Tread Lightly and Make Daisychains
It’s that time again – eclipse time baby! On April 30th we have a Solar Eclipse in the sign of Taurus. Eclipses are very often times of instability, they augur periods of change – things happen, particularly if eclipses trigger points or planets in individual charts. A solar eclipse occurs at a New Moon – think New Moon on steroids and you won’t be far off.
The effect of an eclipse is more likely to be felt in places where the eclipse will be visible; it’s not hard to imagine how frightening this must have been in times gone by when nature and the universe were considered to be alive with spirits and the sky would just go dark. So, it’s no wonder the ancients considered eclipses as the bringers of omens. This eclipse is visible for those in South America and Antarctica so for once we have been given a break – and boy it feels like we need a break of some kind right now.
However, the energy is still likely to be intense. Pluto (power, transformation, death) has just stationed and when an outer planet stations its energy is really ‘felt’ strongly. And again we have what I refer to as a ‘bunched up’ chart – not a very technical expression I know. But it describes for me a chart that occupies a small portion of the circle. That’s a narrow viewpoint for me and in the main that’s what we seem to have right now.
We have four planets in Pisces – Mars, Neptune, Venus and Jupiter – and three planets – Sun Moon and Uranus, plus the North Node – in Taurus. These two signs form a harmonious, opportunistic aspect to each other which should bring a bit of a feelgood factor. Venus, the ruler of the Taurus planets and, therefore, the eclipse is very well placed in the sign of Pisces where she is treated like an honoured guest and, furthermore, she is really cosied up with Jupiter its ruler – she’s about as close as she could get. So, for now happy days which we must take advantage of.
Venus represents love, but also value systems – both monetary and self-worth. What do we value the most? We see more and more how life has become shallow, dominated by materialistic desires. Have we fallen in love with money and how we think that money can bring us self-worth? Has money become a modern-day religion? Jupiter represents our belief systems – our higher belief systems in terms of religion and what we truly believe in terms of the meaning of life stuff. Those who have strong religious beliefs seem to be able to get through difficult issues in life more than most, perhaps because they see life as part of a bigger picture. There are still many who have a belief system whether that may be Christianity, Catholicism, Islam or purely spiritual which gets them through. However, for many life lacks a fundamental belief system. Life has become narrow and shallow, dominated by materialistic desires which never seem to be enough to truly satisfy our real needs. Therefore, alcohol, drugs or escaping into the world of social media perhaps comes to the rescue instead.
I think that Venus as ruler of the eclipse is showing us that we need to understand more about the meaning of life even if we don’t have an association with the religions of the last two thousand years. Astrology at the very least demonstrates that there is some kind of higher pattern of life, that there is some kind of design within the cycles. Our bodies are not just an amazing miracle of connecting organs working mechanically; our bodies think and feel, they resonate to this design. And, if we allow ourselves to let go of the materialistic and connect with our instincts, our feelings, with nature and the sky, we can then resonate and understand so much more.
So ‘feelgood’ for the moment but lurking in the background of this chart is Saturn (reality, time, responsibility, restrictions, limitations) squaring the nodes – our karmic destiny axis. There’s some kind of reckoning in the air, but in actual fact whatever this time of reckoning represents may not manifest too strongly at this eclipse. This Solar Eclipse links with a Lunar Eclipse in October next year and we may well have to wait until then to feel the manifestation of everything that is bubbling right now.
It's a time to tread lightly. Tread cautiously. We have to use the time to ‘get real’ – pay attention to finances, find something that we can fall back on and believe in to get us through difficult times; establish some sense of ‘fail safe’ to provide some kind of security – things like that. This has to be done now, not left for tomorrow. We must connect in with our belief systems; take time to connect with the universe we have been born into and where we need to play some kind of meaningful part. Take time to appreciate the true gifts of nature and the universe before it’s too late.
At the same time, we have to tread lightly in nature. Stop to make daisy chains, feel the grass under our feet, the wind in our hair, the sun on our skin. Maybe appreciate what it must have felt like to think that the air and the land were full of Spirits who might influence the fertility of the Earth upon which survival depended.
In summary the message of this eclipse for me is that we must wake up and get real whilst appreciating the more subtle things in life that are not always so easy to touch and feel. They get taken for granted because we think they are always there. But one day we might find they have just dissolved before our eyes and become illusions in our head – long distant memories of times gone by.