This week brings us one of the most significant astrological aspects of the year, a New Moon Solar Eclipse in Leo.
If, like me, you have this eclipse in a sensitive area of your chart, you are feeling it already. In fact, you’ve been feeling it since this series began in February, and the story that is unfolding in your life will continue for another year, until we enter a new series of eclipses in Capricorn and Cancer.
Eclipses occur in sign pairs, determined by the position of the lunar nodes. The North Node currently is at 18 degrees Aquarius, with the South Node opposite at 18 degrees Leo. This week’s eclipse, which occurs Friday at 3:12 a.m. on the West Coast of the United States, falls at 9 degrees Leo, making it a South Node eclipse. Anyone with planets or chart angles between 4 and 14 degrees Leo or Aquarius will feel this eclipse the most, but you’ll also feel it if you have planets or chart angles between those degrees of Scorpio and Taurus.
Eclipses tend to bring rapid change into our lives, faster than is comfortable for us. This is especially true for the fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius). It’s said that the fixed signs fight change, but that’s not entirely true. That would be like saying that a rock fights change. We are so solid that change is extremely difficult for us. Even Aquarius, the air sign ruled by the Uranus, planet of sudden change and revolution, has a hard time getting into a new groove, as much as we usually want to.
New Moon eclipses typically are about new beginnings. In my case, at least, it appears that a relationship that began at the solar eclipse in Aquarius in February has reached a logical conclusion, and it either will begin again under different circumstances, or it will disappear, clearing the way for another that is viable and sustainable. The learning process has been painful but extremely enlightening, and there is a possibility that deep healing will take place.
I’ve written previously on Real Astrologers and on my blog, The Pisces Chronicles, about the healing potential of the triple conjunction of Neptune, Chiron, and the North Node. Since eclipses are tied to the nodes, healing will be a major theme of Friday’s eclipse and even more so with the lunar eclipse on August 16, which will be conjunct Neptune.
Neith will have more on the eclipses in a day or two.
Otherwise, there’s not a lot going on this week. Venus is on the South Node today (Monday), and she’ll oppose Neptune on Thursday. Wounds surrounding love and body image may come to the fore. If so, let them out and take them for what they are.
August 1 also is the Celtic cross quarter day of Lammas, which in many cultures was the first day of fall in the northern hemisphere. I can tell you that it feels like fall already here in the Pacific Northwest, where the angle of the sun is very noticeable.
Please leave comments telling us how you are experiencing this eclipse.
Love and blessings,
Pat
Image: The Moon, from the Marseille Tarot, c. 1701-1715. The classic interpretation of The Moon involves subconscious fears, hidden motivations, and the inexplicable compulsion for enlightenment.
RealAstrologers 
I gather that eclipses affect the natal chart regardless of whether they are visible where we live. Are they even more significant if they do occur in our geographical view?
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uh uh ….
;-)
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Thanks for this, Pat.
Pre-eclipse, very difficult. Tense and nervous.
Solar eclipse will fall in my 11th, lunar in 5th. With Venus currently and Mercury shortly crossing the South Node and opposing Neptune and Chiron and sq my natal Mars I am in a difficult, unclear situation at work. Something big has to give, I feel sure during the coming lunation, and it may be connected with a female colleague who has Aquarius rising and Moon in Scorpio ….
I’m trying to keep physically active, which seems to help, and above all to remember to breathe!
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Joe, I know some well-respected astrologers who don’t think that eclipses affect you if they aren’t visible in your location, but I can say emphatically from firsthand experience that that isn’t true. Where they fall in your natal chart is key.
MM, there is no doubt that these eclipses will create wholesale shifts. Hang in there, and keep us posted, OK?
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Hi Pat,
I am so curious as to the energies for this one.
I have scorpio 9 degrees on the Midheaven and taurus 9 degrees on the 4th house with an 11 degree moon in the 4th. That 9 degree Leo is going to… who knows?
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Thanks for explaining the Eclipse Pat. This week’s been really tense and confusing and I have no idea of what to expect tomorrow. The New Moon will square my Venus, as I was saying on Neith’s post and I also have my MC/IC axis on the degree 9, even though it’s Capricorn/Cancer.
I’m really ambivalent about ‘Change’ but with Uranus squaring my Sun this year, I really have no option but to embrace it.
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Sorry for my incomplete response of a few days ago. Just I feel that this year has been one of walking through a deep, and at times, dark tunnel of change. So a theme of change is nothing new and unexpected for me. What I would like to see is that Change lead somewhere for once – I just feel as if I’m oscillating backwards and forwards over a pivot point that is moved around by something out of my control (which of course it is.). Change but no progress (or at least not for me and / or not that I can visualize in a contextual way in the way I lead my daily life.)
Eclipses taking place along the 11th / 5th axises (moon just hanging around at the end of my 10th..) The Nep/NN/ Chiron conj smack bang in my 5th.
Just want something to go forward right now.
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Ha! with my Uranus at 6 Leo opposite my moon (5 Aquarius) and Chiron (8 Aquarius) something is bound to happen with this eclipse tomorrow morning. And it may have already started – even in February as noted by Pat. I have been “chasing” a client for a specific type of work for 2 years – and today I met with them with anticipated results of some regular and significant work from this front. It just snuck up on me quietly.
And, referring to Neith’s comment about Venus in Leo trining Pluto in Saggitarius (my sun sign) – well Pluto is in my 7th house – ever hoping for some movement in my love life. Could this be an appropriate interpretation with Venus in my 4th house?
Regarding change, I have given up attaching to any results. My life has not been what I thought it would be for so many years – and it is what I need in a way I could not have anticipated. So, come on change! I look forward to the practice of riding it out.
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Thanks Pat. Your good wishes are much appreciated. Well, the upheavals came exactly on schedule. The Director of the small organisation I work for resigned unexpectedly today within an hour of the eclipse. A lovely man (a Sun Libra), who will be much missed. He recruited me as a temp and after I left phoned me again in February (around the time of the last eclipse) to offer me a semi-permanent position.
Whether I stay or go (and I’ve a feeling I’ll be moving on in the next few months in part because of the things I alluded to in the previous post) work definitely won’t be the same after today ….
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Wow. Today is my 39th birthday and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I woke up sobbing and I couldn’t stop crying all day. This has never happened to me on a birthday! I hate being 39, not because I’m old but because I feel like I’m so far behind where I expected to be. I just remember starting the decade and being so hopeful… for what?
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{{{{{{Mem}}}}}}
I hate being 39, not because I’m old but because I feel like I’m so far behind where I expected to be.
Expectations for ourselves can be such a trap and often difficult to get a handle on. Please believe me when I say I believe you have plenty of time yet. Do give yourself credit for what you have accomplished too.
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You’re very sweet, Neith.
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