The first Lunar Eclipse of the year at the Leo full Moon on the First of February 2018

Plates with images of Lina Cavalieri by artist Piero Fornasetti

The first Eclipse Season of the year opens with a Lunar Eclipse at the Leo Full Moon of February 1st (on the eleventh degree of Leo), followed by a Solar Eclipse at the Aquarius New Moon of February 16th (on the twenty seventh degree of Aquarius). If, in your Birth Chart, the degrees 10, 11, 12 (for the Lunar Eclipse), and 26, 27, 28 (for the Solar Eclipse) of the Signs Leo, Aquarius, Taurus, Scorpio, Aries, Sagittarius, Libra and Gemini were highlighted by the Sun, Moon, any Planet, Lunar Node or Angle (Ascendant, Descendant, Mid-Heaven and Lower-Heaven)  these cosmic events may be significant for you.

In Australia, weather permitting, we will able to witness the Eclipse between nine minutes to midnight on January 31 to eleven minutes past two am of February 1 (= time of Totality). Due to the Moon’s closeness to Earth at this time (Perigee) the Moon will appear about 30% brighter than usual (a so called Super Moon). Because this will be a Total Eclipse the Moon will also take on an uncanny reddish hue, due to the Earth’s shadow projected on it. And some are calling it also a Blue Moon, being the second Full Phase for the month of January 2018.  Nasa has described this event as a Lunar Trifecta; if interested check this SBS article for details.

Eclipses have been often malingered for bringing bad luck and negative outcomes. This is is occasionally true if the sensitive points the Eclipse touches were the focus of challenging aspects at birth, like difficult conjunctions, squares or oppositions. In this sense the Birth Chart remains the blue print for all future developments. Eclipses, like all other planetary transits, simply trigger what was already in the Birth Chart, fulfilling its promises, if I may put it this way without sounding too fatalistic. The events, positive or negative, are always stepping stones to new levels of awareness. This fact is especially true about Eclipses because they tend to deepen our experiences, thus creating a fertile ground for important shifts within and without.

As I remarked in a general post about Eclipses Published in June 2011:

“Traditional astrological texts more often than not describe the effects of Eclipses in very lurid terms, often depicting them as evil omens. Some modern readers of horoscopes are instead waxing lyrical about all the profound realizations and life changes we are all going to experience thanks to Eclipses. Maybe we need to find a middle way between these two extremes.”

The Leo Lunar Eclipse falls on the Full Moon of February 1, at 26 minutes past midnight (Australia Eastern Summer Time).

Lunar Eclipses are usually associated with emotionally stimulating experiences, climaxes of some description, not in themselves positive or negative, but intense and often profound. We may need to face, at this time, the sort of feelings that we always find difficult to deal with, like regret, guilt, fear of loneliness or abandonment, loss that we feel cannot be remedied, or, positively, strong fascinations, attractions, life changing encounters or career/creative opportunities and inspirations. While these emotions surface in our lives from time to time, around the time of a Lunar Eclipse they become more compelling; they may in fact even become an issue that we are forced to face one way or the other.

Following is a list of the possible effects of a Lunar Eclipse when aligned by Conjunction, Opposition or Square with a particular celestial body, Horoscope’s Angle and Lunar Node.

• Lunar Eclipse aligned to the Sun: this is an important event in your life that could dramatically change your awareness of things, showing you ways to harness your will to direct your emotions in a more creative and purposeful way. Becoming conscious of the role of emotions in shaping your life events and relationships are key words here. Making more conscious what has remained for a long time unconscious could lead to unexpected developments now and in the foreseeable future. What you conceive as your life goals, your concept of success and failure could also change in amazing ways under the influence of this Eclipse.
• Lunar Eclipse aligned to the Moon: another extremely important alignment, marking an emotionally charged period, for good or ill, depending on the amount and depth of unresolved emotional issues in your life. You could succumb to the intensity of it all, becoming overwhelmed by feelings you seem to be unable to control or even fully understand. Avoiding these extremes is essential now in order to take advantage of the insights and revelations of unconscious stuff the Lunar Eclipse can offer you. If you have kept your head in the sand in relation to the feelings that are surfacing now this could be indeed a very trying time. Positively it could instead represent the end or climax of a particularly difficult emotional period and, potentially, the beginning of a new, more mature period for your emotional life and relationships, especially with family or people you consider as close as family. Your sense of belonging to a certain place or area or community could also be shaken by this Eclipse, perhaps an opportunity to embrace long over-due changes.
• Lunar Eclipse aligned to Mercury: the emphasis here is in words and communication, that could become intensely charged with unresolved emotions from the past. Becoming aware of the power of words and the manner in which we express them, our tone, body language etc., is the key to make this experience one through which we grow and evolve.
  Mercury was the Messenger of the Gods in the ancient Greek pantheon and still is in our every day exchange of ideas and in our insights in the working of the mind. The Lunar Eclipse will colour your rational, logical thinking with strong emotional bias, revealing the complex problematic of our opinions. Are we trying to coerce people to believe what we believe, to agree with us using emotionally biased arguments? Discovering the layers hidden in all our mutual communication with people could open completely new level of understanding, beyond personal tastes, likes or dislike, because something can be indeed very true to our children, family, friends and lovers, even if we fail to rationally understand it. To glimpse from where our and other people ideas and beliefs come from emotionally will be a very positive outcome of this Eclipse.
• Lunar Eclipse aligned to Venus: Venus is all about love, relating, pleasure, what we like and adds beauty and harmony to our lives. When Venus’ pleasure principle is touched by a Lunar Eclipse we may experience difficulties, stress, even serious trouble in our ‘love life’; we may have to confront fears and disappointments in our relationships, seeking more depth and truthfulness toward and from the people we love. If this is not possible with our friends and partners, confrontations and even separations could be the result. The feelings awakened by a Lunar Eclipse aligned to Venus can be too intense to bear with equanimity, we will need to remain somewhat calm in the mist of the emotional turmoil. Like with a Moon alignment be extra aware of emotional extremes at this time, avoiding obsessive thoughts and feelings not sustained by facts but that are only products of intensified desires and unrequited love from the past.
  Positively this event could bring about the experience of truly deep relationships and new levels of intimacy we have been longing for all our lives.
• Lunar Eclipse aligned to Mars: the Red Planet stands for assertion, initiative, courage, passions, desires and also the instincts that hep us to face life head on and to stand up for what we want and believe. The Moon’s Eclipse could make the expression of this fundamental survival function more emotionally charged that it should be. We all know that responding too fast or too impulsively to a surge of emotions can be a short cut to confrontations and even war with other people. For those less aware of this the Eclipse period, from few weeks to few months, could bring many confrontations and , in some cases causing lasting enmity with people. Consciously cultivating a more tolerant and calm attitude could help us avoid the worst consequences of this surge of unbridled passions, hopefully without stifling the creative energy that can actually spring from it and that could be used to tackle old problems with a new found assertive power, with the courage and initiative not usually available. Mars is somewhat given extra power by the Eclipse and if this power is channeled wisely it could help us begin something new and exciting, to try out our leadership qualities without stepping on anyone’s toes.

Stay tune for my next post on the possible effects of this Lunar Eclipse when aligned to Jupiter, Saturn, Chiron, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, the Ascendant and Mid-Heaven in your Birth Horoscope.