This is a highly sensitive yet also very relational New Moon and Solar Eclipse. Watery types will prefer to stay home and process emotions with those they are intimate with—not a bad idea if you approach it with real vulnerability and the intent to clear, let go and move on. See and accept your partner for who they truly are, and present yourself as lovable, flaws and all. Use this eclipse for bonding and your relationship will transform into a more deep, true and real version of itself.
Details About This Eclipse
Date: October 23, 2014
Time of eclipse: 2:57 PM Pacific Time
Type: partial (weak in intensity)
Visible in: North America and eastern Asia
At: 0º Scorpio
Shadow Agents: Venus in Scorpio, Neptune in Pisces
Does It Affect You Personally?
If your birthday is on any of the following dates, you’re most likely to experience this eclipse:
October 18-28
January 15-25
April 15-25
July 18-28
Remember, not every eclipse touches everyone, but when it does, it’s usually noticeable. A solar eclipse is likely to be marked by an external, real-world event (unlike a lunar eclipse, which is likely to bring up strong emotions and to be experienced as a subjective event). You may notice events happening anytime within the week surrounding the eclipse (up to a few days before or after). The following script is just one possible way it could go.
You hear a knock at the door. You answer it. There stands Venus in Scorpio, a ravishing creature in a deep, wine-colored dress, holding hands with Neptune in Pisces, who is wearing a long cloak and a mask. Venus sashays into your living room, tugging Neptune gently behind her. They are absorbed in conversation and don’t even see you as they pass by.
Venus: But don’t you understand—I don’t want that!
Neptune: That’s what I don’t get. Why wouldn’t anyone want that?
You decide to interrupt, as they are, after all, on your territory.
You: Can I help you with something?
Neptune (to Venus): All I want is to be what you want. And I can.
Neptune’s mask melts in and reshapes itself. The robe melds to his body and suddenly he is a virile, heroic-looking man with a chiseled face and a strong chin. Venus can’t help but feel the tiniest bit melty, just looking at him, though she’s trying not to.
Venus: But I don’t know who you really are!
Neptune (in a strong baritone): Does it matter? I know what you like.
Neptune reshapes himself and now looks like a lovely wood-nymph, with garlands of magnolia flowers in her hair and a faintly woodsy smell. Venus melts a little bit more. The two join hands and are just about to kiss when Venus shakes herself.
Venus: Damn it, fooled again! What if I just want you to be yourself?
Neptune (in a rich, throaty alto): I don’t have a self. And I don’t care about having one.
You: Pardon me for interrupting, but if someone I was attracted to said that to me, I’d run for the hills. That’s a dangerous relationship.
Neptune: Sure it is, among humans. But we are gods, we are larger-than-life archetypal principles. I don’t go around telling Venus not to be sexy or to control her attractiveness—
Venus: As if you could! (and she bristles at the very idea. And then, with some pride) As if I could!
Neptune: —and she shouldn’t tell me not to be amorphous. Because it’s just the way I am. And I don’t want to be any other way. Here, look at this. . .
Neptune reaches up to her face and pulls away the mask, showing blankness underneath.
Neptune: There really is nothing there. I enjoy trying things on, because there’s nothing to me. I am all things and I am nothing in particular. It’s just my nature. Can you accept this?
Venus: I suppose I can, since you show me so clearly.
Neptune: And what I really want is for you to desire something from me. Then I can become it, I can try it on. I want to do this many times, over and over again. Then I come to understand all things, because I have lived and expressed them. And that is you fulfilling my desire.
Venus (snuggling closer): Oh, that makes me so happy!
You: But how will the humans reading this benefit? Because humans are not that way. We have selves, we have identities. We need to know who we are when we enter into relationship.
Venus: That’s true.
Neptune: True, indeed. But there’s a little of each of us inside each of you. And a little of each of you inside each of us. How else can I try out the immense varieties of experience, so that I can come to have compassion for all life-forms?
Venus: And humans get to be different from each other—how else can I awaken love in the human breast, if there is not enough difference to make the Beloved fascinating? So we are glad that you humans are not pure types of us. I mean, I may be fantastic, but does the Universe really need another Venus? (She flips her hair casually.)
Neptune: Of course not, my dear. It would be simply too much.
Just then, the door opens and the Sun walks in, wearing a long, flowing robe in deep shades of rust.
Sun: I couldn’t help overhearing, but I was busy being eclipsed. I got here as fast as I could. Do I hear a crisis of personality going on here?
You: On the part of the whole human race. If we listen to Neptune, we’ll merge and blend and lose ourselves entirely. If we listen to Venus, we’ll fall in love with love. And if we listen to the both of them together, we’ll have codependent relationships and live in a real mess. Been there, done that.
Neptune: I suppose the problem is that in water signs, we agree far too much.
Sun: Allow me to add that one must always come back to oneself. Forays into the realm of intimate relating are delightful and soul-deepening, but without a self to return to, how can relating even happen?
Neptune: And without self, how can there be the wonderful loss-of-self that happens in religious experience—
Venus: —or in love?
Sun: Exactly. Merging is to happen for a time only, and Venus is here to show you how. Surrender and loss-of-self is also to happen for a time only, and Neptune is here to show you how. This eclipse is an excellent time to practice. But remember that the Sun, even though periodically eclipsed, will always come out again.
Neptune (rising and sending a conspiratorial look at Venus, who blushes): That said, I think it’s time we. . .
Venus (also rising and taking his hand): I completely agree.
Neptune passes through several shapes as they head through the door, each one making Venus blush afresh. The Sun beams at them both, then gives you a wink and takes his leave.
Read about current year’s eclipses.
The effects of an eclipse last for about six months.
If you’re feeling this eclipse
and you want to know what it means for you,
and especially if your birthday is in one of the spans above,
contact Jamie for a reading.
