A Leo Eclipse Re-Sets Your Centre, Then Waits to See If You’ll Take It

Your weekly guide: the Leo eclipse, where you push from, and what it takes to keep it moving (August 10 - 16)

Photo by Ani Kolleshi on Unsplash

Welcome to your Sunday ritual.

Only days left until the eclipse now, and the main agenda is of course that. And an eclipse that’s in Leo will of course show its weight.

Think of it like this. Someone VIP walks in somewhere. Special treatment for them, separate handling for them. And it changes the weight of the room every time. the centre shifts. it gets re-set immediately, and nobody announces it.

So when there’s an eclipse in Leo, think of it as something reaching in and adjusting our centre. Where are we positioning ourselves. How are we continuing to occupy the centre. And from that place we occupy, what kind of momentum are we sustaining. don’t panic. I’m getting to all of it.

First of all I love solar eclipses in this sign. very much. and the reason is very simple, why, because it’s happening in the Sun’s own sign. At home. I mean we’re living it in the place where it’s felt the MOST. I love them because they make the archetype felt all the way down.

Which is why these days there’s this thing sitting on all of us collectively: it’s as if something big is happening but I can’t fully work out what it is.

(and don’t forget this bit I just said. same thing on the other side. lunar eclipses in Cancer and Taurus are just as intense, in fact that’s the Moon at its most intense)

Anyway. what were we saying. Our centre energy is changing, so that feeling of yours, that something is being re-adjusted, is valid. So what’s being adjusted?

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Now think about it like this. We’re born. And the moment we start growing, even in that tiny stage where we can barely put a sentence together out of half-formed scattered words, we get asked: what do you like, what do you want, who are you? And we answer. I like this, I don’t like that. How old we are, our favourite colour, our favourite musician, where we’re from, and so on.

Then suddenly. Let’s say we don’t like the colour yellow. so now we’re “a person who doesn’t like yellow”. or we become a rock music person, and when other music comes on our eyes start rolling, ughh, this music again. And to the thing we’re attached to with love and excitement and passion, we hand our energy over with enormous devotion.

Then one day a chance at real momentum turns up in front of us. And it’s to do with exactly those subjects we assumed we never liked. and we go ahhh no way, I never like that. we don’t even see it.

Because a pride has formed there. A pride reaction tied to identity inflation.

but then, was that really us?

well. those are exactly the spots this eclipse goes for.

it actually started in February

Okay so, this axis didn’t start on Wednesday. it started back on February 17, with the eclipse in Aquarius, and Wednesday is number two in the sequence.

Before you read on, go back there for a minute. February of this year. What was starting in your life then, what was quietly filling up in you, what did you start wanting that you hadn’t wanted the year before. Hold onto whatever comes up, because Wednesday picks up that exact subject from the other end.

Eclipses arrive in pairs on an axis, and this axis is Leo and Aquarius until spring 2028. February gave us the Aquarius end, which is where we’re headed. Wednesday gives us the Leo end, which is what we’re being asked to leave.

what actually happens on Wednesday

So. August 12, at 20 degrees of Leo. And it's a total eclipse, not a partial, which is the bit that matters here, because a total one lands on us in full. that's just how these run.

And the Sun is in its own sign, at its most itself, and it goes dark. sit with that one for a second.

The eclipse lands on the South Node side, and that's what decides how the whole thing behaves. A South Node eclipse asks you to put something down first. Then it shows you what’s been starting. In that order, always, no exceptions, I’ll come back to it.

one note before I go on, because it needs saying

For the world agenda, this one looks like it works badly. Politics, leaders, all of that. (and when exactly is that agenda NOT troubled, tell me) But for our personal lives I read this eclipse as positive, and that’s where we’re going to spend our time, because that’s what we do here.

And the reason it’s good on the personal scale is the thing I’ve been describing all along. Our centre calibration is being re-set. Plus we’ve got the Jupiter and Saturn trine coming, and if we turn that to our advantage we can build something real for our own life purpose, our own fire, our own aliveness.

about that fire, since Leo is where it lives

You know me by now, I look at the wider frame, and you know I take Saturn in Aries very seriously. Since the beginning of the year I’ve been repeating the same phrase at you, constructive selfishness, because that’s what we’re learning until spring 2028. And this eclipse goes and stokes the fire underneath it.

