I know we still have a month before the first day of winter, but I’ve really been feeling an energetic shift since we turned the clocks back.
Fall is all about releasing, and the start of the season has an outward-focused quality. There is something energizing about putting up decorations that mirror the colorful leaves and adding blankets to the bed. The transition is still new.
Now that the sunrises before 7 and the sunsets before 5, Autumn’s energy is asking us to turn inward. We are still being called to let go and release, but with the dark taking center stage, we get to slow down and reflect in the quiet.
Today’s post is all about tonight’s near-total Lunar Eclipse. Lasting almost 6 hours, this will be the longest lunar eclipse in centuries!
During an eclipse, an entire lunar cycle takes place in just a few hours. As you know, working with the phases of the Moon can support your manifestation efforts. Eclipses give us a chance to turbo-charge our growth and transformation.
The 8 of Cups will help us work with this eclipse energy. While you’re reading, please enjoy my 8 of Cups playlist!
Tonight we get to watch the longest eclipse in centuries. A lunar eclipse happens when the Earth passes between the sun and the moon. This eclipse’s duration is longer because the moon is near apogee, or at its furthest distance from the Earth.
It will take about six hours from the moment the moon first enters Earth’s shadow until it leaves. At 12:15 AM PT, half of the moon will be in shadow and the peak will take place at 1:02 AM PT, with 97 percent coverage. A tiny sliver of the moon will glow while the rest of the Moon takes on a reddish-brown color.
There’s no shortage of fear around lunar eclipses, and eclipses in general. Many astrologers say that eclipse season, which is almost a month long, is not a good time to start anything new, and that caution should rule. I disagree.
Eclipses are not negative. Because I know that Spirit is always an advocate for our highest and best, there’s no reason that an entire eclipse season would regularly show up just to put us into contraction.
Eclipses do amplify energy.
We get to experience the entire lunar cycle in one night. So it’s no wonder that in a rapid transition you may experience expansion and contraction with more awareness. These are is showing up to help our transition. Remember we are in Scorpio season, a time of death and reemergence.
In a normal lunar cycle, we plant intentions at the New Moon, work to visualize and manifest our desires to the First-Quarter Moon and then double our efforts between the First Quarter and the Full Moon.
At the Full Moon, we release to the divine whatever is still left to manifest. After the Full Moon, our job is to integrate what we have received until the Last Quarter Moon when we release and let go completely.
In this month’s New Moon ritual I offered an exercise to say goodbye and bury an old identity that no longer served as helpful for you. If you participated, that ritual will support you in releasing even more tonight.
Whether you did the New Moon ritual or not, tonight’s Full Moon will be like a regular Full Moon ritual, only we get to ad a ‘bonus round’, thanks to the eclipse.
In the 8 of Cups, we see an individual crossing over a rocky pathway. Her back is turned as she walks away from 8 perfectly stacked cups. In the sky above, we see a lunar eclipse. The face in the orb is actually the shadow of the earth, mirroring the pilgrim’s passage.
Cups represent our heart center. There is nothing wrong with these 8 Cups. Likely, we have spent a long time lovingly filling these cups, but now it’s time to leave them. There is uncertainty in the path ahead; however, perhaps because under the Full Moon we get higher and lower tides, this is the only time that the path is traversable.
There are lots of examples of this experience. From my practice, I’ve seen this card show up for a client who knew she needed to expand her coaching practice by leading groups and amplifying her impact, but this brought up some fear and resistance.
Other times I have seen this card show up when a love relationship is morphing. Either my client’s partner or my client will move away from a relationship that isn’t dysfunctional or failing, but is also not entirely fulfilling. Any time we are in an, “it’s not you, it’s me” situation there is bound to be grief on both sides.
But the 8 of cups shows up for us to say, this is actually a necessary transition. You’ve learned enough of your heart that you no longer have to wait until three cups have been spilled before you travel on.
