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Chapter-Turning

5.31.11

Since I first began writing at astrobarry.com (nine years ago this month!), I've always described eclipse periods—the few-weeks' span surrounding a pair of eclipses, one solar and one lunar—as 'chapter markers' in the narrative tale of our lives. We have arrived at this 'marker' once again.

Every six months or so, due to the combined alignment of the Sun, the Moon and the Earth, we experience our typical new and full moons as the less-common solar and lunar eclipses. This gives them an extra-potent charge, a fateful flavor that often points us, rather poignantly, wherever our next most-significant activities are meant to transpire.

On Wednesday (June 1), the latest lunar cycle will be set off by a solar eclipse in Gemini… followed two weeks later by a lunar eclipse (on June 15) in Sagittarius. Then, this eclipse season gets extended a bit longer, with the appearance of a second solar eclipse in Cancer on July 1.

Trying to blend interpretations of an eclipse-period's significance with all the other astrological aspects happening at any given time can quickly lead to the rash (but not untrue) conclusion: 'There always something going on! How can I discern this from that?' Eclipses do not trump the other astro-influences. They merely excite the momentum of what's already going on, toward a decisive apex where the main character is impelled to either continue going straight ahead, or to turn left or right… or perhaps he discovers the path he's been on is now completely washed out. Based on the crossroads encountered, and on the choices made, the story develops from there.

While eclipses tend to draw our life-stories to their periodic narrative climaxes, they don't necessarily dictate the theme. We're each perpetually involved in writing our own tales, which often unfold in elegant synchronicity with how the planets in the sky are transiting (or forming harmonic angles) key points in our natal charts. We fall into, or out of, love. We start new jobs, or leave old ones. We gain responsibility, recognition, respect, or perspective. We lose weight, money, loved ones, or our minds. Hello, new apartment! new hometown! Goodbye, fair-weather friend! aged grandparent! Regardless of specifics, we keep on keepin'-on…

The arrival of an eclipse, then, heightens the anticipation of the next-step development. Eclipse energies can intensify passions, exacerbate tensions, and exaggerate dynamics so it becomes that much harder for us to ignore the realities of a given situation.

Wednesday's solar eclipse falls in the zone of Gemini, an air sign that's endlessly occupied with a rotating cast of colorful characters, interesting ideas and kooky curiosities. Geminis rarely allow themselves to wallow in boredom, as they entertain an acute awareness of all the possibilities for connection and engagement afforded by our world. A Gemini can be quick to set aside one manner of being for another, either to foster a better 'click' with someone or merely to indulge a self-experimenting whim—a quality which (though it's been known to garner Geminis a bad rap) actually keeps the mind fresh and active, as well as leaving the personality open to all types of social interactions, great and small.

To briefly review, we're coming off a last couple months dense with first Aries, then Taurus influences… imprinted with the fairly self-directed, self-referencing traits these first two signs carry. In the ever-turning zodiac wheel, Gemini follows Aries and Taurus—and is the first sign explicitly concerned with what other people are doing. At the Gemini stage of the evolutionary cycle, we try out different social and communicative approaches (i.e., Gemini's 'two faces') in our effort to integrate (1) who we identify ourselves as with (2) who we become in dynamic relation to the variety of individuals with whom we come into contact. As such, the act of interpersonal communication becomes extremely important. The easiest way to get to know someone else (and, through that process, to know ourselves better too) is through discussing the details of our lives: offering personal anecdotes, asking engaging questions, discovering what we share in common and where we differ.

I'm taking this eclipse as a cosmic reminder to reprioritize our social connections, not merely with our closest confidantes but with everybody else, too… to spend more neighborly effort in exchanging the latest bits of personal news, trivia even, with our larger lot of casual pals and Facebook friends and acquaintances we bump into at the mall. After everything that's happened since 2011 kicked off, I'm sure many of us are quite out of touch with each other's present circumstances. Be aware: The purpose of such reconnections is not flatly informational. It's an opening-up, both of our own social energies and of our capacity to be altered, in thinking or attitude, by continued exposure to other people and their offerings.

The eclipse's supportive trine to Saturn in Libra indicates the social efforts we make, in intentional conjunction with this chapter-turning moment, bear the potential to strengthen those interpersonal bonds most appropriate to who we are becoming. If we're out of date with many of the ancillary folks in our lives, we could be inadvertently overlooking somebody who might now prove a much more vital day-to-day friend… or, on the other hand, unnecessarily hanging on to a connection that no longer serves our latest incarnation. A near-stranger may indeed be the person with the two sentences of perfectly apt wisdom we need to hear. Of course, we won't know any of this unless we put ourselves into circulation, speak and listen, and submit to being benevolently tampered with by the slippery forces of social interactivity.

We're always changing. More, perhaps, than we're even aware of… until we have to explain what's going on with us to a person we barely know or haven't spoken with in a while. As we articulate a summary, the disparate events we've experienced—and our mental and emotional responses to these events—cohere into the story we tell ourselves and others about our lives. The questions others pose to us and the feedback they give, whether supportive or challenging, then force us to look at this story from other angles. Potentially, our story changes too, not because the events have changed but because our responses are evolving. Or we might realize, bluntly put, we do not like the tone of their questions or feedback. After all, they've changed too. Must we passively tolerate this gaping divergence?

A lesson inherent to both the Gemini and Libra archetypes is learning the proper middle-ground between (1) getting along nicely with a variety of types of people and (2) expressing an authenticity of self that, by its nature, won't appeal to everyone. This eclipse seems tailor-made for revisiting this lesson, aware as we are that so much has lately happened and we may need an update on who fits better and less-well into our latest lives.

I recommend spending the next month testing out the relative efficacy of the many interpersonal pathways you've carved out, whether dormant or still pretty active, across the various existences you've lived. Mercury's entry into Gemini on Thursday (Jun 2), followed by Venus's a week later (on Thu Jun 9), will certainly help this experiment along. Along these pathways, you'll encounter some welcoming embraces and productive engagements to reinforce your faith that people come together at the ideal time for both of them… and those sour instances in which everyone's merely going through the motions, to nobody's real benefit. Take note of who's who. Without needlessly villanizing anyone, we can accept there are plenty of the right people in our circles, once we actually seek them out, to justify less and less of our personal involvement with those who, once we actually get current with them, simply aren't right for us.