The Secular New Year starts out with a Lunar Eclipse in the sign of Cancer on January 10th. Emotions will be heightened, nervous systems could be deregulated, and much will come up to the surface. This is a Lunar Eclipse for care. Take care of yourself and what you hold dear. Not only around this weekend, but in the next few weeks. Drink lots of fluids, breathe slow and deep. Be aware of any themes that are coming up for you now—particularly if they resonate for patterns that are ready for healing.
Many regard Eclipses as bad omens, which stems from patriarchal superstition. For eons mankind has tried to make a villain of the Moon. Lunar Eclipses are a peak moment: they bring up what needs to be acknowledged and dealt from the past, or from our emotional/psychological world, so that we can begin a more unburdened path forward. Full Moon Eclipses are a time when lunar energy is amplified, when shadows are prominent, and when the unexpected is expected. This all reflects back down to us water babies on earth. We have the opportunity to get very honest about what is out of alignment in our lives. From there, accountability begins and plans are made. I encourage you to begin cultivating your own interpretation of Eclipses based on how you feel and what you notice. Look backwards to last summer: the last Eclipse season we had. Go slow, rest, and see what comes up. Work with this energy to clear, declutter, and prepare for a different way of being.
This Lunar Eclipse could highlight the parts of ourselves that have been uncared for and neglected. When we haven’t felt safe to look at the aspects of our defense mechanisms, about the lies told to us to keep us under someone else’s burden, they can feel overwhelming to face. When we haven’t been shown it is safe to love ourselves, to take up space, it is hard to celebrate wins. The knives pointed at us turn inward. Our successes make us feel like imposters, or somehow become something to cause blame.
Spend time with those parts of yourself long enough to understand that they are lies. Leave a light on for the ways you’ve grown. Welcome in reflections of yourself that are accurate—that are present based, not mired in past stories of another.
Collectively, we are cultivating resilience. One way to do so is by tending to our emotional needs, is intentionally healing our ancient wounds. Resilience is not about being so tough we can’t feel anything, it’s not about being so closed off that we can’t be in dialogue. Resilience is about creating root systems, learning from our mistakes, and giving ourselves boatloads of compassion through our processes. Resilience is knowing that we can remain centered enough to deal with about stepping out of our comfort zones in order to help others. Self-care is understanding the power you hold is a precious gift.
The following are Tarotscopes for each sign. I have drawn a card and channelled messages that come forth. Feel free to read your Sun, Moon, or Rising, or all 3. Some folks read the signs that their other planets, like Mars or Jupiter, are in as well. As always, check with your doctor and use your discernment before using any herbs or ingesting anything. Take what you’d like and leave the rest!
To purchase the 2020 Many Moons Lunar Planner, go here for the 2nd edition.
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Aries
3 of Wands
Aries, this Full Moon Lunar Eclipse is here to remind you that it’s time to follow your passion. This Eclipse isn’t about burning everything down, it’s about incorporating more of what you love into your everyday world. This time is for shedding old behaviors. Sacrifice that which doesn’t serve your new direction to the funeral pyre. Taking risks, working in aligned collaborations, and focusing on your creativity will pay off right now. It’s as much about the energy you are bringing to your goals as it is about where you will end up.
This Eclipse season is illuminating your fears in order for you to meet and move past them. Parts of your shadow have come up in the form of fear—the panic that you won’t be allowed to truly get what you want even if you summon up your courage and actually try. This Full Moon might highlight the negative self-talk that stops putting yourself squarely at the stoop of your dreams. It is up to you to figure out why you do this, and how to circumvent familiar grooves of self-abandonment. Our first Full Moon of the year, which is an Eclipse, is a time to try things differently. You can start by doing something fun you haven’t practiced in a while; you can start by doing something new and exciting that makes your heart race a bit.
You are ready. It’s time to put your passions first. It’s time to try. It’s time to move forward in a new and different way.
Suggested spell ingredients: wind, earth, fire, a fear clearing spell, time spent doing something creatively weird that you love, and a message from your favorite star in the night sky.
Taurus
Page of Pentacles
Taurus, a lot of your intuition and information is coming in through your body. Let your body communicate. Prioritize getting to know your body better under this Full Moon. It may also be a good time to take stock of your health and home. Eclipse energy can be exhausting: if you get sick, or feel depleted, don’t take that as a “sign” or as a negative omen. Use whatever is coming up as a prompt to care for yourself. Slowing down could result in potent downloads.
This Lunar Eclipse could be highlighting where you need to make some important decisions around career and life’s purpose. It’s no secret that once you’ve made up your mind about what you are doing, it is done. Your ability to stick to your resolutions is unparalleled. However, this isn’t the time for concrete decisions. Stay curious; pay attention to what is coming to be cleared, coming up to be tended to, and coming up to stoke your passion. By the end of the month, you’ll know a lot more about which way to go.
Suggested spell ingredients: patience, lemons, citrine, echinacea, Child’s Pose, your bed, an extra blanket, and silence.
