This Week's Lunar Eclipse Thursday, Sept. 7 at 7:51 pm British Summer time and 2:51 pm Eastern Daylight Time, there is a partial eclipse of the Moon at 15 degrees of Pisces. Note that some ephemerides and chart services will list this time as being about 10 minutes earlier -- the time of the Full Moon and that of the eclipse differing by about that much. The eclipse is concurrent the Pisces Full Moon, but the moment of exactitude of the eclipse and the associated lunation often differ by a few minutes. This lunation is remarkable for at least three reasons: one is that it squares the Great Attractor in mid-Sagittarius to one degree of exactitude. The Great Attractor is different than the Galactic Core, though located about 12 degrees away (see link for explanation of the Great Attractor). Anything involving the Great Attractor tends to have a polarizing effect, where two sides of a situation are seen; where people tend to choose sides; and where dualism is strongly emphasized. This is a distinct characteristic of the mutable signs, beginning with Gemini and with the dualistic property being just as strong in Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces. The mutables are signs where you can petty much count on an "equal and opposite reaction" at any time. << http://ericfrancis.com/sagittarius/sagittarius10.html >> Next, the eclipse sets off the core 1960s astrology, in particular, the Uranus/Pluto in Virgo, opposite Chiron and/or Saturn in Pisces. This configuration lasted in many forms from around 1963 through 1968, and a much wider range of years (about 1960 through 1970) is being activated by unusual activity in both Virgo and Pisces. For example at the time of the eclipse, there are three points in Pisces (Uranus, North Node and the Moon) and five in Virgo. Eclipses tend to peel back layers, and I think this will reveal some true colors of how people relate with their 1960s astrology. The Sixties configurations are a rather diverse mix of Abbey Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, John Lennon and Hitler Youth. Or, as you wish, Kennedy and Nixon. In other words, there are qualities that are genuinely liberating and refreshing, and others that are the very essence of conservatism, fear and contracted awareness. All together, it's an interesting mix, and I've been learning about it in Rick Tarnas's book Cosmos and Psyche; he devotes about a third of the book to this one setup, tracing it back in different forms through the long cycles of history. I have covered this astrology -- with a bias that I now can see, since I did not really understand the potential impact of the Saturn-Pluto opposition that occurred in the mid-Sixties -- in a series of articles called Born in the Sixties. << http://ericfrancis.com/planetwaves/sixties.html >> Last, this is the lunar eclipse just prior to the annular (not "annual" solar eclipse) at 30 Virgo on Sept. 22 -- just hours before Equinox and the Libra ingress of the Sun. Among the many parallels between 2001 and today, we have an eclipse of the Sun on the Aries Point. Now, if it's at 30 Virgo, how is that the Aries Point? Because it's less than one degree from Libra, and that is opposite Aries. The entire cardinal cross -- the cardinal point -- acts with equal intensity as the Aries Point. << http://www.planetwaves.net/cainer/archive/003790.php >> It's worth mentioning that in this chart, the Lunar Nodes have worked their way into a square with Pluto, and Mars occupies the degree of the solar eclipse that happens in two weeks. So the two eclipses are intimately related by these facts. I think the Pisces lunar eclipse will give a good indication of what is up with the solar eclipse two weeks later. We are also experiencing the exact opposition of an outer planet (Neptune) with Saturn for the first time since the Saturn-Pluto opposition of 2001-2002. While Saturn-Neptune does not have the friendliest reputation in the world, I think it's something of a breather compared to the hellfire and brimstone of Saturn-Pluto. But as we've seen, this configuration is associated with flooding and levees breaking, and a flood is just a very slow kind of fire. Still, the astrology of summer 2006 is considerably mellower than that of summer 2001. For one thing, the June 21, 2001 total solar eclipse, just four hours into summer, was more exact and focused, even a menacing eclipse: a total eclipse on the longest day. Here we have a partial eclipse on the day of balancing. In the current astrology, we get two "almosts" -- one being the eclipse in the last degree of Virgo and the other being the fact that this is an annular eclipse, distinguished from total by the Moon being too distant from the Earth to fully cover the Sun. However, we have all lived through annular eclipses and they do move energy, only a bit more gently and in way sometimes unexpected. Or so we can pray. Still, we do have an echo to 2001, only in a time when a much larger segment of the population is both enlightened and literate, and hip to the bullshit that's been dished out for five years. I'll have more on Friday's Planet Waves Weekly, which will cover the Sept. 11, 2001 chart and look ahead at the Sept 22 annular eclipse. More discussion in the Astrology Secrets Revealed Forum and the Planet Waves Community Forum. << http://asr.planetwaves.net/ >> << http://planetwaves.net/forum/ >>