We have a Full Moon Lunar Eclipse in Leo on 21st January 2019 at 5.13 am GMT. This is right at the beginning of Leo-Aquarius axis, 0 degrees.
However, not all eclipses hold the same level of intensity – this one is complex, and made even more intense due to the Moon passing through the deepest part of the Earth’s shadow, which makes the Moon red otherwise known as a ‘Blood Moon.’
On top of that this Lunar Eclipse falls near the Moon’s closest orbital approach to Earth, making this known as a Supermoon. This makes the Moon appear larger and brighter, and its gravitational pull stronger.
This eclipse also foreshadows the culmination of many planets coming into exact aspects with one another – including Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and Chiron. In real terms, this is a challenging amalgamation of influences on us that intensifies over the next few days. It brings lots of different truths or realities to consider, a degree of confusion, and grappling with things that felt certain, and then a fair amount of frustration because we don’t have the answers.
Of course you might be lucky enough to just experience the bounty of the Venus conjunction to Jupiter, without the challenge…
But in all honesty, this is perhaps the most challenging, confusing array of planets and points at a full or new Moon that we might get in the entire year. Getting our awareness into what it means for us at this time is not going to be easy, it’s better to even avoid trying to make too much sense, rather just stay open, observe, notice our reactions and stay close to our awareness since processes relevant now will not complete quickly and will need our time and patience.
Eclipses, as well as this particular astrology, bring in a sense of alternative, parallel or disembodied realities into our everyday, waking consciousness. They open up important dream doors, where the dreaming reality we experience, in other words the pre-reality, the subtle signals and sensations are more hardly perceptible than tangible come stronger into our awareness. What I mean by this is the thing that would usually float by your awareness now calls and makes itself more easily known.
What this means is that your life path, the meaning of your life, where you need to go more to be more whole within, what you need to grow into, is easier to access, since the marginalised parts of our identities are more in the foreground, or find us in mysterious ways. These cut off parts might communicate to us in our dreams in what we see as not ‘us’, or in a chance meeting, a long term body symptom, or challenging relationship moment.
Yet that doesn’t mean less confusion, it generally means more, since most of the time we are not used to the outer realms of our identity bleeding through into our present reality. Also it’s not easy operating in various different realities – it’s a like we feel a bit altered, not fully present. When we have more access to different realities, we can feel more edgy, since sensing multiple realities somehow makes everything feel a little more possible (essentially it is also more possible). When we sense the multiple possibilities opening up, we slip by default into questioning what is the right direction or decision? It’s perhaps best to avoid that right now. Let it unfold more than try to make a decision.
Our attitude towards choice and decisions seem to generally be ‘you need to make them’. But sometimes, even when we simply don’t feel like we have a choice in our lives, we spend all our time deliberating and feeling into the right moment for something that we become paralysed. The right moment finds you, we don’t find it. This is the problem when multiple realities open up, we have to stay very aligned with ‘what is’, and let the Tao be your guide. Otherwise confusion reigns.
On the planetary level, this is collaborated by a lot of outer planetary energy (in addition to the eclipse portal).
Firstly Venus is square Neptune and moving into a conjunction to benevolent Jupiter. Two benevolent planets together is usually quite helpful. Venus is also in trine to Mars, another supportive, flowing aspect. Mercury conjoins Pluto and squares Eris, a good time for us to delve deep with ourselves and with others.
Overall, this can be a really good time for relationships – but it’s not a straight forward Venus-Jupiter! A normal Venus-Jupiter would be good feeling, fun, expansive, feeling the love and it’s likely we will feel this, with an edge of something else we cannot quite define.
Venus-Jupiter has another aspect from Uranus that brings in some disruption. He makes a sesquiquadrate aspect to this benevolent Venus-Jupiter conjunction spoiling it all a bit (just when we thought we had it good). The Moon forms the same sesquiquadrate to Venus-Jupiter also. This isn’t a straight forward aspect pattern, and does bring in tension to what might be a harmonious, easy flowing Venus-Jupiter conjunction.
While we might have more access to more love, resources, creativity, faith and vision in our lives and good relating right now, underneath the erratic influence of Uranus, brings in unpredictability and instability. Perhaps on the surface you want to believe in the good stuff, but you just can’t, there’s a fly in the ointment.
The fly is always a good thing to work on, don’t override it. Its the ‘problem’, ‘annoyance’, ‘unexpected’, and basically that which we usually believe shouldn’t be there, or if it wasn’t there, we would be happier. So we marginalise it, ostracise it, overlook, override it. Blind faith is a possibility now, but it’s best here to get interested in the fly.
