Having Been Eclipsed…

The partial solar eclpse of November 3, 2013 as seen in El Hierro, Spain

(photo credit: EPA/Gelmert Finol )

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From a recent email: 

…That’s the point. We each are being confronted with the potholes of not having been present for ourselves. That which is most difficult for us now is the polarity of that we want to do with others. 

The Gemini I wrote this to works in the health field. Their chart was squarely hit by the eclipse, and in manifestation thereof, the middle of rapid growth of their various practices was put in jeopardy by the Gemini's own health becoming a sudden crisis.

What we are putting out there is coming back to us. The equation here is a little oblique, but plain enough if you stop and think about it a moment. Moreover it reminded me of why Gemini is so aptly seen as a jig saw puzzle. Wherever Gemini is in our chart, wherever we experience the Gemini vibe, it's in that area of our life that we become challenged to understand the nuance and detail as well as the whole. Only by holding both concepts equally in mind can we come up with a choice which makes sense, which can be grown and which will ultimately bear fruit.

This eclipse, with its Scorpio dishing out of karma, it brought home much of this to all of us - as well it might. Gemini is the 8th sign (the "derivative 8th") to Scorpio. And thus in all things Scorpio we are presented with many facts, many facets, many choices, all of which direct us to make not the choice which works for us but the choice which works.

Whatever sign you start with, the derivative 8th always shows you the 'rule' which for you defines whether you get past the gatekeeper of opportunity or not. This wicket has become incredibly sticky of late (think Pluto) with most of the problems we're each encountering in our life having a 'right' and 'right' or 'wrong' and 'wrong' side which asks us - in the end - to decide between power and personal preference. 

Or even where power IS personal preference.

And yet...whatever situation you've been working with, it will only work if it works on all sides and for all levels. The trick of this season has been to operate with power while not becoming helpless, acknowledging our weaknesses while not succumbing to them.

It hasn't been easy, obviously.  As your girl astrologer, this Pisces fell into an abyss on one side of her life while taking care of things on the other side of her life. 

It's just not easy. I'm entirely satisfied with parts of my performance and seriously not proud of others. But that's how astrology tells us that life is going to be. It's never all good or all bad...it just is. And as solidly as any of us can focus on getting one thing done, it's a cinch not everything is getting done. So with my Moon/Saturn in Scorpio, and because the Moon (among other things) represents the 'chemical' level of body functionality, I was bang on to tackle a detox.

Use the energy wisely, lest it use you unwisely.

I'm a Pisces. And Pisces rules the experience of emotionality (at the psychological/spiritual level) and brings that to a physical level. So to detox a Pisces is also to detox their feelings - which at some level says those feelings need to be detoxed.

And yes, I had looked at the Scorpio eclipse before it got here. I knew something bizarre could happen, but scheduled my detox anyway.  Scorpio isn't always the signature of frolic and rose petals (or leather and black lace, for that matter), but it can be incredibly productive if you’re willing to feel a little ouch way deep down in your soul.

I will also fully own that as an astrologer I knew there was likely to be trouble between me and anyone whose chart was going to be hit as hard. This me-and-thee thing is something we seldom take into account as much as we should...that which ties or binds us is (astrologically) symbolized by a sameness of object positions in our chart.

And that means that if MY chart is being transited, so is yours. Which means when an eclipse shows up, both of us are going to get eclipsed. And if it's a tender place in our chart which is getting eclipsed and we're not particularly good with handling those energies, the results can be nasty.

Even just pitifully and painfully messy.

The eclipse passes...and we find much has changed.

Or we've changed.

Of course there are those of us who refuse to do any changing. Several years ago, a Taurus friend was confronted with that most terrible of solar eclipse challenges - the loss of a loved one.

He simply answered “NO” when life asked that he move on emotionally. He just didn’t want to deal with it. And let’s face it, no sign does the ‘standing one’s ground’ thing any better than Taurus.

We've known each other a while now, so I understood. He was hurt. He didn’t want to feel what he was feeling. He didn’t want to leave feeling connected to his beloved wife behind. He just didn’t want to feel himself dealing with his feelings.

Heck, he didn't even want to feel himself not dealing with his feelings!

And so, Taurus bull that he is, he snorted at life and dug his heels in, even going so far as to notify me that there would be a ban on all conversation on the subject.

You may be surprised to know I cooperated with him on this. But I did, yes. Part was simple affection for a friend. Part was that I felt for his pain.

But besides all that, I also own an ephemeris. And really good astrological software. So I knew what was coming.

