July 2020 Lunar Eclipse

This Saturday, on the evening of July 4th, on the West Coast of the United States is our Lunar Eclipse in Capricorn (it takes place in the early morning on July 5th everywhere else). Eclipses are opportunities for change and healing—the past surges into the present to be reckoned with. How we reckon with old wounds, old policies, old reactions, and old traumas determine new cycles of change and growth.

None of us can look away from the past right now, which is the present. How we do one thing is how we do everything. The clues of how are all around us. There is the work of pressure, resistance, challenging, defunding, unsettling, decolonizing, demilitarizing—this is dismantling work and discomfort work and resilience work. There are the opportunities of abolitionist praxis and mutual care networks and liberatory frameworks, and reconfiguring capitalism and reimagining what liberation can look and feel like. This is growth work, dreaming work, and creation work. We can do it all.

Anyone who tells you that Eclipses are scary or bad omens, and not to do healing, spell, or ritual work, is subscribing to the patriarchy and misogyny. Hundreds of years ago in the West/Europe, it was rulers who spread the rumor/belief that Eclipses were bad. They  attached the striking visuals and intense energy of Eclipses to the fall and deaths of kings, popes, and empires. There’s nothing wrong with corrupted power and abuse meeting their demise. We can imagine and receive Eclipses as revolution energy, as healing energy. Buddhist theory posits that Eclipse energy is amplification energy, and they suggest spending the day in prayer, acts of service, and goodwill. This is potent energy to meet with embodiment. Use it to facilitate awakenings and the endings that facilitate beginnings.

Some worthwhile uses of this Eclipse energy and season, in no particular order:

making an activist/action plan and sticking to it | interrogating internalized white supremacy/narcissism/abuse | ending long-standing emotional patterns based in family dynamics & white supremacist dynamics | changing relational dynamics on all levels (for example, noticing where you behave in transactional relationships with others and yourself, what unconscious bias are utilized in who you believe in more or value) | shedding of past life remnants | learning how to care and nurture yourself outside of capitalist numbing devices and oppressive punishment | banishing & cord-cutting harmful narratives and stories | energetic cleansing | naming what you are becoming | spending time becoming | tuning into dreams imagination, art, and intuition | normalizing conflict | resilience practices: staying with discomfort, moving through the discomfort | acting towards the creation of sustainable communities of care | accountability processes for yourself and others | prioritizing the needs of those most vulnerable and marginalized | fighting for the needs of those most marginalized | redefining “soft skills” and emotional labor as imperative.

Pick one of these themes that resonates most, and spend some time with your magic. Eclipse season will facilitate break-throughs. If you are moving, thinking about moving, breaking up, breaking down, breaking open: then you are right where you need to be. The energy of this Eclipse is that of breaking open and surfacing, of revelations and epiphanies. This is in order to reconcile and wrap up. This is an Eclipse for us to ponder our becoming and to become that.

The Tarotscopes below were channeled and written by meditating on each archetype and pulling a card for it. You can read for whatever sign you feel called to: some read for their sun, rising, Moon, or all three. Take what you need and leave the rest. Please note there’s no playlist for this month’s Tarotscopes, that will return soon—thanks for your understanding!

Aries
8 of Pentacles

This Lunar Eclipse asks you to take a step back. As of late, you've been pushing hard and putting pressure on yourself—work, worth, and embodiment have been at the forefront of your mind. You’ve been wondering if what you've been asking for, and working towards, is the right thing: how will you know you are truly where you need to be?

With your face pressed too close against the windowpane of your life, perspective is skewed. No one can unearth the answers they need while frantic on the sinking ship of never enough and perfectionism. Gaining clarity requires space and breathing room. That is what this time is about for you. Replace your inclinations towards self-doubt with assuredness. Grant yourself permission to embark on the deep work your soul now craves.

Fiery Ram, the world is transforming rapidly and so are you. The proof that you are on the best path is everywhere when you step back to start a practice of allowance.

