Deep into eclipse season and this new moon solar eclipse takes place at 29 degrees 05 minutes of Virgo happening on Sunday, 21^st  September 20:54 UTC.

Déan maithiúnas orm / Make forgiveness on me

Bound up in this partial solar eclipse is the need for forgiveness and the sacrifice inherent in that act. The etymology of the word forgive comes from an old English word forgiefan meaning to give. It also comes from the Latin word perdonare meaning to give completely or give away. In Irish when asking for forgiveness we ask the other to make forgiveness on me – déan maithiúnas orm. I love the feeling of active participation of both the person making forgiveness and the other receiving it on them with humility. The focus being that the person making is really doing the hard work of sacrificing and releasing their need for reprisal.

Cónocht an Fhómhair / Autumn Equinox

This partial solar eclipse of the sun is taking place a day before the Autumn equinox marking the entrance into the part of the year where the dark grows and light wanes. A necessary clearing out or removal before we shift into the quality of growing shadows. We might not always notice it but our bodies feel the decline in the light beginning to slow in line with the growth of the dark. We take note as night draws in earlier.

The Sun and Moon are at the anaretic degree of Virgo. A point of culmination, a critical moment, the determination of what must happen next. In the case of eclipses we do not always have a choice about what does happen next. Both luminaries are co-present with the south node a point of emptying out and release. The south node may trigger us to release something we are not quite ready to. We may need to remember that there is liberation in forgiveness. Forgiveness of others and the self to be free of carrying the weight of anger and resentment. Once the luminaries move into Libra there is a focus on the balancing of the scales. The act of forgiveness is bound up in this eclipse story.

Sitting opposite the luminaries is Saturn. Saturn has just recently returned to Pisces a little worse for wear after the frenetic pace of Aries. A grounded-ness has returned to the Pisces part of our chart. Whatever Saturn is revisiting in the Pisces part of our lives is inextricably linked into this partial solar eclipse. There could be boundaries that we have loosened that need to be reinstated or a structure is being revisited reviewed and removed entirely. Saturn is serious and in Pisces it may feel like a defined form a pulling together of disparate emotions and feelings. A clarification.

The Sacrifice/ An Íobairt

Mercury changes sign a few days before the partial solar eclipse entering Libra on 18 September. Mercury is steps ahead of the Moon and Venus and is now in the Temple of Venus. There is mutual reception here between Mercury and Venus which means there is a connection between the two each being in the other’s home. Artistry is afoot, that may or may not be obvious as the light of the sun is being obscured. Mercury Venus combinations are poetic and musical. Words tumble with honey and even if the content is not sweet the sound is delectable.  

Venus enters Virgo a day after Mercury enters Libra. Venus is close to the Moon as they both enter the temple of Mercury together. She has already been through a journey in Leo and her testimony from the outer planets. She has picked up sunshine and has now entered Virgo her place of fall, farthest from her place of exaltation. The temple of Mercury is uncomfortable for her, specific, critical, analysing. Mercury sees her from her own temple and so there is more reassurance for Venus than might be usual.  Regardless there may be a sense of Venus coming back to earth from the buoyancy of the solar temple of Leo with a bump.

Venus enters Virgo with the Moon now eclipsing part of the sun. Is there something we are sacrificing to Venus during this eclipse period? It may be a love or a pleasure to be sacrificed in this time of deep attention to the little details of life. This sacrifice may be electrifying or much more liberating than we first thought. Venus being co-present with the South Node is being squared by Uranus in Gemini. Uranus calls Venus to remember her testimony to the outer planets when she was in Leo. This may also be an electrifying change in the Venusian. Our usual tastes are being sacrificed to Venus to take us down a road less travelled. There is liberation to be found in sacrifice. To give up the need for retribution and reprisal, and to be free.

So much of astrology speaks to the consistent cycle of endings and beginnings. In the darkness of the endings the new growth of beginnings breaks through the seed. This eclipse chart is full of this symbology. The eclipse at the anaretic degree of Virgo is culmination. The Moon eclipsing the light of the Sun a removal. Luminaries co-present with the South Node an emptying out. The Sun in Virgo heralding the season of harvest and preparation for the dark half of the year. The fast moving planets all in Virgo and Libra the signs of the turning from light to dark opposing Saturn & Neptune in Pisces and Aries returning from dark to light.

Sean Taibhsí / Old Ghosts

It may seem trite to tattle on about endings and beginnings. This is the constant motion of life as reflected by the cosmos. It may speak to the ending of the material age we are in and the birthing of the new age of ideas and ideologies we are in the midst of entering. Forgiveness and sacrifice are both bound up in change. To release the old, forgiving ourselves and others in the part we played in it and moving forwards with the new. Its not often that clean or clarified. The often old walks with us into the new for some time until we can ultimately release it. This time now may be a release of the old ghosts that have walked with us for some years to allow us each fully embrace this rapid pace of change.