Gemini
The Fool
Gemini, this Lunar Eclipse could be bringing up some resistance around taking the next leap. The Secular New Year doesn’t always align with fresh starts for everyone, but you’ve got a lot of breakthrough energy surrounding you with this Lunar Eclipse and the Fool card showing up. Are you ready? You really can leave parts of the past firmly in the past, if you can work through your assorted attachments to the predictable—to the known patterns and behaviors you have clung to in order to distract you away from your brilliance.
Let’s reframe the Fool, for those of you who aren’t quite looking to shake things up so much quite yet. The Fool is the cosmic egg, the source of all. The Fool is the innocent energy of exploration, of experimentation, of what ifs? And why nots? At this time, how can you apply this to yourself? How can you apply it to the so-called problems in your life? It is a gift to know yourself. But not knowing what you are capable of can be equally bountiful and thrilling. Let the lightning storms of inspiration in your mind run wild, out past the fences your ego tries to put around them.
Suggested spell ingredients: fire and ice quartz, drinking in the energy of a you you’ve never been, breath work, and a night spent collaging.
Cancer
Ace of Swords
Right now, this Full Moon Lunar Eclipse is transmitting downloads and information about where you’ve been undermining your own power and agency. Everything coming up for you is important information. In fact, it all might be clues around what not to take into this new year, into this new state of you. What you do, and how you do it differently, is much more important, sweet Moonchild.
Clearing away rot, and dealing with what needs to be dealt with—so that you can *finally* move on—is a very good use of your time. Just because someone is punishing you doesn’t mean you need to punish yourself. Protecting yourself and having boundaries is a top priority for you now. Consciously empowering yourself to make choices that send strong messages to your psyche that you are safe, you are held, and that your needs are important is key. Do not linger on loose ends that are better cut off anyway.
Make aligning with the self you are ready to be your goal for this Eclipse season. Turn your actions into symbols, into a promise to yourself that you are now ready to value clarity and truth, empowerment and actualization.
Suggested spell ingredients: putting glass in a paper bag and smashing it with a hammer as therapy, clear quartz, a cord cutting ceremony, finishing some things you’ve been putting off, and a night spent writing down everything single thing you are becoming this year, and the inklings of how you will make it all happen.
Leo
The Hanged One
This Eclipse, and really much of January, will most likely have you preoccupied with processing the last year. Fun fact: everyone else’s “new year, new you” is mostly hype that you don’t have to buy into. If January needs to be a wrap up, a time to make sense of your life, and a lull—then that makes sense for you. We are always in a state of becoming: there’s no calendars or clocks that will force it. Time to take time could be just what you need.
Sometimes the Hanged One arises when you might be finally done with your own shenanigans, when you’re tired of making it hardest for yourself. It can come up when you’re unsure of what to do next, but ready to completely name what needs to be let go of. Settle into what it feels like for you to shed. Find ways to surrender to your own upcoming Moonrise Eclipse.
Suggested spell ingredients: a watch or clock so you don’t have to look at your phone so much, a Yin Yoga class, lemurian quartz, Nina Simone on repeat, and your favorite Rumi poem
Virgo
Judgement
This is an Eclipse that might be bringing up some regrets. Regrets are hard to grapple with, especially when they ultimately have to do with your own accountability to yourself and your values. But here’s the thing: if you really didn’t know any better, you’ve got to be willing to forgive yourself for betrayals you’ve created or incurred. What might be more painful to deal with are the deeper patterns that point to all the ways you’ve undersold yourself, all the ways you’ve sacrificed self-hood for others. Or, the ways you compromised your energy for who you thought you were, for who you thought others wanted you to be. But knowledge is power, sweet Virgo. And now you know.
There’s always a victory after the awakening. In this case, try letting the awakening be the victory. What you are letting yourself see, and who you are letting yourself be, will get you ever closer to meeting your own needs.
Suggested spell ingredients: dandelion tea, dalmatian stone, No Tears Left to Cry by Ariana Grande, a list of all you’ve learned in the past month, and one concrete way to celebrate your learnings.
Libra
3 of Cups
Libra, this Lunar Eclipse is bringing up shadows you have around belonging, and all the ways you’ve separated various parts of who you are in order to feel accepted. The thing is, you aren’t for everyone. No one is. Ironically, the more you try to be everything to everyone, the more you become nothing to yourself. The 3 of Cups is showing up to remind you to embrace all of the different parts of who you are, and to fully receive the exhale that accompanies not needing to be anything other than your gorgeous self. Notice who is showing up. Let them help you show up more as yourself, too.
This is a potent time for you. You’ve got a lot to celebrate. You’ve got a lot of magic to make. Your past, your present, and your future lay in front of you like pearls on a silk string of the spiral of your life. The greatest adventure you can take right now resides within—by integrating and tending to the sacred songs that only you can sing.
Suggested spell ingredients: honey calcite, a night with friends collaging and sharing dreams, naked lady essence, scent of trumpet flower, and 3 white tea lights to symbolize past/present/future merging.