Lunar Eclipse Meditation: Spend 8 minutes drawing as many circles as you can. For another 8 minutes, fill them with past achievements & future dreams. For another 8, spend time clarifying and tracing the through lines that connect them all. Afterwards, if you can, support My Sistah's House Memphis with a number that is magical to you. If you can, take on any and all of the action items found here to demand justice for Breonna Taylor.

Sign up for Sarah’s Moonbeaming newsletter.
Please consider supporting any of the organizations mentioned throughout this page anyway you can.

Taurus

2 of Swords

Can you maintain peace while chaos swirls around you? Can everything be so completely not ok, and can you still be...ok? This Lunar Eclipse requires you to find alignment by accepting complexities. There are no hierarchies of healing. Your pain and your wounds are valid, no matter what they are, or where they stem from.

One of your tasks at this time is to not discount any suffering you’ve been experiencing. Hold yourself with love. This is the time to name some of the changes you must make so that the external mirrors and causes of your pain—trauma, racism, gaslighting, oppression, abuse—do not seep into your internal states. Your mind, your thoughts, your energy field, and the way you speak to yourself and treat yourself need to be clear. They need to be truly your own. Boundaries must be tended. This will support the next, fresh cycle of your growth.

Begin where you most need clearing. Start small and keep it simple. Get as still as you can until you hear the sweet voice of your intuition saying: you can do this.

Lunar Eclipse Meditation: Examine where you may unconsciously enact the dominant programs of society by treating yourself poorly. Decide how to cease this behavior. Feed your spirits. Connect to how truly innocent your brilliance is. Use that as your guide when you feel unsure. If you can, support the Black Trans Travel Fund with a number that is magical to you. If you can, take on any and all of the action items found here to demand justice for Elijah McClain.

Sign up for Sarah’s Moonbeaming newsletter.
Please consider supporting any of the organizations mentioned throughout this page anyway you can.

Gemini
6 of Wands

This is a time of homecomings. All that you don't want is now showing you what you do. Through all the tension, grief, and uncertainty, you still continue to carve space out for where you are going. That is success. Even if it still feels like you are deep in a morass, you are rebalancing. You are inhaling courage and exhaling doubt; inhaling focus and exhaling distraction.

This Lunar Eclipse is here to shake things up in all the best ways: it is reminding you that you are ready. There is so much of you that knows what you want, what you truly crave. Claim it and move towards it. Understand that you can fight as hard for yourself as you can for others—victory for both will never be mutually exclusive. 

Carefully choose what you lead with. Yes, energetically. Yes, with tasks and scheduling.

Know that not everyone needs to know everything. Especially not this month. Know that not everything needs to be done by you. Delegate whenever possible: to your angels, your guides, the universe, your dreams, and to the loving helpers in your life.

Lunar Eclipse Meditation: Close your eyes and lay down in the sun. Relax your body and allow your body to be cleansed by its warmth. Notice what part of your body needs the most clearing. Name what this area of your life this is a metaphor for. Do some rebalancing work there. If you can, support For The Gowrls with a number that is magical to you. If you can, sign the ADL's Stop Hate For Profit petition.

Sign up for Sarah’s Moonbeaming newsletter.
Please consider supporting any of the organizations mentioned throughout this page anyway you can.

Cancer
7 of Swords

Everything you were ever told that was unloveable about yourself was a lie. It didn't even exist as a facet inside you: it was someone's projection, a crystal clear mirror of their worst fear.

You took that lie and you internalized it, you used it to keep yourself separate. You tended to that sharp blade like it was fragile and precious—because it was. Part of you wanted to care for the liar: keeping their beliefs sharp inside you was a symbol of how much love you had to give when there was no place to put it.

This Lunar Eclipse is here to affirm how very lovable you are. How strong and fierce it is to pull the last fragments of those lies out of your heart! If you are still resentful of the pain, turn it into art. The wounds are healed as you turn your suffering into pearls. Nurture yourself twice as much as you usually do. Your belonging is bound up in the ways you allow your preciousness to be affirmed.

