(00:30) Randee: Hello and welcome to the Dark Moon Cafe. We are your hosts. My name is Randee. (Khasanti: And I’m Khasanti) And each dark moon, we will be inviting you in for a monthly conversation about astrology and other adjacent topics. Each episode we’ll compare notes on how the monthly transits have been showing up for us, followed by a deeper dive into a specific topic, which for tonight’s episode is eclipses. You can find transcripts of each episode on our website, Darkmooncafe.com. We hope this podcast offers a cozy space to settle in and explore with us how we live our lives through the lens of astrology. So, Khasanti, welcome to eclipse season. It is so great to be back in the cafe with you tonight. How are you and what are you drinking?

(01:29) Khasanti: Well, happy eclipse season to you too, Randee. We’re gonna be getting getting down and dirty with eclipses tonight. But yeah, before we get to that, I am doing I’d say I’m doing kind of up and not crying (Randee: Oh no) as the the expression goes. Yeah, I’ve had a little bit of a funky week. I feel like there have been days when I’ve been up and not not crying. So it’s been yeah, I’ve been through some stuff, but I’m not really feel like I’m gonna just kind of leave it there in terms of detail for now and just say that I’m drinking a really ginormous dark chocolate milkshake. Because I’ve had the kind of week where I want a beverage that I can eat with a spoon so…(both laughter)

(02:35) Randee: No better reason than that.

(02:38) Khasanti: Yeah. (Both laughter)

(02:41) Khasanti: So yeah. But you know, other than that, I’m doing well. I can’t remember. Do we like do our whole thing now, like transits and whatnot…

(02:57) Randee: Oh, sure. You could you could jump right into it. Absolutely.

(03:01) Khasanti: All right. sounds good. Well, yeah, one like I’m gonna do like a couple of things here. First of all, I wanted to mention that the Dark Moon Cafe celebrated 1,000 downloads recently. (Randee: Oh, wow, a round of applause) Yeah, absolutely. Have a little snappy snap (Both snapping fingers) And so when I was prepping for this, I was like, I never looked at the chart for that that day, when we hit that number. So it happened on July thirteenth. (Randee: Okay) And so I compared it to the chart of the podcast. We are a Libra rising podcast and we hit a thousand downloads just as the sun was applying to our natal exalted Jupiter in Cancer in our tenth house. (Both laughter, Randee: Wow) So isn’t that pretty sweet? I thought that was lovely. (Randee: That is beautiful, wow) Yeah. So yeah, that kind of made me smile.

(04:16) Randee: That makes me happy. Yeah.

(04:20) Khasanti: Thank you to all one thousand of you.I mean I’m sure some of the one thousand are the same people, but thank you to all of you that contributed to our first thousand downloads and here’s to the next many more thousands.

(04:39) Randee: I echo that sentiment. Thank you. Yes.

(04:42) Khasanti: Yeah. But yeah, in terms of like stuff that’s been going on with me, yeah, I had a cool thing happen that had a good astrological correlation. When I looked it up yesterday, I was kind of looking through my last month to see what had been happening. So I have been yeah, I’ve been like learning more about chaos magic this month and one of the things that that exploration did for me was like reignite my interest in trying to figure out what the fuck postmodernism is.

(05:30) Randee: Oh, Okay, I’m here for this. (Both laughter)

(05:34) Khasanti: ‘Cause for whatever reason, like, I don’t know if it’s just because I’m generally more Mercurial than I am Jupiterian. I don’t do great with like these sort of huge overarching kind of concepts that describe the very kind of sociological waters that we’re just swimming in all the time. Like it’s hard for me to like take take off my whatever that bias is lenses to like really understand. So I’ve like, I’ve tried to learn what postmodernism is like about half a dozen times and it always has been a big confusion for me. But I feel like I finally got it, which was exciting. And I was learning all kinds of stuff about like how our current political situation is, you know, a little to a lot a kind of symptom of being in this postmodern time where like truth is relative (Randee: mmm hmm) and you know you can basically say anything you want because nobody cares about truth anymore and how that connects back to like Thatcher and Reagan and like hyper individualism, like all kinds of things. It was really cool to just like go down the rabbit hole with this and be like, oh okay. It doesn’t change the fact that everything’s really shit in a lot of ways in our society right now, but it’s somehow like just kind of understanding some of the the kind of mechanics underneath it sort of made it feel a little bit more like it made sense or something. Like it didn’t just come out of nothing, I guess.

(07:26) Randee: Right, like the broader historical context.

