Pick a Direction & Swim: The Pisces Lunar Eclipse
ECLIPSES as SHADOW WORK
Before we truly begin: during a lunar eclipse, the earth actually casts a shadow on the Moon, making eclipses psychologically connected to shadows.
If an eclipse makes contact with an important aspect of your natal chart, it’s almost as if it’s asking you to sift through the shadows living in that part of your psyche.
This is even more dramatic during a lunar eclipse, which is essentially a turbo-charged Full Moon. In astrology, the Moon represents emotions and the subconscious, and a Full Moon pours its light into the darkness of night (read: our subconscious). When cosmic forces illuminate the recesses of our psyche in this way, we may avoid it out of fear (no judgment here), but a better approach would be to view your shadows with curiosity and intention. This is doubly true when talking about eclipses: you’ll have much more control over how an eclipse cycle decides to shake up your life.
Venus and Mars by Antonio Cannova (1757 - 1822)
VENUS vs MARS
Before moving on to a new era, it’s always wise to acknowledge the wisdom the last few years have imparted.
We’re almost finished with an eclipse cycle in the signs of Aries and Libra, and before that the lunar nodes were in Taurus and Scorpio — those four signs are all the children of Venus and Mars.
For several years our karmic lessons have had to do with relationships, unity, self-love, balance, conflict, action, making decisions, fighting for what we need and want — across billions of people on this planet, those themes have played out in any combination we could possibly imagine.
Now, as the nodes move into Pisces and Virgo, we’re moving into a Jupiter versus Mercury phase.
Pisces is the only water sign ruled by Jupiter, the Greater Benefic, a great gas giant whose sheer size and protective magnetic field caused astrologers to assign it the symbolism of expansion, eminence, protection, stability, good luck and blessings.
In order to expand you must explore: you must seek the knowledge that comes only through life experience.
Jupiter’s other sign, fiery Sagittarius, does this through action and sheer optimism, but Pisces? Watery, emotional Pisces explores the depths of the human psyche and the outer limits of the imagination. It expands the capacity of its spirit to hold space for the oneness of all creation. As the last sign of the zodiac, it encapsulates the lessons of all the signs that come before. Pisces is the very definition of “old soul.” And as a mutable sign, Pisces tends to react instead of act: to emotional and psychic stimuli, to the “vibe” in general. Pisces has feelers all over. It swims in the deepest waters.
The contrast between Jupiter and Mercury lies in scope and size, detail and drama, faith versus facts and figures.
Big ole Jupiter and little ole Mercury.
As we move into this new eclipse cycle, which kicks off on September 17th, 2024 with a Lunar Eclipse in Pisces, the nodal themes will focus less on relationships and blazing new trails, and more about how to consolidate all the big things in our lives into something more manageable.
What I mean by this is that a karmic pull — that quality unique to the lunar nodes — will drop experiences right into our laps, experiences that ask us to choose between your desire for the certainty of hard data (South Node in Virgo) and having enough faith to navigate blurry, uncharted waters (North Node in Pisces).
Every nodal story is always very Choose Your Own Adventure; you have options (i.e. free will), but they are ones presented to you. You may have had to choose between two suitors during this past eclipse cycle; while the choice was yours, the necessity of taking your romantic life by the reins was not.
Now, this new eclipse cycle is very…Saturn-y.
For now, let’s focus on Pisces, as the eclipses in Virgo aren’t slated to begin until next Spring. One big, huge, factor on how we’ll all experience this eclipse series is that Pisces has been hosting Saturn — an honored, yet finicky guest — since last March, a transit that will continue until May 24th of 2025.
Saturn is a planet associated with limits, boundaries, endings, responsibility, the passage of time, longevity, tradition, structure & cold, hard reality.
And from his seat in Pisces, Saturn has been doling out experiences & life lessons meant to instill some grounded structure to one of the dreamiest, wishy-washy & intuitive parts of your life, the one with the most aversion to structure & reality. (That’s a huge reason why so many of us have been struggling through this Saturn transit: everything just feels so…serious.) (But also, I lowkey feel bad for Saturn because he has his work cut out for him.)
The Saturn in Pisces era has been a little weird.
Saturn has been attempting to prepare us for the changes ahead, and it’s extremely important to identify this life area because, in addition to being “Saturned,” as the North Node turns its focus to Pisces, it’s also about to be “eclipsed” (i.e. subjected to cosmic change & advancement).
Questions to ask yourself:
Then ask yourself: what’s the likeliest way this eclipse cycle COULD change that life area?
It’s probably as clear as mud, but also not, if that makes sense. Saturn has been showing you how, you just need to make it happen. It won’t be easy (it never is), but there are wonderful possibilities to unlock in the dreamiest, most imaginative slice of YOU.
Of course, there are many other concurrent transits to think about, as well as timing techniques that affect everyone very personally. There is also everyone’s lifelong experience of Saturnian topics based on the condition of their birth Saturn. This is very important and we don’t have time to get into it here, but essentially, if you were born with a “good” natal Saturn, you will have an easier time with its topics; and if you were born with a “bad” or more challenging Saturn placement, you likely experience Saturn themes in a more challenging way because of that. (Example: if you’ve hated daily structure, you may have worked through a lot of that, but you’re still not as good at structure as someone who it comes more naturally to!)
For some of you, this eclipse season may be easy-peasy. For others, it might not be as clear. But at least you know that some changes are likely to occur.
If you have prominent placements (i.e. planets and/or important points like the ascendant) in the mutable signs of Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and, of course, Pisces, this new eclipse series will affect you more directly.
If you don’t, it will still affect you in some way, just not as dramatically.
Some other thoughts:
There will be a huge influx of even more emotional, imaginative, sensitive & intuitive Pisces energy flooding this earthly plane
Speaking of that, escapism will be on the uptick, keep an eye on your friends
Lastly, Pisces is symbolized by two fish swimming in opposite directions. Finding harmony between the part of you that has the strength to keep swimming upstream and the one that wants to float away downstream is key to managing this new era.
Rest up — eclipses can be utterly exhausting. And don't forget to look your shadow in the eye.
xo