by Robert Wilkinson
Here's part two on how this powerful Virgo Solar Eclipse will be impacting us over the next 4 weeks (and 69 months!)
Over the next 4 weeks, this Solar Eclipse in Virgo will show us How consciousness is not confined to any one realm, and lead us all to a greater willingness to move beyond old ideals and ways of “knowing.” This puts the focus on Divine Discrimination on the emotional, social, and cultural level, and precedes an ability to combine imagination with practical engineering skills to bring forth individual forms of knowing how the parts relate to the Whole.
This Annular Solar Eclipse will bring endings and adjustments also a precise line of “the tension of opposites,” due to the exact opposition to Neptune, producing an awareness of service and purpose, with the need to detach from the mind to embrace a new spiritual ideal. As with all Eclipses, this is the end of an old era and ideal. The new will come forth as the things shown by this Eclipse are taken away, or flow down the time stream, or are seen in the greater Light of their place in the Whole.
Saturn releases this line of radical awareness through being the driver of the T-square made with the Eclipse opposite Neptune. Because the Sun and Moon form waning squares to Saturn, and Saturn forms a waning square to Neptune, these energies are culminative, and shows tension between what has been and what will be, bringing an old form of Light/Life to completion so we can embrace more liberating duties and responsibilities. This Eclipse holds a promise that we can expand our “Ring Pass Not” and become a greater spiritual expression of our True Self despite the simultaneous gear grinds and liberating experiences.
As with all squares, the trick is to see how to use the energies of each planet to release the favorable energies inherent in both planets making the square. For example, we can use the Lunation trine Pluto to release favorable energy via the square to Saturn, which is benefited and specialized in favorable ways through the Mercury and Jupiter quintile to Saturn. So Saturn is strengthened by Mercury and Jupiter and releases through the squares to the Eclipse and Neptune.
This is the twelfth New Moon since the launch of the Saturn in Sagittarius era in late September 2015 after a last blast of Saturn in Scorpio from mid-June through mid-September 2015. There are a number of important aspects in play which I’ll discuss in part three. This Lunation returns us to the Splay Jones pattern, which I’ll also discuss then.
This New Moon forms one opposition, and that’s to Neptune. Other than the transiting Moon, we really won’t have any significant oppositions until the inner planets come into orb from Libra to Uranus in Aries. After that we will have no more inner planet oppositions until Mars opposes Jupiter in Libra next February. That should diminish oppositional energies during the period from November through February 2017.
With this Lunation, we are confronting another short and long period of a renewed Mutable T-square involving Virgo, Pisces, and Sagittarius. It first dominated February through June 2016 via Jupiter in Virgo opposed Neptune square Saturn. Now it’s back via the inner planets activating the Jupiterian promise. If we integrated what we had to, this should bring power to that promise, vision, or truth.
This Eclipse brings the Saturn square Neptune back in a dynamic way. As they are now in a very close square triggered by the Eclipse, we’re under continuous pressure in the houses where we have mid-Virgo, mid-Sagittarius and mid-Pisces and resonant voids, at this time to mid-Gemini. If you’re wondering why there is such friction in the public consciousness and dialog (such as it is), look to this square, since collective delusions (Neptune in Pisces) have been and continue to be under the hard friction of the reality of the way things are (Saturn in Sagittarius). These gear grinds are putting the brakes on some things, while helping us all turn the corner in other areas we no longer need to experience. This is setting up liberating experiences within challenging circumstances in the collective consciousness.
So What’s Happening?
Today we’ll do an overview of the Lunation and some of its primary qualities. In part 3 we’ll cover Sabian Symbols, aspects, distributions, and patterns.
This practical, utilitarian, distributive, and anticipatory New Moon Eclipse helping us to needed adjustments to open new futures occurs at 10 Virgo on September 1 at 2:03 am PDT, 5:03 am EDT, and 10:03 am BST. This one helps us take a look back to see a new stability or value we incorporated at the last Mercury retrograde in April and May, and many will get flashes and connections from the past helping them see how far they’ve come in the wisdom. As it falls in the Virgo decan of Virgo, and Mercury, ruler of the Eclipse is in the Taurus decan of Virgo, it’s definitely a practical stabilizing time for all of us.