The eclipse, both on the card and in the sky tonight, is here to remind us that while the evolution of our heart center will necessarily require some grief, this chance to release the past and make a new start doesn’t happen every day. And in fact, Spirit is here to show us the way and shorten the timeframe for miracles.
If we were to label the above graph with the symbols of the Tarot’s Major Arcana, we would see The Sun represented by both The Sun and Strength cards. The Earth would be The World, and The Moon would be both The Moon and The High Priestess.
For our purposes, The Sun presents yang/masculine energy and The High Priestess demonstrate yin/feminine energy. The World is the finish-line of an evolutionary spiral. The World shows up for us when we are complete with one of our soul’s contracted growth stages.
When we view the eclipse, we are seeing our shadow in full view. And then, it departs. If you saw my exercise around shadow work, then you know it is when we invest in joy and our brilliance that our critic is the loudest.
In The Strength card, we see the peaceful marriage of yin and yang, masculine and feminine, for the first time. During the eclipse, the red hue of The Moon is a visual anchor for achieving that balance.
For tonight’s exercise, we are inviting the High Priestess’ intuition to inform our self-reflection. As in the eight of cups, we must become willing to leave behind what is familiar and safe, knowing that Strength is awaiting us on the other side.
November’s Full Moon and Eclipse Ritual
You will need:
-A white or silver candle
-Matches or a lighter
-A fireproof dish
-A bay leaf
-A marker, silver if you have one
-A glass of water
If you have a Tarot deck or an Oracle deck, bring that too.
Ideally, you would do this around 12:45 AM to watch the peak of the eclipse, but if you know that you won’t be able to stay awake for the eclipse, you can perform this before you go to bed. If you’re not able to see the eclipse due to cloud cover, that is okay too.
Begin by washing your hands and lighting your candle. Find a comfortable cushion and a seat on the floor and take some long slow deep breaths. If there is a meditation app that works for you, or if you’ve found a free guided meditation online, go ahead and give yourself a 10-minute meditation.
If you have a deck, go ahead and pull out the 8 of Cups, The High Priestess, The Moon, The Sun, Strength, and The World.
Place the High Priestess above The World and below that, The Sun. Put the 8 of Cups above and between The Moon and Strength.
If you don’t have a deck, just imagine the images.
Next, take a look at the High Priestess as you drink your water. If it helps, imagine what form your intuition would take. This is a powerful but quiet voice within you. It will only every advocate for your highest and best.
If you are pulled by thoughts from the noisy critic, use the image of The World to silence them. You are showing up in service of the divine, and so that is the only voice to listen for.
As The High Priestess, what is it time to let go of? You probably know already. Whatever it is, you don’t need to find any fault in yourself or the situation. This is a call to step beyond the familiar into a greater experience of wholeness.
If you are using a deck, go ahead and shuffle, then fan the deck out and choose one card. This card is what you are being asked to surrender.
There are no good or bad cards, so if you are being asked to surrender say the Six of Cups, you are being asked to surrender into a greater experience of nurturance from both your inner-child and your self-parent. If you pull the Five of Pentacles, you are not being asked to surrender feeling left abandoned by Spirit, rather, you are being asked to surrender to the light of the divine.
If you are not working with a deck, you can still get a clear answer from the Divine about what it is time to let go of.
Whatever it is, go ahead and write it down on your bay leaf. If we use my client as an example (she has since launched a new group course!) she would write, “leadership” because she was being called to surrender to a role of greater leadership.
Then, visualize whatever obstacles you perceive are preventing you from taking the steps necessary to expand and move forward. Visualize these obstacles being removed for you. Just as the low tide allows us to cross coastal pathways that are otherwise underwater, so too can the divine make clear our path to greater love.
Light your leaf and ask aloud for the divine to show up for you in ways that are surprising and delightful. Inhale the scent of the leaf and feel that breath educating and balancing your body’s yin and yang energies. Feel your intuition and your courage amplify.
I’m sending love and courage to you all during the potent time for letting go.
