After the hectic activity of eclipses moving through the first house and seventh houses, eclipses move into the 12/6 house axis, and our young newlywed finds herself in a Crisis in Retreat and Adaptation.  After months of frenzied activity, planning a wedding, setting up a new household, our young couple enters the honeymoon phase.  For a year or so they barely leave the house for social engagements; they’re just plain worn out, and they need some time alone.

Our young bride is wondering just when the exhilaration of married life is supposed to kick in!  She adores her husband, and their wedding day was beautiful.  So why does she feel so tired all the time?  Why does she find herself crying at odd moments, picking fights with her husband over inconsequential things?  Why does she feel so weird?

Meanwhile, she’s spent hours changing her name on countless documents: the DMV, the passport office, Social Security office, credit cards.  People call her by her new name and she doesn’t even know who they’re talking to.

Living with someone new has brought about the challenge of working out new routines and adapting old habits.  Will we have separate bank accounts or joint?  Which toaster will we keep?  Who does the dishes?  After years of sorting out her own routines, each day with her husband is like recreating the wheel!

Eclipses in the twelfth house, like eclipses to Neptune, are times for retreat and recuperation.  Our young bride is recuperating not just from the wedding, but from a lifetime of bad relationships, stored up hurts and disappointments – and confronting her illusions about relationships, and her new husband.  Now that she has a safe haven, she can surrender her armor – and purging the emotions that have resurfaced is a tiring business.  Eclipses in the sixth house, like eclipses aspecting Mercury, find us delineating and defining roles and expectations, and dealing with the day to day reality of living with whatever changes we made in the 1st and 7th houses.

The fundamental crisis of this cycle involves honoring our need for solitude and contemplation, while simultaneously taking care of the mundane tasks at which we spend the bulk of our time.  Ideally, we can bring some 12th house contemplation to the 6th house, and approach our tasks as a spiritual journey – instead of envisioning spirituality as something which occurs apart from the everyday world.