by Robert Wilkinson
This Solar Eclipse will have a very beneficial stabilizing effect for a very long time. All eclipses shut something down, taking away elements of our lives no longer true for us. Over the next 4+ years many will go through endings while finding forms of deeper and wider compassion and connectedness with people and experience.
Virgo is the sign of work, service, health, and willingness to fit into a collective effort with precision and diligence. It is how Pisces externalizes. So old work issues, health issues, service issues, and any sense of subservience will end, with the void sure to attract new forms of these.
Because this Eclipse lasts 4 hours and 25 minutes from start to finish, it’s of extremely long duration, so will have an impact for about 4 years and 5 months. Thus it will have effects for a long time to come, so it’s good that we have several productive and harmonizing aspects in play at the Eclipse.
Here we open to seeing what needs to be worked on and adjusted to make it function better. This will help us see the practicality of certain activities, as well as the parts of life that don’t work so well and need correction. Whatever is cleared out will over time attract new forms of Virgo expression and activities as the old ones get cleared out.
Look to the house where this Lunation falls to see what area of your life will be impacted, just as the houses where past Solar Eclipses fell have already been shutting down obsolete patterns since then. I gave you the positions and links to past eclipses in yesterday’s article. And remember that whatever is taken away will create an attraction for something more appropriate to who you are now, and who you are becoming.
So What’s Happening Where?
This Partial Solar Eclipse happens at 11:41 pm PDT Sept 12, 2:41 am EDT, 7:41 am BST Sept 13. This practical, distributive, productive, and renewing Solar Eclipse will be strongest where it falls near one of the angles in locations around the world.
We see the Eclipse on the nadir PDT, MDT, and CDT time zones, and just above the eastern horizon in the UK and Portugal. It is near the midheaven in Iran, Pakistan, and India, and setting In Japan, eastern Oz, and Nez.
A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Sun and Earth. The Moon blocks the light from the Sun and casts a shadow on Earth. In eclipse lore, where the Eclipse is visible will be where the greatest effects can be expected, lasting the number of years that the eclipse is long in hours.
Past Eclipses As Prologue To Our Present and Future
As I've mentioned in previous articles, we had 4 Solar Eclipses in 2011, which was a very rare occurrence. The January 2011 Eclipse was visible in Europe and the major cities of the Middle East. Perhaps that Eclipse had some correlations with the "Arab Spring" revolutions spreading throughout that region.
The Solar Eclipse of January 2011 lasted 4 hours and 20 minutes, which also makes it a player in the events of 2012-2013-2014-2015, since it's been active for 4 years and 4 months. That influence is just about over. As noted, the June 2011 Gemini Eclipse was very long, bright, and powerful, while the July 2011 Cancer Eclipse was short and weak, and its influence only lasted through the end of 2012.
The November 2011 Sagittarius Eclipse was very bright, and will be in effect for almost 4 years. So besides the usual transits and Lunations, planetary stations and conjunctions to the outer transformational planets, we also have Eclipses as long wave influences still be in play years after the event!
The June 2011 Eclipse was visible in Northern Canada, Iceland, Greenland, and Norway. The July 2011 Eclipse was visible only in a small area between Antarctica and South Africa, so was seen by no one. The November 2011 Eclipse was visible in South Africa, Antarctica, and New Zealand.
The May 2012 Eclipse was visible from S. China and Japan through the Northern Pacific and Aleutian Islands down to S. Oregon and N. California, central Nevada, southern Utah, northern Arizona, New Mexico (Albuquerque!), and the Texas Panhandle. The November 2012 Total Solar Eclipse was partial across a large area of the South Pacific (including Australia and New Zealand), southern South America, and part of Antarctica. The only place it was total was on the east coast of Queensland, Australia.
The May 2013 Annular Solar Eclipse at 20 Taurus will be in effect for 3 years and 9 months, putting its influence through early 2017. That one was visible in Australia, Indonesia, Oceania and much of the central the Pacific Ocean. The November 2013 Hybrid Solar Eclipse at 12 Scorpio will be in effect for about 3 years and 4 months. That one was visible within a thin corridor, which traverses the North Atlantic and equatorial Africa. A partial eclipse was seen in eastern North America, northern South America, southern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
As an aside, of some note is that the Solar Eclipse at 12 Scorpio fell during Diwali, a great sacred Festival of Light celebrating the victory of good over evil through the Grace of Lakshmi, one of the Forms of Divine Mother. I suppose whatever is associated with that Eclipse that has been or is yet to be taken away, will be a form of Grace that blesses us.
The April 2014 Annular Solar Eclipse at 9 Taurus was only in effect for 2 months, so its effects were quick to fulfill and pass away. That one was visible in Antarctica, and partially visible in the southern Indian Ocean, the southern edge of Indonesia and all of Australia. The October 2014 Partial Solar Eclipse at 1 Scorpio will be in effect for 4 years and 3 months, putting its influence through 2018. That one was visible across all of North America.
What Does NASA Have To Say About This Eclipse?
I’ve been using information from the NASA Solar Eclipse site for many years. In the past, they included a bunch of information about each eclipse, but since the last Solar eclipse have changed what’s on their site.
There’s a huge amount of information toward the bottom of the page about every eclipse you could ever want to research. Have fun! And this page gives all the technical information about the eclipse.
