Hi, doll.
Happy solar eclipse! As it’s arriving during an exceptionally kerfuffly Aries season, it is seismically disruptive—all puns intended.
It is also extremely unpredictable.
So I’m not going to offer my normal slate of advice. I’m just going to offer context, as well as what I’ve been observing in readings and in the zeitgeist.
“Like the Moon, I have a feeling it would take a truly spectacular event to keep me from taking my place in the scheme of things, waxing, waning, and eclipsing notwithstanding.” —Janet Rebhan
As a reminder, solar eclipses occur when a new Moon falls in between the Earth and the Sun, blocking light from reaching certain swaths of our planet. (In a lunar eclipse, the Earth comes between the Sun and the Moon, casting its shadow on the full Moon.)
Lunar eclipses are associated with endings, closures, and big freaking emotions. Conversely, solar eclipses are about initiations and actions—revelations, bright beginnings, tremendous surges of energy.
Last month, the lunar eclipse in Libra prompted us to release obstacles around ethics, intimacy, and esthetics. Since then, most people have been uncharacteristically “in their cups”—hyper-anxious or depressed and lethargic. PMSy, essentially, even if they don’t menstruate. (I’ve also noticed a huge uptick in financial fears, though this can be attributed to cultural instability and tax season.)
Today’s solar eclipse is so powerful that it will be visible in about 15 states in the South and Northeast (barring weather, as the meteorologists say). Basically, it’s on steroids because it’s in fresh-start Aries, which loves to break glass ceilings and houses.
Alas, this is also the sign where Mercury has been retrograding since April 1.
Because Aries absolutely hates being held back, when the planet of communication and travel retrogrades here, we experience a host of bad-faith contracts and communications. Bcc emails inadvertently become cc emails. Texts about a person inadvertently are sent to the person. Lease renewals arrive with 100 percent increases, and people tend to grow more demanding, to less success.
Also our devices behave like flat-out dicks. (No, that’s not a technical term.) For the last week, the check-engine sign keeps flashing on my car’s dashboard, but the mechanic keeps finding “nuttin’, honey” whenever I bring it in. Utterly annoying, if not catastrophic. Dickish.
Between this eclipse season and the retrograde, we’re knee-deep in a lot of “hurry up and wait” energy. To this intuitive, it feels metallic, clashing, wrong. My response has been to mostly clam up, except in sessions. I don’t trust myself or anyone else to behave well, so I’ve been steering clear of potential drama. I didn’t even trust myself to send out last week’s newsletter.
I don’t like to blame natural events on the stars, especially in this era of extreme climate change. But it’s hard not to associate Friday’s Northeast earthquake—an extreme rarity!—with this wackadoo eclipse and retrograde. The stars literally have been ground-shifting.
The common wisdom is that solar eclipses are grand times to plant seeds and launch ventures. But the intuitive in me just isn’t feeling it.
Everything seems positively feral right now—politics, people, the planet itself. In the US, the November election looms painfully large, as does the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. (I keep drawing the Tower Card when pulling tarot for next fall, no matter who I’m reading for.) Even in the Northeast, it’s the Wild West, baby.
In my sessions, everyone is demonstrating such an exquisite level of vulnerability that I’ve been able to release rarely glimpsed roadblocks from their past, present, and future. But this is rendering them unusually fragile, as if they are only a week out from major surgery. For all practical purposes they are.
We all are.
This just doesn’t track as a good time to set intentions or force something into existence. The multiverse may be moving us along at a breakneck place, but trying to project an a-priori agenda onto this tabula rasa seems about as sensible as wearing a bikini to a blizzard.
So how do we work with this astrology?
By upholding everyone’s personhood—your neighbor’s and your enemy’s. Uphold the personhood of old trees, new flowers, and dying grass. The personhood of your phone, even. (I swear Siri has feelings.)
And by holding your ground and walking deliberately into this tumultuous unknown. Even if you can’t see the path right ahead of you, the next step will materialize beneath your feet. So long as you proceed with transparency and integrity, the multiverse will meet you halfway.
Just make sure to schedule plenty of snack and nap breaks along the way, as well as fun. Lean into your creativity as a way to positively motivate your most resistant self as well as to align with the divine. Move “bird by bird,” as Anne Lamott would say.
“We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.”― Anne Lamott
Even as we navigate seismic upheaval, I am clocking positive expansion in individual paths. Book a reading for yourself or a loved one, and share this newsletter with whomever it may help.
It is my honor to support your unique magic.
With waggling eyebrows and slow kitty blinks,
Since I have cried. I have been crying every day since 4/1 (with cause) and have been s mess since 3/19.
Man oh man Lisa, as I keep telling everyone
I was over April in March. It has been zero