TRANSCRIPT EPISODE 120 | Taurus Solar Eclipse: Shadows and Fog (April 25, 2022)
Listen and read show notes for this episode hereApril: Hello, invisible friends, April here, and the date today is April 25th, 2022. Welcome to Episode 120 of The Big Sky Astrology Podcast. Eclipse season is upon us this week as the Taurus New Moon connects with Uranus and brings us a powerful Solar Eclipse. Venus, the planetary ruler of Taurus, makes a conjunction with otherworldly Neptune this week and with Jupiter on the day of the Eclipse. Pluto shifts to begin its long retrograde period and Mercury enters Gemini. That’s a lot of planetary news, so let’s get right to it!
Venus conjunct Neptune (April 27, 12:12 pm PDT)
Venus will make conjunctions to both Jupiter and Neptune this week. And as we know, Jupiter and Neptune were in a conjunction on April 12th. I spoke quite a lot about it in Episode 118, and there is an essay on my website also that I’ll link to. Venus will first make a conjunction with Neptune on April 27th at 12:12 PM Pacific Time at 24° and 28 minutes of Pisces, on the Sabian symbol, 25 Pisces, “The Purging of the Priesthood”.
I think I’ve spoken recently – it was probably when Venus went into Pisces – about this combination of Venus with Neptune. Because Venus is considered the planet of love, we’d say of relationship, at least, also of money and of worth and about how much we value ourselves. Venus really concerns the things of the earth. and Neptune is about that other dimension, how we are in touch with the spiritual and the otherworldly. It’s what fascinates me about this Sabian symbol for this conjunction, “The Purging of the Priesthood”. Think of priests in, say, small villages who hold an enormous amount of power and influence because they’re seen as direct conduits to God or to spirit. It’s really easy to begin to buy into your own press and grow to love the earthly rewards that come along with being in that position of influence.
We can apply this to any relationships we’re in, or the way that we make our work. I know for people like me, like astrologers, people who are readers or healers or something, we often have to grapple, especially early in our careers with this idea of, “Is it okay to earn money doing this kind of work?” And we all have to come to our own conclusions about that. But I think this idea of “The Purging of the Priesthood” says there comes a time when we can see that some corruption has spilled over into our highest ideals, which is represented by Neptune. And sometimes you just have to reboot.
Sometimes when Venus and Neptune come together, we can have a tendency to not see very clearly in the areas represented by Venus. Say, if somebody came to me for a reading and Venus has been conjunct Neptune, and they’re, “Oh, I just met this person. And I can’t believe that such a perfect and sublime creature exists on the earth”. Now, I’m hearing a lot of Neptune in that statement. And I would think, well, okay, maybe it’s great. Maybe this person is really wonderful. Are they perfect? No, because they’re human and none of us are perfect! But you can hear that language of Neptune. And when we are first in love with somebody or first in our perfect job, we know as soon as we use the word perfect, that Neptune may very well be on the scene and blinding us a little bit to the reality of the situation, which will probably become clearer in time, probably around the time Venus gets to its next major aspect with Neptune, which would be a sextile.
I would just say, if you’re considering going into some kind of partnership with someone, if you’re dating someone new, if you are negotiating for a new job, just know that everything is probably not going to be quite as perfect as it seems in the beginning. It might still be a good opportunity or a good situation, but to proceed with a little more caution, try to open your eyes a little bit, or at the very least, don’t put commitments in writing, probably, when it comes to big expenditures or to business partnerships or something like that while Venus is in a conjunction with Neptune.
Pluto stations retrograde (April 29, 11:36 am PDT)
Next up this week, on April 29th, Pluto turns retrograde at 11:36 AM at 28° and 35 minutes of Capricorn. Boy, that Pluto is really getting to the end of Capricorn. Isn’t it? The Sabian symbol for this degree is 29 Capricorn, “A Woman Reading Tea Leaves”, which is one that we’ve been talking about because Pluto will kind of sit at this degree for a while, on and off. Pluto will be retrograde through October 8; it has this very long retrograde cycle. It’s one of those planets that we most notice it’s retrograde motion at the time it’s turning direction, so, at the time it’s actually turning retrograde or turning direct. And in this case, I’d say a couple of days either side of the retrograde. Say, April 27th through May 1st.
