Eclipseograde!
Eclipse is in the air. Mercury Retrograde too. How nimbly will you navigate this “Eclipseograde?” Depends on how elegantly you straddle the Leo/Aquarius polarity and become “you without you,” “space with a face.”
Eclipseogrades demand unusual amounts of humility and self-reckoning. Why? Because, in their zeal to upgrade individual and collective consciousness, Eclipseogrades can be “cruel to be kind.” When an addiction counselor initiates an intervention, the addict will often attempt to emotionally manipulate via threats of hostility or guilt-tripy self-destruction. Later, they shower the counselor with undying praise and respect.
Best to bump up our daily practice early in the month to prepare for the crescendo: a total solar eclipse on the 21st. This is especially true if you live in the U.S. where the shadow-vacuuming power of this “black hole sun” will be felt most strongly and reverberate for months.
Black Hole Sun
The ancient Chinese had the right idea when they beat drums and shot arrows into the sky to ward off an imagined dragon devouring the sun. Black hole suns demand mortal engagement. They challenge us to sling our bad habits up into the devouring void with a real sense of urgency. In this sense, black hole Suns deserve their apocalyptic associations. They have the power to suck in entire solar systems of ego.
What happens if we fail to offer up our shadow? Simple: shadow moves sideways. We get adversarial with the darkness in others.
My advice: allow whatever happens in the ramp-up to the Black Hole Sun to be background chatter as you doggedly focus on your eclipse prepping. How? Three ways:
Prepping for the Total Solar Eclipse:
1) Start writing your solar eclipse confessions now. Need something to jump-start your self-reckoning? Scroll down to the end of this article for a few self-administered truth bombs.
2) Memorize at least one confession, reciting it whenever you catch yourself in the throes of aversion to the darkness of a faceless intitution or another ego. Congratulations: you’re an anti-war activist.
3) Listen to the five Black Hole Sun sound tracks below. Remember: it’s not about which one’s you like; it’s about which ones are most prostration-inducing. Big difference! Loop them to add urgency to your practice. Then, on the day of the eclipse, use this Pavlovian devotion-triggering music to get yourself and few friends into a frenzy of confession. There. Now you’re ready to hurl bad habits, like passionately released arrows, into the devouring void.
Black Hole Sun Sound Tracks
1. Sound Garden 2. Norah Jones 3. Peter Frampton 4. Haley Reinhart 5. Break of Reality
August Overview
August begins with a partial Lunar eclipse in Aquarius on August 7th, followed by Mercury retrograde in Virgo on August 12th and a total Solar eclipse in Leo on August 21st.
Mercury Retrograde in Virgo
Mercury retrogrades in Virgo on August 12th and goes direct on September 4th. Importantly, it is opposed Neptune all month. In conjunction with the shadow-exposing Solar eclipse on August 21st, this favors meticulous awareness of the ways we grasp at delusional Virgo communion (“the intimacy of shared aversion”) by enlisting others in our judgment of other people and institutions. Great deceptions will likely be exposed, further tempting us to condemn, until we confess that failing to go eye-to-eye with the Divine Stare is the ultimate self-deception.
The August 7th Full Moon Eclipse in Aquarius: Emotional Objectivity
Lunar eclipses update our personal life and relationships. Got personal planets in 14, 15, or 16 degrees of Aquarius? Great time for a Relationship Reading.
This Sun/Moon opposition gives access to a surprisingly reasonable, objective kind of honesty with people that we’re normally passionately attached to. Hiding something? By un-eclipsing yourself now, during this anomalous patch of equanimity, there’s a good chance you’ll wind up getting even closer to them.
Eclipsing core parts of yourself in order to make a friendship work? Time to shine brighter so truth can decide the form of the relationship.
The Total Solar Eclipse in Leo: Space with a face
Got personal planets or points at 27, 28 or 29 degrees in Leo or one of the other fixed signs (Taurus, Scorpio or Aquarius)? This life-changing eclipse has you in its sights. Prime time to get a transit reading.
Amazing how excited people get about being wide awake, together, in the dark. It’s understandable. Suddenly all opinions and personalities disappear, leaving only a stunned band of modern day tribesman quivering under a monstrous palm of sky. Voila! Cosmically induced sangha.
During this eclipse, the warm, personal love of the Leo Sun will be perfectly aligned with the cool, transpersonal care of the Aquarius Moon. For a few, electrifying minutes, ego and the collective consciousness will hum together, giving the eclipse-watcher a 2-3 minute preview of what it might feel like to be “you without you” or “space with a face.“
A sublime time to release ourselves from conditioned gender play, so Solar self-expression and Lunar mother-mirroring can come into natural balance. Egos get lost in the drama of separation by trying to be solar heroes to other’s lunar feelings. Presence, on the other hand, peacefully inquires, How might this dreamer more lucidly enjoy their dreaming?
During this eclipse, Aquarius moves in front of Leo. Tend to pooh-pooh public self-appreciation? Good time to gratefully recount how far you’ve come in front of a soul-seeing friend. Tibetans call this “divine pride.” Astrologers call it, “higher octave Leo.”
A deeply satisfying paradox wants to take shape in August. Both eclipses push us to straddle the Leo/Aquarius polarity. This allows us to practice going charisma-to-charisma with others, even as another part of us stands back to admire the play of an eon-sized consciousness. Hello nondual realization!
Solar Eclipse Confessions
1. Sublime Sun Being, My gaze has become devotionally constipated. Blessed with the power to evoke communion and homecoming, I have settled for ego-hardening pep talk. Rid me of ego; replace me with you.
2. Shepherding presence, Without You I am an abortion of a human being, trying to put a happy face on hair-raising science fiction. Rid me of ego; replace me with You.
3. Eclipser of egos! This war-torn planet is not the source of my sadness. My heart is heavy with the sin of settling for “please to meet you” when I could have been generous enough to pull the plug on my me-story and stand naked: a soul-mirror, providing a glimpse of the deathless being that all orphaned egos so desperately long for. Rid me of ego, replace me with you.
August 2017 Transits
Aug 3- Uranus Retrograde
Aug 7- Full Moon lunar Eclipse in Aquarius
Aug 12- Sep 4 Mercury Retrograde in Virgo
Aug 21- New Moon solar Eclipse
Aug 22- Sun enters Virgo
Aug 25- Saturn goes Direct
Aug 26- Venus enters Leo
Aug 31- Mercury Retrograde enters Leo
Ready for more?
–Learn about the Styles of Awakening online training
–Schedule an astrology reading with Hunter
–Subscribe to Styles of Awakening newsletter (monthly)
–Receive these articles by email as they are posted
Like this article? Please share it with friends.
Get free newsletter & e-book