(07:30) Khasanti: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So you know, that’s kind of I was sort of in that philosophical space and the very next day we had a visit from like one of our this contractor who, you know, has been coming to our house for, you know, probably a good year at this point on a pretty regular basis. And he’s like a nice guy. Haven’t really like gotten into any big conversations with him. I also live we live in the suburbs and it’s a little bit like it’s still you never quite know when a contractor shows up to your house, like are they gonna you know it’s yeah you know a little dangerous to start talking politics with anyone (Randee: Yeah) ’cause you might be like, I actually don’t really want you in my house. Yeah.

(08:21) Randee: Or like fixing things. (Both laughter) Making things structurally sound.

(08:28) Khasanti: Yeah. Like, you know, don’t realize that I’m a bleeding heart liberal and then like kind of poorly wire my house so that it goes up in flames or whatever. (Randee: Right, right, exactly) So anyway, so somehow or other, I don’t even know how this happened, but you know how you like you kind of can tiptoe into a sort of slightly political area and then you’re both kind of like a little bit sort of looking for signs of like (Randee: yes (laughter)) is this is this safe or not? And and I shit you not. Like somewhere in the in the course of this conversation this guy guy basically says, “Well, you know, I mean Who could have guessed that Thatcher and Reagan would have like precipitated this whole situation?” (Randee: Wow!) I’m like excuse me? (Both laughter)

(09:27) Randee: I just so happen to know a bit about about this topic.

(09:30) Khasanti: Yeah, I’m like, allow me to just info dump my newly, newly arrived at gnosis around postmodernism. And (Randee: Wow) so we ended up having a really good conversation and then he just dropped in that he’s a trans guy. And I’m like, I had literally no idea. And so then I was able to kind of talk about my own gender identity. And we just had this like really lovely, totally unexpected moment of like Okay, kindred spirits across the doorstep. (Randee: Amazing) So that made absolutely made my day. I’m like, this is very delightful, when you know, you’re just like on a real superficial level with someone and then you kind of just like (Randee: Yes, yes) drop into a different place. And so obviously I checked the chart because I’m a good astrologer. And and it was right as Mercury was transiting my natal Mars, in the ninth house of like politics and big picture thinking and questions about, you know, philosophy and so forth. And it gave me like a little tiny bit of insight into Mars as my ascendant ruler as being I mean, I’ve it’s not the first time I’ve thought about this, but like as a genderqueer person, my ascendant ruler is Mars. So it’s kind of like the quote unquote more masculine planet, but in this kind of more quote unquote feminine kind of body related kind of sign of cancer. And I just I don’t know, it just kinda gave me a little another little insight into like, you know, I felt like that somehow kind of gave me a l a little extra picture of how my gender identity kind of fits in with my natal chart. So…

(11:45) Randee: Ohh, that is such a beautiful and and I’m thinking about the Mercury transit giving you such a lovely insight about something very deep to you, (Khasanti: Yeah) like a deeply held sense of self. That’s so lovely.

(12:03) Khasanti: Yeah. And Mercury also just kind of representing that kind of sort of very I mean not just cerebral, but kind of like, you know, a a conversation between two people that’s very you know, full of concepts and (Randee: Yes, yes, philosophical) and yeah, yeah.

(12:23) Randee: And also very loving and supportive, in that Cancerian sort of way.

(12:33) Khasanti: Yeah, absolutely. And it was like in my home. So yeah, even more Cancerian. So anyway, that is that’s my little little astro story for the month.

(12:46) Randee: That is just so lovely. I have to get better at immediately consulting the chart when something like that occurs. That’s really cool. (Khasanti: Yeah) Yeah. And it really kind of illustrates how you can glean such a better insight about something natally when you do that. It’s like, this is how it shows up.

(13:07) Khasanti: Yeah. Yeah. Like I was I didn’t go looking for a kind of lesson on my ascendant ruler in that moment, but one arrived just by virtue of me look looking at what was happening in the astrology when that happened. So Yeah.

(13:24) Randee: Awesome. Wow. What a great what a great interaction. (Khasanti: Yeah) What a special connection.

(13:33) Khasanti: Yeah. It was lovely. Totally unexpected. So yeah. So how about you, my friend? What is what is happening on planet Randee right now?

