Solstice Eclipse of December 2010 – Part 1
A number of friends have written to ask me my thoughts on the upcoming total Lunar eclipse which falls right before the Winter Solstice in a few days. I have also seen a number of comments about it by other astrologers come across my Facebook page in the last week or so. Let’s talk about the two phenomena involved and then see if and how they might connect.
There are at least two Lunar eclipses every year, either partial or full. The degree to which an eclipse is full or not depends on how close the Moon comes to being in a straight line with the Sun and the Earth as it makes its monthly pass around the Earth. Each month the Moon is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun. But only when it lines up exactly in a straight line does it come close enough for the Earth to block out some of the Sun’s light, and create the shadow on the Moon. This happens on average 2-3 times per year, always within a couple of weeks of the two Solar eclipses that happen. So while eclipses happen fairly regularly, it’s only once every three years or so that a Lunar eclipse will happen that is visible from the same place on the Earth, so they seem a bit more rare than they actually are.
In traditional astrology, eclipses were seen as fairly bad omens. On a spiritual and a physical level, the “light” is blocked and no longer gets to us. Solar eclipses, of course, are much more dramatic than Lunar eclipses, especially when seen, since a lot more light seems to be blocked; given that it needs to be day time to see a Solar eclipse, this makes sense. It’s already fairly dark at night, so while a Lunar eclipse is very dramatic, it doesn’t block nearly the amount of light that a Solar eclipse does.
Astrologically, this blocking of light is like a kink in the system. It prevents things from going smoothly. Traditionally, when delineating how an eclipse will affect the chart of an individual or a country, one must look primarily at the house within which the eclipse falls. So if an eclipse falls in one’s first house, it will affect health and happiness, in the second house, money, etc. And since this blockage of light represents some sort of blockage in life, we should look for potential problems in those areas. These problems, especially with Lunar eclipses, are more likely to be underlying themes for a 6-12 month period, rather than a one-time, “sh** hits the fan” kind of explosion. But that doesn’t mean that they are insignificant either.
This eclipse happens on Dec 21 at 29 Gemini (Moon’s position) with the Sun at 29 Sagittarius, in the early hours before dawn here on the East coast of the USA. There are debates about whether the USA chart has Sagittarius or Gemini rising. In either case, since these are opposite signs, we are dealing with either the first house (health, happiness, physical body), or the seventh house (partners and relationships). So we are likely to see problems with the physical health of the USA (health care issues) or the happiness of the citizens (haven’t we been grumpy lately), or problems with our foreign relationships and direct allies. I haven’t investigated this Sag-Gem issue myself, so I’m not quite sure which is a more likely chart, and therefore, prefer to reserve judgment on making any hard predictions. But whether one is looking at the chart of an individual or a country, the house in which it falls will reveal where there needs to be some major adjustments this year.
See Part 2 for the Solstice and how these two events may relate to one another.
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