The Moon is full in Leo on 31st January 2018 at 1.26 pm GMT. The Moon is aligned with the Lunar Nodal axis, which makes this Leo Full Moon a Lunar Eclipse, but not only is this an eclipse, it’s also a Total Eclipse, which means the entire Moon becomes obscured.
You can only see this in certain places in the world, and unfortunately not in the UK. There are few aspects at this Full Moon, except those that make aspects to the Sun and Moon. Venus and Juno are conjunct the Sun, and Ceres is conjunct the Moon with the North Node.
Lunar Eclipses usher in new awareness and opportunities for us to create fresh beginnings. It’s a time when we can make big shifts in our evolution. They do this by bringing things to a close or an illumination – they act like magnified Full Moons, although take longer to make their effects known, sometimes up to 6 months. Eclipses also always come in sets of two, and the corresponding Solar Eclipse on 15th February at the Aquarius New Moon works with this Full Moon to bring about shifts.
As this month’s eclipse opens its portal of energy we can access new dimensions of our consciousness, accelerating our path of awakening, in very real terms. This eclipse is particularly focused on freeing ourselves of old patterns.
If you have personal planets around 11 degrees Leo, Aquarius, Taurus or Scorpio, then this eclipse will affect you most. Learn more about what eclipses mean in my eclipses post here.
Sometimes the pressure can become so great that it impresses upon us the urgency of change in our life, it pushes us to an edge where the intention, desire and often need to integrate change is so great, that we can manifest the will to take us to the next level. This eclipse shows us what needs to happen and gives us the impetus to make it happen.
The Moon is particularly bright and brilliant in the sky at night right now. This is because the Moon is near its closest distance from the Earth, making it appear larger and brighter than normal. This makes it Supermoon. It is also a Blue Moon because it’s the second Full Moon in the same calendar month.
All eclipses activate the Nodal axis, which relates to soul purpose. With the North Node in Leo, we have an opportunity to make substantial moves in the direction of our soul purpose, and lighting up our peronsal Divine authentic expression, which is what Leo is all about.
The South Node in Aquarius, opposite the North Node in Leo (The Nodes are always on the opposition axis, in opposite signs), asks us to question the conditioning we have taken on, both collective and through our family.
With the feminine asteroids Juno and Ceres activated, the Goddess theme is strong. Ceres, as a ruler of Cancer or Virgo, urges us beyond Venus in respect to sexuality and creativity, taking us further into the dimension of procreation and giving new life. Where Venus is the sexual organs, Ceres is the sexual energy grounded in the reproduction and regeneration – this gives her astrology the theme of rebirth.
The Sun and Venus in combination with the Moon and Ceres at this Full Moon brings a huge potential for creativity. It’s not about us standing alone with our creativity. With the Sun-Venus energy in collective Aquarius, it’s about growing into our service to the collective. This eclipse will make it easier to align with our soul’s Divine purpose and give our gifts to the world – everyones deepest soul purpose.
Ceres is the Goddess of sustenance, or the mother’s milk, and is often associated with Goddess Isis. In this way, she also symbolises the principle of unconditional love, able to selflessly sustain new life. In another aspect of Isis, she is associated with the great mystery of rebirth, which speaks more to the nourishment of the soul, something which the Moon also symbolises. The Moon and Ceres together work to strengthen and soften these themes in our lives – helping us see how we can ground this energy very specifically and practically in our lives.
Ceres corresponds to the IC, the deepest part of the soul, our foundations, roots and sense of belonging – highlighting the family influence again. In the complication of family dynamics, where mothers ground into their children and vice versa, Ceres helps us become free to love ourselves and others unconditionally, without cords and ties that limit and drain us.
When we become excessively attached to our creations, possessions or children, Ceres teaches us that letting go and surrendering with trust, guides us back to reunion with our Higher Self. Until we learn to relinquish control and let go and trust, we can go through abandonment scenarios to lessen the clench.