(13:45) Randee: Well, let’s start with tonight I am sipping on a cappuccino because as our beloved listeners know, we do record a couple weeks before we release and we did just have a pretty charged full moon in Aquarius. And I historically do not sleep well on full moons. It’s just something I started to notice a few years ago. I’ve always had sleep issues, but I’ve really took notice that they tend to become quite exacerbated around the full moon. So the cappuccino’s just keeping me up tonight, you know? We just we just need some yummy caffeine in the veins right now. (Khasanti: Yup, love that) So yeah, you know, in terms of the astrology, I’m gonna zoom out for us. I am kind of I already have my sights set on this eclipse season that we have just entered. It actually technically kind of started in February because we did have a solar eclipse in Aquarius, but we are kind of entering formally this sort of Aquarius/Leo eclipse season and as you know, Khasanti, I have a stacked house in the Aquarius/Leo axis of my chart.

(15:25) Khasanti: Yes you do, my friend. And a glorious thing it is. (Both laughter)

(15:31) Randee: Just all the planets. And so just kind of really like, you know, I was listening to a Nightlight Astrology episode recently, our beloved teacher Adam Elenbaas, and he said something that really stuck with me. You know, I think when we think about eclipse season, we’re naturally thinking about something massive and huge and like potentially like a major pivot point or something like that. But he’s always so good about keeping it real and just reminding me that it’s likely already something that you’re feeling. Like what kind of tension are you feeling already in that Leo Aquarius axis? I just it just so happens that natally for me that is a major opposition. But you know that just like brought it down to the ground for me. Like, yeah, let me just sit and reflect on what’s already going on for me. And it’s likely that, you know, and and maybe a proliferation of whatever seeds are being sown around that (Khasanti: yeah) but you know, for me in that fifth-eleventh axis, I’ve always had this question of how do I bring a full and authentic self-expression to the table? How do I access full and authentic self-expression with that Aquarian fifth house? And then how do I share that with the world? How do those two spheres of my life interface? And that’s always been a little bit of a point of maybe tension or inquiry or interest. I tend to be kind of a private person. And so yeah, just it just kind of feeling more into what is that five eleven axis really all about. It doesn’t have to be super flashy or a massive huge pivot point in life. But just this eclipse season I think is gonna emphasize that for me. And so yeah, that’s that’s kind of where my head’s been at astrologically.

(18:03) Khasanti: Yeah, well that sounds like pretty fertile stuff. And with that axis already being so so big for you, this series of eclipses across that axis, I imagine will only serve to bring you more insights about your natal promise in those areas. (Randee: Yeah, yeah) Please keep us posted. (Randee: Yes, will do, will do) Have to do a follow up, like when the nodes finally move out of Leo and Aquarius and see what see what we’ve each learned.

(18:47) Randee: Yes yes, absolutely. And we’re gonna be this episode’s gonna be released on a solar eclipse in Leo. So what perfect timing, right, to talk about this?

(18:57) Khasanti: It’s almost like we planned it this way.

(19:00) Randee: It’s almost like we planned it, yeah. (Both laughter)

(19:10) Khasanti: So shall we you know, we’ve dropped a few little things about nodes and eclipse season and yes, eclipse series and should we should we get into a little bit of a little bit of astronomy and just kind of give our listeners a quick primer on what even is an eclipse and why does it matter?

(19:33) Randee: I think that’s a great idea. Let’s do it.

(19:38) Khasanti: All right. Shall I kick us off? (Randee: Oh please) And then you can chime in on anything that I miss. Yeah, you may have heard astrologers or even just kind of people in the kind of spiritual social media sphere talking about eclipse season, like, ooh, we’re coming up to eclipse season. And maybe you’ve wondered what even is that? I didn’t know there was a season for eclipses. Well, there is. In fact, there are typically two eclipse seasons per year. And the reason why there are two is because an eclipse is all about the relationship between the sun and the moon and the earth. So we we have two different types of eclipses: a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse. A solar eclipse is when the sun, the light of the sun gets eclipsed by the moon getting in between the sun and the earth. And a lunar eclipse is when the light of the moon gets eclipsed by the oh dear, I was going so well here…

(21:02) Randee: Shadow of the earth.

(21:04) Khasanti: Shadow of the Earth. Thank you, thank you. (Both laughter)

(21:07) Randee: You were killing it. As I’m looking at my graphic. (Both laughter)

(21:12) Khasanti: I really thought I could just barrel through that (Randee laughter) and it would be good, but this is why this is why we’re a team (Randee: Yes, yes) So a solar eclipse is correct me if I’m wrong, is is kind of like a sort of supercharged full moon.

(21:35) Randee: New moon.

(21:37) Khasanti: New moon. New moon. And a lunar eclipse is like a supercharged full moon. (Randee: You got it) Yeah. So yeah, for some reason my brain always has a little bit of trouble kind of keeping that straight.

(21:52) Randee: Same, same. It feels inverted to me as well. I have to like keep reminding myself of that. Yeah.