How do you experience that fly? As a frustration? An insecurity, uncertainty? A disturbance? Where is it that you somewhat trust your direction or decision but sense a kind of uneasiness, a non reality in your reality. What are you buying into? Expectations – either good or bad, are never what they seem, it’s the irony of life – it always challenges us to stay open and not get too fixated or attached to an option or direction. It’s a case of mixed signals and feedback at the moment, if we are to be really honest with ourselves.
Neptune squares Venus-Jupiter, and so we have Jupiter and Neptune at odds arguing over our sense of the true direction, purpose, what’s most spiritual, right thing to do or truth is, in your life. They both have different versions in mind for us. They come together three more times in 2019, but it is especially highlighted today. This aspect repeats in June and again in September where it culminates.
Both Mars and Saturn are in square aspect and strong in their own rulerships. Internally, you could say the strong will of Mars is pitted against the authority, responsibility and discipline of Saturn. It might be tough to get things done, or there could be battles with authority figures. It’s often a matter of resistance and stalemate in situations, it’s challenging to get these two planets mobilised towards the same goal. But if you can, there’s a lot that can be achieved.
With the Sun newly in Aquarius and Venus squaring Neptune, it’s quite a service orientated chart and feel, putting others before ourselves, compassion and connecting us to our humanitarian ideals. What’s the bigger picture want us to do? But sometimes it’s not about the bigger picture, right thing or the ideal, it’s about what we feel we want to do.
Mercury is in a conjunction with Pluto in Capricorn and a square to Eris in Aries. It’s a good day for research, investigative work, and penetrating communication. Yet there’s also a caution here about how you use your powers of persuasion; tread lightly there, and don’t even think about misrepresenting yourself or using other manipulative tactics in the process.
The Sun in Capricorn sextiles Chiron in Pisces and squares Uranus in Aries. This is right in the final degrees of the Capricorn, Pisces and Aries, adding an intensity to the day. It brings a positive healing dimension and also a restless quality. Perhaps there’s something that requires more awareness in you or others, or a change, doing something a different way. Perhaps over the last couple of days someone or something has awoken you up to something you don’t want to face. So face it.
Uranus’ square to the Sun-Moon opposition brings in an element of vision for the future, ideals and egalitarian spirit, especially since the Sun has just moved into humanitarian Aquarius. With the Moon in Leo, the challenging energy is more workable, and feels particularly relevant when we look at the state of the UK political scene. Surely someone needs to have some kind of vision, perhaps it will start filtering through now politically and in our own lives.
I always say come back to your centre and trust in that. Slow down and catch your awareness around your deeper feelings. What is it that feels true for you in your situation, despite appearances to the contrary. What can you not deny, or is becoming less deniable? What can you allow in more, what feels safe to allow in more? A direction is trying to unfold for you but you need to go slow and feel in to ascertain which and what way it points. It’s a good time to process what’s holding you back, we will not get complete clarity, but it will support the movement and awareness of the process, and that’s all we really need.
With the Leo Moon isolated on the other side of the chart, there’s a strong outward pull, but the Moon is urging is, as is the North Node in Cancer, in many ways the subject of an eclipse, towards being in our feelings certainly not ignoring how we feel about things because of ideals, external conditions, what we think is right etc. We can ruminate, analyse, pull a part, dialogue, access and paralyse ourselves as much as we want over an issue, but can we really feel the right way forward. Can we orientate into the safety of our feelings? Or does it feel too precarious to be there.
How you frame your experience, especially your past, makes a difference. When we can’t orientate into or from our feelings, it’s easy to be in our heads, trying to gain understanding and make sense of our lives and what’s happened. We can get fixed on a certain way of thinking about something, and it’s useful to see things from alternative angles, giving us more freedom to feel differently and relax and surrender to a more conducive perspective, especially on past events.
The issues we have in our lives are rarely just problems, they are there to be signposts for the way out of the issue. Long term issues, no matter how they manifest, can be seen from different perspectives which elucidate a deeper life myth within your life rather than reflecting a problem.
Problems are also on our side, as well as against you, the level at which a life myth/theme manifests depends on how open you are to seeing that which you need to learn (i.e. the level of rigidity and stubbornness you hold). If you believe something is definitely against you and has no use in your life at all, that will be more your reality, if you choose to see everything as having a purpose in your life, it’s easier for it to manifest in a more graceful way, and it’s also easier to shift a less rigid pattern, since we can choose to move out of it quicker.
The more fixed we are on the intractability of our problems, or the past, or the painful fate of our future life, the more disconnected we are from our centre and essence of love. The more fragmented we become. In many ways, we are learning the power of being in our feelings and witnessing how quickly problems dissipate when truly felt and witnessed from within. It helps us relieve the pressure, and with less pressure we can see things from an alternative viewpoint. The deeper self is more interested in a true rendition of our lives rather than the one our heads have made up.
