Lunar Eclipse in Libra Spring 2024
Yesterday, I watched the local Purim parade and performance. The performance told the story of a young child, taken unexpectedly by a kite high up into the sky and their journey back down to Earth. During this adventure, the child met birds, leaves, and other kites also looking for a way down. Eventually, the child managed to grasp onto the Tree of Names, tethering them to the Earth. Then, with the help of their community, they extended the kite's rope back into the sky to bring the leaves and kites back down to Earth with them. The play ended with the reading of names of martyred Palestinians - calling them back to the tree, back to life - an act so beautiful and all the more devastating for our inability to make that reality so.
Today there is an eclipse with the moon in Libra and the Sun in Aries. I have been thinking about this eclipse since the last one occurred in Libra last October.
Eclipses often feel very fated. Things occur which seem out of our control. We might be, as the child was, picked up by the winds of fate and lifted into the sky. In the play, the child says to one of the birds, "I am a child, I don't belong in the sky." During eclipse season, we might find ourselves in places that we didn't think were meant for us. Eclipses rip through our lives, pivoting the story in ways that can feel deeply unsettling.
But eclipses are also openings - one luminary crosses over the other - creating a rift in the structured flow of day and night. Eclipses remove the facade of the quotidian. The sun which seems immovable during the day is temporarily erased from the sky. Things which seemed innate and unchanging, are revealed to be transformable. And so we are wrenched from the day to day, pulled in close by the arms of fate. The power of eclipses reminds me of this Ursula K Le Guin quote, "We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings." Eclipses often give us a window - through loss or through opportunity, to see another way for things that have previously seemed inescapable, impossible.
Libra is the sign of the scales - seeking interdependence, balance, and justice. It is the home sign of Venus, and the exaltation sign of Saturn. The axis of Libra and Aries where this eclipse is taking place marks the times of year where the hours of light and darkness are in equilibrium. The last eclipse in Libra took place on October 14th, 2023. On October 13, residents of Gaza were ordered to move south and given 24 hours to do so. Rather than a moment of balance and harmony, that eclipse laid bare a reality that is unjust and immoral.
The October 14th eclipse was ruled by Venus in Virgo. Virgo is the sign of Venus's fall. Virgo's analytical, editorial qualities are challenging tools for Venus - the planet of love and connection. Virgo loves to dissect where Venus wants to connect. At the time of the eclipse Venus was separating from an opposition to Saturn in Pisces. This opposition between Venus and Saturn, with Venus in rough shape, created some very malefic eclipse conditions. The last six months have exposed some of the most severe examples of injustice and unimaginable violence - an ongoing genocide. There has been a serious disconnection, or opposition, between the people demanding a ceasefire and end to occupation, and the leaders who supposedly represent them.
The March 25th eclipse in Libra is ruled by Venus in Pisces. Venus is in its exaltation in Pisces. Pisces' boundary-less creativity gives Venus the tools it needs to connect with others. While the last eclipse saw Venus opposing Saturn, this eclipse is occurring right after Venus and Saturn's conjunction in Pisces. Venus and Saturn as rulers of this eclipse (domicile and exaltation) are potentially able to be in a much more productive dialogue when they are not in an antagonistic opposition. While conjunctions aren't inherently positive, this does mark the beginning of a new cycle for Venus and Saturn. Venus and Saturn together can give structure to our dreamy connectivity. Venus in Pisces might get lost in the sea of emotion, but Saturn is able to give our emotions a material form, allowing us to build something tangible with them. Saturn in Pisces might try to crush some dreams, but Venus can offer the salve of connection, of the arts, and of joy. If Libra is the sign of justice, then we must believe that justice will come. If Pisces is the sign of the dreamer, then we must dream of a better future. We must believe Palestine will be free.
The eclipses in Libra have both been South Node eclipses. The South Node is the place of releasing. While we don't always get to choose what we release I am thinking of Mohammed El-Kurd's recent essay "Are we indeed all Palestinians" where he says "The rallying cry that we are all Palestinians must abandon the metaphor and manifest materially. Meaning, all of us—Palestinians or otherwise—must embody the Palestinian condition, the condition of resistance and refusal, in the lives we lead and the company we keep. Meaning we reject our complicity in this bloodshed and our inertia when confronted with all of that blood. Because Gaza cannot stand alone in sacrifice." And so I hope that what we release is the fear and the feeling of helplessness that causes inertia. I hope that what we release is the structure of power which ultimately harms and disempowers us all. And knowing that in two weeks we will get a North Node eclipse in Aries - I hope that what we embrace is our courage and our bravery, our resistance, and our refusal to keep doing things as they have been done.
When I looked up the Ursula Le Guin quote to use it in this piece, I realized I had never read the next line of that speech. After she says, "Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings," she goes on, "Resistance and change often begin in art." And so I take seriously the Purim play which asked me to imagine a world in which we could bring back the martyrs. I take seriously the group of activists who laid out a massive quilt with over 65 pieces of art in front of the Met Museum in New York City on Sunday. I take seriously Demian DinéYazhi, who hid the phrase Free Palestine in their Whitney Biennial installation. I take seriously the moments I have sat with friends coloring in cardboard signs that we will take to protests. I take seriously Refaat Alareer's poem which commands, "if I must die, / you must live / to tell my story." I take seriously that these are moments where something different feels possible. But that we must not stop there but follow the thread all the way through the eclipse.
Eclipses are rarely used for manifestation or ritual work because of their intensity. But I do want to offer something like a prayer to the eclipse.
May the hands of fate guide us gently into a universe where we can bring back the martyred, where those who are injured have care, where those who are hungry have food, where those who need shelter have shelter, where those who have been displaced can return to their homes, where we can center community, where we can center resistance, where we can center art. Where we can speak the words never again and it will be never again, for anyone.