On Eclipse Season

the 2000's are back, bb

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Now that the Full Moon in Libra has come to pass, we have officially entered Eclipse Season. These are charged times, bbs. How are we all feeling? I often say that eclipses distort reality and speed up time, but lately, the time warp has felt literal. Like we’re back in 2003. Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are engaged. Britney Spears is pregnant! This October, there will be an emo festival in Las Vegas called When We Were Young. Like, what is going on? Well, knowing astrology, I can see that all of this is being stirred up by the coming Eclipses. Eclipses break up business as usual, but they’re also part of their own cycles, following the pattern of the moon’s lunar nodes. To put the upcoming Partial Solar Eclipse in Taurus (April 30th) and Total Lunar Eclipse in Scorpio (May 16th) into perspective, we must frame them in conversation with previous eclipses on the same axis. Those past eclipses occurred between Fall 2012-Spring 2014, and before that between Fall 2002 - Spring 2005. Yes, the 2000’s are back, bb—we’re experiencing their nodal return!

To better assess your eclipse story, I’m going to lead us through this spiral of a time warp, through the fated events of the Bennifer saga (and other touchstones along the way). Let’s see who and what and where we were then to make better sense of where we’re headed now. Buckle up cause this is an epic one, and if you’d rather just get the musings on some dates—skip to the end. (And if you want to go even deeper, please book a reading with me and we’ll get into what specifically these eclipses mean for you).

Before we get too deep. Let’s review: what is an eclipse?

Eclipses occur when the Sun and/or Moon collides with the lunar nodes—the points in space where the moon’s orbit crosses the ecliptic—the apparent yearly path of the Sun. During what would usually be a regular ol’ New or Full Moon, the light from the luminary is obscured, distorting our experience. These are moments when we’re forced to cut things short, speed things up or jump much farther ahead on the timeline than previously anticipated.

In ancient times, eclipses were thought of as highly malefic events that put either the ruler or the kingdom and its people in grave danger. Though eclipses are still harbingers of change and instability, there are too many other ways for us to play god these days for the afternoon light fading to pitch darkness to cause as much of a stir as it once did. Electricity has dulled the experience of the Sun and Moon on the daily, even more so during an Eclipse.

But still, Eclipses are when fate overcomes us.

Many astrologers will warn you not to “manifest” or do any kind of manifestation during an Eclipse (and I agree with this advice)—but also, I’ll offer that, sometimes, we can’t help but try things. The risks we take won’t always work out, but those risks are still fate.

Nodes in Taurus and Scorpio

The lunar nodes, unlike the planets, move backwards around the zodiac, further adding to their time warping abilities. It takes the nodes about 19 years to make their way around the entire zodiac and they spend about 19 months in each sign. The North Node entered Taurus and the South Node entered Scorpio on January 18, 2022 and will remain there until July 2023.

Taurus and Scorpio are fixed signs. Both set in their ways, they’d rather not deal with the upset, calamity and disruption that eclipses tend to bring. Eclipses along this axis ask us to challenge our ideas of security (Taurus) and secrecy (Scorpio), push us toward indulgence (Taurus) and extremes (Scorpio), and complicate what it means to find comfort (Taurus) and protection (Scorpio).

Though the nodes didn’t enter Taurus and Scorpio until January, we had our first eclipse of this cycle on November 19, 2021. A Lunar Eclipse at 27º Taurus. We’ve already been inside this story for six months. Eclipses are portals, meaning that their effect is not always immediate, events pertaining to the Eclipse may happen right away or may occur six months before or after the light gets obscured.

2002 - 2004

The last time the North Node was in Taurus and the South Node was in Scorpio was April 13, 2003 - December 26, 2004. The South Node is what we’re moving away from, lessening or spiritualizing, while the North Node is what we’re seeking, what we crave, what we’re hungry to conquer. From Fall 2002 through Spring 2005—when the eclipses from this cycle were active—we were moving away from the secretive caverns of Scorpio and toward the sunlit fields of Taurus. We were more than willing to risk it all for comfort and earthy stability. To satiate this hunger, mystery became a commodity, occasionally weaponized.

This nodal cycle brought the beginning of the War in Iraq over (imaginary) weapons of mass destruction (South Node in Scorpio) along with the war-time inflation of gas prices while the global economy also reached a 30 year high (North Node in Taurus, also… sound familiar?). The North Node transiting through Taurus brings fluctuations to the literal Earth and this period saw a stream of deadly tsunamis and earthquakes. Socially, we had George W. Bush seeking an amendment that would ban same sex marriage, part of a peak in gay-bashing politics on the right. With many hiding their identities, sex negativity was the norm.

In Baseball (the witchiest sport, IMO) the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 for the first time since 1918, breaking the “curse of the Bambino.” Facebook was borne out of the ether in February 2004 during Mark Zuckerberg’s own nodal return and Martha Stewart became a villain when she went to prison for insider trading . Wicked premiered on Broadway in June 2003, a musical that both made witchcraft palatable for the masses (South Node in Scorpio), while also perfectly illustrating the face off of the nodes in the best friendship of Glinda (Taurus) and Elphaba (Scorpio).

