We are fully in Eclipse Season, a time before, during, and after eclipses when time itself becomes malleable. Overnight Thursday, we move into a Full Moon and total lunar eclipse.
This Blood Moon will be visible across North and South America, parts of western Europe, Africa, and the Pacific.
In North America, the eclipse begins late Thursday night and continues into the early hours of Friday. In western Europe, the Blood Moon will be setting in the west. In New Zealand, the fully eclipsed moon will rise in the east just after sunset.
The most dramatic phase, when the moon glows deep shades of red, copper, or orange, begins at 06:26 UTC (2:26 a.m. EDT, 11:26 p.m. Thursday PDT).
The Full Moon is exact at the height of the Blood Moon, when the Sun and Moon will be at 23º56’ Pisces and Virgo. The North Node in Pisces and South Node in Virgo will be at 27º23’—only 3º from the luminaries.
This closeness is what creates a total eclipse. The farther the Sun and Moon are from the Nodes, the more partial the eclipse. For this year’s eclipses, the Full Moons will be total, and the New Moons partial.
At the end of Virgo, the last of the Earth signs, we reach the end of material existence. This is a fragile, transitional place, where we confront the limits of our physical selves.
There’s also a sense of completion that comes with this ending. The Tarot card associated with the last decan of Virgo is the 10 of Pentacles, with its sense of achievement and comfort that can come at the end of a long life.
Here we consider legacies. What have we created? What will we leave behind?
Yet endings imply transitions. What happens next?
Let’s return to the labyrinth. At the Gibbous Moon, we found Ariadne helping Theseus survive the Minotaur in the Cretan labyrinth by giving him a thread, a way to traverse an unknown and dangerous path.
Theseus succeeds but abandons Ariadne, leaving her alone on an island as he sails into the rest of his life. We’ll name Theseus, then, a failed hero who did not keep his word nor fully integrate his experiences. The rest of his life is filled with challenges.
We will abandon him and return to Ariadne, who, it turns out, is far more than a princess.
Ariadne, whose name means Most Holy One, was in truth a priestess or goddess in the Minoan tradition that predated Mycenaean Greek culture. She was associated with the labyrinth, which was not a place of punishment, danger, and confusion, but rather a place of transformation, specifically, the transition between life and death.
“In Crete, the principle divinity was the Goddess. She stands with the double ax in each hand. The ax of sacrifice is called the labrys, after which the labyrinth itself is named. The labrys is the prime symbol of Crete, a double-headed ax with a lunar curve—you can’t have something new unless something old is going to die. … Death and birth belong together.”
—p 43, Joseph Campbell, Goddess: Mysteries of the Divine Feminine
Ariadne as a goddess of Minoan Crete would have presided over the labyrinth as she herself was the gateway between life and death.
At the end of Virgo, we find the Moon and the South Node of the Moon. And this is a South Node eclipse, which means we’re here in this time-outside-time to let something go. Ariadne, holding the double ax with its lunar curves, will guide us.
Opposite the Moon and South Node in Virgo, we find the Sun conjunct Saturn and the North Node conjunct Neptune in Pisces. This is a mysterious mix, confusing and foggy.
At the end of Pisces, we find mad quests for dissolution. Are we seeking to connect with All-That-Is, or simply looking for oblivion? Both are available.
The Tarot card associated with the third decan of Pisces is the 10 of Cups, the rainbow card. Here we see a happy family gazing at a rainbow filling the sky–a lovely ending, a storybook ending, we might say, and that is the point.
Rainbows are lovely, but they don’t last. Where the 10 of Pentacles represents material achievement, the 10 of Cups brings more emotional satisfaction, or perhaps emotional closure might be a better phrase.
Can we enjoy life, even as we know things won’t stay the same forever?
Uranus in Taurus trines the Moon and South Node, while sextiling the Sun, Saturn, North Node, and Neptune. The Promethean planet reminds us we are indeed in a time of change, one of the hallmarks of any eclipse.
At the end of Taurus, we confront the limits of time. Saturn rules this decan, the planet of hard work and boundaries. The Tarot card associated with this decan is the 7 of Pentacles, in which we see a man in his vineyard, pausing a moment between tasks.
Yet in that moment, anything can happen. Anything can change. No matter what, our role is to carry on with our appointed tasks.