Now, what does Pluto represent? It’s about the way we inhabit our own power, and it’s the way we reconcile ourselves to the reality that there are many things we can’t control. The Sabian symbol, “A Woman Reading Tea Leaves” really goes to that idea of fate. Is there a fate that a reader could see by looking at tea leaves? Is there a fate that an astrologer can perceive by looking at your birth chart? It never sits well with me, this idea of fate. It seems to imply that there is a static destination out there just waiting for us to catch up with it, and that that is our fate. And if that’s true, well, why would we even bother, right? Why would we even try to do anything with our free will? I guess Pluto is the planet that makes us grapple with those ideas. Because as much as I was born at a place and in a time in history where I have a whole lot of latitude for how my life turns out, that colors my ideas about fate and predestination to a great degree.
As Pluto is turning retrograde, and as it is retrograde for the coming five and a half months or so, I guess that’s one of the things we contend with, isn’t it? How much of our lives is within our control? And, how can we do the most with the control that we have, while also understanding there are clearly forces beyond our own individual will that limit our choices and our control?
Mercury’s last aspects in Taurus
Mercury finishes up its passage through Taurus with a sextile to Jupiter on April 26th at 10:11 PM Pacific Time, and a trine to Pluto on April 28th at 05:04 AM Pacific Time. Mercury sextile Jupiter is a really, really nice aspect because it says that the big ideas and big concepts that Jupiter brings to us, we’re actually able to do something with and sort through and understand and communicate a little more effectively. Then the trine to Pluto on the 28th, suggests to me that as we reach the end of this Mercury in Taurus period, there’s the opportunity to assimilate the deeper lessons that we’ve learned. Mercury is not usually about deep lessons, it’s just about gathering info and then moving on. But, when it aspects Jupiter, it says, oh, well maybe there is a bigger picture here. And then as it trines Pluto, it says, oh, here is information that can actually change me. So, it’s finishing up a relatively quick trip through Taurus in a kind of a soulful way.
Mercury enters its retrograde shadow period
Mercury enters the shadow period of its upcoming retrograde on April 26th. It’s going to turn retrograde on May 10th. So, this week’s territory for Mercury is what Mercury will recover when it’s in its retrograde period. So, pay attention to the messages that come your way, to new people that you encounter, new situations that you’re invited to participate in.
Mercury enters Gemini
Now, on April 29th at 03:23 PM Pacific Time, Mercury enters Gemini, a very strong sign for it because Gemini is one of the signs that Mercury rules. It’s very communicative. It’s very active. It deals with the realm of the mind. And the pandemic notwithstanding, people are gathering more, they’re traveling more, it’s a much more sociable vibe. So, Mercury will actually be in Gemini for a long time, an exceptionally long time because it will be retrograde in this sign. It turns retrograde on May 10th in early Gemini, backs into late Taurus, and then when it turns direct, it moves back through late Taurus and into Gemini and covers the whole sign. It does not move into Cancer until about July 5th. So, this is an interesting time for Mercury.
Mercury enters Gemini on the Sabian symbol 1 Gemini, “A Glass-Bottomed Boat In Still Water”. In a glass bottom boat in water that is still, we can see a lot. And this Sabian symbol does, to me, speak of this clarity of mind that we associate with Gemini. Not necessarily a thoroughness; that’s more associated with Virgo, which is the other sign that Mercury rules, which is more analytical and spends its time with information, tries to figure out the most important elements of it. But Mercury in Gemini is simply about noticing what’s going on around us and sort of filing the information away for use at an opportune moment. It’s also a very nice connective sign for Mercury, because Gemini likes to associate people with each other. It’s a networking sign.