Taurus Keywords:
security, insecurity,self-worth, self-doubt, stability,
status quo, satisfaction, dissatisfaction, self-respect,
self-avoidance, self-loathing, comfort, need-hunger-satiation,
peace, values, motivation, likes, preferences,
tastes and dislikes

Suffice it to say, ever since attempting to not change in keeping with the eclipse on his chart, this Taurus has been plagued by an onslaught of problems. The bulk of them have had to do with money – that most common of common Taurus/Scorpio things. How odd is it that we assign such power to something which intrinsically (at the level of paper money being paper and coins being little chunks of common metal) are not 'of value' at all.

In fact...if you understand that money is a 'barter medium' and a 'placeholder' for Taurus/Scorpio worth-power-personal satisfaction measures, you understand why money doesn't buy happiness. It is not the money which counts and not all which it can buy which evokes happiness. It is the person we are and why we do what we do and the validity of the feelings which come from that which evokes and satisfaction.

It is the (Scorpio) validity that what we are placing our (Taurus) values in and whether that is true to us (as opposed to someone/something we are selling ourselves out to) which determines the quality of our result and whether there will be any associated negative karma.

As for my friend, after a couple of years he started dating again. But though he had done all the outward mourning, he hadn't dealt with his true inner hurt.

Those relationships (particularly the Scorpio/intimate ones) didn't work so well.

But then, it's tough thinking that intimate relationships are going to go well if you're not emotionally available or not able to be vulnerable or emotionally intimate.

Fast forward to now: as we talk in the wake of this eclipse, not only is his financial life finally coming back together, he's finally letting go of his pain. It wasn't easy and true to him, he had to find the right way to exorcise his emotional demons on the subject - which is typical for eclipses. If they hit your chart with any sort of exactness, you're going to let go of something. You can do it now, you can do it later, but by gum, you're going to do it.

Scorpio is famous as the sign of control. And surrender, which is the part of Scorpio most of us don't think about a lot. And Taurus, in being Scorpio's polarity, is all about how stable and satisfied we are with ourselves...not really anyone else. Where Scorpios often try to control others in order to feel safe and secured, Taurus often try to control life itself.

He couldn't. And when this Taurus couldn't control life, he gave up on trying to live his life.

And life taught him that wasn't a good idea, applying pressure after pressure after pressure until he simply let go of trying to control and instinctively began working to find his place in this world again.

It's about three years later now. Remember how I told you that solar eclipses take three years to mature?

I tell you this story for many reasons, the most obvious being that if you understand the path this man took, you'll understand something more about how an eclipse will work in your life. But there's another reason too - one I think just as valid.

Like I say, I have been friends with this fellow for several years now. So I had heard his story and walked alongside him as he fought his battles with what he thought was Life, but which really was with his Self. I could see very clearly what he was doing and the futility of trying to fight time...existence...reality.

And right when I got done saying all that to myself, just as he began turning his corner, I began doing exactly what he had done.

Really! I was doing it my way (cue Frank Sinatra, please) but I was that very same thing...which is the reason to be talking to you about this right now. No matter what 'events' happen in your life in conjunction with any transit - and particularly a solar eclipse - the issue isn't "them" or "that." It's you. It's not about what they're doing to you, with you, without you, despite you - it's about YOU.

It's about who you are coming into the situation or moment. You've heard me say that sometimes we learn more through the negative than the positive, right?

Whoever we are, however tough or tender we are, life manages to just overwhelm us when such events happen. Apparently that's what it takes to each humans something - and that's what eclipses are about. When eclipses show up we get into situations which reveal us to our Self, often leaving us little option but to deal with some issue with (or about) that Self we may have.

And then they leave us to figure out who we need to be in order to deal with what we have learned.

Provided we learn it, of course.

Scorpio eclipses are probably the second scariest in the book (I'll put Pisces eclipses first, thank you.) The 'why' of that is because of everything I've been talking about.

We're all raw. We're all thinking of someone else or something else and thinking 'if they were just...' when the real issue is who we are and what we're basing our values on.

How real is it, in other words. Scorpio is the energy of connection, the indescribable essence of sensing that someone or something is there. Or not there. That reality is a powerful thing - and the difference between the real and the unreal, the respect and the lack of respect we hold for human relationships the key to our personal problems.

If we can't relate to ourselves properly and honestly,
 we have no basis for relating to anyone else.

That's one of the premises of Scorpio - and why the zodiac's one and only fixed water sign represents the realm where the real meeting up with the emotional and our meeting up with ourselves through our relationships with others is the "gateway" to the zodiac's four most worldly signs (Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces).

It's as if through meeting up with others, we meet ourselves. And if we're not good (enough) with our Self, we don't take us out of the box. We don't let us/get to go for that next step.

What happens really is a reflection of what goes on within our mind. (Or, as I have long thought of it, our Mind - but that's in my life as a writer...more on when the books get released, hopefully at the end of January.)