Ceres also has a Virgo rulership influence, which brings in an aspect of devotion and super mum/dad expressions, capable of doing whatever it takes to ensure the thriving of offspring. With Cere’s current emphasis in the self-expression of Leo (and with the Moon), it’s about turning towards self-nurturing through creativity, emotional connection and trusting in rebirth.
This exploration of becoming our authentic selves (Leo) despite the collective conditioning (Aquarius) and the fears of rejection from family, our mothers in particular, brings us back to the age old programming of separation from the Divine Feminine and the Divine Mother. The more we cord into the Goddess principle, on a consistent, practical basis in our lives, the more we can thrive and grow through the feminine principles of connection, surrender, grace, love and harmony.
This powerful eclipse is another heralding in of the Divine Feminine, particularly in it’s regenerative aspect. We can be expressive, playful and creative in all we do, from setting boundaries to mundane things like cleaning! It’s also how we meet our own personal needs and those of family, the conflicts around that, and our sensitivity to the emotional needs of others.
What energy do we meet ourselves and others with? What feelings do we allow ourselves to access? Are we able to let go of everyone’s else’s ideas about ourselves and our lives? Can we access our vulnerability and humility, and let it guide us, rather than everything and everyone else outside?
Ceres also speaks to the rites and rituals of menstruation. Ceres, as a Goddess of death to rebirth, functions as a womb, receiving the dead for entry into rebirth. Thus Ceres as Mother, whose blood provides the nourishment for the fertilised egg and fetus, rules over the women’s blood transformation mysteries (Isis mysteries).
The first mystery is that of menstruation, indicating the ripening of the womb. The second is pregnancy where the menstrual blood nourishes the embryo. The third and final is the transformation of the mother’s blood into milk for nourishment and transformation.
Juno is another asteroid of the Divine Feminine active at this Full Moon Eclipse. Her main theme is relatedness, relationships and merging (echoing Jupiter’s current year sojourn in Scorpios – she in fact has a Libra-Scorpio rulership). With relationships always comes power and unequal or abusive power dynamics.
Juno’s conjunction to the Sun highlights another aspect of the Goddess – Her commitment to those that have experienced powerlessness, abuse, and inequality. Within all relationships, there’s an urge towards balance and harmony. But in the process, challenges of infidelity, subjugation, possessiveness, manipulation, projections and power games can arise in relationships.
She is supporting us to see where we are party to and playing out these relationship issues. She helps us see that where there is no reciprocity, no love, gratitude, mutual commitment to forgiveness, or appreciation, relationships go sour. Where women are not fairly treated and respected, when we are not treated as equals, relationships lose love and lustre quickly and separation and divisiveness take over.
The fears around deep merger especially through emotional or sexual union with another run deep for both men and women. In our collective unconscious, deep sex is often associated with loss of life. Men have tremendous fears of being consumed by powerful, sexual women. The fear women have of men’s fear, inhibits women being powerful. Relationships play out these deep unknown fears, unless both men and women get to know and process their deeper fears to intimacy.
In a similar way to Ceres, Juno takes us beyond Venus in that she uses her sexuality to go beyond creativity into a mystical union. All committed partnerships, from therapist to client, teacher to student, inclusive of all one to one relationships, are based on karmic contracts, commitments that are sacred to one another.
There’s a tension in every Full Moon as that’s the nature of the Sun opposing the Moon, and all opposites. With Juno refusing to accept the inequality and injustice in relationships of all types, we might have some relationships to work on over the next few months, especially around ending, committing and re-commiting to important relationship work in our lives. Ceres helps us put whats nurturing and emotionally sustainable first.
This is an ideal time for getting creative with rituals, and if you feel brave, with your menstrual blood. Use your menstruation blood to ritualise what you want to release at this Full Moon Eclipse and ask for guidance on seeing how all these themes permeate your life at different levels and how you can come into your authentic expression.