Lunar Eclipse Meditation: Contemplate how codependence can be a form of narcissism—about how it might have trapped you into a false sense of control. Feel into what interdependence feels like. Tap into the ecosystem of empowerment that flourishes in your heart. If you can, support this Homeless Black Trans Women mutual aid fund with a number that is magical to you. If you can, click here to find your local county, state, and federal representatives and call or email to support defunding the police and for allocation of your taxpayer funds towards community services.

Sign up for Sarah’s Moonbeaming newsletter.
Please consider supporting any of the organizations mentioned throughout this page anyway you can.

Leo
5 of Swords

Brave Lion, this Lunar Eclipse is ripe for transforming harmful patterns into healthy ones. Old patterns are coming up in order for you to transform the way you react to them. This gives your spirit the signal that other ways are possible. Themes that are likely coming up for you now are around communication, betrayals, lies, deception, and broken contracts. Decide to trust in yourself; reconciliation will bloom.

Your unconscious self-censorship must cease now. It started as a safety mechanism, but over time it has cut off certain parts of yourself from being seen. The monitoring and labeling that happens around certain thoughts, imaginings, and needs is not helpful .

There comes a time when silence becomes betrayal, when the unsaid erodes trust. Tune into what needs to be communicated: to past selves, current relationships, those you love the most. Start saying everything you need to say precisely in the way you need to say it. Trust in your voice and pay attention when hope flows in.

Lunar Eclipse Meditation: Spend some time in quiet, finishing these sentences and feeling into them. Discomfort is….Resilience is…. Trust feels like…If you can, support this Mutual Aid Fund for Sex Workers of Color with a number that is magical to you. If you can, voice your support for reparations by clicking here.

Sign up for Sarah’s Moonbeaming newsletter.
Please consider supporting any of the organizations mentioned throughout this page anyway you can.

Virgo
Knight of Swords

This Lunar Eclipse is highlighting one or more important unconscious biases you hold in order to change them. In some unmistakeable way, you are being shown clearly, loudly, and disruptively previously unknown and ingrained behaviors. Any other time, you might write these oracles-disguised-as-annoyances off as a distraction, and keep on going on in the same ways. But we are in Eclipse season, and this month is for transforming ourselves from the inside out.

So often we humans wish for something, then the chorus of clutter and tests and distractions comes marching in. We wish for peace and chaos ensues. The universe is ironic sometimes. It will give you the opposite of what you asked for. This forces your awareness to uncover that need, that ask, within.

There is more than one way to get to a destination. There are multiple truths that can offer you ease. There are a million different mindsets to craft a game plan from. Decisions are made from a variety of different ingredients. Now is the time to unscrew the tight lid of the presumption jar and let your mind get blown.

Lunar Eclipse Meditation: While listening to your favorite record, think about what you would love to do if time, money, or the current pandemic were not a thing. Are they really blocks, or just a lie you told yourself so you could stay the same? If you can, support the Black Trans Advocacy Coalition with a number that is magical to you. If you can, sign this petition to tell Congress to protect Black voters.

Sign up for Sarah’s Moonbeaming newsletter.
Please consider supporting any of the organizations mentioned throughout this page anyway you can.

Libra
Ace of Cups

There is a Kabbalistic teaching that we are here to transform our desire to receive only for the self into a desire to receive for the purpose of sharing. In other words, lovely Libra, this Lunar Eclipse asks you to consider what spirit would have you be in service of for the collective. This moment asks you to refine the quality of emotional motivations around your generosity, altruism, and care.

This month is an opportunity to transform certain emotional programs. Start by questioning: are you giving just to get? Are you the overgiver because receiving is painful? Does your heart need more attention? Does the same amount of compassion and attention you give strangers on the internet extend to your closest relationships, you family, yourself?

When the Ace of Cups is pulled, it highlights spiritual growth and heart healings. It connotes the arrival of a new love, and more opportunities to appreciate beauty. This could be the arrival of a deeper love, one that ripples out profoundly when you treat yourself with the respect and compassion every living creature deserves. This is heart work. Stay in your heart, your body, your soul.