This New Moon is the fourth in a sequence where the Sun falls in the same sign as the Sun in the next Full Moon. This shifts what we’ve been dealing with for the 16 months before the last New Moon in Gemini, where the New Moon Sun was different than the subsequent Full Moon Sun. In other words, we’ve now returned to the “normal order” of Lunations, because this New Moon Sun is in Leo, and the coming Full Moon Sun will also be in Leo. Since I explain this phenomenon and what it means in the Full Moon articles, you will learn more from consulting the last Full Moon articles, or the coming Full Moon articles two weeks from now.
The New Moons and Full Moons are “God’s footprints in time.” Each shows the next in the 12 phases of how things come to be each year. The cycle could be described as follows: Life energy is initiated in Aries, substantiated in Taurus, explored in Gemini, grounded in Cancer, renewed and creatively expressed in Leo, refined and ordered in Virgo, balanced in Libra, purified in Scorpio, expanded in Sagittarius, organized in Capricorn, solidified into a vision in Aquarius, and ended/perpetuated in Pisces.
An Overview of the New Moon
This Lunation continues several months of shifting Jones patterns. Up to last month we had a run of Bucket Patterns that dominated off and on for most of the past several years. Then we had a Splay with a tripod of Water energies, and last month we moved into a Locomotive. We are now back into a Splay, which will give way in coming New Moons to a See-Saw, and then a Bowl which will dominate through March 2017.
This chart has many important forming aspects, some of which we’ve discussed. Besides the T-square and opposition-sextile-trine created between the Eclipse and the planets mentioned above, we also have the Lunation vigintile Mercury and Jupiter, Mercury conjunct Jupiter with both quintile Saturn, triseptile Uranus, and tredecile Pluto. We find Venus quadranovile Uranus and triseptile Neptune, triggering the Grand Irrationality. Mars makes no forming aspects, and Uranus makes a trielftile to Pluto. The tredeciles indicate highly specialized interactive conditions featuring serendipity, and Venus triseptile Neptune shows major forks in the road of destiny for those with planets or angles in any of the 7 active zones of the Grand Irrationality.
The 7th harmonic aspects (septile series), 9th harmonic aspects (novile series) and 11th harmonic aspects (elftile series) are angles related to spiritual development. If you want to know more about the septile (7th harmonic), novile (9th harmonic), and elftile (11th harmonic) series aspects, when you’re done here you can check out The Spiritual Aspects – Novile, Septile, and Elftile Series. I also have a recorded class for those who want more on these important aspects.
Because the Lunation and Venus are all in Virgo and very early Libra, you can bet that sector will be highly active over the next 4 weeks. This New Moon will jumpstart Virgo energy wherever it falls in our chart. With this Lunation, we enter into a period where we need to demonstrate willingness to take a new look at certain assumptions, and grow into a more practical perspective about what fits where in the bigger picture. This ushers in a period of making adjustments on the basis of what we think we know in the light of the vision we were given last Autumn.
So What Rules the Lunation?
This New Moon in Virgo makes Mercury in Virgo the ruler of the Lunation. Because the Eclipse is in Virgo, and both Mercury and Jupiter are in Virgo, Mercury at this time is a very powerful final dispositor for all the other planetary energiese except Venus and Neptune, both in their home signs. You can find out more about dispositors and Mutual Reception at the link.
Because NO traditional planet leads the Lunation, the energies leading the Light are a void. This gives a remarkably rare blank slate for the Light and Form of the next two (and 69) weeks. This does not happen except in extraordinary times when both Mercury and Venus are ahead of the Sun. The next and last time this will happen for many months will be the Nov 2016 New Moon.
A New Look At Mercury Retrograde
Yes, Mercury’s retrograde, and will continue to occupy its “shadow zone” through early October. If you haven't already gotten one, please get your copy of the award-winning expanded 2nd edition of my pioneering book A New Look At Mercury Retrograde.