This Eclipse has a relatively low magnitude, and will only be visible in South Africa, Madagascar, the South Indian Ocean, and Antarctica. You can find more by going to the NASA site.
More On the Influence of Eclipses
Besides the factor of where the shadow falls, in Astrology Eclipses are said to be most powerful when they conjunct the Sun, Moon, Ascendant, or Midheaven of a birth chart. When this happens it always brings endings related to the planets and sectors involved, but these can be of great benefit in clearing away old life factors that have no place in our future. As it was once sung, "something's lost and something's gained in living every day..."
Of course, besides these past echoes and the usual general effects, the Eclipse will also bring losses and endings where it falls in our individual birth charts. In an example I offered in the article explaining Solar Eclipses in general of how a loss can work to great benefit, if it conjuncts the Saturn in a birth chart, it can indicate the ending of old, lesser responsibilities, limitations, or fears, and open the being to a greater sense of purpose. If it conjuncts Jupiter, then it could show the ending of an old philosophy or belief system and open the gates to something far greater.
Given a Solar Eclipse is a New Moon, then like all Lunations that work their influence over time, it triggers events related to previous celestial events, and is triggered by subsequent transits to those points. Thus we can assume this Eclipse at 21 Virgo will set developments into motion related to the lessons set into motion when Saturn went stationary retrograde at 22 Virgo in December 2008, directly impacting all our charts through August 2009. That event crystallized effects set into motion at the Sept 2007 Solar Eclipse at 19 Virgo.
It will also have some resonance with events happening as a result of Jupiter going stationary retrograde at 19 Virgo in January 2004, and heavily anticipates events to come when Jupiter goes stationary retrograde at 24 Virgo in January 2016. So this one reaches back almost 12 years and bridges effects from that event to what is coming between November 2015 and August 2016.
And of course, whatever is promised by this Eclipse will activate when Mars and then Venus transit 21 Virgo in late October. Effects will expand rapidly or open truths, futures, and/or doors of perception when Jupiter is on 21 Virgo. The first time will be in late November, the second time will be in February 2016, and the last time will be in July 2016.
This Eclipse and these transits are opportunities to understand how we are training and what we are training for within a social or emotional context. It’s all about being educated by experimentation, with substantial productivity indicated by Mercury, ruling the Eclipse, being in sextile to Venus, which is very strong due to its conjunction to Mars, biseptile to Saturn, and trine to Uranus. I’ll explain more in future articles.
In the next part of the series, we'll explore how this Eclipse will manifest and its astrological components, including Sabian Symbols, which signs will be most affected, and more on the mixed energies at work in this Partial Solar Eclipse. While it’s not bright, it is of long duration, so get ready to get into training and learning/showing your skills!
On a final note for today, Mercury is about to go stationary retrograde. It’s been in its “shadow zone” for about 2 weeks, and thus has been slowing, or as I put it, “crashing into retrograde.” If you’ve wondered why things already seem to be retrograde, that’s why.
You can find out a lot more about the coming Mercury retrograde in Libra by getting a copy of the new expanded 2nd edition of my pioneering book A New Look At Mercury Retrograde, the 2015 winner in its category of The Indie Spiritual Book Awards. The first major work on Mercury retrograde ever written, it offers in-depth information about Mercury retrograde people, Mercury retrograde in the various signs and houses, and what the entire Mercury Retrograde phenomenon is about. If you want to know what we can expect from Mercury retrograde in Libra, or the last one in Gemini, or the others in any other sign and the influence in the houses, it’s all in there.
The paperback is available through Createspace.com, so if you want the newest edition go there and order your copy. Of course, it’s also available as an ebook through Amazon Kindle or Barnes and Noble Nook. I've included links to both sites.
As I’ve mentioned before, it is written for both astrologers and laypeople. I have just about everything you could want to know about Mercury retrograde, including how it works, what it means, celebrities who have it in their charts, historic events that happened during Mercury retrograde, and what signs are involved in future Mercury retrograde periods.
By knowing more about 2014's Mercury retrograde periods in Pisces/Aquarius, Cancer/Gemini, and Scorpio/Libra, as well as 2015’s Mercury retrograde periods in Aquarius, Gemini, and Libra, you may see patterns in what was going on in your life, what you were taking a new look at and why, and how this "looking back" influenced your choices as you moved through past events.
Here's the link to where you can order your copy of the new edition of my ebook, A New Look at Mercury Retrograde to check out possible ways this Mercury retrograde effect could play out over the next 4 months. Just make sure you get the 2015 second edition, and not the 1997 Weiser first edition.
See you soon with the next article on this Solar Eclipse!
© Copyright 2015 Robert Wilkinson
My sun is 16 degrees Virgo in the 8th house, so doesn't this conjunct my natal sun? I have no success interpreting these eclipses...is this a big deal??
Sounds like it would be.....Thank you, Oh, Wise One!
Posted by: Deb | September 11, 2015 at 11:41 PM
Thanks Robert. Looking forward to the next post on the theme.
Blessings be to all
Posted by: Nic | September 12, 2015 at 09:54 AM
Thanks Robert! Great article. I linked to it on the Northwest Psychic Fair FB page.
Posted by: Deni | September 12, 2015 at 11:45 PM