Eclipse Cape

Due to my great anticipation of February 26th's annular solar eclipse, I have spent considerably less time pondering the penumbral lunar eclipse rapidly approaching on February 10th, it's personalities remarkably more harmonious and it's energetic magnitude certainly on a smaller scale than what will occur on the 26th. When I write things like "The Crone of the Moon comes with a glint blade of disembowelment" I don't always mean to forewarn bodily calamity, but am simply pointing out nexus of available metaphysical energy transiting our Earthly sphere. For those of us who actively atempt to pick up, harvest from and work with those sprung electric lines, perhaps you will suffer a belly slash in the process, but you can't bake an alchemical cake without annihilating a few cosmic eggs. February 10th's eclipse involves no such mutilations. Although the Moon is sure to be central to the resultant expression of interrelated structure of the multiple aspect patterns that form together as the Earth’s shadow is slant cast over her. She receives her shroud in 22 degrees Leo, where the royal banner is hoisted higher on the flagpole (and the flagpole higher in the sky,and maybe the sky raised some so the flag can gain a few more inches), signaled by the darkness, forming a scooped chiaroscuro dimple in the chiseled cheek; the shadow maybe appearing as cast from the flag itself, the very banner of the heart, or what is held within it, worn as the Eclipse Cape, the type a great military duke might wear in valiant portraiture; the formations on this day restricted almost entirely to masculine polarities.

Looking at the configurations in a somewhat sequential order we have the grand trine of Saturn in Sagittarius, the Moon in Leo and Uranus in Aries, all Fire signs. This proved to be a pretty dynamic electrical circuit on January 14th last time we had it two days after the last Full Moon. Saturn regulates the transcendental philosophy that Uranus charges and the moon keeps in flux. It was a nice signal bath for those who took it. This time the circuit has two grounding points, forming a siamese-twin Kite, the Moon’s corporal tides of heroic heart are given expression with the abstract intellect of freedom provided by the Sun in Aquarius. Meanwhile, Prometheus’ titanic process of bringing fire to humanity is given expression by finding footing in the currently finite coherence of diplomatic balance, the pointed slipper in the gravitational depression made by Jupiter in Libra. On further inspection this is not merely a Grand Trine with symmetrical Kites, it’s also a Mystic Rectangle, a structure of double oppositions contained within a finely balanced house of cards, but one that for the moment is locked into position firmly. A great deal of circular geometrical serendipity on fates behalf went into arranging all these factors, but where we will see and feel it expressed most strongly is in the contemporary electrified nuances of collective realization (normally the “avant garde” has first dibs on this, or at least they used to…) but equally so in the moods, habits and homes of the self, especially in the selves of those who have Leo placements in their charts. Occurring close to the North Node, those individuals will experience a royal flash, a kind of monarchical blood heating up their veins, imbuing them with regal luster. They may be inspired to lead our charges into battles this next 18 month eclipse cycle, armed with manifestos of high intellect that only Aquarius can construct (and with it’s ruler Saturn currently in Sagittarius, Herman Hesse might have helped with the editing process) especially when Mercury can be found there sharing Aquarius with the Sun, enjoying enough distance to not be obscured by the light. Mercury, elated to once again leap off the earth and speed horizontally (I’m reminded of Anjaneya’s flights while aiding Rama) in consultation with each planet and back to us in a flash ready to translate. You’ll find now that Mercury has left Capricorn you’ll spend a lot less time scratching you’re chin over things you just don’t understand. Get ready to “get it” again, at least a little more often. The T-Square of Uranus, Jupiter and Pluto provides just enough tension to the major chordal harmonies to insight the action, small and great, like blasts of coronets and rumbling timpani’s in a massive Handel oratorio. Meanwhile, Mercury conferences with the now enflamed male and female polarities in their three-legged race course bondage, nearly but not quite conjoined. Hermes, mythology’s oft-overlooked shrewdest snake oil salesman discourses on abstract medicines and radical systems of health to the igneous gender opposites who dance like flames over searing pages of the worlds higher knowledge, being in cardinal modality they are hot to make the switch. This subplot is an interesting digression amidst the waving banners of Royal Glory; might herbal medicine, homeopathy and meditation oust Harvard PHD MA pill pushers at last in a thoughtfully progressive page 10 editorial while the front page covers a truly incendiary puppet pageant that belches and buckles a la Punch & Judy in a temporal arcade? On closer inspection the cover story is not even an article at all but a gratuitous advertisement, used car dealerships and furniture blowouts. The Moon rules over all things that change and shift, swell and contract, like tides, moods, appetites and bodies that are generated then fated to corruption. Finding her bathed in dusky shadow at such a prominent mundane position of expression suggests that what is swollen today might deflate tomorrow, and of course, don’t get to attached to any old limb because it might be loped off any old time, accidentally or on purpose. Shadow pacts will be made upon the volcanos rim February 10th, and perhaps powerful ones that define relationship boundaries and responsibilities between the underworld and that experiences up here in the daylight, but no matter how heavy handed (or hearted) the sign-ees may be, the cold, sticky, milky churn of time takes all, and often much sooner than expected, like mob hits, the high roller at the casino might end up in a cement mixer before the proverbial night is through.

As far as advice: Keep your eyes peeled and ears prick, pack your notebooks, and keep your cameras and recorders ready in your pockets; what manifests on and surfaces after this eclipse will prove thematic in the next year and a half, this being the first of the Aries/Aquarius cycle. Also, for the same reason, watch your step, lest you find yourself on the wrong stage or in someone else’s studio, forced to pirouette at gunpoint some dance routine that is not yours until halfway through 2018.