12:49 am  AHST 10/25/2022
 3:49 am   PDT   10/25/2022

 6:49 am   EDT  10/25/2022
 11:49  am  BST   10/25/2022

We’re headed into one very powerful eclipse season. Twice a year, there is a pair of eclipses, solar and lunar, and they occur 6 months apart. Since they involve the creation of shadow either on the Earth or the Moon, their occurrence marks a turning point symbolically for humans, of the emergence of that which is hidden and under the surface of our awareness, as well as the repressed or denied elements that the conscious mind attempts to try to control. Eclipses are times when transformational energies are super-charged, ready to release that which has been hidden. Two weeks later there will be a lunar eclipse on November 8^th, Election Day in the US.

But this eclipse season is even more powerful than usual, as many important shifts are about to happen in the coming days. Saturn turned toward direct motion just 3 days beforehand, signaling a shift toward actively tidying up things that have been left undone, whether on a personal or global level. Saturn also rules karma, and its direct motion, along with Pluto’s strong presence in this chart, is again on the theme of exposure, of things coming to light that have been hidden. On the 27th, Jupiter, the force of that which empowers us and is our representative source of optimism, will retro back into Pisces, once again asking us to draw from our deeper awareness, to see the larger picture, and connect to each other and the world from a whole-brain, all-inclusive  perspective.

This Solar Eclipse, visible in Europe and Russia, is in Scorpio, and exactly conjoining Venus. Scorpio as a sign rules the stock and bond markets, all invested monies, and since this Solar Eclipse is also a New Moon, this could be the beginning of some (or should I say more) major adjustments in the world money markets. But Scorpio also rules the deeper aspects of sex, death, and the most powerful and yet highly repressed, secret aspects of our psyche. An eclipse in this sign can mean a further exposure of the previously hidden elements in the personal lives of leaders and people on our world stage, as well for each of us individually. Pluto, the ruler of Scorpio, only brings out what’s needed for our transformation; it’s not punishing by nature, but asks us to deepen our awareness of ourselves, often at a great cost.

Venus’s conjunction with this Solar Eclipse highlights the plight of the injured feminine element of our individual and world psyche, where creativity, sensitivity and sweetness are denigrated and disowned. Venus will be its superior conjunction¹ at this timing, which happens once every 584 days. After 36 days of invisibility, it will reappear in the evening sky once again in November, after an absence of eight and a half months. It is rare that Venus’s conjunction with the Sun is happening at the same time as an eclipse. The last time it was this close to an eclipse was 1994, also in Scorpio. At that time the internet was starting to take off and begin its process of becoming the World Wide Web, forever changing how we live our lives. This conjunction heralds the beginning of yet another era in humanity’s process of learning to be human beings, not just human animals.

Since Venus represents the formulation of our emotional values and the meaning we give to our  experiences, we are again at the beginning of a new cycle of re-evaluating these qualities. How can we rise above the plethora of information and formulate a world view that we can trust, one that helps to see patterns of behavior and the stories we create year after year? How are the myths of our culture being revised during this time of humanity’s rebirthing itself to reflect new values of living together as a global village?

Speaking of the plethora of info, Mars has been in Gemini since August and will be in that sign until March of 2023, an unusual length of time. Since Mars rules how we take action and Gemini rules information, communications, as well as trickster deception, we note the increased deluge of lies and propaganda that have been circulating over social media and the internet, especially in the political arena. Mars will be going retrograde on October 30^th, until mid-January, so we can expect more election fraud claims to be touted, especially amongst the losers on election day. With Mars at this eclipse being square (forming 90˚ angles) to both Jupiter and Neptune, “truth” is in short supply, deception and hate speech can run rampant.

The next two weeks will initiate great changes worldwide. An eclipse season is very Plutonian in its effects, which last for up to 6 months afterwards, they are that far-reaching. And at the start of the season, Pluto is forming challenging right angles to the Sun, Moon, Mercury and Venus, as well as a tight inconjunct² to Mars. The intensity of transformation is increasing in everyone’s lives. We are being pushed to the limits of our previous awareness, and being urged to deepen our understanding of the patterns and cycles around us, even as they include suffering of one sort or another. This is a time of purging and cleansing, and though perhaps the cleansing part has still a ways to go, we need to remember this is a necessary part of the process of our painful growth and birthing process. Each of us is being reborn along with the society of which we are an integral part. I highly recommend reading Maria Popova’s 16 Life Lessons Learned From 16 years for reminders on what truly matters in living a life in these challenging times.

[1] A Venus cycle begins at the inferior conjunction, when Venus is exactly between the Sun and the Earth. At the superior conjunction, which is equivalent to the opposition aspect, Venus is on the far side of the Sun, with the Sun standing exactly between the Earth and Venus.

[2] Need for Caution and Adjustment