(22:00) Khasanti: Yeah, and so we should talk about the nodes real quick. So there is this concept in astrology called the nodes of the moon and what those are, they’re not actually planets or bodies in space, they’re like mathematical places which…

(22:19) Randee: You’re talking my love language – mathematical places in space. (Both laughter)

(22:24) Khasanti: We love it. And basically those are like the the moon and the sun both have their own course that they take. (Randee: Plane) Yes, exactly. (Randee: Orbit) The nodes are the two points where those two orbits intersect. And so when you’re looking at an astrology chart, you can the nodes you can have them be a thing that you see. And you if you track them over time, you’ll see that they’re always appearing to move backwards. And they so right now they’re they just went into Leo and Aquarius. There’s a north node and a south node. (Randee: Mm-hmm) That’s kind of a nuance that we probably won’t have time to get into tonight, but basically whenever there is a new moon or a full moon that takes place fairly close to one or other or both of the nodes, that means that that lunation will be an eclipse. (Randee: Mm-hmm) And the closer that the lunation is to the nodes, dictates whether it’s gonna be like a my goodness, what’s the word, Randee? (Randee: Like a total?) Total, thank you. Yeah, like a total eclipse is when you see more of the the luminary being hidden. (Randee: Yeah) Folks might remember some of the solar eclipses that we’ve had in the States and I’m sure have been visible in other places in the world as well. Like that’s another piece of an eclipse is that it’s very dependent on whereabouts you are in the world and whether it’s daytime or nighttime. It’s all a bit complicated. But it’s pretty striking when you’re in the middle of a normal day and then out of nowhere seemingly the whole sky just goes dark and the birds stop singing and the shadows look really weird. Like it’s definitely something to experience.

(24:56) Randee: And I know astrologers of, you know, ages ago developed techniques for predicting when eclipses would occur. But imagine the first couple times, right? Like just must have felt so profoundly surreal.

(25:16) Khasanti: Yeah. Just unsettling and probably terrifying, honestly. (Randee: Absolutely) Yeah. So yeah, my understanding, I think I got this from Chris Brennan and Nick Dagan Best from one of their great (we’ll link a whole ton of astrology podcast episodes in the show notes ’cause we’ve been leaning pretty heavily on those as well as a few other resources) but my understanding is that tracking eclipses and correlating the kinds of things that were happening in the world is one of the kind of earliest forms of astrology. It kind of goes back to like ancient Mesopotamia. Because presumably that was just one of the kind of most striking things that humans were experiencing back then and wanted to kind of, you know, figure out like, you know, what is this an omen of? So we’ll get into that a little bit in a little bit. But yeah and then a lunar eclipse is obviously you’ll experience those during the night because that’s the the only time that we can see a full moon happening and that can be pretty cool as well when you just kind of see this shadow moving across the surface of the moon and blocking it out either partially or completely for for a time. So anything you want to add, Randee, about the astronomy of eclipses that I missed.

(27:04) Randee: I will just say that was so great. You offered a great overview. This preparing for this episode tonight really was so fun for me to delve into the astronomy of eclipses. I love astronomy, and eclipses being some of the most visible things that we can see in the sky is just such a fun thing to learn about. And there’s just great videos, you know, three dimensional videos showing you how this all works. They really are about what’s visible and what’s not visible, right? When when I think about philosophically and when I’m even interpreting them (Khasanti: yeah) what are eclipses about, there is a thread of what’s visible and what’s invisible. (Khasanti: Right) Why don’t eclipses happen every month? One might ask. I asked that. (Both laughter)

(28:07) Khasanti: Please do drop drop the wisdom on us.

(28:10) Randee: You know, maybe this is common knowledge, but it wasn’t for me somehow. But basically, because the moon’s orbit is tilted by five degrees, this alignment doesn’t occur every month. It only occurs, you know, twice a year, right? Twice a year. So that was kind of interesting to me, that even the slightest degree of tilt makes it such that we don’t get eclipses every month. And so while they are common in a way, they’re still somewhat unusual. So I just I liked that bit of, you know, information. (Khasanti: Mm-hmm) Also I learned about the coolest word ever, which this is what we should name our band, which is Syzygy.

(29:09) Khasanti: Oh man. Yeah. (Both laughter) Phenomenal band name.

(29:15) Randee: Phenomenal and we can only have three members in it because Syzygy defined is a straight line configuration of three actually I guess it is three or more celestial bodies, but I feel like with a with a band name like Syzygy we just need three members. And also this is an interesting little tidbit as well. So the sun is four hundred times the size of the moon, the sun is also four hundred times as far as four hundred times further away from Earth than the moon. Which is why, despite their size discrepancy, they look the same size-ish in the sky. Mind blown.

