"I consider eclipses to be a kind of religious event, worthy of stopping everything for. They are akin to the quarter days (equinoxes and solstices) and the cross-quarter days (Imbolc, Beltane, Lammas and Sahwen). These kinds of events are the natural basis of what we think of as a holiday. Eclipses seem to arrive with even greater emphasis. They are the events that move around the calendar, coming gradually earlier each year and arranging themselves in distinct, interesting patterns.

Rather than being on the strictly solar calendar (as are the seasons), eclipses are a made of the combined cycle of the Sun and the Moon, what I call an epicycle. Total solar eclipses are a kind of hieros gamos, the male and female principles engaging and interpenetrating one another fully. For an individual out of partnership or meeting another person face-to-face as an individual, think of it as solos gamos, or masturbation taken to the depth of authentic selflovemaking. At its essence, this is the meeting of the inner male and inner female identities (what Jung called anima and animus).

Note that it is the Moon or interior principle that dominates the Sun, the expressive principle. An eclipse represents a moment of respite from this thing we call the patriarchy, both internal and external. It is an opportunity to stop expressing oneself. It is a chance to let go of one's self-concept and embody oneself with full awareness.

At the core, an eclipse is a New Moon, but it's a much more precisely aligned one. The Sun and the Moon form a conjunction. Yet rather than passing slightly above or below the Sun (as usually happens), the Moon completely obscures the Sun's disk. A total eclipse means that the Moon is close enough to the Earth at the time to entirely obscure the Sun. (The Moon moves in an elliptical orbit, and thus has varying distances from the Earth. The closer the Moon is, the bigger it appears to us. When the Moon is distant from the Earth, what would be a total eclipse appears as an annular eclipse, or an eclipse with a ring of the Sun around it.)

Eclipses happen near one of the lunar nodes, those mysterious karmic points whose meaning everyone wonders about. Eclipses are precisely what the nodes indicate — the approximate location of the next eclipse. Friday's is an eclipse on the South Node, representing a release from the past; in particular, a past concept of your identity.

The nodes are points in space rather than objects. But they have the full power of any planet, whether there is an eclipse in the vicinity or not. They represent the place where the path of the Sun and the path of the Moon, which exist on different planes, will intersect. They also indicate approximately when it will happen, usually within a few days. Therefore, I consider them multidimensional points, combining two planes of space and the dimension of time.

The nodes dominate many, many charts and many lives. In interpretation, they act like portals to other dimensions, typically one's sense of what one has become (Ketu or the South Node) and what one is becoming (Rahu, or the North Node). The South Node is now in Leo, representing a kind of sum total of "what egoic identity we have become" and are in the process of unbecoming (the eclipse). These are usually experienced less like concepts and more like interior realities. In other words, they relate to how you feel, which can reflect who you are. Inevitably, with the act of letting go we open up to new possibilities.

What I like to convey is that an eclipse is a holistic event. It is something we experience with our entire being. In human consciousness, it is primal material. The Sun (our immediate local source of energy) "going out" is powerful territory for a tiny little human in a great big cosmos. The Moon blocking the Sun is the perfect metaphor for shadow, which is to say, engaging what in depth psychology is called shadow material: fear, deep eroticism, surrender to death and all the great many emotions associated with these things. We have an image of ego death, doubly iterated because the event is in Leo or Meo (meow), the sign of what we think of as the "self."

They are also intersection points between the personal and the collective. This is why they are seen alternately as harbingers of disaster (collective events that affect our lives) and as openings or opportunities (moments when the collective stands aside and makes a little more room for who we are). And this peculiar, almost alchemical power, is why we need to treat them with so much intention.

Friday's lunation is a total solar eclipse. Now, eclipses have returned to Leo, in the form of the South Node. There has not been a South Node solar eclipse in Leo since 1971. Looking at history, the early 1970s were a very unusual time, when we could say that people were willing to exchange an old idea of who they were for a new one. This mighty charge was let by the Baby Boomers, who succeeded in being the first generation to refuse to go to war. Then the war ended and opportunity beckoned and many of them, well, got stuck in that land of plenty. Notably, Pluto was in Leo in the birth charts of a massive swath of Boomers, and this last Leo solar eclipse seems to have activated that Pluto placement to full force.

Friday's eclipse comes within about seven degrees of the Pluto placement of those born between 1942 and 1948 — the vanguard of the Baby Boom. The entire Pluto in Leo generation is the beneficiary of this kick in the ass, and frankly the world needs it.

Bernadette Brady writes, "This Saros Series [group of eclipses] concerns itself with breaking out of a very negative situation where no hope can be seen to a more positive space containing many options. A worry that may have been affecting a person will suddenly clear. The solution is shown by the Cosmos and needs to be taken up without too much delay."

Eclipses stand alone. And in particular, Leo eclipses stand apart. Leo is the sign at the center of the zodiac. It is not the precise temporal center — that would be late Virgo. But in the astrological system, it is the sign that is ruled by the Sun, and the Sun is not a planet; it is the star that feeds us light, life and energy. It is our origin and our point of return. It, too, has an origin; stars are born, live and die, like all living creatures. They are as close to being alive as a supposedly inanimate object gets.

A total eclipse of the Sun in Leo stands as a direct invitation to wake up and pay attention to who we are. But rather than trade one self concept for another, we have a bold calling to trade a self concept for an actual sense of self. We can trust that the events of this time, some of which will feel fated and others we will invoke, are designed to help us do precisely that."