Astrology and the Authentic Self by Demetra George

Author:Demetra George
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780892545636
Publisher: Ibis Press

FIGURE 11. Solar and lunar eclipses.

Eclipses can occur only at a New Moon or a Full Moon when the Moon is also conjoined to one of the lunar nodes. When the Moon, in its monthly path, reaches the nodes, the plane of the Moon's orbit is aligned to that of the Sun and Earth. Solar eclipses occur at a New Moon when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, blocking out the solar rays from the perspective of an observer on Earth. When this event occurs at a Full Moon, the Earth passes between the Sun and the Moon, blocking the lunar rays and causing a lunar eclipse. These two alignments occur approximately every six months, when the Moon and the nodes are at the same celestial latitude and longitude at the time of the New or Full Moon.

In the ancient world, eclipses were looked upon with terror and awe, as the Sun or Moon suddenly and unexpectedly disappeared from the heavens. They were often viewed as portents of natural disasters, warfare, and danger to leaders. They were carefully observed and much effort was devoted to predicting their occurrence. There is substantial archaeo-astronomical scholarship suggesting that megalithic stone monuments like Stonehenge were designed to predict eclipses. Today, the interpretation of eclipses still carries traces of this negative connotation, but reframed as an influence that intensifies and stimulates, for good or bad, the points in the chart that are affected. Since the Sun and Moon are two places of life, when the light from one of these luminaries is temporarily obscured, it is natural to infer a cessation of the life force emanating from that celestial body. The ensuing struggle for survival, as when someone is being suffocated and deprived of air, describes the agitation that people may experience from the energies of an eclipse. This struggle propels them to extend themselves beyond their natural limitations, and can result in annihilation or in victory.

From a psychological perspective, when the light of the mind and consciousness (Sun) or the instinctive wisdom of the body and emotions (Moon) is blocked, something else that is normally held under restraint emerges unimpeded. Consider the analogy of robbers who prefer to do their work at night under the cover of darkness. Eclipses can allow us to access that which has been concealed or repressed—what Jung referred to as the shadow. This encounter with the hidden and rejected contents of the unconscious as it refers to either the solar mind or the lunar emotions can bring a person to integrate the unknown with the known, the dark with the light, the past with the future. This is the potential inherent in the encounter of the two lights perfectly aligned in conjunction or opposition at the places of the lunar nodes, with the opposing pole being the possibility of the breakdown or disintegration of the psyche.

Tibetan Buddhist spiritual traditions hold that the energies during eclipses are greatly magnified, and propose that the end results of the good

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