Lunar Eclipse Meditation: Put on your favorite face mask, foot bath, yoni steam, or massage oil—whatever you do to relax your body and mind. Imagine your heart as a golden chalice, deep and wide. Now let yourself receive exactly what you need. Let it fill your heart cup fully and overflow up and down your body. If you can, support G.L.I.T.S with a number that is magical to you. If you can, sign this BLM petition for COVID-19 support and relief.

Sign up for Sarah’s Moonbeaming newsletter.
Please consider supporting any of the organizations mentioned throughout this page anyway you can.

Scorpio
Queen of Cups

An integral part of a restorative ancestor practice is not dwelling in the past. Having dialogues with ancestors? Sure. Figuring out any histories, researching what you can? Of course. Offerings to well ancestors? Absolutely. But becoming enmeshed unnecessarily in someone else's past—specifically their abuse, pathologies, and trauma—will not help you nor them.

Part of our work as future ancestors is to create different lineages. We must make way for roots to take hold, where intuition and fantasy can grow. We must carve out spaces of mutual aid and care outside of martyrdom and saviorism. All of these ancestral themes, future/past/present, are being coaxed out of you by this powerful Lunar Eclipse. Themes of nurturing, mothering, tending, the jewels of the depths, not being overwhelmed by nostalgia or flooded with emotion, will wash over your experience of this time.

This is one for the books. A moment for you to write new chapters around wounds and fears that started long ago and ended up in you. Begin your new story by grounding yourself in identifying the kind of ancestor you want to be.

Lunar Eclipse Meditation: Every gesture is an act of nurturing. Every moment a chance to develop healthy roots. If all of this were true, then what are your gestures? Where must you plant your roots? If you can, support the Sylvia Rivera Law Project with a number that is magical to you. If you can, find out what the policy on no-knock warrants and qualified immunity is in your state. Then contact your representatives to demand they ban these policies.

Sign up for Sarah’s Moonbeaming newsletter.
Please consider supporting any of the organizations mentioned throughout this page anyway you can.

Sagittarius
King of Swords

This Eclipse is here to help you reprogram your intuition and your discernment. Reliable information. Absolute truths. As of late, these certainties have been shattered. That’s what happens when you find out that almost all history you were taught was twisted into lies. That’s what happens when abuse is used as logic, when fears are misconstrued as facts. Now is your chance to revise and re-establish criteria for what your ethical baseline will be, moving forward.

Sagittarius, you are one of the ones creating this new world. Some deep dives must happen first. Some of the criteria your subconscious has for whose approval you seek has to be reconfigured. Who you were taught to believe is up for realignment. How much of your investment in someone's authority depends on their race, gender, sexual identity, or class? How much of your relational motivations are based on unresolved childhood dynamics?

This time is about detaching from systems, beliefs, teachers, and leaders that are false. Rely on your own wisdom. Listen to yourself as much as you listen to others. Soon enough, you will become a model of what it looks like to grow in this brave new paradigm.

Lunar Eclipse Meditation: Envision yourself as completely sovereign, impervious to the moods, opinions, or words of others. What does that feel like? What would that change for you? Now, imagine yourself as open to receiving the ideas and philosophies of others. Imagine your mind changing easily, in order to be in resonance with the clearest truth. What does that feel like? What would that change for you? Do some energetic work until your openness to new ideas matches your ability to access your own wisdom. If you can, support the Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project with a number that is magical to you. If you can, call or write to your federal legislators in support of the Smarter Sentencing Act (S. 2850) to reduce mandatory minimum sentences on a federal level.

Sign up for Sarah’s Moonbeaming newsletter.
Please consider supporting any of the organizations mentioned throughout this page anyway you can.

Capricorn
2 of Cups

For much of this month, you are being asked to reconcile with some unresolved business from the past. Old relationships, old memories, and old patterns may flow into your world. Not every one of these falls under the “Blame Mercury Retrograde and Ignore Them" category. These New Age and astrological truisms aren’t always the truth, and they are always more complex. Yes, some of these patterns—and people—must be broken up with. Others have turned up to give you insights into personal opportunities for examination, and to make sincere amends and apologies.

