Full Moon Eclipse in Virgo

It’s a moment of submitting to (the sub-mission — subtle mission — concealed mission of) the body’s mysteries, multiplicities, polyrhythmic and polyvocal song. The Earth’s mysteries, multiplicities, polyrhythmic and polyvocal song.

In the face of such submission / frustrated-desire, there can be reflexes of criticism outwards towards the perceived something or someone that’s in the way or doing the thing wrong, or criticism inwards towards the perceived part of or pattern in us that’s in the way or doing the thing wrong. There can also be reflexes of pushing escape buttons of all kinds, to get out of the constriction, the binding, the discomfort.

If something does feel stalled or held up right now, there’s an invitation to stay with the process and trust that something essential is happening out of sight — as this is a Virgo Full Moon Eclipse.

What we want to see manifested in the outer world *more quickly*, may be partly or fully obstructed by the Earth’s shadow, the Body’s shadow.

But also, what we want to see come into fruition more quickly in the outer or physical world, isn’t the thing that would bring us a sense of genuine satisfaction or sense of security.

To support us in staying with the process while detaching from the outcome, I want to offer something akin to emotional granularity, which is the ability to identify emotions with more and more linguistic nuance and specificity. Research shows that emotional granularity enhances our resilience because when we’re experiencing something — even something quite emotionally intense — and it’s named with exquisite precision, there comes that sigh of relief. A lifting up of weight off of our shoulders. Like, whew, Yes. That’s it.

This gift of emotional granularity is also reflected by our astrological story-telling ways of working with essential dignities, which describes how resourced (by the dominant culture, outer or intrapsychic) a planet is in a given sign. Mercury is both at home and exalted in Virgo. In other words, Mercury is well-resourced here. Mercury is suited to working with Virgoan resources of discernment, disciplined attention to detail, organization, analysis, reflection, planning, cleaning and clearing out skills. Mercury is well-equipped with tools of their preference in Virgo, to bring in emotions as information.

But right now, Mercury is in Pisces! The sign opposite Mercury’s home and exaltation. So … doubly-debilitated. Actually … triply-debilitated in a way, because Mercury is also retrograde! In other words, the words come in strange streams and inlets and rivulets and sometimes flood and sometimes leave altogether.

Are we doomed?! No, I don’t think so. Maybe Mercury Rx in Pisces governing a Full Moon Eclipse in Virgo is exactly right and precisely what we need for Mercury to create unexpected neural pathways throughout the body, bridging matter and spirit, body and Earth, Earth and Sky.

Will it come in tidy articulated words? Probably not. Will it come in all manner of wilder ways, run-on or incomplete sentences, images, sounds? Most likely!

With Mercury in Pisces, I wonder about imaginal granularity. I love astrology because we don’t just have to stay with broad brush strokes of, for example, “FIRE”. In the Fire Signs (our class starts March 17th!) there is so much texture and dimensionality, different gods, animals, instincts, ancestors — all cohered by Fire’s tutelary diety Hestia / Vesta (who will interestingly be in Pisces). It provides a robust extracellular matrix for healthy imaginations to grow, reach out and touch each other, to tendril over, together and through, holding us steady through a process.

Here are three images I wanted to share as a way to cultivate our imaginal granularity and help move through some felt-sense experiences that may have come up with the Full Moon Eclipse.

Mercury Rx in Pisces: Compressiform & Depressiform fish

In this moment, some parts of us may be experiencing the pressure to take on a “compressiform” shape like butterflyfish or angelfish that have evolved to masterfully navigate and slip through tight spaces and narrow crevices in coral reef ecosystems. While other parts of us may feel a flattening into the pancake-like shape of “depressiform” fish.

Neither shape is wrong; both are effective responses and adaptations to certain emotional, imaginal, story- or other environments.

Jupiter Rx in Cancer: The Day Before the Molt

Weeks before the molt, the crab’s skin begins to detach and draw in a bit from its carapace. The underlying skin secretes a paper-thin soft shell that folds up beneath its old shell.

The day before the molt, the crab takes in an excessive amount of air (if it’s a terrestrial species) or water (if it’s an aquatic species). This causes the inner new shell to expand to its largest possible size to make room for the crab to grow into. It also causes the crab’s body to push up intensely against the old … before it cracks open like a lid, and there’s relief. The crab can back out and relax into its new shape.

