October 2023’s Lunar Eclipse In Taurus Takes Off The Blinders

On October 28, 2023, a partial lunar eclipse in Taurus brings one hell of an eclipse season to an end. Lunar eclipses go down on the full moon, promising revelations, awakenings, and — out of the ashes — new beginnings. October’s Hunter’s Moon edition is not only the last eclipse of 2023, but the final chapter of the Taurus-Scorpio eclipse saga, which has raged since 2021. When it’s over, will you be lost to the ages, or ready to lead us into an uncertain future?

The sun shines in the day, exposing and enlivening. But the moon rules the night, the time of secrets and shadows. On a full moon, Luna reflects the sun’s light, revealing all which has been hidden, awakening the wolves who pass as men for the rest of the month. On a lunar eclipse, the earth passes through the interplay of light and shadow, blocking our view of the moon. As October’s edition is a partial lunar eclipse, in which some of the moon’s light is still visible, it’s as if we have just enough clarity to make choices. The hellmouth may be open for business, but we’re not out of the game yet. It’s enough to interrupt the transmission, to replace shock with sobriety, to accept imperfection, to make the compromises we need to keep enduring with an open heart.

This month’s Hunter’s Moon gets its name from Native American custom. After reaping the fields in September, predators could more clearly see their prey at night. This full moon was met with a big haul, as hunters were expected to bring in the meat for the coming winter. Are you the hunter, the one who watches the seasons and cycles, and chooses their moment; or are you the beast who walks into a trap?

Eclipses move between opposing signs, but also operate in larger, decade-spanning cycles, called Saros series. The last eclipse of this cycle went down in October 2005; “The Facebook” had only just debuted, emerging as possible competition to MySpace. Within weeks of this edition, the NSA would be exposed for wiretapping phone conversations, in secret, for years. 18 years later, the architects of these mainframes have us caught in their snare, falling for the same bait — or clickbait. We are the prey.

This round of Taurus-Scorpio eclipses started in November 2021, mere days after Britney Spears was released from her conservatorship. Though she had ostensibly been performing, dancing, and touring with as much powerhouse ferocity as ever, Spears had really been a prisoner, under constant monitoring, drugged and unable to speak out for herself. (Not incidentally, her memoir, The Woman in Me, comes out just in time for this eclipse). Britney broke free. And the rest of us?

The solar eclipse on October 14 was in Libra, the sign of others, which made us aware of the suffering of others in harrowing clarity. Libra asks us about where we emerge in an interconnected world. But this time, with Scorpio and Taurus in the picture, we must be aware: of how good intentions are manipulated to engage reactivity, how horror is trafficked to drive an audience, how we lose ourselves in the discourse. This moon in Taurus challenges you to observe how your point of view been peddled and distorted, how you’ve been used as a pawn — now and in the past, by parents, corporations, and political interests. If you can face this, you may just reclaim your voice, and the power to do something authentic and essential with it.

Here’s how to deal with this eclipse. First: eclipses are not the time for manifesting or magic. They’re about waking up and seeing the world with clarity, as if for the first time. It’s not about doing anything, so much as taking off your blinders. To cultivate clarity, you’re invited to totally inhabit your body. Taurus is the sign of autonomy and self ownership. The bull was worshiped in nearly every civilization for eons, as a vessel of fertility and life incarnate — before the monotheists took the fun out of everything.

In the Taurean framework, the body is literally made to be an idol. If you can treat yours as an effigy of power, if you can feed it and treat it to abundance, if you can bring the painful clashes within to peace, the rest of humanity may follow suit. Narcissism posits that nothing exists outside of you, that you are the world. But what if it were cultivated for good? What if, in bringing yourself to harmony, you could serve as an avatar of peace, demonstrating it by example, radiating it out to those in your orbit?

If this sounds self-serving or myopic, in light of worsening world crises, consider what difference it would have made if someone in power right now could stand in stillness, could listen and not react, could embody peace, and not just aggression. If you can do it, perhaps so can they. Many lives hang in the balance over this eclipse cycle. Start by valuing yours. Return to yourself, and to that within you which cannot be sold, distributed, or distorted. Find a way to steadiness, strength, and consistency — so that you can carry us through the next weeks and years, of precarity and possibility. If we are to be of service in quieting this inferno, the deescalation must begin within.