Dragon’s head

Heads up! July’s lunar eclipse is the longest duration in a century

Blood moon eclipse July 2018  

From Earth and Sky:

The July 2018 full moon [in Aquarius] presents the longest total lunar eclipse of the 21st century (2001 to 2100) on the night of July 27-28, 2018, lasting for a whopping 1 hour and 43 minutes. (In contrast, the previous total lunar eclipse on January 31, 2018, lasted 1 hour and 16 minutes.) A partial eclipse precedes and follows the century’s longest total lunar eclipse, each time lasting 1 hour and 6 minutes. So, from start to finish, the moon takes nearly 4 hours (3 hours and 55 minutes) to cross the Earth’s dark umbral shadow. …

This lunar eclipse is primarily visible from the world’s Eastern Hemisphere (Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand). South America, at least in part, can watch the final stages of the eclipse just after sunset July 27, whereas New Zealand will catch the beginning stages of the eclipse before sunrise July 28. North America, most of the Arctic and much of the Pacific Ocean will miss out entirely…

Some say that the effect of an eclipse is most powerful where it is viewable, but in my research of mundane events I have not seen this to be particularly true.  From an astrological perspective, the energetic intensity of an eclipse stems from the fact that the Sun and Moon are in a tight relationship to the lunar nodes. The nodes of the moon are known as the Dragon’s Head (North Node) and Tail (South Node), and in many ancient cultures it was said that during an eclipse a dragon did battle with the moon – a myth that has a basis in science because of the proximity of the […]

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By |2018-06-26T13:45:44-04:00June 26th, 2018|Moon|2 Comments
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This week’s full moon: eclipse or not?

August 18 2016 eclipse August 18 2016 eclipse (click to enlarge)

It depends on who you ask.  This week’s lunation does not appear on quite a few sites listing 2016 eclipses, and in others it is noted as a “penumbral” (or “almost”) eclipse.

Eclipses occur when the Sun and Moon are in relatively close aspect to the lunar nodes (the points where the Moon crosses the path of the Sun).  Wikipedia says “A lunar eclipse may occur if there is a full moon within 11° 38′ (Celestial Longitude), of a node, and a solar eclipse may occur if there is a new moon within 17° 25′ of a node.”  The closer the lunation (Sun/Moon event) is to the nodes, the more total visually the eclipse will be, and the stronger the eclipse effect.

In astrological terminology, the lunar nodes represent our evolutionary journey.  The descending (South) node, sometimes called the Dragon’s Tail, represents the past and the ascending (North) node, the Dragon’s Head, represents the future.  So when the peak lunar cycles combine with the Nodes of Destiny, these tend to coincide with relatively significant personal events.

The chart for the Aquarius Full Moon on August 18th  shows that the nodes are more than 16 degrees away and in different signs than the Sun and Moon, so this is not really an eclipse at all and will not appear as an eclipse and will have little astrological effect other than the typical full moon effects (combined with current planetary alignments).

The only planet directly triggering the lunation is Uranus which is trine the Sun, this is helpful for energy work, and the opposition from Jupiter to Chiron right now is helpful for all kinds of healing.

The Aquarius influence continues to […]

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By |2018-06-11T12:56:05-04:00August 13th, 2016|Moon|2 Comments
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Do we need to work the north node?

This post may be somewhat advanced for some readers, for which I apologize in advance.

North Node South Node

I had an email from a client the other day lamenting the difficulty in working her north node.

The nodes of the Moon mark the passage of the Moon across the ecliptic, the Sun’s apparent path through the zodiac.  The North Node, also called the Dragon’s Head (Rahu in Vedic astrology), represents the direction in which we are heading, and the South Node, the tail of the dragon or Ketu in the Vedic tradition, represents the influences from the past – that which is familiar and comfortable, and to which we retreat when under stress.

In Western astrology we typically look at the South Node as being negative and something to move away from, and the North Node as being something to move towards.  Many astrologers advise us to “work the North Node” – to minimize the effects of the sign and house of the South Node, and maximize the influence of the North Node.

