August’s Lunar Eclipse: Recalibrating Time
One of the reasons I love astrology is that it presents a holistic vision of time. In our Solar-oriented world, time is often conceptualized in a linear and static fashion; it’s a unit to be maximized or a resource to be consumed. I think it’s easy to experience time with different qualities to it, though—sometimes life is fast, buzzing with magical novelty, and sometimes it’s slow, a reputation of the known and mundane. Some moments are more revelatory or consequential, and some phases of life are particularly packed with change and growth.
Our astrology right now has been making me think about this dynamic nature of time. To begin, we’re coming up on a rare and highly publicized Solar Eclipse on the 21st. There have only been a handful of eclipses visible across a large strip of the United States in the last thousand years, even though we globally experience two or three eclipses or partial eclipses every 6 months or so. I think that this public awareness will amplify the effect of the eclipse in the US—with tens or hundreds of thousands of people traveling to see it firsthand and countless others aware of and considering it, we’re bound to experience it as an incredibly special moment.
Astrologically, Eclipses signify the more revelatory or consequential moments in life. They're so important that the points at which they occur are tracked and given independent meaning—in the Vedic system, they're called the ‘shadow planets,’ Rahu and Ketu, and in the Western system they’re called the Nodes of the Moon and thought to be destiny points, putting this lifetime in a longer context.
This upcoming Solar Eclipse is definitely powerful. The Sun will be conjunct a newly reborn Mars, and it will be fairly precisely conjunct the North Node of the Moon (Rahu). Tomorrow’s Full Moon is comparatively less potent. It’s further away from the South Node (Ketu), and only a partial eclipse—the Moon will only be partially blocked out by the Earth. Still, any Full Moon eclipse brings the werewolves out of the shadows to howl at the moon.
This Lunar Eclipse is in Capricorn, which most tangibly relates to the structures and commitments in our lives and their internal correlates of discipline, integrity, and authority. Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, who is the archetypal father or grandfather—wizened (or perhaps jaded) by time and strong enough to take responsibility for the demands of life. Thus, in the next couple days, we might experience our relationship with the heaviness of the real world in its fullness. Daddy issues might arise, as could strong moments of self-possession.
Full Moons, and Eclipses especially are considered to be culminations of some sort, a point of transition as some dynamic begins to wane. Since Saturn is at the end of a retrograde process that started at the beginning of April, we might now be experiencing a sense of conclusion in a long-term development of discipline or clarification of our commitments. Saturn will go direct at the beginning of our next Lunar cycle, at which point we might expect a new foundation or structure to be setting into place in our lives.
Alongside this, Uranus stationed retrograde on Thursday. Interestingly, all of the outer planets are now retrograde, which is somewhat rare. Retrograde planets signify inwardly turned energy, as if some dimension of our selves needs to retreat and rework itself before expressing itself outwardly again. These are thought to be difficult periods—instead of getting caught up in the easy flow of the collective, it’s a more frustrated or solitary experience.
Uranus is going retrograde in Aries, in the Vedic Nakshatra of Ashwini. Ashwini is pictured as two twins, horse-headed doctors riding on a chariot into Earth. Uranus seems like a natural fit here—a sort of innovative, technological genius in a speedy and altruistic sign—but Uranus stationing retrograde in Ashwini is an odd image to contemplate. Where might some brilliant quest or mission be retreating or recalibrating before it proceeds again?
Uranus will be retrograde until January. Until then, we might contemplate what it means to be inwardly free or luminous. Are there images of the iconoclast or radical that could be reworked to be expressed in a more clear and effective manner? How might our relationship to technology be implicated in this? In what ways are we in or out of control while navigating that speedy terrain. While the internet is a heavenly and helpful realm, it seems worth considering that we’re many of us are tuned to a frizzy or frenetic pitch. In this regard, we might consider the Uranus retrograde an opportunity to enrich our experience of time, consciously and freely choosing the most satisfying wavelengths.
Of course, all of this is relative to you and your chart. Uranus is stationing direct in a particular area of your life, and the eclipses may be lighting up a potent point for you. If you’d like to explore it individually for you, reach out for a reading! Check me out at astrologyally.com/readings
Happy full moon, folks!