Solar Eclipse 8-21-17; Deep Heart … ?

[Note:  This potent Solar Eclipse is operative in the power sphere through November 2018.]

On Monday, August 21, 2017, a Total Solar Eclipse at 28° 53′ of Leo will sweep across America with a 70-mile-wide (avg. +/-) shadow moving at 2,080 mph from West Coast to East Coast.  Such a total eclipse path has not crossed our country from coast to coast since 1918, which was a red letter year, marking the end of World War II, and the Great Flu Epidemic.

This eclipse is especially important for the United States because of the shadow path.  The “season” of this eclipse is longer, and more pronounced and intense for Americans than we are accustomed to.  Everyone I know is experiencing noticeable eclipse energies and effects already (7-30-17).  (See my article, “Eclipse Season Tips.”)

We Americans are about to step into the dark. Already, our instability, immersion in psychological extremes, anxiety and unknowns is alternating polarity with refreshed vision, evolutionary progress, inspiration, freer, healthier and happier hearts, and more authentic self-expression for each one — the potential gift of going for transformational progress with this eclipse at the end of Leo!

The path of the August 21, 2017 Solar Eclipse crosses every major earthquake fault line in the United States of America.   We note that on August 23, 2017 a FEMA exercise known as “EarthEx 2017” is scheduled to take place that will simulate ‘black sky’ catastrophes such as mega earthquakes, cyber terrorism or high altitude electromagnetic pulse attacks.  It is very likely that we will have heightened domestic seismic activity going into fall.  We could see some re-activation of the Great Earthquake of 1886, that was centered in Charleston, South Carolina, which is crossed by the shadow path of this eclipse.

People experience eclipses with widely varying degrees of significance in their lives, which we astrologers can gain information about by studying where the eclipse falls in their astrology birth chart.  If a powerful eclipse like this activates a personal point in your chart, you will experience strong effects, especially if it is on or near your birthday (August 21).  But the timing of eclipse effects varies widely among people and nations (yes, nations have birth charts too).  The effects are rarely associated with the day of the eclipse, because they are quietly ‘seeded’ at that eclipsed new moon, and activated by trigger factors that can occur several months before the eclipse, or up to two years after.  Suffice it to say that September thru fall of 2017 in America is going to be especially marked by tectonic changes — literally and figuratively.

MUNDANE MATTERS

This Eclipse is Especially Marsy

On July 20, the planet Mars entered the zodiac sign of Leo from Earth’s point of view.  Mars’ transit (movement) through Leo til September 5 ignites this eclipse season with extra hot, fiery, warlike energy which is evident in our lives as explosions, fires, road rage, fights, and heated international relations.  Intensity will peak until Mercury turns retrograde (appears to stop and then starts moving backwards in the sky from Earth) on August 12, which will begin to tone down and introvert these explosive energies to some degree.  When Mercury is retrograde, fewer people are likely to act-out the more aggressive, dangerous, and hurtful energies.  But we have to balance the natural introversion of Mercury retrograde with the seismic pressure AND human frustrations which become harder for individuals to manage during eclipse season until the first week of September when Mercury turns direct in motion again, and the energies ‘out’ more freely.  By then they are better processed and ‘grounded’ and therefore less likely to be acted out so impulsively and rashly.

The ‘cool down’ has already manifested (8/14/17).  Another report confirming, here.

Asia’s geodetic map for the Eclipse event clearly portrays areas of concern.  Eris (goddess of discord) is on the Descendant in North Korea, Uranus is also on the Descendant in both North and South Korea (keep in mind these lines mark regions of activation several hundred miles wide).  The Mars Midheaven Line is over Japan.  Today (8-11-17) Japan began its Northern Viper 17 military exercise, taking place on Hokkaido — Japan’s northernmost main island, in response to North Korea’s sabre rattling and threats.

