The Full Moon in Aquarius, which took place in mid-August, began a kind of astrological Olympics. Late August through the end of the summer is an adventure where a good few world records will be set. We might ask, though, before looking into the details of this sequence of events, how it is that the movements of the planets combine with consciousness and physical experience to create an effect.
Each time I describe one of these sequences of events, it’s as if the cosmos is spewing forth another totally unique pattern in the astrology, which we then get to navigate. This is true whether we’re aware of the astrological details or not. Yet we might also ask what result the awareness yields, and how that result happens.
The traditional (and newly revived, increasingly popular) approach of astrology is to predict an outcome. My approach to astrology is to describe the environment, which then becomes whatever we want it to become, or unwittingly choose: opportunity, creative fodder or an apparent source of chaos and crisis.
Our dominant, generic model of time proposes that one day is like another; that 4pm today is like 4pm tomorrow. The astrology model of time reveals that every day and indeed every moment are different. A constant stream of new patterns is rolling out of, well, out of something. Not only are no two the same, they are all so wildly different as to call for an entirely new approach to each.
There is an additional factor. Everyone has a natal chart. Each new pattern that comes along is plucking, stroking or knocking into each unique natal chart differently. The transits as they meet each natal chart form a unique pattern of what you might call interference. That pattern, mixed with consciousness, becomes what we experience.
Meta Landscape: the Eclipse Pattern
We are now in the midst of an eclipse pattern. Eclipse patterns happen twice a year, approximately every five-and-a-half months. They gradually drift earlier and earlier in the year, that is, each year they come about two weeks earlier. Said another way, eclipses move retrograde.
The Aquarius Full Moon this morning was listed by some sources as a very slight lunar eclipse. It was distinctive for other reasons, including a surge of energy through a long-standing pattern of planets: the Uranus-Eris conjunction in Aries, covered here many times, as well as Chiron, Jupiter and others. Lunation events—including eclipses and ordinary Full and New moons, power up the background, and in a sense bring it forward.
Then there’s a total eclipse of the Sun in Virgo on September 1, and an eclipse of the Moon in Pisces on September 16. This is an excellent opportunity for a review of what eclipses represent. I have four main properties that I’ve identified.
These properties are: 1. Concentration of experience; 2. Events seem karmic or predestined; 3. Discontinuity; 4. Critical transition or decision points.
Let’s take them one at a time, so we have a guide to the next month or so. Then I’ll add a fifth property that I’ve mentioned a number of times before.
The most notable effect of an eclipse phase is concentration of experience. A lot happens in a short time, and time becomes distorted, like it’s being run through a funnel or venturi. This works on an individual level and on a collective level. Time feels like it’s moving more briskly as an individual perception, and then at the same time, personal and world events arrive closer and closer together.
Events seem karmic or predestined. They may not be, but they certainly might feel that way. A lot of how that effect shapes up depends on your relationship to the ideas of karma and destiny—and remember, these things are ideas. However, this “fate effect” merely emphasizes the more valuable sense that decisions are more vital now. Smaller decisions mean more; larger decisions can have a much more vivid, lasting and sweeping impact on life. Pay attention for when you’re making a decision you don’t know you’re making.
Add some discontinuity. The world always seems to plow forward on its crazy way, and yet little seems to really change. Life is genuinely different as eclipses approach, and then never quite returns to normal. Instead, a new kind of normal takes over.
In the process of the parallel evolution of the planetary level and our individual lives, these events often represent a type of movement without which there would be very little progress at all. You might think of eclipses as opportunities to catch up with yourself.
So, a fourth characteristic is a distinct sense of critical transition. We move from one space of life into another. Personal relationships are particularly susceptible to shifts, emotional movement or rearrangement. The change can manifest as a deepening of stronger relationships, or shake-ups in weaker, less stable relationships, many of which are likely to change dramatically. Anything that’s not working with the process of our personal and collective evolution is subject to disruption, things that are working are subject to challenge, and their strength can be put to good use.
In all, given this environment, two things are necessary—pay attention and work with the process. This is good advice for life at any stage, but particularly during an eclipse, these two little points can get you a long way from feeling overwhelmed to a sense that you’re actually making some progress. Of course, with eclipses, it’s best to not judge progress in the moment. Wait till you have a longer view.
Let’s add a fifth property of eclipses, one that’s especially relevant now, during a presidential campaign that affects the whole world. That is what you might think of as an Aries Point-like effect, of the individual and the collective merging. Eclipses represent several different factors meeting in space and time. They are, in actual, scientific reality, an intersection of several dimensions.
The way that shakes out symbolically is that they can arrive with that feeling of world events seeming to be more personal and relevant, and a calling to take part in the wider world. Needless to say, this will be a very interesting few weeks in the presidential campaign.
