About this week's super-activating lunar eclipse...

There’s something about gazing up at a luminous Full Moon on a late-summer night, with Earth as your cushion and the crickets and bullfrogs supplying the playlist, that can make you feel connected to the world around you and, for one brief moment in time, feel totally at peace with it.

Full Moons have long captured our imagination, partly because they’re so darn conspicuous. And these summer supermoons, when Luna is closest to Earth, can feel almost surreal. Lunar eclipses, or Full Moons that are close to the lunar nodes, occur in pairs twice a year (generally) and crank up the volume, bringing an intensity that, even when we’re sleeping with one eye open, often catch us off-guard.

We’re about to enter another eclipse portal, with this series occurring on September 17 at 10:34 pm (EDT) and then the follow-up, a New Moon Solar Eclipse, on October 2, at 10º Libra.

There are a few highly noteworthy features of this week’s lunar eclipse: the many close aspects the Sun-Moon are making to other planets, and the fact that this lunation signals a “changing of the nodal guard,” meaning the cycle shifts from the Aries-Libra axis, where it’s been since April 2023, backward to the Virgo/Pisces polarity.

To put this into context of your life, find where 25º-26º Virgo and Pisces fall in your chart. Any planets, major points or angles within a degree or two will be affected even more strongly, like being close to the epicenter of an earthquake. Further out, you’ll still feel it. But the tighter the orb, the stronger the influence.

You may have heard my little “talk you down from the ledge” spiel about not freaking out about eclipses. (The stoic parts of my chart would add that nothing is worth “freaking out about.”) But we human feed off drama, and until we break that habit, we’re going to seek out theatrics.

From a soul’s perspective, eclipses are power points: moments in time when making change is supported by cosmically designed energy patterns. As any surfer or water-going person can tell you, when we get into rhythm with these waves, we can ride them into ecstasy. Fall out of sync and we come crashing down, often painfully.

A New Eclipse Cycle Begins

For the past 18 months, we have collectively been under the meta-influence of the nodes transiting the Aries/Libra polarity. This has likely underscored themes of “me vs. we,” assertiveness vs. diplomacy even competitiveness vs. cooperation. Those are important things to bring into balance, but where’s logic, what about the feelings underlying these instincts?

This eclipse shift to discerning Virgo and compassionate Pisces will mark a radical departure from the preceding year and a half and sharpen some very different tools in our kit.

(As I’m typing this, a female cardinal flew onto a plant on my porch, which my office faces out onto. I paused to look up her significance because this uncommon sighting felt meaningful, especially I’m writing about a cosmic sea change. “The female cardinal is a sign of bright days ahead in which you can turn your dreams into a reality…. She is viewed as a sign of hope and a reminder that you can do hard things, because hard things do not last forever.”)

As many other astrologers have pointed out, this eclipse is not happening in a vacuum. The Moon is in a stuffed sandwich with dreamy Neptune on one side and earthbound Saturn on the other. They’re all in a square to amplifying Jupiter in Gemini. In addition to Neptune, the Sun-Moon are aspecting the other outer planets, sextiling the two great agents of change, Uranus and Pluto.

And the nodes themselves, still in Aries and Libra until 1-11-25, are forming a grand cross with the opposition of Mars (a softer version, perhaps, in Cancer) and Earth Mother. Have women been coming under fire (more than “the usual”) lately? To those who pay attention to American politics, that question is rhetorical.

Personally, I’m excited by this eclipse shift. The lunar eclipse falls less than a degree away from my natal Moon, so it’s probably strumming my strings in a familiar harmony. But for all of us, with the south node soon to relocate to Virgo, the qualities of that sign are worth reflecting on.

We discount Virgo’s highest gifts at our own peril. This is the archetype of discernment, of the pursuit of excellence and efficiency, of a natural connection to Earth and its cycles, to healing, and especially to sacred service. Not false humility but a genuine love of devotion to others and their healing. (‘Cause no one is saved until everyone is saved.)

With the south node, we naturally also want to consider the shadow of Virgo, which involves unrealistic expectations, discomfort in the body, being overly focused on minutiae and missing the beauty in the big picture, and bypassing intuition in favor of sheer logic. The antidote: Why, Pisces energy, of course!

And with the north node poised to enter Pisces in January—for the first time since June 2006—the collective focus shifts from matters of self and assertiveness to questions around becoming more spiritual and more heart-centered with less need to control and an openness to surrender and letting outmoded things dissolve. Interestingly, next spring, both Saturn and Neptune cross into Aries and will dance back and forth across that chasm between endings (Pisces) and beginnings (Aries).

This eclipse Moon is positioned right in between those planets! We are getting a sneak peek at this new energetic wave and being invited to reflect on how it may affect the collective (more an intellectual exercise) and, especially, what influences are being exerted on us individually.

But you know me: I’m not going to talk about this in terms of “What will happen” to you but rather, how can these energetic themes support your dreams? What are you eager to step into, to step out of or to modify in important ways?

Starting now, you have a terrific opportunity to get a jump start on major transitions and transformations that you’re calling in for 2025. What’s needed first is clarity: around your goals, sure, but also the true nature of the situations and relationships you’re involved in.

Eclipses’ ripple effects last six months, until the next series (in March 2025). So you’ve got time! But seriously, why wait to attain clarity? Need some ideas? Here are some questions to ponder:

What is “real” and how do you know that? Maybe a better pursuit—if we agree that, ultimately, we create our own reality—is to find the sweet spot between Neptunian idealism and Saturn’s so-called stark realism. Another way to think about that is how to anchor your dream (Neptune) in your physical form—literally, in your bones—and by taking practical action (Saturn); how to align your life’s direction (Saturn) with your soul’s yearning (Neptune).

That balancing act is dynamic, and there will be days that you feel like a rock star and others where you feel like you missed the mark by a country mile. But you’re trying, and that’s what earns the soul “karmic brownie points.” Furthermore, high-minded efforts are always better than gravitating toward the shadow expressions of these planets: fear and guilt (Saturn) and fantasy and escapism (Neptune).

Of course, if you’ve been soul-searching, working, striving and continuously in pursuit of progress for a while, this tuned-in Pisces Full Moon eclipse may be an invitation to take a break. Maybe the thing to do is to grab a blanket, go outdoors and lie under the starry canopy and let your imagination run wild.