Feeling your Feelings
This New Moon on July 11th is a Solar eclipse in the sign of Cancer. Eclipses pass through a sign in eighteen months, so last July was the first eclipse in Cancer, this is the second and the last.
This eclipse occurs at 19 degrees of Cancer and lasts for 5 minutes and 30 seconds. This degree of the zodiac remains sensitive for up to 5 years.
Change and Letting Go
Cancer is governed by the Moon and the Moon represents the Soul, just as the Sun represents Spirit. The ancients believed that the souls of the ancestors abide on the Moon.
All eclipses represent change and there can also be a lot of fear, or irrational thoughts, on the days before an eclipse. It’s not a good time to make major life decisions as the Moon also represents the mind, which can be confused. It’s a time to go within, a time of retreat, to dream and ideally, be near water.
Eclipses are known to bring things to a head or indicate a release point.
This eclipse is all about letting go of the past, as represented by the sign of Cancer and be seen as positive as it connects with a sextile to Mars, the planet of action.There is also a minor aspect to Venus. Apart from those 2 planets there are no aspects to this eclipse, so feelings of loneliness and isolation could surface.
How you view and handle change is relevant to how you experience this eclipse. I believe we are being asked to look at our relationship with all that the moon represents, or mother, our family, our home and most importantly our feelings.
Other Planetary aspects
As both Mars and Saturn are in Virgo, the concept of discrimination, purification and health issues are relevant. Mars urges us to take action and clean up our act! It’s a good time for a detox or one day fast. Clear out cupboards, throw out unwanted stuff. As you create space in your home and your office, your mind will be clearer.
Of note this is the last New Moon with Saturn in Virgo, Saturn will change sign on 21st July into Libra for the next 2 and a half years. (A sigh of relief for Virgos. When Saturn travels over your Sun it creates lethargy, a go slow, a feeling of pulling a heavy load. (Always with Saturn aspects this can be mitigated if you have a strong Jupiter in your chart.)
Mercury makes a strong trine to Jupiter and Uranus. This begins on July 9th at approx 8pm when Mercury moves into Leo for a mere few days. Mercury is moving incredibly fast. In July it moves from 13 degrees Cancer to 4 degrees Virgo! Mercury is the messenger and communicator. This electric combination can bring original ideas out of the blue, so take time to connect with your Inner Magician.
Venus makes a trine to Pluto. This is a fast moving aspect (a few days) but a positive one for Scorpios and Virgos. Venus represents love and money. Pluto represents wealth, power, the underworld and survival. Scorpio can undergo the greatest trials as Pluto is the higher vibration of Mars, which is courage.
The power of love. This Plutonian wealth is not money, but the inner resources that come from endurance, from journeying in the underworld and accessing reserves of strength. Allied with Venus it is the power of love. I am reading ‘ Man’s Search for Meaning‘ by Viktor Frankl. How he came through the most horrific ordeal without hating the enemy is extraordinary. He was a psychiatrist and a concentration camp survivor. (He was an Aries, with Moon in Sag opposite Pluto. His Mars was in Scorpio, Venus in Taurus.) This excerpt touched me:-
“We stumbled on in the darkness, over big stones and through large puddles, along the one road leading from the camp. The accompanying guards kept shouting at us and driving us with the butts of their rifles. Anyone with very sore feet supported himself on his neighbour’s arm. Hardly a word was spoken; the icy wind did not encourage talk. Hiding his mouth behind his upturned collar, the man marching next to me whispered suddenly: “If our wives could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their camps and don’t know what is happening to us.”
That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife.
Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife’s image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.
A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth — that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.
Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.
In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way an honorable way in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, “The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.” Viktor Frankl
Your Personal Connection
Every New Moon focusses us on a particular ‘house’ in our birth chart. It’s a rebirth, a time for new seeds to be sown in that area of our life. If you don’t know your birth chart then you can get a free one at www.alabe.com If this eclipse falls on a planet in the sign of Cancer in your chart, then this could bring up the shadow or dark side of that planet.
Cancer can be clingy, holding onto the past, to old hurts and be over sensitive. Any issues that you have with your mother, and your role as a mother, are ripe for healing this month.
If your birthday falls on 8th-12th March, 9th -12th July, or 10th-14th November, this will most likely be remembered as a significant year in your life.
If you have any planets around 19 degrees of Capricorn, you will be feeling the effect in your relationships. They could be over reacting and touchy. Tread gently!
Vedic View
In Vedic astrology the north and south nodes of the moon are called Rahu and Ketu and are known as shadow planets. Eclipses form when the earth moves into position in relationship to the sun and moon, and casts a shadow. As Rahu or Ketu can block out the light of the Sun or Moon, they have a certain power.
This eclipse is next to the south node (Ketu) which is a spiritual psychic energy, and indicates access to past life and occult knowledge. It will occur in the lunar mansion called Punarvasu, which is governed by Aditi, the Goddess of Abundance. The symbol is a quiver of arrows. Keywords are a willingness to travel – both literally and in spirit- to gain wisdom. There is also a thirst for knowledge. This is my ascendant and has proved very relevant in my life.
This is time to seek the Holy Grail, to go on a quest. To slay a few dragons, and tell tales about your adventures.
Path of the Eclipse
The path of the Moon’s umbral shadow crosses the South Pacific Ocean where it makes no landfall except for Cook Islands and Easter Island. The path of totality ends just after reaching southern Chile and Argentina. The Moon’s penumbral shadow produces a partial eclipse visible from a much larger region covering the South Pacific and southern South America.
The Navel of the World
Researching Easter Island I discovered this extraordinary picture. It is called The Navel of the World referencing its place in Polynesian mythology.
This specific site is the navel of the navel, as it were, located on the island’s shore near Anakena, the spot where Rapa Nui’s legendary founding figure, Hotu Matura, is said to have landed.
Stone barriers surround a worked stone sphere (the “navel” itself) measuring some 75 cms in diameter, reputedly brought by Hotu Matura from overseas. Geological sourcing, however, indicates the sphere is actually of local origin.