A Collective Oracle for the Piscerian Eclipse of the Moon
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The moment of a total lunar eclipse always cuts deep into the fabric of the cosmos. The Moon, the reflective luminary of Gabriel, who governs the tides of memory and image, is pushed into the mouth of shadow. Yesod, which receives and filters the current of Light descending from Kether through Tifereth, suddenly falls into darkness. The lunar vessel is swallowed by the umbra and offered to the dragon’s mouth.
The eclipse occurred at fifteen degrees of Pisces, within the bound of Jupiter, in the very sign of mutable water. Pisces is tied to the twelfth house, the domicile of the Bad Spirit, the Cacodaimon, where vision falters, the unconscious grow denser and the veil of incarnate life becomes thin. The ruler of this eclipse was therefore Jupiter, who at that same hour was in Cancer, cardinal water, in the subterranean root, the Imum Coeli.
A mutual Moon-Jupiter regency was drawn in heaven, right as she sank beneath the draconian shadow. Saturn had also just moved retrograde into Pisces, sealing the event with the mark of his slow and weighty presence in the same mutable waters. To this was added a separating square of one degree between Jupiter and Mars in Libra, hence creating a sharp angular discord between expansion and contest.
This reading took place after eclipse, with the Moon in Aries, under myrrh incense, Psalms 120 and 121 read aloud beforehand.
I. North – What Ancient Shadow Emerges Seeking Release?
Major Arcanum II – The High Priestess
In the northern angle stands the High Priestess, the thirteenth path of the Tree. She embodies the lunar mystery, the silent one robed in white and seated between the pillars. Her place is in the centre, joining Kether to Tifereth, cutting vertically through Da’at, sustaining the hidden equilibrium of the cosmos. She is the virgin of Sophia, the Lady who bears the sealed book, the veil of the temple that hides and reveals in equal measure.
The presence of the High Priestess at the root during a lunar eclipse points directly to the primal fracture of Yesod. An eclipse is always a severing in the central pillar, between Tifereth and Yesod, when the radiant current cannot pass in clarity and the lunar orb receives the shadow of the world. This card mirrors the first half of that passage, when Light streams downward through Kether and Tifereth, before it is lost in blood and iron shadow of the eclipse.
What then is the ancient shadow that rises from this ground? It is the shadow of hidden knowledge locked away, the forgotten remembrance that human souls once carried in silence. The book she holds is sealed because the gaze of those who approach is unprepared. The eclipse in Pisces, mutable water, tears open the veil at the root and forces to the surface the long-forgotten hunger for the Lady’s teaching. This hunger may appear in distorted forms: confusion, forgetfulness, longing for intoxication, or the pull of dissolution. But, beneath these forms, the deeper memory rises, asking to be spoken, asking to be released from captivity.
The High Priestess points back to when humanity lived closer to the Mother of Wisdom, and forward to the possibility of remembering Her presence. During this eclipse the collective root is being washed by lunar shadow, but through that washing the Marian seal begins to glimmer again. What emerges is the call to reverence, the call to silence, the call to return to the unbroken flow of Light that once moved without interruption between Kether and Yesod. The shadow at the root is the absence of that flow, and the card insists that it must be faced, named, and lifted into remembrance.
II. South – What Demand is Revealed in the Light of Mission?
Eight of Swords
In the southern angle falls the Eight of Swords, connected with Hod of Yetzirah, Jupiter in Gemini, held by the archangels Umabel and Iahhel. The card shows restriction, bondage, one surrounded by blades pointing inwards. It is a place of constraint and limitation of voice.
This card immediately echoes the astrological ruler of the eclipse itself. Jupiter, the planet of expansion and vision, is in Cancer, exalted in watery depths, yet the Eight of Swords shows him in detriment, bound within Gemini’s airy mutability. The contrast between Jupiter’s heavenly position in Cancer and his image in this card is striking. It suggests that, while the potential for expansive nourishment lies hidden in the waters, the mission that falls oneself is to confront the bondage of words, the prison of divided tongues.
Gemini is the place of multiplicity and dialogue, but, when Jupiter is bound there, his gifts are scattered, divided, unable to flow with coherence. The Eight of Swords tells of speech that cannot find its release, of thought trapped in its own web, of voices cut off from the Verbum. Thus the task is to liberate the Logos from captivity. Words must not remain merely human chatter; they must be cleansed, rejoined to the current of Spirit, allowed to breathe again with fire and clarity.
The lunar eclipse, by submerging the reflective vessel in shadow, reveals how humanity has allowed speech to become bound in fear and illusion. One’s mission is to break those bonds, to let language be a river of Spirit once again. The Psalms read in the wake of the eclipse are an image of this task: words that ascend beyond the personal, words that carry lament and trust into the Divine ear. The Eight of Swords calls for this same elevation in every place of speech, in all the ways language is wielded.
This demand is severe yet liberating. The eclipse at the southern angle asks the human race to rise from bondage into Logos. After all, without that rising, the words remain empty and the Spirit cannot descend.
III. West – What Reflection is Opened in the Encounter With the Other?
Eight of Cups
In the western angle stands the Eight of Cups, Hod of Briah, Saturn in Pisces under the Virtues Veualiah and Ielahiah. In the Raider-Waite tarot, the card reveals a figure turning away from eight cups, leaving behind what once was cherished, walking into the night under the gaze of a pale Moon. It is the gesture of departure, of relinquishing.
The significance of this card is immediate. Heavy and stern, Saturn is now in Pisces, retrograde at the final degrees of the zodiac. He dwells in the very waters where the eclipse was enacted. The Eight of Cups is thus a perfect mirror of the celestial moment. The Moon was swallowed by shadow in Pisces, and Saturn retraced his steps through the same house, insisting on abandonment, on renunciation.
In the western quadrant the concern is always the Other, the reflection received in partnership, the mirror in which the self meets what it is not. The Eight of Cups says that the reflection offered at this eclipse is departure itself. Relationships, forms of communion, bonds of desire that no longer carry Spirit must be left behind. The eclipse forces a letting go of collective attachments that no longer serve the soul.
One walks into the dark to seek a higher chalice; and one is being called to leave behind the obsession with surfaces of relationship and to seek deeper communion in Spirit. The eclipse in Pisces, joined with Saturn’s retrograde, insists that the time has come to move beyond sentimental illusions, to abandon the lower forms of union, to set forth toward the true Eucharist.
IV. East – What Gesture Must the Body and Aoul Take to Cross This Portal?
Queen of Swords
In the eastern angle stands the Queen of Swords, mistress of Briah in the element of Air, ruler of the Sylphs, sovereign over the last decan of Virgo through to the last decan of Libra. She is the lady of clarity, the one who cuts through veils with the sharpness of mind, the mother of discernment, the widow who sees without illusion.
This card is remarkable in the context of the eclipse, as it emphasises the dual presence of water and air throughout the whole reading. The Queen of Swords gathers these elements and wields them with precision. She is the necessary gesture of the soul in the aftermath of the eclipse: discernment, clarity, exactness.
If the High Priestess at the root calls for silence, and the Eight of Swords in the south calls for liberation of speech, the Queen of Swords in the east calls for the embodiment of truth in action. She insists that the body and soul must stand upright, cut through confusion, and refuse to be lulled by sentimental fog.
This is the form of passage required at this eclipse. The body must act with clarity, the soul must not fall into despair or illusion, the gesture of life must be decisive. The Queen of Swords is Marian in her own way: she is the one who holds the Word in purity, who does not permit falsehood, who reflects the Logos without distortion. To embody her is to let the Spirit cut through confusion, to let the breath of air clear the mists of water.
Fiat Lux.