Everybody has their guess and point of view about what’s really happening with North Korea. This is my  question:  Is the drama (Leo) really about China and US?  How could North Korea possibly develop ICBM’s so quickly without a more advanced silent partner? I see it as bluster, trade war, and drama about who’s going to run the show (Jupiter-Pluto square TRADE WAR); a proxy struggle about the geopolitical control of Asia.  China’s economy is tanking.  The World Bank expressed deep concern that China’s housing bubble could potentially unwind world banks and markets, earlier this year.

Whatever each person thinks of Donald Trump — like, hate or neutral (if that is possible) — doesn’t matter in the bigger picture perspective.   Each of us is unique and we balance each other out.  Well educated astrologers recognize him as the dark horse human being change agent whose time has come, precipitated by the Uranus-Pluto square (2012-2015).  His winning the 2016 election was a ‘grey swan’ event — an unexpected, historic, timely game change.  This is why efforts to negate the election repeatedly backfire, and will continue to do so.  He is the agent for corrective change, who doesn’t fit into the two parties.  Most people don’t realize that if he hadn’t won the 2016 election, the likelihood of America experiencing a more intensive economic collapse would have increased, possibly similar to 1929 when the right-left integrative shifting pattern was disrupted, as shown in the table on the left.  We need to stand on both feet to maintain balance!  How refreshing it would be if Americans abandoned two-party polarity conflict and relegated government to its rightful place, in respect and preservation for the inherent rights and freedom of all!

Clearly Donald Trump’s statements about North Korea in 1999 have come full circle.  1999 was when the most recent solar eclipse of this Saros Series, No. 145 occurred.  

In America’s geodetic eclipse map, the Pluto Midheaven line goes right through New York City. It’s likely we will see financial upset in world markets and on Wall Street, or a real change of trends going into the last quarter of the year concerning markets, ‘money’, debt, and established institutions of government and finance.   Competitive interests are especially driven now to gain power and position, and a cashless society is being advanced as quickly as possible worldwide.  Financial systems are experiencing survival stresses that require restructuring in earnest in 2018, and will be acute throughout 2021 [Saturn-Uranus closing square, Aquarius to Taurus].

New York City’s MTA subway system is undergoing extensive maintenance and renovations this summer, which naturally correlates with the eclipse Pluto Line, Lord of the Underworld, reforming infrastructure beneath the surface.

Pluto is not too hotly aspected in the eclipse chart, so besides the precariousness of financial bubbles, fudgey and deceptive economic reports and indicators,  compounding debt factors, and problems with loss of perspective, it isn’t especially unstable, except for possibilities of terrorism strikes, which are amplified in many places with the Uranus-Pluto Square; building  volatile, rebellious energies since 2010.  Pluto’s square with Jupiter marks the height of overblown expansion and hubris, along with abuses of power and position, and growing injustice throughout the land in our court system.  The bond market is on thin ice, and many pension funds will fail when it inevitably breaks.

The Saturn Midheaven line goes right through the heart of the Midwest, marking a growing reality check with the economy as experienced by much of the population, with store closings, tightening state and local budgets, etc.  There is a reorientation toward basic necessities, as many people can sense we are approaching a difficult passage in the early 2020s.   Issues with the rule of law, the balance of state and federal powers, and police powers are rising throughout the nation.

The Uranus Ascendant line running through California marks the suddenly most outspoken rebel against federal powers, and we can expect to see lots of changes on the West Coast marked by that line, some of which will be quite sudden.

America’s astrocartography map (a different method of analysis, shown left) marks where the planets’ energies are amplified by being on the angles of the horizon, midheaven, and imum coeli when the eclipse occurs.  We see the eclipse Sun-Moon Midheaven line runs right down the center of the nation, and the Mars Line is west of that.  Combining these lines with the Saturn line in the geodetic chart marks areas to watch for activation and changes.  Uranus is descending over the West Coast for some very changeable energies near that line; similar to the geodetic Uranus ascending line in the previous map.

