The longest lunar eclipse of this century is coming in just a couple of days. Usually they last for just a few minutes. This one is six hours.
Here, on the West Coast, it begins Thursday night around 10 PM and will last until about 4 AM on Friday.
What does a long eclipse mean? How can you work with it?
Well, for my father, a hobbyist astral photographer, if the “seeing is good” (a cloudless sky) it is a time to take interesting photographs, to look to the heavens and marvel at an unusual event—a full moon, as it moves under the shadow of the earth, and then emerges again, hours later. The transitions are the most sensational to view, that time when it begins, and that time when it ends.
So that’s going on in the visual spectrum—and perhaps that’s enough. I like to gather and to marvel at unusual happenings.
But also—in my view—there’s a certain power to the moon. It’s been used to measure the passing of time—Jews observe a lunar calendar and many traditional practices revolve around the moon. Tradition is a kind of power—and so is the sway the moon has on the ocean—what other kind of power does it hold?
I think of Anais Nin’s novel, “A Spy in the House of Love”—the protagonist,
Sabina, engages in a practice of “moon-bathing,” and it gives her skin a luminescent glow, the kind of porcelain complexion that shines almost blue in hue. Mysterious, bewitching, she is in a process of self-discovery by proxy throughout the book, awakening different aspects of herself with different lovers.
“At sixteen Sabina took moon baths, first of all because everyone else took sun baths, and second, she admitted, because she had been told it was dangerous. The effect of moon baths was unknown, but it was intimated that it might be the opposite of the sun’s effect. The first time she exposed herself she was frightened. What would the consequences be?”
I’ve moon-bathed, too. If we went to the same college perhaps we’ve done it together. It was a giddy sort of transgression, to sneak away to rooftops, or hidden bits of the forest that still got good moonlight, bringing plenty of blankets to shiveringly disrobe for as long as we could stand it.
And what were the effects? Was it, perhaps, dangerous?
In the pockets of the internet where people whisper about mysticism many have embraced the mysterious power of the moon, but there are warnings not to charge your crystals under the effects of eclipse energy. There is the same degree of trepidation that comes up when discussing retrogrades. When planets appear to move backwards, when things fall into shadow, fear arises.
And the words of my last lovely, witchy therapist enter my mind: “rules like that don’t apply to people like us, to people who can see in the dark.”
Here is my summary of how to work with eclipse energy: It is a time for metaphorical death and rebirth. To let what is meant to end come to a close, to be present to what is left when we allow what doesn’t serve us to fall away. And sometimes, in order to properly do that, we have to revisit the past in search of unfinished business.
Psychologically I might use the term “regression” to describe the patterns I see in my own life around eclipses. Perhaps you’ve been noticing these patterns, too--like going back in time. It is the unexpected text from an ex, the resurgence of memories that have long been dormant, a dream you have about a fear you thought you’d fully processed. Despite the usual connotations, regression isn’t always a bad thing. When I notice myself repeating an old habit, or returning to a past experience, I find myself doing so with new eyes, and more self-compassion. It’s like having tea with a former lover and thinking to yourself: “I will cherish what we shared for the rest of my life, and I also love knowing that you are not for me.” It feels really good, much nicer than animosity. To bring affection to a spot where there was once pain, this is a kind of “seeing in the dark.”
I think that is the spirit that I like to bring to what sometimes gets referred to as “shadow work”—diving into the bits of ourselves that we’ve abandoned, that we do not integrate into our self-image. Eclipse energy seems to bring these aspects to the fore, and if we can treat them with love, there’s gold to be gained.
I no longer practice overt magic, the wish-granting kind. Not because it doesn’t work, but because it does. And here is my experience of every spell I’ve ever done—I get exactly what I asked for, and then I see that I was wrong to want it.
This is, instead, my way: I strive to love life exactly as it is, and I ask to be a better vessel for what wants to happen. And as I’ve done that, more good pours into my life, much better things than the wishes I dream up for myself.
So this full moon, rather than teaching you how to do banishing spells or house magic or wealth practices—this time I’m inviting you to love what is, to marvel at all of it, even as it falls into shadow. To be with the energy of the eclipse and ask it what it wants of you.
I hope you are exquisitely well. May the shadows on the moon help you gain knowledge of the shadows on your soul, and on Friday, let there be light, again.
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