Solar Eclipse
October 29, 2004
http://cainer.com/ericfrancis/oct29.html
Dear Eric (the most peace-loving person I know):
Why does a solar eclipse have such a profound effect on
people? How can people make it a positive experience, even when all around them
is pure chaos and confusion? I'm feeling a huge increase in anxiety and fear,
and feeling powerless, even though the power is already there. My wee ones are
feeling it too. All I can do is hug them and love them, as well as snuggle with
them as they sleep. If there isn't an answer, that's okay.
Peace, Love and Joy to you,
Christine
Hey Christine!
What a surprise to see your letter, which I selected from
the list of many I received this week without even looking at the names. You're
the only person with whom I've ever actually witnessed a solar eclipse, that
day up on the mountain in New Paltz in the spring of 1994. I remember those
strange double shadows and the unusual intensity of that summer -- which was
the summer of
I know well about the chaos you describe surrounding
eclipses, even when they are not visible. I'm not sure the chaos itself is the
positive (or rather pleasant) part of the experience, though some people tend
to thrive on it. Rather, going through an eclipse consciously can be rewarding
because it frees us from the past, opens up a new region of the future, and
presents us with challenges from which we learn a lot and hopefully take that
knowledge to heart. Eclipses can feel like spiritual initiations -- intense
phases of testing and concentrated experience that take us to new levels of
reality.
It's possible to do a lot of speculation about why solar
eclipses, or any eclipses, have such a profound effect on people, and I think
that in the end, the reason will remain veiled in some mystery. It may be that
physics will hand us information some day and give a tangible 'why'. But all
lunar events (such as New Moons, Full Moons and even Quarter Moons) have a
significant and noticeable effect on people; in the event of an eclipse, we get
far more exact alignment. The degree of contact is greater. In the case of a
solar eclipse, the shadow of the Moon actually makes a path across the Earth
(whereas with a normal New Moon, that shadow is cast somewhere in space and
nobody sees it).
But looking for astrological clues, there is with every
eclipse the involvement of the lunar nodes. If you go back in the archives of
this project you'll find a fairly long article on the nodes -- I think it was
in the Sept. 10 edition. I have often pondered whether it is the nodes that
give eclipses their power, or eclipses that give the nodes their power. The two
however seem to work closely together. One clue is that the nodes are always
influential, and become especially so when the Sun and Moon align around them
(at eclipse time).
When working with them, I experience the nodes like a kind
of a time tunnel, like a jet of rapidly moving air -- only it's a flood of
space-time -- that blows through consciousness and experience. That is the
sense of time being compressed, karma accelerating and general chaos. When the Sun
and Moon line up with the nodes (which they must for an eclipse to occur), we
get caught in the draft and the whole process of resolving karma, releasing the
past, seeking purpose and finding our true direction accelerates; hence the
intensity and the fuss. Also the break of continuity that eclipses represent is
more than most people can handle. Eclipses represent phases of division where
the past and the future become very different than one another -- if we let
them, and sometimes, no matter how much we resist. It's best to work with the
energy rather than fight it and use eclipses as times to make important
changes.
It's really good to hear from you, and give your babes a hug
from me (sitting writing this on a train in
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