 

The shadow’s passing from coast to coast especially marks America as the area of change on the world map.   This eclipse is affecting the entire world (as they do), and is especially potent where the shadow path darkens the day.

 

PERSONAL MATTERS

The table below shows some generational groups of people whose birth charts are more affected by this eclipse in Leo.  Everybody has Leo somewhere in their birth chart and experiences personally UNIQUE activations.  It’s impossible to generalize accurately with specificity.  A birth chart analysis can provide accurate information on eclipse matters.

You can download this table as a pdf file here.

Those born during the dates listed in 1948-49 (69 years old) are experiencing the impact of this eclipse on their birth positions of the planet Saturn near the end of Leo in their astrology charts.  Such an activation takes us deep into our own personal shadow which is sometimes daunting and scary.  It’s time to face unresolved issues in total honesty, clear karmas, and determine whether our personal boundaries are limiting or affirming.  These people can now come to know how they have been consciously and unconsciously shutting down their hearts for safety and self-protection.  New light and understanding can be brought into deepest fear-based contractions and negations for refreshing heart revitalization.  Personas or identities that are superficial to true, deep Self become a problem now and we can learn how to better anchor in the depths of our own soul for stronger living.  It may be necessary to ‘get down to basics’, work harder than we have been, and let go of material possessions for more freedom.  Structures in our lives that are not compatible with the truth of who we are will become unbearable, and compromises can no longer be maintained.

For those born in the 50s, during the dates listed in the table above, this eclipse brings up bodily challenges with heart health, belly balance, roots power, appetites, and elimination functions.  Fixed habit patterns, stubbornness and inflexibility can be a growing vulnerability, even becoming compulsively self-destructive.  Mortality and financial issues may red-flag corrections that need to be made.  If separation of heart and roots energies (love and sex) has occurred, it debilitates health and inner harmony.  Letting go of life-repressing attachments and resistance to change, and whole hearted surrender to re-alignment with deep roots soul powers will clear and refresh weary hearts, rejuvenate life force, and enhance happiness, vital passion and brighter vision.  Death and release of friends and family may be part of this potentially cathartic passage.

Those born in 1961-62 are also dealing with the state of their hearts, happiness, and creative self-expression with an emphasis on developing better presence that is more grounded and effective, while maintaining the freedom they need.  Loving self-commitment FIRST creates more stable and dependable relationships.  Learning not to unconsciously abandon themselves (and others) by ‘jumping up’ to the bigger picture of higher consciousness objectivity (which can be a disconnection pattern) helps to heal half-heartedness, restless discontent, disorienting fluctuations, and nonproductive change.

Those born in 1964 are dealing with challenges of better integrating heart and authentic self expression and creativity with their group associations, friendships, goals for success, and their children.  Authority issues are being raised and status quo expectations are running into disillusionment.  Refreshment of deep, true heart and personal authenticity can alleviate the oppression of structures in one’s life that should be abandoned or reformed.

Those born in 1994-95 are dealing with roots, debt, power and authority issues, and may feel like their generation has been short-changed of the variety of choices and self-determination available to previous, ‘self-centered’ generations.  This generation has come to eventually reform how collective debt, powers of taxation, and publicly pooled resources are wielded and what they are used for.  Survival fears can distort perspectives, and power struggles become intense.  Separation of heart and roots energies (love and sex) may debilitate health and inner harmony, as spiritual senses, needs, and conscience may be devalued in favor of heavy handed, force-driven agendas.  Members of this age cohort will benefit by a deeper commitment to whole being, and if needed, re-unification of heart and soul for a healthier, more affirming understanding of their empowered purpose and place in creation.

Humanity’s growing obsession with technologies that marginalize soul senses and debilitate health and nervous systems is contributing to our problems of compromised human presence, connectedness, care and compassion, and earth symbiosis.

