Demystifying the magic of working with eclipse energy

We are fast approaching eclipse season and I am already beginning to see the warnings show up across the witch universe. I assume that people who warn others against doing magic during the lunar and solar eclipses mean well but as a longtime astrologer AND witch, I would like to kindly disagree. Eclipse energy can seem unpredictable but also follows some very specific rules (like all lunar energy). If you know and understand these rules, you can get back to doing your normal lunar magic in no time.

To understand how to work with the lunar energy of eclipses, you simply have to combine a basic knowledge of all lunar magic cycles and some basic astrology about the lunar nodes. Don’t worry – I’ll walk you through it.

To start with, lunar energy is quite simple and well understood in the witchcraft community. The old saying “Wax on/Wane off” can be applied to her. When the moon is waxing (from the point of the new moon through the hours before the full moon), it is well aligned to cast spells where you are bringing something towards you and when the moon is waning (from the point of the full moon to the house before the new moon), it is best to cast magic where you are pushing or removing something away from you. This can be simplified as we make wishes or set intentions for growth and forward motion with the new moon and remove and banish with the full moon.

Now we add in our astrology. All eclipses are just supercharged new or full moons where the lunar event falls into alignment with the lunar nodes. The lunar nodes aren’t objects in the sky, they are imaginary points – actual representations of the places in the sky where the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth could fall into a line with one another. This line is oppositional, in the sense that it has a North Node and a South Node which are always found within opposite signs in the natal horoscope chart.

Eclipses always come in pairs*. A lunar eclipse happens when the Earth passes in between the Sun and the Moon and a solar eclipse happens when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun. This always happens on the full moon and new moon, respectively. Because this happens near the lunar nodes, these cosmic events always include a conjunction between the Moon and either the North Node or the South Node.

This is where the complexity of eclipse magic comes into play.

Again – let’s simplify. The north and south nodes are a set of points that travels around the horoscope wheel. Energetically, they represent the tension point between where we’ve been (the South node) and where we are going (the North Node). In order to understand the energies of an upcoming eclipse, you must combine the energy of the lunar event (wax on for new moon/wax off for full moon) with the energies of whichever of the two nodes the moon will be conjunct at that time.

There are three possible options: new/new, old/old, and new/old.

I want to use our upcoming two eclipses to illustrate my point. On 11/19 we will be experiencing a lunar eclipse (full moon) at 27° Taurus. Right now the North Node is at 1° Gemini and the South Node is at 1° Sagittarius, so our full moon is going to be conjunct the North Node. Therefore, we combine the energy of the full moon (old/waning) with the energy of the North Node (new/where we are going).

Likewise, we are experiencing a solar eclipse on 12/5** at 12° Sagittarius which will be conjunct our South Node which is at 01° Sagittarius. So we combine the waxing/new energy of a new moon with the waning/where we’ve been energy of the South Node.

In both cases, these two lunar events will have both the energy of release and the energy of new beginnings at the same time. This is, I believe, the signature that has led many a witch to call eclipse energy “unpredictable” because if you are not accounting for both the push energy of the new and the pull energy of the old, you could easily get caught in a weird magic sandwich somewhere in the middle. We’re not those people though – we are empowered, well-informed witches!

The best way to harness eclipse energy, then, is to make sure that you have accounted both for the lunar energy and the nodal energy within your spell. See also: banishing an old love to make space for the new, or doing a ritual to remove something that is holding you back from pursuing your current goals. Just makes sure that you are working on both the bringing in and the letting go. You could include double action candles to represent both the push and the pull or have a part of the ritual dedicated to each aspect. That part is all you.

In this way, I believe that eclipses may be the best days of the year to perform big magic workings because, it seems to me, that all great endeavors involve both sides of the energetic coin in some fashion or another.

*occasionally threes
**all dates/time in EST