(30:10) Khasanti: I love that so much.

(30:12) Randee: And thank you, NASA, for NASA website for teaching me that the moon is actually slowly moving away from Earth. Also, again, this might have been common knowledge that just escaped me. But the moon is moving away from the Earth at a rate of one and a half inches per year. So eventually we won’t ever get a full eclipse. But this is like six hundred million years away so we don’t have to worry about it.

(30:44) Khasanti: I still feel a little bit sad though. (Randee: Yeah, yeah, it’s a thing). I’ll just have another spoonful of my milkshake and (Both laughter)

(30:54) Randee: Exactly. But yeah, you know, thinking about eclipses most sort of elementarily for me is really thinking about a new moon and a full moon. So going back to our lunar cycle basics, what the significations are of each of those, and adding like extra extra emphasis. So it’s like an extra potent new moon would be a solar eclipse. An extra potent full moon would be a lunar eclipse. And so thinking about, you know, some of the significations around each of that really was thought provoking for me. I don’t know if we want to like go into that any further, but just to kind of offer those additional thoughts on the general overview.

(31:56) Khasanti: Yeah, I would love to get into that, but I feel like did you define what a syzygy is?

(32:03) Randee: Oh, yes, yes. A straight line configuration of three or more celestial bodies in a gravitational system.

(32:13) Khasanti: Okay, lovely. (Randee: Band name) So that’s what’s happening makes an eclipse happen. ‘Cause the the moon, the earth and the sun all need to be like perfectly lined up (Randee: Perfectly lined up) in order for one of them to to do the blocky thing. (Randee: To do the blocky thing) Yeah. Yeah. Love that. All right, let’s get into some significations then.

(32:37) Randee: So you know, when we think about a new moon, which is our solar eclipse, we have an inception point. We have seeds being planted, but the path is still very dark. It’s still very unclear, perhaps. And doesn’t that line up with the sort of like losing light? Right. We’re we’re losing light. And it’s it’s also kind of interesting to me that a solar eclipse, like a full solar eclipse, is only visible to such a narrow band of places and people on the earth, whereas a lunar eclipse is so much more broadly visible. I feel like that’s a deeper meditation that we need to spend some time on. So when we think about this sort of solar eclipse, what are we talking about? We’re talking about principles of the sun, so consciousness, unity, oneness, that which is eternal, spirit. And that is being eclipsed, right? In a new moon kind of way. So I think that really draws me into like a real meditation on what’s true. What is what is true for me, especially with this solar eclipse in Leo, which is a sign so grounded in the truth of the heart and matters of the heart. What is what is deeply true for my spirit? And I kind of feel like that might kind of tie into maybe why people don’t necessarily start a lot of new things around eclipses because there is sort of an inward pull and a real darkening of the path forward. it’s it’s hard to take a step forward when things are so dark. (Khasanti: Yeah) So I don’t I don’t know, do you have any thoughts on the solar eclipse principles or…

(35:05) Khasanti: Well, one thing that I will say going back to our our old friends in Mesopotamian times, one of the things that they noted was that there was a correlation between I think it was particularly solar eclipses and the downfall or death of solar figures, which in those days was pretty much the king. (Randee: Yeah) And you know, when I was listening to an Astrology Podcast about that this, Chris made the point that you might think that it was just a kind of superstition that like, this scary thing happened that we don’t really understand, it must mean the king’s gonna die. But actually it was really data driven. Like they did there were a lot of facts and events to back this up that there did seem to be a unusual correlation between the the death of the king and an eclipse. (Randee: Wow, yeah) To the point that they there do you know about this thing…

(36:21) Randee: Yes, yes (laughter) I know right where you’re going with this. Yeah.

(36:25) Khasanti: This the substitute king thing, which is very dark. So I guess trigger a warning for anybody that, you know, finds this kind of topic unsettling. But because there was such a correlation between once they got, I guess, to the point where they could predict that it that astronomically that an eclipse was gonna happen, they actually did this thing where they would like temporarily put someone else on the throne. (Randee: Mm-hmm) Kind of hide the actual king away. But like go through all of the ritual of like this new guy is now the king. And then on the eclipse they’d kill the pretend king in a way to kind of to I think they saw it, as I understand it, like sort of to satisfy the fates or something that like the fates demand that the king should die. So but we’ll try and seize control of that by giving them a different different human to kind of fulfill that fate. So that’s that’s pretty wild to me.

