Mondays are meant for adjusting to the idea of the week, for feeling it out.
I love the week as a unit of time and always have. Hours and days confound my tornado mind. They stress me. Just as I figure out a decent rhythm, they're over. The Sun sets and hope is lost. I’m out of time. A month overwhelms me, a quarter is nice in theory but proves too unwieldly to be practical, and a year is just too long. A week, in my world, can be properly conceptualized, (generally) agreed upon, and paced.
As a lifelong planner girl1 I believe resolutely in a Monday start to the week. If I don’t hit my stride til Tuesday, that’s fine. I’ve got plenty of time left to build momentum into the weekend or to let Friday be a tidy stopping point.
I’m writing this on a Monday morning, the first of Virgo season. It’s overcast and chilly. Not out of character for summer in the Bay. But when the air gets like this, I teleport to late August in Massachusetts, somewhere in the mid 1990s. No matter where I am, my entire body craves a long yellow pencil with a fresh eraser. I'm 38 and it still feels like I'm meant to be climbing a bus headed to John F. Kennedy Elementary. Grief can make these pulls through time joyful or painful or both. One simply never knows til we get there.
This particular Monday, for me, remembering is pleasant enough. But, this week brings most of us a hard pivot at some point that lingers into next. On Thursday we have a lunar eclipse in Pisces.3 This eclipse closes loops at two scales of time: it's a culmination of something that was started or sensed around the most recent solar eclipse on August 12, and it finishes a longer eclipse story we have been experiencing since September 2024. And it's here where I most feel the wonkiness of living between eclipses: there's a new season tugging me forward as it unfurls itself as well as a sense that some force is beginning to pool around me, prepared to seep into that possibility and muck it up.
As long as I’ve been paying attention to astrology I am surprised by what happens when an eclipse imprints on my life. To me, these moments defy prediction2 at the personal level. I have come find their impact on my body to be so consuming that to process any additional information would overwhelm me. Better to let it wash over me, I think. I can build in the extra time and space I need to be redirected. And the redirection almost always happens.
Things are likely to go sideways as this week progresses. A wrench in a plan, a bittersweet surprise, a rough break(through), alarm bells, or a hard landing you hadn’t quite braced for all are on the table. Probably not the end of THE world, but maybe the end of A world, asking you to figure out how you intend to get to the next step.
However this eclipse shows up in your life, I hope you will have the space and resources you need to navigate it as you see fit. I hope you're not stretched too thin. I hope you have ease and sweetness enough to offset whatever might be hard about it. I hope you remember to eat, to hydrate, to breathe. If you want to talk it through, I'm here.
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1 Gender-neutral, of course.
2 Not actually, eclipses can be interpreted and anticipated just like other astrological events.
3 At 4º54' Pisces, to be precise. The eclipse will occur on Friday in some parts of the world. I'm on Pacific time.
The practice of seeking knowledge about the unknown or the future through symbolic or metaphysical means
(as in horary astrology) The planet charged with representing a specific person, thing, process, or event, typically through house rulership or planetary nature
The branch of astrology where a chart is drawn up in response to a specific question or situation and an astrologer weighs symbolic factors in order to provide an opinion on an answer or outcome
1. The branch of astrology concerned assessing the quality, timing and experiences of an individual life via a birth chart; 2. The zodiacal position of a planet or point at the time of one's birth
The celestial bodies the make up the basis of astrological signification: The luminaries – Sun and Moon; The visible planets– Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn; and the slowest moving outer planets– Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.
The range of zodiacal degrees across which a planet's influence is considered to be effective
May refer to either the Sun or the Moon, the two brightest celestial bodies in Earth’s sky
One of twelve sections of an astrological chart, which carries symbolic associations with specific areas or experiences of the life.
The branch of astrology associated with choosing an auspicious time for beginning something or taking action toward a desired outcome.
The point of an astrological chart indicating the western horizon, symbolically associated with setting, one-to-one relationships, destinations, and death. It is considered to be the 3rd strongest of the four angles.
Houses 2, 6, 8, and 12 of a chart are said to be “dark” because they make no aspect to the Ascendant, a symbolic place of light, life, and power. Without access to the Ascendant’s light, the thematic associations of dark houses tend to be connote material and spiritual experiences involving darkness, corruption, incapacitation, or decay
The point at which any astrological house has the highest degree of potency.
Geometrical angle at which two celestial bodies are configured in relationship to one another. Taken from the Latin, aspectus, meaning “to look at,” an aspect describes the quality by which two distinct planetary functions come together of planetary connection is derived from how directly or not the two bodies may be said to “view” one another. The major Ptolemaic aspect are: the Conjunction (0º), the Opposition (180º), the Square (90º), the Trine (120º), and the Sextile (60º).
The point of an astrological chart indicating the eastern horizon, symbolically associated with light, beginnings, physical and spiritual health and vitality. It is considered to be the strongest of all the houses within an astrological chart.
One of four primary points — Ascendant (Rising, 1st house), Midheaven (Culmination, 10th house), Descendant (Setting, 7th house), and Imum Coeli (Nadir, 4th House) — of an astrological chart. The closer a planet is to an angle, the more overt and effective it is considered to be in expressing its nature.
The point in the chart — often the cusp of the tenth house — where a planet reaches its maximum effectiveness and strength. Symbolically associated with themes of elevation, visibility, and promotion.