The Moon Report: Taurus New Moon/Solar Eclipse (April 30, 1:28 pm PDT)
And now for the Moon Report for the week of April 25th. Dominating the Moon Report for this week is that Taurus New Moon Solar Eclipse on April 30th at 01:28 PM at 10° 28’ of Taurus, in a very close conjunction with Uranus. This Solar Eclipse is on the Sabian symbol, “A Woman Sprinkling Flowers”. A very nice symbol of nurturing, and nurturing in a Taurus way, which is very different than Cancerian nurturing. We always associate Cancer with nurturing, and it is. But I always think of Cancer as being the kind of tender and protective nurturing. Whereas Taurus just sort of takes care of things on a practical and physical level. So, the “Woman Sprinkling Flowers” is a great example of that.
Now, eclipses always are about changes and it’s especially so, I think, in this case, because the Solar eclipse point is conjunct Uranus. If we look back to previous eclipses near this degree, we see that on April 29th, 2014, we had a Solar Eclipse at 8°16’ Taurus that was trine Pluto. Going back to April 29th, 1995, there was a Solar Eclipse at 8°56’ Taurus in square aspect to Uranus. And back on April 29th, 1976, a Solar Eclipse at 9°13’ Taurus in an opposition with Uranus. So, there’s a little bit of a pattern here with eclipses near this degree of the connection with Uranus. So, this is a real interesting one because eclipses are generally of the nature of Uranus. They’re about change and moving in a new direction. So, the eclipse actually aspecting Uranus really emphasizes that characteristic of the Eclipse.
So, what I would suggest, and I always do with these eclipses is to go back, note those dates on a piece of paper. Some of you were not alive in 1976 or some even in 1995, but look back to the previous eclipses, think about what was happening in your life and in particular in the house of your horoscope that contains these degrees of Taurus, this one in particular, 10°. I’m going to talk quite a bit about eclipses at the end of this episode. I’m recapping some of the material that was covered way back at Episode 5.
Void-of-Course Moon periods
Now, the Void-of-Course Moon periods, and we know that these are times for sitting with the message of the Moon’s last aspect in its sign before it moves on to the next sign. Not the best time for initiating things necessarily, but a good time for sort of sitting back and reflecting over the events of the last couple of days.
On April 27th, the Moon in Pisces makes a sextile aspect to Pluto at 06:36 AM Pacific Time. It’s Void-of-Course for about two and a half hours and enters Aries at 09:20 AM Pacific Time. Here on the west coast of the United States, this is fairly early in the morning as you’re getting ready to begin your day, begin your work, and the Moon’s sextile to Pluto is a nice aspect to sit with to say, “It’s okay if I don’t have power over everything.” Remember, we were talking about that Pluto turning retrograde. The Moon is in Pisces here and sextile Pluto, it says, it’s okay. I can just go with things as they are. So, we have an opportunity on that morning to look at the way we approach control in a new way and a hopefully a more positive way as well.
Then on April 29th, the Moon in Aries squares Pluto at 02:38 PM Pacific Time, again, Void-of-Course for a little over two and a half hours before it enters Taurus at 05:19 PM. The Moon making a last aspect to Pluto, that is a difficult one, either a square or an opposition, especially speaks to Void-of-Course Moon time that is a little more difficult emotionally, where we’re struggling with some intense emotions. This is a nice, short Void-of-Course Moon period, two and a half hours in the late afternoon when we often feel a little bit Plutonian, anyway. It’s the time of day when the sun is usually up occupying the part of the sky that we equate with the 8th house. It’s a shadowy time of day.
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Venus conjunct Jupiter (April 30, 2:14 pm PDT)
Venus makes a conjunction with Jupiter on April 30th at 02:14 PM Pacific Time, 27° 57’ Pisces, on the Sabian symbol 28 Pisces, “A Fertile Garden Under A Full Moon”. Isn’t that lovely, even though it’s really close to a New Moon?
So, I think that with this conjunction of Venus and Jupiter, perhaps we begin to see what was promised in that Jupiter Neptune conjunction on April 12th, the blooming of love and pleasure, the beginning of a whole new cycle for Venus and Jupiter. If it weren’t an eclipse day, this would be a wonderful day for a wedding, I have to say!