(37:40) Randee: It is so wild and like really speaks to the potency (Khasanti: Yeah) and the superstitiousness, right? (Khasanti: Right) The sort of gravitas that people felt around eclipses.

(37:54) Khasanti: Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, this eclipse that we’ve got coming up, you know, it it’s not not in the first house of a certain president’s chart.

(38:10) Randee: It’s not not. Right.

(38:12) Khasanti: So, you know, I don’t want you know, I don’t want our podcast to be shut down for like, you know (Randee: Right, we’re just speaking observationally) Observationally. (Randee: And historically) And historically, yeah. Yeah. Just keep an eye on the news and you know, who knows who it might be, but you know, there is a decent chance that some kind of solar figure of some kind, we might see something happening. (Randee: Right) Like in the one that I think it was was it earlier this year? I kind of what even is time, but there was a recent eclipse which coincided with the former Prince Andrew of the UK getting like stripped of his titles and arrested for whatever.

(39:11) Randee: Maybe it was the solar eclipse in February.

(39:16) Khasanti: I think it might have been actually. Yeah. (Randee: Yeah, OK, in Aquarius) So there’s more of but yeah, there’s a lot of connections seemingly with like the whole Epstein situation that seems to kinda like yeah. We won’t bum everyone out by talking about that. But but yeah, you can one of the benefits of eclipses is that you can sometimes enjoy the downfall of solar figures who you don’t especially enjoy having all of the power and fame and privilege and influence that they might have. So Yeah.

(39:57) Randee: Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I listened to an excellent Catherine Urban might have might have been like her more recent like monthly overview. But really kind of drilling into this Aquarius Leo axis of like where is power concentrated, right? This sort of all this Leo energy right now. Solar principles, leader principles, ultra wealthy. (Khasanti: Mm-hmm) in standing in opposition to this aquarian energy, very socially minded and it’s also about the outsider, right? (Khasanti: Yes) The one who’s not in those inner circles. (Khasanti: Yes) And that this eclipse season might be really kind of highlighting that tension, which like, yes, of course. Like we are living that out as we speak. Yeah.

(40:53) Khasanti: And I feel like I’ve heard people say, ’cause I believe that we’re the the South Node just went into Leo (Randee: Yes) and the North Node went into Aquarius. And the South Node is often associated with a kind of clearing out or a kind of going going beyond a letting go of like decrease basically. And the north node is associated with increase. So there’s some, there’s some optimism to be had by thinking that maybe over the next couple of years while the nodes are in these two signs, that we may see some kind of increase in power and influence of the collective and a decrease in power and influence of these more kind of kingly figures. So yeah, that’ll be interesting to see how that shakes out. And I guess one thing that we didn’t really say about the astronomy of it is that, you know, we do get sort of two eclipse seasons a year. So we mentioned the one that was in February and now we’ve got one here. They last about a month, I think is what I’m…there’s like two weeks usually in between the two eclipses. But then there’s again this is shout out to Chris Brennan, his observation has been that like the eclipse season seems like it starts to ramp up around the kind of last quarter moon before the first eclipse in the season and then lasts until around the first quarter moon after the second eclipse, if that’s not completely befuddling to everyone. And then, you know, each of each of the two eclipse seasons per year will continue to be across this Leo Aquarius axis for the whole time that the nodes are transiting through those two signs, which is I think what is it, two, two and a half years or something?

(43:11) Randee: Yes, I think we officially depart the Leo Aquarius axis in January of 2028. That’s the last solar eclipse in Aquarius and then by Leo Aquarius for a little while.

(43:28) Khasanti: Yeah, got it. And Okay, I was about to go bounding off into something else, but I feel like we should do significations of the lunar eclipse before we do that.

(43:42) Randee: Yes, yes. Okay, real quick. So lunar eclipse. We’re again talking about a full moon, full moon concepts, right? Culmination, endings, full maturation of a cycle, the apex of something. And the moon represents things that are material, things that change emotions, security, our needs. And so when that is eclipsed, that’s another, there’s a potency around perhaps an ending, or perhaps a real pivot point, or a real sort of culmination of something. And you know, with the emphasis of the shadow side of things, right? Like that’s another sort of layer through which I interpret the eclipses. It’s about things that are hidden or obscured from view, maybe coming more into our view or becoming more into our awareness, the shadow side of things. It’s very kind of twelfth housey to me. I was kind of thinking, you know, if we apply some of those principles of the twelfth house, I think we might get at a little extra layer of what the eclipses are about. Sort of obscuring from view, but also potentially revealing something.

(45:26) Khasanti: Right, yeah, yeah.