(and remember Barbault’s basket while we’re here. the heavy ones, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, are all throwing supportive aspects at each other, and they’re doing it in fire and air. those last a long time)

Leo is fixed fire, and the intensity of that central fire is where momentum comes from in the first place. That’s the source of it, the whole supply. Which also means you can get too close and burn, and we’ve got a name for that one, narcissism. (ask Icarus. go near it, sure, just not near enough to melt the wings) But right now somebody has a hand on that fire and is pressing it up, so it’s blazing higher by the day.

So use it. use it to your advantage, that’s all I’m saying.

What’s waking up right now has to do with your core power. You might find you feel your life purpose more clearly, symbolically I mean, because Leo is aliveness. Leo is heat and light.

Photo by Mark Vihtelic on Unsplash

And what IS an eclipse, actually? A shadow gets in between, and it ends up being something like the moment where shadow and light touch each other. The collective unconscious clocks that immediately. And whatever was already sitting there waiting to come up into consciousness comes up. Then we all go ohhh, look at that, right at eclipse time, would you believe it.

(it was always there. we just couldn’t look at it, why, because life is dense and we’re busy)

And without triggers like these we’d stay exactly the same, which is not nice at all, thank you.

Life is growth, that’s all it is. it’s stoking your own fire, flaming it, growing the momentum. and then, my favourite part, that momentum goes off and makes other momentums by itself. nobody asked it to. it just does.

So. are you willing to take that centre? do you consent to your own fire being stoked? that’s the question, there isn’t another one this week.

and now the trine, this is the good part

Jupiter and Saturn are trine, in effect for the next few weeks and coming back round in the months after. And friends, this is A WONDER.

So please. Produce. Build. Solidify. Whatever it is you’ve been building, and especially anything that started back in February, keep making it solid, day by day and step by step. The steps you take here are most likely the ones that bring you an abundant harvest a few years out.

But patience is the actual subject. Not let it happen right now, not let the centre settle by Friday. patiently. Saturn in Aries is already pulling an adjustment on impulsive fast starts, saying no, sorry, it doesn’t work like that, you won’t be getting this one done quickly. And that isn’t bad news!!

Because by holding tighter to our own centre we develop that constructive selfishness. And then, in keeping with the Aquarian age we’re actually living in, we go and serve our communities out of our own strong fire.

but it isn’t free

It won’t come easy, obviously it won’t. This is a South Node eclipse, so we put down Leo’s shadow first and THEN the reward. Nothing in this system comes free. Free cheese is in the mousetrap.

So plainly: the eclipse wants us to put down pride.

And I mean pride in a very specific sense, friends. Positioning yourself apart from everybody. Staying slightly out of reach. Arranging an entire life so that you never once have to ask for anything.

Leo used well looks completely different. you want something, you decide you’re entitled to it, and you go and occupy that ground. there’s nothing greedy in it, none at all.

The shadow wants exactly the same thing and waits for it to turn up on its own.

oh, I don’t chase. if they wanted to, they would. I’m not going over there, and if it’s meant for me it’ll come and find me, won’t it. I’m not asking twice. I’m certainly not begging. I want it, obviously I want it, I want the very best version of it, delivered, preferably today. And in the meantime I’ll sit here in the corner with my pride in my lap, waiting to be treated like royalty.

You’ll be waiting a long time, says the eclipse.

the part nobody tells you about Leo

There’s a warmth in this sign the others don’t have. Sincerity is the word people reach for, though what I mean sits closer to being genuine, the thing where somebody is actually THERE while they’re with you.

And being liked belongs to Leo as well. So does being admired, being respected. And honestly?? they’re a nightmare to tell apart, why, because the road toward being liked and the road toward being genuine look identical for quite a long stretch. you can walk a very long way down the first one before you clock that you’ve lost the second.

So that’s the job this eclipse is doing. Your position isn’t going anywhere. What’s holding it up gets a look.

And the courage it takes to put the pride down is the same courage that walks you back toward the genuine version. that’s the offer. that’s the whole thing, really.

so go and do something with it

Don’t spend your centre energy holding onto something as useless as pride. Get to work. There’s a great deal in this world that needs doing and fixing, a great deal that benefits people and first of all benefits you. Spend your energy there. Position your centre there.

I said this to you in another letter and I’ll say it again, because it hasn’t stopped being true.