I talked about this in my radio show that I titled “The Why we are Here Show” and if you’re interested you can listen to it here.  As I perceive the human incarnation, we come as a soul with a divine purpose, but we are working through a human personality.  The birthchart describes the trappings of the personality, and the kinds of experiences we will have that will provide tests and challenges as well as gifts and good fortune.  I believe that before we can fully absorb our spiritual and evolutionary purpose, we must heal and become fully actualized at the personality level.

Let’s say you have the South Node in Libra […]

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By |2019-11-10T19:39:07-05:00June 9th, 2010|Astrology|4 Comments
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Total eclipse of the Sun, July 21-22 2009

The New Moon that occurs at 10:35 pm EDT on July 21 (2 am GMT July 22) is also a total solar eclipse, in which the Moon passes in front of the Sun from our perspective here on Planet Earth, obscuring the light of the Sun for a short time.

Solar eclipses always occur at the time of the New Moon, when the Sun and Moon are in the same degree of an astrological sign and said to be conjunct.  Because the conscious intention of the solar principle combines with the instinctive longings and reactions of the lunar principle at the New Moon, these are excellent times for new beginnings.  But in an eclipse, the solar principle is temporarily blocked and the lunar principle prevails.

Eclipses can only occur when the New or Full Moon occurs near the Lunar Nodes, the points at which the Moon crosses the ecliptic of the Sun.  In the astrological language, the Nodes of the Moon represent the evolutionary direction of the soul, with the South Node pointing to the direction from which we have come, and the North Node the direction of our future.  Therefore, the symbolism inherent in the eclipse is a powerful clue to the evolutionary potential in an eclipse event.  This upcoming eclipse is very tightly conjunct the Nodes – within one degree – which portends its importance for planetary evolution.

The ancient Chinese, Incas and Hindus viewed the nodes of the moon as the Dragon’s Head (North Node) and the Dragon’s Tail (South Node), and they perceived an eclipse as the Dragon eating the Sun or the Moon.  From the beginning of the use of astrology, somewhere over 2,000 years, eclipses have been used to time significant events.  In a typical year […]

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By |2018-06-11T12:56:56-04:00July 18th, 2009|Moon|Comments Off on Total eclipse of the Sun, July 21-22 2009
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A Summer of Eclipses

Deirdre has a great article today on the upcoming eclipses this summer:

Although we have a month to go, I consider eclipse season to be in full swing now. The June 8 lunation opened a door to some specific geometry: 17°+ Sagittarius was the June 8th Full Moon. The July 7th full moon will be at 15°+ Capricorn and it will be an eclipse, too. Being so close in degree, these full moons will both effect charts sensitive at the mid-degrees, a port of entry for the first in a triplet of eclipses this summer.

Looking at a list of eclipses between 1980 and 2020, seventy-five percent of summers have one pair of eclipses on just one axis. This summer is now in the twenty-five percent and has three eclipses on two axes. From what I see, usually when three eclipses occur in a summer, this pattern will repeat every other year three times. This means the summers of 2009, 2011 and 2013 (when Pluto is in early Capricorn) will have have three eclipses each on two different axes, as did 1998, 2000 and 2002 (when Pluto was in early Sagittarius), as well as 1980, 1982 and 1984 (when Pluto was in early Scorpio). It started to be a tidy geometric package, and then I noticed 1991 was a irregular, isolated summer of three eclipses and it had the nodes freshly in a new sign. Besides 1991, the eclipse pattern I am diagramming seems to roughly parallel Pluto’s ingress into a sign.

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Eclipses have fascinated humans throughout the ages.  The nodes of the moon are known as the Dragon’s Head and Tail, and in many ancient cultures it was said that during an eclipse a dragon did battle with the moon – a myth that has […]

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By |2009-06-08T06:02:06-04:00June 8th, 2009|Moon|Comments Off on A Summer of Eclipses
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