The partial Solar Eclipse in Libra can be seen with a ring of fire emerging from behind it, reminding us illumination follows the dark as we take a step into the new with one foot still in the past
It’s here – the final eclipse in Libra until 2033. We are closing out the eclipse story of the past year and a half, which will officially end with our final eclipse on the Libra-Aries axis in March with an Aries solar eclipse. This is our final round with Libra, though, and as such it's unsurprising that this Venus ruled eclipse is all about relationships.
Libra-Aries Eclipse Series: April 21st, 2023 - March 29th, 2025
As a collective and individuals we have been working with the Libra-Aries axis since April 21st, 2023 where the focus has been on our relationships and our relationship patterns, particularly the dynamic we have around our personal power and our relationships. For many of us, there is tension there and we find ourselves, as we have been conditioned to do, sacrificing our needs for the greater harmony of our relationships. If so, hopefully, you have benefited from the medicine of these eclipses and have found balance, empowerment through boundaries and strength to live your truth, turning the scales of justice back into your favor after many karmic lessons around self-abandonment and victimhood. Perhaps, too, you have found yourself on the other end of this and have realized over the past 18 months that there is growth to be found in prioritizing the well-being of others and compromising for the sake of the relationship. Aries and Libra will always exist as opposites, meaning there will always be a dichotomy between our personal power and will (Aries) and harmony within our relationships and the needs of others (Libra). As always, we need to remember that opposites in astrology, though two separate and distinct expressions of an energy, are connected by a common core and exist in a singular, moving axis that strives for balance. One is not better than the other but one will always become an issue if it is unbalanced from the other. Our work is in the movement of balance, of allowing ourselves to shift and travel these poles as is necessary and appropriate for each moment. Balance is a dance that we enact, not a motionless state of being in the center. These themes will never leave us, as we must always traverse the dynamic between ourselves and others, but this eclipse series has given us, hopefully, an updated foundation to work from. This was a major time of karmic clearing and endings, as Libra is the ruler of karmic justice as well as justice within this life. As such, many of the lessons we have learned took the form of symbolic experiences, connecting us to older versions of ourselves through new experiences. We may have been able to leave those versions of ourselves behind, or finally acknowledge that they are no longer with us and that the mind and the mental script we’ve been running with needs updating to reflect who we actually have come to be.
Relationship Transformation Over the Past 18 Months
Many of our relationships have changed over this time, and we have probably seen ample endings as well as new connections or the deepening of connections that have already been in our lives. Ultimately, while this has played out within the context of relationships – and what I mean by that is that this has played out through the reflection of the Other – this has really always been about our relationship with ourselves. In classic Libra fashion, anyone who is not us is a mirror reflecting back ourselves and our own relationship with ourselves. Looking into that mirror and allowing yourself to see your reflection, your shadow and gifts, is where the healing begins. If you have prominent Aries or Libra in your chart, you probably have been enrolled in a spiritual lesson plan and surely, you’ve grown from this experience. Still, it might be a relief to know that this particular lesson plan is coming to a close. Personally, as someone with their Mars in Libra opposite their Saturn in Aries, I am ready to move on from relationship work – haha, wrong plane of existence for that. (It is going to be less of a focus though so we have a lot to look forward to!)
New Moon Libra Solar Eclipse – Astrological Breakdown and Meaning
This eclipse in Libra is Venus ruled with Venus in Scorpio a part of a Grand Water trine, so the emphasis on love, fulfillment, creativity and our relationships is major. Mercury is in close conjunction with the Moon as well, putting pressure and focus on our communication. This is showing us that part of the way we move into greater harmony and love in our relationships comes from the way in which we communicate and how it is that we are allowing our mind to either support our deeper desires or where we are coming into restrictive territory with what the mind will allow us to be or do. If there are narratives holding you back from true love or fulfillment now is a good time to get clarity on what exactly is holding you back and how to let go of it. We may also find that if there are conversations that need to take place but we have yet to initiate, they may naturally come up and it's important to not shy away from the truth of how you feel and what you need to say. We might be setting some hard boundaries, or we might be slowly distancing ourselves from those that have shown us they aren’t able to support our growth at this time and this is all bringing us into a fuller expression of self.
Venus in Scorpio: Inanna’s Mythological Descent
Venus in Scorpio is in her detriment, meaning she has a hard time being herself in this sign. However, this is a potent combination as it reflects the descent of Inanna (Venus) into the Underworld and her intense, graphic, gory and profoundly transformative journey there that resulted in the existence of the seasons. (This is the original Kore/Persephone myth from Sumerian mythology.) Inanna, the original love goddess and Venus archetype, is the goddess of love and battle. Her mythologies are not for the faint of heart, as is the true nature of love. Love is many things, and in the sign of Scorpio she dons her weaponry and fights for herself and those she loves. She reaches into the most hidden and darkest aspect of life itself (Death) and she courageously transforms herself through the encounter of that which is brutal, painful and morose. Here she is in her warrior form and as such she is ready to go to war to defend the qualities of love, harmony and connection, all that Venus is. These things do not just get handed to us, they are hard won. They are forged through flame and fire. They require us to look deep within ourselves and the other, to sort through the muck and the slime, the fear and the torturous within and get to work transforming it. Venus in Scorpio is iconic, she is bold and she is unapologetic about who she is, who she loves, and what she wants. She will fight with a bordering-on-primal fierceness for those she loves, and that includes herself. Her main motivation is truth and she knows that the truth is rarely easy to witness. Her ability to withstand that discomfort is the root of her power and it is part of what she is here to teach us.