More to the point, it's why so many of us would rather try and be happy feeling nothing than feeling anything which has a chance of actually affecting us. The effort to deal with or put off such issues is our Scorpio/Taurus axis, and wherever we find it in our chart represents how we're willing to handle this matter.

Or not handle this matter, depending.

The thing to remember is probably how - as opposed to Scorpio (or the Scorpio/Taurus) energetic being is the energy of connection (sensing yourself through feedback as you connect with others) astrology defines the experience of emotional issues as Pisces/Virgo.

Which oddly enough reminds me to tell you something. You know how I've (rather relentlessly) pointed out how we're we're in a series of Scorpio/Taurus eclipses? That cycle concludes next year (2014), and being how eclipses cycle backwards through the zodiac (which they do because they're in part determined by the lunar nodes), you might be thinking the next couple of years would feature a series of Libra/Aries eclipses.

But nooooo. If you were thinking that, you would be wrong - which now that I think about it, doesn't sound like the worst thing on the planet. Why would I say that? Well...if I say 'my feelings/your feelings' and then say Taurus/Scorpio eclipse series and then point out that this series has been going on since 2011, growing more and more personal all the time, perhaps you get some sort of...image. Feeling. Impression.

Maybe the impulse to dive under a table.

Okay...so take out the 'my feelings/your feelings' part (don't you feel better just hearing that?) and insert 'my existence/your existence.' 

THAT would be a Libra/Aries eclipse series. Oh, just think of all the ways we mortals could find not to have fun with that!

(Pardon me while I gag.)

But no, we of Terra Earth are going to move from evolutionary lessons framed by Scorpio/Taurus to processes typified by Virgo/Pisces, bypassing the Libra/Aries phase.

How lunar of us. (Or maybe looney, I'm not sure.)

So take out the 'my feelings/your feelings' part (I still feel better hearing that - maybe it's just me...) and insert key words for Virgo and Pisces.

Ouch.

Or...(ouch)...maybe not.

You think the world is weird now? Just wait. I'm thinking ahead to an eclipse series (considering all else) in Virgo and Pisces and suddenly Scorpio and Taurus, with all its venomous moments, doesn't seem so awful.

Why not?

Here's something metaphysical to chew on: Scorpio and Taurus are interactive. Pisces and Virgo pit us against our Self.

That means we have nobody to blame.

Oh yeah...that. It's enough to make you like the world of relating and relationships - which maybe is a way to appreciate the hard times, those times when someone we respect or love fails our standards or trips and falls in some particularly decrepit mental sewer.

We're human, y'know? Feeling...and feeling connected to someone else has (at a guess) led to more social and emotional suicide than anything else on the planet. 

NOTE PLEASE: I'm NOT talking about physically killing yourself. I'm talking about the many and creative ways we have of killing ourselves and our feelings, our relationships and our fondest hopes all because we all want so desperately for everything to be okay.

How ironic, eh?

And more to my point, how Scorpionic for me that the thing I had forever wanted…to feel connected at that most intimate of levels we call human...how I came to this eclipse having denied my fear of exactly what I thought I wanted.

Sometimes just feeling yourself feeling is beyond our feeling tolerance.

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After a lot of thought, in the wake of the eclipse I put this notice up on my Facebook page.

It was a protest - an expression of my desire to transform a feeling of futility. I can't undo what I am because of some accident of fate. 

I also posted this message on a different social network. There I installed it with a caption: and it’s the stuff you don’t know which will get you. 

A number of people on that network who have been abused read that post. Nearly every one of them was focused on my caption because I was talking about the one thing people don't think about when it comes to abuse. Abuse lies not only in what we do, but what we don't get to learn to do. We can be just as abusive in silence as we can be when raging at the top of our lungs.

And it's not just about the events. Abuse also lies in what we don't learn to do. Or to tolerate. Or allow ourselves to consider (as if most solutions to terrible problems haven't been solved by considering those problems?). And yes, there is child abuse - the worst of which teaches us to continue the abuse by not allowing ourselves to wonder, speak up, ask questions or think outside some box even as adults.

On the other hand, if we truly believe that unbeknownst to us, the universe is unfolding as it should...there are good things that we can turn ourselves to no matter what. Yes, we'd like to think we could stop such things. But sometimes 'good things' will come of not doing what we didn't learn how to do: we compensate, we turn to other things.

I'm not thinking systemically. I'm thinking individually. After all, we all have different lacks. Maybe they are just opportunities in disguise. It took me many years to know that the fear I learned in a youth full of marginalization, violence and dehumanization made me into someone who not only hears what people say, but someone who thinks about what people have said.

