When you don't respect Lunar Eclipses and your soul card is The Lovers
"I am grateful to the eclipse for offering me such potent insight."
Queer greetings, witchy reader. How is your heart holding up during eclipse season? There’s always a lot of cautionary discussion around lunar eclipses within the magical and astrological communities. “Don’t try to manifest during a lunar eclipse”. “Don’t do rituals and spellwork during a lunar eclipse”. “Don’t make big decisions during a lunar eclipse”.
At the end of this post, you will find an illustrated page about lunar eclipses created by my dear friend xocean. It is from zir book A Visionary of Vessels.
I don’t always respect the power of lunar eclipses. Even as a professional witch and divination nerd, the warning labels around lunar eclipses are sometimes not enough for me to slow my roll. The witches and astrologers in my life have explained it to me countless times: Lunar eclipses evoke the more shadowy aspects of our beings. The repressed emotions and unhelpful patterns harbored in the subconscious begin to bubble, spill over, and potentially hijack our nervous systems. Alternatively, there is an opportunity to pause, witness oneself without judgement, and choose to embrace whatever depth is being revealed.
Tell me if this has ever happened to you: you’ve been sitting in one position for far too long. When you finally stand up you immediately plop to the ground as though your legs don’t even exist. You hadn’t realized that the way you were sitting limited blood flow and your legs had completely fallen asleep. That happened to me just moments ago, when I stood up from drafting this post. I began to stand up, then let out a shriek as I tumbled out of my chair and hit the floor with a thud. Bewildered and crumpled on the ground, nothing injured but my pride, I laughed. It felt like the perfect metaphor for what happens when you don’t respect a lunar eclipse.
Image above from the Black Femme Tarot
When I consider the Lovers card, which is my soul card, I can see two parts of myself facing each other. The characters are always shifting. Sometimes it's a wounded inner child and an inner aging mother. Sometimes it’s an inner critic and a keeper of all the self-love I’ve curated towards myself. Whatever parts are present, they’re usually debating over what version of the current narrative is most aligned with facts. My higher self hovers overhead wondering who will win the debate and what might happen next. During a lunar eclipse, I can forget that these three beings are not separate. They are parts of me and I am the one who gets to choose what story to act upon.
The Moon card is often about facing one’s fears in order to be liberated from them. That doesn’t mean that we never have to deal with them again. It means that each time we cycle through the major arcana and face those shadowy creatures of the Moon, we have new skills available to weather the storm a little better than last time. When the Moon appears in reverse it might be pointing out that instead of being liberated from fear, we’ve been consumed by it. The Moon reversed is an invitation to slow down, breathe, count to three, and discern what is truly happening in the present moment.
At the beginning of this eclipse season, I fell into a destabilizing week of conflict and activated trauma responses. An old and very deep fear burst through my subconscious like a storm. The thunder drowned out all parts of myself that struggled to state the facts. My sympathetic nervous system flooded. The only thing I could focus on was escaping the danger at all costs. I couldn’t see that the danger I was trying to escape had ended twelve years ago. It took me days to recognize I was safe, the storm had moved on, and I could breathe. I’ve had this experience perhaps a thousand times, but this time was different for one important reason. For the first time ever, I was able to understand why my trauma believes that if someone I love is upset with me, my life is in danger. I am grateful to the eclipse for offering me such potent insight.
Lunar eclipses aren’t terrible. They’re just eclipses. But when you don’t respect their power and don’t stay grounded in the present moment, you’re probably going to fall on your ass. So take a deep breath, my love, and remember how fabulous you are. Acknowledge the parts of yourself who come forward and ask for space to heal. Be gentle with yourself when you get swept up in the storm. Storms pass, and the moon will light the way again.
Blessed be, mwah!
Jasper