This eclipse at the end of Leo and conjunct (together with) the fixed star, Regulus, accents its activations and evolutionary pressures.  Leadership, authenticity, spontaneous self-expression, happiness, love and romance, passion, play and creativity, whole and healthy BEing are all up to be assessed and improved upon for everyone.  This eclipse will take us down into the bottom of the barrel of our complexes that are interfering, negating, out of order, and unhealthy and overdue to be purged — personally and together.  Its pressures aim to facilitate whole human heart liberation, and better integration with our souls, roots power, minds, and bodies!   I often remind my clients that ‘your whole life begins with YOU’.  This eclipse is a major quality of life assessment and improvement opportunity.

Leo Heart and Identity Check

How is your heart?  How engaged is your heart in what you ‘do?’  Do you have personal love that is enlivening, affirming, affectionate and brings you happiness?  Is your heart integrated with your roots energy in a healthy, vitalizing way?   If you have children, how is your relationship with them?   What obstacles, repressions, habits, fears and doubts are inhibiting your positive, warm, natural Presence and spontaneous self-expression?  Are you actualizing your potential, living your purpose and mission?  Are your creative juices flowing?

How is leadership working in your life and world?  Is your courage healthy and strong?   Are you ‘shining?’  These questions and assessments come up with this eclipse as Life stirs-up inhibiting issues that need to be addressed, and Leo can be especially dramatic and large.

How far are we from innocent perception —  the childlike quality that enriches life immeasurably with open-ness, nonjudgment and faith-ful acceptance?   It’s challenging to separate hardened ego and its filters from our deeper, true sense of self and identity.  This is what we must do: release false identities and unconscious resistance to a whole and healthy life flow; open and refresh our hearts, and renew our lives!  Then we will naturally be of more benefit to others.

Dealing With the Dark Side

IF our personal birth chart is strongly contacted by the position of this eclipse in the heavens, it is guaranteed that our path will take us into the dark, which is anathema to plans and comfort zones.  But whatever challenges, experiences, losses, or  unknowns we must live with now — for a time — are perfectly designed to help us break out of our own “box ‘o life.”  Such shocks and losses are the power of our greater beings kicking in, to wean us from attachments that dampen our life flow like a kink in the garden hose.  However difficult such a sudden change or loss might be, there is always a refreshing liberation that helps us shift back to our natural, greater sense of true self.  We humans often enslave ourselves to what is familiar.  Disorienting at first, the eventual reorientation is very beneficial IF we are courageously going for whole life and readily releasing the past, outmoded behaviors, and our own unnatural, fear-based constrictions!

I’m remembering a Solar Eclipse that occurred right on the degree of my Mercury position in my birth chart (Mercury = communications and commuting) and somebody stole my car out of my driveway by breaking into the steering column.  I had a child at the time, dependent on me being on top of the game, and immediately I went into deep pain and stress at the shocking, horrible ‘unfairness’ of it all.  Yet life used that shock and loss to help me open up my heart and soul to great healing about being loved and supported by life!  A neighbor came over with keys to an extra car he had and told me to use it as long as I needed to.  Eventually I did get my car back, a friend helped me replace the steering column, and the gifts of healing I gained from the experience ENTIRELY erased the stress, hurt, and inconvenience.  So keep an open heart and mind, and let Life work you over for good and MORE LIFE if need be.

We are well advised to be alert and cautious through fall 2017 because the spiritually dark, vampiric, opportunistic, destructive, disorderly, malevolent part of the spectrum of life will assert during this time when the balance of light and dark is disrupted.  Opportunistic entities increase their aggression to gain power and place (standing).  Dark, earthbound spirits, corrupt government agencies, desperate and decaying power structures, counterfeits, selfish interests, and people who don’t ‘have themselves’ are channels for everything malicious under the Sun, especially people who go unconscious and are not present, who have a compromised or wounded sense of identity (Leo) with its accompanying rage, cognitive dissonance, and at worst, insanity.