It’s got everything you could ever want to know about the Mercury retrograde process, what we can expect when it occurs in different signs, and the many beneficial things that can be accomplished during a Mercury retrograde period. The coming retrograde period is very important, since it will conjunct both Venus and Jupiter in a sector promising that many of us will see the gestative power of a form of the Ageless Wisdom operating in our lives in ways that help us “escape from a narrow destiny.”
By knowing more about 2014's Mercury retrograde periods in Pisces/Aquarius, Cancer/Gemini, and Scorpio/Libra, or 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. And you can get a new look at what’s been and will be happening by taking a look at the 2016 Mercury retrograde periods in Aquarius/Capricorn, Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn/Sagittarius. It’s all in the book!
Here's the Amazon link to the page where you can purchase a paperback edition of A New Look at Mercury Retrograde. You can also get a Kindle ebook at that site, or go to Barnes and Noble for a copy on Nook. (Please note that if you go to amazon, make sure you're ordering the 2015 edition, and not the earlier one. There are plenty of used ones for sale, but they are far inferior to the newest edition.)
The Grand Irrationality
The reason this section is a recurring feature in the Lunation articles is because it was set into long term play by the 2011 Solar Eclipse, as well as subsequent Solar Eclipses whose influence continues. These effects are triggered each time any transiting planet occupies any of the 7 zones of the Grand Irrationality. Since then it’s been reinforced and triggered by various Lunations, planetary stations, and transits.
It’s been triggered in quite a few Lunations this year already. In this Lunation, we have a major activation due to Venus triseptile Neptune! Many things will arise over the next 4 (and 69) weeks that are directly related to what’s coming in a few weeks when Jupiter is in early Libra and triseptiles Neptune, launching the current Venusian pulse into an expanded collective field. Of course this will be an influence through the Sun’s and Mercury’s passage through early Libra between late September and mid-October.
This is the next in the yearly triggers of the Grand Irrationality, and creates big forks in the road in the world at large. This will profoundly affect those with a planet or angle in any of the 7 “hot zones” defining the phenomenon. For those who are new to the site, here’s a bit of explanation about this thing called “the Grand Irrationality” associated with why everything continues to be so weird. As I’ve explained many times before, the Grand Irrationality is a long wave non-rational influence that has put everyone on Earth on the unceasing edge of major choice and change.
Everyone has been confronting inner compulsions, continual choices that seem to have a major impact on our destiny, and occasionally irrational behaviors in others or external conditions. It is why things seem to have an unending hard edge, why so many choices are continually thrown in our faces that require immediate attention, and why reason seems to fail at critical moments of decision.
When the Grand Irrationality is in play, it’s a time when things don’t have to make sense. We’ve been living with it for almost 25 years, and it will be active for a couple more years to come, even though we’ve begun to be on the far side of that influence.
Though it will wane in intensity in the future, there will be enough set into motion that won’t make sense that we certainly can’t be lulled into a false sense of complacency! We’re certainly still seeing some global craziness and irrational behavior, so be aware!
Because late Autumn through mid-Spring brings Neptune into a close septile with Pluto, during those months the configuration acts as a simultaneous “pulse” that activates Neptune and Pluto at the same time. However, as we get into late Spring through mid-Autumn, we’re experiencing a lag in how Neptune and Pluto operate, since they’re now out of the septile and again approaching the sextile they made from 1942-1995.
The current degree spans that trigger this transformative mass configuration are around 10-14 Leo, 1-5 Libra, 23-27 Scorpio, 15-19 Capricorn, 7-11 Pisces, 28 Aries- 2 Taurus, and 19-23 Gemini. If you have a planet or angle in any of these zones, you are making critical choices and decisions that will alter your future in important ways. Expect events and ideas from the past to be understood in new ways, opening new archetypal roles to play and new “perfect forms” to emulate. This one promises the dawn of a new day is on the way, and by the time this influence is over, we shall all behold a world utterly transformed.
Neptune and Chiron at the Cusp of the Age 2011-2012, and Where We're At Now
I offer this segment each month to give you a broader perspective on the collective atmosphere, and the long wave changes humanity is going through.
