This year there are four eclipses, two Solar and two Lunar.
Full Moon 26 May (11h18 GMT) 5’26 Sagittarius Lunar eclipse
New Moon 10 June (10h42 GMT) 19’47 Gemini Solar eclipse
Full Moon 19 November (08h57 GMT) 27’14 Taurus partial Lunar eclipse
New Moon 4 December (7h34) 12’22 Sagittarius Solar eclipse.
These relate back to 2020 eclipses.
Full Moon 5 June 15’34 Sagittarius Lunar eclipse.
Full Moon 30 November 8’38 Gemini Lunar eclipse
New Moon 14 December 23’Sagittarius Solar eclipse.
Eclipses come in pairs, Solar and Lunar at the New Moon and Full Moon respectively. There is a theme, as the two same signs are highlighted by the New and Full Moons and the pattern is repeated six months later, this year there is a partial eclipse on 19th November so it falls in late Taurus, not early Gemini-it is a prequel to the season of Taurus/Scorpio eclipses. In 2020 there were two eclipses in Sagittarius/ Gemini (see above).
An eclipsed New Moon, a Solar eclipse, is when the Sun’s light is cut out because the Moon stands between the Sun and the Earth. These times when the darkness falls across the face of the Sun. An eclipsed New Moon potentises the energies of the New Moon and so its effects are incredibly powerful if they fall on personal planets or the angles.
An eclipsed Full Moon or Lunar eclipse is when the Earth stands between the Sun and the Moon. As the Moon has no light of its own, when the light of the Sun is blocked by the Earth, the Moon disappears from the sky. An eclipsed Full Moon is an incredibly powerful time, its effects last 2.5 days before and 2.5 days after the New or Full Moon, being the most powerful when it is exact.
So what we have on Wednesday at 11h14 BST is a Full Moon in Gemini/Sagittarius, followed by a New Moon in Gemini then six months later a New Moon in Sagittarius. The areas of influence cover 5’26-19’47 of Gemini and Sagittarius. So any charts with planets or angles at these degrees will be triggered throughout the year, (allow an orb of 2’). The signs affected by the eclipses follow the reverse wheel of the zodiac. Next year, 2022 it will be Taurus/Scorpio and the following year 2023 Aries/Libra and so on. Eclipse signs come at around 8 year intervals the next Gemini/Sagittarius eclipses will begin in December 2029.
Eclipses bring endings (Lunar eclipses/Full Moons) and beginnings (Solar eclipses/New Moons). They have a sense of inevitability about them, a non-negotiable change, which can be dramatic, especially on the Sun, Moon, Ascendant and MC, or more slow acting, spanning the six months between the eclipses.
Solar Eclipses can be a lucky break, random good fortune and an expansion in the area affected. Lunar eclipses, because they are concerned with letting go and endings, can be very emotional. Because they are life-changing, even endings are ultimately good, although in the short-term they may not seem that way. Eclipses also bring into some random factor which bounces into your life and transforms it, it can be a small things which have huge an effect on your life, secrets can be exposed at this time. Because they represent a huge input of energy, time can speed up and things you thought you have to wait for suddenly arrive.
Louise Hay had a Solar eclipse on her 8th house Uranus in Pisces on March 18th, 1988. Uranus was ruler of her 7th house of helpful friends. She was invited onto two of the biggest TV shows at the time, The Oprah show and the Donahue show in one week in March 1988 to talk about her work with AIDS sufferers, The Hay Ride. This transformed her life. Suddenly her book You Can Heal your Life was a best-seller, her workshops were over subscribed and her life was never the same again. At the time AIDS was referred to as ‘The Gay Plague’ and AIDS sufferers were shunned. It was a risky decision for Hay to start her workshops (Uranus), but she responded with her heart (Pisces) from a request by a gay man to start a small group to talk about loving yourself and self-acceptance. The group grew to huge gatherings and there is a recording of one of them on You Tube.* Louise also had Jupiter transiting her MC in March. Transits will be helped by eclipses and vice versa.
Eclipses, spotlight and highlight, they show ways forward, illuminate what needs to be released and, especially with the Full Moon/Lunar eclipse, reveal secrets about other people that are hurtful and potentially life changing. As the word eclipse suggests, sometimes a person will be eclipsed out of your life, or you will be overshadowed and forced to retire from someone else’s life. Not a pleasant prospect, but the person or situation may have a sell-by date in your life and during an eclipse their number comes up and off they go. Eventually, it will be recognised as having been a good thing, in the short term it might hurt.
If an eclipse falls on your birthday the whole year will be a critical life changing one. The cycle of eclipses is 19 years until they return to the same sign and degree. Look back 19 years and see what happened then to get an idea of what might be in store for you. In 2001 the New Moon, Solar eclipse was at 23’53 Sagittarius, last year’s New Moon, Solar eclipse was on 14th December at 23’08 Sagittarius.
So a big year for Gemini, Sagittarius. Both of course, are mutable signs; changeable, quixotic, restless, unbounded, unstable, adaptable. What we also have this year is both Neptune and Jupiter in mutable Pisces making a square to Gemini, Sagittarius. So the three mutable signs give a flavour of the year to come.
Gemini is the sign of the intellect and thoughts generally. Geminis like to collect facts and love new, random information. Communication is key to their happiness they can be fickle (that mutability) but are incredibly versatile and open-minded. Often great linguists, they love everything to do with the mind. Sagittarius is the wider mind, less focussed on facts and more on concepts and big ideas, hence it is the sign of philosophy, spirituality (not religion), astrology and long distance travel. Of all the mutable signs, Pisces is the most unbounded, Pisces longs for mystical union, transcendence, merging with the divine. Pisces connects through feeling and can have issues with where their personal boundaries exist.
So, in stark contrast to last year’s overload of weighty, ponderous, Capricorn (Cardinal Earth), this year we have mutability, bringing us inspiration, connections overseas, mysticism, escapism and big and small ideas. I feel these eclipses are asking us to talk, and listen, think big, accept and dissolve the heavy lessons of last year and search for hope and justice (Sagittarius), healing, compassion and beauty, (Pisces) working through our networks large and small (Gemini) and keeping things light, (Mutability) and friendly (Gemini, Sagittarius).
* I wrote about this in Traditional Western Herbal Medicine p.259-61. Aeon Books.2019.
Elisabeth Brooke 