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Previewing the May 20 Solar Eclipse: A glass-bottomed boat

by April May 11, 2012 Eclipses , Gemini , New Moon , Sabian Symbols , Venus retrograde

Look for an in-depth essay next week, but here’s a quick review of the upcoming Solar Eclipse on May 20/21.

May 20, 2012 – Solar Eclipse 00.20 Gemini
4:47 pm PDT / 7:47 pm EDT
12:47 am BST (May 21) / 9:45 am AEST (May 21)

Sabian Symbol: A glass-bottomed boat reveals undersea wonders.

This Solar Eclipse takes place at the Moon’s South Node. South Node eclipses call us to  release old, comfortable patterns – a process that is often painful, and sometimes a bit frightening. In this case, you may find that what you’ve always accepted as “common knowledge” is nothing of the sort. The Sun and Moon square Neptune in the eclipse chart affirm that sometimes the path to real understanding is navigated not with the mind, but rather with intuition, imagination, and compassion. It’s a fitting reflection of this New Moon point’s Sabian Symbol, “A glass-bottomed boat reveals undersea wonders.”

Transiting Mars in exacting Virgo is square the Moon’s Lunar Nodes at this eclipse, and suggests the journey toward greater understanding and perspective is one that will be energizing, but also demanding.  Let yourself surrender the ideal of “perfection” so that you can embrace all that is “good.”

Venus will have entered its retrograde period in Gemini on the day of the eclipse. Venus’ retrogrades are  potentially difficult passages for relationships in general – but this one will be especially hard on relationships that try to reduce love to a kind of formula or mental exercise. Expecting affairs of the human heart to follow the rules of logic and reason is a recipe for dissatisfaction. Don’t ignore underlying problems in your relationships, but seek solutions not with your brain, but rather with your heart. Sit knee to knee with the one you love, and peer into your relationship’s wondrous fathoms through your own “glass-bottomed boat.”

Previous years when eclipses fell near this spot can offer insight into what this eclipse might mean for you, and which of your life’s recurring themes are likely to be revisited. In recent years, eclipses have taken place near this degree on:

  • May 21, 1993 (solar) – 0.31 Gemini
  • May 25, 1994 (lunar) – 3.43 Gemini/Sag.
  • Nov. 20, 2002 (lunar) – 27.32 Taurus
  • Nov. 23, 2003 (solar) – 1.13 Sagittarius

Hot degrees: This eclipse will probably be especially significant for you if you have planets or angles – especially the Sun, Moon, or Ascendant – between about 28 degrees of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, or Aquarius, and 3 degrees of Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces.  How to find where this eclipse point falls in your birth chart.

MoonShadow reportWant to know more about what this eclipse means for you? Order my eclipse report, Followed by a Moonshadow. It follows three years worth of eclipses through your birth chart. Details and ordering information here.

“I just went through my entire Moonshadow Report below and I have never read anything like this before.  I love the way you have put this report together with your insights and analogies!” – M.G.

4 comments to " Previewing the May 20 Solar Eclipse: A glass-bottomed boat "

  • Reply
    Lucy
    May 17, 2012 AT 2:31PM

    Wow! I stumbled into this after Googling about the eclipse and this is spookily accurate for the previous similar eclipses:

    Nov 20 2002 – very comfortable 3+ year relationship just suddenly ended, in one of those difficult, honest conversations about where we were going. Had been in a very easy pattern, where we never looked at problems, just bumbled along in our comfort zone. Was indeed frightening and yet it freed me up to do things differently, and ultimately be truer to myself – led to applying for, and winning, for dream job, and expanding my social circle after years of being in a big, comfy group in which we were the central couple.

    November 2003: A bit hazier, but I think I had been slowly assuming I was drifting into a relationship with another easy, comfy partner who was almost a carbon copy of my ex (easy going, bumbling, nice to mooch about with). Around this time I told him I liked him – and he shocked me but saying he’d just got back with his ex (they’re still together). I hadn’t really engaged with the ‘single life’ until then, just looked for a way to plug the gap in my life left by my ex with the most comfortable person available. But on November 24th I went to a gig and fell in love with the band, their look, their sound – it felt like a homecoming to who I had been before my previous relationship, and as a result I started going on dates, changed my look (I suddenly switched from the vaguely urban look my boyfriend had shared, to the ‘indie’ style I had before I met him), became far more involved in my job, and finally became ‘me’ – not ‘me as part of a couple’ or ‘me in couple mode just without my old partner’.

    Neither was easy, but I handled both fine – and they shook me out of a comfortable relationship (the ‘replacement’ man was really just an extension of the former one) that was soothing but didn’t allow me to expand. Now, I look back and I am grateful for both events, because I think had I stayed in that zone I would have always wondered if there was someone else out there, who was more like ‘old me’, shared my tastes and ambitions, and essentially my ‘perfect’ partner.

    Not sure what to expect, as I am single at the moment…. There is someone I like but we are not involved – we met on the eclipse in early June last year, on the second June eclipse I realised we couldn’t have a relationship right away, that we would have to wait. We did see eachother occasionally, but in late November/early December he seems to have decided to stop seeing me, although remained friendly. Not sure if i am more scared that this May 20th eclipse might finally end our friendship for good (as he might be with someone else – he is a single man…) or scared that I might eventually end my ‘single person’ comfort zone, as although I have had other relationships, this is the first person since the 2002 break up that I have felt truly myself with. In fact, I have felt more like myself with him than anyone I’ve ever met, and he makes me feel alive and brilliant just by being me. Scary, also, because I have got into a comfort zone of doing everything myself, my way, and getting away with never compromising, never having to be vulnerable, hiding my weaknesses, not having to be grown up and trust someone else. i’ve had a lot of disappointments in love over the past 8-9 years, and in way, disappointment has become ‘normal’ – i can’t imagine what it would be like to be in a real, amazing, proper relationship again! But of course, maybe nothing will happen in this arena at all!

    Anyway, sorry that’s quite an essay! But your eclipse piece above just really hit a chord….. so thank you!

  • Reply
    Maria Alexander
    May 17, 2012 AT 4:27PM

    Dear heavens! I just looked back at those last two dates and they were doozies. Lots of bawling over menz — although, to be fair, one of them was a sword teacher I was upset with. Not a romantic thing at all. I also at that time discovered a shinkendo dojo near my apartment in Hollywood, but couldn’t start because the sensei wanted an outrageous amount of money up front.

    I’m sure the other two dates are interesting, too, but I didn’t keep any kind of journal then.

  • Reply
    Lucy
    June 2, 2012 AT 1:24PM

    Bang on cue – just as with the eclipses you noted from earlier years, this one put an end to things. May 22nd he turned up at a gig knowing I’d be there, with a girl who was clearly his ‘date’ for the night. He’s now started putting up photos of her on Facebook so that is that, all finished. Again. Clearing the way for better things ahead, I’d like to think!

    • Reply
      April
      June 5, 2012 AT 10:22AM

      Ugh… I’ve lived that story (pre-Facebook, at least). Not fun… but in the end, he was a footnote in very, very small type in the story of my life. Better things ahead for you, for certain!

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