Reflections on the solar eclipse in libra

Welcome to Enchanted Awakening and happy Libra season to all of you reading. For this first post, I wanted to dive into some messages shared by the cards I pulled for this solar eclipse in Libra, which happened on October 2, 2024. This solar eclipse, conjunct the south node, is part of a longer story arc (which began in April 2023 and will end March 2025) focusing on the lunar nodes on the Libra-Aries axis of our natal charts. This is a story that deals with how our relationships to each other and the systems around us that represent justice and fairness must evolve - or fall apart completely. In our personal lives as well as on a collective level, we are becoming explicitly aware of what needs to fundamentally, structurally change when it comes to these themes.

Now, the focus of this article is on what the tarot has to say, but I want to give some astrological context that informs the conditions in which this energy is manifesting. Libra is the sign represented by the scales; it represents balance, harmony, justice, and fairness. The Sun, which takes center stage this eclipse, is not super comfortable in Libra (according to essential dignity). This is because the Sun is exalted in the sign opposite Libra, Aries, which as a Mars-ruled energy is focused on self-preservation and assertion, a more natural way of being for the Sun (which we can think of as ego) than cooperation with and focus on others (where Libra excels). A solar eclipse is a time when the Moon obscures the Sun (from our perspective on Earth), creating a visual “ring of fire” around it. Symbolically, this represents a moment of uncertainty and profound transformation, as well as fated endings and the start of new beginnings. The south node represents those things that we are overly familiar with, maybe from past lives or prior incarnations, that we are outgrowing in this lifetime. Transits to the south node indicate what we are separating from or losing in order to evolve. So, in short, the solar eclipse in Libra conjunct the south node is a time where our relationships (to people, institutions, concepts & ways of relating) are being tested - and removed, if necessary.

An eclipse that's conjunct the south node can really feel like shedding an old skin, in a fated way. It's not a time when you need to decisively act - it’s a time when you need to surrender to change, and not resist the inevitable (even if that entails endings or loss). I asked the tarot how we can facilitate this process of release and transformation. Let’s get into it…

Resourcefulness in Discomfort

The Hanged Man, Ethereal Visions tarot.

The Hanged Man is all about sitting still in discomfort and shifting your perspective as a result. It says, I know that it feels like you're in an unnatural position, but you need to trust and believe that there's something instructive in this moment. You may feel like you don’t have control over the house and themes represented by Libra in your chart right now, or like you’re in a weird state of limbo or suspended animation. This isn’t always a bad thing. The Hanged Man asks us to entertain the idea that actually, we are exactly where we need to be right now. On a collective level, I know that a lot of people do feel in this position now, where we’re being forced to bear witness to the pain and the suffering and the chaos happening all over the world, in the form of war, genocide, natural disasters and social crisis. This position can provoke an overwhelming feeling of helplessness and powerlessness. What can I do?How do I even persist? What is the meaning of this moment for me?

The Hanged Man appears to let you know that even in moments like this, where you might feel you can’t meaningfully influence or positively change the situation, change first and foremost begins within you and your consciousness. It begins in the recognition of the circumstance and the identification with the desire to change it. You can think of the appearance of the Hanged Man as the universe saying, wait. You're in a holding pattern right now because you need to understand that you actually have access to some resources internally that you are neglecting in favor of the search for an external solution. No matter what your positionality is, you do have an inner reservoir of strength that will guide you through any endings, losses or changes that are happening right now.

Internal Guidance amidst External Uncertainty

The Chariot, Ethereal Visions tarot.

Enter the Chariot. Even if you don't see the path in front of you right now, you are walking it. Trust that you are being guided despite your uncertainty. The path is not going to be clear to you all the time. Notice the two sphinxes pulling the chariot here. One is white and clearly visible, representing our logical faculties, our reason, our ability to perceive what's happening in our environment and take direction from there. The other, the black sphinx, is representative of the intuition - the yin principle, receptivity, our connection with that which is around us that we can energetically feel and intuit but may not explicit or overt. The Chariot asks us to balance these two ways of knowing, and to understand that it's not necessarily true that in order to be making progress you even know where you're going. In fact, intuitive guidance nudges us forward in the form of our emotional, instinctive reactions, our dreams, and the synchronicities we come across, whether in the form of messages spoken by other people, books that we stumble upon, or music that we hear on the radio. The way our environment causes an impression on and within us is equally instructive in this moment, and shouldn’t be ignored. Intuitive guidance is steering the ship right now, and it is requiring some course correction to the path we were charting.

