March 3 Lunar Eclipse: Clearing the Way

Just before sunrise on the East Coast, Tuesday, March 3, the sky will unveil a breathtaking total lunar eclipse—a luminous “Blood Moon” rising as the only total lunar eclipse of the year and the last until December 2028. No special glasses needed to view it. If the skies are clear, all of North America will be able to take in this spectacle. The eclipse begins around 6 am ET, peaks around 6:35 am and, as the Moon sets beneath the western horizon, it will be with a final glowing bow.

A lunar eclipse is a full moon that packs a lot of punch. Think of it as a moment when something within you that has overshadowed your radiance is temporarily eclipsed so you can see the totality of yourself more clearly. March’s cosmic weather asks you to release anything that dims your light. Bring the whole of your lived experience—beautiful, painful, holy, messy—into the open. In the fullness of truth, comparison dissolves, judgment dissolves, and you remember that everyone carries their own light and constellation of stories.

This eclipse unfolds with the Sun at 12 degrees of luminous Pisces and the Moon at 12 degrees of discerning Virgo. Luna invites us into grounded simplicity, asking us to see—without distortion—what no longer supports the coherence of our body, mind, or emotional landscape. Virgo governs digestion and assimilation, not only of nutrients but of impressions, thoughts, and experiences.

While Virgo very much corresponds to our experience of material reality, Pisces whispers to our hearts: don’t get trapped in the circuitry of duality in your mind. Pisces symbolizes our remembering we are each a spark of Divine Source Intelligence. From the marriage of Virgo and Pisces comes a sacred truth: every morning is a gift and each new day an invitation for radiating the truth of our being.

Given recent events in our world, digesting the truth of our unity may be challenging for many of us to assimilate. Be gentle with yourself about that as you cultivate the contemplative tone that the Sun, retrograde Mercury, Venus, Mars and the North Node in Pisces are singing. They ask us to notice where we still relate to life through the old paradigm of separation. Expect a lot of Aha! Moments in March around this theme.

I had one such moment last night. After dinner, my stomach was a bit queasy. My thought was, it must have been something I ate. The immediate response I received from my Higher Self to that thought? Time to end the blame game.

What? I felt I was free of blaming anyone or anything for what I experience and yet, here I was blaming the food I had eaten for my upset stomach. It became evident to me that I still had separating perceptions to clear. I recognized how truly it is that the only thing any of us is ever a victim of is our own unconscious belief patterns rooted in the paradigm of separation. Even something as seemingly innocent as blaming the food I ate engaged and reinforced the neural pathways of separation in my brain.

Neptune, the ruler of Pisces, has now stepped boldly into Aries for the next fourteen years announcing that we are evolving beyond the dramas of separation and learning to deeply appreciate the delights of living in a world with such extraordinary diversity and contrast. Neptune in Aries has a clear cosmic proclamation: the I AM of unity consciousness is the emerging architecture of the Aquarian Age.

Saturn recently joined hands with Neptune indicating he accepts the sober, holy work of constructing new systems and foundations in our world that reflect that truth. And in the coming years, Uranus and Pluto will be tearing down those old systems and structures that don’t serve the highest good of all.

Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter are also contributing to this process. Since November, Venus and Mars have been undergoing an alchemical refinement as they’ve been under the beams of the Sun. Their energies have been recalibrated and tenderized into deeper integration. Venus’s receptivity, relational wisdom, and value-sense have expanded. Mars’s impulsivity, reactivity, and drive have been tempered into deeper focus, purpose and clarity.

Most importantly, this process has deepened and elevated the unity of yin and yang. Both Venus and Mars stand on the threshold of new cycles to carry that light into our world. Venus will initiate her new cycle as she emerges as an evening star just days after the eclipse, while Mars begins his new morning-star cycle a week later.

No wonder the theme of this eclipse season has been unmistakable: purge, release, clear. Mercury, retrograde in Pisces is also singing this new tone throughout March, urging us to pay attention to where we may still be gripping, resisting, or projecting perceptions born of separation into the unknown. These old strategies belong to the world we are leaving behind.

Blessedly, the Cosmic Amplifier, Jupiter forms a supportive, opportunistic aspect to both the Sun and Moon at the eclipse. While this may amplify your internal processes, it is only so you can gather the pieces of your puzzle and sense the new pathways emerging. Again, the theme is contemplation. With Mercury and Jupiter retrograde, it’s not time to initiate bold moves. March is for preparing the soil. April carries the ignition energy.

May grace walk beside you through this luminous total lunar eclipse, Mercury’s retrograde, and Jupiter’s return to direct motion. And may each of us shine like lightning bugs greeting the first breaths of spring, carrying our tiny lanterns of YES into our awakening world.