It’s not appropriate to be naive, trusting, and delinquent in self-responsibility and good self-care. Be prepared for the unexpected.  In fact, when this eclipse affects someone personally, it will ‘upset’ an area of life that has become overly routine and stagnant.  Either the individual has lost their natural equilibrium and become unaware that they need change, updating, and a refreshed life stream; or they are in process of a change and adjustment in which the outcome is unknown.

That being said, there are very good qualities integral to darkness, and the better we have integrated our own shadow, or dark side, with our positive consciousness, the more we can strengthen and gain affirmation for richer, stronger, stable, confident, and deeply empowered living.  Eventually we come to realize that all darkness ultimately serves the light in the bigger picture of our evolution.  This eclipse is Step 1 in bringing up America’s dark side into light, and will reveal many truths to our conscious awareness.  Plumbing the depths of our personal and shared souls will steadily increase with America’s Pluto Return in 2022, and another total eclipse path across our nation in 2024.

This eclipse event takes us deeper into our own personal ‘shadows’ as karmic records of the past are activated for change and potential integration.  We might have dreams that bring up complexes and fears that have been operating beneath the surface of consciousness.   We may experience triggers that bring up unresolved issues from the past.  Breathe deeply, take courage! During a potent eclipse like this we are at choice to integrate our beings, or be lazy and take the path of least resistance …  to dis-integration!

Polarity Switching

Eclipses are polarity switches that occur in six-month cycles.  There is also an 18-year cycle (about 18 years 11 days) in which they may repeat at the same degree of the zodiac.  They energize our brain hemispheres and create changes and remix between conscious mind and identity, and our unconscious or “dark side”.  This is why people lose things on eclipses.  People who are personally affected by this eclipse (or any eclipse) may switch polarity in some unexpected, mind boggling way.  They may switch from pro to con on some matter, vanish out of relationships, fall off the sobriety wagon, or suddenly take action that is completely out of character for them, and makes no sense to an outside observer.

Some people are split in some matters; they may be half-hearted in love while they appear to be building a meaningful relationship.  Then an eclipse will flip the switch and ‘poof’ they are gone.  The “I” that people identify with might not be the truth of who they are, and other parts of self might come up to be dealt with and integrated (or not).   If we are diligently doing our ‘inner work’, we will be less likely to have difficult integration dramas.  Yet such a switch can ‘correct’ us and bring us back to our path when we have gone on a tangent or become confused, and that too could appear to be irrational and inexplicable to another.

Every one of us is challenged with responding to life and reality in automatic, old programmed, less conscious ways that are off-tune and outdated during eclipses.

People who are working to gain sobriety and drug-free living also need to do their ‘inner work’ and integrate their dark sides.  If this is neglected, and the drivers to self-medicate aren’t healed and neutralized via soul healing and restoration, it doesn’t matter how many years of sobriety one achieves; the dark side is still stuck in the patterns of pain and addiction and WILL recreate it again.  The more we neglect to heal our souls and address our psychological and emotional wounds, the more our own shadow will gain power.  During an eclipse the shadow may switch into the ‘superior’ position (consciousness driver), and the addiction overcomes the individual again in this NATURAL process of integration.  If we don’t do our inner work (everybody) with every soul-wound issue we have, at some point we may be in a war with the devil.

It is tragic that our current establishment medical model doesn’t address the soul-disturbance causes of dis-eases.  True healing cannot be gained without healing the soul, and our modern medicine falls far short of the goal.