(45:27) Randee: You’re always so good at bringing us back to like how do we track this? Where do we look for this in our own charts? I think a great place for us to start at this time of the season would be find your Leo Aquarius axis in your chart. Think about Leo, think about Aquarius, and then think about the houses and reflect on you know, these concepts for yourself, and reflect on what tensions are coming up for you. Maybe there’s some shadow work that’s beginning. Maybe there is a significant beginning or ending occurring in those areas of your life, or maybe it’s more of a subtle kind of emotional beginning or ending. Yeah.

(46:17) Khasanti: Yeah. I love that. And if you want to get super creative about it, you can look back to previous instances of when the nodes and the therefore the eclipses were happening across this axis. And I really do you have this in your notes, Randee, like how often that that is. I feel like it’s sort of about every seven or eight years or nine years or something. (Randee: Wow) Dang. I went all kind of whatever the opposite of numbery is on us.

(47:01) Randee: Yeah. And I feel like I’d have to get my eclipse chart out to really nail it down.

(47:08) Khasanti: I’m gonna just Google it. (typing) How often do eclipses happen across the same sign axis? Okay, so a specific pair of opposing zodiac signs. So roughly every 18.6 years.

(47:29) Randee: Oh, that’s the Saros cycle. Yes. (Khasanti: Right) Okay. Okay.

(47:32) Khasanti: Okay. So that means that every nine ish years you’re like it’ll take eighteen years for the south node to return to Leo, but in nine years the north node will be in Leo and the South Node’ll be in Aquarius, meaning that we’ll get that same axis activated but just with the nodes flipped. (Randee: Got it, OK, OK) So you can look back to sort of what was happening like nine years ago and eighteen years ago and so on in multiples of nine and you know, bonus points if you are able to access some astrology software like astro.com or something that would help you figure out like exactly when we should maybe we’ll put this in the show notes, like at least sort of a couple of time frames to look at for some themes. You know, look at what was what was happening for you that might correlate with the house house topics where Leo and Aquarius are for you. And then that might give you a little bit of a hint as to what kinds of themes might be up and about for you over the next eighteen months or so.

(49:02) Randee: Yeah, there there’s a good there’s a good table of all the eclipses that we can link to. (Khasanti: Perfect, OK, Awesome) Did you happen to do any like historical retrospective and come across anything yourself?

(49:20) Khasanti: I did. And I I’m just keeping an eye on the time. We’ve somehow already been yapping for fifty one minutes. (Randee: I know (laughter)) So I will keep this pretty brief. So what I did is, there’s a couple different ways you can slice this, but I what I did was I kind of look back through my life for eclipses that happened like really closely conjunct to my natal planets. And one of the things that I found kind of blew my mind actually. So back when it when I was ten in 1982, if you can believe it, we yeah, our family kind of went through a pretty rough patch. My dad got really sick with like a really intense clinical depression that ended up lasting quite a long time actually. And you know, in some ways I feel like he never quite kinda came back from that. And so and he was a Sag sun and like even before I really kind of knew very much about astrology, kind of the way that I described this was like, you know, like the with Sag being a fire sign, I described it like, you know, his fire just went out. So obviously that was like a huge deal for me as a ten year old. And I think it’s been pretty impactful in general on like kind of who I am as a person. And I looked at the yeah, I when I was looking through the eclipses, I noticed that like right around the time that happened was a lunar eclipse that was like right basically right on my ascendant ruler Mars. So I thought that was pretty fascinating. It would have been an even more of a kind of even more on the nose had it been a solar eclipse (Randee: I was thinking that too) dad, but still I kind of feel like there’s there’s probably ways that you can slice it that that make it make sense as a lunar eclipse. So that was really interesting. One of the things that we’re taught about eclipses that is that they can kind of feel the things that happen around eclipses can feel particularly fated. And so this just kind of knowing that this thing that was such a big deal in my childhood kind of happened around an eclipse kind of made me feel a little bit extra validated that it was just kind of meant to be part of my life story in some way. So so that was kind of cool. And then the other thing that was like even more cool was, you know, in as much as it can be cool to like, you know, reflect on mental health issues in your family lineage, but you know here we are. I’ve had a few decades to work on it. So but then I remembered that my dad’s dad had died when my dad was seven years old. and I went and looked at the date of my paternal grandfather’s death and holy shit, would you believe it? That was right around the time of a lunar eclipse as well. (Randee: Wow) So I’m like, what the fuck? (Randee: Wow, wow) Like there’s some and I think you know, it’s not unusual for people to people to find these like sort of interesting astrological correlations in the charts of like parents and grandparents and something, but like it’s just very fascinating to me that like my dad lost his dad around the time of a lunar eclipse, and then I in a certain way kind of lost my dad around yeah, around the time of a lunar eclipse as well. So yeah. so a little bit of a bleak story there, but still, you know, I think one that feels you know, it feels important for us on this podcast to kind of, you know, cover cover the whole gamut of lived experience.

