Astrology of Now: Eclipse — It’s All Maya
Light, Sea, Mood — Emil Nolde (born with the Lunar Nodes in Virgo-Pisces on the Ascendant — as they are now. Jupiter in Pisces.)
Tomorrow, September 16, there will be a partial eclipse of Lady Luna. You will be able to see this from Europe to the Western Pacific. The point of closest eclipse is at 18.54 GMT. Right now the Moon is already in Pisces. The eclipse takes place at 24°.
Last night, I stood in the garden looking at the Moon hanging like a glass bauble in the night sky. It was a very clear night — and unusually warm for this time of year. I could see all the mysterious markings across the white surface of the Moon. How she glistened. She appeared so close, just behind the branches of the apple tree, as if I could stroke that glassy surface with the tip of my finger.
Yesterday, I read two beautifully-written pieces by astrologers — Jessica Shepherd (Moonkissed) and April Elliot Kent (Big Sky). Both are poetic and authentic, and showed a profound understanding of this particular eclipse, each from her personal view. So I thought I would add a little to that since in some ways I’m speaking from inside the muffled space of the eclipse.
To explain, I have an ocean of Pisces energy in my chart — four planets, and if you include Pallas, Chiron and Juno — seven. Like many Pisces, it’s taken me years to understand that I’m not invisible, to live properly in the material world. Many of us have a feeling of not exactly existing. (You can imagine the trouble this leads to.)
I think this eclipse is about this feeling, wherever it falls in your chart. It’s about feeling unseen, perhaps, immaterial. And for many of us, this is not such a bad feeling, because the other side of it is connecting to the other side, the other world, the world of music, or spirit, of things that can’t be touched or smelled, but which are as real as emotion. If you are lucky, this can be a connection to the divine. However, it can also be a feeling of being dishonoured, overlooked, disrespected, of having everything stripped away. Where Pisces is in your chart may be the place where you feel like cellophane, or where you feel as if you are nothing.
When an eclipse happens, a door opens — and a door shuts.
Speaking personally again, eclipses in my own Sun sign have always accelerated an evolution of identity. Sometimes this has been easy, but sometimes it has been extraordinarily painful, as it meant having material props stripped away. Almost always it has been accompanied by an intensification of the feeling of nothingness, or not really being here at all. Again sometimes good, sometimes dreadful.
Buddhists understand this notion as the realisation of maya.
The guru Meher Baba put it like this: “How does the false world of finite things come into existence? Why does it exist? It is created by Maya or the principle of ignorance. Maya is not illusion, it is the creator of illusion. Maya is not false, it is that which gives false impressions. Maya is not unreal; it is that which makes the real appear unreal and the unreal appear real. Maya is not duality, it is that which causes duality…. From the point of view of the last and the only Truth of realisation, nothing exists except infinite and eternal God. There the illusion of finite things as separate from God has vanished, and with it has also vanished Maya, the creator of this illusion.”
So for each of us this Pisces eclipse opens a door into that end-of-Z0diac realm — if only momentarily. Mars, the planet of action, is tightly aspected, so there is potential for a sudden release of energy — a door that has been locked bursting open. Chiron is closely involved too, so there is potential for pain — or healing.
Those of us not affected by this directly may want to reflect on the words of Meher Baba — or on the possibility of endless parallel universes…
The Moon is already in Pisces and I can feel it, reminding me of the liminal things, the space between dreaming and waking, shorelines, melancholy, words unsaid, music from an open window. Pisces is the end of the land, the last of the Zodiac — and also the beautiful blue hour before daybreak. Pisces cannot truly be grounded: instead we have to try to be authentic. I hope that’s hepful.
I recommend that you read the other two pieces mentioned above for more advice and insight. I have written about the September eclipses for each sign for subscribers in the Monthly Horoscopes and a special post called The Winds of Change.
Thank you for this Christina. I have Moon conjunct Neptune in late Sag, in my 7th; and Pisces in my 10th. I recognize that feeling of strange transparency, “of not exactly existing”, all too well. Sometimes it brings me to a state of passivity (which has had me, at times, meandering helplessly into rather f*cked up relationships). Other times it brings me to an expansive surrender (when I am singing it chanting for instance – and I am learning to harness this as a serious practice). There’s a difference between self-negation that disempowers and that which embraces and renders transcendent in belonging.
Exactly so — and it’s something we have to learn often because it’s easy to confuse the two.
I enjoy your writing on the subject of Pisces and often remember your article about planets in the 12th… My MC is 28 Pisces and the 10th really is a place where I can’t quite manage to ground myself into existence, instead drifting and floundering. Could be to do with taurean Chiron there as well. Do you think the eclipse is close enough to affect the MC or more to do with the 9th?
I agree that Chiron is important there. I often see that with doctors and therapists though. The eclipse is close enough.
In general, some charts have super-tight aspects and so transits etc should be super-tight, but some are looser.
Beautiful post and much needed, thank you. Pisces rising, 1h and on 2h cusp and you describe it eloquently. Not quite being embodied. This eclipse is right on Ceres in Pisces, so I read those pieces on Ceres with interest again, and tightly squaring my 10h Sun which has Mars atop it. It’s feeling like quite a magical, big time. BIG emotions, a feeling of coming into being in some way. Yes a door opening. Others might just see me being angry. Some powerful alchemy is underway though.