Now that these two are well into Pisces, they are no longer at the Cusp of the Great Age. Since they first entered the zone back in 2011-2012, we’ve been navigating through the threshold of an entirely new era that will not resemble the old Age in any way within just a few decades. We’re already solidly in the Dreamscape, and are already seeing long wave manifestations of the ending of the old and the emerging field we’re all learning how to maneuver through.
Other than the brief look we had in mid-2011, this is only the fifty-fourth New Moon with Neptune in Pisces for the next approximately 150 years. We had Neptune in Pisces for the 3 New Moons for May, June, and July 2011 which gave us a front end look at how Neptune will function through 2025.
Between August 2011, when Neptune retrograded back into late Aquarius, and the January 2012 New Moon, we were given one last look back at a greater ideal, and the changes of the last half of 2011 helped many to break out of our "chrysalis" and transform how we live and all our relationships. That is now established in the collective consciousness, as well as a growing sense of the larger light field in which all sentient Beings live and love.
If you want to know what's coming for many years to come, take a look back at the intuitions and sense of belonging to a vaster interrelated whole you were shown in May, June, and July 2011. It may help to give a sense of our collective lesson in dissolving our separateness as we finish this transition through "the Winter of the 21st Century" on our way to Spring, beginning in 2025!
In 2011 both Neptune and Chiron revealed our unique part to play within a larger light/life field. During that time, these planets at the beginning of Pisces and end of Aquarius occupied degrees representing 1 Pisces - the Cusp where the Age of Pisces and the Age of Aquarius meet. The article deals specifically with the first degree of Pisces, which is where the Precessional point occupies at present.
From one point of view, where we were collectively between February 2011 and March 2012 revealed what the period of (approximately) 1990-2140 is all about in the broader context of human evolution. I suspect that future generations will look back at 2011 and 2012 as being crucial in showing long range patterns of larger evolutionary necessities. You can find more about what we’re going through to get to the coming Age of Aquarius in the article The Sun Enters Pisces Today Illuminating the Cusp of the Great Age, Where The Age of Pisces Gives Way to the Age of Aquarius.
Neptune and Chiron dancing between signs on "the Cusp of the Age" had the effect of making it seem like we have all been occupying a very weird dreamscape which we'll be navigating for years to come. The trick for us is to apply our new strengths and understanding freed from the ghosts of the past, and by riding the waves of intense (but curiously steady) pulses of spiritual energies shaping our minds, we can find techniques where our efforts will lead us to forms of good fortune.
In this chart, Chiron is at 24 Pisces. This is the first time Chiron has been in this zone since 1966-1968. It is now retrograde, and moving back over the span it traversed earlier this year. The coming weeks are important indicators of the future, since Chiron will go stationary direct in late 2017 at 25 Pisces. Consider this a front end look at Chironic themes that are in play for about a year and a half to come.
As Chiron and then Neptune pass through Pisces, we shall see echoes in the collective consciousness related to the various Uranus stations from 2008-2010, and specifically the Jupiter conjunctions to Uranus during 2010. We shall also be shown healing and mentoring techniques that will dominate collective consciousness when it too goes through its purification from 2022-2024.
Chiron transits help each of us heal anew through our positioning within collective consciousness, assisting us to find ways to mentor and be mentored in Piscean ways. This one has the themes of understanding how to be secure in the world we’ve created, but also see how we’re connected to others in our field, and understand we are all interdependent in crucial ways.
Neptune shows us how to merge the sacred and the everyday in our lives. Over the past several years, we have come to understand the ideals we believe in, heard a call to a life renewal, dumped excess and unnecessary baggage to quicken the pace in achieving some social goal, mastered something important in our spiritual quest, been offered higher responsibilities, and been shown what spiritual goals we’re fit to accomplish.
2016 completes our realizations of these lessons, and prepares us to move forward. This chart has Neptune retrograde at 11 Pisces, giving us a review of the lessons of March and glimpses of Jan-Feb 2017. In recent weeks, we have been introduced to a new ideal of courage and focused will power within a greater cause or dedication. We “entered the sanctuary” where our minds were introduced to Soul realms in March and early April, and were then tested to prove we are qualified to occupy the “spiritual office” we have accepted before now in April and May. This year and next we are moving into a Sacred Space, awakening to a greater role, letting go of fear, and learning from those who are true custodians of Soul force.
