I have long been taught that eclipses don’t just last one day. They always come in pairs, first of all, sometimes threes, and the effects of these celestial events tend to bleed. There’s a reason we call it eclipse season: the two weeks in between the eclipses share the same, gooey, explosive energy as the events themselves, like Friday’s Lunar Eclipse in Scorpio. I would even say you can feel the events and aftershocks of an eclipse a few weeks before and after their presence. Or shadow.
There are some thoughts I want to share about eclipse, hopefully to illuminate a particularly shadowy time.
Eclipse are formed by two points in the chart the north node and the south node, more evocatively known as the head and tail of the dragon
The nodes are always opposite each other and they are not actual bodies but calculated points. The Sun and the Moon conjoin and oppose each other each month (that’s how we get new and full moons), but the nodes mark the point where the Moon’s orbit intersects with the ecliptic, or the Sun’s orbit, meaning when both of the luminaries are situated near either of the nodes, they block out each other’s light and we have an eclipse.
In Vedic astrology, the nodes are considered planets but they’re called “shadow grahas” or shadow planets. Think of them like holes, one filling and one releasing.
When our luminaries, which are our lights, our bodies, our spirit, our fortunes, are blocked out by each other, it is one of the most dramatic things that can happen in the sky. Tradition says to avoid going outside on eclipse days. I have found salt water baths and ritual cleansing to be useful around eclipses.
Eclipses are change-makers. Timeline shifters, chapter enders. Susan Miller likens eclipse times to walking over a rickety bridge that falls after you cross; you’re in a new place and you can’t go back to the old one.
Eclipses always affect some area of your chart, usually an axis of houses. They two are always interwoven, like the stories of the nodes. If you have eclipses in your 6th-12th axis, then you may have issues with health, sleep, isolation, labor, business, chores, unconscious forces, dreams, hidden enemies. But if they are in angular houses (1st-7th or 4th-10th), you will feel them particularly strongly.
Eclipses are taxing. Eclipses bring big information or events. Take your time. Attend to what you must and don’t worry too much about what was already scheduled for that date. But pay attention to what comes and stays right about now.
On Venus into Cancer
Sometimes I get in the habit of not thinking my effort is not worthwhile unless it'‘s Herculean; that the little details don’t add up to something larger with patience and time.
This is a lesson of Venus in Gemini perhaps, which wrapped up in yesterday. Venus, the planet that alerts us to all pleasurable, creative things, being in a Mercury-ruled signs, understands the value of collage, of fragments pinned alongside each other. I have been writing through a document of collected quotes, pictures and memories that have somehow connected to each other into something new to explore. I have begun a 30-day plant challenge, which has you engage with one plant in a different way for thirty days, slowly building up your connection with one.
Gemini is the sign of duality, the infinite division of the universe into smaller and smaller parts. Mercury moves quickly and makes these divisions and revisions again and again, combining and recombining seemingly disconnected parts of the world.
Now that Venus has moved into Cancer, you may feel bit more ease around comfort and pleasure. Venus has what is called “triplicity dignity” in Cancer, which may explain why it feels a bit more comfy now than in Gemini, where it had no power. Triplicity dignity is based around a gang of planets that support and do well in certain signs. For water signs, a nocturnal planet, those planets are the Moon, Venus and Mars, all nocturnal planets. You can liken triplicity dignity to community support. Venus is not in charge of Cancer, but she can call on her friends for help while she traverses this sign.
Consider the ways we are made through the effort and collaboration. Consider how you are being supported this week by what you perceive as not-you.
Venus will also be passing through the first 10º of Cancer for the next week or so, which gives Venus a special skill. Venus has what is called decanic dignity in the first 10º of Cancer, which Austin Coppock associates with the infinite nurturance and fertility of mother and child. It is the feeling of safety and hunger for connection that allows you to build loving, supportive relationships. Coppock says it also facilitates “enmeshment” and reminds us of all the delicious and terrifying ways we are reliant upon others.
So this week reflect to yourself: Are there new connections coming up that already feel deep? How is your interconnection with the people around you helping or harming? What beauty and joy can come from not going it alone?
And if you want to understand Venus in Cancer in your bones:
Spend time around pregnant people
Listen to Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon”
Tell someone how much you care
Couple’s massage
Spend the whole day with a beloved
Eat sweet, milky desserts
Just a reminder, if you want to explore the current weather, your chart, your creative process, my books for May are open. Click the link below the book.
For now I leave you with this:
Until next time,
Love,
Chloe