The Lunar Eclipse of February 11 2017

The lunar eclipse of February 10/11 acts as a precursor for more intense activity the world will see in 2017. The lunar eclipse falls in the third decan of Leo, traditionally ruled by Mars, and promises feisty times ahead. William Lilly, in his text on eclipses, writes that when a lunar eclipse occurs in this decan

It swells and animates the dispositions both of the people and soldiery, so that they run after novelties, desiring new laws, and new governors.

[William Lilly drops mic]

What better way to describe our world right now, filled with people eager for change? A large majority of the world will see this lunar eclipse, except for Australia, the Pacific, and Japan, so it will affect a great number of nations. One might say that we are feeling the effects already.

The lunar eclipse perfects at 22 Leo, near key planets of more than one eminent nativity. A new crop of leaders will be borne aloft on the shoulders of the people eager for “new governors.”

According to Claudius Ptolemy, the effects of a lunar eclipse last as many months as the eclipse has hours; in this case, the eclipse will last for four hours and 19 minutes, so our dispositions shall remain animated until late June. But then what?

This eclipse serves as a mere amuse bouche for the Really Big Eclipse of 2017 (the “RBE”); the total solar eclipse of August 21, visible throughout the continental United States. That eclipse will also occur in the third decan of Leo, but as a solar eclipse, its significations skew a bit…heavier than those promised by the February lunar eclipse. More about the RBE later.

An eclipse works much more powerfully on collectives such as nations, rather than individual nativities, so we can use eclipses to predict major world trends and events; the places where they are visible show where effects will occur.

One of my favorite examples of the power of eclipses is the total solar eclipse of March 7, 1970, visible all along the Eastern seaboard of the United States, including Washington, D.C. This eclipse occurred at 16 Pisces, exactly on the seventh house cusp of a certain Richard Milhous Nixon. The eclipse lasted a little over five hours, indicating that its effects would endure for five years. Those five years saw the entire Watergate scandal unfold, culminating in Nixon’s resignation in 1974. William Lilly on solar eclipses in the second decan of Pisces, once again on point:

It designs the death of a famous and excellent man, destruction and waste of fish near the sea towns, it imports an earthquake, some great churchman questioned, and he called to account for his knavery.

Although Nixon and his various cabinet members may have objected to being called churchmen, that is pretty good! We have to read these texts a bit metaphorically. Extrapolating from a time when great churchmen held mighty sway, we can translate this to “a powerful person.”