2003-2005 was also when emo hit its peak. Though the emo era capitalized on punk aesthetics which some might say are very Scorpio, the camaraderie of Warped Tour, the shows in family basements and rec centers, the adjacent Christian pop rock scene, really spoke to the wholesome Taurus-ness of it all. But also, as Jenn Pelly wrote about in this excellent 2017 piece for Pitchfork, and is something I think about quite often as a former emo kid, that scene was deeply misogynistic. It came as a forceful overcorrection for the release that was the riot grrrl era, a return to “simplicity.” When men could scream about women who wronged them. This again speaks to the sex negativity that comes with the South Node in Scorpio. While I do believe the South Node ultimately cleanses and purifies, it also empties, wipes out, obliterates and minimizes. “Your lipstick / his collar / don’t bother, angel / I know exactly what goes on.” Do you, though?

On Bennifer

We obviously can’t talk about 2002-2005 without getting into Bennifer—another tale of weaponized gossip and sex negativity. Their romance began sometime in early 2002 during or after production wrapped on Gigli.

By November 2002, their playful paparazzi-baiting fling turned into something serious as The Jenny from the Block video heralded the announcement of the pair’s engagement. This solidification of their bond came along with a Lunar Eclipse in Taurus on November 19, 2002: the first of the 2002-2005 cycle.

Once the Nodes actually hit Taurus and Scorpio in April 2003, Bennifer was on the rocks. After another round of eclipses in Taurus and Scorpio that spring, their relationship struggles went public. Things only get worse after Gigli flops that summer and their wedding, originally planned for September 14, 2003, is publicly postponed the night before. In late January 2004, J Lo announces that the relationship is over and by the following spring (and the next set of Eclipses), she’s married to Marc Anthony! A few days before a Total Lunar Eclipse in Taurus in October 2004, Ben Affleck makes his first public appearance with Jennifer Garner. The Eclipses give and the Eclipses taketh away.

In the first go-around, the Taurus-Scorpio Eclipses are actually what brought Bennifer down. Their engagement coming at the exact time of an Eclipse, when they were already part of something so volatile, tumultuous and hungry was a real test of fate. They were beloved as tabloid fodder but the public was way less interested in them as a viable couple. As much as we collectively yearn for stability when the North Node is in Taurus, we can minimize and other the complications that come with that stability, reducing them to gossip. But real couples have real problems.

2012-2014

The nodes were next in Taurus and Scorpio from August 30, 2012 - February 18, 2014. At this point, the nodes were reversed from their position in 2003-2004 with the South Node in Taurus and the North Node in Scorpio. At this time, we were moving away from the idyllic picnic lunches of Taurus and toward the grungy underground raves of Scorpio.

This time brought Edward Snowden’s disclosure of secrets (North Node in Scorpio) and the rise of Pope Francis, the first “alt” Pope, who broke with thousands of years of Catholic tradition (South Node in Taurus). We also had the Supreme Court striking down DOMA (North Node in Scorpio — a “valiant” attempt to undo Bush’s agenda in the previous cycle), as well as huge fines for big banks and a dialing back of recession-era government spending as the economy “improved” (South Node in Taurus). Black Lives Matter formed during this cycle after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in July 2013, becoming an even more visible movement after the Eclipses in 2014. Climate-wise, as we experienced the first eclipse in of this nodal cycle on November 13, 2012, NYC—and the rest of the northeast—was recovering from Hurricane Sandy.

Culturally and spiritually: this was the *moment* when everyone was suddenly a witch, or at least when the “Witches” of “Bushwick” were getting a lot of press. I have an extremely vivid memory from this time of getting mansplained to about chaos magick (with a hard k) during an innocent visit to Catland (an occult bookstore in Bushwick). That, to me, is the unbridled North Node in Scorpio. This was also, of course, the height of the gone-but-never-forgotten peak era of Brooklyn drag. Scorpio is the most rebellious of the fixed signs—counterculture thrives here, every oasis needs a password. “Downtown” “theatre” was in a moment of constant institutional critique, potentially for lack of anything else to rebel against. But though I like to rag on the “rage against the machine” (what machine?) of it all during this time (at least in art — socially there was legitimate and inspiring ways of protest), there was a definite celebration of the experimental and the under-rehearsed. Creativity didn’t need to be so precious or practiced in this era. Shows at bars felt like sleepovers, PS1 presented an exhibition of Mike Kelley’s stuffed animal sculptures, and “Rather Be” by Clean Bandit and “Break Free” by Ariana Grande topped the pop charts. Unmentionables were celebrated. Everything, at its best, felt like a game of light as a feather, stiff as a board.

