The lunar eclipse occurs tonight as the Moon is rising, and will be particularly visible for those in Europe, western Africa and the eastern parts of the US and Canada. For those of you in the western US, the Moon will be eclipsed as it rises above the horizon.

For those of us who can see the eclipse it will be quite a show, unless obscured by cloud cover. Light from the Sun refracted through the Earth’s atmosphere will turn the moon shades of amber and crimson. The eclipse is scheduled to occur at 5:44 pm est, just before the astrological Full Moon.

Eclipses have long been reputed to bring periods of crisis and calamity, and while very few people consciously embrace crisis as a lifestyle, there is benefit to a crisis point that brings about change. In an eclipse we are symbolically blinded as both luminaries become darkened by the earth’s shadow, and in that blindness we find ourselves reaching for the light that shines within us. This is an opportunity to seek that which is real, and learn to let go of our dependence on that which is false.

In transformational astrology, hidden in every crisis is an opportunity for growth and transformation. With faith and attention to truth, each difficult situation becomes an alchemical laboratory in which the base metal of our life is transmuted into the gold of conscious awareness.