The Spiritual Significance of Eclipse Cycles
Eclipses are harbingers of change — they usher in evolution. This year’s total solar eclipse over North America on April 8th maybe the most anticipated event of 2024, and will happen when the sun is near the peak of its activity cycle. That’s in stark contrast to the last great American eclipse, which occurred in August 2017, when the sun’s activity was approaching a minimum.
The good thing about eclipses is that generally you can trust the direction they are guiding you in. Eclipses may help to bring about events in your life that are part of the cosmic plan, but it is not that the eclipse makes something happen in your life, it is that you have the ability to see things more clearly then you have before. These are important times for reflection upon your life, what you need to let go of and move on from.
Eclipses are rare because they can only take place when the Sun, the Earth, and the Moon are all aligned. They always happen in groups of two or three. Total solar eclipses are called “ring of fire” because the light of the sun still radiates beyond the total eclipse and total lunar eclipses are sometimes called blood moons because of the reddish-orange glow the moon takes on during the eclipse.
There are four to seven eclipses every calendar year. Typically, there are two eclipse seasons, one after the start of the year and one toward the completion of the year. Year 2024 will have 4 eclipses, 2 solar eclipses and 2 lunar eclipses.
2024 Mar 25: Penumbral Lunar Eclipse
2024 Apr 08: Total Solar Eclipse
2024 Sep 18: Partial Lunar Eclipse
2024 Oct 02: Annular Solar Eclipse
You may look back to the ending of last year 2023, noticing the end of October through the new year cycle and try to realize themes or patterns that arose during that time. Can you see the arc of their progression through this year? In the coming months you will experience the full evolution of this arc or a completion of this cycle with the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024.
Eclipses come in pairs, and so the energy of this year’s eclipse cycle begins before and around March 25, with a lunar eclipse on the full moon, resetting emotional patterns, and then is followed by a total solar eclipse April 8, resetting energetic patterns. Solar eclipses are resets in the energy field or archetypal configurations, where as, lunar eclipses are culminations of emotional cycles that have run their course. Both encourage us to let go of emotions and attachments that are no longer serving us and evolve into something new.
The first eclipse of the year is a penumbral lunar eclipse on March 25, 2024 occurring at the lunar orbit’s descending node in Virgo. This is a very deep penumbral eclipse with a penumbral magnitude 10 and an eclipse duration of 279.9 minutes.
Lunar Eclipses are viewed in astrology as being deeply transformative times that can bring abrupt and sudden change. While this is true, there is another side to eclipses that is important to remember. Eclipses are like the cosmic helping hand of the Universe, their energies help to break patterns or bring unresolved emotional issues to the surface.
On a lunar eclipse, the shadow of the Earth falls across the face of the Moon, this is when unconscious feelings may rise in to awareness, and we may see things more clearly than we had been able to before. Then we have the chance to understand our participation and behaviors that contribute to the unwanted patterns we are experiencing in our lives.
In a lunar eclipse, the earth momentarily blocks the illumination from the sun that creates a full moon, resetting the current emotional cycle and allowing the shadow to reveal what is hidden in our subconscious or keeping us blocked from seeing more clearly. The spiritual aspects of the moon represent our deep emotional tides, and so when the shadow passes over the moon, temporarily ceasing the illumination of our emotional being, there is an opportunity to reveal and transform our current emotional state.
A lunar eclipse can be an extremely powerful time for cleansing our emotional waters and setting intention for renewal and rejuvenation in the coming months, because the energetic cycles of this upcoming lunar eclipse on March 25 will extend through the period of next three months culminating in the total solar eclipse of April 8, 2024.
EMBRACING CHANGE & HONORING LIFE CYCLES
Endings are necessary in order to make way for the new and an eclipse cycle is like the final purge or cleansing of an emotional cycle. If something needs to be gone from your life, if something needs to come to an end, an eclipse can help you to set the intention of completion in concrete in the external world.
Change is constant. We talk about growth and change and letting go of the things that no longer serve us with hope. But the reality is, change is uncomfortable and can bring up a lot of fear of the unknown.
We like things that are familiar and comfortable, even our worst habits can be serving us in some way by keeping us small and comfortable. Real change requires us to be conscious of our emotions and feelings. We can step into a new way of being by honoring and recognizing ourselves and the natural rhythms of life.
WORKING WITH ENDINGS & BEGINNINGS
Every single full moon brings a chance to embrace changes, let go, and cultivate greater connection with the Divine. I believe we can experience connection with the Divine by simply being mindful and present to the cycles of nature, the seasons, and life all around us.
The energy of a full moon is always that of the cycle coming to a crescendo or completion of its influence and essence. The full moon is an opportunity to let go of an aspect of your emotional experience that you have outgrown and a time for anchoring in a new maturity or wisdom that was gained in the previous cycle; it is a perfect time for releasing something that no longer serves you.
The full moon is the time to release attachments or blocks and barriers to our worthiness, and open ourselves to greater receiving and inspiration. The energy of a full moon is always that of a cycle coming to a height of its current resonance. Whatever you needed to let go of, whatever changes you needed to make, an eclipse on the full moon can help you to release and let go and open to the new.
By developing a spiritual practice that is founded in earth based wisdom and honoring the cycles of the moon and seasonal cycles of change and growth we can live in greater peace and harmony in our daily lives.
ECLIPSE ENERGY IS A HARBINGER OF CHANGE
The energy of this upcoming March & April, lunar then solar eclipse, will last all the way through the end of this year. It will open a gateway of energy that can be productive, active and positive, when you engage consciously with the shadow sides of self that may be revealed to you during this eclipse.
Doing a small personal ritual on the eclipses, like lighting a candle or writing an intention down on paper and burning it, can help you to engage the energies of release and usher in new changes.
Trust whatever is unfolding in your life as natural to the cycles of transformation and change and know that it is all for a higher purpose.
PARTICIPATE IN THE GREAT TURNING OF OUR TIMES
As our planet stands upon a precipice of enormous change and transformation, each one of us has a choice to make. How will we participate in the great turning of our times?
When you are cut off from the truth of your essence, you don’t just fail to fulfill your potential, you experience many other side-effects. The challenges you face in the other areas — health, work, relationships, prosperity — are often symptoms of a disconnection from this divine pattern in you. That’s why many attempts to solve those other problems don’t work — because they’re symptoms, not the cause.