Iris, I could have written most of your post myself. I also have Pisces rising and this eclipse is conjunct my Asc. I also feel out of place in my own body. “Living properly in the material world,” as Christina says, has always been a challenge. I’m constantly cursing the necessity of being incarnate on the material plane! (Half-joking, of course.) The desire to escape my body has been very strong lately, and that anger is part of it. But, yes, alchemy is exactly the word to describe the process that we’re in. Blessings to you!
Blessings to you too Anne 🙂
Pisces is my 6th house (Libra Sun/Rising), occupied by my only Pisces planet Jupiter — which also trines my Venus/Mercury in Scorpio and MC in Cancer, and squares Moon/Uranus in Gemini/Sag (9H/3H). My Saturn is in early Sag as well, but not configured to the other mutable planets or Eclipse by orb.
Jupiter’s transit through Virgo has been remarkably 12th/6th-housey for me, with strong emphasis on the interplay between physical/spiritual health and everyday routines. It hasn’t all been fun, but it has been necessary. I’d love to say I’ve settled the score but I don’t think that’s the case. I particularly like what you said about aiming for authenticity rather than groundedness: I’ve been very hard on myself for not being the sort of person who effortlessly makes it to work at the same time everyday, which perhaps ironically, has done the opposite of making me more “reliable.” Despite that, I perform very well at work and over the past year got a promotion and a new boss who really supported me and sings my praises (“extremely innovative,” “capable of designing things no one else would ever dream of”). However, he just got promoted to a different team so now I’m back reporting to the old stickler again.
The opportunities/challenges promised by this final 2016 eclipse seem quite clearly related to this situation. “The stickler” is of course a Taurus, and the paragon of traditional (and boring) groundedness. My goal is to figure out the best way to marry his style and expectations with my own. Hopefully Jupiter in Libra will help to smooth that process. As it stands, he acts like he’s scared of me.
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Allthough I’m not a Pisces I can relate to the feeling of being invisible and not really here ( Neptune opp. my Sun ). It happens to me often in a situation with other people. People often do not notice me. It is really weird.
It occurred to me that this eclipse is falling in my 3rd/9th houses ( Virgo / Pisces )- I have neighbours who are elderly – both are 89 years of age – she ( Pisces ) is suffering from dementia (Neptune) and now it turned out he ( Virgo ) has a drinking problem (Neptune). This week action has been taken to end this situation – at the moment he is in hospital and she is living with her daughter for the time being.
Now I am puzzled : has this situation come up due to the first eclipse in Virgo or has this to do with this 2nd eclipse in Pisces ?? Or both ???
Do you know ??
mimi
Both! Working together. The composer I interviewed for the next post, Debbie Wiseman, also has the Sun-Neptune opposition. I didn’t ask her about the invisible part — but she is married to a Pisces!
Hi Christina,
I attended an astrology salon on Thursday evening in Chicago. The twelve us there watched the nearly full moon rise up over Lake Michigan on a beautiful, clear night. Here’s a crazy – or maybe not so crazy coincidence – 3 of us, all women, shared with the others gathered there that the full moon lunar eclipse was conjunct our natal moons. Mine at 23˚ and the other two women at 24˚. The kicker – all in the 5th house. (My sun is in scorpio with a libra rising. One of the women had libra rising as well, the other scorpio rising.)
I’d welcome your commentary on what this conjunction might mean? Am I correct to assume that the conjunction of a full moon lunar eclipse on one’s natal moon is potent? However, being a novice in astrology I’m not quite sure what to conclude. Thanks! Mary
That is extraordinary — and marvellous. Yes, it is potent — and I think that just getting together has been a wonderful opening up of that degree. When you have an eclipse a door may close, but equally a door may open, and surely the latter is what has happened here. You can learn so much from each other about what it means to be a Pisces Moon. In the 5th — so this is about self-realisation. An emotional connection has been opened up perhaps. I’d also suggest that Pisces Moon natally is not always the easiest placement — sensitive — so knowing others with this exact same placement is like finding a web of support.
Here’s a thing. When I joined Oxford Astrology Group, they told me a certain degree was important in the group. It turned out that it was the degree of my Sun — and I shared it with three other members, the core of the group in fact. I’ve been meeting them now for years, and it’s turned out to be so useful for my own self-realisation, and theirs too. We have all learned from each other quite deeply, because of what we share and what we don’t share.
The remark about feeling invisible hit home. For my childhood and much of my youth, I felt I had to earn the right to exist. While Saturn/Chiron in Pisces probably had something to do with that, I think my enormously overpopulated 12th house might have contributed to the depth and “stickiness” of that quality. It took years of being nearly dead and fighting not to die to get past that; one day, I realized I had been fighting so long for my survival I had come to cherish myself as if I were a patient who’d been under my care all that time.
Which I obviously was. 🙂
Each year, I think, another layer or characteristic of the 12th house unfolds to me. Fascinating. All of them work, which is odd. Or not. Maybe it’s just wyrd.