(54:17) Randee: Absolutely. And with a lunar eclipse again, you know, we’re we’re not surprised when something around an ending occurs. (Khasanti: Yeah, yeah) Or sort of a change in the material realm.

(54:33) Khasanti: Right, right, right. Exactly. So yeah. (Randee: Wow) So what about you, Randee? Anything anything you wanna share from your kind of biographical spelunking?

(54:50) Randee: I took a bit of a broader approach. I was I was kind of zeroing in on my angles. So I looked at eclipse seasons that occurred over my first and seventh houses (Khasanti: Nice) and eclipse seasons that occurred over my fourth and tenth. Couple interesting things of note during one eclipse season over my first and seventh houses, the houses of self and other or romantic other, I went through a s pretty significant series of breakups and then (one in particular) and then ended up meeting my husband. (Khasanti: Wow) So really interesting, right? Sort of a volleyball back and forth. (Khasanti: Yeah, totally) Two extremes. And then another season that went over my fourth and tenth houses, I ended up purchasing my first house ever. (Khasanti: Wow) I say first because we’re weirdos and we’ve we’ve purchased other houses we’ve moved around a lot. (Khasanti: Yeah) But it was the first house that we purchased. And I thought, wow, that’s really interesting. So yeah, you know, I think that that’s kind of another way to approach it for our listeners is to think about the houses, the axis, the topical themes. And of course it always comes back to the natal promise. (Khasanti: Yes) Eclipse season isn’t loud for everybody because it hits different points in our natal chart and for some of us those points are super loud and for some of us those points are not loud. And so yeah, always comes back to the natal promise. So have no fear. You’ve already been living out your chart. (Khasanti: Yes, yeah) It’s already been there. (Khasanti: 100 percent) You’re an expert at your chart.

(57:05) Khasanti: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then just a little kind of nod back to our episode on annual profections. Another thing that I learned from Chris is which I guess makes sense, it just hadn’t occurred to me, is that eclipses are generally gonna be a bit more significant in years where either the sun or the moon are your time lord. (Randee: Yeah, makes sense) So yeah, I thought that was interesting. So yeah, wow, I feel like this is just like where has this time gone? I guess we just spent a lot of time, like, digging into the astronomy of things and…

(57:48) Randee: Hey, apparently that’s where we where we wanted to go tonight.

(57:53) Khasanti: Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I wanna echo your thing about the natal chart. I just think it can’t be emphasized enough. This applies not only to eclipses but transits, pretty much anything that is going on astrologically in the moment. It’s not gonna, not everything is gonna hit you in the same way. If it doesn’t tie back to your natal chart, then you know, it might just be something that you notice happening in the news or happening to people that you know or something. So I think it’s good particularly in this kind of time of social media and so many content creators out there just kind of putting out a lot of stuff about like, ooh, this transit’s gonna be like this and this one’s gonna be like that. It can be you know, if you’re so inclined, I think it can feed into a kind of astrological anxiety where you think that like cataclysmic things are just kind of gonna happen to you, you know, every day. And obviously we’re living proof that that’s not the case most of the time. (Randee: Yes) You know, we do have our seasons and some people get more or less lucky than others with things happening, but in general yeah, just keep coming back to the Natal chart and you won’t won’t go far wrong. (Randee: Yeah) So yeah, I mean we should probably just eclipse ourselves now and fade fade into the night. (Both laughter)

(59:45) Randee: Lights out on the cafe. (Both laughter)

(59:50) Khasanti: Yeah. All right, let’s do it. There were a couple other things I would have liked to go to have gotten to, but such is the way of things. We’re, as we’ve mentioned, very committed to not turning these into like multi hour extravaganzas. So yeah, we will leave it there for tonight. As always we loved hanging out with you at the Dark Moon Cafe tonight and we hope you enjoyed your time with us. It would mean so much to us if you would subscribe to the pod in your podcatcher of choice and leave us an amazing review. We also adore hearing your thoughts and you can write to us directly at letters@darkmooncafe.com Let us know what you like, what you’d like more of, any questions you have, topics you’d like us to cover. We are wishing you the very best for the coming month and we look forward to seeing you again next Dark Moon.