What comes next doesn’t arrive as a gift, it arrives as a construction site. Loud, dusty, exhausting, everybody arguing about the blueprint. I still mean every word. There’s a lot of work in front of us. And you don’t need some enormous meaning-of-my-life mission to do your part. Everyone taking the trash out in front of their own door would just about do it. There’s so much to actually do. What does the world want from me today, and what can I give it right now, with what’s in my hands. Ask only that. Keep it that simple, and the biggest relief you’ve felt in a long time comes with it, because that’s what living is. There is just the work.

Our fire is for that work. It’s time.

how long does this last

Not a week, and not the fortnight either. Reckon on about six months of this running strongly, and it stays live all the way to the next solar eclipse.

But put October and November in your diary, because that’s when it gets triggered again, and properly this time. Other planets come round and cross that same degree, and the whole subject reopens. So whatever Wednesday starts in you, expect to be hearing about it again in the autumn.

Which is also why, if nothing obvious happens on Wednesday, that’s normal. and if something does, that’s normal too.

And we’re not done in August either, there’s a lunar eclipse in Pisces at the end of the month, still on the old Virgo/Pisces axis, but that one gets its own letter.

about the week itself, because there is one

Right. The eclipse stamps itself all over these seven days, obviously. But a few other things are happening.

Monday. Venus does two contradictory things before dinner. Trine to Pluto, so something goes deep, then straight opposite Neptune, which fogs it over. so you’ll feel something enormously significant and won’t be able to verify a word of it. don’t sign anything.

Tuesday. Mars moves into Cancer, where it’s uncomfortable, so the way we go after things turns indirect overnight. Notice that. We’re walking into an eclipse about momentum and the planet of pushing has just gone quiet. This week the push comes from your centre or it doesn’t come at all. Then the evening fills up, Mercury opposite Pluto and Venus catching Uranus, and the buried stuff surfaces. Somebody says the quiet part out loud.

Wednesday. The eclipse. I’ve spent this whole letter on it.

Thursday. Eclipse hangover. You’ll be flat and a bit useless and that’s normal, so don’t book anything that matters. Mercury and Venus are friendly though, so it’s still the best day for saying the thing you couldn’t get out on Tuesday.

Friday. Nothing exact at all, which is rare this month. Moon’s in Virgo, so tidy up. Clear what needs clearing, because on Saturday you’ll want your hands free.

Saturday. Circle this one. Mercury meets Jupiter at 10 degrees of Leo, three days after the eclipse, when you’ll actually know what you’re deciding about. If there’s a thing to ask for, ask on Saturday.

Sunday. Quiet, but Mars is already closing in on its square to Neptune, so the fog rolls in by evening. See people you like. Start nothing.

Monday the 17th, just outside our window. Mars squares Neptune exactly, so whatever you push at that door won’t open. Finish the week on Saturday.

a FarStellar note

The sky has been so loud this year. One huge thing after another with barely a gap in between, and I’ve spent so many hours at the screen writing and pulling charts and going down rabbit holes that my brain occasionally just packs it in. it packs it in, friends. So I run a bit late now and then, and I’d ask you to be kind about that.

Everything that leaves here is careful, though, and that’s exactly why I run late. Nothing goes out until it feels right to me.

And if you’d like a proper look at your own chart while this eclipse is doing its thing, my readings are here.

So tell me what this one stirred up in you. What’s going on, where are you with all of it. Write it down here. The thing you write always ends up helping somebody else who’s reading it.

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One more before I let you go. We’re having a solar eclipse in Leo and getting our centre re-set, so this is the ideal week to send you back to the Solar Series. Four parts, and I go deep into the Sun in it. If you’ve read it already, go back and refresh. and if you’re new here you’re in for a treat, especially if you loved the Lunar Series, because this one will do the same thing for you.

Solar Series

Part 1:

You Are Not Born Into Your Sun Sign. You Grow Into It.

Part 2:

What Your Sun Came Here to Become

Part 3:

If Your Sun Is the Hero You're Growing Into, Your House Is Where You Grow

Part 4:

The Privilege of a Lifetime Is Being Who You Are

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Stay luminous,

Emi

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Follow me on Instagram too, @farstellar. The internet is the internet, platforms come and go, and I’d rather have more than one way to reach you.

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Disclaimer: FarStellar is not a substitute for therapy, medical advice, or mental health support. If you’re in crisis, please reach out to a licensed professional. Astrology is a tool for perspective. It’s not treatment, and I’ll never pretend it is.