The full Moon lunar eclipse takes place in Virgo at 12 degrees and 53 minutes of the sign on 3 March 2026 at 11:37am UTC.

We are in eclipse season. That weird couple of weeks where time simultaneously speeds up and slows right down. Lots seems to happen and those days are packed with those things that we look back upon as pivotal though at the time seem like just another thing to deal with.

My own eclipse story so far is multitudinous, how is it possible for so many things to happen consecutively in such a short space of time (2-3 weeks!). These events seem to be big, small, and out of the ordinary. Time has slipped and dragged and flown by. The days feeling boundless and running into one another. Details getting lost and words stumbled over. Theirs is an edgy feeling threaded through the sludge.

I have been told the building where my art studio is no longer a viable space (we’re no longer insured to use it for various reasons). We will move to another but the timing is not clear. There is stuff going on in my partners life around long distance travel which now may or may not happen with the closure of air space in the Middle East. There is a litany of other things revolving around work and family and friends. We hosted another BYOB event at Flax Coffee and we’re hoping to host another during the summer.

With Mercury very now retrograde in my first house this writing will be less focussed on the technical aspects of the eclipse and more so of the experience. I write that and I will now immediately tell you that Mercury is technically very debilitated in Pisces and also retrograde. Mercury rules this Virgo lunar eclipse. Plans, details, communications, travel will all go awry and more so during this time. Mercury does not do well with the detail in this place. A Piscean Mercury might be better suited to the poetic or lyrical realm of music and art making. So do that! The world needs more of it. Especially now. I have started singing in the kitchen again during this retrograde noticing how tight my lungs are and encouraging them to open out. Not sure how my neighbours in South Belfast are doing with the many renditions of the Rocky Road to Dublin but there we are.

This first part of the Mercury retrograde with this eclipse has the sweetness of Venus present but now that Mars has entered the picture (Pisces) it’s a little sharper.  Mars is getting doused after his square with Uranus the last one before Uranus enters Gemini at the end of April. We have seen what the Mars square Uranus aspect is about with the US and Israel’s most recent unsanctioned bombing of Iran. On a personal level Mars brings some soggy energy to the Pisces part of our charts which is now busy with the Sun, retrograde Mercury, exalted Venus and himself hanging out there. Maybe the poetic lyrical making would include cutting and slicing and sticking things back together in another order. Perhaps that is the intention of what is happening on the world stage right now – old borders dissolve while new ones are drawn. Imperialism doing what it does.

The Moon, she being in Virgo, full and lush and a few degrees from the south node. The south node being a place of release. A good time to rest and clear out a drawer if the urge takes you. Virgo could be seen as a sign of service. How do we serve others through the Virgo parts of our charts? Are there habitual patterns here to be released? Virgo associated with health and the body. Are there healthier habits to cultivate in the wake of the loss of the less supportive patterns? To release is to make space for something new. In order to accept the loss it must be processed, be grieved.

I can’t help but read back over the Partial Solar eclipse in Virgo from last September. It strikes me that Venus is part of the beginning of the journey being in her fall or being Venusian in a less ‘normative’ way. Venus exalted is extra sweet right now with the closure of this lunation cycle 6 months later. What did you sacrifice on the alter of Venus 6 months ago is repaying you handsomely. She has fattened this Moon! Can we enjoy her fruits now? Now we are on the threshold of the lighter part of the year. The evening is stretching and the light is growing. Enjoy the sweetness of the support she offers while in her final days of exaltation in Pisces.

This time is hitting me and many of us hard. It’s difficult to know what to write or even if to write, with more violence unfolding in already heavily disputed parts of the world. The order of the world is being rearranged. The flagrant lack of value of human lives and the life of our planet is daily on display in our 24 hour news cycle. How in this time of reality dissolution, heavy clouds and deep despair do we maintain our links to what is good and connective in people and the world we inhabit.