Mercury Retrograde: The Truth Revealed
Mercury is about to be retrograde. On August 30, just prior to the September 1 eclipse, Mercury began its second retrograde of the year. This lasts through September 22, the Libra equinox.
The retrograde begins in the last degree of Virgo, one of two signs that Mercury rules. Mercury is unusually strong in Virgo; both the planet and the sign are related to what I would call applied intelligence. Virgo tends to represent mental patterns, and retrograde Mercury is going to provide many occasions to reconsider what we’ve been thinking.
I am being polite here. What I really mean is that we may see many, many things revealed as bullshit—as the insanity that they are, or as the blatant deceptions that they are. When Mercury stations retrograde or direct, stuff comes out. It’s like Mercury shakes the tree of the “sphere of all intelligence” and some fruit thumps to the ground, or leaves of information come a-fluttering.
This Mercury retrograde is distinctive because it takes place entirely in Virgo, and for two other reasons: it begins in the very last degree of Virgo, which describes high mental focus: a state of total concentration. This is an interesting image, though the thing to remember is that total concentration also needs a kind of polarity point of relaxation. So you might keep your favorite puzzle, sketchpad, kittycat or Pocket Rocket nearby for those planned distractions.
Then, this Mercury retrograde involves three conjunctions to Jupiter. Mercury is tapping into something much larger than itself. It’s a little like the individual computer meets the internet, or the mind meets a source of knowledge greater than itself. This is likely to add to the “truth comes out” process.
Another truly interesting distinction is that Jupiter is changing signs. It does so on September 9. That alone is noteworthy, and I’ll cover it as its own topic in the next section. One way to describe this is that Mercury is involved in the process of Jupiter changing signs.
For the past year, Jupiter has been in Virgo, a sign opposite one of the signs that it rules, Pisces. This has been about making connections.
Still, Jupiter can feel a little awkward or out of place in Virgo, which describes the relationships that it’s formed; yet the connection to Virgo. Virgo has had to stretch its capacity thanks to Jupiter’s presence. Now, Mercury making its double conjunction to Jupiter while in Virgo is about claiming that added knowledge, ability or flow.
Jupiter in Libra: Quest for Equilibrium
On September 9, Jupiter ingresses Libra, which happens every 12 years. This is like the Great Equinox in the Sky. Jupiter can have so much emphasis that it can feel like the Sun. It’s 1,200 times the size of the Earth and denser than Saturn. And it moves a lot more slowly than the Earth, taking a year to go through a sign rather than a month.
There’s something in astrology called the Aries Point. The Aries Point is the great granddaddy of where cultural meets individual—the crossroads of the personal and the political. It begins at the first degree of Aries: a degree that has all the power of a planet, even when empty. then it extends to the first degree of all the other cardinal signs. That includes Libra. Jupiter in this position will expand and enlarge something about experience. It’s as if the scale of everything will increase.
Or you might think of Jupiter in Virgo as having undergone an initiation of sorts, sorting out many matters of relationship, and then it enters Libra—the official sign of relationship.
Mars, Saturn and Neptune: Out of the Background
In the background of all the astrology I’ve described is a long, unusual aspect between Saturn (the planet of structure and of time) and Neptune (the planet of dissolving and of dreams). There is tension here between the seemingly real and the seemingly unreal.
Because Neptune is involved, the Saturn-Neptune square has had a tendency to disappear into the background of existence. It’s been this silent, subtle pressure, as if leaning in on everyone’s eardrums but just below the level of perception.
Between now and August 24, Mars will be passing through this square. Mars has spent all of this year in Scorpio and Sagittarius. It’s been collecting the energy of one sign associated with sex and another with religion.
Saturn in Sagittarius can turn lunch in the park into some kind of heavy, religiously tainted experience; everything seems way too serious under this influence.
And now Mars is about to come along and challenge this influence, this authority. That feels like pressure, which means the pressure to change what you believe. Remember that in Sagittarius, this will exist on the level of religion; that is, taken not on faith but on unproven authority. This is the thing about religion. It’s taken so seriously, with absolutely nothing to back it up. It colonizes the brain, ending any real discussion of life, death or sex.
Mars is not having any of this. As I see it, Mars is in revolutionary mode, at its most fiery, enhanced by fiery Sagittarius, and the square to volatile Neptune. This aspect, as well, will bring to the foreground much that has been hidden or that has dropped beneath the level of liminality; that is, conscious awareness.
I would rate this aspect as somewhat dangerous, with a high potential for both overreaction and creative change. It’s going to be a wild week or two in the news—as if it hasn’t been wild enough. Under this astrology, though, we might see things that stretch all credulity and test the definitions of known reality.
You may decide it wasn’t so real after all.
This article appears in September 2016.