Because Neptune is at 11 Pisces, the collective atmosphere is related to the quickening in collective consciousness awakened by Uranus in 2005-2006. Though we will be finishing up some lessons related to earlier degrees in Pisces through 2017, we are now in an unknown zone, since Neptune has not been in this face of Pisces since 1852-1854. We are in an entirely new era in Neptune’s influence on the collective consciousness!
As Neptune has not experienced this span of Pisces since the 1850s, it indicates that collective consciousness in 2014-2016 has been in an “unknown zone” relative to the recent past, but somehow echoing lessons of the last period. The past 24 months, we’ve strengthened our intuition and emotional intelligence, as well as a greater feeling-connection of our positioning within a vaster field.
This helps us take a new look at how to show showing courage and valor in demonstrating our ability to focus our will power to be the vehicle for Divine Will to manifest in our world. We’ve been tested, and faced forms of collective wisdom to re-affirm our purpose. Some have received revelations about God or Truth, which will be key factors in the courage we have to demonstrate and the will power we have to focus now, but with the added theme of taking a new look or finding a new understanding related to our personality’s entrance into the Soul realm.
The North Node
This is the tenth New Moon with North Node in Virgo and South Node in Pisces. Good for learning precision, practicality, refined discipleship and service! With NN in Virgo, our greatest development is through our ability to analyze, figure out what’s core and peripheral, what’s important and unimportant, and how each detail fits the bigger picture. We will demonstrate these qualities through compassion, forgiveness, and the ability to get emotional closure while relating our experiences to the general timeless human condition.
The North Node in mid Virgo brings a more specific focus on growth in that direction. We now are in the middle of several months of developing many of the Saturn skills and disciplines we took on and learned to deal with when Saturn was in this face of mid-Virgo in August and September 2008.
This NN degree is 13 Virgo, which we are told is “A strong hand supplanting political hysteria.” This degree shows our line of greatest evolutional development these next 4 (and 69) weeks involves refining our practical service in our world, and cultivating the ability to intervene in situations and bring order out of chaos, or calm in the midst of instability. It’s the power to dramatize personal potentials, and shows that personality, when trained and focused, can be the vehicle for higher things to be made manifest.
As it is now back in the first half of Virgo, we are developing the Jupiterian skills and lessons when it occupied this degree in October 2015, and is next to the degree where Jupiter went stationary direct in May 2016. This process is related to the structures Saturn first offered us in September 2008 and where it went stationary direct in May 2009. We continue to grow through individual, mental, and spiritual forms of Divine Discrimination, seeing how the parts related to the whole.
I’ll close today by reminding you that there is high specialization and serendipitous events promised by Mercury and Jupiter quintile Saturn and tredecile Pluto. These will bring gifts and blessings to those with planets affected by the resonant harmonic voids created by these planets, which I’ll explain in part 3. We now get to play with new looks at old ideas to find the quintessence of how to develop those perspectives and understanding. Anticipate the future, trust your body wisdom, see how the spiritual ideas you’ve had for a while are now opening new perspectives and understanding, and be a good healer, or a priest or priestess presiding over endings and beginnings.
It’s back to the future! Our education through experimentation continues, and we’re in training. Review what has already been opened for your imagination’s consideration, and allow yourself to be pulled toward a greater practical service and roles to play.
See you soon with part 3, which will cover Sabian Symbols, Jones patterns, element distribution, and a whole lot more!
Previous articles in this series:
What is a Solar Eclipse and How Does it Affect Our Life?
Astrology in September 2016 - On The Threshold of an Annular Solar Eclipse at 10 Virgo
© Copyright 2016 Robert Wilkinson
Thank you Robert, This indeed feels like a chinstrap eclipse...
Neptune and Saturn heal awake awareness to energies of flow in currency and creativity...
Soon I pray the words Ethical Investing ring around the planet...that the toxic profits and positive profit are two very different energies...
Dream on...
Posted by: sue | September 02, 2016 at 09:13 AM