Michael Erlewine, owner of the Matrix astrology software company and the new website Astrology Land, posted a wonderful note on his Facebook page about the upcoming eclipse.  If you are on Facebook you can see the note here, otherwise here are the highlights”

Eclipses are powerful. In the astrological literature of not only the West, but also that of India, China, and Tibet it is clearly noted that if Full and New Moons are key times in the lunar cycle, then eclipses are yet of another order of magnitude stronger in their effect on our lives.

When the tradition says that eclipses are powerful, don’t look around outside yourself for some fearsome event to take place. That’s not it. We tend to think that it is the outside events that affect us most, and yet the most powerful events are those that take place inside us, somewhere in there toward our center. These are the events that actually control the periphery of our lives, all that is on the outside. In other words, our inside-changes control the outside more than vice-versa. When something changes deep within us, this can set into motion a whole string of events that really is life-changing.

Tradition states that every Full or New Moon, but especially when an eclipse occurs, has a certain tone or impulse (call it a vibration) that we may or may not resonate or pick up on at the particular time. It is made available, but we are not always receptive to it. This impulse or deep resonance is present around the times of an eclipse, either before, during, or after the actual physical event of the eclipse. It is not a matter of an exact minute, but a more general kind of thing… “around that time.” The whole area of time around an eclipse is charged with ‘vision’. This is the so-called “Vision of the Eclipse.” The great yogis in India and Tibet have for centuries written and whispered about the aligning of our inner energies at eclipse times – times of vision, seed times.

And ‘vision’ here, as mentioned in an earlier post a couple of weeks ago, does not mean seeing some ethereal figure floating in the sky. The vision of an eclipse is more like a deep imprint or resonance that penetrates us usually in a speechless manner, meaning we can feel something happening to us, but cannot yet put it into words. That comes later. Think of a vision as a seed impulse or tone (a strong experience) that stirs within us, as if a potent script was placed deep inside us, one that we will be able to read or respond to over the next days, weeks, or months, as it gradually unfolds and reveals its meaning to us. Eclipses are indeed powerful!

It is hard to say without studying our astrological chart whether any one of us will resonate or ‘see’ the vision for a particular eclipse, but that seed-vision is always emitted, always present at the time. At different times in OUR lives, we may be more or less receptive. Knowing something about eclipses and the vision possibilities connected with them can make us more sensitive and receptive to their message. We all receive the vision, but most often we are not aware enough to recognize what is happening to us. We are just kind of swept along in the current of it all most of the time. Every once in a while in our life, we wake up and are aware of what is happening to us.

If you are looking to grasp the vision of this particular eclipse then don’t look for something conceptual to occu, but rather look for an sense experience that is deeper than thought, a moment when you know something is happening, but like the Dylan song, “you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones” kind of thing. A vision strikes deep and literally moves or shifts us at a profound level, a level we cannot at first grasp with the conscious mind or intellect. That only comes later, with time, if we can be patient and let it surface.

I’ve been doing readings lately for clients who are concerned about the eclipse and worried that some disaster will befall them.  I love the way Michael describes the opening of the vision in the eclipse time.  Often something that has been hidden is unmasked, just as the Sun or Moon is hidden and then revealed in the eclipse.

With any planetary process it’s important to remember that the Universe is striving for balance and growth, and each experience that we encounter has the potential to carry us in the right direction.