Eclipses are the universe’s way of letting us know that we’ve taken a particular path as far as it can reasonably go, and that it’s time to change course. The nature of eclipses is crisis, those fateful moments when we find we can no longer cling to the familiar and must move in a new direction. When all hell breaks loose at eclipse time (and it often does), it’s very often related to something we’ve seen coming for a long time and have chosen to ignore or avoid.
One chapter in our current eclipse story begins in August 1999, around the time of a Solar Eclipse at 19 Leo… just a few degrees from this month’s Lunar Eclipse at 22 Leo. That summer, on a break from school, I decided to teach myself to create a website. I spent many happy hours up to my elbows in HTML, learning Photoshop, and generally having a grand time. I had set out onto a happy new creative path with no idea where it was leading me, or what a profound influence that summer would have on my career.
Nine years later, at a Solar Eclipse at 18 Aquarius, my website had led directly to the publication of my first book. Today, almost eighteen years after setting out on that fateful path, my little website has carried my voice all over the world. It brought me all three of my books, most of my clients, and a modest reputation in my field.
But for the past couple of years, I’ve found less and less time and energy to invest in my little astrology empire. My once-shiny website, professionally overhauled with some of the proceeds from a book advance, is woefully out of date, but I haven’t had thousands of dollars or hours of time to invest in a new one. My days are filled with clients and students, my involvement in my local astrology group, vet appointments for two elderly cats, and trying to make sure there is enough clean laundry. It’s hard to make time or summon inspiration for blogs or social media posts. It’s getting harder to write these Full and New Moon essays, too. After eighteen years of traveling this territory, I often begin to write something, only to realize I’ve already pretty much covered that ground in an earlier piece.
In other words, I’ve been plodding along a well-traveled path for so long that I’ve stopped noticing the scenery. I was born with the Sun in Leo, the sign of this Lunar Eclipse, a lively, creative sign. It’s a fixed sign, too, and once it’s created something, Leo will keep it going ad infinitum. But as its opposite sign, Aquarius, is keenly aware, change is the life’s blood of creativity. Every now and then we have to veer off the beaten path in order to keep moving forward—and if we won’t go willingly, the universe will not hesitate to give us a shove.
For me, the shove came yesterday when, with five days to go until the lunar eclipse, I noticed with a sinking stomach that my website had slowed to a crawl. The timing couldn’t possibly be worse. Eclipse season is an especially busy time for me. So I spent hours chatting with what my host laughingly calls “tech support;” none of their proposed fixes helped in the least. Faced with an almost completely unresponsive website during one of my busiest weeks of the year, I spent the rest of the day frantically working on a site I’ve been building on another host’s server, hoping against hope that I could make it presentable enough to go live.
Meanwhile, of course, I was supposed to be writing an essay for the Full Moon, a prospect that filled me with exhaustion.
Welcome to my personal Leo (creativity) / Aquarius (technology) crisis. It all came to a head within a couple of days, but as you can see, it’s been a long time in the making. I can’t change it all this month, but change it I must – and I’ve needed to for a very long time. It’s a crisis, all right, but none of it is really a surprise. Time for a new path… one that is more free, more joyous.
Where is your own crisis brewing? Perhaps yours is a critical situation with a loved one, a job that’s making you miserable, or a friendship that you’ve outgrown. Check the house of your chart that 22.28 Leo calls home for more insight. (Don’t know how to find it? ) Think about how it might connected to what you were doing around August 1999 and February 2008. You’re at a new fork in that rather long road, with no choice but to move in a new direction.
The timing is never right for this kind of thing. But the good news—and it’s very good indeed—is that a new direction holds the promise of a fresh start, open hearts, and a world that seems new again.
There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
– Julius Caesar Act 4, scene 3, 218–224
© 2017 April Elliott Kent
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