How to define whether the eclipse is important for you personally

Eclipses produce a shake-up in the aura of our planet. The day of the eclipse can be disturbing for our health and emotional state. These are more or less general things. However, for some people an eclipse can produce a powerful impulse which can dramatically change the direction of their life, their relationships, position in the society and so on. It was noticed that important changes can start a few months before the eclipse (they say that the eclipse "throws shadow in front of it") and continue after it for years.

Some of the changes provoked or stimulated by the eclipse can be disturbing, even destructive. But such a shake-up can also help us to see new horizons, to understand something, it can awake us from lethargy and give an outlet to our creativity.

Using some simple astrological rules, it is possible to conjecture whether the coming eclipse will touch our life, and if it will then how strongly and what kind of changes might be expected - disruptive or creative.

I will put together some of these rules, beginning from the simplest but giving only a general idea, continuing with the more specific but requiring some knowledge and mental effort.

The reader is expected to have some basic knowledge of horoscopic astrology. You will need at least to have your natal chart, be able to find planets in it and see in which degree they are situated. You can create your natal chart for free at the Astro.com website.

1. How many of your planets have aspects to the degree of the eclipse?

The more aspects there are and the more precise they are, the more important will be the given eclipse for the owner of the chart.

To find out the number of aspects, you need to know:

1. In which degree of the Zodiac will take place (or has taken place) the eclipse. For example, the recent total solar eclipse's degree was in the 30th degree of Cancer while the preceding lunar eclipse took place in the 16th degree of Capricorn.

2. In which degrees of the Zodiac the planets (and other important points like Ascendant or MC) are located in your chart.

Let's take an example. In the chart of Steve Jobs (that can be found in the AstroDatabank collection on Astro.com website) the main elements have the following positions (I am rounding the positions; say, if some planet is located in 5 degrees 45 minutes of a sign, I will say that it is in the 6th degree):

Sun: 6 Pisces

Moon: 8 Aries

Mercury: 15 Aquarius

Venus: 22 Capricorn

Mars: 30 Aries

Jupiter: 21 Cancer

Saturn: 22 Scorpio

Uranus: 25 Cancer

Neptune: 29 Libra

Pluto: 26 Leo

Mean North Node: 3 Capricorn

Ascendent: 23 Virgo

MC: 22 Gemini

The next step is to find out how many planets in the natal chart are close by degree to the degree of the eclipse (without considering their sign, for now). What does close mean? Well, let's say within three degrees from it.

The degree of the eclipse is 30. If we subtract 3 from 30 we'll get 27. If we add 3 to 33 we'll get 33 but since every Sign of the Zodiac has only 30 degrees, 33 will mean the 3rd degree of the next sign. In other words, we'll be looking for planets (or other elements) located in either first three degrees of any sign, or in the last four degrees. If a planet will be located exactly in the 30th degree, the degree of the eclipse, we'll pay it a special attention as the eclipse will touch it very precisely.

In the chart of Steve Jobs, Mars is in the 30th degree, very important, but also Neptune is in the 29th degree.

We can suggest then that the recent eclipse does play an important role in the life of Steve Jobs (because the aspect with Mars is so precise) but it will show itself (or it is already showing itself) in a relatively narrow area of his life, as it touches only two planets.

Now let's imagine that some eclipse has happened in the 22nd degree of any sign. It would touch six elements in the chart of Steve Jobs, three of them precisely. It would be logical to suggest then that such an eclipse would have a very strong influence and that influence would show itself in many areas of life.

We have found out that the degree of the eclipse does actually make some aspects to the natal chart that we are studying. The next question is: what is the nature of the aspects?

2. What is the nature of the aspects?

To keep it simple, sextiles (60 degrees) and trines (120 degrees) might stimulate some positive developments in life. Sextiles are often associated with an opportunity to choose one of a few existing opportunities while trines can show that some new direction is appearing in one's life.

All the other aspects, when powered by an eclipse, most probably will indicate various disturbances - oppositions (180 degrees) and squares (90 degrees) are especially so. Square is often an open conflict or a problem that requires active efforts while opposition creates a lot of stress and strain without giving an outlet.

Conjunction (0 degrees) can be both stimulating and disturbing depending on the circumstances of the planet involved, but we won't go there in this post (it was supposed to be brief).

3. What is the nature of the planets?

In many cases the nature of the planets touched by the eclipse will allow to understand which areas of life will be disturbed or stimulated. I mean the general associations of planets in astrology like Mars = work, conflict, surgery, Venus = relationships, love, beauty and so on.

4. Which houses are involved?

Have a look in which houses are the planets touched by the eclipse situated. Again, use the known astrological associations like 2nd house = money, 6th house = work/health and so on.