2022 - 2024

We’re now living through the nodal reversal of what happened between August 30, 2012 - February 18, 2014, with many of these issues, events and movements now up for review, debate and experiencing fated reversals. We’re also living through the nodal return of what happened between April 13, 2003 - December 26, 2004. Especially after the stress and grief of the last few years, we’re all deeply hungry for simpler times (Taurus). We want an agenda of more ease and guaranteed simplicity. But is that ease and simplicity even possible? We all want comfort for ourselves in this time of climate collapse, when that feeling is harder and harder to come by.

The North Node in Taurus has Mother Earth screaming at us for help and for mercy. The Earth is unhappy with what we’ve done and she refuses to be abandoned, left for scraps amongst the capitalist detritus. There’s so much hunger for infrastructure improvements, sustainability, “zero waste,” a Green New Deal. But is any of it really enough? When the North Node was last in Taurus, there was still a lot of talk about “a hole in the ozone.” Global warming rhetoric was baked into everything, even indie music. (Rilo Kiley’s The Execution of All Things is practically a concept album about climate change “Someone come quickly / this place was built for moving out.”)

We’re now back in that anxious, desperate, grief-stricken place about our human impact on the Earth. Our plans to solve it are much more futuristic and robust than they were in 2003. But is any of it enough? What’s hopeful about the North Node, the hungry head of the dragon, in Taurus, is that there’s an almost endless fount of energy toward working on this. But that relentless becomes an anti-thesis. It’s not making anything easier.

Not to so crassly change the subject, but this is also why so many—across all beliefs and values systems—are thrilled about the welcome distraction of celebrity preservation efforts. The Earth is deteriorating, but our public figures are solid as rocks. Avril Lavigne made an album, somehow Nick Lachey has composted himself into renewed relevance, and, of course, there’s the reunification of Bennifer.

J. Lo and Ben got back together in Spring 2021 with the nodes at 11º Gemini/Sagittarius, at the exact nodal return of their initial romance rumors in 2002. It was when I saw the above headline in Vulture in May 2021: The Complete 19 Year Timeline of the Bennifer Saga that I knew this was an eclipse story, a nodal return story. I’m always looking for the astrology of anything and everything and 19 years is a nodal return.

What’s so fascinating is that their reunion matches up the whole way. On July 24, 2021, Bennifer was photographed on a boat in Monaco with Ben grabbing J. Lo’s ass, clearly an homage to the controversial moment in Jenny from the Block. This photo was taken on the exact nodal return of the release of that video and the announcement of their first engagement. The pair stayed mostly quiet during the Fall’s eclipse season and into the winter, surfacing only to mention that they “bought a house” together in March 2022 (very North Node in Taurus of them, tbh).

The duo went public with their second engagement on April 8, 2022 with the nodes at 23º of Taurus and Scorpio—the exact nodal return of the date that was supposed to be their first wedding (September 14, 2003). Something tells me that this is a correction of past fate and this time, the engagement and the marriage will last.

Eclipses speed up time and bring things back around. So what does this mean for the rest of us? Those of us cheering Bennifer (or Britney) on from the side lines? Those of us eagerly buying tickets to that curséd faux reunion of Warped Tour? (I swear when I saw the poster for the When We Were Young, I was certain that it was a joke, and a joke that was specifically being played on me.) Well, I think the eclipses are allowing us to consider what’s worth revisiting.

As of this week, the eclipse portal is open for business, and you’re probably already getting hints of what this story is about. The parts of your life that need cultivation or cleansing are likely painfully obvious, but where does one even begin? What’s wonderful about eclipse season is that you don’t have to begin because fate, the universe, your muse, god, whoever you want to entrust this moment with, takes the wheel for you. The Lunar Eclipse in Taurus on November 19, 2021 opened up a can of worms, and the following eclipses on April 30 and May 16 will either further complicate or instantly dissolve the issues that came up prominently around that time.

But don’t just look back six months (Mother Earth needs us to know our history!)—

Consider the spring of 2003 through Christmas 2004 — if you can remember back that far— where were you then and who were you trying to be? What comfort were you cultivating and what taboos were you freeing?

Then consider the fall of 2012, 2013, the spring of 2014 — where were you and who were you trying to be? What covens were you joining and what stability were you rejecting?

Who knows. Perhaps what’s in the cards is returning to an ex from 10 years ago or 19 years ago, or an art project that’s equally old. Maybe a song from that time, those times is haunting you, creating a soundtrack to a life that would be unimaginable to who you were back then. No matter where Taurus and Scorpio fall in your chart, I think this axis is ultimately about belonging, about acceptance and rejection. Attachment and detachment. Secure and insecure. Finding some kind of balance or path or way between all of these things. Finding real safety in asking the question rather than having all the answers.

This eclipse season, I hope you find your (recycled) muse, your composted raison d’etre, your reignited passion, and reclaimed stability. I know I’m hungry for mine.