Lower your defenses and see your actions from a different perspective. Reflect on the most acute patterns or relationships that come up under this Lunar Eclipse. What internal fears are they a mirror for? Define some vulnerable actions to enact that will expand the conditions around certain so-called reciprocal relationships in your life.

This Eclipse is giving you a chance to no longer be reactive in your healing. When you clear out defenses and imbalances, your healing becomes proactive. Be willing to give others the dignity you deeply crave. Be willing to truly give what you say you want. Be willing to be honest about the love you need. Accountability is growth, and under this lunation accountability is a path to peace.

Lunar Eclipse Meditation: Practice resilience around discomfort when speaking up, conflicts (especially inner conflicts). Practice saying your deepest fears aloud and then reframing in order to clarify what you actually need. Practice kind and boundaried ways of communicating, of apologizing, of channelling, and of asking for and receiving criticism. If you can, support this Black Trans Lives Matter Youth Fund with a number that is magical to you. If you can, research your local prosecutors and District Attorney and let them know you're going to keep them accountable especially as elections approach.

Sign up for Sarah’s Moonbeaming newsletter.
Please consider supporting any of the organizations mentioned throughout this page anyway you can.

Aquarius
The Star

This is an auspicious and potent archetype to receive for this Lunar eclipse, Star Child! The card that was pulled in your card, the Star! This Lunar Eclipse is an affirmation to step into your confidence through creativity.

You are being called to speak up and take action as never before. This is connected to a rebirthing process you are in: earlier this year, you said yes to a specific healing process around something that had previously alluded you. On some level, you became brave and embodied the belief that you could heal from a particular wound. Healing is infinite, a never-ending path. You know this. Take time during this Eclipse season to name and celebrate your progress.

This Lunar Eclipse also wishes to provide you with proof. How this will come up most strongly will be around what projects you are excited about, as well as what projects are currently being attracted to you. How this will come up will be in good, global news around progress. The resistance you are part of is gaining momentum, because of people like you. Expect more from the collective. Expect more from your community. Expect more for your life. Expect more for your future.

Lunar Eclipse Meditation: Imagine yourself as a star, floating in a galaxy far away. Explore these other worlds. Listen to the messages deep space has for you. Spend restorative time there. Then, open your eyes and write your journey down. What information resonates most? If you can, donate to the Vibe Is Right's scholarship for Black Trans creative entrepreneurs with a number that is magical to you. If you can, call or write to your national legislators, state legislators, governor, and mayor in favor of affirmative action.

Sign up for Sarah’s Moonbeaming newsletter.
Please consider supporting any of the organizations mentioned throughout this page anyway you can.

Pisces
The Hierophant

A specific sort of epiphany occurs when you understand that the past no longer has to have control over you in the ways it used to. As we learn more and more about the truth of our collective past, we reprogram the future. As you ache to become more aligned with your truth, you can dive into a reflection of your own past.

Interpret the themes and patterns found in the chapters of your past and present life as secrets of your most divine nature. Not only did you survive, but you kept that sacred divinity intact. Take that spark and turn it into a bonfire.

Lunar Eclipses collapse timelines: the past returns for reckoning; in the present, how we manage this—or do not manage—will accumulate. You are so much more than the abuse that has been enacted on you. You are so much more than your mistakes and your regrets. You must decide to accept these truths and write a new narrative. This will grant you access to the natural roles that are emerging for you: student, teacher, practical mystic, artist, service worker, medium. Each present moment becomes the future past. Be a bridge between ancient wisdom and radical futurism.

Lunar Eclipse Meditation: Pick the top 2 spiritual practices you rely on for support. Spend time researching the history and lineages of each one—both in their original form, in the location where they originated, and once they began to be appropriated and commodified (if applicable). Reflect on how these tools are currently used in a way that reflect a dominant capitalist narrative. Think of how your relationship with these practices can disrupt this structure. If you can, support the Black Trans Protestors Emergency Fund with a number that is magical to you. If you can, sign this petition to demand justice for Andrés Guardado.

Sign up for Sarah’s Moonbeaming newsletter.
Please consider supporting any of the organizations mentioned throughout this page anyway you can.