Eclipse season is a powerful time of endings and beginnings, and it can feel overwhelming in the sense that your best laid plans are no match for what fate has in mind. It’s a time to remember that if the external world is not providing that confirmation, encouragement, and validation that you're seeking to move forward, the answer is probably inward. What is your intuition communicating? You may not have control over the external, but you do have control over the internal - how you speak to yourself about what’s happening and what it means to (and about) you.

Now is the time to be mindful and strategic when it comes to your spiritual practices. Are you doing the energetic work to maintain boundaries between yourself and the energy around you? There is a lot - of pain, chaos, confusion, rage, injustice - happening in the world, and it can feel overwhelming and incapacitating if we don't put up some kind of energetic defense to prevent ourselves from absorbing it. How can you care for yourself in a way that’s deeply intuitive, that connects you with the logic of your body? Your body knows what you need to maintain equilibrium. Have you been listening?

Facing the Shadows

Ah, the work which never ends... the need to face and integrate the shadow. As the presence of the south node in Libra influences the collective to purge outdated systems, beliefs, ways of relating to and understanding one another, shadows come out to resist this call for change. The scale of these shadows is bigger than many of us have confronted in our lifetime: just think about the extent to which certain governments are feeling emboldened to lash out on an international stage. The darkest shadows are being let out to play, and they won’t retreat voluntarily. It will require massive resistance to banish these dark impulses away from the mainstream.

However, resistance requires bravery to face the reality of the situation, no matter how horrible and disturbing that process of truth-telling is. Strength is an energy of taking your medicine even if it’s bitter and hard to swallow. No healing can take place without this temporary sacrifice of comfort. Most problems don’t magically go away if we ignore them; in fact, pretending they don’t exist usually makes space for them to grow bigger and stronger. Strength, the archetype of Leo, reminds us that healing first requires a recognition of the problem and a belief in our capacity to meaningfully respond to it, however difficult that process may be. Shadow work is the theme here, and what I mean by that is that recognizing and processing difficult emotions (rather than wishing they didn’t exist) is the key to removing their power. As the Sufi mystic Rumi wrote, “the wound is the place where the light enters you.” It is time to shine the light on what we’d rather not see, in order to allow the healing process to begin, personally and as a collective. What have you been ignoring that needs your attention? What have you allowed to control you for too long? How can you take your power back?

Dreaming a New Way of Being into Reality

I pulled one last card to finish this read, the Dreamer from the W.I.T.C.H. deck (not pictured). The Dreamer comes to us courtesy of Saturn in Pisces, which is currently almost a year and a half into its almost 3 year transit. Saturn represents that which holds form, compounds with time, calcifies into the structures and systems of material reality. Pisces, on the other hand, is that which cannot be contained, that which is formless and all-consuming because it connects to everything around it. The challenge of this transit is to reconcile the tension between these opposite energies. (Check the house holding Pisces for clues on where you may be feeling this push-and-pull.)

"When you sleep, the soul awakens and wraps you in her star-filled arms. This is a time for you to glimpse the heavens of your own psyche and sail the milky way of possibility. 

Receiving a dream is like getting a letter in the mail from your beloved dream mother. She's been with you during your waking hours, witnessed your struggles and triumphs, hopes and fears. And now that your mind is quiet and your soul alert, she writes her love letter to guide you through all you're dealing with right now, delivering symbols and signs to help you process your potential, untangle your doubts and fears, and align with your highest possibility. 

A witch knows that her dreams are a vital part of empowerment and she records them, deciphering to the best of her ability the letters from home as a means of charting her daytime path."

What have you been dreaming of?

This card circles back to the message of the Chariot, reminding us that our internal guidance systems are active and communicating with us now. You are receiving messages, insights, and downloads from your subconscious mind in order to shift your conscious perceptions. If you’ve been coming to realizations about ways in which you’ve changed or outgrown relationships/situations/habits/beliefs, trust that they are grounded in reality. External confirmation will soon follow…

The Dreamer leaves us with a final message to ponder as we move through eclipse season, slowly drifting away from whatever the Sun’s encounter with the south node unmoored. If you have the capacity to envision something - anything - then on some level, it has the capacity to materially manifest (more on this later). In the face of overwhelm, despair, hopelessness, and burnout, Saturn reminds us that everything that concrete in this world started with a dream. What do you envision when you allow yourself to imagine an alternative reality? What kind of world would you create if you knew that you had the power to simply imagine it into being?

In moments when the shadows seem to dominate waking life, our dreamspace holds the key to regaining a sense of power and possibility. Lean into your dreams now. Allow yourself to wonder, without concerns of feasibility or judgment. The act of imagining is cathartic in and of itself. Give it a chance. Change, and magic, starts within…