Eclipse season wrap-up
April is upon us, and I hope that you’re feeling a little bit more spring in your step as the flowers start to bloom and the sun shows its face a little more often! It’s a good reminder of why we associate Aries with the fiery energy of Mars – because it’s a time of year that, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, is full of new life.
And we had extra emphasis on Aries over the weekend, with an Aries solar eclipse on Saturday morning in the early hours Pacific Time. From here in Seattle, the eclipse wasn’t visible, but I think for many of us it was still palpable. I know that in my life, I’m seeing some unexpected doors open and other things come to a close.
A fateful week of Nodal transits
And that fateful feeling is likely to continue throughout this coming week, because even though we’re done with eclipse season, we’ve still got lots of planets aspecting the Lunar Nodes – the points in the sky that give us eclipses. In astrology, the Nodes are associated with destiny: the North Node shows us where we need to head, and the South Node reveals what we need to let go of.
The North Node is currently in Pisces, which means we’re being challenged to live a little bit more intuitively and to look at the big picture, rather than sweat the details. And with the South Node in Virgo, we’re being asked to release our criticality and our need to have everything organized before we jump in.
This week, we’ll have Uranus, planet of innovation and unexpected change, making a trine to the South Node, pushing us to embrace that more holistic way of doing things, and potentially solidifying or bringing to light some of the themes that came up during these last two eclipses. And while Uranus feeds its electric energy into the system, we’ll have four other planets joining this fateful party as well:
Venus and Mercury – which are both still retrograde – both just moved back into Pisces, and this week they’re conjoining the North Node. So, issues around relationships, desires, resources, and communication may be things that we find ourselves addressing this week.
We’ll also have Saturn in the mix in Pisces as well, conjoining Mercury, Venus, and the North Node. So underlying all of those relationship and communication topics, is the question of structure that we’ve been working on for the last two years: what are the things in our lives that we want to make more permanent, and which ones need to get demolished or remodeled? We’ve been visiting our big rock under the ocean to ask just that, and I encourage you to keep tapping into the stable Saturnian presence this week too.
We’ve also still got Mars in emotional Cancer, bringing us touchy and volatile emotions. Mars entered Cancer seven months ago, so by now I think we’re actually pretty used to it – but in just a couple of week’s it’ll be moving on into Leo, and I’ll bet we’ll feel some relief at that point as we remember what it’s like not to get upset at pretty much anything and everything!
In the meantime, though, Mars is also going to be aspecting the North Node and its friends in Pisces, as well as Uranus and the South Node. So it’ll be an electric and probably very emotionally sensitive week that is going to be pointing us toward big-picture themes in our lives.
A new era begins for Neptune
In the background, as of early Sunday morning, we also now have Neptune in its new sign of Aries. That’s a huge energetic shift, and while we probably won’t have a full handle on it for a while, it’s definitely bringing a more fiery and volcanic energy into the mix.
This week’s theme: “Acceptance and change”
So the theme for this week is, “acceptance and change.” In life, we have to be able to do both of these things – often at the same time. We have to be willing to accept reality as it comes, and acknowledge what we can and can’t do about it. Then we also have to find ways of coping, growing, learning, and adapting in the areas where we can. And if you’re interested in learning a little bit more about this theme, I have a blog post on my website this week where I take a deep dive into the concept of “radical acceptance” and how it can help us in times of change and uncertainty.
Listen to this week’s episode and hear the astro-meditation!
