inhale, exhale, repeat

Eclipse season—as we enter the nodes of Aries and Libra and exit the nodes of Taurus and Scorpio—has been wild, my friends. I started feeling this one at the start of October in a surge of sensations that were not unfamiliar to me: increasing tension in my body, restless urges to move, difficulty concentrating and remembering, headaches, widespread body aches and pain, irritability, impatience, and reactivity that flashed by just as quickly as it appeared, and more.

If you’re interested in tracking how your experiences might have been aligning with the energy of the eclipse, here’s the breakdown of the dates, starting from the day after the last full moon that wasn’t conjunct the nodes and ending the day before the first new moon that wasn’t conjunct the nodes.

Eclipse Season Fall 2023:

First Feelings: September 30, 2023 – October 6, 2023
Ramping Up: October 7, 2023 – October 13, 2023
Climax: October 14, 2023 – October 28, 2023 (with the solar and lunar eclipses as endpoints)
Denouement: October 29, 2023 – November 4, 2023
Letting Go: November 5, 2023 – November 12, 2023

So that’s all to say that I hope you have been tending to your nervous systems the best you can—while we collectively experience and witness so many feelings of pain, grief, terror, anger, powerlessness—amidst so much reactivity, violence, abuse of power, and dehumanization. Sometimes, we can move through these collective feelings by taking action on what is within our control. And then there is a point where we are at the limits of our individual influence and sit with the discomfort—as demonstrating care for others doesn’t mean abandoning yourself. I know for me it is difficult to disengage from others suffering, and then also I must rest.

One way I’ve been trying to integrate all of these feelings is through the Tonglen practice of “taking and sending.” With the inhale, taking in the suffering of others, and with the exhale, sending them wishes and hope for their benefit. As I take in news from the Palestinian people about the tremendous loss, grief, fear, and powerlessness they are enduring at the hands of the Israeli government, I send them freedom and flourishing, rest and space for grief, and hope for a not-too-distant future that is unencumbered by oppressive powers and genocide. Then I do what can, fairly imperfectly, with deep care.

Today’s partial lunar eclipse and full moon arrives at 4:15pm ET, exalted at 5 degrees of Taurus and by its conjunction to Jupiter. So seriously, tend to your bodies and feelings. Be with them. Jupiter expands and grows what it touches, and that might mean indulging in the senses, or it might mean a heightened sensitivity to what you’re taking in. These tender parts are in opposition to a Mars Mercury conjunction—which can indicate reactivity, heated discussions, a difficulty separating one’s thoughts or perceptions from one’s actions—in Scorpio—bringing about hard truths, deep investigations, and transformative acts of witness.

Eclipse season is a time of portals—walking out of one portal and into the next, leaving behind lessons, patterns, attitudes, experiences, and making room for what we might grow in their place. I think of the phoenix, who dies in a sudden burst of flame, and is reborn again. With this lunar eclipse, we are finishing up our journey through Taurus and Scorpio that started two years ago, with the partial lunar eclipse in Taurus on November 19, 2021. Since then, we’ve been integrating the shifts happening in the Taurus and Scorpio parts of our charts.

One way about thinking about these lessons of opposition is through the breath—an inhale, an exhale. One can’t exist without the other. With Taurus, we are taking in the resources and values that sustain us and with Scorpio, we are releasing the pain of past patterns. So with the completion of this cycle, may these eclipses deepen your connection to your values. May you tend to your body—drink water, stretch, rest, meditate, move—in ways that energize you. May you notice your reactions to powerlessness and use that as a reminder of what is always within your control. And may all of these lessons uplift you in your endeavors.

As you think about the past two years, look for your rising sign below and consider the following questions:

Scorpio: What shifts have you noticed in the way you operate in your committed relationships (romantic, platonic, occupational, etc)? What realizations about your sense of self have deepened the way you show up for others 1:1? You might think of any difficult conversations or truths that have come up around your identity and what you have learned.

Sagittarius: What shifts have you noticed in the way you approach your routines, daily work, and service to others? What realizations about the ways in which you can be your own worst enemy have deepened the way you tend to your health and day-to-day life? You might think of any difficult conversations or truths that have come up around your relationship to solitude and what you have learned.

Capricorn: What shifts have you noticed surrounding your creative projects, children, and/or romances? What realizations about your communities, networks, and long-term visions have deepened your sense of joy and creative energy? You might think of any difficult conversations or truths that have come up around your communities or shared visions and what you have learned.

Aquarius: What shifts have you noticed in your family life or home? What realizations about your public roles or external achievements have deepened your sense of what grounds you emotionally and feels like home? You might think of any difficult conversations or truths that have come up in your career and what you have learned.

Pisces: What shifts have you noticed in daily messages, conversations, writing, or relationships with neighbors and friends? What realizations about your education, beliefs, and/or faith have deepened the way you download information on the daily? You might think of any difficult conversations or truths that have come up around your beliefs and what you have learned.

Aries: What shifts have you noticed with regard to your relationship to your self-worth, money, or possessions? What realizations about the ways you have made exchanges or experienced intimacy with others have deepened your values and sense of self-worth? You might think of any difficult conversations or truths that have come up around intimacy and what you have learned.

Taurus: What shifts have you noticed with regard to your identity and personality? What realizations about the way you show up in 1:1 relationships have deepened your sense of self? You might think of any difficult conversations or truths about your committed partnerships that have come up and what you have learned.

Gemini: What shifts have you noticed in your relationship to solitude? What realizations about your health, daily work, and service to others have deepened your understanding of your own undoing? You might think of any difficult conversations or truths about your capacity for resilience that have come up and what you have learned.

Cancer: What shifts have you noticed in your communities and networks? What realizations about your creative energy have deepened your sense of belonging with the collective? You might think of any difficult conversations or truths about your creative projects or your capacity for joy that have come up and what you have learned.

Leo: What shifts have you noticed in your career and public roles? What realizations about your roots and family have deepened your sense of how you wish to show up in the world? You might think of any difficult conversations or truths about your family or what grounds you emotionally that have come up and what you have learned.

Virgo: What shifts have you noticed in your beliefs and faith? What realizations about your mindset, thought patterns, and daily communications have deepened your sense of your educational or spiritual pursuits? You might think of any difficult truths about your thought patterns or perspective that have come up and what you have learned.

Libra: What shifts have you noticed in your exchanges with others? What realizations about your self-worth have deepened your sense of intimacy with others? You might think of any difficult truths about your self-worth that have come up and what you have learned.

Here the Birds’ Journey Ends

Here the birds’ journey ends, our journey, the journey of words,
and after us there will be a horizon for the new birds.
We are the ones who forge the sky’s copper, the sky that will carve roads
after us and make amends with our names above the distant cloud slopes.
Soon we will descend the widow’s descent in the memory fields
and raise our tent to the final winds: blow, for the poem to live, and blow
on the poem’s road. After us, the plants will grow and grow
over roads only we have walked and our obstinate steps inaugurated.
And we will etch on the final rocks, “Long live life, long live life,”
and fall into ourselves. And after us there’ll be a horizon for the new birds.

Mahmoud Darwish, 2008