Grand Water Trine – Neptune in Pisces, Mars in Cancer, Venus in Scorpio
Luckily, she is making a very harmonious Grand Water trine with Neptune in Pisces and Mars in Cancer. This is opening the pathways here so that there isn't too much resistance or battling that needs to be done, though courage and determination is certainly being asked of us. Her intense nature in the sign of Scorpio is being given to us as a probing intellect, a magnifier and revealer of the truth. The traditional ruler of Scorpio is Mars, and if you are familiar with Greek mythology, you might remember that Venus and Mars are lovers – star-crossed ones who are soul bonded to each other. The coming together of the two (Venus and Scorpio) reunites the lovers and brings them together for a purpose. This is reflected, additionally, in the trine Venus is making to the planet Mars, who is also in his detriment in the sign of Cancer. Maybe this is why the lovers need each other now, they are both feeling unlike themselves and are struggling to express their natural strengths and gifts. They are journeying outside of themselves into uncomfortable territory which reflects our journey through this eclipse of leaving the old, familiar self behind for a new experience of self-expression so that we may grow. They have actually switched their clothing, if you will, with Mars taking on the softer, emotional nature of Cancer (lunar ruled and the Guardian or Mother of the zodiac) while Venus sits in Mars-ruled Scorpio ready for battle. Mars too, is ready to react as Cancer is highly protective, just like Scorpio, of their loved ones. However, Cancer is way more prone to self-abandonment for the sake of another than Scorpio so we can find great strength and balance between these energies right now as they lean on one another.
Neptune is close to the North Node in Aries in a 8 degree conjunction though in separate signs as it is still hanging out in the final degrees of Pisces. This can bring possibly some confusion or fog, but in the matters of creativity and spirituality this is bestowing magic and intuition upon us. Creative projects are being given a blessing and we may even be shown a further path forward for our personal spiritual journeys.
Revising the Past – Growing into New Pathways
We are doing a lot of revisiting the past right now, as this eclipse is a south node eclipse which means we are meant to be letting go of the past through a return to it. Pluto is back in Capricorn so this is coinciding with a much larger cycle of release, culmination and returning to things that we thought we had healed or gotten rid of that it turns out, need to be shown the door once more. The next month and a half until Pluto switches signs is a final ending and the things that are returning are meant to leave your life for good, but they need you to choose of your own free will to move on from them. This cycle goes back all the way to 2008 so expect those themes to re-emerge, but as I said, this is not a bad thing at all or something to fear. Mostly, it's just inevitable because this is the process of growth. There is no need to collapse into self-doubt or old narratives and beliefs. The old patterns will invite you to return to them, but even they hope you don’t say yes. This is coming up so that you can close it out and cement into the newer pathways you have been establishing. Growth is a slow, arduous thing and we can never just have this one breakthrough moment where we change and stay that way. Growth is a day-to-day experience of making new choices and continuing to choose them. Every single invitation into the old is growth knocking on your door and saying, this is the moment to put theory into action. Use the skills that you have recently picked up so that they can integrate into your psyche. This is how we take what we have learned inside of us and give it a home within our being – the true experience of growth.
Ring of Fire Eclipse
Eclipse season in general is meant to help us surrender control and embrace a more spiritual way of moving through the world with trust. This is a time where Spirit takes the wheel and things are quite literally out of our control, but things are powerfully lined up and decided for us by a higher power. When this happens, there is usually chaos and confusion on our end. When Spirit takes the wheel we are dealing with an energy that is very un-human, making the experience triggering for our human mind. Often, the mind just can’t go there, which is beautiful actually because that limitation pushes us into the energetic nature of the forces around us and we get to experience things from a higher spiritual perspective with our intuition as a guide, not our mind. As human beings, we generally want to have control and we desperately want to be able to predict where things are going. (That is, in its simplistic essence, the main function of the mind.) Eclipse season is a time where that ability to predict gets obscured, yet we can look at the ring of fire emerging from behind the moon (as will be visible with this eclipse) as our hope that the dust will clear, the light will shine down on us once more and clarity will return. Temporary moments of darkness (and by that I mean the Unknown) are essential, unavoidable and profoundly illuminating as we journey. That is why they are hard-wired, literally scheduled into the fabric of our seasons each year. Many of us go through our own periods of darkness, of moving through the liminal (Moon card cycles), outside of just the eclipse season, but if that is not something that has come up for you in a while, the eclipse season might invite you into that initiation. With eclipses, we learn that order comes after a period of disorder, that chaos precedes the process of creation and that more often than not, to get to where we want to go we must experience certain periods of that journey without the knowledge of where it is we're even going or understanding of the path that we are on. I heard someone say, you know you’re on the path when the path disappears. I stopped in my tracks when I heard it. Now when the mind invites me into a doubt spiral about where this is all going I remember that must simply not be information that I need at this time. Learning to trust in the periods of the Unknown opens us up to the ability to live in true co-creation with our Universe.
Recap
All in all, this solar eclipse in Libra is about release, as we are truly shifting from one cycle’s ending into another's beginning as we prepare for the changing of the nodes into Pisces-Virgo. We are a bit in no man's land, so embracing the liminal is going to bring us the farthest and get us there (wherever that is – we aren’t meant to really know yet) with as much ease as possible. As the sun is our personality, our identity may feel hidden, or obscured, but this is in itself liberating, for when we realize the self goes on even when the identity falters we discover that we are not our identities at all, but the awareness of ourselves. This frees us to grow, for we cannot become that which we aren’t yet if we are still holding on to that which we are.
It will likely be obvious which relationships are asking for growth, communication and commitment and which are ready to be released all together or re-organized with boundaries. We are wrapping up the major relational themes that we have been working with for the past 18 months so expect a return of those issues but in a way that can bring closure and, ultimately, finality.
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