ASTROLOGY OF THIS ECLIPSE

We Americans are the beneficiaries of cosmic grace in this eclipse, as the chart of the eclipse portrays a significant opportunity to renew ourselves by the potency of this passage.  This is not to downplay the intensification of polarization and conflict which is already manifest and will increase.  Each individual is attuned to the cosmos in unique ways, and this event amplifies — without prejudice — the entire spectrum from brilliant light to gloomiest, most negating, resistant and recalcitrant dark.  The eclipse event is the temporary turning over from light to dark in the midst of the day — an exceptionally potent and disorienting polarity switch, especially if it contacts your personal birth planetary positions and/or your location.  The form and matter of the Moon blocks the rays of the daytime sun.  The Sun represents conscious mind, purpose, positive action and presence; and the Moon represents the subconscious, habits, automatic responses, emotions, and the past.  For a time, consciousness, reason, and intelligent light are eclipsed by primal instincts, subjectivity, compulsiveness, reactions, and expedient default behaviors.

This North Node Solar Eclipse calls us forward with a positive growth potential, to healing, clearing, more heart, and further actualizing our intrinsic purpose and authentic presence.  All of the Leo qualities can be clarified and enhanced in this interplay of polarities; love and romance, creativity, play, warmth, presence, natural authority, beingness, generosity, and the shining of true self for the benefit of all.  The Sabian Symbol for the eclipse degree (see footnote*) offers information about the essence of the evolutionary gift of this eclipse — a spontaneous, creative urge at the vulnerable, tenuous point of conscious cognition that moves us to express or create; the pure, innocent pleasure of spirit that arises from core being, on the verge of expression or negation.  This is the process in our lives that is highlighted and pronounced for clarification and better conscious engagement during this eclipse season.  How easily are we discouraged or negated in our true self-expression (not ego) and creativity?  How healing and empowering taking heart and courage can be!

Interplanetary Tensions

The tensions portrayed in the chart of this eclipse (red and yellow lines) are not especially difficult, and tension stress is always needed in a chart for motivation and more dynamic engagement of its potentials.

A primary evolutionary pressure and stress with this chart is the Eclipse quincunx (150 degree angle) with Chiron, a minor planet with great symbolic meaning for humanity.  This is a correction, adjustment, and reorganization between heart and spirit, and between the individual and the whole of All as One.  It is a fine-tuning opportunity, a refinement.  Those who readily respond to these pressures in adaptive flexibility, who embrace the refinement, ego purification, and soul healing offered, and who do the work required, will gain a stronger, more spiritually empowered spectrum of life.  Such commitment and duty aids individual purpose, effectiveness, mission and sacred service offerings for each one.   This has to do with healing the ‘breach’ and sharing love and deeper understanding between mankind and animal-kind, ecology, healing our waters, and incorporating more compassion into our ambitions.   Emotional, loving support and deepening security in love-based Spirit aid this process [Venus trine Chiron].

 

 

Pluto in Capricorn, and Venus in Cancer, both are square (90-degree angles) to Jupiter in Libra.  This can be too much of a good thing, overindulgence, too many sweets and rich foods, heirarchical mismanagement and dysfunction (which has been a huge problem in business management in 2017), overblown expectations, financial bubbles and inflations, loss of perspective, balance, and justice in relationships, waste, dishonesty, power lust, improper measure, and all manner of ethics violations for gain and advantage.  These distortions come into play with home and family, relationships, and long-term career goals, ambitions, and worldly status.  Examples could be taking advantage of ‘the system’ or public finance through position, get rich quick schemes, poor planning, and working the system for selfish interests.  (e.g., “Make $10,000 monthly flipping houses from the comfort of your home,” … radio ad.  Or paying your employees a pittance while expecting them to give their lives for the success of your company.)

Venus square (90-degree angle) to Uranus makes for restless and changeable feelings, money situations, values and desires, and divine discontent.  The need for emotional closeness and nurturing alternates with a need for emotional freedom and space.

Mercury retrograde opposition (180°) to Neptune:  Detailed working information and communications are delayed, with unknown parameters, uncertainty, fudged, dishonest, misrepresented,  or yet to be pinned down and defined (until September 19) [Mercury Direct opposition Neptune].  Toxic air and information channels are a problem.  Clearing up misunderstandings from the past could be part of this, or bringing better creativity and personal fulfillment into your daily work.