And yes, sometimes it's a plus. Sometimes, however...?

Not so much.

As the Sun moves into Sagittarius here in the latter days of November it’s a moment for all of us to be coping and moving on, yes. The Sagittarian drive to make ‘it’ work (whatever ‘it’ is in your life) and continue moving towards goals is highly evident. So the eclipse – in taking place in Scorpio – is now the derivative (or harmonic) 12th.

Just to reiterate the point: the eclipse isn’t over. That can’t be said enough! We are going to continue seeing and hearing of financial and personal strife. We are going to hear stories which sound like miracles and disasters which are totally unexpected.

Whatever you were confronted with coming into the eclipse, the underlying emotional metamorphosis has only begun. Things you think are gone may not be gone – or you may just be doing what you need to do so that you can come back to them from a different vantage point.

Or as a transformed person...you know, like my friend who is just starting to walk on, now that life has taught him to learn how to accept the terror of love lost.

And that his process shouldn't be instantaneous? That works too. Sagittarius is not a sign of instantaneous anything - this is the sign of debate and education, so all is a process now. And as we moving through this Sun in  Sagittarius time with the eclipse still glowing in 12th house harmonic rear view mirror, we should expect that ideas will arise. We should expect the unexpected and a few changes of plan-or-parameter to pop out of the woodwork. Anything which can get us to stop and pause, or think things through, or recognize the flaw and realize we need better plans or more workable solutions...all those Sagittarian things are going to occur to us or get posed by others. Or be manifested by life.

Or arise out of the thick of our unplumbed (Scorpio) instinct. So ask yourself...what have I learned about myself, about my inner feelings? Or is it that you haven't learned why you're at emotional loose ends and how to deal with how preciously frightening relationships are simply because they matter so much to us?

With Scorpio in 12th sign position (which by the way may provide some insight if your natal chart has Scorpio on the 12th house) interactions with others and what comes (or has come) of interactions with others are going to…

a.) make us sensitive
b.) poke us where we are already sensitive
c.) expose sensitivities or expose things which in turn make us sensitive

…all of which takes us back to wading through the soul, mindset and all-pervasive self-confronting experience which is so very Scorpio. But this is not Scorpio “in your face” or in real life or real time. No – this is the emotional experience of all you really need to think about as a result of whatever happened over the past couple of months.

We should also be realistic here: 'sensitive' can mean uncomfortable.

Even scared.

Also to be Sagittarius-type-honest here, this isn't about what happened (or didn’t happen)…this is your going through an ongoing, intensely trying time which in any of a thousand ways causes you to experience own emotions.

And what you think of those emotions.

Or that you have those emotions.

Or that you have made this emotional choice or that choice (in life or relationships, wherever) which ended up being so positive or negative on the emotional level.

The good news is that in the grand scheme of things, for most of us our having been eclipsed is still metaphysical present tense. That’s one of the lovely things about Sagittarius – the land of where theory meets possibility. Here this Sagittarius opportunity causing us to see how things can be…or maybe still can be…or maybe how they still are.

Of course, some of us will want to think things through a bit more. But some of us - in recognizing the truth of what life was trying to get us to look at will find in that a measure of liberty and freedom. The Sun is in Sagittarius, so this is still an interactive time, suggesting that some of us will heave a sigh of final comprehension and move on. Or we'll tackle that problem. Or we'll retrace our steps and not back down this time.

Whatever that truth is, it is to explore - and hopefully to appreciate, even enjoy the exploring of. It is at this point...as all that as life and the essence, the magic and the theoretical machinery of eclipse energies...as all that moves on it begins to evolve. And as it evolves it gives us enough connection with enough distance that we are able to begin seeing that it wasn't the 'thing' which happened which 'was' our eclipse.

It was who we were coming into the eclipse which got eclipsed - each in our own individual way by other people who were being eclipsed in their own way.

Whatever happened, lore teaches, happened so that we could experience some hidden aspects of our Self. So that we would continue to grow and not just 'make do' but strive to be more of who we truly are. 

And so it happens....once we grasp that it wasn't the 'thing' but our nature - some facet of our emotionality or how we deal with emotions because of our history or perspective...which was the point of the eclipse, then we are able to decide what to do next in light of a new understanding of what is true to who we are...and what isn't.

All can be, may still be or proceed to become the way we want it to be. Chances are, our accepting some facet of our difficulties as a reflection of something we fear (or fear to feel) is probably the trade-off there - but there is one all-important fact to consider when it comes to our fearful inner response to feeling fear:

Fear does not reside in reality.

Fear takes hold of us from inside our mind.

And when you consider that, to have life urging us to consider where we need fear not just isn't the worst thing to be giving thanks for on this day.

Or on any day.
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