Anytime we’re beginning a new cycle between two planets, it’s a little bit like a New Moon. We’re planting seeds, and these are nice seeds. This is the coming together of the two luckiest planets, we’d say the two most pleasurable and enjoyable planets growing a new love, growing a new business, growing a new way of earning your living, growing more and more pleasure, things that make us happy and giving us the sense that our life is larger and there are more opportunities.
Then, on May 1st, Venus makes a sextile to Pluto at 03:37 AM Pacific Time, at 28° 35’ Pisces and Capricorn on the Sabian symbol, 29 Pisces, “A Prism”. And then Pluto is on the Sabian symbol, 29 Capricorn – say it with me! – “A Woman Reading Tea Leaves”. Now, remember that series of Venus conjunctions with Pluto at the end of last year, on December 11th and December 25th, and then, we had a final one on March 3rd? And that Venus retrograde that we had in Capricorn was very rough. This is the first major aspect between Venus and Pluto since those conjunctions. And a sextile is an offer, a connection, an invitation or a conversation, or just an opportunity to assimilate what we experienced during those somewhat difficult times. What did we learn? Can we now see different sides of the story? That’s what I take from that Sabian symbol for Venus, “A Prism”. The light hits the prism and sends out a lot of different colors. So, there are always different sides to those Venus stories that we experienced.
Mini-Lesson: Eclipses in the Houses of the Birth Chart
In this week’s mini lesson, we’re going to talk about Eclipses. We’re going to do this in the next two episodes. And in this episode, we’ll talk a little bit about Eclipses in general, and then about the influence of eclipses in the houses of your chart. Then in the next podcast episode, I’ll recap the feeling of eclipses aspecting planets in your birth chart. Because we do have the Solar Eclipse this week, and then in two weeks we will have a Lunar Eclipse.
So, let’s talk about eclipses. What does an eclipse mean and why should we care about it astrologically? Eclipses in astrology, as I’ve said, signify change and crisis, and crisis is a scary word because we mostly have negative connotations with it. When we think about crisis, we think of the worst moments of our lives, but a crisis just means that you have taken can a particular path as far as you can, and now it’s time to go in another direction. You’re at a turning point. It’s like the moment in a novel or a film where the plot thickens and the action changes. It is a moment of tension in your narrative. Now, the thing is some of the, the very best experiences of your life can also be crises. If you talk to somebody who’s just gotten married or had their first child or someone who’s just experienced any enormous success, then you will be talking to a person who’s in crisis. Their whole life has changed and the old rules no longer apply, and they have to find a new way of rewriting the rules of their life.
The April 30th Eclipse is a Solar Eclipse, and I’ll tell you just briefly what I think about the difference between Solar and Lunar Eclipses. Solar Eclipse occur at least twice each year. It’s when we have a New Moon within a particular proximity of the lunar nodes. The lunar nodes mark the point where the Earth’s path around the Sun, intersects with the Moon’s path around the earth. Solar Eclipses can only happen at a New Moon. Coming up to a Solar Eclipse, especially in the week before the Eclipse, we tend to experience them. And I find we experience them in quite a physical way. We might feel a little bit off balance, a little bit charged up, to me, as I said, they’re very much of the nature of Uranus where things are really highly charged. I think Solar Eclipses are a time when, because it’s the Moon that is occulting the Sun, so the Moon shadow, those lunar qualities like intuition and emotionalism, overwhelm the solar self. And the solar self is the part that has a good sense of who we are relative to other people. It symbolizes our sanity, our sense of who we are and what that means. So, just for a brief time, around the time of a Solar Eclipse, we get a little bit outside of our usual self. Our usual sense of self can get a little overwhelmed by these feelings and all of this intuition.
Now, at Lunar Eclipses, what’s happening is the Earth is casting a shadow on the Moon. And this is often a time when we will react to emotional challenges by trying to hold on to something physical and real.
Now, let’s take a quick look at eclipses moving through the houses of the chart. I work with houses with eclipses really as pairs, because, if you’re having a Solar Eclipse in one house, this one’s my 6th house for example, I know that the Lunar Eclipse that is going to accompany that Eclipse is usually gonna be in the opposite sign, and so therefore the opposite house. So, I know for me, the 6th and 12th houses are being impacted by these Eclipses. They’re working as a team.