Positive Interplanetary Strengths

Most notable is the Grand Trine marked as a green triangle on the chart in fire signs; North Node Solar Eclipse in Leo with Mars, trine (120°) to Saturn in Sagittarius (also conjunct Black Moon Lilith), and Uranus in Aries.  Fire signs are sensational, spiritual enthusiastic, warm, uplifting and inspiring.  This is an enjoyable harmony and positive energy flow among heart and purpose, philosophy, compelling vision and world view, and individually liberating action.  It is excellent for incorporating personal freedom into structures we are building in our lives.  It affirms faith, action, romance, trying new and different things, enjoying children, innovation, individuality, recreation, happiness and having fun!  Break out of your routines and breathe free in new places!

Saturn grounds this energy circuit in reality so it isn’t an escape channel or high.  It is bringing the best of the last several years of Saturn’s and Uranus’ transits in fire signs forward for refreshing, liberating transcendence that can light the way through every earth challenge  and shadow with the immutable power of Sacred Heart.  It blesses us with potent individual purpose affirmations, and opportunities for building structures and solutions that will stand the tests of time, relevance, and value.

After this Eclipse event may be an excellent time for new business starts (depending on personal chart factors) that look to the future with passion, commitment, wisdom, and innovation.

The Sun in Leo, and Uranus in Aries, are the power drivers of this eclipse.  Uranus’ mythology as the sky god is fitting as millions of Americans look to the sky on the 21st.  Uranus marks energies of scientific innovation, the unification of bigger picture perspective, the healing power of Truth, the brilliance of lightning flashes that expose secrets and banish shadows in heightened awakening and awareness.  We’ve been enjoying ‘signs in the sky’ of Uranus’ energies uplifting our hearts and refreshing our hopes with beautiful, dramatic sunsets, cloud formations, and galvanizing displays of the complementary polarities of light and dark that renew life itself with fresh contrasts!

Yet with a solar eclipse, such exceptional beauty alternates with days in which a stagnant pall seems to hang over the land, a still deadness that is oddly disturbing; a harbinger of the shadow to come.

Jupiter in Libra is well engaged in the Solar Eclipse chart, with constructive, creative channels to Saturn and Mars.  This blesses relationships (that have an honest and ethical base), initiatives and action with success, adding grace and beauty to the energy mix.

General Timeline of Some Energy Factors Going Forward

The pace of life downshifts on August 12 as we begin a period of review, re-working, and reflection. Communications, commerce, and progress will stall, complicate, and projects will go on hiatus until September 5, when Mercury turns stationary direct again (resumes forward motion).  Expect to review the past and consolidate position, re-connect with old friends, loves, clients, experience flashbacks to previous times, music, movies that may be surprising with this eclipse.  The last two eclipses of this Saros Series 145 occurred in 1999 and 1963.  Energies and issues of focus during those years will flare up again as if no time has passed in the mysterious weavings of the tapestry of life.

Be careful for distracted drivers!  Mercury retrograde plus a Solar Eclipse causes more people to go unconscious to the present and circumstances.  I’m hearing about too many car accidents!

Saturn turns Direct on August 25 which marks a subtle shift into a start of forward progress after a period of stalling with projects, direction, next steps, and work to be done.  Solutions to delays and problems barely begin to present on August 26 when Mercury conjoins the Sun and a new idea cycle is seeded, but it’s too early to take effective action until September 5 when Mercury turns Direct and re-starts the engine of life before slowly shifting into ‘Drive.’  September 19 marks Mercury’s progress forward out of the retrograde loop and shift into full forward motion and speed.  Life energies begin to normalize to our expectations.  The idea cycle begun on August 26 comes to fruition with the superior conjunction with the Sun on October 8 at 15° Libra.

