Solar Eclipse 2024 | Eclipse Energy Reading - Tarot and I Ching
Every lunar month, I pull a single tarot card and consult the I Ching regarding a question geared toward this collective.
The March "Worm Moon" derives its namesake from the worms emerging and the birds feasting after a long winter. March 25th is at the beginning of Aries season, so the relationship of the moon’s springtime name associated with new beginnings is significant. Aries season marks the beginning of the Astrological year—the fire of fire—the creative push animals and plants alike need to birth something new.
Given these reflections, the question arises:
What’s to come of the Solar Eclipse in Aries coming April 8th?
The Reading
The Page of Pentacles with Hexagram 54 Changing to Hexagram 1
Another reading about surrendering.
This reading, as always, is quite apt. All eclipses are a kind of marriage in a sense; a merging of Sun and Moon; Moon and Earth. The Marrying Maiden hexagram (54) is about surrendering the will to something beyond our control; to accept what cannot be changed.
THE IMAGE
Thunder over the lake:
The image of the marrying maiden.
Thus the superior man
Understands the transitory
In the light of the eternity of the end.
Surrender. Success.
The paradox is that through surrendering we gain primal power.
The Page of Pentacle’s element is Earth of Earth. It’s associated major is The World/The Universe. As the World is the last major arcana, so too is the Page of Pentacles the last in the minor arcana. Though the Page is the last minor, the quadrant of the Zodiac that it corresponds to is Aries, Taurus, Gemini—the first three signs.
Keywords and themes associated with this card are realized manifestation; completion and succession; human between heaven and earth. As the Page of Pentacles is Earth of Earth, it is full of material substance—literally “pregnant with itself.” The Page of Pentacles molds the vessels of life out of clay. Like anything that corresponds to endings, the Page also represents beginnings. It’s no secret that having a Solar Eclipse in Aries (the first sign) on a new moon is the definition of new beginnings. Naturally, new beginnings require a kind of surrender to something which preceded it; something needs to be left behind.
Hexagram 54 is about the power of surrender, and eclipses require a kind of surrender. To be blunt, if you fight the will of the universe, it will cause misfortune. Let whatever happens—whether it be fortunate of misfortunate—to happen and take it with grace knowing that even though things may seem chaotic and out of place, everything is happening as it should.
When you look up the meaning of the Hexagram, things about a youngest daughter and eldest son arise. The name of the Hexagram too implies there is some sort of feminine energy that needs to surrender to the will of the masculine. I believe these interpretations in this context are misplaced. The eclipse is about things merging—becoming equal. The eclipse happens because the moon appears to be the same size as the sun from the perspective of Earth, and this phenomena coupled with the timed alignment of the bodies “intersecting” are what creates the ecliptic portal. Both energies are required for the eclipse: the sun emits light and the moon creates darkness. It is the merging of both that creates the beautiful and rare moment. The literal beauty of the eclipse is that both energies surrender to each other, too, and through their own surrendering, we get to see the two celestial bodies in a new way. The sun casts so much brightness that it is typically impossible to see it for what it is. The moon, visible when the world shuts down, is not appreciated in the same manner as the sun. Through the eclipse, the moon’s size as equal to the sun finally becomes apparent, and the shadow it creates decreases the brightness of the sun enough that we can actually perceive the solar flares and other celestial phenomena that typically go unnoticed. The two merging together enhance our earthly understanding of them both.
The surrender does not happen from the feminine, but from the earthly observers who have almost no choice but to observe the temporary darkness and beauty that it creates.
The Page of Pentacles (being all about Earth) coupled with the Hexagram 54 tells us that we are the ones who must surrender. If all the affected beings below (us) follow and surrender to the energy of the eclipse, an earthly or material success will follow, brought forth by the Page of Pentacles along with the immense creative energy symbolized by that which Hexagram 54 changes into—the 1.
Hexagram 1—The Creative: Heaven over Heaven. Sublime Success Furthering Through Perseverance.
As we change from Hexagram 54 to Hexagram 1, we encounter the power of movement with heaven over heaven.
THE IMAGE
The movement of heaven is in full power.
Thus the superior man makes himself strong and untiring.
The 6 unbroken lines of this Hexagram are associated with a lack of weakness. There is a real higher power associated with it—almost a power of perfection.
“In relation to the universe, the hexagram expresses a strong, creative action of the Diety. In relation to the human world, it denotes the creative action of the holy man or sage, of the ruler or leader of men, who through his power awakens and develops their higher nature.”
The success spoken of through Hexagram 1 is a success that starts at the primal depths of the archetypal and eternal world. This Creative power is the energy of primal creation; the force behind the creation of everything. It is well beyond the realm of the material, however it may manifest there through aligned action. The aligned action is really a alignment with the will of the above merging with the will of the below; the alignment of the Great Harmony with the individual will—both of which are brought forward by the energy of the Creative.
“The course of the Creative alters and shapes beings until each attains its true, specific nature, then it keeps them in conformity with the Great Harmony. Thus does it show itself through perseverance.”
Interestingly, this Hexagram represents the time from May-June when the “light giving power is at it’s zenith.” Given this association and the question of the reading, the final conclusion of this reading is that real Creative energy will be merging with earth in the months following the Eclipse. If you align with it, you can harness it. The paradox, however, is that “harnessing” it’s power is actually about surrendering to that which is out of our control—surrendering to the will of the Creative. Perhaps it is through this alignment to the will of the above that we will actually discover what it is we should be doing with our time on the material realm. Let it change!
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❥ Monarch