The New Moon Solar Eclipse in Gemini hits in the wee hours of the morning here in the Pacific time zone, 3:52am PDT to be exact. This is one of – if not the most – tumultuous moments of the year. This eclipse is wildly powerful and intense, and part of why that is comes from the Saturn and Uranus Square that will hit their second meetup in just two days. Additionally, Mercury is retrograde and is in fact participating directly with this New Moon, so that’s a pretty bumpy energy too. Mercury is holding a Square to Neptune this whole retrograde cycle, and that’s profoundly cloudy and confusing from the neck up. If that weren’t enough, Mars is about to move into Leo and the planet of action and anger will trigger that Saturn/Uranus Square, so there is a tremendous crescendo built into this New Moon. In most eclipse seasons, it is the lunation itself that is the peak of energy that immediately begins to wane as it passes. Such will not be the case this month, and the eclipse is more like the overture to an amplified and chaotic symphony that will play out over the next few weeks.
We set intentions at this New Moon that connect with the ideas we have about our lives, and tapping into creating a mental equivalent of the life we wish to manifest. If we do not have such an inner vision, we cannot manifest powerfully. In Gemini, we are completely supported in the world of the ideas and thoughts we have about what we desire, and this is the first step in any process of creation. First comes the idea, and that idea is a thought in Mind. Then we must fertilize those ideas with water and fertilizer, and that is where our feelings come into the picture; we must be able to feel what it might be like to have the thing we desire in order to attract it. But it all starts with the ideas, and this is a perfect New Moon – with the transformative power of the eclipse built into it – to align our directions toward something new.
One note about setting intentions during eclipses that you may be seeing out there in social media land. In classical astrology, eclipses would not be favored for setting intentions as the energy is thought to be too chaotic and unstable. Going back even further in ancient astrology, eclipses were thought to be portents of doom and bad omens. You can see that the thread of this idea of not setting intentions in eclipses can be traced back to superstitions and fear-based constructs. In the last century, we have exploded into expansion, and once we discovered things like chaos theory, DNA, and moved our awareness into outer space, we crossed a threshold out of superstition and into a more scientific approach to our spiritual connection, and how we create our world with our thoughts and our ideas about the world. I certainly set intentions in every eclipse New Moon, and I encourage you all to do the same.
Mercury is not only retrograde, but he is also at the exact midpoint of his journey, what is known as the Inferior Conjunction of Mercury and the Sun. This is the “aha” moment of Mercury’s backward journey, where he delivers to the Sun (conscious awareness) material from the unconscious that he has been digging into in his backward trek. We often get important information and guidance in this moment, and so I invite you to consider every bit of data that comes your way over these few days as potentially significant. Mercury is a trickster, and sometimes his powerful messages come in the form of synchronicities, and a bit of happenstance. Pay attention to everything during this time because you never know where the important message is going to come from.
The side bar energy of this eclipse moment is particularly potent and potentially overwhelming, as I know most of you are feeling based on my emails and DMs of the past week, not to mention my own personal experience. Venus and Jupiter are in a water Trine, and so the feeling mechanism is operating at full tilt. Mars in Cancer is Opposing Pluto, and so we are easily connecting to our passions, while goals and ambitions that are emotionally important to us (Mars in Cancer) can use the transformative power of Pluto to nurture the seeds we are planting at this time. Hold an idea in your mind, add to it the water and fertilizing of your felt experience of that possibility coming to fruition, and you have the perfect recipe for powerful manifestation. That said, both of these transits have a shadow artifact of wild amounts of sensitivity, darker qualities of consciousness like power and authority struggles, and of course, emotional overwhelm.
Getting quiet enough to hear the still small voice of your most privately held desires may be more difficult during this particular eclipse, but this, of course, is crucial to do. Your pen and paper is your most powerful tool during a Gemini New Moon. You may want to approach your intention setting ritual with a bit of a download word dump first. Let your pen (or hands on the keyboard) just write and write and write, exhausting all of the chaotic detritus of overthinking and distracting ideas, till you find the clarity needed in the moment. Then allow the simplest declaration of what you would like for your life to rise up. Gemini energy might inspire you think about every little think you want to create, but the chaos of the moment would be better suited for something more principled, like a simple credo by which to inhabit your life.
Years ago, I came across a quote from Indian Saint, Rabindranath Tagore. “I slept and dreamed that life is joy. I woke and found that life is service. I served, and discovered that service is joy.” I know that as I devote my life in service to humanity – and with every inch of my life I inhabit this – I am rewarded with tremendous abundance, unbridled joy, and magnificent companionship along the way. This is my credo: the rewards of my life come from my willingness to serve. This is a perfect New Moon moment to find the principle that you can view your life through, and then allow that language to guide your way.