On September 2 and 3, retrograde Mercury and forward moving Mars come together at the Eclipse degree of 28° Leo 53′, an interesting juxtaposition of introversion/extraversion, speeding up/slowing down simultaneously.  This draws the energy of the eclipse backward and inward, even as Mars seeks to advance and initiate action with eclipse energies.  This sparks ideas and desire for progress that is premature.  It’s a confusing time, especially with the Sun applying to opposition with retrograde Neptune.  Details are unknown, methodical progress is undermined, and appearances are deceiving.  Emotions run high as the Moon opposes Venus — a monthly occurence that is amplified by this Eclipse.  Aggressive and assertive energies begin to amplify again.

Much is being made by some astrologers, of the fact that this Eclipse falls right on Donald Trump’s Ascendant (eastern horizon, rising degree) and natal Mars.  Clearly September 2 and 3 will be especially difficult and confusing for him as he won’t know how to effectively apply his energies.  But this will pass, and his physical, vital energies are beginning to renew for next steps on September 7.  The sign of Leo pertains to leaders of nations and many are hoping that he will fail or be ‘eclipsed’ (taken out).  It’s not going to be an easy time for him, but we have a stability and growing strength marked by the Grand Trine mentioned above that directly supports his health and wellbeing and brings him forward again in innovative and either inspiring or depressing ways, depending on your personal point of view.  The next year will certainly have ups and downs for him and few would be up to the challenges he continually faces.  Whatever your personal opinion of him, he is living 75-80 percent of his potential.  Are you?

Mercury turns Direct in motion on September 5 and it’s a relief to shift forward again.  The Full Moon of Pisces on September 6, right on the current position of the Pisces ruler, Neptune, brings energies to a peak of realization and bigger picture understanding, with heightened spirituality and idealism that is grounded and stabilized by powerful, deep, Pluto in Capricorn, who is working to reform status quo structures.

This is a nicely aspected Full Moon, though not without confusion.  Toxic air and water are amplifying issues.  Practical, working method and details have to be balanced with the boundless, unknowns, and undefined parameters.  Discernment and purification facilitate success.   Mercury conjoins the Eclipse position on September 7, now moving forward.  Innovative approaches make a positive difference in every endeavor, and can ease tensions associated with dramas on the world stage of international relations.

 

It’s Era Closing Time

Astrologers are aware that we are closing the chapter of the current Age through the early 2020s, as shown by the Barbault Cyclic Index, and this awareness is increasing now among the public.  Click here to see the planetary cycles that are closing their synodic cycles; the basis for the Index.

Don’t miss the chance to integrate, heal and deepen in Heart, offered by this eclipse! Loving self-commitment and courage, self-discipline and passion will make all the difference now in the quality of our lives going forward.  It’s vital that we steadily gain empowerment and progressively develop our gifts to remain relevant and aid others in these profoundly changing times, as we enter more troubled waters and the tides of irrepressible changes begin surging and ebbing in 2018.

It’s time to take heart, or be compost for the next age!

Article completed 8-18-17

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Footnote*

GENERAL KEYWORDS FOR LEO ECLIPSE MATTERS

Sun and sunshine, cats, Heart, kings (royalty) and leaders, warmth and affection, true self, purpose, will, destiny, gold (both color and metal), orange and yellow, manifestation, personal prowess and magnetism, love and romance, children, creations, creativity, recreation, self-expression, arts and drama, entertainment, movie ‘stars’, monarch butterflies, goldenrod, Divine Will.

Transiting Planets Angular Events to Eclipse Degree

• October 5 – Jupiter sextile from 29° Libra
• December 10 – Saturn trine from 29° Sagittarius is exact
• January 24 – Mars square from 29° Scorpio
• April 25 – Uranus trine from 29° is exact
• November 3, 2018 – Jupiter square from 29° Scorpio
• November 13, 2018 – Mars opposition from 29° Aquarius
• December 11, 2018 – Uranus retrograde trine from 29° Aries