Scorpio
2 of Cups
There are so many growth opportunities for you this year, and this month, to transform your defensives into openness, your assumptions into dialogue. Operating on autopilot won’t do now: you’ve got to be willing to receive. You’ve got to be ready to make offerings. If you want to fall back in love with yourself, Scorpio, all signs point to please do.
This Lunar Eclipse could be shining a light around the self-love shadows you have and how that impacts various relationships in your world. What makes a relationship healthy? Where are you giving too much or too little? What is your definition of taking? It is time to ask yourself some serious questions around what you need in order to create equal, supportive partnerships with others, and most importantly, yourself. The first step is believing all of the work is worth it, as well as believing you are worth it. Get all in.
Suggested spell ingredients: mirrors, rose hip tonic or extract, rose quartz, desert rose, and new photos of yourself that accurately reflect the level of self-acceptance you are cultivating.
Sagittarius
10 of Pentacles
“You can have everything you want, just not all at the same time”, that’s an oft-repeated saying. But is it really true? This Lunar Eclipse is showing you how you can have everything you want, because right now, having what you want means getting what you need. And getting what you need means you are able to turn everything into an opportunity for your highest learning and your greatest good. This is a reminder that you are really, really good at all of the above, so use your gifts.
This Lunar Eclipse could be bringing in important downloads around your legacy, which of course, includes what you’ve inherited: from the past, from past selves, from friends and family and community, and all the places you’ve walked. You are allowed to pick and choose what you’d like. You are ready to start building a legacy that resonates with everything you want now. Redefining time, calling back your own time, planning what you will be doing with your time, and how all of this relates to getting what you truly want, is a good use of your efforts right now.
Suggested spell ingredients: a donation to a cause you care about, cakes or potatoes spiced with rosemary, essences of fir and pine, a land offering, and time spent around those that know and love you best.
Capricorn
Justice
If you do any one thing too much, or for too long, you will most likely start to hate it. Maybe you’ll even start to hate yourself a little too. This Full Moon Lunar Eclipse might be highlighting all the stuff you’ve been doing too much of, for far too long, and all the ways it is causing you dissatisfaction.
Don’t confuse fatigue, or imbalance, for every single thing in your life being wrong. Don’t let comparisons or unhealthy power dynamics further erode your self-respect. This is a time period where you can figure out what to do less of—or to parse out what exactly you are overdoing—and then stop. This is where you can start experimenting with interesting new activities to try. You don’t have to let any one thing go if you don’t want to. Be willing to take a step back and be flexible enough to admit some balancing must take place. You have to be willing to be kind enough with yourself so that you can actually be open to the truth.
Suggested spell ingredients: a night or two or three or four off, a visit to a place you’ve never been, and balancing actions: if you are lonely, reach out; if you have been talking too much, listen.
Aquarius
Strength
Sweet Water Bearer, you are rewilding your heart. You are staring down your inner demons. You are stepping into courage. You are doing yourself all the favors. A myth of healing is that one day we are healed, period. Then there’s nothing left to heal, and then nothing hurts and nothing goes wrong, and everything is perfect. The problem with healing is that it doesn’t always feel good. Healing is exhausting and healing requires dedication. Remember as you stay with yourself in this current heart excavation, this heart retrieval period to rest, to take breaks, and to pencil in fun and play. Measure your healing by how deep you can feel, by how compassionate you can be, by how hopeful you still remain.
Let this Eclipse be a balm for any and all parts of you that are run ragged. In just making the commitment to heal, you are opening up beautiful rose-colored portals into a vibrant future you can’t yet see, but can sense is on the horizon. Give yourself reminders of your resilience. Let this Lunar Eclipse bring you any support, messages, or guidance around what to let go of and what to move towards in this next stage of your heart’s superbloom.
Suggested spell ingredients: yarrow, naps, flowers, advocating for your needs, and praying to your wisest future self.
Pisces
6 of Wands
You are doing the darn thing, Pisces! The 6 of Wands is here to affirm you are on the right path. This Lunar Eclipse might be bringing up imposter syndrome, or some doubt around your most treasured plans. Use this decade’s first Full Moon to really look at where you consider other people before even checking in with what you need first.
This is a time period that could feel like a lot for you, as you firmly decide to make bold moves—ones that fly in the face of what is usually expected of you. It can be challenging to discern what is your fear and what is the energy of others, or the energy coming from all the different sources: the screens, the media, strangers on the street, your inner negative voice. This Lunar Eclipse is reminding you of the blocks you are ready to clear away—they are coming up so that you can put them to rest and move on. Or at the very least, this Full Moon wants you to feel the feelings and then still move forward.
Please stay the course. Cultivate your beautiful visions with attention and action.
Suggested spell ingredients: carnelian, Boundaries and Protection by Pixie Lighthouse, the poems of June Jordan read out loud over a candle or fire, and a cup of hot cocoa to sip as you gaze out at the Moon.
Written by Sarah Faith Gottesdiener
