Last August I made a vacation out of the solar eclipse sighting, watching totality with my husband and two of our good friends. We were blown away by how powerful that felt; we learned later that solar eclipses cause waves in the very upper part of Earth’s atmosphere. Eclipse astrology aside, it absolutely is an amazing natural phenomenon.
The eclipse in August was in the sign of Leo. Solar eclipses only happen when the moon is new. When you witness totality you are watching the moment that the moon phase shifts from old to new.
The eclipse we’re hitting now is the flip side of that one — a total lunar eclipse, which only happens when the moon is full. The blood moon happens at the same eclipse point as where we watched the new moon being born back in August. Both of these moons are in the sign of Leo — sign of the lion, the leader, the king.
Because lunar eclipses happen with the moon in opposition to the sun (which is in fact the definition of a full moon), they are times of confrontation. Emotions may come to a head. At the time of the lunar eclipse the sun will be in Aquarius, Leo’s opposite. The Leo–Aquarius aspect can boil down to ego versus community, and tough questions about roles and responsibilities. People in power will have that power brought into question. It’s a ripe time for all kinds of revolutions.
Eclipses can feel like major events — and they often are — but you can work with them on a personal level, too. We all have areas of our charts where Leo and Aquarius are active, even if there aren’t any planets there. Both are social signs; Aquarius, an air sign, represents the community and collective action. Fire sign Leo represents leadership, and requires an audience in order to feel heard.
Both are fixed signs, skilled in the art of taking one thing and reworking it into something else. Leo does this in an outward, playful way — think of a circus, a production that pops up out of nowhere. Aquarius is more constrained to the world of ideas and intellect and relies on group action; a shouted slogan or a hashtag gaining influence among protesters is a very Aquarian kind of act.
In the past six months since the solar eclipse, have you been in any situations you would compare to a circus, times you felt you were in the spotlight? What about protests, or times when you advocated for a group of people? When have people looked to you for leadership, and how have you felt about being in that role? Do you want to be a leader in some way? Who are your “people” in that case — who do you want to advocate for?
For anyone who keeps a journal, this is also the perfect time to look back at last August and see what was on your mind around then. Some issues may have since been resolved; others were just beginning, and are perhaps now coming to a head.