the inner impulse to liberate and shed the thick armor of personality, and Pallas, who in many ways embodies that armor (in which she was born). There is tension in this square, and it's being emphasized by the eclipse (all of these aspects are within a one-degree orb of the eclipse).
The theme is that something in you wants to burst free. It's not satisfied to live for appearances, for how proper you are, how predictable, how willing to subvert your own natural desires. This has been going on for a while, as if it's been gradually building. You may think it's merely an impulse to escape. I would say it's an impulse to evolve, to make contact with the inner person you contain and allow him or her to have a voice, to experience their feelings and to have a place in the world.
Yes, other people will have to deal with it, but in fact, they always do.
This sensation might come with the feeling of bursting free, though it's not a matter of all or nothing as it is one of taking sincere steps, which include taking the risk of letting people know who you are and how you feel. Remind yourself that you have nobody to impress; you're living your life and it's not for anyone else to tell you whether that's right or wrong, nor for you to judge yourself based on what someone else might think.
If events conspire to make that happen a little faster than you might have expected (which can happen where there's been a long delay, or when you've never tried something you really want), I suggest you go with the flow of the cosmos. She has you held in her wisdom, and knows that you were born to love and live as you choose.
Other factors in this eclipse suggest that potent spiritual forces are at work to help us get where we want and need to be. Offer your cooperation and they will return the favor.
