The Libra Eclipse at 0:43 AM PDT on Tuesday, April 15th, 2014

 

The impending Libra Eclipse reflects the Sun’s Aries energy.  Aries generates tremendous force to impress its will on the world.  During this eclipse event, “A Man in Possession of More Gifts (talents)Than He Can Hold” is the Sabian symbol that refines this Sun’s meaning.  But the Moon is playing the lead in this drama and there is every indication that what is being highlighted is not a Man in possession of more gifts (talents) than he can hold, but a woman.

In this Eclipse chart, Mercury (the messenger) and Uranus (the “lightening rod”) align in Aries, challenging Mars, the masculine aggressor.  At the moment Mars is wearing his “peaceful warrior” and “charming protector” garb, but don’t underestimate him. He’s still the aggressive warrior underneath and wants his way as much as ever.  Assessing the landscape, laying low, and waiting for the right moment to act, indirectly if necessary, challenges his patience as Mars travels retrograde in Libra.  But it’s part of a cycle he knows well and predicts will end as it always does.  The masculine agenda prevails and the “losers” fall in line.

But this time it may not end as he predicts.  It’s never wise to predict the future with certainty when Uranus is involved. Mercury, and his higher octave ally Uranus, appear to have reached their limits with the traditional masculine “mode of operation.”   To the extent that masculine social values continue to define the circumstances for mothers, women, and the earth, Mars may be in for a surprise.

Over the past week I’ve stumbled into more than my usual share of conversations where the topic centered around mothers – our mothers – their talents, frustrations, and struggles to adapt to the cultural norms of past eras.  Addiction and instability were often the tragic outcomes of equal access denied.  The conversations started with accounts of the trials and tribulations of being the child in this drama, and ended with comments of how incredibly intense the social forces arrayed against them must have felt…as they often do today.

Ophelia, the dark asteroid, hovers directly over Mercury and Uranus, forming a triad of concentrated energy that  strongly influences the meaning of this full Moon.  The Ophelia archetype was presented through a female character in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” – a woman who had no control over her body, her relationships, or her choices.  Eventually she snaps, like most people who spend their lives adapting and adjusting to others desires with few outlets for fulfillment of their own.

Ophelia has come to represent the  devastated lover, the highly talented, resourceful, but blocked mother, the fatally wounded earth.  She’s the poet silenced for too long, the dismissed writer, the overwhelmed soother, the broken hearted artist.  And Mars, the dominant designer of social norms, rests polluted in the spoils of his misguided adventure, failing to see the magnitude of what he and the world have lost.

Virginia Woolf’s natal Moon was placed at 25 degrees of Aries, in the eclipse chart, the exact degree of the Sun.  She wrote the following:

“It would have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare. Let me imagine, since the facts are so hard to come by, what would have happened had Shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister, called Judith, let us say. […] She died young – alas, she never wrote a word. She lies buried where the omnibuses now stop. […] Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the crossroads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here tonight, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh. (A Room of One’s Own Virginia Woolf:113).

This Libra full Moon eclipse holds within it the promise of emerging opportunities for long oppressed energies and people.  It’s Sabian Symbol,  “An Eagle and Large White Dove Turning into One Another” alludes to a revival of respect for kindness, beauty, balance, mothers, artists, peace, and a necessary diminishment of the overwhelming dominance of aggression.  Required within us are both, but in equal measure.  It also suggests the need to be able to put ourselves in another’s shoes and feel what it’s like to be them.

It’s time for a reset, a rebalancing of yin and yang forces, an upheaval of sorts.  On that front, eclipses are especially well designed to deliver.  Blocking the normal flow of light energy to the earth, for about an hour, this eclipse is total and powerful.  Its effects may not be fully realized for about three months, but something, at a deep emotional level, will change for you.  Energies that drove you in obsessive and fearful directions may be lose their life. You may realize that playing the victim is allowing something precious within you to slip away.  Endless adaptation and adjustment  to mindless cultural norms may be seen clearly for the losing strategies they are.  The lateness of the hour may become clearly evident, the extent of the damage undeniable, and the need for a new kinds of action apparent.

 

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