If this eclipse point at 10° of Taurus or the Lunar Eclipse coming up on May 16th at 25° of Scorpio is falling in the 1st house of your chart or the 7th house of your chart, we know that this is an important time for addressing any imbalances between yourself and others in order to achieve harmony in your relationships. These are often Eclipses when people are in a transitional period in a relationship, they’re getting engaged, or they’re getting married, breaking up, moving out, it’s a very action-oriented pair of houses.
Another thing to realize about eclipses is they move backwards. That is their natural pattern. So, we could say that eclipses take us on a kind of a backward journey relative to other things, moving through the birth chart. And to me, that’s a really revealing part of Eclipses work.
Anyway, after the eclipses have been in the 1st and 7th houses, they then will shift back to the 12th and the 6th houses. I call this ‘The Axis of Mastery and Healing’. It’s generally when we’re adjusting to new realities, because if you’ve just had eclipses in the 1st and 7th houses, probably you’ve just experienced some significant external changes in your life. So, when eclipses go into the 12th and 6th houses, it’s time to adjust to that. Sometimes you’re taking time out to rest or you’re having to develop new habits.
Then, in the next year, about a year and a half, depending on what house system you’re using, the eclipses are gonna move into the 11th and 5th houses, which is the axis of self-expression and collaboration with others. It’s a time to indulge your own creative passions, and it can also lead you to changes in your friendships, to lead you to better and more authentic friendships. If you’re going through a lot of changes and you need to be doing some things that are true to you because that’s the 5th house, not everyone’s going to go along on that journey with you.
Next, eclipses move back into the 10th and the 4th houses. That’s another really important axis. It’s about location in the world, where you are located, the place where you live and the direction you want to go in, which is symbolized by the 10th house. This is the time we align with our inner compass, and if we put ourselves n the right place, the right city, the right neighborhood, amongst the right people, then we’re in a better position to point ourselves toward the path with heart, the thing that we really want to do out in the world, our career path.
Next, eclipses go into the 9th and the 3rd houses, the axis of exploration and communication and understanding. So, this is the time to learn more, to question what you know, to share what you know with others and to break out of your comfort zone and to second guess yourself a little bit, and be sure you’re not just relying on past knowledge or preconceptions. It’s often an important eclipse cycle for people to continue their education or to learn a new skill.
And then, eclipses in the 8th and 2nd houses, that’s the axis of possessions and values. It’s about what I have versus what we share together, which is the 8th house. So, this is a cycle for learning to respect who you are and what you have. And it’s also about building trust with other people, that’s the 8th house part, and sharing what you have with other people as well. The 2nd house symbolizes confidence in yourself and the 8th house is confidence in other people, and another person in particular, and the confidence they have in themselves and with you. So, if you think of the 8th house, just realize it’s the house of intimacy, but that intimacy is built on lots of things. It really takes time to get to know somebody and really have it proven to you that that person is trustworthy.
That is it for the first part of this mini- lesson on Eclipses. In my next episode, I’m going to talk about Eclipses aspecting natal planets. So, be sure to tune in for that. If you have a burning question about astrology that you would like me to answer on a future episode of the show, leave a voicemail of one minute or less at speakpipe.com/bigskyastrologypodcast, or just send me an email April(at)bigskyastrology.com and be sure to put “Podcast Question” in the subject line.
Well, that is it for this rather long show sheet, so I’m going to wrap this one up. Thank you so much for listening to The Big Sky Astrology Podcast. If you like what you’re hearing, be sure to subscribe or follow, maybe leave a rating and review, let other people know you’re enjoying the show. And I hope that you’ll spread the word by telling an astrology loving friend about the podcast. You can read show notes in full transcripts and leave your comments about each episode at bigskyastropod.com.
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That’s it for this episode. Join me again, bright and early next Monday. And until then, keep your feet on the ground and your eyes on the stars.
© 2022 April Elliott Kent