Let’s check in with Ariadne, abandoned on the island of Naxos.
I hope you weren’t picturing some tiny pile of craggy rocks, because Naxos is actually something much lovelier, a green and fertile place producing olives, citrus, figs, and some of the best wine in Greece.
This is the island of Dionysus, who, stories tell us, rescued Ariadne, fell in love with her, married her, and made her immortal. (Now, since she was actually a goddess of ancient Crete in the first place, she didn’t need more immortality, but we know how these stories go.)
Naxos was one of the major centers of Dionysus’ worship. Some myths claim Dionysus was raised there, or that his sacred rites began there. Ariadne was included and celebrated in some of the Dionysian rituals.
There were two styles of ecstatic rites in which Dionysus was celebrated. We’re perhaps most familiar with women-only wild and ecstatic dances that took place outside the city, in the wild forests, but there were also other rites, likewise ecstatic, that included men and women, held within the city walls.
These latter rites were associated with Orpheus and Orphic hymns and practices, which focused on the transition from death within the field of time into a different kind of life of the soul.
So we have, with the Sun and Moon, with the Nodes of the Moon, like the labyrinth, come full circle. We began with an ancient Minoan goddess associated with the labrys, the labyrinth, and the transition from mortal life into something beyond.
We find ourselves with a wild and ecstatic god of Mycenaean Greece who marries the later avatar of the Minoan goddess, both of whom are celebrated in rites designed to support the transition from a mortal to a soul-based life.
All of which seems entirely fitting for a Full Moon eclipse that falls across the last decan of Virgo, with its endings of material things, and the last decan of Pisces, with its ecstasy and wild quests.
How do we fit into this cycle?
Eclipses are always meaningful in the world at large. There are many histories of famous people, cities, nations, events, associated with eclipses.
Eclipses can also mark vital transitions in our own lives, but as with any transit, their impact reflects how they interact with our birth charts.
Whatever our birth charts hold, we can choose to enter the labyrinth and explore what we find.
Eclipses are good for this kind of exploration, offering oracles and prophecies. Whatever we find, we ought to hold lightly, remembering we’ve entered into an eclipse field that continues through the next New Moon and for some months after that.
If something ends, or begins, with this Full Moon, take note. A beginning may be something marvelous and wonderful. An ending may be necessary, creating space for the marvel and wonder to come.
It’s not the best time for planning, though, or trying to make things happen.
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If this Eclipse Full Moon aspects your chart in important ways, consider which of your planets and points are involved. Which parts of your life are in the process of change already?
Here we can pay special attention to what shows up during this eclipse time. Perhaps you know what you’re ready to change or outcomes you’d like to see. Here, too, stay open and notice, rather than trying to force anything.
Keep in mind that Piscean energies are really strong at this time. If you plan to celebrate, imbibe, get a little ecstatic, remember we are all likely to be more sensitive to substances and influences. It’s a time for deep experience without, hopefully, getting lost.
Saturn’s presence with the Sun may help keep things in line and organized, but he’s not the strongest player here, and his influence will be less than usual.
Saturn’s role is likely to be more clearly reflected in the recognition that we are, all of us, in a transitional space. Astrologically, we’re crossing a whole series of boundaries in 2025, right along with Saturn. These astrological transitions reflect big changes happening here on Earth, which are already underway.
I’ll acknowledge another layer by mentioning Venus and Mercury, both in early Aries.
Venus has begun her descent journey, which is her retrograde movement. Mercury is moving to join her, and will station retrograde March 15. Venus led the way, but Mercury, being faster, will pass her by, completing their retrograde first.
These two are traversing the same space at the end of Pisces and beginning of Aries, another liminal space that marks a significant transition–the ending of one cycle of the zodiac and rebirth into a new cycle.
I’m not sure the cosmos could be more clear about where we are. The amount and the speed of change right now is staggering, to be honest. If the only thing this Full Moon eclipse wanted to tell us is that “Change Is Here,” I think we got that already.
If instead we dive into the mythic dimensions of this Full Moon, we immediately go beyond the mere fact of change to enter into something numinous and celebratory, which is, that change, being constant, being inescapable, can become something mysterious and sacred and filled with marvels.
Filled with challenges, too, and dangers. Yet somehow, in essence, marvelous.
May we all enter the labyrinth at this Full Moon and celebrate the wonders we find there.
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