on the solar eclipse in aquarius and breakthroughs

Thank you for reading Astrology for Writers. These Times are hard and attention spans are low, and I don’t take it for granted that you invite me into your inbox. I hope today’s missive on the eclipse (with writing prompts!) is useful for you.

I also want to flag, for folks feeling extra sensitive to promotion right now, that tomorrow I’m sending a long email about artistic and spiritual community with an invitation into a paid six-month container that I run with my wife Meg Jones Wall of 3am.tarot.

I appreciate your support of my work, and for your gracious understanding that even in These Times, I have to pay my rent. And with that, let’s get into today’s eclipse —

This eclipse — which is also a New Moon and the Chinese Lunar New Year — is potent. The lunation is co-present with an intellectually angsty Mars and is being ruled by a newly-in-Aries, applying-to-a-conjunction-with-Neptune, idealistic-and-impulsive Saturn.

Which is to say: it’s spiky as hell.

The last week has been hard — personally, collectively, astrologically. Add on top of that the profound cabin fever those of us cooped up in the cold winter are experiencing. Last week, New York City was colder than Antarctica. ANTARCTICA! As an extravert who generally needs to leave my house at least once a day to settle the squirrel in my brain, it has been rough. Even my mayor’s trademark warmth cannot melt the mountains of frozen snow that keep piling higher and higher.

I started February strong, actively working on both of my book projects. The gold stars I proudly stuck to my fridge calendar remind me of this — that in the very recent past, there was a stretch of five days where I cranked out thousands of words per day. PER DAY!

But the last few days, that progress has puttered out. Rather like a truck running out of gas just before making it into the Kwik Star, I’m pathetically pushing my brain like it’s in neutral, asking how do I not have the energy or will or focus to write just one more paragraph? My brain, it has shut down, and my nerves, well, they are shot. I fear that I’m more Mrs. Bennett than Elizabeth during eclipse season.

Intellectually, I know that this is the way of my creative process. The ebb and flow. The waxing and waning. Still. I am less mindful, less resilient when I already feel tender, when my spikes are already so very close to the surface. Ideally, the fallout is limited to my own self-recrimination, but sometimes — unflatteringly — I lash out and hurl my spiky self at whoever is closest. The aftermath of such moments, where I am some Frankensteined combination of Mrs. Bennett and my own father, is when I feel least like someone who can or should advise others on the creative process, let alone the spiritual nature of the creative process. It is in such moments, where I am not only unproductive and uninspired but also someone who is an asshole to her wife, where I feel most ashamed and conscious of my flaws —

which is to say, it is when I feel acutely, vulnerably human.

Eclipse season reveals our humanity. This is a time when we are forced to look in the mirror of who we are and how we’re coping. To consider what is and is NOT working. This is a period of heightened tension, of patience running out. It can be frustrating. It can be discouraging. But the thing to remember is that

In the pursuit of breakthrough, eclipse season brings highs and lows. Inspiring beginnings and acute grief. The glory and joy of long-awaited achievement and the shattering disappointment of loss (experiences which are quite literally being broadcast live to all of us via the Winter Olympics). A reckoning with what actually is so that we might better prepare for what’s to come.

Eclipse season does not tolerate illusion — including the illusions we have of ourselves. It has no patience for fantasy that impedes reality, for avoiding the practical next steps of a situation. In this, eclipse season is our ally in addressing not only our own lives but also the world around us: this is The Tower of tarot, of tearing down the old in order to make way for the new.

This Aquarius eclipse is especially focused on community and how we participate in interdependent relationships and structures. This can be with your roommates as easily as it can be your local neighborhood anti-ICE group. As spacious as Aquarius is, this eclipse has no room for doomerism or fear-mongering. Ruled by Saturn, Aquarius as a sign wants to understand the rules so as to more effectively break them — and make new ones. Aquarius knows that small, consistent actions performed by the many lead to big change. Aquarius is the antithesis of the Hero Complex, of white saviorism, of toxic individualism.

(That last one is a self callout, but my guess is that it applies to a few of you, too.)

Breaking points, uncomfortable as they are, ultimately bring breakthroughs. This will be an eclipse season to remember.