Libra Solar Eclipse: A Time to Shed

Today’s solar eclipse doesn’t feature just the Sun and Moon at 10º Libra. The (true) Black Moon Lilith and Kuiper Belt planetoid Makemake are also at 10º Libra. Mercury’s at 11º and Juno is also in Libra, at 18º. And the south node, the eclipse’s raison d'être, is at 6º Libra.

Look around and you see that almost everything in the eclipse chart (2:49pm EDT) is stunningly interconnected.

Solar eclipses are twice-annual New Moons that occur when the Sun and Moon exactly align close to the lunar nodes. All New Moons are potent in that they’re the “dark pause” between waning and waxing lunar phases, like that tiny space between an exhale and an inhale. Not that most of us pay much attention to our breath until it’s compromised.

Today’s skies practically demand that we pay attention. Though technically a “masculine” sign, Venus-ruled Libra is commonly associated with women because of its cooperative, diplomatic nature and focus on relationships—committed partnerships. Libra is fair and tolerant, conflict-avoidant and concerned with equality and justice.

So many of the feminine archetypes are involved in today’s configuration: the Moon, of course, but also BML, representing shadow, and devoted-partner Juno. In a nearly exact square is Earth goddess Ceres, and graceful healer Chariklo is trining from 13º Aquarius.

Venus’ counterpart, Mars, is in the other maternal figure sign of Cancer, opposite Ceres and squaring the Libra planets. Spiritual warrior Eris is close to healer Chiron and loosely opposing Mercury and Juno in the Libra stellium.

That’s a lot of Girl Power! (A note to anyone who thinks that’s a derogatory term: It’s actually a slogan of female empowerment and confidence that was coined by an all-women punk bank in the early 1990s.)

Girl power is definitely on the docket in these United States, with a very consequential election just a few short weeks away. Among the hottest buttons on that ballot is a woman’s right to make decisions about her body and her health providers’ legal ability to serve her.

Subtle and blatant misogyny is, shockingly, still an issue 61 years after Betty Friedan’s landmark manifesto, The Feminist Mystique, was published. It’s a prominent trope, along with racist attitudes, in many of the anti-Harris memes flooding the internet.

Pan the camera lens out and what we find isn’t just anti-woman, anti-person of color, anti-immigrant attitudes. Oh, they’re there, but they’re part of a bigger issue: the pervasive belief that we’re somehow different from one another.

No politician or influencer can bridge that chasm. We are suffering from a profound love deficit. And the shadow of love is hate—or is it? Could “hate” really be a smokescreen for fear?

Polarizing or “other-izing” doesn’t just hurt the people on the side with less firepower. It hurts everyone because, and you’ve heard me say this before, until everyone is saved, no one is saved. IYKYK.

How to work with this eclipse energy

This eclipse is the last one that’ll occur in Libra for the next eight and a half years. The Aries-Libra eclipse cycle began in April 2023 and will conclude with a final solar eclipse in Aries on March 29, 2025

Last month we had the introductory eclipse along the Virgo-Pisces axis, and this dovetailing is how the collective energies shift from the themes of one polarity to the next. (Since the lunar nodes travel in reverse, the cycle moves backward through the signs.)

Solar eclipses are outsized opportunities to reflect on the events of the preceding six months, both personal and beyond-us, acknowledge the growth, the hurts and the challenges; to find gratitude for all of it, and then prepare to release anything that isn’t going to be helpful moving forward, and come to a point of closure. Exhale.

Many people like to add a ritual to this reflective moment, or journal about it. I write out my monthly “New Moon intentions” in a special journal, and spend a few moments letting them seek into my energy field and program them to guide my neural pathways over the coming month.

Whatever you do that feels authentic to you is valuable. The point is, taking a minute to shift out of autopilot and into focused awareness is the first step toward manifesting anything.

With the lunar nodes soon to change signs (true nodes on January 11, mean on January 28), we can expect a collective “sea change,” an apt description since the north node—the mark we are tasked to “hit” over the subsequent 18 months—will be in Pisces.

New Moons invite introspection, purification and letting go. That’s Pisces’ job description. But the “mission” isn’t accomplished by dropping out, running away, hiding or numbing ourselves (Pisces’ shadow). How can we become more tolerant and accepting while still taking intentional action in the so-called real world?

Virgo, where the south node will be, is a resource for doing that—but it’s even more essential that we transcend its shadow and not slip into criticism, servitude, martyrdom or victimhood.

Until then, we get to shed any last remnants of Libra traits. (As a Libra stellium with an OOB Venus, I am intimately familiar with these.) How can we become more self-assured and self-directed even while doing our best to include everyone? How can we stand in our personal power without resorting to mean, childish, combative or manipulative tactics? Where are we still acting out of co-dependence or being superficial (or false)?

For all of us, a good question to ponder is how we can not only tap into our divine feminine side but balance that with our divine masculinity? There’s no “yin” without “yang”; no “dark” without “light.” Shadow is not a “mistake”—except when we fail to recognize it, accept and find ways to integrate into our larger, greater, more radiant whole selves.