Thought experiment: Imagine this shell represents an old ego identity, shape, role — perhaps defined by a career, relationship or place. Imagine you’ve been separating from it for quite some time. And now, right before the final exit, you feel every inch of your body pushing up against it and constricted by it. While it may still be really, maybe intensely. uncomfortable, it helps to know and be able to symbolize where you’re at, so you can stay with the process. To continue breathing, attending to what’s here now and taking one step at a time.

Molting takes the time it takes.

Mars-Hephaestus square: forged by Fire

Earlier today (although not as much at this exact moment! perhaps I’m in a “cooling” interval) — I heard the sounds and heat of the forge.

The roar of the Fire.

The rhythmic, ringing strike of the Hammer.

The hiss of hot Steel touching Water.

The hands of the master of the Forge.

Hephaestus.

Right now is an excellent moment to read or listen to Gabriela Gutierrez’ article Hephaestus: Alchemical Blacksmith of the Soul.

This piece of writing all feels incantatory, a calling in of spirit support for the full aliveness of this moment to move through us.

This moment of being in the heat, in the tension, in the conflict, the impatience.

The frustrated desire.

Containing your reaction. And becoming more of who you truly are.

Hephaestus is a god closest to the humans. While other gods move at supernatural paces, Hephaestus moves with a limp. He knows what it is to feel humiliation and rejection. He deliberately directs his anger into his craft. Known as Vulcan by the Romans, Hephaestus is the god of volcanoes, fire, smiths, craftsmen, metalworking, stonemasonry and sculpture. With Athena, he is considered to be one of the key gods of civilization.

As one who was rejected by his mother Hera and thrown off Olympus, plunging into a day-long fall into the ocean … the stories told around Hephaestus describe a kind of repetitive pattern here around shame/shaming, humiliation/humiliating.

But I see this moment as a key time to practice re-membering and also dreaming forward into potentialities and possibilities where Hephaestus is the one able to descend into the densest of emotional experiences, stay with the process, contain rage, frustration and reaction rooted in shame and aim this energy into crafting / liberating an inner, essential shape that has holding power and durability.

Here is an excerpt from Gabriela Gutierrez that feels like an ally for this South Node Eclipse moment in Virgo and for allowing completion.

Mothers near the end of pregnancy recognise the psychological intensity of that last phase. There can be an overwhelming desire for completion.

But there is a potent wisdom in allowing birth to unfold in its own time when mother and baby are well. While medical intervention can be lifesaving and is sometimes necessary, there is also value in recognising that due dates are estimates, not expiration dates. When circumstances permit, honouring the baby’s readiness rather than the calendar can be a profound act of trust.

Forging shares this structure. There are crossroads where no clear direction presents itself. We may assume paralysis. We may attempt premature delivery — forcing decisions, manufacturing clarity, extracting ourselves from the furnace too early. But the smith doesn’t remove the metal from the fire before its time. He knows when the internal structure has shifted and is ready to emerge as its new form.

This work is unglamorous. Though we feel it exquisitely, it goes unseen, its fruits remaining even hidden to ourselves as we are being forged.

We don’t see the new shape of us yet reflected in the world around us.

But we intentionally hold the shape and contain our reactions anyway.

We don’t see the dream yet blossoming around us.

But still, we live from the heart’s dream within.

Under pressure to act from urgency, we take one step at a time.

Under the heat of unreasonable expectations, we remember our ground.

We hold our shape.

This isn’t an Ideal Form that we’re trying to attain, and it’s not a conceptual or egoic notion of the shape or identity that we want to be seen by others as.

So what shape is it that we’re holding? Where does it come from?

Maybe its a shape carved out by our “No”s.

Like —

No I will not follow this intense impulse to escape the discomfort of my emotion to do that thing again that I know causes pain (what Resmaa Menakem calls dirty pain). I will lean into the clean pain of staying in the sensation of the present moment and of not-knowing the outcome because I have brought my whole-self listening to the consequences of that old reflex/pattern and my system has learned and become more skilled, more adept at not doing that anymore. My No is strengthening. What will come next, is not yet formed. But it is in formation.

Let your No be a sacred container.

May it reveal the hidden Yes.

Eclipse Blessings,

Nicole