Image: Enactment of Huddle by Simone Forti, first performed in 1961
The end of March and first half of April finds us in eclipse season. I am not a fan of horoscopes during eclipse season. Horoscopes and predictive writing are popular because there’s something so damn comforting about being told what is going to happen. And eclipse seasons are good times to put down any predictive tools you might be into, and listen to what your life is trying to tell you about where it is going. Eclilpses happen like clockwork every six months–they are a regular part of the most impactful astronomical event here on earth–the 29.5 day lunation cycle. Do not believe any astrologer that is trying to scare you with eclipse season! Instead, you might think of eclipse season as a routine intensification of the existing rhythm of your life. An impactful time. A time to engage instead of fear, wonder, rest, or hide.
What’s notable about this eclipse season is that it really does have something for everybody. Normally, you can count on anything that happens in the sky to have absolutely no impact on a lot of people. But this eclipse season, every single planet, and every modality of the zodiac is playing a role. There are some of us focusing on big, electrifying, positive beginnings! Some will be focused on the start of a new cycle of struggle! Some will be handling the need to go back and rewrite or rethink some details! And many of us will be deeply feeling the eclipses themselves, which describe so eloquently the way our very sense of self gets made, destroyed, and remade, over and over again, in relationships.
It is a good time to work together, simply because there are going to be so many people participating, really feeling their skin in the game. So let’s pray that we work together earnestly, with compassion and a brave spirit. Maybe, if you are more Buddhist-leaning, the prayer for this eclipse season has to do with noticing the way there is no you outside of the context and relationships you find yourself in. You are this perfect moment! You are what you are doing, and who you do it with! No separation. Or maybe if you are coming from more of a Christian perspective, you could express a similar idea differently, by praying for the consistent ability to be what Saint Paul called “In Christ.” This phrase has many authoritarian interpretations, but it can also indicate a wish to act as a loving, open conduit for the expression of the will of god. The thing I like about this phrase, I use it often myself, is that it reminds me that I am not some lone wolf, solely responsible for what I am facing. I am always in a relationship with, and a tool of, the divine.
However you find them, let the comforting words that you keep coming back to over the next many weeks be a call to brave and attuned relationships. Perhaps it can be as simple as repeating to yourself, “We are all in this together.”